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- Thread starter Yung Dramps
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Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs is a classic cartoon short with phenomenal music and singing and deserves to be remembered even if its racist caricatures are unfortunate and deplorable (the studio was actually approached by black people who wanted representation). Don't believe me?
"For all its infamy, Coal Black came about out of Bob Clampett's deep love of black jazz music and was a serious effort to give work to black performers. Clampett even wanted an all-black band to perform all the music for the cartoon, but this was shot down by producer Leon Schlesinger, a man known for being notoriously cheap, who claimed that it would be too expensive (said band scored exactly one scene). That said, Clampett himself admitted that even his views on race at the time were dim and understood why later generations found it so offensive." (from TV Tropes)
This praise does NOT apply to the rest of The Censored Eleven though LMAO, burn that stuff.
Donkey Kong 64 is a great game and gets way too much hate (the only thing I view as excessive are the individual colored bananas)
I kinda like Blighttown in Dark Souls 1 because while annoying, it does a good job of preparing you for what most Dark Souls 1 areas will be like in terms of status effects
"For all its infamy, Coal Black came about out of Bob Clampett's deep love of black jazz music and was a serious effort to give work to black performers. Clampett even wanted an all-black band to perform all the music for the cartoon, but this was shot down by producer Leon Schlesinger, a man known for being notoriously cheap, who claimed that it would be too expensive (said band scored exactly one scene). That said, Clampett himself admitted that even his views on race at the time were dim and understood why later generations found it so offensive." (from TV Tropes)
This praise does NOT apply to the rest of The Censored Eleven though LMAO, burn that stuff.
Donkey Kong 64 is a great game and gets way too much hate (the only thing I view as excessive are the individual colored bananas)
I kinda like Blighttown in Dark Souls 1 because while annoying, it does a good job of preparing you for what most Dark Souls 1 areas will be like in terms of status effects
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Modern Kirby's edginess is getting stale.
Part of Kirby's identity at this point is the contrast between its lovable cute storybook characters/worlds, and its more serious, massive scale, scary, eldritch-like, off-the-wall final/secret bosses.
Nowadays, though, the point is fading to me. There seem to be edgy guys for spectacle, Youtube lore videos, and just inertia.
One, there's just so many of these guys that it isn't special or shocking anymore. It's expected. Originally, the contrast between the cute and the scary was more pronounced, because Kirby didn't have guys like this before. It had some more serious final bosses, like Nightmare, but nothing in the vein of 0 or 0² with their blood, alienness, and secretiveness. But the roster of these guys continued, continued, and continued. Drawcia Soul, Dark Nebula, Galacta Knight, Marx Soul, Magolor Soul, Morpho Knight, Star Dream (Soul OS), Void (Soul / Termina), to name a few. There's also our friends in Forgotten Land who I won't name for spoilers, and other guys who you might include too, or who I forgot about.
1.5, I see a "power creep" in how outlandish and hardcore and extreme the new guys are. They increasingly come across as trying too hard and losing their cool in the process, grasping at whatever relatively shallow idea sounds epic. Zero shot blood, but like, he's still, like, an eyeball. He is an eyeball. Compare that to this.
I'm not feeling it. I'm really not. What are we doing here. This reads like bad fanfiction. Harder to feel shook up by the guy when I'm stuck wondering how to pronounce his name.
Second, the original "Eldritch Bosses" had thematic and storytelling importance, especially the first one. I'm not familiar with every newer Kirby game, but for the ones I am, some (not all) of their "Eldritch Bosses" feel pretty pointless and random in comparison.
Zero has a clear-cut role in Dream Land 3. Dream Land 3 is a game about small acts of social kindness. Each level, you can help different characters with some trouble – find something they lost, reunite them with a loved one, or just considerately not step on their flower selves. If you choose to, they give you a Heart Star. These matter because, without all the Heart Stars, you can physically pummel the final boss out (Dark Matter possessing King Dedede), but you can't fully clean the darkness from the land. Only with these small acts of kindness can you create the Love-Love stick to confront the root problem, Zero, and entity that has Zero kindness and love.
0²'s role is less clear-cut, but I see an interesting read, too. Kirby 64 is big on seeing new things and meeting new people, gameplay and otherwise. It starts with a meeting between Kirby and a totally new character from a totally new place, Ribbon, as they agree to work together to find the Crystal Shards. Then, you literally play in a new 2.5D perspective, mixing and experimenting with existing abilities to find brand new ones. Your party is former enemies (King Dedede, Waddle Dee), new characters (Ribbon), and someone who could fit into either category, depending on how you interpret her character (Adeleine). All working together for the first time. You travel to whole new planets, lovingly crafted with beautiful environments and music the whole way through, inviting you to just stop, look and listen. Who would be the ultimate enemy, the opposite of that love for new fun and beauty?
0², who wants to fill all these worlds with Dark Matter to make them boring Dark Matter repeats of each other. 0², whose own Dark Star world is a boring black blob with nothing to do in it. 0², who is the same guy you already beat a game ago. 0², who does everything on its own, who controls people instead of meeting them, who encapsulates a perfectly homogenous, stagnant, boring world.
Part of Kirby's identity at this point is the contrast between its lovable cute storybook characters/worlds, and its more serious, massive scale, scary, eldritch-like, off-the-wall final/secret bosses.
Nowadays, though, the point is fading to me. There seem to be edgy guys for spectacle, Youtube lore videos, and just inertia.
One, there's just so many of these guys that it isn't special or shocking anymore. It's expected. Originally, the contrast between the cute and the scary was more pronounced, because Kirby didn't have guys like this before. It had some more serious final bosses, like Nightmare, but nothing in the vein of 0 or 0² with their blood, alienness, and secretiveness. But the roster of these guys continued, continued, and continued. Drawcia Soul, Dark Nebula, Galacta Knight, Marx Soul, Magolor Soul, Morpho Knight, Star Dream (Soul OS), Void (Soul / Termina), to name a few. There's also our friends in Forgotten Land who I won't name for spoilers, and other guys who you might include too, or who I forgot about.
1.5, I see a "power creep" in how outlandish and hardcore and extreme the new guys are. They increasingly come across as trying too hard and losing their cool in the process, grasping at whatever relatively shallow idea sounds epic. Zero shot blood, but like, he's still, like, an eyeball. He is an eyeball. Compare that to this.
I'm not feeling it. I'm really not. What are we doing here. This reads like bad fanfiction. Harder to feel shook up by the guy when I'm stuck wondering how to pronounce his name.
Second, the original "Eldritch Bosses" had thematic and storytelling importance, especially the first one. I'm not familiar with every newer Kirby game, but for the ones I am, some (not all) of their "Eldritch Bosses" feel pretty pointless and random in comparison.
Zero has a clear-cut role in Dream Land 3. Dream Land 3 is a game about small acts of social kindness. Each level, you can help different characters with some trouble – find something they lost, reunite them with a loved one, or just considerately not step on their flower selves. If you choose to, they give you a Heart Star. These matter because, without all the Heart Stars, you can physically pummel the final boss out (Dark Matter possessing King Dedede), but you can't fully clean the darkness from the land. Only with these small acts of kindness can you create the Love-Love stick to confront the root problem, Zero, and entity that has Zero kindness and love.
0²'s role is less clear-cut, but I see an interesting read, too. Kirby 64 is big on seeing new things and meeting new people, gameplay and otherwise. It starts with a meeting between Kirby and a totally new character from a totally new place, Ribbon, as they agree to work together to find the Crystal Shards. Then, you literally play in a new 2.5D perspective, mixing and experimenting with existing abilities to find brand new ones. Your party is former enemies (King Dedede, Waddle Dee), new characters (Ribbon), and someone who could fit into either category, depending on how you interpret her character (Adeleine). All working together for the first time. You travel to whole new planets, lovingly crafted with beautiful environments and music the whole way through, inviting you to just stop, look and listen. Who would be the ultimate enemy, the opposite of that love for new fun and beauty?
0², who wants to fill all these worlds with Dark Matter to make them boring Dark Matter repeats of each other. 0², whose own Dark Star world is a boring black blob with nothing to do in it. 0², who is the same guy you already beat a game ago. 0², who does everything on its own, who controls people instead of meeting them, who encapsulates a perfectly homogenous, stagnant, boring world.
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I think people have misunderstood what open-minded really means.
It's true that being open-minded means being open to ideas with which you disagree, so as to understand their perspective and where they are coming from. But Open-mindedness also means you should respect those who don’t agree with your ideas, no matter how illogical it may seem from your perspective. It's not always because they simply don't want to listen or are being difficult about it, but it can also be that they hold a different perspective from yours, and we have to respect their understanding. Sometimes it could be because the moment they have watched is similar to what they've experienced in real life, and I think it's important to respect that.
To that end, I will also say we should let people express their distaste or dislike - and remember it’s not an attack on the fans who like it. Again, it's not always because they don't want to listen or have "bad media literacy". Perhaps they dislike a redeemed character (or a character who has undergone redemption) because they feel the character hasn't done enough to earn their redemption, or the damage they've caused (whether physical or emotional) was too great. People have also disliked things for less, and that's ok. I will also say that when people express their opinions, they do it because they want to, not to feel like they’re on trial and being judged for it.
Is it sad if someone expresses their distaste for something that you personally love? Yes, yes, it is. However, it's better to respect their opinion and try to make them understand why you don't share their view. If people just ridicule them for not liking the character/media, it will not lead to a fruitful conversation about the character, and ironically, will not increase its popularity.
I will also say that if enough people dislike something, it can lead companies to develop a better product, whether it's a game, TV show, or movie. We have seen it with the Sonic movie, where Sonic's design was improved, and with the Mario Kart World updates. Sure, it would have been better if it had been great from the start, but at least it can be great now.
I’m also drawing a distinction between distaste and hatred. Hatred would be like filming yourself smashing a figurine of a fictional character or wishing a character would be shoved into a locker. That's not dislikeness, that's just hatred.
We should let people voice their dislike — their honest opinion — instead of forcing them to see “the bright side” of things.
It's true that being open-minded means being open to ideas with which you disagree, so as to understand their perspective and where they are coming from. But Open-mindedness also means you should respect those who don’t agree with your ideas, no matter how illogical it may seem from your perspective. It's not always because they simply don't want to listen or are being difficult about it, but it can also be that they hold a different perspective from yours, and we have to respect their understanding. Sometimes it could be because the moment they have watched is similar to what they've experienced in real life, and I think it's important to respect that.
To that end, I will also say we should let people express their distaste or dislike - and remember it’s not an attack on the fans who like it. Again, it's not always because they don't want to listen or have "bad media literacy". Perhaps they dislike a redeemed character (or a character who has undergone redemption) because they feel the character hasn't done enough to earn their redemption, or the damage they've caused (whether physical or emotional) was too great. People have also disliked things for less, and that's ok. I will also say that when people express their opinions, they do it because they want to, not to feel like they’re on trial and being judged for it.
Is it sad if someone expresses their distaste for something that you personally love? Yes, yes, it is. However, it's better to respect their opinion and try to make them understand why you don't share their view. If people just ridicule them for not liking the character/media, it will not lead to a fruitful conversation about the character, and ironically, will not increase its popularity.
I will also say that if enough people dislike something, it can lead companies to develop a better product, whether it's a game, TV show, or movie. We have seen it with the Sonic movie, where Sonic's design was improved, and with the Mario Kart World updates. Sure, it would have been better if it had been great from the start, but at least it can be great now.
I’m also drawing a distinction between distaste and hatred. Hatred would be like filming yourself smashing a figurine of a fictional character or wishing a character would be shoved into a locker. That's not dislikeness, that's just hatred.
We should let people voice their dislike — their honest opinion — instead of forcing them to see “the bright side” of things.
This idea struggles because its idea of "opinion" is vague, and getting into the weeds of what an opinion is will undo the idea. You mention hatred as one reason an opinion can lose respect, and there are many others.
If someone has the following opinion, should I respect it?
"Being gay is immoral. People do immoral stuff all the time, so I won't hate you for doing immoral things–it doesn't come from hatred–but you shouldn't be gay."
Of course not. It doesn't come from hatred, but it comes from some other reason to not disrespect opinions. That could be dogma, equating one's personal preference with morality, not critically thinking about what one's been told, or a billion other possibilities.
We can repeat this example with a billion other nonsense opinions that aren't worth respecting.
"Charizard should have a base stat total of 1."
"Mario shows a complex, rich personality in the original Super Mario Bros."
"Silksong is the easiest game ever made."
...
If we go through this enough times, we'll list a billion reasons that can disqualify a nonsense opinion from respect. And once we reach "Opinions have to be respected, unless one of these 49,873,456 caveats apply"...what are we really saying?
We'd get to "If you have a preference or personal reaction/experience on something (e.g. like, dislike), have fun go wild, but if you start talking about judgments or beliefs on what something is (e.g. this is good/bad, this should/should not exist), you need a reasonable base for me to respect your opinion."
Most opinions are beliefs and judgments, and when beliefs and judgments are worth respecting, they come from some kind of competency and understanding. If someone has a competent understanding about how Pokemon base stats should work, they won't say Charizard will have a base stat total of 1.
If you think the redeemed character should not have been redeemed, and you want to express that opinion (distinct from a personal preference that they not be redeemed), find a reasonable base for it. If you find a reasonable base and people are still unfairly jerkish about it, either you're wrong or they are about the reasonableness, and either you're wrong or they're wrong about what fair behavior is. But that's just like, people being wrong on the internet sometimes, pretty normal and not telling us a lot about broader principles.
Here's a relevant take of mine: At least when it comes to art, "like/dislike" and "good/bad" are the same thing. "Good" and "bad" are not inherent qualities of anything; they are value judgements that we impose on things according to our belief systems and attitudes. The difference between calling a video game good and saying that you like it is merely one of assertiveness; the former conflates your subjective judgement with objective reality, leaving less room for ambiguity or alternative value judgements. Because it does those things, we tend to demand a more robust and thorough justification before we'll accept it as valid, but I do not think it is a fundamentally different sentiment. At least, I cannot contrive a position, even an absurd one, where I can find a piece of art to simultaneously be good and something I dislike. I do not believe that there is such a thing as objectively good or objectively bad art, so the notion that a piece of art that I dislike could be objectively good is a total nonstarter. I can say that the existence of art that I dislike is good for the world and society, but I don't think that's the same thing.
I agree that when people disagree with something, they should at least provide a logical reason why they dislike it. For example:
These opinions, I agree, would be dismissed because the issue stems from the fact that they propose a significant change, and it would lead to high expectations that the evidence would be backed up. But it can’t because it’s not based on any foundational evidence or has no logical merit. The former would even change the fundamental design of Charizard. When it comes to preferences, I do think that objectivity is left to be desired. For example, while one can say I prefer Venusaur over Charizard because of its unique design and being a top competitive Pokémon, another can prefer Venusaur because I liked how high it looked in Pokémon Stadium. Whilst the latter may seem a shallow point, both are, in the end, valid points for liking Venusaur. However,
I haven't played Silksong, but I have heard about how difficult it is, so it would be reasonable to disagree with that opinion. However, someone could hypothetically find the game easier or less challenging compared to how others have experienced it under various circumstances, even if it is unpopular or doesn't sound illogical.
I can say that I found Cynthia not a difficult fight because I had a Levitate Bronzong (a Pokémon I considered useful throughout my Platinum playthrough) that was able to contribute a lot against her team. Or how I found Wallace a difficult boss because I felt there weren’t many good electric and grass types to help out. Whilst my opinions may be flawed, open to critique, and perhaps not popular within the Pokémon community (who are traumatized by Cynthia’s dominance on the Pokémon battlefield), they are based on my experiences, which can lead to valid conclusions, even if they don’t seem logical to the majority.
The other reason I mentioned that people should respect those who dislike an idea is that they may be uncomfortable with it, even if the idea makes sense to some.
Like in the 3 Houses fandom, Ingrid (one of my favourite characters) was allegedly one of the most controversial characters in the game. The reason: because after the people of Duscur were accused of commiting regicide in Fareghus (which they were falsely accused) and Ingrid was prejudiced against Dedue (a member of Duscur). And people have given reasonable counterarguments on why they're upset with it, such as Ingrid telling on how back then she thought that the people of Duscur got what's coming to them (which is insensitive when she's telling this is front of Dedue) or how maybe asking a genocide survivor to why not speak back against the people who have detested and ruined Duscur civilisation is not the best strat for redemption. Or how the support just doesn't focus much on how Dedue suffered in the genocide of his people. But the issue is not whether they believe Ingrid changed for the better, but rather how they convey it. Most of the time, it would be dismissed by saying that she changes in the C/B support without further explanation as to why or how she changed, or how she helps Dedue. Or worse, comparing Ingrid's racism to that of other characters, such as how Felix treated Dedue (i.e., calling Dedue a dog) or how Hilda was prejudiced towards Cyril (an Almyran whose race unfortunately received a bad name). It usually leads to calling them hypocrites or a misogynist, and that the only reason they don't get as much flak is because they're hot.
The thing that upsets me is that there are valid reasons for this, as people can have different perspectives; like how Felix called him a dog because Dedue revealed that because he feels his life was nothing until Dimitri saved him, he feels he must obey any command Dimitri commands, even if it will be killing his comrades, the elderly, or children. Or how it doesn't portray Felix as a sympathetic person, but rather as an insensitive jerk towards Dedue, even if he has a fair point. Or that maybe there are so many good things about Felix that the bad stuff tends to be overlooked.
However, the main issue is that you have arguments like labeling all critics of Ingrid as just hypocrites, which will demean those who want to discuss why they dislike it, which will scare them from talking about it. And ironically, it never boosted Ingrid's popularity despite their intentions.
Although Felix and Hilda drew more criticism—thanks to widely discussed supports—Ingrid’s popularity never climbed. Fans often note that she ‘improved’ in C/B support without detailing how she actively helps Dedue on-screen. As a result, deeper facets of her character—her knighthood, her fraught relationship with her father—hardly get mentioned. I love Ingrid, but this near-silence around her growth is one of my biggest pet peeves.
"I found Silksong/Cynthia easy" versus "Silksong and Cynthia are easy" are very different ideas that are getting mixed together here. One is a description of an experience, which would only be wrong if the person was like, lying. The other is a claim on broader reality (implicitly both a claim on what "easy" should mean, and applying that claim to Silksong) that can have good or bad support. Experiences can lead to valid conclusions, and it can also lead to invalid conclusions. Some people are victims of a crime from a person of a certain race/gender/etc., and this experience pushes them towards racism/sexism/etc. Racism and sexism aren't reasonable opinions that deserve my respect, whether they're informed by experience or not.
This isn't "all opinions should be respected," this is "I think my opinion specifically deserves respect because it has this reasonable base." To which I refer to:
_____________________________________________________________________________
I don't per se disagree with many of these sentences, but I disagree with the direction they lead to.
My POV is like, good/bad are very often used by people in the manner you describe, and your description is a cool lens I hadn't thought of laying out like that.
However, I do not use good/bad this way myself. I think Hydreigon is a good piece of art (design, concept, storytelling, what have you) and I dislike it. It shows competency in how it is crafted, but its successes are not successes that I am interested in.
I dislike this use of the objective/subjective distinction and think it conflates some different ideas.
To me, "I like Hydreigon" is an objective statement, even though the preference is subjective (open to alternative value judgments). The statement describes a specific positive mental phenomenon that either is there or isn't.
The subjective part comes with "Hydreigon deserves to be liked," which may or may not accompany the first part. I sometimes call these statements "semi-subjective" because they have some properties of subjective preferences and some properties of objective claims.
Like subjective preferences, semi-subjective claims are open to ambiguity and alternative value judgments. Blocking those out is not my goal here. However, different efforts to tackle this ambiguity can contain greater levels of knowledge, argument-building skill, etc.
A lens I like to use is like, interpreting law and forming political opinions is a subjective process (ambiguous and open to alternatives), but some people (like judges) generally back their efforts by more knowledge and skill than others (like grade schoolers).
I'm a bit confused here on the difference. Like of course I understand a definition of "good art" may not mean "good for the world." But aren't both these opinions lacking objective ground to work from, since there's any idea of 'good for the world' depends on subjective value judgments?
I think this is easy as hell. red dead redemption is an extremely well crafted experience in gameplay and lore. i also hate it and found it the most dogshit game of the year back then
how can one hate rdr2
i learned that day that i truly with the bottom of my heart hate american cowboys
To the both of you: I suppose that where we diverge on this point is that I do not think "well-crafted" is the same thing as "good." People who are interested in media criticism often, whether through paraphrasing something they heard or independent reinvention, echo Goethe's critical questions when describing how they parse media as good or bad:
It is my personal conviction that this third question is no more subjective than the second, nor should our answer to it have any less of an impact on our parsing of something as good or bad. In other words, a thing can achieve exactly what it sets out to do with a high degree of competency, as in your examples of Hydreigon's design and Red Dead Redemption, but if I do not feel that what it sets out to do is worth doing, I parse it as bad. I do not take that parsing as a true or universal reality; it is merely my personal opinion, but my personal experience of things is the only one I have access to.
- What is it trying to achieve?
- Was it successful?
It is my personal conviction that this third question is no more subjective than the second, nor should our answer to it have any less of an impact on our parsing of something as good or bad. In other words, a thing can achieve exactly what it sets out to do with a high degree of competency, as in your examples of Hydreigon's design and Red Dead Redemption, but if I do not feel that what it sets out to do is worth doing, I parse it as bad. I do not take that parsing as a true or universal reality; it is merely my personal opinion, but my personal experience of things is the only one I have access to.
Across the Spider-Verse should not be the sole future of animation art styles
I liked Into the Spider-Verse's art but Across just went overboard. I just don't like how the backgrounds constantly change color mid-scene telling you what to feel instead of letting the scenes speak for themselves. It might be eye-catching, yes, but sometimes scenes just need to speak for themselves. The spectacle drowns out the actual emotion because it's so desperate to not lose your attention
Oh yeah, and while not a hot take, treat your animators like actual human beings please, Lord and Miller are so psychotic
I liked Into the Spider-Verse's art but Across just went overboard. I just don't like how the backgrounds constantly change color mid-scene telling you what to feel instead of letting the scenes speak for themselves. It might be eye-catching, yes, but sometimes scenes just need to speak for themselves. The spectacle drowns out the actual emotion because it's so desperate to not lose your attention
Oh yeah, and while not a hot take, treat your animators like actual human beings please, Lord and Miller are so psychotic
Whilst it's true that both can be different, couldn't one also lead one conclusion to another as it's not mutually exclusive in the eyes of the player? Like if one player finds Cynthia not a difficult fight, wouldn't they reasonably believe that it isn't a difficult boss? It wouldn't be like they're trying to dictate on what would be an easy fight or not, they would be just talking about it from their own experience, which can be valid or not depending on their hurdles. If someone would say/post "Silksong/Cynthia is a easy fight", not all are saying that it is easy in general, they might not be enough explaining in full that it was easy for them, or how difficult the hurdles will have to go through.
I'm not saying that they have to agree-to-disagree on it or even respect each other for it. I'm saying that people should express their distaste or dislike of something (even if it does sound unpopular or illogical) without fear of retaliation, which was the main point of my post earlier. Because of it, there aren't going to be many fruitful discussions about it and it's just going to give them a bad name for the fans who aren't terrible. It can also possibly prohibit possible improvements in the future, like what happened before like Multiversus or the Minecraft movie, where because fans who had criticisms of both weren't taken seriously and memes about it, when both were released they did not turn out great.
Courage the Cowardly Dog isn't as deep as most people make it out to be.
Don't get me wrong, I do like the show. Courage really does have standout episodes like "The Mask" or "The Tower of Dr. Zalost." the latter I would probably say is my favorite episode of any cartoon. In a perfect world, every episode would be a 22-minute epic where we get characters with actual motivation. The show's handful of recurring villains do help, but I wish the show had more of them instead of one-offs. The problem is that if you take away the pretty good visuals with all their medium blending imagery, the show feels rather...hollow?
When you have a borderline mute protagonist in Courage (especially after Season 1), Muriel who is just there to be a kidnapped old lady, and Eustace, who, outside some very rare exceptions like "The Curse Of Shirley" is usually just a cranky old jerk, it's really hard for me to stay continually engaged. Most episodes do have a good sense of stakes, but when your characters are this basic and formulaic it's a little hard for episodes to not leave my brain the second after I watch them.
The villains of the show definitely look unique, but about 85% of them follow the same formula. They show up and cause chaos because....because....because....they dislike the main characters for some unexplained reason. And there lies the problem. If you're gonna have basic protagonists, you gotta have fleshed out villains to balance it out. And Courage just isn't comfortable doing that mostly. Again, occasionally you'll get some really compelling conflict like Remembrance of Courage Past, but it only fleshes out our characters by like 2% and then every other episode will be back to the standard static characters. It feels like the show wants to tell deeper stories but is too afraid to consistently pull the trigger.
Courage villains lean too hard on subtext and mysterious motives, which can work for a couple villains like say, Michael Myers from Halloween - there is terror in the unknown, after all - but when you have a four-season cartoon where most of your villains are as vague as Michael Myers they tend to be interchangeable, which is a word I didn't think I'd use for such a visually striking show. I get it, writers for cartoons aimed at children usually have to rely on subtext to make them palatable to children, but I just wouldn't mind a little something more. Look at Him from The Powerpuff Girls (1998). He sows disorder in various ways because he craves anarchy and confusion, yet his plans are almost always unique. He has a deep, terrifying voice, a cold, cunning, manipulative personality that goes beyond his nightmarish look. That is how you create a villain based off vagueness correctly.
Courage the Cowardly Dog is a good show. But I have a hard time finding a cartoon simpler than it, for better or worse.
Don't get me wrong, I do like the show. Courage really does have standout episodes like "The Mask" or "The Tower of Dr. Zalost." the latter I would probably say is my favorite episode of any cartoon. In a perfect world, every episode would be a 22-minute epic where we get characters with actual motivation. The show's handful of recurring villains do help, but I wish the show had more of them instead of one-offs. The problem is that if you take away the pretty good visuals with all their medium blending imagery, the show feels rather...hollow?
When you have a borderline mute protagonist in Courage (especially after Season 1), Muriel who is just there to be a kidnapped old lady, and Eustace, who, outside some very rare exceptions like "The Curse Of Shirley" is usually just a cranky old jerk, it's really hard for me to stay continually engaged. Most episodes do have a good sense of stakes, but when your characters are this basic and formulaic it's a little hard for episodes to not leave my brain the second after I watch them.
The villains of the show definitely look unique, but about 85% of them follow the same formula. They show up and cause chaos because....because....because....they dislike the main characters for some unexplained reason. And there lies the problem. If you're gonna have basic protagonists, you gotta have fleshed out villains to balance it out. And Courage just isn't comfortable doing that mostly. Again, occasionally you'll get some really compelling conflict like Remembrance of Courage Past, but it only fleshes out our characters by like 2% and then every other episode will be back to the standard static characters. It feels like the show wants to tell deeper stories but is too afraid to consistently pull the trigger.
Courage villains lean too hard on subtext and mysterious motives, which can work for a couple villains like say, Michael Myers from Halloween - there is terror in the unknown, after all - but when you have a four-season cartoon where most of your villains are as vague as Michael Myers they tend to be interchangeable, which is a word I didn't think I'd use for such a visually striking show. I get it, writers for cartoons aimed at children usually have to rely on subtext to make them palatable to children, but I just wouldn't mind a little something more. Look at Him from The Powerpuff Girls (1998). He sows disorder in various ways because he craves anarchy and confusion, yet his plans are almost always unique. He has a deep, terrifying voice, a cold, cunning, manipulative personality that goes beyond his nightmarish look. That is how you create a villain based off vagueness correctly.
Courage the Cowardly Dog is a good show. But I have a hard time finding a cartoon simpler than it, for better or worse.
the pokken games have some of if not the best music in the whole entire pokemon franchise, like genuinely the ost slaps so hard
take phos volcano. entire song is good but holy shit the part at 1:31 sounds so nice. other great stage songs that come to mind are blue dome, regi ruins, and mystery carnival (holy crap i love mystery carnival)
reason why i'm putting this in a hot takes thread is cause i think this beats out a lot of other mons game ost for me, and i don't know if that's a particularly common viewpoint or not seeing as how like sv and xy and usum exist, hell unite and even pokemon typing adventure had a pretty banger ost
take phos volcano. entire song is good but holy shit the part at 1:31 sounds so nice. other great stage songs that come to mind are blue dome, regi ruins, and mystery carnival (holy crap i love mystery carnival)
reason why i'm putting this in a hot takes thread is cause i think this beats out a lot of other mons game ost for me, and i don't know if that's a particularly common viewpoint or not seeing as how like sv and xy and usum exist, hell unite and even pokemon typing adventure had a pretty banger ost
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Making a brief return because no one will ever defend it if I don't.
White Kyurem is so criminally underappreciated, especially if we compare the ideas of the entire concept of Absofusion and what it entails between the two forms.
At first, Kyurem is empty. The entire point of the creature is that it is keeping itself in stasis because the second it thaws, it falls apart. Keeping with the BW theme it even has contradicting and yet reasonable backstories, one where it falls from space and crash-landed hard enough to create the Giant Chasm where it resides, feeding on beings to fill the emptiness inside it, and the other tale where it is the leftovers of the two dragons of blaze and bolt, a tragic creature born with it's energy, life, and direction taken from it.
I personally prefer the second interpretation because Kyurem, especially in BW2, is made a creature with it's agency stripped, made to serve for the hollow shell of Pokémon PETA turned terrorists, forced to devastate Opelucid City and almost fucking kill you at Ghetsis' command. Naturally, N comes to the rescue atop his dragon, in Black Zekrom, and in White Reshiram, and uses Fusion (Bolt/Flare) of the respective Pokémon. Naturally of course Ghetsis goes arharhar and then gets Kyurem to bash the ever living shit out of said dragon, before using the DNA splicers on it and Absofusing the two together.
Black Kyurem is what I'll talk about first, and notably the fusion looks... stable. Kyurem appears to be complete for lack of a better word. It doesn't look like two dragons were forcibly merged back into an incomplete state, and if you took away the colour from the mon you could reasonably convince someone that the horn was a design mistake. It's only when you put colour does the design looks like the two are clashing, ideals frozen and made rigid, unchanging. Lightning is quick, agile, fast, but yet it's trapped within a frozen shell that is comfortable with how things are. It's... fine. It gets the job done. It looks like a fusion. But if I gave you a silhouette and told you it was a fusion you'd have every right to doubt me.
White Kyurem instantly tells you there is NO STABLITY, as it should. Unlike Zekrom who Kyurem assimilates easily, Reshiram's wings and ears are breaking out of the ice, refusing to be consumed by the cold, burning in hopes it can break free. Fire and Ice don't mix, and yet, in spite of it, the fusion holds. Kyurem infuses itself not with the bland ideals of Zekrom but with the righteous truth of Reshiram, not holding it's truth but leaking it out. Ghetsis, for all of his terrible terrible traits, is a man who is so utterly convinced he is correct, that all things he believes are true, that White Kyurem understands and fights alongside him even in spite of his contradictions because White Kyurem IS a contradiction. It's Hot and Cold, full of energy and life and yet it's Rigid and Slow. It is a distortion on N's arc in White, where his truth is the so happy world he envisions for Pokémon and Reshiram decides it best to ally with him for that future. White Kyurem accepts Ghetsis' truth; it is a tool and it is a tool made to destroy. It is a tool like Ghetsis' Hydreigon who hates him, like the team he has to fully counter and oppose N's lineup, a tool like every grunt and commanding officer to rule the world.
tell me. tell me with your heart. that ideals can replace truth here meaningfully.
White Kyurem is so criminally underappreciated, especially if we compare the ideas of the entire concept of Absofusion and what it entails between the two forms.
At first, Kyurem is empty. The entire point of the creature is that it is keeping itself in stasis because the second it thaws, it falls apart. Keeping with the BW theme it even has contradicting and yet reasonable backstories, one where it falls from space and crash-landed hard enough to create the Giant Chasm where it resides, feeding on beings to fill the emptiness inside it, and the other tale where it is the leftovers of the two dragons of blaze and bolt, a tragic creature born with it's energy, life, and direction taken from it.
I personally prefer the second interpretation because Kyurem, especially in BW2, is made a creature with it's agency stripped, made to serve for the hollow shell of Pokémon PETA turned terrorists, forced to devastate Opelucid City and almost fucking kill you at Ghetsis' command. Naturally, N comes to the rescue atop his dragon, in Black Zekrom, and in White Reshiram, and uses Fusion (Bolt/Flare) of the respective Pokémon. Naturally of course Ghetsis goes arharhar and then gets Kyurem to bash the ever living shit out of said dragon, before using the DNA splicers on it and Absofusing the two together.
Black Kyurem is what I'll talk about first, and notably the fusion looks... stable. Kyurem appears to be complete for lack of a better word. It doesn't look like two dragons were forcibly merged back into an incomplete state, and if you took away the colour from the mon you could reasonably convince someone that the horn was a design mistake. It's only when you put colour does the design looks like the two are clashing, ideals frozen and made rigid, unchanging. Lightning is quick, agile, fast, but yet it's trapped within a frozen shell that is comfortable with how things are. It's... fine. It gets the job done. It looks like a fusion. But if I gave you a silhouette and told you it was a fusion you'd have every right to doubt me.
White Kyurem instantly tells you there is NO STABLITY, as it should. Unlike Zekrom who Kyurem assimilates easily, Reshiram's wings and ears are breaking out of the ice, refusing to be consumed by the cold, burning in hopes it can break free. Fire and Ice don't mix, and yet, in spite of it, the fusion holds. Kyurem infuses itself not with the bland ideals of Zekrom but with the righteous truth of Reshiram, not holding it's truth but leaking it out. Ghetsis, for all of his terrible terrible traits, is a man who is so utterly convinced he is correct, that all things he believes are true, that White Kyurem understands and fights alongside him even in spite of his contradictions because White Kyurem IS a contradiction. It's Hot and Cold, full of energy and life and yet it's Rigid and Slow. It is a distortion on N's arc in White, where his truth is the so happy world he envisions for Pokémon and Reshiram decides it best to ally with him for that future. White Kyurem accepts Ghetsis' truth; it is a tool and it is a tool made to destroy. It is a tool like Ghetsis' Hydreigon who hates him, like the team he has to fully counter and oppose N's lineup, a tool like every grunt and commanding officer to rule the world.
tell me. tell me with your heart. that ideals can replace truth here meaningfully.
An established piece of a media or a franchise changing genres, having a tonal break or no longer being like the thing that it originated from isn't bad necessarily, it's actually good for the most part
People for example often say that Minecraft doesn't feel like Minecraft anymore for example, but like, the game is in constant development since 2009. I really like that the new mobs look and feel very different, I like new mechanics like momentum based weapons or the trial chambers. It's really fun to see a sheep from 2009 right by a frog and seeing how much the game has evolved and changed over the years. It gives it a certain identity that just can't be grasped by a game that's iterated on less
Doom 3 is another example, like all of a sudden, you're no longer an unbeatable demon killing machine, you're just a regular guy that has to scrap to survive against these demons that now seem terrifying. That enhances the world a lot and gives people a completely different perspective on this a game that they think they know very well
There's this YouTube series called Needle Mouse that was later followed up by a similar series called Shin Sonic. Both were originally horror and have (surprisingly naturally) evolved into a more action-oriented direction. That's like my favorite thing about these series, the creator just saw the potential of his work and allowed it to prosper
It's much worse when something just stays the same all the time. I like the first couple of Friday the 13th movies because they're quite distinctive of one another, but it was just all the same shit, even when they marketed the movies to be less serious, they were still just the same movie in a setting that's a little different. They should've gone all in, like how the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was this very genuinely strong horror movie and then the second movie was just batshit insanity
People for example often say that Minecraft doesn't feel like Minecraft anymore for example, but like, the game is in constant development since 2009. I really like that the new mobs look and feel very different, I like new mechanics like momentum based weapons or the trial chambers. It's really fun to see a sheep from 2009 right by a frog and seeing how much the game has evolved and changed over the years. It gives it a certain identity that just can't be grasped by a game that's iterated on less
Doom 3 is another example, like all of a sudden, you're no longer an unbeatable demon killing machine, you're just a regular guy that has to scrap to survive against these demons that now seem terrifying. That enhances the world a lot and gives people a completely different perspective on this a game that they think they know very well
There's this YouTube series called Needle Mouse that was later followed up by a similar series called Shin Sonic. Both were originally horror and have (surprisingly naturally) evolved into a more action-oriented direction. That's like my favorite thing about these series, the creator just saw the potential of his work and allowed it to prosper
It's much worse when something just stays the same all the time. I like the first couple of Friday the 13th movies because they're quite distinctive of one another, but it was just all the same shit, even when they marketed the movies to be less serious, they were still just the same movie in a setting that's a little different. They should've gone all in, like how the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was this very genuinely strong horror movie and then the second movie was just batshit insanity
interestingly, i sympathize with this, but in a weird roundabout way. i think modern minecraft, up until somewhat recently, kept a good consistent balance between the stuff they already had and decidedly new stuff that either was a completely fresh facet of the game, that rehauled or expanded or what have you on existing parts of minecraft, or (my favorite of the executions) a mix of the two.
as a rough example, update aquatic was a much needed overhaul to the game's oceans, while village and pillage added a lot more facets to the game's villages. both of these updates were first and foremost an enhancement and expansion of existing significant facets of the game, but at the same time kept most (if not all) of the core principles involved.
they probably could have done some wild stuff in, say. village and pillage. they could have done some crazy complex stuff like curing illagers, making the zombification process a lot more complex, having a bunch of like illager decorative blocks or something, but they didn't. the end result was something a bit more narrowly focused; something more intent on enhancing the couple key systems at play for a given facet of the minecraft experience. pretty much every big new system in the update loosely tied back to the core idea and function of villagers: you find varied villages around your world, and can interact with the villagers there in a variety of ways if you so choose. well, this update made villages more varied, with lots of different types of building and the materials with which they were built varying based on region. it added more depth to the freshly reskinned (and quite dapper looking, might i add) villagers, with professions being a far more developed system. they also expanded on the "protection" side of things as well: while iron golems are all fine and dandy, instead of random zombie ambushes messing with your village and whatnot, now the player is set to contend with the illagers, a somewhat new legion of very evil and messed up villagers that have outposts stationed around the world, as well as patrol parties that can and will skirmish with the player. and if the player ends up killing a patrol captain, well... if the achivement name "Voluntary Exile" was anything to go by, the next time you pay a visit to your friendly local villagers, you had better be prepared.
village and pillage is a very nice example of the flavor i prefer my minecraft updates in, and the one i chose to elaborate on the most. it took an existing part of the minecraft experience that could maybe also use a bit of polish, and expanded interestingly on it. the core focus and "theme" of the update was centered around that expanded system, and this is what was used to introduce new systems: villages, an existing significant part of minecraft, gave rise to pillagers, an offshoot of the first concept and a new facet of both the village system and minecraft as a whole. (especially if you count woodland mansions!) i also like how there weren't a lot of strictly decorative blocks; most of the new blocks had lots of decorative uses but still had at least one somewhat notable use case. in the case of village and pillage, this was mostly fulfilled by the new workbenches and other various blocks like bells, which all had some degree of intrinsic use outside of "make build look fancier". it also facilitated this idea that i enjoy of using blocks in unexpected decorative ways, which i think mojang has gone on record saying that they also really like that part of the game and that they didn't add things like vertical slabs because they figured it would defeat the purpose. i wholeheartedly agree.
most big updates (and a lot of the smaller ones like busy bees but im gonna ignore those cause my fingers hurt) keep to this rough archetype of update philosophy, and at the same time still felt varied and unique in their individual execution. the nether update added a bunch of interesting new systems that expanded upon things like gear progression and nether exploration, while still carving out its own identity with a slew of completely new additions of varying sizes. the cave update duology contained a fervent amount of development on one of the game's namesake mechanics, with the first one choosing to expand on the existing systems and the second one doing a 180; completely turning it on its head with the advent of the aptly named deep dark. you think you know y level=0, foolish miner? well it's time to go even deeper than ever before. you think you know big, ominous minecraft structures? finally got over your intrinsic avoidance of ocean monuments because the unintentional elder guardian jumpscare is a bit startling? well i hope you liked A Quiet Place bucko. all this too scary for you? better build up some courage soon, because the treasure located in ancient cities is some of the most valuable the game has ever seen.
(im also admittedly extremely biased because the duology also added three of my favorite blocks of all time: moss, dripstone, and sculk sensors. all three have super cool presentation and super cool use cases for pretty much every rough archetype of minecraft player.)
trails and tales deserves a shout too. it executes a lot of smaller things in tandem that i can respect and i love the overall theme of the update. mojang has mentioned that their mindset for this update was very focused on "giving players the tools to tell more interesting stories", and i think this epicly broad development goal can be very nicely tied together with the simple theme of "stories". players are now bound to discover suspicious sand and gravel throughout the game's various ruins, including the newly added trail ruins, which spawn in forests and are entirely buried underground. players take on something of an archeologist's role and must be careful not to break these blocks, as they may contain potentially valuable relics; these include the newly introduced pottery shards of various designs that can be crafted into custom decorative pots, as well as the aptly named new music disc, "Relic". the player might even find a very special type of egg, and eventually hatch it into the sniffer, an exctinct dinosaur/cow hybrid goober that uses its powerful, uh, sniffer, to locate and dig up prehistoric seeds. in addition, a broad selection of miscellaneous other things have been added, including hanging signs (my beloved <3), camels as a rare spawn in desert villages, bookshelves that you can actually store written books in, and more. players are set to carefully explore strange ancient ruins, which are home to unique and special ancient artifacts, potentially finding and hatching a previously exctinct species of mob, and can even place their written works directly onto a bookshelf now. "stories" is an awesome theme that allowed for such a wide range of new systems and expansions of older things like bookshelves to tie nicely together in a well-executed fasion. i don't often see this update explicitly praised, and i'd love to see that change, honestly. even my prior beef with the sniffer (THE TUFF GOLEM WAS ROBBED, MOB VOTE RIGGED MOB VOTE RIGGED) wasn't enough to stop me from realizing that this was a very well-crafted update in a lot of relavent regards.
in another vein, tricky trials took the concept of dungeons and went very "yes, and" with it:
so we have these random underground structures designed to spawn hostile mobs and provide a combat challenge for the player and reward them with loot? alright, let's keep those, but let's also add rarer, visually striking, and procedually generated mega dungeons designed primarily around combat. what if we introduced a mob that toys with the player and disrupts combat, rather than simply directly damaging players, to keep things more interesting? enter the breeze, a counterpart to the blaze whose true danger lies not in any damage caused by its wind charge blasts, but the repurcussions of it (fall damage, getting knocked closer to enemies, getting knocked in any direction really). ooh, so this enemy is a threat because of external factors in the arena! let's expand on that: what if the breeze's wind charges could also toggle objects like buttons and doors, and in conjunction, some areas where the player is likely to fight a breeze have a gaggle of button-activated arrow dispensers and such! a dangerous locale such as this will need great incentives, so let's add a slew of loot sources: pots, chests, maybe even special dispensers that provide rewards when a wave of mobs is killed! (with a cooldown, of course.)
ooh, and the player will probably find the breezes' wind charges cool, so let's make them craftable, and have the breeze drop breeze rods needed for the creation of them! hm, though... if we just add them like that, we run into a problem: you can only really use breeze rods for one thing. that's kind of pointless item bloat. ok. i have an idea. what if we tie together the loot drops from trial spawners, the height and movement based mechanics of the wind charge, and the combat focus of this update, and make at least one other worthwhile item for the player to use their breeze rods for: the mace! a new weapon that requires a rare drop from certain trial spawners and breeze rods to create, with a heavy swing, and does increased damage if the player is falling. (almost like a hyper crit?) this damage scales with how far the player has fallen, making this a very high-risk, high reward weapon in most cases! we could add a few mechanically interesting enchantments for the mace, and have these be primarily obtainable from sources in trial chambers the same way swift sneak books are pretty exclusive to ancient cities. and to top it all off, let's give mediocre resources copper and tuff a bit more use too: a slew of popping decorative copper blocks and many different flavors of decorative tuff should work. for building-minded players, since the trial chambers are going to be mostly built out of these two resources, there's an added layer of incentive: mining the walls is the most efficient way in the game to get large quantities of various copper blocks!
nothing in this update really feels that forced (except mayyyyybe the mace, but it's not that bad), and i love it for that. pretty much everything seems to have naturally progressed as a result of the initial concept, letting the game explore interesting ideas it maybe wouldn't have otherwise. i can't really imagine a mojang higher-up explicitly going "alright we need a counterpart to the blaze and a weapon that does more damage if the player is falling", although those things could have very well been said. but i think it's far more likely that the cool mechanics this update introduced were just the natural result of a concept being expanded upon.
finally, returning to the original point: more recently, like within the last year or so, this archetype of update that i find very tasteful has kind of... just stopped? maybe it's in line with things like mojang deciding to suffocate the concept of updates with a pillow and instead focusing on smaller *ahem* content drops (i don't care for that term by the way it just sounds so sterile to me) that are more in line with minecraft's earlier years of development. maybe it's in line with the minecraft movie dropping. whatever the case, roughly starting with the garden awakens and gradually becoming more present, new minecraft additions have felt extremely self contained and... kind of bland. i am a big minecraft builder and i absolutely love that we finally have a monochrome wood set, but like, that... was it. the only tie the pale garden has to the rest of the general minecraft experience as a whole is a new wood and a new decorative block type in resin. for the first time in many, many years, i found a noteworthy minecraft update extremely middling. yeah there's the funny invincible red light green light guy that i forgot the name of, who i like a lot, but there was just not a lot of sauce this time around like there was with stuff like village and pillage or hell even busy bees, which had a not insignificant degree of large scale influence with the pollenation stuff and honey eventually having a bunch of really potent use cases. the garden awakens was extremely self contained. it's not that it didn't "feel like minecraft", it just simply didn't add a whole lot to it. it bloated what was already there.
with the introduction of content drops, this problem is likely kind of facilitated by that system. less development time and smaller scale changes probably means less time and ability to ensure that a new web of mechanics has meaningful and original positive ripples across the rest of the game. armadillo. brush it. armadillo scute. used for dog armor and nothing else. more dog colors. see you next time. aside from my personal "yeah i liked it when new additions had larger scale implications" i think there's also something to be said for the fact that minecraft already has a lot of stuff in it and adding a bunch of semi-pointless new stuff is just bloating and stifling. quantity isn't always better in terms of game content, and especially if it gets in the way of quality. i don't find all the recent new minecraft stuff low quality or boring, but i think there is a notable gap between how high-quality and mechanically interesting new minecraft stuff could within reason be, and how high-quality and mechanically interesting new minecraft stuff actually ends up being. again, this isn't an issue of whether or not i like x new mechanic; usually it ends up being something more in line with "i like x new mechanic but i wish it was explored further or implimented differently".
tl;dr: the issue i personally have is not with modern minecraft per se, but with a lot of design philosophies and principles that seem to be present right now (which just so happens to be the modern era of minecraft)
thank you for coming to my tnt talk
(quick note: i don't like the steve's lava chicken music disc. please spread this post around the internet so mojang sees it and considers removing the steve's lava chicken music disc. all the other minecraft movie references can stay just nix the disc. of course, they won't actually do that, but i think it would be funny for the notion to gain traction)
I know it's probably not targeted to BlazBlue... BUT we got BB-related news for the first time in years and it's. an expanded edition. for the roguelike spinoff no one played. Aside from BBTAG (which is like a fine game but it's a massive departure from how the rest of the franchise plays) the last fighting game installment was centralfiction which was over a decade ago.An established piece of a media or a franchise changing genres, having a tonal break or no longer being like the thing that it originated from isn't bad necessarily, it's actually good for the most part
People for example often say that Minecraft doesn't feel like Minecraft anymore for example, but like, the game is in constant development since 2009. I really like that the new mobs look and feel very different, I like new mechanics like momentum based weapons or the trial chambers. It's really fun to see a sheep from 2009 right by a frog and seeing how much the game has evolved and changed over the years. It gives it a certain identity that just can't be grasped by a game that's iterated on less
Doom 3 is another example, like all of a sudden, you're no longer an unbeatable demon killing machine, you're just a regular guy that has to scrap to survive against these demons that now seem terrifying. That enhances the world a lot and gives people a completely different perspective on this a game that they think they know very well
There's this YouTube series called Needle Mouse that was later followed up by a similar series called Shin Sonic. Both were originally horror and have (surprisingly naturally) evolved into a more action-oriented direction. That's like my favorite thing about these series, the creator just saw the potential of his work and allowed it to prosper
It's much worse when something just stays the same all the time. I like the first couple of Friday the 13th movies because they're quite distinctive of one another, but it was just all the same shit, even when they marketed the movies to be less serious, they were still just the same movie in a setting that's a little different. They should've gone all in, like how the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was this very genuinely strong horror movie and then the second movie was just batshit insanity
I can very clearly name the reasons Arcsys is scared to make another fighting game. Strive is the game making all the big bucks, and pretty much every other FG project they've funded, fun as they are, have fallen flat on their face in terms of sales numbers. (Strive is pictured as a reference point)
There are a lot of issues with trying to sell a fighting game. With a skill gap between the upper eschelon of players and your average joe who wants to fool around with his friends on a discord call, and a game that requires pandering to one of those sides, you're going to lose out on half your potential playerbase. As things stand, Arcsys's options with the BlazBlue franchise are either make a remaster of Centralfiction (which is frankly not even a super dated game) or keep peddling their weird spinoffs and tag fighters that no one really asked for. If they make an actual continuation of the franchise it would be the equivalent of burning money since the only people interested in what BlazBlue offers (a techy, complicated fighting game and a visual novel) are people in, like, their late 20s-early 30s who would have been playing older BB, Guilty Gear, or Street Fighter titles and reading stuff like tsukihime or fate. That's such a comically small minority of customers that they might as well be a rounding error.