so i just opened requests yesterday and given a common theme among the ones i've received so far alongside the vibe of the announcement image i just wanted to make a clarification

REQUESTS DO NOT NEED TO BE CHRISTMAS/HOLIDAY THEMED

not to say i am against holiday themed requests, but given most of the requests i've received so far are and the announcement drawing was vaguely Christmas themed; i wanted to make sure to clarify in case i had accidently implied something i didn't mean to...


but yeah to reiterate the announcement post:
for December I'm going to do some requests Watchers; so send me your requests however works for you and i'll work on whatever i feel like and have time to work on.

be aware i will not be responding to or confirming requests; no one else besides me will know whose/what requests are being done until they are finished and posted (as with all my drawings Supporters on my Patreon, patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon, will get to see them first); so be aware asking or following up on a request (ok maybe suggestions is a better word at this point but request as a word gets more attention and participation in my experience) you've made will at best annoy me, and at worst remove your request from any sort of consideration


also an extra clarification, people can make multiple requests if they want (so say, hypothetically, you already made a Christmas request thinking you needed to but wanted to make a non Christmas related request you could also request that still)

So i needed to put together and get some footage of a fighting game combo up for a drawing i just finished (sign up at patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon if you want to see it now instead of waiting) and had a few other clips of Fighting game (and Kingdoms of Amalur) combos sitting around unused (i was thinking of doing a themed combo challenge someone on Youtube i follow had created for October) and thought why not upload those as well and give them a brief spotlight


Exhibit 1 two Dumb TFT combos from Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O that end with swimming
https://youtu.be/NhueMWQ5Y8k
46 P+G, 623 P+K, K

https://youtu.be/x3nKZGfWoqw
46 P+G, 66 K+G


Exhibit 2 Kingdoms of Amalur Universalist Combo
https://youtu.be/NGqOgOlQYgw
Greatsword, Greatsword, Greatsword (charge buffer) Whirlwind level 1, Shadow Flare (only first hit), Bow, Bow, Bow, Harpoon, Elemental Rage


Exhibit 3 Dead or Alive 6 (i love a woman who can ragdoll me like i was Loki from the first Avengers movie)
https://youtu.be/H9tOiHKCBGc
1P, P, H, 8P, P, P, P+H


Exhibit 4 Pokken Tournament DX Gardevoir Combo
https://youtu.be/Xi-Us1_qPqw
6X, 2Y, Y, Y, Y, 6A (with 3x calm mind/4A stocks)


Exhibit 5 an old Castelvania Judgment Combo Video i made (i was thinking of reusing 2 combos fomr this old video i made for the challange but rather than add them isolated her i figured the whole video would be better)
https://youtu.be/Zmqjw8E9_ZU

so i usually like to beat games before doing on of these... whatever these are... but nearly 80 hours in (and only ~2/3 of the way throuhg form my estimate) i dropped the game. however its hard to spend that much time with something and not have some thoughts.



so given the fact i did a drawing a few years ago referencing some thoughts i had on the character redesigns of Story of Seasons Friends of Mineral Town compared against Harvest Moon Back to Nature/64/Friends of Mineral Town it should be no surprise i have some history with this series (really just BtN/FoMT and to a much lesser extent AWL; as mentioned the Design of the cow is more or less just a cow plushie i got for pre ordering AWL on Gamecube back when i was in highschool) though this time i don't have much to say about character designs, though there are apparently some drastic changes but given the only character i really remember from the original is my Waifu of choice Nami (i don't have a type... f*** you, you have a type...) who is all but unchanged. However, Gameplay is a different Story.



much of my memories with Harvest Moon back in the day had a tinge of, for lack of better wording, fighting for my life to survive; with AWL being more prominent in this sense. This is something that the remakes have never had me close to feeling (well there was one time in SoSFoMT where i had put every plot and resource on the farm it gives you too use only to have every crop finish growing the same day and then spending 2-3 full in game days harvesting them all before i learned that free nature sprite labor is a thing) but this wasn't a problem when i played SoSFoMT the softening of the difficulty made for a smoother and more fun experience that fit well in the way i was playing it (play a day or two lying in bed on my steamdeck before going to sleep) but SoSAWL is a different story.



given the more overt narrative focus and broadly more 'realistic' approach to how crops and live stock function it feels like there is a specific vibe the game is going for and the remake feels like it tries to have its cake (streamline and make things easier) and it it too (have that same vibe) but doesn't really hit the mark.



the issue is mainly that days are long (my ~80 hours took me just short of year 4 winter which is 150 days or ~35-40 minutes per in game day) but there isn't much meaningful to do. in a given day my farming tasks would be largely finished by ~10AM to noon leaving me until 6-8PM that i would have to find something to do until i could confidently call it a day, and there isn't much to do and most of it is shallow: you can fish which is just two button presses and some waiting, you can work at the dig site which is just walking around and repeatedly pressing a button, you can talk to people but they have very little to say (outside of cutscene events which have arbitrary enough triggers that unless you're walking into every house and room in town once a day you probably won't see many) and almost never get more or different dialogue as the game goes on. honestly the only mechanic with any depth besides farming is influencing your child, something i wasn't interested in.



now this is not to say the original was any deeper with this side activates or NPC interactions, but the higher difficulty would help to avoid seeing the limitations; needing to eat more often meant fishing had a concrete benefit even if it might not be intrinsically engaging, making money being harder means helping at the dig site has more benefit since selling what you find can be a decent way to make money, and you have less time to interact with the NPCs so their limited dialogue is less likely to stand out. Really AWL feels like it wants you to have a virtual life in this small coastal town but so many of the difficulty reduction and QoL updates in SoSAWL just make you bump up against the edges of the simulation constantly and leave it feeling lesser in my opinion



ALSO WITH ALL THE QOL UPDATES WHY CAN I ONLY HYBRIDIZE TWO SEEDS AT A TIME AND HAVE TO GO TRHOUHG THE SAME SHORT CONVERSTATION EACH TIME

So despite having played the original FF7 when i was in middle school i really don't have all that nostalgia for the property (the fact the SaGa series, even if i didn't realize that was a thing at the time, and several other lesser known JRPG/JRPG adjacent titles would have been taking up a huge part of my gaming brain space at the time, along side being more on the it's overhyped/anti-fandom side of things during the peak compilation era when i was in high school and college might explain why...). In spite of that FF7 Remake (or more accurately Integrade since i waited until it came to PC before buying it) is probably one of my favorite, if not my favorite, action RPGs in recent years.

Its base combat mechanics are very enjoyable and have tactical depth that while i feel like i understand i also know i have yet to truly plumb the depths of, the handling of ATB charges as a mechanic broadly and in an interface aspect for being able to all but pause the action for some menuing especially feels very inspired, and while a break/stagger mechanic in RPG combat is always Remake's take on the idea leaves combat at its peak weaving in and out of various phases (normal, pressured, and staggered) largely but not wholly in the player's control that have differing focal points mechanically with bosses adding extra flair and often other mechanics on top of that, a three pronged system of leveling and character growth (character level, Materia, Weapon upgrades) that affect different things but all interlock, and finally a cast of characters with meaningfully differing gameplay identities and play styles. Really any complaints i have tend to be minor but more so do not detract from things; the leveling system is great but the interface design is rather clumsy and borders on tedious at times (particularly the Weapon upgrading), and the characters are unique mechanically but the balance isn't great.

so to say i was excited for Rebirth is a bit of an understatement; a chance to Refine what was quite there yet in the original and with new playable characters (Red XIII and Cait Sith). However, after ~140 hours (and just short of 100% on normal difficulty content) i kind of feel like Remake might still be the better game even though Rebirth is improved in 90+% of aspects.

So to start with the new cast in a mechanical sense is largely solid; Barret is basically the same as before bit with some new ATB abilities and the removal of the arguably underdeveloped melee weapons/playstyle option, Cloud Tifa and Yuffie are all given aerial attack options which helps with one of the most obnoxious things about fights in the original (flying enemies) while seeing new ATB skills and balance tweaks (most apparent to me is Cloud no longer being the borderline one man counter hitting death machine he was in Remake), Aeris has seen a decent rework that i'm not sure how to feel about (her evade seems heavily nerfed but i feel like her new Ward shift mechanic is meant to be used as her dodge to tie in more to here ATB abilities and general design) though i never spent much time using her until the final battle all but forced me to, Red XIII has an interesting idea at the core of their design in the form of the vengeance gauge and their unique relation to blocking though i feel like they need some work, and Cait Sith is... there and i don't really understand how they work at even a basic level despite reading guides and such.

Combat is largely the same as before, the main addition being Synergy skills and abilities. Synergy Abilities i feel fair better between the two by, usually, being big cinematic attacks with added strategic functionality that are built up to via frequent ATB skill use. Synergy Skills are less successful as a mechanic in my opinion though; aside from allowing heavy boosting of the ATB gauge of two characters, with one or two exceptions, i never got much use out of them and the controls left blocking feeling a bit awkward (though given the addition of a parry mechanic to the game maybe this is more a skill issue). beyond that there has been a change to how Limit breaks work as well; allowing you access to multiple limit breaks upon said gauge filling, based on your current limit level (with raising a characters limit level being all but exclusive to certain Synergy Abilities). overall these new additions enhance combat by adding a parallel set of conidiations/states along side the existing Stagger system to deal and interact with making combat better overall.

So far everything has been largely improvements, and indeed at a mechanical level Rebirth is an all but undeniable improvement over Remake. the problems are really everything around that; the content design and pacing.

i will preface this by saying i am not a big fan of open world world game design generally; while i have nothing against it generally, it really does nothing for me and i generally feel the work building big open areas with a volume of stuff to do could be put to use on more tightly designed and interesting linear experiences. that all said i feel like FF7 Rebirth's open world segments are probably the worst parts of the game while ostensibly taking up the majority of its very long run time. put more directly a large portion of the game will be spent wandering through largely empty areas engaging in combat every few minutes (which is often trivially easy if you do most of the content and are over levelled but also ,from what i've read, extremely tedious and difficult if to do very little constant and are thus under levelled) until you find most of the quick travel spots and start warping around to wrap up the remaining side content; which, with the exception of the field intel bosses proto relic quests and ~70% of actual narrative side quests, feels like dull empty filler content, and is repeated in every new area.

the dungeons and such in between the open world sections tend to be pretty decent to good, often setting your party comp for you and giving each group of characters something to do and different routes to take with their own boss fights to deal with. however they quickly come to an end and then its back to the open world for a few more hours.

However a knock on effect of this the pacing is utter shit. compared against Remake the meaningful content (read enemy types, dungeons, weapons/abilities) in Rebirth is pretty comparable, with the addition of significantly more Boss Fights being added in. however with the added open world elements the game time is twice as long (~90-110 hours for a casual difficulty play through against Remakes ~40-50 hours) leaving the content spaced incredibly far apart.



Honestly i'm probably on this ride until the end and will get the inevitable 3rd game in the, presumed, Remake trilogy; the combat is still great (and barring some out of left field wrong headed changes will no doubt stay so in the next entry), we will likely see two new playable characters (Cid and Vincent) next time, i'm curious to see how they handle fighting Diamond Weapon (and also no doubt Ruby and Emerald weapons, probably Ultimate weapon, and maybe even Sapphire Weapon), and given some of the changes to the story i am curious to see where this all goes (though since this sis the first time i've mentioned the story you you would be right to think i'm not super invested). However i am wary of it being another bloated open world game like Rebirth was; though given the parts of the original game left to be covered by the next chapter is more focused and less road trip like there is the potential of getting a more focused and lean experience close to Remake, but it will also cover the late game optional content and side quest section of the game which feels like the perfect thing to shove open world cruft into...

can't remember the last time i was actually excited for an upcoming anime but i am definitely looking forward to this (and also realizing i'm a bit behind on the Manga since i've only read up to volume 5 and volume 7 just got an english release ~6 months ago)

that said i am curious on the fact that the anime is going to have the game the characters play be Street Fighter 6.

Given that the fictional game they play in the Manga (Iron Senpai 4) is very much 'Street Fighter but with the serial numbers filed off' along side the popularity of SF6 it makes a lot of sense to go with this idea (not mention splicing in game footage will probably make the animation process easier); however, while iron Senpai 4 is arguably a broad pastiche of Street Fighter as a series it is also its own thing pulling specific ideas and mechanics from across the series and as such potentially may not be fully replicable in SF6. I can't think of any specific things that are particularly plot relevant (i had remembered a scene involving a Shoryuken>FADC> Metsu Hadouken Combo, ala SF4, being a thing early on but rereading it the character was referencing that as advanced tech form Iron Senpai 3, the previous entry in the fictional game series) but still it could lead to some changes being made in the narrative.

Then again as an anime of a still actively in production Manga chances are there are going to be changes anyways so... eh

wait so the sites in read only mode but you can still post Journals? that's not what read only mode usually means but...ok...

Anyways since i can't post the image i made for my monthly Patreon drawing poll announcement (and might not be able to before the Poll ends...) i guess a Journal will have to do.

This month is a fanart poll with our three character options being Mystique Sonia from Hero 108, Sunset Shimer from Equestria Girls, and Fur Gotts from Azure Dreams; while the theme/scenario choices are Mermaid, Normal, and Macro/GTS.

If you want to help decide who and what gets drawn joining My Patreon (patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon) is only $1/month and lets you vote in polls like this as well as the following perks: 1) at least one week early access to drawings, and 2) higher resolution (300dpi vs 150dpi) versions of drawings.

Also suggestions for characters to be added to the pool of options for these fanart Polls (as well OCs for the OC Polls such as the one coming up ion June) are still being accepted. full details on that are here:
https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/11121737/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60672307/

so this is kind of an addendum to the recent drawing/infographic about my Patreon and the monthly Polls theron as it occurs to me the the main purpose of making that might not have been all that clear so i'll make sure its super clear here

I AM TAKING CHARACTER SUGGESTIONS/SUBMISSIONS FOR THE MONTHLY POLLS, AND YOU DO NOT NEED TO CONTRIBUTE TO MY PATREON TO SUGGEST/SUBMIT A CHARACTER

So yes while voting in monthly Polls is exclusive to Patreons, suggesting character(s) for the ~bi monthly fan art polls, or submitting your character(s) for the ~bi monthly OC drawing Polls is open to everyone.

full info on polls and submitting/suggesting characters is in the aforementioned drawing but for convenience i'll copy the part about submitting/suggesting below:

If you wish to suggest/submit a character feel free to do so however works best for you(e.g. comment here, Note/DM, carrier pigeon, etc.) but keep the following in mind

FOR FANART POLL CHARACTER SUGGESTIONS:
i will need at most their name and what they are from. visual reference is appreciated but not strictly required (though for more obscure or generally hard to track down options i may ask for some if not provided)

FOR OC SUBMISSIONS:
visual reference is required and non negotiable. fell free to include some kind of simple (anything more than 1 or 2 non run on sentences is probably too long) scene/guidance as well, but it's not required

So for whatever reason I’ve had Star Ocean and some of the random reoccurring character design tropes in the Star Ocean games, so why not take the opportunity of April Fools as a day to do weird/random/unhinged things (admittedly usually with the intent jokes and humor but whatever) to indulge in a little random rambling
 

Male leads with blue/blonde hair who wield a sword

So first the obvious one for anyone fairly familiar with the series and paying attention, but the male lead of each game is a swordsman with alternating blue (‘odd numbered’ entries) or blonde (‘even numbered’ entries) hair. Honestly I find it hard to say anything about this though, I mean sword wielding male leads in JRPGs (and even RPGs broadly for the most part) are so common a lead character not being a sword fighter of some flavor is all but unheard. Though the hair thing is a bit more specifically Star Ocean original but it feels  less like an intentional design plan and more like a set of coincidences they just decided to lean into as the design of the male leads don’t have any real overlap beyond that with outside of a near exception of 2/3 blonde leads (Claud C. Kennny from 2 and Edge Maverick from 4) are humans and two of the blue haired leads (Roddick Farrence from 1 and Fidel Camuze from 5) are ‘aliens’ (Fellpool and Faykreedian respectively) but then Fayt Leingod from 3 is a blue haired human and Raymond Lawrence from 6 is an alien (Verguldian specifically) so even that’s not a thing… unless multiples of three swap the human/lien blonde/hair thing…


 Blonde Female martial artist

So this is one of the most frequent design tropes the series has with examples from 3 games: Ilia Silvestri form 1, Mirage Koas from 3, and Elena from 6. There is even overlap with all three having long hair and are second commands of a space ship as well. Honestly given that this first showed up in the original game and the amount of story similarities among all three feels like this is intentional but I’m not sure to what end. There is also a near miss from 5 in Anne Patriceani who fits every detail of this save for having green hair. though given Anne is one of two humans in party of planet natives with the other human being her commander and potential love interest, a (cross)bow wielding member of the Kenny lineage, they might have realized they were less referencing and more copying the Ronyx+Ilia setup from one and rolled things back a bit


Female short range fighters with red hair

Would you believe me if I said this was the trope that got me thinking about all this? How about if I point out all three examples (Phia Melle from 1, Chisato Madison from 2, and Nel Zelpher from 3) have short hair while reminding you one of my oldest OCs is Amanda? I actually noticed this  first while playing 6 as the side game (Es’owa) had pieces for all party members from prior games and I noticed all three of the them in my deck for a good portion of the mid game and realized all three of them were staples of my parties in their respective games, which given Nel is kind of the default option you have to actively avoid recruiting isn’t to notable but given the other two are harder to recruit (Phia requires passing up on two other party members going a long time with only two party members or waiting until late game when you likely already have a full party and Chistao is one of the last two recruitable characters again not being recruitable until after you likely have a full party). Make of this info what you will, but I do hope we see a return of this trope in a future game.
 

The long haired brooding male warrior

This feels a little like cheating I mean long haired brooding/edge warriors in anime and JRPGs are pretty common; However given there were three of these back to back (Dias Flak in 2, Albel Nox in 3, and Arumat P. Thantos in 4) and then abandoned the idea feels like there is something there. More so in that the idea didn’t come back. There is room to argue the late 90’s and 00’s edginess epidemic (2 came out in ‘98 3 in ’03 and 4 in ’09) that was waning going into the ‘10s (5 came out in ’16) but while that would fit American pop culture lens I’m not sure  if Japanese pop culture saw a similar boom and bust of edginess  around the same time frame.


Sexy and Scantily clad mage

Given Symbology (the in universe take on magic in the games) uses symbols which are commonly drawn on the user gives the ability to justify having fan servicey character designs for mages. That said the series hasn’t taken that route all that often with there being only 3 overt examples: Celine Jules from 2, Myuria Tionysus from 4, and Fiore Brunelli from 5. If you step outside the scope of generic anime fanservice definitions of sexy Adray Landsbard might qualify; being a buff and perpetually shirtless man in his 50’s I could see a term like DILF applying to them but I am the wrong person to judge or elaborate on that idea.


So yeah… didn’t really have a point to this but its been bouncing around my head for a few weeks and I figured why not

 

 

patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

So in case people have forgotten (which given my minimal, bordering on non existent, promotion of it; seems fairly likely): i do in fact have a Patreon. It is first and foremost a tip jar; so any kind souls who are willing and able to to send some spare change my way feel free to have at it. That said any kind souls who do contribute at least $1 do get some benefits, which as of today i have made some changes to. so Lets discuss those rewards as they now stand:


1) at least one week early access to drawings
pretty straight forward; but everything gets posted to Patreon first, and Here (and DeviantArt) don't get them until after a week or more.


2) higher resolution (300dpi vs 150dpi) versions of images
again pretty straight forward, but in addition to getting things earliar then everyone else, Patreons also get drawings at double the resolution of everywhere else


3) Monthly drawing Polls
this is the big change i've made; each month there will be some kind of Poll deciding on at least one thing i will draw that month which Patreons get to vote on


Honestly, well some additional advisement of my Patreon is probably better for me overall; the real reason i'm posting this is that Polls are only good/fun if there are at least a handful of people voting, and i have less than a handful of Patreons so reminding people i have a Patreson seemed especially good as far as ideas go,

So for any interested this months poll is from a few options for video game fanart: Nico Southey (from Azure Dreams), Pauline (From the Mario Games), or
Meiga Holstaur (from Maiden Cops). Voting is open for the next 7 days. Also there are three drawings that are currently only available on Patreon with the first one not going up here until 2/11


patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

i tend to do one of these at the start of the year going over my plans for the new year; though i really don't have any specific plans for this year. i do have a big idea for 2026 that i plan to get some preproduction work taken care of for this year, but that's kind of it. i do want to get more use of my characters and will probably retool my Patreon (Shameless plug: patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon) but those are mostly vague ideas and pending considerations at best.

Really what's more on my mind is last year, and what happened.

After a number of years averaging 3.5-4 drawings a year i was going to try an get an average of 1 drawing a week done in 2024, a goal which i did not meet. Honestly i'm pretty sure the main reason is pretty simple; i have a bad habit turning my hobbies into work...

given the hard set goal of 1 drawing a week (as i might have forgotten a few times last year: that was on average) that was in place the ability to turn drawing into work was basically a given. however my other hobby, Video Games, unluckily ended up in a similar state. To make a long story short: like many gamers, especially those who mostly play single player games, i have a bit of a backlog, and i've grappled with how to approach this for several years ending on what was supposed to be an absurdist approach to an arguably sisyphean task meant more to guide me to enjoying new gaming experiences and curtailing potential excess spending on new games; Sadly there was a rules based approach to doing this and a non-goal set to encourage me which quickly spun into another case of turning a hobby into work.

So yeah my two main hobbies became more of extra jobs along side my actual day job and by about September i was 'joking' to myself how i had found a way to burn a candle at three ends. So when i caught a moderate cold at the end of a family vacation in early October; the following week that i had taken off form work intending to play video games and draw ended up going very different. i accepted i would lose 1-2 days to recover but it turned into the whole week being lost as once i actually stopped for a bit i just couldn't bring myself to start back up and the rest of year, save for a handful of simple personal drawings and finishing 2-3 nostalgia tripping remakes of games ended up being kind of a wash overall.

i suppose that does give some direction of plans this year: January is going to be all but radio silent from me: it tends not to be a particularly productive month for drawing anyways so i'm going to try and take some time to relax (which given i'm not great at relaxing this hopefully doesn't end up with a 'I'M VERY F****** RELAXED G********' vibe). beyond that who knows

https://youtu.be/pmeGL2JP9N0
sure this might have been an incredibly poorly kept secret, but that doesn't does not diminish my hype at the announcement

https://youtu.be/KQqZ-e-MJLk

and so our 10 (if you count in hexadecimal) winners are

CelestiallySin from DeviantArt, Jameszorranfan78 from DeviantArt, Goron44 from DeviantArt,  Colorado69, Novi Pastel from Patreon, geekboy01 from DeviantArt, Xabungle7007 from DeviantArt, KaijuMaster108 from DeviantArt, OhYeahCartooonsFan from DeviantArt, Goodguyforever18 from DeviantArt, Jaime667 from DeviantArt,  ultramagnus47, Krisztian1989 from DeviantArt, DaOneTrueJollyJoe from DeviantArt,  Vinzol, and Shambo2000 from DeviantArt

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon


Since I've almost finished all of the requests from the second batch of requests, and were roughly half of the way into the year; lets start up the second set of requests (here's hoping i'm not jumping the gun too much here).

so for the next two weeks feel free to submit your requests if you want in on this, full rules are below


1) Please Send me your requests however
you see fit (best options will be either as
comment here or by note/DM),if your
request is agreeable I will give you a
number.

2) requests can be submitted until
07/12 @ 6PM UTC-7/PDT.

3) Once the request period is over I will
sort said requests and 10 Winners will be
chosen/announced as seen here:
https://youtu.be/5tyXkHVSyhE

4) any requests made by Patrons through
Patreon will have double width segments
on the spinner wheel giving them a ~2
times better chance, if you wish to sign up
to be a Patron link is here:
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon


So this is a game that has been floating around in my games to beat list for over a decade now and having finally beaten I have some thoughts…

To start with the controls in combat are not great, honestly combat in general isn’t great. Generally i rather enjoy tactical pause combat in RPGs; pausing a real time combat system to plan out a few seconds of action watch how that plan plays out pausing again to change thing mid execution or to plan out the following few seconds once your plan is executed and repeating this has a great feel to it; and while I don’t think D&D is the best fit (the capacity to which basic attacks and RNG rule over combat in an essentialist interpretation of the Rules makes the planning neither very deep nor interesting in the moment to moment) but it can work with a good interface and encounter design. KoTOR has none of the former and little of the latter.

The interface largely seems fine early on when you’re really only have the options of normal attacks (while technically you do have other options those are consumable items in a game where money isn’t easy to come by especially early on, and alternate attacks that sacrifices defense for especially early on some marginal boost to attack effectiveness for ~6 seconds/1 turn) but as more combat options get introduced, most prominently Jedi Powers, the ability to effectively issue commands quickly drops off. While the 3rd person camera makes exploration visually nice and easy to grock it really hurts the combat, especially since you can only select commands for your currently selected party member, and while you can easily switch party members this also shifts the camera and since AI pathfinding isn’t great in this game the location of a party member can semi regularly prevent you from issuing the command you wanted to. Also, while there are rules and abilities based around positioning and movement in combat, making use of them ranges from being all but impossible to very awkward to use depending on your settings (by default movement controls in combat are turned off, but even when turned on you can only move around manually via normal walking out of tactical pause). Honestly this wouldn’t be so bad if you could customize Ai for characters (and the player selected character could work from AI) but this was before such things were common.

Honestly this is a game where the fun part is planning out and executing character builds. The equipment selection is one of the better I’ve seen in a game, every piece of equipment has a unique function and design in a gameplay sense (also visually but it doesn’t really bring anything to the game due to a very limited visual design sensibility) combining this with stats having low values and strong effects on things as well as, to a lesser extent, force powers and feats being designed in a way to give you various options; there are a litany of ways you can build characters, especially the Jedi in your party.

However, the diversity of builds is a bit of a double-edged sword, most prominently with the player character. The idea of a Star wars story climaxing with a one on one showdown between two force users is a no brainer; however alongside the design of the final boss this makes any builds that aren’t damage/DPS focused incredibly difficult to use if not impossible. I played the Player character as a, mostly light side aligned scoundrel/jedi councilor skill monkey and support combatant (using force powers to buff stats, stun enemies, and heal whilst having moderate to high levels in pretty much all skills) leaving the fighting mostly to my party members; commonly a DPS focused dual blade lightsaber wielding jedi and a raw damage focused duel melee weapon wielder. For 99% of the game this was honestly kind of brokenly overpowered, even without the damage dealing party members my stuns were powerful enough and MP reserves deep enough the enemies would never get to act while I slowly chipped away their HP with weak normal attacks buffed by a moderate backstab bonus. However even though my build was heavily focused on making my stuns as powerful as possible the final boss only had a (theoretically; multiple attempts to play the fight that way I never saw the stun work) 50% chance of being affected by them and could hit me for 25%-30% of my HP in a single basic attack; and since it’s a one on one dual my damage dealing frontline party members weren’t there to cover for my weaknesses either.

Honestly I have a hard time saying if I like this game; the opening section on Taris is very slow and simple from a gameplay standpoint (and having played through that section before in prior attempts to beat this the story is rote and predictable by now) then the game starts to get interesting and fun until near the end where my build and party composition became incredibly overpowered to where I was just going through the motions of playing the game just so I could beat it, and then the final boss basically slapped me while shouting ‘that’s not how you play the game ‘ which leaves a not great taste in my mouth right at the end.

FA:

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
https://www.patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon



after nearly 140 hours I have finally beaten this, purported, JRPG masterpiece. Final verdict; it lives up to the hype, mostly. I suppose such an ominous qualifying statement isn’t super necessary most of that discussion is about the story, character and UI/UX design which are all Amazing or just short of it at worst, the UI design especially. The gameplay more broadly though is a bit more complicated.

The Press turn derivative One more system that has defined the Persona sub series since Persona 3 makes its return her, but there are some serious upgrades at play: Light and dark elemental magic being given damage dealing options rather than exclusively being instant death spells makes them feel more useful (though that might just be a me things as instant death magic has always been an viable/strong option in SMT games as anyone who has suffered a mamudo wipe can attest), Technical hits create a an alternative to weakness exploitation that can really expand strategy in fun ways, Baton Pass does the same while creating a more interesting buildup to all out attacks especially against varied enemy parties, and while having a decent amount of experience in regular SMT games I realize its not new demon negotiation is still a nice inclusion that makes building up and filling out the Person compendium a better experience.

The thing is all these changes kind of exaggerate something of an issue with the one more system in general: exploiting weaknesses to setup all out attacks feels like the pinnacle of strategy. With light and dark elements now being able knock enemies down, and Technicals letting you knock down enemies with no weaknesses; the game feels built around abusing all out attacks at every opportunity. This isn’t a bad thing in a vacuum, setting up and executing all out attacks is fun even before the absolute top shelf gourmet cherry on top that is Persona 5s top of the class UI/UX design, but this can still be a bit repetitive especially 100+ hours into the game.

Though to be fair; while combat makes up a huge portion of the mentos based gameplay, mementos stuff is only half the game. and honestly while as a more Gameplay focused person I can enjoy visual novel stuff (though rarely in a game wholly focused on such) finding much to meaningfully say can be hard since there aren’t really mechanics or gameplay to sink my teeth into or discuss. Though to briefly give my thought on the narrative parts of the daily life sections; they are good with my favorite confidants were Takemi/Death, Kawakami/Temperence, and Futaba & Sojiro/Hermit & Hierophant (they overlap so much its hard to think of them separately for me). That out of the way in a gameplay sense they really stepped things up for this one. While the mechanics are the same as Persona 4 and Persona 3 Portable, Persona 5s oft previously mentioned UI/UX design add a number of Quality of Life features that make the experience much smoother; I’m particularly fond of the text message mechanic which really helps in assessing/deciding what to do on any given in game day.

I suppose I should talk about the main story, but what can I say that hasn’t already been said; the original game came out ~7-8 years ago with the Royal version itself being ~4-5 years old and both were pop culture phenomena. I can say I rather enjoyed it; the main cast is fun and has good chemistry, the villains are delightfully hateable and evil with just enough context to avoid them being moustache twirling card board cutouts but not enough to make them overly sympathetic (with one arguable exception), and while the vibes for the 3rd semester section feel weird in general the main story serves as a really interesting expansion and alternate take on the core ideas of the main story.

One last thing I want to bring up as a very me issue with the game. This game, while having solid combat mechanics with a bit of depth, is very stat focused; so if you enjoy the combat its way too easy to end up really overleveled and take the challenge out of the game. Throw in one of the early confidants that I feel is likely to be finished by most players early on letting you insta kill lower level enemies without having to fight and the last 3-4 palaces were mostly running through instakilling enemy mobs then wiping up bosses with next to no effort unless I did something really stupid (speaking of which took me three tries to beat the normal ending final boss because I kept having Joker use a fully boosted multi target sever physical damage ability when a physical damage reflecting minion was in play), and I played the game on hard so yeah I was seriously overlevelled.

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon
and
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon


Hi, Hello there; been awhile since I did one of these ne? for the new people or those who forgot in the last ~5-6 months: FOAMGaP (Faceless Online Art Monkey Grows a Personality) is a thing I where I talk about whatever I feel like. Its so far been exclusively videogame stuff (all but exclusively waffling and rambling ‘reviews’ of games I’ve recently beaten), and we aren’t breaking any new ground with Todays subject; a pseudo restart after a long break with Pikmin, or at least something that feels like it wants to be Pikmin

The Wild at Heart

As discussed in the first of these I am really like the gameplay styling of Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 1 and so indie games that look to try and emulate or copy that (especially in the gap between Pikmin 3 and Pikmin 4) would immediately catch my attention. Though most often the Pikmin comparison would be very surface level, and so regardless of individual quality never scratch the itch for that dandori playstyle I loved (Tinykin comes to mind: really great 3D platformer, but, despite being a legion of followers you literally throw at things to solve puzzles, the titular tinykin share more in common with power stars/moons in 3D Mario games than pikmin). The Wild at Heart is the first non Pikmin game that even feels like it attempts to scratch that dandori itch, though it also does its own thing.

This games pikmin analog, spritlings, come in handful of different times (twigling, emberlings, shiverlings, barblings, and lunalings) with distinct mechanical functions (poison immunity, fire immunity and higher attack power, freezing certain bodies of water and interacting with cloning portals, sticking to objects and doing more damage when thrown, being really strong at night) that you have to effectively deploy to solve puzzles all while dealing with a limited daytime cycle to do things in; you even get two captain analogs in the main characters. However the game expands upon this in a few ways: most prominently is the inclusion or crafting aspects that give a bit of a survival game feel to things (as you craft food and tools using consumable ingredients you can find), but also the ‘captains’ each have certain things only they can do rather then being the same, also nightfall isn’t the pencils down moment that it is in Pikmin and you can actually play through the night there are just powerful rapidly respawning creatures chasing you down.

That said these unique elements come to define the game and don’t quite work wholly out in my opinion. Crafting is probably the worst out of them; being almost completely ignorable unless you play on a sort of ‘hard mode’ that makes taking a day or two to farm resources on a regular basis part of the central loop, something I don’t really enjoy doing. The implementation of ‘captains’ fairs better; the unique abilities each has, while not complex, do expand puzzle options a bit, really the only issue is there is no ‘Go Here’ option so unless a puzzles needs you to split up for whatever reason your probably never going to utilize the ‘captains’ as separate entities. The handling of night though is a great idea; giving you the option of having more time in a day if you want to risk/can deal with the dangers of the night, bonus points for one of the spritelings function being to be used at night.

As for the story; it starts with an interesting hook and while I wouldn’t call it bad I can’t really say it’s really good either. Things start out with a kid running away from, what is implied to be a somewhat abusive, home planning to meet up with a friend who is also running away from home. Both kids are separately pulled into a magical world where they end up meeting some strange old people and have to deal with an awakening evil that seems to be a threat to both worlds. Honestly the main issue is the pacing once your in the magical world the story is juggling three big plot points (the save the world plot, the main characters home situation and attached reflections and realizations, and the friends place as assort of chosen one in this magical world) with very few moments of storytelling most of them extremely optional and not always well explained which can leave the ending feeling a little out of left field.

Overall if you like Pikmin 1 or 3 (moreso 1) this is still likely to be a good time, but you should probably keep you expectations tempered as it feels like a game that wants to be Pikmin but also its own thing but never quite reaches the peaks it maps out for either.

The winners of this second request raffle have been chosen:

https://youtu.be/vDapyMWWnck

Congrats to our winners:
DaOneOneTrueJollyJoe on DeviantArt, goron44 on DeviantArt,  checkerboardcn,  Prismblack91, Cuban from Discord, NoviPastel Via Patreon, Challange300 on DeviantArt, qweges on DeviantArt, Geekboy01 on DeviantArt, and PrincessMermaid257 on DeviantArt

so like i mentioned at the start of the year planning to do 4 requests raffles, taking 10 at a time, this year. Since I've almost finished all of the requests from the first batch, and were roughly a quarter of the way into the year; lets start up the second set of requests (here's hoping i'm not jumping the gun too much here).

so for the next two weeks feel free to submit your requests if you want in on this, full rules are below

1) Please Send me your requests however
you see fit (best options will be either as
comment here or by note/DM),if your
request is agreeable I will give you a
number.

2) requests can be submitted until
04/20 @ 6PM UTC-7/PDT.

3) Once the request period is over I will
sort said requests and 10 Winners will be
chosen/announced as seen here:
https://youtu.be/5tyXkHVSyhE

4) any requests made by Patrons through
Patreon will have double width segments
on the spinner wheel giving them a ~2
times better chance, if you wish to sign up
to be a Patron link is here:
patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

https://youtu.be/5tyXkHVSyhE

 checkerboardcn, DaOneTrueJollyJoe on DeviantArt,  masterreviewer1000, Zereksan22 on DeviantArt, XxCordovamanxX on DeviantArt, J-Grow on DeviantArt,  cringebirdAD, JamesZorranFan789 on DeviantArt, CelestiallySin on DeviantArt, and leoryff on DeviantArt

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon


So I am going to be taking a total of 10 requests via Raffle to be finished over the next 3 months.

Instructions

1) Please Send me your requests however you see fit (best options will be either as comment on this journal or by note/DM),if your request is agreeable I will give you a number.
2) requests can be submitted until 1/7@ 6PM UTC-7/MST.
3) Once the request period is over I will sort said requests and Winners will be chosen as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHGgcdpB0vQ
Pleased note: in the selection process any requests made by Patrons through Patreon will have double width segments on the spinner wheel giving them a better chance, if you wish to sign up to be a Patron link is here: patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

What Won’t I draw

There is no easy answer to this question beyond stuff I cannot post on either DeviantArt or Furaffinity. beyond that its pretty much all about the context of the request, so feel free to request whatever (keeping in mind the one aforementioned rule) and I’ll decide from there.

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon



So begins a new year and so it is the time to layout plans and such for the new year. So lets do just that

Patreon

So i decided to bite the bullet and do the thing, I don’t have a real plan for it yet and it all but purely exists as a tip jar but hey if you want to tip money into said jar I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t appreciate it.

patreon.com/ZaBardicDragoon

on a similar (okay maybe not really) I also decided to setup a Discord Server. Why, that’s a good question…

https://discord.gg/WAms6g5q

52 drawings/1 year

So this is my big goal for the year: averaging 1 drawing a week across a full year. Its something ive been aiming towards for a few years but keep coming up short (usually around 45-48/52 drawings in a 1 year span) despite having shorter periods whit even better averages (from 2/27-4/1 of 2023 I got 11 drawings done for example a little over 2 per week for ~1 month) so I’m going to try to crack down and actually try to do it this year. Though I’m going to get a little help from you lot…

Requests

So i’m going to do requests again. I’ll make a separate journal covering all this (since I suspect that will catch more attention then it being buried in whatever this is, and the requests serve a function so I’m looking to get a decent number of them) but the basic jist is I plan to do 4 sets of 10 requests across the year (one set every ~3 months) and I’m going to do each set like the watcher raffles I did in 2022.

Going to try and do more with My Characters

So near the end of last year for a few months you likely noticed august to November I had done 1 drawing a month of each of my characters. That was kind of a half hearted dry run for an idea to do more with my characters which I plan to commit to full force this year: each of my characters is assigned a number (1 = Amanda, 2 = Amber, 3 = the Cow, 4 = Fang, 5 = Jamie, and 6 = NM) and each month I will roll 2D6 with the results determining what characters (or character if I roll doubles) I am going to make a drawing of that month. I will allow myself one reroll each month if the results just leave me no ideas what to do but that’s it let the dice decide what characters of mine get the Spotlight.

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon




So I feel like it shouldn’t be a surprise that I am a fan of the Star Ocean Series, what with going off on a tangent about SO2R in an earlier one of these and one of the few pieces of personal fanart of a game that I have drawn/posted being of a Star Ocean Character, but I’m not sure how much people pay attention to these or my non-NSFW drawings. Unintentionally depressing commentary aside, I am a fan of the Star Ocean Series and have (now) played all the main entries and have to say this 6th entry is… good.

I don’t want that to come across as the game being ‘bad actually, but’ because it is a really good game and is hopefully a sign (alongside Second Story R) that Star Ocean is Back. That said this Star Ocean is not the ideal form of star Ocean Being back to me; particularly with a combat series that while fun and legitimately good in its own right loses some core ideas and mechanics that have stayed and defined Star Oceans particular flavor of Combat for the whole series even with each game having its own combat system, and a return to Crafting returning to a ‘rank up skills and pray to RNJESUS’ format but with some things that arguably make it almost worse then the 2D games on the RNJESUS factor. So this is going to be a long one so grab some blueberries (but not blackberries those don’t exist anymore) and kick back

So I’ll start with the combat, since as I said it is legitimately good and a lot of fun just not very ‘Star Oceany’. The basic idea of Combat is that characters can learn various abilities as they level up which can be equipped in what are called Chain Combos (basically you have three attack buttons and you can assign buttons to these buttons as steps in an up to three part combo or to trigger when the button is held for a second instead). These attacks are visually interesting and fun to perform, and have secondary mechanics (e.g. invincibility during startup, counter stances, etc.) that add depth to the combat. The characters also have some very unique play styles; the obvious example being Nina, the party healer who cannot target enemies and her few attacks can (and are arguably designed to) be used against party members, but even the less extreme examples still have somewhat distinct play styles such as Raymond being a high damage and slow hitting attacker with some invincible attacks to push through enemy attacks whilst attacking Vs. Laeticia who is a speedy multi-hitting character with strong aerial combo options. And we haven’t even mentioned D.U.M.A; being able to do a high speed dashing attack across the battlefield to reach a target is fun, the return of Blindsides is definitely great, and then a little over half way through the game you unlock the ability to freely swap between these options and defensively buffing your party.

The one thing I can see being contentious is the AP system as there are static parameters for AP that never change over the game. The minimum AP level can often only leave you doing one to two attacks before having to stop for a second and recharge leaving combat feeling unsatisfying, you can expand this by blindsiding enemies or just-defend blocking attacks up to a much larger level that will let your inner combo fiend have fun. however getting hit will decrease your AP and there are some enemies with multi hitting attacks that can really chew up and spit out your AP very quickly. There is a flow to combat that isn’t too hard to catch onto, but with some enemies not being able to be blindsided and blocking being a little finicky if you ask me it isn’t exactly the smoothest experience. Some times. However the worst part is that loading a save sets your AP back to minimum, which turn the solid checkpointing the game has into a double edged sword against bosses; as you can restart the fight but since its loading a save you go into to fight with minimum AP, and most if not all bosses are immune to blindsides…

So the combat is fun, if not without issue, so far so Tri-Ace, but what makes it not feel ‘Star-Oceany’? whilst from the first game on SNES star ocean has always had context sensitive positional commands; normal attacks would change if you used them at closer vs long range and depending on the game special attacks could be assigned at various ranges as well. This was mostly a novelty and visual wow factor in the 2D games (1 &2) buy with the jump to 3D attacks started having more effects, like launching and knockback, that allowed for some interesting combos and depth all with a distinct pace to things. Now the series notoriously tends to fall into Special attack spam in the late game making this depth kind of pointless but star Ocean 6’s solution is to throw the baby out with the bath water and completely change things rather than try to fix this reoccurring balance issue; though I suppose after 3-5 games without having successfully done that maybe that was the smart move but I still miss that unique feel of old Star Ocean combat.

So as for Item Creation? I can’t say its bad, a bit obtuse and heavy on RNG, but not bad. If you’ve played any version of Star Ocean 1 or 2, its like that, but with less creation types (7 compared to 10 in SO2) and the fact that Equipment crafting (engineering, Smithing, and Crafting) can generate random effects on equipment and you can move these around using synthesis. Whilst I prefer the more deterministic recipe driven crafting of 4 and 5 (though it took the wind and fun out cooking if you ask me), I won’t say this one doesn’t work its just not how I would prefer to see it done. There are even some quality-of-life features that make it easier to deal with such as retrying a creation, allowing to try for a different result up to 2 times when crafting an item without consuming additional materials (only more money), assuming your skill in said IC type is high enough. However the money aspect is a big issue high level/late game crafting is extremely expensive and money while far from rare is not easy to come by in the amounts needed and I say this as someone who took advantage of the hidden book publishing mechanic in the game which is one of the better ways to make money in game. Maybe this is less of an issue once you hit post-game (haven’t gotten into it yet, with the final boss beaten I’m taking a brief break from the game before jumping into that) which if so is annoying but not problematic since keeping at a comparable power level through the main game just from buying/finding equipment rather than crafting it is very doable (though I might have been a bit over leveled as I never turned down a chance to engage with he combat and spent a decent amount of time farting around with side quests) so IC might be more a post-game (or break the main game at any cost) thing all but exclusively.

Besides these the story Is pretty cool on paper and the characters are fun and interesting, though it does feel a bit aimless for the first 1/3-1/2 of the game (the plot sees you are traveling from town to town trying to find some people getting involved in local affairs or otherwise getting side tracked along the way) but once you get to the main plot gets started your dealing empires fighting, double crosses, governmental corruption, familial legacy, and the march of evolution and progress. Honestly in the moment to moment it can get a bit anime tropes and melodrama, but since my favorite Star Ocean Game is 4 (aka anime space opera melodrama with an optional side of harem anime bullshit and a plot point taken almost full cloth from a Futurama episode) that almost makes it better. This probably has the best character from the Kenny lineage in the form of Marielle Kenny (and not just because she is solid Waifu material but without going into details that familial legacy bit I mentioned leads to some great moments with her). Also the games big game long optional Mini Game, Es’owa was surprising to me: from what I knew going in I expected Fantasy Chess with a TCG element and instead got Fantasy Go with TCG elements; which feels like it shouldn’t be a game changing improvement but damn if I didn’t enjoy it.

I suppose the fact ive been going for two whole pages about this game kind of gives it away, but my thoughts on this game are very mixed but less in the quality (its really good and if you like Action JRPGS like Tales of Series or prior Star Ocean Games it gets a strong recommendation from me and you should play it) and more in that its not the game I would have wanted for Star Ocean 6. But ultimately if the series goes forward like this I’m not going to be too upset but if the series goes back to something like 4’s gameplay but with this level of quality… lets say you might not be able to pry me off the ceiling.

BONUS ROUND: Umaibo (umi-bo?) food review.

So if you have played any prior Star Ocean Games you’ve likely come across this stuff in game as a food item. Well, since in SO6 I came across it more so then in prior ones I started looking into it, wondering if there was some background lore to this reoccurring in game food item across the series only to learn it’s a real Japanese snack food. So I ordered a variety pack off of Amazon and have to say its good shit. Its basically a big corn puff covered in flavor dust; think Cheetos but instead of a bag of small corn puffs it’s a large individually wrapped one (which also makes it easier to eat without getting flavor dust all over your hands). It also comes in a variety of flavors (though since SO 6 has options like Salami, Shrimp and Mayo, Natto, and veggie salad i suppose that’s not too surprising). Personally I think nmy favorite has been the Tonkatsu sauce flavor but to be honest they’ve all been good (also my Japanese wasn’t the greatest at its best and I’m rather rusty so I’m not entirely sure what a lot of the flavors are supposed to be)

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon



So I wasn’t initially interested in Street Fighter 6 across SF4 and SF5 I tended to feel while the game had cool ideas the general pace and very link based combo stylings never quite jived with me (suppose cutting me teeth in fighting games being on the likes of Virtua Fighter 4:evolution, Dead or Alive Hardcore/DOA3, and Guilty Gear X/GGXX) and I had basically written that Street Fighter would not be my fighting game of choice on any meaningful way so no need to rush into buying the next game. But then they revealed the World Tour mode (also: Drive Gauge as a stamina gauge like system fueling a greatest hits collection of prior SF game’s unique mechanics (also also: something something Juri is back, something something they gave her back Kaisen Dankairaku) ).

Now I tend be rather fascinated by (the concept) of Single Player modes in Fighting games as a way of on-boarding new players. The thing is most fighting games don’t try to do this; the genre standard seems to be Arcade mode and/or Cinematic stories maybe even with some tutorials of varying quality. And while these are not bad things in their own right, fighting games tend to have a perception of being hard fueled more by their lack of onboarding (read teaching and acclimatizing players to mechanics and gameplay loops) than actual difficulty (at least in comparison to other multiplayer or complex single player games) and cutscenes interspersed with more or less randomly chosen (from a gameplay outlook at least) doesn’t do much for the onboarding process, at least without a lot more legwork and extra mechanics that you never really see.

So all that preamble out of the way what did I think of World Tour mode: I can’t say its bad but I almost feel like that’s as much due the low bar set by the industry as it is the a product of the game mode itself. In short terms the idea of an action RPG that uses the actual fighting game combat as its battle system is a solid idea that SF6 manages to deliver on in good enough shape despite what feel like some questionable design decisions; The biggest double edged swords are the levelling and equipment systems.

The leveling system is the bigger of the two as the equipment systems issues are kind of just powered up version of problems present in the leveling system; that is to say raw stat increases. Now the leveling idea in general is a really good one; starting with only normals/basic buttons with only one special move and having to level up to learn new special moves and unlock the ability to expand the number of special moves you can use in a fight helps with the onboarding process as you start with the basics and helping avoid using the more powerful special moves as a crutch while also keeping players from falling to the mindset of special moves being the only thing that matters (and thus not being able to perform them meaning you can’t play). That said the idea of raw stat buffs goes rather counter to fighting games; getting ‘stronger’ only happens from learning to use the tools available to you (either using your regularly used tools better/differently than before, or just using tools you had but didn’t use for whatever reason) and the idea of just grinding to the next level to get a power boost (or getting the right gear) doesn’t have a parallel in more standard fight game play.

The worst part is that even setting aside this specific lens I’ve been looking at the game through even as just a nifty single player side mode its mostly kind of meh: quests are very one note being either fetch quests or fighting, movement id very one note with master actions being more Zelda items used to solve navigation puzzles and reach hidden items more than movement mechanics, the non 1v1 fights in the game get old very quick as the enemies are too weak and numerous most of the time, and the story is kind of nothingburger that’s really about a nobody NPC (rather than you created character or any of the known street fighter cast) who has an interesting story but it all happens after they all but leave the story during act 1 but you are neither involved nor privy to any of it until said character barrels back into the story in time for the finale.

Looking over all this I might be coming off as overly negative. And while I’m not about to take back my grievances I’m also not about to say it its bad, I put 30+ hours into it and might put some more (after all that investment I might as well actually unlock everyone’s costume 2, though given I plan to main Juri with Manon as an I’m bored/lets mix things up for a bit secondary and prefer their costume 1 (and also now 3) not sure if that’s going to be worth doing). Not to mention I feel like this Stret Fighter might be more my vibe then I was thinking before playing this so guess it did something right.

Anyways all but guaranteed I’m not done with SF6 and will likely head online and maybe even try to git gud as the kids say (do they say that about fighting games?) so maybe I’ll see you in the battlehub (currently figuring Saturday evenings (UTC-7) will be my fighting game time going into next year if you want to play)


see you in the battlehub

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon




It’s not exactly a hot take to say this game is really amazing, solo dev or not, and while I’m not about to say any different I feel an asterix is needed next to that statement. Put simply to me this was a mostly decent game that becomes amazing once you have unlocked a decent number of the abilities.

At the start of the game it feels like a good if not terribly inspired action platformer, from a mechanical standpoint at least, and even throws a very early boss fight at you despite the games combat being its weakest component in my opinion. After this the game starts and you are free to wander around and explore but until you unlock a few abilities its mostly dead ends and rote platforming.

Now what I just described might sound like Metroidvania design 101, and yeah it is, but in most good Metroidvanias the moveset feels like your building from a strong base rather than starting like you’ve been stripped down form an amazing base to the bare minimum to be playable and re gaining that amazing base back.
Its hard to explain but the early game was just no fun to me and given where the game ends up that’s a little annoying. Though honestly the lack of a map and the amount of time I spent lost until finding an external one probably didn’t help.

i can also be found at:
https://www.deviantart.com/bardicdragoon


This is probably the Best Hentai/porn game I’ve played. Too clarify I have played better games that would fall under the umbrella of porn/hentai games but many of them I feel like don’t work as porn/hentai games as it were; most often the games are basically interactive sex sims (e.g. make your on CG porno) or they are games whose reward structure is porn (e.g. you finished the level now look at this sexy lady) and they never quite fit the sex and gameplay together. So what makes a good hentai/porn game? Well, integrating the smut and the gameplay together in good measure.

In a gameplay sense this game is pretty basic action platformer rougelite in the style of rouge legacy; decent enough and enjoyable but nothing to write home about, especially for the roueglite elements as builds are very samey in the playstyle and runs kind of blend together after awhile. However the game is unapologetically horny and throws some sex or kink material at you in natural way that does not interrupt gameplay in any meaningful way. The most prominent one is that chests and upgrade shrines all result in short sex scenes. For example the first chest I stumbled on was a mini giantess on all fours, I walked up press interact and my character began fisting the giantess who after a few seconds orgasmed and dropped a weapon. Every few rooms you come across something like that with the section in between featuring light platforming and combat with a host of monstergirls and the like. And while the enemies being naked monstergirls is usually not a good thing in and of itself (if you’ve ever seen Awesome Gaiden the joke with Ayane is the easiest way to put how I feel about the idea) but this game makes it so there is a small chance that when you defeat an enemy the become stunned and you can interact with them to start a short timing mini-game which if completed successfully grants bonus currency/experience. Bosses will similarly allow you to trigger a much longer timing mini game potentially getting 3 random stat boosts if done well.

Like I said the game itself is fine, but really most of the fun comes from seeing what the next random bit of smut its going to throw at you with a consistent tongue in cheek sense of humor, in between these is good, though not quite great, action platforming gameplay. However it kind of fails on the replayability front and once you’ve reached the end and seen most if not all the content there isn’t really much reason to keep playing.