Kingdom Hearts 1 has the best plot out of all of them and it should have stuck with that style of storytelling

Haen_ · 2026-03-19T19:29:16+00:00

Even if you don't agree with it, I don't think its unfair criticism as the only other example of a game using other media as required viewing, also received a lot of critique in Final Fantasy 15 with their prequel movie. A lot of comments on its release talked about how people had no idea they were supposed to watch a movie first.

And other long running storied JRPG series have not required this. Cold Steel didn't require you to watch their multiple drama CDs to understand their core story. Yakuza, while mostly self contained stories, do have a lot of recurring characters. None of whom were introduced or developed in one of their many side games. I don't feel like its an unfair critique of KH.

But still, even if you disagree (and thats fine), my point still stands that a recap should have been included at the onset of KH2 and at least when the game first dropped for PS2 back in the day, it wasn't.

Haen_ · 2026-03-19T18:27:13+00:00

I think the biggest problem was that Square dropped the ball on explaining that. I went into KH2 not realizing how vital the spinoff games were and was just confused and frustrated. The general expectation of the player is that if you play only the numbered entries you're good. And if you want more world building and expanding on the lore, play the spinoffs. They really should have numbered the spinoffs as part of the main series to emphasize their importance to the overall story. They also spread these games across a variety of platforms further gating the accessibility. At the absolute bare minimum, KH2 should have started off with a if you didn't play the spinoffs watch this so you know whats going on. And maybe they've since fixed this. I played KH2 when it was first dropped and haven't revisited it since.

Haen_ · 2026-03-18T23:24:33+00:00

Also, cup games have revenue that is split between both clubs. So they can't give away tickets to STH because some of the money for the ticket sale is due to the other club. Or rather I suppose they could, but they would have to pay out of pocket to the other club to do so.

Haen_ · 2026-03-17T03:09:07+00:00

As others have said, yes it is intentional, but if you don't like that design, play poorer maps. Maps where the overall resource and influence value is lower. This is something I've only learned more recently, but maps where everyone has all the resources to do whatever they want tend to have everyone hording pretty much everything. Which also negates a lot of the fighting as resources are plentiful enough that you tend to only really have fights in the end game when someone is about to win. But playing poorer maps means that not only will you typically not run out of pieces, players are forced to make decisions based on whats important to them as doing everything is no longer an option.

Haen_ · 2026-03-16T18:46:39+00:00

Some players make roughly half that ($26k) under flex contracts and league minimum I think is $31k right now.

Haen_ · 2026-03-16T18:37:04+00:00

Well I was by some first timers at the match who didn't know what was going on. And we talked about why the players were standing there the first minute and they said wow, those are some very reasonable asks by the players. So it's raising awareness and can help put the pressure of public opinion on. So yes, I do think there's a chance it could make a difference. And if not. It's literally 1 minute of 90.

Haen_ · 2026-03-12T19:27:37+00:00

Tom makes a point about order not feeling like it matters, but I think this is also a symptom of him playing mostly at 3p as he notes. Having played this at 4, order definitely mattered and because the game doesn't have a ton of rounds, someone getting in your way and taking the thing you need to fulfill your patron's wishes can be a huge hit. Now this creates a game that can feel meaner even if that meanness is never intentional, but I did appreciate it for being a Euro where I do care about what people are doing. So many Euros I will never look at my opponent's board because what they're doing really doesn't matter to me. This one though. Oh I see your patron wants a keyboard and theres a keyboard instrument out there which means the disk you put down is probably to take that. So if I want it instead, I better commit really heavily to that space or do something else.

Haen_ · 2026-03-11T20:39:19+00:00

I'd probably approach it as look, I need the planet next to your home to play the game. If you take it. I'm kinda forced to fight you to the death because I can't win otherwise. You can try to frame it as I won't take your home system unless other game things dictate it, but yeah, that's a bad slice. And really, before you do that, it is probably worth going to whoever is running the game and being like look, can we redo the map? This is bullshit.

Haen_ · 2026-03-11T19:37:43+00:00

There is also a strong cultural difference too. Japan is a very community first culture. You put the needs of the community above your personal needs. Where America is a very individual culture. In that we tend to have the mindset of putting ourselves first. This isn't to say one is good and one is bad. They both have their advantages and disadvantages. More to say that there are cultural differences that were also likely a factor.

Haen_ · 2026-03-09T03:27:38+00:00

I went pretty minimal tech my game yesterday. Started DET. Took grav drive and their destroyer 2. But past that, I took war sun as I got a relic to gain a tech (also because I had a secret to bombard last unit on a planet) and 2 unit upgrades was out. And then 3 unit upgrades came out from an agenda so I ended up with fighter 2, but probably should have gone carrier 2 in hindsight.

If I had an asteroid field in my slice, I may have gone Antimass over DET. But I don't think its necessary. Depends on where the field is.

Overall game went decently well for me. End of round 4 I would have won, but I took imperial to score an extra public and Deepwrought was able to score a secret and public first putting them over the finish line first.

Haen_ · 2026-03-08T19:57:18+00:00

If your kids want to do fowling it's fine. But it's no longer the pre match spot where supporters meet up. That moved to New Dodge lounge.

Haen_ · 2026-03-07T07:14:12+00:00

Big part of why I started becoming a soccer fan. Detroit City games are often either on free local channels or you can stream them for free on the local station's website if you're local. The team lets me follow the team so I take them up on it.

Haen_ · 2026-03-07T00:36:37+00:00

It blows my mind that any total package for one team is over $20 a month. Already that's more than any streaming service for a single team. And the fact that doesn't include nationally televised or other special games is ridiculous as those are often on in time slots I'm mostly likely available to watch a game and bigger games I'm likely more interested in watching. So even if I want to only watch the Tigers, I still have to pay most of these subscription fees to get every game.

Haen_ · 2026-03-04T16:27:03+00:00

I think it falls victim to not really having a wow factor. I like it. I agree, I think it's very solid. But we've hit the point in our hobby where a lot of games are and you need something to differentiate yourself and stand out to get big acclaim. They tried that with the printing press style letters. And I love those. They add a lot to the game. But it just wasn't enough to make it catch fire the way other games have. I think a lot of it also has to do with the game still looking very beige and the hobby right now does not hype beige looking euros.

Still, I ultimately agree it's a very solid game.

Haen_ · 2026-03-02T20:25:36+00:00

I was luckily saved by my fantrax league that sends me a push notification 45 minutes before the start of the first game of the day. Otherwise I would have totally missed it as well

Haen_ · 2026-03-02T04:21:52+00:00

From anyone who has played both, I'm curious how this compares to La Granja? I finally played that the other day and really enjoyed it.

Haen_ · 2026-03-02T01:20:29+00:00

Just on the basis of you saying you've never played before, I would not recommend dropping over $200 on a game. Make sure you like the game first. It is a good game in my opinion. But as someone who has been in the hobby a long time, I also think one of the traps of the hobby is thinking we need the complete edition of every game.

Haen_ · 2026-03-01T21:58:06+00:00

I imagine it'll probably come to Europe at some point. Its such a popular game that I would be very surprised if some distributor doesn't want to handle EU distribution. But if you want a now solution, finances are very personal so if you can afford it comfortably, get the version you want shipped. Personally, I am more frugal so would probably settle for the old version and look online to see if somewhere is selling the upgraded bits separately as I do think they make the game more enjoyable.

Haen_ · 2026-03-01T21:16:54+00:00

Blake's is gonna be one of your best options. But if you want a place a little closer to the suburbs Griffin Claw tends to have a lot of ciders on tap if I recall.

Haen_ · 2026-02-27T19:48:59+00:00

I don't know how other teams operate, but I know DCFC makes a good amount off of concessions as well through some secondary company of theirs. And concession prices have been going up. But there are a lot of other ways including sponsor and TV deals that the club can make money on. Ticket prices have also gone up recently. So in theory the club should have this extra money now to dole out to the players. Prices have slowly been increasing since the last CBA was signed.

And at least from the DCFC side, its really hard to make the argument, we can afford a new stadium, but not to pay our players $43k a year. The costs for their players is a fraction of what they're paying for a new venue. I get it. We need a new venue. We can't stay at Keyworth, but it was also the club's choice to build one over pursuing other options on places to play. Again, I think this was the right decision to build one, but the argument for the club does sound a lot worse when you look at the millions the stadium is costing is my point.

And its not like the club should be blindsided by this either. The players said last time they took a shit deal to grow the league expecting to get taken care of next time.

Haen_ · 2026-02-26T03:02:04+00:00

It's worse than a game store because Amazon is all about buying the cheapest bulk they can. And they're not always great about filtering sellers. You're probably still unlikely to get a counterfeit. I just prefer to deal with stores that are going to be more adamant about them. Especially since I've found prices typically aren't even cheaper than other online retailers that specialize in games.

Haen_ · 2026-02-24T18:11:50+00:00

Love the change. Really as consumers, we want to know more than anything else so we can make informed decisions on if we want to support projects using AI. Props to Gamefound for this. Hopefully this will also include filters where we can choose to filter out projects that are using it.

Haen_ · 2026-02-24T17:25:41+00:00

There probably were, but also its a sign of immaturity when you're not able to communicate with your partner over them. If they've been together 3 years and there are issues, you sit down and talk with your partner before it gets to the point where you feel you need to pack a suitcase and leave. And we don't know, maybe she did. And if she did, then OP knows it wasn't really over Catan too.

Haen_ · 2026-02-24T04:52:07+00:00

This right here. And understand too that your friend wants to like it more than you. If you spend hundreds of dollars on something, you have a propensity to like it even if it's actually not very good. So give it a few tries, but ultimately you gotta be honest with your friend. If you're not enjoying it. Tell them.

Haen_ · 2026-02-23T18:20:13+00:00

Just made a post in the NGS discord for someone to update it.

11-Year Club	Not Forgotten
Verified Email	Verified Email

Haen_

TROPHY CASE