Search the Community

So this week has been declared Knuckles Week on Sonic Stadium, and while I'd like to say that my initial reaction was "Oh! Joy! An event!" my actual reaction was "My eyeballs are on fire!" Thankfully I was instructed as to how to change my site skin back to what I was used to, so we're good now. And on the subject of Knuckles Week, there's an article I've wanted to write since before my blog moved onto Sonic Stadium, and that's my review of Archie Sonic Online's Endangered Species rewrite. Spoiler: it's good. It's easily the arc we needed rather than the one that was completely gutted by You-Know-Who's legal vampirism, and it deserves a review as good as it is. Which I won't promise, but I'll at least try. This of course means that the original article planned for this Friday, part three of my series on revisiting Kalos Pokemon in Pokemon Legends Z-A, is most likely going to be delayed another week. Unless circumstances beyond my control prevent me from completing the Endangered Species rewrite review before Friday, in which case I'll post the previously scheduled Pokemon article instead and post the Endangered Species article the week I finish it. Or maybe things will turn out entirely different. Man plans and God laughs. So God willing, I'll get the Endangered Species article done by the end of the week and you'll all see it on Friday, and then the next week you'll get the Legends Z-A article. Anyway, my apologies for the bait-and-switch; I had quite a bit to say and I felt like it was probably best communicated within the article itself than a status update. You're here for the Disney Dreamlight Valley rant, and I aim to deliver. --- So the issue with Disney Dreamlight Valley is that it's probably the best worst game I've ever played. The characters are charming, the furniture is lovely, the exploration and quests are engrossing, but the glitches... the glitches. And I'm not talking about Vanellope (she's easily my favorite character in the game, with Jack Skellington a close second), I'm talking about this game being held together by faith, trust, and not nearly enough pixie dust to hide the duct tape. Characters are always walking into -- and through -- each other, every update comes with a new list of bugs that need to be patched, and I was entirely unable to complete the last update's Star Path -- which I paid real money to fully unlock -- because my game broke and I didn't want to risk accidentally triggering a glitch in a game with microtransactions because I don't even want to think about the financial implications of something like that. So with the announcement of the newest update to the Rift in Time expansion, featuring Oswald the Lucky Rabbit of all characters, I wanted to be super excited about this. I've loved Oswald ever since the first Epic Mickey, and seeing him in the game ought to spark joy... but all I can think is, "Greeeeaaaat, can we PLEASE at least have my save file PLAYABLE in this update?" And quite honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this is a world where my save file won't be magically healed with the next update, and I have to face a reality where all of the limited-time, moonstone-exclusive items I've hoarded from past Star Paths are just lost forever to the glitchhaze. So when and if that happens, I have several options. One, go through the trouble to write in a support ticket to try to get my game patched, which quite frankly is more effort than I really want to go through for a game that's broken before and will most likely break again. Two, start a new save file on my other account in hopes that eventually my original save file will be fully patched at some point. Three, give up my old save file for lost and just restart it from scratch. And four, put the game down and quite possibly never touch it again. I think the fact that option four is even a possibility tells you something about how strongly I feel about these glitches. The thing is, I genuinely enjoy Disney Dreamlight Valley more than I've ever enjoyed Animal Crossing New Horizons, and the reason is simple. DDLV not only gives me more to do, but it gives me villagers that I actually care about and have reason to interact with. With ACNH, half the villagers are ugly designs, you can't choose which ones you start with, and they all pull from a pool of eight different personality types with recycled dialogue that gets old almost immediately. DDLV is a life sim filled with Disney characters, and they all interact with each other in interesting and sometimes hilarious ways. That's easily far better than my experience with ACNH. But when the game itself doesn't work, what you've got with DDLV is a Pokemon Scarlet and Violet situation, where all the elements of a good game are there but the glitches make it close to unplayable. I mean, I'm not even against starting a new save file because the game is so charming that I'd love the chance to run through all the character quests again... if this wasn't a game full of microtransactions that I've invested actual currency into and have no way of legally regaining all of my past Star Path loot if I erase and start over. And on top of that, there's the whole drama of how this game was going to be free-to-play but they literally charged money for early access, meaning that early comers had access to exclusive Star Path content for spending that money but had essentially paid for the honor of being bug testers for a glitchy free-to-play game, and in the end they decided that the free-to-play model wasn't working so the full release would cost money anyway and they'd also sell paid expansions, and to be fair I loved the first paid expansion thus far, but all of the microtransactions are still in the game, and the game's still glitchy as HECC. So yes, I do think I would be entirely justified in never touching this game again, Oswald or no Oswald. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. --- On that note, I don't expect to have a new blog article ready every Monday, but I'm seriously considering reposting older articles from my blog's previous host on the Nuzlocke Forums on some Mondays, if there's anybody interested in that sort of this. Would there be an audience for that?

https://www.gematsu.com/2022/04/free-to-play-life-simulation-adventure-game-disney-dreamlight-valley-announced-for-ps5-xbox-series-ps4-xbox-one-switch-and-pc So, this is pretty....interesting, I guess? Seems like an odd game to make free to play, but hey, I'll try early access when that launches. What are your guys' thoughts?

Less than a year ago I made about two Live-Action/Animated Jungle Book films made by both Disney AND Warner. Sadly, it got lost in the server wipe. However, this time I’m going to focus on the one at a time and that is going to be what is in the title. I’ll save the other for later. The Jungle Book is a live action/CG animated remake of Disney's original 1967's The Jungle Book and it is directed by Jon Favreau, the man also directed Elf, Iron Man and Iron Man 2, Zathura, Cowboys and Aliens and Chef. Here's the info and synopsis from Cinemablend. It was originally expected to be released in October, but the film was moved a few months back in place of Chris Pine's The Finest Hours and will be released in April 15, 2016 nationwide. Also, concept art of the upcoming movie:

Considering it's finally being released this upcoming Friday, thought it'd be nice if a topic were made for this film. So yes, Tomorrowland. Considering the name, you might think it's another one of those theme park attraction adaptations Disney is fond of doing now and then. Actually this time around, that's not exactly the case. The film is based off Walt Disney's very own plans for the futuristic community of EPCOT (in all capital letters, and it eventually became the Epcot Center, later just Epcot, at Disney World) and his hopeful view of invention, innovation and utopia. Getting some Meet the Robinsons vibes here? Yeah, me too. So, this film's been in the works for a while now, being announced with the title of 1952, only getting its first media coverage and reveal trailers from earlier last year. As the topic title may as well have implied, the film is being helmed by writer and director Brad Bird, the mind behind greats such as The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. This is his second live-action film after Ghost Protocol, and it for one looks quite intriguing for a summer tentpole. A lot has been kept under wraps about the plot leading up to its release, a staple for Bird's movies. With that said, let me just show an official synopsis from Disney:

Ok, so sorry this is rough, but we seem to have lost the old one in the purge(surprised it took this long to discover) Disney Animation Studios have made many animated movies that have touched our hearts and brought laughter to our lives, from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Big Hero 6 to Beauty and the Beast to Fantasia to Wreck-it Ralph. They have many movie coming up in the upcoming years and are considered to currently be in another revival period So intro away, the reason I made the thread is we have news on Moan, looks like Dwayne Johnson's going to be a singing Demi-god http://screenrant.com/dwayne-rock-johnson-disney-moana-musical/

So, for the past few years I've been writing a Kingdom Hearts fanfic titled "Antipode". Long story short, it's an AU story that places Riku in the roll of protagonist and serves as part character exploration, part Disney love letter, and part adventure story. Though the first two chapters start out essentially in canon from Riku's perspective (and with added scenes), the story does start to diverge after the initial chapters due to Sora and Riku's actions throughout the story as well as how other characters react to them. Oh, and there's a new world taking the place of Monstro. So, if you don't mind Disney, AU fanfic, and lots and lots of chapters, feel free to check it out! I currently have Antipode posted on two sites... Fanfiction.net | AO3 Note that the FF.net version might have some weird formatting issues that I'm trying to iron out. Apparently the site smooshed some words together, so I'm having to go through the chapters and iron things out. The AO3 version is probably a bit cleaner by comparison. Oh, and please no ranting about how KH or Disney are evil here. EDIT: Also, don't expect tons of fancy dialogue tags. When I use tags, I generally stick to 'said'.

http://en.wikipedia...._and_television If you're a religious follower of Disney's projects, like myself, you're probably familiar with their adaptation of The Snow Queen, which has been in development hell for a long while. The film was previously slated for a 2012 release, but has now been pushed back to 2013 under the title Frozen, and will be a 3D CG animated feature, so it's sounding like a spiritual sequel to Tangled. Of course, the reason it's being called Frozen and not The Snow Queen is the same as Tangled not being called Rapunzel-- they want to appeal to both boys and girls. I think it's all shaping up to be quite a renaissance for Disney, which arguably started in 2009 with The Princess and the Frog. EDIT/ADD-ON: Despite my searches, I have yet to find any information about this regarding the cast or crew. EDIT/ADD-ON: Yes I did, scroll down.

This comes from Disney's D23 Magazine (a mag exclusive to the states) they did a feature on Wreck it Ralph this month, doing a diary for the productions teams workings. The article mentions having an inspiration room full of video game stuff to inspire the team, but most interesting of all is the middle screenshot at the top of this page. It's not the best picture/scan ever - but theres no mistaking those forms. Bowser, Eggman and Zangief are there together, talking with Ralph in the foreground. The article only mentions Zangief as they get some VA for him done during the diary. But the eyes don't lie~ EDIT: Posting original source because I really ought to have done that: http://www.dvdizzy.c...p=598087#598087 EDIT EDIT:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/disney-gets-control-of-indiana-jones-movies-rights-from-paramount/ I hope we get another film, but I also hope there's no aliens and UFOs in it.

I was certain there'd be a Disney topic already in existence that I could just bump, but the closest I can find are topic on one specific film. Huh, oh well. So yeah, I've been spending the month following Doug's Disneycember series, and it's caused me to reflect and relate to my own preferences in Disney movies. I was pleasantly surprised when he gave such positive reviews to Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland (two films I have very dear fondness for), and I'm sure I wasn't the only person shocked that he gave the Jungle Book and the Lion King a less than perfect overview (Jungle Book I do like a lot, but I can see why he had issues with it, and he did like Kaa*. Lion King, I probably like less than him for different reasons, but I was still shocked. At least we can both agree on Can You Feel The Love Tonight!** ). So, I guess this can be a topic for both discussing the Disneycember series and discussing the animated Disney films in general, since I know not everyone will be interested in TGWTG. *Come to think of it, he highlighted the crocs in the Rescuers as a positive too. And he also pointed the slapstick between the croc and Captain Hook in Peter Pan. And he loves Rescuers Down Under in general. Hmm... *conspiracy hat on* **Specifically the one that plays in the film itself. Elton's own rendition of it is very relaxing, I love it. The film version sounds too saccarine and banal to me.