@pants: Specific beef with a moderator? Where did I say that? I'm making a note on how trigger happy the moderation here has always been, concerning anything contrarian in nature. Deny that, I dare you.
Also, I have a special word for people who view critical thinking as a "waste of energy". Wanna guess what that word is?
You haven't started yourself with good footing for this conversation, since your opening statement is a giant pile of sarcasm that's hard to read the point of (you even make references that have no context, making it appear you simply have an axe to grind). Besides that, if you're presenting an argument clearly in bad faith, then you're naturally not going to have people respond in good faith.
There's an irony to slamming people for being hostile, when your comments are basically the exclusive stand-out hostility in this comment section. I don't mean to berate you for this, but I want to let you know how it appears to someone who's just reading through. Pace yourself, friend. Most folks will welcome an alternative opinion if it's presented respectfully (there's those that don't, but there's no helping them anyway). The problem with our Internet discourse right now is that people make a lot of assumptions about one another's intentions, or the cliques they belong to, and begin arguments somewhere in a nebulously-established middle-of-the-argument rather than at the beginning with one another like individuals. Because it turns out, we're all a lot more nuanced and complicated than the two basic pictures that are painted about one side or another. Give folks credit and talk, and let's do our best not to spread vitriol. Almost no one wants to listen through verbal acidity directed at them, so... what's even the point? Let's all strive to do a little better, and maybe we can start shaking our hands even as we disagree.
Anyway, that's my little ranty ramble. Have a good day.
There's room for nuance in this discussion that neither side seems to be terribly willing to look for. I think it's fair to say that, yeah, this is a rather sensitive time for our political discourse and obviously not everyone's gonna be willing to engage in patriotism, even in jest. These symbols have hurt a lot of people, so this is understandable and worth respecting.
I think it's also fair to say that Dan & Abby are definitely not white nationalists, neither are people who happen to find this imagery innocuous/funny. Even though the far right glorifies these symbols to the point of perversion, they don't own them. There's lots of reasonable people who celebrate the flag and don't want to surrender it to the awful folks of the country. This, too, is understandable and worth respecting.
This is kind of general and not specific to this thread: everyone should try harder to not have knee-jerk reactions about each other, or turn thoughts/feelings into battle-lines. Polarization is a bad thing, and unhelpful for improving our currently-poor level of discourse. Consider each other's ideas, debate, disagree ... but try not to hate. Enemies will never be able to come together and get anything done. Fighting just leads to more fighting, when what we need are more friends. Friends listening, understanding, and compromising for each other.
So many questions. Why is Jade seemingly evil in the prequel? What's going to happen to that awesome space pirate ship.
The twist at the end of the first game I think explains this. Though it's been awhile, so I imagine there's a slight bit of retconning going on here too. If you're curious I could offer a spoiler. I'll warn that it's just sliiightly dumb, haha
This was my favorite TITR thus far, even with the vast number of episodes. Never got boring to me watching them do the same levels, and it was awesome watching them get progressively better each episode.
You're a braver man than I, sir. I couldn't finish this game. I just couldn't. I tried to force myself to, but my strength gave out in the end, and FFX-2 certainly wasn't interested in throwing me anything to help keep me afloat. I drowned.
Like you, I actually came away from FFX pretty satisfied with the world of Spira -- I thought it was remarkably well-realized and thoughtfully crafted. It meshed with the story, felt alive and interesting, dripping with theme and purpose.
Then I started FFX-2 shortly after a playthrough of FFX.
I was on the FFX high, going "yeah, fuck yeah Spira!" only for FFX-2 to come along and slap me in the face. As if to say, "this is your punishment for enjoying FFX, you wanker!" Legitimately though, it did make me feel like it was wrong to be invested in FFX's Spira, because none of the logic of the world, the behavior of its people, or even their beliefs or politics carry over to this sequel, except arguably on the most surface of levels. It was enough to make me confident that FFX-2 shared none of the same writing staff -- instead, I presume, we had people who found notes from the previous director scrawled on restaurant napkins and figured they could build a sequel off of that. I mean, like you say, they couldn't even get Yuna right!
Okay, whew. I'll stop that rant before it goes any further.
Hilarious writeup as always, my man! I appreciate your takes, and wish you godspeed going forward! I wanna see what you have to say all the way up through the end -- but I also certainly would not bemoan you for giving this one up, because by god, I wouldn't wish this game on anyone.
I honestly can't remember the last time one of the gang wasn't sick, I swear once someone gets better another person gets sick. Please start wearing hazmat suits to the office!
The weird thing is that there's rampant sickness even half the country away where I live -- workmates, friends, customers, everyone's been sick recently like at least twice in a short period of time. Must be some effin' bad bugs going around.
Just been interesting to see their California office mimic what I've been experiencing here in my Oklahoma life lately.
@superkenon: wasn't there a day that the save was corrupted and Vinny had to spend hours and do his magic to save it?
That was actually a corrupt video file rather than a game glitch. Which I'm sure must have been super stressful since that was Episode 50 -- the much-famed summer camp episode, that ran longer than any episode thus far.
What he did that day is still super impressive to me. Hex-editing a video back to life takes some real chops. I've dipped my foot into that world and it's scary.
"Ryo, can you stand here while I talk to you in an oddly stilted fashion about that day?"
"I see..."
Glitches are not unknown in Endurance Runs; I remember that progress they lost one episode of Persona 4.
Man, I can't remember that at all. Where did that happen? I can only remember a handful of times when they lost progress due to game freezes in Deadly Premonition.
Oh god, I want Bloodstained to be good, but this team really isn't making a great name for themselves. If bloodstained turns out bad it will be my first kickstarted game failure.
To be fair, while both games are under the Inti Creates banner, it's different teams and talent working on each game (for instance, Inafune's company Comcept worked on this game, and they have nothing to do with Bloodstained). Plus, Igarashi is a much more hands-on producer. So I don't think Mighty No. 9 should be viewed as an indicator for Bloodstained's trajectory.
So far, the language coming from Igarashi and his team seems so much more self-aware and grounded than anything that ever came from the MN9 front...
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