Destroyed

Talon forces...

Ok, I'm currently engaged with researching as much as I can about Overwatch Lore ever since the new PVE missions came out because, I just gotta know everything, you know?

I was looking at the Talon wiki page and going through the members and the commanding staff, yada, yada, yada, and I scroll down to the gallery, and I see... an atrocity.

I LOVE the achieves event, right. It's my favourite event since it always came out around my birthday, and PVE is just so fine. I remember playing Retribution when it first came out, and man, where those missions good. The enemies were great, they had unique designs and made combat interesting.

The assassin was my favourite because it nodded to Genji's original design ideas, and found a way to still incorporate it into the game.

Basically, the Talon forces in Retribution and Storm Rising followed as such:

You had your grunts, your standard cannon fodder and really easy to kill. The only thing that irritating about them is the amount of health they gain in Expert and Legendary.

Then you had the enforcers, who had slower attack patterns but did more damage. You gotta be real careful of their attack when it gets to Expert and Legendary, because they can one shot you.

Then there was the sniper, who would spawn in with a small cutscene initially, and then had a tracking laser that followed the person they were targeting. Fairly easy to take out in the Easy - Hard difficulties, and then slightly more difficult in the Expert and Legendary versions. Because, like Widow, Headshots can kill in one shot.

Then there's the assassin, which like I said before, is a nod to some design concepts initially discussed for Genji. The assassin, like the sniper, would initially spawn in a small cutscene when they're first introduced in the mission. Then they would leap from wall to wall, before selecting a target and running across the ground towards them to slash them. Usually, whatever difficulty, it's a one attack, one kill kind of thing, but she's the easiest to avoid and the easiest to kill in my opinion.

Then there was the heavy assault unit. Man, where those things nightmares. Massive hulks of men, with two giant mini guns (or whatever they are) attached to their arms, and giving off a constant stream of fire. People literally designed routes and patterns for the achieves mission so that there was a possible way to destroy these monsters in Expert and Legendary. Not to mention the ungodly amount of them Blizzard throw at you.

Here's a photo for reference :P

So, here I am, looking at this photo reminiscing, because IT'S BEEN THREE YEARS SINCE WE HAD ARCHIEVES BLIZZARD! Then I click onto the next slide and oh God...

What is this travesty?

Who... are you? What happened to the Enforcers? To the Assassin? Why do the grunts look so... flaccid... and why does the Heavy assault look like a bad imitation of Winston? He looks smaller and not as intimidating as well... And the sniper... I could have physically cried when I saw this. The sniper in overwatch 1 was so sick! But now... well... now she looks like a shoddy imitation of Widow.

Petition for the return of Jeff Kaplan? </3

(I feel like I might have gotten too carried away over the Talon enemy models, but then again. Maybe I didn't).

This was painful to complete 🥲

Being a Mercy main...

Ok, so a few games ago I had this really good Mercy/Ana game. It's usually pretty standard for me to play attack Mercy and defence Ana or Kiriko, and like normal I played Mercy on attack and picked Ana for defence. Then this little message pops into chat,

And I'm thinking oh boy, what kind of situation is this? I don't know about any of you lot, but I really hate being asked or told what character to play. Although the message didn't, you know, feel demanding it still rubbed the wrong way and I didn't switch until we were at the last point and needed Mercy.

Then he puts this in at the start of the third round. I don't really know what to say at this point, but it's really pissing me off that he's implying that I have to play Mercy 24/7. Plus he literally had half my healing at this point in the game, and if there was a lack in healing it was down to him. I think I had 16k at this point and he had 8k.

Also his excuse that he 'dies' a lot is so rubbish, because it's obviously his fault for being out of position and trying to dps and get kills so much. This sc is from a little later in the game, but as you can see the difference between our heals is just getting bigger. Also, here's an example of what I mean when he's out of position. Watch the Illari:

Completely out of position as Illair lol, then blames his lack of heals on his number of deaths. Like, hm, I wander why. I just couldn't be assed to type out 'stay in position then' in chat because they're obviously not gonna listen.

The rest of the game was pretty close so I stayed on Mercy for round 4 as well, and my guy has the audacity to say GG Mercy at the end of the game. Like bro,

I got 11k more heals than you, it's a bit more than GG.

Anyway, there isn't really a point to this post, just me complaining and being confused on how to feel because it felt like he was complementing my Mercy gameplay but also complaining at me all at once.

The like of a Mercy main :,)

This made me giggle

Overwatch Animated Shorts Master list!

All the Overwatch Animated shorts in release date chronological order <3

Naturally, the 'cinematic trailer' came out first :) ->

The next trailer that came out was the 'We are Overwatch' short:

The next short was the 'Recall' short:

Quickly following that short, was the 'Alive' short:

Not long after that one either, the 'are you with us' Short was released:

Following that was the 'Dragons' short:

Then not even two weeks later the 'Hero' short was released:

Then a few months later 'The Last Bastion' short was released:

A month of two later the next short, 'Infiltration' was released:

After quickly putting out so many shorts, Blizzard took a break just shy of a year before releasing the 'Rise and Shine' short:

Hello folks and on today's episode of I complain about Overwatch Lore, may I present Gabriel Reyes' son?!

And his freaking wife????

We're introduced to them during the 'Code or Violence' short story and we don't really get to know much about them, other than they met after the Omnic crisis and she found another partner after Gabriel Reyes was pressured dead.

They mention a 6 year old son in the short story and that has to be the kid in the picture, no doubt.

But it bring to question, when was he referencing his sons sixth birthday? How many years before Overwatch was disbanded was that? Presuming it was the last one before Overwatch disbanded he was be 11 in the current Overwatch timeline. Why have we heard nothing about a little Reyes running around in the world? Why are there NO in game voice lines about his son?? Or wife????

And his wife! How did they meet? When were they married? How long were they together? Does she still mourn him and want him back or has she accepted things and moved on with her new partner?

Give me more Blizzard I beg 😮‍💨😮‍💨

Gabriel Reyes <3

That's it. That's the post.

Re-Watching Origin Stories

I was re-watching Origin stories and was only a few in when I came to Kiriko's.

Everything is you know, not making sense because of the age differences between her and the Shimada brothers, and then, it starts to just make even less sense.

She basically says in her story that she didn't pick either her mothers way of protecting people, or her Grandmothers, instead she combined the both into a more renegade style.

Cool, chill, whatever.

Then it shows this at the very end:

Like who are these people??

They all look pretty young, and by the looks it it they're all dressing up as Japanese spirits or Yokai.

Those are five sick character designs and all we've heard about them is this single screen grab and some possible references in the Yokai short story?

In the Yokai short story, three characters are mentioned, Ryōta, Nobuto and Sakura. We're introduced to them as Kiriko is meeting them for a festival.

We also learn that Ryōta and his friends do illegal jobs on the side to slight the Hashimoto gang - which are the group of thugs that run the area, Kanezaka, where Kiriko lives.

Here are the bozos in Kiriko's short:

This fight always gives me chills ngl, it's so well animated and staged, it's a wonder to watch.

Also, just have to point out a little line of consistency (that could also be considered laziness considering you've view on it).

But, this Bozo: (from Kiriko's short)

First appeared in Hanzo and Genji's short:

Which came out seven years ago now.

I guess it depends on your point of view. Would it be considered lazy because they couldn't be bothered to make another lackey. Or, is it consistent to use a character they'd already assigned to the Hashimoto group seven years ago.

Guess it can be a little bit of both.

Anyway, getting a bit off topic.

The Yokai short story basically depicts Kiriko stopping her friends from blowing up a warehouse in-case it caused collateral damage, and instead they just sabotaged the weaponry inside the warehouse.

She brings them around from the destruction by telling them a story she heard the Shimada brother's father tell them when they were younger.

At the end of the story they talk about forming a group of that strikes from the shadows at the Hashimoto, and the word Yokai was specifically mentioned.

Which is what these look like:

I'm not sure about the two women, but I'm fairly sure the green one on the right is supposed to represent a Kappa and the brown animal mask on the left is a Tanuki. I'm assuming the one in the back is supposed to be an Oni, sort of like Genji's skin.

So, could this group contain some of the members mentioned in the short story? Are some of them Ryōta, Nobuto and Sakura?

Just from names alone, I would assign the Oni in the back as Ryōta, the Tanuki as Nobuto and the girl holding the umbrella as Sakura.

It would make sense for them to be there if they were mentioned in the short story, which honestly, I feel like should have taken place during their little groups peak.

And included descriptions.

The writing of the short story was kind of weak as well and I just skimmed over most of it quickly. There were a lot of flowery descriptions and analogies, but other times things were too blunt and straightforward. It wasn't a thrilling read to say the least.

Although, it's difficult to make 6 pages good or thrilling, so I suppose they worked with what they had.

If the short story had taken place when the gang had all come together, and it detailed a more complicated heist against the Hashimoto it would have been a much more interesting read.

Plus Blizzard would have had the opportunity to develop more lore, instead of putting loosely put together ideas out there for the sake of time.

Trust me, I know what people will be willing to cut out and half ass all for the sake of meeting deadlines. I'm an art student.

So, I feel the writers are less to blame here and the Blizzard managements are more in the blame.

They keep mass producing these heroes with the bare bones of lore, and then chuck them into the game. It makes more sense for the newer heroes to have less lore, but some of the older heroes have just as much lore as the newer ones; less in some cases.

Surely the writing team hasn't been too pre-occupied with OW2, since well, there was a shortage of new heroes for years and the missions turned out to be... not what we thought.

I just don't understand how Blizzard can keep putting out these strands of lore and then not follow them up.

It drives me up the wall.

If Blizzard was a blanket they would have too many lose threads to count when it came to Overwatch Lore.

Just! Please give us something more concrete Blizzard!

Write more books, draw more comics, release more lore, release more lore centred events!

The Overwatch universe is a plethora of amazing stories to be told and Blizzard is missing on almost everything!

There's a time and there's a place for certain things

Just played a round of legendary death from above underworld and our soldier decides that he wants to get the lore achievement on legendary mode?

Like there's a time and a place my dude, and that's normal mode not legendary.

Satisfying Sombra pick :)