*clown country

not that it isn't a clown world, too, but we shouldn't indict that world for the failings of one clown country, especially when other countries have the US beat when it comes to affordable housing, and also doesn't foster a culture where we force our children to attend college or kick them out by age 18

more years have passed since the last time you posted than you have brain cells, and it doesn't seem like anything has changed

silver lining is that this could actually galvanize dems into gaining more seats in congress this year, in which case we'll have a much easier time writing shit into law rather than having to rely on these flimsy court rulings (and RvW was flimsy)

democrats may get complacent, but historically, they always get shit done when their feet is held to the fire--so i'm actually a little optimistic about the future, if you could believe that

for those of you who like to waste time arguing with people about abortion on the internet, holy fucking shit, i BESEECH you to find a stronger argument than "bodily autonomy"--i know it's a super woke-sounding argument and it makes you look super cool, but it's actually SO fucking dogshit that i genuinely believe it causes more damage to our side of the argument than it does to the other. you are going to get perfunctorily trounced by any pro-lifer who has any experience in the debate, because all they have to do is ask "what about the bodily autonomy of the fetus," and everything you say after that question will be interpreted as mental gymnastics (because it kind of will be), and it's not going to make you look good. it's going to make you look BAD, to everybody, except for the biggest dipshits on your side who think you're making a good point.

i'm jerking myself off a little here, but you need to argue for abortion the way an anti-natalist would and appeal more to the safety of the child than the personal comfort of the mother. you need to do this, because it's a given that conservatives don't give a shit about the mother, since we already know they don't give a shit about women in general. they're only concerned about the child (well, supposedly). so you need to ask them questions pertaining to the safety of the child, like why they'd want children to be born to a set of parents who wouldn't want them, or philosophical questions, like whether a child being forced into a life of abject misery is truly better than sparing them of that brutal circumstance. if you're arguing with a religious person, and they're unwilling to consider the possibility that there is no god/afterlife/whatever, then the conversation is fucked and you just shouldn't have it.

take it from an anti-natalist who's been debating this subject for longer than most people have been comfortable doing so publicly. you MUST find a stronger argument than bodily autonomy. conservatives and pro-lifers CLEARLY do not give a fuck about that. i've seen people try to use this argument against below-average intelligence pro-lifers, and the pro-choicer always gets mangled and embarrassed. it's really bad and makes us look like fucking morons.

literally don't be boring, though

tried to play nothing but the good stuff this past may—really starting to put the hurt on my backlog now

---

Metal Gear Solid (1998) - 9/10
: This one felt good to enter into the spreadsheet. I can't explain why it's taken me so long to play this one, but at least I finally did, because it really is one of the best games ever. Has it begun to show a little bit of aging? Absofuckinglutely, but in terms of what the game was able to accomplish with its filmic ludonarrative structure, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that the game's faults are thoroughly dwarfed by its achievements and more appreciable elements, such as all the clever yet hidden little implements of realism, which would always catch me off guard, or how every single story beat is memorable, engaging, and even thought-provoking at times, or how the game's (genuinely funny) sense of humor never gets in the way of its more grounded and serious moments. Turning video games into movies for the rest of time could be considered an unfortunate side-effect of this game's success, but at the same time, it's games like this that also help push the medium forward artistically, and I'll always cherish it for that. I'll be continuing on with this series as soon as I'm able.

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The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) - 8/10
: I have a troubled relationship with this game. There have been periods where I've enjoyed it, but I've never quite loved it. There have also been periods where I've outright disliked it, considering it to be the single most overrated video game, and that the people who claim to love it so much only claim as such because of nostalgia—an opinion that I completely disavow today. Having finally played it all the way through, during a time when nobody's really talking about the game anymore, I feel like I'm finally able to have a much clearer perspective on it, untainted by hype and expectation, and one where I can truly look at the game for what it is—and what I've been able to conclude for myself is that it's a pretty great game for which I hold a great deal of appreciation, and now more than ever, I am fully capable of understanding why the game is so beloved. From front to back, it just feels like the ultimate little kid's fantasy adventure. It's deeply comforting to play. The immaculate presentation makes the game's relatively small world feel big, vivacious, and exciting to explore. The dungeons are huge, brimming with atmosphere, and feel almost insurmountable until you finally conquer them. Every side character is lovable and interesting, to a point where I'd often find myself going out of my way to find one NPC on the other side of Hyrule just to see what they're up to—and I was never disappointed; they would always have something new to say. It's no secret to me anymore why this game holds such a special place in so many people's hearts.

Do I still think it's a little overrated, though? If I'm being honest, maybe just a little bit, but with my newfound understanding of the game's appeal, I wouldn't choose to phrase it that way anymore. Instead, I would simply argue that there are several Zelda games that do what Ocarina of Time does for me, but on a greater scale—namely, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, A Link to the Past and Breath of the Wild. Strictly on a personal level, I think I'd still even place the original Zelda game as well as Zelda II above it in my personal rankings. But that doesn't mean I think it's a substandard game in the series—on the contrary, I think it's quite fantastic. It's just that "fantastic" is "average" for a Zelda game, because the average Zelda game is fantastic. If anything, playing Ocarina of Time has only further solidified this series as my all-time favorite, so I'll never think to sleep on it again.

The next one I still have to play is Oracle of Seasons, which I hope to be starting soon—I've already beaten its counterpart, Oracle of Ages, which is somewhat ironic considering that Seasons is the one I owned as a kid.

---

Super Punch-Out!! (1984) - 3/5
Punch-Out!! Featuring Mr. Dream (1990) - 5/5
: Yep, I finally beat this cocksucker after SOOO many years of not being able to do so.

Okay, so it's not as cool as beating Mike Tyson, but they fight the exact same way. I also beat the arcade version of Super Punch-Out!! shortly before achieving this, as well, which means that I've beaten every single Punch-Out!! game.

My conclusion on the series:
1. Super Punch-Out!! (1994, SNES)
2. Punch-Out!! (2009, Wii)
3. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! (1987, NES) / Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream (1990, NES)
4. Punch-Out!! (1984, arcade)
5. Super Punch-Out!! (1984, arcade)

They're all great, of course—probably Nintendo's most consistent series, honestly—but the two original arcade games are definitely rough around the edges. The NES game, whether you're playing the Mike Tyson version or the Mr. Dream version, is an all-time classic that is going to be extremely fucking difficult to play if you don't have a good television. I have a laggy flatscreen television without a game mode, so the fact that I was able to beat the game, let alone play it in any capacity, is kind of a miracle. The SNES game is my personal favorite. It has the widest variety of opponents and a lot of cool mechanics at play that make each fight feel like a real fair fight (apart from all the illegal moves your opponents throw around). No fight ever feels completely one-sided in anybody's favor, and just like the arcade versions, there is no round system to steal anyone's TKO. It's a raw test of skill. The Wii game, objectively speaking, probably should be considered the best one, because it kind of is, but I still slightly prefer the SNES game's implementation of some of the better mechanics otherwise found only in the arcade games—plus, I find the opponents more interesting.

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Kirby's Dream Land 3 (1997) - 7/10
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (2000) - 7/10
: Kirby 64 recently got added to NSO's N64 service, so I thought I'd check that out after playing Dream Land 3, its immediate predecessor, given that I've already beaten all the other Kirby games leading up to these ones. I don't have a lot to say about them—they're just good, old-fashioned, fun little platformers. Dream Land 3 has you experimenting with powered-up abilities given to you by six different animal friends you can partner up with, and Kirby 64 lets you power up your abilities by fusing two of them together. In both games, you only get to fight the true final boss if you collect every heart star or crystal shard in the game, most of which will require you to experiment with all sorts of unique ability combos to find. Some of these collectibles are fun, creative, and clever. Others are stupid, cryptic, and annoying. Regardless, like finishing a jigsaw puzzle, completing the process is quite satisfying—I just don't know if I'll ever come back to these games again.

If I had to pick which game I like better, it would probably be Kirby 64, but Dream Land 3 is one of the prettiest looking SNES games I've ever seen (which makes sense, given how it was the final first party Nintendo game to be released for the system).

The next Kirby game I'd play is Amazing Mirror, but I'm not gonna consider that "urgent," or anything. There's a lot of other things I'd rather be playing right now than another Kirby, so that one can wait a while.

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Yoshi's Story (1997) - 5/10
: Yoshi's Island is one of my favorite games of all time, but unfortunately, this one didn't do a lot for me, especially as a direct follow-up. They definitely tried something different with this game, and I can respect and appreciate that. Although there are twenty-four levels, you only get to play six of them over the course of the game, so no two playthroughs will end up looking alike (unless you want them to). Levels don't "end" in the traditional way by having you reach some sort of goalpost—instead, levels end as soon as Yoshi eats exactly thirty of the fruits scattered bountifully across each level. If you only eat one specific kind of fruit, it'll take much longer, but you'll make Yoshi happier (which scores you more points).

That's all well and good, but I have never given a shit about scoring points in any video game I've ever played—I basically just play games to beat them, and to experience the story, if there happens to be one. I played enough of this game to see every level in the game at least one time, but my playstyle focused around eating the first thirty fruits I saw—a pretty boring and easy experience that I could make harder on myself by only focusing on a single kind of fruit, but that creates this weird dilemma in my mind, where I feel like I'm just "filling in" for the game's entertainment value, which is something that I consider to be the game's responsibility, not mine.

I don't know if that makes sense, but I basically just don't enjoy the sensation of putting a lot of work and effort into making a game more fun, because I think games should just be fun on their own, without my help. On its own, Yoshi's Story is kind of a dull mess of awkward, unsatisfying controls and incredibly messy level design. I appreciate the experimentation, I really do—but I think there's a good reason why they never really returned to this style of gameplay—because it just doesn't really work.

I haven't heard too many good things about any of the Yoshi games that would follow this one, unfortunately, so this will probably be the last game in the series that I play for a long time.

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Double Dragon (1987) - 3/5
: I had this idea recently where I'd watch every single movie adapted from a video game for the purpose of ranking them, but before I'd commit to doing such a stupid thing, I'd want to familiarize myself with the source material of every video game that ever got a film adaptation. Double Dragon happened to be the oldest one on the list.

As a rule, I don't really like beat 'em up games—and while Double Dragon may not be the first example of one, it's commonly cited as the game that put the genre on the map. I obviously wasn't expecting this ancient-ass game to change my perspective on the genre entirely, but in case you were wondering, it certainly didn't. It is a thoroughly brainless experience—which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's just not quite for me, and I don't have much else to say about it other than that.

I'm sure the movie is spectacular, though.

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Ice Climber (1984) - 2/5
: I define "beating" Ice Climber as making it to the summit (not necessarily the peak) of all 32 mountains, and because the game allows you to choose which mountain to start on on the title screen, I opted to use this function as an unlimited continue system—otherwise, I would never have the patience to beat this game with the small number of lives they give you.

This game sucks. I know it's almost forty years old, but I don't care. I really, really hate how it feels to jump in this game, and that's a pretty big problem when that's the only thing that you do. It's horrible. That said, I kind of wish Nintendo would make another one, though. If Kid Icarus can get another one, I'm not sure why Ice Climber can't. They could actually make it good this time.

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What I'm gonna try to play for next month: Mega Man Legends, Cave Story, Star Fox 64, Tomb Raider, MGS2, TLoZ: Oracle of Seasons, Doom, F-Zero X, Sonic Adventure, and Wing Commander.

I don’t recall ever posting about disdain for masks and I still do wear one on occasion despite not necessarily needing to. This comment is out of nowhere.

I will also go on the record and point out that I have no qualms with abortions.

okay, but think about what you just said there

if you're willing to draw a line of equivalence, joking or otherwise, between overturning an election and overturning roe v. wade, DESPITE the fact that you are not opposed to abortion, then it follows that you'd probably be okay with drawing any line of equivalence—even if it betrays your own beliefs—as long it allows you to dunk on the libs, right

i just can't imagine having no qualms with abortion, and making that post

played a really nasty batch of games this past april—with one small exception, every game i played last month gave me different flavors of misery

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Wario Land II (1998) - 5/5
: One of my favorite games growing up was Wario Land 3, but I hadn't ever played the other games in the series, so I thought I'd check out its immediate predecessor. For the handheld it was designed for, it's a top-notch platformer, even if 3 would ultimately outmode it in every single way, in my opinion. At this point, the only games in the series I haven't beaten yet are 4 and Shake It for the Wii, but I don't feel any urgent desire to play those any time soon.

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Persona 2: Innocent Sin (1999) - 4/10
Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (2000) - 3/10
: These games were recommended to me over five years ago by someone who used to post here, so I feel kind of bad for taking this long to get to them. If you still happen to lurk every now and then, this one's for you.

Don't let my low ratings give you the idea that I hated these games, because I didn't—at least, not entirely. While I can truly and honestly say that I loathed the gameplay, just as I loathed the gameplay of the first Persona game, the Persona 2 duology does tell what has easily become one of my new favorite video game storylines... but boy, it's a damn shame that they don't play better. "Dated" does not even begin to describe the mechanics of these titles. Innocent Sin is probably the more tolerable of the two, given how easy it is, but its easiness did not go over so well with the fans—so when Atlus made Eternal Punishment, they made it a hell of a lot more challenging, which is all well and good, but it comes with the cost of forcing you to engage with its horribly decrepit mechanics. The games even feel more antiquated than significantly older titles, like Chrono Trigger—and that's something I find nearly impossible to forgive, hence the low ratings.

But, again—the story these games tell is actually quite good. Does it completely redeem the experience? I'm not sure about that, but it definitely helped carry me through, and I'm quite happy that I got to experience it. I loved ALL the characters. The way they're written is almost Evangelion-esque, in the sense that they all manage to feel like real people, instead of just silly exaggerated anime characters. They may feel a little stereotypical at first, but the story finds a way to slowly unravel the inner psychological turmoil that each of these characters is going through, which not only helps flesh them out, but also really endears you to them, and makes you feel truly invested in their personal arc—even with characters you initially dislike—which is quite rare. I can't even think of the last time that's happened. First impressions count for nothing in Persona.

Also, it's worth noting how unique Eternal Punishment is in terms of its cast. Unlike the rest of the series, which has you following a group of high school students, you are instead given a full party of adult characters—and not college kids, either. Actual adults—with lives, backstories, and careers. It's pretty cool.

I haven't even gotten to the themes of the narrative yet—but naturally, they resonated with me a fuckton. It's a story about many things, but from what I've gathered, it's mostly about learning how to accept your flaws, to atone for the mistakes you've made in the past, understanding what it means to be an adult, and how to take control of your own destiny—all that good coming-of-age stuff, all taken to these twisted, crazy, apocalyptic heights. That's my shit—and it was all very meaningful to me. I may not have enjoyed playing these games so much as I enjoyed the story being told, but sometimes video games are just kinda like that I suppose.

I'll be looking forward to playing Persona 3 in the future, because it's my understanding that the series really comes into its own in by this point—but I'll be delighted if the storyline is HALF as good as what I experienced in 2. In any case, I'll be taking a good long break from Persona for the time being—because playing two old-ass JRPGs back to back has done a number on my psyche, so I'll need some time to recover from that.

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Rayman (1995) - 7/10
: It wasn't too long ago that I described Bug! (1995) for the Sega Saturn as the hardest game I've ever beaten, and it didn't take too long for me to find something to dethrone it. Yes, Rayman for the PS1 is the most difficult video game I've ever played—and if you have any idea what I'm talking about, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I actually beat the entire game without cheating or looking anything up. And you shouldn't believe me. But the fact is, I did—and the things I resorted to doing in order to make this remotely possible are going to scar me for the rest of my life. Now, don't get me wrong—I still actually think it's a pretty solid game, especially for the year it was made in—hence why I'm giving it a 7/10—but GODDAMN, they needed to hire some more playtesters, or something. because the level of challenge was simply excessive. There's no other way to put it. You probably wouldn't expect such a friendly looking game to be this troublesome, but you haven't the faintest fucking clue until you've tried it yourself. I dare you.

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Twisted Metal (1995) - 6/10
: I've never played a vehicular combat game before, so this would be my first one. I thought it was okay—definitely not terrible, but not necessarily my cup of tea, either. I was looking forward to hearing some cool licensed music, but apparently, they didn't started doing that until the third installment... so, instead, we just get this cheesy-ass off-brand butt metal, and the sound design in general is pretty awful. The game itself is... decently fun, I guess, but gets old quick. It was interesting to learn that Sweet Tooth is NOT the name of the series clown mascot—his name is Needles Kane, whereas Sweet Tooth is the name of the ice cream truck that he drives. My character of choice was Mr. Grimm—the only character in the game badass enough to take a motorcycle to a demolition derby.

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Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories - 2/10
: Like Rayman, this is another "milestone" game of sorts—or... what's the negative equivalent of a milestone? Anyway, I believe I declared the original Persona to be the worst game I had ever beaten once I finished it in March—but once again, I already have a new one.

This game is another childhood demon of mine that I decided returning to essentially at random, because I've already been playing a bunch of other PS1 titles anyway—I figured, with my big adult brain, I would be able to make short work of this.

Holy fucking shit, I've never been so wrong about anything in my life.

I don't know how to explain how shitty this game is without going over how much it butchers the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, which I really don't want to do, so I'll just leave it at this—the game renders the game of Yu-Gi-Oh! down to its absolute boilerplate: Attack your opponent with monsters that have big numbers on them. That's PRETTY MUCH all you do. The problem is, when you're playing the game's story mode, you only gets cards with small numbers on them. How do you get cards with big numbers, you ask? At first, you can fuse your cards together to make cards that are kinda useful for the early part of the game, but those fusions will start to wane in their usefulness when facing stronger opponents. The only other way to get better cards is to keep winning duels. By winning duels, you are prized with one—singular—card. This card, roughly speaking, has a 90% chance of being absolutely worthless, a 9% chance of being maybe somewhat useful, and a 1% chance of being strong. You need to build a deck with strong cards if you want to beat the game—have fun grinding.

I am legitimately disturbed in the head for taking the time to beat this. I don't know what's wrong with me—and I am just giving you a barebones analysis what this game is like. I haven't even mentioned that there's no card ranking system, so it's possible for your opponent to just straight-up summon a Blue-Eyes Whtie Dragon (or stronger) out of the blue on the first fucking turn, and you MUST figure out how to deal with it. There's no way around it.

The game has two cool things going for it—an amazing OST and the ability to watch all ~700 monsters battle each other in 3D (the low-poly models and animations are rather poor, but that just adds to the charm, in my opinion).

The most offensive feature of the game, to me, is the feature that could've been its BEST feature. You see, there's a password feature in this game—at first, I thought they were just secret codes for rare and powerful cards for people who just wanna cheat. But no, it's actually a way to import your real world cards into the game by inputting the ID numbers printed at the bottom left corner of each card. These passwords don't just give you the cards for free, however—you still need to pay a certain number of star chips (earned through winning lots and lots of duels) to add those cards to your collection.

I'm thinking, how cool is that? If you have a physical copy of Blue-Eyes White Dragon in your collection, you'll be able to have it in Forbidden Memories, as well, without having to endlessly grind for it... but here's the catch: Every single card that is remotely worthwhile to use in Forbidden Memories costs just one short of ONE MILLION STAR CHIPS. The most star chips you can earn by winning duels is five, so in order to afford one of these premium cards (that you should already own), you would need to win about 200,000 duels. By the end of my playthrough, I played around 500 total, and I wanted to fucking kill myself—so the fact that they would bar you from getting decent cards in this way is pretty unforgivable.

This is a cruel, nihilistic hellspawn of a game that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy—well, maybe I would—but I certainly wouldn't wish it on any Yu-Gi-Oh! fans.

Thankfully, the game's direct sequel, The Duelists of the Roses, wound up being a substantial improvement, and one of my favorite PS2 games. Avoid Forbidden Memories at all costs—it's the first game I've ever regretted beating.

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this month, i'm definitely going out of my way to play some games that i KNOW i'll enjoy, such as ocarina of time and mgs1, because i need a break from the bullshit i put myself through here

Quote from: path1k on April 17, 2022, 07:26:45 PM

Haven't remembered Elegiac in years, couldn't stand him.

He seemed alright to me on bnet and early sep7 but most of our interactions were mainly making fun of Sapphire. Def turned into a weirdo after that for no reason.

i like to think it all began with someone here calling him a dingo

Quote from: Ian on January 24, 2021, 04:15:36 PM

Sooooooooooo

Where's my Biden Bux? I don't care if he sniffs children's hair, just give me my NEET dollars.

Nooooooooo! Biden isn't a sex offender!! Trump is! Trump said to grab them by the pussy!  Ignore the part where he said that they let him because he's rich, rich man bad! Capitalism bad! My parents don't love me!

woah! i just witnessed the epic ownage of all libtards and the total exoneration of donald trump in one banger of a sep7agon post
that was fucking epic, dude!

i enjoyed the first episode of the show more than i enjoyed the first video game, which is probably not the opinion you wanted to hear, but it doesn't mean that i thought it was good—it was quite dumb, in fact—but i think it's all right as long as you take it for what it is and not what you want it to be

i like how the efficacy of a UNSC weapon is completely dependent on whether MC is wielding it, where, if anyone else tries to fire the same exact weapon at an elite, it's like water off a duck's ass—MC is just such a badass that any weapon he holds gets stronger like magic, i guess. that's pretty funny

i appreciated how they used the sound effects from the games during certain parts—we even got a "wort wort wort"

chief's voice really wasn't doing it for me, because he's not supposed to sound that gruff and whispery—they should've just gotten the actual guy to do it, since he IS the voice of master chief


that girl gave a pretty good performance, i think—seems like she really cares about the role, which is nice

storyline is whatever. people have been complaining about how unfaithful it is, but i don't really give a fuck—it's clear that they're telling their own story with this, and i'm mostly okay with that, because i think being 100% faithful is a pretty boring and largely pointless endeavor anyway

the production value is certainly the best thing the show has going for it, but i wasn't really gripped by the story and unless i start hearing some good things, i don't feel super compelled to watch the rest

Quote from: maverick on March 30, 2022, 10:26:44 AM

it would be kind of funny if one day people decide to comb through our forums and follow all the storylines

I wish they could, half the posts are deleted because users got banned.

you can still read a banned user's posts if you check within their profile, but that would be a lot of effort

How did I never know about this? I usually find out every little detail I can from serebii.

idk but gen 5 was fucking packed with hidden content, i learn new stuff about it all the time

don't gotta convince me, i really wanna pick it up, but i don't even have a PS5 yet (or the money for one) and i'm not sure if i wanna bite the bullet on the lesser PS4 version

also, i thought there were no maidens

- low-ass frame rate of the trailer isn't doing anyone any favors
- a region inspired by Spain could be cool, but the sweeping landscape shots aren't very impressive when what we're being shown is PS2-level graphics (and i hate commenting on graphics, but it's inexcusable how unimpressive these games look)
- after LeGo, Sw/Sh, and Legends, i'm personally over seeing pokémon in the overworld if all they're going to do is wander about aimlessly until they see you, like scuttlebugs in super mario 64
- i see they tried to show off some animations to inspire confidence that they're actually trying now, but i wasn't very impressed by anything in particular
- pretty doofy looking starters, i'd probably pick the green cat i guess after choosing Violet

Resounding "meh" from me. On the surface, it really doesn't look like a massive leap from Sword and Shield, and in order to rekindle the passion I had for Pokémon, I really needed it to be. I'll keep an eye out for updates, but this is probably the first generation of Pokémon where I don't feel one whit of excitement.

been waiting for the book to close on SFV for a while, so i'm glad we can finally move on from it—although i think the game's final season ended on a relatively high note, the fact that the game was so heavily plagued with issues from the very beginning to around the midpoint did of course end up embittering a lot of people towards the game for basically the entirety of its lifespan, and the game itself, with its simplistic mechanics and systems compared to SF4, was beginning to get stale to the point where i haven't personally loaded up the game since before the pandemic, which sucks to say, but it's been clear for a long time that we've been in dire need of a fresh start

i don't mind that we didn't get any gameplay from this teaser—that's why it's a teaser, after all—it mostly just feels good to know that the fresh start we've been waiting for is on the horizon

to comment on what little we know right now:
- That logo sucks
- Luke is corny as fuck, and I don't like him as a main character
- We are finally getting a game that takes place after Third Strike in the storyline, so we'll probably see some cool legacy characters that we never got to see in SFV while likely saying goodbye to anyone involved with Shadaloo (which, unfortunately for me, probably means RIP to my main man Balrog)

If they do bring back characters that by all rights shouldn't be there because of lore reasons, I hope they just draw a distinction between what characters actually play a role in the storyline and what characters are just there for the fans and whatnot. Just because M. Bison is dead dead doesn't mean he can't be playable—and just because he's playable doesn't mean you have to write him into the storyline, kind of like how none of the DLC characters added post-A Shadow Falls have anything to do with SFV's story mode (as far as I'm aware).

Or they could just go the maximum hack route and just bring Shadaloo and Bison back to life again.

Overall, the new collection they announced was more exciting to me, because I've always wanted to try Darkstalkers. Of course, getting  R O L L B A C K  for it is great news—if this collection has it, then SF6 will most certainly have it.