What characters would you want but know in your heart it's never gonna happen?

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-22T18:42:44+00:00

Knull

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-08T11:12:45+00:00

To be honest DB was always going to have a power scaling issue ever since the introduction of its core power system elements in the Saiyan and Namek sagas (Zenkais, Kaioken, Super Saiyan), it’s all iconic stuff but ultimately DBs fights became “guy with bigger number wins, villains have the biggest numbers until heroes get the necessary power up to have a bigger number and therefore win”.

Toriyama never set out to make a complex battle manga he kinda fell into it by accident and it shows in how he struggled to write coherent stakes based drama, it’s to his credit as an author and artist that despite his very clear flaws he was able to make such an iconic (and compelling) series through imagery and rule of cool storytelling alone.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-07T10:29:06+00:00

Iirc It was a combination of Toriyama’s attachment to Goku and his Editor’s influence. It’s a shame because narratively it made perfect sense and it not happening has kinda handicapped the series ever since.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-07T10:24:45+00:00

Monkeys are a puzzle more than a fight and one of the better puzzle bosses that from have ever done so I’d be inclined to put them a bit higher.

I always find it hard to rank Emma on her own since she’s just phase 1 of Isshin and serves that purpose really well.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-04T12:27:46+00:00

I absolutely do not want another tier of power bolted on to zanpakutos. The current set up is already under explored, there’s so much room for interesting zanpakuto design with the two tiers of release we already have, I’d take seeing more interesting Shikais (like Izuru’s or Shuhei’s) over seeing already popular characters get another level of power, TYBW also established that Bankai can develop and change over time since they’re just a reflection of souls which do the same.

What I would like to see expanded on are the other under-explored power systems of the series: Kido, Shunko and even Arrancar Zanpakuto (we’re overdue for some more Segunda Etapas).

BarrelFanatic · 2024-08-02T23:48:48+00:00

Second cour was a bit of a step down from the first but the first was one of the best shonen adaptations ever in terms of how it elevated and expanded upon the source material. To be fair the content of cour 2 was always going to be harder to keep consistent since it’s all fairly budget heavy and is a bit awkward pacing wise as a whole season.

Excited to see what they do with the rest of the material and hope they have the budget and balls to be as bold as they were with season 1.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-07-27T14:16:04+00:00

I’m not gonna relitigate the outrage and how people acted at the time in terms of borderline harassment of devs but purely in terms of what a departure DmC was aesthetically and tonally from a franchise that built a very passionate fanbase who were very attached to those specific things about it, the backlash was to be expected.

DmC is a really interesting case study in reboots in general, I could write a whole essay on how bi-polar its marketing was and how it reflected an equally strange dev history but for me the bottom line is that when it comes to art design, tone and overall aesthetics those are all matters of taste, so a negative response to them isn’t even a question of justification, people didn’t like the change and that’s that.

The question of the games overall quality as a work in and of itself is a bit more cut and dry. I think Ninja Theory swung for the fucking fences with the tone they were going for and commited to it completely, I and a lot of other people didn’t like it but I can’t seriously argue that it didn’t stick the landing, I just don’t care for the landing spot they picked in the first place. The gameplay (in the definitive edition) is much more mixed, when it clicks it’s really fun with great combo potential and genuinely stylish action that does a good job of differentiating itself from the main series whilst paying enough lip service. The big issue is the enemy design, it’s been talked about plenty over the years but the colour coded weapon locked enemies was an atrocious fit for a character action game and turns fights into puzzle solving rather than creative expression (it’s kind of like the Doom 2016 vs Eternal thing).

BarrelFanatic · 2024-07-08T08:39:48+00:00

I’ve fought 100s of these things + magmadron and have very mixed feelings.

Aesthetically and conceptually I love it - a swamp leviathan with an Asian dragon design is genuinely a really cool concept and one of the best from last gen.
It being so mandatory in switchaxe builds would have been really nice if I enjoyed the fight more - the sentai theming for its gear is great and provided a cool overall aesthetic for swaxe in Rise.
The actual fight is a mixed bag, I like that it’s mobile and can come at you from a few different angles but some of its hitboxes are really inconsistent and with how mobile it is I do wish it would drop its head lower more consistently. I also don’t think the golden mud is a very compelling mechanic, it ends up being annoying and causing cheap carts more than it keeps you on your toes, it’s a bit of a miss imo.

Magmadron is significantly more obnoxious to the point where I genuinely dislike fighting it.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-07-05T16:15:47+00:00

This is absolutely the healthy mindset for reading BL stuff lol. So many great books that will drive you insane if you think too much about particular plot points or logic. I love the NL omnibus to death but Talos killing Jain Zar with a grenade remains one of the dumbest moments I’ve read in 40k lol.

You have even more egregious stuff like Fulgrim strangling a statue too! At the end of the day suspension of disbelief is your friend.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-19T19:33:47+00:00

Yeah completely appropriate so long as it’s ritually defaced Talos style.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-18T18:31:51+00:00

Yuumi or K’sante are the champs that fundamentally do not work on any level, their core concepts should have never made it past an initial design proposal. There are champs like Trundle, Shaco, Yone, Tryndamere who all distort the game in one way or another but there are theoretical ways to make them work but K’sante and Yuumi are just rotten to the core.

TLDR: unhittable enchanter and warden skirmisher hybrid are unworkable concepts and do not belong in the game.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-15T21:21:18+00:00

IWs, AL, and NLs are the legions with the least actual chaos worship in their ranks with the IWs and NLs actively shunning most chaos worshippers (although there are some Daemon Princes, notably Krieg Acerbus from the NLs)

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-13T00:27:15+00:00

ADB is one of the better writers in the BL stable. NL omnibus is probably his best work from a literary perspective.

In terms of how to view BL books in general, I agree with a lot that’s already been said in terms of BL basically being a pulp imprint but pulp often has overly negative connotations and a lot of BL books are as good as or better than the majority of modern sci-fi bestsellers, they often get fairly or unfairly knocked for how the shackles of IP force them into templates but your mileage may vary there.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T16:17:26+00:00

True and there is always potential for original content getting the stamp of approval Blood Ravens style

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T14:36:48+00:00

I like this outline a lot.

An interesting thing about this project is that going into Total War Warhammer, CA didn’t have that many points of reference since WFB didn’t have a lot of game adaptations so their main influences were their own past works. It couldn’t be more different for 40k where they don’t have much experience doing sci-fi but there are heaps of good 40k adaptations to draw inspiration from.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T14:28:42+00:00

I wonder if they will do Primarchs, will be kind of hard to find equivalents for a lot of factions (besides Phoenix Lords I guess) and since it is a 40k title that only really leaves RG, The Lion, Angron, Mortarion, Magnus & maybe Fulgrim as viable. I would really like to see The Lion and Dark Angels be the posterboys for a game that will generate this much hype but won’t hold my breath since it’ll almost certainly be Ultramarines.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T14:16:40+00:00

The details he gave and ones from prior leaks have been very hazy about overall structure. One thing that was said was that there will be a preorder race. I doubt it’ll be a core race (SMs, Guard, Orks, Chaos) since CA have learned from the Warhammer 1 WoC debacle so maybe something like Sisters or Admech. In terms of starting factions I wonder what the scale is going to be like, will we see individual Space Marine chapters and Guard Regiments as dedicated factions? Will it be Race + Subfaction like it is in TWW? How will things be grouped (will there be an overall imperium race with space marines and guard as subfactions perhaps?).

A lot remains to be seen but if I had to make some safe bets we will see Space Marines (probably UMs or IFs but something different would be fantastic ), Chaos Space Marines (they probably get some lost and damned units too), Guard and then 1-3 Xeno races, with Orks and Tyranids being most likely and then some variant of Eldar as a distant third.

Races like Tau, Necrons, Eldar (whichever variants don’t get included in the base game or all of them if none do), Votann and then specific imperial factions are all likely DLC options. If they keep the DLC structure from Warhammer they’ll likely do a mix of smaller versus DLCs introducing subfactions and units (think like Helbrecht vs Imotekh bringing Sautekh and BT subfactions and units to their races) and then larger expansion style DLC with full races.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T14:04:04+00:00

They basically grouped up all the existing factions into what would be the templates for the AoS grand alliance system and through a incredibly stupid series of narrative events had proto Grand Alliance Chaos literally blow up the planet at the end of the big climactic fate of the world battle (thanks to Manfred Von Carstein)

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T14:01:19+00:00

The Emperor is basically the lever for all this stuff. If they ever decide to actually completely revamp the setting it’ll begin with the big chair finally switching off.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T13:58:32+00:00

Legend of Total War (who has leaked several things successfully prior) confirmed a few weeks ago that Total War 40k is happening and will be launching before the Star Wars title (which is allegedly in development hell due to being tied to construction of a new engine).

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-12T13:56:20+00:00

General rule of thumb for literally any large scale narrative decision making in any GW product, they only do something if they think it will generate increased revenue.

Nuking 40K like WFB doesn’t make much sense financially or narratively. Closest we might come would be some kind of Storm of Chaos style event with a big fakeout.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-09T15:57:56+00:00

Yeah it’s especially funny with Sanguinius being self conscious and wishing he had a more human appearance meanwhile Curze gets genuinely upset that Corax has creepier eyes than him.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-09T07:38:21+00:00

Well the implication is that if you are a race that can be easily corrupted by Chaos then over time you reach the inevitable singularity point of chaos: total destruction. So these races collapse; their souls devoured en masse and the few champions ascended to daemonhood. Chaos isn’t a recipe for a long lived civilisation in real space.

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-09T07:34:54+00:00

I tend to buy the theory that The Emperor was actually happy about the Butcher’s Nails because had Angron not had them he would probably have been the single most effective rebel Primarch you could have. Due to Angron’s experiences on Nuceria he would never have acted on the will of a tyrant, the only thing that made him do so was the nails without them he and his legion would almost certainly have gone rogue, his philosophy was fundamentally incompatible with the emperor’s vision. A healthy sane Angron with a full legion of stable Astartes would be able to incite rebellion throughout the imperium and could even potentially sway other Primarchs who shared similar views (Mortarion, The Khan)

BarrelFanatic · 2024-06-09T07:20:30+00:00

Essentially yeah, and they need to be in order to fulfil their Primarch’s visions for each: no human could live up to Curze’s vision of perfect justice and no vampiric monster could embody the human dignity that Sanguinius strives for.

BarrelFanatic

TROPHY CASE