I actually was thinking a neat mechanic would be if her form unraveled and became more monstrous as she sustained more damage, but that may be beyond the scope of a Smash character, haha.

My dad’s not exactly culturally literate, but I credit him with easing me into subtitles at a young age by buying me all the Godzilla movies he could find on VHS. A lot of them were dubbed, sure, but that almost made me prefer the subtitles, even as a kid.

“started getting franchise ambitions for the big green lizard again”

Having an SA-X or Omega Metroid could be neat. Or really any of the other hunters from Hunters or Prime: Corruption.

Hey, I was feeling a bit testy earlier when I responded. I’ll admit I’m wrong here and apologize. Unfortunately, I don’t think Kinja will let me edit.

Don’t see how it’s a spoiler unless you think the possibility of losing some of your weapons for one battle is a major story element.

Interesting. I actually beat the campaign Friday night. Didn’t realize the final boss can steal your weapons and ended up having to cheese him with punches between cycles of hiding and repairing my mech. Did feel pretty badass to beat the final boss with my mech’s fists, tho.

Trail of Dead >>>>>>

I liked it a lot, but it felt a bit uneven toward the end. I get what Stanley was going for, but I think if he had gotten the actors to portray how the Color was inducing madness a bit more strongly, the whiplash transitions from “everything is fine!” to “everything is terrible!” would have felt a little more natural.…

Stretchers?

For years I’ve wondered where the sample in the Nine Inch Nails song “Reptile” came from. Last week I watched Leviathan and immediately recognized the sound effect! I’m certain I could have gotten the answer on the internet far more easily, but the gratification was in my own recognition.

I liked the platforming more in Sands of Time, but the combat was infinitely better in Warrior Within. As you mentioned, though, that game is pure 2000s edgelord (remember that Godsmack song that played every time the Dahaka showed up?). For what it's worth, I thought Two Thrones was a great synthesis of the two.

I agree with all the criticisms here and the C score Dowd gave it earlier this week. There are some genuinely great scenes, and Ridley and Driver kill it every time Rey and Ben are on screen, but Abrams is still a hack who seems unwilling to let any scenes unfold with any sort of weight or gravity. Instead, he opts…

And both lists could essentially be boiled down to “Here’s some stuff we saw on Twitter!”

I’ll throw my hat in the ring for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. I know it won BAFTA awards, and I know it got coverage here and elsewhere, but it sure seems like most of that coverage revolved around the [misunderstood] permadeath warning, rather than the intentional and thoughtful game design. Sure, its realization…

It's a reverse take on a diving bell spider, real arachnids that create bubbles and live underwater with their bubbles. They're quite incredible creatures. Araquanid is that concept taken to a land, where a creature that seemingly breathes water brings a bubble of water with it on land.

Check out Vacivus if you haven’t.

I didn’t love Starspawn (mostly because I was totally enraptured with Interdimensional Extinction and thought they lost some of their songwriting tightness between), but man does Hidden History of the Human Race whip sack.

I've already seen a few stages where you'll get soft-locked if you take a hit as Link because the creator didn't think to put in a spare power-up and required you to use one of Link's abilities to get through. I think the community will get better at this, though, in the coming months.

Nah, what Druth is talking about is Fafnir, the dragon slain with the sword Gramr. He calls garmr the right name, but your interpretation (i.e. that these are Senua’s understanding of Norse entities) is, I think, correct.