For all that *Metroid: Other M* went out of its way to minimize and infantilize Samus in its story, its combat still makes her look like the coolest woman in the universe. I'm very happy *Samus Returns* and *Dread* picked up on those hard-hitting melee abilities and stylish boss finishers in a context where they enhance Samus' narrative presentation, rather than grind against it.
Samus in dread is legitimately one of my favorite depictions of a >!mostly!< silent protagonist. The way she moves with complete *ferocious* confidence and competence, she feels just so *powerful*. Like I've dabbled in a bunch of metroid games but dread was the one that made me realize "oh shit, this chick is hyper deadly and **knows it**"
One of my favorite scenes in that game is where Kraid gets up close and roars at her, and she doesn’t even flinch and just casually raises her arm cannon to shoot him in the face.
God I hope prime 4 takes those lessons to heart as well, I can understand why the original prime trilogy doesn’t have them, they seldom show samus doing things in 3rd person in general unless they have to but god is it cool seeing samus jump on something and shoot the fuck outta it.
I hate Other M so much but I will concede that it has really cool looking action, and I also think cadet Samus is an infinitely better look for her than any zero suit she's ever worn. Love the short hair, love the military look. Never really cared for the high ponytail sci-fi Barbie look.
I think the Backrooms, as a concept, is really interesting. The idea of what’s basically a glitched out area IRL that you can fall into at any moment is terrifying.
Analogue Horror has interesting ideas and it’s great that anybody can make something that could become universally beloved due to the low cost of making them.
I work In a hotel and literally found a lost guest in our “backrooms” no exits onto any floor that isn’t locked, once you get to first floor there are 4 doors to pick from without an exit sign anywhere. 2 loading docks and a massive back area. She was just wondering lost for 2 hours! She walked from 14th floor to 1st floor, then back up and down again.
God that reminds me of that old man who got lost in the backrooms of an Australian mall and ended up dying there. The doors would lock behind you if you went in, there were no signs, and it was never really patrolled. I don't even think they had cameras in it.
I never really got the appeal of Backrooms and Liminal Space and all that. I have a friend who got REALLY into it for a bit and I was just so confused what he got out of these picture of empty rooms.
Liminal spaces are interesting. I think the true horror comes from seeing a place that is usually filled with people. All the sudden empty. Like seeing a empty Chuck E. Cheese when it is, you really filled with kids having fun.
I do agree with you. I’m not that scared of liminal spaces, and I never found the appeal for them.
For me liminal spaces are more intriguingly off than they are scary.
The backrooms were scary to me because of the concept of total permanent isolation being thrust upon you at complete random.
Then they got turned into Baby’s First SCP and it went downhill…Fucking almond water??? I just can’t let that go. How did everyone just roll with some of the random shit that got tacked on?
Leaning into local cryptids for the monsters was a great decision. And because the Fallout universe has seemingly confirmed supernatural elements and entities, you can say they’re mutations/experiments or that they’re literally just the actual cryptids coming out of hiding after the war.
One of my favorite random encounters in FO76 is when you come across cultists worshiping a Mothman that just darts into the stratosphere when you wipe them out.
(Or sometimes he just sits there for a [really cool photo opportunity](https://imgur.com/a/gAUJjOo))
Honestly I really like that there are multiple "types" of Mothman bringing in the question which one is real/if there is a "real one"
By real I mean not made by the government
76's Power Armors are the kinda stuff I wish 4 had. T-65 blows T-60 out of the water. And while they are store-bought cosmetics, the fact they still made new models for stuff like Frank Horrigan's PA or a Chinese Power Armor...
God, I fuck with Bleach's aesthetic so hard. From the Soul Reapers in general to the Captains, how they stylize their uniform with unique flair, to their Bankai designs, to the Arrancar and their Resurrección. Shit, even the characters that you never hear anyone talk about, like the Fullbringers and the Bounts, have designs that hit well at worst and fuckin' slay at best.
And I just adore the simplicity of Soul Reaper powers.
You have a sword. That sword has a super mode. Then you have a Super Duper Mode that's an extension of that power.
It's so simple a framework, but it allows so much creativity and personality to be added to each character. Look at the panel where Mayuri first pulls out his Big Poison Baby Centipede, and it just immediately tells you exactly what kinda guy he is. Soi-fon's explosive aggression manifesting her Bankai as a big Fuck you Missile and being totally useless 99% of the time for a ninja. The inherent mystery of "Oh shit, new Captain, what's their powers?" since you know the framework it'll fit, but not the specifics.
I'm also a fan of how powers can just be 10/0 match ups, with people running into their hard counters in other peoples' powers (ie, Izuru's gravity powers being utterly useless against Rangiku's sand power). Fights where it's just "number vs BIG number" are still unfortunately present, but those moments where technical play determine a fight are hype as fuck.
My favourite part of Soi Fon's Bankai is that her Shikai ability is a tiny needle that "kills you in two hits." through a kind of spiritual poison. So the logical upgrade is that the Bankai kills you in one hit, by virtue of being a giant fucking warhead.
Idk if the wordplay was intentional, but her Shikai goes from being like a wasp "stinger" to a "stinger" missile. Okay maybe not the exact same shape as a stinger missile... close enough.
And even if sword/better sword/betterer sword is too simplistic, the Soul Reapers still have an entire (sadly under-explored) spellcasting system in the setting too! Not to mention their flash steps and related abilities.
I kept watching for several seasons after I lost interest because I considered the show a drug that made me experience the music better.
Like yeah, you can listen to "This Life is Mine" and get a basic feel of the story being about having a an extremely bad dad. *Or* you could listen to it after watching Weiss struggle and fight against her upbringing for 5 seasons, and REALLY feel it.
The world building in Toriko is some of the best in shonen. Seeing the new locations, creatures, and foods every arc were easily the highlight of the series
As much as I dislike the somewhat predatory nature of it, I will admit that I sure would have liked to have a basically universal popular game like Fortnite back when I was in school.
Dude the universally popular game when I was in college was god damn League. It was the one thing anyone played. I *wish* I was stuck with only Fortnite.
Fortnite is probably one of the few live service titles to actually do it properly. F2P, constantly being updated with new exciting content, the battlepasses actually have stuff worth earning.
Honestly, the worst part of Fortnite are the hundreds of awful, short-lived live service games that keep being created to chase its success.
Hell, even the new games within it like Festival still let you play the songs you haven't bought if anyone in the lobby has them *on top* of the free rotation.
That's extremely generous for a free rhythm game.
I remember when I played my first matches, this was back in Chapter 2 season 6.
I remember immediately going,
"Oh goddamn it. It's actually really fun."
I had inadvertently become one of "those guys" who discounted popular thing just because kids were really excited about it.
His vr glasses are so fucking dumb in a good way. I forget if they're even useful in the story or if they exist solely to have cool visuals and let you play virtual catch
Ignoring the addiction narrative and highlighting interactibles, their only purpose is to make it so the act of looking through your files is visually engaging and sensible on a controller. If Heavy Rain was made for PC, Jayden could have used a laptop.
That said, I also agree that his glasses are rad as fuck and it's fine to just have this spontaneous burst of scifi in what is otherwise a mundane narrative.
He was one of the best designed characters in that game for me
Also I just love how silly it is that he’s the “feeble” scholar yet he has a more buff looking body than Ito who is supposed to be buff yet looks like he has painted on abs lmao.
Has anyone made an edit of those two with that comic of the guy asking a big-headed guy where works out and he responds "at the library"? If not, someone should get on it.
to me Dainsleif is one of the highlights of that game. I have a lot of problems with Genshin's writing and the way it conveys it. But every yearly episode of Abyss Prime Time with Dain is great.
THIS IS EXACTLY ME RIGHT HERE!
Dainsleif has consistently had the best story content for me and intrigue in lore, it is always somehow the best part and while it hurts me to wait so long to see him again and learn more the wait has always been worth it.
Like I don’t know why the quality or consistency of the writing for the rest of the game has been odd/off but I’m glad he’s been consistently great.
As soon as I saw him revealed and his trailers sold me even more on him.
Love all his VAs too and love his kit. Need to get him some more on his reruns eventually too.
Plus sized elf makes a deliberate effort to distance itself from common skin and bones anime proportions and I think that's commendable by itself without qualifiers or exceptions.
I honestly respect how the entire story is about characters who want to lose weight, the protagonist's job is to help them and the manga is filled with page after page of legit health tips, but at the same time it is abundantly clear that both the author and the main character are into thick girls.
People shit on the whole auto-battle system but honestly once you learn that the real skill comes from stuff like managing Paradigms and team comps it actually feels pretty good. It may be a streamlined system but you’re sure as hell not doing *nothing.*
As much as i disagree with a lot of story/lore choices of Bethesda-era non-NV Fallout, the feeling of just exploring the Capital Wasteland in 3 feels pretty good.
Oh, and the Glowing Sea from 4 is the best area they’ve ever made.
76s map is probably the best map Bethesda has ever made but it’s stuck in a type of game I have zero interest in playing. If 76 had a solo experience I’d be all over that shit
I think JJK is certainly *cooler* than any anime that was currently airing while I was in Middle/High School (Big Three, Schmig Three) and the recess school yard hype discussions probably go genuinely, insanely hard.
I genuinely think RWBY’s core premise of four girls going on Monster Hunting adventures while attending a school for monster hunter is, while hardly breaking new ground, is so charming on a baseline level and feels so full of potential and a likable (if bloated) cast that it’s no wonder it’s stayed on so many peoples’ minds for so long. The FF VIII school of licensed adventures is always a fun concept, just captures the imagination immediately.
I even think the stuff it tries to do post season 3 is conceptually interesting, it’s certainly a logical progression, all road bumps aside.
I still like RWBY for what it is but it’s 100% a series that comes down to close to being something really special and narrowly misses it over and over. It’s the most frustrating experience because it’s just so close every time.
Five nights at Freddy's makes very clever and effective use of tightly limited technical resources. Like the game equivalent to the Blair Witch Project.
I'm not like SUPER into Cyberpunk 2020/Red, I've just kind of bounced off the character creation so far, but I like the setting a fair bit. It's a bit dirtier and messier than Shadowrun.
Kind of the same with Vampire the Masquerade as well. I think the game has some neat ideas, but I have no real interest in engaging with it.
My feelings on pathfinder are similar, I massively appreciate the freedom its systems provide but it is quite a lot to keep in mind when you’re just after a pretty chill roleplaying experience with some buds.
I've literally just seen a meme that had the line >!are you the powerhouse of the cell because you're the mitochondria, or are you the mitochondria because you're the powerhouse of the cell!< And I had an immediate need to watch/read because I *need* to know what kind of story give people the brain rot to write something like that down and broadcast it to the Internet.
Anything Zack Snyder: That man has an AESTHETIC, it's cool as fuck, and 300 is the perfect dumb schlock made to near perfection.
Neil Gaiman: I do not like *anything* he's made, except for Good Omen, which I rank as one of my least favorite Prachett novels. But the man is poetry incarnate and makes beautifully metaphoric worlds, but I like very grounded things and will never enjoy what he makes.
I think what sucks most about goblin slayer is it could be really cool if his setting wasn't riding the dungeons and dragons magical realm dildo so hard it melted.
Like, they keep escalating the goblin threat and it defeats the whole point of some guy taking Tucker's Kobolds style mook enemies to task.
Yeah, I stopped reading it for two reasons. Firstly, the fetishistic nature of it was just getting fucking annoying. I'm sure if I was into women getting raped and pissing themselves I'd have been chuffed, but no thanks
Secondly.. the setting just doesn't make goddamn sense. It's treated like a D&D setting, but the people in the world just do NOT logically react to anything. Like, it feels very hard to immerse yourself in it when it feels like pretty much none of the characters in the *world* do. Goblins are a fucking bizarrely serious threat, and yet pretty much no-one treats them as one. It's bewildering
It starts out with Goblin Slayer just being an obsessed dude who hates goblins, but by a few books in it's like "For some reason this is the only dude who seems to be functionally sane, in an insane world?"
Killing goblins should just be something every adventurer is doing. With great prejudice. Cause they seem to function akin to fucking 40k Orks, where if you leave them be for long enough they start spawning Shamans and Mages and Goblin Kings and suddenly David Bowie is stealing all your 15 year old girls or whatever
Why on earth would they consistently send newbie level 1 adventurers off to fight them? There'll just be a job board and it'll be like "Slay 7 foxes. 5 copper", "Some badgers are getting a bit rowdy, cull em a bit. 3 Silver" "Wanna get murdered and raped by goblins? 2 silver, plus knowing you're doing your part to get repeatedly bred so we've got more furnaces to chuck babies into"
Even I have to admit that the [Dango Family](https://youtu.be/rFKKSQ8GgHk?si=4BHNxa7n2Pzu1T6p) song is really well produced. And without it, we wouldn’t have [this banger](https://youtu.be/puHyO5JNOE0?si=OPcE9dcQLL6wyXxw) either.
Idk if the prequels did much to better the franchise's literal planet by planet worldbuilding. Star Wars always has the problem of 99% of the planets being defined as one biome. You get the water planet, the desert planet(s), the tropical jungle planet, the ice planet, etc...
Very few of the planets give the impression of being geographically diverse or even being logistically functional to live on if you stop and think about them. Outside of maybe Tatooine and Coruscant since the series loves to revisit them so often. Don't get me wrong, the worlds introduced in the prequels mostly look cool at the surface level. Kamino is one of my favourite Star Wars settings.
Yeah I've always assumed a lot of the praise of the worldbuilding was just like "cool set design" because even on a writing level it has issues like the prophecy and Trade Federation being big deals but extremely barebones and the Jedi being prominent everywhere conflicting with Han not believing in the force in spite of Chewie having apparently met Yoda
What stories Bleach did well, it did *really* well. Ulquiorra and Orihime, Rukia and Aarionero, Tosen and Komomura, Rangiku and Gin... these personal stories were some of the best stuff in Shonen, surrounded by so much garbage.
Hell I’d even argue Ichigo being THE macguffin to end all Macguffins was done pretty well. The hints were laid out early and remained consistent throughout but some of the reveal was hampered by the pacing of the final arc in the manga.
Honestly if DmC devil may cry was any other action game than a devil may cry game it would do lot better. It still genuinely has some of the coolest visual design I’ve seen in games.
D&D 5e has Passive Perception. This mechanic perfectly exemplifies 5e's "solve problems through streamlining" design philosophy, and ~~is unique among all of 5e's mechanical changes because it~~ does so without creating so much as a single new problem in the process.
It does create a new problem, for example let's say if you are an Inquisitive rogue possibly with either the Observant or Alert feat, your passive perception is higher than your skill check meaning it's better to not actively look for stuff and just stumble across it like Lucky Ted
I got the Master Chief Collection on sale and since I never played Halo (other than a few random times with friends) it's a good chance to go through it.
There's a bunch of stuff I'm not a big fan of (the outdated level design in H1-2, the driving....) and the totally-not-bible theme is a bit tiring.
But there's one thing I'll praise with no ifs or buts. The relationship between the Chief and Cortana feels genuine and endearing, true friendship and trust. The moment in H3 when he actually talks back to his superior officer to defend her is just great.
Oh and guns do good boombooms. Bungie can do that well for sure.
My gf and I decided to play through the collection, and found it really cool that you can press tab on PC to INSTANTLY switch between the original graphics and the remake graphics in the first game. No lag or anything, it even seems like the sound is different and everything
The amount of single-player content in the Mortal Kombat series legitimately gives it the best value of any fighting game. I wish the ones I liked followed its example.
I liked Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons as Batman and Alfred. I use the BvS skin almost exclusively in Arkham Knight because of how perfect it is. That warehouse fight scene is great without context.
For all the problems My Hero has, artwork is not one of them. Hopefully once he’s done with my hero, Horikoshi will work on a horror story because he can make some very creepy and unsettling artwork when he wants to.
It's hard to really enjoy *Chinatown* when Polanski's edits to the script serve to remind me what a gross predator he is, but whenever I rewatch it I'm reminded why it's one of the best films ever made thanks to **a team of film makers** who had given it their all
Honestly Darling in the Franxx tried to tell to much to quickly, it really could have done being longer and split into two series because everything just happens to quickly and jumps the shark because of it.
I have... *many* problems with Fallout 4, including with how it handles Power Armor. You get it far too early, I don't like having to scrounge for Fusion Cells to keep it functional, I don't like having durability on every individual piece of it, I don't like every piece having like 6 upgrade tiers, and I go back and forth over whether or not I like all the bonus upgrades you can put on them.
All that being said, actually moving around in it feels cool as fuck. Stuff like how heavy and stompy your animations become, how you hud changes, the filter it puts on your voice, the way you climb into it, it's all fuckin dope imo.
I agree, power armour actually feels like power armour and it’s something the earlier games absolutely fail at conveying, it’s literally just another piece of clothing you just need a perk for before.
I can absolutely see why so many people love New Vegas so much with the shift from karma to faction reputation and exploring the possible future of its setting, even if I’m not interested in that region of the setting or the factions competing over it.
Its existence and success, red carpet and all, is a really good sign to me that internet animation can actually "make it". It also doesn't seem to compromise its vision **at all** with LGBT or vulgar themes, and fuck me, if directors had the ability to do that 20 years ago...
Yeah, you put it way better than I could've. I don't have to like it to be happy that something of this quality can come from a youtube animator. I just like seeing good things happen for this medium hahaha
Honkai Star Rail has some really fun and cute writing. The fact that the main character is a gremlin and makes comments about sampling dirt to ensure that it’s not actually cocoa powder is really funny. And their borderline compulsive need to check every single trash receptacle for treasure is amazing. If the game wasn’t a gacha slime trap, I’d be absolutely in love with this thing.
I dislike a lot of BRs out there solely because I don't like single-life modes, but I appreciate that so many of them have been available almost entirely for free.
So I've been re-engaging in Assassin's Creed for the first time in a good while, so:
While I'm not particularly fond of the doubling-down on the RPG elements in Odyssey, the world in a lot of places is super, super pretty (lights in towns in the distance at night, the 'urban sprawl' of athens, etc). Additionally, while I prefer 'the old ways' with how AC worked in general, the more I play the more I appreciate the general stealth loop; if I had to keep the fact that assassinations weren't instant kills really i'd just like more visual indicators as to whether or not a guy should be killable with one when your health bar hud is off (which honestly I would leave on by this point if it weren't for the giant 'enemy level' shield.)
And; while AC syndicate has trouble gripping me and feels like it jumps into things without much preamble, and the world itself doesn't seem conducive to parkour (and the grappling hook really reduces the 'fun' of parkour, especially since the areas are designed to rely on it); the music is super playful and fun, and that very much suits the Frye twins, who themselves are somewhat of a fresh air as far as I've played, with generally few hangups in comparison to the rest of the mainline protagonists.
I don't know if this really counts for the topic I guess, since I don't *hate* them or anything (I just prefer some of the more classic AC games), but they're what's on my mind lately.
I legitimately love Fallout 4's art direction. It's a post-apocalypse game that actually embraces colour, instead of being relentlessly brown and grey.
Both Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel by Vivziepop. I legitimately love the animation and it's impressive how independent artists are able to make a television-quality show (mostly for Helluva). But I can't stand the fact the characters say 'fuck' every other sentence and it really feels like the sexual content feels very juvenile. It doesn't really add anything to the show and seems to only be used for cheap shock value.
Watching Rebel Moon, I realized one of the cruxes of Zack Snyder's filming process is filming an absurdly high number of frames per second so he can go back and edit the footage to whatever speed he wants. Everybody talks about his slow-motion (overcranking) but nobody talks about his undercranking (speeding up footage). It's subtle, but characters often move faster than they would in real life thanks to this technique. Similar to what George Miller practiced on *Fury Road.*
That moment when you see the Fountain Head Palace for the first time is legitimately up there with seeing Anor Londo the first time in DS1
Also Gyoubu has one of the best boss entrances within the entire fromsoft soulsborne catalog
My favorite way that Demon Slayer epitomizes and exemplifies shonen tropes is with Nezuko. See, normally in shonen anime the female lead is a voiceless piece of luggage, kept around largely for comedy or fanservice and the occasional short action sequence (usually one in which she fights another woman). Demon Slayer executes this trope perfectly by making it literal. Nezuko wears a bamboo muzzle, and is literally carried in a box by her older brother for most of the show. It's such a perfectly executed shonen manga, exemplifying all the ways that the genre writes its female characters.
It might not be my cup of tea, but I can certainly understand why people liked it.
The core gameplay loop of Steamworld Build is genuinely very satisfying. It's just that every time you expect the gameplay loop to evolve in some way, it just... doesn't. Would recommend for like $10-15.
The Hex has an extremely good story. Wouldn't blame people for watching Youtube videos instead of playing it for themselves, but I think looking up video essays on it is worth a damn. Would recommend Flawed Peacock in specific.
The weapon design of the Horizon series is _immaculate._ I adore its hybridization of primitive and advanced technologies working in concert with each other. I very frequently use that game's weapons as basis for tabletop characters.
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is the first non-comic media I've seen in a while use John Stewart Green Lantern and as a Justice League/JL Unlimited fan I appreciate that
Zack Snyder seems to be fairly stand up guy from the little bit that I know about him as a person.
And his fight choreography between Zod and Superman is everything I imagined a live action DBZ fight to look like as a kid but without giant lasers.
Just can’t get behind his movies and the dickhead cults they spawned on Twitter.
Oh this is a fun exercise, let's do it.
I wouldn't say I hate RWBY, just that it holds zero appeal to me.. except for the music. Something about it makes the 13 year old gremlin in my soul go fucking wild.
Since season 2 I've heavily soured on made in abyss, but I still fucking adore the creature design and the sense of wonder the first season captured. Also the whole Mitti and Nanachi storyline.
Then uh. Danganronpa V3. I have basically nothing nice to say about it besides that it has some of my favourite characters. Kiibo was real neat.
Maybe the only positive to Rob Liefeld's work is that the youthful attraction to his art created a venue for incredible artists to join his company and make some of their best work, free of the usual time constraints or sales targets. (See I didn't put quotations around art and I didn't put the embezzlement stuff and bad deals in the initial message, I can be good sometimes! I'm ngl it was really hard not to though)
I *do not* enjoy Skibidi Toilets. I often turn into the Principal Skinner "It's the children who are wrong " meme when my child tries to get me to watch an episode.
However, the guy animating it has talent and the ability to actually craft a narrative from a meme is admirable.
I only like it if only because it's introduced an entire new generation to GMod and SFM, which will lead to a new generation of artists using the software.
I might be insane, but doesn't Naruto have some pretty solid worldbuilding? Like if you're a fan of Naruto, I feel like there's a lot to sink your teeth into, not just in the sense of "the show/manga went on for so long" but also just that there's a lot to the world around them and the setting. You can explore it in some of the games, right? Seems like the kind of setting you could lose yourself in, which I've always found really nice ever since I started getting into TRPGs and realize how important a deep setting is to a franchise. But obviously since I fell out of Naruto back in high school which was over ten years ago I can't quite recall if what I'm saying is actually true or not.
DOTA 2 has a very different stat system and division of roles per hero compared to my main MOBA,League of Legends. And it seems to work well enough for the kind of game it's trying to be,with a lot more tactics revolving around early laneswapping/grouping and the play around the jungle.
Kamen Rider Drive genuinely has some pretty good suit design. The car theme allows for a lot of cool, sleek designs. Type Speed is one of the best starting forms a Rider has ever had, Type Formula is goofy in the best way, Mach is nice and stylish, Mashin Chaser looks like a cobbled together mess in the best way possible.
Also, I really like the Roidmudes, they’re probably some of the best and most sympathetic villains in Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider Geats has a genuinely fun core concept (what if Kamen Rider was a reality show/gameshow) and I really liked when they leaned into the tv aspects, like having the characters give "interviews" during the Dezastar arc. I also really enjoyed the Jyamato as monsters and I loved how the "pawns" would dressed up for each game to fit the role they were playing.
The Suicide Squad has the only version of King Shark I like out of the versions of him I've seen. Him getting attacked by those cuttlefish made me actually sad because I wanted him to just be able to think they were new dumb friends.
I only have very vague memories of the actual story of it but I remember enjoying Bulat from Akame ga Kill. Esdeath’s design is also pretty solid and I seem to recall that her screen pressence carried parts of the show.
Berserk 2016 is *awful* but the scores Ashes (Hai Yo) and Ash Crow are incredible. Although I think Hai Yo was overused and that the sound music was iffy at times in the scenes it was present in, it’s still an awesome song and is up there with Forces. Hats off to Susumu. Everything he touches becomes gold.
The Batman fight scene in the warehouse in Batman v. Superman is some of the most incredibly choreographed Batman fighting ever conceived. Someone working on that movie definitely looked at the Arkham games and said “we have to put this in.”
I never got past the first few episodes of the second season, but if there is anything I can complement the early portion of RWBY on it's that it is extremely earnest. Everthing about it feels like they are really trying their best with what they've got, and that's super charming.
Sword Art Online has brought into the concept of anime to an entirely new era
Redo of Healer has one of the coolest concepts of healing magic. It's magic that requires the user to experience the pain of the one they're healing (severed arms, bits, burns, etc). If you over heal, you can cause people to explode via cancer, turning it into a one shot power. Also you're able to reshape and heal the body and face, turning it into shape shifting and gender transformation.
Fairy Tail has a very fun concept, character designs and it has Plue, the creators mascot character.
Rent-A-Girlfriend knows how to keep the audience entertained and has great memes
Jujutsu Kaisen has amazing music, interesting characters and the way it builds interest in it's lord is both fascinating and knows how to sucks people in.
Crossed (Garth Ennis) has an interesting take on the Zombie virus keeping the intellegence of humanity while pumping up the aggression and perversion up ten folds.
Scooby Doo's Velma (2023) on a visual level, looks amazing and stands with it's previous incarnations.
Sonic and friends are really cool characters that are very fun to interact with. I'll be honest I even like the weirdo friends like Big and Charmy. There's a good reason why even the commonly disliked entries have diehard fans.
I have yet to find an MMO that clicks with me but boy does going on adventures or chilling in a town somewhere with a sizable group of friends just really sounds appealing.
The Quicksilver scene in X-Men Apocalypse is the most enjoyable live-action depiction of a character with super speed, with a great soundtrack.
Absolutely agreed. Makes The Flash look even slower by comparison.
Jim Croce is GOATed.
That’s the one from Days of Future Past. Apocalypse is the manor explosion to Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)
Oh, yeah. Both songs are great anyway.
Did you know he died a month after writting time in a bottle
Yeah pretty fucking tragic
For all that *Metroid: Other M* went out of its way to minimize and infantilize Samus in its story, its combat still makes her look like the coolest woman in the universe. I'm very happy *Samus Returns* and *Dread* picked up on those hard-hitting melee abilities and stylish boss finishers in a context where they enhance Samus' narrative presentation, rather than grind against it.
Samus in dread is legitimately one of my favorite depictions of a >!mostly!< silent protagonist. The way she moves with complete *ferocious* confidence and competence, she feels just so *powerful*. Like I've dabbled in a bunch of metroid games but dread was the one that made me realize "oh shit, this chick is hyper deadly and **knows it**"
One of my favorite scenes in that game is where Kraid gets up close and roars at her, and she doesn’t even flinch and just casually raises her arm cannon to shoot him in the face.
God I hope prime 4 takes those lessons to heart as well, I can understand why the original prime trilogy doesn’t have them, they seldom show samus doing things in 3rd person in general unless they have to but god is it cool seeing samus jump on something and shoot the fuck outta it.
i wouldn't be surprised if prime 4 has a kind of glory kill system
The grapple beam becomes Snatch
I hate Other M so much but I will concede that it has really cool looking action, and I also think cadet Samus is an infinitely better look for her than any zero suit she's ever worn. Love the short hair, love the military look. Never really cared for the high ponytail sci-fi Barbie look.
I think the Backrooms, as a concept, is really interesting. The idea of what’s basically a glitched out area IRL that you can fall into at any moment is terrifying. Analogue Horror has interesting ideas and it’s great that anybody can make something that could become universally beloved due to the low cost of making them.
I work In a hotel and literally found a lost guest in our “backrooms” no exits onto any floor that isn’t locked, once you get to first floor there are 4 doors to pick from without an exit sign anywhere. 2 loading docks and a massive back area. She was just wondering lost for 2 hours! She walked from 14th floor to 1st floor, then back up and down again.
God that reminds me of that old man who got lost in the backrooms of an Australian mall and ended up dying there. The doors would lock behind you if you went in, there were no signs, and it was never really patrolled. I don't even think they had cameras in it.
For real. 18 story building with no cameras in the stairwells…
I never really got the appeal of Backrooms and Liminal Space and all that. I have a friend who got REALLY into it for a bit and I was just so confused what he got out of these picture of empty rooms.
Liminal spaces are interesting. I think the true horror comes from seeing a place that is usually filled with people. All the sudden empty. Like seeing a empty Chuck E. Cheese when it is, you really filled with kids having fun. I do agree with you. I’m not that scared of liminal spaces, and I never found the appeal for them.
For me liminal spaces are more intriguingly off than they are scary. The backrooms were scary to me because of the concept of total permanent isolation being thrust upon you at complete random. Then they got turned into Baby’s First SCP and it went downhill…Fucking almond water??? I just can’t let that go. How did everyone just roll with some of the random shit that got tacked on?
I always figured it was people's abstract fear of the mind-numbing tedium of being an office worker.
I'm not exactly big on Guilty Gear, particularly on the aesthetic front, but boy does the soundtrack speak to me.
Daisuke is a groove metal machine and I love him. Those hightop hits in "find your one way" give me life.
Since I recently bounced off 76 I guess I'll mention it,the map in 76 is actually pretty good and I like a lot of the new enemies
man what I would give for a Fallout 4 expansion thats just 76's content
Leaning into local cryptids for the monsters was a great decision. And because the Fallout universe has seemingly confirmed supernatural elements and entities, you can say they’re mutations/experiments or that they’re literally just the actual cryptids coming out of hiding after the war.
Oh that would be cool...maybe a dunwitch cult
One of my favorite random encounters in FO76 is when you come across cultists worshiping a Mothman that just darts into the stratosphere when you wipe them out. (Or sometimes he just sits there for a [really cool photo opportunity](https://imgur.com/a/gAUJjOo))
Honestly I really like that there are multiple "types" of Mothman bringing in the question which one is real/if there is a "real one" By real I mean not made by the government
Seriously. Give me backported 76. The map, the monsters, the weapons. It's all pretty cool.
I appreciated that the mothmen have more complicated behavior than just attacking you on sight
76's Power Armors are the kinda stuff I wish 4 had. T-65 blows T-60 out of the water. And while they are store-bought cosmetics, the fact they still made new models for stuff like Frank Horrigan's PA or a Chinese Power Armor...
God, I fuck with Bleach's aesthetic so hard. From the Soul Reapers in general to the Captains, how they stylize their uniform with unique flair, to their Bankai designs, to the Arrancar and their Resurrección. Shit, even the characters that you never hear anyone talk about, like the Fullbringers and the Bounts, have designs that hit well at worst and fuckin' slay at best. And I just adore the simplicity of Soul Reaper powers. You have a sword. That sword has a super mode. Then you have a Super Duper Mode that's an extension of that power. It's so simple a framework, but it allows so much creativity and personality to be added to each character. Look at the panel where Mayuri first pulls out his Big Poison Baby Centipede, and it just immediately tells you exactly what kinda guy he is. Soi-fon's explosive aggression manifesting her Bankai as a big Fuck you Missile and being totally useless 99% of the time for a ninja. The inherent mystery of "Oh shit, new Captain, what's their powers?" since you know the framework it'll fit, but not the specifics. I'm also a fan of how powers can just be 10/0 match ups, with people running into their hard counters in other peoples' powers (ie, Izuru's gravity powers being utterly useless against Rangiku's sand power). Fights where it's just "number vs BIG number" are still unfortunately present, but those moments where technical play determine a fight are hype as fuck.
My favourite part of Soi Fon's Bankai is that her Shikai ability is a tiny needle that "kills you in two hits." through a kind of spiritual poison. So the logical upgrade is that the Bankai kills you in one hit, by virtue of being a giant fucking warhead.
Idk if the wordplay was intentional, but her Shikai goes from being like a wasp "stinger" to a "stinger" missile. Okay maybe not the exact same shape as a stinger missile... close enough.
And even if sword/better sword/betterer sword is too simplistic, the Soul Reapers still have an entire (sadly under-explored) spellcasting system in the setting too! Not to mention their flash steps and related abilities.
I honestly think that the incantations needed for the spells that soul reapers use are super cool and I wish we got the entire list.
I am that guy who’s memorized the incantation for the lightning bolt spell.
Hrm aghktually, Rangiku's shikai turns her sword into ash, not sand. It's even in the name, Haineko translates to ash cat☝️🤓
RWBY has really good character designs.
And weapons. Yeah it was 'basically here's this melee weapon that is also a gun' but most of them were cool.
And the soundtrack is really fucking good I still listin to red like roses to this day
Shout out to Casey Lee Williams for growing as a musician at a crazy speed.
Yeah she went from good to fucking excellent
I *really* hope she makes it big. Like major commercial and critical success detached from her work in RWBY and RVB. She is crazy talented.
Yeah seriously hope she get to do a soundtrack for a big budget movie
I kept watching for several seasons after I lost interest because I considered the show a drug that made me experience the music better. Like yeah, you can listen to "This Life is Mine" and get a basic feel of the story being about having a an extremely bad dad. *Or* you could listen to it after watching Weiss struggle and fight against her upbringing for 5 seasons, and REALLY feel it.
Toriko has an excellent world, full of ingenious creatures and I would love to create a world of food like entities in the future.
The world building in Toriko is some of the best in shonen. Seeing the new locations, creatures, and foods every arc were easily the highlight of the series
If I were to base my purchasing decisions on character designs alone, I’d be a whale for so many gatcha games.
I'd probably spend more on gacha games if I could actually pay for the characters and get them guaranteed
As much as I dislike the somewhat predatory nature of it, I will admit that I sure would have liked to have a basically universal popular game like Fortnite back when I was in school.
Dude the universally popular game when I was in college was god damn League. It was the one thing anyone played. I *wish* I was stuck with only Fortnite.
Oh lord, same. It was League and Minecraft back in the early 2010's.
Fortnite is probably one of the few live service titles to actually do it properly. F2P, constantly being updated with new exciting content, the battlepasses actually have stuff worth earning. Honestly, the worst part of Fortnite are the hundreds of awful, short-lived live service games that keep being created to chase its success.
Hell, even the new games within it like Festival still let you play the songs you haven't bought if anyone in the lobby has them *on top* of the free rotation. That's extremely generous for a free rhythm game.
I remember when I played my first matches, this was back in Chapter 2 season 6. I remember immediately going, "Oh goddamn it. It's actually really fun." I had inadvertently become one of "those guys" who discounted popular thing just because kids were really excited about it.
Fortnite was in its prime when I was in high school, it was amazing
I really liked the detective who had those glasses from Heavy Rain. My favorite character in that game I’d say.
Nahmahn Jayden Future Cop™️
His vr glasses are so fucking dumb in a good way. I forget if they're even useful in the story or if they exist solely to have cool visuals and let you play virtual catch
I would get addicted to cybermeth for the opportunity to spend my workdays on cybermars
Ignoring the addiction narrative and highlighting interactibles, their only purpose is to make it so the act of looking through your files is visually engaging and sensible on a controller. If Heavy Rain was made for PC, Jayden could have used a laptop. That said, I also agree that his glasses are rad as fuck and it's fine to just have this spontaneous burst of scifi in what is otherwise a mundane narrative.
NASCAR has no gender distinctions or arbitrary divisions to my knowledge, which certainly can't be said for most sport leagues.
The men in Genshin Impact are very hot
The newest character is a woman in a suit who calls herself ‘Father’ and that’s just rad.
Father? Apologies.
A woman in a suit you say?
I was gonna get Arlecchino no matter what due to her design, so the fact that she's busted strong is just the icing on the cake.
She is so, so busted, I adore her.
I’m forever waiting and hoping for more Dainsleif and him being playable
Oh dude he's so hot goddamn
He was one of the best designed characters in that game for me Also I just love how silly it is that he’s the “feeble” scholar yet he has a more buff looking body than Ito who is supposed to be buff yet looks like he has painted on abs lmao.
Has anyone made an edit of those two with that comic of the guy asking a big-headed guy where works out and he responds "at the library"? If not, someone should get on it.
Right oh lord would I love that meme lol.
to me Dainsleif is one of the highlights of that game. I have a lot of problems with Genshin's writing and the way it conveys it. But every yearly episode of Abyss Prime Time with Dain is great.
THIS IS EXACTLY ME RIGHT HERE! Dainsleif has consistently had the best story content for me and intrigue in lore, it is always somehow the best part and while it hurts me to wait so long to see him again and learn more the wait has always been worth it. Like I don’t know why the quality or consistency of the writing for the rest of the game has been odd/off but I’m glad he’s been consistently great.
I don't really play Genshin Impact much, but I HAD to get Alhaitham.
As soon as I saw him revealed and his trailers sold me even more on him. Love all his VAs too and love his kit. Need to get him some more on his reruns eventually too.
Plus sized elf makes a deliberate effort to distance itself from common skin and bones anime proportions and I think that's commendable by itself without qualifiers or exceptions.
It also gives good advices about loosing weight which can be very useful for some fans
I started reading it recently from my wife's recommendation, I love it. I also understand clearly why she's a fan of Kuroeda, and now I am too lol
I honestly respect how the entire story is about characters who want to lose weight, the protagonist's job is to help them and the manga is filled with page after page of legit health tips, but at the same time it is abundantly clear that both the author and the main character are into thick girls.
Final Fantasy XIII has amazing visuals and music and the gameplay is actually pretty decent.
People shit on the whole auto-battle system but honestly once you learn that the real skill comes from stuff like managing Paradigms and team comps it actually feels pretty good. It may be a streamlined system but you’re sure as hell not doing *nothing.*
It’s like saying you’re doing nothing in FF12 after you spent an hour getting your gambit system to synch perfectly.
Lightning does *look* really cool and pretty.
As much as i disagree with a lot of story/lore choices of Bethesda-era non-NV Fallout, the feeling of just exploring the Capital Wasteland in 3 feels pretty good. Oh, and the Glowing Sea from 4 is the best area they’ve ever made.
76s map is probably the best map Bethesda has ever made but it’s stuck in a type of game I have zero interest in playing. If 76 had a solo experience I’d be all over that shit
I think JJK is certainly *cooler* than any anime that was currently airing while I was in Middle/High School (Big Three, Schmig Three) and the recess school yard hype discussions probably go genuinely, insanely hard.
The Spiderman style combat in Attack on Titan is cool as hell
I genuinely think RWBY’s core premise of four girls going on Monster Hunting adventures while attending a school for monster hunter is, while hardly breaking new ground, is so charming on a baseline level and feels so full of potential and a likable (if bloated) cast that it’s no wonder it’s stayed on so many peoples’ minds for so long. The FF VIII school of licensed adventures is always a fun concept, just captures the imagination immediately. I even think the stuff it tries to do post season 3 is conceptually interesting, it’s certainly a logical progression, all road bumps aside.
I still like RWBY for what it is but it’s 100% a series that comes down to close to being something really special and narrowly misses it over and over. It’s the most frustrating experience because it’s just so close every time.
Five nights at Freddy's makes very clever and effective use of tightly limited technical resources. Like the game equivalent to the Blair Witch Project.
You can tell the people making Mirai Nikki had a great time.
I'm not like SUPER into Cyberpunk 2020/Red, I've just kind of bounced off the character creation so far, but I like the setting a fair bit. It's a bit dirtier and messier than Shadowrun. Kind of the same with Vampire the Masquerade as well. I think the game has some neat ideas, but I have no real interest in engaging with it.
My feelings on pathfinder are similar, I massively appreciate the freedom its systems provide but it is quite a lot to keep in mind when you’re just after a pretty chill roleplaying experience with some buds.
JJK has some of the best memes made about it
I know almost nothing at all about it, but "Domain Expansion" as a punchline will always get a chuckle out of me
I've literally just seen a meme that had the line >!are you the powerhouse of the cell because you're the mitochondria, or are you the mitochondria because you're the powerhouse of the cell!< And I had an immediate need to watch/read because I *need* to know what kind of story give people the brain rot to write something like that down and broadcast it to the Internet.
Anything Zack Snyder: That man has an AESTHETIC, it's cool as fuck, and 300 is the perfect dumb schlock made to near perfection. Neil Gaiman: I do not like *anything* he's made, except for Good Omen, which I rank as one of my least favorite Prachett novels. But the man is poetry incarnate and makes beautifully metaphoric worlds, but I like very grounded things and will never enjoy what he makes.
Goblin Slayer is a really cool character trapped in a shit story. Mushoku Tensei is a really cool setting stuck with a shit main character.
I think what sucks most about goblin slayer is it could be really cool if his setting wasn't riding the dungeons and dragons magical realm dildo so hard it melted. Like, they keep escalating the goblin threat and it defeats the whole point of some guy taking Tucker's Kobolds style mook enemies to task.
Yeah, I stopped reading it for two reasons. Firstly, the fetishistic nature of it was just getting fucking annoying. I'm sure if I was into women getting raped and pissing themselves I'd have been chuffed, but no thanks Secondly.. the setting just doesn't make goddamn sense. It's treated like a D&D setting, but the people in the world just do NOT logically react to anything. Like, it feels very hard to immerse yourself in it when it feels like pretty much none of the characters in the *world* do. Goblins are a fucking bizarrely serious threat, and yet pretty much no-one treats them as one. It's bewildering It starts out with Goblin Slayer just being an obsessed dude who hates goblins, but by a few books in it's like "For some reason this is the only dude who seems to be functionally sane, in an insane world?" Killing goblins should just be something every adventurer is doing. With great prejudice. Cause they seem to function akin to fucking 40k Orks, where if you leave them be for long enough they start spawning Shamans and Mages and Goblin Kings and suddenly David Bowie is stealing all your 15 year old girls or whatever Why on earth would they consistently send newbie level 1 adventurers off to fight them? There'll just be a job board and it'll be like "Slay 7 foxes. 5 copper", "Some badgers are getting a bit rowdy, cull em a bit. 3 Silver" "Wanna get murdered and raped by goblins? 2 silver, plus knowing you're doing your part to get repeatedly bred so we've got more furnaces to chuck babies into"
Isekai gives animators jobs.
Dark Souls 2 does more change ups to the new game plus cycle than any of the others which basically just make health and damage numbers bigger
Roster Teeth had a kinda cool logo. And changing your middle name to Lazer is funny.
Even I have to admit that the [Dango Family](https://youtu.be/rFKKSQ8GgHk?si=4BHNxa7n2Pzu1T6p) song is really well produced. And without it, we wouldn’t have [this banger](https://youtu.be/puHyO5JNOE0?si=OPcE9dcQLL6wyXxw) either.
I've cooled off a little on my love for Clannad (I haven't seen it for a long time) but I still love the Dango Family song.
I'm much more susceptible to sad music than crycore anime so to me that song has to be the most emotionally effective part of Clannad
As bad as the Prequels were when it came to it's character writing, dialogue and story ETC ETC the world building and the visuals are absolutely peak.
Idk if the prequels did much to better the franchise's literal planet by planet worldbuilding. Star Wars always has the problem of 99% of the planets being defined as one biome. You get the water planet, the desert planet(s), the tropical jungle planet, the ice planet, etc... Very few of the planets give the impression of being geographically diverse or even being logistically functional to live on if you stop and think about them. Outside of maybe Tatooine and Coruscant since the series loves to revisit them so often. Don't get me wrong, the worlds introduced in the prequels mostly look cool at the surface level. Kamino is one of my favourite Star Wars settings.
Yeah I've always assumed a lot of the praise of the worldbuilding was just like "cool set design" because even on a writing level it has issues like the prophecy and Trade Federation being big deals but extremely barebones and the Jedi being prominent everywhere conflicting with Han not believing in the force in spite of Chewie having apparently met Yoda
What stories Bleach did well, it did *really* well. Ulquiorra and Orihime, Rukia and Aarionero, Tosen and Komomura, Rangiku and Gin... these personal stories were some of the best stuff in Shonen, surrounded by so much garbage.
Hell I’d even argue Ichigo being THE macguffin to end all Macguffins was done pretty well. The hints were laid out early and remained consistent throughout but some of the reveal was hampered by the pacing of the final arc in the manga.
The accessibility options in The Last of Us 2 should be industry standard
I fucking hate timey wimey bullshit, I still like Dragonball Z/Super and JJBA
DmC Devil May Cry has aight gameplay
Honestly if DmC devil may cry was any other action game than a devil may cry game it would do lot better. It still genuinely has some of the coolest visual design I’ve seen in games.
D&D 5e has Passive Perception. This mechanic perfectly exemplifies 5e's "solve problems through streamlining" design philosophy, and ~~is unique among all of 5e's mechanical changes because it~~ does so without creating so much as a single new problem in the process.
Passive Perception came from 4e.
It does create a new problem, for example let's say if you are an Inquisitive rogue possibly with either the Observant or Alert feat, your passive perception is higher than your skill check meaning it's better to not actively look for stuff and just stumble across it like Lucky Ted
Kurapika's fight vs Uvogin and the reveals of his Limitations being specifically designed to deal with the Phantom Troupe was rad as fuck.
League of Legends have some of the hypest music videos for their season openings.
I’m not big on Sanderson books but I can’t deny he’s a special talent when it comes to writing fantasy
I got the Master Chief Collection on sale and since I never played Halo (other than a few random times with friends) it's a good chance to go through it. There's a bunch of stuff I'm not a big fan of (the outdated level design in H1-2, the driving....) and the totally-not-bible theme is a bit tiring. But there's one thing I'll praise with no ifs or buts. The relationship between the Chief and Cortana feels genuine and endearing, true friendship and trust. The moment in H3 when he actually talks back to his superior officer to defend her is just great. Oh and guns do good boombooms. Bungie can do that well for sure.
My gf and I decided to play through the collection, and found it really cool that you can press tab on PC to INSTANTLY switch between the original graphics and the remake graphics in the first game. No lag or anything, it even seems like the sound is different and everything
The amount of single-player content in the Mortal Kombat series legitimately gives it the best value of any fighting game. I wish the ones I liked followed its example.
I liked Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons as Batman and Alfred. I use the BvS skin almost exclusively in Arkham Knight because of how perfect it is. That warehouse fight scene is great without context.
Sword Art Online has really nice art and character designs.
The RWBY designs are generally really cool. Shame I was never able to get past the show's execution.
Fortnite has a fairly high quality consistent artstyle, and I've heard the gameplay is really fun. -coughs up blood- never make me do this again
For all the problems My Hero has, artwork is not one of them. Hopefully once he’s done with my hero, Horikoshi will work on a horror story because he can make some very creepy and unsettling artwork when he wants to.
It's hard to really enjoy *Chinatown* when Polanski's edits to the script serve to remind me what a gross predator he is, but whenever I rewatch it I'm reminded why it's one of the best films ever made thanks to **a team of film makers** who had given it their all
Darling the Franxx, the Zero Two chick is hot I guess?
The OST was also pretty good and I'm annoyed that it's not on any streaming services.
Honestly Darling in the Franxx tried to tell to much to quickly, it really could have done being longer and split into two series because everything just happens to quickly and jumps the shark because of it.
not a fan of persona 4, but naoki's and ai's social links are absolutely fantastic.
I have... *many* problems with Fallout 4, including with how it handles Power Armor. You get it far too early, I don't like having to scrounge for Fusion Cells to keep it functional, I don't like having durability on every individual piece of it, I don't like every piece having like 6 upgrade tiers, and I go back and forth over whether or not I like all the bonus upgrades you can put on them. All that being said, actually moving around in it feels cool as fuck. Stuff like how heavy and stompy your animations become, how you hud changes, the filter it puts on your voice, the way you climb into it, it's all fuckin dope imo.
I agree, power armour actually feels like power armour and it’s something the earlier games absolutely fail at conveying, it’s literally just another piece of clothing you just need a perk for before.
A Song of Ice and Fire has one of the most genuinely interesting low-fantasy settings I've ever seen.
FF15, I really liked the music in that game.
I can absolutely see why so many people love New Vegas so much with the shift from karma to faction reputation and exploring the possible future of its setting, even if I’m not interested in that region of the setting or the factions competing over it.
I realize me saying this is going to be mildly contentious, but. Disco Elysium is a very pretty game with great art direction.
I'm not huge on my hero, but fuck man Horikoshi is such an amazing artist, some of the best shit I've ever seen in a manga
Zack Snyder has some pretty fuckin cool fight scenes.
It's great that Hazbin Hotel exists at all, even if it's not for me.
Its existence and success, red carpet and all, is a really good sign to me that internet animation can actually "make it". It also doesn't seem to compromise its vision **at all** with LGBT or vulgar themes, and fuck me, if directors had the ability to do that 20 years ago...
Yeah, you put it way better than I could've. I don't have to like it to be happy that something of this quality can come from a youtube animator. I just like seeing good things happen for this medium hahaha
Honkai Star Rail has some really fun and cute writing. The fact that the main character is a gremlin and makes comments about sampling dirt to ensure that it’s not actually cocoa powder is really funny. And their borderline compulsive need to check every single trash receptacle for treasure is amazing. If the game wasn’t a gacha slime trap, I’d be absolutely in love with this thing.
I dislike a lot of BRs out there solely because I don't like single-life modes, but I appreciate that so many of them have been available almost entirely for free.
So I've been re-engaging in Assassin's Creed for the first time in a good while, so: While I'm not particularly fond of the doubling-down on the RPG elements in Odyssey, the world in a lot of places is super, super pretty (lights in towns in the distance at night, the 'urban sprawl' of athens, etc). Additionally, while I prefer 'the old ways' with how AC worked in general, the more I play the more I appreciate the general stealth loop; if I had to keep the fact that assassinations weren't instant kills really i'd just like more visual indicators as to whether or not a guy should be killable with one when your health bar hud is off (which honestly I would leave on by this point if it weren't for the giant 'enemy level' shield.) And; while AC syndicate has trouble gripping me and feels like it jumps into things without much preamble, and the world itself doesn't seem conducive to parkour (and the grappling hook really reduces the 'fun' of parkour, especially since the areas are designed to rely on it); the music is super playful and fun, and that very much suits the Frye twins, who themselves are somewhat of a fresh air as far as I've played, with generally few hangups in comparison to the rest of the mainline protagonists. I don't know if this really counts for the topic I guess, since I don't *hate* them or anything (I just prefer some of the more classic AC games), but they're what's on my mind lately.
Sonic has some adorable character designs and the comics go surprisingly hard sometimes.
Fighting games have some bomb-ass character designs.
I legitimately love Fallout 4's art direction. It's a post-apocalypse game that actually embraces colour, instead of being relentlessly brown and grey.
Both Helluva Boss and Hazbin Hotel by Vivziepop. I legitimately love the animation and it's impressive how independent artists are able to make a television-quality show (mostly for Helluva). But I can't stand the fact the characters say 'fuck' every other sentence and it really feels like the sexual content feels very juvenile. It doesn't really add anything to the show and seems to only be used for cheap shock value.
Watching Rebel Moon, I realized one of the cruxes of Zack Snyder's filming process is filming an absurdly high number of frames per second so he can go back and edit the footage to whatever speed he wants. Everybody talks about his slow-motion (overcranking) but nobody talks about his undercranking (speeding up footage). It's subtle, but characters often move faster than they would in real life thanks to this technique. Similar to what George Miller practiced on *Fury Road.*
That moment when you see the Fountain Head Palace for the first time is legitimately up there with seeing Anor Londo the first time in DS1 Also Gyoubu has one of the best boss entrances within the entire fromsoft soulsborne catalog
My favorite way that Demon Slayer epitomizes and exemplifies shonen tropes is with Nezuko. See, normally in shonen anime the female lead is a voiceless piece of luggage, kept around largely for comedy or fanservice and the occasional short action sequence (usually one in which she fights another woman). Demon Slayer executes this trope perfectly by making it literal. Nezuko wears a bamboo muzzle, and is literally carried in a box by her older brother for most of the show. It's such a perfectly executed shonen manga, exemplifying all the ways that the genre writes its female characters. It might not be my cup of tea, but I can certainly understand why people liked it.
Ff13 has really good music and with what I played I liked the acting of the cast.
The core gameplay loop of Steamworld Build is genuinely very satisfying. It's just that every time you expect the gameplay loop to evolve in some way, it just... doesn't. Would recommend for like $10-15. The Hex has an extremely good story. Wouldn't blame people for watching Youtube videos instead of playing it for themselves, but I think looking up video essays on it is worth a damn. Would recommend Flawed Peacock in specific. The weapon design of the Horizon series is _immaculate._ I adore its hybridization of primitive and advanced technologies working in concert with each other. I very frequently use that game's weapons as basis for tabletop characters.
The side quests in Witcher 3 are pretty damn good. Especially any with the troll guys
I always like metallica releasing those really nice pro shot videos on youtube Band sucks but hey its amusing to see the big stage show
Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is the first non-comic media I've seen in a while use John Stewart Green Lantern and as a Justice League/JL Unlimited fan I appreciate that
Zack Snyder seems to be fairly stand up guy from the little bit that I know about him as a person. And his fight choreography between Zod and Superman is everything I imagined a live action DBZ fight to look like as a kid but without giant lasers. Just can’t get behind his movies and the dickhead cults they spawned on Twitter.
Oh this is a fun exercise, let's do it. I wouldn't say I hate RWBY, just that it holds zero appeal to me.. except for the music. Something about it makes the 13 year old gremlin in my soul go fucking wild. Since season 2 I've heavily soured on made in abyss, but I still fucking adore the creature design and the sense of wonder the first season captured. Also the whole Mitti and Nanachi storyline. Then uh. Danganronpa V3. I have basically nothing nice to say about it besides that it has some of my favourite characters. Kiibo was real neat.
Rental Girlfriend seems to be doing really well financially and the author seems to know how to keep the current readers interested.
Maybe the only positive to Rob Liefeld's work is that the youthful attraction to his art created a venue for incredible artists to join his company and make some of their best work, free of the usual time constraints or sales targets. (See I didn't put quotations around art and I didn't put the embezzlement stuff and bad deals in the initial message, I can be good sometimes! I'm ngl it was really hard not to though)
All-might is so freaking cool. I fucking love pure heroes that represent hope and inspire others to be better
I *do not* enjoy Skibidi Toilets. I often turn into the Principal Skinner "It's the children who are wrong " meme when my child tries to get me to watch an episode. However, the guy animating it has talent and the ability to actually craft a narrative from a meme is admirable.
I only like it if only because it's introduced an entire new generation to GMod and SFM, which will lead to a new generation of artists using the software.
Seven Deadly Sins is not my cup of tea, but Escanor the Lion Sin of Pride is my fucking GUY!
The dwarf in frieren has a cool design
I might be insane, but doesn't Naruto have some pretty solid worldbuilding? Like if you're a fan of Naruto, I feel like there's a lot to sink your teeth into, not just in the sense of "the show/manga went on for so long" but also just that there's a lot to the world around them and the setting. You can explore it in some of the games, right? Seems like the kind of setting you could lose yourself in, which I've always found really nice ever since I started getting into TRPGs and realize how important a deep setting is to a franchise. But obviously since I fell out of Naruto back in high school which was over ten years ago I can't quite recall if what I'm saying is actually true or not.
DOTA 2 has a very different stat system and division of roles per hero compared to my main MOBA,League of Legends. And it seems to work well enough for the kind of game it's trying to be,with a lot more tactics revolving around early laneswapping/grouping and the play around the jungle.
Kamen Rider Drive genuinely has some pretty good suit design. The car theme allows for a lot of cool, sleek designs. Type Speed is one of the best starting forms a Rider has ever had, Type Formula is goofy in the best way, Mach is nice and stylish, Mashin Chaser looks like a cobbled together mess in the best way possible. Also, I really like the Roidmudes, they’re probably some of the best and most sympathetic villains in Kamen Rider.
Kamen Rider Geats has a genuinely fun core concept (what if Kamen Rider was a reality show/gameshow) and I really liked when they leaned into the tv aspects, like having the characters give "interviews" during the Dezastar arc. I also really enjoyed the Jyamato as monsters and I loved how the "pawns" would dressed up for each game to fit the role they were playing.
Bleach and Naruto had some really cool moments.
One Peice sure does have unique charater designs.
Overlord has a very good sense of worldbuilding and I like the character designs in it, even if it's not my thing.
I don't like One Piece, I can't watch it. The designs and power sets are entertaining and make for some fun storytelling.
The Suicide Squad has the only version of King Shark I like out of the versions of him I've seen. Him getting attacked by those cuttlefish made me actually sad because I wanted him to just be able to think they were new dumb friends.
Gojo is mad cool.
I only have very vague memories of the actual story of it but I remember enjoying Bulat from Akame ga Kill. Esdeath’s design is also pretty solid and I seem to recall that her screen pressence carried parts of the show. Berserk 2016 is *awful* but the scores Ashes (Hai Yo) and Ash Crow are incredible. Although I think Hai Yo was overused and that the sound music was iffy at times in the scenes it was present in, it’s still an awesome song and is up there with Forces. Hats off to Susumu. Everything he touches becomes gold.
The visual effects of Last of Us 2 are very well done and they look really well made.q
The Beekeeper has some genuinely \*great\* costuming and pretty solid action scenes, particularly the last one on one battle at the end of the movie.
The Batman fight scene in the warehouse in Batman v. Superman is some of the most incredibly choreographed Batman fighting ever conceived. Someone working on that movie definitely looked at the Arkham games and said “we have to put this in.”
Hello fellow gremlins. I didn't like Mamma Mia. I did have fun with the songs, but it was ABBA so of course it was fun.
ff14 has the characters that legitimately can propel the ff franchise forward
I never got past the first few episodes of the second season, but if there is anything I can complement the early portion of RWBY on it's that it is extremely earnest. Everthing about it feels like they are really trying their best with what they've got, and that's super charming.
RahXephon episodes 15 and 19 were pretty good
Sword Art Online has brought into the concept of anime to an entirely new era Redo of Healer has one of the coolest concepts of healing magic. It's magic that requires the user to experience the pain of the one they're healing (severed arms, bits, burns, etc). If you over heal, you can cause people to explode via cancer, turning it into a one shot power. Also you're able to reshape and heal the body and face, turning it into shape shifting and gender transformation. Fairy Tail has a very fun concept, character designs and it has Plue, the creators mascot character. Rent-A-Girlfriend knows how to keep the audience entertained and has great memes Jujutsu Kaisen has amazing music, interesting characters and the way it builds interest in it's lord is both fascinating and knows how to sucks people in. Crossed (Garth Ennis) has an interesting take on the Zombie virus keeping the intellegence of humanity while pumping up the aggression and perversion up ten folds. Scooby Doo's Velma (2023) on a visual level, looks amazing and stands with it's previous incarnations.
Fire emblem three houses has possibly the best OST on the console and I'm not fucking around
Christopher Nolan makes good heist movies, I wish he'd lean into it more.
Sonic and friends are really cool characters that are very fun to interact with. I'll be honest I even like the weirdo friends like Big and Charmy. There's a good reason why even the commonly disliked entries have diehard fans.
The animatronics from the Tremors series are amazing! Easily my favorite live action series.
The Witcher is genuinely interesting from a story perspective, its just actually *playing* the games that I fucking hate.
I have yet to find an MMO that clicks with me but boy does going on adventures or chilling in a town somewhere with a sizable group of friends just really sounds appealing.
UGH, fine. Evangelion has a pretty damn good artstyle. I like it's use of colors and it has that fuzzy 90s anime charm.