What game are you playing?

[Werecow]

Seriously? That seems like a huge mistake with how much content is in games and how something like this, one little paragraph on one little item description, can cause a gigantic backlash, but I guess I'm not surprised they'd try and do that. That sounds like Ubisoft - the way their games all start with showing a message onscreen like "this game was made by a multicultural, multiracial team of people of many different genders", when that might just mean "we had people of all these races/genders all following top-down orders from a couple white guys and no one screened shit."

The token trans character included in-game (which i'm guessing was ordered from higher-ups) is called Sirona, which (apart from the crappy "joke" in the name) is a Celtic diety who's symbol is a snake and eggs. I can't believe anyone innocently managed to come up with that, wrote it, and also went "yep, that's fine" when finalising it.
That combined with the mentioned story elements in the game doesn't really paint a good overall picture.

 

[wankerness]

The token trans character included in-game (which i'm guessing was ordered from higher-ups) is called Sirona, which (apart from the crappy "joke" in the name) is a Celtic diety who's symbol is a snake and eggs. I can't believe anyone innocently managed to come up with that, wrote it, and also went "yep, that's fine" when finalising it.
That combined with the mentioned story elements in the game doesn't really paint a good overall picture.

I looked into this cause I wasn't sure how that was offensive exactly. Like, based on your post I assumed like...a snake and eggs sounds like a clumsy visual symbol for both sets of reproductive organs, or something. But no, I found an actual article complaining about this:

Who Is Sirona Ryan In Hogwarts Legacy, And Why Is She offensive?

The original character Sirona Ryan in Hogwarts Legacy has caused controversy among gamers and fans of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

clutchpoints.com

"While the name itself is feminine, critics emphasized how Sirona’s symbols have always been snakes and eggs, and they see this as a euphemism that the creators of the character still see the person as a male person, in spite of all physical characteristics and the way the character presents herself."

What?? Do male snakes lay eggs? I don't get that paragraph at all.

Also we've got:

"Another criticism comes from the selection of the variant Sirona, instead of the other possible variants of the name like Đirona and Thirona, which critics see as an effort to include the word “Sir” in the name."

The wikipedia article on the goddess is Sirona!!

Sirona - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Additionally, there are plenty of female fantasy character names that start with Sir (Sirenia, Siri, Sireena, etc). People are just going over everything in this game with a fine-toothed comb to attempt to be offended. I am now of the opinion that the Goblin horn thing actually might be a dogwhistle put in there by some malicious actor, but do I think it's part of a broad conspiracy of hatred by the devs and that more than a couple people out of hundreds on the entire production were aware of its offensiveness even if it was actually put in there by some antisemitic dick? No.

I really think this Sirona thing is reaching. And again, what's the actual scenario that the conspiracy theorists are envisioning? Some sinister writer came up with this name, told everyone that worked on the game "hey look at this great way I came up to own the libs who forced us to put a trans character in the game," and then everyone agreed with them and said "hell yeah snake and eggs represent men, and naming them after a Celtic healing goddess will also make sure everyone remembers they used to be a man!!!" Just, jesus christ. I could conceivably imagine the first sentence being the thought process of whoever actually chose the name, as unlikely as it seems, but not that anyone else would have noticed.

This is a GREAT example of why what Ted said should be standard - you need a committee who will go over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure absolutely no one can find anything to complain about culturally. Though I suspect this "Sirona" thing probably would have gotten past them cause it sounds kind of nuts that people are saying "sure they chose a female name, but it's one that sounds like a man name, so it's furthering trans hatred." Ugh.

I can only imagine what these people would find if they were going over like, practically any other videogame ever made trying to be offended at it. Like, basically everything from Japan is a million times more problematic than this seems to be.

Just...like...leave it at "JK Rowling makes money off this so it's problematic since you're funding her talking shit about trans people and giving money to causes that are attempting to discriminate against them." That's actually true and I don't think anyone is going to be able to disagree with that, just choose whether or not they're OK with that. A lot of this other stuff is starting to sound desperate.

 

[CTID]

Just...like...leave it at "JK Rowling makes money off this so it's problematic since you're funding her talking shit about trans people and giving money to causes that are attempting to discriminate against them." That's actually true and I don't think anyone is going to be able to disagree with that, just choose whether or not they're OK with that.

this is generally where i'm at. i haven't delved into the details of what's in the game itself, i'm just put off by the idea of putting money into JKR's pocket, so i'm not going to buy it. my main issue lies with people i know personally who claim to be trans-supportive until it gets in the way of harry potter game, but that's not an issue with anyone on here currently talking about it, as far as i can see at least

 

[Werecow]

I looked into this cause I wasn't sure how that was offensive exactly. Like, based on your post I assumed like...a snake and eggs sounds like a clumsy visual symbol for both sets of reproductive organs, or something. But no, I found an actual article complaining about this:

Who Is Sirona Ryan In Hogwarts Legacy, And Why Is She offensive?

The original character Sirona Ryan in Hogwarts Legacy has caused controversy among gamers and fans of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

clutchpoints.com

"While the name itself is feminine, critics emphasized how Sirona’s symbols have always been snakes and eggs, and they see this as a euphemism that the creators of the character still see the person as a male person, in spite of all physical characteristics and the way the character presents herself."

What?? Do male snakes lay eggs? I don't get that paragraph at all.

Also we've got:

"Another criticism comes from the selection of the variant Sirona, instead of the other possible variants of the name like Đirona and Thirona, which critics see as an effort to include the word “Sir” in the name."

The wikipedia article on the goddess is Sirona!!

Sirona - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Additionally, there are plenty of female fantasy character names that start with Sir (Sirenia, Siri, Sireena, etc). People are just going over everything in this game with a fine-toothed comb to attempt to be offended. I am now of the opinion that the Goblin horn thing actually might be a dogwhistle put in there by some malicious actor, but do I think it's part of a broad conspiracy of hatred by the devs and that more than a couple people out of hundreds on the entire production were aware of its offensiveness even if it was actually put in there by some antisemitic dick? No.

I really think this Sirona thing is reaching. And again, what's the actual scenario that the conspiracy theorists are envisioning? Some sinister writer came up with this name, told everyone that worked on the game "hey look at this great way I came up to own the libs who forced us to put a trans character in the game," and then everyone agreed with them and said "hell yeah snake and eggs represent men, and naming them after a Celtic healing goddess will also make sure everyone remembers they used to be a man!!!" Just, jesus christ. I could conceivably imagine the first sentence being the thought process of whoever actually chose the name, as unlikely as it seems, but not that anyone else would have noticed.

This is a GREAT example of why what Ted said should be standard - you need a committee who will go over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure absolutely no one can find anything to complain about culturally. Though I suspect this "Sirona" thing probably would have gotten past them cause it sounds kind of nuts that people are saying "sure they chose a female name, but it's one that sounds like a man name, so it's furthering trans hatred." Ugh.

I can only imagine what these people would find if they were going over like, practically any other videogame ever made trying to be offended at it. Like, basically everything from Japan is a million times more problematic than this seems to be.

Just...like...leave it at "JK Rowling makes money off this so it's problematic since you're funding her talking shit about trans people and giving money to causes that are attempting to discriminate against them." That's actually true and I don't think anyone is going to be able to disagree with that, just choose whether or not they're OK with that. A lot of this other stuff is starting to sound desperate.

I wasn't suggesting it was some broader conspiracy of hatred by them. But if they wanted to be careful, they could so easily have avoided this whole mess by just thinking, or as suggested having a commitee to oversee their game. Especially when they 100% knew the controversy their game was unavoidably sailing into. This game needed supervision so much more than other games.
A trans character in the game should have had their top most planning and scrutiny so that it could never be seen as anything but a true character in the game, and not some joke amongst some devs, or even possibly worse than that. However it happened, having multiple aspects of the game causing a negative reaction like this isn't a good look.

 

[TedEH]

Seriously?

I mean, I obviously can't speak for every company, maybe some companies really do have teams for that, but I've never run into one yet. Closest I came was a team that had a bespoke accessibility team, and they took up most of that filter-y stuff, but then it wasn't really a narrative game so it didn't need much of a filter. Ended up being mostly making sure nobody could possibly feel excluded. Which mostly ended up meaning any and all references to gender were removed - I'm sure others have noted the trend of making sure all characters are "type 1" and "type 2" and "voice 1" "voice 2" instead of giving them any label. Even the TTS had to be scrubbed of the labels - which were only there because that's now SSML works.

 

[TedEH]

I had been playing Mario+Rabbids 2, but I find that it's a bit on the casual side and doesn't hold my attention for long. I'll finish it, I'm sure, but slowly. There's a few things about it that are kind of grating - namely the voice they gave Beep-O. The little robot that follows you around - wasn't voiced at all in the first game, and I think that worked fine. But the voice they gave the robot is....... I dunno how to describe it. I think they were aiming for "sassy" but they missed the line between sassy and sounding like an asshole. There's an option to turn VO off, but it turns off all VO.

I did, in the mean time, end up firing up Hogwarts out of curiosity. I find the game's performance is kinda off-putting. It has those sort of preset visual settings you get in games now where you pick between "performance" and "visuals" etc. But it kinda goes too extreme. There's a "hfr performance" mode that runs smooth but makes the game look like a potato. Then the "fidelity" mode makes it play like a potato - like it's just unplayable stuttery nonsense in that mode. I'm not exaggerating, I don't think I could play the game that way. It's not a preference, it's objectively bad - it shouldn't have even been included as an option in that state.

For the all of two hours I tried it, it's admittedly hard not to look at everything through the framing of "this is someone's fantasy in particular" where everyone lives comfortably in an ornate fancy castle and the children all mostly behave and really love school work for some reason. But then you run into the odd character that you can tell was jammed in for representational purposes but just went kinda too far - like one of the first students you interact with in a meaningful way (in a sort of mini-game to learn a spell) feels like you're talking to an African stereotype. They made a big point of how she's from Uganda, and the conversation feels like it serves no other point than to say SEE it's not juuuuust well behaved white people in a fancy castle. Maybe I'm reading into it too far. I probably am reading into it too far. But the context the game came out in is going to inevitably colour how people will frame the content of the game - and people can debate the nuts and bolts of the details of the game and what they think it means etc etc until they're blue in the face - but the game will never be able to escape that framing, whether it actually does anything objectionable or not. If it hadn't been a Harry Potter game, I probably wouldn't have thought twice about "why was this character included" etc. But then I feel like I have to keep myself in check so that I'm not looking for things that aren't there. It's weird.

I almost kinda want to play the game, not because I expect it'll be a good game, but because I think it's a significant game that people will be talking about for a while. Maybe I'll reach the end of the game and my perspective will change. Or I won't care anymore. I have no idea.

 

[Werecow]

I had to start my Prey game over. Had a glitch where the overall world state was late-game from my previous playthrough. I thought some of the loot was sparse, but then some of the end-game enemies were suddenly hanging out in the main lobby during my first exploration of it.
Deleting all saves from in the game and choosing "new game" from the main menu doesn't always delete the temporary map files apparently. Annoying.

Still trying to get a perfect fight on Gyoubu in Sekiro. I've managed a perfect on each individual phases of him, just not in a row yet.

 

[StevenC]

I had been playing Mario+Rabbids 2, but I find that it's a bit on the casual side and doesn't hold my attention for long. I'll finish it, I'm sure, but slowly. There's a few things about it that are kind of grating - namely the voice they gave Beep-O. The little robot that follows you around - wasn't voiced at all in the first game, and I think that worked fine. But the voice they gave the robot is....... I dunno how to describe it. I think they were aiming for "sassy" but they missed the line between sassy and sounding like an asshole. There's an option to turn VO off, but it turns off all VO.

I really enjoyed Mario+Rabbids 2, but I absolutely agree that the Beep-O voice was an abysmal choice. Especially in relation to the noises they made in the original game. I played the first half or so with VO off, but after a while got annoyed at missing out on the casual VO in fights so I endured Beep-O for the rest. But wow, I'll never understand that decision.

Very different game to the original. Being less puzzle box-y makes it a whole lot easier imo because there are just countless more winning outcomes to fights, and I don't like the progression system as much as the original either. New characters are fun though.

 

[TedEH]

I'll never understand that decision

There's a lot of design decisions in the game that I don't understand, or think were a bit of a swing-and-miss. With some thought, my best guess is that some of the old designs got cut in order to fit some of the more ambitious new stuff, like it's weird to me that the battles aren't embedded in the overworld like before, but maybe there's some giant maps later that couldn't have fit that model. I still haven't gotten far, but maybe it'll make more sense as I go on.

Some of it though, is just nonsensical. Like there's a lot of added UI "juice", but sometimes you just have to wait for arbitrary times after an animation is done in order to continue. The "feed your spark monster star bits" or whatever is really bad for that. It should be a quick click through, but it taaaakes soooo loooong for nothing.

 

[StevenC]

There's a lot of design decisions in the game that I don't understand, or think were a bit of a swing-and-miss. With some thought, my best guess is that some of the old designs got cut in order to fit some of the more ambitious new stuff, like it's weird to me that the battles aren't embedded in the overworld like before, but maybe there's some giant maps later that couldn't have fit that model. I still haven't gotten far, but maybe it'll make more sense as I go on.

Some of it though, is just nonsensical. Like there's a lot of added UI "juice", but sometimes you just have to wait for arbitrary times after an animation is done in order to continue. The "feed your spark monster star bits" or whatever is really bad for that. It should be a quick click through, but it taaaakes soooo loooong for nothing.

I think they got rid of the integrated maps because the game focuses less on the episodic progression of the first and has the mission structure. So instead we get all these filler missions about killing 3 of this enemy and nonsense like that to bad the completion. And I guess the collectathon elements are slightly improved for this style but I don't know if that was a good idea. The areas are certainly less memorable as a result, and to be honest it makes some of them a bit tedious to backtrack to collect the last thing.

The damn spark feeding animation, and it auto feeds them extra until they're full if you don't cancel too, so you can't give them just what would get them to the next level.

Anyway, I mostly got to 100%ish but I can't remember exactly. There was typically a mission on each stage that I couldn't even find after collecting everything else, and they were too tedious to look up anywhere to finish. But overall the game is probably 3 times as long as the first game despite being easier.

I'm excited for the expansion whenever that happens.

 

[wankerness]

I finished Lost Judgment's main plot. As usual, the climax goes a bit overboard with the sheer volume of enemies you have to beat. But overall, I really think this is one of the stronger entries in the whole Yakuza series. The story's too complicated as usual, but it does keep you centered on the villain and morally gray character and the climax properly pays it all off. There aren't really any last act crazy revelations, it all kinda works dramatically and the standard Yakuza schmaltz that gets injected here and there works pretty well.

It has TOO MUCH to do in terms of side activities, but a ton of the sidequests are good and I liked several of those side activities. And the main plot is great. It's a bit more personal than the usual Yakuza super complex conspiracy criminal/government plots, but still definitely blows up into nutty intrigue if that's what you like. And it does that thing where it brings in minor characters from the beginning of the game to have their moments in the last act, and it's great. I'm fully back onboard the Yakuza train after loathing Judgment. The combat's wayyy better than the first Judgment - three of the fighting styles are actually good and fun to play as, while in the first game only one of the two available was remotely viable. The boxing stance is kind of overpowered if you buy the expensive counter moves, but hey, it sure worked a charm on the cheap last couple bosses.

Now, unfortunately, I need to beat the Biker Gang quest chain. I'm amused by the story, but I hate the minigame - you have to make a bunch of enemy bikers crash and then beat their leader in a race. However, it has the same idiotic "rubberbanding" racing game AI you see in games like Mario Kart or Yakuza 7, where no matter what you do or how fast you go, the computer will "rubberband to you" and periodically boost past you, so it becomes a crapshoot as to whether they'll boost in front of you right before the finish line since there's no possible way you can get a big lead on them. I just turned the difficulty down to the easiest setting to get through it, cause there's a LOT of races and you have to go through the whole "destroy enemy bikers for 5 minutes" part of the race before getting to the 30 seconds of actual race every single time you fail. I just boost till I catch up, then sit on four boosts and use all four of them in a row as soon as I get to the finish line. Seems to work, but it's a crappy minigame. And there are way too many events - seems to be you fight 3 underlings before fighting the leader of the gang, and there are three gangs, and then there are two big boss guys. I don't feel bad about decreasing the difficulty at all!! I'm only doing this cause I did all the other school stories and the actual story plot behind the Mystery Club is locked behind completing all other school stories first, and I want to see it through. Normal difficulty was fine for the entire rest of the game, though I did have to abuse food on the last couple fights cause some of the enemy damage was totally out of control with how hard it was to evade in the huge group battles.

I feel like I need to at least check out the Gauntlet mode, even though it probably sucks like the arenas always do in these games (besides 7). And I'll check out the Kaito DLC, cause I really do love him as a character and if the DLC is even remotely fun gameplay wise it should be a good time.

I think I might play Diablo 2 once I'm done with this. Either that or Steel Rising.

 

[TedEH]

Diablo 2

I'm pretty tempted to try the remake at some point. I actually have the original installed on my home PC right now but the low resolution makes it jaaaaaaanky to run and Windows 11 hates it. It technically works, though.

 

[wankerness]

I'm pretty tempted to try the remake at some point. I actually have the original installed on my home PC right now but the low resolution makes it jaaaaaaanky to run and Windows 11 hates it. It technically works, though.

I got it on console, even though universally everyone says "play it on PC!!!" I'm not convinced my PC's able to run it well enough for it to be fun. I've heard you pretty much need to play as a melee character to have a good time on console, it's not like Diablo 3 where it plays amazingly well on console. I'll have to look up some general build ideas before starting. I've never played the original, but I did get Diablo 3 on launch, suffered through its terrible 1.0 version and all the real money auction house crap and the miserable drop rates, and played it on and off over the years as it turned into an actually good game. So I should be somewhat resistant to janky gameplay and bad drop rates like I think are part of the Diablo 2 experience.

 

[TedEH]

Yeh, honestly, the fact that it's always been, in my mind, a PC game is what keeps me from diving in right away. I can get it cheap on a PS5, but I have trouble imagining playing it with a controller. I think part of the draw for me is that this is a game that had stuff like random drops and procedural maps, but it was back when those things were done for fun instead of being tuned to hook you into a loop. I kinda worry about how much the remake might have been re-tuned a little "better" for that modern understanding of those features.

 

[Werecow]

I'm pretty tempted to try the remake at some point. I actually have the original installed on my home PC right now but the low resolution makes it jaaaaaaanky to run and Windows 11 hates it. It technically works, though.

GitHub - bolrog/d2dx: D2DX is a complete solution to make Diablo II run well on modern PCs, with high fps and better resolutions.

D2DX is a complete solution to make Diablo II run well on modern PCs, with high fps and better resolutions. - GitHub - bolrog/d2dx: D2DX is a complete solution to make Diablo II run well on modern ...

github.com

Other unofficial patches and fixes here https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Diablo_II

 

[wankerness]

Isn't the new release of Diablo II like a complete remake with all new graphics and stuff? I certainly think getting the original to run is a good idea if you like the original, but there'd still be reason to check out the new version if it's got really nice new graphics I think.

Most complaints I was seeing about it related to multiplayer support being garbage compared to the original.

 

[Werecow]

I've started Diablo 2 three times i think. I just have to choose Wizard or whatever the magic user class is in RPGs. Each time i got to the boss where you enter a cave, and he's pretty much the same size as the interior of the cave with barely room to walk past him, and he just one-shots me pretty much. I remember trying to farm for a while for him too, but same result. No idea if i was doing anything wrong or if it's just really difficult for the class.

 

[TedEH]

Isn't the new release of Diablo II like a complete remake with all new graphics and stuff? I certainly think getting the original to run is a good idea if you like the original, but there'd still be reason to check out the new version if it's got really nice new graphics I think.

If I knew for sure it's only a graphical overhaul, and I could get it at the same price as I could get on PS5, I'm sure I'd do it right away. I think my level of interest isn't high enough at the moment to really dig into the options.

 

[wankerness]

If I knew for sure it's only a graphical overhaul, and I could get it at the same price as I could get on PS5, I'm sure I'd do it right away. I think my level of interest isn't high enough at the moment to really dig into the options.

This is me being ignorant of the original, but I'd always been under the impression that respeccing your character in the original was impossible, and I know it's possible here in the remake (a limited number of times per character). I don't know if they made other gameplay changes, but that's a big one for someone that hates being locked in when trying to experiment. Unless that was an option in the original too and I just had bad info.

 

[AwakenTheSkies]

Got Uncharted on PC, makes my GPU model in particular crash. Fuckkkkk

Still waiting for them to fix Uncharted on PC...😞😞

Still no fix. 😵‍💫🤮