Been a lot of the “Same shit, different day” type ish lately, so it took a while for me to get off my ass and start typing.
Card Games
Shadowverse has a new expansion, and the mini-expansion for it just dropped. Evo Sword and Dirt Rune got some really cool cards. However, I’ve been playing more YGO these past couple weeks, mainly because Dinomorphia is finally in Master Duel. It’s incomplete, so it’s ass, but it’s there, and hopefully the wait for the rest of the archetype isn’t too long.
I really enjoy Dinomorphia a lot. Like I said the last time I brought it up, I really enjoy that the deck makes use of trap cards and fusion summoning, which have definitely become my favorite aspects of the game since coming back to it via Master Duel. My build is a bit unique since I play a good bit of going 2nd cards. Master Duel is best of 1, and I don’t wanna be completely fucked if I lose the coin flip.
A deck I picked up since it was in the same pack as Dinomorphia is Beetroopers. Beetroopers are kind of an Insect good stuff combo deck. I was an infernity player, so I’m not against combos, and I really think the deck’s monsters are pretty cool. I do wish the fusion monster had more lax materials so it could be more playable, though. If it was “2 Beetrooper monsters” or “A Beetrooper link monster + an insect monster”, it’d be immediately more playable, especially since its fusion spell is already pretty good, being searchable off of Sting Lancer and able to recycle itself from the graveyard. Even without relying on DPE, Beetrooper’s end board is still pretty decent - You end on at least 2 monster negates not accounting for the other cards in your hand that can be of use. Invincible Atlas has some pretty good protection, so he can likely stick around for your turn, and Sting Lancer is a pretty good card that can mess up your opponent’s plays involving a graveyard monster and get you a search.
Dungeon Fighter Brainrot
DNF Duel came out in late June and the 110 cap for DFO launched like a week after, so it’s not surprise I’ve been in Dungeon Fighter vortex.
DNF is a really fun, janky game. Contrary to my thoughts back in the beta, I’m maining Grappler over Kunoichi, and my sub characters thus far are Inquisitor, Ghostblade, and Vanguard. Grappler struggles in neutral even with his armor, but landing the hit and taking chunks off people’s lifebars is so satisfying that I can’t let him go. He’s not bad or anything, but he’s working hard, and the reward feels worth it. There’s a whole lotta dash-blocking and hard reads going on, but when you’re in, you’re in, and they’re likely to die.
Inquisitor is really squishy, but she has some nice pressure, a cool debuff she can put on people, and some nice buttons. She also has probably the best dp in the game, being a 10f hitgrab that gives her oki. Ghostblade’s buttons are great for neutral, and his combo game is great. He gets really good corner carry off just about any hit he lands, and can get easy safejumps into mixups. His damage is no joke, either. Vangaurd is the man of honest, half screen mids, and I can fuck with that.
The game does have stuff that even I find particularly obnoxious. Stuff like Striker guard breaks and Swift Master’s Wind Twist are two very standout examples of things more obnoxious than the rest of the cast’s bullshit in my opinion. They’re not deal breakers for me, but as I said, they’re obnoxious. There’s a patch coming at the end of this month, so hopefully they make some changes for the better, but I’m not really expecting anything. Shiiieeettt, as long as Grappler doesn’t randomly get nerfed for some goddman reason, I’ll likely be happy with whatever the fuck they do.
I will say DNF is very interesting because they have a lot of different ways to balance things, mainly because of the mana bar. They don’t necessarily have to murder a move’s usefulness to nerf it; they could just up its mana cost so it’s no longer convenient to do and up its cooldown.
Onto the actual DFO stuff, 110 cap has arrived, and it is fantastic! They’ve seriously done sooo much right in this update.
Epics are easier to get, we have a new dungeon to help gear up alts, the new epics are easier to mix and match so you’re not hard locked into sets to get good effects, and the story dungeons are really fun. I love it all.
A bonus for me is that Proton updated to work with DFO, so I finally get to play the game on my desktop on my steam account instead of having to always play on my laptop. I do get captcha spammed and disconnected quite a bit, though. It’s a huge pain in the ass, but I put up with it.
The game is still crack, and this update makes it even more fun to play.
Misc
TMNT Shredder’s Revenge came out and no disrespect to any other games, but it’s easily GOTY for me. I don’t talk about shit like that often, so you know this game is good if it has me talking like that.
I’m a huge Turtles in Time fan, so this game feels like it’s just made for me, man. Game is gorgeous, the music is great, the gameplay is fire, it has online co-op, and it has a native Linux version. 10/10 game. Game of the year. Not a goddamn contest.
Music-wise, I’ve been listening to a lot of Outkast, Knxwledge, and Unlucky Morpheus lately. Krit, Cordae, and Denzel Curry all dropped pretty damn good albums that I need to run back, also. I also still need to listen to Bun B’s new album. i literally didn’t know he dropped until today.
I did start watching a bit Japanese wrestling. There’s a channel called Stardom that I follow that posts highlights that I watch.
We had a lot of great announcements at Evo, including rollback netcode for Samurai Shodown. I think that’s the final nail in the coffin for future fighting games for me. I got +R, SG, DNF, and now SamSho; I really don’t have a reason to buy new fighting games anymore; it’s actually crazy.
Well, That’s cap, actually. A new Garou also got announced. I’m not some oldhead, but I’ve had a lot of fun playing Garou casually, so I’ll have to try to cop that.
Finally, Fuuto Pi started airing. This is an adaptation of the sequel manga to Kamen Rider W. We’re 4 episodes in, and it’s been flawless so far. I started reading the manga a while back, and the parts that have been adapted so far have been done so lovingly. I finished W back during january this year, and it’s easily one of my favorites, so having Fuuto Pi be this good is doing wonders for my mood. Having a Rider anime is just great.
Finishing Up
The year’s a little over halfway over, and I expect to be on more of the “Same Shit, different day” stuff, but that’s not always a bad thing.