Warning!

Jevil thinks that nothing matters because everyone's fates are inevitable and he is unable to do anything to change them, and therefore treats the world as a game. He was locked away for his (presumably violent) crimes committed because of this worldview.

At the beginning of chapter 1, Susie threatens to bite Kris to cause "some real carnage" because she sees her fate (being expelled) as inevitable. When confronted with the prophecy by Ralsei, she says (paraphrasing) "who cares if the world ends, it might even be fun." She accepts her role as the "mean girl" without question, because it's all she's ever been told she was throughout her life, so she might as well have fun being the bad guy. This is largely the focus of Susie's character arc in the first chapter, and since then she has become the most hopeful of the trio that fate can be changed. When you defeat Jevil, he gives you a Susie weapon or the tail, which is something we learn Susie also has and is self conscious of in chapter 2.

Although the parallels between Spamton and Kris have been talked about at length, I've seen less talk of his parallels to Ralsei. Spamton lived his entire life shaping himself to be whatever everyone else wanted him to be. As an Addison his job was to appeal to customers, as a big shot he seemingly changed his image and behavior to fit the role, and only reached success at the instructions of someone else; and when whoever that was abandoned him, when he was no longer useful, his life fell apart, in part because he was unable to function without that external support. From the moment we meet him in game, it is immediately apparent that he is desperate to enter our good graces in order to get what he wants from us, and rapidly changes tactics to do so to try and find what sticks - and alongside this, he is very clearly not being transparent with us about his intentions and what he knows, and isolates Kris to talk to them one-on-one about his plan. And, despite his tendency to seemingly hold grudges towards those who he perceives as having wronged him, he is willing to instantly throw them away at the slightest hint that those people would take him back, as is shown by how frequently he turns on you before instantly coming crawling back when the conflict is resolved, and The Scene™ with Tenna of course, where presumably years of contempt briefly disappear at the smallest chance of reconciliation - to me this shows that the one thing he is willing to set aside everything for is the possibility of being wanted by someone again.

A running theme of Ralsei's character is his lack of individuality - he exists to serve us, and is very aware of this. He's shaped his entire personality around what he thinks we will like; he states in chapter 4 that he only took up hobbies he thinks will be useful to make us happy. He says whatever he thinks we want to hear. From the very beginning, his biggest goal was to be useful to us. In chapter 3, his pessimistic attitude towards being a darkener becomes much more obvious - he believes darkeners only exist to be useful to lighteners, and once their usefulness runs out they have no purpose. He seems to see this fate as inevitable, and instead is preoccupied with the "when" rather than "will," and therefore focuses on being as wanted as he can in the time he has. He is also quite secretive, and isolates Kris from us often. In chapter 4 we learn that a major part of his secretiveness is also his desire to be wanted; he fears that if he says too much about things he knows that might be distressing, the others will think he's too weird and off-putting. A major focus of his character arc going forward is developing a sense of self beyond being whatever others want from him.

At the end of Spamton's battle he gives you either the puppet scarf, a Ralsei weapon, or the deal maker glasses, something Ralsei also wears.

Also, there's this. I wasn't sure where else to put it but I thought it was interesting.

(the Ralsei sprite here apparently appears when you use the "ReviveKris" act in the battle against the Titan. I never saw this in-game because I am a Pro Gamer who did not need to revive Kris.)

Kris' parallels to The Roaring Knight are pretty obvious so I don't need to go too in depth, although I would like to mention the Shadow Mantle mini game and boss. The game seems to reflect Kris' fears about the Soul using them to hurt their friends, amongst other personal traumas such as the bunker. Something I think is especially interesting about this is how Chapter 3's "secret boss" was actually two separate characters and battles - to me this seems similar to how we are a separate "character" from Kris. I think the Shadow Mantle is more of a parallel to us, while the Knight parallels Kris, considering how the game leading up to the boss is very focused on our influence, and even ends with us "escaping" the game and having the ability to attempt to attack Susie.

The Knight can only give us the Black Shard, a weapon only Kris can equip (and Noelle but she's not in our party). The Shadow Mantle is, well, a mantle - basically a cloak, which describes what Kris wears over their armour in the Dark World.

I'm mostly done rambling, but the last thing I'd want to add is that Chapter 4's shadow crystal boss, Gerson, seems to parallel Susie again; however, this time it is in a much more positive manner - rather than viewing fate as an inevitability and therefore life is without meaning, Gerson seems to pay no mind to fate whatsoever and instead lives life in a way that is meaningful to him. He does not reject the prophecy as false outright, but he doesn't believe you should live your life resigned to the inevitable. This philosophy resembles Jevil's in the way they both don't think they need to "follow the rules" and just live to have fun, but while Jevil sees no meaning in anything, Gerson believes life is very meaningful regardless of what fate may decide.

The recently released Nintendo Switch Online version of Donkey Kong 64 applies some emulator-level patches to the game to make it more playable than the famously glitched Wii U Virtual Console version, including adding carefully calibrated lag to make the emulation as accurate as possible to the Nintendo 64 hardware, and other enhancements.

One inexplicable enhancement, however, is "conditional grape darkening" introduced in Lanky's shooting minigame in Hideout Helm. This is the only place in the game where the graphic for Lanky's grapes has been darkened considerably through a patch included in the NSO version. Note that this place features a lot of grape-shooting, but Lanky can shoot a lot of grapes literally everywhere else in the game as well if the player wishes, so singling out this one spot is particularly bizarre

Top: how the grapes appear during regular gameplay. Middle: how they appear during that one minigame. Bottom: a side-by-side comparison.

I can't be doin with videogames that actually require reflexes. The thing is, there used to be many videogames that don't require reflexes. Then boring dickheads decided that they're boring and now every walking sim has to have a bullshit forced stealth chase sequence thing instead of just being about solving puzzles and taking in a story. Now even turn-based JRPGs have Dark Souls dodge and parry mechanics. They are putting combat and time-sensitive mechanics in point and click adventure games. Why.

And mate it is so fucking frustrating. It feels like I'm refunding nine out of ten games I try because of some bullshit mechanic added to genres that used to be a completely safe purchase. Why.

The next Dragon Quest is going to have time sensitive dodge rolls that boot you to save point if you miss your timing by a microsecond and the most exhausting people on the internet will be like, "maybe it's just not for you. :) and that's ok! not every videogame has to be for everybody. have you considered maybe Barbie's Fun Dress Up Adventure?"

Great news: she loved it. Super tasty apparently. Great success. Along with the kidney-sensitive treats we found, it was a nice way to supplement her diet. Unforseen long-term consequence though: she loved it so much she began demanding it throughout the day. Like, would come up to us and meow, and meow, and meow, and not stop, until we got up, went to the kitchen, and got her some cat drink.

And by doing so on demand, we have unfortunately created a monster: no matter what we are doing at home, Dozy knows that if she sits next to you and meows, 1) you know what she wants, and 2) you know that she will not stop until you get it for her now. And when you do get it, she gets extremely excited. She will bum rush the kitchen door as you enter. She will run around your feet as you open the can. She will let out the creakiest, crunchiest, most nails-on-the-chalkboard meow you've ever heard if she thinks you're not going fast enough.

I do not begrudge her this. It is gratifying to care for a creature whose most ardent desires are so simple that it is this easy to fulfill them. But I am a little sad, because I know in my heart that I have never loved any comestible as much as she loves this cat drink. She has a pleasure of a purity and intensity that I will never know.