Well_known_bear's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
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    Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Only a little ways into this. The combat system seems to have been inflated even further to Xenoblade levels of complexity, with systems on top of systems on top of...

    Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

    Only a little ways into this.

    • The combat system seems to have been inflated even further to Xenoblade levels of complexity, with systems on top of systems on top of systems. I kind of wish they'd just spent the effort on polishing the system they already had, because it still doesn't feel great to play moment to moment. Just being able to cancel out of attacks would have made the flow of combat feel a lot better.

    • The open world looks nice and runs surprisingly well even on my dated GPU (no doubt due to DLSS), but as I only found out hours later, if you actually start running around to explore as soon as the game lets you, it's all just empty space with no points of interest and barely even any enemies to fight - apparently you need to progress the main game further before it'll unlock points of interest, side quests and so on. Kind of a baffling game design decision which runs counter to how every other open world game works.

    • I like the card game. My initial instinct is to rush to control as much of the board as quickly as possible, but I can already see that there's enough strategic depth to it that this isn't always going to work. I also like that it's very well signposted where you need to go to find opponents, and there's none of the local rules / ante guff that weighed down Triple Triad. You can just keep playing until you find a winning strategy.

    This is a pretty big game, so my aim is just to finish it sometime in 2026.

    Urban Myth Dissolution Center

    Mystery / horror adventure game about investigating, identifying and 'dismantling' urban legends.

    There's a lot to like:

    • The concept of mysteries based around urban legends (and connected by a larger tinfoil hat conspiracy theory) is neat.

    • The characters are fun and expressive, and the chunky GBC-style pixel art looks great and is well animated.

    • The parts where you have to go on Twitter to conduct research perfectly capture what a hellscape social media has become. There's also a lot of optional stuff to learn about urban legends, much of which was new to me and interesting.

    However, the remainder of the gameplay is where it kind of drags for me:

    • Much of the game is walking around and repeatedly interrogating people and checking things until you have the necessary clues to make the deduction needed to progress the plot. However:

      • Each time you choose a conversation/ investigation topic, you only receive a few lines before you're back in the menu and have to select a new topic, even when the new topic is just the logical continuation of the previous one. It might take going back to the menu 4-5 different times to get through a single normal conversation.

      • New topics will often pop up as the investigation progresses, so you'll also need to go back to people and locations to check for them.

      The result is that you're constantly menuing through topics instead of focusing on the story.

    • The story itself is also kind of nuts, with many of the mysteries involving incredibly convoluted schemes that no one in their right minds would attempt. A lot of the time, 'a ghost did it' would actually be the more satisfying answer.

    Would have preferred a bit more polish in those areas.

    Your Turn to Die

    Indie death game adventure / courtroom game.

    On one hand, it's clearly an indie passion project made largely by one person. There are no voices, it's obviously made in RPG Maker (with all of its familiar menus and sound effects) and the art is pretty rough - particularly the backgrounds, which have a very low fidelity vibe that gives me flashbacks to playing early Sierra games like Space Quest I.

    On the other, the writing, the gameplay and even the music is great. It might be a stretch to call it a mashup of Zero Escape, Danganronpa and Ace Attorney, but all of those influences are visible in the combination of old school point and click adventure, role-based social deduction (much like Raging Loop) and 'discussion'-style courtroom system where you can draw out statements from each participant and pit them against each other. It's very ambitious and for the most part, they pull it off.

    I particularly liked how opaque the many decisions constantly being thrown at the player are. Often they'll seem important, but it's rarely obvious what the 'right' move is (or if there even is one), and eventually you just go with your gut or what you think the protagonist would do.

    A couple of points to note:

    • The game is still missing the final chapter, so you might want to hold off until it's complete if you want to play the whole thing at once. Based on the author's social media, it's still being actively worked on as at late 2025.

    • If you can read Japanese, you can just play the free version available on the author's booth page. The main story content is the same as the steam version, but there's no English translation.

    6 votes

  2. Comment on New Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight anime to be produced in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    The original show was about a group of students who belong to what can only be described as a kind of magical realism underground fight club. They fight each other on an underground stage to...

    The original show was about a group of students who belong to what can only be described as a kind of magical realism underground fight club. They fight each other on an underground stage to settle conflicts and fulfil their wishes, but the fights are also musicals like in a revue.

    It's pretty close to Revolutionary Girl Utena in that the whole thing has a really dream-like tone to it.

    There was apparently also a mobile game too, but it came after the TV series, so I assume it's based on it.

    5 votes

  3. Comment on New Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight anime to be produced in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    To be sequel to original series. Kinema Citrus to produce animation again. I thought the original show had already wrapped up its story pretty nicely, so hopefully they've thought the sequel through.
    • To be sequel to original series.
    • Kinema Citrus to produce animation again.

    I thought the original show had already wrapped up its story pretty nicely, so hopefully they've thought the sequel through.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
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    Ghost Hunt Adaptation of the Akuryou series of novels by Ono Fuyumi, who also wrote the excellent Jyuuni Kokuki. Unfortunately, this isn't nearly as good. Although it's technically a horror show,...

    Ghost Hunt

    Adaptation of the Akuryou series of novels by Ono Fuyumi, who also wrote the excellent Jyuuni Kokuki. Unfortunately, this isn't nearly as good.

    Although it's technically a horror show, the premise is more that the protagonists show up with a bunch of equipment and try to work out what the problem is (just like in The Conjuring movies), and then if it turns out to be a ghost, they work out how to deal with it. However, given the protagonists are constantly hanging out with a gang of exorcists of various denominations, it's not particularly horrifying even when it does turn out to be a ghost.

    The story is very slowly paced, with each arc taking about 3 episodes to resolve regardless of how complex the underlying issue actually is. Apparently the TV series made some major changes to the source material, so I'm not sure whether to blame this on the novels or the show, but either way, it feels like it would have worked better if it was edited down to 13 episodes rather than 25.

    Hibi wa Sugiredo, Meshi Umashi

    I dropped this after the first episode in the season it aired (which was stacked with a bunch of other good shows), but picked it up again after being struck with a sudden craving for some easy viewing slice of life (possibly related to having to return to work this week).

    The animation is pretty janky by PA Works standards, and the writing / direction never hits the highs of Non Non Biyori, but it does pick up after episode 1 (which kind of does the show a disservice in that it doesn't represent its core premise) and fits the bill if you're just looking to zone out for a while and come away feeling positive about life.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    I haven't played any of the spin-offs (or even the 'extra game' that you usually unlock for finishing these games). They've always just struck me as being too different from the main games to get...

    I haven't played any of the spin-offs (or even the 'extra game' that you usually unlock for finishing these games). They've always just struck me as being too different from the main games to get into, and none of them are needed to understand the main games.

    I am kind of curious about the upcoming Danganronpa 2x2 which promises a remixed story with all new murders and tricks though!

    2 votes

  7. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    V3 was my favourite out of the trilogy, but I can definitely see how some of the characters can be grating. I actually felt like this was a plus in that you can enjoy cheering for certain...

    V3 was my favourite out of the trilogy, but I can definitely see how some of the characters can be grating. I actually felt like this was a plus in that you can enjoy cheering for certain characters to die as much as cheering for others to survive, but yeah, it can't be good if that's almost everyone.

    If you've made it halfway, though, I'd just push on through to see how it ends. If nothing else, there's a decent chance the characters you don't like will get killed off (or at least recontextualised as to why they're the way they are)!

    4 votes

  8. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
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    The Roottrees are Dead I thought this would be pretty dark based on the title, but it's just a very chill (and often funny) Obra Dinn-like deduction game where you're just googling, taking notes...

    The Roottrees are Dead

    I thought this would be pretty dark based on the title, but it's just a very chill (and often funny) Obra Dinn-like deduction game where you're just googling, taking notes and making connections against a laid back soundtrack.

    I've finished the first of the two chapters and felt like the difficulty was pitched at about the right level. Like with Obra Dinn, there'll occasionally be spots where it's seemingly impossible to 100% nail down an identity and you just have to take a flyer, but usually there are enough context clues that you can at least make a sensible guess, and by the end, there were only two optional identities that I couldn't find any clues for at all.

    Chapter 2 is rather diabolical and ramps up the difficulty even further, perhaps beyond that which a lot of players would care for. I'm planning on at least giving it a shot as I enjoy the gameplay, but chapter 1 is a pretty self contained story and worth checking in itself.

    4 votes

  9. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    I'm also a PC + Nintendo person. The 50% price increase for hardware and software across the board is definitely a bitter pill to swallow. I would be interested to see if Nintendo changes their...

    I'm also a PC + Nintendo person. The 50% price increase for hardware and software across the board is definitely a bitter pill to swallow.

    I would be interested to see if Nintendo changes their strategy this generation and introduces more discounts given the now increased disparity between their pricing and PC games which receive frequent discounts on Steam.

    3 votes

  10. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    Depending on your tolerance for JRPGs: You could also look into Final Fantasy X and Persona 3-5 which were big stylistic influences for E33. The Bravely Default / Octopath Traveler series allow...

    Depending on your tolerance for JRPGs:

    • You could also look into Final Fantasy X and Persona 3-5 which were big stylistic influences for E33.

    • The Bravely Default / Octopath Traveler series allow you to exploit the game systems to make some busted builds, just like E33.

    • If you're after more active guard / attack style games, Super Mario RPG (and its many sequels) is a good shout.

    4 votes

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
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    The thing that really helped me with Sekiro is realising that unless you need to be running somewhere to reposition or attacking, you can just hold down block all the time. Just quickly lift your...

    The thing that really helped me with Sekiro is realising that unless you need to be running somewhere to reposition or attacking, you can just hold down block all the time. Just quickly lift your finger and push down the block button again to parry. This way, the worst case scenario is that you just block the hit instead of parrying it. Your own posture bar will also recover much faster, and even if your timing is off and your posture eventually gets broken, most enemies often won't even punish you let alone deathblow you.

    It's rough at the start, but if you practice against random swordsmen enemies you'll get it down quickly. Good luck!

    1 vote

  12. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    I've just come off watching the newly released episodes of the anime. The original TV series is one of my favourite comedy/romances of all time - writing, direction, animation, music and...

    I've just come off watching the newly released episodes of the anime. The original TV series is one of my favourite comedy/romances of all time - writing, direction, animation, music and performances, the whole package - and I thought the ending for the TV series and the movie were both great ways to wrap up the series.

    These new episodes, on the other hand... the whole time, I was just thinking 'I didn't need to see this.' I would have much preferred to see a conclusion to the Ishigami plotline, which appears completely MIA.

    Hopefully the manga didn't drag it out as much as the anime seems to be doing!

    1 vote

  13. Comment on Buying a lotta RAM now, as an investment ... thoughts? in ~tech

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
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    In general terms, RAM is a commodity sold on the free market and is constantly priced by that market based on supply and demand. In this case, it has already gone up in price to reflect both...
    • Exemplary

    • In general terms, RAM is a commodity sold on the free market and is constantly priced by that market based on supply and demand.

      In this case, it has already gone up in price to reflect both current conditions and expectations / knowledge about future conditions (reduced supply due to AI companies taking a large share of future production and the 'big 3' largely declining to increase production / increased demand due to panic buying by consumers).

      The price will change further as more information becomes available and current expectations are either confirmed or refuted, but at this point in time, it is not possible to say whether that movement will be upwards or downwards. It may seem like there is only doom on the horizon (and the news lately is certainly doing its best to score clicks based on this angle), but no one really knows what events are in store even in the next 12 months which could move the price again.

      Because of this, I would definitely not speculate on the price of RAM (or any other commodity). The only reason to buy RAM now is if you actually need it now.

    • If you're interested in buying RAM specifically for gaming and you already have 16GB of RAM (even reasonably fast DDR4), I'll just add that this should be enough to run almost all games today at pretty reasonable settings. I wouldn't be rushing to buy more RAM until there was at least a specific game I couldn't run satisfactorily with my current setup.

    57 votes

  14. Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    I've been in the mood for horror lately and reading Utsuranain desu. It runs in Weekly Sunday and is about a boy who attracts ghosts meeting a girl who repels them. It has very clean art and a dry...

    I've been in the mood for horror lately and reading Utsuranain desu. It runs in Weekly Sunday and is about a boy who attracts ghosts meeting a girl who repels them.

    It has very clean art and a dry sense of humour which I quite like, and the weekly horror dynamic reminds me a little of Shibito no Koe wo kiku ga yoi which I also liked, although this is much less gory.

    It isn't earth shattering stuff, but it is cute with likeable characters and given the serial, I wouldn't be surprised to see it animated soon.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Steam: Best of 2025 in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link Parent
    The windows derivative Dope Wars was very popular in our high school computing class. All these years later, I can still remember being elated by the Marrakesh Express arriving in town. Culture...

    The windows derivative Dope Wars was very popular in our high school computing class. All these years later, I can still remember being elated by the Marrakesh Express arriving in town.

    Culture really is cyclical!

    3 votes

  16. Comment on Anime: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    Good shout. I'd totally forgotten about this one! Kumeta's current series Shibuya Near Family is also excellent.

    Good shout. I'd totally forgotten about this one!

    Kumeta's current series Shibuya Near Family is also excellent.

  17. Comment on Anime: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Interesting. I've never really thought about parenthood as a genre per se, but there are actually a fair number of anime / manga series which approach it from different angles. Off the top of my...

    Interesting. I've never really thought about parenthood as a genre per se, but there are actually a fair number of anime / manga series which approach it from different angles.

    Off the top of my head:

    • Usagi Drop
    • Inazuma to Amaama
    • Somali to Mori no Kami-sama
    • Deaimon
    • Uchi no Musume no tame naraba Ore wa moshikashitara Maou mo taoseru kamoshirenai

    Would be interested to hear if you saw any others that resonated with you.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on Anime: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    Pretty good year overall! I'll limit this to 2025 because holy cow, that's still an absolute ton of shows given how much is coming out these days. Favourites of 2025 Shōshimin: I love this even...

    Pretty good year overall!

    I'll limit this to 2025 because holy cow, that's still an absolute ton of shows given how much is coming out these days.

    Favourites of 2025

    • Shōshimin: I love this even more than Hyouka. The oddball platonic dynamic between the two protagonists and their verbal and mental sparring is so satisfying to watch, and the commitment to telling a full story with an arc over the course of their school life together pays off wonderfully.

    • CITY: Weekly dose of joy.

    • Mono: Weekend animation: Just such a cheerful, fun and undemanding show backed by a likeable cast, great performances (Kiriyama is a standout) and nice fluid animation.

    Disappointments of 2025

    • Mobile Suit Gundam Gquuuuuux: Look, I like UC Gundam as much as the next guy, but if the intention was to focus so heavily on Char's story, they should have just made him the protagonist like in Origin. All three of the actual protagonists come off as undercooked and the ending just devolved into a slurry of fanservice. Credit to Tsurumaki for the great animation but Anno does not deliver on the writing.

    • One Punch Man S3: Shounen Jump has paid so much care and attention to nurturing their other series (even Jump Plus stablemates like Spy Family and Chainsaw Man) that I'm so curious as to how they fumbled this. One Punch Man may not be their flagship title, but it's well known and beloved both within Japan and overseas and very easy material to adapt - this should have been a slam dunk! I would love to see the Shirobako-style insider story as to what went wrong here one day.

    • Lazarus: I don't want to say this is a bad show, because it is fun to watch week to week and it has some great action. However, everyone went in with sky high expectations because this was meant to be Watanabe Shinichirou's return to the genre that made him a legend, and it just doesn't come together as a package in the same way as his earlier work. Would have worked better if they'd either cut some stuff like the assassin guy or extended it to a full 26 episode run.

    • 3-nen Z-gumi Ginpachi-sensei: I just wanted more Gintama, but instead I got someone writing a totally different show using Gintama's characters. Awful.

    Surprises of 2025

    • Chainsaw Man: Reze arc: I was rather cynically expecting this to just be the next season packaged as a more profitable movie, but on top of delivering everything that you could want from Chainsaw Man (flashy action, off-beat writing and imaginative visuals), it's just a great movie in its own right and absolutely not the sort of story that should be told in episodes. The tender performance for Reze in particular is just outstanding and really invites you to go back and imagine what's going through her head in the earlier scenes once you've seen the entire story play out.

    • Ruri no Houseki: It's an anime about rocks minerals, but it's actually pretty good? Despite the abundance of unnecessary fan service, it's genuinely educational and beautifully drawn and animated to boot.

    • Apocalypse Hotel: It shouldn't work on paper but somehow it does. The sheer unpredictability and variety in the episodes, the weird sense of humour and the strangely heartwarming themes all come together in one tasty soup. As someone who rarely takes holidays, the forced holiday episode is one that will remain in my memory for a long time.

    • Link Click: Great Nolan-esque time travel thriller that really shows off what Chinese studios are becoming capable of.

    4 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Well_known_bear
    Link
    In The Hundred Line, there's a character who enjoys the most horrific, gut-punchingly shocking adult games, and in a specific conversation, she recommends a list of her favourites. All of these...

    In The Hundred Line, there's a character who enjoys the most horrific, gut-punchingly shocking adult games, and in a specific conversation, she recommends a list of her favourites. All of these are real games, and out of morbid curiosity, I wrote them down to check out at some point. Suffice to say that the writers did their homework, because these are exactly the sort of games you would imagine this character playing. Even as a VN nerd who enjoys horror and is pretty thoroughly desensitised to anything you can do to fictional characters, it's a lot.

    To balance this out, the rest of my gaming time is being spent on cute, colourful games that are simply joyful to play.

    Öoo

    Short but delightful.

    The mechanics of the game are very simple - all you can do is move, lay bombs and detonate them - but through its puzzle design, the game is constantly teaching you new ways to use those mechanics. Instead of powering up your character with new items or skills, it's the player who is being powered up with a better understanding of what can be done with the existing mechanics, which feels very satisfying.

    The puzzles themselves also feel very well tuned in a way that usually demands some experimentation (so that the player often feels like they're organically discovering the new techniques which the room is designed to impart) and lateral thinking while never being so hard that you're banging your head against a wall with no idea where to start.

    Add on top of that some simple but expressive pixel art and a bopping soundtrack and you've got a great little package that pretty much anyone can enjoy.

    Kirby and the Forgotten Land (Switch 2)

    It's basically Super Mario 3D World / Land with Kirby, which is great because I loved those games.

    All of his moves and mechanics from the 2D games are here (on top of a cute but completely unnecessary soulslike dodge) so you're pretty overpowered, but it's a great game to just chill out to as you 100% a level or two a day. Each level has plenty of secrets and collectibles to find, but the levels themselves are short and you receive enough of a hint as to where to go / what to do that none of it ever feels obnoxious.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Kyoto Animation to produce RuriDragon anime in ~anime

    Well_known_bear
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    Extremely brief teaser here. No release date announced, but sounds like it might not be 2026. The manga's been through a lot including a fairly long pause in serialisation, but the anime was only...

    Extremely brief teaser here. No release date announced, but sounds like it might not be 2026.

    The manga's been through a lot including a fairly long pause in serialisation, but the anime was only a matter of time given the popularity of the series (possibly the last remaining big Jump Plus hit that hadn't yet been animated). Kyoto Animation should be a good fit for the content too.

    2 votes