@happygaming He left Kotaku early-mid last year to focus on his personal projects. Action Button is his kind of catch-all business name, from what I can tell (I believe his game dev studio also goes by Action Button). His channel is primarily funded through patreon and he puts out an epic-length video review once a month on the channel. They're all golden.

Question: A little over 21 hrs in and am trudging through the second palace. Out of curiosity, I decided to check a guide to see how I was doing in terms of planning. It turns out my confidants are much lower level than what is possible at this point in the game, and there are already several confidants I could have met that I'm still missing. This was pretty surprising to me, since I feel like I've been doing pretty well in terms of managing things so far. I'm not interested in maxing everything out, since I think that would ruin my RP of the game, but is this going to be like P4 where I need a guide to get to the true ending of the game at some point? If so, is the point where I'll need to start looking things up clearly marked like it was in P4?

@dmcmaster lmao you're right it was 2019 time is meaningless

@happygaming I don't think that's too controversial. I hated FFXII for the longest time after it came out, but something was nagging me in the back of my head to give it another shot. Played The Zodiac Age a couple years ago when it came out on Switch and absolutely loved it. It's in my top 5 FF games for sure. Adore the soundtrack, too. To each their own, though!

Youtube Video

I once beat my friend in Mario Kart Wii and he was so mad he whipped me in the leg with the Wii remote so hard I was worried he had fractured my patella, does that count?

@tokyoslim eeeeh, I guess, but I'd also argue

It doesn't matter.

@tokyoslim ...There's an argument to be had about that?

Burning
A struggling writer is dismayed to learn his lover has returned home from Africa with a mysterious new friend. I feel to say much more would be to do future watchers a disservice. There's a reason this film made some many "best of" lists when it came out in 2018 - this is a gorgeously shot, deep, and scintillating slow burn thriller filled with incredible performances and rich subtext. Few movies leave me thinking like this for so long after I've watched it, turning key moments over and over in my head. However, I feel like I missed out on a fair bit of subtext due to my lack of familiarity with Korean culture; talking with my friend after the fact helped fill in some gaps, but this film oozes symbolism in a way that I haven't seen in a while. I don't mean that other movies aren't riddled with symbolism, either - I mean that this movie layers its meanings in subtly without belaboring its point ever. You either get it or you don't, and unfortunately I felt that there was a fair bit that I didn't. Additionally, the movie (very intentionally) left me feeling empty in a way that I wasn't fully comfortable with. Don't go in here expecting any sort of cathartic release. Again, that's not really a fault of the movie, but it did leave me feeling a bit disappointed by the end. That said, I think if you can dedicate 2.5 hrs to a perhaps emotionally unfulfilling movie, you'll be treated what is easily one of the most beautiful movies I've seen in recent years. A-

@dipset The first two are fine enough, just bloated and excessively dark given the source material. Each has at least one standout sequence that I think deserves a second look (Riddles in the dark for part 1, Smaug for part 2). The third movie is gutter trash. The lack of practical effects really hurts the trilogy as a whole, though, especially when you compare it to how tactile LotR felt.

@e_zed_eh_intern Bring it to switch so I can finally play it