Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Eel what color is it? I've seen quite a few different colors of the cow one.

@Kermit1 the normal black and white one

@Kermit1 Yup, she's even nicer in person. Took this to the theater with me when I went to see Trolls World Tour a few weeks back.

Very cool on the bee one, I never had any pillow pet until this year, honestly it's probably one of the best plushies I've had. I didn't know they did favorite characters too. I remember the old commercials were just different animals.

@Eel Very cool! I think my nephew at one point had the puppy one.

For some reason I got this urge to buy a ton of plushies all of a sudden.

@seaboyluca That's because plushies are good!

@Eel I have that one saved for later on Amazon actually lol

@Sunsy Whoa, it's a lot bigger than my Bee. The hair looks like it would get in my nose if I were to sleep with it. Very cute.

That's me everyday.

Oy. Today was the Mondayist Monday that I've had for awhile. I'm SO glad I'm home for the day. Busy week overall, so I won't get too many breathers unfortunately. Though this upcoming weekend is pretty lax for me (so far).

On the plus side, my gaming night last night was pretty fun! I just wish I went to bed earlier. XD

@TheJGG I am looking forward to the next cover as well as any tonal changes! I do admit I have a preference for something cheery turning a bit dark....I blame DDLC....

@Kermit1 First of all, roller coasters are amazing. I LOVE them. I could probably do something like that window cleaning with a LOT of training, and as long as all the safety precautions were 100% set. As for the High Roller, my last flight was a long weekend trip with some family to Las Vegas a few months ago. I WANTED to ride the High Roller - we stayed near The Stratosphere - but unfortunately there wasn't really time.

@MarioLover92 I did notice on my Switch activity feed that you'd dived back into Breath of the Wild! It's an excellent game, and I wish you luck on your competition! Or does the race merely involve horse racing? I think that would make a great (though limited) multiplayer element.

On MK8D: Well, as long as they're fun tracks that everyone can enjoy! I'm almost tempted to grab the DLC just to try the new tracks...but I'm not QUITE ready to dive back into Mario Kart yet.

@Sunsy Ahh I see, how is RBWY? Do you know much about it? Kinda random, but I kinda been wanting to play Genshin Impact, but I do have Xenoblade 3 coming to play!

@MarioLover92 The 711 LIESSS lol! Hopefully soon though we'll be a racin'!

@Tyranexx Nice, glad to hear you like it a lot! Ahh that part that you spoiler tagged is such a cool moment, caught me by surprise! The graphics and controls are awesome. I do like the game a lot but somehow I prefer most of the other 2d games. I think it really just is the EMMI that bogs the game down for me. But I am super happy though that the 2d Metroid is still alive and kicking. Can't wait for more Metroid! Cmon, Primes!!

@Eel Ya threads like those (the funny video one) are quite spammy. I post any cool videos I find on the Chit-Chat thread I think they fit better here.

(I never got to comment on that because I started watching Seinfeld and I'm addicted now)

@Kermit1 I'm guessing your bee is a small one? My Poppy is the standard sized Pillow Pet, though, I loved they made the Clifford the Big Red Dog pillow pet a jumbo sized one because of course they would.

She is really cute, I like to put her in pillow mode and rest my hands and controller on it while playing games. It seems like it, but I had no problem sleeping with her. I usually put her in pillow mode, and her hair is in the opposite direction of my face. For lack of a better comparison, it's like I'm hugging her (fitting given the character and the movie lol).

@tekoii So far it's good. I'm not far in RWBY, from what I've seen, it's about a girl named Ruby Rose, who happens to get into a fight and stopping some bad guys at a store. Next thing she knows she's attending a special school to work on her combat skills. She's also a really cute character, and there's a fun spin-off on YouTube called RWBY Chibi, where characters are in comical and silly situations.

Cool, I've played a couple of mobile games, but mostly Sega classics or cartoon tie-ins like the now discontinued Trolls Pop and Minion Rush (funnily enough, I'm not big on Minions, but I like this game). I know Genshin Impact is a mobile game IIRC. Lately, I've been playing the classic game Strike Commander and got Borderlands 2 during the Steam Summer Sale, both on PC. I also got Mario+Rabbids due to the recent trial.

@tekoii I LOVE the graphics and backgrounds in Dread; it's the most believable world I've found in a Metroid game since...well, the Samus Returns remake, but before that I'd say the grand prize goes to Metroid Prime Trilogy. Though Other M wasn't bad either despite taking place on a ship. I did have a heck of a time beating Experiment No. Z-57 during my last session. TWO. HOURS. All because I was missing a crucial point in the second phase that I thought caused optional damage, but was actually necessary...ugh. I cannot understate the feelings of relief and victory once I finally brought that thing down...partially because it was past my bedtime at that point. XD I'm definitely on board for more Metroid! CoughPrime4Cough

Edit: The last paragraph by the OP in this Reddit thread details the problem I ran into despite caving to consulting a guide after a few tries.

@ogo79 Now THAT guy knows how to show off his boots! Baggle included.

@Sunsy Your Sonic tee looks a lot like the one I lost years ago! That's definitely a cool one. That's a nice assortment of Trolls merch you have as well.

I wanna try to get Pac-Man World Re-Pac as well, hopefully if it sells well or something, they'd remake PMW2 later down the road. Yes you're totally right! We all love plushies, that's nothing to be ashamed of. There's another plush I have, that's a star from the Mario series. I've had it for over a decade.

@Tyranexx Yeah thanks! It's pretty much who can finish the game and roll the credits first.

I'm sure that'll be the case for MK8D DLC. I was pretty happy with how the courses turned out, and some of my favorites did make the cut, such as Coconut Mall and Shroom Ridge. Yeah, that's fine. I'd say if you really like the base game and what the DLC offers, then I'd recommend getting it. You could wait until more tracks are revealed too.

@tekoii I didn't really expect an announcement just going by that 711 thing anyway. lol

@Tyranexx It’s a good and bad thing that you mention DDLC… because while my next cover is a song from DDLC, it doesn’t have a dark twist! The song in question (it’s from the Plus edition) is meant to be melancholic so it already is dark in that way.

I’d love to do this one next though, this is easily one of my favourites from the game and it isn’t even in it! It’s similarly melancholy.

I’m of the opinion that Princess Mononoke has one of the best Japanese to English localisations. Neil Gaiman wrote the script after all, he’s a really popular author in the UK. He wrote Stardust and Good Omens, among others. It has a great English cast too, Billy Crudup (Big Fish), Claire Danes (Stardust), Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting) and more. Such an amazing film.

As an update to my purchase of an android tablet, I’ve been enjoying having it so far!

Looks wise, the form factor and materials make it feel like a really large iPod touch, but it’s considerably smaller and lighter than the iPad Air… And having an new device that can use my old android apps and purchases has been fun.

I put Apple Music on it, and the sleep timer I had on my old phone as well, disabled most notifications, and installed all the usual movie streaming apps. So it’s a nice media center. I also can play my GBA and DS game backups on it very competently, which is a nice bonus.

Performance wise, it can stutter every now and then when switching apps and stuff, and for some reason the first time I turned it off, the SD card corrupted randomly, so I had to redownload a bunch of stuff. Thankfully that hasn’t happened again. Battery life has been amazing, interestingly enough.

@Sunsy ya he was small from what I remember of him.

I just remembered his name was Bob the Bee

@seaboyluca It’s a sign!

YouTube isn't exactly known for insightful comments, but every now and then, you come across the rare gems worth pondering.

I remember, when I was describing SMT V in the comment section of its NintendoLife page, I couldn't quite nail what bothered me about the game.

And then I came across this comment in a video titled "The problem with adventure movies today":

"It's sterile. There's no grit, no s** appeal, no messiness, no surprises … not one hair out of place that isn't placed just so to LOOK out of place. I've been feeling this for a while. The overreliance on CGI, the lack of chaos and chemistry, the shrink wrapped hollow quality to it all. It's unsettling and not in a good or interesting way."

I think I felt that way for a lot of movies today. They're all designed by a marketing team to appeal to as many demographics as possible, all pre-packaged with the right keywords and 'safe storylines' that guarantee a box office hit. Phase 4 of the MCU similarly suffers from this issue as well. I don't think a good story should be told in such an artificial and contrived manner by a bunch of PR guys, but maybe that's just me.

Similarly, SMT V, along with a couple of modern games, left me with that 'perfect exterior' but hollow interior feeling. Sure, we got improved graphics that blew Nocturne HD Remaster away, but it all feels like flash but no substance. The plot was so short, going through the motions of fighting one gym leade- I mean demon boss to another before the obligatory law/chaos/neutral/destroy choice pops up in the end. It felt like they were trying to inject a Persona storyline into an SMT title with its highschool bullying subplot, only to backtrack and ended up with an unsatisfying story thread that never felt resolved in a meaningful manner. It's as if the PR team threw together a bunch of incomplete plot threads that worked in past SMT/Persona games (bullying, finding yourself, fighting God and Satan, law vs. chaos) without doing the hard work of building the characters and the universe. Literally all the characters suffered for it and became under-developed because the writers were trying to tell five stories at once.

I think that's the real issue here. Instead of writers who tell a story, we now have a marketing team "doing what works in the past" and rehashing it. SMT IV, for example, felt distinctly different from SMT Nocturne in terms of storyline (samurai uncovering a conspiracy vs. a half-naked child rejecting gods and their ideals). I don't even need to explain what Strange Journey did differently because it might as well have been an entirely different franchise with its unique setting/plot. Each of those SMT titles were memorable in their own way, not just rehashing good things that came before, so I think "doing what works before" isn't exactly the best way to tell a story, and not just in terms of SMT but also other JRPGs and video game stories in general.

It's probably an unfair comparison, but such repetition was probably one reason why I grew out of Pokémon as I got older, only to be slightly intrigue again when Pokémon Legends spiced the story up with a different take. Digimon, on the other hand, has pretty much hammered its "oh no, evil dictator Digimon wants to wipe out the universe" plot as much as possible already, so I hope Digimon Survive will bring something different to the table.

Anyway, just food for thought that I wanted to get off my chest. I love SMT, but I think IGN had a point when it said "Persona with no heart." It does feel like it's trying to imitate Persona on some level because Persona's popular rather than doing its own unique take. Just saiyan.

I know this is not the site to talk about stuff like this but I'm heavily debating whether I should mod my "NEW" 2DS XL, since the eshop is closing. Could anyone send me a forum link or reddit link to help me make up my mind.