Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Shrimpica]

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

Family tree moment

Edited April 23, 2023 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Saint Rubenio]

All right, time to give chapter 19 a shot before bed.

One thing's for sure, I'll want a more chill game after this. The problem I'm having right now is that I've got like, nothing I'm looking forward to, gaming-wise. It's like back in 2021 where there were zero games coming out I was interested in. Last year was great and this one started strong with Engage, but right now...

Perhaps I'll finally play Symphony of War. Or get around to justifying the 6 bucks I spent on Homeworld. Or play Braid and To The Moon, which I bought with a foil trading card on Steam. I got things lying around. Or I could go in a completely different direction and get Super Mario Odyssey on my Nintendo PC so I can replay it after all these years... but like, the superior way.

We'll see. I've still got corrupted to chew through and Hounds to tame.

1 hour ago, Lightchao42 said:

Mods giveth, and mods taketh away.

I appreciate the effort, but there should be no audience for this. We've got like, dozens of generic waifus in this series. Respect the only other old hag, you fucks.

39 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

This is one of the chapters (the other being 22) were i think it's less fun on maddening than on hard. Feels likes how the chapters were constructed conceptually don't work that well with super high enemy quality

I definitely felt that there were way too many enemies in this chapter. I can't kill this amount of stuff. I did wonder, however, if it was my, uh, choices of units and classes screwing me, as it tends to happen. Glad it's not the case.

I still could've pulled off a win, though, if I had played better. I had Mauvier dead, his entire platoon chokepointed and Marni was circling around. But the stupid big dragon screwed everything up and I couldn't get Marni in a good position without losing multiple units. An entrap staff would've made all the difference, but well, I didn't have that amount of foresight, sadly.

EDIT: Never mind Entrap isn't a thing at this point. Shucks...

39 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

sounds like an experience XD

It was weird. Also oddly short, it lasted all of 10 minutes. And thank God for that, poor grandpas might've had to leave if it went on any longer than that.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Saint Rubenio

[ping]

Mekkah doesn't want you to use Alfred, @Saint Rubenio

[Shrimpica]

22 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

EDIT: Never mind Entrap isn't a thing at this point. Shucks.

you could try to silence Mauv so he doesn't warp fuck you, but the horsies still have quite the MoV

[Saint Rubenio]

5 minutes ago, ping said:

Mekkah doesn't want you to use Alfred, @Saint Rubenio

Funny, I just saw this in my reccs. Personally, I don't know what Mekkah thinks about him, but in my experience, he's a precious fragile boy, and as such, he's got a place in my team. He's like, Fire Emblem's Luigi, minus the universe-ending hidden power.

[Saint Rubenio]

Just now, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

you could try to silence Mauv so he doesn't warp fuck you, but the horsies still have quite the MoV

The thing is, the warp fuck you stopped mattering like, three turns into the map. I overextended and Mauvier's AI changed to charging. Alongside the entire map.

I still was able to pull off a chokepoint thanks to Vandad's fire tiles and a strategic retreat, allowing me to kill Mauvier and buy some time for Marni to circle around. But, well, like I said, I fudged the landing.

[Benice]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Okay, Headhunter defeated.

 

[Lightcosmo]

Im imaging 100% activation rate on RD Pavise and Miracle and it sounds dumb. Xd

[ping]

Failure wheel. Wee. Two crits from Venomoth in a second attempt, two concecutive Sleep Powder misses from Ivy in the third.

Fourth attempt starts promising, with Ivy ending the fight vs. Whiscash at full HP.

KnuffelCthulu was supposed to damage Venomoth and get KOed, which works, and Lance does some questionable switching. Venomoth could've just KO'ed KnuffelCthulu.

This swap back to Venomoth was better - forces out Ivy because it knows Psychic...

...and while I have an almost perfect switch into that attack, Bullet Punch doesn't KO and HAL (who took damage vs. Hariyama) gets KOed in return.

Schnute get the KO with Ice Shard, KnuffelCthulu takes one for the team...

...so that HAL-9001 can slooowwwly kill god. I think he got three Hammer Arm misses in the process 😕 However, it survives two Hyper Voices and god didn't get a crit, so that only made the duel slower.

And then Schnute sweeps the last two Pokemon. Golem, asleep, damaged, and outsped...

...and a less knuffelig Cthulu going for an interesting defense. EQ gets the KO through the defense drop (and Schnute outspeeds Omastar, too).

Victory for pingala!

I'll probably continue and see if Red is beatable without excessive grinding (he'll have 4 Lv.100 Pokemon, so I wouldn't bet on it), but the Monotype thread over in the Pokemon subforum kinda makes me want to try out such a run in vanilla RBY. I'm thinking either Normal (but only Pokémon you can catch before Misty) or Bug.

[Saint Rubenio]

Okay, so on my first try I lost on literally the last turn before I would've won.

Now I've spent 30 minutes on the first turn. I cannot get that swordmaster to not kill anyone. I did it in my first try, can't seem to replicate it.

Well, actually, 30 minutes doesn't mean that many tries, because the loading times in this game are complete shit.

[ping]

20 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Funny, I just saw this in my reccs. Personally, I don't know what Mekkah thinks about him, but in my experience, he's a precious fragile boy, and as such, he's got a place in my team. He's like, Fire Emblem's Luigi, minus the universe-ending hidden power.

can't believe you're using a high-tier scrub, smh my head

Spoiler

I've only been listening with one ear, so don't ask for details, but no, Mekkah and his guest propagandist don't actually put him in S tier. It seems more like when I'm talking about Roy. "Yeah, he's kinda bad, but not as bad as people say"

 

[Shrimpica]

8 minutes ago, ping said:

but not as bad as people say"

Yeah worse than everyone says 😛

13 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

cannot get that swordmaster to not kill anyone.

Yh fuck that guy

[Acacia Sgt]

Alright, reached the Clock Tower.

... great, now I wish the Medusa Heads spawned more often... then again, that's only until I get a soul. Otherwise, I like this spawn rate.

[Saint Rubenio]

Yeah, no. I'm way too tired to be playing Engage.

Tomorrow it is, then. I've made exactly zero progress today. Jesus fucking Christ...

5 minutes ago, ping said:

can't believe you're using a high-tier scrub, smh my head

My principles...!

5 minutes ago, ping said:

  Hide contents

I've only been listening with one ear, so don't ask for details, but no, Mekkah and his guest propagandist don't actually put him in S tier. It seems more like when I'm talking about Roy. "Yeah, he's kinda bad, but not as bad as people say"

 

 

Spoiler

That sounds about right. Alfred does have nearly unmatched availability, movement without need to reclass and big strength. He's got enough going for him to avoid being the worst unit in the game, I'd say.

 

6 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Yeah worse than everyone says 😛

Is this going to be the new Niles with you.

...Nah, I won't be nearly as cavalier about defending Alf. He's been consistently awful in both runs, which is the reason I'm using him both times.

6 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Yh fuck that guy

I did it in my first try. No idea how. I'll try again tomorrow, right now I'm just making myself frustrated before bed.

[Eltosian Kadath]

10 hours ago, ping said:

 

#1: Wil

Interesting how close he is to a themed trainer, using only Ground and Water types.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

+4 Dark Pulse, pretty strong. Schnute outspeeds and kills from that HP, though.

Yikes, it managed to boost up. Good job getting out of that.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

 

Yeah, yeah, using the legendary bird. Very lame of me.

Lol.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

 

HAL's also easily the best answer to psychics, so I had to revive and send it out against Mew. Luckily, it only used Barrier once and didn't get any Sacred Fires with Metronome.

The Mew was really using Metronome in the Elite Four...That is actually kinda funny.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

Aww. KnuffelCthulu still wins this, but one-shots are always very satisfying, especially when the opponent is 12 levels above you.

You really went into this with a severe level disadvantage, but you are using items in battle to balance that all out.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

 

Err.... that ain't good.

Oh wow. The champion having Arceus is strangely fitting.

 

10 hours ago, ping said:

...at that point, I didn't have enough to beat a fucking Golem. Golem.

Oof, so close.

 

7 hours ago, Lightcosmo said:

 

And either way, it does with Dragon Lance/Beo's Sword.

These weapons giving the Vantage skill while equipped does not let Thracia 776 Wrath work with Vantage. When a unit has both Vantage and Wrath in Thracia 776, the only time the Wrath effect will trigger is when attacking an enemy with Vantage...

 

19 minutes ago, Lightcosmo said:

Im imaging 100% activation rate on RD Pavise and Miracle and it sounds dumb. Xd

Isn't Engage Roy's Holdout skill basically 100% activation rate Miracle?

 

19 minutes ago, ping said:

 

Failure wheel. Wee. Two crits from Venomoth in a second attempt, two concecutive Sleep Powder misses from Ivy in the third.

Oof, what rotten luck. Sometime the RNG just hates you in Pokemon

 

21 minutes ago, ping said:

 

 the Monotype thread over in the Pokemon subforum kinda makes me want to try out such a run in vanilla RBY. I'm thinking either Normal (but only Pokémon you can catch before Misty) or Bug.

Yeah, I am kinda tempted to do one as well, probably the Fire type to start, as I anticipate it being the most difficult, but it would basically be a Charmander solo for the most difficult section of the run...

[Acacia Sgt]

I know it's forced 2D perspective and all... but the characters shouldn't fall off from the horizontal spinning gears anyway.

Alright, finally got the soul. Saved the game and stopping for today.

[Shrimpica]

13 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

won't be nearly as cavalier about defending Alf.

I was talking more about Roy, but yes.

Atleast Alf is entertaining!

[Sooks]

Finished my 2nd play through of Triangle Strategy!

-The ending was a little bit underwhelming. It should have been more depressing. Especially coming off of Benedict’s ending,

Spoiler

where we get to actually see Roland, we should have been able to actually see Frederica. Even better, we should have seen the Roselle toiling away, or literally anyone suffering, for the one ending that openly forsakes an entire people. But no, we just get randos talking about Frederica.

Seeing everything become Hyzante was cool tho.

-The AI literally killed itself in the final chapter. The enemy loses if you kill the boss, and an enemy thunder mage just electrocuted the boss to death. Pretty sure the AI should literally never do that, but oh well, I wasn’t complaining.

-Medina is like the best unit in the game. I slept on her last time.

-Decimal is a blast to use, mostly his height damage skill.

-The way the choices sort of railroad you into the same path is a liiiiiittle underwhelming, although all of those paths make more sense with the choices I made here.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Sooks said:

-The AI literally killed itself in the final chapter. The enemy loses if you kill the boss, and an enemy thunder mage just electrocuted the boss to death. Pretty sure the AI should literally never do that, but oh well, I wasn’t complaining.

Maybe it was on purpose.

[ping]

28 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Yeah worse than everyone says 😛

It's OK, I won't judge you overly much for being utterly wrong.

11 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You really went into this with a severe level disadvantage, but you are using items in battle to balance that all out.

It's honestly my favourite way of playing through the games. I don't have the patience to grind too many levels, but it can be fun to map out where you can get the 2-hit-KOs and/or avoid getting 2-hit-KOed when you're at such a level disadvantage.

19 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oh wow. The champion having Arceus is strangely fitting.

As his ace, no less.

20 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah, I am kinda tempted to do one as well, probably the Fire type to start, as I anticipate it being the most difficult, but it would basically be a Charmander solo for the most difficult section of the run...

I'm worried that a Bug monorun would involve more Sleep cheese with Butterfree in the earlygame than would be interesting It has some nice options later, though, like Pinsir or Venomoth.

[Shrimpica]

Fuck me

He activated invincibility like 1 Frame before i chain attacked aaaa

[Saint Rubenio]

21 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Finished my 2nd play through of Triangle Strategy!

-The ending was a little bit underwhelming. It should have been more depressing. Especially coming off of Benedict’s ending,

  Hide contents

where we get to actually see Roland, we should have been able to actually see Frederica. Even better, we should have seen the Roselle toiling away, or literally anyone suffering, for the one ending that openly forsakes an entire people. But no, we just get randos talking about Frederica.

Seeing everything become Hyzante was cool tho.

Wait...

Spoiler

You did the racism ending?

Shit, once again you end up doing the same endings as me, despite making completely different choices otherwise! Fascinating.

Anyway, to be honest, the ending felt perfectly depressing to me. It wasn't super in-your-face about the Roselle's suffering, but it didn't need to be, because well, you know what's going on with them. In fact, I find it more creepy that the ending keeps trying to push the happy vibes. You see people living comfortably, everyone's smiling, children merrily play on the streets, Serenoa and Roland remain friends and both seem content... But everyone keeps spewing Idore's bullshit every two sentences, and the Roselle are seldom mentioned. It all feels fake, and it lends a subtly creepy feel to the entire ending. I do agree that seeing Balderica would've been really cool, but just the description of her getting stoned was hard to read.

I think the worst part for me was the one bit where Serenoa and Roland both made the hands-forward vow towards the Hierophant while this played in the background. Downright unnerving. It felt like the ultimate bad ending. The characters who were once heroes of this story had become completely and utterly brainwashed by the greatest evil in the realm, which it now holds in an inescapable grip. Absolutely horrible, as it should be.

Legit, I was rooting for Svarog while I murdered him. What he did was unhinged, but no worse than the fate Serenoa and Roland were dooming the world to. Seriously wish he could've gotten to push Roland's sorry ass into the molten iron when he had his "I still have fight left in me" moment in his final minute. Now that would've been a great ending...

 

21 minutes ago, Sooks said:

-The AI literally killed itself in the final chapter. The enemy loses if you kill the boss, and an enemy thunder mage just electrocuted the boss to death. Pretty sure the AI should literally never do that, but oh well, I wasn’t complaining.

Ahahahah! Oh, that's amazing. It wasn't quite so easy for me. I ended up having to perform hit-and-run tactics with Hughette to finish him off. Only she survived, alongside Jens of all people, who got pulverized right before the final blow.

21 minutes ago, Sooks said:

-Medina is like the best unit in the game. I slept on her last time.

Oh yeah, Medina is downright broken. It's almost better not to use her. TP management is a big part of the game's challenge, and while Julio requires thought, Medina pretty much just denies it completely once you've got the money to stockpile low-tier healing pellets.

21 minutes ago, Sooks said:

-Decimal is a blast to use, mostly his height damage skill.

Decimal is also a blast in general. What a wonderful character concept.

21 minutes ago, Sooks said:

-The way the choices sort of railroad you into the same path is a liiiiiittle underwhelming, although all of those paths make more sense with the choices I made here.

Yeah, it would've been cooler if more choices had a greater impact, but then, that might've been a bit too much of an ordeal. Perhaps we'll see more in a potential Triangle Strategy 2.

19 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Maybe it was on purpose.

Considering what's going on in that battle, I wouldn't even be surprised.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Saint Rubenio

[Lightcosmo]

46 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Isn't Engage Roy's Holdout skill basically 100% activation rate Miracle?

I mean perma. As in never killable without Nihil. 

Edit: or poison i guess. Xd

Edited April 23, 2023 by Lightcosmo

[Sooks]

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Maybe it was on purpose.

Ruben already said what I was going to so pretend there’s a funny ChatGPT joke here, or something

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Wait...

  Hide contents

You did the racism ending?

Shit, once again you end up doing the same endings as me, despite making completely different choices otherwise! Fascinating.

Anyway, to be honest, the ending felt perfectly depressing to me. It wasn't super in-your-face about the Roselle's suffering, but it didn't need to be, because well, you know what's going on with them. In fact, I find it more creepy that the ending keeps trying to push the happy vibes. You see people living comfortably, everyone's smiling, children merrily play on the streets, Serenoa and Roland remain friends and both seem content... But everyone keeps spewing Idore's bullshit every two sentences, and the Roselle are seldom mentioned. It all feels fake, and it lends a subtly creepy feel to the entire ending. I do agree that seeing Balderica would've been really cool, but just the description of her getting stoned was hard to read.

I think the worst part for me was the one bit where Serenoa and Roland both made the hands-forward vow towards the Hierophant while this played in the background. Downright unnerving. It felt like the ultimate bad ending. The characters who were once heroes of this story had become completely and utterly brainwashed by the greatest evil in the realm, which it now holds in an inescapable grip. Absolutely horrible, as it should be.

Legit, I was rooting for Svarog while I murdered him. What he did was unhinged, but no worse than the fate Serenoa and Roland were dooming the world too. Seriously wish he could've gotten to push Roland's sorry ass into the molten iron when he had his "I still have fight left in me" moment in his final minute. Now that would've been a great ending...

Spoiler

Did we make completely different choices tho? We both surrendered Roland, both went to Hyzante to expose Sorsley. I know we did different things in Hyzante because you went to court and I didn’t, but other than that I allied with Aesfrost in chapter 8 (which is the most railroady choice in the game btw), and then went full evil ending and flooded the crown city and surrendered the Roselle. And also went to their empty houses to pick up Travis. The only reason we had the same ending the first time was because you were full evil but weren’t committed enough to pick the racism ending and went for the reasonable one, while I was reasonable all game.

All that is true but it’s hard to feel unsettled by it when that was the entire point of the ending. Roland’s whole argument is that a ton of people get to live pretty good lives while a minority of people will live awful lives, so seeing happy children and people wanting for nothing after submitting to Hyzante couldn’t really feel creepy. It would have felt creepy if it was juxtaposed to the Roselle, or Frederica, or any actual suffering. I get that we know about them but I feel like it undermines the weight of the ending when we get to see the positive consequences of the choice and not the negative ones.

To that end, people spouting the false religion didn’t really unsettle me because, well, they’re happier. Who cares that their god is completely made up for the sake of a corrupt government to hoard an essential resource? The Roselle do, but we didn’t get to see them. Roland and co know this stuff is false, but choose to expect it for a better world, so it’s hard to be 100% unsettled by their submitting without seeing the Roselle, but watching them bow in front of the hierophant in saint’s robes was pretty cool.

Incidentally, now that I’ve seen both paths, I wonder how surrendering/protecting the Roselle affects Frederica’s ending. If you go to the source after surrendering them and Jerrom doesn‘t pop up and go “ayy he kept his word and actually came back for us!”, I’m going to be disappointed.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Ahahahah! Oh, that's amazing. It wasn't quite so easy for me. I ended up having to perform hit-and-run tactics with Hughette to finish him off. Only she survived, alongside Jens of all people, who got pulverized right before the final blow.

It was dicey for me, because he was almost dead but then nuked half of my team with his fire axe attack thing and I got Serenoa killed immediately after by doing something dumb. Luckily an enemy thunder mage was ready to take out his little bit of HP for me instead of making me pray I could get a turn for Hughette. It was funny.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah, it would've been cooler if more choices had a greater impact, but then, that might've been a bit too much of an ordeal. Perhaps we'll see more in a potential Triangle Strategy 2.

Yes, more HD-2D sequels.

Speaking of…

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

The problem I'm having right now is that I've got like, nothing I'm looking forward to, gaming-wise. It's like back in 2021 where there were zero games coming out I was interested in. Last year was great and this one started strong with Engage, but right now...

Octopath 2 is still hanging around.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Sooks

[Shrimpica]

Gonzales finally rekt. Freaking Kamehameha man

And i fucking hate how small his area is. Can push you out and make you fall down very easily

Edited April 23, 2023 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-