Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Punished Dayni]

2 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Oh yeah the resolve one is nasty

That example was real by the way.

There's a reason he's a meme in Japan.

[Shrimpica]

Falcom:

1 minute ago, Dayni said:

That example was real by the way.

wew boi

1 minute ago, Dayni said:

There's a reason he's a meme in Japan.

Isn't Tellius a meme in Japan anyway

[Acacia Sgt]

19 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

My wha?

Your protégé.

11 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Wait, what? Not only is this a tiny, completely nothing chapter with barely by enemies, the boss actually moves? When it’s already kill boss? Welp, so much for this map existing.

Well, since you're there:

 

6 minutes ago, Dayni said:

That example was real by the way.

There's a reason he's a meme in Japan.

And thus the honor of being one of the few minor bosses graced by Cipher:

[Acacia Sgt]

And that's pretty much what the meme amounts to. Death by friendly fire from rolling stones...

[Saint Rubenio]

Jesus

fucking

CHRIST

This game really just went from "okay I'll attack these random enemies and win" to "YOUR ENTIRE TEAM IS BLIND AND THIS ONE GUY IS MURDERING EVERYONE."

I really might have to think. Go figure.

19 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Wait, what? Not only is this a tiny, completely nothing chapter with barely by enemies, the boss actually moves? When it’s already kill boss? Welp, so much for this map existing.

Not only that - the map's gimmick, the boulders, can actually kill the boss. It's a huge meme, as... everyone else has already stated. Just another sad, pathetic struggle in a game full of those.

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Not only that - the map's gimmick, the boulders, can actually kill the boss. It's a huge meme, as... everyone else has already stated. Just another sad, pathetic struggle in a game full of those.

Meanwhile he never gets hit by them when I fight him but Volke only survived because he didn't get hit by three at once.

Simply brilliant.

9 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

And thus the honor of being one of the few minor bosses graced by Cipher:

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

This game really just went from "okay I'll attack these random enemies and win" to "YOUR ENTIRE TEAM IS BLIND AND THIS ONE GUY IS MURDERING EVERYONE."

I really might have to think. Go figure.

Blind matters then?

Does it affect magic accuracy?

12 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, since you're there:

Funny that the rolling rocks could actually tactically activate it on him to make him a nightmare to fight in the right circumstances. Just, realising that right now.

After looking at this I got recommended a MV someone made with Genealogy using the FMAA credits music. I guess?

[Interdimensional Observer]

GKH Part 2- Recruitment

Spoiler

Bump into a random girl as soon as you leave the audience chamber, and then she becomes the NPC who does all the talking and explaining for you.

Pretty stuff.

This reminds me of something...

Now, into the guild itself to recruit my squad.

 

Interesting visual format. Feels it wouldn't be out of place in Valkyria Chronicles actually.

I'll start by picking a Knight as my first unit.

Okay, there are three different flavors of Knight, visually and stat-wise. Each version has four different heads to choose from, though the body remains the same.

No idea what birth month does. Likes and dislikes I assume have something to do with either food or consumable items. I noticed that exiting and reentering the Knight class selection randomizes the birth month and like & dislike.

Since not dying is essential to winning in any JRPG, I opted to go with a "Guardian" variant of Knight. I reloaded until I got likes meat & dislikes alcohol as a little self-insertion. I wanted Ifrit month as well.

A few customization choices here. To run through them:

• Name has a default that you can rewrite within an 8-letter limit.
• Armor and hair color do what they say. They don't change the shape of anything, just the coloration.
• Trait makes two kinds of "training" more effective for this unit.
• Voice acting grunts & one-liners have 3 VAs to choose from. Pitch at 10 is medium, 1 is really deep and slow, 20 is helium-infused falsetto.
• Equipment provides a character with a selection of two free pieces of starting accessories. Some of which are actually shown on the character.:

Last of the options is weapon.

I love a good class system. So when I learned that Grand Knights History had one, I was concerned that it gives you 4 team slots, but only 3 classes. That sounded dangerously low, even 7th Dragon 2020 had 3 party slots and 5 classes, each with enough skill variety to make at least two different builds possible.

It looks like weapon selection will try to save the day for me. The Knight class gets access to 4 different weapon types, each somewhat distinctive it sounds like.

• Greatsword good up front and strong.
• Spear has row-targeting and can reach further back.
• A one-handed Sword & shield befitting a generalist approach to combat.
• Rapiers, befitting their reputation as a dueling weapon, are strong against single targets. 

Ultimately, I settle on this.

I was debating whether or not to name him "Touma", hence me picking red hair, Zealous, a Spear, and Ifrit Month. I had my reservations about doing so however, and instead changed the randomized default name from "Kevin" to "Kelvin", referring to the units of temperature used when talking about the temperature of stars, so very, very hot.

Just when I thought I was done, now I'm given the choice to reroll my new recruit's base stats. I can do so as much as I want. I assume that the total number of stat points is always the same, so I rerolled it until I got the above. Pretty lopsidedly knightly.

And there, my first grand knight is made.

For my next choice,

I grab an Archer.

The Archer has 3 weapon types.:

• The Bow has attacks to suit any enemy arrangement.
• The Crossbow specializes abnormal statuses, as well as knockback it says.
• The Gun is low accuracy, high power. Good on small groups.

You can see which weapon type I picked. Hand cannons look cool, bows are lame, can you blame me? The Rogue has extra Tec compared to the other two Archer varieties, so he ought to not whiff it too much.

Visually, I left him with his defaults, even his name is the default, nothing needed changing. I gave him Umbra Month for this birth to match the hair. I then reroll min-maxed his Tec to 28, when it looks like the maximum base value is 30.

Next up, a Wizard.

Whereas Knight was 2-male 1-female in the gendering of the varieties, for Wizards it's the opposite (I think Archer was 2m:1f as well, I've already forgotten). Thus, if I wanted to entertain a male Wizard, it had to be a Mage. Which has the balanced stat spread. The Wizard has only 2 weapon types unfortunately.:

• Staff- Fire, Wind, Dark magic and general support (so buffs I take it).
• Hammer- Water, Earth, Light magic and healing. 

I made the above Mage white-haired to make him look aged. The dark robes make him a little more sorcerer-ish. The default name was Teddy, which seemed too cuddly for serious 50-something wizard. I was going to go with a "cool" name, but I liked the notion of a "cute, but not infeasible as a normal name". With Path of Radiance being played ATM and my choice of white hair, I remembered Nealuchi's affectionate name for Naesala, and it close enough to perfect.

I then gave him a hat as part of his starting equipment, so there hides the hair, for now at least.

With one remaining slot left to fill, I needed to decide on which class to double dip in. With Nestling going with a Rod, I opted to shore up my squad with a dedicated healer via a second Wizard. Perfectly reasonable first-timer's decision.

So I threw this together. I modified her appearance, but left her name the same. Cleric is the heal-oriented variant, the one I didn't pick was "Witch", which has a more offensive stat allocation.

With this, my crew is assembled. I might make changes later. Namely, ditching Eunice for another Knight or Archer if I can stay alive without her dedicated healing. Probably a second Knight, given they've the most weapon variety.

 

All in all, the selections here aren't bad. I'd like more weapons or classes, but this will do. If GKH got an HD remaster, I'd like to see another class added to it. Maybe a "summoner" able to fill all the empty squares on my side of battlefield with familiars. Now, I need to see how the system works out in practice.

Visual customization is better than early Etrian Odyssey, with actual sprites seen fighting in battle instead of still portraits, so not bad. Later EO did add 20 mediocre VA choices compared to the 3 here, and it allowed for two-shades eye & hair colorization (including heterochromia) -yet EO kept to first-person perspective and still images as per its dungeon-crawler tradition. The Vanillaware signature aesthetic in GKH is perhaps more subdued than usual, whilst still very pleasant.

I'll wrap up my initial first-play observations in the next entry.🙂

Edited April 26, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Saint Rubenio]

Oh my God, I cannot win. I'm actually going to have to go back and switch out my meme character for someone that is useful, as well as buy a few more spells.

I love it. Thanks, game. I was having some slight doubts about the claims of your difficulty until that happened. Glad we got that sorted out.

6 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Blind matters then?

I've yet to land a single blow while blind.

Quote

Does it affect magic accuracy?

No, but magic is too limited to be used as a consistent way of attacking yet. It's great to dispatch the boss's five cohorts, but the boss himself is... well, a problem.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Saint Rubenio

[Armagon]

Let's see if, in addition to finishing my current run of Xenoblade 2, i can finish my current run of Xenoblade X before Xenoblade 3 comes out

"But Armagon, Xenoblade 3 is in three months" yes i know, i am a madman.

1 hour ago, lightcosmo said:

I dont mind them using "attacker-defender-healer" again, but I was hoping they would add roles as well.

That's just a rough categorization. Plus they confirmes the game basically has a job system, much like Xenoblade X, except not limited to the MC.

35 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Falcom:

Falcom when VNs start getting simultaneous releases

____________

While i was typing all that, the title screen went idle and i got this

A reminder of how beautiful this game is.

[Shrimpica]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

But Armagon, Xenoblade 3 is in three months" yes i know, i am a madman

madman would be finishing both in 3 weeks. 3 Months is very easy 😛 

If in my busiest days i could finish something like SC in a month

[Punished Dayni]

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I made the above Mage white-haired to make him look aged. The dark robes make him a little more sorcerer-ish. The default name was Teddy, which seemed too cuddly for serious 50-something wizard. I was going to go with a "cool" name, but I liked the notion of a "cute, but not infeasible as a normal name". With Path of Radiance being played ATM and my choice of white hair, I remembered Nealuchi's affectionate name for Naesala, and it close enough to perfect.

So he's an old baby.

8 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

No, but magic is too limited to be used as a consistent way of attacking yet. It's great to dispatch the boss's five cohorts, but the boss himself is... well, a problem.

Yeah, I was expecting it'd ignore blind, but I guess the game's balanced enough to prevent it cheesing there.

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

"But Armagon, Xenoblade 3 is in three months" yes i know, i am a madman.

How are you playing XCX?

[Armagon]

2 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

madman would be finishing both in 3 weeks. 3 Months is very easy 😛 

If in my busiest days i could finish something like SC in a month

SC does not even compare tho. I mean i guess if you were going for the 100% it might. 

2 minutes ago, Dayni said:

How are you playing XCX?

Wii U.

[Shrimpica]

I was wondering how FE might handle an idealistic lord in an evil country

then i remembered conquest and went "nope" lol

5 minutes ago, Armagon said:

SC does not even compare tho. I mean i guess if you were going for the 100% it might

you know me

[Shrimpica]

 

Based and fucking coffe with milk pilled

Daring to say the truth

baseeeeeed

Edited April 26, 2022 by Shrimpolaris

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

Wii U.

Oh, you have one.

I had heard emulators weren't there yet.

2 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Based and fucking coffe with milk pilled

Daring to say the truth

baseeeeeed

Does XC2 NEED the Bonk?

[Shrimpica]

3 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Does XC2 NEED the Bonk?

No

The bonk needs XC2

[Armagon]

13 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

I was wondering how FE might handle an idealistic lord in an evil country

then i remembered conquest and went "nope" lol

Even disregarding Conquest, i do not have enough faith for IntSys to write something compelling like that.

9 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Based and fucking coffe with milk pilled

Daring to say the truth

baseeeeeed

That's what i've been saying lmao.

4 minutes ago, Dayni said:

had heard emulators weren't there yet

No they are.

Can your PC run it is another matter.

[Shrimpica]

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Even disregarding Conquest, i do not have enough faith for IntSys to write something compelling like that

Yeah.

Like at best i can imagine them either making the lord overly naive to the point of annoying or somehow make the evil country sympathetic, when they don't deserve any sympathy.

Or add some stupid evil dragon plot. Wouldn't be FE without that or Dark cult/Mole people

I will just buy 86 LN then, since it's what put the idea in my mind and finally made me love a military waifu xD

7 minutes ago, Armagon said:

That's what i've been saying lmao

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Shrimpolaris

[Saint Rubenio]

Turns out the enemies in the current area give a lot of money, so with just a tiny bit of superfluous running around, I was able to recruit the expensive veteran mercenary. His name is... uh, Outsider. Yeah. Outsider. I thought for sure it'd be replaced by something else once he told us his real name, but no, he's just Outsider. Though I did read somewhere a claim from a person that the creator of this game pulled a number of names for minor playables from users of a forum that he used to frequent, now defunct. I suppose that's why you've got folks like Mike and Outsider standing next to Ljusalf and Stromgaard. And Daniel. Seriously, what kind of a name is Outsider...?

Anyway, I am probably not going to use Outsider for this boss, because hot damn the man is absolutely overlevelled. Six levels ahead of everyone, a good 10 points of attack and defense on them. Nah, I think I'll try first with the more mundane Mike and keep this guy around in case it still proves too difficult. Maybe give him a shot later on in the game. He attacks with a chain. That's really cool. Honestly, there are too many cool characters running around. This game appeals to my preferences.

27 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Yeah, I was expecting it'd ignore blind, but I guess the game's balanced enough to prevent it cheesing there.

I did buy a few more spells during my trip back to the mainland for extra prep. Surely they will give me the upper hand.

[Armagon]

 

6 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Or add some stupid evil dragon plot. Wouldn't be FE without that or Dark cult/Mole people

No FE plot got fucked over by this more than TearRing Saga. 

[Shrimpica]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

No FE plot got fucked over by this more than TearRing Saga. 

As i never finished TRS, the worst case for me imo is FE4/5.

I never wrote about it here, but long long ago (as FE4 was my 2nd FE) i wrote a big post where i gushed about Gen 1 but basically equated Gen 2 with Fates (my first FE). Loptyr really really really ticked me wrong.

Thracia did alot of right, and it's one of the FE stories i like the more...

but the final battle being against the cult i found to be a pretty big bruh moment. 

Then i played more FE and i just learned to live with it, but never truely accepted it lol.

Imagine RD without stupid Blood Pact or 3H without Mole people and actually making Edelgard and Rhea own up to their actions.

[Armagon]

6 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

As i never finished TRS, the worst case for me imo is FE4/5.

I never wrote about it here, but long long ago (as FE4 was my 2nd FE) i wrote a big post where i gushed about Gen 1 but basically equated Gen 2 with Fates (my first FE). Loptyr really really really ticked me wrong.

Thracia did alot of right, and it's one of the FE stories i like the more...

but the final battle being against the cult i found to be a pretty big bruh moment. 

Then i played more FE and i just learned to live with it, but never truely accepted it lol.

Imagine RD without stupid Blood Pact or 3H without Mole people and actually making Edelgard and Rhea own up to their actions.

Honestly if FE wants to keep making cult the real antagonists, they should just do that from the start instead of pretending bad empire is the main bad guy.

....hey wait a minute that's exactly what FE7 did.

[Acacia Sgt]

Blazing Blade was more: "Man with artificial army hijacks Assassin's Guild". But in spirit it's the same thing. Complete with dragon for final boss.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Saint Rubenio]

5 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Thracia did alot of right, and it's one of the FE stories i like the more...

but the final battle being against the cult i found to be a pretty big bruh moment. 

To be fair, it's not just the cult here. Thracia's plot's biggest problem by far was the villains in general. There were exactly two main villains and they got like, four scenes each. Raydrik is the best, as he has some impact early on before he vanishes till the penultimate chapter. Veld tries, and fails, to gain some retroactive impact right before dying. Neither is good.

Then there's Reinhardt, who has friggin' three scenes, two of them missable, and comes across as a complete ass every time, validating August's assessment of him. Kempf is funny enough, but there's very little of him and his resolution is route-dependant, which is just a huge shame. Ishtar, Julius, Manfroy and Blume barely count as cameos.

That's it. Everyone else is a generic one-off bossman. A few of them above average one-offs, but still one-offs.

Absolutely terrible villain layout in this game. Of course, the game compensates with the best, most developed protagonist and advisors in the entire series, but still. Could've given them some better opponents. This wasn't the NES anymore.

Just now, Armagon said:

Honestly if FE wants to keep making cult the real antagonists, they should just do that from the start instead of pretending bad empire is the main bad guy.

....hey wait a minute that's exactly what FE7 did.

What FE really needs to do is hire good writers.

Just now, Armagon said:

 

Phone Serenes.

[Sooks]

Oh wait, this map is rout? Did I just… not check the chapter objective? I don’t know why I was convinced it was kill boss.