Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Armagon]

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Your attention span is short.

A short attention span would unironically make the first two Prequels a bit more enjoyable.

6 hours ago, Sooks said:

DSFE which just seems like Awakening 1.0 (god, please no)

Shadow Dragon is just the first game faithfully remade to a fault. New Mystery is better but the original is still the best because it has better music and an actually good artstyle.

4 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

So as it turns out, if you see a dinosaur-like enemy, that is basically the game telling you "Do not go here!".
Kinda like the FOEs in Etrian Odyssey, or the OP enemies in Xenoblade 2 (with the difference being you can still escape in EO and Ys, whereas in XC2, once one of them discovers you, you're basically screwed).

I mean, you can definitely escape if you just book it the moment the electric guitars start playing.

Also are there like, level displays in Ys or do you just have to assume the strong enemies are strong?

44 minutes ago, WraithReborn said:

...Well my girlfriend broke up with my last week so that's been fun to deal with for the last week. 

Sorry to hear that.

42 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Man, you know what? This is the horniest banner FEH has put out in a long time.

 

\

[Shrimpica]

[Armagon]

Hoo boy, Citra does not like Ch.13

My guess is because all of this is going on.

1 minute ago, Shrimperor said:

Xenoblade.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

My guess is because all of this is going on.

Since Zephyr and Vashyron are back, I felt like sharing this, the origins of their ultimate attack.:

 

Edited July 5, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Shrimpica]

So they just showed the Arise opening

did they ditch ufotable?

[Sooks]

1 hour ago, WraithReborn said:

...Well my girlfriend broke up with my last week so that's been fun to deal with for the last week. 

Oh, that’s definitely not good to hear. Takes care of yourself, I know you can get through this.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh no. The scariest foe of all.

An atheist.

I’m the scariest foe of all? Nice.

[Saint Rubenio]

32 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

The optional ones are a bit.. out there. Two of them might seem familiar. Mind, I was nuts enough to go for 9 of every shard (except, you know, boss shards because I wasn't doing 9 new game pluses) on that difficulty where you're stuck at level one. Didn't do no damage though. My patience has limits.

Yeah, well, mine does too. It has a limit in that I would never bother to grind every single enemy for 9 of their shards. It does, however, allow for spending 3 hours on Bloodless. That's fine in my book.

32 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

  Hide contents

Also speaking as someone who collected nine of every shard, and therefore not one to sell... she definitely doesn't change. Guess she had some from elsewhere. Wouldn't be hard, because it's implied shardbinders aren't exactly a unique thing. On an unrelated note, I originally considered using Zangetsu as a Navarre stand-in in my LP, as a reference to the end of Bloodstained, but decided against it. Because spoiler in a fairly recent game. On an unrelated note, Bloodstained Curse of the Moon and it's sequel are a more Castlevania 3-esque take on things... including a version of Zangetsu that literally progresses as a character, and the ability to play Alfred and Gebel... among another surprise playable in 2, and a pair of character who don't exist in Ritual of the Night.

 

 

Spoiler

Shame about Dominique, but I guess it was to be expected. Would've been kinda lame to cheese the final bosses in such a simple way.

As for CotM, I've heard good things of it. Some people even like it better. Personally, I enjoyed what I've played of old Castlevania far less than the Igavanias, so I don't think it'd be as much of a resounding success for me as Bloodstained has been. The ability to play as Alfred and Gebel sounds awesome, though.

You know, since the subject came up, can I just say I wish the twist had been that Johannes is the traitor and instead of dying, Alfred makes amends with Miriam and moves to the village to replace him as the resident alchemist? That would've been unexpected, and it would've made Anna into a far greater red herring than Alfred himself ever was. Heck, maybe kill off Dominique and replace her with Anna, if you want your big sad death. Would've helped make it a little less predictable, is all I'm saying.

Plus, I would've gotten to call him Johannes the Traitor and make references that nobody would've gotten.

 

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

A short attention span would unironically make the first two Prequels a bit more enjoyable.

Every time you crap on something I like:

 

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Shadow Dragon is just the first game faithfully remade to a fault. New Mystery is better but the original is still the best because it has better music and an actually good artstyle.

Not gonna lie, I disagree. The music is a bit better, but I don't think by as much as people say, and I find Mystery's artstyle to be one of the ugliest in the series. Not to mention, the gameplay is better because it has difficulty, as opposed to being a "press A a bunch of times to watch the game play itself" simulator. But, hey, that's just me.

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Man, you know what? This is the horniest banner FEH has put out in a long time.

 

They gotta powercreep the horny too, or else the otakus might stop spending as much money on the roulette to get their JPEGs.

1 minute ago, Sooks said:

I’m the scariest foe of all? Nice.

Japan all too often presents their villains as atheists, as if they believed that atheism is a horrible, evil trait that will automatically paint a proper villanous picture of their baddie and make the audience perceive them as bastards. In bloodstained, however, it's something else. God and religion don't even come up at any point in the game - the villain just starts spewing villanous atheist lines for no reason. It's so heavy-handed, I love it.

[Sooks]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Japan all too often presents their villains as atheists, as if they believed that atheism is a horrible, evil trait that will automatically paint a proper villanous picture of their baddie and make the audience perceive them as bastards. In bloodstained, however, it's something else. God and religion don't even come up at any point in the game - the villain just starts spewing villanous atheist lines for no reason. It's so heavy-handed, I love it.

What do you mean villainous atheist lines? I haven’t noticed a trend of atheistic villains.

Edited July 5, 2021 by Sooks

[Armagon]

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Since Zephyr and Vashyron are back, I felt like sharing this, the origins of their ultimate attack.:

Ok I know the plot point about the life quartz or whatever but nah man, I refuse to believe Zephyr survived that. 

37 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

So they just showed the Arise opening

did they ditch ufotable?

Only seen screenshots but it looks like it's ufotable still.

5 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Every time you crap on something I like:

 

Yes

6 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

They gotta powercreep the horny too, or else the otakus might stop spending as much money on the roulette to get their JPEGs.

Gacha fans learn what "save as" does challenge.

7 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Japan all too often presents their villains as atheists, as if they believed that atheism is a horrible, evil trait that will automatically paint a proper villanous picture of their baddie and make the audience perceive them as bastards. In bloodstained, however, it's something else. God and religion don't even come up at any point in the game - the villain just starts spewing villanous atheist lines for no reason. It's so heavy-handed, I love it.

But at the same time, God/Gods tend to be villains in a lot of Japanese media as well. In fact, SMT lets you kill both God  and the devil iirc.

[The Roger The Paladin]

2 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Shame about Dominique, but I guess it was to be expected. Would've been kinda lame to cheese the final bosses in such a simple way.

As for CotM, I've heard good things of it. Some people even like it better. Personally, I enjoyed what I've played of old Castlevania far less than the Igavanias, so I don't think it'd be as much of a resounding success for me as Bloodstained has been. The ability to play as Alfred and Gebel sounds awesome, though.

You know, since the subject came up, can I just say I wish the twist had been that Johannes is the traitor and instead of dying, Alfred makes amends with Miriam and moves to the village to replace him as the resident alchemist? That would've been unexpected, and it would've made Anna into a far greater red herring than Alfred himself ever was. Heck, maybe kill off Dominique and replace her with Anna, if you want your big sad death. Would've helped make it a little less predictable, is all I'm saying.

Plus, I would've gotten to call him Johannes the Traitor and make references that nobody would've gotten.

Spoiler

Circle of the moon's story is pretty interesting in that you get to see characters in a light you wouldn't in Ritual. Alfred for instance is a glass canon. Low health, but his magic really, really wrecks things. Gebel is effectively Alucard from Castlevania 3. Unlike actual Castlevania 3, you get a healthbar for each character and only lose a life when all of them are dead... though you go back a bit to the last checkpoint if one dies. This allows for some flexibility in boss battles... which tend to be a bit rougher than their counterparts in Ritual of the Night.
The most interesting thing is, Zangetsu goes under a complete personality change from being all "I'll cut you down" "Demons ruined my life, I need to kill demons and all that associate with them", to geniunely being a more balanced person by the start of the second one. Also the games have a lot of possible endings. There's a character arc in 2, but it's not Zangetsu who learns power of friendship that time round.

 

9 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Japan all too often presents their villains as atheists, as if they believed that atheism is a horrible, evil trait that will automatically paint a proper villanous picture of their baddie and make the audience perceive them as bastards. In bloodstained, however, it's something else. God and religion don't even come up at any point in the game - the villain just starts spewing villanous atheist lines for no reason. It's so heavy-handed, I love it.

Spoiler

Isn't the point that she was a hypocrite using a position with the church for her own ends?

 

[Shrimpica]

15 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

They gotta powercreep the horny too, or else the otakus might stop spending as much money on the roulette to get their JPEGs

If They could only learn that porn is free on the net everywhere

[Saint Rubenio]

14 minutes ago, Sooks said:

What do you mean villainous atheist lines? I haven’t noticed a trend of atheistic villains.

I've seen it a couple of times. Maybe "trend" is too much, but every time I've seen it it's just come completely out of left field.

8 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Gacha fans learn what "save as" does challenge.

I'll never understand the appeal of gachas. Never.

8 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But at the same time, God/Gods tend to be villains in a lot of Japanese media as well. In fact, SMT lets you kill both God  and the devil iirc.

Yeah, that's true.

7 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

  Hide contents

Circle of the moon's story is pretty interesting in that you get to see characters in a light you wouldn't in Ritual. Alfred for instance is a glass canon. Low health, but his magic really, really wrecks things. Gebel is effectively Alucard from Castlevania 3. Unlike actual Castlevania 3, you get a healthbar for each character and only lose a life when all of them are dead... though you go back a bit to the last checkpoint if one dies. This allows for some flexibility in boss battles... which tend to be a bit rougher than their counterparts in Ritual of the Night.
The most interesting thing is, Zangetsu goes under a complete personality change from being all "I'll cut you down" "Demons ruined my life, I need to kill demons and all that associate with them", to geniunely being a more balanced person by the start of the second one. Also the games have a lot of possible endings. There's a character arc in 2, but it's not Zangetsu who learns power of friendship that time round.

Well, that does sound pretty cool. Maybe I'll check this one out. Particularly interesting that Zangetsu gets an actual character, because in RotN the only enjoyment I ever got out of him was calling him Redstream Zan.

...Well, okay, I lie - teaming up with him at the train was hilarious and badass at the same time. I loved that.

Quote

  Hide contents

Isn't the point that she was a hypocrite using a position with the church for her own ends?

 

Oh. Yeah. Hadn't thought of that. Yeah, I guess it wasn't completely out of nowhere.

...The bigger problem there is

Spoiler

the "church" is a nondescript organization whose allegiances, motivations, structure and even name are entirely unknown. It exists so Dominique has a plausible excuse to exist.

 

2 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

If They could only learn that porn is free on the net everywhere

Maybe it's more satisfying when it costs you a crapton of money and you don't even get the porn you wanted?

Edited July 5, 2021 by Saint Rubenio

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Unlike actual Castlevania 3, you get a healthbar for each character and only lose a life when all of them are dead... though you go back a bit to the last checkpoint if one dies.

Unless you're playing on Casual Mode, in which there are no lives.

Which is honestly the better way to play because lives are outdated and Classic Mode has that old school annoying knockback damage.

8 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

The most interesting thing is, Zangetsu goes under a complete personality change from being all "I'll cut you down" "Demons ruined my life, I need to kill demons and all that associate with them", to geniunely being a more balanced person by the start of the second one

The funny part here is that Zangetsu's CotM personality actually predates his RotN personality, as the former came out first.

And then in the sequel, his edgelord personality was given to Robert.

9 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Also the games have a lot of possible endings

Spoiler

As an Azure Striker Gunvolt fan, the secret ending where Zangetsu ends up in front of Sumergai Tower was pretty neat.

 

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Well, that does sound pretty cool. Maybe I'll check this one out. Particularly interesting that Zangetsu gets an actual character, because in RotN the only enjoyment I ever got out of him was calling him Redstream Zan.

You might also be interested to know that

Spoiler

Dominique is a legitimate good guy in the CotM games.

CotM was originally intended to be a prequel but then they just made it it's own thing so that's why most character personalities are different.

Well not that the games have much dialogue anyway.

 

[null]

FEH? Increasing sex appeal?

You don't say!

[Saint Rubenio]

All right, Salmon

[The Roger The Paladin]

1 minute ago, Saint Rubenio said:

 

...Well, okay, I lie - teaming up with him at the train was hilarious and badass at the same time. I loved that.

The mode where you play him can be interesting.. for a mode that kind of gives you a slightly more limited moveset based off what he does in his bossfights and on the train, and no items. But yeah, in the Curse of the moon, he starts off as a basic revenge oriented character, yet by the second game he's a different person.
 

As for the church in the series... it definitely has a purpose. Given that it's goal is quite evidently the removal of the demons unleashed by the Alchemists, as evidenced by Zangetsu's working for them as a demon hunter. Considering Zangetsu's backstory being of him being from Japan, I imagine the church is otherwise just a cipher for the Catholic Church, but I could be wrong.

Spoiler

Also, this makes Dominique's shard disposal service less suspect, as  it's obviously a form of removing demons to dispose of the shards, as from what I remember the shards have a corrupting influence, hence Gebel's state. And for that matter Dominique.

 

[Shrimpica]

 

[null]

The animation and song are dope.

[Saint Rubenio]

All right, Salmon Elmond has been defeated. These extra bosses don't even drop medals, I don't know why I bother doing them with no damage. Pride, I suppose. On to the third one, and then... well, I've heard tales of an "8-bit overlord" that actually does drop a medal. I'll look up how to find that one, vanquish it as well, and then... It's on to beat Iga up.

That's the text I was trying to post earlier. Except I accidentally pressed some keys and it somehow caused the post to post itself. I considered editing it, but I prefered to let you guys try to figure out what I was meaning to say with "all right, Salmon."

1 minute ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

As for the church in the series... it definitely has a purpose. Given that it's goal is quite evidently the removal of the demons unleashed by the Alchemists, as evidenced by Zangetsu's working for them as a demon hunter. Considering Zangetsu's backstory being of him being from Japan, I imagine the church is otherwise just a cipher for the Catholic Church, but I could be wrong.

  Hide contents

Also, this makes Dominique's shard disposal service less suspect, as  it's obviously a form of removing demons to dispose of the shards, as from what I remember the shards have a corrupting influence, hence Gebel's state. And for that matter Dominique.

 

True enough. I guess I should've paid more attention to the riveting plot of this game, instead of the awesome visuals and the badass boss fights.

[The Roger The Paladin]

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

The funny part here is that Zangetsu's CotM personality actually predates his RotN personality, as the former came out first.

Quite aware, as I played the games as they came out. I'm a bit of a Castlevania nut after all, and a pseudo-Castlevania (like Master of Darkness on the Sega Master System for another example) inevitably attracts me. Only game in the whole series I haven't played is Chronicles on the PS1.  Because I can't find a copy... and PSN didn't have it here.

[The Roger The Paladin]

2 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

All right, Salmon Elmond has been defeated. These extra bosses don't even drop medals, I don't know why I bother doing them with no damage. Pride, I suppose. On to the third one, and then... well, I've heard tales of an "8-bit overlord" that actually does drop a medal. I'll look up how to find that one, vanquish it as well, and then... It's on to beat Iga up.

That's the text I was trying to post earlier. Except I accidentally pressed some keys and it somehow caused the post to post itself. I considered editing it, but I prefered to let you guys try to figure out what I was meaning to say with "all right, Salmon."

True enough. I guess I should've paid more attention to the riveting plot of this game, instead of the awesome visuals and the badass boss fights.

8bit overlord's hidden in an 8-bit stage in a book in a secret room.

Basically you open the book, then you get warped to an 8-bit area called "8-bit nightmare" or something of the like. Also don't forget you can take a certain book from the library into the icy caverns where you fought Gremory, and a certain room turns into a boss room.

[Saint Rubenio]

1 minute ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

8bit overlord's hidden in an 8-bit stage in a book in a secret room.

Basically you open the book, then you get warped to an 8-bit area called "8-bit nightmare" or something of the like. Also don't forget you can take a certain book from the library into the icy caverns where you fought Gremory, and a certain room turns into a boss room.

I heard about that, yeah. Sheesh, I've got a lot of optional bosses to go through.

[null]

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

In bloodstained, however, it's something else. God and religion don't even come up at any point in the game - the villain just starts spewing villanous atheist lines for no reason. It's so heavy-handed, I love it.

I think this is something you find in a couple of the Igavanias. The thinnest trace of Christianity beyond the boomerang crosses and holy water firebombs. The reason for Dracula's existence was explained similarly- how could God allow something bad to happen? If He did, then Drac will live in opposition to God. The cultist lady you never fight in Dawn of Sorrow says she wants Dracula back as a dark counterweight to God. Symphony of the Night tosses in exactly one citation of a passage from the Gospel of Luke. But this is the extent of it. The first Lords of Shadow game seems to be the only game to go any deeper on Christianity.

As this is a franchise that began will whipping vampires and bats and finding meat hidden in walls, in an era without real storytelling. I don't mind that it remained on the fence about faith, and its inability to provide theodicies to counter the criticisms of the atheist you mention. It keeps franchise inoffensive, and the gothic stuff has been fundamentally-important window dressing, nothing more than that.

 

36 minutes ago, Armagon said:

In fact, SMT lets you kill both God  and the devil iirc.

It depends on the game in question.

Lucifer (not to be confused with Satan- 95% of the time they're separate beings in SMT) tends to be fightable more than YHVH (Yahweh without the vowels), as the Abrahamic God is called in the franchise. 

• Megami Tensei II, Shin Megami Tensei II, and Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse are the only cases where you fight YHVH in his "true/typical" form- that of a giant head.
• Although, Strange Journey does feature use the Demiurge as a crazed splintered fraction of YHVH's power after He lost against the demons. SJ Redux retconned the Three Wise Men as additional fragments of the shattered YHVH, with their combined form as Shekinah as the game's superboss and gatekeeper of the new endings. And, Ancient of Days is a fightable avatar of YHVH in SMTIV as DLC.

YHVH is usually a lot less directly present in the games too, the angels act on His behalf (and sometimes others like Thor, Vishnu, and the Kagutsuchi), but He rarely shows up.

Lucifer doesn't always play an active story role, he often watches the events unfold (frequently in disguise) without him doing more than a little here or there. Nonetheless Lucifer is a lot more visibly present -although the demons who promote his ideology rarely shout his name the way YHVH's followers do. (Chaos-oriented demons acting in self-interest, not the service of another, to be expected of the alignment's beliefs.) 

And, be able to summon Lucifer is not unusual -if not necessarily canon. While YHVH barring the Ancient of Days and the SJ instance of Demiurge is never able to be summoned.

Also, you pronounce YHVH as *scratches a vinyl record*. No seriously, every time someone says His name in IV: Apocalypse, you hear a scratchy sound, as if the name of God is incomprehensible to humanity.

-I know you weren't asking for any of this, but the one most fluent in SMT here obliged anyhow!😇😈

Edited July 5, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Ys for me in a nutshell:

I already lost against the first boss on second lowest difficulty.

 

Whatever...this game must be played since it shall be short.