Lurker > Underleveled

Iraida is sweet but her elimination was long overdue.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

Man, Danny still sucks.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

A little thing I was thinking about today... the most forced-positive edits in Survivor history. In other words, people who were shoved down the audience's throat as being likable or rootable, despite plenty of indication that they were actually playing a villainous game or were a mean or confrontational person.

Without thinking about it too too hard, this is what I came up with as a top 10:
10. Vytas Baskauskas (Blood vs. Water)
9. Ozzy Lusth (Cook Islands)
8. Denise Martin (China)
7. Terry Deitz (Exile Island)
6. Jessica "Sugar" Kiper (Gabon)
5. Mike Holloway (Worlds Apart)
4. Jane Bright (Nicaragua)
3. Spencer Bledsoe (Cagayan & Cambodia)
2. Ben Driebergen (Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers)
1. Rick Devens (Edge of Extinction)

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

Early in the episode I thought it would be Sarah's boot episode because of her suddenly getting personal focus. Definitely surprising to see Iraida take out two big female characters back to back. I was surprised to see/hear about what Scott was like as a child. Definitely makes me dislike him less, but also leaves me with absolutely zero doubt he wins now. Also, last season the penultimate episode was just the team tiebreaker. Very surprised they are going to do the F5 individual comp next week too.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

@The_Mana_Sword are you still watching TAR? Haven't heard an update in a while.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

Additional thoughs:

I'm also surprised Merryl is gone because I thought she was going to make the finale and maybe even win. I'm also realizing that if she hadn't told Swifty that he was putting oranges in Iraida's boxes, there's a good chance she would have gone into overtime with him or avoided it altogether, and if she had faced him she probably would have won due to his foot injury. She kinda got screwed for being honest.

But at this point I'd be stunned if Scott didn't win. He's getting the Type A Generic McWhitedude edit with juuuust enough personality and flaws to make us believe he's a real person and not a manifestation of CBS's wet dream.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

I was actually going to post the exact same thoughts, to the letter. It was the weirdest finish so far.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

Bayonetta (Wii U)
Bought this (with Bayonetta 2, obviously) on launch date back on October 24, 2014. I apparently played up to Chapter 6 back then. Finally went back to play through the game once and for all, since I have had my Wii U hooked up. So let's talk about it, huh?

Wow. To say that I was even remotely good at this game would be giving my self infinitely more credit than I deserved. I was awful. I died constantly. I had to use items constantly (beginning in Chapter 5 when I figured out how to use them). I got almost all stone awards, with three bronzes and a silver in the prologue. While I definitely figured out some good techniques and combos, a lot of the time I felt like I was just mindlessly mashing buttons. I was very thankful that they offered checkpoints even on the bosses. I don't think I ever would have beaten a couple of them without them, like the final Jeanne battle. And that final boss? I cursed up an absolute storm on that thing I died so many times (I found it very difficult to dodge the attack that turned you into the baby). Frankly, going in I wasn't sure I was even going to be able to finish. My history with finishing games, especially ones known for above-average difficulty, is pretty poor. But hey, I beat it, right? Somehow, someway, I mustered it up and finished it up. Surprisingly my time was almost right on par (HowLongToBeat suggests about 12 hours for a standard first-time playthrough, I was just under 13 hours). But enough about how much I suck as a gamer. How was the game?

Well it was quite fun! I really enjoyed the nonstop battles with very little cooldown time (basically just enough to get to a slightly new location). It was a thrill each time I dodged perfectly to get Witch Time so I could go kick the crap out of the thing I just dodged. I really enjoyed the big, nasty, ugly-as-sin and unrelenting bosses. It was a joy to destroy them with a climax and watch them get ultra-violently sent back to hell where they belong.

I loved the visuals (and I DON'T just mean Bayonetta). I actually thought the scenery and level design was really great. The characters were mostly pretty great. Bayonetta, Jeanne and Luka were fantastic, and I really liked the writing for all three. Actually the writing and humor in general was pretty good. Loved all the sexual innuendos. Crazy to think this is basically a Nintendo series now, huh? The villain was eh and the baby got annoying at times. I was disappointed that Enzo and Rodin didn't have larger roles.

I'm generally not a fan of boss rushes near the end of games. They feel kinda lazy, redundant, and particularly frustrating if there's a boss you struggle with and now have to face it all over again. And it wasn't any better than usual in this one. Specifically, I despised the part with the falling tiles. That was torture, especially since my worst boss (save the two endgame bosses I mentioned in the second paragraph) was at the top with no checkpoint before the fight. So that's a complaint.

But minor complaints and my lack of gaming skills aside, the game was great. I'm glad I finally played through it and it feels like a very satisfying win. Although I want to take a break with some different games, I will absolutely be playing Bayonetta 2 (and 3 when it comes out).

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 18; Most recent - Bayonetta

Anyway my prediction going forward...

Knuckles and Iraida will be the next two out (before tonight I would have said Freight Train with them as next three out anyway). Of the five left, I don't see Sarah winning or even making the final three. Between the four remaining I could see any winning but in order of likelihood, Scott > Zeus > Merryl > Swifty.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

Yeesh, Tough as Nails has been a trainwreck. two medivacs and an ejection, plus my favorite is already out of the individual competition.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

One thing I predicted/hoped would happen was that Desmond would turn Claire back from being evil/whatever by reading her Charlie's Greatest Hits. Such a missed opportunity.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

Centurion posted...

Like the first two versions of Funny 115 were amazing to read but it's such a slog to read any entry on the current edition.

I think there are two big reasons for this.

First, with a couple of exceptions, the stretch of Survivor that this list focuses on was notoriously awful.

Second, somewhere during this stretch was when the show's editing began to shift its focus from characters to gameplay, and thus it got a lot less funny, and so he feels more compelled to go into greater detail justifying certain entries, usually involving dropping references that are in fact much funnier than the actual moment.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

Kenri posted...

Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! (via Spyro Reignited Trilogy, PS4)

So this game sucks. Spyro 1 felt awesome and timeless. This feels like something made a decade later by a lesser team that fails to understand why the original was good. I kind of can't believe this was the direct, immediate sequel to Spyro 1. I'd rather play Spyro on the GBA!

Also, not really a knock on its quality but even as someone who likes (prefers, maybe) all-ages games, this just felt like a kid's game. Between the slapstick "humor" and the dumbass NPCs it was almost embarrassing to play.

I was planning to 100% this whole trilogy but I'm definitely not 100%ing this game. I think I could tolerate getting all gems/orbs and all achievements, but the skill points are too much for a game I don't like. We'll see how Spyro 3 is, whenever I decide to get to it. Sorry if I'm bashing anyone's favorite game here!

I couldn't disagree more, I thought Spyro 2 was a huge improvement over Spyro 1, having just played both within this topic as well.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

Ugh

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

Yoshi's Woolly World (Wii U)
I bought this when it was released, mostly for the amiibo that came with it, but never played it. I intended to at some point, but I never did. Now I finally did. And it was a very refreshing 2D platformer after the crap that was Zip Lash.

I haven't played too many Yoshi games. I've played Yoshi's Story, and a little bit of Yoshi's Island, but that's it before this. Largely because I hate Yoshi's signature jump. But I didn't mind it too much in this one, and it's making me wonder if I should give some of the other games in the series a chance. The scenery was nice, the level design was great, the yarn gimmick was used just as well here as it was in Kirby's Epic Yarn, and, most of all, the music was phenomenal. I might like to get this soundtrack. It was just so happy it warmed my heart.

The difficulty curve was pretty much perfect. The first three worlds were very easy, the fourth, fifth, and first half of the sixth world were tricky, and the second half of the sixth world was actually very tough. I actually got a bit frustrated with the last few levels.

I didn't get a lot of the collectibles. This is something I might go back and try to complete some more of someday, but it's not on my radar right now. Part of the reason for that has to do with my biggest complaint with the game - a lot of the time, there was simply too much to do between checkpoints. There could be a ton of collectibles way out of the way, and then if you you died before another checkpoint, that was a lot to do all over again. Another minor complaint I have is that if you struggle with a level, that is, die more than like twice, the game starts bugging you to see if you want to put it on babby mode, which is kind of insulting and just adds to the frustration.

Overall, while this was certainly no masterpiece, it was cute and I'm glad I played it. It certainly has me wanting to play Crafted World, if not some of the others in the series.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 17; Most recent - Yoshi's Woolly World

I gotta say, I generally agree with, or at the very least respect, the opinions of Mario Lanza, but his obsession with Dan Foley and insistence that he's one of the greatest characters in Survivor history is just..... gross.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Perfection.

1. James "Sawyer" Ford
2. Desmond Hume
3. Charlie Pace
4. Juliet Burke
5. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. Benjamin Linus
8. Alex Rousseau
9. Miles Straum
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. Sayid Jarrah
12. Frank Lapidus
13. John Locke
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. Rose Nadler
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. Christian Shephard
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. Bernard Nadler
24. The Man in Black
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

So since I forgot to mention it before while we were on the subject (but still has to do with characters living/dying), I'd like to take this time to point out a false spoiler I went through the series believing.

When I first found out that the Weezer album Hurley was named after a character on LOST, I decided to just take a quick look at pics of the character. And when typed "lost hurley" into the Google search bar, one of the autofill options was "lost hurley death" and so I went through the entire series believing that Hurley would die at some point. Obviously I was very surprised to find out his actual fate.

Of course, it seems like for most epic-type media that has a large cast and a lot of deaths, "death" is a top autofill option for most characters, even ones that live. Including LOST.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

On Tiermaker, the sitewide consensus tier (based on 179 lists) is:

S: Sawyer, Desmond, Hurley, Locke, Sayid, Charlie, Jin, Ben
A: Jack, Sun, Vincent, Juliet, Kate, Faraday, Eko, Richard, Claire
B: Miles, Danielle, Boone, Frank, Shannon, Alex, Rose, Ana-Lucia
C: Penny, Walt, Libby, Michael, Bernard, Christian, Jacob, Charlotte, MIB
D: Widmore, Tom, Eloise, Keamy, Ilana, Paulo, Nikki

Obviously some very questionable placements on there, and a lot of differences from our group's opinions, but the top 2 are identical.

Also compared to our selection it excludes Dr. Chang but adds Vincent and Tom.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

I'd also say that Ben evolved from a straight-up villain in the early seasons to more of an anti-hero in the later seasons.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Congrats, your top 2 are my top 2. Now let's see if you get the order right.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Anyway, your top 3 represent my #1, 2 and 7, so good job.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Locke is an absolutely fascinating character, and Terry O'Quinn's performance is phenomenal - EASILY top 3 in the series. And I can't help but feel at least a little bad for a guy that the universe collectively took a lifelong crap on from the womb to the grave. But it also got annoying just how many deaths and otherwise awful situations he was directly responsible for out of his obsessive need to be "special."

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

GameStonk posted...

ask someone who never watched LOST to pick out a character and I guarantee you they choose Hurley.

This was me before I watched through the show, but almost entirely because of Weezer.

I do like how you slipped the word "rotund" into his write-up. Nice little reference to a tiny moment that really sticks out to me.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

I think those four plus Hurley is a pretty standard top 5.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

1. ???
2. ???
3. Charlie Pace
4. Juliet Burke
5. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. ???
8. Alex Rousseau
9. Miles Straum
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. Sayid Jarrah
12. Frank Lapidus
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. Rose Nadler
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. Bernard Nadler
24. The Man in Black
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

Prediction: Desmond > Linus > Locke > Sawyer > Christian

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

S2 Charlie definitely has some bad episodes, but S1 and S3 Charlie are so so so so amazing.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

GameStonk posted...

It's so incredibly rude but all the more enjoyable because we know that Hurley is one of his better friends on the Island.

One of my favorite exchanges happens shortly after Miles's introduction. Miles calls Hurley "tubby" or something before even knowing his name and Hurley just sighs, "Great, another Sawyer." Which is exactly what I was thinking.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

GameStonk posted...

Also Miles is a surviving minority!

I did point this out.

Underleveled posted...

Otherwise who was the most significant non-white character that survived the series? Probably Miles, right?

I have Miles on the lower side of my top 10 (can't check my list right now but I think he's 9th) but after reading your write up I actually appreciate him even more and would probably bump him up a few spots. Easily the best character to be introduced in the back half of the series, and one of the few characters who didn't either die and/or get totally ruined in S6.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

I apologize for rolling the ball on that conversation and that's all I'll say about it so as to not reignite it.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

We did more yesterday than I anticipated!

1. ???
2. ???
3. ???
4. Juliet Burke
5. ???
6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. ???
8. Alex Rousseau
9. ???
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. Sayid Jarrah
12. Frank Lapidus
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. Rose Nadler
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. Bernard Nadler
24. ???
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

I remember Naomi and considered arguing for her inclusion on the list but decided not to when we already failed to convince him that Ethan and Tom were worthy.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Rose and Bernard never being added to the main cast when Ilana, Nikki and Paulo got to have that distinction was criminal btw.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

andylt posted...

Hmm, who's left anyway? Desmond #1, Sawyer, Ben, Locke, Hurley, Charlie, Miles, Rose+Bernard... jeez who the heck am I forgetting?!

Christian and the Man in Black.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Season 6 (and to a lesser degree season 5) destroyed Sayid for me. He would have been top 10 easily, teetering on top 5, for seasons 1-4, but I can't put him in there after those last two seasons.

Further argument that the show should have ended with season 4 and gotten everyone off the island on the freighter.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Given who's left, I'm predicting Desmond, Hurley, Ben, Locke, and Sawyer are the top 5, in no particular order.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

And I jinxed it. My top 5 has been penetrated.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

6. Jin-Soo Kwon
7. ???
8. Alex Rousseau
9. ???
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. ???
12. Frank Lapidus
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. ???
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. ???
24. ???
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

We've finally cut further into my top 10, but my top 5 remains intact.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

andylt posted...

(not to mention how they iced all the major non-white characters left in one go).

Oof, this thought never occurred to me. Hurley was BIPOC though. Otherwise who was the most significant non-white character that survived the series? Probably Miles, right?

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Doesn't he have like five lines in the last season or some ridiculous number?

There's a YouTube video of the extent of his screen time in the final season and it's hilariously short. Even more ridiculous- that was the season when his actor, Jeff Fahey, was finally billed as main cast instead of a guest star.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Well I got it to not freeze but I'm still having significant performance issues, especially input lag, which is causing me to mess up frequently. As a result, a game specifically designed to be easy and frustration-free is frustrating to me. Because of course. It was definitely a huge mistake to jump and gun and get this on PC when if I had waited, I could have gotten it for the same price on PS4 and probably be having a lot of fun playing it right now. Needless to say, I won't be finishing this game. Now or likely ever. I am disappointed, especially since I had planned my day/night around playing through this tonight, but it isn't the game's fault. Sorry to whoever nominated it. I was genuinely interested.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Okay, I regret buying GRIS on PC. Literally soft locked my computer in the opening cutscene. No way I'm gonna be able to play this, certainly not by midnight. What a waste.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

andylt posted...

Going back to the Flash-sideways conversation, the worst thing in the end was David. Like what the hell is he?!

Is that Jack/Juliet's son? Because yeah, his existence literally makes no sense.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

8. Alex Rousseau
9. ???
10. Sun-Hwa Kwon
11. ???
12. ???
13. ???
14. Danielle Rousseau
15. Penny Widmore
16. Jack Shephard
17. ???
18. Daniel Faraday
19. Ana-Lucia Cortez
20. ???
21. Kate Austen
22. Richard Alpert
23. ???
24. ???
25. Mr. Eko
26. Michael Dawson
27. Eloise Hawking
28. Jacob
29. Charles Widmore
30. Walt Lloyd
31. Claire Littleton
32. Pierre Chang
33. Libby Smith
34. Charlotte Lewis
35. Ilana Verdanksy
36. Shannon Rutherford
37. Boone Carlyle
38. Martin Keamy
39. Paulo
40. Nikki Fernandez

I may have argued for Keamy's inclusion on this list, but that doesn't mean I like him. If you're selecting the 40 most important characters from the show's run, he ought to be on there. But I hate the guy. He infuriated me for every second he was on screen, and I know that that makes him an objectively successful character and an effective villain but here's my logic - Dolores Umbridge infuriated me for every second she was present, and that was the point of her character. I still have her dead last on my Harry Potter ranking because she's just one of those people that I can't bring myself to even appreciate as a good villain. Keamy is the same type of person for me.

Man, I thought that my list was top-heavy for the men, but only two women in your top 15?! And one of them is paired with a man (I think we all know that the woman carried that duo though, and she's the higher of the two on my list, with a few spots separating them to boot). Not that that's your fault. It's already been said, this show sucked at creating compelling female characters.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

I was expecting Rose & Bernard next. I suspect they're still soon.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

GRIS seems beatable in a night so I'm going for it tonight.

---

darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

ffmasterjose posted...

On this day 13 years ago the best episode of the series, The Constant, first aired.

FTFY

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash (3DS)
Ugh... this one was rough, but I was determined to finally get it out of my backlog after all these years so here comes the rant. I bought this when it came out (primarily for the amiibo that came with it), played through roughly two thirds of the game and honestly I remember kinda liking it. I didn't finish it because, well, I probably got distracted and, despite having gotten better in 2014, am still not that great at finishing games. Fast forward to a few weeks ago when there was a topic asking what the worst spin-offs ever were. This got listed, and I said that I remembered it being fine, and didn't realize it was hated. I finally went back and did a full playthrough and... yeah that "fine" comment does not hold up.

The game is a mess. The controls are awful. Moving Chibi-Robo feels very stiff, but attacking feels very sloppy. You have two different types of lashes that you can use - the whip lash and the zip lash. The whip lash is short and can only be shot out straight forward or at a 45 degree angle upward. So in order to hit anything you're going to be doing a lot of moving and jumping to get it exactly right, because the margin of error it allows is very slim. The zip lash can be build up much longer and has a full 360 degree range, but it takes a long time to charge and the aim is so sensitive that even the slightest tilt will send your cursor way off from where you want it to be. There are times when the whop lash is clearly the better option and the zip lash is literally the only option, but otherwise it's pick your poison. There are a lot of places where you have to be so precise, particularly bouncing the zip lash through narrow areas, and it will take you a lot of trial and error to get it to go exactly where you need it to. It's awful.

There's a mechanic called the Destination Wheel, and it's literally the worst progression mechanic in the history of gaming, I'm not even exaggerating. At the end of every level, you encounter a dumb minigame where you have to hit one of three UFOs. Depending on which UFO you hit, you get one, two, or three chances to spin the Destination Wheel after the level to determine which level you go to next. This is completely pointless and only serves to frustrate you, because you HAVE to complete every level in each world in order to progress to the world boss and ultimately the next world, so there's literally no reason to want to skip levels and thus no reason to ever want to get anything other than a 1 on the Destination Wheel. If you skip a level you have to go all the way around the world board again and will likely end up having to repeat levels you've already done. It's awful. Luckily the wheel is really easy to manipulate and if you're paying attention you can always get it to land on what you want (and if you aren't good you can spend coins to manipulate it further), so all it really is is a humongous waste of time that you have to go through after every. Single. Level.

Which brings me to my next point. The humongous waste of time that you have to go through after every. Single. Level. There is a whole rigmarole that you have to go through after every single level that you can't skip. You can mash the A button through it showing you all your frigging stats of the level, but you can't skip the nearly-identical cutscenes that take place after every level. Then there's the fact that the characters in this game never, ever shut up. And it's not like they have anything important to say. They either ramble on about stuff you should already know if you fail a level, repeat the same stuff before and after every level, or meander on about the most pointless crap that has ever been written into a game. And you can't skip through the text by pressing or holding the A button. You have to watch each and every letter appear and then wait a second or two before pressing the A button to move onto the next useless rant.

And speaking of wasting time, the endgame requires you to buy (with in-game coins) four huge, expensive items to fight the final boss with. There's no reason you should have to spend coins on these items, and it doesn't even make sense canonically. There's no warning that you'll have to use your coins this way at the end of the game, and I only had about 2/3 of the required coins. And I was pretty diligent about collecting every coin I saw, and didn't spend that many going through the game, so this was a huge flaw that meant that I had to go back and find levels that I could actually tolerate replaying in order to get enough coins to finish the game. Just when I thought I was about to finish this piece of crap, I had to, through little fault of my own, spend several extra hours (yes, hours) going back and redoing crap I'd already done. Between this and all the unskippable stupid stuff I mentioned earlier, I'd estimate that this game was at least four hours longer than it needed to be, which I blame for me not having the game to beat nine games again this month.

And now for me to complain about the product placement. Yes, there is product placement in this piece of crap. Mostly second-tier snacks and candy. The kind you've seen at the grocery store but never buy when it's right next to the better brand that's like 5 cents more expensive. Like Utz Potato Chips. And global equivalents. These served no purpose in-game other than to waste time when you found them with a dumb, unskippable cutscene and to be given to creepy dolls that never shut up for coins. It was so stupid and there was no reason for it to ever be in this game.

There's also a minigame that appears on almost every level, and it's usually right out in the open and you'll see it easily along your travels, but in the first level of the game, it's hidden far out of the way, and if you don't activate it in the first level, it'll never activate in any of the other levels, so I went through the entire game (until I went back and replayed the first level for coins) having no idea what the heck this thing was for in every level. The minigame was also stupid and annoying and barely worth the prize.

And you know the worst part about all this? Every now and then, I actually started to have fun playing this game. Crazy, right? I actually got into a bit of a groove, sometimes for a few levels at a time, where I thought there were some pretty decent platforming and puzzles, and started to enjoy myself and think that I hadn't given this game a fair shot, until something stupid came along again that made me realize, nope, it's as bad as I thought. The skateboarding (and other similar vehicular levels) are particularly bad because they are long, challenging, have no checkpoints, and allow very little room for error, which is fine, until you realize that the vehicles themselves are just as difficult to control as anything else in the game, and you have to go through a bunch of crap each time you fail it and try to start again. It's so unbelievably frustrating. All of this makes me sad that there is actually some semblance of a decent 2D platformer here, but the bad stuff is just so excruciatingly awful that it is not worth it at all.

Overall my experience with this game was very negative. It's not the worst game I've ever beaten, but it's probably bottom 5, if not then definitely bottom 10. Given that there are countless much better similar games, many of which are on the 3DS itself, I cannot recommend this game to anyone.

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 16; Most recent - Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash

Tomorrow (I guess technically today now) I'm finally going to be adding one of the worst games I've ever beaten to this list. (The fact that I didn't beat it Wednesday and have now had to play several extra hours of stuff I've already done before going to the final boss through little to no fault of my own is getting me frustrated enough that I might just smash the game instead)

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 15; Most recent - Horizon: Zero Dawn

I guess I'll give a hint - it's not someone that was in Season 1 (at all).

Also, the remaining 8 of my top 10 consist of
Four characters introduced in S1
Two characters introduced in S2
One character introduced in S3
One character introduced in S4

(these are the seasons that they made their debut appearances, not necessarily the seasons in which they were added to the main cast, and all of them were main cast at some point)

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darkx
Games beaten in 2021 - 15; Most recent - Horizon: Zero Dawn