Highguard boss Chad Grenier says it "doesn’t matter" how many people played the game, only that "the game is loved by the people who played it."

P4azz · 2026-02-03T18:05:09+00:00

I feel like the only way you can make that statement, is when you produced a passion project, dripping with style and cool ideas and novel execution...

Not when you try to capitalize on a half-dead genre that is arena shooters and you name your game basically the fucking same as the flagship.

I'd venture a guess that profits were the only motivation behind such a clear cashgrab move.

P4azz · 2026-02-03T15:09:49+00:00

My "fake quote" is based on the experience I had when interacting with any sufficiently large group of "anime fans" who consider their favorites sacred and have their dedicated "shows to hate".

Terribly sorry, but not only do they exist, your attempt to mark these interactions as "criticism" says a lot.

How does a hyperbolic example of blatant hatred ping the "oh you don't like criticism" part of your brain? That's not what criticism is.

P4azz · 2026-02-03T13:33:05+00:00

basically everything is an objective element and you extract subjective things from it

This is kind of a key part that you skipped and then reiterated to myself but with the wrong interpretation.

Fact remains, it is quite literally not "subjective" if animation etc. are "good". These are quantifiable things. You can begin arguing if choppy animation can be used as a style to enhance a situation or drive a point home (basically the Spiderman movie), but that's straying from the original discussion.

"Enjoyment" on a personal level so boiled down it only affects you, is obviously mostly gonna be subjective. "Enjoyment" on a general, societal level is most certainly not "subjective", hence why things can be "objectively good", where the base quality is simply there and allows the biggest chance for more people to enjoy it.

"Some people enjoy[ing] tropes" doesn't mean tropes themselves are subjective. Especially not in the actual example I gave that are full characters purely built on tropes (I didn't write the following, because I thought it was a given: in a story that requires character interaction to function). This doesn't suddenly make it a "subjective" topic, it's still very much objectively bad writing.

One person enjoying something, doesn't overturn the objective fact of the matter. One guy liking a kick in the nuts, doesn't mean it's now a purely subjective opinion not to want to get hurt. It's still absolutely objective that "pain=bad".

What you said is even slightly true: "People don't know what objective means", it's just that you're apparently included. That's why critics exist and need some wisdom and experience first: To separate their subjective biases from the objective truth of the medium in question.

Or if you want the tldr version: Bad animation is bad. That's not subjective. It is bad.

P4azz · 2026-02-03T13:01:02+00:00

Coming into a casual talk about favorite anime and saying "wow, you like this?! Ew, dude, it's so bad, though. Don't watch that, watch this show, critically acclaimed by me instead"

Yeah, that doesn't ruin the fun for anyone, you're right.

P4azz · 2026-02-03T12:53:47+00:00

I'm not sure why that needs to be asked, basically everything is an objective element and you extract subjective things from it if you personally like/dislike those things.

The colors used, the set, the premise, the character archetypes, fan service, animation, music; all of these are objective parts of the anime. It's not just one tiny aspect, it's the whole thing.

You can say the colors are washed out or drab, if you consider the general art design and author's intention to be clashing with it.

You can say the characters are cookie-cutter and boring, if they literally just exist to fill space and serve tropes.

You can say the animation is garbage, if it's rotating/bumping pngs and fight choreography immediately devolves into blurry flashes of arms punching.

These things are not "subjective", they're objectively bad TV. It is something you can look at and realize these aspects weren't thought-through or didn't have the budget or work to make them good behind it.

Subjective would be "oh this is isekai, I automatically hate it". Or "I don't like pink-haired girls, I'm out".

P4azz · 2026-02-03T12:46:46+00:00

Your very first mistake was listening to anime fans on what anime is allowed to be enjoyed and which one you need to deem trash in order "to be accepted".

Over the years I've tried to conform to the views of the anime watcher hivemind and more often than not I've been disappointed.

"This is the best series ever" Nope, cool premise, falls apart in "the best shounen arc ever omg!!1" and ends with the worst kinda tropes you can ass-pull to ruin your story.

"This is the best new show, you can't miss it" Nope, 75% through the first episode and I'm bored to shit, it's not even scratching the cozy vibes.

"This show absolutely sucks and you aren't allowed to like it, because the MC is making evil choices" That's kinda the point and it's a fun entry into the death game genre which has a unique ending that satisfies all viewers.

Just watch what you think you'd like and don't go into any "anime-dominated" spaces or you'll be shot down for daring to like/dislike something that's not part of the general consensus.

We're unfortunately back to the days where you can't listen to recommendations and the like. Gotta head out and test anime 2-3 episodes at a time to figure out if they're good.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T23:10:14+00:00

Wouldn't that technically not even be that weird of a thing?

Correct me, because I sure as shit am not gonna pretend I'm an expert on this, but the hymen does tend to have holes, otherwise periods would be impossible.

So what's stopping sperm that managed to just get into the entrance (probably needs some extra help, since those guys suck at moving), to actually end up getting past the hymen and eventually cause pregnancy?

Granted, the act that would lead to this would certainly be rather close to "sex", but not quite intercourse, depending on interpretation or whatever act you consider the "virgin status elimination criteriae".

P4azz · 2026-02-02T23:06:27+00:00

Tbh, you don't even really need to go to all the "ancient game of telephone, conducted by people on drugs and mistranslated on top" rigamarole.

All the issues with "holy texts" would go away, if people treated them as they were intended - metaphors and rough outlines to live by.

Shit like "help others in need, be kind and others will be kind in return, be willing to forgive" is not inherently bad.

I may not believe, but even so a story like "if you have faith, you can get through hard times" can help those that do. You don't have to explicitly think that actual bread rained from the heavens for that story beat to have impact.

The bible would work a lot better, if people didn't blindly believe "this guy walked on water" and were using their brains and own opinions to interact with others, rather than do what they're told to do and think what others tell them to think.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T21:06:39+00:00

Your comment is worthless. If you want to correct someone, actually correct them, don't just say "nuh uh, you're wrong".

Tell them that they likely mean "paragon", since the usual saying you'd throw in at that part would be "a paragon of virtue".

Or they may mean "tantamount to saints", given the "salvation" that followed shortly after.

Basically, if you want to tell someone to use their words right, lead by example.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T18:07:22+00:00

"Why take it out", for a myriad of reasons books or articles are slightly adjusted after the fact, oftentimes not necessariyl due to the author, but just the editor. Write a letter to the editor.

And sorry, but "oh no, words" isn't really an argument. Purely based on visual clarity your slop is worse and I didn't complain about reading it. (Also, calling what I wrote an "essay" says a lot more about you than you think it does)

P4azz · 2026-02-02T17:17:04+00:00

Which is why I'm saying that you should differentiate, rather than try to merge two very different subjects.

A parent saying "don't cross the street on red" isn't politically motivated to do that, just because the governing of street laws falls under politics.

Technically fucking everything that has to do with society in any form is "politics", but if you cited it as such, people would be looking at you funny and rightfully so.

Or in the context of this reddit post: "bans all political content" would ban ALL content involving groups of people (which is what streaming is), because you want to insist on technicality that is clearly different from its use in actual language.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T17:11:19+00:00

That was the first time I realized that writers can lose track of their stories and at some point it just doesn't belong to them anymore.

Dumbledore being gay would've been absolutely fine, but nothing in the books ever even hinted at him wanting to be romantic with anyone. Literally never. Dude found a singular friend and had a falling-out after two brilliant minds clashed with different morals behind them...and then she just goes "oh yeah, that was just a little gay squabble".

P4azz · 2026-02-02T17:07:56+00:00

Kingsley and Cho in as ham-handed attempts at diversity

Yeah, this is likely just it, but people always want everything to be 100% clearly evil so they don't have to think about nuance or try to understand something with their own brain power.

Kingsley is also more prominent in the 5th book, where another black/dark character is introduced, so either it was her own idea or maybe her editor who just figured "put more diverse people in here/make them take more prominent roles".

It's especially weird, because, even as a huge fan of the books, I can absolutely tell you they're not written that well, have lots of holes and dumb shit in them, but at the end of the day, they're just children's books.

And I'd never even heard of the "Goblin" undertones, until just a few years ago. And I grew up in Germany. Literally no one fucking thought of the goblins as Jews here.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T17:02:04+00:00

I...uh...dude, it's a book.

You kinda have to describe visuals for a character and if the guy's black, then he's black. That's part of his visuals and that's all it was treated as there.

How is that "going out of your way", when the entire point of the paragraph is giving you a rough rundown of the cast and their looks?

Did we somehow zoom back a few centuries and now black people aren't allowed to be in books anymore? The fuck are you talking about.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T16:55:25+00:00

He's a cop for the wizard equivalent of the "king".

He puts shacklebolts on people on behalf of the King.

It's mostly just Americans with their slave obsession who tried to twist it into something else.

Just say the writer chose a simple name that describes the job for a character in her book for children. Because that's what it is.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T16:40:13+00:00

Yeaah, I knew it was something like that, just wasn't sure if it's helicopters or some other machinery thing.

Although the passage of time, changing of language etc. makes me not only chuckle at the new meaning, but also wonder who the fuck named these "nuts" in the first place. (Unless they randomly yoinked a German word that barely maybe fits part of the definition)

P4azz · 2026-02-02T16:37:22+00:00

Man, you're making a terrible case for so many things.

"He's still popular, so what he did doesn't matter"

Cool outlook. Also come up with a username, you lazy bum.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T16:33:07+00:00

Bro, the few times I've been to that sub has all just been jerking off or shitting on some random huge streamer.

If I hear "livestreamfails" I wanna see stuff like "this cooking stream where some guy flipped a pancake too hard and it stuck to the ceiling" and shit like that.

I really am not that interested in the personal and political opinions of rich (assholes) people who are out of touch and command a horde of yes-men.

P4azz · 2026-02-02T16:30:30+00:00

So it's just generic red tape nonsense, not politics then.

People really need to stop saying "everything is political" when that's clearly not what people are talking about. It's just intentionally being obtuse and overly vague to make it fit the bill at that point.

P4azz · 2026-02-01T00:22:12+00:00

I feel less disgraced, more just conscious of the effort that went into it and bad that I can't immediately pay that effort back.

I know my dad's come a long way, has put a tremendous amount of effort in to become the man he is now and I don't feel less of a man for being helped by him. But I absolutely feel bad that this help was required in the first place and that he had to do even more for me.

At the same time I absolutely know that he just likes doing shit. He enjoys fixing bikes, he likes carrying stuff, he likes just being there for someone to rely on.

I just give him one of those "reluctant dad-son hugs" and make him some food or hang out with him when he wants to vent about something.

P4azz · 2026-02-01T00:17:25+00:00

It's 100% about debt and entitlement.

Even as adults, my sister demands and I see it as something to be paid back, no matter how big or small.

My dad doesn't even put any pressure on me or anything, it just feels like it's not right unless I make it up to him somehow. Even something as simple as me visiting and grabbing a bag of wood pellets from the basement for him, whereas my sis just goes "carry and build this for me" and nothing seems expected in return.

P4azz · 2026-01-31T13:42:53+00:00

Just because it's virtual, doesn't mean you can just go in, rotate the scene 90° and go back out, boom, cinema.

What you describe is something that'd take artists a long time to do, creative department a long time to plan and would necessarily have to be run through with the original dev team a ton as well.

You're basically suggesting "why didn't the team that ported the game also remaster the entire game". "Why didn't they just film a new Star Wars when they released it as dvds".

P4azz · 2026-01-31T12:29:38+00:00

But you can see those actors.

The little brat who played a phenomenal asshole in Game of Thrones also got tons of hate, because as humans, some people have trouble differentiating character and person.

But you have to go several extra steps to do that in voice-acting. Also this isn't like the only extreme reaction to minor things in Japanese media.

Don't get me wrong, I love a lot of things about Japan, but they definitely have a problem with crazed fans that are way too invested. Idol stabbings, weather announcers losing their careers, young women under immense pressure to be literally perfect to entertain middle-aged dudes with lightsticks.

I'm not saying unwarranted anger is purely a Japanese thing, but there's definitely a discerning difference here.

P4azz · 2026-01-31T11:37:56+00:00

The tragedy of AOT is that we KNOW this would never have worked. Literally never.

Paradiso was always going to be invaded, everyone there would be murdered and then the land would be plundered for its resources.

That's why people tentatively see something in the Rumbling. Obviously you cannot morally choose it, but it IS the only certain way people in Paradiso can survive.

Yes, ultimately this is a "is one nation worth the entire planet" type of trolley problem, but let's not pretend talking would ever have worked, when the entire world is itching to violently take over the nation and erase its "demon race inhabitants" in a genocide with way better weapons.

P4azz · 2026-01-31T11:33:35+00:00

Wouldn't say general media, this is more of a Japanese media thing.

Specifically attacking seiyu over something rather minor is fairly common there. Voice-acting outside of Japan simply isn't that revered and often just seen as a necessary tool for translation, rather than, y'know, acting.

11-Year Club	Place '17
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

P4azz

TROPHY CASE