Lurker > SeabassDebeste

EEAAO
Batman
Banshees

legit have never heard of most from the first list. is that imdb?

yeah, very familiar with that frustration. always appreciate a good spotter

power of the dog > three billboards >>>>>>>> la la land > the revenant

power of the dog and three billboards were okay. LLL and revenant were miserable

parasite > eeaao > shape of water

really enjoyed all three

i guess i'd theoretically like to watch them all for completeness's sake, but i don't really expect to enjoy a fair number of em

rupert grint's portrayal of ron is widely considered to be very funny by movie fans though

apparently i forgot tho do wordle yesterday :/ steak was only like 16 but still

AriaOfBolo posted...

it's been a few years since I have engaged but wasn't Ron always kinda a petty loser in the books?

I know he at least was for like the whole second half and that's the part that left an impression

yeah, i am pretty confused by the takes in this thread. ron's jealousy of harry is his defining characteristic in books 4 and 7

6 is by far the best movie. turning the series into a teen movie was brilliant

3 is by a huge margin the worst as a book fan.

yeah, should clarify that i don't have every streaming service (no paramount+ or appleTV) and wasn't particularly interested in paying - i'm sure if i had gone to youtube or amazon i could have paid to watch the majority

and good call on AQWF, i forgot that

(also i thought avatar was available on disney+?)

over the last week and a half or so i was pretty frustrated with the lack of options i was capable of streaming for BP. wasn't interested in elvis or avatar; all i was literally able to stream besides that was banshees of inisherin which was fun

that said i loved EEAAO. definitely happy it won!

MacArrowny posted...

Unless you mean 5-6, the last and arguably best case in the game.

inarguably, tbh

i feel DR and AA are very clearly comparable due to how they alternate trials and investigations and have a similar number of cases. 999 (the only one i've played) is pretty different.

it's not clear to me that DR is written for a younger audience, but its "benefit" over AA is clearly in its larger main cast, plus the fact that main cast members are murderers and victims.

oh and of course the improved hangman's gambit

Wordle 631 5/6







goddammit lol

time loop is definitely one of my favorite plot settings

Wordle 630 5/6







torus
wield
helix
elfin
email

happy with my cool guesses, but they took me a while!

that's a fair point, but nahyuta and apollo's relationship is actually one of the least important things about the game! and they don't seem to do anything in 6-2 either - so i wouldn't be concerned with that loss. maybe have hints dropped in 6-2 with a different prosecutor, and then the two meet outside of court in 6-5 or something?

athena and blackquill have a much more interesting relationship, as a contrast

i think the hotter take at this point is: i actually like nahyuta. they just used him far too much. if he isn't in 6-2, the game probably benefits. that said he was great in 6-4.

i don't think the games are too long, but the cases are, if that makes sense.

(edit) like nanis points out, it's annoying when you say "okay, i'll play another hour to finish part 2 of this trial and wrap the case" and then it turns out to go another 2-3.

been busy since moving but we'll taken on this dungeon again

hmm... well for me, the "earlier games were better" takes are pretty standard but i'll state them again

- the simple diversity, banter, and pacing of earlier games, especially aa1, can't be beat. 1-3 will always be a top case because of this. 3-2 as well, though i admit it is a little longer. agree with the comment earlier that we don't need longer days; breaking stuff up is easy better for pacing.

- 3D investigation is mostly a waste of time; pointing and clicking was definitely better

- as mentioned slightly above, all the animations really just show the games down. they look kinda nice but i'm not playing to see blackquill sloooooowly pound the table and snap out of his chains and spend 15 seconds awing the audience. the gaps between dialogue are too long now, when the animations get repeated as much as they do.

---

other than this, some more lukewarm tastes, as i generally agree with consensus:

- 4-2 is enjoyable. it's low stakes and offbeat and fun.

- revisiting AA1 in later games feels uncanny valley-ish and generally kind of depressing - the layton game and 6-6 for instance.

- the obsession with epicness/giant stakes is a big reason the series has tapped out; i would happily play a bunch of 1-3 or 3-2-esque cases

- edgeworth in 3-5 >>> edgeworth in his own games

- fey clan drama is miserable. 2-2 is a drag and 3-5 is carried by godot and edgeworth rather than anything fey-related.

- not sure if there's a great way around this, but i feel blackquill and nahyuta's coolness are both brought down by how much of them we see in a short period of time. maybe if they were less hyped or they're animations were faster it wouldn't grind as much because godot did not reach this point. (admittedly godot gets only 2.5 total cases, but i felt like i could've taken another 3-3 easily.)

- the series' obsession with your assistant being a 15 year old girl has clearly passed weird territory. just let them age; the players and player characters have. ryonusuke having romantic feelings for a girl 8 years his junior is weird - why can't susato's canonical age just be 21 instead?

one of the reasons it's painful is that these are really really long cases and yeah, GAA1's resolutions suck. if there's a flaw in GAA2 it's certainly that it buckles under the weight of the story it creates by the end.

that said the music, animations, and protagonists are top notch and the general setting is excellent

i mean spending 6 seasons on their romance (it starts in S4, right?) is the issue there, not the conclusion, which actually seems fairly obvious. and barney's backsliding behavior when they break up is predictable - in fact we see him doing exactly that the first time he and robin break up, only the show celebrated it then

like yeah the second half of HIMYM sucked but it's not really on the finale. it was just calling the checks the other seasons already wrote

whether or not you like the direction and execution, all of those things were foreshadowed and how the show was clearly heading. (the mother being dead was particularly foreshadowed in a S8 episode.) it's not the finale's "fault" that those things happened, though maybe it's the showrunners' fault for structuring the final season the way they did and not giving as much time to what was incoming

Aecioo posted...

Really bad finale. It's one of my favorite shows ever and it just felt so flat.

I'm OK with them finally getting their comeuppance, but the execution of it was super flawed.

Edit - my favorite thing about the finale though is how it's addressed in Curb multiple times, and Larry David still defends it while acknowledging everyone else hates it

yeah, curb s7 is great all-around

masterplum posted...

Unlike something like how I met your mother which I have not watched a single episode of since I watched the finale like a decade ago

while i also haven't revisited HIMYM, i think the last 2 minutes of the finale are the true miserable part, and that the rest of it still mostly works. the show's overall dropoff in quality starting with S5 and the entire barney-robin romance i think is more severe of an issue

yeah, it wasn't good. kinda left me feeling empty, and bit just because the show was over

phoebe's brother

https://www.reddit.com/r/Tinder/comments/11l8tql/i_dont_know_what_else_to_do_this_is_my_profile/

this showed up on the front page of reddit and i think the advice/criticism is on point

Wordle 627 3/6





lingo
regal
glare

fun second word pattern!

haven't played disco elysium so no comment there. fata morgana is very very good... but it's also incredibly long-winded, so just be prepared for that. and it has some very uncomfortable subject material.

i enjoyed new orleans and love popeye's

haven't seen any of the rest of it

Wordle 624 4/6






share
flout
tonic
toxic

fun guess pattern :)

Wordle 622 3/6





prove
squad
squat

so clooooose

Underleveled posted...

This struggle is real. My self-assessment is that I don't have good features but I'm reasonably fit, dress and groom well, and practice impeccable personal hygiene. A few times I've told female friends just how little I've dated and they've come back with "I don't know why, it's not like you're a bad-looking guy," and they seemed sincere about it and not just saying it because they're my friends. So I dunno.

if you have female friends who you're close enough with to comment about stuff like that, you can ask them for help with pics. not kidding!

CassandraCain posted...

What constitutes as a good photo?

Like I'm not ugly but I'm not super attractive either (prob goes without saying).

- not a selfie
- taken with good lighting, preferably natural
- taken with a good quality camera
- you are easily identifiable (the primary photos should have you as the only person)
- you look pretty good (for yourself)

many, many guys won't have this sort of pic. you could ask your friends to help you with them and slowly build up a few.

i had some success with tinder, hinge, and okcupid. met my wife on tinder.

having good photos is super super helpful.

Wordle 621 2/6




acorn
above

was trying to type "score" for guess 1 when i hit A instead of S. worked out well

frank's brother

Mega_Mana posted...

What are some further persuasions on these?

broken earth is a very different fantasy world than the european swords and sorcery. it's not my favorite but book 1 at least is very very readable, and it's worth it for the world alone. from there your call whether to continue!

ASOIAF is indeed amazing, but the latter two books are vexing and end on a cliffhanger. would not recommend rn especially because the latter seasons of the tv show are also garbage. and i assume if you were really interested in the show you would've watched it by now. that said if you did read it i would follow with a rapt eye

my favorite series i've read lately is the dandelion dynasty (book 1: grace of kings, by ken liu). it's definitely a different style from others in the genre (especially book 1; think beowulf or the iliad) and it has its own legibility and pace issues (especially book 3), but it's super-ambitious and complete.

i'm not huge on it myself, but the fifth season series (NK jemisin) is also highly regarded.

if you want to try a quick breezy read, i found verity (colleen hoover) a fun one. blew through it in 3-4 hours and while it was limited in scope, i liked what it did within it. in a similar genre there's girl on the train and any gillian flynn novel, especially sharp objects or gone girl.

anyway congrats on finishing drv3! yes, curious to hear the wrap-up thoughts!

the dandelion dynasty is a four-book sci-fi/fantasy that probably is my favorite read of the last five years

congrats! unfortunately i haven't been able to catch many lately since you stream pretty late at night, but that's really amazing!

drv3-6 is truly so stupid

but yeah it's kinda great

the final cases are just so interminable it feels

welp

Fiop posted...

If youre struggling to beat the boss, try exploring some places you havent been to.

yeah, this seems reasonable. i thought i was taking the branch off of the main path in the cave, but i somehow found myself in front of this boss which feels very "main path"

so i should go back to the beginning of the cave

most_games_r_ok posted...

Lamia is a nasty early game enemy and Gizamaluke often shreds the unprepared.....how many party members ya got?

i've got four - found my way into qu's marsh and came out with quina the frog-eater

i also caught all eight of the frogs in that pond to establish dominance

hmm, not seeing how we're gonna beat this boss - he basically did not damage to me in a guy than i can heal

these enemies are tough! just nearly died in the grotto to a random encounter that looked like a woman, then died to the boss snake dragon thing!

i was neck and neck with freya before fighting the zaghnol. that was with turbo on for most of it though

htaeD posted...

The Hunt is so good
Love that anyone can win it

are you able to control who wins it?

is there a specific way to find the zaghnol? i just happened to stumble upon it after bouncing around from location to location

Whew, got a bit more into the game. So Zidane recruits his old friend (?) Freya to join us, though she still wanders at first. We take the airbus through Lindblum which definitely adds to its sense of scale. I enjoy the style of the city a lot but it kind of feels empty - not a ton of discover other than the varied scenery and one neat little sequence where Zidane talks to some kids who knew him from before he took the latest gig with Tantalus. We also find Cloud's Buster Sword in a shop, where Zidane mentions he vaguely recognizes someone like that...

More fun are the other little sequences, which have very quickly distinguished themselves as the best part (by far) of FFIX - Steiner getting roasted in the streets by a Red Mage who thinks he's coming onto her and an old lady selling some pungent food, Vivi absolutely loving this Kupo Nut, the Tantalus thinking about how to rescue their petrified member. Later we see Steiner checking out armor and Vivi seeing some kids play with royal action figures (which of course make him think of the manufactured Black Mages...)

In order to finally advance the plot, we have to go to Dagger. We have to do a little deceit to reach her, even though it winds up being perhaps the lowest-stakes disguise ever - people randomly salute us, and after we're discovered, there are zero repercussions. Funny! Zidane approaching Dagger - who's singing a lovely song with a vocal sound effect that reminds us of Celes's Aria di Mezzo - is a pretty dramatic moment, complete with FMV. But she's a little colder on Zidane after stewing on the new information that Cid hired Tantalus to begin with to kidnap her. We try to put the moves on her by telling her to look out the telescope and getting a lay of the land that we will clearly soon traverse, but she's not impressed.

Zidane, who's earlier proven to be a womanizer with more than just his OTP crush, asks Dagger out if he wins the city's traditional Hunt Festival. (Dagger rightfully points out that she has zero connection to the Hunt Festival, but who's counting?) Nonetheless she agrees, and off we go!

The Hunt involves us solo-fighting a bunch of monsters. We actually have to seek them out fairly actively, which is a tad annoying. We burn through almost all of our healing items during the twelve minutes and use the Switch's turbo-speed version during battles to speed things up a little bit, and eventually we kill the gigantic Zaghnol with literally four seconds remaining. Freya actually joins us for this part of it and we get to experience her battle prowess for the first time. The only ability I actually use here is her Jump, which is always one of my favorite FF staple skills due to its power and the fun animation. But I'm looking forward to finding out what "Dragon" does...

Afterward, we feast, but before Zidane gets his date, we hear word that there's an invasion of Black Mages in Burmicia, one of the other Three Great Kingdoms of the land. But before we go there, we randomly decide to feast, and naturally Dagger - being restricted as a princess ought to - drugs everyone so she and Steiner can escape.

With just Vivi and Freya, it's time to march to the Dragon Gate!

---

- Steiner cheering on the off-screen Vivi - who's obviously running in terror from the monsters - is phenomenal. Bears reiterating that these little sequences have been the heart of the game so far. (Steiner's I MUST PROTECT THE PRINCESS schtick, while consistent with his character, has been a lot more tedious.) There's also a hilarious moment where Vivi runs past Zidane in terror, chased by a monster.

- Another great Steiner moment: swooning after everyone else faints, only to realize his food wasn't drugged