#this is purely story thoughts. i did not even get started on the gameplay bc ohhhh boy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sage-nebula · 8 months

Text

I've now finished all available story content for Pokémon Scarlet in my replay, and with everything fresh in my mind again, I want to share some Thoughts™. Note that these are only thoughts on the storytelling, and not on any other elements (gameplay etc).

First, on the original scenario:

While I don't think that this is the greatest story in a Pokémon game yet like some others do (I still think that honor goes to BW), I can definitely see why SV's story appeals to those that it does appeal to. Arven's story is heartwrenching, and Penny's / Team Star's is relatable to anyone who has had to suffer bullying, only to be labeled the bully themselves when they try to do something about it. Nemona's story unfortunately suffers the most; you don't really get any insight into who she is or what her struggles are until post-game, and even then you have to seek her out to discover any of that. It makes sense, in a way; Nemona is mostly just there to give the player incentive to tackle the Gym challenge. Still, it's unfortunate because I think that her character (an Ace in every way who is therefore isolated from her peers as a result) is one that would have been really interesting to explore in more depth.

Having said all that, I think the biggest detriment to SV's storytelling is that it keeps the three rivals completely separate until the trip into Area Zero, with the exception of a bit of bickering between Nemona and Arven in the beginning (and a tiny bit of Penny's added in when you're about to leave on the Treasure Hunt). I think most in the fandom agree that the trip into Area Zero is SV's strongest point; unfortunately, none of the Area Zero stuff is truly relevant until that point, and the rivals don't get to talk to (and therefore befriend) each other before that point, either. As a result, it makes their friendship in the end feel forced / weak. They have a few conversations in Area Zero and now they're besties? I don't really buy it. Especially since they spent the first few conversations antagonizing each other.

Instead, I think it would have made everything a lot more cohesive to have the three of them interact with each other at different points throughout the main story. Either they could happenstance cross paths whenever one of them is talking to the player, or the game could have taken a truly original track and have the school send players out on the Treasure Hunt in groups of four, grouping Arven, Penny, Nemona, and the player together in one group to travel across Paldea together. Of course, it would seem a bit busy to have all three rivals constantly running alongside you, but there could have been a base camp that all four would return to at the end of the day, and we could have had interactions between them there. Showing the three rivals befriending each other over the course of the entire Treasure Hunt would have made them cementing their friendship in Area Zero (and things like Penny calling Nemona and Arven treasured friends on par with the Team Star bosses) make a whole lot more sense.

A quick aside on Team Star — I think Game Freak fumbled this storyline pretty badly. Penny's Not Reveal aside (who didn't know she was Cassiopeia, like . . . really), it seems that what Game Freak wanted with Team Star was to make the whole team, grunts included, victims of rumor mongering. This is made apparent at the end of the Caph Squad segment, when Clavell brings up that there are rumors of Team Star bullying other students, and Carmen is like, "After hearing what we all have to say, do you really think that's the case?" And that's fine, except . . .

We are shown that Team Star grunts bully students at the start of the game.

Granted, it is only one scene. But our introduction to Penny is her being harassed by Team Star grunts to join up, and then them turning that aggression onto the player. It's contradictory to show us that some Team Star grunts do bully other students, only to then backpedal completely and say they don't. And I think that this could have been used as Penny's motivation; that, instead of being worried about her friends being expelled, Penny realized that the organization was way too big and that bullies were using it as a shield to bully other students, and that that's why it had to be brought down. Bringing this to the attention of the other bosses could have also been used as their motivation to step down, which would have made a lot more sense than the "well the rules say so." It would have further cemented the fact that they were victims of bullying themselves who would never want to see anyone else bullied again, either.

But back to the main story — aside from thinking that it is a waste that we don't get to see the rivals interact with each other and build their friendship up over the main story, I also think it is a waste that the absolute coolest part of SV's story (the Area Zero lore) is completely packed into the final segment of the game, bearing almost no relevance otherwise. I mean, true, Arven is searching for the Herba Mystica to heal Mabosstiff, and that comes from Area Zero. But we don't learn why he has that book, what relevance that book has, or what the professor was up to until the final segment of the game. We're told Area Zero is off-limits because it's dangerous, but aside from the fourth Titan battle (or was it the third?) we don't see any paradox pokémon on the surface or learn anything about the professor other than that they are Arven's parent and they invented the Tera Orb. And I think that is a waste; there is so much cool lore in SV, and the professors themselves are fascinating characters because they're not exactly good but they also aren't evil, but we just don't really get to engage with that until the very end of the story (and now the DLC). I'm not entirely sure how this could be fixed without completely reworking the story (though I'm sure I could come up with ideas if I found the time to think on it), but it's just disappointing that the best part of the story is at the very end.

All in all, I don't think SV has the worst story in the series. That dishonor still goes to XY. But I think that it's a shame that its strongest points (the rivals + the lore) are things that just didn't have the right amount of investment into them. I think that having the rivals at bare minimum get to interact in scenes throughout the three campaigns would have helped their characters and relationships and would have better sold the "they are besties now" ending to the Area Zero segment. An even better solution, imo, would be to have them all accompanying the player on the journey even if they aren't always on-screen together, with designated camping scenes at different points in the game, more little micro conversations (albeit ones better worked in; something like skits in the Tales series would work better than what we got in Area Zero), and perhaps continued arguing over which way the player should go next, since they all have their own agendas, too. And as for the lore, just being able to see more of an effect Area Zero had on Paldea would have helped with that a great deal. Have more paradox pokémon escaping and people freaking out about it, have the A.I. professor guiding an unwitting player into making the situation worse somehow. Something, so that we're given reason to really want to go into Area Zero at the end, versus just "well the professor said to, so I gotta."

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the storytelling in SV. There are a lot of weaknesses, but those weaknesses mostly stem from the potential that is there that was not realized. I will say that so far the story DLC has been a step in the right direction, especially where the Mossui siblings are concerned; the two of them knowing each other so well and having a pre-existing relationship does a lot of their characters, both individually and together. Now we just have to wait and see if the Indigo Disk DLC sticks the landing. I really hope it does.

But for now, I sleep.

#pokemon #pokemon sv #pokemon scarlet #this is purely story thoughts. i did not even get started on the gameplay bc ohhhh boy #i think we all know that these games are MESSES #the glitches i have seen . . . the performance issues . . . boy #it's truly a damn shame Game Freak releases games in this state smdh #but that's a whole 'nother discussion for another time

8 notes · View notes

toastsnaffler · 2 months

Note

Would love to hear ur thoughts on Hades game sometime because I too loved but had beef with the game and I think we are the same ….

yessss, disclaimer I haven't played it for like 3 years and I only played 10 hours/got to the end once before I dropped it so i might be misremembering some things but I stick by my opinions! under the cut cuz this is long as fuck 🫣 my haterism has no limits

ok so basically my grievances w hades can be split into 2 main areas: gameplay + narrative, I'll break them down in that order.

firstly gameplay - roguelikes/lites are my fave genre so I was predominantly approaching hades from this angle + its failure here is the clincher for me.

I found the gameplay repetitive and stale. this isnt a criticism of its permadeath like ive seen some ppl make - I usually relish repetition/grind especially in permadeath-based games bc I find tactical challenge fun + love the learning curve, its soooo rewarding. but hades is ultimately just a glorified button masher. mob/boss movesets are boring + unoriginal, and can generally all be fought the same way. trying to do otherwise drags out fights; it actively discourages emergent gameplay so theres little variance WITHIN runs. the pool of rooms for procedural generation is far too small so theres little variance BETWEEN runs. there's no real challenge to combat, difficulty is mainly increased by heightened mob tankiness as you get further in a run. movement/combat doesn't flow well, its mechanically very weak, relying heavily on its permanent upgrade system instead of developing skill in the way you approach the game. all the weapons feel clunky and don't really offer any unique challenge/benefit so theres virtually no point switching between them and the grind to unlock them all is so pointless… god there are just SOOO many hack n slash crawlers that keep it fresh even for hundreds of hours and hades fails miserably at keeping it fresh for even 5 measly hours :^/

I didnt like the boon system either - its far too simplistic + shallow. its fine to rely on chance, this is part of the random generation, and I think it had a lot of potential in that it was a good way of combining aesthetic w gameplay itself. but this is pretty much the only form of resource management - and theres barely any management to it! theres no reward for exploring different builds, they dont really synergise BETWEEN gods in interesting or useful ways, so the game encourages you to just stick with one god throughout, and biases random generation towards boons youve already collected. part of the fun for me is learning HOW to design a build, and working with the randomiser to play flexibly, but hades just isnt interested in that at all...

also - I don't like the permanent upgrade system, I think this detracts from it as a rogue. every time you should be starting on square 1 - maybe you pick up health upgrades etc throughout each run, and maybe you unlock new weapons etc for the random generation pool, or purely cosmetic upgrades, but the point of permadeath is that it RESETS! zags base health + dmg should be the same 50 hours into the game as when u first open it. make a different genre of game if u dont wanna do that lol. I also think IF youre going to say fuck it and add a permanent upgrade system, you should also add unlockable permanent biome shortcuts bc ur just making it boring as fuck to have to waste time grinding thru earlier biomes with unskippable combat once youre op for them.

I GET that they did this to make the game more accessible* to players who dont typically enjoy rogues, but it just makes it really disappointing for those of us who DO love rogues, and it always feels cheap to me when games are like "well of you want challenge then set the difficulty yourself with these modifiers 🙄" like just make the base difficulty TOUGH up front and then add an easy/story mode and accessibility features* for players who don't want the challenge.. if you're gonna call yourself a rogue the gameplay should be the PRIORITY not a throwaway option

one of my biggest peeves with hades is how people now laud it as one of the best rogues - whenever I mention I like the genre I almost always get asked "oh, like hades?" and it pisses me off so much… its a rogueLITE not roguelike, ie. it has rogue ELEMENTS but its not a true one and imo, it does a pretty shit job implementing them! I would have a lot less resentment towards it if it wasnt marketed as the forefront of the rogue genre - frankly its a very basic rogue with very mid gameplay, its characters/design are by FAR its strong point and it should be sold as such. its misleading and makes me sad that this is what most people think of when they hear rogue :-(

*(side note - accessibility in this game is another major flaw. theres really no excuse for a game as popular as this to be so lacking in accessibility options. allow people to bind keys together or use coloured outlines or have colourblindness settings or alter font/text size etc - its not that hard! dead cells did a great job of this lol)

anyway... moving onto my second criticism - narratively, its also unsatisfying.

the hades plot is, loosely, about a cycle of abuse, so the 2 natural directions to go in with this are either: #1: escaping the cycle, or #2: continuing it forever.

#2 is the easiest to do with a rogue format - bc of permadeath the game is already cyclical, so all you have to do is create an ending which loops perfectly back to the start (smth like 'its impossible to truly defeat/reconcile with his father so even after zag beats him, hades drags him back to the start again). obviously this is a miserable story to tell, but tbh I think it wouldve been interesting + fitting - so much of greek mythos is about cycles and the unchanging nature of the gods, and they LOVED eternal cyclical punishments. plus theres smth rly tragic about zag gradually helping everyone else while no one else can save him from his family LOL

#1 is a bit harder to do - this is the story they WANTED to tell but I just don't think it worked… the driving force plot-wise is his desperation to escape. realistically for this to happen the game needs to be finite, which it can't be due to its rogue nature - somehow you have to end up at the very start again. the main solutions I can think of for this are:

a) after the final boss, insert some time travel shenanigans (easy to fit into the worldbuilding using a character like kronos) and all of zags progress with hades is unspooled. this can be completely out of his control, or it could be a choice the player makes (to end the game here or choose to go back and relive zags past in order to progress npc questlines). eg. what happens in dead cells. again, tragic but it makes more sense to me

-or b) bite the bullet and give the game a completely finite ending after beating hades. if players want to go back and play more to complete other npc questlines, they pick up play from before they beat hades. this isnt explained "narratively" bc the plot is already concluded and now theyre just playing for fun (eg. what going under does)

I also think for a character-focused story-rich game, roguelite was a really terrible choice of genre as it locks every interaction behind pure chance and hours of grinding - just really baffling why they decided to do this, especially when theyve had such success previously making games within different genres (transistor, bastion, pyre). the core of the issue for me is that the devs wanted to create a game that was both story rich AND a rogue - and these things arent mutually exclusive, but the best features of each contradict each other when you try to balance them in a way to appease their respective fans (ie. the challenge/complexity of the gameplay is heavily restricted by keeping it easy for ppl unfamiliar with rogues to pick up, but the strength of the narrative arc is simultaneously weakened by the fact that as a rogue it has to be perpetual bc of permadeath + you're working with procedural generation…)

I'm not going to beef with the artstyle or music bc I rly loved them both (even if I wish the body diversity was better!), or with the interpretations of greek gods bc literally every piece of media abt greek mythos has to decide how to interpret them and I think its silly to be like "this isnt CANON" - since we actually dont HAVE a strict "canon" for many of these stories bc theyve been retold/translated in so many conflicting ways lol. I've just heard ppl complaining abt that and I dont think its worth complaining about 🤷‍♀️

ANYWAY tl;dr: hades should've been an action-heavy isometric metroidvania… it wouldve made it far easier to focus on character questlines (ie. with respawn points + a fixed map), unified the story they wanted to tell with the gameplay SO much more effectively, and allowed them to reach the full potential of both, whilst also playing up to supergiant's previous game-making strengths. but thats my 2 cents!

#SORRY THIS ENDED UP BEING SO LONG I JUST HAVE A LOT TO SAYYYY #also sorry for the weird formatting i typed this out in my phone notes and copy pasted into tumblr sjkdjf. hope it makes sense #just really frustrating to me that it ended up how it did bc it couldve been soooo good if it was good. but it wasn't 💔#whats even more frustrating is that hades 2 doesnt look like its gonna improve on any of this lmao. sad well theres other games!#hades #.asks #.diaries

8 notes · View notes

wikagirl · 1 year

Text

Okie dokie my honey sweety sugar boos. I know I said I wasn't gonna get active in this fandom, mainly bc I don't play the game a lot outside of the story campaign because I turn into a terrible person in pvp also, I don't even own the game, my brother lets me snickerdoodle his steam account to play both the og mw2 and the remake story and that's all I did gameplay wise, but I have been obsessively reading the lore of the new characters because my brain chooses my hyperfocus and I do not get to have a say in it so here we are.

Below the cut we've got in the following order: -A warning and explanation about my chaotic writing style that you can just skip -some additional info about where I'm from and how it plays into the headcanons -Actual headcanons -Cultural foods I think könig would like -Music and musicians I think he would like

So I have been chatting with a buddy about the characters, thus furthering both our brainrot (we both have the weird tendency to get overly invested in the lore of games we don't even play, in our case cod, r6s and apex lmao) so here I am to curse your eyeballs with some more könig headcanons. I'll elaborate some more of my previous shitpost thanks to one single person asking real nicely for me to elaborate in the tags of a repost (yeah looking right at you @regretsabaddon, you enabled me to write this, now suffer the consequences <3)

Also this is a warning: I am an unmedicated adhder and you will 100% be able to tell, I am allready rambeling and overexplaining it will only get worse as I go. I'll do my best to elaborate on the really nieche cultural stuff, the elaboration will be (added to the main headcanon like this) so you can just skip over the explanation if you don't care for that kinda shit also I personally support every ship featuring könig, but I do definetly have a special little spot in my heart for könig and horangi in a best buddies kinda way because I love the big reserved behemoth + shorter feral gremlin dynamic.

Additionally, I am from a region called Franken which spans across several of the 16 states that make up germany, one of them being the most northern part of bavaria, idk if that actually matters for any of the shit I'm about to write but I though I might just bring it up......yeah

Now with that out of the way, lets get crackin'. All of this shit is in no particular order, I'm just writing them down as the come into my head. This is what my thoughts look like, welcome to hell.

The actual headcanons start here

-so first, I 100% think he was born in germany and then moved to austria with one of his parents being german and the other austiran. I'm gonna explain in detail why but if you don't care about the politics of serving in foreign military in germany or austira you can skip the whole next block.

(You can not join the german military as a foreigner without citizenship and even if he was born in austria his citizenship would have been revoked the second he joined the german military unless he lived on german soil with dual german-australian citizenship before compulsory service in germany was abolsihed in 2011. In that case he would have been allowed to join without losing his austiran citizenship. Also if I'm not mistaken his bio says he's german but the patch on his gear is the austrian flag so I personally like to believe that he grew up somewhere in bavaria close to the border and just decided to haul his ass down to austira and get citizenship there after his time in the Kommando Spezialkräfte meaning that he now either a dual citizenship or just purely austiran papers. (and I've read on reddit that they changed it to the german flag now? Don't know how true that is tho, can't fact check it atm bc I don't have the game installed. And in an offical blog enrty that you can find n the sources of the cod wiki he is said to be in the austrian jagdkommands? Make up your friggin mind. Or at least explain I'm getting confused))

-country kid, dislikes cities because they are crowded and too complex in layout, is totally fine with towns tho

-in my previous post I said that name wise he gives me major Torsten vibes and I honestly wish I could explain but I can't. You really need to have met a Torsten to know a Torsten and it just really fits. But if I had to decribe a Torsten it would be someone that gives of young dad energy, like has a kiddo in kindergarden type young dad, with a lot of anxiety, kinda protective of his loved ones but also with a childish streak (like an obesession with plushies for example) who can get very violent if he needs to....that's a Torsten.

-Same goes for what I think could be a really nice lastnmae form him. He gives off major „extemely hella old german“ lastname vibes, something like Grafeneck.

(„Dukes corner“ if you translate literally, again not a very common name but also not absolutely unheard of especially in the deep middle of nowhere bavaria)

-tldr. I headcanon his name to be something like Torsten Grafeneck

-Probably somewhere between 30 and 45

-has at least 1 tamagotchi

-is a digimon kid, the idea of having a digital creature buddy is probably also what led him to getting a tamagotchi (digimon somehow manages to have a really unhealthy grip on a big potrion of millenials and older zoomers in germany, especially the music. The german versions of intros and the transformation songs go hard af lemme tell ya)

-was one of these hella tall lanky kids in school and got bullied for being built like a flagpost

-joined the army bc he didn't know what to do with his life after school and just kind of went with it from there.

-emotionally he is still that twig of a man even tho realistically he knows that he could handle the spines of all of his old school bullies like a snap bracelet now

-probably also had some weird interests that only added to the bullying, might have even been the stereotypical nerdy kid that liked videogames and anime before it got cool/mainstream. Distanced himself from his interests/stopped talking about them in order to keep himself safe and now is just a little bit miffed about how something he used to get picked on for is now very popular.

-Mittlere Reife? Got it. (in germany you enter primary school at 6/7, after 4 years it splits into several different branches, those being Hauptschule, Realschule/Mittlere Reife and Gymnasium. Hauptschule takes 9 years and teaches you basicly all you need, stereotypically people who graduate from there do blue collar work. Realschule/Mittlere Reife is 10 years and seen as the standart/what most people go to and it's more or less the same as Hauptschule but they teach you more useless shit just to enable you to do the same jobs but with higher pay and a couple positions up in the corporate ladder. Gymnasium takes 12 years and enables you to go to uni, it's called Abitur or Abi for short. If you've got Mittlere Reife you can tag on additional 3 years in a seperate kind of Gymnasium to get your abitur too, but those ususally have a nieche thing they focus on. For example my abitur has a niche focus on economy and buissness, that's what we call a Fachabitur)

-used to have long hair in his late school years but chopped it off because of the high maintainance also if I'm not mistaken back when we still had compulsory service there were some rules rgarding hairlength that have since been abolished.

-went to a metal festival in his mid to late teens, had a blast but at the same time was constantly so overloaded with anxiety that he never wants to go again unless he can drag someone with him. Would have loved to have someone braid his hair but didn't have the courage to walk up to someone and ask/accept if it was offered to him. Goes absolutely WILD in the moshpit after a couple of beers and definetly has a whole ass playlist filled with songs to listen to back in camp. (there is this weird thing, idk if it's a purely german thing, but we sure do like to play the most annoying braincell-popping aneurysm inducing music while chilling in camp in between stage shows. It spans from hardbass-remixes of childrens cartoon intros all the way to several hour loops of the cantina band. Source: trust me bro.)

-loves his gandma a lot. Even though he's twice her height she still calls him her little boy and he loves it. Like I imagine his granny to be the type that sneaks her adult kids and grandkids candy as if they were 10 and is supportive no matter what even if she doesn't always quite understand. Also yes this is thechnically a gandma headcanon and not a könig headcanon but I don't give a shit and he deserves the greatest country-side grandma there is.

-könig ususally doesn't have a dialect unless there is someone else speaking dialect. Adapts the deepness of the dialect to the person he is talking with, in other words when he's talking with ganny even most other germans won't understand shit. Also as someone that understands the bavarian dialect he can prettymuch also understand every other german dialect because it can't get much worse except maybe what they speak in Köln depending on who you ask.

-can recognize what regions other germans and austrians are from just from the way they speak, sometimes even down to the exact ctiy because of how specific certain dialect tends to get over here.

-humms to himself when he is alone/thinks he's alone or with someone that he feels comfortable with

-has different playlist for different purposes bc he's very selfconcious about his music taste and thus doesn't listen to certain types of music around certain groups of people. As the (assumably) only german speaking member of KorTac he might listen to a lot of german music while on base bc it gives him comfort that noone understands his, in his opinion, questionable taste in music and the lyrics but definetly also has some songs in the playlist that he thinks/knows other on the base enjoy.

-his taste in music is over all very diverse with different languages (mostly english and german) and genres, some of them seem really contradictory (I might make a little list at the end when I run out of other stuff)

-is one of those guys in your friendgroup that seem very chill most of the time but have some deeprunning anger issues and the battlefield is his outlet

-doesn't like being the angry scary murder machine, but he does like the calm that washes over him after he let off some steam. The longer he goes without his outlet the more anxious he gets.

-the longest amount of eyecontact he's ever upheld with anyone was with horangi during summer, when they and a bunch of others had a bit of a dry spell in terms of missions and contracts to they all sat down for a beer together one evening. König gave Horangi the most intense deathglare as he watched the korean veeeeeeerrryyyyyyyy slowly add one icecube after a nother to his glass of beer, never breaking eyecontact in the process.

-Not a very picky eater but if you give him the chance to eat some classic german/austian food he definetly will choose it over any other option. He also is the guy that everyone gives their leftovers to when they can't finish their plate.

-same goes for drinking, however, he'd rather drink water from a swamp than Beck's (a beer brand, commonly the one you'll find at big festivals unless the festival has deals with local breweries, you either like it or think it tastes the way piss smells no inbetween)

-gets random muscle twitches in his eyebrows sometimes and he doesn't really know why

-alternates between having a little uwu kitten sneeze or the loudest eardrum busting ACHOO in existence

-it'll will take a loooooot of coaxing to get him over his anxiety but he's happy to cook with others if their housing situation allows for it.

-Everythone thinks he hates physical affection because of the way he always tenses up when he gets a pat on the shoulder or any other form of casual contact but he actually really likes it, he just doesn't know how to react really

-thanks to his past issues he will instinctively flinch when someone raises their hand too quickly (like for a high five for example), but it becomes less and less the close he is with the person

-has one of these angry-happy octopus things you can flip but the angy side is black and has red lines drawn under the eyes with a marker to match his sniperhood, the happy side is light blue with pale green dots.

-whittels wood to calm his nerves/keep his hands occupied, mostly animals from the wildlife of his home

-he LOVES highland cows. Compared to him they are basicly pocket sized plush cows (he's 210-ish cm and scottish highlands reach a shoulder hieght between 110-130 cm)

-he becomes different types of drunk depending on the perviously established mood and people he's with. When it's just him and friend he becomes the lazy sleepy snuggelbug kind of drunk, if he's in a party setting he will get a bit more hyper and loose some of his anxiety to the alcohol and if you make the mistake of letting him drink when he's allready feeling down then you better prepare for the big depresso.

-hugs people in his sleep, he has no conrtol over it but he's aware of the fact that he does it while asleep so he keeps his distance from others unless it's with his S.O or with a nother close friend but the latter will have to repeatedly tell him that it's fine and chill.

-ueses “Stadtkind” (city kid) as an insult regularly

-backpains....alot....also has a tendency to slouch down to make himself look smaller

-hates public buildings in germany because the standart door height is 1,98m and in some rare cases 2,10m meaning that he either has to duck down or just baaaaaarely fits with his hair grazing the top end of the doorframe as he walks through

-loves Karneval, or as it's called in bavaria: Fasching. He loves the fact that he can get dressed up n costumes, get wasted and basicly be a different person with less worries for a bit. Also loves the sense of community that comes with the events in some of the more rural areas, especially in towns were almost everyone is involved in organizing in some way. If he wasen't away from home so much thanks to being on base, he'd probably join one of the building groups that make the carts for the Karnevall parades on Rosenmontag but you'll probably never catch him as one of the people dressed up on top of the carts, he'd be the guy that walks along the parade in minimal costuming and acts as a security guy to make sure that everything runs smoothly. He'd probably have to do a good bit of Vorglühen (drinking before going to a party) if he plans on attending one of the Prunksitzungen (stageshows with comedy, dragging local politicans, dance, music and acrobatics) bc if he goes he wants to see the whole thing but since there are a crap ton of people there he'll need to muffle his anxiety beforehand.

-in a living with his S.O scenario he'd probably be the diy guy with a garage full of tools. No Ikea kitchen cabinets in his household.

-pet of choice? Big strong floofy dog that could probably murder someone by itself but is actually a really affectionate snugglebug

-casual gamer in his downtime. I can see him playing a variety of games like shooters (r6, apex), singleplayer rpgs (like elderscrolls series or the witcher) but also survival games. He'd probably play survival games as if they were animal crossing with a really aesthetic looking homebase and all the tameable pets where he just tends to his gardens and chills on the porch but with the bonus that he also get to deck some enemies in the face every now and then. Like he's the guy with the over engineered, perfect structural entegrity valheim base that looks like a small medival european town or he's the guy with the empressive treehouse in the redwoods in ark survival that spans across the entire forest and he definetly has one of the shoulder pets with him 24/7

-the only thing going on in his head while on a mission is the song from the "violent vincent-I'm going to kill your family" ring tone and you can't convince me other wise

-German/austiran foods he'd like probably like:

anything that includes Spätzle (basicly a german type of noodle even though it's not really a noodle bc the way the dough is made is very different from noodles but still, looks like noodle, eats like noodle, is a noodle)

Maultaschen (basicly german ravioli, they come in very different sizes. The small ones are usually as part of a soup, the big ones you eat as main dish with sauce and veggies. In some regoins they are also known as “Herrgottsb'scheißerle” which transaltes to “little lord cheaters” because the lore/legend of their origins is that a bunch of monks were gifted meat during the season of fasting and they didn't want it to go to waste so they made it into the filling for the german-ravioli so god can't see them eat the seasonally-forbidden meat.)

Germknödel/Dampfnudel (big floofy bun, usually filled with plum or cherry jam, eaten with vanilla sauce)

Schäufele/Schäuferl (littlerally translates to “little shovel”, it's the shoulderblade of a pig with meat still on it, eaten with sauce and various side dishes depending on the region but usually potatoes, spätzle or dumplings with either red cabbage or buttered veggies)

Lentil stew with flour-dumplinds and Wammerl (specific type of smoked beef)

Ahoj Brause (okay this is not a food but a soda, you can either get it canned or as little packets in powder form that you still have to mix with water. I can totally see him have a stash of the powder packs on base. Fun fact: ahoi brause was originally cancelled and taken off the market for a bit, less than a year, when the company was bought by Katjes (known for making vegan gummies but also other candies) but the germans got mad so they beought it back. Also one of the oldest unchangeing candy brands in terms of packaging in germany.)

bands/musicians and songs I think he'd listen to (but aren't limited to) + a short explanation of what the song is about if it's in german because some of the titles do be looking a bit questionable at first glance:

literally everything that Electric Callboy ever put out

probably some classic stuff (and with classic I mean stuff that everone can potentionally vibe with even if its not their main thing, not the opera stuff that's would be classical) like queen, bon jovi and, as much as we like to meme about them being bad, nickleback

A lot of songs by powerwolf

Also Feuerschwanz, most of their songs are medival/viking themed party songs with metal sprinkeled in, they also have some interesting covers of stuff like “gimme gimme gimme” or “dragostea din tei”

Alestorm

Bannkreis

Rammstein

MyDarkestDays

a bunch of songs by Santiano, Mr Hurly und die Pulveraffen and Versengold for a fun but relaxed drinking mood, all have a very “drinking in a tavern with the dnd-party” vibe

”Fahrradsattel” by Pisse (song is about a girl that wants to have serious relationship and get married but the singer just wants her to sit on his face lmao)

”Das ist alles von der Kunstfreiheit gedeckt” by Danger Dan (basicly just a guy singing about a whole lot of very questionable sometimes literally illegal to say stuff (like denying that the holocaust happened, yes that can literally get you into trouble with lawenforcement in germany) you could theoretically say and get in hella trouble for but get away with by claiming that it's covered by the freedom of art)

”Deine Schuld” by Die Ärzte (this song is literally a callout to all the doofuses that just complain about the world, stating that it's not their fault that the world is the way it is but it will be their fault if they don't make a move to change it)

”ich bin das Gesetz” by Eisbrecher (literally describes what I think König would be like on the battle field. A person that is also a feelingless well oiled machine there to execute a job)

”Hitler Töten” by Sudden feat. Alligatoah (dude thinking about all the stuff he probably should do if he had a time machine, like stopping the titanic from leaving the port or killing hitler, but he'd rather use it to get back into the arms of his last relationship, even if the relationship he describes was hella toxic)

”Du bist schön” by alligatoah (about people that have their looks as their only woth mentioning feature, also a criticism of the modern consumerism and the way we have people in poor countries make our clothes for sub-human pay)

”Willst du (mit mir Drogen nehmen)?” also by Alligatoah (literally just asking a girl if she wants to take drugs with him and a bunch of descriptions of all the fucked up shit they would do as they send their life down the drain)

”Hurt” by Oliver Tree

”Semi-Automatic” by Twenty One Pilots

”Stille Wasser” by Ignis Fatuu (song about a guy confrontig his now ex-best friend after said ex-best friend sexually assulted and possibly murdered a girl)

”Der dunkle See” by Unzucht (a metaphotical description of someones emotional state as a deep dark lake that seems to be unmoving and calm while actually being very tumultuous under the surface)

”Ein Wort flieg wie ein Stein” by Unzucht (a song from the perspektive of a guy who just had his girlfriend confess to him that she cheated. Her confession is described as a stone being thrown at him, shattering his heart like glass)

”Werben” by ASP (a song about wanting to literally be filled up, consumed and merged with ones love, described as dark magic and a devils concoction. Basicly if Gomez Addams were to sing about his love to Morticia but german)

”Krabat” also by ASP (muscial retelling of the german classic by the same name. It's a book about a guy named Krabat learning dark magic at the hands of a miller that has made a pact with the devil, giving him the power to turn into a raven. The song describes him flying across the land to escape his masters eye and be with his love)

”A little piece of heaven” by Avenge Sevenfold

”Love bites” by Halestorm

Songs for the silly “I will torture you with this until your brain goes numb” metal festival campsite/getting into the mood for Karneval playlist. I will not explain these because they either are songs that most people listen to when they are too drunk to understand the text anyways or pretty self explanatory so here I go:

”Helikopter 117” by Tobee

”Saufen, morgens, mittags, abends” by Ingo ohne Flamingo

”Margarethe” by Buddy Ogün

”Bück dich hoch” by Deichkind

”Leider geil” also by Deichkind

”Leb deinen traum” aka the digimon adventure intro

”Through the fire and the trains – Thomas vs dragonforce” by nick totsch on youtube

”Ferien in algerien” the 12 minute version by Knokator

”Tight pants/Body rolls” by lesliehall on youtube

the covers of “Barbie girl” and “boom, boom, boom, boom” by little V on youtube

And finally: Some phrases and quotes as well as german memery I could see him toss around with other german speakers. Also the dialect-ish stuff is written the way a german would say it, there is no gramatically correct way to write dialect....so good luck trying to pronounce that in your head

Starting off with a classic “Sprich deutsch du Hurensohn” literally transaltes to “Speak german you son of a bitch”, most commonly used in the german r/ichiel subreddit, though könig would probably only use it with peopl that he REALLLYYY knows he can use it without hurting anyones feelings so...almost never but just imagine him being in a convo with somebody in german and then somebody non-german, horangi for example, walks up and asks whats up, he drops the line and horangi just stands there, expression completely blank thanks to his mask and sunglasses, staring until könig start to apologize all worried and horangi just starts laughing because our big guy just worries too much.

”joa mei!” transaltes to something like “oh my!”

”na moin”/”ja moin” there is no literal transaltion for this, but it is used as an exclamation/reaction akin to going “lmao” after someone did something incredibly stupid or something funny happened.

”Pissnelke” literally transaltes to “piss carnation” it's just an insult used the same way as asshole but originated as a term for girls that men find....lacking in willingness to do certain stuff but it's just used for everyone nowerdays and I think it sounds hella funny

”hinterfortzig” is a verb that literally translated to “behind the cunt” so...just a very funky way to say someone behaves like an asshole Example: “man, Kyle really is acting like an asshole today” - “Mann, Kyle verhällt sich heute echt hinterfotzig”

”sapperlot!” exclamation of surprise.....if I catch anyone use this in an nsfw situation I will have you in a box

”warum liegt hier stroh?” it's.....from a clip of german porn that gets memed a lot....we LOVE to meme german porn because germans find german to sound very very un-sexy funnily enough. Just look up the clip on youtube if you really want to know I honestly don't have the braincells to explain this one

Also I think König would be the type of person that would be able to quote both “Schuh des Manitu” and “(T)Raumschiff surprise”, both movies by Michael Bully Herbig, by heart forwards and backwards. I don't think that there is a version with english subtitles out there saldy but they are a huuuge part of german meme culture. The first one is a winnetou parody and the second a parody of star trek enterprise.

Oh hey you've made it to the bottom of my size A4 8 page long, times new roman font size 12 adhd induced not proofread ramble about a character from a game I don't even play. Wowies you must be really really bored huh...

So yeah this is what goes on in my brain if I develop a hyperfocus and now watch me not even remember who this guy is in two weeks because my brain just do be jumping from one thing to a nother like that and it's honestly driving me insane please sent help.

Anyways I hope you had fun, plz don't take any of the shit I said as me trying to lay down the law. These are literally just random throughts I have in my brain about a fictional man and I honestly couldn't care less if you agree or disagree as long as you had fun on your way down here. And if you didn't have fun...welll...I'm sorry for your loss of braincells that you probably suffered while reading this

Have a good one.

#wiika #random #könig #könig headcanons #cod könig #könig modern warfare #könig mw2 #all of this is so very specific holy shit #I wrote this in 3 hours #if you ignore the time I spent zoned out #I'm sorry for my spelling I literally do not have the baincells to checkread #idk how bad it is but I assume it's pretty shit

20 notes · View notes

ivyandink · 2 years

Note

Hi, Cara! I've been feeling a little stuck with my writing, and since you have written for both sims and a novel, I thought you might be a good person to ask, if that's okay. 1) How did you format your writing when planning sims posts? (screenplay, prose, etc.) 2) How do you keep yourself motivated to work on writing? (sims or not) 3) How do you deal with or prevent burnout? Thank you so much! (Also, how's your novel going??)

Aw I love this ask 😭😭😭 Might be a monster answer, sorry y'all lol. Below a cut for courtesy :)

How do I format sims posts – So if it's for a pure story post (i.e. not gameplay oriented) I always start with the idea for the scene first. From there, I'd loosely format the dialogue (I wouldn't necessarily always write it fully) and any other written info that need to be included!

Depending on the post, and tbh depending on my mood/phase at the time lol, I would bounce between dialogue only on the photo posts, dialogue on images with prose in the post body to support, or fully prose. Like, if there was a lot of internal things I wanted to communicate that I couldn't get across via dialogue, I would write prose style. I personally was never a big fan of writing screenplay style (i.e. Bob growls: Whatever you say Eliza!). I gave it a shot and I didn't vibe w it so I didn't do it again 🤷‍♀️

And then based on the direction I'm taking the writing for the post, I'd know what shots to get! i.e. for dialogue-based scenes, you need a lot more shots, than for something that will be fully-prose. Sometimes if I was feeling lazy or couldn't find the right poses, I'd write prose style to communicate what the scene was lacking visually.

How do I stay motivated– Honestly, this answer varies for sims stuff vs my novel! For my sims stories, I really just went off of when I felt that natural motivation 😂 So because of that I posted really inconsistently, lol. I did try and use the queue feature to my advantage– when I hit a good stride, I'd make sure to schedule posts out over a while rather than dump them all at once, so there'd be less of a post "lull". But other than that, I wrote simblr stories purely for fun, so if it didn't feel fun I didn't do it 🤷‍♀️ Or i'd like throw in a wacky plot if things felt a lil stale (hi remember when Levi randomly had a baby bc of a virtual coin flip lmao). For my novel, I'm currently working on getting my motivation for it BACK rn 😂 I took a pretty decent break from it to work on finalizing all the deets for our wedding, and to focus on my design business! But honestly, the biggest help for me for my novel has been PLANNING. It's a lot easier to motivate yourself to write when you know what TO write. I've seen some people suggest to never stop a writing session at the end of a scene/chapter– at the very least, knock out the first part of the next scene, because that takes advantage of your current moment AND makes it easier to come back to next time, because you're not starting from nothing for that scene.

Dealing with Burnout– Honestly, just REST. And let it be okay to read. If you spend your entire rest period feeling bad or beating yourself up it doesn't ACTUALLY count as rest!!!!

I'll say it again for the people in the back

If you spend your entire rest period feeling bad or beating yourself up it doesn't ACTUALLY count as rest!!!!

For something like simblr, tbh just let it go for a few weeks and come back when it feels fun. Switch things up. Try posting something else for a bit. Start a story, do a few fun scenes, and never finish it. Whatever feels exciting, FOLLOW THAT ITCH!

This is a hobby at the end of the day– the moment is stops feeling enjoyable or like it is fulfilling a goal you have, it's time to take a pause. There is definitely value in cultivating discipline around even our hobbies (I personally have a very....... easily distracted personality type??? Idk. but i give up on stuff easily due to shiny object syndrome lol and tht is something I have to and WANT to actively be working on, personally) but you don't want to push yourself TOO hard that it effects you negatively! Don't put too much pressure on yourself. :) Always, always extend grace to yourself. Whether it's a hobby, a job, or anything else in life. We all deserve rest.

Update on my novel– First off, thanks for asking! 😭❤️ It's..... going! Lmao. I got about 18k words in, and now i've decided to tweak the plot a little bit, which is both incredible and annoying 😂 Currently resisting going back to it, bc I haven't decided if I want to just keep going with it, or go back and restart with the new plot switch.

Tbh, working on a novel is THE most fulfilling creative endeavor I've taken on (aside from my business, but that's a wholeeee other beast lol and more work, less play haha) and it has been so freaking cool watching it grow and develop and morph and REALLY turn into a real story 😭 And as annoying as it is every time things change (I've literally replotted this thing like 15 times lmaoo one day I'll have to share all the plot iterations i've been thru bc it is NUTS how far we've come 😂) it is also really, really neat bc I really feel like I'm chipping away at something real– not something just floating in my head. I read a metaphor once that writing a novel is like a sculptor chipping away at a hunk of clay. It takes a while, but each pass thru, it looks more and more like the thing.

I've also been trying to read a LOT more (up to like 13 books so far this year 😎 ) specifically in the genre I'm writing, and I can already feel how much better I've got at crafting a story because of that, which is exciting, and I just really can't wait to have a finished freaking product in hand that reflects all that lol.

––––

I hope you don't regret sending your ask since I literally wrote you a novel in response 😂 It's just ~who I am~. I hope my answers were a lil helpful for your questions, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to gush about my novel a bit! 🥰 Maybe this will motivate me to work on it this week hehe.

#ask

5 notes · View notes

seasaltmemories · 4 years

Text

Persona 5 Royal Review/Analysis

So I didn’t have a ps4 when the original persona 5 came out, so royal was my first experience with the game, as a result, I will be talking about spoilers for both the original content and Royal bc a lot of the additions seem mixed in aside from just the third semester stuff

let’s get the summary

Prepare for an all-new RPG experience in Persona 5 Royal based in the universe of the award-winning series, Persona! Don the mask of Joker and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Break free from the chains of modern society and stage grand heists to infiltrate the minds of the corrupt and make them change their ways! Persona 5 Royal is packed with new characters, confidants, story depth, new locations to explore, and a new grappling hook mechanic for stealthy access to new areas.

So one of the things that I picked up really early on into my playthrough was that Persona 5 feels like a very adolescent piece of media, like yeah it is about highschoolers, but more than just its cast and setting, it seemed really fixated on capturing and adolescent mindset, there is this fresh awareness to the injustices of the world and a burning desire to fix it without much understanding of how to even began to tackle those problems, and the fact it stuck so hard to to that worldview made me a lot more forgiving of its flaws then I might have otherwise been, not that there isn’t stuff to critique about the way it tackles controversial issues, but at the same time i just had this mindset of, “well of course they aren’t going to get everything right, what can you expect from teens?”

Anyone who knows me knows I am a pretentious blow-hard, but I think P5 is a perfect example of just how important style is to anything. So much of the pure glee and joy I got when I booted up the game came from the fun presentation and commitment to the phantom thief aesthetic, I have a lot of thoughts on gameplay that seem to be contradictory to the general consensus but to keep things brief, all the “sneaking’ around a palace, grappling from places, ambushing enemies, and performing all out attacks just all gave this sense of being cool and stylish that was great, even if the writing stronger, without those fun flourishes I don’t think I would have enjoyed my experience as much

I also think the more than any other game, persona 5 does a great job of making me thinking “just one more thing” you got a lot of confidants to fill and stats to raise to fill them so there is always something to do, at most during the story sections things sometimes dragged, but i was eager to finish them to get back to finishing my goals, for as long as the game was, this made it feel so much more manageable

Unpacking an entire 110 hour playthrough is kinda an overwhelming task, so instead I’m going to talk about my four favorite characters and hopefully that will cover some good amount of material

1) Goro Akechi- one of the first things I knew about this game was what a controversial character this bastard was and it turns out I fell on the side that loves him bc I think I have a thing for traitor characters, I have to say though for most of the game I wasn’t sure how I felt about him, I knew his true role going in, so it was hard to get attached to Detective Prince Akechi as most of his interactions with Joker felt like an act, however his Rank 8 confidant link, when he not only pulls out a gun on you and challenges you to an one on one fight but also freaking throws a glove to challenge you in a duel I was like “oh so you’re a little bitch boy then!” and never turned back

To me part of what makes him so compelling is just how stubbornly he is set on his path straight to Hell, a lot of ppl were moved by his tragic backstory but honestly it does little for me, I think it is important to consider, but you have to remember he approached Shido about his powers first and basically volunteered to be his personal assassin, still it is hard to ignore that sense of lost potential, in a way I can see how getting to pretend to be a part of a safe and welcoming team environment almost made things worst because he just kept feeling like, “why wasn’t I allowed to have this earlier” and just too tied to his current path of self-destruction to waver from it, like even the fact the Phantom Thieves and he had the same goals regarding Shido in the end, he couldn’t side with bc that would mean acknowledging all the murder he did was for nothing, so they just continued to be another target on his list, made all the more dangerous bc of the affection he held for them

That said I don’t think I would have liked him so much without Royal’s updates, I mentioned Rank 8 being a key moment for me but aside from that, the fight with him in Shido palace had so much going on, it kinda dulled the weight of any one of the numerous revelations, 3rd semester kinda brought in the perfect amount and balance of the different sides of Akechi, the minute he appeared I swear me and my brother cheered in joy, obvious spoilers for the rest of it

I had seen 3rd semester Akechi called “feral” and while he is still as horny for murder as ever, i don’t really think that fits, there is still a sense of restraint to his actions, yet he doesn’t mask his true intentions and feelings so much, what I like is that his rudeness and outbursts come off as very deliberate and planned, as if he enjoys exposing the contrast between his “pleasant” reputation and his true bitterness, and with the reveal that oops he is supposed to be dead, you still have that determined “don’t be a fucking pussy, just pull the trigger,” attitude, I really like the dynamic that forms between a Joker that just wants the best for him and an Akechi that just emphatically refuses to be saved in anyway, he is an easy character to woobify but I love how canon just at every turn doesn’t let you ever see his true vulnerability even if we all know it exists down there, also just something about hearing him curse is always so much fun and delightful

TLDR: I have a lot of feelings about this edgy bastard and may or may not already have a playlist for him

2) Makoto Niijima- another character I had an interesting relationship with, while from the start she seemed like my type, the overwhelming love for her kinda made my hipster side apprehensive, however predictably I was won over and I did romance her in the end (what can I saw my Joker is into brunettes)

Part of what makes her stick out so much to me, is how the game felt much less afraid to show her unlikable in comparison to other characters, i usually don’t complain or really notice this but more than any other game series I’ve played, there is definitely a lot of self-insert fantasy elements involved, ppl rip the newer FE games apart for that, but I never really saw it as the terrible as the cast had dozens of life changing interactions with other characters, the fact most of the interaction we see are through Joker’s eyes, and the fact that he is the catalyst to changing several adults’ lives made this element a lot more noticeable

But not only does Makoto take an antagonistic role at first, but they let her be so smug and annoying that I probably hated her with the same passion as the characters themselves, yet even when she comes over to or sides, her flaws are still pretty open, like when trying to help out Futuba, she definitely had that air of, “neurotypical trying too hard to make you normal” that was understandable but still annoying, and I appreciate it bc it made the contrast between her good points all the sharper

I kinda wanted to roll my eyes at first at her archetype as an honors student, bc yeah i was a nerdy student who didn’t know how to connect with my peers and just kinda subconsciously sucked up to adults bc I didn’t know what else to do, but in comparison to the teeming tragic backstories involved, you can see a stark difference in scale, yet Makoto is just carrying all this familiar teenage girl anger that reminds me a lot of Serena from Arc V, and getting to see her embrace it is very cathartic, I also really enjoyed her confidant which was surprising after seeing everyone tear into it so much, I feel like a lot of ppl’s confidant’s centered around other ppl and it didn’t just start off with the Eiko stuff, you see her Makoto want to change from the sheltered snobbish life she has kinda trapped herself in and rediscover her dream of being a police commissioner, I also found it fitting for her to also kinda figure that out through her own little investigation and to see that exploration of justice explored through her acting with a third party

The fact she is related to Sae also gives her interesting relationships we get to see from a different POV, and a greater investment in arcs outside her own, it just naturally gives her the feeling of being more well-rounded to have it spread out, and while her romance stuff did have the same sort of fantasy elements (that I greatly self-indulged in) overall I never felt like Joker was “saving” her in some way but growing and exploring along sides her

Overall, a great character and while i think best girl debates are dumb, I will not stand for hearing her described as worst girl

3) Ann Takamaki- honestly before I got this game I expected her to be the “main girl” with a lot of popularity and focus so seeing how little love she gets was heartbreaking for me, bc she is part of what made the early phantom thieves so enjoyable

I’ve heard the discussions about the issues around her sexualization and I think things on that access come out to be a wash, the developers kinda brush near some interesting ideas about the struggles women face with sex and attraction but don’t really know what to do with that, and so I think trying to trace and overall arch one way or another about her and her body issues is kinda a lesson in futility

in the end though what made her click for me is just how much fun her personality is, like I feel like in other stories her cheerfulness might come off as generic, but the fact that she is introduced so depressed and sullen makes her attitude shift come off as refreshing, like we know she can be serious, but the fact she isn’t being repeatedly sexually harassed by her teacher gives her like plenty of reason to goof off and enjoy herself

Again despite all the criticism I really enjoyed her confidants, the Mika stuff was honestly barely a blip in the thing and most of it alternated between her shooting the breeze and just having fun and still dealing with that lingering guilt and issues surrounding Shiho and just not having been able to save a close friend when she really needed her, I think the contrast is very much needed, especially to keep things from feeling like wallowing, which i felt was a problem with some other confidants

In the end though the main reason i didn’t romance her was bc as much as I liked her as a character, I didn’t want her to be with Joker specifically, i wanted to support her and see her finally confess her feelings to Shiho and the two of them go ride off into the sunset lol, still there’s a reason I reached rank 10 with her first

4) Takuto Maruki- lol so in this section I’m going to basically go into all my 3rd semester thoughts, again the first leg of his confidant was kinda dull, but I was prioritizing him bc of the deadline, once we got into his personal past that is where I got interested

On one hand part of the charm was just getting to see a more adult story, while there are other adult confidants I found the grad school and like academic stuff relatable, plus like the little moment with the steamed glasses was very funny, he’s just a down to earth guy and his kindness is genuine

However when he stepped up as the antagonist in the third semester, that’s when he got interesting, I found the conflict itself of a dream world to be kinda simple, aside from the fact obviously we need to oppose this for a plot to happen, Persona 5 is all about this humanist approach to personal growth and change, most of what I found fascinating about Maruki was the kinda self-martyring narcissism to his approach, like aside from treat the phantom thieves with kid gloves at time and just doing his best to avoid being a bad guy, there is this simmering resentment he masks and tries to replace with his desire to basically save the world, rather than deal with his own drama and baggage he tries to invest his energy into solving other problems

And you can see some of the parallels between him and the phantom thieves that points out some of hypocrisy of themselves, calculating the exact risks and harms of altering ppl through the Metaverse is hard to do due to a variety of factors, personally I don’t even have other Persona games to look to, but in general while it is for the greater good, the phantom thieves basically impose their will onto ppl who didn’t consent to that change, and in the end they decide to oppose Maruki purely based on their desires to not live in it, the game doesn’t do much with it, but I found the contrast more interesting than the Holy Grail one, plus his boss battle was more fun bc you actually got to use the main mechanic of the game, exploiting weaknesses and baton passing

But yeah all this comes to a head at the latter half of the boss fight where he just is so desperate and refuses to lose, it is like abundantly clear that this dream world is much more for himself than it is for anyone else, it is a desire to turn all his trauma into something more meaningful than just pain, and nothing shows that more clearly than the fact he fistfights a high schooler even after he has basically lost and tries to let himself die rather than face the consequences of his lost. All in all I think he was the my favorite antagonist and palace holder

Some last thoughts I couldn’t fit elsewhere: Casino was my favorite palace, while weak story-wise, Okumura was far from my least favorite palace gameplay-wise and his boss fight as frustrating as it was might be my favorite for engaging with the player, if anything my least favorite palace was Futaba’s, my favorite showtimes are probably Morgana/Ann, Makoto/Ryuji, and Joker/Kasumi, Caroline and Justine are a delight and I really miss them, Tycoon is addicting and distracted me from being able to beat the game for a while

I got more hot takes I might elaborate on in length in the future, but in conclusion this is another rec where I can see and understand ppl being disappointed in some of the writing and its quality but at the same time i think there is still value ppl are too quick to dismiss and definitely multiple reasons to still enjoy it, I think this is going to stick with me for longer than I first thought it wound

#persona 5 #my reviews #p5 royal spoilers #mutuals feel free to discuss this with me more #bc those hot takes are real but at the same time i wanted to keep this focused on what I enjoyed #rather than drown ppl in nitpicks

9 notes · View notes

icharchivist · 5 years

Note

idk if you've ever answered an ask like that but since you've played dai/daii/dao which game do you prefer, who is/are your fav companion(s) and which romance/companion quest did you enjoy the most?

Aaaah you’re sweet to ask though

I admit this is very hard to reply because i love all the games, all the companions, and all the romances i got to play to different extend. I adore all the opportunities and the lore of the game, and each games have such different themes, characters, that it’s just incredible.

So my judgement here is purely and completely emotional and not based on quality, it’s really much more what connected to me.

I’ll also mention I played all the game in order, with the DLCs, so i started with dao and all (i feel like it’s something worth mentioning).

-My favorite game is Inquisition. Well. Tbh mostly it’s “the game i’m playing at the moment” which lately is Inquisition, but even if i adore Origins and 2, Inquisition somewhat makes me feel like home, i can chill for hours in the games, love the gameplay and scenary, i love the companions dynamics (i ended up crying at the Wicked Grace cutscene bc it reminded me of my irl friends and that’s something nothing can replace ahah), I love the overral theme of compassion and empathy, and i especially love the lore approach of the game. So Inquisition is the one i connect the most to.

-My favorite companions is a hard one because i love sooo many of them but if i were to pick ONE, it would be Cole. Everything about him rings a core in me, he’s lovely and soft, I love his connections to emotions and how he reaches out for others, some of his special dialogues when he likes you or when you specialize as Rift mage makes me bawl, all of his banters or cryptic welcomes or “odd activities” are gems, and even his own brand of humor is incredible. I adore Cole with my whole soul.

If i were to be more general then I admit i’ll probably put Solas, Dorian, Blackwall, Sera, Varric, Isabela, Fenris, Carver, Zevran, Morrigan, Shale, Sten and Nathaniel up the list though, for various reasons that goes from “They bring up interesting stories i love to be engaged in” to “I just adore every moments with them” or “the conclusion of their emotional journey had me bawling for hours”. That said like i said i really love all the companions of the game so it’s o(-( (even just picking the companions for that list i had to stop myself to add some just to try to keep it at a reasonable number so huh ye).

-As Romance goes, i’m. So sorry to say this but it’s Cullen’s romance. Definitly. I played it... 3 times? ye. ye. *inhales* yup. Plus i romance him as a Circle Mage everytime so it adds elements to the romance i really like. I can’t exactly explain it, I don’t know what happened, his romance is just a comfort zone to me. So by extension i really like his quests in general and his scenes.

Like I said though I liked every romances I played, so it means Alistair, Zevran, Leliana, Anders, Fenris, Cullen and Solas. (next da2 playthrough i will romance Isabela too though bc I adore her, and I still need to try her romance so badly. I will need to reinstal da2 on my computer tho so.. i’ll see when.)

If I were to pick though, Solas’s is freaking incredible lorewise and “heartbreaking”-wise, and Fenris’s and Zevran’s are some of the most emotionally rewarding to play (Esp Fenris when romanced as a Mage. So rewarding. So emotional.). Leliana’s very sweet but i especially like it on the long term with her mentions of it in DAI.

-As companion quests go i admit i’ve never thought too much about it so that’s interesting to bring up.

In DAO I don’t find the companions quests that stellar per se (they’re great just not having as much as an impact). If I were to pick one though i guess it would be Zevran’s “unofficial” quest bc the emotional conclusion of it is sooo satisfying, and perhaps Sten’s in the term of how it builds his trust (esp if you do his quest before going to Haven with him.... gosh that scene with him *clentches heart*).

DA2 is probably the best in term of companions quests, especially since there’s one per act, and that they drive the plot forward. Overrall, All of Fenris’s are the most emotionally engaging imo, and Alone makes me cry. Isabela’s Act 2 Quest is so tied to the climax of Act 2 that I adore it you go Isabela. all of Merrill’s have the most interesting lore and the most conflictual experience in them, but it makes me so sad. That’s the ones that left the biggest impact on me, although special mention to Aveline’s act 2 quest for being Like That.

Idk if they count too either though but the Questioning Beliefs quests are generally very good. Again though I must say, Fenris gets the cake in all those i love the most, and so does Isabela’s and the equivalents for Varric (since his are not really “Quetioning Beliefs” but have different names at every acts depending of your approval so you get which i means).

DAI have so much characters it’s hard to sort out @.@. Solas’s and Cole’s quests are both some of the most emotionally painful ones and playing them are always incredible. A bit the same with Bull’s? That I always kinda try to push back bc i don’t want to do it but man when it happens it leaves a mark. (the Weekes trio of characters ay). And damn Blackwall’s personal quest is devastating i love it. Vivienne’s is one I surprisingly really like? Most of Vivienne’s cutscenes are really into politics and she’s fascinating, but my politics in game kinda oppose hers so it makes for, huh, tense conversations. So I was just glad her personal quest was this personal, there’s something very sweet from the Iron Lady to still open up and soften up to you on such a personal matter, that she likes you or not. (well. If you give her the real heart i mean, never played the other possibilities).Varric deserves a special mention quickly though that while his quest with Bianca is not exactly up there, the conclusion with the Wicked Grace, like I said earlier..... Just is everything to me so ye him.

Just a special mention though, since it’s more a main quest than a character’s quest, but I love Before the Dawn in general- which is yes a main quest to take down Samson but serves also as a continuation for Cullen’s quests and he has to take a lot of development from it, which i find great and rewarding. It’s also one of the longest quests and it goes back and forth with multiple ways to play it (from main exploration to war table to new dungeon to Sit In Judgement) and I admit that plays a lot in how much I love it. (fun fact the first time i played it I accidentally did Emprise du Lion before any other area, so the cutscene I had when I found the smuggler letters was different and incredible and since then i keep doing Emprise Du Lion first ahah)

I don’t really count them as quests because they’re not really? but all the “High Approval cutscenes” you can get from the characters HAD made me cry. From Sera’s pranks and cookies to all of Dorian’s scenes to Cassandra’s and Solas’s trust, all the approval cutscenes just.... are so rewarding i love dai so much.

Obviously i still like the others quests though, all of them bring interesting elements to their characters, have nice ways to play through them ect.., it’s just the quests that really left an impact on me on that regard.

I always feel awkward picking a “favorite one” bc i always feel like i’m neglecting those i don’t mention even though I love them ahah.

WOw and it gots much longer than I aimed to but i just dkjhfd really love those games and love to ramble about them welp.

So here it is!

:3 Thank you for asking, this was nice to reply to!

Thanks and take care ❤❤

#ichafantalks da #thank you for the sweet message ahh ❤❤#this is long should i put it under a read more? oh well dkjfhdf #longpost for ts #?#silvercrimsonflower

1 note · View note