u/Banana___Slamma

I am finally able to share my experience that mentions a game that recently went past the 1 year mark. Much of this is from my review on the Paper Mario subreddit, with a few additional points. I played the Switch version during Christmas of 2025 after I got done with that semester's finals.

I played Expedition 33 right before this. For years, I read about how unfathomably far in the sky TTYD is above all the other titles in the series. So, my expectations were very high, and with all that, I was totally blown away. The world building, the immaculate tie-ins ( initially I found Pennington calling Mario, Luigi, a little low on the entertainment scale, but when it tied back in to cause Bowser to lose his mind over Mario & Luigi stealing his thunder, that was cinema ), the artistic application of paper in all of the folding and cutting ways it was shown, the use of the crowd and background scenery during battles.

I personally prefer this to Expedition 33, as I don't enjoy photo-realistic graphics, but I imagine that's a hot take to most people. I want to review that game separately sometime, but maybe on a secondary play-through. The other thing is, for me, The Thousand Year Door had a much better curve on the build-up of the story. Expedition 33's story died for me after chapter 1, and I stopped caring completely after chapter 2. The Thousand Year Door BUILDS with every chapter and doesn't stop climbing even after the credits scene.

A special note about the music; I happened to let the menu go on for longer than 10 seconds when I was first getting ready to play the game, and, yeah that theme still goes hard. All of the music was very fitting, all of the sound effects were bubble-wrap-good.

I could go on about all of the greatness, but I wanted to especially underline how important it was to me that the ending, was not just The End. It was the conclusion of a story. The demon was defeated. Period. Now, I WANT to go back and find out what's going on. One of my favorite titles, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and its predecessor, both have an ending that has no effect on the world you play in. There are so many games like this as well, where you get stuck on the save screen right before the final boss.

Just some notes I wanted to drop by as to my personal decisions in regards to the gameplay: Once I got Powerlift, that pretty much made every single boss fight a breeze. Bobbery basically turned into 3 Art Attacks with it, besides a few specific enemies resistant to his attack. I beat Bonetail before I began Chapter 7, which made all the battles afterwords a breeze. I did feel like Vivian, Koop, and Goombella really fell off towards the late game, even Flurrie only had a few uses like flying Buzzy Beetles with spikes. I did not use any hints online, neither did I look up how to get through puzzles, so the ZL button hints were very useful in nudging me in the right direction or reminding me of my objective. Seriously well done as well.

It's a 10/10 game for me in every aspect: The art is beautiful, the music is fitting and well written, the story is meaningful, the combat is fun, and all the quality-of-life things are just right.

TLDR: If I had one sentence to summarize my experience with Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, it would be this: "This is the first text-based RPG with no voice acting that grabbed my attention and created a desire in me to actually read everything the characters said (besides Luigi)."

And, just in case: Expedition 33 had PHENOMENAL combat, music, and art. I just personally prefer Paper Mario.

Am I able to go back and apply for those other two assessments? If so, I do not see an option for this. Did I mess up by applying for the general tasks option?

I saw an opening for $42-51 an hour, it would be a 33% increase even at the low end for me. I'm yearning to be outside after being in an office for 3 years. Hoping they can cover $10,000 in tuition reimbursement that I'd owe if I left my current job early. Been here for 3 years, straight out of college.

Thoughts? Is being an Operator a very difficult job? Do my credentials match up at all? Is it worth applying regardless? The place is 20 minutes from where I live, but I assume I would be driving out all across the state?

This is the first time I've ever looked into this as a career field.

Title.

For context, I played this game in January of 2025. It took me 40 hours to beat the main game, and I was at around 50 hours when I put the game down and moved on. I will try to remember my experience as best as I can. I have tried Red Dead Redemption after playing this game, but did not like it. John Marston is not personable to me.

I bought the game on Steam for the purposes of hate playing. I could not fathom why people enjoyed playing these photo-realistic games (I still won't touch GTA) that are mainly made up of a sandbox, shooting galleries, and various levels of crime. What I didn't expect was my favorite story-telling experience in all of my gaming history. I played the whole game on an OLED Steam Deck.

I'll do a brief write-up of the chapters and how I felt during them, as well as any additional thoughts about specific parts of the game afterwords.

Chapter 1: I was in the hate-play mindset, BUT, I wanted to give the game the fairest chance. I was trying my best to pay attention to every single line of text, every voice line, and all of the character names. Subconsciously, I admired Arthur and Dutch throughout this part of the story. "Stay strong, stay with me" was powerful in my eyes. I disliked John and wasn't sure what the point of saving him was; I did not understand the dynamic of the gang yet. Zero context as you can probably tell. I really liked the tutorials that they give; I had a lot of time to think, I could try again and again without having to reload the entire scenario, and it was very comforting overall. I don't have a preference in slow or fast games, but each one must be done right. RDR2 did it right, for someone who wants a slow burn story.

Chapter 2: It seems to be common that this chapter is everyone's favorite. The gang is all together and there aren't too many problems yet. It's a safe time in the story. I think fishing is in chapter 3, but I'll mention it here along with the hunting that is introduced; I could not give less of a crap about these two mini-games. They weren't fun mechanically, they weren't fun visually; they just did not have the bubble-wrap factor I look for in mini-games. * * * My hate-playing stopped in this chapter. * * * Once the story started to get going, I fell in love. Saving Micah, beating debtors for their money, partying with Lenny; I even enjoyed shooting a deer or two a day and bringing them back to camp. This is when I noticed how ALIVE the world is. Everyone in town would let me know that my shirt is stained with blood. I was taking an active part in the greatest TV series in videogame history.

Chapter 3: Everything in this chapter felt like Chapter 2+. More robbing, more bad ideas from Dutch. I hated that pretty much no one cared about Arthur being gone for multiple weeks after the "deal" with the O'Driscolls. Made me sort of resent the gang a little, and for the first time, doubt Dutch. I ran into my first frustrating gameplay moment, where my wagon got stuck on a fence pole. It took me 2 or 3 real minutes to get it unstuck, all while hearing Sadie complain that we're not moving. That sucked. In a polished game, the post would just give way after a few minutes; the realism isn't worth the frustration, at least for the type of gamer that I am. Anyways, it was a fine Part 1 to Chapter 4.

Chapter 4: More killing. More robbing. More crazy ideas based on vibes from Dutch. They really did a good job of giving Dutch just enough trustworthiness to make it believable. He raised most of the folks in the muscle in the gang after-all, so kudos to him for that. I didn't like the house everyone was staying in; this was the first camp that felt wrong. Things were dire. I never liked the whole moonshine story-line, and although setting the field on fire was an interesting gameplay idea, it wasn't fun. I almost finished it on my first try, but I ran out of moonshine which wasn't even a thought in my head. I guess it makes sense in hindsight, but there isn't any dialogue to my best recollection that says "use the moonshine sparingly Arthur". Again, realism vs gameplay, unfortunately they chose realism.

Chapter 5: Hey, this is where the game took a nose dive for me gameplay wise. I got to "enjoy" a 5 hour shooting gallery and see Dutch's true nature very clearly. It's my least favorite part of the whole story; they shoot down what felt like 100s of soldiers and escape back to America. I don't have much to say about this chapter. It felt the least gamey, with the longest cutscenes of me just holding the joystick forward. To be clear, the story itself is amazing. I enjoyed taking an active part. I'm just trying to make a clear separation of the story and gameplay.

Chapter 6: I don't remember if the long horse ride home was at the end of 5 or the beginning of 6, but man, this was one of the highs of the story. Unshaken playing in the background, it was raining, and for the first time I felt teary-eyed. There's a lot that goes on in this chapter, and it all feels rushed after this point. The Indian narrative felt like a means to an end, something that was bigger than Dutch that could get him properly motivated to do something stupid and vibes-based again. The betrayal at the train station wasn't necessarily a surprise, but it did hold some weight. I started to hate doing missions in this chapter. I genuinely asked myself, why is Arthur following along anymore? Why doesn't he just leave? What's the point of all this? And I'm glad that Arthur reaches the same conclusion eventually, along with John. I had the honorable, good ending. Arthur had a massive beard, but was bald at the same time. I wish I took a screenshot but I was too immersed at the time. The redemption was beautiful.

Epilogue: I didn't play the game for a week after finishing chapter 6. It felt like Arthur was a real brother, or just someone that I knew in real life, that really died. He was just gone. John was a laughable replacement for the main character. After that week, I came back and finished the game up. They managed to give you yet ANOTHER shooting gallery as the finale. ( I guess people do like shooting guns? It's fun, or entertaining to see? ) I don't have strong feelings about Dutch just walking off, but I'm glad we get to kill Micah. What a great villain. In some ways, I like Micah more than Dutch, villain wise. I just wish Dutch could have some redemption one day. Even if it happened early on in his life.

Overall thoughts: The shooting gallery gets old. I didn't mind the walking simulator portions or the follow-missions because the world is gorgeous. In general, the gameplay is acceptable when I realize that this could've easily been a 6 season-long show with a movie special, but instead I get to play in that world and make my own version of this show.

Music: The music as good as the visuals. Unshaken, Mountain Banjo, the main Red Dead Redemption theme, Mountain Finale, and many more have been incredible additions to my ambience soundtracks on Spotify. Not a lot of great western background music out there that isn't AI generated or isn't just Bluegrass/Country.

I hate Rockstar DRM: Seriously, one of the most intrusive, awful things I've ever used. I cannot wait for a DRM free version, if it ever comes to Nintendo. I crashed twice in my 50 hours, and one of them was at the very end of a trailing mission with Charles. It was jarring. I had to do the whole thing over again. Perhaps it was partially caused by the added layers of Steam and Proton, but it's just unacceptable IMO.

Overall, I wanted to hop in and give my thoughts. I see a lot of negative and positive comments on the other threads. I will probably never be convinced that the achievement hunting, the actual hunting, the fishing, or any of the gameplay is satisfying on a controls and feedback basis, but it all makes sense when taking in the story and the living world in the game. Riding a train is not fun, but it's fun to hear people beg for mercy or yelp as you rob everyone and make it back to camp safely with all the cash. One of my favorite experiences was taking hold of a train near Emerald Ranch, took it past Saint Dennis and almost made it back to camp before getting shot down because I couldn't get a horse untied in time. I think I still gained cash though, even after the monetary loss of the death.

It is a normie's Breath of the Wild, if you will. It's a stretch, as the gameplay is eons behind for me, both in depth and in bubble-wrap factor, but I imagine many folks put in a similar amount of hours as I've put into Breath of the Wild (closing in on 400 now).

My full upgrade line from when I got my first job was an S7, S9+, S22 Ultra, and yesterday, the S26 Ultra. Besides the S26 Ultra, I always felt like I was getting a massive spec bump, even if on paper it was not that big of a leap.

This time I felt extremely underwhelmed. Maybe it's amplified, since I went from flagship to flagship, but 4 generations difference and it feels IDENTICAL. I'll repeat that this is from a casual user's perspective, although I'm not tech illiterate; I'm in Computer Science at school, I made a backup of my phone on my PC instead of using Smart Switch, and emulate games on my Steam Deck, so on and so forth. The camera FEELS exactly the same. Panning around in photo mode still looks stuttery unlike my wife's iPhone. The display is not better or worse, although I do prefer the flatness over the curved edges of the S22U. The camera bumps don't make me happy at all; they are still annoying and even with a rugged case I'm babying the phone and not tossing it.

I'm not necessarily underwhelmed, I'm just whelmed. Only upgraded because a family member also had an S22U, and her phone had the boot loop issue causing her photos to be lost.

I've yet to really try the privacy mode, but I can't imagine it'll blow my mind. The pen now has a curved butt, that doesn't feel pleasant to take out but maybe I'll get used to it.

I'm not a fanboy by any means, but I've used Samsung all my life and stayed with it because I liked their interface. This phone literally makes me want to switch whenever the next upgrade time comes in 4-5 years.

The only thing I found that was a noticeable improvement was the speaker. It is much clearer. Alto's Odyssey is very nice to play on this.

I'm on an S22 Ultra with Verizon currently, wanting to upgrade after hearing about the green lines and phones getting stuck in a boot loop.

On the app, Verizon is offering either $11 a month for 3 years but requires the phone plan to be upgraded to Ultimate Unlimited; I'm not sure if I can just cancel that after the 3 years.

Otherwise they offer $31 a month for 3 years on the Unlimited Welcome. Both of these are for the S26 Ultra.

I don't see anything else that's even close to a similar value. I'm currently paying $28 a month for just my phone plan anyways.

All of the HYSAs and CDs I see from CIT Bank, Wealthfront, Ally, and the rest, are sitting at around 3.3-3.5% for newcomers. Yes there is the 'bonus' that boosts all of them to 4.2-4.8 for a few months, at most a year, but long-term these are all the same.

This is a $100 more every few months than our checking account. What gives?

The CDs at our local bank are around 3.7%.

I understand that many, many people use online banks every day, but my household is new to this stuff and we are apprehensive to using services from people who's hand we can't shake.

My bottom line is I'm underwhelmed. HYSA and CD deposits for newcomers in 2026 trying to save for a house are JUST an anti-inflation measure; there is no large growth to be had. Back to the second job!

I keep reading about the 22 series having faulty solder joints, so I want to replace it.

A family member of mine got a deal a year or two ago on an S25 Ultra, where they only paid like $150 for the device, her plan stayed the same, and the only catch was that she had to stay with Verizon for 3 years. She would be doing that regardless. We only found this deal when we called Verizon directly, and not the local branch.

Is there a specific name for this kind of deal? Anything similar out there? I really don't want to shell out $1400 for an S26 Ultra. We're all on Unlimited Welcome plans currently.

Hey y'all!

I recently posted a review of my first-time experience with Origami King and realized a few days after that I didn't quite get all of my thoughts out; specifically, I missed some important notes regarding the combat.

I haven't seen anyone mention the platforming/out-of-combat, combat. There are a few "boss-fights" throughout the game that happen outside of the typical ring-system combat, and they were my favorite. The giant pokey tower, the giant blooper, and even the final boss; my favorite parts were all the platforming and action parts of those.

This is VERY similar if not exactly like how Super Paper Mario did ALL of its combat, and I think Origami King would've honestly been on par with The Thousand Year Door in terms of overall quality IF all of the combat was like Super Paper Mario.

Combined with the very Zelda-like temples, it could've been and incredible Mario RPG. Seriously those Vellumental temples are gorgeous.

I heard there's been many S22 models that have been bricked in the last year or two via software updates, and perhaps it is dependent on the exact production run rather than the phone in general.

Is it safer to just upgrade in this case? My phone has frozen up a few times, or started to get ghost inputs, but restarting always fixes it.