escapevelocity

lol Tam, there is no world where anyone should even think about recommending Kabaneri to anyone they might consider a friend. Maybe recommend the first three episodes or so, but along with Aldnoah Zero, that show solidified in my mind that there is nothing in this world that is safe from turning into a flaming trash heap regardless of how beautifully it starts.

This seems like the correct way to do these lists, fantastic outcome.

That being said, I'm quite sad that they went as far as mentioning MHR: Sunbreak, and then proceeded to immediately forget to write it down because Dan got distracted by suggesting to stop at 100 lol. Seems like they could have just gone over 100 since they left out things like Metal Hellsinger too... maybe they can just collect a list of user-voted games instead of trying to rely on memory to make the initial big list?

It's so weird that they did normal translations for the pokemon noises for pretty much everything, but decided to do what seems like 1 to 1 literal sound matching for the motorcycle dude. Like... believable onomatopoeias are different for every culture. Why make it sound so awkward for the thing that (presumably) you'd be hearing the most from?

As for the pronunciation of "Hideo": Japanese is a pretty monotone language, so there's no real emphasis on any of the syllables in his name... but I think it'd be the closest to "hee-Deh-oh" if you want to make it sound natural in English.

Replicants, Gestalts, robots being thrust into situations where they question their humanity, humans not being what they appear to be at first, robots being infected by zombi-fying viruses... (bonus: the sudden perspective switching)

Looks like these folks REALLY liked the Nier series lol. A Nier + RE + Metal Gear amalgamation sounds like a real good time.

I mean I'll take it a step further: I think it's flat out insane when people don't at least skim read through the story of a game, even if it's not a great one. That's your context for doing anything in a game, and knowing that is hardly ever going to be a negative effect on the gameplay (unless the story is like... actively offensive or something).

But more than anything, the "I just skip through any reading" crowd always end up being confused about games because they literally skip over the parts that are telling them what to do or how to proceed, and have the audacity to complain about it, often very vocally lol. Drives me insane.

Yeah the hosts said it themselves, but the censorship criteria in Japan and the US is just the complete opposite; they're much more open about sexual content (though the nuances of that treatment, in terms of how objectifying it is and such, is a whole separate issue), but shy away from extreme violence. As a Japanese person myself, I sometimes browse the forums and blogs over there, but it's interesting to see their reaction to the hyperviolence in US games (and US gamers' reaction to this censorship difference). It's pretty common to see them make snarky comments like "oh suuuuuure having games feature cute girls with small clothes is a crime against humanity, but letting kids shoot people in the face is tooootally fine" lol. Then you remember that these "cute girls" are often depicted as suspiciously young, and you realize that they have their own issues too :P

It does make me wonder about a sort of chicken or egg question in terms of gun culture in America though. The general acceptance of depictions of gun violence in US media is definitely (at least partially) rooted in how America has a gun culture where much, much more people are ok with the presence of guns and other deadly weapons in normal life (in contrast, Japanese people generally don't want guns anywhere near their lives; being a fan of guns will get you the "kind of dangerous weirdo" label in a lot of cases). But it also feels like the media depiction of guns also feeds into fostering this kind of culture. Which came first? I'd guess it's just something that's a little bit of both, but it's interesting to think about.

lol it's always funny how streams like these have people giving bad/poorly worded advice, and the streamer almost always picks up on them. "Dodging is bad in this game" is such a bad half-truth. It's a very important part of your toolkit, but it's also true that you have to know when to use it. I think you'll do just fine if you take it a little slower and try to really observe what's going on, both in the combat and exploration.

Also because absolutely nobody wanted to rebuy their games for a worse experience on a new unproven service by a company that is notorious for cutting projects quickly... it was DOA, even if they did advertise it widely.

As with all video game streams, this so much lol. Though I understand streamers generally don't have the time or attention capacity (due to paying attention to chat, trying to make fun commentary/conversations, etc.) to do so. It might be because I'm fluent in Japanese, but the text and dialogue in Sekiro just OOZES with flavor, and it's such a joy to read.

@janman IDK how closely you read these comments, but here's some tips you might have missed:

• There's really no such thing as "saving" revives, and there's basically no benefit to choosing death. Essentially, the revive is your second health bar, and the "real" death is your "game over" screen... at which point you're punished by losing half your money and unfilled EXP bar, and may get further "punished" by having one of the NPCs contract the curse. Trying not to be cheeky here, but this means you want to avoid actually dying lol. There are ways to cure the NPCs of the curse, so don't worry about it too much; but it does lock some of them out of their sidequest lines until you do, IIRC.
  • Also, I don't remember if you ever did what Emma asked about getting coughed up blood from someone that contracted the curse...
• As you saw, important bosses drop memories of battle that will let you increase your attack power (the option to re-fight them was added quite some time after launch, so it might be confusing to see it now. You don't really need to do it). But also, the mini-bosses, like the chained ogre-man, drop prayer beads that let you increase your health, Zelda style in batches of 4. Unless you want to make the game harder for yourself, you actually want to try to kill everything you come across, at least if they seem manageable. For example, that strong samurai dude in the courtyard with the pan-banging dude will drop one.
• Most (but not all) bosses and tough enemies have some level of weakness to a specific prosthetic tool. As such, I highly recommend collecting them when you have the opportunity. The firecracker you guys mentioned a lot is a good example.
• Not to repeat myself... but reading IS really important in this game. It's not just because of the flavor text, because they give clues about what to do and will often times tell you things like how the firecrackers scare animals. The information you get from eavesdropping tend to be particularly useful.
  • just as a personal opinion: one of the most beautiful things about this game is how everything is so intentional. There are really very few texts or dialogue bits that are "pointless" or "wasted" like how some of the mainstream AAA games tend to do to fill an oversized open world. The story is very focused (and relatively easy to understand for a Souls-Like), most characters have a rich side story to tell that directly feed into the main story most of the time, and things like eavesdropping are intentionally placed to give gameplay or story hints. Like you said, this game is really, really good. And it's not just the combat.