Video Game News & Discussion 2.0

GameStop has laid off 20% of its corporate office, including its CFO. Game Informer has also been affected, while the NFT people keep their jobs.

Was really looking forward to his even though I like the sequel more.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-26/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-game-paused-amid-studio-shakeup

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Fist of the North Star coming to the Switch lol

I will definitely buy that Fire Emblem game if they’ve jettisoned/pared back the relationship/dating weirdness of the last few releases. I just wanna play a tactics game.

Also the hype is real for LoZ: Tears of the Kingdom (BOTW2) release in May.

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I’m just glad that the new Fire Emblem game isn’t another Musou BS game.

I’d also like to see them scale back on the relationship stuff, but I don’t think they will. That’s kind of become Fire Emblem’s trademark, and without that, there really isn’t much to distinguish Fire Emblem from any of the other SRPGs that have been coming out. Plus, people love the relationship stuff and can ship and stan characters (I hope I used those terms right, I hardly ever use them and I’m not sure I fully understand what they mean).

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Stan/stanning is just being a fan on a crazy level (portmanteau of stalker and fan) which just became being a hardcore fan for a character/property.

Shipping is basically reading into and/or actively fabricating a relationship between characters in a cast that does not exist in direct interpretation of the “text” of the media.

Both of these are sort of appropriate to talk about the last few FE games, but since you are actually pairing people up and/or going on dates with the people its more of a matchmaker/dating sim in the non-combat section. I would more traditionally associate shipping in FE with an earlier game where you’re like what if relationship between main character and {axe barbarian picked up in mission 13}.

I do agree I think that aspect has drawn in an additional element/group to the fanbase that expanded sales beyond what a traditional FE game might be. That’s objectively fine, but subjectively not for me. Have to wait for reviews and previews of FE Engage to truly know though I hope with the ring mechanic with the spirits of previous game protagonists/big fan favorites that it is more focused on the tactical gameplay.

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If the new Fire Emblem game isn’t for you, there’s always the Front Mission remake coming out in November, I think? I loved Front Mission 3 on the original PlayStation and I’m really looking forward to these remakes and hope they turn out well.

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Stan isn’t a portmanteau of anything. It’s a character from an Eminem song about an obsessed fan who commits a murder suicide because Marshall Mathers won’t reply to his letters.

I’m guessing he picked Stan because it rhymes with “I’m your biggest fan”.

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You beat me to it!

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I know that song/rap of course, but I never knew that was the origin of the term Stan. Kind of dark, taking that name for a guy who killed himself and his family and using it to say you “love” a character or whatever.

Sometimes I just don’t understand fandom.

Anything that begins as weird and dark can be used ironically enough times that people will forget the origin and use it non-ironically again with the new meaning.

See also: wicked, sick, dope, nasty, etc.

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Initially to call someone or a group a “stan” or “stans” it seemed to be a bit pejorative, basically saying “yall are taking your fandom way too far, to the point it might be unhealthy or unproductive” a bit like other internet terms, people started just using it more casually and self-referentially until it got to the point of basically just meaning “a serious, hardcore fan, on the level of the titular Stan, even if they would never go to the levels that Stan did.” and then it’s slowly slid from there to just be a way to refer to all fans that are more than a passing interest.

Also stan stuck partially because I think it became a verb in a way that fan couldn’t really. I can stan something and that means be a fan for it. But if I fan something, it just means I’m… wafting air over it? It has a certain versatility, uniqueness, and for those who know, a bit of an edge.

Other point of order: Goldeneye coming to Switch. (And Xbox!) Yeeeeeah boiiii.

In the KPop world there is an even worse level of fandom beyond stan known as saesang.