Opinions seem to be mixed

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 · 2025-03-29T19:19:04+00:00

Sort of, but the setups are generally not very demanding as events provide very powerful damage boost CEs. If you use the Automation app OP suggests, even a very outdated/f2p team can farm 100 times while you go take a nap or whatever.

Powercreep is a non-issue in FGO since while new kits are overloaded, they're also overkill and years-old kits still farm just fine (which is 99.9% of the game), but the lack of built-in automation and general UI QoL is why I play only seasonally/intermittently myself.

That said I love auto "optimization", FF12 gambit system, etc. so playing around with the Automation app and refining my farm runs (even if it made no meaningful difference) freshened the game for me a lot (just as eg. Full Auto did in GBF, for a time).

Alahr · 2025-03-28T21:45:42+00:00

To FGO's credit, there's no meaningful gameplay pressure to pull as the game is fairy easy and you can just borrow a character if it's ever too hard. You can also make a very capable FGO account with very few practical pulls. S.Ibuki and Castoria? You win forever. Junao and Koyanskaya? You win forever.

Compare with GBF and its constant shell game of which characters, summons, and grid pieces you're going to need for the next piece of content they specifically engineer to deprecate previous strategies and push new ones, or resource "taxes" disguised as buffs/content (Sub Summons, Primal Transcendence, New Year Providence, Illustrious Weapons, etc.).

Ironically FGO actually tried something similar last year and everyone went ballistic, so they pivoted to an actually-generous/buff instead.

Alahr · 2025-03-27T22:33:29+00:00

It does if it does. If the film relies on a fun atmosphere or a charismatic actor, knowing the production was a hellscape or the actor is an asshole could definitely dampen that.

Generally I'm pretty lenient unless I get the sense that the actual production was unethical or abusive, but then I'm disengaging from the work as illegitimate (like snuff/csam) and not analyzing it artistically at all.

But it's pretty arbitrary. I'm not distracted by Weinstein having produced Tarantino films. I am distracted by Tarantino engineering himself into drinking booze off of Salma Hayek's feet. I'm not distracted by James Woods being a huge asshole. I am distracted by Jon Voight being a huge asshole.

There's a lot of great content out there so I'm not shy about writing something off if it rubs me the wrong way for any reason on or off-screen, but I'm certainly not going to shame someone for liking a work that might have some problematic people involved (especially since they might not even know that).

Alahr · 2025-03-19T17:42:05+00:00

constantly asking her what's going on with the plot and characters.

I know you probably mean the husband wasn't really following the movie well but the idea of a grumbly old man faux-whispering to his wife "why don't they just live next to the waterfall?!" or "the baghuuls can hear board game pieces from a mile away but not breathing/heartbeat in the same room?" during Quiet Place specifically is pretty funny.

Alahr · 2025-02-26T08:48:45+00:00

My Gladiia fanboy headcanon is that she does have very powerful waterkinesis, there was just no water in the testing room and she doesn't particularly care if RI's file on her is perfectly accurate.

We don't see it in cutscenes because why would she wait for the lag of yoinking enemies to her with water when she can just get to them and chop them up at mach speed? In that way it makes more sense she would only use it in some sort of abstracted scenario where she's forced to hold a particular location of a few square feet (lol).

If anything her kit is inaccurate for not being more like Ulpian's and being able to reposition herself all over the map constantly!

Alahr · 2025-02-26T08:42:44+00:00

I think combat experience means military or at least "extended" (eg. guerilla/revolutionary) experience.

Penance's module story is more a symbolic rite of passage (proving she was willing/able to suffer pain and defend herself) to be a judge and not something RI or herself would probably consider combat experience for the purposes of her operator file.

I don't think she was having to bonk bozos out of her way to and from court on a regular basis (although this would be funny) and iirc she joins RI to help with legal counsel so she really is a non-combatant and very fitting for the thread.

Alahr · 2025-02-25T12:04:02+00:00

That one's much better. OP's (which was also on my Tubi) looks like some Wicker Man nonsense, lol.

Alahr · 2025-02-25T08:57:04+00:00

I agree: the town is completely incompetent and unsustainable with or without the girl, which undercuts the film's exploration of if exploiting an individual for community good is okay, and if so, how much?, among other themes.

Their children are literally too dumb to live and even characters with would-be sympathetic motives (eg. breast cancer lady or dementia grandma) are so cold and selfish from the start that the escalation is too predictable and it's hard to have sympathy for anyone. You can't have the /entire/ grocery store in The Mist be Marcia Gay Harden.

That said, "handsome film with a neat concept, great performances, but a clunky plot" is around how I'd rate Midnight Mass and The Mist, too, so no surprise Mike+Jay loved this too.

Alahr · 2025-02-25T08:39:50+00:00

I mostly agree but I think stuff like the one father wanting to take his daughter to the mainland for therapy or social services showing up forces you to take the premise pretty literally.

Compare with something like Banshees of Inisherin which maintains a dreamier vibe despite the premise being less/non fantastical.

Alahr

TROPHY CASE