Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

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No worries, @Tyranexx I just found out how to modify the text in URLs, so I put it in my forum signature. I won’t have to search it up now if I want to add a new song! Though I can admit that unless I change my mind on some it’ll be some time before we get some completely new additions! Or is it? I have some stuff on my computer that may as well get on. I finished and fine-tuned an arrangement of Dearly Beloved, and God forbid if I meet a crazy Kingdom Hearts fan here because I’ll get slagged good! Plus a new arrangement of The prelude from Final Fantasy VII in celebration of FF7R: Intergrade. (more on that later) Nonetheless, enjoy!

Thanos said not to include his posts, which I absolutely respect. I think forum posts count as recreational writing but from a pure literary standpoint I’d consider posts like these to be… social commentary. Because not only do people discuss games here but also real world events, issues and such. I tried writing some fanfiction a few years back… I’d share it here but I literally can’t find it. Which is a shame because it was fun reading and writing it.

If I get bored this summer I may consider re-writing it. The subject, you ask? A faithful novelisation of Xenoblade Chronicles, of course! I managed to write three chapters before losing it, and I really focused on writing realistic dialogue; that’s key to immersion. One of the best parts of that was questioning the game’s logic. For example the bowl-like walls in Colony 9? I touched on it saying that going through Tephra Cave was safer than climbing the walls to get to the kneecap. If I were to tackle it again I’d have to come up with a realistic sense of scale for the Bionis, it must be… egads… kilometres tall. At a guess I’d say 35,000 feet? Then you’d have the problem of altitude and such. Bottom line is that’s a gold mine.

The saying “you’ll only miss it when it’s gone” applies very strongly to Nintendo Directs, because only now do people realise just how good E3 2019’s Direct was. In my hype-induced rabbit hole excursion I watched almost the entire thing again and as stated before have significantly more frequent waves of excitement because of how much more stuff I’ve played since it was aired. I’d absolutely disagree that the Switch is understaffed at the moment, I’d go as far as saying it has a bit too much!

A lot of the stuff available on Switch is frankly bordering meaningless, like your 99-cent indie games that get discounted to 19 cents every other week. I will admit though that this platform allows indies to shine, by giving them identical exposure to other games (except of course the big big first party ones). I don’t know why exactly but games like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Limbo, Inside and more, seem to belong on Switch more than any other platform. It’s because it’s portable, at least I know that much. Playing a game like Celeste on a 4K/120fps ready PS5 is overkill, so having a platform like Switch is perfect for those games.

My own gaming story’s like that, just a tad later. Replace Pokémon with Mario and you have me. When I was younger though I had an obsession with Dora the Explorer (partly because I was learning Spanish), and had two DS games, one for Dora and one for Diego… but other than that my parents still had a subconscious preference for first party games that has since passed down to me.

Don’t get me started on Harry Potter, I am a very big fan of the series. My father, who thankfully was in perfect fitness after that one off day, has an unusual disdain for the series, and often compares it unfavourably to the Middle-Earth saga. I think both are fantastic works, though Harry Potter is significantly more accessible than any of Tolkien’s books. That also aided the movie adaptations, which I felt were perfectly executed in pretty much every way. The child actors went from strength to strength with every passing film, and it was like growing up with them whenever I watch them in close proximity to each other. I would say that the Middle-Earth Saga compares very strongly too but the Hobbit trilogy dragged on way too long, and as such felt very thin at times, because it was a book the fraction of the size of the Lord of the Rings books, with the same runtime.

I do hope The Hogwarts Legacy is good though, I usually never buy movie adaptation video games, though LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean on DS, plus LEGO Harry Potter, Lego The Hobbi- oh, screw it, many LEGO [movie] games, are exceptions. A movie video game I would buy though is an adaptation of any Christopher Nolan film, or anything with him involved. Imagine two of the most imaginative and bizarre writers of all time collaborating on a big project. That could have been Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro, but it could also be Kojima and Nolan. Capcom’s another I will of course keep my eyes on. It’s come super fast now so my game plan is quite solid.

Visual novels… Ace Attorney falls squarely in that category. So does Famicom Detective Club, and then Doki Doki Literature Club. Those are all games I could invest in should I wish to, but I’m probably going to go for Doki Doki first because of the horrific twists, new content and the HD sprites. I always had outside interest in it but another game that belongs on Switch will get the Switch treatment, and just eighteen days until I’m able to see what it’s all about. Over the next few days you will no doubt glue your eyes to your monitor, smartphone or television, a bit more than normal, due to E3. So early sleep is very much advised and will pay off! Knowing your schedule you’d no doubt prefer to adopt my watching schedule, but yours is quite painful for me, especially the Square Enix one, which I’d probably miss if that was the case!

I saw a post from the Overrated/Underrated thread and one game mentioned was Final Fantasy VII Remake. I didn’t agree with all the criticism but I did agree that there was a fair amount of filler story content, plus the side quests were atrocious. I still think it’s a fantastic game that sets us up for a bright future. I doubt you’d want to see it considering you haven’t even played the game yet, but Square sneaked in a second ending cutscene, probably…. no, legitimately teasing us for the second part. That won’t happen for DQ3, a game 32 years old without any plans that I know of to expand the story or change… well… anything.

I wouldn’t say I want a full remake but I wouldn’t want them to keep it fully 1:1. I’d like at least some changes like a new dungeon, or sidequests, nothing story-wise obviously. I think Xenoblade’s length was perfect, just when it begins to wear off a perfect story curveball re-ignites the flame, over and over until you finish it. When I played it five years ago I couldn’t put it down, nor could I when I bought the Definitive Edition, which regrettably arrived a day after the release! It’s as good a time as any to plug Persona 5 again because that game was so damn long even I began to get a bit burnt out. It took over eighty hours, and mind, Xenoblade took 65, PLUS, I skipped at least two hour of voiced dialogue and cutscenes because I was getting quite tired. People call me addicted to Nintendo but I still have a ton of sanity left so I clearly haven’t taken it too far yet.

Some stuff arrived from the England-based mailing service, which mailed stuff they got from Amazon, all the way here. I didn’t expect they were the games and sure enough they weren’t, but the condition of the goods (for the record it was a Death Note leather journal, not for me) was quite good, meaning the journey was smooth. I wouldn’t say I’m obsessed with shipping details, because during the rare periods of time I was able to get stuff delivered straight to me for free (which was about seven months total in the last four years) it arrived within two days.

Oh God… this was hard to stomach but here it is… From the lead to fifteenth in one corner… but that’s how the chips fell in this particular race. He hasn’t made a mistake like that in a good two years so… it’s still fresh! He’s a very grounded, human driver, even if at times it’s very clear he’s playing mind games with his championship rivals. That’s sporting drama for you, and believe me I’m relishing the feeling.

The Persona 5 Royal steelbook screams style and it’s such a pleasure to look at. It has this very shiny lustre that captivates me the way a jewel would. I’d provide my own image of the Xenoblade 2 one but it’s quite scuffed and I suspect within two years it’ll be almost completely blank. I’ve taken good care of it since I noticed though.

I’d honestly be disappointed if Trials of Mana wasn’t mechanically better than the original. I will admit that it runs sub-optimally on Switch, I saw gameplay of it on PC and it looks much better. The game’s also very big, so it was a mistake getting it digitally (10.6GB in case you were wondering). Sometimes the camera’s slow and all but the combat’s quite responsive, if, again, a bit slow. But that’s life really, and it isn’t gonna be perfect. Just like the voice acting.