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I don't recall who brought it up (libre?), but speed runners are magic. I also got really into them the last couple weeks. Watching people completely break a game like Spyro 3, or just have incredible devotion and memory/muscle memory for tough as nails games like I Wanna Be The Guy/Boshy is amazing to watch.

I can recommend LPs of theirs if you like, depending on what kind of thing you're looking for.

Totally agree about No Man's Sky, by the way. I really want to be into it, because it looks really pretty, and the scale is super impressive even for a AAA developer, let alone such a small team. But the exploration angle isn't enough for me. I typically only like games that are story-driven, or have really good local multiplayer. I'm also wary of procedurally-generated stuff. I think it has a lot of potential for keeping things fresh (namely in horror games), but I would still want most things to be scripted. I'm keeping an eye on No Man's Sky, but it's not blowing me away on the same level it is for most people.

And without getting too much into it, I think calling the Kill La Kill dub awful is a tad extreme. I watched the trailer and first episode in Japanese and English, and they sounded pretty similar to me. The voice acting style for both sounds a little weird. Hard to explain; maybe rough around the edges with a lot grit, but I like it. I went on to watch the second episode in English, and plan to continue. Definitely wouldn't say it's perfect, but it's a lot easier to be critical of something that's in your native language. Obviously you should watch it in whatever form you enjoy the most, but I think a lot of people give cheesy/mediocre Japanese voice acting a pass without realizing it. And unless the other version is absolutely amazing, you're always going to be more inclined to prefer the version you hear first. It happens to me too. It's why people swear by the Dragon Ball Z dub, and why people still love the old Sailor Moon and Pokemon dubs, in spite of goofy voices and egregious editing.

Tea seems like a weird thing to never have tried, haha. I mean, I kinda get it if no one around you drinks it, but enough food places have it available where it almost feels like you would have to consciously avoid it. But enough hating on Misty.

As someone who put BBS in chronological order, I can say that the timeline in the game is mostly bulls***. The Disney Town order (and maybe other worlds) is determined by who you played the game as first. And the order of Olympus Coliseum is straight up wrong, because it shows Ven goes there first, with Terra right on the tail end. But the way things play out, Terra must have actually arrived slightly before, since he's referenced as a "heavy-hitting contender" in Ven's visit. Kind of messed me up when I made the videos, but I digress.

It really bugs me when let's players scream a lot for no reason: it just comes off as disingenuous. Can't say that I like pewdiepie. Markiplier is right on the border. I've seen a few of his videos, and I ping-pong between liking and being annoyed by him. He's got enough charm though that I have an overall positive view of him, haha. I watched Game Grumps for several months around when they first started. They have some great moments and have a good presence, but I got tired of them. It's not that I think it's bad, but sometimes it feels too much like they're putting on a performance. Not that they're acting or being phony, but they feel a little too aware of their audience.

The only let's players that I consistently watch is Two Best Friends Play. They acknowledge the audience from time to time (and are very interactive with their fans), but as a whole it just sounds like a couple funny dudes talking to each other, without much of a performance. The main reason I watch them is because aside from being entertaining, their commentary has substance. 3 out of the 4 of them were testers, so they have a lot of insight in between the stupid jokes. And even though there's a lot of sex jokes, it's very clear they're conscious of women's issues, and other social issues. Like how even though Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain have strong female protagonists, they're often put in creepy fetishistic, murder-rape scenarios that add nothing to the plot. Or how mental patients are poorly represented in games; often portraying them as horrible monsters (even in non-horror themed games). Pat majored in psychology, so he has a lot to say about things like that, and is a well of weird psych stories and facts. They're currently doing a playthrough of Silent Hill 2, and it's mostly them discussing symbolism and the technology behind the game. Not exactly a laugh a minute (really dark at times, actually), but it's interesting and relaxing. So yeah, I don't watch let's plays just for humor, though that's nice too.

A little off-topic, but I've heard the argument that let's plays are damaging to the industry, because people can see the whole game for free, so they won't pay for it. There's probably some truth to that, but I'd say they do at least as much good as they do harm. I've never watched a full LP of a game that I would have otherwise bought, and then decided not to buy it because I saw it already. On the other hand, there are several games that I would not have bought were it not for seeing someone else play it. The best example is the Metal Gear series, which was a little before my time, so I never played it when it came out, though I considered it. When TBFP started playing MGR: Revengeance, I watched the first part, thought it looked awesome, and then immediately bought the game. It's a spinoff game with not too much connection to the main story, so it was a good introduction to the universe, without it spoiling the other games or me being totally lost. From there, I bought the Metal Gear Solid Legacy Collection and played the rest of the games.

At their worst, LPs are just surface entertainment. But there's nothing wrong with that: most TV shows are the same. I love It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, but it doesn't make me smarter or add anything substantial to my life. But what LPs sometimes offer is a peek into someone else's life. You can hear people, unscripted, from different walks of life than you; older, younger, from different countries, talking about things in a very personal but casual way, which very few forms of entertainment allow.

Side note: I watched a few Korean LPs to help me learn the language. Very simple, everyday vocabulary, and they usually play an english game with subtitles, so you can pick up on certain phrases with real-time translations.

I wrote a bit more than intended, but that's just because it was such a good subject ;) Great podcast, all.

I can not speak specifically for the Kingdom Hearts series, as I'm sure of the details of their engine. However, I am a 3D animator who recently took an interest in game development. I'm very inexperienced, but I might be able to shed a little light.

The only game dev program I have any knowledge of is Unity, which is fairly popular. You probably know that under the hood, games are driven by coding. This is the basis for determining what a character can do. In Unity, there are usually 2 different steps to making your character move correctly. One of them is using the game physics to code the basic movements, which is driven by the buttons that the player inputs. So it's written (in a scripting language, of course) that when the player presses the spacebar (or say, the O button) to add an upward speed of 300 (or whatever) meters meters per second. The game's internal gravity will cause the character to fall back down. Without any restrictions though, the player can just hold the button and jump infinitely. So you have to set up a conditional statement that checks where the ground plane is. So if the character is in contact with collision plane for the ground, then they can jump. Otherwise, they can't. I believe you typically label the ground collisions as such, to distinguish them from the wall collisions. Otherwise players could just rub up against the side of the level and jump forever.

I took a couple screenshots from a tutorial that went over how to program character movement from scratch. It's a 2D side-scroller with a 3D character, so most of it will apply to a full 3D game, but not everything.

The other step after getting the movement and physics down is getting the animations to work alongside its corresponding movement, and getting them to blend into each other. In other words, you don't won't the idle animation to play when you are running forward, so you set up conditions for when to trigger the running animation, when to go back to idle, etc. I think if you animated your character in Unity, you would also do this entirely in the character movement script, calling on the names of different animation clips. However, a lot of the time people animate in a different program, like Maya, and then import it into Unity as an .fbx file. Unity handles these imported animations with its Animator window, where you set up what is essentially a flow chart. The different animations appear as a rectangle, and you draw arrows between them to tell one to transition into the other. You then give it parameters which tell it when to change between them. Like I said, I'm also very new to this, so the details could be wrong.

Here's the link to that tutorial I posted screenshots from. It goes over other things like attacking, and setting up a health system. It's on Digital Tutors, which is not a free site.
http://www.digitaltutors.com/tutori...pment-Pipeline-Volume-2-Character-Prototyping

They recently had a promotion where you could have a free trial period, but I think it might be over. You could look anyway though, I could be wrong. It's about $30 for a month. Pretty steep, but it might be worth it for you if it's what you want to do. Especially if you can marathon-watch the videos you want (and take tons of notes), and then be done with it in a month or two. They have dozens of hours on Unity alone, plus Unreal Engine and other stuff. Not trying to sell you on it (I don't have a paid account) as there are plenty of free tutorials out there as well. You just have to be more careful when learning stuff from people on Youtube, because they may not know what they're talking about, or could be doing something in a really roundabout way.

If it's your first time, don't even attempt it (and expect to get far) before level 85 or so. First time, I did it on Proud Mode, and it was still tough at level 99. Also, if you consider yourself a noble fighter, I suggest you throw that away for this fight. It can be a very cheap fight, so be cheap back. Abuse flaws in the AI, take advantage of the fact that going into a drive form heals you and restores MP. If it helps you, use items. If you start to freak out because you feel cornered, pause the game and think for a second. Any rules you established for yourself to make the game more challenging should go out the window.

Most important thing to know is that his health works differently than all other bosses. When you first attack him it does barely any damage. Do not just go in for one combo. After every finisher, the consecutive hits do about double damage. You should be able to continue combo-ing him until you take off a little over one health bar, before he counters you. I think it varies depending on your attack power, but you should be able to predict how many finishing combos you can land on him before he retaliates. For me it was five.

If you don't typically use guard, now is the time to start. All of his moves (except for the one where he locks your attack or magic/item commands) can be blocked. That includes his Ultima Cannon. When you see him charging it up, try to get close, and use guard to send it back at him. This leaves him open for a combo. Get used to the timing of his attacks, and it should be a relatively simple task blocking or dodging his basic attacks. Also, if one of his combo hits gets you, use aerial recovery at the right time to make use of its temporary invincibility to avoid his follow-up attacks (unless you're at 1HP, in which case you risk dying).

He's usually vulnerable when landing (after he attacks or jumps), as it takes him a little time to recover. That being said, it's still a pretty small window, and if you miss it, you will probably be open for massive damage. Err on the side of caution. Don't go for the attack if you're very far away. If you're somewhat far to mid ranged, but not quite close enough to get him in time, cast thunder on him to send him in the air. This should buy you enough time to quick run over and get a few combos in. His three air sweep attacks is the easiest way to hit him, though he can do it several times in a row, so you can't assume you have an opening, as he may attack again. Most of the time when you get a full set of combos on him, he'll use this sweep attack 1 or 2 times (in other words 3 or 6 attacks total). This is a very easy way to loop him so he's predictable.

The move where he traps you and your commands turn to Fall and Escape is not as hard as it looks to get out of. It's a lot easier than Xemnas' version in KH1FM (and also a lot easier to avoid the attack altogether). If he uses it, don't panic. The commands move really fast at first, but they slow down considerably after a few seconds. It drains your health very slowly, so as long as you weren't just about to die, you should be fine. Once you can move again, start gliding away, so it'll be much harder for him to hit you and you can focus on the commands. Put the cursor on the second or third command, instead of leaving it at the top. Most people find that easier to process, because if Escape ends up on the fourth command, you don't have to do the counter-intuitive thing of pressing "up" to go down to the bottom. The first few times, I paused the game to help me see where the Escape command was, but now I've gotten the feel for it, and I only do that if my health is critical and I need to get rid of it fast.

I do highly recommend watching the video posted, as it was very helpful for me. I understand not wanting to be spoiled though. Most things I was able to figure out on my own. I watched it after I got far enough where I saw all of his attacks, and just wanted confirmation I was doing it right, and some tips on dodging certain things. His desperation move (ultimate attack where the lighting dims) is REALLY hard to dodge completely (I've only done it a handful of times, even knowing how). That's where the video is the most helpful. It's a series of well-timed blocks and dodges, that is very easy to mess up. There's three parts to it. The first you guard everything, and the second you glide away. Those are fairly simple, but the third is more complicated. If you get hit by his desperation move but still survive, even if you only have 1HP left, I highly recommend going for the combo anyway. You won't be close enough or land soon enough, so after his last rush attack do an air recovery and cast thunder to buy you time, then get in a few combos and heal right before you trigger his counter (note that casting thunder counts as one of your combos, so it's one less than usual). The last stage of his fight is much less predictable, so it's harder to get a chance to attack him. It can be a little scary being aggressive with 1HP left, but as long as you know what you're doing there's very little risk in this moment.

It might seem like a faraway goal, but it's probably closer than you think. Learning his attacks and gaining a bit of muscle memory is the difference between getting killed instantly and getting to his last few bars. And it's a fantastic feeling when you get him down to 0. Good luck!

It's always sad when this happens, even if you're not super-familiar with their work.

An unfortunate reality when properly casting an older character. Leonard Nimoy's health is declining too, and he may have already retired, though I can't remember.

Rest in peace, man.

I wish I liked Zexion's a little more, since he's my favorite Org. XIII member. It is a fun fight, and the gimmick makes sense, seeing as he doesn't like fighting directly. I do really like that in both CoM and KH2, he can't hurt you until certain conditions are met (stealing enough of your cards, and trapping you in the book world, respectively). But I wish there was slightly more going on outside the book world. As soon as you get out, all he does is try to put you back in. It would have been cool if there was some other mechanic to vary it up, and reward you with a couple extra combos if you succeed. Like maybe he disguises himself as one of your party members, and disguises them as him. And if you don't pick up on it, you could end up attacking Donald or Goofy. Something else to play off his powers of illusion.

I like all of them, honestly, though Vexen's is a bit annoying. It's hard to choose, but maybe Larxene's. It's fast-paced, and it feels good dodging/guarding her attacks. And getting her reaction command is really satisfying. My only complaint (it might only be in the data battle, but I'm not sure) is her virtually endless barrage of casting lightning. She'll juggle you in the air for way too long (without Once More, you'd die three times over) and if you try doing an air recovery she'll probably kill you before you can heal. You just have to wait until she stops so you can hit the ground and heal.

Lexaeus is a close second. Another moment-to-moment battle that feels good to react to, and a fun gimmick that isn't intrusive.

I don't think it's a bug, but it's possible.

It seems like it's a relatively set number of times that it hits you, based on how wide the hitbox for the attack is. Going above or below may cause it to hit fewer times, since it's thinner at those points. If you're invincible for part of the time due to badly-timed reflect or evasive move, you may get hit a few times because it partially passed through you already.

It must be something about Donald's hitbox. I'll bet there's certain parts of his idle/walking/running animations where he's crouching more to the ground. If their hitbox's are precise, that should effect it. What you're seeing is probably a perfect storm of Xaldin's attack being roughly Donald's height above the ground, so that the slightest movement could cause it to miss him.

That, or it could be a bug. That attack is supposed to hit everywhere (unless you reflect, or quick run/dodge roll at just the right moment), so it could be considered a "constant" for testing different variables. Since you'd always expect Donald and Goofy to get hit by it, and its effective region passes by in just a few frames (so it doesn't have a lot of chances to hit again), problems with hitboxes (if there are any) would become clear.

While I do like the idea of it being someone else, pretty much everything suggests that it is Master Xehanort. Considering he's introduced alongside Master Eraqus' armored form, it's pretty clear that it's him. That little flavor text in the journal is just to sound mysterious. Outright saying "it's Xehanort" would be kind of lame. That, paired with the fact that the battle theme combines Ansem SoD's and Xemnas' themes (MX's most direct iterations), basically confirms it.

The only outlier is the name "No Heart", which is a little strange, considering MX does have a heart. There are only two other possibilities that I can think of.

1) No Heart is a sort of Nobody created when Master Xehanort transferred his heart into Terra's body. We don't know very much about the specifics of transferring hearts into other people's bodies, so it could be the empty shell of MX's old body.

2) Going off of KHX's lore, it could be the sixth follower.

I haven't played X, but I don't think any information was given on the sixth follower who was not given the tome of prophecy. MX's keyblade bares striking similarities to the five Foreteller's keyblades. It's adorned with a blue eyeball, and has animal motifs (in his case a goat/demon). Given that similarity, it seems obvious that this is who Xehanort inherited his keyblade from.

However, I'm more inclined to believe No Heart is just a non-canon boss fight, like the Armor of Eraqus, or the Organization XIII data battles.

From my understanding, Heartless do not naturally occur in the realm of light. They need to either be manually extracted from a person's heart, or summoned from the realm of darkness. However once one exists, it can multiply on its own by stealing other people's hearts.

Cheers to a great year!

Yep, Mixt hit the mark. Maxing out your MP is extremely useful for this. Equip Spellbinder or Diamond Dust if you have it, plus other accessories like Ray of Light.

If you summon Bambi, he'll essentially give you an unlimited amount of MP. If that runs out make sure you have elixirs/ethers ready, and equip Goofy with his MP Gift ability.

When entering the Second District, I'll usually go right and drop behind the stairs to hide. If I'm playing it safe, I'll cast stop, followed by 2 thunders, and then repeat. Obviously that takes a lot of MP though, so you have to be prepared for that. You can take a more direct approach using physical attacks (a combination of both is probably best), but you just have to be careful. If you don't position yourself correctly, it won't stop all of them, which can be trouble.

Run along home, boy, before the monsters get you.