Back with Spec Ops: The Line I said I was going to try and make these more informal, but they always seem to spiral into something review-esque, which was never my intention. So this time we're going to go even further. I'm going to start to bust out the bullet point lists to try and get my thoughts out without having to worry about how one point leads into another. I'll have my paragraphs (reading this back, I have a lot of them), but I just need to dump thoughts sometimes. Also, while this is nothing new, I'm going to be talking about the story with no mind toward spoilers. Usually I get to games so late, this doesn't matter, but since AC6 just came out, let me just make it clear. This is not a review. This is a game journal.

Anyways, I liked Elden Ring a lot. Loved that game. Had lots of feelings about the game, but I played it earlier this year and never quite felt compelled to write anything about it, because what is left to be said about Fromsoft's soul-style games? Like okay sure there is a little bit to say there and I'm sure I'll say it when I do whatever year-end wrap-up I do, but AC6 is fresh and by fresh I mean an unopened PS2 game hidden at the bottom of a crate.

Like SF6's World Tour Mode we seem to be in The Great PS2 Revival.

The exact mix of polish of Armored Core VI is kinda remarkable. Parts of it are the slickest, smoothest feeling version of the series up until this point, but the structure, the missions, the general movement of the game isn't unpolished as much as it is remarkably bare, peeling up the carpets and exposing the hardwood floors that hasn't been seen for decades. You don't need doodads or a million map icons (or a map at all, it turns out), and fancy glory kill animations (a tasteful slowdown will suffice!). Maybe you can just make a mech game while never showing an actual human. It allows itself to have modern polish, without having all the modern styling and design patterns people confuse with polish.

A friend of mine said something like "Companies finally realized they could just make games like the used" and From has known this for awhile, but it's nice to see this not be isolated to a particular genre. These new games are also interesting to me, because I remember thinking at some point "We don't have a lot of retro PS2 style games because the graphics look good enough to not have a distinct style". I'm not quite sure of that anymore, but I what I definitely didn't expect that the retro thing was going to be the design philosophy.

This game seemed pretty story heavy compared to the PS2 era AC games (I can't speak for 4 and 5). Now, heavy is probably the wrong word. There is plenty of story even in AC1. Instead, AC6 is very story forward. NPCs in souls games almost feel like observing an animal enclosure sometimes, but like Sekiro, AC6 has some like... real ass characters your feel like you have a relationship with? When I first played Sekiro I assumed it was because Wolf was an actual character, but AC6 shows that was only part of the equation. As brain fried mech savant with little direct will of their own, your agency can only really be displayed through your relationships with others. I find the fact that most group have a different nickname for you to be endearing but also important. You want even the characters you don't like to have relationship with you to add weight to the few (but key) decisions you get to make.

Sophie, from the Sinclair Lore youtube channel predicted something from the trailers that turned out to be very much true. Most AC games start with you feeling like you have freedom before realizing you are being controlled. AC6 is about being controlled, but then realizing you have freedom. This works out powerfully because the early part of the game sets up these relationships you frankly don't have much say in but that you get exposed too, but then seeing them strengthen or fall apart based on your later decisions. Even the early decision you can make... you don't actually get to make it until NG+. This makes it feel more impactful than say... whether Murakumo or Chrome fall during the story of AC1.

Also this is interesting in how it worked with the arena. It was normal to see arena mechs on normal missions in older AC games, but it's another thing to coldly fight an AI simulation only to then murder someone on the battlefield, hearing their frustration, pride, fear, and disdain. Like oh these aren't just names you saw on a list, these are people you did business with, who you are now in a life or death struggle against.

Some character notes...

• I was surprised about how... not a scumbag Walter is. Like he's very scumbag coded, both in voice and presentation but I like how you slowly see that he cares and he's just... not that warm. At first it's not clear if he wants people to respect you because you're his, but as time goes on he puts more trust in you, even when he realizes it might be to his detriment.
  • It's like he dehumanizes you because he feels like he has to but he's not very good at it. You can hear how tore up he is at the loss of his other hounds.
  • Even if his goals were... under-informed or misguided, turning on him gave me no pleasure. Come on Walter, you don't have to carry the same burden!!
• Same with Carla and Chatty like ugh. Carla gets established so well and so fast and Chatty is so subtly likeable for a dry AI.
• lol god Michigan rules. I like how complimentary he is of people, while hassling his poor Guns. From trying to hire Rusty during the Ice Worm fight to pumping you the hell up during the mission to destroy the Red Guns.
  • You're also still G13. Like that's part of your LORE, even while you're killing them. BOYS, YOU'RE FIGHTING THE G13 THAT DIDN'T DIE!!!
  • Iguazu is such a perfectly shitty pissbaby of a boy. Gloriously petty. Loved blowing him up every time. How'd that dumbass even afford an assassin???
• On that note, GOD, RUSTY, what a sweetheart. What a golden boy. Calling you buddy, even when he's hurt by where things have brought the two of you. So confident, skilled and earnest. A perfect boy.

As for the actual plot...

• I like the 3 endings and where they end up, but I don't really like the Allmind Route, at least in the context of the sorta '3 play through' structure.
  • Ayre asking to see what you'd choose and then having the 3rd route being the most bungling dumb nonsense choices definitely feels a little lame. I feel like it would make more sense in a scenario where all 3 endings were available from the start and it was likely written with that as the intention.
  • "Surely trusting and following this creepy AI will pay off!" even if it... kinda ultimately does.
  • That said, I think the 3 evolving playthroughs works great and it was, I think, the right decision, even if there are some warts.
• What the fuck is up with Branch and Raven's Operator? That felt like setup that never got payoff. Like yeah, gonna keep an eye on me I guess, Operator Lady???
  • ... DLC?
• While there is a lot of soulsy 'read everything and read between the lines', I appreciate the game is also pretty direct and clear while also still having some restraint.
• Though the actual indulgence is pretty good. The Liberation ending definitely pours it on heavy, but since the game was so restrained and almost doomery, it feels really good. A real earned payoff.
  • Him and Ayre contrast the rest of the game and each other very well. Where Ayre is as confused as you are, there is something great about having confidence that Rusty seems to know whats up, even if he can't really tell you exactly what's going on.

It should be important to say I played the whole game "post patch". Literally was gifted the game the day of. A lot of lore has been built up over things like Pre Nerf Balteus, how he was nerfed into the ground, etc etc etc, even though... people have pretty much confirmed they just made his missiles home a little less (which, honestly, only barely seemed like the "problem" with him to begin with). I felt engaged by all the boss fights people said were supposed to be hard. I really wasn't sitting there for any of them like "Gosh this would be better if I had to put in another 20 attempts". Nor do I think any of the three are so easy to numerically nerf. Instead they're hard because they introduce new problems.

• While I can never TRULY know how release Balteus felt, he seems like he was fine? He's definitely there to teach you shit and he took me a good hour to punch through, but by the end of it, I felt more comfortable understanding what the game wanted from me.
  • A pulse gun. It wanted a pulse gun.
  • And like everyone else playing Balteus with all their girl, NG+ felt like a joke.
  • It's honestly kinda embarrassing how many people I've seen say "They nerfed him so bad! I fought him in NG+ and he died in like 15 seconds!!" like no shit, you're on NG+ and also a million times better that's just how videogames work!!
• Sea Spider and IB-01: CEL 240 both took some build and strategy adjustments, as a boss in these kinds of games should, but those changes made them easier.
  • Yeah, I'm gonna pick 2 song birds and blow up Sea Spider.
  • The nerf is probably better, because without it I just would have counterpicked him even faster.
• IB-01 got lance and pilebunkered. Which really puts the damage nerf into perspective. She killed me a lot, but when I won, she melted. Doing less damage didn't so much make her 'easier to beat'. It made her 'easier to learn' by extending each attempt.
  • The damage nerf was almost certainly deserved.

In general people overvalue their experience as the 'the right/best' way, which is a problematic attitude people have with a lot of things, but ESPECIALLY Fromsoft games. Including me when DS1 came out. "If the missile pattern isn't exactly what I felt the experience is RUINED" or w/e just isn't reasonable.

• On other boss notes, Ice Worm sucks ass. Oh god so much fucking waiting.
  • But Rusty is so hot in this mission.
  • The perfect man for me is apparently one without a canonical form that I have to look at.
  • okay sure, the fight DOES look cool though.
• Ayre probably gave me the most problems, but maybe that's because I was rushing to the finish line.
• Heal-skipping Boss AC's by pilebunkering them kicks ass.
• Okay I also fucking hated shooting into that fucking smoke stack like the boss wasn't hard but that was so annoying!!. That was one boss that was equally annoying every time I've refought him.

The patch and difficulty discourse gets into another conversation, people talking about 'easy weapons' being 'easy mode' and... well okay that's not wrong. I definitely pick up certain combos when I'm just done with a boss. But there is a weird undercurrent to this whole conversation like "Yeah, you can do double zimms, if you don't want to REALLY play the game." but like... what is really playing the game? Circle strafing for 10 minutes while plinking an enemy with a mediocre weapon out of some weird sense of pride, like that's the intention of the game about customizing mechs? Sure, take on King, Chartreuse and Raven on at the same time with SMGs and no burst damage. That's sick as hell! But the game isn't asking you to fight 3 high-end ACs because they expect you to nobly boost dodge around. It's because the game gives you options. You'll find the one that fits you.

I just find this conversation weird. The AC community and DS community are very separate, but both have this weird hangup over this same kind of stuff, even though both series are made by a company who LOVES to design around and embrace "cheese".

What do you want to get out of a game? I like the speedrun mentality. I like big damage and I like playing fast. I don't just wanna pound and tank with a cheesy build, I wanna optimize the start, I wanna maximize my chances, I want IB-01 to lose 3/4ths of her first health bar before she even gets to make a decision. "Okay this boss is fast, but does it do anything where I can pilebunker it for free"? Which is also why I've always enjoyed watching speedruns more than "Fists only, no hit!!" runs, even though those runs are undeniably extremely skillful... They're just also boring and repetitive. To me, at least, but that's kinda the point.

Personally I don't think there are many games where I had more fun because I did less damage. Of those few games, I'm pretty sure 100% of them are fucked up combo/character action games that would give me more time to beat up and combo enemies. A game like this? Naaaah. I've had more fun taking more damage. I've had more fun having to fight stronger, smarter enemies! I've enjoyed weapons that do less damage because they're fun and mechanically different, but not because they do less damage.

Some people like the slow stable long game. They pride themselves on dying as little as possible. Some people like me want to play intensely correct and absurdly aggressively for 30 seconds, in a burst of planning and execution... and the game supports both of these things. One isn't particularly more right or intended... and honestly, I don't feel the need to prove myself to a single player game that isn't going to be impressed either way.

The game doesn't care how you get through it, so why care about anything other than what you find personally enriching?

Relatedly, the weapon balance has some issues, and some of them are intrinsically hard to solve. A big issue is, for the Single Player at least, a lot of weapons are just... not compatible with fighting strong enemies. Projectiles that are too slow, charge shots that are too punishing to miss, etc. And missing is more punishing in this game because of how the stagger system works. Now, I don't hate stagger, it feels good, but it does strongly encourage burst, reliable stagger damage. The problem with not having it is your DPS ends up getting exponentially punished and makes strategies like long range plinking much worse. There are surely ways to build around this and make more weapons work well and feel good, but the reason a lot of people move toward a lot of strong "meta" weapons is because they fit the system better. Which is likely also why weapons were buffed and not nerfed.

The problem there though is... how do you buff a lot of the less rewarding weapons... or do you worry about it? Are they maybe better in PVP, with more human fallibility? That'd be fine. But it seems the buffs a lot of stuff needs is more in the realm of projectile speed, better tracking or even maybe nerfed AI dodging. The problem with the last one though is that only makes the good stuff even better so it's not really an option. I feel like anything with a charge attack shouldn't have an overheat cooldown. Like you're giving up a weapon to try and make a precise attack that is likely to miss, double punishing you. Maybe it'd be a way to make laser rifles better than (or at least interestingly different from) laser handguns.

I also feel like the game lets you do too much on a fast build and there is very little armament reason to go super heavy. There are durability reasons but most of the heaviest gear is kinda... eh? So you kinda get to have your cake and eat it too. On the other hand... you can have your cake and eat it too? That's not always a bad thing.

In other system stuff...

• I like the free mission replay stuff a lot. It's kinda weird to farm money, especially when money in AC games is kinda weird, but whatever.
  • ... I kinda like that you can't buy and sell when you restart? So having money and having parts in your inventory actually matters to some degree.
  • It feels like a little weird unpolished friction point but who cares?
• OS Tuning felt kinda lame. I hated how it was just an 'upgrade card you will eventually fill out' and not another place you could do meaningful tweaks.
  • I need to play with more than the pulse shield and terminal expansion cards though.
• I kinda miss unique FCS reticle/lock-on stuff. Like I'm not saying they should have brought it back, but I do mourn the loss a little.
• I wish there were more mid mission decisions. What are there, two?
• The R3/Hard Lock-on felt weird like it changed your lock-ons to be more aggressive but in the moment, the effect wasn't enough to realize (for me at least) if it was on or off.
  • WAIT HARD LOCK GIVES YOU A WORSE LOCK-ON TOO????
• I love that this game can actually show me Playstation Button prompts.
  • I WISH THE GAME WOULD STOP DEFAULTING TO SHOWING ME KEYBOARD PROMPTS FOR SOME REASON

Most of these issues aren't that big a deal. Far less than what I'd expect in the older AC games. Fun to think about, fun to think about how they could do things differently, but if they never change another thing, the game still rules.

Okay now for the dumb stuff you're allowed to skip.

These aren't heavy roleplay games, but I almost never make myself "Kayin" in a game. So far in every Fromsoft Souls game I make Naomi for my first play through. Cool knight girl, usually sword sword of claymoreish sword on the first run and maybe a bigger one and some magic in NG+. Perfect fit. But she felt weird to in mech games. She kiiinda worked in Battletech, but I ended up using the Brave Earth Succubus, Vayn, for later playthroughs of that and the earlier Armored Core. Kinda just needed someone a little bit more... morally ambiguous. Also it helps that she too spent years an a brain fried fog, used as a tool with little agency

This less informs my gameplay and route choices and more aesthetics.

(I mean... I have my own head canon stuff but I'll spare you)'

It was fun to mess with all this stuff and save old builds. While I mostly ended up on fairly typical weapons, the difference in mobility between the different builds was a lot of fun. Honestly, armament could just change with the mission like yeah sure lets try double BADCOOKS or whatever. While I tried to pay attention to stats somewhat, in the end, I was playing Fashion Souls. Compared to the PS1 and 2 games, these are aesthetically my favorite set of ACs.

Gonna babble for a bit and hope this is coherent:

I was weirdly saddened today reading Strive's patch notes. A removal of the character weight system. A younger version of me would be SO RELIEVED by this. "Oh god I don't have to memorize a million different combos"! Yet now, an older me, is oddly sad?

Now, I'm not gonna hate on or argue about Strive, or any other game. Plenty of games I like have equal character weights and consistent hurt boxes. I'd rather game designers do what they want to do, rather than pander to me.

(Granted, I do wish more people were pandering to me, but that's a me problem.)

... Instead I want to be more positive about the stuff. So much of this conversation gets caught up in arguments about gatekeeping and "git gud" "Baby Game" BS but not a lot of people really go into why they might like some of these arcane systems.

A nice and polite twitter follower, immediately after I tweeted my disappointment, asked...

Why would you want combos to fail randomly per character performed on

... which like lol, when you put it like that, it sounds super silly. But it's that framing -- a framing I've seen many times. I remember being on a forum... very appropriately, it was David Sirlin's forum (thank god you can't name search on cohost)(edit: uh oh). Being the Sirlin forums, you expect a... certain type of person and player. Very big anti-execution crowd and I was like the only real execution defender (at least who was a semi respected member of the community and not a random SRK troll). I remember one exchange talking about GG combos and the comment "Well what's fun about just doing the same rote thing over and over again?"

"Well you're not? Like I'm adjusting my combos as we go, depending on how high they are and stuff"

"I don't believe you."

Now, this is mid 2000s. I don't think anyone now would deny that's a thing that players do... but I think it still highlights a way a lot of people still feel. Combos as this discrete thing, these bits of work you get through to get to the Real Game (that forum LOVED talking about the "Real Game"). You learn your combos, so you get to play brain chess.

But instead the whole thing is very fluid, especially in a system rich game like the older Guilty Gears. You never stop learning, and that combo you learn isn't a discrete unit. It's a lot of different smaller parts and that perfect hit you need to do your idealized BnB is actually kinda hard to land. You need to learn how to put these things together in different ways. Combos are less raw memorization, and more a matter of a little memorization, but a lot of developed intuition.

This is no surprise to anyone whose played a lot of really nutty fighting games. But the important thing is more the mentality of "Combos are a thing that you need to have, and you fucked up if you weren't optimal" vs looking then as an extra and not taking them for granted.

"... Wait, can I convert to this route off this hit?"

Often in games with open ended combo, you'll get a hit and you won't actually know what you can get off it. I recognized the situation 3 hits in.. what's the gravity scaling like? What's their character weight? This route doesn't work on her hitboxes usually, but I think it might because of the weird height I hit at??

From there you gotta bet on yourself. Take the easy knockdown? Try to extend to a damaging route? What are the stakes of the match? How much life do you have? Is it worth maybe eating shit just to find out? Those sorts of situational, high speed valuation processes, for some people like me, are extremely fun and with games like +R or Rev2, I'm still, after thousands of hours, guessing and developing my intuition. Every matchup has new things to teach me not only in neutral, but on what to do when I even hit someone.

I don't like character weight because I like dropping my BnBs, or because I want to make the game harder for new players, but because they always keep me on my toes and give me great moments where I am rewarded for my intuition. I like it because I can do cooler combos.

... What if input buffers made games harder?

I was playing one day with Lofo, a really incredible +R Dizzy player and a former (lol, recovered?) Sirlin forum poster who ended up a huge execution lover. One day we're talking about Rev2 vs +R and hit me with something that has been in my head for like 2 years. Something to the extent of...

"Yeah, I don't like Rev2's input buffer. I feel like it makes the game harder, because everything is more consistent... I... don't think I like input buffers?"

Which to me at the moment felt like an insane position. Like there was a lot of simplifications made to fighting games I didn't like, but that one seemed like a clear win. That just makes games better, right?

But Lofo kept talking, about things that are borderline impossible in +R that would be consistent in Xrd and how one of the things that keeps +R reasonable is that everyone drops stuff all the time. Not just in combos, but in pressure. There is always wiggle room... and then talking about mashing to tech.

Mashing to tech feels like a vestigial part of Xrd. It doesn't bother me much (I come from X2), but if you're trying to tech and there's a gap, you're gonna get it. +R, much less so. It's almost an analog skill check between you and your opponent. Your ability to mash, vs their timing during the hardest parts of their combo. Defender can piano, so there is a bit of an advantage

Then that got me thinking about ST. "It's fucked up that you need to do a 1f reversal to beat tick throws in that game."

... But you don't. You need to have better timing than your opponent to beat tick throws. Can they time to 1f input? If you're playing someone great, probably, but when you watch mid level play, most DPed tick throw attempts aren't usually reversals. That analog sense of timing is part of the game's skill expression.

This goes into why people didn't care about exact frame data back in the day or players playing "by feel". A move being +1 really didn't matter unless both of you have sick timing. We HAD the frame data. We had Yoga Book Hyper for ST. It did help. But it's influence was different because the play conditions are were different.

In modern games, a +1 situation is often pretty rigidly defined. We have buffers. Our responses will come out on he fastest frame. If my opponent is slow and my suboptimal option keeps winning, people will call that fake... because it is. The expectation is that verse most players, even low ranked players, people will get their moves out as soon as possible. Meanwhile in older games, you can't take that as a certainty even with the best players. They'll hit a lot of frame perfect inputs, but not all of them. Finding where your opponent is being sloppy helps a ton. No one is clean all the time even in modern games, but it's so SO much harder in old games.

I even think a lot about setplay characters. In older games 'perfect knockdown into oki that grants an auto timed safe jump' is actually super hard (or really lucky happenstance). Heck, this is also where GG's variable wake up timing stuff also comes in. You could do it, but it would be so hard that it can never be the expectation. Now safe jumps are so easy once labbbed that if you whiff a normal before doing your oki people will just assume it's a safe jump even if it isn't. You get stronger setplay because frame perfect repeatability, while not at all trivial, is extremely practical.

Buffers help turn is into robots and, depending on your taste, that can be a good or bad thing.

ALRIGHT THE TAKE AWAY

One thing that I've also thought a lot about is... new players seem to have an easier time getting into +R than Rev2? Part of this might also be the lobby system and speed to matches, but part of it is, in Rev2, even a mid level player can be pretty scarily consistent, but +R... Welcome to the scramble zone, lol. And like granted you can run into cryptids with 10,000+ hours of play time who will Burst Safe Sidewinder Loop you into the negaverse, but even THEY fuck up or get wilded out by weird interactions. And I say this maybe liking Rev2 more than +R.

In a weird way, making games easier, also makes them harder, because you make them more consistent for everyone... and when everything is more consistent, the game is more rigid and unyielding. You're not making an old experience accessible to new people, you're making something new, with it's own pros and cons.

Again, this isn't a judgment zone. I'm okay with Strive. I'm actively loving SF6. But a rigid games forces players to play it how it was intended. This can help new players learn a lot faster. Hell, such design has lead to games that have even taught me lots of stuff! I don't hate these games.

... But I miss that looseness. I miss how you can have a combo so hard that only like 2 people can do it reliably and just this really hazy, unclear idea of what's even possible. Infinite weird, crufty interactions between interactions. Feeling like I wasn't just playing my opponent, but exploring a rich, emergent design space.

Fighting games as a genre increasingly feel like they're (metaphorically) moving from "analog" to "digital".. and like most of those changes, there are usually more advantages and disadvantages, but, even with the new advantages... there are always gonna be people who miss how the old analog models used to feel.

I Wanna talk about World Tour Mode, but I gotta talk about the Actual Game First

It's also nice to have avatar lobbies that don't suck. I told everyone it was possible! And sure you got normal menu based player rooms and ranked elsewhere, but it's a nice diversity and leads to a lot of fun expression. This is also the first game I've played with a real, living ranked System. I enjoyed +Rs a bit when it was active, but besides that, well.. Rev2's ranked is dead and Strive's Tower is barely a ranked mode. Playing random people has been good for my composure when playing. Endless practice for me to Not Make Up a Guy while playing strangers. It's nice to play a game with a community so large that I am practically anonymous and where I feel no need to prove myself. I can just fiddle around, play a few games with Dhalsim, and go off to do something else.

That said, before any of this, I spent COUNTLESS hours in world tour mode.

Late PS1 and Early PS2 was a weird time. Weird, experimental, goofy, unhinged game design, sacrificing polish and fidelity to do something weird. These aren't games you get a lot these days. Most games focus obsessively on graphics and gameplay polish and while indie cames can serve fill some of the gap, the weird but also content rich type of games from that era are rare. The closest thing that comes to mind is the SEGA made Yakuza which is also tightly bound to its PS2 roots.

Mechanically it's weird. You level up AND get a Not Skill Tree tournament bracket to spend points on. I hate Skill Trees, but this isn't -- instead new and old options get shuffled back in each new "tournament". This caused me to reset my stats at one point to respec, only to realize my change changed the later brackets massively. The clothing upgrade and skill system is weird and arcade. "+10 to Unique Attacks"??? I'm pretty sure that's for command normals, but some people say it's fireballs so we're all just confused. But all this confusing stat absurdity again, has that whole janky weird PS2 vibe. Attacking far outside your level range leads to doing so little damage it's painful. You can DO IT but it's miserable, which also sucks when you're hitting one of the weird XP/Opponent gaps in the game. The game has buffs but they... don't seem to do enough to make up the difference? But all that said, it's fun and the enemies are so dumb they basically train you

Characterizing the Uncharacterized

One of the big surprises in World Tour mode is how much character it gives everyone. Not that Street Fighter characters have been uncharacterized for 30 years, but that characterization is either painted with broad strokes, or limited to semi canonical sources like the Udon Comics. Simple endings, winquotes, match dialog, that sort of thing.

The plot was a slow start, going from "I don't care" to this perfect intersection between "Horrifying yet silly" to (and let me be vague to avoid spoilers) being... genuinely being an almost nihilistic downer? And not in a bad way! The whole thing, given the overall tone of the game, resolves very interestingly and bravely (in a creative sense). There are dumb plotholes and things that don't make sense, but with a mode like this, the game has to assume you're along for the ride. No one is here for perfection.

Was that... the... best Fighting Game Single Player Mode ever?

... Probably??? It wasn't perfect and some Netherrealm fans could probably point to some old (also PS2) MK game as an example. Maybe that one Soul Calibur mode in... 3... 4? I don't remember. But I've STILL have played more World Tour mode than the actual multiplayer game and I've been playing a BUNCH of SF6 online. But as long as I can get new outfits and dress up for the Battlehub, I'll still be dropping into World Tour Mode from time to time.

So I've updated my blog again. This by itself is nothing new, something I seem to do every few years or so. What's different this time is I'm actually cleaning things up and restructuring things. I have had 20 years of webspace continuity and almost 15 years of wordpress. This is cool, but also a horrible mess. My server is a trainwreck of files, layers of old php files layered as if in geological records. As such my stuff is almost always out of date and backing anything else is a huge pain. So it's time to pack everything into boxes and knock down the house.

Wordpress is gone, as are a lot of my old posts. Most of this isn't a great loss. Most of my old posts are painfully out of date, or about long dead internet drama. If you really need to embarrass me, the wayback machine is right there. I can't actually hide anything, nor do I intend to, but, considering the fact that every post on this new blog was copied by hand, I don't need to keep everything I ever made up on my refrigerator forever.

I've made an effort to maintain, with the right URLs, every important thing I have ever wrote. Stuff like the Reaction article. If something is missing, feel free to email me and I'll try to re-post any reasonable requests or redirect any old URLS.

This also applies to any random files I have removed too. I have them all backed up, so if I accidentally removed something that is still useful to people, I want to know. I have an old file still up of mugen tutorials cause someone asked me what happened to them 5 years ago. These were originally uploaded in like... 2006, so don't worry, just ask.

As of right now a lot of Brave Earth stuff is missing. This is in no means any indication of any abandonment of the game. Part of me cleaning stuff up involved things related to working on the game. The problem is most of it is way out of date. Expect a lot of things like character Bios and stuff to be reposted once there is actually a release date. I'll probably be crossposting on here and steam when that time actually comes. For now I'm going to keep it as a single page.

Edit: Added a new RSS feed. I'm not an RSS user but people always end up asking me for a feed so please let me know if there are any problems with it.

Dragon’s Dogma the type of narrow, niche fanbase that made me know I’d love it whenever I got around to playing it and even though I knew this would happen, I wasn’t ready for quite how much I’d love it.

Dragon’s Dogma is a weird game. It feels like someone played a game of telephone, describing the conventions and goals of the big western RPG genre to the designer of Devil May Cry, who then declared “I got it” and made a game. The reality isn’t quite as funny. Hideaki Itsuno had a lot of the core ideas for this game all the way back in the year 2000 and he clearly was a fan of the western games he was inspired by. But instead we get back funhouse mirror reflection of the genre, seen through the eyes of someone with a very different value system.

In many ways this is similar to Demon’s Souls, a reflection of western fantasies and RPGs with an entirely different value system. But in the decade since, Miyazaki’s vision has permeated the culture of the game, and besides coming from the same place, often aping the same references (down to Berserk), these two games could not be so similarly different. Dragon’s Dogma still feels almost like outsider art, a beautiful jewel that nothing else is quite like.

I could go on about the combat, how the game has some of the best feeling and satisfying variants of the Stinger attack I’ve ever felt, talk about how the classes are WEIRD, or other things but one of the most defining features of Dragon’s Dogma, that permeates its whole design is that the game wants to make the player Choose.

It all matters but it doesn’t matter. This isn’t Dark Souls you aren’t going to be punitively punished. You’re not going to be tricked into making choices you didn’t even realize you were making. In fact the game goes out of its way to make SURE you know what you’re deciding.

The “moral” choices in these games feel more real and nuanced than other games. There are rarely right answers. Characters understand. Do you give the hot merchant girl who seems a little shady a bunch of money? Sure, but it doesn’t hugely matters. She appreciates it, but the choice doesn’t come back to haunt you. Do you evict the family for the rich merchant? They’re understanding that you’re just the one breaking the news and SURE you can buy the house but the game doesn’t present it as the obviously good answer. It’s just something that can come up. What’s your reward? Appreciation. When the merchant goes to trial, is he guilty? I mean… he probably is for SOMETHING, but it’s unclear. You can find evidence for and against, you can forge evidence for and against. Hell, you can just FORGE items, even important plot items. Which merchant do you give the gold idol to? Do you help Mercedes during her duel? Is either choice right? Who is your beloved? Do you get a ton of special dialog with your loved one? No, they just go into your house. But you have the freedom to chose. Even how you give gifts and respond to pawns you hired fits this type of player expression.

The important part is that the choices matter enough for you to see results but not so much as to make you worry about gaming the system, or hunting for a best ending, or whatever. But making a decision is hard, and you have to make them.

Thematically, this plays through the whole games. Pawns are devoid of will, and is your will, your ability to chose that gives you command over them. The dragon exists to find someone to make an Arisen, someone with the willpower to choose. The present them with difficult choices and challenge them. They need someone with the strength to inflict their will upon the world. Grigori fights you with every ounce of his strength, but that wonderfully, beautifully written dragon wants you to kill him. He wants someone who can take what is theirs.

All this to find someone who can replace the “Seneschal” of the world, to slay the previous god and replace them, to refresh the willpower of the universe. Every step, you are given permission to stop. Grigori understands sacrificing your beloved for peace. Not embarking to find the Seneschal is a valid place to stop playing the game. The game even tells you, as you fight god, that the peaceful life is an underrated one.

… And once your god, you chose when to die. This is a game, fundamentally, about having the willpower to Choose.

Odds and Ends

Alright, this will be less focused but just to get some stuff out.

This makes sense, coming from the designer of Devil May Cry. The DMC games are filled with choice. It’s not about being OPTIMAL. you CAN be optimal, but the games are about style, about being cool, about expressing yourself. This leads into combat that feels like a toned down DMC. Stingers, double jumps, crazy infinite arrow blasts. The game doesn’t try and constrain you with offensive resources, it wants you to express yourself. I expressed my self by being a Mystic Knight, third strike parrying everything, and by oppressing all those who would oppose me, with my friend the orb. Now I’m doing NG+ as a solo assassin which is just FULL of options.

Visually, the game is dated but beautiful. You see the rough edges, but the lighting is unusually naturalistic. It just… feels like being in the woods, a lot of the time and it makes things just feel so real and immersive, even with some of the age. The game didn’t need to have a day night cycle. The game looks beautiful during mid day and it could be kept like that but… traveling at night is another choice, and one the game encourages despite it’s drawbacks.

The story of the game is wonderful. While being low in dialog and character building it still manages to stitch together an amazing cosmology. The cycle of godhood is so creative and the Pawns are just wonderfully weird. Grigori might be my favorite dragon ever? The voice actor does a hell of a job. I love shit like the Duke’s whole mini arc

I also love how wildly bisexual this game is. Like the Duke’s Wife assumed my girl was ready to hook up with her at a moments notice (and she was right). It’s definitely more of a female leaning slant but the game still gives you the freedom to… romance whoever.

The armor in this game is funny. Want DS style armor? Covered. Wanna be Red Sonia? Covered. Less options for boy sluts, which is unfortunate, but the swinging pendulum of armor has me loving silly hot fantasy armor again.

I cheated a bunch by the end of the game. Rift crystals were too rare because online isn’t THAT active anymore. Also I’d dupe items I had cause forging stuff, while affordable, was just annoyingly time consuming. I in theory like that inconvenience tradeoff, but after the 20th forgery I was like ‘alright alright enough of his’.

I played on the PC version so no Berserk armor, but I love how this game takes a totally different set of Berserk influences than DS. Very Golden Age-y, while also being its own thing. Especially stuff like “Hey we made Mercedes cause we clearly love Caska but she’s not Caska, and the weird Witch Pawn isn’t Schierke… even if she lives in a tree house guarded by a golem”. All the influences are obvious enough to be appreciated, but unique enough to not be rip-offs.

Anyways, Madeleine is my wife. Dirtbag girls forever, see you in Dragon’s Dogma 2.