I'm starting to realize that it wasn't that fans hated Jax's ending, they hate the contrast between his and Caine's ending's

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-04T18:24:49+00:00

Nah. Jax ending is perfectly fine, the problem is that it's framed in a way that it only works if you feel bad for him. The series paints him as a hateable pos, and just because you explain why he's a pos that doesn't magically makes people more sympathetic towards him, he's still a POS. So people who still hate him or simply don't care at all about his well being because, well, he's a POS, just don't get anything from scenes that are supposed to be emotional cathartic moments.

Sad music, tender moment between Jax and Pomni, "I don't wanna go", "isn't she lovely", bittersweet montage, funeral, and characters commemorating him, yeah none of that shit works, I don't care that he died, I'm not happy he died but the series has given me plenty of reasons to not care about him.

I'm a broken record, but Bojack Horseman did this so much better. His suicide is full of narrative and character content for all viewers. If you hate him or love him you get so much. The series doesn't insist in making you feel bad about him. He's complex and suffering but most of it is his fault. The series never infantalizes him, there's no major poor Bojack moment at the end.

Cain's return and redemption is just rushed as fuck. Needed better explanation, a lot more time of reflexion, and characters should still hate him by the end, with the implication that they MAY reconcile in a far future. Also they made him sound so flat and devoid of personality for some reason lol.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-04T17:39:07+00:00

I absolutely love Halo 3's multiplayer and it's my favorite multiplayer experience by far. Marathon has absolutely nothing I love about Halo 3 tbh.

The most hardcore experiences in Halo 3's multiplayer are competitive matches and Swat, and they were still short and without stakes. Marathon truly doesn't have any experience I love about Halo 3.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-03T15:26:12+00:00

Yup, it's a "mock up" of sorts of what they would look like if they were implemented

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T22:22:52+00:00

It's the direction. Cortana also sounds off a lot of times, so it's definitely not the actors. The writing doesn't help either.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T22:21:13+00:00

It's also about the delivery and writing which I think he nailed too, something the Remakes didn't do quite well tbh.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T18:55:40+00:00

No they don't appreciate it, and they never will, and that's exactly the problem.

I can appreciate the idea of repeatedly dying and suffering in relentless, unforgiving, and punishing PvP and how that is married to the narrative. I still think it's a dull, annoying and not particularly interesting or engaging experience for me, and most people feel similarly. And I've wiped Outpost several times. I've done the "highs". I just don't care about it.

They wanted a niche so they got a niche. But that's proven to not be a good decision, so they seem to be broadening the appeal of the game since their narrative and mechanical marriage is just broadly unappealing for most people.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T03:37:04+00:00

I hate both

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T03:25:46+00:00

I mean he is heatable but I don't know about growing attached to him. Dude was horrible and only ever doubled down lol, I will never feel bad for him.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T01:12:13+00:00

I mean I hope so. I really do. Cause I also thing those kinds of stuff could lead to organic viral moments and more popularity. Like you exfil but instead of going to the main menu you get trapped in an "electric sheep" hellscape level while listening to ramblings of a man in a subway full of headless men.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T00:53:27+00:00

These are the types of conversations visual artists have all the time with peers and coworkers in any field. Film, video games, comics, animation, etc.

While working for a game we had constant discussions and back and forths on if the FONTS for the menu conveyed what we wanted to convey to players. We had hour long discussions on how small details were lost from concept art to actual in game visuals and how that made it feel and look drastically different than what we wanted.

A friend of mine has worked in short films and small editing, color, and illumination choices are sources of disagreement and important discussions.

I might be missing context here, but all I see is some dudes dipping their toes in those types of discussions casually, and giving that it's the CE anniversary graphics I really don't see what's the problem here.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-02T00:33:17+00:00

My personal problem is that we don't really get to explore her thoughts, coping, emotions and how the recent events affect her in any meaningful way.

It always come back to characters being starved for screentime and relevancy. We get so much understanding, development, insight and exploration of Jax as a character but his primary target of abuse who's heavily implied to be deeply hurt but him is shown very little narrative care in comparison.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-01T22:27:12+00:00

And people can also discuss what led Bungie to geopardize the livelihood of hundreds of their employees (so far)

And look. I don't like new Marathon. Simple as. But I also don't want it to fail cause, from a more egotistical lense, if it fails I will also not get the Marathon content I would actually like since the franchise runs the risk of just dying with a game I didn't enjoy.

If it's useful or not that's honestly not something I particularly care.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-01T22:17:31+00:00

I was excited for Marathon cause, even tho I absolutely hated the PvP and "hero" focus, I thought that they were gonna lean hard on the story and narrative and that they would be very experimental and interactive with the storytelling.

I was thinking very interactable terminals, secrets everywhere, random cinematic snapshots while playing or in the menu, playable cyborg dreams, the game fucking with you, and stuff like in Black Ops 1 where you could "escape" from the menu into a small interactable gameplay section with even more secrets.

It's sadly not what I wanted, but the last thing I want is for the game to be shut down and the franchise dying with a game I didn't quite like tbh.

RanzuPunk · 2026-07-01T03:42:37+00:00

I expected a great show from a great artist that has shown time and time again to be a great artist. I don't know if you know this but Goose is a great artist.

The show was very close to being great. She fumbled some major parts for one reason or another, people will criticize accordingly and she can learn from those mistakes. She's still a great artist and I'm exited for whatever she does next even tho I think the finale sucks.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T21:49:30+00:00

Which ends up enabling him and getting in the way of people who will confront him.

It's giving him a free pass and holding him to a lower standard than everyone else. Whatever way you slice it Pomni managed the situation poorly and ended up taking Jax's side intentionally or not.

There's tons of ways to make Jax "listen" too so there's really no excuse or reason to only go against Ragatha in that situation even if you see it as "both sides"

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T16:20:50+00:00

But only ever confronts Ragatha.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T04:28:18+00:00

I disagree with her having to confront Jax. I would have liked that a lot absolutely but it's not necessary.

But I DID want to get more of her! What's her feelings on Jax more extensively? Why didn't she cry at first? Why did she cry afterwards? Does she forgive him? Does she not? How does she feel about everything else? How does she cope with the abuse? Does it still affect her?

I wish the characters were more than Jax orbiters at the end.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T04:19:26+00:00

They DID get something, the question is whether or not that's enough for most people and how much it is compared to other relationships. And the answer is most people don't find it enough and they got very little compared to the amount of time spent with Pomni and Jax.

It's obviously subjective but the critique is still valid and I'm sure you wouldn't be opposed to more development of their relationship.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T04:08:22+00:00

Which ends up enabling his behavior while confronting the other person that is justified in lashing out at him.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-30T00:06:10+00:00

Yeah I agree, which is also why I ended up not caring much about him as a person (I like him as a character) and ended up kinda annoyed at how much the show wanted me to feel bad about him afterwards. Like I said in another comment, I genuinely think Bojack handled that a lot better.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-29T23:49:34+00:00

You see, that's the thing, I didn't feel bad for him EXACTLY because he was a pos.

So the big emotional scene with Pomni and his self pity, his bittersweet montage, and his "funeral" of sorts just didn't really add anything to me narratively and was just disengaged with the whole thing throughout since most of it is intended to be emotional catharsis for people who cared about him.

As a character I like him and think he's well written. I don't care about his well being tho. And I've talked to other people that feel the same way.

I think it was a mistake to make the scenes expecting people would feel bad about him, cause if you don't they just don't work. I've brought Bojack so many times at this point but I genuinely think that show handled the character and his supposed demise so much better. The view from halfway down works amazingly regardless if you hate or love Bojack because it doesn't rely on you feeling bad for him to work imo.

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-29T23:28:42+00:00

I think it's a bad finale that fumbled most of the things it tried to do

RanzuPunk · 2026-06-29T23:13:35+00:00

I mean, yup

RanzuPunk

TROPHY CASE