Zurvanight

Played a bit of Future Redeemed last night and it's living up to the hype so far. Just got Rex and Shulk and I can't wait to see what's next! I really like the new combat mechanics like Ouroborus Arts and the mix and match combos you can do with each character. And the Collectopedia is back!

Figured I should bump this because: I am so excited! Rex and Shulk look amazing! And there's Pyra's daughter Glimmer, and Nikol who is most likely Shulk and Fiora's son. Main cast:

I love Control. It is one of my favorite games of all time. And Alan Wake, the previous game set in the same universe is really good too. Sam Lake, the writer for these games, is a genius. It's also heavily inspired by the SCP Foundation. In Control you play as Jesse Faden, a woman looking for her lost brother who was supposedly kidnapped by government agents after a paranatural event caused everyone in her town to dissappear. She finally tracks them down to a place known as the FBC (Federal Bureau of Control). The building itself is a massive place called The Oldest House where Objects of Power and Altered Items, mundane everyday objects that house paranatural power (such as a teleporting rubber duck, a baby carriage that emits smoke, a fridge that harms you if you look away from it, or a plastic Christmas tree that imitates your voice) are contained and safeguarded. The Oldest House itself is a Place of Power. The buildings many rooms can shift randomly and people can become trapped for days. Besides keeping weird objects safe the FBC studies psychic phenomenon, the Astral Plane, and AWEs (Altered World Events, which are when Altered Items cause weird things to happen to cities or towns). In Alan Wake, the events that took place in Bright Falls and Cauldron Lake were considered an AWE. I'm hoping in Alan Wake 2 that the FBC plays an important role. In Control the Oldest House has been taken over by a hostile paranatural entity that Jesse calls The Hiss, because it sounds like poison gas leaking in. It infects a person turning them into monsters. Jesse is immune, and thanks in part to a peaceful entity that inhabits her, is able to wield psychic powers that aid her in fighting the Hiss. That and a transforming gun made of strange black interconnecting stones. One of my favorite things about the game is the lore. In many areas you explore you can find correspondence and papers that deepen the lore and talk about all the weird things happening. One of my favorites is the Book Club memos where everyone in the book club reads the same book titled Unless You, but each person describes a different plot. Meaning the book itself was an Altered Item. Another funny one is a complaint about an entire bathroom shifting locations and nobody can seem to find where it went. My favorite location in the game is easily The Oceanview Motel and Casino. You use a lightswitch that you pull three times you transport you to this mysterious empty motel where you solve a small puzzle to progress further. It's not clear whether the motel exists in reality, the Astral Plane or is some kind of collective conscious idea given form. I think the Oceanview is supposed to be an unsettling place, but I find it very relaxing and cozy for some reason. Highly recommend this game for anyone who loves deep lore and really, REALLY weird things. Combat is actually pretty fun, and there's plenty of fun sidequests too. As a bonus here's the creepy Alan Wake 2 trailer:

This song is actually by Poets of the Fall but in Control and Alan Wake they do the music for the fictional band, The Old Gods of Asgard.

Walk Blessed is so, soooo good. Enderal is peak fantasy soundtrack.

Eternal Wind is such a good piece of music. EDIT: Wow I can't believe I just now realized I posted this in the wrong thread. Meant to be the music thread, sorry guys.

This is an arrangement of a track called Ultramarine Deep. I love how funky it is.

Can't stop listening to this. My rule of thumb is if there's a violin in a video game track it's almost always a banger.

Jindo is an amazing composer

The Omega Protocol "Our shadows lost in light This life a fleeting kiss Hark! Temptation rings! Virtue slips through hands a-clenching wicked fruit Passion festers, black'ning sinless souls to root Sickles grate on heaven's gate their fields ignored Seeking sinners deathlessly they reap discord As two become one Here ends this, our journey Never-ending, onward march! Witness our escape!"

Temple of the Sun has always been a favorite of mine but this version I especially love.

This theme is incredible. It's called Dedicated to Moonlight and it sounds like an old school anime theme. I love how intense the fiddling is. Probably one of the most beautiful themes in the game.

The theme is called "Finality", a fitting name for the final bosses of Endwalker dungeons.

I love this arrangement so much. The guitar at the beginning, the violins, the organ. Everything about this theme is *so* good.

6.3 trailer dropped the other day. The next Alliance raid teases several of The Twelve. Oddly it shows five gods in the trailer, meaning you might fight two at once since 4 bosses are standard for Alliance. We see Nophica the Matron, Menphina the Lover, Nymeia the Spinner, Althyk the Keeper, and Halone the Fury. As for the main story, it seems we alongside Zero and the Twins will venture to Garlemald once more to find a ramshackle village where Reapers used to practice dark sorcery. And of course the village is teeming with Voidsent. It also looks as if Vrtra will Call (special dragon roar to summon his siblings) to Azdaja and Golbez plans to create a kingdom where Voidsent can finally die in peace. This whole patch is looking to be really fun.

One of my all time favorite SFF short stories is The Last Question by Isaac Asimov. Gives me chills whenever I get to the end.

Ys Series Genshin Impact Honkai Third Impact

Endwalker:

Locklands, the final Founders Trilogy book. So far it's been really good. Shorefall was great but this is looking to be even better.

This theme goes hard. Sounds like Devil May Cry music.

More XIV Endwalker quotes. The whole expansion is a goldmine of amazing dialogue. "Hear - the song at creation's end. Feel - the agony of hope's demise. Think - and find your way in the darkness. Follow your light... or fly my child, and never look back!" - Hydaelyn "To live is to suffer. To drink of calamity and drown in anguish. To toil and be tested, always and ever. 'Tis a perilous path you walk. Death lurks in the dark, and is the sole promise that awaits at journey's end. You will tremble with terror. You will weep tears of anger and despair ...but do not avert your eyes. See your life for what it is. Then you will see how the hardships make you strong. Every doubt reforged as scales for your armor. Every agony to temper your blade." - Matsya "As fragmented, imperfect beings, yours is a never-ending quest A quest to find your purpose, knowing your end is assured To find the strength to continue, when all strength has left you To find joy, even as darkness descends And amidst deepest despair, light everlasting." - Venat “It’s easy for learned elites to criticize earnest efforts and assert their moral superiority. All without offering alternatives.” - Alisaie Leveilleur “Our lives are forever changed. The people we lost will never return. The tragedies will long weigh on our hearts. But we have the capacity to live with our suffering. To carry the agony till we too join the fallen in death. It is not a surrender, but a recognition. For it is only in acceptance that we find it, the strength to move forward.” - Nidhana "Truth is given shape in interpretation. When we seek to capture it with our words, it is invariably molded to fit a narrative - no matter how well intentioned the rendering.” - Y’shtola Rhul "Would you be “happier” if had a “good reason”? If my motives met with your approval, would you no longer resent the outcome? If so, then perhaps a beast’s skin would suit you better." - Zenos Viator Galvus "The sorrow of a thousand thousand worlds weigh upon you Yet you walk on...." - Narration

"Lands that stretched on forever. Skies one could drown in. The heartbeat of nature, silent yet strong. And admist it all a people. Beacons of light and life. Laughter that warmed my heart like naught else before. They are my meaning and my purpose. My love. In spite of... Or perhaps because of this, I choose to believe. In mankind's potential. In his ability to find a way forward. So let there be no way back. From that temptation I sunder us. No more shall man have wings to bear him to paradise. Henceforth, he shall walk." - Venat from Final Fantasy XIV This next one is less a quote and more of a passage, but since we don't have a Favorite Passage thread, I figured I'd put it here. It gives me chills everytime I read it: "She'd locked their bedroom doors, one by one. Locked everything as they slept, except one way out. And then she'd gone downstairs to where they'd kept the alcohol, and the kerosene, and all those reeking fluids, and found a match... A struck match sounds like a kiss in the dark, sometimes. She remembered thinking that, watching the flame crack to life and then flutter down to the pools of alcohol running across the floor. No one had made it out. And as she'd sat and watched, she'd realized--master or slave, all screams sounded alike." This is from Robert Jackson Bennett's Foundryside.

Bumping this to say Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett is extremely good and has a really cool magic system called Scriving, where by writing commands on objects you can rewrite or hack reality, like making a copper sword believe it's made of steel, wood believe it's stone, or wheels on a carriage move by themselves by making them believe they are on an incline when in reality they are on flat ground. Brandon said good things about the books which got me interested in them. There are three books right now as of this comment, Foundryside, Shorefall, and Locklands.

I listen to the Enderal soundtrack whenever I read. Mistwalker is an especially good track. Haunting and beautiful.

There hasn't been a regular battle theme this good in a Trails game since Infinity Rage.