The Smash Ultimate Salt Mine Report (feat. Rosalina)

So Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has been out for months now, and I still haven’t unlocked Elite Smash yet.

On one hand, I’m okay with that because I have enough trouble with the rank-and-file of regular quick play matches.  Best to struggle with those that are (usually) my speed down in the salt mines -- because misery loves company, or something.  On the other hand, this is my pride as a gamer and Smash vet we’re talking about here.  I think I’ve got something like 4 million GSP overall, with my Zelda in the top spot with a similar single-character amount.  Even if I don’t choose to go Elite, I still want the recognition that I could go Elite.

We’ll see if/when I make it there.  And if I do?  It’ll probably be with my current main, Rosalina.

...and Luma.

Let’s discuss Devil May Cry V (feat. DmC).

Well, it’s 2019 and I still hate DmC: Devil May Cry.  

All things considered, I’m okay with that.

When on I dance it’s not over

Weave right through to get closer

Like a silver bullet piercing through

I throw myself into you

…And spoilers.  Always into spoilers.

Also, I’m doing DmC again…again.  Yay.

The Smash Ultimate Salt Mine Report (feat. Joker)

Expectation: Take advantage of time zone shenanigans to play as Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on April 16^th, 2019

Reality: Play as Joker in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate after several failed hours of attempting to brave the total wipeout of the Nintendo eShop, coalescing into me giving up, going to sleep, getting woken up at 4:33 AM, downloading the 3.0.0 update, goofing around and getting the Persona 5 Spirits, and then going back to sleep on April 18^th, 2019

Moral of the story: try to resist the urge to misappropriate the famous “hell is other people” quote when referring to any gamer who isn’t you, and simply enjoy the fact that there’s a new character in Smash.

The keyword here is “try”.  But I’ll get to that.

BRB Joker is in Smash

I love how the timing for this is both amazing and awful.

Does Square-Enix Hate Women? -- ACT II

I don’t know what’s worse -- the fact that this is the second time I’ve thought to write this post, or the fact that (thanks to Final Fantasy 7, of all things) I feel like I understand the Squeenix collective’s method to their madness.  

Send help regardless.

All right, in order to write this post, I’m going to have to be pretty freakin’ cavalier with spoilers on multiple Final Fantasy games, and several Kingdom Hearts games as well -- including KHIII.  Then again, all of those games but one are at least a few years old by now, sooooooooooooooooooooo…you’ll live.  Probably.  

Let’s discuss Devil May Cry V (Part 3).

Vergil: Why do you refuse to gain power?  The power of our father, Sparda?

Dante: Father?  *laughs*  I don’t have a father.  I just don’t like you, that’s all.

Dante’s lines in that exchange have bothered me for more than a decade.  I’ve gone over them in my head, over and over again.  Like, okay, I see what the script was going for; Dante (to his detriment) was willing to act like his heritage didn’t matter, and made it up that cursed tower solely to beat his brother.  But the way it plays out, those two sentences together have no relation to one another, and it’s jarring enough to make my brain ache.  There have to be smoother ways to show Dante’s disdain for his bloodline -- maybe something like “Who cares about him?  I’m here to party with you.”  Anything.

Given the context of the franchise, Devil May Cry has always courted weirdness and camp.  In 3, our hero’s quest for fratricide is in the same space as pretending he’s Bruce Lee.  In 4, the hero who lost his girlfriend to a pack of self-righteous zealots can play air guitar after pile-driving demons.  And in V?  The story briefly hits the pause button to turn a devil hunter into the King of Pop.

I don’t know how many people are willing to call the story of Devil May Cry V good.  But, against all odds, at least I’m one of them.

Insert Capcom jingle here.

Also, SPOILER warning.

Big Girls Don’t Cry (Maybe, LOL)

I’m going to take a shot in the dark and assume that that is certainly not the case.  I pretty much have to, since I’m working under the assumption that even the biggest of big girls is still a human being and thus capable of a vast emotional range, as well as reasonably impacted by stimuli of all kinds throughout her life.  But I am an optimist, so who knows?  It’d probably help if I’d actually seen the movie Big Girls Don’t Cry and didn’t just want to use it as a cheeky, pun-based lead-in to the topic du jour.

So enough dawdling.  Let me say this to start: why aren’t there more giant protagonists in fiction?

Also, let me say this to…uh, continue: apparently I referenced the movie even though there are at least three different songs with the same title.  

Why was I born a cultural dunce?

So I’ve been playing Final Fantasy 7, and…

This is a weird feeling.  

Usually when I bring up Final Fantasy on this blog, it’s to let my scorn and rage flow forth unimpeded.  In the wake of the Switch port of Final Fantasy 7, that’s not the case.  So let me be as upfront as I can right off the bat: yes, this is a good game.  Yes, it still holds up.  And speaking personally, I may like it (or at least respect it) a bit more than when I last played it.

By extension?  I’m glad I’m not on the Squeenix payroll, as a code-spewing grunt, a suited overlord, or anything in between.  If I was, I would be completely, utterly, irrevocably, justifiably, eternally embarrassed.

RE: One Piece: World Seeker

One day I need to have a talk with my brother about his penchant for impulse buys.  

Like, I’m not about to tell him how to spend his money, but him grabbing One Piece: World Seeker -- and preordering it months in advance, at that -- has to qualify as a potential red flag.  Did he know that the game would be good?  No.  Did he have room in his schedule for it, given that its release date was sandwiched between Devil May Cry V and Sekiro?  No.  Is he even a fan of One Piece?  At best, he tangentially orbits it; he’s seen a whopping four episodes, played snippets of one game, and likes the “manimals” of the Enies Lobby Arc.

Oh, and he’s a fan of Tony Tony Chopper…even though he got the name confused and called him Tony Chopper Chopper.

I don’t know what possessed him to get the game, and I never will.  But what’s truly bizarre is that, in a way, I’m actually glad he did.  One Piece: World Seeker is easily the weirdest game I’ve played in a while.  So let’s talk about it.

Because it gives me an excuse to embed One Piece theme songs.