Why Hogwarts Legacy Fell Flat For Me

        So I recently played through Hogwarts Legacy, a game I've been looking forward to playing through ever since I saw one of the original trailers. And, sadly, the game really fell flat for me. I wanted to take this post to explain why.

        I wanted to caveat here that I can easily see why others might have a phenomenal time with it. I'm just here to explain why the game didn't work for me (and by extension, why the game might not work for you).

1. Too Much Dialogue (for a guy like me)

Message from my cousin Joseph

        

        Yes, yes, to be perfectly fair to Hogwarts Legacy, I'm very much a certified story-hater in video games. This isn't to say it's the case with every game. Celeste hit perfectly for me. I'm 15 hours into Clair Expedition 33 and the story/writing has been phenomenal so far. How Hades story fit into the gameplay loop was peak. There's some good stuff out there for sure. Buuuut, overall I often find dialogue cumbersome and the story disinteresting. Gameplay is by far and away more important to me.         But, even with that in mind, this game has SO much dialogue. I thought it was going to calm down after the first initial story, but nope. I watched a vast majority of the cutscenes, but ahhhh so much time with textboxes, just let me play the game! It didn't take me terribly long to start skipping every textbox imaginable, which did improve my experience. But that didn't even let me skip all the dialogue! Because many quests began with you just following another character as y'all walk and talk. It was not fun.

  

2. Overall Too Easy (and this fed into many of my other problems)

        There's more I could write here, but it felt like opening a can of worms, so I'm going to attempt the path of not writing anything at all (besides this sentence, of course).

3. Combat (and spells) Quickly Felt Samey

        Initially I enjoyed combat and thought the different spells were cool. However, and I think definitely in part because of the lack of difficulty, combat became very spell spammy. I was literally just pressing whatever spell whenever. And spamming roll.
        The different enemies had different weakness and stuff, but I just rarely felt the need to exploit them. You could just mash spells and it would be fine.

4. The Bosses were Uninspiring

        They frequently just felt like normal enemies with larger health pools. Which meant it wasn't any more fun and instead just felt more annoying if you died.

5. Didn't Feel an Incentive to Explore

        Because the game was too easy, I felt no real desire to go out of my way to level up. And because the combat became disinteresting to me, that core gameplay loop wasn't appealing either. This meant I never cared to do any Exploration Challenges in the Field Guide.

Conclusion

        I feel like I could dig into those five reasons more alongside a couple others, but the more I tried to dig, the more incredibly subjective it felt. The way I have it currently written feels somewhat objective, though, which I want. Because, like, fundamentally I can tell there's a lot of good stuff in this game (it's simply fun to be in the wizarding world, flying is just cool, the storyline is solid, you have other cool wizarding things besides spells like potions and beasts, big skill tree to explore, the Field Guide is plump with things to accomplish), so I can see why someone else might love it. 

        And there was enough for me, even with my gripes, to finish it. I rather enjoyed my first ~10 hours. Next 10 it was okaaay. Next 10 I was honestly dragging my feet just to finish it. So, sadly, I walk away from the game with a generally negative view of it, or, at least, my time with it.

Two Thoughts About Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra

        Okay, so I'm sure I could talk a whole lot more about Avatar/Korra, but here are the couple thoughts that I wrote out:

Difference in Character Quality

        The biggest difference for me in the shows (and a prime reason I think I preferred The Last Airbender so much) was the quality of characters/how I feel about the characters. 

        In The Last Airbender, I adore a vast majority of the cast. There are so many stellar characters imo. Like, seriously. Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Iroh, Azula: All incredible. Even more minor characters like May, Ty Lee, and Suki are awesome. Aang himself was great as well, of course, but honestly was not my favorite.

        See, I can't say I felt the same about Korra's cast. In fact, in several cases, the opposite. It wasn't uncommon for me to find characters grating/annoying throughout the show. 

        A couple examples:

        Korra. Korra was often frustrating to watch. Why are you so demanding? Why are you so quick to frustration/why do you get defensive so easily? Why are you so quickly getting upset with Mako and keep saying he's picking sides?
        And, like, I get that characters don't have to be perfect and it's good for them to be flawed and whatever, but golly, she in particular was just annoying. I felt like the characters in Last Airbender had emotions, but their reactions made more sense to me. Idk, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate the difference but it's there.

        Tenzin. When I was first introduced to Tenzin in the show, I got the impression that, because he was Aang's and Katara's son and seemed to follow in Aang's desires in many ways, that he was going to be a wise and reliable character to trust. And then it became apparent that he's actually extremely stubborn and has difficulty seeing any viewpoint but his own. (Examples: 1. All his door-approaches trying to get the new airbenders to help rebuild the Air Nation. 2. His methods of teaching after getting a group of airbenders for the Air Nation)
        Even when it looked like he was learning and was going to change his teaching ways, it swapped back again real quick and it was back to his stubborn ways. It was just frustrating to watch.

        Honestly, now that I'm looking through the cast, Korra and Tenzin were the main straight-up annoyances. But even these other characters like Bolin, Asami, and Mako (which in general I do like) don't reach nearly the height that practically every character in the original does for me.

Annoying Relationship Stuff in Korra

        Now, another major annoyance for me throughout the entirety of Korra. What is going on with all the relationship stuff?? It's a reoccurring thing that just bugged me.

        Mako's relationship stuff in Season 1

        I didn't personally enjoy the love triangle thing in Season 1, but I think that was just because of my personal preference. What I don't like is specific Mako actions and how the rest of the characters in the end just pretty much go along with it with what feel like fleeting consequences.
        As referenced, I generally like Mako as a character, but I didn't like this part: You can't get with Asami, but then bail on her because Korra likes you, but then go back to Asami because the Korra thing didn't work out, but then go back to Korra when she loses parts of her memory. Like, c'mon.
        I don't know, something about how he handled it and then the rest of the characters reacted. It just felt wrong/they treated things as if they were no big deal, and it was just frustrating and not fun to watch. Idk.

        Bolin and Eska

        Okay, most of this relationship makes sense. Bolin, not knowing better, approaches Eska and accidentally falls into an awful relationship. He's unsure how to get out because of how controlling and manipulative Eska is. All that checks out.
        What I don't understand is how Bolin in the end decides he actually does love her?? And everyone (specifically Mako I think is the one who is there) is just okay with it/not surprised/whatever?? Like, no Bolin. She's an incredibly demanding, controlling, and manipulative girlfriend, and she deserves no love from you. What are you doing? It just made no sense. And even if you want to reference stockholm syndrome (which isn't really a thing in the first place) or whatever to have it make sense from Bolin's end, it still doesn't make sense why Mako would just go along with it, gah.

        Varrick and Zhu-Li

        Okay, and then pretty much the exact same thing happened with Varrick and Zhu-Li?? Like, Zhu-Li, Varrick treats you horribly. Like, actually horribly -- ex. making you walk 20 miles with him on your back after you had sprained your ankle. The entire series I was thinking, "Man, Zhu-Li better being making a ton of money to put up with Varrick's treatment of her." Now, to be fair, it seems that Varrick genuinely changes before their marriage and will treat Zhu-Li as his equal in their marriage, so I guess in the end it worked out. But golly, why did 'falling for the person who treats you like a slave' happen twice this show?

        The Recap Episode

        Okay, this is not fully related, but still is connected. Half-way through season 4, they have a recap episode. A lot of the season 1 recap, at least for Mako, was focused on all the stupid relationship stuff I talked about in point 1. Aka, the worst parts of Season 1. And then the rest of season 4 doesn't even do anything with it. All those relationship drama plotlines went nowhere and was also recapped for no apparent reason.

Conclusion

        Like I referenced, there's a lot more I could unpack and talk about in both of these shows, but those are the thoughts I ended up writing. Love love Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not a fan of The Legend of Korra.
        That being said, I definitely didn't hate everything in Korra. I thought parts of the world building/magic system were cool, there were some good climatic moments, some cool characters. But for me, it pales in comparison to the original. Which isn't an original take, of course, but is one I now personally have now that I've seen all of both series.

My Phases of Being Introduced to Aurora

So I've been pretty much listening to Aurora on repeat the past 2-3 weeks, and I felt like making a post about "My Phases of Being Introduced to Aurora". In other words, the order I got introduced to various songs. 

I'm not sure exactly why I wanted to write this/document it, but here we are nonetheless.

Phase 1: What You Might Expect

Phase 1 were her two most popular songs, Runaway and Cure for Me.

I had these two songs are repeat so much that I almost texted my family group chat about them but did not. But, like, these were like worms digging into my brain. I just needed to hear them again and again.

Phase 2: Two More Added

After who knows how long of only listening to Runaway and Cure for Me, I decided to just pick a random mix of her songs and listen. None of them super stuck with me, so I went back to listening to Runaway and Cure for Me. 

But after a bit, I came back around and added Conqueror and Running with the Wolves to the songs on repeat.

Phase 3: Non-Music Stuff

I'm not really sure if this should be considered a Phase as it was only really a couple hours during one evening, but I think it's an important part of the process of getting to know a artist/band.

I watched random interviews, funny moments, particularly good moments live etc. She has an hilarious Dance Tutorial that I watched, and I learned that she's the voice of the North Wind in Into the Unknown, which is neat.

Phase 4: Grabbing Songs Left and Right

Phase 4 is where it really opens up. I started including random new songs (new songs to me) into the loop. At this point, Runaway, Cure for Me, and Conqueror have taken a back seat and see less play, although Running with the Wolves still gets its fair share of listen time.

This phase has included several listens to many songs, but the ones that have risen to the top include: A Temporary High (which for the first many listens reminded me so deeply of Mamma Mia for some reason that I looked to see if it happened to be in the sound track (it is not)), The Innocent (who's very beginning reminds me of the very beginning of Bleed It Out by half alive (which reminds me of this track from the OST of Ping Pong The Animation)), This Could Be A Dream (who's beginning instrumentation reminds me of this track from the OST of Outer Wilds (which I'll finish playing one day. Maybe.)), Soft Universe, The River, The Flood, Soft Universe, and Blood In The Wine. I'll chunk Animal, Exhale Inhale, and Everything Matters on this list as well, although I definitely listen to those less than the others listed.

Phase 5: The Future

Aurora has a ton more songs that I haven't listened to, who knows how many more will get added into the loop. But it's been fun to randomly get into a new artist again; I feel like it's been a while since I've done so.

5/30 Mini-update: Just learned that Aurora did the OP for Kaiju No. 8 season 2, which is wild, haha.

6/2 Mini-update: Got a notification from YouTube informing me that for the month of May, I was in the top .03% of Aurora's 141 million listeners. That means out of her 141,000,000 listeners on YouTube, I was in the top 42,300. Kind of insane, haha.

I Tier Listed All 500 of my Blog Posts | 500th Blog Post Special

Wanted to do something special for my 500th blog post, so I did!

I made this over 10 hour-long video that I expect no one to watch any part of, haha. In it, I go through every one of my blog posts and discuss my thoughts as I assign each of them a tier.

https://youtu.be/1yg_ldhIhCc

I used a spreadsheet to record the tiers, which you can view using the link below. The spreadsheet also includes titles, dates posted, and links to each blogpost. There's also a (not perfect but pretty close) word count column which is not shown in the video!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E5I6DRgSkvo77r6bKuqqxkePTv1BUIkzZlS_lKlEEM8/edit?usp=sharing 

If you don't watch the video (which is the course of action I recommend) than glancing through that spreadsheet is a great way to look through some of the history of my blog. 

I love you all, and I am grateful for any amount of my blog that you have read throughout the years. Here's to many more years to come!

Twenty One Pilots Tier List (Breach Update)

Aha! The updated Twenty One Pilots tier list is finally here! And will presumably be the last all-songs-ranking for a while as, by the sounds of it, Tyler and Josh are going to take a well-deserved break.

My previous ranking can be found here.

Couple informational notes:

1. The Line is specifically the live version from the Game Awards. The original version would still be in S or S- somewhere, but not top 10. I just looooove the scream and prefer the shortened version.

2. Once again, I note that I do not rank songs from Regional at Best that have a Vessel version -- I only rank the superior Vessel version.

3. I also note once again that it's not a perfect list -- I did not go through every comparison and double-check every ranking/compare every song to both their neighbors to confirm it's sitting in the perfect spot.

4. I note: This is NOT a tier list of what songs I think are the best, but RATHER which songs are my favorite. Obviously I think there is a correlation between the two, but there are various instances (prime example is Redecorate, I think) where I recognize the song is amazing (great production, lyrics, meaning, vocals, sound etc.), my enjoyment of the song just doesn't match.

Some thoughts:

    More B-Tier and C-Tier Songs

I really tried to be more honest with this version. Not that I was dishonest in other versions, but I tried to avoid as much as possible the thought of "But I love that song" even if in reality it's not my favorite. This is reflected in the fact that B Tier and C Tier are much more full than they used to be.

 
I think as TOP's discography became larger, it's become more clear which songs I gravitate back to to relisten and which songs I tend to skip over. This has allowed me to more easily to identify which songs I should truly rank lower.

(Man, remember when their discography was small enough where I had a sidebar dedicated to my rankings of all of their songs? And I updated it regularly in small adjustments instead of in these bigger revamps?)

    Trees Dethroned from Number 1

I put Next Semester as my favorite instead of Trees! Trees has long held my #1 position, but I think of, and most often want to listen to, Next Semester the most frequently out of any TOP song. In my previous ranking, Next Semester was #5, so after considering it, I decided to shift it to #1. 

Interestingly enough, Downstairs' existence is another reason I decided to shift Trees down off number 1. For as long as I can remember, the ending of Trees was my favorite conclusion/piece of any TOP song. That now belongs to the ending in Downstairs. Because Trees was dethroned in this, for some reason that felt like additional permission to drop Trees' ranking to #2.

In general the rankings mean the following:

S: Favs of all time, goated.

A: I love these songs (obviously this love scales down as you get to A-)

B: I like these songs (obviously this like scales down as you get to B-)

C: This is where I start getting much more mixed opinions and, especially as we slip down further in the Cs, I would say I don't like the songs. They still have redeeming qualities, though, and I do enjoy occasionally relistening to these songs, especially those in C+.

D: I don't care to listen to these songs and do not like them.

F: I actively dislike these songs quite a bit.