NoFistsJustFlips

The similarities to this lawsuit / rights fess in the current wrestling landscape are pretty obvious. The WWE Network originally, and now Peacock, don't give away free access to live viewings of Raw & Smackdown. Why is that? Because the rights fees are valuable. If Sunday Ticket is $70. And you have the option of going even cheaper to get just your teams games, the rights fees bubble will burst. Why are Fox & CBS going to pay billions when the average viewer can just buy Sunday Ticket? While yes the broadcasting networks are still the ones sending out the signals, Sunday Ticket sells their own ads. In the DTV days and even now on YTV when the game goes to a break they replace the ad breaks with their own ads. If Fox & CBS all of a sudden see a large decrease in viewers because people are watching the SDT feeds, then they are losing major ad revenue. The whole bubble bursts and the rights fees drop out (not completely, but to a significant degree). Fox & CBS get way less for ads getting show to way less viewers, The NFL gets way less money for their rights fees. The financial realities are we have only two options. One with Sunday Ticket (at it's current price point to make it niche), and another where Sunday Ticket just goes away entirely. I'd love a $70 Sunday Ticket. Or a $50 NY Giants only package or whatever. But it's not realistic. The financial viability of profit margins are going to force the NFL's hand if they lose. It's either this or nothing. Capitalism and all that.

End game thoughts...

Thought I got my Rebirth soft locked at 135 hours and was about to go ballistic. In chapter 13 I didn't have enough prayer juice because one of the crystals you break spawned on a railing and couldn't be broken. Back tracked about 5 times looking for missing particles and nothing. Decided to save and back out and reload and luckily when I reloaded the crystal was broken and the prayer juice was just sitting there. Haven't finished the chapter yet but not a fan of the temple of the ancients gimmicks and bullshit so far.

The resolution to Queen's Blood was... One thing I hadn't previously mentioned, fuck the piano bullshit. Literally impossible for me to even score a B rank. Can't gold star one of the Tifa side quests because of it. Let alone try and get the A rank on all of them trophy. It's not the rhythm game mechanic of it. It's that it's just too hard for me ( a guy with bad vision problems in one eye) to watch two separate input wheels at the same time. Hate it. 110 hours in on chapter 12. Taking my sweet ass time but loving this game still.

80 hours into Rebirth. Feel like I got lost in the sauce. All the mini games and world exploration... it's a lot and it's too much, but at the same time it's what I'm liking most about the game. The Golden Saucer took at least 10 hours of my time so far. I'm in chapter 10, just finished all the story stuff in Cosmo Canyon and it's time to move on. But I haven't explored like any of Cosmo Canyon yet so I'll probably be doing that before I move onto Nebelheim. A few random not notes, some story related so I'll use a spoiler box... I fully expect to sink about 300 hours total into this game to platinum it. Enjoying the hell out of every minute of it tho.

I'm about 30 hours into Rebirth and just landed in Costa Del Sol. This game is great. I've been 100%ing every area before I move on. Only thing I've skipped was hard mode for Fort Condor. I'll come back to that. I had a hell of a time getting the trophy in Remake for the dance mini game. It took me a bunch of attempts. The Junon parade march, I jumped right to the hardest formation to try for the trophy here and boom got it on the first attempt. I'm loving this game. Just the weird quarks and moments like Barret in the navy outfit and Red dressing up to enter the Queen's Blood tournament. Love it. Love Queen's blood too. Really getting the hang of it. If I have one gripe about half way (ish) through the story it's that... well... there hasn't been that much story. Essentially the story so far has been quick confusing prologue, flashback, let's follow the guys in the black robes, Yuffie attempted murder. That's it. We're six chapters in and as far as the main story that's all I've gotten. Don't get me wrong there's all kinds of great side stories and moments. Just as far as the over arching narrative, it's pretty thin so far. Overall loving the game. Loving the combat. Loving the mini games Ive gotten to so far. It's great stuff. Scrolled back through to see some of Craig's & Raziel's thoughts on the first half of the game and got a good laugh that you guys were just as confused as I was on that prologue.

Rocksteady got thrown under the bus at the WBD earnings call yet again. To the point I seriously don't think the studio survives. Which is wild. 3 critically acclaimed games that changed and completely reinvented the superhero game genre with the Arkham games. WB force them into a games as a service multi-player cash grab gimmick that no one wanted (and were vocal about not wanting) and it underperforms. Somehow that is the developer's fault? Listen to your audience. No one wants games as a service for these genres. More Arkham games. Arkham style games for other DC properties. That's what people want. It's not rocket science.

Looked it up and you just had to have a save file to get the items. So booted up the demo, skipped the cut scenes, saved once and bailed. Rebirth recognized the save file and got the items. I have only just begun Rebirth. Still in the Niebeheim flashback. But I looked at a few videos to see if there's any mistakes to avoid. And holy shit. I see exactly what everyone means about the sheer amount of excess on all the side quests and fetch quests. I also am not a fan of the menu redesign. Remake had such clean menus. I'm sure I'll get used to it but seems like a downgrade in overall appearance and functionality. Story wise starting with a prologue where Zack...

Nah not a misspelling just a spoiler, because he's about to be King son. lol

The crowd was feisty but in a lot of ways detracted from the matches. If you watched Ospreay vs Danielson, you saw the crowd lose it based on what they were seeing in real time and really elevate and already great match. Here you had the crowd breaking out into song over the word phenomenal regardless of what was happening before their eyes. The only time in the main they lose it for what they were seeing was after the burning hammer kicked out. It didn't elevate anything. It was loud and fun and all that. But I wish it was harnessed into the story they were watching.

I watched a video explaining the fort condor mini game and ran through all 14 matches in a row. Hard & easy. I was probably helped by the fact I did a full story play through on normal and had a bunch of the pieces you find later on when I went back to do this. I didn't lose a single match. It's as easy as placing a guard dog that moves the line, use your materia on the condor, place another guard dog in front of their condor / add any extra pieces you need to keep the line all the way up / game over. I never once paid any attention to defense at all. The video I watched said Chadley on hard mode is almost impossible to beat and your best bet is to try for sudden death. But I beat him easily on easy & hard. I've now beaten everything on the Yuffie dlc except the Weiss fight. One trophy away from completion and moving on to Rebirth. I read that you get bonus items if you played the demo first so I guess I should probably start with the demo for that reason when I do start up Rebirth?

Enjoyed the Yuffie dlc more than I expected. This Fort Condor game sucks tho. I'm starting to see why everyone says those additional mini games in Rebirth are a chore. If it's more of this kind of stuff, yikes.

Got my first platinum trophy ever today. Remake overall was an excellent game. I do find it interesting that some of the battles I had the most trouble on in normal mode were much much easier on hard mode. The Arsenal & that Jenova boss kicked my ass in normal. On hard beat them both on second try. The whisper harbinger & Sephiroth gave me no trouble at all on normal. Beat them both on the first shot. On hard tho it took several times each and looking up guides to beating them online. Weird dichotomy. I'm trying to catch up with yall so I can talk about Rebirth. I'll be there in a few more weeks lol.

Took a little materia leveling up but beat the secret top monsters fight in Remake after a handful of trys. I'm on my way to my first Platinum trophy ever. If I can get past Arsenal on hard that is. And figure out the stupid motorcycle mini game.

As far as The Giants, taking the 2nd best receiver vs the 4th best (at best) QB was the right move. They have ZERO depth at WR so adding in Nabers is needed. But one really good rookie WR isn't going to fix the pass game issues. More depth needed. Jesus 6 QBs in 12 picks. That's crazy man. What the hell is happening lol. The amount of hits on 1st rd QBs does not warrant all this.

That Bahaumet fight was way easier than I was expecting. Lasted less than 5 minutes and didn't break a sweat. Didn't get a single Megaflare off. Let's hope the final secret bosses one goes as well.

I am way behind everyone else here. Ive been an XBox guy for awhile. Crisis Core was so much god damn fun on XBox that I started itching to play Remake & Rebirth. I was able to get some gift cards from work things and saw a trade in option for PS4s at Best Buy (hadn't used mine since beating TLOU 2), so I bit the bullet and got a PS5 at a $150 discount. I have beaten Remake. I'm currently mopping up trying to beat hard mode / Platinum the game before moving on to Intergrade and Rebirth. Remake is fucking fantastic. I love it. There were a few moments that dragged story wise where you could tell they were stretching. But it's quite amazing they made basically a full 50 hour game out of just disc 1 of the original FF7. I'm through 10 chapters on hard and I'm starting to worry I might not be able to get through it. The Ghost & Ghoul boss fight and that stupid ass Arsenal fight with Barret & Arieth are gonna be the death of me. For the simulator fights just have the last Shinra secret one left which won't pop til I beat the Bahaumet & Bahaumet. I was able to beat the Malbroro / Tonberry 6 star one pretty swiftly after a bit of trial & error. Should I be worried about the last two? Can't wait to start Rebirth. But I know I will never go back to Remake once I start Rebirth so I really need t get as much out of it as I can before I move on.

TK said on the media call: I'm very happy to be wrong on this. A trios division is so niche it's crazy they've had two sets of championships for it for almost two years now. Now do more unifications. And don't use this as a story device to just re-separate them again.

I wasn't paying super close attention but it didn't sound like the match is to unify the belts. Just that the winner will get the other set. I'm alllllll in favor of them merging the titles. But I just don't see it. TK seems like he likes having 1,000 belts around. Plus ROH just debuted that new design.

It feels like Triple H is basing decisions solely on what sooths my ocd lol. All men's titles back to black straps. All women's titles on white straps. All Raw titles are branded World. All Smackdown titles branded WWE (I would assume they unveil new WWE Tag Titles on SD this week too). Feel like the new World Tag Title designs are worlds better than the current design. It also has that subtle note of looking very similar to the world tilte & women's world title. Conveying that Tag Titles are as important as singles titles. Now if he fixes that hideous IC Title design we'll be all the way back in business. I fucking hate the look of that thing. Worst design in the company.

I can't stand those so I'm happy to see them dialed back. That Roman statue looked like shit. I never really understood why they pushed those so hard when they look sooooo bad. The fucking birds when Riddle who shoot his sandals off, just the worst. Cringiest of the cringe.

This is a Peacock thing. We get all the match videos and character profiles. But the real reason for all these damn commercials is for... actual commercials. For the non ad-free people. They get actual legitimate commercials. So the ad-free people get content that tries to hide we're stalling for commercial breaks. Boy Jimmy Uso just doesn't give a shit anymore huh? His physique directly compared to his own twin was pretty stark. Jey has it as a personality. Jimmy doesn't. That was a really bad match and I feel for Jey who is red hot over. Gunther & Sami was really good. As was that one shot promo leading to Sami's entrance. One of the best things I've seen from the new production. Main was solid when grading on a curve. A bit long. But very story driven and sets up quite a few payoffs. I've been on the train since day one that I think Roman is breaking the Bruno record. But I am putting it out there now. I think they shift off that plan and Cody is up tomorrow. It's the right call. Cody is dead if you have him lose again. It's a very Austin at WM14-like dynamic where the new tippy top face goes over right as a new era is cresting. Plus when all the legends come out to even the odds that's gonna be a hot spot. Taker, Cena, Austin, Hogan counteract The Bloodline. Rock got that pin to setup a future Rock v Cody match where Cody goes over clean to get the ultimate rub, I would assume.

These cuts caused more damage than whatever minimal budget it saved. Anthony Henry has been rehired already because it was such a bad look. The Boys 100% are in the right on this too. And it makes the AEW office look bad. Instead of the he said she said leaving them hanging while you're checking on other people in other departments, just have some authority and say hey guys Nashville was necessary for this one. You're expected to make the drive and be at TV. We'll get you out of Knoxville starting again next time and we apologize. And boom, instantly you're on the reasonable and rational side of this incident. But what happened to AEW honoring the deals they sign? It's not Slim J's fault TK gave Okada so much or Mercedes so much. In my own opinion, the only acceptable time for AEW to make cuts where it wouldn't ruffle my feathers is if they decide to drop the ROH entirely as a brand. In that case eliminating 15% of the roster would be totally understandable. But if that's not in the cards, you better not be cutting people when you're on record mocking the other guys for it. And I'm sure TK just put his foot in his mouth by popping off about them missing shows when they were told budget cuts were the actual reason. There have been other glimpses of this like his comments about Big Swole after she left. But if you want to play the 'worker friendly' card, you can't publicly bash people on the way out. Or the workers are gonna start seeing through your shit. I hate to say it but it seems like as AEW has grown TK has started becoming more like Vince. He's filtering out everyone but the very top guys from his accessibility. He's got his JR's and Johnny Aces' doing the dirty work while he only has time for the top guys. Everyone else gets shit communication and ignored. Very disappointed by how this is starting to trend.

Here's an example of why TK's strict formula can be a detriment. The Billy Gunn v Jay White match. There's ZERO reason that needed a 15 minute match with a picture in picture. Story wise even if you want Billy to kick the shit out of the heel, don't make it last that long! If that match was 5 minutes of pinball with a run in you are not gonna get the amount of backlash it's getting. Jay White doesn't look as bad if it's 5 mins of fire and then a fuck finish. Just unnesicary.

I was hoping this was where it was leading, but noticed Jay White had a new dsigned ROH Six Man Title on. You don't purchase a new belt design for a belt you're about to scrap. Fuck.