Rose Thorne(She/Her)

Has Phoenix Wright been a documentary about the Japanese legal system this entire time, and we just wrote it off?

Vampire Survivors has got me back in its grip. The Ode to Castlevania DLC dropped on Halloween. I really don’t understand where the time goes when I play that game.

Also picked up Webfishing, an absolutely adorable time. I don’t know that I really consider it “playing”, the actual gameplay is pretty basic, but I’ve enjoyed the peaceful nature of it and have had fun just chatting.

This is seriously dating myself, and probably hyper-specific, but it feels more like chatrooms back in the late 90s to early 2000s. Most of the rooms I’ve been in have been relaxed. Having a talk about life while someone strums “Simple and Clean” on a guitar somewhere in the background. A bit of roleplay going on.

The small lobbies, the small map, the chill gameplay, all makes for a cozy, welcoming place. Like you really did just stumble across someone’s campsite, and they invited you to sit.

I mean, have you looked at HoI4 lately?

Look, I get it, but the state of DLC in Paradox games has moved beyond even the memes. I think they took those as inspiration. There’s a fucking monthly pass now!

I deeply enjoy their games, but the DLC bloat confounds me.

This is what happens when you take things away. Used to be you’d just levitate yourself wherever you needed to go.

Then there’s Fallout. Who needs horses? Courier can carry themself and 400 pounds of Sunset Sarsaparilla up a damn near vertical cliff face if you do the side-to-side.

Good on them. $7500 for all future royalties is an absolute rip, especially coming out of Rockstar.

If you were lucky.

I remember when people figured out the invisible characters glitch and BG chat was just a wash of shit talk all s p l i t u p l I k e t h i s.

Saw some people also use that for good, but a majority in my experience were just heinous.

They’re doing a service.

Reminding men that it’s never too late to schedule an appointment at the proctologist.

When you got it, flaunt it.

I think I single-handedly funded a complete overhaul of the Kantonian Safari Zone just to get Scyther in Pokemon Red.

I lost count of how many times I reset to actually catch Chansey. “You missed the Pokemon! Chansey fled!” over and over again, when I actually got one of them to spawn!

Then it was flying all over, since I had the Good and Super rods, finally, to do all of the fishing. Now it’s leveling up some of my catches while pushing through Saffron so I can grab Lapras, snag Hitmonlee from the dojo, get everyone evolved and caught up, and then finally take down Koga.

It can come down to the company.

Like, a big AAA dev/publisher or a relatively unknown newbie? Not gonna trust that it’s going to turn out good or get finished.

A company like Crate? Hell yeah, they make solid shit and haven’t fucked me over once on it. I watched Grim Dawn grow up from 2 acts to getting a third expansion. Farthest Frontier is also shaping up into a fun time, in my opinion.

If they have a history, it can be worth it to take the risk and take some small part in the process.

I remember my first time finding the ceiling path in the Pyramids in SML1. I just decided to try to see if I could jump up to the ceiling tiles, skip passed the enemies.

It blew my little mind when it worked. I could do that. Where else could I do that‽ The entire game just changed! I lost hours trying to make the stupidest jumps, just to see if I had found another one.

NYKO were a decent third party, back in the day. Not great, but a step above the competition. Downside, I don’t think they ever really changed their plans that much. I swear I saw PS3 controllers with the “air cool” marketing still on it, just now with RGB through the controller!

Someone else like me!

I’ve always had long fingers, and The Duke was perfect. I remember getting one of the revamped controller models down the line, and it just never felt quite as good.

Still prefer X-Box style controllers on the overall, these days. Still not quite up there yet, but still better than PlayStations style, and while I think the JoyCons are absolutely adorable and clever, actually using them is just uncomfortable after awhile.

Both games were pretty damn brutal, but memorable, experiences. I wish someone would come up with something like it, because that was the closest I’ve felt to my childhood dream.

You don’t have to tell me to get in the robot, you have to stop me from hijacking it just for a joyride.

I guess this is “weird” in the sense of “unique”.

The Steel Battalion Mech controls. The size of a table, it was an appropriate recreation of the control panel for a mech, requiring you to go through all the steps from firing it up to ejecting in case of danger. You had pedals, sticks, knobs, switches galore.

Still Pokemon Red. I’m beginning to regret my choices. The choice to include Blue-exclusives, and trade evolutions, because PKHex makes it so easy to do. The choice to try to keep a selection of various typings caught up in level, so I’d have some decent coverage versus brute forcing.

Having the trio of starters. I think I’ve grown to hate Bulbasaur, at this point. Every time I go to drop him into my party, all I can remember is “Not very effective”, over and over again. Well into the 20s, still taking 2-3 Vine Whips to take out a level 6 Kakuna.

Slowly grinding my way through a Pokemon Red Professor Oaks Challenge(Yay, switch-training Magikarp…), and when my brains to the point of melting from that, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Kitsune Bladebound Magus, happily traipsing her fluffy way down wherever Desna may guide her.

May the Gods have mercy on the crusade she’s going to lead.

Just so you know, if it’s been awhile, Crate came in and did a pretty big overhaul on Grim Dawn, and are prepping for the “final” expansion that’s supposed to come sometime this year.

Dodge roll mechanic, potions are now a recharge resource versus pickups that take item space, the next expansion is adding potion customization, prettied up the old world to be more in-line with the quality the previous two expansions brought, tons of little tweaks.

It’s not exactly a “whole new game” experience, but it’s much more smoothed out!

I’m not surprised that worked, bacon and sweets work rather well together. Chocolate-dipped bacon is actually quite nice!

Another fun one is cook up some bacon, mix it in with some pancake batter. Bacon-mixed pancakes with some butter and warm maple syrup? Amazing.

Jauwn is a treat, and he makes such cool intros. He adds a nice perspective to the crypto games market. Open about his views on what it’s used for, but still willing to give it an honest try and look at it as a game alongside everything else.