Saint Rubenio

So I've been playing Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon. I always enjoyed Metroidvanias more than classic Castlevanias, so while I'm liking it well enough... well, that's about it, honestly. I'm not loving it like I loved Ritual of the Moon. But that's okay. Different strokes for different folks, and all. The sequel is a bit more interesting, though. It has a co-op mode, and now that things are calming down with the virus, I can finally hang out with my friend again. We had tons of fun with Shovel Knight, and while this is no Shovel Knight, I'm sure it'd be fun, too.

Already did once, in Civ VI. ...Well actually, I tried to do a religious victory and failed miserably, so I steered into a democratic victory and won because the AI is extremely stupid. You underestimate my power. Because he made his hack on FE7, not 8. There's a lot less fancy stuff in 7, so he had to make do with what he had. That being said, the part you can absolutely hold against him is that he made supports slow. If you're going to be stuck with vanilla GBAFE supports, at least make them really fast. But no, they're roughly the same speed as vanilla supports. Quite annoying. Every official game. In hacks, it's really common for knights to see their movement improved. For good reason, too. Armors aren't nearly so amazing that they need to have their movement nerfed like that. I don't like fighting games. But I've managed just fine every time I've played one. Don't listen to Sooks, Armagon. Do not get my favorite character, Onef, killed. It would be a very bad idea for you to do such a thing. Hah. ...Yes.

Well Supports requiring that you stick units together for a hundred turns, enemy phase heavy gameplay with little incentive not to turtle, knights getting screwed over by their movement, broken Jeigan that lasts the whole game (not quite Seth, but definitely on Marcus's level)... To its credit, though, it does fix the issue of handaxes ad javelins being the best weapons in the game. ...by making them so rare that you hardly get to use them at all. And then it adds a couple of flaws of its own to the pile, being the near complete lack of useful staves for the player and a horrible lategame. Soooo yeah. In this thread, at least. I shudder to think what'd happen if I were given a country. I think I'd rather have Ratface overthere... No, you'll like it unconditionally. Fuck controllers. I've played 99% of games with mouse and keyboard. I could play Ys with 'em, no sweat.

Tomorrow I will begin CrossCode. @Armagon I would prepare if I were you. You made me do this, now you have to accept the consequences. If I find any flaws at all, I will hold you and only you responsible for any pain I may suffer. It will be a burden, forever heavy on your soul.

Of course. It couldn't end in any way other than an ironic line from me. No you fucking aren't. You suck balls at that, at fighting and at life. The ending might want me to believe you screwed the knight maid girl, but I know the real ending: you tripped on the stairs, broke your face and died, because you're the fucking worst, even after I fed you statboosters. Fuck you, me. I should've used Alva instead. Well, at any rate, that was it. I'd still describe the hack as GBAFE but a bit better. The character designs are wonderful and the story is surprisingly great (even if it does have a bit too many Hubert moments, and the ending's... utterly ridiculous). Unfortunately, the gameplay is plagued by all the quintessential GBAFE issues, and the endgame difficulty spike is atrocious. I'm... not sure if I would recommend it. The general consensus here seems to be "GBAFE bad", so I doubt most people here would enjoy this that much. For those who value story over gameplay, however, it does get my recommendation. I think those folks would love it. Totally legit. My uncle at Nintendo has his ways. I actually have seen bigger numbers than that from Dimitri crits.

I love how all the characters are talking about how amazing our accomplishments are and how strong and awesome we are and how we did it and it's all rainbows and sunshine. Yeah. I totally didn't run out of patience and summoned my uncle from Nintendo to confer totally legit powers upon my ratfaced thief's sword. Nah, nah, I did it exactly as intended.

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Jesus fucking Christ, I'd heard the horror stories about this fight's difficulty spike, but this goes beyond my wildest expectations. The only unit on the field who does not die a horrible death to this mook is the Gotoh, and he needs to land 8 attacks to end it. All while I'm getting overwhelmed by even more generics. Well, fuck it. I'm doing it. I want to see the ending.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the cherry on top of the pie: The final finalest of all final bosses, moves. He one-rounds everyone but the Gotoh and like two more people, and he moves. Well, it was a fun ride.

The game has given me three more Gotohs. They all get one-rounded by the two enemies who spawned next to them at the same time. This is a cruel joke.

It's a fellow called Onef, you can't miss him. I mean, the game likes to pretend that Alfred is a secret good guy. ...He's just... really fucking bad at being a good guy, it's hilarious. Yeah, it still is. GBAFE but better. For the most part. I do think the creator got a bit ahead of himself with the difficulty in this final map. Especially becuase he trolled me. That wasn't even the final final boss. Now I have to fight the finalest of final bosses. The idiot Gotoh had the gall to say "only the mightiest stand a chance against him now." What are you talking about? That was already the case! Only you and the manakete could even fight him without dying horribly - AND ONLY THE MANAKETE DIDN'T DIE TO THE COMBINED ATTACKS OF THE BOSS AND THE TWO BALLISTAE IN RANGE! YOU JUST DIED! THE GOTOH CAN'T SAFELY FIGHT THE FINAL BOSS! YOU CAN'T MAKE THAT UP!

Great, and now the final boss is a behemoth of capped stats on a throne with a support partner who happens to be an extremely slippery swordmaster also on a throne. Jesus fucking Christ, and I complained about the boss earlier who warped. Do I even have units who can do this...?

I want to play some Notlevania, but... fuck it, i'm gonna finish the hack tonight. The final map looks awful, with super powerful enemies all over the place, plus siege tomes and status staves. But let's get through it. I'm not going to quit on the final map. ...You know, like I did with Three Houses the first time. I partake in your great jubilation. Monolith Soft is indeed, a company. Maybe with all that money they can hire a character designer that isn't trash at their job-- Boy the rants that are to come, I'm gonna hate the shit out of this game just for you. They do look pretty good. Not to mention that, unlike in the proper game, Alfred learned the meaning of the words "communication" and "cooperation" and Gebel didn't randomly die for absolutely no reason after being freed. ...Seriously, those two deaths felt so forced. Especially Gebel. It feels like he just died because the devs went "we need tragedy." Again, not a plot game, it really doesn't matter, but it irked me a little bit. Heck, the game later goes on to explain why the crystal didn't overtake him in the first place... but then fails to explain why it did overtake him in the end. Suicide by crystal? That's the best I can come up with...

The hack picked the ball back up with that map. After a stretch of rather unfortunate maps, that was a great one. I'm glad. Now I just hope the final map looks more like this and less like the previous ones...

All right, second-to-last map. Now that's way better. Not only are there no siege assholes or status staves, but it's also a rather small map compared to the rest maps in this game. Nice. I think I might finish this hack today, so I can move on to CrossCode and Curse of the Moon safely.

Christ, now the game is sending fucking ambush reinforcements at me. For no reason, completely out of nowhere. ...yeah, I think the hack has officially dropped the ball. These last couple of maps have been rather unpleasant.

I missed a 90. I got hit by a 14. Can the RNG please quit fucking me? Please...!

Yeah, she is quite expressive for somebody who can't speak. And I do enjoy how they acknowledge her silent protagonist syndrome in the story. It's a cute detail. Though I still think Omori did it better while being more subtle about it.

O H M Y H O W L E W D H E H E U W H E U H W U U A H E G H U H E U G H Hah! Fine, then. I welcome your challenge.

Hahahahahahah. You don't get how this works, do you. You're supposed to make horrible choices while Sooks and I watch from the distance while twirling our moustaches.

Well, in the end, I decided to get CrossCode, but not Ys. I don't know, from the demo, it didn't look that great to me. CrossCode seemed more interesting, at least. So instead, I nabbed the two Curse of the Moon games. I'm more of a Metroidvania guy than a classic Castlevania guy, but I think it'll be a nice change of pace from the 50 hours of Metroidvania goodness. Plus, I dig the multiple characters thing. I can't wait to play as Redstream Zan until I get literally anyone else and then never touch him again because every other character is more interesting than him. F for Johannes, though. Everyone got to be playable over the two games - even some characters who aren't even in RotN - except him. Oof... I made poor decisions.

I still think Xavier is way worse. Sure, Leteena won't happen if you don't follow a guide, but if you do, actually doing it is simple. Even Xavier's most reliable strategy requires great deal of preparation and some luck. Yeah, probably.

Goodness gracious. Property damage is pretty much unavoidable in such a situation, but I hope nobody was hurt...

Nice. Well, screw me and my preference for mages, I guess. I did notice she has an axe. That's neat, at least.

Fun. Extremely confusing, because the game just dropped me in there after giving me an explanation of the controls that didn't include the fire ball summoning I required to advance. But I figured it out. I cannot avoid his route if you do not tell me his name. Noooo c'mon. Really? So the cool spellcaster dude is a horrible character, and the other choice is generic anime girl. Goddamnit...