one-armed dwarf

I mean, I've played it before. Being real about it?

No, it doesn't have to be 4k realistic anything. tbh I don't want to get into the to and fro about it, my point is more I find cosmetic remakes like that FFIV one very uninteresting and redundant. But something transformative, which makes a new game out of something old or gives it a very different spin, I'm more into that. Especially as I have zero trouble going back to play the original anyway, and it can offer a lot more flexibility. That's the main point I was trying to make

You're not going to change my mind on that anyway so I'll just leave it at that.

Kind of, but I was mainly thinking of ways they could compartmentalise the scope a bit (ie, mission based structure). They already have a character action game framework in FFXVI, and it's something that they could iterate on maybe. Albeit XVI is visually in a whole other league

I think the mis-step with FFVII is they tried to imagine doing their own type of MCU thing with it. The way each game 'sets up' a later installment, like a sort of building block and it gets you engaged in the hype cycle for the next release. But the two games that are out don't really have beginnings, middle and endings. They are each the beginning and middle and are paced and structured in a very strange way that seems to give no thought into how it feels to move through them. There's no sense of momentum or energy to it, which for all their faults aren't a problem shared with MCU films. The new plot twists in the endings seem to be part of a way around that, leading to speculation and theory crafting. But I don't think it's hit in a way that's really captured the zeitgeist like Square might have hoped. At least not beyond the comments section of a Maximillian Dood video anyway

That said I prefer even that to a remake which feels very 're-iterative'. I prefer an ambitious failure to a very familiar yet safe attempt because the latter is something I've already played anyway. Though I generally don't like how the Octopath stuff looks anyway, with the blurry DOF effect. 

Maybe what they should really look at is something more of a genre transplant. Like what if FFVI was a character action game or something. Some form of middle ground. Look at how Granblue's new RPG is designed, with multiple playable characters. It's possible, with some compromise

When I get a house I look forward to a giant ass TV being one of the first frivolous things I get after all the super expensive grown up boring things like appliances and flooring and shit, and using that thing just for films and games

This just got announced. There were a number of elements about the first that put me off, but this is a great looking trailer

The idea with it afaik is it's a RPG which is very into verisimilitude. Things being all realistic, even to a mundane and frustrating degree, but doing so in order to make its role playing feel immersive

I feel it's probably the kind of game I would like. The presentation here is pretty impressive, Witcher vibes

Prediction:

I don't think making games which appeal to an older audience makes much sense. There's been a lot of talk about AAA SP games seemingly being played less and less by younger people, a few recent examples, but none of it is accompanied by 'oh, also the game did great cause of that'. It's a really bad problem where the numbers don't really add up

The industry is in a bad spot, it's hard to put an optimistic spin on any of it tbh. I find this guy's letter dumb. You might as well ask for movie blockbusters aimed purely at older people (I guess Oppenheimer is kind of that, but not really)

So like, here's the thing I'll give it credit for, it navigates its world and lore-building in a way that makes it feel really dense and full of history. Which I mean it is, it's adapting the comics after all. But it does it pretty deftly and swiftly in a way that doesn't overwhelm you. Also even though it's rushed (again I think it's a budget thing) it somehow still sort of feels like it marches to its own beat in a way that you don't get at all from how formulaic the MCU films have been. There's like an element of creative freedom here which is refreshing from how stagnant the other Disney stuff is

I agree that the level of hype I've seen is hard to understand, I watched a podcast (CastleSuperBeast) and Woolie on it called it the best 30 minutes of TV he saw (ep 5). I think he should watch Barry. But like it's good to have things which do a good job with this stuff, cause they've really salted the earth pretty bad in the past couple years with lots of shitty films/series. Good to have something which is the opposite of that.

Also the best super hero stuff to me is the stuff which focuses on its villains imo, and gives them an inner life which grounds their villainy in more understandable terms. I stan Magneto

I mean my load is also unblown, but I mostly just appreciate it's doing things with this property that aren't endless franchise building blocks over and over. It's so tedious. So here they're doing their own thing in their own way and it works well on that level. 

You would hope between all the flops last year and the success of this that Disney might learn some useful lessons.

(I apologise for writing the sentence 'my load is unblown')

I watched the 5 episodes of X-Men 97 that have been released, tho at the time of posting it looks like there is a sixth but I guess the 5 that are out sort of form a unit by themselves anyway.

It's not really what I expected this to be, in that it's a continuation to a kid's cartoon that's much more about the relationships of the mutants than I would assume the 90s one could ever really get into, cause I think that one was for little kids.

It's very stylish yet also effortlessly retro. The animation is a bit strange, looks like Archer sometimes, but it's fine cause every big combat sequence has some sort of unique way of expressing what the different traits of the mutants are. Which, you know, it's actually kinda important cause I don't know who the fuck half of them are, like time travel man. That's the thing with it also, it doesn't drop you into the deep end but it does sort of expect you to keep up cause it's running forward from the position it was in nearly 30 years ago. 

The storytelling is very crowded though, but in a kinda lopsided way. Some bits feel as slow as they should, and with appropriate buildup to specific big moments. Other stuff feels like they just rammed it in there and pushed the fast forward button. You just have to roll your eyes at some of it cause it feels like a cliffnotes adaptation of some older mythologies these characters have so it won't really leave its mark. It feels a bit like it's under some sort of budget pressure,  there's one ongoing thing with Storm which feels slotted in so inelegantly to everything else but also some pretty big things with Jean Grey which feel like they could have their own entire season. But there's also a lot of IMO cool creative things it does within those tight confines. It is what it is. There's one episode where they veer into some horror stuff, another where it's some 90s video game inspired shenanigans. They make it work somehow

Magneto is great but I've always liked this character in every iteration I've seen him him, especially that Nazi hunting shit he was doing in First Class. Great scene. Episode 2 and 5 of this also have great scenes with him demonstrating his power, but also giving him some story developments which take him in surprising directions. He doesn't just fuck things up, he also fucks. Even if you're not caught up the cultural osmosis will stop it from being impenetrable, you don't need to know what that cloud guy thing is in the post above. 

I do wish though they were able to take their time a bit with the pacing here, and that they replaced Wolverine's voice actor cause he sounds fucking ridiculous. Ray Chase plays Cyclops, aka Noctis. I've seen some people call him robotic but I think he's fine. 

I finished it now. I'm all over the place on how I feel about it, it's got plenty of peaks and valleys. I'd say it's the best video game adaptation for the reason that the makers deeply understand the thing they're adapting (as mentioned) but also are completely unafraid to leave their own mark on the property and take massive swings

That said, it relies really heavily on this type of drip feed storytelling I've grown to really dislike, from other TV shows to FFVII Remake to this, this kinda 'mystery box' stuff where they draw out a mystery to keep you tuning in, and do it really slowly. I hate this type of storytelling cause it just feels like episodes pass you by with nothing interesting being said in them. Westworld did it too I think, which is what these guys worked on previously. I'm glad this was a binge drop, cause I would have dropped it otherwise. It's pretty clear to me IMO that the show is not actually intended to be binge viewed, they wanted to do a weekly thing to get engagement going cause of the big megatons it drops towards the end. But I'm glad I didn't have to put up with that nonsense cause in this day and age it sorta feels a bit of an artificial thing considering the way on-demand viewing works. At the same time, I bet the show's viewing figures would have benefited with that (not that it's hurting in that regard)

I think towards the end it gets a bit too serious and dour and forgets to have a bit more fun with the setting, cause of the things mentioned. But even with all that it's actually a great installment in the Fallout series, a sort of Fallout 5 in a way. It made me resume my New Vegas playthrough and put Fallout 1 on the backlog for an isometric RPG to play at some point. I don't love it, there's bits that fucking suck, but it's just a much more interesting work than The Last of Us was. It's not a facsimile like that was. It's pulpy, but in a good way. While the video game coding of its world can be distracting at points, it's also just sort of part of the deal that you should be ready to accept anyway cause it's not embarrassed about its video game origins either, and they find innovative ways to integrate aspects of that gaming language into plot developments but also its narrative expression (try to tell which karma alignment each of the main characters is supposed to represent, and which way their moral compass tilts overtime)

Yeah, sales on PS5 are slowing down I think so this is clearly for a small group of crazies who already have one cause prices refuse to go down for any of this stuff

I've sort of had my fill of FFVII Rebirth so I don't feel the urgency as much now, but when/if they make that third one I might reconsider

1 hour ago, Maf said:

Oh, well. I'm downloading Fallout76. The show made me really want to play one of those games, so it was successful in that way 

Why howdy there pardner! I see you have downloaded and installed Fallout 76. A good choice! However I do not mean to be untoward partner, but did you actually mean to download Fallout New Vegas? It's an easy mistake to make pardner, so I thought I should remind you that Fallout New Vegas is also available on gamepass! 

Just go to manage storage and clear that space away and make room for Fallout New Vegas, it's easy! Anyway thought I would just try and help you out there pardner, it's an easy mistake to make. Don't be afraid to holler if you need anymore tips on installing Fallout New Vegas! Happy trails!

There's some kickstarters I wouldn't mind being able to contribute to after the funding window has closed, like a tip jar. I wish I could do that with Pathologic 2 but when the KS started at the time I was broke.

Buying gifts for others is an option but I feel weird about doing it, cause I feel I'm putting pressure on someone to play a game they might have no interest in. 

I thought Kirsten Stewart was in it but it was Kirsten Dunst, doh.

Well that's unfortunate cause I was hoping someone would go see Alex Garland's Civil War and report back on the fuss about it.

fwiw, looking up that film the other actress Juliette Binoche was in a film called Blue, which I watched ages back and found pretty good. 

I watched High and Low (1963) the other night. This is one of Kurosawa's films that aren't about samurai, with Mifune playing a high ranking executive at a shoe company on the brink of making some aggressive moves until his chaffeur's kid is kidnapped and he's got to decide whether or not to put his overly leveraged position on the line

It's a good film, but I have this issue with Kurosawa where I find his films a bit too straightforward or something so I often don't feel I'm getting as much with his films as others do. I mainly watched it cause Spike Lee is remaking it with Denzel, and so I figured it was a good time to check it out. I'll say at least that the theatrical framing it uses for the first part of the film, where it feels like a stageplay, and then later on it goes into more of a police procedural with a more active camera following a character down through the streets, it drifts between these two modes very effectively. It feels like you spend an enormous amount of time in the movie completely separated from the reality of the world it's set in, ensconced within this shoe guy's house, to then being thrown out and immersed completely within the city when it follows the police investigation (which I guess, there's the theme of the film for you in a way). Particularly in the scenes in the nightclub

There's a certain section in Cyberpunk which feels like a direct callout to John Wick. Nag might know the bit I'm mentioning

I watched 2 episodes of Fallout. I think it's really good, but maybe faithful to a fault. It understands and adapts its material really well, but to the point it does feel a bit like watching a video game at times.

Dunno if you would call that a negative as such, but it gives me kinda LARP vibes a bit. The video-gaming 'coding' of its world is a little bit too obvious to get immersed in its storytelling in these early chapters. It is violent and humourous in ways that you will recognise from the video game. 

As such maybe it's better to look at it is a fun addition to the already existing video games rather than try to pin it down to this other medium. Like an 8 hour live action FMV to watch alongside your New Vegas playthrough.

Not the topic for it I know but you really should play FFVIII

edit to include a bit of context I mean cause it's a game where powering up beyond reasonable levels has never been half as interactive and interesting as in VIII. It's the best game for this specific thing (XII is also good at it though)

I don't know what min max means in this context but these older FFs don't really require you to grind I think (at least not the 16/32 bit ones). You can generally speed through and the speedbumps you hit along the way are by design

I feel the opposite on the runtime, it felt more like it was a 3hr30 film crammed into 3hrs and had a few snips here and there. But Nolan's films often have that hurried feel to them where they don't really allow you to linger in one moment too long. 

There's also the fact imo that Nolan seems less interested in people (except one person) than he is in narrative techniques and tricks, which gives a sense of emotional coldness to a lot of his stuff (except maybe Interstellar). I have issues with the film but I think its narrative structure made up of criss-crossed fragments is what makes it interesting. Feels like the story is built around these tiny narrative particles colliding across time and memory, mirroring the turn of history itself as the invention of atom bombs triggers chain reactions into the future, changing the world fundamentally and mostly for the worse.

I just thought that worked really well and made it interesting

The stuff you're saying is why I put my playthrough on pause, read similar on reddit that its a bit undercooked in the back half and it had me wondering why i needed to level and get new gear

I'll be happy enough to just start over in a few months with a more complete endgame to look forward to, and maybe with some difficulty mods (we already have a couple), or something to reduce XP gain a bit

Shame that its not that game right now, though

I dont really think characters like Roche have anything to do with that

I think its more that the games are overly marketed to and tailored to players of the original, which are a shrinking and aging demograph

(This discuss came up on the previous page I know but half as much as remake is new info at least)