Oh my god, finally. Tales of Symphonia is great when it's the only Tales game you've played, but the other games' story and combat are all much better. It is one of the least good ones, it's so bad that they had to make an anime adaptation that patches up the broken story. The game also treats you like you're an idiot-child and repeats instructions to you 100 times. People genuinely only like it because it was on a nintendo console, so most of them haven't gotten to play the other much better entries, such as Tales of the Motherfuckin' Abyss.
How about the dogs from Rule of Rose and Haunting Ground? They're good help-you-survive-the-survival-horor boys! Hell, Hewie is so good he helps Leon fight the first El Gigante in RE4 if you rescue him.
I also second King and Boney from Earthbound and Mother 3, especially Boney since he stays in your party for almost the whole game and is a big help.
Aww, I liked the second Ghost Rider movie better! It was directed by the dudes who did the Crank movies, you know? Would totally second something like Adaptation or Mandy, they're both actually really good performances by him but are also still very funny/crazy. Next and Left Behind also get my vote, I think Next isn't as bad as some say but it's pretty hilarious and I think his hair was weird in that one, and Left Behind is a ludicrous film that is baffling even when The Cage isn't on screen so that's a good pick too.
I wish I could chip in some more but I have sadly not seen enough Nic Cage movies for being a fan, they've done most of the ones I've seen during the Cage-A-Thon. Only other ones I really got are 8mm and Lord of War. The former is actually kind of laughable but I dunno if really in a "get drunk and make fun of it" way, and Lord of War is just genuinely too good and he really only freaks out a few times, he's surprisingly subdued.
To your point about Advent Children, I like stories about angsty teenagers going through the angst and then probably their friends support them which allows them to not be so sad and then defeat the bad guy at the end, it's just what I'm into. But I still hate how Advent Children does Cloud so dirty. I get that you'd be a bit emotionally fucked up after what happened but his whole character arc was learning to open up to people more, learning his life is a lie, being depressed about it and then getting pulled out of it by his buds. They literally already did the thing I said I liked! And then in the sequel he's just a sad sack for 90% of it? What happened to his character growth?
Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus being canon, though now prevented from happening, in Remake's timeline is a cool idea, the exact kind of high concept eternal recurrence time loop insanity that I love, but it makes me worried that the kind of bad decisions that were made there will be made here. Like, what if the fucking Sviets show up? Cuz I mean, Dirge isn't gonna happen, but Deepground probably still exists. Oh god.
@cale: Yeah I saw that too. I started watching this and said "wait did I miss an episode when did they cure the genophage?" and it turns out I did. It didn't show up in the usual spots I look so I had to do a search for it and found it. If you haven't seen it do that and it's there. Hopefully if we mention it they'll fix it so anyone who re-watches the series later can do so easier.
@eccentrix: Highly recommend NOT starting with Yakuza 0, considering it is a prequel that expects you to have played the other games first. True, the beast crew were able to understand it just fine, but there's references and things you just won't get if you haven't played the others. Plus, it introduced the style change system which I didn't like as much. Kiwami 1 and 2 also have it, but they're also a better place to start as story wise they're the first in the series. Now, I personally started with 4 and it includes a story summary of the first 3 games in the main menu, so you could do that and go back and play the first 3 later. I would say that's a good way to do it, since that's what I did, and I love how there are 4 distinct characters with their own style instead of Kiryu just having all of them.
@ajswain: Yeah that's right, it was really really short even, and I think just an example on how to make a scary story. The screenwriter fleshed it out into a 90 minute movie. IIRC, that is, don't quote me on it.
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