Shorty

I've only played this for a few hours but I'm really liking it so far. At the moment I'm just enjoying an RPG that's not too silly but not too serious? Tired of grimdark or over-dark humour in my sci-fi games and this seems to be having a bit more fun. Ultimately it just feels like more Skyrim but on planets. I do agree with some complaints that a lot of traveling has been reduced down to menu navigation, but when you do choose to float around space it feels very cool. I'm only playing on a gamepass free trial but fairly sure I'll buy the Steam version when that runs out (would've stuck with gamepass if it could be modded....)

I've been playing this entirely in co-op and having a great time. I've been playing D&D for years so it's great fun to see the lore, recognise the races, to create facsimilies of players we've been in the past. Also the choices you get to pick in conversation, especially for difficult deception checks etc, feel exactly like the kind of laughable ideas a player would come up with that you all find hilarious when you actually land a 20 and it works. That said, I'm not 100% convinced the game benefits that much from D&D as a play structure, especially in combat. It already changed a lot of fundamentals because they knew D&D is pretty flawed in combat. And I miss some of the great aspects of Divinity like all the mixing of elemental effects. Still an awesome game though, despite that.

I thought Attack on Titan had already completely finished - because I saw people sending death threats because they hated how it ended so much? Or was that just the manga.

Actually they were releasing 3 episodes a week which is pretty reasonable I think, and they're all out now. I personally prefer a slower release of shows so I can fight the temptation to binge watch and won't go very long gaps with nothing to watch (which is what I'm experiencing now) Also not sure if you're aware of it, but the whole thing is an adaptation of a popular podcast/video series called Critical Role - a group of famous voice actors playing Dungeons and Dragons, the campaign written and DM'd by Matt Mercer, another big name in VA. They have a lot of laughs and act occasionally and typically childish for a D&D party, hence the general tone/swearing/violence. The players reprise their characters' roles for the cartoon too.

I literally dusted off the Gamecube to play this a couple of months ago, thinking a remaster would never happen. Typical

I really need another super low stakes TV series that you're always happy to stick on, especially while you're eating your evening meal. Two past examples of this that I think you'll agree are basically identical, are Star Trek Next Gen or Masterchef: The Professionals.

I bought myself a guitar, yes I'm hitting my midlife crisis a little bit early. I had an electric guitar when I was a teenager but I never wanted to take lessons, I just wanted to learn the tabs of my favourite riffs from my favourite songs, but I never got any good at it. I always thought I'd be able to just follow video lessons, but the internet was also still fairly young then and YouTube was barely off the ground. Such a thing didn't really exist then... but it does now. I sold my guitar and sold my amp when I moved house 2.5 years ago....... hell I didn't even keep my strap, and I gave my cool pedal to a friend. And so now I decide I want to pick it back up... I have to buy everything again. Along with a discount yearly sub of the "Justin Guitar" app -- I'm putting some effort in for 2023, so far I've practiced 20-60 mins every day for the 31 days since it was delivered. Also if you know guitars, don't ask me which guitar I got, cos you'll shake your head at me for spending so much as a beginner (but I did get 20% off) I'm posting about this here because I want to be held accountable for this and check back on my progress in 2024.

This is a damn fine TV. Not sure how that happened. This and Andor were definitely two that I had low expectations for, and couldn't have been more wrong.

If you have a Switch but you've never had any other means/inclination to play a Persona game - I really, really advise that you check out Persona 4 Golden. It's one of the greatest RPGs ever made and I don't think you'll be disappointed. An incredible experience start to finish. I am however a bit disappointed in the version of Persona 3 that they chose to release, they could've done so much more with it. It's well suited for the Switch though and still an amazing game.

25, that's crazy! I wish we had a bit of a write-up somewhere of where it all began, it's becoming a blur for me in my old age.... Thanks to everyone for their hard work contributing over the years, and thanks to all the Nintendo fans for sticking around

I’m struggling to decide how I feel about this game overall. I don’t think I’ve ever thought a game was simultaneously amazing and terrible before but I think that’s what this is… All the wackiness, the Nier-like variety to gameplay, the stylish and pinpoint combat, it’s in a class of its own. But all that is wrapped in this bizarre package of bland backdrops, clunky platforming, horrendously cringy cutscenes and really frustrating decisions around things like menus, animations and challenges. For example, there’s no no way I’m going to suffer my way to 100% on a game that makes rewatch a slow clip of where the 5 boxes you need to grab are, every single time you retry to grab them. I find myself just wanting to get back to the action which is sublime enough that I’m still having a good time, and I can see a point in time soon where I start skipping cutscenes and sidequests altogether…

The fact that you can just watch Bleach on Disney+ in the UK on the day it airs really goes to show how far things have changed. Back in that ^ era of Naruto the only way to watch the latest episode was to wait for the fans to rip it, subtitle it and share it online. Pretty crazy really! And that's nothing compared to the generation before that had to get pirate VHS at the market! Great to support the creators directly, but a bit of me still misses fansubs with their karaoke animations etc and the anticipation of waiting for the release to drop each week!

I completely gave up on XC2 when I was probably about 5% in... story, towns, characters, complex combat... it just wasn't for me. But you guys are really piquing my interest, is it worth a look even if I didn't like a lot about its predecessor? I loved JRPGs back in the day.

Congrats Cube! Glad to hear he's doing well. I recently had a neice born into the world also crazily early (just barely 27 weeks) - she's got a long road ahead of her but it's incredible what the hospitals can do for them these days.

There's something a bit unnerving about knowing we can't really trust what we see on screens anymore! Although I'm sure people felt the same when Photoshop became a thing.