vanguard333

I see. That must've been what I was remembering. It went well. I made it as far as beating the second Dark World dungeon before my free trial ran out. It would be neat to finish the game, but I don't see myself paying for NSO just to finish A Link to the Past. If the standard version had another game I was interested in, such as the Oracle games, then I might consider it. I really dislike the thieves in the lost woods: they're indestructible, they're just as fast as you, you're in too confined an area to make use of the pegasus boots and, unlike the thieves in Four Swords Adventures, the thieves in A Link to the Past can't be stunned. But, once I obtained the Master Sword, I could forget about them. And the Master Sword is definitely a great upgrade: the sword finally has decent reach, and it's good to have the sword beam (though again, only having the sword beam at full health is rather annoying). The Hyrule Castle revisit was pretty good. I like how, rather than it be a coincidence that you arrive just too late to save Zelda (something other video games are guilty of), Aghanim deliberately waits until Link shows up in order to make Link feel helpless to stop him. Speaking of Aghanim, the fight against him is rather neat. He's the original tennis boss. Of course, one thing I always found odd about these kinds of bosses is that they have one attack that can be used against them and two that can't, so if they just used the other two attacks, they'd be invincible, and yet they never think to do that despite being portrayed as cunning masterminds. This is the reason I think the Ganondorf boss fight in Ocarina of Time is the best execution of this type of boss fight, as all of his attacks can be deflected back at him if you're careful. Still, Aghanim is a fun boss fight. One criticism I have with the first Dark World dungeon has to do with bombable walls: they have cracks on them to indicate that they can be destroyed, but there are lots of other non-bombable walls that have the exact same cracks. I was stuck for a while figuring out how to obtain a key just because all the cracked walls in a particular room looked like they were just decorative. Other than that, it was a decent dungeon with not much worth mentioning. The second Dark World dungeon was interesting. Raising the water level in certain rooms to gain access was interesting. It's a bit underdeveloped as an idea compared to Ocarina of Time's Water Temple or A Link Between World's water dungeon where you have to think about raising and lowering the water level multiple times, but it was interesting to see the beginnings of that concept and I can understand them not wanting to overcomplicate it. My one criticism would be how you access the dungeon: flooding that area in the light world to drain it in the dark world. It is pretty much spelled out to the player to do this, and the explanation for why it works: that what you do in the light world affects the dark world, sounds like a neat idea only if that idea is done for more than just the one dungeon, and I suspect that that isn't the case. I looked online and found out that that's apparently the only case where you do something in the light world to directly affect the dark world. And... yeah; that's pretty much it in terms of what I have to say about what I played of A Link to the Past. Same; I wasn't expecting much from the cards, but I was expecting at least something other than just presentation. Having the enemies be cards that are flipped over would've been really interesting, especially since unexplored non-adjacent cards are always face-down, so flipping a card over and it being an enemy could've been interesting. Same; I'm neither of those things, so the game really isn't all that interesting to me. Since typing my review of the demo, I've decided that I won't get the full game.

I see. Thanks for letting me know. That makes sense. For me, speaking as someone who only played the demo, elemental weaknesses were straightforward to deduce but difficult to remember. I tried looking at the enemy cards to see if there was a spot that showed the enemy's weakness, and I couldn't find it. Yes; the use of different dice without anything to indicate which dice was rather annoying. Being only able to equip four skills at a time does sound at least somewhat interesting.

Yeah; I didn't know about that (or even about Drakengard itself) until after I played the demo and decided to do a bit of research about Voice of Cards. Even now, I only did about 1 minute of research into the Drakengard series and my impression of it is that the characters are deeply messed up. What do you mean by "Drakengard-style trolling"? I see. Yeah; I figured that the demo would be easy compared to the full game. Weapons mattering sounds good, though I'm generally not a fan of how, in most RPGs, weapons are basically just numeric increments that you'll quickly replace with new ones that have slightly higher numbers. I've always been more a fan of different weapons having different pros and cons instead, but RPGs almost never do that.

I decided to try the demo for Voice of Cards: The Isle Dragon Roars. I'm not typically a fan of JRPGs; they only really catch my eye if they do something rather creative. This one seemed really interesting: a JRPG presented through cards and overall a bit more willing to acknowledge that it's a game. So, you want to know how much the cards actually matter to the gameplay, story, etc.? Based on the demo, not one little bit; it's just a standard JRPG with the cards only being presentation. While that means people who dislike card games won't automatically dislike this, I couldn't help but think that the card aspect could've been more than just visuals without having to become gimmicky. That said, the card presentation is pretty good aesthetically and honestly ingenious at times. Traversal is done through hexagonal, one card at a time movement that can get annoying, but I like how you can immediately backtrack to any previous card unless you're in a dark area like a dungeon. The game master is a decent voice actor, and I like how the card-game presentation does justify a lot of JRPG tropes that I'd normally have to suspend my disbelief on; mostly smaller stuff like equipment selection and dialogue choices, but I particularly like how the game master will stop the player from traversing certain areas by breaking the fourth wall with stuff like, "I haven't yet finished the story for that area yet". As for how it fares as a JRPG, it's rather standard and straightforward. It's party-based turn-based combat with a character's speed stat determining who attacks first. One thing that I do like and that I think is at least somewhat unique (someone correct me if I'm wrong about this being unique) is how it handles skills: you have a certain number of gems, with you gaining a gem every time one of your characters uses their turn, basic attacks don't cost gems while skills do cost gems. Unlike a mana system, this means you can't render yourself unable to use skills/spells for the rest of a battle, while simultaneously making you need to think about whether or not you want to use more costly skills. Overall, it's a decent demo for what is probably a decent game. Don't go into it with high expectations, and don't expect the cards to actually be important. But it is a decent JRPG that's well-presented. Overall, decent/10. Now just to decide if I actually want the full game or not.

Yeah; I figured they were either a result of instruction manuals that no longer exist or being a hold over from a previous game. Yeah; it wasn't so much the section in-of-itself so much as the strict timing for the wall-jumping (I eventually figured out a trick that enabled me to wall-jump semi-reliably) and the hallway just before the part where you have to wall jump; the one filled with spikes and endlessly-respawning enemies. I'm glad that spikes aren't an instant-kill (cough Mega Man and Shovel Knight cough), but they're still rather annoying; particularly in that section. Hm... maybe. As I said, I'll probably try the demo.

Ah; I see. I probably should've clarified that I finished Super Metroid (I got 75% on my first playthrough with extremely minimal use of a walkthrough, and given what I said about the red doors, you can probably guess what the walkthrough was for). Hm... I liked exploring and getting lost, I liked Samus' arsenal of ranged weaponry (I generally prefer melee combat in video games, but with side-scrollers, I prefer ranged combat, probably because of Mega Man, but also because of how collision usually works in side-scrollers), it kind-of felt like playing through one giant Zelda Dungeon that had multiple items and bosses (but with platforming instead of puzzles), and I liked the backtracking. One thing I didn't like was being presented with several doors, all but one leading to side-content, and somehow picking the only door that's the way forward when I was wanting to find side-content. I really don't know if I think it will be worth it. Ah; perfect timing. I'll try the demo then to see if I want the game.

It won't be my first; it'll be my second. As I said, Super Metroid is already my first. I thought that it held up fairly well overall aside from some smaller stuff like the limited aiming, some cramped boss rooms (not cramped in a "makes the player feel claustrophobic" way, but in an annoying, "There's nowhere to go to dodge this attack" way), the red doors requiring five missiles to open without anything to tell you that it takes five missiles, and that one optional section where you have to learn how to wall jump to escape. I can't really play either of those; I don't have a working Gameboy Advance or emulators.

I've been considering whether or not to get this game. I am brand new to Metroidvanias: my first, and so far only, experience with them was playing Super Metroid for the first time a couple weeks ago via the Switch Online free trial. My thoughts on it were that it didn't make me an instant fan of Metroidvanias, but I can see why Super Metroid is considered a classic.

I see. I liked that we got to see all of class b, though I agree that a large number of them could've been more interesting. I agree about the Endeavor arc. Yeah; real shame about the Villain Academia arc and Re-Destro. Yeah; I agree. The thing about that episode that makes it even worse is that it's a tie-in episode for the movie, and yet, like with the tie-in episode for the Two Heroes movie back in season 3, the actual tie-in only really happened at the end. I mean, yes, the whole episode is about chasing pirates that are smuggling drugs for the movie villains, but the actual tie-in part of that is only the last 30 seconds of the episode, and it probably isn't even an important setup like All Might receiving the email from Melissa Shield and inviting Deku to I-Island was for Two Heroes. Plus, the second movie, Heroes Rising, didn't even have a tie-in episode. So, there's no real point to the filler episode in regards to the upcoming movie.

That all actually sounds very neat and interesting. I've seen this "Zelda has her own side story underground" theory a lot. It could be neat, but I honestly think it would be best if they keep Zelda and Link together. Yeah; I can agree. Phantom Hourglass is a very neat side-story, but never getting a game with Link, Tetra and her pirates as the main characters is a real shame. Since Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks were both going for a semi-steampunk idea (a paddle steamer and a train), perhaps an airship or a hot air balloon would be a better idea than a plane, especially since lighter-than-air aircraft can stop in midair.

Yeah; having Zelda accompany Link was easily my favourite part of Spirit Tracks. That could be neat, though I don't think it would necessarily work for a remake of the original The Legend of Zelda. One of the main points of the original is that you're free to go wherever you want and tackle the challenges in almost any order; you could even go most of the game without acquiring a sword if you wanted to do so. Right at the beginning of the game, the player has to make a choice: go into the cave or go down one of the three paths. I don't think inserting a mandatory section at the start of that game is a good idea. I still hope, despite the trailers making it seem unlikely, that BOTW2 will have Zelda accompany Link. I hope this not only because it would be really cool and it would have a ton of gameplay potential, but also because BOTW ended on Link and Zelda being finally reunited and setting out together; opening BOTW2 with a massive visual, "What? You thought these two would be adventuring together because we ended the first game that way? Sike! They're separated again and you're going to have to go through this whole new game just to see them get right back to where already were at the end of the previous game!" would be a massive disservice to the characters and to the fans, and fans will see it as a massive disservice. And I'm not saying that as my opinion or prediction, but as something I 100% know will happen as a simple fact of cause & effect, simply because we've been down this road before: Wind Waker gave us Tetra: a really cool incarnation of Zelda that was an adventurer and a pirate captain, and it ended on Link and Tetra setting out together. Then Phantom Hourglass opened with Tetra getting abducted by the Ghost Ship and then spending the rest of the game as a statue, and I distinctly remember Tetra getting sidelined like that being the most widely-criticized thing about Phantom Hourglass, and just think about what a high bar that is! I remember Tetra getting sidelined like that getting more complaints than the touchscreen controls and the temple of the ocean king combined.

@Etrurian emperor Well, all of season 5 of My Hero Academia has released; what did you think of it overall (and what do you think of how it handled the Villain Academia arc overall, arc-shuffling aside)?

Huh. Okay. I thought I read somewhere about the dream-weaving/invading aspect was used in one of the Castlevania games; I'm guessing it must've been one of the other Castlevania games.

I admittedly haven't played the game that you're talking about, but in regards to that hint, succubi traditionally invade men's dreams in folklore and medieval literature, so "beautiful nightmare" would make sense in terms of referring to them specifically, assuming of course that that dream-weaving aspect of succubi is actually in the game.

Interesting. A Link to the Past was long before my time. No, actually; I decided I would go in pretty much blind; only going on Zelda Wiki for clarification after finding something. I chose to do this mainly because I know I won't be able to finish the game before the free trial runs out, and because I wanted to see what I could figure out for myself. No; I don't use glitches or exploits, nor do I leave a dungeon unfinished. Anyway, in terms of progress, I just defeated Aghanim for the first time and gained access to the Dark World. Overall, the game has been fairly fun. It's much easier to start playing than the first game thanks to a number of things; the most obvious being that Link does a slice with the sword rather than a stab, so the attack range is a lot wider and it's much easier to safely hit enemies. Another advantage the game has is that it is much easier to see when an enemy is about to attack; in addition to projectile-using enemies having an animation where they prepare to fire, this is also probably the only Zelda game I've ever played where I didn't find leevers to be really annoying, thanks to having plenty of time to see when they're about to pop up. That said, it's also interesting to see the different conveniences newer games have that A Link to the Past didn't have, such as the compass revealing the locations of the treasure chests in addition to the boss room, or the shield being able to block more than just projectiles. The dungeons so far have been a lot smaller than I expected; even for early-game dungeons, they were rather quick, and up until the Tower of Hera, they were surprisingly lacking in puzzles compared to newer games in the series. Speaking of the Tower of Hera, I found it quite interesting mainly because the item you find in the dungeon isn't used inside the dungeon at all; instead, all the puzzles revolve around rearrangeable pits and stuff like that. It was interesting to see a Zelda dungeon where exploring it isn't gated by the dungeon item. Anyway, the opening segment where you rescue Zelda and escort her to the sanctuary was interesting; it sets up the stakes, it shows the main characters trying to be proactive in trying to stop Aghanim, and it lets the player briefly get to know Zelda before she gets kidnapped again by Aghanim. That said, apart from her occasionally-repeating dialogue, she's very much a non-presence during the rescue; it just made me think that it might've been neat if she had some gameplay components or accompanied Link throughout the game; something that of course wouldn't happen until Spirit Tracks. I mean, it's not like there weren't any SNES games that had companion characters follow the main player character; games like Secret of Mana (which admittedly I haven't played) spring to mind.

They outright mention it in the show shortly after the reveal; the firebending guy, Mako, deduces that Amon uses bloodbending to make his opponents' attacks miss.

I'd agree except for the fact that he really doesn't. It even gets pointed out that he subtly uses bloodbending to win fights by making his opponents' attacks miss. What before seemed to just be him being fast, skilled, calm and prepared, was actually him nerfing his opponents' accuracy through bloodbending. Anyway, since you're watching the show for the first time, I'm not going to talk about everything I dislike about the show; I just thought I would point out the Amon thing both to illustrate what I was talking about regarding my opinion of the show slowly souring, and because I figured that one wouldn't be a scathing criticism and would more be a case of personal preference, if that makes sense.

I remember watching Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time several years ago, and then watching Korra not long after that. Despite not growing up on Avatar: The Last Airbender, I ended up enjoying it a lot; quickly becoming a fan of the series and re-watching the show multiple times. Korra, by contrast, I've watched twice. I enjoyed Korra the first time around, largely with my brain turned off, so to speak. After a while, however, the more I thought back on the show, the more different issues I had with it, and I just kept having more issues with it, and my opinion of the show slowly soured as a result. When I re-watched it, it ultimately confirmed a lot of those issues I had with it. In short, I still look back fondly on Avatar: the Last Airbender, but I went from someone who liked Legend of Korra to someone who doesn't like Legend of Korra. Amon was easily one of my favourite characters in Korra as well; I liked that he was a very different kind of threat than Ozai, I liked how eerily calm he was in almost every situation, and he seemed like a natural fit as the villain for a follow-up to Avatar: the Last Airbender. However, in hindsight, I really don't like the reveal that he was a bloodbender the whole time. I liked it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more I found myself wishing he had actually been a non-bender. I couldn't help but think that it made a lot of his pre-reveal feats seem less impressive in hindsight, I kept thinking about moments pre-reveal where he was alone and easily could've achieved what he wanted by bloodbending without being discovered but didn't, and I just couldn't help but feel that he was just overall more interesting pre-reveal, and that the reveal was also a way they could have him lose without actually having to address the issue that was core to his revolution; yet another example in TV of, "Oh, we don't actually want to discuss the issue, so we'll make it that the heroes win through the villain being a hypocrite." They still easily could've had him turn out to be the firstborn son of Yakone; they could've had it that he was unable to bend and, as such, was passed over as his father's intended successor, while Tarrlok became the groomed product of vengeance that Yakone wanted. 1. "By the same guys" well, yes and no. Avatar: the Last Airbender was created by Mike and Bryan, and its chief writer was Aaron Ehasz. Legend of Korra didn't have Ehasz; it was created & written by Mike and Bryan until they assembled a writing team sometime around season 3, but that team was ultimately still subservient to Mike and Bryan. The Dragon Prince, meanwhile, is created and written by Ehasz. Basically, Korra and Dragon Prince were made by different parts of the team that made ATLA, and it is easy to tell with both shows which team members are missing (not saying that as a good or a bad thing; just that it's noticeable). 2. If, by the animation budget, you're referring to the frame rate, apparently, that was actually a stylistic choice. The Dragon Prince, unlike ATLA and Korra, is CG animated rather than traditional 2D animation, but they wanted it to emulate 2D animation, so they flattened the character models, added outlines, and arbitrarily reduced the number of frames in places. That last one turned out to be a poor choice due to the inconsistency, and they apologized for it and fixed it for seasons 2 and 3.

Characters that I wish had gotten in, instead of a character that did: Captain Toad, mainly because I think a little Toad that can't jump would've been a funnier joke fighter than Piranha Plant. Edelgard; I would've greatly preferred Edelgard over Byleth and, honestly, she's the real mascot of Three Houses, not Byleth. Decidueye, mainly because I think Decidueye is cooler and more unique than Incineroar. Plus, grass type is the main type that has yet to have had solo representation in any of the Smash Bros. games (Charizard went solo in Smash 4, and it and Greninja meant fire and water were covered, but no grass). Characters that I wish had gotten in, regardless of the current list of fighters: …I can't really think of any.

True; the doors did flash. I wasn't even going to say "NES logic". Well, I'm on my way to what by process of elimination should be the Ridley boss fight, so I can say that it has been a much smoother experience. I've been very thorough in my exploration, and the secrets have been a lot less unintuitive (to me at least). The only area where I really struggled to the point of annoyance was with the area where you learn the wall jump. But, once I got the hang of the timing (mainly being sure to press the opposite direction, then press jump as opposed to pressing both at the same time which I tend to do a lot by accident because of the strict timing), it wasn't too much of a hastle. The real difficulty for me was finding a way to jump over the three-tile-wide false floor in front of the missile upgrade. I have admittedly been using a walkthrough, but I try to only use it for making sure I didn't miss anything on my way out of an area. And, most of the time, I found an item upgrade or secret room before the walkthrough mentioned it. Overall, I think the game is very interesting. There are a few annoyances I have with it; mainly in the form of platforming sections where I struggle with the timing (using the space jump or the grappling hook come to mind), but it is very fun overall. The exploration is fun, and there's a lot of attention to detail with the world design and the environment. Combat is also interesting; while I normally prefer melee combat in games, I have to say that I seem to prefer ranged combat with side-scrollers. EDIT: I just completed Super Metroid. Here's what I can say about the last two bosses: 1. Ridley could've been fun if there was more horizontal space in his boss room, but I largely found him annoying because of the lack of space. I even tried to use the screw attack to make up for the lack of horizontal space by exploiting the vertical space in the boss room, and it really didn't work, so the boss fight became a game of chipping off as much of his HP as possible as quickly as possible before he took away all my health. 2. Mother Brain was a fun boss fight overall (but I got to use the rewind feature and save states; it might not have been as fun in 1994). There is a bit too much happening on-screen on the actual approach to the fight; I get that Mother Brain was previously a stationary boss and that the approach was supposed to be a fake-out not unlike the little Kraid fake-out a lot earlier in the game (or at least I'm guessing that's what the boss approach is supposed to be), but the fight against its mobile form was very straightforward. One thing that confused me was that I knew about the scripted attack it does to end the first phase of the real fight, but when I got hit by that attack, I got a game over instead of the cutscene. I had to look it up online and found out that, if you're below a certain amount of health when the boss does that attack, you lose. That I thought was a bit stupid, and that's where the "I got to use save states" comes in, because it was easy to just go back to the beginning of the fight (after the fake-out) and beat it with a lot more health remaining. I'm sorry, but a win should be a win whether you're at full health or nearly empty; a "if you beat the boss with less than this much HP remaining, you lose" is just stupid. As for the game overall, I can see why it's a classic. It hasn't exactly made me an instant fan of Metroid games, but I fully understand the appeal of them now. Maybe I'll try some other Metroid games later. But, for now, I'm going to move on to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and see how far I can get in the four days I have remaining of the Switch Online free trial.

Yeah; it does seem to be a scheduling/planning mess. They really should've had more of a plan, and it honestly just makes me respect the anime writers for the anime-only arcs being as good as they are (sometimes better than the manga content). I agree that the manga should not have recapped the movie content. The anime had good reason for doing so: it added back in everything that had been cut from the movie to shorten the runtime (such as Toneri and Urashiki; I kid you not, Urashiki was going to be in the movie and got cut), and generally improving over the movie in basically every way. The only two reasons I can think of for the manga retreading the movie are 1. art practice, and 2. Establishing the karma seal, as the movie did not show Momoshiki planting a karma on Boruto as far as I know. The former could easily have been done through, well, practice, and the latter could easily have been done through a less-than-a-chapter-long prologue rather than recapping the entire movie. Yeah; the manga is moving at a snail's pace. It's honestly ridiculous. True; there will be less arcs with the Otsutsuki this way, unless of course they bring back Urashiki, which they easily could do; his last fight was in the time-travel arc against kid-Naruto, Boruto, Sasuke and past-Jiraiya, and they introduced a clone of Jiraiya, so they could easily bring him back by revealing that he planted a karma seal on Jiraiya. And I honestly wouldn't mind that much if they brought him back; he was the only Otsutsuki villain in Boruto that I thought was actually interesting.

With all the talk about NSO, I decided to try the free trial (and immediately disable the automatic renewal) and use it to play Super Metroid. And, right away, after getting the morph ball and the missiles, I got lost. Now, I know that the whole point of these games is that you're supposed to get lost and figure out where to go next, but I've searched everywhere I could and every single path led to a dead end. One of them was even a dead end from which I could not escape, so I had to use the rewind feature. I don't want to have to resort to a walkthrough, especially this early on in the game, but I'm beginning to think I might have to, and it's making me feel dumb. EDIT: So, I found out that some of the doors have to be hit with five missiles to enter. In no way whatsoever does the game hint that the doors need to be hit with five missiles, and I previously gave up trying to open them after failing to do so with one missile. My experience playing the game has been a lot better after that, though it's been very hard to get the timing right for wall-jumping.

Ah; that makes sense. So it's just a funny coincidence that the game also took place in the year 2007.

$50 is a very big ask for not many games. I don't really care for any of the Sega games, so the only reason for me to get it would be the N64 games, and of those games, most of the ones I'd be interested in are ones that I already have: I still have my GameCube and Zelda Collectors Edition (and it works perfectly after all these years and multiple moves; the durability of the GameCube is amazing... remember when Nintendo used to make durable consoles and controllers?), so I can use that to play Ocarina of Time. I already have Mario 64 via 3D All-Stars; speaking of which, putting Mario 64 on Switch Online so soon after releasing a limited-time $60 barebones upscaling is a great way to make fans feel completely cheated. As if I didn't already feel bad about purchasing 3D All-Stars. Really, the only games on the list that stand out as games I might try (and this is being a bit generous) would be Paper Mario and Banjo-Kazooie, and I'm not going to spend $50 just to play two N64 games. By the way, on the list of N64 games on Nintendo's website, they state the release year of each game, and Sin & Punishment is listed as having released in 2007, even though it actually released in the year 2000 and took place in the year 2007. I honestly can't tell if that's on purpose as a joke or if it's a genuine typo and massive coincidence.

Well, I finished the King Knight campaign of Shovel Knight. I finally completed all the campaigns in Shovel Knight. I have to say that, overall, it was a very fun and interesting game. For the King Knight campaign specifically, I liked the platforming and combat, and a lot of the items were really neat, but I really did not like the card game Joustus. It felt far too luck-based.