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fireemblems24 · 4 months

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Scarlet Blaze Ch 14

So close to completing this.

MAIN STORY

How many chapters is this game? 15, right?

Typical Caspar excited to murder. God, he's awful in this route.

Dorothea breaking the 4th wall. She says she can't deal with any more doubling back lol.

I love how they dress up "kill everyone who resists until the Empire Imperializes Fodlan" as "unite Fodlan" lamo.

Felix, Sylvain, and Dimitri discussing strategy. Seteth and Rhea joining it.

They suggest retaking the monastery. Not a bad idea. Rhea also thinks this could flip some Alliance lords.

Haha, the "bad guys" are going to kill Bernadetta's awful father.

They think by doing this, it'll inspire the faithful to unite against Edelgard's war.

Dimitri says to keep quiet to keep Empire defenses down. Dimitri suggests tricking the enemy. It's funny how the only lord that doesn't use tricks and strategy is . . . Edelgard.

Ugh, so many side battles again.

MAP/SIDE QUESTS

See, this is what's so annoying. I talked to Raphael who wants to fight Dimitri because he's so legendarily strong (this game hypes Dimitri so hard, and I am here for it). Anyways, that's not my problem. My problem is that Raphael can't wait to ask Dimitri about his training routine after the war is over. Like, I get it's Rapaheal who isn't the deepest thinker, but this attitude is everywhere - like war is no different than play fighting and like, after going to war against someone, not only will they definitely survive, but will get chatty with you about training - not.

Dorothea, Ashe, and Yuri are the only characters who seem to realize they're about to go kill innocent people, lamo.

Hubert just insulted me. Seems the right time to declare my love for him with the merc whistle, lol. He earned it doing almost all the work this playthrough. (it's even funnier bc an NPC just asked if I had a special person, and Shez picked Hubert).

Add more to Caspar being a complete psychopath in this route - he's happy his brothe failed because now he could potentially rule his family's territory and make Edelgard's vision come to life (oh, yes, how amazing, passing it from one noble male to . . . the male noble's brother, viva la revolution! /s)

Shoutout to the NPC who's pissing himself over the idea of having to fight Dimitri, Dedue, and Felix.

Add Mercedes to the list of people who realize they're going to kill other people.

Claude talking to Byleth and being like, if I had you around, I'd probably be a decent person!

I had to fight Cyril :(

SHEZ & FERDINAND A

Ferdinand is pulling a Dimitri and working until tired. Unlike Dimitri, though, Ferdinand listens.

This support is shipping Ferdibert because it's Hubert who sent Shez, and apparently worried about Ferdinand.

It was kind of short.

EDELGARD & HUBERT A

God, I hope this is better than their final Houses support.

Haha, she's asking about Byleth. Wishing she could've recruited Byleth, lamo. I bet this goes differently if you're a better gamer.

It sucks that, once again, Hubert and Edelgard's relationship is reduced to Edeleth bait rather than being about Hubert.

And so, once again, Hubert's not going to be any credit for being the Eagles' single braincell.

Wait....... did they just confirm the Crest connection between Edelgard and Byleth?

God, I would HATE it if they did that to Dimileth. Idk, there's something about magic influencing people to like each other that takes away from the romance of the relationship.

How did Edeleth fans react to this?

Oh, we're actually talking about Hubert now.

Hubert is happy with the role groomed into him. To Edelgard's credit, she wishes things would reverse sometimes.

I love how different all the lord-retainer relationships are in this game. They made 3 distinct, interesting ones. No points if you guess my favorite of them.

LINHARDT & PETRA B

These two have so little in common. Also, I'm going to need to grind to get their A.

They know what diaphragms are in Fodlan.

Petra needs help with a letter. It's written in archaic language. I forget that poor Petra only gets a language teacher ones, and it's Blue Lions locked. Dedue for the win.

It's a love letter, lamo.

I headcannon it's from Dorothea.

Welp, headcannon squashed. She says she has no knowledge of the writer, and is rife with mistakes.

Linhardt finds the letter sacrilegious, but Petra's impressed.

PETRA & HUBERT A

One of the worst pairings in Houses.

An assassin goes after Hubert, but Petra shoots her.

Hubert's annoyed bc he can't question her, but grateful.

Hubert critiques the tactics that Petra uses to save him. Only Hubert.

He's more surprised that a queen would use a tactic than thinking it's a bad one.

Hubert's hating on chivalry and knights.

Petra doesn't understand their thoughts, and Hubert tries to explain it.

"It's peace we are wishing for." Uh, no. People who start wars don't wish for peace.

Hubert admits it has its uses though. But dislikes it.

Hey, at least this wasn't a support revolving around Hubert gurdingly accepting Petra as an "inferior" Edelgard.

HUBERT & FERDINAND A

Hubert calls Ferdinand the ultimate noble, not sure if that's a compliment or not.

Ferdinand's like don't sneak up on me while I'm training, dumbass.

But then Hubert's like you could just kill me right now if you wanted too! Which, is kind of weird. And Ferdinand's like, stop being weird. agreed.

Ferdinand doesn't see his father as the man who raised him.

Hubert admits that Ferdinand's matured. Ferdinand admires Hubert's obsession with Edelgard.

Ferdinand asks to stand alongside both of them as Edelgard's two jewels of the Empire.

And Hubert laughs at him.

And then it ends.

Ok, so why is this such a big ship again?

DOROTHEA & PETRA A

Bummed they only have 1 support. This is my favorite ship for both of them.

They go on a date in the marketplace and are happy to get away from all the death they're causing.

Petra is surprised to see it so upbeat, considering the war. Dorothea says life goes on for commoners regardless of what nobles are doing, but get upset when family dies.

Petra claims in Brigid, everyone is family. Dorothea says Fodlan's not like that.

In Brigid, they fight over thrones and lovers, but not land, like in Fodlan (like in Scarlet Blaze, lamo). Dorothea wants the tea.

They get accosted by random dudes, but Petra fights them off. Dorothea helps, I think.

Does this mean women get accosted in the market in broad daylight in the Empire???

Hahaha, Dorothea tells Petra that her skin is silky smooth and asks her to feel. Sadly, Dorothea doesn't act on that.

Petra calls Dorothea important to her, and to watch out, that she'll keep Dorothea safe. Dorothea promises the same.

My shipping heart is happy with this, though the random attack was a bit odd.

PETRA & RAPHAEL A

I could have seen this already in GW, though it's unlikely?

Raphael is howling to catch a wolf, but it keeps getting louder, so he's upset. Petra disagrees that he's not getting better.

They've made a team up, where Raphael scares the animals, and Petra hides and kills them all. So they make a good team.

Raphael is acting as a hound, he's upset that he isn't a wolf.

Petra thinks Raphael would fit in in Brigid. He agrees and plans to visit.

I honestly have no idea if I've seen this before.

DOROTHEA & BERNADETTA B

This is their highest support.

Dorothea sees her talking to someone. And the little bit on screen looked a lot like Yuri? Dorothea confirms that it's a man.

Don't Bernadetta and Yuri have a history? Dorothea thinks it's romantic.

Yep, it's Yuri. Bernadetta talks about the commoner friend she had once, which is Yuri.

Dorothea thinks this is the makings of a good opera. Bernie insists it's not love; Dorothea says that's how an opera would work.

Honestly, though, Yuri and Bernie may be one of the least compatible pairings possible in this game.

I've heard about this. Yuri's support retcons Bernie's father's abuse into "protecting." Which is such bullshit. Imagine excusing abuse as "I'm protecting you." It's really gross.

Bernie thankfully gets to set it straight in this game. Saying her father didn't love or protect her, but just a valuable item that he owns. SOOOOO glad Hopes took the opportunity to fix that awful implication the Yuri-Bernie support added.

Dorothea says her father treated her mother like an item too.

So more Empire men treating women like possessions.

Even in the Kingdom and Alliance when characters feels pressured to perform (Slyvain, Ingrid, Hilda, Lorenz, etc . . .) - no one talks about it being so bad they're dehumanized. This really seems like an Empire-exclusive, sexism thing. (also notice that, without thinking, I came up with male and female examples of both the Kingdom and the Alliance).

LINHARDT & BERNADETTA C

I feel like I did a much better job unlocking Blue Lions supports than the other houses and I don't know why since I paid close attention to all of them.

Bernie is messing around and the weeds, and Linhardt asks why.

It's to avoid a man and a woman going on a secret date, according to Bernie at least. She thinks they'll get mad at her for interrupting their date. Linhardt says she's no more significant than a pebble on the road to them.

Honestly, Bernie thinking everyone will blow up at her is a self-centered, isn't it?

Lin's like, they're lost in their own little world. And gets a bit romantic for appreciating them for sharing love when they could die on the battlefield tomorrow. Bernie argues that in fiction, they'd get together. Then Lin's like, that's fiction, not reality. Then Bernie argues fiction that's more realistic. And Lin's like, yeah, those stories exist bc people relate to it. And they go a bit in a circle.

Then Lin just falls asleep right there.

FERDINAND & EDELGARD A

Ferdinand asks for some compassion from Edelgard about killing his father, but then says that's just pity and tells Edelgard to just give him the order she wants.

Edelgard says she's not here bc she wants something, she just wants his typical effort.

Ferdinand can't die here or history won't remember him well.

Edelgard then says imagine what history will say about me if I lose?

Then Ferdinand says he'll gladly die to further Edelgard's goals because her life matters more.

And because he's not from Faerghus, that's a good thing because dying for Edelgard = good, dying for Dimitri = bad. Or Edelgard can't recognize her own hypocrisy (Claude, at least, thinks "dying for Claude = bad" per his "wtf, Hilda" in CF).

I know Edelgard approves of Ferdinand's attitude (which is the EXACT SAME as Sylvain, Ingrid, etc . . .) because she says he's such a great noble she wouldn't have to get rid of them if they were like him.

So, unlike Dimitri, who hates it whenever Ashe or Ingrid or whoever says "I'll die for you in battle bc your life means more!" and tells them not too, Edelgard is like "wow, that's such a great attitude that I wouldn't even need to start a war if they all thought like you." Yet, somehow, this game wants me to think the Faerghus fighting back against this idea is worse than the Empire glorifying it, lamo (since Monica has the same attitude in her Edelgard support, which isn't portrayed as a negative).

Ferdinand argues for the existence of the nobility and the structure they build, that she can't throw it away. She says that's not her plan. (so, has she like, not even told him her plans??? What happens if she dies?? Would anyone have a single clue what her plan was???)

Then it goes back to their CF support, where he argues for education. And this game makes it obvious that it never occurred to her that poor people can't just automatically compete with nobles. That this dodo bird has killed hundreds of thousands without considering the gap between the poor and rich, lamo. Hopes is gold for confirming she never thought of this, only Ferdinand did.

I know Yuri does the same for Dimitri, but Dimitri already had the right idea of knowing the poor needed their basic needs meant before they can advance (and familiarizing himself with how they live unlike her staying in her ivory tower), and he also, you know, didn't go killing everyone who won't bow their heads to him bc he thinks his plans are so brilliant.

SHAMIR & HAPI C

Shamir is in a church. Hapi is confused, until Shamir says she's looking for some peace and quiet.

Hapi's "not the praying type" either. But she also just wanted quiet.

Shamir doesn't seem annoyed with Hapi's nickname, which is why Shamir is never annoying. She's edgy, yeah, but not in an annoying way.

She's talking about some pagan statue in the abyss. I honestly don't remember that.

Ohh, Shamir wound up in the abyss after the war. Then ran into trouble with the church. And Rhea hired her.

That pagan is actually from Dagda. One of their deities. Cool lore. It's apparently their god of fate.

They both wonder why it's there. Good question.

SHEZ & DOROTHEA A

Dorothea is singing for Shez. Who's like, yeah, it's good.

She's disappointed with the lack of response, because Shez isn't very cultural lol.

He says it made him warm, like his mother growing up. So he actually does get it because Dorothea was singing a lullaby.

It's a lost song though, and Dorothea doesn't know the words (only sang lalala, you cowards, give us lyrics like Annette gets!) But the song got researched and her melody is a guess.

Shez tells Dorothea that her voice touches people even if they don't understand high-art, like himself.

Dorothea lost her passion while working while singing, but she's getting her passion back now, thanks in part to Shez.

Shez thinks Dorothea speaks beautifully and can reach people's hearts, and credits her training, so it wasn't worthless. Unlike Shez who can't string a sentence together.

Dorothea says that Shez isn't back with words. And that he was actually pretty smooth and flirty.

Honestly, super cute support at the end.

EDELGARD & BERNADETTA A

Edelgard lists her worries at night; Bernie walks in on her. It's one of the places Bernie goes to be alone.

Bernie asks if Edelgard is alright after hearing the list, and offers to listen, which seems a bit OOC for Bernie.

Edelgard appreciates it, but says Bernie would get tired of it.

Bernie thinks the curse eating away at her is the same as the one eating away at Edelgard. Edelgard is impressed with Bernie's insight because she guesses right.

Edelgard is upset that TWSITD is still around after thinking she's already beaten him.

Edelgard says being kind to people doesn't help people recover from pain. Consistent with her characterization, but I HATE "feminine" things like compassion are weak instead you gotta just man your way through it (bc it's toxic to your mental health) and the game mostly proves her wrong though.

HUBERT & CASPAR B

This is their only support.

Hubert gets a report that Caspar located enemies scouting the base. He attacked, no enemies survived, and he got hurt.

Hubert's questions were all hopeful that at least one survived, but because Caspar's an idiot no one should trust with command of an army, of course they're missing intel now.

Caspar brags about it to Hubert, lamo. What an idiot. Caspar's inability to read people is also not a good thing for a commander.

Hubert is unimpressed. Actually sees it as bad.

Caspar counters that Hubert is impressed with Berligtz does it, but Hubert's like "those were reinforcements, also, he's competent."

This is why Hubert is best boy in the Black Eagles. (he or Dorothea are by far my favorite Eagles)

Caspar is like well my gut said attack, so I went, not caring at all like the smartest guy in the army thinks his plot was stupid.

Hubert keeps lecturing him. Saying he'll get people killed.

Caspar's like "if you wanna make a name for yourself, you gotta risk death!"

So . . . Caspar doesn't care that he hurt the Empire's war efforts by killing spies rather than capturing them, nor that he got his men hurt by his rash actions, because he "proved himself in battle to gain status."

Caspar is just really awful in this game. Hubert, though, is gold in this support, as usual. Even when he's a dick, he's an entertaining dick (and usually supposed to be seen as wrong lol)

Caspar learned exactly 0 things in that support.

LINHARDT & CASPAR A

Caspar wakes Linhardt up, who's slept into midday.

Caspar claims he found something amazing. Linhardt is like usually you're wrong about that.

Caspar wants to show off a huge bear someone took down. Linhardt is grossed out by the gore. Caspar really has 0 ability to see any POV but his own and understand who he's talking too.

Caspar wants to hunt it. Linhardt's like, ok, then go. Lamo.

Caspar wants to fight a bare bare-handed.

Linhardt bring up when Caspar's dad took down a bare when he was younger than Caspar. Caspar still insists he'll do it, and used to drag Lin along while bear hunting. This is how he learned healing.

I think Caspar got really dumbed down in Hopes.

Lin's like, let's focus on the war, not bears, ok? Caspar at least agrees to this.

LINHARDT & EDELGARD B

Their only support.

Edelgard plays with a cat, only after making sure no one can see her. Then Linhardt walks in, and she's thrown off.

Edelgard pretends she doesn't know the cat. Lin calls her out.

Lin likes cats. I don't know why Edelgard is surprised. Lin is basically a human cat.

Edelgard likes cats because of how they help humans (get rid of rodents, etc . . .)

Lin keeps arguing that cats are awesome because they trick people into waiting on them hand and foot.

Edelgard asks if he's owned a cat. Lin's like, seriously, that's too much work.

She's being so difficult because she didn't want Lin to own the cat.

Edelgard made a funny, accusing Lin of aspiring to be a cat.

This gap moe Edelgard stuff works wayyyy better than the stuff in Houses, imo.

SHEZ & CASPAR A

Haha, Shez is like, "Oh Caspar, there you are," and Caspar assumes that he wants to practice, Shez is like, yeah, but with your dad.

This game really dunks on Caspar, everyone just talks about how much better his dad is lamo.

Caspar is like, you're too ordinary to spare with my dad.

Apparently Count Bersraser whatever his name is really hurts people when they train, and Caspar tells Shez to cancel his plans.

After the sparing, Shez is exhausted, but Shez did better than anyone else ever did.

MAIN BATTLE

I don't remember who I'm fighting this chapter.

Why does Claude get a picture in SB? Will I see it in GW too?

Waaaaiiiitttt, is Claude . . . turning against the Empire?

He's like, we only agreed to pair with Edelgard under duress and bc the other option is the Kingdom protecting Rhea - who invented racism, who is the only reason hierarchies exist, and who made Claude stub his toe this morning.

Ok, so siding with the Empire is stupid, but thinking the Alliance can fight the Empire, Kingdom, and Church is maybe the stupidest move yet, lamo.

He thinks Dimitri will "shackle us to their outdated customs" because, you know, Dimitri is all about ruling the Empire and Alliance and not improving the Kingdom at all or anything. Projection much?

This is so funny, and dumb. Not like the writing has ever cared about making Claude look like he has the intelligence to surpass a toddler in this game.

Yep, Claude turned against the Empire, lamo.

Cut scene time! They're just marching and talking about the battle.

Dimitri's here too. And Dedue's right beside him. Of course.

Claude too, and he's like "too bad we can't do something more civilized" - like, my dude, you are part of the problem.

Seteth coming in on a dragon looking badass. He's begging Flayn to retreat. But she won't. Please don't make me kill her :(

Edelgard's like "time to prove the Empire's supremacy!" and "anyone who stands in our way must be cut down!" But see, this is why I like her so much better in SB. It's just more honest and tries less to twist things around to make her into a typical princess type, instead of owning (at least a little more) the red emperor type she is.

Fuck, I have to defeat Flayn. She's healing people, not attacking, but I still have to take her out. If it was a side mission, I'd ignore it. Hubert mocks her like "is this the second coming of Saint Cethleann" - well, about that . . . .

Now Felix appeared :( It's also a main mission I can't ignore. At least it looks like he's retreating.

Only for Sylvain to show up, which isn't any better :( Fuck, he's claiming he's avenging Ingrid :(

OH FUCK. He actually died. Begging for forgiveness from Dimitri. SB is really the most bloody path :(

Dimitri sounded so upset. I really feel the like the villain. It's by far the route with the highest named character count killed (Rodrigue, Ingrid, Annette, Gilbert, Sylvain) AND my main goal is to kill Flayn because she's . . . healing people.

At least Flayn retreats. She makes Seteth promise to do the same :( (If I have to kill Seteth too, I swear to GOD).

Please let Dedue retreat :((((((

I also have to defeat Hilda :( Sad, but not big sad.

THANK FUCK. Dedue retreated. Dimitri sounded near tears.

Now I have to defeat Seteth too :( Thank God, he retreated. I think Hilda did too?

Now I have to defeat Dimitri and Claude. I am considerably more upset about the former. I wonder if they live or die.

I'm letting the other units fight Dimitri. I'm tired of killing him. I'll go kill Claude, which doesn't upset me much.

Lamo, Edelgard was like, go back to your people! Stop protecting the church - like, as if her plan isn't to take over Faerghus regardless? Dimitri smelled her bullshit at least.

If Claude retreated, does that mean Dimitri does too?

Ok, he retreated at least. Still Sylvain :(((

Ohhhhh, Byleth the final boss? Sothis has possessed Byleth though. But he seems along for the ride bc Byleth's pissed we killed Jeralt.

Shez vs Byleth cut scene again, except unlike in AG, Byleth is Sothis possessed and Shez is Shez, but then Shez goes demon mode too.

Shez is worn down, but wins bc Byleth stops glowing, so I think Byleth dies?

NARRATION

Yep, we killed Byleth. Shez feels empty about it though. And talks about this being a horrible mistake and wishes there was another way to solve this.

Funny how he only cares about Byleth and not all the other people who died (Sylvain, and tons and tons of people).

Arval feels freed though, from an old quest, and major relief, and starts crying.

So you have to either choose between Byleth dies, but Shez and Arval are on good terms, or Byleth lives and Arval and Shez aren't happy (I think, since he took Shez over in the special chapter, but I haven't played that in AG yet).

Ok, so this battle took me 26 minutes. AG took me 4, because Dimitri is just that absurd. He kills bosses so fast. Like before the dialogue finishes. It's just so absurd.

Edelgard is worried because Rhea and the knights weren't seen (or most of them), she's also under the impression Rhea would love a battle like this, but Rhea's never seen bloodthirsty? Vengeful, but not battle loving.

The main force will proceed with occupying Galatea :((((( That small bit of dialogue - knife to my heart.

No one even mentioned Sylvain :(

xxx

#fire emblem #scarlet blaze #fire emblem three hopes #three hopes #scarlet blaze spoilers

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goatofgehenna · 4 months

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I have to rant about this article and I don't know where to do it other than here. So I'm currently playing a modded version of this game, it's much better than the vanilla game by the way, but reading this article made me very angry for a multitude of reasons.

I was already kind of irritated that the game was lacking so much in the way of interpersonal relationships with npcs, like pretty much the only way you get friends in this game is going on quests you can't interact with most of the Hogwarts students or really most of the townspeople. I wish we had a little bit more of a Sims like structure going on there, like come on I want to make some acquaintances some friends some best friends some enemies some crushes I can't do any of those things unless I'm just following a quest line and because the lines of dialogue don't really have any consequences, as in I can be as mean as I want and the character just kind of takes me on the quest anyways, it makes the character interactions feel lackluster.

To comment specifically on the romance element though for which this article is addressing - it disturbed me that they were calling it unethical or morally dubious to add light romance options. Have they read the original Harry Potter? Pretty sure half of the cast had crushes by the time they were fourth year or fifth year. Have they read any kind of a teen fantasy novel, forget about a teen romance, I mean like teen adventure... literally anything.. I grew up on those kinds of books - adding romantic side plots is almost a staple to them and it's not morally dubious - it's a natural part of coming of age which is another important part of that subgenre.

The Sims has multiple age groups. You can start utilizing the flirt social interaction with a teen Sim. I have never seen anything dubious about hugging, first kiss, hand holding, going on a date with the teen age group in that game. Do they think that the Sims is unethical because they've been adding this category for over 20 years?

I mean this just isn't a real argument here - it's an aggravating cop out. I don't need this to be wizard dating Sim, I just want to be able to have more variety of meaningful interaction with characters. I want my dialogue options to actually mean something. What if I had a reputation counter or a relationship counter again like in Sims... It would mean that my dialogue choices might affect how likely characters are to open a side quest to me. Say that I was really mean to them they probably wouldn't offer me to join their secret club.. I would have to go back to them and interact with them in a nicer way to win over their favor.

This reputation thing could even extend to how the other students talk to me and engage with me in the hallways. It would make the entire world of this game feel more alive and more like you the player are in control of what's happening.

I just got very aggravated at the fact that they're essentially gaslighting people for wanting a literally normal human interaction in a totally age-appropriate for it game, even being that the main characters in this game are older than or the age of the characters in the original series of books that this game was based on when they were having these kind of first crush scenarios. Like... What the hell are they even talking about?

Okay I'm off my soapbox now lol 🤣

#rant #hogwarts legacy

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rubalotl · 9 months

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I live in Palia now

So my first impression of Palia is that it's very much a tedious grind game, but I'm still very much invested in it atm. You need a lot of gold, the only progression systems are leveling up your skills and improving your relationships with the NPCs. You also have a home instance with a house that you can make look nice and cozy.

Your skills are:

Foraging (Taught by Ahsura)

Mining (Taught by Hodari)

Hunting (Taught by Hassian)

Fishing (Taught by Einar)

Bug catching (Taught by Auni)

Farming (Taught by Badruu)

Cooking (Taught by Reth)

Furniture making (Taught by Tish)

Up until level 10 you can buy crafting recipes in exchange for gold from the NPCs associated with each skill, like tool upgrades and crafters. Once you've reached level 10 all crafting recipes are available to you, and all you need is the gold to buy them.

After you reach level 10 it seems like you can then continue leveling up, but while using a skill you will periodically get another skill-specific currency that you can exchange for fancy items from each skill-specific NPC. Which I IMAGINE will relieve you a bit from the constant gold grind, since you never have to spend any more gold on another recipe again, which sounds amazing.

And then there are the relationships with the NPCs, some romanceable. You improve your relationship with them by talking to them, giving them gifts, and completing the quests that they give you (usually dull fetch quests, but I get to improve my skills in the process and the items they've asked for haven't been too hard to find). And so far it has been interesting getting to know them, they have already given interesting tidbits about their pasts that makes me want to know more about them.

As an aroace I'm a bit ??? about the romance thing, but I'm curious about seeing how it's written and I'm really hoping it's tolerable to me. There is queer positivity in the game, which makes me hope the writers thought about aro and ace people as well. I want queerplatonic energy, p l e a s e.

Anyway! The only reason I had time to write this little summary of the game's progression systems is because the servers are currently down lol. It is a tedious grind, but I'm still playing it after 5 days. I think my own desire to be invested in this world drives that.

I love the art style of it and exploring is fun, the environments are beautiful. I'm very interested in the lore, and I'm curious to see where the main story goes. And I'm also very curious to see what Palia will look like a year from now.

#rubabble #palia #closed beta

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mosses-gate-3 · 3 months

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1, 2 & 7 for general, 7 for story specific, and 4, 5 & 11 for romance

Hiii, thank you so much!! Answering these for Ren because I already did some for the other two :D

(Future Moss speaking, this is a LONG one, buckle up)

1- Where can your Tav be recruited? Are they first encountered on the Nautiloid, or in the Nautiloid crash region? Or are they not recruitable until a later act?

They can first be recruited in the Nautiloid crash area and are found muttering seemingly to themselves near the second pass through the crashed ship.

2- Do the other companions have special comments or reactions upon recruiting your Tav?

Nothing in particular, just the usual suspicion. One or two of them might mention Ren talking to themselves if they're in the party when they're recruited.

7- Do they have their own personal quest that spans the course of the game? Can it take different branching paths depending on the choices the Player Character makes?

Yes!! Ren's personal quest is something I've thought a lot about and I plan on making a wiki for them eventually. It can have different branching paths that will affect the ending- no spoilers though!! The main thing you need to know is that they will have a bit of a crisis after the end of act 2 and through act 3 you can either encourage them to pursue necromancy & resurrect [REDACTED IMPORTANT NPC] (generally what i consider their bad ending), or you can encourage them to move on and find meaning in the living world (good ending).

7- What can they be found doing at the tiefling/goblin party? + 4- Do they have a special romance scene at the tiefling/goblin party?

Combining these so I can write this out properly -

Siding with the goblins will lock you out of their romance completely. They will refuse to attack the tieflings if you have them in the active party, and if you leave them at camp while raiding the grove you will have to do a series of intimidation or persuasion checks to convince them to stay. Either way their approval will drop drastically.

Tiefling party interaction:

Ren can be found tinkering with something at their desk (which is where they spend most of their time, their tent is kind of bare-bones in contrast with the clutter on and around their workspace).

Ren: Oh, hello there.

[1] Enjoying the party?

Ren: ...Not quite my scene, but it's nice that the others are having fun.

[1A] Not my scene either. Ren: Ah, really? A kindred spirit then. I'd take a night in over a party any day. Ren: Either way, I'm glad we could help these people. [to next] [1B] Really? I love parties. Ren: Oh well, to each their own. Ren: Either way, I'm glad we could help these people. [to next]

> [1A2] I couldn't just stand by while they were kicked out. > Ren: That's good to hear. The world could use more people like you. [+2 approval] > [1B2] I'm starting to regret it, myself. > Ren: ...Well, what's done is done. [-2 approval] > [1C2] It seemed like the best way to get information about the tadpoles. > Ren: Agreed. [back to questions list]

[2] What are you making?

Ren: Just a trinket, nothing important. I've missed having the chance to create things for fun rather than out of need.

[2A] I'm sure it'll turn out beautiful. Ren: Maybe I'll show you when it's done. [+1 approval] [This will start the romance] [2B] You shouldn't be wasting the supplies. Ren: ...You're probably right. Oh well. [-1 approval] [This will cancel the romance] > [to next]

[If you told them you liked parties] Ren: Anyway, I won't keep you here. Go on, be social, enjoy yourself.

[If you told them you hated parties] Ren: Anyway, I won't keep you here. Go enjoy yourself, or at least find somewhere quiet to hide.

[1] I wanted to spend the night with you.

[If you answered 2A earlier and have high approval overall]: *Roll Persuasion (dc: 7). If you fail this there will still be a scene later (in the Underdark) where you can romance them. You get +3 approval regardless.* Success - Ren: ...I'd like that. I'll meet you when the party's died down, then? Fail - Ren: Thank you, but I think I'll turn in early. Perhaps another night? [If you don't meet the criteria/have already asked someone else] Ren: Ah, no thank you.

(the other two options they just tell you goodnight)

**Side note: When playing a Ren origin run you can talk to Juniper at camp. She has special dialogue at the party if you approach her after pursuing a romance route, though this changes depending on how successful you are. Mostly she laughs and makes fun of your taste.

5- Does the romance have different branching paths, or just one route to take?

Ehh, kind of. There is of course the bad ending vs good ending route, but the romance doesn't hinge on that.

11- What are Tav’s plans for the future? Do they propose to the PC, or is marriage not something they’re interested in?

Ren's dream is to settle down somewhere and open a shop, though what they actually end up doing depends on their ending. In the necromancy route they will base their life around the resurrection quest and continue to travel around, they will ask you to join them of course. In the acceptance route they propose officially and you can decide whether to settle down or not. Generally it's implied that you go to visit their parents & hometown in the Waterdeep area.

**Side note on the Waterdeep thing: If you don't romance them and they follow the acceptance route there's dialogue where they contemplate visiting Gale. When approaching an unromanced professor ending Gale as a Ren origin with the artificer shop ending he greets them and says he's heard their business is gaining popularity, then promises to stop by at some point. (this also happens in the form of party banter/idle dialogue if you're not playing as either of them and they meet the right ending criteria)

#bg3 #bg3 tav #my ocs #my tav #moss says things #reneeginald #gale

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rpgchoices · 2 years

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Sometimes I really want to read a short summary of what to expect from a game… and thankfully people can also submit their summaries of games they played and help me (and others) find games that cater to their interests!

submitted by @lairofsentinel

(click here for other videogames)

what to expect from THE WAYLANDERS

“RPG” that it’s not such; it’s more like a linear adventure with companions set in ancient /old Northwest of Spain, where most of the ibero-celts lived.

Due to a terrible design choice, the characters speak in urban modern English, using slang and curses such as asshole, prick, piece of shit, for fuck’s sake, what the fuck, fucking, etc. It brutally breaks the fantasy setting, making the characters sound like a modern sitcom.

You can play as male or female and pick one of three different pronouns: he, she, they. When it comes to races, you can play as a werewolf, a mourian (immortal race), or a human. Each race has particular resistances that don't matter since the combat is terribly designed anyway.

You have several basic classes that can specialise in subclasses, for example: a sorcerer is the basic class to become frost sorcerer, pyromancer, or necromancer.

This story contains time travel. However, it’s a time travel that still remains in the past: in this game, the ‘past’ is when the Celt culture was at its peak, while the ‘future’ is during the Christian Inquisition, as the last religion wiping out the druid culture of the Celts. Despite being a nice concept to explore, the delivery of the story is terrible.

You acquire a magical ship that allows you to jump across time. However, despite having all your crew in it, the time travel only happens to you. I repeat myself: this game has a problem with narrative details. Well, with narrative in general.

The game uses a fantasy map of Spain, it’s easy to notice it. There is a strong focus on the Compostela Church as well. From a design and aesthetic point of view, the game does a nice job, combining real places such as Compostela or Ulver’s castle and making them fantasy places where part of the story happens.

Scenery and graphics are nice, balanced, aesthetically harmonic with their own style, but still yet you feel that most environments are “empty”. There is a lot of nice design in this game but, sadly, it is very unpolished.

You meet companions along the way that, as long as they are not bugged, can occasionally talk to you in the ship. Each of them has a personal quest: one in the past, another in the future.

Most companions’ quests are about killing someone or looking for someone.

There are many quests where you are a messenger, delivering words from A char to B char and vice versa.

Companions can be romanced, or at least, the game has been sold saying that. The truth is that it’s very crappy: so far, I only could trigger two “romance” conversations, the rest of the companions have no such option or it’s bugged as most of the game is. The romance happens immediately after completion of the only personal quest that each of the companions has. The romance is just expressing the interest/feelings for the main character and it’s not acknowledged ever again.

The game sometimes gives you options to make big decision, but they are mostly fake. They don’t end up affecting the main story in the slightest.

The main character has a terrible insertion in this world. Their race is not acknowledged [for example, I played a Mourian ( immortal race), and companions and NPCs kept treating my char as if he were a standard mortal person. Details of this level [or any level, at this point] are completely lost in the story.

The general story and the quests, despite having good ideas, are executed extremely poorly. Most of the time you don’t know what’s happening. The scenes sometimes jump from the past to the present and there is no transition.

Chars that appear in the beginning of the game are completely forgotten during the story, and appear later in the last moment at the end, being the very epilogue of the game.

You will find stupid and nonsensical scenes like the king waiting several seconds before being killed while telling their people that he loves the queen when he could have run perfectly well from that deadly situation. He dies without any narrative purpose, sense, or motivation. After the tragedy of losing their king, the armies are just “meh” and celebrate too eagerly the return to their lands showing zero mourning spirit for their beloved king. This game has a massive problem in narrative coherence and transitions. There are a lot of situations where the events are simply ridiculous.

Cinematic and animations are well done, but their transitions between the events tends to be disastrous. You can jump from the past to the present [especially by the end of the game] and you have no idea what happened in the middle.

Fully voiced (or it tries to, some parts have been left in silence). Your own char never speaks, pretty much like the “warden” from DAO. Even though the game tries to be fully voiced, sometimes entire lines have not been voiced in the middle of a conversation that started fully voiced, or they are not the same as the ones you can read in the subtitle. Sometimes the sound changes its quality in the middle of the sentence (feels like a sound patch). One can see the extreme lack of polishing in this game.

Combat is bad and terrible. Unbalanced, stuck most of the time, and the powers you cast are poor. The system that allows you to pick new powers or upgrade the ones you already have is filled with bugs and lack of explanations: for example, you can see two symbols to pick in your character’s sheet, but you have no idea what each of those icons represent.

Every time you fight [whether be in a farm, in a castle, in a forest, in a cave, or in a lost plane of the universe], there is an epic music playing in the background and a constant sound of a cow mooing… it’s a big constant WTF.

Combat with bosses is pretentious, hilarious, and weird as fuck: you see that their health bar is enormous, almost as if it were a parody of Dark Soul games. It never goes down no matter how much damage you make. However, the damage is being made somehow, and then, out of the blue, you suddenly kill the boss.

The story tried to create a plot twist by the end. It went poorly.

Short game that takes ages to finish because you need to replay entire parts trying to avoid the bugs. I think it would be completed in around 40 hours if it had no bugs.

——- Plot? ——-

It’s not very clear. You are with the King of the Celts on an Island, trying to meet the Celt gods. However, the meeting is not going well. The gods are not appearing and something called “corruption” seems to spread in the living creatures and make them lose their sanity. The king and the group that came with him [you and some companions] join into a quick expedition of the isle to see what’s going on with the gods, but things end up out of control.

——- Gameplay? ——-

Standard real-time combat RPG, with the possibility to pause and queue powers. However the queue mechanics don't work well.

——- Characters? ——-

Several: mostly your companions and some important NPCs. All of them have interesting nice initial premises but they all end up incomplete or shallow. It’s very disappointing.

——- LGBT? ——-

If romance is possible, all companions should be bisexual or at least most of them.

One of them is a non-binary veteran warrior. The egyptian scholar companion is bisexual.

You have a companion who reincarnates in another gender (I’m not sure how much lgbt this can be, but… it’s clear that this was going to be a nice hook to make the player think about genre if the game were not so bad at delivering narratives).

——- Sadness level? ——-

None. Buggy level: hiper high.

——- Happy ending? Deaths? ——-

Like everything in this game, the end is very abrupt with 3 sentences to round up the fate of two chars that appeared in the beginning of the game and then in the ending. There is nothing more about companions or the effect of apparent important decisions you made.

#what to expect #waylanders #the waylanders #lairofsentinel

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showyoumyfavoriteobsession · 7 months

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endgame spoilers

finished playthrough #2! orpheus fucking rules and i'm so glad i went that route this time, it was very exciting to fight the emperor at the end. also led to the most narratively satisfying nat 20 i've ever gotten:

however, i was a little surprised lae'zel didn't seem to get a more finished scene after you decide what to do with orpheus. in my first playthrough i didn't do any of her story, and she got a little scene where she called down a dragon and flew away satisfied. knowing now what that actually meant, i would have liked to see a little parallel scene where she and orpheus (and/or voss) get to fly off into the sunset to confront vlaakith. i really really loved her storyline but i wish a little more had been put into the end.

the final moments are a LOT more satisfying if you're actually romancing someone lmao, i loved that i got scenes with both halsin and astarion, loved the implication that my tav and "daddy" halsin just spent their first night of freedom fucking the hell out of each other, and loved assuring astarion that i did want to stay with him and guide a whole horde of vampire spawn together. very fun stuff.

i let karlach die on the surface again, but reloaded the conversation after the credits to see what it's like if you convince her to go back to avernus. it was a cool scene, and i shouldn't have been surprised that it overruled all your other romance scenes (you ARE going to hell, after all), but if i had gone with that "canonically" in my run i probably would have felt a little cheated out of the other relationships i spent so much time on. i love karlach but she wasn't even in my party for most of the game.

i can't believe i'm considering even more playthroughs - i am starting to feel a little burnt out on this game, but there are still more things i want to see. the main ones i'm considering are a gale origin playthrough where i romance wyll (the last male character i haven't romanced, plus actually running karlach in my main party and i'm curious what the origin stories are like), and a full evil durge playthrough to recruit minthara and get a bad ending. i'm tempted to try and do the evil playthrough next since both of my first playthroughs have been basically good-aligned, and a gale origin with wyll romance is going to be like. peak goody-two-shoes energy lol. maybe i'll try to do the next playthroughs a little faster, although i was expecting my second playthrough to be faster and it took almost exactly the same amount of time as the first lol.

anyway, final thoughts! durge was a really interesting run, it’s such a cool idea to make the player character feel a lot more integrated with the world. i loved that whenever i ran into random npcs who knew my character, i still had a good canonical/roleplay reason to not know them. and while i'm a little iffy on the ~durge/astarion is canon~ discourse that's floating around, it was a really good complement to the plot and both of their character arcs.

i think my main complaint about the game is a common one, and it's that i wish there was more content for platonic companion relationships. i understand it makes sense (and adds replay value) to have some stuff locked exclusively behind romance - and i like the romances a lot! i've had more fun with them than i have in maybe any other game! but i felt this very acutely with lae'zel's story this time around. she and astarion have similar approval triggers, so she also had very high approval even by the end of act 1, but the only character moments we got were specifically related to her quest, and it doesn't feel like you get as much of a chance to just... become a friend. halsin definitely suffers from this too, to some extent; i know he's a much more secondary character, but even wandering around the world it felt like he didn't have nearly as much banter or random observations as the rest.

there are also still a good number of semi-distracting bugs. nothing game-breaking for me, and it's been nice to see a lot of stuff get fixed! (since patch 3 i don't think i've seen the dreaded "1. Continue" one time!) but i saw a lot of surprisingly janky animations for my player character, and even though i didn't interact with him much this time around, gale has seemed especially buggy since patch 3 - saying the wrong things, fully facing the wrong way in some conversations, weird camera in his scenes, etc. and i've heard that minthara is still pretty buggy, so maybe i'll wait for the next major patch before i start a new playthrough for real. i saved before major plot points a lot more consciously this time, so i have some places where i can go back and replay things in a different way without starting a whole new run. plus, there's always character creation...

anyway. it's past midnight on a work night. one last picture of my tav in his slutty little robe for you all:

#j rambles #one more long-ass liveblog post before i go the hell to sleep #in which j liveblogs #4 #5 #baldur's gate 3

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senseandaccountability · 2 years

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Lilith emotes about Cyberpunk act 2, part 1

This isn’t relevant to most of you, but I’m playing Cyberpunk without spoiling myself, so there’s a lot of reactions and feels in my corner. Cut for them.

First, I fucking love my corpo V. (I also love dressing her in the weirdest rags because I headcanon that she seizes the opportunity to be living a bit like a city that just broke out of some facist regime - I’m going to paint this wall PINK and the roof will be BLUE so there!) I also have Nomad V and Streetkid V and they are the best but Corpo V currently holds my heart in her well-manicured fingers. I rp her as someone who is 100% done with corpo bullshit, though, so my feeling about this lifepath might change depending on how the game will let me go out. Have currently done all main missions up to Gimme Danger, last night I did Never Fade Away and man. Oh, man.

This idiot. (I love him.)

And this dude. I mean, it’s a very underdeveloped romance and he seems impopular in fandom (?) but oh. I’m weak for huge guys who takes care of their families, what can I say. Though I’ve never felt like less of catch in any video game, ever. People come on to V and I want the option to answer “I’M A DUMPSTER FIRE HOUSING ANOTHER DUMPSTER FIRE GET AWAY”. Also it’s worth it for Johnny’s angst at having fucked a cop. I hear you, Johnny but - arms. Guy looks like a tree and has a nice voice, I’m gonna video game romance him. Tale as old as time.

And these guys. Big dusty nomad family. A little salty about the fact that it feels like Panam is the One True Romance path but I do love her anyway.

And Misty. She’s probably my favourite NPC in the entire game. I’m also truly enjoying most side missions and just, you know, walking around in NC. It’s been such an immersive experience so far for me, I’ve cried several times and laughed out loud and felt V’s frustrated state of mind. More to come, I’m sure. Tonight I’m off to quest with Goro and I already know fandom wants to collectively romance this grump, so I’m looking forward to it. I’ve fallen a little bit in love with him because you know, he’s a competent cranky bastard and we all know I’m a sucker for the “local guy gets asked how he’s doing and it’s the first time in forever someone shows affection so he is a fucking asshole about it” trope. (See: all my fandoms.)

#lilith plays cyberpunk #cyberpunk 2077 #johnny silverhand

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memethemastermonarch · 2 years

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Mass Effect Tag Game, Except I Get No ME Mutuals

To celebrate finishing 3, here I go!

Been a fan since: Late February 2022. I got into it from a combination of this Youtube video by a Tali simp about ME3 and I just finished Dragon Age Origins after watching some TikToks on it and figured I’d go on a Bioware marathon. I originally meant to switch between Dragon Age and Mass Effect to keep myself balanced. I ended up playing the whole ME Trilogy one after the other.

Favorite game in the series: Absolutely ME2. I love all the games for different reasons, ME1′s exploration and ME3′s combat, but 2 is the most balanced. The large cast, the companion side quests, the way the ship was bigger, WAY better outfits for Shepard, and the scanning feature were all so fun. My main gripe in MELE is that ME2 is the only game that limits your weapon arsenal. Why the hell do Vanguards need an SMG? They don’t hit hard and suck unless it’s the DLC one!!! Other than that it’s so full of content despite being shorter than 3 by how many hours I’ve played.

MShep or FemShep: FemShep. I am female and I always prefer female MC voices in games anyway. Although props to MShep’s VA, love VAs that interact with communities.

Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer: Colonist. The side quest in ME1 is very sad and that one little clip of dialogue in 3... my heart.

Biotics or Tech: Biotics. Nothing beats floating enemies in the air or blasting them with Flare.

Paragon or Renegade: Paragade. I feel it fleshes out my Shepard more, although I’m a massive hypocrite sometimes with my choices of dialogue. It’s fun as hell though, and it’s how I could easily save both the Quarians and Geth.

Favorite Class: Vanguard supremacy! I also really love ME3′s Sentinel since I wanted to change up classes and wanted to keep up with my character’s biotics gig. Vanguard was super fun, but kind of hard to master for ME2. I’d say Vanguard would work best for me in 3 since I charge in or just run around the battlefield. I definitely want to do an Infiltrator playthrough though.

Favorite Companion: Garrus! I kinda of forced myself to use him and Liara in the first game to see why everyone likes them, but only Garrus stuck the mark for me. Liara’s cool, but Garrus surprisingly was so cool an in depth in 1 compared to many other characters for me. And how they develop him even further with the next games.. ugh! He’s amazing, like if Nick Valentine and Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd combined but before either was even an idea.

Least Favorite Companion: Zaheed is the only companion in the games I do not like, which actually shows how the casts is either very well written or at least likable. Not Zaheed. With how he and Kasumi’s dialogue was designed, it’s hard to get to know and understand him as a character. Plus he is a boring asshole WHO SET A FACTORY ON FIRE! Look, I’m all for revenge, I let Garrus kill that stupid traitor because that’s not something you can forgive, but don’t fucking put other people in danger for it. Dude even dies pathetically too in 3.

Squad Set Up: Garrus is always there like a little girl’s worn out teddy bear, balancing out my biotics. And Tali whenever she was avaliable. Liara, Kasumi, and Samara were my backup teammates

Favorite In-Game Romance: Garrus 100% all the way. I love his chemistry with Shepard, especially my Shepard. They are opposites in playstyles, and they are each other’s impulse control on stupid decision making. I love romances who banter like an old married couple but balance each other out on a deeper level. I also have massive respect for Tali and Thane fans, Tali being my second favorite character, and Thane just being a sad character. Thane simps make me cry because those guys are the queens of angst.

Favorite NPC: Donnelly and Daniels by far. Going down to Engineering felt a lot more alive with them around. They were cute and really funny. I wish they got together :(

Favorite Antagonist: Uhhhhh... uh oh. I don’t really any particular favor towards any of thems. Saren is cool, that fight cutscene at the bomb area is way cooler than with the Salarians. The Illusive Man has cool motivations and corruption arc, especially with the comics. The Reapers being ruthless AI is cool. The Collectors are sad too. Nothing sticks out to me though. I’ll just say the ME2 final boss I guess. That shit was badass and made me so hyped up.

Favorite Loyalty Mission: Miranda and Tali’s are so good!! They aren’t tedious like Thane and Samara’s, and the emotions I’ve felt during them were very sweet. Kasumi’s would be up here too if I didn’t suck at undercover missions.

Favorite Mission: Virmire is the mission in Mass Effect 1 that let me truly realize that my choices would be rewarded or punished VERY heavily at certain points. Doing Wrex’s mission before, choosing which teammate to sacrifice, and the hype before going to Ilos was what ruly made me enjoy this series. Mass Effect 1 is a good game. Virmire and beyond make it a great game.

Favorite DLC: CITADEL! CITADEL! CITADEL! CITADEL! Call it the inner weeb from me, but I do believe that the new Mass Effect would benefit from a companion system similar to like Three Houses or even Persona 5. I KNOW I KNOW it sound cringe but Citadel shows us that we love those moments between Shepard and the crew. AND they could get more character development and dialogue. No more calibrations! Or at least let us invite the gang to the bar or nightclub or just to watch a movie. I loved eating with my students in Three Houses, and I’d LOVE to go on dinner dates with Garrus and Tali. Other than Citadel, Omega and Shadow Broker are really good too! Aria’s Flare really made me know why you should not fuck with her. The Shadow Broker DLC was also a nice little archive for the squad’s personal information, getting money, and just watching people be stupid as hell in the vid showcase. Definitely has a nice reward for completing it.

Control, Synthesis, or Destroy: I chose Destroy in case we can port our Shepards from LE in the next game (I doubt it but I don’t like taking chances) but all of them feel sad. At least Control has a badass idea behind it. So... Idk I just want some Garrussy man. Just let me be happy in the next game

Favorite Weapons: I’m a very bad Vanguard. I like the geth assault rifle from the first game, and the Widow sniper rifle. Guess I have another reason to like Garrus. By 3 my Sentinel used snipers, assault rifles, and pistols in case I have no ammo. My power suffered as a result but I WAS RIGHT ABOUT AMMO AT THE END! I like to be prepared :(

Favorite Place: The Normandy SR2 before the Alliance fucked it up, and the Plaza from the Citadel DLC. I loved playing arcade games and getting decorations for my house and then hanging out with my friends :)))

Favorite Quotes: AHHH I SUCK AT REMEMBERING BUT THAT VOLUS THOUGH

“I am a biotic god! Fear me!”

-Niftu Cal, the Volus from Samara’s recruit mission

Thank you for reading this. I loved reading other people’s experiences and I hope more people get to have fun in the Milky Way in the future. I have no ME mutuals, so anyone is up to doing this too! I’d love to hear more opinions on the series.

#mass effect

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trashcatsnark · 3 years

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WHY THE FUCK WERE UP SO LATE??? FUCKING UR SO LUCKY I CANT BEAT UR ASS OTHERWISE ITD BE KNUCKLE CITY

anyway, speaking about johnny boy i was thinking about him + nibbles and our like collective desicion that he is essiently a cat and it is really weirdly fitting that it just makes me like ???? so like cats themselves are a reoccuring motif within the game from the start, when u go to viks, when ur chatting up takemura and at the end with the rooftop that also doubles as like the millionith matrix reference. they follow v and they take up the role of the bakeneko, which i think in the game is defined by them appearing near death ? or just disaster. the obvious thing is that it is to do with v's inpending death and their whole sitation but like the general point is like the cat symbolises the death that follows v as the cat follows them. this puts johnny in an interesting sitation from his catlike nature to how he seems to like and get along with nibbles, he is linked with cats. he is also the parasite that is killing v. he is V's bakeneko. their signal of death. the events start because of his relic, jackie dies for him, and soon does most of the cast from act 1, and a large part of the death from then on is a direct result of them trying to solve the relic and johnny's whole presence is a signal for hey v ur fucking dying. he is death for them. the bakeneko.

makes me wonder if his catlike attributes were intentionally done cause that boy aint right or we just accidently walked on a really thematic fitting landmind

Spoilers within, again, also leave my sleeping schedule alone, I do not function. Additionally, I have a lot to say about Nibbles, omens, cats, and pets then how they all relate back to Johnny so congrats on opening a flood gate my friend!

think the thematic thing with Johnny and cats and the bakeneko has to 1000000 percent be intentional, because he even sees a cat when Alt is kidnapped. And that goes back to Cyberpunk Red. Like that was used and utilized and then became such a large part of the story.

Johnny is clearly meant to be a bakeneko; he’s actively next to the cat in that conversation, leaves when it does, see the same cat before Alt’s death, and is again the visual representation of what is happening to V. He is the symbol of their death, whether he wants to be or not.

I think it’s also interesting to note, the Bakeneko, which is described as an omen of death and misfortune isn’t the only way we see cats used thematically within the game. Albeit, this way is more subtle and perhaps intentionally so. We also see the maneki-neko; the lucky cat statues are everywhere in game. In V’s apartment, Misty’s shop, Vik’s clinic. Everyyyyyywhereeeeee.

So, we see two mythological cats from Japanese culture. One brings misfortune and one brings good luck. And Johnny exemplifies both.

Johnny is a visual representation of all that is destroying V. His mere existence and presence a constant reminder that their death is around the corner. An ever present omen that V’s clock is ticking. He also often pops up to have a comment just before massive relic malfunctions and disasters. The end of every main game quest is punctuated with a relic malfunction and a lecture from Johnny.

But without the chip and by extension Johnny, V would already be dead. If the chip hadn’t been the exact right place to be damaged and activated by the gunshot; it would have killed V right then and there. And while this wasn’t an active choice on Johnny’s part, he is the visual representation of the chip. Even then, he later does make an active choice to save V’s life. When V is hit with the worst malfunction yet; Johnny grabs them, “you aren’t dying yet, I got you” and he takes them to safety. He refuses to watch V seize and die in a puddle of their own sick in the middle of nowhere (for me it’s always at the sunset hotel, idk if this changes based on the order you do the events tho) So, he takes control, he eases their pain and takes them somewhere safe, somewhere that means something to him, and swears to die for them.

Luck both good and bad. Fortune and misfortune. A sign of better days and an omen of death. A maneki-neko and a bakeneko. The time bomb in V’s head and the guy who saved their life. He is both.

Now, stepping away from the mythological aspects. Lets talk about Nibbles the cat, Johnny, and pets within Cyberpunk 2077. Animals and by extension pets are considered a luxury in Night City. They’re taxed to fuck and back, generally only the wealthy can have them. Its also often brought up that real friends and family who stick by you are very difficult to come by. V becomes through Nibbles one of the rare people to have a pet. One of the other people who had a pet is, Barry their neighbor.

Barry and his mission is one of the first you can unlock and see in the game. He’s V’s downstairs neighbor and his story is played out so fucking similarly to V’s. Barry lost his best friend, he’s quit his job because he can’t handle the weight of the NCPD’s corruption, and he’s thinking of taking his own life. V has lost Jackie, its stated in game they get less work than usual because of Konpeki (cant be put on a crew), and very early on can say to Misty “be better off putting in my head”.

But for Barry that friend ends up being a pet tortoise. And its clear what that tortoise represents; a constant companion, a safe place, and a comfort. Something Barry couldn’t find among his peers until later on when they learn just how much he’s been hurting. And this is treated as such a tragedy, that he only has a pet to turn to.

And so V gets a cat, because they too are fucking hurting and having a little meowing bundle of skin running around their apartment helps. Something to come home to, something to make that apartment a little less empty, a little more alive.

So, how does this particular aspect of Nibbles/cats/pets relate to Johnny, I hear you wondering (as well as wondering when Im going to shut up). Well, we know Johnny is linked symbolically with cats and thats the choice of pet for V. And we knows pets have been likened to support without judgement; a companion who you can tell everything too and they won’t abandon you.

And while Johnny has heaps of judgment and is a dick. He is V’s only constant companion. I know a good junk of people don’t like him or his commentary; but imagine V’s life without Johnny in it through the game events. Imagine how lonely they’d be.

Johnny is the only one who knows everything and is there with V from the start to the final moments in Mikoshi.

Vik and Misty know, but they’re no edgerunners, they have no idea everything V is doing out there. Part of why as much as I do love Vik, his frustration with V hurts so much in the end because he talks like V hasn’t done anything to save themselves. Because, Vik doesn’t know what V’s been doing this whole time.

Each part of the main quests in Act 2 are linked to an NPC; Judy, Panam, and Takemura. And not one of them know or are there throughout the entirety of V’s journey. Judy doesn’t get told the full details of what’s happening until later in and stops helping V one Evelyn is saved. Panam doesn’t learn the full details or anything really about the chip until much later. And her quests become her own personal journey once V finds Hellman. And then depending on V’s choices, Panam can come in to help at the end. Takemura knows V is dying and is there to help with the parade and then he’s gone; either dead or in hiding. He refers to anything that doesn’t involve him as V’s shady dealings and leaves it at that. He’s there to interrogate Hellman but he doesn’t know all V did to find him. None of them know everything, none of them have been there the whole time. And that’s not a condemnation of them, I do not expect them to drop everything to be glued to V’s side 24/7 but, I can’t fucking imagine how alone V feels.

River has no involvement in any main quests and only finds out anything if V chooses to romance him. Kerry knows what Johnny told him and depending on the ending may even leave V. Again, wanna be clear, that isn’t a condemnation on his character. I understand why he does this and i understand his hurt and how it led him to that.

But this is about how truly fucking alone V is in all of this. Not a single person there start to finish, not a single person knowing all that they have suffered, all that they have been through and are going through.

Except Johnny. He tells V in the oil fields, closest to him by far, there 24/7, yet they don’t seem to hate him. And he’s that for V too; there the entire way, their demon never leaving. Johnny knows everything happening; because he’s part of what’s happening. He’s been there through every struggle, every step, every slap in the face as V’s tried to save themselves. Has felt their pain as they lose themselves, has known the people who’ve had to die for them to get this far, as felt their heart break when all they found was betrayal by the Voodoo Boys, Ai Alt asking how V’s life is her problem, getting recommended a hospice by Hellman.

And as dickish as he is, his comments help. V always has someone there, as much as he sucks. He always has something stupid or naggy to say to help keep some of that weight off their shoulders. Imagine if they didn’t even have that. If Johnny never talked to them, never showed his face.

A constant companion, like a supportive pet cat except he can talk and did a lot of meth.

And this is a sidenote that has nothing to do with cats specifically, but that through Samurai music this isn’t the first time Johnny could be compared to an omen. Its no secret that the music was largely created around the game and as such, many of his songs have direct parallels and messages related to the game. Never Fade Away while in universe written in regards to Alt’s death also has so much in common with his journey with V. This brings me to the song Black Dog.

“Black Dog inside my head, guiding me until the end.”

Black Dogs are figures in Irish Mythology who much like bakeneko’s are talked about in game; are omens of death and misfortune. I just find it interesting I suppose, like Johnny is either a dirty alley cat or a big mangy dog, but either way he’s here cause someones about to die.

Okay this is well over a thousand words, Imma shut up now. This is probably a mess, but anyone here for coherency is in the wrong place.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cp2077 #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #johnny silverhand #silverv #tender-wounds

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loopy777 · 3 years

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RE: WIPs game: do I even want to know what Dicebenders is is it another scam how many times are the Gaang gonna get arrested for scamming

No, this time it's me scamming people. XD The dice in question are the RPG Dungeons & Dragons kind.

For a while I was doing a screencap webcomic in the style of "DM of the Rings" and "Darths & Droids" with another creative fan named Captain Boomerang. I was the scriptwriter and selected the screenshots for each panel, and Capt-BA would assemble the comics and improve my scripts (a process that did frustrate me a little, as I felt locked out of the revision process, but I did like the results. I just felt like I wasn't holding up my end of the partnership a bit). I wrote a story bible explaining the characters and storytelling rules, planned out the adaptation of the entire AtLA premiere, and had less detailed plans for the rest of the series, but we only got 6 comics in before Capt-BA went on a trip and never returned to the internet. I did manage to re-establish contact with her long enough to get permission to continue the comic, but the problem is that I have no image-editing skills whatsoever.

If I could find comic-making software that I know would do what I want and be easy to use, I wouldn't mind dropping some money on it, but everything I've looked at is trying to do lots of things I don't need. I only want a way to import existing pictures into comic grids, and then easily add dialogue bubbles. That's it. But the stuff I've found is more about image-editing than comic assembly, and it takes me an hour to put together a dialogue bubble that looks good. So I have 3 scripts that were never produced, which along with the planning docs are what's in that WIP folder, and I don't ever see myself going beyond that.

Besides, someone else already managed to complete something like this, and while I'm not a fan, I don't need to be. At this point, Dicebenders is dead. I'm glad I tried it, and it's a shame it didn't work out, but I'm happy with the other projects I've done instead.

I am squatting on an empty Tumblr for it, though.

Anyway, to share something new, here's the first section of the Story Bible I wrote to make sure Capt-BA and I were on the same page in terms of characterization. The rest of the bible details the plotlines for full series.

AVATAR: THE LAST DICEBENDER

BIBLE

Premise- A small group of players attempt to run a fantasy martial arts RPG that winds up essentially becoming the Avatar saga, or something very close. The main point of the series is comedy, based mostly on ridiculous links between Avatar and RPG's. Sometimes the humor will be in the vast difference between what happens in the comic, and what happens in the cartoon with the same screenshots. Other times, the funny will come from the unexpected ways they converge.

SPIRITUAL PREDECESSORS

DM of the Rings- The original, and my personal favorite. It's a good showcase of how to run a single quest together, while using narrative jumps to skip to the good bits.

Darths & Droids- A similar project, this stands out from its predecessor in two main ways. The players and GM are more friendly with each other, and are more or less having fun with each other. There is also a running, coherent storyline in both the game and in the lives of the players.

Benders & Brawlers- This is actually an existing attempt to do Darths & Droids with Avatar. This is helpful as an example of what we DON'T want to do, retell the Avatar story in a completely straightforward manner, with RPG players behind the characters.

CHARACTERS

None of the characters will be given real names. The players shall always be referred to by their character names, although this can be done in a teasing, ironic manner. When the characters are speaking, their dialogue bubble must always be attached to an image of the character.

The Gamemaster- The GM is a female in her early teens. She is a geek, and a bit of a social outcast for it. Nevertheless, she's trying to make that work for her, although she's not quite mature enough to make it happen yet. She has just discovered RPG's, and in her enthusiasm has gone all out in starting her own campaign. The only problem is that she doesn't know how to recruit players, so she ropes her best friend and little brother into playing with her. This is the GM's first campaign, so she'll a little in over her head. She knows the mechanics of play, and what she's supposed to be doing as GM, but doesn't have the fine skill in crafting an engaging RPG experience. Still, she wants to do her best, is willing to learn, and has a positive attitude about the whole thing. The GM has a strong crush on the Sokka player, but the only way she can express it is by having all the female NPC's flirt with the Sokka character.

Katara- Female in early teens, and the GM's best friend. Katara's player was friends with the GM from when they were both in grammar school, so while they have grown up into wildly different personality types, they are fully loyal to each other. Katara is popular, and outgoing, and doesn't care or know about geek stuff at all. She's only playing the game because the GM begged her to. At first, Katara is clueless about RPG's, and frequently questions or ridicules the mechanics of the game. She never quite gets into the idea of role-playing, but quickly takes to the idea of meta-gaming. She'll have her character act like a righteous do-gooder, because completing missions and fighting bad guys earns XP. She hoards items that will boost her stats. She'll advocate abandoning a mission/plot if it doesn't pay out enough rewards. Katara's player also can tend towards trying to Mary Sue her character, but this is inconsistent and usually shot down by everyone else.

Aang- Male in junior high, and the GM's little brother. He plays simply because his sister has cajoled him into it, and there are hints that he's getting some kind of reward or payment for it. He abuses his position by forcing the GM to give him what he wants in the game, even if it breaks the rules- access to the restricted Airbender class, the ability to bend all four elements, overloaded stats, an Avatar State that protects him from dying, a magic super flying cow ride, etc. However, it's important to note that Aang's player isn't a jerk. He's just immature, and like all kids, just always goes for what he wants via the easiest path, and doesn't realize that he may be causing trouble or hurting feelings. He's enthusiastic about trying out this RPG thing, but he has trouble coming up with any action beyond attacking or retreating. He's also hyper aware that the GM and Katara are girls. He is too old for cootie concerns, but thinks that girls are fundamentally different creatures with their own incomprehensible concerns. Having a big sister, he doesn't find this a big deal, just part of life. Aang's player is too young to be a geek. He likes cartoons and sports and fantasy and school-dramas. He also tends to follow whatever his sister likes.

Sokka- Male in late teens. This guy is your quintessential RPG player. He has is own top-quality dice, he's played campaigns and systems of all kinds, and knows the tropes of the hobby cold. He's a huge geek for all things geeky, but roleplay is easily his favorite. He's a social outcast, but he's made friends among his fellow geeks, and thinks life is just fine. Sokka's player joins when he meets the GM at the comic/games shop they both frequent. The GM was buying some sourcebooks and material to support the fantasy martial arts game she's running, and Sokka noticed, asked about it, liked what he heard, and got permission to join the game. What Sokka doesn't realize, because he is a geek and neither has experience with it or realizes it's even possible, is that the GM is sweet on him. This manifests in the character Sokka's canon luck with the ladies, only kicked up a notch. *Every single* female NPC flirts with him, whether it's appropriate or not. Sometimes player Sokka notices and tries to roleplay it, and sometimes he's just plain confused. Sokka has a few quirks. His best set of dice are his Lucky Red Dice, which always roll high when he needs it, but have been tested and proven to be fair dice. He also mandates that every character he plays use a boomerang; he was turned into a geek by the first video game he ever played, a Legend of Zelda title, and his favorite weapon from those games are the boomerang. Each of his characters has a unique, named boomerang.

Zuko- The GM's favorite NPC. She created him to be a compelling, dramatic character, with a complicated back story, moral struggles, badass loner personality, angst about his existence, a darkly noble quality, and a cool scar. The GM intended Katara to get to know Zuko, for her to try to woo him away from the side of evil, and perhaps to even have a romance with him. The PC's, however, couldn't care less about him. To them, he's just another mini-boss, and the fact that most of his character development is happening "off screen" means they don't realize that he's recruitable. A frequent gag is Zuko delivering a stirring monologue while no one pays attention.

Iroh- Background NPC. The GM tries to use him to give (ignored) hints to the players.

Toph- (tentative) A male munchkin gamer who picked a long list of weaknesses in order to get superbending. Toph's player is a friend of Sokka's player, brought in after an "incident" with his old group, and causes some initial resentment in the group when tries to show the n00bs how its done. Cowing Toph's player is a major victory for the GM.

Momo- NPC, but maybe make him a talking sidekick who gives the players hints when the GM is really exasperated?

Azula- the GM's best favorite villain. Azula is the GM unleashed, letting her take out frustrations on the players in both combat and harsh taunting. Eventually the GM comes to like the character so much, she retcons mental health issues into the character's backstory, and has her pet NPC, Zuko, spare her.

#dicbender #avatarpg

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caelan0d · 3 years

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any val companion asks you havent answered yet? if so pls do

what perk would they give the player?

Val is honestly almost completely a speech and survival character, and I'd want that to be reflected in his perks.

Natural Leader- When you have Valentin as a companion, when talking to someone who is not part of a faction, the player has +5 to SPEECH checks and +1 to Charisma checks.

After completing Val's personal quest, the player gains Friends in High Places.

Friends in High Places- It pays to have friends who have friends in high places. When Valentin is in the player’s party, unique dialogue options will be available when talking to the big players in Vegas.

how do you recruit them? are there multiple methods?

You would either find Val in The Kings or he would be on the main street of The Strip in front of The Tops. In my mind him as a companion is helping out around Freeside after the events of The Divide and happened to bump into Benny on one of his "business trips" so he's in in out of The Kings and The Tops like regularly lol. As long as you aren't with the Legion you should be able to recruit him no problem.

what raises and lowers their affinity?

Raises- Being nice, Flirting, Passing speech or charisma checks, helping non-faction npcs

Lowers- Helping the legion, helping the NCR, murder, being violent

how do they react to certain things? what do they say? (eg. lockpicking, grabbing junk, killing?)

Lockpicking- "Ooo can you teach me that?"

Grabbing Junk- "Anything good?", "You know we can't carry everything in the Mojave, right?"

Murder: "Are you out of your mind?!" "Who the hell taught you to shoot?"

do they periodically give the player items? what kind of items?

Periodically gives them cheesy songs. Very useless but hey, its fun

Oh and also eggs. Where did they come from?

would they be able to do specialized task? (eg. repairs, hacking)

Nah

would they be romancable?

Yep! Can only be truly romanceable by a guy presenting player but truly does not mind flirtation from a gal.

do they have a unique outfit or weapon?

Has both "Dad's Hat" and "Dad's Bandana" as unique outfit items.

what would be their personal quest, if they have one?

so I haven't fully fleshed out Val's personal quest but it would basically involve you taking him to meet his sister in the NCR and then to find and rescue his brother from the Legion. I think it would be called "Every rose has it's thorn"

what are their opinions on certain factions? (eg. brotherhood, NCR)

He would absolutely leave you if you joined the Legion. They killed both his parents and kidnapped his brother so uh yeah you are not getting brownie points with him for that. He does not like the NCR and will complain about it but wont leave you. Obviously likes Yesman and Benny. Gets sad if you kill Benny buy understands hey the mf had it coming for shooting you. Comments negatively about the BoS if you bring him with and comments positively on the Followers and the Khans.

general voice lines? (in reaction to companion wheel selections)

Use Melee: "I wont know if I hit them- WAIT I meant they wont know what hit them!"

Use Ranged: "Time to play Cowboy"

Open inventory: “They say sharing is caring, after all”

Stay close: "I've got your back"

Keep distance: "Right, got it."

Be Passive: "Sure thing, I rather charm my way through enemies anyways"

Be Aggressive: "Grr. How's that for aggressive?"

Wait here: "You always leave a guy hanging?" "Don't be long now"

Follow me: "On the road again!"

Sneaking: "right... no talking... got it"

“Let’s travel together”: "Haven't been out and about in the mojave for months, should be interesting to see what's happening"

“Let’s travel together” (already have a companion): "I'm normally down for 3 or more, but not out in the middle of the desert"

Leaving companion at the Lucky 38: "Please don't make me take the elevator again."

“I wanted to ask you some questions”: "I'm an open book", "shoot, cowboy"

where would you find them in the world?

In Freeside or in The Strip around The Tops

which game would they be from?

Fallout New Vegas

miscellaneous facts?

4 ST, 4 PE, 5 EN, 10 CH, 5 IN, 7 AG, 4 LK

Tagged skills: Barter, Medicine, Speech

Weapon of Choice: Cowboy Repeater or 9mm pistol (Ranged) , Tire Iron (Melee)

#valentin tag

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venusmages · 3 years

Text

Cyberpunk 2077 non-spoiler review

Anyways here’s my writeup about my least favorite parts of 2077 for people who are interested in seeing if it’s for them. Both going to talk about content as well as gameplay. This is for PC version, too, because I know last gen consoles are suffering terribly rn and I wouldn’t recommend the game if you’re not going to be playing on PC. At least not until it’s on sale or the issues have been resolved. It really, really shouldn’t have been released on last gen consoles at all in my opinion - or at least should’ve been released on consoles LATER.

If you like Saints Row, GTA, Mass Effect, Shadowrun, or the Cyberpunk genre in general - I definitely think this is something you might want to take a peek at! I wasn’t anticipating the game until about a month or two before release - so maybe that’s why I’m having a blast - but It’s one of my favorite stories from the past decade as far as sci-fi goes. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and It’s really impressed me. I can’t even go into detail about all the things I LOVE because I really want folks to experience it themselves. Just know there’s a very intricately detailed world, all the characters are memorable and insanely well realized and complex, and the story is great fun. Also made me cry like 5 times. It’s become one of my FAVORITE games very quickly.

I’d also recommend Neon Arcade if you want someone who’s been covering the game for quite a while, including the technical and game industry aspect. He does well to go into some detail and even though he’s a fan, I’ve found him to be largely unbiased. I’m not going to go into industry politics here because I feel that’s up for everyone to decide on their own terms.

No spoilers, things to keep in mind, content warnings, etc. below!

CONTENT WARNINGS and issues with plot/story

this setting is dark. very dark. if you struggle stomaching things like dystopian landscapes, body horror, physical, mental and sexual abuse, corporate and gang violence, abuse of children, harsh language, and concepts that mess with the perception of reality - this game might not be for you. It’s a very mature setting, and I don’t mean that in the Adult Swim kind of way. I mean it in the ‘oh shit, it went there’ way. In my opinion I haven’t run across anything in it that was handled distastefully when it dipped into the depressing, but dark and gritty isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and I wanted to give a disclaimer.

The game’s universe in advertising and working for the lower class also exploits sex/sex work quite a bit. This is part of the lore itself because in this universe everyone’s become desensitized to sex and violence to the point that marketing embraces it and makes it ridiculous. I feel it’s very obvious that it doesn’t condone this message and is instead a commentary on consumerism - but people still might be uncomfortable seeing a lot of suggestive stuff all over the place regardless.

Women in game are naked more often than men - even though there is nudity for both. This is likely a mix of appealing to the Gamer Boy demographic (even though the story does NOT actually), or the fact that media is way more cool with seeing naked women than seeing full frontal nudity on men. They probably had to tone some of it down to avoid going above an M rating.

The story is amazing, but sometimes it dumps a lot onto you at once. It’s one of those sci-fi stories that you have to really be following the names, faces, and concepts continually to get it all down. There’s a lot of betrayal, background players, etc. I think by the mid-way point I’d mostly had it, but It’s pretty dense. However it’s still amazing. You might just need two playthroughs before every tiny detail clicks - because there’s a LOT of details.

Honestly I think it would help to read up on the lore first so you’re not going ‘what’ constantly. But people have seemed to manage fine without that also! Neon Arcade has a really nice series of videos (like 2 or 3) that get you up to speed with the universe. It also helps you decide if the tone is right for you.

I think the main story should’ve been longer, also. I don’t mind a 20 hr story, especially in a massive RPG, but It feels like they really struggled to cram as much into that time frame as possible. It skirts the edge of being nice and concise, snappy, and tight - and needing just a few more moments to take a breath and wait a second. This is helped if you do a lot of side quests.

The straight male romance option, River, is INCREDIBLY well written but he doesn’t tie into the main plot in any way whatsoever. It’s very strange and feels like they either ran out of time with him, or slapped together a romance with him at the last second. All the other romances at least know what’s going on with V’s story - meanwhile River has no idea, and you can never tell him. He’s an amazing guy though and I highly recommend his questline. He appears in ACT 2.

In general I’d say not to bother with the romances. There are only 4 total, and while the romancible characters on their own are really well written, the romances themselves are just kinda meh. One romance you don’t even meet until act 3. I don’t think they should’ve been included in the game at all, because they definitely don’t feel as fleshed out as everything else.

CDPR also sometimes forget that women players or gay men exist. Panam and Judy have a lot more content than River and Kerry for example. I don’t think this is intentional, they just have a large fanbase of dudebros. It only shows in the romance content and the nudity thing though.

Johnny, Takemura, and Claire should’ve been romances and I will fight to the death on that.

There are gay and trans characters in the game and their stories don’t revolve around their sexualities. It’s very Fallout: New Vegas in it’s approach to characters: IE. you’re going to love them. All of them.

V’s gender isn’t locked to their body type or their genitals- but to to their voice. I don’t think it’s the best solution they could’ve used but given how the game is heavily voice acted I assume that was what they had to work with.

Some of the romances are locked to both cis voices AND body types (not genitals if I recall but body shapes). That’s disappointing but I assume it was because of scripted scene issues and/or ignorance on the dev’s part considering the LGBT NPCS are so AMAZINGLY done. There’s no homophobic or transphobic language in the game - though there are gendered curse words and insults if that bothers you.

Some characters MAY suffer from ‘bilingual people don’t talk like that’ syndrome. But it can be hard to say for sure given that translators exist in this universe and the way they operate aren’t fully described. It’s only momentarily distracting, not enough to take away from how charming the NPCs are.

The endings are really good don’t get me wrong but I want fix it fic :(. All of the endings out of like 6 (?) in the game are bittersweet.

Both gender V’s are very good but female V’s voice acting is out of this world. If you don’t know what voice to go with/are neutral I’d highly recommend female V. Male V is charming and good but he feels much more monotone compared to female V.

V has their own personality. To some this won’t be a detractor - but a lot of people thought they’d be making absolutely everything from the ground up. V is more of a commander shepard or geralt than a skyrim or d&d pc, if that makes sense. You can customize and influence them to a HUGE degree, some aspects of V will always be the same.

Streetkid is the most boring background - at least for it’s introduction/prologue.

GAMEPLAY/TECHNICAL

If you can run your game on ultra, don’t. It actually looks best with a mix of high and medium settings. Unless you have a beast that has ray-tracing - then by all means use ray tracing and see how absolutely insanely good it looks.

There are color blind modes for the UI, but not for some of the AI/Netrunning segments in cutscenes. Idk how much this will effect folks with colorblindness but those segments are thankfully short.

There was an issue with braindances being an epilepsy trigger because for some reason they decided to mirror the flashing pattern after real epilepsy tests - probably because it ‘looks cool’. I don’t have epilepsy but it even hurt my eyes and gave me a headache. Massive oversight and really goddamn weird. Thankfully this was fixed.

There is no driving AI. Like at all. If you leave your car in the street the traffic is just going to pile up behind it. It’s one of the very few immersion breaking things I’ve encountered.

Sometimes when an NPC is driving with you in the car, they’ll drive on the curb and/or run into people. It’s kind of funny but can occasionally result in something weird. Feels very GTA - but nothing excruciating.

The camera angle feels a little too low in first person mode when driving on cars. You get used to it though.

The police in this game feel slapped on and I hope they improve it. Right now if you commit a crime, you can never tell what will actually trigger it. And if you just run away a few blocks the police forget about it.

Bikes are just way more fun to ride than the cars are.

You CANNOT respec your character after you make them. Ever. it sucks. Go in with an idea ahead of time what you wanna do - it’s better than being a jack of all trades.

as of now you also CANNOT change their appearance after you exit the character creator. This, also, sucks. Make sure you REALLY like your V or you’re gonna be replaying the openings over and over like I did.

Photomode on PC is the N key. Had to look it up. The mode itself is great though

Shooting and Mele fighting feel pretty standard. I don’t have a lot of shooter experience besides Bethesda games so anything feels better than that to me. So far I’ve enjoyed stealth and mele the best, but that’s just my own taste! The combat and driving aren’t groundbreaking by any means, but they’re still very fun. I look forward to running at people with swords or mantis blades, and zipping around the city on a motorcycle to see the sights. The story, lore, and interesting quests and characters are the real draw here.

I haven’t encountered any game breaking bugs in 80-ish hours of play time. One or two T-poses, a few overlays not loading or floating objects - but nothing terrible. Again, my experience is with Bethesda games. This is all usually fixed by either opening your inventory and closing it again, or exiting out and reloading your save.

The C button is mapped for crouching AND skipping dialogue by default. That’s terrible. Change it in the settings to be HOLDING C skips dialogue and you’ll be gucci.

There’s apparently a crafting system. I have never been inclined to touch it. But I also play on easy like a pleb so IDK how it all scales otherwise.

The mirror reflections can be a little bit weird, at least on my end. They always end up a teeny bit grainy despite my computer being able to run everything on Ultra Max. You can still get good screens out of it though!

So many people text me to sell me cars and I want them to stop. Please. also the texting menu is abysmal. The rest is ok tho

It’s pretty clear when you’re going to go into a ‘cutscene’. all cutscenes are rendered in-engine BUT you often will be talking to other characters at a specific angle or setting. The game locks you into this usually by having you sit down. It works for me - after all we do a lot of sitting- but it IS very obvious that it’s a way for the game to get you in the frame it wants to display.

That’s all I can think of rn! If you’re interested but wanted to get a slightly better idea of whats going on, I hope this helps. I’m really enjoying it and despite my issues it’s exceeding my expectations. I’m going to be thinking about and replaying this game for quite a while.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 review #2077 review #cp2077 #rosetxt #txt

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benisasoftboi · 4 years

Text

Unorganised thoughts on Trails in the Sky: Second Chapter:

Unorganised thoughts on the first game are here

No longer spoiler-free, sorry

So tl;dr I loved this game and I love these characters and this world and I’m so excited to play through the whole rest of the series. What an underrated gem

I liked that everyone’s status portraits were updated, FC’s were a little rough. Except Olivier’s - his original art is miles better, good lord. The updated one is so generic :(

Speaking of updates, here’s some on how I feel about the major characters:

Estelle: Estelle deserves the world. I love her and her development, she’s just so great. What I especially love is that I cannot think of any other JRPG hero I’ve seen who reacts to the villain’s grand monologue like she does. Most of the time it’s like, huge declarations of justice, and how evil will never win, but Estelle’s reaction to Weissmann ranting about the inherent evil of man was just, like, ‘nah, actually that’s stupid, I love my friends and we’re all nice people. You just suck dude’. And that works so well, and it was really refreshing, honestly. I just... love her. I really love her.

Joshua: This poor traumatised boy who also deserves the world, my god. His backstory was so much darker than I was expecting (if I understood right, there were some implications that sexual assaults occurred in the Hamel massacre!? And that it nearly happened to his sister!? Which made me have to sit back for a moment because I did not think this game was gonna go there and it threw me for a loop). I like how his whole arc is about learning to not define himself by his trauma, I haven’t really seen that in a game before. I also love him.

I think Estelle and Joshua cute together and I support their romance, but if the game could stop reminding me post-get together that they used to be pseudo-siblings that would be great thank you

Agate: I did the Agate route mostly because I prefer using him in combat, and goddamn if I thought I liked him before. I think his arc is one of the best in the game, and I love him, and are you seeing a pattern? His friendship with Tita is also so sweet. I want to be friends with Agate

Schera: Might have had more to say if I’d done her route. I appreciated getting her backstory, and I thought her relationship with Luciola was well done, if not incredibly fascinating. As it stands, I like her just fine, even if I’m not as passionate about her as I am some of the others

Olivier: I still love this guy. I had his twist spoiled, but let’s face, it wasn’t the hardest to guess anyway. His rivalry with Bleublanc was funny, as are most of his interactions with other characters. He’s good comic relief in general, and I love using him in combat - on that note, though, I’m very angry with him for leaving in chapter 8, because he was the character I had invested the most into arts-wise, so I had to go fix up Schera just for that chapter (and then swapped to Zin as we lost ZFGs, for obvious reasons). I will say that he seems to have become a little more... creepy feels like a strong word, but I don’t think he was so forwardly suggestive in FC. It felt to me like he sort of went from Yusuke Kitagawa to Yosuke Hanamura, in a sense. But all the same, I still like him

He should have stayed in his prince look at the end though, it suits him better

Side note, I really love Mueller, and I love his and Olivier’s interactions, and I want more Mueller, why does he have to be a minor character :(

Kloe: So I wasn’t super into Kloe in FC, but I actually really loved her this time around - I thought her arc about deciding whether or not to accept the crown was well done, and the little conversation she and Estelle can have on the stage at the academy is one of my favourite scenes in both games. Also GOOD LORD do I love her outfit change at the end, she’s so pretty I want to cry

Tita: Most of what I like about Tita is her friendship with Agate, and also how smart she is. I’d probably have more to say about her if I ever used her beyond when the plot forces me to (I don’t like using glass cannon characters in games), as the unfortunate nature of SC is that you don’t get much dialogue if you’re benched. But yeah, I still like her as a character

Zin: I don’t dislike Zin, but I still find him kind of dull compared to the others. He’s fine, he’s there, he’s got a backstory with Walter and Kilika and that’s neat. Honestly the main thing I remember about all that is Zin revealing that their master had terminal cancer because I kind of just... didn’t think cancer existed in this universe, I guess. It threw me

Kevin: Firstly, I find it really, really funny that such an important and mysterious character who looks the way he does is named ‘Kevin’. But yeah, I like Kevin, I’m excited to learn more about him in 3rd. I liked his relationship with Estelle (It’s nice to see a guy who’s capable of backing off without being an ass about it. Shame there’s such a low bar). I am, though, honestly very creeped out by the mere concept of the Gralsritters, ngl

Bleublanc and Campanella were easily my favourite Enforcers. Bleublanc especially gets points for keeping himself relevant for the entire game

Renne is a character who I think I’m probably meant to feel more sympathy for than I actually do, to be honest. You can’t make me like someone just by making them a cute little girl, Falcom, I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll feel differently after playing 3rd, I know she’s in it

I thought Loewe was well handled and I love that scene where he and Joshua hug at the end

I love the Ravens. I love that they got actual art. They’re amazing. I would play an entire spin-off game about the Ravens

And the Capuas! Can they all team up? Please?

Especially Josette, I came to really like her

A thing I’ve kind of realised about this game and its characters is that it’s a really good example of how tropes and cliches are not inherently bad - everyone in this game is based on some kind of mostly-unsubverted cliche, but they are incredibly well-executed cliches. You can have the most original characters in the world, but if they’re not written well, then what’s the point? I think a lot of writers conflate ‘unique’ and ‘surprising’ and (ugh) ‘subverting expectations’ with ‘good’. This game doesn’t make that mistake, and I appreciate that

Don’t get me wrong, unique and surprising and expectation subverting is also not inherently bad - just that it’s all in the execution

I like that Richard came back! And reformed! To be honest, though, (maybe this is controversial? idk), I thought he was a better antagonist than anyone in Ouroboros. His motivations made a lot more sense than those of most of the Enforcers

Honestly (excluding Renne and Campanella because those haven’t been fully revealed to me yet) Bleublanc was really the only one with a motivation I liked - I can respect a villain who does crimes just for the sake of being an asshole

Oh yeah, there’s also Anelace and her team - they’re all great. I would like to know more about Grant, he doesn’t get to do much

The side quest in chapter 8 at the academy where we get Kurt and Anelace is one of the best quests in the game

Oh, and that reminds me, Gilbert! I love Gilbert, he’s so lame. Fighting him is hilarious

I was very happy to see minor NPC Clive on the Arseille at the end. It’s what he deserves

I love that this game got me invested in the lives of the random NPCs

Screw that Abyss Worm bounty hunt, and also that fight with Renne on Ambryl Tower

I don’t know whose idea it was to fill this game, in this setting, with GIANT ROBOTS but it grew on me and I kind of love it now

I’ve decided Ruan is my favourite region, but Rolent is my favourite city

The Liber Ark is such a cool setting, I’m sad we only saw a tiny part of it for one chapter

I knew they weren’t going to kill off Joshua and Estelle, but I still cannot describe the rush of relief I felt when the dragon saved them at the end. I care about these kids, damnit!

There’s that one section in Grancel where everyone’s talking about Crossbell and then it never comes up again - set up the next arc of games a little less subtly, why don’t you?

(And then Cassius being like ‘the adventures will continue! But with other people!”)

I read all of The Doll Knight and I genuinely enjoyed it

This game has maybe the best end credits I’ve ever seen

...think that’s all my thoughts expunged! Now to play 3rd :D

#trails in the sky #trails series #trails in the sky sc #trails in the sky: second chapter #long post

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