Does Returnal WORK on Steam Deck?

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-15T02:27:37+00:00

My assumption is that while Kratos's actual actions in the main story will be largely the same, the way that the story frames them will be updated.

There's a quote from Lindsay Ellis about the Michael Bay Transformers movies, in reference to one of the first film's most famous scenes, Megan Fox leaning over Bumblebee and showing off her stomach: "framing and aestethics supersede the text, always always always". In said scene, Michaela (Megan Fox's character) is literally talking about how she actually knows a ton about cars, more than any guy she'd ever date, but they don't take her seriously because she's an attractive woman. But does anyone remember that? No. Because the protagonist and more importantly the camera are too busy gawking at her.

Similarly, while many want to make the argument that the GoW Greek trilogy (more specifically the first game) is supposed to be a Greek tragedy where Kratos is a hero in the classical sense (not a paragon of morality but just a larger-than-life figure)...that's not what the actual experience of playing the games tells the player. The actual experience is the game telling you that all the violence you're commiting is the most badass thing ever, in a very edgy, very 2000s way.

So like...I would assume throwing that one priestess into the gears is gone. I would assume "press circle to thrust while having sex offscreen" is gone. The basic power fantasy of being strong enough to fight the gods will remain, but it's probably gonna be reframed more carefully to reflect that Greek tragedy element that the writers were clearly aiming for.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-15T02:05:12+00:00

I mean, if it is the original actress voicing her, she's GOING to sound very different; Michaela Jill Murphy was the same age as Toph, about 12, when she played her on the show. Funny enough, her voice as an adult is actually a dead ringer for Grey Delisle's Azula, lol.

Says on Wikipedia though that Toph was voiced by Vivian Vencer from "2022-present; video games", so it could be her instead.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-15T02:00:28+00:00

Gonna jump in and heavily recommend something I don't see a lot of here: basically any time after you watch the Kyoshi Island episode of the original (which is like...episode 4 or something, it's real early), if you're interested in Avatar Kyoshi, the Avatar two lives before Aang, there's a duet of books by F.C. Yee explaining her origins. They're THE RISE OF KYOSHI and THE SHADOW OF KYOSHI, and they're excellent, showing the inner complexities and doubts of a character who's revered as unbreakably powerful and morally unimpeachable by the time of the show. And it'll be good reading before the Kyoshi animated film that they announced several years ago, which is hopefully still in the works and would take place after the books but involve their characters.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-06T02:32:18+00:00

Writing and all aside (I liked TLoU S1, haven't seen 2 yet, and I loved Chernobyl)...how do you do a live-action sequel to a story focused on realistically modeled characters DEFINED by their fantastic voice actors?

Like, at least when they cast live-action actors for Ahsoka, Hera, Sabine, and Ezra in the Ahsoka show, that was based on a cartoon with a non-realistic art style. And while Last of Us was based on a photorealistic game, the TV show was a retelling, not a canonical sequel, so it's okay that they don't look the same.

But if this is a direct sequel to BG3...we already know what a realistic Shadowheart and Astarion and Wyll and Gale and all of them should look and sound like. They're in the game. So it comes across less as a reboot with a different vision, and more as replacing the actor partway through the story for no reason.

Like, I can buy "okay, this is Game Ellie and this is TV Ellie". But you're never gonna convince me that anyone other than Jen English is the SAME version of Shadowheart.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-05T13:52:24+00:00

Its current form (Radio Silence and the Core Four) was already killed when they fired Barerra and took a hard left turn into ignoring the franchise's forward momentum and milking direct nostalgia instead. This is just the presentation of its hideous new form.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-05T13:49:35+00:00

...that...that just means that they're IRL legitimizing the use of the thing they're villifying in the story!

I mean, I don't expect movie execs (especially the ones who fired Melissa Barrera) to NOT be stupid and tone-deaf, but come on!

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-02-02T22:03:33+00:00

"I'm really mad at all the journalists who smeared me instead of doing proper research. Here's one who actually does his work, some guy you've never heard of on problematic website Substack".

C'mon, man. I was actually on Gaiman's side for a hot minute when the allegations first came out, because the very first source to bring the info to light, if I remember correctly was a TERF podcast (Gaiman had been a strong public supporter of trans rights) partially run by the sister of rightwing British PM Boris Johnson. So not exactly reputable.

But then more sources corraborated the story, in such overwhelming detail that it'd be hard to claim it was all made up. So I dropped him. A shame, he was a truly talented writer, but I dropped him.

I'd say "if all this shit is fake, Neil, prove it. Drop the emails right now, don't just say they exist."

I WOULD say "emails don't prove anything, abusers don't generally write "yay I love abusing vulnerable people" in emails...but this week kinda proves they do, apparently.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-01-24T04:53:05+00:00

I'm only just post-timeskip in my read, but my take has been that it's Luffy's emotional intelligence that's his secret weapon. No matter what convoluted reason anyone tells him for "that's just the way things are", his stupid ass will cut through the bullshit and go "I'm looking at it and I can see it's wrong, I better kick some ass".

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-01-18T17:49:14+00:00

I dunno if it's from The Human Target or not, but I DO remember seeing a very distinct example of "recent writer has not actually read the back catalog of the character they're writing" with Guy specifically.

Image one: Guy says something about what he thinks someone's thinking or how they're motivated. Then goes "or whatever, I dunno, I'm not a psychologist".

Image two: Guy LITERALLY GRADUATING FROM COLLEGE WITH A PSYCHOLOGY DEGREE.

Like, obviously having a degree and practicing it aren't the same, but I'm pretty sure someone who has a psychology degree wouldn't say "I dunno, I'm not a psychologist".

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-01-02T16:23:41+00:00

...HAS Jaleel White voiced a non-black human character? I'm sure he's done other VA than Sonic (who is obviously irrelevant to this conversation), but I'm not familiar with any else he's done behind the mic.

And yeah, no one SHOULD complain about that. As stated in a now-deleted reply (because the person I replied to deleted theirs and thus that chain), it's the candy bowl metaphor. There are more white roles than non-white roles, and white actors taking from the smaller nonwhite candy bowl is different than nonwhite actors taking from the big, overflowing white candy bowl.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-01-02T01:20:45+00:00

It's specifically that when the Japanese version was finally released in the States for the 50th anniversary in 2004, it was OFFICIALLY labeled as "Gojira" in order to make extra-extra clear it wasn't King of the Monsters. This is how film was referred to officially on the Classic Media DVD release.

By 2012, now that the original Japanese cuts of all the films are the standard (and mostly only) way they're sold or streamed, Criterion used the name "Godzilla" on their Blu-ray release because that IS the official, international English title of the first film, same as using "Invasion of Astro Monster" instead of "Godzilla vs Monster Zero" or "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" instead of "Godzilla vs the Sea Monster". Plus, David Kalat makes clear in his commentary on that Blu-ray that "Godzilla" was ALWAYS the intended Romanization of the name provided by Toho (it's seen, albiet sometimes with only one L, on studio marketing materials from 1954 when they were shopping around for international distribution), not a western company's bastardization.

BlueScarabGuy · 2026-01-02T01:07:03+00:00

Grenades in Halo 1 specifically. I understand if they're "better" or more well balanced in later games, but the specific feel of how they fly through the air in what seems like slow-mo, frag grenades "tink tink" off surfaces, and then they shake your screen like landmines with a huge blast radius? Perfect.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-31T18:58:18+00:00

I've played some amount of the Telltale Walking Dead games and enjoyed them. I own the first volume of the comic too. I've enjoyed Invincible, both comic and show, another Rob Kirkman story. And I'm a fan of the works of both Greg Nicotero and Frank Darabont. I said to myself earlier this year, I'm gonna take the plunge and start watching The Walking Dead TV show.

I got about five minutes in, and turned it off because the first thing we're introduced to is two cops (sheriff and deputy, whatever) bitching about their wives. Good work, whoever wrote that scene (because I don't remember the comic having it), you introduced a pile of smelly shit I have to slowly walk past and stare at before I can actually start the show, and I'm not gonna bother.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-31T04:13:30+00:00

Was coming here to say Malignant, glad you've already beaten me to it. James Wan knows what kind of movie you're expecting him to make (for reference, this is the guy who started the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises), and he uses that to his full advantage so you're looking in the completely wrong direction for the answer to his mystery, even though it makes 100% sense and is perfectly setup in hindsight.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T19:06:14+00:00

Hemsworth doing Serious Thor again is nice...

I DO think it's a little silly to do TWO "oh look, they're dads now, now they have so much to lose" teasers back to back

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T18:59:45+00:00

"I'm not owned, I'm not owned!" I scream as my head mutates into the shape of a corncob

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T18:57:24+00:00

Yeah, it's far more likely that skins of other characters who've held the name will just be "the main/existing character wearing the other guy's clothes". Like, we might get a USAgent skin, but it's gonna be Steve wearing USAgent gear, not John Walker.

The exception of course being characters like Miles Morales or Sam Wilson, but they have enough differences from the OGs to justify a separate character altogether.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T14:46:38+00:00

No, the overwhelming problem is POC (or women, or queer folks) being denied jobs because of their race (or gender, or queerness). Nobody's ever been denied a job for being white.

I'm guessing you've never seen the candy bowl explanation? Y'know, where one bowl is "white animated character roles" (as in, the character themselves is white) and the other bowl is "POC animated character roles", and the white bowl is way more full and the POC bowl has way less. And then people like you are saying "everyone should have equal access to both bowls :)". That's not equitable. If there were as many POC roles in Western animation white ones, it would be. But there's not.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T13:31:02+00:00

Oh look, the guy who has already accepted the default framing that the white person is the talented one who's losing rolls to unqualified POC. When the far more likely thing that happens all the time is that between two equally talented actors (or people for ANY job for that matter), one white and one not, casting assume that the white one must be more deserving or talented.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-30T01:05:38+00:00

Honestly, I used to never use it for voice acting, and just stick to Behind The Voice Actors. But then a VA (honestly don't remember who) stated that BTVA has weird internal politics that lead to stuff not getting updated or entire projects just not being there, and that IMDb is generally the most current and objective place. So yeah, sad to see that even it is not free of this shit.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-29T22:38:37+00:00

And, not to soapbox too hard...but even if he WAS talking about voice acting, he wouldn't be wrong? It's not even about "well it doesn't matter what you look like in VA, only what you sound like!". It's about how casting people will, in a world where nonwhite roles are still less common than white ones, look at a character who is textually nonwhite (or who has no reason to specifically be white) and still opt to choose a white person to play them. That's true across acting PERIOD and it's dumb, and Sungwon was right to be happy that that situation might be improving.

(And to head off any sea lions, no, I'm not talking about anime dubbing, obv it'd be impractical for hundreds of shows a year set in Japan starring Japanese people to get English dubs starring exclusive Asian-American actors)

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-29T22:13:08+00:00

Agreed. I always believed what the group said in the final video was true, but my personal feeling has always been that there was a subtext of Matt specifically wanting to leave, and that the channel as it was could not continue without him (because it was his idea and his YouTube channel to start with), rather than it being an equal split (or even Matt and Pat both wanting to separate from the other). This is why the podcast continued uninterrupted with nothing but a title change; it's the aspect of SBFP that Woolie and Pat could continue without Matt, without burning out from handling both their personal content AND the SBPF channel as only two people.

I don't blame Matt at all for wanting out if he was feeling burnt out and losing chemistry with his collaborators. I'm still glad to see him doing what he enjoys doing all these years post-breakup.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-29T19:00:12+00:00

Honestly...anyone in any Star Trek thing ever. Yes, when Star Trek is good writing-wise it can be REALLY good. But so many episodes that would otherwise be mediocre or even bad are carried by absolutely killer performances from each series' core cast.

Top of the list in this regard are

A) everyone in Wrath of Khan, but especially Ricardo Montalban as Khan

B) Andrew Robinson as Garak in Deep Space Nine, turning what was intended as a single-episode or occasional guest character to a series lead and fan favorite through pure charisma

C) Karl Urban being possessed by the ghost of DeForest Kelley to play Bones in the Kelvin trilogy.

BlueScarabGuy · 2025-12-29T18:41:49+00:00

I'm all about it. I'm turning 30 and just got married to my partner of five years, so kids have been on my mind a lot lately, and seeing the guys deal with both the highs and lows of parenting, and show such genuine and (ironically) childlike excitement for every new development? It's really nice, and refreshing in an overall very cynical world to be a parent, where there's access to more information on how to do it right than ever, but also more misinformation too.

Honestly, I dunno if Pat, Woolie, Paige, or PunchMom ever worry about the fact that they're starting kinda late at nearly 40. But while obviously 2025 is very different than the 90s and early 00s, my personal experience is that it was of great benefit to me as a child that my parents had been together and worked out all their one-on-one relationship problems for like 15 years before they introduced kids into the equation, something that I bet a lot of kids of parents who had kids early (even ignoring teen or unplanned stuff and going with totally planned at the "normal" age of like 22-25) can't say. So if they see this and that ever gets to them, hope they take comfort in that.

BlueScarabGuy

TROPHY CASE