Since the middle of 2019 what I would exclusively watch at mealtimes is Sims YouTube. Sometimes this would be simmers playing out storylines, other times real time building or speed builds; I find building very enjoyable because you get the second hand sense of accomplishment from seeing thing go from nothing to finished product in anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, and it's very easy to watch. There were three simmers I would watch depending on who had uploaded that day - James Turner, Deligracy (James and Deli are irl partners and have two chows and I love Deli's vlogs) and lilsimsie (just her building, her playstyle is too chaotic for me).

Aside from these three, there was one variety streamer I would watch supercut twitch highlights for - RTGame. Think LP's but with the inbetween parts trimmed out, and because they're highlights I can pause whenever. I find supercuts likewise easy to swallow because I can dip in and out and don't feel the usual pressure of having to finish something narratively in one sitting. Still, at the end of last year YouTube was driving me nuts with ads (and still is), so I took a break and watched most of the series I own on disc, since I hadn't watched most of those things for probably eight years. I started with twenty minute episodes and worked my way up to series that were forty minutes to an hour, though I could only realistically handle one of those a day. I returned to YouTube in May for what was my annual Tears of the Kingdom rewatch, and ever since I've just been binge watching RT's backlog of content, whether I've watched it before or not - including games I had a passing interest in, but with their difficulty or subject matter, don't think I could play myself...

The latest of these has been soulsborne and metroidvania's. I'd watched the Bloodborne LP previously but wanted to do so again because it's such a fascinating, eerie worldbuild to me, I just don't think I could play it myself, in part as it's a little ways past my gore comfort level (it's very bloody. Also spider boss) and more cripplingly due to the whole "to learn how to beat the boss you're going to be dying a lot to learn the patterns", which is why I would also never touch roguelikes. I simply... do not like dying in games. I'm an J/RPG player; my preferred method is over level so it does not matter anymore. If I die, I feel like I've failed, or a burden to others/myself. I'm not very good with perceived difficulty anymore, and losing currency or resource on death is one of my dealbreakers (even moreso than the dying), which is why when Control gave me the accessibility option to not die, I turned it on. I still tried, but there was no issue of being punished for when I got overwhelmed by enemy numbers or Hiss AI behaving oddly with grenades. I was already compromising on subject matter weirdness, and I don't think I would have made it through AWE dlc without it (and confirmed I could not play Alan Wake lmao).

After Bloodborne, I watched Elden Ring, which I knew absolutely nothing about, and surprised myself by actually really enjoying it. I think my favourite fights to watch were Raudahn because it was just a very different open arena with summons, and also Malenia, because her phase two shift with the butterflies was the coolest fucking shit and I've been thinking about it ever since. All the dragon fights were what I wanted from Dragon Age: Inquisition, honestly. As Elden Ring is much more expansive than a city setting and thus more open it felt much more doable from a, okay well this is past your level right now go and do something else and come back, and I had a very passing desire to play it myself that has since ebbed...

And then I watched Silksong. Before Hollow Knight. I am channeling Rems of yore that sees girl and wants to know everything about girl without having played the first game where girl appears. I really enjoyed Hornet as a character, I got strong Bloodstained vibes from the interconnecting stacked zones (including castles and citadels), I really liked the story, the music is an absolute banger, and I once again surprised myself by having moments of pattern recognition during watching boss fights. It very much felt XIV to me, where the boss spends the first minute or so teaching you what it does until it gets more complicated or faster, and I found that very gratifying. I left the Silksong cut with the strongest desire to play it myself but this is like the hardest game fucking ever, man. Often it's just mean to the player because it can be. The hp system is bogus; everything from nigh the start does two hearts of damage, and having now watched a solid chunk of the Hollow Knight lp, you are dying constantly. Realistically I should start with Hollow Knight but I, could not, play the spider zone. LMAO. Aside from Hornet being a very stylised spider (and some other stylised spiders here and there) none of the bugs in Silksong bothered me. Hollow Knight is practically the opposite in comparison. This is a shame, because I would like to dive into all the lore myself. There's also a few very demanding platforming sequences in both, and whilst I am absolutely fine with platforming and enjoy platforming and the satisfaction of it (please remember I did The High Road of Crash Bandicoot with hundreds of timed precision jumps), frame perfect jumps that go on for a very long time are just not in my scope mentally or physically anymore. My thumbs cannot, alas. Very sad.

Once I'm done with Hollow Knight, I'll be going back to anime for a bit since Carole & Tuesday got a UK release and I've been itching to rewatch it for years. I also bought Cowboy Bebop: consider the Overwatch collab propaganda as successful?

I suppose the other unaddressed thing is Sims YouTube... Sims is in a weird place right now. ( Read more... )