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A Girl Looks At Games: A Blog I guess? (Hollowknight) So first my spoiler policy is a bit different. Spoilers are… ambiguously ok, vague posting sweet summer child and stuff like that is definitely fine. Asking questions that provoke certain thoughts is also fine. Just don’t tell me that Everyone on the Orient Express is the murderer, but feel free to point out how wow it seems like everyone on the Orient Express has a reason to commit this murder. Weird! I’m not your mom, I never really freaked out about spoilers, and spoilers don’t ruin the experience for me, but I won’t click on anything in spoiler tags as a rule. If you’ve ever wanted to act like you have the gift of prophecy this is the thread for you. Now what the hell is this? Posting about games makes me happy, and keeping a journal makes it easier to focus on games, keeps me playing, and lets me enjoy it. Having discussions about games helps as well, and having a place where those thoughts are collected where someone will react forces me to try and collect my thoughts in a way that makes them actually consumable and easy to look back on. So I made this thread. This'll definitely be let’s play adjacent. Like I’m recording, taking pictures, and writing words. Webms of the cool stuff, images of the cool things, and then a recap of where I went and what I thought. I might update multiple times a day, or not for a week, largely based on when I feel like I’ve done enough that I need to collect my thoughts. Sometimes I’m going to ask for help, but if this thread is dead, or no-one is around. I’m gonna go looking on the forums, then online, and post any answers I found here to go back and see what I need. If I’m going to miss something cool, tell me! Especially if it’s a quality of life thing. So yeah, that’s what this is… Maybe you’ll like it! Maybe you’ll hate it! To keep things easy to move along, all posts will have a table of contents link, a previous post link and a next post link at the end. Also tell me if there’s a game you’d think I’d like! I’m down to play it. So yeah, this weird experimental thread is just something to fill up my free time. The Next Post is the table of contents. It's gonna have one game, Hollowknight. Your screenshots look weird I use colorblind filters, I have one I made myself in Reshade, and I’m tweaking it to make games look better and more visually clear for me. I have Tritanopia, Blue Yellow color blindness, and yellows look pink or white, blues look green or black, purples lean toward black until they’re red.
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Sep 23, 2021 10:26
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Hollow Knight First Post Last Post Hollow knight is one of those games, that I really really wanted to like, but could not figure out why anyone muddled through it. The backgrounds and foregrounds constantly blending, so you never know where you’re going. The dingy lighting and samey rooms making it impossible to navigate, and the weird bright red blood squirting out of every enemy like it was a meat flavored gusher. Then I found out I was colorblind, and decided to get back into it. I actually am really enjoying it, and I didn’t give it a super fair shot the first time around, having shelved it pretty early. In fact, if my memory is correct, we’re going to cover where I gave up pretty much in the entirety of this first post. After finding out that Hollow Knight is compatible with Reshade, I realized that I could use my colorblind filter that I use for FFXIV on Hollow Knight as well, so after futzing with a few settings (Including one to make the outlines of things thicker, so the platforms stand out against the background better,) I was able to actually play it, and it’s a much different thing once you’re actually able to see what’s going on. This Colorblind Filter I’m using was made by me, it’s what I’ve found works best, and the added benefit is, instead of using algorithm daltonization, I’m doing a 1:1 hue replacement to create contrast. I also picked colors I could already see, for the majority of the screenshots, what you see is pretty much what I’m seeing, maybe slightly tweaked, but close enough to give you a tiny peak into my world. Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 10:27
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Previous Post | Table of Contents | Next Post The run up to grandpa bug is pretty awesome to be honest, I like hows theres all these weird rocks in the background that look like… I don’t know what, and it’s pretty atmospheric. I think the bloom might be a bit high, and on the run up I noticed something odd that I hadn’t seen before, so I take a quick screenshot for the future, and continue my trek!   I remember Grandpa bug being cool, so I sit and talk with him a bit and honestly, I’m starting to remember the dark souls parts of my brain start to light up. Except everyone is speaking a normal English and not in riddles. I remember there was a map guy, and some caterpillars, and some other vague things, and that the benches are basically your bonfires, so I hopped in and got to business doing what I do best!  So I go into the depths of the Hollow Knight. Or… The Hollow? Or wait, I might be the Hollow Knight, anyways I jump in the well, and I start blasting. My muscle memory isn’t so bad when it comes to platformers, and I manage to get a few good hits in, and start blundering my way through. I go right and see that big rear end temple with Quirrel in it, and I kind of just soak in the atmosphere https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/temple.webm I kept going right from there and hit this big rear end buff dude. I thought he was an NPC at first, and uh… Well… https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/smash.webm He smushed me. He smushed me good. Then I remembered it was a dark souls game, because I went hollow and lost all my money. Hooray… Speaking of things that I thought were my friend. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/GhostJerk.webm The ghost is a dick. I had assumed that guy was my friend, so of course I tried to get a screenshot with it. He hit me for being an Instagram model. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/rescue.webm The 2nd go around with the big guy went waaaay more in my favor, and I kicked his stupid rear end and saved the nobleman in distress, the caterpillar. He showed me much gratitude and I felt like Queen poo poo on poo poo mountain for beating my first mini boss. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/QueenShit.webm I uh, I don’t remember how I got there exactly, but eventually I found a guy in a mine with all these pink gems, and a huge area with a ton of platforms and pathways, and I got really lost wandering around, I thought taking screenshots would help, but it didn’t but I did find something incredibly useful.  A man! A man with a map! I was super stoked, and I looked at it and… How are you supposed to read that. I tried to figure out where the hell anything was, and realized I had gotten reeeeally twisted around, and had been basically walking between where I rescued that grub and the platform area without realizing that there was more down below. Embarassing, but not a huge issue. After studying the map a bit more, I realize the guy’s face on it, and that must have been where I picked up the map. It looked like right was mostly a dead end, so I headed left! There was some pretty trickly platforming, with falling stalactites, and big giant worms, and I didn’t eat poo poo on any of it. Even got a grub for my troubles. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/Falling.webm Yep, didn’t eat poo poo to anything. Looking at the map, I realized there was no way I was going to find a bench any time soon, so I retreated to meet bug guys weird bug wife, on the way there, I took a little detour I had found when I had gotten lost, and it was caterpillar dad. He’s such a good parent, he’s also giving me money. Caterpillar Dad is a bro.  On my first playthrough, I’m pretty sure I died on the way back and then put down the game. I thought I had played a lot further, but I really don’t remember more then this, but I also remember and extremely dark area that was impossible to navigate. This time though, I talked to her, looked at her inventory, and got really excited because there’s a compass. But also all of these pins.  I think I could probably navigate without the compass, but I don’t know if the pins are just like “Press button and put this thing on map” or if they like actually show me where stuff is ahead of time. What’s a better purchase? The compass or the pins? I think I can navigate by map if I orient myself well enough. Though I definitely need to buy the quill. Maybe I should grind up some resources? Honestly, retrying hollow knight, I think I had a serious case of mad because bad, I'm really digging the NPCs though I wished they talked just a biiiit more. THey're not very wordy, and I do enjoy the exploration knowing there's a map to help me get around. With putting pins in the map, your help and this journal hopefully I'll remember how to get around better and actually finish Hollow Knight out this time. Previous Post | Table of Contents | Next Post Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 23, 2021 10:32
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The "typed" pins will automatically mark stuff on the map for you once you've discovered it, but there are also a bunch of "generic" pins(the four-pack) that you can place yourself if you want to remember, say, a place you couldn't get through because you were lacking a mobility upgrade. I would definitely recommend buying the pins, personally, because unless you're a speedrunner who's blazed through this game like five times in a day, you'll almost certainly forget where a bench or something is.
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Sep 23, 2021 10:48
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Alright that is easy enough then! I guess the quill and the bench pin. or maybe the generic pins? Maybe I'll just grind until I get all the pins.
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Sep 23, 2021 10:50
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Yeah, the map is absolutely huge and the pins are real lifesavers. Personally, I used one color for things that were too high to reach, another for obstacles that looked like I could break them with an upgrade and so on. Really made going back through the areas to collect stuff much easier.
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Sep 23, 2021 10:53
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pins in order of importance: bench (always need to know where the nearest savepoint is) vendor (you will forget where people are without this) stag (WOULD be higher priority, but you can usually spot those just by map context) the rest are not very important but are nice to fill out the map Also, the mini videos are a neat way to do a SSLP while also being able to capture action.
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Sep 23, 2021 11:03
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Compass is a must-buy imo before you are used to navigating the game in general, know a few more of the rooms, etc. Imo grinding should not be necessary, you can just keep ducking back home in the early game and spend money you don't want to lose on small pin purchases.
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Sep 23, 2021 11:03
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The tried and true method is to get the compass, get all the markers and pins and then randomly put pins in locations with no real method, forget what they mean and miss powerups for weeks. Also to immediately get lost the moment you unequip the compass.
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Sep 23, 2021 12:11
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Boba Pearl posted:Alright that is easy enough then! I guess the quill and the bench pin. or maybe the generic pins? Maybe I'll just grind until I get all the pins. Hollow Knight doesn't have an awful lot of "shop" content, so generally you can rely on getting all the stuff in the game's few stores without needing to do any kind of grinding. There's like, one exception to that, but in general you don't need to worry about grinding.
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Sep 23, 2021 12:46
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Natural 20 posted:The tried and true method is to get the compass, get all the markers and pins and then randomly put pins in locations with no real method, forget what they mean and miss powerups for weeks. all while the thread screams and shakes fists at you
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Sep 23, 2021 15:05
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Previous Post | Table of Contents | Next Post Alright well, I didn’t get as far this time around as I basically zoned out for about 4 hours and did homework, but I couldn’t stop thinking about getting more into Hollow Knight. The movement was spotless. I’m playing Hollow Knight on a fight stick. That’s just what feels… right to me. Having all my buttons right there, the arcade feedback, smashing around the joystick. I might not continue, but I have a habit of defaulting to my fight stick and then trying a controller when it doesn’t work. Mostly because I spent way too much money on it, and modding it out and I mostly play platform fighters where it’s basically useless, so I’ve been doing my best to actually get some use out of it. I know the enormous face has got to be a boss, so I decide to poke around a bit before I go to it and see what’s around. I also blow some cash on the Quill and the Compass, which gives us the bonus of always knowing where we are. And, I only spent about 30 minutes playing the game. I’ll explain why at the end. I explored Hallow’s End or whatever they call this city (I know it told me, and tells me every time I’m in town. I’m sorry!) And found this very unassuming stone door, and promptly took a picture and then left it alone.   And it was away I went. I went back the way I came and continue based on my last journal entries. Now that I knew where I had been, it was easier to tell where I should go. On my way back, I noticed a hole in the ceiling and made a mental note to put a pin or something on there when I get more geo. On the way back down, I had found this little side door, and I was stoked. I noticed the texture on the door was different and looked kind of… Bug like? And smacked it. Sure enough, it opened. I feel very proud of myself for finding my first secret door… Though now writing this up; it wasn’t a secret; it was right there on the map. You’re gonna notice a theme with this I think. I don’t really want to talk about what happened in this room. I made some assumptions that were incorrect. MOVING ON! https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/5_25SpikeJump.webm Anyways, I noticed none of you mentioned that there was a bench in the very next room that I had walked away from. I also learned what a hot spring was, but my dark souls senses kicked in, and I was very unsure how a bug with a sword would handle water. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/6_35WaterScary.webm https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/6_474FukkinMosquito.webm Just… Garbage. MOVING ON! https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/puppy.webm It seemed like it was going to hit me or maybe I’d have to fight it, so it pleasantly surprised me to find out that it’s basically a golden retriever, a spider, and a horse all wrapped up into one. I wish hollow knight had a pet button, or at least some treats to give to the good boy. I assume this is the fast travel system. I wanted to go back home, but I couldn’t figure out which way was safer, but then I realized going up and to the right I could pop out and explore to the well and then climb out!  Or at least that’s what I thought. What ended up happening was me getting extremely confused why there were enemies in a hallway I didn’t remember on my first trek. I was also pretty sure I should have run into the temple at some point. Didn’t hit me. I was on the wrong path until I was on the other side. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/06_28ForbiddenTunnel.webm Again I uh… I’d rather not talk about it tbh. When you’re godlike at video games like I am, sometimes you miss because you’re too busy playing 5th dimensional chess with your big wrinkly brain. Went back in to finally fight the boss after buying some more pins. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/03FalseKnight.webm Though I’m suspecting that those big guys with the clubs aren’t a mini boss. I’m really hoping the game gets harder soon, I’m kind of just schmooving through it. Like I don’t think I’m some Alpha Sigma Gamma Elite Gamer, but I heard this game was brutally difficult, but seeing that it has a nice easy slope is making me happy, because it means when the difficulty comes, it’ll be applying concepts I’ve already learned either more precisely, or more creatively. That’s the difficulty I like and keeps me coming back to games. I’m got super excited about this, And it’s hard to write these journals when I know there’s a huge rear end map to explore and uncover. I get a phat rear end loot box, and I walk back to town.  I think Hollow Knight is maybe actively aggressive towards the color blind; I don’t know if it’s better for deuteranopes or protanopes, but as a tritanope, everything seems to come in two shades. Blue and Red. Which is normal, but like normally there’s different… Shades? Of Blue and Red? Hollow Knight is like gray scale blue with vibrant pops of red. Is this what the game looks like to you guys? Are they just doing a lot with a limited palette? I don’t know, but man, I hope there’re some areas that aren’t blue or green. Anyhow, on the way back, there’s a lady, and she wants me to have a present. I get my laser blast, and I face the hardest boss so far. https://bobapearlessence.com/HollowKnight/02/05NotWhatItSeems.webm Look, I was trying to hit the pill bugs back at him, or the laser blasts? The game told me to use the soul blast, but I didn’t want to risk losing my soul meter and… I was playing chess and they were playing checkers, so this one is also not my fault. I go back to town and spend up my supplies. I’m ready to delve back in (though I’m thinking I’m gonna have to report less if I want to get these done in a timely matter. 30 minutes of nothing shouldn’t take this long lol.) A friend saw me playing Hollow Knight, and was like “Don’t you hate that game?” and I had to admit I was mad because bad, and that I couldn’t see it, and it was more an accessibility issue than an actual problem with the game. They were stoked and told me to do all this stuff, like roll back to the 32 bit patch, and install a bunch of mods, and look at all this cool stuff and basically chatted at me for a while. They’re not a goon, (I think) so they’re probably not going to show up in thread. That said, I looked at the mods and I veto’d all of them, there were some that added like health bars, a combo meter, charm rebalances, randomizers, warp from the benches, leveling up with GEO like at bonfires, custom classes, off-line multiplayer, online multiplayer, just a bunch of poo poo. That said, if I ever get really stuck, or when I make my big goofy run on the secret ultimate boss, I know what I’m going to do, lol. The only mods I went with are a death counter, and a mod that sets the compass to 0 notches. That’s only because of the Color Blind thing. I have literally tried to jump onto background objects multiple times, even with everything I’ve tried to do, and I just don’t want to compound that issue with frustrations on my current location. Gathering Swarm, I left at 1 notch, because I think if I want more geo I should give something up for it. Just a heads up, though this all happened after today’s update. Any mods you'd recommend? Previous Post | Table of Contents | Next Post Boba Pearl fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Sep 24, 2021 |
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Sep 24, 2021 00:06
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Boba Pearl posted:
Fun thread so far, but I just wanted to touch on this, because the pictures and videos you're posting are WAY darker and gloomier than any I've ever seen of the game. I don't know if it's settings or what, but it's not how it normally looks. Edit: Oh yeah and the reds are a lot... uh, sharper? Vibrant but dark-ish, if that makes sense, compared to how the normally look.
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Sep 24, 2021 07:18
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Hobojim posted:Fun thread so far, but I just wanted to touch on this, because the pictures and videos you're posting are WAY darker and gloomier than any I've ever seen of the game. I don't know if it's settings or what, but it's not how it normally looks. She said that the palette is changed so she can see at all, it's going to have a "too high" contrast for people who aren't color blind. As to the question about the palette in general: the first area is a blueish-grey cave. It's natural that it's more subdued, and yes, the devs want the orange blood to pop for a reason. There will be other areas later! Also don't mod on your first playthrough imo. Compass zero notch is nbd tho
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Sep 24, 2021 07:46
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Simply Simon posted:She said that the palette is changed so she can see at all, it's going to have a "too high" contrast for people who aren't color blind. Ohhhh, sorry, I misunderstood. Thanks for correcting me.
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Sep 24, 2021 07:52
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Hobojim posted:Ohhhh, sorry, I misunderstood. Thanks for correcting me. Now that I'm at a keyboard instead of on phone, a comment on the game's difficulty: like with many discussions about Dark Souls, word of mouth is a bit overblown. Hollow Knight is by no means trivial, but it does have a difficulty curve in addition to simply teaching you how to be better at it as you play. There is extremely hard content in it, but a lot of that is optional and/or has been added by (free) DLC. Also, every player will of course react differently to different challenges. There's puzzles here, sometimes mandatory to solve, that might stump someone. Another might be awesome at platforming but suck at bosses, or vice versa for a third. Saying "this game is always hard for everyone so best be prepared to sweat blood from the outset" is reductive and doesn't help at all.
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Sep 24, 2021 08:17
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I think my personal issue with Hollow Knight is mostly in the bosses. The general gameplay, the movement, the exploration and the normal enemies are all wonderfully designed. But almost every boss feels like it has just a bit too much HP, and without a health bar or any real injury level indicators beyond bosses usually whipping out some more moves in the second half of their health, it can make the boss battles feel somewhat tedious. And yeah, the toughest stuff is sort of optional, in the sense that you CAN finish the game without handling it.
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Sep 24, 2021 08:33
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Yeah I see exactly where you guys are coming from with the difficulty thing, and I think I'm going to stay away from modding but god there are so many lmao. And yeah, basically the contrast is turned up too a billion but it has adverse effects on how gloomy and dark it is. I also did something to make the enemies get a little snow texture on them, which helps me differentiate them from the background.
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Sep 24, 2021 11:00
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I feel like it's somewhat intentional, but this game doesn't make it easy to visually discriminate a lot of stuff, especially in the boss battles. And the colors are fairly desaturated, so it is a lot of black/white/grey, with the most distinctive other color being orange (although that hasn't come up yet). It seems like you're meant to feel your way around a lot, and there are also some aural cues.
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Sep 24, 2021 20:52
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There's a lot of visual problems with this game that derive from the art style. I feel like this is a valid sacrifice for the game to make, considering how beautiful it is during play though. Deep lategame bosses have the issue of x colour projectiles on an x colour background, it turns out for example that having Flux on while you play deeply disadvantages you in those fights. And the difficulty is genuinely overblown. It's really not that bad if you've got good familiarity with any of a) Mega Man, b) Traditional 2D fighting games c) Smash Bros. ((DLC superbosses notwithstanding))
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Sep 24, 2021 21:14
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My main issue with the art style is that A) some of the effects surrounding projectiles makes it hard to immediately differentiate their edges for the purposes of dodging and B) occasionally foreground objects will hide small enemies, which is really annoying.
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Sep 24, 2021 21:44
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The art is also influenced by the game using its own color filters to distinguish between regions. So the tutorial area is tinted gray-blue, the crossroads is tinted blue and greenpath is tinted green. You can see that in the transition screens, where a lot of things change color as you walk from one area to the next.
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Sep 24, 2021 21:50
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I have never had this happen before, but I've had to spend the last 2 or 3 days remaking my website from the ground up and haven't had time to play video games. If you noticed the images and gifs weren't working for a few days, that's because my SSL cert expired, and I couldn't get my VPS to accept the new ones, then I updated PHP which broke wordpress, and then fixing wordpress nuked my database, so I basically had to re-make my entire website, and at this point program my own CMS in php because i'm not loving with wordpress if I can just lose all my pages and stuff by accident. I also played a bunch of fighting games, I'm new to fighting games in general, and have started playing most of them around the beginning of this year. My favorite genre seems to be platform fighters, then 2D fighters, then 3D fighters. Tekken and Street Fighter are ok, Guilty Gear -Strive-, Marvel vs Capcom 2, and Melty Blood are super cool, and my platform fighter tier list is 1.) Project M 2.) Rivals 3.) Smash Ultimate 3.) Melee. Jack-O rules in Guilty Gear, and I'm excited for the new nintendo game, and might get the new melty blood, since all of my online friends seem to be getting it, and having more people to play with is always fun.
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Sep 30, 2021 05:54
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Boba Pearl posted:I have never had this happen before, but I've had to spend the last 2 or 3 days remaking my website from the ground up and haven't had time to play video games. If you noticed the images and gifs weren't working for a few days, that's because my SSL cert expired, and I couldn't get my VPS to accept the new ones, then I updated PHP which broke wordpress, and then fixing wordpress nuked my database, so I basically had to re-make my entire website, and at this point program my own CMS in php because i'm not loving with wordpress if I can just lose all my pages and stuff by accident. KoF! KoF! KoF! (I need more people to play King of Fighters with lol)
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Oct 1, 2021 14:01
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I'm trying to find a way to better fix Hollow Knight, because I just can't see poo poo, which makes it hard to get the motivation to play.
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Nov 9, 2021 05:08
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