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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer

@ardailec.bsky.social

99 followers 120 following 190 posts

I am a Narrator with 15+ Years of experience producing audiobooks and offering voice work for indie animations and video games. I have worked in genres including Romances, Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy. Ask me for promo codes to my work!

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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 1d

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kppn...
I made a review of Silksong. So if you wanted to hear someone wax on about it for over an hour...there ya go.

Hollow Knight Silksong: A Game by Team Cherry, A Review by Ardailec

YouTube video by Ardailec

www.youtube.com

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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 8h

It's either that or it's TTS. It sounds similar to the youtube auto-translate.

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Reposted by Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 1d

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kppn...
I made a review of Silksong. So if you wanted to hear someone wax on about it for over an hour...there ya go.

Hollow Knight Silksong: A Game by Team Cherry, A Review by Ardailec

YouTube video by Ardailec

www.youtube.com

1 1

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 1d

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kppn...
I made a review of Silksong. So if you wanted to hear someone wax on about it for over an hour...there ya go.

Hollow Knight Silksong: A Game by Team Cherry, A Review by Ardailec

YouTube video by Ardailec

www.youtube.com

1 1

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 4d

The wow-killer paradox is a bit different though since people have a large attachment to the game from all of the mounts and achievements (tm). Tarkov regularly resets you every season, so in theory jumping to a new one should be pretty simple.

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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 5d

Is Zangar Marsh going to be in Midnight because between this and the striders I don't see how else they'd be involved.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 8d

If this is what I think it is, I only remember two things: A scene where the hero was afraid of burning his friends alive because his armor absorbed heat, and a villain who shouted "QUAKE WITH FEAR!!!".

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 8d

Every now and then I remember that the reason why Isabeau never fell into law or chaos was because she enjoyed Rose of Versailles and it just makes perfect sense.

A screenshot from SMT 4 where Isabeau is talking about some "literature" she found that is referencing Rose of Versailles. Describing France as a fictional kingdom.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 15d

You ever look back on something you wrote and then just ask "Why the heck did I use this word so much?"

somehow I just kept writing bevy for some reason.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 19d

This is the best Megaman Zero game to ever be released. I highly encourage you to check it out.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · 20d

Oh Blizzard is pruning some of the excess mechanics for Midnight, say what about Death Knights and....yep, still gotta stand in DnD. Ughhhhh....

Reposted by Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer

Flork @florkofcows.bsky.social · Sep 12

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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 9

0 chance in hell but come on Etrian Odyssey. It's been 7 years since Nexus.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Fantastic for any fan of Battle Network, only thing I'd say is that this game's combat is *fast*. Way faster than BN got except for like Bass Omega. So be ready to just get rolled when you start it.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Overall, I enjoyed my time with the story and narrative and combat. But I just...I hate the menus. It feels like one of the worst I've dealt with since Persona 2; Eternal Punishment . It's not as clunky or slow, but just quickly parsing information from it gets harder and harder as you go 15/15.

The persona 2 menu. Depecting the commands "Spell, Item, Data, Card List, Analyze, Config, Load, and Save." I will tell you there is an equipment and Persona system for every character. Go ahead and guess how to navigate there. It may shock you.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Great because it allows for the whole playable cast to feel both useful and contributing. It handles this problem far better, than say P3:FES's stamina mechanic that tried to force you to use other characters as they got tired and left Tartarus. I just wish it wasn't done with *this* inventory. 14/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

And while you might say "Well just pick a core team of four and stick to it"...to the games credit, it WANTS you to swap party members regularly. Thanks to varied encounter design calling for different archetypes to handle specific threats, you can't afford to leave people benched. Which is- 13/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Seven different characters, who are going to change what they can and cannot equip fairly regularly. And while the game does help a lot by auto-swapping to whatever has the highest Attack and Defense values...that doesn't help with accessories, especially with little annoyances like the Dancer.12/X

Junah's Equipment page, showing she has equipped Weapon, Armor, Gear (I.E, Shoes, a helmet or gloves) and an Accessory called Elementalist's Mask. This accessory can only be worn by the Dancer Archetype. If she swaps out of it, she will equip an Innocent Amulet (I.E, Nothing) forcing the player to manually swap in a new accessory every time. The reverse is true if you swap INTO dancer, forcing you to dig through the accessory menu to try and find it.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

I'd argue this menu is the result of having too many equipment systems at once. Most Atlus games are actually basic when it comes to inventory: You'd either only manage equipment for one character, or it's just one set of armor and a weapon for 4. But with Metaphor, you have to manage SEVEN. 11/X

The SMT3 Magatama system with 30 different unlockable magatama that you "Equip" Only one of at a time. It changes your health, resistances, stats, and what skills you will learn on level up.

It is a display of 30 glowing swirlies on a dark background with a list of stats on the bottom left depecting Strength, Magic, Vitality etc.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

This sounds like I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill, but no, when you spend 100+ hours of a video game, most of that is going to be in menus. And it gets frustrating trying to find something and not remembering if it was a Staff, or a food, or an accessory that you can't equip arbitrarily.10/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

For comparison: SMT 5's is easy to parse just at a glance. Metaphor constantly requires you to check the descriptive text of everything because there is no uniformity aside from the monochrome icons. But what makes this more infurating is that Metaphor's item menu changes in and out of combat. 9/X

The SMT 5 Shop menu, showing a collection of healing, attack and support items with Rags, the shopkeeper on the side in a clear and understandable manner.

The Metaphor Refantazio Item drop down menu: The icons are white, though distinct for Healing, Mana restorative, Food, and Ailment cures. But you cannot easily tell what ailments the items cure based on the names. The menu has tabs for Vendor Trash, Key items, info, etc etc.

Metaphor's In Combat item menu. All consumables are segregated into five tabs: Healing, Mana restorative, Ailment Cures, "Magic Items" and Food. All of the text and iconography are white. The tab is currently over "Magic Items" which consists of both Elemental Bombs and utility items that cleanse buffs/debuffs and Physical and Magic Reflection.

Metaphor's in-combat menu again, this time over the Food category. These are a collection of Healing, ailment cures, restoratives and powerful buffs and bombs.

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Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

There is a good reason why Mainline SMT tends to keep it's item names simple (I.E, Everything is a Rock, Chakra, Elemental Sutra with etc) It's that when you have a metric shit-load of them, finding what you need in a massive list becomes really hard. Especially when they all have bespoke names. 8/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

The Accessories have it the worst: They all use a pendant icon and a rarity color, but most of their effects aren't necessarily accurate. When the Utilitarian Manual, arguably *the* best item in the game hands down is just a purple, it becomes obnoxious trying to find it in the sea text 7/X

This is Stohl trying to decide on an accessory. We see a drop down menu of a list of accessories, some with an effect listed, others requiring you to hover over them to know what the accessory even does arbitrarily. Resulting in you not being able to tell from a glance what everything does quickly. There are sorting options, but they tend to be unhelpful, especially once you have nearly 100 different accessories.

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Because every Archetype has a unique weapon type and a certain armor type (Robes/Light/Heavy) and certain Accessory restrictions, it leads to you having this massive pile of armor and gear that, aside from just using the highest Attack/Armor stat becomes a massive PITA to sift through. 6/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

But my biggest issue with the game is that the menu just...sucks. Atlus is known for their stylish menus, but they'd never sacrificed form over function to my knowledge before Metaphor. I think part of this just has to do with the Archetype system and the weapon and armor restrictions. 5/X

Chase Johnson - VA / Audiobook Narrator / Video game reviewer @ardailec.bsky.social · Sep 2

Once you acquire the Charge/Concentrate equivalent, the combat becomes utterly warped around it. By Altabury, it felt like everything boiled down to: One person buffs, One person debuffs, A float to either enable weaknesses or cover healing, and the DPS who cycles Concentrate/The nuke of choice. 4/X