#dragons gets salty | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eastern-lights · 3 months

Text

Ok so we all know how amazing Baldur's Gate 3 is. I could talk for hours about everything it did perfectly.

But rn, I want to talk about what I think Dragon Age Inquisition did better. And this is not to judge which game is better overall, but what still makes DAI so special to me despite its flaws.

1. Voiced protagonist

Yeah, starting off controversial. I know some people prefer silent protagonists, but I just find myself wishing we could have a fully voiced Tav, even at the cost of fewer dialogue options. I'm sorry, but Tav's silent indifferent face just always breaks the immersion for me, especially when contrasted with the award-worthy acting and animation of the characters they're speaking with. In DAI (and DA2, although to a lesser degree) your character could be heavily customized, but they were always an actual person who fit in with the rest of the universe and flowed seamlessly with the story.

2. Mystery and dread.

BG3 is full of heavy, scary, traumatizing stuff hidden all over the place (or in plain sight). But it can always be explained in some way. There are dreadful things in Faerûn, but we always know what they are (mostly due to most of them having to have precisely given stats as the result of being based on DnD). We know what happens after death and what we can do to bring people back from it. The closest you get to truly dread-inducing mystery in BG3 is "Do Illithids have souls" and "where do illithids come from" and (at least in Act 1) "who is the Absolute".

In Dragon Age, the whole world is made of existential dread. What happens when you die? Dunno. Is God real? No idea and if He does, He hates you. What is the Blight? Are all darkspawn capable of independent thought? What is lyrium singing about? What happened to the titans? What happens when all of the Old Gods die? And this is just the Big Questions. There's a myriad of small things, small mysteries you encounter that just have no answers. Stuff that reminds me of those creepy Goldshire children forming a pentagram in World of Warcraft. While having an explanation for everything makes for deeper worldbuilding, a world full of mysteries without answers makes for a much scarier and, in some ways, exciting experience.

3. Group dynamic and party banter

I enjoyed the party banter in BG3. Hell, it had some of the funniest lines in game. But it didn't do enough to make the group dynamic feel any less Tav/Durge-centric. You hear the companions exchange banter, but you never get beyond stuff like "Karlach and Shadowheart both enjoy wine" and "Gale enjoys Lae'zel telling him about the Astral plane". The protagonist forms amazingly written relationships with each of the companions, but they never seem to have such a bond with one another. The closest we come to what I'd like to see is Karlach and Wyll's friendship, but even that's kind of shallow, I feel. The companions do comment on the others' personal quest, but it's always one sentence reaction, before going right back to being mostly indifferent. DA2 had the same issue, if to a greater extent (srsly, the companions had the same attitude about one another over the span of 10 years)

The banter in DAI was superb. It told a story. It had arcs. You could watch in real time as Solas and Dorian became friends over their shared magical nerd-dom. You could even take part in it, such as when telling Blackwall to stfu about jousting for a moment, or telling Sera that what you and Solas do in private is none of her business. You could see Dorian and Bull fall in love. You could watch Varric slowly chip away at Solas' worldview until he arguably came closer to changing his plans than Lavellan ever did. The relationships grow over the course of the story and by the time of Solas' betrayal, you're not just sad because he betrayed you, you're sad because he betrayed Varric, Dorian, Bull, Cassandra and everyone else. Because you saw how they cared about him, each in their own way.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than Varric's "Chuckles, what have you done?"

In BG3, the relationships are mostly left to your imagination, which has its perks, but still, the group dynamic feels more like a wheel with Tav at the centre rather than a web.

4. Having limits on the romance options

Let me start by stating what I am not saying: I am not saying that bi and pan people shouldn't be represented. Far from it. But I don't think making the whole group pan is the way to go about it. I can't help but feeling it is, in a way, pandering to players, making every single companion interested in them as long as they have a sufficiently high approval.

Making some companions explicitly bi, pan, gay or straight made for a more real experience. Getting rejected by Sera on the grounds of "We have a lot in common - we both like women" felt disappointing, yes, but also real. This also allowed the writers to make the characters' sexual/romantic preferences a part of their, well, character. We got Dorian's personal quest, which I think is great. Limiting Solas' options to just Lavellan allowed the writers to make it about him realizing that his people are not mere shadows. It allowed them to write the Vallaslin scene. None of this could have been done if he were romanceable to all races.

When you have diversity in romantic attraction among the companions, suddenly the pan and bi characters (in Bull and Josie respectively) feel like their orientation is part of who they are, rather than a game mechanic to prevent players from missing out on content.

#baldur's gate 3 #dragon age inquisition #this is all just my opinion #i am still salty that the devs didn't get more time to do DAI properly #imagine DAI made with the love care and time that BG3 had #we could have had another masterpiece

99 notes · View notes

waywardsalt · 2 months

Text

i think elden ring will always been my favorite game in terms of environment. every area is so impressive, even the copy-paste stuff manages to be impressive with atmosphere, and the amount of just. stunning-looking locations is wild especially with how natural even the most amazing looking shot you can find is.

just the fact that you unavoidably see this when you walk into leyndell is incredible. one of my favorite environment views in all of the games ive ever played

#you can walk on the dragon. you can find your way through the city and climb up onto the dragon to reach other areas #i love this. it doesnt just look fucking cool but its a tangible part of the world and you can go and interact with it #elden ring #salty talks #i just. the music paired with the masterful fucking angle you get of this when you enter leyndell proper.#its so cool im so obsessed with this i wonder was it was like when they got this right in development #this game is so visually incredible even the nasty ass fungal infected diseased caelid is really pretty #like???? i need to know how that shit happened. this is the biggest like. man i need to know what caused this.#idk if the screenshot is all that great i spent a while playing with the angle and where my character was standing #i dont think i couldve gotten my character out of frame and i wanted the walls on either side #to kinda show how you see this while leaving through a hallway. you literally cant miss this if you go in leyndell the normal way #i found the warp chest you can only see the top of the dragon's wing from where the warp chest puts you #anyways seeing this for the first time practically had me frothing at the mouth the environment design in this game fucks.#even the poison swamps

22 notes · View notes

blue-likethebird · 4 months

Text

My hot take is that the changes to Astrid’s character design between the first httyd film and the third were actually kind of a downgrade.

The general shape of her face isn’t very different, but the changes they did make all serve to make her more of a conventionally pretty animated character. Her brows are thinner, her lips fuller, her ears smaller, her teeth straighter, eyes wider, her freckles are gone, her jawline and cheekbones are much more pronounced, and her nose is more like the post-Tangled Disney button nose than in her first appearances. Some of could justified by the in-universe time difference and the better animation technology between the first and third movies but still, she used to be a distinct character with a nonstandard -and frankly more interesting- design before they went and elsafied her

#bluebird.txt #salty wench #thw salt #httyd #don’t get me started on airbrushed thw valka it was so bad #thank god ruff and the non light fury female dragons weren’t overly yassified or I would thrown a brick at the movie screen #rip to grimy boiling-with-rage Astrid and feral dragon LARPer valka I’ll never forget u queens #the second movie is also bad about having elsafied Astrid don’t get me wrong #but it’s especially noticeable in thw where everyone looks like a shiny plastic action figure

45 notes · View notes

stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage · 11 months

Text

Okay I thought I was done but apparently I'm not. I need to talk more about this banter you can get during the Legacy DLC between Aveline and Warden Carver because it makes me want to scream.

Aveline: I'm glad you found a place with the Wardens. Carver: Well, it's not the city guard, but it'll do. Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you. Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

In my last post, I talked about how Aveline had no place telling the guard to refuse Carver's application, regardless of if he was "right" for the job or not. But I believe he would've made a great guard, and getting that job not only would've provided for him and his family during a desperate time, but would've prevented him from either fate of becoming a warden or a templar. He was unfairly robbed of a chance to prove himself because Aveline believed he wasn't right for the guard.

This is one of the banters I brought up but didn't go too in depth about. At this point, it's been between 3-6 years since Act 1, depending on if you decided to do Legacy in Act 2 or Act 3, and every line here is important.

Carver's response to Aveline saying she's glad he "found a place" with the wardens is so telling. Not being accepted by the guard is still on his mind after all this time. He wouldn't bring it up if it didn't still bother him, and implies that he still would've preferred the guard over the wardens.

Which... yeah. Listen, I'm a dedicated "Carver joins the Grey Warden" player. I don't like leaving him behind to become a templar, and I certainly don't like him dying. For me, the Grey Wardens are the best outcome he has. It’s where he seems the happiest and finds the most fulfilment, and it fits well with how I play my Hawke. But it obviously has some tragic issues.

Like the fact that becoming a Grey Warden only delayed his inevitable death within the Deep Roads. Eventually his Calling will come, and Carver will go back down there and fight until the darkspawn eventually kill him. I'm sure that's not traumatic to think about given he was a soldier at Ostagar and then watched Bethany die at the hands of an ogre. Oh, and there's the whole nightmares and voices thing.

Carver didn't choose this life for himself. It was either this or death, but a "what if?" still lingers in his mind about the city guard.

Something Aveline ruined for him.

And continues to ruin.

Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you.

You hear that? In the distance? That's me screaming.

I must reiterate; what makes Aveline believe it's her place to tell Carver whether or not the city guard was right for him? Why did she think she should get a say in whether or not the guard takes him? What's made it HER call?

And still, after all this time has passed, she believes it wasn't right for him and she's unwilling to consider otherwise. Maker forbid she do some reflection and question if she was in the right for interfering at all, too!

Carver is standing right there before her, proving everything she said about him wrong, and she just doubles down. There's no reason to say this to him unless she's trying to remind him of his place; he's a Grey Warden, and she's Guard-Captain of Kirkwall's city guard. But c'mon, Aveline, he's hardly a threat to your precious guard anymore given the whole dedication to killing darkspawn thing he has now.

Maybe if you paid more attention to the threats within your guard, Kirkwall would be a safer place with less murder going around? Just saying!

But isn't that how it's always been? Aveline putting him in his place, making sure Carver remembers she's always outranked him?

Carver: Did you approve my application? Aveline: I can't make you a guard, Carver. Carver: We were both soldiers. Why won't they take me? Aveline: I was an officer. And I follow orders. Carver: [laughs] No you don't. Aveline: I also think of others before myself. You seem tired of that, and that's dangerous. Carver: Just when it's not my choice. You told them not to take me, didn't you? Aveline: Yes.

That he should remember who he's talking to?

Carver: I'm surprised you still travel with us, Aveline. Aveline: Carver, don't. Carver: You're ever so busy with the guardsmen. It must be a burden to slum with the refugees. Aveline: It's oddly comforting that you insult me like I'm family. Carver: That wasn't... no, I didn't mean that. Aveline: I know. But you should be glad that's how I took it.

That she's in charge?

Aveline: Your form's sloppy, Carver. Stiffen up or the darkspawn will take your blade. Carver: Right. I'll keep that in mind. Aveline: And you're angry, why? Carver: You didn't fare any better than I did the last time we faced darkspawn. Aveline: If they take your blade, people die. That's not happening again. Stiffen up. Carver: Yes ma'am.

Oh, and she used to spy on him [and Hawke].

Aveline: I don't like some of the people you've been associating with, Carver. Carver: Talk to my brother/sister. He/She's the one in charge. Aveline: Maybe, but I know you get around. This city's full of people who are dead set on ending badly. I don't want to see you end up the same way. Carver: Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least? Aveline: No.

That's their banter.

But sure, she's glad he found a place in the wardens. I don't think she's being ingenuine when she says that, but I think it's a little more complicated than a mere "congrats on doing well, I knew you could do it."

But Carver's response? Oh Maker's ass. It actually hurts me.

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

I... what can I even say?

He accepts it, but you can tell it hurts to do so. It DID cost a lot. More than Aveline will ever understand. And it doesn't matter now! He can't become a guard now anyway, so what would be the point in him disagreeing with her? Carver acts as the bigger person here because he does get it, even if Aveline doesn't.

But it's that last part... that last damn part... Don't be alarmed, that screaming you hear is still me.

Here's the deal; Carver acknowledges that he could be an ass back in Act 1. Hell, he acknowledges it IN Act 1. For example, when you talk to him after finding your grandfather's will, he's an ass to you about Bethany no matter what you say.

But y'know what? You can be the biggest piece of shit to him and have Hawke literally call him a "lazy brat with a chip on his shoulder," and Carver will still be the one to be apologetic for what he said and attempt to explain his feelings.

"Brother/Sister... I feel... I don't know. It's like Mother taking things out on us. She was just scared. I don't have a place in the life she's trying to bring back…"

Carver can be an ass, but he's aware of that and actively tries to change his behavior. If you bring him and Fenris with you on the Mark of the Assassin DLC, there's a moment where Carver says, "You still don't like me? I've tried to change." And if you bring Varric, he once again acknowledges that he used to be an ass.

BUT... that being said. If you don't remember, "I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I?" is referencing back to this conversation in the barracks of Act 1:

Hawke: This must be a very different pace from serving King Cailan. Aveline: It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar? Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

Now, I've already expressed my beef with Aveline over insulting Carver in the middle of the barracks just because he doesn't agree with her view point on Ostagar... but consider the fact that Carver says nothing. He just lets her insult him without a complaint! Carver Hawke, who tends to complain! And he says nothing!

Not only that, but he actually internalized that insult enough that years later he's able to repeat it back to Aveline word for word, and all she has to say is, "Well..."

This isn't the same thing as him reflecting on his past behavior and acknowledging his flaws. This is Carver accepting a snide jab Aveline made that hurt him because apparently he was wrong for not wanting to discuss any trauma Ostagar left him with as openly as she does.

Oh, and don't forget that any other companion you brought along dogpiles on, too!

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well... Varric: No shit. Fenris: Insufferable. Isabela: Legendary. Anders: Maker, yes. Sebastian: I've heard as much. [If Hawke has a humorous/charming personality] Hawke: Spoiled, annoying, thick-headed, brattish little nitwit of a... oh, have we stopped?

Y'all ever wonder why he's so on edge or hostile with the other companions?

Also, I have to point out that Merrill is the only companion who doesn't say anything in agreement if she's there. In fact, across all their banter, Merrill's never been rude or insulting toward him. All she does is ask him if he's talking dirty to her and compliments him on what a great sworder he is. It's pretty obvious why Carver develops a crush on her, c'mon.

But to wrap this up-

This banter strikes a nerve due to how telling it is about both characters involved.

Carver has grown and done what he can to improve himself, but there's regret that lingers, a longing for a better life he could've had if given a chance. Maybe he would've failed, maybe he would've succeeded. But there's nothing he can do now, so he looks forward, just as he's always wanted to do. He's a damn good Grey Warden who wants to do right.

Aveline remains stagnant. She hasn't changed, nor has she improved, and maybe she would if she could figure out how to dislodge her head from her own ass. She still believes she was in the right to tell the guard not to accept Carver's application despite knowing the Hawke's were desperate and that Fereldan refugees couldn't find work. She knew Carver's a skilled soldier who fought at Ostagar just as she did. The guard wasn't the place for him so she's in the right to deny him any chance. Aveline knows best.

And y'know what, I think all I have left to say is...

Fine, Aveline. You're right. It wasn't the place for him.

Carver was too good for your city guard.

#dragon age 2 #da2 #carver hawke #aveline vallen #dragon age #aveline critical #okay i promise i'll shut up now and stop picking on aveline and find something else to talk about #even though my beef list is still incredibly long but we'll save that for another day since i'm just so salty about her right now #and i just have a lot to say about carver and how wronged he was like i know it's just a few bits of banter but put the bits together #and they tell a whole story y'know? in case it wasn't clear carver's one of my favorite characters in da2 #and so much about his banter with aveline gets to me #again it doesn't matter if you think he was right for the guard or not my point is that aveline had no right to block him #from a potentially great job ESPECIALLY after all the hawkes did for her... y'know like helping her get outta fereldan #and getting into kirkwall and helping her expose jeven for being a corrupt bastard that led to her promotion as captain #sure aveline step on everyone's backs and hands and then wonder why they aren't climbing as fast as you #carver hawke deserved better than this #aveline got an easy promotion to guard captain and a sexy new husband and never had to face real repercussions for her mistakes #and all carver got was the taint in his blood #he and merrill never even had a chance to get together and i'm not okay with that >:[

55 notes · View notes

rei-is-hiding · 7 months

Text

#i didn't get him in the game and i'm gonna be salty about it foreverrrrr #stupid pretty gorgeous marvelous water lizard boi :c #imbibitor lunae #dan heng #dan feng #honkai star rail #hsr #honkai #hsr fanart #dan heng imbibitor lunae #dan heng fanart #vidyadhara #dragon boy #imbibitor lunae fanart

33 notes · View notes

anniesocsandgeneralstore · 6 months

Note

Dragons/Misunderstandings

Dragon Rhett and Pauper Tessa, he kidnaps her because he thinks she’s the princess and he wants the king to stop encroaching and on his land. It just might work anyway because the princess runs away and Tessa is a dead ringer for her…

Mischief ensues.

(he’s the kind of dragon that shapeshifts into a man if need be)

Oh I am….i am fucking listening….

rhett has no plan when he kidnaps the “princess”. He was just flying over the kingdom way over head and with his dragon vision saw a girl who looks just like her walking through the village. He swoops in and takes her. Complete impulse on his part, I mean he’s been thinking of ways to make the king stop, but now that he’s done it he’s gotta commit. Doesn’t believe her when she insists she’s not the princess for several days.

and of course he can shift into a man. With horns and little fangs still - scales around his neck and ribs. Cause I want ‘em. Good for smoochin that way.

#annie answers #salty tag #dragon!rhett #I need this rn immediately #also his eyes getting all firey when he’s emotional? Delicious

18 notes · View notes

sun-marie · 4 months

Text

It's been a while since I last thought seriously about Dr*gon A*e (even prior to falling in love with BG3) and I think a big part of that is I'm not as big a fan of the setting and the worldbuilding as I used to be. Like to me it really does feel like BW looked at typical fantasy settings and went "hmm okay but what if there was Catholic-enforced racism and abelism". And like. Cool thought experiment bro. Do we really need three games made by primarily white guys about that.

#dragon age critical #marie speaks #idk if ableism is the best comparison for mage oppression but idk you get my larger point #I've heard that DA was supposedly BW's critical response to settings like Forgotten Realms after making the og BG games #and idk if that's true but I'd be willing to believe that bc that's what a lot of it's world building feels like #“oh u thought the elves where gonna be ethereal and respected? nah they're a haphazard blend of irl oppressed groups”#“oh u thought this fantasy world was gonna have a plethora of interesting and dynamic deities and gods? nah it's just fantasy Catholicism”#“oh u thought people who can use magic would have respected places in society? nah they're locked in jail for being Different”#like I feel like these ideas were kinda cool for one game. An expanded thought experiment #but idk if they were strong enough to sustain an entire franchise #without significantly expanding their pool of writers to get the perspectives of people they're attempting to represent at least #but that's a whole different issue #anyway DA has some legit cool concepts like the Grey Wardens that I will always love #and most of their early character work is still really strong #but for me every time that setting rears it's head problems arise #anyway if you're still a DA fan that's totally fine! I'm very happy for you!#don't let my salty ramblings spoil what resonates with you from these games #I'm just reflecting bc it used to be a huge part of my life especially through like all of highschool #and now it's just. not.

13 notes · View notes

thethiefandtheairbender · 2 years

Text

me every time a white character is headcanoned as gay and it erases their canonical attraction to a character of colour

#shipping #dragons gets salty #memes #BONUS POINTS WHEN THEY'RE ALMOST ALWAYS M/F #and if the character of colour is male they're asian and if it's a woman they're black #EVERY TIME

118 notes · View notes

raayllum · 21 days

Text

me watching people write / posit relationships where characters are always good to each other and never accidentally say the wrong thing or be mean on purpose and they always perfectly understand each other and there's never any terseness, friction, or differing layers of emotional intimacy and closeness:

#dragons gets salty #not really but closest tag #like sometimes the characters are both at fault. and simultaneously neither are at fault. at the Same Time #have a lil spicy nuance i promise you'll like it #like if you enjoy it all the power to you but #that exact consistency is why i think i wound up finding the owl house Boring tbh #memes #mine

31 notes · View notes

vioyume · 1 year

Text

I was looking through the atla tag because I saw it was trending and I know I became a fan of it about 3 years ago, but it just hit me that we'll never get a show like it ever again.

I don't know what the development process of it was like, I'm sure that the team had more time to developed such an amazing story than any other show that we see today.

Creators now have to fight to even get a second season, or even representation in their show so they can share their works and stories, and even if they get what they want there's always a price to pay. Either being lots of cut content or a lower budget or something else.

I think The Dragon Prince is slowly rising to be that new show that's able to hold that same reputation Avatar had for the new generation. After all, the people who worked on that show also worked on Avatar before, but I hear so little talk about it and advertising. There's also Arcane who's first season is a huge success, with others in development.

But Avatar did leave this legacy that you can tell amazing stories through television when you have the tools to do so, and there are creators who want to do that but higher ups sadly don't have faith and only care about which shows are making them money, even for the shows that don't want to have these deep stories.

We can only hope that it'll get better for creators and these people in charge can see these shows are not only for children, and others like myself want to see these shows go to the very end and have their stories be told.

#I'm still very salty about CN cancelling some of my favourite shows #think the only one I'm watching is lego monkie kid and the owl house #btw lego monkie kid is very good with high quality animation and good story telling #toh is good as well but they have constraints thanks to disney #haven't been keeping up with dragon prince lately but I'll get to it soon #text #avatar the last airbender #rambles #cartoons #vio.txt

67 notes · View notes

buttercuparry · 1 year

Text

I still can't believe the disrespect that was done to Arya and nymeria's relationship. There were no attempts to show just how bonded Arya is to Nymeria and how truly she represents a part of Arya's soul. Those idiots did away completely with the magic of her arc and made Nymeria fuck off to god knows where even after Arya's return to Westeros. God knows what grrm saw in d&d. Their stupidity is the reason why there were takes about Sansa inheriting Nymeria (lmao the direwolf would sooner bite her own tail off)

#Am I salty about not getting to see Arya ride nymeria like the absolute queen she is?#Yes #Yes I am #And the magnificent stills of the targaryens riding their dragons just shows the missed potential of Arya's wolf army

84 notes · View notes

waywardsalt · 11 months

Text

im actually going to tear into totk’s dragon’s tears/ memories rn bc i remember feeling distinctly unsatisfied with them when i got all of them so im just going to write some general bullet points about them, about what i dislike or maybe what i do actually like about them, leaving out both master sword scenes and the mummydorf one because i’m here to talk about the stuff in the past not that

- off the bat (i play this game in english btw so all of this is based on the english text and translation i am aware some stuff is slightly different in other languages) im not really a fan of how the descriptions of all of the tears is just a literal description of what happens?? i think my issue with it is that some of the text is a little bit too in depth, as in it just tells you literally everything about the scene. this might be nitpick-y but i personally dont like it

- what’s up with zelda saying ‘but that must mean...!’ at the end of the scene. is it suggesting that she’s made the realization that rauru and sonia are the first king and queen of hyrule? because they literally tell her that like ten seconds before. i guess it’s suggesting she’s realizing she’s in the past but... idk the texts says ‘she’s left startled by a suspicion that she’s heard those names before’ yeah theyre the first king and queen of hyrule?? they tell her that. they tell her their names and that they are the first leaders of hyrule is she just now connecting the dots that she’s in the past? that’s what the next cutscene implies. but all of the surrounding dialogue and the description don’t suggest that that’s what she’s realizing i feel like this was kind of muddled in the translation

- why did sonia elbow rauru he was just standing weird he didnt say anything this isnt a nitpick im just confused. is it because he’s not being very empathetic towards what zelda’s going through? she elbows him and then she goes and talks to zelda why even elbow rauru. ordinarily you elbow someone like that if you mean for them to go do something why elbow someone if you’re going to do the thing you want anyways

- why doesnt zelda offer to help with the purah pad or anything like that. what happened to her sheikah tech fascination from botw. not even as someone actually familiar with the technology who could give mineru some points as to how it works

- what are sonia and zelda doing behind rauru when he shoots that insane fucking beam at the mulduga swarm they’re clearly doing something with their stones but like... are they amplifying rauru’s power somehow?? what do time powers have to do with the beam of light i dont- what were they doing please the text description only mentions him using his powers so are sonia and zelda just... supporting his powers? idk man

- dragon tear #5 is a whole can of worms with its worse-than-oot reenactment of that one scene from oot. why the focus on sonia and her tear btw. i mean yeah she dies to motivate rauru and zelda but like. why not aim for the new girl who probably doesn’t know how to use it as much and is probably more likely to be separate from the king who can shot insane lasers. im really not a fan of this scene for how strongly the game sides with rauru and zelda being passive and judgemental but ganondorf is literally the best part of it there’s a lot of character in just how he picks up his sword and stands up to leave

- putting memories 6 and 7 together just because of how there was just. no fucking care put into the idea of zelda learning to use her time powers. memory 6 zelda talks about wanting to use her time powers and sonia gives her tips on how she could use it and visualize the use of it and then in memory 7 she can just use it perfectly with great control and timing. why even bother talking about her nothing yet understanding how to use it when the very next scene she just uses it like it’s nothing. how much time has passed we get nothing to show us zelda trying to practice this power just. nope. she’s good she can use it perfectly. also more awkward dialogue sonia saying ‘what a picture zelda paints of him’ as she is. looking directly at zelda. change the line to like, ‘what a picture you paint of him’ she is literally looking right at zelda so why would she say it like that

- generally i feel like memory six should have been before 4 and 5 (4 being where she uses some power to... support??? rauru and it being before memory 5 so that there isnt this weird break in between the memories concerning ganondorf.) memory 6 does not have anything to do with memory 4 or 5 so just put it earlier so there isnt a weird shift in focus between the two big ganondorf scenes

- good god they introduce the idea of sonia and zelda being aware of ganondorf using a fake zelda but theres literally nothing about it having been a problem or them having experience or like. anything. they just TELL you that they know and suggest that it’s been like. a thing for a bit??? also obligatory ganondorf’s face model rigging is fucked comment he’s still the best part

- the pacing of these memories is just weird in general, memories 7 and 8 being separate but the same scene is strange when other memories are long as fuck but cover one event each, plus theres clearly barely any passage of time between memories 7 and 8 it almost feels like they were split up to fill space or just because otherwise it’d be... too long? man idk

- ‘queen sonia needs you!’ girl she is DEAD good fucking luck doing anything to help her

- ganondorf’s horse and its armor both look sick as fuck i really wish you got to see more of it outside the memory it appears in

- everything about the original sages honestly sucks. they aren’t characters they’re just walking macguffins. they have no names and are not relevant or mentioned or make any appearance until they are needed by the story. why does the zora sage talk about getting word about the attacked gerudo village in this scene when like. they’ve all met up and have clearly. been together for a bit. when she gives them the news it’s clearly the first they’ve heard of it... but... why would she wait until this moments to give this info unless for the benefit of the player watching the scene. why does the ZORA sage have this news and not... the gerudo sage?? what’s with the masks. they’re all made of zonaite or whatever sure theyre gifts from rauru but like. i hate that it kind of denotes them being subservient and lower than him and the zonai. honestly i really hate this scene in general mostly because of the uncomfortable showing of how rauru absolutely holds power over them and despite them being leaders as well they are expected to be wholly blindly loyal to him. rauru only gives them these stones when he needs their aid and they swear loyalty too him soon after but you also see that sonia and mineru have stones, too, so they’re clearly withholding these things despite it being kind of reasonable for him to give each race their own secret stone as further proof of their pact? there is so much shit to be said about the imperialistic themes or whatever in this fucking story and i really hate it

- i do kinda like how the next scene shows you that the one rock in the corner of that first hidden room in the forgotten temple is sonia’s grave

- zelda’s phrasing and description of how she and link found ganondorf is weird to me ‘he’s still alive’ ‘he lives on’ girl that was a mummy. he was not moving until you got there. he’s undead at best as far as you know. this is def a nitpick but eh. also the reliance on link is a... bit odd when zelda does not actually know that link is safe until she gets the master sword. its fine but still. also her shell-shocked expression after rauru talks about her being in the past for a reason is a bit... it doesn’t fit her emotion it’s kind of similar to the expression she had when sonia was killed

- the memory about the imprisoning war starts with practically the whole story up until now being repeated back to you by mineru with a decent amount of bias on mineru’s part and while it’s fine because of some of the extra stuff you learn but it does a lot more telling rather than showing when it comes to the actual imprisoning war and... idk the whole thing about their ‘fight’ kind of falls flat when you don’t actually see any fighting you just see that the sages have gotten their asses beat. i think it would have been a little interesting if in the god-awful repetitive sage-awakening scenes they had actually showed you the og sages fighting ganondorf instead of just. slow-mo freeze-frames for whatever. once again ganondorf if the best part of the scene

- the rest of the memories are fine idc

i get the feeling that the japanese-to-english translation was either all-around rough or somehow rushed, because some of the phrases in the game as well as some of the dialogue is really awkward and... could have been better. i don’t know how it works but it feels like a lot of it was very literal, direct translation and no one at noa thought that it ought to be tweaked just a little bit

these memories also do a fuck-ton of telling rather than showing and it really is like they don’t really trust you to connect the dots, and some of it does come off like they either didn’t want to make more memories or ran out of time or something. i felt like the memory of ganondorf just summoning his monsters and riding on his cool horse could have been a bit longer to actually show us the forces of hyrule fighting him and having a hard time with it

a lot of the character animations doesn’t have a whole lot of personality to them, ganondorf is the character who had the most distinct and interesting movements. rauru and sonia had their... singular movement (rauru putting a hand to his chin and sonia taking zelda’s hands) and zelda was kind of just... standing around and reacting to stuff, and neither mineru nor any of the other sages had any really interesting animations asides from mineru’s coughing fit in memory 16 (plus her reclining chair that was a nice touch). very few of their movements really express anything about the characters besides some really baseline values or traits.

the ordering of some memories is kind of odd, the excessive flashbacks in memory 17 are a bit much, the telling rather than showing, the sometimes awkward dialogue, a lot of the scenes are characters just... talking at each other, you don’t actually see very much of hyrule in the past or any characters beyond the main four, and it really did nothing to actually get me to care about these characters at all.

tldr i dont like totk’s dragon tears

#i didnt want to revisit this game but the memories in totk bother me. once im done with this tho i can go read my new volumes of berserk #salty talks #loz #legend of zelda #totk #literally the narrative of this game dragged the rest of the game through mud for me so im going to complain abt it more #any time i wanted to rewatch a part of a scene i have to sit through a few minutes of bullshit just to get to the point.#these things are so long and barely anything happens in them #half of these cutscenes are just characters standing around and talking theres so little actual character to most of the character movements #ganondorf has the most emotive and distinct movements in all of these scenes #they have the most personality and you get the most variety. with rauru and sonia its just. shes gentle n motherly hes uhhhh arrogant king #honest to god. i miss linebeck. i miss the way he was animated and the sheer amount of personality they gave him in every cutscene #fuck man i miss botw's memories. despite them being shorter (i'm pretty sure) i feel like there was more essence to them. more character #listen. i understand that gamedev is hard and so is writing and animating but like. this game is seventy fucking dollars.#despite him being so disappointingly one-note. ganondorf was the most interesting fucking character in these memories #finding the dragon's tears was fun but actually watching them was lame af #hey remember those posts i made about ph's cutscenes? maybe its the autism but i feel like i couldnt write those paragraphs abt totk #ig just. ph is my special interest and i have a negative bias against totk. if you think im dead wrong about this stuff go ahead.#i dont blame anyone for taking my words with a grain of salt. come to your own conclusions. if oyu like totk's memories cool!#anyways im done bye im gonna read berserk. which actually has a nuanced story and world and characters and a multi-faceted villain #totk spoilers #bitching abt totk

38 notes · View notes