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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/31/22 in all areas

  1. Y'all... it has been a while since I've read a good fictional book let alone one in a fantasy setting. Game of Thrones I've always wanted to read, but between enjoying the HBO series and the fandom's ire at GRRM taking forever on the next book I figured I"d wait until that book comes out and then just binge it all cover to cover until I'm caught up. In the meantime, my immediate manager at work let me borrow a book titled The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart and let me tell you it is one of the best and easiest reads I've had in a good while. Just over 430 pages (not counting supplemental material at the end of the book) and a fantasy setting rooted in Asian mythology and a story-centric hook that directly relates to the title, the use of bone shards. I don't want to get too deep into specifics in case anyone may be reading it (or may plan to) but the author does a fantastic job leading the reader through different character pathways, across a variety of lands/settings while maintaining how vast the world is that they're building. They also manage to contain it just enough that character interactions and the effects of events on one side of the world affecting the other feels organic and consequential to the overall plot. There are a couple of twists in the story, the biggest of which was handled in such a cool way that even though you're tipped off enough to know what it is the true reveal of it in the story still comes off as a OMG kind of moment. By that point, expected, yet still exceptional. Fortunately, this book is the first in a planned trilogy and it released in 2020. The sequel, The Bone Shard Emperor, came out late in 2021 and I plan on tackling that sometime later this summer. The series as a whole is called The Drowning Empire, although the author maintains that this will only be a trilogy. Though I wonder if the Drowning Empire is the overarching name of this fantasy series with "The Bone Shard..." named books simply being a part of it. Anyway, that's all I had to say, been a while since I've been so invested in a book and felt like making thread
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  2. @Kezay: The prophecy is coming true! It's not a Pokemon Presents but it's new Pokemon news before E3 before Nintendo shares there June direct and livestream plans.
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  3. Oh, my jimmies being rustled with the update content aside, I guess I should congratulate Dread on becoming the highest selling Metroid game, but we all knew it was gonna reach that point sooner or later. At the end of the day, Dread selling better than the other games happened because Nintendo pulled their heads out of their asses and actually made an effort with promoting and advertising a Metroid game. Of course it also helps that it was a new game and not a remake, a sequel that people wanted since 2002, on the best selling Nintendo console, and was hyped up more than the entire Metroid series combined. It had no such hurdles like any previous game in the series. While Dread itself isn't a kind of favorite that tops Super Metroid for me or something, that level of effort still brings great tidings for the series going forward with Prime 4 and whatever else we get, and I'm nonetheless happy for those who rate Dread higher than me, seeing it become the highest grossing Metroid. The Metroid Prime ceiling had to be broken eventually. Metroid may never be an A-lister like Mario or Zelda, and Dread still didn't do all that well in Japan (mostly sold in the West like every other Metroid), but this breakthrough is still one of the best things to happen to a B-tier selling series such as it, and hopefully it can only continue growing from here. Any of the previous games being on the Switch in some form aside from Metroid 1 and Super Metroid on NSO would still help with that said, but I stopped getting my hopes up for that despite any rumors.
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  4. To be honest, Corpius was as far as I made it in Dread Mode. I'm sure I could have eventually got past it if I kept trying, but my limited attention span with how invested I still was in other games and TV shows kept me from going back to it. Having to be more patient and cautious with every regular enemy just wasn't fun as it already was; nevermind fighting any boss that can kill you in one hit. While I guess Dread Mode one-ups Other M's Hard Mode in a sense, the latter was more reasonable even though you couldn't get any energy tanks. 99 health gave plenty room for error compared to having what's essentially just 1 unit of health. If the other games ever had their own Dread Mode equivalent, I'm not sure if I would've enjoyed the experience much more either. At least with the other games though you don't have to worry about every trivial enemy charging right at you for you to counter; not to knock MercurySteam who otherwise gave some solid games, but any low % run or something that's the equivalent of Other M Hard Mode is as far as I would go with some inflated difficulty setting, not any one hit = death bullshit. I already gave similar opinions on the Boss Rush mode in that it didn't really enhance the experience the way I thought it would, but to add to that, will say the boss attack RNG really makes getting getting a new record against any boss or even just getting fast times in general with them inconsistent. I felt that frustration when I was trying hours one night to beat my posted boss run time from the previous page, but every time I changed up my strategy some to try and accommodate for a faster time, the boss would end up doing a different attack in a different order the next time I fought them, making me have to restart again and again, until I just decided I had enough and put down the game. That happened often with Kraid and even Corpius. 2 minutes for like Corpius seems to be an average time unless you get really lucky, and Kraid, you have to watch out whether he does the punch you have to avoid by jumping or the one you can parry, and in Boss Rush he doesn't always do the same punch in the same order. Practice and player adaptation can get you past things like that though, but it's the consistency that's the problem, more so with other bosses. At least I have a faster time with Escue though despite it being my most disliked boss. Nice time you got on the Robot Chozo Soldier, definitely had me beat there. I wanted to beat my previous time on it by sliding under its charge shots and countering, but the other bosses gave me too much frustration with time that I didn't end up doing another full fun as mentioned. Guess I'm more thankful now that Boss Rush didn't have a leaderboard, because a lot more people would be trying to beat other players' times, only to frustrate themselves with the inconsistency of the ability to beat their previous times.
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  5. I appreciate you calling that out. I know this place isn't the most active, but I honestly would have rather no comment be posted and the thread slowly die off into Page 2 and beyond than what the first comment ended up being. Haha, well it sounds like this author is pretty new in this space and is hungry to have this story told so hopefully it won't stay incomplete. As for A Song of Ice and Fire, I'm not holding my breath too much, but it is giving me an opportunity to check out some other stuff while I wait in the meantime, just in case. My plan later this year, as a gift to myself, is to purchase the most current book set. If Book 7 still isn't out then it it is what it is. My next hope then will be that it's out by the time I finish the previous ones! I've never been successful at those book reading goals so kudos to you for making it to 10 in your endeavor! If you have space/time to check it out then go for it; it's a really easy read so even if you happen to not like it as much as I did it wouldn't have been too far out of your way. As for Dune, that's another book I have no read but I know plenty who have and it has ranged from "you have to give it time to really settle and build up the lore" to "one of the best books they've ever read". Always at extremes, no inbetween; but that's one of those books I'll tackle when the mood strikes. Could be never for all I know!
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