might go crazy go wild & make a doctor who (but they’re all just actually playing dnd) au.

Nicole's Rambling: The Avengers Problem (for PS4)

Let's start with the usual chanting: ❗this is my opinion, it's biased as hell (since I grew up with Marvel comic books and movies) and you don't have to agree❗

I was wondering why Avengers game gets so hated... So I took a look and I played it myself. Let’s have a look.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First off: the game isn't in any way horribly bad. It's just a button smasher with a story that has its good and bad beats. It's not memorable at all, but it could've gone way more downhill in my opinion.

At the start of the game, you meet the mighty Avengers through child fan's eyes - it's pure fanservice and let's be honest, it's dope. It was sweet, but pretty dragged, to be honest. I really didn't need to play as all five Avengers (HAWKEYE IS MISSING, AGAIN) in the first hour of the game, but sure, why not?

For the most part, you see the squad through Kamala Khan's eyes. For those who might have not a clue who the hell Kamala is; I am not wondering about why you don't know who the hell she is. She's a Marvel heroine who outed in 2013 and who will have her own spinoff on Disney+.

And again, Ms Marvel is fine, but not memorable at all. I've never, until this day, met anyone who would say that 'Ms Marvel is my favourite superhero'. I was halfway through the game before I even realized it's Ms Marvel - AFTER SHE PULLED HER DAMN COSTUME OUT. That can be due to my utter ignorance or because I heard of her so little that I can count it on my fingers. In all honesty, I loved Kamala as the story progressed, the gal's not bad at all - but as the whole game, she had good and bad beats. There were times where I wished to play as Iron Man and the game forced me to play as her... Whatever.

Let's look at the three problems I have with this game and three positives I found in the game:

0. (Technically zero since it's a personal problem of mine) The soundtrack and the voice actors:

By any means, I am not trying to say they should hire RDJ for the role of Iron Man and Mark Ruffalo for the role of Banner... But it was so hard to distinguish the voice of Nolan North (For example: Nathan Drake x Iron Man) and Troy Baker (Samuel Drake x Bruce Banner). For me, as for a PS4 gamer, it's annoying to hear the same voices again and again in every game I am genuinely excited about (Idk how Xbox players are familiar with them). Of course, there's even Laura Bailey as the Black Widow; I feel like these are the three only people who do voice acting for games these days and sure, I should've seen that coming.

Side note: Nolan North is not a good fit for Iron Man in the slightest in my opinion, but if you like his Iron Man, that's cool as well!

The soundtrack... M A N, the soundtrack. When I heard Marvel gave a green light to the Avengers game, I expected to hear at least the iconic Alan Silvestri's 'The Avengers'. Problem with this is simple: Marvel had spoiled its consumers with good and memorable soundtracks (don't you tell me you don't remember as they all gathered for the first time). Since it was Marvel itself who gave the green light for this project, which was supposed to be based loosely on the movies' and comic book success, I hoped to get all of it.

It's not Iron Man when AC/DC song isn't playing in the background as he flies through a canyon for his life. I mean, Iron Maiden are fine; but come on. COME ON. It's not the same. It's not the Avengers (WITHOUT HAWKEYE) without their significant theme.

1. IT. BUGS. ALL. THE. TIME and the combat is incredibly repetitive:

When I was little, I was a rage gamer. I could barely play Crash Bandicoot or Rayman without losing my cool. Since then, I grew up, skilled and etc. I try not to rage when playing games since it's simply not worth it.

But when you're replaying a boring mission for the tenth part and you're almost over and SUDDENLY, the game bugs out and you lose control over the character (it starts running in circles, etc.) it sucks shit. And don't let me start on the minor bugs. Like when you don't cross the platform by one pixel and the game doesn't let you make combos when you're in the air and bug into a tree when you bug into a wall, a rock, fucking nothing... Bruh. It was released in August, shouldn't these bugs be fixed by now? The game is fucking broken, hoes. It barely feels like a game ready to launch at times.

When you're so lucky that you don't bug out in the middle of doing something, the combat... It isn't bad. It's not terrible, but the Avengers deserved something better. It didn't deserve mediocre combat that repeats itself in every level. Once you find yourself good combo, you're done for. You can use it to finish the game if you will.

2. There's too many missions, too much information and too much things player has to understand if he wants to play the game properly:

Okay, this might seem to be a little confusing; I didn't understand the game system at all when I first ran it on my PS4. There's story missions, HARM training sessions, daily missions for particular heroes, faction missions (SHIELD, Pym, Stark, etc.) and character-side-story missions, and a lot more.

Trust me, it doesn't sound that hard, but once you open the map menu for yourself... Oh boy, that's a different story. And if it only was the map menu. The inventory and such aren't too collected all together either. Before you can safely tell what is what, it will take you at least a whole afternoon. Also, the fact that game just spills it on you just like that, one thing after another, it doesn't help the overall feel.

On top of that, there are MULTIPLE currencies in the game; some even involve microtransaction. It mostly is involving the customization of the Avengers, so it's not THAT big of a deal; you can get one currency by collecting boxes and stuff, but it takes ages before you can buy one single thingy.

Also, if you would like to get stuff (very useful stuff) from factions (SHIELD and Pym mainly), you have to do in-factions daily quests, which usually require to do a certain amount of things as a particular hero (you can do some quests with Ms Marvel only, some with Black Widow, it usually involves the damage dealt while playing as a character etc.). And if you forget to fetch these minies? Well, no faction points for you, bucko.

The system feels overall too complicated in the begging and even after finishing the game, I am not certain by some.

3. The gameplay of the one and only... Natasha Romanov, and the entirety of Steve Rogers:

Right off the bat: IT. SUCKS. SHIT.

This was your shot in opening our mouths and showing why Black Widow BELONGS to the Avengers in the first place. Like, sure, storywise you proved the point, but gameplaywise... That's a different story.

Out of the bunch, Natasha feels the slowest, most clumsy and overall not too pleasant to play as. Mainly is because her attacks do... Nothing. The gun reloading is basically constant when I have to put it simply and it takes about 3-5 seconds for her to even reload; which can be a matter of life and death inside the game. Sure, she can make herself invisible; but that's like... It. It's not that it would be suffering when you are forced to play as Nat... But not a pleasant experience either.

On the other hand, maybe it's just me. I have friends who told me the same about her gameplay, but maybe there's someone who enjoys the Black Widow. It's my personal with the entirety of the gameplay.

Steve, on the other hand, isn't hard to play as. It's just fucking boring. At the start of the game, I couldn't wait to play as Steve's character. He seemed to be awesome - Jesus fuck, how could I be so wrong? As I said, he's incredibly boring and dry, his skills would do the same amount of work if they even weren't there. I think that Rogers is there just for the shock value (as a value that doesn't even work in the slightest) and nothing more.

As you learn to do the tricks and combos with them, it gets slightly better and skill tree and equipment upgrades can help almost unnoticeable... But really, Steve and Natasha are the absolute worst.

Now the reasons why the game convinced me it isn't a hot mess as I initially thought:

1. The characters, dynamics, chemistry and the overall story:

Sure, it is mainly a basic plotline, a cookie-cutter one, full of cliché - Avengers have to regroup after a traumatic event and you're the one who has to find them and bring them together.

Yet it is quite interesting; the game leads you to believe that Steve Rogers is dead after an event called the 'A-Day' (which you won't believe even if the game does the hardest to make you to, constantly remaining you that 'Oh boy, Cap died, did you know that?') and the Avengers had left to exile because they were considered as big bad for the people and the country. They have their emotional baggage and the banter between Banner and Stark (though it ends too soon), is just the thing that makes them human and relatable.

Even the villains are quite compelling; not like ultra super convincing, but the game can turn around when you least expect it to; which is definitely a huge plus.

The characters were done GOOD. The dialogues are full of personality and jokes you'd expect from each one of them; Banner is a wallflower cutie, Tony fishes for compliments all the time, Natasha is the big independent woman she always was and Thor? CHEF'S KISS, I swear. It hits the Shakespearean vibe perfectly and at the same time, he still is charming and quite funny to hang around.

Every time you can listen to a chit-chat between two characters, it is a great pleasure for you as a Marvel fan. Also, I need to say that regardless of my personal issue with the dub (regarding Tony and Bruce; since they're the people you spend most of your time with), the dialogues for these two characters are on point without a doubt. And I kinda grew fond of the in-game Bruce Banner throughout the course of the game, to be honest.

There are references, jokes, inside jokes, one-liners... The dialogue was done amazingly and that's a huge   T H A N K   Y O U  to the developers.

2. The mind-blowing gameplay of... Tony Stark and Thor and AI, while not being too bright, getting stronger as you do:

In what the Natasha gameplay lacks, these two give you exactly what would you expect and way, way more than you'd ask for. Again, it mainly reflects the personal gameplay preferences of the player; let me tell you why I think these gameplays are, in my opinion, the best.

a) Tony's gadgets and weaponry: The suit itself is bloody brilliant. Once you master the ability to attack and fly at the same time, you have the moments when you can not only feel like Iron Man - but really be Iron Man. It's not even that your gameplay would suddenly become 10x easier; it significantly becomes funnier.

b) Thor's heavy fist-to-fist and Mjolnir preferences: the Mjolnir is bloody brilliant as well. Thor's combat is mainly physically based, but when you want to throw the hammer around like the madman you are, you can suit yourself. You can use the lightning if you please and you can fly if this style of combat suits you. It's all in your hands. Thor can take quite a bit of damage, which is significantly supporting you in this style. If you accidentally drop Mjolnir? Well, call it back and smash them!

Also, regarding the AI... As I said, they're certainly not the brightest sparks in the flame; yet thanks to the power getting bigger as you level up and continue with your story and a huge variety of enemies - from turrets to flying men with flamethrowers. It is just button smasher, but a pleasing one in this regard, I must say.

3. The fanservice to comic book fans, movie fans and loyalty to the property:

As one IGN review once said... "This game makes you feel like Batman." And this game more or less accomplished it as well, but diluted and stripped down. Of course, in no way I can compare this to the masterpiece to the Arkham saga; these games are brilliant.

But there are moments when the game can just drag you inside the story and tell you: "You're Iron Man now, boss. It's in your hands." And it's there. I think the only issue was that the team of devs just took too big of a bite. I wouldn't mind stand-alone titles emerging into one and big Avengers game. That would be fun as well and I would spend my time with it gladly.

To end it: it's a mess, but a good mess you might like. If I was to rate it, would be 5.1/10 Wait until it is on sale, don't rush it. I'm overall disappointed and I most likely will forget I have ever played it.

can you tell me anything about session with a Rogue of Heart, Rogue of Space, Mage of Rage, Mage of Mind, Prince of Time, Bard of Blood, Knight of Heart, Maid of Doom and Sylph of Breath?? please we need help >W

I can go over what the session might be like (at least according to the most basic classpect level of things) but since it's a larger session I'll only go over some of the possible classpect match ups instead of every player's combination. You've also got me curious what you need this to help with, sure I can make an educated guess but It'd still be nice to know, but you also don't have to tell me if it's private or something.

Rogue of Heart - One who takes Heart or takes using Heart for others

Rogue of Space - One who takes Space or takes using Space for others

Mage of Rage - One who Knows Rage or knows through Rage through experience

Mage of Mind - One who Knows Mind or knows through Mind through experience

Prince of Time - One who destroys Time or destroys using Time

Bard of Blood - One who allows Blood to be destroyed or allows destruction through Blood

Knight of Heart - One who serves Heart or serves using Heart

Maid of Doom - One who encourages creation of Doom or encourages creation using Doom

Sylph of Breath - One who creates Breath or creates things using Breath

You've got a space player meaning you can breed the genesis frog. You have a time player meaning you can scratch the session. You've also got double rogues and double mages, as well as two heart players. Your session will be interesting without a doubt.

So you've got.... a real session here.  I'll try not to judge it too much until I look at the players individually than the possible match ups, but just glancing at the list of classpects together doesn't fill me with confidence.

A rogue of heart steals Identity, Sincerity, and Love for others. Able to balance out the sincerity and insincerity levels of the players to make for a more stable group. Can steal ghosts of players from different sessions to help you out. Depending on their personality might not be opposed to taking people's souls when they're still in their bodies.

A rogue of space steals Beginnings, Planetary Bodies, and Creativity for others. Good at relocating entire areas to other areas. Steals all of the good alchemy ideas. Might handle their frog breeding duties awkwardly at first due to their nature of giving away their aspect.

A mage of rage learns Anger, Harsh Truths, and Rebellion from experience. Able to blend into mobs and armies of dersites. Will probably be the first to learn most of the stupid facts that make up your session and it's problems. Constantly seeking negative energy is not good for mental health.

A mage of mind learns Law, Logic, and Thought Process from experience. Ask them for help when you're stuck on a puzzle the medium gives you. Knows what you're probably going to choose even before you do. Gets lost in thought way too often.

A prince of time destroys History, Events, and Fate. Erases dangerous mistakes and can keep you alive that way. Able to break your session to have a more desirable alpha timeline outcome. Keep them away from the ecto-biology lab, that's a place you don't want time broken around.

A bard of blood allows Bonds, Obligation, and Bloodshed to be destroyed. Exposes toxic relationships that would benefit both people being separated. Encourages players to experience more freedom by cutting ties. If they do their job too much could lead to complete non-co-operation of the team.

A knight of heart serves Individualism, Feelings, and Souls. Helps the other players stay true to themselves and is a strong defense against major personality shifting mechanics like grimdarking and murdermode. Protects the doomed timeline ghosts when possible against ghost double-deathing threats. Hope you like this knight since serving with themselves implies they're going to be cloned just as often if not more so than a typical time player.

A maid of doom encourages creation of Disaster, Hardship, and Limitations. Helps you alchemize the strongest weapons of your game. Pushes you to go through the toughest trials through fire that sburb has to offer, and possibly come through stronger for it. The best intentioned version of this player will still be indirectly responsible for the vast majority of doomed timelines of your session, and there will be lots of them.

A sylph of breath creates Choice, Freedom, and Flow. Basically will hack paradox space so that impossible decisions will suddenly be possible, mid to late game will make sure no player is backed into a corner. Progress in the session won't stay stuck for long with this player around, always pushing things forward around them. Escaping the laws of physics and paradox space too much can have severe consequences.

Between the rogue of heart and rogue of space, the steal class players of your session can basically steal entire other sessions. The rogue of heart co-ordnating with the prince of time could steal alternate time-line selves from the moments of time the prince destroys, like a miniature version of how a session's players might avoid scratch erasure. Your bard of blood would help the rogue of heart steal individuals away from a situation to focus more on themselves instead of the connection they have to another person (for better or worse).

The knight of heart would help the rogue of space be confident in themselves and know that they can be a good frog breeder instead of second guessing themselves. The potential ghost army for protection via the rogue of heart doesn't hurt either. Keep the maid of doom far away from your space player if you want the genesis frog to be healthy.

A natural connection would probably form between the mage of rage and the bard of blood as the result of the bard's work would create the kind of environment the mage of rage seeks out. The rage mage would also probably synergize well (or horribly depending on perspective) with the maid of doom, as they too would have a good amount of aspect overlap for the maid to want to push the mage towards creation of different dooms.

You'd have a good player connection between the mage of mind and the knight of heart, both of them supporting each other both in where they overlap as people and teaching each other about the other half of personality their aspect differs from the other. The mage of mind would either enjoy being around the sylph to try and learn as much about choice and it's consequences, or get very tired of how many variables the sylph introduces and the possible unpredictability.

Best to keep the bard of blood away from the prince of time, if they got too close the bard would allow the prince to destroy without restriction. A sylph of breath and prince of time combo could be effective in shattering typical timeline restrictions so that all of the players could move more freely through time. The mage of rage would be great at giving anchor points for the prince to follow, as long as they follow them through the timeline they're liable to find some ridiculous things going on.

Bard of blood would be best paired up with sylph of breath, as the combo of creating freedom by destroying old ties is possibly the healthiest outcome of the allowed destruction. You'd have a double edged synergy with the bard and the knight of heart, as combined they'd help you focus on yourself but at the expense of those around you.

Your rogue of heart would team up well with the knight of heart as they'd be able to help provide the knight with the aspect they use the most. The knight might end up being able to defend the alternate selves of players from the prince of time's timeline destruction, perfect for scratch survival. The slyph of breath would be able to super charge the knight's sense of agency.

The maid of doom and sylph of breath would have amazing synergy in making destructive storms like tornadoes and hurricanes. Under the maid's influence the prince of time might create some doomed timelines instead of destroying them, which would probably end up with the entire timeline being weaponized.

Rogue of space and sylph of breath working together would be great for sburb session cross overs and combining.

All together this session seems dependent on which players interact with the others and how. You'll either have a pretty powerful set of synchronizing players or a set of people who are lighting metaphorical dynamite all over the session. Not every interaction is huge power play or time bomb, but there's enough of both to make this a high risk/reward session.

Genesis frog breeding is a gamble. You've got some good support players helping the rogue of space but you've also got a handful of players that could be detrimental to the process. Two destruction classes and a passive creation player that creates... doom. The session could work, but it depends heavily on the player's full personality traits, how well they get together, and how they organize their interaction during questing.

Sword Characters in Smash: Unraveling the Hate

The Super Smash Bros. franchise has a plethora of fighters, especially in the latest release, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. With the announcement of more DLC fighters at E3 2019, most fans seem quite happy with the announcement of Banjo and Kazooie though many are quite split on the Hero from Dragon Quest joining the roster. Paired with all of the overjoyed and hyped reactions, there are plenty of people that are displeased, and I hear a common refrain from the mouths of those people: “Ugh, not another sword character.” For years now, I hear this repeated again and again, and the complaints only seem to get louder as time goes on. So I’d like to take the time to weigh both side of this argument here. Are sword-based fighters in Smash worth of all this hate, or are people over-reacting? The answer might surprise you.

From what I gather, there are about three common arguments against sword-based fighters. There are too many of them as-it-is, they all play the same, and they’re annoying to fight, dominating the tier lists. That last one is really the only one that I think has much merit, so let’s talk about that one first.

TOP TIER SWORDS

Throughout most of the Smash games, sword-based characters tend to be pretty good in the grand scheme of things. If not the best character, they’re still pretty high up there. Keep in mind, character viability is always going to be a subjective thing. That said, I can see why people would say sword characters are pretty good. They tend to be fast, they have great range, and because of that range, it can be hard for opponents to get in on them. Sword attacks have what you would call a “disjointed hitbox.” That is to say, their attacks have no hurtbox connected to them. So if, say, Donkey Kong throws out a punch and it collides with Lucina’s sword…DK will end up getting hurt while Lucina won’t feel a thing. This means sword attacks have a greater priority when attacks clash, sword characters largely avoid trading blows (on average anyway), and there are indeed a good amount of characters that can struggle when faced with a sword character.

Of course, that goes both ways. Sword characters have range on their side, but get past that range and they’re in trouble. Look at some of the better characters across the games and we see plenty of other characters facing off against sword characters. Fox, Inkling, Snake, Bayonetta, and so on, they all can take on the swordies, so it’s not like they’re an almighty match-up. And again, just because you have a hill to climb against a sword character, that doesn’t mean victory is impossible. I can totally understand not liking fighting against sword characters or not enjoying how they play, and at that point it’s just a preference. But I often don’t see people frame their dislike of sword characters like this, and instead they latch on to the two other narratives I illustrated above.

TOO MANY SWORDS

“We already have like fifty sword characters!” “Oh great, another Fire Emblem rep, cuz we needed twenty of them!” Hyperbole it may be, there seems to be a common argument that we already have “too many” sword characters in Smash and we don’t need any more. The way some people talk, the vast majority of the roster wields a sword. I was curious on the exact ratio, so I did some math.

Starting from the very first Smash game, Smash 64, we have a grand total of ONE sword character, Link, in a roster of 12. You get to Melee, and we gain Young Link, Marth and Roy, for a ratio of 4 to 26. Brawl, assuming we count Zero Suit Samus and Sheik as separate characters, has 37 characters, and only 6 sword-based fighters. We lost Roy and Young Link, though we gained Ike and Toon Link, alongside Pit and Meta Knight. Perhaps coincidentally, Meta Knight’s also considered to be so good as to be broken and low-and-behold, he has a sword. I hear murmurings of sword hate around this point, but it really doesn’t get into high gear until we get to Smash 4.

Alongside the returning six swordies, we gained eight more sword-based characters, with a grand total of 14 sword characters out of the game’s 58 character roster. So that’s Mii Swordfighter, Robin and Shulk in the base game, Roy returning as DLC, as well as Corrin and Cloud as DLC, alongside the “Echo Fighters” Lucina and Dark Pit. Those last two got quite a bit of hate, as they were seen as “wasted slots,” slightly altered versions of Marth and Pit, respectively. That nearly half of the DLC were sword characters wasn’t a fact lost on many. This is where the narrative really got into high gear and complaints started to flood in about there being too many sword-based characters. For all the complaints though, said characters are still just shy of being a fourth of the roster overall. Also keep in mind, Smash 4 introduced us to a LOT of newcomers that were quite unique. Wii Fit Trainer used Yoga, Villager used…anything it could get its hands on, the likes of Mega Man, Pac-Man, Ryu and Bayonetta got in with extremely faithful movesets, and yet people focus on the small handful of characters added in with a bladed weapon. It seems especially weird to hone in on Dark Pit and Lucina, as they were made full-fledged characters late into development, long after the roster was already decided, so it’s not like they were actively taking slots from some other requested character. Concerning the DLC fighters too, Roy was a fan-favorite that many wanted back, while Cloud was a popular fan request that many felt would never happen, and yet many people were hyped when he was revealed. But the hate persisted, and then we get to Smash Ultimate…

Since Ultimate has EVERY character that’s ever been in the series, we see all of the previous swordies back, even in cases where they’re kinda redundant like Young Link. Ganondorf finally gets to use a sword now, so I begrudgingly count him as a sword character, and I’m counting Joker as a swordy as well, even if it is a dagger. While we still don’t know the final two DLC fighters for the Fighters Pass, assuming they’re BOTH sword characters, and counting all the various Echoes as their own fighters, at most we’ll have a ratio of 21 sword characters to a staggering 80 total fighters. At this point I really have to question why people complain about a glut of sword characters, when you have nearly 60 other choices! Most fighting games don’t even have rosters half this large! Looking at all the newcomers for Ultimate too, there’s not a sword in sight until you get to the DLC. Incineroar is our first wrestling-themed fighter, Simon and Richter Belmont give us our first whip-users, while Ridley and King K. Rool are interesting twists on the heavy character archetype, and Inkling can be a kid OR a squid! Super unique overall…with the exception of Isabelle I suppose, but even then, she’s only the second fighter that uses and abuses hammer space, so she’s still contributing to a niche. Now, there IS Chrom as an Echo fighter of Roy, but again…it’s not like adding him in took substantial time and resources away from making sure we got some long-requested fighters that were made more-or-less from scratch.

(An image I’ve seen floating around on this topic gives a pretty good picture of the ratio, circa Smash 4 at least. Can’t seem to find it’s creator though!)

Overall I’d think that with the numbers all laid out, we can see that sword fighters only make up roughly a fourth of the roster on the whole, hardly a majority and plenty of other completely unique fighters available for people tired of clanging swords. So that leaves us with one other issue.

“THEY ALL GOT A COUNTER”

Behind the argument of there being too many swordies, the next most frequent argument I see is that they all “play the same,” and as such, people find them boring. To be fair, there ARE a fair amount of characters that are virtually identical. All the Links, and roughly half the Fire Emblem cast. At least in those cases, it does make sense. Every Link in all of his games uses a sword, and usually has bows and arrows, a boomerang and bombs, so I see no reason to get rid of those moves. Would I like them to be more distinct? Sure, but it makes sense why they play similarly.

When it comes to the Fire Emblem characters, there’s also at least some basis for similarities, from a development standpoint. Roy, and thus Chrom, as well as Lucina, were “bonus” characters added in due to either popularity or to promote a game, and made with Marth as a base to cut costs and make development deadlines. While, again, I’d rather all of them were completely distinct, they’re lucky to be in at all. For what it’s worth too, all of these examples DO have some differences between them, certainly more differences than, say, Peach vs. Daisy or Simon vs. Richter. Young Link’s speed gives him a totally different combo game than the other two Links, for one, whereas with Marth and Roy, they favor hitting from range, or from close-up respectively, with Lucina and Chrom serving as “easier” versions of each. It’s also not as if they can just give them different weapons either, as then their portrayals wouldn’t be faithful. Like it or not, the main characters of Fire Emblem games use swords, so you can’t fault the Smash games when they only have so much to work with. Overall, yes, there are a number of sword characters that are quite similar to each other, but there’s usually a reason behind it, and even then, that’s not to say there aren’t plenty of exceptions.

(via Smash Wiki)

From Brawl onward, it feels as if Sakurai and the developers tried to make any and all sword fighters as distinct as possible, almost like they saw this kind of complaint coming. Ike hits like an absolute truck, Robin and Hero are proficient mages alongside using swords (and have resource management systems to boot), while Corrin has their whole dragon shapeshifting thing going on. The list goes on when it comes to uniqueness to the swordies: Shulk’s Monado Arts, Cloud’s Limit Breaks, and Joker’s Persona...need I say more here? If people are calling all the sword characters clones of each other, then they’re just not paying attention.

Really, it seems more so that people have problems with all of the Fire Emblem reps than anything else. Smash 4 got some flak for giving us four characters from that series, while older franchises like Metroid or Donkey Kong gained no new representation. There’s honestly a weird blind-spot when it comes to people complaining about only certain swordies. Link gets a free pass for the most part (outside of people being annoyed that there’s a Toon Link AND a Young Link in Ultimate), and few complained when Cloud was added but with Shulk or Hero, everyone loses their minds. At times I’ve heard people say “Not another anime sword man,” in which there seems to be emphasis on the anime part of the equation. That tells me that perhaps it’s just a bias against anime, or overly Japanese characters than their weapon of choice. On top of this, the complaints mainly seem to come from Western fans, and with that in mind, the blind hate makes a bit more sense.

(via Reddit)

Up until Awakening, Fire Emblem was fairly niche outside of Japan, while it was rather popular in its native country. Then there’s the inclusion of Dragon Quest’s Hero, a series that is ridiculously popular in Japan, but never really got much play outside of it. It stands to reason that people would be more dismissive of characters from series they don’t have a long history with then, and would help explain why Cloud somehow escapes this unscathed. Final Fantasy VII is essentially THE JRPG that broke into the mainstream in the West, and the Persona series isn’t too far behind in popularity abroad, explaining Joker’s own hype reveal. But let’s go deeper here: the Zelda series is more popular in the West than in Japan, so Link being held in high regard makes sense. Now, am I generalizing a bit here, acting as if all Westerners think alike? Sure. There’s going to definitely be people that don’t subscribe to that notion, and there are certainly people happy to see Hero in Smash or Shulk or Chrom from the West. But this goes a long way towards explaining the somewhat inconsistent hate directed at these characters, and at this point, it feels less like hate and more like indifference or ignorance than anything else.

The Super Smash Bros. games are huge, filled with all kinds of fans, young and old, hardcore or casual. When you get that big, you’re not going to be able to please everyone, and I’m in no way suggesting with this post that people CAN’T dislike a certain character in the game. Everyone has their own tastes and reasons for thinking what they do, but I began writing this post as a way to try to figure out where this somewhat venomous reaction came from. Smash is a series I absolutely adore, and it saddens me to see negativity surrounding it in cases where it doesn’t seem just. It’s really more a case of ignorance than outright malice in most cases I think, and I think the majority of fans are really appreciative, with a small (if vocal) minority giving off the impression that we’re all ungrateful, when it’s simply not true. There will always be some bad apples that try to sour the bunch, but hopefully anyone that reads this comes away with a greater appreciation for what goes into these games, and maybe, just maybe, if the next big Smash reveal involves a sword, there’ll be just a bit less dismissal directed towards it.

-B

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: An In Depth Review

I recently finished Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I’ve got a lot of mixed thoughts on the game as a whole. I’m going to break these down in three ways and they’ll be of varying lengths. First I’ll discuss the Gameplay and its mechanics, then the game’s aesthetics, and then the game’s story and characters. I’ll give a general overview of each and then they will be broken down into Pros, Neutrals, and Cons. I’ve made it a point to try and avoid making references to direct spoilers, but there’s still a few in here, so bear that in mind. This is also by far the longest post I’ve ever made on tumblr, so buckle in. There’s sure to be a bit of overlap in each section, but I’ll try to stay focused. At the end of it all I’ll give overall closing thoughts. Alright, let’s start.

Gameplay:

Once fully realized to the player Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has a very enjoyable, flexible, and meaningfully expressive gameplay style, traits which are not often seen in combination with one another in JRPGs. The combat is fun, fluid, and has just a ton of customizability more or less from the moment you’re able to obtain blades. Racking up extremely large damage numbers is fun, trying out different gameplay styles is easy and satisfying, and the game maintains a good pace in terms of combat through the whole game. However, this isn’t without its drawbacks, the game has a few noteworthy bugs and mechanics that simply feel like afterthoughts. The game is also much much too slow in opening up to the player. The fact that I had a gameplay element introduced to me for the first time an hour before the final boss when it could have been present for almost a full third of the game is mind boggling as a decision. Overall, I consider the gameplay to be the strongest point of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 as in spite of its issues it’s a lot of fun, a real blast to play from start to finish in spite of its length. Pros: + Extremely customizable, any party member can be built to fit any role you need or want them to no matter how specific. + All of the game’s weapons are fun to use, with extremely satisfying hitsounds, animations, and gameplay differences. The fact they they control differently from character to character is also a great touch, allowing for further expression of each character’s strengths as some will naturally be a bit better or worse than others with certain weapons. + Expressiveness is a big part of this game’s combat, there’s no one correct way to play and the player is free to express themselves in a wide variety of battle strategies and styles, whether that be focusing on getting huge chain attacks, setting up combos that absolutely crush enemies but have tight timing, and exploiting weaknesses, there’s far more options as well and players are free to explore as many as they like. The game even encourages the player to try and cheese out enemies that give them trouble, with Blowdown and Knockback effects allowing players to knock enemies down from high places for huge damage or an outright kill. + Fun environments to explore with a reasonable amount of depth to them. The existence of field skills allows the game to make sure that most areas in the game give the player reason to come back to them for further exploration down the line. That said, the game’s environments are weaker than other Monolithsoft games having less depth and intrigue than either previous Chronicles game or Breath of the Wild, but they are enjoyable nonetheless. + With each Rare Blade having their own affinity chart to progress upon and unlock to make them stronger, the game has a good and consistent feeling of getting more powerful and progression even aside from the story. In my whole playthrough I only maxed out a couple Blades, but was always seeking out strengthening the ones I liked. + The player is free to use any combination of party members for the vast majority of the game, meaning if the player doesn’t like certain party members they are free to not use them anytime there are four or more party members available, which is most of the game. This includes the final boss fight, meaning players can play their way all the way to the end. + The game’s easier core mechanics mean that any combination of Blades, no matter how unfocused they may be thematically together, can clear any content the game throws at the player, meaning there’s never any pressure to simply play what’s best. Neutrals: [] While field skills allow the game to carefully piece content over time to the player to make sure they never get equipment too powerful or trip into enemies way beyond their depth (mostly), it also causes the game to lose a lot of the organic feeling of exploration both Xenoblade Chronicles and X had. Oftentimes I was excited that I had managed to find or get to a new area only for the game to effectively tell me to come back later which was always disappointing. This more rigid feeling was a negative for me, but could help players who are generally uncomfortable with open world/semi open world games’ lack of direction. [] While expressive and fun, the game’s core combat mechanics are deeply simplified from the previous two games. This makes the game as a whole much much easier. When paired with how quest experience works now it’s far too easy to get ahead of the game’s intended level. Regardless of even that the game’s strongest foe, a level 130 Boss, can be bested at level 75-80 out of a possible 99, which is a sad step down from the deep and complex postgame challenges the previous games offered players. Some players may find this easier gameplay preferable, while others might not.

[] The game opens up obscenely slow to the player. I am not exaggerating that in a 125 hour playthrough I had mechanics introduced to me at hour 100 and 124. Out of the game’s 10 chapters it takes almost half of the game to simply give the player access to the full set of basic mechanics, putting aside more niche or advanced ones. While this can help players often overwhelmed by deeper RPGs the rate is so slow that it could turn many players off, especially those who don’t like handholding. [] Almost every enemy in the game has about 20% too much health for their own good. It makes combat encounters near the middle of the game drag on much longer than they should, though early and late this isn’t an issue. Some players may not mind this but I often found it irritating. [] The load times are extremely fast across the board. While this can mean there’s a bit of pop in of the game finishing loading in textures for a bit after each load time between major locations I personally didn’t mind that. I consider the fast load times far more of a positive than the pop in is a bit of a negative, but I know some people might think differently.

Cons: - The existence of a Gachapon system in a singleplayer RPG is absolute inexcusable. 20/36 of the game’s playable Rare Blades, which form the core of the gameplay experience, are obtained randomly and there is no meaningful way to improve your ability to get them. In spite of the game’s claims that the Luck stat, Idea Stats (which are on a scale of 1-15), and Core Crystal rarity all affect the chances of getting Rare Blades, it never meaningfully mattered to me. There were at least a dozen times where I used a highest tier rarity Core Crystal, maxed out an idea stat for the type of Rare Blade I wanted, and had a good luck stat only to get a common blade with no point in being used. In my 125 hour run, in which I did a lot of the game’s optional content, I only obtained 18 of the 20 lottery based Rare Blades. While they came fairly easily for the first 10 or so, it slowed down severely after that, to the point where when only 3 are left I pulled well over 500 cores and only got one of the remaining Rare Blades I was missing. This is inexcusable and player unfriendly. The fact that there is no other way to obtain these Blades is obscene and frankly one of the worst parts of this game mechanically. - The above point, combined with the fact that the ability to reassign Blades to different party members is essentially limited to 3 for the average player means that if the player has consistently bad luck gettings Rare Blades that fit well on certain party members they may be stuck running strategies or layouts that they don’t find as fun or optimal. This is punishing the player for having bad luck, and is also pretty inexcusable. The Overdrive Protocol item should be rare, but not only 3 assured ones in a whole run rare. - The Salvaging, Cloud Sea Level, and Merc Mission mechanics are entirely unnecessary and only bog down the game. Salvaging is a way to make money quickly, but this game’s economy is so broken in favor of the player that there is no point in making use of salvaging except to obtain one Rare Blade which can only be gotten through it. Merc Missions meanwhile exist only to power up the blades Roc and Ursula, and is used by the Blade Wulfric to upgrade a field skill. They’re slow, require far too much menuing, and are not fun to do. All they are are busywork. Oftentimes the game will inject Merc Missions into the sidequests completely unnecessarily, which brings them to a grinding halt while you wait for an in game timer to countdown for anywhere between 5 and 30 minutes just to progress the sidequest you were on. This happens far too often and is entirely unnecessary and poorly designed. This is especially clear with the Rare Blade Ursula, whose entire progress is based on repeatedly performing 3 different merc missions literally dozens of times a piece, interrupting the player’s gameplay experience every 5-10 minutes ad infinitum if you wish to make her worth using. Given Urusla, Roc, and Wulfric are three of the game’s strongest blades it simply feels unfriendly for me to have to waste so much time on menuing busywork rather than exploration or combat to make them stronger. - For as tutorial heavy as the game is, there is no way to view tutorials after you’re shown them the one time which is frankly ridiculous because Xenoblade Chronicles 1 showed the player next to no tutorials but kept an entire booklet’s worth of them, including pictures, available from the menu at any time. - The lack of a bestiary is similarly weird and entirely a negative since Xenoblade Chronicles X had one, so it’s simply a step backwards to not have one this time. - The lack of an NPC affinity web means I as a player simply felt no need to talk to nearly any NPCs in this game. Most of their dialogue is pointless fluff anyway, since there was no mechanical incentive to relate the characters to others in the world like there was in the previous two games. Simply put there is no actual reason to talk to NPCs in this game, except ones that progress stories or sidequests, because the game doesn’t give you any reason to do so, nor does it meaningfully reward you with fun or interesting dialogue or lore. - The lack of a collectopedia, a staple of this series until now, negates the main reason for players to gather collectibles. Yes, they’re used elsewhere like in Pyra’s cooking or in refining Aux Cores, but those are largely extremely lenient and the player will likely never be without anyway. The existence of a collectopedia would go a long way to help this game’s collectibles actually feeling meaningful. - Rex is flat out broken compared to the other characters, I have not seen a main character in a game this poorly balanced since Robin in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Rex is not only objectively the best party member thanks to receiving an unnecessarily large number of special and unique traits, but by the end of the game using him is a crutch and I felt incentivized to not use him, not because I didn’t like him, but simply because he trivialized the gameplay experience. - Poppiswap is a very cute and fun idea in concept but horrifically executed to the point where there is simply no reason to ever use Tora over other party members, who do what he could do but better and with enormously less effort on the part of the player. - A few times I had Chain Attacks simply stop happening for no reason in the middle of choosing a move. This seemed to happen because a driver and blade got too far away from each other somehow, but the game should be able to account for and correct that. It’s a minor bug, but still extremely annoying when it came up. - I had the game straight up crash on me once. I’ve heard from other sources it happened to them more, but still keep that in mind and save fairly frequently. While this may seem like a lot more negatives than positives, I am entirely serious that the gameplay is overall much more good than bad and a lot of fun. The negatives are mostly just a lot of little things that are each worth noting rather than anything major individually, the Gachapon mechanic aside. Additionally, I praise the customizability of the game, but simply put the easier gameplay mechanics and customizability of each character feels more like compensating for the entirely luck based Gachapon mechanic than something meaningfully sought after. However, the end product is fun to play and for many that’s all that matters.

Aesthetics:

It’s no secret that this game’s visual style has come under fire and frankly I think it deserves that. This game’s very generic, moe adjacent anime art style is simply ugly to look at, and in spite of claims that it helps the characters be ‘expressive’ it entirely loses out on allowing the characters a more subtle and human level of expression present in the previous games. The characters faces often warp, unintentionally comedically, between expressions in very ugly and machinelike ways for instance. Even without getting into the nitty gritty of specific character designs being better or worse than others, the clash of Tetsuya Nomura’s fairly detailed characters who are stylized with a mix of realism and a more ‘anime’ look alongside characters like Rex and Pyra who simply look like they walked out of an anime like Love Live or Lucky Star is jarring to say the least, and it never gets better. On the other hand the game’s dubbing has come under fire for being low quality and feeling rushed, and while it is certainly not the best dub I have heard, a good many of the voice actors do very good work, though they aren’t all stars. However, the game’s sound design is simply amazing, while I personally don’t prefer this game’s soundtrack to the previous to it has some absolute stars and its sound effects for character’s attacks and special effects are similarly very good. Pros: + The soundtrack is astoundingly good, really it’s an absolute banger through and through with only a few weak tracks in the mix. This is to be expected of Monolithsoft, but they really delivered on this. + Particle effects are extremely good and diverse. Every single blade brings not only a unique body but also a unique combat aesthetic, with some like Dagas and Azami in particular being memorable and great to see in action. +The game’s animations in terms of its gameplay are very good. Monster, Humans, and Blades alike are all very expressive with diverse and meaningful movements that often convey not just an attack, but what its properties will have as well. It’s very addicting to see some of the bigger attack animations go off because of just how crisp and well done they are. + The environments are very beautiful, each area is completely unique from one another and they’re all pretty memorable, the only one I’d throw under the bus personally is Gormott for being a bit too generic grass world-y, but even it’s still very pretty. Really, all of this game’s environments and maps are very well realized visually. + Because of the clean particle effects and animations combat is conveyed very smoothly to the player, very little can catch you off guard and attack’s hitboxes are well sycned with their animations almost entirely across the board. Neutrals:

[] I would in fact say this game has more good and memorable character designs than bad ones, all things considered, it’s just that the bad ones are so unrepentantly bad that they massively overshadow what good ones there are. Designs like Mòrag, Zeke, Vandham, Roc, Brighid, Pandoria, and more are extremely memorable and fun designs but the fact that they share a stage with designs like Rex, Pyra, Zenobia, and Dahlia is an absolute shame. All memes and controversy aside there is simply no excusing character designs like Dahlia, not because this is a Nintendo game, but because she is visually repulsive to anyone with an iota of taste developed outside of the sphere of bad anime and fetish hentai. [] The camera in this game is very good and has a wide variety of options for players to make use of, however, it can still mess up and focus on the wrong thing during cinematic attacks or have simple clipping errors. This is minor and never bugged me, in fact it lead to some hilarious moments for me, but I know this could bother some people.

Cons: - Its aesthetics are unfocused. The visual design, sound design, and even its UI are oftentimes clashing and ugly. Comparing a game like this to one like Wind Waker like I have seen some do is frankly laughable. The reason Wind Waker has aged so immaculately is because of how focused and well realized its one single aesthetic is! This game cannot compare by any stretch of the imagination. - The english dub is held back by Rex, Pyra, and Malos being extremely weak, uninteresting, and poorly acted. In spite of being the main characters and the main villain we’re never given a good performance by any of them. They’re all boring and are by far some of the worst parts of the game’s dub. Other characters like Patroka stick out as well for never giving off the tone or emotion the situation calls for. Further, the dub is almost constantly out of sync with the character’s lips where this is not a problem with the previous games. It is clear this part of the game’s localization was rushed. However, all in all, many other dub voice actors are extremely good, but the fact that they are not the main characters means they are simply overshadowed by the poor performance of a few critical characters. Were Rex, Pyra, and Malos minor side characters this would not be a noteworthy negative, but it is definitely worth bringing up given they are who the plot revolves around for its entirety. - In terms of the game’s cutscenes, of which there are an overabundance, the character’s facial expressions often laughably jump from one expression to another when attempting to convey emotion. They also often move in a way I would more expect out of a PS2 era game, very stiffly and without any real weight. This is most noticeable when characters shift their head from one side to another or hang their head down in sadness, it’s robotic and unbelievable. Any alleged advantage this art style could have given in expressiveness and conveyance of emotion is entirely lost as many of the character’s featureless, blobby faces snap around in machinelike ways, making them come across more like automatons than actual people. This isn’t nearly as bad or prevalent with adult characters like Mòrag and Zeke, or anyone designed by Tetsuya Nomura, but it still crops up from time to time with them. However it’s nigh ever present with children or characters in the art style of Masatsugu Saito. Simply put, because of the poor animation and expresion the characters have this game lacks pathos in many cases. - It bears special mention that Rex’s voice actor is laughably bad at yelling or shouting. His attempts are screams made me laugh in moments that were meant to be serious and do not improve at all throughout the game. For how many screams he had to do you’d think he’d eventually get one out that was not worth making fun of but he just never hits the mark. - The game’s native sound balance is absolutely horrible. While the game does graciously allow for the player to customize it they shouldn’t be required to just to hear characters speak during cutscenes. - Including a combat narrator was a mistake and only detracts from one’s ability to become immersed in the game’s world and even its gameplay. Having a disembodied voice shout ‘Cool’ and ‘Blade Combo Level 3’ at you constantly is an extremely out of nowhere inclusion. Again, thankfully, the player is allowed to turn this feature off entirely but the fact of the matter is this Arcade Era feature has no place in a single player RPG in the year 2017. Simply put this game’s got a fairly large number of aesthetic issues, many more than I would expect out of any AAA game but especially out of Nintendo and Monolithsoft, though a lot of them simply come down to a lack of polish. Were this game delayed by 6 months to a year none of these besides the game’s primary art direction in regards to a few character designs would exist I bet. However, it’s clear this game was rushed to make it out within the Switch’s first year and it suffers for it. Compared to the polish of other major AAA games released this year, especially the absolutely immaculate Persona 5 which is the big JRPG this game needs to measure up to, this game is poorly realized aesthetically in basically every way except for its sound design which is a shame. Frankly, I expect better of Monolithsoft and this is unprecedented from them. When I can get more genuine emotion and investment and a better conveyance of real world expressions and movement out of the Wii era models in Xenoblade Chronicles than I can out of this game that’s a problem. I really, truly believe with another 6 months to a year of polish all around this game could have really had some great presentation but unfortunately right now that potential is held just out of reach.

Story, Writing, and Characters: I will say flatly and simply that this game’s story is by far the worst that Monolithsoft has ever produced. It’s boring, uninspired, hard to be invested in, poorly sequenced, and stars some of the absolute most plain jane characters I’ve ever seen in a major title. Extremely little is resolved in a meaningful way, the game is rife with cheap, C-List Shonen Anime tropes we’ve all seen a hundred times before, it’s cliched with no attempts at spicing itself up, simply put it’s bad and the only way to enjoy it is to not think about it or to somehow have not seen any of its tired tropes before. Even Xenoblade Chronicles X, for all of its story based shortcomings, presents a far better conflict and main protagonist than 2 could ever hope. That said, the writing is not all bad. Most of the game’s Heart to Hearts are lovely, they’re fun and great at developing the party members dynamics and them all as a cohesive unit. It’s a nice return to form more like Xenoblade Chronicles’ Heart to Hearts and a big improvement over Xenoblade X’s fairly barebones ones. The sidequests are mostly fairly mediocre however, which is sad given that’s something both previous games absolutely excelled at. I’ve mentioned Rex, Pyra, and Malos a few times in this review already, but it bears reiterating that they are all simply awful, uninspired, and boring characters and they are three of the biggest detriments this game has. Had this game starred Nia, Mòrag, or Zeke with Jin as its sole antagonist it would have been far better for it. More or less this game’s entire playable party aside from Rex and Pyra are strong, likeable characters, though all of the antagonists aside from Jin are transparent and laughable in their attempts to be taken seriously. With no depth at all and no development from any of them, how could anyone really care about this conflict? It’s truly a travesty because the world of Alrest is interesting and each of its Titans have enough intrigue and history and personality that I would have loved to have discovered more about them, however that’s not the case.

Pros: + Morag, Brighid, Nia, Dromarch, Poppi, Zeke, and Pandoria are consistently enjoyable characters which is good since you’ll see them all a lot. They are good enough to be worth pushing through this game’s otherwise generally horrible writing to see more of, because at least these characters are fun and interesting in the moment, and seeing them interact with one another in optional content is one of the best things this game has to offer outside of its core gameplay. + Heart to Hearts regain their depth from the first game and are almost all very fun and enjoyable. + Chapter 4 breaks away from the rest of the plot’s undeserved, overly self-serious, dreariness to present a more comical minor conflict that’s actually fun to follow and based reasonably in a conflict one can get invested in. Neutrals: [] Most of Chapter 3 is also quite good and revolves around Vandham, one of the best characters in the game, however the ending of the chapter is perhaps the single worst part of this entire game and I don’t say that lightly. The ending sequence of chapter 3 is a grand display of everything wrong with this game all in one extremely hard to get through sequence. [] The fact that some of the game’s writing issues could be solved with simple sequence changes shows there’s a bit more life to this plot than what one might think, but that’s not the product we received. [] Though perhaps not intentionally, Jin is an antagonist who is compelling because he is actually in the right of it compared to the main party for most of the game. However, his story arc is left completely unresolved and with almost all questions about him unanswered making one’s investment in him largely pointless. [] Many characters like Addam and Lora exist as set dressing for this world and are integral to the game’s story in some ways, but are ultimately fairly pointless as they are dropped without ceremony partway through the game with no resolution to their inclusion whatsoever. I wouldn’t even call this entirely a negative because at least the parts of the plot focusing on them in the past are far more gripping than anything happening in the present even though they are given to the player in fragments. [] Every single Rare Blade is given both a sidequest and a heart to heart dedicated to just them. While great in concept, the result is many of them just being weak or uninteresting. Most of the heart to hearts are good, but the vast majority of their side quests drag on too long, are poorly acted, and just don’t give a good look at the character in question anyway. It’s a very mixed bag.

Cons: - This is the case across the game’s map designs as well as its story elements, but all too often it simply does things to try and harken back to Xenoblade Chronicles 1. So many times I found myself thinking ‘Oh, just like in Xenoblade Chronicles’ while seeing things happen throughout this game. Rather than forge its own unique path and identity it merely takes beats from its predecessor, often sloppily and without realizing what made those things work in the first place. The result is a lot of flaccid attempts to seem cool or memorable that simply fall flat. - The game only takes time one or two times to develop Pyra and Rex one on one, together as a pair of partners and friends and elsewise relies on the player believing they have some unique, special, and immediately intimate relationship based simply on her being a Aegis and him being her Driver, something not present for any other Blade/Driver pairing nor for the other Aegis/Driver pairing in the game, rather than anything actually present in the game. The end result is them having no real chemistry for the entirety of the game, and then the player being expected to believe they’re in love at the very end out of nowhere in spite of them being little more than strangers in terms of how much they know about each other, even after this journey. Genuinely the player gets better chemistry and dynamics out of Nia and Zeke and Brighid and Tora, as well as several other sets of characters who are not the main focus of the plot. Each of these sets of characters have easily definable and fun dynamics between them, where Pyra and Rex are simply The Protagonist and The Nice Girl Who You Have To Protect. Even amongst the game’s heart to hearts, of which there are a great multitude and I performed several dozen, Rex and Pyra only get a single one that focuses primarily on them. Pyra has a stronger, more identifiable dynamic with Nia and Mòrag than she does with Rex and that’s pitiful. For comparison you frankly get a stronger dynamic between Shulk and Reyn or Elma and Lin in Xenoblade Chronicles and X within just a few hours than Pyra and Rex have all game, in spite of being the equivalent of those pairs. - In almost every single boss fight the game will interrupt the player’s progress to assault them with an unnecessary, overly long cutscene to explain why they’re actually losing this fight and every single one of them falls flat because of the horrible weakness of the villains and the corny, over the top shonen anime acting and set pieces. Once the phrase ‘My power allows me to move at the speed of light’ is genuinely and unironically used completely out of nowhere as an excuse for the player to lose even though you have at this point beaten this enemy before and if that isn’t by itself a display of bad writing I don’t know what is. Seriously, I cannot stress enough how much these story cutscenes during boss battles watch like shitty, bottom of the barrel anime rather than an actual video game. - The game’s attempts at humor almost universally are miss rather than hit, with three noteworthy exceptions being the Zeke Boss Fight segments in Uraya, Mor Ardain, and Leftheria. These moments were genuinely charming and got me to laugh, and really stuck out amongst the games otherwise poor attempts at comedy. The jokes almost all amount to ‘Haha, Anime am I right?’ with no substance and poor execution. Moments meant to be funny are often instead cringeworthy and make you want to turn the game off. - The game often kills off characters in a weak attempt at drama, attempting to add pathos to the story, however it only once gives you a reason to actually care about the character being killed. In that case, though, the character’s death is utterly pointless, and could easily have been avoided by the main protagonist simply using a power they had about 20 seconds sooner or a secondary protagonist using a power they had access to all the time, and simply didn’t use until two thirds of the way through. Every other death of a character falls entirely flat because the game simply offers no reason to care about the character who died, or because the character’s death is too sudden, or because the character's death resolves or advances nothing, or even because the character is plainly unlikable, and is often an excuse to avoid finishing character’s plotlines. This is best summarized in the fact that two characters exist in a single cutscene and bossfight and die by the end of it, though they are presented as significant for their brief existence. - In tandem with the previous point the game skips over a lot of very easy opportunities for meaningful character development in favor of nothing at all or conversations that ultimately aren’t significant. Two big examples that stick out to me are skipping Fan La Norne’s funeral and the Nightmare Sequences everyone experienced at the end besides Rex’s. - The story relies extremely heavily on the idea that withholding information from the player is a good way to generate interest and intrigue and the end result is a conflict that one cannot be invested in simply because they do not know anything that actually matters. Pyra, in spite of being introduced within the first hour of the game, has nothing of significance about her revealed to the player until the beginning of chapter 4, which will be between 25 and 40 hours later for a typical player. This means players have no actual ability to be invested in Pyra besides that she is who the player is playing as which is absolutely unacceptable. - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is far too transparent for its own good in the broad strokes, with every single major plot event being easily predictable from hours in advance. In spite of it going out of its way to tell the player next to nothing at any given time, the plot is still easily predictable. It is horrible at hiding information from the player meaningfully. Anybody who you think will be a villain will be. Anyone who you think will be a party member is one. Anything you expect to happen absolutely will, unless it’s the actually interesting stuff. While this may seem antithetical to the idea that it leaves the player knowing nothing important for most of its plot, it is merely a testament to how uninspired the story is that the plot can be guessed so easily in spite of trying to keep the player in the dark as much as possible. - The game sets up a myriad of plot elements that simply go nowhere or are never brought up again, like the Urayan/Ardanian politics and conflict. Even some extremely important questions such as ‘Why did Pyra still have a body rather than just being a core crystal’, ‘Who is Addam’ and other, opting instead to handwave off many things that actually could use explanation with ‘That’s just how it is’. One of the most glaring is the existence of the Artifices, which the player is simply expected to accept are things that exist when they have no reason to whatsoever until literally the last hour of the game. While the game has an extraordinarily long exposition dump right before the final boss to explain the world of Alrest in truth it does next to nothing to explain the finer details of how anything in the setting works, leaving the player to simply have to accept that’s just how it is. Truly a far cry from Xenoblade Chronicles 1 which gave the player the ability to intimately understand the history, characters, quirks, relations between races and individuals, politics, and more of its setting. - The game’s final two chapters rely entirely on the player having played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 to get any significant connection to the story at this point, which is out of nowhere given the rest of the game has no such connection. This alienates player who have not experienced the first game entirely, and leaves veteran players wishing these connections were meaningful. This is because the game’s connections to Xenoblade Chronicles 1 are entirely lip service and serve no point other than to reference Xenoblade Chronicles 1. Nothing about any of these plot elements are intrinsically related to that game, and could easily be substituted for original content to help the game’s consistency. - This is a nitpick but the game extremely often uses very particular phrasing to refer to things. “This is my True Primal Power.” is an example that sticks out to me even now, yet none of these phrases actually are meaningful, nor are they ever used again. They are attempts to baselessly sound cool in a very juvenile way and are pointless, cluttering the plot with buzzwords that are truly meaningless. I genuinely and truly cannot stress enough at how bad this game’s plot is. It’s easily one of the worst plots in any game I’ve actually completed before and that deeply and truly saddens me to say. I wish I had more good to say about this game’s plot, I really do, but there’s just not really anything good to say. Some of the characters really and truly are worth it though. I adore Mòrag and Zeke and their existences are really all that let me push through this game. At the end of all of this, I guess all I really have to say is that even though I had fun with Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Zeke and Mòrag and a few others are among my favorite characters in the franchise now, it has left me profoundly disappointed in a way no other game before has. Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is my absolute all time favorite video game, and although this game was not nearly as bad as I was worried it might be it still was far worse than I had hoped it would have been. Having beaten the game and feeling the way I do now I feel that giving it a numerical score feels too cheap. If really pressed for one I might give this game like a 2 or 3 at best on a 10 point scale but that is far too simplified compared to how I feel. Nonetheless, I do have hope that the DLC campaign slated for fall 2018 is good. I think this game still has a spark of life and potential in it, and maybe that DLC campaign can deliver and make all of this worthwhile, but until then I cannot in my right mind recommend Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to anyone. To be a bit rude, the new anime art style this game has taken is deeply indicative of its quality. If you like shitty anime games like Senran Kagura, Disgaea, or Nitro+ Blasterz maybe this game will have something for you, but if you’re actually discerning in the quality of media you consume do not bother. Anyone calling this game a masterpiece is fooling themselves and committing a deep disservice to games actually deserving that title.

Trials of Fire has that Slay the Spire magic • Eurogamer.net

We’re taking Rezzed online over the next few days, presenting sessions and bringing you highlights of what’s new and interesting in the world of independent games. You can find more details on exactly what’s going on over here, and we’ll be bringing you more write-ups over the coming days.

Yes finally! I found and killed the god, but it was a bloody close-run thing. Two of my fighters went down and the third, the only one left, wasn’t far off joining them. One basic slice attack did it, with only a sliver of health remaining. Glory was mine, victory against all odds.

Yeah OK Bertie don’t get too carried away, you’ve hardly finished the game have you?

He’s right, my other voice: I haven’t finished the game. I’ve only really just begun. Trials of Fire is designed to be played over and over, like Slay the Spire, each time gradually unlocking and understanding more. My victory rewarded me with a new hero to use next time, and I earned soul levels I don’t understand yet. Now, I pick another quest and jump back in, the world procedurally generating around me.

Not a broken leg! That’s all I need.

Trials of Fire is part deck-building, part RPG, part storybook, and you get one life to see how far you can make it. It’s the work of teeny tiny UK studio Whatboy Games, which was created a couple of years ago by former Rocksteady (Batman) duo Adam Doherty and Dax Ginn. Trials of Fire has been on Steam Early Access since May 2019, and will be released later this year on PC, with tablets and consoles to follow in 2021.

It works like this. You pick a team of three (you only have three at the beginning), adjust their loadouts and choose a quest to take them on. This all plays out in a big book. When you’re exploring, you are a cut-out bobbing around a scruffy map, investigating points of interest. When you get to one, the page turns and words describe what’s going on. Maybe you’ve bumped into some ratlings with human slaves. What will you do? Help set the humans free, trade with the ratlings, or walk away?

Pressurising your decision are a few things. Food is a big concern. It depletes as you explore and if you reach starving, you’ll begin taking damage, and as heroes don’t have a lot of health to begin with – between 12-15 points – this represents a significant loss. Perhaps you could trade to get more food, perhaps you could kill them and steal it, but combat should never be entered into lightly because everything in Trials of Fire is tough.

Ooh those rascally ratlings.

When you enter combat, the pages of the book turn again and a lovely animation pops up to become a ruin or a cave or whatever setting you’re fighting in. Your characters and enemies are represented by tokens on a hexagonal grid, and everything you do is governed by cards. What cards you have depends on your abilities you choose as you level up and the equipment you wear, a nice touch. Green items have one ability, blues have two, and orange legendaries have three. They’re very fancy.

Cards are played by spending willpower, a resource shared among your team, and you don’t get any willpower for free. Earning it means either recycling cards (discarding them) or playing a buff card, of which there are many types. The most common earn you willpower each round but there are cards which grant willpower on hit, or amass a bulk amount in one go. They, however, are costly in their own right. Managing your willpower gain is crucial.

You might want to recycle your warrior’s three-card hand because you aren’t in melee range, for example, and use your hunter’s abilities instead, but do you buff your hunter for the next round or opt for damage now? Can you afford to wait? Wait too long and their melee attackers will be on you, and if they surround you, you could be in trouble.

Any enemies touching your hexagonal space can get a free combo hit whenever their friend hits you, which means ratling soldiers, however unspectacular they are, can relentlessly chip away at your health while also being hard to kill. Underestimate them at your peril! I did.

Movement becomes a key factor, then, and all classes have abilities for it – some can even fly. You can immobilise enemies, and they you, as well as reel them in and push them away. You can dash forward, hit and run – there are endless possibilities. But will you pull the cards you need at the right time? As in any deck-building game, the draw doesn’t always go your way, and so there are card-draw abilities to mitigate against luck.

What I’m trying to do is give you a glimpse of the enormous tactical depth underneath the rather scruffy exterior of Trials of Fire, and I haven’t even mentioned pet summons or spells, which can do all manner of mischievous things. There’s a gravity well which pulls characters together from a large distance, setting them up wonderfully for a fireball spell of some kind, or a bolt which will go straight through them in a line.

I haven’t mentioned tiredness either – another consideration while exploring. Fight while tired and you will suffer in the battle.

In short, Trials of Fire is a game about concentration. I’ve learnt that being careful pays dividends. Get sloppy and you will come unstuck. A broken leg (on my character, not me – that would be one brutal game!) taught me not to take on every storybook feat dangled before me, and a dead party taught me not to intervene in everyone’s hard luck. Pick your battles and prepare for them.

So here I am, flush with the confidence of beating a campaign on my third try, and this time when I go back in, I do so understanding a bit more and having a bit more to play with. Let’s see how far I get. I cannot pull myself away.

Beat that! I’ll regret saying that, won’t I?

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/03/trials-of-fire-has-that-slay-the-spire-magic-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trials-of-fire-has-that-slay-the-spire-magic-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

With the Nintendo Switch, you can take Geralt on the go.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a beefy action-RPG with a massive world packed with tons of quests to complete and a variety of complex mechanics to wrap your head around. If you’re picking up the game for the first time on Nintendo Switch, then don’t worry if you feel a bit lost during the game’s opening hours. Properly playing this game is no easy feat.

To help you better grasp how to play The Witcher 3, we’ve gathered essential wisdom and tips about the game’s most significant systems. Below you can find advice about combat, crafting, leveling up, and more. To better track down your desired subject of interest, click from the table of contents below.

Table of Contents

How to Ensure You Get The Best Story Experience

Choosing The Right Difficulty

A Witcher’s Swords

Breaking Down Signs

Alchemy 101: Potions, Decoctions, And Weapon Oils

Pursue Monster Contracts: The Game’s Best Quests

How To Make The Most Of Skill Trees

For more about The Witcher 3, be sure to read our story explainer, which details everything you need to know about the events leading up to the game before jumping in. If you’re curious about how the game stacks up on Switch, then be on the lookout for our full review in the coming days.

Are you playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for the first time on Nintendo Switch? What are your initial thoughts so far? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Ensure You Get The Best Story Experience

In The Witcher 3, you will meet a ton of characters, undertake dozens of quests, fight a wide range of monsters, and collect new equipment as you level up. One of the biggest draws to The Witcher 3 is its intricate branching narrative. Throughout your adventure, you will make dozens, if not hundreds, of choices, both big and small. Many of these decisions have unforeseeable, far-reaching consequences.

But keep in mind, there is no right or wrong and good or evil in this world. You might think you’re doing the right thing, but 20 hours later, your decision could come back to haunt you. Sure there are better outcomes and endings, but rarely will you walk away thinking you made the best decision under the constant difficult circumstances you're thrown in.

Our most significant piece of advice for those who want a positive ending is to do all the sidequests that relate to critical characters. If you ignore your friends in their time of need, you could be locked out of essential subplots, they may not come to your aid when you need them, and frankly, you’ll be missing some of the game’s best writing.

Choosing The Right Difficulty

When it comes to combat difficulty, we typically tell newcomers that what you get is what you put into it. If you play on an easier difficulty, you can get by with just your swords. But after thirty hours of swinging your swords around, things might start to feel dull or repetitive.

Unless you just want the story and breeze past everything else, we highly recommend playing on the Blood and Broken Bones difficulty. It’s not the hardest difficulty, but it can be quite challenging at times, especially if you aren’t utilizing Geralt’s full set of tools and skills. The most satisfying part of combat is preparing for different fights and finding ways to exploit a monster's weakness. If you play on Sword and Story, you are missing out on a massive part of what makes the game's combat special.

A Witcher’s Swords

When you aren’t making decisions or chatting up NPCs, you’ll be getting into fights. Geralt has two swords on his back to fight enemies with: one silver and one steel. The silver sword is for monsters, and the steel sword is for the real monsters, humans.

Most of the time, Geralt will automatically pull out the correct sword for the encounter, but make a mental note of which sword is what, so you’re not trying to attack a foe with the wrong one. As a reference, the one on the right is his silver sword and the one on the left is his steel sword.

Geralt's swords are your primary means of consistently damaging enemies head-on, so take time to practice and understand how their combos work, as well as how long it takes to dodge or roll out of any given swing.

Breaking Down Signs

Aside from Geralt’s swords and other offensive consumables, his most essential tools in combat are his five spells called Signs. In fact, you will probably use them more often than your swords. Below we detail what each Sign does:

Aard: A spell that fires off a powerful blast of air

Igni: A spell that lets Geralt shoot fire from his hands

Quen: A spell that protects Geralt with a magical shield

Ydren: A spell that stuns or traps enemies

Axii: A spell that temporarily makes its target more impressionable

Aard and Igni are reasonably straight forward. Aard can stun enemies, and Igni can set them ablaze. These signs are perfect for crowd control, but early on, they aren’t super effective. On the other hand, Quen is a solid opener for any fight, as it can protect you from incoming hits, big or small. It's worth noting that if it’s a big hit, Geralt might get knocked to the ground, though he won’t sustain any damage. Quen is an excellent spell for beginners who decide to play on harder difficulties because it'll protect you in critical moments.

Ydren has specific uses, but chances are you probably won’t need it all that often. Only a handful of monsters are weak to it, such as wraiths.

Finally, Axii can stun an enemy for a short time. If you use it on a human, they will stand still momentarily in a daze. It's worth mentioning that Axii is the only sign that you can use outside of combat. If you see this symbol next to a dialogue option, it means that Geralt is going to try to brainwash the person he’s talking to.

As you level up, you can invest in Geralt’s signs to unlock alternate versions of them. For example, if you invest in Quen, Geralt can cast a force field that not only protects him but regenerates his health with each hit an enemy lands. This sign is handy as it offers a great way to conserve healing resources.

Alchemy 101: Potions, Decoctions, And Weapon Oils

Swords and Signs are only half of a Witcher’s tools. They’re also fantastic alchemists, being able to craft a variety of temporary stat-boosting consumables, such as potions, decoctions, and weapon oil.

To make these valuable items, you’ll want to loot all the ingredients you can. Geralt’s invisible backpack holds an almost infinite amount of ingredients, so there’s no harm in looting every monster, corpse, barrel, chest, and plant. However, you can’t just craft anything from the get-go. You will need to find recipes scattered throughout the world first.

The beauty of potions, decoctions, and weapon oils is that if Geralt has alcohol in his inventory, they’ll all be replenished every time he meditates. You only ever need to craft these items from the crafting menu once. Below you can find more details about potions, decoctions, and weapon oils.

Potions

Potions are temporary physical buffs to Geralt. Two of the most well-known Witcher potions are Lighting, a potion that increases Geralt’s strength, and Swallow, a potion that heals Geralt over time. The game does an excellent job of making sure you get both of these potions early on, but we recommend crafting Swallow as soon as possible as it’s the most reliable way to heal Geralt in a pinch. Be mindful that Witcher potions are incredibly toxic, and Geralt can only handle consuming a few before he gets sick, which can prove fatal.

Decoctions

Decoctions are more potent potions. They require rarer ingredients and only hold one charge instead of the standard potion’s three. They also last much longer and are far more toxic than Geralt’s standard potions.

Weapon Oils

Weapon oils can be applied to Geralt’s swords to give him a damage boost against certain types of enemies. If you are having trouble with any monster, check the bestiary for the specific oil that's most effective against it.

Pursue Monster Contracts: The Game’s Best Quests

Once you are familiar with most of Geralt’s weapons and tools, it’ll be time to fight some monsters. In the Witcher 3, there are main quests, side quests, and the most rewarding of them all, monster contracts. Monster contracts don’t affect the main story, but they are a fantastic way to earn money and fight some of the game’s coolest bosses. Better yet, most of these missions are elegantly simple. More often than not, these quests have exciting characters and neat twists that are worth experiencing.

Most monster contracts are structured similarly. You’ll start by meeting the person who posted the contract, interview any victims and witnesses, track down the monster, and then fight it. If you take our advice and play on a harder difficulty, then these fights can be tough. Check your bestiary, craft the necessary oils and potions, and equip the right weapons. Most of these quests are more complex and morally ambiguous than their simplistic premises sound, so if the initial quest hook sounds interesting, chances are it won’t disappoint you.

How To Make The Most Of Skill Trees

As you complete quests and kill enemies, Geralt will level up and earn ability points. You can invest your ability points into four different skill trees: Combat, Signs, Alchemy, and General. The catch is that you can only activate a few of these skills at once. In the “Character” menu, you can see your skill trees to the right and your active skills, or mutations, on the left. When you start, you will only have a few slots unlocked, so you’ll need to pick your mutations wisely.

At first glance, a lot of these abilities, perks, and mutations may seem inconsequential. Many of them only offer a small percentage of bonuses and slight buffs. However, there is a bit of strategy in picking your mutations that can strengthen them significantly. First, you’ll want each group of active mutations to match, which means that you'll want to keep all your combat perks in the same quadrant. If you have three red combat perks in the same section, all the abilities in that section will be strengthened. It may seem like a lot at first, but the most important thing to remember is to match colors.

One final thing worth pointing out is that general perks and mutations don’t get a buff if you match them together. We recommend investing in a few of these early on, but when you start to unlock more mutation slots, it’s best to ignore this skill tree altogether.

from GameSpot - All Content https://ift.tt/2pkFPmX

Mortal Kombat 11 Review

The sands of time have come loose with the release of WB Games and NetherRealm Studios’ Mortal Kombat 11. Featuring characters both old and new and paired with a heaping helping of the ol’ ultraviolence, should you come over here?

Mortal Kombat 11 Review

Those who have played a fighter, much less a Mortal Kombat game, will be right at home with the engine powering this title. Players are given two punches and two kicks, and mechanics like blocking, cancels, hops, and throws are all present and accounted for. Charge attacks and more complex movements are the norm, along with multi-hit “kombos” and EX-style amplified attacks that dish out additional damage. Every attack has weight to it, and though less experienced players will feel like the game is rigid, those who have studied under Kotal Kahn will be able to perform some impressive feats of brutality.

There are a few wrinkles to the game to spice things up though. Returning from Mortal Kombat X and the Injustice series is the ability to interact with the environment. With a press of a button at the right spot, players can utilize objects and bits of scenery for additional damage. This is largely inoffensive, though the potential to ban stages due to this in the professional circuit is most certainly there.

New to the game is the comeback “Fatal Blow” mechanic. With it, players can dish out a “Super” like combo when their health is down to a certain amount. They’re certainly flashy and deal out a fair amount of damage, but they are a bit too easy to pull off and can serve as a crutch in lieu of more adept play. It’s not a deal breaker, but its inclusion isn’t exactly flawless.

Those that jump into Mortal Kombat 11 may very well be intimidated at the amount of minutiae the game throws at the player. Those looking to brush up on fundamentals can check out the robust Tutorial Mode, Practice, and Fatality Training Modes available at the offset. The ability to jump in to a one-on-one fight or hold a Tournament is there, as is the ability to have the AI battle itself. Online functionality is present and accounted for, with both Versus and King of the Hill, along with a “Kompetitive Mode” and Ranked Sets for those looking for it. Matches are also relatively lag free for the most part.

True to series form, those traveling solo will have a lot to keep themselves occupied. Story Mode makes its return, though the execution here is a bit of a mixed bag. Focusing on the Keeper of Time Kronika and her quest for a New Era, players will come across a number of characters from the series’ rich history as they fight their way through a number of different predicaments. It’s certainly big budget, with graphics that utilize HDR and cutscenes that go on for minutes at a time. However, dialog is laughably bad, with gems like “you lose as fast as you run” and “an old man just kicked your ass” peppering the script. Battles tend to get repetitive as well, with a number of mirror matches dragging things out that tie into the story. It certainly has the fanservice down to a science, but those looking for something of substance amongst its shlock may be disappointed throughout its surprisingly robust runtime.

The series trademark Klassic Towers make their return in Mortal Kombat 11. In it, players choose from a number of different difficulty levels, which also corresponds to how many fights they will come across. There’s a decent amount to choose from, with battles ranging from five bouts to an endless amount. The use of “Konsumables” means that those who grind will ultimately come out ahead. Nevertheless, this is a welcome addition, and the Towers of Time variation features modifiers to keep things fresh.

Those that jump into the “Krypt” will be able to explore an island littered with artifacts. In it, players will be able to open chests-a-plenty by spending Koins (which can be earned for most activities), Soul Fragments (which can be earned by winning matches), and Hearts (which can be earned by doing Fatalities and Brutalities). Consider this akin to a free-roaming system with loot boxes, where players can unlock random Fatalities, augments, icons, taunts, skins, character art, and other goodies. Players can also transmute items with the Forge if they so choose, leading to even more possibilities. If you’ve got a gambling spirit it’s worth a go, but most will tire of hoarding currency before having enough to unlock everything.

Those who’d rather open up their wallets can stock up on Time Krystals. The game offers a pittance of them if you’re looking to earn them through play, but they can also conveniently be yours in packs starting at $4.99. Outside of Konsumables like Easy Fatalities and two DLC characters (one of which can be unlocked via the Story Mode), most of the items in the storefront can be safely ignored. It takes time to get this stuff through play, but most of the game is accessible without paying a cent.

Those that can turn a blind eye to Mortal Kombat 11’s grind will have a good time turning their opponent into meaty bits. The core fighting engine powering this title isn’t drastically different compared to previous entries, but there’s no point in fixing what isn’t broken.

This review of Mortal Kombat 11 was done on the PlayStation 4. A digital code was provided by the publisher.

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MEA liveblog #8

I finished it! I’m free!

Multiplayer

Hell yeah level 9/10 rank I asari adept -- full extraction and top score on a silver APEX mission with bonus to combos! Against outlaws, but still. And I got an outlaw badge for it!

Yoo, two human female vanguard cards! And my Charger is now at X!

Looked up my statistics:

Dialogue:

Interrupts: 11

Casual: 151

Emotional: 187

Logical: 206

Professional: 187

Kills:

Kett: 983

Outlaws: 857

Remnant: 520

Wildlife: 377

Holy shit, the Pathfinder killed almost as many former Initiative members as the Initiative's enemies...

Melee: 276

Assault rifle: 60

Pistol: 135

Shotgun: 100

Sniper rifle: 59

Biotic: 679

Combat? Force?: 0

Tech: 316

Jump: 5

Construct: 35 (wow)

Combos: 777

Hello patch 1.05

Why did they remove the priming icon from Throw? Does it not prime anymore?! 

Good news: Throw still primes. Idk why they removed the button. Like misinforming their players?

Bad news: the game is super laggy. Did I set my graphics too high?

The fusion mod perk is still broken!

No, I don't have a new email, SAM! I got one from Peebee, very cute but referring to I don't know what.

Multiplayer

Kroguard level 7/rank I successfully extracted from Silver!

Maxed out Avenger and Katana, goodbyeeeee

Singleplayer

Fuck, I opened all my reward boxes and then realized the game loaded the autosave with the still-bugged fusion mod support :( Goodbye all my rewards ughh

I lowered the graphics to default but the game still keeps stuttering... I don't understand

Peebee on Voeld: "I should have dressed warmer" Sigh, once again game writers blame their sexist costume designs on female characters who have to wear them...

Finally I got to hear PB&J's conversations about asari reproduction myself...

SAM asked me about my romance and I picked the sappy option because it was the safest...

Journey to Meridian

I don't like how the patch changed my Ryder's face. The lips are too narrow and round now.

Damn, I should have taken Jaal. I knew the spoiler though. Want to know what from? A freaking side romance video I clicked because I was sure something so inconsequential wouldn't have spoilers. Ha!

Peebee says something like "They created life but the Archon wants to destroy it!!" in the most melodramatic tone. Ugh! The tendency to say overly sweet things like this is the worst part of her character.

Ha, screw you ascendant! I'm a bit offended that my rifle doesn't one-shot his orb. Ah well, I'm not wearing any weapon damage bonuses...

Oh, a Destroyer and a Fiend are fighting each other? Good, I'm not going to get involved.

The Destroyer won and came for us but had the decency to open up its chest as it turned to face us lol

I'm overusing Bio-converter + Life Support like hell on this mission lol... Too many bosses

lol nullifiers im not scared of you

Why is my mouth so small! It's bothering me.

Tempest

Lexi doesn't want to talk to me lol. Can't interact with her

Jaal's door is closed, I knew he'd have a lot to say

Well this conversation was saccharine. Jaal are you a positivity machine?!

Don't you "love" how you can go through the entire game not knowing that Gil is gay?! There's even a dialogue option about him "loving" Jill! This entire dialogue tree is a mess. At least everyone on tumblr has ranted about that so I don't have a lot to add. But even if you (try to) set the homophobia aside it's a mess. He talks about fathering a friend's child and you can't even be surprised because usually only romantic couples start families? And you can't even disapprove really, the most negative thing is "it's crazy" said in an awed, surprised tone of voice.

Cora I took you to Meridian and you have nothing to say?

More forum threads! And a shitload of emails!

Aw, Liam is such a good vivid character -- both the conversation and the email are great. I love his email attachments. I mean I'm still angry at him about the stupid, irresponsible, dangerous shit he did in his personal storyline, but he's definitely the most engaging of the male starter companions in ME.

Here's the Movie Night continuation, I was starting to worry it was broken...

The ship's doctor asks me to buy some booze on the Citad--the Nexus, why does it sound so familiar

Let's appreciate the fact that the "golden worlds" are not just inhabited -- they were created for someone other than us! The Initiative has even fewer rights to them than initially thought.

I'm glad Bioware sped up the galaxy map (not surprising after that kind of outrage) but the stupid and vertigo-inducing camera turns and pans are still there.

Btw I preferred my own more abstract interpretation of the Scourge as the Chaos to the Remnant's Order. Now they look even more mundane. As if the mystery and awe didn't already evaporate after about the second vault because they're all the same thing with slightly different puzzles!

Nexus

What?! I don't get to actually play with Drack, Kesh and Vorn?! What's the point then?

Keri where are you? I can hear your voice but it's coming from nowhere.

Oh my god I can see Kandros's purple tongue through the hole between his jaws(?)

Tempest

Well at least I could get Gil a date!

Am I like... supposed to give a shit about Jaal? I mean Ryder is getting all emotional no matter what I choose and I'm sitting here like "idc". And I don't want to bash such a nice person, it feels mean to dislike someone for doing nothing wrong, but that's the problem, he's so bland. From the promotional videos I assumed that Peebee would be the irritating designated best friend/love interest like Liara, but it's mostly Jaal.

Tempest again -- after a week-long break

Why couldn't Bioware add a "take all rewards" button? Why do I have to spend 10 minutes clicking “space”?

Ah yes, Bioware's trademark mashing naked dolls together! When Peebee's eyes flashed black it was pretty creepy.

Movie Night requires one more step... After the main mission, then.

Great, another galaxy map fetch quest -_-

Yoo finally the point of no return!

The final mission

Fine, I'll take you Jaal for plot relevance, though I'll probably miss Cora's Shield Boost...

Playing as my twin is cool, but why is he underpowered? Trying to kill a single mook with no powers and that tiny pistol was torture...

Where's Peebee? On the bridge?

Why open the equipment screen but not let me change the squad? It made sense to take the Science Team PB&J to the Meridian, but not to take back an ark! It makes no sense! I'm on my ship with everyone, but can't choose a new team?

Ah, so it was a romantic goodbye with the LI, and I didn't have to choose the "schmaltzy" version to make it more personal? Damn.

Ughh, so much lag... It's not fun to fight when fps falls below 10 sometimes.

The final fight is so badly designed. Apparently I have to hold ground at the quest marker position, but it's not explained clearly, and the circle doesn't appear until you're almost done. I jumped into the abyss several times because the quest marker was hanging over it.

Ah yes, Meridian, home for the humanity. Despite the fact it was clearly built for the Angara... Ugh!!

I don't get it. We're selecting a representative of whom? The entire cluster? The Nexus? It's bullshit.

Oh, this wheel is confusing. So each candidate is assigned to a "tone", when I first click it it's a question, if I click for the second time it confirms the selection. 

Hmm, my first choice was the Moshae, but maybe Morda?

Went with the Moshae. Thankfully, Ryder said exactly what I wanted to say! Haha, Addison: "That's the point, you colonial wad"

This human woman got a name from Quarian godparents?? That's a thing? Okay.

I don't understand how Ryder could use the Remnant without SAM. Has SAM changed her brain enough that it's now superhuman even without SAM's active involvement?

Oooh, interesting email. I haven't thought of angaran reincarnation as a designed feature to carry extra information in DNA. So they can be genetic hard drives -- again, like the kett? This has got to mean something. And angara "remembering" how to use the Meridian, or being sleeper agents? I demand a big storyline in the sequel about this!

Um. Using the Remnant involves not just a connection, but moving your consciousness into them? Okaaaay. That doesn't sound ominous at all. This entire terminal is like a sequel teaser...

Yeah Jaal, I can't stop joking because everyone is being so sugary sweet and I can't bear it anymore

The Moshae doesn't sound too excited about her new job... :(

The Quarian-Volus-Elcor-Hanar arc! Yoo! Sequel or DLC?

"Seeing you in cahoots makes me all misty" I don't know which is worse, the line itself or the delivery...

Aw, the science team are all in the same lab! ...With the dancers. What?

Tempest

Peebee sent an email saying she wants to explore the galaxy "with or without me". Aw.

Okay, I'm tired, let's leave The World is Waiting and Movie Night for tomorrow.

Watched alternate dialogue choices on Youtube.

I chose the casual option to rally the fleet, but logical is good too. But I think that after watching her brother being kidnapped and tortured, Ryder doesn't have the patience to be inspirational...

The emotional option as you walk out victorious is addressed to your LI! And Peebee's reply made me laugh and clap: "And now they all know you're mine!" And they walk away hand in hand. Aw.

Can’t find logical and professional options for the goodbye with Peebee before the final mission :( Not a fan of emotional and casual.

Oh. I thought Habitat-7 would have something more than one cutscene...

My edition of the Movie Night glitch: Ryder was simply invisible. Peebee was embracing thin air. So much for romance.

The funniest thing, tbh, was that Ryder leveled up when the scene ended.

Aaaaand now I'm free! 92%, 97,5 hours. I still have some sidequests to do, but let's leave them until later.  

4/18/17 6:36am - changes

God DAYUM it’s fucking gorgeous outside right now. I could get ussssed to this.

So obviously I didn’t find time to catch up while I was at Dar’s this weekend. Ended up grinding another like 15 hours of BOTW and got a fuckton of sleep and ate a quart of ice cream. it was spectacular.

General update - Dieting had a relapse this weekend for easter, but I hit another benchmark when I weighed in on Friday. 139.8! Finallllly cracked that mark. Gained back up to 144.8 this weekend but that’s just food weight. I’m fucking pumped! Only gotta get down to like 135 and then I can gain back up to where I am now and it’ll be fucking perfect. I look beautiful. My hair lightened up a little at the beach, too, pretty gorgeous lol. Smoking a lot these past two weeks though. Gotta take better care of my teeth to make up for all the candy too. 

So I guess I’ll start with work. Tony dropped a bomb on me two weeks ago that they were moving forward with the Burlington location and that I would be moving there, possibly permanently. Much to my chagrin if I want to drive to work from home I now have an hour long commute, and no pay raise, AND my work days are switching to Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It blows. Went into a little mini depression that my social life was ending, had to cancel a bunch of weekend plans coming up, and fretting about all the gas money I’m gonna be spending and shit. It sucks. I��m at least trying to get compensated for my gas, hopefully for my commute to work, too. That would be fucking sweet. And working alone will be p cool too, hopefully the office will be isolated enough from the patients that I can get a cube setup in there and grind out some solo practice.

But tbh I’ve been kinda taking it easy from melee the past three weeks. This thursday I didn’t even go to the tournament because I slept through it lmao. The week before was sweet though, played dubz with Slip and pocketed $25 for winning the tournament. Money in the bank, pimpin ain’t easy. Then Saturday I played a little mini tourney at Chi’s and me and Jimmy tied for first in a teams round robin. Got kinda bodied in singles though, Had a decently close set with Chi that I flubbed. But really I’ve been focusing on BOTW it’s no skin off my back. Kinda happy to have the break for my hands.

Anyway so I’m fretting about this job change when Ashleigh hits me up out of nowhere. She had been catching up on my blog (shouts out) and wanted to hang out. So friday we went on like a friend date kinda deal, I met her new guy, we got these delicious tacos, played some Magic, and hit up Boxcar. Wish the gun for House of the Dead 2 hadn’t been broken, would’ve loved to kick the shit out of that game again. And then like a deus ex machina, we’re chatting about work and shit, I mention this job change, and she says that I’m welcome to crash on her pullout couch any time I have work. Fucking amazing, at least the commute will only be 30 mins instead of 60. And I’ll get to hang out in gboro more, too. Excited for a change in scenery.

This date I had for that night (herpes girl) flaked, which was perfect because I forgot it was board game night, and I stayed up late hanging out w/ Broscious and Jonny and Irene and Joe. Pretty excellent. Wish broscious had gotten high with me but so it goes lmaooo. one day.

So I went on a date with the herpes girl saturday after the chi tournament instead. (probably played worse since I was trying to dip to see her too lmaoo) Probably shouldn’t keep calling her herpes girl but it really doesn’t matter. She was supppper nice, and we got along kinda well, but we had like Noooothing in common. Outdoorsy type vs me. I was getting this weird vibe from her fairy sleeve tattoo, like it was some kind of message. Looked just like something Darlin would have in her house, but reminded me of my mom lol. Idk so she was nice and all, and her body was rockin, but she had this butterface of an old lady I swear it was so weird lol. We smoked and watched some rick and morty and played some botw but she couldn’t do anything with a controller to save her life. Said she liked the show a ton and wanted ot keep binging it, but it kept bothering me that she was like laughing at the wrong times and shit. Like she didn’t get the jokes or something but knew it was humorous hahaha. So we like made out a little that night and I got to second base and nothing more like we had agreed, and it’s probably all for the best tbh.

Anyway it made me realize that I’m done dating for a bit. I’m sick of trying to meet people and catch them up with my nerdy shit. I don’t want to binge rick and morty again, I want to jump into shouting in jokes at each other lol. I don’t have the patience for it anymore. So I’m just taking a break. Especially while I have the chance to get my finances straight (they’re doing excellent) and I don’t have free time on the weekends anymore now anyway. Rip.

Then last sunday I got to chill out with Dan, was pretty great. 

Worked an extra shift Friday to help Jaime and then headed out to Dar and Pa’s. They made me a ton of food, they took me out to sushi, I got to lounge around til monday, it was wonderful. 

So now I’m almost done with BOTW finally. Almost all the armor is upgraded, I’ve got all the shrines, done enough of the side quests to be satisfied enough I think. Might try to do a few more horse things but yeah I’m like getting ready to finish this weekend. In perfect to train up for my last thursday maylay. On 4/20 no less, it’s gonna be sweet. Gonna team with either Ian or Jimmy, too, I’m pumped. 

Jimmy and I talk like all the time about BOTW and dating and shit. I’ve been feeling a little lonely lately, thinking bullshit like I’ve been kinda lacking a best friend, and moping that I really lost that hard when Christina and Manu had to start doing baby stuff, Oliver moved back to Charlotte, and Kailey exited stage left. I guess Jimmy is probably my best friend right now? Maybe just the gang as a collective, but I don’t really Talk to them about stuff with them I just spend the most time with them.  But what hanging out with Ashleigh did was alleviate all of that. I feel great, my friends care a fuckton about me and I care a fuckton about them. She said she wanted to do good on promising to buy me drinks and make me feel pretty and goddamn did she ever lol. Nice that things weren’t awkward at all now that we’re just friends, really excited to spend more time with her.

Ok whew I feel like I just shotgunned all my thoughts hopefully I got everything. Working in burlington should be weird, dunno when I’ll update next but you’ll hear from me when ya hear from me.

Oh and I talked to Tessa on Easter w/ dar on facetime. She’s doing this crazy ass coconut diet, hasn’t eaten real food in like a month. Made me feel like a fucking baby that whenever I smoked the past week and a half I started feeling horrified like I was starving to death. I’d start feeling my wrist and be like “OMG IS IT SUPPOSED to BE THIS BONY??” and just get in my head until I went out and ate something lmao.

But I feel really content rn. Super satisfied even though things are taking a not-too-sharp right turn. Super satisfied with myself even though I’m not chasing tail. Reeeally excited to finally finish my game and start training to kick some ass at melee again. Gotta get some more combo vid material before the season’s over, I’ve got some dubz shit that’s gonna go in that’s pretty fucking fire. 

Anyway, peace. Gonna enjoy this second weekend with a snap and some BOTW.