So, I mentioned previously that Fashion Dreamer represents a significant improvement in the men's fashion over syn Sophia's past games, even if it still seems to be a lower priority compared to the women's. (It is sounding like there are fewer items for them on the whole, and I would not be at all shocked to hear there are fewer items for specific fashion niches than those equivalent niches in the women's fashion, but it is still meaningfully more diverse than what it was before.)

I promised examples.

Unfortunately, I only have one really good screenshot from my own 3DS, because I tend to take pictures of dialogue rather than inviting random characters to pose with me, and of the ones where you can clearly see what a guy is wearing, it's usually a character who's intentionally dressed as a sort of dorky scientist at best, and at worst...

Well, the best picture I have ALSO includes Johann, so you get to see him!

For those not reading the alt text, I feel it's important you know that that jacket of Johann's has TAILS. Also big gold buttons, I didn't note those because they're not really visible at all, and pants with a very gaudy floral pattern. So yeah, he's an Eccentric and Tortured Musician, so he dresses Like That. It's clearly intentional and not representative of the average character in the game (though he also has a student who dresses basically like him, with basically the same Eccentric and Tortured bit, who we see in a side quest.)

Oliver, on the other hand, is pretty much representative of how men in this series dress. He's a model, and as you can see, his default outfit (I checked the Style Boutique wiki to confirm, this is it) is... uh, kind of bland. He's not alone.

(Shout outs to the Style Boutique Wiki, where I got these screenshots.) This is Ricky, shown in his default outfit. (While there technically IS a menswear section in Fashion Forward, it's an extra you can only access from the title screen to dress up NPCs, and very limited. In the summer he'll take that jacket off, but that's it.)

I believe at least one of these outfits of Florian's is user-designed - they're both from Trendsetters, which is the game I've played the least of the four. Either way, not suits! But still not particularly interesting. But okay, maybe it's just that this STYLE is on the bland side? Let's try some others!

(In order: Vincent, Melvin, Ethan Quinn, Jim.)

I swear I didn't go looking for characters who are exclusively wearing T-shirts except Ethan, I am a bit limited in what the wiki has here. But also... yeah. I think Jim might be supposed to be a fan of bold fashion, given the belt and the hair? But you wouldn't know it from looking at the plain black t-shirt. Vincent and Melvin are a bit better - Vincent helps run the live music venue that opens midway through the game, while Melvin is in fact a nerd who doesn't take that much interest in fashion and only shows up to support one of the three central idols of the game, who also happens to be his best friend. Is it unfair to include him, then? No. Because at least his outfit is actually indicative of his character!

(Daisuke, Chad - though I believe he's renamed Brad in the North American release, and MC Mode, two photos. Tarquin, at the bottom, is one of my own screenshots.)

The same hat situation here is a bit amusing, but they were designed for different games and it makes sense to reuse fashion items like that between games - it let them add onto the wardrobe as the series went on, so there were a lot more items with different silhouettes and such by Styling Star. For the women. I think at least a few of these characters got to gain and lose jackets depending on the in-game season, and MC Mode here is a fashionable guy who gets to wear TWO outfits.

And the chic look isn't too bad - both Mode and Ethan wear it, so as you can see, there's definitely some range. I think Vincent might get to wear a leather jacket during the in-game winter, but I couldn't commit to it; I can't remember off-hand if Daisuke loses his jacket in the summer, though I hope not.

But yeah. You'll notice looking at all of these that even the rocker's outfit is a t-shirt and jeans. There ARE slightly more interesting options - those jeans might be distressed, there ARE leather jackets, and there are some pants with excess belts among the men's, I think - but not nearly as much as the women's fashion in the punk rock style. Tarquin's "lab coat" is clearly a suit jacket, and while it makes some sense not to make an entire unique item for one character, this game didn't even have men's fashion. I'm pretty sure they just used an existing suit jacket from Trendsetters. On the other hand, at least THAT ONE is reflective of his character. Daisuke's outfit is the closest the games come to athletic wear until Fashion Dreamer.

The characters in the later two games in particular were REALLY fun. There's a reason why I didn't have many screenshots just showing a male character facing forward, and none without dialogue - I actually really enjoy the writing here. Ethan wants to conquer the world with music, and multiple characters comment that this makes him sound like a supervillain. Tarquin is an endearing nerd who has a bunch of cute comments about all the items you bring in to make fashion items from. Florian likes bad puns.

But their outfits don't really tell you much about their personalities, where the female characters all do.

Top 5 Games Of The Year #4

Yakuza 0 is a pretty special game both individually and as a part of its franchise. It’s the first time Yakuza has taken a step backwards chronologically, in order to better explore already established characters and what led them to the events of the first game. It gets a lot of praise already and I’m just here to heap a little more onto the pile because it well deserves it. Although the series at this point is no stranger to having multiple protagonists and Majima has technically been playable before the special feeling Yakuza 0 elicits by having two protagonists wasn’t really lost for it. Compared to the four in Yakuza 4, or the frankly over padded five protagonists in Yakuza 5, taking a step down to just two and placing an almost equal emphasis on each really does the game’s narrative and pacing wonders. Yakuza 0′s story is really good it is an excellent crime drama and among the best main plots the series has to offer. While some might argue other entries, usually 2 or 4, can stand up alongside it I feel 0′s has an edge in some areas. Largely in terms of pace, ambition, and intrigue. For instance, 2 doesn’t really mess around with plot twists, the entire game basically waves a giant flag over Ryuji saying he’s the final boss and the whole plot exists basically just to get to his and Kiryu’s legendary fight. And that’s fine, it doesn’t try to be more than it needs to be and that’s okay. 4 meanwhile has more intrigue and some good twists in there but its pace is much poorer in my opinion. Your mileage may vary on the bullets plot twist, too. 0 has some legitimate plot twists and it does a great job getting players engaged and interested in what’s going to happen next. To get back to 0 though, it doesn’t sacrifice characterization to achieve the quality of its plot either, far from it. It’s the first time we’ve seen a young, hot blooded, and frankly really stupid Kiryu. Kiryu’s never a smart guy but getting to see how he handles situations and behaves before 10 years in prison and subsequent stories smooth his edges and temper his personality is really a treat for fans of the character and newcomers alike. He’s fun, relatable, serious when he needs to be, and most importantly he’s still perfectly recognizable as Kiryu. He is still absolutely that amazing protagonist that you know and love, he’s just young, dumb, and full of.....well you know. On the other hand Majima is almost unrecognizable in this game, being calm, well dressed, a charismatic and professional showman, dissuading others from fighting, all while being openly depressed to boot. This take on Majima still feels fitting because the way he phrases himself is familiar, his gut reactions feel right for the characters, and ultimately this game contextualizes not just his transformation into the Mad Dog of Shimano fans know him as later but many of his actions through the rest of the series. Just ignore how his story here and how he’s written in Yakuza 5 violently contradict one another. We can all just pretend Y5′s Majima writing isn’t canon. The strength of characterization extends to the game’s side characters too, including ones who alongside Majima and Kiryu return from the main series. Nishiki, Kashiwagi, the Lieutenants, Tachibana, Lee, and more are all memorable and great characters. Just, uhh, don’t expect many women in the main plot is all. I don’t want to talk too in depth about the game’s story so as to avoid spoiling anything but it really is a treat. The script takes advantage of player’s expectations in a meta sense, that ultimately this will be Kiryu’s game because, well, Yakuza 4 and 5 were Kiryu’s games in spite of the other protagonists. Those guys all got good, moving stories too and they are all well worth experiencing and having around but ultimately Kiryu is still the most important guy on the block. Not so, here, as by the halfway point of the game players might notice that Majima’s ‘half’ of the game, his half of the game’s chapters, are quite a bit longer than Kiryu’s. Majima has a lot more legwork to do in the story because it is his story, and while Kiryu gets the true final boss fight and is very important to the events at hand as well it’s really Majima who’s the star here. This game is an excuse to explore his character and it does not beat around the bush on that intention. If you are a fan of this franchise you really do have to experience this story. All too often prequel games just end up softening or weakening the existing narratives they’re trying to pay homage to or trying to strengthen but Yakuza 0 expertly dodges that bullet by never missing a beat in terms of quality relative to standard Yakuza entires. My only real issue with the story, honestly, is that Makoto is about as much of a McGuffin as she is a person. The game does take time to develop her both directly and indirectly but ultimately she spends about as much time just being a plot device to be ferried around by one man or another as she does getting to talk and do things.  The gameplay is very refined compared to other games in the seires, I would argue it’s tighter and more fun than Yakuza 6′s, even, if only due to the sheer variety of Heat Actions (effectively super moves; ranging from the silly to the bombastic to the brutal to a handful that made me shout ‘HOLY SHIT HE DIDN’T DESERVE THAT!!!’ at my TV) present in 0. If you like beat ‘em ups you’ll like Yakuza’s playstyle; each character gets 4 fighting styles earning three through the story and a fourth through side content. The fourth fighting style for each one is essentially a bonus, letting them fight in their ‘iconic’ styles, Dragon and Mad Dog respectively. To be honest they’re both underwhelming, Mad Dog is maybe Majima’s weakest fighting style and Dragon, while strong, requires a lot more heat than what it naturally builds to stay competent. The fighting styles are still fun though, they add plenty of new and unique options to each character to justify getting them, they’re just not going to win you the game for free or anything. Of the character’s main fighting styles the only real issue I have is the disparity in strength between them, both internally and between each other. No mincing words here, Majima is obscenely overpowered compared to Kiryu. Breaker Style annihilates every challenge in the game with next to no effort besides Mr. Shakedown fights, which aren’t really fun anyway. That said Slugger easily bashes in Mr. Shakedown and even Jo Amon. Majima will breeze through all of his content even on higher difficulties. Comparatively Kiryu can have a pretty rough time in some fights. This is due in part by his fighting styles being really well balanced internally, they’re all useful and thus the player may actually feel like swapping between them mid battle or between encounters. Kiryu not really having an overwhelming option generally means he can be very expressive, my fiancé and I played him very differently for instance on our runs. Whether you most enjoy his fast, invulnerability frame heavy, dash cancelling Rush style which takes a very high amount of investment to become good but I would argue is maybe his best style once you get it there, his brutish item swinging, semi-grappler Beast style which absolutely decimates indoors fights, or the more well rounded, heat action heavy Brawler Kiryu’s got something for everyone. Each of his styles also get a great variety of unique heat actions, all three to environmental cues, and Beast and Brawler to equip-able and overworld items. While Majima’s fighting style are also expressive and a ton of fun to use they just feel too safe and too easy compared to Kiryu. He gets absolutely stellar results and gets them quickly for extremely little effort in the ridiculously fast, low profile attacks of Breaker. Not to say Breaker isn’t fun, because it is, breakdancing to beat people up is hilarious and fun and its heat actions are flavorful to boot, it’s just really overpowered is all. After some investment his Ballerina With A Baseball Bat fighting style, Slugger, also becomes nigh impossible to challenge for the AI thanks to it losing its primary weakness of the bat bouncing off of walls it hits after you put only moderate investment into it. While the least varied of Majima’s styles in terms of heat actions, Slugger is great fun if you ever wanted a proper weapon based fighting style in Yakuza. It feels like what Shinada should have played like. Majima’s starting style, Thug, is a fun grappling and street brawling style that requires a lot of precision to use well and is very well suited to one on one fights should the player be so inclined to not opt for his better options. It makes use of baroque kicks, eye pokes, strangles, and back turns. It’s also Majima’s only style that can make use of non-baseball bat items for heat actions as well as most of his environmental heat actions, and Majima has some GREAT heat actions under these conditions, helping Thug keep a niche compared to the other styles. Honestly, if you like Tekken you’ll probably like Thug. These great fighting styles would be pointless if the game didn’t have fun enemies and situations to pit you against and thankfully it does. Its ‘dungeons’ are a lot of fun and some of the boss fights really stand out. Thanks to the sheer myriad of context based Heat Actions even just fighting the random mooks in the street stays fun for dozens of hours as you experiment to see how you can fuck up some chumps today. It’s deeply gratifying and a lot of fun. While the optional Mr. Shakedown fights are a chore, they are all optional besides the first one so there’s no real reason to bother with them unless you’re doing a 100% substory completion run or REALLY need to grind money in a game where money is already free. Some of the boss fights are a bit mediocre, too, but overall they’re good fun. I do think Yakuza 0 is at its strongest though when it’s making the player fight room after room of enemies, dozens at a time, and just letting them feel like an absolute champion while doing so, really letting them revel in just how strong and cool Majima and Kiryu are. Yakuza 0′s side content is both one of its greatest strengths and in my opinion an area where it shows the most weakness. While Pocket Circuit, Karaoke, Cabaret Club, and the Sub-Stories are absolutely excellent and I truly cannot stress enough how fun they are the game also has a myriad of seemingly half baked minigames based off of real life activities for you to do, a lot of which have unnecessary RNG. Even Bowling has RNG...BOWLING, come on! The Pool, Darts, Bowling, Catfight Club, and other such minigames feel very rushed in execution and for all but the last of those feel like poor simulations compared to other games I have played. Catfight Club is just a really, really, shameless and sexist ‘Watch almost naked women ‘’’’wrestle’’’’’. Also, opposite Majima’s deeply flavorful, engaging, well written, and fun club management minigame Club Sunshine, the aforementioned cabaret club, Kiryu gets Real Estate Royale. Which is about as fun as you think. It’s literally standing around waiting for money to grind for you and then going out and investing it into properties. While the storyline attached to it is decent enough and has some good moments for Kiryu the minigame itself is just dreadful and grossly slow paced. Which is funny to say, because I think it takes less time to complete than Cabaret Club, but it feels like A Lot Longer because it just isn’t fun. There’s the Telephone Club, which uhhh, you can have Kiryu do to get laid. It’s funny in a tongue in cheek way but it’s also not my cup of tea besides laughing at Kiryu’s great dialogue and body language during the interactions. Basically, play Karaoke to hear Kiryu’s beautiful singing voice and also THE ONLY GAME IN THE SERIES WHERE MAJIMA’S SINGING ISN’T JUST AWFUL SCREECHING! 24 Hour Cinderella is a gift to the world and you need to play it. Cabaret Club is also where the vast majority of this game’s female characters exist, as hostesses. While the game could take this opportunity to be sexist (and one could argue it is, for sure) the writing present in Cabaret Club for the platinum hostesses and their story lines is just as good as anything else from the game. They’re worth talking to, learning about, and seeing their development. In all honesty they can almost fittingly serve as a nice break from the game’s intense story, giving the player a breather with some whole and comedic interactions. The Sub-Stories which make up this game’s version of side quests (because yes, this is a Beat ‘Em Up Japanese Crime Drama RPG) are also basically all amazing. The writing is heartfelt, funny, and just really good. They all have strong opening hooks without forcing the player to immediately get involved and despite being 100 of them they’re basically all really memorable. This is also where the game pays Kiryu back a bit for his lost story content relative to Majima, giving him 60 of the 100 sub stories. They’re all great ways to get to see more aspects of these characters and the citizens of Kamurocho, please give a bunch of them a try if you play this game. I also briefly want to talk about the settings of the game, Kamurocho and Sotenbori. They’re literally just the real life Japanese districts, Kabukicho and Dotenbori by SLIGHLY different names. If you play this game enough you’ll know some real life actual locations in actual real life Japan like you’ve been there. You’ll be able to navigate at least a few square blocks of Japan without a map, it’s amazing, and it’s really something special compared to other games. Also, I’m not exaggerating, the overworld(s) of this game are only a few square blocks large but the game plays that to its advantage. Navigating from one side to another of either one takes a minute or two at most and the streets are always PACKED with content. It’s impossible to wander around playing naturally without falling ass backwards into a dozen or more of the game’s sidestories and inevitably getting sucked into playing a few of them and seeing how good they are. I love this game’s map, it’s so brilliant in its design by simply being true to a real life location. Yakuza 0 also sports stellar sound design. The sound effects are BEEFY, hitting things feels amazing and nothing sounds out of place or off beat. The bombastic, over the top hit sounds really sell Majima and Kiryu’s overwhelming power and it just makes every fight satisfying. The soundtrack similarly is good, and while much of the soundtrack isn’t what I would call listening music, the Karaoke selections, specifically Bake Mitai, sure are. I’m not really the kind of guy who can tell you why the sound design is good, it just is, trust me.

All in all, Yakuza 0 is a stellar game and is exemplary of both what a modern beat ‘em up AND a modern RPG should strive to be like. It is a masterpiece in its own right and I’m glad that its success in the western market has secured this unique, beautiful series a future. Please play Yakuza 0, it’s regularly on sale on both PS4 and Steam and it deserves your attention. If you’re ever alone on a Friday night, just remember these Yakuza, and you’ll have a great time.

😜 ~go wild for shunuki Del, I know you're gonna rock my world with your wonderfulness~

Ship Meme: Bedroom // Still accepting~

Whoseroom was it first? 

Jūshirō’s. For one thing, Ugendō is super comfy, and I imagine that both Jūshirōand Shunsui enjoy the peace and solitude of the place. For another, I imagine Jūshirōhas all of his medical shenanigans safely and organized-ly stored somewhere thereabouts,and it would be more trouble than it’s worth to move them elsewhere.

Putting the rest under the cut, because this is looooong. Also, because parts of it get slightly nsfw-ish. I mean, it’s a bedroom meme, so. Uh. Y’know.

Whatsize is the bed?

Inactuality, it’s a double futon. Simple, old-school, comfy.

But,for the sake of the meme - in Western-style terms, it’s probably a queen bed,or maaaaybe a king. I don’t think either of them is terribly interested inexcess or overindulgence - but at the same time, they’re both tall guys, andthey need enough space for both of them to stretch out after a long day. Comenighttime, though, I have no doubt that they hold each other pretty close,which means there would be a lot of unused space in a king bed, so… eh, yeah. I’llroll with queen, I think.

Whatcolor are the sheets?

White.It’s practical; they can be bleached (ha-ha) when they become bloodstained.

Howmany blankets do they use?

Lotsand lots of blankets. Shunsui likes soft things, and takes great comfort in theidea of burying himself under a large pile of blankets. Jūshirō gets coldeasily, and needs the warmth.

Howmany pillows do they use? 

Depends.Usually, Shunsui likes two under his head, and Jūshirō likes one, but they keepextra pillows nearby, so that Jūshirō can be propped up in bed when he’sfeeling under the weather.

Dothey sleep together or separately? 

Together.Always.

Dothey have a regular sleep schedule? 

Nope.Not even a little bit.

Shunsuidoesn’t sleep well at night. His dreams are ghastly, and, in his heart, he’safraid of the dark. He compensates for this by napping during the day - butthis creates a vicious and unfortunate cycle, because it means that he oftenisn’t actually tired come bedtime. So, he snoozes when he can, but mostly, hespends his nights watching his handsome lover sleeping, instead…

…not,of course, that that happens all thetime, either. Jūshirō is one of those guys who can’t sleep well unlesseverything in his world is ordered and peaceful and proper - and, for better orfor worse, his world includes Shunsui. Jūshirō stays awake and turns problemsover and over in his mind, trying desperately to fix the things that make his head and his heart ache. But, ofcourse, that isn’t always possible.

Andthen, of course, some nights, he’s simply too ill to sleep.

Mostly,Shunsui and Jūshirō spend their evenings locked in each other’s arms, eyesclosed, drifting in and out of true sleep. They take comfort in each other, andsometimes, that’s enough.

Arethey cuddlers, or do they keep to themselves?

Um.See above, heh.

Bywhich I mean, basically all they do is cuddle.

Whohogs the bed?

Thatwould be Shunsui. For one thing, he’s bigger, and for another, Jūshirō’s just tooconsiderate. Even in sleep - even subconsciously - Jūshirō won’t take spacefrom another person. Shunsui, on the other hand, sprawls out like crazy when heactually manages to fall asleep - if he actually reaches that level ofsubconscious comfort and okay-ness, all bets are off, and his body doeswhatever the dang heck it wants. Jūshirō, for the record, doesn’t mind, even a littlebit.

Whosnores?

That,too, would be Shunsui. Though, actually, this isn’t really a fair question; Jūshirōhas significant respiratory issues, after all, and I have no idea how thatmight impact something like snoring. I imagine that, when he’s truly, trulyasleep, Shunsui lets out these deep, long, slow, luxurious snores. Jūshirō alwaysbreathes more shallowly than Shunsui does, both in waking and in sleeping, butI suspect that, every so often, he does snore a little bit - small, soft soundsof contentment, which Shunsui (correctly) believes are utterly adorable.

Dothey ever share the bed (with pets, children, etc?) 

Ahhh,if only… but no, I don’t think so. If they weren’t soldiers, they would havechildren, without a doubt. But… I’m not sure either of them would ever havetaken another path. I’m not sure either of them could ever have taken another path, actually. And so, no.

…actually.Wait. I take it back. They, um. Have definitelyshared their bed, if you take my meaning, with third and/or fourth and/or fifthand/or (insert number here tbh) party on occasion, for fun.

Butin terms of sleeping, on a nightly basis, it’s their space, and theirs alone.

Isthis their primary location for sex, or is somewhere else?

Ithink it is, yes. That said, location is hardly the thing that’ll keep the twoof them from having sex. The fact that they usually have sex in bed is more todo with convenience, rather than anything else. The evenings are when they seeeach other - they’re both busy men, after all - and when they both have time.

Underthe sheets, or on top of them?

Abit of both. Depends on the mood, really. Shunsui and Jūshirō have had hundredsand hundreds of years to get to know each other, and to explore, and to play,and to learn about each other’s preferences and desires and turn-ons andturn-offs and secrets. Sometimes, things are rushed, fast, even clothed; attimes like these, they want each other so desperately that they aren’t about tobother with a troublesome thing like pulling back the sheets. Other times,things are slow, and deep, and sweet; at times like these, they workdeliberately, passionately, and take things step by step. Maybe they want tosee each other’s bodies; maybe, they’re more interested in the simple sensationof touching each other, nearly blind, instead. Maybe they want warmth; maybethey want cold.

So,uh. Yeah. In short, they like to mix it up.

Lightson, or lights off?

Generally,off. Occasionally, there might be a candle or a lamp. They both prefer naturallight, and in the evenings, natural light means the moon and the stars, so that’swhat they use to see.

Isthe bed frame sturdy, or does it wobble with more vigorous activities? 

Uh,well. I still imagine it’s a futon, but - for the sake of the meme - sturdy.Definitely.

Arethe walls thin?

Maybe.But they’re quite isolated in Ugendō, so it doesn’t matter very much. It’sprobably a good thing, really - neither of them is loud for the sheer sake ofbeing loud - but they love each other so much,and both of them are completely unashamed, and neither of them feels the needto hold back verbally when they have sex.

Howmuch time do they spend in the room?

Thatdepends, too. Duty regularly calls them both, and so, typically, it’s onlyevenings; but when Jūshirō is sick, he, of course, spends his days fairly wellholed up in the room - and Shunsui will find as many excuses as he can to slipaway from his work and care for his friend.

Whatother furniture do they have?

Notmuch, really; they’re simple people. There’s a small wardrobe, with bothdrawers and hanging space, for clothes. There’s a writing desk, which Jūshirō usesfar more frequently than Shunsui does, and a bookshelf, which Jūshirō also uses far more frequently thanShunsui does - though, Shunsui has added the occasional tastefully illustrated magazineto their shared literature collection. There’s also a small stand of some kind,for keeping Jūshirō’s teapot and teacups organized. After some time and morethan a few conversations, he begrudgingly allowed Shunsui to store his sakejugs and cups there, too.

Dothey have a system of organization for clothing and other items?

Well.Jūshirō does, at any rate.

Theykeep their spare shihakushō folded neatly in the aforementioned wardrobe -which is to say, Jūshirō folds them neatly and puts them away. They hang theirhaori and Shunsui’s kimono in the wardrobe, too.

Dothey keep the blinds open, or closed? 

Open.That allows for the natural light that they both prefer.

Isthe room decorated at all?

Itis, a bit, yes. It’s mostly Jūshirō’s doing. He’s added the odd watercolorpainting, a wall scroll with particularly remarkable calligraphy - that sort ofthing. Simple, beautiful things that catch his eye, mostly. Shunsui couldn’treally care less. He just wants - needs, maybe - a comfortable place to relax.Or - to relax as much as a guy like him ever can, that is.

Sword of Vermilion: SEGA Genesis RPG Spotlight #4

Original Release Date: December 16, 1989

Original Hardware: SEGA Mega Drive

Developer/Publisher: SEGA-AM2/SEGA

There are a lot of interesting things to say about Sword of Vermilion. It was the first home game produced by the legendary Yu Suzuki and his team at SEGA-AM2. It was an RPG, which was decidedly outside of the developer's usual wheelhouse of thrilling arcade experiences. SEGA chose it as one of the handful of games to spotlight in its famous but ultimately unsuccessful "Genesis Does What Nintendon't" campaign. It uses four different viewpoints, which must have been an awful lot of work. In North America, it shipped with a 100+ page hintbook that basically walked you through the game. Some of the important names who worked on the game left SEGA after its release to found Genki, where they largely worked on racing games and only returned to the RPG genre once more with 1998's Jade Cocoon.

Yet for all the fascinating and unusual things happening around the game, Sword of Vermilion isn't anything particularly special. It's neither an amazing game nor a terrible one, the sort of experience that fills the belly but is forgotten by the next meal. It feels like even SEGA forgets about it now and then. The game was re-released on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, was part of the PlayStation 2 and PSP SEGA Genesis Collection, and is also available through the nearly-exhaustive Steam SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics, but somehow was left out of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. As first-party Genesis games with no rights issues go, Sword of Vermilion is a relative rarity among SEGA's many re-packagings of their 16-bit output.

As near as I can tell, nobody who worked on Sword of Vermilion had made an RPG before. The team was clearly familiar with the genre, though. I'd venture to say that they obviously knew of such hits as Wizardry, Dragon Quest, Xanadu, and Ys. The trouble is that they apparently couldn't decide which one they wanted to ape, and ended up doing a little bit of all of them. I don't mean that in a chocolate-meets-peanut butter kind of way, either. This isn't like Dragon Quest's smooth fusion of Wizardry's first-person turn-based combat and Ultima's bird's-eye overworld exploration. Instead, it's four dramatically different gameplay styles haphazardly stitched together into a bizarre Frankenstein's monster with little apparent thought or care put into making them consistent with each other.

The game starts with a somewhat lengthy cut-scene that sets up the story. Basically, some bad guys overthrew the good king. Before they arrived, he sent his infant son away with his top knight so that he could grow up safely in secret. Years pass, and the knight is on his deathbed. He summons the boy he raised, now a man, to finally reveal the truth of his origins. This is where you get control for the first time, and the game for all the world looks like a standard JRPG at this point. You can explore the town from an overhead view, talking to people, visiting homes, and going to shops. Once you reach the side of the man you believed was your father, he tells you of your royal lineage and instructs you to gather an assortment of rings that will help you take back your birthright. The first was entrusted to him, and he hid it in a cave many years before. Having told you all of that, he hands you some starting cash and then promptly kicks the bucket.

You might be tempted to just buy some gear and leave the town at this point, but that's not a good idea. Someone in the town will give you a map if you speak to them, and you'll really want to have that in hand before you step out of the town boundaries. As soon as you do head out, you'll run into the next gameplay style: first-person exploration. Both the overworld and the dungeons use this viewpoint, and while it's not quite as smooth as it was in Phantasy Star, it's convincing enough. In this mode, the main viewing area only takes up a portion of the screen. The remaining parts of the screen are dedicated to status windows and a bird's-eye map of the area you're in. If you haven't gotten your hands on a map, you'll only be able to see the square your character is occupying. You can technically map this yourself on paper if you really want to, but the NPCs are pretty good about giving you what you need when you need it.

This isn't too strange so far, though. The first few games from Richard Garriot of Ultima fame basically used a similar combination of overhead and first-person exploration. Even SEGA had already done this, in the Master System classic Phantasy Star. You start heading towards the cave that holds the ring you're looking for and suddenly a slime appears in your view. Time to battle! And also time for our third gameplay style. Yes, the game switches to another screen where you have a sort of angled overhead view of your character and a number of enemies. You have to move your guy around and swing his tiny sword at the monsters to take them out. If they touch you or hit you with an attack, you take some damage. Should you run out of HP, you'll be kicked back to the last church you saved at with half your money gone. You'll often start fights in the middle of a crowd, and the enemies are surprisingly aggressive. Once you get the hang of things it's not so bad, though, and you can always beat a hasty retreat by walking off the edge of the screen.

It takes a little while before you'll encounter the fourth and final gameplay style. After recovering the ring from the cave, the townspeople will direct you to the next town and even give you a map. Upon arriving there, you'll enter into what turns out to be the pattern for the rest of the game. The townspeople have some kind of problem. Maybe it's a wicked king. Maybe they've been transformed by evil magic. Whatever the problem is, you'll be given a map to a nearby cave and directed to retrieve something from it. You'll probably have to spend some time grinding experience and money to power up your character first, and there are some chests scattered around the overworld that give you something to do for at least part of that work. Anyway, you'll go into the cave, do the thing you're supposed to do, and that usually leads to the final gameplay style: a boss battle against a huge creature of some kind.

For these battles, you're playing from a straight-on side view. You can duck, swing your sword, and move forwards and backwards. Carefully hack away at the giant monster in front of you and you'll soon emerge victorious. You'll get one of the rings, the townspeople will hand you another map, and you'll be directed to the next town where you'll repeat the process. Lather, rinse, and repeat for 14 towns and around 20 hours, and you're all done. The number of monsters is quite limited, the game makes heavy use of palette swaps to stretch them out, and just about every location looks the same as the last. There's very little strategy in either of the battle systems, making combat somewhat dull. You'll never have any reason or cause to go backwards, with the result being that this a very linear, repetitive marathon to the finish.  

Given when it was released, Sword of Vermilion looks the part of a next-generation RPG. Everything is quite detailed, and those side-view boss battles are pure spectacle. The music, composed by Yasuhiro "Yas" Takagi, is very good. Each town gets its own theme song, covering a wide range of moods. Yet beyond those surface elements, the game is decidedly 8-bit in its design. As an example, the simple act of emptying a chest sitting in front of you requires you to bring up the menu, choose 'open', read the text box telling you the contents, bring up the menu again, and choose 'take'. Dungeons are pitch-black unless you use a candle or a lantern, and candles only last for a short amount of time. Your inventory is limited to eight items, not including equipment, so you have to make very careful decisions about what healing and utility items you want to bring.

The maps for the dungeons are hidden in the dungeons themselves, so you might need to do some physical mapping until you come across them. You also need to check every direction of each square when you're exploring, as chests and other objects might show up when you face west but not when you face east, for example. You can only save at churches in towns, so if you're playing it as it was designed you need to make sure you have time to see your outings through before embarking. Oh, and don't expect to see the stats of gear found in shops or chests. You'll have to equip them to see their effect, and some of them are cursed. For a game from 1989, none of this is particularly shocking; few games of this era broke ranks when it came to interface decisions. But many soon would, and that made Vermilion feel like something from a by-gone era within a matter of a year or two.

The strange thing is, I kind of enjoy Sword of Vermilion. The game has a really nice rhythm to it, even if it is somewhat mindless. The initial parts of each dungeon where you're operating without a map are pretty fun, and I like the basic structure of having to solve a different problem in each town before moving on. I had fun exploring each of the maps to see if I could turn up any treasure chests or special encounters. The battle systems are easily the worst parts of the game, but they're not offensively bad. At the very least, the normal battle allow you to feel your character's growing strength. The boss battles are stupid but thankfully quite painless in most cases. I'll even give a tip of the hat to the localization. It's a bit clunky in places, but it's largely coherent and correct. That was a big ask in this period.

I've seen some positively savage reviews of this game, and I guess I can understand why a person wouldn't like Sword of Vermilion. It's repetitive, old-fashioned, clunky, and some of its bits really don't work well within the overall game. It also drags on a tad longer than it should. Even though I enjoy the game, I wouldn't have shed any tears if everything wrapped up five or so hours earlier than it did. At the same time, I've played far worse RPGs that weren't nearly as ambitious. Even among the Genesis's library, I don't think I'd put Sword of Vermilion on a top RPG list, but I'm not sure I'd discourage anyone from trying it, either. I will say that if you play through to the second town's boss and aren't really getting into it at all, you're safe to cut your losses and quit. It doesn't dramatically change from there.

Of course, the aftermath is quite clear by now. Vermilion is mostly forgotten, and the few who remember it don't usually speak well of it. Its creators only made one other RPG after it, and the studio that produced it would only dip their toes into the RPG waters (in a very tentative way) a couple more times in the future. Still, for early Genesis adopters who loved RPGs, Sword of Vermilion likely kept them busy between Phantasy Star installments. That's about the best someone could ask for at that time outside of Japan. I'm not sure this was the best choice for SEGA of America's big ad campaign, though.

If you want to try Sword of Vermilion yourself, it's currently available on Steam as part of the SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics, on the Nintendo Wii Virtual Console, and on PSP and PlayStation Vita through the digital version of the SEGA Genesis Collection. You can also track down any of the physical versions; both the original Genesis cartridge and the PlayStation 2/PSP discs for the aforementioned Genesis Collection are relatively cheap even today.

Previous: Landstalker

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Cutie Reviews: Doki Doki Aug 18

I’m finally back again, so here we are for the next review!

What happened was.... basically, this box was underwhelming to me. The items are cute and practical, and I love themes like this. But it’s kind of hard to focus on writing something when you don’t really see it as enjoyable as much as you see it as a “chore”. I was half done with my review when my stomach started to hurt. I decided to rest and by the time I returned, the laptop wasn’t working right so I had to restart, I wasn’t given the chance to save my work.

Whenever that happens I tend to step away rather than force myself to re-write it right away because it’s frustrating! But in this time I realized I actually didn’t like my work much either. I was hoping that by taking a small break from this place I could come back with a fresher outlook; which I believe was necessary after continuously cranking out reviews to make up for the month behind I got.

I’ve been planning on doing this since the beginning of the week, but because of my grandmother coming to see us for a few days and us being out of the house and cleaning up in advance for her visit... it didn’t happen.

Now, I’m still not sure where I stand with this specific box but I do feel a lot better and convinced I can do a lot better!

Theme of the Month: Home Sweet Home

Tadaima means “I’m home” and is often expressed upon arriving home, in the same way some of us say the phrase “Home Sweet Home”. This month we featured items that are sure to make home so much sweeter. Whether you’re coming back from a long rip or just your daily errands, you’ll feel comforted and relaxed, knowing “I’m home”.

Suteki Crate

If this doesn’t convince you that this is a semi-Sanrio oriented box I don’t know what will. This month the Suteki Crate had nine items pastel, practical adorableness.

I think out of all of these items, I would have liked the Sumikko Gurashi pillow and cushion, but the My Melody Plushie and Hello Kitty Mat are super cute too. I could see someone making a whole room of cute relaxation with this stuff, and I love how it’s all practical and still fits the theme.

Okay! So let’s get on with the items!

Sanrio Straws

Our first item is this adorably shaped drinking straw, available in either My Melody or Hello Kitty!

Besides making drinks more fun, it’s also earth friendly. If you want to cut back on waste with drinking straws and wrappers you can bring this with you instead.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I could never turn down a cute-looking straw. I had several when I was little and I still like to collect them today. It’s extremely easy to use and clean despite the little bends and twists, there’s no real hassle in using it.

Little Twin Stars Cooking Chopsticks

In Japan chopsticks are a common cooking utensil for flipping over items or removing them and then eating. Cooking chopsticks are pretty much just chopsticks with a longer reach to provide the user a bit more safety being able to stand back some distance.

The chopsticks are fairly plain and feature a pastel decorative design around the top, along with little purple rubber Kiki and Lala figures to keep them connected. The texture and quality is fairly thick, and they feel well polished and sturdy.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

I don’t really make many Asian meals at home so I didn’t really have anything on hand I could test these out with. But they were fun to eat with- until my hand started to hurt a little. You could probably also just set them out for decoration or turn them into hair accessories if you wish not to ruin them.

Shiba Sauce Dish

Soy sauce is the perfect partner for many foods, and with this adorable dish you can always have some ready for dipping. What makes this dish so cute is that when you pour in the sauce (or any thin liquid), the shiba will magically appear. There is a couple different images these were available in.

And yes I did test this out to make sure the image wasn’t photoshopped. I don’t like to be a negative Nelly but sometimes it happens. It works, but I didn’t even think to take a picture of it because of the hurry I was in <_<’

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

The dish is glass so you have to be careful with it. But it’s also small enough to not get in the way. It’s also fun to watch the liquid make the shiba appear, then watch as it begins to fade as you eat.

If using it for food isn’t your thing it’d make an adorable accessory dish!

Sumikko Gurashi Floor Mat

Our next item (is very large, I was at the table when I took these pictures) is an adorable Sumikko Gurashi floor mat. It’s average size and very cute to look at, featuring the group mid-travel as you can see.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

Besides it’s vibrant colors and adorable picture, the mat is ultra-soft and feels pleasant to step/sit on. It took me a little while to decide where to place it. I had been considering the bathroom but we just got a new matching themed mat for it this past weekend. We already have rugs in front of our entrance doors, outside wasn’t an option...

For now, I settled on putting it in front of my bedroom or the bathroom door. It tends to go back and fourth.

San-X Bamboo Bowls

Eco friendly bowls made from bamboo that feature either Rilakkuma or Sumikko Gurashi :3 While it can’t be put into the microwave or dishwasher, it can be used to hold both hot and cold food items like soup, rice, cereal, snacks, etc.

Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

It’s a very cute decorative bowl, although I’m not a big fan of touching it. It feels really weird >3< but it’s a really good bowl. It’s very sturdy, and you don’t have to worry about it breaking like glass, and I don’t think the design can come off really easy just from being wet or scratched.

♥ Cutie Ranking ♥

Content - 5 out of 5. Everything is practical and really cute- especially if you love sanrio!

Quality/Price - 5 out of 5. Everything seems really good, and I don’t think any of it is that frail so it’s bound to last. The straw might be an exception, but I think it’ll be okay as long as you don’t man-handle it.

Theme: 5 out of 5. It’s extremely obvious that you probably don’t need the book to figure it out.

Total Rank: 15 out of 15 Cuties. See, back when I originally began to write this review I felt like it dragged on for hours but this time, I think I spent not even an hour working on it and it didn’t even feel like it too that long (I’m really hungry, so I kept stopping to snack~).

♡ Cutie Scale ♡

1. Sanrio Straw - Again, it’s very simple. But there’s something I find really charming about it~

2. Shiba Bowl - It’s fairly simple to look at, but the etched design and magical gimmick is really fun.

3. Floor Mat - As cute and fluffy-soft as it is, the image itself feels like one of those generic ones you find on most basic merchandises. Sumikko Gurashi has a lot of that. 

4. San-X Bowl - It’s covered in cute Rilakkuma designs. I also like its coloring style.

5. Little Twin Star cooking chopsticks - I love the detail on the little rubber Kiki and Lala on top~

Alright guys, we’ve made it to the end. That wasn’t at all painful or annoying like it felt last time- I think a break was what I needed. Since trying to work on this the first time, I have gotten my next Gacha Gacha crate. I’ll be working on that next and moving on to the next box in normal order, my goal is to get it done this weekend, to sort of get myself back into the flow of things.

Until next time, stay cute!

Title Cthulhu Saves Christmas Developer Zeboyd Digital Entertainment LLC Publisher Zeboyd Digital Entertainment LLC Release Date December 23rd, 2019 Genre RPG Platform PC (Steam and GOG) Age Rating N/A Official Website

One of the very first games I reviewed on Operation Rainfall was Cthulhu Saves the World. I don’t remember how I discovered the game, but I quickly became a fan of the madness of Zeboyd Games. The mixture of classic RPG mechanics, absurd humor and distinct challenge made for a fun brew, and though the first game wasn’t perfect, it did serve as a framework for many other fantastic games, including both On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 and 4 and Cosmic Star Heroine. I’ll be honest, I didn’t think we were gonna get another game set in the Cthulhu universe, and when I discovered Cthulhu Saves Christmas, I got very excited. The question is, was this formula worth a second try? Or should Cthulhu have stayed home with his insane cultists?

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If you’ve played the original game that Cthulhu Saves Christmas was based on, you’ll pretty much know what you’re getting into. If you’re unfamiliar, I’d check out my review of that game by clicking here. It does a great job of showing you generally what to expect, though there are a good number of differences between the two. However, one feature they share is the main premise. In this adventure, Cthulhu is quickly stripped of his eldritch powers by opening a Christmas present. Figuring that Santa is behind it, the angry deity sets out to slay Santa, get his powers back and destroy the world. In that order. He discovers that Santa isn’t actually the culprit, but instead it’s something called the League of Christmas Evil. They have kidnapped old Saint Nick, and by using anti-presents that provide the opposite of what you want, are going to reshape the holiday in their dark image. I won’t spoil most of them, but their ranks include the likes of Jack Frost and a deranged posse called the Yule Lads. Essentially, the League of Christmas Evil is a Xmas adjacent group of miscreants, and I’ll admit several took me by surprise. And as you might have guessed, they serve as the boss fights in the game.

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You might be wondering how Cthulhu Saves Christmas actually plays. Though it’s still styled as a retro RPG, the systems are a mixture of the original game and Cosmic Star Heroine. Each character learns new skills as they level up, and you can equip three active abilities at a time. Most abilities need to be recharged to use again, which is done by selecting your character’s defensive skill. Besides that, each character also has three slots for what are called Insanity abilities. These are totally random, and are mostly drawn from your pool of unequipped skills from your entire team. You’ll also sometimes find really powerful Insanity abilities tied to specific characters, but good luck relying on those to show up. In general, it’s a good idea to put a lot of thought into your main skills, and hope for the best with your random ones. Like any good RPG, skills range from physical to magical attacks, healing, AOE powers, status ailments and more. There’s a flow to each battle, and you won’t want to dilly dally too much since after each attack, every enemy (including bosses) gets slightly more powerful, and some get new skills when they’re the sole survivor.

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But wait, there’s more. Each turn, your characters have a meter that fills up. When it’s full, you’re in Hyper Mode, which means your skills will deal more damage and have improved effects. For example, Cthulhu has a self-healing skill that, when Hyper, grants him the Unstoppable buff, which means he won’t die immediately if his health is reduced to zero. This is a very important mechanic, since you won’t get an actual Revive skill til very, very late in the game. The downside to Unstoppable is that if you end your turn with negative health, you’ll die afterwards, and be useless the rest of that battle. So it’s a good idea to quickly heal any character in negative digits. The upside to being in the negative is that you’ll be in Desperation mode, and your attacks really pack a wallop in that state. Finally, like the first game, here you have Unite attacks shared between characters. You’ll eventually have a team of four, and each character has a Unite attack with every other character. These are quite powerful, such as summoning tentacles with Cthulhu and Crystal or healing everybody with Crystal and Belsnickel. Just remember, even Unite skills are better when Hyper. I forgot early on and suffered through many battles as a result. As you can tell, there’s a lot of complexity in Cthulhu Saves Christmas, and for the most part I very much enjoyed it.

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I only have a few small complaints about the combat system in Cthulhu Saves Christmas. Firstly, I hate relying on random factors, and the Insanity abilities were as likely to help me as hinder me, especially in harrowing battles. This was very much the case in the challenging boss fights, which can be unrelenting, at least on the difficulty I chose (Insane, or this game’s version of Normal). My other complaints only came up when I refreshed my memory about Cthulhu Saves the World. That game had branching skills you could choose to learn, whereas there is nothing like that here. I love having complete control over my RPG experience, and I just wish there was a bit more variety to how I helped my characters grow. And speaking of characters, the first game had several you could swap in and out of your team. Sadly Cthulhu Saves Christmas only has one team of four. Though to be fair, each character serves as a distinct class of sorts, such as berserker, healer, etc. Other than those issues, I really enjoyed the combat in the game. Which is good, considering that’s about half of what the experience offers. The other half is the game’s laugh-out-loud funny writing.

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If you haven’t played a game by Zeboyd before, then let me tell you, the writing is always amazing in their games. Very few RPGs I play make me chuckle, let alone belly laugh, and Cthulhu Saves Christmas often did both. One reason for that is the eclectic mix of characters. Take your team for example. Cthulhu is surly and insecure about his stripped-down abilities. He always wants to be feared, and instead gets mostly ignored. Then there’s Crystal Claus, the sweet and saccharine niece of Santa who wants to do good, but is constantly thwarted by the mischievousness of the elder god. There’s a burly mountain man named Belsnickel, who seems pretty normal at first, other than the twisted joy he derives from whipping little children. And then there’s my new favorite, Baba Yaga-chan. Yes, that Baba Yaga, just young and full of optimism. She’s crazy, cute, sinister and much more besides. How can you not love a character who introduces herself by trying to suffocate an elder god with a pillow?

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Besides the wonderful cast of characters, there’s also tons of fourth wall breaking silliness everywhere in the game. It turns what could be a basic RPG plot into a delight, full of skeletal reindeer, time travel, alternate dimensions, alien cats and much more. Put simply, you’ll want to read every word that flashes across the screen, since it’s all so cleverly conceived. Hell, even the way the game uses the narrator is amazing. Honestly after playing all the games in the Zeboyd roster, I really want them to do localization for other series, because I know they would do an amazing job of it. That said, I did find the ending to Cthulhu Saves Christmas a bit of a letdown, especially since the rest of the adventure was so inventive. But that in no way diminishes the rest of the experience.

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Though I do enjoy all the Zeboyd games, they have one unfortunate trait in common: their linearity. Cthulhu Saves Christmas is completely linear, just going from dungeon to dungeon, with some great writing in-between. There’s no optional dungeons or hidden bosses. The only things that mix up the experience, and which are new to this series, are relationship forging sections. Your home base is Christmas Town, which is set in a perpetual state of Christmas Eve due to Santa’s kidnapping. While you’re there, the game encourages you to explore and spend time with your “friends”. Doing so boosts your R’lyehtionship with each teammate. No, you didn’t read that wrong; the pun is intentional. I was pleasantly surprised this game took a page from series like Persona, letting you deepen your bonds with the team. Doing so rewards you not only with more hilarious dialogue, but with equipment and items. I should say, the items used in battle are all single use, but recharge after combat. As for equipment, you only get it in Christmas Town or in chests found in dungeons. It’ll behoove you to explore each dungeon fully as a result, since you might otherwise miss a chest with the equipment you want. I tended to prefer equipment that let me start battles Unstoppable or which turned single-use skills into reusable ones. Much like the first game, there’s a set amount of encounters in each dungeon, and once you’ve fought them all, you can explore freely. Though if you want to grind more, you can fight random battles from the main menu as well.

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Though the devs suggested Cthulhu Saves Christmas can be beaten in 4-5 hours, I didn’t roll credits til about 16 hours in. Perhaps that means I’m not as good at the RPG genre as I’d like, or maybe it’s because I played on the middle difficulty. Either way, I got plenty of bang for my buck, and found the challenge was pretty satisfying. Sometimes basic enemy encounters could utterly destroy me, forcing me to restart repeatedly to get past them. And some of the bosses in the game are really challenging. Hell, the second boss repeatedly wiped the floor with me until I got smart and used better strategy to claim victory. That said, I’m still a little disappointed there was nothing optional to do in the game other than exploring different sections of Christmas Town in your free time between dungeons. Hell, I managed to get all the Steam achievements just by beating the game, which is a bit disappointing. What’s here is great, but whenever I enjoy a game this much, I always want any excuse to spend more time with it. Sadly, once you beat the game, there’s not really a reason to play through it again, since you’ll have seen pretty much everything.

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Visually, I really enjoyed the style of Cthulhu Saves Christmas. It’s a lot like what’s available in Cthulhu Saves the World, just with more fine tuned retro art. Characters have a lot of personality just from their portraits, and the variety of enemy designs is pretty good (though there are several that get reused). The only thing I missed visually are the comic cutscenes from the original. Musically the game is fine, though most of the songs aren’t that memorable. The main exception is a twisted version of “Carol of the Bells” I really enjoyed listening to. There’s no voice acting here, but I also found it wasn’t necessary.

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Honestly, for only $9.99 you get a great experience with Cthulhu Saves Christmas. It’s a very solid RPG with lots of laughs and good mechanics. Though I do miss some features from the first game, it overall does a good job of streamlining things for the better. More than anything, I just wanted reasons to keep playing in this universe. Any sort of unlockables, optional dungeons or hidden bosses would have been very welcome. Though my time with the game wasn’t exactly short, I kept finding myself wishing this was a 30-40 hour game. And while the ending was a bit of a disappointment, I still find myself hoping we get another entry to make this a trilogy. All in all, I’m happy with the latest from Zeboyd Games, and hope we don’t have to wait very long for Cthulhu’s next adventure.

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[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Cthulhu Saves Christmas Title Cthulhu Saves Christmas

Anchored Tempest - Chapter Nine

Regarding the WordPress: I’m still going to do it (when I get around to it) but I’ll continue posting stories here as well.

In which inclement weather poses an obstacle.

~~~

         It took four days of searching the corries and valleys around the foot of the highest of the Tempest Spires, in the constant shadow of the storm clouds, before they finally found the base of the Throat – a tunnel, as Karash had theorised – and then another two to fully clear away the landslide blocking its entrance. There was no elaborate carving beneath the rubble, just an open archway with a suggestion of broken hinges at the sides, but it was easily big enough to admit Karash.

           “What do you suppose they made it for?” wondered Nirali, testing the stability of the bottom step. It was reassuringly solid.

           “An emergency exit, probably,” said Una. She peered upwards into the storm, but the clouds completely concealed the stronghold. “I would guess from the size of the mountain itself that the High Citadel is much smaller than Eyrie Spire, the old Balaurin capital in the north, but there’s still probably room for many more humans than for dragons. If there was a fire or some other emergency, it would take too long to have the dragons ferry everyone out. Better to have a way out on foot.”

           “How did the rebels never find this way up?” asked Karash.

           “Not sure,” said Una. “But this valley is fairly well-hidden – surrounded by high ridges on three sides and a steep drop on the fourth. And look at the rock face above the doorway – there was an overhang hiding it from the air, before they collapsed it to seal the path. Whether or not the evacuees made it out of the mountains before the rebels found them… That’s another question.”

           Nirali touched her throat with a grimace. “If they were caught, it’s not mentioned in any of the songs I know,” she said. “But… I’m not sure how merciful the rebels would have been towards escaping Sky Kings, even civilians. After seven hundred years under the whip… I’m not sure the distinction would have mattered.”

           There was a short silence as they considered this. Karash was the first to break it.

           “Nothing to be done for them now, either way,” he said, and poked his head through the archway to look up the stairs. “There are brackets bolted to the walls,” he informed them, “but the torches are long gone, if they were ever there at all. We shouldn’t get lost – we’ll have to run out of up eventually – but it’ll be a dark climb.”

           “Actually…” said Una. She picked up a pebble of white quartz and pressed it between her palms, scrunching up her face in concentration. The pebble began to glow with a soft white light. “Here.” She tossed the pebble across to Karash, who caught it in one hand and held it up to inspect it. Its glow was bright enough that they would be able to see where they were putting their feet in the darkness of the Throat, but dim enough to avoid casting a painful glare in Nirali’s eyes. “A bit rough and ready, but it should last a few hours.”

           “How did you do that?” asked Karash.

           “Conjuring a witchlight is one of the most basic spells there is,” said Una, demonstrating. She closed her hand and the hovering light vanished. “And crystals are good at holding magic. Putting the two together is fairly straightforward, though a proper Constructist would have been able to make a more permanent lamp.”

           “I suppose we’ll meet you two – four – at the top, then,” said Nirali.

           Karash passed her the glowing pebble, frowning as some worrying thought struck him. “Una, do you have a long rope?”

           “Yes, there’s one in that saddlebag – why?”

           Karash took it without explaining, and tied one end to the girth of Star’s saddle and the other to Tsheer’s. Both creatures looked down, affronted. Star wanted to know what exactly that had been for. Ikara looked as if she quite seconded the question.

           “I don’t want you to get separated in the storm,” said Karash, once in Orcish and once in Balaurin. “This will help you to stick together, in case one of you needs help.” He turned to Ikara and asked her something, to which she just lowered her eyelids in an exasperated stare.

           “What are they talking about?” Una asked Nirali.

           Nirali smiled. “He’s telling her to make sure she has her snow boots and hood, because it’s bound to be cold up there.”

           Ikara gave an exaggerated sigh, but took the requested items from a pouch behind Tsheer’s saddle, held them up for Karash to see, and pointedly put them on before strapping her flying goggles over the hood. The fleece-lined boots looked more like oddly-shaped gloves to Una’s eyes, with a separate section for each of Ikara’s toes – four at the front and one at the side, almost like a thumb but neither long nor flexible enough to be truly opposable – but they fit snugly and still had tough leather soles. Karash nodded his satisfaction and stood back to let Ikara climb into the saddle.

           Star gave Una a pointed look. She took the hint and swung herself up onto her back.

           “Be careful up there,” said Karash in Orcish. “We’ll see you both soon!”

           Una and Ikara looked at each other. Ikara held up one hand and folded her fingers down one by one. On the last, both Star and Tsheer kicked off from the ground and took flight. The rope, thankfully, was long enough that they were not forced into an uncomfortably close formation as they flew north from the valley, gradually climbing until they were level with the clouds. Una pointed back towards the mountain; Ikara lifted a fist in acknowledgement, and both dragon and rukh plunged into the tempest.

           Within the storm was chaos. Although nothing fell to the ground below, hail pelted them like tiny slingstones, carried by the swirling winds in wild loops midair. Now and then, lightning crackled through the clouds, casting baffling shadows and brilliant glows; so close to the source there was no delay between the lightning and the crash of thunder.

           Star narrowed her eyes against the storm and held her wings to let it carry her, not fighting the wind as she tried to read it, watching the ways the hail flew and the clouds roiled. Around, up, down – although the way it was anchored around the mountain was thoroughly unnatural, the patterns within its clouds were not unlike an ordinary storm.

           She had it. With a signalling roar to Tsheer, Star angled her wings and rode the storm in a huge, narrowing spiral around the peak of the central mountain, now and then half-folding her wings against her sides to plunge through narrow gaps between one cloud mass and the next or rolling to stay away from another high peak that loomed out of the clouds. Una lay flat on her back and wrapped her arms around her neck; anything else just then would only distract Star from the half-seen, half-felt path she followed. Behind them, on the other end of the rope, Ikara did the same with Tsheer.

           The storm grew wilder, winds forcing them upwards; more hail battered them, and lightning struck harder and more frequently. Star roared, shying away from a bolt dangerously close to her wingtip, but quickly shook her head and forced herself to concentrate once more, forging onwards through the storm.

           The next instant, there was total calm. The clouds cleared and the wind died; above them, there was nothing but blue sky. Before them, standing proud in the eye of the storm, was the High Citadel.

           It was easily the highest mountain in the Eastern Highlands: a towering pyramidal peak, surrounded on all sides by near-vertical cliff faces tapering to a pointed rocky summit. The lower slopes, far below, sported a light covering of trees and bushes, but this high and this steep there was nothing but bare black stone and a thin covering of snow. As they drew closer, the Balaurin handiwork became clear: watch towers had been shaped from the rock at each corner of the peak, and soon the tiny pockmarks of windows and the low, wide mouths of the landing terraces and dragon halls could be seen.

           It was not, Star thought, unlike the Sky Kings’ old home of Black Mountain Keep, back in the Dragon’s Teeth. The mountain itself was similar and the style of carving was almost identical. She looked back to check Ikara and Tsheer were still with them – they were; Ikara had lifted her goggles from her eyes and was gaping blankly at the mountain – and set her wings for a steady glide in to the highest terrace. No different to exploring Eyrie Spire; she flared her wings out to slow her descent, lowered her hind legs to grip the stone, and dropped to all fours before hopping out of the way to make room for Tsheer. He gave himself a shake, shedding hailstones from his feathers as Ikara climbed down from his back.

           All four of them walked forwards into the emptiness of the dragon hall. It, too, was much like those in the strongholds in the north: a space wide enough for even the biggest dragon, carved from the mountain itself with huge nesting alcoves all around the wall. The main difference was at the far side: another dragon-sized archway, providing a path deeper inside where the inner passages of most strongholds were only suitable for humans.

           Una exhaled hard, watching her breath cloud in front of her. They were not so high that it was difficult to breathe – not for creatures like them, used to life in the mountains – but it was still bitterly cold. Ikara’s fur fluffed out on her shoulders and she pulled her snow hood a little tighter.

           Una conjured a witchlight and set it floating a few feet above their heads. “Well, if they left something here,” she said, thinking aloud, “they must have hid it much further inside.”

           “Yeah, it’s much too exposed in here,” said Ikara. “I spotted some shutters as we flew in, but they clearly didn’t bother to close them before they flew out to the battle.”

           A moment of silence. Then they both wheeled around to stare at each other.

           “I understood you!”

           “I understood you!”

           “But I’m still speaking Imperial-”

           “And I’m still speaking Orcish!”

           “But I understood what you said!”

A few more moments of silence. Then, in approximate unison:

           “What the fuck?”

           Una folded both hands behind her head. “There must- there must be some kind of, of… translation spell imbued into the stones of this place,” she said. “I know the Balaurin have translation magic – when I first came to live with them, they gave me a potion to drink that kind of… poured the knowledge of their language right into my head – but I’ve never heard of it working as, as a field like this.”

           Ikara ran her claws through her fur. “Nirali’s going to love this.”

           “Yeah, she is.” Una crossed her arms. “I’d rather wait for her and Karash before we explore this place. They’ll still be climbing all those stairs.”

           “Mm. We should find somewhere a bit more sheltered to wait. Try and see if they left anything to make a fire.”

           Unlike Eyrie Spire, where the population had had plenty of time to pack their things and leave, the High Citadel still showed signs of a rapid evacuation. Rooms still contained furniture, some of it tipped over in the inhabitants’ haste; wardrobes still contained clothes. Kitchens still held pieces of food, probably no longer good to eat but still preserved in the cold. After a couple of hours of wandering the deserted halls, they found a room with fewer draughts than most and took apart a couple of old chairs to make a fire. Una held out one hand, narrowing her eyes, until the broken wood sparked and popped as the flames took hold.

           Star lay down against one wall; Tsheer settled down by the opposite. Una and Ikara sat down with their backs to their respective beasts, facing each other across the fire.

           “Is your home in the north somewhere like this?” asked Ikara.

           Una shook her head. “No. Well… No.”

           “Hm?”

           “This place… It’s clearly patterned on the main Balaurin strongholds back in the Dragon’s Teeth. Places like Eyrie Spire, or Black Mountain Keep. A city fortified within a mountain. But all of those in the north were abandoned long ago. Where we – not just us, but the rest of the dragons, the last of the Balaurin – lived was a tiny village by the standards of the old empire.” She took a thin spar from the fire, blew out the end, and used it to sketch a rough map on the stone floor. “It’s all contained within one big corrie, on one face of a mountain,” she explained. “A central square, here, and homes for both humans and dragons dug into the rock – but not hollowing out the mountain like this place. Just a few sub-surface chambers. Recently our council decided to abandon the place and move everyone to a new site, further west and nearer… well, nearer civilisation, that’s a bit more like this, but the mountain isn’t as high.” She tossed the stick back into the flames and sat back against the side of Star’s neck, stretching out a hand to scratch the base of one horn. “Though if I’m honest with you? I love Star, and I get on well with the Balaurin, but… the Dragon’s Teeth aren’t home. Not in here.” She tapped her knuckles to her chest.  

           “Where is?”

           “Stormhaven. It’s where I was born, where I grew up, where my family is… It’s home. I think it always will be. But Star needs to be with other dragons, and it would cut my heart out to make her miserable.”

           Star appreciated it. She really did. With a soft croon, she curled her neck around Una and set her chin in her lap. Una gave a small smile and folded her arms on top of her head.

           Ikara prodded the base of the fire with her spear blade. “Tell me about your family.”

           “Yeah?”

           “Yeah.”

           “Well… You already know I’m an only child. My parents both work at the College of Sorcery, where I was trained in using my magic. My father is a teacher there – he leads the School of Combat. My mother is a librarian.”

           “A what?”

           “I… suppose you could think of her like a Memory-Singer,” said Una. “A keeper of knowledge. Except everything is written down, not just memorised.”

           Ikara nodded. “What you told Tagra back at the Warren – how much of that about them was true, and how much was just for effect?”

           “All true, every word of it. My mother can transform into an animal as easily as changing a hat. My father… You saw me blast those rocks from the cliff face back then? My father could probably have cracked the whole mountain in two.” She paused. “He wouldn’t, though. He’s quite a gentle soul. He and Karash would have fun swapping hair-care tips.”

           Ikara sniggered. “Karash usually spends a lot more time combing his fur than he’s been able to recently. Most of the males I know are pretty vain about their capes, secretly or otherwise.”

           “My mother is the parent you really want to watch out for.”

           “Yeah?”

           “Once when I was eight, I was at the market with her. A man grabbed her arm, and when he refused to let go, she bit his hand so hard that he almost lost two of his fingers. Blood everywhere.”

           Ikara blinked twice, hard.

           “She had an unconventional upbringing,” explained Una.

           “Sounds like a lesson for everyone involved,” said Ikara. “He learned not to grab people, you learned how to deal with someone grabbing you, and your mother learned the bite force needed to break skin.”

           “Oh, I think she knew that already.”

           Ikara poked the fire again, sending a little whirl of sparks up to the ceiling. “Karash is the only family I can remember,” she said. “I was very little when the others died – I hadn’t even outgrown my cradle-name yet. He was only eighteen himself. Some of the others in the village didn’t think he was old enough to take care of me. They used to say things about his childhood ending too soon.”

           “I don’t think I’d call eighteen a child. That’s more of a young adult. Gods, there are plenty of places where eighteen-year-olds are already married with their own kids.”

           “I know, right? But things worked out. I think I turned out all right, anyway.” She stroked the fine, soft feathers on the underside of Tsheer’s jaw, and the rukh made a quiet chittering sound in reply. “Some of the other Windkindred are much less well-adjusted.”

           “What’s a cradle-name?”

           “You don’t have those? No? Weird. Well, when somebody’s first born, you can’t expect to know what they’re going to be like, right? You can’t know what name’s going to fit. But you have to call a baby something, so they get given a cradle-name – usually something really straightforward and descriptive – until their parents have a better idea of a good name for them. People usually get their proper name when they’re a couple of years old, once their personality’s had more time to emerge.”

           Una tilted her head. “So what was your cradle-name?”

           Ikara sighed. “‘Little Red’.”

           “That’s certainly descriptive.”

           “You’re one to comment – your parents named you ‘First’!”

           Una laughed. “I’m actually named after my aunt – my mother’s sister. I never met her, she died long before I was born.”

           “People do that here as well, sometimes,” said Ikara. “Naming after family. Karash is named after one of our grandfathers.”

           “What was his cradle-name?”

           “D’you know, he’s never told me.”  

           It was a while longer until footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, a dim white light appeared, and Karash and Nirali looked around the doorjamb.

           “So this is where you stashed yourselves,” said Karash.

           “We thought we’d find somewhere to warm up,” said Una. “How were the stairs?”

           “Numerous and steep, but we made it. I- wait. That wasn’t Balaurin.”

           “Nope. Imperial. My first language.”

           “I… do not speak Imperial. How…?”

           “Magic,” breathed Nirali.

           “Magic,” confirmed Ikara.

           “Well.” Karash sat down by the fire. “I don’t know what kind of a trip you four had through the storm, but we have been climbing stairs ever since you left. Before we go poking around in this place, I think we would all benefit from a few hours’ sleep.”

           Nobody could bring themselves to argue too hard against that.

~~~

Honestly, Fayn asking that guy to let go first was progress for her. Only a few years before she would have gone straight to biting.

Unsustainable! Four Takeaways from the Paul Holmgren Interview and the Flyers last two losses to the Capitals and Devils

Considering the Eagles hysteria – and believe me, as someone who remembers not one, but both Eagles Super Bowl appearances, both Phillies World Series wins, the last Sixers title as well as their 2001 run to the Finals and five Flyers defeats in the Stanley Cup Finals, I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that this is the craziest this city has ever been for a sports team – I’m going to do something different and keep this Flyers post short.

After all, you don’t care THAT much about hockey this weekend, do you?

Anyway, since my one-on-one with Paul Holmgren (and a couple commenters got on us for calling it exclusive. It was, in fact, exclusive because, as President, he doesn’t speak all that often with the media. He did when he was GM, but that was four years ago. If the interview was with Ron Hextall, it wouldn’t be exclusive. But, it was with Holmgren… so it was.) the Flyers have gone on to lose back-to-back games to Washington and New Jersey, both in regulation, and are now on a three-game losing skid and, for the first time all season, have gone three consecutive games without garnering at least one point.

It’s not a good time to do that, especially considering two of those losses came against Division rivals, and both of those game were winnable and had blown leads.

But I don’t really want to get into specifics from the game like we do with most of these takeaway pieces.

No, instead, I want to offer some general takeaways from my interview with Paul and a couple of general items from the last two games.

So let’s hit it:

1. Do I believe Paul Holmgren?

In two words, I do. I respect the hell out of Paul. I know a lot of people got on him about how he handled things as general manager. Overpaying players, signing the wrong guys, and basically putting the Flyers into salary cap hell.

Most of those arguments are valid, however it’s hard to come down on him really hard when there was a directive from ownership to win at all costs – which was the unenviable task he faced in a salary cap world.

And when Paul realized Ron Hextall had a progressive plan to get the Flyers out of the doldrums of not being good enough to compete for a Stanley Cup, but that it would take a few years to implement, Holmgren had the foresight to see it as a smart approach, and took it to Ed Snider and offered to step into a new role and let Ron take it from there.

When he was GM, Paul was always as honest as he could be publicly, and completely honest privately, so there’s no reason to doubt what he told me is true.

He does believe Hextall and Dave Hakstol are doing a good job. He does believe the team is good enough to sustain playing the way they have for the better part of two months and it can carry them to the playoffs.

He does believe in allowing players to develop at their own pace, even if that means stints in the AHL while placeholders are getting time in the NHL.

He believes all those things. He believes the Flyers are on track to do what the Penguins have done in recent years. He believes the Flyers will again be one of the best teams in hockey for an extended period of time.

And, he’s not fibbing when he says the coaches spend a lot of time working with young players – on ice at practice, off ice in the video room, and everywhere in between.

So yes, I believe him wholeheartedly.

But do I agree with him?

2. Not entirely, no

I understand the need for younger players – like Travis Sanheim –  to test the NHL water before having to really learn how to swim with the big league current.

I get why young players are held more accountable than veterans for their mistakes. I know that drives fans over the edge, but in the long-term, it’s better for the team. Fans forget that Claude Giroux didn’t start averaging 20 minutes of ice time until his fourth year in the league.

And if that’s an extreme example, fine. Let’s find a defensive comparative for Sanheim.

With the exception of Aaron Ekblad, who was the No. 1 overall pick by Florida in the 2014 draft class, no other defenseman has really gotten much more of a chance than Sanheim. Yeah, there are some with a few more games, but none with overwhelmingly better results that comes from playing in the NHL.

Only six defensemen from the 2013 draft have played more than a season’s worth of games. There’s only five from the 2015 draft class.

You have to go back to the 2012 draft before you get a good number of defensemen (21 total) who have played more than a season’s worth of NHL games… now almost six years later.

So developing defensemen in the NHL is a process for sure.

But, I guess all 30 teams are wrong to be handling their young defensemen this way and Flyers fans are right because the analytics say so.

So, I’m on board with that process.

What I’m not on board with is continuing to stand pat and not addressing your roster with external help of some kind. This is where I take issue with Ron’s plan.

If you want to be a playoff team – and by all indications, that’s what the Flyers want to be, since everyone in the organization is talking about it – then you have to build your team in such a way that the playoffs are attainable.

Right now, the third pairing of Radko Gudas and Brandon Manning is a disaster. Manning has been on the ice for six of the past 10 goals allowed. Before last night’s game in New Jersey, Gudas hadn’t taken a penalty in more than two months. On one hand, that’s good. On the other hand, it’s indicative of the fact that he’s not playing his style of hockey. His blocks are down. His hits are down. His positioning is off. That suspension really got to him.

As such, the Flyers can’t win with this third pairing.

Which opens the door for the fans screaming for prospects like Sanheim and Philippe Myers.

But what is often misunderstood is that players on the NHL roster of a playoff team and players that need to develop are mutually exclusive from one another.

Sure, call those guys up. Play them. You likely aren’t making the playoffs in that case. Are you good with that? Or would you rather they continue to develop and are bigger pieces in the next year or two, when the real window of opportunity for the team is opening?

Some fans just don’t get it though. I had a lengthy argument on Twitter with a guy who said this:

I'll reply to the rest later, on lunch atm, but for the same reason they employ people like ChiaPet in EDM. Hockey constantly employs old and outmoded people because the community demands they do so. That's why we hired a moron like Dean Lombardi back. That's the issue, really.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 1, 2018

And how were his signings? Whats the Kings cap space now? How's that Richard for Simmonds, Lehtera and two picks looking?

Same with Chiarelli. He won the Cup with the Bruins, but then they fell apart. How's Hall/Larsson?

They got lucky in the short term, exposed long term.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 1, 2018

I guess it’s lucky to win not one, but two Stanley Cups. Every city should be so lucky.

This guy went on to insist that only quantifiable stats are the true measure of hockey success and failure.

No one has earned the benefit of the doubt. It's either verifiable, quantifiable fact, or it's BS.

And for you to immediately trust in the opinion of People who stand against verifiable fact creates a cycle where they seem unimpeachable because no one asks.

— VorAbaddon (@VorAbaddon) February 2, 2018

So, I offered some quantifiable facts:

So only quantifiable facts. Nothing else counts. Got it. OK. Quantifiable facts: Last 5 years: The best possession teams in each conference: Missed the playoffs (40%), lost in the first round (30%), lost in the Conf. finals (10%) won the Cup (20%).

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

The best possession teams in each conference right now are Carolina and Chicago. Neither is in a playoff spot at the moment.

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

So, maybe…. just maybe, there is more to hockey than the quantifiable facts that your precious statistics present. Again… I think they are a beneficial tool, but they can NEVER be the only way to make decisions in sports. There is so much more that goes into building a team.

— AntSanPhilly (@AntSanPhilly) February 2, 2018

I put this exchange in here because unfortunately, this guy isn’t some lone nut. There are a lot of people out there who believe the same things he does – that what the analytics say is the arc of the covenant. It’s the holy grail.

Please. It’s not. There’s so much more to this in every sport – not just hockey. These stats are good. They’re a strong measure, but they aren’t always right.

Now see, I got off on a tangent… where was I….

Oh yeah… so rather than immediately re-insert Sanheim into the lineup or call up another kid who isn’t ready for prime time, Hextall is just rolling with Gudas and Manning.

And I get you have to do that for a little bit, but if you want to make the playoffs, make a move. For Pete’s sake Ron, believe that someone else can come in here and help this roster. And heaven forbid you trade a precious draft pick or long-off prospect to help win now.

I’m not asking him to gut the farm system. But at some point, you have to go for it – and this Flyers team is on the brink of being a playoff team, so why not go for it? Especially in a season when the Conference is experiencing a down year.

Get into the dance and see what happens. We’ve all seen it before. Crazier things have happened.

Now I’m going to be a hypocrite.

I don’t agree with Holmgren that the level of success (prior to the All-Star Break) that the Flyers were experiencing is sustainable. I’m sorry. I just don’t.

Can they play hard, and stay in almost every game and have a chance at points? Sure.

Can they keep winning more than 70% of the remaining games? Highly unlikely. I mean, they’ve dropped three in a row. They’d have to win their next seven just to stay on the pre-Tampa loss pace. And then they’d have to do it over and over again twice more.

It’s too much to expect.

So, it’s going to be a dog fight. With a lot of ups and downs. It’s just that these Flyers need more ups.

3. The goalie situation

Brian Elliott was the only Flyer who practiced Friday – and practiced by himself, which means he’s close to returning, but probably not in time for tomorrow afternoon’s game.

Which means we’ll likely see Michael Neuvirth in goal.

I’d rather not at this point.

And not because I don’t think Neuvirth is a better NHL goalie than Alex Lyon. He is. No question. I just think Neuvirth has worn out his welcome. The guy is always hurt. Or sick. He’s forever making excuses – as he did when he was pulled after an awful outing against his former team in Washington Wednesday.

At least Lyon, who should have had the game-winning goal last night for New Jersey, which likely would have garnered the Flyers at least a point, seems to care. He seems to compete. He takes responsibility. The cameras caught him watching the replay on the ice and you could see he was frustrated with himself. He knew what he did wrong. He immediately apologized to Shayne Gostisbehere on the ice. I’m sure he took the blame in the room afterwards. He fielded every question and took responsibility for it afterward.

I’d rather that guy play five or six times the rest of the season and let Elliott get the other 20-something starts once he returns (probably Tuesday in Carolina).

It would be a boost in the locker room for sure, as Lyon is incredibly well-liked.

And it would rid the Flyers of an enigma.

4. The Penalty Kill

At some point, the Flyers just have to tear up whatever they are doing and try something completely different. Give the opposition a totally different look. It can’t be worse than they’ve been since the new year.

In the past 13 games they’ve allowed at least one power play goal against nine times. Their PK percentage in those games is an embarrassing 63.9%. They are now tied for the second worst PK in the entire NHL (73.9%) ahead of only Edmonton (71.17%).

The defensemen aren’t physical enough in front. The forwards are too passive – especially on the second unit. They’re just trying to get in the way and not take away the puck. You can’t do that. Go get it. If you give up a goal as a result of effort, fine. That’s better than standing around as you get scored on.

Also, a couple of kills that come from pressuring the puck builds momentum and confidence. Neither exists right now for the Flyers PK.

  Unsustainable! Four Takeaways from the Paul Holmgren Interview and the Flyers last two losses to the Capitals and Devils published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/