hifi rush is more likable than the bethesda reveal would suggest imo. even has a xenogears disc 2 reference of all things
21 Likes
played a little megaman x7. it’s ok. i don’t like the top down/3d parts, though. especially not having to fight bosses like that.
i bet this was advertised on at least one back cover of shonen jump usa
3 Likes
I love games where fishing minigames aren’t the main focus but are a big component like Nier or Yakuza 6. Garage is very similar. Got my frog and crab trapper business spinnin’. Churning upgrades for my pathetic malebody.
The theming and worldsense is great, feels like a game about how society essentially grinds everyone down into the most miserable circumstances. Men get reduced to machines with a built in commuting rail mechanism on their lower half and various tools of the trade like their fishing rod and mechapenis. Women are literally objectified and can’t move or do shit except generate fuel. They kinda help by being part of the scarce resource economy but it’s just another way in which they’re dehumanised. Despite the mechanical limits imposed on each class of citizen they are still distinct individuals either fucked up in some way or with aspirations and interests beyond their station. Some occasionally break out of this role by rewarding you with info out of a desire to escape the boredom. Others lean into the social strata like the merchants who don’t really have to do shit and get a much easier milky fluid supply. Meanwhile all the factory workers and builders end up non-verbal or insane. It’s like we’re trapped in the Matrix except the architect was a horrific incel.
Ecosystem design is cool, frogs and crabs that endlessly mimic each other in appearance gives the impression of a highly incestuous state of nature. It cannot evolve further beyond the confines of this mysteriously small, industrialised town. Just endless variations of the same seafood amongst the sewage.
I also like that the game is fairly clear about what you need to do to progress once you’ve got a good sense of the map. I feel like a genius for making my way through the world despite the clues being pretty transparent. It’s also just comfortable to hang out in. The soundfont reminds me of Banjo Kazooie of all things, there’s a section early on where you can just go to your flat. You hear grunting and I can just see the Rare creature design in my head.
19 Likes
Finished Adios, which has a much stronger second half. The scene with the shotgun where the hitman finally gets annoyed enough by the farmer’s antics and behavior to throw the shotgun down and drop the facade is probably the closest this game gets to an emotional climax.
Sometimes it feels like the other characters let the farmer drone on about whatever he wants to talk about out of pity. At least that’s how I choose to read it. I really feel a lot of midwestern passive-aggressiveness in a lot of these conversations and the way characters avoid talking about the actual subject. At the same time I can’t help but feel like the farmer is this pathetic weirdo who can’t express his feelings very well and got stuck being indebited to the mob out of misplaced midwestern politeness.
The game will present the protagonist’s inner thoughts as greyed out dialog options, and the option that they can say is not greyed out, which is an idea I’ve had before. You can’t make big dialog decisions that steer the narrative, like coming clean to your son, but you can make minor changes in smaller responses.
I thought one scene that was funny was when you’re talking with Edith about taking care of your animals “for a few days” and Edith kind of rambles on, sort of like my mom does! You can interrupt her at any point with a dialog option but I opted to let her go on.
Because I can’t choose how to monologue during the extended talking scenes, and hopping around kind of breaks the scene, the only option is to play on the game’s terms. I have to mime being an old man who’s in the middle of a monologue, so I would choose to look at one character, or another, or walk over and get close to the hitman while the protagonist was making a certain point. I did this during the Tree Scene where the farmer talked about how a bunch of trees died and his was the last of it’s kind or particularly rare, and I got the impression the mafia guys were letting him go on about this out of pity. Let the man cook!
Speaking of cooking
You have to cook Your Last Meal as a part of the Dying checklist. I almost had the burrito. I call microwave burritos from trader joes “Depression Burritos” because I only have them when I’m very depressed (I am thankful to not have had one in a long time) and it was kind of funny to me that this man’s last meal would be a Depression Burrito. (he deserve this, honestly)
Except I had the ingredients for curry! so I made the spiciest curry I could. I kept throwing the food on the floor because you have to place it on the cutting board by hitting the E key to drop items, but the items have an arc to them, so I kept missing the cutting board and doing things like throwing the knife on the floor. I did eventually cook the curry and I was like, “ok, I’ll have a little final moment where I can eat it” but…He didn’t get to eat it!! I think a “eat your last meal” where you have to eat it before the final death sequence is triggered would have been a nice touch and they already had that in the breakfast scene. but all you do is get to cook and then get the shotgun.
The room upstairs with all the 8 track tapes and records was probably the most compelling narrative section of the game. The 8 tracks all sounded like music recitals and so it’s likely these are made by the farmer’s son, so you’re listening to them for the last time. It’s a neat, player driven moment that makes you stop and think about things. I think the game should have had more of these moments instead of a monologue where the characters talk about stuff.
Plot and Character Musings (this gets long)
I think the reason the farmer gets in with the mafia is due to medical expenses for his son, and I wish the game kind of marinated on this point a bit longer. “I turned to a life of crime due to medical bills” is a pretty common narrative trope. And then his wife developed dementia and he was worried she would spill the beans about the mafia, which is why he had her put in a home and didn’t tell anyone where she was. But he’s lying about this to the mafia man, and his son. I feel like the mafia could have worked something out about the wife since she knew about it! That also implies she bought into the idea of working with the mob in the first place, but also if he comes clean to the mob about his wife then he’s worried about them killing her, so seemingly his only option is to hide her.
But according to his son she’s pretty lucid, so I feel like a worst case scenario is she goes far enough to forget to keep the mafia a secret, but I feel like by that point her condition would be far enough along that it could be excused as “ah she just says stuff now and again, it doesn’t mean anything” and who is she going to blab to? She’s an accessory to the crimes of body disposal anyway so she has an incentive to not blab about it!
I mean, there’s also witness protection! Maybe he didn’t do this to not uproot his son’s life and his son’s family’s life. But the mafia have gotta know about his son and wife anyway and maybe they’d go after them after they come after him? His son found out where his Mom was being kept and The Hitman looked up the farmer’s past, so it’s plausible.
I don’t need every part of this lore to be explained and mapped out, maybe the farmer just makes bad decisions and then has to live with them, and that’s the whole point of the story.
But he’s just really neglectful anyway. There’s a fishing sequence where you catch fish and instead of releasing them you put them in a cooler, including the pond’s biggest fish, but nobody else knows about the fish in the cooler and he isn’t going to cook them, so he’s just going to…let the fish die? And then he wants to release his pet horse so the horse will “be free” but that’s really neglectful, what if the horse gets injured or can’t forage for food and then dies of exposure? He just assumes the horse, which he seems to genuinely care for, will be alright.
And then there’s the pig pen. Compared to the goat and horse feild, the pigs are all crammed next to each other in this tiny fenced in area, there’s no grass or greenery for them to be on. If it were winter maybe they’d be in a barn or something. Hell, his cars and I think his vending machine shack have more room than the pigs do. And the pigs are, like, his thing. There should be huge barns full of pigs. His farm looks like a hobby farm! I think for all intents and purposes, it is. He takes really bad care of the pigs, which are his source of income legitimately and also via the mob. Calling himself a pig farmer and then having like 6 pigs in a tiny pen looks really suspicious and I’m surprised no one calls him on this.
So, this farmer has a hobby farm, paid for by the mob, and he ruins his family’s life to protect them from the mob and then tries to make things right because he assumes that by sacrificing himself, he’ll close the loop and keep them safe. except that he can’t guarantee any of that. He can’t even off himself, he’s gotta get his hitman buddy to do it, and by doing so also drags him into his own vortex of suck
The Hitman is an interesting character who I also can’t exactly figure out, he both knows the family and the guy pretty well but doesn’t know much about him. I wonder if the hitman is ever like “I wonder what else you haven’t told me about” after the vending machine scene. I think this is a commentary on how people don’t really open up to each other. But, the farmer seems particularly closed off, but maybe that’s by design because he doesn’t want to reveal too much to this guy who is part of The Mob.
I guess their relationship has been pretty transient since the start, and they’ve known each other for decades, but the mafia man should have known he’d have to kill him at some point. When he said ‘I’m done’ he should have pulled out the glock right then and there, because this man knows everything and if he doesn’t want his goose to be totally cooked he has to close every remaining loose thread with this guy immediately.
He clearly doesn’t wanna kill the guy and keeps giving him outs, but if the farmer reveals that he’s been thinking about this for a long time what’s to keep him from going to the feds or something, even if he decides to not go through with it, because he doesn’t want to be a part of body disposal anymore. Even if he walks back on deciding to end things, the mafia guy would probably have to kill this guy anyway since he’s having second thoughts.
The hitman even gives him an afternoon to get his affairs in order because he seemingly cares so much, but if I were him I’d be watching him like a hawk the whole time because what if he turns me in or contacts authorities or something? Where’s this Hitman’s opsec? Also he does this in his home, which is going to leave a big mess and a lot of evidence, I thought this guy was a pro. He’s been at this for decades so doesn’t he have a standard operating procedure?
The Farmer’s relationship to The Hitman is the central focus of the game but it seems really poorly defined and full of incongruencies.
I think games should have flawed characters with motivations that don’t make a ton of sense because that’s interesting, the farmer may be a pathetic coward but that’s interesting. The Hitman may be sentimental and sloppy, but that’s also interesting. I just don’t feel like the plot works due to all these inconsistencies, holes, and the way that the characters are portrayed.
11 Likes
during a bit of before-bedtime dialogue with shenhua, ryo talks about the importance of love and friendship, even saying that home is wherever the people you love happen to be.
furthermore, his motivations so far have been solving the mystery of the mirrors and finding shenhua’s missing dad. he’s grown so much since the first game, and even the first couple of parts of the second!
the herb-gathering trophies are insane, as an aside. i assumed “gather all the herbs in bailu” meant get on of every herb type. it in fact literally means you have to find and pick every herb in bailu, until there are no more. madness!
9 Likes
i think i finally found pcsx2 graphics settings that im totally content with. sharp bilinear filter + contrast adaptive sharpening and resize 0% sharpen + pcsx2’s crt shader. the jpg compression kind of ruins the effect but i swear it looks great on my monitor. im not looking for a simulation of a crt just some interpolation of pixel graphics… ppsspp and duckstation’s built in crt filters arent my ideals either but i dont really use retroarch anymore i like standalone emulators more lol. they autoupdate!!!
15 Likes
the age of Serenia from Myst 4 is worse but if you’re cool with quitting 2/3 through the game is an ok time
2 Likes
Played a bunch of more Breath of the Wild. It continues to be an above average lawnmower sim.
Every single thing to do with the main plot or its cutscenes is dire. Just sub-basement horseshit. I honestly can’t believe it.
12 Likes
I think I said this like six years ago but it’s interesting to me that it had the same director as the previous game in the series that no one liked. they obviously could not shake that crap entirely during development, they just improved everything but the main Contemporary Zelda Plot because I guess they couldn’t fire enough of those guys, they just tied them up on Zora Flashbacks or w/e
7 Likes
true of sonic frontiers as well!
incidentally i think the thing skyward sword and forces have in common is being ruled by one big feature that hoovered up resources
4 Likes
was sonic frontiers good
1 Like
i’m choosing the word carefully to approximate objectivity: it was… incredible
almost anyone who likes 3D sonic likes it
better than generations, full of surprise and delight
for you? what if i told you fishing with big the cat allows you to skip most things you don’t want to do
10 Likes
I basically do not like 3D sonic at all with the exception of generations which I thought really sung in a way that none of them do and is somehow still underrated
3 Likes
frontiers gets the handling model right and reprises good stage designs but more importantly takes the stupid music crown back from revengeance and dmc5. i cried laughing with glee at the first island’s boss fight when the post-hardcore vocals kicked in
it relishes all of the absurd tonal clashes, leans all the way in
10 Likes
7 Likes
I played about 15% of skyward sword and honestly the plot is one of the best things it has going for it
this is meant as an insult
but even still, it’s the only thing about it that feels fresh along the then-existing well-trod template. it’s the most jrpg like of the zeldas in terms of plotting and production. it’s like… something. even if it still sucks.
though honestly I didn’t hate the mainline plot stuff in breath of the wild. if they had actual competent voice direction they’d probably be like… just fine. the raw material isn’t terrible. it’s just executed incredibly poorly. it’s interesting because I can’t really think of a single AAA nintendo title that has ever come close to the level of production value that’s the norm for big budget “prestige” games. I guess they really just don’t know how to do it.
8 Likes
it’s done…
15 Likes
BotW VA was confusingly dire, at least in English. I don’t know how it got past the door. At the time I wondered if Nintendo wanted to make sure they weren’t using established vocal talent so the characters don’t sound to stock. So they just went with more amateur talent instead (no idea what their IMDb’s are).
Zelda was particularly bad because:
A. She has the most lines
B. Precedes almost every line with ‘Link’ which is more the writing being shit
C. Is so breathy, airy and light you can barely make her out sometimes
The king also had major body/voice mismatch for me.
9 Likes
A post was merged into an existing topic: daphnys radioactive ukranian inclusion zone