if teach has a million fans, i am one of them. if teach has one fan that is me. If teach has no fans then i am dead, etc etc. i am #1 teach stan.

Gaming Thoughts - November 2023 - Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I could have still done Xenoblade X again for this month because I've been playing that quite a bit too. But I decided to at least break it up a little bit with another game that I've been playing lately when I'm not at my Wii-U. Since there are a few postgame puzzles that is only accessable to get with online access to download them (they don't use the eshop so they are still obtainable right now) I decided to try to get them before the online as a whole is shut down.

But honestly. I wish I would have played this game sooner because I am loving it a lot, especially the characters. I always loved the Ace Attorney games moreso out of the two because of the characters and the writing and this is no exception for that as well. And being able to cross-examine multiple witnesses at the same time is an interesting gameplay addition that I would love to see in more games as well.

Though the Layton half of the game is also still just as fun as well, especially the puzzles to help break things up, but I haven't found any yet that were super hard or frustrating to have to use hint coins or look them up as opposed to some of the DS Layton Games.

Anyways, still, if you are a fan of either games this is still something I would highly recommend. Also...I will be honest...Zacharias Barnham has become one of my favourite characters in the game too. <3 (Though I have noticed that I have found myself commonly enjoying the prosecutor characters in any of the Ace Attorney games, and this is no exception to the matter either)

I have yet to finish the game, but I'm hitting the last chapter and god I am expecting there to be quite the reveal as well once I finish the chapter too because the overarching mystery is really developing in an interesting direction.

Here’s illustrations for my top five favorite games of the last year, hit the read below if you’d like to see close up drawings for all of these along with some of my thoughts!

Favorite game of the year: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (PLEASE BE COOL, I'M ONLY IN CHAPTER 5 NO SPOILERS)

I haven't even finished the game yet and i absolutely love it enough that I know it's my favorite of the year. I'm a bit sad I didn't actually finish it but I'm more happy to not have rushed through it for whatever arbitrary end of year thing. One thing I'll never get over with this game is that you spend the whole game with a cast of six main characters and they are all great, I love all of these dorks. On top of that a big reason why I'm still only in chapter 5 after like 70 or so hours in is I just cannot NOT do all the side quests and see all of those side stories completed. Something that I really liked in XB2 and even more in Torna was how much value I felt came out of doing the side quests in either game play rewards, story, or both. I'm going to finish this game some day (XB2 took me literal years to finish and I'm so glad I did) but I'm probably just going to have to take my time with it and enjoy the ride.

Signalis

A game I entirely tried based on how cool it looked, not expecting to stick with the whole game since I thought I just did not like the survival horror genre anymore. I was completely surprised by how much I enjoyed the game, losing myself in the incredible visuals and vibes from it.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

I find it incredible that this is the first 3d Kirby game because it is just feels so naturally a Kirby game from the start. Just fun and beautiful like Kirby. The abilities in this game are (almost) all super fun, my favorite being spike which just turns Kirby into a game of katamari.

Over this past week I got to reexperience the game through seeing my nephews play the game in coop and just absolutely love it. My nephew lost his shit over seeing giant sword Kirby for the first time (he was right to do this, it fucking owns.)

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen

Hey, shout out to my raid group for both putting up with me and for getting me to see some of the coolest stuff this game has to offer. Its my second most played steam game now for a reason and it’s because of them.

Witch Queen also added a really good campaign mode that on legendary was a blast to struggle and think my way through, this game’s always at it’s best when you’re using every tool you got to work your way out of tough situations.

Splatoon 3

This game is mainly just just More Splatoon, and I am still entirely very cool with that.

This one has Big Man in it.

Video Game 2023 recap!

So this year i played heaps of games lol honestly crazy to think about.

Thought I'd do my own wrap up and look back.

I may mention spoilers.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land

Cute! Its my first Kirby game in forever (last game was on the DS) Again its cute, fun, funny and its body horror for kids!

🐀Happy Sneep ^_^

Bayonetta 3

I've watched the previous two games so this was my first time playing a Bayonetta game. I was worried about getting into its combat so I played in casual for most of it. Did play in standard later and it turns out I was doing well lol

The story and ending was..something tbh I expected a lot based on the past two. Still I had fun as a newcomer and I enjoyed the customizing.

🐀 Neutral (confused) Sneep :-1

Yakuza Like a Dragon

Funny to think that I unintentionally played this game and I guess the rest of the series lmao Honestly iconic I loved Ichiban, I loved his friends, the usual RGG side stuff was fun and full of charm and the english dub was really well done. Am glad to have played this especially after I watched Penny Parker play this.

🐀a Happy Sneep about it but was left devastated at the end ಥ_ಥ

Yakuza 0

Loved it, a great way to get into the Kiryu saga, to know what Kiryu's story is (and Maji's) after playing through Ichi. I had quite the reaction to playing a game that can be so violent but also can be very weird and also feature a dress up game.

🐀 Nishiki simping Sneep (unaware of whats to come) (っ❤◡❤)っ

Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Its Xenoblade...it was a rollercoaster of a story to go through. Also very relaxing to play especially after Y0 and B3 lol

Enjoyed coming along with Noah and the gang. Loved Eunie and Taion and I liked seeing refs to 1 and 2.

🐀 Sad Sneep (at the ending) OTL

Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

I basically put aside everything while playing TotK lmao

It was so fun exploring and seeing newer things added in. This is the only game so far that made me replay the final boss, like I NEEDED to play the final boss again <3 a battle between dragons.

🐀 Speechless Sneep (◡‿◡)

Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core Reunion

I was surprised at how its a linear game and a pretty quick main story. And the missions are there to build more playtime.

the main story i liked, it was nice getting to know Zack and seeing characters from the og 7 in a different perspective.

Teared up at the ending :(

I wish that the story slowed down, so to get to know other characters more esp ones that Zack meets for the first time (Cissnei, Aerith and Cloud) and parts that were just skipped/skimmed through like Costa del Sol vacation time or when Zack inherits the buster sword after getting back to Midgar etc.

I also liked pointing out stuff I can connect to the og 7 :D

🐀Emotional but also being a silly Sneep

Yakuza Kiwami 1

A fun game. The Majima Everywhere system did make it feel like a horror game at first lmao Majima really gave me jumpscares.

The story? .....I'd rather not think about it TwT

🐀 A devastated and also kind of paranoid Sneep :-Σ

Unpacking

Just a relaxing game to play. And it is one of those games I was interested in before cause how I saw it on social media but at the time couldn't play it myself so I'm grateful to play it through the game pass yay.

🐀 Satisfied Sneep (◡0◡) ~3

Yakuza Kiwami 2

I will say I had a lot of fun with K2, such as the cabaret club minigame coming back, taking a lot of selfies (esp in front of dead bodies - Killer Kiryu) and the Majima saga. But unfortunately so far it takes last place out of the RGG games for me.

The main story didn't have a focus on the multiple plots and just revealed all the plot twists at the end.

Ryuji, hes hot but I came to conclude that hes very overhyped. He didn't have that much screen time :/ If it weren't for his popularity and spin-off appearances, I would've forgotten about him.

And I think major of all of why its last place is THAT ending...what. Like really a fake bomb? And did they have to make out?

🐀 ...Confused Sneep ಠ_ಠ

Yakuza 3

This is the gayest game I've ever played.

I honestly feel betrayed I wasn't given a yaoi warning while starting up the game. I hear that 3 is infamous for some stuff and can be quite divided between fans. BUT bro its a game WORTH PLAYING play it for dad Kiryu time, play it for Mine lol JUST PLAY IT.

🐀 Got yaoi devastated and diagnosed with MineDai syndrome Sneep _(╥︣0╥๑ゝ∠)

Frog Detective Trilogy

Simple and hilarious lmao So far I've only played the first of the trilogy. It was cool to play an Aussie game.

🐀 Suddenly anti-books Sneep

Yakuza 4

Gameplay wise it was fun. Really like how interesting it was to play as different people and how they experience Kamurocho in their own lives. Cool change to always playing as Kiryu and from Kiryu's pov. Akiyama and Tanimura were fun to play as especially Tanimura's radio thing which I found interesting. Saejima's section I felt was limited, I think the police guarding everywhere scared me away from doing his substories; so I ended finishing his part earlier compared to everyone :( (luckily I got to do his side stuff at the finale part)

And I realized at the end I struggled with switching and adapting between each character's style. Because of that I very stuffed up at the final bosses and stuffed up so bad that I forgot how to play as Kiryu..

The story is..interesting lol It is definitely soap opera-ish. I actually got into it at the start and the part where Hamazaki spilled the tea but because of the freaking rubber bullets twist I couldn't take it seriously towards the end like I even laughed and was just howling. There were scenes where it was just presented dramatically, like theres one where it zoomed into peoples faces with a sfx which instantly made me think of those Indian soap opera memes lmao

🐀 Indian soap opera edit style Sneep O_o = ☉.☉ = o_0

Yakuza 5

Very recently finished the main story. And honestly I forgot how the story goes lmao its a very long game. The character profile mind map from would've really helped and also summaries like in 0 too (which I'm guessing is an improvement since that came out after 5)

It was fun how each character came with a second game (such as Saejima's Hunting Simulator for the Nintendo Wii and Project Diva)

The enemy encountering is very annoying /: separate enemies being close by each other in the same area ughhhh

🐀 I forgor Sneep....<;(' .' )>

Eunie/Taion Drabble

**Spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Up to Chapter 5)

*This takes place during Chapter 5, after the party reaches the City and does some things (not immediately after the Maternity Ward scene, but before the ending sequence)

They had settled in the City’s dormitories for the night, exhausted from their last brief venture.

Noah and Mio had decided to walk around a little before resting, and Lanz and Sena were training at the cooking spot Monica had told them to use when they first reached the City. 

Taion was lying on his bed, idly playing with one of his Mondo as Eunie worked on cleaning her clothes. His eyes drifted over to her, watching as she folded her jacket and put it on the empty desk. She launched herself onto her bed, landing back-first with a loud sigh. He exhaled through his nose to fight the smile trying to creep its way onto his face.

His mind wandered to their tour of the city with Monica. She showed them so much - the City itself, the truth of human life, and how humans were meant to act. From meeting a living “baby”, as it was called, to seeing various stages of human life, it was a lot to take in, even after what had happened since then.

He sent his Mondo away to stare at his right hand. The warmth of the baby’s hand still faintly radiated from his pinkie finger when he recalled that moment. It was an exciting experience, for him at least, as he had never felt such joy before then. Not even when he got closure with Commander Isurd regarding Nimue. 

Glancing over at Eunie again, another memory surfaced. They had left the maternity ward and encountered a throng of people walking about. Some were “parents” with their “children”; people with wrinkly faces resembling Guernica’s walked about; pairs of people that looked around their age were seated close to one another. He and Eunie had noticed the “father” tossing his “child” into the air, but his eyes eventually wandered to what Noah and Mio had spotted: a boy and girl pressing their mouths together while sitting on a bench. Monica had mentioned how “romance” was a part of people’s true nature; maybe that was a part of it?

She’d said that love was the feeling of having someone very precious to you. Thinking back on their adventure so far, his mind led him down a path he’d never considered before now.

Eunie… She’s uncouth, vulgar, irritating… He felt his mouth curl into a smile without warning. Heat rose to his cheeks, feeling more like a comfort than an embarrassment. She’s perfect. Two blinks, and he flinched. Raising his hand to stare at it, he saw how it trembled just slightly. The realization of what he felt made his face burn hotter. Oh spark. His hand moved to cover his face, a subconscious effort to keep anyone from seeing him in such a state.

“Taion. You alright over there?”

He squared his shoulders, moving his hand from his face to crawl back and sit up against the bed’s headboard. Turning to her, he said, “Me? I-I’m fine.” She gave him a look. Exhaling, he said, “Do you remember when we first saw how the City people lived?”

“Yeah… What about it?”

“Did anything about it make you… curious?” A plan was forming in his mind, one that scared him due to how out of character it would be for him to execute. 

“Well, duh. All of it was different. ‘Course I’d wanna know more about it.”

“But did anything in particular catch your eye?”

She scoffed. “Alright, come off it. Stop dancing around the question and just say it, Taion.”

He paused, startled by her bluntness despite expecting that kind of response. “Right. Of course.” Taking a moment to compose himself, he asked, “Did you see that pair on the bench that day? The ones who were pressing their mouths together?”

“I think so.”

“Would you… Would you want to try that?”

Silence passed between them. He immediately regretted the question, thinking it foolish to assume she would agree to such a-

“Sure, why not. Not like we got anythin’ better to do.”

His eyes widened slightly. “You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Come here.” She waved him over, moving to sit up so he could have a seat on her bed. He hesitated, wondering if he had made a smart choice by being honest with her. Rather than getting a snarky remark, she just waited for him to move of his own accord. He finally mustered the strength to swing his legs over the side of the bed and join Eunie on hers.

They sat shoulder-to-shoulder, staring anywhere but each other. While they had never tried something like this before, there seemed to be an innate feeling of awkwardness that blossomed between them, especially for Taion. 

He took a deep breath. “Do you know how to do this?”

“Do you?” she shot back. 

“Of course I do!” he answered instinctively. A pause. “If I remember correctly, they looked at each other, closed their eyes, and moved in.”

“Alright, then, let’s do it.” She whipped her head around, causing her hair to flare out behind her. He noticed the light shining off of it for a moment, thinking it was pretty when illuminated. He quickly shoved that thought down into the deepest part of his mind, watching as she gently closed her eyes and just barely pursed her lips. 

A lump formed in his throat. Seeing her like that… it made her look oddly vulnerable, like she trusted him enough to let her guard down. 

One of her eyes opened, staring him down. “We gonna do this or not?” She closed it again, and Taion knew this was his last chance to back out. But some part of him egged him on, saying that he shouldn’t fear her reaction or rejection. Rejection? 

He tore himself from his mind and leaned in before he could spiral once again. His eyes fluttered shut just as his lips met hers. 

The first thing that came to mind was just how chapped her lips were compared to his. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it was a prominent feeling. He pushed forward the slightest bit, and she did the same. Pulling back an inch, he allowed himself to see her face for just a second before leaning in again. This time, he felt his heart skip a beat. What would normally be a concern in any other context felt oddly right in that moment. Moving back once more, he dared to move closer to her, his side brushing hers. He fought the urge to jump when her fingers brushed against the side of his thigh.

He felt like he was struggling for air, so he pulled back fully. They opened their eyes at the same time, staring at each other. Taion felt his eyes open wider than normal; Eunie’s eyes felt heavy, refusing to open more than halfway. 

It was Eunie who spoke first, her gaze never leaving his. “Did you happen to catch what that’s called?”

He slowly brought himself back to reality, registering that she had asked him a question. “Uh, no. I don’t believe I did.”

She exhaled through her nose, leaning against his shoulder. “Well, we’d better ask Monica, then.” His shoulder shook when she shivered. Following his body’s instincts, he took off his scarf - the same one she’d called “deeply uncool” a couple days ago - and carefully wrapped it around her neck. She didn’t react, her body weight pushing more firmly against his shoulder. 

It wasn’t until he looked over that he noticed she’d fallen asleep. Shaking his head, he held her by the shoulders and guided her body to lie down. She curled up into herself, one hand reaching to hold the part of the scarf wrapped around the front of her throat. His heart clenched at the sight, but he didn’t allow himself to stare as he quickly draped a blanket over her before leaving their room. 

He walked by Lanz and Sena, who were just heading back to tuck in for the night. They watched him leave, confused by how quickly he was walking.

“What happened with him and Eunie?”

“No clue.” They looked at one another. Deciding it wasn’t their business, they headed into the dormitory to rest up for the next day.

**Sorry if they’re out of character, but I really needed to write this out before I forgot it

**ALSO - Taion’s thoughts came from a comic done by @spacee_garbage (all credits to them - it was perfect, please go check it out for yourself)

Rapid fire thoughts after the Nintendo Direct

Overall, I thought the Direct was pretty OK, but there were a handful of announcements that really stood out to me.

-Professor Layton finally making a comeback is wonderful news. I only played the first 3 DS titles but I’m stlll very fond of them, and it’s splendid to see the series return after so long.

-Tears of the Kingdom continues to look fantastic the more we see of it. Part of me wishes the game gets a proper showcase, but I’m also glad they’re keeping spoilers to a minimum. Also is my man Ganondorf finally getting a voice!?

-The Metroid Prime remaster, holy hell! I got into Metroid properly in 2021 as Dread led me to binge the rest of the series. Prime is a wonderful game and this remster looks clean as hell. I’m very tempted to get that digital download tonight as long as it’s not too expensive.

-GBA games on Switch being Expansion Pass exclusive is infuriating but expected. More incentive to buy what I need off the Wii U eShop before it closes I guess.

-While I only ever played the first, Pikmin 4 looks lovely. Very tempted to look into the series further.

-Similar with Kirby. The only game I ever played was Kirby Super Star, but with all the praise I’ve heard for Forgotten Land and now seeing Return to Dreamland getting a Bowser’s Fury style bonus campaign for Magalor, it seems like there’s no better time to give the series a proper shot.

-Not the biggest Splatoon fan but the DLC looks really cool.

-Delighted to see Advance Wars make it out of hiatus jail at last. I’m very tempted to finally try this series out too.

And last, the thing you know I’m gonna lose my mind over: the Xenoblade DLC. The new hero has a cool new design, I promise I won’t make a Steven Universe joke. The idea that she’ll help you make OP accessories is cool, but I wonder what her battle capabilities will be. I’m guessing Support? The Archsage Gauntlet sounds like a really neat spin on the battle system. Making solo builds will require a whole different strategy to the game’s team building techniques. And the legacy costumes look really cool, I especially like Taion in Jin’s outfit.

And of course: HOLY HELL. My boys. 

They look so good! Rex especially got the glowup of the goddamn century.

Alvis is BACK? But he’s using Fog KIng powers? And Bionis Leg? Also, Noah ancestor, so this is definitely a Founders prequel. I have SO many questions and I can’t WAIT to learn more.

Overall, not an insane direct but enough announcements that made me personally happy that I can’t complain. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go download that Octopath 2 demo.

To Keep Smiling

When the Nintendo Switch first released all those years ago, the game that saw me trade in my Wii U and upgrade was Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (though the first game I played on it was Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle). So, when Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was announced this year with a release date in September, I was eager to get my hands on the final installation to the trilogy that started with a blond boy and his red word and the distinct Britishisms that were rampant in the game.

The fact that it was ready earlier than expected was simply icing on the cake.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is a continuation of the first two games, which, in the timeline of the games happened approximately at the same time but in two different worlds. Aionios, therefore, is the perfect blend of the two and this is represented in the opposing forces: Keves and Agnus.

What, somewhat, three me initially was that the game started with Noah, Eunie, Lanz and Joran all racing to the Queen’s anniversary. They push through a crowd of people before Noah stops, caught off guard by a strange phenomenon in the sky above the city they’re in.

From there, the game dovetails into a world where war has been ever-present. Initially, I explained that opening as part of the backstory for the characters. Perhaps that phenomenon witnessed by Noah was an attack by Agnus that was part of the cycle of hatred their people were embroiled in. And yet the more I played, the less my cobbled together explanation made sense.

Of course, after playing through so many hours, I’d basically forgotten those early moments - too enraptured in the current conflict Noah and his friends found themselves in as they fought to free themselves from a terrible system focused on the endless now. I mean, how messed up is it that Keves and Agnus force child soldiers into a war none of them quite understand - and where their lives are a mere ten years after birth? Sure, their bodies are in t heir mid-teens but no-one has any true understanding of modesty or romance or culture or art. Rather, the only thing they’ve ever known since coming out of the proverbial womb is fighting.

Nobody knows how the conflict ever started. But as every cycle sees friends die, trauma becomes an endless cycle of no end. The people of Keves and Agnus fight to survive and survive to fight another day.

But what struck me about Noah’s character from the first was how he viewed the opposing force - choosing to send them off if the Agnus offseer had been killed. Offseeing itself is very similar to the Sending from Final Fantasy X. Instead of a dance, however, offseers play music on a flute wherein motes of light representing the dead’s last wishes are able to move on. They are beautiful moments, filled with wonder but tinged with melancholy. It is a process that apes the grieving process and helps the people of the world move on. Something that those who have lost someone dear to them can understand and appreciate.

After the first few hours, I was soon introduced to Mio, Sena and Taion.

And just like that, I too had fallen for the Welsh catgirl (which might have been a thing in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had I not played it on Japanese dub).

Sent on a mission to investigate a strange energy reading, our Keves heroes encounter their Agnian counterparts and immediately begin to fight. They are only interrupted by Guernica Vandham, the introduction of Moebius and the power of Ouroboros. 

Thus begins the quest to save their world from needless suffering and to bring about a future that is not trapped in the endless now.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has an excellent premise. The base narrative was immersive and had me completely invested. Better yet, it was bolstered by the side stories and hero quests. And while many of the side quests were simple ‘Fetch x item’ or ‘Kill x number of y creatures,’ the framing for these jobs neatly tied into the grander narrative of living in a world when war is no longer on everyone’s mind.

And of course, I wrote about these themes in an earlier post because of how well they encapsulated the human condition and what it means to be ‘alive.’ Xenoblade Chronicles 3 more than any other game I’ve played in recent years was very much focused on asking those hard-hitting questions and making people face the reality of what it takes to continue in an unfair world. There were so many stories that I connected with and it was also so easy to sympathise with the motivations for many of the antagonists (even if I, at first, felt that they were comical jesters with the spotlights popping on at random intervals and their focus on spouting exposition when any true villain would have just killed our protagonists initially).

Joran and Shania and Crys and Irma...

Even though I know that many players hated Shania, as someone who has also experienced what it means to ‘never be good enough’ I can acknowledge that pain. With such high expectations, I can also see the appeal of wanting to restart my own life as if it were all a game - though I doubt I’d ever go to such extremes.

On a side note, there should have been more sapphic content. Alas, a missed opportunity...

But while the narrative shone bright, the combat was a little lacklustre in my opinion. There aren’t many changes from the last two titles and most battles, I could walk in blind-folded when playing on ‘normal.’ I’m sure that on higher difficulties, there would have been more of a need to rapidly switch between characters with better compositions, but well...I’m not one of those gamers.

Graphics-wise, the game is serviceable although I detected a significant downgrade when in handheld mode as opposed to keeping it docked. As for the music, they were most definitely some of the best pieces I’ve heard in a good long while - even if the Moebius theme was played for every single Moebius bar a couple. Given how big the game is, however, the game developers are forgiven for this transgression.

My one gripe, however, is that game developers need to stop creating such game worlds and keep it slightly smaller (and more manageable). As an ‘adult’ with a job, long commute times and other commitments, these games are such huge time sinks and their lengths can be more detrimental than helpful.

Overall, however, I have to say that I loved Xenoblade Chronicles with all my heart. And were I to perish tomorrow and look over my life, I’d know that this game, along with a few others, are ones that’ll bring a smile to my lips for a life well lived - my mark made on the world because of all the things I’ve done.

After all, it isn’t just important to live well - taking breaks along the way - it’s also important to die well as well (at least in the words of Ashera).

Happiness might be an impossible goal but contentment over our choices, even if there are a few regrets, and fighting for a better future are what we have been placed on this Earth to do. Let’s just hope Noah manages to reunite with his cute Welsh catgirl so that Eunie can be satisfied that they’re having babies. 

I was writing up my thoughts on Xenoblade 3 as a whole when I realized that I'd written a mini-essay on why I like the ending and why letting the nations stay together from the start would've been narratively and emotionally unsatisfying. Instead of trying to cram that in with the rest of my thoughts on the game, I figured I'd make it its own post (since this is much more of a meta piece than the rest of my opinions). Spoilers below the cut for the ending!

3 is a heavily thematic game.  One of those themes is that even if the future is uncertain, it’s worth fighting for anyways.  Noah and the party make that choice, and there are two options for what the narrative can do from there: it can reward them narratively for fighting a fight with an uncertain outcome (making the right choice), or it won’t.  They make the right choice, but the narrative doesn’t reward them for it.  I hesitate to call the ending of 3 a “punishment” in any sense, but narratively it somewhat is.  They make the difficult choice to continue fighting against Z, the Moebius, and the endless now, and the consequence of that is that the worlds separate and they have to leave behind the friends they’ve made form opposite nations.  Why would the narrative punish them for making the right choice?

For a second, I’m going to take a tangent here.  In her Trope Talk on magical otherworlds, OSP Red discusses some of the pitfalls of escapist stories, one being that a “happy ending” in a portal fantasy where the hero is allowed to leave their boring life in the real world forever can actually depress the audience, because we will never get that same opportunity to literally leave the dissatisfying parts of our lives behind.  It’s the same principle here.  The narrative could have rewarded the party for making the right choice by giving them a no strings attached happy ending, but that’s not how real life works.  In real life, we also don’t know if the future we are moving towards will be better than what we’re living in right now.  But unlike in Xenoblade 3, we don’t have the option of grinding to max level and beating the superbosses before moving to the future–that is, we can’t live in the endless now.  In a constructed narrative, we expect heroes to be rewarded for their good deeds because that’s a convention of storytelling: good is rewarded, evil is punished.  Good people win, and bad people lose.  But real life doesn’t work like that, and I believe the impact of the ending on the audience would have been diminished significantly if the uncertain future the Ouroboros were fighting so hard for turned out to be unequivocally good.

The other main theme of the game is about grief, loss, and accepting those things into your life, which is another message the ending conveys supremely well.  Just because everything goes back to the moment the world stopped in the beginning doesn’t mean that anything that happened on Aionios doesn’t matter.  It all mattered!  Just because something ends doesn’t mean it doesn’t have meaning while it’s occurring.  That goes for lives, events, relationships, and even worlds.  Nothing in this world is permanent, not even the world itself, and to pretend that none of it matters because it doesn’t last–to say that nothing we did on Aionios meant anything just because it’s all been erased and it’s remembered by no one–is to say that the only things that do matter are those that last forever, and that is a road that leads to nothing but grief and regret.

And besides, the game is very clear that they’ll all meet again at some point in the future.  Even if Monosoft never elaborates or tells us about the reunion from on high, that does nothing to stop us all from imagining it and writing it ourselves–giving the characters a lifetime of joy, and giving ourselves a path to hope.

tagged by @sauvechouris~

fave colour: ORANGE

currently reading: Notes from the Burning Age, by Claire North. post-apo power struggles and reflexions on mankind’s relationship to the world/mankind’s image of itself, with a focus on nature and history repeating itself and ancient, harmful, censored technologies being brought back by prideful, power-hungry people, so, YOU KNOW, not-at-all-familiar, not-at-all-painful stuff. i wasn’t expecting it to be so heavy on the spy thriller, but in retrospect it’s extremely her and of course i should have expected it.  i’m enjoying it quite a bit so far :D also protag’s relationship to the antag he spied on and betrayed is. yes. yep.

last song: i’ve mostly been listening to web radios bc that’s what i put on at work. this afternoon i randomly remembered The Bus Is Late by Satellite High, let’s go with that :D

last series: .... i finished what was available of 9-1-1 in my region, so i’ve. gotten started on 9-1-1 Lone Star.

last movie: uhhhhh shit i honestly don’t remember. maybe something action-y with my dad?? wait i think maybe a Jojo Rabbit rewatch a few weeks back. idk. movies kind of blend together after a while, too short and only rarely impactful.

currently working on: oh i have many WIPs, be it fics or games or crafts. i’m not working on any of them :D

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share 10 different favorite characters from ten different pieces of media in no particular order, then tag 10 people 🎥🎬📺

1. Kalas (Baten Kaitos) - it’s, y’know, my boy “but ezzoh wasn’t he an asshole the whole time” and he was so good at it!! “didn’t he betray everyone” yes, isn’t he interesting?? “wait. didn’t he betray you too. like personally. as a player.” i support him doing it. had never felt such shock and rage at a fictional character before, 10/10 would get fucked over again. worst thing to ever happen to me in a video game. my boy.

2. Viktor (Arcane) - look you can’t give me a passionate man running out of time turning to a forbidden technology/magic in desperation and turning his body into a mechanic abomination, with themes of class struggles, power imbalance, disability, bodily autonomy, mechanization, sacrifice and violence against the self, without expecting me to pounce on that like a famished tiger.

3. Lambdadelta (Umineko no naku koro ni) - a gleeful, helpful troll! pink!! gay!! gore- and vore-enthusiastic romance with her nemesis!! likes sweets!! sometimes she’ll say things so raw and relatable i can’t look at her directly!!

4. Leenik (Campaign: Star Wars) - “sometimes they’ll say something so raw and relatable i can’t look at them directly” round two. he’s a dysfunctional mess of a psychopath, has killed and will kill again, will feel bad but mostly about feeling good about it, is not sure he’s still a person, broke me a thousand times with casually thrown out, innocuously devastating little statements, is still a fucking sweetie with the cutest most ill-advised crush and the most adorable passion for romance novels, is a dork and a mother to his dog, knows he’s broken and messy and dangerous, knows he’s going rotten inside, has a heart so dark he corrupted a lightsaber and gave an imperial inquisitor the dokis. i have complicated feelings. i have one all-obliterating feeling. i’m scraped hollow and oversaturated. what was i before i understood myself through the lens of leenik

5. Lau Kin Ming (Infernal Affairs trilogy) - *lies down on the floor for a hundred years*

6. Eunie (Xenoblade Chronicles 3) - she’s my RUDEST CHILD

7. Kabrew (Dungeon Meshi) - i have a thing for smiling manipulative sociopaths. i have even more of a thing for characters who aren’t manipulative for nefarious reasons but just because they’re nd and that’s how they’ve learned to interact with the world, for good reasons like self-preservation or to protect someone/something or to achieve a goal that is objectively good or neutral. it’s his best asset!!! of course he’s going to use it!!! a pragmatic boy!!! very polite and efficient!!! absolutely cannot deal with the kind of monster-obsessed adhd idiot-who-won’t-explain-himself-ever that the protag unfortunately (for kabrew) happens to be, is terribly shrewd and clever and analytic but keeps tragically misunderstanding protag’s idiocy in the most hilarious way, is very bad at fighting monsters (his job.) but suspiciously skilled at fighting people (not even remotely in his job description :) ), later aquires another one-track-mind nd idiot to take care off and mellows out so fucking much guys it’s like he melted into mithrun’s gently reluctant fussy little wife. i am obsessed

8. Olivier (Trails in the Sky) - ✨SPARKLES✨DAZZLES YOU WITH FINE WINE, FLORID POETRY AND ROMANTIC MUSIC✨FLIRTS WITH YOU✨FLIRTS WITH YOUR DAD✨FLIRTS WITH YOUR SISTER✨FLIRTS WITH HIS BOYFRIEND✨FLIRTS WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND✨BRINGS A FLEET OF TANKS TO THREATEN YOUR BORDER✨PLOTS TO OVERTHROW THE CHANCELLOR✨FLIRTS WITH THE CHANCELLOR✨

9. Anakin (Star Wars) - i debated over maybe adding Maul to this list instead but. Maul would seethe with rage at the idea of being overlooked in favor of Anakin and so obviously that’s the correct choice. the Force wills it. anyway, ANAKIN. he’s so good. beloved by the narrative, beloved by magic, beloved by the universe. he’s SO MUCH and he’s carrying so much; expectations, responsibilities, power, restraints, taboos, fate, trauma; that when he inevitably comes crashing down he shakes the galaxy to its core and shifts the entire balance of the Force. also he’s a bitch and has a lovely snarky dynamic with just about everybody, i’m especially fond of his characterization in The Clone Wars :D

10. Xue Yang (Mo Dao Zu Shi) - .............. look i didn’t know how to end this list and i can’t choose between all my Pokémon faves and it’s better than Kavinsky even though it’s technically xianxia!Kavinsky, a little bit, but also it’s better trust me i’m a Kavinsky girl. there’s so much about him that is pressing all my buttons. he’s so terrible and so full of regrets but absolutely unapologetic and he’s tragic and he never knew what he had until he broke it but also he never really had it because he came into it already broken and bloodied himself and he did so, so much wrong and he hated and he loved so, so hard and for a while he had something that was almost like happiness but was also built on his lies and crimes and he destroyed it like a child playing and he fought so hard and so desperately to get it back, but he never did, and what little lingered of his broken dream had never been his to save, and he met a miserable end and he was never understood, or loved, or known. i need a minute.

(bonus round: 11. Shigeru (Pokémon anime) - yeah i lied actually i know who to choose it’s this bitch. i love him and so should you thanks for coming to my TED talk)

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aannnnddd i don’t really know who i could tag, so?? just grab the meme and go wild, my children

It's been a while since my last aside so I felt like sharing what I've been working on in my free time! I promise I'm not lazy, I'm just busy and also really like starting new projects halfway through working on 8 other projects for some reason haha

Speaking of starting something new when I haven't finished something I started previously, Minh and I were planning on making a collab Shulkelia one shot for Valentine's Day! Obviously that didn't pan out haha but it's still being worked on and it's extremely cute and fun :) Hopefully it will be ready to post sooner than later! And I also will hopefully be able to work on Constellations soon as well!! (Seriously I feel. SO. bad about my hiatus, especially since I know how many interesting and fun rough-draft ideas we brainstormed up for it that are just waiting to be finalized and shared with the world!!)

Another thing I wanted to do for Valentine's Day but extremely missed the boat on was mass dumping the few good NSFW Shulkelia pieces on here (with a planned warning ahead of time as well as copious tagging and hiding under readmores, of course!), including a full translation of a doujin! However, it being a nearly 20-page comic with dialogue and onomatopoeia all over the place meant I couldn't go the normal route of putting the translation below the art, it would just be way too messy and confusing. So, I decided to open up Photopea and replace the Japanese text with my translation! I felt bad about editing someone else's work (still do haha) but there was just no other way to do it, there is. SO so much onomatopoeia in there that it would be a nightmare to do it any other way. But that fact also contributed to why I still have yet to finish the translation: I got wayyy too ambitious in my typical perfectionist way, and decided to use the clone tool to edit out the hiragana and katakana handwriting for the onomatopoeia and place English text in their places, rather than just put it in small, parenthetical text next to the original writing like manga translations typically do. And oh my GOD I should never have done that there are literal HUNDREDS of characters I had to painstakingly edit out and I'm STILL not even done yet no no no... But I'm so close to finishing it!! I have only a couple pages left and then it's good to go!! Expect to see it along with the other NSFW art of them (again, with multiple warnings far ahead of time plus careful tagging to make sure you won't see it if you don't want to!!) in the near future!

Not XC related at all, but my most recent project has been making an Ao3 site skin (and, in the process, learning how CSS works) and it's been really satisfying! It's nothing super fancy, but it does create a noticeable improvement from the default (in terms of clarity/organization/readability, no offense intended at all of course!) and I'm very pleased with it so far! Once it's done I'll share it here, complete with notes on what each piece is doing to the layout and how, so anyone can use it and tweak it how they like! :)

I unfortunately haven't made any more progress on Xenoblade 3, sorry to say. And actually... it's partially because I'm worried that I'll end up liking Noah so much that I'll get even more distracted from writing Shulkelia or Xenoblade 1 in general haha... Like I'd never give up on that of course, 1 and its characters will always have a special place in my heart! But I can see myself getting swept away by The New Guy TM, much like I do with new project ideas popping into my head...

My FFXIV x Xenoblade 1 crossover has made some good progress! I've now finalized the outfits for over half of the characters I plan on making, after hours and hours of trying different chestpieces and dyes to get them as close to their canon outfits as possible! In fact, maybe I could share a little more about what exactly I'm doing, to show how I was having too much fun and made it a bigger thing than it had to be, to help explain why it's taking so long haha:

So originally the idea started out as "what FFXIV job best suits the playstyle/archetype of each of XC's playable characters?" (and I have a whole host of notes in my head about why that is from both a gameplay/kit perspective and a fandom-y General Vibes/Aesthetic perspective, which I will for sure post along with the pics). And if I could draw well, it probably would've ended there: I'd just have made some art of the cast posing with their weapons and call it done. But since 1) I can't draw the things I see in my head like I want to and 2) I like to over-complicate things for fun, I decided to pile onto this idea by not only adding more characters of (XC SPOILERS!!!) Alvis, Egil, Meyneth, and Zanza to the roster (including in terms of what jobs suit them each and why!) but also recreate everyone in-game! (I really wanted to do Dickson as well, but unfortunately there are absolutely zero mustache options that look like his :< There's only one that's even remotely similar, but the face is completely wrong for him (what facial features look like are tied to faces, for some reason; the Mustache Facial Feature creates a different type of mustache depending on which Face option you pick) so there's no way to make a character that looks sufficiently like him, at least to my standards. Maybe one day they'll add one that fits...? If they do I will for sure make Gunbreaker Dickson a reality!) This resulted in me needing to not only sit down for hours in XIV's character creator ensuring every detail was as close a match to their designs as possible, but also opening up 8000 tabs in Eorzea Collection and looking through every. single. last. glamour option. in the game for each. and. every. slot. for each. and. every. character. to find out how closely I could translate their weird (affectionate) XC clothes into weird (affectionate) FF clothes. Combine that with my stubbornness in wanting them to look as accurate as possible resulting in making two different outfits per character based on whether or not they can equip/glam the gear as the job that suits them most, (plus the fact that I'm doing [again, SPOILERS!!!] Mecha-Fiora in addition to Homs!Fiora as well as having three [three!] different job options for Shulk based on varying levels of both XC and XIV spoilers to avoid ruining twists for either game), and the fact that I went a step further and decided to also make alternate-race versions for the main party (that sounds... bad lmao. fantasy races, like elves and catboys and such) like half if-these-characters-were-instead-created-by-the-XIV-designers-in-an-alternate-timeline-what-race-would-they-probably-make-them-judged-by-me-like-their-jobs-on-both-lore-and-Vibes-TM and half if-the-XC-gang-existed-irl-and-played-XIV-what-would-they-make-their-characters-look-like, and reminder that each of these versions have two different outfit variants and each outfit needs a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 7 separate pieces each that also need to be dyed and have multiple different options to try on for every character and... it took a teeeeny bit longer than I was expecting to get through haha. But that's not at all to say it's a chore to get through; it's certainly been a process yes, but I've been having a lot of fun the whole time :) Finally getting every element just right, from all the details in character creation down to their eyebrow shape to finding the best option for every armor slot dyed just the right color, seeing it all come together and actually look quite a bit like the character is so satisfying! I can't wait to share them all, I hope someone out there enjoys the results as much as I did creating them! :) Oh, and I also will be making a glam list for each outfit as well as sharing my notes on what I picked in the character creator, so if you want to do an in-game/WoL cosplay as someone or maybe even make an alt named after one based on my recreation of them then it'll be easy for you! :)

Even though I haven't been keeping up with my fanfic writing as much lately, I do still get little ideas for things quite often and am typing them down in my doc for later! I have a gigantic backlog of things I could write: fanfics long and short, Shulkelia fics and Genfics, non-fanfic concepts both XC-related and not... rest assured, even if I'm not posting on here or Ao3 my mind is always buzzing with something and I'm always wanting to create more!

My Top Games of 2022

With today being the last day of 2022 for me, I thought that it would be a good idea to look back on the year of releases (and games that I finally got around to playing) to see which ones really left their impact on me. There are a few games on this list that weren't released this year, but had been in my backlog for quite a bit. These are all titles that I feel deserved to be played one way or another, especially when it comes to the indie titles.

So without further ado, here are my top ten games of 2022!

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 (Switch)

While my list of favorite games for 2022 tend to be pretty fluid, changing ranks as my feelings shift, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the only one that I can definitely say is my top game of the year. It is a full package RPG experience for me: wonderful story, fun combat, gorgeous art, and beautiful music. In a lot of ways, I wish I was able to experience this game again for the first time. Noah and Mia dragged out a lot of feelings for me and the ending really took me through the wringer.

Beacon Pines (Switch)

The art was the very first thing that caught my attention with this game. I have a love for anthropomorphic characters and had nothing but high hopes coming into this game. But don't let the cute characters fool you, for there is something sinister lurking in the shadows that you have to unravel. Beacon Pines is a fun experience, getting to explore the areas around the town and interact with the story in a way that brings back memories of crafting your own story (although not as extensive as one may hope). It is definitely an indie title that I would urge everyone check out.  

Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen  (Steam)

Utawarerumono is a series that has haunted me for a while now. I'd always wanted to jump right in, given that it's a tactics game and I have my love for the genre. But there always seemed like there was another game to capture my attention in the moment. Finally though, I dedicated some time to this game and came out wanting to plow through the rest of the series. The characters are all lovable in their own way, and while there is a bit of anime nonsense that occurs, it doesn't overstay its welcome. This is a series that knows how to mix the lighthearted moments with the serious ones without cheapening either experience. While the tactics gameplay is a bit simplistic, there's enough strategy to keep me enthralled outside of the story moments.

Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch)

I am a huge Kirby fan, and so when it was announced that Kirby would finally be wandering into the 3D realm a la Mario Odyssey, I was ecstatic. Sure, there have been some hiccups in Kirby's lifetime, but I had no doubt that this would at least be a fun experience. And what fun it was! Exploring through the vast worlds of the Forgotten Land was so much fun and I really enjoyed the collectible aspect of it. While I am a bit sad that I only got a glimpse of Meta Knight in the Coliseum, I am happy to see my favorite broody knight nonetheless.  

Citizen Sleeper (Switch)

This is another indie title that I have been shouting to the heavens for more people to play. Text-based RPGs seem to be making their comeback and I am all here for it. Being smack dab in the center of a space colony, all you have are the clothes on your back and a target on your head. What you do from there is mostly up to you and your luck. There are a lot of storylines to explore, from figuring out how to dodge any possible assassins coming for your head to figuring out whether you want to stay in this colony or leave at the first chance you get. Whether you get the outcomes you hope for though comes down to the roll of the dice.

Please Be Happy (Steam)

I love a good visual novel, and even more so, a good romance story. Please Be Happy is a story of a fox girl who finds herself in Wellington and with it, a new home unbeknownst to her. It's a touching story about finding love in the places you least expect it, but not just romantic love. There's just as much emphasis on love for family and friends, something that isn't touched as much in visual novels. 

AI: The Somnium Files – nirvanA Initiative (Switch)

As I tend to do, I jumped into nirvanA Initiative without playing the first Somnium Files game and came out of it very sweaty for Date. So I will go back and eventually play the first game. But this game, oh boy. The rollercoaster ride that I was taken through with the story was absolutely wild. I love to turn my brain off when it comes to accepting the world around me in stories, and as a result, I was slapped in the face when I eventually got to the twist in this story. While I do have feelings about how it was handled, I was definitely enthralled the entire way through. And of course, I do love a good mystery that gets my brain thinking. 

The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story (Switch)

A good mystery game is one of my favorite things. I love being able to take in a scene and trying to piece together what happened and why it happened. It doesn't matter whether it was entirely predictable or an utter twist. As long as the mystery is well done, my hat will be tipped. The actual gameplay is a bit frustrating at times, but I really loved how the entire story of the Shijima family was tied together through the ages. And it being an FMV, something that isn't done all that often, was the cherry on top.

Triangle Strategy (Switch)

As a tactics fan, it's only natural that I include Triangle Strategy in this line up. Out of all the tactics games that I've played this year, this one has to be one of the best in terms of gameplay. The maps were fantastic, the combat was engaging, and the art was a full on chef’s kiss. This is truly an example of a tactics game that does its combat right. And the exploration and judgement scales sections were cute as well, even though the NPCs sought to divert my path many times, much to my stress.

My Vow to My Liege (Steam)

Do you have the urge to cry? How about feel despair up until the last moments of the story? Well then, I have just the visual novel for you! This game will take you through the wringer. Honestly, if you love otome visual novels, I would say go into this one without looking too deeply into the plot. The first playthrough of this game was one that I won't forget emotionally. All of the characters are amazing and the MC herself is one of my favorites that I've played. Gosh, if she was a love interest in another game, I'd want to date her myself.

Kimagure Temptation (Steam)

This is another visual novel that I would recommend jumping into without digging too deeply into the plot. Yes, there are anime tiddies. Don't let that deter you though! This is a competently put together visual novel and I found myself coming for the fanservice, and staying for the story. That's not to say the fanservice isn't nice, albeit a bit...awkward with the sounds. But! It's still a good game to check out. It's filled with mystery, intrigue, and even a touch of sadness.

Coffee Talk (Switch)

This was another game that I put off playing for a bit. So finally getting to play through Coffee Talk was such a relaxing experience. Being able to craft the perfect drink in the moment for one of your customers and friends is really nice. But it's not just coffee that you're delivering, but also a support system for when things get tough for them. Life can get hard for all of us, and having a warm place to relax and take your mind off the stressors is a blessing.

Wrap Up

2022 was amazing when it comes to games. There were a lot of other titles that I was excited to talk about, but just couldn’t talk about in my top ten, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, Chained Echoes, Chaos;Head Noah, Validate, and many more. And with 2023 on the horizon, there are going to be even more titles that I’m excited to experience as well. 

What games caught your attention this year? 

Hi dev! A game I'm excited about received a formal release date that ended up much earlier than the reveal's time range. I know what delays can mean, but is there a chance this could be a bad thing? Thanks for the insight!

It's quite rare for a publisher to push up a release date. This is typically because delivering a product is set for a specific date so that marketing and the expected release season (e.g. targeting the holiday season). These decisions are often made a long time in advance. Shifting a release date in either direction typically affect the estimates because the target release day has a large effect on the overall sales and reception of the game. Moving release dates around tend to screw with the previous plans, which tends to get expensive - rearranging marketing schedules costs a lot. Moving a release date up suggests that there are bigger things happening behind the scenes that would justify the cost, especially because the last quarter of the game’s development cycle tends to be where a lot of the polish happens.

Typically, the further out the team is notified about the release date change, the better. If you know it’s coming, you can schedule your development around it. The closer it comes to happening, the more difficult it becomes. It is not impossible that, for example, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 managed to (somehow) get ahead of schedule and on target to finish super early. However, in my experience this does not tend to be the case. Game development is like air in a tank - it will expand to fill the full volume of the schedule because any additional development time can be spent to add more stuff to the game rather than finishing early. We devs can always improve and polish things if we have more time.

What is more likely to have happened is that there’s some pretty big things happening behind the scenes, likely significantly larger than the expected response to Xenoblade Chronicles itself. What that might be I cannot say for certain, but it’s enough to raise an eyebrow for sure.

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Jenna Coleman spoils release of new Xenoblade game?

So I didn't really want to talk about this, but since this "news" item has blown up today, I feel like I need to address it.

2 months ago, during one of the 1 on 1 video calls that could be bought at one of the virtual comic cons that Jenna Coleman took part in, she was asked by a fan about her role as Melia Antiqua in the Xenoblade Chronicle games. She said:

I did it from pre-Doctor Who days, and when they did the second one they just asked me to come back. And I think they are going to do another, to my knowledge. Don't know. Yeah, I think they are going to do another. Don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

4 days ago, the youtube video of the meeting was found by a gaming website, and wrote this story about it:

https://gamerant.com/xenoblade-chronicles-3-rumors-leak/

After that, there was a lot of discussion in the Xenoblade fandom over whether there could really be another Xenoblade game or not. A few other website reported the potential news, but that was about it. The discussion then slowed down over the weekend.

But all of sudden, within the last few hours, this story generated much, much more attention than ever before, with some websites now claiming that according to a "source", the next Xenoblade game is nearing the final stages of development.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/third-xenoblade-chronicles-game-reportedly-nearing-final-stages-of-development/1100-6494966/

But there are tens of other articles just like this one, all more or less saying the exact same thing.

Now I don't know how serious this should be taken. Is the new "source" just the same vague statement made by Jenna Coleman again? Possibly. There have been so many different sites reporting about this "news" item, that it is very plausible that others mistook speculation about Jenna's statement, to be a confirmation from an independent source.

It is rather odd that some websites just refer to Jenna as "a voice actress". How do they not know who Jenna Coleman is?

Nintendo has not said anything about this yet, as far as I am aware. If this is true, they are probably quite annoyed about how this "news story" has been blown out of proportion. Jenna has always followed her NDAs very strictly. Take her role in The Sandman for instance. For 6 months she kept saying that there was a future role she had, that she just can't talk about yet.

However, I do want to reiterate, that Jenna's statement should not be taken as certainty that there will be another Xenoblade game. As Jenna has admitted herself, she doesn't know that much about it. And being a voice actress for the English dub of the game, I would be very surprised if she was kept in the loop of all the latest developments of the franchise. She admitted that she wasn't sure. I guess she just wanted to be nice to the fan.

Whether it is true or not, one thing is for sure though: Jenna really didn't expect her statement to reach this kind of attention. And I think that is how all of this should be seen. This was a private video chat, not a public statement, and was not intended to become one.

If Jenna sees the way this has all been blown out of proportion, I would think her reaction would be something like this:

Ninty Direct Feb 2021 Thoughts

That was uh. Kind of disappointing, actually.

I suppose it was inevitable that we weren’t seeing Pokemon since they’re gonna do their own announcement. But like. Coulda done better here.

(oh no you’re now introduced to my awful awful handwriting, is this better or worse than my cursed interests? you decide)

Anyway I wrote down everything they announced so here we go

Pyra/Mythra in Smash: I don’t give a single shit about the Xenoblade series, but it’s one of like 2 IPs Nintendo has had in the last decade so sure whatever they can have second a character as a treat. I’m mostly just annoyed this wasn’t a third-party character.

Fall Guys Switch: This feels inevitable. It also feels about 5 months too late.

Outer Wilds Switch: I’ve heard some absolutely excellent things about this game, so fair enough. I’m not sure I’d buy it on the Switch, but I haven’t bought it at all yet, so.

Famicom Detective Club: This looks like a Ren’py game if it had an actual budget, but still used Ren’py for some reason. Prooobably not biting on this one chief.

Samurai Warriors 5: The only Warriors game I’ve played is the first hyrule warriors, and the only Nobunaga game I’ve played was Pokemon Conquest (it’s a trip), so. I don’t understand the obsession they have over there for this bloke, like imagine if Australia made like a tv series a year and a large handful of video games about Ned Kelly or something.

Legend of Mana: Shit I should go play Octopath Traveler huh

Monster Hunter Rise: Those monster designs looked pretty kickass, and those human designs made me crack up laughing. I’ve never played Monster Hunter, and I don’t think this is gonna change that.

Mario Golf: Hey look they confirmed Waluigi as playable ahead of time so people wouldn’t complain, good job guys. The multiplayer of this looked silly as hell, but I’m not spending 80 bucks on wii sports tennis for a multiplayer mode ill drag my mates to play all of once before we go back to playing Beetle Adventure Racing.

Tales from the Borderlands: Wait telltale is still around? Ok…? I haven’t played Borderlands and don’t really care for the Telltale style so nah

Capcom Arcade Stadium: They could have made a peripheral like the NES/SNES mini, but they didn’t, and it’s for the best. The fact that one of the games is free implies to me that the rest are going to be overcosted, though.

Stubbs the Zombie: What the fuck am I looking at. Apparently this is a remaster of an old Xbox game, but I’ve never heard of it. Weird as fuck, but sure.

No More Heroes III: No more Heroes is a franchise that I’ve never played, but always wanted to. It seems right up my alley aesthetic-wise, and the gameplay looks pretty solid too- probably gonna try one of the older ones first, though.

Neon White: Speaking of aesthetic. This looks anime as fuck and edgy in a good way, and the gameplay looks real fun. I actually really want to check this out, and no, it’s not just because of the skull masked goth gf on the cover. (Doesn’t hurt, though.)

DC Super Hero Girls Teen Power: Jesus, this looks like a bad tie-in game from the mid 2000s. Not like Battle for Bikini Bottom, more like a Jimmy Neutron. And while I really liked the Jimmy Neutron game as a kid (shame about the show), this doesn’t look like it’ll stand up to that…high bar. Listening to this trailer made me want to die a little bit inside.

Plants Vs Zombies: Battle for Neighbourville: I miss PopCap. Peggle 3, never.

Miitopia: This looks cute, and will probably lead to the same sort of 3am DMs that happened with Tomodachi Life. If it’s a full priced game, it probably won’t sell at all.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Mario items: uhhh sure. Don’t have that game, so.

Triangle Strategy: Aww fuck it’s a final fantasy tactics that looks like octopath and it might have an actually good story, shiiiiiiiiit. I’m gonna give the demo a try before I land on this, but I’m optimistic.

Star Wars Hunters: When was the last time we had an actually good Star Wars game? And don’t say Fallen Order. Yeah, didn’t think so.

KO City: Ah, the bottom of the barrel. Didn’t think it would take this long. At this point, the pseudo-cartoony style everything has because they’re trying to ape Fortnite is extremely grating on me. (I definitely thought this ad was for Fortnite stuff at first)

World’s End Club: OK this one has me actually hyped. I knew that Kodaka (director/writer of the Danganronpa series) and Uchikoshi (director/writer of the Zero Escape series) were working on a joint project, and we’re finally seeing the results. Both of them have multiple excellent games under their respective belts, and this new game looks like a fun spin on what I’m sure a lot of people were expecting from the pair. Literally both of them have made a game where (spoilers I guess, Keara stop reading here you haven’t played VLR yet) there’s a death game going on while the characters are unaware the world fucking ended, so to see the idea of the death game getting interrupted and the characters actually having to live in the dead world is really cool. I’m paying cloooose attention to this one.

Hades (Physical Release): Dang now if I buy hades I can choose to have some of my money go to EB games or JB hifi or something. Cooooooooooooool.

Ninja Gaiden Collection: This just made me wonder why Ryu Hayabusa isn’t in Smash yet. Is it because there’s already a Ryu?

Age of Calamity DLC: I don’t think I mentioned this in my post yesterday, but I would have put money on DLC for this game coming out. I still haven’t played it, but the first Hyrule Warriors had so much fucking DLC so this was inevitable in my eyes.

Bravely Default 2: Uhhh its another JRPG man idk what you want me to say. Didn’t play the first one, apparently its good.

Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection: Kinda funny having this next to the free original in the Capcom Arcade Stadium. Capcom is reviving old franchises, I guess? Where’s Mega Man Battle Network, cowards?

SaGa Frontier: I’ve heard good things about the SaGa series, but this looks awful. Not like gameplay wise, the style for the models and shit in game just disinterests me.

Apex Legends: Is anyone still playing this game?

BOTW 2 (no news): I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed. Next Direct, I guess.

Skyward Sword HD: I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.

Seriously though, I was expecting 3 of the best Zeldas ever made to get ports, and we got the one that I wasn’t interested in. Fuck you too, I guess.

Splatoon 3: I actually was super interested in this, seeing as the trailer looked like it was gonna be for some like… side game, 3D RPG or something, exploring the origins of the Splatoon world? But then it’s just Splatoon 3. And like, I know people really like that series, but it never appealed to me. The world is neat! But I’m not interested in the series as it is.

And that’s the tea.

ADDENDUM:

shit that’s this weekend? huh ok -New Hearthstone expansions revealed, kinda like WOTC does with magic every so often, just like “here’s the next couple sets btw”. Since they do nothing but plagiarise off each other and MTG is having a set based on another WOTC property this year (D&D), there’s going to be a Starcraft set. -Diablo 4 release date that will not be stuck to since COVID is still a thing -people are hoping for starcraft 3. Blizzard to announce Starcraft 2 Episode 1. -New WoW expansion announced, determined objectively to be “worst ever” before trailer is even finished

Day 9: Day 7 - Revelations.

Today was fun. Xenoblades been fucking amazing so far and I’m still looking forward to playing it everyday, unfortunately FF14 has taken a backseat to it but I’ll return once i finish up Xenoblade.

So lets talk about day 7 huh.

I said I didn’t have a post for day 7 cause it was a bad day and that’s partially a lie. It was mostly an average day until I wrote out the post for day 7, at which point it became a bad day.

I didn’t really know what to write on day 7. I tried a couple things and none of them seemed to work and as I kept deleting paragraphs everything kept getting a little more raw and emotional, Attempt 2 was more emotional and raw than attempt 1. Attempt 3 more than 2, etc. On my fourth try I found what I was looking for, that feeling when you’ve struck literature gold and your just typing away filling the page with word after word of exactly what you wanted to convey.

But then I realized something. What I was writing sounded exactly like a suicide note. The first sentence was “I just wanted them to know how I felt.” later i wrote “I want them to know none of this was there fault, there was nothing they could’ve done.” and I started balling in my room, my door was open so I was biting down on my lip, tears streaming down my face as I wrote this letter. Finally I reached an end after 4 paragraphs and just sat there crying.

Ultimately I didn’t post that letter for day 7, of course, and I’m better now, I know that probably doesn’t sound like much coming from me, especially with events as of late, but I do feel better than I did then. But thinking back to it, It felt so final. It was so filled with anger and bitterness toward the world, some sort of lamenting tantrum at everyone who would’ve read it. It read like the words of someone who was about to die and it scared me. Still does today, which I guess is a good thing. 

I think about my own death a lot, hell I daydream about it nearly on the regular. I feel like I’ve told at least one or two people that but I’ve never told them specifically what I think about. I have two separate death dreams.

The first is the Car Dream. In the car dream, I’m driving, on some street near a closed gas station, when all of the sudden i get in a head on collision. there’s glass stuck in me all over, im bleeding out of my ears and my eyes are open wide in shock. I crawl out of the car and lay on the ground by the door, staring up into the sky as the dream camera very cinematic like floats up into the air as David Bowies’ Heroes plays. Melodramatic as hell I know. But that’s how it plays out every single time I have the car dream.

Btw David Bowie makes great credit music. Heroes, Moonage Daydream, Life On Mars they all have such an ending type of vibe too them, like you’re watching someone walk off the field in an 80′s movie. Or in my case die in a fucking car accident lmao.

Anyway..

The other is the Funeral Dream. In the funeral dream I’ve already died. Everyone I expect would be at my real life funeral is there all dressed up to the nines. It’s in the same funeral home as my dads, I guess because it was the last funeral home I vividly remember the look of. There’s no service or anything but there is a closed casket and a television. The Television turns on and a video begins playing. It’s animated the first I hear is Blue by Yugo Kanno, the ending track to Cowboy Bebop. Another very good credit song, mainly because it’s used in the series finale credits. The similarities don’t stop there, as a huge blue sky plays a pivotal role in the plot of this little animation. There’s a shot of me in a hospital bed, presumably in this dream I die of some sort of illness. Don’t know if I’d take it over a car crash but that’s a quandary for another day. I wont go into too much detail about the events leading up to the end of the video. But when the ending crescendo of Blue begins i start running up the side of the hospital, and jumping into the sky, and as the song ends I fly away, only to be seen watching the world below me while sitting on a cloud. It mirrors this picture from the ending of All Star Superman, which makes sense because it’s my favorite image a comic I love, and is also about someones death.

The video is honestly, quite beautiful. It’s stirred tears out of me more than a couple of times.

I’ve had revelations about these dreams recently. In both of them I’m killed by something completely out of my control. An Unstoppable Illness, and An Unseen Oncoming Vehicle. I go away to music, ending music, ending music I love, and in the funeral dream I get closure. I watch the reactions of the people I love and I watch them leave. Knowing that their lives will continue on.

A resolute end. A goodbye.

This entire break I’ve been dreading returning to my friends lives not because I hate them or anything but because It would make it so much harder to leave. I’ve felt exhausted of living for so long, since before I even knew any of them, though I didn’t know that back then. But I got involved in these peoples lives I became something to them no matter how small or big that thing might be I AM something. It all makes senses. I stop talking to my guitar teacher, I brush off every compliment that comes my way, I chuckle and say a half assed thanks when people show me genuine love, I confine myself to my room and never speak to anyone, because I’m trying to prepare. Whether all of it means to prepare to just disappear or kill myself is a question I don’t have the answer to.

The more important question is, now that I’ve figured it all out, how do I feel about it?

Idk. I don’t wanna die, not today. Not right now. I did on day 7. Will I tomorrow? Maybe.

Truthfully, I have no Idea how to process any of this information or what i want to do with it. emotionally I want to go through with it, just POOF out of peoples lives and chill either in this room alone or in the ether. Logically I don’t want to do any of that because that sounds fucking insane.

Idk man. Shits crazy.

From the Tabletop #6

As of the end of the last session, where #5 left off, we've been doing alternating games, between D&D and a new Exalted campaign, swapping every Saturday. So, I'll start with D&D as there's a bit less to report on at-present. We're in an original world of the DM's design, with a design so subtle that the instant he described it to me, I was like "Wait, so the world is all on top of a giant, like Xenoblade Chronicles. Except this is a woman laying on her back?" The main town we operate out of literally has a name meaning "Belly Button". So, for context, a fellow of this party and I were inspired by JoCat's amazing "Crap Guide to D&D" video series and decided to take his advice, form a party of holy class heroes called the A-Men and rock the world around us. This never came to fruition as two of the supposed party fo 4 never showed up for a session. So this is how our party ended up with two clerics out of four players. I guess I'll go first this time. My character is Laga, a Half-Orc Solar Cleric, who follows St. Helbram, an original deity of the DM's. I decided to make Laga as an example to the other half of the party (the same half that was the problem half in Exalted in previous installments), to demonstrate how one plays against type and expectation - by playing a Lawful-Good version of a creature strongly associated with Chaotic-Evil stereotypes. It's a very different mindframe, as I play her as excessively goody-goody in her nature and a strong desire to use diplomacy to get by, rather than force. Our other cleric is Lucius, a Human Forge Cleric, who actually is quite openly racist against non-human characters. He acknowledges Laga, on account she's a lady of the cloth and also in that, despite being half-orc, she's still half-human too. He's been unable to join us for a few sessions, but already set himself up as quite the forceful personality, being the spear to Laga's olive branch. Next is Laguna, a male Drow (apparently those exist) wizard, who runs a pawn shop as a front for the mafia. I actually need to give mad props to his player on this one, as not only has he actually worked really hard to make the character interesting, but he also has very gracefully endured the ribbing the other characters give him. Apparently he is an incredibly beautiful male and, thus, is often mistaken for a woman. And lastly is Kaz. No, that's not his full name, but no one particularly cares. Kaz is the party's munchkin, who decided to play a Aarakocra Monk (and fuck you, where-ever you are right now, Kaz, for making me bother to look up how that stupid race's name is spelled). If you're not familiar, this means that he basically fudged it so he had 20 on Dexterity and then he tried to stack every movement he makes based on Dex. He even tried to argue that Natural Weapons (key word: WEAPONS) counted as unarmed attacks and, thus, should be based on dex. And he also really, really likes the words "BONUS ACTION", on account he's trying to just play himself as a living pinwheel of dex-based attacks. Seeing as he sucks at everything else he tries. So, taking a nod from Rising of the Shield Hero, in town, we find a countdown to the next disaster in town square - 7 days. The people of Belly Button (fuck you, DM-san, that's its name for the sake of these blog posts!) are honestly so used to this that they've become incredibly jaded towards the countdowns. This actually alarms Laga, who finds that the apathy worrisome, as one disaster being worse than the previous ones would be all it takes to cause untold harm. She meets with Laguna, who she has a brief history with (teasing him playfully that he should give up his 'sinful' pawn shop, due to the shady history some of the merch has) and they, more or less accidentally meet Kaz in so doing. Long story short, Laguna and Kaz agree with Laga's assessment, and they set off to try to learn what they can of the impending disaster and what they can do to deal with it. Long story short, they sign up to take on work at a sort of hunter's guild, resulting in a very impromptu battle against a freakin' dinosaur inside the test chamber. Due to... reasons I've honestly forgotten already, Laguna actually wasn't present for this. Laga, seeing this unarmed and unarmored idiot bird-man in harm's way, swiftly takes to the front line, shield and mace at the ready. For reference, Laga's AC is 18, between chain mail and a shield. Due to the aforementioned min/maxing, Kaz has 20. Kaz also wears just a karate gi, essentially. This ultimately results in Laga getting ragdollized as she attempts to protect said idiot bird-man. Thankfully, she has HP for days and, thus, took it like a champ as Kaz rolled 2-3 attacks in a row (this was before the DM and the rest of the party realized he was rolling his talons as unarmed attacks) and easily dropping the beast where it stood. Turns out, it was mechanical and the test was just to see how we'd react, but it was treated as a win, so we were largely satisfied with the results. Some faffing about later (the nature of each impending disaster seems to vary greatly between each instance of such, so information was sparse), so we decided to restock supplies before we leave. There, we meet Gunther, a stout fellow with a shop full of odds, ends, and everything inbetween. He even has wyrmstone, a magically-potent element semi-rare of this world, legendary weapons and tomes, and more. Laga purchased a book that, when united with the other Dragon Ba-- I mean -- copies of the same book, will grant the user a wish. She admitted fully that she wasn't 100% sure she trusted wish-granting magic, or that she could even phrase the wish such that there was assuredly no trouble from doing so, but the mystique won out and she bought it anyway. The entire time, Laguna, default rival of Gunther, kept attempting to... um... smooth things over between rivals. Or... trying to at any rate? On account that everything he said came off as a veiled threat, and it was only because Laga vowed to keep him on a short leash that Gunther relented and let us shop peacefully. Afterward, we ultimately headed to the bar to regroup. There, Laga spotted a proud hound in the corner of the bar. Squeeing like a small girl at a boy band concert, she asked permission to pet and feed doggo. Doggo approved. Turns out he was a mighty hound named Regnar, who the party would soon briefly recruit. I confess this scene made me irrationally happy, even out of character, as the idea of this large, thicc half-orc completely losing her marbles over a cute dog was too endearing not to enjoy. While at the bar, a girl from the DM-original race of Warcur, sought out our help due to a missing sister. She was last seen in the company of a noble, so our goal was clear: we needed to get into the ritzy part of town. No small fear due to us all being demi-human races in a town that really frowns on that. Ultimately, I was able to sweet-talk the guard, on my honor as a cleric. We then spotted the noble in question, and we devised a plan. ... Not... not a particularly SWIFT devising of plans, mind. While Laguna and Laga were largely on the same page, Kaz slowed deliberation down a bit and often confused the nature of the scheme. By the time we broke huddle and prepped to put it into motion, the DM joked that the man was already several blocks down the way, forcing us to race after him in a mad dash. After a brief, but ultimately fruitless, confrontration, the noble went on his way. But not without leaving a note behind. Laga was able to read part of it - something about "Four Sacrifices". Immediately, we put it together: the missing Warcur girl was likely to be killed off in the name of some dark deity! There was murder afoot and it was taking place just outside of town, beyond prying eyes, that very same night! We swiftly recruited Regnar, for his master tracking, and made way for the destined place. There, we saw goblins. Hundreds of them! We approached as stealthily as we could muster, well aware that one misstep would result in us being rushed by hundreds of the green menace, but also the deaths of four innocent maidens! Then, Laguna had a plan. Laga, due to her orc/cleric combination, actually spoke the most languages in the party - common, orc, goblin, and giant. This is important for several reasons, not the least of which was Laguna's plan was to mask Laga as the goblin's primary deity of choice, and then have her, speaking the goblin language, talk down this murderous army from their attempts at sacrificing maidens. His set up was masterful and I actually thought the plan was pretty concrete. We even saw the four girls in question, on a raised platform of some sort at the center of the gathering. Then I screwed up my charisma roll. Laga: You must not proceed with this! This is terrible! Warcur Girl: HEY! How dare you call our band terrible! We only just started playing! Laga: ... WHAT?! Y'ever... have your DM just pull a fast one on you? Well, ours sure as Hell did. And it all started because of a wry observation I made, out of character. In the D&D 5e manual, it lists the available languages and the alphabet they are written in. Turns out that dwarven, golbin, giant, and a few other languages all are written in the dwarven alphabet. DM-san then informs me that he fully planned the dwarves of this world to be very much akin to feudal Japan. Which is a pretty neat idea. And so he began joking that goblin language would be akin to Korean. And if you haven't put it together just yet, we had just walked into a multi-ethnic goblin-pop idol sensation band. G-Pop. And, due to the misunderstanding, Laga herself became something of a pop idol sensation, despite having yet to sing or dance yet. "The Four Sacrifices" was a band name and we had just inadvertently heckled their concert. When they returned to town, bootleg Laga merchandise had begun to make its round, much to Laga's deepest regrets. Not long after, Lucius joined the party, just in time for us to find a help wanted poster. When we sought out the interested party, we found a jilted lover situation - where a terrible witch had seduced and taken away her man! The client wanted us to steal something, which Laga admittedly had a hard time rationalizing away, up until Lucius clarified that liberating items from the witch and turning them over to the church would be a means by which furture generations could be better prepared against black magic - and that set Laga's indecision to rest. We agreed to break into the homestead and "liberate" the item in question. We entered using a magic doorway and this lead us to agreeing to always asking more questions about the nature of our work before we get underway. We were transported into an unsettling and otherworldly library, with strange entities keeping watch over things. Kaz attempted (and spectacularly failed) stealth, nearly knocking an entire bookshelf over on Laga and Lucius - the latter of whom was bopped over the head with a book that he would then claim as his own. We quickly made haste into the hallway, where we engaged with... God-damn Demons. The one race I decided would be fine for Laga to harbor a racial hatred of. The fight was brief, but brutal, as we easily laid them to waste. Then the puzzles began. Each door was guarded by an enchanted, speaking plaque which had a question about the lord of the manor. And, instead of using the... y'know, room FILLED WITH BOOKS AND KNOWLEDGE THAT CLEARLY WOULD'VE HELPED US... we decided to brute force the solution. One instance, when asked what the lord held in highest regard, this exchange actually happened: Kaz: Money? Plaque: No. Lucius: Gettin' laid? Plaque: No. Laga: Love! Plaque: I... y-yes, technically. ("It was actually his 12 wives. But, whatever." ~DM-san, after pointing out how fucking stupid we all had been.) Eventually, we get tired of guessing randomly and head 'forward' best we can manage. This results in our being prompted to roll for perception, which only Laga passes. I then get to be sole witness to a massive, gaunt, nigh-invisible figure approaching us. I desperately attempt to explain what's happening to the others as it nears, and it finally dawns on me (Huehuehue) that one of my basic cantrips is to make objects I touch glow. So, upon nearly getting strangled, I set the figure aglow and the battle begins in earnest, most of the damage being dealt via the two clerics and their divine powers (CoD of War indeed). Eventually we banish the killer and make our way to the safe, which Lucius pries open... only to then have a tiny, cat-like creature (which the DM informs us is called a Poogem) roll out and begin sounding the alarm. With its mouth. Too stunned to think straight, Lucius takes the gambit of the session: Poogem: I'm an alarm! WAY-WOO-WAY-WOO! Lucius: No, you're not! You're my best friend! DM: Roll charisma. Lucius: 20! DM: ... Poogem: I AM?! YAY! Then, we recovered the item and fled as quickly as we could, to the satisfaction of our employer. Afterward, the party split up as Lucius and Laguna went their own ways and Kaz and Laga went to the bar, met by bands of Warcurs. Kaz immediately humiliates himself by failing to understand cultural nuance more complex than "This race is typically NG" and spends 10 real-world minutes trying to fumble a name for his character's father (not a joke). Laga, meanwhile, sits with the female Warcurs and is offered a drink from one after hearing that they spent all day slaughtering demons. Now, due to meta-knowledge, I knew this drink was not safe for consumption. However, I throw my hands up and went with it, having Laga bottoms-up that tankard into her maw. DM: Okay. Roll Constitution. Me: 20! DM: ... Well, alright then. You enjoy it but it has a weird aftertaste. And, holy crap, this has gone on way longer than I expected so, join me next time as the D&D party undertakes a new mission and: Kaz is useless again! Laguna goes on one hell of a trip! Laga seduces a dragon and gets embroiled in TEEN GIRL SQUAD political movements! Laguna gets cursed by MegaSatan! Kaz nearly gets the party killed by offering a dragon a potato sack dress! And Laguna dies in boiling magma! See you there!