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gb-patch · 3 years

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Ask Answers: May 15th Part 1

It’s been longer than usual since our last answer session, so I’m answering a ton of questions today! It’s so big I split it into two parts. Thank you for the patience on getting a response to these.

Thanks for reaching out to us with your questions and kind words ^^!

Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't something you can say but is there anyway for Cove to confess in step 4? I wanted him to confess in step 3 and followed all the steps to make him do it but ended up texting my family instead of Cove at the end.

Yeah, Cove can confess in Step 4!

Hello! I heard that Cove is on the spectrum, albeit undiagnosed. As someone who is ND, this makes me UNBELIEVABLY happy. I literally was brought to tears! Thank you for that!

Out of curiosity, will Cove be diagnosed in Step 4? I have a strong feeling y’all won’t make it a HUGE deal/make it out to be negative, so I’m not worried about that whatsoever! I’m just curious just he’ll off handedly mention it? Or will it just not be touched upon at all (which is ok!)?

Either way is ok, I’m just curious!

I’m happy it made you happy! Admittedly, Cove simply being someone with autism that grew up not being diagnosed was something I included for myself. I didn’t really think anyone would notice or ask about it, aha. But players did start to have questions about his traits, so I started to talk about it outside of the game. It’s great to see it get such a positive response and now I do feel like having it be a non-topic may have been the wrong choice and bringing it up would’ve been good in terms of having positive representation for that. I don’t know if I’ll find a way to mention it in Step 4 now, with how far along the game is, but I am at least thinking about it when originally it wasn’t something I really even considered.

Hey! Just wanted to say thank you for Our Life. It's been a bright spot and a needed escape in what's otherwise been a crummy year. I know you just did a Q&A post but I figured I'd ask anyway. Was just curious about Step 4. Will it be similar to the other Steps in that it consists of several different moments or will it just be one long sequence?

Step 4 is shorter than the prior Steps because it’s just an epilogue rather than a full arc of a story. It’ll consist of scenes that all happen in a set row one after the other. There won’t be a collection of Moments to choose from. But it’ll still be very sweet and fun.

¡hola!, you see, first I want to say that I love Our Life! (°◡°♡) and I have 2 important questions, would Cove cry watching titanic? and what is the saddest part according to him? (sorry for my english)

Titanic would make him cry. He’d probably think the parts showing people who aren’t able to make it to the life boats/are choosing to stay and go down with the ship were the saddest.

Hello, I wanted to ask how much you earn with creating games? Like is it possible to make a living? Thank you >< <3

How much I earn varies a lot month to month based on Steam sales, Patreon backers, and how many projects are in full production at the time. It’s also hard to say how much I make historically, since that also changes dramatically year by year. But I do earn enough to work on these games full time! I really appreciate all the support that allows me to do that.

Hey!! I was wondering for the 18+ Our Life moment, will there be an emphasis on safety/comfort for all involved? I feel like there would be just going off of what the rest of the game is like, but I wanted to ask

Yes! Cove is a nervous boy himself and also super cautious about doing anything the MC doesn’t like, so clear consent from both is absolutely needed for anything to happen. It’s a conversational sexy times Moment with stops/starts so the two can talk about how they’re feeling, rather than a heat of the moment just going for it kind of thing.

Hey!! I was wondering how long the wedding dlc would be? Will it be broken up into moments, or just one big event?

It’s one long series of scenes all in a row rather than a collection of Moments to pick from. It’s the shortest and the least expensive of all the DLCs. It’s not super crucial to get and those who aren’t into big weddings can totally skip it without worry.

HELLO AMAZING DEVS 👋 i am hopelessly in love with the worst guy ever (jeremy king) and because of this i have a really stupid question: does he really hate people who are nice to him? TvT he’s too cute to be mean to istg it’s a miracle JB held the urge to be consistently nice to him bc just look at his FACE he is so cute! thank you for jeremy’s route it’s so lovely (and awful bc he’s scum 11/10) it gave me so much laughs LMAO i hope you guys have a good day!!

Haha, thank you. He doesn’t hate them but he’s certainly not pleased with them. Jeremy is either uncomfortable with or annoyed by people being sweet on him, depending on how they approach it. He’s far more comfortable with jerkiness. It lets him relax and he can be himself without it being a problem, since he’s also a jerk. He feels a level of guilt being such a little punk to kind people, not enough to be a better person but still.

Has Cove dated or been interested in someone other than MC?

Nope! He stays single over the course of the game if he’s not with the MC.

Is Step 4 more mature? Or it's gonna be set in similar atmosphere as Step 3?

Step 4 is a similar atmosphere as Step 3. Though, it’s actually kind of less mature-topic heavy than Step 3 since it’s just a ‘hey, let’s check in on the gang to see what they’re up to’ style epilogue rather than a story arc with serious issues.

will there be new music for now and forever?? or will the old our life music be reused?

It’s gonna be a brand new soundtrack. We’ll be opening up a job position for that soon.

Hi, is it okay if we use the assets in Our Life (like the sprites) for fanworks or fan content content, like edits?

Sure! Just as long as you don’t use the assets made by those artists to make money.

Quick clarification on Step 3 choices: I hope I didn't come off rude (because I LOVE the game, really!!), I was just curious because the intro threw me off at times. For example, you could choose how you felt about Elizabeth in Step 2 (Dinner), but during the Step 3 intro, it says that you got closer to Liz and I didn't get a choice in it.

For the example, it can’t be helped that you’re closer to Liz in Step 3 than you were in Step 2 because she’s inherently closer to the MC regardless of whether you liked her or not in Step 2. Her feelings are out of your control and the game isn’t so dramatic that you can push her affection away and not let her bond with you, haha. But ‘being closer’ can still be relative. For some people maybe that means you’re best buds now and for others it might just mean you’re not fighting all the time any more. If there’s other parts you want to mention, feel free to let us know.

Did the illustrator for Our Life change?

We have many OL artists! The main artists who set the game’s style haven’t changed, but there’s multiple other artists who help finish assets.

So Miranda's type is confident and outgoing, huh? So...does that mean Terri's her type?? 👀

Haha, sorry for the late reply on this. As you might’ve seen in our post yesterday- yeah that is her type.

Hey! First, I just want to say I've really enjoyed how detailed OL got with gender identity and sexuality and how respectful the topics were handled! It's been so wonderful to play since the experiences could be close to my own (I'd be lying if I said I didn't tear up at parts). Second, I was wondering, would future games explore the topic of polyamory? I'd love to see more visual novels allow room for that and I saw you've explored the topic before.

Keep up the amazing work! ♡

Thank you! We do want to include polyamory in at least some of our future projects. Floret Bond, which might be what you’re referring to when mentioning how we’ve explored the topic before, is on hold unfortunately. So right now I’m not sure when something might release or what will be the first game of ours to come out with poly relationships (we might do something else before FB is done). We’ll have see how things ends up coming together.

Hey um. I feel like im not allowed to ask this on the private discord cuz people will yell at me but why is there so much focus on OL2 and not finishing OL1 stuff? I like the new people but i kind of want to finish cove's story and get derek and baxter stuff first. didn't people pay for it?

I’m sorry, I don’t understand entirely what’s making that situation a concern. There’s a channel in the discord for critique where no one is allowed to comment back. People can voice things they’re worried about without any way for others to push back on it. And the two teams working on the OL games are different. We try to post pretty often about how we’re hiring brand new people to start on Our Life: Now & Forever. The OL1 team is all still working on OL1 like normal. There’s only more updates on the Patreon for OL2 because the expansions to the first game are mostly script-based at this point while OL2 is just starting to get all its art, which means there’s a lot more to show off as previews.

Also, there was a Kickstarter for the first Our Life, if that’s what you mean by people paying for it. But one of the stretch goals was to start Our Life 2 early, before fully completing Our Life 1, so that the new game could be out sooner. It wouldn’t make sense to stop doing OL2 work because that would be going against what backers were promised. Maybe you didn’t get the full story before and hopefully this clears it up!

Hello! I know it's up to every player but.. What is your recommendation for playing order? Did you ever had any timeline events planned?

I didn’t make the events with a planned timeline. The events got made simply as I had ideas for them and then I just kind of organized them from left to right on the screen in an order to space out more dramatic ones between more lighthearted ones. Any order the player wants to go with is totally valid!

Hi! It's Step 4 a paid dlc or update? And how long it's planned to be? Ps. Love the game!

The Step 4 epilogue is free! The Cove Wedding DLC does cost money, though. Those are planned to be shorter than the usual Steps/DLCs.

Will we have options for what sort of job the MC might have by the time step 4 takes place?

Yeah, you can. It’s not super exact or detailed, but there are options about it.

Is there a pandemic in Our Life world, or is it just in a better timeline with no pestilence?

Our Life is pandemic-free! That didn’t exist when we began working on the project and it’s not something we’d like to feature in this story now that it has unfortunately come along, aha.

Hi, you said that you can play tic-tac-toe or hangman with Cove in Boating if you're sick/scared but I keep getting tic-tac-toe. Am I doing something wrong?

After being sick/scared you have to continue to be upset/unwell. If you calm down and decide to just chill you’ll end up playing tic-tac-toe.

Hi, GB Patch! Since Lee was initially commissioned to only appear in two Steps does this mean she won't appear in the Wedding DLC? I really like her character so it'll be a little weird to not have our cousin at our wedding, aha.

She is gonna be in Step 4/the wedding DLC after all! We’re still working with her creator to make sure it fits with what they wanted.

Is Sunset Bird based on a real place? Asking for a friend, not trying to move there or anything. 👀

It’s based on small beach towns in So-Cal, but not one specific town you could go see in real life, I’m afraid. It’d be nice if it was real, though.

—– —– —– —–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog

#our life #Our Life Beginnings & Always #Our Life: Now & Forever #ask #gb patch #gb patch games #xoxo droplets

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ozzdog12 · 3 years

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2020 Top 7 (and 1)

2020 am I right? We saw an insane amount of games come out and 2 brand new consoles. What a wild and weird year for gaming, and life in general. In case you are relatively new here, and to be honest that would be completely fair considering I don't post very often on Tumblr anymore, every year going on the last 4 years (on here) I have done a Top 7 (& 1) for my favorite videogames of the year. Check out 2019, 2018, & 2017. What’s wild, as I look back on my list of games that I’ve completed and played, only maybe 10 came out this year. 2020 was a huge backlog year.

Lets get on with the ‘And 1!”

Favorite Game that Didn’t Come out in 2020: Control (PS4)

Control may very well have been my 2019 Game of the Year, had I played it in 2019. I LOVED Control. I wanted to play it in 2019, but initial reports that it was a little rough on base consoles put me off until it was fixed. And Holy smokes what an insanely fun and trippy game once I finally started it. I knew within the first 20 minutes this was going to be the shit when I went down a hall, walked into a room and talked to the “janitor” left out a door behind him and the entire building had shifted. I’ve always liked Remedy games, but from a distance. Max Payne 1&2 and Alan Wake all oozed with weirdness and intrigue, but never enough for me to finish them. I missed out on Quantum Break. The story is Control is just the right amount of mind f*!$ for me and builds a universe I didn’t know I needed. It take some time to piece everything together, then everything just clicks. The game does have a weird difficulty spike when fighting bosses and the checkpoints were too far apart at times, but those were later patched. I spent an insane amount of time within the Federal Bureau of Control building and even more time after that with the Foundation and AWE DLC and it STILL wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Outside of Prey, I can’t think of another game that stuck in my brain more after I’d finished it. Control is absolutely a MUST PLAY title. In a world where everything sort’ve feels similar, Control stands out of the crowd.

Number 7: Astro’s Playroom (PS5)

I never thought in my wildest dreams that a game I had almost zero interest in playing would end up on my list of favorite games this year. Astro’s Playroom is being labeled as a ‘Tech demo’ but that feels like an insult to what it is. It’s a full fledged game and its free! I’ve paid more for less. A charming little platformer that lives and breathes the history of the Playstation. So many cool Easter eggs and references. It certainly centers its gameplay around the DualSense controller and everything it can do, but at its core, its a completely approachable and forgiving 3D platformer. I played it just to see what it was about, next thing i knew I had completed all the levels and wanted to further explore all the nooks and crannies within the game. I wanted to see everything the game had to offer and I had an absolute blast doing so. Makes me kinda wish I’d played the previous game on PSVR (I’d have to have a PSVR too)

Number 6: Spider-Man: Miles Morales (PS5)

Another quality title, albeit a spin-off, from Insomniac to add to their Spider Man universe. Gameplay felt obviously like Spider-Man, but Miles has unique abilities that made the game feel different enough, especially the cloak and stealth. I enjoyed the fact that it was short and concise. The issue with most ‘open-world’ games is that they are entirely too bloated with unnecessary filler content (I’ll get to that in a later game), something I felt the first game suffered from, but I also understand why they are there. However I could’ve use one or two more story missions to help flesh out some characters, but it wasn’t required and didn’t change my opinion one way or the other. My one BIG gripe was with Miles himself. He is an extremely smart young kid, but so incredibly naïve. Peter Parker tells him the one thing he SHOULD NOT do is tell people he is Spider-Man. I get it, that’s part of his growth, but Miles thinks he can just solve his problems by revealing his identity and it almost certainly never works out.

Number 5: The Last of Us: Part 2 (PS4)

The Last of Us Part 2 may be the most polarizing game in the history of the medium, but for the absolute wrong reasons. I’m in the minority that I very much enjoyed my experience with TLOU2, quite a bit actually. Its better in every single way over its predecessor, except the overall story. There are plenty of fair criticisms to be had about the story and various things within the game itself, but I thought the gameplay was so tight and crunchy. There were genuine moments of suspense and terror that I felt that no other game has ever given me. The entire hospital section (2nd time) was so susensful, I had to put my controller down to gther myself. Some of my favorite moments in the series I experienced with a character I wasn’t overly fond of. How many games can do that? The Last of Us Part 2 was meant to invoke emotion, not necessarily joy. I think that's what people lost along the way. Say what you will about the direction Naughty Dog has taken over the years, but you would be hard pressed to find a studio that makes games graphically better than they do. Yes, I know about their crunch culture, but this is not a place for that. I will say, the game was a tad bit too long, which is not something it typically say for a single player, narrative driven game. The pacing and the way the story was told wasn’t my favorite, but I respect what it was trying to do, even if it failed in some aspect of that, I finished the game within the week it was released. Something I RARELY ever do. I’m a father and I related with Joel a lot in TLOU, but I also recognized how wrong he was. There is a lesson to be learned. Your actions always have consequences and while he was doing what he thought was the right thing, it wasn’t his choice to make, and in doing so set up a series of events that were entirely avoidable, but again, that’s the point isn’t it?

Number 4: Grindstone (Switch)

I’m counting this as a 2020 game since it just came to the Switch this year ( less than a month ago) but its not the first time I’ve played it. Grindstone was the only reason I kept my Apple Arcade subscription and when I let it lapse, there was a void I just couldn’t fill. I bought Puzzle Quest on Switch but it just wasn't the same. Its THE perfect game for bite sized play, even though in its addictive nature, you’ll clear a few levels and an hour has passed before you know it. It has the perfect amount of depth that most ‘match’ games don't. You have different weapons, items, and outfits w/perks to use and experiment with to keep it fresh. I went months without playing my Switch and when this was announced in August, I couldn’t wait! Sadly, I had to wait 3 months, but since then I have spent so much time on the Switch. It gave me a reason to play it again. The art style and humour is great. The variety of enemies and challenge is just right. I can’t recommend it enough. Seriously, check this game out!

Number 3: Doom Eternal (Xbox One)

I will be the first to tell you, I did not like Doom (2016). I found it extremely boring and trite. I understood what Doom(2016) was doing and it succeeded, maybe too much. Nostalgia is a helluva thing. So in saying that, I was mildly interested in Doom Eternal. Doom Eternal is nothing like 2016 outside of it being a Doom game that connects to the rest of them (& also being a sequel to 2016). The mechanics are drastically different with more platforming (for better or worse). Eternal is challenging, at times very hard, especially early on. Eternal has no respect for its players, in a weirdly good way. It laughs at how you’ve played FPS before this one and WILL MAKE you play it its way, not your way. Yes, you point and shoot, but ammo is scare and you MUST use everything in your arsenal. No more using just 2 guns for the whole game. The enemies are relentless. Sometimes you have to pause and take a breath after a battle because you go a 100 mph for the whole fight. You have to continuously move or you die. There is an enticing rhythm to it. I categorize Eternal as ‘Blood Ballet’. Its a game where when your feeling it, much like a rhythm game, you get in the zone and there is no stopping demons from getting slayed. Surprisingly, unlike most games in the genre, it seemed to get easier (sans one extremely frustrating platforming section late in the game) the longer you played it. Was that a testament that I ‘learned’ the Eternal way or it truly did get easier? I don’t know, but the final Boss(es) were....easy.. I had more problems and deaths within the first 4 hours than I did the final 8-9 hours. The multiplayer was also surprisingly fun. The older I get, the less interested I am in multiplayer, but I found myself coming back for more for a good month or so.

Number 2: Gears Tactics (Xbox One)

As 2020 comes to a close, I came to a stunning realization. I might be a bigger Gears of War fan than I had previously thought. Don’t get me wrong. I love Gears, but I seem to love Gears more than I thought. I'm way more invested into the lore than I recall. Anyways, Gears Tactics is everything XCOM 2 SHOULD’VE been. Not only does Gears Tactics utilize the Overwatch action, its makes it EXTREMELY important. The story revolves around the father of Kait Diaz, Gabe and a ragtag group of mostly random soldiers to take down Ukkon. Anyone who is remotely interested in the Gears universe will love the story and references. The gameplay is just so damn satisfying. The bosses are very challenging and different. I actually had to change my strategy to finish the final boss. I experimented with a totally different style of class and was rewarded for it. The post game stuff is also aplenty. This game scratched a VERY specific itch for me and I’m itchy to jump back in. I’m glad this came to Xbox One because I’m current computer could not run it.

Number 1: Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)

I have a very odd relationship with massive open world games. I love them, but I get very burnt out on them. They all have a relatively same-y formula and are often populated with bloat. GoT does have some of that but to its advantage, its not very populated, in a good way. One of the things that I really appreciated about GoT and its side quest is most of them felt meaningful. The thing that really stood out to me about GoT is the absolutely satisfying combat. It just feels SO GOOD. It requires timing and patience. There are different fighting styles for different enemies and even the armor you wear is more than just cosmetic. The combat is so fun and satisfying that I was immediately excited when they announced Legends, a multiplayer add on, for free. Its so much fun and is a blast to play with a group of friends. I’m sporadically still playing the Legends mode. I initially wanted to play the game in ‘Kurosawa’ mode but I am glad I didn’t because the game, even on the PS4 is stunning, and on the upgrade on PS5 is jaw-droppingly smooth. I did play the entire game in Japanese with English subtitles. I still don't know what Jin’s English voice sounds like. GoT does a good job a drip feeding you new abilities and things to keep things fresh. I love stealth and once I unlocked it, I spent the majority of every battle taking out as many enemies as I could while in stealth mode. Ghost of Tsushima does a lot of things very well, that the few things it doesn’t can be easily overlooked.

#videogames #control #grindstone #tlou #doom eternal #gears tactics #ghost of tsushima #ps4 #ps5 #xbox one #switch #nintendo switch #playstation4 #GOTY #spiderman #astro playroom

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forkanna · 3 years

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[AO3] [WATTPAD]

WARNING: Rise's views and Ai's views on the LGBT community, and especially those of other characters in this work of fiction, do not always line up with those of the author. Please do your own research! The more you understand, the better our world will be.

CHAPTER WARNING: Bulimia.

NOTE: Happy New Year! Welcome to my particularly long and exhaustive crackship tome that literally no one asked for! What else is new, right? The first scene of this chapter is almost entirely copy-pasted from my other P4 fanfiction, "We'll Face Ourselves", though I tried to spruce it up and shift perspective so it doesn't feel like quite so much rehash. I thought it served as a nice lead-in to this story, with some added focus on the new ship. The second half of this chapter and the rest of the fic is all-new, don't worry. The "Golden" is more a reference to it being additional "dlc" for my other fic, not to me specifically focusing on Marie or any such content exclusive to P4G. Apologies if this dashes anyone's expectations but I hope you enjoy the fic regardless!

As for anyone wishing for that fic to debut... you know the one... well, all things in time. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, check me out at jxsleator dot carrd dot co !

Jessex

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time, in the quaint town of Inaba… a minstrel girl and a stubborn princess fought over a handsome prince. Very briefly.

"Can't you give me a little kiss goodbye?" the minstrel pulled back to look up into the boy's stoic face, her large doe eyes shining with tears — on purpose. She was a top notch minstrel, after all. "Something to keep me from… from dying from missing you?"

"Oh please," the quiet innkeeper muttered under her breath with a begrudging smile.

However, the prince obliged the minstrel girl with a kindly kiss upon the forehead. She was in awe of his tenderness. Right up until…

"Excuse me? What do you think you're doing, you bitch?!"

The others pulled back to see royalty approaching, hands on her hips. A truly glamorous princess indeed, even though her regal vestments weren't nearly as radiant as they had been in days past. The ever-present lacy pink turtleneck lived underneath a cardigan today rather than her school uniform.

"What is who doing?" the pouting siren protested, clinging a little tighter to her prince's arm.

"You! Little trollop!" The flawless beauty stomped over to the two of them, honey-brown waves bouncing as she got right up in the singer's face. "Take your greedy little paws off my boyfriend!"

The idol stamped her foot and snapped, "HEY! I don't see your name on him anywhere!"

The prince gulped and began to back away. "Uh…"

"Really?" the princess scoffed. "What makes you think you have any claim to him, slut puppy? He went to the festival with me — and spent Christmas Eve with me, too! And for your goddamn information, we got pretty close!"

Though the siren was comely, and manipulative toward many of the young suitors in the land, it was in playful jest; she did consider them friends but couldn't seem to suppress her womanly wiles, so she flirted for sport. Alas, the princess wounded her deeply with such words; her lip wobbled at the princess's declarations, even though that may have been for show.

"Senpai, say that's not true! How could you, when I… I let you… you know!"

"Hey, it doesn't count when I'm just sitting there and you plop your butt down on my hand," the prince said reasonably. "And Ai-chan, we hugged a little; please don't tease her by making it sound like more."

The prince's pair of suitresses were chagrined. The princess seemed a little more genuinely hurt than her rival for his attentions but neither were particularly happy with being called out.

"Whew," the flop-haired jester exhaled, wiping his brow. "Don't know how you get away with it, juggling two chicks like that."

"That's not…" The prince sighed, shaking his head as he facepalmed. "Maybe I'm glad to be leaving."

But in truth, he was not. Nor was anyone else present. As they alternately squabbled and lamented the prince's parting, other classmates and citizens of Inaba began to approach to wish him bon voyage. He really had left an impression in the short year he had lived there. When the train whistle signalled that it was about to pull away, the bickering came to an end so they could truly see their friend off. A lot of tearful hugs and well wishes were offered before the prince was inside, looking out the window at them as it pulled away from the station. They ran after him all the way to the end of the platform until they ran out of space, then stood waving after him until the train was completely out of sight.

And thus the prince's tale gave way to another. One about a minstrel who had lost her way and found it again, and a princess who had not always known she was a princess at all.

-------------------------------

CHAPTER ONE

"I just… he really left," Rise Kujikawa finally sobbed now that the click-clack sounds of the train had faded into the distance.

"Geez, turn it off already," Yosuke Hanamura sighed as he clasped his hands behind his neck, pressing his floppy hair hard against his neck. They turned away to start toward home or wherever the night might take them. "You don't have to keep up the act when he's not even here."

"Act?!" She shoved him from behind, and he stumbled a couple of steps as his arms windmilled out to the sides, attempting to regain his balance. "Not cool, Hanamura! I am grieving the death of my relationship!"

"What relationship?" Kanji Tatsumi grunted.

"Boys, you could be a little more sensitive," Yukiko Amagi told them in an even, reasonable tone. She was dabbing at her eyes like everyone else, and leaning a little more heavily than usual on her best friend, Chie Satonaka, but she seemed to be maintaining her composure better than Rise could manage. "We're all going to miss him so much."

"I'm just trying to get Rise to wake up," Yosuke persisted anyway. "She's delusional. We all know Nakamura was trying to scam on that chick at the hospital."

"What?"

"You know. The nurse. Though I think she moved away…"

Kanji cleared his throat. "Actually, I… thought that woman with the kid was his squeeze. Y'know, the one that came up to him a minute ago?"

Chie squeaked, "He was doing what with who?! That's… why? Why chase a married woman?!"

"Oh, I thought it was one of you girls."

The group of them turned to blink at the girl from the drama club. "Who are you again?" Yosuke asked — very rudely, even though they were all thinking it.

"Yumi Ozawa," she said softly with a slight bow. "He gave me a great deal of help when I was dealing with my own family problems, you know. And… well, I revealed I had feelings for him, and he shut me down. Just said he wanted to remain friends, and it's hard to argue with that, isn't it?"

While Chie and Yukiko were chattering to her about that, the boys suffering through a "girly" conversation they had no interest in, the slightly jealous Rise found herself momentarily distracted. Everyone kept moving along as she slowly came to a halt, turned her white sandals off to the side, and approached someone who looked like she could use her company. Even if she wasn't absolutely sure of that.

"You okay over here?"

"Oh… no, no, I'm fine. Mind your own goddamn business."

"Wooooow. I guess that's what I get for caring, huh?"

"Wait," Ebihara suddenly blurted, standing up from the bus stop bench and taking a couple of steps toward her. "All right, I may have been unnecessarily rude. I just have no idea why you would want to talk to me when I was your rival for Narukami's affections."

"Because you looked kind of pathetic over here, all by yourself."

"I did not! I'm not 'pathetic', I'm legitimately upset that my boyfriend left!"

"He wasn't your…" But at least she managed to cut herself off with a roll of her eyes, swallowing down the jab and instead moving to hold onto Ebihara's shoulder. Tears were already rolling down the teen queen's cheeks, and her voice was tight and strangled, as if she were fighting back tears — clearly a losing battle. "He could never stay here. We all kind of knew that, and just talked ourselves out of believing it. I'm so mad! But… I have to get over it."

Clearly shocked by her more reasonable response, the prissy girl took a moment longer to respond herself. By the time she did, she was looking down toward their shoes. "Completely ridiculous. Right? I should have known better, I… ugh, I'm so pissed at myself."

"Right?!" Rise still wanted to slap her for trying to steal the boy of her dreams, but it really felt irrelevant now. So instead she tried for her most convincing smile — which, considering her previous vocation, was extremely convincing — and said, "Hey, um, why don't you try getting to know us a little better? Might as well, since you'll have more time on your hands now."

"Sounds stupid." The words came out so fraught with emotion that they were nearly unintelligible, but Rise still understood. "But I have nothing better to do, so lead on."

However, the closer they drew to the remaining group of students, the more anxious the prima donna became. Rise didn't know why exactly — and she couldn't know until Ai cleared her throat to get their attention. She could tell Naoto had been deep in discussion with Yukiko and Chie, though not what about.

"Yes?" Yukiko prompted her in mild surprise.

"I… thought I should say… I am sorry." She swallowed hard, brows furrowed. The expression still made her look angry and snobby, despite her tone of voice being gentle now; she just had resting bitch face. "Probably too late. But I was really going through some things when I sidelined you two in Aiya, and being rude is second nature to me. Can't be the most stunning girl in school without it going to your head, can you?"

"You say that like I would ever know," Chie snorted.

"Right. And… normally I would be agreeing with you and belittling you, Bowl Cu- I mean, Satonaka. I have a lot of practice." Grimacing, she growled, "Got so used to being queen bitch that it's hard to just be nice."

After a brief silence, so awkward that it felt as if any sound would have been preferable, Yukiko laid a hand on Ai's arm, gentle and reassuring. "Please, Ai-san. We all have darkness inside of us; nobody is a perfect person. So I think it's very admirable you're seeing your flaws and that you're trying to improve. I am the same, and so are my friends."

"Oh yeah?" The girl let out a wet-sounding laugh; indeed, tears were budding at the corners of her eyes. "How the hell aren't you perfect, Miss Goody Two-Shoes? I mean… I've always been so jealous of how the boys talk about you. No 'buts'."

"No butts?!" Chie burst out. "What do you mean? She's got a GREAT butt!"

Ai chuckled a little more heartily at that. Naoto was the only one who tapped her chin while noticing Yukiko's slight blush from the compliment; the others weren't paying it any attention. "No, no, not her ass. Which — fine, sure, it's fantastic. I mean like, they describe both of us as really beautiful, or hot or whatever. Same words for both of us. But with me, it always had a 'but she's such a bitch', 'but she's stuck up', 'but she's psycho' attached. Yukiko… a couple of guys said you were snooty if you turned them down for a date, but the rest of them saw through that. You're a good woman and I'm just a good-looking woman. I did so much work to be beautiful so boys would like me, but I'm just… ugly on the inside."

Though clearly, Yukiko was about to speak up, Chie beat her to the punch. "So that's it, huh? You're pathetic."

"Excuse me?"

"C'mon, Ebihara. You're made of tougher stuff than that. Where's that girl who slammed her leg up on the table in Aiya and demanded we appreciate it?"

Though the teen queen had been firing up, being reminded of that moment in the diner made her squirm and fold her arms tightly over her chest. "That was stupid. Do you wanna know why I did that?" When Yukiko nodded, she pushed ahead, "Thing is, I was a... when I was little, I was nowhere near the adorable Ai you see before you now. Fat and hideous, got told I had pig hooves. So like, I'm sure it sounds really stupid to you guys, but having dainty little feet now is super amazing to me still."

"You were fat?!" Chie demanded, looking her up and down afresh. "No way! I call bullshit!"

"Yep, a total blimp. And I got hella teased because I didn't match up with their…" What a pregnant pause. "W-whatever. Yu already knows all this stuff, but pretty much I decided to reinvent myself when I found out we were moving to Inaba. Obviously it went to my head, but… at least I'm better now. Getting better all the time."

The rest of the Investigation Team was speechless. Rise, for her part, couldn't believe the superficial teen queen actually had some substance under that lip gloss. Certainly hadn't seemed that way when Ai basically bit her head off just for being at the shopping center with Narukami. Maybe he was the one responsible. After all, the stoic boy had touched all their lives, brought about an awakening of sorts to their inner beauty that they likely would never have found within themselves without him shedding that light. It just seemed to be one of his latent talents. Unsurprising that he had done the same for the entitled fashionista.

"There seems to be only one solution for this predicament," Naoto was stating firmly with a small nod, finger tapping her chin. "We must return to Aiya to remember our departed friend, and strengthen our bonds with each other."

"Oooh, a party!" Rise piped up with an excited little bounce, despite the light drizzle that was beginning to fall. "Yes please!"

"I guess that's a plan," Chie agreed as Rise, Kanji and Yosuke joined them. "What do you guys think? We catching the portal to the meat dimension?"

Grimacing, Yosuke demanded, "Do you have to call it that every time, Satonaka?! Geesh! Sounds super nasty."

"Bet you can't even handle it."

"Wha- OH YEAH?! BRING IT ON!"

~ o ~

"PHWOOOO! I can't even look at it anymore!"

The ragtag group of assorted teenagers, who would seemingly have nothing in common from an outsider's perspective, were all sitting back and holding their stomachs by now. It was almost painful how much meat was straining to escape the linings of their stomachs. Actually, it was painful for some of them.

"Yyyyeah," Rise groaned in agreement with Yukiko's statement, arms like wet noodles at her sides. "My… I'm pregnant… food baby…"

"Even I'm feeling it a little," Chie was chuckling as Rise staggered to her feet. "And normally I can demolish one of these no sweat!"

"Must be… getting old," Yosuke said as their voices began to fade into the background. She could hear Satonaka clapping back at him, but once the bathroom door shut she could no longer identify words, just noise.

In fact… there was a new noise filling the ladies' restroom. Not a pleasant one. Brow furrowing as her lip curled in disgust, she glanced at the bottoms of the stalls and saw a pair of designer shoes with their soles facing up.

"Is… are you okay… in there?"

"HRRK!" What a weird noise — but not nearly as weird as the sound of pronounced retching that followed. God, how disgusting! Maybe she should just backpedal out of the bathroom… but before she could act, there was some spitting, a clearing of the throat, and a strained tone calling out, "Mind your own business! Do you have to be so fucking nosey?!"

Oh no. "Wait — Ebihara?"

"Yes! And this isn't something I want anybody to…" Another gagging noise. "Ugh… you probably have an Aqua Balance on you, don't you, Risette?"

Her eye twitched. "Just because I did the commercials doesn't mean I have a bag full of them on me at all times, you know!" But she still hated to hear a girl in need, so she forced herself to continue, "Need me to hold your hair back?"

"No, I… I got it. Practice."

"Practice? Just how often do you toss your cookies?!"

Dead. Silence. When it had gone on for a few seconds too long to be normal, Rise began to sense she had broached a topic that Ebihara did not want broached. Her brow creased harder, and eventually she said in a meek voice, "I'll… go get you some water."

"Thanks."

She was so preoccupied as she hit the bar to get some ice water for the prissy girl that she didn't even comprehend the words of her friends calling out to her — though she couldn't even see Chie and Yukiko at the table anymore. The rest were probably asking her what she was doing. And what was she doing? Why was she helping this complete bitch who would never do the same thing for her? There was no doubt in her mind that Ebihara would have completely ignored her if she found her voiding her stomach in a public restroom. Might even have laughed at her. But she still remembered how distraught she looked when they said goodbye to their mutual love interest.

Maybe hanging out with the Investigation Team had revived the conscience of a jaded teen idol who had taken a brief hiatus from the spotlight. No, it definitely had done that; what was in question was whether or not the same could be said of Ebihara's willingness to open up to her peers.

"Okay, here," she sighed as she opened the door — and almost ran straight into the girl's face. "WHOA!"

"Shit!" Ai yelped as she took a step back, then patted down her chest. "You made my soul leave my body — what the hell are you doing?!"

"Bringing you water! Do you need to add a little ginkgo to your diet, Obaachan?! It's been like one minute since I told you!"

"Fuck your water! I'm gone, I don't need this!" And she actually tried to push past her.

"Wha- hey! No, you don't just get to run off like this!"

"Don't you tell me what I can and can't do, you cow! Now get your goddamn cankles and your crow's feet out of my fucking way!"

Holy shit. That was a lot of random venom. Rise knew already that she didn't have either of those things, but she still felt the sting regardless.

"I… was trying to help you, but fine. Go away." And she stepped to the side with a flip of one of her mauve-tinted pigtails. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out, brat."

What a mistake it had been to be nice to Ebihara. They were too much alike. Sure, Rise knew how to be polite, and was always warm and affectionate with her friends, but they both had the Bitch Gene and it ran strong through their veins. Ebi just led with that instead of saving it for people who deserved it.

She wasn't sure how long she had been standing there, looking stubbornly into the corner, before she felt the glass of water being taken from her fingers. She started to grab after it — instinct telling her she had dropped it and needed to catch it — until she saw Ai swishing it around in her mouth, then turning to spit into the sink.

"Oh," she breathed.

"What?" Ai grunted before she tipped the glass up again and started gulping it down. The lacy choker above her turtleneck bobbed with every swallow.

"Nothing, I just thought- I mean, did you leave and come back?"

Breathing a loud sigh as she set the glass down, she turned to glare at Rise. "Nosey. You ask too many questions all the time."

"I do not! They're really normal questions; you're just a bitch."

Her eyebrows furrowed, and her jaw tightened. Rise was absolutely positive she was about to give her a tongue lashing. But then she just snorted and shook her head, looking away.

"Wow. I don't know what I expected from Risette, but it wasn't you."

"I know," she began, making this up as she went along. "You either thought I would be completely spoiled and stuck up like you, or I would be such a goody-goody that I never had anything mean to say about anyone. Those are the two flavours of idols, right?"

Ebi smirked and pressed an open palm to the center of her chest. "I spoil myself. And I told you what I went through as a child; don't I deserve it? Isn't this my time to shine?"

"Not if it means you piss off everyone around you while shining. That's just selfish, you know. Don't you care about anyone but yourself?"

"No. Why should I? They don't care about me." Her haughty tone turned bitter. "Nobody in Inaba. Not anymore."

Most of her ire fading, she said, "You gotta put yourself out there. This whole time we've been at Aiya, you barely said a word. I actually forgot you were here until I heard you puking your guts out."

"See my point? The boys who idolize me are the only ones that remember I exist. And even them… I know they don't care about me as a person. They just keep hoping a strong breeze will show them a little flash of my panties."

"No, that's not right. I'm trying to tell you that it's your fault."

"Excuse me?"

"How are we supposed to get to know you if you just hang in the background and never say anything? That doesn't-"

"Look, I don't need to take this," Ebi sighed with a roll of her hazel eyes. "At this point, I just want to go home and be alone. Is that allowed? Or are you going to block the door again?"

Rise's lips thinned in frustration. It wasn't worth it. She didn't want to keep banging her head against this brick wall anymore. So she didn't even say a word; just turned her back on Ebi before she said something particularly nasty.

"Thanks for the water," the other girl offered shortly as she strode out through the door. And that really was it.

"At least she thanked me," she muttered to herself as she finally took her place in one of the stalls to do her business. But in the back of her mind, she couldn't help but replay those conversations over and over in her head.

Because none of that blustering truly hid the fact that Ai Ebihara was in pain. And if nobody did anything about it, Rise was almost dead certain she was heading for disaster.

-------------------------------

To Be Continued…

#We'll Face Ourselves #ai ebihara #rise kujikawa #rise/ai #forkanna writes #persona 4 fanfiction #p4 fanfic #persona 4 #jess the writer

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adaru32 · 3 years

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October 2020 Devil May Cry News Updates

Someone mentioned in September’s news updates about how they don’t like visiting Deviantart due to what’s happened to it. So here’s the full list and links I’ll be sharing here that I’ve shared in the Deviantart journal so you don’t have to visit there.

Hey, how's it going? Hope everyone had a fun and safe Halloween. Here are this month's Devil May Cry related updates: 1. Asmus Toys has announced a devil Dante Qbitz figure up for preorder. 2. More promo images of Lady for the Pinnacle of Combat mobile game. 3. Rumours of a Devil May Cry 6 in the works are already surfacing. 4. Devil May Cry V getting a SSS pack, which contains a soundtrack, tshirt, and poster. b) Speaking of which, they haven't forgotten about releasing an official Vergil coat. c) Famitsu Interview regarding what may or may not happen in Special Edition. d) Other inclusions and exclusions of Special Edition regarding features, the official Vergil DLC release date, etc. 5. CapCom at one point released stamps to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the 1st Devil May Cry game. Someone got their hands on them. 6. 90 Day Fiance, featuring Dante from the Devil May Cry series. 7. Interview of Kyo (aka RedgraveKyo) talking to the voice of Trish from DMC4, Danielle Burgio. 8. Some drama regarding how "casuals" and "elitists" react to different opinions of Devil May Cry 4 and V.

My Thoughts On These Updates:

1. That Qbitz figure's adorable. A friend of mine in my one Facebook group mentioned about how Asmus Toys announces all of these Qbitz figures, but no mention about a release date, which is frustrating. 2. As I mentioned in the previous roundup of updates, Yunchang Games really loves showing off more promo work than their actual work. They are nice images, but they could at least give small tidbits of updates about what's happening with this game. Last I heard, it is supposed to be fully released some time this year. Well, we still have another couple months before the year ends. The other thing I heard for why it's getting delayed again is because of the pandemic, and they're actually listening to feedback from their beta testers so they're fixing whatever they can to please the fans. 3. I'm not surprised that rumours about a Devil May Cry 6 is already in the works. Especially when this rumour is coming from DuskGolemn (aka AestheticGamer1). Sure that person has some history with CapCom, but it doesn't mean whatever comes out of this person's statuses are always 100% true. It's plausible since Devil May Cry V did so well with their sales and such, but I'm gonna be cautiously optimistic about this info given. 4. I feel like for CapCom's SSS pack, they should include a Vergil figure from Prime1Studio or Kotobukiya. Sure a soundtrack, tshirt, and poster are nice, but I feel like there should be more. b) Nice that they haven't forgotten about Vergil's official coat being available for purchase. Sucks that these official coats/jackets are so damn expensive. They're way more than a used or new car for crying out-loud. c & d) Sucks that we PS4, PC, and XboxONE players have to wait longer for the Vergil DLC, but better to be late than never. It's also too bad about Xbox Series S players, but I guess some technology does have their limits. I'm very curious as to what Special Edition has in store. I like how CapCom's not giving away too much info to make up for the mistakes they've made of releasing major spoilers in their trailers for the original game and DMC4. 5. I think I've heard about those stamps before. It's cool that CapCom does things like that. Japan gets really awesome gaming merch stuff...Even their advertisements are more entertaining than us westerners'. 6. Funny how a little tidbit of someone cosplaying as Dante pops up in a TV show. Wonder what was happening down there in San Diego with that guy? 7. I haven't checked out the interview, but it's cool how specific fans can interact with these voice actors to get some more details and such. If any of you watched it, and anything sticks out that seems interesting, don't be afraid to share your thoughts. 8. (Warning: Very long rant, brutal honesty, and swearing ahead)...It really sucks what's happening with the Devil May Cry fandom as of late...More people have been leaving the fandom because someone was trying to be "funny". I'm aware that these kinds of things also happen with other fandoms like Undertale, Bayonetta, etc. for these kinds of drama to occur. I'm just sick of people shitting on one another... Yes, there is good that happens in this fandom as well like fundraisers for good causes, fans supporting other fans, even chill folk that don't like to start drama (Like that wholesome status post I shared in the list of updates for example). My problem is how people are either living under a rock, or are being in denial with the problems that surface with this fandom. Let alone being hypocritical where they share an opinion regarding another opinion that they disagree with in a rude manner, then turn around and share something more positively eye-opening that's not so rude so they cover their tracks with their mistakes they've made before (Not sure if I worded this properly. Hope you get what I mean. One example is how one of the "elitists" mentioned about how "casual fans" are the most toxic people he's come across. Meanwhile he's complaining and whining in a toxic manner about PC players not getting Special Edition, then he turns around and shares that wholesome post about DMC4 players vs fans to make himself look good). I just want everybody to keep the peace with one another instead of being entitled, egotistical, self-centered, spoiled-rotten, hypocritical, idiots. The other issue this fandom is facing is content thieves. They've been on the rise for quite some time now, and people aren't doing a damn thing. I've been fighting with a few Facebook groups regarding this kind of act, but all they want is clout...Which is ridiculous if you ask me...I ask that if any of you see fan artists', screen captors', meme and mod creators', and cosplayers' content being posted where they state on their images or profiles that they don't want their content shared, or need permission to ask about their content being shared, message these artists or report the images. Even say something to these content thieves. As an artist who's had my stuff stolen before, I don't condone content theft... For those of you who know me in my Original Devil May Cry Sanctuary group on Facebook, and The Red Devil's Chronicles page on there as well, I always credit the content creators for their work, but I am also cautious on who wants their stuff posted or not. And as of late, I've pretty much stopped sharing others' fan art to respect these artists' wishes of not wanting their content shared without permission. If any of you want your stuff shared on the Facebook page, don't be afraid to let me know on here or there, I will give credit. I've been debating about whether to completely delete the fan art album on there and start anew. What do you guys think? As I've said, not all things are bad in the Devil May Cry fandom. We do have the good side of it, too. I'm hoping it gets better regarding that good side of it. It really sucks having to see stuff like this happen. But we good fans can change things for the better if we do something. This may come off as nerdy or cheesy, but as Alucard from Castlevania states in Symphony of The Night, "The only way for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing".

#devil may cry #dmc #news #the red devil's chronicles #trdc #rant #venting #long post

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0poole · 4 years

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The Best and Worst parts of past Pokemon games

I’ve watched ShayMay’s 7-hour analysis on Omega Ruby and as you’d expect it’s getting me to think about what are actually the best and worst parts of Pokemon in the past. I’m still glad he literally goes through the entire game going into both the good and the bad of the game, and I’m basically only bringing it up because of the sheer amount of effort put into it. Obviously the video was made before Sun and Moon came out so thankfully some of his quandaries have been solved, but still it’s interesting to see the on and off of certain things throughout the series. Most of the time it gets better as time goes on, but still, it feels like you could get an amazing Pokemon game just by piecing together the features of past games (even if you’d definitely need a few additions to get it perfect, if that’s even possible).

To be honest I really am slowly falling out of favor with Sword and Shield, and it kind of makes me hope that Gamefreak can still get better. Even though the games sold like hotcakes, hopefully they have the heart to realize a ton of people didn’t really like the direction, even though it still isn’t “bad,” just worse than it feels like it should be. Even though bad direction can’t be remedied by other things, the fact that they are a multi-billion dollar franchise really makes it feel like they could afford to make it better, especially when past games did do what people wanted...

Since it’s the most relevant...

DLC/”Enhanced” Versions:

I will genuinely take DLC over “enhanced” versions any day. Even though you’d think a lot could be improved between the base versions and enhanced ones, that’s usually not the case. The only ones that truly changed the game were Black and White 2, since they were treated more like sequels. Even golden games like Platinum didn’t divert much, even if it is an objectively better version than Diamond and Pearl. Considering the games are now going to be a solid 60$ each, it would be even crazier to expect someone to buy the base and enhanced versions. Only paying 30$ for multiple expansions (at least two, could be more) with the content of said expansions being put out as a free update otherwise is a much better deal. The only people this hurts are the types who reasonably wait for the inevitable enhanced version and only buy that instead, since it’s always better, even if only a little. As far as I know, however, Pokemon is one of the only game franchises that releases enhanced versions of games soon after their release (as in, not years later when technology advances and they can profit off nostalgia), so really they’re just becoming more normal by doing this.

Of course there’s the argument that there shouldn’t be any DLC or “enhanced” versions, and all the content of the game should be included in the base game. It would obviously be preferable to not pay for it, but as is painfully obvious, even the richest groups can still be money hungry. Considering they’re inevitably going to make one or the other, DLC is going to be the better choice overall because it’s much more expandable. You rarely got to see a substantial amount of content added on in the enhanced versions. If they made us pay 30$ for the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra separately, that would be crazy. But, since it’s 30$ for both, they could easily insert more bits alongside the rest of the Expansion Pass, maybe allowing them to carry a game for multiple years under less resources on their part compared to trying to make a whole new game. That way, maybe they can devote even more resources to future generations and remakes. That’s all just speculation though. I’m kind of impatient, writing all this before the day it releases and when we get more info for the future, so basically just take this as my opinion the whole time before the DLC came out.

Honestly, though, I almost always fall into the camp of gamers completely misrepresenting the concept of DLC, saying they just cut off some of the content and made you pay extra for it. A few bad apples really soured the bunch in this case, because, even though Sword and Shield did feel kind of lacking in some places, saying the Isle of Armor or Crown Tundra would’ve been a seamless part of the game no matter what is just obviously wrong. The games felt “complete” in the sense that it is all they wanted it to be, and it has a clear start and end. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s unfinished. Again, obviously it would be better if it was free/included already, but that’s just a given.

In a similar vein…

Remakes:

Basically, I love the usual formula for remakes. I actually really liked ORAS, and I feel like it improved on so much, making me actually like Hoenn as a region. Even though I played them closer to when they game out, RSE feel like a slog compared to modern stuff, especially with the lack of the physical/special split. I can definitely feel some nostalgia for the originals still, but 90% of the time I go back to those games looking for nostalgia, getting bored by the time I get to Rustburo, and turning it off. As mentioned by Shaymay, there’s still a ton wrong with it, but I’d much rather play them all the way through compared to the originals. I do still want to force myself through them eventually, though.

Heartgold and Soulsilver are widely considered to be the best games in the whole franchise, so I don’t have to say much. I’m not a Johto nut so I’m not the best at selling it, but I will say it feels so much more colorful and polished visually than the rest of Gen 4.

Firered and Leafgreen have the same problems that make me dislike RSE, but Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee are the strange cases that make the future so uncertain. I liked them for what they were, but I swear God if they do that one more time it’s going to make the fanbase erupt. The Let’s Go formula worked for Kanto because a lot of the people playing Go are people who knew the original games but not the newer ones, making Let’s Go a good entry point with mostly familiar territory and slightly dumbed down gameplay. It may work again if they do a Let’s Go in Johto, but if they do it for Sinnoh, since it’s the next one on the chopping block, it’s going to fall insanely flat. Barely anyone who only loves Go also seriously wants to play through Sinnoh. There’s little nostalgia there, and the nostalgia with Sinnoh resides in everyone else who loves the games as they are/as they originally were. Plus, people say they’re some of the hardest games, so dumbing them down ruins part of the appeal more. Since remakes pretty much entirely profit off of nostalgia (and partially from people wanting to experience a region without the limitations of its origins) they really need to just, you know, remake the game. Same deal as any Pokemon game, just with better (if you’d call it that) graphics and modern sensibilities. Considering all remakes (IMO) look better than their originals, I don’t think we have to worry an insane amount about them looking as iffy as SwSh. I don’t think they look THAT bad already, but I definitely think they’re some of the ugliest in the series.

I will say that I do still want remakes to happen. I’m a sucker for nostalgia, and I love seeing graphically enhanced versions of past regions. Also, my favorite region is up next, so I really just want to see what happens. I’m a shill so it can’t make me hate the originals more. Or, you know, maybe that just makes me a normal, reasonable person...

Graphics:

Obviously we just want texture quality, model quality, etc. But, I think there’s something to be talked about with the overall art style.

I’m not gonna lie, I was kinda into the chibi-esque models of X/Y and ORAS. It did feel like it trivialized the more serious characters, like the villains and major legendaries, as they looked too cute, so it’s probably for the best if we stick to “normal” proportions. It felt weird when I first saw Sun and Moon, but I got used to it. I always wanted to make my character look as cute as possible so the chibi style helped with that, but I have gotten some good results from Sword and Shield.

For character customization (if it even counts as “graphics”) I think Sword and Shield really hit the nail on the head. I’m kinda biased, because Moon and Ultra Moon had a really shitty shade of purple as their designated “purple” clothing, and SwSh really got my favorite shade of it right. I do think it’s great to have one style of clothing under different, generally standardized colors. But, I definitely think we need more body types. Like, one of the main reasons I play as a girl in games like this is that the boy character doesn’t even look like me anyway, so there’s really no good reason to play either. Even if it’s just one separate character option for each gender, like a Skinny male/”Round” male/Skinny female/”Round” female I’d be fine. Obviously I’d want some character sliders at some point, like pretty much every other game with character customization does, but I can settle for one more generation. The alts could even be more shoehorned rivals like in X/Y, so they basically have the design cut out for them.

One weird graphical thing I want brought back is the little circular platform your Pokemon lands on in a battle. For some reason, I really liked that. It does make the battle feel more in tune with the overall environment without it, but sometimes the battle fields look really bland and flat without it. I’d at least want the floor to be designed in a way to look like there are devoted spots for each Pokemon to stand on, even if it’s not a separate thing like in X/Y. It just feels more satisfying. Not really a big deal though, since I’ve been able to ignore it for this long.

The big thing is animations. I am getting extremely tired of the X/Y models. That’s 3 generations so far that use them, and some of them aren’t even good. I’ll never hesitate to drive this point into the ground, but I really wish Pokemon like Xatu, Charizard, Dragonite, and Salamence are permanently floating/flying in air. If it isn’t obvious, this is the way it is because of Sky Battles in X/Y, since they didn’t want to do extra work for the Pokemon permanently suspended in air. The problem is that those four Pokemon (and probably many others) really don’t feel like they are supposed to be in the air 24/7. According to their official art and sprites, they’re all on the ground. Xatu especially was made to look super tall and stout with its geometric wings flatly put on his torso, like the totem pole it’s supposed to be. In the air, it basically just hovers with his wings out, and for some reason it looks like there’s a large gust of wind keeping it afloat. It looks really weird. Salamence is also in the same boat, since its wings are so weird and not wing-like that making it constantly fly just looks so unnatural. Mega Salamence was at least designed to look like it’s supposed to be flying, but normal Salamence really should just rest on the ground. He’s too fat to be permanently lifted by his weird wings. Charizard and Dragonite aren’t as severe, since both are clearly shown to be otherwise super capable of flight, but they do feel better on their feet. I remember watching TyranitarTube’s series on one of the Extreme Randomizer hacks of the game, and in there somehow they made a Dragonite use it’s Amie/Refresh animation of sitting still on its feet in battle. It seriously felt so much better to look at, instead of this giant, poofy dragon being carried by its comically small wings. Basically, the way you should tell whether to keep them on the ground is based on the official art/sprites. That is the way the designers intended them to be depicted, so that’s the way they should be. Some exceptions that I’m actually fine with are pretty much all the regional birds, except Unfezant. They all look pretty decent flying, since flying’s basically all they do… Even Swellow, who has the same strange gust of wind as Xatu, feels more fitting like that because it seems so much more aerodynamic.

Apart from that, I just wish they were at least a little different. I’m not super against the muted colors they have compared to the sprites, but I wouldn’t be against more saturation. Considering how much work was put into all the different animations of the battles, Refresh, and both walking AND running animations, I unfortunately don’t think they’re going to change any time soon unless they explicitly say they’re going to change them for quality improvement. I would say the Pokemon from Gen 6 up are still pretty fine, since they were more meant for 3D.

As for battles, one of my favorite Pokemon games is, in fact, Pokemon Battle Revolution on the Wii. Not only was it super Sinnoh-focused, but it had multiple body types (even if I still look like none of them) with character customization for all, and great graphics for the time. People always look to it after citing the lacking Double Kick animation from SwSh, saying how animated the models were and how they liked the Pokemon actually running up to their target when using a physical attack. I will say that the model quality for a lot of them were still kind of iffy, and that some of the animations were a little too much. Specifically Pidgeotto, who was on one of the rental cards, was super energetic so as to seem a bit crazy, and felt a bit low-poly for the otherwise high quality of the environments and humans. However, going back to such a formula would be extremely welcome. I’m totally fine with the Pokemon not running up to their targets, but I wouldn’t be mad to see it put in, especially since the walking and running animations are already in the game. They would need to be balanced in terms of speed, though, since some of the animations in PBR felt really, really slow with that animation in there. Plus, some moves just need speed, like Quick Attack.

In terms of the move animations themselves, I do think some of the water effects in PBR felt too realistic compared to the rest of everything. Also, people say Double Kick looked bad in SwSh (like it ever looked good), but a hell of a lot of Fighting type animations in PBR were literally just the Pokemon walking up to their target, smacking them with nondescript flashes, and that’s it. So many of them could hardly be pieced apart depending on whether they were kicks, punches, or whatever. It would’ve been better either way if they put the physical move attack animation in for Double Kick, but PBR has its fair share of shitty move animations too. Moves like Seismic Toss looked fucking insane though, and I loved it. Seismic Toss specifically is the true test of move animation quality.

Also, it’s kinda irrelevant to anything, but I could totally get down with the Announcer from PBR returning for major battles like Gym battles or League battles. He was so much fun, even if a bit repetitive. All you need for that is a setting to turn him off, and bam. He’s a true classic.

More generally, though, I think Sword and Shield is a seriously mixed bag of graphical quality. I give the SwSh haters a lot of flack, but the one thing I 100% agree with is the texture of the trees from the Wild Area. They are god awful, even if it was in a game a decade ago. I seriously don’t know how they messed that up, since you can download better bark textures for free on the internet. Surely someone at Gamefreak could’ve done better there. If this was just a random tree in the background of some random route, then who cares, right? But no, this is practically every single tree in the Wild Area, the biggest selling point for the region and the game, where you would always spend the most time. You see so many of these trees everywhere, and they look horrible. I also hate the look of the berry trees, since they don’t seem to use the same lighting effects as everything else (just a guess though), but even apart from that the batch of lighter leaves on top of the bottom ones just looks so artificial. It looks as if they dumped a sphere of leaves on top of another sphere of leaves, like it was ice cream. Maybe some trees in the real world look like that, but sometimes it’s an artist’s job to take what sucks about reality to make it better for fiction.

On the other hand, I think locations like Motostoke look genuinely amazing. The brick textures are pretty good (compared to the tree), and all the colors and shapes of the place look really good. Also, when they go into full-on cutscene mode, the models, scenery, and everything else really shine. Obviously I’m not the king of all visual media, but it’s just weird to see that. It’s hard to compare to past games, because everything else was either 2D or on the 3DS, which wasn’t as powerful. Even though the Wii is definitely less powerful than the Switch, it doesn’t really count since there’s infinitely less content to worry about in PBR. Much more of the work could’ve gone into the graphics. Really, there doesn’t feel like there’s any excuse unless crunching is involved on the business side of things, which I really hope isn’t an issue for their sake. I would honestly love to see them announce that they’re taking a year or two off to devote themselves fully to a new generation, instead of trying to keep a yearly schedule. Something something Miyamoto quote something something.

Stylistically, it’s also a mixed bag, but at least this time it’s all just subjective. It feels like a lot of the game is meant to be somewhat blobbed together in some ways, like its a painting meant to be looked at from afar. It feels like there aren’t major outlines for things. Specifically with the Pokemon, they don’t have that outline they’ve had for the 2 generations before. It’s never been a big deal, and I really hate how low quality the outline made the models feel, so I don’t really know which style I want. Even though it’s still decent, I feel like most 3D models made to have a super notable outline on them look a little funky sometimes with it, so I don’t know if I want that, but without it they just don’t feel as solid. I really just don’t know there.

Music:

It feels like, even if a franchise is kinda iffy, the music is still consistently top tier. Like, no one thinks Sonic games have objectively bad music, even if they don’t like it. If they do, they’re just wrong. Pokemon’s the same, so thankfully this isn’t a test of which past game had the highest quality music. I do think the Wild Battle theme in SwSh does feel like it has a weird melody, but that is super outclassed by universally acclaimed bangers like the Slumbering Weald, and the battle themes of Marnie, Bede, Oleana, and the Battle Tower. Those aren’t just the best the generation has to offer, they’re seriously amazing themes.

Back in Gen 7, we have the Kahuna Battle, all themes of Team Skull and the Aether Foundation, Lillie’s theme, the Ultra Beasts (which might be more contentious but I like it) and Hau’oli City at night. In Gen 6, I at least liked the themes of Laverre City, Team Flare, and ESPECIALLY the Xerneas/Yveltal battle theme. Don’t even get me started about Pokemon Battle Revolution. I could go on and on, but I at least want to spotlight ORAS here because they knocked it out of the park with Archie and Maxie’s battle theme. It was the perfect drop, because the intro felt super muted and boring, and I was afraid they completely snubbed it, but the drop completely blew me away, and absolutely perfected the theme with the crazy trumpets Hoenn is known for. Also, Zinnia’s theme is amazing, as well as many other themes that are just improvements over the originals. The one thing I’m semi-iffy on is the Regi theme, an amazing theme for my favorite trio, but I never think anyone really makes it feel as lumbering and deep as it should, considering what it’s supposed to represent. The beat is arranged as it should, but it never feels punchy enough for me.

I’m really just praising the music here. Frankly, I see no reason to think the music is getting any worse.

Difficulty/EXP Share:

They’re basically the same thing, at least according to Gamefreak.

I always keep the EXP share on, but I do think that making it a permanent addition to the game was a major mistake. As explained in Shaymay’s video, it actually increases the overall experience you gain in battle, at least before. That seems absurd to make a permanent addition (although they likely changed it in SwSh because of that). I honestly just use it because I’m not into a challenge in games, but it should definitely be optional, if for no other reason than to be a bootleg difficulty slider. However, What about the difference between the Gen 6+ version and previous versions?

I think it’s easy. Make it like pre-Gen 6, but give you multiple shares. So, if you want to train up two underleveled Pokemon, make it so you don’t have to swap it between them. That way, if you really want to just spread the EXP thin, you can give one to everyone you have, and that’s that. Also, I think it should perfectly split the EXP, not adding anything onto it. If everyone on your team has one and you get 120 EXP, that’s 20 EXP for everyone. Of course, I do actually love the mechanic of being able to switch the share holder in to give them a disproportionately larger amount of EXP compared to everyone else. It just doubles the effectiveness of switch training, and makes it better for when you want to train them up but specifically not the higher level Pokemon you’re using to fight.

Some part of me wants to keep my precious easy mode in, but then I realize… Just make actual difficulty differences. Just give us a choice. Even if it’s just a “How well do you know the Pokemon world?” with a “I know all about it/I’m a bit unsure” text box in the beginning. In the harder variant, tutorials will be skipped automatically, trainers will have higher AI, and better teams. However, I don’t think higher levels is a perfect foil, because that can just be beat with grinding, and grinding is boring. Also, I’d have to guess the main reason why Gamefreak didn’t do this in the first place is that trading Pokemon would differ a bit between difficulties with different level curves, although apart from it just sounding like a bad thing I’m struggling to think of a genuine reason why it is. But, for the sake of playing, grinding sucks. It’s not fun, and I honestly think you shouldn’t just bump up levels and call it difficulty, because you don’t actually need skill to beat a higher level, just a better level and maybe RNG. But, if you actually had to effectively train a team of more than six, with Pokemon you swap out depending on your opponent, you would actually need to think of how you play the game. I think the main reason Pokemon games are so easy is that you can basically choose whatever you want and do almost whatever and still win. Some fights, as far as my playstyle goes, are still decently challenging because I just choose what Pokemon I like and not as much what’s good (unless something genuinely just sucks), and those battles, even though I would probably get annoyed at losing over and over, feel so much more rewarding to beat. And, of course, that’s only like a few major fights. I’ve never had any real trouble with trainers. I only think I’ve had a bit of trouble with the elite trainers in Let’s Go because I always try to use my lowest level Pokemon first to level them up, and keep my team at completely even levels. If I always just switched in the foil to my opponent, which I inevitably had, I would almost never lose a single Pokemon, mostly because of the “switch” battle setting.

But of course that begs the question of Pokemon being balanced for children and inexperienced players. I know way too much about this game, so obviously it’s a piece of cake for me no matter what, and what I want is supposedly what would frustrate everyone else. But… again, just put in the choice. People can choose whether they want to be challenged, or if they just want to play Pokemon, and if they choose wrong that’s on them, not anyone else. They could just reset the game and try again on an easier difficulty. It’s crazy to have to vouch for this, since it’s a staple in pretty much every other game in existence. Even in my casual state, I want to play a harder Pokemon. I want to test myself. Online competition is a bit much for me, but the AI is too little. Even in me replaying Pearl right now, I’m trying to use weirder and weaker Pokemon than I usually use for difficulty, and even that game was mostly a cakewalk. I’m only stuck at the Elite Four because I was somehow super underleveled. In the generation where I experience the AI switching out the most, they still just do that at random and keep in certain Pokemon that get completely walled by what I have out, only for me to stall them to death. AI definitely should switch out (and I honestly can’t remember it happening once since Gen 5, if even then) so if anything, just give them a more solid switching ability. Considering we have the opportunity to switch in whatever we want when they are about to send out something, they really need to take advantage of the power of switching.

Gyms are a big piece of difficulty that falls apart 90% of the time. The gym puzzles are rarely hard, with only a few notable exceptions requiring major thought, like the Circhester, Snowbelle, Snowpoint, and Sootopolis gyms. See a pattern? Why the heck to Ice types/themes get the worst resistances yet the best gym puzzles? Otherwise, if you’re not just fighting trainers (which you were going to do anyway) you’re bashing your head against a wall until something sticks. The Trials of SM/USUM were universally a joke, and were it not for the Totem fight they would’ve actually made me mad by how easy they are, considering they had the opportunity to revamp the whole system and knock it out of the park.

As for the Gym Leader, assuming we have to stick with the idea that they can only use one type still, they really have to cover their bases. Like, a Water gym leader would really have to have Flying type moves or Pokemon to counteract the easy Grass weakness, or something. You can’t get to the top with just one single type and nothing else. I do kind of think a master with no specific type speciality should only be reserved for the Champion, since it makes them more special, and because it seems like any old trainer can become one if they beat the last one, meaning it’s illogical for too many of them to have one special type. I can appreciate the choice philosophies of the Gyms like Raihan and Volkner, and Flint of the Elite Four, where they do specialize in one type, but they have a lot of different Pokemon involved who only have moves of that type. It still feels consistent, but also more varied. Also, I love the 1v2 dynamic of Totem fight. Not only does it blatantly put you at a disadvantage, but since the battles aren’t explicitly type based, they can put together some seriously unique strategies, like the Sunny Day Castform partner to the Totem Lurantis. It’s literally the most basic plan you can formulate, but it sure as hell made that one of the hardest early boss fights in the series, at least for me. It was pretty good stuff. Too bad other bosses like the Ultra Necrozma fight was just kind of cheap, with a +1 to all stats and super high level… Better than nothing though.

Versions:

I get that it’s a staple of the franchise, but I really hate version exclusives/differences. They’re just dumb. Specifically the differences of Black 2 and White 2 pissed me off the most, because guess what? They did have difficulty options! But… they were version exclusive. Like White Kyurem more than Black Kyurem? Or, maybe Reuniclus is your favorite Pokemon? (not bitter) Well, too bad. You’re only allowed the expressly easier mode of the game, which you only unlock after beating it normally????? That’s just stupid. I’d sort of be okay with it if you unlocked easy mode after normal mode, then unlocking hard mode after beating easy mode (like how I thought it was before I looked it up), but limiting stuff like that is just ridiculous. I mean, it’s dumb to have to unlock an easy mode after beating the normal game to begin with. I’m honestly considering trying to beat easy mode without evolving any Pokemon though. Self-imposed difficulty is fun sometimes, but yeah…

Also, the differences of Sun and Moon also are dumb. Like playing in the day, but like Lunala more? Maybe Purple is your all-time favorite color and you want to wear it? Well, too bad. Go ahead and flip your 3DS’s internal clock around, messing up all other time based games you play. It’s a gimmick that transcends Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, and Dynamax.

Now, there’s a completely new problem: Some people bought the wrong expansion pass for their game. Because there were two versions, people literally just wasted money on absolutely nothing. To be fair, those people are blind idiots, but still. I really just want one version. Please.

The whole semi-in-grouping that happens when the version exclusive Pokemon are first revealed is kinda fun, but 90% of the time people have to settle for a few Pokemon they like and a few they don’t. For example, I bought Sword specifically because I like Zacian more, and the legendaries would be much harder to come by than other version exclusives. In the meanwhile, I preferred practically every other version exclusive over Sword’s, including but not limited to my boy Reuniclus. I don’t use old Pokemon in newer generations anyway, but it still sucks to have to choose like that.

It was obviously meant to give people much more to look for, since they physically can’t get some Pokemon, and have them interact with others to get them. The only problem is that we just have the Internet now. It doesn’t help to just ask someone online for a trade for a version exclusive. It’s just an extra stepping stone that really isn’t that fun to deal with.

I was originally going to say that the games/console cost more so less people would buy them, but considering SwSh absolutely knocked it out of the park, overselling even the highest selling games from the past, that’s clearly not an issue. My sister even bought Let’s Go Pikachu after buying Let’s Go Eevee for herself, since we both initially got Eevee. Thankfully she seems relatively into buying the games now, so we can coordinate and get different versions. That’s how I was able to complete my Pokedex for the first time in Sword (although obviously there’s less Pokemon to find). I think she even bought a separate Sword version for herself too… Is this what the average consumer is like?

Honestly all of this is just sort of subjective because really it’s not a big deal, but it would be so much less of a deal and make the games much more perfect and reasonable story wise if they just used one version. For example, Circhester is clearly an Ice-themed location, but in Sword you face a Rock gym leader, instead of the Ice one. And, the opposite is true in Stow-on-side, because Sword has the more logical gym with the boxing gloves punching you around and the tough city that feels as Fighting as Fighting could be without being a literal dojo. But, in Shield you face some Ghost kid. To be fair, I do like that version exclusivity is bleeding into some of the characters too, so if there is to be version exclusives at all let there be version exclusive characters, but it would just feel so much better to have it all sorted into one place. Also, to consider past installments, Ho-oh is clearly more important to the overall plot of the world than Lugia is, as shown by Ho-oh always being an important, mystical lore figure in the Anime and such, while Lugia is just like “Wow, there’s Lugia! So powerful!” Thankfully the plot didn’t entirely revolve around them, but it could’ve if they just focused on Ho-oh.

Story:

Pokemon has definitely had its fair share of dumb stories, which is excusable because it’s not actually the focus of the game, but it doesn’t hurt to have.

You obviously can’t talk story without talking about Black and White. Also, you really can’t talk a Pokemon story without talking about the evil Team in each game, because they’re basically the entire motor for plot. Still, though, Team Plasma is easily the best Team in the franchise for story purposes. The biggest thing is that they seem like the most reasonable team, making them seem like people who are just so into their ideals that it looks like a cult. Also, in B2W2, they actually split up into the friendly division of Plasma, where they actually carry out their goals of wanting Pokemon to be happy and free, while Neo-Plasma does all the Team Rocket-level shenanigans that mess everything up. Not only is it just reasonable, but it answers a question that comes with the overall concept of the franchise: How can Pokemon want to battle for the sake of humans, etc? It doesn’t make sense, and naturally someone in the world would take that to the extreme when they realized it. It also makes sense why the grunts are so hellbent on wreaking havoc around Unova, because they are each led to truly believe what they are doing is right for the world. Other villains like Archie and Cyrus are just like “humans are bad, let’s destroy them” which is like a lite version of this idea, but it feels almost too supervillain-y to take seriously, and the grunts just feel like henchmen. Plasma feels just real enough, with somewhat level-headed people like N making it seem like they’re almost not crazy.

People always say Team Rocket is the best, but even though their motives are so simple enough so as to seem real and good story-wise, they do feel like they don’t really add anything to the overall idea of Pokemon. At the time it was just “Pokemon are strong so bad people can use strong Pokemon for bad” which makes sense, but really doesn’t feel like it extends beyond that. Don’t get me wrong, I would say they’re objectively second best (because subjectively Galactic is my #1) but I do think Plasma is better.

Since they’re the most recent, Team Yell is the most nothing out of this list. That only makes them second worst, above Team Flare, who felt like they were trying to do something big but fell flat. Team Yell as the resident “evil Team” feels weird, because they do almost nothing. They are only similar to Skull on the surface, that being all rough-and-tumble teenager types, as underneath them being a toxic fanbase is somewhat interesting, but they, again… just felt like nothing. The plot wasn’t even close by to them, like with Skull was, being tied in with the Aether Foundation. They’re just there to be goons and go away. At least they did lead to the first Dark type gym leader, but again… their leader is a Gym leader. We would’ve seen him no matter what he did, so it feels less interesting. I do want the Team to actually do something.

The problem is that, since Plasma already did good, how do you do something that’s original but still good? To be honest, I want it to involve Foundations, like a morally good alternative archetype to the evil Team. Our first run-in with a Foundation was led astray by a crazy leader, but it seems like they’re still good overall, so I at least want to see more of them. Maybe instead of the Team searching for world domination by using the box legendary, maybe you and the Foundation have to search for the box legendary so they can help you defeat the Team, who may or may not have the third/another legendary on their side, and you have to prove yourself to it to get it to trust you. Sort of like Sword and Shield, but more involved. Zacian and Zamazenta just sort of appear when things go bad, and that’s it. You just hear stories about them before that. That’s at least better structure-wise, although the motives and themes would still have to be dealt with. There are so many possibilities there it’s hard to choose.

One thing, though: I definitely believe that Pokemon was never even close to an open world game, and people thinking the new games are too linear compared to the old ones just have rose tinted glasses on. Kanto had bad crossing over, where you’d sometimes find yourself severely overleveled when interacting with a story event, and beyond that all other games were pretty linear too, with only a few slight special, optional areas that aren’t involved with the plot. Of course, I still think the game would benefit from being open world. Some games don’t have to be open world, and that makes them feel sort of empty, but Pokemon as an idea is exactly perfect for that. They were toying with the idea a bit with the Wild Area, and I do think if they really went crazy with that idea it could be fun. Everyone always wants to compare it to Breath of the Wild, but I do love how seamless everything is in that game. Even with the enemies popping up out of the grass/flying down from the air/just romping in a set area like Pokemon would. Gym leaders could just use different teams based on how many badges you have, like how they imply it works in that Pokemon Origins series. Then, you might be able to scale up the Pokemon you can find too that way, like with the Wild Area. BotW’s story was very light, but if you just either use a quest system/map markers you can still manage a decent story in an open world. Plus, Pokemon has a ton of side quests anyways, like all the ghost quests they always seem to put in. You can literally “get” the quest, get distracted, and completely forget you were even doing any sort of quest because they don’t remind you in any way. Side quests could even get you extra doses of EXP for your team, giving them a use.

The Gimmick:

I don’t want every generation to have a gimmick. Ideas are severely limited in that front, and when everyone’s special, no one is.

Mega Evolution was kinda cool, as it improved on old Pokemon without making them another part of an evolutionary chain. Also, it lets some Pokemon get different forms with entirely different strategies to them (even if they’re version exclusive…) But, as someone who plays Pokemon for the monster designs themselves, I actually kinda don’t like it. No, not because Mega designs are bad, but because they completely trump the designs they evolve from. For example, Mawile isn’t just “Mawile” anymore. It’s more of a “Not-mega Mawile.” It feels so much less complete now that it has a form on top of it that isn’t permanent. Same goes for starters like Sceptile, who feels kind of boring compared to its Mega. It always sucks when a Pokemon you like evolves into something you don’t like (Popplio for me) and you have to deal with the fact that, even if you like a Pokemon, you aren’t supposed to keep it like that, and it’s brought down because of it. I mean, I guess this is all just personal. Obviously it’s easy to like an early evolution, but it feels so much better to like a final evolution. Since Megas are both temporary in battle, not available outside of battle, and limited to the very late game usually, liking a Mega feels kinda pointless for in-game purposes, where you interact with your Pokemon the most. Plus, for Pokemon like Mawile, you’re using an “incomplete” Pokemon for as long as you don’t have the right Mega stone. It’s obviously fine when all your other Pokemon are incomplete as well, but yeah… Just kinda sucks sometimes. Plus, anything achieved by Mega Evolutions could just as easily be achieved by normal evolutions. The only issue is Pokemon like Beedrill not being able to evolve again, and Pokemon like the starters or legendaries who are already too good to get another stage. I feel like weak, 3rd stage Pokemon like Beedrill deserve that kind of treatment the most, but no one else. If they can evolve normally, evolve them normally, and if they’re already too good, just let them be.

Then there’s Z-moves, which solves one problem of Mega-Evolution: All Pokemon can get involved. No matter what, your Pokemon can unleash super cool but sometimes questionably named moves. And, apart from new animations, the special Z-moves aren’t so insanely preferable to the normal ones. It’s cool, but if every Pokemon gets to use them, it kinda gets old after a while. Also, it’s a one-time use, so if you fuck it up it’s wasted. It’s definitely not perfect, but I will say I love the special Z-move animations, mainly because it’s not just Pokemon doing stock animations for a quick little attack. They animated that Pokemon specifically for this attack, which is basically a cutscene, and it always looks better. It is a bit strange, though, that even though Z-moves are seemingly named after Zygarde, it doesn’t even get a special Z-move of its own. That dude really got the shaft when it comes to 3rd legend attention...

Now we have Dynamax and Gigantamax. I just want to say that, when it first was revealed that you can turn your Pokemon into Kaiju I was extremely hyped. More hyped than I had any right to be. Considering nothing else, Dynamax definitely is the winner in terms of visual concept. Not only does it just look cool, but I love how Gym stadiums are designed specifically to accommodate them. It’s a nice touch of worldbuilding (even though it’s basically necessary). Unfortunately… It’s easily the Jack of all trades, master of none in terms of gameplay. It’s like Mega Evolution in how you change the appearance and power of your Pokemon, and it’s like Z-moves because they have super powerful moves with special effects. Sounds alright I guess, but I really just wish they kept the previous two gimmicks instead of just making a new one that checks them both off. Also, Gigantamax actually annoys me. They try to make it seem like your Pokemon changes, but the vast majority of them either look worse or hardly change at all. Specifically, Copperaja looks like an absolute joke, even though normal Copperaja is one of my favorites of the region. But, ones like Hatterene, Corviknight, Garbodor, and Grimmsnarl hardly look any different at all. Even Appultun and Flapple have the exact same Gigantamax. Who cares? Even their moves have almost exactly the same animations as their type’s counterparts, with a slightly different particle effect. It’s so much less interesting than they make it seem, and it has all the problems of liking Megas over their base, but worse, since they’re more temporary and only allowed in certain areas. Plus, Gigantamax isn’t even a thing possible with all members of a single species. Obviously now they’re introducing a way to change that, but at that point why not just do it Mega style? It’s not even that much better, but there’s so much more work in it. It’s like less rare shinies. It did bring about a decent event in the games, those being the Max Raid Battles, which both have good rewards and good challenge to them. I don’t have friends so they suck for me, but with friends it looks awesome.

I feel like the worst part is that they probably are just going to retcon these gimmicks in the future, like they did with the Pokedex. It makes sense, but each thing was made to be such a massive deal in their respective regions, it feels lame that they’re just gone now.

But, oh my god. You have no idea. Regional Variants are the best thing to happen to Pokemon since, I dunno, whatever. They’re amazing, and something that should never leave the franchise ever. Like a Kantonian form more than an Alolan form? Sure. It’s still there with all its power, it just has a different style in this region. That is not only biologically logical, but it brings back interest in a Pokemon without outclassing the classics. Plus, now it feels like every single Pokemon has a possibility to shine that is both permanent and preserving of the original. I just can’t get enough of it. Then Sword and Shield introduced the idea of Regional Evolutions, which can be both plain evolutions and split evolutions from the normal form like with Cofagrigus and Runerigus, meaning the possibilities are endless. Then, even further, regional LEGENDARIES. It doesn’t make sense lore-wise but who cares, the new birds look awesome as all hell and I actually like them now. It’s so perfect, I don’t want anything more than this in future games. I would kill for some Sinnoh variants of post-gen 4 Pokemon in the remakes. Hell, I hope Sinnoh gets revamped with a ton of different options across the later generations so it feels significantly different from the originals.

As for things like Primal Reversion, I honestly don’t even know. It’s even less significant than Gigantamax, but since it has more interesting lore I’m sort of fine with it. I do hope they use it for other legends too, especially since Palkia and Dialga are just asking for it, with their respective orbs, and Dialga already having the “Primal” title elsewhere. And yes, I know he’s called “Dark Dialga” in Japanese.

If I may be so bold, I think a neat gimmick that can be both unique, interesting, and completely alter the strategies of battle, would be some sort of temporary type inversion. That is, everything going out of and coming into the inverted Pokemon will have reverse effectiveness. It’s like the fringe little Inverse battle you can go through in X/Y, but turned into a mechanic that’s inserted into normal battles. Visually, it would give the Pokemon a negative look, as in inverting their colors and shading. I don’t see how this could single out certain Pokemon in a special way, like with a form change or anything, but maybe there could be one specific Pokemon that has an ability that does something special when it inverts. Maybe items could be made for a special use too. I was sort of half-using it for a fan region I’m half-devoted to that will likely not be a full fledged idea, but I do like it.

Roadblocks/HMs:

I’m entirely fine with the way things are now, where you just get the HMs as key items you use whenever you want, but I can sympathize with the small contingent of people who like using their Pokemon to traverse the world, instead of anything else. I definitely think anyone who prefers HMs beyond that reason is an absolute lunatic, but I think there is some sort of a point to be made, and I think a combo of Let's Go and Sun and Moon have the answer. It is so much more fun to ride your Pokemon around than it is to get a bike (and put on some seriously ugly clothing, mind you), and I think Let's Go with giving you the option to ride your Pokemon instead of using a bike is seriously fun. I used a Rapidash almost exclusively for that purpose in my run of that game. Who the hell wouldn’t want to ride a Rapidash, assuming you weren’t going to catch fire? Plus, it’s YOUR Rapidash. Ride Pokemon in Sun and Moon were still pretty good, because they served functions you wouldn’t normally expect from HMs, like Tauros being both your bike replacement and Rock Smash, while Stoutland is a dowsing rod. It does get a bit weird when you “ride” a Machamp just so it can push rocks for you, but it’s better than forcing you to teach one of your team members a normal type move at the very end of the game since you absolutely need it to move on, and having to keep it until you can fly back to the move deleter. Honestly, if you could just delete HMs on the fly, they would be so much more acceptable. Still would be worse than what we have now tho.

Basically, I think Pokemon should have inherent HM abilities in them. That is, every single Tauros you catch can smash rocks, and every single Machamp you catch can push rocks. Each Pokemon would either be capable or incapable of a task, and you only need that species to go through it. That way, you’re both using your own Pokemon, while also not limiting their moves. It also makes it easy to tell why birds like Starly shouldn’t be able to carry you and fly you around, while birds like Staraptor can. I also think any road blocks using Rock Smash or Cut should be entirely optional, and for secrets only. In order to make Fly a limited option, maybe only fully evolved Fly-logical Pokemon can use it, so you can’t just fly somewhere in the early game. But, another thing: if you can fly early, so what? It’s not like you get extra options, you only can go back to places you’ve already been to. Even though it doesn’t make sense logically, it’s a very fair piece of game design that really doesn’t have a super obvious reason why it’s limited to the middle few gyms. If you have a strong bird that can pick you up, you obviously worked enough to get some convenience.

But then, what would be a roadblock to keep you from going too far? A horde of dancing men? Honestly, that’s just one of those things fixed by my open world idea. Maybe some areas can be super strong so as to tell you that you shouldn’t be there, and maybe implement the idea of the Wild Area where you can’t catch the strong-looking Pokemon, but apart from that make most of the world scale up with you. Surely some areas would be slightly higher leveled then the rest, though, for the sake of variety. The Wild area does get a bit stale when literally everything you encounter is exactly lvl 60. Obviously there could be some pointless story-focused roadblocks that only clear when you progress, because that is how it is in real life. You can’t just walk into some business’ office unless you have business there. Of course, you can’t exactly walk into random strangers’ houses either, but still.

I do want to praise ORAS again because the Soar feature with the Latis was extremely cool. It was like Ride Pokemon but using the objectively coolest possible HM to control. If they sort of nerfed the Fly mechanic and made it so you did have to ride your Pokemon and fly them there like the Latis I wouldn't mind that at all. Although, surely some other people would...

Other Bits:

- I still think that, even though having every Pokemon in the game would be great, I think if it can improve the game elsewhere I wouldn’t mind them saving some space. The problem is that Sword and Shield really wasn’t the best way to suggest it would vastly improve anything. I’ve gone on ad nauseam elsewhere about that so bleh

- I love seeing Pokemon in the overworld. I do think it would benefit from the Let’s Go treatment, where you can at least see if a Pokemon is shiny or not. Either way, it gives them so much more personality, like how some charge head-first at you while some walk up and casually examine you.

- I don’t really care too much about Pokemon following you to be honest. It would obviously be preferred over the alternative, but I’m not gonna riot if it doesn’t happen. It did give a lot of personality I didn’t expect in Lets Go, like Bellsprout being so darn speedy.

- I could probably make a whole nother giant rant about the overall designs of Pokemon but needless to say I’m fine with it overall. I do sort of wish they’d do something else with the starters though, since I haven’t genuinely loved a starter since Gen 4. Honestly Chesnaught was pretty close, but I still get the urge to replace him with something more interesting. Outside of them, though, I think things are going good. Some are duds, but some are bangers like Corvinight, Grimmsnarl, Hatterene, Frosmoth, and a bunch of others which I could easily list but this is supposed to be succinct comments so

- There definitely has to be some sort of endgame content, but everyone already knows that. Seriously though, what if the colosseums from PBR become the replacement Battle Frontier? That would be dope. Although the normal Battle Frontier would be fine too, I guess…

- PBR PBR PBR. PBR is great for it’s realistic sizes of Pokemon. If you’re going to use full-size models of humans, the Pokemon should match. Or, at least make it a little more true to reality. Yes, Wailord is too damn small.

#Pokemon #sword #shield #rant #rambling #dlc #isle of armor #opinions #it seriously took me 5 hours straight to write all this #ideas

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sirbadgerduke · 4 years

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Control: “TAKE. CONTROL!”

I’d had both the pleasure and thrill to play through Control and boy was it a doozy of a game, let me tell you. Remedy, the fantastic creators of the phenomenal supernatural survival “thriller” that is Alan Wake, have decided to take a “best of” approach for their latest and newest IP. Control takes the gameplay solid brilliance of Max Payne, the visual spotlessness of Quantum Break and the intrigue, narrative, world building of Alan Wake to such a solid degree. As you may guess, this is basically just a gushing piece on Control and why it’s perhaps one of the best games I’ve played this year. Remedy are back, baby! So let’s hope their IP allows them the freedom they need to go even further. Control is an Action/Adventure “Metroidvania” like game developed by Remedy for PS4,Xbox One and PC via exclusivity on the Epic Games Store. You are in control of Jesse Faden who’s in search of her missing brother, an incident which occured when they were children in their home town of Hope. Her search has led straight to the FBC, Federal Bureau of Control and their base of operations known as “The Oldest House” alongside a silent companion with some rather useful abilities. Despite actually finding the FBC, it’s under siege by an entity called The Hiss, that seems to infect people with a high frequency almost “hissing” like noise. The story is your typical paranormal investigative romp with a few nice twists and turns to keep you on your feet. In terms of narration, however, Control shines in building a world of the paranormal and strange. With a sorta SCP-like style writing to the documents you find, and objects that have various abilities(A rubber duck that teleports everywhere, a clock that duplicates itself, you know the drill) The world of Control is super intriguing, weird and sometimes quite terrifying. The sound design and music in Control is stellar, solid and varyingly nice with a smathering touch of weirdness. To weird abstract noises from certain constructs you encounter, to the bang of your gun and the almost incoherent ramblings of the The Board, the auditory creativeness is something else to listen to. The Music itself is also varied, from Polish like tango ballads to weird industrialised synthwave tracks, with a nice little rock out tun from “The Old Gods of Asgard” that plays during a rather fantastically made setpiece that acts as the first part of the final run up to the end of the game. It’s a nice nod to their previous paranormal series Alan Wake. The voice acting is great to solid, Jesse’s monologues are an interesting take if a little annoying at times, and the the “Just another incident at the office” that most of the FBI operatives have(Langston is the biggest culprit) is both startling and hilarious to behold. The visuals and art direction are another shining example of why Control is a fantastic game. Whoever designed the levels, bosses and secret areas is an absolute madman and a genius one to boot. While it starts off rather bold and very striking with a harsh office-like design, it soon begins to twist and change around the further you dig deep in Control. From the industrialised as hell dark prison that houses all the peculiar objects, to the bright, minimalistic approach of the Astral realm to the beautiful and starry skies of the Quarry, the Art Team deserves an award for their work. Enemies and Bosses both range from the standard mooks to the rather strange as hell. You start with rather standard mooks wielding guns to rather out there enemies like the Astral Constructs, invincible and imposing, and the Healing Spheres that dart across the map giving a regen boost to the hiss. The bosses however? Are an absolute treat sometimes visually, sometimes mechanically and even sometimes both. While I can’t really say any one boss in particular, I will say, fighting The Anchor is a great boss fight. Without giving anything away, the visual design goes really crazy during a certain set-piece, adding some thrills to your combat breaks. And finally, the meat and potatoes; the gameplay and what it has to offer. It’s a third person shooter that adds a unique variety,if a little small, of powers at your disposal that you unlock as your progress through the game ala Metroidvania style. Your main, and really “only” weapon is the Service Weapon, aka the Director’s Gun. I say “only” in that it has different forms you can switch between on the fly, with five you get to experiment with; ranging from your standard handgun fair to a typical shottie and even a rocket launcher and a machine gun. Mods both for your service weapon and yourself allow you to tailor make your playstyle as you see fit. The fun though, lies in your power repertoire. Push being your typical telekinetic grab and fling, with even an ability to mind control weakened enemies to a levitate allows you all sorts of means of fighting and dodging your way around The Oldest House. With each new ability you gain, the game slowly drip feeds it’s roster enemy to you, giving a sense of freshness and not leaving you too overpowered until the endgame. There’s a particular sequence, a set piece mentioned earlier that exemplifies the best traits of the game into one badass and memorable moment just before the final act’s conclusion the controls are also super tight and solid without them being too rigid or too loose, it’s that little sweet spot in the middle that many games fail to hit. Control is a masterpiece of the current modern era of game, to put it bluntly, however, it does have its fair share of flaws. The performance issues on PS4 and Xbox alone are...not great but are definitely currently being fixed. The story is perhaps it’s weakest part(though still good and solid in my opinion) and the ending just sort of “ends” but not really. DLC is currently in development and has me eagerly awaiting to go back to Control and play it through once again. Control is definitely worth picking and worth playing in my honest opinion. A fantastic game brought to you by the creators of Alan Wake, what’s not to love? Biased Score: A Unbiased Score: Between an A and a B+

#remedy entertainment #control #alan wake #quantum break #jesse faden #fbc #video games #action games #Adventure Games #third person shooter #paranormal #entertainment #video game review #review #reviews

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fandomplethora · 4 years

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mystic messenger webtoon

(repost since my last post disappeared OTL)

LONG POST

warning: unorganized, rambling thoughts lol. (i’m all over the place right now, guys)

you guys. i have never been more excited and more *terrified* in my life.

let’s break it down.

it is officially announced that mystic messenger, as a webtoon, will be returning to us on april 11th. the prologue has already been released today.

LINK BUT HAHA IT’S ALL IN KOREAN T_T

from what i have been able to read *very briefly* is that there is no plan for an english (or any other language) translation just yet. it will be released on bookcube, a pay to read site.

(someone on reddit mentioned a hope that it may come to tappytoon or tapas? but there is no confirmation of any other site besides bookcube.)

that being said - we have *wonderful* people in this fandom already ready with some english translations! at the very least :’)

B O O M

creds, yo

let’s go into my (personal) negative outlooks first! (maybe i shouldn’t use an exclamation point when talking somewhat negatively...)

1. (not super negative) b u t - our mc is different. :,( i’m just attached to the idea of mc w/ bangs and long brown hair - the gold eyes. while other mc’s have made their way into art and ect...the mc from the game is the most popular one. i don’t understand the need for the change...besides to perhaps build upon this new version of the story with a brand new character. because mc *like this*, in this format, is a new character. she will, hopefully, have her own personality and traits and maybe backstory? even a minor one. b u t that could also, in the eyes of some people, be a negative...and, to others, a positive. we, as players, have been the mc this entire time so while good ending mc is looked at as, mainly, canon - which brings some fundamental characteristics to her character such as being empathetic, kind and...holy shit, incredibly *flexible* (like, apartment bomb? “nbd.” brand new group of people? “dope, let’s be friends.” cult? “well, what are we gonna do about it then.” mc, are you okay? mc: “are y o u g u y s okay tho?”) mc has not had her own story. does this mean she will now? now we may get new traits on top of those, a unique personality to who t h i s character is.

SIDE NOTE: *SLAMS HANDS ON TABLE* ya’ll, holy shit...is MC getting a name? she has to get a name now. AAAAA, okay this may go another direction and i may just have another character in this damn story i’d willingly throw myself in front of a car for. dAMN IT.

2. okay, it somewhat makes sense that saeyoung would NOT be there in the introduction of the four to this mc shown in the webtoon prologue. same with jihyun. of course, with saeran. but my fear is...i want equal relationship development with every character. unless they are approaching this in a “reset” type of way...(which i’m not sure if they will tbh).

from, my guess, the already meeting of them (all at the same time) shows us that we may just be on one big route with almosteverything included? which i am down for. but...then do it like that, right? bring saeyoung and jihyun into the picture, as well, more consistently. bring vanderwood in too due to his major role in saeyoung’s route, the secret endings and the entirety of another story. (y’know? what could be considered the “main plotline” that affects everyone in mm.) he IS a part of it. also, more moments with saeran. perhaps we will get (new) more mint eye scenes? a type of back and forth?

i’m really not trying to dictate how this story should go. i really am interested in this new take and what it may come with. but i just want...everyone there, y’know? i want those relationships equally delved into - how we all got to know them as we completed all routes and other dlc’s on the game.

3. i’m just...kind of scared of being disappointed. or *too much* changing. or...characters being made out in a way they are not? if that makes sense. i’m not trying to set it up for that...to play some “i’ve been here over three years and i know more than you” type of role, haha. they can bring in all of the angst from the game...but maybe change a few things to handle it better? deeper? make sure characters are more universally okay? add some things in too if you want! i also understand if not everything makes it in.

but they have a chance of really reigniting the fandom and also growing it. mm is a wonderful story that does capture your heart. and cheritz has done a lot of good, more good than bad in my eyes (personally!)...but also...sometimes have messed up too. i just want them to do the game, the characters and themselves justice.

P O S I T I V I T Y T I M E

1. okay, guys. c’mon. this mc is super cute UwU (not that that is what it’s all about lol) but i’m hoping we get to know her as a new character with unique traits. i’m excited to see her added into the story and for her interactions. we should all root for her! because we have allll been her shoes already, guys. <3 (also, as someone else pointed out, peep that bisexual bob, ya’ll.) let’s do this!

2. THE ART STYLE IS A M A Z I N G. they ALL look so good to me. i saw them and immediately went “there they are”. :’) kind of got emotional, ngl.

3. i do believe in one positive change that is going to happen! we are meeting them *right away* at least from what i can tell from this panel -

i think this makes sense in order to see the story in this form (and i even said this so long ago in another post when musing about changes if they ever made mm into a tv show). meeting them right away makes sense. and i am glad they are doing it this way! that made me excited to see. (and now you guys know what i mean about every character, hopefully, getting the part they deserve in this webtoon that i mentioned earlier.)

4. so, i may be getting ahead of myself and i am NOT trying to continually ask for more and more. but the fact that this game became a webtoon...means it could become a show one day. perhaps this is a way to test the waters? feel it out and see where things go. either way though, a webtoon happening (all on it’s own) is beyond exciting.

5. there will be new additions to this fandom! just the other day (and, as i’m sure, many of us feel too) i just miss this game and fandom so much. i’m not ready for it to just be over, i think. mystic messenger meant, it means, so much to me - so much to others. it is a wonderful story, a different approach to this genre while including important themes and filled with i n c r e d i b l e characters. things are not perfect but maybe...this can be the boost we all need again. and i am excited to welcome people into this fandom!

let’s all be kind to each other.

final thoughts;

i’m probably going to hunting down a translation all over the place on april 11th (and every release following, haha). i hope we do see this story translated in numerous languages - to include our, truly, worldwide fandom. i will be reading this and i am excited for this new part and chapter of this fandom and story! to see it this way and read it as such. i’m glad to see a boost to this fandom and to find my love for mystic messenger again...and hopefully others will too!

overall - THANK YOU, CHERITZ. and while i am incredibly nervous - i am going to remain (mostly) positive and excited! and only *slightly* skeptical.

i’d love to hear anyone else’s thoughts and discuss more about this.

and i can’t wait to see you all (and welcome even more) into the messenger again. <3

until then!

oh, and also...

...same, mc. same.

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askiisoft · 5 years

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FAN ART FRIDAY: ALL THE WARRIORS, Part 5

Like anyone that proclaims their something “the final chapter,” of course I couldn’t let a good thing lie.

Since the conclusion of All The Warriors on Fan Art Friday a few months back, the Katana ZERO community has continued to dream up fantastic OCs to expand the mythos, and some of them were simply too amazing not to feature. Here we go, a bonus Part 5 in the series!

[WARNING: The work herein is based on fan creations, and should not be considered canon.]

Alpha 90 by @moryu

The NULL diaspora transformed New Mecca’s underworld overnight—particularly in Chinatown, where they find easy employ as bouncers and bodyguards, scouted for their unique abilities and paid handsomely in Chronos.

But appearances can be deceiving. Thanks to her Asian features and waifish build, Yaeko has managed to hide her NULL status behind the masquerade of a harmless waitress—one who just happens to work at the restaurant where Chinatown’s premier mob bosses gather each month, allowing her to listen in on their plans as she serves up tea and dumplings. To them, she’s a familiar face, and not even their bodyguards realize they’re in the presence of a fellow NULL—aside from when she catches a dropped teacup a bit too quickly, almost as if she knew it was about to fall...

—

Alpha 52 by @TailWood

In a world where the New Meccan Police Department wasn’t routinely decimated thanks to NULL killing sprees, an idle beat cop might have time to do a stop-and-search on Alpha 52, if only as a pretense to chat with a cute redhead.

What he’d find would be truly bizarre: an assortment of razor-sharp knives and stilettoes mixed in with candid photos of old men playing chess, kids eating ice cream, and people picking their nose when they thought no one was looking. In an effortlessly disarming tone, she would explain that the knives were for peeling apples and the photos were part of her art exhibition, and the officer would bid her farewell with a tip of his cap. She’s just that good.

—

Gamma 3, “Third” by @Kazzang3

“The best soldiers aren’t born, gentlemen—they’re made.”

He turned to face to the delegation of military leaders and heads of state, gesturing to the rows of glowing tanks lining the laboratory with his remaining arm. For years, Beta NULL had been considered the fullest expression of Chronos, the plateau at which its properties abutted the limits of human physiology. Yet the war was still not won.

The solution, it seemed, was genetic engineering. Bred from the genes of the most outstanding Alpha and Beta subjects, this yet-unnamed generation of fighters would have superior strength, mental acuity, and most importantly, a heightened reaction to Chronos: if they ever lost themselves to bloodlust or went rogue as previous NULL had, they wouldn’t survive a week before withdrawal rendered them inert.

“Oh, look,” he mused as he led the group between the tanks. “Twins.”

—

Alpha 13 by @PsykoShipht

As a child, Noel never seemed to fit in, thanks to an early growth spurt that made him tower above his classmates. Among the lineup of star athletes and wunderkinds who would become New Mecca’s first NULL, poor Noel was chosen for his slightly above-average height—a desirable trait for comms operators, who had to shoulder heavy, fragile radio backpacks through the jungle in addition to their field gear.

After a woeful showing in boot camp, he was offered a chance to test a prototype light-bending camouflage. What happened after, no one is certain, save for rare accounts of distorted shapes moving through the trees or enemy guards slumped at their posts, their throats slit and blood still warm.

Now, Noel finally fits in, anywhere and everywhere. If you see a tall, gangly shape flickering in the shadows and a high-pitched electronic whine, drop your wallet and run!

—

Beta 32 by @super0yo

He may seem bleary from lack of sleep, but the redder and more sunken Beta 32′s eyes are, the more people he’s killed in the recent past. He can’t really name the feeling that overcomes him every time he ends a life—definitely not sadness, but perhaps shame over doing something wrong that feels so right.

—

Beta 33, “Claire” by Maple

Some NULLs prided themselves on accomplishing a lot with little: clearing an entire enemy camp armed with only a knife and their Chronos abilities, even if it meant dying countless times in the process.

Claire never quite understood the appeal; already an exemplary soldier prior to becoming a Beta, she treated Chronos as just another tool in her repertoire of weapons and gadgets, enhancing her deadliness further. To her, having to finish off an enemy up close just means it’s time to hit the shooting range again, because she just ran out of ammo.

—

Gamma 4 by @TCSF95293

Gamma 4′s immense potential was always hindered by his reputation as a hothead and sadist among his commanders; he swore at the doctors during his weekly medical checks and tended to ‘accidentally’ kill prisoners of war before he could extract any useful intel.

But even inflicting that much pain on others has a cost, and now no one’s sure just what he’s after anymore. Revenge? Vigilantism? Perhaps even contract killing, as absurd as it seems? Whatever it is, his comrades know he won’t rest until it’s accomplished—or until they’re dead.

—

Alpha 64, by @Tacoyaki86

In a run-down city like New Mecca, no one looks twice at a kid carrying a saw, hammer, and length of rope down the street; after all, what apartment in the Third District doesn’t have a leaky roof or faulty electrical wiring? It just turns out hardware meant for repairs is also useful for gaining entry into tricky places to kill people, which is exactly what “Matt” does in his off-hours.

Nobody would suspect him, of course. After all, Matt’s profile says he’s near-sighted and was a valedictorian of his graduating class, even after he disappeared for a few days and came back having lost nearly a hundred pounds, grown a few inches shorter, and gained different hair, eye, and skin colors. Guy just plays vidcons in his spare time, he couldn’t hurt a fly.

—

Beta 46 , “Albino” by @OwOsameOwO

Beta 46 was far from the only NULL who admired their father figure as something more, and he and Beta 13 often clashed vying for his attention, which neither of them ever got. They quoted his speech and mimicked his every move; while Beta 46 couldn’t cut off his own arm without diminishing his combat effectiveness (and thus risk displeasing the doctor), he compulsively wears upper garments with one sleeve empty.

—

Alpha 2109 by @mazotive

By the time the Chronos project began recruiting test subjects from the Third District, Alpha Squadron had become a dumping ground for the least promising NULL, used as distractions while their Beta brethren did the real fighting. But Silence was an exception—without a scope or silencer, she could provide overwatch as well as any fully-kitted sniper, and her skill at staying undetected meant her physical frailty didn’t matter.

Now she's forgotten the project just as much as it forgot her. But something still feels off whenever she sees visions of events a few seconds into the future, or feels the days start to get longer and longer...

—

Initially, I thought interest in Katana ZERO OCs might die down as the interminable wait for the fabled DLC went on. But it seems people have gotten hungry enough for more story to invent their own, and I love what I’ve seen so far.

If your latter-day OC didn’t make it, chances are A.) you didn’t send it to me or B.) it’ll be featured in a future bonus entry of All the Warriors. As long as I have enough to fill the banner picture, rest assured there will be more.

See y’all next week.

by @nizioroMOMO

#askiisoft #katana zero #devolver digital #fan art #fan art friday #all the warriors #oc #do #not #steal

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ncfan-1 · 4 years

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So, a little while ago I did a “try out less trodden class paths” run of Three Houses. It was a Blue Lions run, since I both wanted to revisit that path for fic writing purposes, and because it was the base house that had the largest number of students I wanted to try out different classes on.

The results, as you can imagine, were mixed.

Caspar made for such a good Swordmaster that I took him to the endgame with me, and while I was surprised by this at first, when I thought about it a little more, it didn’t surprise me nearly as much. Caspar may not have a proficiency in swords, but his growths lend themselves well to sword-wielding classes, especially once you reclass him to a sword-wielding class and you get those modifiers to his growth rates. I had made him a Hero in my Silver Snow run purely because I wanted to get his sword rank high enough to wield the rapier so he could take down the Death Knight in his and Mercedes’s paralogue, and he was good with swords in that one, too. Asides from him, Felix and Mercedes were both excellent Bow Knights, filling different niches--Felix with his high strength and speed hit like a truck, and Mercedes with a magic bow absolutely decimated low res units, and even middling res units as well.

On the other end of the spectrum, while neither Ferdinand, Sylvain, nor Leonie were bad at being Holy Knights, per se, and Ferdinand is one of only two units who I think actually looks good in the Holy Knight armor (suits his personality and aesthetic pretty well, I think), I will likely not class them into Holy Knights again. Ferdinand is fine as a Paladin--plenty of the advanced classes are fine as endgame classes, and Paladin is definitely one of them--or a Wyvern Lord, Leonie is so much better as a Bow Knight, and maybe one day I’ll find a class Sylvain actually excels at, because he’s been kinda meh as a Dark Knight for me (Not as meh as poor Lorenz, though). And nowadays, I’ve had Dorothea as a Gremory, a Mortal Savant, and in this playthrough a Swordmaster, and I don’t think I’m ever going to make her into anything but a Gremory, ever again.

But by far, the two stars of this run were Falcon Knight Marianne and Gremory Ingrid.

Classing Marianne away from a magic-wielding class is, I think, probably not the most unconventional thing I could have done, especially since I sent her down the Pegasus line. I think that with every student unit in this game, there are a couple--sometimes up to three or four--different paths that are optimal to send them down, in different ways. For Marianne, you could make her a Swordmaster or a Paladin, and those classes would suit her pretty well thanks to her magic-based Combat Arts. You could level up her Reason Magic and make her a Gremory.

The master class I think the game pushes you hardest towards with Marianne is Holy Knight. On a purely visuals-based level, she is the only unit in the game besides Ferdinand whom I think the armor in that class looks good on, thanks to her color palette making the armor white with gold accents, and the cape a dark blue, which to be honest is exactly what I think of when I think holy knight. More seriously, given her proficiencies in Faith, Swords, Riding, Flying, and that her budding talent is in Lances, the game is pushing you towards mixed attacker with Marianne, and speaking as someone who made her a Holy Knight in every run she played but this one, Marianne excels as a mixed attacker.

She really feels like the only unit in the whole game that the Holy Knight class was really made for. As I said above, Ferdinand, Sylvain, and Leonie weren’t great at it, and designated healer units that I’ve classed into Holy Knight in the past (aka Linhardt and Mercedes) excelled much more as a Bishop or as a Gremory. Marianne, on the other hand, kicks so much ass as a Holy Knight that it isn’t even funny. Out of all the designated healers, I would say that her spell list is the most attack-oriented, because even Manuela only has two attack Faith spells, while Marianne has three. Marianne is one of only three characters in the base game to get two magic-based Combat Arts (the others being Ingrid and Edelgard), which means that even with less spell charges, she’s not in trouble because she has Soulblade and Frozen Lance to fall back on. Her Crest increases damage output on physical attacks. Also, her bloodline’s Relic, Blutgang, is a magic sword that deals magic-based damage; if that isn’t the devs telling us it’s alright to make Marianne a physical class or a mixed attacker if we want to, I don’t know what is. And five Physic uses isn’t that big of a loss, especially since if you’re doing any recruiting at all Marianne is probably not your only Physic user--hell, if you’re playing as female Byleth, you can get a Physic user for free (And just because I don’t think Sylvain is that great of a Dark Knight doesn’t mean I don’t think the game isn’t pushing him towards that).

With all that said, it’s not hard to see how Falcon Knight is the other master class I think the game is pushing Marianne towards. She has all the proficiencies required to get there with plenty of chapters to spare, and even with her low strength growths, high magic plus Soulblade and Frozen Lance means she’s not without recourse for dealing loads of damage. And in my experience, Marianne’s performance as a Falcon Knight was similar to her performance as a Holy Knight, minus being able to wield magic and plus gaining a ton of speed. She was good. She excelled at this.

Ingrid, on the other hand, I wasn’t as confident about going in. Ingrid, I feel, is being pushed by the game first to become a Falcon Knight, and if not a Falcon Knight, then a Paladin. Her growths favor these classes, and her base speed growths are so high that the massive speed penalty that comes with the Paladin class isn’t likely to affect her too much. Incidentally, Ingrid’s proficiencies are almost identical to Marianne’s; the only difference is that she’s neutral in Faith, rather than proficient. She is very much being pushed towards physical classes, rather than magical classes or mixed attacker classes.

But when you look at it, Ingrid has the potential to become a great mixed attacker. Her base growths in strength and magic are the same. Like Marianne, she learns two magic-based Combat Arts, Hexblade and Frozen Lance, though she gets them much later on. Marianne gets Soulblade at C+ in Swords, and Frozen Lance is your reward for unlocking her budding talent; Ingrid, on the other hand, doesn’t get her magic-based Arts until she’s at A in Swords and Lances, almost as if she’s not intended to be dealing magic-based damage until she’s reached an advanced class (More on that later). Her Reason list is almost identical to Marianne’s--both learn Blizzard, Thoron, and Fimbulvetr, which are all spells with high Critical Hit chances, and Marianne only learns one spell in excess of Ingrid’s list, Cutting Gale. From Faith, Ingrid learns Physic, which is a good utility spell, and Seraphim, the monster-killing spell, which makes me think that Falcon Knights were originally meant to be geared towards killing monsters like they were in Echoes, since Ingrid is the only unit in the game being pushed hard towards this class, and she just happens to learn a spell that’s super-effective against monsters.

So Ingrid does have potential as a magic-wielding unit. Sure, she’s hands down the best unit in the game to make into a Falcon Knight (tried it out on Hilda this time, and let me just say: Falcon Knight!Hilda is Wyvern Lord!Hilda Lite; it’s okay, but it feels like a watered down version of Wyvern Lord!Hilda), but she’s got potential as a mage, too. But I was still a little nervous, because while her base magic growth is the same as her base strength growth, both are on the low side, and just judging from what I’ve heard, it’s rare to get an Ingrid who’s been strength-blessed by the RNG gods. Even with class boosts to her growths, there was still a very real chance she’d get screwed on her magic stats.

As you can see above, she did not get magic-screwed. At all.

Yes, this is after I fed her some magic stat boosters, but do you want to know what it was before I did that? 43. She got to 43 magic all by her lonesome, without any help from any Spirit Dusts or any Premium Magic Herbs, and she was fantastic. She was critting left and right, no one could hit her, she could still double Assassins despite no longer being in a class that boosted her speed growths, and she was overall my biggest, most unexpected success story from this run.

Now, let’s talk DLC.

As most of you probably know, the next wave of DLC coming out--can’t remember if it’s in the free wave or the paid wave--includes several new classes. Do you want to guess what one of them is? If the rumors are true, one of the new classes we’re getting is Dark Flier.

Previously, I mentioned that I really wanted to make Flayn a Dark Flier if I ever got the opportunity. Her proficiency in Faith, budding talent in Reason, and the fact that she comes with high enough skill bases in Lances and Flying to be immediately reclassed to Pegasus Knight makes me think that the pegasus line was the route we were being pushed towards with her, if we decided Bishop or Gremory wasn’t for us (And speaking as someone who’s made Flayn a Falcon Knight three runs running, she’s amazing as a pegasus unit). The fact that she’s such a potent magic user made me wish we’d get Dark Flier as a class, back when we still didn’t know what the future held in terms of DLC.

Well, nowadays, I still want to make Flayn a Dark Flier. Wanting to make her a Dark Flier is probably the biggest reason my first run after the DLC drops isn’t going to be a Crimson Flower run. But seeing how well Marianne does as a flying unit, how well Ingrid does as a magic unit, and just how much potential both have as mixed attackers, I really want to try them both out as Dark Fliers, too.

I just hope the DLC classes don’t require super-rare seals like Dark Mage and Dark Bishop. That would suck.

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fe16 #Meta #Ingrid Fe16 #Marianne Fe16

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rairix · 5 years

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My Persona 5 Royal rant

cross posting from my twitter cause I’m fuckin mad, and adding on since there is no txt limit:

Anyone bitching about Persona 5 doesn't actually play persona games.

First people asking to censor the first dungeon:

They've always been dark, 5 just actually tackled real problems in Japan with crooked teachers. If you don’t think there are teachers in Japan trying to/actually fucking their students, you’re wrong. There are high school girls groped daily on the train, what makes you think a teacher isn’t going to do that as well? Removing the entire teacher problem would mean removing the entire first dungeon The whole point of the game is to tackle corrupt people and bring them to justice since "real" justice isn't on the side of good. They also added in a new teacher social link that will help the characters deal with the aftermath of douche teach. Also the game never full on states that he did fuck a student. It’s heavily implied...like extremely heavily implied, but it never says “he fucked/raped ___” He’s the driving link of getting the game going, he needs to be a horrible person you want to see punished.

Next Kasumi’s outfit:

Kasumi's phantom outfit reflects her gymnastic background, as personas reflect their true selves Also since when has a leotard been considered sexy? She's got a big jacket and huge boots as well. A little leg isn't going to hurt anyone. Anne’s outfit is still sexier than Kasumi’s and shows less skin than some of the girl’s dlc outfits do. Stop being mad over a little leg when you’re constantly arguing girls can wear short to school that are barely covering their ass. You can’t have it both ways of “stop sexualizing a video game character, but let me have my ass out in public”

Finally if you’re still thinking Persona 5 is too dark:

Let's look at the other persona games (skipping 1 cause I know nothing, barely know any of 2)

2-fighting Hitler, he’s the final boss.

3-end of the fucking world, everyone shoots themselves in the head to summon their personas, it's dark and quite depressing, social links become pointless when you think of the ending, sad ending either way, you get sick trying to do the dungeons so you get stressed and can’t do social links if you need rest (seriously 3 had a lot of difficulty problems it didn’t need, it’s beside the point but fuck not controlling characters and dungeon sickness)

4-solving murders while dealing with problems like sexuality, gender, the idol world, death, being forced into a job you don’t want, stalkers, more death and the future you want to live. (I really can’t remember the homophobia in 5 ((I beat 5 like a year ago))people are complaining about, yet they all forget this series has Kanji’s entire dungeon revolving around his sexuality and coming to terms with who he is and how people see him) Also Rise is like 15 being sexualized for the idol world to where she sees herself as a stripper in a strip club. I never saw a single complaint online over her being sexy in the games. We’ve also got Naoto’s problems with their gender and wishing to be different so people would take them seriously. Teddie’s depression, Nanako’s whole family problems, Adachi in general...this game has dark themes but the colors and music are bright so people forget it’s a dark game.

5-bringing sleaze balls to justice who have avoided punishment, realizing you can grow from your trauma. Student abuse, family abuse, art theft, prostitution, corrupt doctors, yakuza, fortune teller scams, horrible business men, politicians, crooked cops, animal abuse, bulling, the list goes on.

It's rated M for a reason. It’s gonna tackle real shit in a fantasy way. You may not be able to take down evils in your own life, but you can help these characters overcome their trauma and grow with them. Maybe you take interest in helping the politician who is actually a good guy in the game and realize you could help a political cause because of it. Maybe you see that models aren’t just vapid bitches through Anne’s line of her not trying hard while her rival tries very hard and takes her job very seriously. Perhaps you have social problems like Futaba and realize small steps can help you towards a real big goal. It’s a game that’s going to help you grow. Stop sticking your heads in the sand at every “problematic” thing. You’ll grow stronger the more you face these things.

Stop asking for censorship on games that don't need it.

You want a game to complain about? Look up Prison Girls by Nipon Ichi. You punish the prisoners who are all girls of questionable ages. There’s forever lolis who are like 100 but look maybe 10 at most. Though they have censored the latest version, you used to be able to spank, whip, wooden horse and rub these characters.

So again a bit of thigh on a character who does gymnastics isn’t going to end the world.

#persona 5 #persona 5 the royal #persona 5R #Kasumi #persona #video games #censorship #grow up and shut up #it's m rated #ps4 #fight me in the pit

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 5 years

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all the theories i never got to elaborate on

may you rest in peace you beautiful sons of bitches

minor spoilers regarding the cloth map.

this is it!! goodbye until I beat the game!

finish mask of mayhem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (lol i never did)

That one about the Meta Guardian (Sentinel) being called the ‘meta’ guardian in the game files

Make a post on people who could get artificial siren powers from Tannis/Athenas, including, but not limited to: Maya/Lilith getting their powers back, Moze, Ellie, Moxxi, Lorelei, Ava unlocking her powers, Tannis herself, etc. Also, if the ‘universe-destroying power’ is creating more than 6 sirens, that’d be awesome. I do wish there was a scene where the entire party gets a new power/action skill for the final battle.

analyze all the new merch + maliwan joining the cult

all the cool broken shit you can do in bl2 like letting zer0′s hologram ragdoll and leaving claptrap to dance in captain flynt’s boss fight area without activating the fight (and breaking the game!)

also punk girl masterpost because... lord knows she’s a conundrum

The preview of the art book, notably the page describing the twins as being opposite color schemes (cause THAT’S not suspicious or foreshadowing in any way, im sure) i mean COME ON

think about how the twins got their siren powers bc apparently they were born into a ‘cage’… a vault... or a testing facility... two options here. maybe both tbh lol. compare the likelihood of hyperion testing (e-tech/slag experimentation/siren knowledge/old color scheme) vs atlas (color scheme matches more with white, typhon deleon connection, secret gortys project to open the vault of the traveller could have sister projects). also if typhon is their dad... that’s hilarious lol

and i know it’s been confirmed that the twins were conjoined and that’s probably how they got their shared powers/tattoos, but lemme ask something:

Troy’s tattoos appeared after birth. that’s been pointed out not only by me, but a bunch of other people in the fandom as well.

Tyreen says that “when we were born, our father had to cut him off me. now i’m the only thing keeping him alive”.

so what’s the truth?

Tyreen says they were separated at birth. Troy’s tattoos would argue a completely different point: if Ty was a Siren at birth, you’d think her tattoos would have spread to Troy while they were conjoined. but clearly that’s not the case- since Troy has a full sleeve of normal tattoos that were overwritten by his red ones (of course we don’t know the details of siren tattoos interacting with normal tattoos. maybe they just don’t get inked because of the glowy/power/ethereal aspect of them. but there is the fact many of the cultists are mimicking troy’s tattoos on his arm, which makes me think they had a reference at one point)

now, i know that cut content is non-canon until confirmed by the devs, but given that we know the entire commander lilith dlc was written with borderlands 3′s plot in mind, i don’t think it’s coincidence we found that Angel’s powers/tattoos didn’t manifest until she was five.

maybe tyreen made troy and herself get these powers so she could heal him easier thru her knowledge of the vaults

or like as an experiment they (whomever they actually are- atlas, hyperion, undisclosed evil science company) forced siren powers to manifest in tyreen to see if she could keep her brother alive/to see what would happen and it ended up being she had to keep him alive because they were killing him

troy did a no no and touched a vault thing and got some powers and blew his arm off and tyreen now has to take care of him with her new siren powers like a disgruntled older sister

actually now that i think about it you’d think troy is the one in charge here because tyreen has to take care of him lol

plot twist troy becomes the leader and ty fucking hates it

either way i still would not be surprised if she kills him because... i mean. he’s the brains of the operation, yes, but once she wins, she doesn’t really need him anymore.

double plot twist she goes for the kill and he stabs her with his kickass sword and she’s all like :O

and the VHs are in the background like *sips juice from juice box awkwardly*

maybe when tyreen got her powers, troy got his even though they were seperated (or the other way around), since they had been conjoined at some point (even if they had been separated at the time).

“im the only thing keeping him alive” is making me do a thonk.

it does make me curious to know if he’s a new breed of Siren, like a different eridian timeline version. if the Eridians locked away all the Eridium and junk in the Destroyer’s vault, then maybe they needed a different power source for these kinds of Sirens (either before or after Eridium).

something like… idk… lifeforce..? being bottled into energy shots that can be shared amongst people, so it’s not entirely like siren powers (troy powering up enemies) which are unique to sirens. (i get the feeling the expanding health bar mechanic isn’t unique to ratches) (s- seraphs??)

And maybe Tyreen is dying similarly to Troy (be it from their powers being split up, complications from birth/surgery, weird experiments when they were kids), but she’s getting all her energy from the eridium in the background and thus doesn’t really feel it

meanwhile, Troy has to live off the red energy and that’s only obtained through tyreen atm. maybe the crystals are like an emergency supply, too. no- he won’t use it right during the intro cutscene, because Tyreen is Right There and she JUST absorbed someone’s life force. she can give it to him right away. no need to waste the ones around his neck. also to power up other people

Did the twins use the Eridian temple stargate system™ to get to Promethea faster than Sanctuary-III?

Cause i can’t imagine Lily would be so surprised the twins beat us there if her teleportation powers allowed for bigg space travel… unless they have their own ship (and if they do, is it that blue and yellow one with the red symbols/writing?), but then, we probably would have seen it in orbit around the planet like we did the CoV satellite on pandora. unless the asteroid belt made them force land? but then wouldn’t sanc-iii have to land, too? is that an old moon of Promethea’s, by the way? it looks like someone just took that giant space gun and blew up Promethea’s moon. i feel bad for it :(

anyway

i would not be too surprised if the temples (we’ve seen one on Pandora, one i am guessing on Eden-6, and i am guessing one on Athenas- given the map i would guess the symbol indicates a temple so we can say Promethea, too) were a teleportation network so the twins could get from planet to planet quicker than we can. kinda explaining how they seem to be always 1 step ahead. i mean that and also they have typhon’s notes im assuming so of course they’re going to be one step ahead at all times.

#borderlands #bl3 #borderlands 3 #borderlands spoilers #spoilers #this is it folks #goodbye

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arkus0 · 4 years

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Okay my thoughts on Generation 8 of Pokemon so far. It’s an okay game in the series. As much as I want to love the first main line game on the Switch set in a Pokemon version of the United Kingdom (where I live) with a lot of references to British culture both old and new, there are too many things holding this game back for me. I’ll try and keep this brief and state what I find are the Good and Bad points for me personally: (MINOR SPOILERS)

PROS:

- Visually enjoyable, despite a few low def textures on some objects, the scenery of the Galar region is lovely and screams Great Britain.

- Music is really nice, whether it’s the gentle backgorund music in the wild area or the chanting of the crowd when in Gym Battles.

- Galar Region Variants are even better than Aloan Variants as they seem to go an extra mile beyond different colour schemes and slight model changes as most of them now have extra or alternative evolutions.

- Despite an initial Knee Jerk reaction to some of the new Pokemon designs (art wise) I have grown to actually like this Generation’s Pokemon concepts (haunted teacups, mixed up fossils, Foxes and Hounds, Forest Witches and imps, etc).

- The Gym Missions before facing the Gym Leader are a fun change to the usual Gym challenges. I personally enjoyed the first one where you have to hear Wooloo, or the third Gym where you have to cath Pokemon while a Partner tries to mess you up.

- The designs of the NPCs and Gym leaders are very nice and I really enjoy seeing them when they show up.

- Pokemon camping is a neat idea and an interesting evolution of previous mini games where you interact with your Pokemon, though I feel it could of had a lot more to it, more mini games besides the cooking curry one.

- Seeing wold Pokemon show up in the world and some even chasing you is a really cool experience and makes trying to catch specific ones easier since you don’t have to rely on the RNG, though that element is still in effect for some.

- The Wild Area is a great concept, a wide open space you can explore while wild Pokemon wander around you. I was expecitng there to be much more than the two big areas but I’m happy with what we got as a first try at the idea.

CONS:

- Game is very easy. Exp Share is a constant throughout the game and cannot be switched off, resulting in your Pokemon quickly out leveling everything else (unless you’re me and juggled your Pokemon with the boxed ones to keep levels down).

- Pacing between Gyms and towns is very short, you’ll go through a simple route maybe enter a tiny (and very linear dungeoun) get to a town and immediately face the Gym. No quests to gain access, no Mt Moons or any sort of maze like dungeouns to get through, making this a short game compared to previous ones.

- The story is a bit shallow despite having some nuggets of a good idea. It barely touches upon the legends of the region just repeating the same thoughts over and over again in certain spots while the main focus is on the Gym Challenge. Then at the end it dumps a whole lot of conflict with very little build up. The post game story is a little better and I feel like they should of swapped them around. I know Pokemon isn’t really very deep but Sun and Moon gave us a compelling story and interesting characters to follow.

- Team Yell are pretty pathetic as the “Villain Team”, but I guess they aren’t really villains anyway, just annoying fans for one of your rivals. The closest thing you get to an organisation of antagonists doesn’t get introduced until the final leg of the main story, coming out of no where.

MIXED:

- Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing are a neat concept, but I feel like it’ll be hard to justify them in future games since the Galar region at least has a background story about the phenomenom. I prefer Mega Evolutions and hope they bring those back.

- While I am a bit sad about the whole “No National Pokedex” thing, it doesn’t bother me as much as others. I’m dissapointed I won’t be able to transfer some of my favourites from Moon, but in the meantime I’m perfectly happy building a team from the newer Pokemon. And who knows what will happen in the future? They may introduce the rest via DLC.

- They got rid of the Online Plaza that was in Sun and Moon, thank goodness, but now use a simpler system that seems like a step back from what the GTS was in X and Y. It’s not terrible but linking up with a friend online is a bit tricky since you both need to arrange a Link code, which can result in accidentally linking up with the wrong person who just happen to use the same code.

- The Pokemon Box system can now be accessed anywhere at anytime letting you swap out your team without needing to go back to a Pokemon Centre. On one hand this is a nice convieniance, but I wonder if it’s too convinient and just another step in making these games more for the casual gamers?

OVERALL: The game itself is fine and is still fun to play, but with the shallow story, poor pacing and very easy difficulty this game has dissapointed a number of long time fans. I still enjoy it enough to keep playing and see what DLC plans Nintendo and Game Freak have in store for us.

#pokemon #sword and shield #nintendo #gamefreak #galar region

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crystalelemental · 4 years

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Atelier Lulua Opinions

This feels a little early, since I haven’t really done the Machina Domain DLC, and that might change some stuff, but I’ve read a bit and it’s just a handful of lore tidbits about Mana and Ficus, so I’m calling it good. Overall it’s pretty fun! It’s nice to return to the Arland games after a while, and Lulua definitely delivers on both the nostalgia factor, and having some pretty unique stuff going on all its own.

CHARACTERS The cast wound up being surprisingly strong, all things considered. Lulua herself is a fun protagonist, being, perhaps expectedly, quite a goober but trying her best. Her best friend, Eva, is also hilarious at most points in the game, and actually has some incredible moments regarding her birth parents and her response to them reaching out after years of leaving her with an orphanage. Aurel is...okay, one of the weaker characters. He’s very serious warrior man, which is odd considering he’s related to Gio. You’d expect a bit more aloofness to have rubbed off, but no, he takes his role seriously. There’s Niko, who’s a doofus who’s a pirate but the nice kind because of course you are.

Then there’s Ficus. I expected to hate Ficus, and initially, very much did. But wow, what a turnaround. It took a bit for me to figure out what was going on with him, but you’ve actually met him before. You wouldn’t know it immediately, but...damn. Damn what a tie-in that didn’t need tying in, but sure as hell got wrapped up anyway. Seriously, it takes the story from the ending of Totori and completely turns it on its head. There are a lot of questions I have about the whole situation, but overall he’s got a strong history.

Then there’s the returning cast. Rorona and Sterk are as great as ever. Sterk is having another, different midlife crisis this time, because this poor man has had one every game he’s been in. Just let the man rest. There’s Totori and Meruru, who are both wonderful. Totori honestly feels a lot more sassy this game, and I absolutely love it. Meruru is just as boisterous as always, and has even taken over learning the sword, and taking the mask, from Gio. She’s Masked M. It’s exactly as great as it sounds. And your final recruitable member...is Piana. Yeah, I love this recent trend with Atelier games, where the alchemy teacher is not the protagonist from the last game in line. I expected Meruru to be the teacher, in that same successionary line, but instead it’s Piana, the girl Totori rescued from the Eastern Continent. Piana’s fun. She adopted a lot of teaching style from Totori, and is a bit of a mess as a person, but really talented with alchemy.

There are, of course, a ton of returning characters that are not playable as well. Mimi and Keina are the big ones, and...god I love both of them. Mimi’s just the right of “developing to be open with her feelings while still not being proficient with them” to make a wonderful character. Keina has apparently taken over a lot of governance from Rufus, and is just really well liked. Oh, and Cole’s here, grown up now, and the apprentice of Hagel. While I’m all for Hagel getting an apprentice, his absence in this game is felt tremendously. We also have some returning faces, in the form of Wild, Iksel’s protege.

Basically, it’s a solid cast, that...unfortunately misses a few marks for me. Largely because of who isn’t here. I get it, we can’t have every single character from all three Arland games show up. That’d be too much. But Mimi not being playable is ridiculous, and the fact that Cordelia of all people never shows up is just infuriating. Why can’t Lulua see her other mom? Work? Cordelia’s always been busy with work, but has always made time for her friends. Don’t give me that shit.

STORY Lulua’s probably the first real story we’ve gotten in the Arland games. Rorona was just saving her Atelier, Totori was just looking for her mom and tripped into the plot, Meruru was just developing her kingdom. Lulua actually hints at a lot, and develops things pretty substantially. At its core, Lulua retains the simplicity of the other Arland games, being primarily about Lulua’s journey to become a great alchemist like her mother. Beneath the surface, however, we have the mystery of Fellsgalaxen, and how it ties in with the other area we know of: Orthogalaxen. Turns out, both are related, and there was even a third that fell into disrepair and became the Modis Ruins. The galaxen arks were basically command centers, where ancient civilizations overlooked machinery they built in order to control the world around them. For instance, Night’s Domain? It was apparently an area where a machine was built to control night and day. When the command center broke down, the machine lost control, and now just perpetually converts the surrounding area to a deeper and deeper night. There’s also the Fire Domain, which control weather, but went haywire and now just spews fire. Rule of threes, there’s one more Domain area we actually know of. Machina Domain. Now, I didn’t get the DLC for it yet, I’m sure there will be more to talk about from it, but presumably that was something to allow for passage through space, given it’s constantly referred to as a “distortion in space.”

The story develops into Lulua meeting the operator of Fellsgalaxen, a girl named Stia, who is desperately trying to get to the core and fix the problems at hand. It’s not working, and you need to help her get there before Fellsgalaxen is destroyed, and takes your hometown out with it.

Despite how solid the story is, I feel like there are too many gaps. We don’t know a ton about the galaxen arks or the different domains or their purposes. We don’t know...well, much of anything. Maybe a lot of that is left to the DLC, but even if it is, I do take some issue with needing an additional purchase to make sense of some of your lore. Still, I absolutely love this, for possibly stupid reasons. Those reasons largely being around enjoying stories of man vs. nature where man lost, and the new trial being current man vs. past man’s mistakes echoing through eternity.

SETTING Okay, yes, I love the establishment of what the domains and the galaxens are. I love the added depth they gave to certain areas or bosses, to a degree it almost feels like this game was planned since Rorona (though I’m sure it wasn’t). It just feels like such a good development of the setting we’ve known and loved all these years.

I will say that I wish Lulua had more unique areas to work with, instead of being just a highlight reel of areas from previous games. The general scale also looks weird, and kinda packed together compared to previous games, but it doesn’t really detract from anything.

ALCHEMY SYSTEM Not gonna lie, the alchemy system is kind of over-complicated this time around. There’s 999 quality, again, as well as elemental values for each items. Different ingredients give different values, leading to different potential effects on the new items. But wait! Now there’s also Awakening effects! Depending on the item used, in certain slots, you can get additional effects! Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they suck.

The problem is, you’re trying to balance all of these things at once. the most quality you get out of gathered items is like 230, so 999 quality on items is one hell of a leap. You basically have to rely on synthesized items, but the items natural to a category don’t always work for the effects you’re after. So you have to Awaken other items to be part of that category, so you can have better effects, all while monitoring the absurd quality level and traits you’re passing on. Oh, and speaking of traits? All the best ones are locked behind specific traits being combined, and not in the way you think. See, to get the maximum of, say, Stat boosting traits, you don’t just mix together two of the low level ones, like Stat Boost and Stats Mega Charge. No, you have to combine Stats Mega Charge with a rare trait you only get from bosses or rewards from S-rank battle quests, like Awakening Agent, Deadly Art, or Resonant Agent, to combine with the highest tier you can make naturally, and upgrade into the next form. It can be a little bit frustrating, and frankly? I had to shift difficulty down to Easy just to get started. Without having a good spread, you can’t take the S-rank bosses easily, and then you can’t really get the effects. And you do need the effects. The final bosses are pretty tough without them.

TP (formerly Cost) for an item isn’t great. It caps naturally at 60, increasing by 5 for each 5 levels you grow in alchemy, but the TP increasing skills actually stack this time, so it’s not too hard to get what you need, as long as you’re passing the highest tier of this skill on to everything you make.

BATTLE SYSTEM Battle system can also be frustrating. Basically, there are two issues I take with this game: Stun, and Support Attacks.

Stun is obvious. Pretty sure I’ve complained of it before, and will do so until the end of time. Stun sucks. It’s either a problem where you’re getting stunned every two hits, or you’ve managed to perfectly stunlock an enemy who is no longer allowed to move. It takes twice as many hits to Stun an enemy once they recover, but you only really need it to land once. Stun is only gained from skill attacks, which means it’s really easy for the enemy to just spam those and stun you. God forbid they have something that both has high stun value and knockback. You may as well turn the game off if the enemy gets to act at all.

And that’s where Support Attacks are annoying. You can control them, but only in the sense that you can determine who to put on the back line to allow the follow-up. Not all follow-up attacks activate off of the same frontline skills, so it’s more about matching to your specific playstyle than anything. The problem is, you have no control over when they go off, or if they go off. They’re not all guaranteed. So, let’s say an enemy isn’t stunned, but needs two hits to be stunned, after your skill was used. Piana may follow up with her two support attacks. May. If she hits with one, the enemy gets their turn, and you might be fucked. If she gets both, great! But this also works in reverse. Let’s say you know full well that an enemy needs only one hit to be stunned. Tough shit, Piana is guaranteed to follow up with one of her skills, and that’s going to remove stun so the enemy gets to act anyway. Stun is just annoying. It’s hard to control for, and you don’t really get a chance to act on it most of the time. Without these two parts, I think the game could be fine with a bit of rebalancing. As it stands, bosses all felt either way overpowered because taking a hit meant being stun locked forever, or were a cakewalk because equipment was all at its optimal and nothing could stand against you. You could argue that’s just the Atelier Experience, but I have a hard time saying that this was all that much fun, considering I never once touched my items. I got through everything on stats alone, and that...doesn’t feel like the best thing.

OTHER MECHANICS Exploration items exist in this game, and it’s...kinda weird? You need specific bombs for mining now, and they come at different destruction levels, such that some bombs won’t even dent certain rocks, and it’s not clear which are which. Pickaxe has the same issue, mostly being unable to break things without its max destruction value, which is pretty low. A lot of exploration items feel redundant or kinda useless, like the Wind God’s Bag or Traveling Shoes (there’s no time limit, why do I need these?), but some are hyper-vital, like the key. It’s really just about picking the best options for you. So in my case, it was mostly mining bombs.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS I’m gonna echo what I said about Lydie and Suelle: one of the things I never took into account before was graphics. I think people who bitch about graphics needing to be top-tier are ridiculous. This game has all sorts of visual issues, but it does nothing to detract from the charm of the game. Rather, what they choose to use graphics for has a lot of impact. Instead of the relatively flat affect of some previous games, characters have gotten really dynamic in their expressions, poses, and general actions, and it’s frankly fantastic. It adds a layer of comedy to the games that really complements the series’ general tone.

Also, please, please watch the Lulua and Sterk armwrestling bit. I promise it will be the best thing you’ve watched all day.

FINAL THOUGHTS Atelier Lulua is a fantastic game that, I think, really succeeds at what it attempts to do. It’s a fun nostalgia trip through Arland, with a lot of great returning cast members, and new developments for characters and setting that are really fun to experience. If you’ve played the Arland games and are a fan, absolutely check Lulua out. If you haven’t...consider trying out Rorona. You really do need to have background knowledge of the Arland games to appreciate Lulua to the fullest. But once you have that knowledge, it’s definitely worth playing.

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If you enjoyed this (for some reason), consider checking out the write-ups for the other games in the series as well!

Atelier Rorona Plus Atelier Totori Plus Atelier Meruru Plus Atelier Ayesha Plus Atelier Escha and Logy Plus Atelier Shallie Plus Atelier Sophie Atelier Firis Atelier Lydie and Suelle

#atelier lulua #atelier opinions #atelier series

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