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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: PMMM Rebellion - Part 3

After Charlotte has a snack and Hitomi’s Nightmare is resolved, the girls are walking to Mami’s, Sayaka and Kyoko once again chasing each other around Madoka. So this is the next morning, right? Did the girls just not sleep last night? I mean, Mami was getting ready for bed when “Bebe” said there was a Nightmare.

Speaking of, we get a nice reflection in the water of Bebe looking at us with a little smile. Please stop that. Mami’s saying she still has some chamomile tea which makes Madoka happy, although Kyoko’s not happy with her other offering of an apparently sour tea. Cue Sayaka teasing her about her sweet tooth, they squabble while Bebe bounces around babbling about wanting cheese-

Wait. Hold on.

Ranubis said:...Apparently Sayaka is a raspberry, Kyoko is an apple, Mami is cheese...

Mami, run!

Ok, while I now wait for Bebe to chow down on Mami again oh come ON Mami, now you’re just tempting fate.

[Mami]: “All right, all right. I’ve got to reward you too, Bebe.”

NO. NO YOU DO NOT.

While awful foreshadowing is going on, Madoka notices Homura is trailing behind. You ok, Homura?

Oh. OH.

[Homura]: “I wonder if our battles have always been like this?”

That right there… is a very interesting line.

Scattered shots of the city back to the fancy school, we

what the heck. teach don’t look right.

Yeah, ok. The math teacher has no face. It’s just a blotchy red blur with two dark spots for eyes. That is not a human face.

Homura’s glancing around GAH ok no I did not need to watch this part so late at night. Every non-named student has the same blotchy face, only our girls, Hitomi, and Kyosuke are normal.

Ok then! That confirms my thoughts on Homura’s line! Like I said last time, the sense of Something Is Wrong is really ramping up now. From the Witches/Wraiths being replaced by Nightmares to the NPCs losing cohesion, it’s clear that this world is off. Which goes back to my theory: the girls are being brainwashed to work for Charlotte. Only I was just thinking about the rest of the Madokrew, not Homura. She’s been brainwashed too. Only she’s waking up.

While I’m working on my conspiracy theory, Urobuchi’s trying to convince me that things are just fine with a cute little rooftop lunch between the Madokrew. Interrupted by a fullscreen flash of the Incubator’s eyes, I did not need that thank you. And a flash of Charlotte eating cheese, I get it already!

Yeah, while the rest of the crew is giggling away, Homura’s looking out over the city at how literally everyone else has Blotchy Face. From their fellow students running track, to young and old in parks, to everyone walking along the roads. The cracks in the deception are showing.

Later, we see another blimp (I KNEW those seemed out of place), and yep there is now a Labyrinth-style 2D music-box player in the park performing for some kids dressed in black. Everything’s slowly changing to the design of a Labyrinth. Now, how to get out of it?

Seems that Homura’s starting with Kyoko, asking her if things have felt a little “odd’ to her lately. Or, seems she hasn’t fully woken up herself yet, is just sharing her uncertainties. Specifically she’s speaking to Kyoko first because she feels the “oddest”. Gee, thanks. But yeah, post-character development Kyoko is certainly different from the standard timeline Kyoko who espouses the food chain. Not saying it’s a bad change, just saying.

Aha, making progress! Homura presses her on when she transferred to Mitakihara, and Kyoko can’t recall. The Labyrinth signs keep increasing, from more black-clothed children listening in the park to a veritable fleet of blimps now overhead.

Homura asks Kyoko to return with her to her hometown, see if it’s like the city that she remembers. Kyoko’s still confused at what Homura’s getting at, but she does trust her. And heck, she can get paid dinner at her favorite Ramen place. Road trip!

Said road trip is a disorienting array of bridges in the background and overhead, I think I spotted the Golden Gate in the mess. And yeah, now the sky’s all blotchy, with backgrounds of faint windmills. Kyoko doesn’t seem to notice how disorienting things are now, just remarking that her hometown will be the next stop. She hits the button

Uh oh. There’s just an announcement that the next stop is Mitakihara, which Kyoko protests. Back “home”, they discuss that they know they got on the bus for her hometown, resolve to try it again and make sure they pick the right one. They try again… but this time the bus announcement is for the middle school. Fed up by this point, Kyoko literally jumps onto the hood of the bus and yells through the glass at the driver. No response.

[Kyoko]: “What the hell is going on?”

That’s what I’d like to know, Food Girl!

One last attempt, Homura says they’ll go on foot this time. And so they wander through backgrounds that I am too unnerved to properly appreciate how nice they look, until to my utter lack of surprise, they face Mitakihara City again.

Kyoko suspects an illusion, tries summoning her Soul Gem before Homura stops her. She has the sense that “nothing actually exists outside of this Mitakihara City”?

Uh, that’s kind of a big deal. I’m thinking it’s brainwashing and Labyrinth by Charlotte, but you’re saying it’s a pocket dimension? Is this the power that a Cannibal!Witch holds?

Homura asks Kyoko to keep the fact that they can’t leave secret from the rest of the Madokrew for a while, she wants to investigate on her own first. Kyoko protests, but Homura says it’ll probably be safer if they pretend they haven’t discovered anything. Don’t want to alert your jailer, after all. Who knows what-

GAH ok really really did not need the image of them surrounded by NPCs with crayon-drawings of their heads. Methinks Charlotte is giving them a warning. Kyoko stands down, and the NPCs return to “normal”. The warning is clear: Keep doing what you were doing before trying to leave, and things will be the same as ever.

But even if they have to play along for now, at least we got something out of this: Kyoko’s remembering seeing Tough Homura before. And she approves! Have some food.

[Homura]: “Am I the only one who remembers?”

Ladies and Gentlemen, with a hairflip and heelstomp worthy of Satsuki, the Mysterious Transfer Student we know and love is back!

“Yes… I’ve seen this kind of trap before. A closed-off world of illusion. A maze without exit, into which the prey is lured and led astray.”

Off come the bows, down comes the hair.

“There’s no doubt. This is a witch’s labyrinth.”

Brrrr! Well that’s a thing. Even beyond that, though, I remember in the show that the girls could exit a Labyrinth while the Witch still lived. If they can’t now, then that means that this is a stronger Labyrinth than usual. More fuel for the Cannibal!Witch fire! Also, now that Homura’s broken out of her Meek Mode I expect things are going to get loud. After all, in the show once she tossed the glasses and let her hair down she started raiding armories for fun and profit, my threat estimation of her has increased greatly.

Charlotte, you’ve got a storm coming your way.

#wmtw #where my twin watches #ranubis #pmmm #pmmm rebellion #puella magi madoka magica #pmmm rebellion 3

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spicynbachili1 · 6 years

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Soulcalibur VI review | Rock Paper Shotgun

Developer: Bandai Namco Studios Writer: Bandai Namco Leisure

Launch: Out now On: PC From: Steam Value: £50, $60, €60

That is Hooves. He likes to stab and parry and slash and communicate in an alien tongue about how good he’s in any respect of these issues. Hooves additionally enjoys setting people on hearth, and paralysing individuals with horrifying runes, which has led some observers (me) to dub him “Horse Geralt” after the hero of The Witcher three. Unbeknownst to Hooves, he is a clone of the Witcher. That’s proper, poor horsey doesn’t even know who daddy is.

Though this backstory of Hooves’ is my very own dumb invention, it’s no extra fanciful than any of the opposite tales in preventing sport Soulcalibur VI, a rampant, fun-loving area of swordplay and silliness.

To get one thing out of the way in which: I’m a preventing video games dabbler. An indignant wee toad, not a champion. I wouldn’t swear on a replica of Road Fighter II in court docket, however I benefit from the odd bust-up in Tekken 7 or For Honor or Absolver. There’s a tense satisfaction in memorising the appropriate button-slaps for a vaulting deathkick or a flurry of needle-like pokes. And much more satisfaction in stunning your self, and finishing up these dance-like combos in the course of sloppy battle towards some nervy skeleton in a giant costume. However extra on the odd warriors of this explicit preventing sport in a second. First, we should contemplate the constancy of its stabbing. That’s crucial.

The fundamentals are easy sufficient. There are horizontal assaults, vertical assaults, kicks and a guard button. It’s simple stuff, largely. Every character’s movelist is split into totally different pages. A single web page provides you all their predominant assaults: the slashes and lunges and heelstomps you’ll discover most helpful. It’s a strong introduction to every swordsperson. Maxi is a dandy who likes to hit individuals with nunchaku, for instance, after which he does a somersault, most likely from pleasure. Xianghua is a lady with a wobbly sword. She is blood kind B, and likes to carry out the next strikes: murdering you.

There’s additionally an honest tutorial constructed into the “Libra of Soul” mode. This can be a sort-of-RPG through which you journey round a map preventing pc enemies for factors. It’s largely good for studying the fundamentals by preventing an AI sensei early within the journey, who tells you the best way to parry correctly. All these educating strategies and coaching modes make the sport really feel like a great place to shuffle into the Soulcalibur world, and for a Tekken boy like me, that’s largely true. However being a Tekken boy, I’m additionally immunised towards a sure flaw of 3D fighters: terrible storytelling.

The story mode here’s a dangerous anime folded upon itself a number of occasions, like a soggy origami crane. Every character will get their very own paper sculpture of cringey dialogue and scatterbrained plot on prime of the vanilla marketing campaign. For loreheads, perhaps there’s something in these tales, however there wasn’t for me. And I’m guessing even followers care little about Xianghua’s quest for the sword of legend, or Kilik’s quest for the sword of legend, or Taki’s quest for the– you get the concept. The actual thrill is within the sidestep, the parry, the launcher.

Right here’s the place it will get complicated. Coming from Tekken or Road Fighter, the hidden sport of rock-paper-scissors-guard-throw-break-parry-reversal-counter leaves me a bit feverish. In multiplayer, the sport throws all its weight at you quickly sufficient. Making an attempt to take care of the onslaught, I delved deeper into the coaching modes, and shortly lumps of jargon have been sticking to my eyelids like gore. Deadly hits, guard impacts, reversal edge, run counters, soul cost, reverse impacts. Razzle dazzle preventing sport terminology. It’s nothing a diehard biffer received’t have the ability to swallow in a single gulp, however a slowpoke similar to I wants a little bit of time to sup.

However studying is nice. And you may solely actually study within the ring. Right here, glowing results and pop-up notes spotlight the risks. I do know when Nightmare (giant, impolite man whose solely good friend is a sword with a watch) spouts flames that he’s charging up an unblockable assault. I do know when Seong Mi-na (unremarkable lady everybody within the village needs to marry) twirls her pointy Guandao above her head that she is “soul charged” and can now do extra-damaging strikes. I do know when Cervantes (zombie pirate and creator of Don Quixote) strikes me with a crimson slash it means a “reversal edge”.

This can be a good ‘un, the previous reversal edge. It’s a cinematic second through which every participant has to decide to a single assault, or carry out a feisty dodge. It’s nice stuff, particularly whenever you each go for a similar transfer, clanging off one another and leaping again in a panic, earlier than taking yet another hectic guess. It’s a bit extra sophisticated than rock, paper, scissors. However mainly: a sideways slice will beat somebody attempting to kick you, a kick will beat somebody attempting to hack into you with a vertical hit, and a vertical chop will beat somebody swinging from the facet.

However when this and different strikes are all combined collectively by a well-trained participant, I fall to items. Which means two issues: I have to get higher. And that is extra sophisticated than it first seems to be.

Right here’s the place the “fight classes” are neat. These are small “the best way to” manuals for every assassin. They’re dry textual content dumps however in addition they break down the essential technique for every character. I thumbed by the recommendation for stick-swinging Kilik, for instance, and discovered the best way to maintain foes at vary with a handful of staple strikes: extensive, sweeping swings of his bo employees. Positive sufficient, after I went into an actual battle with that mentality, it labored. Wanting by Horse Geralt’s fight classes, I see that some strikes whip out his silver sword, which does extra harm to opponents pumped stuffed with soul cost. In different phrases, a great way to place down a raging bull of a participant.

These are the small print you usually have to search for in YouTube movies stuffed with impenetrable chess-like notations. I like these movies, however I’m glad to have some fundamentals defined within the sport itself, as a result of I’m an fool. 4 paragraphs in the past I wrote a couple of Guandao. I had no concept it was known as that. I needed to look it up by googling “chiense spear” [sic].

However I’ve been dancing across the true great thing about Soulcalibur VI lengthy sufficient. The character creator is the true star of this sport. It’s a feast of potentialities, providing you a bunch of fantasy races to base your character on, then forcing you to repeat and paste the preventing model of a predominant character into their slider-born physique. I’ve made a complete gang of lizard lads, and photographed them as in the event that they have been indulging in some reptilian stag do. I’ve created total Halloween boybands, mummies in waistcoats, orcs in hotpants, a skeleton with a bandana.

But all that is nothing in comparison with the hideous creativeness of the internet-at-large. Any individual has made Marge Simpson. Any individual made a Xenomorph. There’s Zoidberg and The Hulk and “Sexy Venom”. There are such a lot of good issues. Right here is Spiderman preventing a fully-functioning Magikarp.

The moment-to-moment preventing is robust stuff. While you and an opponent get right into a string of blocks and geese and parries, it takes on the power of a lethal tennis rally, and that’s all I actually demand from a preventing sport: a handsome injection of adrenaline. But it surely’s the preposterous and fantastic character creator that makes the entire thing stand out, offering sufficient daftness to take the sting of that adrenal hit. For lengthy stretches, I put aside the shoulder-hunching stress of ranked mode and simply frolicked in informal rooms, preventing shapeshifters and stone individuals and elves and inappropriately proportioned rabbit girls. Though, that model of fighter isn’t restricted to participant creations.

Leeriness is hard-coded into this sport. Girl swordsters duel with boobs akimbo, nipples perking by their leotards, asses clamouring to flee the claustrophobic boundaries of a HD monitor. Pull off the appropriate strikes and you’ll hit your opponent so arduous that their garments come off or deteriorate, and although this impacts all fighters, it’s arduous to not elevate a sceptical eyebrow at such a schoolboy characteristic, seemingly designed to let gamers lech a glimpse at Sophitia’s sideboob. None of this takes away from the clashing of spear and dagger, the standard of the preventing itself, however it nonetheless feels immature and embarrassing.

This lizard with a dick is ok although.

In all, I��m happy by my scrappy fights, and my tutelage of Hooves the horse man continues. One unhappy factor to notice is that £50 is a excessive worth, a fandom worth, and that’s a pity. As a result of the character creator, thorough tutorials and RPG-ish story modes are an open-armed invitation to people who would possibly usually run away from preventing video games with their arms flailing. I think about lapsed followers too, these bizarre vampires and demons and nightmarish Sonics would possibly assume to themselves: “I used to like Soulcalibur. Possibly I might…” However then they’ll see the worth tag, and all that good will and Dreamcast nostalgia will vanish like a closed browser tab.

If that’s you, I can’t blame you. You could possibly purchase a smelly armchair from Greg down the highway for £50, and also you’d most likely get simply as a lot adrenaline and problem from getting that into your third flooring house as you’ll preventing one other terrifying Voldo to the demise. However the second this goes on sale, good friend, the very second it drops its guard – you slice open your pockets and let it bleed. Since you’ll by no means have a good friend like Hooves.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/soulcalibur-vi-review-rock-paper-shotgun/

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