isleofdia

went back and watched that section of the game again and man, the party really just pushed that task off onto Vaan for him to debase himself with and then get kidnapped, smh

could this be considered XII's 'Tidus laugh' moment??

for all the Vinland Saga-heads out there, I'd recommend The Bugle Call: Song of War. First chapter is among the best opening chapters I've read of any manga so far, especially among action/war mangas, and I've read one comment on MangaDex that likened it to the entire development of the first arc of VS, but more cramped and rushed. I might be a bit biased in my evaluation of it tho, given that I also decided to listen to the Tchaikovsky Manfred symphony while reading it, and listening to the first movement while reading the first chapter was a transcendental experience for me.

Issak is one I found and binged yesterday which I also enjoyed. Classic 'one apprentice seeks revenge on another for killing their master' premise, only its happening in the Holy Roman Empire at the outset of the Thirty Years' War. My only foreknowledge of the Thirty Years' War comes from Matt Christman's Hell on Earth podcast series, but it was still pretty pog when Wallenstein makes his appearance. One of the major charas is a follower of Thomas Müntzer, tho I doubt that connection will be taken as far as it could. CW for gore thruout, and attempted SA in first chapter.

If you don't mind long strip style, then I'd like to plug again Martial Wild West. A wuxia set in Han Dynasty-settled Turtle Island; it gave me a lot of Kenshi vibes. Am waiting for it to come out of hiatus...

does anyone happen to know why Kazakhstan is so strong at this and the like? Prob tangential, but I'm reminded of how Kazakhstan consistently produces Olympic medallists in combat sports like boxing and wrestling.

the difference in fitness on display between the NYPD and Team B in the obstacle course is staggering. NYPD just waddling about as if they were elementary schoolers on a playground (and then DNFed less than a quarter into the overall track lmao) while watching Team B's performance made my core hurt.

also the Emirati commentator went hard for Team B's run lol

personal nitpick with Rimworld since ive only run with small colonies of about 6 - 10, but I wish base game was more... flexible when it came to moving on the world map, even for temporary locations, wasn't so heavily focused on the home colony to the point where I have to tab back and forth between the majority of my characters exploring a map and one or two guys managing home base. sometimes I wonder what's the point of generating a world map when I wouldn't be able to explore more than a quarter at best because the game requires u stay in one location

Kenshi: after hundreds of hours put into the game and going thru multiple cycles of starting a new game, struggling to make money, fighting, losing, fighting again, building and automating a base, etc, and all the emergent storytelling that comes out of that -- I feel like it was only the combat-related systems that were fully fleshed out and ultimately, the only way to interact with the world in a meaningful way is through combat. Though the visuals and worldbuilding do great of offering the promise of a lot, the dialogue system is not developed enough to allow for any dialogue mods that integrate well with and impact the world or player characters. Animations systems are similarly limited, with the system allowing for minute customization and replacement of combat animations, and very little room for any animations not combat-related.

believe they're talking about Yellowstone, directed by Taylor Sheridan. His whole directorial output since Yellowstone, including two prequels, Landman, maybe Tulsa King as well, center around private property struggles and "expanding the frontier".

Out of all the manhwa (mostly action) I've been casually reading, I've been most impressed by "Martial Wild West/Wild West Murim". It's an isekai where the Han dynasty was the first entity to colonize the United States, but apart from like the first chapter, there's barely any narrative focus on the reincarnation aspect of the MC, much more focus on what a Han-dynasty-colonized-western-US looks like and how it's structured, its connection to the mainland, and of course, martial arts. Has an interesting arc some chapters in about how indigenous Americans interact with the Han settlers. And the art is outstanding imo, a departure from the more anime-esque aesthetic other action manhwas I've read use. Reminded me quite a bit of Kenshi, though maybe I'm leaning too much into that comparison given that they both share desert environments and martial arts.

Otherwise a fan of:

How to Use a Returner/Regressor Instruction Manual

The Skeleton Soldier Failed to Defend the Dungeon/Skeleton Soldier Couldn't Protect the Dungeon

I Became the Tyrant of a Defense Game

Manhuas:

Nan Hao & Sheng Feng

Eternal Club/I Built a Lifespan Club (plot goes absurd once the MC starts to go international with his operations imo)

Tamen de Gushi/Their Story (RIP to this cute lesbian love story)

Legend of Star General

Release That Witch (think someone once described this as 'fantasy Dengism'?)

Iron Ladies/Metal Goddess Soldier (in which I think this was written from a Chinese nationalist perspective and the antagonists are like, pretty blatantly a NATO/American empire analogy, and they get their shit violently wrecked)

Andy Kim's campaign page features several blurbs where he touts his work as a "civilian advisor to American generals in Afghanistan under both Democrats and Republicans" and he loves to bootlick the troops, so "fucked" is an apt descriptor. Also linked being anti-DPRK to him being pro-Israel, but that's par for the course tbh.

me spending four hours writing this entire list down in LibreOffice and copy-pasting it into here like:

yeah, my gaming tastes over the years has pretty much been narrowed down to single-player party-based games of whatever type, and turn-based RPGs tend to be the most common manifestation of that, so i've really scoured the depths of the gaming mines looking for interesting gems. When this post came up, the spirit of posting welled up inside me compelling me to , so here i am. will prob go back to lurking for the most part tho lol.

(also how do i do spoilers within spoilers, to make the post more navigable?)

Wildermyth was pretty good in terms of artstyle and combat, for sure. Kinda neutral on character interaction scenes, because the combo of personalities my party consisted of seemed to result in dialogue between characters that seemed... disjointed? Seemed like different personalities were talking past one another, and it kinda seemed to be reflected in the larger plot scenes as well. I did really appreciate the game providing positive incentives for nurturing adversarial relationships between party members, no other game with party member relationship mechanics i've played so far seems to take relationship mechanics to that extent.

Full agree on Fell Seal, the only good things about it were playing around with the classes, character customization, and monster taming. Still worth a few hours if ur able to tune out all the plot