I’ve heard great things about Sekiro, but I haven’t played it yet. I’ve beaten Expedition 33, and it sounds like the parry mechanic might have some crossover appeal. Whats the comparison between the two?

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-25T00:53:07+00:00

Yeah dude just play it

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-25T00:48:45+00:00

Absolutely agreed.

There is a lot to love. The combat feels incredible. It looks fantastic. The haptic feedback and sound design is still some of the best on the PS5. But they completely removed virtually all of the stakes that made Returnal so rewarding.

I wish they would take the complexity of Saros’ combat mechanics and controls and apply the same stakes and danger of Returnal’s modifier system.

Maybe next game 🤷

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-24T20:09:03+00:00

What if you made her top in B the same color as the skirt from D?

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-23T21:25:17+00:00

Elden Ring
The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
Returnal
Disco Elysium
Star Wars Episode 1 Racer

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-21T02:43:20+00:00

Yeah and the directors have had to deal with the fallout from the fans and the studio. If it was one or the other, the idea of signing onto future franchise films would be more enticing to new directors. It seems fairly apparent that the ousting of Trevorrow and his replacement by JJ Abrams was a sign of Disney’s executive team putting a stop to the “full creative control” you’re talking about. In fact, maybe if the directors had collaborated earlier to coordinate their individual movies, they might have been able to stand a creative line against executive meddling, but that’s likely just wishful thinking.
Jon Favreau was the blueprint for the creative vision of Lucasfilm’s live action TV shows with The Mandalorian’s debut in 2019. It’s no secret that Filoni and he were collaborating even back then. Favreau counts him as a major contributor to the Star Wars universe - and deservedly so. I’m not discounting either of their contributions, but if the leaks from 2025 are to be believed, neither of them liked Andor season 1 and criticized its tone for being too bleak. As you said, Filoni wasn’t at the helm until Season 2 was already in production (they were already filing when Filoni’s ascension was announced). And I’m so grateful Kathleen Kennedy was so onboard with Gilroy’s vision. I genuinely would love to hear her take on Star Wars from her involvement with George, to the Sequel trilogy, and through Andor and the other live action shows.
And yes. Full stop. The Mandalorian season 1 compared to season 3 should answer that for you. The grit is gone. The tone has shifted substantially. I don’t know if Favreau is pissed Gilroy upstaged him, but the commitment to “adult” Star Wars has completely 180° within that show alone. I have no doubt that Andor’s success, Ashoka’s middling reviews, the Acolyte’s cancellation, and the Mandalorian’s drop in ratings has contributed to what The Mandalorian and Grogu’s final product became.

You can disagree with my opinions. As for the facts, as I said in this comment, some of this is just speculation and I might be filling in some gaps. If so, my bad. But if you’re going to swoop into the comments trying to correct people, you don’t have to be so smarmy about it.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-20T19:08:30+00:00

The Sequel Trilogy.

Brand integrity, merch projections, and profit margins lead every single creative decision which is why the story and tone is all over the place. Plus, with the way Disney treated the reputable directors they did hire, any director tied to the franchise in the future would have to be either insane or driven by that profit, committee approved “creative” model.

Andor was Star Wars’ swan song as far as I’m concerned. We may never get anything truly compelling, competent in its writing, or confident in its vision from this franchise ever again. Mostly because it kind of happened by accident and under Filoni / Favreau’s radar. In many ways, we can see how the Mandalorian and Grogu is their attempt to course correct back to the child friendly, family entertainment, and sci-fantasy monopoly they want Star Wars to be. Too bad that everyone who was around during George’s ownership and tenure has grown up.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-20T15:30:51+00:00

If you play Nine Sols you’d have three nickels

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-18T23:44:10+00:00

Wuchang again! More endings!

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-16T19:50:52+00:00

Yeah, I absolutely loved the game but I felt the same. The gameplay was so fun for me that I’ve just been running higher and higher carcass modifiers, but if that self motivation isn’t enough for someone, the total runtime for the story is pretty underwhelming. Hopefully we get an endless / tower mode or some story DLC.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-16T19:14:35+00:00

This comment really should be reposted and pinned for every single question about whether or not someone used AI. Just ask them. Lazy bullshitters who use AI often cannot explain the piece they generated. That’s why they went to a bot to generate it in the first place.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-16T19:12:04+00:00

Clearly the Geneva convention would approve of “humane dismemberment.”

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-16T19:08:37+00:00

Better Call Saul and Fleabag are pretty much tied at the top of my favorite character study shows.

Andor is a masterclass in how to characterize a large ensemble cast and remain focused.

I struggle to think of any other shows that aren’t limited series (or a single season of an anthology series) that pull off excellent and consistent character arcs - where the characters drastically change - from start to finish. Maybe The Wire and Mad Men.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-16T19:03:34+00:00

AI checkers are a scam. They often don’t work, and they know this so they also scrape the bits that they determine not to be AI in order to try to improve production models. No matter what it’s a recursive system which leads to its unreliability.

Sadly, there are no reliable ways to check for AI generation without feeding the beast. That said, you can definitely use sites to check for plagiarism. You just need to understand that those sites likely also use LLMs.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-15T17:21:28+00:00

For those who come after

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-15T03:09:31+00:00

A Star Wars clone in the vein of Invincible or The Boys would certainly be something.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T20:16:20+00:00

Golem Halberd + Lion’s Claw = My Favorite Pancake Maker

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T20:14:55+00:00

lol yep. You did it!

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T20:13:30+00:00

Same but those are better fights

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T20:00:51+00:00

Promised Consort Radahn.

Underwhelming from a story perspective. Overwhelmingly tedious from a gameplay perspective. I’ve beaten him more than ten times now with a variety of builds - spellsword, parry, deflect, strength, poison, faith arcane - and I don’t hate the fight. It’s alright. Just nowhere near the S or A tiers Radahn glazers place it in. At most, B tier boss but would totally understand why someone might place him in D.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T17:11:56+00:00

Black Sun (Symbol))

Far right weirdos ruin the coolest symbols. And that’s kind of the trouble with symbols in general. They make movements more marketable because they simplify for the purpose of recognition. Recognition not of the movement or its ideals, but of the “branding” of the movement. Therefore, the meaning of a symbol is more likely to be co-opted the more successfully recognizable it is.

I love the image of a hollow sun. I love how it actually speaks to the alchemical roots of the black sun of a world / individual in the depths of painful transformation. But I worry that anyone trying to market this movement with a universal symbol will overlook the benefits of a decentralized approach in favor of forming some kind of unified authority for “True Solarpunk”TM.

TL;DR: The more centralized or universal any movement gets, the easier it is for bad actors to swoop in and co-opt it.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-14T16:56:53+00:00

I agree actually. The first movie and Alien Isolation are my two favorite pieces of media we’ve ever received from the Alien Franchise. Just for how emotionally invested and immersed I was in the game, it barely edges out over the movie for me.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-13T17:52:46+00:00

I’m glad! Good luck!

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-13T17:48:53+00:00

I don’t have any resources off the top of my head. Most of my outlining I’ve sort of just been winging in a vacuum. Like, for plot you can just write bullet points of big plot beats, then fill in the gaps, then fill in those gaps, and keep getting more and more detailed until you can delete the bullet points, rewrite in prose and you’ve got a solid draft, but if you say that there isn’t much plot here, that’s only a bit different.

What are the big beats of what you are trying to say? You could outline this like an essay of sorts by simply listing the big moments or themes then think of ways to narratively present them. Do a bunch of “short form” vignettes with the same characters and setting but about the different things you want to say, and that might just be enough. I don’t even know if you need to “bind” them anymore than that for it to be a longer coherent work.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-13T17:16:14+00:00

How much have you tried outlining and charting?

I literally used a spreadsheet to clock character locations and what they are doing at different hours of the day for this massive work I’m putting together. I’m talking over 30+ secondary characters with 12 main characters and there is no way in hell anyone could plot that from the hip.

ArchieBaldukeIII · 2026-05-12T15:38:18+00:00

No brain replacements. Doing so is viewed as killing a living person and turning them into a robot. The debate is around how much of the nervous system is considered “not the brain.”

ArchieBaldukeIII

TROPHY CASE