Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Snatcher
LOL
I don't even care with Smash Bros.
It just irritated me to see Smash Bros keep being overexploited while ARMS was like being neglected again after 1 last Online event. 😒

@Tyranexx
Did you play Starfox Zero Wii U ?
I have reached 3rd stage and the last 2 stages was really hard and stressful as i have never played Starfox games before, i have zero knowledges about Starfox games, i couldn't really differ which are my targets and how did i avoid their attacks. It was completely different than playing Xevious or Twinbee or the shooting part from Ratchet & Clank games. 😫

@MarioLover92 My strategy with small (in terms of file size) games like Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, is to pre-order it the day before it comes out, so I can preload it and play it the next day. I did it with Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. Ordering them digitally is easy because of how small the games are, so archiving them doesn't have to happen much.

@ThanosReXXX That I can absolutely understand. Shame you won't be able to see Your Name for the foreseeable future. I first noticed it in Guinness World Records, when I saw that it had taken the highest-grossing anime film record from Spirited Away... of course Your Name in turn had its record taken by Demon Slayer, so the cycle continues. I found myself humming (and or whistling) Sparkle, because of how powerful it was when it played. It treated your emotions as a punching bag, in all the good ways. One day I'll want to have my memories wiped, so I can experience everything I have again, and this'll be one of the things I revisit.

After watching Your Name, I went and showed it to my entire family. Both my parents didn't see the end, but my sister did, and she absolutely loved it. It WAS in English so that helped a great deal. After that I went and looked at a small trailer for Princess Mononoke's English dub, and it almost breathes new life into the movie. I never imagined San would have such a deep voice, but hey, I never expected Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver, or Clare Danes to be a part of this dub, so I'm in.

I have a long weekend starting today, so I'm ready to kick back and do what I've been doing for the last eleven months; play videogames, or watch a movie, or write, punctuated by some really quality food, and some epic music. The weekends have less meaning when one is operating from their house, but I can still appreciate them. In that it's good the Netherlands is back to a state good enough for people to work.

Today we celebrate our small dinner party with my Mom, my siblings and my sister's husband in my house as tradition before Chinese New Year. Unlike last year, since Covid19 pandemic, we cannot celebrate our dinner party with our relatives so this year is suck but i understand the situation was not right to have a big party with a lot of peoples.
And we cannot visit our Grandma's house this year as my Grandma from my Mom's side has passed away several months ago and in Chinese tradition we cannot visit the relative houses if their family member has passed away currently before 1 year.
We can visit them again after next 2 years.

@Tyranexx I want more difficulty in modern Pokemon to be sure, but not the way it worked in Emerald. The two things that made that game harder were the out of no where level jumps that make gym leaders and E4 members feel out of place, and, swagger/confuse ray spam making half the game based on coin flips.

I'd like to see active level scaling. Where opposing trainers were leveled around you, with boss trainers a bit higher. And more trainers with 3-5 Pokemon, rather than 1-3 which is the average for most regular NPCs.

Another thing I really enjoyed about revisiting Emerald and Colosseum is the prevalence of double battles. I think the latter's 100% doubles can get old, but Emerald, (even though you can avoid many or do them as singles most of the time if you want) has a very healthy mixture of single and double battles.

Although instead of having it be two random NPCs ganging up on the player, I would just have there be some who prefer doubles and some who prefer singles. I would only use the gang up mechanic for the villainous teams.

@TheJGG That sounds like a good strategy. I just wanted the physical copy though, lol. I have Super Mario 3D All-Stars in physical form, too. With that said, I have Animal Crossing: New Horizons downloaded on my Switch, so I can check on my island pretty much anytime.

I loved how you could get double battles by having two characters challenge you at the same time. Wish there were more opportunities for that, and more games that used it.

@Tyranexx Oh, no worries, and actually no need to clarify: I didn't think you were criticizing Tolkien's elaborate writing style, it was just a bit of added perspective from my side.

Funny story, kinda related to your thoughts on the how and why of not being able to read in the same way anymore: I actually read Lord of the Rings for the very first time when I was still in school. I found it in the school library, and initially thought I could use it to write a thesis. Little did I know...

Ultimately, I chose a MUCH easier book and kept Tolkien's tome for my own leisurely reading sessions.

And I can definitely understand the preference for dubs in anime: unlike quite a few European countries, my current place of residence among them, America isn't really very used to subs, and obviously, they're not needed for most mainstream media. Over here, I've been confronted with subs from the moment I started watching local television. I'm actually happy with subs, because it meant that I could learn stuff at my own pace, while still being able to hear the original English audio in all of the series and movies they broadcast over here.

But having said that, Japanese is obviously of a different order altogether, so subconsciously trying to absorb the spoken words, while concentrating on reading the English subs does indeed sometimes make for the necessity of re-watching (parts of) scenes for me as well, so even for experienced sub readers, it can still be quite the mental exercise...

@ogo79 Yet another comical winner. You did make a little typo there, though.

@TheJGG You know what? I'll make the odd exception and if I can find it on Netflix or in a torrent or something, I'll squeeze it in this weekend. Shouldn't be longer than 1,5 hours anyway, so I think I can fit it in somewhere.

Something dawned on me the other day: I gave you my second recommendation, Ninja Scroll, describing it as an "80's ninja-flavored action movie", but then the realization struck me that the 80's was before your time, and as such, you'll have no sentimental feelings about them, unless you also grew up with the movies of Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme and the like.

But even so, you don't even need those references to still be able to enjoy this anime action flick, because it's a highly entertaining movie regardless.

@ThanosReXXX To start, hopefully you can find it, and if so enjoy it. It was the highest grossing Japanese film for a reason! It’s just under 100 minutes, excluding credits, so it’s not like a 130 minute Ghibli epic! Thanks for making the exception and if my comments on the movie were anything to go by you’ll love it.

Just like Japanese Animovies I didn’t grow up exposed to traditional eighties and nineties films but I’ve managed to do some catching up while at home. Over the last few months I rewatched from the eighties, The Goonies, and saw Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club for the first time.

I admit it was a little strange to see the same character type, played by Molly Ringwald, in two different films, but she was pretty good in them. The Goonies was a very strange movie for a person who had a very casual relationship with the MCU, because Josh Brolin was in the former, and served as the main villain for the latter over thirty years later.

The 1997-1999 movies were frequent in 2020. I watched Good Will Hunting, As Good As It Gets (heavily relatable for someone who is slightly obsessive compulsive like me), and The Talented Mr Ripley.

All of them have a protagonist who is different in some way. One’s a homophobic sociopath, another has OCD and another is super smart. All of them really touched me, but for the latter, it more freaked me out.

What an odyssey through film I’ve had over the last year. And it continued with Princess Mononoke and Your Name, which stand head and shoulders above most movies I’ve seen.

Today is Chinese New Year, Year of Golden Ox. 🐂
Gong Xi Fa Cai ! 😀
Hopefully Covid19 pandemic will be over and we can live normally again.

Edit:
Oh....
Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart cover looks very good.

@MarioLover92 To be fair, the Bowser's Fury add-on at least doesn't feel like a cash grab or an afterthought from Nintendo like some previous re-releases, so that's definitely an improvement. I enjoyed New Super Mario Bros. U, but if you've played one NSMB game, you've played them all lol. As for Pikmin 3, I played it on the Wii U and liked it overall, but...I do feel the series is overrated. I had some fun with the game, but later on I was just frustrated with it more than anything else. I was disappointed after my indirectly related experience with the PIkmin-themed part of Nintendo Land; I was told it was similar to the actual games.

I don't recall all the new content added to TMS #FE Encore, but I wasn't that desperate for it. XD The only thing I'd almost trade up for is the better processing speed, but that's something I can live with.

@Anti-Matter I did try out the Star Fox Zero demo on Wii U, but the controls put me off pretty quickly. I've never played the full game. I've played the first two games that were on the SNES though.

Also, Happy Chinese New Year!

@Heavyarms55 I was implying difficulty settings that were fair and with some modern touches. I agree; some of the difficulty spikes in the older games were artificial and borderline unfair lol. Glares at Whitney's Miltank To a point, the level jumps aren't too bad, but YES. The Swagger and Confuse Ray spam back then was insane! I'd forgotten about that. Proper level scaling and better AI would suit me.

I love double battles and actually thought it was a neat mechanic when they allowed two seemingly unrelated trainers team up against you in Emerald. They tried expanding the formula further in later games; I actually didn't take to triple battles too well, but I loved rotation battles.

I unfortunately haven't played either Pokemon Colosseum or Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness thanks to a lack of GCN access back in the day. I'd welcome slightly cleaned up ports of both games or, heck, GameCube games on NSO....

@ThanosReXXX Not quite the same story as it only involved one (very long) book, but I had a similar experience with Roots when I was in high school. XD In that case, I DID finish it in time for a book report, but there was a LOT of cramming. If I recall, the version I read was well over 700 pages with relatively small print.

On subs: I've always equated it to practice and adaptation; when I was watching subbed anime, I got better digesting it over time, but the pausing and rewinding was still there. Too, my brain likes trying to take in ALL the detail on screen or a printed page, so much so that someone could've moved on while I'm still trying to absorb all the details about a scene or subject.

Subbed media is indeed not common here, though I have watched movies where they're used (Examples: Dances With Wolves, The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto). I fully acknowledge the privilege being a native English speaker has when it comes to a lot of movies, TV shows, and other media. It's usually a choice, not a necessity. I'd definitely be a LOT better with the bits and pieces of other languages I do know if I were thrust into situations where I'd have to use it, deeply uncomfortable though that would be lol.

@Tyranexx NSO GameCube games... oh Tyanexx how you tease me so...

Goodness do I want that so much! That and GBA and N64!

@Heavyarms55
Um...
Do you still play ACNH ?
Is there any new items added from Pocket Camp ?

@Tyranexx
Aw... Too bad.
I dare myself to play Starfox Zero that i have zero knowledges about them.
Like trial and error, got frustrated for understanding the control scheme and identifying my surroundings.
I thought it will be pretty similar as other shooting games by airship from other games i have experienced such from Ratchet & Clank A Crack in Time / Tools of Destruction PS3.
I was wrong, it was completely different and confusing.
Not to mention i have to find the rings on Starfox Zero to recover the HP.

@Anti-Matter Yes and no, not as far as I have seen. Unless they require me to play Pocket Camp actively. I haven't played that in months. Lol

@Tyranexx Agreed with you on Bowser's Fury - it is already SO much better than adding an easy mode to DKC: Tropical Freeze and bumping the price up by $10. Yeah, the New Super Mario Bros. games kinda blend with each other. They all have the same kind of gameplay, controls, art style, and even music in most cases. It's admittedly been a while since I played Pikmin 3, but it was the first Pikmin game that I finished. I think I understand where you're coming from, as you're given time limits while you explore the levels. I was put off by Pikmin 1 because of how it was set up - I didn't want to get the bad ending, lol.

@TheJGG Ah, some pretty decent classics right there. Now, for a change of pace, all you need to watch is Short Circuit, Mannequin, Big and Uncle Buck, also for some variety from the more serious stuff. Oh, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

And if you like endearing movies about slightly weird or unusual characters, then you'll probably want to watch the simply brilliant Rain Man. I could probably name dozens more movies, flowing over from the eighties and nineties into the naughts, but I'll stop right there.

@Tyranexx Yep, that's exactly what it is, basically: experience, or rather: just getting used to/being bombarded by subs from the tenth year of your life up to now, so I don't skip a beat anymore. Well, at least, with western stuff. As mentioned before, with anime on its original sound track, I too can't keep up with the subs sometimes, and then tend to miss things and have to rewind/re-watch parts.

The movies you mentioned, were the obvious ones, of course. There's no way they could NOT have subbed parts of these, even in English. Long gone are the days of English actors doing "funny" foreign accents, and in are the more realistic native speakers, being subbed. Personally, I very much appreciate those kinds of additions to movies. I've once worked & lived in Germany, and even though the experience was a positive one overall, because the people were very nice (contrary to popular/historical belief), the food was great, and the beer was even better, but movies and TV? Only one thing to say about that:

AB-SO-LUTE-LY f-ing horrible. To this day, I still have nightmares about dubbed episodes of Alf...
I once went to the cinema with my German friends, and let me tell you, it was the longest, most boring experience I've ever had. I don't even remember which movie it was anymore. I also never understood how entire nations around the world could just accept these weird voice actors as being "the voice of", instead of the actual people. Just imagine never knowing the real voices of actors; SO weird...

Does anyone remember watching The Backyardigans as a kid

@PokemonGirl99
When i was kid, Biker Mice from Mars was my childhood 90's cartoon.