Aaron George

What do you like about it better than Automata? I played Replicant and enjoyed it a lot, but mostly found it to be a worse version of what they perfected in Automata. Plus, the written text sections were interminable.

Oooh what’s your source here? I didn’t realize Season 3’s budget had been cut.

Congratulations, this is the worst tweet I've ever read.

It’s okay, you can hate on the far future setting ;)

Alright, you finally talked me into it! Ordered!

As a rule, I kind of hate Bsky’s constant complaining about NYT. Saying that, I opened up my first article for the day and I ran into the same “winning streak” phrase NYT has been using for the 3rd time, and I have to wonder what the fuck is causing them to run that “Trumpian Ubermensch” angle.

Preach

I’d argue that camp is just a particular use of postmodernism. Postmodernism is a form that is self-referential, playful, and interested in getting the audience to revel in the artifice of the fiction; camp is just a particularly playful way of using artifice to question and deconstruct boundaries.

Oh and Barton Finkscryption sort of works

Pokémon FarGo

Miller’s Animal Crossing

What I’m trying to say is that I’ve never felt older than when an eight year old showed me that everything I thought I knew about Pokémon is wrong.

But it can! “This one’s a Leafeon V Star!” He explains. “That’s what Leafeon evolves into!”

Reader, this is all madness. Venusaurs without Bulbasaurs, Leafeons evolving into Leafeons, no consenting Eevee even involved. What is happening!?

the laws of evolution have been broken.

But the final straw happens three turns later, when he puts a Leafeon ON TOP of his Leafeon. I’m so confused, and I ask this kid why he’s playing a Leafeon on itself. “I’m evolving it!” He explains. That can’t be right, everyone knows Leafeon can’t evolve.

…So I figure it’s some weird one off thing.

But then the next card he plays is Leafeon! Again, this has got to be breaking the rules—he needs an Eevee!! But he tells me “Nope! It’s a Leafeon V, that means it’s a basic Pokémon.” This is quickly becoming madness. The game continues, though clearly

Second card he plays is Venusaur. I stop him—“That’s an evolved Pokemon, you have to play Bulbasaur first.” But he corrects me, and points out that his is a “Radiant Pokemon” which means it’s Basic and can be played on its own. What’s a radiant Pokemon? No idea. But he can have only 1 in his deck…

I have no energy and so I spend like the first four turns doing nothing. First Pokémon he plays I’ve never heard of; Zarude or something. My hand is full of EX cards (whatever they are) that are so powerful they’d instantly kill any Pokémon I remember from the first set.

So I’m visiting an old friend. His son (pretty young, around 8) kind of sees me as a fun uncle, and has a number of Pokémon decks, so he wants to play Pokémon with me. I played the game a bit back in the day and I sort of remember the rules, so I say okay.

This is probably my favorite one you’ve written for Clarksworld. Really liked it.

Ah cool I’ll check this out!

Out of curiosity, what games are you looking at? My look at gen 3 stuff is kind of on the back burner at the moment but if you’re thinking through that I’d love to swap theories!

I would love to read an article about this subject. Should we even be using these pollsters anymore, since they're showing such a consistent bias?

I spent a four hour plane ride just fighting that boss. Beat it half an hour before landing.

Lorelei with the Laser Eyes is a pretty good mystery game, as is Curse of the Golden Idol (both are probably a lower priority if you haven't played Return of the Obra Dinn).

Outer Wilds is an underrated classic and it perfectly combined interesting time mechanics with a very poignant plot.

I have a joke about Shada but I’ve never finished it.

Name three games you’ve played for over 200 hours:

Final Fantasy XIV
Monster Train
FTL

and honestly two playthroughs of Persona 5 more or less add up to that…

It’s really good. It feels very much like it’s in the spirit of the intentions of the creators, but a deluxe version that fixes some problems and changes storyline beats to make it work a little better.

Obligatory mention of PowerPanda's Divergent Paths romhack, which is an excellent revision of the story and some mechanics, based around the idea of what the team would have done if they had had six more months to polish the game!

Obligatory “if you want to go back and experience FF6 again you should really give the Divergent Paths hack a chance, it’s the perfect version of FF6 to my mind” post.

The pixel remaster did that? I didn’t know. At least the pixel remaster lets you do the original soundtrack.

That’s exactly the problem then. You’re watching Harper play Earthbound and wondering what the hype is about. (I’m a FF person 100% too, but Earthbound is one of my favorites).