Interdimensional Observer

I know what I'm about to say is lost on you 😅, but of all the Tales casts I've seen... I think Berseria's could actually be the best? Maybe? ...Actually, I'll spare you a full analysis of every prior Tales game cast that I've played.😆 And simply say the rivals to Berseria being no. 1 would be Xillia and Symphonia. Exactly! Helps she never made the whoopsies called "returning to the flock". Hopefully she does.😀 Because not only am I the least fond of her, Magilou feels like she's the most unnecessary of the six heroes. As I've said before- being strictly/largely unnecessary to the story doesn't make someone a bad character. -But it won't help in any way either. Been listening to Theresa's half-truths and dragging her along to her bro. Better than the illusion stuff with the prior Therion (this kind of mindf***ery is something I really dislike, hence me missing the huge endgame revelatory scene in XC2🤣), but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I much prefer it when worms are squished and obvious strings are cut. I know some kind of twist has to be coming up. The heroes are about to "thwart" the baddies' plan, but they know they don't know enough. There needs to be something BIG that shakes up everything, likely pivoting the story into its final third. I'm also playing Berseria aware of certain other things. -Eizen is dragonified by Zestiria, will the ending of Berseria bittersweetly see him turn out that way? Laphicet is nowhere to be seen in Zestiria despite Malaks/Seraphs living loooooooong lives. Will the little angel ascend to heaven to save the world? Or, will he replace Inomi as the fifth Empyrean? -Just some thoughts I've had.🤔 They did add the black outlines to Kirby and the others, and changed the Another Dimension parts from black & white to brightened colors. Other than that, it's the same and I agree it's good. Merry Magoland is a bunch of minigames FYI. You can freely put on/take off any masks you get in the pause menu. The masks (and minigames) cover a lot of Kirby history and includes The Forgotten Land characters among them. Indeed, there's a coinflip chance come Nov 2nd I'll never be able to look at the city the same way again. ...Although that's only because it has the destiny of being the capital of this country. It's not its own fault. On happier things... Red-Cockaded Woodpecker. They once numbered in the millions in the Southeast US, now it's only 16-19k -though that is up from less than 10k in the 1970s. The article in question I saw this in was focused on a bombing test site in Florida. Turns out that the Department of Defense is required by law to help protect/preserve/conserve any species listed as Threatened or Endangered, that is found on the DoD's property. Yay to the military-ecological complex!

It was a tad rough (b/c me) getting into at first, but by four hours or so in, I got in the zone. I do enjoy Tales. 😄 My thoughts so far, not likely to change a ton by the time I finish.: Initial Conceptual Impression- A distant prequel to Zestiria that intentionally does a 180 narratively. Darkness is good, Light is evil. Plot is unusually dark and kinda edgy for Tales too. Comical in a sense to see such a flip, particularly when Zestiria was generally disliked. -Although that critical reception seems to have had no influence on the actual creation of Berseria. Characters- As I wrote yesterday, I feel like Tales especially for a JRPG, lives and dies by its heroic cast. In this metric, Berseria has one of the better crews!😄 There's definitely a more mature vibe to the cast too, or at least Velvet-Rokurou-Eizen. Befitting the darker tone. If somebody forced me to suggest a Tales to someone who didn't like "anime" ...I'd tell them that'd be impossible b/c Tales loves being anime.😝 -But Berseria would be my top answer. Personally, I just think the cast is solid. Can't say much more than that.😀 Although, sorry Shrimpy, but the witch is easily my least favorite of the bunch (and the other five heroes seem to agree with me).😆 But even Magilou isn't truly terrible. Rokurou lost a point when he said he found dogs too servile. Velvet contrariwise gained a point when she said she liked them.🐶 Laphicet good, Eizen good. The above two also good. Eleanor works for me specifically because she is contrast with the 4/6 dark-aligned lineup. It makes her more memorable than she otherwise would be. While Tales has done without romance before, there is absolutely zilch in Berseria. Laphicet as the closest thing to the male lead sets up a refreshingly different protagonists' relationship compared to the veeeeery typical young hetero lovers you find in a JRPG story. Skits- At times, there have been too many of them. As in "plot happens, five consecutive optional skits become available".😵 It has felt like there has been more than ever with Berseria. But, Skits are to Tales what Supports are to FE- essential to the characterization spirit of the franchise. I like 'em. Lots of writing and voicework goes into them. A few duds for me (some with Bienfu, others where they joke about Laphicet's innocence), yet the quality is generally good in Berseria. Plot- It's okay, but that's fine. I can't see it being worse than Vesperia and Graces. Maybe it'll pick up once I finish the last leg of the "Therion Hunt" that I'm guessing comprises the middle third of the story. Villains- Lackluster. Tales has been mixed about the quality of its bad guys in the past. Berseria gives us a formal villainous organization... but its members aren't great. Nowhere near the five-six God-Generals in Abyss, who generally got some decent effort put into them -if with an oddly-flavorless leader. Artorius does get more put into him than his underlings, at least initially, but I've still doubts he'll amount to a remarkable villain in the end. Too arrogantly stoic, quite possibly. Music- Other than the opening, none of the music has stuck to me.😐 The homogenized Tales music machine and tone has become completely unmemorable to me, though not bad. However, I don't think I recall a single Tales track from outside of Symphonia, barring maybe one from Abyss.😅 I should listen to the forgotten OSTs again while exercising, to see if I've missed a gem somewhere.🏃‍♂️ Visuals- Typical for Tales, cel-shaded anime with nicely drawn skit portraits works for me. Combat- All the areas feel too big with too many (easily dodged) enemies. Didn't need to deny me the hoverboard for half the game. The game-specific nuances in every Tales are lost on me, I don't take the time to learn them. I've been having fun on Normal using Velvet all the time, witnessing the shouting and kaleidoscopic chaos of Tales battles.😃 My prior record with Tales is: Symphonia, ToS: Dawn of the New World, Abyss, Phantasia, Graces, Xillia, Vesperia, Zestiria. I'm a veteran of the franchise. It was hard to imagine that I wouldn't like Berseria.🙂 I've been thinking about another trip to DC, yet I've been delaying on deciding when (but it has to be before November).😅

I played about a little less than 40 hours of Tales of Berseria. Then I needed a breather and decided to play Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars, a short, simple, GBA mecha SRPG with a nice little grounded story. I finished ZoE: TFoM after four days of play, on Tuesday. And, b/c reactivating the thrusters in space can take time just as it does to launch the rocket in the first place, I've only gotten back to Berseria today.😅 Beyond that -well you know I have no life.😆 BTW Shrimpy, if you haven't been on Reddit recently.: -I know you have an account.😜 And I don't, so I was going to ask you something, but it's a totally stupid request. So I won't bother. I did play through it recently as I did post here. Have fun when you do!😃

The child arc was a tad overlong, yet it held promise. The Barona arc in the main story was good. ...As soon as the story leaves Barona for the desert continent though, then it's all on uneventful autopilot. Until like maybe the part when the truth of things starts coming to light, which is basically the beginning of the story's end. If one wanted to be ultra-reductionist, as a thought experiment, the story only needs Asbel and Sophie. If I made room for another playable, it'd be Hubert, if only for the scene where Sophie returns. Richard is also needed, but ofc his playability is very limited. Cheria and Malik contribute very little, Pascal's lone purpose is to be the smart one in the group. As I said, it was pure speculation, based on what little messaging/information Marvelous has put out, plus the absence of any mention of Hakama in the announcement. Also, Hashimoto might not have appeared in 3 Special's new credits at all, only those of the original game, unlike 4S. I can see this. If you make a modern Kirby trilogy in a loose sense out of KRDL, 3D, and PR, then I'd be inclined to agree that 3D is the weakest. Since I played them chronologically and the release gap between 3D and PR isn't big, I did feel PR was less fresh. Yet qualitatively PR is the superior game. Canada, actually.🇨🇦 https://photocontest.smithsonianmag.com/photocontest/ But yes, as weird as it may sound, when I see such awe-inspiring IRL things, I do kinda wish a video game would replicate them.😆

Soren erasure! Pelleas erasure! Oliver erasure! Ilyana Rexbolting Dheg erasure! I can see them limiting Lifis to Safy as his lone female conversationalist. Sain had 6/7 of his supporters being women, Saul had 4/5 of his the same, Gatire 3/4. For Lifis, however... Perne, Shiva, Somebody, Somebody, Safy. Five chains sounds like enough for what would almost certainly be a remake on a budget. Do we in the year 20XX really want Lifis trying to hit on more women? Plus we've got Homer to account for too, and maybe Shannam.

On both matters, I assert the liberum veto. Sisto activitatem!😝 Helps a couple times perhaps in the P4 desert chapter- because of Elsleep and Elsilence. Might get another use or two in the Tower. But yes, it isn't very relevant. Also the presence of a Navarre in the form of Shiva. You could argue Jamke-Edain-Dew has a hint of this too, but not so literally so. Matthew recruiting a Killing Edge Myrm and having some bickering with Serra is probably a nod to this too. I'd say something about Joshua et Natasha -but they forgot to feature a thievish third member there.

It already is. Ya suuuuuure you don't want to give Leif the Spd Ring?😜 All Scrolls are a net gain of +30% growths. Something something totally not Julian & Lena.😛 Looks like the gal is missable if you don't do 2x. Which means, if you miss the first gaiden chapter, you lose out on both the first thief and the first healer. -Not exactly a beginner/blind-friendly idea.😝 Missing Canas in FE7 -the only dark magic user in the game excluding Mr. Mountain- doesn't look so bad relatively speaking, no?

Reminders that the natural world is striking. ...And cute.

Graveyard Keeper has existed for years.: Although it's darker and not at all cutesy -you might be able to make today's cadaver into tomorrow's sausage. (No dating aspect either, the game's own profile calls itself cemetery capitalism.) One review I read said it's overly grindy, but Metacritic gives it a 7/10 average, so it's alright. I was thinking Alucard, same difference.😆

Call it a Remake Too Faithful. Not sure if there's any other excuse that I give for that.😅 And, it would be fair to say that I'm overly forgiving.😆

Like Nintendo has ever been big on serious stories?🤔 -Fire Emblem has always been an exception like that. And as for Gotoh specifically... ...reminder that this is what Nintendo had been cooking when was he was first invented. And was still largely cooking on the SNES one year after FE1, seven maidens trapped in crystals is Kaga-rific. And kept cooking with the Sages in OoT. (And Mario, Donkey King, Metroid, Kirby, F-Zero, Star Fox, Pokemon... not huge on grounded logical stories either back in the day.) Genealogy Gen 1 and Thracia were the aberrations in Nintendo's then-portfolio. Gotoh and Gen 2 Lewyn were not, they were... misplaced let's say.😛 Misplaced, in that it's harder to justify aloof wise men in a more developed story like those Fire Emblem has had. -I'm just looking for a way to not get infuriated by some senile pixels.😄

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/05/supernatural-life-simulation-game-moonlight-peaks-to-be-published-by-xseed-games-and-marvelous-europe I spoke last night of Rune Factory, and lo, this. “We always look for projects that offer our audience diverse new titles with our indie publishing efforts, but this time we’ve found a project that’s much closer to home,” said XSEED Games executive vice president Kenji Hosoi in a press release. “Moonlight Peaks is a supernatural fit given our deep experience with the farming / life sim genre, and we look forward to working with the team at Little Chicken to bring their game to life, and our fans!” Further evidence Marvelous has a game-plan to get back on top in their signature genre? A strategy that might include publishing other peoples' farming sims to attempt the assertion of dominance? It might not work if that's the case. The quality of indie farm sims widely varies, many failing to appeal to a vast audience outside of lovers of the genre. However, if Marvelous isn't trying to push for global domination (which they shouldn't right now, if ever), and merely cultivate their existing hacienda in the gaming world, then I don't see this as being a bad move. Why is Cheria talking about her own existence? -I'd replay Graces to check myself, but I really don't want to do that right now.😅 Yet, I've heard it said that Cheria ...contributes nothing to Graces. My memory of the game is foggy, but I think I can see that? In the child arc, she's got some unexplained childhood sickness that goes away in the years that pass, but she doesn't fight and really doesn't do anything else either. In the present story, other than help take care of Sophie once she shows up, Cheria does what, exactly? Asbel is oblivious to her affections during the story, and IIRC, Cheria actually gives up on him. On the Sophie point, I don't even remember how much of a bond the two had during the child arc. Sophie with Asbel, Hubert, and Richard yes, good childhood bond, I have that lingering impression. But Cheria? -I don't recall anything. Now, my first PS3 died before I could finish the main story, I was 90% through it. So I had no interest in replaying it, and opted to read about the end of the story and the entirety of the future arc later. I don't remember what happens exactly in the future arc, other than Asbel proposes to Cheria at the end? That seems... totally random given his prior lack of interest. If that was an attempt to make Cheria relevant, it sounds artificial. No surprise at all coming from me, but it wouldn't surprise me if one could dispassionately argue AsbelxRichard had more chemistry.😝 Now, a character can be rather irrelevant to a story, and still be a good character. Irrelevancy is an issue, but not an all-condemning one. Yet, while not a bad character, Cheria isn't great either. And, the Tales franchise, I would argue, lives by the quality of its heroic cast. If the heroes are lacking, the game the entire experience gets dragged down to a zombified crawl, monotonously slow and devoid of vitality. And unfortunately for Cheria, Graces -IMO- has a subpar Tales crew, atop everything else except the combat being typical or lackluster for the series. I don't dislike Cheria, I pity her. Just as I pity Malik and Hubert for not having enough done with them either.

Again, it's sheer speculation. It's not like Hashimoto would've been the only thing that led to RF5 being poorly received (although I personally enjoyed it well enough). The pandemic could've contributed too, not to forget that happened the year before RF5 released. There was also the possibility that the franchise's longtime artist -Minako Iwasaki- isn't hanging around. Yet we can't be sure of that either. -Although, unless you're chasing aesthetic trends, I don't see what benefit you'd get from ditching the artist. Could maybe be just a Project Dragon thing (despite both Frontier and ToD also being her work) and she'll be sticking around for RF6. We'll likely find out... next month? The post-E3 world no longer needs to drop announcements in June, but, sometime in the summer some news ought to drop. Good to know I wasn't alone. Kinda annoying it had to happen right as I was trying to make a big post.😑

@Armagon Just saw this. (IRL, Azuma according to Wikipedia is Kanto + Tohoku.) ...I had also been randomly reading like two weeks ago some months-old pure speculation about Project Dragon.😅 Specifically, that the founder of the Rune Factory franchise -Yoshifumi Hashimoto- and the company within Marvelous that he had set up during RF5's development -Hakama- might not return for Project Dragon, nor Rune Factory 6. Why? Well, Rune Factory 5's lukewarm reception might be to blame, maybe Hashimoto was no longer up to the job. It'd been a long time since a new entry in the franchise. Something that if true would've been reinforced by the failure of the Japan-only game Rear Sekai, Hakama was in charge of it, and while the game was apparently very budget, it was a serious flop. Marvelous themselves had meanwhile put out a small success in the form of Silent Hope. As RF5 and the latest Story of Seasons were both critically criticized, and Marvelous's longtime monopoly on the farming sim has been thoroughly shattered. Getting serious in pursuit of modern victories in the gaming landscape, might mean having to jettison some fossils in the way. Site issues you mean? I just got stuck in some blank screen that had the SF address with some "admin/install" part tacked on the end. Had to wait a bit before the site went back to normal.

Chaos = entropy = randomness = inconsistency = change ...and so forth. Of all things to genderflip, the embodiment of primordial turbulence would make sense. Plus, I like it in general. If a deity has such power that it can freely shift physical form, does the outer appearance of gender really matter to them?🤔 Some of us mortal beings -who lack such endlessly adjustable material malleability- might struggle with the concept. But, I do not. I like how Lucifer in Shin Megami Tensei has gone through human disguises both male and female, for why should the foremost champion of the Chaos alignment care about such a petty thing as their costume's shape? Likewise, I wouldn't have expected this Hades character redesign to bother you one iota, given you alluded to 🩺⏰.😛 ...Although, thinking about it for a moment, I guess without evidence that the redesign may have been to make Chaos visually mirror the protagonist? Would remind me of FE's Bramimond in that case. She probably typed her name into a search engine for the first time, no safety filter. Nintendo's record with experimentation is a mixed bag one might say. They've their lesser IPs that they do nothing with, and they're mean fuddy-duddies in other ways (the lawyer legion). Yet, Nintendo does show some willingness to play around with new gameplay ideas just the same. My impression -according to the Internet- is that as long as Ninty doesn't pursue a rapid endless growth strategy and keep playing by their longstanding playbook, they'll be fine. If they don't ...all is impermanent my friend, practice nonattachment to developers, brands, and IPs.☸️

What I've seen called the "B Route" (lose the Mars Angels competition) has some nice notes: Ares dying in bed, the mass-production Testaments called Ifrits that never show up in A Route for no reason, an explanation or two for things that A Route doesn't have. On the other hand, Bolozof's survival is pretty strange. My neurocircuitry automatically began SRW-conceptualizing things.😆 If only one appearance ever, I say stick to A Route, with selective borrowings from B. Ares in the Iblis would be perfect secret material. I'd keep Zephyrs, but replace Jimmers with a bad guy from another license. Ned and or Bolozof can come along as field commander(s) bad guy(s) you can smash every fifth SRW scenario. Big question of whether other ZoE games would be featured alongside TFoM. On the heroes' side, getting everyone would be debatable. If we're keeping BIS, we need Deckson, though we could keep him alive this time, and perhaps ditch the Edge/Calibur and make him an NPC. Phil's status is another question. Cage is the only must-have pilot, but having BIS means we do need more than one. Early Ares is staying in Vjaya, and we probably want a replacement for him; if Robin doesn't exist (we don't need her, another license in SRW can provide the financial backing for BIS) then Twede has no reason to, so it'll have to be Nadia. We've got two other OFs and three LEVs to account for then, can they all fit? Maybe, maybe not? Each unit is more animations (albeit very simple ones). Myona can get that heavy artillery unit if Ares survives, otherwise she can have Iblis. No, I didn't get her. Twede I imagine then doesn't miraculously escape his suicide attack then. While Nadia was okay as a character, having the stereotypical US gov't agent as a playable character was not the norm.😎 He wasn't a bad character either, him and Robin were nice together. And Robin -an older lady- becoming the captain of the band of heroes was subtly enjoyably unusual too. My main problem with Twede is that given the choice, the enemies loooooooved targeting the Vjaya, probably because of that low max HP. I know that, I witnessed it all.😉 And yet, there were a few contradictory games where the localizers made things harder. The 7th Saga was an SNES game that I'm told became impossibly brutal due to increased enemy stats and decreased hero level up gains due to localization changes. In the PS1 era, Legend of Legaia saw money & EXP gains slashed as well. And I think there might be another example or two out there if I looked more. I've my toes in the waters of this small series now. And I do enjoy mecha.🤖 -Thank you for confirming my course of action. And bolded- jumping from PS2 to 2018 HD remaster should make the refinement even sharper. You're welcome.😀 Started on Saturday, finished on Tuesday. Very quick indeed. The relative brevity of the game was appreciated. I liked the overall sense of a ragtag band of heroes. One that's intentionally small, that can save the day but not the world -and that's fine! Again, I'll use the word "gritty" to describe this. Not Western gritty, not grimdark gritty, but it feels like the heroes of TFoM are fairly ordinary, and both they and their machines are poetically "covered in the dust of the Red Planet". "Anime silly moments" exist, yet the overall story is serious and rather grounded. The resulting vibe was pleasant from beginning to end.🙂

Thank you. I decided to look up what the route differences are, wow they're more than I expected.😲 Why did they decide to have the split determined by something as mundane as a kill contest?🤔 In my case, two of the Mars Angels were taken out quickly by unlucky RNG, so I won it easily. Why even have this split at all? TFoM doesn't feel like a story that needed one/should have one.

Finished Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars. I think I liked the game more for the forest, not the trees. Which is to say, the individual characters and events might not have wowed me, but the overall package was good. More specifically, I liked the bit of Real Robot grit (-not that I've ever watched mechanime, just what I presume from samplings via SRW and whatnot). Of all the things I've encountered in SRW so far, TFoM bears the strongest resemblance to The 08th MS Team- a Real self-contained microcosmic side story. Getting that and only that- noooo mercenaries in Arm Slaves working for Dr. Hell, nor saving of the entire world as SRW inevitably involves. It's a contrast that actually makes me appreciate both ends of the mecha spectrum more well, it's more than a spectrum once magic and organic robots are factored in. Gameplay-wise, The Fist of Mars was simple, perhaps too much so. The more limited ranges of attacks, limited EN/ammo, and the lower attack values reminded me of the one half of Masoukishin I got through. WinkySoft indeed didn't change much from their -the original- SRW days, they even brought back Double Action. Quaint, to some degree. Overall an easy game -thanks to IAS. I did learn to leave the Interactive Battle System on all the time, since otherwise hero casualties would've racked up very easily and my many attack misses would've slowed down the maps. That became tedious, actually, leaving everyone's defensive Balancer set to maximum Evasion having to manually hit and dodge everything (I think I was hit one time each in the last two battles). Now for a silly rant, involving spoilers... On a different note, I don't get why the English localization changed the subtitle. There is no titular "Fist of Mars", or at least nothing that is called that. "2173 Testament", besides referring to the protagonist's mech, could be read loosely as "Chronicle of the Year 2173 AD". However, "The Fist of Mars" does sound really cool, that I concede.😃 Overall, not bad.😀 Not amazing, the combat is a tad too iffy for that. Still, a novel little game. While I'm sure The Fist of Mars could be made as an OVA or a novel (again, I'm thinking of 08th MS Team) to this day, I don't know about a video game, feels like corporations wouldn't bother with this kind of thing, too small-scale for the present business climate. (...Does this sate me like SRW does? Not entirely. TFoM was a one-act ballet you feature alongside one or two others to comprise a three-hour matinee, SRW easily fills those three hours by itself (and might force you to ditch the intermission to fit it all in). Nonetheless, being a thoroughly-mecha game, it does push back the desire W for a while (not that it was presently strong in me anyway).) --- Back to Berseria tomorrow, Velvet still needs her REVENGE! -Though I'm told that's a dish best served at room temperature, so maybe this interlude was fine.😛

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2024/05/nintendo-switch-successor-announcement-is-coming-this-fiscal-year God speaks, the trumpets sound, the beginning of the end is near- no more speculating. The Anti-Christ, claimed by many to be as many over centuries as many, shall shed their enigmatic robes and be bare for the world to witness. *Sneezes*🤧 -I don't mean to vilify the heir to the heavenly throne through my choice of metaphor, I simply wanted to stick to an overdramatic Revelatory tone.😛 I'll be buying the successor whenever it arrives, no question about that. Yet, my immediate delight, is knowing that by (fiscal) year's end, all the rumormongering shall be trampled over by the Horsemen and cast into the lake of fire.

I'm good, I don't need to know.

Cleared Scene 15, paused in the middle of Scene 16 (enemies with stealth might become annoying). I think it's a fair observation to say the starting arc of the story is over, now things look like they'll be getting intense, narratively at least. IAS aside, things are pretty simple gameplay-wise. Though I almost softlocked on the three back-to-back-no-healing-no-spending-money battles. Thankfully, using Retreat repairs all destroyed units and restores all HP/EN/Ammo, if at the cost of accumulated Spirit. Still, I'm enjoying the battles. Pretty quickly too, no drawn-out stubborn refusal at all. Maybe the lasting damage won't be too bad. I've read many comments, some saying that what Sony should've done is not force, but encourage. Incentive to PSN on PC, no obligations to do so. I don't remember too much of my PMD experiences, but I do think sloooow leveling was one of them. I haven't the faintest why they would've done that, when you could have hordes of 'mons to train if you wanted to, and the ultimate dungeons are "reset to lvl 1" ones IIRC. ...Well, maybe it's because they hadn't a good idea of how many requests players would do between story parts? -Although an EXP curve could've been a solution then, if overleveling was the concern.

This is where the "donthurtmekaga" tag will come alive. And remember, the safe word is "red". One of only two lords in all of FE I have any real liking for. -Do treat him well. As for the bad bases... ...They're fixable.😄 Thracia makes it easy. No, that's totally wrong. She actually joins Raydrik of her own free will, for the sake of presenting Leif with another trial, which, if overcome, will give him the strength to save the world.😛 Miracle in Thracia doesn't let you survive a fatal hit with 1 HP, it lets you dodge any fatal hit. Miracle can thus proc on consecutive hits without needing any healing in between. What's unique about Finn, is that with Lck capped and his Brave Lance armed, he will have a 90% chance of dodging fatal blows (plus any regular chance of dodging before that). Mind, failure equals death, and Finn doesn't begin at capped Lck. But, if you're willing to reset, and perhaps find a situation on the first 1-3 turns (early enough you wouldn't mind a time-wasting reset) where you'd like somebody to take a lot of heat (that wouldn't devour the Brave Lance), maybe you'd find a use for The Most Miraculous Finn. Finally!😃 A game where axe users aren't reliant on one good axe (Genealogy) or are good despite using axes (FE1/3B1). I was using Dagda in the fourth-to-last chapter IIRC, so methinks he holds up. Ignore the part where I think he was Accosted of his life by a mage, that never happened. About that... Classes The “Lycian Knight” appears to be the predecessor of Eliwood’s Lord class; it is a mounted class that wields both swords and lances (with a higher proficiency in lances) and promotes into a Paladin. The “Lycian Swordfighter” is almost identical to Lyn’s Lord class, but promotes to Swordmaster instead. Hector’s “Lycian Armorknight” class promotes to General and can wield both swords and axes. All three classes share the map and battle animations of the Lord classes and, in the English version, they have the same names as the corresponding promoted Lord classes (eg. Lycian Knight is named Knight Lord). https://serenesforest.net/general/unused-content/ There is a prototype of Blazing Blade with Lyn having a custom animation for using Durandal. -But the prototype also has Knight Lord in it with Durandal animation, so maybe the prototype came later, either at a point when: Sami and Andy would share Durandal, or, before Green got the Sol Katti invented for her. -If Roy's Ma Boi would've ever actually was going to get Maltet. But the thing is, swords are the privileged weapon type of heroes. Eli is the most important of the Blazing Blade lord trio by far, he is the mainest lordest, the game is called "Rekka no Ken", Roland was the founder of Lycia. It seems inevitable that Eliwood would been destined for Durandal from the very start, so Lycian Knight's higher starting lance rank... not sure why that would be.

Played through the first seven scenes of TFoM the acronym is too close to FoMT. I could tell from the unit designs, but the plot sure is Real. Not that I have any qualms with that whatsoever, a pure experience is a distinctive contrast from the continual back & forth of SRW. IAS does keep me keep me on edge though.😅 I'm not exactly quick to pull the trigger, and I'm fortunate game is generous with what counts for a successful hit. --- Those unfamiliar with the early days of Xenoblade may not know that it was originally titled Monado: Beginning of the World. The game was actually announced at E3 2009 with an under-the-radar reveal. Yet even though the reveal took place during what was the biggest gaming show of the year in the states, it seems Nintendo of America knew right away it wouldn’t be bringing the RPG stateside. Kit Ellis, a former Nintendo of America employee with many years of experience at the company, mentioned during a recent Kit and Krysta podcast episode that he asked his colleagues about the game during that E3. He was simply informed that it was Japan-only and not to worry about it. Ellis was also told not to bring people (such as press) to see the game on booth tours since it wouldn’t be coming out here in North America. Ellis also commented on Nintendo’s thinking at the time when it came to not releasing certain games in North America. On that front, he said: Thank Europe for choosing to be different.🇪🇺 Also, not releasing a JRPG aboard in 2010, rather peculiar as I saw others comment. The SNES, the PS1, the PS2, all proved Western gamers would gobble this genre up. I get not going international in the 16-bit era... JRPGs were young and their popularity not truly understood. Takes time to establish reputation, have it be realized, and then taken advantage of. While the large-scale video game translations RPGs requires were hamstrung by translator inexperience & paucity, storage limitations, and a lingering Western perception of video games as mere toys. In addition, the immeasurable expansion of the Internet during those decades made it more difficult to hide a game from foreign eyes. Most Westerners couldn't complain about the JRPGs they weren't getting on the SNES, because they didn't know they even existed. Three console generations later, unless the RPG was very niche/not worth the translation cost, by a small developer, or tied up in licenses, the excuse not to translate no longer really existed. And Nintendo ain't small. I still don't get why they threw in the one-battle paint job. I don't think Axel is ever explicitly said to have seen footage of said battle, which would be the only reason of importance to have it happen that I can think of, to make the redhead bull see red. But then, I think it was Excellen who asked for the recolor, no exactly the most reason-obsessed mind. Proof the current world order should not be defined by "democracy" but by "capitalism"? ...Merely a joke, given the past headlines I've seen of Helldivers being "yay democracy!" for some reason.

Since it's blue and the shiny isn't red, you know he'd be the corrupted one. I was indeed thinking that. And SRW already has more text, plus more animations, and likely music. Leaves me wondering how much room was left on the J/OG2 carts. I'd be fine going into action. I doubt ZoE would be Soulslike intense, and as long as I can finish the game, I'm fine with pure action. (Tangent- it'd weren't for the fact it'd be a waste of money, I'm curious how long it'd take me in a Soulslike to eventually give up the game b/c I kept losing to a boss.😆) The Golden Week sale has Konami dropping 2nd Runner to $6 on Steam, I won't bite now, but I sure will later after finishing TFoM. Although I don't get why the first game isn't on Steam as well. But, when the companies don't provide, into the seven seas I slide. Sorry I couldn't get the spelling of a three-letter acronym right, I was running a sleep deficit.😅 I feel like getting used to hitting with it should be easy enough. Dodging though, not so much. Feels like I'd be inclined to use IAS on offense when hit rates are low, but less so on high, being nervous about slipping up on what otherwise would've likely been a hit. It'd be the opposite with defense, where it'd be "what do I have to lose?" against high enemy hit rates, and place my trust in ~30% or below chances unless a unit was badly damaged. I could try messing around with the Balancers and see how much of an effect that has. I haven't tried them yet, though I doubt they'll solve everything. Truly the Zone of the Enders. Keeping away from Earth in all three games. The number of headlines the game has had flipping through the gaming sites, and that I don't recall ever seeing prerelease hype news for this game, made me think it was was a surprise mega-hit of the year. Alas, when you go live-service, your reputation is fickle? Tone-deafness can lead the masses to stone you? Don't hide what Sony must've told you (the dev) long in advance? -I don't know anywhere near enough about the game to know what lesson is to be learned from this. It this on record here that ...late last summer? That 13 Sentinels and Xenosaga Ep. III were the two things holding me back from XC3. I can't hide that.😅 -But, the plastic wrap will come off before two years have passed. I was going to start XC3 early last month, I just squandered the opportunity. I was going to start it last Thursday, but as I had expected, starting Berseria prevented that. (I did have Berseria sitting in my Steam Library unplayed for so long, and now I understand why it took me so long to start it after Zestiria. One Tales provides enough fat to get through the winter.) However, once Berseria is done, I can't think of a massive JRPG with priority over XC3. Part of the issue with XC3 -I know this is silly and petty- is I want to play it -at least for the first session or two- on the big screen, because the beauty of Xenoblade demands that. However, I don't like doing that with other people around -not that I haven't regretfully wasted ten thousand opportunities where they weren't.😝 And, at this point, playing with the Switch docked feels totally unnatural to me. Staring at a video game screen that's three yards/meters away, comes off as strange as having the screen be at opposite of end of a golf course. I just need to tell myself it'd be no disrespect to the visual splendor of 'blade, and start XC3 undocked, apologizing to the game by occasionally docking it later once I'm eased into and take in the pretty views then. I know, I am weird.🤣

I did.😄 ...Although I didn't play very much, stopped midway in the second battle, lack of sleep meant my eyes were struggling to stay open.🥱 I won't post screenshots right now, I don't have the energy for that. But I will make some comments.: First, I lingered on the title screen for several minutes. Too good.😁 ...The Japanese subtitle includes the word "Testament"? How ironic. That title screen, the way the light concentrates in the center, the angular lines, my brain and eyes wanted to visualize a golden Zohar in the dead center of it.😆 As for other remarks.: Expansion into space, space racism. Top notes of Gundam on my palette.😋 Visuals, 2001 was the GBA's launch year, and from glimpses that I've seen, original A released in the same wasn't exactly a looker. So, I forgive TFoM for any graphical primitiveness compared to J and OG2. Plot has to start with boy being thrusted into a giant robot in an emergency situation. Cliched as it gets, doubly so with an amnesia girl, but that's okay. ...The Fist of Mars has character, robot, and lore compendiums. Neither J nor OG2 did, how didn't they pick up on that if the GBA was capable of containing the extra text? I read all the glossary entries first thing, good idea to get acquainted with the world. Cage being extremely dependent on Ares, taking first notice of him when he was playing the piano. ...My brain began going "how does this not sound potentially gay?".😝 -But maybe it's a good thing they obviously aren't, because the War God smells strongly like best-friend-is-actually-enemy evil. Would make for an easy protagonist character arc having read their profile. Metatron is a metal... explains SMT's Metatron.😇 "Animus". Just a codeword derived from Jung, but, I Xenogiggled.😜 "Dreizehn" ...it's just a German number it says, yet it reminded me of a "Dreissen" Mobile Suit. Martian colonies are named after countries on Earth... No SRW, you don't have to bring back G for ZoE's debut.😛 Nadesico though, the Jovian massacre of Mars would have to be reduced, and Yurika's Trolley Problem modified. But if ZoE likes Mars, could be fun trying to mix things together otherwise. Combat... yep, it's SRW. Everything looks familiar.😀 Lack of Spirits? Eh. Yes they can be cheaty-strong, but their absence sounds like a blow to what the pilots themselves contribute to battle. Lack of counterattacking will slow things. Animations being so much more limited I'm fine with. I don't need SRW's magnificent excess in every mecha game I play. IPS? Not sure what this first-person perspective thing exactly does (presumably extra damage when attacking or a higher likelihood of dodging when attacked?). But, I see that it can be skipped, good for faster play than having it on all the time. Too soon to say anything about enjoyability really.😅