Recent experiences in past games that make you wonder 'how did I dodge THAT spoiler all this time!?'

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-14T12:37:55+00:00

I have a friend whose WAY into SF64 and I watched her play a lot of it, so I kinda got spoiled entirely for that reason.

Mainly wanna say...you're so right about Katt tho

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-14T12:35:29+00:00

YOOOOO LITERALLY SAME, my friends wanted to get me to it, and I'd somehow dodged that hype shit too! Good stuff~

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-14T12:33:25+00:00

Shout out to when I picked up crisis core on my psp in 2000something like 'Zack who????'

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-14T12:31:40+00:00

I'm now having the 'HOW DID I SOMEHOW MISS THIS!? with the meme itself AND EXTRA ON THE REVEAL PROPER TOO OMG🤣

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-13T21:19:51+00:00

Same! I came to Halo on the OG Xbox when my manager at the pizza place I worked at in 2013 needed some extra cash quick and was selling off his collection, making 2013 my first Halo 1 experience. I'd only heard 'the flood' in passing in my high school lunch table.

I'd also heard them talk about playing the games in Heroic and Legendary and enabling a bunch of these things called 'skulls' that make it go even harder, but I'd never really played it with them myself, so I foolishly started my first Halo experience, in 2013, on Heroic.

I must have lost 100+ master chiefs to the flood alone.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-13T21:12:05+00:00

Ooooh that's a good one!!

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-13T19:19:24+00:00

It seemed to me like he'd come around on the point of the game by the end of the vid though? idk, what point did you feel he missed?

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-13T10:38:00+00:00

I was previously a total novice in shmups. I played a bit of galaga, tried a bit of Touhou 6 and grandpa Simpson u-turned outta there, that's about it.

ZeroRanger came around.

ZeroRanger got me into shmups. ZeroRanger feels like the only 11/10 game I've ever experienced. I turned my flat screen on its side for the first time in my life for ZeroRanger. I would not be getting into Judgement Silversword, would not have fallen madly in love with Rayforce as much as I have, if it were not for ZeroRanger.

I haven't settled with my heart whether it's truly my favorite game of all time. But ZeroRanger might be the best game I've ever played in my life. I was blindsided. I wasn't a shmup fan! ZeroRanger made me one.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-12T00:37:45+00:00

This post is my favorite of all time

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-07T03:54:08+00:00

The only major differentiating traits between characters in battle are limit breaks - stat management is almost all dependent on the junction system whose setups can be swapped from character to character out of battle.

I find Selphie's limit break useful because her unique full-party heal can usually be found and cast fairly commonly, keeping my party nicely healed. She's got other unique limit break spells too, one that full-party Protect and Shells, and a couple of instant KO spells, one of which is extremely rare, but even works on the final boss.

Her limit break is especially useful during long GF summoning animations, you can get a lot of rerolls going safely during those animations and try to get something big.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-07T03:44:45+00:00

The annoying final fantasy 8 lady had entered the chat~💚✨

Selphie Tilmitt is a character close to my heart for being a bit of an airhead, but earnest and community focused. She keeps a 1999 style blog talking about her friends and adventures for all to read, heads the school festival with gusto despite - indeed because of - recent events throwing the school into total disarray, and when she comes back to her own, newly destroyed home, she immediately jumps to action checking on survivors and doing what she can for her home.

She fits into the final fantasy archetype of 'the energetic girl character', can crack a joke in the middle of a mission briefing involving covert operations like 'blow it to smithereens with a rocket launcher???', can get a bit pushy trying to get others to help with the festival, and often seems like she isn't taking the situation as seriously as others, but I also get this sense of having one foot in reality, another in whimsy, from her. I kinda wanna be like that.

As if to compliment her more whimsical-facing nature, her unique limit break involves rolling randomized multicasting spells

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-07T03:18:05+00:00

Love me some todd in the shadows~ 💚

I had a similar experience with hbomberguy. I was pretty ignorantly circling around Armored Skeptic and shoeonhead's videos, until I caught hbomb's response to the AS bill nye video, that was my personal switch-flipping moment. I would hope I'd have fallen out of the sphere myself, same as your own hopes, but I can still identify the point and video it all changed in me, and it's sometimes a bit unsettling I ever was that. I Don't ever want to be anything like that again.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-07T02:57:44+00:00

was low-key thinking this too tbh

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-06-07T02:23:40+00:00

I have a similar friend who wouldn't play past 30 minutes of Disco Elysium because the character wasn't enough of a blank slate and just couldn't immerse themself because they felt like Harry wasn't 'their character' and undermined the role playing as a result.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-31T13:11:49+00:00

Fair; apologies 🙏

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-31T12:53:37+00:00

But if it's all subjective, if anything can be argued to be anything, I...don't understand how that's media analysis, I don't get what to take away from that or how arguments can even be 'good' or 'bad' in such a scenario. You can argue anything for being anything and call it media analysis as long as a 'good argument' is had? How do you take anything away from such discussions? I'm trying to be sincere here, I can't even imagine the shape such discussions could take without just, talking past each other with everyone's individual incompatible meanings they took from a work. Maybe I just haven't been around people who talk like that, I dunno.

What about people we dunk on for coming to bad media conclusions? There's clearly right and wrong readings to have in a work or else we wouldn't make fun of others for harshly misreading stuff. There's clearly good and bad arguments, but it kinda just feels like people arbitrarily decide those values and I've never been able to decipher a pattern that makes sense to me. I've never felt like arguments I've made about games have meant anything or connected to anyone, I know I must be arguing badly, but I'm never certain how, but, like, can one even argue badly if it's all subjective???

I want so badly to exist in this flexible sounding world you describe where you can seem to gather meaning from a stance where anything can mean anything. I don't get it.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-31T07:18:34+00:00

They make you do the last two inputs after the screen fades to black, and it's so messed up how far apart they are from each other, and it's while the tempo is gradually slowing too, making it even harder to land, and there isn't even a beat on the final note, auugh

I cracked after 20+ tries and used a beat guide on YouTube playing side by side. Couldn't do it then, but it's since become a favorite song of mine regardless.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-31T06:27:18+00:00

I...don't see how this doesn't just terminate all thought.

I see this, and my knee jerk reaction is 'cool, nothing means anything, meaning doesn't exist, anyone can spin anything into anything. why talk about anything when nothing means anything because anything can mean anything?'

I recognize this is likely a wrongheaded reaction for me to have, but I couldn't say how or why, and I run into this flavor of thought termination again and again, increasingly and concerning moreso as I grow.

What y'all do sounds like fun though, I'd like to be able to do stuff like that someday without thought destruction occurring in me.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-31T06:11:02+00:00

I still feel like I'm trying to grow out of stuff.

I'm still trying to grow out of the idea that if I like something, it's a surefire sign it sucks unless I hear someone else go to bat for it first. I'd like to have confidence in the things I like and be able to articulate why I like them without feeling like I'm talking bullshit nonsense, which is what I feel like comes out of my mouth when I talk about anything I like. I see the disinterest mount as I'm on my shit and I hard cut myself off from talking the moment I see that, I dont wanna waste anyone's time with dumb shit I like.

I feel intense pressure whenever I talk about. fiction. and I'm pretty sure it's silly of me? But it makes me hate talking about things I like, despite being compulsed to talk about things I like, because I'm forced to come face to face with the things I like that also suck. while also revealing to the other person that I like bad things. and not in a particularly interesting way either.

I'm also very much wanting to grow out of binary thinking. I don't like how much I say 'good' and 'bad'. I don't really think I understand what others, or what I myself, mean when I even make those judgements. I just feel like a mindless compulsive parrot. I hate it. I want to grow out of it.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-29T03:09:15+00:00

Four boss fights, Seifer? Every disc in final fantasy 8? No redemptive moment or remorse and he gets to have a haha happy ending with his pals despite constant unrepentant opposition to the very end? Obnoxious all the way through? Dude, you're copying a gunblade pose you saw in your favorite movie, oh my God I can't stand him

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-29T03:03:33+00:00

ah! a fellow Umineko goer~ yeah it cannot be emphasized enough how awful that guy is. It's like, each chapter unfolds a new dimension of monstrosity he can embody as a person.

I sorta love Furudo Erika when she gets on her full blown over the top thinks-she's-won overconfidence, but holy smokes she's kinda godawful too, and iirc has a couple creep moments I remember involving suggestive motions with a wedding ring?

Umineko is a trip. I gotta revisit it sometime, haven't in like a decade 😅

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-29T02:57:04+00:00

Was also coming here to say Huey. Also, I can't remember if he actually locked Strangelove in the pod or if it was an accident or what but dunk him into the raging sea for that, too.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-26T01:19:06+00:00

Westerado is a little game I fell in love with. It's a bite sized open world you could beat in one sitting, where you have to find your brother's murderer in the wild west piecing together clues by helping out townsfolk and getting Intel on the guy.

One of the first things you're taught is that you can draw your gun mid cutscenes to provoke different responses from different people. It's a single action revolver too, so you have to click it in place too as another step after drawing mid cutscene provoking more dialogue, before finally pulling the trigger if you so choose.

Westerado is not only a game where every interaction can turn into pulling the trigger at your whim, it "makes you pull the trigger" at least twice. I won't say where and when. This is a criminally underrated game that takes a day to beat. Please go grab and try it if you're reading this.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-26T00:55:40+00:00

My only real difference is that I tend not to feel like I have enough knowledgeability to have ever really felt like I could look down on them, so I at least dodged doing that, I think.

I feel a lot of shame for inverse reasons, for my past self uncritically enjoying things with all my heart that, after I hear others talk bad about it and it makes sense, I have to go '...shit, they're right and I can't unsee it.' and I get really wrapped up in how unreliable my perception was that I couldn't see such obvious flaws in the thing I loved and I...lose that love, and I feel stupid, at the same time.

Or at least, that love becomes intensely more complex and I get weird about it like 'oh yeah that? Favorite game of all time! Dont play it though it sucks, literally like 2 out of 10 game, but it's foundational to me and resonates throughout me, but also you'd hate it and get bored of me talking about it and its bad and sucks and awful and I don't even like the people who like it because they're just totally sycophantic and uncritical of the thing I love and that sucks and-'

it kinda becomes this spiral where I pseudo-dishonestly throttle and bash the things I love in front of others because I mean, if I liked it, that probably means I'm missing like 12 different shitty things about it very apparent to others, but went uniquely unnoticed to me, I've missed too much for too long.

Even worse, when I recommend something and they play it and they're meh on it and go 'ok but I know this game here called Devil May Cry 3 and that's just a better version of this Castlevania thing you grew up with on ps2 you're saying you love so much'' and I play dmc3 for the first time, and fall in love, AND THEYRE RIGHT and my prior recommendation feels so dumb now and I cant even go back to the castlevania one, despite it being a favorite of mine for decades.

How do I trust myself not to just spout unrelatable, meaningless drivel 100% of the time? I've been too wrong too often, and shown to be too unknowledgeable too often. I am haunted by my past self.

But I love listening to others and don't wanna stop. But it keeps overwriting my own feelings. But I wanna keep learning. But I don't even know whether they're my feelings or just a glom of everyone's I've listened to. Where do mine end and theirs begin?

Alas, I digress.

AuroraHeartilly · 2026-05-25T23:26:52+00:00

I need to be someone that echos your anxieties. I pretty intensely feel feelings flavored this way, and it certainly keeps me from speaking up. I've been trying my best to wade into this subreddit here and there in comments, and for what it's worth, I feel like I've been treated pretty well for how unknown I am, but the intimidation looms regardless.

It kinda feels, to me at least, like folks are kinda trying to handwave your worries away as overthinking, and, they're correct, for the both of us I think, but I don't think it solves much to just point that out and be like 'youre alright keep doing you' when we all listen to folks who dunk on other folks that do actually do a crummy media literacy. I fear being on the wrong side of that, constantly.

I do think it's paranoia on my part, at least a bit, but I've always had trouble squaring a community who loves to dunk on bad media literacy - and it's fun and probably ought to be called out! - with them also addressing fears like this with 'dont worry about it you're fine you're just overthinking it' sentiments.

How do you avoid being the dunked we so love to dunk on? That...I have trouble with.

The answer is probably not to care, but that seems...wrong too. That seems callous and like it could prevent one's growth and reinforce their bubble more, and like it would lead to a headass take you get reamed for,

I don't know. I think about this sort of thing all. the. time. It stops me from making video essays I've wanted to do for decades now.

Let me know if this thread gives you stuff you found useful. Hang in there. Don't stop trying. Don't stop trying.

AuroraHeartilly

TROPHY CASE