Craig H

I really can’t say. I’ve never been so confused by a game before and honestly, it has really, really soured my entire experience. Here’s the problem - You can do what this Remake trilogy is attempting to do, and right now what Rebirth did, in a movie or TV series because you can easily rewatch scenes or the whole thing to pick up on the little giveaways or indicators for where you’re at or to know what’s going on. I looked at my final play time in Rebirth and it was 150 hours or so. That’s probably on the high side for this, but that is a lot of fucking time. I can’t hit a rewind button to go back and try to make sense of anything. You can’t even really save scum to replay things differently because the game only allows 10 save slots and you never know when or where to save in a new slot. I watched maybe an hour of ending explained videos today from folks with the ability to just go back and rewatch everything. So here’s kind of what’s going on… Ultimately, the only thing that is clear is that Cloud isn’t a reliable narrator, duh, and he’s fully lost it. But again when you’re doing that, you don’t know if anything they’re doing or seeing is real. And the game ends without a clear indication for what in the fuck just happened. At its simplest, it just kind of mirrors some of events of the original game, or in other words… I sort of appreciate what was attempted here, it was just done poorly at worst and confusing at best. My biggest takeaway is that I really wish the Remake trilogy sought to completely redo the entire FF7 continuity, like all 9 games or movie or book tie ins, instead of this, which is something akin to Crisis on Infinite FF7s. By going the route they took, they could have made things clearer to players and fans other than relying on…

I beat Rebirth. I’m so fucking confused. And this is coming from someone who has a pretty good understanding of the movie Primer. I really don’t know if it was massively poor writing or what, but I’m towards poor writing.

I know there’s a ratings thread and all and I expected the rating to be lower with it being live on both coasts, but damn, that is really fucking low. Probably still no need to panic yet and I would honestly say keep doing what you’re doing unless this becomes a new floor. Or ceiling…

Fightin’ Cowboy has been streaming FF16 and it has been making me think I should give it another shot…It’s just so on rails though and in a weird way too. I’ve never seen a FF game be so hand holdy and on rails like this. But he’s been enjoying, I already own it, and I’m nearing the end of Rebirth. Speaking of, I’m on Chapter 13 and man does it take some balls, some really stupid balls to bust out the Billions trope of “a few hours earlier.” Not once, not twice, but three times. Also, for those that know what I’m talking about, how in the fuck could that happened several hours earlier?! You come across that point after 15 to 30 minutes of playtime. The game is overstuffed with gimmicks, why add that? Anyway, the area that happens in is pretty cool and then this happened…

Remember when a bunch of folks were saying how AEW was fucked because now people would chant Punk’s name each week? I gotta say, even though I thought it was dumb to show the All In footage, the storyline for showing it was fine, Perry is as over now than at the height of Jurassic Express, again - Jack Perry actually means something now so that’s a feat in and of itself, Kenny is returning next week, and who knows how this all shakes out. For all of the booking corners TK backs himself into, he has a pretty good track record of threading the needle to make things work. Sucks that Hobbs’ knee blew up mid match in maybe his biggest match. Awful timing. All in all a pretty fun AEW that reminded me of the more chaotic, crash tv lite days of the company.

I’m chalking it up to it being a PPV. If she continues to bring it on TV then I’ll be convinced she’s back.

That is now the 5th or 6th time this year alone in AEW where someone tried reversing out of a top rope rana and the other guy ends up falling on his head and I swear it happened to Danielson or Ospreay once already just a couple months ago. Maybe it’s time to tell the wrestlers to cool it on the top rope shit that’s like that.

Jumping out of giant sized Scott’s rotting skull into a Dr. Strange portal. So maybe Wong is involved in this too since he’s been involved in damn near everything else.

I’ve watched this a few times now and just noticed the “Liefeld’s Just Feet” sign. I’m dying.

I’m rock fucking hard.

Hook has gotten much bigger dudes up for suplexes than Jericho. Also, if you’re Jericho, why are you sandbagging someone who is tossing you around. Seems like a good way to risk getting dumped on your head. It’s just weird because like others pointed out, Jericho still gave Hook a lot, like letting him kick out of two Judas Effects, which I don’t think anyone has kicked out of. Then at the same time he straight up looked uncooperative. I don’t get it. Jericho doesn’t need to retire, but he does need another break. This Lionheart run ain’t doing it and he’s looking rough.

Here’s why I thought Jericho vs Hook was straight up awful, even worse than Daddy Ass vs Knife Pervert. To start, there’s simply no reason to even have this feud other than Jericho is a succubus that thinks he’s capable of getting the youngsters over. So that right there is somewhat infuriating. This was an FTR rules match, which is dumb but whatever, but it’s still a no rules match. And it was a no rules match that looked like all of the lame ass, vanilla WWE no rules matches. Cheap trash cans, cheap trash can lids, tables, dumb stuff spray painted on the plunder, kendo sticks, and so on. Like, I don’t think these guys need to go full Nick Gage, but AEW is famous for their wild brawls and this felt like something that the other company would put on. Not to mention…no one juiced? I know we got juice in the tag titles match, but it’s not like AEW hasn’t had multiple matches on one show with people bleeding. The actual moves were just…bad. Watch Hook try to suplex Jericho and then watch Swerve try to suplex Joe. Swerve only suplexed Joe once. Jericho went up like he weighed as much as Joe for EVERY suplex except the flying t-bone, which was pretty fucking cool. And if Jericho wasn’t sandbagging, then it was straight up dangerous at times where Hook doesn’t check his surroundings and nearly kills Jericho on the outside. If he’s a couple inches further in one direction, Jericho isn’t waking up. Then there’s the fake as fuck drama with Jericho doing the “I’m sorry” thing. I get that this is the most subtle heel run in history, there problem is that it just looks hokey. So I’ll admit that it’s probably not the worst match in AEW history because there race been some downright awful women’s matches in the early moneyball era of that division, but it might be the worst AEW PPV match ever. Jericho just looks washed. He looked extra bad last night and it’s pretty clear he’s cycled off of TRT or is hitting the bottle again. While Hook isn’t the greatest wrestler or anything, AEW has something with him and he has the potential to connect with younger fans in a different way than Ospreay is connecting with them. Putting him up against Jericho, doing this 50/50 shit, and having him lose to Jericho is just really bad. Or to put it another way, Hook was hot as fuck to start the year against Joe and looked like he was moving up. Now he’s in Jerichos quicksand and his ceiling is quickly becoming Sammy Guevara.

To add to the craziness, those two matches, one of them being the best match in AEW’s history and maybe in wrestling history, happened on the same show where AEW had their worst match in their history with Jericho vs Hook. Jericho needs to go away on a long vacation and transform himself again.

Ospreay vs Danielson was maybe the best match I’ve ever seen. Off the top of my head I think it was better than Okada vs Omega 2/3 falls or Bucks vs Hangman/Omega. And I started getting that feeling halfway through that match not even knowing there was a whole other half coming. And the craziest thing is that it happened on a night where Okada vs PAC fucking RULED. Dickhead Okada is just the best.

Another weird thing about rebirth is how inconsistent they are at telling you it’s a new chapter. Sometimes it will be obvious a chapter has ended and a new one begins and in the upper left hand corner it displays the chapter number and title of the chapter. Other times you just keep playing and only find out your chapter has changed when you go to save.

Jesus Christ. I finally gave up on all the extra stuff. After spending hours on all of the Gilgamesh bullshit, you get one final job quest to do, which is a brutal difficulty thing with mini games. I tried the one where you go through the 5 rounds of fights like you would in the simulator, got past the guest one easily enough, the second fight of 5 was against 8 or 10 Tonberries. Instant death. Constantly. Even with switching the team to all ranged people. Said fuck it and moved on to the point of no return. The absurd amount of mini games, side quests that get progressively more dull in later chapters, ultra annoying piloting and driving mechanics for the buggy and Tiny Bronco, and more have really soured me on the game. Some of this is self inflicted because I could have mainlined things, but for some of the extra quests and stuff there’s nothing telling you what you’re going to get so you don’t know if you’re going to get a sweet ass weapon or…an ether potion. More often than not the reward was something I had a shit ton of. I had a friend who beat it last week and he goes, “did you ever play the Kingdom Hearts games” and my heart instantly sunk. He was like, yeah, it’s that kind of Japanese video game bullshit, which is worse than Hideo Kojima’s bullshit for me. But who knows, maybe it will be so out there I’ll like it. Shouldn’t be too much longer now.

My wife and I are using “okey dokey” entirely too much.

Regarding who did it, in one of the expansions, or somewhere else, you see logs of who did what. You’re right though, it wouldn’t have been the Institute. I sunk so many hours into the game that I should remember, but it is kinda/sorta spelled out in a submarine you visit.

Finished it. Fucking loved it. More than that, holy shit, my hypothesis was right!!! This was so perfect. It basically felt like FO5. In fact, I have no idea what you even do for the next FO game with the series giving so much information in the first season. It’s just amazing how well they pulled off the humor, look, sound, and really everything about the FO universe. I don’t even know if you can call this an adaption since it’s basically a continuation of the story from the games, but it’s the best game to screen translation ever. I think even better than The Last of Us. I’m definitely going to rewatch this with my wife since she seemed sold by the first episode. There are so many Easter eggs and humorous bits that I want to remember. Finally, props to this whole cast. They’re amazing. I got a big pop out of Johnny Pemberton being in this and now, who knows, he either got the immortality serum or…the FEV. For hilarity’s sake I hope it’s the latter.

It’s honestly one of the best things about AEW where their history matters even if it takes years to get a payoff. Sometimes it would be nice if those payoffs would come sooner because not everyone watching is going to have an encyclopedic knowledge or memory of AEW’s history. Also, earlier when someone posted that Jericho trademarked “Jericho Vortex” I thought it was a joke. And then he said it. Like…Jericho is smart for wrestling. The Jericho booking vortex isn’t a good thing. He should know this. And this Lionheart shit does nothing for me. I honestly miss Judas. I didn’t think the match was that good. To be honest, Deonna has kinda sucked in AEW. Part of me wonders if she works better in a smaller pond like TNA, similar to Brian Cage. And the Mone promo wasn’t bad, but this smoke and mirrors bullshit with her only talking is death by a thousand cuts. Look, if she can’t wrestle, then there was no reason to rush her debut. That is another unforced error in a litany of them for AEW. The toothpaste is out of the tube though, it’s just what they’re doing now with her talking every week isn’t working. The other thing that really, really, really sucks is that the dream was Mone and Britt and Britt’s back sounds beyond fucked up. Second place would be Mone and our queen and savior Jayme Hayter, but she’s also on the shelf with a fucked arm. In a perfect world, this would have worked so much better if Mone could have dueling promos with Britt or have some battles with Hayter. Instead we get…this. So I get Alvarez’s frustration. It’s also hard when you watch WWE and see similar things to be frustrated about there where you have the greatness of one or two particular women’s programs and the rest is just filler. How women’s wrestling turned into a thing where the top two promotions can only afford the bandwidth to have one to two good programs each when both promotions have hours of TV is kinda bullshit. I’m not expecting either to become Stardom lite, but damn, you can do more.

Moxley challenging Hobbs in Jacksonville is a cool callback to the early days/covid days of AEW when Hobbs first hit the scene and looked to be aligning himself with Moxley.

Beanie Sigel's The Truth for Homicide.

Oh. My. God. I took a break from playing just because I felt like shit after my accident and then we went to see the eclipse and the next day we went to one of those water park hotels. The rest of the week last week was spent going to rehab and searching for a new car. So it felt nice to have a break from the game. Then I come back to it today and just when I think it can't get any more annoying, and I'm in chapter 12...

I spent so many hours replaying it when I got notified I was being layed off and basically had nothing to do for 3 months. I can't see myself sinking a ton more time into it again, but it should be good for a bunch of new players coming to it after watching the series.

It was one of those rare moments where I nearly hated the movie and thought it was the most base horseshit, but also thought Phoenix’s performance was really good. I highly doubt I’ll give the sequel the time of day.