#mcrant

[hsolem-blog]

u like... .. ghosts... ahre mentira este no va

.

[yoog]

she’s giving me shit for being unable to finish at home even though she knows???? that I was struggling and literally needed someone to visually show me first???? “you had a week” not when I didn’t understand enough to even gather correct information lmao

[mcranter]

McRant #X1 - Monster Strike Review

HEY KIDS!

Do you like games where monsters beat the ever-loving crap out of each other?! Do you like games with lasers, missiles, explosions, meteorites, klaxon alarms, AND EXPLOSIONS?! Do you like the idea of collecting hundreds of different monsters based on historical figures, mythological creatures, gods and goddesses, angels, demons, samurai, elder things, robots, and WEAPONIZED VEHICLES?! Did you spend a disturbingly large amount of time playing the Tin Pin Slammer minigame in The World Ends With You, wondering what it would be like as a turn-based closed-arena action-RPG?

Then Monster Strike sounds like your kinda game, ya dingus.

Monster Strike is a physics-based action RPG where up to four players can cooperatively fight against monsters of all kinds in an  enclosed arena where your monsters can bounce around the field smacking into enemies, and allies alike to your benefit, as a race to see whether your enemies’ HP or yours gets lowered to 0 first.  Throughout your time playing, you’ll earn rewards for completing certain mission objectives, rank up to increase your stamina meter, and eventually get to perform in more and more difficult quests. the overall gameplay is a bit reminiscent of 8-pin billiards or pinball... if the bumpers were supposed to break.  And shoot out lasers and bombs at your monsters.  But your monsters aren’t completely helpless against these attacks.

A lot of the game is pretty standard monster collection fare, becase why mess with what works?  Fuse monsters together to level up the base monster, and collect different monsters to go against different enemies.  Each monster has different sling styles (whether a monster bounces off enemies or they pierce through them to hit weak points for extra damage), different types and elemental attributes that are mostly straightforward for what hurts which element more (fire burns wood, wood drinks water, water douses fire, and light and dark hate each other), and abilities that have a great variety of effects, such as nullifying obstacles, doing a larger amount of damage to certain types of enemies and obstructions, and even curing status problems and healing your HP.  And if you have multiple copies of monsters, you can fuse them together to increase their Luck.  If the first monsters in your team has high enough luck, it can drastically increase the chance of bonus items appearing as rewards for completing quests.

Another ability monsters on your team have are bump combos.  These are the abilities that cause explosions, lasers, enemy-seeking missiles, crashing meteors, and even more rare abilities like a speed- or defense-boost,  a spread-shot shotgun blast, or a damaging laser that connects between the combo-monster and the currently shot monster that does constant damage to anything in the laser... as long as the first monster is moving.  And finally, there’s the Strike Shot.  The Strike Shot is an ability that takes a set amount of turns to charge, but when it finishes, you can activate it by tapping the monster’s profile pic when it’s that monster’s turn.  When you fire an activated monster, the strike shot also activates, doing even MORE different things, like increasing speed and power, revealing enemy weak points, doing more damage when it hits weak points, and even leading all of your other monsters to attack at the same time.

Plus, while most smartphone games have monster-evolution mechanics, the ones in Monster Strike vary a bit more.  Throughout play, you’ll collect items called sharls and stoans.  collecting enough of these will allow you to spend them to evolve monsters into higher ranks if they are able to get stronger.  rarer sharls help to evolve monsters into even more powerful forms, and some can even change forms by using different monsters.  With so much variety in the monster abilities, you may think you won’t see all of these abilities in action, but the game gives you more than enough quests to experience all of them at LEAST once.

The Quests are separated into four types: the Trial Quests, the Event Quests, the Voucher Quests, and the Temple Quests.  Event Quests are the bread-and-butter of the game, where most of the monsters you’ll get are found.  Well, I say “get” but I MEAN “Earn,” as there are often times when completing a quest that you’ll get a copy of the main enemy you defeat.  Voucher Quests are a little less straightforward: once in a while, certain monsters and mission rewards will net you vouchers, good for entering a unique type of quest one time.  Trial Quests are there to get you acclimated to the types of hazards that you will see in the game, and are a good place to practice and net EXP to increase your player rank.  Higher rank means more stamina, more stamina means more quests and eventually taking on harder difficulty quests... and when you rank up to Rank 50, you can take on Temple Quests.

Temple quests are interesting in a whole different way.  Temple Quests being unlocked instantly gives certain monsters a Bade of Honor, which means they can get an additional ability by eating an Ableberry, which you earn from the Temple Quests.  Ableberries can increase your HP, attack power, or speed; make your bump combos do more damage or heal your HP for certain amounts once per turn; and some even do instant amounts of damage to boss monsters each starting round you fight against one.

There is a LOT of strategy that can be applied in the game for preparing to go against a certain monster: should I use a monster who is elementally stronger, or should I use a monster of the same element, but will do more damage because my opponent is a Samurai?  Even if you don’t think you have quite the right monsters for a boss, you can eventually take it down with sheer determination and strategic use of your current monsters’ abilities.  If you don’t want to spend money to get better monsters, that’s completely fine, because one of the best parts is many of the more powerful monsters can be earned through combat.  But be careful: the difficulty of the quests isn’t called Impossible for nothing.  They may not TECHNICALLY be impossible, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, they may as well be impossible.  

But eventually, you may hit a road block: the monsters you have are okay, but not quite enough for those Impossible level quests.  That’s that the hatchers are for.  In Monster Strike, hatchers are the part of the game that lets you get other monsters in exchange for the in-game premium currency of orbs (the regular hatcher), and friend-points (the friend hatcher).  One hundred friend points or five orbs lets you use each version of hatcher once, respectively.  But if you have enough orbs, you can even do a Golden Ten-shot, guaranteeing all ten monsters are four-star or higher monsters.  Different hatchers even increase the chances of getting certain monsters, and some monsters are exclusive to specific orb hatchers.  I suppose you COULD buy the orbs with real money, but you would be surprised how incredibly easy it is to get orbs if you try hard enough:  Complete a set of Trail Quest levels?  Five orbs.  Co-op play with a new person?  Five orbs, twenty if it’s your first.  Share a friend code with someone who also plays so you can both play together and get daily co-op bonuses (which can potentially net you another orb)?  Five orbs.  This game loves to spoil its players.

With over 1300 monsters currently in the US version of the game (including region exclusives like Sir Lucas and Tempest), it’s very likely that you’ll get at least one or two five-star ranked monsters from any of the easy ways to earn orbs, and when starting out, you automatically get a four- or five-star monster from a set of starting monsters.  Plus, as of this article’s publication date, you can get a guarenteed 5-star monster from a single-use hatcher.  And the best part is that it also includes a few of the most desired hatcher-exclusive monsters. But you better hurry before it’s removed on April 11th at 4 PM EST.

Editorial Segment: Overall, I’ve played this game since last September, and I’ve loved every second of it.  But recently, I’ve seen a lot of fans get very frustrated with the game since the admins decided to completely remove online co-op.  While I agree that completely removing online co-op was a bit much, I also understand what the admins are trying to show their players.  This game is made to bring people together, to hang out as a group, take on quests publically, and get even more people playing the game.  If you really like this game, let everyone know about it:  tell your friends, tell your family, let people know on Twitter, start a Monster Strike club at your school or a local hobby store.  If we can show the admins that even without online co-op, we still love this game and want it to continue, they’ll listen.  Who knows, we may even get online co-op back; only time will tell.

[mcranter]

Hey look, it’s McRant: The Vlog #1! Boy howdy, can’t wait to get hate mail for having an opinion!

[mcranter]

I’m gonna do it.

I’m gonna do a McRant vlog.  Expect it tomorrow afternoon.

gunna talk about Bunniculaaaaaa

[underlyingtheveganity]

Customer-I just want a plain big mac.  Me-Okay do you want cheese in that? Customer-No. Me-Okay so you want a plain big mac with no cheese.  Customer-Yes.  *hands customer plain no cheese big mac* *Customer comes back* Customer-There is no sauce or lettuce in here. 

THAT IS WHAT PLAIN NO CHEESE IS. IT IS LITERALLY JUST THE BUN AND THE PATTY. i CHECKED WITH YOU TWICE!

[mcranter]

McRant #I forgot: Squirrel Girl Movie Outline By Me

Because I wanted to write a Squirrel Girl movie but an outline is as far as it'll go, and also I don't read comics (like that stopped Hollywood, amirite?) Sorry for no "keep reading", the iPad app isn't doing it for me. Wanna skip it, and on a PC? Hit the letter J. It works, srsly. Intro and credits - SG is doing slice of life stuff during the credits, save the whole "friendly hello to every squirrel she sees (and that's LOT of them)" thing. Also, she stops a purse snatcher, is thanked a lot and is all, "no big, OH CRAP, I'm late for work*!" And runs and parkours the heck everywhere because squirrel agility* and fade to Act I. Act I - Tony Stark is hacking the SHIELD information database, because it's Tony Stark fun to him, and he finds a specific profile. He prints it out, ignores everyone else and everything else, barges into Nick Fury's office, and asks why they didn't consider someone who DEFEATED THANOS WITH HER BARE HANDS a potential candidate of the Avengers Initiative, surprise it's SG. Nick Fury explains that her age was something of a heavy factor(provided she's below the age of 21*) and that even if it wasn't they are trying to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Cut to SG doing work stuff* (Obligatory Stan Lee cameo in line to buy stuff right in front of atopfourthwall because SCREW YOU ITS MY MOVIE OUTLINE AND HE IS A COOL GUY) when Iron Man pops up right at her workplace and is all, hey manager, if I buy three of everything and donate it to the nearest charity can I borrow her for a second, and SG is all, hot dang it's Iron Man. Cut to them flying around and asking about Thanos, and she's all, "You remember the time Thanos tried to kill everyone to get into Death's skirt but she said no because she's dating Deadpool? Pfft, dudes a tool, heck, even Galactus thinks so, he literally said that when I hung out with him." And Tony is all, whoa, Galactus didn't just try to murder you when he met you, holy crap. They get to the Tower and she meets the other Avengers who hang out with her a while. Tony finally says that he's considering having her as an avenger, and she's all, HOT DAMN! And she hangs out with the other avengers for a while. She practices wi her reflexes catching arrows that Hawkeye fires at her*, Black Widow gives her some CQC tips, Bruce Banner tries to figure out how her powers work and doesn't know*, Thor thinks she's Ratatoskr and treats her with respect as the messenger of the gods, and Tony introduces her to Jarvis. Act II - Wacky comic canon hijinks ensue, Tony loses his shit because she stole an iron man suit and took it for a joy ride to the moon or something, and he kicks her out because every comic book movie needs an Oscar fishing moment, and SG leaves all sad and forlorn, boo boo, can I get an oscar now, etc. Then a half-dozen assassins and Thanos appear out of nowhere, and each one captures an Avenger somehow, but they can't get Mjornir because they aren't worthy (note that). Then they dick off to a hide out because comic book movie. Act III - SG finds out they got captured when she goes back to the tower to get something she forgot, and grabs and picks up Mjolnir like its no big deal. Thor senses it, and calls to Mjornir which flies over to his location, with SG clinging onto it and she's all, WAUGHSKGHSKJVFSKJNVUKD. She crashes into the containment pods where everyone is contained, Thor is all, "Ratatoskr, good tidings! Might you assist in our escape?" And she's all, SURE, OKAY. Tony is all, "wait what aren't you ticked at me for changing my mind?" And she's all, "pff, I'm over that" SG takes out the guard with stuff the Avengers taught her, and they get released, suit up, etc. They all go to Thanos main lair thing and he's all, "Pitiful beings, you think mere escape will save you? None of you can defeat me!" And they're all, "no, we can't, but we know someone who already did," and SG just pops the heck up behind them all, "Hiiiii, Thanny! Ready for round town?" And Thanos is all, "oh crap, that one again." Fight scene, SG whoops Thanos practically the exact same way she did before, last minute base escape before it explodes because comic book movie, Tony offers her a place in the Avengers, she's all, "naaaah, it's cool, mind dropping me off at home?" End Credits Post End Credits scene: Tony asks if anyone would mind if Deadpool was hired on, everyone says no at the same time, Deadpool pops up in front of the camera and goes, "Wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaaah! Hey, Hollywood, when is my movie gettin a sequel, ehh?!" (*Embellished story detail that most likely isn't comic-book accurate and may or may not be corrected because it's a movie, not a comic book, and each medium works differently in terms of entertainment.)

[mcranter]

AND NOW: I SUMMARIZE EVERY FANFICTION WRITTEN BY TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS

Girl Fanfics: Okay, so, these are the characters, and this is what they’re wearing right now and who they’re dating, and also which ones are magical girls like in that one cartoon... Also, guys are there, but they have cooties.

Guy Fanfics: AIGHT, BITCHES, these are the characters, and this is how they got their scars and ridiculously stupid superpowers, and also which ones are aliens like in that one video game... Also, girls are there, but they have cooties.

Seriously, I wrote fanfics like the Guy Fanfics thing all the time... and the girl fanfics.  Shut your damn mouth.