Salt Man

Granblue Fantasy / Idolm@ster / Surge Concerto / Fate Series / Tokusatsu / Anime / Manga. I'm just kinda here.

[avenger-concerto]

If Ironwood is somehow still alive and he ever enters Glynda's line of sight frame one:

[avenger-concerto]

Rune Factory fans when digging at RF5's artstyle: The artstyle and portraits look much worse than RF4 now it just looks like generic cell-shaded anime style even though RF4 also had generic cell-shaded anime portraits that didn't do Minako Iwasaki's style justice.

Rune Factory fans when digging at GoA's artstyle: This sucks I hope RF6 goes back to the vibrant Minako Iwasaki style we all know and love-

[avenger-concerto]

Thoughts on TADC The Last Act...

So... I walked out of the theaters last night both satisfied and... somewhat confused.

SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

It's weird. I liked it but... I dunno. They tried meeting both ways in making it conclusive but also open to a sequel. Like if they ever continue it (chances are they will) they'll backpedal and call The Last Act the finale of the "First Saga" or something.

With the exception of a potential recovery / full redemption for Jax (something that Pomni doesn't seem to be giving up on seeing as she visits him in his tent daily) - most of everyone's stories are finished...

Well... as in their story of attempting to escape the Circus is finished after the plot twist clearly inspired by Black Mirror's USS Callister episode. Their "real life" at the Circus with a reformed Caine has only begun.

Anything else that happens in the Digital Circus is open to a sequel and I have no idea how to feel about that.

If they let it end here, then great. If they want to continue it, well we'll see how that turns out.

But... Glitch clearly isn't just "done" with TADC. Not after it made em so much money. And not after the post-credits had a QR code linking to more merch.

And Caine's reform of the Digital Circus is indicative that Pomni won't be the last person who gets their brain scanned in the circus and have some new funny creature enter the fray. Hell, we still have no idea what C&A is doing on the outside but it seems like Kinger's real world counterpart has moved on and is living a happy life with his family. Somebody else could still have access to C&A's tech.

Then there's something Caine promised Pomni.

"We'll turn this place into something better." By that, Caine means for anyone else who ends up scanned into existence.

[avenger-concerto]

Funnybunny Headcanon...

(( TADC THE LAST ACT SPOILERS BELOW, TURN BACK NOW IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT ))

I imagine Pomni visiting Abstracted Jax's pillow fort tent daily and talking to him while he either slumbers or remains idle / just vibes. It mirrors somebody waiting for their loved ones to wake up from comatose one day.

"I don't know if you can hear me right now Jax but... Caine and I agreed on a new zone/world. We figured some spice is still okay... in moderation of course! One day... you'll be able to see it. With all of us. Together."

[avenger-concerto]

Ok, RF4 glazing in the sub is getting ridiculous

Wow, it's almost as if Rune Factory 1 to 3 were years of trial and error into perfecting the formula and setting up the foundations for 4. It's almost like 5 was developed during COVID with most of the original devs from 4 gone.

RF6 can't come out soon enough.

[avenger-concerto]

[avenger-concerto]

Every few months, there's a post asking when an RF1/RF2 re-release or remaster is going to happen and let me be frank: a remaster won't cut it. These two need a full ground-up remake.

[aliencatart]

the sun and her moon

[avenger-concerto]

You can tell how much Honkai Impact 3rd (rightfully) prioritizes the women over the men in its game by how chopped the 3D models for some of the male characters look lmao

[avenger-concerto]

Hot take: RF fans are far too afraid to admit that having another game on the same level of depth and content as RF4 isn't just "going back to top-down 3D with 2D Backgrounds".

Rune Factory 4 was lightning caught in a bottle. It was the byproduct of years of trial and error going from RF1-RF3. It's been stated that RF3 was when the formula was "perfected" following RF1-RF2's clunkiness and their experimenting with RFF. Then RF4 further refined what RF3 got right. RF5's problem wasn't it being fully 3D. It was that it only considered what RF4 got right while failing to understand just exactly what RF4 had to learn from RF1-RF3 to get to that point.

That and there was also the pandemic that threw a wrench into development. In effect this resulted in cut content and poor performance. People vilify RF5 like it was some rug-pull scam and not an unfortunate set of circumstances. Even if it wasn't quite RF4, they've proven that they can make a newer RF game that's stellar even with its experimental elements. RF Guardians of Azuma is proof of that. And RF6 will probably use the lessons from that and RF5 to further refine the experience.

Also, just going "it was better when it was all top-down" is a generic blanket statement because the key assumption is more focus will go back to dynamic town events and npc dialogue.

Here is Elrentaros Wanderings / Rearsekai, a game developed by Hakama and published by Bushiroad with Hashimoto leading the helm with zero interferance from Marvelous and with Minako Iwasaki designs.

It uses the top-down formula so it means more budget and effort should have gone to character stories and gameplay, right?

... Oh. Oooooooh.

I get it. RF4 is beloved. I've spent hundreds of hours across the JP 3DS version, the US 3DS localization and the Switch remaster. But the fact that the series is still alive and that GoA did successfully despite the backlash and loss of trust over how RF5 turned out is a miracle in of itself.

I'm glad Marvelous is still trying to thrive somehow amidst the era where 3D Open World Action Gacha games overshadow everything.

I think about how a single Hoyoverse character will have more fan-content than RF combined and that is scary to think about but alas.

I'm just thankful that Rune Factory has been a part of my life these past 17 years.

[avenger-concerto]

I feel silly and I need to shitpost a horrifying hypothetical: What if Oda (One Piece) wrote Honkai Impact 3rd?

[avenger-concerto]

Evanescia discourse in the next few months

[avenger-concerto]

Looking for sapphic/lesbian/wlw fan content in Story of Seasons, SDV, Rune Factory and cozy game spaces be like:

[bbbbokumonoart]

A quick Sophie x June sketch that I might eventually draw out properly~

[avenger-concerto]

Recently, a JP poll site did a survey on video game heroines that fans wanted to root for. Xiao Pai (RF4) was placed in the top 20.

Then cue QRTs and comments who recognized Xiao Pai forgetting this wasn't a popularity poll and saying things like "Not Meg, not Dolce, not Forte?" or "Meg over Xiao Pai any day" and HOLY MEDIA LITERACY.

[avenger-concerto]

Truly, I really do not think that Rune Factory fans realize how much they take for granted that their fanbase hasn't been embroiled in the culture wars of most 2010s and 2020s fanbases or are just purely ignorant of it.

[avenger-concerto]

It's a rhetoric I see on Twitter that's usually done to clap back at chuds and incels in gacha fanbases who overly project or self insert into male protags while lionizing them as some harem protag; but I always find it wild whenever Hoyoverse/Genshin/Honkai/ZZZ players say shit like "The male protag looks like a twink, he is NOT wooing or pulling any women" and idk how they'd react to how Rune Factory male protagonists are designed in a series where you can romance, marry, and start a family lmao

Especially in RF1-RF4, Frontier, and Tides long before same sex romance was normalized in the series.