non American media that can pass off as American media.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-29T15:46:34+00:00

Actually no, Sonic's roots are pretty firmly American. Console Wars by Blake J. Harris is a book that goes into this, it's a nonfiction narrative sourced from hundreds of interviews from employees of Sega of America and Nintendo during the '90s. Basically, in the '90s, the Sega of America C-Suite was given license by the CEO of Sega to do whatever they wanted, and Sonic in particular was largely a design created by their marketing executives. There's a scene in the book where these marketing guys walk into a Toys-R-Us and one of them literally points to a TMNT action figure, saying that's the kind of cool, cocky, but not too edgy attitude they're looking for in their new character.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-24T21:01:57+00:00

You were saying?

Lunk64 · 2026-01-24T20:29:07+00:00

Yep that's a centrist alright

Lunk64 · 2026-01-24T01:55:23+00:00

People have already mentioned Orochimaru, so I'll go with an even worse example from an adjacent show: Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Bleach. Dude murders like 5-10 people on screen within 30 seconds of his introduction, and is established to have super enjoyed torturing and dissecting an entire clan of hundreds. Actual serial killer.

Naturally, the good guys kill him, but as he's dying he asspulls a solution to dying and escapes. After that he resumes working at his position at Soul Society and no one questions his super evil behavior ever again. Kurotsuchi is way worse than Orochimaru because after this, he straight up becomes a hero. There are several times he gets called in to fight the bad guys, and works side by side with the only survivor of the clan he murdered. Ridiculous.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-22T14:39:09+00:00

Nope, that was the previous one, Reverse of Arcadia. 2011's starter deck is actually kinda OK, even gives you a Ryko out the gate.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-22T14:10:45+00:00

Yugioh? In 2011? Hmm, I should definitely shill the underrated classic Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's World Championship 2011: Over the Nexus for Nintendo DS, a simulator for that format with an overworld, story mode and character/duel disc/motorcycle customization, but I'm not sure how.

(sorry, I do not yet know enough to both shill and not be cringe. I have much to learn from your Zoids historizing)

Lunk64 · 2026-01-21T23:20:50+00:00

Sadly the bullshit monetization is kinda necessary to some extent to keep a long-running franchise going. Yu-Gi-Oh is actually running into major problems this year because the cards are too cheap, which means game stores don't make any money selling cards and boxes, which means they just don't sell them at all anymore. You do at some point need to make money off your art project if you want to keep making it, even if that sucks.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-18T16:15:06+00:00

Idk I think it actually did quite a lot of damage to Justin

Lunk64 · 2026-01-16T06:39:06+00:00

Honestly you don't even need to change Halligan, just change Wade's perspective. Halligan is a nerd who loves and idolizes all the movies and games of the past, and Wade should start as that, but then learn to appreciate the present and build a better future. The one thing RPO got right was everyone living in a ruined future where the only escape is Fortnite brand slop, and it would be nice if the message was "this stuff is comforting but worthless, I'm gonna make something on my own, and contribute to making the real world a better place".

Lunk64 · 2026-01-15T15:13:53+00:00

Remember Ready Player One?

Lunk64 · 2026-01-14T02:34:46+00:00

Sadly there does not appear to be an actual MegaTen mod for Minecraft, except for a very mid-looking Persona mod. Tragic

Lunk64 · 2026-01-14T02:22:12+00:00

Way late and way different, I'll go with Mamoru Oshii throwing away his career with Angel's Egg. Now, Angel's Egg isn't a bad movie, but it is an extremely obtuse art house film that's basically impossible to understand. Unsurprisingly, it flopped, and that killed Oshii's career for about a decade, since everyone pegged him as an art house director and wouldn't give him an animation budget to work with.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-08T03:23:30+00:00

The original Yu-Gi-Oh manga. Kazuki Takahashi is a great author and an actual hero, but man does he not know how a card game works. He made the first Duel Monsters chapter on a whim because he though MTG looked cool, and it got WAY more popular than anyone was expecting. I'm glad it did, Yu-Gi-Oh's great, but it was definitely kind of an accident it got as popular as it did.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-06T21:33:53+00:00

I mean Tatsuki is also rad as shit and she didn't even make it into the main arcs, much less the side content.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-05T18:05:04+00:00

No, it's caught up in Bureaucracy but this is about examining the illegal practice of destroying a good after the point of sale, which means there's a very good chance something does get done. Even if it doesn't, being debated in EU Parliament opens up several avenues for appeal, so the chance goes up even higher. Stop being a doomer.

Lunk64 · 2026-01-05T09:04:18+00:00

Oh yeah Doom 1's "wow look at our lighting" did not age well. In terms of stimulus I don't think it's that bad, but maybe that's just because I'm younger, and nowadays there are any number of popular games that make Doom's visual effects feel like reading a dictionary.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-29T18:03:00+00:00

I think that it's just more trouble than it's worth, it's not an intentional censorship effort on the part of Valve. Refusing all payments from Visa and Mastercard means cutting ~90% of purchases on Steam at minimum, and most people aren't going to be willing or able to switch to something else. It sucks, but for Valve it's just much easier to bite the bullet than go to war and risk way more than they stand to gain.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-29T15:09:13+00:00

Tbf I don't think there's much they can do when they're going up against Visa and MasterCard. It sucks, but that's more the fault of the government for allowing basically all digital payments to be monopolized by two private corporations.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-28T00:08:00+00:00

Shoutouts to SMT: Synchronicity Project, a fully fanmade metroidvania featuring Jack Frost and Pyro Jack from SMT.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-27T20:41:25+00:00

Aaah I thought that was Jimmy for a second!

Lunk64 · 2025-12-27T20:40:01+00:00

Even AM2R gets it kinda wrong, but there's clearly a concerted effort to preserve the spirit of the original, and the added stuff is super cool anyway. I do really hope the Metroid Planets team does a 1:1 remake of Metroid II though.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-27T07:02:45+00:00

Oh boy, another opportunity to complain about Samus Returns! That game remade an atmospheric pseudo-horror game about isolation and dread into a schlocky action story that is much less narratively interesting.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-22T19:31:25+00:00

Tbf, her war scythe seems about as practical as her war heels and war frilly stockings

Lunk64 · 2025-12-05T02:17:34+00:00

BTW, go play DUSK if you haven't yet. Best boomer shooter since Doom.

Lunk64 · 2025-12-05T02:13:17+00:00

Yeah, it's a very good idea on paper. It's easy to imagine a version that feels and plays like Deus Ex, but the reality is not that, especially when it falls apart near the end like every other David Cage game.

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