#and the 4 with 3DS/2DS that I play with sometimes

[sexhaver]

ive been playing Cassette Beasts for a minute and it never stops being funny to me how flagrant they are about making this "Pokemon but with features you didn't know Pokemon has always needed". off the top of my head:

super effective/NVE hits have added benefits/debuffs beyond just doubling/halving the damage (hitting Electric types with Ground reduces their evasion and speed, hitting Steel types with Poison gives them poison-coated spikes that do contact damage, etc)

legally-distinct-Pokemon will learn new moves while in your party without having to battle, and you can then straight up steal these moves from them and put them on a not-Pokemon you actually care about using, which gives an actual incentive to hunt down and raise otherwise fringe not-mons beyond completing the not-Pokedex

we all played the Pokemon Infinite Fusion fangame right? we know how fusions work? okay so this game has them as temporary per-battle things instead of permanent ones, which is only marginally less cool while being infinitely easier to balance around

attempting to catch something shows you the percentage chance of success so you know whether you just got unlucky or if you should save your Pokeballs-i-mean-blank-cassette-tapes

leveling up is tied to your not-trainer instead of your not-pokemon, so you don't end up in the classic trap where your starter is way overleveled and everything else is underleveled and then you hit a fight your starter can't solo and have to spend an hour grinding to get the weaker not-mons up to par (funnily enough most Pokemon Nuzlocke romhacks have already figured this out and give you infinite rare candies with the only restriction being that you can't level past the next gym leader's ace pokemon, because Pokemon fans have realized that grinding is the worst part of the game way before Game Freak has)

moves, not-Pokeballs, not-PokeCenter visits, and healing items are all bought using entirely separate currencies which stops you from trivially breaking the economy in half

the soundtrack, fittingly, is pretty good! the vocals were a bit much for my taste but there's an option in the settings menu to straight up turn them off (letting the BGM play on its own), which i've never seen in any other game and really appreciate

downsides:

on a game design level, i understand why can i only carry a max of 5 not-Potions and 1 not-Revive at a time - it's to put a limit on how far away from fast travel points i can get by just running away from everything and healing off damage. on a gameplay level, however, this feels pretty bad

the pixel art style is trying to look as much like Pokemon as possible without actually being Pokemon so the overworld sprites look more like beta stuff from Pokemon that they cut for looking too weird. i have yet to find a haircut that doesn't look bad

this is super petty of me but something about the bloom and lighting of the 3d environments combined with pixelated 2d sprites that still cast shadows makes me painfully aware im playing a video game. it's like they were going for the same aesthetic as Octopath Traveler but fell just barely short. i can't think of a better way to articulate this feeling but if you know you know

it does that really obnoxious half-assed style of voice acting where plot-relevant characters will sometimes (maybe every third or fourth textbox) speak the first two or three words of dialogue before trailing off. mashing through textboxes (as one does) means constantly getting jumpscared by "hmm"s and "haha!"s "okay then!"s

i get that they wanted to make the player feel involved in the story, and it has a pretty decent hook so far, but oh my god. the amount of dialogue "choices" that just transparently do not matter. you know how people memed on Fallout 3 and 4's dialogue choices all leading to the same outcome, to the extent that you were basically choosing between "yes" and "yes (rude)"? and you know how Bethesda would at least attempt to justify how both options led to you accepting the quest anyways, even if it was really dumb? Cassette Beasts has streamlined this process even further by making the options in most of their binary decisions so identical that they don't even require different followup dailogue before rejoining into the main conversation thread. a solid 2/3rds of the dialogue options in this game so far feel like checks that you're still awake. i know this is a minor issue because people aren't playing Pokemon-likes for the engaging "choices matter" approach to storytelling, and i did ignore it at first, but it's so pervasive that you really can't ignore it

#cassette beasts

[vtuberconfessions]

i am so tired of being nice i just want to go apeshit PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD VTUBER ARTISTS WHO HAVE NEVER RIGGED BEFORE: ASK A RIGGER FOR ADVICE ABOUT SEPARATION AND LISTEN TO IT!!!! as a rigger and artist i am so fucking tired of having to spend 8+ hours re-separating and fixing all of the bullshit with your artwork that makes rigging a nightmare. AS A BASIC RULE PLEASE...

1: NEVER USE A SPACE IN LAYER NAMES!!! if you use a space in the name of any layers ( i.e. "leg l" "part 1") the name will be switched in live2D to "artmesh" and your rigger will have to RENAME EVERYTHING. if you do this for every layer THIS IS A NIGHTMARE. it's not easy to fix PLEASE use underscores instead of spaces.

2: have ANY KIND of naming system. it literally doesnt matter, as long as it exists and is consistent the rigger will figure it out. don't name one thing "left_arm_1" and another thing "Bang>SidePart" and expect me to be able to easily work with your file.

3: KEEP. LAYERS. ORGANIZED. please please PLEASE understand basic rigging hierarchy and stick to it. If the left eye folder is ten thousand layers below the right eye folder this will be extremely confusing. also make sure the limbs are ordered properly. if the shoulder is in the layer for the jacket and the hand is somewhere floating in the ether i now have to spend time to reorganize the psd.

4: LIVE 2D DOES NOT WORK LIKE A DRAWING PROGRAM. it only allows for multiply, add, and normal layers. no overlay, no screen light, just add and multiply. if I have to clip a layer to more than five other layers the program WILL lag for both you and the person who ends up using the model. Do not just leave a massive multiply layer over the entire model it doesn't work that way. 5: oh my fucking god PLEASE draw EVERYTHING even if it isnt in view. if you have a separate layer for the bang's shading, for example, in normal illustration you just draw what's visible and call it a day. I'M TURNING THE HEAD, MEANING IT WILL JUST CUT OFF. if i have to fix this for every single instance of shading i am taking time away from my work, my whole process takes longer. as a rule of thumb, always draw more than what you think you need.

6: separate more than you need, but not everything. sometimes I work with models that have not enough things separated, and its a pain to work with. sometimes i work with models that feel like the artist just sent me their work file with every tiny brushstroke on a different layer and then I have to spend a day merging and checking everything. use your head while you are drawing, think to yourself "is the thing I'm drawing something that will need to move independently?" try to imagine the model in 3D space as your working, and if you can't do that perhaps study an object in real life and see how turning it in space interacts with the lighting or whatever idk. also: if there are too many separations the model will come out looking blurrier. live2D doesn't just read the photoshop file, it creates a new texture file. imagine the model like a paper doll, it takes every piece of paper and spreads each piece down flat. this takes up much more space and many more pixels then the photoshop document, and the bigger i have to make the texture file, the laggier things become. if i don't want it to lag, everything has to be shrinked down to fit, and thus everything becomes blurry. if I don't want it all blurry, I basically have to spend hours upon hours manually placing every "piece of paper" on another piece of paper essentially playing the worlds most annoying jigsaw puzzle.

I feel like I'm working on a group project and doing half of your work. please, stop making my job much harder than it needs to be.

.

#vtuber #vtubers #vtuber confessions #rigging #l2d #live2d

[lea-andres]

RULES AND DISCLAIMERS:

If you don't see YOUR game here, it's probably on another poll. Please try to attempt to look at the other polls before saying "You forgot that one!" Because it's possible I didn't. Participate on this one anyway though! Consider it as your game of this particular grouping!

I'm gonna give all the polls the tag "Lea's Sonic Games Poll" to help us find them... But my blog is cursed and sometimes my posts fall into the void. Sorry about that if it happens to the poll with Your Game on it.

I'm gonna run all the winners against each other once this first round of polls ends.

If I lumped a series together, but you only like one of the titles (Example: I put Sonic Rush and Sonic Rush Adventure together, but you only like Sonic Rush), tell me in the tags! Also if you only prefer a specific console release and I didn't make it its own option (example: Dreamcast vs GameCube Sonic Adventure), tell me that in the tags too!

If you disagree with how I arranged these... 🤷 Run your own poll, IDK.

Play nice, guys! This is for fun and to satiate my curiosity. Thank you for participating!

#lea's sonic games polls #sonic the hedgehog

[kitchfit]

Year In Review: Viddy Game Pt 4 (Happy Mario Day!!!)

Oops! All Mario! To prepare for the release of Super Mario Wonder, I wanted to play through as many of the Mario games I never played before as I could. There are a few wayward titles I missed, but I’m sure I’ll end up playing those sometime in the distant year of 2024. Damn that sounds like a fake year. I hinted in earlier reviews that this was something of a nightmare to accomplish, but that was just me being silly. They’re Mario games! All of these were pretty fun.

Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga

I started out my Mariothon with the story-driven series I had never actually touched. I’ve played all the (good) Paper Mario games, but I’ve never touched the other side of the plumber’s rpgs. The combat was a refreshing change of pace after all those Final Fantasy games. It’s almost as much of a rhythm game as it is turn based, which makes it very engaging. I also like what it adds to the Mario World. Luigi has been characterized in several of the RPGs and his own spin off series, but having him along for the entire ride in this story driven game makes him somehow more endearing to me than he was before. I like to imagine this takes place right after Super Paper Mario, and Mario is making sure his best bro is safely right next to him after the shit he went through.

The Bean Bean Kingdom feels like a suitable alternative to the Mushroom one we’ve grown familiar with. A lot of the older games had introduced other Themed Kingdoms, like the Jewelry Kingdom in Yoshi’s Safari or Sarasaland in Mario Land, which is based on types of tea. And Mario Odyssey would assert the entire world being organized into these Kingdoms, so Bean Bean fits right in! It’s super fun to explore the fresh areas with a familiar aesthetic. I only wish these Bean characters would make more appearances outside of this game. I guess they show up in the other Mario and Luigis, but Reggie knows what I mean. Put Prince Peasley in Mario Kart, coward!

New Super Mario Bros

When this game released I had no idea that 2D Mario had been put on hold for ten whole years. From my perspective Super Mario World had only been released earlier that year in 2006, on Nintendo’s brand new console, the hand-me-down Game Boy Advance I got from my cousin. So when my friend showed me New Super Mario Bros. on his Fancy DS Lite in 2009, I wasn’t that impressed. This one didn’t even have the cape, or the Tanooki suit from Mario 3! I was not impressed. What it did have was a fun as hell competitive mode that I could play with my friend via DS download play (which is an awesome system they should bring back), so I never felt the need to seek out a copy.

Playing it now, the game is a lot more distinctive than I gave it credit for. While the world themes are based around the generic grass, ice, fire, etc. themes the Mario games always recycle in some way, the level designs give a good sense of cohesiveness, and the new power-ups: the tiny mushroom, Mega Mushroom, and Blue Shell significantly alter how you approach the level. When you’re tiny, you get a higher jump and can get into hidden paths, but touching Anything Will You, while Mega Mario can ignore everything and cause as much carnage as possible. The Blue Shell lets Mario continuously slide and kill anything in your path provided you keep whatever initial momentum you started with, making this game the singular moment the red plumber stole something from the blue hedgehog. The low-res 3D artstyle felt dated when I first saw this game, since I wasn’t enjoying the industry norm of changing every franchise to 3D. “Give me my pixels, damn you!” said 8-year-old Kitch. I now find it really charming, especially compared to the later entries in the “New” series. There are a lot of original enemies in this game that never show up again. I need everyone to look at the Snailicorn immediately.

Super Mario 64 DS

I was always told this was the inferior version of Mario 64 due to the limited control scheme. Instead of full 360 movement, you are now cut down to 8 directional movements cycled on the d-pad. However, I played this game on the 3DS, and the analogue stick made those 8 directions flow seamlessly. The other change is the addition of a Run Button, one that I was not aware of until futilely trying to race against Koopa the Quick. That’s right, for the entire fight against King Bob-omb, I had just assumed this game ran like shit, or that Yoshi was intentionally designed to be extremely slow until I happened to hold down the b-button as if this was some kind of. 2D MARIO GAME? In 3D??? It’s a sensible change, but one that is only communicated by experimenting with the controls, which someone who has already beaten the original game 3 times wouldn’t really think to try. And since there’s little need to ever Not Run, holding that button down for the ENTIRE GAME started to get annoying towards the end.

Otherwise, it was really nice returning to this classic. The calm atmosphere in exploring the Mushroom Castle and revealing its little secrets makes it genuinely unmatched as a hubworld, and the levels, while mostly generically themed, cram tons of personality into such small areas. Realizing how tiny levels like Cool, Cool Mountain and Big Boo’s Haunt are actually startled me, since I spent so much time as a kid exploring the nooks and crannies of those areas. There are also a lot of new stuff hidden across these levels that either unlock or are accessed by the new playable characters. Each of them have their own movement speeds and abilities, but none of them really play as well as the Mario Himself, so changing into them was mostly situational. I loved the new boss fights that unlocked them, though. Adding Goomboss from Paper Mario into the OG 3D Mario made me really happy. I’ve still never 100% this game, but if I go back, I might actually make sure it’s this version I complete.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time

The awaited sequel to the GBA game, I hear absolute jackshit about this game when people talk about the Mario and Luigi series. I assumed it was the runt that came between the beloved classics of Superstar and Bowser’s Inside Story, but that isn’t true at all. In fact, I think I like this game more than Superstar. Since it’s on the DS, there’s a naturally higher fidelity with the pixel art, the premise is more interesting, and it adds a new layer to both the combat and overworld movement in the form of the BA-BIES. Since there are two new X and Y buttons, you get Baby Mario and Baby Luigi as additions to your playable characters, meaning at any one time you are juggling Four Whole Mario Bros. all for the price of One! The game is noticeably more difficult than Superstars, nothing too crazy, but I did die a lot more. Or I am just Bad At Games.

Like the previous entry, this game is oozing charm out of every bodily orifice it has. Mario and Luigi are characterized extremely well as they step up as babysitters. It warmed my heart everytime Luigi purposefully goofed up to make the babies laugh or whenever Mario shouted “BA-BIES” in concern whenever they were in trouble. It may be the most overt personality he’s ever really shown. The time travel mechanic isn’t super in-depth, the present time basically acts as a hub world, but we get some more of that Sweet Mario Lore as they explore the Days of Mushroom Past. Autocorrect wants me to say Pasta. We get to see Baby Peach and Younger Toadsworth at some point after Yoshi’s Island, an E Gad pre-ghost fascination, and also these alien freaks who look suspiciously like Fucked Up Toads. What does this mean for them? Are Toads themselves descended from aliens, or vice versa? Will we ever get to see “Toads In Space?!” Some kind of… “MARIO GALAXY???” Only the future can tell.

Super Mario 3D Land

Nintendo was able to put a 3D Mario on a handheld in the last generation, so I guess the new hurdle was an ORIGINAL 3D  Mario on the Three Dee Ess. This serves that purpose well. I could honestly end it there. The level design is well executed around the controls that are based on Galaxy, and it translates really well. They brought back the Highly Acclaimed Tanooki Suit that lends itself nicely to 3D platforming, and also seemed to be a selling point of the game? A lot of the Goombas and Koopas are now wearing the tanooki suit, and even Peach gets to show off the fit at the end of the game. You can’t play as her though, it’s just there to tease you. Luigi is an unlockable character with his own set of remixed levels, but that’s really it.

And that’s the thing, this game is fun, but it’s also kind of… Nothing? If you’ve played 3D Land, tell me: Where does it take place? The Mushroom Kingdom? That’s probably a good guess, but there’s nothing that really shows that, is there? There’s little to no cohesion between the levels. The level select is a linear screen with a multicolor background. You’ll be playing a water level immediately following some weird toy-themed level with absolutely zero context. Where are we? What’s happening? No one really looks for a story in a Super Mario game, but the lack of any real context makes this game super forgettable to me. It’s just a selection of random levels, and a Lot of the levels are repeated with slight differences. Why? TELL ME REGGIE. At the very least we get these cute letters from Peach showing her own adventure escaping Bowser. That would’ve been a fun to play, but this game won’t let you go Girl Mode. Oh well.

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

This is one of those “underrated Mario gems.” Maybe the only one. Super Mario Land is pretty mediocre, so I’m not surprised its sequel fell by the wayside. It’s super creative for a GB game, and because of the power of Cool Internet People, I got to play this in color! Lucky me :) The whole game takes place in a magical theme park that was maybe created at the end of one of the Mario Parties. Did anyone else make that connection? I know one guy did. They go ham on the level designs: an area that makes you tiny so Mario is battling ants, a bubble ride that takes you into space to fight Pig Creatures, a mechanical Mario; at one point you go inside a whale. It’s wacky! The enemy design reflects this too, there’s a bunch of Weirdos, like the Pig Creature:

The goal is to find those 6 Golden Coins in each world to unlock the Mario Castle, with the caveat that Mario will lose all his coins upon a game over and have to track them down again. You only have to repeat the boss fights however, so it’s not a complete wipe. My Boy Wario is introduced in this game, and he really does come across as this supernatural, corrupted parody of our portly performer that the commercials for this game made him out to be. But the official word is he’s just Mario’s childhood rival that was upset they didn’t name a castle after him. Don’t worry, Wario! I’m sure you’ll get yours soon.

Super Mario 3D World pt 1

This one is just stellar all around. It makes 3D Land look like a tech demo in comparison. Every level showcases a degree of creativity on par with Galaxy while keeping 3D Land’s linear design. Every part of this experience is just so damn satisfying, the new power ups, targeting the tops of the flagpoles, riding on Yobbo the Swimming Yoshi, and you can go GIRL MODE. My biggest complaint about 3D land is that they teased a playable Princess Peach without actually ever giving it to you, and now I refuse to play this game as any other character. Except when the game makes me play as Mario or Toad to get all the Green Stars. Also the GREEN STARS.

The secondary collectables have never felt as necessary as it does in 3D World. They add an incentive to explore the levels or find an extra challenge that are actually Worth searching for. I don’t remember if they really gave you anything, but I still liked finding them. 

Also the MUSIC, the ost slaps so hard in this game. We’re moved to a new setting in 3D World, and the soundtrack and aesthetics match that vibe. It’s unique, it’s bOMBASTIC. There are two new power ups in the form of CAT and CHERRIES. The cat can run up walls, while the cherries can make a double of your character. The former is generally the best playstyle for most of the game a la the Tanooki suit, while the latter works as a fun challenge that gets really creative with its limits as you control two or three or six characters with one controller. There’s even a bonus mode at the end based on Galaxy where you can. Guess What? GO GIRL MODE EVEN HARDER. I haven’t done it yet but hey. I Am Going To.

Bowser’s Fury

This is one of the few I actually 100% completed. I was on a Dollywood trip with some friends and after the festivities ended at Guy Fieri’s Shitty Arcade and Ripley’s Wacky Wonderworks we stayed in the cabin and chilled out. I didn’t have a ton else to do while everyone was resting so I got really into Bowser’s Fury. Our first taste of what may be Open World Mario. It’s fun! Mario is stranded in the middle of a lake with wildly clashing aesthetics that somehow just works. Light blue dominates the eyes hampered by the slimy black of the magic ink polluting the water around you. There are small yellow islands dotting the lake and floating in the air. And when you get to these islands? Cats! They’re all cats! There are cats on the ground, cat ears on the goombas, Cat Koopas, Kitty Boombooms, everything is a cat!! Even the grass is cat fur! You have cat to be kitten me, right meow! It’s a place so suitably weird for the Mario universe, I could easily see Lake Lapcat being introduced in one of the earlier Paper Marios.

Gameplay wise this is just a big Mario Oddysey world with more… direction? The lack of a real swimming mechanic in Bowser’s Fury makes the ocean a fun place for movement and little else, though there are occasional challenges for Yobbo the Swimming Yoshi to run through. It makes Lapcat feel like a massive hubworld of sorts, with no divide between it and the level, It’s as if in Mario Galaxy you could walk straight from Rosalina’s Observatory directly onto a new planet without going through the Domes, if that makes sense. It’s short, but super fun for what it is. You get all the power ups from 3D World to play around in less linearly designed levels, and it lets you stock up on them through an inventory system. Bowser Jr. follows you around and acts cute! Mario and Bowser turn into Kaijus and you have a Godzilla vs King Kong style boss fight. I guess Mario would be King Kong in that analogy… Nintendo may need the help of John Kirby once more…

Super Mario Sunshine

I had never heard about this game’s existence until I was like 15. My friend told me it was one of her favorite Gamecube games growing up, and I did not believe her. Every description she gave about Super Mario Sunshine sounded like she was messing with me. “Oh yea it’s the game where Mario goes on vacation and he like, gets framed for vandalism? And you have a water gun and you clean paint.” Fuck off with that, you’re not getting me! I thought it was a running joke she had until I looked closely at Mario's trophy in Brawl that referenced the same name. Huh! 

Anyways this is my first time actually playing it on the 3D All-Stars collection. I started it when it was released, but I reached a point where I had no idea what I was supposed to do until my cousin who grew up with it told me I needed almost every shinesprite to beat the game. ALSO WEIRD. The other 3D Marios let you go at your own pace and pick and choose which levels you want, but here all but the last levels are required. I guess this is because Sunshine is more “narratively driven” and they want you to watch how each world changes through your actions. I can appreciate that! Mario 64 experimented with that a bit, like the tower appearing at the top of Whomp fortress in Star 2 or King Bo-bomb’s corpse appearing at the bottom of his battlefield after you coup de tated that fucker. Sunshine, however, has levels like Noki Bay where each level has Mario tackle the source of the pollution, or Gelato beach where you make sure a hotel is suitable for reopening and even get to celebrate at the end.

The controls on the other hand. My cousin described them as “lovably janky.” Mario no longer has the long jump, which startled me every time I tried to long jump, which was a lot cause I have the memory of a housefly. Wall jumping is harder to pull off as Mario does not automatically turn towards the wall like other Mario games, so you have to time it perfectly, and Mario’s overall movement is very awkward. I never felt like he jumps the exact distance I expect him to go. This is probably to make the player more reliant on Fludd, the aforementioned water gun that can let you hover as well as two other fun, but useless abilities. Fludd is very fun to use, but they take it away from you during the platform challenges and it reveals just how janky Mario is in this game. I guess it also makes them more satisfying to complete. Still, since these levels are required, I probably would have given up ever beating the game if I played it as a kid.

New Super Mario Bros 2

This is a similar case to 3D Land. It seems the goal of this entry was “put a 2D Mario on the 3DS,” which was a less impressive goal given the OG New Super Mario was already playable on the 3DS. It’s much prettier, I guess. The big name of this game is “Coins.” Coins are everywhere in this game. There’s a new power-up, the Golden Flower, that lets you turn blocks and enemies into coins. Another power-up that gives Mario a coin every step he makes. There are Golden Koopas that produce coins when thrown. There’s a counter on the home screen that shows how many total coins you’ve got, and the game notifies you every time you reach a “Coin milestone.”

Yea I’ve never cared about collecting coins in Mario games. It’s not like they unlock anything that matters in this one, they just congratulate you every three minutes and if you get One Million coins you get a new title screen. That’s kind of cool, but not something I would actually care to try and get. What I’m left with is the most standard 2D Mario game to exist. The Tanooki suit is here, but like 3D Land, you still can’t go Girl Mode. Unless you count Luigi. Genderfluïd King. Despite this, I do find myself coming back to this one quite a bit to carve out some of the bonus worlds. It’s slightly harder than the other games in the “New” series. Maybe if they leaned into that, like the OG Mario 2, it would be more memorable. Wait, this is the 3rd New Super Mario game. Why is it called 2? The hell?

New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe

As the final entry in the “New” series, it makes sense that this is the most polished version of that game style. The world designs are still based on the tried and exhausted Grass, Desert, Snow, etc. aesthetics, but here there are a lot more unique level designs or some that are SO COOL aesthetically, like the level based around a Van Gogh painting. I wish there were more levels like that, but in THE LEAST, this is the first New Super Mario game to introduce CONTEXTUALIZATION. This is something I’ve been complaining about with these new mario games. Super Mario World (the best one) has a beautiful map level-select. When you’re in Donut Plains on the map, the level reflects that design, taking place on a field, and when you go in a cave, THE LEVEL TAKES PLACE IN A CAVE. Imagine that. It’s such a simple thing that adds so much to the experience. You are actually traveling through a world, not just choosing random shit off a menu. U Deluxe’s map isn’t as cool as World’s, but it was still immensely fun to discover all its little secrets, and made me realize how much I missed World’s map design. Maybe I should play that game instead.

There is one unforgivable sin in Mario U specific to Deluxe. There’s an original playable female character in the form of Toadette! Girl Mode! Finally! And it SUCKS! It’s not actually that bad, but playing as Toadette gives you access to Peachette, whose existence replaces all power-ups in the game while playing as her. So Girl Mode is actively worse to play than any other mode, except funny rabbit mode. But that’s only if you want to be a funny rabbit. She’s meant to be “easy mode,” which is a bit demeaning given she’s the only female character, but I get the desire for an easier way for kids to play the game, I just wish it didn’t lock you out of all of the power-ups. Speaking of which, there are a Lot of power-ups in this game, but a lot of them are hidden for some reason, like the Propellor Hat and Penguin suit, which I found 1 and None of, respectively. Why are they in the game if I can’t use them? These aren’t collectors items, they’re funny little costumes that are supposed to be FUN. WE’RE ALL HAVING FUN HERE.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder

FINALLY they’re letting Mario be WEIRD AGAIN. The artstyle of the New Super Mario Bros. games got heavily criticized after this one was announced for being “soulless” and “boring,” but I wouldn’t say that. Because I don’t think it’s true! They’re vibrant and colorful games with an obvious ton of talent and heart put into them. I would, however, describe them more as “corporate.” Homogenized and Marketable. Mario and Gang have been kept to their models in every game since the DS and everyone has clearly been exhausted by it. Wonder is breaking the trend, and Mario looks fucking Weird.

He’s so much rounder, his clothes have a different texture, and his eyes are bigger and brighter. His eyebrows are clipping through his hat! He looks like a plastic toy brought to life, which is not an insult. All of the characters are brilliantly animated to pull off this new look, and I refuse to try out embedding videos in Tumblr so you just have to trust me. It’s not that I want Mario to stay like this, but I DEFINITELY want them to Keep Being Weird Like This.

The weirdness doesn’t end at the artstyle. There are three new power-ups, the Elephant Apple, Bubble Flower, and the Drill Shroom, the last of which is carried over from Mario Galaxy 2’s Spin Drill in terms of gameplay. The Bubble Flower lets you capture things in Bubbles and lets you jump on them for extra air time, and the Elephant Flower turns you into a Fucking Ele Phant. Twice as big, can swipe things with your trunk, can carry WATER in your trunk. Truly the Mario experience we’ve been missing. There are also the most playable characters than there have ever been in a mainline Mario game. Peach, Toadette, AND Daisy in her first playable appearance. THREE FORMS OF GIRL MODE. Nintendo knew what my main Mario complaint was before I ever thought of it.

The main draw of this game, however, are the additions of the Wonder Flowers. There are no levels that stand out against the other, more standard levels like the New Super games, because literally every level in this game is FANTASTIC. The Wonder Flowers are an extra challenge midway through any level that changes it into something WEIRD AS HELL. Maybe the level speeds up and slows down rapidly, maybe you have to dodge walking Piranha Plants as they sing an acapella stage performance, maybe you turn into a Goomba yourself and have to avoid being eaten by a predator. It can be literally ANYTHING. Every level is exciting to go through because you want to see what NONSENSE those crazy bastards have come up with. 

Not to mention the world design. The Flower Kingdom is BEAUTIFUL and similar to the Beanbean Kingdom in terms of cohesion. There’s another country right next to the Mushroom Kingdom with a new botanical aesthetic we’ve never heard of before? That makes sense! It feels perfectly natural for it to be part of this universe. This is another of the three I went to the effort of 100% completing, and some of those last levels are HARD. I gave myself a migraine on the final badge challenge. Also BADGES. They’re cool. Some provide an extra movement option and others make movement actively worse as a way to challenge yourself. Some are just fun! It adds a neat level of replayability to the game as you experiment with them all.

You also get a fantastic reward for completing all the levels. It is. SO Stupid. Extremely dumb. And I have never been more satisfied with a completion reward in a Mario game.

Super Mario Galaxy

To end out my Mariothon, I celebrated with another playthrough of my favorite game featuring a space-faring plumber, Super Mario Galaxy. This was the game that made me fall in love with the series, and in my eyes, still has not been beaten by other Mario titles in terms of atmosphere (PUN). It is just so fun to exist in the levels in these games in a way I can’t say about other Mario titles, except maybe Odyssey and 64. I could follow the objective, climb on the honey walls as Bee Mario, or hop across apples and pears so large they’ve become planetoids and have a great time, fantastic even. But I could also walk around Honeyhive and Deep Dark and look around the scenery and play around with the controls, which are restrained, but refined compared to the previous 3D Marios. Most of the purple coin levels are designed to do exactly that. Galaxy is by no means a sandbox game, but it retains those elements from Sunshine and 64.

Maybe that feeling just comes out of nostalgia. This was at one point the only game I would play on my wii for months on end. It’s like comfort food to me. One time I heard a local cafe play the Galaxy main theme on the speaker as I was walking by and I just. Paused for a bit, leaned against the brick exterior and soaked in the vibes. Listening to that pristine orchestral track whilst watching people come home from a full day of work, or following the actions of a cat decided whether or not to eat a bug running for its life. There’s probably a copyright issue they were violating, but who cares, Fuck Nintendo.

There is one thing that I know isn’t just nostalgia. The older I get the more I appreciate the storybook section of Galaxy. Every few worlds you complete, you’ll get a notification that Rosalina has a story to tell you, and you’ll hear a chapter out of her children’s book detailing her past. It has a melancholy vibe and it’s a genuinely beautiful and heartfelt story with a gorgeous handpainted artstyle:

Supposedly, Koizumi (co-director on the game) snuck this feature in without Miyomoto’s knowledge, and he hated it. When he discovered it after the game was released, he was upset enough that to this day Nintendo has not let Koizumi direct a big release. Apparently, he thought it ruined the game’s tone. I don’t know if I believe that, and I don’t feel like fact checking that shit, but if so, I’m glad Koizumi got it past the guy. It elevates the game’s overall story to an absurd degree in my eyes, providing Galaxy with one of the best endings in any video game I have played.

My ONE criticism. MY singular gripe. Is the title itself. “Galaxy” has always bothered me. “Battlerock GALAXY?” “Loop de Loop GALAXY???” Miyomoto sir, those are SOLAR SYSTEMS. And tiny ass solar systems at best. Sometimes just singular planetoids. But obviously Super Mario System or Super Mario Tiny Ass Planet isn’t as Marketable as- What the fuck was that? Wait, hold on. Sorry guys. Computer, ENHANCE.

What the fuck is this? I’ve always noticed it there in the background, but… I’ve never considered… is this Earth??? The surface of the Mario Planet? Are you telling me all of these “galaxies” are simply a collection of stylized MOONS??? Do we ever actually leave the outer atmosphere? Well, maybe. Looking at the skyboxes of a few more worlds, it seems we do actually bounce around a few other planets, but they’re nearly always there, holding our bee-themed satellites in rotation of itself. That makes more cosmological sense, I suppose, but I’ll stand by that Super Mario Satellite wouldn’t have been too horrible of a name if Nintendo wanted some fucKING ACCURACY WITH THEIR TITLES. HAPPY MARIO DAY EVERYONE. The big MAR10. I totally planned for this to release exactly today, and it’s not just because I put this whole project on the backburner while I focused on my Real Life Job. Thank you to everyone who has been reading these (I see you). I’ve repeated before that these reviews are mostly for me, but the few people that have been leaving likes did motivate me to keep going. I’ll be posting more things on this blog in the future, but I’m not sure I’ll do the Year in Review thing in this manner again. Look forward to more of my ramblings! Or don’t! Skim them in mild interest! Don’t read them at all! Either way, wahoo! Yippee! Yahaha! And Have A Blessed Mario Day.

#mario #mario day #mar10 #okay here we go #super mario 64 #mario & luigi #mario and luigi #superstar saga #partners in time #new super mario bros #ds #wii #new super mario bros 2 #super mario wonder #super mario 3d land #super mario land 2 #super mario 3d world #bowsers fury #super mario sunshine #my post #video game #reviews #year in review

[prismicnexus]

15 People, 15 Questions

Tagged by @novafire-is-thinking

I have a strange feeling someone has tagged me on this before. If so, my apologies, I'd forgotten.

1. Were you named after anyone?

No, but I think someone else might've been named after me. I am unsure since I haven't asked them, but I have my suspicions.

2. When's the last time you cried?

I do not cry much - it's been a long time since I've cried out of grief. Out of joy, though, about a month ago.

3. Do you have kids?

No, but I'd like to have at least two in the future. I am very fond of children.

4. What sports do you play/have you played?

Football, Basketball, Table Tennis, Volleyball. My favourite would be basketball.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Sparingly.

6. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Their physical appearance, I suppose, mainly how they dress. After we've talked, the secondary thing would be the tone of their voice.

7. What's your eye color?

Dark brown/black.

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings, typically. I have yet to find a scary/horror movie I like/is good - I need recommendations to make a fair judgement.

9. Any talents?

Ah - I sometimes write poetry? But sparingly and only when I feel inspired or need to wind down. Nothing else.

10. Where were you born?

I'd prefer not to specify, but Eastern Africa.

11. What are your hobbies?

Reading, my ever-present solace. Thinking[in every direction], my trusty companion.

12. Do you have any pets?

I have a dog - a German Shepherd ☆

13. How tall are you?

5 ft. 8 in. (1.73 meters).

14. Favorite subject in school?

Physics - though it was vast and, at times, hard to completely grasp(which was ever the annoyance to my must-understand-it-all brain).

Astronomy was, still is, and will ever be my obsession.

15. Dream job?

To be an astronomer. I think my fixation on the cosmos is obvious.

Quasars, Neutron stars, Galaxies, White dwarfs, Pulsars, Black Holes - just look at it all! I have no delusion of understanding everything in the observable universe, but I can't help that it keeps me awake some nights - what's beyond what we know?

Another would be to work on an animation series(2D or 3D) as an artist/animator or writer.

You'd think my options are on whole different spectrums, but hey, dreams are what keep us going, so it's okay to have them.

¤ I'm not quite sure who to tag - anyone who sees this, feel free to join.

#tag games #15 questions

[vairiance]

I really think Pokemon should go back to 2D. Not even necessarily like HD 2D or whatever like Octopath Traveler (although that'd be cool I guess), but just what they had going in Gen 4/5, but polished up to modern tech standards.

So much charm was lost in the shift to 3D (not without benefit, of course, but still), and it brought a whole host of space issues, all in the name of making Pokemon look less appealing and having awkward movements. Like, compare these images of Hippowdon:

Leftmost is Gen 5, middle is modern, and rightmost is the (leaked) sprite from S/V.

Gen 5's is awesome! Grainy, obviously, by design, but otherwise it's super cool. You see a fierce looking hippo, posed threateningly, spewing sand to demonstrate its signature mechanic. Perfect.

Modern Hippowdon makes me sad. It's still kind of grainy (beyond what the resolution change of this image did to it), and it just looks like me on a Monday morning. You'd have no idea that this thing shoots sand, and you'd only get to see it look cool for a fraction of a second when it attacks, sometimes.

Then there's S/V Hippowdon. It's just a menu sprite icon, but look how clean it looks compared to modern Hippowdon! Imagine the Gen 5 Hippowdon pose, with the SV Hippowdon style. That'd be ideal for me I think.

3D has its benefits for sure, obviously, but I think 3D should be saved for spinoffs where a smaller scale can be enforced, and thus more care can be put into what is in the game. Comparing the 3D animations of Pokemon Colosseum/XD and what we have now proves this; in the Orre games, the Pokemon really feel alive, because they move in a way natural to what you'd expect, whereas in the modern era, everyone stands there idly and twitches once in a while to attack or get hit.

Move animations suffer as well. Let's compare the animation of Earthquake, a move that's supposed to be a terrifying massive quake of the earth. Here's how it's depicted in Gen 4:

Pretty cool, right? The magnitude of the quake is shown by literally everything shaking violently, with some dramatic flashes and rock effects. Not bad. But this could really benefit from 3D, let's take a look at how a powerful explosion of the earth is shown with the cutting edge graphics of Gen 8:

It is what would be considered a god awful green screen effect if seen in a movie.

Sure, but how much better could a 3D Earthquake animation be? Well, let's turn to the love of my life, Pokemon XD, to see how it's done:

Look, maybe you disagree with my assessment of these images, and that's fine. But I strongly encourage you to go back and play, say, Emerald, or Platinum, or what have you, if you haven't recently. You'll be able to palpably feel the difference between it and the newer games, and the visuals are just the surface of this. They're just what tends to come to mind whenever I think about it.

Idk I just miss when Pokemon games were delivered as strong single player games with multiplayer capabilities meant to last a decent while and then be put down, and returned to in a few years when you're feeling wistful, as opposed to increasingly lightweight multiplayer focused games with increasingly less single player endgame content so that they can push subscriptions of the god awful online pass

#i hate modern gaming #i hate it so so much #im literally having a breakdown about it right now #games are my only outlet i have literally got nothing else to look forward to in my life #and im slowly losing them to senseless greed and dispassionate companies #i mean thats not new obviously but it is hitting me hard as i play old classics and new games concurrently #anyway this post is inspired by the leaks seeming to confirm that there is no battle tower at all in gen 9 #the only feature that actually matters to me #sorry if you count that as a spoiler but better to be disappointed now than later #i hinged my entire mental health on gen 9 and now it looks like its starting with a massive disappointment #so if the rest of the games arent absolutely perfect im no longer going to have anything to live for #sorry if that sounds dramatic and trust me i know how stupid it sounds to say this as a 28 year old about a game made for infants #thats just what my pointless empty shell of a wasted life is like now #why did i even make this post #nothing here isnt common knowledge #long post #pokemon #sorry i forgot the tags while i was whining #hippowdon

[smoqueen]

let me disarm the loaded part of this question before answering

i am one of those people that would rather play 3d over 2d any day, but that doesn’t make them necessarily inferior. i personally believe that they are, and i think 2d fighters are extremely slow to evolve. heres the read more

for one, 3d fighters are typically significantly slower paced. not just the rounds/matches themselves but also the moves you do. a jab in tekken is 10 frames. a jab in street fighter is 3. i’ve always preferred the pace of gameplay in 3d.

something i like about that means that i actually have an opportunity to fucking react to things. how are you supposed to react to a 5 frame move in SF? in tekken i can sometimes even duck throws on reaction, which vary between 14, 12, and 10 frames. 

for two, characters in 3d fighting games usually have WAY MORE MOVES than 2d counterparts. take ryu in SF - he has normals on 6 buttons, special moves (with ex versions, different versions for light/med/heavy etc). in tekken, negan has a shitload of moves attached to 1 (which represents the left hand). ryu might have ~50 total, and a lot of moves ‘repeat’ themselves, whereas a tekken character (especially older ones) might have like 200 or more. and they’ll have VASTLY different properties

oh wait let me explain notation. not all 3d games are like this, but in tekken, it’s 1, 2, 3 and 4, representing left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg. i love this system already, very intuitive. i prefer it to 6 button fighters, it makes more sense to me.

button combinations like 1+2 represent using both hands.

(in soul calibur, it’s A, B, K and G, meaning horizontal, vertical, kick and guard. it’s simpler for a lot of reasons, but also very intuitive in its own way. obviously you want to step out of the way of vertical moves!)

THE ADDITION of the extra dimension makes the game very deep for a variety of reasons. for one, stages have actual differences - in 2d games most stages really aren’t different at all besides visually. some might have wall breaks or different distances but that’s it. Tekken stages (and other 3ds) have different layouts, different shapes, wall/floor/balcony breaks are common, etc, and it usually contributes a LOT to how a matchup or game plays. (there are also no-wall infinite stages.)

but besides stages, being able to sidestep left or right obviously affects gameplay dramatically. in street fighter if they think im going to pressure them in the corner with jabs, mids, overheads, whatever, we HAVE TO fight in the corner. in tekken...they can find, or create, an opening to sidestep OUT of the corner. or sidestep the jab itself! slip left and you can punish me for trying to hit you.

which is a lot more like real fighting (i have done martial arts for a lot of my life)

you’ll hear a lot of people call tekken ‘one of, if not the, hardest fighting games.’ there was a picture floating around someone posted where a guy posted all his top ranks in fighting games and all his tournament wins, but in tekken he was only blue rank and couldnt get to emperor/tekken king/tekken god etc.

in tekken there’s always something to improve and you learn from every session. one session early on, i distinctly remember -- if i need to sidestep left against another negan while close-up, i should be sidestepping right in longer neutral, so that i have ROOM on my left. it’s just a kind of spatial reasoning concept that would never come up ever in a 2d 

the massive movelists and the massive amount of options EVERY character has available to them to DEAL with the massive movelist makes the game deep, hard and fun.

3d games like tekken typically have a lot of the things that a casual actually WANTS out of a fighting game, that 2d games typically don’t. character customization is an example.

ive already rambled for way too long so send more asks about fighting games

[talonflamee]

talking a little about pokemon black and white:

i finished White the other day and i feel Sooooo Normal about it. yup :)

some background info: i played White on launch back in 2010. i didn’t like it too much. haven’t touched it in 12 years and I remembered very little about it, so this was basically like playing it for the first time again! overall i enjoyed it very, very much and i’m SO glad i replayed it!! here’s a quick review of the stuff i liked and disliked:

what i didn’t like:

- many of the new pokemon: there are no previous gen pokemon available until you finish the main game. this would’ve worked great if the new pokemon were. like…… good? i don’t hate all of them, but overall i think gen 5 has some of the worst designs in the franchise. (i’m not a Vanillish hater btw, that guy is awesome)

- the wild encounter rates: ABSURDLY high. sometimes i was getting a wild pokemon every single step, even when i wasn’t running

- the sheer size of the maps: i think this is a positive for most people. but for me, some of them were just wayyyy too big, most notably castelia city and twist mountain. i just wanted to get out of there lmao

i think that’s pretty much all my complaints! now onto the good stuff!

what i loved!!:

- THE MUSIC!!!: good god…. so for me personally, music is pretty much AS important as gameplay, sometimes even more so. honestly, i think i’d now say gen 5 has my favorite pokemon music of all time, next to gen 3 and gen 4/PLA. it’s fantastic. and the adaptive music!!!! this is SO cool!!!! when i got the piano and drums to kick in in accumula town, i knew this game was gonna be something very special

- trainers who heal on long routes so you don’t have to walk/fly back to a pokemon center i love you so so much

- the art/animation: ah, our last 2D main game… i miss it terribly. each and every sprite was painstakingly and lovingly crafted and it looks SO good. they also really wanted to show off the 3D environments and it still holds up pretty well! neat dynamic angles and of course. bridges

- the story: an in-depth story with fairly heavy themes! this went over my head as a kid, but as an adult i quickly recognized team plasma as just like. a literal cult. this game also addresses some moral questions fans have had since the beginning, like “do pokemon actually enjoy battles?” and “are humans forcing pokemon to fight for them?”

- the post game: hey wow actual post game! i thought swsh had a pretty abysmal post game, so this is super refreshing. i haven’t finished it yet, but it’s pretty great so far! i really like that you go back to important areas in the story to uncover more details about team plasma

- the characters: really fun characters and designs! as well as a villain that is genuinely intimidating and fucked up. i’ll take a goofy villain like guzma any day of the week, but there’s definitely something to be said about one you want to hit with hammers many times in a row

- N: oh boy... i’ll be honest, i started replaying white for ingo and emmet. i was extremely impressed by most everything about this game, but especially N. i remembered him the most from my last playthrough (literally 12 years ago) but i didn’t really understand the hype for him at the time. replaying as an adult… yeah man. this guy absolutely rules.

he’s a wonderful character and i’m writing a character study on him at the moment!! so look out for that if you’re interested!

#overall i give it a 9.5/10😳 #talking #pokemon #black and white #long post #maybe new tag #game reviews #lost 5 followers for this 😭😭

[smeedlesmeelder]

First Person Platformer

Eighth week of my Video Game Genres Guides! First Person Platformers! These are platformers that take the perspective and controls from First Person Shooters, and utilize them in 3D platforming challenges. These games can range from speedy Parkour games, to slow complex Puzzle Platformers, but a common connecting piece of these games is streamlined platforming level design to avoid forcing the player to sporadically look around to see where to go next. Here’s what that would look like on a Genre Tree!

In terms of top level genres, First Person Platformers are purely within action games, specifically 3D Platformers (though Id love to see a first person 2D platformer lol) Here's 5 First Person Platformers (in no particular order) and how I would categorize, or “tag”, them in pink!

First Person Platformer, Parkour // First Person Shooter Number 1 is Mirror's Edge! Can't talk about First Person Platformers without mentioning Mirror's Edge, and rightfully so! This game basically popularized the genre, with visuals that pair perfectly to streamlining the quick parkour gameplay.

First Person Platformer, First Person Puzzler, Puzzle Platformer, Physics Puzzle // First Person Shooter Number 2 is Portal 2! I've used this game previously in my Puzzle Platformer post but its like one of the best games ever so whatever it deserves it. Super cool puzzling first person platforming with tons of cool physics puzzles and portals and mechanics and wow this games good just play it and even if you already have play it again!

First Person Platformer, First Person Shooter // Visual Novel Number 3 is Neon White! Possibly my favorite First Person Platformer, Neon White has super fun, fast flowing, and crazy shooting and platforming. The story can get a bit cheesy or stupid at times but the creative gameplay of using cards as guns AND platforming abilities is super creative and forces you think on the fly. Highly recommend!

First Person Platformer, Parkour [Minecraft], Foddian Number 4 is Beton Brutal! Not the most popular example, but one I find super interesting, as this game is built around the mechanics of Minecraft Parkour even down to stuff like ladders and slime blocks. Super cool game with very challenge Foddian style lack of checkpoints!

First Person Platformer Number 5 is Cluster Truck! Probably the silliest game in the genre, and tag-wise super straight forwards example. Showcasing the streamline level design stated earlier, but taken to the extreme, this game takes place on moving trucks you have to platform your way around all the while they crash into each other, fall over, and sometimes explode! Super fun game that can have some pretty satisfying gameplay if you know what you're doing! That concludes my seventh Video Game Genres Guide! Thank you for reading!

#video game genres #video games #gaming #videogame #game genres #platformer #action games #platformer games #3d platformer #first person platformer #first person perspective #mirror's edge #portal #portal 2 #neon white #beton brutal #parkour #cluster truck #genre guide #games genre guide #genre #genres

[discet]

I hope this fanfic creates a fandom ngl!

What games do you play (any type)?

That would be wild. Feels like that sometimes when I get fanart for it and stuff ^-^

I play a lot of games, table top included but Ill focus on video games here.

I really like platformers both 3d and 2d. Celeste, Hollow Knight, A Hat in Time, Tinykin, Rogue Legacy 2, and Shovel Knight are some of my most obsessively played games in the last few years. There is something so satisfying about a game with satisfying movement

I really enjoy roguelites such as Hades, Rogue Legacy 2, Into the Breech, and Binding of Issac have all been favs. Something about honing your skills and building up to overcome a great obsticle feels great. Clearing Heat 36 in Hades was one of my proudest moments as a gamer.

I also have enjoyed every Super Giant Game that has come out Bastion, Hades, and Pyre all being bangers. I also really enjoyed Transistor mechanically, even if I have some misgivings about its story.

Story focused games are hit or miss for me, but when they hit they hit hard. Night in the Woods and Beacon Pines were both delightful stories to explore.

The Return of Obra Din is in my top 10 absolutely, even though trying to categorize it is difficult. It's really its own thing.

I'm not big into Character Action games with the huge exception of the Soulslike games by Fromsoft. Sekiro is definitely my favorite among them, but I enjoyed all the Dark Souls and Elden Ring quite a lot. Haven't played much of Bloodborne tragically do to a lack of PS4.

I really loved Fallout 3 and especially New Vegas, but soured on Fallout 4. I also liked my playthroughs of Skyrim back in the day. RPG's that allow me to really immerse myself are my jam.

I also just love most of Valve's shooter catalogue. Half Life, Portal, and Team Fortress 2 were my top tier games in high school. Portal 2 remains one of my favorite games of all time. I liked the first 2 bioshocks for similar reasons (Infinity mostly pissed me off)

Oh I used to be huge into strategy games. Total War Series, Civilization, Fire Emblem, Advanced Wars, X-Com, Humankind. They used to be my obsession. I haven't played them as much lately, but they still hold a place in my heart.

...

Wow! I had a lot more to say than I thought. Thanks for this Ask Anon, it was fun thinking back on a hobby I've put so much time into.

[ilaiyayaya]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

A lot of the effects and trauma from my time of isolation are a bit weird to think back on, and to really acknowledge, because there isn't really a single traumatic event that changed me or anything, it was a slow, long process of 3 years that slowly changed me, so slowly that a lot of the ways I changed it took a long time to even realize were different, and even now I'm sure I'm significantly different than I was before that time in ways that I still don't realize that wouldn't be like this had I not been a shut-in.

One kind of weird effect I've noticed is how it's affected my interest in certain things and my hobbies, I want to make clear that I still play video games, and I still like making art and do occasionally do it, and want to do it more in the future, but my interest and ability to do both has been majorly affected by those 3 years. Video games are the less major of the 2, I still play games, I still enjoy games, but my interest and passion in the medium has definitely dulled a lot after doing pretty much nothing outside of playing games during the most miserable period of my life, all because I didn't have much motivation to do anything else, and so now sometimes playing games, especially specific games I don't really find nearly as much enjoyment in. Art is the much, much bigger issue and possibly the thing that has affected my life the most and likely will affect my life the most long-term, I love art, I love making art, I've always wanted to do a career in art at some point, and to this day I still want to eventually get to the point where I can, however to get there I have to eventually start doing art again, which I don't really do much anymore, and haven't in nearly 4 years. The year or so before I became a shut-in was possibly the most productive year of my life for art, I started learning 3d art, I learned a lot in 2d art as well and I was doing it nonstop, and for the first few months of being alone I continued that, but about 6 months in that stopped pretty much all of a sudden all at once. This is one of the extremely few actual traumatic specific moments I have from that period, there was one day where I had a ton of school work to do (which I also for my entire life pretty much forced myself to do perfect in school, and if I ever did even slightly less than perfect I would feel completely horrible and stress myself out over it), I wanted to do at least some 3d modelling each day, and I had started playing Monster Hunter World with a few friends 2 days prior, and so I agreed that I would play it with them that day too, and so basically I had a bunch of stuff I felt obligated to do that day, this was about 7 months into the isolation and it's pretty much the day I broke. My friends wanted to game really early in the day, pretty much immediately after I woke up, so that was what I did, very reluctantly, I already didn't really want to play it nearly as much as they did as often as they did, but I didn't want to be selfish and say anything so I pretty much got stuck in a like 10 hour play session, during which I was extremely worried about being able to get my other obligations done afterwards. So after we finished and I could finally start doing other things, I had the option of: not sleeping and maybe getting both my art and school work done, or doing 1 and failing to do the other (which was not an option in my mind), or the secret 3rd option, say fuck it have a breakdown from the stress and loneliness don't do either stop doing schoolwork entirely for the next 8 months and nearly fail my last year of highschool and stop doing art altogether for years. Of course option 3 is the one I went with and it was the true start of the snowball that would be the most horrific time of my life that I spent extremely depressed and often suicidal.

The worst part is that even though I'm not a shut-in anymore, and I'm not nearly as lonely or depressed, a lot of things that remind me of that time make me extremely stressed, this is what I was getting to earlier when I mentioned that I don't do art often anymore, I occasionally do, very, very rarely and usually for only about an hour, but the process of starting to make art, pulling out my drawing tablet, opening the program, and drawing the first few lines is by far the hardest part, not only because starting anything is already inherently the hardest part, but also because the idea of me doing art again, gives me a ridiculous amount of stress and anxiety, the thought that I'm not allowed to do art again after giving up on it so abruptly years ago, how what if I get into it again, then give up again and get depressed because of it, leading into another spiral of misery, realistically that probably wouldn't happen, but trauma isn't rational and the trauma of those years has easily had the biggest impact on my ability to do art more than anything else. I really want to do art again I love doing art, it is really the only thing in this world that gives me passion, but specifically the visual 2d medium of art has just been ruined for me and I really hope that someday I can overcome that and finally get back to it, that day however is not today, I am a loser baby and anything that distresses me even slightly I kinda just wanna ignore so like, maybe later lol

#fuck it we ball #draft posting #menhera brainworms #this one is incoherent af frfr #fuck it we ball x2 #I need to clear out my drafts so bad there's so many #fuck it we ball x3 #neetcore #gaming #I'll probably just make a repeat of this post down the line that's actually complete but for now fuck it we ball #it would be so awesome it would be so cool #you STOLE her gay little hat

[allsonicgames]

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1

Original Platform: PC/360/PS3

Original release: 12th October 2010

Version played: 360

Available to buy: Yes

I was originally going to do Sonic 4 as a single game, but after playing through Episode 1 and Episode 2, it’s evident that they’re completely different games so I’ve decided to give them separate slots. The “Episode” part of this is a complete lie, it seems.

Also a complete lie is the “Sonic the Hedgehog 4” name it has been given. It’s nothing like a sequel to the original games in any way. The best way I can justify the name is that it’s a new take on the Game Gear “Sonic the Hedgehog 4”, aka Sonic Blast, which seems apt due to the more maze-like levels and the “Donkey Kong Country” style graphics, where Sonic’s sprite is based on a 3D model. It kind of looks similar to the Sonic Blast one, too.

The other parts of the game take on different styles. The levels look like they’re 2D textures with some shading added in photoshop to make it “look” 3D. The backgrounds are sometimes layers of 2D, but other times are fully 3D. Dr Robotnic has a cel shaded style and stands out. There’s no consistency to the graphical style at all.

Also like Sonic Blast is how slow it takes Sonic to get moving. Moving from a standstill is so slow it’s agonising. Especially when you’re trying to move Sonic away from an obstacle. There’s something off about the way he moves and jumps as well. It’s not nice to play. Sonic Blast 2 (the name I’ve given this game) also features the homing attack from the 3D games, but unlike some of those, it also kills Sonic’s momentum, so you have to start moving from a standstill again. Even when you have the Power Sneakers, Sonic still feels slow.

The levels are a rehash of previous levels: Green Hill, Casino Night, Labyrinth and Scrap Brain. They have different names in Sonic Blast 2, but they don’t feel different (although Scrap Brain has elements from a Sonic 2 level). There’s three acts for each zone and two of these are all incredibly dull, just retreading old ground. The second act of each stage does try something new.

The second act of Casino Night introduces a cannon mechanic, where you have to aim and fire Sonic. Aiming is very slow and it’s not smooth or fun at all. Labyrinth zone act 2 is dark and Sonic has a torch, lighting other torches (sometimes activating switches) and setting off TNT. With a better level design and physics, this level could actually be really good.

The bosses are mostly the same as the original bosses, with a brief second stage. Even the final boss is just the final boss from Sonic 2, and you have to fight all the previous bosses again to reach it.

Sonic Blast 2 is a poor rehash of Sonic 1 & 2, with bad graphics and wonky physics. It’s a very poor Sonic game.

#sonic #sonic the hedgehog #sonic games #allsonic #sonic 4 #xbox 360 #ps3 #wii #android #ios

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Happy 29th anniversary to Virtua Fighter! Sometime in October, in 1993, the original Virtua Fighter game was released for arcades.

The highly influential first Virtua Fighter game is widely recognized as the first 3D fighting game released. The original Virtua Fighter even influenced Tomb Raider as, according to Lara Croft's creator, Toby Gard, one of the reasons he decided to make the protagonist a female character was because his co-workers would often play Virtua Fighter during breaks and, even though there were only two female characters in the original game, Pai and Sarah, they would often pick them over the male ones! And of course it's influence in the fighting game genre itself is felt to this day by the mere existence of Tekken, Dead or Alive and SoulCalibur, and even the big 2D names either switched to 3D themselves, like Mortal Kombat, or had 3D spinoffs, like Street Fighter and The King of Fighters, and that's all due to Virtua Fighter!

Virtua Fighter 4 was the series peak for me and I was so happy when they rereleased 5 for PS4 but I think the world is ready for Virtua Fighter 6! Fingers crossed 🤞🙏

Happy birthday Virtua Fighter!

#29YearsWithVirtuaFighter

#Virtua Fighter #Sega AM2 #Sega #VF #Virtua Fighter 4 #Video Games #Gaming

[penguinsixteen]

Procrastinating 16042023

Currently, on my desk I have:

3 jars of pens, 3 cans of pens (ones an olive can), a finished Milkis can (been on my desk since sometime last year - constantly craving Milkis but it's not available in any local stores), 3 boxes of Instax photos (working on labelling them all), my pencil case (zipper open), a plate with an unfinished orange and a fork (forgot about the orange and had potato waffles), a thick stack of history flashcards, a second much thinner stack of history flashcards (working on them), various other flashcards scattered around (all history probably), an empty mug, a shallow bowl (empty) and flower-patterned chopsticks, a black ball-point pen refill, an uncapped orange Bic pen, two A5 postcards of Cezanne (he's staring into my soul), a cactus-shaped fan, black nail polish, a box containing a jar of black ink, a fountain pen, a cable (dunno what its for), a bag of cables I never use, a bluetooth speaker (playing Floating Dream - Kumi Tanioka), a history revision booklet from my teacher (this flashcard checklist is so long hhhhhhh), two pencil sharpeners (a pig and a chicken), giraffe scissors, a 5p coin, a small tea tin, a plastic pink penguin, a mini brush, a 20p coin, a broken compass, two plastic candles I got from school (electric, one doesn't work), an empty mini photo album, 4 photo cards in top loaders, a yellow origami crane, my planner (open to my easter homework), my diary, last years diary, a plastic case of 3DS games, Catcher in the Rye in bubble wrap, a shoe box of miscellaneous things, a black and white Instax cartridge, a red lanyard, a glue stick (probably empty), an unopened plastic pot of honey, a zip-loc bag with a copy of my teeth (3D printed, from the orthodontist), a new 2DS XL (green ver), a green and purple octopus keychain (those ones you can flip inside-out), dust, a very large lego technic set (covered in cardboard to keep dust off), a calculator, 4 mini plastic toy planes that I couldn't fit on my shelf, two empty Kidrobot figurine boxes, a CD player (still in box - haven't used it yet, I have no money to buy new albums), my credit card (balance: 48p), a hairband (why do I have this? My hair is too short to tie up), an empty plastic folder (hiding beneath my diary and planner and CD player and Catcher in the Rye and 3DS game box, a second big pencil case of unused pens, a tall stack of Pokemon cards, a box of stickers and tapes, Beats, my phone (it's got a huge crack and a hole in the corner, but it still works), a small cardboard car (made out of sheer boredom by a friend in FPAN) (the car was for the pink plastic penguin) (it's falling apart), my keys, a Hu Tao keychain, a penguin keychain, my zip card (nearly expired), a clamp clip (dunno how they're called), and double sided tape. Also my computer, keyboard, and mouse.

On my computer I have Teams, Spotify (working on a long playlist, 11 hours so far), and Safari open. I have two Mangadex tabs open (was reading the Arknights Ifrit manga - sad), a Tumblr tab (trying Tumblr because Twitters word count is depressingly low - not that I ever post anything), a Pinterest tab, Instagram, Twitter, a Notion tab (the app stopped working for some reason), Youtube, and two google tabs (Alfonse Maria Mucha) (Indian independence 1947).

okendofprocrastination

[cielhunternorwood]

NIKKE: Goddess of Slapdashery

So what if I told you there was a game where you could play a third-person shooter where you get to look at ass every time you shoot a gun, and also your character is an anime waifu in oft-times skimpy clothing?

I'd say to go try out the Nanako mod on Fallout 4 because it's much more engaging and fun, especially with how janky and stupid Fallout 4 is. At least the story is more coherent.

NIKKE is basically what happens when the love of ass overcomes the love of tits, but you need context for people to see all the ass, so you create a "cover"-based shmup to justify girls jutting their booty in your face like they're in a strip club. But then no actual thoughts go into anything else, so it just "borrows" from other games/anime to make something minimally cohesive to string players along.

Is it good? No. Is it bad? No. It just is. There's not enough content- much less unique content- to the game to generate hate or love. Let's break it down.

UI/Graphics: It exists/10

So, the UI for NIKKE is... It's there. I can't say much because it borrows a lot of elements from other games like Blue Archive, Girls' Frontline, and so on. It's also fairly buggy as it takes several pokes at times to open options and sometimes refuses to let you interact at all, forcing a restart. I think the big issue is the UI waffles between two different styles with no real consistency.

Graphics-wise, imagine a PS1 game using the Build Engine- the game engine used by Duke Nukem 3D/Blood/etc- for combat. That's basically it. The "maps" for story chapters have you control 3D chibis that aren't low-poly but are low-detailed, and the maps themselves are very poorly-textured. I know it's a mobile game, but other mobile games have way better textures than this on 3D stuff.

In-battle graphics aren't too special either, considering they do the 2.5D thing: all the enemies, girls, and cover objects are 2D images propped up along a plane to give an illusion of 3D. It can be a bit jarring, especially when there are actual 3D enemies as bosses which are visually unimpressive (knock-off God Eater designs and whatnot) and often janky in animation. Also the special effects are excessive and tend to cover up enemies too much.

Overall, it just looks cheap, especially seeing as they went the extra mile on Live2D for the girls. Or maybe not, since most of the motions the girls can do I've seen done in GFL, so maybe I'm just assuming it's the extra mile.

Gameplay: Not so good/10

So, it's a mobile game that's a third-person shmup. How does it work? You point and shoot. Specifically, you find wherever the game decided to plop the crosshairs, poke it with your finger/mouse pointer, and drag over enemies until they die. Simple, right?

Except you have to also tell your girls to take cover if there's big attacks- the cover itself not being invincible of course- and also there's superpowers/skills, ranging from a rather ineffectual buff to A FREAKIN CARPET BOMB OR RAILGUN SHOT. The big deal with skills is they're ranked I, II, and III: chaining them in sequence puts your girls in "Full Burst" where they focus fire and do more damage or something.

Sound a bit too complicated? Well, you can just click two buttons on the top left for "automatic shooting" and "automatic skill use", and then just watch the girls go to town shooting random enemies because they have the attention span of a kitten... WHICH IS BAD because there are some maps where you have to kill enemies occupying a point or before they reach the right side of the screen, and the AI seems to want to prioritize newly-spawned enemies rather than those that are about to blow your objective sky-high. Having to take control even during the auto-shooting to counter this issue defeats the purpose of having the option.

A lot of the combat scenarios also, despite having a noted "Power score" require far more than that set score to defeat because of enemies that both heal and up defense on nearby units (sometimes making you deal no damage at all when they group up), meaning every fight basically boils down to how much DPS you can fart out as opposed to the Power score meaning anything. You basically won't have a safe win unless your Power score is over 1000 above the fight score.

The worst part is how apparently the damage you can deal is affected by framerate. Yes, the framerate. If you can run the game at 60 FPS, you do the most damage. Also turning off Auto-Aim lets you do more damage because the "auto-aim" actually waggles far too much to be effective at its job. So if your game runs at low FPS and you can't aim well on your own, then you're just out of luck I guess.

While there are "ranges" for various guns and "elements" for weakness I guess, they tend to be a non-factor in most cases as the only real people who have trouble with range are shotguns and SMGs. It's a lot of mechanics that seem cool but are ultimately second-hand and basically only give you an inch of breathing room.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this: EVERY BATTLE IS TIMED. You have the span of A MINUTE AND A HALF to end most fights, Three minutes for boss/big fights. THIS IS WHERE THE "DPS CHECK" COMMENT IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. It's bad enough the game has enemy setups that often require a whole minute to kill even with high-level characters.

Also telling the girls to take cover during an attack can be pointless as most huge-hitting attacks actually BYPASS COVER, so it's better to just tank damage and keep the girls shooting so you don't run out of time. Kind of makes the cover part of the gameplay pointless.

This went on a bit longer than I anticipated, but all-in-all the gameplay is very hampered by a bunch of ideas that are executed very poorly. While it functions, it would be hard for it not to since it's literally just "point at thing, go boom", but the way it functions makes it clear it's held together by duct tape and glue.

Music: Forgettable/10

This one's brief. The music also waffles between "high school shojo" and "Transformers Devastation" with no real thematic connection between the two. It's the old-school "Korean MMO" style of music to make something catchy but not good for menu stuff, and then they try to be "metal" with combat music things. It's not at all memorable, and I often mute the music just to listen to the fight music from Devastation instead because it just sounds better.

Character Designs: Gacha, more like "Gotcha beech"/10

It's a gacha. If anything, the budget goes into the designs. So there's something for everyone, I guess. But let's judge based on practicality of outfits. The litmus test puts this one at almost Artery Gear levels of impracticality, but I feel like it's expounded by the Live2D wanting to put excessive jiggle on anything remotely containing fat.

Then you have characters in normal clothing, like the motorcycle-riding shotgun girl who dresses like a biker chick with a shotgun. Enough said. I've noticed a particular obsession with microskirts, but for the jello butt advertisements, that's no surprise. And there's also petite and loli characters, also no surprise.

So... It has some interesting designs, but a lot of them are pretty stupid in what's missing, some are literally just in underwear/sleepwear, and some defy the laws of physics by not only having giant tits but having them somehow remain in their shirts despite the fact that they should have popped out hours ago due to the lack of bra.

Economy: Awful/10

So how do you earn money and stuff? The GFL/BattleSpace way: hourly gain. Except you have to pick it up regularly because the place's temporary storage is limited to 12-hours-worth. Better log in twice a day.

So what happens is completing story fights basically adds ticks to your resource gathering level, which increases the rate at which you get money, level-up mats, and equipment per minute. It's referred to as "Outpost Defense" because the girls get it from defending your home base. While you can also get money and mats from fighting story fights, it's basically just a tiny bonus.

That would be fine if not for the fact that battles DO NOT GIVE EXPERIENCE. That's right. The girls don't learn shit from actual combat, only from feeding them level-up mats. This would be fine if the amount needed for level-up didn't become excessively huge when reaching level 60 and beyond.

So where do you grind for stuff in the meantime? Nowhere. Yep, nowhere. This is the first game I've seen where your sortie limit isn't through stamina or resources but LEVEL. You're level-gated in terms of progression, and even then the normal level cap is 80 unless you get copies of girls, meaning your shiny SSRs are gimped unless you roll (and despite what you think of the rates, the cost is excessive).

While some folks may think lacking grind is a good thing because it generates pacing, it actually hampers it because it makes it possible to clear a bunch of chapters at once and then rapidly diminishes the progress you can make. And with its barebones story, you're likely to forget what happened last time unless you actually sit and wait days on end to gather level-up mats to be ready. Speaking of story...

Story: Barely there/10

Depresso espresso. It's the God Eater thing but also the robots used to fight the impending apocalyptic force are discriminated against because they're not human. People live underground to avoid the Araga-- I mean Raptures while the T-Doll-- Er, Nikkes fight on the surface for humanity. The commanders that lead them are taught they're heroes for humanity but are treated equally like cannon fodder.

Luckily your character is a rookie commander who treats the Nikkes like human beings, which means you're automatically the best commander despite knowing nothing about how to do your job. You are the plot-armor protagonist archetype, basically, and you win against impossible odds.

This wouldn't be particularly bad if it wasn't for the fact that the game then starts to play at an intrigue of you being unique somehow late in the story, but it feels like another of those cheap hooks to keep you invested. Especially when the main story jumps around and has things happening basically for the sake of happening to make bad things happen later.

The overall structure of the story seems to just follow an "add it on" progression rather than having a concrete background and layout for how the story will go. A lot of empty intrigue and big people in background scenes going "Hmm, fascinating, let's keep watching." It's boring and poorly executed.

Overall: Mediocre/10

The game just... Exists. It's not by any means good, but nothing about it is especially bad. It borrows a lot from other games, it generates over-emotional scenes to keep people invested, and the gameplay itself is VERY unpolished. Whether or not any of these gets fixed later on, it won't change that NIKKE itself is just bland. It just exists to sell anime ass and run off horny, it seems.

That might be fine for some people, but the lack of substance to any part of the game just makes it so forgettable.

#nikke goddess of victory #mediocre #play girls' frontline instead #or fallout 4 nanako mod #anime ass

[the-furies]

just remembered I dreamt that Nintendo released a main series-ish Pokemon game just before scarlet & violet released called something like BlACCK DiamondPearl and WHITTE Pearl and mom got us the black (BlACCK??) version and we argued over whether it was spelled black or BlACCK (pronounced black but yelled).

Anyways I checked the Nintendo store and saw they were selling for 30$ each and I was like "this can't be a fucking real Pokemon game everybody knows they don't sell for fuckin THAT cheap" and I looked onljne at reviews and others were also just as skeptical as I was, while others were like "shut up abt it and play the new Pokemon game >:("

I remember booting it up and it just being a hybrid of the original gen 4 and the remakes, sometimes the graphics would be in 2D and sometimes in 3D but nost of the time they looked like a horrible mix of both. It was extremely glitchy looking and disgusting.

I posted abt it on here and was like "I am so fucking tired of gen 4" and I got death threats. Scarlet & Violet released like 3 days later in the dream & also sold for 30$ each (not counting tax) except they were just Legends Arceus with the new gen Pokemon. Like everything was the same except the Pokemon were all from gen 9. Woke up after that

#talky #dream journal #gen 5 had nothing to do w the fucked up gen 4 games except I Think some g5 music was in them #I remember seeing N and Ingo too ???? but it was primarily set in Sinnoh #Also tbe boxes for the gen4 games had the swsh legendaries on them. #the boxes for scarlet & violet had Sprigatto (scarlet) & a purple rookidee (violet) on the covers. nobody questioned this