Breath of Fire 3 Strats

Character Strats

Ryu
One of my favorite games is Breath of Fire 3 for your ability to configure character growth. I think the most valuable stat in the game for Ryu is agility because you can get EX turns, a bonus turn in between rounds of combat, in your dragon forms. EX turns in dragon forms don't cost AP. This effectively means you double your AP for sustaining your dragon forms. The sad thing is that this is not something you can enjoy the benefits of until mid to late game. How do you get agility? Massive, massive amounts of agility?

There are three methods: 
One: The master Meryleep.
Two: Farming Swallow Eyes.
Three: Chain Formation + Rei
 
Method One
Meryleep can actually be unlocked after completing the light house and defeating the pink dolphin monster in the fairy village. She gives 2 agility per level. The cost of 1 AP might not be worth it to some, but remember, EX turns as a dragon do not cost AP.

Method Two
There are actually two methods for farming swallow eyes and they both involve having a lot of progress with the Fairy Village mini-game, which isn't available until part two when Ryu is an adult. It takes about 6 hours of gameplay to max out fairy village. Farming items can be done by making 15 copy shop fairies or 15 gift shop fairies. 

Gift Shop Fairies
Gift shop fairies are much more consistent. They  give you an item for visiting. The item is determined by the number of fights you've gotten into since you spoke with them, starting at 0 if they're brand new. You do not have to win the fights, you may run! Gift shop fairies will give you a swallow eye when the number of fights you've accumulated is 71-76, 78-80. Set up your copy shop, put your fairies in it, then leave and get into 70+ fights. When you talk to the fairies after that, they will have a gift for you, one swallow eye each! Up to 15 at a time! Yummy.


Just so we're clear, you can make up for any stat penalties from masters at the end of the game, with work and time, using gift shops. You can re-evaluate the pros and cons of a master based on on how much work some items are to farm. Gift shops can give the following stat boosting items:
#Battles    Items
7    *Fish Head
31-40    Life Shard
41-50    Magic Shard
51-60    Power Food
61-70    Protein
71-80 (except 77) Swallow Eye
81-90    Fish Head
 *Note: Intelligence is a useless stat. Nina with 400 intelligence still can't compete with Ryu for damage. Tried it.

Copy Shop Fairies
To use the copy shop to begin with, you have to have a bunch of Swallow Eyes to begin with, and the game only gives you two. Copy shops also have a chance of failure and you lose your item. However, it only requires 30 battles for the copy shop to complete the process. 

Summary
The most consistent way to farm Swallow Eyes is to use Gift Shops. You should get Ryu's agility to 110 to 130 while wearing his heaviest equipment before you can be sure you'll always be fast enough to have EX turns. 

Method 3:
Oh yeah, these strategies are unnecessary if you apprentice Rei under Meryleep, unlock the Chain Formation and put Rei on point which makes everyone else have Rei's Agility score. I think Rei sucks though.



Wizards Should Apprentice Under Fahl
The most valuable stats for spellcasters are AP and Def. AP is valuable because of how rare AP restoring items are. Fahl does not take away from AP! He takes away from Intelligence, but that's fine. As we've established, Intelligence sucks in this game and Fish Heads are the easiest item to farm! Defense is more valuable than HP. Put Nina and Momo under Fahl for 10 levels for 40 HP and 30 Defense and they'll never take damage again except from enemies using breath weapons, Berserkers and Arch Mages. I recommend using Nina and Momo because they are your best buff/debuff/crowd control/support units.

Rei and Garr are not for Dealing Damage
The first time I played this game, my main party included Rei and Garr. I thought they would be good melee fighters. The fact is, the amount of damage Ryu can do in his Warrior and Kaiser forms makes any other damage redundant during a boss fight. They barely contribute during random battles. In fact, in boss battles, what I needed from non-Ryu characters was healing and buffs, at which Rei is subpar and Garr is shit.

Rei is clearly a support unit. He has the ability to use a healing item before the enemy has a turn and he can steal or use debuffs, though less effectively than Nina or Momo. If you unlock the chain formation, then Ryu can benefit from Rei's Agility to get Dragon EX turns, but I got tired of commanding Rei to defend all the time. He can use Disembowel at the start of a fight to maybe instantly remove one enemy from play.

One thing you can do with Rei is apprentice him under a master that gives a lot of AP and have him heal AP using the Transfer skill. I've never tried this, but in theory, you could give Ryu a few extra rounds in his dragon form. Just farm little AP restoring items from fishing, get a shit ton of AP, or make do.

Garr is a tank. Apprentice him under Fahl, pick a formation that gives him the highest chance of taking hits, put him on point, spam counter. I found him almost completely useless after Duana Mines. Because of his Life Armor, Ryu has some great advantages as a tank. You could get that advantage for Garr too using a Cupid's Lyre accessory.


Make Battles Last Longer with Peco
Peco has a counterattack rate of 50%. This is a good way to draw out the length of a battle with numerous extra animations. If Peco can hit really hard and reliably 1-shot enemies in random encounters, use him. If not, you're better off relying on concentrated deliberate damage. An additional downside to relentless counterattacks is that you can't do a lot of stealing if Peco keeps killing all your marks. I only use Peco for learning abilities from masters. I hear some people really like Peco and think he's OP. They must be playing this game wrong.

Everything you need to know about skills and masters

General Tip: Use your levels wisely.  It's easier to learn all the skills/spells you want if you keep your levels low.  For example, Peco starts out on level 1. That means if you save him for when you meet Deis, you're only 15 minutes of grinding away from unlocking all the best attack spells.

The only important masters are numbered.
I've provided my amazing 2 cents on which masters beyond that have what value. 

#1. Meryleep!
The best skills in this game bar none are Shadowwalk and Aura. Shadowwalk comes from Meryleep. It is a guaranteed crit that costs 8 AP. She also gives Charm which is very useful for getting certain special late game item drops. She also gives 2 Agility at level up.


#2. Falh
He gives invaluable stat boosts for spellcaster types with low HP and Def. Defense is very valuable in this game! Most attacks have to get through your defense. For other attacks, such as Magic which  essentially does it's base damage + some amount of Int, and breath weapons which do damage based on current HP/Max HP, they need to beat sheer HP. I don't recall using his skills except Resist during Berserker and Arch Mage fights, but I'm usually not happy unless I learn it from Balio and Sunder.

#3. Ladon.
Get Aura. Maybe. Actually, I recommend Aura over Shadowwalk for Berserker and Arch Mage. The extreme stat growth he offers works best for characters who a) don't need AP, can afford to sacrifice HP, and who you would like to improve their overall stats. This is if you want a more powerful car with less fuel economy. or b) if you're grinding out levels over level 50 when all your stat growth tanks; There's no point in doing that though.

#4 also #1 D'Lonzo
Steal and Monopolize are wonderful. Her stat growth is terrible however. It's such a meager difference to natural growth. I don't know who it complements, but probably Momo for the early game because she also gives a slight bonus to Attack hit chance.

#4 Bunyan
I recommend Bunyan for any character who will rely on melee damage. His skill Focus is also worth noting. Focus can be stacked and combined with Shadowwalk and Aura to do the best damage in the entire game: 2,000+ damage with Aura. Super Combo is an expensive pain in the ass. I will gladly never play a mini-game to make sure my attack works. Disembowel is probably useless. I never bothered getting it from him after I earned it.

The Rest.
Deis 
She gives you the best attack spells in the game. These can be good for Momo. I've heard that Peco makes a good wizard too. Nina learns them later. I have never used Celerity, but it might be amazing.

Giotto
Like Ladon, this guy alters your stat growth in an extreme way. His actual quality is that you can get Ruy a lot of HP and AP early to mid game. This is the option for if you want a weaker car with more fuel economy. His skills are ass. 

Emitai 
He teaches Mind Sword. It's a very cheap single target attack spell that a wizard can use over their Attack command. In my experience, this is stronger than Magic Ball and generally useful. Barrier and Enlighten are good on paper, but I seldom need Barrier or rely on Magic to do a lot of damage.


Hachio 
A crappy Bunyan clone who teaches a skill called Demonsbane which I found to be a lesser choice for skills and Mighty Chop which is just an easter egg. In theory, your wizards can use Might Chop instead of Attack indefinitely and be able to contribute without using AP, but they nerfed it.

Mygas
Magic Ball is OP at the beginning of the game. You can do 40~60 damage to one enemy for 2 AP. I don't think this spell gets any stronger. If you unlock Typhoon from him in the early game, it's useful for grinding and emergencies. I think Meditation might be useful but I've never experimented with it.

Yggdrasil
Shield is the only good spell he offers, though you may find it redundant. Face it, the only reason you use Yggdrasil is because it's early game and you're done with Mygas and you don't want to spend your mage character's levels on a non-magic master.

Durandal
I think this master is a waste of perfectly good levels.

Hondara
You can't unlock Hondara without learning everything from Durandal. That's a shame because I like this guy's spells. Well, I like them on paper. In case it's not clear, I never used his skills.


Other Skills worth Learning (This list is Short)
Snooze
This is a secret skill learned from Eye Goos. Defend or wait for 10 rounds, then the Eye Goo gets bored and falls asleep. Snooze restores some HP and some AP, making it kinda useful for recovering AP.

Burn
Have Ryu learn this from Mage Goos in Cedar Woods. It's cheap and effective against Nut Troops on Mt. Myrneg and that's all it's for. Actually, you can also use it on Vulcan's in Mt. Zublo to wake them up and power them up for exp!

Blind
This can be learned from Rippers and has a pretty good success rate. Blind the Nue boss. I stop using it very early on. It has a secret use. If you blind Eye Goos, they drop 30 experience.

Frost
Ryu can use this on mud men at Mt. Myrneg to paralyze them an make them drop 70 experience. You can give it to Momo after that so she can have a reliable attack.

Double Blow
Stronger than a regular attack but weaker than a crit.

Bone Dart
I've heard good things but I always gave up on learning it!

Rest
Restores some HP and some AP.  It's like Snooze. 

Air Raid
I'm putting this down as an honorable mention. It never seems works when I really need it.

Tsunami
For 8 AP, you can halve everyone's HP. It's neat.

Lava Busrt
An AOE, medium powered fire spell and you get it pretty early. That's cool!

Flame/Wind/Ice/Holy/Thunder/etc. Strike
Really cool on paper. I haven't relied on exploiting elemental weaknesses with melee characters in this game before, I'm not going to do it now.

Wall of Fire/Thunder Clap/Chill
These are skills that would be good if they gave them to you earlier.

Cure
Secret powerful healing skill learned from the paralyzed enemies in the desert level. You have to cure their paralysis using a panacea and then they might use it. I forget how to make them use it, but I don't think it's hard.

Evil Eye
A very late/end game spell. Has a high chance of paralyzing one enemy. I don't bother.


Low Level Strats
Why low level? Because you want to maximize your opportunities for stat growth and learning skills from masters.

Get Magic Ball and Typhoon Skills Early.

• Keep Teepo (or Ryu) on level 1 until you unlock Mygas. Apprentice Teepo under Mygas and you can be ready to learn all his spells by the time you complete McNeil Manor. These skills automatically go to your Skills book in your camp after you lose Teepo. Give Nina Magic Ball and Typhoon right away for easy fights.
• Run all the time. It's fine. Your defense drops for that round of combat though.
• Kill Teepo a lot.
• Have extra Healing Herbs.
• Clear the ? Forest blocking the path to Mt. Glaus while you still have Rei in your party.
• Why would you do this? Because leveling up to level 8 from level 7 is actually a lot more work than leveling from 1 to 7.

Lots of Money Early Game

• Earn a ton of money for equipment and healing items by farming Silver Knives from the Manilo Fishing Shop. Silver Knives go for 600 Zenny each. It might take you 2 hours to farm 6,000 Zenny. You don't have to worry about missing money from escaping all the fights.

Armor and Weapons aren't Important until The Contest of Champions

• Fun fact, you can get away with not buying any gear until the Contest of Champions. If you do your fishing, you can actually get better armor from the fishing spot near Momo's Tower and since you're running away from most fights, weapons aren't important.

AP Restoring Items
Having any AP restoring items in the beginning can make a big difference if you're underleveled.

• Rainbow Trout restores 5 AP.
• Sea Bream restores 5 AP.
• Black Porgy restores 20 AP. Located in fishing spots near Momo's tower and southeast of Mt. Zublo. Use frog bait. Get 10.
• Wisdom Seeds 20 AP (Steal from ghosts and spectres at the lighthouse. Spectres also appear at angel tower.)

Boss Strats
NUE
Blind it and do your best.

AMALGAM
Equip Silver Knives from the Manillo Shop. This fight is actually not dangerous at all. 

MUTANT
This creature regenerates 250 HP each turn. You can make him lose his regenerating ability by hitting it with fire attacks until he stops. You shouldn't go all out or use your dragon forms until then. Spend the first few rounds preparing any buffs you might have, healing, defending, and using Molotovs on him. 


Contest of Champions Round 1

• Claw: Honestly, I don't remember. Luck?
• Cawer:  same as above.
• Patrio: same as above. Remember to steal from these three.
  
• Dodai: If you target the Dodai under your opponent, your opponent will target your Dodai. When your Dodai is low on HP, use a multi-vitamin on him which you can purchase at the item store at the arena. Dodai is worth 3000 exp.
  

 Contest of Champions Round Two

• Ematai: Not a threat.
  
• Golems x2: Concentrate on one at a time and keep your HP up. Do not bother learning Spirit Blast, it sucks when you use it.
  

Stallion
Balio and Sunder fuse. He can use Jolt and when his HP gets to about half or less, he starts using a skill called Utmost Attack that does 50 damage to everyone so keep your HP up at all times!

Gazer
Ryu should be some sort of fire dragon and everyone else should defend, heal and buff Defense. Don't bring any party members who can't take a hit because gazer has AOE attacks.

Dolphin
His weakness is electricity.


Gisshan, Scylla, and Charyb
Ice moves!

Garr (Angel Tower)
Nothing to worry about.

Dragon Zombie
Fire and High Defense.

Mikba
Ryu can use either the Holy Dragon form or the Fire Dragon form. Holy will hit harder with Radiant Claw but consume more AP. Rei is useless. 
  
Huge Slug
Fire Warrior form. Not even a fight. Basically, this is how every boss fight will go from here on.


Shroom
Fire Warrior form.


Gaist
I think his weakness is Ice. Make sure to examine his ashes after the fight before you leave the room!

Angeler
Inoculate yourself so you are protected against electricity before the fight. He has no weaknesses, just throw down.


Ammonites
I think I lost to them on accident once. Use the Thunder Warrior form. It's not even a fight.

Elder
I don't remember this guy being a threat.

Manmo
Non-challenge.

Chimera
I don't remember a damn thing about you. 
 

Arwan
Totally forgot.


Dragn Lord
This was unsatisfyingly quick. I felt cheated. Fake boss.


Myria
Speaking of fake bosses, I remember this one being too easy too. She might have had a cheap spell or two.




Level Grinding Strats
Experience is divided among the surviving party members. You can kill off one or two to get one party member extra EXP. You can use the Monopolize skill from D'Lonzo to have one character get all the exp. This is also a valid way to keep characters from earning exp if you want to control their levels.


Low Levels
There are some enemies that give bonus exp if you do the right thing to them.

• Eye Goo: Blind them and they drop 30 exp. 
• Tar Man: Use Frost or ice magic to paralyze them and they drop 70 exp.

Medium Levels
Go to Mt. Zublo and fight Vulcans, giant boulders with faces. If you use a fire skill on them, not a fire/wind skill, they will wake up and become worth 900 exp each. This is really the best way to grind experience until the late game.

Level 30+
This game is basically designed for you to peak at level 35 or so. That's when the experience to next level gets really high!  Here's what you do if you want more levels late game.

Lava Men
This strat is not recommended because I haven't achieved it yet, so I can't say what you're really in for. Go back to Mt. Zublo and fight the lava men. You can power them up casting fire skills/spells on them. You can do a combination of powering them up and using an item called Ivory Dice, see the next paragraph, to get the max possible exp in a single fight, but they're wicked hard. Give it a shot and see what happens, but don't have expectations of pulling it off.
 
Ivory Dice
These can be farmed from a late game Manillo shop. If you use one in battle, the EXP you'll earn doubles. The effects stack if you use multiple Ivory Dice in one fight. See the next paragraph "Secret Enemies."


Secret Enemies
If you want to much higher, go to the Container Yard and fight some Berserkers and Arch Mages. They are very challenging, but they can drop a ton of exp. Use your Ivory Dice here. Get inoculations for Fire and Electric property damage too.


Dragon Gene FAQs

What is the difference between Thorn and Gross? 
Thorn affects the elemental genes, Fire/Ice/Thunder/Shadow/Radiance so that instead of taking 0 damage form the corresponding elemental attack, your elemental form will recover HP from corresponding elemental attacks. Gross improves your HP, Power, Defense, Wisdom, Agility. Gross and thorn are interchangeable if you pair one of them with Eldrich, Defender, or Force genes. Either Thorn or Gross will cause the same improvements to the Defender, Eldrich, and Force Forms. Stacking thorn and gross will get you a stronger form, but is not going to get you any significant improvements. 

How does Fusion work and is it useful?
I have no goddamn idea!

Warrior vs Kaiser Form?
Infinity + Failure or Trance + Radiance + Infinity combined give you a Super Saiyajin Ryu. Kaiser can use Focus and Shadowwalk or Focus and Aura if Ryu knows the skills. The warrior is more AP affordable,  has slightly higher Power, and has Focus and Aura built in.

Puzzle & Mini-Game Strats
 

Whacky Hospital Sim Illness Ideas

Whacky Hospital Sim Ideas
I recently watched a let's play of Theme Hospital. It's a quirky hospital management simulator with odd illnesses and whacky doctors. It looks super fun. I'm thinking about downloading Two Point Hospital now. I also wrote some of my own ideas for fake illnesses.

Illnesses

1. Fire Ass

• Description: Constant itchiness and burning sensation in the behind accompanied by intense flatulence.
• Caused by: Too much spicy food
• Treatment: Flush out the colon with cold water at 27 miles per hour.

2. Cold Bones

• Description: A constant chill and numbness accompanied by slowness of movement.
• Caused by: Too many frozen dinners
• Treatment: Medical grade Hot Chocolate.

3. Third Eye Disorder

• Description: Patient becomes debilitatingly sensitive to the movement of the earth through space.
• Causes by: Watching two TV shows at once.
• Treatment: A clinical psychologist debriefs the patient about each show, one at a time.

4. Whoa Hands

• Description: Patient feels dissociated from their own hands. They lose most hand-eye coordination and fine motor control.
• Causes: Excessive losing at a dirty claw machine.
• Treatment: Give the patient a cleaning clothe and have them wipe a table until symptoms subside.

5. Phantom Phone

• Description: The patient feels like their phone is vibrating on their thigh even when they don't have their phone.
• Causes: Receiving too many robocalls.
• Treatment: Real Canadian syrup brushed onto the outsides of their thighs.

6. Wicked Hiccups

• Description: Hiccups so intense the patient's head rotates sharply causing momentary loss of balance and disorientation. Prolonged effects include dizziness and neck pains.
• Causes: Drinking multiple drinks with different straws at once.
• Treatment: Use of an expensive sponge machine to sponge out all the air from their lungs.

7. Bottle-nose Dolphin Syndrome

• Description: Patient's nose grows and develops an organ for echo location. The patient becomes so sensitive to sound that they can't get a full night of sleep and as a result experience anxiety and fatigue.
• Causes: Bitten by a radioactive dolphin.
• Treatment: Rhinoplasty to remove the organ from the nose.

8. Pirate Leg

• Description: Patient's left leg becomes a sea leg and can't get used to walking on land.
• Causes: Not enough vitamin C or too much time standing on a boat with one leg while the other is on solid ground.
• Treatment: Administer a shot of Vitamin C to the thigh muscle.  

9. Perpetual Sweatiness

• Description: Constant sweating and stink regardless of the weather or activity.
• Causes: A reaction to a bite from a newly discovered mutated species of spider called the Spider-Bastard.
• Bastard Anti-venom.

10. Lock-Neck

• Description: Though not paralyzed, the neck is locked as if fixed in place by an invisible neck brace or a bad rubber superhero costume. The patient cannot turn or tilt their head.
• Causes: Infection from a newly discovered plastic eating bacteria that is found on plastic.
• Treatment: Antibiotics. 

11. Gremlin Parasite

• Description: A small creature in your ear that attempts to dominate your mind and make you break electronics and machines.
• Causes: A gremlin leaves it's tiny spawn on your phone that gets in your ear if you hold it up to your head. 
• Treatment: Surgically remove the gremlin.

12.  Lung Rot

• Description: Your lungs rot resulting with chronic shortness of breathe and inability to climb stairs.
• Causes: Breathing incense.
• Treatment: A puff of pure oxygen 2 times a day for 5 days.

13. Time-Stop Toe

• Description: Your feet fall asleep and won't wake up. They are so numb, they get stuck in place as if frozen in time.
• Causes: Practicing yoga in ill-fitting steel toe boots.
• Treatment: Whack the patient on the feet with a rubber hammer. 

14. Balloon Head

• Description: The neck lengthens and the head swells resembling a balloon. This makes it very difficult to eat and walk through a doorway. The neck gets tired quickly.
• Causes: Scuba diving upside down. 
• Treatment: Slowly administer a low dose of hormones until the head and neck return to normal.

 15. Corn-syrup Man Disorder

• Description: Your body begins retaining water that gels. Causes discomfort when sitting, lopsided sitting, and awkward attention from strangers.
• Causes: Absorbing a common ingredient found in cheap hair gel through the scalp and palms and using too much hair gel.
• Treatment: Poke a hole in the patient and squeeze the gelatin out.

16. BL4 Sickness

• Description: Back, legs, liver, lungs, and larynx all ache terribly.
• Causes: Overexertion while running and 50Ks.
• Treatment: A very sugary grape flavored drink with B12 and electrolytes.

Author and Paul

Tales of Phantasia: Zodiac Tower Map and Key

When I was a kid, I had an amazing memory! I could easily learn and keep track of all kinds of things. Now, not so much, so sometimes when I game, I write stuff down or draw stuff out. Thing's you'd rather never figure out a second time. Here's a map of the Zodiac Tower from Tales of Phantasia. The encounter rate is really high and the enemies have a ton of hp!

Griffith Did Something Wrong. Checkmate.

I overthink things, even jokes. Jokes like "Griffith did nothing wrong" are clearly ironic. That one is ironic right?

See here, Griffith was given a decision to make: do something right or do something wrong. He chose to do something wrong. No condition or affliction can take away the responsibility of his own decision from him unless his autonomy was invalid, in which case this decision would be a farce and your premise would be technically correct. However, in spite of the oppressing nature and presence of fate in the setting of Berserk, this decision was not a farce because Griffith has valid autonomy. Griffith did something wrong.

Kingdom Hearts 3 pun goes here review

Kingdom Hearts 3 is released after more than a decade. Here's why it took so long to make this game. The developers had to make it in stages: Production then cringing under the desk.  Put simply and cleanly, devs for Kingdom Farts spent 3 years on production and 10 years on self-soothing. I can't imagine why anyone would put themselves through a production schedule of make a little bit of the game and then go do drugs to cope with the shame and repeat until complete. Of course, this game is definitely complete right? Knowing this series, there are 5 titles waiting just to explain some other bullshit you could overthink. Geez. Fuck.

I still don't know what kingdom hearts is, but fuck it. I understand the concept of defeating your enemies with the power of rock and roll so what the fuck ever. Kingdom Balls 3 features a story about Riku and King Mickey doing important stuff off screen while Sora grinds back up from level 1. That's The actual plot. At least they had a half decent reason for Sora being on level 1. This game is more linear than previous games, so I give it a big penalty for that. The stories you get when you visit Disney worlds are lame. Half of them, you're just doing the movie. 5 points will be deducted from Heart House. Finally, you visit the final level, and shit goes down, but it's trope-ier than your average MLP FIM episode. More on that later. The ending is not satisfying and a redemption story for the villain comes out of this shitshow like a goddamn zombie rising from a porta-potty to wrap up the plot for Square's inept writing department. Xehanort gives up for no fucking reason and hands over the black materia with a frowny face like a scolded child.

Let's now compare KH3 to My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. MLP FIM is a show written for kids complete with a moral of the day in each episode that is exposited explicitly by at least one character at the end before everyone eats pie and has a group hug and takes a photo. KH had it's shit together once upon a time, for example, the first game, which is still cringey as fuck. I won't allow Square to use the fact that this game has always had bad writing as an excuse to be weaker than MLP FIM. What is Gundam Hearts 3 about? What's the moral of the day? Are there any jokes adults can appreciate like in MLP? No, this game is superficial. It is made to look and feel cool, but the story is "hearts are good, but also bad, but good." Fffffffffff uck.

MLP FIM can set up a plot and resolve it in 20 minutes. KH can't even keep its internal rules consistent. I thought the keyblade chose it's own master, now they're interchangeable and anyone can join the club. Keyblade wielders are more redundant now than super saiyajins. Hell, I can wield a keyblade. What is the darkness in peoples hearts? What is the light? What are hearts? Why does spikey hair look like a bunch of bananas at the wrong angle? Why was Maleficent here? Why was Kairi a token girl and also a women in refrigerator? Why does Riku have an actual relationship with his inner child who sacrifices himself for Namine? Why is Namine important? Is she important? How can Sora has a relationship with Kairi while Riku can have a relationship with a character who only exists because Kairi partially died and the universe spawned a substitute to be a place holder until she could be brought back? And then why is there another version of Kairi with black hair and how can she know shit about Kairi who is dead again? What did anyone in Organozation XIII want? What was their motivation? The blonde girl literally told Sora it was a secret! Why did Donald almost die just by casting a spell!

By the way, how cool was it that King Mickey knows Ultima! I don't know or care why or how. That's pretty fucking awesome!

Once upon a time, a linear game was normal. The constant cutscenes in KH3 make you feel like you're being lead around on a constant tour and I want off! It started off as a quest to get your lost power back, then you just go to the last level because there's suddenly some urgency in this plot. God. Geez. After seeing new and old Disney levels with little original content, you just go to the last level and Sora, who has not verified that he has recovered his lost power, is the MVP. No one can keep up with him. He fights all the bosses and then follows the villain to the Square / Disney version of Purgatory to finish him off. When did we say Sora has recovered his strength? Fuck!

The villains are bullshit. I don't remember their names or care about them. Everyone has stupid hair. That's another reason why it took so long to make this game, bullshit hair. 

Winnie the Pooh was back. Thank fuck it was only a ten minute cutscene. It was a crappy as hell cutscene too. Sora is too old for Winnie the Pooh and there's just no potential for conflict!

No final fantasy characters present. I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. They probably got cut and that explains why the game is so short. They could have at least given us a black mage! That would have been cool.

What are the redeeming qualities of this game? It looks pretty and it's fun. They should just make an arcade game / tournament fighter already! 1 ball / 10. Don't give Square your money.

Resident Evil 2 (2019) Brief Bad Review

I didn't play this game, I watched a let's play. This game looked really pretty. I can tell that the player was legitimately tense while playing it. I would like to actually play it and provide a complete review of the positives, because there are many, but since I haven't played it and I won't play it any time soon, I can't. I am however, dying to make some comments on what I didn't like.

1. Claire's Jacket
Did the developers forget to give Claire a 90's appropriate outfit? I don't recall many college girls in red leather jackets in 1996. Yes, this jacket was distracting to me. It's an oversight as well; a missed opportunity to remind the player that this game is set in the 90s.

2.  Chief Irons
This fucking game gave Chief Irons a pedo vibe. It was super creepy and you can tell the developers had regrets. The game included some forced dialogue to let the players know that Sherry wasn't in that kind of danger, but the entire part of the game with this crap was still very uncomfortable. The orphanage level sucked too. It was boring!

3. Reused Bosses
The developers got lazy or just didn't understand the concepts of a scenerio A and B. Why do Leon A and Claire B both fight two of the same Birkin tyrant fights? That's paradoxical and disappointing. Why can't you make these parallel timelines make sense? Why can't you give me the boss variety that I should have had? Birkin 1 sucked ass too! It was too long and too repetative. Both Leon A and Claire B fight the same Birkin in the underground Umbrella facility too. That fight gave way too much space to move around for a horror game. Confining, close quarters fights are scary. This was not scary because you could get the hell away and Brikin could get stuck on or blocked by the walls. Shame!

4. Ambient Music
I think the devs made a big mistake by not including actual, scary background music.

5. The Sewers
This version expanded on the sewers. Gross. That's gross, Capcom. Fuck you.

6. Aya's Deus ex Maxhina Gun
They Did such an amazing job on Annette Birkin and the only thing they gave to Aya to compete is a universal-solution-item. That's goddamn lame. It looks super cheap to solve Aya's conflicts with this gadget.

That's about it. I might have some complaints about a puzzle or something. The puzzles seemed lacking in this version.  There's a lot to praise though. A hell of a lot! I just don't feel like I can do so without playing the game.

Why There are Power Levels in Dragon Ball

Why were power levels invented in Dragon Ball to begin with? I occasionally encounter a video on the internet that speculates who had what power level and when or what ki multiplier each transformation, fusion or zen-ki boost is worth or etc., and I think they're all incorrect. Not only are they incorrect, there is no being correct when you're filling the gaps yourself or using third party resources. Toriyama did not plan some spreadsheet of power levels to keep throughout the series. If he had, he surely would have said so explicitly at some point. I agree with Team Four Star: Power levels are bullshit.

Think about it from a narrative point of view. If you want to make a story interesting, give the protagonist a weakness or make a strength redundant. Ki sensing was still new to the series by the time scouters were introduced. Goku only got the ability two story arcs ago and it was an ability he gained at the end of that arc. The next arc was the world martial arts tournament with Piccolo Jr. This arc showed how this ability gave Goku a very special advantage no one else had. Then it was revealed that Piccolo had the ability too. What if another new antagonist also had this power, negating the advantage it afforded to the protagonist? 

Well, Raditz is a space man. Give him a wristwatch for his face that tells power levels.

I don't know why Toriyama decided on the numbers that he did. I could speculate, but I don't like speculating on creative decisions. The facts of the matter are this: Dragon Ball was produced on a tight schedule, power levels were brand new, and the only aspect about the numbers that mattered were the differences. Toriyama is not the type of writer who plans out fine details well in advanced. This guy named major cities after directions, he named characters and powers after food, his girlfriend invented the motions for the Kamehameha when he asked her for an idea, he made decisions about a famous character design based on saving time, and he forgot that saiyajins have fucking tails.

Here are some more facts. Based on the numbers provided in the Raditz story arc, we know that at the time, Goku and Piccolo are many tens of times stronger than ordinary people. We know that weighted clothes reduce your ki somehow and by about 20% or so. We know that Goku is barely stronger than Piccolo. We know that special techniques are either several times as powerful as the fighters who use them or are a major ki amplifier. We know that the Kamehameha is stronger than the Special Beam Cannon. Finally, we know that Gohan is stronger than Goku. 

If a writer wanted to communicate this information to the reader, this creative method succeeded succinctly. I still remember the approximate differences almost 20 years later.

Scouters were used repeatedly during the saiyajin and the namek arcs. At some point they stopped giving specific numbers and gave a nice even rounded score to the nearest thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand, etc. Power levels are clearly simplified at this point. This emphasizes the use of power levels as a means of giving the audience a measurable way to tell which character is stronger and by how much. If you want to suppose anything, suppose fans and editors were the real reason power levels persisted through the series as long as they did. This supposition can be supported by how much work goes into estimating power levels by third parties rather than Toriyama himself and that the last official power level from the manga is for Future Trunks when he fought Freeza and was clocked in at fucking 5.

Besides clever estimations by fans on forums and video sharing sites and the like, there are some sources of supposedly official power levels. There is a Dragon Ball encyclopedia series called Daizenshuu. These books are not written by Toriyama but do contain numbers from the manga. There are pamphlets (for fuck sake) that came with non-canon Dragon Ball movies written and directed by people other than Toriyama. There's a magazine called V-jump which has also released power levels. I can't find Toriyama's name on those and it looks like they were used as promotional material for Dragon Ball video games. 

If I were writing a series like this one, I would just use an imaginary tier, rank, or class system to categorize characters by their power and it would be based on my intuition because numbers are for games, not comics. I do appreciate that fans like power levels, but let's put this to rest. Find me a power level guide authored by Toriyama or else you or some other ass is assigning numbers based on arbitrary criteria (however reasonable they may be) where there are none because you're a human and humans like to make sense of things even when there's no sense to be made.

Madness at my local starbucks

I witnessed today in a star bucks a homeless man possibly insult a woman over some chairs. The woman's response escalated the inaudible exchange by her rapidly clearing a 3 to 5 foot space and putting her nose within literal inches from his and scream "if you disrespect me again, I'll have you killed" like a schitzo. Starbucks called security who had the homeless man removed. This woman threatened, in the hypothetocal, a human life and star bucks management sided with her, rather than asking both parties to be removed. What in God's fucking name is wrong with people? Calling someone a slur and refusing to share chairs is less immoral than a death threat. For the record, the supposed insult tossed was "slut" and moments later, this woman spoke loudly to a mixed room that she hadn't had sex in 18 months. This woman and her party seemed so hyped after security escorted the homeless man out saying "don't ever come back," that they used the chairs for less than a minute and instead stood around the table for less than ten and left. I feel sorry for the small boy who was with them because he'll likely have them as his primary influence and become an adult with poor judgement and questionable morals like the rest of the group. Within the group was a man who seemed much more well adjusted than I was who very calmly and politely though falaciously told the homeless man following the death threat that he should not disrespect a woman like that. I can't tell what part was most disturbing, but it was probably that this companion to the woman was very comfortable with this threat as seemingly were all parties involved . I don't recall how much he physically intervened because it happened so quickly, but I believe his positioning of himself around all parties was tactful. I think these people are ordinary people but they have a sort of mentality comparable to a Hollywood version of a crime family mixed with some Beverly Hills wannabes. I stood in line behind these very people as well and they paid a nine dollar order with a 100 dollar bill which is either something either ghetto people or criminal people do, and they took forever because they were chatting.
My questions are this: for the young man in this woman's party, do you condone hypitetical death threats? For the star bucks manager, did you miss the death threat and are you just doing your job? And for the woman, do you think this erratic behavior is acceptable? Additionally, I'd like to know what the people of the room would think if I were to discuss this incident with them.

I thought about this some more and it occurred to me that the man who stepped in could have been expertly defusing the conflict. He might be fully aware that the woman was in the wrong by threatening to kill a man over his poor manners, but his offensive and subtle intervention by taking her side while remaining courteous to the homeless man might have been a very pragmatic move. Safety should come before right or wrong. Deescalating the situation so that everyone could walk away is the best outcome reality can hope for. If this was intentional on the mans part, than he deserves some praise.