Iwakura

20 | pan | I make music! https://youtube.com/@lastmachriderfan

[and-fishing-equipment]

in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

and don't forget to stay silly

[connectwired]

its been four years since ive posted anything related to music i make, so i figured id just give an update to it. this is one of my favorites that ive made. i based it off of an oc ive been obsessed with lately:

im honestly really proud of it all but i know i could do better. i feel it needs more variety which is something ive always struggled with when making music. im still learning how to do this, even if i am just teaching myself. ive made an album inspired by yume nikki and yume 2kki too:

Fractured Ipseity

theres a lot of songs in there that i really like. i initially wanted it to be a large project with ten times as many songs, but i grew tired of the idea within maybe 15 songs and started making better music for the project to turn it into its own thing. maybe ill go back to the idea at some point and make a sequel album, but for now, imma do my own thing.

[sokodraws]

this is not an expedition...

[koryabappletea]

Blood ocean 🩸

(Love the movie✨ 10/10✨ shaking and crying rn)

[connectwired]

i find it funny that fans of smash bros quickly toss aside any fourth party representation as if it has never happened before and could never happen at all

there are four notable instances of fourth party rep in smash to my knowledge, and two of them appear in ultimate. ill start with the first smash game and go to ultimate.

first, in smash 64 and certain versions of melee, theres the proximity mine. it bares close resemblance to the mines from goldeneye 007. speaking of, while agent 007 was never actually cut like some people may believe, he was talked about by sakurai himself. (it would have been insane to have him in and this post wouldnt exist if he was.)

then theres the chronicle in brawl, which i dont even know if that would count, but it does list fourth party names such as mickey, popeye, and snoopy.

now heres where things really get serious with this: in ultimate, there are two heavy hitters with this debate. first, which everyone knows about, is mickey. while he doesnt actually appear, the silhouette of his head is on sora's keyblade. THIS HAS BEEN HUGE SINCE HIS TRAILER and i think it really blurs the line for character inclusions next entry almost as well as the sans and cuphead outfits do for indie game representation in a future roster. dracula also blurs that line, as he originates from an 1800s novel, vampire and appearance included, although the cloak design was in part due to a play. yes, his powers come from castlevania, but the basis is still. from. a. novel. (now if only the same would happen with geralt...)

now im gonna start saying some crazy things.

miku, dragon ball, and spongebob have the highest chance of getting in regarding true, modern day fourth party representation.

ill start with spongebob by saying that he has a great history with games and popularity in the west. many games have been rated highly and everyone knows who he is. he's just as popular as mickey, mario, hello kitty, pikachu, and goku. does he have a strong chance of actually being the first to get in? not at all, especially with him already being in a competing platfighter. but he has made an appearance in recent game crossovers with sonic crossworlds, which may strengthen his chances.

then theres dragon ball. it has an almost equally great game history starting right after the original manga finished. a lot of the fighting games are incredibly popular and goku himself might be more well known that spongebob. he's also a japan original, so he has a naturally higher chance. with that said, he's probably at the very top of the list, but theres also android 21, whos a game original character. who knows who will get in first? but i think neither will get in before miku.

miku, and vocaloid in general, i could see being considered 3.5th party. they are pieces of software just like games. are they games? no, but they are interactive. they give joy when used, heard, and seen. in a sense, they could be. they also have a huge history with games, mainly being the plethora of rhythm games from sega. and with sega comes the many crossovers she's had with sonic, persona, monkey ball, and others. but the biggest of them all has to be project voltage, a vocaloid (and with teto, synthv) and pokemon crossover project that started in 2023 and is still going with a recent announcement just a few days ago. i really think, out of every fourth party character, she has the strongest chance of being a playable fighter in smash.

[connectwired]

i dont want dlc for mario kart world yet because of its price, but i do have some ideas for it anyways

if its not already a thing to the side, i do HIGHLY suggest nintendo to add the entirety of wuhu island with the main focus being a side story/mission island. yes it could have a cup or two and a few battle courses, but theres more that could be done with it if they focus on missions. the first cup could include wuhu loop and maka wuhu, a track that includes this route and one that includes this route. the battle courses could be wuhu town, the lake, and the volcano. maybe they can throw in some wii fit locations to add more tracks. i honestly think they could do a lot more with it than what ive come up with and maybe they could add even more to it. who knows. i dont know how knockout tour could work with this, they may have to exclude it or cut it short, but i do know this game is a perfect opportunity to bring back wuhu. as for characters, there's not much outside of miis, sportsmates, wii fit trainer, nintendogs and maybe cats, and maybe characters from mii plaza and miitopia.

another one that i think would be really good is a tour dlc. now now, i know what youre thinking, but its not all that bad. lets say nintendo gave the existing city tracks a make over, slapped them on a small scale world map, and extended the city idea by giving more popular some tracks. they could give us brazil, egypt, parts of russia, antarctica, turkey, mexico, china, india, korea, saudi arabia, new zealand, etc. thats just scratching the surface. if they want to be really ballsy, they could make it incredibly accurate and charge a good bit of money for it. it wouldnt be like flight sim where the world map is taken straight from public domain sources and licensed works and uploaded to a cloud, this would be a unique recreation of the world as we know it and made into a mario kart style open world environment. it would be almost an entirely new game added as dlc for an already massive game. it may take a lot of time, but they already have some assets, so theoretically it could be done.

[connectwired]

im still in awe that nintendo decided it was a good idea to reveal mario kart 9/10/x (im gonna call it mkx) with the official trailer for the switch 2. theres so much to talk about with it

24 characters in a race is double what we've ever had in any mario kart game ever, save for the surprisingly well performing mod for mario kart wii. if that can run well, as well as fortnite having 100 players per game since 2017, i think its safe to say that 24 racers isnt much of an issue as long as dedicated servers are available. that being said, it wont be too great if the roster isnt quite a bit larger than 8's. im expecting most if not all of the characters from previous entries to return, except for all of the guest characters. sure, it would be nice to see link and pacman come back, but this is mario kart. maybe make them dlc. hopefully they ditch the costumes from the main roster and give them their own section like how yoshi and shy guy have alternate colours in 8. replacing those would be new characters such as e. gadd, foreman spike, and ninji. honestly, writing out a whole wishlist for characters is something that would take up a lot of time.

id also like to say that this mario kart may not be like any other. how will 24 characters work on retro tracks? will the retro tracks work well with the established length of nitros? are the nitro tracks really as long as mario bros circuit seems to be? will we even get retro tracks, or will we get 32 completely new tracks? is this a reboot? its incredibly hard to tell with what little of the game we've seen.

also, what are they doing with the karts? are they going to be customizable? was that just a gimmick for mk8? is it going to be a mix of both? how many karts are we going to have? are we getting any classic karts other than the 3d hot rally one? how about ones based on previous games in the mario universe? despite how silly it would be, id love to race as a hill, starship mario, or just a block. i hope they get really creative with karts this time. while customization was nice, i want to see more creativity in designs that dont allow for customization.

im really hoping this sound track bangs as hard as every other game's. i dont think anything can top toad's factory unless it comes back in mkx. its really hard to predict what it could be like, but im assuming it might be a mix of 8's jazziness mixed with wii's electric bumping vibe just going off of the style they've given the game.

[connectwired]

ok, so the whole reason they unveiled mario kart world so soon was that it is a launch title. makes sense. theres still so much to discuss about it.

"hopefully they ditch the costumes from the main roster and give them their own section"

this seems to be a given since there's no way they have 99+ individual character slots for costumes. they REQUIRE their own menu or submenu. the way they were presented in the demo is NOT final. i can guarantee that. i can also guarantee we havent seen them all yet, same with characters. the direct may not even have them all. they have to save some stuff for us to find, no?

"id also like to say that this mario kart may not be like any other."

duh. it's open world now. the whole free roam thing has never been introduced, and even if it had been, there has been VERY LITTLE space to do so up until this point. all of the tracks are combined and designed with a similar style in mind. we dont know how rainbow road works yet, so its hard to know how they connect it to the mainland.

"will we even get retro tracks, or will we get 32 completely new tracks?"

yes and no. the retros are completely reimagined to fit the style of world. we still get 16 retros, and of those 16, 3 are combined into 1, giving us room for 2 more nitro tracks. i dont think this has ever been done before, and i absolutely adore it. thats not to mention ghost valley being exclusive to free roam, which kinda sucks, but they're also tiny compared to the other tracks. theres a reason the first 3 mario circuits have been made into a single track.

"what are they doing with the karts?"

karts are no longer customizable, which, hot take, i believe is much better than the customization in 7 and 8. it leaves less room for meta and saves time while also letting the developers be more creative with their designs, which leads the next question of the potential designs. we've seen some that are modeled after previous game assets, such as bloopers, pipes, and dorrie. we also see returning karts and bikes as well as some based on previous models. the mach bike has a redesign, which hopefully opens up the gates for other nintendo racers to have karts, bikes, atvs, or even playable characters. (im still waiting on the drivable hill, starship mario, and block.)

"i dont think anything can top [the music for] toad's factory unless it comes back"

good news, its back and better than ever. mostly. they did change some parts that i wish they didnt, but i still love it. the theme is also perfect, wouldnt ask for anything else. the entire game's soundtrack seems to be perfect too, even referencing past titles in the mario universe, even wario land!

[connectwired]

im still in awe that nintendo decided it was a good idea to reveal mario kart 9/10/x (im gonna call it mkx) with the official trailer for the switch 2. theres so much to talk about with it

24 characters in a race is double what we've ever had in any mario kart game ever, save for the surprisingly well performing mod for mario kart wii. if that can run well, as well as fortnite having 100 players per game since 2017, i think its safe to say that 24 racers isnt much of an issue as long as dedicated servers are available. that being said, it wont be too great if the roster isnt quite a bit larger than 8's. im expecting most if not all of the characters from previous entries to return, except for all of the guest characters. sure, it would be nice to see link and pacman come back, but this is mario kart. maybe make them dlc. hopefully they ditch the costumes from the main roster and give them their own section like how yoshi and shy guy have alternate colours in 8. replacing those would be new characters such as e. gadd, foreman spike, and ninji. honestly, writing out a whole wishlist for characters is something that would take up a lot of time.

id also like to say that this mario kart may not be like any other. how will 24 characters work on retro tracks? will the retro tracks work well with the established length of nitros? are the nitro tracks really as long as mario bros circuit seems to be? will we even get retro tracks, or will we get 32 completely new tracks? is this a reboot? its incredibly hard to tell with what little of the game we've seen.

also, what are they doing with the karts? are they going to be customizable? was that just a gimmick for mk8? is it going to be a mix of both? how many karts are we going to have? are we getting any classic karts other than the 3d hot rally one? how about ones based on previous games in the mario universe? despite how silly it would be, id love to race as a hill, starship mario, or just a block. i hope they get really creative with karts this time. while customization was nice, i want to see more creativity in designs that dont allow for customization.

im really hoping this sound track bangs as hard as every other game's. i dont think anything can top toad's factory unless it comes back in mkx. its really hard to predict what it could be like, but im assuming it might be a mix of 8's jazziness mixed with wii's electric bumping vibe just going off of the style they've given the game.

[connectwired]

sparking zero is out, and im feeling a bit better than usual. dlc is obviously a thing from the get-go, so i wanna say who i expect. first, arale is a must, next to tao pai pai and king piccolo. some more classics would be great but those are a must. next, supreme kai and merged supreme kai are all i can think of for z. characters from super like space patrol and those from the manga like moro would be a must too. next are games, and while i havent played many, i know android 21 would definitely appear. daima is also confirmed. lastly, unofficial characters. i could see unofficial forms and fusions being a thing, like goku and satan or cell and buu just for shits and giggles, but also more reasonable ones. i could also see memes maybe being a thing like ballin cell..... other toriyama characters would be neat too, like someone from sandland and, with se licenses, dragon quest and chrono trigger

[connectwired]

ive noticed that over the past few years gaming has turned towards indie devs and teams instead of big corpos and im all for it. really hoping the next smash is just a glorified fraymakers in the sense that we could see a lot of indie franchises represented instead of just a handful. shantae, cuphead, undertale, and minecraft are prime examples, and even though minecraft hasnt been indie in a decade, i still count it as they were working on steve around the time it was purchased by microsoft.

[connectwired]

Since I have no other place to go for this, I want to start out by saying that Nintendo needs a refresh. By doing a refresh with games and hardware, expectations can be thrown in a new direction, and speculation can be all the more fun. That said, what we want and need differs from how Nintendo views, so what I say should be taken lightly unless stated otherwise. I'm VERY open-minded, so I may go on and on, and I'm also open to criticism on the things I think about.

First off, the next console. I believe it'll stay relatively the same as the Switch but with the best internals they can get their hands on. They'll probably update the Joycons a bit and reintroduce the standard D-pad, or they may take the Steam Deck approach and glue them on. The standard will have a higher quality OLED screen to compete with others and possibly better sound. Not much more I could think of but it's enough to compete for next gen and try to bleed into the future gen. It opens up the possibility for more open first party games as well as more intricacy and design, increasing the odds for success (most of the time). Third party games will run better too.

Next, let's talk games. 2D Mario has been refreshed with Wonder, Zelda with TotK and BotW, Pikmin is still going, and Metroid... we don't know what's happening there, but it did have Dread. Mario Kart is still going strong, but there's only so much left they could do until they run out of options for one game. Smash is dead for now, but that's a topic for later with Mario Kart. Animal Crossing is iffy, as the player base has likely been halved since release; I know I don't play it anymore, and I've heard that it's got several issues that I agree with.

I want to go in depth about the state of Mario. Mario fans will be feasting soon with Wonder and RPG, and I'm one of them. Super Mario RPG is, if you couldn't tell, my favorite RPG, and I'm incredibly ecstatic for the remake. I have faith it'll sell well and be given the recognition it deserves. The music and graphics seem phenomenal in the remake, and everything seems like how we viewed it in the original; our minds were brought to life with this game.

Next is Wonder, which is an interesting beast I would love to tackle. The art style is amazing and a big step from New, just as much as the soundtrack is. It's all soft and colorful while remaining fast and enjoyable; such an appealing game hasn't happened for 2D Mario in over a decade. I love the new voice lines - despite Martinet possibly being replaced - and the new sound effects are great too. It's so experimental yet seems to be promising.

3D Mario games are pretty much due for a new game at this point. We haven't seen one since Bowser's Fury, which was only about half a game, if that. The last full game was Odyssey all the way back in 2017. It's understandable why it would take so long, but at least throw us a hint once the new system is revealed. It would be cool for it to be inspired by Wonder, but I could see it branching off of Odyssey or Galaxy too.

Super Smash Bros. should be getting a new game within the next 5 years. Whether it be a reboot, Ultimate Deluxe, or a continuation, I'm certain it'll be good. If they reboot the series, I imagine they'll keep a handful of characters and add a lot of new ones while also making completely new movesets for most fighters. Ones without new movesets would obviously have some changes though. The stages have a chance to be completely new. A continuation would likely cut some of the roster while adding new ones and do the same with stages. A continuation could be Deluxe but with different features and a new story. There are lots of debates about what characters would get in no matter what way they take, but I think the few that are locked in are Geno, Shantae, Sans, and possibly Cuphead. Personally, I wish Springtrap and Reimu would be in too, but sadly I don't believe they would. Same for Goku who will never be in.

Mario Kart is the only thing left on my mind, as it hasn't had a new game in about 10 years, less if you count Tour (but who would; it's a live service mobile game based on Mario Kart 7). It needs a new game very soon after the DLC is done, but there's one question that everyone has: where do they go next? I think they could take the Sonic R route and have it be more open world. Mix that up with all of the items in Tour and maybe some new stuff inspired by 2D and 3D Mario, and you've got something magical. Doing something like Double Dash and having two drivers per kart would be cool too. The roster needs an update as well, but Tour has added plenty of characters over time. They could bring back all characters, and if possible, add a separate menu for costumes and alternate colors. Tracks could be more based on games and even the recent movie. I would love to race around in something like Beach Bowl Galaxy or a fire flower field.

[connectwired]

there's so much smash bros bullshit i wanna rant about but no way to put it all into one cohesive thing

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figured out that all my songs on sc can be posted here

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i made a tumblr page bc twatter was sentenced to death but it's still somehow alive