I love this discord as much as I love you, para <3

For bants almost as decent as that join the discord today!

@ib0show when a new yakuza style game with the main characters as Kazuchika Okada and Kenny Omega comes out

Eh, I don’t really care too much about the change since I listen to EZA for the reasoning behind their judgments and not the number they whack on to the end of a review. The “stars image” thing will go away, and quarter stars wouldn’t have looked that great as an image or emote anyway, but who really should be caring about that when the idea of watching a review isn’t to review the review itself, but to piece together what their judgement was and use that to edit yours.

Hopefully this gets rid of a few of the “lol 4/4.5 stars and I haven’t watched the review yet” since it’s a bit harder to justify that meme if you’ve got to adjust it to fit what will now be the 7.5/8/8.5/9/9.5 range we’re going to get due to the “we can’t review just any game” thing.

The biggest wrestling journalist of all time Dave Meltzer broke a 30 year rating system when he gave a match last year 6/5 stars, and then he topped it with a 6+1/4 /5 for the rematch. That guy can do what he wants with his scale because his thoughts are what the draw is, so do what you want Blood/EZA because you’re more than justified to do so.

I bought Ni No Kuni solely because it said on the back that it had an option to play in Japanese with English subs. I was going to get a tales game, but couldn’t find one in the store and thought “that looks anime enough.”

It’s so whimsical and fun, best kid’s game I’ve ever played. Well, best game that’s made me feel like a kid again anyway. The combat was one of my favourite things about the game, so the hate on that bewildered me since in my eyes it’s absolutely perfect for my hypothetical dream Pokémon on Switch game. Great game, gimme the sequel I don’t want to wait

First off, are you going to be in person or via roll20/some other correspondence method?
If you’re playing in person, the biggest tip I can really give is to just stay calm and loose - there’s rarely any situation that can’t be flipped in some way to either your or the players’ advantage (and that doesn’t refer to it being combat, all forked roads could lead to the same place if you catch my drift). Besides that, try not to overwhelm the players with options, and get inside their heads to try and make the game primarily for your specific group. Give them a clear direction and they’ll pinball themselves there eventually, but you might not want to spend three hours in a town because you’ve accidentally just dumped them there and they’re running around looking for a blacksmith or something when the local florist is what they’re supposed to be going out for.

Starting out as a DM is a ballsy thing to do so good luck and tell us how it goes!

If you know me in the discord you’ll know that I purposely live under a rock. Basically, that’s the only place I go that has any real connection to the outside world outside of very occasional appearances here and on Patreon.

Story is the most important thing for me in games, so being completely isolated from the rest of the world is a pretty easy way to be spoiler free, but I’m just doing that because I like to be completely isolated in my game choices and what I like/don’t like etc.

As to whether or not I’d play a game I knew the story for, I guess it’d depend on how exactly it happened, along with what the game was. I knew the first couple of trials in danganronpa because I watched a bit of the anime, but I still had fun with it, and I think I still would’ve if the big reveals at the end were what was spoiled instead since the journey still has its fair share of mystery.
On the other hand, if I knew the major plot point to a TellTale game there’s a good chance I wouldn’t play it, and knowing the FF7 meme spoiler is going to seriously hang around the back of my mind if I ever get around to playing that.
Stanley Parable after you’ve done the things isn’t fun to replay, but Undertale still has little bits of what makes it great spread throughout it in abundance.

Some games have one core point to it that relies on you not knowing the plot. The lead up to the end in The Witness was huge for me because I knew nothing about it, and Firewatch as a whole depends entirely on it being a fresh playthrough - Firewatch was close to being my GOTY that year, but if I knew the story in that I don’t think I would’ve had it anywhere near as high if I even bought it at all.

I found Ultra Despair Girls and Dangronpa v3 a bit meh, but everything else I’ve played from Spike Chunsoft I tend to really like. For me it doesn’t really rely on consistency of the devs on a whole, just consistency on the big stuff they do - for example if you said that chibi final fantasy worlds game really dragged down your hypothetical love for Square Enix then I’d find that a little bit weird.

Also I’ve not played a single game below excellent from Naughty Dog so I guess I’d probably say they’re my favourite devs.

Here's some fantasy booking because I'm a sad, sad man:
What would really get me into the women's chamber would be if they took Alexa out, using the poll as an excuse, and used that as their test spot for Rousey. Get her in there before WM, and have her possible in ring issues worked out with the camouflage of 5 other women. Have her "go too far" or something and injure Bayley or something in kayfabe during the match so Steph can come in to shout her down, cause a standard distraction pin/kick her out of the match, and set up the tag match at WM. Everyone's happy.

@parasitepaladin I thought it was impossible to like you more. I was wrong.

On topic, eh, find something that you think is a good show and not just a good anime. It’s why I usually just recommend the big anime that everyone knows about whenever someone asks me what to watch to “get into it”. Imagine if something like Death Note never existed and then popped up as an HBO original show starring Jake Gyllenhaal as L. If that show is still a pretty great show (and it is, because Jakey G is a damn great actor and the plot is fundamentally good), then it’s the entry point you’re after.

Or just force them to watch Ouran Highschool Host Club. If they don’t like the best, why bother with the rest? Worked for me.

I will not submit to quiche. I cannot in good conscience support a cooking mechanic that portrays quiche as anything but the devil.

I do find it pretty odd that there’s not really any chicken schnitzel or parmigiana in games though.