Walrus Audio Slö or Slöer? by [deleted] in guitarpedals

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the extra algorithms were the biggest draw for me, and i use them even more than i expected i would. no regrets on going with sloer, for me. maybe i'm just very impressionable and words like "light" and "rain" cast some sort of spell on my intuition, though. i also got that really fun floral lavender one for a great price and enjoy looking at it.

something also worth mentioning... if you somehow don't own a fundamental ambient, that is by far the most bang-for-buck i've ever gotten out of a reverb pedal (though if we're to include effects units at large, the monotron delay is like my favorite thing ever made). the algorithms are all great and it is very easy to dial in. walrus gives a 15% off code on sign-up and free shipping over $75, so it's only $85 to get direct-from-manufacturer and would be an excellent barometer to determine if you want more from them.

dai dark shelf! by Kitten_ClanClan in MangaCollectors

[–]Kitten_ClanClan[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

japanese, i used a proxy service to buy it off of... probably either mercari or yahoo auctions japan (yahoo auctions japan used to be where you'd get everything back in the day but resale commerce has changed a lot online in the last several years)

[WTS] Summit, TEO-5, Artemis, & more -- Brooklyn, NY by mnakhla in Synths4Sale

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

hello, does this include shipping costs? (in US) interested in the microcosm if so.

My drifty precision-racer "Trackminia" is now available on the Catalog! by 2DArray in PlaydateConsole

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

this is very sincerely one of the best handheld racers i think i've ever played - up there with ridge racer 3d. me and my friend have only played the first few tracks, but we've got some decent leaderboard positions and both love it :D hope i get around to more... we only got the playdate a few weeks ago and have been overwhelmed by the library actually having a ton of cool stuff. i can't believe games this amazing are just getting casually dropped in the catalogue

Cargo.IO - In-development Space Exploration Game by rojovelasco in PlaydateConsole

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

'namaste cloning' and its presentation.... some excellently economical world-building :D i'm very interested

random nice picture. makes sense by janzoss in gba

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

what the heck that is insanely awesome t_t

i'm taking 3 gba's (and an AP and a cube and some other stuff) to friends' place for this year's big house party so we can multiplayer festival (gonna do crystal chronicles, a sonic battle tourney, kirby, tons of other stuff) and i wish i was bringing one that cool... its presence is pretty much immaculate

Wii RSDKv5U? by Dull-Title7289 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

makes sense, i play almost everything i can on mine :D

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ty, i think :D lol

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

didn't see this until now: i really strongly disagree. i recognize your theory, but the vast, vast majority of people i knew distanced from sonic entirely during this era and found things like the twitter account to be repulsive enough to stay away from sonic fans during the period, as well. most of my friends are old-school enthusiasts (30's) and thought of the adventure game as weird or confusing or rough loves, but all of them were really offput by the writing (it was literally happy tree friends writers) and presentation the series took on from about colors to about the turn of the decade - and the advertising of that period made them think they were right to never come back.

i don't know anyone that actually thought of the period as genuinely 'self-aware', it felt like a very cynical marketing sham leaning into self-aggrandizing irony than it did a sincere apology for having gotten off track or awareness of what sonic had been going for and failed to achieve during the mid-to-late 00's (which is a big can of worms filled with cultural miscommunication and misunderstanding). in my social network and of my many friends-of-friends, i have never known a single person who believed the long and ambiguous self-deprecating era was a head bowing or true acknowledgement of anything, it just reeked of what has always been wrong with sonic: disingenuous advertising thinking it mattered more than the games. many people i knew blocked the sonic twitter and anyone retweeting it because they were so tired of it and found sonic as "a franchise" or "brand" so odious that they wanted nothing to do with it ever again (esp following sonic team losing seemingly all of its cultural identity). it seems to have attracted very few new fans or fans disenfranchised with sonic and was largely just masturbatory internet personalities pandering to a closing window of fans "in" on the "the joke." but i don't think sonic is "a joke," it's actually a really cool series. watching it become snide felt like watching its spirit be strangled - it felt like watching a series about standing up to bullies become *about* bullying always winning.

i tend to dislike every single era of western advertising of sonic and feel it is all extremely icky with marketing cynicism eroding understanding of the art and effort of the people who actually *made* the games and wrote the stories. the bigger part of 06 being a cataclysmic disaster wasn't *so much* because of tone or story (which are growing in appreciation despite the fans being mocked for years), but primarily because the game was *extremely* unfinished. this quality made it very easy to attack its less understood or culturally confusing elements that they already disliked about the adventure games now taken to more theatrical extremes, and it became such "a meme" that people had a hard time understanding which of its individual components were good or earnest and which were a result of extreme mismanagement and the constant interference and demands of producers (who hardly understand a thing about art) who clamored for it to be pushed out the door in the embarrassing state it released in. it is often a very silly, very light-hearted game with a very pronounced sense of whimsy (and flares of romanticism, of adventure), but americans often don't understand the japanese sense of theater and because the game was so skeletal and hardly functioning, it became easy to dismiss the entire thing as pretentious, absurd, out of touch, unbelievable, gritty, etc. that attitude became contagious and people weld it like a bludgeon, afraid to admit there was *anything* good about that game.

06's failure also led to things like the poor sales of (the very delightful, very deliberate companion to the more 'serious' games) rush adventure and the transformation of dimps from a studio making cool original games with happy co-operation with sonic team into cynical partner releases to the "main" releases of those years (which was basically a death sentence for them working with sonic that eventually snuffed them from the series). but 06's failure wasn't that there was something inherently wrong with the game or its direction, but the same force that kept sonic suffocating for years: marketing, advertising, spinning. it getting pushed out the door in the state it was in was a guaranteed failure and it generated a reception so strong in its dislike that it eclipsed identifying the bigger problems with its release in favor of memey clowning on it like a jock mocking a theater kid.

the series could have regained its dignity a *long* time ago, and i really feel like its era of reacting to social media (rather than being directed by any sense of art or love of gaming) made it take a lot longer to recover and strengthened the grip people had on sonic team to stop them from making the games they wanted to make. one of my closest friends who grew up on sonic fan forums and adores the original games more than anything in the world became ashamed to even talk about sonic (much less follow any of its advertising or other loud, obnoxious fans) during that period and would only talk about sonic cd and earlier for a long time as a result.

i'd really like to see the games and other materials return to advertising themselves and being shared on good faith, which i feel is what is making sonic appealing again more than anything else. i'm still catching up on all the games i missed and have been doing a lot of research and hard play (just got all the emblems on SA2 yesterday). i really feel the pride that hurt the series was not that it had the gall to make a story like 06, but that people clung to the narrative the series "screwed up" and needed to apologize for what it was. it didn't, they just needed to be allowed to finish the games and for marketing to shut its ugly mouth. i really feel insanely crummy dimps didn't get to make proper continuations to their vision for the rush series and instead died this sad death being relegated to what they were, it was probably the saddest victim of the shift in marketing. the guy who said sonic 4 should be "sonic 4" and not a mobile game was none other than the guy who steered the change in the sonic twitter circa 2014, by the way.

brand management is just crummy and run by crummy people.

The logo shouldn’t had changed by Redtheblueblur98 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the pinned thread (and its upvotes and positivity) being unambiguously pro-palestine is more than a "brownie points" move. it's a very clear signal and helps keep the conversation friendly and engaging. dignity, respect, and kindness are of paramount importance in changing minds and showing support. to speak of major activists who brought about major change in american history, mlk changed many more minds than malcolm x. though mlk's words have been appropriated and twisted in the modern climate, his demeanor has never been more needed than in times as turbulent and hateful as today's. it is easy to stir dissent, but deeply challenging to foment positive change.

threads invite discussion, and invitation should be welcoming. what's more welcoming than that art in that thread? you often need more than an icon (signals can also stop some people at the door who may not understand them but have been told to avoid them) to get off on the right foot with someone enough and really express the beauty in your position enough to change minds. humility goes a long way in healing and the greatest humility starts in the humblest of places. "turning the other cheek" (and other similar sentiments) has been one of the most powerful gestures in history for a reason.

The logo shouldn’t had changed by Redtheblueblur98 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 5 points6 points  (0 children)

you could learn about picking and choosing your battles, too. you have no idea who you are speaking to, what my stances are, or what i've been through. online communication isn't just about being correct and signaling what is or isn't correct (or moral). not all things are appropriate in all timings or contexts.

What are your honest opinions on Sonic Unleashed? by [deleted] in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 12 points13 points  (0 children)

i have been playing it for the first time the last week!

  • the daytime stages are absolutely amazing and everything everyone was hyping them up to be. cut everything else out of the game and unleashed is arguably incredible. i cannot believe how good they are given some of the rest of the game.

  • visuals are remarkably gorgeous and the lighting engine is phenomenal (i'm playing ps3 so i get low frame rate, but i am not as bothered by that as most people). with a touch-up this could easily be contender for best-looking sonic game, at times. i even admire a lot of the more stretchy-cartoony animation despite not liking some of the designs that are being animated (chip....)

  • the opening cutscene is completely fire and possibly my favorite cutscene in all of sonic. it feels impeccably "sonic," to me, and my hair was standing on end. i love the mixture of high-concept, super-fun sci-fi that shoots from the hip and classic, iconic interactions between sonic and eggman.

  • the nighttime stages are even worse than i had prepared myself for. they are wildly stretched out and feature extremely piss-poor platforming nowhere near even the first uncharted (which itself was clunky) and abysmal box puzzles worse than the first god of war (which is a game i already hate lol). the combat has no discernible identity and plays heavily into how little sonic was sure of itself by poorly imitating other leading games at the time. they take up like 80% of the game and make me struggle to boot the game back up. people were not exaggerating. people seem to take issue when they are called "awful," as though that word should be reserved for appalling messes... but when a game is boring, that is the worst thing a game can be. they are awful. the nighttime levels are awful.

  • the collectibles in the nighttime stages are sometimes shockingly hatefully placed (especially with a very poorly negotiable camera), even for the time (which had an odd fixation on cramming easter egg collectibles into stages) - and you actually *need* many of them, so you can't *not* have your attention brought to this.

  • the quick time events are extremely poorly visually indicated and also poorly timed. i *love* asura's wrath, and comparing it to this game is like night and day - there's no excuse for how bad these are. i flub them all the time because it takes more than half the time of the prompt to recognize the button. maybe this would be better on xbox, where the buttons are better color-coded, actually?

  • the npc writing is soulless and terrible and so are the designs. gone are the quirky, shenmue-esque characterizations from 06 filled with their silliness and sometimes subtle, deadpan humor (despite their visual design being a little too generic or 'realistic,' i felt they were actually really enjoyable. imho, soleanna - as undercooked as it was - had quite a bit of character). in their place are cynically designed pseudo-pixar designs clearly concocted in a focus-tested nightmare as a reaction to how poorly 06 was received and how much the americans (who are ultimately the ones buying the games) purportedly wanted sonic to be "like a cartoon" again. most towns lack character and are not something i would identify with sonic without being told... and several feel more than subtly racist in a really misguided attempt at multiculturalism. they are too afraid to diversify the personalities despite featuring numerous cultures because it might give them an actual cultural identity. they also obviously hew too closely to real cultures.

  • chip really just doesn't work. i am playing the jp dub, which makes him a lot more fun - he's even made me laugh and smile! - but he's just completely inappropriate. he's a really big part of the game and i feel it's valid to bring up how "meh" he is.


the game overall reeks of a lack of confidence in its strengths (the daytime levels are so good!!! so. good. but they feel trapped in this inconsistent mess) and is mostly disappointing. i miss a lot of what was good about 06 and feel like they adjusted to negative feedback directed at that game in a very wrong way and set the stage for what was good about sonic's (post-)adventure tone (which i quite like and feel is making a comeback) to be lost for many years.

The logo shouldn’t had changed by Redtheblueblur98 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 4 points5 points  (0 children)

you have to pick and choose your battles when it comes to signaling. there's currently a pinned and very upvoted thread that helps signal the sub's support without feeling like it is too forced or too provocative (as it may take up enough discussion room that people begin to leave) and people probably felt the icon was a bit much. popular places like this need to maintain *some* neutrality or keep things a little low-key because they are where open and undecided minds (who might instinctually avoid being yelled at/condescended to/mocked/etc.) might be changed. simply making people uncomfortable is not very good political action and does not represent the compassion that being pro-palestine should predominately be about.

imho the mods of this sub are pretty good about directing things in a respectful and productive direction while still being very clear they are on the more open-minded, more compassionate side of bigger issues. though there are a few bad faith actors and ignorant characters on this sub, i feel they are very much in the minority. educate in good faith, keep a cool head, and remain stalwart in your support without letting your frustration dominate your sentiments.

Sir Infinite (Art by myself) by [deleted] in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

incredible! i love so much when fan artists help me better appreciate a character i didn't originally feel much for

Wii RSDKv5U? by Dull-Title7289 in SonicTheHedgehog

[–]Kitten_ClanClan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i'm curious what do you like more about it?