Leon's Microblog – August 2018

I'm aware this is ALSO a post-apocalyptic slice-of-life CGI edutainment (gemstone fact cards) cartoon, but unlike Kemono Friends it's not a game adaptation (and there isn't a huge ontological mystery about the protag and the setting, but a small one about everyone in general).

And the environment design sucks, which is a little disappointing for something with such vivid physicality and creature design. Its biggest draw is its emotional core, though - the season arc of trying to help the shunned, self-exiled member of their group is a great fulcrum.

I mean, it fits thematically, but I feel like the physical remoteness of the runner and the corp, unable to interact except through the ghostly virtual world, lends an air of fantasy and mystique to the genre, and things that bridge that gap, even briefly, sorta detract from it.

I normally find it hard to relate to mechas because the genre's dominant art style heavily emphasises rectilinear plate armour over knobbly chassis, nothing but inorganic angles over empty steel bones, unable to touch or be touched with anything but weapons and munitions.

Fast travel, in any of its forms, actually interests me a lot - it feels like the feature that's most revealing about how the game's plot wants to relate to its world topology, about how the game envisions itself being played.

I'll assume this is because the amount of hard information collation required to simply get the Gear is at the same level necessary for every remaining puzzle in the game.

I also want to add that the REAL mystery is that the entire right half of her body isn't fully skeletonised, as portrayed in the definitive mixed-mythology source tome, Everworld by K. A. Applegate.

It's remarkable, actually, how each zone of the game is like a Paper Mario chapter… tiny worlds of goofy enemies caught up in a cute little fantasy or fixation, a little twist that puts it all into sharp relief… the forest, the factory, the amusement park…

This thread probably sounds like I'm underwhelmed by the game, right… actually, I still enjoyed it a good deal, if only for the numerous parts that reminded me of the first two Paper Marios.

Me earlier: aw, the 9S version of this chapter replaces the "become as gods" chant music with… what is this music… Me now: This is literally the only decent music on the whole soundtrack. This is the Gusty Garden Galaxy of this videogame https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOM7dEQaaIw

There's a bunch of other bosses with scripted hacking segments that have cool unique hacking-space arenas, but you can also hack them before and after the scripted segment and you just get a basic enemy arena. It's all rather cutely, awkwardly inept.

*remembers that during the Soul Box boss fight in hacking space, you can inexplicably hack it and do nested hacking* God this game's systems are a mess

The other thing I don't really get is the hype for the story, which to me seems very… ordinary? For the science-fiction genre, or at least science-fiction manga. (Leon says, despite his only real experience with the latter being Nausicaä and a scanlation of Knights Of Sidonia)

I've now done the intended solution to finishing ending E, and I'll be one hundred and fifty percent honest with you: I don't get it

My old favourite thing "completing a fetch-quest with 9S that was given to his enemy, A2" has been supplanted by "buying a weapon made entirely of robots' severed heads, carrying it back to a chapter where the robots are alive, then getting those same robots to upgrade it to Lv3"

*gets to the bit with A2 and Pascal at the factory* Aww yeah baby, here comes that sweet delicious emotional manippy *my conscience starts drooling, and the drool is made of tears*

The fact that your entire inventory, experience levels AND equipment loadout is seamlessly shared across all characters, regardless of timeline location, seems like a quiet admission that none of that garbage actually matters to the plot one iota, and only exists for marketing.

The amusement park has honestly one of the most enchanting atmospheres of a game area I've played in some time, to the point where I'm upset that this is a goddamn JRPG and I have to dash through it over and over for a ton of fetch quests… like chewing gum 'til it's flavourless.

I kinda like how stark and bereft of visual features the city overworld is… at times the surroundings feel so nondescript, it's like I'm playin' a solemn black-and-white science-fiction manga.

I'm upset that every time the hacking minigame plays a squarewave mix of the current area's background music, I immediately think of freaking Super Mario Odyssey's NES murals.

In MY opinion, YoRHa's military uniform of faux-Victorian gothic lace dresses is just as valid an imagining of the fashion of an unfathomably distant, almost unrecognisable future as the Star Trek jumpsuits were… probably more so.

The real reason 2B has her eyes covered is to simulate the act of facepalming at every possible moment, deliver message

I'll be generous and say that it's slightly easier than La Mulana 1, in that there's usually a few more hints about when and for what purpose a code is going to be used.

Regarding the bottom row: I am very confident that high-end 1000+ player tournaments will NOT permit the error-prone ritual of turning hazard toggle on and off whenever you pick those two stages, instead of just removing them outright.