vanguard333

Well, I just 100% completed SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated. It's not the most refined or polished 3D platformer ever made, but it is a fun 3D platformer overall, and I quite enjoyed all the different references to various episodes of SpongeBob. …Oh, and I completed the story mode for Monster Hunter Stories 2 before doing this; I forgot to mention that earlier. Now, I'm just trying to decide: should I do some of the postgame for Stories 2, or should I go back to Three Houses and finish the routes that I haven't finished yet?

Fair points. I'm just stating my experience when I used a fully-levelled Pelleas; he was able to double attack a lot of different units even when using the long-range dark tome; not just red dragons. You may not believe me, but it is true.

Interesting. What do you think of Legends: Arceus then?

I'm going to have to stop you right at the part that I bolded: I honestly don't care about the character customization in Pokémon games and I could easily take it or leave it (is that the right expression for not really caring about something and not really missing it if it disappears?). My point was simply that, if they're going to include it all, they should at least bother to remember that redheads exist.

I finished playing through the GameCube version a bit over a month ago. I ended up really enjoying it overall. Personally, I'd rather recommend the original than recommend the remake, but there isn't really a good way to get the original right now. Yeah; I know what you mean about the pricing. Even when it was brand new, Majora's Mask 3D cost less than a brand-new 3DS game at the time. Why is every port, remaster and remake that's produced by Nintendo these days full price regardless of how much work they actually put into it? Of course, with Skyward Sword HD, the price was just one reason I didn't buy it; the other reason was the lack of a left-handed mode for the motion controls (I'm aware of the button controls and I don't care about them; the game's whole selling point was being able to swing the sword with your own hand). Anyway, after completing Majora's Mask, I decided that, after Valkyria Chronicles 1 (a war game) and Majora's Mask, I needed to play something more lighthearted before going back to Three Houses. So, I purchased Monster Hunter Stories 2. It's a fun game and I'm almost finished playing through the main story. If I had one criticism, it would be this: I have a tendency in team-building RPGs like this and Pokémon to mainly rely on Pokémon I obtain within the first half or so of the story mode for my story team, and I was somewhat punished for that in this game because the later monsters are literally better than the earlier monsters, with higher base stats and better abilities and everything. I mean; it's not that bad, as the early-game monsties can still fight well in the late game, but combine that with the fact that every new monstie starts at level 1 because you have to hatch them from eggs, and it means the game both punishes you for wanting to use new monsties and punishes you for not wanting to use new monsties. It's really weird. EDIT: Well, I just finished playing Monster Hunter Stories 2. Or rather, I just finished the story mode for Monster Hunter Stories 2. Naturally with a game like it, it has a ton of postgame stuff, and I'm honestly not sure if I want to do any of the postgame content.

I admit that I haven't played Majora's Mask 3D, but, from what I've seen of it, while it does look good in a lot of areas, there are a few places where I don't like the graphics: The Moon. The moon largely looks goofy to me, whereas in the original, while it didn't look necessarily scary, it did at least not detract from the uneasy feeling of looking up in the sky and seeing it inch ever closer to Termina. Plus, there was some ambiguity in its expression; it could be angry, sad, or in pain. Deku Link. In the N64 version, he actually looks like a creature made from timber and bark. In the 3DS version, he looks like a living Play-Doh doll. The clock. Admittedly, changing it from a rotating clock to a bar was probably pragmatic for the small 3DS screens, but I still prefer the rotating clock of the N64 version. Serious overbrightening, not unlike Ocarina of Time 3D. Again, this one was probably pragmatic because the game was being remade for a portable console, and most of the time it's not bad. But it seriously ruins moments that really need to be dark, such as the Gyorg fight. One of the things about the Gyorg fight that made it interesting was that it hid well in the darkness; making the fight kind-of like fighting an ambush predator. But, then again, I'm someone who honestly doesn't mind the N64 graphics. In fact, I honestly think that, in an odd way, it's actually aged well. I once saw a video explaining an eerie effect that occurs from watching a horror film on VHS that you don't get from watching the same film in HD, and playing the N64 of Majora's Mask recently reminded me of what the person was talking about: the N64 graphics honestly complement the eerie and surreal aspects of the game very well. I heard about how the owl statues are a permanent save in the 3DS remake rather than a suspend-save. That's fine, I guess; and having that option is certainly good for accessibility. However, removing the option to save by going back to the Dawn of the First Day was not good. I know of multiple people who played the remake, went back to the Dawn of the First Day before shutting the game off, and then wondered why their progress was gone. Not to mention, even without the problem it causes for experienced players who are used to the old save system, there's just something about locking in your progress by ending a cycle, and the game resuming on, "Dawn of the First Day: 72 Hours Remain" that you don't get from other save methods. More expansive Bomber's Notebook is certainly good, but I heard that now the game goes through a lengthy cinematic every time a character gets added to the notebook instead of the old and quick notice. I didn't play either 3DS remake, so I can't say anything about that one, and there isn't much I can say about the rest either.

Here's a small list of anime I would recommend; I have not checked to see if anyone else has already recommended these or not. One-Punch Man: It is a parody of battle shonen anime that deconstructs the whole concept of power-scaling. The story is about a hero named Saitama, who is so powerful that he can defeat any opponent in a single punch, frustrating him to no end as it leaves him completely bored. It's absolutely hilarious and it's brilliantly written. Season 1 in particular is fantastic; season 2 was a lot less good in terms of animation quality and it rushed from plot point to plot point, but the plot and humour is still good. Violet Evergarden: This is simultaneously the most saddening and the most heartwarming anime I have ever watched. It's a fantastic show; I would just recommend watching it with a box of tissue beside you; odds are that it will make you cry. My Hero Academia: A battle shonen that takes place in a world of superheroes. It's well-written and well-animated. Black Clover: My personal favourite battle shonen right now. This one takes place in a medieval fantasy setting where everyone has magic; everyone that is, except for the protagonist. It has a bit of a rocky start, but it gets very good, very quickly, and it just keeps improving.

Yeah; I figured that it probably wasn't anywhere near historical. As for scythes, there is actually a version of scythes that historically was used on the battlefield. However, they looked like this: The only video game I've seen have a historically accurate war scythe is Demon's Souls. As for chivalry, it wasn't chivalry itself that got influenced by the Arab world so much as the concept of Courtly Love, which was introduced via interaction with Spain. One thing to understand about chivalry was that it was not one unified set of rules; it was a nebulous concept that was a matter of debate and discussion even back in the Middle Ages.

1. Oh; don't get me wrong. Axes do have more heft than swords on account of the center of mass being near the head; I'm just saying that it is a sharp weapon meant to slash and chop. Side note: there's an ancient forward-curved sword called the Falcata that's essentially designed to combine the heft and chopping motion of an axe with the nimbleness of a one-handed sword. I've never played Etrian Odyssey; that's an... interesting gameplay decision. Why didn't it give them swords and pikes? 2. More than likely. Interestingly, the Estoc that I mentioned earlier had no edge and could only be used for stabs. It's essentially an extremely narrow and stiff longsword. The armorslayer in Three Houses is essentially an estoc, which makes sense as one method of fighting an opponent that's wearing plate armour is to stab into the gaps in the armour, and the estoc was optimized for that. 3. Yeah; it would be a good combat art. 4. I don't know why the weapon was called, "good day"; I just know that it was called that. In fact, there are actually multiple theories for why it was called that. 5. You're welcome. I just thought I'd share what I know as someone who has done a fair bit of research on this. I still wouldn't necessarily call myself an expert, as the research is a hobby of mine. 6. Well, like anything, how useful it is for someone to know is a matter of context. For me, I'm an aspiring fantasy writer, so I incorporate a lot of what I know about ancient and medieval society, particularly the military knowledge. This knowledge also ties into another hobby of mine: HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts). Most of my attention goes towards Celtic History; mainly Scotland. But I have also been looking a lot at French history because of a university course I took on Chivalric Literature and a fantasy story I plan to write about knights.

This sounds interesting overall. I think at least a few RPGs these days divide damage between slash, pierce, and blunt. Just a few smaller things I'd like to point out as someone who has done a lot of research on medieval weaponry: 1. European Swords are generally cut & thrust weapons. There are some exceptions such as the kreigsmesser and the falchion (not Marth's sword; actual falchions), but generally, medieval European swords focused on both cuts and thrusts. In fact, the advent of plate armour in the late middle ages led to most swords becoming more focused on stabs than cuts, and there was even a subtype of longsword called the Estoc that could only be used for stabs. Also, swords could actually be used for blunt damage through an anti-armour technique called Mordhau: the wielder grabs the sword by the blade with both hands (if you hold it properly, you won't cut yourself as the blade has to move in order to cut) and bludgeon the opponent with the handle of the weapon. Of course, since the only purpose of the technique is anti-armour, it would be implemented in FE as a skill. 2. Axes are sharp weapons; they are designed for cutting. The weight of the weapon is for the momentum of the cut and even then, actual historical axes are far lighter than one would think because the axe heads are far thinner than that of woodchopping axes. Blunt weapons are weapons such as maces, war hammers, and flails. In other words, they are bludgeoning weapons with no edge to them. 3. Broadswords are not medieval weapons; the name "broadsword" refers to basket-hilted swords from the 17th-century. 4. Greatswords are not defined by weight; they actually generally feel lighter than polearms of similar length because of the weight balance being closer to the back. Greatswords are defined by their size and shape: they are almost as long as their wielder is tall. They, like most smaller straight swords, are cut-and-thrust weapons. Their greater length and momentum means they excel at being used for fending off the attacks of polearms and keeping them and smaller weapons at bay. They are bodyguards' weapons. 5. Rapiers can actually cut; they won't cut a limb off, but they can sever an artery. But you are correct that they are mainly for stabbing. They are also mainly dueling weapons, and you weren't that likely to see one on a battlefield. 6. Poleaxes were designed with versatility in mind: they generally have an axe head at the front, a spike on the top, and a hammer head at the back. They can cut, thrust and bludgeon. They were meant for use by heavily-armoured infantry for fighting heavily-armoured infantry. 7. If you want lance-blunt, there are a number of polearms that were designed for bludgeoning. Just a few examples include two-handed flails, the Lucerne (basically a more hammer-focused version of the poleaxe), and a Dutch weapon called the Goedendag (meaning "good day") that was a combination of spear and club.

Ah, I remember that episode of SpongeBob that that video was referencing. That was a good episode. Yeah; Byleth is definitely an addition that hit rather placidly overall, with a huge proportion of the fanbase saying that someone else should've been picked. Even a lot of people who liked the idea of a Three Houses character in Ultimate were saying it should've been a different character than Byleth. @King Marth 64 I got a notification that you quoted me in this topic, but I'm not seeing the quote. Just wondering if you deleted it in an edit or something like that.

I never said Rolf was the only method I used for countering the ravens; I usually also give Ike the laguzslayer for that chapter (except in the rare case where Ike is already level 20, in which case I give the laguzslayer to Zihark if I'm using Zihark in that playthrough). In any case, Rolf is necessary for recruiting Shinon, and I try to recruit everyone I can, so I may as well use Rolf. Back to the original thing of specialists vs all-rounders, I agree that if an all-rounder can do something just as well as a specialist, one may as well use the all-rounder unless you're missing a slot and need a second unit that can do that task. Perhaps for a better example of a specialist in the Tellius games, while Pellias joining late, underleveled, and on a second playthrough is a massive pain, there is an interesting niche that he fills thanks to his stats and dark magic if trained: he's magic artillery. If trained, he gains enough strength and speed to double-attack most late-game enemies even when using Fenrir (the long-range dark tome), and because dark magic has the highest weapon might among tomes, this means he can one-round KO most enemies using Fenrir. Being able to bring down enemies that have full health from up to 10 spaces away is extremely useful.

I suppose it depends on the type of RPG. I generally prefer for them to have some amount of flexibility/versatility, but the amount varies depending on the type of RPG. For something like Pokémon, I want each one to have its particular role in the team, but I also generally want them to at least be able to cover some of their own weaknesses. So I guess, on a macro level, I want each of them to specialize in a particular task, but on a micro level, I want them to be an all-rounder within that task. In short: specialist, yes; One-trick pony, no. Incidentally, for Monster Hunter Stories, the game rewards specialization even more than Pokémon does, so my Monsties usually end up very specialized. For a more action-based RPG where I swap between characters on the fly but they're always in the fight, such as Ys or Xenoblade, I generally gravitate towards making the characters as well-rounded as possible. This is mainly because I tend not to trust even the best support-character AI in these kinds of games, so I tend to avoid relying on them and only swap characters when it would be best to do so. For tactical RPGs like Fire Emblem... I guess I tend to gravitate towards a mix of all-rounders and specialists. I prefer having a team with a good mix of different units in general, so that applies with this as well. If I really had to prefer one over the other, I guess I prefer more well-rounded units, but if I find a specialist whose particular thing they specialize in would help my team a lot, then I am going to use them. It's the reason I always train Rolf in Path of Radiance: at the time you get him, he's level 1 and just an archer, but there's no other archer, and he proves particularly useful for situations such as the mission where your team's stuck on a ship and surrounded by raven laguz. He probably brings down more flying units in my Path of Radiance playthroughs than even other anti-fliers like Soren.

I see. If it helps, Pokémon Platinum was a massive improvement over Diamond & Pearl in basically every way. …Sword and Shield are mainline games though; I didn't mention a single spin-off title. I admit that I should've been more clear when I said "among other games" that I wasn't referring to spin-off titles, but I thought the fact that I listed Sword & Shield as my only named example was enough to imply that.

You could indeed dye the character's hair, but even in the hair dye, red hair was not an option. Seriously; the closest it had to red hair were a very yellow orange, and pink. Thanks for understanding the frustration. I haven't played AC: New Horizons, so I can't agree or disagree. Oh, yeah; it is like Xenoblade X. I wonder if the starting mission for Legends will guide the player down a path where they will have to avoid a level 90 Infernape that runs along the middle of the path; that would really capture the Xenoblade X experience. …I should probably point out that I like Xenoblade X.

Honestly, I was fine with ORAS lacking customization options because X & Y and Sun & Moon's customization options made me feel all the more excluded for one simple reason: they forgot about redheads. Personally, I'd rather no option at all over a customization option that goes, "Okay, we've included brown hair, dark hair, blondes, and multiple skin tones. …Yep; that's everyone; I can't think of a single person that's left out from that." Imagine if a game included every customization option except the ones that would match you, and they did that across multiple games. I've been making that exact same argument to try to get red hair and left-handedness into video games as options for well over a decade now; no one seems to listen to that argument.

I can understand not liking Diamond & Pearl; they had their problems and even I personally would've preferred a Platinum remake. But calling them the worst Pokémon games is a bit much considering the series also contains the extremely rushed Sword & Shield among other games.

Today, the Pokémon company just released a Pokémon Presents video that provided a lot more information about current and upcoming games: What did everyone think of the announcements?

Well, I decided to go back to Monster Hunter Stories 2. Right away, there is a ton to love about the game; I love how the player character can actually ride the monsters to navigate the game's overworld, I like how the game rewards not just experience points but also monster parts whenever you win against a wild monster, and I really enjoy the depth to the combat. That said, I do have a few smaller issues: I like retrieving and hatching eggs to get more monsties. However, one result of this is that every new monstie starts at level 1. In Pokémon for example, since you're catching the wild Pokémon, they are (ideally) at around your team's level when you catch them, so it will not take too long for them to catch up to the rest of your team. If you hatch an egg late-game but want to use it on your story team, it will take a long time for it to get near the team's level. The game tries to mitigate this through exp-multipliers for monsties that are behind the player-character's level, and it does help, but it is still an issue. Another small issue I have is that it is really easy to end up over-leveled. I am not going out of my way to grind; the closest I've come to level-grinding is that I try to complete all the sidequests and everdens (and for the first part of the game, I didn't notice the "retreat" option at the very bottom of the combat screen), but I still found myself quickly ending up over-leveled. Nargacuga's stealth was great for mitigating this to some extent as it meant avoiding battles more easily, but I have so many powerful monsties that use speed attacks that I ended up removing it from my team for a while, bringing me right back to square one. As I've proceeded further into the game, I've begun to wonder if experience points and levels are really necessary for this game. Incentive to take part in the combat already exists through monster parts and getting monsters to retreat to their dens so you can obtain an egg, the experience system means that royal monsters like Tigrex and Monoblos become less threatening after just two areas and already need more powerful variations, it increases the hassle in adding new monsties to your team, etc. I don't see much value in the exp system being in this game; I honestly think that it (and a number of other RPGs as well) could easily be just as good (and possibly even better) without it.

I never said Nintendo was good at continuity; honestly, I doubt anyone would say that Nintendo is good at continuity. After all, they forgot that Link and Bowser Jr. are supposed to be left-handed. I agree that it's probably for the best that BOTW all but ditched the timeline by being purposefully vague. …Now that I think about it, we should probably get back to talking about Majora's Mask; it is in the topic's name after all.

I was mainly meaning in a stylistic and gameplay sense; that the game was very much trying to emulate Ocarina of Time, largely in response to the many fans that complained about Wind Waker being "cartoony" and "too different", and demanded a return to something more like Ocarina of Time (which is a viewpoint I personally never understood as I thought Wind Waker was really cool and I always thought variety was a strength of the Zelda series). Eh; while I agree that they don't connect that much on a narrative level, Nintendo had been making timeline placements long before Twilight Princess, albeit to a lesser extent than later games. Wind Waker, for example, makes it very clear that it follows from the timeline Link left at the end of Ocarina of Time; i.e. the adult timeline. It constantly refers to the old hero as having "returned to his own time" (i.e. gone back to being a kid) and the basement of Hyrule shows portraits of the OoT sages. Even Ocarina of Time was supposed to be the Imprisoning War from the backstory of A Link to the Past and was even advertised as such. As for Twilight Princess specifically, it placed itself as being 100 years after OoT in the child timeline long before Hyrule Historia was a thing that existed. Eiji Aonuma even did an interview saying that the scene of Ganondorf's execution took place several years after Ocarina of Time (unfortunately, I cannot find when this interview happened, but based on what he says in the interview, it reads like it occurred long before they created the full Zelda timeline for Hyrule Historia, and I found separate evidence saying that Aonuma confirmed Twilight Princess' timeline placement back in 2006).

@Jotari Fair point. You're certainly right about any in-game connections between the Hero's Shade and the Hero of Time being very thin. I guess I always saw that idea of the Hero's Shade being the Hero of Time as something I wouldn't put past Nintendo (if that is the correct expression) given how far they went elsewhere to connect Twilight Princess to Ocarina of Time. Anyway, going back to Majora's Mask, what do you think of my points about the game's ending?

I have only played Seasons so far, and even then I didn't finish it (I came fairly close though; I had beaten the second-to-last dungeon), so I can't really give any detailed, "I want this particular part of the game refined in this specific way" statements, so this will just be what I want overall. I would like to see them remade as a bundle that overhauls the visuals into something visually distinct from Link's Awakening while still nodding to the fact that the original games reused Link's Awakening's visuals, makes some QoL improvements, and leaves the cores of the games intact. Where I want the biggest overhaul to be is that the remake is a bundle of three games, not two: in other words, I hope that the remake includes the scrapped third Oracle game. It's time for Farore's game to finally get to see the light of day. As for cost, normally I would say that a remake, unless it is something like Final Fantasy 7 Remake (i.e. full-overhaul) should not be full price. However, what I am suggesting is a bundle of three games, one of which was never finished and would likely have to be made from the ground-up with little-to-no source code available to use, so this would probably be the the one other case where I could understand it being full price. But I would only see full price as justifiable in this exact scenario: remade as a bundle, and with the bundle including the scrapped third game.

I recently bought "SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated" because it was on sale and I remembered liking it on the GameCube when I rented it once over a decade ago. It's far from the most polished 3D collectathon platformer ever made, but it was a fair bit of fun, and I was enjoying it; then I encountered a very major bug... There's a bug that will randomly make your progress unable to be manually saved. That would seem like not too much of a problem as the game seemingly has autosave, but the autosave only records where SpongeBob currently is for if you run out of HP or fall off a ledge; despite being called an autosave by the game, it does not save the game. As a result of this bug combined with the misleading autosave, I lost a lot of progress, and I'm not exactly eager to keep playing a game that at any moment can decide it won't let me save my progress. Naturally, I looked online and found that I was far from the only person to encounter this bug, with there even having been some who encountered it the day the game released and expected a day-one patch to fix it. I do not know how a major bug like this one has gone unfixed for as long as it has. I can understand wanting to preserve the kinds of glitches that don't break the game and that speedrunners love, but this is not that kind of glitch at all. I honestly think this kind of bug is worse than a game crashing; at least a crash happens immediately and tells you right away where the game abruptly decided to just give up working. I think it's safe to say that, if I hadn't bought the game when it was on sale, I'd be demanding my money back.

Poor wording on my part; I apologize. I just meant that in Majora's Mask they did try to make him come across as more experienced in general by adding stuff like that weird little flip he does while jumping; his swordsmanship is indeed largely unchanged. True; it doesn't have to be anyone in particular. That said, I think Nintendo probably did have it in mind that the Hero's Shade was the Hero of Time even when they were making Twilight Princess, as it's yet another example of Twilight Princess trying to be "Ocarina of Time 2" rather than just being Twilight Princess.