Smash 4 Highlight of the Day

Generally I try to play it safe when it comes to edgeguarding, due to the 3DS being notorious for its controls. Well to be fair, the 3DS controls aren't really bad, but the problem with them is that the circle-pad lacks the notches the GameCube controller had to prevent fuck-ups like accidentally fast-falling to my death. However, for the first time on Smash 4 3DS, I took the risk and man did it pay off!

Also, slightly unrelated, somebody brought the Wii U version to school and it was amazing. I am so excited to own it myself.

Smash 4 Highlight of the Day?

I kicked a lot of ass in Smash 4 today, but I won't be sharing gifs today. Instead, enjoy a couple of screens I thought were great!

If it's two things I love most in this game, it's Zero Suit Samus and the cats.

JonTron watches the fight! Did I just Self-Destruct? "Eccchhhh" Also his hair is brown, I need to fix that (downloaded the Mii)

New Leaf: Days ????? through なにそれ?

Yep, I haven't posted anything about my town in the longest time. Oh well. A ton of things have happened, like for example, my town reached perfect status.

Many villagers also came and went. Among these, sadly, was Cherry, who was absolutely the coolest and greatest villager ever in my town (not to mention she was A: Brand new to the series and B: Part of the Uchi lineup of villagers, the new personality in this game). One day, she just up and left, didn't even leave me her picture. She still lurks around Main Street, but it's just not the same anymore. I'm working on pushing out as many inferior villagers as I can so that I can bring her back through someone else's void. She may not remember me or my village, but at least I'll have her back again :(

Elvis also left, but at least he left me his picture. I am kinda glad he left, honestly; he was cool and all, but sometimes he'd show up to my house to see my "silly face"-- at three in the morning. His picture phrase is also bizarrely morbid/fucked up for a game like this: "Better a live coward than a dead hero."

Aside from this, I made a wonderful design of Samus based off her "Justin Bailey" appearance in Metroid II.

I also have made fortunes off the turnip-trade subreddit, and finally fully upgraded the Nooklings' store. Now I am just on my way toward fully expanding my houses. Which also reminds me, I made a female villager to be the ultimate fashionista in the whole of Animal Crossing-- even more so than Gracie. But of course, life can't go on for my adored character without things being pretty awkward on an average basis...

TFW turtles use pickup lines.

Uhhh.... thanks? To be fair, Lyle is supposed to be sleazy! (Fun fact: apparently they count as "red" furniture)

Also, other random awkwardness:

Excellent phrasing there, Sable.

This literally happened the next day.

There are quite a few things going on, but I want to save them for later (mainly how Anna, my fashion villager, looks great in nearly everything in this game). I think I'll write a new post once I fully upgrade Anna's home, which shouldn't take too long since I already have more than enough money to do that. Until next time, then.

Smash 4 Highlight of the Day

Falcon Hype!!! I did something cool!

Update: Wow apparently this is my 100th post on this blog. Thanks everyone?

My Smash Highlight Was Featured in a Compilation!

I'm famous!

SMASH 4 HIGHLIGHT OF THE YEAR

I posted this on Reddit just now, and I'm expecting them to tear this whole video a new one. Oh well, whatever, this is staying here in a theoretical golden frame because I completely lost it when I did this.

Two things I'm willing to give, though: 1) This guy's Kirby was a little WTF (what is he hoping to hit with that side-b?) and 2) I'm never entirely proud of a down-b auto-spike from the stage unless if it was super clutch.

Smash 4 Highlight of the Day

This was one clutch-ass kick... too bad nothing cool ever happens on my last stock though.

Smash 4 Highlight of the Day

Yeah, this is no longer a daily thing, but more of a "whenever I feel like uploading something" thing. That's what I mean by "of the Day" from now on. But moving on from that, look how amazing this is!

Okay so I still had a stock to spare and it's not like Captain Falcon-level amazing, but I was amazed with myself for being able to do this. Makes me proud that I can legitimately call Zero Suit Samus my main :'D

Also in other news, I've really been getting back into Animal Crossing: New Leaf. Remember when I posted stuff about my "days" in Animal Crossing (by stuff I mean quite possibly literally two posts)? Well I may start doing something like that again, although not to as great an extent because I'm not up for writing entire essays since most of my days in that game aren't all that tremendously eventful. And as with this game, that "feature" won't be a daily thing either. We'll see where this goes.

Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate Has a Metroid Crossover!

This is amazing. I've only had a slight interest in MH until just now, too. Do you know what this crossover means? It means this is the closest Metroid has ever come to an RPG-esque game. I know, this is not a Metroid game, but I can pretend it is now with this! Whatever the case, I love how Nintendo is keeping up the Metroid flair in several games. I cannot wait to buy this game!

Also, holy shit someone help me I cannot stop rewatching this video over and over and over again.

Smash 4 Highlight of the Day

Well, welcome to my first Highlight of the Day with Smash 4! I said last time I wouldn't do this until later, because I don't have enough to go by every day. However, this just happened and I couldn't refrain from posting it immediately, so here you go! I call it, Farewell, Jigglypuff.

In Case You Didn't Know, I've Been BUSY with Smash 4

I am really sorry that there has been a content drought of late, but I have been playing Smash 4 just way too much. You have no idea how happy I am that this game is finally, finally out already. I don't know what else to say really.

Also I went to a Smash 4 tournament at my school and placed thirteenth out of about fifty people! Couldn't have done it without my wonderfully favorite character, Zero Suit Samus!

While playing Smash 4, I have been considering uploading "highlights" as gifs and all thanks to GFYCAT, but right now I am still in that new-game phase where I don't want to do anything more than just play the game. Of course, though, I still save the replays of some of the best matches I've had (I also save matches where things go wrong for me so that I can learn from them), so someday I'll be able to get on that highlights feature.

As a treat for all of you, today I just made one of the most amazing comebacks I've ever made in anything. It was me and a guy playing a pretty good Fox, I think, and man what he did at the start left me pretty damn salty, so of course I had to repay him somehow! And boy did I deliver.



If you're interested in purchasing that autographed box of the game from me, I'm open to offers! Leave a reply in the comments!

I Won an Early Smash Demo Code!

I was out for lunch when all of a sudden I see "You've won!" pop up on my phone, and at that point I literally jumped up in the restaurant and shouted (good thing I was with friends so I didn't look as psychotic as I really am). It's really awesome that I've been able to really get a good look at this game before it's come out, and not just through this demo alone but also through the Best Buy demo and all the awesome people streaming the full Japanese version right now. Folks, we are living in a time where so many amazing things can be accomplished just by going on the Internet, which can also be kind of scary if it's that easy to do some pretty nasty stuff, but that's another point for another world away from this blog. Even as not-so-far back as Brawl, if you had told me while I was waiting for it to come out that I was going to get to try out and see a lot of stuff about the next Smash game, including an exclusive demo, I would've thought you were crazy.

So what do I think of the demo? Well, you can only play as Mario, Link, Pikachu, Mega Man, and Villager, and you can only play on Battlefield (but with the option of using its Final Destination mode), but I am sure as Hell not complaining (well, maybe aside from they could've picked a much more fun character than Link because Link sucks). I've experienced just how entirely ridiculous Villager is, as he can combo very easily with all of his moves, and his specials are pretty ridiculous. None of this should be particularly new to anyone following the game, but Villager's side-B's and up-B's have what feels like an infinite recovery. It isn't, but it might as well be because neither moves will run short on you unless your opponent lands a good hit or two. People have literally recovered from underneath stages like Final Destination with Villager's balloon recovery (the up-B). Then on the offensive, Villager's side-B, which throws a Loyd Rocket, can be used in conjunction with like a dash attack or something to really pressure opponents with what is almost basically a wall. Villager's down-B, the tree, takes a while as you have to plant it, grow it, and chop it down, but when you grow it/chop it down, it has tremendous launching potential. You can edge guard with the down special and obliterate anybody coming from below the stage or falling from above if you can get them right. It is absolutely amazing. Then you have his standard special, which pockets almost any projectile (seriously, from the Villager's own bowling ball in his smash attack to Pikachu's fucking Thunder, to even some of Mario's F.L.U.D.D. water) and allows you to use it for, I think, twice as much damage and maybe knockback. Villager's dash attack combos nicely into an aerial. His aerials can combo nicely into each other. His dash attack can combo into an up tilt or up smash. His down tilt can combo into various things, namely more aerials. His side tilt can combo into a smash at low percents, or a dash at higher damage. His down smash... well, in theory, can combo into literally anything, even the fucking tree, but the opponent may break out of the pitfall stun it causes before then. Villager's aerials, due to being good at comboing into each other, can gimp players offstage very well. Villager, Villager, Villager!

Does this LOOK like the face of mercy?

Really my only sour note about the demo is that I can't play as Zero Suit Samus, but who cares? Speaking of Zero Suit Samus, I have finally found a way to explain the difference of being cheap and just using her to her full potential. In Brawl, she could pull off huge, high-damage strings of combos with her jabs, up-kicks, her up special, her down smash, and her aerials, namely. She could also buffer her dash attacks at the very last frames of her dash-attack animation, allowing one to pull a sort of infinite string of dash attacks that can potentially combo into each other. My friends wail and call this "cheap," but it ain't entirely easy, and really a good defensive game will just screw Zero Suit Samus up a lot. Still, people are quick to deny her as a character that requires skill to use, so allow me to show you all what being "cheap" really is.



So basically, what's happening here is Zero Suit is jumping off of Robin and using the hitstun to her advantage, allowing her to zap Robin with an endless string of paralyzer shots. If you've played Smash, or maybe you haven't, and think this would be really difficult to pull off, you'd be right as this should normally be impossible. You can't actually jump, or footstool, off of someone and be low enough to return to the ground in an instant. This has been confirmed to actually be a bug, since doing this on anyone else will end up causing Samus to jump too high into the air to return quick enough and exploit the hitstun. So you see, this is being cheap. I would never do this in a serious match (but against friends Hell yeah I would do this to fuck with them). Exploiting a bug like this that leaves an opponent powerless is cheap, but everything about Samus that is intentionally put into the game isn't. No, not even the fact she is the only character, it seems, who is capable of stunning opponents, because her down smash and paralyzer shot is actually easily avoidable. You'd normally only see them used as spacing or hard punishment.

And with that, I'm off to continue being excited for this game. Stay hype, my friends.

And the Internet Has Run Mad (Smash Post)

Update !0/18: Wow, so I just recently found out that they cut the Tharja trophy from the game (it seems). While that does make me a little sad, it makes me realize just how special this post is because I've got pictures of cut content!

WARNING: INTENSE SPOILERS AHEAD. THIS POST CONTAINS A VARIETY OF LEAKS REVEALED OVER THE INTERNET THE PAST WEEK. IF YOU STILL HAVE YET TO EXPERIENCE THE SURPRISES OF NEW CHARACTERS, DO NOT READ THIS POST.

That being said, let's get to it. So somehow, within like two days, all of this came right the Hell out of nowhere.

Note: The very douche-sounding DLC claim was deconfirmed by the leaker, who quite frankly sounds like a real asshole.

If you look at the second picture down in the leftmost column, you'll see an apparent roster leak. I believe the same leaker, though, uploaded videos of a few of these characters. Even though he/she is probably being tremendously fired from Nintendo and has his/her life potentially destroyed forever for something very stupid, I give tremendous props to the leaker! Why? Because this guy actually has balls and provided us with video proof backing his claims, UNLIKE a certain "prophet" whose claims were the same guesses everyone else was making (well, maybe Choir Men from Rhythm Heaven aside).

Please note not all of these leaks are from the same source. That guy loudly and stupidly proclaiming the DLC characters like if he is the coolest guy in the world, for example, is not the same leaker who is actually cool for risking everything and posting videos to back up his image.

So in spite of my disliking of the Gematsu "prophet," I am not really mad that he got like ninety percent of his guesses correct (yes that's right, guesses). I don't know why, but some idiots think I am trying to "destroy the hype" by insisting not to put too much faith in this one guy. Basically, they took my point, "You can't give this guy too much credit," and turned it into a personal attack against a character they are massively hoping for and therefore fester off of every shred of information that gives them hope. They are almost like carrions swarming around a living organism as if they were expecting it to die at any moment. Can you imagine how annoying it'd be to be a healthy individual and yet have flies and maggots and whatever else that thrives off dead things swarming around you, simply because the pests believe, for no reason at all, that you are going to die any minute? That's exactly what being around these guys feels like.

Aside from a certain Palutena leak, what really threw me into the "leak-culture" of this game was the mention of a "prophet" on Facebook by some guy who, by means of pure deaf-dumb-and-blind luck, called that Pacman was going to be revealed at E3. This was simply because the "prophet" said he'd be in the game. I responded appropriately, calling out the guy on giving far too much credit on the Gematsu Prophet. Then, about a month after Pacman was confirmed, I got this response.

Seriously?

People need to stop being butthurt. I think this guy was really just jealous that I can come up with witty comments that people can find funny. And what the fuck is up with that almost-three-month necro? So this guy and the guy who called Pacman, along with anybody else who thought I was being an asshole for that matter, may be laughing in my face right now. How do I feel?

 

Who the Hell cares? That is exactly how I feel. Honestly, I actually liked a bit of what I saw from the Pacman reveal. I'm not crazy about him like some other weirdly rabid fans of him, who actually kind of remind me of fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Well, the difference there is that Pacman was actually established with the merit of actually trying to be the thing that it was: a fun game (whereas the TMNT cartoon is more of a twenty-five minute ad for toys and Dominos as opposed to a series of episodes with important things like characters and plot). Still, I think the fanbases are similar in the sense that everybody just bandwagons and says, "Oh, I'm a Pacman fan, I want Pacman in the new Smash!" just because there is a new Smash Bros. game coming out. Anyway, getting back to what I think of this, it's fine, cool, whatever. Why would I be pissed about Nintendo being innovative with the character choices?

 

Consequently, Shulk was also "called" by that "prophet." Really, I still think he just made that guess simply because he saw the deconfirmed Shulk leak. Say what you will about him, but at the end of the day, who was the one who actually gave a video of Shulk in-game? Not him that's for sure. Anyway, Shulk actually seems to be my favorite of the newcomers so far. In his leaked video, he appeared to have a move that changes "stances," and incidentally switching up how he plays. Maybe this will prove too abusive and ridiculous for tournament play, but this is really exciting for me, picturing a character that can really switch up the way a fight plays out.

 

Bowser Jr. was also shown, which guess what? The "prophet" didn't think of. So basically, this leak seems to confirm these characters:

• Bowser Jr.
• Wario
• Mr. Game and Watch (well unless he was already confirmed clearly, I'm not sure. I wouldn't count that Pacman reveal).
• Ganandorf
• Falco
• Jigglypuff
• The Duck Hunt Dog. WTF!!!!!!
• R.O.B. (Ugh did they have to really bring him back?)
• Ness (yay!)
• Dr. Mario (?????? Why?)
• Dark Pit (Better not be a clone)
• Shulk

Keep in mind that it was never stated whether this was the full roster. There are apparently reports that the All-Star Mode of the game was locked in one of the leaks from the same leaker, and plus people speculate that the roster itself looks unfinished (the black spaces, the uneven layout, the random order of the characters at the end), so there still may be hope for other characters we have yet to see. While I personally never cared much for them, I would be very sad to see the Ice Climbers go/become DLC. I've grown so used to seeing them for years that it would probably feel to me the same way it felt when the Harry Potter movies ended. I guess if they become DLC, though, I may still see them when I play online. I just hope that online play doesn't suffer from the problem of needing to have the DLC in order to play it, unlike some crappy games using that terrible trend lately (looking at you, EA).

 

So while I guess I'm a little negative about some of these characters (like why do we need two Pits?), at the same time I don't wholly care anymore. Zero Suit Samus is in the game, the stages look incredibly fun, the game is coming for the 3DS and is finally a game I can play anywhere, other personal favorite characters are back, and, on top of all the goodness, they gave Zero Suit Samus the iconic crop-top-and-shorts outfit as an alternate costume, completely answering to how I envisioned what maining ZSS would be like in public play. Plus as an awesome bonus they have quite the number of female characters there, which kinda helps the scene for women in portraying them as equally capable of being fighters in a fighting game (even though they may still all be porcelain dolls in Sakurai's game).

 

And now, to ruin my bright little moment of intellectual discussion on this post, here are some pictures of a Tharja trophy from a series of even more leaks!

 

 

Tharja is from Fire Emblem: Awakening. I find it kind of ridiculous and silly, actually, that the leaker decided to send these fanservice pictures, of all the things in the world. There's even a crotch-shot of Candy Kong, for fook's sake! Here is the album with all these alleged leaks. Don't know the extent to which these are real, but the leak of the spectator mode was confirmed the other day in a Pic of the Day (Sakurai even had the same exact Miis in his picture), so I'm willing to be those are real too. In spite of how ridiculous these images seem, somebody gave the reasonable reasoning that these are specifically from a build sent to the ESRB to rate the game... But if that's true, why take them from outside the 3DS (I mean, those aren't actual screenshots).

 

Whatever the case, people are going crazy right now. Some are making up completely ridiculous things and calling them leaks, others are frantically posting the same exact thing the other guy has said, and many are actually at verbal war with each other over this. I'm just going to kick it back, though, as I am dying already from waiting for this game to come out each day. I guess it's close enough to the release date, so I'm gonna see if I can preorder it somehow if it miraculously is still available for preorder.



Zero Suit Samus Gets Her Justin Bailey

I guess it is kind of odd that this, of all things, is what brings me back to reporting about Smash 4, but at the same time can you really be surprised? I love Metroid and I love Samus's character (barring Other M), and I love playing as Zero Suit Samus because she is awesome. So can you really be surprised that I would write about this? No actually, you can't.

I got a mod for Brawl that would let me play as her in her orange shorts, because I like how sporty it looks, and so I almost always played as her that way. The only problem I have with this outfit really is how it really brings out the oddness of her flexibility (that twist on the right looks painful as Hell), but at the same time I guess it is cool because really she's supposed to be able to do that thanks to her spliced-in alien DNA.

What really brings me to this post, though--because after all, this tidbit is more fitting for a Tweet--is the controversy surrounding this whole thing. I saw a photo of a site with a number of posts debating the sexism in this photo, and while I think it is nice that people are growing more conscious of this, at this point I'm still only thinking they're just waiting for Nintendo to do the slightest thing to Samus to start roaring about it. As I said in an earlier post with my "design choices" for my warlock, there is actually some logic to explain why Samus is designed to be attractive (alien DNA), but again, we can't just make things with explanations and ignore the backlash it will still get because this isn't a perfect world. At the same time, though, we can't just refuse to make things because this isn't a perfect world. The way I see it is, if it isn't so awful that it'll destroy a particular group of people's image, it isn't so bad. Let me use this photo and then compare it to Other M as an example. Now, I cannot really argue for the origin of this design any more than by saying, "Well at least they didn't go with a full-blown bikini again," because it is true that the design is originally a sort of fanservice reward for beating Fusion and Zero Mission within certain conditions. At the same time, I don't think it's so bad to just show what Samus looks like without the Power Suit on, and this crop-top-and-shorts outfit is more "cool" than "sexy" to me, but that's just me. Whatever the case, this isn't exactly detrimental to anything other than maybe Samus herself if that's how you really feel about it, because in my belief it's quite a stretch to say that this is a representation of any group of people.

Then we have Other M. Now unlike the design above, the sexism in Samus's portrayal in that game is unintentional, but in Other M it is actually very detrimental as it perpetuates abysmal stereotypes that women are weak, follow and cling to everything that a man thinks is right, and are willing to be okay with letting a man put their lives in jeopardy. Other M is a game that deserved its criticism. This, while it's good to be conscious of it, doesn't deserve more than a, "Oh, who cares." And if you are going to criticize this outfit anyway and continue to blame Sakurai for perpetuating sexism, stop. Think. Sakurai did not, nor did any of the designers of Smash Bros, come up with this outfit. This has been around for years. Nothing about Samus's appearance is anything new. So unless she has a costume where she's either naked or in a bikini, or in any other ridiculously revealing attire that is not linked with any of the games she has starred in, just please stop. I understand Sakurai was all like, "It's okay because this is a design that a female designer pressed for," and I get that just sounds very sketchy. Sakurai, as sure as I am that your intentions are harmless, that was a little unnecessary. Still, everybody needs to relax. What's ultimately more important is that Nintendo is really just showing appreciation/nostalgia for two games that will always be classics of the company's repertoire.

Now, what would be the greatest thing Sakurai can do in response to all this nonsense is give Captain Falcon a speedo outfit. That would be hilarious.

Making Female Player Characters: Why Do I Do It?

This blog is running all over the place right now. I know I said I was doing another Type-0 post, I know I said I was going to do a WoW post. In a way, this is sort of a WoW post, but it is really more than that. This has been something I've been thinking a lot more about lately than ever, and the title pretty much says it.

I know I am not the only person who does this. I recall Blue Highwind saying he'd make the main character of a particular JRPG a girl and name her Blue. Nobbel, a YouTuber who does a lot of Warcraft stuff, seems to almost exclusively play female characters. But that's not to limit my perception of who does this to people who are somewhat "famous" on the Internet. Many, many people--not just guys--play as the other sex in, as far as I know, mainly an RPG that enables you to make your own character from the options they give you. Because A) I am more familiar with guys playing as female characters and B) I am one of those guys, this post will focus more on that side of the coin.

I can't really say what makes guys do this. I'm afraid to think that most of them are doing it with very creepy misogynistic undertones, especially since the ones I do know (my best friend, Blue Highwind, Nobbel) aren't really misogynists. However, it would be naïve for me to deny that there are guys who do create these sort of characters as an ideal, and that's as far as I want to go with that before I get creeped out. Indeed, I think when it comes right down to it, at least at the very beginning of the moment when one decides what they are going to play as, there is a big psychological factor in attractiveness. This may apply to women who play as male characters too, and I will admit I am not even exempt from this. When one is presented a choice to create something that they are to play as, just simply how attractive the character can be will certainly affect one's liking of that character, just as how people in real life will show more liking toward attractive people as they first meet people. This liking, the sense of "this is good" in the brain, is probably what plays the largest role in why I and several other guys decide to make a female character, regardless of whether we are conscious of that line of thinking when we do make our characters. It's a tendency to be more immediately happy with and--ugh, I hate to say this word--fond of the character.

I'll admit that when I did start making these characters for the first time, it was gross and misogynistic. Well, not in the sense that I got a sort of pleasure in "controlling" a female character, but more in the sense that I created ideals. This was, however, way back in middle and early high school, when I was an idiot and didn't know better, like so many others of my age. This actually began in World of Warcraft, and to be honest I actually never thought of making any female characters at first. My first World of Warcraft character was an Undead (Forsaken) warlock by the hideously stupid angsty name, Teenagedeath. But then I played the game with my best friend, who made female Blood Elves specifically because they were attractive, and that became the trend for me since then. So, yes, originally I would make these characters because they were attractive, during my silly adolescence.

Over time, though, I would start giving less and less thought to making them. Even as I would learn about feminism and misogyny, what classifies as such, what is sexism, all these things, I would continue making these characters. Sometimes I'd feel guilty about it too, because I would remember why I started doing it in the first place (hence why I am writing this to explore why I still do so now). But for the most part, I don't even think about it, like I'm not even self-aware anymore when I do this. So why do I still do it, then, if I am to deny that attractiveness is the main reason why I do it? I'm afraid I cannot just simply give a satisfying answer, so I hope I manage to convince somebody, at the very least myself, that I don't do this for any real creepy reason.

Along with thinking less about this whole thing as time went on, the different games I'd do this in expanded from World of Warcraft to The Elder Scrolls and even Halo. But enough of me justifying it with how much of a "natural" thing it's become for me.

I think an important factor in why I do this is that I have a creator's complex. I write fiction, and as such, I end up liking characters and making them with their own lives and such. I think if there's a reason that relates to this and plays into why I make female characters, I think it's because I just want to see them as the warriors and magic users that take down monsters and stuff as opposed to male characters. And plus, I sometimes completely imagine backgrounds for characters of which there are none. For my death knight, in example, I think of her as the Blood Elf I made back in The Burning Crusade, who was originally a light-hearted, upbeat paladin who set out with the other Blood Elves to Outland to find what became of her people's prince and the envoy that went with him. When it was found that this prince was going to call upon the destructive powers of a demon commander in a strange attempt to bring power to the whole Blood Elf race (in which case would actually destroy not only them but the rest of the world as well), and he planned to do this through what was once the Blood Elves source of energy, the Sunwell. When the Sunwell Plateau raid was released, she lent her strength as a now-"extinct" "shockadin" (in terms of gameplay this was a paladin that utilized more of destructive spell power as opposed to attack power, and it was overpowered as hell), and she not only helped stop this demon commander from entering the world, but even restored the Sunwell's energy and brought salvation to her people.

In the next expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, the way I imagine her story here is that she was going to set out to kill the Lich King, who, before her time, had originally destroyed the Sunwell and thus was why the Blood Elf prince went out to Outland-- to find a new source of energy. Wrath, however, was also where I stopped playing at some point, so the original character behind my death knight as she is now was lost to me forever, and she never got to fight the Lich King. So in Mists of Pandaria, her body is found by the Lich King (the game's official timeline and lore set aside to work for my story) and brought back to life as a death knight under his control. But a branch of the death knights under the Lich King's control find themselves free of his will, and my death knight was one of them. Horrified at the desecration of her life, the fact that all of her friends seemed dead, that she never fulfilled her highest goal for her race, and that she couldn't even remember her own name, she sets out to destroy the Lich King, annihilating his armies and commanders with the very power he brought her back to life with.

I'm sorry, I completely did not expect to suddenly nerd out here, but I am hoping that you at least expected that. I mean, hello, you are on a gaming blog. Well anyway, I'm not wholly done detailing the lives of my characters, for I feel I also need to justify another character who may attract the attention of those aiming to shoot me down and be disgusted with me, and that is my warlock.

I can already imagine the criticism.

Before I get into actually explaining my decisions here, I would first acknowledge that yes, this could be perpetuating misogyny even if it isn't my intention. Other people will see this character, find the outfit attractive, and figure out how they can also make their female characters into strange perverted sex symbols in their heads. However, I did not make this character with the intention of being some form of self-made fan service. This character is a warlock, a character capable of controlling demons and fel magic without succumbing to the corruption of such forces. In this game's world, demons do tend to use sex appeal to bring their victims to their demise. In one of the raid dungeons, Black Temple, there are several enemies that are actually just people corrupted by fel-magic who have become concubines, which I interpret as the victims of these demons and their manipulation. So getting back to my character, who has studied demons and fel-magic, and became the master of these forces as opposed to it being the other way around, she'll use similar tactics of deception and corruption to destroy her own enemies (although how this makes any sense in the setting of an actual in-game raid eludes this backstory. Still, I digress!). Plus she is supposed to be confident, and perhaps a bit sadistic in the sense of drawing pleasure from exploiting someone else's weakness, even if it is something like an unhealthy addiction to sex. Hence the outfit and the demon wings and such.

So moving my obsession with creating characters aside, let's talk about why I went through the trouble of putting this outfit together. I still initially wanted my character to bear skin, but it wasn't as much, only through a dress that only covered her breasts and the skirt everything else, save for two slits that ran up the thighs. Then I found something that allowed me to give demon wings to the character, which I thought was really awesome for the role. At that point, I just wanted to create something that I thought looked cool with the demon wings, and keeping the lore that was already in the game in mind, I centered the pieces I picked around the demon wings in order to match the look of a character that would take advantage of her foes, not something made for the sake of fetishism.

I knew doing this would "invite" other players to make all sorts of odd responses. People are all like, "Damn your character looks so slutty (not as criticism but as a strange sort of compliment, I can't tell which is worse)," and some do whistle emotes or they make up their own inappropriate emotes (thankfully these are only written out), and all of it actually kind of annoys me a little. It's not so much to the point where I'm going to make a million-page rant about it, because again I just knew this would happen. You can't really expect better of the gaming community in general. My character isn't "slutty." In the long run, getting down to reality and interactions between real people, and leaving made-up lore and character info out of this, I didn't make my character to be everyone's fetish. I wanted something that I thought would look cool with the demon wings and make sense with the whole "character-that-studies-demons"/"warlock" look, and this is what I went with.

I don't even feel that all this is enough for me to justify my character to other people seeing me with criticism, so I'll just say this: my regret of the outfit is that it exists in the same world where sexism and misogyny exists, for if neither did at all, perhaps nobody would solely see this outfit as sexually appealing or inviting as I don't.

So usually when it comes to character customization for these characters, I just want to go with what looks cool to me. Note that my character is the only character that appears almost naked. If you were to see my other characters, as I'm sure I've posted before, they aren't dressed that way. My paladin's outfit is my second favorite armor set in this game, and this game has a variety of armor pieces seemingly endless in scale. My death knight is wearing armor that my old Burning Crusade character wore before the days of being able to customize armor appearance. This armor was stuff that dropped in the final content update of Burning Crusade, which brought the Sunwell Plateau raid. Everything in that patch, down to the armor itself, is brimming with Blood Elf lore. That armor was the armor of the High Elves and Highborne before and shortly after the Well of Eternity was destroyed, back when all the elves lived as one civilization. Plus, my death knight's version of that armor is actually like a faded, even "sickly" version of what it looks like for other classes, which is fitting for both death knights themselves as well as this character, who was supposed to be long-dead. And then on top of that, being armor associated with the elves, it is even more fitting for my death knight as she's supposed to be a character that's driven to bring glory to her race.

So I hope I have convinced you that, when it comes to this kind of customization, I think about the appearance on a much more complex level than "it's attractive." I sure as hell convinced myself of that, and if it hasn't for you, well then too bad because ultimately what you think doesn't matter because this is what I know. I'm sorry for wholly discrediting your criticism, but I will agree with you that, unfortunately, because of today's world, things like this may only make the problem worse by making other people think, "It's okay to make up and play as female characters for the weird-as-fucking-Hell reason of self-gratification." I also don't see this as something limited to just video games (but I will admit that is probably the worst sector of this issue). This is a problem I'd have to face in movies and even my own actual fiction. I could make a novel out of my warlock's character, do my utmost best to make her a human being in an actual story and not some walking fetish in a porno, and people will still see her as such because she's nearly naked and incites other people to think, "I can write pornos with walking fetishes." Unfortunately, other than "just don't make the character at all," there's nothing I can do to stop those weirdos.

Getting back to the whole reason why I make these characters in general, I think it is both a mixture of habit (this is something I've been doing for a long time) and my love for making characters... and of course, let's not forget that attractiveness reason I mentioned (which, if you remember, and you really should because it wasn't that long ago, I said is a seemingly uncontrollable psychological factor. People just show more liking to pretty things and people). Hell, even in Halo: Reach my female Spartan, which I initially just made female without even thinking about it, started to have a life of her own in my head. Honestly, I think it's great exercise for my own writing in the future.

That's my post, then. I feel like there may be some loose ends, some ideas that I meant to explore but didn't actually do so. Oh well, I still think I got my main points across, and I even managed to make myself feel less guilty about all this. I actually managed to make myself feel like a zealous dick, almost overly confident in my own belief, so yeah, that's good. I guess I'm gonna go then. Good night, everybody, and see you next time with an actual post about some sort of video game related somethings!

Reporting From the Sunspire

I thought really hard about doing a Warcraft post, but sadly I just don't feel like doing it. What am I to do with all these screenshots I took, then? Well, I'll just throw them up here anyway.

On my other blog, I used to upload a series of photos every month and label it a "Visual Shocks" post, the terminology inspired from what is possibly my favorite band (X Japan). It was all just straight photos, and that's pretty much what I'm doing here. At the end, though, I think I'll make an Inori table at least summing up what my past month has been like.

Here, I made it on top of the Sunspire in the Bloof Elf starting zone! I remember I used to fly up here when I used to play on private servers for lulz. My friend and I would duel up here and hang out and stuff (before dueling was removed from starting zones. This was way back in the glory days of The Burning Crusade). I used the Falling Flame and the Goblin Glider to get up here for the beautiful view... Which reminds me, I should try seeing what other places I could get to in Quel'Thalas... Quel'Danas.... however it's spelled (I should be ashamed since I love Blood Elves so much).

Here's just a couple of the grand achievements I've made in engineering on my death knight.

This is... I can't even explain really.

Lastly, the other cornerstone of where my time went with this game is in tanking with my awesome warlock!

I also gave it an xmog makeover. I thought it would look great with the demon wings since nearly bare skin is what demons are all about to me. I kind of feel guilty about the outfit, like some inner part of my conscience is telling me, "Hey, this could be seen as degrading," and I suppose so, yeah. But I'll save that topic for another post and attempt to prove that I'm not trying to be misogynistic here.

So in lieu of a table, I'll just write normally and see where that goes. So a few weeks ago I really wanted to pick up this game again for the Summer and fulfill some things that I never got around to doing. Originally I thought this was just getting better gear for my death knight, but then within a few days the RNG deities blessed me with a continuous stream of Burdens of Eternities, so I managed to raise her ilevel from five-hundred to five-hundred and twenty-five. So with that out of the way, I decided to finally finish Siege of Orgrimmar on my original main, a paladin. After this, I was stumped and left with nothing else really to do. So I decided to raise the skills I cared about to six-hundred, and boy what a grind I was in for.

For her engineering, it took me about three days to level it up completely. Not bad considering it took me like two weeks to level up jewelcrafting, but it was certainly not a very exciting experience. I basically flew around all day searching for ore nodes, which became kind of fun when I had to find ghost iron since there is so much fierce competition for it in the Valley of Four Winds. I had PVP left on by mistake and some level eighty-nine fool thought he could take me on. This was on my warlock, so I was really grinding for herbs to raise her alchemy, but same point really. Anyway, the grand moment here was that I used Carrion Swarm and sent that loser flying off Skyrange (I think that's what it's called). I hope, with all the ability pruning that's going on for Warlords, that I will not miss most of these moves like Carrion Swarm too much.

When I got her engineering to six-hundred, I managed to quickly find Jard's schematics, so I learned all the cool stuff that engineers got in 5.4, and now I'm off trying to make Pierre since I cannot make the Sky Golem in time before my game time is up. For some dumb reason there is a daily cooldown on making Jard's Peculiar Energy Source, which you need fifteen of those in order to make Pierre, and thirty for the Sky Golem. If you don't know what either of these things are, basically the Sky Golem is this really cool sort of mech mount that you can use to fly around and actually gather herbs without dismounting. Pierre is this robot stove that can serve as a cooking fire when he's out, allowing one to cook anywhere at anytime. Not that big of a deal really since the Cooking Fire spell that comes with cooking doesn't really have that much of a cooldown, but Pierre is still awesome so yeah. I could also make the robot from the Bad Robot logo, but I don't really care about it.

Since I also needed Living Steel, I decided to finally raise my warlock's alchemy. To raise her alchemy, I also needed to raise her herbalism. Or I could've just bought the herbs, but I have more time than I have gold, so raising herbalism it was. It was no big deal anyway since I still needed to gather a ton of herbs for alchemy, so raising herbalism came off as secondary, or something that just passively grew with alchemy. I was worried that I would have a hard time getting the transmutes once I reached six-hundred, but it seemed like I was either very lucky or everybody learns all of them by the time they reach six hundred. Whatever the case, I managed to learn both of the Living Steel transmutes, and so I set to work making them. So basically, most of my time with this game was spent taking hours to grind up hundreds of ghost-iron ore.

I also spent some time grinding for the Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, and also, while I was leveling up engineering, I managed to make Jeeves along the way! It felt really good having made these things myself. When I made Jeeves, I also decided then to raise her cooking to six-hundred, even though I essentially already did that on my paladin. Now that I think about it, I didn't really need to do that since I could've just had my paladin make noodle carts and send them to her. Noodle carts serve as feasts for groups, but the good thing about them is that it is actually a "shop" where your raid-mates can grab up to five plates of noodles, which come in varying degrees of stat boosts. If you are not familiar with raiding, even on LFR, people usually eat food for stat boosts. The way it's usually worked is that people would lay out "feasts," which are one-time use items. However, as I explained with the noodles, each member can get up to five of them, so that way the person making them won't have to keep making new ones. It's great because the recipes are relatively less demanding, and you make five of these noodle carts at once.

So anyway, getting back to my plan with her, I'm going to use her awesome cooking skills to make whatever feasts Blizzard creates in Warlords. So between that and Jeeves, she will really serve well in the department of raid utility. But that's not all! Because she is a Blood-specced death knight, and because I have a great brain for tanking, her will also be an awesome LFR tank (I don't really do much real raiding, but maybe in the next expansion I'll take up "flex," or I think what is now considered "normal"). Couple her great raid utility with her awesome capabilities as a tank, and I'll have one of the best raiding characters ever! People are going to miss me specifically when they find themselves in another LFR group with a tank who wears DPS gear and ignores raid mechanics. Guilds will be jealous of my friend's guild and constantly request that I switch her over! She'll be so popular! This is pretty much why I decided to switch mains and make her my main instead of my paladin. I love paladins, and I've always played as them since the days of Burning Crusade, but death knights are just so good at everything. Plus I can't forget that her has Jeeves and all those noodle carts/future feasts in Warlords. It all just makes me very excited.

So really, I think that's about it. I don't think there's really much else that I've done with this game, but this all feels like a lot. I'm just really glad that I got these skills raised, because now in Warlords I won't have to worry so much about spending the time to raise them.

Update: I got the Pandaren Treasure Noodle kit recipe! They are surprisingly cheaper to make in gold than in time (as far as I know it takes days to get enough of the "crop" ingredients for all the food. I'm talking about the carrots and vegetables and whatnot), since the food you need to make/get has never actually cost more than three-hundred gold on a full stack of twenty. Since I got full stacks of twenty for each food, I wound up spending about a thousand gold, which I guess is kind of a lot but it's really not that hard to make back. Plus I manage to make twenty carts with all that food, which in turn equals a hundred "feasts" to give out. I'd say a thousand gold is totally worth it and nothing compared to the otherwise days that probably must be spent to accumulate a similar quantity of ingredients (remember, enough to make four sets of carts, i.e. twenty of them).

I also tanked as this character in raids for the first time since forever. Both times were very interesting: first, my group sucked at both healing and dps. So what happened? On Sha of Pride, everybody got their Pride meters full, and the boss was just about to mind-control the entire raid, and somehow we managed to kill the boss and succeed even though we were mind-controlled at the exact same time. The second raid I did was the first wing of Throne of Thunder, and that went strangely as I had a Frost death knight for an offtank. Oh brother. I wound up getting nearly twenty stacks on Horridon, which seemed scary and of course I did end up dying, but thankfully since it was LFR, I managed to mitigate the damage long enough to let the raid pull through. But then right after some idiot hunter kept Aspect of the Pack on for like a good twenty minutes. That was annoying. Other than these things, though, nothing wrong with my tanking! I guess the Random Number Gods, in spite of not actually being that huge of a role in this matter, paired me up with a stupid tank to prove to me that I am actually capable and good at tanking. Well we'll see how that goes if I decide to run the rest of Siege of Orgrimmar on my death knight.

Moments of Final Fantasy Type-0 (Announcement)

I haven't been around here for a while, and I do apologize for that. I recently purchased another month of game time for World of Warcraft, so that's been my past couple of weeks, really. I did quite a lot of things, which I'll maybe show off in a bit: I got a new transmog outfit for my warlock, I got several skills (Alchemy, Engineering, Herbalism, and Cooking) to six hundred, I made a Turbo-Charged Flying Machine, I've made enough Living Steel to make Pierre, I of course found the schematics for Pierre and all those other cool engineering things, I finally got Ra'sha's Sacrificial Dagger (which may end up being useless in Warlords), I raised my death knight's ilevel from five hundred to five hundred and twenty four, and too many other things to remember. I'm impressed I managed to do all these things, and maybe I will make a post of that too since I don't write about Warcraft too often. Truth is I should be talking about Warlords of Draenor, but I haven't really been following it.

Anyway, so as for Type-0, what I want to do is make a video of several points of the game that I found memorable. Unfortunately this excludes cutscenes, because otherwise I will land myself in a lawsuit with Square Enix. Keep in mind I may not actually decide to do this after all, and so instead I'll just write about it here. That is if I even decide to do that, because lately I just don't really feel like writing about the game anymore. We'll see what happens.

But yeah, expect a WoW post eventually and possibly next.

I Go to Twitter Now

https://twitter.com/cheetahblades

This will probably end up being the world's most pathetic Twitter page, oh well. Yes that is my real name, I'm not scared of you. Anything else I need to say?

Well, yeah actually. I still plan to write here, this Twitter page is just for short thoughts that I don't feel are worth blowing up into full-blown posts here. Also, hopefully in conjunction with my Twitter page, I'll be pumping out more writing and stuff. As for future blog posts, I'm actually thinking of doing another Type-0 post, which will be more conversational and just a bunch of recounts of moments in the game. I'm debating, however, whether I should write or do another Howl episode, this time with footage from the game. And if I do use footage from the game, I have to be careful because, even if Square Enix was actually cool about the situation with SkyBladeCloud's translation, I'm still afraid that the slightest thing is going to set them off and start sending me the Cease and Desists and headaches.

Beyond Type-0... I don't really know what else. I guess there's that Super Metroid essay, I still have to get around to playing the game again. There are two games I need to play before I go back to school, which are The Longest Journey and Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, but I don't see a reason to write about them here. Not that I am thinking they are bad games by any means, it's just that they are so old and obscure that I wonder who is actually going to sit down and read about them? Especially given how long my posts tend to be.

So hopefully, this Twitter will serve for when I have a blog drought. That's all for now.

Final Fantasy Type-0 (Review)

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