Soooooo what'cha playing?

[vanguard333]

A while back, I bought the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, and today, I decided to start playing the first game in the series. How is is? ...Very obviously the first Battle Network game.

For context, the Battle Network series was my introduction to the Mega Man franchise as a whole, and I am very familiar with the series... but only with the last third of the series. My first Battle Network game was 5 (Team Colonel), and my second Battle Network game, which I never finished, was 6 (Cybeast Gregar). This will be my first time playing the first four Battle Network games.

Before I say what I think of the first game so far, I will just quickly say what I think of the collection. I'm not sure about the fully-voiced talking Mega Man in the main menu; I get the idea since Mega Man is a NetNavi, but the novelty faded very quickly. It does seem like Mega Man can be silent if you choose that in the settings though, so a player doesn't have to hear it if they find it annoying. Other than that, I don't have much to say.

As for Battle Network 1, I was surprised by how fast-paced the start of the game is. This is the game that had to introduce the characters and setting; every game after it could skip most of the introductions since they were hard sequels, and yet, I distinctly remember 5 and 6 doing a lot more buildup in the earliest parts of their stories. In this game, Lan goes right to class, quickly goes through the tutorial for the game's combat system, learns about how WWW is targeting people's ovens (incidentally, one thing I really liked about the series looking back is how it effortlessly demonstrated why connecting every electronic device to the internet would be a very bad idea long before the first smart fridge was ever proposed), and then the player is confronting the first boss maybe 10 seconds later. The pacing doesn't slow down after that, as the next day, Lan immediately heads to class, and another WWW guy targets the school's computers. I have to ask, does the pacing continue to be this fast for the rest of the game?

That was the big thing that surprised me. The rest of the stuff that surprised me was little things:

1. The guard and shockwave battle chips being separate chips.
2. Bird enemies that give a dash battle chip; this one surprised me simply because these enemies never appeared in 5 or 6.
3. Small differences in character catchphrases and stuff like that.

EDIT: I am further in the game, and one more thing has surprised me: Lan Hikari's dad being portrayed as a bit of a workaholic. I don't recall him ever being portrayed as a workaholic in either 5 or 6. Granted; in Battle Network 5, he spends the entire game having been abducted by the villains. In game 6, however, he isn't, and I do recall him going out of his way to make sure to spend time with his family and not be at work all day. Does he go through character development, is this building up to a twist, or is this simply an aspect of his character that later games dropped?

Another thing I thought worth talking about is the buster MAX option that the Legacy Collection provides and that can be toggled on or off at any time. Normally, I wouldn't use something like this because of just how easy it makes the game, but the amount of enemy encounters in Battle Network 1 was enough that I turned on buster max just to relieve the tedium. I decided that I would just use it for random enemy encounters and not for boss fights, but I keep forgetting to turn it off before the boss fights.

EDIT: Another thing I noticed while playing this game is how weirdly believable the villains' approaches have been so far in certain ways. When the villains need to hack into something as part of the plan, they don't type a million random buttons on a keyboard; they trick other characters into giving them access. How often is that seen in popular media? Incidentally, I also mentioned the probably-accidental pre-emptive criticism of smart appliances earlier, and now I just completed a part of the game where Lan and Mayl go to a town where all the vehicles are self-driving and coordinate with each other and the traffic system via the internet, and again, the game immediately shows at least one very clear problem with that idea when a villain gains access to the traffic system.

Edited June 15 by vanguard333

[Fabulously Olivier]

I don't really have a lot to talk about in June, because I came back to Warframe after a roughly 5 year hiatus. Seeing how far the game has come, I'm proud of the little game I backed as a master tier founder way back in college. It's always been a game I play so excessively that I burn out, but I'll also always come back eventually.

 

44. Pokemon X

Spoiler

Cleared 6/13

9/10

 

My team was Greninja, Nidoking, Absol, Charizard, Aurorus, Aegislash.

(I didn't mention this during my Diamond review, but my team was Empoleon, Luxray, Honchkrow, Lucario, Weavile, Garchomp.)

 

Pokemon X is a grossly underappreciated entry in the franchise from what I've seen. It gets a lot of flak for being too easy (and I guess it is, if you do any grinding). My other complaints are that swarm battles are terrible and the new rivals outside of Selena suck. They're too friendly, and they're dorks.

 

Aside from that, it's honestly pretty peak. Mega Evolutions are the best gimmick mechanic in the franchise, and should have stuck around. The QoL has been ramped up massively. The visuals are great for the platform. It's the first game in which I required ZERO grind. And the mon variety is so high throughout the whole game that I could see myself replaying it many times.

 

45. Immortals of Aveum 

Spoiler

Cleared 6/16

7/10

A mid shooter with great visuals, okay gunplay somewhat lacking in oomph, a mediocre story, annoying characters, and a lack of enemy variety.

 

46. Path of Exile

Spoiler

Cleared 6/19

8/10

 

So let's start with the negative. This game is WAY too hard. The number of times I died in less than a second or to outright one shots is unacceptable, and I put a lot of points into elemental resistances, armor, and evasion. And I had a shield in the final act. As a consequence, my damage was also poor. 

It's certainly possible that my take on the Cyclone Slayer build was just that unoptimal that I made the game borderline unplayable. But here's the thing. I'm a seasoned ARPG player and a buildcrafting enthusiast. If I, of all people, cannot intuitively make a good character without using someone else's build, very few people can. And if the game is being balanced around meta builds, the entire glorious build system is pointless.

We shall see when I experiment with more characters in the future, and I'll rescore up or down accordingly. And that's the thing. As bad as my entire Part 2 experience was, I do want to play again sometime.

 

 

Now onto the good. The passive tree is one of the greatest things I've ever seen, and it gets my neurons firing in the best way. The story is fascinating, and the lore is deep. The combat isn't as good as D3, but it's a lot better than the D2 it was inspired by. The game is content rich, and always getting new leagues. And the first half of the campaign was a well-balanced blast consistently.

 

Warframe

Spoiler

10/10

What do you get when you match up Dynasty Warriors, Destiny, and Titanfall in a dating app, and they have a beautiful baby. You get one of the best 3rd person shooters of all time, and the best f2p game on the market.

 

Warframe is a ridiculously huge, content dense, glorious time waster. It's fast, it's fun, it's got so many playable frames and so much weapon variety. The gunplay is snappy, the parkour is fun, the action is hectic, the lore is fascinating, the community is friendly, and it has a bottomless well of actitivities and rewards.

On the bad side, it's a really obtuse game with poor user onboarding, Archwing & Spy missions aren't fun, and certain map tiles can be really confusing to navigate.

 

I foresee myself playing a lot more Warframe going forward as I catch up on my many missed Primes and other rewards. I started Pokemon Moon. I've also been playing a fair amount of Samurai Warriors 5, a little bit of Astro's Playroom, a little bit of Gauntlet Slayer Edition, and some of the Trails Through Daybreak demo.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

44. Pokemon X

  Reveal hidden contents

Cleared 6/13

9/10

 

My team was Greninja, Nidoking, Absol, Charizard, Aurorus, Aegislash.

(I didn't mention this during my Diamond review, but my team was Empoleon, Luxray, Honchkrow, Lucario, Weavile, Garchomp.)

 

Pokemon X is a grossly underappreciated entry in the franchise from what I've seen. It gets a lot of flak for being too easy (and I guess it is, if you do any grinding). My other complaints are that swarm battles are terrible and the new rivals outside of Selena suck. They're too friendly, and they're dorks.

 

Aside from that, it's honestly pretty peak. Mega Evolutions are the best gimmick mechanic in the franchise, and should have stuck around. The QoL has been ramped up massively. The visuals are great for the platform. It's the first game in which I required ZERO grind. And the mon variety is so high throughout the whole game that I could see myself replaying it many times.

Interesting; on my first playthrough of Y, I also picked Aurorus as my fossil Pokémon. It had good offence, but it was constantly being defeated almost instantly because it's a slow Pokémon with Ice/Rock type in a game full of Pokémon with steel and fighting type moves. In all subsequent playthroughs, I went with Tyrantrum.

Similarly, I had picked the grass starter as my starter on that first playthrough, and I liked the idea of a knight-themed starter Pokémon, but the game is full of fast flying type Pokémon that beat it quickly, so I used Greninja in all subsequent playthroughs.

Aegislash is a Pokémon I also picked because it's a sword Pokémon, and I really enjoyed it both because of it being a sword and because of it being a very fun Pokémon in gameplay.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 minute ago, vanguard333 said:

Interesting; on my first playthrough of Y, I also picked Aurorus as my fossil Pokémon. It had good offence, but it was constantly being defeated almost instantly because it's a slow Pokémon with Ice/Rock type in a game full of Pokémon with steel and fighting type moves. In all subsequent playthroughs, I went with Tyrantrum.

Similarly, I had picked the grass starter as my starter on that first playthrough, and I liked the idea of a knight-themed starter Pokémon, but the game is full of fast flying type Pokémon that beat it quickly, so I used Greninja in all subsequent playthroughs.

Aegislash is a Pokémon I also picked because it's a sword Pokémon, and I really enjoyed it both because of it being a sword and because of it being a very fun Pokémon in gameplay.

Yeah, Aurorus was godawful for most fights, and I'll never be using it again. I wasn't happy with Aegislash's performance either, personally. Nidoking was actually my MVP, and Charizard & Greninja were carrying me too. But there really are so many good Pokemon in X that I intend to make playthroughs a sort of annual thing for the forseeable future. Alongside Soul Silver & Alpha Sapphire.

What I've noticed is that aside from picking Sword, I always pick the game with the softer color/theme.

[vanguard333]

2 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Yeah, Aurorus was godawful for most fights, and I'll never be using it again. I wasn't happy with Aegislash's performance either, personally. Nidoking was actually my MVP, and Charizard & Greninja were carrying me too. But there really are so many good Pokémon in X that I intend to make playthroughs a sort of annual thing for the foreseeable future. Alongside Soul Silver & Alpha Sapphire.

I can see how a poison type Pokémon would be the MVP in the game that introduced the fairy type, given that its weaknesses are steel and poison. I'm a little surprised to hear that Aegislash was disappointing; it is admittedly a one-trick-Pokémon in that it relies on its shield form for defense and sword form for offense, but it is a really good trick: using sword dance while in shield form, attacking once, then using king's shield to return to shield form is a pretty good trick.

I can definitely see Charizard and Greninja carry the team as well, especially the X Mega Evolution of Charizard, which swaps out the flying type with dragon type. As I played Y, my Mega Charizard had the ability that grants temporary strong sunlight and very strong special attack, but retained the flying type.

 

As for what I've been playing: I'm still in the middle of Battle Network 1. I've been struggling to motivate myself to play it. One more problem I've encountered with Battle Network 1 is that, while the net in 5 and 6 could be confusing at times, overall, it was very straightforward to navigate and explore, whereas, in this game, it is a lot more confusing; the sections of the net aren't named and they all look identical, and the enemy encounter rate is so large that it's really annoying to get lost. Moreover, in 5 and 6, more of the net unlocked as the game progressed and you often had to explore the new areas opened up in order to progress, whereas in this game, all the story moments and boss fights happen in places disconnected from the net, so, when I explore the net, I'm always left with this feeling of, "Should I be here? Am I supposed to be here at this point in the game?"

[Fabulously Olivier]

My initial impressions of Moon are extremely negative, by the way. For one, I find it unfun that basically every wild Pokemon can call for help, which makes them considerably more annoying to grind and WAY more annoying to catch.

 

Two, I'm consistently having to grind a lot to beat every totem Pokemon, and I'm currently on the jungle one. They're honestly stronger than your Pokemon even 5-10 levels over them, they summon help, and some of them even just spam full heals on themselves. Super annoying, doesn't feel balanced at all.

[vanguard333]

6 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

My initial impressions of Moon are extremely negative, by the way. For one, I find it unfun that basically every wild Pokémon can call for help, which makes them considerably more annoying to grind and WAY more annoying to catch.

 

Two, I'm consistently having to grind a lot to beat every totem Pokemon, and I'm currently on the jungle one. They're honestly stronger than your Pokemon even 5-10 levels over them, they summon help, and some of them even just spam full heals on themselves. Super annoying, doesn't feel balanced at all.

I don't remember much of Sun. I do remember wild Pokémon calling for help being annoying; the only time I liked that mechanic was a moment where I was looking for a Cubone with a specific ability.

As for the totem Pokémon, I honestly found them fairly straightforward overall, as I found that their strength was more than balanced out by there only being one of them. It felt to me like fighting a gym leader that had only one Pokémon. It didn't feel balanced, but I think I found it unbalanced in the opposite direction. I could be misremembering; it has been a while.

Incidentally, what Pokémon have you picked so far for your team? I picked Rowlet as my starter, I had an event-only munchlax as a result of buying the game close to day 1, and then the rest of my team consisted of the following: a midday Lycanroc, a Wishiwashi, an Alolan Marowak, and a Mimikyu.

[Fabulously Olivier]

5 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I don't remember much of Sun. I do remember wild Pokémon calling for help being annoying; the only time I liked that mechanic was a moment where I was looking for a Cubone with a specific ability.

As for the totem Pokémon, I honestly found them fairly straightforward overall, as I found that their strength was more than balanced out by there only being one of them. It felt to me like fighting a gym leader that had only one Pokémon. It didn't feel balanced, but I think I found it unbalanced in the opposite direction. I could be misremembering; it has been a while.

Incidentally, what Pokémon have you picked so far for your team? I picked Rowlet as my starter, I had an event-only munchlax as a result of buying the game close to day 1, and then the rest of my team consisted of the following: a midday Lycanroc, a Wishiwashi, an Alolan Marowak, and a Mimikyu.

So I picked Rowlett as my starter, I've got a Pikachu that I intend to evolve to Alolan Raichu, and I've got a Salandit I intend to evolve. The rest of the team is up in the air, and being rotated around as I catch things/as needs be. I may put a Poliwrath in there. My Moon run is less planned than my last couple games were.

[vanguard333]

1 hour ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

So I picked Rowlett as my starter, I've got a Pikachu that I intend to evolve to Alolan Raichu, and I've got a Salandit I intend to evolve. The rest of the team is up in the air, and being rotated around as I catch things/as needs be. I may put a Poliwrath in there. My Moon run is less planned than my last couple games were.

I see. I don't remember if my team was really planned, but I do remember that I mainly wanted to try using Pokémon that were introduced in gen 7.

[samthedigital]

@Fabulously Olivier Did you play Path of Exile beyond the campaign? I'm not absolutely sure based on your post.

[Fabulously Olivier]

1 hour ago, samthedigital said:

@Fabulously Olivier Did you play Path of Exile beyond the campaign? I'm not absolutely sure based on your post.

No, and unless I find some seriously good gear for him on an alt in the future, I don't intend to touch postgame on my Slayer.

[samthedigital]

16 hours ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

No, and unless I find some seriously good gear for him on an alt in the future, I don't intend to touch postgame on my Slayer.

Yeah, so what I will say is that the game only becomes more difficult once you reach the post-game. When I say difficult what I actually mean is that past a certain point you need to have a good understanding of at least a handful of the game's systems/mechanics to progress, and that can take a significant amount of time even if you're using guides and doing a lot of research. I will try and refrain from saying too much more because my perspective on the game and issues with it are entirely different given where I'm at; I've sunk somewhere north of 10,000 hours into the game.

[Revier]

Played through the first chapter of Tactics Ogre: Reborn yesterday, finally. My take: while I don't really like the script, the heavy emphasis on skills, and the general difficulty, the quality of life and gameplay improvements from the PSP remake, rebalance of classes and largely solid enough voice acting do a lot to still make it a fairly palatable experience. Here's hoping that holds going forward!

[Revier]

Continued playing Reborn, and while it is still a solid remake, there are some issues that are starting to bother me:

- They seem to put way more high HP enemy units on maps than is necessary, which drags down the pacing and forces the player to make high damage characters.

- The general difficulty curve isn't smooth, I was able to get along decently well until Tanmas Hill, then the difficulty just shot up a whole bunch and stayed high until I readjusted my party composition to make up for it.

Spoiler

-The heck was that Vice fight? Seriously. Why do SRPGs love crafting dueling scenarios?

 

Edited July 4 by Revier

[vanguard333]

I finished playing Mega Man Battle Network 1. Given that its gameplay is a very obvious prototype, by the end, I was mainly playing through it for the story, so I'm not too bothered that I accidentally left buster max on during the final boss fight when I normally turn it off for the boss fight. I'm going to play the rest of the games with buster max off at all times.

Of course, I say that I mainly played through it for the story by the end, but the story would also be fairly average if not for the twist that Lan and Mega Man are actually twin brothers. I already knew about the twist from having played Battle Network 5 and 6, so I mainly wanted to see how the first game handled the twist, and it did handle it fairly well overall, with plenty of hints scattered throughout the game and with the moment of the reveal itself being well done. I do have one criticism: after the reveal, Lan's dad cautions him against using Mega Man irresponsibly, not because he's a relative that already died once and nearly died twice, but because any harm that happens to Mega Man could also happen to Lan because their DNA is the same. ...Yeah; that's really dumb, and I'm glad that the later games dropped that idea and focused on the risk of losing Hub again whenever Lan and Mega Man did anything dangerous.

[Hrothgar777]

I'm exactly halfway through watching a Path of Radiance playthrough on YouTube.

(And yes, I know watching a playthrough isn't the same as actually playing through it. If I had a GameCube and a copy of this game lying around, you know I'd give it a try. But alas.)

Some thoughts on the game so far:

 

-I don't know how the map overworld can look so good while the character sprites are so crudely rendered. This one detail must've given them trouble for some reason.

-They were definitely planning a sequel while working on PoR. What's unclear is how far into the planning stage they were for Radiant Dawn before PoR launched.

-As someone who's accumulated probably more playtime on Three Houses than all other FE titles combined, I'm astonished how large the unit roster is for the Tellius series. I guess that was normal back when Classic was the only way to play. Then again, the playthrough makes PoR look surprisingly easy.

-The laguz were an interesting concept, and IMO it makes no sense to only consider human-dragon hybrids and not those for other animals. Too bad Intelligent Systems has pretty much forgotten about them since 2007.

-In the expanded inter-battle menu we see the early origins of the hubworld that's now a mainstay for FE. Though I took a dig at character sprites above, and though I stand by that comment, I will say it's neat how entirely unique models were made for one-off characters who appear in a 15-second conversation in a single chapter.

Edited July 7 by Hrothgar777

[Hrothgar777]

Hmm, the story suddenly got way better around Chapter 16. It wasn't super interesting before but now I'm starting to get vested.

Oliver is a magnificent fat pervert whose mere existence justifies the song Beauty is a Mad Mistress, and Sanaki is a likable authority figure. Though I guess the Aesop of this story is "legislators suck and everything is better with an enlightened despot calling the shots", which is questionable.

[vanguard333]

I started playing Mega Man Battle Network 2. One thing I can definitely say is that it does set a different tone almost immediately.

After beating the game's first NetNavi boss, that boss' operator is told by the game's evil organization that failure will not be tolerated and the classic, "Who left this briefcase here? (Kaboom)" happens. A villain killing off a subordinate for failing them is common to the point of cliche in most media, yet part of me was genuinely surprised to see it happen here, and I immediately realized that the reason for that is that I've never seen it happen in a Battle Network game up until now. I've played 1, 5 and 6, and while they all put characters in life-threatening situations and did have some dark stuff (Lan's dad being tortured in 5, etc.), they're generally lighthearted overall to the point where a villain killing off a subordinate doesn't really happen.

This reminds me of a piece of writing advice I like to tell people: contrast/juxtaposition is important. One reason I really don't like most edgy grimdark media is that, if everything in it is already dark and grim, where can you go from there? The natural answer in that case would be to shine a light in that story for contrast, but most writers writing such stories actively avoid doing that in the name of being 'edgy'. Meanwhile, if a story is normally lighthearted, then the moments where it does something dark stand out all the more. Ocarina of Time is perhaps the best example of what I mean: the player first sees idyllic Hyrule as kid Link, and that makes seeing the fallen Hyrule as adult Link all the more effective because the player has that contrast in their heads.

[Imuabicus der Fertige]

Played through and beat the Elden Ring DLC. Modest Spoilers ahead, I suppose?

The whole thing was... a mixed bag for me to be frank, though on the positive side over all. The new "area" if we wanna call it that, keeping in mind that it´s a pretty large addition offers a lot of fun "How do I get there" moments, where Fromsoft shows you where you COULD be... but aren´t yet. Certainly, the exploration was the highlight of this DLC for me and the shaman puzzle had me feel downright proud of myself for having gathered the little piece necessary to solve it, obvious as the puzzle felt however. Areas being too empty is an understandable criticism, though I think the only area that needed more was the stretch of field with nothing but dogs before the Shadow Keep... all the other areas either have good reason to be empty and I think it adds to the overall feel of it (that being the Abyssal Woods and Jagged Peak) while in others Fromsoft has you running around like a headless chicken, finding items, dungeons or cookbooks... yeah, woohoo for cookbooks.

In terms of enemies... I could be wrong, but I don´t think there are that many new enemies actually... neither from the base game, nor from prior Fromsoft games? The Horned Warriors seem to be a Gundyr reskin with obviously more moves, the Ariandel flies are back, the Yhorm chapel KKK gang is back... I can only really think of 2 enemies that haven´t existed in ER as such and felt truly new, not counting bosses, of which some become regular enemies, in good old Fromsoft fashion.

The bosses... I think most people would consider bosses to be the "meat" of a Souls-like, where the players mechanics are put to the test and what not... I didn´t really enjoy the bosses all that much and felt too many of them had attack strings that go on for too long, too many instantanious gap closers, ludicrous AoE and the final boss is, quite literally, too flashy for me - I wasn´t ever really sure which move would come out next, which makes reacting correctly difficult. Though his grab attack is interesting and kinda a cool idea. That being said, if my build wasn´t an obstinate STR build, I may have found some bosses more interesting to fight, but as it stands I don´t belong in the group of people who consider learning a bosses moveset a life altering experience (in a positive kind of way) and instead my madness meter goes up everytime I get caught in a combo.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Trails Through Daybreak and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (iron man run)

[Original Alear]

I'm also playing Trails Through Daybreak. And I've made decent progress in Banner Saga 2 and The House in Fata Morgana, the latter of which I am replaying.

[Hrothgar777]

So I decided to give Unicorn Overlord a try. As a general rule I have no interest in these types of games if they're not Fire Emblem, but so far I'm not regretting this purchase.

 

-At the time of writing I've reached the point where battles are rated at approximately level 7, which should be an indicator of how far I've gotten. That being said I keep getting a prompt to "Talk to Miriam", but I have no idea where to find her. It's possible that there's a linear set of chapters FE-style and I've totally ignored that for exploring and taking on side quests. Not deliberately, if so.

 

-So far, it seems clear the main story is just obligatory, and they don't care about that much. Which is a shame, as a guy who compulsively spits out FE plot ideas for free. Marth being an exiled prince whose homeland was taken over by an evil empire made for an intriguing premise in 1990. Not so much in 2024.

 

-My initial thoughts were that the dialogue was so overdone to the point of feeling like parody of the high fantasy genre. But then it got better as soon as the scope became smaller and episodic, and revolving more around everyday characters. It honestly feels like the scenario writers put more care into a random thief guy or a bombastic general hunting witches in a swamp than they did for the late queen whatever her name was.

 

-Despite being a very different animal from Fire Emblem I've found the rules easy to figure out. It's different from anything else I've played and I can appreciate that. I'm also digging the vaguely retro artstyle. If this is the project of basically an indie studio then I'm glad I got to support it with my money, because quality games like this should be put out by more than a handful of big players.

Edited July 25 by Hrothgar777

[Fabulously Olivier]

I don't have a super huge amount to talk about this month, so I'll also cover playthroughs I haven't quite finished yet.

 

It's ARPG month, ranked from worst to best.

 

Gauntlet: Slayer Edition

Spoiler

Playthrough - Elf archer. Also tried Barbarian and found him worthless.

 

I've only completed the first third or so of the game, up to beating the first boss. So these are "early" impressions, but also enough to form a coherent opinion on it.

 

I wouldn't call it good, but it's a sort of enjoyable 3-4/10 in very small bursts. And it's short enough to not overstay its welcome. Unfortunately, it's just too much like the classic arcade games and not at all like the improved Gauntlet Dark Legacy is needed to be.

 

47. Torchlight

Spoiler

Cleared 7/1.

7/10

Playthrough - Alchemist minion master

 

For its time, it's pretty good, and it holds up fine now. It's a simple, vibrant ARPG with a nice art style (IMO better looking than its successors) and a good loot game. It's limited in both content and classes.

 

The pet system is a big QoL improvement that other ARPGs should have copied. Being able to send a companion to sell loot and purchase items while you continue to dungeon crawl is great for pacing and looting.

 

Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem

Spoiler

7/10

Playthrough - dual wielding melee bruiser, twin daggers

 

Where this game excels is its combat. It has the heaviest, meatiest combat in the genre, with the best impact sounds, and it's really something you should experience. The story is also good in a cheesy B-movie Warhammer sort of way. The whole things feels like a fun knockoff of Warhammer Fantasy.

 

I also like that it gives you 3 revive tokens per run which refill when you visit towns. This takes the cheapness out of death, and it only counts as death if you run out of them.

 

I also appreciate the transmog system, which is best in genre. You can pick every skin you've obtained, regardless of weight class, and dye it in any combination you want. And your look will persist even if you change the gear out.

 

Its weaknesses are bugs, occassional game freezes, lack of interesting modifiers on loot, and only middling depth in its passive tree. There is some depth there, but it's only comparable to Diablo 3, not greater.

 

It should be noted that servers are being shut down. That will soon render this a single player only ARPG. Personally, I'm fine with that. I got it for $4, have had fun with it, and will probably play it again in the future to experience the ranged and mage playstyles. Maybe even a 4th time to play tank.

 

Diablo 3

Spoiler

Seasonal Playthrough - Witch Doctor

 

Dropping my score from 10 to 9 because I no longer feel that this is the peak casual ARPG. Also, I've noticed that all ranged classes feel pretty bad to level up - the opposite of the typical ARPG problem.

 

In every other regard, I still love this one. It's fast. It's fluid. Loot is generous. Pacing is excellent. Endgame is addictive. And it's just barely deep enough to experiment. It's a damn good game.

 

48. Torchlight 2

Spoiler

Cleared 7/10

Playthrough - Dragoon (Modded Class)

 

9/10. 10/10 with Synergies Mod on PC.

 

This is the peak casual ARPG, to Path of Exile's peak hardcore. Combat is extremely satisfying, enemies explode into gore piles. The art style is clean and colorful. Progression is satisfying. Loot is rewarding. And steam workshop modding support really elevates this game. 

 

49. Last Epoch

Spoiler

Cleared 7/21.

Playthrough - Spellblade

 

So, if you told me there was an ARPG that combined the combat & pacing of Diablo 3 with the depth of Path of Exile, and then polished it up with a level of convenience reminiscient of Guild Wars, I'd ask where I sign to sell my soul for this one.

 

This isn't the peak casual ARPG, nor the peak hardcore. It is the best of both worlds in a way that just makes it peak, period.

 

Last Epoch's progression system is cool as Hell. You can pick 5 skills to specialize in, and every skill in the game has a PoE style passive web with real, meaningful choices. Make a mistake? No big deal. You can change which skills you specialize in or respec points and get them back lightning fast.

 

You also have a passive tree for your class, and pick one of 3 advanced classes. Your advanced class is permanent, but you also have access to half the skill tree for the other 2 advanced classes. Make a mistake? No big deal. Each passive point can be refunded for a small amount of gold.

 

In addition to the aforementioned, it also has other top tier QoL features. Built in custom loot filters. Single button inventory sorting. Detailed tooltips that describe what each effect does and how it scales. Etc.

 

It also has visuals comparable to Wolcen and Diablo 4. As in, the highest standard of the genre.

 

And while it has some of the generic grimdark fantasy the genre can't seem to get away from, it mixes that with traditional high fantasy and even prehistoric times. This game's got aesthetic variety.

 

Oh, and the soundtrack's gorgeous too.

 

I can't stress this enough - Last Epoch is EVERYTHING I want from an ARPG. Every bit of its game design is just so immaculate. It's only real flaws can be summed up as "it's new." It's got bugs to fix. It's got balance issues to work out. The devs have been responsive, and I'm hopeful for its future. For now I'll give it a glowing 9, and if they stick with it and fix it, it'll be a strong 10 in the future.

 

 

I'm still playing Pokemon Moon. My opinion has not improved at all and I'm about 90% sure that this is the only playthrough I'll ever do.

 

I've played even more Warframe this month than I did last month. I also tried The First Descendant. It's okay in a sort of 4-5/10 way, but it actually just made me want to play more Warframe.

 

I played a little bit of Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Samurai Warriors 5, and Astro's Playroom just to break the pace a bit.

Edited July 26 by Fabulously Olivier

[vanguard333]

I started playing Ys 9: Monstrum Nox.

I originally played Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana back around the time that Ys 9 first released, and, aside from its ending, I absolutely loved Ys 8; I considered it to be one of those games where every component complements each other to the point where the game is far more than the sum of its parts. However, a lot of what I liked about Ys 8 was things that were unique to Ys 8, so I didn't know whether I liked Ys or just the one particular game, and since the premise of Ys 9 didn't grab me as much as the premise of Ys 8 did (stranded on a deserted island full of dinosaurs and having dreams of a woman from a lost civilization is a lot more interesting than escaping a prison and being forcibly recruited into a team of monster hunters within the city), I passed on Ys 9 when it first released.

However, now that I've recently played and greatly enjoyed Ys Origin, and with Ys 10 releasing in October, I thought I'd give more of the Ys games a try, and Ys 9 was on sale. So, I got it. I'm now at chapter 2 of the game.

Right away, Ys 9 starts off a fair bit more constrained than Ys 8. At the start of Ys 8, you're on a ship that you can fully explore, then you fight a prehistoric aquatic creature that destroys the ship, then a linear sequence as you find some allies and start planning what to do. In Ys 9, you start with a fully linear prison break sequence, then a series of flashbacks where the only playable moments may as well be cutscenes, then a chapter of walking to an abandoned house, then a tower defense, and only now in chapter 2 am I able to do some exploring. That said, once Ys 9 starts opening up, it does open up more than Ys 8 did; Ys 8 was broken into lots of small sections with brief loading screens between them, while there are no such loading screens for going between different sections of the main city. Plus, there's a grapple mechanic that is a fair bit of fun and adds some verticality to the exploration.

I have noticed that it's taking me a bit to get used to the controls despite them being largely the same as those in Ys 8 from what I can recall. I don't know if it's just that it's been a while since I played Ys 8, or if the controls scheme is different on the Switch versus the PS4 (I played Ys 8 on the PS4 and I'm playing Ys 9 on the Switch), but I'm having a hard time with flash guards in particular despite being able to reliably do flash guards in Ys 8. I'm also finding using abilities a bit awkward. That said, the combat is still fun. I'm surprised at how long it's taking so far to get additional party members, given how quickly Laxia joined the party in Ys 8.

One thing I liked about Ys 8 was that Castaway Village went a long way to justify all the vendors and side quest givers being in one location, making keeping track of everything a lot more convenient. Here, because the game is in a sprawling city, the vendors and that are more spread out. It makes sense for it to work that way in this game, but it is less convenient.

In short, I like it enough that I'm definitely going to keep playing, but I'm not getting that same sense of all the components complementing each other that I got with Ys 8, nor am I getting the straightforward fun of Ys Origin, and I'm not sure yet if this game has something that fills the void.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I’ve been playing plenty of games the last two months on account of booting up the old PS2 for a project and then chasing a rabbit hole of memories. Nothing particularly good or bad, but obnoxious to write about in a way that sounds interesting. 

The truth is that Minishoot’ Adventures got me in the mood for some zelda-like / zelda-adjacent games. The main series is, frankly, not in a good place right now. Even in light of The Legend of Zelda: Asset Flippers, which was announced a couple days after I decided to chase this theme for june (now july)'s write up. Before last year, I had played every Zelda game (except the CDIs), so the only places I have left to look lie beyond Nintendo’s jurisdiction. But I wouldn’t be much of a Zelda fan if I shied away from the adventure

Kena: Bridge of Spirits (2021, PC)

Spoiler

Now here’s a game that wasn’t on my radar much at all but absolutely should have been considering I owned a PS4 in 2021. What Zelda game does Kena remind me most of with its plot and themes? Well, the developers are actually the ones responsible for this viral short film so you tell me. The Mask Salesman's VA makes his video game debut as this game's antagonist. It’s hard to separate the “canon” from the fan canon when talking about Majora’s Mask, but I think even the most skeptical would agree that Termina is meant to represent Purgatory. That the time loop/Groundhog Day stuff is really just a way to contextualize Link helping these people move on when they’re cursed to suffer the same grief in a perpetuating loop. Kena’s role as a spirit guide is the same as Link’s, even if there’s no element of Time Travel. Time Travel was never the point. And by ditching it, every good deed affects the world space permanently rather than temporarily as in MM. She also gains new abilities from the spirits, including their masks which is surely another deliberate allusion.

But inevitably your exploration leads to a fight. The combat felt especially punishing and restrictive early on as you play like it’s a white knuckle reflex based action game. Parries, dodge rolls, building up your one notch of Courage that you need to spend either on a powerful attack or healing. It takes a few hours before your tools start to open up and you have more resources to play with. You’re much safer if you play like it’s a third person shooter with melee attacks to finish off near death enemies. They even slow time when you aim the bow in the air just like in Botw. The camera can be a real issue, because while enemies like to be polite enough not to attack you when your camera isn’t oriented in their direction, it’s not a hard and fast rule, and you’ll be forced to point your camera around for Rot commands, provoking new attacks from that direction. When surrounded it feels like you have no more than a second to strike before you need to dodge or parry something. There’s extremely subtle audio cues on enemy attacks that would serve as your warning. No threat indicator like in God of War 2018.

Thankfully Kena doesn’t have to work alone. She has the Rot, an ever expanding army of doughy faced spirit creatures that help out in battle and interact with the environment with a Pikmin-like work ethic. When the right context presents itself, all you have to do is point and click, no sifting through command menus. The traversal and puzzle solving elements are often seamless like that. Kena places a lot of faith in the player’s ability to notice things in the environment and discover how to interact with them. The game tutorializes you on its controls, but that’s all. You never “acquire” the game’s hookshot ability. You just have to notice a glowing flower, try to shoot an arrow at it, and it zips you over. You had the ‘hookshot’ all along, and you don’t ever have to dig into an inventory screen to equip anything.

This was a real winner of a game. The campaign is a perfect length of 10-12 hours with nothing feeling stale. They added free dlc challenges after release, and a New Game+ mode that remixes every combat encounter in the game and adds some new enemies not seen in the first playthrough. I really hope they can do a sequel, one that does even more with the Rot for puzzle solving. Heck, just go full Pikmin and introduce multiple types of Rot that can be commanded in separate groups. Also a minigame where you play as a Rot exploring a 2D top down Zelda dungeon, please. My favorite combat encounters are the ones where you’re permitted to summon the big Rot creature and guiding it independently with the right stick to attack enemies. Feels like playing V in DMC5, I think that ought to have been made a Rot Action for every battle.

The Legend of Zelda: The Ultimate Trial (2024, N64)

Spoiler

When Ganondorf claimed dominion over Hyrule, its residents fled to every corner. The most desperate ran all the way to the Lost Woods and were never heard from again. This accursed place takes your memories, your belongings, your strength, and your courage. And this is the situation we find Link as he arrives at the steps of an ancient stronghold. The only way to reclaim his destiny is to fight.

Here we have an ocarina of time hack that presents a ro-...Is it still a roguelike if the rooms are not procedural generated? I’ve seen enough tiresome debates on this genre definition that I’m not going to argue one way or the other. What it does have is the same progression. Rupees earned from each run can be spent on permanent items and upgrades. Including the equipment you need to simply complete later trials. Guards won’t let you in until you’ve got what you need. A ‘town’ populates over time with more NPCs appearing in the hub area. They’ll have signs above their head indicating if they have something new or important to say, and there’s a Zora at the front that will tell you about new arrivals so you don’t have to rely on your own meticulous checking of every room.

The three Trials are extremely challenging. The rooms not being randomized is your only advantage as it allows you to master each individual enemy layout and dispatch them as safely as possible. That led to the discovery of some new enemy interactions with certain items. The Megaton Hammer gets a lot of use due to its early acquisition. I never knew in vanilla OoT that it can kill wall skulltulas from ten meters away – because you never encounter that enemy as Adult Link. Similarly, the boomerang stunning enemies you never encountered as Child Link. You’ll want to work out the fastest/most consistent method for each room when it’s time to go back for your time trial that awards a precious Bottle.

In the latter half of the hack you’re treated to some of the fruits of modern OoT hacking. Newly added items and spells are rudimentary in function, but still really cool. The New Bosses are outrageously fun to fight. New NPC models. New level assets. New enemies. I’ve been waiting for the 3D Zelda debut of the Pol’s Voice and Roc’s Feather. Beyond the Three Trials, there’s a Boss Rush against enhanced versions of every OoT boss, a wave based gauntlet of randomized enemies, and some minigames. There’s even some proper Zelda dungeon exploration to cool off in between gauntlets. But if you’re the type of person that gets frustrated by OoT’s clunky combat (and those murderous dive bombing Keese), this hack may not be fun until you bump it down to its Easy setting. Which is extremely cool of them to add in such a way that you can switch difficulty mid-playthrough.

The Ultimate Trial also has an extremely authentic-looking players guide published as a pdf. It's loaded with spoilers, but still a really cool extra This project was clearly a labor of love from many members of the Hylian Modding community.

ガンプル (‘Gun Pull’): Gunman’s Proof (1997, Super Famicom)

Spoiler

This one’s a roller coaster. Ganpuru is a story of a young boy in wild west America battling Aliens, ghosts, and brainwashed humans. To save his humble village home he has to master an assortment of weapons and Street Fighter-inspired martial arts. His trusty steed is a donkey that fused (?) with one of the good space aliens. It’s got enough Zelda gameplay conventions that I think warrant it being called a Zelda-like, but tonally it’s closer to Earthbound. A world built on casually-misunderstood Americana tropes, and a story where all the adults are comically useless compared to the kids.

Really the big thing missing is Dungeon items. While I appreciate never needing to dig into my inventory to equip something in Ganpuru, dungeons can be frankly dull shooting galleries. You have a map of each one that updates as you go, but the only reward for full exploration is treasures that pad out your score like this is some kind of arcade game. Only occasionally do you get rewarded with a permanent upgrade. Including increasing your stock of 1-Ups when you find one. That’s what they should have done in Zelda 2. I managed to discover all health and attack upgrades in my playthrough, and I’m willing to bet several blind players can say the same without using a guide. It’s a relatively small and un-complex top-down world to explore.

Ganpuru is a fine little game. Not brimming with interesting mechanics, but also short enough that you could find yourself at the end before you’ve strongly considered putting it down. The spritework is very cartoony and cute, and the NPCs of your hometown update their dialogues as you progress. Extra lives allow you to come back to life in the middle of a battle with full health, so the battles tend to be easy and brute force-able.

Crusader of Centy (1995, Genesis)

Spoiler

Every time Sega makes a Zelda game, it always errs closer to the platforming and action elements. See also: Yuzo Koshiro’s Beyond Oasis. But there’s a lot of utility in giving ‘Link’ a jump button. And instead of the limp “Hero’s Spin” technique, our guy charges up to toss his sword like a boomerang, allowing him to focus on jumping and dodging over the enemy’s attacks as you wait for it to return. Dungeon items? Nope. He’s the Crusader of Centy: Animal Friends Aplenty. You equip up to two creatures who, for the most part, passively augment your abilities. Sometimes animals combine in interesting ways. Like the Loch Ness-looking monster that takes you over water combining with the cheetah’s Move Faster ability. This allows you to go up some rapid rivers thanks to the added speed.

The music is rocking, almost sonic-like. I was digging through MobyGames to see if there's a shared composer here. Early in the game you can potentially meet Sonic the Hedgehog himself. Which isn’t a big departure of Zelda games from the twentieth century. Mario’s portrait adorns homes in Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time. And Link’s Awakening nintendo cameos could fill an entire paragraph. Making friends with Sonic isn’t just some neat cameo, it fits with the game’s narrative. Our character gets cursed early on to lose his human speech, but gains the ability to talk to flowers and animals. In particular there’s this recurring white flower with vital hints on how to progress. But if you talk to a human, all you’re getting is gibberish. 

The combat can get a little awkward. Your basic sword swing is extremely limp with an ambiguous hitbox. Best to keep your distance and shoot the enemies from a distance with your sword throw. The puzzles can be hit or miss depending on how well they employ your animal companions’ abilities. The worst designed room in the game is one where you make repeated leaps of faith into a bottomless pit to discover where the invisible platforms are to safely cross. Every time you fall you take damage and there’s a row of healing items because they knew players had no choice but to brute force a solution. It’s dumb. Not worthy of being called a “puzzle”

There’s an excellent scene where our character is turned into a Slime, and moments later the Human ‘Hero’ shows up and starts hunting us down. “Because we’re different” your new slime buddies explain. You can build an entire game off this prompt. Someone would, three years later. It was called Moon Remix RPG. 20 years later, the same torch was passed down, called Undertale. Crusader of Centy is definitely not as self aware and morally consistent as Moon though. It sets up a story about trying to use time travel to create a world where humans can co-exist with animals and monsters. One where you as the human champion can inspire everyone else into a lasting peace. But ultimately it ends with you sending the Monsters back to their world. Ending on the phrase “love your enemy”. It feels particularly hollow at communicating the theme when co-existence is ultimately discarded like that. What’s more, you lose the ability to talk to Animals in the finale! Perhaps it’s “nuanced” in the sense that there’s no arbitrary Villainous character pulling the strings, but I built up high hopes for this story and was ultimately let down.

Community Pom (PS1, 1997)

Spoiler

Man, I could not have picked a stronger reprise to Crusader of Centy than Community Pom. It’s got so much heart, constant gags in its dialogue, the most adorably expressive sprites, and explores the theme of co-existence to such a degree that you’re building a home for these little weirdos. The Poms are mysterious creatures that fell from the sky. They’re docile, but your village is suspicious that they’re behind the capture of their livestock (a suspicion that ends up being true). Our character’s childlike innocence leads her to rounding up all of her new friends and inspiring them to build their own self sufficient town and keep from turning evil. As represented by a karma counter that increments up every time they defeat an enemy for you. I don’t believe there’s any bad ending or permanent consequences to your interactions with the poms however.

Like the Animal Friends of Crusader of Centy, Poms are equipped into your active party to both fight enemies and provide extra abilities required to progress. How do you activate your Pom’s abilities? Bonk them on the head with your staff. Or pick them up and toss ‘em into the fray. Tons of potential for slap stick, but I wouldn’t call them strictly useful until you run into an enemy that can only be damaged by Poms.

The most annoying thing in the game is how you can’t swap in a new Pom when you first discover them. Not even when you left a party slot open for them to join. When a Pom has a new ability, you’re usually standing in a dungeon where it’s immediately useful. But the player is forced to leave, warp back to the Community to add them to the party, then backtrack to where they were for those extra chests. It’s an outrageous waste of time. The community building mechanics are extremely half baked too, as the Poms don’t do anything without your direction by feeding them. Their progress also freezes in time when you leave, so you’ll have to sit around watching them work, periodically feeding them their next meal once they finish.

Regrettably, I have not finished Community Pom at time of writing. I don’t often write about unfinished games, and I’m certain this one’s got a lot more surprises waiting for me. My Community hasn’t even been attacked yet. The fan translators took a stab at the game’s strategy guide and that's certainly the best guide I've seen on the web trying to explain the game. It's sad sitting her writing about fan translations given the news about the closure of romhacking.net. I've come to rely on these people so much for my gaming.

Saga of the Moon Priestess (2024, PC)

Spoiler

No points for guessing what art style this one is supposed to invoke. I think what younger gamers fail to grasp about these huge sprites is that they're not an "art style". They were necessary to understand what was even happening on the Game Boy's tiny screen. Anyone who experiences game boy games via emulator, virtual console, or some remastered collection is playing the games on a much larger screen real estate that would have transformed the experience completely had developers been allowed to design for it. Saga of the Moon Priestess benefits from the 16:9 display ratio, but little else seems to have been considered. The North wall of a room is placed just perfectly to be obscured by your health meter, and I legit missed a room exit because it’s not visible except during the frames of a screen transition or on your map screen.

The overworld space is remarkably small with few worthwhile digressions. Most of the playtime is spent in the game’s five dungeons which start out as Baby’s First Zelda and gradually inch closer to the Capcom era complexity of the Oracles games. There are dungeon maps, but it felt like a detriment to pick them up. Dungeon maps paint in every room as if you’ve already been there. So if you neglected to take a digression to the south, you might end up having to do a whole tour of the place trying to remember which room you haven’t been in for that last key. Your map button is more useful when you haven’t yet found the Map item.

You collect money from chests and defeated enemies, but the only thing you would reasonably buy is the inexpensive health potion, of which you could only carry one at a time. Any time you die or Load Game, you’re refilled on arrows and bombs. My diligent exploration yielded little in the way of tangible rewards. There was a heart container in a cave. And three items related to a side quest to upgrade your spear. However, upgrading the spear did not seem to improve it in any way. Enemies that took two hits to kill with the old spear still needed two hits. Exploration is severely de-emphasized here.

Saga of the Moon Priestess doesn’t leave you with much of an impression, but it’s a fine three hours for those nostalgic for this particular era of Zelda game. It’s story is the skeleton of Zelda but with the genders of its three main characters swapped – saving the Prince from an evil witch instead of a warlock. One overworld track sounded a lot like a Banjo Tooie song I couldn’t put my finger on. And there’s a peculiar text when getting the game’s “Hookshot”. It reads “You got the Swap Chain. How original!” Which is a joke I can’t quite parse. I’ve played Oracle of Ages, so I immediately identified this tool as the Switch hook. But if you hadn’t played that game, you’d think it’s literally an original item. Seems deceptive. I’d laugh if the joke were applied to a more characteristic Zelda item like Bombs.

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (2024, PC)

Spoiler

I wouldn’t suggest that there’s much merit in the brief partnership between Nintendo and Phillips. But excuse them for trying to inject CD quality sound and professionally animated story scenes to Nintendo’s bleep and bloop characters. Nintendo backpedalled hard against the future of gaming for N64, and for what it’s worth the CD-I was probably less of a flop than the 64DD and Virtual Boy. Years of Youtube poop videos preserved their effort better than it deserved, and now the first video game voices for Link and Zelda triumphantly return to narrate and tutorialize this fully original adventure by 'Seedy Eye Games'. Since the CD-I Zeitgeist was born online, it only stands to reason that they get some online talent to provide some of the voices for minor characters. I’m a little upset then that James Rolfe did not make that list. My familiarity with the games came primarily from AVGN, and I can’t think of any other content creator that I would associate with them.

Arzette adapts the design sensibilities of its source material wonderfully. One of the artists of the original returns to brush some backgrounds. While the music is authentic 80s synth-venture – reminding me most of the DIC animated nintendo cartoons. So much of the design details boil down to “this was how it used to be”. Like the music cutting out during dialogue, the anti-climactic final boss, bonus stages inspired by Hotel Mario, or the existence of Rope when you can just Save and Quit to Map from the pause menu. Totally useless item. But it’s not a game that ever seeks to annoy the player in the same way. The economy doesn’t demand you sit around killing enemies for ammo and rubies and carefully poke each one with your sword to pick it up. Enemies won’t respawn at the room’s entrance and punk you with a javelin to the back. Arzette is a smooth action platformer starring a protagonist that’s Cool, Sarcastic, Friendly, ambiguously Gay. Everything Link and Zelda could never be.

What I wasn’t expecting to be impressed by is the almost Metroid-like approach. Most of your progression abilities allow you to traverse color-specific barriers. Which is just about the most rudimentary of engagement with the metroidvania format, but it’s still working as recently as Metroid Dread. Multi-colored weapons for multi-colored doors is what I live for. Having a simple notepad of what colored progression barriers you’ve seen in those levels will help you a lot down the road. But after beating the game the achievements clued me in on something fascinating. You can beat the game without the Gun. Due to a small secret in the first level, you can bypass a blue barrier to collect the Sword Beam attack, which leads to a progression of sequence breaks that allow you to finish the game without a core ability. Just like knowing how to wall jump lets you bypass a lot of the intended progression of Super Metroid. This is the first indie metroidvania I’ve seen adapt this one specific type of trick.

I really enjoyed my time with this funny little game. The CD-I animation style is insanely charming and I’d love to see a followup. The only nitpicks that come to mind are certain side quests becoming available needlessly late. Items you need to collect only appear in the worldspace after you’ve talked to the NPC that asks for them. The Bell and Compass come to mind, as those appear in secret rooms that you may have already discovered and would not think to re-enter for the possibility of another item simply appearing there. Of course it’s not crucial that you complete these quests, they’re just handled very awkwardly

 

Edited August 3 by Zapp Branniglenn