Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Lightcosmo]

14 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

So good it can't miss out a collab work.

 

😇

[Interdimensional Observer]

28 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Or until Climate Change, well, changes it.

I'm realizing you were responding to the last part of my post, but the way it was posted after Ruben... it triggered a hitherto unimaginable crack thought in my brain. How to get certain elements of the American population to believe anthropogenic climate change is a real and a serious threat to humanity- tell them climate change is making people gay. That might just work, as sad and as lunatic as it sounds. Or, they'll just repress the gays and ignore the climate altogether, that's possible too and the norm for them.

 

18 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

 

*Sees the Etrian Odyssey III Buccaneer class in the thumbnail*

Why didn't Atlus do a 3DS remake of EOIII? I want to dungeon crawl with a pirate! Ignore the fact I never finished EOU2 or Nexus. The EO franchise is seemingly dead now despite a vaporware promise they made that it wasn't. 

End of Raging Waves is indeed good.

Why else would they bring it back twice?

Seeing Serph in Berserk Mode tossed in there too was a peculiar choice (remember people, too much strong sunlight will get you stuck in between your human and demon forms!). The only SMT-Persona game to get repped in the medley.

[Acacia Sgt]

10 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm realizing you were responding to the last part of my post, but the way it was posted after Ruben... it triggered a hitherto unimaginable crack thought in my brain. How to get certain elements of the American population to believe anthropogenic climate change is a real and a serious threat to humanity- tell them climate change is making people gay. That might just work, as sad and as lunatic as it sounds. Or, they'll just repress the gays and ignore the climate altogether, that's possible too and the norm for them.

Why stop there? Say Climate Change will bring forth socialism, gender and race equality, gun control, religious freedom, end gerrymandering, bring back balance to the Supreme Court, raise the Minimum Wage, etc.

... or that, that too could happen.

Or just the humanitarian crisis bringing tons of more immigrants fleeing from their wrecked homelands. That should be enough.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Eltosian Kadath]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

The big problem with Persona calendar system is the importance placed on several specific days. This is one of the main factors why Persona 5(R) was such a tremendous slog, because you were forced to wait, you could not progress at your own pace.

I think you are missing the advantages of the Persona Calendar system. It gave you the power to chose what you wanted to do the whole way through, but still let the people creating the story, set the pace of that story. For a story focused game, that is a potent form of compromise that improves the story overall.

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, that was something to type. Must balance it...

Here, have some cats.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Punished Dayni]

Turns out it's Shantae's 20th anniversary, that's why it's on sale.

46 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

https://gonintendo.com/contents/4362-review-freezer-pops-leaves-a-bad-taste-in-your-mouth

Someone had the boldness to review this. Not sure it was a good idea to pick someone who never really played a visual novel before and turns out not to like the genre.

Sounds raunchier than I expected for a Switch game. But, I don't think it's for me, I prefer different aesthetics and body types. Still diversity in smut is a good thing! I get tired of seeing all the straight male trash that shows up on Steam and the eShop.

Don't eat the yellow snowcone /s

Do they have someone who's more open to the genre on staff? I'm assuming yes by how you put it, but even still it seems like they took more positive from it than I expected from how you put it.

47 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

https://gonintendo.com/contents/4360-furi-and-haven-saw-their-biggest-console-sales-on-switch#comments

I've heard Game Pass and PS+ are bad b/c eventually subscription prices will be gouged upwards. But, this is the first time I'm getting some details on subscription services being bad for the developers. 

However, this article leaves out the possibility somebody played the game on a subscription and then later picked it up on Steam. The other bit of evidence I need to be thoroughly convinced Game Pass & PS+ can hurt devs is for a few developers to provide me with numbers. How much did Microsoft/Sony pay them as a lump sum? And how many sales of the game would be necessary to match or surpass the subscription lump sum. Given the sheer power of Micro & Sony, I see the potential for them to abuse their leverage and mandate a paltry payment to the powerless indie devs.

This is probably one of the things that will encourage an oligopolisation of the industry too, because of course if the dev themselves is getting a smaller share in the pass than they might have out that's going to hurt their own potential. Maybe there'll be a movement against that with this in mind, but it's hard to see it succeeding.

The squeezing of people's finances probably makes these kinds of services more appealing too.

48 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Curse of Being a Local! You don't quite appreciate what you have, until you're somewhere that doesn't have it.

I get that too.

41 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

It is a battle theme, actually. Plays whenever Karajan enters combat. A lot of units in this game have their personal themes, but none match Karajan, in my humble opinion.

That's a battle theme, I am still not clicking with that, because the track sounds like it's a theme for outside combat on every level to me.

(If he were in Pokemon X/Y (aka PokeFrance, whose soundtrack this track would slide into pretty well I feel), he'd have probably been a better villain than the entire villain squad there combined on this track. Yes, I know he's not a villain.)

41 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

He does have a bit of an attitude, actually. I wouldn't have expected it.

Plenty of garbage bagmen have attitudes. The problem is their attitude's entirely in service of their evilgod-chan.

41 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Pfft! Sure, will do. But it will come second. First I must buy spare garbage bags for Karajan. I can't actually do any of this.

Did VS2 have a town area like Berwick? I thought it did, so maybe it'd have had something like Reese's room in my head. Alas, for you cannot get more garbage bags, and we cannot have sacks without ways to spend the money.

10 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm realizing you were responding to the last part of my post, but the way it was posted after Ruben... it triggered a hitherto unimaginable crack thought in my brain. How to get certain elements of the American population to believe anthropogenic climate change is a real and a serious threat to humanity- tell them climate change is making people gay. That might just work, as sad and as lunatic as it sounds. Or, they'll just repress the gays and ignore the climate altogether, that's possible too and the norm for them.

Probably the latter, even despite even Alex Jones and his ranting environmental changes possibly affecting the wildlife (I think you know what I'm on about there) and maybe some would think it'd go some way to make their children not gay to remove the causes.

But yeah, probably not.

[Saint Rubenio]

11 minutes ago, Dayni said:

That's a battle theme, I am still not clicking with that, because the track sounds like it's a theme for outside combat on every level to me.

I get what you're saying, but I still love hearing that every time the guy enters combat. He's not even very good at it, and I have no idea if he will ever be, but still. I love him, so he stays.

12 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Plenty of garbage bagmen have attitudes. The problem is their attitude's entirely in service of their evilgod-chan.

I'm not entirely sure what Karajan's deal is yet. I'll have plenty of time to find out - I'm definitely not letting him die lol.

12 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Did VS2 have a town area like Berwick? I thought it did, so maybe it'd have had something like Reese's room in my head.

Nope.

[Shrimpica]

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 minutes ago, Dayni said:

This is probably one of the things that will encourage an oligopolisation of the industry too

As if it isn't already here? Microsoft buying Blizzard, EA looking to get merged rumor has it, Ubisoft is trying in a precarious position and trying to avoid being bought out. Sony trying to stay alive against the MicroThreat. Embracer Group being the quiet European giant. Chinese mega companies facing increasingly scrutiny at home, but still raking in the cash and looking to expand international sales in case the worst case scenario of Cultural Revolution 2 sees their mobile gatcha trash outright banned and physically smashed at home.

Still, I would like to think that indies won't die out completely. As some would say, it's AA/mid-tier projects and companies that stand the greatest chance of dying out. The indies can't afford to make them, the overpowered robber barons would rather go AAA.

32 minutes ago, Dayni said:

The squeezing of people's finances probably makes these kinds of services more appealing too.

Video game preservation and continuous access to games might be a problem of subscription services devouring the entire industry too. Since what is one to do once a game is off the subscription service? It'll be gone for good. Unless a marketplace continues to endure somewhere on the Internet. 

In the most absolutely cynical of perspectives, video game companies don't want preservation at all. Since the one way to make Halo Bros Fantasy 67 more in demand is to deny that Halo Bros Fantasy 1-66 ever happened, or to acknowledge they happened for marketing, but deny the consumer access to them. Force the consumer to buy your most recent product, by killing their ability to choose any others.

12 minutes ago, Dayni said:

but even still it seems like they took more positive from it than I expected from how you put it.

True. I would liked a numbered score to tweeze out a better idea of what they thought. Because a good bit of the review reads like "it's so bad, it's good", which can be difficult to interpret. The headline is pretty negative too. -Not that numbers always align with the contents of the review, I've read the occasional critic evaluation that scored higher/lower at the end than the reviewer's language would have suggested.

20 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Turns out it's Shantae's 20th anniversary, that's why it's on sale.

Didn't realize it was the 20th anniversary. Though I did see the sale.

I own everything except the original game on one console or another, so there really isn't anything for me to buy from it.

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

In the most absolutely cynical of perspectives, video game companies don't want preservation at all. Since the one way to make Halo Bros Fantasy 67 more in demand is to deny that Halo Bros Fantasy 1-66 ever happened, or to acknowledge they happened for marketing, but deny the consumer access to them. Force the consumer to buy your most recent product, by killing their ability to choose any others.

Or the worse kind of scenario when it happens to a port/remake, and the newer version removed a feature or two that were added in a previous one, so they're lost when access is removed to the older ones.

*looks over at the FF Pixel versions as an example*

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, that was something to type. Must balance it...

Here, have some cats.

Sorry for bringing in the negativity!

Cat without a care on the war room table. Sorry I forgot to crop out the YouTube icon in the upper right corner, this is old.

 

1 hour ago, Dayni said:

Don't eat the yellow snowcone /s

I'm more concerned about an off-white one. This is bara after all.

(Just trying to continue with a little more humor after being too grimdark serious for this topic.)

The BL VN I've lovingly stared at did actually make a CG of two guys in swimsuits standing next to each other with ice pops/lollies/candy/blocks/popsicles suggestively in their hands. That is 😋 to me, not so much this cheapo bara visual novel.

54 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Plenty of garbage bagmen have attitudes. The problem is their attitude's entirely in service of their evilgod-chan.

Doesn't "chan" mean you're referring to someone as if they're a child, or at least younger than you? What, is Loptous in his Manakete form a topless bubbly kawaii pink-haired short skirt shota who looks like a loli, who has a dark, deep and menacing voice, and who wants to literally and metaphorically squeeze the life out of you with a hug?

[Punished Dayni]

35 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I get what you're saying, but I still love hearing that every time the guy enters combat. He's not even very good at it, and I have no idea if he will ever be, but still. I love him, so he stays.

Oh, I was hoping he had some neat niche. Guess that explains the meme.

14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As if it isn't already here? Microsoft buying Blizzard, EA looking to get merged rumor has it, Ubisoft is trying in a precarious position and trying to avoid being bought out. Sony trying to stay alive against the MicroThreat. Embracer Group being the quiet European giant. Chinese mega companies facing increasingly scrutiny at home, but still raking in the cash and looking to expand international sales in case the worst case scenario of Cultural Revolution 2 sees their mobile gatcha trash outright banned and physically smashed at home.

Still, I would like to think that indies won't die out completely. As some would say, it's AA/mid-tier projects and companies that stand the greatest chance of dying out. The indies can't afford to make them, the overpowered robber barons would rather go AAA.

I said that it would be a factor encouraging it, not that it wasn't happening (Though I do think it possible there'd be less of it if that model wasn't there). I said that as it'd make it more likely for a studio to decide to accept being purchased than to try again outside the arms of the big buckos.

That polarisation of budgets will likely result in games that don't need AAA budgets but can't get made by companies that can barely get an A price being essentially removed.

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Video game preservation and continuous access to games might be a problem of subscription services devouring the entire industry too. Since what is one to do once a game is off the subscription service? It'll be gone for good. Unless a marketplace continues to endure somewhere on the Internet. 

In the most absolutely cynical of perspectives, video game companies don't want preservation at all. Since the one way to make Halo Bros Fantasy 67 more in demand is to deny that Halo Bros Fantasy 1-66 ever happened, or to acknowledge they happened for marketing, but deny the consumer access to them. Force the consumer to buy your most recent product, by killing their ability to choose any others.

The point about locking access preservation forever would make sense if people weren't aware of these other title and could raise enough heck(les) to call out that behaviour, much less see it be added. And that's separate from stuff like Gamepass making the offer of a game that's still sold elsewhere, but if I'm reading you correctly the concern is that there'll be more games exclusively tied to subscription models (and not just those ancient titles put up for preservation.)

Not that some (Ninty) aren't astonishingly adept at not bringing their preservation methods forward for non=technical reasons.

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I own everything except the original game on one console or another, so there really isn't anything for me to buy from it.

I've debated picking up 1, Risky's Revenge and Seven Sirens on Switch or if I get 1 and RR on 3DS to fit the first trilogy being all on my 3DS.

Stupid problem I know.

25 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Or the worse kind of scenario when it happens to a port/remake, and the newer version removed a feature or two that were added in a previous one, so they're lost when access is removed to the older ones.

*looks over at the FF Pixel versions as an example*

Oh yeah, apparently that's the case.

What are the strengths to those versions anyway?

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Why stop there? Say Climate Change will bring forth socialism, gender and race equality, gun control, religious freedom, end gerrymandering, bring back balance to the Supreme Court, raise the Minimum Wage, etc.

... or that, that too could happen.

Or just the humanitarian crisis bringing tons of more immigrants fleeing from their wrecked homelands. That should be enough.

Coming back to this, said mass migration movement ends up being weaponised itself by those who would absolutely use them either as fodder for work they don't want to do or for their rhetoric, whichever they can get away with in their present company.

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Doesn't "chan" mean you're referring to someone as if they're a child, or at least younger than you? What, is Loptous in his Manakete form a topless bubbly kawaii pink-haired short skirt shota who looks like a loli, who has a dark, deep and menacing voice, and who wants to literally and metaphorically squeeze the life out of you with a hug?

Yeah, this is rather telling that I didn't think much about honourifics when I typed that.

Will sama do?

2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm more concerned about an off-white one. This is bara after all.

Well that's me taking the strawberry one then, can't trust the vanilla or lemon

[Acacia Sgt]

10 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Oh yeah, apparently that's the case.

What are the strengths to those versions anyway?

They're the original releases with better graphics and some QoL features... and that's mostly it. Although, they also have a few gameplay tweaks too. Like how in IV Pixel, bows had their accuracy increased combined with adopting the change of the 3D version to only need one arrow instead of being a consumable you have to restock. So now they're viable to be used beyond just using Rosa's Aim command. But overall, any extra content added in future versions of the games (Soul of Rebirth, V's extra classes, any post-game dungeon, etc) is gone, since SE delisted the versions that had them. So unless you owned those and can keep them (like on Steam), then yeah, it's gone short of resorting to emulate past versions.

I suppose there's the fact that for FFIII, it's the first time it gets officially localized in its original iteration, since the 3D version is quite different... which is also why it remains on the market, with the 3D version of IV.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Saint Rubenio]

Karajan got his movement point back.

I am a happy lad once more.

10 minutes ago, Dayni said:

Oh, I was hoping he had some neat niche. Guess that explains the meme.

He's a healer that can fight badly. And, y'know, the move growth. I'll stick with him, though. Maybe at some point, something neat will happen and he'll become God, as he deserves to.

[Saint Rubenio]

Oh Christ Almighty, it's here.

The hour thirty cutscene.

...All right, first, dinner. Then, reading.

[Shrimpica]

Edited June 4, 2022 by Shrimpolaris

[Punished Dayni]

5 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

They're the original releases with better graphics and some QoL features... and that's mostly it. Although, they also have a few gameplay tweaks too. Like how in IV Pixel, bows had their accuracy increased combined with adopting the change of the 3D version to only need one arrow instead of being a consumable you have to restock. So now they're viable to be used beyond just using Rosa's Aim command. But overall, any extra content added in future versions of the game (Soul of Rebirth, V's extra classes, any post-game dungeon, etc) is gone, since SE delisted the versions that had them.

So they made FFIV bows viable and...... not much else with the postgame stuff of prior versions gone.

It's a shame to remove the older versions if you want these to be "the pure experience" to my mind, they don't have to have exclusionary niches.

5 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I suppose there's the fact that for FFIII, it's the first time it gets officially localized in its original iteration, since the 3D version is quite different... which is also why it remains on the market, with the 3D version of IV.

And there's that for III at least, though it'd probably be better to use he 3D remake imo (same with FFIV).

Just now, Saint Rubenio said:

He's a healer that can fight badly. And, y'know, the move growth. I'll stick with him, though. Maybe at some point, something neat will happen and he'll become God, as he deserves to.

Least he can heal too.

Does he other staves available to him?

Just now, Saint Rubenio said:

The hour thirty cutscene.

Let's players taking 5 parts for this cutscene.

13 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Your girl, the guy she tells you not to worry about and you?

I have questions as to the context of the second image.

[Shrimpica]

Just now, Dayni said:

I have questions as to the context of the second image.

Her brother is a siscon

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Dayni said:

So they made FFIV bows viable and...... not much else with the postgame stuff of prior versions gone.

It's a shame to remove the older versions if you want these to be "the pure experience" to my mind, they don't have to have exclusionary niches.

And there's that for III at least, though it'd probably be better to use he 3D remake imo (same with FFIV).

It was one change off the top of my head. I'm currently watching an LP of the Pixel version, but I can't remember every single gameplay tweak that gets mentioned. But yeah, it lacks any additional content (and for IV, that includes being able to still use everyone sans Tellah and Fusoya after the Giant of Babil).

True. The Pixel versions themselves are fine, but yeah, coming with the loss of the previous versions still stings.

Well, the 3D versions play so different. They're much harder, for starters, which might not be everyone's cup of tea.

[Shrimpica]

[Armagon]

 

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

DS2 sometimes forced you to spend some free time before the next story event would happen. Except, the game takes place over seven days with each event taking up 30 minutes ingame (with thankfully no life sim elements or social skills). It wouldn't take more than like 2-4 character bonding events before the next story one appeared. You were sometimes given the choice to view a few more optional events before being forced to continue the story, but you didn't have to. Usually when it was possible, I did the minimum of non-story events, and left myself with a glut of bonding time at the end of each day. I had some freedom to choose that. And even when I didn't, it didn't feel like the game was dragging, each event not being that long and the story events themselves consuming 30 minutes of the 8 AM-12 AM at most schedule.

So basically, the days themselves weren't that important+you weren't limited in what you could do each day is what i'm getting.

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think you are missing the advantages of the Persona Calendar system. It gave you the power to chose what you wanted to do the whole way through, but still let the people creating the story, set the pace of that story. For a story focused game, that is a potent form of compromise that improves the story overall.

I'm of the opinion that there are no advantages whatsoever to the Persona Calendar system. To quote an excerpt from my review of the game:

"I will now break down the average day-to-day life in Persona 5: You go to school and overhear conversation about something that may or may not matter (sometimes, a character will walk up to you instead) -> in the morning, you answer a dumb quiz question that doesn't really matter -> in the afternoon, you do the same thing (if there's plot, the characters will talk about this instead). Only after that is done can you finally move around and do whatever it is you want to do. Except it doesn't stop there. You are initially limited to one free action a day, later two. These free actions can be anything: raising Personality stats, working jobs, hanging out with friends, exploring dungeons, etc. Everything i've just described is the issue: the pacing. I have to watch like four pointless scenes just to be able to do something and when i do get to do something, i become severely limited in what i can actually do. I know Persona games (at least 3 and onwards) are time-management games but if you ask me, this is not the way to do it........

.....The fact that the game wants you to live out each day and the fact that the game restricts you on how many actions you can take in a day really hurts the pacing. The pacing in this game becomes honestly abysmal and it does way more damage than you'd think....

.....Even stuff i would normally like doing, like watching character events, became a chore."

In between parts of that excerpt is a segment where i compare it to the superior Atelier Calendar system but that would've been too long for an excerpt. 

36 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

Wdym, they are the same place.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Armagon

[Acacia Sgt]

[null]

14 minutes ago, Shrimpolaris said:

a smile to protect at all costs

[Punished Dayni]

Just now, Shrimpolaris said:

Her brother is a siscon

My joke is cursed.

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, the 3D versions play so different. They're much harder, for starters, which might not be everyone's cup of tea.

That difficulty (considering this is FF /s) is a positive

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

In between parts of that excerpt is a segment where i compare it to the superior Atelier Calendar system but that would've been too long for an excerpt. 

What does it do right, if you can put it simply?

[null]

though I suppose it's not like Yor needs any protecting lol