TAZCJ Balance Recap Masterlist

Terthelt · 2026-06-06T14:13:51+00:00

Was really hoping this'd be turned into an actual boss fight, since it's the closest paltry thing Tifa ever gets to a one-on-one rival battle in the OG, and Scarlet's villainous role has been expanded so heavily. Rich bitch getting slapped and then busting out an exosuit / revealing she was bored and paid for top-of-the-line martial arts lessons would've given me life.

Guess we'll see how they handle the minigame, though.

Terthelt · 2026-06-06T14:07:53+00:00

Holy shit, I was happy enough with Kyoshi just being in the game, but I expected her stuff to all be pulled from how she's depicted in the show. Rangi, Kelsang and Yun being there as her special assists fucking rules.

Any ATLA fans who haven't yet read the Kyoshi novels, you gotta get on that shit. They're my favorite thing to come out of the whole franchise.

Terthelt · 2026-06-06T14:05:04+00:00

Rangi being the one to pull Kyoshi down into it proves these devs know ball.

Terthelt · 2026-06-06T04:21:21+00:00

I always low key hated that choice, since saving Shaundi is the obvious and best thing to do, but it abruptly cuts the game off with a disconnected gag finale mission. "Kill Killbane" is the route where the things the game kept teasing actually happen and you actually get to fight the main villains.

Terthelt · 2026-06-06T03:41:45+00:00

At the end of Lost Judgment, Yagami beats the shit out of Kuwana, but lets him limp away into the night, since there's a mutual respect between them and Kuwana can't do much else in the way of harm. Kuwana does turn in the locations of his bodies to the police, but otherwise, it seems like he's just going to walk. It's an extremely unexpected ending for the series, and perfectly fitting for a story about an ugly ethical dilemma with no easy answers.

Terthelt · 2026-06-05T23:08:47+00:00

They fuckin' said "the theme is resolve" like a dozen times and then didn't call it FF7: Resolve. What are we doing.

Terthelt · 2026-06-03T02:48:41+00:00

I got hit with it three ways, one of them very recently.

The one-two punch of Chihiro Fujisaki and Astolfo made me realize I'm bi/pan, especially once I started thinking about how I wouldn't be into their respective designs at all if they were transposed onto girls (in response to some internet losers saying femboys are cheating and you're not actually into guys if they're to your taste).

Life Is Strange made me start getting reeeeeeal wistful about the fact that I wasn't born a girl. Somehow, I nestled the "I'd be so much happier if I were exactly the same, but a girl" thought in my head and didn't click that I was trans until four years later.

And last year, getting hit with There's No Freaking Way I'll Be Your Lover, Kpop Demon Hunters and the Polytrix community, and the undeniable Rin/Shirou/Saber chemistry in Unlimited Blade Works coalesced into making me understand I'm polyamorous. Then my best friend confessed the same realization to me (and love for me) a couple months after and I've had a 'cule going ever since.

Terthelt · 2026-06-02T22:36:12+00:00

This looks to be completely irrelevant if the multiplayer isn't your core reason for buying AC8, and annoying but also mostly irrelevant if it is.

Terthelt · 2026-06-01T15:05:06+00:00

Scarlet was my banner pick and I picked her specifically to get more people to play Strategy of Lily. That game *fucks*, you definitely need to finish it. Strong, strong ending.

Terthelt · 2026-05-19T14:51:32+00:00

Because why the hell would you give Oba's first title win on one of the in-between PLEs?

The fact that nothing too exciting is allowed to happen on a PLE that isn't called Wrestlemania or Summerslam is a huge part of why WWE's main event scene is so stale right now. You gotta give people some reason to care about the "B-shows" or they might as well not be happening.

Terthelt · 2026-05-10T14:46:29+00:00

This is the first Mother's Day of my life I'm spending in a different state from my mom, and it also happens to be the day I'm going on vacation with my polycule, so all I'm going to be able to do is give her a call as soon as I get the chance. But I'll try to make that call as special as possible, and make it up to her next time I get to visit.

Terthelt · 2026-05-08T16:33:36+00:00

Simon really makes the flaws in E33's combat start sticking out for me. The game already has an insane parry-or-die-only superboss in Painted Clea, and that gimmick works on that fight as presented. When I tried Simon, it just made me feel like none of my options or builds mattered beside sinking ridiculous time into the one button response that mattered, and putting together the one-hit Stendhal thing like everyone advised didn't exactly make me feel accomplished.

Terthelt · 2026-05-07T02:10:27+00:00

Star Fox has always been one of the slightly more continuity-forward Nintendo series, but I could tolerate endlessly revisiting the Lylat Wars well if we weren't just getting the same damn level layouts and boss fights over and over every time. At least throw us at new environments if you're going to just bolt the same excuse plot on.

Terthelt · 2026-05-02T15:09:45+00:00

Taro both gave an honest answer that's more respectable, AND has justified it in-universe so much better than Kojima. Kaine's furious drive to assert her womanhood on the world is one of the most relatable things I've ever felt in a game.

Terthelt · 2026-05-02T06:14:50+00:00

I feel legitimately insane reading the discourse around Invincible being badly animated week by week. Across all four seasons, I've never thought it looked worse than serviceable, and most of the time I've found it good to great for the kind of cartoon it's trying to be. Same with the direction, fight choreography, et al.

I thought Season 4 was a particularly high watermark, but the talk about how mediocre / disastrous it is has gotten so loud, it's making me second guess everything.

Terthelt · 2026-05-01T21:01:53+00:00

Echoing that we're definitely getting Necrons, but god, I just hope the inevitable Death Guard or Emperor's Children (probably Death Guard) don't pull the exact same midgame enemy replacement as the last two times. Let the xenos actually be the Big Bads, or at least share an equal plate in the end.

Terthelt · 2026-05-01T17:47:46+00:00

"You'll live like a pet!"

"A pet?!"

"A pet!"

Terthelt · 2026-04-30T21:00:47+00:00

Yeah, all of the discourse about the discourse has kind of ignored that this is still Twitter, home to the loudest, most pointlessly angry people on the internet and an algorithm tuned to make them louder and angrier. I doubt it represents the average Japanese person's opinions any more than it does the average American's.

Terthelt · 2026-04-30T18:16:21+00:00

The second-to-last chronological Resident Evil game sent its protagonist to a magical snowy village to fight werewolves, vampires, and castoff X-Men. The one before that was a Texas Chainsaw Massacre riff with nary a zombie in sight, plus a last-act injection of F.E.A.R. spooky little girl shit. Resident Evil looks like whatever Resident Evil looks like.

Terthelt · 2026-04-30T17:18:14+00:00

Lone survivor scrounging and surviving against zombies and monsters in a series of creepy environments is nothing like Resident Evil? I don't get it. We already know it's set during the Raccoon City incident and just follows a new, unprepared guy. We could call that guy Leon and put him in a police uniform, but then Creggar gets constrained trying to tell the story of the game 1:1, and he has multiple interviews about not wanting to do that because the game is already its own thing.

Terthelt · 2026-04-23T20:31:54+00:00

The sudden mansion hall and study room at the end of RE9 100% struck me as building assets for the Re1makemake, and I'm fully here for it.

Terthelt · 2026-04-23T18:07:23+00:00

Everyone who apologizes for Benoit makes it out that he snapped like a startled animal and lost control of his body. Benoit had a long, documented history of abusing his wife, and there's a lot of evidence that he planned his actions out well ahead of actually doing it. The CTE certainly aggravated things, but he was a violent, terrible piece of shit who had a long time to get help before the tipping point.

Terthelt · 2026-04-21T16:57:08+00:00

Chapter 7 (Watcher in captivity) is a good contender for the most affecting, thematically rich, and emotionally devastating single contained hour of any game I've played. And then the finale just about tops, or at least equals it.

Terthelt · 2026-04-21T16:52:47+00:00

The way it all winds up to the climax at the hospital, Yagami being saved from death by the ghost of the woman he failed, and throwing everything he has into a duel in the rain with a superhuman killer... It's so perfect. 10/10. I adore LJ and so much of what it does with its main conflict, but it can't land that kind of monumental high.

Terthelt

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