Cardinal

Star Fox 64 + 3D: Put them together since they're functionally the same. After playing through it a couple of times, I finally understand the hype. If it wasn't for Adventures being so long compared to the others, I'd probably have the most play time in 64.

Assault: Could've used more Arwing missions and the on-foot gameplay was clunky and went on too long, but I thought it was pretty good when using the C-stick camera setting. The story was all right if a little rushed, and the banter between the characters was on par with 64, if not better. This is the only other game that comes close to 64 in quality, and I can definitely see myself going back to it later.

Star Fox and Star Fox 2: Fun games, but god that frame rate. Still, it was interesting seeing all the things from 2 that would get recycled in later games. The SNES games feel rough, especially after playing 3D and Starship, but I think they're good enough regardless. And Nintendo, please bring Miyu back.

Zero: Full disclosure, I played this one on Cemu with a pro controller. So while I didn't have many issues with the gyro aiming, I can imagine that having to look at the game pad *while* moving it would've been torture. For the first two or three stages, I thought I was going to like it more, but some of the later additions/changes just left me confused. Things like making the final Star Wolf battle a Fox solo mission, or having an entire extra mission to introduce Katt where she's the ONLY person talking with no response from Fox or anyone else. In fact, I'm pretty sure every time Fox was on his own, ROB is the only character who speaks. Ultimately, this feels like Star Fox 64 reimagined by people who didn't understand what made it good in the first place. Not outwardly terrible, but a middling imitation of a better game.

Command and Adventures: I have them in the same tier because they frustrate me equally in different ways. Adventures suffers from literally not being a Star Fox game. It's essentially just your average early 2000's action game with a basic plot and mid gameplay. I can appreciate its importance to the franchise in introducing Krystal, but overall this game was a slog. Meanwhile Command has *almost* decent gameplay (I tried, but I just can't stand the touch screen controls), but it gets repetitive. And then the writing is so irredeemably bad that it drags down almost every positive thing I could say about it. Not sure how much of that is the poor translation and how much is just the writing being that bad at the source. I played two routes and can't say I can see myself playing the rest.

Star Fox Guard: Exists. I have no particular emotions about it. Played like three missions and got bored.

Wes wasn't really vibing with Rui at first, but then instantly fell in love with her once he looked into her eyes. Rui has not yet reciprocated.

Wes and Michael became fast friends over their shared love of Pokémon battles and are currently living together.

Hatsune Miku keeps falling in love with every woman on the island. She is now head over heels for Shantae after nearly ditching her for Teto.

Comissioned this art from @skyephox. This may very well be the first art of Dazell to ever exist (I checked). Which makes it really funny that it is forever linked to my fanfic by virtue of a Zorua being there. Go read Operation: Toxel

Now that the magician twins know the truth, Michael decides to test Shuffle's resolve with a battle.

How silly of me to not consider that I would have to find a child standing on a random rooftop in Vert Sector 3 who trades items, take a wild guess that giving him Canari bread would give me the item that lets me make the donut, and then I could take that to Ansha to start the quest.

Not exactly an update, but I made some small edits to chapters 1 and 2 of Operation: Toxel. The Secret Santa exchange that the original one-shot was written for had a 1000 word limit, which meant I had to cut some things down. Now that we're well past that, and most of the subsequent chapters are longer anyway, I decided to restore those parts. None of these additions impact the story.

In chapter 2's case, I have a confession to make. I had no idea who Shuffle's trainer was going to be until I started writing chapter 3. Riffle was barely a concept, and I didn't even plan on giving them nicknames! In fact, the whole plot point of Shuffle refusing to answer to his nickname was literally just a way for me to retroactively explain why Dazell called him Zorua in the previous chapter.

Wes and Rui spend the holiday in Sinnoh's Snowpoint City, but Wes is having trouble dealing with all the snow after spending his whole life in a desert.

Please remind Master Eldes that, regardless of his wishes to be part of and interact with Cipher, he should seek legal representation from the very best Orre has to offer - the @cipher-legal-and-ethics-dept, of course!😆

Just a little shitpost, forgive me

Michael leaves the two Zorua and his own afflicted Pokémon at the HQ Lab for testing. Out of leads, he seeks answers from a certain former Cipher admin.