Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@blindsquarel Okay!

I love Litten's design, even though I picked the water starter I still love Litten.

In honor of Shy Guy being added to Strikers, I decided to slightly edit my avatar. Let me know if you can spot the difference

Watching Comic-Con live on IGN's YouTube channel right now. Much as I have my gripes with IGN, I'm glad this exist as I live in Singapore and basically thousands of miles away from America. lol

Still, not much to get excited about; bunch of AAA titles I have little interest in.

@MarioLover92 You're making some decent BotW progress then! Since the Divine Beasts can be completed in any given order, which ones have you already finished? The only one of them I had any significant problem finishing was Vah Naboris. The memories are pretty fun to track down, though I admit I didn't collect the Master Sword in my run until I was nearly finished Hyrule-trotting. XD

Yep, I'm holding off on the NSO expansion pack until they add more. Though I wouldn't be against going in on a family plan with someone IRL if they'd be interested and paying my share. I know there are online collaborations, even on these forums, but I'm not comfortable subbing with strangers online. For now, $20/year vs. $50/year is easier to swallow...especially since Nintendo didn't use to charge for online functionality.

@Snatcher I'm gonna do more yard work this evening, though it shouldn't take as long. I technically had time to finish the rest of it yesterday, but it was starting to get late and my stomach was threatening to mutiny.

@Link-Hero Thanks! Cool, Tails is my favorite too. I also like Sonic, but I liked Tails more when I started getting into the series. That's a high price, I'm guessing that's an import plush. I remember an old Comic book store got Japanese Sonic plushies and they did cost more.

Good luck with that, collecting game stuff is fun.

@MarioLover92 Thanks, that's cool. I remember my first Sonic plush I got for Christmas. It was a classic Sonic plush that was small and had felt spines. Sadly I no longer have it, I still have my old Sonic and Tails plushies that were a bit bigger than that first Sonic one.

@Kermit1 BTW, did you see any of my posts. Just wanted to say I'm glad you were ok.

@Tyranexx Don’t you just hate it when your body turn against you? Lol

its dangerous to go alone!
take this.

I woke up to my house flooding today. While we did get a plumber in to fix the leak, the bad news (besides flooding of course) is that it will be 3 days before the plumber can patch the leak (because that's the one covered by our insurance), So I am staying at a hotel for those 3 days. The good news is that I am alive and doing fine.

I found some parody name from Youtubers Life 2 like these.

Okay, there were Legend of Welda, Star Worst, Spiner Man, etc.

So after watching highlights from the earlier Comic-Con on YouTube, I somehow stumbled on Angry Joe's reaction to Summer Game Fest 2022. Much like Comic-Con, I didn't really see anything that catches my eye that much. Calisto Protocol looked cool, and the Soul Hackers 2 segment didn't really offer much details, but that's about it.

One thing that I did think about though by the time I got through the whole thing was how many times Angry Joe (and his chat) called any JRPG "a weeb game," especially when it came to the Soul Hackers 2 segment. I have my problems with the Soul Hackers 2 development, but I wouldn't necessarily just dismiss it as a dumb "weeb game." It kinda just goes to show how the anime artstyle is still perceived in the west, till this day, as this niched, perverse thing that panders to, at best, a minority cult following, or at worst, horny basement dwellers who worships furries. I mean, I'm Chinese, and anime is popular here in Singapore, so I don't know what that says about me, or whether if a South-East Asian like me liking Japanese animation makes me a "weeb," so-called.

But then again, that's always been my issue with Angry Joe. He has this shallow and dismissive attitude where he just judges games and shows that don't pander to his interest with a very superficial level of criticism. You can clearly see from the video the level of distinction between his excitement for action-oriented "metalhead games" like Metal HellSinger and his boredom for "weeb games" like Soul Hackers 2 and Neon White. He's clearly haven't read the Lord of the Rings books, but Alex has, so he's dismissing Alex's criticisms about the Rings of Power trailer like he's not interested in his point of view because it contradicts with his worldview.

But no, it's not just Joe I was thinking about at the end of the video. It got me thinking about why people get so upset online when someone dislikes a game or a movie you like. Part of it has to do with insecurity, sure, but I think on a deeper level, it also has to do with loneliness, how you feel left out when all the kids like one thing, but you're some weirdo who's the only person at school liking another thing. I remember back in secondary school (or "middle school" in American terms), I was probably the only kid who liked Digimon during the Pokémon craze. It really didn't help that our local kids channel had this event where they would host a marathon of episodes from both the Pokémon and Digimon anime for an entire day or two just to see which one would receive more viewership; it's a no-brainer who won.

So it's this gatekeeping attitude we have online, right? Just keeping to ourselves the games and movies we like, and dismissing those we don't. It kinda breeds this isolationist attitude that leads to dwindling sales of games we like because they're not popular enough. After my conversation with @Ralizah the other day, I do think that Atlus is trying their best to still cater to the SMT crowd, but I've heard that SMT sales just aren't doing as well as Persona games, so I don't know how that will affect the future of the SMT titles. Because one side of the crowd isn't willing to give this niched, weird weeb thing a try because it looks like a, and I quote, "generic JRPG," sales go down and they don't do as well as say, Cuphead, The Last of Us, Dark Souls or any of those big name American games. Between Cuphead and a Japanese shoot'em up game like Touhou with similar gameplay, which do you think would have bigger sales for example? JRPGs have their audience, but I just get the feeling that they're not nearly on the level of modern American AAA games, even those developed by non-American countries that aren't Japan like Russia or Germany. There's still a divide between the west and the east.

I have a strong feeling that if The Last of Us had an anime paintjob but retained the same story entirely, it wouldn't have done as well as it did. I liked a lot of Japanese animation not because it had an "anime style," but because they told a good story that's just as good, if not better than many American shows and animation. If you had a JRPG that has as good a story as The Last of Us, heck yeah I would still play it, anime style or not.

By the way, I know that the term, "weeb" has grown to become a more affectionate label nowadays that even anime fans label themselves with, but its origin clearly came from a derogatory stance, criticizing non-Japanese for obsessing over Japanese products, which is in itself a misuse of the term, "weeaboo" anyway since true weeaboos are far more cringeworthy than normal anime fans. You've still got people online like on Reddit calling out how "anime style is plastered everywhere" and how they're annoyed by it, so clearly, the artstyle still provoked the ire of a number of people for some reason.

Just for the record, I could understand not being interested in a certain kind of games like platform games or racing games. I myself have never been a huge Mario or Sonic fan, so if the shoe's on the other foot in a parallel universe where Mario isn't popular, my lack of contribution towards its sales would've caused the franchise to dwindle too. But I think when it comes to JRPGs, it's an entirely different conversation about more than just not liking a style of gameplay. Unless it incorporates American style (Resident Evil, or Biohazard in Japan) or American icons (Kingdom Hearts), I got a feeling that even the most popular Final Fantasy would struggle against American titles, especially with the additional problem of people's vocal dislike of turn-based combat.

I don't know, just my two cents. Sorry for the lengthy ramble. lol I just feel like, with all this hype of popular games recently, and me just not being able to connect with what the vast majority of people are excited about, it feels kinda lonely just discussing JRPGs that are barely half a decade old like SMT Strange Journey: Redux or whatever upcoming JRPGs that aren't as talked about in the biosphere of mass media. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

@Maxenmus "Weeb" is weird, since, while it's frequently used as a racist slur directed at anything perceived to be Japanese, it's also increasingly being used by fans of Japanese media as a self-identification of sorts. Sort of like "otaku" was used by Western anime fans back when I was young (which, itself, was an inappropriate use of a term that's primarily applied to people who have an unhealthy, overriding obsession with something).

Best to just stop engaging with people like Angry Joe online if their myopic viewpoints are frustrating you. If you're looking for youtubers, there are actually quite a few small content creators who talk about MegaTen-related stuff, and small communities on sites like Reddit and whatnot where likeminded people can have discussions.

SMT V outsold every previous iteration in the series, so it's difficult to imagine they'd abandon the series. It didn't explode like P5 did, but it arguably has more brand recognition now than it did at any point in the past.

Before the 3DS eshop shuts down, it might be worth engaging with more Atlus games on there. Like, have you ever played any of the Etrian Odyssey games? Because if the sense of dread, hardcore difficulty, and gameplay focus of older SMTs appeals to you, EO is absolutely worth checking out.

I will take that, yes!

@GoombaKing64 Ugh, insurance can be a pain to deal with. I'm glad everyone is okay, but a flooded house definitely isn't fun.

@Snatcher YES. I wouldn't eat unless I honestly wanted to and wouldn't sleep unless I had to lol. Though unfortunately both things are very important....

Y’all will probably be seeing a lot more of me soon since most of the reason I’ve been gone is my girlfriend but it looks like she’s been lying to me this whole time so I won’t have to deal with that much longer. yay…

Well, my beach vacation week flew by fast. In no time it went from saturday to wednesday. Rode the skatepark & hit the beach every day. Even rode the skatepark on the 30mph windy day. And just finished the 400 mile drive home.

And I didn't even post in the going away/vacation thread

On tuesday or wednesday, at the beach we saw a large af, very unique looking seagull. This bird swooped down, and lifted a soccerball(football) size buoy out of the water about 6 feet(2 meters). It was crazy as hell, and it happened so fast, no one had their camera out. Later we identified what we saw. It was a Magnificent Frigatebird. Apparently, they have a wingspan of 6ft (2 meters), and they can't swim in the water, which is part of why it was so crazy to see the bird pull the fisherman's buoy out of water.

This shrot article about them is fascinating - they can stay in the air for weeks, among other things. They're rare up the east cost of US, possibly more common around @Eel (if Eel lives around baja marine environment)
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/30/484164544/...

I also got stung by a jellyfish. Usually jellyfish are beat up into pieces by waves, not this one. It was bell shaped, size of a large orange with two foot tenticle hanging. It barely touched me (caught me by surprise). It was super itchy & painful for 1-2 hours, but not as bad as a bee sting. I think I was lucky.

Played Spot the Differences Party with my nieces at the beach. Such a good, chill game, I think. (also Mario 3D World)

Unfortunately I don’t actually live near the beach, so the only large birds we get to see around here are mostly hawks and vultures.

@Tyranexx I've done Vah Ruta, then Vah Medoh. I'll also add that I got another stamina vessel, since I have plenty of hearts now.

I actually do have a family plan of my own, and yeah, all the people in it are those I know in real life. Mostly family members. Yeah, $20 is definitely easier to swallow as opposed to $50. I'd really only recommend the family membership for getting NSO+EP, at least everyone will be saving more cash in the long run, especially if you've got eight people on board.

@Sunsy Oh that's cool. Ah that's too bad you lost it. Tails is definitely a cool character - kinda wish he was playable in more of the modern games, but at least he and the others were playable in Sonic Mania.

@tekoii It was cool playing Mario Kart with you, @Tyranexx, @Vortexeo, and @AstralRedStar705, I had fun! Though that last place finish of mine on Royal Raceway was a bit...upsetting. lol

@Anti-Matter
That Star Wars one might be the most accurate thing ever created.

@Blooper987 A toxic relationship? I've had my fair share. Take time to yourself and spend time with the people you know care.

@Blooper987 What happened? It’s ok if you don’t want to talk about as you don’t have to, whatever happened I give you my best wishes.