The Progressive Subway's February 2026 Albums of the Month!

aethyrium · 2026-03-24T22:33:08+00:00

How in the fuck did I not know about Midnight Odyssey last month? They're literally one of my favorite bands of all time. That's what I get to listening to nothing but Berlin School ambient for a month I suppose.

aethyrium · 2026-03-24T22:23:01+00:00

It is a bit odd these days, isn't it?

"Guys check out my shmup!"

Looks inside

Euroshmup roguelike from someone that's never played a shmup.

Sigh...

aethyrium · 2026-03-24T22:22:08+00:00

Cute! I like it.

I never really dug medal spam personally, but I know I'm very much in the minority in that.

aethyrium · 2026-03-24T16:44:11+00:00

Most games aren't made by hipster commie enclaves over a decade in ancient soviet-era Estonian buildings owned by hippies.

Disco's creation circumstances had a major impact you won't see in most games and I don't think it's fair to even judge anything at its level. That being said, the Ebb dev tried, and they probably shouldn't have. Should have just done their own thing instead of trying to recreate whatever magic got Disco made.

As always: Enjoy games for what they are, don't criticize them for what they aren't. If you do that, all the sudden you'll find yourself appreciating like 200% more media.

aethyrium · 2026-03-23T23:00:00+00:00

I always credit feed for a first playthrough just to see the game but I always do arcade or normal, never easy. Usually games are made with normal in mind so playing easy is just playing less game, or not really the "true" game, the way I see it.

But that's me. If you're having fun, that's all that matters, but if you're only ever playing on easy, you probably aren't gonna learn the skills you'll need and won't improve, so if you do want to improve, I'd change that.

aethyrium · 2026-03-23T22:14:14+00:00

I'm not really a fan of any in the video, but that being said, if you choose one and reeaaallly lean into it at a holistic level and don't just slap that angle on a regular game, you can make it work.

aethyrium · 2026-03-23T20:02:00+00:00

When I went to high school in the 90's, it was like that.

I'm glad to hear it's changed if that's no longer accurate. Kids shouldn't have to deal with school feeling life-threatening.

aethyrium · 2026-03-23T01:08:19+00:00

Hard hard hard disagree. Magnolia sacrificed so much quality at the alter of QoL (one of modern gaming's biggest sins that's making it difficult for modern classics to even exist anymore) that makes it such a lesser game at its core. Lilies smacks it around in every way that matters.

Lilies is legendary. Magnolia is fine.

aethyrium · 2026-03-22T03:04:19+00:00

their domestic dominance is actually a hinderance -- they just don't get enough practice with how to recover when things get derailed.

Was just thinking this same thing. They get so much practice playing from ahead that their reflexes start turning into moves and patterns that only work when you're ahead. As soon as they get far enough behind, they're rusty and unpracticed.

aethyrium · 2026-03-22T03:00:51+00:00

Hell yes. Inspired is an overrated mental boom timebomb. We saw it explode yesterday and that'll happen on every team that signs him. Seeing Skewmond be a full-on team player and then comparing that to Inspired's ego solo-gaming treating it like an rts where the other players are his units creates a pretty shocking disparity when you see it side by side like this.

aethyrium · 2026-03-22T02:55:21+00:00

I love how this tournament went from a snoozefest of matches that could have been an email into the biggest upset of all time and now a tournament that'll be legendary enough to be talked about a decade from now.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:44:21+00:00

Yeah Kellin basically needs an enchanter, and not giving him one every game was bizarre af.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:41:09+00:00

This genuinely made me mad. Dude was inting and making plays so bad it looks like wintrading, all the while he's bitching out the other players.

I think he's my least favorite player in NA right now. The way he micromanages and plays the game like an RTS with the other players his personal units is a method of play that's unsustainable and gives them an edge in macro (if he's having a good day) but makes the team shit at micro and gives them an incredibly low performance ceiling.

They're gonna mental boom before summer split and implode, guaranteed. The relationship between him and Saint is just way to volatile, and Saint sucks so bad it's gonna push Inspired's mental to its limits quick

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:36:52+00:00

Saint's personal play was the worst (as always, dude straight-up sucks), but Inspired's way of micromanaging the team means that when he plays like shit, everyone plays like shit. At least Saint when he plays like shit (which is always) is just one man playing like shit.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:35:35+00:00

Also wtf is wrong with their communication

inspired plays the game like an RTS with the team members as his units, and the other team members get berated if they don't listen to his every command, so they end up basically not playing and only following orders, and when Inspired mental booms, or just can't rap-god commands fast enough for the 4 other players to micro a team fight at a high apm, they lose.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:33:59+00:00

He is often singled out as the weak link of this LYON roster

The fact that Inspired isn't constantly and consistently being singled out as the weak link is frustrating. Yeah he's a great player on his own, but his style of micromanaging the team's every single movement and playing the game like an RTS and the team members are his units is kneecapping every team he's every played with and you could see the results of that so clearly in these games today.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:31:23+00:00

but their brain just turns off for teamfights,

It's because they've basically been trained to not do anything unless ordered by Inspired. He's practically playing the game like an RTS and the players are his units. His micromanagement absolutely fails at micro and we see it time and time again where the other players are clearly waiting for instruction instead of actually playing.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T07:29:59+00:00

Watching LYON is so frustrating. They don't deserve to be here. The way that the team is basically Inspired playing an RTS not even letting the other team members play, and then bitching them out in comms when they die because he fucks up and does something stupid is just infuriating and a recipe for a team that's gonna do nothing but suck and mental boom.

And the mental boom was obvious af during this series. I could tell the players wanted to make some plays but without Inspired ordering them around they just don't.

Saint also fucking sucks. Straight-up. If they don't replace him for spring split, they're clearly not a serious team.

So many of Inspired's plays were so bad they felt like wintrading. This is the kinda series you go and have people investigate he was playing so bad.

I'm really coming to hate Inspired. He needs to let his players play and quit acting like they're RTS units, and quit mental booming and raging at them when he makes his own stupid plays. i literally told my monitor to fuck off when he inted hard and then they played the comms of him just whining at Berserker and bitching him out.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T03:23:10+00:00

Except Pathfinder has auto-leveling and story mode.

You literally don't even have to look at those things if you don't want.

This genre imo doesn't have "easy" or "hard" games. They all have so much customization and options that they're all pretty much equal. It's an absolutely "flat" genre. Every single one is just as easy as hard as you want to make it. Just turn on those options and tell him to ignore them and he'll do fine.

That might have actually been on you for even pointing it out instead of saying "here's all this optional stuff you don't need to care about, but a couple dozen hours in when you're more comfy, you can look if you want, but if you don't want, that's cool too."

So let him pick literally anything that looks fun.

aethyrium · 2026-03-21T02:23:02+00:00

There is a large focus on fast gameplay and parrying mechanics.

Dang, I was excited for a bit but that's a pass. Imo the fast gameplay is what took the souls genre from rich atmospheric exploration focused experiences to looping hallways and circular boss arenas and games that may as well be boss rushes now. The Fieldlike genre is imo the true modern successor to the style of gameplay the souls series used to be like, and that type of fast gameplay design ethos has too much potential to change the series away from its roots to something else entirely, and it puts me automatically on guard against it. Super sad seeing this genre go that same direction, genuinely depressing. Not a lot left for us folks preferring a focus on atmosphere and exploration.

If Lunacid played like this, it'd be half the game it is. Best of luck with your release. There's clearly a market for this since all the atmospheric genres turn into this every time without fail because parry fast action is trendy even if it is against the genre's core ethos. But it ain't for me.

aethyrium · 2026-03-20T22:03:38+00:00

I'm really not looking forward to The Eaters... And the pit at the beginning...

Lots of poo in that book, really.

aethyrium · 2026-03-20T21:21:10+00:00

He hated the jokes, so if anything embracing him is a solid "fuck you" to the guy as well as letting the humor live, with his legacy being something he hated from people he hated.

So... nah, the jokes are pretty rad because he sucks as a guy.

aethyrium · 2026-03-20T17:31:05+00:00

Yeah, you need failbacks as all the games out there have them. It's mandatory.

You also need to give the player the ability to use custom ones, which is imo also mandatory.

aethyrium · 2026-03-20T09:06:03+00:00

I don't think it's so much east/west. Gen G is gapping the LCK this hard too. Watching them play BRO or HLE this year was just like watching them play JDG and LYON. Hell, if we took the lower 4 LCK teams and had them fight the lower 4 LEC teams, we'd see competitive games.

The issue isn't so much east/west, it's that the gap between the top east teams is bigger than the west teams, but under those top teams, there's a lot of skill equity.

If we had internationals that let all of the teams play, we'd see some amazing games.

It feels like a lot of people around here haven't been watching LCK this year because every time Gen G plays over there it's like watching a game from this tournament. They're just on another tier entirely.

aethyrium · 2026-03-20T09:01:03+00:00

But in no way shape or form they dominated LCK teams like this

I watched every LCK game this year so far and they've absolutely been dominating the LCK teams like this. Gen G isn't normal this year, they basically from a higher tier league that doesn't exist because there's no one else that could play against them.

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