#sundaychats

So last week I had a Sunday Chats all written and done, and while writing the last two closing paragraphs, my web browser crashed and Tumblr, being the platform with apparently no fail safes at all, completely lost all of what I wrote. I was initially going to just rewrite it the next day or the following Wednesday (my next day off) but then life happened and to be perfectly honest I had what we call in the biz a godawful week, so it didn’t happen. I apologize, I took your questions and selfishly coveted my answers when you had taken your time to submit them, and I am very sorry for that.

To make up for it, this week I am answering all of last week’s questions IN ADDITION to the few I got for this week, so hopefully it’ll be jam packed. Luckily I didn’t have a big editorial thought-piece ready for last week, so for this week...

The 10 out of 10

So I’ve been playing God of War, as I’m sure many of you readers have been, and I’m delighted by it in so many wonderful ways. But I think the reviews definitely set an expectation that is really impossible to meet. I’m not treading new ground here, I think that’s safe to say (as is usually the case with my writing) but it’s just the thought I’ve had the most playing God of War.

I think you get this idea that it’s a series of incredibly brilliant moments that tie together beautifully, and while I think much of that is true, a lot of what you do in God of War is run around and fight dudes. As great as that is, I’ve only had maybe two big moments in my ten or so hours with it. But the quality of what I’ve seen so far just gets me excited to see what moments I have coming up, especially since at this point, I really have absolutely no idea what the hell is going to happen next.

What i think gets understated in such a masterful score is just the sheer volume of production value poured into every inch of a game. I think that’s something that’s hard to convey across an entire review, let alone just a score, but boy, there is just a ton of polish and excellence throughout the game, from the small animations, to how Kratos always grabs a cliff’s face and doesn’t clip through it.

It’s really excellently made, and I hope everyone out there is enjoying it as much as I am.

What’s on Tap

So I finished Kingdom Hearts 1

I re-beat this game again, finally going and doing all the additional content, like synthesis, extra bosses, grinding to level 100, etc.

I dunno... I think Kingdom Hearts is great but its “post-game” content is really underwhelming. I think none of the bosses are truly “special” in a way that they are in Kingdom Hearts 2. They don’t have these strategies seared into my mind, at least.

That being said, the design philosophy in KH1 versus its sequel is so completely different and fascinating. It’s far more Metroidvania in its intent to have you backtrack and re-explore already searched areas. It feels almost like it’s from a completely different franchise.

Like... There is ZERO platforming at all in Kingdom Hearts 2. Like, none. I can’t think of a section where you have to jump from a thing to a thing, except maybe the extra dungeon they added in the Final Mix version.

It makes me hopeful that maybe they’ll revisit some of these ideas in Kingdom Hearts 3 but eh. I doubt it.

Kingdom Hearts 2 on Critical

I started this and it’s about as frustrating as I anticipated. It’s not terrible or world ending, as its essentially just Proud mode difficulty with half your total health.

But I’m about to fight Xaldin in my playthrough so basically it’s all downhill from here.

God of War

So yes, I’ve been playing God of War. It is indeed, a video game.

I mean it’s really great. I talked about it a lot on last night’s podcast if you want some more detailed thoughts. But here are some standouts:

The combat is labored in a way that makes it so much more intense and significant. Of all the things that remind me of The Last of Us, it’s this aspect. It’s the intensity of each hit, the feeling of desperation in every slam and slash, and the violence that goes with it feels justified in the God of War universe where it absolutely never has before.

I get a ton of Darksiders vibes from this game, specifically Darksiders 2. The way it introduces side areas, side dungeons, side puzzles, and especially chests, reminds me a ton of how Darksiders approached formulaic Zelda ideas. It works very well here.

The Axe is, of course, excellent. But I’d say it isn’t the throw of the axe that works, it’s calling it back.

The ambient dialogue between your characters feels pulled straight out of a Naughty Dog game, and it feels so derivative of that that it makes me like it a bit less that I’d personally want to. It just feels almost exactly the same, just with different characters, and so far, outside of Kratos and how “deals” it dialogue, there isn’t enough separating it.

Overall very good. I will eventually be writing a review for IrrationalPassions.com. Look for it someday.

Questions

Remember to look for my tweet with the hashtag #SundayChats every Sunday afternoon, reply to it with your question, and boom. That’s how the magic happens.

Last week’s questions:

Ya know last week I’d have a different answer but I’ll revisit that later. In short: stuff is happening. I’m trying to live my life. Trying to do good. Failing a lot, but I’ll keep trying.

I’ve been crazy busy too. I feel like this is the year I am trying to teach myself different and new things, whether they be on a technical level, or maybe software, or something else along those lines.

Thank you for the kind words. As for the future, I think there is another question asking a bit of something like this, but it’s trying to stay busy and trying to make bigger and better moves. Like, E3 I think is out of the question, but PAX West isn’t, and aiming for something like that is really exciting and it gives us a lot of new options and opportunities. Plus, we’ve been trying to have actual meetings on the reg about what we’re doing and what ideas we have.

A big one that Scott White has been spearheading you’ll probably know more about by the end of this month, and there are some new shows and new styles of pieces I think we are all trying to do. As for me, I just want to get better with video stuff, with supporting the team, and with GA, as that’s my main new project.

I like milk. I drink milk, by itself, or in chocolate form, pretty regularly. I’ve been at a restaurant with friends and asked for a glass of milk and everyone laughed at me. I’ve since never done that.

Milk is good.

I mean the biggest one was assuredly The Messenger, which is like, my #1 most anticipated. But I was lucky that my team got to go out there and see stuff and present it to me with cool thoughts and perspectives on all of them. Like, Solo sounds super cool and I want to see more of it, and City of Brass wasn’t on my radar at all but seems really cool. Mike convinced me to see Omensight and that’s just a really rad new entry from a team I didn’t think had it in them.

I mean, I don’t even really know who Kid Rock is. I mean I know of him, but eh. I’ve never heard his music before a day in my life. I hear he is like, not good? Like, not a good person, not necessarily a bad musician. But I don’t want to assume. Is this libel? Am I getting black balled out of the industry right now?

Also you look hella cute Roger. So proud of you.

It absolutely was not. A big thing was I was planning on getting a 4K TV, and since I had the Xbox One X I was happy with just that and then the HDR that my original PS4 could reach. But there was a good deal and if I was already investing so much I wanted to get the most out of my TV. So I swear to god if a PS5 comes out next fall I’ll be pissed.

Brian. Nabeshin. Jackson. So I can know what it feels like to be the nicest dude in the world and also a great uncle.

It’s really sad. But also nice since I can be alone again. But also sad.

A bit of a mixed bag.

Pretty much anything in Final Fantasy 15 looks amazing and delicious. But that Beef Bowl in Persona 4... Man, I’ve had dreams about that Beef Bowl.

This week’s questions:

Shoutout to Brandon Gann, who is in ALL WEEK’S questions for Sunday Chats.

Yes, God of War is great. I think I got into it pretty well above, but yes, I really enjoy it. The combat, above all else, just feels so great. It reminds me a TON of DmC Devil May Cry in that it is training me well and I feel really good at it. Plus the way the weapons work kind of reminds me of that kind of combat too.

It absolutely has to be the SNES. I think I’ve lost countless hours to that system, and it’s something that, as a gift for me, I had my parents go and buy of eBay waaay past its time so as I could sit down and revisit all these classic games. Something I’m still incredibly appreciative of to this day.

But A Link to the Past and Super Metroid are just so formulative of my current taste in games and the things I seek out the most in video games (see: adventure and backtracking) and that was the console I sank the most time into without a doubt. I think GameBoy is totally a great choice, I didn’t have my own until I got a GameBoy color, but the GBA was the one I fell in love with the most, and I wouldn’t really get deep into that until much later.

Hey like, real talk everyone? Hey? Everyone bring it down, it’s real talk time?

Like, I’m doing suuuuper not good. Like actively very bad, and it’s just a whole lot going on. Last week is like, top three, top four worst weeks ever for me, and I had to make a whole bunch of adult decisions that, while I was prepared for them, I wasn’t happy about anything, and everything seemed to just make the situation more miserable. On top of that, I just feel like I’ve been really shitty and a shitty friend to basically all the people in my life that matter the most, and on top of that I have a lot of stress from work and money and blah.

Like, in the grand scheme of things, I’m doing okay, I’ll be okay, but I feel bad, it all feels bad, and it’s pretty shitty. Like, I know this probably wasn’t the answer expected, but it’s definitely the truth.

I’ll do better next time.

In my defense, it’s what I was doing up until I started writing this, and, while I do need to go do the dishes before I get back into God of War because lord knows no one else will, I’ll be continuing my adventure in Midgard until I pass out tonight.

I mean I feel really good about it, so long as everyone involved feels good. Like we’ve certainly hit a lot more readers and have broadened our audience in a way we’ve never been capable of before, and we have opportunities now that we’ve never had before, and I feel really good about that. I’m not super into the numbers, but I am into opportunity, ability to cover games pre-release, go to events, things like that.

As for the end of the year, I feel like, or at least I hope, there is a bit more cross pollination as far as skill, like more folks will be able to support Social, and more folks will be able to do video, or host shows, or whatever that may be. But I want that to all happen within comfort: like Social is Jurge’s thing, and if he doesn’t want to share that because of his ownership of it, I get that, I respect that, and I’m all about that. People gotta have their territory of expertise, and since I’ve been jack-of-all-trading it alone this whole time, I’m all about doing that for myself.

Even though I kind of already have and that’s editing.

The Ninja Samurai from Ghosts of Tsushima (upcoming, I know) and Sly Cooper, because I’m all about creating the greatest Ninja clan this side of the land of the rising sun.

That’s all I got for this week. Thank you all for your patience and understanding. I’ll do better next time. I will try and continue to do these more consistently. I love you all, thank you for reading and supporting and listening and being great.

Until next time, keep it real.