Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

@Anti-Matter Have you heard of Palia? It seems like just the sort of game you would love - very similar to Disney Dreamlight Valley. It's completely free, and you can play it on PS5!
@Sunsy ooh, I haven't played Speedstorms in ages... I think the last season I played was Lilo and Stich. It's pretty fun, though! I remember doodling the little AI character - Arbee, I think his name was? - a lot!

@CaleBoi25
I don't play free-2-play games as I never like free games with micro transaction behind it.
Also, I don't subscribe PS PLUS so I can't play Online from my PS5 machine.
I played Offline by 99.99%.
The 0.01% Online only from ARMS and ACNH.

Thinking about Wicked For Good this November 2025, I have theory about the Good Witch from the North.
After Dorothy's house landed at Munchkinland and killed Wicked Witch from the East (Nessarose), Dorothy got celebrated by Munchkinland citizens and the old lady witch appeared and explained she was a Good Witch from the North.
My theory is the Good Witch from the North is probably Madame Morrible who disguise as a good witch and tell Dorothy to wear the Nessarose slipper, follow the yellow road to meet the Wizard. At the same time, Glinda arrived at location where Dorothy house killed Nessarose and Elphaba thought Glinda gave away the Nessarose slipper to Dorothy.
My theory is based on every Wizard of Oz story I read which mentioned the good witch from the North as old lady. The only old lady from Wicked is Madame Morrible and I think she will be called "Good Witch from the North" while Glinda even from the novel version as Good Witch from the South. In Wizard of Oz MGM movie, they made Glinda as Good Witch from both North and South.

When I watched again the first trailer of Wicked For Good and there was a scene of Dorothy with Nessarose slipper walked on a huge burnt room with water puddle, I was thinking it will be a slow motion scene after Elphaba melted by huge amount of water (Not by a bucket of water), Dorothy will take the broom of Elphaba then leave. I think the scene when angry mob folks with the soldier squad looking for Elphaba at Kiamo Ko castle, there will be a huge fire in the room then it will be extinguished by a huge amount of water, at the same time it will "melt" Elphaba with a loud scream (We heard this scream echo from the part one of the movie before the sounds of water splashed).
So many theories about what will be happened in Part Two.
I'm very sure John M. Chu as the director of Wicked will make sure the part two will be even better than part one.
I'm very sure we will see Wicked For Good with a few portion from Wizard of Oz and more Dorothy involvement until she melted Elphaba and the Scarecrow (Fiyero) secret relationship with Elphaba.

@Anti-Matter fair enough. Though I will say, although this game does have a premium shop, it is 100% optional. It is only for cosmetics, but you can play the entire game for free!

@Pastellioli Thanks!

Aha gotcha, I guess that would make sense because of how the Happy Tree Friends characters were made. That would be neat for sure. I do like the rubberhose style for sure, I've always been fascinated by how the classic cartoons would look. I've seen a pretty good amount of old Disney and Fleischer shorts from way back in the day.

Nice, didn't know they made pens specifically made for drawing. Art museums are fun to visit for sure. I've been to one that's about an hour away for my painting class. And heck, I enjoy museums in general. I've visited a transportation museum during my recent vacation, where you'd see cars and trains on display.

Yeah. I'm all for trying out new things like games I'm not familiar with, but here's the thing... games are pretty expensive, at least on the AAA front. It would be... not great if I bought a game for $60-70, and I end up not liking it after like an hour of play time. Plus I'm not getting any younger right here, haha. I've played Nintendo for years, much more so than Sega, PlayStation, and Xbox. It just makes more sense to stick with what I know best nowadays, which is basically the reason why I'm not too interested in a PS5 or an Xbox Series X/S, or the other online games like CoD for example. I might not like everything Nintendo does... but I still have a good time with their games today. As for Splatoon ranked battles, I do like Rainmaker as well, though it can be a little challenging for me. I do like Tower Control too. Not super huge into Clam Blitz.

Yeah exactly. Microsoft is a strange company in that regard. Do they not want console exclusives anymore? It's good they're not as strict with the forced online and Kinect isn't required anymore, but yeah, I think I'd agree right there. That always-online requirement was such a trashy, anti-consumer move that they pulled off. Can you imagine just wanting to play even a single-player game, only you can't because your internet is down? It doesn't make any sense! That alone turned me away from the One. I think a lot of people who used to play on the 360 would end up getting a PS4 instead as well.

Definitely... I enjoyed Bananza for sure, and I say this as a Mario fan myself.

@PeterTomlan86 I might get Legends Z-A at some point, but I'm not in a rush for it. Maybe sometime after I finish Arceus or something.

No that was actually a pretty long time ago, I got that little paper for myself back when I was in school. I do still have said paper. Thanks, I've met some great people over there... I've had some great professors as well.

@Sunsy All right, great! Feel free to call me D as well, haha. Glad to see you're enjoying Disney Speedstorm. I do like Alice as well... I even have a plush of her.

@D-Star92 A lot of the characters have big heads, stubby bodies, small limbs & short heights, there’s only two characters who have unique proportions unlike the rest. I read nearly all of the characters are intentionally supposed to resemble Care Bears with their physical features, so I find it difficult to make them fit certain poses because of how small they are, but the short proportions on them make them all look charming! In fact, I wanted to watch the show because I liked the character designs & art style. I like how smoother the animation gets over time, but I think the janky & choppy animation in the earlier seasons has charm to it; Something I like is there’s a few HTF episodes drawn/animated in different styles, including one drawn like a 1920s black & white cartoon & another in the style of a 1950s cartoon that parodies Disney’s Goofy shorts, complete with a narrator. I started liking rubberhose cartoons more earlier this year (which I attribute to watching some older Mickey Mouse shorts & some artists I follow online) & they also have creativity with the animation & humor, so I want to have an art style like that.

Yeah, they are really nice & super helpful if you want to combine them with other materials without the risk of smudging, but there are cheap pens that can work with other materials, you just have to test them out first. A transportation museum? I haven’t heard of that before! Only really history, art, & gaming museums, but I’m sure there’s a museum for everything & anything.

Buying games on sale is very helpful for me too, because at least when I try something new & maybe I think it’s okay or something, at least I didn’t drop $60 on it & only a few bucks (I’ll say Game Pass was also helpful with that too), but I still stick to just a few games I’m used to. Last time I bought a new game on console was April, but that’s pretty much it, I’m not like some people who buy new games constantly, just a few new games mixed in with some older games I’ve already played is enough to satisfy me! I kind of like Clam Blitz, but I’ll say it’s difficult to play it since you have to get near the enemy spawn to score, plus throwing clams in the goal is slow (unless you have that football clam filled with 10 of them), but Tower Control is my most favorite mode, simple & fast to play compared to the other three modes.

It’s weird because they had the chance to allow another company to finish a game they cancelled after hyping it up for five years, but didn’t let them because they want to keep control of a now permanently dead IP they & Rare will probably never touch again. What’s the point in keeping a IP they’ll never use, & why not just sell it to a studio that’s interested & actually wants to use it? It’s so strange & I don’t get why they acted so stingy in this situation, because PD is absolutely not a big deal to Microsoft compared to something like Halo, & the last time a PD related game was released was a remastered port of the OG for the 360. Anyway, yeah, I’m so glad I missed the always online Kinect fiasco & I’ll never understand why some single-player games require a connection to be played, but it’s still good they removed it early on after they realized it pushed people away from it. There was also the whole shared games thing too, but the online connection & Kinect requirement was the bigger deal. The online connection should only be for online play, not offline play!

@Pastellioli HTF got a really pleasant artstyle haha! It’s very nostalgic for me.

Speaking of Kinect, I remember my dad being impressed by it when it came out. At the time though I was a PlayStation geek (still kinda am! Majority of my steam deck playtime is me relieving those memories haha), so I was big into the PlayStation Move. Oh, how naive I was! The move SUCKED LOL, it’s actually better and worse than the Kinect in so many ways but see the worst sin always the lack of games haha

@Pastellioli Aight. Just don't wanna leave you waiting too long.

Yea. I used to play with my screen sideways too. I'm more used to vertical now.

I'm actually angry with said former friend. I'd welcome him back if he ever wanted it, sure, but he valued my friendship so lowly as to make us both suffer for a year and a half by not even trying?
Communication and expression exist for reasons. Fact that someone I knew almost a decade had me spiraling for a year and a half, hurting both of us and those around us is just.... I'm angry at myself too ofc.

Idk about the progress of the AI stuff.

Yea, replacement is gonna take a week or two. GL with the HDMI!

My backlog is too much. I need to finish something soon. OG Hollow Knight has been taunting me half a decade now with its 42 consecutive bosses...

@CaleBoi25 I'm honestly curious how they'll portray Yoshi in the movies.
Like, how will he meet the Mario Bros? Will he try to eat them or something like in the SMW cartoon?
Or is he "too nice" to do that? I forget the list of reasons he doesn't.

@Yousef- It’s so colorful & it makes all the characters look charming, on top of the animation (especially in the earlier seasons) that adds to that charm, but the character designs, are also what drew me in. They all look simple but are still memorable, my favorites design-wise would maybe be Cuddles, Flippy, Flaky (plus her name referring to both her personality & the dandruff in her quills is genius), Petunia, & Handy. I also find it interesting that the animators on the show have a strict rule over the colors they use, they always refuse to use black & grayscale because they don’t want the show to look muted or boring to watch & to make the show’s look juxtapose the content, which definitely contributes to its look being memorable to me. Very appealing!

I actually think me & my family had a Kinect with our 360 before we traded it in for a Wii, & I think I did like it but I think we only had a few Kinect games & I can’t really remember which ones they were, plus it was a decade ago so I can’t really share my opinion on it. I’ve heard of the Move & it being a copycat to the Kinect because of how successful it was, but was it that bad? I can’t really comment on that one because I never had it.

@CaleBoi25 Yeah, I still play it casually from time to time, I have it on both PC and Switch, so I usually use cross-progression with my progress. I've been playing it more lately since I got the Alice in Wonderland season pass, which I'm almost done with (I made it to tier 47, and the highest tier is 50).

@D-Star92 Alrighty. Cool, I like Alice in Wonderland, and its spin-off, Alice's Wonderland Bakery. Alice's Wonderland Bakery is a Disney Jr show, but has a lot of heart to it. Plus, Alice in that is Alice's (as in the movie) great granddaughter. I have a plush of that Alice I got as a gift, but not the original Disney Alice.

This show, such an underrated Disney spin-off.

I should find time to watch the original Alice in Wonderland movie one of these days.

@Pastellioli They do sort of look like they're inspired by the Care Bears, yeah... in terms of their character designs of course. I don't remember that show having different art styles, that's cool they did that. Only saw the regular episodes. Nice, that would be a good art style to go for. There's also Cuphead, that takes a lot of inspiration from the 1930s Disney cartoons. I actually have a couple of blu-rays of classic Mickey Mouse shorts. They're fun to watch too... one of my favorite ones is Mickey's Delayed Date.

Oh nice. Maybe the pens could be used for making outlines for a more cartoony look or something? Yeah they've made transportation museums, and I've been to a couple of them actually! The other one I visited, which is an hour away from where I live, was a railroad museum where you'd see trains and trolleys. They'd have train rides as well, which I've also been on, and they're fun for sure. I would like to visit the Nintendo museum as well of course, but that would require a trip to Japan. The closest I got was visiting the Nintendo NY store and seeing all their consoles and handhelds on display. I recall seeing the Game Boy that survived that bomb blast as well.

Sales are good for sure. I'd say stuff like indie games could also be good for trying out something new for a decent price as well. In terms of AAA games, I've gotten games from Nintendo that I'd be interested in when they came out, but even then, it's not super often. I'm also trying to stay away from new RPGs, not because they're bad, but because of how long and complex they tend to be. Yeah, I'd say Clam Blitz gets a little easier with practice in that scouting mode (I forgot what that's called exactly), and then in the matches themselves. Tower Control is fun for sure. I actually do remember playing it in Splatoon 1 before the online shutdown, too.

Yeah... this whole thing just doesn't make any sense. It seems like Microsoft is just sitting here doing nothing with these franchises they own. I wouldn't mind Rare being a second-party company for Nintendo again... how lovely it would be.

@Sunsy Oh I remember you told me about Alice's Wonderland Bakery. It's been a couple years since I last saw Alice in Wonderland, it's one of those Disney movies that I have not seen as a kid. The Alice plush I have is indeed the original Alice. Just wondering, before I click the video, would I watch as a guest or would the AI notice and restrict my account? I have no problem seeing the trailer itself, just been afraid of YouTube's AI thing. I could use a private window but I'd like to see your advice.

@D-Star92 It's cool you have an original Alice plush. I need to plan a night to watch Alice in Wonderland again. I'd say do a private window, right-click open in private window since it is marked as "for kids." I don't trust YouTube's age verification AI at all, shame too since it's literally a trailer. Just wanted to show a trailer to it if you didn't remember the show.

To be fair, I did get the link in a private window too because of YouTube's silly policy.

@D-Star92 I see the Care Bears inspiration a whole lot from the heart noses & stubby bodies, very charming & memorable designs! Yes, there were episodes animated & drawn in different styles (one even being animated with stop-motion & paper figures) but they aren’t included in any of the main seasons & I think are considered irregular episodes. The different art styles were nice, but Ski Patrol is my favorite out of all the irregular episodes, but I really enjoy the animation in all episodes, both regular & irregular. I have played Cuphead before, & the 1930s style in that is nice! I actually started playing a similar game called Acecraft that also has a 1930s style & its animation & designs are really good for a mobile game. That’s actually what’s inspiring me to use a rubberhose style. That’s cool! I have seen a lot of Mickey Mouse shorts, but I don’t think I’ve seen Delayed Date before!

They can, that’s what I plan to use them for! Though, I want to use colored ballpoint pens for the outlines, but I plan on coloring the picture first, & then saving outlines for last. I find ballpoint pens are easier for me to control than technical art pens, though I actually haven’t done lineart in a few years because for a while I went for a line less semi-realistic style.

Didn’t know one of those museums had rides, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any museums having rides inside. I am a bit curious about what else the Nintendo museum in Japan has, because I remember reading an article here months ago that mentioned that they were going to be showing off artwork & concept artwork for their games, I think either this month or next month, & I’m wondering if it’ll be never seen before art. I kind of didn’t know the Nintendo NY store had a small museum-like display of consoles there! I have seen videos of the NY store & saw a bit of the inside of it. That sounds cool, especially how they got their hands on the Game Boy that still worked from the bomb blast.

I enjoy how the Xbox has a ton of games on sale during the spring, summer, & I think winter? A lot of the games there are dropped down to amazing prices, it’s how I got Rare Replay for just $7! Still an amazing deal, even after two years later. Though, I knew I was going to like that compilation before I bought it. Oh yeah, I have played RPGs before but I sometimes stay away from them because I suck at them & they are too complex for me, & I sometimes prefer to play AA or smaller games. Clam Blitz did get easier for me since I played it a lot in 2, but I prefer Tower Control from how fast & simple it is, though I always just follow the tower to protect my teammates rather than staying on top. Least favorite for me is absolutely Splat Zones. I really regret not playing any online games on the Wii U or 3DS before the servers shut down, because it sounded like a lot of people had a good time doing so…it’s still sad they shut off all online services & the eShop.

I think Microsoft is just sort of bad at managing the IPs they have, because they have a few extra IPs they could let other studios own & revive, & if they picked the right studios to take control of a dormant IP they could get a handful of more great exclusives, but they just keep them to themselves & do nothing. Pretty sure I read that was the same reason they used when explaining why Rare’s platformer IPs hadn’t been revived yet, I think they mentioned they were trying to look for the right developer to execute it & saying it was up to Rare if they wanted to make it, though I’m sure everyone knows their answer is “no.” I think I kind of forgot to mention it, but the PD reboot getting cancelled also had to do with the fact that the company that wanted to revive it wanted to take over both developing & publishing duties & full control of the PD IP after reviving it, so technically, it wouldn’t be an Xbox Game Studios title anymore & wouldn’t involve them at all, but it’s just so stupid they didn’t want to give it away for whatever reason.

@Mariotag Sideways is nice for me, gives me a lot of space, though a lot of the games I play require sideways play.

I get it, the lack of proper expression & communication from his end just sounds so frustrating & confusing, but I also can’t imagine how much upsetting it is especially because you were friends with the guy for 10+ years before it abruptly ended from him misunderstanding, and it’s sad that he’ll never know what actually happened, I’m still really sorry.

Thanks, I can’t wait till the HDMI replacement happens, while it did suck, at least the whole console didn’t break and is still usable. I’d be even more upset if it stopped working completely.

Havent finished a game in a while, also because my console HDMI doesn’t work right now & what I play mostly consists of mobile games that don’t have actual endings. While I have heard of Hollow Knight I kinda didn’t know it was that hard, 42 consecutive bosses? It’s only just now that I’m hearing about that now.

@D-Star92 oh, classic Disney cartoons are so fun! We have a collection as well - my whole family always likes Clock Cleaners, and Lonesome Ghosts.

@Sunsy I saw the trailer. It looks like a cute show for sure! Thank you for showing me. And yep, I did indeed see it in a private window, and it's not on my watch history. So Google's not gonna be getting me. I should give that movie a rewatch sometime too, it's been some time since I've seen it.

@Pastellioli Yeah definitely, I do like that kind of character design as well. Cuphead is a fantastic game in of itself too. It's mega challenging for sure, but for some reason, I don't get frustrated by it. Probably because of how I've played a lot of side-scrolling games over the years. I did see you've mentioned Acecraft before, glad to see you've been enjoying it. That's like a shoot-em-up, right? Gotcha, I'm sure Mickey's Delayed Date is on Disney+ if you want to see it. I do like Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip, as well.

Gotcha, that sounds like a plan. I'd normally do the drawing first, then the coloring. I don't think I've done outlines in my recent drawings, but I could try to do that sometime. I could do the coloring and the outlining once I'm happy with how my drawing is rendered.

I see, now you know. I think it's common for transportation museums to have rides of some kind. That'd be neat to see concept art for their games over there. Yeah, it was cool to see honestly. I've gotten some exclusive stuff over at Nintendo NY as well. Because why wouldn't I?

That's cool, that sounds like how Steam does sales for PC games. $7 for Rare Replay sounds like a good deal for sure. Yeah, I suck at RPGs too. I've gotten trouble quite a few times in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and I got stuck at this one boss fight long ago. It's been upsetting me, and I don't know if I'll ever revisit it, honestly. I'm sorry to hear of your regret on not playing the 3DS and Wii U online... it sort of reminds me of how I wish I got certain games from the Wii Shop Channel before it closed.

Ah, was it Rare that wanted to revive the Perfect Dark series? Or was it a different company? Just want to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly.

@CaleBoi25 Oh that's awesome, and I agree for sure! Don't think I've heard of Clock Cleaners. I do recall hearing of Lonesome Ghosts, that's something I'd want to see during Halloween time. Mickey's Delayed Date and Mr. Mouse Takes a Trip are a couple of my favorite Mickey cartoons.

@D-Star92 I never completed Cuphead, but it was a great game. Acecraft is a shoot em’ up rougelite, yes, & it’s very fun besides the well executed 1930s style, I already am on the fourth level but it’s getting challenging already! There’s a lot of enemies & projectiles on screen, so I can sometimes get confused & not see what’s onscreen, but I luckily have enough good pilots to make getting through levels easier. Again, the art in that game does a good job replicating the 1930s rubberhose style, & it’s a big inspiration for me right now.

Yeah, with my process, at least when it comes to markers now, it’s sketch, erase the sketch lightly, color it, and outline it last, but I really hate drawing lineart, it’s hard to get the lines to match the sketch. When I used to draw with markers, it was sketch first, outline second, erase third, & coloring last. For maybe 2-3 years I did lineless art when I was drawing semirealism…made art less stressful for me! Plus you don’t risk smudging when you go over it with other materials.

I wonder if pictures will appear online, I’m super interested in concept art the most, but if I remember, doesn’t the museum have a rule for taking pictures or videos or no? Because I swear I read they did. What kind of exclusive things does Nintendo NY have again, mostly merchandise, correct?

I really like how the Xbox sales also include games from their first-party studios, so you have a lot of games to choose from! RPGs aren’t bad but they aren’t really for me, the only RPGs I have played is Fire Emblem: Three Houses & then the Heroes spin-off, but them being tactical RPGs makes it harder for me, though I did go back to Heroes to catch up with the story a few weeks ago, though the writing in that one is okay. Yeah, it’s a shame because I know a lot of people were online that day, but I also kind of regret not buying eShop games the most, especially because some of the games I was interested in skyrocketed in price for physical copies. I’m the most regretful over Yo-kai Watch 3…

So originally, Microsoft established a first party “AAAA” studio called The Initiative, & the head of the studio chose to make the Perfect Dark reboot the studio’s first game. Development was rough & they had to get Crystal Dynamics (the studio behind the Tomb Raider games) to assist in development before it was cancelled, & Rare had no involvement in the game, likely because of how they work on only original games now & avoid using legacy IP. Reports said Take-Two wanted to revive the game after it was cancelled, but also wanted ownership over PD if they bought the rights, which didn’t happen.

The Nintendo Music app just got updated with tracks from Donkey Kong Bananza.... But not all of them for some reason lol? I am so confused.

Anyone else feel like the soon-to-be President of Noa and Amy Adams could be related? I'm sorry, I just need to know!
Devon

Amy