Glide

@Glide@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No satire here; I genuinely think it’s a great example of a remake done well.

  There are some major breaks from the original plot, which in itself would be neat, but they introduce an entire plot element that interacts with this derivation. The spirits I was talking about, “Whispers” (had to look up the official name, tbh), appear whenever the story attempts to break from the original story from the original release. In universe, this is explained as pre-determination, or destiny. Thanks to our meta knowledge, we know in reality that these spirits are attempting to maintain the timeline from the original release.

  As an early example, after the events at the first Mako reactor, Cloud decides to collect his pay and go his own way, which is not the original intended path of the game. To correct this, a group of Whispers attack the party, and ultimately injure Jessie, preventing her from going on the mission. Needing another body, Barrett is forced to rehire Cloud for Avalanche’s mission to the next reactor. Without spoiling specific details, the whispers slowly become a form of antagonist as the characters try harder to get away from the original plot of FFVII.

  This is interesting in a few ways. First, we’ve introduced a new major conflict in the form of the characters fighting against a physical embodiment of destiny. They do not want the outcome of their struggles to be predetermined, particularly as that predetermination involved the death and suffering of some specific characters. This is, in my opinion, an interesting new plot element beyond being “the same game again.”

  Second, stepping back, and examining this with a wider lens, we can look at the Whispers for what they are to us, the players, rather than what they are to the characters. We know they are not maintaining “destiny,” but instead trying to reestablish the original story we loved. As a result, I see the Whispers as the collective voice of the “change nothing” remake ideology. When a community asks for new content of IPs they love, there will always be diehard essentialists who want their loved stories to remain untouched; the Whispers, then, are these people.

  So if the Whispers are a physical representation of the “change nothing” remake ideology, then what is there to make of the fact that they’re largely an antagonist? This seems to me that the writers were critical of this culture, so much so that they ask you to fight it to earn the different take on the story. Of course, it’s far from the only derivation from the original game, but that’s exactly my point: FFVII remake was so far divorced from the conceptual, soulless “let’s pump out the same game again” remake that they literally wrote that culture into a new antagonist.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An Update from PlayStation Studios (Neon Koi and Firewalk Studios are closing)⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  But isn’t it featured in the list of games being given a short film via Secret Level? I kind of assumed the goal was to promote it via that episode and re-release the game around the same time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nostalgia and remake culture⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like people are taking this commentary a little too literally. I don’t think it’s intended to suggest that all remakes are always bad and we should be ashamed of ourselves for enjoying them. Mankind has a habit of romanticising the past, and that’s led to something of a modern obsession with nostalgia. These are fair, and interesting, statements.

  That said, the choice of pairing the statement with an allusion to FF7 is probably not a great choice. The remake is fantastic, and isn’t at all symptomatic of the problem of quick-cash in nostalgia remakes. Hell, the first game specifically tackles themes of pre-determination, which functions as a pretty on-the-nose metaphor for nostalgia. And fascinatingly the meta-analysis of this is critical of exactly the same thing: there are literally spirits of sorts which attack the player and manipulate events to ensure the original story remains untouched, and they become a prominent antagonist of the game as the player works to tell a story that is different from the one told in the original. Perhaps there’s something counterproductive about attaching this message to a remake that’s critical of soullessly telling the same stories we’ve already heard.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Slay the Princess - The Pristine Cut is OUT NOW!⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Pre-empt: Everything I say is in regards to the original release. I have not played the pristine cut.

  It is definitely intended to be deeply uncomfortable. It has a very “cosmic horror” vibe to it, while playing on themes of relationships, love and romance.

  It’s good, but not great. The story is impactful and meaningful, and it does a great sort-of incidental meta commentary on literature. An opinion which I find most players don’t share with me: the ending was incredibly weak, to the point that I felt it really detracted from the experience. It has a bad case of “the only decision that matters is the last one,” which isn’t the way I like these seemingly heavily malluble visual novels to go, and none of the endings feel genuinely satisfying. Worse, my first ending set up for something of a second attempt towards a “golden ending” of sorts, only to pull the rug out from under me and just kind of… end, instead.

  The storytelling is great, the writing is engaging, the voice acting is fantastic, the art is gorgeous… There’s a lot to like about the game, so I don’t want to make it sound “bad,” because it’s quite good. It just sold itself to me as a kind of “choices matter” game, where I’d find myself digging for information and answers, so I can learn more and make better decisions on multiple, short playthroughs. I hoped to eventually either discover everything I want to discover, and ideally use growing knowledge to find the “right” ending, whether that’s a “golden” ending or an ending that I find satisfying and rewards me for my effort. But, for it’s variety choices, it’s not really that kind of game. It is, at its heart, a linear game, with some variation in the experiences you have between where you start and where you end up, with a couple choices in the last moment determining which page you flip to before the credits roll.

  Maybe I expected too much, and the problem is with me. I can’t deny that my opinion could be based on a failure of expectation. But, I restate, it’s good, but it’s not great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Screw 4k, but 120+ hz is amazing. I can barely stand playing things are 60fps anymore. I really notice it when game dips.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I avoid enshitification of my keyboard and mouse⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Currently still using the G502 Hero, and all it’s customization is on-board, edited using a portable .exe. I’m using some Rosewill mechanical keyboard which I believe has all its customization tied to inputs while holding the FN key.

  Fuck, I hate always-online apps just to use the God damn peripherials I’ve paid for. I go far out of my way to avoid them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Listen, man, I can get stuff wrong sometimes. I’m still not convinced I am in this case, but, even if I am off on one very specific niche use of a word that rarely, if ever, comes up, attacking my entire livelihood over it, as though it defines every facet of teaching English, is an insane overstep.

  I am not so arrogant as to assume words can only ever have one meaning, nor to attack a stranger on the internet over a disagreement on that meaning. I have also made no such logical fallacy. You asked if I was “sure”, and followed up with a suggestion that I had never spoken with a native English speaker. I said yes, I am confident, and then offered up my background as evidence that, at the very least, your assessment on my experiences is incorrect. I can see how you could conflate that as a call to authority, and perhaps should have phrased things in such a way that doesn’t leave room for such assumptions. That said, I’d advise against jumping down people’s throats based on assumptions, else you’ll end up doing things like building a strawman argument, while simultaneously accusing others of logical fallicies.

  I’m done with this. The level of vitriol the “discussion” has been laced with is in warrented and suggests that any further conversation is a waste of time. This entire disagreement should have been:

  “Hey, I think X is right.” “Well, this says Y is right, so you must be wrong.” “I mean language is funky and weird, a lot of words mean different things in different spaces, so whatever.” “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

  Everything beyond that was grossly unnessecary, terminally online, internet arrogance that we’d both be better off without.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure if you found my original statements challenging to follow, but nothing you’ve said contradicts what I’ve said. Parts of the definitions I’ve provided are strewn in the definitions you’ve provided, and differing definitions of specific word case isn’t unusual, even within similiar cultures. Language is fluid, and the same words can mean a lot of different things.

  There is often a gap between common-use language, and the academic function of words (see “racism”). This is why I emphasized the relation of the definitions I provided to the fields of anthropology and sociology, as well as why I stated it is a use almost exclusively found, in my experiences, in academia.

  I don’t appreciate the strange, ignorant, tongue-in-cheek jabs at my background. If you think I have something wrong I welcome you to say so, but the strange sense of superiority you’ve attached to your comments is unnessecarily insulting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I am literally an English teacher, and have spent years editing university papers for English as an additional language learners. Yes, I am sure.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is there a difference in meaning between the words *people* and *persons*?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “People” is a generic term for more than one person.

  “Persons” denotes a singular distinct grouping of people. Ie, Native American persons.

  Not part of the question, but “peoples” is used for a plurality of distinct persons. Ie, “this had great impact on the various peoples of North America” would be a sentence to lead into a discussion on how an event had varying impacts on each unique cultural group in North America. This is largely only used in academics, specifically anthropology and sometimes sociology, but understand this use helps clear up the reason for the distinction between “people” and “persons”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨My friend gifted me a "fighting RPG" that turned out to be something else entirely⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d never pay money for a porn game, but I feel if it was gifted to me, I’d play it to completion. At least for the experience to say I did. And hey, if it turns me on and I learn something about myself, win/win.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fantastic watch that highlights the issue I am talking about. Thanks for sharing that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The problem is we’re linking it to appearances instead of maturity.

  The problem with sexual relationships between adults and minors is two fold. First, the minor in question hasn’t had time to fully develop the emotional intelligence to healthily and safely engage in a sexual relationship. Second, there is an innate power differential between a minor and an adult: usually the adult has means of supporting themselves, something akin to solidified social supports and experience, education and knowledge necessary to live without the day-to-day support of others. You put these together, and you have a relationship that, even with the absolute best of intentions, becomes inherently abusive. The adult holds all the power in the relationship, and the minor is left with no choice but to worship the ground they walk on, and worse, they have not developed the emotional intelligence to identify it.

  The problem with these 2000 year old loli’s is not their body; the problem is that they’re often child-coded. They act like children. They do things that highlights their lack of knowledge and inexperience. What is often played off as a cute girl anime trope is in reality an indication that this is someone who you can conquer, dominate, and hold power over in a sexual relationship, and you can feel “good” about doing so, because you’re, with the best of intentions, just helping them learn through your loving relationship. So what if you’re fucking her while you do so. (/s on that last sentence just in case)

  There is nothing wrong with finding petite women attractive. 30 year olds who look like teenagers are not a problem. Hell, as long as we’re on the topic, I’ll shock most people by arguing that admitting that a 16 year old has developed into an attractive and desirable person isn’t even a problem, as long as you’re doing so from a position of respect rather than intent. The issue is neglecting to recognize the power differential between you and that 16 year old, and convincing yourself that it’s okay to engage in romantic and sexual acts with them while uttering deranged statements like “they’re very mature for their age” or “I’m helping them learn and grow so it’s okay”.

  Child coded characters are a problem, and hiding the magic number that supposidly discerns whether or not they’re fuckable doesn’t suddenly make things okay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the community for Honkai Star Rail and Genshin Impact like this?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not because of the content, but because of groups of men all reinforcing this behavior.

  I genuinely know more women than men that act like this. I can’t say you’re entirely wrong about the problems with normalizing behaviour and the like, but simplifying it to “men are disgusting and know nothing of 'real, actual women” when real, actual women are sometimes equally disgusting is, well concerning.

  This particular brand of behaviour is usually about rejection of social norms far more than it is ever about the objectification of women. People who have been rejected by society like to take back the power by rejecting the norms of that society.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Valve lifts NDA on Deadlock, streaming and talking about the game is now allowed.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Simplify the situation to lol defending the EULA all you want, but “I’m not bound by your NDA because I pressed ESC instead of clicking okay” is the kind of thing I expect a spoiled 14 year old to say while wearing a shit eating grin.

  Act unprofessionally in a professional industry and you get dragged by professionals. And rightly so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic”⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  While I normally check both locations and buy from GOG if it’s available there, you would be surprised how many Steam titles are completely DRM free.

  I needed some DRM free games for the classroom last year and was pleasantly surprised that a lot of the smaller, indie games I own Steam, the ones I was most interested in bringing into the classroom to begin with, run perfectly well on a machine without Steam even installed just by copying the folder to a flash drive. Some required deleting a Steam.dll or adding a text document that states the SteamID of the game, but most of the games I wanted I was able to run from a flash drive, DRM free, no Internet, Steam or game install required.

  Steam offers DRM to devs that want it, but it is not a DRM platform in of itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era – Official Reveal Trailer⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I got really excited, right up to the moment when I remembered that this will require uPlay.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can anyone suggest some good co-op games for two people?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A couple titles that deserve mention and I don’t see in any other lists:

  Children of Mora - Narrative driven action RPG with some light Roguelite-ish elements. Amazing world building and story telling, good character choice/building and gameplay.

  Cassette Beasts - Pokemon, if it were good. Much more mature story, tons of quality of life systems that makes building things fun, a weakness system that matters a lot more than “number big” and the entire game is double battles. I’ve played the game start-to-finish in couch co-op and it was incredible. They’ve recently added online multiplayer, but I cannot say with 100% certainty that the online allows you to engage with the story together. Couch co-op has one player play as the companion character in an otherwise unchanged experience whereas online has one player character hop into another player characters world.

  Weird enough, the Monster Hunter franchise - I’m not sure how this isn’t anywhere else in this thread. Use large weapon to hunt large monster. Build bigger weapon to hunt bigger monster. World and Rise are both on sale on Steam right now. World is dumb to move through the story together though, despite the fact that most fans who aren’t me are likely to call it the better game.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Shame too, because the gameplay is great.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How is Lemmy better than Reddit?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Listen, I won’t dig into all the tech and philosophy of decentralization and anti-corporate ownershipa. There are other people here for that. But let me tell you why I am enjoying it: it’s small, it ends, and it feels like early internet.

  I load up Lemmy, and see a series of disjointed memes, or a current ongoing meme (like pondering the orb) and absorb that for a short while. I see a couple world news articles, a couple about Trump and a couple about places that aren’t the US. I read an article about Ryzen’s new chips not performing well on Windows and see someone’s retro-gaming setup. Then, after about 10-15 minutes of scrolling, I go “oh hey, I remember this post from yesterday”, and then I close Lemmy because, and this is the important part, I’ve hit the end of new content in my feed.

  I still get the news, I still take in a couple memes about the current state of politics, or a celebrity flying her plane altogether too much, but I am never stuck here. There’s no one trying to rage bait me for the sake of user engagement, and any argument I find myself in wraps up and moves on. I don’t feel disconnected, but I am also never completely absorbed, and my life is better for it. Sure, sometimes while I am waiting in a line I load Lemmy only to discover there’s nothing new for me in the hour since I’ve closed it. Sometimes I do the age old, “looking to busy myself”, close Lemmy because there’s nothing to see, immediately open Lemmy because I am looking for something to occupy my Internet poisoned brain. But being bored for a minute here and there is worth it, if it means a lot more free time because I am no longer absorbed in the rat race of infinite scrolling social media.

  I think Lemmy is better in a series of ways, but the one that really matters is that it helps me put down my phone, and do things that I enjoy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dead Rising remaster will make Frank West less of a creep⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, a small part of me dislikes the lost potential for satire. Dead Rising was always an over-the-top franchise, and Frank always came off as a kind of “wants to be taken seriously, but often finds himself selling candid shots of celebrities to tabloids to get by” kind of photographer. But the presentation was too serious and felt ultimately creepy, rather than being funny or coming off as social commentary.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨why isn't anyone calling for Trump to drop out.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Because people think Bidden may actually do it. No one is stupid enough to believe Trump put aside his ego long enough to consider the problems created by his extreme age.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Steam Summer Sale is live now!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A strictly anti-capitalist fever dream adventure RPG getting completely consumed and milked by greedy capitalists who added nothing of value to its creation is peak this timeline.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Disable windows updates⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just install DoNotSpy after a fresh install of Windows and have never had an issue with Windows Update ignoring me and doing whatever it wanted.

  Obviously the system has to be offline until it is installed and probably restarted, but after that you can plug in a cable and be fine, to my experience. Mind you I am still using an old, old, copy of 10 as the installer, so I am uncertain how newer fresh installs will handle it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Are Rap*** & Ped** Protected In Jail?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The insanity and ignorance necessary to call prison “a sweet life”.

  What’s the goal here? There’s no way you’re this willfully ignorant, right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Will Aggressively Pursue a Multiplatform Strategy After Profits Tumble⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The endgame Sephiroth fight was definitely forced. It reeked of “well, he’s been the secret antagonist all game, so we can’t just disclude him from the finale” kind of thinking.

  I liked the more persistent villain lurking in Cloud’s broken mind, but they shouldn’t have felt the need to try and put a pseudo capstone on that story thread.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Will Aggressively Pursue a Multiplatform Strategy After Profits Tumble⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s so fascinating, tbh. I mean, different strokes, so I can’t judge, but it’s the impressively deep strategy they’ve baked into Remake’s combat that I am particularly impressed by. That said, it makes sense though that if you dislike Tales combat, you’d dislike Remake’s combat. They’re not the same persay, but they’re cut from the same cloth imo.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Will Aggressively Pursue a Multiplatform Strategy After Profits Tumble⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Calling the new game’s combat “mind-numbing” compared to a random encounter turn-based system is both peak irony and peak rose-tinted glasses.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Final Fantasy Maker Square Enix Will Aggressively Pursue a Multiplatform Strategy After Profits Tumble⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can’t get over just how much better Remake is compared to the original, so you do you, I guess. I was incredibly pleasantly surprised to see the ways they’re engaging with telling a different story and taking the name “remake” very literally. I was seriously concerned they were just going to sell the original story again in three seperate parts as full-price titles.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft says it needs games like Hi-Fi Rush the day after killing its studio⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s weird because you’re both right and wrong.

  It’s not AAA by any stretch. It was sold at a fraction of the usual price point, it’s advertising was non-existant, and it makes no effort to do the usual AAA things: live-service, online multiplayer, “you can play it forever”, etc. are are not present.

  But putting it side-by-side with Manor Lords and Balatro, the latter of which was a single-person dev, also doesn’t suit it. It has a real studio, a dev team with experience, and at least enough of a budget to license real music from popular (or at least, once popular) artists. I’d perhaps agree with your statement that it’s closer to AAA than to a “small dev” game, but it is true that it’s a “smaller game that [gives Microsoft] prestiege and awards”.

  This is a great article highlighting the pig-headed double speak going on at Microsoft’s gaming divisions. On the one hand, they’re cutting studios and supposidly refocusing on their core offerings, while simultaneously describing the experiences they want to offer as exactly the studios they just cut. The absolute worst part is I can’t help but suspect that they’re going to take the IP, push it on a different dev team that they control and give it the Fable treatment: “this IP was so well received; make a sequel that checks all these boxes that our market research data tells us popular, profitable games have” while conviniently ignoring the passion and vision that the original devs poured into the original title.