[Gameplay Only] Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition 8. Somewhere, Beyond the Sea YuuGiJoou 2026-09-21 | [Gameplay Only] Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition 8. Somewhere, Beyond the Sea
Timelapse Sketchpad Ink Me Up YuuGiJoou 2023-01-30 | More messes await over here:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Now, my prior experiments in the incredibly vague "chibi" category haven't exactly been an unmitigated success, mostly because of just how nonspecific the goal was and the fact that I didn't really have a clear end in mind.On the other hand, "try drawing an Inkling" instead is a much more achievable goal, what with defined appearance parameters to aim for, even if the particular features are going to vary as wildly for cephalopod-people as those found in the real world.Fortunately, I'm in no short supply of megalomania... in fact, I've got ego enough for two! ... ... ...which is to say, I have enough self-centrism to supply us with two distinctly separate... "inksonas"... r-right?... ... ...well, that's it. I'm out of material. Nothing else to laugh, cry, or cringe at. For now.... ... ...woomy.---Coloring is still my bane, and shading remains my nemesis. I'm never actually sure if i want big chunky colors with garishly bright specular illumination to blind the viewer with fake bloom... or something subtler and graduated.Bad news! I picked the super shiny slimy sea life dragged on land. Your eyes! They burn!Oh, and backgrounds! Don't even get me started on backgrounds!
[No Commentary] Splatoon 3 Ink covered Lunacy YuuGiJoou 2023-01-23 | For a rabidly rabbit-related rendition, go here:youtu.be/1zhy4JH6B5IOriginally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouMore lunacy ensues daily:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Happy Year of the Rabbit! ...unless it happens to be the Year of the Cat. (Or if you happen to be visiting this stream archive any other year. That's okay, it's what archival copies are for.)I don't know if you know this about me, but I love costumes....I mean, making them is actually pretty hard... ... ... and wearing them is generally a statement of boldness I normally wouldn't have the nerve for... and I don't actually do any proper cosplay when the occasion DOES arise... and I'm not even super observant around Halloween, come to think...So maybe I love the idea of costumery. And I guess that's where virtual expression comes into things. Between a celebratory sketchpad and... this. I think it qualifies....unless you're watching the no-nonsense gameplay-only version of events...... ... ...and if only these little squidlings and octopods had anything to do with the occasion either...ACTUALLY, did you know one of the prototype versions of Splatoon on fact DID feature rabbits?... ... ...I wasn't actually thinking of that at the time, though.
[VTuber/Chat] Splatoon 3 Ink covered Lunacy YuuGiJoou 2023-01-23 | For the un-bunny version, take shelter here:youtu.be/6H_13tROt24Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouMore lunacy ensues daily:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Happy Year of the Rabbit! ...unless it happens to be the Year of the Cat. (Or if you happen to be visiting this stream archive any other year. That's okay, it's what archival copies are for.)I don't know if you know this about me, but I love costumes....I mean, making them is actually pretty hard... ... ... and wearing them is generally a statement of boldness I normally wouldn't have the nerve for... and I don't actually do any proper cosplay when the occasion DOES arise... and I'm not even super observant around Halloween, come to think...So maybe I love the idea of costumery. And I guess that's where virtual expression comes into things. Between a celebratory sketchpad and... this. I think it qualifies....unless you're watching the no-nonsense gameplay-only version of events...... ... ...and if only these little squidlings and octopods had anything to do with the occasion either...ACTUALLY, did you know one of the prototype versions of Splatoon on fact DID feature rabbits?... ... ...I wasn't actually thinking of that at the time, though.
Time Lapse Sketchpad Year of the Rabbit YuuGiJoou 2023-01-21 | Happy Lunar New Year's Eve!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW(and, assuming all goes well, I'm planning to celebrate more as the new year gets nearer, live on that OTHER streaming platform more commonly associated with livestreaming)---You ever have one of those stupid ideas that won't leave you alone, no matter how hard you try to ignore it? Yeah, this is definitely one of those.It also didn't STOP leaving me alone even after I thought I was in the clear, so... expect things to continue rolling downhill.I feel like I should apologize, but I also feel like that's only because I'm socially conditioned to about stuff like this... so I don't even think I'm going to feign being apologetic about not being apologetic.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #14. Chapter 12. Wrath of the Reset Bomb YuuGiJoou 2022-12-28 | Why must you destroy everything, my angel? Because it is my nature.twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Since this garbled footage was accumulated quite some time back, I can't exactly promise that I'll stop wasting a bunch of time at the beginning of each chapter trying to get dressed and pick out the right weapon (and fix my hair!) before battle... but I think it DOES lay the groundwork necessary to underline just how important this kind of thing is for the game itself going forward.The parts I actually want to stress here is that even fusions between "bad" weapons often result in much stronger specimens than you'd expect. Why this is the case is actually based around a lot of really fiddly and tedious frankly more random elements than I'd prefer to see be the case, but the real takeaway is that fusing weapons is good! Get stronger weapons!Don't worry about the ABSOLUTE strongest weapons... because at this point in the game, you're actually not super liable to know what that means in its totality. Much less how the GAME is keeping score and set against your efforts just enough to keep you from walking all over it.However, to do this, you'll need to acquire and accumulate lots and lots of weapons. Pick the Arms Altar clean of every "this MIGHT not be TOO bad?!" case you feel is reasonable to afford!The point is that there's no need for a perfect weapon... and you're also unlikely to just fall backwards into perfection anyway, so... just... hoard and go out there and beat up people to get more!Just... don't stress too much over whatever the heck I'm doing with the Ranged and Melee star counts, since those are liable to be the most immediately noticeable aspects of these fusions. I've had a little peek behind the curtain as to how this all washes out in the end, and all I'm doing is trying to save myself some massive headaches in the end. (Don't worry, there'll be plenty of those no matter what I do!)If you want some concrete advice regarding them, though... a gifted Melee weapon will mostly be dictated by the intrinsic virtues of its class, but there's a LOT of variance in the Ranged category to have to worry about. Not surprising, since the bulk of the game is concerned with shooting. Just remember that a hefty Club or some quick and sharp Claws will probably be good at messing someone up if they get close no matter what... but the shots they fire when you're NOT in that range is even more important.Heck, Clubs are actually among the most powerful RANGED weapons in the game, and their close range heft is just a bonus. If you want the vast majority of them to live up to their fullest potential, you want to ditch the Melee and shove all your efforts into bumping up the Ranged stats and modifiers.There are actually VERY few weapons that wouldn't appreciate a nice bump in Ranged damage, even some very bizarre cases that would seem to indicate the opposite.---Chapter 12: Wrath of the Reset BombHey, wait! This chapter is the one with the name of the stage that got put into Smash Bros.! But all the stuff showcased there was really from the previous chapter! I call shenanigans!Despite the looming threat of weapons of unnatural all-natural weapons of mass destruction, the actual important factor here is that you'll be encountering enemies of multiple factions a lot more often from now on. Predictably, the Underworld forces can't resist a good party, and big boomy party favors are kind of a big draw.I mean, either that or... Hades just might be THAT big of a jerk? (Viridi's genocidal ambitions aren't exactly much better... depending on whom you ask, specifically, I suppose.)---BOSS: RESET BOMBI mean... sure? It's on the bottom screen! It has a name! No catchy little epithet, but it's IN ALL CAPS and everything! It's totally a boss!In fact, if you don't "disarm" it by blowing it full of holes, you'll actually just run out of time and get obliterated and have to try again. Don't get Finished by this inanimate object!---Oh, the "bomb plant" is... like... an actual, literal plant? That makes sense. Not exactly much of a "depot" unless mass quantities are stored here, and that doesn't seem very safe. But given the fact that they're apparently GROWN suggests that they just need a place to ripen before being plucked.Nature. Ah, ah... finds a way!This is a HUGE stage, actually. I mean, most of them are decidedly veering that way anyhow... but... I sure hope Pit likes walking!SO much walking, in fact, that it's very easy to get distracted and miss stuff.---BOSS: RESET BOMB PODMore inanimate bosses! Don't worry, we brought friends.Hopefully it's clear, but if it's not, the gods will pester you with the details... but the Pod is covered by an indestructible shield. Tossing guards into the curiously glowing abyss beneath it will open it up for more proper abuse.Maybe Viridi should NOT have sent in reinforcements?
[No Chat] (Crazy Gyro Control Test!) Team Fortress 2 Mann vs. Machine: Coaltown - Cave In YuuGiJoou 2022-12-27 | She got that hole running so efficiently that all physical labor is now done by one Australian man!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWIf you wanna hear some of the nagging that whipped that place into shape... well, it's not here, but there IS nagging and whatnot. For no real reason:youtu.be/Q6xVhMO0zqs...except, the way I did it... was... a lot like how I exorcised the VTuber from my "debut" Mystery Dungeon adventures and I simply cropped her out of the video. So... sometimes, she WILL lean into the screen for a jump scare.Science has only taken us so far, I'm afraid.---So! One of my biggest pet projects for the longest time has been trying to cram not only gyro control into places it doesn't necessarily belong (but, on the other hand, would indeed be right at home!) ...and there are few ecosystems as heavily welcoming as Steam. Er... for all its other... interesting nuances, foibles, and annoyances, anyway.This is in no small part due to their insistence that they create a controller of their very own, with all kinds of innovative features that... ... ... most people just weren't "ready" for, but also some of which just weren't as practical as they seemed on paper. So you ended up with a very robust piece of technology crammed full of so many bells and whistles, you'd swear it was a one-and-done Nintendo peripheral that you'd never hear from again.But Valve was undeterred! They went back to their drawing board and decided none of that was effort gone to waste! No! It was just the framework upon which the foundations of the future would be built!They threw open the doors and made the very same "Steam Controller" name stand for the software layer integration and support for ALL controllers that people might want to use with their humble personal computational game presentation devices.Which is honestly the best breath of fresh air to hit PC in awhile, since Microsoft and Windows all but had an insufferable monopoly on ease of plug-and-play options to the point that games are all but exclusively coded with the assumption that Xbox glyphs are the only ones you'll see on button prompts. (The rampant surge of porting stuff to every platform possible has at least gone a long way towards ensuring we dial back that trend, but the damage was done for quite some time.)Oh. Except for the fact that you have to use Steam.... ... ...well, it is the devil we know and not the one we don't. And also not the other one we DO know, but keeps trying to give out "free" games... so that you'll lock yourself into their ecosystem. So they don't have to pay any overhead fees that come standard on literally any other digital goods store.Amusingly, however, you CAN use Steam itself as a middleware to basically any other software running on your computer to achieve the same configurable results... although the implementation can be a bit Inception-ceptive when you have to make sure the virtualized interface of the controller as passed through Steam still gets acknowledged correctly by the outside application...---Anyway, my fascination actually stems further down the rabbit hole, because I actually DID try something a bit like this over a year ago... but MY needs were even more obtuse and absurd than the needs of the many. See, gyro aim has ruined me for the "traditional" mutant glut of analog aiming. But the concept of a split controller form factor ever since the Wii Remote and Nunchuk has ruined me further for two-handed motion controls.The gyro in Splatoon 1 was fine and all, if a bit exhausting... because just flicking my dominant wrist around was far more conducive to letting me dominate the action that was slower than my eye, but faster than my thumb!However, Steam was long of the notion that a Joy-Con was a single controller, as if held sideways as a miniature input device. So you could only use something like a DualShock 4 or a Switch Pro Controller to achieve the desired input style with all your buttons intact.Y'know, because statistics showed that nobody used Joy-Cons on Steam. Because they weren't supported as such. Because nobody used them. Because they weren't supported. Because nobody used them. Because--Until a couple months ago, that is. Now Joy-Cons can be paired as a single controller!And now THIS is the testing ground for my insane new empire!... ... ...game? What game?!Oh, right. I was supposed to be PLAYING or something.All this fun always getting in the way of my fun! Grr!---...also some friends of mine wouldn't stop trying to get me to play the massive scheduling fiasco that is trying to play a 6-player cooperative machine-busting party that is Mann vs. Machine.For funsies, of course.Apparently it's some kind of weird pyramid scheme monetization mode in its fullest format, wherein you try to earn hats and stuff. Yay!At least the robots all want to line up and be murdered by my science?... ... ...the Jo-Bot's not gonna like this, is she?
[VTuber] (Crazy Gyro Control Test!) Team Fortress 2 Mann vs. Machine: Coaltown - Cave In YuuGiJoou 2022-12-27 | She got that hole running so efficiently that all physical labor is now done by one Australian man!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWI think the saucy puppet show and various yammering speaks for itself here, I had nothing to do with our victory. Therefore, you're probably better off ignoring us entirely:youtu.be/O8tMoYqDYaQI also had a little "fun" just trying to get an ancient piece of technology like this game cooperating with OBS... so let's also just throw everything I can at it simultaneously and see what happens!---So! One of my biggest pet projects for the longest time has been trying to cram not only gyro control into places it doesn't necessarily belong (but, on the other hand, would indeed be right at home!) ...and there are few ecosystems as heavily welcoming as Steam. Er... for all its other... interesting nuances, foibles, and annoyances, anyway.This is in no small part due to their insistence that they create a controller of their very own, with all kinds of innovative features that... ... ... most people just weren't "ready" for, but also some of which just weren't as practical as they seemed on paper. So you ended up with a very robust piece of technology crammed full of so many bells and whistles, you'd swear it was a one-and-done Nintendo peripheral that you'd never hear from again.But Valve was undeterred! They went back to their drawing board and decided none of that was effort gone to waste! No! It was just the framework upon which the foundations of the future would be built!They threw open the doors and made the very same "Steam Controller" name stand for the software layer integration and support for ALL controllers that people might want to use with their humble personal computational game presentation devices.Which is honestly the best breath of fresh air to hit PC in awhile, since Microsoft and Windows all but had an insufferable monopoly on ease of plug-and-play options to the point that games are all but exclusively coded with the assumption that Xbox glyphs are the only ones you'll see on button prompts. (The rampant surge of porting stuff to every platform possible has at least gone a long way towards ensuring we dial back that trend, but the damage was done for quite some time.)Oh. Except for the fact that you have to use Steam.... ... ...well, it is the devil we know and not the one we don't. And also not the other one we DO know, but keeps trying to give out "free" games... so that you'll lock yourself into their ecosystem. So they don't have to pay any overhead fees that come standard on literally any other digital goods store.Amusingly, however, you CAN use Steam itself as a middleware to basically any other software running on your computer to achieve the same configurable results... although the implementation can be a bit Inception-ceptive when you have to make sure the virtualized interface of the controller as passed through Steam still gets acknowledged correctly by the outside application...---Anyway, my fascination actually stems further down the rabbit hole, because I actually DID try something a bit like this over a year ago... but MY needs were even more obtuse and absurd than the needs of the many. See, gyro aim has ruined me for the "traditional" mutant glut of analog aiming. But the concept of a split controller form factor ever since the Wii Remote and Nunchuk has ruined me further for two-handed motion controls.The gyro in Splatoon 1 was fine and all, if a bit exhausting... because just flicking my dominant wrist around was far more conducive to letting me dominate the action that was slower than my eye, but faster than my thumb!However, Steam was long of the notion that a Joy-Con was a single controller, as if held sideways as a miniature input device. So you could only use something like a DualShock 4 or a Switch Pro Controller to achieve the desired input style with all your buttons intact.Y'know, because statistics showed that nobody used Joy-Cons on Steam. Because they weren't supported as such. Because nobody used them. Because they weren't supported. Because nobody used them. Because--Until a couple months ago, that is. Now Joy-Cons can be paired as a single controller!And now THIS is the testing ground for my insane new empire!... ... ...game? What game?!Oh, right. I was supposed to be PLAYING or something.All this fun always getting in the way of my fun! Grr!---...also some friends of mine wouldn't stop trying to get me to play the massive scheduling fiasco that is trying to play a 6-player cooperative machine-busting party that is Mann vs. Machine.For funsies, of course.Apparently it's some kind of weird pyramid scheme monetization mode in its fullest format, wherein you try to earn hats and stuff. Yay!At least the robots all want to line up and be murdered by my science?... ... ...the Jo-Bot's not gonna like this, is she?
Pocket Card Jockey #5. Victory Lap YuuGiJoou 2022-12-27 | N-No! I'm not ready! Don't put me out to pasture yet!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW(We're gonna take a tour of the glue factory, and you won't get to come!)Enough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/otZPos6G7N4Obviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---I've got to be honest here. I thought Sprinting Titan was a bit of a dud after First Ride, especially with those low stats and just generally getting bullied by horses on and off the track. (I'm looking at you, Off-Course!)I'm still not super sure the early Peak Time is a worthwhile trade, BUT it does seem to carry a little extra bit of a bump on these short races, and we've been getting them pretty consistently. I'm pretty sure the game's doing that intentionally, given that it's scripted so that Mr. Maekawa will play up the strategic angle of it all.Either that or he just has canned things to say about whatever race is next and whether or not it's to your horse's innate strong suit.Of course, there's also the way your projected calendar of events is designed to play out. If you win, you get assigned harder races. If you lose, you'll take a lower track. It's entirely possible to game the system based on this layout to get your horse more experience by taking on more and easier races where you can stock up on greater quantities of special cards littered around the track.Given the results of how things went when we weren't really trying, but also went for stuff that was in our path anyway (as long as other horses didn't push them all away first, grr!), there's presumably a much better long-term outcome if you focus on using your time in Growth Mode to... y'know... grow your horse.Oh well, no time to worry about that! It's time to get our teeth kicked in by more G1 racing!Of course, the core loop of this game is... a loop. You play the game. You play the game within the game. You run more races. You get different outcomes at different junctures. You keep trying your best!Try your best, and one day you too could also be a racing star!...then you get a little tool shed converted into a trophy room. Isn't that nice?But don't get too carried away, you'll still get beaten up big time later, because not all G1 races are equal!Honestly, this outcome is mostly due to the fact that all the stars aligned on a track that's actually playing to Titan's strengths and none of her weaknesses get the chance to creep on in... AND... somehow... the best competing horses got stuck staring at her behind while she just waited for the best moment to try to break out.And that's what we in the solitaire business call... primo horse racing. Yes we do.What do you mean one thing's got nothing to do with the other?!---And... that's it. You're not a kid anymore. Your life is over. Time to go out there and get a real job. You're a Mature Horse!The demo actually never covered this part, so I'm not sure what it means either. But it sounds like the game goes on, albeit in different pieced-out modes. Let's do it!---But, far more exciting news... this SHOULD be the last video from before I figured out that the 3DS is a complete doof and thinks "surround sound" is a) a thing that a bitty handheld with tiny speakers like its own can or should be doing and b) the default sound output mode on the system settings IS indeed this "surround" option.Specifically, it gives the audio this really blown-out, through-a-cheap-megaphone feel... and... I mean, the sound quality on the 3DS isn't super AMAZING by any means, but it really blows out and crushes any subtlety of expression, even in a game like this.Normally, this wouldn't be too big an issue, since running a direct 3.5mm line from the system itself will cancel this foolishness and revert it to stereo sound instead, and that's the way I usually handle output from devices like these.But we're living in the lap of luxury now! There's audio over USB! ...which... does NOT trigger this hardware-level audio correction to far saner configurations. So I had to finally have it come to my attention that I'm a stupid. Because 3DS is a stupid. Thus, I blame the inanimate object for this. All of this.So the sound quality will improve henceforth in all 3DS content.(The old-style goofy goober wireless chop-fest that is the way I captured prior, like with the still-backlogged Kid Icarus: Uprising videos was through the 3.5mm headphone jack, so it never had this problem to begin with.)Yes. This is the most important thing. Not Sprinting Titan's victory or graduation into (horse)womanhood. Deal with it, Titan.
Pocket Card Jockey #5. Victory Lap YuuGiJoou 2022-12-27 | N-No! I'm not ready! Don't put me out to pasture yet!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW(We're gonna take a tour of the glue factory, and you won't get to come!)Enough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/gq3-H9P-YnIObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---I've got to be honest here. I thought Sprinting Titan was a bit of a dud after First Ride, especially with those low stats and just generally getting bullied by horses on and off the track. (I'm looking at you, Off-Course!)I'm still not super sure the early Peak Time is a worthwhile trade, BUT it does seem to carry a little extra bit of a bump on these short races, and we've been getting them pretty consistently. I'm pretty sure the game's doing that intentionally, given that it's scripted so that Mr. Maekawa will play up the strategic angle of it all.Either that or he just has canned things to say about whatever race is next and whether or not it's to your horse's innate strong suit.Of course, there's also the way your projected calendar of events is designed to play out. If you win, you get assigned harder races. If you lose, you'll take a lower track. It's entirely possible to game the system based on this layout to get your horse more experience by taking on more and easier races where you can stock up on greater quantities of special cards littered around the track.Given the results of how things went when we weren't really trying, but also went for stuff that was in our path anyway (as long as other horses didn't push them all away first, grr!), there's presumably a much better long-term outcome if you focus on using your time in Growth Mode to... y'know... grow your horse.Oh well, no time to worry about that! It's time to get our teeth kicked in by more G1 racing!Of course, the core loop of this game is... a loop. You play the game. You play the game within the game. You run more races. You get different outcomes at different junctures. You keep trying your best!Try your best, and one day you too could also be a racing star!...then you get a little tool shed converted into a trophy room. Isn't that nice?But don't get too carried away, you'll still get beaten up big time later, because not all G1 races are equal!Honestly, this outcome is mostly due to the fact that all the stars aligned on a track that's actually playing to Titan's strengths and none of her weaknesses get the chance to creep on in... AND... somehow... the best competing horses got stuck staring at her behind while she just waited for the best moment to try to break out.And that's what we in the solitaire business call... primo horse racing. Yes we do.What do you mean one thing's got nothing to do with the other?!---And... that's it. You're not a kid anymore. Your life is over. Time to go out there and get a real job. You're a Mature Horse!The demo actually never covered this part, so I'm not sure what it means either. But it sounds like the game goes on, albeit in different pieced-out modes. Let's do it!---But, far more exciting news... this SHOULD be the last video from before I figured out that the 3DS is a complete doof and thinks "surround sound" is a) a thing that a bitty handheld with tiny speakers like its own can or should be doing and b) the default sound output mode on the system settings IS indeed this "surround" option.Specifically, it gives the audio this really blown-out, through-a-cheap-megaphone feel... and... I mean, the sound quality on the 3DS isn't super AMAZING by any means, but it really blows out and crushes any subtlety of expression, even in a game like this.Normally, this wouldn't be too big an issue, since running a direct 3.5mm line from the system itself will cancel this foolishness and revert it to stereo sound instead, and that's the way I usually handle output from devices like these.But we're living in the lap of luxury now! There's audio over USB! ...which... does NOT trigger this hardware-level audio correction to far saner configurations. So I had to finally have it come to my attention that I'm a stupid. Because 3DS is a stupid. Thus, I blame the inanimate object for this. All of this.So the sound quality will improve henceforth in all 3DS content.(The old-style goofy goober wireless chop-fest that is the way I captured prior, like with the still-backlogged Kid Icarus: Uprising videos was through the 3.5mm headphone jack, so it never had this problem to begin with.)Yes. This is the most important thing. Not Sprinting Titan's victory or graduation into (horse)womanhood. Deal with it, Titan.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #13. Chapter 11. Viridi, Goddess of Nature YuuGiJoou 2022-12-27 | I sure hope someone sees this spectacle and arranges a platform fighting party game around it!Shall I recite MY dissertation on Piranha Plants?twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---I'm not about to go into TOO much detail at this point, but Weapon Fusion is an important aspect of the game if you want to play it at higher Intensity ratings or more competitively in Together mode... but... it's exceedingly, dauntingly complicated if you want to dig down into its specifics. Sure, there's a bigger picture of the important details you can pay attention to, but we're not even really ready to scratch that surface level veneer just yet.The most important thing about fusing weapons is... having lots and lots of weapons! There's a hard limit of three per Solo campaign stage in your scrounged-up rewards for when you finish a chapter, plus whatever might cycle in on the Arms Altar... and just a couple extra from miscellaneous Treasure Hunt rewards and a chance at some randomly generated ones after a Together match. That means, by now, we have a little over thirty of the things to our angelic avatar (of major butt-kickery)'s name... and that's... not really nearly enough to worry about fusing them. Not yet, anyway.It's not even about the number per se, but the massive variety... and the limitless combination of other factors. Not every individual specimen is a winner, after all... but it'll still be good material for forging onward with the next generation of weapons!But, more importantly, we can't even begin to play the game of swords if we haven't even got all the pieces at our disposal yet!Case in point: the Pandora Claws wouldn't be available for Fusion unless we'd personally introduced ourselves to the Goddess of Calamity herself already. The same goes for the Hewdraw Club. Even more secretive is something like the Cancer Claws, which we had to find and take home for ourselves from their secret location.Mostly, I just wanted to spice up the variety and MAYBE the oomph of weapons available, since there are nine classes of them... and if you've been paying attention, we've used all nine of them (plus a side trip with the three Sacred Treasures) in the past ten Chapters, so now it's time to start dipping our toes into the rest of the pool.I'm not going to be able to provide a reasonably deep exploration into their specifics, mind you, since I'm working with table scraps and just hoping I don't set myself up for immediate failure in the chapter ahead. (What do you mean you DIDN'T memorize the layouts and enemies and all the weapon properties?!)Just keep in mind that this is primarily a SHOOTING game, so melee focus isn't actually balanced with ranged, particularly in Solo chapters... but just as a 0-star Melee Flintlock Staff can (eventually) overcome enemies immune to anything but being whacked at physically, you'll... um... PROBABLY... be... kinda... "fine"? ...fine-ish?As long as you don't jump off the deep end and throw yourself closer to 9.0 on a whim, even a minimum-Value 100 weapon should at least... SUFFICE... if not actually excel and make your life anything but miserable for your trouble.Now let's gamble some hearts! Gimme that Fiend's Cauldron! Let's GO!---Chapter 11: Viridi, Goddess of NatureSo, we wanted to stop the Underworld from making a wish. But even if the Wish Seed was obviously fake, we still wanted to save the world from the Phoenix, who was up to this point casually chilling out in a remote volcano home. But even doing THAT, we kinda set off a highly visible signal that the Phoenix was defeated, so... um... humans probably wouldn't do anything weird or murderously insane just because an obviously trustworthy god told them to, right? ... ... ...right?Hey, look! Is this a Fire Emblem game? This must be Fire Emblem. There's lots and lots of little faceless guys and some castles and some explosions and... um... ... ... a really BIG explosion? And a sassy little lady in the sky who wants to murder everyone?I'm being told this is, in fact, NOT Fire Emblem. (The giant sassy lady would have to be a dragon in the sky, duh. Fire Emblem.)---Well, it's up to Pit to navigate the busted-up remains of a human settlement caught in the "explosion" of sudden, unnatural growth. There's even a few hapless stragglers caught up in the effects for you to free! Do it! You'll be rewarded!Um... I mean... "it's the right thing to do?"---BOSS: CRAGALANCHE the MightyFor a guy that's been hyped up since the end of the Flight segment, I suppose he manages to live up to the fanfare. Despite low mobility overall, he's dangerous at any range, but you might figure rightly that he's most devastating in close quarters.Don't get cozy, though, because he has plenty of burst movement options that generally double as both movement and attack, which will definitely be more than enough to put even wary players off their guard when things get a little too close for comfort.
Time Lapse Sketchpad Built to Serve, Dressed to Thrill YuuGiJoou 2022-12-26 | The real Jo-Bot lives in the network:twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---I don't know that I've ever talked about her, but there IS a robot version of myself out there, I think.She originally began as more of an in-joke or mythology gag for the automated processes outside YouTube itself that make my various comings and doings at all bearable from a logistics standpoint... y'know, especially since it became rather insistently contrary when it came to cross-posting and acknowledging social media platforms outside itself.(Personally, I don't consider YouTube to be a "social" media platform... especially since they keep axing and minimizing the actual social elements, so I'm more attached to it as a generalize multimedia outlet and little besides.)The "robojo" or "jobot" was more or less a placeholder for automated processes to indicate that a video or stream went live. She's a token Twitch emote for lack of anything more specialized or especially interesting. I don't think I can pretend like she doesn't really exist anymore. Which has also resulted in her creeping into my thoughts now and again.her original 1.0 design was just a creepy headshot with super exaggerated robotic features and uncanny intent... sort of like Robo-Ky.However, she was obviously not satisfied with that. She wanted more. She reads too much Pinocchio, I suspect.Moreover, because I apparently hate myself, I decided to experiment with designing something somewhere in between. Obviously mechanical in nature, but with far less harsh design and... nowhere near as... "industrial" sensibility.I think what came through was some kind of bizarre fusion of Curly Brace and C-3PO... with just a pinch of the uncanny valley from an old vodka commercial, why not? ...no, Jo-Bot! It's flammable, but it's not going to fuel your power cells!
Pocket Card Jockey #4. The Peter Principle YuuGiJoou 2022-12-26 | Yes, it's a real thing. And I can unequivocally establish that it's none of the Peters you immediately thought of. (It's Pete down in the mailroom, duh.)Might one day be promoted to assistant general manager:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/j9WPCy99G9wObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---What I actually mean is that this game makes it really easy to be praised for your accomplishments and thus pressed to take on ever-harder challenges... challenges your horse just might flat out be incapable of matching. Because of those pesky numbers, I mean!It's actually a pretty good feather in the cap of the gameplay itself, you know. If the numbers we see on the starting screen for each race had their full sway, Sprinting Titan would never stand a chance. Heck, First Ride probably wouldn't have made much of a dent in the standings.Good thing this isn't a horse racing or even a horse training game... it's a solitaire game!Inasmuch... while I love the amount of horseshoes-on-the-ground general tips the game provides as insight into the overarching meta of the equestrian-flavored antics of the framing device... how about some more general solitaire tips?Granted, the whole idea is that the game is about as "self-explanatory" as it gets for the sake of being the main, load-bearing support column that the game at large utterly depends on... but there's always room for improving your performance, and not all of it boils down to pattern recognition and repetition, which generally improves the more you do and practice... not something exactly conducive to being explained.That said, the game IS up front about how higher level comfort zones result in more difficult tableaux of solitaire, so it wouldn't be too much to explain how the width and depth of the field exacerbates your odds and ideal strategies for managing the cards you're dealt.I say "managing," because this IS ultimately a game of chance, compounded by further elements of probability, skewing the weight and implications of each and every move you make and card you take. "You've got options"... y'know, just WIN the thing! That would be best. Don't try NOT winning! That'd be worse!It actually took a surprising while to hit this, given that it's not like you'd TRY to leave cards on the tableau or anything... but clearing everything in a Lv. 3 Comfort Zone results in Super Unity.Except... I threw all my Unity points into trying to get a good position instead of Giddyapping them into Energy during my Super Unity, and... went nowhere? Is that some kind of glitch? Grr!Meanwhile, that Shugomasin is a real menace on the racetrack, often not even being visible as I struggle to hold on for dear life in the races themselves...Incidentally, I'm starting to try to sift through all the repetitious nonsense Off-Course has to offer. A lot of it SHOULD be relatively obvious... some of it painful in a sort of "yeah, no kidding" kind of way. Oh, you noticed the thing I struggled with obviously that wasn't under my control at the time was a problem? You don't say!One thing that's not generally well explained, or at least has multiple competing factors that aren't weighted equally... the starting gate mini hand isn't just grading you for the starting Unity bonus that Off-Course has stressed previously, and it might seem weird to have to point this out, given the horse racing framing device merely abstracted by solitaire... but "fast" doesn't just mean "within this still quite generous time limit crawling across the bottom of the screen"... you're directly rewarded for a fast start with a high Comfort Zone position right out of the gate!And then there's when everything pretty much DOES go about as well as you could ever ask for. The horses are just too good, you couldn't really have done anything much better. I mean, it WAS a G1 race, after all... and here you are, some run of the mill nonstarter horse. A second banana and all.I think it just takes a lot of digging around and trying to minimize the more general "tips" your losing races' postmortem analyses are likely to gather before you can coax Off-Course into telling you the truth of where you're really struggling... or not.The fact that he won't give you pointers when you win means you're not going to get any reasonable insights into how to streamline your future attempts means you're going to get ambushed with a lot of feedback with mixed value all at once instead of when it'd be more reasonably targeted along the way.Off-Course is only a horse, of course.
Pocket Card Jockey #4. The Peter Principle YuuGiJoou 2022-12-26 | Yes, it's a real thing. And I can unequivocally establish that it's none of the Peters you immediately thought of. (It's Pete down in the mailroom, duh.)Might one day be promoted to assistant general manager:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/ERpKhsUMlPEObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---What I actually mean is that this game makes it really easy to be praised for your accomplishments and thus pressed to take on ever-harder challenges... challenges your horse just might flat out be incapable of matching. Because of those pesky numbers, I mean!It's actually a pretty good feather in the cap of the gameplay itself, you know. If the numbers we see on the starting screen for each race had their full sway, Sprinting Titan would never stand a chance. Heck, First Ride probably wouldn't have made much of a dent in the standings.Good thing this isn't a horse racing or even a horse training game... it's a solitaire game!Inasmuch... while I love the amount of horseshoes-on-the-ground general tips the game provides as insight into the overarching meta of the equestrian-flavored antics of the framing device... how about some more general solitaire tips?Granted, the whole idea is that the game is about as "self-explanatory" as it gets for the sake of being the main, load-bearing support column that the game at large utterly depends on... but there's always room for improving your performance, and not all of it boils down to pattern recognition and repetition, which generally improves the more you do and practice... not something exactly conducive to being explained.That said, the game IS up front about how higher level comfort zones result in more difficult tableaux of solitaire, so it wouldn't be too much to explain how the width and depth of the field exacerbates your odds and ideal strategies for managing the cards you're dealt.I say "managing," because this IS ultimately a game of chance, compounded by further elements of probability, skewing the weight and implications of each and every move you make and card you take. "You've got options"... y'know, just WIN the thing! That would be best. Don't try NOT winning! That'd be worse!It actually took a surprising while to hit this, given that it's not like you'd TRY to leave cards on the tableau or anything... but clearing everything in a Lv. 3 Comfort Zone results in Super Unity.Except... I threw all my Unity points into trying to get a good position instead of Giddyapping them into Energy during my Super Unity, and... went nowhere? Is that some kind of glitch? Grr!Meanwhile, that Shugomasin is a real menace on the racetrack, often not even being visible as I struggle to hold on for dear life in the races themselves...Incidentally, I'm starting to try to sift through all the repetitious nonsense Off-Course has to offer. A lot of it SHOULD be relatively obvious... some of it painful in a sort of "yeah, no kidding" kind of way. Oh, you noticed the thing I struggled with obviously that wasn't under my control at the time was a problem? You don't say!One thing that's not generally well explained, or at least has multiple competing factors that aren't weighted equally... the starting gate mini hand isn't just grading you for the starting Unity bonus that Off-Course has stressed previously, and it might seem weird to have to point this out, given the horse racing framing device merely abstracted by solitaire... but "fast" doesn't just mean "within this still quite generous time limit crawling across the bottom of the screen"... you're directly rewarded for a fast start with a high Comfort Zone position right out of the gate!And then there's when everything pretty much DOES go about as well as you could ever ask for. The horses are just too good, you couldn't really have done anything much better. I mean, it WAS a G1 race, after all... and here you are, some run of the mill nonstarter horse. A second banana and all.I think it just takes a lot of digging around and trying to minimize the more general "tips" your losing races' postmortem analyses are likely to gather before you can coax Off-Course into telling you the truth of where you're really struggling... or not.The fact that he won't give you pointers when you win means you're not going to get any reasonable insights into how to streamline your future attempts means you're going to get ambushed with a lot of feedback with mixed value all at once instead of when it'd be more reasonably targeted along the way.Off-Course is only a horse, of course.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #12. Chapter 10. The Wish Seed YuuGiJoou 2022-12-23 | See, that wasn't TOO much of an intermission, now was it?Make a wish:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW(Just don't expect it to be granted... unless your wish happens to be "more time to pester the queen!")---I'm sure absolutely everyone would've been worried about where some of the minor and inconsequential googaws I got from Together mode came from or why my Treasure Hunt was suddenly way more filled in when it came specifically to some of the multiplayer aspects.N-No? No one? So then we wasted all that time for nothing?!... ... ...I sure didn't. I was too busy having fun shooting people. (And generally not winning.) Deal with it!---I had originally intended to bring the Flintlock Staff to the previous chapter, but the Sacred Treasures took over there and showed us all a good time instead, so that had to be shelved for awhile. You might also have noticed it as being the weapon Dark Pit spawned in with in one of my Light vs. Dark battles in the intermission.It has extreme power and long range with charged shots that travel nearly instantaneously, but possess no homing capacity whatsoever. It's literally a gun being held unsafely until it's time to fire. So it should come as no surprise that it's a dedicated sniping weapon, even among its weapon class.It takes a really long time to charge up and its melee strikes are the weakest in the whole game.---So anyway, we bookended that whole "Underworld Invasion" thing by beating Medusa and... ... ... oh, right. She got Ganon-banned by a surprisingly colorful lord of the underworld who decided NOW was the time to pull rank. I mean, it makes sense and all if we're leaning on the doorstep of certain mythologies as it is... but then where's he been all this time?This is the second canonical game in this universe, and he waited through the entire first act of this one before making a power move? And don't tell me that he doesn't love the attention, because we got that message loud and clear within seconds of meeting him. Then again, who doesn't love a needlessly circuitous plan now and again to really pull the rug out from under everyone?It just seems weird that two squabbling (seemingly?) minor goddesses would embroil the entirety of Underworld, Skyworld, AND the Overworld (that last one also known as "Earth" and "where the humans live") in their petty sibling rivalry when they're demonstrably not even principally important to the cosmology of this world.Then again, given that we're borrowing from classical mythology anyway, maybe that's EXACTLY on point.I mean, Poseidon is basically a footnote who came to rubberstamp a "you do all the work" plan while still managing to flex some unseen authority over Palutena and then not be seen or heard from except as a means to reach our next destination, and he's supposed to be one of the "big three" of his pantheon alongside Hades. Wait, where the Zeus IS everyone even now?The gods must be lazy.---Chapter 10: The Wish SeedExcept for Hades. Now that the man behind the curtain has seen fit to be paid attention, he's being way more proactive about things. That's exactly how we like our villains in works of fiction! (I'm not even going to crack open the old chestnut about more modern belief systems allegorizing death and afterlife gods as automatically evil. Literally worse than... ... ... who is... "Stan"?)Anyway, we saved the world from Medusa or something, but there's no actual vacuum in leadership over the forces that were doing the troublemaking, so... let's have some wacky adventures! There apparently exists a well-known legendary wish-granting seed! We don't even have to collect seven of them or follow any arcane rules... just go get it! Before those bad guys do!If you get caught up in the action, it's easy to miss the visualization of Hades's wish on the bottom screen.I like how we basically get all the way there, and in the final few stretches, finally examine the overriding logic of it all. And then proceed to fall down about three flights of slippery slope towards no possibly good conclusion.Good thing we solve all our problems by shooting them around here!---BOSS: The Immortal PHOENIXThis guy is highly mobile and keen to fight from a distance. Except when he isn't. Remember the jump pad in the center, or you'll feel the heat!So... a lingering side note here is that the Wish Seed is actually IN the battle, but it's a fake. And it WILL explode violently. That's not just a cutscene joke for afterwards, you can use it to your advantage in battle! You'll even get a little sidebar remark about it from our rather chatty group telepathy session... but I decided that the version you get for NOT messing with the Seed the whole time is probably less common and moderately more amusing.Also, it's not always easy to get a hyper-mobile kind of boss like the Phoenix to cooperate with using it as a source of extra damage.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #11.3, Intermission: If You Only Knew the Power YuuGiJoou 2022-12-21 | YuuGiJoou never told you what happened to your mother, did she?Give in, it's useless to resist:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---[Dark] Match #1 -- Forgotten City (Lancer Staff) / (Fortune Bow)The Lancer Staff is an odd duck among true oddities... not so much in its general attack patterns, but because it's one of the game's long range variety classes... but it's also designed to run up and whack people with it?Pay no mind to my bizarre detour to check out the jump pad. It didn't even matter in the end, right? Don't worry about it!---[Dark] Match #2 -- Lava Basin (Atlas Club) / (Guardian Orbitars)Team life gauges can be depleted in a flash in a place like this, especially if you're swinging around a hefty hurt-stick that can hurl them out of bounds.Do not be alarmed! It's a perfectly valid strategy to self-terminate in order to grab that last respawn that pushes your team over the edge and into Angel time.... ... ...just... make sure you don't put your whole team in jeopardy by specifically attempting to tank their overall longevity and chances at winning the whole thing.---[Dark] Match #3 -- Windy Wasteland (Silver Bow)Um. So, like... I actually DID warn you in one of the free-for-all descriptions that not all platform edges are equally viable as ringout zones. This applies to trying to strategically off yourself as well, so... just beware!---[Dark] Match #4 -- Spiral Tower (Bullet Blade) / (Doom Cannon)The Doom Cannon is a really, really weird one. And I kinda like it. But also, it's supremely unwieldy and you'll be hard pressed to catch even a computer player off guard with its... interesting charge shots.---Naturally, I hadn't forgotten the REAL reason for being "social" and playing... with myself... for an unseemly duration: sweet, sweet loot.Huh, the Rail Temple was an unlockable from the get-go. No wonder we never went there!... ... ...well, there'll certainly be other chances to revisit the mode, but I think it's for the best that we take our treasure and leave, hopefully upping our arsenal in the meantime, so it can be significantly less... embarrassing?
Kid Icarus: Uprising #11.2, Intermission: The Eternal Struggle YuuGiJoou 2022-12-21 | I couldn't not. The Treasure Hunt board told me so!The eternal struggle between light and dark lurks within:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---This mode is... very interesting. Much more so than I would've figured, and I definitely find myself preferring it over the vanilla melee that is tossing a bunch of combat freaks in a blender and seeing what shakes out. (N-No, I'm not just saying that because I'm a loser and need a team to blame my failures on!)For starters, it's a 3v3 affair, so only HALF of everyone on the field is trying to pick at you at any given time. This makes it a touch less chaotic and encourages actual thoughtful movement and attack strategies. In theory! You're just as detached from the action as you hurl and dodge giant homing projectiles jettisoned across the expanse at one another... maybe NOW you can size up the situation a bit better instead of just running around with your chicken wings cut off. Maybe!Also, no more wacky arbitrary-feeling scoring system to worry about snatching someone else's points and/or getting your prey sniped out from under you! Come on, now! It's all about the teamwork!Where it starts getting complicated is that the "points" are instead deducted equal to the weapon Value of the player being defeated from a larger, shared team life gauge. When the gauge is emptied, the player whose loss pushed it over the edge respawns as that team's Angel, a stronger variant of player who should seem oddly familiar. The team that can draw out and defeat the other's Angel first is the winner.There are a handful of remaining caveats: the Angel players are assigned a random weapon, rather than keeping what they were using before their transformation. Defeating non-Angels still "count"... but do markedly less damage to the team life bar. An Angel can also be healed by conventional means to replenish their team's life bar. Floor ice cream gives you health!Personally... I always like to have my weapons chosen as semi-randomly as possible. Reshuffle for absolute duds you picked up in a chest somewhere, of course, but... have you SEEN the kinds of weapons I have at my disposal? ...someone really ought to do something about that! Getting assigned a random weapon mid-match as the awesome dynamic music kicks in is a real shot in the arm!The in-universe explanation for this... "mode"... is... um... it's Skyworld's favorite sporting event?! Sure, let's just go with that. See? They're helping each other up at the end! All in good fun!...wait, is playing this before Chapters 5 and 6 technically a spoiler?! And after that introductory video tried SO HARD to avoid showing anything related to Dark Pit!---[Light] Match #1 -- Starlight Observatory (Royal Blade) / (Flintlock Staff)In indoor environments, defensive posturing can definitely help keep you from exposing your vitals to enemy attack. Well, that... and AI players have very limited sense of navigation, and it only gets sillier when half of all other players don't pose valid targets to them.---[Dark] Match #2 -- Ancient Fortress (Predator Cannon)I decided to pay token tribute to the "good" team first, but... c'mon. I already choose purple as my free for all color as it is! You gotta go Team Dark! It's just way more stylish, that's all!... ... ...no, I have no comment or recollection of whatever it could've been that caused me to stand still for that long, but I'm sure it was a perfectly good reason!---[Dark] Match #3 -- Desert Tomb (Viper Blade)There's something to be said for taking on the mantle of your team's Angel, shouldering the responsibility for victory and defeat. There's something ELSE entirely to be said for making sure an AI player doesn't get saddled with all that responsibility. Like... yikes!I take back what I said about navigation, these guys are just hopeless. (And it STILL didn't give me time to scrounge up a whole Daybreak in the process.)
Kid Icarus: Uprising #11.1, Intermission: (Alone) Together, Forever! YuuGiJoou 2022-12-20 | So we're already way behind... and my goal here is to catch up by going... slower?Makes perfect sense to me!Definitely not queen of time management skills:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWIt occurs to me in hindsight that I hope the vertical video crowd isn't too let down that the paperclips and chewing gum that I used to capture these videos in the first place didn't really permit me to do it in two versions with one go the way I do now. And did on DS, actually.(Don't worry, I'm much better at working the gum and now we've even got adhesive bandages and drinking straws to keep things in line and presentable! ...maybe... wash your hands after handling the visual content, though? No reason!)---Anyway, as much as you CAN treat the whole affair as a mindless grind and put no effort whatsoever into the outcome... this is a GAME, and I will demand it be treated as such. Also, maybe I'm tired of losing just because I can't pick up any traction! ... ... ...it can be for more than one reason! Now c'mere, "doctor" Crygor! I wanna "talk" to you and your friends!(The system-controlled adversaries are various references to the game itself, things found within it and its setting, other Nintendo properties, and sometimes even a localization joke or two.)That said, given our limited experience with the main game itself, which is by all means a glorified "tutorial" for all the various game systems and powers and weapons and items and a massive opportunity to explore and experiment with their usage in nearly limitless combination... we're going to find it a little tough to compete with opponents who have had the time and dedication to shore up an impressive collection of powerful weapons of their own.Or, y'know. Computer players who just get their weapons given to them by random generation. You can see the general value of the opposing armaments on the results screen!---This actually leads us into one of the more immediately striking and confusing elements of the game as presented... the scoring system. To win a free-for-all, you don't need to rack up eliminations while avoiding getting taken out yourself. Well, I mean, you DO, but that's not all there is to it.The scores will fluctuate heavily based on the Value of the weapons each player brings to the table. Specifically, you get 2/3 of the Value of a weapon for defeating an opponent, while whomever did the most damage to that player gets the remaining 1/3. (Ideally, you want to be responsible for picking up both these bonuses.)On the other hand, when you're defeated instead, you lose 1/5 of your own weapon's Value. Falling out of bounds of your own accord, while rare, will reduce your current score by 1/2 of your weapon's Value.Please note that no matter how many deductions you pick up along the way, it's not possible to end up with a negative score.---Match #1 -- Starlight Observatory (Eyetrack Orbitars)Another reason to play longer than the minimum match length is that we're ostensibly trying to check off some more Treasure Hunt squares, and the Daybreak features among them. As in Kirby Air Ride before and Super Smash Bros. having decided to lean into examples of the concept from both that game AND this one, we can assemble a super weapon from scattered, randomly spawning pieces.Don't get too comfy if you've got pieces stashed away, though... getting hurt will carry the risk of you dropping them on the spot, and being finished will scatter all of them at once. They'll float very slowly down to the ground, meaning most players will have to watch and wait for their chance to grab them... or ambush someone else trying to do likewise.---Match #2 -- Desert Tomb (Standard Orbitars)D-Did I say anything silly like professing a desire to WIN? ...m-my mistake. That'd be silly. Clearly I'm in it to excavate some ancient artifacts.The game will "helpfully" announce when a new Daybreak piece has spawned in as well as when someone has two of the three pieces at the same time. You can check the bottom screen to see who has them in their possession at any given time.In theory, this means that the players will gather them out of their own self-interest, and they'll naturally draw closer together and be more easily completed by whomever has the sharpest eye and quickest fingers.In practice... stages are kinda big! Items spawn in the darnedest places! ...computer players are pretty bad at more than seek and shoot.---Match #3 -- Lava Basin (Bowl Arm)Not every stage has an out of bounds area and not every platform ledge can be violently pushed past, but hitting someone hard enough to send them flying is an easy way to get lots of points!---Match #4 -- Windy Wasteland (Rose Staff)A big open stage makes it easier to keep track of enemies on a personal basis, but it takes TIME to cross... and some weapons, like a Staff, have horrendous mobility.---Match #5 -- Forgotten City (Tiger Claws)Finally! ...are we done here yet?
Pocket Card Jockey #3. A Horse of Another Color YuuGiJoou 2022-12-20 | Wait... are we dealing with... horse... racism now?I don't know how I feel about that:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/dE_aue2XBjMObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---I'm not sure about "racism" per se, but there certainly is horse CLASSISM going on around here. But let's be real, Game Freak and statistically-graded animal husbandry? Of course there's going to be a stark, numerical hierarchy going on around here!I mean, it'll still be comfy and easy to manage and outright ignore if you really want to... but it'll still be THERE. In case that's an issue for you. Purely theoretically gnawing at your fragile ego and/or conscience.I mean, LOOK at those poor horses! Can you really believe that this is about their two defining statistics and a handful of attributes?Yes. Yes it is. Don't blame me. Take it up with the game designers. You'll have to get in line, though, because I hear the company is fielding all kinds of complaints and expectations for the foreseeable future about some OTHER weird and oddly violent animal husbandry simulator?Anyway... there's a problem. You're about to get baited and switched. Hard.First Ride... is a tutorial horse.Yes, I had no idea that he wasn't a forever friend. Like. How were we supposed to know that there might one day be life without First Ride?!The far more distressing truth is... First Ride is actually a pretty good ride. Above average. Not exactly game-breaking, but for having no point of reference as to how the game works, and suddenly being forced to reckon with the fact that we haven't necessarily been driving the majority of the action? Devastating.I can't imagine something so jarring as the reality that you're not in complete control of a card game. With random number distribution. Much less with a swarm of other loose cannons and independent operators afoot.Woe unto all who live in perpetual dread of losing control of their lives.To an addictive horse solitaire simulation, no less.The part I will ACTUALLY take issue with is the fact that we're expected to make our choice more or less blind to the actual differences in these two choices, because Peak Time is a mechanic we've deliberately NOT been exposed to in much detail, just as a footnote as we were strategically drip-fed races that would actually avoid tripping Peak Time on First Ride until we were "ready"... but the one we pick will have a big impact on every race from here on out regardless.I feel like the game design team is taking great delight in explaining a bunch of things only AFTER they've become relevant. But okay! Don't worry! I'm sure Off-Course will show up and show us up with some untimely exposition.Incidentally, Off-Course will show up when you don't win a race, but not when you win, regardless of what you might've done less optimally than one might hope. On the other hand, you'll come to see that the tips you get to win next time are fairly boilerplate and not well-tailored to the overall run of the race... more like reminders of basic game mechanics you might've been TRYING to adhere to, but the luck of the draw or a crowded field made inevitable despite your best efforts.You also learn how to make him shut up AFTER he's done expounding at length unhelpfully... but if you don't listen to him first, how will you know it wasn't something new and relevant this time?! I'm sure it will be! It has to be!... ... ...I can't stay mad at him and his only slightly confusing and/or confused musings and meanderings about the nature of the world with which we're being presented. Rub. Rub rub.
Pocket Card Jockey #3. A Horse of Another Color YuuGiJoou 2022-12-20 | Wait... are we dealing with... horse... racism now?I don't know how I feel about that:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/1bggkVb9W6wObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---I'm not sure about "racism" per se, but there certainly is horse CLASSISM going on around here. But let's be real, Game Freak and statistically-graded animal husbandry? Of course there's going to be a stark, numerical hierarchy going on around here!I mean, it'll still be comfy and easy to manage and outright ignore if you really want to... but it'll still be THERE. In case that's an issue for you. Purely theoretically gnawing at your fragile ego and/or conscience.I mean, LOOK at those poor horses! Can you really believe that this is about their two defining statistics and a handful of attributes?Yes. Yes it is. Don't blame me. Take it up with the game designers. You'll have to get in line, though, because I hear the company is fielding all kinds of complaints and expectations for the foreseeable future about some OTHER weird and oddly violent animal husbandry simulator?Anyway... there's a problem. You're about to get baited and switched. Hard.First Ride... is a tutorial horse.Yes, I had no idea that he wasn't a forever friend. Like. How were we supposed to know that there might one day be life without First Ride?!The far more distressing truth is... First Ride is actually a pretty good ride. Above average. Not exactly game-breaking, but for having no point of reference as to how the game works, and suddenly being forced to reckon with the fact that we haven't necessarily been driving the majority of the action? Devastating.I can't imagine something so jarring as the reality that you're not in complete control of a card game. With random number distribution. Much less with a swarm of other loose cannons and independent operators afoot.Woe unto all who live in perpetual dread of losing control of their lives.To an addictive horse solitaire simulation, no less.The part I will ACTUALLY take issue with is the fact that we're expected to make our choice more or less blind to the actual differences in these two choices, because Peak Time is a mechanic we've deliberately NOT been exposed to in much detail, just as a footnote as we were strategically drip-fed races that would actually avoid tripping Peak Time on First Ride until we were "ready"... but the one we pick will have a big impact on every race from here on out regardless.I feel like the game design team is taking great delight in explaining a bunch of things only AFTER they've become relevant. But okay! Don't worry! I'm sure Off-Course will show up and show us up with some untimely exposition.Incidentally, Off-Course will show up when you don't win a race, but not when you win, regardless of what you might've done less optimally than one might hope. On the other hand, you'll come to see that the tips you get to win next time are fairly boilerplate and not well-tailored to the overall run of the race... more like reminders of basic game mechanics you might've been TRYING to adhere to, but the luck of the draw or a crowded field made inevitable despite your best efforts.You also learn how to make him shut up AFTER he's done expounding at length unhelpfully... but if you don't listen to him first, how will you know it wasn't something new and relevant this time?! I'm sure it will be! It has to be!... ... ...I can't stay mad at him and his only slightly confusing and/or confused musings and meanderings about the nature of the world with which we're being presented. Rub. Rub rub.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #11. Intermission: Better Together? YuuGiJoou 2022-12-20 | So we're already way behind... and my goal here is to catch up by going... slower?Makes perfect sense to me!Definitely not queen of time management skills:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---But bear with me! This is a really important side trip! Er... several side trips, actually. So it's more in line with the previous Intermission video that threw off our synchronization between episode count and chapter number! Thus, it's totally okay if I call this #11 and not some derivative or unordered side content.W-Why don't I feel like you believe me when I say that?!Our first stop is the Power Portrait, which looks an awful lot like the Treasure Hunt screen... but it's mostly to keep track of your collection of divine Powers you can call upon in land battles. You are, of course, rewarded with the innate visual splendor of the intended image, but that's it... for now. It DOES track your completion, and you can bet you'll need to finish THAT if you want to complete other things in the game.Naturally, as a 3DS game, there's a token StreetPass function. Essentially, you can choose any of your accumulated weapons and copy it into a Weapon Gem that you'll hand out to anyone who passes within range of your system while it's in sleep mode with theirs likewise. No, I've never had that just happen randomly either, can you imagine that?! (Even when the game was new!)Weapon Gems contain the same weapon you used, but don't consume the real thing you had in your arsenal, so there's no actual drawback to presenting your best to anyone who also has an interest in this game, carries their 3DS around with them, and happens to somehow come within striking distance of you during the course of a day. (Beware sneak attacks! Always equip your Back Shield before going outside!)Functionally, a Weapon Gem is not a Weapon. Yet. But you can pay whatever it's "worth" in order to turn it into a real weapon. I guess somewhat like the overblown Arms Altar shop prices, a Heart grind is considered fair game for gating out new players from suddenly having immensely powerful stuff. You can also Fuse your collected Weapon Gems together, but that'd require you have not just one, but more than one Weapon Gem... and I believe that also costs Hearts to perform, so it's not like you'll be getting something for nothing, no matter how many proximal players you approach by proxy.So. Personally, I've never actually gotten anywhere with any of this StreetPass stuff myself... although I loaned my game card to a cohabitant in the hopes of converting a new player to the wonders of Angel Land... and somehow got them to make a Weapon Gem at all... and... ... ... I got a steady influx of... Value 100 First Swords. That I never actually remembered to do anything with.However, there IS one other purpose all this can serve. The Treasure Hunt. (Always back to that, huh?!) Let's take a look at it for once, instead of just letting the game pop in at the end of a segment to shower us with loot for reasons unknown and purposes even less examined. The conditions are various and unlock in a fairly familiar fashion to anyone who's played a Masahiro Sakurai game since the 00s... but it's not all JUST for playing the main solo experience. There's a ton of conditions tied to modes we've yet to even touch!Our completion of a game we had no intention (or capacity) to play with others is on the line!...now, I guess we'll HAVE to fix that.---W-Wait, a Light vs. Dark tutorial?! I just wanted to see what options were available in the Together menu! Don't mind me, it's fascinating and all, but it's also a lot of ancillary information to just drop on players who unwittingly... opened a menu. For the first time!So, it stuck out to me that there's a Treasure Hunt square for Nearby multiplayer as well... but due to how this footage was captured, the 3DS local wireless communications is... unavailable. For the same reason as actual multiplayer Smash Run was but a fever dream until very recently. So you'll have to excuse past-me for having not polished that one off immediately while it was still fresh in mind.But! This is just like the StreetPass trap! I don't know PEOPLE! I don't want to approach or depend on STRANGERS! I was called here by HUMANS who wish to pay ME tribute! (...wait, what?)Fortunately, you can just start a match in either case and NOT let it fill up with players to have a good ol' fashioned bot-filled battle to the death at any time and place of your choosing... as long as you're using wireless communication of one sort or the other, apparently solely to run down your system battery life.I'm not going to get into any particular level of detail just yet, but it's good to at least see how the game plays and what you can do with it when repurposed as a multiplayer affair. (This will still be on the final exam later, though. So pay attention early and you won't fall behind!)
Pocket Card Jockey #2. A Day at the Races YuuGiJoou 2022-12-18 | It - has - be - gun~:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWIs it statistically significant that you chose this version instead of the "traditional" enforcement of horizontal orientation?youtu.be/lfRDzQM2KvAObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---Honestly, I'd LIKE to have a lot to say about this game and how it's played, but... it's a bizarre combination of immediately overwhelming and also strangely soothing in its simplicity. If I had to guess, it's probably the direct result of how... um... a lot of it isn't actually under your direct control?Let's be real. That describes a lot of gaming in general, and especially video gaming, because a diminutive little gremlin inside the machine slipping you the visuals and data and other forms of both direct and indirect feedback is playing with, for, and against you at all times. Otherwise, it'd just be a rote, step-by-step simulation of something, and your inputs would have far more certain outcomes... but at the cost of the gripping uncertainty of what challenge you might have to face next.Which, I think is the key cross-pollinating logical thread connecting horse racing and card games. If I may be so bold as to attempt a seance to call forth the true meaning of the season and/or authorial intent. Frail little human beings think they can "control" a giant, powerful animal. They're ostensibly "playing" a game of trying to outperform the others in the same situation. But, really, all you can do is play your cards, accept and mitigate their appearances as they're dealt, and occasionally peek over at what's happening between lanes as you try to avert some kind of disastrous obstacle that might be unavoidable after all.Once the table is set and ready to be cleared, the real points of import were the parts where you did your best and made what you could of the situation that unfolded in front of you. Could you have done a couple things a little better? Probably. But would the overall structure of what happened have been totally upended by a few minor tweaks and changes? Probably not. Maybe. You'll also never know. Just like you didn't this time. Only in hindsight. And only through the lens of your presumptions about what did and didn't happen. What might've happened.All you can do then is start over and deal yourself a new hand. Go for the next time with gusto as well!... ... ...wait, what are we even talking about anymore? Was this a card game or a horse racing simulator? Life? Life.Sometimes you're the orange farmer. Sometimes you're the orange. Sometimes you're the sexist stereotype never far from your mind. Sometimes you're self-aware enough to just sidestep it entirely, because it's not SUPPOSED to make you mad so much as it is a part of life.... ... ...I think I probably need to take a break from this description. Deal me in next hand, though, okay?!---The only other thing I can point out that's not mostly self-explanatory or better-explained in the moment by the primary source material is... these races are that right blend of being enough to get your solitaire fix going in earnest and also fast-paced and intensely consumable...So... it doesn't feel like you're doing much or going for very long, but suddenly the "logical" break point between major horse racing arcs of card games is... about thirty minutes?I feel like I want to apologize for this. But I also feel like "what, that's it? but we were just about to do another one!"
Pocket Card Jockey #2. A Day at the Races YuuGiJoou 2022-12-18 | It - has - be - gun~:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/kI-eumx6y8wObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---Honestly, I'd LIKE to have a lot to say about this game and how it's played, but... it's a bizarre combination of immediately overwhelming and also strangely soothing in its simplicity. If I had to guess, it's probably the direct result of how... um... a lot of it isn't actually under your direct control?Let's be real. That describes a lot of gaming in general, and especially video gaming, because a diminutive little gremlin inside the machine slipping you the visuals and data and other forms of both direct and indirect feedback is playing with, for, and against you at all times. Otherwise, it'd just be a rote, step-by-step simulation of something, and your inputs would have far more certain outcomes... but at the cost of the gripping uncertainty of what challenge you might have to face next.Which, I think is the key cross-pollinating logical thread connecting horse racing and card games. If I may be so bold as to attempt a seance to call forth the true meaning of the season and/or authorial intent. Frail little human beings think they can "control" a giant, powerful animal. They're ostensibly "playing" a game of trying to outperform the others in the same situation. But, really, all you can do is play your cards, accept and mitigate their appearances as they're dealt, and occasionally peek over at what's happening between lanes as you try to avert some kind of disastrous obstacle that might be unavoidable after all.Once the table is set and ready to be cleared, the real points of import were the parts where you did your best and made what you could of the situation that unfolded in front of you. Could you have done a couple things a little better? Probably. But would the overall structure of what happened have been totally upended by a few minor tweaks and changes? Probably not. Maybe. You'll also never know. Just like you didn't this time. Only in hindsight. And only through the lens of your presumptions about what did and didn't happen. What might've happened.All you can do then is start over and deal yourself a new hand. Go for the next time with gusto as well!... ... ...wait, what are we even talking about anymore? Was this a card game or a horse racing simulator? Life? Life.Sometimes you're the orange farmer. Sometimes you're the orange. Sometimes you're the sexist stereotype never far from your mind. Sometimes you're self-aware enough to just sidestep it entirely, because it's not SUPPOSED to make you mad so much as it is a part of life.... ... ...I think I probably need to take a break from this description. Deal me in next hand, though, okay?!---The only other thing I can point out that's not mostly self-explanatory or better-explained in the moment by the primary source material is... these races are that right blend of being enough to get your solitaire fix going in earnest and also fast-paced and intensely consumable...So... it doesn't feel like you're doing much or going for very long, but suddenly the "logical" break point between major horse racing arcs of card games is... about thirty minutes?I feel like I want to apologize for this. But I also feel like "what, that's it? but we were just about to do another one!"
Kid Icarus: Uprising #11. Roll... Credits? YuuGiJoou 2022-12-17 | How silly of me to have forgotten a tiny little detail on top of having just let these videos lie fallow for so long. You mean we could've had closure all this time?!That's a wrap, people! Head on to the after party:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWWhat do you mean, "this party sucks"?!---I just love old-timey game credits. The names are simpler, the staff rolls are slimmer, and sometimes they're just for fun.I sure hope nobody figures out who this enigmatic "SAKURAI" person is, or a rival game developer might just snap him up and we'd never get another Kid Icarus game ever again!... ... ...Wait, what's that sound? What's that... HAND?! I knew I should've checked the thumbnail first! ...to... um... the video I deliberately chopped out and made its own, much smaller video.---So. Yes. Disintegrate one confused antagonist, another one will rise to take her place. And credit for everything up to this point, for that matter. Not great form! Scene stealer! That's just... mean! Evil? Nah, mostly mean. Not nice!But... I could honestly just listen to this guy talk forever. Which, considering the kind of game this is, good news!Except when it's not.---I'm personally not SUPER keen on how it upends the established cosmology of the series AND neatly fridges its already neglected primary antagonist... but it DOES serve as a bridge to point out that we're stepping out of our petty little blood feud of yesterdecades long past and into a bigger world where all the "real" gods like to throw down.Y'know, like Posei-- wait... who? Yeah, I don't remember him at all either.---The other important thing! My precious loot! I so sorely needed to collect it! Before some Pluton shows up and swipes it! Or turns out to be some kind of apocalyptic-grade super weapon from a forgotten era. Whatever. (Wait... what even?)
Kid Icarus: Uprising #10. Chapter 9: Medusas Final Battle (2/2) YuuGiJoou 2022-12-17 | No, I wasn't going to be cruel and make you wait even LONGER for what's essentially just more of the same chapter. Sheesh, these things DO get kinda long, don't they? Padding or not, I think Pit needs to ask for some overtime and hazard pay.I said GODDESS of Darkness, not "Queen"... point those arrows somewhere else!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW(although I will still permit "goddess" in the vernacular... ... ... and, it's pretty culturally common for monarchies to be established on the basis of divinity)---Okay, sure, fine... looking at the length of this chapter in totality, I can see how maybe I got scared off and squirreled it away for a later date. It's quite the daunting task no matter which way you slice it, and having an intermission in the midst of it all was all but certain.B-But... that means I have to write TWO descriptions for it?! I already ran out of room so hard on the last one! There's no way we could possibly cover this entire chapter like this!I think I need to ask for some overtime and hazard pay.---Chapter 9: Medusa's Final BattleMedusa must be a fan of chaos architecture just like whoever designed that Demon Castle for Dracula. I'm kinda glad that we somehow decided to brush off the remark that the way forward being the way back is outright impossible, because such complaints are the domain of little busybody angels and not the gods towering above them.Y'know, as they degenerate into bickering amongst themselves. As sisters do. I assume. I don't actually have any. I can't fathom WHAT it must be like to have one. And I definitely never made anyone else's life miserable in similar fashion. YOU CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING. THOSE WITNESSES ARE LIARS.It's a bit of an uncharacteristic break in composure for Medusa to openly admit that she has no idea how or why this game's events are even happening... and a bit TOO characteristic for Palutena to revel a bit much in the suffering of others. Even those who would go on to cause untold suffering of countless more. Y'know, because of how you made her suffer first. But, sure. Let's blame it on a mirror. Doing its job. Nothing amiss here.I'd say that I hope none of this is at all relevant to anything coming up, but I'd also be remiss not to remark that the Goddess of Light gets absolutely no comeuppance for anything noted here. Are we sure she's the one we should be worshiping after all? (Down with Palutena! Medusa for Smash! ...what? Too late? Okay.)Honestly, all things considered... the Intensity hasn't actually wrecked things for me as hard as I'd have figured they should've by now. Oh dear, I've just cursed Pit to a horrible fate of being Finished, haven't I?No, silly! It'll be my shoot first and ask questions later approach that does it! ...that and a general greed for even purely temporary material acquisition, not even bothering to question why such powerful objects might be lying around in the presence of a mere Eggplant Wizard just so I could squander them thoughtlessly!It's probably fine. It's only Hearts, after all, right? It's not like some sneaky so-and-so will just creep on up and take away some of my precious permanent plunder, right? ...right?!I have to question the extreme oversaturation of Clubberskulls in this stage... although, I suppose if they were going to show up somewhere, it'd HAVE to be now or never. Pull out all the stops! In fact, fire all the Skuttlers! Only send in the massive enemies with obnoxious power to spare that absolutely refuse to die! ...although, I guess Pit could just avoid having to fight them entirely. Sometimes. When the stage design permits, I suppose.Y'know, I all but expected the inaugural appearance put in by the Tempura Wizard to result in yet another untimely end, but it would seem that I've only got eyes for Eggplant Pit. W-Wait... the Tempura Wizard wants to EAT you... ... ... but... the Eggplant Wizard... doesn't actually LIKE eggplant? He just turns people into it... for... fun? Stop playing with food! That's wasteful!The "final guard" ...but there's a Wizard AND an Orne! I guess the normally undefeatable doesn't count, even when you CAN defeat them. But there's another, totally new enemy we barely get to appreciate after that! What even is "final" anymore?! I'm beginning to think this game might NEVER end!---BOSS: MEDUSA Queen of the UnderworldShe thinks she's the queen of the underworld. I've got news for you: she is!I don't know, seems a touch disrespectful and a marked step down from "Goddess of Darkness" in terms of the overall angel world cosmology, but it DOES have a nicer ring to it.In proper one-upsmanship and just generally giving the girlboss her due, Medusa gets THREE distinct phases of combat. Largely revolving around different bombardments of distance-based bullet hell and just general geometric assaults upon the senses. Only some of them seemingly affected by impaired depth perception.I guess flight is just unlimited now.
Kid Icarus: Uprising #10. Chapter 9: Medusas Final Battle (1/2) YuuGiJoou 2022-12-17 | It's rarely far from my mind that I started this festive little bloodbath, but never actually finished it. Part of that was undoubtedly due to just how fidgety the capture method employed was from the very outset.Honestly, it doesn't look unforgivably BAD per se... in motion, at least... especially considering the fact that it's pure witchcraft of trying to bombard a waiting recipient process with a procession of imagery over the 3DS's pitiful Wi-Fi capabilities.Please excuse this mess of ancient paperclip and chewing gum recordings in the meantime.Welp, you heard 'em! Time to slay a goddess of darkness:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWWell, at least it didn't take 25 years.---Chapter 9: Medusa's Final BattleWell, we went through... um... one whole chapter's worth of effort to get them, so I guess we ought to dust off those old relics, huh? Final battle time!...boy, this game sure is SHORT... just like a Star Fox game, huh? Masahiro Sakurai must've really fallen asleep at the wheel on this one. And even with all those Uprising references that worked their way into Super Smash Bros. that... um... wait... we've barely seen any of those just yet... ... ...---Shelving that little crisis for the moment... um... these treasures ARE actually pretty decent... ... ... until you go and crank up the Intensity. Like I just did. Which was a terrible idea. Consider this a cautionary tale!As far as I can tell, they have fixed stats and don't inherit any of your chosen weapon's attributes. Instead, they possess a fairly outrageous rate of rapid fire (although not the highest in the game), an absurd degree of homing, fast charge attacks with above average power.Unfortunately, they do almost nothing to stop you from being shredded mercilessly by the 9.0 Intensity damage scaling. I say "almost"... because the Mirror Shield actually DOES block attacks. Sometimes. It's kinda finicky and positionally limited for a game like this. Better than nothing?It can also do the unthinkable and annihilate Ornes! Y'know, the otherwise invincible enemies that will instantly finish you off with just a touch. They're super fun to have around, especially in Smash Run!---BOSS: UNDERWORLD GATEKEEPERW-Wait... a boss already?! This is still the flight segment! I wasn't ready! None of my sneaky tactics actually work here, since we're stuck before my equipped Powers can kick in! Plus, this looks like a flying space mecha straight from a bullet hell shoot 'em up!I... I just wasn't ready!I knew I should've gone in kicking instead. Game knew that was too OP, so it's not allowed!---What kind of final showdown would it be in a sinister lair full of bad guys if we DIDN'T have to face off with familiar faces from our past? Specifically, they're the original Fortress bosses and defenders of the Three Sacred Treasures.---Each boss rematch chamber is led up to by a tiny-fied sample size version of that boss's stage.The part that's NOT tiny is the fact that they're subjecting you to all manner of nasty regular enemies you've met up to now, including a couple Clubberskulls. Listen, I get that they're more vulnerable to melee damage and all, but they will SLAUGHTER you at these damage levels.BOSS: TWINBELLOWS the FerociousI guess we get a big peek into what Pit likes to do with his spare time here. Poor guy, he really needs to make some friends!---I'm not normally one to lean too hard on the fourth wall (lest it lean back and crush us all), but I would keep this little epistemology dispute about what's "real" and the nature of memory for later. Mnemosyne will be proud of you!Sure would've been nice if the enemy attacks weren't more intense than the conversation was keen to get to the explanation about the Aether Ring's shield. D'oh!BOSS: HEWDRAW RebornShouldn't that be... Reborn-Reborn? Or... Reborn-Again? Well, a third of it, anyway... although being totally mute and devoid of personality makes this thing significantly cut down from the sum of its parts.It's around here that I begin to wonder just how well the damage scaling on YOUR attacks work out for poor Intensity life choices, but I guess it's at least something they considered you MIGHT do, regardless of how bad an idea it was.It helps that these are just members of a boss gauntlet to serve as an appetizer course, not the main event.---Oh, good. Another trip to the trippy trip-zone where nothing is real and everything wants to murder you, even the stuff that's not actually actively attempting to inflict harm.BOSS: Goddess of Calamity PANDORAThis fight is just... kinda sad without any chatter from Pandora. Medusa can carry a room well enough on her own, but this isn't exactly her element.Or is it? We're delving deeper into the mechanics of how and why there even ARE boss rematches... or... why long-slain foes are even capable of challenging us again? I'm sure that's not relevant to anything else and presumably never will be.
[Vertical Video] Pocket Card Jockey #1. Life Goals YuuGiJoou 2022-12-16 | My dream? It's this, so I'll probably be okay:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWIs it statistically significant that you chose this version instead of the "traditional" enforcement of horizontal orientation?youtu.be/2sMvmPqfF44 Obviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---So. Gotta get look this gift horse in the mouth and address the elephant in the room first.This game is a complete liar. "Your gender will not affect the game." My ontologically unnecessary curvaceous ass it won't.Pardon me, if you will... if I don't take many moments more than should be strictly necessary to explore the validity of this claim. And a lot of annoyingly excessive editing magic in between to hammer that point home....mostly because this game only has the one save file. Dangit, Game Freak! Why is animal husbandry always such a data-intensive thing with you guys?!But... essentially... as ever, I'm always a little TOO curious for my own good what goes into the design sensibilities and the sensibilities of those that design them when it comes to creating the choice of player representation.To do so. To fail to do so. To deliberately avoid doing so. To do it in a purely performative fashion. It all comes with the invariably icky baggage of who we are. Who "they" are. What we think of ourselves and each other. Is it any wonder that I've always had the nagging monkey on my back of "oh, you're SUPPOSED to pick the girl character, okay?"It's definitely the fault of video games for giving me the illusion of choice in the first place that messed me up so bad, not the people around me imposing their presumptions over what I'm "allowed" to want or do or be. That's just called being a society!(Society's got your back, sis! ...and your front! ...and those deposits down there, why not? ...and don't forget the innards! ... ... ...basically any part that's fun to look at or serves some functional purpose for the species as a whole.)So yeah, they just wanted to make a funny joke. A strangely specific one, actually. And it’s SUPPOSED to be a dig at just how unambitious the player character is, regardless of gender, and I get that. They succeeded.But they also succeeded in highlighting a very real, very specific expectation placed upon me and others like me. That’s curiously absent from those who aren’t. And, at the very least, I think that deserves to be called equal attention to. No matter the cost of time and editing resources and almost meme-grade malarkey. (It’s been awhile since I’ve been driven to do that! Hopefully Square-Enix doesn’t send its attack bots after MY unfunny jokes!)I don't apologize, I just want to point out that it was a massive pain to bring to fruition, and for THAT, I can promise to avoid making a habit of it, seeing as how my priority is actually the gameplay, rather than any of this other nonsensical fluff. (But I had... "fun," venting my frustrations in this fashion. I think?)I just think... for every seemingly harmless low-hanging piece of observational humor we accept without complaint or question, there’s an inherent truth behind it about who we are as people that decide to make it... decide to receive it... decide to just take it.Then again, this is also the game that openly admits that computer solitaire is too hard and a pocket screen with card pictures on it is a much more achievable pastime. Use your brain, why don't you?! You're damn lucky that I am a born sucker for card games on motorbikes... um... horseback? Does that make it better or worse? (We still get cool Stand powers, though, right?!)---Oh, would you look at that? I guess I've gone and rambled most of a whole description away. I'm sure nobody saw that coming! I guess I'll just have to trust in this... "Off-Course" to get the basics out of the way in a signature to-the-point fashion and as-much-nonsense-as-necessary to get the point across without rendering the whole topic dry and unpalatable.Seriously, I'm at least moderately impressed by the conversational tone, the deliberately meandering delivery... but still a certain underpinned directness of what's really important to the gameplay at hand.A reliably unreliable expositor of the rules and overarching framework that'll help us slide into jockeying for position in no time flat!I... think? Heck if I know, he's just a horse, of course.What I'm trying to say is, don't worry, I'll take my own crack at overexpounding upon the gameplay as it's presented to us and the fashion in which we're expected to utilize it against our other equine adversaries and the little loads they lug around.I look forward to just talking about card games and/or horseplay next time. For real. It hurts me far less that way, anyway.
Pocket Card Jockey #1. Life Goals YuuGiJoou 2022-12-16 | My dream? It's this, so I'll probably be okay:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWEnough people seem to gravitate towards the "nonstandard" vertical orientation version that I guess I'll just let them coexist in peace:youtu.be/4cZQt8EDx2UObviously, I blame those newfangled smartdoohickeys and their pocket screens and whatnot.So, actually, I was RIGHT all along, ever since the beginning about catering to them in any fashion whatsoever. (Who else could've possibly foreseen this?!)---So. Gotta get look this gift horse in the mouth and address the elephant in the room first.This game is a complete liar. "Your gender will not affect the game." My ontologically unnecessary curvaceous ass it won't.Pardon me, if you will... if I don't take many moments more than should be strictly necessary to explore the validity of this claim. And a lot of annoyingly excessive editing magic in between to hammer that point home....mostly because this game only has the one save file. Dangit, Game Freak! Why is animal husbandry always such a data-intensive thing with you guys?!But... essentially... as ever, I'm always a little TOO curious for my own good what goes into the design sensibilities and the sensibilities of those that design them when it comes to creating the choice of player representation.To do so. To fail to do so. To deliberately avoid doing so. To do it in a purely performative fashion. It all comes with the invariably icky baggage of who we are. Who "they" are. What we think of ourselves and each other. Is it any wonder that I've always had the nagging monkey on my back of "oh, you're SUPPOSED to pick the girl character, okay?"It's definitely the fault of video games for giving me the illusion of choice in the first place that messed me up so bad, not the people around me imposing their presumptions over what I'm "allowed" to want or do or be. That's just called being a society!(Society's got your back, sis! ...and your front! ...and those deposits down there, why not? ...and don't forget the innards! ... ... ...basically any part that's fun to look at or serves some functional purpose for the species as a whole.)So yeah, they just wanted to make a funny joke. A strangely specific one, actually. And it’s SUPPOSED to be a dig at just how unambitious the player character is, regardless of gender, and I get that. They succeeded.But they also succeeded in highlighting a very real, very specific expectation placed upon me and others like me. That’s curiously absent from those who aren’t. And, at the very least, I think that deserves to be called equal attention to. No matter the cost of time and editing resources and almost meme-grade malarkey. (It’s been awhile since I’ve been driven to do that! Hopefully Square-Enix doesn’t send its attack bots after MY unfunny jokes!)I don't apologize, I just want to point out that it was a massive pain to bring to fruition, and for THAT, I can promise to avoid making a habit of it, seeing as how my priority is actually the gameplay, rather than any of this other nonsensical fluff. (But I had... "fun," venting my frustrations in this fashion. I think?)I just think... for every seemingly harmless low-hanging piece of observational humor we accept without complaint or question, there’s an inherent truth behind it about who we are as people that decide to make it... decide to receive it... decide to just take it.Then again, this is also the game that openly admits that computer solitaire is too hard and a pocket screen with card pictures on it is a much more achievable pastime. Use your brain, why don't you?! You're damn lucky that I am a born sucker for card games on motorbikes... um... horseback? Does that make it better or worse? (We still get cool Stand powers, though, right?!)---Oh, would you look at that? I guess I've gone and rambled most of a whole description away. I'm sure nobody saw that coming! I guess I'll just have to trust in this... "Off-Course" to get the basics out of the way in a signature to-the-point fashion and as-much-nonsense-as-necessary to get the point across without rendering the whole topic dry and unpalatable.Seriously, I'm at least moderately impressed by the conversational tone, the deliberately meandering delivery... but still a certain underpinned directness of what's really important to the gameplay at hand.A reliably unreliable expositor of the rules and overarching framework that'll help us slide into jockeying for position in no time flat!I... think? Heck if I know, he's just a horse, of course.What I'm trying to say is, don't worry, I'll take my own crack at overexpounding upon the gameplay as it's presented to us and the fashion in which we're expected to utilize it against our other equine adversaries and the little loads they lug around.I look forward to just talking about card games and/or horseplay next time. For real. It hurts me far less that way, anyway.
[VOLUME WARNING] Super Smash Bros. (for 3DS) Running Club YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | Too bad it outright requires interpersonal association:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Yes, I will continue to provide the alternative viewing angle for tall screen users:youtu.be/5edxHDCIUT0---The other big issue with my prior attempts to encapsulate the visual splendor and visceral pleasures of this mode was the fact that such methods were entirely incompatible with local multiplayer options.I won't bore you with the technical details, but specifically, the "easiest" and least invasive means of getting video off a 3DS is to hijack the wireless adapter when it's communicating over the Internet and try to have it spit out a progression of its tiny frames to the ether and try catching them... and hope nothing goes wrong in the meantime.This naturally means you can't be connected to someone else locally instead, which would entail an entirely opposed means of communication. So entire online-incapable modes like Smash Run were entirely out of the question from the get-go.Honestly, some of the most fascinating multiplayer experiences in gaming history have been walled behind local communications... and Nintendo handhelds have held hands with those specific things since time immemorial.(At least it's not IMPOSSIBLE to try to capture video of a Game Boy game using a Game Link Cable, right?)---...now, if only I didn't only have access to one other local player... maximum. And even that's not really much of a long-term guarantee, huh?Cherish local wireless multiplayer! It is among the greatest gifts gaming can give us!
[VOLUME WARNING] Super Smash Bros. (for 3DS) Some Smash Run YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | You Say (Smash) Run:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRWFor the slightly mangled "tall video" version of this for those of you who prefer your pocket screens remain locked in their upright position during flight, I will continue providing, but not actively publishing the... slightly less egregious version among them:youtu.be/kaQ0FQ5OvscUnless I can figure out a way that doesn't suck according to my precious pixelmongery specifications.(If this somehow inconveniences or upsets you, please let me know.)I just don't think I need to bludgeon people over the head with my accumulated disdain for how these videos get treated when wrung through the wringer that is mass media self-publication. Twice was more than enough.For now. Until there's more data.To get mad about.And step on a soapbox over.---So, now that we're done playing around with goofy goober details of "can I still play my games like I just was?" and the like, MAYBE it's appropriate to... actually play some games.Although, since I was tinkering with the way I receive the audio, I might've overtuned it just a BIT... so... an appropriate warning is in effect at the top, as a matter of course.Of all the things that Smash has given us over the countless years, including the most bizarrely approachable but also completely mechanically opaque quasi-fighting game in existence... including the fact that EVERYONE IS HERE, which there's absolutely no way could ever be pulled off again... (Prove me wrong, though?)Of ALL those things. The thing that I found myself enjoying the most... has been Smash Run.I think it comes with being a wacky mutant that enjoyed the less-enjoyable parts of Melee's Adventure Mode and even dug deep and wrung Subspace Emissary well past its breaking point and where it stopped being wholesome and fun. It comes from having been taught how to get along with and play nice by a legacy of Kirby co-op platformers. It comes from being drunk on power from having played entirely too much City Trial in Air Ride.It is an unholy fusion of many things, and I'm all for all of them. All. Of. Them.It's far afield of what many people find to be the enjoyable bits of Smash Bros., and I'm willing to accept that.But this is my jam. Locked away in tiny, 240p jail. Forever.If that's not worth all the goofy test videos I subjected you to within the past 20 hours or so, I don't know what is.And it's not like I honestly didn't try before, but there were... inelegances in my prior methods. They didn't really result in what I'd consider a sufficiently palatable viewing experience.So I shelved my dreams. Simple dreams, on a simple shelf. Much better to chase after grander dreams with a grander grasp in the meantime. (Even if some of those did indeed frustrate me in their inefficacy as well.)No longer! I will Run! I Run again! Never stop Running!---Maybe take a quick break to figure out the sound balance, though.This was just a test Run, though!
[Scrunch-O-Vision] Nintendo 3DS Post-Transfer Data Integrity YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | She lives in my pocket, actually:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---This is just a much smaller version of the preceding. Bear it no mind.youtu.be/_X2GNrHajqoSeriously, I'm beyond livid that the tiny native resolution video is apparently downscaled even further by YouTube because it decides a video with 480 progressive lines of video should be capped at 360p quality. There's not more processing to be done. It's just. Ruined. And I'll need to figure out a better solution for my vertical 3DS video needs, I guess. (Should I ever have any such need. I guess.)
[Uncromulently Embiggened] Nintendo 3DS Post-Transfer Data Integrity YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | I'm mad enough that I could just eat some noodles and/or commit a murder:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---It should come as no surprise that this is the follow-up to the previous video (youtu.be/VrRNvrIrlKQ), which is itself the recombobulation of the moving parts behind the scenes that made the original possible:youtu.be/_X2GNrHajqoSo now I get to be double-mad that Avidemux, for all its amazing merits, somehow lacks a point rescale option in its normal filter options for pixel perfect blowing up of video against my will... but then also YouTube ALSO doesn't respect the resolution of the video I fed it, and won't let a video with 1080 lines of progressive video exist in a container bigger than 720p.And yet, to my horror, despite my unclear forewarnings right before the video title and descriptions thereafter... THIS was the version of the system transfer that got the most initial interactions.There's no accounting for curb appeal, I suppose.But, besides that, it shows me that there is an inherent draw for a layout such as this, regardless of how utterly mangled the powers that be will render it.I will take it under consideration. Irritably.
Nintendo 3DS Post-Transfer Data Integrity YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | No YOU'RE out of order:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---I mean, this MIGHT count as a "gameplay" video?...but mostly it exists to show that after the system transfer, contrary to the fearmongering the tool did when it wasn't able to actually TRANSFER any of my important files like games or save data or anything... there is life after leaving your home shores for a brand "new" Home Menu screen.... ... ...but you probably gotta do that stuff yourself. Specifically, I copied the SD card contents manually on some other device, like one that gets used for... computations, let's say. A... "compute... er?" Nah, that'll never catch on.And then when the dust settled, everything was fine. It remembered my Home layout. It remembered my wallpaper. All my games were where I left them... mostly? Limited-use demos got the boot, as the transfer tool forewarned. I had to redownload my... like... ONE native DSiWare app.But just to show that it works as intended, I can load up any random game with any random save at any arbitrary point I stopped playing for SOME reason. (Gee, I wonder!) And that save file is also totally fine.Hooray!
[Blasphemous Upscale Resolution!] Nintendo 3DS System Transfer YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | Always turning tiny screens into BIG SCREENS, never actually getting things DONE:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---And like the previous video (youtu.be/JGs8yYzL3Jc), THIS video is also ancillary to the other weirdo staring at the screen video from a few minutes ago:youtu.be/eXmECiM-xjESo... this is a super lazy upscale on the preceding, just so I could see if YouTube wouldn't find it in its stony heart to treat my hard work and video toils better....the results are frankly just this side of infuriating.The video is literally HD-sized... but the YouTube gremlins only give me the next-highest quality setting at best on the video.Which utterly ruins the whole point to upscaling in the first place. Since the upscale will then be downscaled to a non-pixel-perfect bastard image no matter what....before it's then scaled to whatever the heck size screen you choose to watch it on instead. But in THEORY, this is UNACCEPTABLE.... ... ...so I'm going to anguish over this instead of actually producing video content. Okay? Okay.
[Native...ish Resolution?] Nintendo 3DS System Transfer (Complainfest Description!) YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | Always moving TINY SCREENS around, never actually getting things DONE:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---This is actually a purely auxiliary video to the preceding upload:youtu.be/eXmECiM-xjEThe point is, I actually CAN just get the screens without doing weird stuff to them, all at the very same time as I capture the video that would become the one that SHOULD have been the one-and-done on the subject.Problem is... once I've done that... then what? Because YouTube won't treat the native resolution at all well. You need video above 720p to actually get any moderate amount of respect in terms of bandwidth.So this sucks.Not technically, because this is a technical triumph, pure and simple....respect my small triumphs, YouTube!
Nintendo 3DS System Transfer YuuGiJoou 2022-12-10 | Always moving things around, never actually getting things DONE:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---No joke, one of my more engaged with videos on this channel is the one where I simply let people come along for the ride when I transferred my console data from the Wii to the Wii U.Honestly, I blame the Pikmin. (Thanks, Pikmin!)This is... kinda like that? It's certainly inventive, and more interesting than standard progress bars. Although I'm sure we could scrounge up a few of those, too...It's not... QUITE as active and interesting to look at as the Wii U System Transfer, but it's also a lot less... abstract? So it's kind of a mixed bag in terms of form versus function.I still like it.You'd BETTER like it, because doing a system transfer takes a bizarrely long time on a Nintendo 3DS.And that's just what you see on THIS side, which is just a weird mating ritual between the system, its puny Wi-Fi innards, and Nintendo's servers... for... reasons? Reasons! If you wanna actually have all your IMPORTANT stuff besides the eShop licenses and friends you made along the way, you'll need to swap over the SD card. Unless you wanna upgrade THAT. Then you get to copy a bunch of files at the slowest read/write speed known to man. And hopefully the reader doesn't fritz out in the middle!... ... ...wait, WHY am I doing this? I thought my dabbling in 3DS malarkey was supposed to be wrist-deep in fried angel wings? Where's my floor ice cream?!
[Stream Highlights] Splatoon 3 Grizzco Splatana: Once Again I Have Cut a Worthless Object YuuGiJoou 2022-12-05 | Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouShe slices, she dices! She even juliennes fries!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---This thing is a very... interesting weapon, to say the least. Grizzco special models are always built to extremes, but this has to be the single most polarized piece of kit to date. And that's even after all the rest before it, including the absolutely bonkers Grizzco Stringer.Since they're meant for purely player-versus-enemy environment, the concept of "balance" is quite a different proposal, even on paper. About the only consistent drawback the Grizzco family of primary weapons shares for sure is a ravenous thirst for ink.Awkwardly for a melee weapon in a game primarily concerned with ranged combat, the Grizzco Splatana has... ... ... virtually no range to speak of. This is remarkable by the standards set by even other "melee" style primary weapons, because even the ones you'd most expect to be mostly concerned with close quarters combat still possess a fair amount of destructive capacity across a reasonably diverse range of attack.Heck, the Splatana class itself is squarely nestled within the mid-range subcategory of weapons, contrary to what you might assume based on its signature fallback option of a single, surgical charged strike to fell a foe in a single blow.Thus, it's quite the departure that the Grizzco Splatana can... barely cover any ground. Like, at all. The single most defining purpose of literally every weapon in the entire series. It has. None. Each swing spatters a small arc in front of you barely longer than the "blade" itself. The only upside keeping the thing from being all but entirely immobile as a direct result of its inability to give you anywhere to swim is that it WILL at least keep pace with your walking speed as long as you continue to swing it. And the Splatana family of weapons has top-class walking speed in general, making it one of the few you COULD conceivably get away without swimming at all.I mean, you wouldn't, because squid kids and octo adolescents take to the ink like fish to water... but this is also the one mode where exercising stealth by submerging yourself in the stuff is utterly meaningless.In exchange for this terrible cost to its general utility and usability, it gets strength to spare that would make the heaviest hitters blush. A single flick of the wrist gets you 200 damage to any salmonids you can shake a stick at, which all but the heaviest rollers and chargers would kill for. It takes an eternity to charge up its full might, measurable in multiple seconds, but unleashing that attack is absolutely literally off the charts. The training/waiting room in the Grizzco lobby can only clock it at 999.9 damage, which is the point at which the dummies stop keeping track of the excess entirety.From extensive field testing by eager employees, we can be certain that it'll, at the very least, destroy any Boss Salmonids you swing a charged strike at without question. Even armored ones, it treats them like Chum. Now, whether or not you can HIT some of them, what with the wildly unwieldy windup before weighing in the whopping wallop, that's another matter entirely...I've heard, at least anecdotally, that it can apparently take out a Griller with one hit... but, given how that matchup's tactics wash out... good luck?I was curious enough to try, and in one of these clips, it at least LOOKS like a charged slash even does the equivalent unit of damage to a Mudmouth that a bomb would, but i didn't exactly get the chance to try exhaustively. Within reason, I mean. Terribly sorry to have been so remiss in my scientific method. (Please don't report me to the Squid Research Lab!)I'm also not especially certain, but it would appear that it can't take down a Goldie that's playing hide and seek with one shot. Bummer, but it'd probably upend that wave type's balance entirely without batting an eye.The other remaining trick up this bizarre battering blade's sleeve is a significant boost to its advancing charge strike speed and distance. It's generally the only sane way to close in on certain targets safely... but "safety" isn't really on the menu unless you can accurately gauge its full range just by eyeballing it.Incidentally, the charge dash is so fast that the thing FLIES. Almost, but not quite literally. If you've got a death wish or a bit of an insane streak, this is your best chance to reach high enemies like those pesky Flyfish. Then again, stuff like Steelheads don't require even remotely as much effort, since you'll just bust them open if you so much as stub their heavily armored toes with the tip of your charged blade.---Regardless, fun stuff! A worthy addition to the burgeoning Grizzco armory, positively bristling for a fight.... ... ...I'm sure glad they're strictly for use against salmonids... ... ...r-right?!
Time Lapse Sketchpad Happy Halloween 2022! (Screen Capture) YuuGiJoou 2022-10-24 | I've been having a rough time of it, trying to schedule consistent and reasonable chances to celebrate my favorite time of year... and I think it's all just kinda seeping out by whatever questionable outlet I can manage to find.Y'know, because resurrecting some poor, dust-covered project from years past or even just... finally getting around to posting the archives for that kind of thing.Being celebratory sure got complicated all of a sudden!... ... ...oh, wait, no it didn't. It's just me. Being me....... ...... ... ...Let's not overthink the nature and fashion in which I apparently decided to express myself. Myselves?I think it's fair to say that I'm conflicted about a few factors, and I have different tendencies to contemplate the different aspects and elements in a full range of ways....and it's no stretch to proclaim myself a bit hostile towards those same, very real feelings. I guess I've got a lot to think about...---Always doodling on the walls for some reason...twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---THIS one is... well, I mean. Let's get the obvious out of the way... ... ... There's two! And I mean, one of them's so... big! And... ... ... "bouncy"? Wait, what were YOU thinking of?I'm a bit shocked that YouTube isn't complaining, to be honest. I was willing to let these just hang out for awhile to see if the robots got mad.... ... ...because of the music, dingdong! Get your head on straight! (Some of these publishers are very vindictive about the usage of their soundtracks!)...there's a LOT of music here! ... ... ...maybe it's more of a mini festive playlist at this point.Anyway, I've been moderately dissatisfied with how the automated processes handle things... so I decided it'd be fair game to take my own whack at it. I mean, I actually DO have some experience with such things, capturing the action on a screen and all. Go figure!It's not exactly perfect, but I get a lot more control over the process. There are some elements of give and take, making it easier to follow the process as it evolves organically... without sacrificing the big picture, of course.Of course, the big difference is the duration... it was only a first stab, but decimating the video down to an effective 5 fps before putting it back up to speed clearly wasn't enough.For the curious, record-minded individual, this one is about 8% of the original creative process's duration... as opposed to the 1.5% the machines went for. (Maybe there's some middle ground to experiment with.)For the much shorter, machine-manufacted rendition:youtu.be/acDGS0Am3KQ
Time Lapse Sketchpad Happy Halloween 2022! (Machine Made) YuuGiJoou 2022-10-24 | I've been having a rough time of it, trying to schedule consistent and reasonable chances to celebrate my favorite time of year... and I think it's all just kinda seeping out by whatever questionable outlet I can manage to find.Y'know, because resurrecting some poor, dust-covered project from years past or even just... finally getting around to posting the archives for that kind of thing.Being celebratory sure got complicated all of a sudden!... ... ...oh, wait, no it didn't. It's just me. Being me....... ...... ... ...Let's not overthink the nature and fashion in which I apparently decided to express myself. Myselves?I think it's fair to say that I'm conflicted about a few factors, and I have different tendencies to contemplate the different aspects and elements in a full range of ways....and it's no stretch to proclaim myself a bit hostile towards those same, very real feelings. I guess I've got a lot to think about...---Always doodling on the walls for some reason...twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---This one is referred to as "machine made," because it's the natural byproduct of my doodling tools capturing and playing back the steps I took to make the results you see before you.There are no pauses, and each step is placed end to end in equal intervals. It all feels... a bit mechanical, if we're being honest.At least it retains my copious amounts of Undo, so you can see I'm not especially steady on the lines, and quite prone to second-guessing and fussing over shape and form while it's still underway.... but... that specification in terms of excess labeling would indicate... there is another?youtu.be/7gSY8XuCVKM
[No Commentary] Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Discord Loot Drop... Co-Op? YuuGiJoou 2022-10-17 | Finally! Free at last!...but why's the video... tall? Aren't videos supposed to be WIDEscreen these days?!Would you believe me that there's literally no difference either way, in terms of proportion of the screen available for watching on? (No, really, try any modern over-the-shoulder style co-op game in a 3D world for its split-screen options... and... wait, they still MAKE games like that anymore?!)Um... anyway, let's just pretend this is NOT just the easiest way to (not) adjust the layout for the repurposing in such a fashion... it's ACTUALLY a throwback to my ongoing curiosity when it comes to testing tall-form videos, because one of the biggest audiences these days for video content on a site like this happens to be people with their weird, portrait-style pocket-screens!---Listen, you know I'm just naturally up to no good. That's just a fact.There's plenty of proof:twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So, stop me if you've heard this one before... Capcom says to Discord "hey, can we get your users to do some free advertising for us?"No, really, that's about all I can figure it is. Because until October 23rd, you can jump through a handful of hoops and receive a code for some otherwise paid DLC for your trouble. I guess.I mean, don't get your hopes too worked up, since it's "just" that weirdo seasonal layered armor that they've been asking people to pony up for piecewise.No, it's not the summer set, I feel like they want you to pay for that. You know why. For sure.Besides, it's not summer anymore! It's fall! Have some earthy-toned, decidedly deciduous-inspired... um... not especially standout stuff! Yeah! Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking free stuff, but I'm also not exceedingly excited about any degree of usefulness I'm anticipating in adding this to my wardrobe.MAYBE it'll be possible to mix it in with some other layered sets to get a look that would be difficult to manage otherwise? Yeah! Optimism!---Anyway, here's the deal. You have to opt in on the Discord "Loot Drops" beta or whatever, then you have to stream Monster Hunter Rise or Sunbreak... OR... you can use the demo, apparently. Which kinda surprised me, since I didn't think I'd qualify.The catch is that it's counted by sharing the application-level video feed. Which is to say, only the PC version can be used for this, which... is kind of a problem for a decent chunk of players, I'd imagine, even if you CAN use the PC demo to achieve the desired result.Anyway, after streaming the live video of it in a voice channel for either 15 or 30 minutes (the documentation on the matter out of Discord, including within the application itself is sketchy and conflicting on the details), you qualify for the "drop" and can choose a code for either Steam or the Nintendo eShop, which you need to claim and redeem within a week of finishing this bizarre ritual.Does this technically qualify as a public service announcement? ...no, not really... that'd require a "public"... or for me to be of "service" to it. And I'm pretty sure this isn't a very effective announcement...---No, in reality, I was just playing in the garden. What else is new?! The content sure isn't. I played the demo a long time ago! Demo Malzeno sent me packing something fierce! There's video to prove it!And then there's THIS... far less videogenic content than even that, because... what, did you capture this garbage on a phone pointed at a screen or something?!Honestly, it's kinda impressive-ish that Discord has fairly robust and reasonably real-time-adjacent live video sharing features at all. What's less impressive is the fact that it's 720p30... unless you shell out for Nitro... and even then, I'm not sure why I'd want to do it that way except to hold a very small-scale gathering of looky-loos. Maybe an illicit movie night or a rousing round of Jackbox... but I certainly wouldn't want to make a habit of watching Monster Hunter through it.But forget all that! That's not important! I'm not watching through it... YOU are! I think? You're still here, right?! N-No! Please don't leave! I had a point somewhere buried in all this, I swear! Probably! ...maybe! (I kinda forgot.)---Okay, all the card on the table? This has been a monumentally bizarre and downright foolish "test" of... many things. Mostly, Discord's streaming quality. It's... ... ... passable. But I'm also willing to say that the "P2" footage was squeezed out under extreme duress, because SOMEONE likes to overamp their video settings to the point that it chokes out other video tasks in progress, let alone leave any quality left over for anyone to ACTUALLY watch after the fact...Plus, there's the absolutely abysmal pretense of set dressing and just tinkering around with OBS assets and sources and whatnot. SOMEONE should be ashamed here!... ... ...well, I'm waiting!... ... ......o-oh... it's supposed to be me?
[Chat] Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Discord Loot Drop... Co-Op? YuuGiJoou 2022-10-17 | Oh, thank goodness! Those huge, lifeless eyes are gone! ...but there's still some maniacs jabbering on in the back of my ears. Why must I never be free?!---Listen, you know I'm just naturally up to no good. That's just a fact.There's plenty of proof:twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So, stop me if you've heard this one before... Capcom says to Discord "hey, can we get your users to do some free advertising for us?"No, really, that's about all I can figure it is. Because until October 23rd, you can jump through a handful of hoops and receive a code for some otherwise paid DLC for your trouble. I guess.I mean, don't get your hopes too worked up, since it's "just" that weirdo seasonal layered armor that they've been asking people to pony up for piecewise.No, it's not the summer set, I feel like they want you to pay for that. You know why. For sure.Besides, it's not summer anymore! It's fall! Have some earthy-toned, decidedly deciduous-inspired... um... not especially standout stuff! Yeah! Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking free stuff, but I'm also not exceedingly excited about any degree of usefulness I'm anticipating in adding this to my wardrobe.MAYBE it'll be possible to mix it in with some other layered sets to get a look that would be difficult to manage otherwise? Yeah! Optimism!---Anyway, here's the deal. You have to opt in on the Discord "Loot Drops" beta or whatever, then you have to stream Monster Hunter Rise or Sunbreak... OR... you can use the demo, apparently. Which kinda surprised me, since I didn't think I'd qualify.The catch is that it's counted by sharing the application-level video feed. Which is to say, only the PC version can be used for this, which... is kind of a problem for a decent chunk of players, I'd imagine, even if you CAN use the PC demo to achieve the desired result.Anyway, after streaming the live video of it in a voice channel for either 15 or 30 minutes (the documentation on the matter out of Discord, including within the application itself is sketchy and conflicting on the details), you qualify for the "drop" and can choose a code for either Steam or the Nintendo eShop, which you need to claim and redeem within a week of finishing this bizarre ritual.Does this technically qualify as a public service announcement? ...no, not really... that'd require a "public"... or for me to be of "service" to it. And I'm pretty sure this isn't a very effective announcement...---No, in reality, I was just playing in the garden. What else is new?! The content sure isn't. I played the demo a long time ago! Demo Malzeno sent me packing something fierce! There's video to prove it!And then there's THIS... far less videogenic content than even that, because... what, did you capture this garbage on a phone pointed at a screen or something?!Honestly, it's kinda impressive-ish that Discord has fairly robust and reasonably real-time-adjacent live video sharing features at all. What's less impressive is the fact that it's 720p30... unless you shell out for Nitro... and even then, I'm not sure why I'd want to do it that way except to hold a very small-scale gathering of looky-loos. Maybe an illicit movie night or a rousing round of Jackbox... but I certainly wouldn't want to make a habit of watching Monster Hunter through it.But forget all that! That's not important! I'm not watching through it... YOU are! I think? You're still here, right?! N-No! Please don't leave! I had a point somewhere buried in all this, I swear! Probably! ...maybe! (I kinda forgot.)---Okay, all the card on the table? This has been a monumentally bizarre and downright foolish "test" of... many things. Mostly, Discord's streaming quality. It's... ... ... passable. But I'm also willing to say that the "P2" footage was squeezed out under extreme duress, because SOMEONE likes to overamp their video settings to the point that it chokes out other video tasks in progress, let alone leave any quality left over for anyone to ACTUALLY watch after the fact...Plus, there's the absolutely abysmal pretense of set dressing and just tinkering around with OBS assets and sources and whatnot. SOMEONE should be ashamed here!... ... ...well, I'm waiting!... ... ......o-oh... it's supposed to be me?
[VTuber/Chat] Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak Discord Loot Drop... Co-Op? YuuGiJoou 2022-10-17 | I-I mean... what ELSE was I supposed to put in that empty space I would've been left with otherwise?!---Listen, you know I'm just naturally up to no good. That's just a fact.There's plenty of proof:twitch.tv/yuugijooutwitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So, stop me if you've heard this one before... Capcom says to Discord "hey, can we get your users to do some free advertising for us?"No, really, that's about all I can figure it is. Because until October 23rd, you can jump through a handful of hoops and receive a code for some otherwise paid DLC for your trouble. I guess.I mean, don't get your hopes too worked up, since it's "just" that weirdo seasonal layered armor that they've been asking people to pony up for piecewise.No, it's not the summer set, I feel like they want you to pay for that. You know why. For sure.Besides, it's not summer anymore! It's fall! Have some earthy-toned, decidedly deciduous-inspired... um... not especially standout stuff! Yeah! Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking free stuff, but I'm also not exceedingly excited about any degree of usefulness I'm anticipating in adding this to my wardrobe.MAYBE it'll be possible to mix it in with some other layered sets to get a look that would be difficult to manage otherwise? Yeah! Optimism!---Anyway, here's the deal. You have to opt in on the Discord "Loot Drops" beta or whatever, then you have to stream Monster Hunter Rise or Sunbreak... OR... you can use the demo, apparently. Which kinda surprised me, since I didn't think I'd qualify.The catch is that it's counted by sharing the application-level video feed. Which is to say, only the PC version can be used for this, which... is kind of a problem for a decent chunk of players, I'd imagine, even if you CAN use the PC demo to achieve the desired result.Anyway, after streaming the live video of it in a voice channel for either 15 or 30 minutes (the documentation on the matter out of Discord, including within the application itself is sketchy and conflicting on the details), you qualify for the "drop" and can choose a code for either Steam or the Nintendo eShop, which you need to claim and redeem within a week of finishing this bizarre ritual.Does this technically qualify as a public service announcement? ...no, not really... that'd require a "public"... or for me to be of "service" to it. And I'm pretty sure this isn't a very effective announcement...---No, in reality, I was just playing in the garden. What else is new?! The content sure isn't. I played the demo a long time ago! Demo Malzeno sent me packing something fierce! There's video to prove it!And then there's THIS... far less videogenic content than even that, because... what, did you capture this garbage on a phone pointed at a screen or something?!Honestly, it's kinda impressive-ish that Discord has fairly robust and reasonably real-time-adjacent live video sharing features at all. What's less impressive is the fact that it's 720p30... unless you shell out for Nitro... and even then, I'm not sure why I'd want to do it that way except to hold a very small-scale gathering of looky-loos. Maybe an illicit movie night or a rousing round of Jackbox... but I certainly wouldn't want to make a habit of watching Monster Hunter through it.But forget all that! That's not important! I'm not watching through it... YOU are! I think? You're still here, right?! N-No! Please don't leave! I had a point somewhere buried in all this, I swear! Probably! ...maybe! (I kinda forgot.)---Okay, all the card on the table? This has been a monumentally bizarre and downright foolish "test" of... many things. Mostly, Discord's streaming quality. It's... ... ... passable. But I'm also willing to say that the "P2" footage was squeezed out under extreme duress, because SOMEONE likes to overamp their video settings to the point that it chokes out other video tasks in progress, let alone leave any quality left over for anyone to ACTUALLY watch after the fact...Plus, there's the absolutely abysmal pretense of set dressing and just tinkering around with OBS assets and sources and whatnot. SOMEONE should be ashamed here!... ... ...well, I'm waiting!... ... ......o-oh... it's supposed to be me?
[Archive] Splatoon 3 Hero Mode #3. Therapeutic Compulsion YuuGiJoou 2022-09-20 | If you're looking for the puppet show version with commentary and whatnot... ... ... there isn't one! (You may sigh in relief and relax for a change!)if you thought you were done here just because you "did everything" and "found all the stuff"... you'd be sorely mistaken.Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouI also can't help myself but regularly check out:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---I was even MORE surprised to find there was unfinished business yet lurking in Alterna.... ... ...mostly because it's not very well telegraphed or advertised. Or even conveyed to the player in any way whatsoever. Kinda like the final secret kettle that unceremoniously gets added right back where you first entered Site 1, way back at the start of the whole campaign.But at least THAT got an incredibly vague notice that there was something... somewhere. Really narrows it down, right?Well, the next bit really takes the cake after that... there are stickers rather randomly granted to you for completing a Site map in its entirety.I don't mean just clearing the kettles and resolving all the vaguely highlighted points of interest, collecting all the unique one-off rewards that get checked off on the map's handy margin notes. I mean... completing the map itself.This is far from trivial, since the map progress isn't exactly called out or celebrated... and it's being tracked with alarming granularity. Tiny tiles of gray that get revealed only when you pass through them with a shocking degree of precision required.The silver lining here, and the reason why it's far less cumbersome as all that: turf inked is also mapped. So, rather than standing everywhere, you hurl ink everywhere, which is something the game has already pretty well rewarded and conditioned you to do.Except... what about surfaces you CAN'T ink? Well, the same rules apply, except for the part that your ink won't actually stick. So, expect a lot of spraying and checking the map to see if you still need to hit a spot somewhere. Good luck with that! (The submarine is especially obnoxious about this kind of thing.)But... why are we doing this in the first place? If you go back to Site 1 and check with Marie, you'll get a sticker for each completely mapped out area! ... ... ...yes, that's it.You won't actually know which area she's talking about with the entirely generic congratulations and award dialogue, and you'll have to leave Alterna entirely to check out what's up at the lobby terminal... so hopefully you don't miss small fragments of still-gray sections.Again, the game itself never mentions any of this or the fact that it's keeping score in this way... and Marie never bothers to point out that she's got a reward waiting for you.---Is that it? Not... exactly, although doing this will get you most of the way towards finishing another unstated objective.It's SO unstated and never brought up or explained or acknowledged that I'm not entirely clear as to the specific conditions here, but your reward for either mapping out Alterna or eliminating all the Fuzzy Ooze (maybe both?) is... an innocuous little box left on the landing pad (where the dangerous-looking shaving implement was assembled out of the "treasures" Deep Cut was so interested in hoarding) by the entrance to Site 1 from the outside world. It was never explained or established, so I had no idea what exactly I was looking for until I actually saw it, and by then I'd overkilled my suspected points of interest in the hopes of coaxing out a reaction that was never going to arrive.This is the ShelDrone. No points for guessing who made it. Weird he didn't lift a claw to help this while ordeal.You can expend those now-useless Power Eggs to have it seek out a daily bounty of loot that shows up in your lobby terminal when the stores in Splatsville cycle their wares. Then you can send it out again!
[Archive] Splatoon 3 Hero Mode #2. Clean up This Mess! YuuGiJoou 2022-09-16 | If you're looking for the puppet show version with commentary and whatnot... ... ... there isn't one! (You may sigh in relief and relax for a change!) This is just some casual cleanup action, seeing as how finishing the main game entailed... um... skipping like almost half of it?Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouIf that's not the cephalopod calling the kettle... um... wait, what was my metaphor here again?twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Although, full disclosure, it wouldn't be for several days thereafter that I was made aware that there actually IS a reward for LITERALLY cleaning up. To an uncertain degree... and very little conveyance to indicate it's the case.This is actually just to showcase "all that's left" of the game... by which I mean like... I wanted the full Octo Expansion experience, where there were all these crazy scenarios and neat things to see and do, but you're only required to do a fraction of them to actually finish the campaign.Naturally, this means I need it all.Including one, that wasn't really well advertised to the player... a bonus kettle, that I was doomed by my own stubbornness and apparent lack of octo-empathy... to see through to the end.It feels a bit like the final bonus stages of a 3D Mario game of recent years, although not nearly so agitating, if you ask me.At least there are checkpoints!
[VTuber] Splatoon 3 Hero Mode #1. Its Only Squid Age Wasteland YuuGiJoou 2022-09-12 | If you'd rather splat or be splatted in relative peace, fully immersed solely in the content of the heroic adventure itself:youtu.be/o7GbVgwdbM4Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouDon't cry. Don't brace your eyes. It's only:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So that was fun. I mean it, really. Just kinda chugging the bulk of yet another new Splatoon adventure. They're kinda just... like that, y'know? A quality, thoughtful, quasi-platforming third-person action shooter that anyone can enjoy. Um. Mostly.It does kinda follow some of the familiar uniquely "Nintendo" cues that you wouldn't find out of place in a modern 3D Mario game, but that's hardly a bad thing.Actually, it's kind of weird that it straddles the gulf created between the first two games' Hero Modes and Octo Expansion, what with its notably tougher emphasis on challenge and bite-sized frenetic action now and again.The good news is that it's all only as mandatory as you want it to be! ...most of it, anyway! I can only think of a handful of places that might be major stumbling blocks for the broader segments of the target demographic... while still finding enough substance to chew on for the opposite end of the spectrum. Y'know, crazy people.... ... ...and also the lore hounds. We got that, too. A lot more of that than I bargained for, actually. But I kinda figured as much, seeing as how a whole week early, I was hearing rumblings and rumors that you should beeline the solo experience if you wanted to be totally safe from spoilers.What, was YouTube and Twitter and the whole of the Internet not enough?!So, in that spirit, here's the whole thing in one long, massive, supremely inadvisable chunk.I mean, MOST of it. Okay, fine, I didn't actually eat all my veggies. I might've skipped to dessert a bit. But who really even DOES the final areas of a game, huh? Especially since careful planning and critical thinking can save you up a sizable nest egg from early on such that you can just skip straight to a boss kettle without much fuss?---Anyway, if you know me, I'm not in the market of clickbait or unmarked spoilers. Be warned. There's some pretty trippy-dippy stuff ahead. But you gotta get through like... SEVEN HOURS of it before it really starts to get serious. And about forty more after that before it really hits the fan.Oh dear splat. Who the heck is this even for?!It was a fun time, though. We have fun here.Then we sleep. Forever.(Until the next time.)
[Archive] Splatoon 3 Hero Mode #1. Its Only Squid Age Wasteland YuuGiJoou 2022-09-12 | For the version where I don't shut up (much) and there's an obscenely distracting low-rent puppet show getting in the way:youtu.be/UP9q-M26zcgOriginally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouDon't cry. Don't brace your eyes. It's only:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So that was fun. I mean it, really. Just kinda chugging the bulk of yet another new Splatoon adventure. They're kinda just... like that, y'know? A quality, thoughtful, quasi-platforming third-person action shooter that anyone can enjoy. Um. Mostly.It does kinda follow some of the familiar uniquely "Nintendo" cues that you wouldn't find out of place in a modern 3D Mario game, but that's hardly a bad thing.Actually, it's kind of weird that it straddles the gulf created between the first two games' Hero Modes and Octo Expansion, what with its notably tougher emphasis on challenge and bite-sized frenetic action now and again.The good news is that it's all only as mandatory as you want it to be! ...most of it, anyway! I can only think of a handful of places that might be major stumbling blocks for the broader segments of the target demographic... while still finding enough substance to chew on for the opposite end of the spectrum. Y'know, crazy people.... ... ...and also the lore hounds. We got that, too. A lot more of that than I bargained for, actually. But I kinda figured as much, seeing as how a whole week early, I was hearing rumblings and rumors that you should beeline the solo experience if you wanted to be totally safe from spoilers.What, was YouTube and Twitter and the whole of the Internet not enough?!So, in that spirit, here's the whole thing in one long, massive, supremely inadvisable chunk.I mean, MOST of it. Okay, fine, I didn't actually eat all my veggies. I might've skipped to dessert a bit. But who really even DOES the final areas of a game, huh? Especially since careful planning and critical thinking can save you up a sizable nest egg from early on such that you can just skip straight to a boss kettle without much fuss?---Anyway, if you know me, I'm not in the market of clickbait or unmarked spoilers. Be warned. There's some pretty trippy-dippy stuff ahead. But you gotta get through like... SEVEN HOURS of it before it really starts to get serious. And about forty more after that before it really hits the fan.Oh dear splat. Who the heck is this even for?!It was a fun time, though. We have fun here.Then we sleep. Forever.(Until the next time.)
Time Lapse Sketchpad Splatoon 3 (Cosplay), Deep Thirst YuuGiJoou 2022-09-10 | I think it's safe to say I feel totally unpredictably strongly about Splatoon right now?I somehow don't think this is quite how you're meant to quench it...twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---For the first time in Splatoon history, there hasn't been a clear cut idol winner by a massive landslide. Good thing there's two of me to split the difference!I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm definitely Team Shiver here. (Did you know a group of sharks is called a shiver? And the name for a group of eels is a fry!)... ... ...it's just too sad I don't have the figure to rock the Big Man look....also that might be a tad offensive somehow? I don't know, okay?! Big Men are like a totally different species sometimes, I don't really know all the intricacies and rules here!(It was probably already deeply offensive to those of the phallic persuasion that I even asked. I'm sorry!)---My only regret is that I took a stab at splashing color on this one, but ended up finding it made a stickier mess than I'd have preferred. Which is weird...Believe me, the irony of such a colorful game being rendered in total monochrome is not lost upon me.... ... ...also ironic in that I struggle with color the most, and here the whole thing is just telling me I didn't need to bother?---Too bad my schedule has detained me from properly diving in just yet, but the time is nigh!It might not solve my Xenoblade time management crisis, but it's safe to say I'm going to dive down a tall glass of water soon enough...That delightful trainwreck will surely be over at:twitch.tv/yuugijoou
[Archive] Xenoblade Chronicles 3 5. Precocious Little Scamps YuuGiJoou 2022-09-09 | VTuber-accompanied commentary version here:youtu.be/8B8Tu1Cu4bA(Y'know, if you felt like your angsty sidequest simulator needed a side order of uncanny puppet show. For some reason. I won't judge.)Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouEven more questionable life choices can be found here:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---You know how it is, leaving bright-eyed younglings to do as they please. But if you spare the Levnas, you spoil the child!
[VTuber] Xenoblade Chronicles 3 5. Precocious Little Scamps YuuGiJoou 2022-09-09 | Gameplay-only version here:youtu.be/LVkkeM6VgJgOriginally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouEven more questionable life choices can be found here:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---You know how it is, leaving bright-eyed younglings to do as they please. But if you spare the Levnas, you spoil the child!
[Archive] (Co-op) Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Double Your Displeasure (4 August 2021) YuuGiJoou 2022-09-08 | Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouPlenty more where that came from!twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---So, how's this new rash of "I'd better actually get to work doing the thing I was supposed to be doing all along, but never did... until now" activity treating you?... ... ...to shreds, you say?Good!As always, there's plenty more where this came from!...stop crying! It's not that bad! You'll surviv-- probably li-- um... ... ... just do your best, okay?!(We'll break the "over one year ago" barrier sooner than you think!)
[Archive] (Co-op) Nintendo Switch Sports Sweating for Cuteness! 1 May 2022 YuuGiJoou 2022-09-08 | Originally streamed at:twitch.tv/yuugijoouFar less sporting action to be found at:twitter.com/yuugijooudiscord.gg/bKT9pRW---Among all the games Nintendo's put out there with the post-launch intent of goading you into interacting with it on a regular basis or else face some manner of dire consequences, this one feels the least... oppressive about it?The earlier Mario sports games of this generation were kinda... on the one hand kinda easygoing about it, giving you a whole month, but then... you'd have to play a rather significant chunk of ranked matches, which already don't rub me the right way. And then your rewards were such... almost nothings sometimes. Yay, you can use palette swaps for Toad or Yoshi! ...wait, why couldn't we just do that from the start? I have to go HOW far to get WHICH color?!... ... ...and we'll speak nothing of the Warner Bros. free-to-play thing that's gnawing at my attention and capacity for time-management at the moment, because it's only a matter of time before it hits critical mass and makes me drop it like a bad habit, but at least everything FEELS new and joyful rather than the cynical corporate color-by-numbers economy that we all know is lurking beneath that colorful and fanservice-based veneer that the developers have tried so hard to cultivate in spite of their hierarchical bean-counting overlords.Splatoon technically counted before, what with daily cycling attire availability, but it never felt like it was actively punishing you for not checking... but now it's going to have catalogues of items to fulfill. (Hopefully none of this will create a time conflict soon!)Animal Crossing villages terrify me if you even take a week off.
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