Well_known_bear's recent activity
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
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Comment on How did you choose your podcast app and would you switch to a different one? in ~tech
Well_known_bear Link ParentAlso a fan of AntennaPod. Free and open source. Easy to set up but also has a ton of options available to get things to run exactly the way you like them, including automation, organisation,...Also a fan of AntennaPod.
- Free and open source.
- Easy to set up but also has a ton of options available to get things to run exactly the way you like them, including automation, organisation, appearance, etc.
- Regularly updated but works bug free and without any weird unnecessary features being pushed / enshittification.
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Comment on Prime Video pulls eerily emotionless AI-generated anime dubs after complaints in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkFrom the article:From the article:
In March, Amazon announced that its streaming service would start including “AI-aided dubbing on licensed movies and series that would not have been dubbed otherwise.” In late November, some AI-generated English and Spanish dubs of anime popped up, including dubs for the Banana Fish series and the movie No Game No Life: Zero.
In videos shared by users, some of the AI-generated voice work was eerily deadpan. In one telling video Ash Lynx from Banana Fish tries to awaken a child who has been shot while speaking in a detached, dry tone. “Don’t leave me please,” he states like a robot before confronting someone without any anger in his voice. The person responds in a similarly emotionless manner.
In addition to anime viewers complaining about the quality of the dubs, some expressed anger over voice actors being passed over in favor of subpar generative AI.
On Tuesday, Gizmodo reported that “several of the English language AI dubs for anime such as Banana Fish, No Game No Life: Zero, and more have now been removed.” However, some AI-generated dubs remain as of this writing, including an English dub for the anime series Pet and a Spanish one for Banana Fish, Ars Technica has confirmed.
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Prime Video pulls eerily emotionless AI-generated anime dubs after complaints
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Comment on I built an arcade cabinet for my 4 year old and need some Switch game recs in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkA simple and chill puzzle game like Suika Game with no time or enemy pressure might be a good introduction which allows them to get comfortable with video game controls at their own pace. Animal...A simple and chill puzzle game like Suika Game with no time or enemy pressure might be a good introduction which allows them to get comfortable with video game controls at their own pace.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is also a pretty gentle introduction to a lot of gaming mechanics like items and inventories, crafting and building, planning ahead and even a bit of action.
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Comment on Netflix kills casting from phones in ~tech
Well_known_bear Link ParentPossibly a reference to this story? I also have a preference for open source solutions where possible myself. Even when a privately-owned service is currently fine for my needs, there's no...Possibly a reference to this story?
I also have a preference for open source solutions where possible myself. Even when a privately-owned service is currently fine for my needs, there's no guarantee that it won't be enshittified down the line.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkMahou Shoujo no Majo Saiban / Magical Girl Witch Trials Death game / murder mystery / courtroom VN. Thirteen girls are imprisoned in a mysterious mansion and told that they have been isolated from...Mahou Shoujo no Majo Saiban / Magical Girl Witch Trials
Death game / murder mystery / courtroom VN.
Thirteen girls are imprisoned in a mysterious mansion and told that they have been isolated from society because they are witches in the making, doomed to eventually awaken to an irresistible compulsion to kill.
This game received a fair amount of buzz in Japan (and seems to have sold well enough for the developer to immediately announce a bunch of other games), so as a death game / social deduction / VN tragic, I thought I'd check out what all the fuss was about.
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First off, the game isn't shy about wearing its influences on its sleeve - It's very transparently Danganronpa wrapped in a Madoka Magica setting and aesthetic:
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Each character has their own unique (in this case, magical) skill which often plays into the mysteries, although not everyone is keen to reveal what theirs is.
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Everyone is forced to live under a specific set of rules about when they can be outside their rooms, when food and water is available, when they need to shower and sleep and so on. Failure to comply with the rules is punished by the obligatory death game animal mascot.
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When a murder occurs, you have to investigate, gather truth bul- er- items of evidence and then use them at the ensuing witch trial to make your case, following which - you guessed it! - a vote is taken on who is to be executed as the culprit.
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The visuals are nice and colourful and the writing is decent enough, with plenty of mysteries about the setting and the various characters established right away and a snappily paced introduction that doesn't drag out the tropes of the genre (although it has a lot of those). The murder mysteries also feel pitched at an appropriate level of difficulty.
However, the music and prose are quite understated and the game doesn't feature anything like the off-the-wall humour, bombastic visual style or frenetic electronic soundtrack of its inspiration.
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On the gameplay:
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The trials largely work the same way as in Danganronpa. In each round, the characters hold a timed discussion with certain lines having highlighted keywords, and your job is to work out which of those to rebut or support. The main differences are that:
- You don't respond directly with evidence - instead, you choose the keyword, the response you're proposing to make from a list, and then the evidence to support it where needed. I rather like this approach, since it's easier to tell whether you actually agree with the proposed input before making it.
- There's no life bar and (as far as I can tell) no fail state as long as you answer correctly within the extremely generous time limit. I can imagine people being divided on this, but I've always thought that a life bar system was a bad fit for games like this since being forced to do a runback is just a waste of time when you already know the answers.
Unfortunately, you'll still occasionally run into the issue common with this genre where you know the answer but aren't sure how the game wants you to frame it, particularly with more complex answers involving several different elements.
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There are decisions you can make outside the trials too, but most of them seem to just be a choice between a swift death and continuing the story. There's even an option in the settings (on by default) where it'll show you whether a choice leads to a game over.
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A couple of minor annoyances:
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When you get important new information, the game will notify you that your journal (containing information about the clues, characters and setting) is updated, but there's no option to go directly to the page that got updated, and nor is there any marker for the pages with unread new info. It's not a big deal as long as you're paying attention to the text, but a bit frustrating if you want to read along as it gets updated.
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Sometimes, the answer isn't in the evidence file at all and you have to actually recall the fine details from the story to work out the solution. It would have been nice to have a timeline or case summary feature where you could look up that info in case you forgot.
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The game doesn't support controllers, which I find to be the most comfortable way to play VNs. However, it does let you scroll forward with the mouse wheel, which is the second best way.
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Ultimately, I feel like I should like this game more than I actually do, since the premise has promise and I don't miss the bits of Danganronpa's gameplay that they actually cut like the skills, the shooting, the minigames and the awkward 3D exploration, but the lack of any original elements to replace those things leaves it feeling a bit bland and without its own identity. Still, it might be worth a look if you're into the genre.
(Note: This game currently only has Japanese and Chinese language options, but should be available in English shortly.)
Also finally finished Final Fantasy VII Remake.
My issues with the combat aside, I came away feeling quite good about the game:
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The more I played, the more evident it became that this was a game made for people who already played and loved the original (and its spin-offs) - to the point where a lot of the last third probably just feels like nonsense if you haven't got that context. Now you can argue about whether that's a good way to make a "remake", but the part of me that played the original as a kid and thought "What if they made a whole game that looked as cool as these FMVs? That would be so sick!" can't help but resonate with that, because yeah, this is that game.
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Although I could take or leave a lot of the new story in the base game, I liked Intergrade. I couldn't stand Yuffie in the original game, but the voice acting, expressive character animation and additional backstory all add up to make this new version much more likeable than just some annoying rando you run into on the world map. Yeah, she's still fundamentally the same dumb kid, but that naivety is actually utilised by the story and given contrast by the addition of Sonon. I hope they give Vincent a similar treatment.
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Comment on Treadmill advice in ~health
Well_known_bear LinkIf your apartment has a parking garage, you could run there when the weather is less than ideal. I just run laps in a visitor parking area which is essentially abandoned most of the time. This is...If your apartment has a parking garage, you could run there when the weather is less than ideal. I just run laps in a visitor parking area which is essentially abandoned most of the time.
This is obviously not as nice as running outdoors (and you do have to watch out for the occasional person slowly driving through), but it's free, doesn't take up any room or require maintenance and won't disturb anyone.
If you live near any other sort of public area with a roof (park with a sheltered area, etc), it might also be possible to make it work there, but I found the parking garage to work best since it's for residents only and there aren't many people passing through.
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Comment on Netflix to produce new series from 'Hana yori Dango' author (Prism Rinbukyoku) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkNew 20 episode Netflix series Prism Rinbukyoku (Prism Rondo) written and character designed by Hana yori Dango author Kamio Youko. Drama about a Japanese art student studying abroad in 1900s...-
New 20 episode Netflix series Prism Rinbukyoku (Prism Rondo) written and character designed by Hana yori Dango author Kamio Youko.
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Drama about a Japanese art student studying abroad in 1900s London.
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Animation by WIT Studio (first 2 seasons of Attack on Titan)
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Netflix to produce new series from 'Hana yori Dango' author (Prism Rinbukyoku)
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear LinkA game about digging a hole Exactly what it says on the tin. You buy a mysterious house advertised to have treasure buried in the backyard, pick up a shovel and start digging. The entire loop of...-
Exactly what it says on the tin. You buy a mysterious house advertised to have treasure buried in the backyard, pick up a shovel and start digging. The entire loop of the game is digging further down, selling the stuff you dig up for funds to recharge your shovel / jetpack (that you use to get back out of the hole) and purchase further upgrades before heading back out to dig again.
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The game remembers all the deformation to the backyard as you dig your hole, so I was expecting it to get a bit wobbly as the hole got deeper, but remarkably it only crashed once. Saving before you head out is very fast, so I didn't lose any progress.
Short but fun game that only takes a few hours to run through.
I switched to a phone with a 120hz display earlier this year and this week, I had a light bulb moment - wait a minute, don't they also make monitors with high refresh rates?
Up until now, I've been doing my PC gaming on my old Dell Ultrasharp, which is a good work / production monitor but is very much not a gaming monitor. I picked up an entry level gaming monitor (for about half the price of my current monitor!) which does 180hz and HDR and it feels like a huge upgrade in every regard. Final Fantasy VII Remake looks fantastic and manages to push about 80-100fps on my potato GPU, and even Windows feels more pleasant to use. Definitely worth looking into if you're still using an old monitor but have hardware that could push more than 60fps.
Side note on FFVII Remake in particular:
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Lifting the frame rate cap above 60fps caused the game to start crashing a lot more. Diagnosing the problem became a whole side quest of its own, as people seem to have problems with it crashing for every conceivable reason under the sun (with a correspondingly broad range of potential solutions to match).
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Ultimately, I managed to track down the problem to my GPU being factory overclocked. FFVII Remake is made on Unreal Engine 4 which for some reason really dislikes this and will crash the game if your GPU is hauling hard on a scene and unresponsive for longer than it likes. Luckily, I had run into the same problem with Rain Code (also UE4) and knew that I could solve it by underclocking using MSI Afterburner. Sure enough, it now runs rock solid even at max settings!
Hopefully helpful to anyone else who runs into the same problem with UE4 games and similar hardware.
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Comment on Zork I, II, and III go open source in ~games
Well_known_bear LinkAbsolutely blew my mind when I first played these at a friend's house on his dad's black and white Mac (most likely a Macintosh Classic). The cheeky sense of humour and freedom to try literally...Absolutely blew my mind when I first played these at a friend's house on his dad's black and white Mac (most likely a Macintosh Classic). The cheeky sense of humour and freedom to try literally any solution you could think up were something else to a kid who'd previously only been exposed to the NES.
Great to hear that you can now get source!
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkChinese animation season continues. Super Cube Boy gets super powers from space cube and fights other dudes. Bog standard fighting show with a pinch of light novel progression fantasy (power...Chinese animation season continues.
Super Cube
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Boy gets super powers from space cube and fights other dudes. Bog standard fighting show with a pinch of light novel progression fantasy (power levels, skills, levelling up stats and all that). Inoffensive stuff albeit rather bland.
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The animation for the bulk of the show isn't anything to write home about, but in a couple of episodes, it goes super hard on the action scenes, at which times it genuinely looks amazing. It's a shame they didn't have the budget to make the rest of the show more on par with this level of quality.
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This show also features a (possibily unintentionally) funny 'This is dangerous! Do not imitate!' disclaimer in every scene where the characters do anything remotely risky, like sitting on a ledge, hanging out over a railing or just doing an edgy pose. I still haven't worked out whether this is a serious warning or just a really tongue in cheek running gag, but it's great either way. To add to the comedy, it's completely random whether they bother to show the disclaimer during actual fight scenes where people are beating each other senseless.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )Link ParentI did end up briefly looking into Death Match Love Comedy after some post-game googling and discovering spoilers for DMLC that they share a character. It definitely doesn't sound anything like the...I did end up briefly looking into Death Match Love Comedy after some post-game googling and discovering
spoilers for DMLC
that they share a character.It definitely doesn't sound anything like the story they were setting up in the post-game extra episode, but I hear it also has a similar post-game revelation mode which might touch more on that storyline.
Interestingly, Kemco is also making a new werewolf death game called Depth Loop, but it isn't from this writer (and looks a lot more like a proper werewolf game)!
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
Well_known_bear (edited )LinkRaging Loop Japanese folk horror / mystery VN focused around a man forced to play a game of real life werewolf in a countryside village. On one hand, the overall writing is pretty good. There's a...Raging Loop
Japanese folk horror / mystery VN focused around a man forced to play a game of real life werewolf in a countryside village.
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On one hand, the overall writing is pretty good.
- There's a lot of layers to the narrative, a big cast with a lot of hidden agendas and skeletons in the closet, some well thought out mythology and folklore that ties in well with the story and setting and a clever but unreliable narrator who often doesn't show his cards even to the reader until the last minute. There's a rough, scrappy quality to it (on top of the whole "is this actually a curse or just a human conspiracy?" angle) that reminded me a lot of Higurashi no naku koro ni back when it was just some indie game you bought on home-burnt CDs at comic conventions and had no editor to answer to, so the writer would go nuts with whatever prose and ideas they thought would be cool.
- The "feasts" (rounds where the characters try to deduce who the werewolves are and vote on one person to kill) in particular are great, with a lot of "if I do X, then Y will do Z, so I have to do A instead... but then B would happen" moments where the characters are trying to outmaneuver each other.
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On the other hand:
- Despite having the usual flowchart and decisions, it's a very linear game that's designed to be read in a specific order. Branches are either firmly locked off until it's time for you to read them or lead to swift dead ends.
- Some of the answers to the core mysteries in the story are kind of ridiculous / implausible and feel like a bit of a letdown after being teased for so long.
- The deal behind one of the most interesting characters in the story is not covered in the main story at all. You have to read one of the extra side stories unlocked after clearing the game to get her background... but that side story doesn't tie into the main story at all. Instead of tying up the loose ends in the story you just read, it's a bunch of completely new lore dumping and world building that sets up an entirely different story which they never ended up making.
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One really cool feature the game does have is that after clearing it, you unlock a mode where you can read the inner monologues for all of the characters (including the unreliable narrator protagonist), as well as unlocking a few additional scenes that occur while the protagonist isn't around and a couple of neat secret endings. Playing through the game again with this mode on (which only takes a couple of hours given you can skip read text) not only makes the plot points much easier to understand (e.g. instead of having to read between the lines as to why a character is doing X, you can see them rationalising their decision), but also makes the existing story more believable by addressing some of what would otherwise be plot holes. It feels like watching a movie with the DVD commentary on.
Other games:
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Finished up Once upon a Katamari. The main campaign feels just about the perfect length for a game like this, although the final level is a little anti-climactic given the setup.
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Still slowly playing through Final Fantasy VII Remake. I'm up to chapter 9 now.
- The melee combat still hasn't clicked for me at all. You can't cancel out of the attack animation to block or dodge, so I feel like my options are to either very slowly hit the enemy one button press at a time and block when they're about to hit back (which turns every battle into a slog given how much HP enemies have), or just forget about defending and combo attack the enemy as fast as possible to build their stagger, which you can get away with on normal difficulty but also feels bad given how much damage I end up taking.
- I'm coming around to some of the new takes on the characters, though. Barret and Aerith in particular are great and feel like expansions of their original characters rather than outright rewrites (like Jesse / Biggs / Wedge). Aerith is also fun to play as with her ranged attack and busted double magic skill.
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Comment on Request for info: Is "Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro" respectful of it's child characters? in ~anime
Well_known_bear Link ParentI see that you like action, so here are some recommendations off the top of my head (assuming you're reading in English language). Golden Kamuy Japanese western (as in cowboys, etc) set in...I see that you like action, so here are some recommendations off the top of my head (assuming you're reading in English language).
Golden Kamuy
Japanese western (as in cowboys, etc) set in frontier Hokkaido right after the 1904 Japan-Russo war, centred around different factions racing to find a massive deposit of gold. Really cool action setpieces, heavily researched historical / cultural flavouring and a good dose of drama and comedy too.Heavenly Delusion (Tengai Daimakyou)
Post-apocalypse sci-fi about a couple of kids traveling through the remnants of Japan, now infested by strange monsters. Complex plot but lots action and funny dialogue, with some surprisingly dark twists.Kingdom
Historical epic about the Warring States period (around 475BC - 221BC) during which the kingdom of Qin deposed six rival states to unify China. Loads of action and tons of characters and storylines loosely based around actual historical records. Be warned though that this series is super long and still running.Happy to also suggest some titles in Japanese if that's an option.
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Comment on New protein-based gel repairs tooth enamel in ~health
Well_known_bear LinkAs someone who religiously brushes their teeth twice a day, doesn't drink soda or eat sweets, flosses and rinses after eating anything and sees the dentist twice a year, I still find enamel decay...As someone who religiously brushes their teeth twice a day, doesn't drink soda or eat sweets, flosses and rinses after eating anything and sees the dentist twice a year, I still find enamel decay to be unavoidable - to the point where some of my teeth have started to go translucent.
This is very much one of those 'in 5 years!' types of tech articles that may not pan out, but I really hope they succeed!
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
Well_known_bear Link ParentI'm sure it'll even write the memo for you :PI'm sure it'll even write the memo for you :P
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Comment on What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga) in ~anime
Well_known_bear LinkThe dive into Chinese animation continues. I finished watching Link Click / Shiguang Dailiren and came away quite impressed. The story revolves around two friends with complimentary abilities:...The dive into Chinese animation continues.
I finished watching Link Click / Shiguang Dailiren and came away quite impressed.
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The story revolves around two friends with complimentary abilities:
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Cheng Xiaoshi, who can look at a photo and travel back in time into the body of the photographer at the moment that photo was taken.
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Lu Guang, who can look at a photo and see everything that happens afterwards for the next 12 hours, starting from the moment that photo was taken.
Together, they run a service to help people retrieve information from the past, subject to their agreed rules:
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No staying in the past for more than 12 hours.
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No changing the past itself.
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Season 1 is largely episodic and mainly serves to familiarise the viewer with the premise, although it ramps up towards the end as the focus shifts to the larger overarching plot.
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By season 2, it's assumed that the audience fully understands the premise and this is when the show really begins to dial it up to 11. The story and the ways in which the time travel and powers are used become increasingly surprising and elaborate (to the point where I occasionally had to go back and re-watch parts to make sure I understood what was happening), while the animation and direction - particularly the action scenes - also keep getting better as the series progresses.
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Season 3 looks great visually, but I didn't think the story measured up to the excellent season 2. Despite only running 6 episodes, it's pretty slow paced, there's a lot less of the time travel / powers stuff which made the earlier seasons compelling, and there's no satisfying resolution to the plot that it does set up.
I wouldn't fault anyone for glossing over this one due to the terrible English title that makes it sound like malware, but it's worth checking out. Be warned, though - it gets pretty dark!
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
Well_known_bear LinkI have found LLMs useful for: Working out the name of half-remembered shows and games from my childhood. It's really good at getting these if you can recall elements like story, characters, art...I have found LLMs useful for:
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Working out the name of half-remembered shows and games from my childhood. It's really good at getting these if you can recall elements like story, characters, art style and time period.
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Generating slop to populate meaningless TPS report forms at my job. I would never use it for something someone might actually read or rely on, but sadly my job involves a fair amount of useless paperwork like describing personal strengths / goals on performance review forms that are mandated by management/ HR but, as far as I can tell, are never used by anyone.
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I'm also watching Lord of Mysteries as part of this season's Chinese animation dive.
The first thing which strikes me about the show is that the animation is remarkably good.
The action scenes are all very dynamic, and they don't skimp on frames or art consistency even for less important scenes, small movements or characters who aren't in the focus of the shot. The character designs also lean towards the realistic and have a pleasantly chunky, thickly-shaded style to them which makes me think a bit of the Netflix Castlevania show.
However, the show does have a heavily post-processed look (lots of gradients, filters, particles and CG effects) which people may or may not love.
On top of the animation, the backgrounds are unusually detailed and I suspect that most of them are actually just composed out of 3D CG models, as there's a lot of sweeping camera work showing them off from different angles. It wouldn't surprise me if they used AI in the workflow, as it would require a tremendous amount of effort to produce this level of detail by hand, but if that's what they did, none of it leaps out to me as looking bad (other than some of the models for things like carriages and buildings looking a bit janky due to unusually low texture detail compared to the surroundings).
In terms of the story, it's basically Chinese isekai progression fantasy, complete with jobs, levels, skills and so forth.
This isn't usually my jam, but at least it's not the usual "light novel JRPG Europe" setting, instead being more of a 1900s Lovecraft / Aleister Crowley occultism / "revealing the arcane" sort of deal with a bit of SCP Foundation thrown in. The usual genre tropes with the protagonist planning out his character build and using his knowledge from Earth are definitely there and kind of obnoxious, but there's enough of a proper plot outside of that stuff to make it worth watching.
Speaking of the plot, the first episode has to be one of the worst on-boarding episodes I've ever seen. There's literally zero time devoted to establishing who the protagonist is (or even the fact that he comes from our Earth) or what the rules of this setting are. Instead, it launches straight into four or five separate storylines and the introduction of a dozen different characters and locales, the relative importance of which are not even hinted at.
However, the show does narrow its focus into a much more manageable single storyline from episode 2 onwards, so it's worth pushing through to at least that point before deciding whether it's for you.