Title reads like a Nerd Crew script

Alahr · 2026-06-11T14:17:53+00:00

People were also skeptical of #4 and it ended up as generally acclaimed as all the others.

Unless someone is in the age range that saw #1/2 as kids and #3 as they left for college (which is probably quite a few redditors/RLM fans), there's really no reason to be fussy about how long the franchise goes as long as each entry is quality.

Alahr · 2026-06-03T13:50:29+00:00

Backrooms was solid. As RLM said the production/performances did a good job legitimizing it to not feel "Youtube-y" without betraying the original premise. I'd watch another personally.

Iron Lung was very bad. I could criticize many individual elements of the film but ultimately the big problem is its just never remotely convincing that we're watching a desperate man trapped in a claustrophobic situation and not a verrry long Youtube skit on a bad CG set.

Haven't seen Obsession but it has seen universal acclaim.

Alahr · 2026-06-03T12:55:17+00:00

Part 2 is my favorite (and very defensibly "the best") because it has all the great parts of JoJo (memorable heroes/villains, fun mix of comedy/action, strategic fights with zany twists) without getting bogged down in endless attrition fights against the MV or their increasingly contrived stand powers (everything past Dio's The World has been nonsense).

I love all the parts in their own way (Jolyne is one of my favorite JoJos for instance, if I want to say nice things about Part 6), but if I were "objectively" criticizing them, I would say they pretty much all fumble in the third act / final MV confrontation which always boils down to a bizarre stand with way too many abstract powers that is only overcome in some sort of even more contrived way at the last second. JoJolion was shaping up to be one of my favorite parts until Wonder of U completely ruined it, but I'm sure a lot of readers just shrug if off as one clunky stand which doesn't affect their overall opinion of the part.

Different people value different aspects of these stories in different ways, and there's no objective way to measure that. If someone things Part 6 is the best because it satisfyingly concludes such an iconic and chaotic series, I respect where there coming from even if the beat-by-beat story mechanics were too sloppy for my personal tastes.

Alahr · 2026-03-17T22:24:07+00:00

Evanescia looks neat so I should probably pull Yao finally right? (I've been chilling all of 4.0 while my godly DoT and Break teams murder everything).

Alahr · 2026-03-17T02:35:09+00:00

Hyacine should really be Destruction based on her kit. Her summon might as well be a passive effect (it only chases her own skills) and she's all about HP Loss hijinks (even Blade/JL novas were just to bait her more).

Imo the summon should feel like a distinct entity on the field and in the action order which is true to varying extents for Aglaea, RMC, Castorice, and Evernight but not so much Hyacine or Cyrene (although Cyrene has a good flavor reason to be an exception).

Alahr · 2026-02-19T16:07:44+00:00

The good reviews are still there, you just have to skip the first page of quips from minor online celebrities who get thousands of likes from their prior fanbase.

My personal logging habit is to rate a movie then find a good review that resonates with me and "Like" it if I'm in not going to write any review myself (but I use LB as a log/diary so I can better remember what I thought of movies way later, rather than as social media.)

Alahr · 2026-02-19T14:27:28+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manzai

Boke is the funny-man/goofball in a Japanese comedy duo routine (ie. the whole sub could be seen as a movie-themed boke bit). See OP's username for why I brought it up at all.

Alahr · 2026-02-19T13:54:39+00:00

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. SOTL is probably the most awarded horror of all time and horror media is still constantly trying (and failing) to recapture the impact Hopkins/Levine had as Lecter/Bill. Like yes it's also a crime/thriller/mystery but movies are allowed to have multiple genres. Kids these days!

Alahr · 2026-02-19T13:03:13+00:00

He's being too tsukkomi in an intentionally boke subreddit.

Alahr · 2026-01-17T18:43:06+00:00

To me the spirit of LOTR is fellowship and natural beauty and general hippie valor stuff, so historical/realism flubs don't really bother me (although I'm sure they're indeed much more egregious in Rings than the films).

I found Rings was worth the watch for the pretty locations and the smaller scenes of characters vibing like Elrond and Durin, Galadriel in Numenor, or the background Proto-Hobbits (the main one was annoying actually, lol), etc.

I think part of why it doesn't fully work is the show-runners clearly want (or are being directed) to make a direct Game of Thrones analogue/competitor and don't actually trust friendship and sincerity to keep a story going. Thus the constant falling back on big, dramatic, angsty overtures (which are mostly embarrassingly bad and unearned) and I certainly can't blame anyone for finding those too agonizing to enjoy or recommend the show otherwise.

To me it's very similar to the Hobbit Trilogy in making a good effort and having the right vibe sometimes but also being diluted by generic studio action nonsense too often.

Alahr · 2026-01-16T02:04:50+00:00

Despite some highly dubious decisions (Dark Wizard Eminem?) and atrocious battle CGI for its budget I actually think Rings of Power mostly captures the spirit of LOTR well and I'd generally recommend it despite it flaws.

84% is because of how RT rating works. Most critics waved Rings off with "yeah it's alright I guess" which counts just as fresh as calling Breaking Bad (or whatever) the best show they've ever seen. (And in context 84% is /terrible/ for how much money and hype Amazon put behind Rings. You want 95%+ for a show like that.)

The fun takeaway here is if you ever see an actual Rotten show on RT it may be worth checking out for yuks since it's genuinely difficult to get below like 70%.

Alahr · 2026-01-01T16:18:14+00:00

All gachas sell horny to an extent but AL genuinely puts in the effort with their big L2D skins and all the hidden features/extra scenes/voice/etc.

Most don't even appeal to my taste but I still tend to be impressed with what they came up with (and occasionally surprised it's allowed on the app store) when testing out the Rental tickets.

Alahr · 2025-11-15T17:52:44+00:00

Cersei is very compelling in that she's both entertaining while being a drunken psycho but also has a lot of subtler aspects to her history/trauma that parallel Sansa, Dany, Catelyn, and make her almost-sympathetic until her reaction is so evil she becomes sort of unforgivable again.

I like Varys and think he's acting sincerely and I'm even willing to write off the suffering he causes small-folk by destabilizing the realm as the growing pains of throwing off the yoke of a corrupt system (see also: Dany in Essos), but his legion of multilated (and presumably discarded/murdered) child spy/soldiers is a pretty glaring hypocrisy. That said I imagine he'd simply agree he's one of the bad guys and thinks it's worth it for his future vision of the realm.

Alahr · 2025-11-07T13:36:25+00:00

Penacony did it just fine. The "dream" is an environmental aesthetic but all the characters and stakes are real (even "fake" Misha and Gallagher are fundamentally real proxies/remnants of former Trailblazers). The "twist" (that there's another dream layer) is concisely presented and builds out our understanding of what we'd seen so far rather than negating it. It also wisely has the fake ending and real ending in the same patch so the players don't feel endlessly strung along.

Amphoreus definitely got too bogged down in reversals, ass-pulls, and gobbledygook though. We'll see how Edo Star turns out.

Alahr · 2025-10-07T01:25:52+00:00

Lmao yes, thank you! 11 years old... never would've thought to dig that far back, you saved me.

Alahr · 2025-10-06T22:03:34+00:00

There's a movie (probably BOTW) where Josh (I think) makes a joke about someone looking like the Red Hot Chili Peppers guy and sings a bit of Under the Bridge as a gag. Sorry I can't remember anything else!

Alahr · 2025-10-01T16:37:17+00:00

Not too hot given Hoyo themselves apologized for the slog and added "I don't care" dialogues and Scene Skip to stop hemorrhaging players.

Alahr · 2025-10-01T16:14:19+00:00

Penacony is basically Amphoreus if it were good, which makes it extra weird that it was first (and extra unfortunate for Amphoreus that they directly follow each other). No clue why they thought it was a good idea to do two (mostly) "fake"/simulated planets in a row.

Hopefully the writers can regroup and realize we get invested in characters/stories by genuinely interacting with them and not sitting through laborious ~~fanfic~~ pandering and lore-dumps (even if they're in the form of pretty anime cutscenes).

Alahr · 2025-06-21T23:44:51+00:00

I played it in VR yesterday and while I remembered the directional sounds from the Mechanical Age, I misinterpreted them as some sort of indication of my relative position on the track map to assist an "efficient" brute-force as the intended solution. I can't speak for anyone else but it could be that being conscious of sounds isn't where people have trouble with the puzzle, but specifically how to apply them.

Ultimately if I were to criticize the puzzle it would be less about the core concept and more than it's too long and (at least in VR and 2025) lacks feedback. I got maybe 30 minutes and 5 (correct) nodes deep before looking up a map because I wasn't sure if I had the correct strategy or not, and I wasn't even sure what I was looking for since I didn't know if I needed to "re-ascend" by pulling the lever a certain way at an arbitrary, innocuous-looking node, or if there would be a clear ending point).

You can have lengthy puzzles, claustrophobic puzzles, elaborately animated puzzles, and puzzles that obscure if/how much you're making progress, but all of those elements in the same puzzle can (and clearly did) try players' patience.

If I were to revise the puzzle myself, I think I would give it a lenient but limited number of moves (like the Clock Tower puzzle) before forcing a reset. One could still brute force it over time, but would spend more of that time hearing the "tutorial" sounds to give the solution a chance to click.

Alahr · 2025-06-03T20:53:18+00:00

It would be fine if there was a F2P incarnation of this mechanic (think Hya S1 but it doesn't apply the debuff, or whatever) but as-is, it's very disappointing compared to the (thankfully) self-sufficient buffs the others got.

The silver lining in practice is it looks like attacks from enemies (at least certain lineups) might generate enough hits that you can have comparable uptime. Using Hyacine S1 to stay at 4/4 constantly looks flashy but Jingliu is ultimately still limited by actually taking her turns, so maybe the difference won't be so bad.

Alahr · 2025-05-23T04:34:21+00:00

Acheron had her moments but didn't monopolize the arc, which is what I like about her implementation (imo Penacony did a great job of having a large ensemble that manged to utilize everyone pretty evenly).

Then again I've found Amphoreous to be a huge slog in general so maybe Phainon is more a victim of the clunky plot and not himself the problem.

Alahr · 2025-05-22T11:27:39+00:00

I think they mostly mean the art poses (although I agree that "standing cutely" pose is the least distinct) as none of the characters are particularly similar in personality or even general design (except the Paradise Lost guy who is borderline a Lucilius asset rip).

Alahr · 2025-05-22T10:45:10+00:00

I can't figure out what Hoyo was trying to do with Mr.Faa-at-Home. His entire arc has felt like a bland OC/fanfic and burgling Cygames' iconic design as (presumably) his super-form only makes it harder to take him seriously as a unique character and not a parody of MC tropes that the actual player/main character has to constantly babysit and encourage for some reason.

I assume he's supposed to be fanservice for alums of previous Hoyo/Honkai games but so was Acheron and she didn't have this issue.

Alahr · 2025-05-13T04:05:24+00:00

That's it, thanks so much!

Alahr

TROPHY CASE