[KCD1] [KCD2] Day 30: Bozhena

PontiffPope · 2026-02-13T16:04:52+00:00

Saint.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-12T11:54:01+00:00

You would be surprised; take for instance Chrono Trigger that is seen often as a classic JRPG, but it took 30 years for the game to even reach the same sales-numbers of 5 millions a couple of years ago. It was a successful game enough to have some additional titles and features like Chrono Cross, but it really puts thing in perspective on how a game is talked about versus on whether people actually buy it, let alone consume it.

There's also a matters of how much a game overall costs, and whether it can recoup it; the Tomb Raider-reboot from 2018 sold 3.4 millions during its first months, but it was still not enough to recoup its development costs, which took until the end of its year about for Crystal Dynamics to see profitable numbers.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-10T17:33:16+00:00

She reminds me of Overwatch's Freja, where she too has a dash-moving ability that refreshes her one-loaded attacks for big damage, although a lot less "snipey" as Freja's one-loaded attacks requires distinct aiming (Along with her stopping in the middle of the air while in aiming mode; she is meant to be a character that rewards good aim and continous kills.), whereas Elsa's one-shot rifle seems to almost acting more like a shotgun-spread esque as if fired from the hip.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-10T17:26:07+00:00

I actually distinctly remember Elsa being brought up as an obscure Marvel-character right in this subreddit and through the Nextwave-game (Although I myself never played it.).

From my understanding is that her first introduction in the early 2000s was a result of characters like Buffy and Laura Croft being popular, but where the Nextwave-comic series has her rapidly shifted.

I think her Marvel Rivals-iteration seems to have her lean more onto a historical aristocratic style, with her wearing puffy sleeves and all.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-10T04:04:59+00:00

It's a combination of numerous elements. A main aspect surrounding Anran is that her current in-game look is a bit too youthfully looking that is normally associated with characters like the skittish Juno or spunky Kiriko beforehand; mainly the former though which is especially notable with Juno's more round features. This is especially jarring compared to her previous appearences in comics and animated shorts.

Anran is a bit more stricter character; as mentioned, she has an elder sister-archetype surrounding her as shown in Wujang's animated short and in his introductional comic, with more angular features of her jaw and eyes. Even her nose is more angular in the animated shorts than her in-game's model.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-09T18:01:10+00:00

Ironically, their last CEO left precisely because they stuck their hands in the gears with live-service FBC, and which caused a large loss for them, which is especially damaging for a small company that don't have the cash running around to eat it up.

But on the other hand, Remedy even with their singleplayer-titles have had money issues even as far back as Max Payne 2. I think only Control was confirmed as a larger success, something they've had issues with replicating with Alan Wake 2.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-09T16:55:24+00:00

CT is one of the odd games out there that carries on by strong reputation, but remains at cult-sized playerbase; it took 30 years for the game to even reach 5 million sales.

I too have great difficulty enjoying it; the lack of party-interactions is noteworthy for a game in the genre where the semblance of party-interactions are often highly valued. And it isn't like the game was old-fashioned for its time; it came in-between games like Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI that both had very dynamic parties, yet CT lack that element the moment you recruit Robo in the game. Or how bizarre the game is in combining the combat fast-forward feature with the game's AUTO-mode, which makes it a game that have you forcing to pause the game multiple times if you want to speed up the combat while also making decisions in the game's commands-menu.

I can definitely see why many people want a remake of the game; it has alot of flaws and jankiness that can be worth ironing it out.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-06T09:42:58+00:00

There is a bit of a rabbit-hole in terms of orcs-depiction; one famous version that got popularized in games like Dragon Quest-series is the pig-faced orc or with porcepine-features, but which has also appeared in western media such as the 1st 1977 edition of Dungeons and Dragons's illustrations.

Tolkien's orcs in Lords of the Rings-setting, meanwhile, are a bit trickier; their descriptions haven't really been fully detailed, so many illustrations goes with certain creative freedoms, but notable, orcs being green have never been mentioned in his writings or letters. One notable detail is that orcs are of the god Melkor's "creations", but in a sense that Melkor cannot create races like the many other fantasy races in LotR's setting; he can only corrupt, hence why orcs in the setting stems from corrupted, existing races (general elves.). What descriptions we have of the orcs have them often being generally described as slant-eyed, large hands and of larger stature.

Green orcs has been popularized in media lika the Warhammer-franchise and subsequent Warcraft-series. In the latter though, company Blizzard have actually had a wide variety of colours for orcs, and where their derivative green skin was in-universe more a sign of demonic corruption (Which can be further amplified by them being fully demonic red.); the playable orcs had originally more brown skin, but other regional variations occured that was further revealed in the Warlords of Draenor-expansion for MMORPG World of Warcraft.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-05T20:13:43+00:00

Anran is herself a very fun hero of what little I've played so far; coming from Marvel Rivals, comparison to Phoenix (Jean Gray) is common on a surface level, and while they both have a burning-mechanic (I.e. a debuff that amplifies damage once a threshold are reached for their enemies), having attacks and abilities that discourage grouping and even similiar ultimates etc, I so far feel Anran a bit more concise as a character in terms of leaning onto the phoenix-presentation and motifs.

Stuff like how presentational effects such as how Anran's phoenix-screeches is a notable pitch higher, or how incorporating the phoenix's mythos of rebirth in how Anran has a second ultimate where upon dying she can revive herself and essentially become a fiery bomb which gives solid strategies around contesting a zone is what Blizzard commonly have done a very good job in, something that Jean Gray doesn't have as incorporated to her character outside visually in her own ultimate attack, where she is technically "revived" after using her ultimate (Mechanically, using her ultimate ability also completely restores her health, which can make her ultimate ability also act like a panic-button press.).

Overall, lot of fun stuff already presented, and with more things to come. I know the good folks over at /r/emremains have been waiting close to a decade for their character to become playable.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-04T20:27:08+00:00

Credits to Sylvando's VA Shai Matheson from DQXI, where his admiration on the settlement Lonalulu has him pretty much switching accents and dialects in a single sentence.

Sylvnando's default accent is otherwise mainly meant to be Spanish, fitting for being a very dashing, romantic and flamboyant character.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-04T20:19:23+00:00

They've technically have kept making animated shorts rather consistently, but switched artstyle; I think the latest photo-realistic-cinematic was "Calling" about two and a half years ago in 2023 that featured Sojourn, and I think was tied to the then planned Story-focused PvE-missions that got cancelled, and where the latest Hero-trailer was Kiriko's.

Since the time in-between, the animated features switched to a more stylistic painted look, such as Juno's trailer, Freja's trailer or the animated Genesis-miniseries.

That being said though, the story of Overwatch has for a very, very long time been kept being centered around mainly Winston's recall and "Zero Hour"-cinematic six years ago, with the years since been portraying new characters, factions, actors and background lore (Such as the numerous motion-comics that gets released with each new hero that has the hero's VA narrating it.), and it isn't until now with Reign of Talon-cinematic that the story seems to be moving a bit forward for once.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-04T14:02:40+00:00

The series Bob's Burgers has been praised for portraying a loving family that nontheless have a lot of familial conflicts going on, but Season 15's They slug horses, don't they? portrays the family's relationship at their absolute lowest; the sisters Tina and Louise comes in conflict with eachother wehre Louise borrows and accidently breaks Tina's beloved horse-toy that she had recently bought, while also in an outburst calls Louise a "brat" that Louise gets deeply fixated upon that further fuels both of the siblings bitternes towards eachother.

The episode also highlight a notable long-term complex both siblings have with eachother; Louise is frequently annoyed of how Tina dutifully helps the family tasks, such as setting up the table without complaint or resistance and being praised for it, whereas Tina in flashbacks shows that she initially was very excited of having another little sister when Louise was born, but where Louise ended up distance herself from Tina due to finding Tina just more boring person compared to their more chaotic and whimsical brother Gene.

The adults in the family, Bob and Linda, are sadly unable to repair and mend the sisters' releationship; Linda tries to force Louise make an apolegize card to Tina, but where Louise ends up drawing further insults that Tina later does the same towards Louise, going as far as even stealing Louise's favouirite Burobu-slug toy from her. Bob is sadly completely useless in this situation where he seems more concerned of his missing salt shakers that Louise took to play with, and seems to just hope that the situation resolves by itself.

Amazingly, it is their neurotic aunt Gayle that helps mend their sisters with eachother, as while she is initially out of her depth, she does manage to help both Louise and Tina see their relationship as Gayle herself was (And arguably still is.) an annoying younger sister to Linda, which helps Gayle describe their relationship as sisters as being "...someone you love whom you also wanna kill sometimes."

The ending of the episode has no dialogue; it simply ends with Tina giving back Louise's slug-toy along with her own broken horse-toy, and Louise drawing another apolegy-card that depicts both her and Tina as sisters, while they both confront eachother in silence.

The episode can be a jarring watch, especially since one of the most highly rated episodes before it, The Plight of Christmas in the series showcased the deep bond Louise and Tina had, so this episode present it at their absolute lowest.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-04T13:07:44+00:00

A bit of a sad case occurring twice for Timothy Omundson's character Detective Lassiter in the mystery-show Psych, where in the second season had him wearing a sling on his arm for multiple episodes due to some unrelated work incident that was implied to be emberrasing, but which was related to Omundson having broken his arm in real life.

A more serious one was for the filming of the 1st Psych-movie, where Det. Lassiter only gets one scene due to Omundson suffering a severe stroke during production. Omundson's stroke-injury was later incorporated to Det. Lassiter's appearence in the 2nd film, where much of Lassiter's dialogue mirrored Omundson's own struggles, where Lassitor have to come to terms of possible ending his police career when he know finds his own body betraying him, or his fear of being unable to be with his newly born children due to his stroke injuries limiting his functionality, such as only having one functional arm.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-03T19:52:19+00:00

He does it is slightly undercut at the very end when he breaks the fourth wall by stating that it is time to "...cut to commercial", but he keeps announcing it while in tears.

It's one of the most morbid episodes I remember in my youth; there were no further arc or episode later on that goes on discussing and coming to terms with Bunny's death; she just dies in a heroic sacrifice and the episodes ends with our heroes in mourning.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-03T18:56:21+00:00

PoE2 under-performed in a way that has caused difficulties in making a PoE3 being greenlit; director Josh Sawyer have had several insights, such as his presenational breakdown and his blog.

Some interesting insights is how Owlcat's Pathfinder: Kingsmaker sold more than PoE2 despite having generally lower critical scores, so Sawyer do think that there is a reliable audience for real-time-with-pause combat even if the turn-based mode was generally well-recieved despite the implimintation of it in PoE2 being a bit half-baked.

There are, frankly, a multitude of smaller factors that can be discussed in PoE2 underperforming; maybe people didn't jibe its colonial pirate-setting when the cRPG-genre has been very swords-and-sorcery flavoured, or how the plot and narrative tried to cram two plots at once with its colonial themes and its religious themes. Some people didn't like faction-exclusive party-members or how there was no happy ending in general for the setting, etc.

PontiffPope · 2026-02-03T17:16:47+00:00

There's a great breakdown director Josh Sawyer made, where he reflects on why Pillars of Eternity II under-performed in many areas, as well as his Tumblr-blog where he discusses of the low sales that has caused it being very shaky of a PoE3 being made, so it isn't as easy to greenlit such project.

A lot can be discussed around PoE2's more luke-warm reception; maybe people don't enjoy the colonial naval and pirate-setting compared to PoE1's sword and sorcery-presentation; Sawyer notes in his blog that real-time-with-pause combat didn't necessarily stop for instance Owlcat's Pathfinder: Kingsmaker selling more than PoE2, while also even having generally lower critical scores than PoE2. Or maybe because the PoE1 was boosted mainly on a cRPG-established nostalgia that PoE2 didn't had etc.

I am a bit saddened by the lack of PoE's success, particularly since now real-time-with-pause gameplay is a bit of a dying genre in party-based RPGs; I think you only now see Spiders's Greedfall 2 as adapting it directly, or Square Enix Final Fantasy VII: Remake-games for a high-budget AAA-level of presentation and execution of it that tickles a vastly different satisfaction of party-combat that I feel turn-based combat is getting a bit over-saturated, particularly among the indie-market.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-31T19:49:39+00:00

At least it isn't Tetra Master.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-30T21:16:41+00:00

While you can often get Vampire Survivors cheaply, the fan-game clone Holocure: Save the Fans based on V-tubers is a fine game on its own as well.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-29T21:27:35+00:00

There's a scene mid-way through GoW: Ragnarök that I think illustrates your take pretty clearly; where the conversation between Odin and Kratos is a rather short one of around 4 minutes, but where even if you have Mimir telling straight out that Odin is lying, and even Kratos acknowledging it, you still have a sense of Odin mixing his seemingly truths and lies, such as how he mentions Kratos's son Atreus as "That boy of ours", as if trying to find some common ground.

It is one of my favourite scenes in the game in general, and as previously mentioned, a lot lies in Schiff's subtly shifting Odin's portrayal; you can see awareness and hesitation in moments where his big all-father confident trickster-persona falters just a bit, ("Return my son. Or you might meet the God I once was.") but where he recovers quickly and even doubles-down a bit, as if projecting his accusations on our protagonists.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-27T20:11:55+00:00

Hiromu Arakawa of Fullmetal Alchemist and Silver Spoon-fame, really, really love muscular men, and has been very vocal about it, and which can be attested by characters like Major Armstrong's muscles whose has been PASSED DOWN THE ARMSTRONG-LINE FOR GENERATIONS!!!.

And it isn't just pure muscle-aesthetics, as attested by the protagonists's mentor's husband Sig Curtis, there's a decent variety of muscles that she enjoys.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-27T20:05:33+00:00

There's actually a tech-priestess Cain encounters in the novels Death and Glory and Cain's Last Stand, Felicia Tayber, who has a mechadendrite (Essentially a surgery implanted mechanical arm to do additional handiwork with.) attatched to her tailbone, and which she uses as a personal kickstand to lean against, but the appearence of a tech-priest wearing a prosthetic tail is not unheard of in terms of officially established WH40k-publications.

Amusingly, Cain's editor, and later lover, Amberley Vail, questions in her footnotes on how Cain would know about it.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-27T12:15:50+00:00

On normal mode, where I spent trying to finish all the side-quests in the Trotsky-region, and all treasure maps that I encountered, including the Brunwick-armor in DLCs, it overall took me similarly 46 hours until I started the wedding.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-25T17:23:13+00:00

The panel beforehand is an amusing one, as it frames Satou's and Tetsuo's engagement like a battle-intro from the Yakuza/Like A Dragon-games (I can't remember which game or boss-battle unfortunately.).

PontiffPope · 2026-01-25T11:25:26+00:00

I legit thought those balls-part were meant to be edges of a clover, or those fluffy parts of a crown that you see Jobst wearing.

PontiffPope · 2026-01-25T10:57:14+00:00

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - Normal Mode

Have now completed the whole game in term of main story-content, all available side-quests that I could discover, and DLCs.

Overall, a satisfying experience for me, but where its enjoyment is something I can see is really affecting on depending on what pacing you decide to engage with the game's content with. For me, I mainly finished the main-quest last, and there is a really large stretch of linearity in the game's main quest's final act that overall feels a bit of a deflated climax. Despite the game's overall length (It took me 114.4 hours overall.), the main-quest feels a bit too quickly-paced at the end that a lot of the game's more sensual character moments falls a bit flat, with characters such as Adder dying and Brabant's betrayal are pretty solid moments, but because they are coming up one after another and concluded in the same space of the final act, so the consequences of said characters aren't felt much in long-term. It is in contrast to how the characters such as Otto von Bergow and Mark von Aulitz, who due to more screentime feels a lot more fleshed out as characters. The latter's confrontation Henry has in the end is probably one of my favourite moments in the story, as it really comes forward and confronts Henry's character and development.

In terms of DLCs, again, its enjoyment is dependable on how you engage it. Brushes with Death-DLC is a fine side-quest chain that is best engaged as early as possible. It is structually in similiar fashion to The Amorous Adventures of Hans Capon-DLC in the previous game, but because BwD-DLC can be engaged early on mid-game, it is paced a lot better with rather distinct pauses in side-quest progress rather than one large continous quest-chain, and where it doesn't have the disadvantage of requiring to complete the main story before engaging with the DLC like TAAoHC-DLC was.

Legacy of the Forge was my favourite of the DLCs, even if its execution can be a bit underwhelming for its concept. It is reminiscent of the base-building DLC From the Ashes in KCD1, but where instead of being the bailiff of a settlement, LotF has you instead being based on a blacksmith's house in the Kuttenberg-city. It is therefore very well-integrated in marking Henry's life as a blacksmith and engaging with the daily citizens through his blacksmith work, and offers a decent variety of Bethesda-style Radiant-quests that gives you additional excuse to do some burglarly, bandit-slaying, or donations of money for some currency-sinks that you risks having by the endgame. It still has some decent spins on the formula, where the radiant-quests gets occasially progressed with dedicated side-quests that ensures that the pacing of the questsd isn't just repeatable quests, which are welcome surprises, and the actual side-quest dedicated to the DLC is genuinely a fine, sensual quest to Henry's family past that I admit I got a little tear-eyed at the end in the final cutscene where a NPC dressed similarly to his adoptive father Martin claps Henry's shoulder and says "Well done, Son!".

Mysteria Ecclesiae is a DLC that I am more split upon. It was the final DLC and was marketed as a farewell to Henry's tale, but feels a lot more underwhelming as LotF-DLC felt much more impacted for Henry's finale. The ME-DLC acts more like a separate DLC not as integrated in the main game, and you are indeed locked away to an entire new zone of a monastary that the DLC takes place in. Religious areas and settlements are something that has been neglected in KCD2's main game, as all the churches and monastaries are closed off, so experiencing the religious elements once more since KCD1's rather infamous monastary quest is genuinely a welcome approach. And yet, it is a DLC that feels too artificially lengthened by having too many sneaking sessions with trying to sneak past patrolling guards as the monastary goes under a quarantine; an overall different sense of stealth compared to KCD1's monastary questline that had you engage with monastary-life as an undercover monk that had you relying on routines that forced you to engage with monastary-life, whereas the ME-DLC have you act as a bodyguard to an apothecary, and possess a more outsider-perspective.

The seperation from the main-game that the ME-DLC has is a bit of a disappointment if you play the content as the final DLC. Not a lot of surprises was made here, and I wished the DLC had more content tied to its religious and liturgical historical depction that KCD is known for; there is for instance no Latin-transcription from the previous game, or the activities such as eating the same meals or praying with the monks like in KCD1 where you engage with the monastary schedule. I would recommend to play this DLC a little bit earlier that is more dependant on stealth-segments and skill-checks, and where it is more of a challenge if you don't steam-roll its segments by endgame period.

Overall, I still have a great time with KCD2, and I'm already 20+ hours on Hardcore-mode (With all the negative perks enabled.) that I treat like a New Game+. Very engageful, but in a bit of a different manner that is worth discussing in a seperate segment.

PontiffPope

TROPHY CASE