Tag: Magic

Steampunk D&D The Videogame? Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Rusted Geared Greetings my lovely island guests! Some of you might now I am very into D&D  and often reference it! It is my favourite game to play by far as I do have enough imagination to imagine the worlds we visit and see them unfold in better graphics than any engine based game could! I petted a dragon, I yeeted a huge cyberpunk golem into a black hole and I can distinctly visualise those worlds. Today I review the game that brought me closest to this experience I have been with a video game. That game is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura!

It’s a D&D  Game

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a game by Troika Games, you might have heard of them from their game Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. One of my favourite RPG’s and BY FAR ..FAR …FAAAAR my favourite vampire game! I still simp for Jeanette!  I think that is how I used that word right?!  Troika games is pretty well known for deeply complex games built on actual roleplay games mechanics. If Arcanum is an actual roleplaying system I do not know. Yet this game feels the most open world (ish)   D&D like that I have ever played.  Mimicking the playstyle of a Pen and Paper RPG the most of everything. This starts when you  realise that the manual for this game is completely available online from the start up.  There is no tutorial, no hints on how to build your character, limitless possibilities with minimal and vague descriptions.  Descriptions like “Int” You can raise this stat to raise Intelligence, Some crafts scale from this stat and some magic.  Luckily there is the manual…which uses pretty pictures.. a very tiny font.. and has 185 pages.  And that is a single language! (European Manuals often were multi-lingual hence the clarification to  those who might not have grown up with that). I was arrogant enough that I believed I could do this without the Manual so I made Elle.. my OC in my Isekai series and other media as well.

In D&D classes there exists this game, much like Vampire the Masquerade and Aberrant as roleplaying systems offer you the ability to do anything.  Which is amazing! Yet somewhat overwhelming. Choosing between genders races and Portraits gives you about 50 ish choices of what character you want to play as.. of which about 5 have different stats. Based on your race. Then you pick from well over 30 backgrounds that all hugely affect the game. I made Elle an Half-Elf with the background Nitzsche’s  Poster Child. Which doubles her critical fail chances but gives her a permanent 10% experience boost! I wanted to give her ice magic.. but that was lacking so instead she got the first offensive spell I could find.. Harm.  In regular D&D once you have selected your character and race you distribute your skill points and choose from between 6 stats to level up. The rest is altered by those base stats.. and your class which levels up.. semi separately from the character. In this game however there are no classes! Everything! … EVERYTHING! Is leveled by the same points. So upon start and level up..instead of choosing out of 6 stats..you get to choose out a few more!  You can choose out of 50 things to put your points in.

It did not take me long to realise I had not built Elle properly to survive at the start, I kept dying before even exiting the starter area and because I am reviewing here I played the game on easy! Still I kept getting washed as Elle kept falling over! While very much in her character I wondered what was causing it. Was it the Nitzsche thing? No! It was the fact that if you are out of Mana you fall to the floor! As Elle had no Melee investments she could not put up reliable DPS without crashing. Or so I though!  Because experience is not based on how much you kill in this game! Experience is based on how much you hit! How many actions you take and all that stuff. I of course still could not hit enough to get away with so much little “mana” which is called fatigue in this game so I had to redo it. So Elle’s much more competent Twin Emma was born. She was Elle’s counterpart.. instead of clumsy and socially awkward she was physically apt with a hint of magic and she had an extreme personality which makes people react to her very hostile or very friendly!  I trained her to be skilled with a sword and gave her some magic for a ranged option. As she would grow during our adventure she would develop in a semi rogue, with trickster spells.  A bit of a chaotic neutral type player tethering more to the evil side.  For those who ask.. yes this game also features alignments.

It’s a D&D Video Game

Emma discovers a lot of things while playing.  I was walking to towns but apparently you need to quick travel, or you will travel for hours through empty lands. During travel however you can not rest easy as encounters may pop up! This can be disastrous or a fun challenge depending on what  your level is, what your settings are and what kind of gear you are rocking.  The game features the ability to play it real time, in which case it plays very similar to Diablo..but shittier.  Or you can play it fully turn based in which it kind of plays like Divinity Original Sin 2….but shittier.  More on those negatives later! I play the game in Turn based so it felt more like a tabletop and that was the less shitty of the three options but again you will have to check the next section for that. First let’s tell you about the size of the game! Which is sizable… even with many mock locations you can still explore the map with fast travel to discover points of interests. For example, I encountered many mysterious shrines I had come to investigate!   Then there are a few important towns connected by railway stations and tech, but also travable in the classic way.

This is what makes this game so interesting. The setting is quite unique, and when I say that I mean it is quite Identical to Fable 3.  The Industrial Age in a fantasy setting. However this game leans WAY  heavier into it and besides a good and evil alignment your character can either perform well in Steamworks OR Magick Obscura… You choose a side if it were. Though nothing works as well as just hitting things hard with a big metal object which for me .. kind of was a fun change of pace. Don’t get me wrong.. Sword is not the only playstyle.. but it is by far the easiest and it still isn’t easy. Let’s say Sword is Normal Level difficulty.. maybe even Intermediate. Magic is Hard and if you go Tech..well that is by far the hardest to a point that for me personally it is unplayable. It is doable but there is a lot of searching for parts, tinkering , leveling crafting levels to keep things up, leveling traps to use traps, leveling the stat to use it and of course raising your defence so you live long enough. It by far is the biggest package of skills you need to manage, but I am sure that will be someone’s dream playstyle.. save it for a second run though.

A second run is quite playable and manageable because there is lots to see and lot of choices to make! So high points in replayability. In this story you play the only survivor of the Zephyr a blimp that got taken down by Ogre Aviators.. who did not know how to fly a plane so they just tried stuff and took themselves down  by  flying into the blimp and just exploding against it.. it worked though and only a tiny halfling or gnomish man survived long enough to hand you a ring with some intials on it as your only clue! This person is important to the faith of the world the gnome says. Then a priest shows up and tells you , you are an incarnation of a god.. but since he is just a rookie priest he doesn’t know anything more than the legend. He teams up with you and so an epic journey filled with lots of shady figures and people out for that ring and/or your life begins.  While I haven’t been able to complete the game yet, I made a large enough dent in the story that I have a fairly good impression of the world building and it is quite amazing.  There are very many ways to move through the story.. so I won’t tell you mine as it might ruin the fun.. because this is not a game you’ll want to play for the gameplay.

It’s a Video Game

The game is a harsh one, there is no backing out of conversations, there is no regret , there is no autosave!  If you make a choice it is locked in unless you remember to save before it.  You don’t always know when these moments come up so save plenty!  For example, fairly early in the game, my character sides with a thief and I destroyed supplies for another … which gave me access to thieves guild.. but the town disliked me!  I never got very good sale prices after.. luckily I helped them stop a bank robbery earlier so I was in a more or less neutral position. I befriended a big Ogre that helped me a lot in combat..however I got sent back almost an hour of dungeon crawling when he reached 0 hp.  As far as I am aware.. if a character reaches 0 hp it’s dead forever.  So I learned to save plenty. I sided with a group of necromancers  , I figured since my character used necromancy herself she would not be against it. This does have an effect on other events later on. That kind of world building is pretty standard.. but it is implemented very well here.. but where this game really shines is the side quest.

In the first large city you encounter I got a quest to track down a painting that was stolen.. it plays out a bit like a detective story of sorts, it looks like the husband may be involved but he is hard to find. Unrelated I stumbled upon another side quest  to deliver a letter from a shady guy. He kept saying to me I should not open it! Yet Emma is curious and she has a big strong ogre to protect her so she opened it anyway! It directions to a house with a brief but ill foreboding bit of text. Upon delivering the letter they find out I broke the seal and they try to kill me! They kill that monk guy that tagged along so I restart and do the fight better.. These guys were gonna pull a heist or something it seems. However it turns out that in that house you now can rob yourself.. is actually THE painting you’ve been looking for.  Quests OVERLAP and I don’t think I have ever seen that. Of course if you decide to deliver the letter like normal you do not go to the house and I am not sure if the painting then would change locations to house you delivered the letter to or if they leave it.. but this world changes so much from you interacting with it.. and  what you do in one side quest or what order you do them in can change how events unfold and for a 2001 game that is hella impressive. Even today we don’t see that kind of thing a lot. 

Unfortunately mechanically the game is super wonkey! Combat feels super finicky and if you play it in real time mode it feels super floaty and often derails in click spamming, if you have any skills you want to use you are almost forced to play it in turn based mode. Real time does work.. but weird things happen, there is a quick select for example to use skills like in an MMO but they are not telling you which key is what. So I thought for the longest time I had to click them , still real time combat feels muddy and lacks the tactics you can use in turn based.  That itself is hindered by hitboxes and context sensitive spells but without proper feedback! For example casting harm on a friendly unit can be done when it stands in front of an enemy. It will say you target your ally but target the enemy instead it feels super unnatural.  It looks murky and boring as well in most places! The steampunk elements look super creative , but especially the wilderness is extremely repetitive.  It has beautiful music but it loops too often and all in all.. it is kind of a bad video game. Because almost all elements are wonky! It is too hard, it looks bad, (for 2001 standards and did not age well either)   it sounds generic and combat and movement feels super floaty and I had a lot of frame drops!   IN a 19 year old game!  So while it is an interesting video game .. it is also a bad video game.

What is it?!

In the end that is the fatal flaw of this game. It’s not good enough to be a strong video game and it is too limited to be considered a proper D&D adventure. What we get is something that is kind of smack in the middle of it! It wanted to be more a pen and paper game and compromised too little to be a video game. It doesn’t work. Combat is done poorly and unbalanced. A melee hit does less damage.. but costs less stamina and acts faster (mostly)  however since hits count towards XP and not  kills.. magic deals TOO much damage. You get less xp and more damage because of your build.. it is a system where you can do everything and you can beat it with everything.. but it is also a system that REALLY REALLY REALLY favours Melee and violent characters. Gameplay and idea don’t overlap.. as if they are from two different worlds.

So this will not appeal to those wanting a great RPG and not to those who want the liberty to play tabletop! That being said however I loved this game .. because it is pretty much for people like me! I’ll admit it is too hard and tedious for me.. so I can only stomach it in small sessions , like an hour a day!  But I really want to play that hour a day to see Emma get stronger. She isn’t going to be the character I really REALLY want her to be.. but a more functional build of what I want her to be and that is ..mostly fine.  There is such an interesting world to explore that I will take broken mechanics for granted. It is no Final Fantasy VI but it is the closest I can come to experience being a player in a tabletop game for now! It’s harsh, punishing and I really stress out while playing it.. but those nerves also are that of a D&D player on low HP.  Simply for the world alone this is such an unique game, and it is quite loved among recent players who like games like this.. It really has this niche audience and I belong to it for the most part! I am still annoyed by it’s flaws or my own limitations to play it more freely so for me it’s fine.. for anyone who thrives for difficulty and freedom.. this is an absolute and rare gem.

<Disclaimer>
The Screenshots I used are not of my own Journey, I was unable to produce my own screenshots properly due to some technicalities, imagine these.. screenshots but with an leather armored girl with swords and the disarm spell for my journey!
<End of Disclaimer>

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Harry Potter and The Piece of Junk : Abigail (2019) Review

I have kind of built up a reputation as a person who reviews weird or bad movies. However in the land of SteamPunk.. I do not have that many options… there is one.. and it will follow soon enough but for most of these I go in blind. Still you have heard me burn movies to the ground but also talk about movies that are so bad that it’s good!  Abigail is NOT so bad that it’s good. It is BAD … yet despite that it’s bad I just REALLY like it. 

The Engine of this Movie

Abigail is the title of a 2019 Russian movie directed by Aleksandr Boguslavskiy. It’s a movie that stars Eddie Marsan, whom you may know from Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Sherlock Holmes : A game of Shadows or V for Vendetta.  He plays the father of the title character Abigail who is played by Tinatin Dalkaishvili who played in movies.. whose title I can’t read. But one of them seems to be called 3BE3(The Letter A.. but it Melted)a.  She has a supporting cast of Gleb Bochkove, Artyom Tkachenko and  Rinal Mukametov and some others whose name I can’t  spell without looking at it a billion times. It currently holds a  4,9 score on IMDB based on 2766 reviews and a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 25 reviews. Not exactly high scores and overall I would have to agree with the 5 out of 10 score.. if I review the separate elements.. but I had a lot of fun with this movie! 

The plot of the movie is fairly spoilery in itself. After all the plot is not really revealed for the first 20 minutes so if you are the no spoiler type of person look away now and pick up at the next paragraph. That being said, if you are a person of sound mind the plot will not hold surprises for you long as it is written for the young adults..early adolescent teens and preteens. If you are still here let’s discuss the basic plot. Abigail lives in a city that is closed off and ruled by a tyrannical government no one is allowed to cross “the boundary” because a disease roams there. This disease has also found its way inside their city walls..  when her father gets taken Abigail now grows up into a much harsher and insecure life.. however when she has come to age she learns the truth.. there is no disease. Magic exists and the government has fabricated all these lies to keep the mages out of the city. So the supreme leader is the only one that can do magic and can rule over all in a city of weak people to control! Abigail of course turns out to have magic and discovers a group of magical rebels..With them.. she might have a chance to save her father. In a weird way this movie very much feels like Steampunk Harry Potter (the movies, not the books) .

It’s Junk!

So normally I begin my reviews with naming the positives, however with this review I will get the negatives out of the way. When objectively critiquing a movie one might think to judge points like, Story, Acting, Effects/Looks and Direction and maybe Sound?  Either way this movie drops the ball on all of these aspects. Let’s begin with the Story. While the story of this movie isn’t all that bad the storytelling is horrendous. The story is cut together so rough it at times doesn’t even make sense. We barely know what is going on. Characters suddenly gain motivation at locations we aren’t even sure of what it is or have found themselves rather altered. Somewhere late in the movie Abigail goes to search a location with a theme of people.. literally one second later, they say they searched the entire place and that what they were looking for is not there and that is one of the more subtle cuts this movie makes. 

Characters gain crucial information on screen non stop, random characters are grabbed from the street and acted upon as if they are someone familiar. Even the part where Abigail is taught about Magic is kind of cut.. and this is a movie about her becoming a wizard. There is a lot of exposition about all the forms of magic though! Mages in this world do not use wands, they use junk like containers.. that work as a focus. Depending on if it’s a circle, a square or a triangle.. it does different things. Like square things are used for conjuration.. like summoning a wall of ice or rock , round things are used for evocation and basically are your main weapon and triangle things are used for alteration.. so to use wind to fly higher and stuff like that.. or at least I think it’s like that. It’s always kind of hard to see what kind of things they hold and I don’t think it’s that constantly used. Still there is some pretty interesting world building but.. we do not see the full story here..it feels more like a summary that misses some details.. and I mean that feeling is VERY strong.

This same behaviour is reflected in the direction, it is sometimes.. rather directionless. Shots are muddy and hold still on the wrong person. For example when there is a fight and one person is about to get a kill..the tension is in if they get the kill yet the shot cuts off to someone trying to stop them.. You don’t do that, you want them to fall over and then pan out to the person doing the shooting, it is much more dramatic that way. We get action shots of people walking into a sky fortress but instead of a sweeping overhead shot showing how big this place is.. we just walk in with the characters, we see the enemies with their backs turn.. not only would it not make sense for these guards to have their backs turned to your only entrance.. it also looks boring. First shot of the sky fortress and all we see is blacks and greys.  It kind of feels as if you are watching a soap opera instead of an epic fantasy movie.

That Soap Opera feeling is reflected through by FAR the worst thing this movie does.. it SOUNDS abysmal! This movie is shot entirely in Russia and done by russians but it got released mainly in English! I am not even sure there is a russian spoken version.. I assume there is but IMDB says there is not!  How did those russians speak english?! They got dubbed. The dub is bad… really really bad.. at least from our main character. It’s not that she is hard to understand.. but the delivery feels like she is reading her lines as a bedtime story to her kid… all the time! It feels like one of those older Tales of English Dubs. There is acting.. but it is all said so ridiculously audible that it sounds as if she is doing speech exercises.. It just feels so fake..  kind of like how germans dub things. Everything is so buttery smooth, there is no room tone, never a distortion or a broken line… all the sound is so clean no matter where they stand of if there are engines howling.

This hinders the acting as well, because we get this dissonant. We hear a character speak in a different emotion than we see on her face. Both the voice and the physical acting is overly expressive. Physically there is a lot of soap opera acting.. or how you see actors act on stage. It has something unnatural.. not that it is acting physically bad.. but more so.. this is not how a human would act in a certain situation. Characters that get slapped get the dramatic back of the hand slap so it looks more dramatic on camera or on stage and it doesn’t always match up with the acting we HEAR which amplifies both to look even weirder. At times I had a feeling I was watching a live action Cartoon or a live action anime even.. they are that dramatic as real people.. and that just looks weird.

Speaking of cartoons, some of the special effects look like they got rendered 20 years ago and thus have an incredibly cartoony feeling as well. The way magic works kind of looks cool, but you have no sense what is going on. But the airship, the fantastical creatures and some look like something you see on the SyFy Channel.. you know movies that are usually called Giant Terror Death Crab or  Terrible Terror Octopus.  It just looks too bright, as if shadows are missing or reflections and stuff.  I watch a lot of Corridor Crew videos and they told me how to trick their eyes into making cgi seem like part of the  experience.. this .. while it doesn’t look ugly does not do any blending at all.. it feels as if someone in photoshop is moving these things around. 

It’s Magic

And yet despite all of that, I had a wonderful time with this movie, which is weird because every single part of this movie kind of sucks. Yet that is the thing.. it just kind of sucks.  The story while it skips so much that is hard to follow is quite unique.  Magicians in a Steampunk world.. not being able to be killed because magic will always move on to the next person.. as energies can’t quell.. So instead the government has to find a way to get them all out? That is quite a neat idea. A government who strives for equality versus all versus a rebel group that strives for equality versus all is very interesting. These groups essentially have the same goal yet they are on opposite sites because one pursues no magic, while the other wants magic for everyone.. or no inequality for those who are magic at least. There are some really interesting concepts here. The way how magic works in this world following the principles of alchemy in a way.. is a very neat concept and it’s nice how subtle the references are at times! 

While the magic kind of looks awkward and you don’t really get what is going on.. the way of casting is quite unique.. It has this Harry Potter spell duel vibe.. but it feels much thicker.. less colour coded.. there is a lot of black and a lot of red in there.. but is it a fireball or is it arcane energy.. it isn’t exactly all that clear.  Yet that also makes it completely unique in it’s own way.. the fairy might look ugly but it is this movie fairy it doesn’t do that standard thing it is it’s own thing. The way it uses steampunk elements to work with casting.. not only in the devices but also in some magitech later on.. it’s charmingly unique in it’s very core.  It has something video-gamey .. or tabletop rpg like, with a major battle taking place with mages having their abilities nullified.. and the fight being on two fronts.. one with a very VERY videogamy puzzle and on the other hand a steampunk sword and crossbow fight that feels quite disney. .. if directed by a intern…

Even that super fake voice over at one point really kept me entertained.. not persé as a movie product but because it made me feel like I was playing an old timey rpg, or maybe listening to a fairytale audiobook or some youtuber do their own fanfiction  thing.  It felt cheap but in all the right ways… I did not enjoy it because it’s bad.. but it’s like seeing this helpless creature .. like a turtle on its back struggle! You just go N’awwww Abigail and you flip the turtle back up and you watch it hobble on for a bit still charmed by how klutzy that was. I always said I liked Pokémon that feel to clunky to be fully functional.. things  like Wobuffet, or Stunfisk or Dunsparce. This movie is a Dunsparce.  For those who don’t know Pokémon, I guess this movie feels like Krillin from Dragon Ball and subsequent stories.. mostly Z or Super Krillin… The movie is several steps behind the pack and gets blown away by just about everyone… but you can not help but care for the little thing!

It’s Fun

Using logic this thing.. it should not work.. this should not be as fun as it was to me.. and given that it’s only getting a 5 out of 10  by everyone else.. or even a 4 shows that.. but I argue that it is a 5 out of 10 movie because it is a 1 out of 10 movie and a 9 out of ten movie combined.  It has the charm that we can look past it’s flaws and say… sure little guy I had an okay time with you.  After bad dubbing, bad special effects, a cut up story and bad, bad direction (which I don’t have any justification for unlike the rest) what remains is still a movie that is okay. So in a way everything we can not quantify, anything that would be like the movies “feel” , the “spirit” it’s “emotional experience”  that is done so well that it makes this movie “watchable”. If we tally everything up.. we get a movie that is just watchable! This seems to be the consensus with movie goers that reviewed this as well… yet it reacts almost unlike anything else.

Nowadays when something scores a 7.0 it’s reviewed as if it is not worth watching, there is better stuff out there. Something that scores as 6 isn’t even talked about.. and yet it is this thing that people also mostly review for a 5.. that everyone says… yeah it did enough, it’s a bad movie but I was entertained and that is fine for once.That is what makes this movie so special. It has cute costume design. ..even though that also feels a bit over designed..but I will remember a few of these characters.. from a 5 out of 10 movie. It really has that Harry Potter charm (written by Daniel Radcliffe that series is)   infused in its DNA. Even though it sucks… ..in every way … it’s fun.. not because of the fact that is sucks but despite of the fact.. and that makes this movie special to me. I should rate this one Okiwi but because it is that.. it’s so special it even gets an upgrade.

The Biggest Pokémon Fan Game Pinkie Ever Played: Pokémon Rejuvenation

Hello again my sweet island guests! Yes this will be my second post of the day!  As we will do that now!.. Not always but I am for it!  While I try to do an animini each day I will also try to keep up my regular content…with the option to more freely skip one of my bigger posts here and there! So strangely one to two posts a day is most likely going to be less work! Those hours saved I can invest in this Pokémon Fan Game I have been playing! Pokémon Rejuvenation.

Pokémon What?!

Pokémon Rejuvenation is a HUUUGE pokémon fan game from the creators of Pokémon Reborn.. that Pokémon game with hookers, suicides, murders and pokémon being tossed into acid. While I loved the game for it’s dark tones, in hindsight Pokémon Reborn might have been a bit needlessly Edgy. Having a criminal team member cut a gym leader in half is fine and all.. but tossing her pokémon in the volcano and forcing her bisected upper half to watch her pokémon melt.. was a bit much.  Seeing a gym leader lose it all after alianating his daughter is fine.. and then him commting suicide ..does bring awareness that these are actual humans sure… but having his corpse plummet into the room of his daughters best friend, who then goes catatonic and put into an Asylum where she recieves Electroshock therapy by electric pokemon torturting her… might be overdoing it a bit.

Rejuvenation gives us the pleasure of having a slightly more “contained” story.  There still are deaths….but they are more so implied. The game brings some elements of magic to the story. People using the power of Arceus for themselves, people finding abilities through ancient spells to compete with pokémon a bit and people utilizing the more advanced technology and pokemon powers more into their everyday lives. Thus this game becomes more like a classical Pokémon story but made for an adult demographic. You play a main character that is significantly older than 10 years old as well and more in 16 year old to young adult range. In this game your mother gets kidnapped by a cult and the ship you are on gets sunk by the evil Team Xen. This attack seems to tie into you or your mother.. but you have no idea why!  There is also a connection to a sacrificial and apocalyptic cult that sends people to Arceus..for this world is certainly doomed. A young girl is trapped to relive this cycle of being sacrificed over and over again…but maybe in your generation she fights back.

Like in Reborn you can choose your own prefix and He/Him, She/Her, They/Them , separately from your avatar. This is always nice, though only important characters will really address you as the correct gender. Most characters will address you Gender neutral… which is still better than the endless being called him of other fan games. The game also has another big advantage over it’s older brother and that is… EASY mode.  Yes I know. .. that sounds like a babies way out but if you ever played Reborn and like me do not want to have to IV and EV train everything and carry 18 different teams and level them up.. this is a godsent.. and while the game indeed is easy compared to Reborn, next to the official Pokémon games easy mode still provides more than a challenge. With many special field types like in reborn affecting your attacks.. it still provides plenty of chances to be tactical for you and your enemies. With some confidence I can say that this is THE Pokémon Fan game for Adults…maybe next to Pokémon Fire Red Rocket Edition.

The Trainers

That is a lot of praise for me to give to a game I haven’t even completed yet. However after spending over 60 hours in the game, and probably over 70 by the time you read this, I have a fairly good impression what this game is about. one of its major strengths are it’s characters. During your journey you encounter a lot of trainers that seem to be based on the archetypal pokémon characters.  For example there is one boy who really wants to be the very best.. like no one ever was… but he doesn’t really have the skill to back it up. As a result he gets into a lot of trouble and is disillusioned and somewhat bitter. We encounter him a few times and we have to make choices…at one point we face a Gymleader of a xenophobic town.. she staged a play to show that outsiders can be powerful and inspiring.. right before the battle we face and defeat him and get a choice whether or not to let him face the gym leader before us. However there is too much at stake.. an entire town might never trust outsiders if we let the boy go first.  So we have to step on his dreams.

Then there is the poison gym leader called Venam. She is a brash girl living with her mother..but she is extremely loud and a bit Tsundere, we see how in a way she is similar to the character of Misty but instead of being an anime character we do get a lot of exposition on why she is the way she is. We get motivations that interest us in her as an adult. She tries to break free of her mold.. but that results in her mother kicking her out.  She has to deal with things like an adult.. like how is she going to survive and pay for food. All of it contributes to her character. We also have a battle girl whose father works for the criminal team. We see her believes being shaken and see her go on a journey  that fits someone who is on such a journey…much more than just doing the gym challenge she is doing her journey as a little soul search. Then there is you as the character. While you do not have THAT much development the way your journey across the gyms is being done is great. You are facing an evil organisation..of tremendous power.. you do not take the Pokémon Journey to be the champ.. no you use that journey as a measuring stick for your abilities. To see if you are good enough to face those who wronged you!

The game offers you a few moral choices which influence the world around you to an extent. Most of it is by experiencing the story but the game also offers you a subquest  system. For example you have to deliver a love letter from one guy to another.. and include medicine.. However if you are like me and are too poor to do the quest at that time you end up seeing them becoming friends rather than lovers. A psychic girl who has powers akin to those of trainers in the main games.. can’t help but abuse her powers, they corrupt her to an extent.. not into a bad person.. but into a different one all the same. Each location you visit and all important people you encounter have logic behind them. A city close to the woods is built from Lumber, a city worshipping Giratina over Arceus has found themselves being the subject of religious persecution in the past.. however while the rest of the world grew up.. and grew past their old bosses these people never could. We really get a WORLD we treat trough.. not just a map!  We even get Shadow Pokémon you can snag and purify! So it just about brings everything Pokémon ever offered in a single cohesive world as well.

The Pokemon

This game uses the classical pokémon up to generation VII , so no Galar Pokémon… right now.. the game is still being updated so who knows they might arrive soon! Some Galar music already made it into the game.  Much like Reborn the game introduces some new Mega Evolutions and their own variety for story events called Breach Pokémon. These are pokémon from a different Dimension that function like boss encounters throughout the game. Movesets of Pokémon have been slightly altered to be less “broken” and not give you access to anything overpowered early game. Sometimes enemies get their own signature moves. For the most part though they do remain the same. This does mean that to an extend you can use Serebii to help you build a team to encounter some obstacles. However that is not the way I like to play it.. because this game also has custom shinies. These are VERY well done shinies and almost all are unique and vibrant.. you’ll WANT to see a shiny and you can.. because shiny encounter rates are at almost 1/100.. compared to 1/8192.  So I play this game using only shines.. I only hunt the first I find per route and then I have to move on.. easy mode allows me to play this way and I am having a blast discovering these new forms.

Trade evolutions have been fixed and as you go along pokémon get increasingly higher base stat totals.  Which means that if you have a new shiny.. you’ll most likely want to put it on your team and some of your old one end up phasing out.  With the exception of a few statics here and there ..(which are pokémon you can see in the overworld and can only encounter once)  you slowly upgrade your team, your flying bug type vivillon gets traded in for the flying fire type Talonflame.  Your Ambipom gets traded in for a Traveller and so on. You are constantly upgrading your team and even though this game features a lot of mandatory grinding the high shiny encounter rate and the fact that you are always upgrading keeps the game fun.  With the difficulty on easy you can still use Pokémon you really like..as long as it isn’t Shuckle or Dunsparce ,yet you are very much encouraged to have a team larger than six. You swap out your pokémon, and to facilitate this there are pokémon switching stations everywhere! To help you train new team members or give you a more tactical advantage.

Grinding is made very doable by giving you access to a speed up mode, and high level wild encounters. In fact most wild encounters have higher levels than the trainers you encounter. The trainers however use more solid strategies. Each gym caps your level at a certain point after which in easy you can’t progress and on higher difficulties makes your Pokémon rebel against you…which you can undo by feeding them reverse candy. So you can not over-level either way.While it is pretty doable to level your main team with story content, if you need a specific pokemon or encounter an upgrade to your team you  can grind those up within a few minutes. You get the Exp Share early and grass encounters give plenty of XP so the creatures in this world really fit and facilitate the game.  Habitats also make sense if you know the pokémon. For example inside cities you will encounter doves, cats and trash eating pokemon, while the wooden cottage type of village has plenty of bugs. It does do better with this logic than the actual games so hey good on them! And if you don’t like hunting Pokémon.. there are a fair few achievements you can hunt to buy battle items for your Pokémon.

The Atmosphere

So this game provides a great and vibrant world,that feels much more like a living pokémon world than most officially produced worlds, with exception for stuff like Twilight Wings for example,  and they offer the perfect biological diversity in that world to be exactly the game they want to be.  This is Pokémon for adults. This is also reflected in just about everything else.  The music is stellar, recomposed tracks from all the other games, but those rethreads are amazing and SO atmospheric.  The controls are the standard RPG maker controls that are used for just about every other fan game I ever played, with a few extra conveniences such as a soft reset button and up to four registered items being assigned to the F-Keys. The game expects a certain type of player, someone who is passionate about pokémon and geekdom in general and it facilitates towards that rather than offering full on accesibility. Which is great… this is a fan game.. out on the internet for free.

My Graveler’s shiny pattern for example is based on Steven’s Universe, other shinies refer to some other products geeks will likely have seen or at least heard of. There is a museum in the game and the art on the walls are Gen I sprites of Pokémon.  Dialogue has subtle references to movies , anime or other geeky matters without being too obnoxious and  in  your face. Everything this game does oozes that is is made for people like me. It takes a heavy pro LBGTQ stance with you encountering many gay or bisexual characters and it being made a non issue. We get no Big Gay Al, or a gay couple getting better treatment in the story than other characters.. they are just a part of the world. It all has a great atmosphere, almost as if you are at a convention.. as a geek you understand all these characters, either from a cosplayers perspective or deeper down.

The game manages to use technology in a much more sensible manner than the regular pokemon games. Spinny panels are a thing.. but they exist not as a puzzle in this world they exist as a security measure.. they send you over an electric surface that will paralyse you if you do not know the password to turn it off.. or an alarm tile.. will not just send a pokemon towards you..it will get you captured. Gameplay and atmosphere are interwoven in this game. A puzzle never is there just for the puzzle’s sake. If a pokemon traps you in their lair and you have to do a jump puzzle.. it’s not just doing a jump puzzle.. it’s the collapsed area of an old passage that said pokémon have turned into a place for them to play it’s layout exisits for a reason in game as well. Often the game answers these things right about as questions pop in your head, this game knows the kind of person you are and uses that to deliver a potent package.

The Negatives

The game isn’t perfect, there are a few minor issues such as the fact that during a puzzle with some followers you are able to trap yourself.. if you save it then and there you might have to restart the game. I also experienced slowdown during my shiny hunts  if I was watching a youtube video alongside it.. so while it’s not a big issue.. this game really wants you to shiny hunt and not being able to have something to distract you can be tedious with longer encounter strings.  The game doesn’t always play fair some bosses see, to use gen I like AI that chose moves based on your input. Gym Leaders often have custom moves that can at times be brokenly OP if you do not have an encounter. Yet these are all very minor issues.

One bigger issue I have though is the lack of a journal. Where regular games are mostly a track from A to B and then to C and so on… this game has a lot of “Did you hear that Venam was training with a new move” kind of hints. Oftenly these lines are only ushered once so if you come out from a battle with speed up on and you miss an important line of dialogue there is NO way to retrieve it and find out where you need to go next.  This would be fine if you did not have to backtrack as much as you do. You do visit old cities on a regular basis and thus your next step can be anywhere around the HUGE world map.  So it’s best to keep a little notepad lying around if you do not play regularly. Nothing would suck as bad as forgetting you have to speak to this person two towns back next time you play.. and then a week later you forget.

Another issue I did encounter more then once is that some NPC’s are placed in front of objects you need to interact with. I am not sure if this is a part of the puzzle because if you look REALLY well you can just barely make out a few strange pixels behind said character but it would be quite a stretch to call it noticable. There game has a forum where you can search or ask for answers but the player base isn’t THAT big, you could be stuck for a while.  Some characters require materials like Shards as payment like the difficulty adjusting guy you can meet in the first town..however it’s not made very clear that he needs shards. He says he can give you a free difficulty change the first time.. so if you think Easy is to simple you can switch..but if you are like me and then realise that Normal is so much harder to a point it’s not as fun for me… you can not change it back until you obtain shards after the fifth gym. Luckily I had not saved since changing .. .but the game can be obnoxiously vague!

The Score

I still think the Rom Hack of Pokémon Rocket Edition is better for the hardcore pokémon fan, the little insights in the official story is much more appealing to everyone, this is much more a do your own thing  kind of situation where they basically create a whole new alternative world with pokémon.  I do very much enjoy that myself but it is a bit “novel”-like  there is a lot to read and not a lot of reading you can skip either. Since these people talk like normal humans they will not neatly end with the line where to go next. They will say bye.. or thanks for helping out last… which will be the line on repeat so prepare to read! 

The flaws it has though in no way hold a candle to the great atmosphere it has, the briljant way everything seems to be connected and the almost flawless pokémon/world design.. I mean Pokémon design as in.. who lives where. This is definitely a treat to play for both inexperienced as well as experienced trainers IF you at least manage to comprehend the typing chart a little bit.  This game treats you like a gamer.. like someone who is capable of forming a strategy and using their obtained knowledge of pokemon in a meaningful manner. This is a pokémon game for me… and I can even play a girly trainer with pink hair!
This is THE game for me! This is Pokémon for adults… playing it does feel rejuvenating.

The One That Got Away

Hello everybody! The Manager here! Today we welcome Sunny our “Cabana” Boy to the STAFF that have published a post on Paradise! He had written a very cute and charming intro.. but then he spilled his little yellow bucket and all the words washed away! As Sunny got distracted by the flowing ink and followed as it flowed around the manager wrote a new intro! Today Sunny writes about…. Sunny! His tales as a fisherman! Check it out and don’t forget to leave a like! Likes are great bait you know?!

Sunny lay stretched out on his belly in the pale pink sand. The waves lapped gently at the beach to his right, and a rod with a gigantic reel was propped in the sand. A line stretched from the long, whippy willow pole far out into the sea where a bright yellow bobber floated, unwatched. 

A tiny yellow crab held Sunny’s attention as it scuttled hither and yon on the pink sand, making a lovely picture as it sifted through the grains seeking the small bits of food. The sun beat warmly down on Sunny’s back, making him a bit drowsy. His eyelids fluttered down and soon no one was awake on the beach but the crabs.

Further out in the calm sea, a seagull hovered over the bright yellow bobber, wondering if it was worth hanging around to see what Sunny caught. He often shared his catch with the gulls, or sometimes he had delicious human snacks he would tear into small pieces and toss into the air for the delight of watching the acrobatic gulls swoop and catch them on the wing. 

Suddenly the bobber wobbled. Then again. It shook and bounced up and down in the water a few times, and then vanished beneath the turquoise sea.

Sunny was alerted by the whining buzz of his reel as the line went screaming off of it at great speed. He jumped up out of the sand, startling the little crabs who ran in every direction. Grabbing his rod and reel he gave it a jerk, although it was clear the hook was firmly seated in something. Whatever it was, it gave an almighty jerk back that nearly yanked Sunny right off his bare feet into the ocean. 

With all his strength, Sunny caught his balance and tucked the rod into the wide thick belt he wore for this very purpose. He began to play the sea creature, reeling back line as it went slack and bracing himself when it ran again. It quickly became clear that this was no cute little baby perch he had on the line, but something enormous. 

Beautiful green and grey and brown lemon sharks often cruised in the shallows around the dock and the edges of the island, but this was much too large to be one of those fairly harmless and quite pretty fish. Sunny realized now that he must have had a little nap in the sand, and the line had drifted out far out into the sea, beyond the shallows and past the shelf that dropped down and down and down to unfathomable depths away from the feet of Pinkie’s Paradise Island. 

Deep, deep in the turquoise sea, what could it be? There were some giant groupers, and even some huge old moray eels that lived far below the island in caves and grottos among the coral. Fat and old from eating well on the bright fish who lived on the reef. That must be it, Sunny thought as he worked and worked and wrestled and strove with the great heavy and strong sea creature. Yes, it was probably one of those groupers. And what good eating it would make! Why, some of them got up to 600 pounds. He could make a lot of fish fillets out of that and have a big fish fry for all the island resort guests tonight! 

The sun sank towards the sea and still the battle raged on. Sunny ached in every inch of his body and more than once had thought of cutting the line and letting the vast creature go, but now his curiosity had gotten the better of him. The big fish was not jumping out of the water at all, but now and then he caught a swirl of a mighty tall sail like fin that was bigger than anything he had seen on the biggest grouper he had ever brought in. 

If he ever got this creature landed, how on earth would he bring it up the beach? 

Just as the sun touched the sea and sent one last golden beam streaking across the wet horizon, the water began to boil and roll and in every way signal that something big was coming up. Sunny was busy reeling in the slack, feeling this would be his one and only chance to conquer the sea creature that he was now dying of curiosity to see. What could it possibly be that was so big and so strong and so determined to fight for half a day or more!

With a final roar the water broke and the sea sephents head rose, and rose, and rose into the darkening sky! Sunny had hooked a true monster from the depths. Easily thirty feet of the beast was out of the water, and far more clearly trailed behind. Fins shaped almost like legs, like those of a coelacanth dangled and flailed wildly, throwing fish scented waters through the air that hit Sunny like the rain of a hurricane. The creature let out a bellow similar to the bark of a catfish but with the volume of a foghorn. The water foamed with his thrashing tail, as long again as his entire body.

Glowing golden eyes the size of semi-truck hubcaps swiveled and fixed on Sunny. The great fish drew back on himself in an S like a striking snake and for one stunned, horrified moment all Sunny could see was a great cave-like mouth lined with dagger teeth. A pointed tongue curled and Sunny glimpsed the twinkle of his tiny little hook embedded in it’s center.

He threw the rod and reel down, turned, and ran. 

Knowing, like I’m sure you do, that Sunny has beautiful dragonfly wings, you are wondering why he didn’t fly. Well, the truth is, he runs much faster than he can fly. 

Sunny ran as far and as fast as his feet would carry him. All thoughts of how tired and how sore and how terribly lazy he normally is completely left his body on a wave of adrenaline and pure terror. He blazed up the beach, into the jungle, past the resort where he could see the guests lined up agog at the beast in the water. The people on the third floor balcony could look eye to eye with the thing! 

Maybe Sunny was running so fast you couldn’t see him. Maybe everyone was a bit more busy wondering if the creature could make landfall. Whatever, no one seemed to be aware as he flashed past tables and through the doors and then up and up and up the mountains behind the resort until he reached a secret little trail he thought only he knew that led to a cave in a clearing. 

When he reached the cave he finally managed to stop his flying feet. He fell bonelessly to the earth and concentrated on getting oxygen into his struggling lungs. And then the beast roared again. 

Quickly, he jumped to his feet and staggered a moment before he made it to a tall tree. Now he flew. He flew and flew up to the very top of the tallest tree and then he could look down and see the creature, still in the shallows, weaving side to side like a cobra and clearly using those glowing eyes to look for his tormentor. That wide mouth opened again and suddenly a rainbow of round rubber balls shot out and across the waters and the beach.

There were yellow balls. And red balls. And blue balls. And green balls. And purple balls. And of course, pink balls. Some balls were even clear, like bubbles, and they floated up into the air as if they were weightless. Balls from the size of softballs to soccer balls to beach balls bounced and rolled across the beach and floated on the surface of the sea, carooming off the top of the waves caused by the monsters flipping tail. 

The monster reared back as if to spit more bouncy balls but instead he shook his head, and opened and closed that great maw of a mouth over and over, making quite horrible sounds until with a very distinct “PTOOEY” Sunny saw the twinkle of his fish hook as it caught the light of the moon and flew out of the monster’s tongue and down to the pink sands. 

Grumbling in its throat, the monster took one last gasp, one last long evil eye cast towards the beach, before it turned and swam away.

Sunny heard the laughter of relief and chatter coming from the guests still standing on the balconies and around the pool in the resort. There was a bit of a rush towards the bar, so Kuro had to stop standing stock still in shock and get busy mixing cocktails in pitchers. Then guests began to tiptoe down to the beach, first in ones and twos, and then in small groups and picking up those bright rubber balls that were shining in the moonlight. 

As if by magic and mutual agreement, suddenly everyone was playing on the beach with the sea monster’s balls. There were people playing catch, or dodgeball or something like volleyball without a net. 

The manager of the resort, Pinkie, walked down the beach to where Sunny’s  rod and reel lay abandoned in the sand. She picked them up and looked around. Sunny gulped. He had a feeling she was not going to be very happy with him. 

He pulled some young limber tree branches towards himself and wove a little sleeping platform high in the top of the tree. Relaxing, he watched the guests playing in the moonlight with all the pretty balls. Maybe in the morning he would fly back down to the resort and set about his chores as if nothing had ever happened. Everyone seemed to be having fun. Pinkie couldn’t really stay mad at him, right? 

Magic, Missiles and Magic Missiles; Project Warlock Review

Hello dear Paradise guests, it’s Indigo, your friendly neighbourhood Security officer here! Today is a special day, at least for me. this will be my first ever blogpost on Pinkie’s Paradise…..or anywhere else for that matter! Today’s post will be about possibly one the world’s most unprepared game protagonists as I’ll tell you about Project Warlock!

Project warlock is a Doom/Duke Nukem- style First-Person Shooter with some RPG-elements sprinkled in here and there developed by an indie company Buckshot Software and published By Crunching Koalas and (I’m not kidding here) Gaming Company, created with the Unity Engine. The game follows the titular Warlock as he rips and te-Oh wait, wrong game- I mean blasts his way through different corrupted realms and even the plains of Hell on his quest to…. Well, I’m not exactly sure since the game doesn’t really have anything one could call a plot. There are few text crawls about the world the warlock goes through, but not really any reason WHY he’s doing it. Revenge? Obligation? the Devil beat him in Call of Duty and said something mean about his mother? we can only guess why…. but we don’t have to guess how…The answer is with violence….And lots of it.

”Hey Warlock, The DOOM Slayer called and said you stole his pose.”

Putting the ‘War’ into ‘Warlock’

The moment the first level loads, one thing comes clear… The Warlock really hadn’t prepared for his ‘cleansing of the worlds’ at all! his starting arsenal consists of a knife, an axe, and a wand that is fueled by his mana….and that’s it! No spells, no guns, despite clearly showing them on the title screen! Granted, he amasses himself quite the arsenal on his quest not unlike a certain other man with a raging murderboner against the forces of hell, but you’d expect him to pack a few spells weith his weapons! The Warlock’s arsenal will grow from barely having anything to packing multiple firearms, ranging from your basic pistols, shotguns and submachineguns to more exotic pieces like miniguns (still bit unsure how he carries it one-handed, rule of awesome?), laser rifles and flamethrowers, last of which is a rare thing to find in a 2.5D game at least in my experience. All of the Warlock’s weapons can be upgraded at his workshop, the hub/rest area before the next proper level, with upgrade points found in the levels (hidden or in plain sight) or dropped by bosses, for example the classic double-barreled shotgun, or boomstick as it’s called in game (groovy) can be modified to have its barrels even more cut down to increase the damage spread….or go completely nuts and add two more, making it an absolute shoulder decimator were it ever brought to the real world if judged by the knockback and sound it makes when fired. The amount of available customisation to weapons gives incentive for multiple playthroughs, as does the perk system. instead of spending it liek every other normal person, Warlock collects money to level up! paying fees for his patron in exchange for power, perhaps..? leveling up gives the player the possibility to shape the warlock into a fighter they want him to be.
A pure mage with shallower pockets for bullets? easy! a hulking Lead farmer? go right at it!
Evey five levels the warlock gains a perkpoint to spend on perks. Unlike gun upgrades, perks need a prequisite for certain skills, which makes sense, since having next to no spirit wouldn’t make sense for someone with magic potential perk, or trying be a melee master when your strenght is weaker than a wet noodle. With the right stat and perk allocation, almost everything is possible. hmm, why do I feel i’m forgetting something….

Hmm…..I DO like the the smell of napalm….

Oh right, i forgot to talk about the spell system…. Truth to be told, it feels like the developers added the spells as they are as an afterthought. You start the game without any, the first spell you get is a flashlight…and while it looks pretty it’s not all that useful, the game is quite well-lit already and you need to buy the spells after finding a spellbook. A neat idea in and of itself….if the spells didn’t use the same upgrade points as the weapons do! Now I can only speak for myself, but if i had to choose between throwing magical dynamite via a spell or having napalm filled missiles in my missile launcher i’ll take napalm any day! In my playthroughs, aside from one attempt, I haven’t used a single spell aside from the flashlight that’s given for free as a semi-tutorial kind of deal. Using the plethora of guns is just so much more fun! And boy oh boy….. you’ll be using them a lot….

The flashlight is pretty….
But I find this more entertaining!

Knee-deep in shells

Why do you use guns a lot? Because the enemies are as numerous and varied as they are relentless! The second one of them spots you, you can be sure his mates are not far behind ready to show you a world of hurt! And they will not stop until you or they themselves are dead! The enemies range from little floating eyeballs and skeleton soldiers in the medieval levels, to battledroids and massive Gundam-expies in the far dystopian future. The enemy design is something to be praised, they all look really nice and fit their chosen time period/ location well, and despite having the same-ish overall roles, no two enemies behave exactly the same and have their own set of attacks, soundbites and animations, most of which are really well done! As the resident edgelord of Paradise I especially find the dystopian future mechs and fully armoured soldier mooks really cool-looking! What also surprised me was that some enemies really didn’t want to give up. Huge mech loses it’s legs? It will keep shooting to get some payback! shot off an arm of a yeti? congratulations, you just pissed it off and it attacks faster and more frequently!

Though it’s not all muzzle flashes and lasers, sometimes the enemies can get a bit..wonky. I’ve witnessed many times enemies accidentally killing either their buddies or themselves when trying to fire arching explosives at me…while their friends are either in front of them. or aim stright and not take the arc into the equation….causing them to shoot at their feet in front of them. Yet despite that I never saw it as a true flaw, it adds to the chaos!

One big issue i have with the enemies are the damage types. Some of them are straight-up melee types, others use projectiles…and some are straight-up hitscan. this in and of itself wouldn’t be such of a big deal, but sometimes the enemies i’d think were projectile-based are hitscan instead, riddling me with lots of bullets, leading to an early grave… though as i’m going to reveal in the next paragraph, isn’t all that heartrending anyway!

”Uhmm….parlay?”

Around the map in 80 seconds…. Wait have I been here before?

The levels are…actually quite short. like, seconds short, but that needs some elaboration.
Ther maps themselves are actually quite solid with big open arenas and tight tunnels for cqb-action, with more of the map opening as you collect keys or grab certain trigger items. However, some of them, while looking huge with lots of explorability, can be completed within minutes, sometimes even seconds due to secret areas hidden in the maps. some simply open up to reveal a room with more health, ammo, or even a new weapon earlier than you should get it like in DOOM 2016, while some have a teleporter that almost literally whisks you at the exit, skipping most battles and loot, oftentimes without a teleporter to take you back. while this might be a godsend to speedrunning, I myself feel a bit bummed when my curiosity is rewarded by taking most of the exploration out, especially when playing the ‘story’ mode where you can’t revisit completed levels. My personal record is getting through a non-boss stage in 1 minute 34 seconds…. and I wasn’t trying to be fast!

On the rare exception the maps can also be total mazes, especially on Egypt-themed world. I guess that’s apropriate, the pyramids being built to deter thieves after all, but having wasted 10 minutes running around to find a door i haven’t opened yet really grinds my wheels! at least the game is generous enough to spawn enemies when you make progress to show you are doing the right thing!

The secret rooms I mentioned before do earn bonus points for being simple, yet sometimes challenging to find. to find one you don’t have to perform a complex set of actions or pull levers, most of the time you just need to find a piece of a wall that looks off, that usually hides a room, though until you learn to spot the difference between wallpanels you’ll be spending quite some time hugging the walls like an over-enthusiastic building inspector. And some rooms even hide yet another hidden room in them, adding to the layers of wallhugging!

Hmm….. this looks like a good spot for a hidden room….

When you go to kill Satan you wanna look nice

Like the enemies and the guns, the overall design,artstyle and sound design are a real treat to the eyes and ears…. or eye in my case. The style reminds me a lot of Classic Doom games and Blood, with a modern-ish twist, the world having what i’d call shell-shading like in the Borderlands series. And while simple, the areas and buildings still manage to show a good deals of detail and never feel bare, random breakable objects thrown around the area to give the sense you aren’t just waltzing through an area that never had any life-form step a foot there

The music is a mishmash of heartbeat-rising intensity, calm yet pressuring droning and at times odd creepyness, yet none of the tracks feel like they should be in a different game.
the early medieval stages have Castlevania-ish vibes, but with the Warlock in play the tracks have that subtle electronic undertones, creating a more unique sound experience. I like it a lot!

I wonder if these guys are the reason these docks are abandoned…..

With all that said and done Project Warlock is a good choice when you have few hours to spare but no idea what to do. Sitting down and clearing a level or two really helps kill the time! while it had some hiccups with the map design or me rushing in to a fight i didn’t prepare for properly, not once was there a moment where i wouldn’t have had at least some fun! Were someone to ask, i’d gladly Recommend this to them! As the Manager would say…it’s Berry Good

And that was my first actual blogpost ever! So, if there’s anything I should improve on or add, please let me know in the comments! Constructive criticism is always welcome, how else am I to improve!? Project Warlock is available on Steam and GoG for a steal, so if you feel like my review piqued your interest go take a look! Have a nice Day, and stay safe while visiting our Paradise!!

Elle’s Real Quest! What Bad Luck! I got Reborn into another Life and Now I am a Side Character 4

It has been a while since I have returned to my Isekai and my beloved character Elle.. who now combined with me! In this series we explore a fictional me being reborn in another world.. yet because she did not want to give up her qualities she asked the gods to just amplify every trait of herself. Her intelligence rose, her memory became almost perfect and she even became able to also do magic. However also her social awkwardness rose and worst of all her bad luck!  Her bad luck in fact was so bad.. that she did not reincarnate in her own story as a main character.. she was reborn as a side character.

In the last part Elle got a mock quest of her guildmate Carlita to find her cat Autumn. When Elle came home with a wrong (black)  cat she adopted it herself and named it Autumn.. a few days have passed since then.. since the main character is out of town..nothing really interesting happened. Part 1 , Part 2 and Part 3 can be accessed by clicking on those part names.

Day 29: Morning

Dear Diary, I groggily awoken on the 29th day of my residency in this new world by a thumping sound on my door! As the temperature began to rise as the summer season drew closer the air was thicker than before. The smell of the ocean gathered deeper into my house. It made me sleep more soundly. With nearly one month of being in this world nothing has changed much compared to my first five days. Maine returned a few times.. but each time I want to grab her for a mission.. she relegates me to the side. I have been taking on side missions like shearing sheep and gathering a rich kid’s balloon among other things. It has left me with numerous injuries but also enough coin to provide for myself and Summer. Who now has a collar!  The tieflings at the docks still shun me! I do not know why! Oh but yes! As I was telling there was someone knocking on my door. As I stumbled with my fooves down the stairs I got another splinter stuck into them.. for those who may find this diary and open it somewhere in the middle.. fooves are what I call my feet.. they are a mix between hooves and human feet.  I tumbled down the stairs.. but I landed in the pillows I placed there. I fall off the stairs a lot so I spend some money on pillows to prepare myself.  I used a spell named Mage Hand.. which I had been practicing for about ten days.. to open the door and there was our guild Cleric.

Ynaja in Elle’s House

Ynaja stared at me from the door opening. Her raven curled hair tightly kempt behind her melanated face. Her holy light reflected in her eyes given them a goldenish tint. Her holy symbol was that of “the Gentleman” a god in this world that represents romance and adventure. It is rumored that he has a mortal form publishing all those picture book romance novels she loves a lot! It is just a rumor though! I think real books should have more words personally! Also for a god to pursue such trivial matters seems unlikely. Regardless, she asked if she could come in to help me up and I agreed.  She smelled like wet clay and strawberries. ‘Did your sealing break again’ I asked, trying to show interest for her social situation. She looked at me really surprised.  ‘Uhm.. how did you?!.. Maybe we should start with Hello?” I shook my head “Hello is a great greeting to make acquaintance, however we have since long passed that phase I am at the guild on a semi daily basis so I feel greeting each time is redundant.. so how is your ceiling’. Ynaja let out a chuckle “I am surprised you noticed there is some stone in my hair?” I once again shook my head. “Negative! Your bodily scent however has undergone a tonal change, normally you smell more like the wood teak wood that your guild booth is constructed out of now you smell like clay..since you told your ceiling to crack earlier.. I figured the scent of clay would explain that you once again had to fix it up’ Ynaja blinked telling me I was really something.  My inquiries on what that exact thing was she thought I was however went unanswered. She interrupted my questioning with a smile when she told me she had a real quest for me.

Apparently in the nearby city of Twiddir there is a Grande Casino that has been losing money to a roguish figure by the name of Romegg Xanwych. Some kind of young rich kid who enriches himself more by cheating and taking state money! The Twiddir Grand Casino is owned by the state. I was to travel there with Mirina the Drunken Monk and Ynaja. Mirina was there in case we got in a fight and Ynaja was there in the , according to her , a somewhat likely case that I got injured. I was to use my analytical ability to find out how Romegg cheated and put a stop to it before he stole more of the state’s money! I could totally do that! I was finally going to apprehend a criminal! So I quickly got dressed..which might have embarrassed Ynaja a bit in hindsight.. not that I slept in the nude but I had my duck Pyjamas on! My first real mission I was so happy!

Elle’s room.. a little more broken than last time

Day 30 : Morning and Noon

Dear Diary..that was a 51.2 Kilometer cart-ride from Windmere Port to Twidder. It took us a whole day, we arrived the next morning at the crack of dawn. This city smelled quite differently.. Dusty and manurey from too many horses kicking up the dust and dropping their colon’s  contents. Houses were plentiful oftenly stacked on top of  each other. All roofs had white shingles and blue songbirds nested on most of them. People were loud here! Yet nowhere were real conversations.  Instead people just shouted stuff at each other. I was too broken up from the trip to really enjoy it though. Shouting people are also scary! A heavy poluted rivier streamed trough the town..it would end up in Windmere Port but by then it would have cleared up in quality a bit again. Here you could see well.. everyone’s number two’s flowing. Judging by the smell when passing into town number 1 was also there a plenty! Living in a world without sewage is not what anime makes it out to be!

The town of Twiddir

Ynaja had  hired a donkey cart to move us forward..it was so slow! I miss cars! Mirina got really drunk and began ranting about a book of friends she once read. Like for hours and hours… she would not stop! When I told her I have not read it, she told me she could read it to me! She had the book with her! But every time.. a certain character would do a certain thing I would have to indulge in alcohol! That seemed detrimental to our mission so I passed. After a very long cartridge.. in which I actually managed to finish the book of friends which she borrowed for me to read in peace after me asking for it.. we arrived at the inn that hosted the casino! We checked in.. washed up.. and Ynaja guided me to the casino hall straight away. I could use a nap but she told me it was very important that we get this job as quickly as possible. After me explaining my cognitive functions had be impaired.. she went to vent as she said for a bit.. After coming back she agreed to let me sleep until lunch and after lunch I would have to hit the casino.

During lunch I was pretty sure I saw Maine and Rho sitting at a table in the back! I waved at them but my visual stimuli did not seem to reach them! The audio stimuli of calling their names was ignored as well. They just stared at each other and then I saw them kiss. I had my suspicions before but now I felt like a Facehugger had laid eggs in me and I was giving birth to a Xenomorph..but instead of in my stomach the Xenomorph was in my heart! Ynaja told me that it wasn’t Maine and Rho, just people who looked like them. However I was sure it was them. Maine with her length of 1 meter and 72 centimeter or 5.6430446194 feet as some readers would prefer, was taller than the average human female. While Rho’s crimson hair colour only occurs once in every 80 half elves or so. With the average woman is almost 8 centimeters smaller as Maine I think the fact that a woman of her age, hair colour and height would date a man confirmed to Rho’s states would be a statistical near impossibility.
Ynaja snapped at me however and told me to leave it alone so I did.

Elle is hurt her love interest found someone else

I was forced into the casino soon after eating lunch and I was brought to a table that had a young blonde man who reminded me a bit of Spark from Pokémon Go.. just in more medieval clothes. His blonde spiky hair, and youthful look fitted his tacky noble roguish look. An air of self confidence came from him as he played with coins between his fingers. He was playing a game of Roulette, which is strange because in our world Roulette only was invented in 1796..I am not sure why I know what because I never knew that before! Either Way this would make my mission challenging. Ynaja gave me 100 gold of the guild funds to play with! Should I win anything I was allowed to keep it for myself she said! If I lost I would still get paid.  She told me she and Mirina would keep track of me! I introduced myself to mister Xanwych and wished him a nice play! Now in full expectation of what Ynaja told me I knew that Romegg would be winning a lot so I placed a single gold coin on the number he bet on. We both lost! Also Roulette here has three colours and 45 numbers but no zeroes! He frowned a bit and I noticed he tabbed the table with a coin.. is that how he cheats? He bet on 42… so I did too! I was pretty sure he would win this time.. but when then number landed on 1 instead… I was actually pretty shocked! Did I just read that wrong? His mannerism seemed to reflect utter surprise too. Could he just have failed his cheat?!

Romegg Xanwych

Day 30: The Encounter

For some reason Romegg Xanwych began coughing violently and tabbed the table harder with his coin! By now it was not even subtle anymore! Yet the croupier guy seemed not to notice.. or did he? He did get flustered!  Wait could they be in cahoots?! I like that word. I told Romegg he would be my lucky charm and we would win together and he did not seem to mind me so much..but he was very much glaring at the ball guy! When we lost our money again he however turned at me!  “Is It you, are you messing with us”. The Croupier drew a weapon and Romegg as well.  The ball guy asked me “How are you doing it, did you see through our plans”.  He signalled five security guards to come in closer. ‘Mister Xanwych, we will make our payments to you as soon as possible.. we are sorry.. I am not sure what magic she uses,’ Romegg nodded at the guy ‘If your boss wants to keep the magic box you better bring me this girl’s head’. The Rogue then made his way outside but Mirina got in his way.. but she backed off with a tisk when she saw the Croupier called in more guards and drew a dagger from his sleeve as he charged at me. In his other hand still that steel little ball! That frightened me more than the dagger I would trip on it if that ever fell on the floor! I would have to finish this fight fast.

The attacking Croupier

A sharp pain went through my gut as I was shanked by the dagger. My brain was working harder than it ever did, my body however was not fast enough to react..I guess as a mage I have a low armor class and I bet my Dexterity modifier is trash! However.. if I did not stop him I would die! I had to cast a spell.. even if it might have harmed harm me! I know that one ice spell a bit!  The knife twisted in my gut a bit as he was clearly trying to kill me!  There wasn’t even a hiding it anymore.  Or was there?.. the guards drew away the sight of the crowd.. I was being murdered and Ynaja would most likely not be able to help me soon.. I had to do this myself. After the boar killing idea to become an owl.. I was offput on killing. I did not really study much.. offensive spells.. but perhaps if I approached it trough science I could still make it work! I saw that in a really lame Isekai show once. Cheat Magician. Since I was here to stop a cheater..using an approach like that seemed appropriate.


Elements get colder when their molecules get pushed closer together. I just had to use my Mana to slow down his molecules and put them closer together. I imagined my hand casting a mana net.. or more like a mana wrapping paper.. that I would cast around him then tighten to chill him.. but I was so scared! Being stabbed hurts a lot more than I could have thought! For those who think.. oh it’s a dagger..she probably only lost like 10 to 20% of her HP! Well .. Health Points mean nothing if you are actually stabbed! In games we always shrug it off but this was nothing like that. I had difficulty focussing! I might hurt this man.. but the pain and fear.. really made me let go of that desire not to hurt him. So when I touched him..I felt my mana flow as I let it out.. it felt as if a dam broke! Energy washed out of me all over the room! A Dewish..frosty white appeared on the floor, the glasses and even that roulette table froze shut… and the guy… well he just disappeared.. I heard a soft thud.. but he was gone.. and all around me was snow and ice forming.

Mirina meanwhile was using her monk abilities to deal a few Stunning Strikes and some flurry of blows knocking out three of the guards with ease. Using her reactions to deflect some throwing knives the others tossed at her. Their success hindered by Ynaja who was hindering her foes with the Bane spell.  Mirina approached the fourth and the fifth guard but she was low on Ki.She seemed genuinely concerned about my safety and spent her final Ki on another series of attacks. Her way of the Drunken Fist style fighting made her immensely hard for her opponent to hit. ‘When the Pink friend cries in panic, take a jab’ she yelled. “When Ynaja casts a spell take a Punch” she set knocking out some teeth of the fourth guard.  and when Mirina spends the last of her ki.. take a Nutshot” the guy grabbed his groin and fell down. Ynaja dealt with the other guards showing me both fighters were so much stronger than me. She casted the Area of Effect spell .. Spirit Guardians. A third level conjuration spell generally learned by Clerics. Four super pretty anime like boys  made of light appeared. They seemed slightly based on fairy tale tropes. As I touched her shoulder and smiled at her then dashed at all the guards invading our private space and they were knocked out by the light magic.

Mirina versus the guards and Ynaja’s Spirit Guardian (One of them)

There I was the dagger still in me.. but no more croupier in sight. I knew I was about to fail my mission again! Mirina had gotten a scratch from her scuffle as well.. I could not let her wounds be in vain so I searched around and I found a previously guarded door now open.. but there.. slithering against the wall was Romegg. He was almost at the exit.. I had to stop him.. but I knew no spell that was within range..I was not gonna fail however.. what felt like a breaking dam suddenly felt as if everything broke.. I wasn’t going to fail more! I had failed enough! By instinct I pointed my hand at him…and then everything went white! It was over! 
Oh no! Now that I read it that almost sounds like I died or passed out.. no I meant like.. the entire area I pointed at went white.. It all just deep freeze. Unfortunately so did Romegg. Like if you ever saw that Jason X movie?! Where he kills a girl with liquid nitrogen?! Kinda like that.. only he fell while his head froze and then.. well… at least he won’t be stealing money from the casino… wait a minute….

Day 30: Wrap Up

I remember crying a lot! I killed a man! I did not want to do it ..but it happened! Ynaja came over to heal me and Mirina seemed really angry at Ynaja. ‘You should have told her the truth’ I was crying so much that actually I did not realise this until much much later.. but whatever you are reading now is the revised version. I was a bit traumatised by my first kill that is not that easy either.. just because I get Isekaid. Regardless.. so yes.. Mirina told Ynaja she should have told me the truth. Ynaja scowled ‘She would not have come if I told her the truth’  Mirina apparently put my head on her shoulder and let me cry out! I don’t remember but I do  remember smelling tequila that day! ‘She failed her mission again.. or so she thinks, she actually did exactly what you wanted her to do, didn’t she?’ Mirina asked Ynaja shrugged. ‘No idea what you are talking about’ Mirina slightly rocked me up and down with her eyes glaring at Ynaja. ‘You used her bad luck to make Romegg lose all that money and cause a conflict ..so that Maine and Rho could get inside and do the real mission and find that box he was talking about right?’ Ynaja smiled. ‘Correct, we just needed Elle to create discourse. The real price is inside.. but trust me.. that artefact justifies the means’ Ynaja went on to pull the dagger out of me and heal me. However from the shock I completely passed out. For all those who ever role played a character getting stabbed with a knife!.. It hurts! ..It’s not just.. Ouch!… Mirina saw something laying next to my unconscious body.  She picked up a diamond and studied it. Inside it was a little steel roulette ball. ‘Did she just?’ Ynaja shook her head and looked at Mirina sternly. ‘Sell that and give the money to Elle as her share of the loot but don’t tell her about this’ 

 The dark skinned woman then said ‘We are done here’ Mirina wanted to object. Elle could be dangerous if that was the extent of her abilities. Suddenly a voice in  the drunken monk’s head appeared. “Seize this act Mirina, Elle acted precisely as I predicted. She has her uses to us and her role in this world and she has her flaws.. if it ever needs be we can take her down easily’.The voice thundered in Mirina’s head sounding femine and commanding.  ‘She is our Guildmate.. I’ll protect her like all my allies’ the monk objected. The voice boomed in her head once more! This time more divine and more regal ‘Do not forget your place, your loyalty lies with your guild not with one member’  The voice would then grow colder and more cruel.. almost inhuman for a moment. “Besides would you really risk HIM for someone not even of this world?.. Our mission is bigger than just one girl, if you can even call her that now do as Ynaja orders” The monk picked up my unconscious body and lifted me over her shoulder  “Yes of Course Guild Master” Mirina answered to the voice..

I woke up in my own bed?! How long had I been out! Summer was pawing at me looking hungry! There was a big sack of money  there at that time I had no idea where it came from! It had a note from Mirina saying it was all the stuff we could loot from our quest. It said the dagger that stabbed me was poisoned with a poison that made me see things that were not there. They kept me asleep for it to wear out. They captured Romegg after I made him slip because I froze the floor?! That’s not what I remember! Wasn’t he dead? I was told I must have been delirious. That knife did not feel poisonous! Also the way the croupier held his dagger did not make sense if it were poisonous. He hid it in his sleeve! Had my memory been that tainted?… I felt I had to investigate but something in my head told me to leave it alone and buy a fat fish for Summer… so I ended up doing that instead! She likes fish so much!.. Also I fell in a fish pile again…..

With that another episode is done! Will Elle ever realise she just did the side mission yet again?! What is this box? And what plans does this Mysterious Guild Leader have? What will Mirina do? So many questions, so if you like to find out, there will be a next time! Of course you can help to ensure there will be a next part by making sure I don’t starve to death, get bored to death or croak from Cafeine shortage! That is right! This is another Kofi plug! Until Raid Shadow Legends start to sponser me at least!

Mana Potion or Money Sink? Pinkie’s take on Remakes

When it comes to video game remakes people love to tear it apart. It’s nothing like the classic or it is an easy cash grab move made by greedy people are amongst the most heard complaints. Yet a remake can be so much more. It’s all dependent on what lens we are looking trough. Since we all should stay inside there is no need to put on those pitch black sunglasses. Let’s put on some rose tinted to goggles to give your house and your games a fresh new look shall we?

Evil Corporations

Nowadays we treat Capcom or Square Enix  or anyone reissuing anything, as the evil corporations once only depicted in games. The legendary RPG maker is giving us two games  (maybe more) instead of one… They want to empty our pockets three times over. They Remake the third resident evil game in the same style als RE2… thats so easy.. it’s just because they want money.  While to an extent that might be true it also is not. Gaming has evolved, development is easier and done on a much larger scales. Companies don’t have to pay 6 employees they have to pay 100.

Back in the days not a single developer was like “we don’t care about money.. all we want to do is create good games.. let’s wait a few years and then release the one because it feels right. No! Teams were small, the same squad working on  Chrono Trigger would have to be put on the next game as well. That’s why releases where few and far apart. They aren’t more money hungry now, earning money is what they exist for, that would be like calling an alarm clock evil for waking you up every morning!

As it stands there is a lot more money to be made in the industry and would you own the company you would do the same, we all pretend to be better but if we ran a company we would want to get as much profit as possible as well. If we would not we would fail. In fact it is because they gain so much money games have developed so fast. It brought us in the amazing world we are in today. Back in 1996, if I did  not like the newest Final Fantasy I’d have to wait for years.. hoping one MIGHT come again.

Nowadays, Final Fantasy XV comes out and it’s not for me..but I know that I will get a game I like in some shape way or form. Few years later I got treated to Final Fantasy VII Remake! I am thirty three years old and I am well into my “been there done that years”, new games do not feel new to me anymore yet thanks to remakes, I can still enjoy modern gaming without it feeling to samesie..because somehow Nostalgia cancels that. That doesn’t sound evil to me that sounds smart.

Magic

I believe each and everyone of us has a saturation point. Bob can play twenty demon based first person shooters before beginning to notice the twenty first really looks like Doom, the first one he played. The twenty second is..surprisingly similar to Hexen. Johny might be a bit more of a sourpuss and will notice Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley after just two games.I believe people reach a saturation point for new IP’s or franchises at one point. The better the originals in a genre the faster it happens.

Take for example the Party Racer (Karting Genre. Mario Kart made such a strong base that only a handful could stand up to them. Crash Team Racing, Diddy King Racing and maybe those Sony and Sega Super star racing games are in general the only ones people think can stand up to the big one.  No one really likes Little Big Planet Kart or that Shrek karting game.

I have reached that Mario Kart level, with many genres, I experienced games I found so good, that the new stuff doesn’t impress me as much. This isn’t even because I am cynical, this is because I gamed for over 25 years. Just like people remember their first kiss more  fondly than their 37th. While new games and franchises can still be great, they can’t be magical to me anymore.

The remake of Toad’s Turnpike wasn’t as good! But there was magic.. and blue shells!

Remakes however still contain that magic, because that magic was never in the game itself.. it is within ourselves, within our minds. We only have so much magical memory to give away, our sense of wonder unfortunately is a finite resource and a good remake or even a half decent one at that can bring back that magic a bit. Within limits, but more on that later. I am happy with a new Pokémon Game because it brings back the memories  and that magic, but even though I love my Snom and Falanks encountering them.. never feels like seeing Pikachu pop up in the grass for the first time.

Now as much as I like Red and Blue, Gold was the game I was much more aware of playing. Less overwhelmed more armed for the task. To this day I think Pokémon Heart Gold is the best pokémon game ever.. and with me many people agree. A good remake can not only bring back that magic but amplify it. They keep what work and make it better and maybe.. just maybe they can allow you to gain a bit of magic back to give..it will never be as much as you put into that game.. but by seeing what they did to make our beloved things better, we might appreciate that same more modern mechanic in things we did not believe were magic before. 

Best Remake, Best Pokemon Game, Best Boy Cyndaquil!

Bob and Sally

Now not all remakes invoke this sense of nostalgia. A lot of the Final Fantasy games for mobile do not work for me, the new Pokémon rescue squad is cute.. but I kinda prefer the original GBA version.  This applies to sequels even more. Vice City was the best GTA game in my book and while I still enjoyed San Andreas a bit and Chinatown wars, GTA IV and V did not do it for me anymore. Sequels carry over less magic than remakes, when I see Sobble, Scorbunny and Grookey I am like.. let’s pick the little crybaby thing it’s cute. When I played Heartgold and I saw Cyndaquil in it’s pokéball again I was like “It’s my BOY!”

Like meeting new people at a con is great, but meeting an old time friend you haven’t seen in five years is so much better. Remakes are harder to do right however. While we do not mind a new friend asking a bit of an odd question to us here and there.. with a friend of old we are much less lenient. We are easy to blame them or scold the, for doing something wrong. So how do you make a solid remake?! Well it’s time for another  analogy.

Gotta get some anime girl from these hits in somehow!

I could explain what exactly we want to see in a remake going in depth in the power of nostalgia. However I do not care for that and instead have opted for another route! We are going to imagine that first kiss again.. or your first crush I mean we are geeks, so no harm no foul if you have never been kissed. Imagine you are 15 or 16 and have your first real romance with a woman named Sally or guy named Bob. You share a magical moment together.. but as time is cruel, you move away.. or  maybe they do. Now 20 years later sit in a bistro or walk across the street when suddenly you see a familiar face. Now there are about three to four ways this situation can unfold.

I did not know this was a thing I just googled the names and this was all that showed up! ALL of it.

Option A: They are exactly the same!

Oh my Arceus! It’s Sally/Bob! They have aged but you can still recognise them and you proceed to talk with them. Things are just like 20 years ago.. a little to similar. While Sally obviously looks like a 35 year old and wears clothes of the time instead of those colourful nighties neon jumpsuits she still only talks about My Little Pony.. and I am not talking about the Friendship is Magic show from 2010 here! She keeps yapping about the 1986 one and refuses to acknowledge anything beyond that.  She also thinks cellphones are a bit to modern so she gives you her home address and home phone number so you can call there within a set time. Bob still has the exact same newspaper route and hangs out with the exact same people as he did in middle school. While it is nice to catch up again, you can’t help but feel they are a little bit sad and wished they would at least get with the time already.

This image makes sense if you watched HIMYM

Option B: They are completely unrecognisable?!

Remember Sally?! Well he is called Sander now, that my Little Pony thing they used to talk so much about has completely vanished, they did that to conform to their gender role back in the time, right now they are into dark and edgy stuff.  Sander is a Roadie to My Chemical Romance and a blacksmith in real life. While Sander might be a great person, he is in no way that person you kissed twenty years ago. Bob is DECKED out! He used to be a fat kid, who would shyly write you a little poem about your hair being winter fire, January embers, where his heart burns too.  Now twenty years later he is a buff billionaire, scrumptious to all the sheeple! He is people magazine’s most eligible bachelor of the year, everyone wants Bob now.. but it is not Bob… sure you might like to sink your teeth into the beefcake regardless.. but it’s not Ben anymore… I mean Bob! That magic isn’t there you just want to jump the bandwagon.

So After typing my chemical romance typing m behind it was enough for google to auto suggest this!

Option C: They Added to Much

Sally looks great, she got a facelift, she has plenty of new things to talk about, like a career fitting ot the times. However She now comes with sixteen cats. To be able to “play” with Sally you are going to have to make sure the cats are fed and satisfied.  The woman also developed an allergy to bought stuff, particularly that of a rubber persuasion. So to be able to enter the further stages of romance you will have to visit an Native American Shaman in order to craft the items you need to proceed. It really doesn’t fit Sandy to be like that.. I mean it’s not like she crafted all her my little pony stuff back in the day…but now since DIY is hip she suddenly is really into it..and you have to be too. Bob has a bunch of kids, one of each ethnicity and sexual orientation of course. In order to win Bob’s heart you are going to have to go bowling with one kid and treat the other to Taco Bell, the youngest needs you to play hide and seek with them. This is not what you signed up for! More stuff to do is not always better! Even if it’s modern and popular!

Do tedious things before you can play! Objective: Play with Kids

Option D: Bob and Sally Improved.

Sally is a lawyer now, Bob is a well paid male nurse. Both have clearly gotten a facelift, and some Botox. She is wearing a sexy dress that is in fashion and he has opted to go for a more classic look the fiber count in his suit is much better than they used to make it.. making it still feel contemporary. Sally still loves My Little Pony but she went with the time and talks about the actual Friendship is Magic show.  Rather than being called on their home phone you can now use modern technology to call them more easily or even send out a casual text message. While some locations you would use to visit when courting them went out of business you will just plan around it and make due with what you got. You might not be able to take them to the Drive In, like in those memories of old.. the new option of Netflix and Chill is pretty solid as well.

Okay Bob and Sally’s age is incosistent I know! But at least the movie title is relevant!

 Thief

In all cases I described above there is a case of subjectivity though. There is no universal measure for too much of something. There are plenty of people who want a remake to barely change anything, but if it’s to different for them they can still play the original. The remake still will invoke that desire to play that game. If you play the old one or the new one the remake can still trigger horus of fun, even if it is just by proxy bringing back relevance to that forgotten title. Some want to see something significantly different, if they can not get what they want either a new franchise will rise up to give these people what they want  (How Temtem caters to a specific demographic of disappointed pokemon fans for example) or someone in the comments will point you towards a game you might like who is similar but still different enough, allowing you to discover things that went under the radar. 

Remakes will always off something! At worst conversation! At best hours of joy!

Regardless if a remake is good or bad it brings activity to the fandom.It makes your favorite game either celebrated or talked about again.  Perhaps a new generation can discover your gem.. even if it has kinda lost is shine to you. While RE3 remake may be to short and to much like RE2 remake it will allow you to talk about Nemesis again. It opens discussion again if Claire or Jill is better. Just by existing regardless of quality. New games don’t do that!
Besides, maybe someone has not played RE2 before so this remake meant less to them than this RE3 remake did! When someone tells you about their first kiss with Sandy you don’t tell them.. Oh it’s Sander now.. you let them reminisce and enjoy. Who cares that you have to pay a few full games to get FF VII’s full story, each part has a lot more content and bang for your buck than many other games. You still have the option to play that story in one game anyway.  Some people are thrilled because now they get that magic they got all those years ago.. not once.. but multiple times! Do not hate on remakes for the sake of them being that.. because while it might just be a cash grab to you.. it is magic to some. While if you dislike it you can play the original.. or join a debate instead.. and you get robbed of something that could have been, by being a jerk and joining on reddit to prevent this sort of content in the future.. you might be robbing someone else of magic. I’d say that magic is a much more valuable good.

Ruin other people’s magic and Nemesis will come for you!

XO
Pinkie!

A Theme Park Fit for Geeks: Pinkie visits The Efteling

Once upon a time there was this little pink blog that had a story to tell about a park that  is very close to her heart .Hello my sweet Island Guests, when writing this I have been away for the weekend.  After receiving some bad news in my family, I felt a bit down. My gay best friend took this to heart and treat me to a nice little weekend. One of the things he did for me was take me out to theme park The Efteling. A fairytale and local folklore theme park near Kaatsheuvel in the Netherlands. Why would I talk about this park? Well because I think it is one of the best theme parks you could visit as a geek.

Robot girls and talking Trash Cans

So what exactly is the Efteling? Well it all began in 1952 , when the town of Loon op Zand tried to attract tourists to the region to make them less dependant on their shoe industry income. What a horrible age 1952 must have been if shoes weren’t that popular that you needed to attract tourists! No pink pumps?! Anyway I will spare you the rest of the details.
The park started out a stroll around the forest where you can encounter certain fairytales, nowadays it’s one of the Netherlands biggest , popular and most technically impressive theme parks. What’s even more impressive  is that a lot of these still impressive animatronics stem from the 80’s and 90’s. Their animatronics are some of the best you have ever seen. Many put “It’s a small world to shame’. Not only can you still stroll through the forest to take a peek at your favorite fairy tales, like Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel, nowadays you can also visit one of the 5 (with the sixth reopening in spring this year) coasters, with many amazing dark rides, animatronic shows and classic rides stemming straight back from the 50’s. Like a steam powered carousel.  Most iconic though is the fairytale forest and the talking trash cans named Holle Bolle Gijs (roughly translating as Hungry Tubby Guy). These round rosy cheeked fellows are scattered throughout the park. If you feed them your trash they will suck it up like you just fed them something delicious and will thank you.

You are the Hero

‘Pinkie, that all sounds like stuff for little kids, why is it that fun for geeks?’ Well of course in general I have found that geeks oftenly enjoy the old fairy tales a lot longer than our “normal”  peers. So there is already the experience of seeing your favorite stories come to life right before your eyes, sure it might be catered to kids but there is just something magical about this theme park that resonates with my geek soul. The attention to detail, the way things are visually told to you. Regardless of language. You could visit the village of some people called the ‘laaf’ Laaf are a halfling like race, they are comparable to the hobbit. They live in somewhat hovel like homes and have their own customs and are little pranksters.  Already we can take a step within a little fantasy world. Even though the village of the Laaf isn’t as lively as it used to be, I would recommend paying it a visit if you are somewhat geeky. With just a bit of imagination , this is the Shire of the Netherlands. There’s also stuff to visit like the great Knights show. These aren’t just your standard knights. In brightly coloured armors and with an entire fantasy novel themed around them they can feel between a mix between Power Rangers, Fantasy and Knightly roleplay. Such a delight to see. 

What makes the efteling truly something special is in how many rides you a part of the story.  In the ride of Villa Volta for example we are a group of people (everyone riding is a participant) visiting a former bandit who swore his loyalty to satan. These bandits have existed in Dutch History and Folklore  and where known as the Bokkenrijders (Those who ride Goats) . Highwayman that were said to have demonic powers and who instead of horses rode Satan’s creature through the skies. In actuality they were all just regular highwaymen raiding churches but the goats sound cooler. History aside, in this ride you visit Hugo van den Loonsche Duynen.  A former bandit who desecrated a church and now is cursed with immortality .. but not just of any kind. Hugo can not find any kind of rest ever. Only if one with a pure heart enters his homestead and preys the curse away can Hugo finally find rest and redemption. As you sit in one of the pews, the room around you starts to spin, ever faster, up becomes down  forward becomes backward. But you are the one who has to help Hugo. In another ride you have to survive the legend of the flying Dutchman. In Joris and the Draak, a wooden coaster ride you and your band of fellow riders are a group of knights fighting a dragon, but there is also another group riding this coaster. Racing whoever finishes the coaster first is victorious. Still for a moment you are a group of knights! Racing in coasters is also incredibly fun and gives you the feeling of participating in some way shape or form. Symbolica , their newest darkride have you choose one of three routes through a fantasy castle. Through a context sensitive panel,   you can influence this ride, make this happen … or not happen, yet again you feel like a hero. A lot of the animatronics throughout the park as well as those trash can guys interact with you directly so somehow, more than in most theme parks you can feel like a hero! A sentiment I’d think many geeks would like.

Pixies and Sugar

The entire park has a very distinct old timey feeling throughout. There are hardly are modern buildings through the park. Most of it feels like you are travel through very medieval worlds. The origins of the park are also kept intact, giving you an insight in classic dutch culture. A little island holds a bit of a classic middle eastern village which is home of one of my favorite dark rides. The Fata Morgana. In this ride you travel on a little boat trough an arabian town, following the path of a powerful sorcerer.  Tigers, Camels and Crocodiles are alternate with seedy town filled with even shadier figures and even some mythical figures. My favorite dark ride however is a ride called the Droomvlucht (Dreamflight) we visit pixies and trolls as they dance around. We visit castles build on stars and other planets. We see a perfect world without strive. Pixies, trolls and whatever the green things are interacting together. Loving the animals of the forest. It’s a perfect little utopia there no one forgets to have fun. A really important lesson for us all to keep in mind. The Efteling also really caters to being super dutch, old/classic dutch to be exact. From the name and design of nearly all the stores and restaurants trough what you can find there, that old timey dutch feeling is woven throughout with just enough magic to surprise you every time. From classic stroopwafels to other famous dutch candies you can get it all here. There is something sweet for everyone. Maybe it’s a elf on a unicorn that does it for you, like me! Perhaps it’s one of the many dutch treats you want to try.

Princes and Princesses 

This theme park commits to everything it does, it does everything well. Being one  of the only theme parks in the entire Netherlands where you can get some solid food and have a meal that has character. You can spend an entire day here, and be completely content with the food on offer, as long as you are willing to pay theme park prices of course.  If you like shows there is quite a few for you two visit. From life action jousting to an animatronic ghost show, that despite being 32 years old still looks impressive. If you do not like rides this still a nice place to visit, despite the fairly high admission cost. The coasters are all their own unique thing and all feel like their own distinct thrill ride. A wooden coaster, a dark coaster, a classic coaster, a coaster with holograms water effects and more,  a hanging coaster with a a complete vertical drop 0/90 degrees.. I don’t know how to explain it so here is a capital /I …Like that! That’s a steep drop. The dark rides all vary a lot as well and add a great assortiment of mellow and swing rides to the mix and the Efteling is a theme park that is very suited for any kind of amusement park goer. That this park had to ban cosplaying already says something how popular it is among the geek community. (Mostly because of the large amount of disney characters showing up causing cues in inconvenient places and general saftey stuff) In this park you can walk trough a magical fantasy world, reminiscent of D&D, lord of the rings and those classic fairytales it is based on. It’s a park where you can be the hero or just stuff your face with sweets while sitting in little swan boats and old classic cars.
If you are a tourist in the Netherlands and geeky, this theme park is sure to please you. No matter if you want to be a hero or a lazy stroller, either way this park will offer you so much that you will feel like a prince or a princess. And as we know those always live happily ever after.