Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

Main pawn, modeled her after Shadowheart

Darth Maul man. omg I wanted a new vader so bad. yet one more *** to fall down a big hole in SW.

Yeah, there wasnt any doubt I wouldnt enjoy Obi Wan Kenobi.

That's right, there are people who like the prequels now. I guess nothing really objectively "sucks" anymore because there's an audience for everything. I've seen more and more people standing up for Final Fantasy XIII, a game that I thought was so indefensibly bad that it made me quit video games as a whole for roughly 10 years.

Which is a funny comparison when I think about it because the reason I can't stand either is because all of the drama in the plot of both the SW Prequels and FF XIII comes from the characters (protagonist and antagonist alike) not understanding their own motivations and defeating themselves.

The only time I've ever fallen asleep in a movie theatre in my entire life (and I used to watch a movie every 1-2 weeks, so it's a large count) was during Attack of the Clones lol

The absolute state of gacha gamers

I noticed the same thing with XII. There was some article published a few years ago about how it was a masterpiece or some hidden gem or something. I couldn't help but laugh because, while I liked it, it seemed like most people thought it was a dumpster fire. There was so much screeching about how it ruined FF. Now all of a sudden, it's getting articles written about how great it was.

Same with a lot of titles from the 90s and 2000s on GOG. I read the reviews and wonder where those people were when the game came out, when everyone else was talking ***about them.

Was the discourse around 12 bad? Maybe it's because I mainly hovered in XI circles back then but I remember everyone loving the *** out of that game. Most critical I ever saw was people calling it Final Fantasy Star Wars.

It's all about perspective. It often comes down to what you've played in the past. Remember, a lot of people tend to not play older titles because video games are unique in that people only tend to like newer, shinier things. If you're coming off of Final Fantasies I thru X and suddenly jumping into XII with its not-quite-turn-based-but-not-really-action combat, it's going to feel jarring and bad. But if your only experience with the franchise has been like XIII and its sequels, of course XII is going to feel like a breath of fresh air afterwards.

Same thing with XI. Because XI and X|V are not technically in the same genre, a lot of people only ever try the more recent of the two. But when they get curious about XI and try it, a lot of people actually enjoy it because they prefer the Sandbox MMORPG experience to the Themepark MMORPG experience.

The thing to remember about the SW prequels is that if, when you watched them, the original trilogy was something from your childhood, you were no longer the primary demographic. I re-watched them recently because my kid wanted to see them, and three things stood out to me:

- They're better than you remember. That's not to say they're good, but they're at least interesting in ways a lot of things aren't now. They took actual chances! They tried new things! The dialogue is pure excrement, but that was true for the original trilogy too!

- They really are movies for children. Seriously, kids love this ***. Watch one of them with a ten year old and bask in the joy

- They still have some legitimately great action scenes! Phantom Menace, which is not great by any standard, has two really great action sequences (pod race, maul fight) and one of the best battle themes in film (Duel of the Fates)

The voice acting was widely mocked, especially Fran. Vaan as a character was widely disliked. But the graphics and gameplay were well-regarded. The Hunts especially.

I hated 12, purely because of the characters. Gameplay was fine! But I reached a point with it where I realized I didn't care if the characters lived or died, put it down, and didn't touch it again for a year. At which point I picked it back up, and plowed through to the end.

The problem with it for me was that half the party was actively unlikable, and Penelo had no business being along on this adventure in the first place. Fran and Balthier were interesting, and if they'd been the two primary characters it would have worked a lot better for me.

Dave Filoni has worked a lot of magic (Clone Wars, Rebels) to soften the legacy of the prequels. Hayden Christensen has actually come back to the series, something that some of those sequel actors will likely never do. That said, I would never sit through them again.

XII vanished for a long time, you couldn't play it anywhere until the Zodiac Age came out for PS4. I played through it and it felt much better than I remembered. A Job system for each character, Japanese voice acting made it a lot more tolerable. The entire cast remained underwhelming, but we had learned that the game suffered a lot of developmental problems which saw Vaan and Penelo's entire backstory get cut out of the game.

I would still rank it pretty low in the standings, but it's better than 13 and 15.

13 not just starting on Gran Pulse was one of the biggest blunders in gaming history.

The prequels weren't perfect, but neither was the OT when put under a microscope. The prequels just got hyper focus dished on until the sequels came out because they had a lot to live up too (The nostalgia of Boomers and Gen Jones and early Gen X? Hell hath no fury...).

The shift in tone is actually something that I think upset people. The Star Wars prequels were always intended to be a tragedy making heavy use of dramatic irony, and I feel like a lot of folks misunderstood that your disgust for Anakin Skywalker's behavior and actions are supposed to be what you feel.

Like people should have put two and two together right off the bat, and realized that the bad guys are gonna win and it's not gonna be pretty etc. Because when you have the bad guys win, it means the good guys have to have major failings. Can't really have them be a symbol of hope and overcoming adversity when they have the onerous task of setting up the universe for the state it's in when the OT takes place.

Of course, with the conclusion foregone, it means that the other things in the story have to be really well done, like the action and the differences in the past. All pretty good in the prequels, just not really what anyone asked for. (Podracing to establish Anakin's piloting proficiency? Did we really have to have him be a 9 year old whiz kid in Phantom Menace? Couldn't we have started with Hayden Christensen and moved onto an older looking actor by Revenge of the Sith (or skipped out on child acting altogether)? Oh well)

The real treat that the prequels brought to the Star Wars franchise is the renewed interest in its expanded universe, then bringing us games like KoTOR and KoTOR2. Republic Commando. Star Wars Battlefront. Just some of the best Star Wars content we've ever had.

You compare any of that to the Sequels and new age Star Wars dreck, and you start to realize that for all his faults and Lucasisms, there was a method to his madness, and not even Star Wars is immune to bad writing/bad acting/bad setting/bad handling.

Re: Jessikah
As far as FFXIII goes? Nah, don't compare that abortion to the prequels. It had all the potential to be something new and great, but they opted to write the most idiotic cast of all time. Then put them in a potentially interesting setting, only to reduce said setting to a buncha corridors for the first half of the game. Its only real saving grace is its music (though I did find its battle system fun). It beggars belief that it got not just one direct sequel, but two direct sequels... What the absolute ***? I think people see it having positive takes spun about it nowadays because it was half way decent from a gameplay perspective, and the video game industry has not been batting 1000 for the past 9 or so years with myriad mediocre games (or worse!). (plus Lesbians due to last minute character sex rewrite)

You take that and the fact that most people have shitty memory recall, and you can spin just about anything from the past up with the right reviewers commentating on it. All the better if they know that hardly anyone is gonna go play/replay it, except the die hard fans.

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Plus, real life experiences churn in that there are usually more and more new people being born and the old ones, you know, pass on. A bunch of those older fellahs that used to rag on the prequels, and probably still do, are needing to remember their Alzheimer's meds. I'll be there by the 2040s, I'm sure.

I guess SE is doing a FF16 livestream to talk about the upcoming Leviathan DLC.

Hopefully announcing the PC version release date too. Haven't bought the other XVI dlc since PC version comes with both anyway

Damn skippy. Telling a story that everyone already knows the ending to is one of the hardest things to do well in storytelling, and there's really only a handful of ways to even attempt it in a way that will entertain and enthrall: a couple of them are either

-ride character development more than plot
-introduce "lost" information that the future we already know didn't give us
-constant action

Lucas tries all these and other methods, some better than others of course, but the biggest flaw of Lucas I felt was timing. He either did the prequels too late or too early. 10 years earlier and it would have put most of us who whine about them in a younger state of mind, one more receptive to just a couple fun movies that give us missing information. 10 years later we would have matured more to the point of being able to just enjoy the nostalgia and introduce a new generation to the story. But right where he put it was a perfect storm for sarcasm and negativity.

Decided to nut up last night, now that I'm hovering around 80k Galli, and I went into the basement for basement shenanigans.

I opted for the two gimmes in the basement, and then having my choice be...

15 Flans with the risk of getting locked in with Naakuals that require 1500 acc...

Carabosses that don't link.

19 Dullahans surrounded by other undead...

I decided to kill the Carabosses, and boy howdy they sure do be loving to use Cyclonic Torment, those absolute ***. I still got my third basement chest with like 26 minutes left on the Sortie clock (and I can admit being unfamiliar with the basement, I didn't know where the other pixies were and got turned around, and stared at Ixion for a minute, wondering if he'd be certain death or not).

No Starstones ;( C'mon, I want my first +3 Empy. Did get a COR earring +1 with +4 crit rate and like 12 acc tho... Hmm.

That Leviathan music god damn

I actually never watched the original trilogy until I was about 20, but I watched the prequels when they came out. I knew so little about Star Wars that I thought Anakin was Luke's son because I knew the last name Skywalker and very little else.

I gave them a shot when I was a tween and I gave them a shot when I was an adult. 10-year-old me was confused and bored, 20-year-old me (having finally seen the OT) was floored with how stupid the characters were.

Now with all that said, I do give the prequels some credit. They had a lot of creative ideas, and they expanded the universe way, way beyond where they had originally. I certainly don't actively hate them for any reason. I just think that if it were any other franchise, people would have just forgotten and abandoned them instead of scouring them to pick out enough good things about them to redeem them.

Huh. Roguelite mode

I think you could just kill the flans in the flan room then respawn to get your 15. The Bitzer only spawns on that side of the split room anyway so you should be safe from those dirty delve bosses.

Also, lol@sluttyfairies.

*changes your name to Clintbrainwood*

I always forget about rematerializing. Thanks, boss!

I think funny Chewbacca uses a weapon with arbalest design...

But the arbalest is used to fire laser beams, so its an arbalest just because.

I just rewatched the original trilogy in Disney+, and it surprised me they retconned the Anakin ghost with Hayden Christensen.

That got me kind on surprise. Even more because I watched 1-6 in 2 days, and seeing this closure is even more impactful.

Another random thought, but R2D2 is potentially one of the most OP character in Star Wars. I mean, there isnt any system in galaxy it cant hack on it.

Road House remake wasn't nearly as homoerotic as expected, only queerness in it was *** mcgregor.

Not bad aside from his parts.

RUN has the best heals in the game.

o.O';

Huh

SOB changed elements as Lunge went out, healed him instead of doing damage :(

This was a few months ago tbh, we were bullshitting in discord tonight about breaking damage/healing cap, reminded me of this.