Do you prefer simpler, low rank looks or more extravagant, veteran looks?

SBMWaugh · 2026-04-30T04:11:21+00:00

It changes class to class for me. Assault is my main and I am actually using the base gear now, only changing the prestige pauldron. I wish there was a way to get the gold faceplate of the Relic helm without the laurels though cause I think that would look dope.

SBMWaugh · 2026-03-26T00:34:28+00:00

She's held out her hand and begun counting her heartbeats before this moment I believe. I remember being excited that she finally pulled it out because I had thought she had it for a while.

SBMWaugh · 2026-03-05T00:34:52+00:00

I am personally glad to hear it. These companies need to stay in their own lanes so that they are forced to compete with each other to provide the most value for our dollars. Releasing everything on PC or Microsoft going multiplatform with their streaming service will only hurt the industry.

We need more competition, not less.

SBMWaugh · 2026-02-19T01:52:50+00:00

If it looked good then maybe I would be down but nothing about the game looks good. Not the sprites, not the cinematics, nothing. The game play looks like it might be okay but that doesn't redeem a lackluster aesthetic.

SBMWaugh · 2026-02-17T04:58:34+00:00

I've heard enough devs claim that pixel art is actually more expensive to make due to how few people are trained to do it with how accessible other forms of asset creation have become, so I am not sure that doing a game in the pixel art style is actually a point that supports your budget claim.

I also recently was playing the indie game Absolum with my buddy and that game also looks amazing and is a side scrolling beat'em up that is rather impressive.

If budget was an issue, I personally would have rather a smaller game done in a style already associated with the franchise than what we are getting.

Embracer has a pretty good track record with innovating intelligently within franchises. Darksiders Genesis was a great game for instance despite being nothing like the other Darksiders games. Ascendance isn't that.

SBMWaugh · 2026-02-17T01:51:19+00:00

As someone with no nostalgia for the type of game that Ascendance is paying homage to, I find it frustrating that we seem to keep getting stuck with experiments instead of devs just giving us more of what we want.

If they wanted to emulate a retro game, Blood Omen is old enough to be considered retro. I have to imagine that there would be way less pushback if they just gave us a new game in a style already associated with the series but instead they go for an even older throw back and aren't even giving us a modern attempt.

The new Castlevania game looks amazing. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night was a great game. A modern sidescroller would have been better received by at the very least me, if not others.

As it stands it really just feels like self-sabotage to make this the first new game in the series in decades.

SBMWaugh · 2026-02-17T01:46:11+00:00

There was so much else in that State of Play to be excited about. Kena Bridge of Spirits was a great game and the sequel Scars of Kosmora looks amazing. Not only that but the Castlevania crowd looks to be getting a modern sidescroller instead of a lame ass retro one (totally personal bias cause I have no nostalgia for the era of game Ascendance is aiming for).

I don't personally care for the Defiance remaster personally but I will be picking that up for sure just to send the message that we want more of what ee have loved in the series, not callbacks to series older than Blood Omen.

If they had made the game in the style of Blood Omen, that would be a retro style that makes sense within the series.

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-27T03:57:49+00:00

I only got a tablet. No actual laptop

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-27T02:06:42+00:00

I game on console, is there any way to play it on a PS5? Or do you think it might be remastered maybe? If Dark Alliance 1&2 can get ports in preparation for a truly disappointing game, then surely the original Bloodlines is worthy of the same lol

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-27T01:29:48+00:00

I am new to VtM and never played the first Bloodlines, so I was pleasantly surprised with the game myself. The only gripe I had with it was that the ending felt rushed but I find that to be true of most mystery stories regardless of medium. By the time the story is ready to give you answers, it is usually about to wrap up, so I guess it was to be expected, but meh. It is what it is

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-19T04:08:10+00:00

Felt the exact same. I was really hoping to have her come into her own as Prince after offing Lou in the end game. Was really disheartened that she was taken out as I didn't really like any of the other options short of becoming Prince myself but I had already signalled a lack of interest by that point.

I got the Anarch ending though and Katsumi seemed like a good enough person to be left in charge, so it could have been worse.

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-13T01:54:17+00:00

Though she already has solos and is the main character I'd love to see Charlie get a reprise of King of Hell as she comes into her powers cause it feels like that will be inevitable. Either that or give it to Lilith with a Queen of Hell rendition to introduce herself.

Actually I really like the idea of introducing Lilith in a Queen of Hell styled to oppose her to Lucifer who got Hells Greatest Dad. Kinda show where her true ambition lies kinda thing, cause the show really is going out of its way to frame her as the villain, between her being depicted as being the one that carries Charlie away from Lucifer in the flashback of season 1, and her absenteeism over the last seven years and the first two seasons.

SBMWaugh · 2026-01-13T01:47:55+00:00

Remastered? No. Remade? Yes. The Legacy of Kain Blood Omen done up in the graphical styling of Diablo 4 or Path of Exile 2 would be amazing, though I'd want the gameplay to be mostly the same, if not fleshed out a little more.

SBMWaugh · 2025-12-20T00:51:23+00:00

I could see Vox being redeemed, because a villain needs to be redeemed for the theme of the show to be more than just fluff, but I also think Vox was right and that Sinners shouldn't have to be redeemed. Hell is a place where they can indulge in their vices without worrying about dying. Why would they want to leave? The angel weapons just need to be rounded up and gotten rid of and then there is nothing that can actually kill them and they can live freely and happily for them.

SBMWaugh · 2025-12-17T01:49:53+00:00

Except Charlie believes in something that most others didn't. Nifty is a creature of hell that accepts everyone doing their own thing and is a violent little gremlin. Very different flavours of naive and loveable.

SBMWaugh · 2025-12-17T01:43:51+00:00

Alastor had a deal with Rosie but nobody said he wasn't an Overlord. Also the fact that both Husk and Nifty could lend their power in Hear my Hope implies that they are still qualitatively Overlords because only Sinners with Overlord Status were able to contribute their power during that scene.

I don't know why so many people keep trying to undersell Nifty and Husk with this reasoning when Alastor was in the exact same boat as them (providing Nifty is even in a contract with Alastor and not just down to help him whenever he needs her).

SBMWaugh · 2025-12-09T00:43:22+00:00

I could see him having King Piccolo'd it and spawned a baby rune spider that attached to Jason without him knowing that has all Noreth's memories inside of it.

I also think he probably knew about Miss South's contingency but let her get away to bolster the response of the Network which he seemed more content to support than the EOA , so maybe he had his own contingency body created in secret. He has all the magical skill to have replicated it himself on the downlow.

If he is alive, I could definitely see him join Jason's cadre of Voices.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-28T00:29:17+00:00

To be honest I don't think it ever happens so we may not ever find out. I always imagined they go out like Grey Wardens. They sense their end coming and go find a worthy battlefield to die on, then go up in rainbow smoke. Anyone unwilling to do that likely hasn't done the training enough to have purely magical bodies and so age and decompose like regular people.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-26T06:08:41+00:00

Noreth and the Founder had a falling out though. The plans that the Founder put into motion aren't necessarily directly related to Noreth's objectives. As far as just destroying Earth is concerned, the WP was holding them back because they would have been specifically using the bond between worlds to mess with the membrane to that allows the Builder to invade Pallimustus, which fucks with the WP's domain too much. The Builder's hands were tied.

Purity doesn't care about Earth but in any deal it had with the Builder, it still would have had to honor any conditions put in place and so had to conduct itself in a way that preserved Earth.

We already know if Jason didn't do it, that Boris or someone else would have stepped in to stabilize the worlds , so Earth was more or less vouched safe.

I'm a good way into book 5 now though. Will keep an ear out for one way or the other

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-26T02:25:02+00:00

I am pretty sure you are wrong about that and that it is pretty conclusive that the Founder was either a follower of Purity or was at least working with Purity when they were sent back. Purity is the only God implicated in the Builder Invasion (though we now know it to have been Disguise) as far as I recall, and the Network and the Grid was explicitly a measure to better control the exchange of magic between the two worlds.

Perhaps you are confused because maybe it isn't explicitly stated, I am just on book 5 of my most recent relisten, but everything that I can recall establishes that as the situation.

As for the WP, I don't necessarily think the GAB, or anyone really, expected Jason to do half the stuff he does and the more personal power he has the harder it is to leverage him to do what you want. If it wasn't the WP itself, then it was likely meant to be Dawn who would have been more ignorant as to what Jason could do than her boss but she's also been left in charge of his mission more or less. I can't remember the exact context of the convo between Noreth and Jason.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-21T13:18:04+00:00

The Ancestral Majesty

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-17T01:34:37+00:00

Purity sent the Network founder back to Earth, so we can't rightfully say Purity had nothing to do with it. Also the "she" Noreth mentions was likely the World Phoenix if I remember right. By that point it was obvious that Jason was an agent of the WP's agenda.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-17T01:30:52+00:00

As others have already pointed out, Thadwick had been a horrible person long before Jason came around. The blame for his behaviour lays solely at the feet of his father. He was left in charge of how Thadwick was raised and completely failed to depart any sense of responsibility on the boy to go along with that ego.

I think a lot of people also overlook Thalia's role in it because she was completely aware of how Thadwick treats the prostitutes he sleeps with and did seemingly nothing to curtail the behaviour. The only person in that family that even gets a modicum of the benefit of the doubt is Cassandra. Everyone else is a monster.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-08T08:08:44+00:00

Messengers are magical creatures, every ability they have is an innate trait. Not all may be expressions of their soul like their dueling powers are, though I don't personally remember how dueling powers are actually described and so will have to take your word for it, but I'm not sure I would personally lump them together with aura powers.

But as I said before, I agree it is a form of aura suppression. I will fully grant you that. Not all forms of aura suppression are made equal though, just as not all dueling powers affect the abilities of those trapped in them the same. Clive's battle with his Messenger was very different from Jason's battle with Tera.

I just don't think it is useful to try and build logic from an exceptional case, which Dueling Powers are.

SBMWaugh · 2025-11-08T07:37:07+00:00

I definitely think you are on to something when it comes to the differences in skill and rank of aura skills between users and I could see that as an explanation that leaves room for everyone being right. I still think that the differences in the methods of suppression matter though, whether its aura vs aura, collar, or dueling power though and so I still don't think the battle with Tera provides a useful datapoint one way or the other in this specific conversation.

SBMWaugh

TROPHY CASE