themightyaliendwarf

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

my favorite celebrity non-controversy was when lorde wanted to express her love of baths so she posted a picture of her bathtub captioned “and iiiiiiiiiii will always love youuuuu” not realizing that whitney houston died in a bathtub

[themightyaliendwarf]

I am in tears

[themightyaliendwarf]

her ass is not handling animals

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[themightyaliendwarf]

Just finished hamlet & had to share THIS

[themightyaliendwarf]

Now that people are finding out about the first Polish adaptation of the Witcher, I can't wait when they realise that the actor who played Jaskier also voiced Shrek in the Polish dub

#Witcher #Hexer #Jaskier #Polish movies #to be fair the TV series was fine #the problem is that the movie was made from its fragments

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

Same energy as Andrew Jackson's parrot swearing so much during his funeral that it had to be escorted out

#animals #funny #history #tweet

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

100% one of the reasons I stopped using Windows

Meanwhile the Linux users sharpen their blades

[themightyaliendwarf]

I finished Steins;Gate 0 VN and I have some thoughts

So, I watched Steins;Gate 0 a few weeks after finishing the original anime and I didn’t like it. The story felt disjointed, many plot points seemed rushed or pointless and I had issues understanding how we got in places we ended up in. It has been a couple of years now, so it seemed fair to give it another chance hoping that the visual novel is better.

Overall, my feelings are complicated because I still have many complaints about the story, characters and endings. But when SG 0 got good, it got really good. I strongly believe the reason behind my problems is the structure of this game. I’ve seen somebody describe it as a Frankenstein’s monster and, yeah, that’s an accurate description.

I'm going to spoil a lot, so you have been warned.

So, SG 0 structure is a bit odd and its graph (taken from the wiki) looks like this

Here is the order in which I’ve played the game:

Gehenna’s Stigma -> Twin Automata -> Recursive Mother Goose -> Promised Rinascimento -> Vega and Altair -> Milky-way Crossing

I'm going to sprinkle some of my favourite CGs in this post for your enjoyment.

Positive thoughts

I loved Daru in this game. I recalled his relationship with Suzuha being weird and uncomfortable to watch, but it was fairly sweet here. Yeah, there have been some cringy moments, but that was the minority. Also, even outside of that, he was great. His relationship with Yuki? Really sweet. Conspiring with Maho? Great. That moment when he punches Okabe in the face? One of my favourites in the whole game!

Maho no longer felt like a Kurisu replacement. They allowed her different personality to shine and made the best of it. The majority of her screen time was a pure joy to experience. And what was the best part of all of that? Her friendship with Moeka in Twin Automata. It was just *chef's kiss* so good! So good in fact that I consider not having this friendship blossom in other endings as a huge disadvantage.

The music was, dare I say it, better than in the original? Yeah, Gate of Steiner and Remember Me are iconic, but Messenger, A Song Played by the Stars and Re-awake are just so good. Also, I enjoyed ambience music a bit more.

In my mind, the main theme of the original Steins;Gate is loneliness. With Steins;Gate 0 introducing AI to the story, I find it fitting that the focus of the story was on the subject of identity and personal worth. A theme that was beautifully shown in Twin Automata (I think you might already know which ending is my favourite).

I can't judge how realistic Okabe's anxiety attacks were, but they felt real to me. Of course, his VA is phenomenal, but the script also deserves a praise here. It was painful to see him struggle with his trauma and easily triggered flashbacks.

While on the topic, the voice acting was great. Granted, with a cast like this that shouldn't be a surprise, but it's still worth to mention it.

I'm not going to elaborate on this point. Just this moment:

Mayuri is always a beacon of positivist and an absolute joy to watch. We all need a Mayushii in our lives.

The climax of Twin Automata, Gehenna's Stigma and Promised Rinascimento are all great. That moment when Leskinen traps Okabe in GS and Okabe realises, he can't die for the next ~15 years? Chilling.

"Holy cow! So I said we should come soon" - name a more iconic line in VN. I will wait, you won't find any.

Negative thoughts

Kagari. I don't like her, I don't need her, she should go away. She is boring at best and annoying at worst. Her story is silly in Promised Rinascimento and in Vega and Altair it's just bad. How?

She has a plastic surgery to look like Yuki. Ok, how did she manage to make herself to look so accurate to the original, that she fooled Suzuha? Alright, they know about the current whereabouts of the original, so that's how they manage to "copy" her. But in that case, I want to know more about this subplot.

We know that this Kagari and Yuki share a room in the future. That's real awkward, not gonna lie.

How does she survive Vega and Altair since she died before Okabe time leapt? Is it because Suzuha and Mayuri made a successful jump to the past? But if that's so, shouldn't the worldline change and therefore Okabe notice it? Actually, why doesn't he notice when the worldline changes due to Suzuha and Mayuri making a decision? I don't think this type of shifting was properly introduced before.

If we have this Kagari in the future, what happens with the child Kagari? If Mayuri goes back to 2025 and still chooses to adopt her, wouldn't that cause massive issues? Yes, that shouldn't happen because shift will occur before, but it does bother me a lot.

Similarly, Fubuki and Kaede can go away. They contributed close to nothing and I don't need them here.

I was hoping for more development for Luka and Faris. On the other hand, I think that Kurisu card should be used a bit less. Let us truly feel we miss her.

In the original, everything happens because of our protagonists. They make the PhoneWave, they choose to experiment and then they need to suffer consequences. Here they (especially Okabe) are mostly passive and just allow stuff to happen. This causes problems because worldline changes many times in 0 and we don't really know how and why it happens. Sure, it is connected to Amadeus (usually), but I'm lacking an explanation. It just kinda happens. I disliked not knowing the reason behind each change. Sure, in the original the reason isn’t always perfect (like how they change Luka’s sex), but at least I know the source. Again, not an issue in itself, but I regret we didn’t get more answers. 

The first chapters were really difficult to get through. With no goal in mind, Okabe no longer being charismatic enough to carry the story and not really having a plot, it’s difficult to call this experience enjoyable.

Pacing was all over the place. Steins;Gate 0 consists of 14 chapters (including Prologue and True End). The minimum number of chapters you need to play to reach an ending is 5 (Gehenna’s Stigma and Twin Automata) and the longest single route takes 7 (Milky-way Crossing). Because of that, I often felt like the story either didn’t have or had too many climaxes. Apart from that, it was disappointing to find out that some of my favourite moments aren’t technically canon. Well, to be fair, you could even argue that in the grand scheme of things, nothing that happens in beta was real because the world shifts to Steins Gate, but you know what I mean.

I didn’t like the push for romance for Okabe. First of all, because it felt disrespectful towards him. Here we have a broken, depressed man who needs a lot of therapy. Playing romantic tension for laughs, while we are dealing with a man who killed a person he loved, seems very icky for me. And implying that Maho might develop feelings for him just felt so unhealthy, because she would literally become a replacement. Kinda like in Harry Potter where one of the Weasley twins dies and then his girlfriend marries the surviving brother - that’s just messed up. Look, I love both of them, but they need therapy, not romance.

Minor nitpick, so, they updated character sprites for 0, but, of some reason, in Summer Mayuri and Faris have their old sprites. Similarly, Kurisu has her old sprite in Okabe's memories and while we quickly jump to alpha, while she has new new sprite as Amadeus and in Maho's memories. Why? Who did this? Also, nobody except for Kagari and Suzuha get a sprite in the future. They robbed us! Also, also, I find it kinda funny that Okabe notices himself having partially grey hair, but he doesn't have them on CGs.

True Ending is a joke. It's short and anticlimactic. Yes, it would feel cheap if they just gave us the original VN ending to play, but I would prefer if they added it.

Conclusion

So, I did write more negative points, but I can't say I had a bad time. I enjoyed playing the game... for the most part! Look, I'm not going to pretend that the original SG had no issues. It had, but I think 0 lows were too low for me. But, hey! At least I would say it had different problems, so... progress?

While I do appreciate that the structure of 0 allowed us to experience more perspectives and stories (also, I enjoyed that the path to Steins;Gate requires many futures), I ultimately think it was also its biggest flaw. I might one day consider what kind of rewrites I would implement.

As a side note, I think I might write a separate post on the depiction of AI in SG 0 because it is something I was working on during my bachelor's and master's thesis, therefore I have thoughts.

#steins gate #steins;gate #steins;gate 0 #visual novel #long post

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

I loved Puss In Boots 2 SO MUCH.

[themightyaliendwarf]

[themightyaliendwarf]

It's never too early for Pride Month :P

congratulations jotaro <3

#jojo #stardust crusaders