prismaillya 🐌

they have

incorrect

if blizzard had someone else take up that role i genuinely have no clue who they are and i'm assuming they didn't because it is such an immediate target to paint on someone, if the community doesn't like them they immediately become a serious contender for worst job on the planet

jeff kaplan was maybe the best i've seen a front facing dev go because most of the community made loving memes of him in spite of the fact that the overwatch balancing team routinely dropped some of the worst patches known to man. the number of patches that improved the game are single digits.

having a front facing dev as the herald for a game's balancing decisions is very often fraught, and similarly patches coming from the team with minimal communication causes problems in the exact opposite direction, so having a pseudonymous guy people can't try to dox is a perfect middle ground

it's REALLY funny.

a good way to demonstrate this is that elden ring has a higher achievement completion rate of its endings than even BG3. it's like 30%

people characterize it as Typical Behind The Times Nintendo but the fact they've seen nearly 20 years of achievements and trophies and have, at every opportunity, refused to add them at this point has to be a deliberate decision not to engage with all of that and they might be right to

in a lot of ways the threats to make her an interesting character make things significantly worse than if she had truly nothing to offer

the urge to do serious historical revisionism to justify why things are uniquely bad now

FUCK

the setting has some interesting bits, the game has a fair bit of reactivity to it, but it's definitely more interactive fiction than RPG which can be a bit hard to adjust to. it is very layered in a way that makes the short runtime prime for replayability, but i won't be doing that for a bit.

certainly an interesting game if nothing else. i have some minor gripes with the presentation and mechanics but ultimately the game does set out what it intends to do quite well. it wasn't immediately obvious what the game was going for but i think it is Worth A Shot if it sounds like your thing.

44. Roadwarden

7/10

Swalot, Gardevoir, Marowak, Mightyena, Tangrowth, Aerodactyl

the plot is genuinely good, the rebalances are really interesting, and the focus on double battles makes this stand out a lot. it really does feel like every pokemon is viable. the level caps are a bit weird and endgame is a bit rocket tag but nothing too bad. i will likely do postgame as well.

when a good pokemon hack hits it REALLY hits. the second i found out about this i watched it like a hawk until it came out in full and it was so worth it. the etrian inspiration is amazing on every level from the designs to the mechanics and REALLY reminds me i need to play more of those games.

43. Pokemon Odyssey

9/10

also it requires so much coordination you need to have open chat which allows the dudes who think they're fighting on the western front in alliance chat to try to yell directions at people who are mindlessly feeding to get it over with, CC keeps it to canned phrases because it's simple enough to

it's like night and goddamn day. i so direly wish CC had any meaningful rewards to it because i would use it to level jobs if they would let me.

almost definitely the last of these i'll be playing for now but it's a REALLY good note to end on. kirby translates wonderfully to 3D while introducing a lot of really good new ideas on top of it. mouthful modes are a very good gimmick, and evolved copy abilities make up for the small roster a LOT.

42. Kirby and the Forgotten Land

9/10

well that's very easily the best one of these by a lot. complete perfection of everything good about the previous two games with a ton of new stuff. the mech adds a ton to the gameplay, a bunch of great level designs in both aesthetic and function, susie is great, it's all just amazing.

41. Kirby Planet Robobot

9/10

my only real issues besides some minor stuff is in the back half the RNG that makes you drop copy abilities fucked me over REALLY often but i will try not to hold that against the game, even though i am curious what the fuck the problem was.

more kirby is of course ontologically good, this feels like return to dream land 2 in many ways and i generally like it as much as that game as a result. the specific nuances are there but they're not major, like the setpiecey sections in RTDL are better in this game for instance.

40. Kirby Triple Deluxe

9/10

it annoys me SO MUCH like he is NOT making the point people who use it think he's making. and the point he's making was kinda weird and reactionary! but it's close enough to Current Thing if you squint so it's all a-okay i guess.

very good and cool. the main games basically get better each time with only great cave offensive [the genuine low point of the game] breaking that trend. i wish another game would use this structure ever because it's such a great way to format a game.

after playing a kirby game to completion for the first time in way too goddamn long i had to go back and see how my previous goat holds up. the answer is it definitely does. i went with the SNES version instead of the ultra i grew up on and while it was a bit of an adjustment it was still