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fireemblems24 · 3 years

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SS Chapter 18 & 19

Whew, felt like it took a long time to reach this next chapter. Life's been busier than usual lately, but here we are.

Spoilers possibly up until Silver Snow Chapter 18 (and other routes around the same time).

Pre-Battle 18

Should I tag this as Verdant Wind spoilers since they basically follow the same plot? Only slightly kidding.

We storming the capital now! Woot! Is Edelgard really going down in one freaking chapter though?

Are they finally going to acknowledge that Byleth's marching to chop down his former student? Because so far he's felt exactly nothing about Edelgard. Not regret, not longing, not horniness, not anger, not vengeance. It's like she's some faceless evil emperor he's never meant before for all the emotional impact their former relationship's had in part 2 so far.

ARE WE GONNA GET RHEA BACK SOON??? Please. I want to see what role she's going to play. There's still so much I don't know about her.

Ok, seeing the map, I don't see Edelgard, but I do see both Hubert and the Death Knight despite defeating them a million times already.

They really shouldn't let us fight the Death Knight so many times if they wanted him to come across intimidating. Even early on, Lysithea with Dark Spikes and Dimitri with a horse killer weapon just melt him. Maybe it's harder on Maddening.

Battle 18

Ugh, I hate split maps. No, Seteth, I don't want to split up.

Hubert sounds so sinister. OMG I love him. He doesn't care - at all - that there were his former classmates.

So Lysithea nuked the Death Knight into another dimension . . . again. Is he dead for real this time? Because it seemed official this time. Finally.

Oh, unique dialogue with Hubert and Ferdinand. The drama. Too bad his Boltings have a 0% hit chance on Ferdinand.

Now time to waste Hubert's second Bolting.

LAMO that Imperial Soldier lady also has Bolting, but Linhardt just waited her out. She did a total of 1 damage to him lol. She's got 5 though and that's annoying, so Petra just took her out.

Having Byleth finish Hubert off since I bet there's more unique dialogue.

Hubert threatening Byleth. Name a more iconic duo.

OMG Byleth' gaunlets broke lamo. Guess someone else will actually finish Hubert.

Wow, Hubert's generic dialogue "not even death will make you consequential." Told that to poor Bernie. Still took an arrow to the face though.

And seems like he's dead-dead this time.

Does he always give you a Goddess Icon when he dies. Because that's funny if he does.

Oh - MVP Petra! She deserves it. She's really catching up to Ferdie and Sylvain. It's just - she never dodges like Ferdinand does, and can't take the punishment Sylvain does.

Post-Battle 18/Pre-Battle 19

WAIT - WAIT - WAIT - WAIT. DEDUE. DEDUE IS HERE? MY BOY? HE'S HERE. WHY IS HE HERE? 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Yeah, wtf is he doing in Enbarr?

Oh - Dedue here's for Edelgard's blood. Nice.

Does this mean I get to use Dedue????

Holy shit, Dedue. He infiltrated Enbarr and gathered intell?

What a champ.

Dedue is low-key the best spy in this game guys. Gathered intel to help an invading army take a castle literally under Edelgard's and Hubert's noses and let's not forget how he broke Dimitri out of prison.

Dedue 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

And Rhea's inside! We get to see Rhea AND Dedue again.

Wait, why is Dedue leaving me? No 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Don't worry Dedue. In another playthrough, I am pampering you and Dimitri and in the next one, you two are getting married pairing up.

I'm guessing we're not going back to Garreg Mach between these battles? Because that would be - eh - make no sense.

Oh, so now we have the "I don't want to kill Edelgard" or "Can we walk the same path as her." Why are those two my only options though? Where's the "fuck yeah" option? It's way more fun to embrace the kill 'em all thing. Except Dimitri and Dedue because my heart

Ok, Caspar, you're forgiven for your CF nonsense calling Edelgard out.

Why is Seteth always lying to me? He keeps saying "I'll leave it in your hands." But then doesn't and yells at me.

Battle 19

Ok. I decided I'm playing these two back-to-back.

Does Verdant Wind do this too? Fight Hubert and the Death Knight, then jump straight to Edelgard, no month in-between?

Because it if it does - it's going to take forever to get to Azure Moon, because, unfortunately, I won't be able to play this game for close to a month after this because of work and other stuff.

Mannnn, I am NOT looking forward to this map with my VW gang. In SS, my Sylvain, Ferdinand, and Petra are all super reliable. And Lysithea can nuke anything. No one in my VW gang is as good as any of those four (though, Claude has gotten more speed lately - thank the stars).

OMG DEDUE IS BACK. HE came, but he's green. WHYYYYY.

So . . . does Dedue have unique battle dialogue with Edelgard? She's all that's left and he's marching towards her. I think I'm going to test this. I'd laugh my butt off if he crit and killed her.

No unique dialogue, but it feels good letting Dedue get a hit on here. I get Dedue could kill her. I could just keep healing him, and she's got no one left. Should I do it guys?

I think I'm going to do it.

I'll let Byleth peck at her with his puny magic damage so I can get that dialogue, and then Dedue's killing Edelgard next round probably.

LAMO Sothis is a false Goddes, but like, she's living in Byleth's head so. We know she's not false.

Oh, well, Edelgard crit Dedue. So I just reset things and my ever reliable Lysithea nuked Edelgard onto another planet, as she does.

Weird she and Lysithea got unique dialogue though.

Ohhh cut scene. Why does Edelgard have a sword though?

Why is Edelgard asking Byleth to kill her? I guess it makes sense. He was her teacher here.

She does know all these people are killing each other because of her, right?

Oh, wow, he just lopped her head off. That's maybe as badass as when Byleth just offed Randolph (or however you say his name). I'm legit impressed the game didn't milk that harder.

Though they did that "I wanted to walk with you line . . ." Which . . . I'll take it. That's not too bad. She did, but what a twisted path she's walking.

I'm a bit conflicted about her death here though. It seemed kind of . . . weird? I expected Edelgard, from the way she talks in CF, to do down fighting. Not pleading to "my teacher" on her knees and panting.

MVP Lysithea. Guess landing that last hit on Edelgard motivated her.

Post-Battle 19

Are we finally gonna see Rhea?

Why did Hubert right us a letter?

Oh, it's about those mage people. And they want revenge. How original. If they're the enemies of all of Fodlan, why did you fight with them? Like why not take them out, then Rhea, who doesn't . . . you know . . . want to destroy the world?

Hubert and Dedue the real MVPs of this route though.

I can't with the name "those who slither in the dark" though. How lame.

Seteth said "kill every last one of them" though.

RHEA. REAH's BACK. 😭😭

And her hair is down! She looks pretty. She looks sickely though.

Oh, we going to learn some stuff now?

I don't remember who Nemesis is. So he's a grave robber. And a genocider. Wonderful. So is that when Seteth's wife died? Or?

I'm guessing we don't get playable Rhea, though I bet someone would've told me already if we did, because she's in such poor shape.

Now we get to kick the people's ass who killed Jeralt?

RHEA IS COMING WITH US

OMG Caspar wants to carry Rhea on his back 😂and then Dorothea has to point out how that might not work for our short king.

No one really mentioned Edelgard and Hubert dying though. Maybe in the monastery?

Guess I'll find out later. Now to go play these exact same maps, but with the Golden Deer!

#fire emblem 3 houses #fire emblem three houses #silver snow #dedue molinaro #rhea

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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God I'm so glad to talk about the game lmao. I also finished it! It was fine Ig I think the start of the game was so fantastic so my expectations were a bit much but it was fun! I loved playing as Ciri and just zapping all over the place, wish we could do that more.

But yeah I completely agree with you on basically everything that you said lmaooo, Yen is just unbareable the more I learn about her and the things shes done/the way she treats ppl, I just don't see what I'm meant to like, even if Geralt wasn't the Best person, he deserves so so much better, Idk how I'm gonna read the books if this romance is canon there too, hopefully it won't bother me too much. She so far doesn't really have any redeeming qualities, even her small moments of humour and wit are sort of "yeah okay but it's not fun when you do it cause you just spent the past few moments berating someone for daring to try and help you so like" I actually ended up sort of liking triss the more I talked with her and Yen, she at least apologises for her wrongs (which are still massive holy shit) and doesn't rly treat geralt like shit (same with Kiera, I think thats how her name is spelt, shes cool), they both kinda fuck over geralt but they own up to it which I can at least respect, still not a fan but they're okay, at times. God the women in this game are either really fucking cool or just a bitch, usually in a not fun way The game came with both dlcs! havent really touched them cause the ending was a bitttt of a let down, I thought I wasn't near finishing cause I put it off for so long lol so my bad, probably will get into them tho! And im on ps4 so no mods :( the exp shit would be so good, the last boss fights were really easy though? I think I was level 34 (I wanted to wear my good armour lol) and the quests are level 28 so maybe I was a bit over leveled but some random mobs in world beat my ass just before the main quests so idk lol. Do you get to hang with Ciri at all post game? They're so damn cute together

Out of curiosity which ending did you get? I was pretty satisfied overall (witcher!Ciri ending for me) but I remember thinking that the last couple of plot points were pretty rushed. Though tbh, looking back I’m not sure if that’s actually the case, or if things just felt fast to me because I missed so much buildup trying to keep track of the basics. Now that I know the characters, world, conflicts, etc. I keep coming across lines and details that make me go, “Oh, THAT’S what we were referring to!” for plot points that previously felt like they came out of nowhere.

Playing Ciri is so much fun though. I enjoy zapping around as well...even when I accidentally zap myself into some guy's sword XD

I’m constantly told Yen gets better in the books (something, something major character development) and I’d be lying if I said that “The Last Wish” didn’t turn me off, but I personally stopped reading due to more than just Yen. The epic just didn’t grab me. The short stories absolutely, but I didn’t like the writing as much in novel form, heard a lot about future plot points I had no interest in/made me very uncomfortable, didn’t want to read a bunch of Yen being Yen prior just to getting a development I may or may not like… there was a lot that made me drop the books, so I’m not exactly in the best position to be recommending them, or even warning against them from an unbiased perspective lol. I might give them another shot sometime, but for now I’m happy with the games and fandom content.

I’m liking Triss a lot more on my second playthrough too (especially how selfless she is regarding the other mages) and I always liked Keira. I think the game did a good job of making her kinda selfish and manipulative (as sorceresses are wont to be in this world), but not to such an extent that you’re utterly repulsed by her actions. Her conflict is “I want to not live in squalor the rest of my days and am willing to mislead a friend to achieve that. Also foolishly trust a mad king that, if I go through with it, ends in my horrific death.” With the resolution being like, “Oh, someone else will give me a place of safety with something as basic as clean bedding? Sweet! Yeah, now that I have some security, company, and comfort I’ll use this research to cure a plague, nbd.” Keira is a great example of TW3’s argument that if you choose to help and nurture people, good things will happen for everyone, and it doesn’t ask you to ignore anything really awful to get there. I can very much stomach “You kept some info from me and put me to sleep for the night” in a way that’s far harder to do with, “You actively misled me for months while I had amnesia, cultivating this fantasy relationship” or “You callously disregard another’s culture and torture our daughter’s friend through necromancy.”

Depending on the choices you’ve already made, you can hang out with Ciri for like, one cut scene in the DLCs lol. But it’s indeed a cute one! Basically, if you didn’t romance either Triss or Yen and Ciri is still alive, you should see her again. I’m absolutely that fan that if CDPR decided, after this many years, to randomly add more TW3 content, I would in no way be opposed. I want more time with Ciri, with Regis, there’s a character from the second game named Iorveth who was supposed to reappear in TW3 but had to be cut and that tragedy will forever haunt me. Forget the mess that is Cyberpunk, just keep making more Witcher content!

#witcher

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vg-sanctuary · 3 years

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Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling

Moonsprout Games - Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC - 2019

I don't like the core gameplay of 99% of all RPGs, but the ones I do like have been some of my favorite games I've ever played. case in point, Bug Fables: The Everlasting Sapling, a modern interpretation of the classic Paper Mario formula and an ideal example of indie developers adding to the legacy of a cult classic. its main feature is turn-based combat with action commands, like old Paper Mario or the Mario & Luigi series, and strategy in its intentional design and small health and damage numbers that goes way beyond "spam damage and heal every third turn, use mana items as needed". (in case you want to be 100% blind for your playthrough, past the Keep Reading link are some very minor spoilers: an item a specific cook can make after a side quest, some basic enemies, environments that are about halfway through the game, and the names of some medals.)

“wow, vg-sanctuary posting about a game that's not even two years old at time of writing? and it's an RPG? are you not a retro/legacy blog anymore? who are you and what have you done with the writer?” I still am a retro/legacy blog, mostly, just this time I thought I'd share something that its developers still get money from, and whose developers aren't mega corporations. and I just beat it, enjoyed it, and really felt like writing about it because it still doesn't have the popularity it deserves even after that puppet guy on YouTube talked about it. not that this post is going to reach any significant number of people, but still. I'll write about some more indie games sometime in the future. (and indeed I am writing about another RPG and you better believe it has a lot to talk about.)

anyway, Bug Fables starts with a brash little bee called Vi and a polite and honorable beetle named Kabbu wandering into an explorer's guild and not having a partner to join the guild with. they reluctantly decide they're going to fight together because companionship is a requirement for this guild, foiling off each other and sometimes off their third friend Leif, a blue moth they find in a cave, for the whole game. every character has a distinct personality and all the party members get some valuable character development through a side quest, which I really liked, but I'm no connoisseur of RPG stories. while I'm on story, people that come here looking for a well-made world will get what they want from the many optional lore books hidden around the world.

the plot becomes more complex and compelling as the game continues, though it generally lets gameplay take the spotlight. which is great, because the gameplay is also mostly great. about a third of it is doing puzzles on the overworld using the abilities of each character to move forward a la the Mario & Luigi series. they generally make use of whatever your newest overworld ability is, and some areas early on have inaccessible things you have to come back to, sort of like a Metroidvania except it isn't required to do this for progression. some puzzles take longer they could because they involve using Kabbu's horn to repeatedly fling an ice block many times over a distance. it's never egregious, but it could have been faster if the guy would use his arms. this is a minor caveat and not a majority of the game.

a lot of people probably don't know how the combat for this or Paper Mario works, and it's really important to Bug Fables, so I'll explain that here. it's turn based, which is typical, but basic attacks and skills need you to time a button press to do as much damage as possible. you can also time a button press when an enemy attacks to take less damage. Paper Mario and Bug Fables also both have medals instead of other equipment that give characters higher max HP or a new skill, for example. you have limited medal points and stronger medals require more points.

this is going to sound like a lot, but any RPG's combat will sound like a lot if you try to detail it in a single paragraph. the game introduces these things slower than I am here. in Bug Fables specifically, the character standing in the front of the group does one extra damage but is more likely to be attacked, and you can pass turns from one character to another in exchange for that character dealing one less damage (which is a lot because basic attacks only deal two damage by default). certain enemies can only be hit by certain attacks; some enemies fly, so Kabbu can't hit them until Vi knocks them down with her beemerang. not a typo, beemerang. and many of Bug Fables' status effects have upsides -- being paralyzed reduces damage taken everything by one, poison has many medals that make it a good thing, and being asleep heals the sleeping character every turn. there are others that are straight up bad things, though, and usually don't come until later. all of this adds up to even small encounters having strategic depth, which is great, and if you don't feel like small encounters you can just avoid them. skills that would typically be relegated to one character, like healing and support skills all going to one, are instead split between party members to make decisions more difficult in a good way. there's also a lovely medal that instantly kills any enemy the game deems too easy for you, sort of like in Earthbound.

I figure I spent more time doing housekeeping like cooking (simple A+B=C or A-becomes-B crafting), buying items, and arranging medals in Bug Fables than in any other RPG, which is because it was designed that way. by the way, cooking recipes start hidden, but a foodie at each restaurant will share some strong ones for free, which is a big help early on. anyone who's played The World Ends with You (i.e. me) will be spoiled by its excellent quality of life: no consumable items and you instantly heal to full after every encounter. it makes items seem like a ridiculous formality that RPGs only still have because they've had them for years, but in Bug Fables any item that isn't simple healing -- a lot of them aren't simple healing -- has great strategic use, and the exact way you spend your medal points can determine whether you win or lose any fight, especially bosses. for example, one character having one extra damage for two turns when they typically only do two is pretty important, especially when they use an attack that does multiple hits, and having it in item form saves valuable medal points and skill points. part of that time was kind of a waste, though, because I generally had one set of medals I use for multiple enemies and one I use for single enemies like bosses. being able to save loadouts would have helped a lot. I would like to compliment Bug Fables on allowing you to restart any boss with different medals without having to repeat cutscenes, and commend it for letting you do-over your level up bonuses late in the game when it starts to matter.

it's not like spending a lot of time on strategizing before fights is strictly mandatory. I was mostly playing on hard mode where enemies have more health and more difficult attacks, and mostly with a medal called Hard Hits that makes all enemies deal one extra damage in exchange for extra money after each fight. it can be less difficult if you'd like, but it's never mindless; even if you're doing a strategy that manages 20 or 30 damage (again, a lot in this game) in a single turn, it takes effort to choose your medals to do so much damage and actually play the strategy out in combat. the combat strategy is the best part of Bug Fables, and it makes each fight almost like a puzzle. I've typed some form of "strategy" six times so far, which is fair because it's the best part of Bug Fables. don't let it put you off, though, it's RPG combat strategy, not chess-like or RTS or something, so if you've enjoyed any other turn-based RPG it should be easy to get used to.

it's also worth mentioning the ample side content. each chapter of the game unlocks a handful of side quests, some about trading, some about combat, and almost as many bonus bosses as main bosses. you're allowed to fight them fairly early on, and a few become available after the final boss that are actually a bit harder than it in classic Paper Mario fashion. basically, if you like Bug Fables, there's a lot of it to play. there's even a trading card minigame because of course there is. it's fairly fleshed out, too, and unlike the one in Chocobo Tales the animations between turns don't take six years. the reward for the whole card side quest isn't something that's important for combat, so you can skip it if you don't like it; I didn't especially like it so I think that was a great decision on the developers' part.

rewards for some of the other side content, though, are so good it's kind of a wonder they can be completely skipped. it doesn't make the game harder to not have those skills or medals, but they are some of the best in the game and undeniably really useful. they make great side quest rewards in that sense, but it's important to know for the people that usually wouldn't do side content. I don't know if that's a common kind of player, but just in case. (this game's 100% achievement has been earned by a sky-high 5.9% of players on Steam. usually it's more like 2% or less. the point is none of the extra content is overly obtuse.)

I will complain about the forced stealth sections though. and be astounded that they fixed the main issue with them in the last stealth section. these are minor caveats and take well under an hour total unless you're really, really, really bad at sneaking, but they bothered me when I got to them. I mean, I understand why they're in the game, I understand why Zelda has them, but I didn't really like them. the main issue for all but the last stealth section is that there's no vision cone or other indication that "if you stand here they will see you" or even an opportunity to recover from mistakes which are incredibly important for playable stealth. the last stealth section does have a vision cone and does have an opportunity to recover from mistakes, which is a great step up. I would like to use even more italics to remind you that these sections total less than an hour of gameplay. Zelda: Breath of the Wild's forced-ish stealth was much worse than this.

I don't know where else to put it, so I'll add here that the soundtrack is great and the graphics are perfectly Gamecube-y and the sprites capture the cuteness of Paper Mario really well, even though they're, you know, bugs. each environment is distinct and themed well, and each one’s music matches well. I really wish I knew how to talk about music because there are a lot of different songs in this game that work well for what they go with. boss music sounds intense and boss-y and appropriate for each boss you're fighting, the not-music hits just right, and everything else feels good. some songs use Nintendo 64 MIDI instruments, which I loved. and the bee boss music has a synth that sounds like bees buzzing.

anyone that likes RPGs -- and even some people that don't -- will probably enjoy the story and strategy that make up the excellent Bug Fables. it goes beyond being a homage to Paper Mario and becomes its own thing entirely, though its roots are obvious from the art style. not that this takes away from it -- Paper Mario is a great legacy, and this manages to be even better. for all its little bad things there are a dozen great ones. I admit I haven't played the classic Paper Mario games, but this made me want more -- I guess I'll have to go back while I hope for Moonsprout Games to continue forward.

#bug fables #bug fables the everlasting sapling #my writing #this was also on amazon luna but i didnt figure anyone would care if i omitted it #also screenshots i took myself wow

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ziracona · 3 years

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What do you see happening after Josh is being rescued? Does he meet everyone of his friend eventually or some of them keep their distance? I read one of your answers about them abandoning him and honestly I don't think they didn't care at all about him, but the events were so traumatic and scary that they probably had a hard time taking into consideration that small possibility of him being alive. Plus I guess it's also part of the smooth flow of the game if it makes sense, Mike doesn't go after Jess either after he sees her falling into the mines and accuses Josh of killing her without being 100% sure that she is dead and without seeing Josh around when shit happened to her. But if I were Josh maybe I would be upset knowing they didn't come for me at all. So how would a reunion go?

That’s valid! You can interpret the lack of an interest in rescuing Josh to multiple things—that they are very sure he’s dead, if you want to be as generous as possible to them. That they think he’s probably dead and are afraid of dying too more than willing to save him, that they’re (sans Chris) too mad about the prank he pulled, etc. And I can see why people would go for any number of them. I think to me it has always read like they think he is probably dead, and the whatever he has, 30%, 20% chance? Of still being alive just isn’t enough for them to feel motivated to face very likely death to go hunting for him, especially with flamethrower dude just dead doing the same. Which makes /me/ angry, because Mike went batshit after seeing Jess wounded and dragged through a window and more trying to save her, multiple characters can kill themselves trying to save the others in the finale, etc, and I just think if you /can/ save someone who is your friend—or like, you have a shot anyway—you don’t know it is too late. You should. (& true Jess can still be alive and Mike will assume she is dead, but in his defense, so do basically all blind playthroughs she looks like she falls four stories or something while already almost dead I can’t fault Mike for assuming that was a 100% death there. Boy really tried. Whereas Josh’s vanishing from the shed is much less confirmed. There is no ‘I watched him fall’ here. Just a neither he nor his dead body were still in the shed so /something/ happened). Like I do get it, that’s a terrifying situation and not helping doesn’t = not caring, but I will hold it against characters if they don’t risk themselves to save their friends and I will be unhappy with them. Loyalty is very important to me. But it is a truly terrifying situation.

But I also get why they’d be terrified to go out there. I don’t think it makes them evil to not want to risk it till they have to, it just makes me disappointed in them. I don’t think I said I think they didn’t care about him—typo if I did, because I certainly don’t think that at all! I think Chris was traumatized and felt very sure he was dead, Ashley didn’t care (she explicitly says she thinks he deserves it and tries to stop Chris from saving him the first time), Emily doesn’t care a lot one way or another and is mostly on her own trauma right now and thinking about Matt and the awful shit she saw, that Sam does care but thinks he is probably dead and is in team mom mode and cares more about trying to keep as many friends alive as possible right now than anything else and doesn’t want to lose the others, and Mike is still pissed but also feels very bad and would prefer for Josh to make it but is also more focused on group survival and not losing anyone else since he just lost someone he loves horribly (based largely on how his reaction to the safe room scenario is either to kill Emily and feel awful but do it because he very vocally and visibly doesn’t want the others to be killed and she won’t go peacefully, and he’s terrified of losing them, or to try but not be able to because he loves Emily, and instead give the gun to the others to try to save themselves with in the event she /does/ turn). And although he’s a right coward bastard for leaving Josh if Josh gets grabbed instead of killed, down in the mines, I do think he cared about Josh. He seems truly sorry to some extent when he finds him, and does /try/ to lead him out of the mines. At the point they make the decision to go for the cable car key, I don’t think they don’t care at all, except Ashley. I just think they should care more. Although I tend to give Chris a pass because he just watched a man get beheaded, has strong reason to think Josh is dead, is injured, and spends the entire rest of the game more or less in traumatized mode quiet in the corner.

But that said I can also see why people would interpret the reactions to mean they all believe he is very dead, and mean they’re going after his corpse! I can see lots of basis in-game to interpret in quite a number of ways. And be generous to the fool kids if you want to! I /super/ hold abandoning Josh in the mines wildly against Mike, but Mike is still one of my favorite characters in the whole game. I love how flawed the cast is and that you go in hating most of them and only slowly grow to care because you don’t want them dead-dead, which keeps you there long enough to see some of their good sides. *cheff’s kiss* the great ability of the horror genre. The bar to initially invest is so low, it lets you have such a multi-faceted cast.

Okay anyway, original question! What do I see happening after Josh gets rescued and exorcised.

I think he meets up with all of them again eventually. Interesting to think from Josh’s pov how he’s going to feel. I expect to some degree he does feel abandoned, and fairly, and in RoB it is very clear he is afraid to some extent of Mike and Chris after being dragged off and tied up and left in the shed, and the things they said to him. He also /definitely/ feels massively guilty and self-blaming about all of it. He’s telling himself through Hill that no one will come for him and it’s his own fault by the final chapter. And mostly he’s just afraid of Mike and in ptsd dissociating mode by the time Sam and Mike find him. So, mixed feelings on his part I expect. Lots of fear and pain and hurt at being abandoned and so universally believed capable of murder, hurt, left to die alone in the mines. Pretty damn betrayed, and that on top of the hurt from what happened to his sisters and the inherent paranoia of paranoid schizophrenia. Hurt that they just left him. Hurt they didn’t believe him. Hurt nobody came for him until it was too late. Hurt he got betrayed again. Probably pretty miserable overall. But with that, also feels really bad about going too far and hates and blames himself intensely for everything, and I expect is also kind of not just traumatized but ashamed of what happens to him, and everyone knowing about the possession and the cannibalism. Probably he wants to lock himself in a room in the corner of a big house and never come out. But also is intensely and miserably and hopelessly lonely. Probably feels all of his friendships are likely broken beyond repair.

I don’t think they are though. Chris “I’m not your bro” six seconds later “bro are you for real?” Hartley almost dies trying to save him and wouldn’t care about the possession stuff except to be worried about him. Sam is angry and harboring some resentment, but clearly reacts to Mike reporting he is gone with regret. Mike would probably feel very guilty for leaving him and be hesitant to reconnect and then defensive doing it, but I think he cares. Jess wasn’t even there for this shit so probably she does. Same for Matt maybe? Ashley and Emily are harder to guess for. I think Ashley would be incredibly angry and resentful—I mean she wants him dead in-game, but might eventually join the others if the others got over stuff? Bc she’s also kinda a joiner? Really it’s hard to say she is a very...hair-trigger character. Volatile and intensely and massively changeable. Probably the least predictable of all. That kind of person scares me deeply in real life because I have been very backstabbed by them before. >.> But anyway hard to say. Also a lot of this depends on what ending, even assuming they all live. But I usually assume that like, Mike almost shot Em, didn’t, Matt tried to save her, Sam saw the workshop, etc ending. Emily I really don’t know. She’s a very self-reliant and hard person. She didn’t have anything very specifically for or against Josh with her experience, but wasn’t that close to him before, so I think she just kinda falls wherever she falls.

I think mostly though that they’d reconnect. Definitely Chris would jump to it, and I think Sam would too—she’s a well educated, empathetic and understanding person. She’d know he needs her. And Chris is his childhood best friend and cares the whole game. I think Mike would try to go too because of guilt, and because he’s a decent guy. Probably so would after not much time those least effected by what Josh did. I think Josh would be alone while being exorcised and probably reocvering in a hospital some after, and Chris would be the first, or Chris and Sam possibly. I think he’d be afraid to see them, and it would be complicated and messy and painful for them all, but it would be okay and sort itself out and they’d find old ground quickly. And having them there would be /incredibly/ vital to helping him recover. I think eventually he’d get back on his feet, and a lot of his old friends would be around and stay in his life. I think things would get better. I’d say the OG ExorJosh comic writer I think did a good job of guessing about what a lot of it would be like. Hard, and slow, and messy. But a lot of them care for him, and I think that would matter enough to help things get okay between them again.

#ask #anonymous #until dawn #long post #Josh Washington #spoilers #exorjosh #exor-Josh

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sir-silly · 3 years

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TWDG S2 First Playthrough

E1 - Omid’s death is always such a bitchslap. It’s so stupid. Literally, why did they send her in there on her own? Are you kidding me? It’s ridiculous. Omid didn’t have to die. 16 months later?? What??? It would have made way more sense to have made the DLC about those sixteen months and then start at Christa’s camp with no baby or Omid instead of what we got instead. Bull. AND WE STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO CHRISTA.

I think out of the entirety of season 2, Clementine and Luke’s relationship in the first three episodes is my favorite. He becomes an alien after episode two, but he becomes intolerable after three. He’s just such a big brother to her and knows that she can take care of herself. Their relationship is similar to what I think Clem and Ben’s would have been if they ended up alone together after season 1.

I stole Nick’s watch, I��m not sure if I’ll give it back yet just because I think it’s hilarious that you can take it and not give it to him. Speaking of Nick, he 110% sees you when you look through the kitchen door if you never back out and he doesn’t say anything. I decided to go with Pete at the end just because I’ve never seen it played out before.

E2 - Well, ironically enough I prefer going with Nick. The first few times I saw it, I hated it, but it’s really grown on me throughout the years. Pete’s just didn’t feel as emotional or like it had much of an affect on Clementine. I also prefer him telling her about his mom in that shed rather than later on.

Another thing I love about Luke and Clem’s relationship, even though he knows she can take care of herself, he still tries to protect her. He holds his arm out in front of her when Matthew is approaching them on the bridge and is the one that pulls her down to keep her from getting shot. The banter they have is just really sweet and I miss that dynamic between them, I wish it carried throughout the rest of the season.

I was thinking about a missed opportunity the writer’s had while I was playing. Instead of having Walter die no matter what and Nick either die in episode two or four, whether you tell him the truth and/or convince him to forgive Nick should have a different outcome. Only one of them makes it to Howe’s depending on what you decided. You couldn’t convince Walter to forgive him? Nick goes out of his way to save Walter and Carver kills him. You told him Nick was a good guy? Walter sacrifices himself for Nick and gets killed instead. It would give a bigger variety and it would be really interesting to see how Walter would deal with being at Howe’s.

E3 - Troy makes me so uncomfortable. I know they were planning to have him do a lot worse, but he’s still just so ugh, you know? I’m physically incapable of liking Bonnie the more I see season 2. I just know that literally everything is because of her. She finds the group at the ski lodge, she blames Clementine for Luke’s death if she shoots the walkers LIKE HE ASKED, and she’s fully prepared to fucking leave her with a couple maniacs and a baby. Just her presence pisses me off.

I know I’m talking a lot about Clem and Luke, but I don’t care because I just love their relationship before he becomes an alien. I had her hug him which was really cute but I also want to see his reaction if she hits him which I think I’ll do next time. I know he pushes her to do things like every adult in this season, but he still actually seems to worry about her because he is hesitant about sending her to turn on the PA and he stands up to Carver when he says that Clem has seen more things than they could imagine.

E4 - I had no clue what I was going to do with Sarita, but I did end up chopping off her arm. I will forever hate how the adults are like "Kenny's being so scary, he's yelling, I thought he was gonna shoot me" and then they force Clem to go over there even if she says she doesn't want to.

I didn't know this until I looked it up just now, but apparently Nick died from a bite on the neck? This whole time, I thought he somehow just bled out from the gunshot to his shoulder, and I honestly don't know which is worse. His death is such bullshit. You know what else is bullshit? Alien Luke. Literally Rebecca shows more emotion than he does, and it was for all of 2 damn seconds. You know what I would have preferred?

Have Luke start breaking down. Make him just as unable to move as Sarah. Let him lose his mind over the fact that he just lost his best friend of "damn near 20 years" and make us decide whether we convince Luke or Sarah to escape. It's not convince Sarah or leave her, it's you can only save one of them. Again, more variety for those who aren't a fan of Luke and actually make it a hard decision because I feel like I would have a WAY harder time with that than whether to leave Sarah (I didn't by the way).

When Clem looks at the cannon and Jane says, "check the muzzle, napoleon" I really wish there was an option to be like, "Jane, I have a first grade education. I don't know my times tables, who the hell napoleon is, or what the fuck versatility means OR how to spell it. Keep yo damn nail file."

Another thing they could have done with Sarah, is if you saved her in the trailer park, she could have potentially saved herself. And this would be a really interesting one, because the determining factor would have been a thing that appeared as a dialogue option, not a choice choice. In episode two, you can teach her how to use a gun if you pick the right choice. Instead of having her die no matter what, if you showed her, let her actually show that she learned something and is capable of learning how to survive.

Rebecca’s whole situation is bullshit, too. You know, I’d be okay with it if it was changed. If you didn’t give her the pills, the coat and you left the observation deck early, I could buy her dying from hypothermia, exposure, blood loss, etc. But if you give her those things and you stay a few days, I would rather her have died in the firefight. It would have made way more sense. Like, I know a hell of a lot of things can go wrong during giving birth, especially without medical care, but after THREE damn days? I don’t know about that. Whatever you wanna say it was, a placental abruption, hemorrhaging, whatever - she would have died way quicker, not taken three days.

E5 - The writers had two good opportunities to get a chance to kill Kenny before the rest stop was ever a thing. They could have made Natasha go for him and you have the choice of shooting her or not. The could have been done later on when they’re walking through the woods and one comes up behind him. So, say you don’t let him get bitten the first time, but you’re seeing how unhinged he’s becoming, so you let it happen the second time. After that, you don’t get another opportunity.

Another thing about the pills, they’re so annoying. Like, you can only give them to one person. Rebecca, Luke or I think maybe Kenny. Because apparently there were only two damn pills in that bottle that shook like it was full. It’s so annoying. You should be able to give it to whoever you want, not just one of them.

I have so many problems with the ice scene. Yes, Luke, there are in fact TWO ways around. You see those trees? There’s these things called GAPS between them and the lake isn’t so damn big that you couldn’t walk around the damn lake. GRRRRR. When the ice started cracking, where were the choices to tell Luke to throw his gun away from him and to tell Bonnie to keep her fat ass put? “The small child is light, let them do it!” small child: no “Guess I’m just as light as her!” FUCK YOU BONNIE! THEN YOU HAVE THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO BLAME CLEMENTINE WHEN IT WAS CLEARLY YOUR FUCKING FAULT! YOU LITTLE WHORE ASS BITCH-

Sorry. I’m never going to get over Luke’s death or how fucking pissed I am at Bonnie and Mike. They can get fucked for all I care. Can I say, it’s also BULLSHIT that Bonnie makes it out of the ice but Luke doesn’t. Are you kidding me? She can find the hole, but he can’t (😳)?! GRRRR.

I was dreading that rest stop this whole damn game. I had no fucking clue what I was going to do when I finally got there, but I did end up deciding to shoot Kenny and leave Jane behind. I really struggled with deciding and I almost ended up not picking anything (which results in Jane’s death anyway). As much as I despise season 2 Kenny, I also despise Jane for what she did. I kinda wish I had looked away and then shot Kenny afterwards, but it is what it is.

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originalcontent · 3 years

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Well. Forgot to make our final pathologic post, because we did it, we finished the game. We just played all the remaining days at once. Not going to go super hard on the plot details bc if you know them then you know them, all I can say is holy shiiiiiiit this was such a good story/mystery/choice/everything.

First order of business: casualties.

All the children except Grace survived. When we had five panaceas, we chose Sticky, Murky, Khan, Notkin, and Capella, and we weren't able to find any more shmowders until it was too late. Taya was lucky and Grace wasn't. I feel kinda bad but also I don't know what more we could have done. God all of the kids and their final conversations when they all think they're going to die, they're so sad and sweet and I love them all so much.

The thing I'm SUPER bummed about is that Stakh, Lara, and Bad Grief all died. Like we did everything we could for all of them, but I'm still sad about it. One regret from this game is that I think we should have spent more time with them. I should have tried to make things right with them. I was so focused on the kids, and I don't regret that, but also I kept putting other things before them as well and I should have tried harder.

The other casualties were Big Vlad, Maria Kaina, Eva Yan, and Anna Angel, who was apparently a character but I think we literally never spoke with her in our playthrough. And Aglaya, although I don't know how we could have saved her either. Everyone else survived. I don't know the typical death toll for this game, but we did better than I was expecting us to, all things considered.

Oh wait, Nara's also dead. That wasn't an incredibly disturbing scene or anything. Like I'm getting ahead of myself a bit but jesus the kinfolk terrify me sometimes. My sister mentioned that it's probably a very different game if we commit super hard to exploring their plotline, and she's probably right. That whole sequence though... the blood, the hearts... it's a lot. I'm not going into detail bc if you've played the game then you already know what's down there, but hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I feel like replaying this game knowing everything would put a LOT of earlier conversations into new context.

Still! That was the only place we death spiraled this time! Death spiral escaped! That's probably due in no small part to the presence of the soldiers. Like yes they're terrible and them burning people alive is terrifying, but also we discovered the strategy that every time we were attacked by someone we could just have them chase us past a soldier who would protect us. We still had to sneak around a lot but overall it meant we had a lot fewer fights.

The polyhedron was gorgeous. We probably wasted a lot of time visiting it, but it was wonderful. I wanted to go back when all the kids were there but they didn't let us. Super into the earth/sky dichotomy of Notkin's and Khan's gangs.

Block was sure something. When I first met him he was meeting with my three [living :(] best friends but none of them would talk to me. Anyway. When he arrives everyone's saying they loved him, then later on we accidentally walk into the most obvious coup ever, and then the next day he's back in charge like nothing happened. And then on the last day there's this massive violent internal conflict? Plus the whole thing with him and Aglaya (weren't they working together in the prologue?) and plus they keep giving us heart attacks saying they're going to level the town and then changing their minds. Thank god for Changeling who was apparently the single persuasive voice in saving everyone? I guess? We've had our ups and downs but honestly she was waaaaaaay more reliable than Daniil at the end.

I told her I'd help her cure a patient in the hospital, but I didn't have any panacea or shmowder so in the end I couldn't, but afterwards I was glad I hadn't helped her. I already felt terrible I didn't have enough living blood for all the children when they were all spontaneously infected, and it would have been so much worse if I had been able to help another but I'd wasted it on a random person earlier.

... Is Aglaya in love with Artemy? Or are they just two agents who recognize said agency in one another? Everyone spent all game hyping her up as some sort of monster but she was my friend and she listened to me. And she died trying to save everyone I guess.

The kids...just. All of them. Notkin and Capella both told us to let them die but to make sure Khan was okay. Murky saying she'd loved Artemy since the first time she saw him. God everything they said and did I love them. I can't imagine playing this game as either of the other characters because I can't imagine going through this town and not carrying deeply about all the kids like this.

So I think...I think I made my choice long before I actually made the choice itself, you know? There was only ever going to be one choice.

Day 11 was the first and only day when I knew exactly what I had to do. I mean I guess it was in the stage directions and everything. Thank you dear Fellow Traveler for feeding us the night before--did you know we'd never visited the dead item shop until the last night? Probably would have made finding food and medicine a lot easier. But anyway, when the day began I didn't quite understand the significance of the stage directions because the Haruspex looking for couriers did not sound like the dramatic climax to the story that I knew this day was supposed to be. Still, I looked for the couriers.

I think I visited the three locations in the order I was supposed to. Seeing Daniil like that with his gun and bloody hands, sitting in a room of corpses...hearing him ramble...oh man I was so conflicted, this whole game I'd thought that even though I teased him, I would always ultimately back his plays because I trusted him and I knew that ultimately he wanted to help people too. Hearing him tell me what he wanted me to do then at the end of everything...he honestly scared me a bit.

The Changeling and I seemed much more on the same page at the end of everything. Being in the middle of a field with armed soldiers closing in from all sides was kind of terrifying though. I didn't stay to witness what she did with them. She’s okay though, she’s alive.

Wild goose chase for the final courier eventually took me to the bar where I met an injured bandit and was able to actually perform a surgery for the first time in the entire fucking game. I really enjoyed that because I'm supposed to be a fucking surgeon.

Meeting my understudy fucking killed me. I cannot BELIEVE that the final courier who was carrying the only file that could save the whole town was canonically murdered by the understudy of the protagonist. How the hell is that a real plot point, do you have any idea how much I adore that, that is more meta than literally anything else that has happened in this whole game. I fucking died. I definitely have been playing this game as Artemy rather than as Actor, and I think that made the whole scene even funnier. His whole thing about taking a new direction with the character, the whole "you're getting paid for this??", the fact that Artemy was so offended by literally every aspect of his existence that we didn't even know what to criticize. At the end I was like "yeah I'm definitely going to kill this guy" but we're nice people and we let him surrender. His inventory consisted of a rusty scalpel, a hazelnut, and a single piece of twyre, which was the most incredible parody of Artemy's inventory that I can imagine and killed me all over again.

The kin folk all met with me and begged me not to let them die. Maybe things could have been different, but again, I knew my choice and deep down I always knew what we were going to choose at the end. When you start the game, day one, there are two things that are immediately striking about the town. One, it's full of living folklore, and two, it's full of children, and those are the two things that make the town special and wonderful. When you look back on it all, there was only ever one way this could all end.

The dead courier (murdered by my own fucking understudy rather than an actual character, still dying) was a dramatic sight. It's lucky I had to sleep then or I probably wouldn't have found him.

After I made my choice, the disease tried to murder me. It infected literally every district I moved through, manifesting in every single passageway. I just chugged my tinctures and moved as well as I could, because fuck you disease, you are nothing to me. Obviously at that point nothing really could stop me. I considered saving in the cathedral, but what would be the point?

Day 12 was so bright and peaceful and nice. I could just walk around for once with no fear of getting lost or hungry or running out of time. I'm still really sad my childhood friends weren't alive to share it with me, but I enjoyed talking to everyone. My favorite little end conversations were Taya and Notkin for sheer adorable factor, Yulia so Artemy could say he wanted her to be the one to tell his story and to make it as undramatic as possible (fuck you Mark), Daniil because it was super cute and I’m glad that after it all things are okay between us and I got to make fun of him for trying to talk in my language, and Andrey and Peter because literally nothing made me feel better about my choice to destroy the polyhedron than listening to them complain about it.

And then the theater, where I talked to everyone who'd died and to Mark Immortell. He told me he'd need to try again with a different protagonist (gee I wonder who he could be referring to, such a shame we'll never know) and that I could go into the back and take off my mask now. I considered it for a bit, but it didn't feel right, so I decided that I was Artemy and I went back outside.

This game was wonderful. It was beautiful. It has such a fundamental understanding of what theater is and what makes something theatrical (lose me with your cinematic games, theater and cinema are completely different things and the former is impossibly beautiful but is also almost impossible to recreate when not in person). It's worldbuilding was immaculate, and for all the stress it caused I'm really happy for it.

I say this every time, but I love Artemy so fucking much. Give me a character who is a monster and a healer and who is full of anger but also so much love, and then just have him adopt 7+ children why don't you. He is so wonderful and good and interesting and I am in love with him.

(Edit: And then like a month later, just now, we went back to our last save and threw the documents in the trash so we could play through the other ending. I think the diurnal ending is definitely the better one, although it was nice to see the polyhedron again and to talk to all the game developers. <3 Also the goodbyes to Daniil and Notkin were super sad in that one, I did what Daniil wanted, he won’t even stay? This is so sad.)

Well that's our pathologic playthrough. We know there's a lot we missed and we may return to the game at some point. (Looked up a plot summary afterwards and there’s just so much else. Must save my childhood friends next time.) Game is very good though. It's been wild. Marbles sometime in the next few days. :)

#kj plays pathologic #pathologic #pathologic 2 #this has been in my drafts sorry d:#thanks for reading everyone

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kaibutsushidousha · 4 years

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Which servant did you choose when playing Extra? Also, I'm curios to know if you think there are any other servants that would be interesting to see if they were summoned by Hakuno in Extra? Or maybe servants tht would be compatible with them other than Nero Tamamo Nameless

I went with Tamamo in the first playthrough and then Nero. I’ll save Nameless for Record because hopefully the game will be playable there. CCC was at least good enough to make me play all Servant routes.

As for other potential Servants for Hakuno, we already know compatibility got them with either Nero, Tamamo or Nameless, 3 anti-heroes. The former two being people fully dedicated to their close personal connections (even if in Nero’s case she feels a close personal connection to all Roman people) in almost complete disregard to morality or external circumstance. The latter is a wholly kindhearted person forced to kill others to survive. The parallels with Hakuno are pretty clear, especially with Nameless. So, running along with this line, we get:

Billy the Kid

This is one of weaker picks because I feel like it overlaps with Nameless a bit too much, as a sorta decent person turned brutal murder by the violent environment of their era. But like Hakuno and unlike Nameless, Billy is completely open about he considers himself an evil person. Normally I’d think a self-proclaimed evil partner (I’m thinking Drake or Moriarty) would encourage Hakuno’s worst habits, but I think Billy can work because we’ve already seen him on Lostbelt 1 taking this role of someone who makes the harsher, crueler calls for a kind and naive Master who still isn’t ready for it. Despite parroting Hakuno’s “I’m evil, actually”, I believe he wouldn’t encourage Hakuno to deny their own good nature. Instead he would encourage them to be rootin’, be tootin’, and by God be shootin’, but most importantly, be kind.

Miyamoto Musashi

Same reasoning as Billy. The two had an entire conversation about in Anastasia. Also this one overlaps with Nero even harder than Billy overlaps with Nameless.

Yan Qing

Same reasoning as Billy and Musashi, this time without any real evidence.

*Okita is another candidate for this same reasoning but I’ll keep her out of the list because her dynamic with Hakuno would be too much of a repeat of her dynamic with Kanata.

Dr. Jekyll

Another person trying really poorly to cope with a murder they’ve committed, but completely unlike Hakuno, Jekyll desperately tries to deny his evilness by framing as a separate side of himself completely alien to the gentleman doctor. I’ll admit I picked this one just for the potential Hakuno has to help Jekyll grow instead of the other way around.

Arjuna

The anti-Jekyll. Identical to Hakuno on how their characters are defined by committing war crimes once and never getting over it. Anyways, they are both actually really good people and have stubborn enough personalities to force each other acknowledge the good in themselves.

Ashwattaman

Fitting with how Yuga Kshehtra plays it itself as a CCC sequel, Pepe is a character designed to be extremely similar to Hakuno. So much so that I consider Ashwattaman to compatible with Hakuno for the exact same reasons he’s compatible with Pepe. Ash is a man who choose to embrace his flaws as hard as possible to maintain his grasp on his identity. He identifies as rage itself and aims to be the angry voice of indignation for those who feels like they don’t have the right to be angry. He’s there just to support people resigned to the cruelty fate forced upon them, and Hakuno is just as ripe of a partner for that as Pepe, so let him yell at Hakuno’s enemies in their stead.

Nagao Kagetora

Like Jekyll, I’m picking Kagetora just for Hakuno’s potential to support her, not the opposite. Kagetora’s backstory can easily be framed as a darker take on Hakuno’s character arc. They were both forced into situations where killing was necessary, but instinctively knew that killing is wrong. Hakuno pursued this dilemma incessantly for the first half their game until they found a satisfactory answer. Kagetora, on the other hand, just asked her family questions and got responded with a “You don’t have to understand, just follow this moral code to a T and you can look human enough even you don’t have a clue what being human is about”. Hakuno’s struggles to rationalize his own morality would clash heard with Kagetora’s whole deal and force her to make attempts to genuinely understand who she is and how she’s supposed to behave.

Nezha

Nezha is the best I can get in terms of a polar opposite to Hakuno. Hakuno sees themself as an evil person while remaining so concerned about the blood in their hands that it composes their entire character motivation. Nezha seems himself as a good and virtuous hero while constantly suggestion every problem in front of him should be solved with violence. Like with his self-proclaimed father above, the dynamic would a lot about Hakuno forcing their Servant to question things they were ok with not understanding, but I think the relationship here would be more balanced than it was with Kagetora.

Nightingale

You probably knew this was coming. I’ve talked about it before. Pairing Hakuno with unambiguously good people is not the best, yeah, but this is a valid exception because she’s my favorite Servant a character directly connected to CCC’s development background and themes, a solid match to Hakuno’s description of an ideal person, and someone exactly as self-destructive as they are. She’s easily my first pick for an additional Hakuno Servant and is only not the first on this list because I didn’t want to open with the odd one out.

Sakamoto Ryouma

Another match to Hakuno’s CCC description of the ideal person. The self-destructiveness is also there, but in a weirder and less direct way than it is with Nightingale. Again, I shouldn’t be assigning them unambiguously good people, but Ryouma is balanced by Oryou’s chaotic energy and the second half of this list already devolved into “characters I like a lot”, so why not.

On the subject of characters I like a lot, Arash fits just as well as Nightingale and Ryouma, but like Okita, he’s off because the dynamic would be too much of a repeat of his dynamic with Elsa.

#type moon #fate extra #kishinami hakuno

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radramblog · 3 years

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Some longer thoughts on Pokemon BDSP

I think at this point the absolute vitriol-fest thrown at the upcoming Sinnoh Remakes has largely died down, people moving onto greater things like the upcoming New Pokemon Snap release (I’m probably not buying it) or…whatever it is the #mainstreamPokemonFandom does when they aren’t spewing outrage about trees and dexits. It might be a bit early for me to do this considering the games still don’t have a release date, but I figure with the hype dying down a bit I can afford a few of my own thoughts as to what these games should look like.

Of course, we’ve all been burned before, and I’m not expecting an awful lot. But hey, it’s just my two cents.

I think the first thing that made people immediately bounce off of the BDSP reveal is the artstyle. And, I get it- it’s certainly A Choice. The models look kinda awkward, almost hearkening back to Gen VI’s first attempts at full 3D overworld but with a more deliberate style. The short, round characters look awkward against the more detailed overworld. And the full sized models aren’t especially impressive either- all the previous remakes updated the original’s character designs somewhat, as did third versions Emerald and Platinum, but BDSP doesn’t seem to have made any changes outside of model-ifying them.

And the thing is, I don’t care?

On the one hand, aesthetic in a game obviously does matter, and having the protagonist you’re going to be staring at all game look like that is going to be an issue for people. On the other, I actually really like how the overworld looks. On the other, other hand, I’m really not convinced that the artstyle of this game should make or break it, as it certainly doesn’t for me. Pokemon’s graphics have been arguably behind the curve for like, 8 years now? I remember all the complaints about Sword and Shield’s graphics, and that obviously didn’t kill that game. And like, I don’t want to go for the throat of a game I haven’t played, but, people don’t seem to mind Colosseum and XD’s artstyle from what I’ve seen, and those games kinda look like shit. They do have those dynamic pokemon animations though, and I hope we get to see that in BDSP- those (and that of Battle Revolution) were a result of outsourcing, I believe, and this game is outsourced to another studio.

More importantly, in my eyes, is the gameplay. Doesn’t matter how good the game looks if it plays like garbage. And herein lies the biggest sticking point, and potential blunder, of Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl.

Diamond and Pearl are like, easily some of the worst games in the series from a playthrough standpoint.

The pacing is all over the place, with backtracking that seems to be trying to emulate RSE but not quite making it. The level curve is messy, with the Elite Four being such a massive spike that they had to tone it down 4-5 levels on each Pokemon in the intentionally harder third version, Platinum. The regional Pokedex is sorely lacking- while Elite Four Flint’s infamous 2/5 “Fire” team is eminently memeable, Electric Gym Leader Volkner is just as bad (2/4, though he could technically be running…Pachirisu…), and of the 28 new Pokemon related to previous games’ evolutionary lines, 17 cannot be obtained in a regular playthrough. HM use is especially egregious in this game, with 6 of them being mandatory to complete the game (Victory Road alone requires 5) and of the other two, the games’ sprawling map and frequent backtracking basically necessitate Fly while without Defog the foggy parts of the map are absolutely miserable both to navigate and fight through.

How BDSP handles these issues is kinda my make or break with the game. See, a lot of the issues were solved in Platinum, and Heartgold and Soulsilver (the best remakes the series has had) solved much of the issues in GS by taking notes from Crystal and tweaking things in the transition. The thing is, the last remakes we got, Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, did not take Emerald’s tweaks in mind, making them substantially worse games than they could potentially have been, and I’m worried BDSP are going to do the same. A particular sticking point for me is the HMs, interestingly- outside of the aforementioned Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire sticking too closely to outdated design, Pokemon for the last 4 generations has had light to nonexistent HM requirements. Black and White only had one mandatory HM use period (Cut in the Dreamyard after Gym 1), B2W2 and XY both only require Surf off the top of my head, and Gens 7 and 8 remove them completely from the game. Because that’s kind of what they are, outdated game design- I think the Alola games handled it best, where the interesting level design these obstacles can lead to is still present but tackling them is less restrictive on your party and is based on progression through the story. That’s the kind of design that makes backtracking interesting, something Gen 8 really lacked in the long run.

The final thing I want to bring up is kinda a combo of two things- postgame and connectivity. One would argue that the Battle Frontier is also outdated design based on development priorities, but it’s removal in ORAS was kind of a kick in the taint to fans- it’s a beloved part of the game, and it not being in BDSP would be a terrible shame. The other thing is whether or not the games will have online connectivity with Sword and Shield as far as trading and battling goes. While I’ve heard quite a few people express doubts that BDSP will do so, I’d be shocked if, unlike every other main series title, competitive battling stayed a primary function of Sword and Shield and BDSP didn’t get it. I’d also be surprised if the games weren’t able to trade with each other, considering that’s been a core facet of the series since day 1- not being able to trade would make Dexit feel more permanent almost, considering many, many of the Sinnoh Dex mons aren’t available to play at the moment, even with the expanded DLC Pokedex in Sword and Shield. In fact, one thing I noticed that leads me to believe that trading between games is absolutely going to happen is related to said DLC dex- namely, that the Crown Tundra added every single Fossil Pokemon to the SwSh Pokedex- except the Sinnoh ones, Cranidos and Shieldon.

At the end of the day, we’re just waiting for more information to come out for these games either way. I can tell you right now, though, that I’m not preordering them (last time I did that was Y, I think), and whether or not I get them is really going to base around many of these factors.

#ramble #pokemon #pokemon bdsp #BDSP is a really stupid acronym TBH

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silver-wield · 4 years

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Hi this is not Cloti related but do you have an analysis on Cloud's relationship with Jessie? Particularly during chapter 4 after the bike mini-game? Cloud looks worried

Sorry this took a while, Nonny, I get a bit done in from life lol

So Cloud and Jessie, the girl who absolutely has no issue throwing herself at our boi. It's pretty good for him because at least he gets used to girls being all over him and helps him make his mind up just who he wants to show attention to #cough# Tifa #cough#

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven’t played – do I still need to do this? Eh ok, (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it’s gonna be smol.

Also, this is one person’s interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that’s cool and we’ll agree to disagree.

You’re also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I’m grabbing them from Youtube and it’s frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Please check my master post to see if I've already covered your question, thanx

Let's mosey!

Recap time!

Chapter four and our reluctant hero has been roped into help the avalanche trio go topside. Problem is they missed the last train and have to take their bikes instead. Cue a few problems with security and a meeting with the master of extra, Roche. Once that's out of the way, Jessie rewards Cloud depending on your expertise.

This scene has 3 optional endings.

Quick aside, I find it hilarious that Cloud literally tells Jessie to shut up and get off the bike when she starts annoying him during the minigame.

Ok, ending one. The bad ending where Jessie's beyond disappointed with you. These are hard to pick apart because a lot of Cloud's attention is on the road, so the usual microexpressions are even harder to catch.

But look what I caught anyway! Check that brow quirking like “excuse you?” and it's accurate because he says he's a great driver in the next moment. I really love going over these scenes and spotting all these because they build such a clearer picture of Cloud is as a person. And clearly boi doesn't like his driving ability being questioned, especially seeing how Jessie didn't do squat to help him, aside from being annoying lol

Well, Cloud does seem a bit worried here if the frown is anything to go by. I'm guessing it's because this is the bad ending and as much as he's not into Jessie, he doesn't like people having a bad impression of him. He doesn't like the idea that he's not thought of as the big badass capable merc in all ways, so this could well be hints of that self-doubt coming through.

Although, after watching the other two endings, this is the only time we see this typical cycle of expressions he does before concluding something. This is what I like to call a real!Cloud inner debate. Cloud often goes through a lot of quick expressions or his eyes dart around. Since they can’t do that here, we get the former. Judging from the frown at the end, he’s not impressed with his own performance and likely berating himself for not being good enough. Again. Someone call a therapist for Cloud, plz.

And moving onto the second ending, which you get if you did ok on the minigame. These are making me wonder which one's canon. I don't think it's the kiss and actually, it may well be the bad one since that's where we get the most facial expression and close ups from Cloud compared to the others where we see the back of his head or a mid range view.

For this scene we only get one close up of Cloud's face and it's pretty much SOLDIER!Cloud and then the next time he speaks you can't even see his face. This is the kind of thing that hints to me which optional scene is the one we're supposed to be getting for Cloud's narrative story (and that I actually forgot about for my playthrough as Cloud lol I got the middle one because I kinda suck at fighting Roche, but I try).

Yeah, so a lot of sighing from Cloud at Jessie, the annoyed kind. I mean, we know she kinda irritates him, but he likes her too, just not in a romantic way. You also don't see his reaction to her “I might be falling after all” line and only hear him say “hmm?” Then when his face is next in frame it's full on SOLDIER, so there's really nothing to pick apart.

And now the good ending where you get a kiss from Jessie! Ooh lala!!

CLOUD'S FACE HERE! OMG I'M DYING! He's such a boi in a man sometimes! Adorable af! Definitely never even had a kiss on the cheek before in his life and look at the ott reaction to it!

WAIT! Wait! I've seen that face before somewhere!

YES OMG I'M DYING! It's the same reaction as the one to Aerith's best dress! OMG!

I'm sorry, I genuinely need a minute....

Ok, so...looool ok....I can be sensible here....maybe loool erm, the unrealistic expression on Cloud's face shows that it's unlikely this is the outcome that happened. But, on the other hand if the red dress happened then so did this kiss, so choose your poison lol

omg I love the devs for this! I really do! This is hilarious! I can’t even look at these two pics without laughing!

Ok, sensible. Kinda.

And last one where Cloud looks grim af as usual, but with a hint of “what do I do about this?” because Jessie kissed him and he's not interested and he has no clue what to do with women and likely wants to reject her, but still doesn't know what to do with women, so you can see the dilemma he's in lol

It doesn't help when Jessie tries calling him out on it and he has this tiny frown in response. His attention is split between trying to talk to her and driving, so it's no wonder he's not that talkative and abrupt. If I wanted to speculate I'd say if he actually had an interest in her as more than friends he'd have tried harder. He had his little chat with Marle already, so he's not opposed to putting himself out if he wants to. He doesn't here, but he's still trying to concentrate, so that could explain the lack of attention, but still, Jessie kissed him and he got scowly.

Conclusion.

Well, I for one didn't remember there were 3 of these endings – each with their own remix of Jessie's theme, just like another 3 optional scenes with a remixed theme lol the parallels are killing me!

The music for each should also hint at which one is the narrative canon – I'm useless with music analysis so bear with me. The first one does sound like it fits with the other girls' themes, so very simple, easy to listen to in the background and memorable in its way. The second is louder and has more techno notes in, making it seem less like a background piece and more in your face. The last one has vocalists and is a full on pop song! No way is that right lol

For two of the three of these we don't really get much in the way of Cloud's face. It could be put down to him driving, but we get a couple of very good close ups on the bad one with varied expressions, one of which definitely goes towards his personal motivation to be thought of as a hero. Having people point out his faults would cause that kind of reaction.

The second result really doesn't have much in the way of facial expression and Cloud's voice is brisk because he's driving, so I can't really say much about it one way or the other. It’s the one I get the most when I’m playing and it’s kinda blah. Like your standard minigame pass screen. That probably didn’t help.

The last one is hilarious! That's such an exaggerated expression! Do people really believe Cloud pulls that kind of pikachu face on the regular?! I legit needed to stop because I couldn't stop laughing! That's not Cloud or real!Cloud, that's just bloody funny! Also, Cloud doesn't seem too impressed by the result if that last minute frown is any indication. He doesn't want Jessie kissing him, even though it's probably the first time any girl has kissed him – poor sweet summer child lol

If I had to make a guess at the narrative canon I'd say number one, because we know for a fact that Cloud hasn't been driving for years. Boi gets motion sickness ffs! And when did he ever drive a motorcycle? I'd definitely buy that being one of the first times he's ever driven, which would explain why he did so poorly and why he has multiple varied expressions in that result.

#final fantasy 7 remake spoilers #final fantasy 7 remake analysis #Clessie #Cloud strife #Jessie raspberry #Chapter 4 bike analysis #omg that face tho #I died

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theropoda · 3 years

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3, 4, 6-8, 11, 13-17, 19-22, 26-30 uwu

WOO LAD THAT’S A LOT THANK U!!! this got long and i wrote an essay or two LOL so im putting it under a readmore!

3: Best game you’ve ever played? WEEEELLLL.......let me preface this with two things: one, i am a FAKE GAMER as in my laptop is not at all made for gaming, it’s piss poor, so a big chunk of games i’m interested in is because i watched a playthrough of them lol. i have a 3ds but only 3 games on it (animal crossing new leaf, tomodachi life, nintedogs & cats). second, i’m very bad at choosing favorites of things.....BUUUUT .....i choooooose, in no particular order, OFF, pigeonetics, elder scrolls oblivion, pathologic classic HD!! i’m more than likely forgetting a few though, so sorry about that

4: Worst game you’ve ever played? as i said above, cannot choose favorites, neither can i choose whatever the opposite of favorites is but...uhh, does lif even count as a game? like lif, the stupid little furry flash game i remember playing on some shady website. it was surprisingly very active with a BUNCH of people there but i kept dying like every 5 seconds....AWFUL

6: A game that’s changed you the most? WELL define Changed.....ummm aha first thing that comes to mind is OFF. it’s one of those things where you never knew you wanted something so fucking bad until you saw it--and it’s like that for me. i NEVER knew i loved that odd, surreal, colorful, “looks playful and simple in some parts but incredibly violent and unnerving in other parts” aesthetic til i played it. like aesthetically i love that game to BITS and something about it just stuck with me til the end of time.

later in life (meaning, past year or so) it changed me because it taught me a lesson about storytelling and creative endeavors. a very useful lesson. which is: things don’t really need to have a meaning. stories, art, music, writing, whatnot, while it CAN be deep and meaningful, while you CAN use it as a way to communicate with the world about all kinds of heartfelt things, it can also be...nothing, really.

once i, as usual, got ridiculously overwhelmingly sad about small things. specifically seeing other people around me come up with all kinds of deep and meaningful characters and stories, sometimes putting them into webcomics or writings of theirs, and they were all so well-thought out and detailed and what i envied most was people put a lot of themselves and their experiences into them, venting and coping through them, whilst also making these larger-than-life grandiose complex stories and worlds and so on and so forth.

it made me look at my own ideas and get mad/frustrated at how shallow they were. but then i remembered OFF and i felt better because Fun Fact, mortis ghost has a now-abandoned dA account and if you go through the comment section on his profile, he answers a lot of fan questions and he mentions several times that the game didn’t really have a “meaning”, it didn’t really have a “deeper story” or moral or anything, really. i’m paraphrasing this but i vividly remember him saying “i wanted to make a game, so i did”.

that made me feel a lot better because it made me realise that sometimes art--especially stories, in my case-- doesn’t NEED to be DEEP or have MEANING...sometimes it can just BE!!!! sometimes it really can just be all about AESTHETICS like who GIVES a shit if there’s a hidden meaning if you take the first letter of all of your characters’ names and put them backwards, sometimes all that matters is if they just VIBE with you y’know....

yume nikki is similar in this regard bc that game doesn’t have any story other than “collect egg” and yet it’s so impactful. that game doesn’t have a story or meaning it just IS........ :) GOD THATS SO LONG IM SORRY ABOUT THAT but yeah. funny violent ghostbusting baseball man is a game that changed me :)

7: A game you’ll never forget? OFF AGAIN LOL,,, it’s just so memorable because of how unique it is. visuals, soundtrack, story, everything is so memorable. unforgettable. oh god you can tell how much i love this damn game can’t you

8: Best soundtrack? yakuza 0, OFF, there is a picture (another game by mortis ghost, again composed by alias conrad coldwood who also composed OFF), pigeonetics (the entire soundtrack of which is here), jojo’s bizarre adventure all star battle and eyes of heaven, silent hill 2 & 3, undertale....probably forgetting more but all of these...earcandy

11: Hardest game you’ve played? i am a shitty gamer so this is Most games i’ve played lol!! but uhh..well you see. hardest game i remember playing as of recent is pathologic classic hd in which it’s...not only hard to understand what any character is saying at any given time lol but also, i don’t think it’s HARD it’s just...you need to focus. you REALLY need to fucking focus and pay attention in this game. so i wouldn’t say its HARD, but i’m only putting this here bc it’s in recent memory.

i say recent memory because the true answer is susceptible to “yeah, but now you’re older, it must not be so hard.” as in if i played it now i think i’d have a way easier time. but when i was around....10-12 years old i had several ps3 video game adaptations of animated movies and i had SUCH a fucking hard time with them. g-force, bolt and up in particular were fucking HARD. like genuinely, the hardest time i had EVER had in my live playing video games is tied to these three fucking games. g-force and bolt ESPECIALLY. one particular level in bolt took both me AND my sister around a year to fucking finish.

again, i was baby, so i bet i’d have a much easier time with them now that i’m 17. but for now, in my experience, bolt and g-force for the ps3 were harder than pathologic classic. i think icepick lodge should take a few notes for them for pathologic 2.

13: A game you were the most excited for when it wasn’t released yet? STREETS OF KAMUROCHO...i spent the entire day of its release anticipating its launch lol

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting? hmm..most games i like and know about do have voice acting so i dunno....i guess it would’ve been kind of cool if morrowind had like, full proper voice acting. but i can understand why it only voice acted things like greetings and battle insults because GOD that game is SO...complicated...and as a result, the conversations are so lengthy and text-full. playing morrowind is really like a goddamn book! if it was voice acted i’m sure all that information would have to be shortened bc i know no one is going to fucking voice act two whole paragraphs

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover? pigeonetics and yakuza in which instead of being about the criminal underworld it’s about shady and unethical pigeon clubs, breeding, racing, etc etc...a lot of illegal shit does happen in the world of pigeons especially when it comes to racing; prized racers have been kidnapped and held for ransom before. and then there’s Avian Cucking: The Sport, where people breed the sexiest pigeons (horseman thief pouters), release them outside to seduce other people’s sexy pigeons, and bring them back and keep ‘em, drama ensues. will kiryu ever escape his past as a professional pigeon-napper, and find solace in his new life as a pigeon hobbyist? find out now by playing YACOOZA......

JOKES ASIDES i don’t know i really don’t....umm, pigeonetics and animal crossing somehow?? :O... like, instead of managing your own town it’s managing your own loft!...orrrr, the jojo games (all star battle & eyes of heaven) with yakuza, because i think they’re somewhat similar because they’re both haha Wacky Silly AND serious over the top fighty-fighting.....or maybe a crossover with OFF and discover my body, which, despite being an incredibly short and obscure indie game i still love to bits for what it’s worth. WAIT ANIMAL CROSSING AND MINECRAFT THAT WOULD FUCK SO HARD OH MY GOD

16: Character you’ve hated most? From what game? i can’t think of any character i like, HATE...with a burning passion.. there are a few i dislike or have a complicated relationship with though.. i’m not interested in the series anymore but ouma from drv3...i’ll admit that he is a bit fun sometimes, especially in the very early beginning he’s a likeable brat but as the game progresses he becomes more irritating than anything and i have an issue with him in regards to writing, despite the fact that i have never been awake in any english class ever lol. it’s too long to put in this already long post but i’ll keep it at that. if you like him, well, good for you for finding joy in something i couldn’t! but he just doesn’t do it for me.

AH I JUST REMEMBERED....MINE......FROM YAKUZA 3....maybe i’d change my mind if i watched a playthrough of y3 again, because i think you always absorb something better on your second watch (tho i honestly Dont have the energy to do that all over again, the yakuza games are too fucking long), but i really hate his writing. spoilers for y3 but, i think mine’s writing, alongside other things in the game, were super messy...and a big part of why i hate him is that not only is he one of those “could’ve had great potential but fell flat” sorta guys but also his love for daigo is seen as some fans as good gay rep and i?????/.............um....WELL let’s just say that, i think people nowadays will see any gay character ever in any circumstance and say it’s good gay rep just based off the fact that A Gay Character exists....he was Not, good gay rep imo....he was not, let alone, Good. .........

17: What game do you never tell people you play? can’t think of any games i wouldn’t tell people i play.. idk exactly what this question’s asking. does it mean what game you don’t tell ppl you play bc you’re embarrassed about it...? i’m not very embarrassed by any of them. the only thing that comes close, i guess, is uhh lioden and wolvden. i’ve only interacted with those communities a LITTLE TINY WEE BIT, yet of what i’ve seen it’s a goddamn dumpster fire and i’d never want to be associated with them lol

19: Which game do you think deserves a revival? i’m well aware it’ll never happen and that it’s more a wet dream than anything but...PT/silent hills..... on a more realistic/”could happen” note, PIGEONETICS!!!! SERIOUSLY, it’s an amazing game about amazing animals and it teaches genetics in a very simplified and efficient way!! genetics is SO hard for me to understand, i fucking hated studying it but this game really helped me understand how it works AND its super engaging and interesting!! HOWEVER, of all the pigeon genes we know of, only a handful were seen in pigeonetics and i’d LOVE a sequel that employs new game mechanics AND new genes!! i wanna learn about bronze and stencil genes! i wanna learn about phenotypes like grizzled and pied!!! genes like sooty and dirty!!! @ UNIVERSITY OF UTAH GENETICS DEPARTMENT PLEASE IM BEGIGNG YOU

20: What was the first video game you ever played? earliest memories of Gaming involves me at my aunt’s house playing two games: super mario brothers and some kind of trapeze game. i don’t remember anything else though

21: How old were you when you first played a video game? i can’t remember but i must’ve been REAL tiny.... 6-9 years, maybe??

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do? immerse myself meaning go into their world...? huh....on one hand i’d like to go in the world of yakuza 0 to play in the arcades and do whore related activities but i’d also love to go into the world of animal crossing (and i’m pretty sure i’d be some sort of generic dromaeosaurid in that game!!) and shop, chat with villagers, do chores for them, go fishing, bug hunting, eat delicious fucking food like the apples mangos peaches cherries etc etc.....OH AND FOSSIL HUNTING THAT’S THE BEST PART!! though it would definetly be a little weird, to be a little dinosaur and finding a fossil of a...little dinosaur....i guess the non-sentient species went extinct and the dinosaur i am is some kind of, descendant of a sapient non-avian dinosaur that survived the k-pg extinction event...oh but who cares all i want is a cool little ambulocetus fossil or something. and some cherry pie :)

26: Handheld or console? my old ps3 just went kaput one day years ago so i haven’t used it in years so i can’t compare well... but i’d say handheld, because it lets me like DO stuff more...would love to get a console one day, a ps4 maybe but i’m kinda worried it’ll make me stay in one room all day wasting away my time when there’s other stuff i can do, y’know? but something handheld like my 3ds, on the other hand...i can do stuff with it. i can take it to my room and play it between breaks i take as i clean the room and fold my clothes, i can watch something on the tv and play the game during ad breaks, i can take it outside too if it has charge to last me a while! so....handheld i guess

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry? yakuza 0 and undertale in particular have ALMOST made me fucking bawl with many of its moments....yakuza 0 especially, after that Fucking Ending i had trouble sleeping because oh my fucking god. video game people SAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

28: Which character’s clothes do you wish you owned the most?

29: Which is more important, gameplay or story? HMMM....well, if i were to play a game with a shitty story but really good and fun gameplay i’d probably continue playing it for the gameplay. but if i played a game with shitty gameplay but an interesting story, there is a chance i’d play it more for the sake of the story but also i might just quite and see the rest of the story on youtube or something. i’m more likely to go through a boring story for fun gameplay than go through boring gameplay for an interesting story, so i guess gameplay is more important to me....that is, WHEN i actually own and play a game as opposed to when i just watch someone play a game because i don’t own the game but wanna know abt the story lol

30: A game that hasn’t been localized in your country that you think should be localized? i have no idea how video game localization really works....but i assume localizing a game in india would mean something like, removing content according to cultural norm and also somehow translating it into the 22 official languages..? or just two or three language if it’s tied to a particular state, which seems way more doable. i honestly have no idea? i’ve never interacted w the indian gaming community that much to be honest, all i know of it is of the video games i’ve seen sold in some game stores and a few whispers about like solid snake or whoever from my school’s cafeteria....the most popular games here, to my knowledge, are those very streamable games like fortnite and PUBG and your call of duties and whatnot. those generic shooters. and even then, that honestly isn’t the “indian” gaming community bc this country is so FUCKHUGE, it’s just tamil nadu. one state.

soooo, according to what little i know of gaming interests in where i live, i don’t think any of the games i like should be localized here bc i don’t really think there’s an audience for it as far as i can tell :( maybe animal crossing? it’s a fun little games for all ages and i think it has a chance of becoming popular here, so maybe that is worth a shot! but i can’t think of any other game that i like that really has an audience here (other than Me lol)

#asks #stommevrouw #THANK U EVIE THIS WAS SO FUNNNNNNN #WOOF haha this made me tired #im probably hitting the bed now! thank u!!

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atrainernamedradish · 4 years

Text

Top 10 Least Favorite Pokemon

You know what’s harder than making a top favorites list? A least favorite one. I was particular about this list because I wanted my own personal opinion on the matter instead of adding to the echo chamber that can be the fandom’s. I don’t hate these Pokemon. These are the ones I care for the least. Also, the placements kept changing for this list, but I feel like I finally put everyone on here in the right order now.

10) Whismur Line

The only reason this line is the Normal typing is because Game Freak hasn’t made the Sound typing official. Hell, Electric, or even Steel, would have made more sense. But nope we got these weird fleshy sound-based things that I’m never excited to see.

9) Greedent

I take back everything I said about Diggersby (still wished it didn’t have the belching model cry though), and I’m directing that towards Greedent. It looks like your typical fat, lazy, and not particularly bright cartoon character. Almost feel like they were a bit lazy in this design. Like… they could have done something more, or less since it’s large enough. I feel like Game Freak is trying to recreate a likeness to Snorlax, since it’s the poster child for obese Pokemon, but keeps falling short by giving us the ugliest designs. We don’t need more fat normal types. We’ve got plenty.

8) Electrode

Hey guys, let’s make this Pokeball based Pokemon flip upside down, make it less pissed off and call it an evolution! Also, it’s going to be crazy fast as well explode, most likely killing anything nearby, because why the fuck not? Boring and dangerous… what a match made in hell for a design!

7) Pheromosa

It’s an almost 7 foot tall sentient cockroach with legendary stats. Nope. Just nope. *flees*

6) Grimmsnarl Line

I have been disappointed with this evolutionary line since seeing the leaks of Impidimp. I know a lot of Faerie lore and it ticks me off that they chose a Goddamn Goblin for the first Dark/Fairy type. Also, and I know not all Faeries are cute and cuddly, but why does Game Freak keep trying to sneak in ugly Fairy types? About 95% of the Fairy typing has a cute or pleasing ascetic. That’s one of its themes, that and trying to throw pink on everything, so why give us this ugly line?

The only indicator of this thing remotely being Fairy typing at a glance is that it’s pink. I would have never gotten Fairy otherwise from it. Goblins might be in Faerie Tales, but they aren’t Faeries.

The only one in this line that remotely gives off the Dark typing to me is Morgrem. The other two not so much. Putting black on a Pokemon is maybe another indicator of the Dark typing, but even then it ain’t helping…?

Overall to me this thing is goofy to ugly looking with its design and typing a complete mess. It irritates me that our first combination of Fairy and Dark is this line…

Also, using it in a playthrough and it pisses me off that I’m not getting a Fairy move until it reaches its final evolution! That’s if I don’t want to grind up watt points in the Wild Area for a Fairy TR, or beat Opal before getting said evolution!

5) Shiinotic

Fairy typing makes sense for Morelull when you realize what it’s based on. Hell, even Ghost does. But Shiinotic? I don’t care if mushrooms are a big thing in Faerie Culture. You can’t just design some ugly ass alien mushroom hybrid then slap the Fairy typing on it because of mushrooms or lore from a pre evolution! While we’re at it let’s make the Amoongus and Breloom line Fairies too!

Morelull should have been a single stage line. It would have made sense. But no. They just wanted to make an ugly Fairy type just to prove they could say: “hey fandom I know you’re sick of all the cute and pink Fairy types so here’s an ugly one to change things up!”

And don’t get me *started* on that ugly ass shiny! Game Freak: bright yellow and muddy browns are a terrible color combination! Guess why?

4) Spinda

You know how I praised Alcremie for having multiple forms because of what it was and why it made sense for it? Well I have the opposite opinion regarding Spinda.

If I didn’t believe in the golden rule of everyone having a favorite of each Pokemon then I’d very much assume this thing wasn’t liked by anyone.

Everything about its design annoys me. Why is it a panda? And before anyone tries to tell me otherwise, it’s in its American/English name. Why is it in a constant state of vertigo? I literally was trying to think of a typing it would be better off as instead of the Normal typing and none come to mind. So it’s normal because a) it’s an animal or b) because they needed to give it a typing and no other typing fit.

And out of ALL the Pokemon why does this one have an almost endless possibility of “forms”? This thing has got to be a living dex collector’s worst nightmare!

3) Archeops

This Pokemon is on here for pure personal reasons. Technically there are a few other Pokemon that I feel the same towards, but this one was the worst about it.

You know you have a stupid powerful stat as a non-psuedo legendary and legendary when you need an ability to nerf you. What’s worse is when you need a pretty bulky Pokemon to soak up the damage you reap before said ability does nerf you.

It was always Goddamn terrifying to run into this Pokemon in White 2. Not only was a good chunk of my team weak to Flying, but my Samurott couldn’t take more than one hit from it. Not to mention it didn’t do enough super effective damage to OHKO this thing. So I was never happy to run into this thing because I would only get out of the fight with a lot of collateral damage to my party!

This wasn’t the only Pokemon that was this fucking difficult to deal with in Unova. There is definitely a power imbalance in these games which made playing them a pain in the ass. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Black 2 & White 2, but fuck me if this wasn’t my biggest issues with those games…

(Some of y'all are probably wondering about Slaking, and Slaking is actually easier to deal with thanks to its typing and ability readily triggering.)

2) Pelipper

This Pokemon was originally going to be my least favorite Water type on my favorite and least favorite typings lists, but I think its placement on this list suits it better.

I honestly don’t mind its pre-evolution Wingull. Wingull is kinda cute. Wonder Trade had me groaning every time I saw one, but that was more the player’s fault than anything.

Pelipper is just such a poorly designed Pokemon. Like, what were they thinking when they essentially fused the beak and stomach together? How can this thing carry its front heavy, well front? I assume it can handle all of that weight being airborne since I doubt it can get around any other way with its stubby little feet.

Then they gave it the Drizzle ability and suddenly people give a shit about its ugly ass…

The only time I’ve “willingly” used one was in my Wonderlocke, which was only due to the fact that I was in dire need of a water type, and I'll tell you that right now that I didn’t want to resort to using it. I’m pretty sure it died at the very end in the Champion battle… wasn’t all that sad to lose it if I’m being honest.

This isn’t just reserved for this Pokemon, but I absolutely hate the dual typing of Water/Flying. Nothing says “throw a rock at me” more than this typing combination.

Overall I just don’t like anything about this Pokemon.

1) Greninja

This Pokemon used to be a lot lower on this list, but as I mentioned right before the list that the order changed as I was making it. I can promise you that this Pokemon isn’t on here because of how popular it is (there are others that would be on here if that was the case). There are many other reasons I will go over as to why this one is on the list.

The first is my experience using a basic one in XY. It’s learn set of moves is terrible, and that’s because it learns a lot of physical moves despite having a much better Special Attack. When I thought about the aspects of a ninja’s special attack being higher than physical it made much more sense. It had little to no options for Dark type moves with one of the best moves for it not being available till you’ve gotten the 8th badge for Waterfall. Greninja was the weakest member of my team with my Aromatisse putting in much more work than it! If Greninja is not competitively trained as well as has any of its hidden abilities then it’s not really that useful. I kept the one from that playthrough because I don’t have the heart to release it or get rid of it…

The second is its design. I very much don’t care for it (its tongue scarf is gross!). Its middle evolution looks so much better to me, and it made me sad evolving it into this ugly thing…

The third is its typing. I’ve had some time to think about it and I’ve wondered to myself: why is Greninja a Dark type? Thinking of the history, and to some extent the mythology of ninjas, nothing screams Dark type to me. I’m also taking into account of Dark being Evil in Japan, and nothing about ninja inherently screams Evil or Dark typing. Then I found myself thinking about its other typing in Water which brought me to the conclusion that the only reason Greninja is a Water type is for two reasons: 1) It’s a starter and 2) it’s a frog.

So you’re probably thinking by this point: “well Radish if you don’t like its typings then what would you change them to?” Unfortunately, I’d keep Water since it’s not the only Pokemon to have a typing based on the animal it is (looking at you Poliwag line!). Dark typing would be replaced with Ghost since ninjas in their lore and mythology can traverse and interact with the spiritual world.

I will address the elephant in the room for my closing thoughts on this Pokemon: Greninja and the fandom. I wholeheartedly believe that if Greninja didn’t have the hidden abilities that it did that it wouldn’t be as favored as it is among the fanbase. As someone who used a basic ability one in hopes of giving it a chance I was greatly disappointed, and didn’t understand why this Pokemon was so popular. That’s why I feel as though the competitive scene is where it has gotten all of its fame from. People give Charizard so much shit for being overrated but do they for Greninja? (Not a big fan of Charizard for those who wanna accuse me as such.)

#whismur #loudred #exploud #greedent #electrode #pheromosa #grimmsnarl #impidimp #morgrem #shiinotic #spinda #archeops #pelipper #greninja

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thelightofthingshopedfor · 4 years

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okay here’s a more fun topic, I’ve found myself fixating on horror games recently, which is very silly for a multitude of reasons:

everything I said in this post is 1000% still true

ditto this one

SWTOR is still my current priority

I have not actually played that many horror games, although I own...I don’t know, a bunch

I’ve gradually realized that although a lot of other games definitely interest me, what I’ve really been looking for recently is literally just Silent Hill (2 and 3 anyway), by which I guess I mean

massively atmospheric survival horror

interesting and slowly unfolding plot

loads of symbolism

a focus on general dread and creepiness over cheap jumpscares

an additional focus on things other than fighting (or just constantly running for your life, I’m not a huge fan of that either, what good is all that atmosphere if I don’t have a chance to bask)

a reasonable/adjustable level of difficulty, again so I can enjoy all the atmosphere and plot and symbolism instead of wanting to break things out of frustration

3D graphics, because I know there are a lot of 2D and/or pixel horror games that also look extremely cool but they’re just...not gonna feel like Silent Hill to me and they’re also not gonna feel as immersive

also preferably it should have a female protagonist

there are many many many survival horror games that fit some of these criteria, and loads of games that describe themselves as being heavily influenced by Silent Hill, but as far as I’m aware there are very few that hit all the qualities that will somehow, theoretically, make it feel like a Silent Hill game to me

regardless, you would think that instead of trying to find more games that somehow feel like Silent Hill, I would actually play the Silent Hill games I own and haven’t played, or even go back to my SH2 playthrough for a couple more trophies, but no. in my defense this is complicated by the fact that

all of them are console games and it’s a whole bunch harder to play those when I can’t do so privately, which I can’t, because neither of us is leaving the house often for obvious reasons (and actually I could play SH1 on my secondhand PSP, but that’s almost guaranteed to be physically uncomfortable, and the tank controls are even harder to use on a little handheld)

two of the three unplayed SH games are the more recent games not made by Team Silent, which means even they might not have whatever the fuck it is that makes something feel like a Silent Hill game to me

exactly zero of these have female protagonists, so there’s also that (and given that I already got all the trophies for SH3, replaying it with absolutely no new goals would absolutely bug me)

I could also try to find a PC port of Silent Hill 4, I guess, if that...even exists. if playing it on PC requires an emulator, I’d really rather wait until I can find an Xbox version that my 360 will play.

here’s the most ridiculous part though! you might also think that when I say I’ve been fixating on finding horror games that feel like Silent Hill, I mean that I have been actually playing horror games I own or that I’ve found free on Itch.io and GameJolt so I can find out for myself if they meet my criteria, but no. no, what I have actually been fixating on is

buying new-to-me horror games (or anyway I was going to, until I fucked up with the Steam summer sale)

researching new-to-me horror games that sound like they might scratch that itch and adding them to my wish lists

considering making yet another Grouvee category to list games that sound like they might scratch this itch, which is really not going to accomplish much except that I...really like sorting and listing things?

I would say “at least I’m having fun” but tbh I’m mostly just shaking my head at myself, while also going “hey but that list though, let’s make that list, lists are fun”

#gaming #kyra plays #silent hill #or rather doesn't

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benisasoftboi · 4 years

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Unorganised thoughts on Silver Snow:

When I finished Golden Deer, I said that it had felt like a more traditional Fire Emblem story than Blue Lions. Silver Snow is that but even more so (though GD is still the most trad-FE cast, IMO)

Having already played those two routes, it felt very much like a whirlwind tour of them both, plus another battle thrown in at the end - a battle that probably should have been harder, but I (completely accidentally) built the bulkiest Byleth imaginable, especially resistance wise, plus high magic - and so, by pairing high defensive stats with Nosferatu, I tanked every attack that came my way

Gaming, for me, is just doing whatever the hell I feel like, stumbling into good results, and then pretending that I did it on purpose

I spent the whole battle with the Dragon Tales theme song stuck in my head. Kind of killed the mood

I really enjoyed that after wrapping up both the Edelgard and TWSITD plots, they basically Persona 4 you by trying to convince you that the whole game’s done now and all that’s left is to chat with everyone - though unlike in P4, there’s very obviously something left to do because they give you a whole month of prep time, rather than just one day

I felt the same way about this on Golden Deer - none of the characters are appropriately shocked by Rhea’s highly questionable actions

Also - she says she’s going to explain the whole truth! And she doesn’t! Only the Byleth creation stuff! The other revelations from Golden Deer are missing! Rhea! Why! Are! You! Like! This!

This is actually a problem I have with this game as a whole - they want to keep certain lore and secrets exclusive to certain routes, but it results in every story feeling in some way incomplete. Like, Fates gets a lot of crap, but at least you did get a full story from your half (third? never played Revelation) a game for the price of a whole one. Blue Lions gets the worst of it, I think

Plus, when you know some of said secrets, it makes characters who refuse to share them in other routes seem weirdly (and sometimes, contrivedly) cagey about things they really do not need to be cagey about. See: Claude refusing to tell Dimitri and Byleth in Azure Moon that he wants to End Racism, and instead vagueing about ‘achieving his dream’. This is not Edelgard wanting to conquer Fodlan and dismantle the entire social structure, Claude, your ideals really are not so controversial that you need to be this coy. Dimitri and I are cool, we getcha

My one sentence review of the whole game is basically: Great characters, great world building, great gameplay - but really, really frustrating plot structure

I’m also really upset that Seteth does not have a dragon form

Speaking of Seteth, I married him this time around. I mostly decided to do it for laughs, but while Byleth/Dedue is still my number one Byleth pairing, I came to really, genuinely like them together. Seteth is one of my favs, now more than ever

It helps that romancing Seteth feels a lot less... creepy than romancing most of the students. I like Linhardt, but romancing him felt very weird to me because I couldn’t get over Byleth having first known him as a 16 year old under their care. Dedue, for the record, doesn’t elicit this response because he doesn’t really feel as much like a student to me? Role-wise he feels a lot closer to the knights, and it’s just that he's been enrolled as a student for convenience’s sake, which makes him and Byleth feel more equal than they do with most of the other kids. Helps that he’s also on the older end

Anyway, Seteth and Byleth would be the nerdiest couple ever, is the impression I got from their ending. The confession scene made me laugh in how ‘oh we’ve got a lot of work to do - btw wanna get married? - sweet, now let’s get back to work’ it was. Mark Whitten is a gem

It’s also the the first time I felt like the game was actually shipping me with a main lord (Seteth taking that role in the absence of the box lords on this route). Haven’t done Crimson Flower yet, so no opinion on the Edelgard/Byleth relationship yet, but regarding Claude and Dimitri my (pretty damn controversial, possibly a bad idea to put out there) opinions on them with Byleth are that

Claude and Byleth are platonic bros, regardless of Byleth’s gender. I just don’t get any feeling of romance from their relationship at all, and so pairing them off feels weird (to me, personally - I don’t hate the ship or anything, though)

Meanwhile Dimitri 100% had a crush on his teacher at school, but after more than five years of enduring trauma after trauma, and then half a year of beginning to heal (whilst fighting a war culminating in the execution of his step-sister), Dimitri is nowhere near ready for a romantic relationship. And when he is, I wouldn’t want him with any of the main cast, Dimitri x Village Girl OTP. I guess if it has to be anyone, I’d be okay with Mercedes, maybe Marianne - hell, maybe even Claude - but really, I just want him to get a fresh start. I think that’s the healthiest option for him, in the end

I do think it’s a pairing that could work in an AU where Dimitri doesn’t have any of the experiences he has in canon, though

And again, this is just my personal reading

I’ll also admit that I may be influenced by the fact that his two most popular pairings are with Byleth and Dedue, who I greatly prefer with each other. Mostly because I love Dedue with all my soul and his ending with Byleth is by far his happiest, in my eyes at least. It’s the only one where he puts some distance between himself and Dimitri and evens out the power balance in their relationship, which makes me happy because oh boy, the Dimitri/Dedue relationship is super interesting and compelling, but also (again, by my reading) all kinds of unhealthy as it’s presented for most of the game - power balance issues like I say, the fact that they tend to indulge, even encourage, each other’s worst instincts and behaviours, mutual guilt complexes - like I say, it’s fascinating, but damn screwed up. IMO, they’re one of the best examples I’ve seen of how unhealthy relationships aren’t always the result of one bad person, and how two good people can end up being very bad for each other

Though it is, again, a pairing I can see working (and actually being incredibly cute) in an AU where they’ve lived less horrible lives

And it’s not like I don’t want them to be friends, I just want them to also develop healthier boundaries and equal levels of respect

oh my god none of this has anything to do with silver snow what am I doing

But hey, speaking of Dimitri - I flip flopped on whether I thought his death was handled better or worse here than Golden Deer. It was given, I felt, more appropriate gravitas, but again suffered from ‘Dimitri’s dead! No, Dimitri’s alive! Oh wait, now he’s dead again’ in like, three successive scenes. And then you see his... ghost? I guess?

Dimitri really seems to get the short end of the stick on routes outside his own. Claude’s non-Deer roles were, in both cases I’ve played, much stronger and more fitting, and Edelgard is Edelgard

Maybe he’ll be good in Crimson Flower. Please. I miss Dimitri mattering. He’s probably my favourite of the three

There’s a point - obviously I don’t fully know Edelgard yet, but from what I got from the White Clouds section, above anything else she strikes me as an incredibly realistic depiction of a slightly edgy, extremely idealistic, but also highly naive and short-sighted teenager

Her whole goal, it seems, is meritocracy. She hates the crest system and the nobility, and she wants to create a system of equal opportunity. I can get behind that, but I really hope she’s prepared to accept the fact that true equal opportunity is basically impossible without recreating The Giver, as inequality is always more complex than one single factor being to blame for everything. Has Edelgard considered other limitations that make true meritocracy difficult to achieve? Has she been working on, say, a comprehensive benefits system? Or is she more of a libertarian type, and so primarily all about negative freedom and removing direct oppression? I hope Crimson Flower goes into detail on this, I’d be genuinely interested to know

I also find it interesting that she gets very angry about the fact that people hurt her and her family as a means to their own ends, so she decides that her own ends are to eliminate the system that lead to that happening - and she doesn’t care who she has to hurt in the process

This isn’t a CinemaSins *ding* plot hole observation, I genuinely think it’s interesting, and not actually that unrealistic

I also suppose her goal is no less naive than End All Racism By Being Nice To People, but Claude isn’t killing and persecuting people in attempt to achieve that, so it invites less scrutiny

I do wonder if I would have felt more strongly positively about her if she’d been my first playthrough. I do believe she’s a person that sincerely means well, and she’s certainly sympathetic, but - hmm. I’ll make my mind up when I finish CF

Anyway, paired endings. A few that I got include Raphael and Bernadetta (by far my favourite Bernie ending so far, seriously, what is that Caspar ending), Shamir and Leonie, which was cute and goofy (as Leonie’s endings tend to be, I notice, I do like that girl), Felix and Dorothea (not my favourite for either, but cute), Sylvain and Mercedes (the same but even cuter), Cyril and Petra (which felt wrong, partly because I love Cysithea a hell of a lot, and also because despite knowing there’s only about a year between them, Petra looks so much older pre-time skip), Ferdie and Marianne (super wholesome and sweet), and Linhardt and Caspar (my boyyyyssss that I refuse to ever separate again)

Not sure what I’m going to aim for on CF aside from keeping those boys together and also Ferdie/Hubert, as I’ve Heard Things

Flayn and Manuela have an A support so I figured they had a paired ending and it turns out they do not, which means Manuela was alone forever and Flayn ran away because apparently she hated having Byleth for a step mother I guess, rude

My Byleth (Myleth?) was prepared to be the best step mother in the history of the world, so offended

I realised ‘Javelins of Light’ is one of my absolute favourite tracks in the whole game. Mostly because it sounds like something out of Danganronpa, which made me nostalgic

I also like ‘Guardian of Starlight’ for somehow managing to sound like a Danganronpa/PMD: Explorers crossover track

I love how out of nowhere the Immaculate One fight is. It really does just feel like they needed something to distinguish the route from Verdant Wind outside of Claude not being around, so they just had a map that was less cool in every way except for the dragon

Is there an explanation for why Nemesis doesn’t show up on this route?

Also - I didn’t mention this in Golden Deer thoughts but I also found that final battle way, way easier than it was probably meant to be because I’d made everyone into a flier and so the floor damage hazard was meaningless

Which I totally did on purpose and not so I could make a stupid joke post about my all-wyvern team

Anyway, in conclusion, Silver Snow was a good route, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would (I’d kind of thought it was just going to be GD without Claude, which isn’t... totally wrong, but it’s got some other stuff going on too), I liked Seteth getting to have a bigger role, I thought it had the best final boss (if not the best final boss map), and I liked that I got some more Dragon Lore (never a bad thing)

please don’t yell at me for my controversial shipping opinions

#fire emblem #fe3h #silver snow #silver snow spoilers #golden deer spoilers #verdant wind spoilers #blue lions spoilers #azure moon spoilers #long post

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ranger-report · 4 years

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Thoughts On: HEXEN: BEYOND HERETIC

In 1995, less than a year after the release of Heretic (which I talked about here), Raven Software unleashed a masterpiece upon the first person shooter landscape. Titled Hexen: Beyond Heretic, the game featured radical new features for the id tech 1 engine, including scripted events (such as monster falling through the ceiling to ambush the player), hub level design, CD music, and moving walls. But what it really brought to the table was an unrelenting difficulty and obtuse puzzle system revolving around the discovery of multiple switches throughout a central hub to open the path to the next world. Combined with a pseudo-RPG character class feature, beautiful sprite work, and a rich atmosphere to explore, Hexen introduced concepts and mechanics that influence FPS games to this day, overshadowed only by the release of Quake the following year.

YouTuber GmanLives produced a video on Hexen calling it, “The Dark Souls of FPS Games,” and that's really not far off the mark. Hexen is oppressive. It's brutal. It's actively trying to prevent the player from achieving their goal of beating the game. While the previous entry in the series, Heretic, offered a fast-paced shoot-em-up blitzkrieg, this game operated with a more measured approach. Methodical pacing, resource management, and the utilization of each class's weapons are key to moving forward. Hidden doors and paths and switches, sometimes activated with the use key and sometimes by firing a weapon at them, permeate the levels to the point where half the game can be spent clicking or shooting at random walls just to see what's going to open up when – or if at all. Most games would tuck away secrets by this method, but Hexen, oh no. Hexen offers little rewards aside from survival, and it's glorious. It's harder than shit, but it's glorious.

Opening up the game, players are given three options to choose from: Baratus the fighter, Parias the cleric, or Daedolon the mage. Each class has their ups and downs; for example, the fighter is a beefy fucker who has high hit points and damage, but weak magic, leading to a mostly melee combat style if you run out of mana. The mage is the opposite, low hit points but high magic damage, with some gorgeously rendered spells that beautifully highlight the detail that id tech 1 was capable of. And the cleric is a mixed bag, balanced between the two, with a woefully weak melee weapon and decent ranged magic weapons, but he also carries the single best weapon in the entire game: the Wraithverge, a crucifix that shoots out Arc of the Covenant ghosts that scream and eviscerate anything on the screen in a glorious display of carnage. Clear out a room in seconds with two well placed shot. Arguable, the Wraithverge should be right up next to the BFG 9000 as one of the most ridiculously overpowered weapons in any game – maybe even higher. But the Wraithverge is an Ultimate Weapon, and each class has an Ultimate Weapon, which needs to be assembled over the course of the game by finding the pieces of it tucked away in hidden corners of the levels. Depending on your vigilance, you might find the pieces sooner vs later, and the rewards for this are plentiful. However, unlike the prior game, this game doesn't use unique ammo type for each weapon; that would be too easy. This time around, weapons require mana to use, coming in two different flavors, blue and green. Each class works as such: weak melee weapon that needs no mana, a slightly stronger weapon that uses blue mana, a much stronger weapon that uses green mana, and the Ultimate Weapon which uses both. With the fighter, all of his weapons can be used as melee if he runs out of mana, but if he has the stock, they take on ranged properties. The mage has a starting weapon that requires no mana, but it still ranged. Meanwhile, the cleric maintains the balance with his solo melee weapon, and the rest are ranged. What's notable about the differences in the classes is that it's not just limited to weapon usage, but also inventory usage. Different classes will garner different amounts of armor points depending on their “familiarity” with how to use armor. There's an item called a fletchette that varies in use depending on the class; for example, the fighter throws the fletchette like a bomb, where the cleric drops it in place and it explodes into a cloud of poison. New players will have the opportunity to briefly look over the classes at the beginning as the opening screen displays stats such as speed, armor, magic, and strength, all of which seem a little arbitrary since they don't explicitly state what they do or how they affect the game up front. At the same time, each class is going to lean towards a bit more difficulty, seeing as how the tanky fighter is going to make bruting through the game a lot easier than the tissue paper mage. First time players would do wise to pick the fighter or the cleric as their first timer, saving the mage for a later playthrough, unless you're a masochist when it comes to the games that you play.

One of the great distinctions about Hexen as compared to Heretic is that the former feels more like a fully realized game world vs the cool fanfic/DOOM clone of the latter. Director and designer Brian Raffel no doubt had a hardon for dark fantasy substance, having worked on Raven's previous two fantasy games, and with the release of DOOM thought, “You know, we can do something with that.” Didn't hurt that id Software was just a block down the street from their offices around that time (true story!) and John Romero, AKA Rock God of Gaming, worked directly with Raven during development so they could make the most of id tech 1. Taking what they knew after Heretic, hungry to dive in further, Hexen feels like a natural expansion of the concepts introduced in the first game: weary travelers journeying through worlds and dimensions to combat an ancient evil using magic and steel. It's great stuff, leaning even harder on the 80's horror fantasy art aesthetic. The game is oozing with deeply detailed monsters and environments, even more refined than the very good work done on Heretic. Translucent objects, fog, breakable terrain, each hub and level are intimately crafted to feel like it's a living, breathing world, not just something you've decided to boot up on your 486 PC. Ranging from traditionally gothic architecture with stained glass and parapets, to jungley swamps, arid canyons, and moldy sewers. And as mentioned before, it's brutally oppressive, absolutely unwelcoming in design. Even the environment doesn't want your presence here. Sometimes it doesn't even want the other monsters around; if you're lucky, you can get creatures to turn on each other by creeping into a new area, and if you can go unnoticed before their attack animations kick in, monster castes will infight with one another, saving you precious mana in the process. It doesn't always work, but when it does, it's a fun little sight to behold your meddling.

The sound effects are truly phenomenal, a game worth wearing headphones for. Composer Kevin Schilder returns for the soundtrack, and while his work on Heretic was suitable, here he knocks it completely out of the park. Ominous, brooding, energetic but not too up tempo, it's perfect dungeon crawling music that creeps up your spine at the same time. Meanwhile the distinct creature sounds echo and crawl around corners, letting you know what is where, and also what to be afraid of. I can still hear the sounds of the Dark Bishop in the back of my head, letting me know that I need to turn tail and put some distance between me and them. Enemy design is even better this time around: the aforementioned Dark Bishops take the role of the previous game's Disciples of D'Sparil, teleporting and blasting you with dark magic from their hooded, faceless bodies. Ettins are double-headed warrior beasts that carry a spiked mace, and are the most prevalent monster class in the game – and while they might be everywhere, they pack a helluva wallop, meaning you don't underestimate them no matter how many times you've killed one. Meanwhile, the Centaurs and Slaughtaurs are horrible little shits. Just like the tag says, they're centaurs with full-face helmets, swords, and spiked shields. They can raise their shield to deflect any incoming attacks and reflect them back at you, which is infuriating, especially since the Slaughtaur can fire deadly green magic at you while holding up their shields. And since they look the same, you have to approach any of them with intense caution, otherwise you're staring down the face of death while waiting to make your next strike.

Puzzles operate primarily on a “find the key/switch” platform, but rather than tracking down everything necessary to proceed in a single level, Hexen challenges the player to locate and operate everything they need to move forward throughout a spread of areas around the hub. For example, the Swamp Key won't be directly located in the swamp itself, but maybe over in the Forest. Multiple switches necessary to unlocking the Final Door in the central hub are located in the various hub worlds, informing the player with a quick “You have solved 1/3 of the puzzle” text across the screen when you've found one. Find another switch, the number increases from 1/3 to 2/3, etc. But each hub has more switches, all the way up to nine switches necessary to journey on, which to some is going to be a slog. While frustrating at times, I never felt like I was wading through a switch hunt just to proceed. Each switch seemed to naturally pop up on its own, and once I realized that certain areas couldn't be accessed within the levels themselves, I'd hop around the various worlds in the hub until I found a new switch or key, and then went back. Imagine if Super Mario 64's paintings were all connected to each other, and you had to hop back and forth between them in order to get to the next floor of the castle. It's innovative, and certainly makes sense; if an evil overlord tyrant person were going to hide the keys to access their lair, they probably would spread them out to make it harder to find. It's gratifying to open up section after section of these levels, defying the odds and slaying your way through the puzzles. Adding to the depth of torment is that, unlike Heretic, clearing a room of monsters doesn't mean it will stay that way. Scripted sequences again have monsters teleport in when you least expect it, repopulating areas you thought were safe for the time being. Damning though that may be, it adds to the feeling like the player is being watched at every moment, and that the game is doing its level best to fight back against your progress.

Hexen is hard. I resorted to a walkthrough once, just like in Heretic, and absolutely utilized the minimap in order to suss out where switches were located. There is nothing here to suggest a walk in the park: it is labyrinthine, it is torrid, it is nightmarish. But the mechanics all come together in the end, particularly in the moments where the game gratifyingly presents a room full of mana and health and a lot of monsters to let loose on. These apeshit moments are some of the best in the game. After spending hours managing resources and trying to hoard as much mana and health as possible, to be allowed a moment of pure rip and tear is wonderful.

If you're going to play Hexen, I highly recommend getting the expansion, Deathkings of the Dark Citadel. Not only is the title metal as fuck, but the three new hubs it offers are even more vicious, demeaning, and frustrating. They shove all the elements of the previous five hubs down into three, and it shows. You'll be assaulted on all fronts right from the start, continuing where the final battle left off in Hexen. You still get to pick your class, but sadly, you're also starting over. Curiously depowered and without any inventory items to work with, you'll feel extra squishy for the first level or three. Honestly, Deathkings was where I felt I had the most pure Hexen experience: solidly brutal and unforgiving as fuck. Interestingly, Deathkings was released in 1996 around the same time that Heretic got a retail release with two additional episodes under the name Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders. Factor this in with the upcoming release of Hexen II in 1997 (which saw a hefty difficulty spike as well), it seems that Raven got in one last hurrah with id tech 1 before moving on to id tech 2 -- the Quake engine. But more on that game in another post.

As with Heretic, I recommend playing this one through GZDOOM in order to get the best experience. And you'll need the best experience to stay one step ahead of everything that's trying to kill you. In a nutshell, Hexen is a true masterclass of determination to see the day through. For fans of retro FPS games, it's a must play, but be warned that coming into this after Heretic there is a distinct shift in how the game plays, looks, feels. Gone is the run and gun, which exists now only in pockets. But what's here, crafted lovingly and passionately, is a true nightmare of agony and difficulty unlike anything made before it. As Gmanlives summed it up, perhaps Dark Souls should be called the Hexen of third person adventure games.

Next time, we'll take a look at Hexen II, a popular but vastly different title in the series, and how the changes it made not only distinguished it from the previous two games, but may have also set it slightly backwards as well.

#hexen #raven software #id software #doom #heretic #first person shooter #dark souls #roses and ruins #ck burch #thoughts on #ranger report

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commentaryvorg · 4 years

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 5.19

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time in trial 5 (trial 5!!!!!!!), first-time-me broke down with desperate, terrifying hope as Shuichi awakened to the possibility that Kaito might still be alive, Shuichi was amazing at pushing his emotions aside and focusing on the logic, Maki finally acknowledged that she never wanted to kill Kaito and that what she wants matters, everyone was friends, the camera had a pause button!!!, and then both Shuichi and Maki realised the truth that came with Kaito being alive and Maki ran away from it exactly like Kaito did back in Gonta’s trial, while Shuichi could face it but was being a little slow on the uptake in realising why Kaito did this.

We left off at the end of Maki’s Argument Armament as Shuichi pointed out that Kokichi only pretended to drink the antidote.

Shuichi: “Drinking the antidote was part of his lie.”

Shuichi doesn’t properly go into this in more detail, but it was. Obviously Kokichi needed Kaito alive and therefore to give him the antidote – but in that case, why not just let him keep it when Maki gave it to him? Why even pretend to drink it in the first place? Because he wanted Maki to be sure that she’d killed Kaito and not Kokichi, to make it more likely that the trial would come to the conclusion that it was Kaito who died.

I’ve seen some people assume, based on this image that shows Kokichi holding the antidote bottle with the cap still on both before and after “drinking” it, that he pretended to drink it while the cap was still on. But, like, no. Maki and/or Kaito would almost certainly have been able to see that. That’s just the artists not bothering to draw another image of the bottle without the cap on afterwards.

Shuichi: “There’s a strong possibility that all of this was done… to make Kaito cooperate.”

Keebo: “Make him cooperate?”

Exisal Kokichi: “…”

No, Shuichi, that’s not even remotely it. Kaito is apparently staring at you in bewilderment wondering why you’d even think that.

Shuichi: “He needed leverage. He gave Kaito the antidote in exchange for his cooperation.”

Keebo: “In exchange for his own life, you mean.”

Shuichi: “Kaito had no choice, he had to cooperate after Kokichi saved his life. That’s just Kaito’s character, and Kokichi knew that. He swallowed his pride with the antidote, and agreed to participate in Kokichi’s plan.”

What Shuichi’s saying here is that Kaito supposedly agreed to the plan as repayment for Kokichi saving his life, because Kaito is the kind of person who would always repay favours done to him, even from someone he kind of hates. And it’s not that I disagree that Kaito is that kind of person; of course he is. But killing someone and then deceiving his friends about it for an entire trial? Kaito’s own life would never be a big enough price to get him to do that.

Remember Kaito telling Kokichi, “I don’t want to survive if it means I have to stoop to your level”, back in trial 4? Not a word of that was untrue. Kaito has very much been stooping to Kokichi’s level for this entire case – putting on a mask, never saying what he really thinks, hiding the fact that he cares about everyone and hates how much he’s been hurting them, not to mention having committed murder and even hiding that too – but him doing that has nothing to do with his own life. Kaito would never be that selfish. The only price that’s worth all this to Kaito is the chance of saving everyone else.

Honestly, Shuichi is being kind of uncharitable to Kaito to think this. He used the phrasing “swallowed his pride”, making it clear that he knows doing this is going against all of Kaito’s convictions, but he believes Kaito would still be willing to live as someone who broke all of those convictions just to survive. No. Hell no. Not Kaito.

I suppose another part of the reason that Shuichi doesn’t figure out Kaito’s real motive for this yet is because everyone is still being misled by Kokichi’s gloating from a while back into thinking that Kokichi is the real villain and Monokuma is sort of on their side. Given that they’re still labouring under that very mistaken impression of things, it’d be harder to see Kaito as being on their side when he’s working with Kokichi. So instead, Shuichi comes up with this explanation in which Kaito was essentially forced to work for the “bad guy” even though he supposedly wouldn’t actually want to.

(This isn’t even getting into the part where this antidote situation isn’t even really Kokichi saving Kaito’s life, since Maki gave the antidote to Kaito in the first place and Kokichi stole it. Giving it back to him at that point isn’t saving his life, it’s letting events proceed as they would have done anyway! If Kokichi wanted to “save Kaito’s life” then he should have just done nothing and let Maki save his life by giving him the antidote. The only claim Kokichi can make to Kaito here is “I could have killed you to save myself, but I didn’t, aren’t I nice?” That’s something, sure, but it’s hardly saving him when he was already saved.)

Shuichi: “I imagine this was all part of Kokichi’s plan to confuse us. You wouldn’t think that someone would plan their own murder.”

Keebo: “He went so far as to give up his life… just to create this mystery?”

Shuichi: “Only Kokichi could think of something so nefarious. Who else would agree to die just to execute their plan?”

Well, actually…

(Even with their memories of the Hope’s Peak story, though, the general public didn’t watch DR2’s killing game. So it’s fair enough that he doesn’t know about that.)

Shuichi is being somewhat uncharitable to Kokichi in this particular instance to call this move “nefarious”, because killing himself to confuse everyone isn’t precisely evil. It is definitely a thing that only Kokichi and few others would ever think to do, though. Only someone who was so messed-up at the thought of being in a killing game that they’d basically given up on their own survival right at the beginning would be so willing to throw their own life away if it meant they could achieve their revenge.

Himiko: “He’s crazy… Why would he go that far?”

Monokuma: “I bet Kokichi was determined to beat me at my own game, no matter what.”

Exisal Kokichi: “…”

Yep, that’s exactly it. Monokuma knows Kokichi very well, just like Kokichi knew Monokuma very well. They really are alike.

Note the Exisal’s silence. I suppose more gloating at this point would only imply that they’re all correct to think Kokichi is dead, if there’s even any gloating left in the script that Kaito hasn’t already recited. The silence also suggests that even Kaito is still reeling from the thought that Kokichi would go so far.

Monokuma: “But too bad! Shuichi figured out the truth!”

Exisal Kokichi: “…Truth? Are you sure it’s not delusion?”

Shuichi: “Delusion?”

Exisal Kokichi: “A delusion so completely off the mark, to make you think that I died…”

So… this doesn’t quite sound like something Kaito would ad-lib. Meaning, apparently, that despite the Exisal’s silence last time as Shuichi reached the truth, Kokichi did in fact predict this eventuality and script some lines in response to it. Although… the fact that he calls it a “delusion” kind of sounds like he could have scripted this to be a response to something from Shuichi’s baseless desperation not to lose Kaito, rather than a response to Shuichi genuinely putting all the pieces together and figuring out the whole truth. So maybe Kokichi still didn’t properly think through the possibility that his plan would fail.

Exisal Kokichi: “But, who cares what you guys think? This is between me and Monokuma. I don’t give a crap if the extras in this game get it right or not.”

Also very definitely scripted. Kaito doesn’t even remotely see the others as “extras” and cares so much about whether they get it right. At this point, if he were using his own words, he’d be trying to communicate to everyone that he’s on their side as much as he can without breaking character.

Given that this is scripted, it looks like Kokichi was expecting a disconnect between what Shuichi thought and what Monokuma thought. Maybe he didn’t predict that Monokuma would be relying on Shuichi so much. After all, relying on people was never a thing Kokichi himself ever did, and he always projected his own worldview onto others – and Monokuma is especially like him. And if he really did think Shuichi’s argument at this point would be just a “delusion” – as in, just baseless desperation and not concrete proof – it’d make even more sense that he wouldn’t be expecting Monokuma to put any stock in that.

Himiko: “I’m fine with being an extra!”

Tsumugi: “Huh? Why?”

Himiko: “If we’re just extras, then even if we get it wrong, we won’t get kill—”

Monokuma: “No, I’d still kill you all. Don’t put Kokichi’s words in my mouth.”

I love how gleefully bluntly Monokuma puts this.

And yeah, Himiko – Kokichi only called you that because it didn’t matter from his perspective whether you guys lived or died. Just like he didn’t (or at least, told himself and acted as though he didn’t) for Miu and Gonta.

Exisal Kokichi: “If Monokuma gets it right, then he takes everyone’s lives, yeah? But if Monokuma gets it wrong, then he’d have no right to take everyone’s lives. If Monokuma doesn’t know who the culprit is, then this killing game can’t function anymore.”

Now here are some words that are almost certainly Kaito’s! This basically contradicts what he was literally just saying about not caring if everyone else gets it right or not and therefore lives or dies, since he’s sure sounding glad about the idea that Monokuma can’t kill them. I think this is Kaito realising that Kokichi’s scripted line about “extras” was hugely unhelpful in getting across his real intentions, and now he’s using his own words to try and communicate that he’s trying to save everyone.

Not once at any of the earlier points in which Exisal Kokichi talked about his intentions to fool Monokuma did he mention the part where it’d mean nobody else could be killed – because those lines were all scripted, and Kokichi didn’t give a fuck about saving anyone else. This is only coming up now because Kaito knows that Shuichi knows he’s in there, so he finally has the chance to get his real motives across now that he knows Shuichi will listen and understand that it’s coming from him. He’s trying to do what Kokichi never bothered to do in the script and get Shuichi to realise that he shouldn’t be helping Monokuma find the truth after all. …Even if it’s probably already too late for that.

Shuichi: (Can’t function anymore…)

This line implies that Shuichi has finally realised the reason Kaito is doing this. But, uh, hold this thought and don’t get your hopes up yet.

Shuichi: “Kaito… I believe in you.”

Exisal Kokichi: “…Hm?��

Of course he does, Kaito!

…But maybe Kaito genuinely didn’t realise that, because this is the first time Shuichi has ever said so out loud.

He’s said as much in his inner monologue countless times, but until now, Kaito never heard it. Towards the beginning of their friendship, Kaito would have just assumed it was the case anyway, since being someone their sidekicks can believe in is the point of heroes like him… but he definitely doubted it during chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5. He’d also be worrying, having murdered someone and spent the whole trial lying to them all and hurting them, that Shuichi might think upon realising he did all this that Kaito had simply betrayed him, especially with Shuichi’s history of having people he trusted turn out to have murdered someone. It’s got to mean so much to Kaito to hear this.

Another thing I love about this moment is how direct it is. Kaito’s been participating in this trial, but he’s been isolated from everyone else for all of it; no-one’s been able to see the real him and the emotions he’s been going through. Even after they figured out Kaito was in there, Shuichi and the others have still only been talking about him, like he’s just an object for them to deduce around, like they might as well still treat him like they would Kokichi since he’s acting like Kokichi. This, though, is the first time Shuichi talks directly to Kaito, piercing through the Exisal separating him from everyone and properly acknowledging that he’s with them, and he’s listening, and he has been this whole time. That must have felt so refreshing for Kaito after all this. And of course Shuichi knows Kaito can’t and won’t respond to his words, but that’s okay; Shuichi just wanted Kaito to know this.

It’s also adorable that Shuichi is able to still believe in Kaito so strongly even though he hasn’t been able to communicate with the real, genuine Kaito for the whole trial and Kaito has seemingly been working against him this entire time. It takes an incredible amount of trust to do that. They are friends.

Shuichi: (If you’re cooperating with this plan… you must have a reason. To determine that reason, I need to reveal the truth!)

…No, Shuichi, you moron! If you understood why Kaito was doing this then you should know that revealing the truth will do the opposite of helping him! Apparently, despite the line a moment ago that implied he’d got it, he still hasn’t cottoned on to why Kaito is doing this and what he’s been trying to achieve.

Another part of Shuichi missing the point and continuing to pursue the truth when he shouldn’t can be put down to his issues. There’s always been a part of him that never wanted to pursue the truth at all, but over four and a half trials he’s trained himself to push that part down and not listen to it to the point that it’s become instinctive. He’s always forced himself into the mindset of “if I don’t find the truth we all die”, such that it doesn’t even occur to him to re-evaluate this basic premise and realise it doesn’t necessarily apply here.

Of course, it didn’t apply from the moment it became apparent that Monokuma didn’t know the truth. Upon learning that, Shuichi should have figured that it was best to keep Monokuma in the dark – but it was easier to overlook that at the time because of all Kokichi’s gloating to make himself, and therefore his lies, seem like the biggest villain. However, now that Shuichi knows that Kaito is also trying to hide the truth, he should be more capable of realising that maybe this really is a good thing. Yet, even then, he’s stubbornly facing the truth, simply because that’s what he’s always forced himself to do.

Still, even with these reasons for Shuichi being slow on the uptake, they’re only something you’re likely to realise after the fact, and in the moment it can be quite frustrating and awkward to watch Shuichi continue to obliviously ruin what Kaito’s trying to do even when he should know better by now. It’s especially egregious in this moment in particular as we’re about to go into the Closing Argument, in which Shuichi will explain the truth even more clearly and explicitly than he already has done. This is of course happening because the game’s writers obviously want to still have an excuse to have a Closing Argument, even if they have to force it a bit.

But… ultimately, while this may be forced, it doesn’t actually affect the overall narrative in any significant way. The thing is, even without the Closing Argument, Monokuma is still already convinced that Kaito did it. That happened the moment Shuichi declared as such. It’s only after that point that Shuichi would ever start thinking about why Kaito did it and realise that he’s trying to save them, and whoops, maybe figuring out the truth and saying it out loud for Monokuma to hear was a mistake. After all, Shuichi always focuses on figuring out the facts before figuring out the people. So long as Kokichi was gloating so hard over his petty feud with Monokuma that he made himself look like the bigger villain on the surface, Shuichi was never going to consider the idea that maybe this plan actually benefits all of them until he’d figured out that Kaito was the culprit and therefore in on it too.

Which means that no matter how things went down, even if Shuichi hadn’t been quite as slow on the uptake as this, Monokuma learning the truth was unavoidable thanks to Kokichi being an attention-seeking idiot. The only thing that’d be different if Shuichi was being more sensible is that we wouldn’t have a Closing Argument right here. And I love this Closing Argument (as you will be able to tell shortly from how long I’m about to spend covering it), so I really don’t actually mind.

Kaito doesn’t look very sure of himself as he holds his completed crossbow. He knew full well that his “plan” of threatening Kokichi with it was terrible and very unlikely to achieve anything of use, didn’t he. (And so does Shuichi, it seems, since he’s the one imagining Kaito making this face.)

(This is such a hilariously unambiguous Ambiguous Culprit Figure. Who could it possibly be wearing this big purple space jacket in a doofily asymmetrical way.)

I would also like to thank this one panel of Maki in the Exisal as being the only other decent source of what the cockpit of an Exisal looks like.

Fun irrelevant fact: despite being right-fisted based on the times we see him punch someone, apparently Kaito is otherwise left-handed. This actually makes a lot of sense – if you look at his various sprites, whenever he makes some kind of one-handed gesture, it’s always with his left hand. Him wearing the left sleeve of his jacket also fits with this, because if he was going to wear only one sleeve then it being the one for his dominant hand would prevent the flappy non-worn-sleeve side from getting in his way as much. (Any rightie fans of Kaito out there who’ve attempted to copy the way he wears his jacket and found it incredibly inconvenient and annoying? Flip it. It’s nowhere near as bad. No I’ve totally not done this myself what are you talking abou)

And since the question of which sleeve Kaito wears was briefly a plot point, this technically means that this is another very unusual way for a character’s left-handedness to be relevant in a murder mystery! Kaito and Gonta can be leftie bros.

Admittedly this image is just Shuichi’s imagination, but we can assume that his observation skills picked up on these hints from all his time with Kaito, letting him deduce that Kaito is left-handed and therefore imagine him this way here.

Kokichi’s bewildered face here is pretty great. He was probably wondering (quite understandably) what the hell Kaito was even planning to do by threatening him with one arrow. And Shuichi is the one picturing Kokichi doing this, so yes, he is very aware that Kaito’s plan with the crossbow was pretty terrible.

I also like the focus on Kaito getting angry before he fired – like I mentioned several posts ago, he probably wasn’t even planning to shoot Kokichi at all and did so because he lost control like he has a tendency to. (I bet Kokichi was taunting him about how stupid and pointless this plan of his was.) Again, this technically isn’t confirmed, but Shuichi is imagining it to be the case because he knows Kaito so well.

Kaito quite rightly then immediately jumped on him and started fighting rather than continue to threaten him with a crossbow that no longer had any ammo.

Shuichi: “But even with poison in his veins, Kokichi continued to spin his lies.”

Well. Some lies. Shuichi is still wrongly assuming that Kokichi was lying to deny knowing anything about the Remnants of Despair.

I don’t believe Kokichi really looked this shocked at Kaito protecting him. I think he knew Kaito would do that and was probably quietly grinning at his plan working out. (But Shuichi wouldn’t know that, hence him imagining it like this.)

Look at Maki panicking as she realises she just lethally poisoned Kaito! This was probably the moment she blurted out that the arrows were poisoned, you idiot, why did you do that!?

And Kaito apparently did remove his arrow in the main hangar, which really should have left some blood there outside the drag marks.

The way Kokichi’s putting his hand on Kaito’s shoulder here kind of implies that this was the moment he explained the plan. But it shouldn’t be, because Kokichi would much rather have Kaito’s reaction to apparently missing out on the antidote be genuine. So I’m not sure why Shuichi is picturing this?

(Regardless, I very much enjoy Kaito in pain and realising that he fucked up and made everything worse because the arrow was poisoned and now he’s possibly going to die by Maki’s hand.)

Kaito’s hand shakes as he reaches for the antidote, which is a lovely little detail that it was totally necessary of me to make a gif of to show here.

Note Kokichi punching Kaito in the stomach (or close enough) to steal the antidote. He knows that’s Kaito’s weak spot since that’s where his illness is causing him the most pain. And okay, again, Shuichi’s imagination – but this suggests that that’s also where Kokichi punched Kaito at the end of chapter 4 and Shuichi is just imagining him doing the same here.

Shuichi: “Maki tried desperately to break into the hangar, even slashing the control panel.”

She did, but where is the panel of this in the comic??? I am Very Sad that there is not one. (So I fixed this.)

But still, please enjoy this panel summarising Kaito’s desperate attempts to reassure Maki and tell her that everything’s going to be fine, just before one of Maki running away in anguish because nothing is fine.

Kaito’s face after Maki leaves is not looking so optimistic. Even Shuichi didn’t think Kaito would be able to keep that up once she was gone.

Shuichi: “After Maki had left, Kokichi took out another weapon. An Electrobomb…”

No, he didn’t! Kokichi definitely would have thrown the Electrobomb before Maki came back with the antidote. It’s extremely unlikely that he managed to do so in the literal seconds of Maki running from the window to the shutter to attack the control panel, and he should have wanted Monokuma to be blind to the whole antidote situation as well. The Closing Argument is just straight-up wrong here. (If they had drawn a panel of Maki slashing the control panel then maybe they’d have noticed this mistake and fixed it.)

Shuichi: “Kokichi’s plan was to use the Electrobomb to knock out Monokuma’s surveillance cameras. That’s why he commissioned Miu to make the bombs in the first place.”

Yep, the game draws attention here to the fact that he very definitely had the gist of this whole thing planned before killing Miu. Mercy kill? What mercy kill?

Shuichi: “Under normal circumstances, the culprit would never have agreed to such a plan…”

Of course not! But he was dying, and desperate to be a hero in the few hours he had left, and that’s why. …Shuichi still doesn’t know any of that, though.

Shuichi: “But because the culprit owed him for saving their life, they agreed to Kokichi’s request. Ah, ‘request’ is a generous term. It was more like blackmail.”

Still a big nope on that one. That’s not giving Kaito nearly enough credit, assuming that he did all this just because he was coerced into it and that none of it was his choice. Kind of like how everyone assumed Gonta was purely manipulated into his murder plan, but then he turned out to have had more agency than that.

...I was going to say this reluctance here is accurate, but actually, now that I look at it more closely and not on my tiny Vita screen, maybe this one is slightly off. He looks kind of angry and resentful at Kokichi, like he is being forced into this, like he’s hating Kokichi for not giving him a choice. No, Shuichi. Kaito would not. He had a choice, and he made it of his own volition. He hated himself over it, because it was his choice.

This, however, is exactly as anxious and uncomfortable as Kaito would have looked as he forged the crime scene. He was not okay about any of this even though he chose it.

Shuichi: “Kokichi, with the support of the culprit, stood in front of the press’s control panel.”

I love how Shuichi is assuming without any evidence that Kaito physically supported Kokichi up there. Admittedly Kokichi was in pain and dying and probably needed it, but also, Kaito will support anyone, even if it’s someone he kind of hates and is about to murder!

His arms are tucked in so that they are not visible on the video when the press stops, thank you very much Closing Argument at least for being accurate about this and clearing up my confusion caused by the localisation mistake. Admittedly sometimes the Closing Argument can have minor inaccuracies and mistakes like we’ve just seen, but it makes much more sense on this occasion to assume that this is canon to how things were and the video we see in the localisation is the inaccurate one.

(I do also somewhat appreciate that they made sure to show Kokichi in pain as he presses the buttons, since he was still dying from “Lethal Torture Poison” at this point.)

I adore the way Kaito’s eyes snap open in panic as the press gets lower. You can just imagine, as the press takes a tiny bit longer to stop than he was expecting, him having that horrifying split second of thinking that everything was a lie and Kokichi just wanted to get him in the press to kill him all along. (Even though that notion doesn’t actually make any sense because then why give him the antidote, that’s not something that’d come to mind in that brief moment of oh god am I going to die right here.)

Look at how reluctant Kaito is as they switch places! He is so not ready to murder anyone. I like how they’re both not even looking at each other, too. Hard to look someone in the eye when you know you’re about to kill them/they’re about to kill you.

Kaito’s arms shake as he comes to stand on the platform! Another very necessary gif I had to make for this.

I also adore Kaito’s grimace (and more shaking hands) as he presses the buttons and becomes a murderer. It must have torn him apart to do this, no matter who he was killing or why, no matter that he was literally asked to. There’s no way Shuichi would picture his best friend doing this any other way.

The emphasised silence after the deed was done is really nice, too. Just imagine how Kaito must have felt. It’s incredible that he managed to just pick himself up and keep going and get ready to lie to his friends on top of this. Kaito is amazing.

And here’s some of him looking guilty and haunted by it afterwards. Also not looking in the direction of the press.

(He’d have had to get close to it to tear the cable, though. That can’t have been fun.)

I said I love this whole Closing Argument, and the main reason why is that almost every single one of the Ambiguous Culprit Figure’s expressions is, for once, completely accurate. This may be Shuichi’s imagination, and he may be currently wrong about the reason Kaito agreed to do it at all (hence the lone one that isn’t quite accurate), but he is incredibly correct in knowing that there’s no way Kaito would ever be able to do any of this without feeling reluctant and conflicted and awful the whole way through.

(And, oops, a couple of those weren’t screenshots. This is the best Closing Argument with the best expressions, and drawing my favourites but with Kaito’s actual face was one of the earliest bits of fanart I ever did for this game.)

Shuichi: “And here they are now in this trial, pretending to be Kokichi. They’re trying to deceive Monokuma in order to defeat the true mastermind!”

Now this sounds more correct and more like something it makes sense for Kaito to be doing! Technically Shuichi isn’t supposed to have figured this out yet, but I don’t really care because this line makes Kaito sound like the hero he is.

It’s neat how Kaito’s pose for the reveal shot is as if he’s piloting an Exisal. It’s also neat that he’s more in shadow than usual even after the reveal, to represent how Shuichi still can’t see him and can’t even completely confirm that it’s him.

(Also, the space background is pretty great.)

Shuichi: “The culprit is in that Exisal. …It’s you, isn’t it?”

I love the sense of familiarity here. Again, it’s Shuichi piercing through the Exisal and addressing Kaito not as the culprit or the enemy, but as his friend who’s been here with them and somehow trying to help them this whole time.

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