*steeples fingers and swirls a half-full wineglass at the same time, presumably by grasping the stem with both thumbs and waving the steepled hands back and forth*
I'm fixated on how much this game's main plot writing is stripped of details and particulars to keep it as blunt as possible. The most telling fact, for me, is that that the ancient sages in this game don't even have names.
It's a popular preconception that every memorably bad B-movie is full of unbearably wooden performances except for one actor who knows they're in a rock and is determined to chew as much scenery as possible on the way down. Anyway, Master Kohga is played by one of those people.
So far I've done 4 plot quest dungeons, and my takeaway is: no one is allowed to call Kirby games "for literal small children" now that this game exists.
This game really expects you to watch the same flashback cutscene four times with identical information but with different voiceovers, huh. That's one of the things it expects of you.
The overworld enemy encounter music is just as obnoxious in this game as it is in all previous games, all the way back to OoT.
Elden Ring copied this music concept from BotW and it was even obnoxious there, too. (But at least it actually varied between regions.)
2017: Princess Zelda is a powerless disembodied voice that only Link can hear
2023: Princess Zelda is a cryptid like Bigfoot or the Flatwoods Monster
So like……………… does Nintendo /have/ to write NPC dialogue like that
do they really have to
It's easy to think of Okina as "2010's Yukari" due to somewhat overlapping powers, but the way in which Yukari is more actively interested in Reimu and being a part of the world, versus Okina's ineffability and imperiousness, is a big enough distinction.
I like Yukari (Touhou character) but I think it's easily forgotten that in Perfect Cherry Blosson she was more of the lazy self-absorbed type of character (similar to previous EX bosses) and grew into the subtle mastermind type later. Okina, conversely, was born into the role.
Everyone loves repeating the catchy song lyrics from Sonic games but no one loves repeating the catchy song lyrics from NieR games : (
Do Umineko fans actually call their fanfics "forgeries" or just a few specific wiseacres
If they make BotW 3 and put yet another precursor civilisation in it that also serves the same narrative role as the previous game's precursor civilisation, I'm going to do the Stuntcopter backflip
The Neo Geo version of the Death Saturn (a Sega Saturn with a Death Crimson disc superglued onto the drive's spindle) is welding in four cartridges of Gururin (i.e. basically impossible)
I did the geoglyph quest and mostly feel annoyed at how much they hammered each plot beat of an already basic narrative into a fine paste for the benefit of speculative 7-year-olds.
Also, I called le cool twist way early… but didn't quite expect them to entirely follow through.
This game (TotK) is ostensibly a sequel, but it narratively feels less like BotW 2 and more like… BotW season 2.
Which is rather refreshing for a Zelda, but ultimately means none of BotW's narrative strengths and weaknesses have meaningfully changed or improved even slightly.
Good news is I just channeled all my resources, weapon crafting, and AI manip know-how to beat a boss in Korok Forest while extremely underleveled. The bad news is I have now run out of interesting things to do in this game and am now watching Tetris tournament VODs.
I have been surprised at how well Recall synergises in a quality-of-life way with the machinery/construction mechanics that Ultrahand provides (that is, by letting you put machines back in place after they freaking fall off a cliff or rocket away without you).
The four runes in this game feel a lot more balanced in power compared to BotW's… though BotW's emphasis on elements/materials with Cryonis and Magnesis worked well with that game's strong nature themes. This game's theming is way messier in comparison.
So far my only interesting TotK observation (more than just thinking "Elden Ring did it better" at the underground stuff) is: yeesh, Super Mario Sunshine's genes really do just keep re-emerging at Nintendo. It truly has become the ur-Nintendo game, whether we like it or not.
I'm playing TotK and was deeply admiring the boldness in not bringing back the paraglider, forcing new ways of traversing the world. Then at the 7 hour mark I discover plot quest 1 gives you the paraglider, and I was so mad I had to battle the ragequit urges for two full minutes.
Would centaurs be buried on their side in L-shaped coffins, or on their backs in extra-long coffins? BTW none of you are permitted to figure out what my local time is
I like how Tetris: The Absolute: The Grand Master 2 Plus's single-player is a revered technical and skill-testing masterpiece, and then you see the versus mode and it's full of random items like lasers and "opponent's next piece becomes 4x bigger", AND everyone loves it that way.
I want Arle in Smash, but only if she uses Madou Monogatari's gimmick where, instead of a % number on the bottom of the screen, it's just her face getting gloomier.
Pochi & Nyaa is the Smash Bros. of versus puzzlers:
• Not obvious whether any attack is enough to KO
• If you aren't KO'd by a hit, then you can definitely recover
• At high percents ("Hurry Up" x4 or more) it devolves into frantically spamming down tilts and neutral airs
I honestly really, really like this game's CPU AI. It really does force you to learn the important stuff: countering only that which is necessary, keeping your main attack ready to fire, using screen space as a resource, and making sure you can numerically win an exchange.
Benjamin
Benjamin
Wikipedia sentences that invoke joy
Welcome to my Nyoki-Nyoki frag vid
Trying to get chain length PBs feels like I've unlocked a new, different and far higher echelon of mind-crumbling difficulty that was hidden in this game all along.
Me but I've crossed out half the title, wrote "Higurashi", and added an arrow reading "she's not in it" https://twitter.com/beebeeibuki/status/1657623909053911040
Welcome to my StarSweep frag vid
This form originated as a part of this famous chain (allegedly), and over a few years, the chain's extraneous elements were removed or iterated on until just the lower-left corner, the secret ingredient, became the only surviving part. https://twitter.com/puyopuyo_gtr/status/1650504381031399424
Trying to leet up my Puyo skills by practicing building this:
🟢🔴
🟢🟢🔴
🔴🔴
This is the most space-efficient way to convert vertical Puyo motion into horizontal motion, allows you to keep building in either direction, and is widely considered the gateway to 6-chains and on.
*thinking to oneself in meditative contemplation* If the Columns magic gem was in Tetris, it would land on a row, and then all rows with an identical number of holes would be erased. *the corner of my lip imperceptibly twitches in satisfaction*
"In Tetris, empty spaces are garbage blocks that you destroy by filling up." – strange wisdom dismissed as heresy by the ancients
The "don't trust anything that bleeds for 3 days and doesn't die" quote is actually about having hemorroids. Yes, this is indeed the best I could come up with after not tweeting for two days.
Realising uses of "<noun> Hell" in Japanese works are probably references to the Eighteen Hells of Chinese Mythology (e.g. "Hell of Blood Pools" 血池地獄, "Hell of Oil Cauldrons" 油鍋地獄) meaning that "Puyo Puyo Hell" (ぷよぷよ地獄) from Puyo Puyo 1 is implied to be among them.
"Versus puzzle gamers can't count" is the "Magic: The Gathering players can't read" of versus puzzle games
When Citra thinks you and your pal are being too handsy
By the way: every time "Hurry Up" appears, all players get an added damage multiplier (which the site calls "Rate" https://web.archive.org/web/20040515113848/http://www.aiky.biz/pochinya/lesson/lesson13.html). Puyo has a similar but, of course, much more opaque system. Thus, as the site says, holding back a big stockpile is numerically rewarded.
*thinks about how the Super Smash Bros. localisers couldn't localise PK Fire or PK Thunder the way they were in EarthBound because they didn't want to redo two of Ness's voice lines, but /could/ localise PSI Magnet because it didn't have a line* Ahh, fate is a fickle mistress
This somewhat crudely illustrates what higher-difficulty play involves. This game places heavy emphasis on being able to hang back and tank the opponent's first hits by keeping the middle column low and the rest high, and building both your main attack and some followup fire.
I didn't notice it before, but the autogenerated YouTube thumbnail for my surprise 1CC sequel video has a real clickbaity "how's Leon gonna get out of THIS pickle" vibe.
Puyos
Agree if you RT
Live unedited 100000000ppi camera footage of me right now
What? Hard? Nuh mate. Mate. MAAATE. This game's a cinch. A bloody CINCH, mate. There's nuthin' these buggers can do to stop me. Nuthin', mate! *my extreme meltdown-level cognitive dissonance continues making my accent even more Australian than usual*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2CPQ2Bg3pY
So, after a month and a half break, I finally tried to play Puyo Puyo 1 for MAME again.
And…
…
I GOT ANOTHER 1CC.
Saw a review that called Nyaa and Pochi the game's "Carbuncles", which, well… it feels like a tremendous burn to compare the two unaccountable divine forces that steer the game's conflict and watch over all its battles, to pets… even though that's literally what they also are…
They voice-acted the How To Play?? What is this, a PlayStation game now?
NetHack patch that changes "Elbereth" to "Minors DNI"
The videogame's website has an entire Strong Bad Emails-type section where you could write to the tutorial boss??? And it had 162 emails?!
WHO WAS RUNNING THIS SITE https://web.archive.org/web/20051024001742/http://www.aiky.biz/pochinya/udonsoudan.html
I think it's cute how Pochi and Nyaa are depicted repeatedly pressing red buttons to represent these two gods meddling in the affairs of mortals.
in that respect I'm imagining a mythical mountain of Puyos, chaining down since the dawn of time, and when it finally disappears, the first second of eternity will be over – and on the other side of the world, a similar mountain perfectly countering the first mountain's garbage.
In the indie fighter Slap City one of the stages features two "statues" that are actually two demigods that punched each other so hard that they both took 10,000 years' worth of hitstop animation frames. Anyway,
The Puyo Puyo 1 garbage system is so nutty to think about in a historical context. Why, in a world of Dr. Mario and Columns, did they make a 4-chain drop that much garbage
Just turned on a VOD of Puyo Puyo 1 and my brain instantly called it "the Hell Machine for batankyuuing all Arles" which definitely means I need to go for a walk
Liv's beam attack is called her "Optimistic Blast"… Why is so much of this website written in-character…
I can't believe Misty (Pochi & Nyaa character) is canonically on a journey to find the puppetmaster who cursed her dick. *absolutely none of my remaining followers know what the frick this is a reference to, thus causing me to lose 3d6 Relatability*
The only two characters who get voiceacting in Pochi and Nyaa are… Nyaa the cat and Pochi the dog.
If you want my Pochi & Nyaa character tier list, simply visualise the Puchi Carat character tier list I posted a couple months ago, then replace the row containing "She's hot" and a picture of Patrako with "He's hot" and a picture of Paradisus. The other rows are still a WIP.
The linked article says that while Pochi & Nyaa was being developed by Compile, it was meant to be set 1000 years after Madou Monogatari… Of course, by the time it released, they no longer owned the rights… ;_;
My brain right now
The main character's Japanese dialogue is so extra…
Another page (temporarily retitled "Teach Me! Graber-sensei") describes most of the game world locations… it's just like Puchi Carat… :' )
I can't believe this. The official Pochi & Nyaa site has a section called "Teach Me! Misty-sensei" (can't remember what this is a reference to) and one of the pages asks the reader if chaining is the point of this game, and you have to answer "Yes" or "No".
OK… so far I've unlocked 2 of the 4 secret characters… but for one of them I had to watch a Nicovideo playthrough and reverse-engineer the conditions by which it got the unlock.
If it turns out I have to beat Time Attack for another one, I'll be slightly miffed.
True if huge
*spends twenty solid minutes trying to workshop a tweet connecting "少女祈祷中" (fanslated as "Girls are now praying") from Touhou, and "1. BE PRAYING / 2. BE PRAYING / 3. BE PRAYING" from Radiant Silvergun, only to lose interest and start thinking about birds instead*
Thinking about the official Pochi & Nyaa plushies…… (from https://web.archive.org/web/20040522165227/http://www.aiky.biz/pochinya/diary/diary_030703.html)
I feel so sad that this game, whose design feels so much more polished and refined by historical hindsight, isn't popular like Puyo is.
*I am quietly reminded that Puyo isn't even popular* Oh… that makes me feel better.
Just discovered that this freaking videogame (Pochi & Nyaa) offers this control scheme, by default, for playing 2P versus with one controller…!?
Getting good at Pochi & Nyaa is literally this
You people won't BELIEVE how cathartic it is to play this videogame after Puyo Puyo 1 and destroy two garbage blocks with a single drop.
🔺🔻🔺WARNING🔺🔻🔺
⚠️NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHING⚠️
Wait… they're slowing down…
⚠️NEW CHALLENGER TURNING AROUND⚠️
They're glancing around… they're… leaving…
⚠️NEW CHALLENGER WALKING AWAY⚠️
They must have went the wrong way… oh well… their silhouette looked cool…
Time to play the game the way _I_ want to. *sets every Story Mode battle to best-of-17*
You can't fool me. "TOTK RYUJINX" is just a NetHack unidentified scroll name.
*imagines how disgusting Pochi & Nyaa could get if it had Kasiori's Open attack, letting your lines detonate the opponent's* Holey moley
I'm absolutely convinced that Pochi & Nyaa Moment 37 hasn't happened yet, but definitely could and should
Dang, this Pochi & Nyaa tournament set (at 1:58:30) is wild… Makes me wish this game actually had a real tournament scene and not just emulator netplay (weeps) https://youtu.be/asiI0oql0CA?t=7108
This music track is for STAGE 3??
This is Umineko episode 8 music (when pink woman fights purple woman)
Well… believe it or not, but this game A) never had an OST, and B) has not been ripped for download on any of the usual sites. But… using a few specialised tools… I was able to pull the tracks straight out of the disk image, and play them as-is. Can't believe it was that easy.
I'm really curious about the decision to make this game's board 7-wide instead of the Columns standard 6… I'm convinced that after they figured out that masterfully elegant garbage formula, 7-wide was the ingenious little hack they needed to make the numbers work out just right.
I'm reminded that arcade Puyo Puyo 1 was the big moment when this changeover happened - it offered ZERO single-player modes other than the story mode, and since then, VS. CPU battles have been the "main event" - in Panel De Pon, Puzzle Fighter, etc.
That being said, it's interesting how the "primary" single-player modes both of these games have - time or move-limited scoring - simply place a hard limit to work inside of, entirely focusing on combos or chains as ways to get points instead of also being efficient clears.
In this game, where you can clear pieces at will, there's no longer even a hint of danger from the basic rules - it's more-or-less given that without the opponent's attacks, you could survive forever. Petal Crash is pretty much the same way.
One thing I've been thinking about a lot is how, as these games push more toward player interaction, they move away from the notion that they are "puzzles" like Tetris or Columns, where simply putting the pieces together at all is challenging.
Enchanted by some of the music in this game, which sounds straight out of Arkanoid DS. This is what happens when a game with very 90's character designs gets delayed so hard it ends up in 2003.
It took me awhile to twig onto this, but the main character being named Prim (from ぷりん, lit. "pudding"), who's going on this quest just to get pumpkin pudding, and who wears pudding-coloured clothing, has got to have some traces of Cotton in her.
Puchi Carat (1997)
Instantly immolating the final boss by calling him "discount Slappy from Goosebumps"
Here is how Pochi & Nyaa explains how much garbage an attack sends, and what maximises garbage. No other versus puzzle game explains its garbage formula so intuitively. Petal Crash doesn't explain its garbage formula. Puyo's garbage formula has freaking FOUR variables in it.
Playing the game Pochi & Nyaa. This game feels so modern in how it approaches the versus puzzle genre, even more than Petal Crash does. Absolutely everything is simplified. You can just press a button to clear structures, like how Petal Crash is "just collide the blocks".
Moledusa has earthworms for hair
and only nibbles them when she's sure no one's looking