Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Mariotag I was talking to another user on the site a bit about Crunchyroll, and from what she said the site seemed to be far more functional back in the early 2010s since she used to use it. I can’t comment on that since I only started to use Crunchyroll last year for some of the popular and famous animes and I’m very late to the experience, but the app is just so bad with the ads on it. Streaming services that have ads littered throughout episodes more than once are really awful experiences. That stinks to hear about your experience with Crunchyroll, so it sounds like the site was kind of non-functioning back then a bit. I’m not so used to ad-supported subs, because I’ve used ad-free ones like Disney+ a ton in the past, but I think they recently added a tier with ads to that one and I haven’t used it in a while.

I am seeing a lot of a push now with subscription services including ads in their tiers and it stinks. I feel like that it’s clearly an attempt to get people to pay more for the higher subscription tier with no ads, and I think it started more after Netflix did it, but I’d assume it also comes from inflation. I can remember Microsoft had this questionnaire one time that I think hinted that they were experimenting with adding ads to Game Pass or considering creating a tier with ads. I think it’s been a while since they last discussed that, but I hope it doesn’t happen. I think the worst thing about sub tiers is when they lock specific shows, movies, or games behind higher tiers to try and get you to spend more money on a higher tier. I know Crunchyroll does that with a good majority of its library, as well as Netflix (though only a small select) and Xbox Game Pass with the Game Pass Standard sub having a reduced selection of games compared to the Ultimate sub. The original Game Pass for Console had all games (sans EA games) available for free. Them doing that just really kinda irked me and convinced me to not get a Game Pass sub anytime soon, plus I coincidentally cancelled my subscription a week before they announced that change.

Just miss when streaming services were like that and when there were only about 2-3 major ones. There are way too many now and I also miss when they didn’t have so many different tiers that locked specific shows and movies behind the higher tiers.

I just think live-action remakes in general are unnecessary, they just sap a lot of the life and vividness of the animated originals and I think in live-action it’s super hard to replicate the same look and effects animation gives you. Sometimes they ruin the originals a lot and change things up a bunch (people mentioned that some of the changes in the Mulan remake ruined and even changed the message of the original animated film) and some are just the exact same film but in live-action, which I think is especially unnecessary. Not Disney, but there is this live-action remake they are making for How To Train Your Dragon and when you see a side-by-side comparison of live-action scenes from the trailer with scenes from the animated film, the remake isn’t even really different from the original besides being in live-action and everything is kept the same, which kind of makes me think that a remake is unnecessary because it seemingly looks as if the remake isn’t different and lacks originality because it looks the exact same. In general I think live-action remakes are unnecessary and don’t add nothing new or fun to the animated films they are remaking. Disney especially has an issue with that and they only really do remakes because they make a ton of money and even make more than their animated films.

Disney really wants to own every company it seems. With them purchasing Fox and all of their assets and companies, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to buy more major companies, but in the far far future though. I didn’t know about them trying to apparently buy Nintendo at one point. Coincidentally, Microsoft did try to buy Nintendo once but nothing came out of it. They held a meeting with people working at Nintendo, and Microsoft’s deal could be summed up as “you stop making consoles and develop games for our console” (I read that the pitch was basically “Nintendo consoles are worser compared to Sony consoles but Nintendo software is good, so have Microsoft manage consoles instead and Nintendo develop games”) but Nintendo workers were laughing at how absurd that pitch was. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said a few years ago that it would be a big moment if Microsoft acquired Nintendo, but I know for sure Nintendo would still say no, especially since they are doing so well without having a company manage them.

I think a lot of the worlds in Adventure mode could have been far more fun if they didn’t function like a board game, there were some small touches to them that were kind of fun but given how much bigger, detailed, and kind of mighty the Dark Realm map was and the kind of mishmashed nature of the Light Realm that brought together a bunch of game worlds, they could have made it so much greater! The Mysterious Dimension map especially looks so freaking cool but it being used as more of a board game map was disappointing, because there is a TON of stuff going on when you look at the stunning art of the map, and just imagine if you actually could walk around and fight on actual parts of the map instead of the same stages over and over again, but I do feel like that idea could be too much work. I am going to be a bit sad if the next Smash game has a ton of roster cuts, but I think that is inevitable. Hopefully the characters I main and like a ton don’t get axed and come back for another go, but we’ll never find out until they announce the next game and discuss it. I feel like that it will be a few more years till they announce Smash 6 since Ultimate’s development was longer with the two DLC passes.

The characters they revealed in Sonic 3’s post-credit scene and Shadow being alive in the other post-credit really make me wonder what game they are going to semi-adapt next, but I’m super unsure since I have two games in mind for that, but they could do another game that isn’t one of the two. They probably won’t say anything on 4 until maybe a few months before it releases. I feel like they’ll likely release a trailer with more info on 4 in late 2026 a few months before they release 4 a year later sometime in Spring, but that’s my speculation, they could do something different with the release schedule of the first trailer.

Yeah, Japanese mythology or otherworldly creatures don’t usually come to my mind when I see the Sonic characters because of the universe they live in (most characters being anthropomorphic animals and there only being a small amount of human characters in the games), but since the animal characters co-exist with some human characters like how most stories in Japanese mythology center around humans co-existing with supernatural creatures and their interactions with them, that definitely makes sense. The otherworldly aspects kind of come to my mind a bit more when seeing the films though, since the Sonic characters originated from different worlds and planets before living on Earth, though they are of course not spiritual like yo-kai. Some people consider the film’s versions of Sonic and Shadow as “aliens” because of their origins, the latter especially since the film’s version of Shadow came from a meteorite that crash-landed on Earth, which kind of reminds me of some fictional stories about extraterrestrial creatures riding in a UFO that crashes on Earth.

Situations like the Xbox Live account getting hacked and then being gone permanently with its game data and digital content was pretty scary to read, but it reminded me to make sure I keep all of my accounts and content secure and private, though reading that story and some of the comments (like a person who set up two-factor authentication mentioning that they got constant failed login alerts attempts from hackers) did instill a bit of constant fear about DRM and game security in me even if nothing happens, plus some other story NL talked about with this game publisher having its store website hacked and all of their customers’ info was leaked too when the site was hacked. Just all that time, money, and games going away is so terrible to think about. If that did happen, I’d probably lose a bit of motivation to game, makes me miss when consoles never required digital accounts and emails to be played.

I hope you feel better and are feeling good now. I hope that things will get good fast!

@Pastellioli Yeah, CR was more usable back then, but still had its issues. As for ad based, Hulu has always been ad based as far as I can remember.

The tier system in general sucks. Sony axed their lowest priced one a year or two ago. And I can't even make use of benefits from anything higher than the lowest. I didn't realize content was locked behind tiers for streaming services other than gaming? Kinda upset Nintendo went that direction. What does CR cut out of its lower tiers? Also, EA games being the only ones excluded from OG gamepass is honestly typical EA. As I put it early in Switch's lifecycle offline "EA Ports. It isn't in the game".
And honestly, there were a bunch of streaming services back then. The difference was, they were free.

Honestly, Disney making more from live action is genuinely scummy. Some of their older ones were fun. I liked how the 101 Dalmatians ones deviated. And there were some originals too. As for live action adaptations in general, I can sum up my experiences by just mentioning Code Lyoko Evolution. As a sequel, the animated stuff stands up somewhat, but the live action completely destroys the sort of sense the original went for. Goofy antics from characters that can't be replicated, influences from the main antagonist that could be truly terrifying, and cannot be replicated in LA like that.

Yeah, I'm not entirely certain of the legitimacy of the claims made, but yes, big corporations for the most part are getting greedy. Far too greedy.

Yup, I see your point about the board style. It really could have been much greater. As for roster cuts, unfortunate, but I suspect my main at least, is safe.

Yeah, I can think of two possible bases too for the next movie. No certainty though.
For the release teasing, it would be a while unfortunately.

Yup, that was sorta my impression anyway. They aren't yokai. But at the same time, they do have superpowers, live alongside humans, we know relatively little about lifespan sorts of things.
As for Shadow, remember the game lore anyway.

Yup. I'm truly scared of DRM and data breaches. If I lost all my stuff, dunno what I'd do.

Thanks. It'll take some serious doing as well as luck to handle this though.

@Mariotag The ads on Hulu were in my opinion, far more better and preferable compared to the experience I had with Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll played the same few ads over and over again and of course they would freeze or not play. The ads on CR had little variety, I can remember I got a ton of the same Xbox (advertising Star Wars Outlaws) and Honkai Star Rail ads so much and I just got tired of them so much because they were the same things over and over again.

Yup, some gaming services do it too, axing cheaper tiers and replacing them with expensive ones and locking content behind them. The one for Game Pass irks me a ton, plus I think for years Microsoft promised no price hikes for Game Pass and it keeps happening over and over again. I don’t really have the same feelings over how Nintendo does it, mainly because they haven’t raised the prices on NSO ever (I think) compared to Microsoft, but I still think having N64 games and a few of the more popular and high-quality retro games locked behind the Expansion Pack, now that I think about it, is kinda terrible. I do think the Expansion Pack definitely has a ton more retro game services and content now to justify the price more (plus they seem far more speedy with NSO drops now) and I didn’t really mind the Expansion Pack when I had it (only issue being the N64 controls were slightly janky and off and some slight technical hiccups like slower frame-rates on occasions) but I still would have loved if they just had the N64 games available for everyone, especially since they are adding a ton of good games on both the Teen and Mature 17+ N64 apps and how there might be a chance they release Diddy Kong Racing and Donkey Kong 64 on there. I’ll admit that despite being a big Rare fan, I haven’t played them.

What Crunchyroll makes unavailable on the Free Tier is that you can’t watch simulcasted anime, most shows and movies are unavailable on Free (save for a few series that can be watched without a higher sub), no offline viewing when you don’t have internet, anime with multiple seasons only have their first season available on Free, most dubbed episodes of anime shows are locked, you can’t play Crunchyroll Games, and on occasions, some subbed anime episodes can be watched for free but the rest are locked (e.g. Dandadan), but dubbed anime has a majority of its episodes locked on CR compared to subbed anime. It’s very hard for me to watch shows that look interesting because of how much they limit the library on the Free tier.

I do wish Disney would stop remaking films, and I feel like that will probably influence other studios to copy what they are doing and remake their own films given Disney remakes have been super successful and gross a bunch. The older remakes, to me, seem less money-hungry compared to the newer ones they are releasing. There is just so many things in animation that you can’t replicate well in live-action, and a ton of the stories in those animated Disney films are fine and don’t need to be retold or done again but in live-action.

I wonder if most of the DLC characters could get removed in the next Smash games, and I am a bit worried about that since my two mains are DLC characters. I feel like the ones that were easy to negotiate and come from companies that have close alliances and good partnerships with Nintendo (such as Microsoft characters) will likely come back, but I still can see a few of the DLC characters not coming back if a few of them have licensing issues tied to them, I just wonder how they’ll deal with Sora in the next game and if he’ll come back, since everyone says he is the character that likely had a couple of licensing issues tied to him (mainly coming from Disney). I feel like a majority of the main non-DLC roster will remain, albeit maybe getting a few cuts.

I do expect it to be a long time before we hear anything on Sonic 4. I still think it’ll be a year before we hear anything about it, but it’s still so far away…I just wonder what other plans they have for the live-action Sonic films since a bunch of people have been suggesting spin-off films or more spin-off shows like Knuckles. They could be good expansions to the universe, but I wonder how many more characters they’ll introduce in the films since there are a ton of characters from the games that could work for the films, but of course they have to avoid making the cast of Sonic characters too big and loaded with characters, since I think it’ll cause issues with screen-time and stuff.

It is cool that I’m realizing some of the Sonic characters have a kind of yokai and mythological aspect to them while still not quite being mythological creatures. I think the film versions of the characters have that otherworldly element to them be way more prominent than the games, mainly coming from how the real-world is the setting for the films rather than a fictitious planet and only a few of the Sonic characters appear in the films and aren’t widespread. I recall seeing some of this Instagram reel saying the film version of Sonic wasn’t actually a hedgehog (probably because his species is sometimes called or listed as “alien hedgehog” instead of simply “hedgehog” like the game version), but I can’t remember most of the video and a majority of the comments disagreed with the guy’s explanation. He is still a hedgehog, but the alien part mainly comes from how he originated from a different planet and came to Earth like an actual alien.

I just wish DRM was done way better, and I find it so annoying and stupid that sometimes the Xbox has to be online for games to work, even games that are offline and don’t have any sort of online functionality. Sometimes it doesn’t even recognize that you own the game and won’t load it if you are offline.

I hope it goes fine and well. Again, I hope you feel better and get through the situation.

@Pastellioli
I would say not every Disney live action version are worse the cartoon version.
Depend on the director and the script writer, some of Disney live action remake looked better than the cartoon version.
For example my personal choice such as Beauty & The Beast 2017, Aladdin 2019, Cinderella 2015.
Some of Disney remake that completely different than the cartoon version such as Dumbo (by Tim Burton) looked darker and completely different than cartoon version and it was quite good somehow from the narrative aspect.
I still curious to see the Snow White 2025 Disney live action regardless the chaos & the tension happened behind the scenes.
I will give a credit by giving a watch and a fair review after watching.
I have watched other Snow White movies by non Disney Studios and they have their own version to deliver their unique version.
I don't mind with live action remake tendency from Disney as long the live action bring some new contents in a good way.
Just like I read the same fairy tales books with different author and I digest their narrative story about their version they put on their story.

@Pastellioli Hulu used to do ads repetitively, but it feels less so now. And I agree. CR is just broken to me.

Yeahh. One could argue "But inflation!", but, I feel it's just greed. Nintendo introducing tiers to begin with irks me. Some $80 for an expac family plan? I'm the one paying, and I don't have a full group! It's highly unlikely my younger bro would be able to play online without the family plan. And yeah, the games included are great. And Diddy Kong Racing may well be my favorite kart racer ever, though CTR Nitro Fueled comes close.

I see. Crunchyroll has changed a great deal in the past what? 5 years? Used to be that I never saw any anime omitted outright. You could watch up to relatively recent subbed on most series, and sometimes dubbed as well. That they're limiting entire seasons is stupid. Also worth noting, before Funimation and Crunchyroll merged, a whole lot more of the shows were on hulu.

Yeah, that likely holds true. Live action cannot capture everything that animation can. A boring rerelease, by all rights, shouldn't get as much revenue. But it's Disney. They throw their weight around.

Yeah, you've likely got it right about the roster. Sora was a rare case. The actual winner of the Smash 4 character poll. I personally remember entering Midna, but am not sure. I suspect they'll keep the OG 12 no matter what though.

Yup. It'll be a while. They said themselves they wanted the Sonic films to be Avenger level events. The cast of characters getting too large... It could maybe be handled? They certainly won't all live in the same house!

I'm honestly wondering, is it a different planet? Or a different universe altogether? They do seem similar to mythological creatures, even if they may not be! Anyway, that whole statement reminds me of Sonic X... After watching it dubbed again a number of years ago, I found myself cringing at some of the lines, and started the sub. Still need to finish that.

Yeah, I've heard you can do some setting that lets you play Xbox games offline, but idk any more than that. Fact is, when they announced Xbox One, it got immense backlash from what they proposed, and they ended up toning it down a bunch. DRM is scary.

I'll strive to pull through, but idk how much I can do yet.

Also, @Anti-Matter , I AM absolutely curious about some. And I do have to point out, Tim Burton is an excellent person to have in charge. But I also dislike the way Disney is handling things in general. They are absolutely throwing their weight around to ensure their mediocre Mufasa movie gets top of the charts over Sonic 3.

@Mariotag
Also, I found tendency from Disney movies recently when making new songs, there are some songs with unusual beat pattern (12th notes in 4/4 tempo songs) get included and oftenly it made the songs became over complicated lyrics and forgettable.
Even the Moana 2 and MUFASA songs that sung by really competent singers are still forgettable from the melody choice aspect, compared with every songs from WICKED that made me watched for Nine times.

https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxrRy4JaXDno1wKPDI69sfbQ08Rbf8...
Heads up, folks, Schaffrillas Productions is doing a Zelda character ranking. I have one request for you guys: PLEASE VOTE FOR MONTE! If you do not play Zelda, fill this list out with just his name. If you do but have 4 or fewer selections, consider adding Monte to fill the gaps. I will be forever indebted to anyone who helps me out here! And if you are wondering, he is one of the guards from Lookout Landing in TotK. Anyway, pinging @thatzeldanerd because I am sure you want to vote

@CaleBoi25 Oh I am more than happy to help!
VOTE FOR MONTE!!

@ThatZeldaNerd Yes Monte propoganda! (Also, I have a dumb headcanon ship between him and Violynne for literally no reason other than they are cute lol)

@CaleBoi25 VOTE FOR MONTE!!

@SlamDunk22 Yes! I even updated my profile to be pro-Monte!

@metacrystal Oh, no! I hope I didn't get you banned/blocked for asking you to link your website... 😬

@CaleBoi25 lol yess we love that (we making the Monte and Violynne ship canon frrr😤💪🏼)

@Mariotag Did like the games included in the Expansion Pack at the time, but I mean, locking the games away in a higher tier and having it be $50 or $80 for a couple of N64 games (at the time, the NSO N64 library wasn’t as big as it is compared to now) is just a bad move and it didn’t have a ton at the time to justify it for others. I didn’t quite mind it because I didn’t play a lot of the games included in the sub before and despite the small library, the games included were so great, though Banjo-Kazooie was what made me want the Expansion Pack the most and was kind of my main reason for getting an Xbox, since Rare’s game library is limited on the Switch and all their games are only available if you have an active NSO sub.

It stinks they are limiting seasons because there were a ton of shows I watched on Free that I liked a lot that I want to continue watching, that being Jujutsu Kaisen and JoJo, but I assume them only having the first seasons of those anime available in Free is probably a way to try and convince me to get to a higher sub to watch the rest if I really liked the anime, kind of like a trial. I should have also said that some anime they have available on Free sometimes get locked behind the higher tiers later on, so a couple of anime I put on my watchlist were unwatchable because they locked them away, but they make the more iconic and popular anime free to watch. They do these monthly sampler things that allow you to watch a few episodes of Premium anime for free for a limited time, but I haven’t done so because the shows they offer don’t really interest me. Sounds like Crunchyroll was way better back then, if only I had tried it sooner then I probably would have been able to watch more. I never watched the dubs of the shows because they limited a ton of the episodes in English, only having three available and then locking the rest, though not saying I have an issue with watching anime with Japanese audio or English audio.

So it sounds like after they bought Funimation they took off a ton of anime on Hulu and put them on Crunchyroll. That’s interesting, but what I find interesting is that there are a few series on Crunchyroll that are streamed on other services. An example that comes to mind for me is JoJo, because Crunchyroll airs 4 seasons of the show, but Hulu (if I can remember) aired 3 seasons of it and Netflix airs all 5 seasons, with season 5 being exclusive to Netflix though I think they aired the 5th season on Japanese TV channels and they release the anime on disc. I’d assume the companies with the right to JoJo and the anime licensed the show out to multiple streamers, but it is interesting that the show is on multiple platforms.

I’ll admit that not all live-action remakes can be bad, but with how Disney does it and the intentions with them, being an easier way to make money, it just tells you they don’t really have a bunch of new ideas. The only one I thought was fine was their remake of the Jungle Book, but I remember that film was a bit more darker than the original.

It would be so cool to see some of the characters that had licensing issues to come back in another game, but who knows if Disney will be up to having Sora in Smash again for another time. I know the Smash 4 polls requested a ton of characters that were, at the time, hard and somewhat impossible to get into the game because of licensing issues but were added in Ultimate. I remember I read that Banjo and Kazooie were also highly requested during the Smash 4 polls, but of course they had issues with Microsoft owning all of Rare’s characters and IP, and at the time Microsoft was against having them appear on a Nintendo console again because of exclusivity, but Microsoft have become more lenient over their games and characters appearing on other consoles, especially after those reports saying there isn’t any restrictions for their games appearing on other consoles and that whole “This is an Xbox” campaign they did late last year.

If they do want the films to feel like Avengers-level events, I do expect them to maybe do a couple more spin-offs introducing a few more characters in-between film releases (like how they released Knuckles earlier in 2024 and then released Sonic 3 at the end of 2024) but I am fine with them not doing so. I do kind of get some Avengers and MCU vibes with the universe they have for the films and stuff. Yeah, I do think they would have to avoid having more of the characters they introduce living in the same house, but I wonder how they’ll do it when there are more films.

The similarities they have to mythological creatures is cool to think about, especially since I read a lot about Japanese mythology and spirits a few years ago and some of the stories that had mythological creatures and spirits interacting with humans and the Earth. I do wonder if the later Sonic films will explore a bit of other planets and extraterrestrial places since the Sonic characters there originate from other places, since I remember that the first film showed a bit of Sonic’s home planet (which I remember they called Mobius, and I remember the film and the first trailer with the redesigned Sonic showed bits of the original Green Hill from the games) and there was that mushroom planet at the end of the first film and in the beginning parts of Sonic 2, but I expect the films to stick to Earth as the setting. Maybe they could go over a bit of the extraterrestrial planets in a spin-off of some sort and kind of delve a bit into the alien-like aspects of the characters since they come from different places. I think that would be cool.

I heard about that while Xbox One announcement fiasco with the whole sharing games thing (which, PlayStation did a funny short video indirectly taking a jab at that feature) and the Kinect being necessary in order to use the Xbox but they had to change it because it did so much damage to the brand, plus in that infamous reveal video from E3 where they showcased stuff like movies and other features with little to no games is insane, I think the main highlights of that reveal was because the Xbox is a game console first and foremost and I think other entertainment (movies, streaming services and television) from a game console comes second when you are a console manufacturer, and if you don’t show the public what games you have in store for your console, then your probably going to make them lose interest in your console fast. It’s also what probably contributed to the “Xbox has no exclusives/games” thing people have said for maybe a decade now after the 360-era ended and they moved on to the Xbox One. I even think they said themselves that they haven’t recovered from the Xbox One announcement since the One had significantly lower sales than the 360, and so far the Series X and S has even lower sales but that could hopefully change in the future. I do think Xbox has some good exclusives (even if it’s too little unfortunately), but there are other things Microsoft could do better, of course the DRM and Microsoft account connection to the Xbox (especially after reading that story with the person losing their Xbox account since it’s tied to a Microsoft account) and obviously managing their studios better, because they really do a bad job at doing it. The DRM thing seems like a constant issue for Xbox, especially with that fiasco that happened a few weeks ago where games disappeared from people’s libraries and they couldn’t find them or get good customer support to fix it and they had to wait.

I see. Again, I do hope things get better. If some days don’t go well, remember that there are a hundred more days ahead that will be filled with joy and happiness.

@Tyranexx I would maybe expect more NSO news in February since that’s when they usually drop their first Direct of the year, unless something is going on (possibly related to the Switch 2 or something else) and they don’t have one like how they completely skipped the usual September Direct unexpectedly last year. I do like save states a ton when playing old games the most, as well as it having a rewind feature. I find I’m still kind of bad at older games, and I do like the rewind feature some of the NSO apps have alongside save states since they save me plenty of frustration and are really convenient. There is this kind of debate people have over using save states and rewind features for old games and if it can be considered cheating since the game isn’t being played like it originally was when it was initially released (plus I think there was this discussion on here that brought up that) but I don’t consider it cheating at all since everyone has their own way of playing, plus save states and rewind are official features and not some hack or mod you use.

I do wish some more games did use save states and rewind more, because the only apps and games that come to mind with me regarding that is NSO legacy apps and Rare Replay on the Xbox, though that unfortunately also didn’t have a rewind feature for the N64 games.

@Anti-Matter I will admit that not all of the remakes are bad, I thought that The Jungle Book remake wasn’t bad and I thought it was one of the better ones. It was darker than the original, but I read that the source material was originally dark and the animated film removed the elements to make it more lighthearted and for families, but the remake still included all those upbeat and lighthearted songs. I didn’t really mind that remake since it did kind of change a bit of things to make the film a bit closer to the source material and changed stuff up that made it a bit different from the original. One difference that comes to mind for me in that film was how Shere Khan lives at the end of the animated film, but the remake killed him off instead. I have more of an issue with remakes if it is a shot-for-shot remake that has little to no changes from the original film (example being that upcoming remake of DreamWorks’ How To Train Your Dragon) or if it changes stuff up that ruins things like its story or theme.

I heard a ton about the stuff going on with the Snow White remake. I do hope you enjoy it if you see it. I’m not into watching Disney remakes, but I am happy to hear people that do like them!

I do rather enjoy different takes on common stories and fairy tales because of the many different approaches people have with them. Like they can change the setting, some of the characters, and kind of transform the story into something kind of original while still being the same original fairy tale or story. I haven’t really thought about that a ton when I do look at some live-action remakes…

@CaleBoi25 I survived!

@MetaCrystal OK, glad to hear it! And I did check out your page, it was neat!

@Pastellioli Honestly, yeah. There's also the fact that a lot of ppl don't have that much money to give rn.
I hate the tiered subs. I've got nearly all the NSO N64 games I would want to play, and with the exception of like, Goldeneye, could easily enough get the others. The draw for me would be online multiplayer...

Yeahhh, CR in general sucks for me. Am curious on your impressions of Jojo (which I've watched), and Jujutsu Kaisan (which I haven't, as evidenced by the fact I'm pretty sure I got the name wrong) There was that time in 2017 or so that I got to watch Shield Hero dubbed, each episode just two weeks after the sub came out. That was fun. Especially when I was watching in a voice call, and that scene played out. The amount of wtf that came from the other end of the call was hilarious, especially since it was a blind watch.

Yeahhh, hulu had to remove a bunch of crunchyroll stuff after the merger. Partly because the license wasn't valid anymore for some, for sure, but others, I suspect some level of greed is involved. Aniplex, notably, seems to have a chunk being removed from hulu now as well, including 4 of the 6 Sword Art Online listings, at least. (Each season is on hulu as a separate listing, with the exception of 3+4. There's also the OVA, which idk the status of, as it's glorified recap, a spinoff series, and a movie.) Jojo started on CR, iirc, but had hulu as well. Part 5 (season 4), was CR exclusive, until they made a deal with the devil (Netflix) for part 6 (season 5), which was split into three chunky releases with significant wait time between each. Threw a few ppl off the series who were previously big fans.

Tbh, with the live action remakes, I feel like Disney doesn't care except for money and politics. They could have ideas and just refuse to use them.

Yeah, plenty of licensing issues. Before all characters in Smash had to primarily be game characters, James Bond was considered for Melee. Bunch of cut characters, if not due to licensing, then due to other reasons. And idk what Disney would choose for Sora.

Yeah, I would anticipate at least one more spinoff before Sonic 4. Probably featuring Shadow. Which, would likely be better than the Knuckles series by default. The characters would probably have varied lifestyles and residences. My worry is the degree to which it changes the setting. Sonic X had this whole celebrity thing going on, along with utter mania by the end. The characters ended up defining the world in that, which was one aspect I disliked.

I watch a lot of anime, so I definitely know a bit about the mythology. Like, one thing I'd want out of the games eventually is for Tails to get some kitsune powers in some way. (Not just the tails, which was referenced in Prime) As for extraterrestrial, there's still Shadow's backstory for one. Remember the Black Arms? If they become a thing in the movies, it'd be a surprise tbh.
Also, they really referenced Mobius? That was the western name for the world the classic games took place on, as per the cartoons and I think comics.

Yeahh, I remember some rhetoric from back then. Like, wasn't the only game they revealed some CoD sorta game they claimed was so realistic? Also, the constant internet connection requirement, statements that you couldn't play anything that had been inserted into a different Xbox, etc. There was that one parody of "Welp, Xbox One listens to you all the time, so better not accidentally say something resembling call Grandma while making out on the sofa." Shame they never recovered. 360 was good. But the DRM, the obsession with dealing with piracy to the point of causing consumers issues, the fact ppl dunno how to play offline, and lack of exclusives is pretty damaging.

Yeah. I know I likely have hundreds of days left, if not more. My issue is more one of, how many of those will have any quality? And who will be in them?

Forget Monte.

Gruve superiority.