Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Shrimpica]

...thanks youtube?

[Benice]

>Me, who enjoys having a weaker Lord

---

Oy, what a day... Cognition can be hard sometimes.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Benice

[Shrimpica]

 

[Lightcosmo]

1 hour ago, Benice said:

>Me, who enjoys having a weaker Lord

I dont think this is inheretly a bad thing. Gameplay pending, it can be enjoyable to use a unit that requires strategy or perhaps having a niche use over raw power. So dont think your opinion is "wrong".

[Benice]

54 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

 

Football may be better than I give it credit for.

[Armagon]

Mega Man ZX review:

Mega Man ZX Advent Children is an interesting entry in this series. For starters, it feels more like a proper Metroidvania than ZX, utilizing the map better than it's predecessor and also having a map screen that isn't ass. While you can still do any mission in any order, you now teleport (for some) directly to the area as opposed to taking the long way around but even when you don't teleport, it still feels like more proper Metroidvania progression. As far as trying to mix the two styles together, this game does it better than ZX and i'm grateful i don't have to use the omega cringe "it's a good x but a bad y" argument for this game.

As far as the gameplay itself, it's pretty solid which is honestly expected of Inti Creates but it's a bit weird here. Like before, you have a choice between a male and female protagonist and like before, i went with the female protagonist because i'm pretty sure this is the last game in the series called Mega Man where there's a female protagonist. But whereas ZX form was the default in the last game, in this game, you don't get it until halfway in. As such, no Z-Saber access for half the game just kinda.....felt nerfed. Like it's obviously still fun to play but i was definitely missing Z-Saber access until i got it. But what truly separates this game from it's predecessor and honestly not just Mega Man but this sort of genre as whole is the copy abilities. See, in Mega Man and it's inspired games, when you beat a boss, you get an ability that pertains to that boss in some way. In Mega Man ZXA, when you beat a boss, you straight up just get to become the boss. And while half the bosses in this game are humanoids, the other half are just big monster type stuff. And you can become them and staight-up use some of their moves. And honestly, that's raw, i don't think i've played a game where you can straight-up just become the boss after beating them. That said, those forms are more suited for exploration rather than combat, which you'd use the other set of copy abilities for.

The worst part about this game is the voice acting. My God, what is this voice acting. I had the Mastered Voice setting turned on so i can hear what was intended instead of DS bit crushing and man, i never want to hear anyone complain about Xenoblade 2 English voice acting again. I'd have changed the language but Capcom decided that if you change the language in this collection, you also change the text, also each language just counts as it's own game for some reason? But this is a Zero/ZX Collection problem and not something specific to ZXA. I also have to criticize the ending of this (well both games) really. Both ZX games just kinda end and while i wouldn't say it's out of nowhere, it doesn't feel as neatly wrapped up as lists every other Inti Creates game.

ZX Advent is definitely better than ZX but this duology as a whole just feels kinda weak compared to what came before and after, even if being able to straight-up copy the bosses themselves is raw.

7/10

_________________

And on that note, i think i have enough games for this now

There's a little bit missing but these are the big Inti Creates games i feel like.

Honestly i was debating whether or not i'd put Blaster Master Zero 3 in S+ because i really really love it's ending. Maybe i'll put it up there another day.

[Acacia Sgt]

Hmm, okay, I've decided. I'll go with the "reserve" idea I had for Chapter 10. I do have that "Director's Cut" version to one day write as well, and that one will have the original idea I had in mind then...

[Interdimensional Observer]

57 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I also have to criticize the ending of this (well both games) really. Both ZX games just kinda end and while i wouldn't say it's out of nowhere, it doesn't feel as neatly wrapped up as lists every other Inti Creates game.

I'm aware of some ominous secret bonus scene in ZX Advent, might be hard mode only if you didn't see it.

It would appear ZX was going to be a trilogy, but Capcom for some reason never gave the go ahead for the last game. This makes ZX one of two unfinished Mega Man subseries, the other being Mega Man Legends. Mega Man Zero you know ends smashingly, Battle Network from what I'm aware concluded well, Star Force ended pretty fine, X has essentially three games that count as the ending, and lol plot in Classic Mega Man.

[The Roger The Paladin]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I have never used Fergus. Who needs Fergus? Hicks joins a short three maps later!

Hicks didn't work out for me. As in 4 speed dismounted at level 18 didn't work out.
You can also forget Fergus being my best unit. Chapter 19 happened... and I know I was using the Dain Scroll.. but Leif has now capped strength, speed, luck, and defense... hit 16 skill and 9 con... and if that wasn't enough, he got four movement levels. In one map. He's got 12 move thanks to the leg ring. Forget arguing over whether Leif or Roy is better. Let's see Ike get 12 move.
*Make that 13 move. Crazy bastard did it again.

Edited May 13, 2022 by The Roger The Paladin

[BrightBow]

Fergus has that whole 5 PCC thing going. He requires very little work to reach 100% crit.

[Benice]

Banger.

[ping]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Fair enough, I suppose, but Roy's hitrate is more unreliable than ideal with WTD, and the hits he eats in return are brutal. He's just not a good unit early on, and then chapter 7 arrives and he's never good again. Outside like, chapter 10, but that chapter is a glorified training grounds, and any unit benefits more from dedicated training than Mr. I Can't Promote Until The Potentially Final Chapter.

That's all fair.

What annoys me a little in the occasional "LOL ROY" discussions is that he's singled out as so much worse than any other lord, while his status as "below average, but not rock bottom" isn't too different from Eliwood, (in particular no-Lyn-Mode-)Lyndis, and arguably even Eirika. Just for the sake of argument, the BinBla characters that I consider to be worse than Roy (without putting too much thought into it) are

• Wolt, Bors, Wade, (Chad), Dorothy, Barth, OJ, Wendy, Cath, Sophia, Hugh, Karel.

That's 11 (12 if you separate Chad the combat unit from Chad the walking lockpick) characters that I'd confidently call worse, plus a couple that I consider same-ish in utility. Compared to that, BlaBla characters that I think are worse than Eliwood and Lyn:

• Rebecca, Bartre, Wil, Wallace, Nino, Karla, Renault.

So, 11 out of 54 playable characters (courtesy of our friendly neighborhood @Interdimensional Observer), or 20%, are worse than Roy, while 6 out of 43 characters, or 14%, are worse than Eliwood and Lyn.

Obviously, there's plenty room for disagreement about the exact placements - I never find room for Garret on my team, for example, so I'd put him below Roy in a personal ranking; others will probably say that Dorcas's earlygame isn't as valuable as Eliwood and Lyn's eventual good performance if you promote them - but I think that the TL,DR: "Roy, like several other lords, is a below-average unit in his game" stands. He just happens to be below-average in a game with more powerful enemies than BinBla and SacSto present.

(And it's very possible that I missed some obvious "worse than the lord" candidates for either game. I just skimmed down the lists of characters and picked the ones that I immediately thought would qualify)

[Punished Dayni]

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

But then, if he's "leagues above your average Joe", who is Hicks, who is leagues above Leif? Is he the long lost child of Loptyr!?

Hicks is Hicks.

That's all there is to it.

8 hours ago, Armagon said:

There's only one pair until 21 in BB.

Which is better than the others in that there's a way to get others, but still.

5 hours ago, Shrimpolaris said:

 

They decided to reference most of all the anime for the hell of it.

And the week 5 shade

3 hours ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

You can also forget Fergus being my best unit. Chapter 19 happened... and I know I was using the Dain Scroll.. but Leif has now capped strength, speed, luck, and defense... hit 16 skill and 9 con... and if that wasn't enough, he got four movement levels. In one map. He's got 12 move thanks to the leg ring. Forget arguing over whether Leif or Roy is better. Let's see Ike get 12 move.
*Make that 13 move. Crazy bastard did it again.

Leif is fresh out of mercy and decided that horses are for losers.

[Eltosian Kadath]

51 minutes ago, ping said:

 

What annoys me a little in the occasional "LOL ROY" discussions is that he's singled out as so much worse than any other lord, while his status as "below average, but not rock bottom" isn't too different from Eliwood, (in particular no-Lyn-Mode-)Lyndis, and arguably even Eirika. Just for the sake of argument, the BinBla characters that I consider to be worse than Roy (without putting too much thought into it) are

Lyn gets away with it by not being mandatory for most chapters, so you can actively bench that dead albatross (most of the time), and Eirika by being in a rather easy game. Eliwood on the other hand has the growths of a coin-flip, and is close enough on key benchmarks that the high variance in his stats leads to high variance in his performance, so he could go either way (the old Eli-BAD vs EliGood), and on the hardest mode can both be benched like Lyn if he is losing the coin-flips, or promoted at a more reasonable time if he is winning them. Roy has the misfortune for being mandatory, and in a rather difficult game.

For what it is worth, I agree with you that he is rather useful early game (especially chapter 4) but there is a LONG stretch where is such a burden...

58 minutes ago, ping said:

Compared to that, BlaBla characters that I think are worse than Eliwood and Lyn:

• Rebecca, Bartre, Wil, Wallace, Nino, Karla, Renault.

I think staff utility would push Renault and Nino above Lyn for me (then again my HHM no-Lyn mode got to the point where they were the only staff units left, so my fringe experiences might be skewing things a bit...). I would also probably add Dorcas to this list as well. God only knows where I would put Eliwood in any kind of list though...

 

[Punished Dayni]

Me, reading an email I wasn't expecting before next week.

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

*Reads again

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

Well, I do have to wait on getting selected and that's not guaranteed, but yeah, that's great!

[Saint Rubenio]

Man, the trouble I've had posting this. The forum just kept on refusing.

They're trying to keep me from doing something as silly as arguing that Chad is a better combat unit than Roy.

11 hours ago, BrightBow said:

It's can't be understated that before Roy, the only Lord with an anti-cavalry/armor pref weapon was Marth. And you know what Marth's games did not have? The weapon triangle.

As much as they wanted the game to revolve around the weapon triangle, they saw no problem with Roy's pref only being effective against opponents he is at a disadvantage against.

This is one of those things that's been a staple of the series for so long that nobody questions it anymore, but... Yeah, the rapier didn't use to be such a mandatory lord gimmick. I do wish it still wasn't. Leif's light brand is a far more interesting lord weapon than the rapier again would've been.

10 hours ago, Armagon said:

Meanwhile, i've noticed that the GBA Lords all average like the same stats and kinda growths too but then Roy's the only one that gets called bad.

Eliwood is a slightly better Roy that has a WAY better promotion that comes earlier in the only FE7 difficulty anyone cares about, Lyn at least is fast as opposed to Roy's bad everything, Hector is tanky and has a better weapon type, Eirika like Lyn at least has her speed as a niche, and in what universe is Ephraim even remotely comparable to Roy?

They're not much better, perhaps, but you'd definitely rather have them than Our Boi.

Quote

People called me a madman when i said Roy wasn't actually that bad (literally just slap on the Boots, it solves like 98% of his problems).

Ehhhhh I don't know, that just turns him into the shittiest cavalier in the game, who only has one weapon type that faces WTD against way too many things, dies if two wyverns look at him funny, can't deal damage to anything that isn't wielding an axe and can't promote to fix any of those issues.

Quote

This is why we don't use "stats" and "logic" because people swear on their life that a character is good or bad and then it ends up being the opposite for someone like consistently.

Hahah... Fair point. I just think these discussions are fun, but then when I actually play FE, I used a healthy mixture of terrible units and good units based entirely on how much I like their faces.

10 hours ago, Armagon said:

I mean yeah late promotion is an issue but all of the GBA Lords promote like at the door to endgame. So i never understood why Roy specifically gets called out.

This is true. I think the reason they don't get called out as much is that, since their games are far easier, one gets the impression that they contribute more than Roy. When really, Roy's problem relative to them is that he exists in a far tougher game where promoting in chapter 22 is just completely unreasonable.

That, and Roy's promotion is incredibly bad. He just gets +2 in every relevant stat, which for this game's hilarious promotions is actually rather mediocre, and absolutely nothing else. He doesn't even get to keep unpromoted EXP gains like Leif, which is what saves Leif's promotion by the way. The universe just hates Roy lol.

9 hours ago, Benice said:

>Me, who enjoys having a weaker Lord

Frankly, I think I prefer it to something like RD Ike. A middle ground is the best deal, I think, but at least a bad lord is more interesting to keep alive, rather than a massive wall of stats that does everything.

5 hours ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

Hicks didn't work out for me. As in 4 speed dismounted at level 18 didn't work out.

You didn't believe in him hard enough.

Quote

You can also forget Fergus being my best unit. Chapter 19 happened... and I know I was using the Dain Scroll.. but Leif has now capped strength, speed, luck, and defense... hit 16 skill and 9 con... and if that wasn't enough, he got four movement levels. In one map. He's got 12 move thanks to the leg ring. Forget arguing over whether Leif or Roy is better. Let's see Ike get 12 move.
*Make that 13 move. Crazy bastard did it again.

Bwahahahahaha... Leif is going to wring the laif out of his every foe. Throw this beast at Travant, he won't even know what hit him!

Man, all these Thracia talks are making me want to play Thracia. But I know the final update to Lil' Manster is in the works. Apparently it's going to, once and for all, going to put a lid on all the troubles surrounding Project Exile. I think I'd rather wait for that.

3 hours ago, ping said:

What annoys me a little in the occasional "LOL ROY" discussions is that he's singled out as so much worse than any other lord, while his status as "below average, but not rock bottom" isn't too different from Eliwood, (in particular no-Lyn-Mode-)Lyndis, and arguably even Eirika. Just for the sake of argument, the BinBla characters that I consider to be worse than Roy (without putting too much thought into it) are

• Wolt, Bors, Wade, (Chad), Dorothy, Barth, OJ, Wendy, Cath, Sophia, Hugh, Karel.

That's 11 (12 if you separate Chad the combat unit from Chad the walking lockpick) characters that I'd confidently call worse, plus a couple that I consider same-ish in utility. Compared to that, BlaBla characters that I think are worse than Eliwood and Lyn:

• Rebecca, Bartre, Wil, Wallace, Nino, Karla, Renault.

So, 11 out of 54 playable characters (courtesy of our friendly neighborhood @Interdimensional Observer), or 20%, are worse than Roy, while 6 out of 43 characters, or 14%, are worse than Eliwood and Lyn.

Obviously, there's plenty room for disagreement about the exact placements - I never find room for Garret on my team, for example, so I'd put him below Roy in a personal ranking; others will probably say that Dorcas's earlygame isn't as valuable as Eliwood and Lyn's eventual good performance if you promote them - but I think that the TL,DR: "Roy, like several other lords, is a below-average unit in his game" stands. He just happens to be below-average in a game with more powerful enemies than BinBla and SacSto present.

I see your point, but I disagree. "Below average but not rock bottom" is vastly overestimating Roy's really minor earlygame contributions, absolutely nothing in the mid and lategame and then the Idun kill. "Below average but not rock bottom" is something I'd call someone like Noah. His stats are lackluster and so are his growths, but he has a horse, he has decent bases, he can contribute somewhat. Roy... can't do much.

I also disagree with that list of units that are worse than Roy.

• Wolt and Dorothy have bows, which are actually nice to have in this game (you'd much rather have them than Roy in the dreaded chapter 7, for instance), and if you stick with them, they can promote at a sensible time and have the stats to contribute a bit, especially against wyverns, who are a big threat in Binding Blade.
• OJ is underlevelled, but give him a few chapter 9 pirates and he's just a better version of Roy that can promote at a sensible time to get axes so he can hurt lance enemies.
• Hugh is a solid mage whose only real flaws are availability and price. The game hands you half of Hugh's paycheck in a chest on his chapter, too. Once he's in, he kicks Roy out of the park. He does more when he exists than Roy can manage in the entire game.
• I would argue Chad is a better combat unit than Roy if you actually train him. He can't promote either, but with his massive growths, he'll have more stats than Roy will manage even after promotion, because on top of hilariously late, Roy's promotion is godawful. They will both be squishy, but hey, the fact that the unpromoted thief can be argued as better than Roy is just sad.

I'd only agree on the knights, Cath (as a combat unit, thief utility makes her nicer to have than Roy too), Sophia and Wade - and being better than those doesn't make you below average, it just makes you the least bad of the bottom of the barrel.

11 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Me, reading an email I wasn't expecting before next week.

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

*Reads again

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

Well, I do have to wait on getting selected and that's not guaranteed, but yeah, that's great!

Good work, man! Hope you do get selected, that'd be great news.

Also love the spin on the Lilina thing

[Armagon]

Monopon posting clean images of the areas we've seen in the previews. We do know the names but

Milik Plain 

Which is an obvious mashup of Gaur Plain and Gormott (Gormott elements can be seen in a different shot which i didn't post).

It's him.

And Uraya's remains in the distance is just *chef's kiss*.

Eagus Wasteland

I won't post all the images but i do have to say, the more i see of this, the more i really do think we're getting a seamless open world here.

...wait, hold on. Enhance!

Tombstone spotted. We won.

I really like all of this btw. The areas have little to big callbacks to what they once were but it's done in a way that a new player wouldn't feel left out. Even stuff like the Fallen Arm has been desertified beyond recognition. 

This game is going to have a lot of veteran players running around the world and pointing at things like Leonardo DiCaprio.

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm aware of some ominous secret bonus scene in ZX Advent, might be hard mode only if you didn't see it.

*Looks it up*

It somewhat reminds me of Gunvolt 2's secret ending. Except Inti has full control over that one so we'll actually get to see where it leads.

Not that ZX3 won't happen at all, we did get Mega Man 11 after so long, but if ZX is done, then you can safely just ignore that secret ending as narratively, it would change nothing. It's not like Mega Man Legends, which actually does need that third game.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

For what it is worth, I agree with you that he is rather useful early game (especially chapter 4) but there is a LONG stretch where is such a burden...

I think it's mainly just the Eturia chapters where he's at his weakest and i'm specifically referring to Ch.13-16. The Western Isles is good for him because a lot of axe units.

Late game i guess kinda depends on whether or not you want flier spam or nomad spam.

2 hours ago, Dayni said:

Me, reading an email I wasn't expecting before next week.

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

*Reads again

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

Well, I do have to wait on getting selected and that's not guaranteed, but yeah, that's great!

Congrats man.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Hector is tanky and has a better weapon type

I will always tell the tale of my first FE7 playthrough where Hector sucked so bad that by endgame he was only a Lv.7 Lord. Why? Dude had worse aim than a Stormtrooper. 

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

who only has one weapon type that faces WTD against way too many things

But Lancereaver.

It don't matter how bad a unit is, reality bends to my will, i can fix them.

Edited May 13, 2022 by Armagon

[Lightcosmo]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Monopon posting clean images of the areas we've seen in the previews. We do know the names but

Milik Plain 

Which is an obvious mashup of Gaur Plain and Gormott (Gormott elements can be seen in a different shot which i didn't post).

It's him.

And Uraya's remains in the distance is just *chef's kiss*.

Eagus Wasteland

I won't post all the images but i do have to say, the more i see of this, the more i really do think we're getting a seamless open world here.

...wait, hold on. Enhance!

Tombstone spotted. We won.

I really like all of this btw. The areas have little to big callbacks to what they once were but it's done in a way that a new player wouldn't feel left out. Even stuff like the Fallen Arm has been desertified beyond recognition. 

Pretty view on the first image! Also, what's that shiny on the ground!?

He better be there, he's earned his spot at this point.

Desert area looks nice, but i personally am not a fan of them, so it's whatever to me. XD

Tombstones are just convenient, it's not like it's difficult to just keep warping to get the monster to appear, just a pain.

[Saint Rubenio]

9 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I will always tell the tale of my first FE7 playthrough where Hector sucked so bad that by endgame he was only a Lv.7 Lord. Why? Dude had worse aim than a Stormtrooper. 

Hahahah... Hey, I don't even like Hector much myself. In his mode he's axe Roy, which is a bit better than Roy simply by virtue of axes being better in FE7, but I still leave him underlevelled for Wallace.

9 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But Lancereaver.

It don't matter how bad a unit is, reality bends to my will, i can fix them.

Or, you can give the rare lancereavers to the swordmasters instead of wasting them on making Roy be slightly less terrible. Wyverns have too much defense, even with this thing Roy won't do much.

[Armagon]

5 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Also, what's that shiny on the ground!?

Presumably item orbs like in 1 and X.

I hope it's more like X where all of then respawn upon reload as opposed to only some of them.

[Armagon]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Or, you can give the rare lancereavers to the swordmasters instead of wasting them on making Roy be slightly less terrible. Wyverns have too much defense, even with this thing Roy won't do much.

This is like the same argument people use against training Ests. 

[Lightcosmo]

5 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Presumably item orbs like in 1 and X.

I hope it's more like X where all of then respawn upon reload as opposed to only some of them.

That could be, yeah! 

Does that mean collectopedia is coming back?

[Lightcosmo]

Why don't Steam games ever support PS controller button display? It's annoying af, haha.

[Interdimensional Observer]

A little later than expected. I don't have NSO at all, and this was an inevitable inclusion ofc, but it's still nice to see it on here. I had a physical game guide (which oddly never mentioned the true final boss) and played through the whole thing at least twice -minus never defeating the untrue final boss. Nowadays, creative visual design aside, Kirby is slooooooooow, and everything looks rigid, I don't think I could replay it. The fruit-collecting minigame was very popular in my family though, that would still totally hold up.😄

 

5 hours ago, ping said:

So, 11 out of 54 playable characters (courtesy of our friendly neighborhood @Interdimensional Observer), or 20%, are worse than Roy, while 6 out of 43 characters, or 14%, are worse than Eliwood and Lyn.

It has been over five years since I wrote that.😐

This feels weird, a combination of old and "was that really me?".

 

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

This is one of those things that's been a staple of the series for so long that nobody questions it anymore, but... Yeah, the rapier didn't use to be such a mandatory lord gimmick. I do wish it still wasn't. Leif's light brand is a far more interesting lord weapon than the rapier again would've been.

Rapier-ism has been on the decline though. Chrom & Lucina were the last to have it locked to them. Corrin got the Yato & Dragonstone. Alm and Celica are from an old weird game and the remake added a Rapier anyone could use (but wasn't quite as useful as it could've been). 3H has a Rapier, and I'm pretty sure some NPC lady with the Lord class carried one when she showed up, a nod towards the old association, but anyone playable could use a Rapier any time.

 

2 hours ago, Dayni said:

Me, reading an email I wasn't expecting before next week.

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

*Reads again

>You have reached the qualifying standard at interview

Well, I do have to wait on getting selected and that's not guaranteed, but yeah, that's great!

May you enter the workforce with a tolerable form of employment whose tolls and tedium are outweighed by sufficient income and a sense of independence and increased self-satisfaction!😃

 

8 minutes ago, Armagon said:

This is like the same argument people use against training Ests. 

I think at this point I think we just have to accept you have different FE standards from others in this thread. Which is why I never tried debating with you, persuasion should only be attempted if it has a chance to succeed. -If the goal one assigns to argument is persuasion in the first place.

[Saint Rubenio]

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

This is like the same argument people use against training Ests. 

Difference being, Ests have potential and can be fun to train if you aren't the LTC pro kind. Roy is stuck in worthlessness the entire game, so even the casual playstyle doesn't benefit him.

11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Rapier-ism has been on the decline though. Chrom & Lucina were the last to have it locked to them. Corrin got the Yato & Dragonstone. Alm and Celica are from an old weird game and the remake added a Rapier anyone could use (but wasn't quite as useful as it could've been). 3H has a Rapier, and I'm pretty sure some NPC lady with the Lord class carried one when she showed up, a nod towards the old association, but anyone playable could use a Rapier any time.

That's true. Good thing, too. Here's hoping we keep this pace up.