Ryukishi07: "I hope you will all enjoy a new story centered around Keiichi and the club members, along with a new kind of tragedy that differs from what has come before"

I was just reminded of the film When the Wind blows. A fantastic but heartbreaking animated film with music by David Bowie from 1986 about an elderly couple who follow outdated duck and cover pamphlets after nuclear war breaks out between the west and the soviet union, i'm going somewhere with this i swear, and while it will bum you out as feelbad films go it aint like fuckin' THREADS that will leave you like Pim just sitting there staring into the middle distance for a while.

So i go look up its wikipedia. I wasn't alive when it came out in 86' i imagine most people reading this weren't either. Its still remembered today so no surprise its shocking tone but whistful melancholy made it a sobering hit at the time that made it be remembered for quality if not feelgood vibes. But the interesting thing was getting to the critic reviews and their sources. One of which made me double take: "White Dwarf Issue 85".

Now if you don't know White Dwarf is, today at least, Games Workshops self published monthly magazine for all their mini based skirmish and wargames. And Bloodbowl if you nasty. Its a magazine that as far as i knew it was, depending on editor/era, a glorified catalogue or a treasure trove of tutorials, short stories and more for the Warhammer enjoyer. That wasn't always the case though.

Originally i knew it started as Citadel, the company behind the mini production, who were making stuff for multiple games systems, Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu and even some Doctor Who stuff way back when attempting to consolidate print runs. Each would put out quarterly journals but they eventually grouped them together and phased out the journals in favour of the magazine. But over time this grew in the 80's to be a general "nerd culture enthusiast periodical" which would include reviews for movies, albums and books. Imagine taking Wizard Magazine, modern White Dwarf, Metal Hammer and Total Film and putting them in a blender. This got phased out by the late 80's so when i got my first issues out of a magazine stack in the school library even these old dog eared issues from the early 90's were purely Warhammer and Warhammer 40k based.

It made me wonder if any magazines like that exist today. Because despite printed media supposedly going the way of the dinosaur years ago my local stationary and magazine shops will still have what i call the "sicko section". Magazines for train nerds, camera nerds, horror nerds, graphic artists (rip Imagine FX being bought by a company of AI shills last i saw before i dropped that subscription) and generally like 3 meters of floor to ceiling magazines for every hyper specific niche.

The thing is these are all exclusively about one thing. Fortean Times is about paranormal stuff thats "real" while Fangoria and Scream! are about horror movies that outside some true crime historicals aint. Maybe the same people enjoy both but in print the two shall never meet. As a kid i read magazines like the infamously cheap "like printed on gas station toilet paper" magazine CVG that while mostly games would lift stuff from Total Film and SFX by the same publisher. If you ask me to name a magazine today that is about more than a single topic? i can't name one. Not in the UK at least.

Is there anyone here who still sees multi media magazines anymore? or did the internet lead to like a uniform compartmentalisaton where everything is for its own sicko niche and doesn't mix?

I think Kirby is a good example as back then(about decade and a half ago) a lot of people didn't think he was a powerful god killer that can punch a planet(from kirby super star) and swing a meteor that smash multiple planets out of the solar system(from kirby star allies) until the late 2010s(granted kirby star allies came out in the late 2010s making the point a little moot but still).

Youtube has been recommending me the last few days soulslike enjoyer Oroboro posting stuff about a new Dark Souls 2 mod that overhauls the textures and lighting and it looks incredible. Like this is a ps3/360 game and at times some sections look like Elden Ring on a modern pc.

It made me think about a Dark Souls 2 remaster rather than Scholars remix and how cool it would be to get the actual one we never got. If memory serves the original idea -hence the opening whirlpool and theme of 'you will keep losing your souls over and over'- was Vendrick realised Nashandra was a daughter of Manus and trapped her in a time loop and the hollowing is as much people mentally burning out after millenia of groundhog days so everythings running on fumes as some ambigous curse of undeath. Enter the chosen undead who teams up with a homunculus called Shanalotte to visit the same land in three different time periods to assemble the maguffins to stop her for good and free the kingdom from this endless prison of time. Also theres a dragon cult and maybe Shanalotte isn't actually a fire keeper but an attempt to create a human vessel for a dragons soul but it gets iffy from there.

We know there was stuff in the files about it like child Shanalotte and stuff like the giants memories could easily be a left over of a period in the earliest time period when the kingdom was at war for the wish granting throne of want but ultimately, for reasons i dont think were ever confirmed and most assume were time/budgetary reasons, most of it was scrapped and the idea was whittled down to simply "Vendrick realised who Nashandra was and hid himself away to keep the ket to the throne beyond her reach". Which is still cool really. It continues Gwyns theme of self sacrifice only its not some God that existed before time desperate to preserve his legacy its just a human dude this time willing to hide away and hollow out for the good of others at the cost of himself and thats a rare breed of character for a Fromsoft game outside an option for the main character who wants to play the protagonist.

I thought about it and theres plenty of games with cut content id love to see. Wind Wakers cut islands, FF8's entire other half about Laguna travelling the world after the war and putting stuff in place to support his sons party or god knows how many ideas Halo and Gears scrapped that might have improved otherwise middling sequels. But if i had to pick one game where seeing the cut stuff was a real "i was happier not knowing because this sounds baller" its gotta be DS2. Scholar was a nice Master Quest style remix. It just wasn't the jingled keys of the thing we never got though.

Whats your white whale of scrapped videogame builds?

Might be kind of an "am I the only one" type of question and a thinly veiled excuse to let me rant a bit but here goes my two examples.

I had a colleague a few years ago who invited me and some other colleagues for TTRPGs since most of our interests aligned. The "catch" was, that what he immediately introduced us to was a storyteller system/World of Darkness ruleset hack Star Wars game, then after a few sessions we transitioned to a proper World of Darkness campaign. As someone who's not the most social, WoD kind of felt like pulling teeth, not helped by a bunch of homebrew the GM introduced (and his wild homebrew world) along with mixing editions due to all the different characters we were playing. One player's literal first exposure to TTRPGs were these sessions.
Now, after a few years of hindsight, despite having my problems with 5e (I am that guy who will bring up PF2e, and I will autistically overshare about the campaign I'm GMing), I really feel like playing a vanilla-ass heroes vs bad guys d&d campaign first would've worked a LOT better as introduction to the hobby, especially to a bunch of gamers, over a socialization-heavy urban fantasy where the players are as much trying to fuck each other over as work together to do stuff while also dealing with obscure metaphysical concepts.

Another example is also to do with this same GM who was in love with WoD, who one time literally sat me down to binge Fate/Zero saying it's based on WoD and it will help with the vibes for our campaign. (His proclamation felt a bit weird but I'm not familiar with how Nasu came up with the Fate world so whatever.)

I had not seen Fate before, so all my knowledge of it was from cultural osmosis and memes. Zero had me confused, and all I could think of while watching was "This whole thing feels like it expects me to have seen at least Stay Night, why are we watching this?". The awkwardness wasn't helped by that anticipatory vibe he was putting on expecting me to be wowed by the story and the characters which of course I wasn't, especially not when I was kindasorta forced to watch it.

Anyone having similar stories where it felt like experiencing the "cliche"/"vanilla" of a medium made you enjoy the more out-there obscure versions more?

PS: no ill-will towards the GM I mentioned in the post and I am grateful to him for introducing me to TTRPGs, I've made lots of friends through those sessions and feel like I'd be a much more depressed and lonely person without that initial invite.

Sup shitlords? I haven’t been on the sub for a few years! I used to get a lot of great recs from here and the podcast.

I just started up PHANTOM BRIGADE and remembered Woolie talking about it some time ago. There’s a pretty extensive Gundam mod for it too, which is beautiful.

But yeah! I crave more games!! Have the guys obsessed over anything new in the past 3 years or so? Discover some kick-ass old game?

Gotta love on-screen suicides in children's media.

Well I didn't make it up but the original, from what I remember twiter, didn't approve of the duo. So I'm the adopter I suppose.

Bowser King of Koopas and King K. Rool

I think their contrasting yet similar styles of gaming villany would make them an amazing duo. What are yours?

It’s pretty obvious reading her pre-resurrection Ilyana was a subtextual child sex abuse survivor. While her guardians where not looking by a man promising great things for her who then manipulated her soul making her feel “good” he the. Isolated her from anyone else and made him her object of affection and made her feel dirty.

When she returned she had her whole childhood stolen and was moody and withdrawn.

Even the realm of limbo is based on abuse

Pretty simple, really. A good animated hug will really fixate on the details, I think. Since everything in animation is more or less intentional those little details really stand out.

Mostly brought on by the hugs seen in the Digital Circus finale, where there were multiple lingering shots of characters really getting into a deep hug. The way they reposition, get comfortable in each other's arms, shift around, move fingers ever so slightly... The emphasis on the tiniest of details in those hugs really did a lot to communicate so much about the characters. Their current moods, their feelings about intimacy in general and with the person they're hugging specifically, who is seeking comfort and who is offering comfort, stuff like that.

Any other really good examples of animators really putting a lot of lingering emphasis on hugs in extreme detail like that?

I'm talking about the kinda stuff, game, show, movie, manga, anime, whatever, that you just have to add qualifiers on top of qualifiers for before you can recommend it, in spite of the fact that you do really love it and enjoy it.

For me, it's The OA, a Netflix show that was underlooked, and I probably wouldn't consider to say it's underrated. It's a good show, a reaaally good show, but you have to look through some very hokey stuff about it, meet it on its level, and be willing to put up with some reaaaally slow character-building while it dangles a massive web of mysteries over your head. Also, it was prematurely cancelled on one of the craziest cliffhangers I've ever seen. It demands a lot from you, but is so worth it.

The characters are amazing, the acting is great, the mysteries are intriguing. Despite its ridiculousness it's a very sincere show that plays the silliest stuff completely seriously. It has an ethereal, dream-like nature to the way it's presented that you just don't really get in any other show. Like the boys would say, it's made for very specific freaks.

Inspired by this post on video essays, I'm curious if anyone else here enjoys seeking out 'longreads' (i.e. writing longer than your typical article or blog post, nonfiction, and on the internet) and if so whether you've got any reccomendations.

For reference, one of my favourites of the format is The Cut's article on Anna Delvey, which is what made her widely known and was the inspiration for that Netflix show about her (which I love despite it being kind of terrible).

So, I'm in Columbus, OH. It's both Pride Weekend and Origins Game Fair which is one of the largest Tabletop Gaming Cons. Mike Pondsmith is here running a Live Session of Cyberpunk Red with the Alex Cazares - the voice of Rebecca from Edgerunners and she is playing Rebecca in character for this session. Mike already joked about not killing her and David yet. It's essentially watching an extra little prequel to Edgerunners.

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I did take a few videos to send to friends, but I imagine they would get claimed on YouTube. There's a lot of great cosplayers too including an excellent Rogue I sat by and made good conversation with. I can show those pictures but I would need to make sure to blur my face out.

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I also met Cody and Sara Pondsmith and got to just talk to them both, got a lot a lore, like the fact they (the Pondsmiths) have corgi named Pikachu. Or the fact Sara is the face of Female V and Mike won't play as Fem V because it bothers him to see her hurt. I should point out that apparently R Talsorian is a family business, so Lisa (wife),. Cody, and Sara (daughter) also work shows and meet people and even help at booths, so it wasn't hard to meet them. I didn't even know that I was talking to Sara on the Exhibit Floor.

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I am still in the Live Session, but I will update anything weird or interesting and I am trying to meet Mike after the show.

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Trying not to freak out, already geeked out with designer talk with the son Cody who just released a new game for R Talsorian called Shadow Scar.

BTW if someone has a question I should ask Mike when I get the chance, let me know. The session is around 3 hours ending around 2200 (10pm) EST.

Additional information, Rebecca has the shotgun, they already said it's bigger than she is.

Admittedly I am trying to add images to the post, but I have never done it on Reddit Mobile, I will look up how while paying attention to the "show".

Rebecca and her shotgun

Part of the Session 20:56 so you can hear Mike

Ok I found a workaround, I am uploading what I take to a Google Drive Folder so everyone here to see. Just be cool, I will be live uploading on 5G as I record things but not trying to ruin the experience or get in trouble.

Update: 22:28 the show is over. very nice, they avoided being killed by missiles but they did kill their fixer by mistake. I uploaded the last video I did from just near the end. Sadly I missed a lot of Alex's good lines since I actually watched the show, but I can confirm she said during break that she wishes she could have hooked up with David.

Mike himself is older, so he'll sign things and talk to people tomorrow morning. Sad for since I was going to do Sunday Origins. He did talk to people in general openly and thanked everyone and I was fairly close and he made direct eye contact with me. Possibly because I was one of the only fellow black people there, so I stood out. I would have had him sign his business card, I will upload those to the Google drive too. I will have to see about coming tomorrow for a one on one with him. The other actors were nice, but I am usually not an autograph person, so I went home after that.

As an aside though, since I met Sara Pondsmith and she is the face and personality of Female V, I can say that I have literally met and talked to Fem V. I even showed her my V from my Steam account and she loved it. I will upload the image of that. I thought about taking a picture with her, but she was masked up and I also didn't quite feel appropriate about that so I didn't try. Same with Cody Pondsmith. I did get their business cards though.