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astralartefact · 5 days

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Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 003 - NieR Reincarnation <<Prev: Dragon's Dogma 2

Synopsis

Living in the shadow of its predecessors a [g___] grapples with the fact that it was born shouldering the burden of Reincarnation.

And don't forget, Mother is watching. Don't. fuck it up.

gambling that whatever they announce next week makes parts of this post irrelevant

How much did I know before playing?

I played it since the JP launch despite not understanding a single word and I've played every DrakeNieR Adjacent thing in existence except for DoD2 (no interest, sry) and... NieR Automata which I refuse to play at this point - but I guess that just means you can't complain that I haven't played DoD2 lol.

Did I like it more than I expected?

I did in fact not expect the Gacha game to turn out the best NieR game but here we are.

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

Despite its (to me) clear intention to present a diverse and not particularly "objectified" cast it still has a visible bias towards a certain group of characters - by which i of course mean the waifus, because those make more money. But it means that certain characters never get the 'worthless' free event units while some only get them - snd I mean, just look at Priyet who has 3 less costumes than Yurie who came out months after her.

Also, the story was clearly supposed to be longer, especially with 10H's more-than-swift in- and ex-troduction, but tbh I didn't particularly mind it? 'Cutting it short' didn't ruin anything even though it could have taken the game a bit longer to end - but I wouldn't have said no to a Purple Season 3 Chapter either.

Also also, 'Tis evident that this ludus has maybe one singular mention of our Lord and Saviour YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse (henceforth referred to as Y:DA) - and even that one mention is marvelously vague. Father, are you ashamed of your best work? Is it because it doesn't qualify as its own game? Please, I beg of you to acknowledge the existence of the Crime & Punishment fanfiction sequel you wrote in a MMORPG cross-over! Do it for meeee!

What did this game make me think about?

Reincarnation is a Cage.

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

Honestly? A lot, so this is very non exhaustive.

The Art, both 2D and 3D, especially the very limited usage of color.

The Story and how exactly it was written. Every single line in this game pulls at the same rope and that's impressive for a game that's basically a very, very complicatedly put together Collection of Vignettes written from more than 5 people.

How thought through this game's structure is - how and when what kind of story was introduced/unlocked, stuff like that. I even thought "the grind" wasn't pointless okay, sue me but it makes the pay-off from the ex stories feel better.

Sarafa and Priyet

Outstanding Audio

The entire soundtrack, as always the crew at MONACA is beyond mere mortals - and honestly, Shotaro Seo deserves more credit for his NieR work!!! (also he's cute but that's besides the point)

Here are some fave picks:

Inori, Kizuna & the S3 Main Theme

Kusabi (i love seo's voice i think its so funny that they just used him as the male voice)

Mizukagami

Madan & the S3 Battle Themes

The Return of Normandy

The Mourning Mother Theme, All Versions (if this one doesn't come back in one of the next games i swear to mother)

The Final Boss Theme

Favorite Character

this is so hard why would Past!Me make me choos- Sarafa.

also mama, dark mama and papa and fio and levania and saryu and yudil and priyet and yuzuki and hina and argo (bc he's an idiot) and akeha and frenlise (still not sure why that's the only name they changed) and- all of them, i love all of them, some more than others but all of them except for the carrier, fuck the carrier also anogg y:da should be on this list

Favorite Arc/Story Line

Sun/Moon Story

Favorite Set Piece

The S3 Cage is so fcking gorgeous, around every corner another compositional marvel, they went above and beyond.

Favorite Scene

Priyet's Hidden Stories

The Library

Mourning Mother

Best Performance (I played with JP voices)

Yumi Hara as Mama.

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY --- reminder that the pretentious section is called that way for a reason, don't take it too seriously

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

I guess the death of the Common Gacha is somewhat imminent if even Square Enix is giving up on it. A shame that what's left in its wake (the Gacha with "Gameplay Value") is so much more worrisome than shitty jpg dispensers ever could be.

And I don't know, I guess I'm just excited for Yoko Taro's next big hit because he has yet to really miss. Sadly this game won't set any industry standards in the ways I would like it to :/

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

The Internet has figured out that complaining about things that everybody agrees is bad is fun - and that's nothing new. What's new is that they have at this point seen enough video essays to make their incessant complaining sound like "Criticism."

The problem I have with that is that these surface level "Criticisms" taint the stage, so to speak. Everyone is constantly mad at the mere mention of Microtransactions or of Gacha Games (except, of course, if it's one of the popular ones) and it makes it so that "not critizising" Gacha Games for even just existing in the first place makes you "uncritical."

Can you tell by my usage of Quotation Marks that I do not like the word Criticism anymore?

And I wish that my only stake with this is that I think this shit is annoying as fuck. That I think it sucks that every person having something, anything genuine to say about this game feels the need to state how they know Gacha games are bad because Capitalism sucks - a so surface level fact I would genuinely struggle to believe anyone who would agree with that hasn't already caught on to it yet.

But no - that's where our public interrogation of this type of media starts and ends, because god forbid we have a more nuanced opinion about this shit than "Gacha Bad".

Instead of talking about anything below the surface, good or bad, be it the artistic merits of this game I really like or the actually deeply fucked up evolution on the Gacha Formula the Industry is going through to make their practices more palatable despite being so much worse and deeply ingrained into everything else - resulting in an ecosystem that's so much more dangerous than anything Square Enix could ever hope to come up with.

Instead of talking about any of that I get to hear people act high and mighty about how smart and brave they are for voicing an opinion everybody shares with them.

Meanwhile Hoyoverse has made it cool to just take whatever game is currently popular and turn it into an industrial-grade FOMO machine printing object women of the week and money and everybody unironically endorses it, creates endless amounts of free publicity through fan-art & co, feeding into this FOMO cycle that's already exacerbated by games solely built to drive you to FOMO through all of its built-in game design mechanisms - all so you gamble your money away for your own enjoyment - but that's 'better', actually, 'because it has good gameplay.'

[This is where I cut a lengthy section about how Japanese Idols and Gacha Games are both selling the same things. It was very informative and you are disappointed you're missing out on this quality content.]

Because clearly, the problem with Gacha Games has all this time been that Gacha Games have boring gameplay and not that they do everything in their power to addict people into spending money on parasocial relationships to people (mostly women) that don't even exist, all to impress themselves and their friends.

and also you guys it looks kind of silly when you say 'good riddance, you cheap cash-grab' to a game that a) clearly wasn't that cheap and b) clearly didn't grab that much cash

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

[This is where I cut a lengthy section about my complicated feelings towards Video Game Archiving and how Lore is a blight. It was very informative and you are disappointed you're missing out on this quality content.]

So a couple days ago Yoko Taro met up with the Stellar Blade guy and the only thing I can think about is... well...

Was 2B a mistake?

I mean, it's kind of a sign of how good he is at analyzing the topic at hand so take that as you will, but the fact is that Yoko Taro set out to create the most objectifiable women he could think of - and he was so good at it she has become what is probably the most objectified female character of our time.

And yet, despite knowing that that's not really a good thing - because clearly he did all of that for a reason and Reincarnation didn't really do all that despite being a Gacha - he continues to just... enable people (and by people I do mean Men) to keep doing these kinds of disgusting behaviours to an entire gender, fictional or not. Things that Automata at least to some degree criticizes through 9S (like there's a reason he's the final boss you guys)

And I guess it just feels shitty to see Yoko Taro publicly give this game his stamp of approval when the entire existential premise for Stellar Blade seems to be that clip of Yoko Taro saying "I just really like girls"; a shitty quote that 100% has caused women some societal harm he has yet to r3pent for because Gamers took it and ran - and now we have another game with a big tits SciFi Woman for Men to objectify and I'm pretty sure this one won't have the underlying subtext of "maybe objectifying women is not all that great you guys"

But then there's stuff like putting a shallow husk of 2B - and they somehow also always feature the butt out version too, isn't that interesting - into any game that will take her - which is pretty much every game that is physically able to because thanks to her standing for nothing but ass woman in the popular conscious everyone wants a piece of that free money from horny gamers.

And I guess I have to legally state that that's fine or else the horny fun police is taking me in, but with how he's treating this character outside of the game it feels like it does such a disservice to the points he makes in his games (plural bc of dod3) and that fucking sucks because clearly the world isn't ready to move on from 2B so she'll be around, and with her a symbol that actually, it's fine to objectify your female characters - full stop because nobody but us few cares about the things he's criticizing through subtext.

And it sucks that to SquareEnix her stupid ass (like literally just her ass) is going to overshadow anything Reincarnation has ever done, all the interesting points it makes about societal agency and human relationships and gender and consent and family - because I wouldn't be surprised if NieR 4 manages to barely acknowledge Reincarnation's existence at all while still churning out YoRHa DLC - I mean just look at how they treat Drakengard, which for its 20th anniversary got... an entire tweet.

Like. They didn't even play Reincarnation Music at the NieR Concert!!! Not even Inori!!! It's been three years, why was there no Reincarnation Music at the fucking NieR concert??? I guess we'll just hear Grandma and Kainé and Weight of the World Remixes forever because squeenix mandated that everything that's not the big 2 games can only be referenced in vague subtext (and listen, I love how NieR treats Drakengard Lore, I will be severly disappointed if he ever actually explains any of it - it just hurts my soul that Kuroi Hana has never been performed live) (also y:da's final boss theme should have been a kuroi hana arrangement and not kainé but i guess licensing is a bitch so there's that)

But I mean it is kind of funny that NieR Reincarnation is in a Reincarnation Cage of its own. It's living in the shadow of its predecessors, grappling with the fact that it was born shouldering the burden of Reincarnation. Another Yoko Taro story whose story is about itself. (can i interest you in a german review i wrote where i explain which other yoko taro story also does that) (it's y:da, it's always y:da)

I guess all I can say is that you're clowning about Women, Yoko Taro, and I really hate that. Do Better, as they say. I wish you would publicly talk about literally anything else at this point, especially since you made a good point and then ruined it by not just simply shutting up about it like you do about anything else you do. (remember the ff14 live stream where he proceeded to not answer a single question about y:da? iconic behavior and absolutely the right choice)

And you have so many other good points to make that you could talk about instead! ...then again I swear to mother if Kamierabi really is about how Abortions are bad I will abort you, we have a perfectly capable successor in Yuki Wada right there. (btw praise be Yuki Wada, the true hero of this story, living his dream with his two nier ocs hina and yuzuki)

#atarasegamediary #nier reincarnation

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astralartefact · 6 days

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I'm finally breaking my silence over YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse ...but only in german, so get your translator ready.

i needed to write a review for my (german) creative writing course... so i did. oops.

I only post this because it was one of the few times I actually went into a little bit of detail why exactly I think Y:DA is so good... I did have to cut the Crime and Punishment Section though, because it was already too long. Maybe one day.

In Online Videospielsphären wird der Ruf nach „Good Writing“ immer lauter – aber nehmen wir mal an man könnte sich aussuchen wo wir was auch immer das ist in einem Videospiel finden, wo genau würden wir es erwarten? Inmitten des Hauptszenarios? In einem kleinen, aber wichtigen Nebenhandlungsstrang? Irgendwo zwischen den endlosen Zeilen achso wichtigen World Buildings? Und wo genau ist eigentlich wo wir es nicht erwarten würden?

YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse ist nicht nur eine optionale Alliance Raid Quest Reihe, die von 2019 bis 2021 stückweise in der Erweiterung Shadowbringers des MMORPGs Final Fantasy 14 erschienen ist, sondern auch ein Cross-Over mit dem vorher völlig davon unabhängigem Videospiel NieR Automata – ganz viele komplizierte Wörter, die alle gerade eigentlich nur wichtig sind, um auszudrücken wie weit ab vom Schuss diese Geschichte eigentlich zu finden ist. Geschrieben von Gastautor Yoko Taro, Urheber der Drakengard und NieR-Videospiel-Serien, spielt sich diese Zusammenarbeit getrennt vom Rest des Spiels ab und stellt eine eigene, von beiden Spielen größtenteils unabhängige Handlung dar.

YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse ist die Geschichte von Komra, einem abgelegenem Dorf voller maskierter Zwerge irgendwo in irgendwelchen Bergen, in dem zwei Waisen, die Zwillinge Anogg und Konogg, beim Herumstöbern in einem mysteriösen, verlassenen Fabrikgelände versehentlich eine außerirdische Invasion auslösen, die das ganze Dorf verwüstet bevor sie letztendlich vom Spieler gestoppt werden kann. Während Anogg ihr Leben opfert um die Invasion zu stoppen kehrt Konogg zwar wohlbehalten zurück, lässt aber schnell sein Heimatdorf hinter sich, da er dort von einer wilden Meute für den schlimmen Zustand des Dorfes verantwortlich gemacht wird.

Mit was sich die Handlung auseinandersetzt wird besonders in einer Szene kurz nach dem Höhepunkt der Handlung deutlich: Nachdem der Spieler realisiert, dass Konogg das Dorf verlassen hat, stürmt die kopflose Meute den Unterschlupf, in dem die Geschwister vor ihrem Verschwinden gelebt haben - doch mit der Nachricht, dass ihr Ziel das Weite gesucht hat, versinkt die Meute im Chaos und trotz ihrer individuellen und sehr unterschiedlichen Ziele wird eines deutlich: Was sie alle vereint hat, war die Hoffnung, dass alles auf einen Sündenbock zu schieben ihre eigene Situation verbessern könnte – mit Konogg‘s Verschwinden verloren sie auch ihren eigenen Weg zur Besserung.

Also suchen sie sich einen Neuen: Nachdem sie realisieren, dass sie die ganze Zeit vom Dorfältesten Glagg dazu getrieben wurden die Zwillinge zu konfrontieren entscheidet sich die Meute ihn zum nächsten Sündenbock zu machen. Einzig und allein eine Person, der Mann, der am ehesten als der Beziehungsberechtigte der Zwillinge gelten könnte, realisiert wie zwecklos das ganze Verhalten ist, und beginnt allein (mit dem Spieler) das Dorf zu reparieren. Sein Voranschreiten bewegt letzten Endes auch die anderen schlussendlich dazu sich ihm anzuschließen, statt kopflos weiter einen Sündenbock zu suchen. Gemeinsam schaffen sie es das Dorf wieder aufzubauen – und diesmal sogar besser als vorher.

Und der Dorfälteste? Dank manischer Gedankenausbrüche ‚gesteht‘ er, dass er die Meute absichtlich auf die Zwillinge gehetzt hat, weil ihre neugierige Art seine Machtposition über das Dorf gefährden hätte können. Hmm. Ein Gemeindevorsteher verbreitet falsche Informationen, um eine Meute auf wehrlose Mitglieder seiner Gemeinschaft zu hetzen, weil sie seiner Macht schaden könnten - und alles endet darin, dass die Meute ein Gebäude stürmt, um die ‚Verantwortlichen‘ zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen. Man sollte meinen das war Absicht – aber das macht es nur umso interessanter, dass die Handlung allen Anschein nach vor dem 6. Januar geschrieben wurde.

Außer seines… gewagten Einfalls ein Videospiel-Cross-Over mit Politik zu bebildern beweist Yoko Taro allerdings auch, dass er die Strukturen seines Gast-Spiels teilweise weit besser versteht als einiger dessen Stammautoren. So werden beispielsweise sonst belanglose NPC-Namen spezifisch gewählt um eine Bedeutungsstruktur innerhalb des Dorfes zu erstellen – nur um sie darauf gezielt zu brechen: Außer den Zwillingen und dem Dorfältesten hat niemand einen erkenntlichen Namen – dem Spieler werden nur distanzierte Bezeichnungen wie „Wütender Dorfbewohner“ angezeigt – allerdings sind es nicht die wichtigen Charaktere (also die, die einen Namen bekommen haben), die das Dorf wieder aufbauen, sondern genau diese unwichtigen Charaktere, die durch ihr gemeinsames Wirken Großes vollbringen.

Im Ganzen ergibt sich durch einige solcher Details eine wohlgestaltete Erzählung darüber, dass die Zukunft politisch düster aussehen mag, weil allen Anschein nach nur die „Wichtigen“ Veränderungen zu ihren Gunsten beeinflussen können - aber trotz allem können die „Unwichtigen“ immer noch unabhängig davon ihre unmittelbare Umgebung verbessern. Und das ist nötig, denn egal wie „wichtig“ und laut sich manche Minderheitsgruppen auch anfühlen mögen sind es vor allem jene Unbeteiligte, die ihre Umgebung zugunsten ihrer oft wehrlosen Lieben, die diese Veränderungen am meisten nötig hätten, verändern können.

Leider hat das die Spielerschaft anscheinend nicht so richtig mitgekriegt – und das liegt an dem Drittel der Geschichte, den ich ausgelassen habe, dem Cross-Over Teil der Handlung der sich letzten Endes wirklich relativ gut mit „Außerirdischeninvasion“ zusammenfassen lässt. Denn mehr passiert da auch nicht wirklich – aber das Ganze nicht detailliert zu erklären ist anscheinend trotzdem „immersion breaking“ genug, dass mehr als genug Spieler die Augen konsequent verschließen, die restlichen zwei Drittel der Geschichte völlig ignorieren und sich dann aufregen, dass man ohne Vorwissen ja gar nichts hätte verstehen können.

In Augen eines Großteils der Community ist YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse ein schwarzes Schaf – ein Qualitätsausreiser verglichen mit dem Rest des Spiels, der konsequent öffentlich gescholten oder zumindest ignoriert gehört, weil sonst vielleicht dem sonst so gepriesenen „Good Writing“ Prestige verloren geht. Und das ist irgendwie auch ein bisschen lustig, da somit YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse letztendlich auch seine eigene Rezeption vorhergesehen hat: Etwas wirklich nicht einfach Erklärbares landet in einem anderen Spiel und dessen Bewohnerschaft ist so sauer über den Schaden, dass sie den Erstbesten, den sie finden (den Autor) anprangern, statt überhaupt zu versuchen sich mit dem Problem auseinanderzusetzen.

Wo finden wir also „Good Writing“ in einem Videospiel? Darauf mag es keine eindeutige Antwort geben - vor allem, weil ich keine Ahnung habe, was „Good Writing“ überhaupt ist - aber eins zeigt YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse ganz gewiss: Vor allem dort, wo man es nicht erwarten würde, übersieht man „Good Writing“ am einfachsten – denn wenn man es nicht finden will, findet man es auch nicht. Und manchmal schreibt ein Spinner eine durchdachte Analyse von extrem gegenwärtigen politischen Auffälligkeiten wie Populismus… in einem Videospiel-Cross-Over.

#ffxiv #ff14 #yorha dark apocalypse #the picture is old so it's not that good (it's based on a noelle ex still)#i felt insane writing this bc this was official course work #but my university now legally owns a review of y:da #and that's worth the cringe of having a professor read this insanity

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astralartefact · 16 days

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They will have to explain to me how Kachimachi Soccer Girl fits into Dollchestra but I'm sure they'll make it make sense

Hasu nation how are we feeling

#they're wearing the unit outfits from dream believers so yeah #defo joining the sub units #...which means next year is going to be _interesting_#sweating in megumegu #i really hope they don't rerelease the old music #especially after niji and liella got so lazy with it #still not over the liella sub units singles only having 2 new songs #ataraseidolbs #hasunosora #love live #hasunosora spoilers

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astralartefact · 24 days

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Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 002 - Dragon's Dogma 2 <<Prev: 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

Synopsis

A prolonged camping adventure with the loyalest boys and a mage prodigy who gives me sass only often enough to make me paranoid she has the evil guy disease that kills everybody (might just be puberty)

Special Shoutout to whoever I stole Zoe the Beastren Healer Girl from (Your character name is/was Melina), she was a regular fixture of my party and is mine now.

How much did I know before playing?

I didn't play the first one, but I kept up with the marketing somewhat, and I was hyped to finally play it.

Did I like it more than I expected?

I fully expected to like it and I did. From what I've seen from the game before I bought it I knew its approach to an Open World would be my kind of game - and it was.

But seeing the discourse (and we will get to the discourse) this feels like a daring statement to make lol

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

Okay, this is the weirdest criticism to have about a game I completed in 113 hours, but it wasn't big enough. When I unknowingly made my way to Battahl and realized it wasn't as big as the other biome my reaction was a sad o: face and that feeling stuck around until the end, everything was just "I wouldn't mind if this was bigger :/" and it did impact my enjoyment of Battahl as a whole (Agamen not as much).

The game as a whole is really cool - I really loved it, I'm having to stop myself from starting a NG+ right now, and I think given an endless stream of new content I could literally play this game forever - and to some degree I feel like its size was calculated pretty well by the devs and shouldn't be bigger (if it was a lot of other minor details would suddenly become much bigger problems) but I guess it feels unexhausted.

I disagree when people say the open world is empty and one note - I personally had a great time exploring the entire map and I think the variety inside of the biomes is realistic and nuanced, I think if they just rethemed what's there into more different, but smaller biomes that wouldn't have done it for me either. The world might not be "new and exciting" everywhere you go, but every space in a given biome has some nuance in its topology and context that makes it stand out from the rest and it really feels like this world could be a real place exactly the way it is.

And since being grounded and 'realistic' is kind of this game's entire deal, having beef with that is to me kind of pointless, that just means you should have researched better what you're buying into (and we'll get to that!)

But I guess it feels like they could have done more, that all of these systems slotting in with each other would have benefitted from more stuff. Take the pawn specializations and classes for example, I think all of them are pretty neat but there aren't that many so running into 'one of that type' doesn't really change anything, especially since situational ones like the Elvish Speakers are coded to appear where you need them and you only "need" them in one specific place so you don't ever really have to think who you take with you. Same with environmental hazards like those water dams.

I guess that's the good thing of being able to expect Capcom to overdo it on DLC - I think adding more stuff like that in for example an expansion would really benefit this game, even though I will say that I think for the game that we have right now, the stuff that is there is enough.

Because in a fit of madness I don't even mean stuff like the enemy variety with that? I thought for the size of the game world the enemy variety was fine, not great but fine, even if it was on the smaller side at least the variety of their placement was really well thought through so I didn't really fight two of the same enemy groups in a row (the only problem i had with the enemies was that the enemy groups spawn way too densely and too frequently, you can't move an inch without aggroing another hassle of a fight and it also happens with paths you just cleared half an hour ago so map movement starts to become a chore at some point)

Finally: Men. But we'll talk about that.

What did this game make me think about?

We can only change the world by wanting to change it :) I love that as a theme, I'm really glad this is becoming a contemporary staple

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

THE TITLE SCREEN BEING DRAGONS DOGMA (NOT 2!) UNTIL THE THING HAPPENS i noticed that and it made me fall in love with the game so much more, it being a stealth remake and how it plays with that is so fcking cool i love that (again, I haven't even played the first one)

The coastal path to Bakbattahl. As I was randomly exploring I was wondering what the red waymarkers along this cave path were, so of course I followed them until at the end of this seemingly endless pilgrimage I finally realised what they were leading to. The entire experience of travelling along the cliffs and having to watch out for the harpies and the griffon was just really beautifully crafted. That whole journey will defo stick with me for a long time.

CHARACTER CREATOR OPEN WORLD RPGS ARE THE BEST Character Creators are my VisualNovel where the general audience seems to think they're cheesy but no, you don't get it, it's just that devs don't use them right because barely anyone has thought about their artistic merit yet. i can add so much visceral character development to my journey by changing hairstyles, adding scars, making my pc more muscular after training a new class, etc.

the day one of these games shaves a pc's head when they're imprisoned or adds scars when losing to a monster instead of a Game Over (all optional ofc people would scream if they forced that on their waifu) without me having to do that on my own is the day i will die happy

Outstanding Audio

The boss themes were cool? I did like the music and didn't just feel ambivalent about it but I couldn't tell you any specific piece :(

Favorite Character

Well, my character and my sweet pawns of course.

Aside from that I really liked Nadinia, even if she didn't get to do all that much, I just really love characters like her.

Also I guess the Smith Girl in Battahl, I liked her :)

Favorite Arc/Story Line

I liked Sven and Ser Menella's quests, but more than anything I loved seeing how doing quests impacted evacuating the cities after being baffled that the quests just ended without a conclusion. So I guess the entire final arc? (btw get good guys, i did the colossus quick kill without the arrow and seeing that pay off afterwards was amazing)

Favorite Set Piece

Travelling to Battahl along the coast

Watching my Pawn fight as the colossus

Everything that had to do with the capital-D Dragon

also having a healer with a child-like voice around and being paranoid about the dragon plague any time she gave me sass (she has like two or three lines out of nowhere that felt very pointed and i was so scared)

Favorite Scene

The ending scene with your pawn turning into the plague dragon. something about that did it for me.

Best Performance (I played with JP voices)

Kakuma Ai of Edelgard fame gave Nadinia such an edge that I really appreciate, she really made that character for me. For some reason I thought she was going to be a well-meaning but helpless pacifist priestess type character and thankfully she was not just that, she knew full well what she was doing while still also kind of being that pacifist priestess.

German Localization Notes

I thought the Localization was great! It fit the setting (I think Vasall is a better term than Pawn, fight me) and there were barely any blatant mistakes (I remember one spelling error and one time I was referred to as female, but that might be a programming error instead)

From what I did understand from the JP Pawn Dialogue I think they changed a bunch from the "original Japanese" though (might be an EN issue though, we don't have our own DE Voice Over so it would make more sense to keep with the 'default' language's text instead of JP) but also I don't really care since 90% of the dialogue is just Pawn Chatter where the phrasing of the content isn't particularly narratively important

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY ---

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

This game is so fucking cool. I love this game for how weird it is. The stuff people complain about? Glorious. I love every single thing.

I loved having to have a physical fist fight with the save feature every time I was scared of making the wrong narrative choice. Yeah, it's kind of dumb and annoying, but from the devs' perspective, from the game they wanted to make and the overall vibe they were clearly going for it just makes sense. You're suppossed to roll with your wins and your failings - and if you can just always win then what's the point. You're not supposed to save scum as "un-quality of life" that may be and this is one way to kind of limit it to preserve the vibe they were going for.

Only having one save state and limiting character makeovers (they already fixed this one) makes sense because you're not supposed to play this game 'in parallel', you're supposed to play this game in succession - in a cycle, even. Your character isn't supposed to suddenly be an entirely different character, you're supposed to connect with the story through this character that is yours and to that goal, continually letting you change them completely would hinder that.

And since clearly this is actually a stealth remake of the first one I also really respect them not changing the shitty Beloved system? For some reason it's much more interesting to me that they kept it exactly the way it was, despite being stupid.

I guess I love stuff like this because it forces you to interact with the game as a piece of software engineering to make your own goals in this game come true. And yes, to me that's a good thing, because Video Games are pieces of software engineering - They're pretty much the only type of media that can do this.

Let me, the person who needs to make Self-Inserts for Maximum Escapism, be the one to tell you that I'm with Brecht when I say that in all sincerity, Immersion is a skill issue. Fuck Immersion as an aspirational trait of a piece of art. Especially capital-G Gamers have no clue what they're talking about when they use the word Immersion - and I get to say that, because I know that Presence exists beside the two popular buzzwords Immersion and Suspension of Disbelief - and this shit gives me so much Presence, I can't even begin to tell you.

I had to read the phrase "This game not maintaining 30FPS is breaking my immersion" about a game that made me pick up a child that had developed a crush on me, run in circles until my stamina ran out in order to drop it in a way that makes it crash into the stone floor, spraying blood everywhere because it was the only way I could make the child like me less - and I had to do that multiple times all so I could ensure I wouldn't end up kissing a child in the ending.

And while doing that, I did think "It's stupid the game works like this", I did feel fucking bad for the child I was abusing all so I could romance... well I romanced a random guy off the street because the men in this game were kind of boring - and yet in hindsight I was completely immersed into what I was doing because I was unironically engaging, grasping for agency in the systems put in place by the game's developers. I am rummaging through the rules of this universe all to spite god by making a child hate me a little bit more - and if that's not in the spirit of Dragon's Dogma II then I don't know what is. (this is only like 20% sarcasm btw)

To say it like this: Video Games aren't just to immerse you into a story better. Arguments about Immersion also always make me wonder what people think books are doing. But Dragon's Dogma 2 certainly is first and foremost a video game.

It feels like the people working on this game thought about what they were doing and during my journey through this world I got the feeling of understanding what exactly the devs went for in all aspects of this piece of software engineering - It's not trying to be a movie, it's not trying to be a book. It's trying and succeeding to be what it is and I really appreciate that.

I just wish there was EVEN MORE of it!!!

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

It grinds my gears that this keeps coming up so here it is, another round of idiot Gamers making me defend capitalism for something it didn't cause:

It's great that you all have awakened to corporations squeezing you out of your money, that's very anti-capitalist of you and I applaud that communist thinking (i'm not a communist but a lot of angry Gamers aren't either so let's make them mad by calling them that)

And yet I'm so sorry to inform you that even in Utopia people would still try to scam you.

It's not a Video Game Company's fault that you believed what they told you. I'm empathetic that it's hard, annoying and most of all stupid that we have to interact with a media landscape that is constantly trying to scam us for our money and attention, but even a genuine and well-intended artist is going to sugarcoat their product - so why would you ever believe what CAPCOM of all people is telling you without seeing physical proof first?

And even if they're point blank lying - which, straight up, for the most part Itsuno wasn't - if someone tells you they will sell you a green mug and the mug they hand you is red and you ask "but this is red" and they say "no it's green" and then you still buy it and at home you're upset that it is indeed red then you're the idiot!!! Yes, why did that person tell you that? Did they think you`re stupid? Why is Capitalism uniquely rewarding scamming people like this? All valid questions to seek answers for! But you can fall to the ground crying capitalism all you want, it's still your own foolishness that caused this!!! Don't buy shit if you're not adequately sure that you will enjoy the product!!

You have to - and will always have to - make your own informed decisions about what you invest both your money and your time into. 95% of problems that not only this but pretty much any video game discourse these days is critizising could be solved by simply researching what kind of game you would be buying into before buying it. And in this case, you have luck, this game existed before and you can try that game out for literally 5€! You know how I knew that? Because I fucking googled it.

And you can too! Thanks to YouTube, Twitch, some shitty wikis and some good ones it has never been easier to identify if a game is up to your standards before buying it - you just can't do that before the game is even out, which is why Pre-Orders are such a big problem to some people (I personally don't care, because I have to think about what I'm doing with my money anyways)

So just. Think about what you're spending money on before spending money on it! Maybe try being poor and having just enough money to buy one game every three months - that taught me to do that!

But with that out of my system let me get to the other problem this game has, one I think is really fucking annoying and stupid and really the core of my grievances with the game and not just the audience....

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

To introduce the second? third? Ramble topic of the day, here are a few moments from my playthrough that we will use to illustrate my main "problem" with this game:

I, a gay man, was forced to kiss the Sexy BrothelLady for literally no reason.

When daring to have a full male party, my main pawn mentioned that he hoped I wouldn't make not having women in the party a habit. (paraphrased)

You can buy a very revealling Mage Armor in Battahl. Naturally, after reaching Battahl around 75% of Pawns I encountered were barely dressed women.

I guess to add to that, the only black skinned Pawn I ever saw was one that Capcom made. Isn't that heart-warming.

I don't even know if there are romanceable men on the level of BrothelLady (I'm too lazy to look her name up, that's what she gets for sexual assault) or Ulrika

The Yeti Monkey Ogre gets horny for female pawns which felt very weird. I don't think there's an equivalent mechanic for male characters.

The Beloved Animations are all expressedly feminine. And I love me femininity, but it says a lot about who the devs thought would more likely be beloved and who would do the loving.

There's a summoning stone that only shows you petite women (which isn't necesarily bad, but it did raise my eyebrows)

imagine FPS being the only thing between you and that oh so hallowed immersion.

I guess to put it this way: For most of its runtime, the game gets away with pretending to be Gender Agnostic. Your Beloved can be Everyone even children! There's almost no mechanical difference between genders! You could argue that there is no intended demographic in mind for this game - that everybody can play it and therefore it's made for everyone.

Until, of course, one of those things I mentioned above pops up and serves as a harsh reminder that No! At some point in development, the devs came down hard on "This game was made for heterosexual men and everyone else can just also play it."

And with some of this shit I felt gross about having to witness it and that's really the gist of it.

I remember vividly when my main pawn no homo-ed me about my All Male Party and how just utterly ugly that felt. And I know it was phrased weirdly (at least in german) so maybe it's just me, but it was vague enough that I could interpret it as him saying he needs women in the party so he had something to look at and that's an extremely wild and frankly inappropriate thing to have your blank canvas NPC Follower say out of fucking nowhere. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men and hearing that.

It's in moments like Wilhelmina's forced kiss (i remembered her name are you proud) where the only reason it happened was that the presumed player would find that shit hot. It's in Ulrika being clearly just romance option Nr.1 and I couldn't just tell her no and continue to do her quests, I had to throw her into a wall every time I saw her to the point I completely avoided her instead of talking to her. I'm pretty sure I missed quests because of that. Like, Imagine being a woman liking men trying to do these quests.

Related, there's also something in them trying to circumvent Depicting Real Racism by transposing it onto the Beastren - which I guess didn't not work, I don't have any big feelings either way, especially since the devs at least tried to keep the cast somewhat diverse; I certainly didn't find it as appalling as whatever FF16 did. But it also makes stuff like Nadinia not being an equivalent Romance option despite being on the cover of the game questionable, because now it's like... Yeah, that was a decision you made for a reason. You didn't think your presumed audience would find the cat lady hot, right? (I certainly did and I'm gay)

I also mentioned before having strong feelings about Character Creators - because I do feel they are a very, very strong tool to make your own story telling part of the game in a tangible way. And sure, I use them mainly for self-inserts, sue me, but what I'm trying to say is:

It feels crazy to have 75% of Pawns I run into be someone's waifu and they all look one certain way. Other than that people either make some joke pawn or a bad version of a popular character - but from what I've seen the waifu they can presumably goon over was certainly the biggest pawn demographic by far.

And I know that gets into "Let people have fun!" territory, but it definitely lessened mine and I'm not even one of the people this is about. It was less fun for me not just meeting somebody's unique pawn, but - well. An Army of Women Objects. Not even objectified women - these are Women born as Objects. (and yes while these women aren't real, the treatment of fictional women is still indicative of and impactful on real women - so yeah, you can objectify women even if they're fictional) A world supposed to be filled with myriad unique pawns is uniquely filled with Women Objects - and given what the Pawns are in universe, that's kind of massively fucked up and every time the Game acknowledges that - by including very revealing armor, making it easier to filter certain types of women and by telling me to recruit more women because why would you ever have an all male party??? - it just feels gross.

Again. Try imagining being a woman that dares to like men. I keep repeating it because it feels like nobody thought about this niche group of people that's just about 50% of the entire population on earth.

And I guess I can't fault the devs too much about it, for the most part I actually really like the female characters in this game (nadiniaaaaaa) and the Pawns they themselves made are pretty diverse so clearly they cared at least a little about it; I certainly didn't find what they did as appalling as whatever FF16 did. I can only side eye them for knowing that all of this would happen and kind of enabling their players to do that.

It's just sad. It's sad and it's gross and an active reminder that despite it all a majority of people still treats women, 50% of humanity, like property, deliberately or not. It stains a really enjoyable video game with interesting mechanics to think about that I really connected with - and all because capital-G Gamers and "standard" masculinity is fucking gross and yet the devs either didn't think that far or think that's fine and good and dandy.

#atarasegamediary #dragons dogma 2 #for your interest and i know you care very much #cyan is actually possessed by a dullahan (bc i lost against them so many times it's _character development_)#giving him a weird blue eye to signify possession stuff like that is what i'm talking about #also a great excuse to give him the lance job bc the magic looks similar #that's the kind of shit character creators let you pretend is a real part of the story #it's more than just a one off tool to make a character that looks like x or y #it's a tool to insert your own creativity onto the entire game

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astralartefact · 27 days

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I can now tag this picture from *checks notes* July 2021 as NieR Reincarnation.

They have her horns NieR:Replicant ver.1.22474487139... Ending E

I had the line art for this finished for a while now, but I was too intimidated to actually shade this, turns out it's harder to shade three people at the same time lol... so I gave up and just slapped some colors behind it and put some gradients on the background...

But I'm really proud of the lines!! This is my first time drawing something of this scale. I tried some stuff out with the background like blurring the lines on a duplicate layer and I think it worked out nice..!

#nier reincarnation #nier #nier replicant #drakengard #drakengard 3 #dod3 #that reminds me i should finally do an oops all manah piece

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astralartefact · 29 days

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Going back through the nier reincarnation tag since servers are shutting down next month and just wanted you to know how beautiful I found your designs for the intoners in that style. The first time I saw them I thought you knocked it out of the park and still do. Sorry if this came out of nowhere lol

Thank you so much! I'm still really proud of them so I'm glad others like them too :)

Actually, that reminds me that a while ago I thought about doing Intoner costumes (like One!Fio and Two!Akeha) for Three, Four and Five - so I guess as thanks for the nice message take a sketch of Four!Priyet that never saw the light of day

#asks #nier reincarnation #drakengard 3

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astralartefact · 30 days

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NieR Re[in]carnation The People and the World Transmigration and the End of Reincarnation

If Red is the color of ______ then why did I ____ the ending of NieR Re[d ]carnation?

Between YoRHa:Dark Apocalypse, some of the RoD stories and now this, a pattern has been established:

If I didn't really like the ending of a NieR story, chances are 100% that given a couple hours to days I will figure myself into "This is the best thing ever written, I committed blasphemy against the god king by ever doubting his vision."

Because to be open and honest about it, right after playing it the ending was kinda boring to me - because if you paid attention to the periphery and knew the deep lore you already expected 90% of the reveals, the only really new thing is the rundown on what happened to His, Her and N2.

Let me phrase it like this: the Time Loop Theory didn't really need confirmation up until now. It was a thing because it fits the themes, but acknowledging it wouldn't really add anything because the vague sense of inevitability already exists simply by alluding to it and the previous narratives all already had it built into them without it anyways - so I think the only reason they hard confirmed it now was because it literally added to the story. Him and Her being stuck in the time loop of humanity's failure is why they despaired.

So long story short, the stuff they 'confirmed' I didn't really need to be confirmed (cries in no y:da) and as fine as it was, not having an immediate "Oh Shit!" Moment made the chapter kind of boring. So while kind of neat it didn't really do anything for me.

But I also finished Reincarnation at 5AM. So I went to sleep and Io and behold, I awoke to a revelation by the god king:

This was amazing. This story logistically paid off on the entirety of the game's narratives in a single chapter all while talking about something new. What the fuck. Once again, this shouldn't work. How did they do that??? How is the writing in this game so tightly unified despite being literally fragmented into 20-ish individual stories??? This game has the most writers of all NieR games and yet every single story is pulling at the same rope??? Like, how???

To me NieR Reincarnation is about two things: Number 1 - Reincarnation is a Cage, all humans are born into some level of agency-less-ness and wouldn't you know it, they have no agency about that Number 2 - 'Humanity' is a more complex thing than just 'Being of the Human Species' (which is basically the NieR theme)

I think the Robots in the cast illustrate this the best: Dimos and Marie and Yurie and 10H (and Noelle and 063y and F66x) were made for a purpose, but they didn't choose their purpose, their creators did for very specific reasons. But against all odds they find themselves human and humans have wishes and dreams, even if it's just to fulfill their purpose, they seek out the agency to make those dreams come true and if they pray for their dreams to come true they will find a way.

By experiencing the pain and despair of solitude He became human, because He wanted, He wished to not experience it anymore. By experiencing the pain and despair of the machine lifeforms N2 became human in the same way and She became human by incorporating N2's experience of pain into Herself.

And as Humans they pray for a better future. And maybe they can't do it on their own, because they're human and humans fail and cry and shit and die. Maybe they desperately need the help of someone who can help, even if it's just a little girl who is selfless enough to offer them an encouraging hand despite all of the mistakes they made. But by praying for their dreams to come true, by not outright denying the possibility of a better future, simply by hoping this better future exists we can reach it, because we're human. We will find a way.

So even I, from one Prayer to another, want to Thank You for Praying. Please believe in the future you want to see, because otherwise it will not happen. And remember, all Prayers lead to the Cage.

Also Drakengard symbolism because GODDAMN IT, JUST MAKE ANOTHER DRAKENGARD GAME YOU-----

They called her the second girl, but she's at least the third!!! (i think four if you count crym?) (but i'm pretty sure only i do that so let's do three)

I'm fucking pissed. You dare to leave the Drakengard Shit, MY beloved Drakengard Shit, as subtext symbolism??? How dare you. How absolutely dare you. I hope you know I am praying for Drakengard 5 (not a mistake) Yoko Taro and as I have established in this post you yourself have said that prayers come true if you believe in them so go ahead. I'm waiting.

No Seed of Resurrection talk, No word on Mother, No Accord, just the girl with One's horns doing the Manah stuff I deserve, because I called it back when Replicant Remake came out.

No but really though, I wonder if there might be a reason that we got basically 0 answers to Drakengard stuff and only answers to the NieR side of things. Apparently - and I have no quote for this, I just read some chatter about it - Yoko Taro has said that the next NieR game is planned, but will only come after another game he's making... and well... if this final chapter has made anything clear by omission it's that Drakengard isn't NieR... Just saying...

Also, this still it wasn't a Y:DA reference after all... They didn't even slightly allude to it q_q #AnoggForReincarnation is truly over...

But let's talk about the color Red for a second, because I have a thought.

I'm not going into it too much, we all know Red is a pretty symbolically heavy color in general, but in NieR and honestly even more so in Drakengard especially - they literally just did stain a girl in white in blood again, that's the Drakengard thing - but...

Mama's Pod is also Red. She receives a Red Carnation, a common Japanese Mother's Day gift, from 10H which is the key to 10H unlocking the truth. Clearly Red isn't just Hatred... but I haven't thought enough about it to really tell you what that's about. I will have to think about that - and if I ever come to a conclusion on that front I will tell you all about it.

Anyways, that's it for now... I can confidently state that NieR Reincarnation is my favorite NieR game and honestly by a long shot. I don't give a shit that it's a Gacha, I can't do anything about that and Yoko Taro, Yuki Wada and the Rest of the Team did the absolute most with the hand they were dealt, because clearly someone up in Square Enix does not like what the silly mask man is doing and doesn't give him the budget and creative liberties he truly deserves.

Once again a sincere Thank you for Praying - please believe in the future you want to see, no matter how distant and unattainable it may seem. You will still have to look out for and grab the hand reaching out to actually reach it - but you will only see that hand if you're hoping for one to come your way in the first place.

Speaking of which, here is my Prayer for the day: #AnoggForWhateverComesAfterReincarnationBecauseIfThisWasReplicantEndingEPayoffThenY:DAPayoffHasToBeNext

#nier reincarnation #yoko taro #nier #I will miss doing these...#but thank you to all the people who read like and reblogged them <3 #Thank You for Praying #I'm slightly cringing typing it out because it feels like telling somebody to be religious #but read the post. i actually really like what reincarnation did with that. praying is just hoping for a better future #and you don't need god for that

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