#jrpg 2019
Photo
#Machikado Mazoku#まちカドまぞく#The Demon Girl Next Door#Street Corner Demon#BOKU & DRAGONS#NEKO & DRAGONS#RPG#JRPG#Yuuko Yoshida#Momo Chiyoda#Lilith#Mikan Hinatsuki#2019#Gacha#Mahou Shoujo#Shoujo#Cute#Moe#Cgdct#Yuuko#Momo#Mikan#Transparent
87 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ggdg is a famous face in webcomics, and a few other mediums too. The artist and brain behind works such as Lady of the Shard, Idle Divination, Undyne’s banging outfit on her date in Undertale and countless other contributions to UTDR, and their most recent hit Soul of Sovereignity (soulsov real 2023!)—but they got their start with original storytelling through the much beloved Cucumber Quest:
Narrative wise, Cucumber Quest is as the requester for this review put it about “bunny kids going on a quest to save the world”. Like a lot of ggdg’s work, CuQu is steeped in their love of JRPGs, and there’s an undeniable touch of JRPG flavour in the plot.
The comic opens with our antagonist having acquired the seventh of their eight macguffins required to summon the big bad, and later our heroes must re-collect these macguffins and fight all the disaster masters they’re associated with, and defeat the evil Nightmare Knight!!!
Cucumber Quest is a comedy and a parody of fantasy video games, but it does all this from a place of sincere love and joy. I’m confident if you asked ggdg if they they thought all the incredibly clunky, tonally dissonant kingdom hearts cutscenes with michael rat talking about the heart of the darkness to cloud final fantasy or whatever were “cringe”, they’d say “are you kidding me they fucking rule”.
Cucumber Quest is filled with jokes, but it’s never meanspirited. It pokes fun at the trappings of fantasy video games, and as it does, it goes “but that’s why we love them so much!”
It’s not all jokes though, there’s a sincere heart at the core of CuQu. Ggdg loves their characters through and through, and the story loves them too. While the setup of the story might suggest a simplistic angle of good-vs-evil like a lot of video games, it is very quickly revealed that this story is anything but. The biggest heart of the story is the Nightmare Knight himself:
The truth of his motives and why any of this is even happening, whether or not our heroes will find out the truth and break the cycle, or if everything will continue as it always has are the crux of the plot. But to hear more about that, you need to read it for yourself!! If you like sad dads though, this is The comic for you.
You’ve probably noticed by now also, the use of colour in CuQu is absolutely stunning. Everything from their big set piece atmospheric pages with deep, powerful emotions seeping from every panel as they use limited colours to create a specific mood, to the individual panels of their lighthearted pages—ggdg has a masterful control over colour and mood. The entire comic is just a visual delight, and you can pick any random page in the archive and be provided with a treat for the eyes.
Cucumber Quest it should be noted is an incomplete story. Though not wholly abandoned, it last updated in 2019. Since then, ggdg has been busy focusing on other projects—the newly released soulsov is one such project. One day, perhaps after soulsov’s conclusion, perhaps earlier, perhaps later, ggdg intends to return and wrap up the remainder of CuQu via a series of scripts and illustrations.
It was a story a bit too big for its breeches if you will: after almost a decade of work it was nowhere near reaching its conclusion, and understandably ggdg needed a break.
Nonetheless, what exists is a wonderful heartfelt story and visual delight that deserves a read and the patient wait for its conclusion some day ❤
132 notes
·
View notes
Note
It might still be too early for this kind of question, but what have been your favorite video games you've played in 2022? :3c
Given what the release schedule over the next three months looks like, yeah, it's probably jumping the gun, but what the hell. I'm going to arbitrarily restrict my consideration to games actually published in 2022, or else we'd be here all week, though.
(I make no apologies for the high concentration of sequels on this list. I know what I like!)
Amber City is a spiritual sequel to 2017's Flood of Light, and its gameplay is in much the same vein, being an atmospheric walking sim with light point-and-click puzzle elements. If you enjoyed the idea of The Witness but wish the puzzles didn't hate you personally, this might not be a bad one to check out.
Blossom Tales II: The Minotaur Prince isn't going to break any new ground for those who’ve played its predecessor, though it's somewhat more adventurous in its dungeon design; if you enjoy casual 2D Zelda-likes, you'll probably enjoy this. Fans of 1980s fantasy media may also get a kick out of its pop culture pastiche elements – let’s just say the narrator is definitely taking advantage of the fact that his grandkids have never seen Labyrinth!
COGEN: Sword of Rewind is a Mega Man Zero style hack-and-slash platformer that does one of the first interesting things I've seen in years with the time manipulation formula, essentially merging your "mess with time" gauge with your health bar. The damage-boost routing in the speedrun is something you need to see to believe.
Curse Crackers: For Whom the Belle Toils is a retro platformer from the makers of 2020's Zelda-like dating sim Prodigal. Comparisons to Celeste are, perhaps, unwarranted, as the mechanics are very different, but I felt something familiar in the role of momentum in its flow of play. Visually, it's incredibly pink, which is something I always appreciate in a game.
Dungeons of Dreadrock is a short logic puzzler that one could be forgiven for mistaking for an old-school roguelike at first glance. Each level is a set-piece that borrows from the conventions of the grid-based roguelike genre to create situations where only one sequence of actions leads to survival, and challenges the player to find it..
FAR: Changing Tides swaps Lone Sails' landship for, well, an actual ship. The engineering sim gameplay remains largely unchanged in spite of that. Some of its elaborations on the previous game's formula don't work as well as they might have, being challenging more due to the limitations of the physics engine than anything else, but the frustration factor wasn't high enough to ruin my fun.
A Game with a Kitty 1 & Darkside Adventures is me flagrantly breaking my own rules, since everything in this anthology actually came out in 2005–2008 – it's just the anthology itself that's a 2022 release; I'm mostly throwing it in because this list was otherwise light on free-to-play titles. It all held up remarkably well on a replay earlier this year, though.
Gunborg: Dark Matters is a run-and-gun precision platformer that seems to have flown entirely under the radar, having just 11 reviews on Steam at the time of this posting. I'm not sure why – I mean, it's got a great soundtrack, and you play as a woman with a sword the size of a surfboard. What else do you want?
Jack Move is a JRPG-style title that blends self-consciously silly 1980s cyberpunk with contemporary anime aesthetics. I have to confess that I'm cheating a bit by including this one, as it's been out for all of three days at the time of this posting, and is the only game on this list I haven't played; I have, however, followed its development for some time, and I've had a lot of fun with the various demos the dev team has put out over the years, so I'm confident in plugging it here.
Recursive Ruin takes a page from 2019's Manifold Garden and basically asks "what if it was super fucked up?" The recursion here is fractal rather than directional, with progress "inward" eventually leading right back where you started. The story is naturally pretentious as hell; whether that's a criticism is a matter of taste.
RUN: The World In-Between wears it Celeste influence on its sleeve, but really takes more from classic endless runners like Canabalt. The "procedural generation" is just the same dozen or so puzzles for each zone being strung together in various orders, and the story is thinner than the trailer makes it look, but if you're a fan of the "running from left to right set to awesome music" genre, you could do a lot worse.
Submerged: Hidden Depths picks up where 2015's Submerged left off. The gameplay is substantially similar, though with a heavier focus on exploration puzzles and fewer linear set-pieces. Even so, it's not exactly what I'd call challenging – it's better approached as a pretty walking sim with light parkour-puzzler elements.
System Purge is about as basic as it gets for a precision platformer. No fancy moves here: you run; you jump; you get your face melted off by a laser. There's actually quite a bit of blood and gore, which is something I rarely have the stomach for, but the game is short enough that the lurid bits don't overstay their welcome. Fair warning!
Taiji is... well, remember when I said Amber City is a good one to check out if you like the idea of the Witness but wish the puzzles didn't hate you? This is one to check out if you do enjoy it when the puzzles hate you. There's a lot here that will be familiar to fans of the latter, though the puzzles are somewhat more varied owing to the fact that colouring grids is a more flexible game mechanic than drawing lines.
Vain Ascendance is a a roguelite precision platformer whose art style and mechanics put me strongly in mind of 2018's Overclocked, though the dev teams are unrelated. When I've plugged this game in the past I've been teased that my obsession with games about red haired women who can air dash is showing, but this I must protest: her hair is purple.
As for unreleased games available in demo or early access versions that I've tried out in 2022, I'll keep it brief, since these aren't proper recs, but you might have a look at any of Dormiveglia, Garbage Girl Louise, Gigasword, Keylocker, Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara, Little Witch in the Woods, Rebel Transmute, Rose & Locket, Ruin Valley, Shards of Gravity, Star Hearts: Launch Point, Undergrave, Venus Looks for Jupiter, Vermillion Descent or War Girl.
407 notes
·
View notes
Note
I'm interested in your Fire emblem essay and what you said about the story being a reflection of the SRPG gameplay
Looking over the essay I have saved in my drafts, what I actually talked about was the answer to the question "Why did Fire Emblem get popular?" Fire Emblem has been around since 1990 and has been localized since 2003, but the series never took off to truly mainstream popularity in either Japan or the rest of the world until 2013, when Fire Emblem: Awakening was released, at which point it meteorically rose to become one of the best-selling Nintendo franchises.
In my essay, I posited that there were two "obvious" reasons for Awakening's popularization of the franchise, but a third less-obvious reason that was even more important. The first "obvious" reason was the introduction of Casual Mode, which removed the franchise's signature permadeath feature and made it far easier and more accessible to a broader audience. As someone who was in the trenches of the Fire Emblem fandom from 2004 to 2012, I can tell you that the series heavily attracted difficulty junkies during this time. The demographic heavily skewed male, and the most popular topics of discussion were tier lists and debates on the usefulness of various characters in certain challenge run settings (such as Low Turn Count, or LTC, runs). Casual Mode opened the doors for, well, casuals to join in on the fun.
The second "obvious" reason was that Awakening was anime. While every Fire Emblem game has had anime character designs, past titles were often fairly reserved with these designs, featuring knights in full armor whose only distinctly "anime" characteristic was green- or blue-colored hair. Awakening, however, leaned into the significantly more absurd, flashy, and/or sexualized designs that are what people far more commonly associate with "anime." It wasn't just the designs, though. Awakening also took an "anime" approach to character personalities, often giving each character one or two traits that are amplified to extreme degrees. This change is easy to spot if you compare Awakening characters to similar ones from past titles. In Genealogy of the Holy War, Arden is an armor knight who is teased by his comrades for being dull, boring, and generally stuck on sentry duty. In Awakening, Kellam is an armor knight who is so dull and boring that characters cannot even see him when he stands right in front of them. Recurring jokes involve characters thinking they're being haunted by a ghost when he talks to them, or forgetting he exists entirely, because he is so unassuming and banal. It reminds me of KonoSuba, in which characters have a singular trait that is pushed to its utmost extremities for the sake of humor; this is a style of humor commonplace in anime, especially anime that targets a young teen demographic.
My argument, however, was that these "obvious" reasons fail to adequately explain why Fire Emblem got so popular so quickly. They may have been sufficient in 2013, but the popularity of subsequent titles has called into question how much these reasons matter at all. To be clear, Fire Emblem probably doesn't become popular without Casual Mode; the accessibility is just too important. However, simply being accessible doesn't mean people will access it. There are plenty of SRPGs out there, like Shining Force, that never had permadeath, that were even localized during the 16-bit golden age of JRPGs, yet never gained major popularity. So while Casual Mode was necessary, it wasn't the change that took the franchise from the edge of Underperforming Nintendo Franchise Hell (F-Zero, Star Fox, Metroid, too many others to name) to 17 representatives in Smash Bros.
And frankly, I think the anime argument isn't a factor at all. It was a tempting argument to make in 2013, when the anime elements of Awakening were the most obvious deviation from the franchise's past, but 2019 a little game called Fire Emblem: Three Houses came out that utterly decimated the thesis. Three Houses is, of course, by far the most popular Fire Emblem title, with double Awakening's sales (1.9 million vs 3.82 million worldwide, according to Wikipedia). Notably for this argument, however, is how un-anime Three Houses is both in character designs and tone. In fact, Three Houses narratively hearkens back to much older Fire Emblem titles, with a major focus on politics and serious worldbuilding, significantly less comic relief, and relatively "realistic" character designs that avoid absurdity and fanservice. In its tone and story, it is far closer to Path of Radiance than Awakening. So if we take "more anime" to be the root cause of the revitalization of the franchise, how do we explain Three Houses?
There needs to be another explanation. Something both Awakening and Three Houses did that previous entries did not.
My argument is that what the Fire Emblem franchise did to turn itself around was change from a focus on plot to a focus on character, with innovations to the gameplay that emphasized this change. This sounds a bit more esoteric than the other explanations so let me clarify. Awakening introduced a mechanic called pair-up, which allowed two units to join together to gain large statistical and combat bonuses. On top of that, Awakening emphasized the game's support system, which had been present in older titles but much more difficult to access and inconsequential to gameplay, not only making supports easier to achieve, but central to character building and recruitment in the form of child characters. This gameplay emphasis is mirrored in the story, with Robin's character arc being rooted in the "bonds" he forges with his allies, and the child characters also having a significant role in the plot. On top of that, the more "anime" characters have livelier support conversations, as opposed to past games where many supports often boiled down to very generic "You are my friend. I will have your back on the battlefield" sorts of conversations.
With this character-and-relationship-driven gameplay/story in mind, look again at Three Houses. While lacking the pair-up mechanic or child characters, Three Houses adds a Persona-esque social link system that is extremely extensive and probably takes up about half the total gameplay. Strategic battles are deemphasized in favor of running around the monastery, talking to your allies, going to teatime or doing activities with them, finding them gifts, and so forth. The central narrative gimmick of the game is the three Hogwarts houses, which give certain groups of characters innate bonds that the gameplay then allows you to explore thoroughly. Even the aforementioned political nature of the plot feeds into these relationships; many characters are defined by the political placement of their birth, and their attempts to balance their personal goals with the goals of their station leads to intense interpersonal drama. And the plot itself boils this drama deliciously when it comes time for the three houses to go to war with each other.
This thesis of mine also extends to the less-popular installments of the franchise in the post-Awakening era. Though all these games sold decently well (likely due to install base), they don't match the success of the other two, and are a lot less well-regarded by the fans. Fates nerfed Awakening's pair-up system and lazily tacked on child characters via an absurd "baby dimension" that was poorly implemented in both gameplay and story; Shadows of Valentia was a remake of an NES game that, despite heavily revamping the story and adding some support conversations, did not change the core gameplay of the original; and Engage put in a more shallow monastery-like hub world, with much more simplistic characters, and a core gameplay gimmick that involves making one character a God instead of combining your units together.
Indeed, Fates and Engage are probably far more "anime" than Awakening and Three Houses, which most fans consider to their detriment rather than benefit. Most damning of all, however, is that the story of these games heavily revolves around a singular self-insert protagonist, with other characters having a much less important role. This narrative focus deemphasizes character-bond-based gameplay, rather than emphasizing it like the other games do.
(I'll mention that I personally think Engage is an excellent game, though this is because I am one of those spreadsheet and tier-list loving oldheads and I appreciate the excellent map design, core gameplay, and higher difficulty mode that actually seems like it was playtested. In fact, it was my love of Engage and the relatively lukewarm response from the fandom that led to me asking why Fire Emblem was popular in the first place. I had thought the fans loved all the goofy anime stuff, so why were they pissed about it now? What was Engage missing that Awakening wasn't?)
You can see how this shift from plot-based story and gameplay to character-based story and gameplay has affected not simply the raw number of fans, but the demographic makeup. In 2011, the fandom was nerdy dudes who liked to compare stat growth rates. In 2023, the fandom is far more evenly split between male and female players, and the fandom is a far more robust space for fan fiction, fan art, and other creative endeavors. It's characters who drove that change, not a more anime tone, not even a reduced difficulty. And after the relative reception of Three Houses and Engage, I'm extremely interested to see whether Intelligent Systems realizes this point, and what the next Fire Emblem looks like.
69 notes
·
View notes
Text
✨ MY STORIES 💫
(page under construction, check this post occasionally since it will be continuously updated! page created Apr 14 2023, last updated Dec 28 2023.)
Art tag of my characters (all)
Lost and Found Children
The Magician’s Protegee
Both of these stories are near and dear to my heart. Due to life obligations like school in the past, work, convention/merch schedules, I unfortunately haven’t progressed in these stories as I would have liked over the years. My dream is to one day create stories that impact people, as other people’s stories have changed me.
⭐
LOST AND FOUND CHILDREN
Synopsis: A search for their missing parents lead twins Flynn and Nate to fall into a deep darkness, unraveling secrets about their family and the country they once trusted.
Lost and Found Children is a story about mystery, overcoming trauma, blood family vs found family, the fear of growing up even in adulthood, the fear that you are not who you wished to grow up to be. The characters explore their identities in a post-war torn society, and witness their love being tested in that wildly changing world.
The story explores the horrors of war, and is also a study on the horrors of child abuse and when child rearing is left in the wrong hands, which can have devastating lifelong consequences. More importantly, it is a story about how love persists despite all odds.
Fun trivia:
The story has changed settings many times, from a tragic Victorian familial drama, to a modern school mystery, a 1920s crime drama, now it’s a historical fantasy.
This is a story I’ve been writing since I was 13 years old. The current iteration is from 2019, and I started revamping it as part of a school project. As it is a very old story that I literally grew up with, revamping it seriously has been a huge task, finding difficulty in deciding whether I should remove, keep, or add things like themes and characters. As of right now, a number of characters are still very much unrefined!
Flynn and Nate are not actually my oldest OCs.
Inspirations:
Growing up, I consumed a lot of Japanese media, and I mix what I learn from real world history with series that have impacted me a lot, like Fullmetal Alchemist, Pandora Hearts, Violet Evergarden. I draw influences from these periods: the industrial revolution in England & the west, late 1800s England, and early 20th century American history, especially the interwar period.
For the character designs, I'm inspired by historical fashion and JRPG aesthetics. My aim is to design them more simply and more humbly (a la Ryoko Kui style), but I still try for a whimsical old world look, bordering on fantastical. I do want a bit more steampunk look to my story moving forward, and that's an aesthetic I need to experiment with and study in my artwork a lot more often.
🌱
THE MAGICIAN’S PROTEGEE
Synopsis: In a distant, idyllic future where robots and humans coexist - a healthcare android lives day to day with his adoptive daughter, patients, and their ragtag android and human friends.
The story is a light-hearted, slow-paced, slice of life series - but it will also deal with complex topics like artificial intelligence, existentialism, and the fear of outliving the people you care about the most.
THE MAGICIAN'S PROTEGEE IS UNDER HIATUS. (as of Nov 2023)
Fun trivia:
This story used to be about the Victorian occult (hence the title), also about a doctor who saves people from the ghouls that plagued Victorian society. However, without a greater purpose to the story, and only using the setting as a cool backdrop, it was a "monster of the week" series that I didn’t have any interest in writing. I scrapped the Victorian setting, in favour of writing a fantasy world I could fully have control of. It’s very different from LaFC, but it’s also a story I wish to tell from my heart. LaFC is like, the moody night story, and TMP is the sunny day story.
The current iteration is from 2020, also developed for a school project. As I was much older (than 13 haha) when creating this series, I had a pretty clear image of the story and its themes compared to writing LaFC.
Inspirations:
The inspiration for the world building comes from series like Eureka Seven, Kino's Journey, and Aria (Kozue Amano). I also draw a lot of inspiration for world building and writing from American post WWII/cold war society and culture, especially the boom in science fiction and spy fiction. I also take inspiration from early-mid 20th century Hong Kong, China, and Japan for worldbuilding and setting - their visual motifs, response to western technology and changing attitudes and culture.
#my stories#my ocs#lost and found children#the magician's protegee#ocs#original#long post#flynn#nate#terence#trent#jack#eva#noa#vita#calem#dr. lee#iris
95 notes
·
View notes
Text
Here to address some unimportant things to long-time followers of this account.
Trying to be transparent about things that most people should not care, but here I am, writing this.
Hello, Kan here. In 2019 I was active in this fandom of a video game called Tales of Vesperia. I had consistently created fan arts and comics which has gotten a decent amount of attention, I believe some of you here are still following me because of the contents I've made during that period of time.
For these past three years, I have tried everything to block people's memories out of that fandom, I really wanted to move on, I wanted everyone to move on so I can continue creating works which I am proud of. I've had been receiving assistance from friends to curate my contents, and we did our best to completely wipe off contents related to Tales of Vesperia.
I don't know how to tell you this, but anything Tales-of related now hurts me tremendously. I can't even look at JRPG at a genre where I could hearfully enjoy anymore. Hell, I cant even force myself to look at Elden Ring because the Bandai Namco logo is enough to make me relive the painful experience.
For anyone who has continued reading this far, I have attached a google doc released in 2020, entailing of the details of why I cannot associate with the video game, nor the people involved in it. Please understand this google doc only scratched the surface of what happened.
----
You may be wondering why I am addressing this now.
I have been getting messages, emails, from former friends and fans asking me about the works I have done for Tales of Vesperia. Along with inquiries of continue doing fan works of it.
I am begging you, please stop, I understand you just want to support me, but your words are going to undo the mental scar I'm trying to heal from.
The other reason, is because recently, this person mentioned in the google doc has attempted to contact me again. I am still being stalked for something I participated in three years ago. I feel incredibly unsafe for this.
I don't know where he lives, and I have consulted legal options to keep myself physically and mentally safe. I have Shin helping me with communication and minimize the stress I will have to deal with online platforms, even so that's the most we can do to counteract. I'm tired, stressed out, out of option, and really just want to run away forever.
I believe releasing this statement will make my stalker attempts to contact me again, and that's the least I want to happen. In the past, he has sent his friends after me as well.
I don't know what I gain from telling you all of this. People were hurt during the time I tried to defend myself from this stalker, and I don't want this to happen again, and this is why I had chosen to isolate myself from everyone for all this time.
Please, I want peace. Leave me alone.
- Kan (KOHIU)
72 notes
·
View notes
Text
Dreams
The following is a bucket list I made in 2019 after finishing university and getting my degree. I found it in my drafts recently and decided to start checking things off. I thought I’d share. Today is April 2, 2024. Guess I’ll continue to update this whenever I remember it exists.
✓ Create and release a visual novel - Froot Basket Valentine (4/2019)
▢ Create a dating sim - After-Party Chemistry (WIP, Demo v.2.0 out)
✓ Create a webcomic - Basil Marina (2021)
▢ Create an episodic visual novel
▢ Create a JRPG
▢ Create a BL visual novel - Hello, Boss! (Collab w/ a friend, Demo out)
▢ Create a point-and-click game
✓ Create and sell merch - Check out my merch shop!
▢ Cover a song
✓ Post a speedpaint, beginning sketch to end product - Beau, My Valentine (2/2020)
✓ Paint a watercolor illustration - Howl in the Meadow (1/2020)
▢ Film the making of a traditional art piece
▢ Find a way to somehow mash a speedpaint with a song cover video lol
▢ Create mash of otome and fighting game
▢ Make a Mob Psycho 100 fan game
▢ Make a Dragon Ball Z fan game
▢ Make a Superman and Batman fan game (maybe include the Justice League too)
✓ Draw a Howl’s Moving Castle illustration - Howl in the Meadow (1/2020)
▢ Draw a Kiki’s Delivery Service illustration
▢ Draw a Princess Mononoke illustration
✓ Contribute to a zine - DiRT: A Day in the Life of Ainosuke Shindo, 2021, my piece, “Throne of Sin”
- - - - -
✓ = Completed!
▢ = To Do!
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
pokemon is a series that discussion around it is always somewhat weird because youve got the people who will defend every aspect of this series with their dying breath, like some people are disney-adult tier with this shit, and then youve got people who act like everything related to pokemon is just dogshit awful and there is no redeeming quality to the series whatsoever, and you're actively scamming yourself by playing these games, you're actively just blinded by nostalgia and refuse to let go
like every time there's a new game the discourse around it fucking Sucks because people either severely underplay or make a way bigger deal than necessary out of certain things. obviously modern day pokemon has a lot of flaws (a lot of them likely not being the exact fault of the devs and more the fault of pokemon as a brand wanting to constantly push toys and shit onto store shelves so they need to have new games like every year or so) and it does directly affect the quality of those games a lot. but idk, pokemon's still got some charm to it.
theyve got fun characters and a fun world. i think that's a thing theyve always been solid at, but like, yeah the games themselves could be a Lot Better. they need more time to develop. scarlet/violet alone was like 3 years dev time because SWSH came out in 2019, and 3 years to create a JRPG with like 700+ unique creatures and everything else they did is. probably not enough time, id imagine. let alone the fact that teams were potentially getting split up to work on legends arceus/ SWSH DLC / other projects
pokemon discourse is just weird dude i dunno. i feel like i should say "people take it way too seriously" but its the single best performing video game franchise in the world so i feel like there's SOME merit to these discussions, it just kinda devolves into two sides having big fights to prove who's More Right
12 notes
·
View notes
Note
what if... you told me all about your fansession (i would love to learn more about it)
no way the real moss guy in my inbox... heehe... im actually really excited to ramble about this!!! =D back when i first read hs i made many fan characters but i got an idea to make a fansession where, instead of the 12 zodiac signs it was the 22 major tarot cards..... and it kinda went from there!
because obviously 22 character session would be insane i at some point formed out 6 kids who were having The Session, and the rest of the characters were "npcs" made by sburb. but yknow, more humanlike than the carapacians, so kinda akin to the trolls. oh yea i changed some of the sburb worldbuilding for this, so i suppose its an alternate version of the game.... ;p also the session would take place around 2019.
okeeey anyways heres the players!
ester olsen (the star) is a knight of hope from sweden who's foolish and hyperactive but also very hopeful and loyal like a dog, she's internally a deviantart kid who draws exclusively on ms paint and sburb's quest for her is to become a typical hero. her land is a field with a country town inhabited by animal people.
her older brother emil (the chariot) is a rogue of breath who moves trough life very fast and always thrives to make progress by any means, and also takes care of ester... because hes awesome... his land is a giant sea of energy kind of similar to terezi's.
elio cassini (the sun) is the heir of light, he's just a really lucky boy who likes jrpgs and magic spells. he's anxious and keeps to the rules but well meaning; best friend of ester. he learns to accept the dark sides of the world instead of escaping from them. his land is an orange desert full of broken glass, ancient bones and mysteries.
elio's sister is nastia the maid of space (the empress)! she's kind of a snarky girl next door who likes art, gardening, fashion and baking but she struggles with persistence. her land is a field of giant flowers.. and frogs of course ;p
selene's the mage of void (the moon). (no surname i thought of for these two..... whoops....) she's the oldest one and also very lonely, although she isn't expressive she tends to cling to other people. she used to like weird and fascinating things, her land is a broken apart mountainous area flooded by dark water!
then selene's younger brother rasmus the prince of time (the emperor)! hes your average delinquent scriptie kid who tends to get into fights (usually with ester), but he's never completely malicious. his land is a fiery lava pool that's hard to navigate.
the goal is still to make the next universe via a frog, but theres no derse and prospit and instead dreaming just teleports your ghost self to a random location. there's still a fight between dark and light though, but this time it's the magician card (light) and the high priestess card (dark) who have their forces battling it out, which is pretty much everyone else, on a skaia stand in which is no longer a chessboard and now just a black and white planet. they're also the final bosses in place of king and queen, and they get stronger the session goes on so the party needs to act fast!!!
idk how to summarise the whole duration of the session to be honest because too much stuff gets involved.. but basically they do make it out in the end! (with some major character deaths though... hehh..)
well uhh this makes wayy more sense in my head lol, but i hope you like it! =D i have some drawings but i havent really made anything properly rendered that has all of them... also i would love to hear about your fansession!
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
Hylics、クリア。
とにかく変なゲーム。でもその変な所が気になったゲームなのでもう100点満点。元々買ったのは2019年の12/31とずいぶん前だったんだけど、日本語がなかったり、操作すらよくわからずでずっと積んだままだった。
数日前にTwitterで続編（？）の「Hylics2」の日本語パッチ（非公式）があるという話を見かけて、じゃあ1もあったりしないかな…と調べたらすぐ見つかったので改めて再スタート。
内容というかストーリーはあってないような感じで、一応伝統的なJRPGっぽい感じだけど、グラフィックや音楽を楽しむのがメインという感じなのかな。日本語パッチはとてもありがたかったけど、日本語になってもさっぱり意味はわからなかった…（笑）。日本語訳を作った方によると、結構ランダムでセリフが生成されているらしく、それってカットアップみたいでかっこいいなと思った。
グラフィックはクレイアニメーションを元にしているとかで、動きもかなり変で面白い。動きの滑らかさとか完全に無視。微妙にグロい感じもあるんだけど、色味とかドット絵のおかげかそんなにきつくはないかな。全体的にちょっとMOTHER2を思い出す感じはあったかも。
音楽もなんとも言えずダウナーで不思議な感じだった。ギターメインでちょっと西部劇とかカントリーっぽい気もする（なんかチューニングが怪しくなったりするけど）。サントラは売ってないようだけど、YouTubeにはあった。
続編の2もちょっと気になるなあ。1はRPGツクール製だったらしいけど、2はUnityになっているそうで、変なグラフィックがパワーアップしてそう。まだ完璧な日本語訳はできていないみたいだけど、この1と同じ感じならあんまりわからなくてもなんとかなりそうかも…？
ゲーム自体はよかったのだけど、快適にプレイするには色々と準備が必要だったので、以下一応メモ。
・日本語がない
以下の日本語パッチを使わせてもらいました。ありがたや。
・画面が小さい
昔のJPRG的なノリだからなのか、画面が4:3だし、現代のモニターで開くとめちゃくちゃ小さい。ゲーム内には表示を変えるオプションはなかったので、ちょっと調べて以下の「蜃気楼」というソフトを入れた。
いまいちよく分かってないけど、元ウインドウを拡大するのではなくて、コピーして新たに作ったウインドウを拡大してるらしい。（蜃気楼という名前はそこから来てるんだろう）クリック判定ができないようだけど、Hylicsはマウス使わないので問題なし。自分の環境では250%にするとちょうどよかった。
・コントローラを使いたい
元々コントローラには対応していないゲームなんだけど、個人的にコントローラが合いそうだなと思って、以下の「JoyToKey」というソフトを入れた。
コントローラのボタンをキーボード入力に置き換えてくれるソフト。Hylicsは上下左右キーで移動、Xで決定、Cでキャンセル＆メニュー呼び出しなので、適宜手持ちのXboxコントローラに割り当てた。移動は左スティックにしたかったけど、どうも反応が微妙なので十字キーにした。まあまあがんばって敵を避けるアクションがあったので、コントローラで良かった。
・スクリーンショットが撮りたい
これに結構ハマった。このゲームの標準機能として、「F12を押すとスタートメニューに戻る（確認ダイアログなし）」というのがあって、Steam標準のスクリーンショットのショートカットと思いっきりバッティングする。
じゃあ一時的にF11にするか…と思ってSteam側のショートカット割当を変えたけど、なぜかスクリーンショットは撮れず…。そもそも蜃気楼で拡大表示にしてるからSteam側では無理かもと思って、結局Windows標準の「Windowsキー+PrintScreenキー」をマクロパッドに登録して一発で画面全体をキャプチャできるようにした。デスクトップも一緒に写り込んでしまうけど、ウインドウの位置が変わらなければPhotoshopでまとめて切り抜けるのでよしとした。
・装備とか進め方とか色々良くわからない
色々謎が多いので以下のサイトを参考にした。ありがたや。
Hylicsのゲーム自体はこちら。自分はクリアまで3～4時間くらいだったかな。
「過去にプレイした類似ゲーム」にDisco Elysiumが出てきたけど、全然違うと思う…（笑）。
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
20 years on
It's about twenty years since I first played Suikoden III in early 2003. So I have to talk about Geddoe.
July 2003 – I think this might be the first time I tried to draw him.
If you knew me from 2003 to 2005, you've already heard me talk about Geddoe, and sorry about that. While he wasn't my favorite when I first played S3, he's since become my favorite character out of any game. Here’s why.
June 2004. I tend to draw Queen more than Geddoe, but he's still the favorite.
I don't know that he's the best written character, but sometimes a character just lands in your brain right and stays there.
October 2004. Another thing about Geddoe is that very often, especially back then, I never felt like I got him right.
I think there's a number of factors for why. He's not a typical JRPG protagonist. He's in his thirties. He's seen the world, and he's tired.
April 2005. This was the first time I felt like I actually got him.
He believes in justice, sure, but as circumstances go, he often turns a blind eye to the dark realities he knows he can't change just by objecting. He has the loyalty of his teammates, but he's not exactly charismatic.
June 2005
He can be pushed into making big dramatic speeches, but most often he leads from behind, waiting until other people have blustered and argued and had their say, then quietly doing the thing he was going to do anyway. Sometimes he waits too long and things go wrong, and he copes with minimal complaint.
November 2006
He seems unchanging, unflappable, but we see him defeated. Then we see him pick himself up.
May 2008
As tired and detached as he is, he's still an idealist. He's worn down by his duty, but he doesn't give it up because he can't accept the alternative. Who else would he ask to step in?
October 2009. That's Emilia from Yggdra Union because it was part of a meme.
He won't plead with you to try to save you. He'll tell you you're wrong, and he won't feel guilty for knocking down what you placed your faith in.
July 2011
I just really like how he ignores so many of these young, wide-eyed seventeen-year-olds who believe they can fix the world with a speech and stopping one bad guy tropes.
2012?
He's mature, thoughtful, grim, but not cynical.
February 2013
There's a passion there, sharp words and a well-timed punch (you know the scene), even if it takes a lot to bring it boiling up to the surface.
June 2014. Accompanied by Elza (Suikoden II) and Asch (Tales of the Abyss) for another meme.
And while he's not warm, you can tell he really loves his mercenary team – and at times is surprised by how much they love him back. Because they're not a demonstrative group. The whole Twelfth Unit has a special place in my heart.
November 2019
But the GeddoeQueen dynamic, whether you read it as platonic or romantic, is one of my favorites because it's so quiet, so strong – there's such a sense of them complementing each others' needs without making any sort of big deal about it.
May 2020
Geddoe doesn't want to make his problems yours, but he finds himself grateful when he has to depend on you. He won't smile and promise you it'll be all right, far less promise it to himself. But he won't give up either. He'll lead your army, but he'd much rather be hidden away in a back room, quietly drinking with people who know they don't have to make small talk. He's seen it all, and he's telling you nothing.
December 2022
I wouldn't be surprised if, twenty years from now, he's still my favorite.
February 2023
#geddoe#suikoden#suikoden 3#suikoden 3 spoilers#meta#queen#character appreciation anniversary#i'm designating a tag#2023 is actually a benchmark anniversary for a lot of games very dear to me#so you'll be seeing more of these#along with the celes appreciation post i did in 2019#art progress#character appreciation
11 notes
·
View notes
Text
I played Tales of Symphonia for the first time in 2019. I was going through it at the time, and it helped me get through that. I loved the game a lot. It took me over 100 hours to finish it because I didn’t want to finish it. I sought out fics for it (fun fact: a lot of them are super well written for such a tiny fandom, which inspires me!). I played it on my shitty 13 inch laptop. I didn’t have a controller for it at the time so I played through the entire thing with keyboard controls. I was so horrible at it but I pushed through it and got better. It was the first game that made me cry during the end credits because it was over.
I never felt this way about a game in my life up until I played Hades in 2021. Even my favorite Zelda games didn’t make me feel this way. I guess it was my first time playing a really long, story-based JRPG all the way through, so that probably had something to do with it. But I played it when I was 19, so my love isn’t based in nostalgia at all. The characters and the story really spoke to me personally. There’s a lot of complexity in the game that I appreciated as well. I have a hard time saying for certain if it’s my favorite game, but it’s certainly up there.
I was so excited it to share it with my girlfriend for the first time when I found out it was getting remastered for the Switch. The “remaster” didn’t look all that impressive, but I didn’t care. I would get to play it on the TV with a proper controller, and my girlfriend on player two. The Switch version is the easiest and most affordable way for me to do that. It’s still the game I love so much, and I’m glad my girlfriend likes it so much. But holy shit, I can’t believe playing it on the Switch is a worse experience than my first time on my shitty laptop. I’m so sad they dropped the ball this hard.
The loading times are awful, the frame rate is awful, the lighting is awful, the lack of screen transitions are awful; like what the hell?! I know the Switch is more powerful than my laptop, so they rushed this out the door for a quick cash grab. I really hope they patch the remaster, but I seriously doubt Bandai Namco will do anything to fix this. Even if they do patch it, there’s no excuse for releasing the remaster in this state. It’s not fair to the original devs, the fans, and the legacy of the game. I hate how it’s been normalized and becoming a trend to release games in a really low quality state. And it’s especially hard to see people defending AAA companies for doing this.
#tales of symphonia#anyway fuck the gaming industry#the tos fandoms is cool as fuck tho#they show way more love to symphonia than the actual parent company
12 notes
·
View notes
Text
2022 Game of the Year Countdown
9. Minoria
Bombservice
Nintendo Switch, 2019
Having played and enjoyed Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight a few years ago, I’ve had my eye on the subsequent game ever since. After it went on sale and I picked it up, I noticed the many Easter eggs from the Momodora series. If you have save data from the previous game, you can unlock the iconic, bright red sword of Pardoner Fennel, a huge fan-favorite boss from Reverie. And it was the weapon I used for almost the entire game. It’s just so cool and, since weapons don’t generally vary in power very much, it’s not like it was much more than a fun Easter egg.
As with Reverie Under the Moonlight, the story is fairly dark and somber, which is a massive break from the type of games I generally enjoy. However, the gameplay is fun and has helped win me over to the Metroidvania genre a bit more. Combat can be a bit of a button mash, but I found mowing down enemies to be really satisfying in an old-school video game sort of way. Exploration isn’t tedious, and certain weapons can aid you in reaching higher levels and platforms, which encourages experimentation. You’ll also end up using the dash/roll function as just normal movement because it’s significantly faster than just running, so you’ll look like this all game
I love the character design in this game, especially the bosses you fight. They are unique and have amazing entrances when you encounter them. However, I was consistently left wishing that there was more from them. Bosses are not pre-introduced to the player, and don’t stick around after we defeat them, so I never saw them anywhere outside of our fights. It seemed so weird to find such great designs and characters that felt like they brought a serious sense of weight to the fight and the story, only to never see them again. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by games like Trails in the Sky, but I want to be enticed by the prospect of fighting such a well-designed character for a long time so the fight feels like more of an event.
The story, however, is fairly bare-bones. Don’t expect a deep story with hidden themes. The gameplay drives the interest in the game, and that’s ok because not every game needs to have a deep story. In fact, I’ve gotten so into JRPGs in recent years that games like this feel refreshing from time to time.
16 notes
·
View notes
Note
judy time :D to be honest vesperia unfortunately is not a sapphic story but the character interactions in the game are still one of the top reasons the game is enjoyed to begin with!
tales of vesperia is a 2008 jrpg that got a remaster on all modern platforms in 2019! by tales of franchise Themes, the theme for this one is "Enforcing One's Justice RPG". the story follows yuri lowell who through a series of wild events ends up going from a trip to saving the water source of his home (the poorest part of the capital) to stumbling into a world-wide corruption and people who suffer as a result of inequality and injustice placed upon them by those who abuse their power. he has a childhood friend who is in the knights, and through that association he meets estelle (moon girl who i like to ship with judith) and makes more friends and expands his world horizon! judith takes some time before making her first formal appearance but she is genuine fun to witness.
People tend to say that the last third of the story isnt like The Best writing and all but in my heart i think its perfect as is especially in the Grand scheme of what the game is trying to say. THAT being said there is a thing abt the game that bothers me a lot that comes with judith sadly :(
a lot of gags with her are also like Haha Sexy Lady gags. while i could Mostly manage through those and enjoy the game despite them, its still a frustrating thing to see especially when you have a guy in the party who is the one enforcing these jokes (literally unfortunate writing choices with him too. hes fine when those jokes are not there)
but when that isnt a thing, judy does end up functioning as a catalyst to helping the party expand their horizons on what truly goes on in the world and all. and of course it goes without saying that her meeting everyone was a very positive thing to happen in her life :)
the game is near and dear to me so when i notice any of these blorbos in a poll i go wild. hence why i was happy to see judy do so well in your poll! whether or not you end up checking out vesperia, i am happy to have piqued your interest! i am always ready to answer any questions
ALSO!!! judy has light novels dedicated to her childhood/growing up before the games events that are translated (dont recall if everything is translated by now though) so this is probably the best way to witness her train of thought as otherwise you see her through yuris perspective
have a good day and thank you for letting me gush :D
oh wow okay, there's a lot to respond here but that makes me all the more happy to see it lsdkjf
It's a bit of a stretch/general thing that a lot of things have, but in fairness the major focus on inequality yet playing up a character for haha sexy laughs (therefore lessening the impact of the focus on inequality) honestly doesn't feel disimilar to the persona series (or at least 5, and its a series I'm a very big fan of,) so my point is that I get it at least and don't judge slkdfj
I'm not really sure what else to comment on tbh but yeah it does pique my interest!! I'm not sure what I'll do about said interest yet but worse comes to worse you might see me contact you off of this account to ask for advice :'D (assuming that's ok!) I do think that if I end up getting super invested in it, I'll probably start with the games before focusing on Judith specifically, to at least get an overview and stuff?
#asks#judith vesperia#tales of vesperia#ty fr honestly long rambles like this are what im looking 4 (not that short one are unappreciated but i wanna absorb as much as possible :D
2 notes
·
View notes
Note
Day by day, it's quite fascinating to see how badly Pat and co wanted to make 3H a religion bad narrative and given the constant discourse that we're still seeing after 4 years, they sadly succeeded to an extent.
Yep !
Thing is, Pat'n'co at Treehouse, sadly, aren't working in a vacuum and some people already developed it more than I could ever do, but in some places in the world, organised religion (or religion in general)... Isn't well-seen or well-considered.
There's a reason why the r/atheism jokes existed soon after the game was released or why some people discoursed for +300 notes about a pseudo parallel and I don't think it's only because "church is usually bad in jrpgs so church must be bad in Fe16"or because they had to sell Hresvelg Grey so Rhea/Church must be "BaD".
Like, how are you supposed to talk (seriously !) to someone about a fictional organisation if their to go answer is "religion BaD"-
Tl;Dr : the religion BaD narrative only works because "Religion BaD" has some foundations IRL and "projection 101" is something a lot of the fanbase used to justify why they drank a lot of tea - but I expected more of a localisation team than to be on the same level as devoted fans who make the "fictional organisation of religious people called church = real life organised religion who also has churches bad = fictional organisation then also BaD"
And the fact that Treehouse straight up modified/edited the script's meaning to convey this thing still baffles me even nowadays, we all know what kind of mess Fates's lolcalisation was and thought people would have learnt about it, but no, in 2019 we still had professional people editing the "everyone supported their wedding and blessed them!" to "only the faithful supported their wedding and said faithful felt blessed by this wedding".
That's, imo, not acceptable.
#anon#replies#lolcalisation woes#lolcalisation issues#I dissed a lot about the lolcalisation of those games#it is just incompetence malice or people being too ethnocentred?#i don't think the same religion BaD discourse exists in parts of the fandom not using the lolcalised by treehouse script#at least i hope so#FE16#3 Nopes#it also works for 3 Nopes
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
comfort game <3
tagged by the wonderful @daveyistheloml and @autisticempathydaemon - thank you my loves!! i'm Terrible at getting back to these on time, as you well know, and i can't remember who hasn't been tagged, so do consider this an open tag if you'd like to play 😍😍 plus a few no-pressure tags for @kyoupann @wakeupnew @amistytown bc i luv u hehe 💕💕💕
comfort movie:
oh it HAS to be knives out (2019), bc i fuckin LOVE that film so much 🥰🥰🥰 i am a big big fan of agatha christie and murder mysteries in general, and it's one of the best there is - plus the characters and the setting and the aesthetic of the whole thing is just beautiful!! i could rewatch that film a million times i swear 🤩🤩 i love all of the old david suchet poirot stuff, and gift-to-humanity benoit blanc is absolutely the 21st century poirot we deserve
comfort food:
it's a bit boring i guess, but steamed salmon and rice! i, uh, don't exactly have the most exciting taste in food, i suppose you could say....... it's easy and fast, and i used to eat it a lot growing up bc it would be light enough that i could eat it before dance and not feel sick lmao
comfort clothing:
i have a sort of grey-ish brown-ish turtleneck jumper i bought AGES ago - it was too big then, but it fits now lol 🥰🥰 jumper = no work just relax, which i think is v good 🥳🥳
comfort book:
oooh.... actually, it's probably 'and then there were none', by agatha christie - yeah yeah, the actual stuff that happens in the book isn't what you might really call comforting, but i think i just like the style and atmosphere of the whole thing.... plus, i like reading it knowing what's going to happen. sue me 😘😘
comfort song:
gotta be grace kelly by MIKA - i have such strong memories of listening to that album in the car growing up, and it's one of my favourite songs ever 💕💕 plus i love MIKA!! he's a legend and i adore him
comfort game:
if i still had access to my botw save file, it would be that for SURE - as it is, i'm split between fire emblem: three houses (i can and will just sit and play the blue lions route over and over and over) and octopath traveller (the only jrpg ever to me, i love it so deeply) 💖💖💖
5 notes
·
View notes
Last Seen Blogs
nerdycupcakeexpert
Untitled
shreyanshagrawall-blog
Shreyansh Agrawal
huskeryu
King Yu
fuckyeahcalamaro-blog
El salmón Andrés
kakashilector
random fisherman