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Elden Ring: Nightreign (Game) Review.

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  For context; this was a completed playthrough of the game using the character Recluse, completing her story to a finish and finishing with defeating the final boss of the non-new game plus content so will be treating that as completion. This does not include any DLC.   I like souls games. I've had a history of enjoying a good few of them; finishing Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, being on the cusp of finishing Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin for a good while and ultimately, playing the tiniest bit of Dark Souls III. I have an enjoyment of a series where widely, you can make yourself a girl of your creation and then go destroy the vestiges of a corrupt old order or pantheon and find your own meaning along the path.   For me, there's a combination of factors I never really considered but I acknowledge I enjoy about Soul's games too; I enjoy the feeling of co-operation and playing with others, summoning other players. I l...
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I'm In Love With The Villainess (Anime) Review.

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    CW: SA, Incest, Implications of Underage Sex   Holy fuck.   There is a problem with the approach of things to demand art meet some sort of puritanical edge that denies complexity to art and asks it to meet ideas or standards that mean something might not tell a story it needs to. And this argument does need to die; art does need to sometimes provoke and tell something difficult. And we do need pieces that do that.   Well. Do that. Well. That do that -WELL-.   It is okay to provoke a reaction if you're telling something with nuance. It is alright even if to forewarn, that you are a telling a story with difficult themes if you handle them with the weight that deserve. It is okay to be soap operatic and melodramatic as long as you understand what tone you're trying to deal with.   I'm In Love With The Villainess is an anime about a woman who is gay who dies, playing a game she loves for the villainess character, Claire. She bec...
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FlyKnight (Game) Review.

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    A warm experience is one best experienced with friends. The game equivalent of a chocolate bar that you had from a corner shop from when you were a kid that you can't remember the name of or had some off brand or slightly generic name; a 'Time Out', a 'Boost' or something, something that makes you feel evocative of a different time. But it's only when you bounce the memory off a friend who can tell you yes, you did not imagine they used to stock Vanilla Coke in the vending machines of your school and that your memory is an accurate informer of that self-same feeling.   FlyKnight's a game about a Fly you create, that's a Knight. It looks akin to games of an older era but most identifiably, the polygonal era of games such as RuneScape. It's frame rate is locked to a level that feels in the tens or fifteens at most. It is small, born of a GameJam project, often a effort to create a game in a day and this version of the game being slightl...
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How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1966 Animated Film Review)

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  I've half a mind for joy recently. I've a desire for something that embraces the idea of good and something that celebrates the wholesome. But, there is a lesson in that want; when I was younger, me and my Dad watched Groundhog Day and he was of the opinion that it's funnier in the first half and falls a little flat in the second. A character where you find hilarity in the either acidic wit, sarcastic words or just the punchy comedy is going to lose that spark when they now have to manage a sincere turn about-face to warmth, for sincerity it might be, is hard to lend humour from. Indeed, that's one of those parts of How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the 1966 TV Special that's perhaps important; it's funny in the first half with the scene munching mean spirited nastiness of the Grinch.   In a world where the Who's of Whoville celebrate Christmas with an effervescent and perhaps almost audacious cheer, the Grinch is a being with a heart of sizes too ...
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My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! X ( Anime Series Review/Season 2)

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  CW; mentions of sexual harassment, mentions of incest.   Disappointment. That's the term I'm going to bring to bear here because this anime is the second season to one I consider one of my favorite anime, perhaps ever. The more I look back on the first season of My Next Life as a Villainess, the more I love it. Ironically, watching this only made me love it more. Because as said, this season musters a feeling that's highly important to me; disappointment.   There is still good to be found in this story. Whether that is me trying to cope or a true analysis, I have to stand by that. This story, about a woman named Catarina, a woman from another world transported into the body of a villainess from the game she played, is about her forming bonds with those the character once spurned and now she considers her closest loved ones; all of them loving her. There is incredible music that scores even the most awkward moments. There's beautiful vistas and shots that pop u...
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Pokemon Yellow Legacy (Game/ROMHack) Review

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    This is it; the definitive way to play the start of Pokemon. I say it without a hint of hyperbole, for it is simply true.   I've strong memories of Red from being a kid and staring enviously over another kids grey brick Game Boy in the playgrounds. I lived through the rise of Pokemon as a big big thing and watched the movie and the anime and saw Pokemon cards banned twice from my school. It's key to the development of my enjoyment of games but going back multiple times has never replicated quite the feeling of excitement I had playing Pokemon Red years ago. And instead made all the more clear the feeling of how distant the feeling of 'Gotta Catch 'Em All' felt, how it felt no singular Pokemon version was an immersive experience; and as such I never got too deep into the nuance of the games. I never saw the highs and lows of Pokemon's first generation too well.   But then, I met someone who I care about a lot who introduced me to Pokemon Yello...
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Fafner of the Azure: Dead Agressor - Heaven and Earth (Anime Film) Review.

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  This review is based on having seen the anime TV series Fafner: Dead Aggressor and having experience of the previous material; I want to state that this film is not really a good film to watch sans knowledge of it and can take my rating of it as based on having that prior knowledge and that without it, it's dense and hard to parse. I would advise watching the series' first if you wish to watch it.   Heaven and Earth is a film that surprised me quite a bit. Fafner is a series about sacrifice and loss and how it marks us indelibly. We won't be the same however much we might want to go back to that and we have to keep moving forward to try and do and be something better. It's a story about war and loss, using the backdrop of a future where a mysterious race called Fetsum essentially have dominated the human race and the pockets of humanity across the world survive and fight back where they can. But the series isn't truly focused on that as the scale; but on...
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