So I haven't put down a review for a while. I'd been playing Assassin's Creed: Odyssey which sucked a whole 100+ hours out of me (and probably took a piece of my soul with it), and couldn't quite find the right words to review it. After that, I've seen and played quite a few more things, so here's a quick rapid-fire round of Third Party Reviews!

Assassin's Creed Odyssey gets a 7.5 out of 10. It's a great game, by all measures. The first true RPG in Assassin's Creed history, and Kassandra is such a great protagonist. It does suffer from some RPG growing pains, but it's a step in the right direction for the franchise, in my opinion.

Sunset Overdrive gets a 7 out of 10. I'm so glad this game came to PC. It was the one game I'd ever considered buying an Xbox One to play, and now I don't have to! Sunset Overdrive is a great, quirky and funny shooter that you really have to play to understand. It has it's fair share of flaws, namely a number of graphical issues, and sometimes repetitive gameplay, but overall it was fun and I'm really happy to have finally played it.

Netflix's Carmen Sandiego (Season 1) gets a 8.5 out of 10. It's becoming quite apparent that Netflix's animation department can do no wrong. Carmen Sandiego is a fantastic reboot of the franchise, turning it into a narrative cartoon rather than a gameshow. In many ways it feels similar to a Superhero series, with many fantastical thieves with different specialties that'd be at home in a Marvel movie.

Netflix's The Umbrella Academy (Season 1) gets an 7.5 out of 10. I didn't hear too much about this one before it released, and decided to give it a shot on a whim. It's pretty good. The plot is definitely aping off of Marvel's X-Men series (and a specific plotline that I won't reveal here), but done with a more adult audience in mind. All the "heroes" are flawed humans, with their own problems that you can definitely sympathize with. Won't say much more, other than that Klaus, unexpectedly, became my favorite by the end. Go Klaus!

Netflix's The Dragon Prince (Season 2) gets a 8.5 out of 10. I'd rate the previous season about that high as well. They've definitely smoothed out the animation issues I'd had with the first season, and though it's not perfect, it is absolutely fun and enjoyable! My biggest complaint is that it's only 9 episodes long! By the end of the season I was left craving more!

Let me start this review off by saying I never watched any of the previous Voltron cartoons. I was only vaguely aware of their existence, and when the first season of Voltron: Legendary Defender premiered on Netflix, I didn't give it much thought. But when my friend Fenoxo and I were looking for something to watch, we figured we'd give it a shot. Like me, he had never seen the original or any other iteration, so we went in with precisely zero expectations. I think it says something that we often say to each other, "This show has no right being so good."

Voltron: Legendary Defender is a sci-fi action, adventure, comedy featuring the typical cast of plucky kids, who seemingly have been chosen to save the universe against the forces of evil. The premise sounds cheesy, and I would certainly forgive anyone for rolling their eyes upon hearing it, but it's the execution that takes this show above and beyond.

The first thing is the cast. Everyone on the main cast is an absolute delight. While the character of Lance was sort of annoying in the first few seasons as the comedic jokester, he really matured and became a truly enjoyable and three dimensional character towards the end of the series. Keith's character, often jumped the line between interesting and annoying, as he was the stoic loner who didn't need anyone, but again as the series progressed he began to shed that rather overplayed trope and became a living breathing character. The other characters (Allura, Coran, Pidge, Hunk, and Shiro) I took a shine to almost immediately, though I'm a little disappointed that two of my favorite characters (Hunk and Coran), didn't seem to get a good character-defining arc that all the others seemed to get. The side characters are also great, although seldom used. When introduced to what Fenoxo and I called the "B-Team" on Earth, four fighter pilots and a few others, I desperately wished they would get their own spin-off show, or a few more episodes to call their own, but alas it was not meant to be.

The second thing the show has going for it is the visual design: everything from the animation itself to the design of the aliens, ships and planets. Planets are especially visually striking, completely impossible in reality, but that fit right in in this universe. The ships are all incredibly well designed too, especially the Galra ships, and the Human-built Atlas cruiser, which might become one of my favorite ships in all science fiction. Likewise the aliens are especially alien, in ways that would only work in animation. Speaking of, the animation is absolutely phenomenal throughout the series. Whether it's a gun/sword fight in the hallways of a Galra cruiser, or a massive space battle between multiple ships, the Lions, or Voltron itself, everything looks fantastic.

Third is the writing, which is witty and smart. Good for kids, but not too watered down for adults. This seems to be a growing trend in cartoons in general, especially what I've seen coming out of Netflix, and it's a welcome change as an ever-aging cartoon-watching dinosaur.

That's not to say the show isn't without its faults. There are a few mediocre "filler" episodes, though thankfully they are few and far between. As mentioned some really interesting characters get introduced, but then don't show up until the end of the series (if they show up again at all), and then there's the villain problem. The three main villains in Voltron are basically one family: Zarkon, his wife Honerva (aka Haggar), and their son Lotor. Zarkon, the first villain, is the typical power-hungry universe-dominator. He cackles, he plots, and all he wants to do is take over the entire universe. Honerva is the final villain, and she's basically batshit crazy.

Lotor is the middle villain and kind of the odd one out. It felt like the writers didn't quite know what they wanted to do with Lotor, or at least that they didn't have enough time to do it. He jumped from possible good-guy to maniacal overlord quick enough to give me whiplash. Lotor's allies (a trio of female soldiers from various alien races) also jumped around a lot from "we're just plucky mercenaries who could totally become good guys" to "yeah we love torture and stuff, Hail Evil Overlord Lotor" to "yeah nevermind all that we're going to help you Voltron people out", in such a way that wasn't particularly satisfying at the end. My theory is that the writing team thought they'd have more seasons to flesh out Lotor's descent into madness before jumping into Honerva's plotline, but were forced to speed up the timeline out of the blue. I could be totally wrong about that, but that's just the impression I got from watching.

All in all, however, the bad doesn't outweigh the good, and Voltron is a fantastic cartoon and is the reason I look forward to any animation project coming out of Netflix. I'm giving Voltron: Legendary defender an 8.5 out of 10. It has its problems, but when you get down to it, it's just an enjoyable ride from start to finish. Who can ask for much more?

Well, I can. The Voltron universe laid out here would be fantastic for a Mass Effect-like RPG. Please, any AAA Developer out there, make it happen!

So I'm writing this review only a couple hours after having seen the film itself. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an animated film from Columbia Pictures, and Sony Pictures Animation, in association with Marvel Entertainment. When this movie was announced, I was skeptical. After all, we'd just gotten a fantastic new Spider-Man with Spider-Man Homecoming. Spider-Man was right back he belonged, with Marvel. Then Sony began announcing all sorts of solo projects. Venom, Black Cat & Silver Sable, and then they announced the animated Spider-Man movie that would have no connection to the MCU. It felt to me at the time that Sony was trying to have their cake and eat it too. Venom helped solidify that viewpoint, with news about the studio meddling, cutting out large chunks of the movie, and the fact that it was rated PG-13.

My apprehension disappeared almost immediately as the movie started. Into the Spider-Verse is a fantastic animated movie, one with a near perfect sense of timing and flow. There was never a point in the movie that bored me or dragged on too long. The action sequences paired well with the moments of downtime, leading into the next action moment.

Into the Spider-Verse tells the origin of Miles Morales, a new version of Spider-Man that I think led into Marvel's hit-or-miss "All-New, All-Different" brand, which is a welcome change of pace to the constant retelling of Peter Parker's origins (which the film lampshades wonderfully on a few different occasions). It is also an adaptation of the Spider-Verse storyline, though a pared down version, which leads us to our ancillary protagonists: Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy, both from other universes. We also get Peni Parker and Sp//dr, Noir Spider-Man, and Peter Porker as side characters, who sort of serve as minor comedic relief (and Nicholas Cage as Noir Spider-Man is absolutely fantastic), but are relatively unimportant to the overall narrative, which is focused on Miles, Peter and Gwen in that order.

Without going into spoiler territory, the action that follows is fantastic. Seeing not one but multiple Spider-People swinging around, and beating up bad guys is a great visual that's going to be hard for Marvel to top in future movies. And if that were all the movie offered, it'd still be a good movie. But it also has an emotional impact as a movie about a kid learning who he is and what he can be in this world, struggling with his family and his entire identity as a person, and the two sides of the film are juggled perfectly.

I've got to give Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse a whopping 10 out of 10. The comic-style animations of the film are solid and visually pleasing throughout, the story never seems to falter, and our main protagonists are all compelling characters in their own right. Where the movie falters, I think is when it comes to the villain. The reasoning behind their villainous deeds is a little heavy handed, but given the length of the movie, I can see why they didn't flesh out the backstory more. Otherwise this is a fantastic movie. Possibly the best Spider-Man movie (or Superhero movie) ever made, and certainly one of the best movies of the year.

Okay, it's time for episode two of my review series! The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, really needs no introduction, but here it goes. Breath of the Wild is the latest installment in the long running Legend of Zelda series. It's the first LoZ I've ever played, though I am somewhat familiar with the series thanks to popular culture and watching Game Grumps play through several of them.

I played Breath of the Wild in roughly two chunks, firstly when I first got my Nintendo Switch, around about Christmas time last year. I beat several of the "temples" within the game, but then put it down to give other games a shot for a while. I only recently picked it back up again, finished off the temples, completed the DLC, got the majority of the shrines, and then beat the game, and I have to say, this game is absolutely massive. There's so much stuff to do and see, you could spend weeks and weeks playing this game and never see it all, but this comes with a bit of an asterisk.

While there is a lot to see, much of it can feel a bit samey. There's only a few different enemy types, and they don't really evolve as you progress through the game. Tougher versions of enemies just have more hit points, and hit point sponges never feel very fun to fight. Likewise sometimes the game's "Shrines", small challenges contained in a single area, can feel a bit repetitious. For the most part, they're all clever and surprisingly intricate. You might spend several minutes trying to puzzle out one Shrine, and then have it all just click, which is very satisfying. On the other hand, many of the shrines are simple combat challenges against one enemy type of varying difficulties. This enemy can have a few different armaments, but the fight almost always plays out the same way, and I always found myself dreading the combat shrines not because they're difficult but because they're tedious, and I'd already done a dozen of them (or so it felt).

You can also find hidden Koroks, little plant-like fellas with leaf masks, as you travel, and they serve as a sort of collectible. Nearly everywhere you go in the world, you can probably find a Korok lurking nearby if you just know where to look. Sometimes it's obvious where the Koroks lurk: in an incomplete stone circle that you have to finish with a nearby rock; or underneath a rock on a hilltop. Othertimes it's less obvious. While exploring the game's towns, I frequently came across little shrines to the Goddess Hylia, where several apples were in baskets. I had no idea that adding apples to the empty baskets revealed a korok until I picked the game back up. If you're a completionist, getting all the Koroks will be a quest unto itself (well, unless you look them up online, but where's the fun in that?), given that there's a whopping 900 of the cute little fellas to find.

The real core of the game, however, I feel is the temples. The so-called "Divine Beasts", dungeon-like robot beasts you have to explore and conquer, and those I found to be quite simple and straight-forward, but in a good way. I never felt completely lost inside a Divine Beast, like I have inside some particularly challenging shrines. Each Divine Beast offers a dynamic way of altering the dungeon, which is integral to solving the challenges that lie within it, which made each feel unique and amazing in their own ways.

The DLC for the game was a little underwhelming, at least at first. I picked up all the DLC before I beat the four divine beasts, so the only content I could access was a few armor pieces I really struggled to find. I experimented with the Master Sword Trials, but found that mode to be far too punishing for my liking, and in retrospect it might have been those Trials that caused me to put the game down for nearly a year. When I returned, however, I completed the fourth divine beast and started to do the Champion's Ballad DLC, which added several new shrines and challenges, all of which I felt were fantastic. It gave me even more reason to explore the world and find areas I'd never even seen before, and returning to fight the bosses I'd previously defeated (with a limited arsenal of weaponry to boot) was a challenge I actually looked forward to. And after defeating them all, I was rewarded with yet another Divine Beast dungeon, one that was particularly challenging, followed by an impressively difficult boss fight (probably more difficult than the actual fight against Ganon). And the reward for all of this was definitely worth it: the Master Cycle Zero, a motorcycle capable of traversing the landscape with ease. This was amazing for me, since I had hardly ever bothered with horses in the game previously. Keeping a horse meant forsaking fast travel for the most part, and I could not part with that convenience, and so the motorcycle was a true godsend to my travels.

The final challenge, assaulting Hyrule Castle, was fun if a little short. It seems to have been laid out to cater to a variety of playstyles. Many will charge in, sword a swingin', hacking their way through the castle's seemingly endless supply of robot guardians. For me, though, I went in the back door, avoided most fights, and made my way up to the final boss' room without much fuss at all. While I definitely appreciate this approach, I almost wish that Hyrule Castle functioned more like a Divine Beast, requiring me to make my way through several puzzles and combat encounters before getting to the final boss, but that's just a thought.

With all that said, I've got to give Breath of the Wild a respectable 9 out of 10. It's a fantastic game with a seemingly endless amount of content to explore (even if some of that content is a bit repetitive).

(I couldn't find a way to work it into my review, but goddamn, I hate the weapon durability system of this game. I feel it could easily be removed, and the game wouldn't actually lose a thing.)

Hello everyone, Third here. I'm going to try something new and slap it down here in my journals page: reviews. I play a modest amount of video games, and see the occasional movie and TV series, and sometimes I have things to say about them. For lack of a better place to slap strangers with my random thoughts, I figured what the heck, I'll throw them down here on FA!

So first up, my review of Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee!

Specifically, I have the Eevee edition, because Eevee is clearly the better option, even if it refuses to evolve in this game.

Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu & Eevee (forevermore abbreviated as LGPE) is a remake of the Generation 1 game Pokemon Yellow, upgraded for the Switch. I actually owned and played Yellow along with Blue (I believe I got Red much, much later to complete the trifecta), so playing through this definitely gave me the warm fuzzies of nostalgia. I missed the old towns of Kanto, the Diglett Tunnel, the Pokemon Tower, and I missed Pokemon Gyms (sorry Sun and Moon!).

LGPE boasts updated graphics, which only feels slightly upgraded from the recent 3DS games, but in most other respects it takes a few steps backwards. Only the original 151 Pokemon are catchable (plus a few Alolan Pokemon and Meltan/Melmetal); there are no held items; and Pokemon don't have abilities anymore. This all fits with the original Pokemon Yellow, but it definitely feels like there's something missing, since we've been used to held items since Generation 2, and abilities since Generation 3.

The other major change, and in my opinion the worst one of the bunch, is the adoption of the catching mechanic from Pokemon Go. Instead of battling wild Pokemon, weakening them, and catching them, you jump right into the catching them part, throwing pokeball after pokeball at your target until the RNG lottery decides it's caught. This to me doesn't feel right. It feels boring at best, and frustrating at worst, since the Pokemon can move out of the way, or the ball can just miss the target for no discernible reason. And if a pokeball misses its target, it's lost forever. I can sort of understand the concept of a ball being destroyed if a wild Pokemon escapes from it, but a missed ball should just be sitting there, letting you pick it up again.

Add on to that the fact that this mechanic is entirely motion-control based, and you've got a recipe for disaster. On many occasions I've thrown the ball straight forward and for whatever reason, it veers off to the side. Playing in hand-held mode only slightly waters down the motion controls, so at least you aren't trying to chuck your whole Switch, but there is no way to eliminate the motion controls altogether, which is a definite mark against it.

Pokemon Battles function normally, thankfully, and are the game's strongest feature. One thing I've noticed in Pokemon Sun & Moon is that there seem to be far fewer enemy trainers to face off against in any given route, and those that do exist typically only have one or two Pokemon, which isn't much of a challenge. LGPE, since it copies Yellow, is back to the old school routes that are filled with trainers, sometimes boasting 3 or 4 Pokemon. Getting through some of the longer routes actually can be a challenge, at least early on... which leads me into my next point.

Eevee is OP as fuck. I wouldn't have thought it at first. In fact, I had my reservations about picking Eevee, since as a normal type it has no solid resistances (immunity to Ghost is nice), and normal-type moves aren't strong against anything. At least Pikachu learns electric moves and can be good against water and flying. Those reservations were dispelled upon entering Cerulean City and encountering a Move Tutor who can teach your Eeevee brand new moves based upon each potential Eeveelution (so there's a water, electric, fire, psychic, dark, grass, ice, and fairy type move). He first teaches you only the first three (water, electric and fire), and you unlock more by beating gyms, and let me tell you, these moves are fantastic. Each one has a base power of 90, and 100 accuracy, and all have a fantastic secondary effect (the water one heals you for 50% of the damage dealt, the electric one paralyzes the opponent, and the fire one burns the opponent, for example). Basically, my Eevee became a murderous tank that could annihilate any Pokemon in its way. I ended up keeping the original three moves and swapping the fourth one around depending on where I was traveling to next, and my Eevee has never been knocked out. There's very little reason to use any other Pokemon, which is a bit of a shame, but admittedly in the end this is a choice of mine. You could easily play the game by training an elite team of six Pokemon as normal... but Eevee is just so good it covers nearly every base by itself.

By the midpoint of the game, I was simply making a party of Eevee, Alolan Ninetales (I liked having her out and following me for my adventures), and then just four random Pokemon I was leveling up simply to evolve. I've never filled my Pokedex faster than this. Unfortunately, I sincerely doubt my Pokedex will ever be completed thanks to one small fact... Trading Pokemon online now requires you to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription. Unless I fork out $4 a month, I can't trade with my friends online. So no Alakazam, Golem, Gengar, or Machamp, and certainly no Pokemon that are exclusive to Let's Go Pikachu. In the 3DS games, online trading is free, and the one online service they do offer (Pokemon Bank) is a fucking tremendous deal at $5 a YEAR. It almost feels like a microtransaction fee: "Pay us more money to get temporary access to the rest of the game you've already paid $100 to play!"

All in all, LGPE is an enjoyable, nostalgic romp that's marred by some questionable decisions. (Please, Gamefreak, ditch the Pokemon Go mechanics when working on Generation 8. Please.) It's still fun, and now that I've beaten it there's plenty more to do that wasn't available in the original Yellow (such as beating all the MASTER Trainers out there, which promises to be a challenge, and shiny hunting!), so I'll definitely be playing it more in the future.

Overall I'm going to give LGPE a 7/10. It's not a bad game for sure, but it doesn't quite stack up as a full Pokemon experience, which is unfortunate.

Thanks for sticking through my review/rant. I'll probably do a few more of these in the future. I've got some things to say about various other games, movies and shows.

Aaaand I'm another year older (yesterday). I'm not too thrilled, buuuut it's not too bad I guess. Had some nice cake, had some fun playing games, can't complain there!

Took another of those silly BDSM tests. Not too surprised by my results. I really do dislike humiliation and pain, and I <3 loving Dom/sub relationships.

== Results from http://bdsmtest.org/ ==
93% Bondage Giver
89% Experimentalist
89% Switch
71% Voyeur
68% Daddy/Mommy
66% Non-monogamist
64% Girl/Boy
63% Bondage Receiver
63% Dominant
58% Exhibitionist
55% Brat Tamer
41% Master/Mistress
33% Brat
30% Primal (Prey)
29% Submissive
29% Vanilla
25% Slave
22% Primal (Predator)
21% Pervert
13% Masochist
9% Degradation Receiver
7% All-Rounder
4% Sadist
0% Degradation Giver
See my results online at http://bdsmtest.org/result.php?id=57158

Why is it, in TG-oriented porn, the man the gets TG'ed inevitably ends up as some horny fuckslut for a guy? Occasionally it's for a girl, but it's usually in a "you're less than a man, now get over here and lick my pussy" sort of way. Why is this so prevalent? It's driving me nuts.

I identify mainly as a Dom, not a sub; and as attracted to women, so there's always been a bit of a dearth between my tastes and TG-porn, but I've been able to enjoy it for the most part. Except I started hormones seven months ago, and that can influence one's tastes considerably. What I'm finding is that the majority of TG-oriented porn, which I used to enjoy, now infuriates me to no end. Horrible breaches of trust are so commonplace, identity-destruction is akin to death to me, and chastity, which I never cared much for to begin with, is such a fucking boner-killer (haha. no really.). The humiliation, sexism and abuse that runs rampant in such porn is now jumping out and slapping me in the face, saying "NO! You can't enjoy this!"

Why is there no porn where a guy turns into a girl/trap/shemale/futa/whatever and takes on a more dominant role, especially with a girl? Even one of my favorite TG-oriented stories of all time "Of Heroes And Villains", which is awesome and shows the mindset of a transgender person really well, the main character is still submissive in bed. Sigh. Are people like me that rare? Am I really all alone in this?

Arg. Rant over. Sorry if I'm rambling and being all weird, I just had to get that off my chest.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanza, Festivus, All-Inclusive Nondenominational Festive Gift-Giving Season, or whatever you celebrate!

A friend of mine is down on their luck at the moment, and is doing a bit of a donation drive! Head on over to their journal and see the deal they're offering!

http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14079561/

First official day on hormones! Huzzah!

So I wanna do something new and different, so feel free to ask my characters anything! Preferably Aliss ( http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12451744/ ), as I wanna do it sort of as a character-building exercise. But any character is fine! I'll answer, in character, to the best of my ability!

Oh joy. Tomorrow I'll be another year older. While I'm not necessarily on the verge of breaking down anymore, I'm certainly not, well, upbeat much right now. The older I get, the less my body will respond to hormones... and that saddens me. I've whiled away my life hiding and assuring myself "I'll get over it". Whelp, I never did.

Tomorrow I think I'll celebrate this ticking doom counter by getting smashed and playing some Titanfall!

I am on the verge of breaking down again. It's not even my birthday yet, but already I can feel the weight of time bearing down on me. I'm almost 28. Unemployed. Living in my parent's house. Horribly depressed. And to make it all worse, I've been hiding something from every one of you. Something that makes it painful to maintain a cheery facade during some conversations.

I am transgender. Just like my good friends Sinarra, and Frogapus. I've just kept it holed up, afraid of what it might mean for the truth to get out. How people might treat me differently. "It explains so much," they'll say. "His... her... THEY'RE obsession with voice modification. Is that why they write traps?" Certain jokes suddenly go off the table. Voices will get hushed when I enter a conversation. Awkward whispers when I leave.

I know, consciously, that it doesn't matter. Everyone's dealt with Sinarra, they've dealt with Frogapus. They'll deal with me too, right? Everyone will be accepting. But I can't help but second guess myself. It's what I do. I can't help but think, maybe I'm the odd one out, maybe no one even cares about me. It's why I've kept it all under wraps for so long. I just wanted to keep things the way they are. But I realized how counterproductive that is. My entire life, I've just tried to keep things as they are. And it's held me back for so long. I need to move forward. I just can't go another year with nothing happening.

So this year I'm going to try and change. This means yes, I'm coming out. You don't have to call me "she" or "her" yet. It's fine, it'll take time for me to present as female, if I ever can.
It also means I'm going to be seeing a doctor for my depression and anxieties. I'm unsure as yet how I'm going to pay for all this. I already owe Fenoxo plenty of writing, so I can't take more commissions. I'm sure I'll figure something out. Maybe I'll set up a donation thing, like a friend suggested.

So yeah. Here I am, out to the world. Now I'm going to just go sit over here and stress about how everyone is reacting to this.

So of course I've been playing the new pokemon game since it came out. If anyone wants another buddy for their Safari zone or stuff like that, add me!

My friend code: 0533-5302-8352

After seeing some others do this quiz(, , ), I gave it a shot and here's the results.

You Scored as Switch



--Switch
100%
--Experimental
89%
--Dominant
57%
--Bondage
57%
--Submissive
54%
--Sadist
29%
--Masochist
21%
--Exhibitionist / Voyeur
21%
--Degradation
21%
--Vanilla
14%

You can take it here

Another year older.
Another year wiser.
Still makes me realize everything I haven't done in life.

Gotta get writing! Gotta get healthy! Gotta get creative!

Thanks to  Fenoxo for Bioshock Infinite! <3 No homo
Thanks much to  pervertedDemoniac for the delicious cupcakes! <3 All the homo (or hetero)