2015: A Year In Review

This is less a year and review for like my life, and more like a year in review for some cool things I got introduced to / experienced over the year!! Mainly video games. Of course it's mainly video games.

HERE WE GO!

• I made a twitter and started following some cool people!! Namely: drak, Gigi D. G., Toby Fox

All three of them are super cool people who make great things! Drak's working on a cool game called Item Haver and does a lot of neat video game streams! I love his humor - his streams are a lot of fun to watch while I'm doing something else in the background.

Gigi writes Cucumber Quest! A webcomic about bunny kids going on adventures, heavily inspired by RPGs like Paper Mario and Kirby. It's super good and I highly highly highly recommend it!

Toby Fox is the guy.... er, dog??? behind Undertale, which, I've already mentioned (twice!) on here. A really cool game that takes traditional RPG elements and flips them on their head. I, obviously, highly recommend this as well!

• Drak and Gigi play Sonic 06

This was how I first found Drak and his streams (I'd already been following Gigi for a while), and, through this, got introduced to the Sonic series! Well, outside the vague "Sonic exists, he was in Smash and the Mario and Sonic Olympic games" knowledge of Sonic I already had.

Anyway, I recommend these streams to basically anyone! Whether you're a longtime fan of Sonic or, like me, someone who only vaguely knows about them, they're a lot of fun!! Just two friends enjoying a broken game and all in all having a good time. I'm really glad they exist. They still make me smile when I watch them.

• Tied into that: I actually looked further into the Sonic series, and discovered I really really like it?????? It's kind of bad in a lot of ways but, it's still..... it's really good. I'm glad games like Sonic 06 and Sonic Adventure 2 exist.

• I played Earthbound and Earthbound Zero this year!!

What good games.... I'm so glad I actually looked into them instead of leaving my Mother / Earthbound experience at simply Mother 3. They were both really fun, and Earthbound has easily worked it's way onto the list of my favorite games.

• I also played FF8 this year!!!!!!

What another good game..... I already talked about it on this blog before, but, I'm glad to have played it because, I think it's my favorite Final Fantasy, now?? And it was a lot of fun to share the experience with my sister, who loves it, and a friend of mine, who also loves it!! 

FF8 has a lot of good characters and a really good story and, well, I'm glad to have finally gotten around to playing it this year.

• Splatoon!! Splatoon is a thing a I got into, and, it's a really good game!! I'm grateful for it, and, for getting a Wii U, finally.

• I also finally played Majora's Mask this year!!!!

I keep meaning to make a post about it here (it's next on the list, right after a Yoshi's Woolly World review, probably) but haven't gotten around to it yet! In short: I had a lot of low expectations for Majora's Mask, but when I finally sat down to play it on a whim, I was proven very wrong. It's a wonderful game, and is without a doubt one of my favorite Zeldas!

• I watched SGDQ for the first time and enjoyed it immensely. I can’t wait for AGDQ which starts!!! Sunday!!! WOWIE! - check out some deets about both, here!

And, finally, the crown on this big 'ol cake:

• Undertale

Undertale came out in September, after four months of waiting for it -- for me, anyway! 

It was better than the demo promised, and it wasn't just some short little game that I played once and really enjoyed. It ended up being much more than that. It totally took over my life for a few months, and, kind of still has a hold of it now??

I'm so glad we live in a world where Undertale exists, because it is such a good game, and it's really made an impact on the world and gaming and so much cool fanart and fanfic has come from it -- I haven't met anyone new from it, like other people, but I have had a lot of great experiences centered around it!

I never expected Undertale to get so big or to mean so much to me (and honestly, I don't think anyone expected this) but, here we are! Here it is!! And it's wonderful.

It would be silly for me to choose one thing out of this year that I am most thankful for, because I am very very thankful for all these things!! Buuuuuut, if I absolutely had to choose just one, it would be Undertale, without a doubt. GOOD THING I DON'T HAVE TO CHOOSE, HUH?

Anyway, that's some of my fave 2015 experiences year in review. Here's for 2016, finding more fun games, and having an even better year! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Midgar Is Now Too Big To Fit On One Disc (FFVII Remake news)

The Final Fantasy 7 Remake got another trailer at PSX, back on December 5th! The game looks stellar so far and, I'm excited!!

Back when it was announced at E3, my opinions on the FF7 Remake were more like "holy crap? they're actually doing it???" than legitimate excitement for the game. But when I watched this trailer, my attitude shifted quite drastically. This trailer managed to remind me how much I cared about FF7, and how excited I was to see it retold in better graphics and in full voice acting. (No lie: I had to pause the trailer the first time I watched it when Jessie said her opening line because I was too overwhelmed.)


I'm excited for a lot of things shown in this trailer!! The graphics look gorgeous, and the gameplay looks like it's gonna be a lot of fun.

The trailer showed Cloud, while navigating what I assume is Sector 7's dilapidated Mako Reactor, ducking through a hole in the wall, and squeezing between a small gap, which, are little things, but seeing that sort of stuff on a more frequent scale could be pretty interesting, in my opinion! A Midgar that's fully capable of being interacted with? Awesome.

Not to mention, Midgar itself. It's HUGE. The streets are fully rendered, completely with city lights (that reflect off of Cloud's sword!?) and an atmosphere that feels really good. There were only a few sections shown in the trailer, and not for very long, either, but it feels really big. It feels like there's a lot to explore, and, that's one of the things that excites me the most about this trailer. I can't wait to walk around this Midgar. I can't wait to see the buildings around me, rather than looking down on them. I can't wait to move through these streets, especially now that there won't be any preset camera angles to deal with. I can't wait to explore Midgar as if I'm really there. It looks.... It looks wonderful. It looks fantastic. I really, really can't wait.


Another thing that caught my attention about the trailer was at roughly 1:10, when Cloud is surrounded by Shinra troops. This is an effect any fan who's watched the Advent Children movie will be familiar with. The image glitches, flashing, blurring, accompanied by a high-pitch whine and static.

In Advent Children, it was meant to portray the effects of geostigma. Or, basically, portray that something is wrong. 

Here, I figure it is meant to signify Cloud's not-quite-stable memories and mental state. This happens plenty of times within the original game itself, just with different effects. (The latest I saw: a red overlay, that high-pitched whine, while Cloud's model distorts for a second.)

I'm really excited to see this play out, to see how they carry out this plotline with the technology and graphical capabilities they have today. I have high hopes.

(Also, did anyone else find it interesting this happened when he was surrounded by Shinra troops? I mean, considering....)

Slightly on this subject, here's something a lot of people have pointed out, including tumblr user princessmatsuoka and Nomura himself:

Cloud looks sick.

He's thin, he's pale, he's got bags under his eyes---sure, he's got muscles, but his skin is still sticking to them, and he's hunched over most of the time. It's a good reflection of all the trauma he's been through before getting to Midgar: locked in a test tube for four years, Mako poisoning, on top of his emotional / mental state.

To quote tumblr user leonheartleon, Cloud doesn't look like pretty. He looks "like a young adult who suffers from multiple traumas and mental disorders". And that's real good.


(The thing I'm obviously most excited about when it comes to this remake? The things they can do to portray this story with the technology they have today.)

Anyway, I should probably talk about the battle system, too.

As shown in the trailer, the game is going to have an action-based battle system. Or, more action-based than the original, anyway.

Kitase says they're aiming for a "seamless active battle". 

Nomura adds: 

"There won’t be any actions that require a technique. By using the new system, we want to do action battles while also being able to fight while thinking strategically.”

A couple of people are mad about this decision, and would prefer it stuck to more traditional-RPG roots. While I agree revamping the original FF7's RPG battle system to make it more interactive might not have been a bad idea, I honestly couldn't care less. 

I started replaying the original FF7 a few nights ago, because I wasn't sure how else to vent my hype for the Remake, and found myself quitting within the hour because I kept getting really pissed off at random encounters. Sitting around and waiting for your attack bar to fill is boring, the encounters felt like they happened too frequently---you walk three steps, and then, oops! Another random encounter. It was really frustrating, and how slow they were paced played no small part in that.

Honestly, I'll be glad to see any battle system in the Remake, so long as it's not the exact same as the original's. Besides, it's reportedly going to be a little like Kingdom Hearts, and, I love Kingdom Hearts. So, I'm alright with that.

Finally: the FF7 Remake is going to be a multi-part series. Kitase says they knew it wouldn't fit into a single release from the beginning.

Here's the full section of that interview:

Final Fantasy VII Remake is a multi-part series. Please tell us more about this decision. 

Kitase: “The idea that a remake of Final Fantasy VII would not fit into a single release was there from the very beginning. We still can’t share more information about its multiple parts, but please look forward to future announcements.” 

Nomura: “If we dedicated our time to a single release, parts of it would become summarized. We’d have to cut some parts, and additional parts would come in few, so rather than remake the game as a full volume, we decided to do multiple parts. 

Kitase: “As you can see in the trailer, we showed Sector 1 and Sector 8, but in those areas alone, I think you can see a lot of density. When you’re remaking the entirety of the original version in that quality, it’s not possible to fit it all in one release.”

The world has been made so big that they can't fit it on a single disc.

But, hey, in my opinion? I'd rather have the giant world to explore. I'd rather have all the story there. I don't want anything to be unnecessarily cut from this, and if this is how they have to ensure nothing from the original is lost, then so be it.

This multi-part approach means that they can explore each episode, each section of the game more deeply, too. And, they can even expand on parts of the story. Nomura says this about it:

“In addition to delving into these episodes more deeply, we’re preparing a number of mechanisms and such. To those who played the original version will know the important parts and understand the story from the beginning to the end. Also for these people, I hope that they can be surprised once again.”

I'm looking forward to see where this is going.

All in all, I think it looks like the FF7 Remake is gonna be really great.

Sonic Boom: All "Hail" Shadow

Sonic Boom, the TV series, is a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the video game Sonic Boom series (which is a spin-off of and takes place in a separate canon than the main Sonic series).

I haven't played any of the Sonic Boom video games, but I tried twenty minutes of the demo for Rise of Lyric for the WII U and enjoyed the gameplay well enough, and might have bought it if I hadn't subsequently discovered that the plotline kind of... stunk. (A large contributing factor to not getting it was discovering that Shadow had a role that lasted all of two minutes and felt very "he's here just because he's popular.")

My opinions on Shattered Crystal (for the 3DS) are a little kinder, and I found myself legitimately invested in Shadow's role in the game when I pulled up the cutscenes on Youtube. But, I definitely wasn't spending 30 dollars on a game that sidelined Amy and treated Knuckles... in the way they did. I'll get to that bone in the minute.


Y'see, I'm not here to talk about the Sonic Boom video games. I'm here to talk about the TV series.


The TV series, actually, isn't so bad. Out of 52 episodes I watched at least 30 and enjoyed somewhere around 20 of those. I'm not a diehard Sonic fan, but, for the most part, I liked the show. It's got some pretty good humor in general, decent animation, and some genuinely interesting plotlines in a good portion of the episodes. My favorite episodes are The Meteor, Hedgehog Day, the Curse of Buddy Buddy Temple, and Cowbot. 

It's also got some absolute gems of moments, like this one, and my favorite. (Unfortunately, I couldn't embed my favorite one.) There's also, uh, this:

My biggest complaint about the series (and, not just the TV series, the video games do this, too) is how Knuckles' defining trait is "dumb" and it's played into some really gross jokes on occasion. The whole "one person says something stupid while their Cynical Friend looks directly at the camera and/or makes fun of them for it" is my least favorite style of humor. They treat Sticks much in this way, too, and it gets real old real fast.

Though, actually, I'm not even sure this could be called my biggest complaint.

It's one of my least favorite things about the show, for sure, but my biggest beef with the show is probably episode 52, It Takes a Village to Defeat a Hedgehog. I'm sure you all saw this coming.


Cut to about two months ago, September 20th, 2015, which was nearly two months before the episode aired in English anywhere. (The French version is, for some reason, released two months in advance?) This post surfaced on tumblr, featuring various screenshots of Shadow in an episode of Sonic Boom.

Needless to say, I was really excited, because, I really love Shadow. A lot. A whole lot.

So I wait two months, and finally it's November 14th, and the episode is out in English, and I watch it, and....

It sucks.

It really sucks.

I don't think I've ever watched an episode of Sonic Boom that was as painful as this one. All of the other episodes were fairly decent, but then the episode with everyone's favorite character comes out and it's, somehow, the worst one they've ever written.

The episode starts in Eggman's lair, where Eggman and other evil side characters are having a meeting about destroying Sonic. Shadow crashes in on it half way through, and, well...

Eggman introduces him as "What do you mean who's this!?! IT'S ONLY SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG, THE SECOND MOST POPULAR CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE!!"

Honestly, that got a good chuckle out of me. Because, I was just like "Haha, yeah, that's literally how every fan is going to react to him, and they're poking fun, that's funny." And that on it's own was alright. But, from there, things got... bad.

The entire plot of the episode is "Eggman aggressively fanboys over Shadow and messes up Shadow's plans, causing Shadow to call him a Literal Disgrace To All Evil." (With, by the way, the worst voice acting he's ever had.)

I hate this because Shadow's played as Actually Evil the whole time, which he's... not? He never has been? And it wasn't even, like, well-written. He felt stiff and and wrong, which maybe shouldn't be too surprising from a show that chooses two base traits for each character, and Shadow got Evil and Better-Than-You as his, but it still sucked. It really sucked.

Also his "cool" and "better than you" attitude is entirely played as a joke, and when every other Sonic, uh, anything has tried to legitimately present him as Cool, it's a little jarring. He's not the kind of Cool that makes 12-year-olds go "YEAH HE'S SO FREAKING AWESOME" he's-- He's not even cool. They don't even try to play him as cool. They spend the whole episode making a gag centered around the fact he thinks he's better than Eggman.

He says like, five things, attacks Sonic for no reason (besides, uh "your inability to assemble furniture is a disgrace to hedgehog-kind"), and then he leaves, swearing to be back, though I don't have high hopes for when he does, and, may never watch the series again because of this episode.

I was really really excited to Shadow in the Sonic Boom cartoon, but his episode was absolutely disappointing, and I don't think I've ever been as disappointed as I was when I finished this as I have been at any other point in my life.

He was also in the episode described as "cool and edgy". Those... those were real words Eggman said. I'm... I'm still cringing.


Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think the episode was intentionally written as a slap to a face to fans who doubtlessly begged for Shadow to be included in the TV series? It's incredibly self aware at points (Eggman's "he's only the second most popular character" and "cool and edgy" lines, along with the fact the episode ends with Orbot and Cubot mentioning an online petition, for example), on top of being horrendously bad.

I have no proof I'm right, but the episode does really feel like a tongue-in-cheek: "We didn't want to do this, but here you go, Shadow fans. Hope you're happy." kind of thing. The episode with Metal Sonic (It wasn't me, it was the one-armed hedgehog) felt similar, and considering Shadow's role in the Rise of Lyric video game....

Anyway, I digress.

The episode was bad, really bad, and I'm really disappointed. Do yourself a favor and never watch it.

Nintendo Direct 11 / 12 /15 !!!!!!!!

WOW!! A LOT OF NEWS HAPPENED!!!!!

I'm only gonna talk about what I'm interested in but it's still! a lot!! There's a lot.


We start with something I'm unfortunately very invested in! (Unfortunate only because *sadly turns out empty pockets* no money.)

Twilight Princes.... HD REMAKE.

There's also some news about the new Zelda Wii U game at the end of that video, but, EH, it wasn't anything new or jawdropping, in my opinion.

SO! TWILIGHT PRINCESS!!! HD!!!!!!

Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game, if only just because it was the first I played and because I spent a whole summer endlessly replaying it so it's filled with Very Fond memories. STILL, regardless of the whys, it is my favorite Zelda game, and I'm!! I'm excited for this.

 

It was rumored well before it actually released and so it wasn't entirely a surprise when it showed up but!! IT WAS STILL VERY GOOD TO SEE!! It looks so pretty and, I just, I really really love this game. It's probably not the best investment I could ever make when it comes to video games but BOY, I want it really bad, and will probably end up buying it at some point. Or getting it gifted to me for my birthday. (It comes out three days before and I left enough hints about it, haha.)

A little more unfortunately for me and every other fan who played the Wii version, they ended up porting the Gamecube version of the game to Wii U. I'm not, like, surprised, because I figured this was most likely since gameplay wise you wouldn't have to do much. (Gamecube controllers vs the Wii U Gamepad have nearly all the same buttons), I'm just.... still a little disappointed, because I'm going to get lost all the time now. Having everything mirrored is, well... disorienting.

Here's the Very Obvious proof it's been mirrored, by the way. You can tell through all the cinematics that it has been, of course, but for a split second I was sure the gameplay footage from the trailer (top) was the Wii version because Hyrule Castle sat on the right of the screen. Turns out I had the Link's position on the map wrong, and, once I placed him in that spot in the Wii version, saw I was wrong. It's, obviously, 100% the Gamecube version.

BUT THAT'S FINE! I'm still excited.


This was one of the top three things I was really excited about, but, while I'm still on the subject of Zelda, take this news, as well:

This is Linkle!! That is, Link, if Link was a girl. There's actually been concept art of her around for ages, so I wasn't horribly surprised to see her added to the roster for Hyrule Warriors: Legends. Looks like she's just in Legends (the 3DS version of the game), by the way. Maybe I'm wrong, but! Tossing it out there.

My opinion: she's cute, and this is cool, and she looks like she might be a fun character! Gameplay-wise, giving her a separate weapon than Link is obviously a good idea, but I'm a little mad that she's not more straight-up a Link clone, because apparently Girls Must Always Used Ranged Weapons and that.... Idk. If this is just female Link, why doesn't she wield a sword like Link? Also, the name Linkle isn't.... a very good one.

I mean, it doesn't matter much to me. I'll never buy Hyrule Warriors: Legends, so I'll never play her. If she was DLC for Hyrule Warriors itself, this might be another story, but maybe not. I'm kind of.... over Hyrule Warriors. The story was kinda bad and the gameplay's only engaging for a while. But! This isn't a review of Hyrule Warriors!! It's a news post!!!


NEXT UP? SPLATOON!!

Nothing super major, but there's some update news!! And, a lot of neat stuff, from the looks of it!

Lots of new gear, some cool new stages -- both things I want more of in my life! The new stages look like a lot of fun, and, more gear is always wanted! Gotta look as fresh as possible while I'm inking up the place. Plus, bandanas?? cool????


SOME MARIO STUFF!

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam has a release date! Dec 3/4 in Japan and Europe, Jan 22 in North America! A little funny to me that it's taking it a full month more for it to come to North America, but, whatever.

Doesn't look like there's much new in the trailer, outside of the introduction of battle cards! They look kind of cool, I guess?

I dunno, I'm not super interested in this game. I mean, I run a fairly successful Paper Mario blog on tumblr so I'm obligated to be interested but, personally... I love Mario and Luigi series, I love Paper Mario, but my hopes for this game aren't that high, and there definitely a lot of other games I'd rather own first. (I've already played Twilight Princess, but I'd buy it in HD much sooner than Paper Jam, honestly.)


Then, well, I'm not into Mario Tennis, but I noticed this while watching its segment:

Rosalina's floating. It's hard to tell in a picture, so you may have to watch this segment yourself, but... she's floating. Of course, she's floated in every other game she's been in, rather than walked, for... whatever reason, so I'm not surprised. It just makes me smile.

See, her feet don't touch the ground, and it's not just because she's mid walk-cycle or anything. She's just straight-up floating. Amazing.


SMASH BROS NEWS!

This may be something you just have to see for yourself, but....

Cloud Strife, of Final Fantasy 7 fame....

...joins the roster for Smash 4.

My initial reaction was something along the lines of "huh, FF7?" (coupled with "oh is the HD port of FF7 coming to Wii U or--) then it was "Nope, Smash, the music just sounded thE WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT THE HECK!! YOU LITERALLY CAN'T DO THIS!!!!"


I mean, I'm not, like, upset. I'm just!! I don't know!! how to handle!!! these feelings!!! This feels so strange!! Cloud?? In Smash???? It's!! IT'S COOL! IT'S WEIRD!! I DUNNO!!!!! I'M JUST YELLING!!!!


AND, TO TOP THAT OFF....!!!

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.....

I SWEAR

I'VE SEEN A FEW!!!

Mother 3 gets a Virtual Console release in Japan!!!! 

Mother 3 gets a Virtual Console release in Japan!!!

Anyone who knows anything about Mother 3 knows that it's the sequel to SNES RPG Earthbound and the final installment of in the beloved Earthbound or Mother series. It was never released outside of Japan, though, and eventually, fans made their own English translation of it.

"Wait, why is a Virtual Console in Japan good news? It's still not in English, officially!"

No! It's not! But hopes are higher than ever. Mother 1, or, Earthbound Zero Beginnings was localized and put on the eShop back at E3 this year. (And, you should've seen the fandom's reaction then.) That already had Mother fans real excited, not only because was it released outside of Japan for the first time, but also because, if they finally localized it, could Mother 3 possibly be next?

Mother 3's release on the Virtual Console is a step closer in that direction, and as it turns out, Mother 3's tenth anniversary is next year. What better time for an announcement this big than then?

Tumblr user mariettapk sums it up pretty well in their post here.


SO! YEAH!! MOTHER 3!!!!


Anyway, that's all the games I cared about, but you can watch the Direct here for yourself!

What a great time to be alive, huh?

SPECIAL POST: KH NEWS?!!? / KAIRI IS REAL

apparently I started doing updates every other Tuesday BUT THIS IS AN EXCEPTION BC KH NEWS. Technically this is Late but.... I WAS EXPECTING A TRAILER, and we didn't get the trailer, so now I gotta!! Give the news!! without!! the trailer!!

It's fine.

A little backstory though, first!!

For the past year, I've been heading a movement on tumblr and twitter (but largely tumblr) known as #KairiNeedsLove2k15 - it's got an official tumblr here, and an official twitter here! (both run by me)


It started back in February, while I was replaying KH2. I started getting really worked up about Kairi and her subsequent lack in any KH game made after KH2 (I mean, alright, she was still in BBS, but that's only 1 of the 4 games released since 2006, while the other 3 had very heavy emphasis on Sora and Riku and their relationship).

You can see my initial posts about the matter here.

And if you want a good portion of the original posts I made for the movement, you can find them here!

I got really invested in this movement, blogging aggressively about Kairi, reblogging art, and other people's posts (if you want proof other people besides me want Kairi to have a larger role, check out this tag in particular). I made fanmixes, photosets, wrote a fic, (three, technically) along with hosted two major events and boy, I got this ball really rolling. 



Kairi E3 Fest 

This event was held around E3 of 2015, the basic concept being "E3 is when social media goes wild over video games, let's make some noise about Kairi during that time!"

You can find details about it here, along with see everyone's submissions for it! (We had somewhere around 70 posts made for this event.)

The E3 Fest was even mentioned in an article by Game Skinny! Pretty awesome.


Kairi Week

I'd seen other appreciation weeks on tumblr where you'd dedicate a whole week to making content about a character (or game, or series, or ship, whatever) and I decided to do one for Kairi! It didn't go quite as planned, but it was still a huuuuge success! It lasted July 6th - 11th, and had somewhere over 150 submissions. 

You can see the details / everyone's posts here!


SO, as you have probably got the gist of by now, I've spent the past year running a largely successful Kairi movement!


Here's one of the Kairi mixes I made for it:

Today's your day from rarmaster on 8tracks Radio.

Art's by ramflega on tumblr - check her out, she's got some real good Kairi / KH art!


The biggest fic I wrote for the movement was Dream, Drop, Don't Leave me Behind! - a retelling of KHDDD where Kairi actually tagged along to watch Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam, becuase Kairi's lack in KHDDD is probably the biggest sore spot for me.

You can read it here!

I also wrote a smaller set of Namine-centric Kairi fics for Kairi Week, exploring the ways I would really really like their relationship to pan out. You can read all three of them here!


The crowning moment -- or, the moment that really sets the stage for my reaction to the news we received on November 3rd, is a post I made the literal day before, about why I really hate KHDDD, followed by a post further detailing its shortcomings regarding Kairi. (In sum: I'm really bitter about the fact we don't have an explanation at all why she isn't in KHDDD, we're just supposed to be okay with the fact she isn't there.)

So, there's that post, and then kind of churning bitterness for a whole year about how "Yeah Kairi's PROBABLY gonna have a role in KH3 but that's only a PROBABILITY, not a definite thing I can count on, and she's been treated so awfully by the games for the past five years and I don't have my hopes high at all".

I wasn't expecting it, and I'm pretty sure, well, no one was.

When we heard there would be KH news at the D23 in Japan, basically everyone expected it to be a lot like America's D23 - a new world reveal, and that's it, no Kairi. No Kairi.


The clock hits 1 AM my time, where I have waited four hours for the embargo on information to be lifted, hoping to get a glimmer of news as to what happened at the panel (because there were no livestreams and no one was allowed to post any information about it.)

The first post I see when loading twitter up is this:

Kairi is real.

It's one picture and that's all we got because the trailer revealed at the showing has not be released online but, it's, Kairi.

Kairi is there.

Kairi is there.

Kairi is there.


I didn't cry like others reportedly did, but I was shaking so hard, and my heart was pounding, and then you get a string of incoherent tweets from me which largely consist of "HO LY FRIK, KAIRI" becuase!!! Oh my god!!!!

I'm getting pumped thinking about it even now!! Kairi is real!! Kairi is here!!!


I've spent the whole year working up to this moment and it's just one image and confirmation she'll be in the KH2.8 game - in the section called 0.2 which is about Aqua, reportedly she and Riku are learning about Aqua and the 7 Guardians of Light, etc - BUT ANYWAY, it's just one confirmation, but it is proof. They haven't forgotten her. Her chances for a Big Role in KH3 are even higher than ever, and I'm just!!

I'm hooting!! I'm hollering!! I'm so!!! excited!!!!


I mean, chances of this actually having to do with my efforts and continuous #Kairi4KH3 yelling are pretty slim but!! BUT!! THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT!! KAIRI IS HERE!!! AND REAL!!!

I'M SOOOO!! HAPPY!!!

KAIRI CONFIRMED FOR KH0.2 AND PROBABLY FOR KH3!!!


THIS IS SO GOOD.

It's so good.


Anyway if you want other coverage of the D23 event, KH13 has a masterlist of all the info they have here!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS JUST, KAIRI, THOUGH.

Kairi is real.

About rar and.... Writing!

See more in the About rar Series!

This post is gonna be about me and writing, but I'm gonna start it off with something a little different first!!

i needed another one of these, okay from rarmaster on 8tracks Radio.

This is one of two mixes I made ft some of my absolutely favorite songs!! You can find the other one here. (The photography is by me, btw!!) -- I figured that since this series was about me, I might as well share my favorite music! I think you can learn a lot about someone based on the kind of music they listen to, honestly. Maybe that's not true, but, well! Moving on!!

Also I guess this post is a little fitting today because we started NaNoWriMo, lol. Not that I'm officially doing it this year (I... I may have created a counter for a big Undertale fic, though) or that this post has anything to do with Nano besides being about writing, but, STILL.

*clears throat*


I've been writing about since I was 7? Or, how I generally phrase it: "story telling since age 7, successfully writing since age 13."

I grew up in an environment where there was a lot of play pretend and make believe, and creating stories was second nature to me. I did it with my sister. I did it with my friends. I did it on the playground.

Whether it was the Game or it was messing around with LEGOs, or running around on the playground pretending to be Princess Peach, or swapping stories with my bffe (who I met at age 8, and we're inseperable!) in her backyard while laying on her trampoline... We both had universes inside of our heads. We both were burning to get them out.

My older sister started writing probably when I was 10 or so?? I wanted to be like her. I had so many stories inside of me and I thought, "hey, I love reading, and I can write, anyone can write, that's how I'll get all the stories out."

Writing wasn't really a "I want to be an author when I grow up", writing was just... second nature.


At age 12 I thought that writing fifty novels was a totally feasible and realistic goal. (And, maybe it still is -- but it's definitely not when your characters in each novel are carbon copies of each other and you never consider much outside the setting and the world for them, never the plot.) Honestly, I started that probably at age 9. And, I did write! I started and got twenty pages written of at least fifteen separate stories. I just never finished them.

The first story I finished was the Truth Hurts, a Kingdom Hearts fanfiction. And, that, more than anything else, was what really got me into the groove of not just writing things, but finishing things. I don't know why I managed to finish that one. Maybe it was because I had so many people online wanting to know what would happen next. Maybe it was because my sister supported me the whole way. I don't know.

But I did finish it.

And finishing a story, in itself, is a shocking and terrible power, a huge source of confidence. I've finished one. I can finish another.

Falling to Pieces, the sequel to the Truth Hurts, wasn't much more, objectively, than a rehash of Kingdom Hearts 1's plot with the characters mixed around, and maybe that's why it was so easy to finish. But it did get finished.

I've finished two. I can finish another.

Nothing's Fair was a week's worth twenty page mess of a thing, but it, too, was something completed from start to finish. None of these stories were, are, perfect. I know they're not perfect. But for a 13 year old? They were good.

And, to toot my own horn for a second. The Truth Hurts, Falling to Pieces, and Nothing's Fair were all written in the span of seven months, and total, are about 80k words. That's not just good. That's impressive.

Dead Inside took me three years to write, and I learned so so so much from doing it. Objectively, it's not that great, especially when it comes to pacing and quality, but it is this: 40k+ words and 1000 pages. Perfect? No. But also pretty damn impressive.


This past year (a little more than?) has been spent largely on writing All that Remains, sequel to Dead Inside and final of the FtPverse series. But, I also rewrote Nothing's Fair (it's 1000x better now) and a 15k Kairi fic for a Kairi movement I started. And I've also written a lot of short oneshot fics since then, including five for UNDERTALE in the past month.

And, idk if that means anything to you, but, the point is:

Writing means so much to me.

I was born and raised as a person with stories to tell, and it was only natural I'd slip into writing from there (it's not like I ever had the patience to pursue drawing or art of any sort, so my stories weren't getting told that way.) -- I've written sooo much, and it's just, second nature now. It's habit. If I don't write, it's like? lol?? Who am I??

I'm someone with stories to tell and the tools to write them, the experience and dedication and gift to be able to weave words into a story, into people and their lives and their worlds and it's.... It's a really wonderful gift. I'm so glad to have it. I'm so glad to be this person.

I love to write, so much.

So much.


~

Curious to read some of my work? It's all fanfic, but you can find the entire FtPverse series here on my FFN profile, along with some other, fics I've written! 

And you can check out my AO3, which holds my more-recent work (that I'm much more proud of comparatively to anything on FFN, FtPverse aside) and all the Undertale fics I've posted and will post in the future.

Check em out!

 

About rar and.... Video Games!

See more in the About rar Series!
HEY!! I figured while this blog was still getting on its feet or whatever I'd do a quick series about, I guess, who I am. Specifically: who I am in relation to the things I love and will be talking about on this blog.

Today, we're starting with something I've loved since I was small!!! Very small. A small child.

Today we're talking about video games.

photo by yours truly!

I started playing video games when I was very young, like, 5-years-old. Maybe a little younger. We only had a Nintendo 64 (pictured above) for the longest time, and for it, just Mario Parties 1-3, Mario Kart, and Tetris. (We'd eventually get more games, but, it would be a while!)


Princess Daisy was my idol. I spent years running around the school playground pretending to be various Nintendo (well, Mario) characters. I don't want to make this sound like some Serious Essay, but, I was really invested in video game characters even at age 5. It's really no wonder I'm where I am today, 13+ years later.

I didn't, like, seriously get into video games until the summer of 2008 though! That summer, a pair of my dad's friends went either on a long vacation or a business trip (or, both??) and they lent us their Gamecube!! With it they had Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Smash Bros Melee, Mario Kart Double Dash, and Mario Parties 5 and 7! (And, a few others maybe, but, they weren't ones I was interested in! I've been Nintendo trash from a very young age...)

I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I have very fond memories of sitting on the floor each morning, sunlight streaming into the room, as I got more Shine Sprites in Sunshine. I have fond memories of playing through Luigi's Mansion with my dad (and, passing the controller to him when the bosses got too spooky for me!). I unlocked all the karts and characters in Mario Kart for them. I played endless hours of Smash Bros Melee---unlocking a fair amount of stuff there, too, and learning how much I loved Roy!

We had to give the Gamecube back, of course, but later that year I pawned a friend of mine out of her Gamecube (she owned two Wiis by then, and had no need for it) and Super Mario Sunshine.

photo again by yours truly!

Before long we had all the games we'd borrowed, along with more! Many a Saturday morning was spent on Super Mario Sunshine again, and before long I bought Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door, one of my favorite games to this day.

I loved TTYD for it's humor, for it's charm, for it having the familiar Mario characters I grew up with plus a fantastic and deep story, where all the characters I loved had even more personality than ever! I've beaten it I think six times now, still watch the intro story from start to finish upon booting it up, and Rougeport might as well be something like a second home! Delfino Plaza comes close, real close, but there's nothing like exploring the nooks and crannies of a place like Rogueport all over again, and with a wonderful selection of characters to match!

Mario and Paper Mario humor and writing, in general, probably shaped a lot of who I am today! HONESTLY.


The deal was sealed for sure when I started playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. It started at my best friend's house (not that we did much more than fly around Ordon on chickens) and continued not long later when I got a Wii myself, and bought it nearly immediately.

I adored Twilight Princess. I'd spend all day playing it in the summer I got it (2009, if you care), go to bed late, start it back up again the moment I was up the next day. And once I finished? I'd reset and start from the beginning within the hour. I probably couldn't do it blindfolded, and I haven't yet tried doing it in one sitting, but I know it like the back of my hand, and it's another one on my top five video games.

Twilight Princess was the first video game I started writing fics about (even if, none of them got anywhere). I can say, with an extreme amount of confidence, that it, along with Paper Mario TTYD and Super Paper Mario are the biggest influences on my writing style and favorite themes. Well, okay, Kingdom Hearts falls in there somewhere too, but... You get the idea.


I was 13 when I got into Kingdom Hearts (had it thrust into my hands by one of my sister's friends who heard I liked video games) and after devoting another summer to it, per the theme, it started taking over my life. I dropped my Zelda fics in favor of a Kingdom Hearts one -- the first I ever finished. I played other video games, but I can't remember any seriously life changing ones over the past five years. (Well, Mother 3 probably, and Majora's Mask, and UNDERTALE for sure, those really stick out, but none were quite as impacting as TTYD or Twilight Princess or Kingdom Hearts.)


I could talk, forever, about my relationship with Kingdom Hearts, but the point of this post is, more than anything else:

I've played video games since I was very young, I was raised on video games, and they have influenced my life in sooooo many ways. I'm the writer I am today because of them, the person I am because of them, and they're definitely among the most important things in my life.

That top five list, if anyone wants it?

• Paper Mario TTYD
• Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess
• UNDERTALE
• the Kingdom Hearts series in general
• and then idk specifically on a fifth, but, Mother 3 / Earthbound / Majora's Mask each come to mind. Oh and I guess Mario Sunshine? Hard to pick between nostalgia and Games I'd Really Call My Fave sometimes. (I'm Leaning a little towards Majora's Mask, though, maybe? It's a good game....)

A SMASHING review!!

Today I am here to do a brief review of Super Smash Brothers for Wii U (and 3DS) -- or, Smash 4, as a lot of people have come to call it, since "Super Smash Brothers for Wii U/3DS" is something of, a mouthful.

I finally bought the game -- for Wii U -- two weeks ago, just days before UNDERTALE came out, actually. I'd been wanting it, well, since it was announced, but I didn't have the money to get it for a long while (and to this day still regret deciding to get Hyrule Warriors instead of it...). I was really excited about it because they just kept adding more and more names, and more and more favorites to the roster: Rosalina, Palutena, Bowser Jr, Dark Pit, Lucina.... along with bringing both Roy and Lucas back as DLC!

It's really fun to try out all the different characters, all the new characters, and get a feel for them and some of their new movesets in the game. I spent a few nights after getting it just me against a few computers getting the feel for how Dark Pit played, and thoroughly enjoying myself, along with the concept of "Dark Pit's in desperate need of buffing his Smash skills, but wouldn't be caught dead asking Pit or Palutena for help, so goes to Mario because he's chill and won't tell anyone." (One of my favorite things about Smash is that it creates a universe in which you can imagine cross-universe scenarios like that.... and breeds the idea that all Nintendo characters just, know each other and hang out.)

Smash 4 has a lot of cool new features besides it's large roster, as well!! Team battles are now determined by a glowing outline around your character, instead of their clothes color -- which finally means you can create a team of Mario and Luigi without having to swap their trademark colors, or have an entire team of Links up against one Ganon. Or, as I had fun with the other day, just a team of a bunch of Ness's, here to, kick your butt.

8 player Smash is a lot of fun, too, and now you can really go all out with your team combinations! Or, you know, have you and up-to-7 of your friends play at once without taking turns. Or set yourself up against 7 level 9 computers. Whatever!

some of the Super Bash Sisters

One feature I particularly enjoy is the handicap feature, of all features! It lets you set specific damage to a player. The best way to use this is to set you and your friend(s) at 0% damage, and then all the computers at 300%, and see who can launch the most computers during the span of three minutes!



And, of course, one of the best features of Smash 4 is "Palutena's Guidance", which -- like the codec calls of Brawl -- lets you, as Pit, summon Palutena and more from the Kid Icarus Uprising cast to provide commentary on the fighters on your screen. As a big Kid Icarus Uprising fan, I absolutely love to see this. Listening to Palutena and Viridi and Pit and Dark Pit all talk and joke with each other again was like... coming home. It felt so good to listen to them banter again.

Smash 4 also lets you create custom Mii fighters, which I'm sure everyone knows by now! This article's a year late! Still, you can make a Mii of yourself, your friends, your favorite-fictional-characters-that-are-never-going-to-be-in-Smash, and then set them up as a Gunner, a Brawler, or a Swordsman and give them a combination of different movesets that best match who you think they are, and viola! You can smash with them all you want.

So far, I've only personally made a handful of Kingdom Hearts characters, because, uh,,,, reasons. They all turned out pretty well, in my opinion! It took some getting used to, and I had to really sit down and practice with them before I was 100% comfortable with using them, but my Mii Fighter for Kairi is easily one of my favorite characters to play as in Smash now. She's got a real good moveset.

Of course, making your favorite-fictional-characters-that-are-never-going-to-be-in-Smash into Mii Fighters could lead to something like..... this????

((original audio by prozdvoices on tumblr - here, video by shadowlink4321))

As far as... things I'm disappointed about in Smash 4, well...

I think the selection of stages is a little lackluster, and I'm definitely not paying 20+ bucks to get myself a few new stages to mess around on. Spending 8 dollars on my first real main (Roy) and then Lucas because, uh, Because is about the extent of DLC I'll ever buy for Smash 4, and the fact that you have to pay to have a better selection of stages is kind of... eugh.... Not good.


Every time I play it I find myself missing Melee (my first Smash) for some reason, and I'm not sure why? Brawl never did that to me. Maybe I've just hit the Everything's Discolored By Nostalgia age, but among all the old stages that came back I really miss Fountain of Dreams more than ever, and find myself longing for Melee's bonus points after the end of stage or match. I'd just play Melee to sate the urge, but Melee doesn't have Dark Pit or Lucina or any of the other Cool New Characters I Really Wanna Be, so it's... a dilemma. I'll probably get over it eventually.

Also I'm kind of upset there's no adventure-style mode? Melee had Classic and then Adventure, Brawl had Classic and then the Subspace Emissary, Smash 4 just has... Classic? I understand the sentiments of one of Smash's creators (I forget which...) that didn't want something like Subspace Emissary again because they were mad the cutscenes went up on line. It stinks, but I get it. I just... don't get the complete lack of an Adventure mode at all? It kinda, stinks. Melee's was nothing special. Why not give Smash 4 one like that?

Regardless! Smash 4 is a lot of fun, and I'm glad to have it.

I'll wrap this up with a few of my favorite official promo screenshots from Smash 4...

...largely showcasing Nintendo's long running gag of Peach and Link on a date as Zelda watches angrily in the distance.

(this one's from Brawl!)

A classic.

Oh.... and what's this!?

.....yup!

Bowser and Zelda everyone. The new official Nintendo ship. Deal with it.

A post about.... life?

I know I said one of the last things I'd do on this blog was talk about my life, but I'm trying to do a post a week, and I'm currently dry on things to talk about that wouldn't take a few days to prepare. So! A post about how life's going it is.


UNDERTALE came out two weeks ago and I haven't stopped thinking about it, even though I haven't touched it since beating true pacifist -- Well, actually, that's a lie. I tried out hard mode last night. I wasn't disappointed. It was hard.

I helped my older sister edit her novel! Again! It's the best it's ever looked in my opinion, and hopefully ready for publishing! She's just got to find a publisher first.... Hmm.

I've been playing around in Smash 4 (for Wii U) a lot recently, and am slowly teaching myself the controls and how each character fights. I had a surprising success in creating a string of Mii fighters yesterday, as well! It's been a lot of fun, though I find myself missing Melee's classic mode and bonus points a lot while playing it, oops. I'm glad to have it though.

I've been playing a lot of Splatoon, too! Or, just, some of Splatoon. Haven't been playing a lot of Splatoon in  while. It's been pretty fun. The new tri-slosher bucket is, eh, and though I love the regular slosher bucket and the inkbrushes, I've found I can't use them or else my wrist cramps up. (Spamming the right trigger does that, unfortunately.) Somehow I've become the person at level 30 still using the Splattershot Jr? Hmm.... 


Spanish and Japanese study are both going alright. I discovered WaniKani, a great site to help with memorizing Kanjo, and Jisho, a great dictionary that means I can actually practice translating manga and don't tear my hair out because I'm maybe 60% sure what google translate gave me was correct.

Personal life is largely still in the "planning to maybe take a Japanese class next semester in college" and the "I need a job but am a loss of where to get one in which I can actually function" areas. I did discover I could take notes during my dad's Real Estate meetings though and then sell the notes and earn quite a bit of money that way. (Last meeting gave me $100, at $10 for the forty pages of notes I took during it. It's nice.)

But! You probably aren't here to hear too much about my personal life, and I'm definitely not here to talk a lot about it!


So, that's it. Sorry this week's post was a little lack-luster compared to usual. It's been hard to concentrate long on anything when I'm thinking so much about UNDERTALE... I think I'll do a review of Smash 4 next week though. Look forward to it!

UNDERTALE REVIEW - Best Game I've Played In A Long Time

HOWDY~! Remember last week when I told you to buy a game coming out called UNDERTALE?

Well, I'm back!! This time with a slightly-more-in-depth review now that I've played the whole game. Twice.

by victoria goog (@fridayafternoon)

UNDERTALE is an indie RPG game by Toby Fox, in which no one has to get hurt!!

It's really good!!! Oh my gosh!!! I have not played such a well constructed and well written game in a long time!!! The music is fantastically memorable and I find myself humming it half the time, the characters are so good I can't stop thinking about them, the story's so wonderful it's kept me up at night considering the full possibilities and depths of it!


I talked it up like crazy in last week's post, saying how much I loved the DEMO and how excited I was for the full game, and let me just say! The full game COMPLETELY lived up to my expectations, in fact, IT SURPASSED THEM!

UNDERTALE is funny, it's charming, it made me laugh it made me cry. And under the surface, it's either an inspiring and positive story about how violence isn't the answer, there's always another way, you don't have to fight to win. Or, it's a chilling commentary on violence in video games that makes you rethink destroying lowly monsters in RPGs just for EXP.

I've only played the Pacifist and True Pacifist routes so far (working up the courage to tackle a kill run still) but wow! They're both! Really good!!

I'm amazed at UNDERTALE for having such a deep story that you miss half of on the first playthrough, because certain things are only revealed on your second time through! And the buildup of having to go through the game two or even three (or four!) times before being lead to the True Ending is really! super! good!! It feels so great, and the ending is so wonderful and wonderfully constructed -- UNDERTALE is truly one of the best games I have played in a long time.

It also has some stellar ways of executing certain Things (I won't say what for spoilers) that absolutely took the breath out of my lungs because it was so clever and frankly, terrifying. There's a lot LOT more to Undertale than the scary stuff, but it definitely deserves some awards for being the only game to make me physically sick to my stomach with fear. And to make me cry real tears. Ten minutes after I was laughing at a ridiculous joke.

by inkerton-kun on tumblr

BASICALLY!! UNDERTALE is a really good game that I will recommend avidly and wholeheartedly to no end. I've run out of things to say without repeating myself, so, I guess I'll leave at this!

You can get it on it's website, UNDERTALE.com or on Steam for only $10!! THAT'S A BARGAIN! THAT'S A STEAL! The game is worth so much more than that.

Still aren't sure? Then sit yourself down with the DEMO and play it (it only takes 30 minutes!). If you aren't convinced after playing the DEMO once, then reset it and play through it again, making as many drastically different choices as you possibly can, and that should show you the potential of the full game!!!


UNDERTALE: EVEN MOMS RECOMMEND IT

PLEASE PLAY UNDERTALE!

UNDERTALE

Hello. I'm here to convince you to play UNDERTALE, an indie RPG game by Toby Fox.

from the UNDERTALE Kickstarter

UNDERTALE releases tomorrow, September 15 2015, on its website (undertale.com) and on Steam!

It's a charming and extremely well written game with witty dialogue and humor, along with plot twists that left me screaming for days. (Well, that's what I have to say about the DEMO, anyway. The full game isn't out yet!)

And, get this: It's only $10! What a bargain! (For music loving fans, you will reportedly be able to get the game and its soundtrack for $18! How wonderful!!)


So... What is UNDERTALE?

From the Kickstarter:

A traditional role-playing game where no one has to get hurt.

From the Steam page:

Welcome to UNDERTALE. In this RPG, you control a human who falls underground into the world of monsters. Now you must find your way out... or stay trapped forever. It'll be a perilous journey, but don't worry. Your best friend, FLOWEY, will be with you every step of the way.

Here's the Steam greenlight trailer for UNDERTALE, which was released earlier this year, and acts as a psuedo-trailer for the DEMO:

Interested yet? Maybe?

You can try out the DEMO for yourself (about 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay) and see how you feel about it from there! The DEMO is completely free, and a great experience all on it's own!! Download it here.

Just the DEMO itself has:

• great music
• charming dialogue
• the ability to fight or spare enemies, of course!
• at least four different endings based on your choices throughout it! 
• wonderful characters ft. goatmom Toriel and sad ghost Napstablook
• some great plot twists
• questionable spider bake sales
• cool puzzles

If you play the DEMO, be sure to replay it at least once for maximum enjoyment!! And, check out the instruction manual before and after you play. Trust me.

Gigi D. G., author of Cucumber Quest (a webcomic about bunny people going on an adventure, and RPG trope subversion) says this about UNDERTALE:

She also drew this (among other) cool fanart for it!!

Toriel and player character by Gigi D. G.

Personally? I had an absolute blast playing the DEMO. It took me by surprise at every turn, even on my second and third and fourth times playing it. It didn't seem to matter how many times I went through that game, and how many different strategies I tried, it always found at least one way to surprise me by the time I reached the end again.

The art and writing style remind me vaguely of MOTHER 1 and the rest of the Earthbound series, though truly, UNDERTALE is its own. I absolutely loved the characters (Napstablook is my favorite!!) and I think the music is absolutely wonderful (you can listen to the soundtrack here!).

The UNDERTALE DEMO absolutely blew my mind with how well written it was, and how fun it was to play. All I've heard is that the full game is even better. I can't wait to see for myself.


Here's the release trailer for UNDERTALE:

I'm so excited!! Please play it.


And, while waiting for it to release, check out:

The official UNDERTALE website

The official UNDERTALE tumblr

The official UNDERTALE twitter

Play the UNDERTALE DEMO!



UPDATE: NOW THAT THE GAME IS OUT AND I'VE BEATEN IT (TWICE) CHECK OUT MY FULL REVIEW FOR IT, HERE!!