General updates

[kjorteo]

In this issue: Affiliate status! Our SoulSilver LP is actually finally coming back (I really hope penguinmayhem is still around)! The latest on that whole CD-i thing! Snakes! The writing backlog! And more! (Note: Maybe not more.)


So, first off, you may recall that we put out that appeal about how keeping our CD-i player not-broken just so we can keep streaming Lost Sheep and similar forgotten jank for you all was getting to be an expensive hobby. I mentioned that if you wanted to support it and us (and at the very least make us feel like it wasn't a thankless endeavor) then please go follow us on Twitch because we were just a few followers away from qualifying for Affiliate status. And if you wanted to, like, donate and make it easier for us to afford things like that and keep bringing this stuff to you (hi, I'm de facto disabled and don't really have any income right now) then please consider subscribing our stream once we were, you know, big enough to become Affiliates and thus someone for whom the option to subscribe exists.

Since we put that out, three things happened:

1) You all came through and we got the followers! We are now officially Twitch Affiliates! Thank you so much!

2) You all also came through in that we have a fair number of subscribers now! Holy wow you all are awesome ;o; I'll never feel like what we do is thankless again.

3) After shopping around, I believe we've finally found a place who can do the repairs needed on our CD-i, and the replacement parts that they'll need to install have been ordered and are now sitting on our desk. We're going housesitting again in a couple weeks, and we'll drop everything off at their shop as part of that venture. If all goes well, hopefully they'll repair everything successfully and we can pick it all up upon our return? So, you know, time, patience, etc. but at the very least we have not forgotten and we still intend to fix it as soon as we're able, and resume streaming things like Story of Jonah/Lost Sheep and the rest of our CD-i collection once it's fixed. Especially since I'm guessing at least a few of our final followers that put us over the finish line are here because they answered the call from that last post, and therefore they're here for the CD-i stuff, you know? We will get to that as soon this is all settled. Your support in the meantime helps a lot because, you know, hardware costs.

So what are we streaming over on Twitch in the meantime, if our CD-i is still currently broken as of this entry? Oh, you know, this and that. After a lot of Family Dog speedrunning early on, these days we seem to have settled into cozy chill mellow stuff (art streams, working on Kurt's castle in Dragon Quest Builders 2) and niche gaming, either old stuff (CD-i before it broke, Hansel and Gretel & the Enchanted Castle) or indie stuff (Cosmic Top Secret.) Kurt's been getting a lot of love, between DQB2 being in service of his castle and the art streams being in service of his new sona.

Kurt's a snake now, you see.

He, uh, may or may not be done being a falcon? We still haven't decided whether that's something he's going to switch between on a whim, or go fully into one and leave the other behind, or what, but we do know that he's been having pangs that left him feeling... well, like he just really wanted a snake form, like snakes spoke to him and were relatable to him and how he was feeling. I drew one up for him and he loves it and has been using it a lot. So at the very least, we know he's a snake, for sure. Whether he's also still a falcon, I guess we'll see.

Streamwise, we're thinking of showcasing Istaria at some point. Hey, it's old and has Family Dog appeal, you know? And this this may also be a good platform on which to finish our SoulSilver run. Just, you know, this and that, as long as it's a nice place to hang out.

Wait, what? Did they just say "SoulSilver run"? What? Could it be?? It's been 3,000 years....

Yes! For those who weren't here back then, something like four years ago we were doing a Let's Play of Pokemon: SoulSilver Version. I knew that I had bad luck with LPs just kind of... trailing off and not ever being finished, and I even gave my team a bunch of Neverending Story-themed names (our team leader was the Chikorita-like Empress, and we also had an Atreyu, a Falkor, etc.) because I related the sort of ennui that takes over and makes big writing projects like that die to The Nothing. The whole journey was that team's attempt to escape that fate and get their well-deserved closure, you know? Unfortunately, they didn't make it.

OR DID THEY.

After all this time, I now know two things that I didn't know then:
1) The Nothing I was fighting the whole time was probably just my undiagnosed/untreated ADHD, and
2) Streaming stuff on Twitch is a lot easier than going back and editing/polishing/turning play experiences into some sort of summation after the fact, it turns out!

And so, we are proud to announce that THE WOODLING SOULSILVER LP, THE JOURNEY OF EMPRESS AND HER TEAM, IS BACK. And because it has been a LONG TIME, I left a link to the tag to all the old entries to get caught up a couple paragraphs above up there, but here it is again:
https://kjorteo.dreamwidth.org/tag/pokemon+soulsilver

If you're interested, then we invite you to read through all of these (for the first time if you're new, or again to refresh yourself if you were around back then) just to get caught up to speed. We will begin streaming SoulSilver on our Twitch channel fairly soon, probably within the next couple days, and we will be picking up right where part 19 of the written LP left off, with the team getting ready to head off to Victory Road. God, it feels good to see them again. After all this time and everything they've been through, they deserve this.

Meanwhile, speaking of the fact that ADHD sucks and writing is hard, yeah I know we never did do the actual awards for last year's gameblogging (just the nominees) and we haven't done our usual writeups on the stuff we've played this year. I keep meaning to get around to getting caught up with those... at some point, and then not. The backlog is only growing at this rate. As far as stuff we've played and need to talk about at some point, I believe the current list is:

COMPLETE: Actraiser Renaissance
ABANDONED: The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
SIDETRACKED FOR NOW(??? not... officially abandoned, I still keep feeling like I want to finish them someday and nothing really stopped us but ADHD, but the truth it's it's been a long time since we touched them and maybe it's finally time to admit that): SoulBlazer, Glory of Heracles IV, Woven, Fateful Lore, Dragon Quest III
COMPLETE: Live A Live (SNES fan translation and yes the timing on that is unreal; they announced the remake just like a week or two after we finished and believe me we are HYPE.)
COMPLETE: Cosmic Top Secret
COMPLETE: Cards of Change
COMPLETE: Stilstand

So yeah, uh... maybe... someday. I dunno.

Come see us on Twitch in the meantime. *blush, mumble*

Comments

[penguinmayhem]

I just remembered the Ho-oh encounter AND the Sinjoh Ruins cutscene are still to come and now I have to suppress the urge to ramble incoherently about pokemon theology.

Keep up the good work y'all.

[kjorteo]

There's a reason we completely skipped and have been habitually putting off the Ruins of Alph this entire game, even though it's one of the earliest dungeons and I'm sure we're going to go there with like a level 60+ squad and all the Unowns are going to be like 4 or something.

And that reasons is that there are all those puzzles for "do a specific thing/use an item/have a mon/etc. to activate the thing in this area" and one of the solutions is to have Ho-Oh in the lead.

Ho-Oh, specifically, even if you're playing SoulSilver and that's the one you don't get until like halfway through Kanto, so fuck you until then I guess.

But hey at least we have the Arceus now, so like... we're half done with our preparations.

Anyway we're so glad you're here because we keep thinking about you and all your Poketheology posts WHICH ARE FASCINATING BY THE WAY PLEASE NEVER STOP, and how you were leaving all those comments about how you had so much to say when we finally headed that way and just... it would not have been the same if we finally did it now and you weren't here for that. We've been waiting to hear this as long as you've been waiting to say it.

Thank you for being there for the culmination of Johto tonight, too. Sorry if me crying for the end credits got a little weird but after everything her imperial majesty has been through, after four years of limbo and everything it just... it was a lot okay.

[penguinmayhem]

I literally just woke up in the middle of the stream so it's really fortunate that I managed to catch it. I have little faith that I'll be on time for most of your future streams, unfortunately.

I will always be here to flood the after action reports with pages of ramblings about Arceus though so don't worry! And be proud of yourself. All of you.

[kjorteo]

I can't ask you to watch them all because they'll be several hours long each, but if you happen to be interested, with no pressure or obligation whatsoever otherwise, we're going to make sure to preserve the VODs both on Twitch and YouTube. So, like, if you ever miss a stream it'll still be there.

(Including this one; the entire broadcast is on our Twitch page right now in the "recent broadcasts" pile, should you be curious about the first half you missed. We'll make sure to preserve it in more permanent highlight/YouTube mirror form before it expires, too, and make a Dreamwidth post in the PKSS tag when we do.)

And thank you. It's... been a journey. That's why the ending [of the Johto half anyway] was so emotional. That thank you is for the kind words there and for the, like, being there and the support and everything too, by the way.

[dorchadas]

Brief thoughts on Actraiser Renaissance? I know people were dunking on the art, but how's the gameplay (and especially that new tower defense thing they threw in)?

[kjorteo]

This isn't really brief but I may just copy/paste a fair amount of this when going back to do the actual article anyway.

Actraiser Renaissance is amazing.

The graphics are an acquired taste, but once you get used to how the models and such look in the action stages, you can appreciate how much more detail and such they added, especially with some downright gorgeous background textures. Also, the city-builder parts have a lot more character now. Every area has its own tileset and architecture design and everything. Places like Northwall and Kasandora went from "there's a puddle of snow/sand, clean it up and then make this land into the same identical field-city as all the others" to still looking like a city in a desert/frozen Northlands, respectively, even after they've been tamed. (The music really helps with this, too--every city now has its own unique theme and the Default ActRaiser City-Building Section Theme is now just the one for Fillmore.)

The gameplay feels much slower and more hand-holdy at first, especially if you're used to at least repeatedly replaying if not outright speedrunning the original. You can't build over monster lairs and seal them until you get to the plot point that unlocks the quest that says you can, everything has a tutorial, it takes several hours just to get through Fillmore and at this point you may have a dreadful thought that oh no did they turn your entire beloved childhood classic into xyzzysqrl's Soldatorobo experience, but... no, it's fine, I promise it clears up. It's half just getting used to the city-building sections being meatier, more plot-heavy, and less speedrunnable now, and half because they're throwing a lot of new stuff at you (the tower defense thing, in particular) and so Fillmore has a lot of tutorials. You get used to the new pace and get through the tutorials and everything from Bloodpool on is fine.

The tower defense thing is great, too, and I'm saying this as someone who normally detests tower defense games. That is not my genre. But here? It's fine. You have your Super Plot-Significant Chosen One Hero Characters (one per city; you can summon previous ones in later ones,) things like your archer towers and defense-related buildings you can put down beforehand, and your miracles (the city becomes temporarily immune to miracle damage during sieges so feel free to just rain down as many earthquakes and thunderstorms and whatnot as you have MP to help take out the swarms) and none of them feel like they're quite enough on their own--there will always be some last-second scrambling and "oh crap" hero redeployment and miracle abuse to tamp down whatever hole in your defenses became apparent during the raid--but in that sense it actually feels pretty balanced. You're not supposed to have a perfect defense you can build beforehand and then just sit back and watch the mage towers handle everything (that's why there's a limit to how many defense buildings you're allowed to build, and it never feels like enough to cover every possible point of attack on the whole map.) You're supposed to do the best you can to mitigate as much of the threat as you can with those, then use the heroes and miracles to mop up the rest. It's supposed to feel like a team effort, like every resource coming together to pull off a victory that definitely required you to be awake and alert and flexible in your strategy but wasn't, like, brutally impossible or anything.

I don't know if I'm explaining this properly, but it just... it works. It's fun. ActRaiser was always this odd duck where two completely unrelated genres (your action-platformer bits and your SimCity bits) got bolted together and Renaissance adds a third game to the game, but I swear it fits in so well and so seamlessly that you wouldn't notice it's new if you hadn't played the original. (If anything, the city-building and tower-defense parts blend so well together that it's the action-platformer bits that now feel more out of place than ever, but even those... I won't spoil but let's just say there's an entire bonus city area after Death Heim that plays with that concept beautifully and made me legitimately mark out at one point.)

Music is incredible. There are classic and remastered versions you can switch between, even for the new songs (like the non-Fillmore city themes, tower defense theme, etc.) For extra authenticity, Yuzo Kushiro composed all the new music in the SNES soundfont first and then remastered it to the HD version along with the original songs rather than back-porting anything, because of course he did; he's Yuzo Kushiro. Like, have you seen the first three Etrian Odyssey games?

Story is great, too. It may slow down the pace in the city-building parts when there's now more of a plot that you have to follow before you can just speedrun the whole town, but the new characters they came up with, the cities' heroes and their story arcs from when you first meet them to when they realize their status and join you and whatnot, is lovely to behold. The stakes for each city (especially when it's time to face Act 2 and beat the boss of that area) feel a lot higher and more personal, and even emotional at times. Northwall's story made us cry forever aaaa

I can understand people bouncing off this game because its two most polarizing drawbacks (the graphics look weird if you're not used to and acclimated to them yet, and Fillmore is incredibly handholdy) are what they hit you with right at front; you kind of have to tough those out for it to hit its stride from there. But... my God. When you do? The back parts are gaming perfection.

[dorchadas]

That's definitely a more in-depth answer than I expected! If the art is really the only dunkable thing I'll move this game up my list (and maybe not even wait for a sale).

The tower defense part especially sounds like an actual good implementation of TD, which are too often prone to the "I've developed an impenetrable defense! Now I can not...just watch and not play the game" problem, as you mention.

[kjorteo]

Celine: If I had to call any one element "the only dunkable thing" about Renaissance, it's that not being used to the new overall pace and increased plot-heaviness + lots of tutorials for all the new elements they're introducing = Fillmore in particular feels slow and slog-like at parts. I promise it gets better. And even there, the story of Fillmore is really good! The new hero character is compelling, and they manage to build up a lot of stakes and importance and a "this is it, it all comes down to this" feeling to Minotaurus, rather than just being, you know, a boss they just kind of put there because Fillmore Act 2 needed a boss.

The graphics are... unique, but we acclimated to them quickly. And once we did, it became impossible not to appreciate just how much rich details they add--the Act backgrounds, the added variety and visual uniqueness to every city, even the VN-style portraits for everyone when plot is happening look pretty nice.