Yesterday I picked up Bloodborne for the first time in like at least a month, and had THE most spectacular finale against Ludwig, holy moly

Went into the second half of the fight with one single weapon buff item (fire paper) and one (1) blood vial, and ya girl STILL managed to get a photo-perfect Visceral finish on him despite having no items left to help me out

I forgot how addicting that rush is when you get an insanely satisfying victory over a stubborn boss! I missed this game so much dfhghjdf

Season 3 Ramble#1 - New Year New Worlds ver.2

This is another one of those episodes where I almost feel like I’m betraying the name and purpose of the podcast, as this month I won’t actually be talking about manga or even anime for that matter.

The first time I did this whole New Year New Worlds thing was in Season 2 Ramble 1, where I focused on isekai manga and manhwa since I’d never really given the genre a chance before then. This month, again, I wanted to try something completely new to me and so I focused on Visual & Light novels.

Now my regular ramble format is to talk about top new reads on a particular topic/theme for that month, then give top reads I had on the same topic/theme before then. Seeing as this is an entirely new media format for me, there’s no way that format would work. So how this episode is gonna go is I’m gonna do a very quick once over of my top 3 isekai from last time, then get into this month’s media starting with Light Novels, then wrap up with Visual novels.

Lastly, before we get into it, I thought it would be useful to actually define these media formats, so everyone listening would be on the same page, veterans and newbies alike.

So…

According to wikipedia, Light novels are a type of popular literature novel, native to Japan, usually classified as young adult fiction targeting teens to twenties… In other words they’re books. Taking wiki at their word, light novels, or LNs as I’ll probably refer to them from now on, tend towards the YA novel variety you’d find in the west. The biggest difference being that they’re usually a bit shorter with an average length of less than 300 pages, but a crazy dense publishing schedule of 3 - 9 months between installments… crazy…

And visual novels, according to masterclass dot com, are text-based adventure games that combine interactive fiction and traditional anime or manga art styles, to give the gamer the experience of reading a novel in a visual format. The site goes on to describe different types and targets, along with 5 key characteristics of which I thought the first was really key and worth mentioning. Namely, Advancement; In visual novels, or VNs as I'll probably call them going forward, players do not guide a character the way they would in a traditional video game. Instead, they advance the story by clicking in targeted regions to refresh the text. Sounds kinda lame but trust when I say it’s the opposite. At least as far as my experience so far leads me to believe.

Getting right into it

A quick recap of my top 3 from Season 2 Ramble 1

#3) Loner life in another world - The ultra quick summary is in the name, as a lot of isekai tend to do for some reason… anyways, a loner gets transported to another world. Really it’s him and his classmates but he prefers to move alone. I thought it was pretty fun as far as isekai goes, mostly because it’s very lighthearted, doesn’t take itself too seriously and for the most part, at least from what i’ve read so far, it really felt like kids being kids. Which I really appreciated cause isekai always seem to go off the deep end.

#2) Murim Login - Again the ultra quick summary is that in this world, there’s the typical dungeon crawler aspect where special humans called hunters, protect the rest of humanity by going into special gates and closing them by defeating the boss monster inside. The MC is a low rank hunter that one day finds a VR game in the trash that actually sends him to another world. That’s the very basic premise but if i’m being real, the reason I dug it was because of it's heavy ancient chinese martial arts type vibe. The story has been enjoyable as well, split into two with his life in the real world and the one in the game, the one in the game so far being far more interesting… go figure.. but yh… I definitely have a martial arts bias so slight grain of salt there ig..

#1) Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint - This was my fav read that month and honestly I see it being my fav isekai for a long time. The story here is that the MC is a big fan of Light novels and happens to be the only person in the world to have completed one called Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse. Lo and behold the events of the story start to unfold in real life. Now I know that screams boring story overpowered MC red flags, as he clearly has a certain edge over literally the entire human population,, but TRUST. TRUST! it’s all handled really really well.

If i’m being honest, the really real reason I brought these up is probably because I saw some announcements earlier this month that two of them have started production for anime adaptations. #3 Loner life in another world and #1 Omniscient Reader’s viewpoint. Not that something getting an anime speaks to any inherent quality of a manga besides profitability, but in any case, if you liked the quick summaries, anime announcements or even just the names, I recommend actually listening to Season 2 Ramble 1 - New Year New Worlds, or reading its transcript for more structured descriptions and takes…especially on Omniscient Reader… so so good..

Now onto the stuff I actually got into this month, starting with Light novels... I say Light Novels plural and though I technically did read more than one, they were all from the same series

Durarara!!

I’m a big fan of durarara!! Watched the anime like ten years ago, and even back then I really wanted to read the source material but couldn’t find it anywhere, the source material being the LNs. I pretty much gave up.. but still 2 years ago I read the manga for Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency and still enjoyed it. Finally. Finally. I’ve gotten my hands on the light novels thanks to a 7 year old reddit post. Thank you reddit.

Durarara!! is a story written by Ryohgo Narita with illustrations, like the cover and a few more for emphasis on certain scenes, done by Suzuhito Yasuda. In total there are 13 volumes which started publishing in 2004 and ended in 2014. Of these 13 I’ve read 4 so far. This is the third time now I’ll be speaking about durarara!!, the first time was Season 1 Ramble 8 - A is for Anime (solo reprise) then Season 1 Ramble 12 - Delinquency. Of course I encourage you to check those out but seeing as I clearly love Durarara!! I don’t mind giving the synopsis again.

Durarara!! Is the story of Tokyo’s downtown district of Ikebukuro and the people who live there. There are three central characters who the story mostly revolves around and a few more that make up the full main cast. The main three are mikado ryuugamine, a kid from the countryside who’s tired of the normal everyday life and so, invited by his best friend, moved to Ikebukuro to get closer to all the excitement. Mikado’s best friend who invited him, Kida Masaomi, is the second of the three. A rowdy, dye haired playboy who’s lived in Ikebukuro for a while and serves as mikado’s guide. Last but definitely not leat there’s Anri Sonohara, a plain girl who lost her friend on the first day of school.

There are others like the strongest in ikebukuro, shizuo, the most dastardly in ikebukuro, izaya, the random black Russian sushi store employee simon, and etc., that all affect the story one way or the other but there’s one more character that probably brings the central cast up to four and that’s celty sturluson, a dullahan, aka headless horseman, looking for her head that’s been stolen.

Not sure if you can tell from that not so short synopsis or the fact that there’s thirteen volumes of this thing but ALOT is going on in this story. For comparative reasons I'll bring up the anime here that has two seasons, the second being split into 3 cours, and they cover about 6 of the light novels. I say about, because I've only read four of them but I know for sure that season 1 covers the first three, and the fourth novel lines up with what happened in season 2 cour 1 so that’s where my assumption comes from.

In any case if it sounds like i’ve said a lot without saying anything, i’m aware and I hate it but it’s kind of a mystery story so i’ll give myself a small pass and hope you all can forgive me., Like this is one of those stories it’s hard to speak on without spoiling some aspect. I will say though that delinquents, katanas, superhumans and the yakuza are involved so… yh… Lastly the narration is great as almost every chapter is from a different person’s perspective and sometimes this goes back and forth through time so the story comes together in a very neat but crazy exciting kaleidoscope. One thing the anime had over the Light novel is that along with this changing vantage point, the narrator would change independently as well which I thought was really cool and really solidified the feeling that nothing goes unseen, whether on accident or by design, but the Light novels gave a bit more depth to the character's train of thought so I guess it balances out a bit.

Not much more to say but having watched the anime, read the manga and now the light novels I think it’s obvious that I definitely and holistically recommend durarara!!

Now onto the Visual Novels

The order I’m gonna mention them in is just the order I played them in, usually I’d do some sort of ranking but If you know anything about visual novels, and I guess story heavy games in general, it’s that they tend to be on the longer side of things so sadly I only finished one.

1) Steins;Gate

Released in 2009, developed and published by MAGES & Nitro+ with an approximate playtime of 44hrs. This was the only VN I actually got to complete a playthrough of this month.

I watched the anime 10 years ago and though I don’t remember much of the intricate episode to episode details, I do remember time travel being involved and it fucking with my emotions in the last half. In fact I went to check old tumblr posts I made back then to see if it would jog my memory but there was only one post and all it said was that the last 4 episodes were feels…

In any case back then I had no idea what VNs even were so I pretty much thought that was the end of it, but as the helix of time would have it, I’m back here again.

For those who have no idea, Steins;Gate follows a rag-tag band of tech-savvy young students who discover the means of changing the past via mail, using a modified microwave. Their experiments into how far they can go with their discovery begin to spiral out of control as they become entangled in a conspiracy surrounding SERN, the organisation behind the Large Hadron Collider, and John Titor who claims to be from a dystopian future.

Yes i know it’s kinda crazy that technical time travel was stumbled upon with a microwave but one it’s fiction, and two the series really doesn’t ask you to suspend your belief all that much otherwise. Getting into it, I really like the VN way more than the anime, the time difference is probably a factor but I don’t recall the anime being as thorough in explaining the science of different theoretical time travel mechanics and how they may or may not work. In fact the VN was way more thorough in general, from individual characterization to the overall settings, but to be fair to the anime, they have a limited time to work with and there’s no way they could fit everything in there. No reason to either as they told their own story and to be clear the anime was great and obviously having things moving about is a strength that the VN could never touch, but as a person who really loves the specifics of things, as well as a healthy interest in time travel, the VN just wins out.

Moving clear of the anime now, the VN playthrough is actually multithreaded, with several branching routes and independent endings which plays into the whole time travel, chaos theory, cause and effect type stuff brilliantly. Especially because the choices generally aren’t very obvious or with clear impact or storyline segmentation, besides the split in chapters which is independent of your choices. In my head, going into VNs I thought it’d be like you’re presented with a situation and there are some obvious choices with obvious impacts like do you want to be evil yes or no? But in steins;gate, you’re really just advancing the script almost unknowingly and the only choices you make are to answer a text or not to answer a text and the preset choices only present themselves when you choose to answer a text but i swear to you they are almost always about the most unimportant things that have absolutely nothing to do with the task at hand of trying to complete successful time travel and escaping a future dystopia.

Real example, a friend texts you and asks you if you want some anime frogs.., i only know this because I chose to look at the text but you’re free to ignore almost every text. In any case the options were like what tf is that? or why tf would i? (paraphrasing ofc) + even if you do open the text as I said you don’t have to answer. No idea what that or my even more insane conversations with the cat girl maid had to do with anything but somehow I ended up where I ended up.. In the end I somehow caused the MC to get stuck in the same cycle for some unknown time until his soul pretty much died and he was on the verge of turning to heinous criminal activities but ended up just leaving his time period behind at the risk of taking on extreme mental illness.. No reflection on me and my character of course, as I said the choices aren’t anything obvious like become evil or become good, it just turned out that way somehow but that’s part of the fun because the anime only had one ending but here there’s i don’t even know how many in the VN and I can’t wait to playthrough again.

Also want to mention that it’s largely from a first person perspective so even though the story could have had the feeling of being completely independent from you and just click click click powerpoint powerpoint powerpoint, that first person perspective gave it a feeling closer to that of things slowly slipping through your fingers as you desperately try to keep a handle on things… and art imitates life… great decision by the dev team there but yh… besides that the art and sound direction was great.. The character art specifically was pretty unique like I could definitely spot it in a lineup of 100 anime art styles… phenomenal story of course and though I’d say if you have no exposure to steins at all it could feel a bit slow in the beginning, like I distinctly remember having that feeling when I watched the anime back then and I’m sure my knowledge of the insane pickup had something to do with not feeling it so much now, but I feel it had more to do with the VN having less time constraints, so they were able to make deeper character interactions and with that, the individual characterizations became that much more fulsome and enjoyable.

Definitely definitely highly recommend both the anime and the VN, I think any order is fine as who says time itself is strictly sequential anyways..

2) Utawarerumono: Prelude to the Fallen

Released in 2002, developed by AQUAPLUS, Leaf & STING, published by AQUAPLUS, DMM GAMES & Shiravune, having an approximate playtime of 35hrs.

Now I had never heard of this before but I’d asked a trusted twitter mutual for reccs and this was one of them. shout out LZ one time. Seeing as I didn’t finish I’d feel bad trying to give it a summary or overview with my limited knowledge so I’m gonna go with the description from vndb dot org, which for the record is also where I snagged the description for steins;gate.

In any case, Utawarerumono is about Hakuowlo, a man who wakes up in a tiny backwoods village near the mountains with heavy injuries, no memory, and a mask he cannot remove. After being nursed back to health by Eruruu, the girl who found him lying at the point of death in the forest, he starts to view the village as his new home. But when an oppressive ruler threatens the peaceful life of Hakuowlo and his newfound friends and family, they find themselves hurtled towards war, chaos, and a destiny far greater than any of them imagined.

Pretty simple storyline I guess but it’s all in the execution and from what I’ve played so far, which amounts to about 22hrs, they did a pretty good job. Personally they get extra points from me for justified political upheaval brought about by the consciousness of the masses due to the unjustified cruelty of the ruling class.. But i’ll digress.. Character design was pretty neat, typical anime type beat i guess, great soundtrack, loved all the wind instruments. The character interactions were neat too, definitely feel like i’m gonna do a little part 2 thing cause the more I go on I feel like there’s a few technical commonalities I wanna speak on but yh, again I didn’t finish, though I think I got pretty far, but i still I don’t wanna speak too long or hard directly on it.

Last thing on Uta is that it did have a lot of battle aspects, or at least a lot relative to my expectations for a VN, and that came in the form of a turn based tile map type beat. Think advanced wars or some megaman and final fantasy games.. In any case those were fun, i had it on easy mode cause I was more there for the story so that part was pretty much a breeze but it was refreshing coming off steins which was strictly text based + i haven’t touched any games in a good little while due to the economy™, I’d recommend this for sure, maybe not a super push but I definitely want to finish it which again implies that anything i say on this has to have a little bit more than a grain of salt.

3) Fate/Stay Night

Released in 2004, developed by TYPE-MOON & Notes Co.Ltd, published by those same developers along with Kadokawa Shoten & Kadokawa Games with an approximate playtime of 88hrs.

Just wanna start with no, I haven’t watched the anime, but of course i’ve seen the random clips on twitter, pretty much inescapable at the height of its popularity with ufotable doing undeniably excellent work on it, and i could tell that from just a few clips. But I was in my strictly manga phase back then so I let it pass. The only other exposure I had to the fate series was the gacha game Fate Grand Order which I played for a short time because of one of my twitter friends and then the fate strange fake manga because of that same friend which I will say I do enjoy and I think I even heard it’s getting an anime which would be really based. Anyways shout out jhin and I’m gonna go with the synopsis from vndb again but summarized by me cause it’s hella long, much like the playtime..

The Holy Grail War is a ritual that materializes the greatest holy artifact, the Holy Grail. There are two conditions to participate in this ritual: being a magus and being a "Master" chosen by the Holy Grail. There are seven chosen Masters and seven classes of Servants, beings akin to superhumans with incredible fighting abilities. If you wish for a miracle, prove that you are the strongest with your powers. Emiya Shirou is a high school student who finds himself engaged in the Holy Grail war as he gets attacked by a Servant. As he’s cornered, he somehow summons his Servant and manages to stay alive long enough to compete against the other Masters.

What’s crazy about this is that after playing Uta and reading the description for this I thought “oh so there’s gonna be fights and stuff” and yes there are but you kinda just watch them, well I can’t speak on the whole game but so far I’ve played about 30hrs and that’s what it’s been. Nothing bad, it’s a VN, just surprising given the nature of the VN. In any case I’ve enjoyed it so far, pretty much knew I would as most if not all the servants are famous figures from the past and it’s always cool to see clashes of famous figures across time.

I guess the bigger surprise was how much I liked the characters and their interactions, maybe they weren’t phenomenal but there’s always a certain set of folks on social media that will have certain characters as their profile pics and there’s always lewd art here and there and the trend that tends to follow from that is like the character is blown up by the fans to the point that when you actually get to the story it’s disappointing but… I get it…. Rin fans… i get it… saber fans… I get it… I only saw her briefly at the point where I got to but I’m a rider fan… Here my lawyers have advised me to mention that in the VN there is a disclaimer that all characters are over the age of 18… and i’ll just leave that there… Anywho I also dug the subtleties of the sound direction like if they were up high somewhere you’d have a light wind blowing along with the usual bgm or when they’re at a scene like lunch or breakfast there’d be the sound of plates and stuff clinking together… I thought little details like that were very cool… The art wasn’t much, typical anime stuff ig, doubt i could pick it out of a lineup but it was early 2000s so it gets a light pass ig…

Fate is a pretty big franchise at this point so I don’t think my recommendation for or against would sway anyone but for the record I would recommend it, grain of salt due to me not actually finishing it included…

And that’s it for stuff this month, thanks for sticking around to the end gotta shout out LZ again, that twitter moot I mentioned, they gave me reccs, set me up with sites and everything to get free to play, also shout out vndb dot org for the VN details, they’re doing great work over there and I would give the sites I got from LZ but loose lips sink pirate ships so i hope yall can understand… yh that’s it for the main stuff,, a little part 2 ramble is in the actual podcast if you're interested in listening but other than that, hope you enjoyed and have a good one o/

Ok before I forget about it completely now that I've moved on to other stuff for like a week already I should probably say something about Astria Ascending.

Astria Ascending is a trainwreck, but it's one that I spent literally a hundred hours on. The art style and music are generally pretty good (although some NPC designs are kinda iffy, but at least the artists were less horny on main than for XC2), and I thoroughly enjoyed the job system and combat. It's obviously heavily influenced by various older FF games in a lot of ways, especially 12, but mechanically I actually liked this more than most of them.

Coincidentally, and despite being made by a non-Japanese indie studio, they had a couple people who've worked on FF games contribute writing and music. The music was a good call, and that was one of the things that was consistently pretty good in the game. The writing was not a good call, and it was one of the things that was consistently not good in the game.

I know Tetsuya Nomura has worked on lots of good games, including ones that I've really liked, but I kind of have a long history of not getting along great with his writing. Like I had plenty of fun with FF7 and FF8, but I'm not going to pretend the stories weren't a complete mess, especially in 8. I liked the worlds and characters and stuff enough to get past that though. And even though I haven't played them myself, I kind of had the same reaction to the KH games he's worked on.

And then there's FFX, which I kind of hated. Like a lot. I only finished it out of spite and because my laptop was in for repairs that week. It started out with a bunch of interesting stuff, and I had tons of ideas of where it might be going with it, but every time they revealed something significant about the world or plot it was less interesting than everything I'd thought of. So I'd readjust my speculation based on the new information, and then a few hours later I'd be disappointed again. By the end it had just been disappointment after disappointment for a few dozen hours, and it remains one of my least favorite RPGs I've ever played, and definitely my least favorite I've actually finished.

Good news though! Astria Ascending's story and writing is a lot like FFX, only a lot worse. There are a decent number of interesting things about the world, but it just doesn't go anywhere with any of them ever and has the most bland and superficial possible story with no real depth. At least in other stuff he's worked on they generally at least have good characters or character interactions or character development that carries them, but that barely exists here. I would struggle to come up with five adjectives to describe most of the main cast without resorting to really generic stuff, and hardly anything happens to them and they barely change or grow.

I know I said good news, but that wasn't actually entirely sarcastic. It kinda lets you know up front that it's not particularly well written, so I never got my hopes up and was never really disappointed.

I feel like I've been almost entirely negative, but I really did have plenty of fun aside from that. They said they were inspired by FF12, especially the International Zodiac Job System version, and it shows. I genuinely liked the job system and some of the wacky combinations of things you can put together with it, and once I figured out how things work my party was constantly doing very silly things.

The side quests are sometimes poorly explained, and I eventually stopped wandering around finding where stuff was on my own and just looked it up online, but I was actually pleasantly surprised that it had some decent puzzles here and there in the dungeons/temples and mostly enjoyed going through those even if the map is a disaster. They've also basically fixed the game breaking bugs it had for the first few months it was out, so while it's still pretty unpolished and has some weird issues sometimes it's at least playable now without major issues.

Also it has one of the best card game minigames since Triple Triad, which I wasted a lot of time on. It's not quite as good as Triple Triad in the end because the random rule just makes it stop being fun 80% of the time instead of just being harder and taking more thinking, but at least the rules each NPC uses are fixed so you're not spreading around bad rules like in Triple Triad. I feel like they had potential to do a bit more with it than they did, but ultimately I had a lot more fun with it than something like Gwent.

So yeah, I can't really say it's a good game, but it's a game that has good things in it while also being a total mess, and I mostly enjoyed my time with it. Also the battle music is going to live in my brain for the next several years.

(edit while updating tags years later: I have no idea why I went on a tangent about Nomura when the writing in this is Nojima's fault. Sometimes my brain doesn't work, but I suppose they did do most of those FF games together so most of my issues still stand I guess)

Persona 2 Innocent Sin Review

I wanted to have some time in between playing the game and writing my thoughts for Persona 2 Innocent Sin. I will be referencing it and other Persona games so there may be some light spoilers for games 2-5. 

I played the psp version of the game on a Playstation TV. I beat the game at 76 hours on the dot. I have not completed most of the theater missions, but I have completed the main story of the game and did do a few sidequests.

My review will be organized in several sections-gameplay, story, music, characters, LGBTQ representation, extra content, wishlist and recommendation.

Gameplay:

Persona 2 Innocent Sin was released in 1999. Therefore plays as a game from 1999. The PSP rerelease updated menus, changed the difficulty, and added all out attack art similar to P3-P5 for the fusion spells. I love the all out attack animation and although the menus got a little cumbersome, it didn’t really impact gameplay for me. 

The biggest complaint about Persona 2 IS is how easy and repetitive it is and the high encounter rate. The battles for the most part are easy and if you set up all your attacks in the first round, you can basically use autoplay until an emergency occurs or you encounter an enemy in which you must change it up. 

I never saw the gameplay as repetitive as others do and I feel those who do only just battle and that’s it. I was constantly trying to get all the fusion spells, max up my personas to trade them for items, try different combinations for the demon negotiations and spread demon rumors to get items, spells, and cards (you need cards to summon new personas in the velvet room.) Demon negotiations also allow you a better look into each of the characters’ personalities and relationships. Events in the game will change how the characters react in these negotiations so it is always nice to go back to them throughout the course of the game. 

The demons you encounter have emotions. I believe they are intrigued, happy, angry and fearsome. Make them happy and they will offer a pact with you and give you free stuff and willing to spread rumors for you. Make them angry they will fight you. Make them fear you they will run away. Make them intrigued and you get the cards needed to summon personas and even more if you already have a pact with them. 

I wanted to return to the big complaint though, the high encounter rate. This was something that I felt hot and cold about. Most of the time this didn’t bother me, because I needed to level up my personas anyway. But when I needed to backtrack and explore further, it did get a little bothersome. 

You can use estoma to avoid enemies weaker than you. It is not a passive skill, so once you have a persona that has it, you have to cast it every time it wears off. At the Mu casino, you can also purchase a disguise kit that does the same thing, but it effects last about the same amount of time and it is ridiculously expensive. Just use estoma. 

As briefly mentioned above, unlike Persona 5 in which you can just catch Personas, in P2IS there are only two ways to get them. You get cards from demon negations, take those cards to the velvet room and then trade them in for a Persona. But you have to enough cards to summon it and the persona has to be 5 cards within your character level. 

You can also talk to the demon painter, for him to make you cards for the specific arcana you want by using blank cards. These are also given through demon negotiations that you have a pact with. 

In P2, ALL your characters are capable of changing out Personas, but their compatibility with different personas varies with their Arcana. 

The other way to get personas is through the story. There are certain actions that you must take to get the prime personas and then the final personas. These personas are character specific and you can’t give them to other characters. 

I wanted to talk about three more things before I move on to the story: rumormongers, fusion spells, and dungeons. 

Persona 2IS is based around rumors. Just like P3 is for the dark hour, P4 the midnight channel, P5 around palaces and so on...

To get certain items and progress the story, you MUST gather and spread rumors. There are five characters throughout the game called rumormongers. They will give you information in exchange for receiving information. You then share this information to the detective agency, pay a fee for them to spread them for you, and there you go. rumor spread. As mentioned earlier, there are also demon specific rumors. 

Fusion spells were something I really enjoyed in this game. Although hearing “Are you ready? Here goes” and “Let’s go everybody” will be stuck in my head for the rest of eternity...

Basically, to create a fusion spell, members in your party require a requisite spell and then that party member is placed in a specific order when taking turns. Once that spell is unlocked, it will let you know if you have the requisite spells and you no longer have to adjust the order of party members. Some of the spells you need to unlock fusion spells are persona specific. The fusion spells are elemental. 

I will not go into weaknesses of elemental spells, I am just going to say that you aren’t “down”’ed like you are in 3-5. 

Finally, my first real pet peeve with this game-the dungeons.

Oh boy. Air raid, AeroSpace and one of the four Zodiac dungeons (I am pretty sure its Eikichi’s) gets ALL my hate. There are cheap gimmicks that make the game artificially hard but only for these dungeons and more so, frustrating. 

But I am not going to go into detail why, and the other dungeons are not bad at all. But play the game and experience these dungeons for yourself. That is all I am going to say about that.

Story:

This section will be nowhere was long as gameplay. The story did not go where I thought it would, but that’s a good thing. I would go in completely blind if you can. The ending definitely surprised me a bit. I think it has one of the best stories of the persona games.

It does not follow a calendar like the later Persona games and time just blends together. By the end of the game, you won't know if a day, week or month passed from the beginning to the end.

Music:

The music is actually really good. It is the reason why I played the game in the first place. Just don’t look at the soundtracks names. Spotify has it available if you live in the US. You are better off listening to the soundtrack because I promise you that most dungeons songs will be cut off due to the frequency of battles. 

Some of my favorite songs are Smile Hirasaka, Unbreakable Tie, Kurosu’s theme, Joker and the Taurus dungeon’s theme.

Characters:

Despite Persona 2 not having social links, I feel like I know these characters better than some of the persona games that do have social links. It is also the only Persona game that I can say without any hesitation that I like the entire main cast. 

I truly love them all, but my favorite would probably be Yukino or Maya. 

Unlike other Personas, the dynamics for Persona 2 IS are different, because not all of your party members are high school students. The adult characters have adult problems, the high school students have high school problems, and all of them have deep psychological problems and abandonment issues that will take years of intense therapy (or Philemeon) to forget.

One of the biggest themes of Persona 2 is confronting your past and learning from the mistakes of your childhood. And the characters do! And by the end of the game you are so proud of how far they have come. And then things happen...

LGBTQ representation

Let me say that I started P2IS off on the wrong foot, but I am still absolutely justified at being upset by it. One of the very first interactions you can have with a NPC is through a very uncomfortable exchange between you, Eikichi and a transman that is pretty transphobic. And to add the icing on the cake, Atlus refers to him as a “weird woman.” 

I was literally going to just stop playing the game like an hour in because of that, but I decided to continue.

What I discovered was a game that has highs and lows when it comes to LGBTQ representation. 

You can play as a bi character who can confess his feelings to men and women. *Stares hard at Persona 4 and Persona 5*

You have a gay character that has an interesting story, character development, is unabashedly gay and isn’t a walking stereotype. Nor is his entire arc centered around gay panic. 

From what I understand the dialogue from the NPC does get better, but I am not holding my breath. 

And the one sapphic kiss scene we get in a Persona game is a kiss of manipulation and not love. So that is a little sad. 

But overall, P2IS does try to make an effort. And it definitely makes a better effort than its successor released almost 2 decades later.

Extra content:

Again, Persona 2 doesn’t have social links or a calendar. Please don’t approach it like the other games where you have to fill up your time between dungeons. It is not a necessity, but there are things you can do. 

Mu is a casino that you can visit that allows you to play mini games to gain coins that you can use to get weapons, rare items, and even unlock personas. I spent a little too much time at Mu....

You can also talk to NPCs to do side missions. Be careful though. You have to do the side missions in a given amount of time or you may not get rewarded for it. Also P2IS is very much like Final Fantasy 9 where it is much better to go to a place sooner than later, because there may not be a later...

You also have the factory which is an optional dungeon that opens up more and more as you progress through the game. 

There is the theater which is a PSP exclusive which has side missions unrelated to the main story that you can play. They are okay.

Wishlist

I hear so many people wanting a remake of P2IS so the game can be more accessible. I am very torn about this. Besides the difficulty and maaybe tweaking the encounter rate a bit, I wouldn’t change a thing. However, I also know that I couldn’t enjoy Shadow of Colossus until the controls were updated. Like I tried and then just gave up. 

I honestly don’t want a remake. I don’t trust the Atlus of today with this game.

I do want it to be acknowledged and more accessible though. 

But if I had to make a wish list, this is what it would be. Again, this would be a “it would be nice list.”

Make the battles harder.

Update cut scenes? I really like the art for the cut scenes already, but would like some more. Maybe keep the drawings but update the CG?

Social side quests. I do not want social links in Persona 2. However, side quests that allow you to learn more about your character like a social link would, would be something I would be very interested in. 

Make the portraits consistent. The art from the original game and the new art put in the PSP game (I am talking about you climax lady) clash so much. Pick one style and stick to it.

I want to fight Ms. Ideal. Let me do it for reasons. Give me a chance to battle her.

I want the option to switch out characters. I love both Jun and Yukki, but I want to be able to play with both. 

Let me skip the animation when I create a new Persona. 

*EDIT*  I can’t believe I forgot this and feel awful I did, but I do think they should keep the trans NPC, but change the dialogue and the the name. It isn’t the NPC that is the problem but the dialogue and actions. Otherwise, I think it would be ok. 

I think that’s it.

Recommendation:

So should you play Persona 2 IS? Short answer, yes. Long answer is that it is complicated. In a few months the game will no longer be accessible for psp consoles. The physical version of the game is ridiculously expensive. You will have to accept the fact this game is on psp and its sequel’s psp version never came to English speaking markets.

You may not like the graphics, gameplay, or that it doesn’t feel like the later persona games. And as much as I love this game, that is alright. You do you. But I truly do think you are missing out on a great game. So if you have the opportunity to do so, yeah absolutely give it a shot. 

Amphibia Reviews: The First Temple or Bessie and Joe: The New OTP

Hello all you happy people! Amphibia season 2 moves right a long and it’s time for some video game shenanigans as we enter The First Temple! Family drama, snail on bird action, and outhouses await you under the cut with a recap/review with full spoilers. 

So we open with the Plantars having chocopillbug pancakes. Ironically my mom offered me chocolate chip pancakes after this and thank god for that. This is a rare treat to the point Anne didn’t even know they had choclate, and is suprisingly not strangling Hop Pop over this. Unsuprisingly he broke out the good stuff to try and make up for hiding the box and things are still VERY awkward between the two, with Hop Pop walking on Egghshells around Anne and Anne doing the same when he brings it up with both desperatley trying to avoid the subject and Sprig not helping by bringing it up a bunch. 

I like this a lot and didn’t really think about the series continuting any tension over his decision.. but should have. Partly because this is a modern animated show and most of this wonderful new wave of shows have a LOT of emotional nuance. ANd partly because this show dosen’t forget things even most nuanced shows forget: the fact the characters cause chaos and learn life lesons is outright RECOGNZIED by the show as a pattern and brought up quite often, as are the patterns that lead to it, like mostly being sprig and anne, anne’s impulsivness that sort of thing. It’s the kind of thing you just gloss over in most shows but this one lampshades to hell and back for funsies so when something THIS important happens, you’d better belivie it’s not just going to disappear. 

The tensions thankfully broken by a new arrival, as a massive sparrow shows up in the yard. “It’s a giant bird with.. books on it’s back.. what. “ Great delivery from bill there. Naturally it’s Marcy! 

I missed this little goober. Such a joy to be around, and she of course marvels over the Plantar’s house before getting back on track: She’s found the first temple.. even though she sent a letter saying that and it’s not commented on that she did. It set off the whole previous episode Marcy... you okay Mar-Mar?

That aside though it’s time for the first temple and Marcy asks for the Box, with Sprig trying to make a joke about how good thing she didn’t ask for it a week ago. 

Polly rightly punches him in the ribs... do frogs have ribs? Hold on.. okay here we go

Huh.. so they do not You learn something new every day. Well lack of ribs or no our heroes are ready.. while Marcy’s sparrow Joe is also ready TO GET IT ON. Yes really, he does a mating dance for Bessie, complete with an intersumental version of “Sylvia” from last season. God damn that bird’s got game. The only time i’ve seen more game is THIS. 

 Marcy tells him to knock it off. Look marcy your a pet owner now and as a pet owner, it’s your responsiblity.. to let your giant bird do horrifying things with a slightly smaller but still giant snail. it’s what nature intended. Nature was doing a lot of cocaine that day but we still honor her wishes. 

But anyways Marcy’s figure out something intresting about the box.. by winding it just right the gems pop out, which allows her to take one, we later find out it’s the green one, to use in the temple. So off we go with Marcy and the rest of the kids up top and Hop Pop.. screaming in Joe Sparrows claws. He’s fine. 

So while they get ready, Anne worries about the amount of puzzles and hazzards Marcy’s hyping for this but Marcy shurgs it off and gives her own big boast about how may RTS she’s beaten.. suspciously like Yuaan as one post on here pointed out. Not a huge suprise though, to Marcy she’d just be the grand hero out of one of her rpg’s and not think of how many people she probably killed or who she’s working for.. though you’d THNK given all the RPG’s both tapetop and on her switch she’s played, that Marcy would see that “the benevolent king turns out to be the big bad” trope coming. 

But Anne’s worry is not on the big bad of the show but on Marcy who has a tendency to get so in the zone she ignores the world around her, which goes from focusing on her game while helping anne get softserve leading to a mess, not letting Anne down in a play and.. Anne catching Marcy on tv as all the snakes escape from the zoo. 

Regardless our heroes arrive and while the awkwardness between anne and hop pop continues, they find a majestic temple.. and what appears to be an outhouse. Hey we all gotta poop sometimes, even people making a majestic temple.  If you don’t it comes out like this. 

So they head in and we get our first puzzle, a mysterious cube that lifts you into the air and allows you to tilt the thing around. 

Those of you wondering why I have such a strong reaction have ever never played breath of the wild or played it with a pro controller, i.e. NOT having to tilt the very thing your screen is on because Nintendo has failed to grasp that MAYBE people don’t like that, that it takes you out of the experince and that it’s really hard to focus on your screen while having to move the fucking system about. And the plantar’s getting horribly jostled around as she moves it is EXACTLY how it feels to play a puzzle requring that shit. 

Next is a color based tile dungeon leftover from Link’s Awakening DX. As marcy figures out the reds do fire and the blues do crushing... but she reads the language (And as she put earlier “Guess who learned an entire dead language?” God she’s precious. ) and finds a green with envy pun (Which Hop Pop takes offense to.. several of his friends are green.). Which is curious as given several citzens of amphibia are green.. why would they make a green pun? So she gets on one tile and Hop Pop plans to take the risk of getting on the other green tile, but Anne does it instead.. and things get heated between the two as Anne reveals she no longe feels like family since he did what he did for polly and sprig and hop pop takes offense as she IS. Even if he screwed up with her. But Anne’s near death experince activates the tile. 

The final challnge switches us from Zelda.. to Harry Freaking Potter. 

Now I used to love Harry Potter, with all of my heart. Then JK Rowling turned out to be a transphobic piece of shit who thinks she’s an ally, but is really a bigot who wants to “accept” trans people without giving them any rights. So yeah while I still love the starkid musicals, ore more accuratley the music from them, and own a copy of lego harry potter I got as a gift recently as both parties had no idea she was a monster when this stuff was made. Still a sore subject though, but if I didn’t bring up the similiarties I wouldn’t be doing my job as a critic and this was likely thought up long before JK outed herself as well...

No no the great mighty poo respects all peoples.. and wants to take their heads and ram it up his butt. He’s an equal opportunity butt rammer. 

Anyways this is the frog equivlent of chess flipfrog, and just like with Wizard chess, our heroes end up as the pieces minus marcy.. and in a nice twist on that scene, Anne ends up on the other side. Marcy is a grandmaster at it though so after an hour or so of play she almost wins.. only for the king equilvent to refuse to be taken and the automatic board she’s up against to send Anne against hop pop, and with our heroes magically restrained and given stone weapons, this can’t end well. Eventually though Anne’s forced to hit HOp Pop multiple times and while he says “well isn’t this what you wanted”, she says no.. she didn’t want to phsyically hurt him it’s just complicated. So we get one heck of an emotioinal scene as Hop Pop just wants to help and wants this to stop and dosen’t knoow how to fix this which as someone who desperatlyt ries to fix most emotional situations right away this hit very hard.. and her response of needing time hit harder. The two while not reconciled, ar ecloser to it and Marcy realizes what she’s done getting so obessed with winning and forfits for thier benifit. Our heroes leave, seemingly having lost.. only to find glowing arrows to the crap hole, which turns out to be the pedistal. The temple wasn’t just an intellegence test but empathy.. and the temples are clearly built to specifically test each of the chosen three, our heroines, specifically. Marcy’s tested her intellegence.. but also her willingness to let go of cold clyincal thought to do the right thing. That earns her her gem recharged and a flash in her eyes and her gem starts pointing to the next. She needs time to triangulate and hop pop and anne are back on workable footing... though our heroes offer to take a break instead of going to the next temple. 

Back in Newtopia, Yuaan reports on the toads gathering.. but dosen’t get to mentioning sasha before Marcy’s letter interrupts and Andridas oddly and aburbly dimisses her.. and goes to talk to a watcher with a thousand eyes, his “master” who has plans to undo the prophcey and get their revenge. 

Final Thoughts: This was a damn fine episode that gave Marcy some much needed character development, and gave the reveals of last episode some more emotiional fallout.  It also had some really great jokes as always. Top notch stuf. 

Next Time: Marcy tries to win everyone over through science and we FINALLY get an episode with the Frog Robot apparently. Horay

Next on this Blog: We go into final space yo! It’s unexpected births, ho yay, and horrifying zombie gary’s galore! 

Until then if you liked this review, follow me for more, join my patreon, comission a review if you please and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. Play us out jeff... and I haven’t done THAT bit in a while but eh. This song was too perfect. 

Ai yah, I really have to respond to this post again, huh?

Well, for starters, I apologize for a mistake I made in my original post. In the OP, I insinuated that the Princess Zeldas we see in the series could have possibly had a role in the atrocities committed by the royal family. This is incorrect, and it was poor wording on my part. I should have clarified my intentions when writing that particular passage; however, I felt it was unimportant, given that the point wasn’t solely about Princess Zelda, but how the addition of the Goddess Hylia and the Demon King Demise not only invalidates Ganondorf’s character up to that point, but adds much greater weight to the terrible actions committed by the royal family, especially towards the Sheikah.

Given that tumblr user lorelylantana is the third person to make a reply by discussing the reincarnation cycle, rather than the actual point of my post, perhaps I should have proofread and double checked my post before sending it out into the world to cause problems on purpose.

With that said, after I read lorelylantana’s response, I felt it necessary to make a proper reply of my own. It’s going to be a rather lengthy reply, as I have many things to say and many images to post.

However, I’m going to do all that I can to avoid discussing fanon or fan theories. I don’t mind them, but adding fanon wasn’t the point of my original post, and it shouldn’t have been the focus of the responses I received. I want to stay as close to the canon Nintendo laid out as possible. Thusly, my sources will strictly be drawn from the games, game manuals, Creating a Champion, Hyrule Historia, and Hyrule Encyclopedia. Despite the latter two being dubiously canon, they were approved by Nintendo, so they’re worth mentioning.

So, without further delay, let us begin.

-       “The original post seems to be based on the idea that Zelda and the royal family of Hyrule are synonymous, which is questionable for reasons I’ll get into later.”

For all intents and purposes, yes. Zelda and the royal family are synonymous, as she is the face of the royal family in almost every Zelda game featuring her. Even if she isn’t the ruler of Hyrule in that particular moment, she is our figurehead for the monarchy, by all means.

-       “The games don’t hand wave the actions of Hyrule’s royal family, they just don’t go out of their way to hold a young girl personally responsible for the actions of kings […]”

While the actions of the royal family are briefly acknowledged, as is the case with the Shadow Temple and the Arbiter’s Grounds, the monarchy has never had to answer for their actions. Even in the case of the Sheikah’s massive exile 10,000 years ago, the royal family never answers for this, nor are they ever portrayed being in the wrong. In fact, the event in question is only mentioned by a single member of the Sheikah in Breath of the Wild, Cado.

Image credit goes to YouTube user Macintyre.

The royal family’s actions are never directly described as “these were horrible things that happened.” Instead, it’s simply, “yeah, it happened.” There is no acknowledgement that the Yiga was created by the royal family’s own hands, nor is there any emphasis placed on the impact any of these acts have.

For example, the exile of the Sheikah wasn’t even the first instance of the royal family of Hyrule mass-exiling a group of people and displacing them from their original homes.

After the events of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf is captured and executed for his crimes leading up to the events of the game and presumably the events of the Adult Timeline, given Young Link’s testimony. (I’ll get into why the King of Hyrule believes Link over Zelda later.) After Ganondorf was executed, the Gerudo were forced out of Gerudo Valley and banished from the Haunted Wasteland. Even during the events of Twilight Princess, the Gerudo Desert is completely abandoned. Once again, there is no discussion concerning the royal family’s actions, with the narrative instead being that the Gerudo, some of whom were actively against Ganondorf’s actions and many of whom were hypnotized during the events of OoT, are entirely at fault and have to atone for their sin of… having Ganondorf for a leader, I suppose.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 405

Source: Hyrule Encyclopedia, p. 46

The royal family gets to punish an entire people for the actions of one man. Rather than the act being portrayed as negative or even discussed, it’s hardly even mentioned.

While I’m aware Encyclopedia’s canonicity is dubious at best, its material was still approved for publication by Nintendo. Thusly, I feel it worthy to discuss.

To summate, the royal family did bad things, and very select few acknowledge it.

Next point.

-       “I think that the Zelda/Hylia = good Ganon = bad situation serves a narrative purpose that justifies the black and white nature of the games because it highlights the shades of gray in between installments…”

The Legend of Zelda is almost thirty-five years old. This series should have long evolved beyond the black-and-white-morality narrative, especially when the side we’re supposed to sympathize with literally used the Sheikah to commit war crimes. You don’t have to have stark white and pitch black in order to see shades of gray.

-       “… And trying to assign Zelda a dark side is kind of missing the point, especially when no one seems to question Link’s morality even though he’s constantly stealing people’s stuff.”

Examples of Consequences to Link Stealing People’s Stuff

1.     In Twilight Princess, stealing from Trill will result in the bird branding you a thief and pecking you every time you come near him, which will only cease when you finally pay up.

2.     In Link’s Awakening, stealing from the old man’s shop will result in instant death the next time you enter his shop. If you steal, your name is changed to THIEF for the rest of the game.

Furthermore, Link is controlled by the player; thusly, his actions have no consequence to the story or Link’s character. Zelda, on the other hand, is an active participant in the story, whose actions and whose family’s actions weigh heavily on the games. That’s not to say Zelda is ever evil. However, as much as she is a victim of her own family’s history, she still has just as much power to change it.

-       “If the games wanted to gloss over the sins committed by the royal family[,] they wouldn’t have designed entire dungeons around them.”

I reiterate: the sins of the royal family were mentioned once, and then immediately dropped shortly thereafter. It’s not there for you to dwell upon, merely window dressing as if to say, “Yeah, that happened.”

-       “I believe The Legend of Zelda series is a critique of the Divine Right of Kings”

Until the events of Skyward Sword, the Hylian Royal Family wasn’t a divine lineage. A thirty-five-year-old series can’t be a critique of a concept that it barely even acknowledges. The only emphasis placed on the “goddess blood” part of the royal family is in Breath of the Wild, in relation to Zelda having to unlock her sealing powers. Despite the massive repercussions the revelation of the royal family’s lineage tying back to divinity should have, it’s barely even mentioned,let alone discussed.

As a side note, the divine right of kings specifically denotes that the monarch is chosen by God to rule. In contrast, the Hylian Royal Family continues to rule by, presumably, claiming lineage to the Goddess Hylia, which is closer to traditional practice in feudal Japan.

-       “If the Divine Right of Queens is indeed present, does that justify a hereditary monarchy? As far as the Legend of Zelda is concerned[,] the answer is no.”

The Legend of Zelda series never questions the validity of the royal family’s rule.

-       “Isn’t it funny that the Kingdom of Hyrule seems to be perpetually stuck in the dark ages?”

Ocarina of Time has neon lights, jukeboxes, and canned goods. The lakeside doctor’s chemistry is advanced enough that he is able to synthesize eyedrops. Given the newspaper articles strewn about shops, Hyrule also has pictoboxes in OoT.

By Wind Waker, pictoboxes have evolved to print in color. In Phantom Hourglass, Linebeck’s ship is steam-powered.

In Twilight Princess, pictoboxes now print higher quality images. In addition, with the introduction of Malo Mart’s Castle Town branch, TP is confirmed to have fully functional electrical lighting in some places. Cannons are so safe, you can get launched out of one for fun. Pyrotechnics have grown advanced enough that explosives can function underwater, and Death Mountain has become a functioning, refined mining facility stable enough for Hylians to safely walk in. Also, Auru has a bazooka.

SPIRIT TRACKS HAS TRAINS. THEIR AESTHETIC DIRECTLY REFLECTS THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

Hyrule is hardly stuck in the dark ages. It’s high fantasy.

Next point.

“For starters, I want to establish that I don’t agree with the assumption that what the Hyrulean Royal Family does = Zelda/Hylia would do. I don’t think it’s a mistake that almost every text in the OP explicitly mentions that it was a King that committed those acts, not Zelda herself.”

Once again, that was an error on my part. It wasn’t my intention to imply Zelda had any part in such actions. However, Zelda learns how to rule from her father, or her mother, or whomever holds the throne in that particular moment. These acts are never questioned in canon beyond “Yeah, that happened,” and the most conflict we have is the issues between Zelda and her father in Breath of the Wild boiling down to how to confront the Calamity—science vs. sealing magic— rather than anything else.

It’s a personal issue, and Rhoam treats Zelda terribly, essentially alienating himself from his own daughter and treating her as little more than a pawn. I agree that it’s absolutely terrible. However, that’s merely a personal issue. She’s complicit in how Rhoam addresses the Sheikah, possibly even fully aware of the anti-aging rune Purah was developing to force retired soldiers into battle against the Calamity, and from what we’ve seen in Age of Calamity, she doesn’t have an understanding of the Yiga Clan other than the snide remark Urbosa gives:

Image credit goes to YouTube user BeardBear.

It’s up to Zelda to develop a deeper understanding of her country’s history; not to take personal responsibility, but to understand where those who are suffering are coming from.

That said, acting with the Hylians’ best interests at heart is exactly something Hylia would do.

In the prologue to Skyward Sword, the Demon King and his army attack the Hylians, slaying many and throwing the world into despair. Thus, the Goddess Hylia saves the Hylians by sending a chunk of land up into the heavens, sparing them from the war to follow while she gathers every other race to fight alongside her.

So… How come Hylia only saved the Hylians?

I understand many were wiped out by demons, but if Hylia was fully prepared to spare people from violence, why not also send small numbers of every other race? Why only save the Hylians, her chosen people, while essentially dragging everyone else into battle with her? Furthermore, when Hylia’s immortal body suffered grave injuries, she opted to take advantage of this by choosing to be reborn as a person. Not only is it explicitly stated that Hylia reincarnated in order to utilize the Triforce’s power, as she could not do so as divinity, but she knowingly chose to be reborn as someone who would become close with her chosen hero, in order to influence him to follow her plan without hesitation.

Hylia used Link.

That much is certain, and it’s laid out clearly by Zelda shortly before she takes Hyrule’s longest beauty nap.

It must be noted that while Zelda states she is Hylia reborn, and has regained Hylia’s memories by this point, she still sees herself as a separate entity from Hylia. While she herself is immensely guilty and apologizing over and over for what she’d done in her previous life, we have no way of knowing if Hylia herself would react the same way.

In fact, according to a fan-translation by ZeldaUniverse user Yamikawa, Demise goes as far as to describe Hylia as “brave and so-prideful,” hinting that even a being who loved her chosen people so much to save them still saw them as beneath her, if being reborn as human is seen as such a drastic extreme contradictory to her supposed character. Now, this is merely reflection on the inner workings of the Demon King, so his word can’t be taken as gospel. But, like all things, I find it interesting.

From what I can gather, however, Hylia certainly cared more about the Hylians than any other being in the land of Hylia, not dissimilarly to the royal family.

-       “I also don’t think that every princess Zelda is a Princess of Destiny or Representative of Hylia, I think that she reincarnates just about as often as Link and Ganon(dorf) do, because the logistics don’t really work out otherwise. This leaves hundreds, if not thousands of years where Zelda/Hylia isn’t on the throne.”

This is merely speculation. Moving on.

-       “There’s a notable trend of the King of Hyrule getting in the way of Zelda’s attempts to save the kingdom. First[,] he doesn’t take Zelda seriously [in] Ocarina of Time, forcing her to rely on Link […] I don’t know why the King of Hyrule was willing to listen to a random boy claiming to have been from the future over his own daughter but whatever I guess.”

The King of Hyrule believed Young Link because he came back to the Child Timeline with the Triforce of Courage. Up to that point, the whole Triforce was supposed to be safely locked away in the Sacred Realm, which was supposed to be completely inaccessible without the spiritual stones and the ocarina of time, neither of which Link had. I’d listen to the kid’s story too if he came back with a God Dorito on the back of his hand.

-       “And then again in Breath of the Wild when Rhoam bans Zelda from ancient tech research despite the fact that he has absolutely no reason to believe his pray the incompetence away method is the right one.”

The tapestry showcasing the events from 10,000 years ago depicts a princess possessing the blood of the goddess using her sealing magic in order to seal away Calamity Ganon. Link can swing the Master Sword at Ganon or whack him with ancient arrows or light arrows all he wants. Without the ability to seal away the darkness, as shown at the end of Ocarina of Time, all of this preparation and planning would have been for naught. That is why Rhoam is so harsh on Zelda. That’s why so much emphasis is placed on unlocking her power. Without it, defeating Ganon would be impossible.

On that note, Rhoam also had no idea what he was doing. Zelda’s mother was the one with the sealing magic, not him. She was supposed to be the one to train Zelda, but she passed away before she got the chance to even start. He puts so much emphasis on prayer rather than ancient technology because he genuinely doesn’t know what else to do.

I can’t believe this post forced me to defend Rhoam of all people I’m gonna have a stroke—

-       “Also, this is purely speculation, but [I’m] pretty sure there’s an implication that King Daphnes Nohansen caused the flooding of Hyrule in Wind Waker […] This sounds like a wish on the Triforce that backfired[,] but I digress.”

Daphnes couldn’t have made a wish on the Triforce before Wind Waker because, when the Hero of Time left the Adult Timeline, that timeline’s Triforce of Courage shattered into eight pieces and scattered throughout the land—er, ocean. Even if he had Wisdom on him, Ganondorf still possessed the Triforce of Power when he was sealed away, and he wasn’t going to let go of it when he broke free.

Besides, if Daphnes did wish on the whole Triforce, it would have disappeared. There would have been no Wind Waker.

-       “When she saves Hyrule in spite of interference…”

I’m not even going to finish the quote because the entire paragraph is too much for me to unpack. I’m assuming they’re saying that Zelda is never the one truly in power, and the royal family takes advantage of one Zelda’s good deeds to get brownie points.

However, concerning the first line…

In Ocarina of Time, Zelda going behind her dad’s back to try to “save Hyrule” leads Ganondorf straight to the Sacred Realm. Even though a time paradox leads to everything turning out okay in the end, the bleak future was created because Zelda wanted to play hero and pulled Link along with her. Even if Ganondorf managed to wrench the spiritual stones away from the Zora and Gorons, he wouldn’t have been able to access the Sacred Realm if Zelda didn’t send Link there to pull out the Master Sword, which Ganondorf would have never been able to touch. By all means, Ocarina of Timehappened because a little girl was in over her head and tried to take matters into her own hands when her dad didn’t believe her.

Aside from Breath of the Wild, there’s no other “interference” from the royal family that Zelda has to face.

-       “Zelda is the representation of a deity, so it makes sense that people would worship her to some extent, and having a goddess on the throne [probably] blesses the land. So[,] while the kings of Hyrule have a tendency to screw things over, [it makes sense] for Hyrule to be a monarchy because Zelda’s power as the goddess incarnate is needed to defend against Ganon and other threats, [r]ight?”

I acknowledge the author is attempting to portray the royal family’s possible justification for their rule. However, until I reached the succeeding passage, I believed it was the author making this justification, given how the entire paragraph preceding this was pure speculation. Once again, this passage is speculative, as nobody in Hyrule has ever explicitly given any notable opinion concerning the royal family. Why try to justify your rule when nobody’s criticizing it?

Since the author brings up Zelda being a representation of Hylia, however, it does bring to mind a particular problem I have with the royal family suddenly being goddess-blood.

It completely recontextualizes the relationship between the royal family and the Sheikah.

According to Creating a Champion, the Sheikah have a deep devotion to the Goddess Hylia. Since the royal family is descended from the goddess reborn, the Sheikah thusly are deeply devoted to the goddess Hylia.

Source: Creating a Champion, p. 372

Now, the royal government using a minority group of people to do your dirty work is already scummy enough when you’re just a normal royal. In this case, however, the Sheikah are so devoted to their goddess that they will do anything for you. Whether it’s because certain monarchs are a “representation of a deity” remains to be seen, but the point is that they’ll do anything for you.

And the royal family takes complete advantage of a group of people unconditionally loyal to them, bidding them to do unspeakable things in the name of their religion, which for all intents and purposes is the royal family.

That’s absolutely deplorable, and it’s a wonder nobody’s brought attention to it yet, whether in-canon or in-fandom. What’s more, given how Impa is always Zelda’s attendant, this relationship is never questioned or criticized, whether it be by the Sheikah or Zelda herself.

And that’s terrifying.

-       “The reason Ganon is always an antagonist is because he’s the vessel for the curse of Demise.”

Demise was introduced in Skyward Sword. Demise is the root of all evil, the creator of monsters and conjuror of demons. He is pure evil in every sense from the word, the Zelda series’ version of Satan. Naturally, he’s as simple as you can get in terms of character. Barebones characterization, providing only just enough to tell the player exactly what they need to know:

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Ganondorf existed before Demise. Ganon had over twenty years of development before Demise brought his progress to a permanent flatline.

Who was Ganon before Demise?

Allow me to remind you.

In The Legend of Zelda, first released on February 21st, 1986, Ganon is simply described as “the Prince of Darkness,” and steals the Triforce of Power when he invades Hyrule. After the Triforce of Wisdom is shattered, he kidnaps Zelda.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Although Ganon doesn’t physically appear in Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, released in 1987, his presence is still felt as his minions pursue Link in order to revive the Prince of Darkness. In fact, the game over screen is the successful revival of Ganon.

Now, given that these are the first two games in the series, it’s perfectly alright for Ganon to be as barebones as he was. After all, many villains at the time were the same way, with the most notable of Ganon’s counterparts being Bowser from the Super Mario Bros. franchise.

However, with innovation of technology comes innovation of narrative, and it’s with the release of A Link to the Past in 1993 on the SNES that we begin to see Ganon develop as a character. In the prologue to ALttP, Ganon is revealed to have once been human; he is given the name Mandrag Ganon—or Ganondorf Dragmire, as we now know him—and he was once the leader of a band of thieves who sieged the Sacred Realm and took control of the Triforce after murdering his own followers.

Source: A Link to the Past SNES game manual

Ganon is still irrevocably evil, but in this case, we begin to learn more about him. We begin to see a character starting to form. One who isn’t just mindlessly evil, but who has the charm and wit to infiltrate Hyrule Castle and earn the King of Hyrule’s trust in the guise of Agahnim. Ganon was also a very capable leader, having successfully led his band of thieves straight to the Triforce. Even after wishing upon the Triforce and corrupting the Sacred Realm, Ganon’s power attracted followers in the form of greedy, power-seeking people. He’s powerful not by brute force alone, but through his cunning use of intellect.

Ocarina of Time served to further develop Ganon in little ways. For example, this is the first game wherein, for the majority of the game, Ganon is seen and referred to by his human form: Ganondorf. Ganondorf is shown to be powerful enough and stealthy enough to infiltrate the homes of the Zora, the Gorons, and the Kokiri, and send dangerous hazards their way in an effort to seize the Spiritual Stones. At the same time, he is first seen at an audience with the King of Hyrule, as if there for diplomatic reasons.

Although Zelda sees Ganondorf as evil because of her prophetic dream, the King of Hyrule doesn’t believe her. Because of this, we can infer that Ganondorf has enough charm and charisma to, if not win over the King of Hyrule, not be seen as suspicious despite the horrible acts he’d committed, not just in the past, but at that very moment. He’s also shown to be highly cultured, shown at the end of Link’s ascent up Ganon’s Tower. Not only is Ganondorf playing his own theme, but he’s doing so on the pipe organ, which is notoriously one of, if not the most difficult musical instrument to master.

Once Ganondorf seizes the Triforce of Power, the kingdom of Hyrule is subjected to seven long years of his rule. During this time, normal people such as Ingo succumb to their greed and follow Ganondorf’s influence in pursuit of power and riches. Although Malon is naïve enough to believe Ingo was somehow under Ganondorf’s control, it’s clear to players that he was completely in control of his actions, and that Ganondorf’s rule brings out the worst in seemingly average people.

Image credit goes to YouTube user ZorZelda.

Even a Hylian knight can fall under this influence, with it highly inferred that the knight who once guarded a room of pots for Link to smash is now a twisted poe collector, the man even stating that he likes it better this way.

In Wind Waker, we finally see a more introspective side to Ganondorf. While he’s just as ruthless and fully ready to murder a child in the name of accomplishing his goal, he reveals the reason that started him on his path of darkness:

His people were suffering, and he wanted for his people what Hyrule had. He believed that taking Hyrule and taking the Triforce meant that his people could finally live freely, away from the harsh desert.

Now, I’ve seen this challenged time and time again. Was Ganondorf lying to distract or manipulate Link? Was he telling the truth? Is this what Ganondorf has convinced himself to believe, after so much time sealed away and in isolation? We will never know, and that’s part of what makes the game so interesting. Ganondorf’s portrayal is a large part of why so many people love Wind Waker, and it’s not hard to see why.

Perhaps the darkest the Zelda series has ever gone in terms of the Triforce’s power was in Twilight Princess. After freeing Lanayru, the Light Spirit warns Link of the dark power he seeks, the Fused Shadow. In order to do this, she explains the history of the Triforce, and the bloodshed brought by its allure to the darkness in the hearts of men. Before the construction of the Temple of Time, many battles were fought, and one of them was the “Interloper War” that inevitably resulted in the creation of, not only the Light Spirits, but the Twili and the Twilight Realm.

It’s important to note that Lanayru’s cautionary tale highlights that Link, the hero of the story, could succumb to the allure of the Triforce and dark magic just as easily as any other person. In this particular case, anyone could have fallen down the same path as Ganondorf. If anything, this tale is one of the most important bits of lore to take into consideration when discussing the series.

Anyone could have been in Ganondorf’s shoes. It could have happened to anyone.

Then, in one fell swoop, Skyward Sword ruined it.

In a single game, every bit of progress on Ganondorf is lost. Once again, we’re dragged down to the baseline characterization from the original game.

He’s evil, he’s powerful, and he wants the Triforce. You have to stop him.

Suddenly, everything the previous games had built up no longer matters. There’s no longer a need to question whether what Ganondorf did was solely out of greed, but also out of what he felt was necessity. There’s no need to wonder if Ganondorf was once a rational man, who succumbed to the irresistible pull of the Triforce like so many before him.

Ganondorf is, purely and simply, the reincarnation of Satan, so there’s no need to go any deeper than that.

And that’s why I hate this “vessel of Demise” thing. It completely undermines everything Ganondorf once was and reduces him to a single, cardboard cutout of a villain.

Moving on, before I get sad.

-       “This curse is specifically tied to Hylia’s bloodline and the Link’s soul, which is pretty specific…”

Demise’s curse is essentially dooming the earth with a never-ending rebirth of his hatred; his malice, if you would. The wording of his curse is specifically “people like you,” which could mean that it isn’t Link and Zelda’s exact souls that are tied to his hatred. Rather, people possessing the blood of the goddess and a heroic, courageous soul are doomed to deal with this curse.

However, my thoughts on this matter are pure speculation.

Also, Demise specifically targets his curse at people like Link and Zelda because they were the ones to kill him in the first place. That much is obvious.

-       “… [So] why do the clashes with Ganon always throw the fate of Hyrule into disarray? Because Zelda’s bloodline runs the country.”

Ganon would attack Hyrule even without Zelda’s family in charge. His pursuit of power and domination of the Triforce/Hyrule is therefore closely tied with the fate of Hyrule. Goddess blood on the throne has nothing to do with it.

-       “If Zelda came from a small town the curse would probably manifest in peril for that one region which isn’t great but it’s better than an apocalypse.”

Firstly, this is a run-on sentence. Secondly, I reiterate: Ganon would attack Hyrule as a whole, regardless if Zelda’s bloodline was on the throne. It wouldn’t matter if Zelda’s whole family suddenly moved to the countryside. When Ganon inevitably comes back, he’s still gonna go straight for the Triforce or to conquer all of Hyrule. Goddess blood isn’t even part of the equation for Ganon. And if goddess blood isn’t there to stop him, then that’s even better.

Alright, so I’m not even going to bother gratifying the last two paragraphs of the response with an answer, because it’s all rambling that has nothing to do with the original argument. Relinquishing the throne would do nothing to right any wrongs dealt to the many people who were hurt, and evil doesn’t care about a single princess with goddess blood or a boy with a pointy stick.

In conclusion, the addition of Hylia made it so that the royal family’s power dynamic with the Sheikah is even more critically imbalanced than it originally was, making the exile of the Sheikah 10,000 years ago even more heinous than it originally was. Yet, because Hylia is portrayed as wholly good and incapable of doing wrong, despite in-game evidence to the contrary, the royal family, and Zelda by extension, will never be criticized for any wrongdoing. In fact, doing so may well be heresy, if the responses to my original post are anything to go by.

By comparison, the addition of Demise diminishes Ganondorf’s character, rendering him down from the makings of a complex, human character—where anyone could have easily been in his place and had the same greed and ambition for power—into simply the reincarnation of the literal devil, where of course he’s evil, and you don’t have to do any digging beneath the surface. Ganondorf is the reincarnation of Demise, or his hate, or his vessel, so he’s pure evil and nothing more.

And that’s the greatest disservice Nintendo has ever dealt to The Legend of Zelda.

5 Franchises That Should be more Popular

Hello, I talk about games a lot, and while I always seem to mention at least one or two series on my lists that aren’t the most well known, I haven’t yet made a list comprised entirely of less popular than they deserve to be titles, so I thought I should maybe do that. No, the irony of a damn near nobody talking about video games that should be more in the public eye isn’t lost on me, but I like a lot of things that aren’t as popular as they should be, so at the risk of making a list that falls completely into the void, here are 5 game franchises that should be more well known. 

5. Yo-Kai Watch. 

We’re starting off with a kid’s game, don’t worry, I swear it will get better for those looking for some of their favorites, or at least I hope, but Yo-Kai Watch as a series is truly fantastic. Not only had it at one point managed to out-popular Pokemon in Japan, and for good reason, that reason being it actually took place is town’s that look like Japan, and the cultural references everywhere make it a joy of a series to play, but there’s a dang good lot of content in these games. While the base games will probably only run you about 25 to 30 hours, which is not long for an RPG, their bonus content, and the collection aspect, will give you more to do than Pokemon. Extra dungeons, stronger versions of the final bosses, and the ability to grind your favorite Yo-kai, and there are a lot of cool designs, was and still is, far more enjoyable than most other games of it’s kind have ever been, and to top it all off, it’s actually pretty funny, which is rare for games to do. The charm of Level 5′s games is also on full display here, and oh man, the whole series is just a treat, and we really need to have Level 5 properly back in the West. 

4. Naruto games.

Now wait, I hear you saying, Naruto games are all really popular, the whole series only barely lost out to One Piece for several years, but no, you’re not right in that assessment, the only games in the series that reached true high level success were it’s leading 2D fighting games, and the series has a lot more to offer than that. Ever heard of Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Impact? What about The Path of the Ninja 1 and 2, what about Kizuna Drive, or the entire list of exclusive Naruto RPG’s in Japan? Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about handheld Naruto games. Did you know there were actually a whole ton of them, and they varied in genre’s from RPG’s, is side scrollers, to Beat’em ups, and yes, even fighting games, some of which were not just ports of the console versions. Naruto’s handheld adventures obviously did something for the series, or there wouldn’t have been so many as there are, but none of them reached the hype and the Ultimate Ninja Storm series, even if they were just as good, if not better, and it’s honestly sad. Naruto got a lot of out of it’s fans, and it still does even now, but it could have done so much better if only those handhelds had reached the numbers they deserve. 

3. The Asphalt series. 

It’s not often that I talk about racing games, but I do like a number of them, and my favorite that I swear I’ve never seen a sole talk about, is Asphalt. They aren’t the best games ever, but they do what most racing games should do, they come at you fast, with great cars to race, and they are also the only series of racers I’ve ever played a handheld version of that didn’t have me crying in pain because how awkward they were to on a handheld device, seriously have you ever played Mario Kart 7 for more than an hour? Never again I promise you. But seriously, the Asphalt series is a lot of fun. My favorite are the Urban GT games, but if whatever reason you can’t play those, 3D and Injection are also a lot of fun, and while the series doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and yes I understand how that joke will be taken by many, it’s still just a series you can sit down and enjoy without getting cramps. Seems like a series that’s underrated to me. 

2. Shin Megami Tensei

Some people after playing Persona 5/Royal and now possibly Strikers, are apparently super hyped for Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne, and that’s great, it really is, but the problem is most of those people only aware of mainline SMT, and have either never experienced it, or are have only played something like SMTIV Apocalypse, which is a great game, but also an incredibly easy one. I hope you all enjoy finding out how hard the series can be. The SMT name, which has been dragged around a lot in the West since it’s more notable to Western fans, has several spin-offs, including just Shin Megami, The Last Bible, Majin Tensei, Devil Children and Devil Summoner. To be fair, a number of those games, or entire series, haven’t come to the west, and several are left on old platforms, I mean who collects for Macintosh these days, but that’s the problem. If the series was as popular as it deserved to be, we’d be getting those games on more modern platforms, and people who think they are hyped for May 25th in the west, might already know what they’re getting into. SMT has been around since 1987, that’s 34 flipping years if you can believe it, and the series has never gotten to the level of popularity it deserves. Persona being it’s most popular spin-off helps, but we’ll have to wait and see if the hype this year, really translates to what the franchise is long overdue for. 

1. The Legend of Heroes. 

You know ones series I really like, it’s Kingdom Hearts, and if you’re wondering why that matters, you probably haven’t played a Legend of Heroes game before. The series has become over the years, similar to Kingdom Hearts in one very specific way, that being that it’s all about over-arching stories, and every sequel mattering. It is true that not every game is connected, there are five previous entries that are two games long, and three games long as their own series respectively, but the franchise is turning 30 years old next year at least for the West, and it’s shameful that we still don’t have three of the games from the mainline releases, and neither of the two spin-offs that weren’t gatcha games, both of which are fantastic if you play them in their original Japanese with fan subtitles. Most of the Trails series can be found on Steam, which is great, accept that two crucial games are missing, because the series isn’t seen to be as important as it is. I love games with continued stories, and as far as I’m concerned, The Legend of Heroes Trails series is absolutely the best of them all, because it takes it’s time developing all of it’s characters and it wait it avoids trying to create hype moments for fans just for the sake of it. It can be a slow burner of a series at times, which can turn some people away from it, but man when it goes, it goes so much harder than almost everything else, that it’s a massive shocker that it’s not more popular. Sure, it’s not visually all that impressive, even when it first becomes 3D, but if you can get past the looks, it truly is something to marvel at. 

And that’s my list. Did I miss anything that you think it underrated? Let me know in the notes below, reblog this list if interested you, and have a wonderful day.    

Cowards Die Many Times | DreamSMP Fanfic

Wow okay so I literally JUST made a post flat-out making fun of myself for writing this but in the tags I made a comment of “Should I post this?” and wow three people already reblogged with comments expressing I share.

So, you can thank (or blame lol) @thesmpisonfire @tommyistheprotagofthesmp and @ak3m0n for this being posted here at all. Depending on what the response to this is on here, I may or not post it on a03 and, again, depending on the response, I may or may not make this a sort of collection of one-shots detailing different death scenes and how the characters felt in those moments.

A/N:

THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE REAL LIFE STREAMERS!

I view the DreamSMP storyline as a sort of Dungeons and Dragons game with no real DM. Just players running around a world that they create as they go along and cause whatever chaotic instances and plot points they can manage. As such, while I write this and as you read this I want you to remember - burn into your brain - that this story isn’t about the real Minecraft streamers. They aren’t even streamers in this fic, they are fictional characters living in a made-up fictional world. I get that the line is blurred due to the nature of the videos this is based on, but I view it as being sort of like how when you write a character like Spiderman, you’re writing Spiderman, not Tobey Maquire.

All that being said, I really wanted to just write this concept of how death and respawn works with Tubbo from a certain festival event but as it turns out, he is very uncomfortable with the concept of fanfiction written about him. (Thank you SMP-boundaries for your God sent Tumblr) As such, even though I don’t see it as me writing literally him as I’m sure he’s seen plenty of, I won’t include anything from his perspective and try to limit any sort of mention of him. (I can’t bring myself to surgically remove him entirely. That would just be impossible because of how much of a part he plays both in what visibly happens and in Tommy’s development) ALSO PLEASE do not go out of your way and tag or try to show any of the Minecraft streamers/youtubers involved in this (not that y’all would lol). I happen to know that Tommy especially doesn’t want to see them even if he’s okay with them existing.

This was also meant to be a sort of collection of ficlets in one chapter. It was going to include more than this one scene and even include a POV from Wilbur but, uh, wow I got really carried away heh

SO YEAH! Now we got the important bits out of the way, please enjoy~

Cowards Die Many Times

“Do I shoot him Wil, or do I aim for the skies?” It was a heavy question. So heavy he couldn’t bring himself to raise his head. As they stood together and allowed the light reflecting off the water shine on them in a subtle way, Tommy considered his options. The answer should have been obvious. After all, this was war and this duel was their ticket to end it all and free themselves from their previous leader. The one Wil and he had labeled as a tyrant.

Dream.

“Tommy I -” A pause. Tommy looked up at his general. The only man he would ever take orders from. Wilbur Soot. He could see in his eyes that he had messed up. This was a burden Tommy couldn’t handle anymore. The deafening silence lasted for all of two seconds but it felt like eternity. He would never know for sure what Wilbur thought of his outburst and challenge towards their worst enemy, but the answer he received relaxed him. If only for a bit.

“I want you to do whatever your heart tells you.”

Tommy took a deep breath and relaxed it before turning around and going towards the man who hid behind a mask.

“Coward.” He whispered to himself. When he thought the word, he believed it was for Dream but now that he felt it leave his mouth and heard the shake of his voice, he wasn’t sure if it was for himself or not.

He walked to the center of the wooden path and held his bow tight. The tyrant, with his bright green hoodie that seemed to act as a target and challenge, laughed with his friends. With George and Sapnap. As if he felt this was all a game and after he won it would all be over with him holding more than bragging rights. The worst of the scene was that even Eret - the traitor - joined in their fun.

With such thoughts running through his mind, it’s no wonder the decision Tommy came to.

They needed their independence.

And Tommy had the perfect opportunity.

He knew what death felt like. He had nearly grown used to it. Maybe that’s why he was always so quick to start fights, skirmishes and even join wars. That was probably why he felt no regret with this decision to challenge the immediate area’s strongest member.

But if he was so used to death, then why did he shake so much?

Dream finally left his friends behind to watch as he walked towards Tommy. The younger of the two swallowed his nerves and did his best to glare. The smiling mask stared him down. Was Dream glaring under there? Was he shaking within the loosely fit hoodie? Was he…

“Are you taking this seriously at all, Dream?”

“Oh, I don’t know. This seems pretty easy.”

Oh yeah, Tommy was killing him for sure. To hell with any sort of ‘honor’ that supposedly came with throwing away ones shot in a duel, Dream was officially a dead man.

“Remember, Tommy,” Dream stated with his usual calmness, “when I win, you give me the disk, Mellohi, and you all give up this silly tantrum for good.”

Tommy glared even harder as now he was angrier than ever. Dream was always after his music disks, his most prized possessions in this God forsaken land. Betting one of them was worth it if it meant seizing total and complete independence forever for this wonderful vision Wilbur had shared with him.

He thought briefly about the disks. About why they were so treasured by Dream and himself.

For Dream they were merely bargaining tools. Something he could use to keep Tommy under control and stop him from starting anymore fights with anymore members under Dreams thumb. The deal would be that if Tommy got involved in any sort of ‘griefing’ of any kind, Dream would burn the disks. Though, to be completely fair and honest, all of that had started with Sapnap burning an unrelated member's home and then dragging both of the now dueling men into the fight.

But for Tommy? These disks were everything. There was something nostalgic about the sound of music, as though there was something he had long forgotten from a time far behind him. It was incredibly rare where they lived to find such things and Tommy, Tommy had two of them. Each a different mixture of sounds that brought their own unique textures to his mind.

He was not about to throw away his shot.

A whisper entered his mind and he did his best to not give away who it was from. For someone to use this ability, one that made themselves freeze in place and become vulnerable, especially at a time like this, it was important. So he simply continued to glare at Dream.

‘There’s no turning back now, Tommy. Good luck out there. My right hand man.’

Tommy took a deep breath before yelling out as loud as he could. “LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO!”

At the sound of yelling, Dream, Sapnap, George, Eret and even Tubbo - the only other member as young as the loud blonde child and one of their allies - all laughed. But the rest of his side? His makeshift army? They starred with an apathetic energy Tommy wasn’t sure what to feel about. All looked as though they had given up on this hopeless revolution. The humanoid fox and supposed child of the general, (it was unclear how serious he was of such a claim as it was never confirmed) Fundy, even went so far as to let out a sigh and shake his head.

He never was one to find such outbursts funny. It was as though he felt that Tommy treated this all as a simple game with no consequences. Yeah, he hadn’t experienced death nearly as many times as Tommy had, so maybe he did think more of it. 

Wilbur, however, was hardly monotone in his expression and voice. As he spoke his next line, he looked directly at Tommy for only a brief second with worry and, more importantly, sadness. Wilbur had also already given up but as Tommy thought over that look, he realized that Wilbur, the one who was always looking after him as though he were an older brother charged with watching over the youngest child, was apologizing for dragging him into this. For supposedly making Tommy experience the worst possible torture this crazy world had to offer over and over.

Death.

“Are both parties ready?” Wilbur had questioned. After that one look, he refused to even so much as glance at Tommy. The younger one understood. Wil could never help getting emotional in times like these, after all.

Tommy turned to look at his opponent and the damn man was putting on a show of yawning, hardly looking prepared. He really was that confident.

Tommy pointed an accusatory finger at the one who seemed to like to smile a bit too much and yelled out “Are you ready to experience death, Dream?! Cause I’m ready to cause it for you!”

Dream shrugged and stood straight, bow in hand at his side. “Let’s hurry and get this started.”

Wilbur, still not looking at Tommy and, more surprisingly, not saying anything about his outburst of a response, stated the rules of the duel.

Turn their backs to each other, count ten paces - no more, no less - and then fire on your opponent at will. The first to die wins the duel and the agreement.

Either Tommy loses one-half of his most prized possessions, or he gains independence for their nation.

The count began. Tommy thought about what it would be like to kill Dream like this. No tricks, no silly traps and no real plans from either of them. Just a single arrow making contact and he would be dead. It was almost unreal. He would be a hero and would be considered a total badass. Maybe everyone, both enemy and friend, would finally respect him.

The count hit four. His thoughts turned away from such happy fantasies. What if Dream wanted revenge? He never took losing very well. Rather, he took it harshly, and the Lord only knew what George would do to them in unofficial retaliation. Dream would probably lightly suggest George return the favor to Tommy in a whisper and then claim to wash his hands of the incident. Just for the satisfaction of showing power while keeping whatever peace they decide upon after all this.

The count hit seven. Tommy centered himself. Maybe it was a bad idea to allow himself to daydream at this time. He probably should’ve been scanning and studying the terrain thoroughly and thinking of how to use it to his advantage and of how the other could use it against him. Think of a plan or at least a vague idea of the literal millions if not infinite possibilities.

Like hell.

Tommy always thought of plans only when he was backed into a corner and even then he was well into a battle.

Dream was the one to come up with every possible outcome and choose one of nine where he won. Tommy refused to be like Dream.

The count hit ten.

Tommy turned quickly and fired. His arrow went off and almost hit Sapnap, someone who was once an ally, if only temporarily, in his and Dream’s initial war. Way further off his target than the young man was willing to accept.

There was no time to think and sit in denial of being such a terrible shot. No time to listen to Dreams lackies yell at him to be a better aim or watch Tubbo cover his eyes while Fundy simply shrugged as though expecting it. Dream’s first arrow went by his ear so fast he almost felt as though it could deafen him and the older of the two was already aiming his second shot while Tommy was stuck in disbelief.

Tommy quickly moved and jumped to avoid the arrow that he knew would hit him if he didn’t but instead of landing on the wooden path, he crashed into the water. The very lake - or was it a pond? - that served to decorate the land and create a nice scenic area to sit and enjoy time with friends around. Tommy had forgotten all about it just as everyone had probably predicted.

Just as Dream had predicted.

As no arrows came, Tommy figured that Dream was waiting for him to surface so he took the time to ponder on his decisions.

After all, there was no doubt they were coming to bite him in the ass. There was no chance of him getting out of the water and not getting shot to death by a single arrow from his worst enemy.

This was it.

He was going to die again.

How much would it hurt this time? How long would he be stuck in an area of nothingness as whatever God that created them formed a new body? Would he be able to see his friends, to see Wilbur, as they are forced to give away any hope of a special place they could call their own?

Would it be slow and torturous as his body reels from the pain or would it be instant and clean? He had no way of knowing any of these things. He had no way of knowing what this death would feel like as, in his experience, there was no rhyme or reason to any of it.

What would one day only sting for a bit as he was instantly brought back to life, would cause him to spasm and feel his heart stop and his lungs give up their air for what felt like hours. In that one case that comes to mind, to add insult to injury, he would be trapped in that plain area that was completely absent of light and life with no way to contact anyone he loved (or hated).

They all knew this.

They all agreed that the fear of what would happen as you see the attacks coming and you feel yourself growing weaker could only sometimes be worse than the experience itself.

Tommy felt torn by everything in a single moment. If they all knew this, then why did they fight in this war to begin with? Was it worth these moments of pure fear and terrible agony?

Whenever he would die he would return as though nothing ever happened despite his true thoughts and experience. He was not one to talk about things like ‘feelings’ or ‘emotions’. That was something for women and only women. No matter how much Wilbur would try to encourage him to be more open like Tubbo, Tommy was a man. And he was always fighting to prove it.

Yes.

He may be positive he’ll lose. He may be certain there is no chance of winning this duel, but Tommy made a decision in that moment as he swam to the other side of the path.

He was going to die but he’d be damned if he let himself be the cause of Wilbur’s hopes in the form of their very own L’Manberg crashing down forever and for good.

First, he had to make it look good so no one else would suspect what he had hiding in the deepest part of his mind. An actual plan.

He jumped from the lake and pointed his arrow directly at the mask and right between the eyes but before he could fire, he was hit.

Ah. This one was going to hurt.

Bravely Default and BD2

Here it is, the partially prompted bravely default rant/retrospective/whatever the fuck!

With the announcement and demo of bravely default 2 out now for a bigger market than the original game ever had, I feel that as a massive fan of the original I should put some amount of effort into explaining what the appeal of the original is, why bravely second missed a lot of the appeal, and why bravely default 2 has been very, very worrying so far.

If you care about any of that, come on in and I'll try to actually avoid spoilers this time and make this a more legitimate recommendation of a game than usual.

THE APPEAL OF BRAVELY DEFAULT The games obviously have a beautiful art style, especially when it comes to the backgrounds. Every city is like a painting, a beautifully composed shot that you see from just one direction to give you one very strong impression. While the overworld and dungeons are fully 3d and do not have as strong of an artistic impact, they are still very competent and have good colors and cohesive elements. The character design, including the job outfits, the monsters, and all the villains are just top notch. Simple, evocative designs that make the most of the 3DS' limited hardware and build upon the teams skill in making handheld games look good. (its the same team that did the ff3 remake and 4 heroes of light, which looks absolutely kino on original DS) The music is also consistently excellent, with great use of motifing, a full and varied orchestra, and many good slow paced tracks for most of the non-combat segments. Shit like "Conflict's Chime" being the main battle theme, "Infiltrating Hostile Territory" being a common dungeon theme, and "That person's name is" as the rival boss themes makes even the seemingly repetitive songs a constant joy to listen to.

The story is pretty decent, it's not the best part of the game, and there are definitely some aspects of the story some people loathe, but the characters (specifically ringabel fuckin love him) are pretty good and the make for an enjoyable experience. The side material like D's journal are really well done and integrate into the main narrative well for how tucked away and ignored it is.

The gameplay and systems are also some of the best of any RPG I've played, and I've played far too many. The job system from ff3 and 5 is brought to an even greater depth with the addition of universal job abilities, allowing any character of any job make use of another jobs features to create an endless depth to strategy. The way various jobs can mingle together, and how no job is completely perfect on its own makes for very compelling team composition and unit design. The extensive amount of jobs helps as well for replay value and for assuring that no easy winning strategy is found by all players.

The BP system makes battles take on a very unique pacing as the player and enemies can choose to save up turns or blow them all at once to make more complicated strategies possible, or to make the most of an enemies vulnerabilities. This powerful option gives the player a meaningful way to capitalize on their knowledge of the game, while also allowing them to make truly detrimental mistakes. That may sound not good if you're a fucking baby, but nobody wants an RPG you cant lose, but losing because you fucked up is much better than losing because the enemies are just stronger than you or anything to that effect.

But the single greatest part of bravely defaults, which creates the games wonderful balance and unique design philosophy, is that the player is expected to hit the level cap long before finishing the game. Reaching level 99 should occur somewhere just after the middle of the game, at the point where the player has access to almost every job and has encountered almost every type of threat. Reaching level 99 brings with it a certain security, the implication that from then on, all enemies will also be level 99, and that any failure to defeat an enemy will be a result of a bad strategy or the players own mistakes. The game is not easy, and is certainly intended for veteran final fantasy players used to the games with job systems and changing up your entire party to combat a single encounter. Leveling up is not a slow grind part of the game, as you have a lot of control over the speed and frequency of battles, and it is not difficult to keep up with the games level curve.

The other layer to this unique design is that the game expects you to "cheat", or use strategies that would be overpowered and frowned upon in most other games. Bravely default easily expects you to know or discover strategies such as: applying a status to all enemies and killing every enemy with that status using another spell, cycling a counter move over and over to have a nearly invincible party member, applying a healing attribute to a self-damaging character to get huge damage at little cost, casting reflect and dangerous spells on your own party to bounce them at the enemy, or duplicating a move that does maximum damage 15 times in a row. The game builds all of its encounters with the knowledge that your team will be the maximum level and that you will be using the most vile tactics you can come up with, and the game will do the same. Bosses and even common enemies will employ equally vile tactics using the exact same moves that you have access to, meaning you can learn from your enemies or quickly grasp the enemies strategy through your own experiences. One of the late game dungeons is entirely optional, but involves several fights against parties of 4 just like your, using the same jobs and skills you have gained during the game as a perfect test of your ability to develop counter-strategies, instead of relying on your own overpowered tactics. This type of design is really not something you find in many games due to the prominence of grinding or the lack testing strategies, and it is the most true appeal of bravely default to me.

BRAVELY SECOND EXISTS I GUESS So bravely second, a direct sequel to bravely default, definitely is a video game. It uses the original game as a base to generate more content, but completely misses the appeal of the original, and the new content added makes the experience even less focused. Overall, it's still a fairly alright RPG, but it fails to follow up on bravely default in a meaningful way or to provide as compelling of a gameplay experience. Here's some of the things it fucked up.

The game reuses almost everything the original game had, including the same music, world map, and most of the original's towns and dungeons, while adding a few of it's own. Going through areas you've been before never feels good, and the new areas lack the quality or brevity of the original game, leading to uninteresting areas that overstay their welcome, despite being the only break from repetitively reused content.

This extends to the classes but in an even worse sense. One important trait of the original jobs is that they were not perfect by themselves. While every job provided some useful abilities to be shared with other classes, or provided a good base with which to make a character, no class was without flaws. The new classes in bravely second are a lot of the opposite, they are closed loops that think of everything they could have to make a good standalone character. The 4 starter classes you get in bravely second are all brand new, and there's almost no reason to use any class besides those 4 as they are just insanely good. The priest and magician specifically augment magic in a way that makes spells infinity scalable into the end game, completely trampling on any other magic classes territory without needing the extra effort of grinding a new class out. Many of the new job concepts are actually really interesting, like going back in time to return to a healthier state, or a class that changes the stats and attributes of all units in a battle, allowing for all new kinds of strategies; but these classes lack any opportunity to be used to their full potential since they don't mesh well with other jobs and are limited by their self-centered design.

Another completely missed aspect of the original is the level curve discussed before. Bravely second only really requires you get somewhere in the ballpark of level 60-70 to comfortably beat the final boss, and getting too leveled up is really hard to avoid if you are plan to try out various jobs.

Second also fails to account for how many incredibly strong strategies the player can come up with, and even introduces some of its own strategies that it has no way to counteract, such as halfsies (the first skill the first class gets) pretty much splitting the game in two by tripling the value of items like phoenix downs, and allowing for fool-proof strategies by making 1 character focus entirely on defense, effectively making the party unkillable. Essentially, if you play second after having played the original (like any sane person would) then you will absolutely destroy the game with no sense of satisfaction.

The story is also a large step down, enough to become an annoyance, as the writing style changes to a strange romantic comedy situation with, for lack of a better term please forgive my sin, anime writing, but like bad anime writing, ya know the kind of shit that makes people write off all anime cus a lot of it is awkward and unpleasant to listen to. The story tries to mess with some big concepts like "what if new game + was a real thing???" and time travel and shit like that but it doesn't mesh with the tone the rest of the game has and that tone doesn't mesh with the world or art style and it's just a mess.

BRAVELY DEFAULT 2 SEEMS KINDA POOPIE SO FAR So unfortunately, the big appeal of bravely default being part of it's end game makes it hard to judge how 2 is gonna go given we only have a demo of the beginning, but given that the original team behind bravely default has slowly been stripped out of the series as it goes on, the outlook is bleek.

Most immediately obvious is that the artstyle has made a horrible transition from handheld to console, somehow even worse than pokemon. The areas are all fully 3d and lack the style or compositional excellence of bravely default, and the outside environment look like asset store products. The small proportioned characters with simple features to be readable on a small screen have been replaced with identically proportioned characters with excessive detail and ugly features, and look horrible up close on a big screen. Only the negatives of the art style have made it over, and everything good has been made unsavory. The character and enemy design overall is much worse as a result, everything is messy, unclear, and clashes with everything else. It's an absolutely shocking downgrade.

The characters themselves are overly hammy and feel like shallow attempts to have a similar party dynamic to the original without having identical character types, and the writing as a whole doesn't seem to have improved from second, which was already quite a step down from the original.

The gameplay also has not done anything different or interesting yet, and seems to be selling itself to people haven't heard of or gotten enough of the BP system. Enemies being on the overworld as opposed to random encounters shows they have dropped the player agency over encounter frequency, which is dumb. The battles lack any of the flow the original had, especially when using the battle speed option, as the camera does not present everything very well and changes position often as a result. Overall, I have not enjoyed the bravely default 2 demo and feel it shows nothing but a continued decline in the series that likely should have just been a single game. With the release date being set for sometime this year, I feel there is no chance any amount of player feedback could save the game or even begin to pull it in the right direction, as it seems to be fundamentally flawed with an inescapable feeling of shovelware.

SO WHAT? Basically, all I wanted to say here is that the original bravely default is a very unique experience I think every RPG fan should give a good chance (and just do all the optional stuff during the "repetitive" part of the game, it's where all the best content is you bozo) and that the sequels are NOT the same experience. I guess it's kind of mean to just say "hey don't buy or like this new thing cus its not like the old thing" but people should know why there's a bravely default 2 in the first place, and should fight for what made the original great. I worry that BD goes down the same sad path that FF did, becoming a completely hollow, middling series that strayed so far from it's home that a whole new series had to be made to give the fans of the old style a place to go.

Thanks for reading, and hope you got something out of it.

Tri-Arame: RPG Night

Primary Pairing Trio: YuuAyuSetsu Secondary Pairings: AiRina, Shizu??? Words: ~2.8k Rating: T’ish for some fantastical violence and a mildly suggestive ending Time Frame: First year of college? Maybe second? Dunno yet Story Arc: Stand Alone (for now... I may indulge more in this later)

Author’s Note: This may be my most self-indulgent chapter yet; doing a crossover of sorts with my own unpublished work and even bringing in my screennamesake. And trying a new formatting style to boot. But after Setsu’s Bond episode revealed she liked TTRPGs, I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Well, except to get sidetracked by writing two other scenes...

Anyway for those who are unfamiliar with my D&D story - read: at least 95% of my readers, probably more but that's the cap for a d20 - names may get a bit messy and confusing. Most of my OCs have a given name, family name and a call sign. And several have nicknames. I’ll give a list of who is playing who here at the start, but for a bit more information on the in-game characters, please refer to the notes in my Followup Post.

Player - Character Call Sign - Character Name Setsuna - Dungeon Master Yuu - Ryqoshay - Rebecca Bouteillevoix Ayumu - Yozakura - Hakumei Yaiba Rina - Nullsilver Luna Ai - Recipere (Rx) - Rachel Ira Xaviera Shizuku - Lady Sanguine - Vivian Sexton / Sanguine

Ryqoshay couldn’t help a smirk as she took careful aim. It didn’t matter that her bodyguard, Yozakura, was engaging her intended target in close quarters, in fact that was a boon. The girl knew her best friend’s fighting style better than anyone, so it was merely a task of picking the right moment. The bandit wouldn’t know what hit him.

Dodge. Feint. Parry. Strike. Now. She released her arrow.

“Nice! A Nat 20! Roll to confirm your crit. Perfect. Now for damage and don’t forget your bonus.”

“Yatta!” Ryqo cheered as the bandit collapsed, clutching his throat where the arrow had struck. The man was dead before he hit the ground and the raven-haired archer scampered toward the blonde ninja. “Yoza-chan! Thanks for keeping him distracted for me!” she threw herself into a tackling hug.

“Y-Yuu-chan?” Yoza stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Yuu-chan?” Ryqo cocked her head to side. “Who’s that? I’m Ryqo, remember?”

“Are you guys talking in character or OOC?”

“O-Oh… uhm, sorry Setsuna-chan… I meant Ryqo-chan.”

“Ne, Ayumu, would a super serious girl like Yozakura really use -chan?”

“Aren’t they childhood friends?”

“Well, yeah, kinda like you and me, but…”

“Honestly, are you two in or out of character?”

“Sorry, Shizuku-chan, we’re still learning our characters.”

“It’s alright. Maybe we can talk more about things after this battle is done?”

The DM cleared her throat. “Anyway, Sanguine, you’re up.”

A manic bout of laughter from nearby caught their attention.

“That’s the last of ‘em!” Lady Sanguine practically shouted as she stood over the bodies of several bandits, her two longswords coated in almost as much blood as she was herself. “Too easy! You guys are a hundred years too early to think you could defeat me. And look, your blood has barely sated my blades. Pitiful! More! I demand more bloodshed!”

“Were we not to leave at least one alive for interrogation?” Recipere made her way over to the redheaded barbarian, healing magicks already gathering around her hands.

“Woops…” Ryqo chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, while refusing the remove the other arm from around Yoza. “I was just caught up in watching Viv-ne-chan take down all those bad guys that I didn’t want to be left out of the fun.”

“Woah, I got you, I got you, Vivian.” The blonde cleric said as the barbarian collapsed into her arms.

Vivian mumbled something unintelligible as her rage subsided and her personified bloodlust retreated into her mind.

”What’s up, Setsuna-chan?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.” The DM’s giggles betrayed her words as she read something from her phone. “I’m awarding Inspiration to Vivian Sexton.”

“Thanks.” Shizuku responded with a smile. “This Vivian/Sanguine persona switching thing is turning out to be quite interesting.”

“Ne, Luna-chan!” Ryqo called over to the team’s artificer. “Was that really all of them?”

Nullsiver Luna held a finger to her lips as she stared at some device in her hand. Silence reigned in the roadside clearing for almost a full minute, the local fauna having long since been scared off by the sounds of the battle that had finally ended. Suddenly, the orange-haired girl pointed and a moment later, an anguished cry sounded from a stand of shrubs a short way into the woods. From the sky, something dived into a nearby tree while something else scampered across the road into the brush.

“Race you there, Yoza-chan.” Ryqo let go of her bodyguard and made for the bushes.

“Y… Ryqo, wait! It’s dangerous, let me go first!”

“Nope!” The archer cried happily over her shoulder. “If you wanna get there first, you gotta be faster than me!”

Yozakura couldn’t help releasing a frustrated grumble before she followed her charge. With her training, however, she easily caught up to and passed the other girl, but remained annoyed as the two approached the scene.

“What in Karla’s name are these things?!” A young man, not much older than the two girls cried, his eyes shifting rapidly among several gathered devices.

“They are my familiars.” A blue-haired artificer stepped into view.

“Wait, Rinari, wasn’t Luna’s hair orange earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Huh…”

“Itov Altiui, to me.” Nullsiver held out her arm, upon which the bird-like contraption landed and stood like a well-trained hawk. “Moxt Tonash, Weyog Kornari, maintain your positions.” She instructed the cat-like and spider-like automatons.

“Where did you come up with names like those, Rinari? I love them! You have to tell me what they mean!”

“I’m interested as well, Rina-san. I was intrigued when I read them in your character bio and would love to work something into a future campaign.”

“… I can send it to you two…”

“Thanks, Rinari!”

“Yes, thank you. Anyway, where were we?”

“Those don’t look like any familiars I’ve seen.” The bandit continued.

“I made them.” Luna responded simply.

“Well, now that we have your attention,” Rx suddenly appeared from the direction of the road, a fully healed Vivian in tow “we have a few questions for you.”

“I’m not telling you anything!” The young man practically shouted.

“Oh ho?” The redheaded barbarian grinned, slowly drawing her swords.

The bandit flinched, but otherwise remained defiant.

“We just want to know where your boss and the rest of your gang is hiding.” Ryqo spoke up.

The bandit spat towards the girl’s feet.

“Take me to your leader!” The archer demanded.

“Yuu-chan…”

“What’s the matter, Ayu-pyon? That was hilarious!”

“As amusing as that was,” the DM interjected “I’m afraid neither of your Intimidation checks were successful. Would someone else like to try their hand?”

“Like I said, I ain’t telling you guys nothing!” The bandit insisted. “The boss will kill me if I gave away our hideout’s location.”

“You realize, of course, that we’ll kill you if you don’t.” Rx stated, matter-of-factly.

The young man glanced among Vivian and Yozakura’s blades, Ryqo’s bow and the three automatons. “You guys ain’t got nothing on the boss.”

“Tell me.” The artificer began. “When you cried out earlier, was it because Weyog Kornari bit you?”

“You mean this thing?” He kicked at the spider, which dodged with ease.

“Yes.”

“What of it? It didn’t hurt much.”

Luna raised an eyebrow but did not attempt to dispute the claim. “I believe I should inform you that you have been poisoned.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You may not feel much now, but you will. Soon. Everyone reacts a little different, so you may notice some blurred vision, shortness of breath, chills, perhaps some perspiration despite the chills…” She spoke in an almost unnerving monotone as she continued to list potential symptoms of the toxin.

The bandit held a hand up and stared at its visible shaking.

“Ah. I see. That would be your nerves being attacked at the chemical level.”

The bandit suddenly convulsed.

“It will hurt. A lot.” Luna continued to explain solemnly. “Until it reaches your heart. Then it will hurt more.” She knelt beside him and held out a tiny vial for him to see. “This is the antidote. Only this can save you as I have ensured my poisons cannot be cured by magical means.”

The young man tried to reach for the vial but ended up clutching at his chest before convulsing again and curling into a fetal position.

“Tell us the location of your base of operations.”

“Alr…” The bandit began before choking off. Despite his entire body shaking now, he managed to make what appeared to be a nodding motion.

“Recipere, Lady Sanguine, please hold him.” Luna requested of her guildmates.

“Right.” Rx replied, moving forward, alongside Vivian.

Once the spasming man was secure, Luna pulled the cork from the vial and upturned it into his mouth. Within moments, his shakes began to fade until he lay still completely.

“Is he dead?” Ryqo asked, poking at his arm with the end of her bow.

Vivian delivered a quick backhand across the bandit’s face. His eyes snapped open and he gasped.

“Ready to talk now?” Ryqo leaned over the bandit with an all too cheerful grin. “If you’re really that worried about what your boss might do to you for spilling the beans, let me assure you we’ll be taking care of him as soon as you tell us where he is. Then you’ll be free to run along and join some other bad guys and we’ll meet again when some other town hires us to get rid of you. Sound like a plan? I think it sounds fun.”

The young man stared up in confusion at the archer. His gaze drifted over to Luna, then to the spider automaton and back to the artificer. With a sigh he began to reveal the location of the hideout.

“Alright, that seems like a good place to call things for the night.” Setsuna said, glancing up over the top of her DM screen. “But before I forget, Rina-chan, Nullsilver was the one to get the bandit to talk and your performance was quite chilling so I’m awarding her Inspiration.”

“Mm.” Rina confirmed with a nod.

“Rinari, that was amazing!” Ai marveled, leaning over to throw an arm around her girlfriend and pull her close. “It honestly sent shivers down my spine.” She giggled as she nuzzled the younger girl’s cheek. “Who would’ve thought you could be so evil.”

“Not evil. Just not good.”

“Rina-chan’s right.” Setsuna nodded. “You’re from a guild of mercenaries, technically none of you are good; you’re all Neutral on that scale. Sure, you’re currently contracted with a town that’s more good leaning, but you could just have easily been hired by the bandits instead.”

“Oh dear, is that the time?” Shizuku sighed as she checked her phone. She looked across the table at Ai and Rina. “We’ve missed the last trains of the night.”

“You guys can stay here if you want.” Yuu offered.

“That’s not the problem.” Shizuku lamented. “She’s not going to be happy…” She started typing something on her phone.

Ai laughed. “Just tell her to join us next time.”

“Next session would actually be the perfect time for a new player to join.” Setsuna pointed out. “We can work it into the story that you guys sent for another merc from your guild to assist in the raid of the bandit camp. And I can adjust the threat levels of the encounter as needed.”

Shizuku nodded. “I’ll be sure to ask her again…” Her phone chimed and she frowned upon checking the message. “I know I’m about to get an earful, but I’m going to call her.” She stood up.

“You can use my room.” Yuu said. “If you’re good with a couch, you can use that, otherwise Ayumu will have to help me find our guest futon.”

“Thank you, the couch will be fine.” The younger girl nodded and excused herself.

“Yuyu, you still don’t have an actual bed?” Ai asked.

“I like it.” Yuu shrugged. “Though I suppose there is one bed I prefer these days.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder to indicate Ayumu’s bed behind her.

“Of course.” Ai turned to Setsuna. “So, does that mean we’re to take your room, Setsu?”

“Yes.” Setsuna nodded. “Everything is clean because, well…”

“Because you sleep here.” Ai chuckled.

“Y-yes…”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you all fit.”

“It’s actually quite comfortable.” Ayumu spoke up, somehow managing to sound less embarrassed than the dusting of red on her cheeks would have otherwise indicated.

“Well we’ll leave you to it, then. C’mon, Rinari.” Ai stood and took the pink-haired girl’s hand.

“Mm.” Rina affirmed, allowing herself to be led out of the room.

“Setsuna-chan!” Yuu threw herself at the raven-haired girl as soon as the door closed.

“Yuu-san? Wha…?” Though the behavior was by no means out of the ordinary, it still surprised Setsuna.

“I’m sorry!”

“Huh?”

“I spent the entire night flirting with Ayumu.”

“You mean your character flirted with hers.”

“Yeah.”

“But, that was perfectly in character? I figured you two would act that way based on the bios you gave me for them.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want you to feel left out.”

Upon realizing what Yuu meant, Setsuna laughed lightly. However, she stopped when she felt herself being embraced from the other side as well. “Ayumu-san?”

“Yuu-chan is right,” the redhead said softly “we don’t want you to feel left out.”

“You guys, I…”

“Hey, I know!” Yuu interrupted. “There’s a bunch of other mercs in the guild, right? Why not write up a character of your own to join in the campaign?”

“That’s a good idea.” Ayumu agreed. “I’d like to see what kind of character Setsuna-chan might play.”

“And then I could have my character flirt with Setsuna-chan’s in-game as well!” Yuu concluded.

Setsuna’s mind spun through several possibilities. But as she glanced back and forth between the faces of her two girlfriends, still snuggled in close, something snapped. “Impossible! I can’t!” She cried before a wave embarrassment washed over her from the outburst. “I mean… I…” she fumbled to explain “I have enough to do as DM running the game. It would be too distracting to try to play a character on top of that. Especially if…” She trailed off.

“Especially if…?” Yuu pressed.

“… Especially if you two were flirting with me…” Setsuna admitted sheepishly.

Yuu laughed. “Don’t worry, Setsuna-chan, it would probably be just me doing the flirting, I don’t think Ayumu knows how.”

“I do too know how to flirt.” Ayumu stated, reaching across Setsuna to punch Yuu lightly in the arm.

“Pouting isn’t flirting, it’s just cute.” Yuu pointed out in an amused tone.

“Mmph...” Ayumu puffed her cheeks.

“Case in point.”

“Ayumu-san was indeed very cute tonight with her reactions to Yuu-san.” Setsuna recalled, thankful for a moment’s respite as Yuu focused on Ayumu. “You played your characters well and were in perfect sync in battle. I’m really looking forward to our next session.”

“We did good?” Yuu blinked.

“Very much so.” Setsuna nodded. “With the exceptions of the occasional name slip and confusion about in or out of character talk, but those kinds of things happen in many games. So, honestly, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have guessed this was the group’s first session together.”

“Oh…”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s just I thought I wasn’t doing as good as the others because I never earned any Inspiration awards.” Yuu explained. “Ayumu didn’t either.”

Setsuna replayed the night’s game in her head, scouring it for memories of each award. She had recorded them in a document on her laptop, but with her girlfriends hanging off her arms, she was unable to confirm with certainty.

“I know!” Yuu suddenly spoke up, excitement in her voice. “Maybe if we get you some of your favorite snacks for next time, that will earn us a few points?”

Setsuna shook her head. “Sorry, no. Actions taken outside the game like that shouldn’t have an effect in game.”

“Maybe I can give you a massage?”

“That’s even worse.”

“Even though you love me?” Yuu cooed.

“Yuu-san, it is because I love you that I need to take extra precautions. I refuse to participate in the impropriety of playing favorites, or even giving the impression that I am. It would be unfair to the other players and jeopardize the enjoyment of everyone.”

“But is it fair to ignore her completely?” Ayumu interjected.

Had she really not awarded any Inspiration to either Yuu or Ayumu? Setsuna tried to recall again.

“Shizuku-chan was awarded Inspiration for making you laugh with inner dialogue acting.” Ayumu continued. “But Yuu-chan also made you laugh multiple times with her antics, yet…”

“Hrm…”

“Rina also earned some for her great acting and giving us all the chills. And while I don’t think Yuu-chan’s character could do the same, she certainly entertains in other ways.”

Setsuna sighed. “Perhaps I was being too cautious.” She conceded. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Yuu said with a smile before craning her neck so she could press a kiss against Setsuna’s cheek.

That was quick. Then again, it was Yuu. Still… “I can’t fairly grant awards via retcon, but I promise I will try to be more fair going forward. I really do want everyone to have fun with this game.”

“We are having fun.” Ayumu assured.

“It was even obvious that Rina-chan was having the time of her life.” Yuu pointed out. “And maybe Shizuku-chan can convince a sixth to join. And if Ayumu and I weren’t having fun we wouldn’t be so excited about the next session.”

Setsuna smiled. “Thank you. So long as my players are interested in continuing, I’ll do my best to DM a good game for them.”

“We know.” Yuu’s tone changed a bit. “And all that hard work deserves a reward, right Ayumu?”

Setsuna gasped as a hand slipped under her sleepshirt to push fingertips past the hem of her shorts and graze across the skin near her bellybutton.

Yuu giggled. “I think Ayumu’s getting a little impatient to issue your reward.”

Whatever Setsuna was about to say in response was cut off as Ayumu covered her mouth with her own.

Author’s Note Continued in Followup Post

With the past arc coming to an end this week, resulting in most of our collective hearts being ripped out of our chests, I wanted to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our two dear big sisters of The Untamed/MDZS, Jiang Yanli and Wen Qing.

(novel and ep 32 spoilers below the cut)

Jiang Yanli (Shijie)

I took an immediate liking to Shijie the first moment we met her on the show since with her sweet smile and gentle eyes, she was so obviously a loving person and a caring big sister to her two unruly little brothers, there was almost no way I wouldn’t like her. She felt like the gentle type who would not harm a fly, and as we got to know her even more, I only loved her more. I’ve already talked about her kick-ass moment on Phoenix Mountain which perfectly encapsulated her greatness as a person, so I will look at other aspects of her life instead.  Considering the fact that she grew up with parents who loved her in a well-respected cultivation sect, she really could have easily been a spoiled princess type of character since I doubt she was ever left wanting. And then, when her father brought home Wei Wuxian, she also could have easily either ignored the kid or worse yet treat him like crap, especially with the rumors about Wei Wuxian being her dad’s bastard son, which I’m sure she would have gotten a whiff of. Even if she had mistreated WWX, she probably would have gotten the full backing of her mom in doing so. But instead, because she is really just the most generous soul on earth, she instantly accepted him as part of the family and loved him as she did her own brother, even making sure that Jiang Cheng would accept him and treat him right as well. In fact, it is abundantly clear that Shijie had to act as more of a mother to WWX since Madame Yu most definitely had no intention of filling that role.  Her attitude actually reminded me of Catelyn Stark and Jon Snow in Game of Thrones: like Catelyn Stark, she simply couldn’t forgive her husband’s infidelity and therefore could never like the child her husband brought back since she saw the boy as a daily reminder of his unfaithfulness. As much as I love Madame Yu, because she is awesome and fierce AF, it could NOT have been easy growing up in her household when one’s mere existence and presence triggered her ire. So really, thank God for Shijie, for being there and providing WWX with the motherly love and warmth that he probably sorely needed since Jiang Fengmian probably couldn’t always be around to take care of him.

As a result, I totally understand why WWX would have such bitter feelings towards someone like Jin Zixuan, since I felt the same way for a long time. Actually it wasn’t until JZX’s last moments did I finally like him as a person. Despite the fact that the live action has given us more time with him to redeem his character and make him more likable, I still held out all the way until the bitter end because, honestly, how can I ever forgive someone who had made Shijie cry like this:

But since he was also the one to make her smile and enjoy the happiest moments of her life, I could also never really hate JZX either. Mostly I’m just Shijie got to be with the man she obviously was in love with and I really appreciated the fact that the live action made him earn her forgiveness a little more. Even though she had to sneak out to let WWX see her in her beautiful bridal gown, I do believe that she had JZX’s blessing to do so because he knew how important WWX was to her, and how sad she probably already felt that he wasn’t allowed to attend her wedding. I wish the siblings’ reunion in Yiling was the last moment they could have shared together, instead of the gut-wrenching one in Nightless City.

When JZX was killed, my heart hurt so much because I instantly thought of how much his death would hurt Shijie, especially when she learned of it and more importantly, who killed him...they didn’t even have to show us her reaction since my imagination had already conjured up the worse scenario possible. I am certain WWX was thinking the same exact thoughts and conjuring up the same image, hence the pain on his face was so understandable and completely heart-wrenching.

Yet, despite being told her beloved A-Xian was the one who killed her beloved husband, that moment when she saw him at her home, she didn’t even hesitate to call out to him, using the same affectionate nickname she has always used. There was not an ounce of hatred or anger or blame on her face, only something akin to joy that she could see her brother again. Knowing he was in trouble as a result of visiting her, she then actually rushed right into the midst of battle to reunite with him again. I mean, just think about that for a second. Here she was, still in mourning for her husband, the love of her life, holding her only one month old child, but upon realizing her little brother was nearby, she dropped everything to rush after him, to see him, probably because she just could not believe he would ever do anything to hurt her like that. All the nasty things people have been saying about WWX, including how he commanded Wen Ning to murder her husband, she probably couldn’t believe because that was simply not the Xian Xian she knew and loved. In the past, every time Jiang Cheng would talk smack about WWX misbehaving or up to no good, she would always come to his defense. And even though in this particular case she had full reason to not defend him for once, she still believed in the good of WWX to go after him. Her love and faith in her A-Xian was so strong that when great danger was to befall him and she saw the sword strike heading for him, she completely forgot that she was a mother now with a child that still needed her, and just took that fatal hit for him because she just loved her brother so damn much that the only thing she was probably thinking about was A-Xian's in danger, must protect!. One might say she acted purely on instinct, without really thinking about the negative consequences of taking such a hit would have on her, but I believe that even if Shijie had one more minute to think about the situation, she would still make the same decision. Because that’s the type of selfless person she was: the caring big sister she was, the loving mother figure to WWX she will always be, the amazing mother she would have been to Jin Ling.

Even though Jin Ling grew up to be the spoiled princess instead, at least his basic nature is still good, and I’d like to think that that is what he got from his mom (while the spoiled part from his flowery peacock of a dad, lol) since God knows grumpy uncle JC and “doting” uncle Jin Guangyao probably weren’t much help in nurturing that sweet side of him, and not to mention we know he’s mostly friendless because of his disposition. Regardless of the sincerity behind JGY’s gestures when it came to his nephew, I am still utterly grateful that he gave him Fairy the floofiest doggo in the entire universe so that at least Jin Ling didn’t feel so alone when his peers mostly ignored him (even if it was kinda his own doing). I hope that wherever Shijie is, she can smile and be happy that her son grew up healthy and well and somewhat loved, and now, having finally reunited with the uncle he never knew but whom she probably would have always wanted him to meet, he could become an even better person who would make her even more proud.

Wen Qing

I owe Wen Qing a big apology. Before I started watching The Untamed, I had read rumors that they were going to change the love story between WWX and Lan Wangji to a love story between WWX and most likely Wen Qing, and therefore, I started the show with a lot of misgivings about her character. Personally, I hate when perfectly good love stories are altered due to no other reason than bigotry, so even though the character of Wen Qing is really the innocent bystander caught in the line of fire in this case (it’s not her fault if the writers had changed her character in that way), every time she shared a scene with WWX in those beginning episodes, I would actually grimace a little because I thought I knew where things were heading.  Suffice it to say, I’m glad things worked out in favor of WangXian and I’m sorry I had any negative feelings towards her at all, because after WWX, she really is the most tragic character in The Untamed/MDZS.

Here's the thing, even though she didn’t turn out to be the love interest that would come between WWX and LWJ, I DO firmly believe that Wen Qing was in love with WWX, based on the way the actress played her and some of the moments we’ve seen (her reaction to having her wrist held by WWX, the way she asks about him when Jiang Chang rescues her from the Wen dungeon, the way she looks at WWX sometimes). Some might say she’s just being a big sister to him, which I would wholeheartedly agree with in terms of her novel counterpart, but on the show, that wasn’t my read of her character at all. However, I actually find it utterly reasonable that she would be in love with WWX because...hell, who wouldn’t be in that situation? Putting aside the fact that he’s her age, charming, smart, handsome, funny, kind-hearted, and talented, he’s also the savior of her treasured little brother and her clan. I would actually find it more shocking if she wasn’t in love with him. I know Wen Qing in the novel was not written that way at all, but she also didn’t appear much either despite having a pretty significant impact on certain key plot elements.  Here’s the thing though, I actually think her feelings for WWX is what makes her character even more sympathetic because it’s a love unfulfilled, could never be fulfilled, not just because of her shortened lifespan, but also because during their time at the Burial Mound, it was made abundantly clear that WWX’s heart was elsewhere the entire time.  Her disappointment at seeing the invitation from LWJ to his sister’s baby shower perfectly captured her understanding of that fact.

She believes WWX is staying with them only out of a sense of obligation, and one can imagine how guilt-ridden she felt since she believes her family is what has been keeping him from the people he actually loves. Even though her time at the Burial Mound is probably the happiest she‘s ever been in her short life, especially after Wen Ning woke up, she was still not afforded complete happiness because of her own sense of guilt in addition to her ever-present fear that their simple, happy days would eventually come to an end at the hands of the unforgiving world surrounding them.

Just thinking about Wen Qing’s life in general is enough to make my heart ache on her behalf. It could not have been easy growing up as basically a hostage of the Wen Sect, constantly living in fear of what Wen Ruohan would do to her little brother or her family if she didn’t do as she was told. Thank God she was blessed with the gift of being a talented physician and therefore useful to WRH, but it is also because of her talent that she acquired the unsavory reputation of being a ruthless, vicious medicine woman of the Wen sect, according to WWX when they first spoke to each other in the back hills of the Cloud Recesses. Nie Minghue’s words about her not being guiltless because she never once tried stopping WRH from doing his horrible deeds actually got to me since there is some truth to them: I mean, isn’t someone who is a part of the Nazis guilty by association, regardless of why they had to join in the first place? When she wasn’t worried about what the Wens would do to Wen Qing, Wen Qing was probably plagued with guilt since she undoubtedly witnessed the horrible things the Wens did and yet could do nothing to stop them. As someone who saved lives as a profession, seeing the Wens carelessly take lives could not have been easy on her conscience. But there was little she could have done since she had her own people to protect.  It had to have been a stifling existence. And then, when the Wens were defeated, instead of being granted the freedom she probably wished for her whole life, the good guys turned around and basically imprisoned/tortured her people and even killed her beloved A-Ning whom she had lived her life for all this time. Her life went from bad to worse in a blink of an eye.

But then thanks to WWX, her little bro was miraculously brought back to life and even more miraculously retained all the sweet qualities that made him lovable so that she could at least enjoy one short year with him. Unfortunately, the semi-joyous days came to an abrupt end in the worst way possible. I can only imagine how heartbroken she was when she made the decision with Wen Ning to surrender themselves to the Jins, but I also believe that in knowing what fate would befall her brother as a result, there was no way she would be able to live with herself after that, so that’s why she chose to go to her death with him.

And honestly, her death is what haunts me and will continue to haunt me, because if memory serves, we were never really given details of how she died in the novel, nor did we get much in the show. We know she was just reduced to dust, so she was never even afforded a proper burial, but that still pales in comparison to the notion of what torture probably awaited her in the hands of that particular Jin father and son duo. There is no way Wen Qing’s death could have been pleasant. The only consolation I have is that at least she died quickly, relatively speaking, at least compared to poor Wen Ning, whom they kept around for a much, much longer period of time to experiment on. Seriously, just thinking about it now is making me sick to my stomach. For someone who probably never hurt anyone in her life, Wen Qing didn’t deserve that kind of ending. I’m glad she got to meet Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian and through them, experience friendship and maybe love like any normal girl would, but it was still too small and quick an interlude in her otherwise difficult life. Personally I wish they developed her relationship with JC a little more since I actually thought the two of them had a lot of chemistry, but I doubt that would have afforded her a happy ending either since, as she pointed out, JC wouldn’t have been able to let go of his responsibilities and status as sect leader to save her and her family as WWX was willing to do. It would have still been a doomed romance in a sadly doomed life.

Before I end this tribute, I wanted to also applaud the two actresses who so wonderfully brought our two beautiful big sisters to life: Xuan Lu as Shijie and Meng Zi Yi as Wen Qing. Their performances greatly contributed to the affection I feel for these two characters and I am so glad they were chosen to embody them.  

So to our dear Shijie and Wen Qing, the two fine, brave ladies of The Untamed/MDZS, I salute you, and I hope that wherever you are, you are finally at peace and happy.

The Bog Wizard Sees All!

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

Review by Billy Goate

Album art by Al Seamer

Michigan's BOG WIZARD was introduced to us in last year's Doomed & Stoned in Detroit compilation when they shared "The Wizard in the Bog." The lyrics carry a similar sentiment to "The Troll" by Saint Vitus, though arguably the latter was a more sympathetic character than this:

In the bog, he plies Dark and twisted blackened sorcery

He shapes, he knows Never ending hatred for humanity

Their lies, death throes Neverending fuel for his treachery

Now following the EP, 'Campaign' (2018), which was the culmination of more than a decade of casual jam sessions, the Ludington trio of Ben Lombard (guitar, vox), Harlen Linke (drums, synth, vox), and Colby Lowman (bass) have battened down the hatches to bring us an ambitious 12-track album approximately an hour and five-minutes in length.

I suppose it is fair to say that 'From The Mire' (2020) does not behave like the typical album, but its episodic quality sure would make it an attractive soundtrack to an indie film.

They'd make one hell of a good pairing with Psychic Dose, too. Both are fascinated by the swamp as a setting for mythical lore, both have a similar lo-fi production epic, and both have some of the meanest growls and nastiest riffs in the entire marsh.

The record opens by sampling a preacher sharing his laundry list "dangers" that Dungeons and Dragons portends, undoubtedly from one of those scarey Christian video tapes that got passed around to concerned parents (mine included) in the '80s. "Is this dangerous? You decide."

Right on the heels of that statement the Bog Wizard comes stomping out of the muck and into your earspace in classic doom fashion, accented by sludgy southern riffing and vocal harmonies reminiscent of Brimstone Coven.

"Submission In Defiance" is a promising beginning and bleeds right into "Tarrasque" (a dragon-like creature from the D&D universe), which is presented with epic doom bravado. "City in the Mountain" follows in like manner and its forlorn quality gave me flashbacks of the late, great Rhode Island doom outfit Pilgrim (another band that incorporated fantasy RPG themes in their music).

Doomed & Stoned · Bog Wizard - From The Mire(2020)

Without these programmatic elements to guide me, my first listen got a little bogged down in the album's mid-section, particularly with some of the instrumentals (e.g. "Gnarled Cane," though that bass does eventually get down and dirty like we're used to hearing from Missoula's Swamp Ritual). Second listen had me better acclimated.

It's worth noting that when you hear clean singing alternating with much grittier strains on a song like "Shapeshifter," that's not two people, it's just one: Ben Lombard. I found his vocal performance pretty darned convincing on the whole. His range isn't operatic, but it can soar when he wants to and his "dark side" vox are achieve the tone and pitch that Lamb of God frontman Randy Blythe might reach if he could, you know, sing.

Overall, the album is a grower, with a good handful of songs that will grab you right from the get-go and others that will probably take a time or two to fully digest (like the grand finisher, "Swamp Golem"). Then again, you just might be in the mood to slow headbang all the way through.

Bog Wizard's From The Mire surfaces from the swamp waters of doom this Friday, July 3rd (pre-order here). Today, Doomed & Stoned is bringing you its world premiere.

Give ear...

From the Mire by Bog Wizard

A Listener's Guide To Bog Wizard

By Harlen Linke

The album was put together earlier this year, self recorded and produced in our drummers basement, where we usually practice. We sound-treated the space, dividing it off from the rest of the basement, placing the guitar cabs outside of the drum area, and recorded directly on bass, so we could get away with playing everything live together without much bleed between mics. We tend to have a fair amount of tempo changes and it would be a nightmare to try to record every part separately, our music is very go-with-the-flow.

We worked with Max Schoenlein of MAS Audio (who also does shows with us, doing lighting usually) who ran the board. We worked with him on our original EP as a two-piece a few years ago. Our bassist Colby used to own a recording studio, and I've had experience mixing music, as I've dabbled a bunch in the past on various projects and mixed/ mastered our EP, so collectively we had all the pieces to self produce this full length album.

We recorded the whole thing over the course of 4 weekends in January 2020, and Colby and I passed a few early mixes of one song back and forth for awhile before settling in on a rough template to apply to the rest of the album, doing a massive amount of iterating and adjusting over the next few months, finishing the process of mixing and mastering in May. It was a pretty great learning experience, and I think the end result turned out great for what was a pretty thrown together studio. We're very proud of it.

Our bassist joined in November of 2018, and we've been working on writing this album since then, in addition to learning some covers and doing live shows locally. Ben and I tend to split the writing between the two of us, with one of us coming up with a few cool riffs and concepts, and jamming on it to figure out where it takes us. We tend to improv jam a lot of our new ideas and record everything we do, going back and listening to what we did and picking out the good parts to apply to a more structured song that we refine over time.

Thematically, we have a focus on fantasy/Dungeons & Dragons, as well as spoofing off of the '80s Satanic Panic era, but role playing games have a pretty big influence on how we go about writing our lyrics as well. I'm credited in the liner notes as "DM" or Dungeon Master, which in D&D context is the person who runs the game and story that plays out, with the players interacting with it. And while I do usually handle running our games outside of the music, we also apply this dynamic to our lyrical writing process.

Often I'll lay out a rough idea or story we want to make our song about, and Ben and I will talk through where it heads, with me leading the narrative and Ben refining it, and eventually writing the lyrics to fit the idea. While not all of our songs are handled this way, the ones that are end up as very linear story based songs.

One example, the song "City in the Mountain" tells a tale of a visitor experiencing the wonder of a sprawling underground city, with the lyrics seeming to be from almost a tour guide describing the city to them as they enter. The song has this looming theme of misearned wealth and power accumulated in the city, culminating in the reveal of an ancient magical creature contained under it that is driving it's growth, and the sacrifice of the listener being the final step of their trip deeper into the city, to placate the creature.

Or "Submission in Defiance," which the first act of the song is about an adventurer setting out to confront a highly intelligent mind-controlling enemy, and their realization that the only way to get close is to allow this creature to take control of them, and the existential struggle that a decision like that requires. However, the second half of the song describes their new mental state after this happens, which is complete submission to the enemy, doing the entities rage-filled bidding as almost part of a hive mind, with an implied complete failure of their original intended goal.

Overall, our From the Mire takes heavy fantasy influence, a few songs being straight up retellings of D&D games we have played together in the past ("Shapeshifter" being the most notable example of that, which is actually a game that had a character my daughter ended up getting named after), but we do sprinkle in our fair share of social commentary and deeper thoughts about the world applied to the setting.

From the Mire by Bog Wizard

The Bog Wizard himself is a recurring character in the album, a crotchety old bastard of wizard, living in isolation in his swamp, who doesn't take kindly to trespassers. Our single "Swamp Golem" is a song about the conjuring of a massive hulking creature created from swamp muck (featured on the cover of the album and CD itself, drawn by Al Seamer) to enact revenge on a nearby village for that very sin. He's a very "get off my lawn" type, taken to the extreme.

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I just wanted you to know that I just read all your hellmurder castle 'verse posts and I LOVE THAT AU SO MUCH

what you have to understand about my Hellmurder Castle AU (Homestuck set in the world of Girl Genius, if you haven’t read it) is that it was born specifically from my spite exasperation with all the long, epic AUs about either only the trolls or the trolls + beta kids, with alpha kids appearing as background characters at best and often not at all. Many of these fics are great, and many of them were written or at least planned before the alpha kids even appeared in canon, in which case it’s not the authors’ faults at all. But I LOVE my alpha kids, and Roxy may be my favorite and Dirk is a delight, but I was ALSO tired to tears of how even in fics featuring the alpha kids, it was almost always Derse-heavy.

So I basically said “fuck it”, yeeted them all into the world of Girl Genius (which was inevitable), figured out the torrid backstory of the beta kids and ancestors and how the dancestors and trolls fit in, and set about focussing the plot and character development exclusively on the alpha kids, particularly Jake and Jane. Particularly particularly Jake, because a) I thought him more underappreciated than Jane, and b) the idea of a Heroic Adventurer who constantly has to resist his own reflex to be a minion is fucking funny.

Let’s elaborate, shall we? Because I’m okay again, after the epilogue. I have forgiven. So, the hypothetical pfennig novels/fics in a series:

Jake English: Escape from Castle Lalonde

In which Jake leaves home, and meets a number of interesting people.

covers from basically that scene of Roxy capturing him through Jake escaping with Jane, and them agreeing to be adventuring partners. A lot of the middle consists of Jake helping Roxy and Dirk win back Roxy’s ancestral home of Castle Lalonde, defeating whatever villainous spark - probably an OC - had taken up residence.

Jake means to leave, but Roxy and Dirk need help cleaning up, and getting their labs running, and with interesting projects…and possibly they put a shock collar on him so he can’t leave the grounds…or at least tell him that’s what the collar does, and prove it, like, twice, and then turn it off because they don’t actually want him crippled in an emergency; mostly he’s just a great minion and Roxy is pretty sure he’s destined to be part of their team for defeating the Batterwitch, as laid out in the obscure and highly metaphorical prophecy her mother left her in a wizard book.

this is not at all good ground for either friendship or a healthy minion/master relationship, which is why Jake is pretty damn game to help Jane escape and then run away with her.

Jake English and the Red Miles

in which…I actually have barely any memory of wtf is supposed to happen in this one. Presumably, they have to survive the Red Miles at some point, with some ridiculous series of revivificationsthe trolls show up at Jake and Jane’s camp (okay fine, I love them, too), and after some alarmed mutual weapon-pointing, explain that Jake’s grandmother, Lady English, made them after Jake left, except now she’s died so they’ve come to find Jake and either bring him home or, at least, join his adventuring team and keep him safe

(yeah, Jade instilled some loyalty, which is Sketch. In fairness, when she lost control of the original generation of trolls, all her best friends were killed and/or disappeared, presumed dead. she has reasons)

I wonder if there was supposed to be a timeskip between this and the previous book, or if Escape from Castle Lalonde happened later into Jake going out adventuring than I think, or if Jade just got bored and made 12 new people like…3 hours after Jake left home

for pacing, the trolls should probably show up pretty early in this story, so they have a long time to be around before shit hits the fan

a lot of this book, aside from whatever shenanigans they’re dealing with re: Red Miles, would be Jake dealing with the fact that he is suddenly responsible for 12 people who keep looking to him for orders, and somewhere in the distance is an entire town (Hellmurder Village) that’s likewise.

they do not go back to the Castle at the end of this book, even though they arguably should bc Jake has responsibilities. But he also has adventuring to do, by golly, and…hm, it’s one of the Rings that causes the Red Miles, isn’t it? So maybe they get it at the end of this book, and now they have to track down the other one. Which brings us to…

Jake English and the Rings of Skaia

In which Jake and Jane (and Roxy and Dirk, and 12 young trolls) explore a castle, learn a little history, and generally level up their friendshipsI split up the aspects of Castle Heterodyne in this au: Jake has the recently inherited Castle with the terrifying, nigh-magical power source buried in its depths, and Jane has the abandoned derelict that is fully sentient, most automated, and even more malicious than it is trapped. This is the story of that castle, and the Ring of Life hidden somewhere in it

Jack Noir. The castle’s sentience is Jack Noir. Or perhaps more accurately Spades Slick? Who cares.

I had a very elaborate mythology/history thought up at some point about the twin spark queens of Derse and Prospit and their great enmity, and the saga of betrayal and heroism that marked their reigns and left behind this castle and two super magical scientific rings of power, and I do not remember ANY of it now.

This is the bit where that scene of Dirk ripping out Vriska’s soul comes from. He and Roxy are here for the fabled treasure as well - possibly the castle only appears/is accessible at certain specific times? And they don’t know the trolls are with Jake, so…clusterfuck, there.

Jake English and the Troll Queen

in which the big bad is reveeled

there’s trouble brewing in the countryside, idk, monsters or pirates or something that can be traced, after some investigative heroing, to the self-styled Her Imperial Condescension, still unfortunately at large

mostly this fic is Jake growing into leadering a little more but also addressing the question of that inbuilt loyalty Jade gave this generation of trolls, because really, that was Sketch - and in general, who are we as people defined by who we follow, what groups we ally ourselves with; is it birth or genetics or who raised us or the family we choose or…

i kinda think Dirk and Roxy are conducting concurrent but generally not overlapping investigations to Jake&Jane’s(+the trolls) (dirk and roxy having pretty neatly answered all the above questions years ago by choosing each other, but still being kind of insular about it, and need to relax just enough to trust other people)

in the end there’s some confrontation with the Condesce and she convinces ½-2/3 the trolls to join her bc, honestly, why shouldn’t they

Jake English and the Castle in the Lake

in which…okay, in this one bit of fic I implied her base was in the ocean but I totally had this title written somewhere, so what is the truth??

in the above linked scene, the trolls who stayed with Jake and Jane were Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, Gamzee, and Feferi, but idk about that. If Feferi’s there, why isn’t Sollux? And, like, Aradia would probably have just fucked off in her own direction completely, given the chance…

our heroes are trying to sneak into HIC’s base and disable it, okay. that is the plot of this one. probably they have to find it first, which is tricky, and basically a D&D dungeon crawl, and that’s before Jane gets tiara’d. Which definitely happens climactically. and then everyone else gets captured, with the possible exception of Dirk, who probably gets beheaded instead. things do not look good for our heroes…

Jake English and the Lost Hero

in which we find out exactly what happened in the previous generation

maybe even alternating chapters, past/present? 

what happened basically is that the first generation of trolls, the Ancestors, went absolutely batshit roughly as per homestuck canon. The Condesce, being OP, started just conquering land. She was stopped, eventually, mostly by the epic sacrifice of Rose and Dave. And John…except Rose and Dave’s bodies were found, and in a clusterfuck of inventions warping time and space and reality itself, John’s never was

Jade survived, of course. obviously.

John did, too, it is revealed. He was just disconnected from the time-space continuum, stuck popping up in random times and places, sometimes close to those he loved and sometimes not, mostly uncontrollable…

he’s appeared here and there throughout the stories, probably, a mysterious figure in blue who nearly has time to say something before dissolving into fizzing wind. Now he appears more frequently, and for longer periods as the story goes on, including just enough to help break Roxy and Jake out of prison. And whichever trolls were stubbornly sticking with them - if the Condesce wasn’t just mind-controlling all the reluctant ones…let’s be real, she was…lotta “I know you’re in there somewhere” fights here, probably

also, Vriska reveals herself to still be trying to help our heroes, because it is SO Vriska to try to double-cross Her fucking Imperious Condescension

this double-cross is revealed partly from her using Jake’s minioning safeword that he developed with Grandma Jade, way back when; meaning roughly “I don’t want to do this but I’m not sure I can stop”. It’s pumpkin, of course.

they revivify Dirk on the way out, and either stop in the Condesce’s lab to get sparkily distracted trying to pin John into reality or they make it back to Hellmurder Castle before doing that?

What am I saying. The Condesce is probably working on some spacetime-warping tech of her own, and Roxy, Dirk, and Jake use it to fully anchor John for the first time in…who knows, subjectively? It’s possible he stays behind to buy them time to run

Jake English and the Battle for the Green Sun

in which things come to a head

aka the Battle for Hellmurder Castle, and it’s mysterious and terrible power source

Jane and half or so of the trolls start out on the Condesce’s side, but if you thought there were good “I know you’re in there” fights before, just WAIT until Jake saves Jane with the power of friendship

ultimately, it’s alpha kids + Alternian trolls + dancestor-clanks VS Her Imperial Condescension

it’s close

it’s very close

I would have krilled for an H–EIR—ESS CHALLENGE X3 COMBO, ie, Jane, Feferi, and Meenah vs. the Condesce, so that happens

John maybe appears one last time-displaced time, for him before the events of Lost Hero, to deliver a well-timed hammer swing

I love Jake, but I’ll give Homestuck this one: Roxy getting the final blow with an ancestral Strider sword? Perfect.

in the denoument Jake awkwardly invites everyone to live in Hellmurder Castle, because he feels vaguely like he should stay and look after it, and of course he wants his chums around. Jane, Roxy, and Dirk are all like, “well, a real lab or seven would be amazing…but also…adventuring. Why don’t YOU come with US?” Jake is like, “oh JEEPERS yes!” The trolls and dancestors meanwhile talk out among themselves who genuinely wants to stay and who wants to go out adventuring, either with these idiots or just to make their own way

8.9.20 - 8.16.20

What a whirlwind of a week. This week was my first week off for summer break. I had finally wrapped up my internship and spent a week soaking in the pleasures of life, aka just video games since it’s quarantine time. As a result, this week was filled with fun leisurely activities and naturally, house cleaning. So look down below for what really sparked joy during my period of respite and of fulfilling homeownership responsibilities. 

Items

IKEA Karlby (1): Given the current times, a good work-from-home place is a must. It was time to upgrade our cheap $34 Linnmon tables. This was our desk table for 3 years! 3 years! We had silver legs instead of the bright blue ones featured on IKEA’s page, but still, this was literally the cheapest table we could get from IKEA. Now that I will be starting my doctorate program and my boyfriend is working fully remote, plus something called COVID, it was time for us to get a proper office set-up. Enter the Karlby. Yes, it is a countertop. It’s a beautiful, 60 lb., long slab of sort-of wood that gives me enough space to lay 3 monitors on it, if I pleased. If you remember last week’s post on the IKEA Alex , those are the base for our desk. We have one underneath each end of the Karlby and all we had to do was put a non-slip adhesive on top of the Alexes and that was it. No drilling necessary to put two and one together. Essentially, our set-up looks like this (thank you random person from the internet for the photo). It is beautiful and freeing and space to breathe. 

Ridgid Shop Vacuum and Toshiba Dehumidifier: Now, for a not as freeing item, but a stress-relief item that I am just truly grateful for. I love storms. I love the sound of the rain hammering against the glass. I love the color of the sky. I love the nostalgia of childhood rainstorms. What I had not yet experienced until this week was what comes with rain - possible flooding. Maryland was hit with rain for almost a week. It was flash flood warning after flash flood warning. Being in the new house, we were tricked into comfort that our sump pump was in working condition. It had only been a month since we moved in and it had passed inspection. It had worked. But let this be a life lesson, after any storm, just check your basement to be sure. We had moved our old Linnmon desks into the basement to make room for the new desks when we stumbled upon the shallow pools of water. Long story short - we had to replace the sump pump. But the basement doesn’t slope down towards it, so we still had standing water. I ran a quick google search after my failed attempt to mop all the water towards the sump pump left us with only a little bit less of water and found that pros recommended a shop vacuum. We rushed over to Home Depot to get there 30 minutes before closing time. Initially, we planned to rent the shop vac for a third of its selling price, but who knows what might happen in the future, so we just bought the thing out right. We purchased the Ridgid 12 gallon wet/dry shop vacuum and watched that thing just inhale all the water from the floors. I had essentially wasted 30 minutes of my life mopping that mess and should have just purchased the shop vac instead. This was such a relief. I was worried we’d have to hire more professionals to clear the flooded waters, but nope, this made it so easy. Sure, there was a bit of water left, but when coupled with the Toshiba 50-pint dehumidifier, which we bought during the same trip, the floor was clear of a single drop of water the next morning. We felt guilty placing the sleek dehumidifier in our unfinished basement, but it fulfilled its role with 5 stars. As a first-time homeowner, the flooding was rather stressful - from worrying about safety to waiting on available professionals, but these two items let me sleep soundly after a long, hectic day. Last, but not least, I need to thank Len the Plumber for sending us a technician within the specified time window (unlike Roto-Rooter) and for the tech replacing our sump pump so quickly! This was definitely a learning experience and although it seems more like a spark of gratitude, I do have to say a clean environment sparks joy for me!   

Weed B Gone: Another spark of joy from a clean environment came from our backyard. When we moved in, our backyard was completely ridden with weeds. There was not a blade of grass to be seen. Nevertheless, the weeds were probably about a foot tall. Fast forward a few weeks, where us naive millennials had neglected to care for this problem while continuing to move out of our old apartment and into the new house, and we have ourselves 3-feet tall weeds. I lie not. They were up to my hip. Anyway, they were a major stressor and a persistent nag in the back of my mind. Thus, I got to work and sprayed some Weed B Gone after identifying the majority of the weeds as crabgrass. Alright, so the label says it works immediately - that’s a lie, but it did work in a couple of days. Each day, I would stand by the back door and gloat over the sight of the increasingly limp weeds. Within a week, they were yellowing and hanging over the patio. Once again, this week I found joy in cleanliness and in accomplishing a stress-inducing task.

Video Games

Darkest Dungeon (2): I promise I did not spend my entire week off cleaning. I actually spent most of it playing Darkest Dungeon. I normally hate single-player games, but this one was so fun. I was so addicted to it that I played it almost every day. I really enjoyed building my team, figuring out how to defeat the enemies, and just learning the inside tricks for dungeon interactions. It’s not difficult to learn and I would definitely recommend the game for others!

TV Shows

Star Wars (3): The Clone Wars: My boyfriend and I began watching all Star Wars content in chronological order back in June and we finally finished all of The Clone Wars. I really enjoyed watching The Clone of Wars even though it’s touted as a children’ show. Those final four episodes of season 7 were so beautifully done and had us rooting for Ahsoka the entire time. As a side note, we actually watched Revenge of the Sith in 4(?) different chunks. We followed a guide that showed us where to stop, so that we actually heard some lines repeated in the movie and in The Clone Wars, which was pretty cool. We didn’t follow this guide, but this one is more precise than the one that we used. If you are remotely interested in Star Wars, I recommend you give this challenge a try. It was a lot of fun and touching to see the character development. Also, this may be heinous to say - but the writing in The Clone Wars was better than the prequels’.

Videos

Chloe Ting: I’ve been doing Chloe Ting’s workouts for over a month now. I’ve wrapped up the 4 weeks summer shred challenge and am currently in the middle of the 15 days intense core challenge. I have to say that her videos have successfully transformed me into a daily workouter (I practice Yoga with Adriene during rest days). I actually find myself needing to workout daily, like if I know that I have a busy day ahead, I will figure out how to fit a workout in - no excuses. The truth is I look forward to these workouts and to reflecting upon my progress. I find myself becoming stronger, completing exercises I couldn’t execute the first time around. Even though my weight has actually increased, I feel great and more confident. 

Makoccino (4): Last, but not least, this week I made more time for art - something I haven’t done for a long time. I think after high school I was such a workaholic, bouncing from club to club and job to job, that I didn’t give myself to have fun by myself. Makoccino’s videos helped me take the step forward and purchase the art supplies to get started in my watercolor painting journey. I began with her beginners video, which was super easy to follow and although my painting still turned out to look like a product of those wine and paint classes, it still encouraged me to continue further. Watercolor painting is so relaxing and seeing the end product is just so satisfying. 

That concludes this week’s sparks of joys, but just to highlight a pattern throughout these posts, joy comes in different shapes and sizes. Joy is often intermixed with other emotions that may sometimes obscure it. If there is anything this practice has taught me is that identifying joys in life on a consistent basis requires patience and a willingness to tease apart the whirlwind of emotions inside us.

Special thanks to Cassie for designing the image! Check out her work on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meta__morphosis__design/

I finished Persona 5 Royal, after 135 hours. My feelings on the new content are mostly very positive, though do I have a few issues with it. Here's a suuuuuper long write-up first about Persona 5 and then about Royal. This is gonna have full spoilers for both versions of the game, so keep that in mind if spoilers for either game bother you. Persona 5 is my favorite game of all time for several reasons. The first is how masterfully it's written. Not necessarily line-to-line (and certainly not in the English localization, which could've used a few more weeks of edits to make the sentences sound more natural), but in its structure, thematic unity, and use of allusions to achieve that unity. The first two-thirds of the game are presented through a complex and well-orchestrated frame device that's honestly just a treat to experience. It presents the player with a glance at each upcoming story beat without the context to understand it, then lets them piece together the context as they go, giving the whole game a sense of mystery even as the player inhabits the characters at the center of the mystery. It also uses concepts from Jungian psychology to tell its story, most notably character archetypes, which means players can use knowledge of the archetypes to better understand aspects of the characters and their stories. It's beautiful, and it means that I often fall down rabbit-holes researching the allusions made and finding the connections they have to the story. The other reason Persona 5 is my favorite game is much more personal, but it actually played a major role in my radicalization (or if you're uncomfortable with such terminology, political reawakening). The game released in early April of 2017, only a few months after Trump took office, and partway through my first semester back at school after my five year...break. The game is about fighting back against societal injustice. It starts out small, with a high school teacher who abuses his students, but moves up to people with increasingly greater power exploiting increasingly larger swaths of the population: a famous artist using his clout to steal his students' livelihoods, a mafia boss stealing money from the people of his neighborhood, a CEO overworking and underpaying his employees while jockeying for a political position, a government prosecutor who fabricates evidence to maintain her perfect record, and finally a member of the Diet running for Prime Minister who uses populist rhetoric but only cares about gaining personal power. As in previous games, each protagonist gains their powers by awakening to their Persona (essentially publicly performing as their true, unfiltered selves), but in this game, the process is physically painful, bordering on body horror. The act of tearing off the masks so tightly glued to the characters' faces is cast in a similar light to putting on the glasses in "They Live:" doing so is painful and frightening, but allows each character to see the world for what it is, without the filter of the justifying ideological framework. In the last dungeon of the game, the characters invade the physical manifestation of the justifying framework, which takes the form of a prison in which the prisoners beg to be left inside, as the idea of freedom from the prison terrifies them. A vein running from each of their cells sucks out their life force, vampirically, and directs that life force into the manifestation of the concept of hierarchical structures itself, portrayed as the holy grail - a reference to Marx's Capital. This holy grail - which to Marx was wealth - is revealed to be a false god created by the masses because they wanted a god. However, it grew so powerful that now the masses serve it, rather than the other way around. It created its own artificial collective unconscious, barring its subjects from participating in a true collective unconscious free of its influence. At the very beginning of the game, a voice directly tells the player they may only play Persona after agreeing that the events of the game are entirely fictional, and any similarities to the real world are entirely coincidental. The game will not start until the player indicates that they agree to those terms. That voice is revealed to be the holy grail itself, implying that to refuse to compare fictional works to the real world or "get political" about these stories is to submit yourself to the justifying ideology. That's some powerful stuff, and grounding it in real-life examples of exploitation while following characters suffering from that exploitation made it hard to ignore, especially in the wake of the 2015-2016 rise of Fascism and at a time when I was back to studying literary analysis. The game seems specifically crafted to induce a radicalization in its players. It has a scene in which the characters attain class consciousness. For a chunk of the story, the characters try to fight against manufactured consent, as they are framed by the media and authority figures as dangerous villains just for taking a nonviolent stand against rapists, billionaires killing their employees, and corrupt officials. The citizenry believes it almost unquestioningly. The protagonists are often visibly enraged at the exploitation they see - much of which is based on specific real-world events - and the internal logic of the story suggests that this rage is the only moral response. Every aspect of the game bolsters these themes of hierarchy, exploitation, and rebellion, giving the game a thematic unity unlike any I've ever seen before. Even the smallest NPCs have full storylines running in the background that highlight the ways even these nameless characters are exploited, and the ways they've been socialized to accept this exploitation. Every book, every song lyric, every reference to a food item, every damn fictional allusion in a game ABOUT FICTIONAL ALLUSIONS ties back in some way to that larger theming. The thematic unity of this game sings, and playing it was unlike anything I'd experienced before. This game, for me, defined Leftism. I didn't put down the controller a full-blown Communist, but it gave me the tools I needed to ask the necessary questions to discard Liberalism. I probably would have gotten there eventually, and the game probably wouldn't have had quite as powerful an effect if I weren't a literary/media analysis kind of guy living in the time I was in, but even now, three years later, the game reads to me like a damn revolutionary text. So I was honestly terrified of Persona 5: The Royal, which came out at the beginning of this month. It's a rerelease of the game with added story content, including a new dungeon, a new party member, the return of a deceased party member, and a new ending. That's a lot to add onto a really fun game with unprecedented thematic unity that also helped me to redefine myself and my positions on...literally everything. If they messed with this unity for the sake of adding unnecessary content, it would heavily alter the game's effect, and my own personal understanding of the game, forever. That's not to say that the game couldn't be improved. The localization was kinda shoddy, it occasionally drifts into male gaze shit (glaringly so in the 2D animated cutscenes, which makes me wonder if the animation studio had different ideas about the project than the devs did), there are two scenes which are virulently homophobic, and the devs had originally planned for another party member who they had to scrap for time. The two homophobic scenes especially have made it difficult to recommend the game, as I've always had to add the caveat of "...but it completely undermines its own central thesis twice for cheap laughs and it's disgusting." I wasn't sure, however, that a rerelease would fix any of these issues, and I was really worried that adding ~25 hours of gameplay after the dungeon about the justifying ideology and the holy grail would undermine too much of what made the game so revolutionary to me. There is no larger threat to humanity than the ideological framework justifying capitalism, so I worried that moving away from that for the length of a whole-ass Kingdom Hearts game would make the game less effective. From a storytelling perspective, the party member they advertised they would bring back to life is an unambiguous villain, and I worried that bringing him back would both undermine the sacrifice from his death scene and rehabilitate the character, neither of which I wanted. The new party member was not the character they had planned for and cut, and her story as it was advertised did not involve her being exploited by people in power in any way. Rather, she's a star athlete and honors student whose success was attributed to her sense of personal responsibility, which runs pretty counter to the game's themes. I also worried that adding a new dungeon worth of gameplay would mean getting rid of the part at the end of the game where the protagonist willingly turns himself in and spends several months imprisoned, so that he can testify against one of the villains of the game. The thought of losing that bittersweet ending definitely didn't sit right with me. As I said at the beginning, my feelings on the new content are mostly positive. Before getting into pure spoiler territory, I'll say there's no going back to the original now that this version exists. They redesigned every dungeon and boss fight, retooled the battle system, added a LOT more voice acting to scenes where there hadn't been any, added a ton of new scenes further fleshing out characters and the setting, retranslated the worse lines from the localization (it's still not perfect but it's much improved), added new gameplay mechanics and personas, added a bunch of great new music, expanded on Tokyo, and FIXED THE FUCK OUT OF THE HOMOPHOBIC SCENES. I now actually really like the two nameless characters who were in the original just straight up predators, as they've been rewritten into overenthusiastic drag queens who get excited at the thought of introducing nervous kids interested in drag to the scene. They improved on dungeon crawling, too: the newly added grapple hook mechanic introduces a fun verticality to the dungeon designs, stealth is more challenging and rewarding, and each dungeon has new optional collectibles. They reimagined the procedurally generated dungeon you explore over the course of the game, too, giving it more room types, more music, a currency unique to the dungeon, a merchant, and ways to level up money, experience, and item rewards from the enemies in the dungeon. As for the new story content, the extra 25 hours of gameplay is not...counter to the themes of the game. Instead, it's set up as a story about Revolution vs. Reform. The question it poses to the people of its now-too-content Tokyo is "would you join the Phantom Thieves?" which translates more to something on the order of "if these exploitative systems still existed, but didn't really hurt you or anyone you know, would you still care enough to fight against them?" The new villain co-opts the place formerly held by the Holy Grail and uses it to rewrite reality to one in which everything is basically the same, but almost everyone in the city has everything they want (with the notable and noticeable exceptions of homeless people and service workers). The central conflict, especially to the characters who have regained lost loved ones, is whether they should still fight for a better world if most people are fairly happy. Tokyo never ends up agreeing that they would join the Phantom Thieves, but the crew still end up determining that they must restore the real world, because a world in which people are still critical of the justifying ideology has a path to a better world, while one in which people are uncritical will never find that path. It's a complex and interesting take from the beginning, and even moreso when the game uses imagery from the mythologies of the garden of Eden and Prometheus. The other dungeons correspond to deadly sins, but this one instead corresponds to "sorrow." The villain is so afraid of his own grief and the grief of others that he refuses to allow anyone to take risks, even if success would improve the world. The three new confidant arcs are well thought-out and engaging, too, especially the arc with the villainous party member, whose actor absolutely chews the scenery in this game. In the new story, he's so angry about being forced into a reality on someone else's terms that he fights tooth and nail to return to the old reality, where he was at least able to die on his own terms. It's...not as emotional as the game wants it to be, but it's a really fun time. Each party member also gets a mini arc in which they come to terms with what they would lose by returning to the old reality, and acknowledges how much personal growth they would lose by staying. These culminate a new ending in which each party member finds a way to work to regain some of what they had lost by restoring reality, going their separate ways in the process. The new content has a bit of a Persona 4 vibe, in that it's much more personal and contemplative, and the characters find strength by maturing and uncovering avenues to personal growth. As Atlus has pretty consistently existed both in the shadow of Persona 4's popularity and with the pressing need to make up for Persona 4's failings, it's not a bad angle. I do have some minor issues with the new story. It still means that there is no downtime after the original final boss, so newcomers won't really have much opportunity to consider the implications of that dungeon and boss before being thrust into another conflict. Its ending is not quite as clear-cut as the original ending, either. The protagonist still turns himself in, but the story basically...switches back to that reality a week before his release, meaning it's not nearly as much of a sacrifice and it's a decision this version of the protagonist technically didn't make for himself. The situation is probably also clearer to people who've played the original game than to newcomers. The old ending is kind of "required reading" for fans; it's still the canon ending for Scramble where the new one is not, and the new one is more impactful to players who've already experienced the original ending. This creates a major predicament when recommending this game to new players. Do I tell them to purposely not fulfil the requirements to get the new ending, then replay a 130+ hour game a second time? Should they keep a save at around the 85 hour mark, so they can reload their save and retread the 20 or so hours of game they've already experienced to get to the new stuff? There's no good answer, which is irritating. At least the original ending is included in this version, so those are options, but it's frustrating that I can't just recommend one or the other without caveats that are also huge time sinks. I dunno how to end this, and it's much longer than it probably should be, so I'll say that this game is extremely important to me, and I'm impressed that Royal is not less important to me. I sure hope we get a release date for the worldwide release of Scramble soon.

Guest Article: Wheel Able's Video Games Post of 2019

Wheel able is an avid computer user and Game Boy Advance owner. Do not follow him on Twitter. Gamer's. Lately, I have been doing a bit of self reflection, which has, surprisingly, led me to realize some things: - It is the end of the year - I have played several video games - I am more or less literate - At this point, I have two options: try to realize more things, or type a bunch of words about video games.

10. Kingdom Hearts III

This game is so stupid. This whole series is so insanely stupid. For some history, I had only played a bit of the original Kingdom Hearts, and all of Kingdom Hearts II before jumping right into this one - so I definitely understood about as much as one possibly can when it comes to this series. For me, this meant that I knew to expect some great music and I guess some idiots wearing trench coats who like to sit in a stupid circle of thrones that are entirely too high off of the ground. No person could reasonably sit on them - they're too tall. Suspension of disbelief only gets you so far, and Too-Tall-Chairs are where I draw the line. Make them smaller.

9. Little Town Hero Contrary to what the previous entry may lead you to believe, I tend to care most about gameplay when it comes to JRPGs. That's not to say I will ever turn down a nice soundtrack or some ridiculous horse shit story about killing Anime God, but when it comes to your battle system, please just give me something that requires the use of my two remaining brain cells. Please, for the love of god, make me feel smart for once.

The battle system in Little Town Hero is something like a mashup of Mario Party and Magic the Gathering. I have never played Magic, but I know it has something to do with cards - which is essentially what Little Town Hero's mechanics boil down to (underneath a pretty JRPG exterior). Throw on top of that a board game map with environmental gimmicks, and you've got a battle system which makes me feel like I am actually thinking. And learning. And in the end, that is probably what every game should do (make me feel like I'm improving myself). 8. Pokemon Sword & Shield

I think Pokemon games are at their best when they're not trying to be anything more than what they are - simple adventures that make me feel like a dumbass kid again (as opposed to a dumbass adult). Conversely, I find these games to be at their worst when they force you down tunnels to ensure that you're laser focused on some overzealous Save The Galaxy From Evil story line. That's not to say SwSh (pronounced "swisshh" btw) isn't guilty of that to some extent, but for the first time in a while, it seems like the Pokemon team had the confidence (or lack of time) to not get in the way of the classic, grounded goal of becoming the very best Pokemon Master, like no one ever was (because they were all too busy trying to get the online features to work). 7. The Outer Worlds I don't usually have nearly enough awareness to realize that almost no Role Playing Games actually encourage Role Playing, but The Outer Worlds managed to have me paying attention to the decisions I make - which is just not something I ever do in any situation. At a certain point, I found myself actually thinking about how my character would handle certain situations, rather than myself (Role Playing?????).

To be fair, I have played basically no western RPGs, and a smarter man than me would point out that other western RPGs have had similarly good writing for years. But this "smarter man than me" sounds like a complete nerd, whom I definitely plan on bullying. 6. Link's Awakening

The original Link's Awakening soundtrack is one of my favorites due to its charm and earnest goofiness, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Nagamatsu's arrangements were able to maintain that character. My favorite tracks of his were the underground dungeon and Mabe Village tunes. Anyway the game is still good. 5. Trials of Mana I played this game when it was still "Seiken Densetsu III", but now that it has an English title, that means I can put it on a list. I don't make the rules (citation needed).

This game is easily among the SNES's greatest offerings, and I'm pissed off NOW, knowing that I should have been pissed off back in like 1995 when they decided to not localize this game. No amount of anger I have in 2019 will ever make up for the pure fury I was clearly entitled to as a child.

4. Sekiro

The original Dark Souls is possibly my favorite video game, and I have yet to come across a FromSoft "SoulsBorne" entry that I don't like (there are plenty of """"souls-likes"""" from other developers that I don't care for, though!!).

Being a total Shit Coward, it took me all the way until Bloodborne to play these types of games without a shield - and I only did so because that game encouraged a more aggressive play style through its mechanics. Sekiro essentially requires that same approach, along with doubling down on the necessity of parrying. The result: Man It's A Hard One. While the gameplay in Sekiro is likely my favorite of the SoulsBunch, the setting and lore unfortunately didn't really do much for me - landing it at 5th place on my Souls Ranking List (please look forward to my upcoming video on WatchMojo dot com). 3. Resident Evil 2

I was too scared to play the Resident Evil series as a kid, so I just watched my brother play them instead. Now that I am a powerful and wise adult, I can play these games for a full thirty minutes without even crying once. 2. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night I've waited years to battle Dracula again, and it looks like I will have to continue to wait for more years, because Dracula is not in this game. What a disappointment (10/10).

It's a good thing I can't get enough of these Samus Belmont style adventures, because it seems like at least a handful of them are released every year. However, this one was at least twice as important as the others, because it was made by a man in a cowboy hat. Anyway, don't forget Dracula in the next one, Mr. Vania. I'm guessing you just forgot since it has been a while. 1(a). Ori and the Blind Forest

Like I alluded to earlier, I am indeed following the arbitrary GOTY guidelines and only including games that were released in 2019. BUT with the release of Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition this year, I think I can include this one?? Please do not call the police.

1(b). Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbrongus

Hey can you include expansions in a GOTY list? Somebody please email the president of games journalism and let me know. I am posting this list in five minutes and I don't want to fuck this up. Help 1. Outer Wilds Being fairly unintelligent, I am both terrified and curious when it comes to things I don't understand. Space is one of those many things.

I booted up this game on a complete whim while looking around on Game Pass one day, and I'm convinced that's the best way to experience it. Since Outer Wilds is a game based entirely around exploration and learning, it'd be silly of me to say a bunch of stuff about what's in the game - and I am definitely not a clown, from the circus. When so many games are carefully crafted to make the player feel big and strong and important, Outer Wilds constantly reminds you of your insignificance. I can only hope that this game teaches others what I have known all along: it is actually good to be/feel small. Well, that's it. I've played all the video games. Unless they, for some reason, decide to make more next year?? That seems like it could potentially be bad.