Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Eel I think it is, the box did say "Series 2" on it, some of the art on the box felt like a spring theme. They also have Branch dressed as a bee, lol. Yeah, I'm surprised she looks close to the movie too.

I agree with that, Viva's wild hair makes it fitting.

@Sunsy What's Legends of Oz? I'll have to look these up.
Sonic 06 has had a bunch of issues. Surprisingly, it was my first Sonic game, and I 100% completed the base game on 360. It did bridge the gap between animation and game for me. But I also recognize that, between the deadline put on the team, and the team being split up so they could make a Wii game as well, 06 had issues. I don't think they even fully finished the plot. At some point, they just decided they needed some way to end it. The romance between Sonic and Elise was cringe, especially the kiss, which genuinely needs to be reworked. Maybe rework it so Elise is a friend instead. I don't recall many glitches, but it was obviously a bland world map, and the silver medals were kinda stupid. The S ranks are notably far easier than in other Sonic games too.
Mephiles was a great villain though.

Yea. A few years ago, the "extra quest" Zelda games for BS-X got an English dub. I found out about it here, and hurried to get a hold of them.
DKR is easily one of my top two kart racers. Maybe up there with racing in general. It'd have been great if the full cast got attention.

@Sunsy I see, I didn’t know that there were requirements in the game you had to meet just to continue instead of just completing the level and moving onto the next one. It is good that they did listen to criticism and did their best to make Fire and Ice better. It’s still sad the WiiU game didn’t do well because I think that people would have loved it more if the WiiU version didn’t release with so much bugs unfortunately. I also think that if the game had released on different platforms as intended instead of being stuck on the WiiU, I’m sure people would have liked it more, cuz I think other consoles would have been able to run the game a bit better than the WiiU.

Yes, the changes that were made to Rare during the early 00s are very notable when reading up about the history in the company. After Microsoft purchased the company, original employees left throughout the 00s, which is often attributed to Microsoft’s handling of the studio and fans say that it’s Microsoft’s mishandling of Rare that changed the studio significantly (employees leaving, no longer making games using legacy IP, infrequently releasing games) and some employees have different accounts on that; some say that Rare had a good relationship with Microsoft and that they were supportive, some say that Microsoft didn’t help the studio at all and ruined it through their management. I think some of those changes didn’t come from Microsoft, since Rare is allowed to make whatever games they’d like without Microsoft restricting their creativity or attaching them to a specific IP, and a majority of the employee departures weren’t from layoffs, though I recall reading Rare had employee layoffs either in the mid or late-2000s or early-2010s, and most employees that left formed their own studios (e.g. Playtonic). It has certainly been a while since they last worked with a legacy IP, and I would love to see a lot of their old IPs get modern revivals, but it’s fine if they want to make new and original games, those are good too!

Also, Viva Piñata! I love that game so much with how the animals are all piñatas. Probably one of the best and most silliest and creative games Rare has released. I’ve found the piñata designs are so cool and fun to draw

I was pretty shocked at how dark All Dogs Go to Heaven was on rewatch, in fact, I kind of didn’t realize a lot of Bluth’s movies had some dark themes and elements to them. I watched N.I.M.H and it was probably the most darkest Bluth movie I watched. It’s cool that he manages to make his movies family friendly but also a bit dark and having some more serious elements to them. Yes, he also did Anastasia and that is another one of his notable movies. I still haven’t watched it yet, but I should do it very soon because I want to see it before they possibly take it off. He has a lot of well-known movies that I surprisingly haven’t seen yet.

I also like smaller accounts. I’ve been getting recommended a ton of them recently and following a bunch of them. It’s shocking how many underrated art accounts there are on there. They have a lot of talent and deserve so much praise but it seems like the algorithm unfortunately doesn’t push their artwork a ton and show it to a bunch of people. Most art accounts become popular by posting reels instead of images. I’d like to post more art reels, but it’s very difficult to do and I have no time for it, so I’m very content with just being an extremely small account and posting pictures when I feel like it. I only posted one reel but I deleted it just now. It was way too low quality and I feel like I could have done a better job on it.

@Tyranexx That is interesting, so it seems like arcade cabinets aren’t that common anymore from their lack of popularity, profit and possibly fees. I didn’t know some places did impose fees on stuff like that, I assumed that they were free to take care of and manage! I do prefer console and mobile gaming more too, but I think arcade cabinets are cool, but it’s been a while since I last played one.

I put in way too much time into FEH haha. It’s not an awesome game, but I boot it up sometimes when I’m bored. I do want to game more but I’ve also been more busy too, so I just mobile game for now, but I’ve also been drawing more too. I do hope that you get more time to play games very soon. I wish I did have more time for it, I kind of am in the mood to get my Xbox on and play a game, but I’ll probably wait until December since I’ll have more free time near the holidays. On an unrelated note, I played a match for my brother in Halo Infinite when he had to go do something and gosh I sucked at it haha. I haven’t touched my console in a while, so I think I need to play more shooter games soon to polish my skills more. It sucks when I’m not good at a game anymore after not playing it for a while.

yeah, I do recall hearing that Chaos Wars was a decent RPG, but the voice acting is what made it so famous haha. I’ve seen a lot of people’s opinions on English dubs of Japanese games, and usually some say that English dubs aren’t on the same level of the original audio, but I’ve heard people say that some English dubs make a piece of media super memorable, mainly coming from comedic lines and moments inserted in the dialogue or the performance (some examples I’ve heard of include English dubs of anime such as one called The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.) and Chaos Wars is definitely an example of that haha. I don’t mind English dubs, but on Crunchyroll, they make the most of the episodes of English dubs for shows locked behind a sub, so I always go for Japanese audio since the site makes Japanese episodes free to watch.

@Mariotag I did see the new terms of conditions briefly when the notification showed up in my feed, but I didn’t have enough time to read it. It’s nice that they are still giving users ownership to what they post, I was concerned about the art being used to train AI generators.

Although I never played Pokémon Go, I did feel a certain way when I read the headline on NL that they were using AI training the whole time and just revealed that fact to its users almost a decade later.

I never used Twitter, but I heard it was way better in its early days but started to fall, I want to say, around the late 2010s, maybe 2017-2019. Some topics on Twitter seem more toxic and negative than other ones, but I find it’s the bigger and more popular topics that tend to have more negativity. It’s also for pop culture too. When I made occasional visits on the web version, I saw a ton of negativity with people expressing video game opinions, one I can recall was someone finding the games in that Mario 3D All-Stars collection overrated and a bunch of people getting on the person for it and insulting them. Sometimes it seems like other opinions on that site aren’t allowed and people resort to insulting. I usually looked at posts for video games, and they were either toxic, rude, or people trolling to rile people up. The same goes for movies on there too.

I didn’t know that about that Fallen Edelgard unit! That’s crazy, I remember I was trying to get her from a gacha banner because I thought the design was cool (got the Choose Your Legends variant instead) but I didn’t know she was that overpowered. It sounds like a lot of the units from the newer games are stronger than the units from previous games and the original characters, and a lot of the Three Houses units I have definitely feel that way too, though not as overpowered like Fallen Edelgard. The Choose Your Legends variant I have of Dimitri is very strong and overpowers a lot of the enemies I go up against, but the other units I have like Yuri and a few of the Hilda and Byleth variants are not strong like him, but I’d have to also assume it’s because I don’t use the Hilda and Byleth variant a ton like I used to.

I did hear a lot about Sonic 06 getting a remake because of a recent comment on how they were interested in remaking it. Similarly, there were reports that they greenlit a remake of Heroes, but that has not been confirmed yet. That would be cool if it got a new and improved remake, plus wasn’t 06 delisted from all platforms and can’t be purchased again? I might want to try it if that does happen. I haven’t played 06 at all, and all that I’ve seen for it is an hour long gameplay video of a YouTuber playing Sonic’s part of the story and short snippets from a fandub. I’ve heard people say that 06 had a lot of potential and could have been good if there was more polish to the game.

@Sunsy No clue why I didn't see an alert that you'd quoted me, so I'm glad I caught it lol.

I like many foods in the Italian category, though I will admit I REALLY dislike Alfredo sauce. Pretty much any tomato based sauces, butter sauces, and a couple of house white non-Alfredo sauces I've had are fine. Hard to go wrong with any of it in general lol.

Sonic...indeed sounds somewhat deadpan in that clip lol. Especially the "Aah!" XD Thanks for sharing that clip.

@Mariotag To be fair, I'm not against using guides with games when I get irrevocably stumped. But that isn't too often. I have gotten stuck on Ace Attorney Trilogy a time or three. I do take exercise breaks every 6-8 weeks. That doesn't mean I barely move at all; I still fit in regular movement. I just don't brick out time for exercise. It's a nice physical and mental reset.

Never be afraid to ask for help if you genuinely need it. I totally get the pride aspect, but my limited amount of gaming time usually supersedes myself trying to brute force my way forward. I am glad you are progressing well in Castlevania Dominus Collection, especially since I've heard the games it has can be difficult.

I'm mildly envious that you have a Mario Kart Arcade GP cabinet you can reach! I've never played on one since they aren't in my area - they're extremely expensive and typically only found in urban environments to my knowledge - but I've seen the features and specs in RePlay Magazine. I am familiar with Arctic Thunder, though it has been many years since I've played that one. The cool air blowing on you does feel amazing on a hot day, doesn't it?

@Pastellioli I think it depends on the area overall. A lot of the really large cool modern cabinets - like the Mario Kart one mentioned above - are very expensive both to buy and to maintain too. My employer doesn't really stock any huge ticket items like that. With fees and so on, it again depends on the area. Typically they fall under things like amusement taxes and stuff like that. Some businesses do own their own machines too, but then the maintenance and welfare are all up to them.

There's nothing wrong with mobile gaming IMO since there are quality games on mobile platforms too. Not just freemium shovelware. Mobile games by nature are more pick up and play and easier to fit in, especially when busy otherwise. Thanks, I have had a bit more time to game normally this week. I'm still somewhat busy, but I do have some downtime now. I for sure have a flop day on Friday since I took off work and don't participate in the Black Friday insanity (at least not in person). It sounds like you had fun with Halo Infinite even if you are a little rusty. Sometimes it can take a bit to readapt to a game's controls. Also glad you're drawing more too.

English dubs can help make or break a piece of media's reception, so I can understand the arguments for one way or the other. Especially when it comes to Crunchyroll like what you mentioned (and is also why I'm not always the biggest fan of that service). I mostly prefer dubs since it's easier for me to follow the action if I'm not having to occasionally rewind the video to rewatch a section where the subs change or disappear before I'm done reading. It can depend on who did the subbing too.

@Pastellioli Yeah, Sonic 06 had lots of potential. It got kinda ruined by deadlines, half the team being moved to a project for Wii (Secret Rings), and the general love story they eventually came up with.
Heroes getting a remake would actually be pretty neat too. It was the first game in the franchise I'm aware of that gave even the normal enemies health bars, which really messed stuff up for later games. Plus, to finish the story itself, you had to play through effectively the same game three times, each with different characters that functioned as an easy, normal, and hard mode, plus had to complete a 4th set that was more like a mission mode.
Fire Emblem Heroes started its downfall with Fallen Edelgard, but now, it feels like every other banner is striving to by far outdo what came previously. Balance among units has long since been lost.
My experiences with twitter these days are largely with art, and indie dev updates. But yeah, some topics are very toxic, and people simply aren't permitted by society to express a view or opinion that is considered "unpopular". Especially with politics. That was the main source of toxicity I saw. Some of those videos posted by certain activist groups absolutely crossed lines other suspended accounts did, but much further.
The AI training is pretty much everywhere. Idk how to escape it.
@Tyranexx I simply don't really have the mental freedom to exercise at home, or outside, and gyms haven't been a thing for me. I can't drive myself anyway.
I used to reference guides frequently in my younger years. Later, I did without for a majority of games. Now, I'm impatient trying to finish a backlog.
I've long since finished Dominus Collection's two hardest games.
Arctic Thunder really did feel good to play, especially on a hot day, and I get what you mean about feeling envious. I used to be the same, as I had no MK Arcade GP cabinets anywhere near me before.
It's that one lost game I'd love for them to release on a Wiiware equivalent. That, and its rarer sequel.
I want to get Halo Infinite, but need to finish 5 first. As for dubs, I can handle both dub and sub. Dub has become more for series I'm familiar with already though.
If you have that problem with subs, I suggest you stay far away from The Future Diary. (Aka Mirai Nikki) No matter whether you watch it in English, or Japanese, you will have an utterly insane amount of subtitle text to read through constantly.

All ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Going to be doing a lot of cooking so I'm keeping dinner simple tonight. Awesomely, I unlocked Sadness (from Inside Out) on Disney Speedstorm thanks to their Black Friday sale (Glad I stockpiled the tokens I earned from playing).

@Mariotag Legends of Oz: Dorthy's Return is an animated movie that's kind of like a sequel to The Wizard of Oz. Seeing all the talk about Wicked everywhere made me rewatch that movie and the classic Wizard of Oz.

Cool, nice you 100% it too. Yeah, I remember reading it had a troubled development and that the Wii got a different game because of the hardware. I keep hearing good things about Mephilies whenever I've seen the game brought up.

Nice, it amazes me how dedicated people who follow Satellaview are too.

Diddy Kong Racing was always a favorite of mine on Nintendo 64, I actually do have the DS remake as well. I remember finishing the N64 classic, but I still have yet to finish the DS one. Mostly because I had more time when I was younger with the N64 one.

@Pastellioli I remember you had to collect certain crystal shards to unlock more levels in the game IIRC. As for the Wii U one, the bugs did eventually get patched, though I do find it amusing that I beat the game without the patch and didn't have too much of an issue in terms of glitches. Though I did try the Knuckles infinite jump once because, why not, lol? It did get patched out, had to do it at least once, lol. I wonder how it would have looked on PC, given CryEngine games look fantastic on PC.

Oh wow, I had no idea all that went down with Rare and Microsoft, nor did I know Playtonic was former Rare developers. I always thought it was a new studio making a game similar to what Rare made back during the N64 days.

Yeah, I haven't played Viva Pinata, but I do remember seeing it in the past and just forgotten about it until I was reminded of it recently. Glad you love the game.

It really was surprising when I rewatched All Dogs go to Heaven as an adult, I did see Secret of NIMH as an adult, and picked up on the dark elements right away. Even though my memory is fuzzy, I think Rock-A-Doodle was kinda dark, I think it was more literally because it took place at night as the sun never came up (again, fuzzy memory because I have not watched it in years, and wouldn't know where to even watch it now). FWIW, I never seen Anastasia, I remember commercials for it, but never did see that one. I also remember commercials to A Troll In Central Park, but that was another Bluth movie I never seen.

Yeah, I imagine Reels being more popular as it's an alternative to TikTok. Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts are pretty much alternative/competition to TikTok. I think art Reels often show artists doing the art themselves, I mainly post pictures and really don't have a proper setup to make video content, so I just keep to pictures. Instagram's core content has always been pictures, so it's sad it doesn't get pushed as much as Reels.

@Tyranexx Hope you get it this time. I usually use the quote feature when a post I'm responding to is a page or so back, makes it easier for the person I'm responding to.

On opposite, I do like alfredo sauce, but I only have it whenever I make my mom clam sauce. She likes clam sauce, I don't eat it. I usually just have alfredo sauce for that. I do like tomato sauce, and always use it whenever I make my homemade meatballs.

Yup, Sonic Adventure had a bit of a lack of emotion on some scenes. It was better when Sonic Adventure 2 came around, even it was the same cast as the first Sonic Adventure (this was the cast of Sonic games they used from 1999-2004).

@Sunsy I'm absolutely curious about the DS Diddy Kong Racing, and how different it was.
I've not seen that many people out there who 100% cleared Sonic 06. And yeah. Mephiles, although his hands-off logic is somewhat flawed, is absolutely an awesome villain.
I never knew the original Wizard of Oz had a sequel. I did see the prequel though!
@Novamii What's making it look likely? I did see someone mention that there is another party trying to acquire them that is arguably worse. Somehow.

@Novamii Ohh. So, is Kadokawa in the red somehow?
But yeah. Apparently, Kakao is really scummy, moreso than Sony.
Also, keep forgetting to mention, I'm rather bothered by the whole Sony/anime situation in general.
Sony is fairly quickly gaining a monopoly, and it's not like they take good care of their acquisitions. (Better than Microsoft at least though)
I do not want random political stuff shoved into my games and anime. (And that's only one concern)

@Novamii Yeah. I do not want them to have a monopoly. I was previously told there was a chance Kadokawa might come out of this intact and unacquired, but it seems unlikely.
I know what you mean about the lesser of evils all too well. It applies to far too much, and has sparked quite a bit of controversy lately.
I despise Crunchyroll. Tried to activate a free trial, it glitched, and we had to pay for it twice over.
Also, compared to before the merger, there are far fewer dubs, and their app is very difficult to make function for me. It honestly does not matter how much they have if it don't work for me. Lower speed internet users are being left out, one step at a time.

@Mariotag I typically exercise at home, at work, or outside, and in a limited capacity to the last two...mostly cardio. I do bodyweight and resistance band stuff at home. Some kitchen dancing too sometimes lol. I don't bother with gyms for various reasons, the main ones being they're kind of out of my way, cost money, and I'm also self conscious.

I used to be very stubborn about not using guides. Now I'm fine with it since I have way less free time on my hands than I used to. Glad you finished Castlevania Dominus Collection! I liked a lot of courses on both Arctic Thunder and Hydro Thunder, not in the least because they were a break from the car racing sims I was used to typically seeing. I wish Nintendo had released a console version of Mario Kart GP too, though I suppose MK8D will still suffice for now. I'm ready for a Mario Kart 9 however.

I am okay with subs in some situations. My tolerance mainly depends on how much action is on screen and how much text is present/how it's handled. I'm a slower reader than I used to be since I 1. Tend to read whole words, not usually take shortcuts like most do, and 2. Have found I have an "inner narrator" with about everything. Which means I usually read at a talking speed. I can read faster, but only if I don't intend to take in what's going on (or if I'm tired).

@Sunsy I did thanks. Normally I get alerts for quotes as well. I didn't change any settings, but it's possible I accidentally deactivated the notification at some point without realizing it. That or you edited in your response later. I don't think alerts sometimes trigger in that scenario. Ah well. That's in the past now lol.

I would try that clam sauce. Something about the taste of Alfredo doesn't sit right with me. You think it would since it's dairy based, and I like many forms of dairy. I'm not sure if it's a seasoning used in it or what. Anything with tomatoes always works for me though.

I'm glad Sonic Adventure 2 was an improvement over the first game. Hopefully that also means in the voice acting department, if it was used lol.

Belated happy Thanksgiving! (Or equivalent, or just a special day.) Hope you all had a good one!
@Tyranexx I've not yet finished Dominus Collection. I still have the finale to the story of one game, some secrets, as well as extra modes.
I barely remember anything from those old arcade machines. Mario Kart Arcade GP is one I do want to see more accessible. I have still only barely played MK8D. I'm finding it harder and harder to get into that series.
In my case for exercise, I have too much anxiety to handle exercise in most cases. It generally has to be elsewhere.
Ahh. I've had trouble with reading before. For a few years, I'd try to comprehend individual letters, thus making reading anything utterly insane. These days, I just don't have patience, which is a shame, cause I used to love reading books. Also, all the more reason not to watch The Future Diary. The problem is in its premise. Each character gets a diary that tells them their future coming up, so there's constant text that only briefly appears.
The Sonic Adventure games are neat.

Just wanted to say that I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! Haven’t been doing much as of late. Drawing a lot, but I realized I haven’t really been active here as of late…already planning out my next drawing, hopefully I can finish it fast enough after using up so much pen on a redraw I posted yesterday.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow here cuz it’ll be the start of December! December is my favorite month of the year, and I’m really excited for Christmas and seeing Sonic 3. Probably my most anticipated movie of the year, and I’ll probably change my avatar in a few more days.

@Tyranexx Yeah, I have heard arcades have a lot of good games, I know they have Mario Kart arcade cabinets in places if I remember. My brother has gone to some arcade cabinets and he has always told me they are fun. I think that game places offer the best arcade cabinets compared to something like a car wash or something, since a car wash I went to in the past didn’t have a lot of arcade cabinets and the arcade machines were in a smaller area in the corner if I recall. I wanna say it maybe only had three or four cabinets. I can only remember Bubble Wobble being there, I can’t remember the other ones unfortunately.

I also am appreciating mobile gaming a lot, even though I only stick to a few games at the moment. I’d love to play and buy more games on my console; I’d like to find some games similar to Rare’s games, cuz I’m already running out of new games on my Xbox to play. I hear about Black Friday a lot (though I only got reminded of it recently through a Sonic Movie post on Instagram) but I don’t really buy stuff on Black Friday. I find that I’m really bad with saving money as well as spending it. For Halo Infinite, I was really rusty at it because, I’ll admit that I’ve actually never really played a Halo game before. I played some of the Master Chief Collection and Infinite before, but that was nearly two years ago and only for a few minutes. I’m far more skilled in playing shooter games like Splatoon and Overwatch since I played the heck out of those, plus I’m familiar with the controls, gameplay, and maps, though I haven’t played those in a while since the copies we have of 2 and 3 are somewhere else and I kept deleting Overwatch back and forth on my Xbox to clear space and don’t really have an interest in playing it despite the new heroes they released for it and how the newer heroes are already unlocked instead. I could maybe count some segments of Conker too, which I am also far more used to, but it’s not a shooter at all of course, and the remake had an emphasis on the shooter multiplayer mode that I kind of didn’t have fun playing at all. I’ll probably go back to playing some shooter games in a few more weeks.

I have been having a blast drawing. I’m slowly filling up my Daiso sketchbook with art I’m liking a ton. It’s mostly video game fanart, but for my next drawing I’ll be making something original. I’ve always liked drawing original characters because of the possibilities with their designs and appearances.

I don’t mind dubs and agree that they can be helpful for people and make it easier for them to understand some scenes and what’s going on. I don’t mind watching subbed versions of anime, but it can be difficult sometimes having to look at the subs at the bottom to understand what the characters are saying and then having to quickly dart your eyes back to the screen to see what’s happening before a scene ends. It would be nice if Crunchyroll had both the dubbed and subbed versions for the first seasons of some anime on the Free tier, but I don’t really mind it since I haven’t really used Crunchyroll as of late besides last month when I watched the first three episodes of DAN DA DAN. Good anime from what I saw, but thought some parts of the first episode made me uncomfortable. Crunchyroll is ok, but the constant ads are the worst part of it.

@Mariotag Oof, half of the development team got split when 06 was in the works? Gosh, that sucks a ton. I’m reading more and I found out that they initially intended to port 06 to the Wii but had issues with it and instead made Secret Rings in place of an 06 Wii port, and the fact that the 06 team was smaller afterward and then got pressured to release it in time for the holidays and having to skip important parts like bug testing was pretty disappointing to hear. I’ve heard a lot about game teams and developers having to rush stuff and the final product not releasing how they wanted it to. I didn’t know that you had to play through it about three times with different characters to fully complete it. However, I would love to play a remake of it if it did happen. Games that aren’t good quality are the ones that are the most deserving of remakes the most, or super old games that maybe don’t hold up well, or are good but could be enhanced and fixed more with a remake. I am surprised that some like Banjo-Kazooie haven’t gotten remakes.

I don’t really draw from the banners in Heroes anymore, but I am not surprised to hear some of the units offered through the newer banners are unbalanced and how they try to outdo each other every time. There have been times I was lucky to get maybe two or three heroes in a single banner session, but I never get that anymore when playing through the gacha, and I especially avoid grinding in the game now after those two experiences doing that.

That’s what annoys me with Twitter a lot, which is the fact you can’t really freely express an opinion without people getting angry and insulting you, even on topics that aren’t serious or big. But, that’s almost every social media app in general; they have some toxicity in some way or form, but I hear of some that are worse than others. The rules on Twitter just seem to have been forgotten, and it now sounds like some people on Twitter can post bad and hateful stuff and not get any consequences for it. I hear some people have gotten banned for not even posting anything offensive.

@Sunsy Yeah, I feel like the game maybe could have run better on other platforms. I heard about that infinite jump Knuckles glitch being the most notable part of the WiiU game and speed runners using that glitch to beat the game in a short period of time haha.

Yep, Playtonic has a lot of Rare developers working there. In fact, a lot of Rare employees started a ton of their own companies besides Playtonic, but the latter is the most notable alongside Free Radical Design (notable for making the TimeSplitters games). Rare had a lot of issues during the 2000s after being bought by a huge company and splitting off from Nintendo, and luckily it appears to have gotten better, but reports said that development on their next game, Everwild, wasn’t going well, and that sucks a ton, even though I don’t really play their newer 2010s games or Sea of Thieves.

I also saw you were talking a bit about DKR a bit! It is cool that they were intending to use the rest of the game’s cast for their own games, and some Rare employees have talked about them a bit, but the only one that they talked about the most was Timber’s game, and I think NL made an article on that a few years ago; in his game, he was supposed to be a time traveler, and the gameplay was supposed to be similar to Ocarina of Time. For some of the characters, Rare did comment on what they were doing after DKR (besides Banjo and Conker) of course, but I cannot remember most of it because it’s been a few years. I know that Rare said that Bumper was serving time in jail (I am not kidding when I say this) and Timber grew a beard I think? I need to reread that again because it’s been far too long since I found out that information.

I found Rock-a-Doodle more lighthearted than All Dogs Go to Heaven and NIMH, but there were a few parts of Rock-a-Doodle that were dark, like the antagonist being scary, having a threatening voice and presence toward the main characters and farm animals, and that part of the film where he and his men gather around the farm animals and sing as they prepare to eat them after the flashlight runs out of batteries, and you are right about the sun never going up and it being night all the time. I still haven’t gotten around to watching Anastasia… If you do want to watch it, Rock-a-Doodle is currently available on YouTube Movies as a “free with ads” movie. That’s where I watched it and Bluth’s other movies recently.

I have seen a lot of great art reels, plus some that have super helpful tips and tricks for art. I know the most popular art reels on Instagram are mainly ones that show someone drawing or someone showing their art setup. I only just post images too, but it seems like that reels are the only fast way to get popular, unless your lucky and the algorithm pushes your pictures a lot and a ton of people find it. I’ve heard a lot of artists expressing their disdain for reels a lot, and how they feel it’s the only way for them to stay relevant. Most of the time, I see reels get way more likes than photos on a person’s account. However, I’m not really bothered by how not many people like or see my posts, I was obsessed with trying to record reels and get attention, but the one now deleted reel I posted only managed to get a few views and likes (plus I kind of was embarrassed by the video I posted because of its bad quality and obvious cuts) and I realized that it wasn’t worth it to try and make reels while tiring myself out if my reels wouldn’t get noticed a ton. I’ll probably try reels again, but not anytime soon. I’m not bothered if I’m unpopular, if only a few people see my artwork, it’s fine and makes me content anyway

@Pastellioli Huh. Where did you see this stuff about Rare's intentions for their characters?

And yeah. The whole thing of playing through the game multiple times to finish it was a thing back then with Sonic. Imo, the worst offender in that category is either Shadow's game, or Heroes. Probably Heroes. Sonic 06, it's the same stages, but it didn't quite feel as tedious for me as Heroes.

I've gotten really rusty at FPS games over the years. Never was exceptional at Halo, but good enough to hold my own. I need to get back into it sometime.

Heroes banners have gotten insane. I honestly dunno how much longer the game is gonna keep going. My current guess is one more year for book 9. (9 worlds)

Social media places are indeed toxic. People, at some point, cease treating others decently online. Or get too heated with politics.
Twitter in particular is stupid with what they ban ppl for. I've not been suspended yet, and I'd hope to keep all my posts from there.

@Mariotag I watched a few videos on Rare on YouTube, and I unfortunately cannot remember what the names of the videos were or the channels, but I can recall that they were in these scrapped game videos and Rare employees were quoted in them. I feel like that it may have been DidYouKnowGaming? videos or DKR-themed videos but I can’t recall the exact video. I need to find the videos where I found it from. The thing about Bumper was in a Rare “Mini-Scribes” article where they answered fan questions: https://web.archive.org/web/20140210121309/http://rare.co.uk/...

There are a lot of cancelled games that Rare was planning to make, but there is sometimes few documentation on them. I think I could be mistaking that Pipsy game for an unrelated cancelled game Rare was making called “Astro Mouse,” but my mind is super fuzzy at the moment. I would not be surprised if I accidentally made a mistake, and if I did, I’ll feel super stupid about it…

I found more about the Timber game here.
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/features/opinion/dinosaur...
One of Rare’s former artists was talking more about the Timber game in detail. I’m sure NL did an article on that cancelled game a few years back.

I heard that Shadow spin-off did something like that too with playing it multiple times and everyone absolutely hated it, and I heard that whole “play the game multiple times to complete it” was in a few Sonic games. But, for Shadow’s game, I’ve seen a resurgence in popularity for that game and some people say they enjoyed it, plus some say that there is some kind of replay value to it. Speaking of that game, I recall seeing a lot of the more “edgy” elements in that, such as giving Shadow a motorcycle and firearms, and hearing people thinking that was corny back then and unfitting for his character, but just now a lot of people don’t think it was super awful and made him a cooler character, plus they are well-known elements of his character now. It’s interesting to see the reception toward games considered bad at first getting better over time, rarely do I see that happen for a lot of games.

Yeah, I’ve also gotten pretty bad at shooters. That experience with Halo Infinite was so embarrassing, I don’t want to play again for my brother lol. Got four kills but died fourteen times. I’m not used to playing Halo compared to other shooters like Splatoon and Overwatch, so that paired with the fact I was unfamiliar with Halo and haven’t touched a shooter game in a while just added to my bad performance when playing Halo.

I do wonder what the next book will look like. It’s December soon where I am, so they should reveal the next story very soon. I do wonder when or if that game will end…it’s very long-running, but I guess that some games all have to come to an end at some point.

It’s hard for some people to treat others with decency online. I see it way too much, usually in the comments of Instagram posts I get recommended. Twitter just sounds the worst, and it’s why I avoided downloading social media for quite a long time.

@Pastellioli Wait, are you on the US west coast? In my timezone, it was already December for you.
Also, your mind is super fuzzy, or super fluffy?

Anyways, all joking aside, my situation with FPS games atm is both burnout, and a lack of patience to play them. In terms of games I'll play, I have it the opposite of you. Even though I've got the first two splatoon games, I've barely been able to play online, if at all, because of bad internet. I hate AT&T. We pay like, $150 a month for a landline, and 3mbps DSL internet, which is rarely ever what we actually get. Anything modern barely works, if at all.

Interesting tidbits on Rareware games. I'd have genuinely loved it had they not been bought out by Microsoft. All those projects, canceled. They were an incredible studio. I'll have more to say after seeing the articles in question though...

I've done most of what can be done in the Shadow spinoff, minus all A ranks, and all possible storyline paths. It's weird as, while there are a number of stages, because of branching paths, you only ever play six in any given run. There were some incredible moments, alongside some really stupid objectives. At the end of each run, depending on paths taken, and your final choice, you could get one of ten endings. If you got them all, the stories somehow merged, and you could do the "last story", similar to other games at the time.

The next book has me anxious in anticipation.

Thankfully, twitter is not my first social media experience. I know now to keep my mouth shut about politics, mostly. That's where the worst of it is.

Dreamt last night that Miyamoto was holding me at gunpoint and ushering me onto the Donkey Kong minecart ride repeatedly saying "It's even fun for people who don't like rollercoasters" (which was a bit strange because I do quite like rollercoasters)

Needless to say I'll now be very paranoid if I ever go to Super Nintendo World!

@Nintoz just avoid the one in Japan

@Mariotag Its been December now many hours ago. I think I do have the same timezone as you. It’s still the first day of December here. It is my favorite month of the year, since everyone is off of work and it’s Christmas later. There’s this feeling that December gives off that makes me feel happy…

I love shooter games, especially the Splatoon games, but it’s sometimes a gamble to play online since my internet is trash sometimes and disconnects me. One of the worst instances I had with 3 on the Switch was when I was playing a series of Ranked matches and my internet disconnected me twice in a row as I was playing. Luckily, I successfully completed the series, but I was close to losing, since in Series matches, you play five matches and need to avoid losing three, and disconnecting from matches is counted as a loss. Another time was when I was playing 2 and almost everyone in a Ranked match (except me, a teammate, and an enemy E-Liter) disconnected simultaneously, but I don’t know if that was my internet or the game’s servers just choosing to run terribly at that moment since I stayed connected to the match even after nearly the entire room disconnected. You can get banned from playing the game online for a few minutes if you disconnect a ton, even if it’s on accident, and unfortunately the game doesn’t have a way to tell if internet disconnects are intentional or not. A lot of people say the Splatoon games have always had issues with its online multiplayer, and I do agree, but it’s also a combination of my WiFi being bad sometimes, so it’s also on me. I didn’t have much issue with WiFi when I used to play Overwatch, but I remember that sometimes the game could kind of lag when I tried playing it last year, and it made matches very unfun to play. Last time I played Splatoon I want to say it was a year ago, same for Overwatch too, so I haven’t played either in a good while. Plus, I also don’t have time to play games online, so I always play them offline.

I went on a site called Unseen64 for a lot of info on Rare’s cancelled games, and it was so cool, though some of the articles on there may be lacking new information and updates on a few of the games on there since the site is run by a small group of people. Rare Replay has a few short documentary videos on a couple of those cancelled titles, but you have to play the games included and upgrade your stamp card to unlock them, though Rare has uploaded a few of those documentaries online. I find so many of the cancelled projects to be interesting. The one I am sad the most over getting cancelled was a Conker sequel; a fun fact on that one was that they actually finished writing the storyline from start to finish and were just about to begin developing it, but they cancelled it, mainly because Microsoft didn’t an interest in it, and I believe the director said he wasn’t interested in working on it. There was a now delisted game called Project Spark on the Xbox that had an episodic Conker DLC expansion that acted as a semi-sequel to Bad Fur Day, but it was cancelled very fast. I also thought the cancelled two-part Perfect Dark sequel was interesting to hear about too.

Rare was super creative and they had a ton of genuinely cool ideas I would have loved to see come into fruition. Though, for the game sequels, Rare usually doesn’t like giving their games follow-ups and tends to leave them as one and done things, so I’m sort of not surprised the planned sequels they had got cancelled, though that came more from Microsoft not really wanting them. I do wonder if Rare would have turned out differently had Nintendo actually purchased them instead of Microsoft, and if Rare didn’t cancel so many game projects that were being developed.

I did know the game had multiple endings, but didn’t know it had 10! So it sounds like the game was ok? I heard a lot of people say it was a bad game, at least back then. I may watch some gameplay videos on those, I haven’t heard of a game that does that. I am interested in playing some Sonic games very soon, I’ll start playing through the classic games, and I’ll probably check for some of the 3D games on the Xbox. I did want to buy a Sonic game a few months ago actually…

Yeah, I’ll be disappointed if they make the ninth book the last one, I’ll be sad to see all my progress go away, but let’s see what they’ll do soon.

Yeah, with some topics on Instagram I try to stay out of some, mainly because I really don’t want to argue with people about stuff. The only ones I comment on are gaming and art that I see on my recommended.