ddx
ddxexe.bsky.social
ddx
@ddxexe.bsky.social
professional guyfail and anti-polymath
If you're talking a lot of the earlier X-Men stuff then yeah you're absolutely right.
February 19, 2025 at 11:01 PM
I shit you not when I say that I went like 21-0 with Venom on my second game and haven't replicated that high since.
February 4, 2025 at 4:03 AM
Jan 26 || 5/??

Team Fortress 2 Classic (2014): Despite being a fan-made mod, it's preferable in many ways to the original. It rolls back a lot of the most questionable weapons and cosmetic changes. Some additions are iffy, but it's still a net positive.

Also custom weapon servers are insane.
January 27, 2025 at 8:05 PM
Jan 14 || 4i/?

Everything from the setting to the ratio of story-to-gameplay to the characters themselves (I need a Heismay plush) are excellent, and there are so many potential avenues making a sequel that I'm looking forward to what they make next.
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4h/?

Final thoughts: I'm kinda scatterbrained with my thoughts, but while it's more rife with flaws than Persona and mainline SMT, I believe that its borderline-inevitable sequels will fix these issues...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4g/?

As far as the bigger picture goes, your mileage may vary. The writing quality between individual arcs is all over the place. The game teases this big metacommentary at the beginning but it also comes out underbaked...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4f/?

Will and co. outright see the real world (or at least a sanitized version of it) as aspirational. Between that and the medieval-ish setting, it'd be insane to push for some extremely forward-thinking ideology...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4e/?

So let's get to the themes and plot, which are generally way better. Atlus has an iffy reputation for being biased towards the status quo/centrism (see: SMT4, Devil Survivor 2, to a lesser extent Persona 4 + 5).

That's still true here, but it makes way more sense now...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4d/?

Of course, thematically it makes sense that characters have archetypes. Where Persona and SMT narratively are broadly about characters discovering themselves and their beliefs, Metaphor is about actualizing inner-most beliefs which were always there...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM
Jan 14 || 4c/?

I'm less happy about character progression. Follower Bonds alone enforce 15 different progression chokepoints, many of which are non-negotiable. Royal Archetypes exacerbate this further...
January 17, 2025 at 2:17 AM