Sire

Finished Agartha a few days ago. Yeah, it was something all right, even with it going through the localization filter. -- When the storyline was finished, I think I could see what the author was going for. When dealing with such themes, such depictions in Agartha are to be expected, but I feel like it could have been executed in a more refined fashion instead of the vulgarities we ended up with. -- Seeing "what could have been" has made Agartha slightly more bearable in hindsight, but I'm more than happy to be done with it. Now I'm in Shimosa. Loving the aesthetics and the overall themes, but the story drags on for the first three chapters or so. While I did enjoy a few of the hype moments, there was a little too much redundant text for me. -- Currently on Chapter 5 and things seem to be picking up, which is good. -- I was hyped for the story arc, but it left a poor first impression. * * * * * * * * * * Finished the final CQ using a Cu Alter support with taunt tanks and Herc Insurance. Leaving Nero alive and using the taunts with a combination of Guts and Invul work wonders. -- Again, I'm glad I grailed my George. George and Leonidas are miracle workers when it comes to these things, as well as OG Mash. Now I just have to figure out how to outlast MHXA's CQ, and I'll be done with Gilfest proper.

GameXplain has some new-ish videos regarding HW: Age of Calamity from Game Live Japan. Don't think they have been shared here yet. 5 Min Gameplay, Guardian Battle - https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=f8k6h5US3BE&ab_channel=GameXplain -- Only occurs near the very end, but cuts off. However, the "Rune Powers" may be applied in different ways per character. 15 Min Gameplay, Daruk & Link's Spear - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWIEKl2EKU4&ab_channel=GameXplain Daruk Gameplay Overview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52vk8nEGIJw&ab_channel=GameXplain I haven't seen them myself yet, but overall the game looks great! A part of me wants to get the HW Switch port in celebration (and to play the new story missions and mess around with new characters), but the grind to level everyone is insane.

Good thing I decided to look forward to the Christmas Lotto instead of going all in for Gilfest. Christmas Lotto has Bones, Dragon Fangs, Horseshoes, and Octuplet Crystals, which I desperately need. So, my 94 Golden Apples that remain (out of the original ~210 or so) are safe. -- 171 Lotto Boxes for Gilfest helped out a lot for leveling up my Servants as well as giving me substantial QP. Now I'm just back in material hell so I can continue leveling up everyone with ascensions and skills... In the meantime, I'm getting back into doing the story mode as I think the upcoming Halloween event requires LB2 to be cleared. While I could skip the Epic of Remnant, I want to do everything in order, so there's a lot of story I need to get through before Haloween! -- Currently on the Megalos (Super Herc) fight in Agartha. At least some of the fights are interesting for the chapter.

Finally beat the Jaquar CQ, but I did use a helpful F2P video to pull it off. It basically revolved around Cu and Support Cu Alter as your DPS servants and slowly grinding away at each of their HP, and then attempting to burst them down in the 2nd phase. // I threw in my Waver in the final slot and did not follow the video exactly (CE setup was different), but otherwise was successful. -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ill5Ozzp_Z0&ab_channel=QA Sheba's CQ was easier to deal with since Kintoki Rider is such a beast. I had Maid Alter on the rear guard, but she didn't get the chance to do much since she went down quickly. Support Skadi and Waver did well, as well as Georgios and Mash. Man, sometimes I think I regret grailing my George up to 90, but he is saving me in these challenge quests. I'm still working on MHXA. I don't have Jeanne or Merlin, so I'm forced to take one or the other to the fight as supports. -- Merlin is a terrible idea by himself. Yes, he has healing and a single use of invul, but the healing doesn't matter when the party dies to critical hits (or if Merlin himself dies). -- Jeanne works better due to the skill stun and her NP which heals and has invul, but I only have one person on my Friend List that has a maxed out Jeanne available. There is also the fact they haven't logged in in 2 days, so the Refresh list will never show them. I got lucky and managed one run, but still failed as my team faltered early. I have Waver + Tamamo, but I doubt they alone can last long enough.

My 3-Turn setup involves... - Arash [70], Artoria (NP2), Support Waver, Ishtar [MLB DMG CE], Waver, and "Extra" 1. Arash handles the first wave. // Other cards clean up if necessary. 2. All the buffs are fired, including swapping Support Waver with my Waver for extra ATK buff. -- Artoria fires off her NP, with the other cards cleaning up if necessary. 3. Ishtar gets a buff from the Mystic Code and annihilates the final wave, especially since she has her Mana Burst active. However, it is not completely foolproof. In the rare event Arash or Artoria roll low and the cards can't clean up, the match does take a bit longer since the buffs wear off and Ishtar can't do her super NP on the final wave. Luckily, it is a rare enough occurrence to overlook for farming purposes. I still need to finish up the shop as I've been leveling my Servants left and right. I never imagined the day where I needed more Monuments for Ascension, but I am running low on Silver Berserker Monuments. That aside, I have lots of QP (that will likely vanish immediately once I get around to skills), and I'm back to being in material shortage for further level ups and ascension. -- Right now Demon Hearts are my bottleneck for many skills and ascensions, although I also need Bones as well.

Had some problems with the Okada fight, specifically in the 2nd phase due to the high health. I tried going in a different direction with a Crit Build as recommended by Kscopedia, using Melt as my main DPS. I also attempted to use Summer BB to lock in the cards, my own Waver, a support Skadi, Mash, and my Lvl 90 George (with Bond CE). Of course, as it relied heavily on RNG (Crits being landed, hoping Melt doesn't die, and getting the right cards to lock in), it was not fun to run. Somehow managed on my 4th attempt, even with terrible starting RNG. I forgot about Grudge Match giving a single Guts to Melt, which ended up saving the match. The fight itself lasted about 14 turns with my setup.

Did the Tawara quest with a solo Scathach. Mostly followed a guide that suggested a solo and she was my ST Lancer, so with 2 attempts of figuring things out I managed to beat it. Regarding Lotto Boxes, may have went a bit overboard with the early farming since I'm already on Box 50. Simplifying things to make runs faster is quite effective, and with the materials and QP I got an amazing jumpstart to maximizing my servants again. I still have 243 Golden Apples left and I'm aiming to try to save 200 of them for the finals since they have the best drop rates. // Meanwhile, gonna conserve my Silver and Bronze for Story quests or whatever else I feel like playing.

I got plenty of Apples (over 300 Gold), so I'm set for Gilfest. Also, I could use a replenishment of gems and QP, as well as Embers. At the moment I'm getting the Shop out of the way so I can focus exclusively on the Lottery when the finals show up. Currently I'm cooking Burgers since I got two Burger CEs out of tickets, and may try to finish up orders on Fries and Hotdogs later (with Lotto CEs mostly likely). Currently I'm sticking to Arash, 2 NP Servants, Support Waver, and Plugsuit Caesar to get me though. I only get 2 CEs to raise drops since the other 3 need NP Gauge to function, but at least I get faster clears.

Remember that in Hyrule Warriors some characters got alternative weapons that change their playstyles, so even if the character cast may be small in Age of Calamity, they can still have a variety of movesets based off of their weapons. -- I think there were 13 total characters in vanilla HW launch, expanded to 16 with the update (Cia, Volga, Wizzro), and further with all the DLC characters. Then, Link alone got like 4 weapons with different playstyles. Zelda, Impa, and Lana also got weapons to mess around with. Hyrule Warriors was great because of all the unique playstyles (even if some of them were not fun to play). FE Warriors had the tactical aspect of it, but went all-in with the class-based movesets instead of making a unique one per character. I understood why it happened that way, but would have liked to seen more unique and fun movesets.

I don't know if they changed it for the Definitive Edition, but losing 3 Hearts in the Hyrule Warriors Wii U version made you automatically lose the S Rank. With the higher level maps, a single hit basically ruins the S-Rank run. I think I only 100% the normal and Master mode adventures, with the others being on various progression. -- Looking it up, it does seem the Definitive Edition made things easier, so my comment about it is no longer valid.

Welp, considering I enjoyed the original Hyrule Warriors game, I think I'll enjoy this one too despite never playing Breath of the Wild (I watched an LP of it though). I wonder how many of the mechanics will be the same, considering that the cast is mostly different or at least will have different movesets compared to HW's. If they fixed the whole "Don't get damaged" thing to FEW levels in the challenge maps, that will be great.

Regarding Prisma Illya, it's not the manga author. It apparently was one of the screenwriters for the Anime version of it (which may explain the amount of fanservice scenes in the anime compared to the original manga version.) -- Also, Prima Illya is actually a good show if you can get past the fanservice elements (which while present, can be skipped without consequence). The show takes a different tone once the third arc hits, which is Season 4 of the anime as well as its movie. Also, NA got a "toned down," version, eh? If so, a part of me wonders how bad the source material is...

Still playing through Agartha, had to stop for a moment to just make this post. For a brief second I was considering "Hey, it's not that bad. If they just keep it like this with the camp and the different territories, it might be fine." Then I got to the Water City. I thought the earlier stuff was bad, but this takes it to a new level. Might as well call Agartha unsalvageable at this point, especially considering the implications that one of the villains is canonically one of Chaldea's own Servants. Now I see why some people were angry with Agartha, especially if they enjoy that Servant. Again, for a moment I thought "This had potential. I can see where this could be going." Now its all "Nope. Let me out. Let me out! I want off the Agartha wild ride!" In more precise terms, it's in the spoiler below.

Mostly done with the Fate/Zero revival (gotta wait for the new quests to open up to finish the missions, also there's a few stuff mats left in the shop). So, I decided to hop back into the main story where I left off... Finally finished Shinjuku after taking a long hiatus in the middle (before the Assassin of Shinjuku fight). It's definitely one of my favorite arcs, but Babylonia and Camelot are still the highlights for me. I enjoyed hanging out with Salter and Jalter, as well as the intrigue between Holmes and Moriarty. I wouldn't mind an anime of this arc somewhere down the line! Then I went into Agartha. I remembered it being "different" from the others and had low expectations. What I got was, something, to say the least. -- I'm just at Chapter 4 and already I see why this singularity's storyline is considered one of the weaker ones due to the whole "slavers" aspect. It doesn't help that I'm not too attached with the arc's characters either. -- I suppose I'll just have to try and blaze through this story to get to Shimosa and Salem, which I hear are better story-wise. Not sure if they surpass Shinjuku, but I'm eager to get past Agartha and onto better grounds.