Anime - coasting on emotion rollers

[LittleArmadillo0]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Marshall would be so happy now that someone finally wants his cheese.

The actual reason for this post was that we, or more accurately, I, asked everyone who popped in here if they'd like to watch Sailor Moon with us, which was next to Steven Universe and JoJo's Bizarre adventure the dominating topic of the past... 65 or so pages. Almost everyone immediately left, only InsaneCommander stuck around. I think it's fair to say that he enjoyed it.

You wouldn't happen to have watched it? I mean, it's 30 years old by now... 

Other recent topics were Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Attack No. 1, Goblin Slayer, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Castlevania.

For Jojo? I think I’ve watched up to the second half of Stardust Crusaders. I really need to get back to watching that show. It's such a good mix of over the top and ridiculous action I crave.

Spoiler

I believe I stopped at either episode 30 or 31 with the stand user Mariah with Bastet. Nothing will ever top the hollering I belted out when I watched Joseph and Abdul trying to detach themselves. 

 

 

[majestic]

24 minutes ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

For Jojo? I think I’ve watched up to the second half of Stardust Crusaders. I really need to get back to watching that show. It's such a good mix of over the top and ridiculous action I crave.

  Reveal hidden contents

I believe I stopped at either episode 30 or 31 with the stand user Mariah with Bastet. Nothing will ever top the hollering I belted out when I watched Joseph and Abdul trying to detach themselves. 

 

 

I think only @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP and myself are watching JoJo's, and I'm close to the end of Battle Tendency now while I'm certain that KP's watched it at least twice by now.

We're actually really all in this thread because we watched Sailor Moon together and more or less told (more like hinted at, but you know) to stop spamming the TV thread with it... I re-watched it, the others saw it for the first time. It's been a quarter of a century and I still had a blast with it. With some... exceptions. Then myself and KP watched Steven Universe on @Bartimaeus's recommendation, which was in part at least inspired by Sailor Moon as it was a huge influence on Rebecca Sugar. Among other anime of course, full of references as it is and all.

That's everything in a nutshell. Except Madoka, which KP and IC also watched. If you're in the mood for something bubbly, happy and pink, check out the trailer:

Assuming you aren't familiar with the franchise, anyway.

Spoiler

In which case this gentle trolling attempt just failed hard.

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

41 minutes ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

For Jojo? I think I’ve watched up to the second half of Stardust Crusaders. I really need to get back to watching that show. It's such a good mix of over the top and ridiculous action I crave.

  Reveal hidden contents

I believe I stopped at either episode 30 or 31 with the stand user Mariah with Bastet. Nothing will ever top the hollering I belted out when I watched Joseph and Abdul trying to detach themselves. 

 

 

Oh man you haven't even seen Iggy's solo episodes yet.

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

I think only @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP and myself are watching JoJo's, and I'm close to the end of Battle Tendency now while I'm certain that KP's watched it at least twice by now.

We're actually really all in this thread because we watched Sailor Moon together and more or less told (more like hinted at, but you know) to stop spamming the TV thread with it... I re-watched it, the others saw it for the first time. It's been a quarter of a century and I still had a blast with it. With some... exceptions. Then myself and KP watched Steven Universe on @Bartimaeus's recommendation, which was in part at least inspired by Sailor Moon as it was a huge influence on Rebecca Sugar. Among other anime of course, full of references as it is and all.

That's everything in a nutshell. Except Madoka, which KP and IC also watched. If you're in the mood for something bubbly, happy and pink, check out the trailer:

Assuming you aren't familiar with the franchise, anyway.

  Reveal hidden contents

In which case this gentle trolling attempt just failed hard.

 

 

[LittleArmadillo0]

20 minutes ago, majestic said:

I think only @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP and myself are watching JoJo's, and I'm close to the end of Battle Tendency now while I'm certain that KP's watched it at least twice by now.

We're actually really all in this thread because we watched Sailor Moon together and more or less told (more like hinted at, but you know) to stop spamming the TV thread with it... I re-watched it, the others saw it for the first time. It's been a quarter of a century and I still had a blast with it. With some... exceptions. Then myself and KP watched Steven Universe on @Bartimaeus's recommendation, which was in part at least inspired by Sailor Moon as it was a huge influence on Rebecca Sugar. Among other anime of course, full of references as it is and all.

That's everything in a nutshell. Except Madoka, which KP and IC also watched. If you're in the mood for something bubbly, happy and pink, check out the trailer:

Assuming you aren't familiar with the franchise, anyway.

  Reveal hidden contents

In which case this gentle trolling attempt just failed hard.

 

I've never really got around to watching Sailor but it has always fascinated me. Is there a specific version you or anybody else would recommend? I heard that there are some big variation when it came to the sub and dub versions.

Very funny majestic but I've watched Madoka Magica. Or as my friend once described it...

Spoiler

Magical Depression Girls

 

15 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Oh man you haven't even seen Iggy's solo episodes yet.

 

I know! I really need to catch up on the series. Hopefully I'll get some free time in a few more weeks and I'll be able to binge it. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by LittleArmadillo0

[majestic]

4 minutes ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

Very funny majestic but I've watched Madoka Magica. Or as my friend once described it...

  Hide contents

Magical Depression Girls

 

Spoiler

There is hope, beyond despair. 

 

Well, it was worth a try.

Just finished the first of the Madoka movies, by the way. Rewatching is well worth the time spent on it, and the film version adds a certain gravitas to some of the scenes (by the way, while he isn't exactly hung up on spoilers, we still have one person left who wants to watch this eventually, so anything spoilerish into spoiler tags... ).

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

10 minutes ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

I've never really got around to watching Sailor but it has always fascinated me. Is there a specific version you or anybody else would recommend? I heard that there are some big variation when it came to the sub and dub versions.

Very funny majestic but I've watched Madoka Magica. Or as my friend once described it...

  Reveal hidden contents

Magical Depression Girls

 

I know! I really need to catch up on the series. Hopefully I'll get some free time in a few more weeks and I'll be able to binge it. 

For Sailor Moon I watched the original anime subbed. Sailor Moon Crystal looks hideous and should be avoided.

The rest of Stardust Crusaders is awesome, and it gets beaten by Diamond is Unbreakable and Golden Wind.

[majestic]

30 minutes ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

I've never really got around to watching Sailor but it has always fascinated me. Is there a specific version you or anybody else would recommend? I heard that there are some big variation when it came to the sub and dub versions.

Yes, if you want to see an English dub, then you really need to watch the new Viz Media version that was released not long ago. The first English dub - while funny in a meme-way - is pretty bad and it also censored some elements and left out episodes.

Hulu, if you have access to that, has the entire show in original with subs.

Either the Viz dub or the original with subtitles should be fine (the dub changes jokes for the better and smoothes out some of the rougher edges). You just need to make sure you watch the original 90ies anime, not the 39 episode long Sailor Moon Crystal, which is a hideous looking and more faithful manga adaptation that is by far and large bad.

Sailor Moon is one of the few cases where the filler made for the anime is actually better than the source material. It's hard to describe properly though, and the first season has a somewhat rocky start, but it gets a lot better past the first 13 episodes or so, around the time the first villain is removed. It's mostly fun with the occasional brilliant character moment though, if you're looking for good action pieces than you'll not really be getting these from the anime, with some very, very rare exceptions at the end of the third season.

The reason why the filler is better is because the manga was written with the mangaka under incredible time strain, so it's more or less just a first draft that went into publishing, and it only got worse once it turned out to be a smash hit and everyone wanted more. The plot is a mess, it feels disjointed, some of the plot points are really... let's call them gross, even, and, yeah, well. I said my piece. Stay way from Crystal at least until you've seen the older show.

edit: One more fair warning, it's an early 90ies production that had a shoestring budget. While it looks really good for that (actually it looks really good anyway), it does have lots of stock footage. Lots and lots of it.

16 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

For Sailor Moon I watched the original anime subbed. Sailor Moon Crystal looks hideous and should be avoided.

Sailor Moon Crystal isn't just hideous, it's also bad. It's the worst of both worlds.

Edited May 3, 2021 by majestic

[LittleArmadillo0]

46 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

For Sailor Moon I watched the original anime subbed. Sailor Moon Crystal looks hideous and should be avoided.

The rest of Stardust Crusaders is awesome, and it gets beaten by Diamond is Unbreakable and Golden Wind.

 

33 minutes ago, majestic said:

Yes, if you want to see an English dub, then you really need to watch the new Viz Media version that was released not long ago. The first English dub - while funny in a meme-way - is pretty bad and it also censored some elements and left out episodes.

Hulu, if you have access to that, has the entire show in original with subs.

Either the Viz dub or the original with subtitles should be fine (the dub changes jokes for the better and smoothes out some of the rougher edges). You just need to make sure you watch the original 90ies anime, not the 39 episode long Sailor Moon Crystal, which is a hideous looking and more faithful manga adaptation that is by far and large bad.

Sailor Moon is one of the few cases where the filler made for the anime is actually better than the source material. It's hard to describe properly though, and the first season has a somewhat rocky start, but it gets a lot better past the first 13 episodes or so, around the time the first villain is removed. It's mostly fun with the occasional brilliant character moment though, if you're looking for good action pieces than you'll not really be getting these from the anime, with some very, very rare exceptions at the end of the third season.

The reason why the filler is better is because the manga was written with the mangaka under incredible time strain, so it's more or less just a first draft that went into publishing, and it only got worse once it turned out to be a smash hit and everyone wanted more. The plot is a mess, it feels disjointed, some of the plot points are really... let's call them gross, even, and, yeah, well. I said my piece. Stay way from Crystal at least until you've seen the older show.

edit: One more fair warning, it's an early 90ies production that had a shoestring budget. While it looks really good for that (actually it looks really good anyway), it does have lots of stock footage. Lots and lots of it.

Sailor Moon Crystal isn't just hideous, it's also bad. It's the worst of both worlds.

This is the first time I heard about Sailor Moon Crystal. In my hubris I looked it up thinking can't look that bad...

My god, what did they do to you Usagi?

[Bartimaeus]

You should've seen some of the noodley-armed alien replicant shapeshifter screenshots we found like 30 or 40 pages of this thread back. They were freaky. And yeah, SU could irritate sometimes because of some of its problems (and all the development issues surely didn't help...6 month hiatuses in the middle of seasons, yaaay), but a pretty remarkable show overall even with its sticklier points.

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

Spoiler

The uncomfortable, seemingly more inexplicable bits of SU:F work a lot better in hindsight, given that it did end up building up to something.

  @majestic

Spoiler

 

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

*This is, I suppose, very similar to what you mean about entertainment taking up a sizeable chunk of energy and brainspace. If that is anything for you like it is for me, then I understand where you're coming from. If you don't mind me asking, does it help when someone else wants to watch too, because you mentioned Speed Racer being someone else's idea. Just asking because responding to an external impetus is so much easier for me than coming up with an internal one.

Sort of - it does help make it more consistent, although there's still only so much I can watch at once. Left to my own devices, I can go an entire week or two without mustering up the motivation or energy to watch something.

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

The absolute worst of which was James Joyce's Ulysses.

Still, I've read them. I finished reading them even though I didn't like reading them - mostly for myself, you know, to check a box on a list.

I got a few pages into Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, closed the book, and never looked back.

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

Due to the way my life went I've often had ample free time to waste on things I didn't completely (or not at all) enjoy, and I have a hard  time dropping things I've started. This is why I'm certainly going to watch any further Star Trek offerings that come along, regardless of how bad they get. I'd like to think they can't get any worse than Picard and Discovery, but if there's one thing I've learned so far is that it can always get worse. Always.

It is a bit more difficult now with everything that's going on, especially with my workload exploding - it's noticable insofar as I still haven't finished the Sailor Moon manga even though I'm usually a quick read (more so for comics that barely have any content to actually read through).

The really ridiculous thing with this is, for instance, when looking at the topic of Sailor Moon. Going through all available material is like ticking off a list of checkboxes that a game gives me. I can't stop, even if it kills all the fun wile doing it. This is why I had such a negative reaction to The Witcher 3 (well that and the stupid loot and level system). I'm somewhat incapable of setting goals for myself undless I spend an extraordinary amount of effort on them*, but going through checkboxes? Yes, more of that please.

In games that have multiple solutions to certain quests or differnt paths to take, I often end up reloading a hundred times to see which outcome I like most - or if there's no outcome I like, the one I dislike the least. That's how I ended up with hundreds of hours /played in Torment: Tides of Numenera, a game which I kind of liked more than I should have, but nowhere near enough to justify the time spent playing it.

Heh, I can get pretty OCD in that sort of way for games I love a lot, making sure every last flag/variable is set just how I want it...but I'm very selective about which games I get that way about.

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

Regarding perfection: Still didn't stop me from thinking about it. The closest I came would be the first time I played Ocarina of Time, but that too only works in the context of its time. There's enough about the game that I would find frustrating now - and it's a game, not say a book, movie or music.

Pft, that's what you think. I play OoT every few years, and it's still about as close as you can get, .

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

But something as a whole? That's going to be a tough call. I can see it most easily happening with music, but musical tastes are somewhat volatile, I've noticed. There are albums I once thought were almost perfect, and they're... certainly not any more. I'll try to stop thinking about that subject now, before it finally breaks something in my brain.

Music is definitely the most volatile, which makes sense, since music is short and sweet, which also makes repetitions tire, plus music is more emotional by its nature, and emotions change over time, sometimes less time than we think...

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

Starbuck, I don't know. I've seen the series twice by now, but I don't recall anything that dealt with her character development that would explain why she is the way she is. Other than always having the hots for Apollo and filling the need for him with various other men. I... not sure. This might be cynical, but she's just there, and a she, to check off the inclusivity list. Really. Maybe I missed something or ignored it on a subconscious level due to being biased and not open minded right from the start.

Oh, well, screw that then, .

On 5/2/2021 at 6:45 PM, majestic said:

*This is, I suppose, very similar to what you mean about entertainment taking up a sizeable chunk of energy and brainspace. If that is anything for you like it is for me, then I understand where you're coming from. If you don't mind me asking, does it help when someone else wants to watch too, because you mentioned Speed Racer being someone else's idea. Just asking because responding to an external impetus is so much easier for me than coming up with an internal one.

Don't look to me for a recommendation - I only watched it once, and I was super tired when I watched it, and I don't think I can watch it again for various reasons, . Dope posters from it, on the other hand? Yeah, I can do that!

Attack No. 1 is starting to sound kind of messed up, but...what cartoon from that era isn't?

 

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

9 hours ago, LittleArmadillo0 said:

 

This is the first time I heard about Sailor Moon Crystal. In my hubris I looked it up thinking can't look that bad...

My god, what did they do to you Usagi?

To borrow a phrase from Old Nan: Oh my sweet summer child, what do you know of looking bad?

As far as Crystal seasons one and two go, this is a decent one.

You could see, for instance, this happy two frame animation:

Or how weird the arms bend sometimes:

Poor Jadeite, I mean, he sucks as a villain, but Rei breaking his arms like that? Uhm... looks like she's tearing it off.

Sometimes Usagi suddendly stops looking like a humanoid giraffe amd becomes a... I don't know what:

 

Sometimes her hair just explodes into EVEN MORE HAIR, she's probably related to the Independence Day aliens in some way:

Every now and then the intern accidentally put a filter on a scene:

And sometimes... the characters look like they're bodysnatchers in disguise. It's uncanny...

Here's what happens when you turn your characters into proto-strain Blade 2 style Reapers, she's liable to bite your head off any time now:

Sometimes everyone looks like spindly aliens from the Praying Mantis planet:

 

And finally, sometimes they wear wigs and have mullets:

No, wait, that was the wrong show.

 

Edited May 4, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

Every now and then the intern accidentally put a filter on a scene:

Okay, to be fair, this one happened in the original show every once in a while too, and it was hilarious every time. That, and Usagi turning into a 1930s toon skeleton.

Spoiler

This is literally Usagi.

 

[Amentep]

14 hours ago, majestic said:

The actual reason for this post was that we, or more accurately, I, asked everyone who popped in here if they'd like to watch Sailor Moon with us, which was next to Steven Universe and JoJo's Bizarre adventure the dominating topic of the past... 65 or so pages. Almost everyone immediately left, only InsaneCommander stuck around. I think it's fair to say that he enjoyed it.

Technically, I didn't immediately leave, I just continued lurking.  I barely have time to watch the TV shows I'm rotating through now, without adding another one.  Also I don't own or have an easy way to watch Sailor Moon (although, since I watched the DIC version in syndication years ago, it might be nice to watch and see how the thing actually ended so I probably eventually will).

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Okay, to be fair, this one happened in the original show every once in a while too, and it was hilarious every time. That, and Usagi turning into a 1930s toon skeleton.

Pretty sure the 90ies anime didn't just select a stretch of the episode in Adobe After Effects and apply a color filter to it, that certainly was more work than that.

5 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

You should've seen some of the noodley-armed alien replicant shapeshifter screenshots we found like 30 or 40 pages of this thread back. They were freaky. And yeah, SU could irritate sometimes because of some of its problems (and all the development issues surely didn't help...6 month hiatuses in the middle of seasons, yaaay), but a pretty remarkable show overall even with its sticklier points.

@ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP

  Reveal hidden contents

The uncomfortable, seemingly more inexplicable bits of SU:F work a lot better in hindsight, given that it did end up building up to something.

  @majestic

  Hide contents

 

Sort of - it does help make it more consistent, although there's still only so much I can watch at once. Left to my own devices, I can go an entire week or two without mustering up the motivation or energy to watch something.

 

I got a few pages into Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, closed the book, and never looked back.

 

Heh, I can get pretty OCD in that sort of way for games I love a lot, making sure every last flag/variable is set just how I want it...but I'm very selective about which games I get that way about.

 

Pft, that's what you think. I play OoT every few years, and it's still about as close as you can get, .

 

Music is definitely the most volatile, which makes sense, since music is short and sweet, which also makes repetitions tire, plus music is more emotional by its nature, and emotions change over time, sometimes less time than we think...

 

Oh, well, screw that then, .

 

Don't look to me for a recommendation - I only watched it once, and I was super tired when I watched it, and I don't think I can watch it again for various reasons, . Dope posters from it, on the other hand? Yeah, I can do that!

Attack No. 1 is starting to sound kind of messed up, but...what cartoon from that era isn't?

 

 

 

Spoiler

 

I haven't played Ocarina of Time in a long while now. Maybe it really is time to do that again. Have you played Majora's Mask?

Ulysses is the only book of James Joyce that I tried. I might have a problem with sticking with unenjoyable things for too long, but I'm not completely crazy. One of them was enough to fill my checkbox need.

Speaking of OCD, I'm currently playing Bravely Default II every now and then. It has a job system like the early Final Fantasy titles, and job levels. The game doesn't intend for you to grind all your characters to maximum job levels in all of the jobs, but yet... sigh. It's made worse because you get new jobs to try out every 2 hours of gameplay or so. Played 60h over the course of the past few weeks, 8 or so which were spent on the story. The rest was grinding job levels. The starting job has a specialty that gains bonus stats based on how many max level jobs you have. My characters are a crew of invincible super heros that one shot regular enemies and deal max damage to bosses already. The game sure isn't going to be fun that way, when a large point of it is the turn based combat. Ah well.

And! Of course I took that as recommendation from you, and obviously I'm going to blame you if I don't like it. No, seriously, I get that. That's why I didn't recommend Attack No. 1 in any meaningful way, and that would be much more of a waste of time than a 2 hours anime film.

It is messed up in a way, and I can understand the one star ratings by parents who don't want their children to see this. Arguably it wasn't meant for children anyway, but that's a long standing issue with much of the anime that ran on TV here. The basic assumption was animation equals for kids. That's how we ended up with Grave of the Fireflies getting an FSK 6, i.e. safe for kids. Whoever rated this sure didn't watch the film, or not all of it.

So far I can see why I liked it when I was younger, but unlike Sailor Moon, it doesn't still have that special charm. I mean, outside of nostalgia. That was a good deal part of my Sailor Moon experience as well, but as this thread proves, that's not all there is to it. For Attack No. 1 I'm not certain. The show follows her for four years, I think, so the 104 episodes age her up from 12 to 16, and as far as I remember once she's out of junior high things get really better, but I have no idea of the timeframe in which this happens.

Doing nothing for weeks, well, I can do that too, but it more usually switches between obsessively watching films or TV, reading or playing games. Work is pretty much also the only thing that keeps a certain structure in my day that's been slowly deteriorating with the lockdowns and working from home. It's kind of weird, the strangest thing is my current sleeping cycle which is split into two parts, one from 3 or 4 to 8 am and then 6 to 8 pm.

Then of course was the stretch of time roughly three years ago where I literally did nothing but go to work. Not because there was so much to do, but because being hyperglycemic made everything that I didn't have to do even worse to go through. Even things that I find fun. Playing a game? Nah, too much effort. Oh, let's watch something. *Browses Netflix catalogue* No, too much effort to decide on something.  I misread that as depressive spell brought on by my quitting MMOs cold turkey. Turns out it wasn't. But that's fixed now, and if there's one thing my obsessive nature helps with, it's keeping blood sugar levels in check.

Yet again another example of internal vs. external impetus. Doctors telling me to reign my lifestyle in with a concrete diagnosis? Check. From high carb diet with no excercise to low carb diet with 15 miles of biking per day (except for the three weeks I was on vacation since, but that's swimming then, which I find significantly more fun anyway) over night, no problems. Not once looked back, although in all fairness once my blood sugar levels were down I tested adding more carbs again and it worked, so I'm to a more balanced diet now.

Knowing my sedentary lifestyle was bad for my health? Sure. Who cares.

The one thing I'm still waiting for is for this cardio stuff to become fun, or addictive. I hate every second and only do it because it is necessary. Like a daily quest. In a way, it is. A daily quest that helps me farm points to spend on ice cream over the summer, which I otherwise wouldn't be able to enjoy.

See? I really am like Rei. It's not like she does anything at all when she doesn't have to.

 

 

1 hour ago, Amentep said:

Technically, I didn't immediately leave, I just continued lurking.  I barely have time to watch the TV shows I'm rotating through now, without adding another one.  Also I don't own or have an easy way to watch Sailor Moon (although, since I watched the DIC version in syndication years ago, it might be nice to watch and see how the thing actually ended so I probably eventually will).

If result A and result B are essentially the same outcome, what does the starting point matter for the one on the receiving end? From my point of view the Jedi are evil!

Edited May 4, 2021 by majestic

[Amentep]

37 minutes ago, majestic said:

If result A and result B are essentially the same outcome, what does the starting point matter for the one on the receiving end? From my point of view the Jedi are evil!

Remember to take the high ground with them, or you'll run into trouble.

[Bartimaeus]

@majestic

Spoiler

 

Just now, majestic said:

I haven't played Ocarina of Time in a long while now. Maybe it really is time to do that again. Have you played Majora's Mask?

It'd be easier to name the Zelda games I haven't played than the ones I have. If it's not one of the handheld ones that require a stylus OR Skyward Sword (I mean, I gave this one a try, but the Wii motion controls were so ghastly as to make the game unplayable), then I've played it (yes, even Zelda II - although it's the black sheep of mainline Zelda games, I've played through it a few times and quite like it!). MM I've played...twice, I believe - real weird game that's not as good as Ocarina of Time, but has its own charm and distinguishing traits. Given that I've played almost all of them, you'd probably think I was a Zelda fanboy...but no, I just think they're good fun adventures that have make me feel like a kid again.

10 minutes ago, majestic said:

Ulysses is the only book of James Joyce that I tried. I might have a problem with sticking with unenjoyable things for too long, but I'm not completely crazy. One of them was enough to fill my checkbox need.

Then don't ever try Finnegan's Wake - you'll hate yourself for trying and then forcing yourself to finish it.

11 minutes ago, majestic said:

Speaking of OCD, I'm currently playing Bravely Default II every now and then. It has a job system like the early Final Fantasy titles, and job levels. The game doesn't intend for you to grind all your characters to maximum job levels in all of the jobs, but yet... sigh. It's made worse because you get new jobs to try out every 2 hours of gameplay or so. Played 60h over the course of the past few weeks, 8 or so which were spent on the story. The rest was grinding job levels. The starting job has a specialty that gains bonus stats based on how many max level jobs you have.

I'll be the first to admit that if there's something that requires absolutely no skill but simply exorbitant amounts of time for either reasons of repetition or luck, I have a tendency to make my own luck through memory editing. Sorry regressive game designers - I ain'ts got the patience for your backwards, mind-numbing, time-wasting garbage.

15 minutes ago, majestic said:

And! Of course I took that as recommendation from you, and obviously I'm going to blame you if I don't like it. No, seriously, I get that. That's why I didn't recommend Attack No. 1 in any meaningful way, and that would be much more of a waste of time than a 2 hours anime film.

From what I've heard others say, PB doesn't seem as good if you've already seen the Western films from the hack fraud director who ripped off of it (and then insisted that he didn't even though he personally met with Satoshi Kon before he even became a director and then straight up stole entire scenes), which I hadn't. Well, I hadn't until I saw one of them afterwards and utterly loathed it, but same thing.

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

Doing nothing for weeks, well, I can do that too, but it more usually switches between obsessively watching films or TV, reading or playing games. Work is pretty much also the only thing that keeps a certain structure in my day that's been slowly deteriorating with the lockdowns and working from home. It's kind of weird, the strangest thing is my current sleeping cycle which is split into two parts, one from 3 or 4 to 8 am and then 6 to 8 pm.

Then of course was the stretch of time roughly three years ago where I literally did nothing but go to work. Not because there was so much to do, but because being hyperglycemic made everything that I didn't have to do even worse to go through. Even things that I find fun. Playing a game? Nah, too much effort. Oh, let's watch something. *Browses Netflix catalogue* No, too much effort to decide on something.  I misread that as depressive spell brought on by my quitting MMOs cold turkey. Turns out it wasn't. But that's fixed now, and if there's one thing my obsessive nature helps with, it's keeping blood sugar levels in check.

Yet again another example of internal vs. external impetus. Doctors telling me to reign my lifestyle in with a concrete diagnosis? Check. From high carb diet with no excercise to low carb diet with 15 miles of biking per day (except for the three weeks I was on vacation since, but that's swimming then, which I find significantly more fun anyway) over night, no problems. Not once looked back, although in all fairness once my blood sugar levels were down I tested adding more carbs again and it worked, so I'm to a more balanced diet now.

Knowing my sedentary lifestyle was bad for my health? Sure. Who cares.

The one thing I'm still waiting for is for this cardio stuff to become fun, or addictive. I hate every second and only do it because it is necessary. Like a daily quest. In a way, it is. A daily quest that helps me farm points to spend on icecream over the summer, which I otherwise wouldn't be able to enjoy.

See? I really am like Rei. It's not like she does anything at all when she doesn't have to.

Yikes - at least you figured out the most serious problem in there! Well, I enjoy biking...well, I used to enjoy biking, less so these days because of various reasons but most importantly the strain it can put on my wrists although I think I'll be better this summer than the past few because I figured out better ways to take care of and manage them this past year, but I've never really cared for much else. I think I like biking because I actually do like being outside, I just hate unnecessarily interacting with other people and being on a bike means you don't have to meaningfully interact with anyone in like 99.9% of situations.

28 minutes ago, majestic said:

It is messed up in a way, and I can understand the one star ratings by parents who don't want their children to see this. Arguably it wasn't meant for children anyway, but that's a long standing issue with much of the anime that ran on TV here. The basic assumption was animation equals for kids. That's how we ended up with Grave of the Fireflies getting an FSK 6, i.e. safe for kids. Whoever rated this sure didn't watch the film, or not all of it.

So far I can see why I liked it when I was younger, but unlike Sailor Moon, it doesn't still have that special charm. I mean, outside of nostalgia. That was a good deal part of my Sailor Moon experience as well, but as this thread proves, that's not all there is to it. For Attack No. 1 I'm not certain. The show follows her for four years, I think, so the 104 episodes age her up from 12 to 16, and as far as I remember once she's out of junior high things get really better, but I have no idea of the timeframe in which this happens.

Maybe it'll surprise you with the later parts of the show, .

 

 

[majestic]

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic

  Hide contents

It'd be easier to name the Zelda games I haven't played than the ones I have. If it's not one of the handheld ones that require a stylus OR Skyward Sword (I mean, I gave this one a try, but the Wii motion controls were so ghastly as to make the game unplayable), then I've played it (yes, even Zelda II - although it's the black sheep of mainline Zelda games, I've played through it a few times and quite like it!). MM I've played...twice, I believe - real weird game that's not as good as Ocarina of Time, but has its own charm and distinguishing traits. Given that I've played almost all of them, you'd probably think I was a Zelda fanboy...but no, I just think they're good fun adventures that have make me feel like a kid again.

 

Spoiler

 

Seems this is my experience too, I also never played any of the handheld versions except Link's Awakening, and no Skyward Sword either. However, that last one is apparently getting a Switch remake that I might play.

The one I didn't like that I played was Breath of the Wild, and that has everything to do with its open world design, and the idea to hide nine hundred seeds in the game world. I'm sorry game developers, I know that's entirely my problem, but I can't ignore the 900 collectibles you've strewn about. I can't. I got overwhelmed and stopped. A rare achievement, anyway, to make a game that breaks my obsessive need to tick off checklists so hard that I not only lose all the fun playing but really can't go on any more.

Zelda II is one of the games I played on my cousin's NES, way back when. Never finished it because it's too long to finish it in one visit. I finished it later on an emulator. Some of the clues are really obtuse, but that was how games worked back then. Still remember that Final Fantasy Adventure riddle. Figure eight and pamls, get it?

Yeah, no. Not for two months, until Eureka!

I'm also pretty sure now that we've talked about that in the gaming forum before...

And here it is.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic

  Hide contents

Then don't ever try Finnegan's Wake - you'll hate yourself for trying and then forcing yourself to finish it.

 

Spoiler

 

Good grief. Who knows, maybe you'd like Ulysses. It's great. It's like a thousand pages full of endlessly long, winding sentences that are nothing, really, NOTHING but a stream of consciousness where you read everything the current character thinks about. The first three chapters are the worst, the main character goes from a barber shop to eating some fried liver with onions and talking to people, you have no idea what's going on - and the fact is, NOTHING actually IS going on, because that's all it is. A day in the life of a guy who goes to a barber shop, talks to people and eats fried liver. You know, after watching the liver fry for what feels like a thousand words.

The one interesting thing in the book is that the writing style changes depending on whose point of view we're following. Which means highly educated teachers "think" half their sentences in Latin and Greek while a group of girls "think" like a cheap romance novel. Yay...

Convinced yet?

James Joyce once supposedly said about Ulysses that he wrote the book in a way that will have professors discuss its deeper meanings for centuries to come. That sounds about right. They can discuss all they want, the truth is, it's nothing but a day in Dublin.

 

 

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic

  Hide contents

I'll be the first to admit that if there's something that requires absolutely no skill but simply exorbitant amounts of time for either reasons of repetition or luck, I have a tendency to make my own luck through memory editing. Sorry regressive game designers - I ain'ts got the patience for your backwards, mind-numbing, time-wasting garbage.

 

Spoiler

This one's my fault, the idea is to use the jobs you're given to adapt your party to the chapter they're in, and find well working combinations, and level them naturally as the game progresses. This would then also require some strategy on the player's part when fighting enemies. I'm pretty sure that works well for regular players.

 

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

@majestic

  Hide contents

From what I've heard others say, PB doesn't seem as good if you've already seen the Western films from the hack fraud director who ripped off of it (and then insisted that he didn't even though he personally met with Satoshi Kon before he even became a director and then straight up stole entire scenes), which I hadn't. Well, I hadn't until I saw one of them afterwards and utterly loathed it, but same thing.

 

 

Spoiler

 

Good thing I don't know what you mean, which means I'll be able to watch Perfect Blue with an open mind.

Kind of know the situation you describe from Vanilla Sky, which supposedly is a remake from a much better Spanish film. I liked Vanilla Sky. Still plan on watching the original eventually, but the fandom of either hates each other's guts for some reason. *shrug*

 

 

31 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

 

  Hide contents

Yikes - at least you figured out the most serious problem in there! Well, I enjoy biking...well, I used to enjoy biking, less so these days because of various reasons but most importantly the strain it can put on my wrists although I think I'll be better this summer than the past few because I figured out better ways to take care of and manage them this past year, but I've never really cared for much else. I think I like biking because I actually do like being outside, I just hate unnecessarily interacting with other people and being on a bike means you don't have to meaningfully interact with anyone in like 99.9% of situations.

 

Spoiler

 

To be honest when I say biking I mean using an ergometer. If I actually had to go outside and let others see me biking I would most likely still do it, but with even less enthusiasm, and interacting with people on the streets, well, there's a reason I live in the suburbs, beyond having always been there and not liking change. It's quiet. Sure, it's worse than it was a few years ago because people keep fleeing the cities and jacking up prices here, but can't do anything about that. Still beats city life any day of the week.

This year we had some snow (as opposed to none the years before), and I spent a part of the day outside, walking around, with nobody else in sight. It was glorious. I have some pictures, but sadly only from a couple of days after it stopped snowing. The days were somewhat warm for winter, so lots of thawing reduced the snow already. I originally wanted to take pictures while it still snowed, but my battery died.

That hole in the ground is a World War 2 bomb crater.

Well, nobody in sight when I walked around. The dog tracks here say that at least some other people had the same idea...

Pics turned out ok considering they come from an iPhone SE.

I'm also really hoping that Attack No. 1 will surprise me. It's not bad in the way The Black Hole was, but it's not as good as I remember.

 

 

[majestic]

Well, look at that. Kozue's team gets four new players because of a school merger. She manages to win three over, one, named Yuri Izumi leaves. She goes to visit her at home to try and convince her to stick with the team where she talks a bit to Yuri's stepmother.

The girl shows up and is not only rude to Kozue but also to her stepmother and... yeah, you guessed it. Kozue slaps her silly for disrespecting her mother and lectures her about behaviour and how it doesn't matter if she's her real mother or not, she is her mother and damn straight needs to be respected. We're in 60ies Japan here, dammit, respect your elders and follow their every word, or else.

Yuri all but throws her out (well, she's just rude). Kozue then sees her walking around with Tsutomu. Actually, Yuri is really spending a LOT of time with him, leading to some jealousy, drama and some yelling where Tsutomu really has no idea what's gotten into Kozue.

Some things really are timeless. The slapping... not so much.

Edited May 5, 2021 by majestic

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Great Pretender: London Snow. After Hollywood movie mobsters and a pair of exiled princes from a middle eastern country the season finishes with the most vile mark left, an art critic. The series manages to be funny (to me at least), with the in-between steps being unpredictable but the endgame being pretty clear. I'd recommend it if you're looking for something short that doesn't require too much investment but is still fun. 

I think Ocarina of Time was one of the first games I played. It probably has aged terribly, but I loved it back in the day. Zelda games I haven't played are Skyward Sword, stuff from before Link's Awakening (which I think just got a switch remake), and for the most part BotW since I always end up stopping right a bit after the intro area. I haven't played the Switch besides playing Smash Bros with my fiance, maybe I should try to finish that game.

[Bartimaeus]

On 5/4/2021 at 9:44 AM, majestic said:

The one I didn't like that I played was Breath of the Wild, and that has everything to do with its open world design, and the idea to hide nine hundred seeds in the game world. I'm sorry game developers, I know that's entirely my problem, but I can't ignore the 900 collectibles you've strewn about. I can't. I got overwhelmed and stopped. A rare achievement, anyway, to make a game that breaks my obsessive need to tick off checklists so hard that I not only lose all the fun playing but really can't go on any more.

If you get too caught up with how many different things you "have" to do to 100% the game, then it is indeed miserable. I found about two hundred of them while completing the game, contemplated actually properly finding them all after having done most everything else I wanted to do, said "screw this", and then used a save game editor that gives you each and very single one (while also properly setting the collected flags for each Korok, as if you had actually collected each one). Don't feel even a little bit bad about it either, . But...you're the type of person that *has* to watch every second of a TV show you're watching, even if it's pointless or unenjoyable to you; I'm the type of person where so long as I *have* every second of that TV show, then I don't actually need to watch it - simply properly having it all is good enough for me. So I'm betting that you would feel the need to collect every single Korok Seed manually, right?

And yeah, there are definitely a few obtuse points in Zelda II - there's that one dude you need to find in a completely unmarked, random section of the overworld forest in order to progress, and I always forget that he exists, .

On 5/4/2021 at 9:44 AM, majestic said:

Good thing I don't know what you mean, which means I'll be able to watch Perfect Blue with an open mind.

Kind of know the situation you describe from Vanilla Sky, which supposedly is a remake from a much better Spanish film. I liked Vanilla Sky. Still plan on watching the original eventually, but the fandom of either hates each other's guts for some reason. *shrug*

Glad I took the extra effort to be vague, since I wasn't sure what, if anything, you actually know about the movie. Literally the only thing I knew about the movie before watching it was having seen the main official poster for it, which was so intriguing that I had no choice but to try it out immediately.

On 5/4/2021 at 9:00 PM, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

I think Ocarina of Time was one of the first games I played. It probably has aged terribly, but I loved it back in the day. Zelda games I haven't played are Skyward Sword, stuff from before Link's Awakening (which I think just got a switch remake), and for the most part BotW since I always end up stopping right a bit after the intro area. I haven't played the Switch besides playing Smash Bros with my fiance, maybe I should try to finish that game.

I still love OoT, but YMMV, . I actually own a Wii U and ended up dumping my console, then played BotW on my PC. For the most part, a much better experience than playing it on the actual console, especially since there are patches/hacks you can enable to reduce some annoyances as well as even make the game look and run better. 60 FPS patch? Don't mind if I do! Want to move faster? I'll just temporarily set the game speed to to 2x or 3x. Don't feel like chopping down a thousand trees for some random sidequest? Think I'll just set my collected wood to a thousand, thanks. I get absolutely no sense of accomplishment or enjoyment out of utterly skill-less repetitions, so I don't really bother anymore whenever I can. Some people call it cheating, I call it not wasting the precious time I have being alive doing completely pointless and unfun parts of games that are supposed to be fun. I'll get my sense of accomplishment from tasks that actually require some skill, like playing and beating Dark Souls at soul level 1...and not from freaking chopping down trees for a few hours.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

If you get too caught up with how many different things you "have" to do to 100% the game, then it is indeed miserable. I found about two hundred of them while completing the game, contemplated actually properly finding them all after having done most everything else I wanted to do, said "screw this", and then used a save game editor that gives you each and very single one (while also properly setting the collected flags for each Korok, as if you had actually collected each one). Don't feel even a little bit bad about it either, . But...you're the type of person that *has* to watch every second of a TV show you're watching, even if it's pointless or unenjoyable to you; I'm the type of person where so long as I *have* every second of that TV show, then I don't actually need to watch it - simply properly having it all is good enough for me. So I'm betting that you would feel the need to collect every single Korok Seed manually, right?

And yeah, there are definitely a few obtuse points in Zelda II - there's that one dude you need to find in a completely unmarked, random section of the overworld forest in order to progress, and I always forget that he exists, .

 

Spoiler

 

Yes, I need to collect every one of them myself. I don't actually mind looking them up in a guide, I'm not the type of person that has to find secrets or collectibles by himself. Not in regular games and certainly not when they're meant to be a collective effort, like Dark Souls. With the way the game gives you absolutely no clue how it works, it has to be meant to be talked about online. So why not wiki the hell out of it.

Also don't mind watching boss guides before ever getting there. That's effort someone else has spent so I don't have to. It's inefficient to not make use of it. My dislike for being inefficient in things I enjoy doing outweighs any enjoyment I would get from figuring things out on my own in the case of games. I get the same sense of accomplishment from beating something difficult regardless of whether I or someone else came up with the strategy necessary (not that BotW is difficult in any meaningful way).

The other problem with Breath of the Wild is that there are these baffling design decisions, like breakable equipment.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I still love OoT, but YMMV, . I actually own a Wii U and ended up dumping my console, then played BotW on my PC. For the most part, a much better experience than playing it on the actual console, especially since there are patches/hacks you can enable to reduce some annoyances as well as even make the game look and run better. 60 FPS patch? Don't mind if I do! Want to move faster? I'll just temporarily set the game speed to to 2x or 3x. Don't feel like chopping down a thousand trees for some random sidequest? Think I'll just set my collected wood to a thousand, thanks. I get absolutely no sense of accomplishment or enjoyment out of utterly skill-less repetitions, so I don't really bother anymore whenever I can. Some people call it cheating, I call it not wasting the precious time I have being alive doing completely pointless and unfun parts of games that are supposed to be fun. I'll get my sense of accomplishment from tasks that actually require some skill, like playing and beating Dark Souls at soul level 1...and not from freaking chopping down trees for a few hours.

 

Spoiler

 

Cheating is a difficult subject for me. Not difficult because it bothers me, but difficult to explain. There is a very clear line in my mind what is and what isn't cheating, but it's not very straight and often seems really arbitrary to others.

An example: In Dragon Age: Origins, it's possible to gain an infinite amount of money through lyrium potion crafting, because the product sells for more than the sum of its components. Then there's also one of the collector's edition items sells for more than you need to spend to buy it back.

I have absolutely no qualms to "abuse" either to give me as much money as I need. I usually buy and sell the items for a bit because it's much faster (even faster than spending the effort to edit the savegame). Now, if someone wants to edit his savegame at this point, I don't care. It's not really cheating to cut off some time from an annoying, repetitive task. The end result is the same, if you sell potions to get money faster, you might as well just edit it in. It makes no difference to me.

If neither of the infinite money options would exist, then editing money in would indeed be cheating for me. I still wouldn't judge anyone who did it, because in single player games, do what you like. Cheating is only problematic when it affects multiplayer games, but for myself, even in single player games, doing something that is not possible within the game itself is cheating. Exploits and oversights by the developers? Fair game, really. Using broken game mechanics? Yes, please, don't mind if I do. Cheat codes or save game editing? Only if it shortens a repetitive task. Does that make sense?

Baldur's Gate, for instance - I usually enable the cheat console and extensively use CTRL + J to get around maps I already explored but otherwise have to walk through. I wouldn't use CTRL + Y to kill enemies though, or create items, or anything.

I usually don't do challenge runs because that factors back into my problems with setting goals for myself. An external challenge mode, like the SCS mod for Baldur's Gate? No problem. Putting the difficulty slider to insane? Sure.

Playing a no-reload, take first roll campaign? Uhm. Why would I do that? Is there a game setting? No? So it's some arbitrary restriction I put on myself? Okay baaaaaaaaaaaaai. In other words, I'll never ever do a Dark Souls level 1 run, even if I potentially could pull it off. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Glad I took the extra effort to be vague, since I wasn't sure what, if anything, you actually know about the movie. Literally the only thing I knew about the movie before watching it was having seen the main official poster for it, which was so intriguing that I had no choice but to try it out immediately.

This is the part of the post where I just add something to be not completely off topic, the spoilers above are just for hiding that fact from the lurking moderator here.

I guess I'll have the time to watch soon. I'd still like to wrap up the Madoka movies first though. Second viewing so far has been really impressive. The movies also look so much better than the Netflix version, but that's something somewhat typical for Studio Shaft. They finish rendering their episodes like 5 minutes before they air and later touch them up. So there really are three different versions to see in theory: Broadcast episodic anime, Blu Ray episodic anime, and movie version. All with different animation...

[Bartimaeus]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Yes, I need to collect every one of them myself. I don't actually mind looking them up in a guide, I'm not the type of person that has to find secrets or collectibles by himself. Not in regular games and certainly not when they're meant to be a collective effort, like Dark Souls. With the way the game gives you absolutely no clue how it works, it has to be meant to be talked about online. So why not wiki the hell out of it.

Also don't mind watching boss guides before ever getting there. That's effort someone else has spent so I don't have to. It's inefficient to not make use of it. My dislike for being inefficient in things I enjoy doing outweighs any enjoyment I would get from figuring things out on my own in the case of games. I get the same sense of accomplishment from beating something difficult regardless of whether I or someone else came up with the strategy necessary (not that BotW is difficult in any meaningful way).

The other problem with Breath of the Wild is that there are these baffling design decisions, like breakable equipment.

I'm the opposite: I only look stuff up online after I've played through it. I'm also an extremely exhaustive searcher/explorer/interacter, so I usually end up finding/experiencing most things organically anyways. The only exception is when I'm at my absolute wit's end with something after trying just about everything I can think of, . Interesting how different people can approach games...

I get what they were trying to do with BotW and having breakable weapons, encouraging you to handle problems in different and novel (to the player) ways, and it's really not the worst idea, but it certainly needed some refinement - or at least some improvement after some point through the game. When I get the top Lynel sword, I...stick it in my inventory and literally never use it unless I happen to find another because I like keeping it as a sort of trophy and don't want to damage it. Don't think that was how Nintendo intended me to treat rare weapons, but it's what ended up happening, .

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Cheating is a difficult subject for me. Not difficult because it bothers me, but difficult to explain. There is a very clear line in my mind what is and what isn't cheating, but it's not very straight and often seems really arbitrary to others.

An example: In Dragon Age: Origins, it's possible to gain an infinite amount of money through lyrium potion crafting, because the product sells for more than the sum of its components. Then there's also one of the collector's edition items sells for more than you need to spend to buy it back.

I have absolutely no qualms to "abuse" either to give me as much money as I need. I usually buy and sell the items for a bit because it's much faster (even faster than spending the effort to edit the savegame). Now, if someone wants to edit his savegame at this point, I don't care. It's not really cheating to cut off some time from an annoying, repetitive task. The end result is the same, if you sell potions to get money faster, you might as well just edit it in. It makes no difference to me.

If neither of the infinite money options would exist, then editing money in would indeed be cheating for me. I still wouldn't judge anyone who did it, because in single player games, do what you like. Cheating is only problematic when it affects multiplayer games, but for myself, even in single player games, doing something that is not possible within the game itself is cheating. Exploits and oversights by the developers? Fair game, really. Using broken game mechanics? Yes, please, don't mind if I do. Cheat codes or save game editing? Only if it shortens a repetitive task. Does that make sense?

Baldur's Gate, for instance - I usually enable the cheat console and extensively use CTRL + J to get around maps I already explored but otherwise have to walk through. I wouldn't use CTRL + Y to kill enemies though, or create items, or anything.

I usually don't do challenge runs because that factors back into my problems with setting goals for myself. An external challenge mode, like the SCS mod for Baldur's Gate? No problem. Putting the difficulty slider to insane? Sure.

Playing a no-reload, take first roll campaign? Uhm. Why would I do that? Is there a game setting? No? So it's some arbitrary restriction I put on myself? Okay baaaaaaaaaaaaai. In other words, I'll never ever do a Dark Souls level 1 run, even if I potentially could pull it off. 

Kind of similar mindset, except I don't have any "I have to do it myself" limitation like you do - I'm more looking simply at "potential of what's possible". For example, taking the previous BotW example with Korok Seeds: I could memory edit the amount of Korok Seeds I have to 99999 or whatever - it would take literally like 60 seconds to do that, and I'd have all of the gameplay benefits of them and...literally nobody in the entire universe but me would care. But...there's a limit of...what was it, 900? So okay, I'm OCD, and so naturally it has to be the correct game maximum of 900, right? Wrong. Because if you just set it to 900, well, you can still collect other Korok Seeds out in the game world - every single one has a specific location, there's a finite amount, there's supposed to be exactly 900. If I just set my Korok Seeds to 900, therein lies the possibility to collect more than 900, because I could just go out and actually find another and get the 901th, so I cannot do that. If it was an infinitely renewable resource like rupees or other collectables, that'd be different. Someone else was just as OCD as I was, though, and made a save game editor where it would correctly set the unique flag for every single last Korok seed, and so, when I set it to 900 through that save game editor, every Korok is correctly marked as complete, and there is no possibility of ever obtaining more than 900. It's exactly as if I had actually collected every single one myself. This...I can do, and I will happily do for such an absurdly tedious and completionist task.

Generally speaking, the only self-imposed limitations I generally place upon myself is to not exploit/cheat genuine challenges/tests of skill. I would never, ever play Baldur's Gate and abuse the "talk to character then attack them while they're in the frozen talk state" exploit to beat a difficult enemy, for example. I also wouldn't ever use anything like CTRL+Y, of course (...especially because CTRL+Y doesn't give you credit for the kill, giving you no experience experience nor entering your characters' kill statistics). CTRL+J or CLUAConsole:MoveToArea() or ExploreArea(), on the other hand...

However, the SL1 run is one of my favorite limitations - I would've probably done it even if it hadn't been a thing in the community already. Why? You don't have to make any choices. I'm such a ridiculous min-maxer in games...when it comes to permanent stat changes. So in Souls games, I have to figure out all of the exact numbers of every stat I eventually want to have, and then stop exactly there - I'll never go any further, because if you keep going...well, where does it end? Am I really going to go all the way up to level 700 or whatever the max level is? Of course not...plus, that's terrible for the PVP mechanics if you're into that - I can't gank anyone at max level! So I figure out exact the numbers where I want my character to stop, usually either at level 100 or level 120 because that's around where the level meta used to be, and I have each stat planned out exactly. Except when I do a SL1 character, I don't need to do any planning or decision-making at all and can just play the game, and in fact, because I never level it up and just gain massive experience over the course of the game, after completing everything but the final boss, I can make a backup of the character and have it serve as a template to make *any* kind of character that I want. And the great thing about specifically Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 is that the games are balanced in such a way that SL1 characters are perfectly competent in terms of damage output - you just can't get hit. Well, I don't plan on doing that anyways, so no problem - bonus points that I don't have to make any decisions and can just play the game. I ended up completing both of those games on NG7 (the max) with SL1 characters. So SL1 is one of my favorite ever self-imposed challenge, because only not does it actually work and still have the game play well with just some additional but still fun challenge, but it also creates a perfectly pure character free from any limitations of choices you might have made...and with the character file backed up, you're then free to make those choices for specific character builds you want to try, . But...yes, it's not for everyone.

Still planning on watching Madoka Magica, but it might be longer than I expected - I persuaded my show-watching partner to watch it with me, so it'll have to wait until after we're done with Speed Racer at the very least (which shouldn't take long, given how few episodes we have left), and who knows, there might be other confounding factors that delay it, but it's gonna happen sooner or later.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I'm the opposite: I only look stuff up online after I've played through it. I'm also an extremely exhaustive searcher/explorer/interacter, so I usually end up finding/experiencing most things organically anyways. The only exception is when I'm at my absolute wit's end with something after trying just about everything I can think of, . Interesting how different people can approach games...

I get what they were trying to do with BotW and having breakable weapons, encouraging you to handle problems in different and novel (to the player) ways, and it's really not the worst idea, but it certainly needed some refinement - or at least some improvement after some point through the game. When I get the top Lynel sword, I...stick it in my inventory and literally never use it unless I happen to find another because I like keeping it as a sort of trophy and don't want to damage it. Don't think that was how Nintendo intended me to treat rare weapons, but it's what ended up happening, .

Given how BotW is built, I would have done that anyway, because dropping a boulder on a camp of enemies is infinitely more satisfying than beating them up in straight, regular combat. With the inventory limitation that can only be eased by finding seeds (unless there's some other way later, I dropped the game relatively quickly), that combines into something that I just don't want to deal with.

Where you see an incentive, I'm more cynical and see hidden gating in a world that needed none, or at least shouldn't have one.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Kind of similar mindset, except I don't have any "I have to do it myself" limitation like you do - I'm more looking simply at "potential of what's possible". For example, taking the previous BotW example with Korok Seeds: I could memory edit the amount of Korok Seeds I have to 99999 or whatever - it would take literally like 60 seconds to do that, and I'd have all of the gameplay benefits of them and...literally nobody in the entire universe but me would care. But...there's a limit of...what was it, 900? So okay, I'm OCD, and so naturally it has to be the correct game maximum of 900, right? Wrong. Because if you just set it to 900, well, you can still collect other Korok Seeds out in the game world - every single one has a specific location, there's a finite amount, there's supposed to be exactly 900. If I just set my Korok Seeds to 900, therein lies the possibility to collect more than 900, because I could just go out and actually find another and get the 901th, so I cannot do that. If it was an infinitely renewable resource like rupees or other collectables, that'd be different. Someone else was just as OCD as I was, though, and made a save game editor where it would correctly set the unique flag for every single last Korok seed, and so, when I set it to 900 through that save game editor, every Korok is correctly marked as complete, and there is no possibility of ever obtaining more than 900. It's exactly as if I had actually collected every single one myself. This...I can do, and I will happily do for such an absurdly tedious and completionist task.

That does seem like a much more reasonable approach. I should try that. I probably won't, but that's... well, you know how that is. However, IF I would, I'd follow a similar approach. Can't have thousands of seeds if there were only 900 supposed to be there to begin with.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Generally speaking, the only self-imposed limitations I generally place upon myself is to not exploit/cheat genuine challenges/tests of skill. I would never, ever play Baldur's Gate and abuse the "talk to character then attack them while they're in the frozen talk state" exploit to beat a difficult enemy, for example. I also wouldn't ever use anything like CTRL+Y, of course (...especially because CTRL+Y doesn't give you credit for the kill, giving you no experience experience nor entering your characters' kill statistics). CTRL+J or CLUAConsole:MoveToArea() or ExploreArea(), on the other hand...

I wouldn't use the talking trick either, or CTRL + Y anything unless something is so bugged out and broken that I have to, which usually only happens with mods anyway. I once playtested the Improved Sendai mod, and she just kept spawning and spawning and spawning because something got stuck in a script, what with her statues and all. ExploreArea() only after I've been everywhere I can go to remove the final fog of war patches that would otherwise stick around.

However, I'm completely fine with killing Firkraag in an unmodified version of Baldur's Gate 2 by casting Chromatic Orb on him with a level 12 caster character. A lot of players assume this to be an oversight on Bioware's part, and it probably is. I usually don't really do it either, because I don't wait until my characters are that high in level before killing him anyway, but I have no qualms doing it. On the other hand, using the pause trick to kill the Yellow Devil in Mega Man? No. Never!

Guess, as long as the regular gameplay allows for it, it's fine, if you venture outside of what could be reasonably considered regular gameplay it not longer is. So finding a spell that clears a (supposedly, anyway) hard encounter in the game without it ever being able to respond? Sure, why not. Pressing pause repeatedly to hit over and over again, shortening the fight? No.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

However, the SL1 run is one of my favorite limitations - I would've probably done it even if it hadn't been a thing in the community already. Why? You don't have to make any choices. I'm such a ridiculous min-maxer in games...when it comes to permanent stat changes. So in Souls games, I have to figure out all of the exact numbers of every stat I eventually want to have, and then stop exactly there - I'll never go any further, because if you keep going...well, where does it end? Am I really going to go all the way up to level 700 or whatever the max level is? Of course not...plus, that's terrible for the PVP mechanics if you're into that - I can't gank anyone at max level! So I figure out exact the numbers where I want my character to stop, usually either at level 100 or level 120 because that's around where the level meta used to be, and I have each stat planned out exactly. Except when I do a SL1 character, I don't need to do any planning or decision-making at all and can just play the game, and in fact, because I never level it up and just gain massive experience over the course of the game, after completing everything but the final boss, I can make a backup of the character and have it serve as a template to make *any* kind of character that I want. And the great thing about specifically Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 1 is that the games are balanced in such a way that SL1 characters are perfectly competent in terms of damage output - you just can't get hit. Well, I don't plan on doing that anyways, so no problem - bonus points that I don't have to make any decisions and can just play the game. I ended up completing both of those games on NG7 (the max) with SL1 characters. So SL1 is one of my favorite ever self-imposed challenge, because only not does it actually work and still have the game play well with just some additional but still fun challenge, but it also creates a perfectly pure character free from any limitations of choices you might have made...and with the character file backed up, you're then free to make those choices for specific character builds you want to try, . But...yes, it's not for everyone.

Funny you mention having to plan out your characters, all of my Grim Dawn characters didn't spend a single one of their attribute points yet. Skills are refundable, so no problem there, but unless I'm certain I want more spirit or cunning or whatever, I'm not going to spend that.

The absolute epitome of this particular issue was one of my Diablo 2 characters, an incredibly min/maxed Amazon that had base vitality and energy, just enough strength to wear the equipment needed with a Hel rune slotted and any strength bonuses slotted in and everything else in dexterity. Even managed to bring down Hell Baal solo, but that was in a patch before Blizzard introduced phsycial damage cap limits. My sweet, sweety high damage output almost invincible amazon with barely any hit points died, not to bosses but to a silly patch.

She died copious amounts of times before being able to wear the gear I collected for her, but that's something else entirely. Wasn't ever going to be HC viable anyway.

If there'd be an achievement for winning with a SL1 character, then I'd probably try. Without one, well... nope.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Still planning on watching Madoka Magica, but it might be longer than I expected - I persuaded my show-watching partner to watch it with me, so it'll have to wait until after we're done with Speed Racer at the very least (which shouldn't take long, given how few episodes we have left), and who knows, there might be other confounding factors that delay it, but it's gonna happen sooner or later.

I'm talking about the films mostly because it's impressive how well they work even on a second watch.

Spoiler

Definitely not trying to bother you into watching it earlier than convenient, if it come across like that I apologize. I'll admit that I'm curious what you will think of it visually, because that character design is so moe that even the characters themselves comment on it in the beginning.

 

[Bartimaeus]

No, it was just on my mind because I'd just talked to them about it yesterday. And I utterly despise how everything about the show looks, but I am trying very hard not to hate the show for it going into it. If it was a longer show, I would have ruled it out already because I would not be able to stick with a show that looks the way Madoka does, but I can try to tolerate it for a very short show, particularly if the art style is deliberately clashing with the style of show that it actually is.

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

If there'd be an achievement for winning with a SL1 character, then I'd probably try. Without one, well... nope.

Yeah, I despise achievements, and I wish I could disable achievements for all my games on Steam. I make do with getting indie games, which is 99% of what I ever play on PC anymore, from GOG where I can instead, . Artificial stat and milestone tracking immediately demotivates and annoys me - let me play how I want, thank you very much.

23 minutes ago, majestic said:

The absolute epitome of this particular issue was one of my Diablo 2 characters, an incredibly min/maxed Amazon that had base vitality and energy, just enough strength to wear the equipment needed with a Hel rune slotted and any strength bonuses slotted in and everything else in dexterity. Even managed to bring down Hell Baal solo, but that was in a patch before Blizzard introduced phsycial damage cap limits. My sweet, sweety high damage output almost invincible amazon with barely any hit points died, not to bosses but to a silly patch.

She died copious amounts of times before being able to wear the gear I collected for her, but that's something else entirely. Wasn't ever going to be HC viable anyway.

Years later, they ended up introducing infinite respeccing in D2, and my relief was immense: no need to always be perfectly min-maxing everything all the time anymore.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[LittleArmadillo0]

Watched the first two episodes of Paranoia Agent. It is about an anthology series centering around a string of attacks that is causing paranoia, it is very dream like at points. If anyone is interested watching, it is on Funimation you need an account but it is free to view. 

Spoiler

First episode was a little unnerving. They managed to make eating a parfait disgusting. I hate it and I love it! And the transition and editing of the episodes is just... perfect!

 

Also watched the first episode of Sailor Moon. I have never felt so bubbly in watching someone say "Moon Prism Power!"

[Bartimaeus]

Eek! As a big Satoshi Kon guy (see my avatar!), Paranoia Agent is on my to-do list, please make sure to use spoilers for anything plot/character-relevant! I believe KP has already seen Paranoia Agent? Not sure about majestic.

Sounds like SM had a good first impression!

Edited May 5, 2021 by Bartimaeus