Interdimensional Observer

I don't do it that often, but I did it to put out my thoughts for others interested to see, and for myself too. Memory not being perfect, writing my thoughts down shortly after playing preserves them better as they actually were, immune to revisionism with the passage of time. I can't delude myself and say "I always disliked Amalthus" if I have it on record that I did in some way originally appreciate him. Humility and the amateur historian in me spurred on the desire to record things as they were.

Weird, Northern Cave was easy for me. I did the "pick a path at the split, get all the treasures, and then back before the meetup point and go down the other paths" exploit it to get all the treasures. And Seph-phir-ROTH! was so easy that I never saw his infamously long Supernova. Yet I was, I don't know how, overleveled and in my early 70s for this fight. Do not remind me of this. Although I was able twice to get to the final phase of the battle against The Lady, I never defeated her because I was so exhausted messing up again and again on the Dead Man's Volley segment. ---- Sugiura: It all started when I played Xenogears back then. I was in charge of another game at the time, but Xenogears really stood out prominently among the rest, and I fell in love with it. Afterward, we put together plans for a Xenogears 2, but Square at the time had a lot of financial investment in their movie division, so it was extremely difficult to get things put into production internally. Despite that, I knew somehow I had to make something from these ideas, so I chose to go my own way. You've got to be joking. Spirits Within and its colossally stupid failed idea of a "computer-generated actress" took precedent over Xenogears 2? 😠 Square, you deserve the FFXIII, XIV and XV fiascoes for this. Not really, they only deserve one of them; Spirits Within as a flop was itself punishment for not providing adequate resources for Disc 2.

That'd be me. I got XC2 the Christmas after its release, but sat on the game for a year. After asking if it was fine, I began with Torna first. Here is a large collection of Torna commentary logs I made, they're better than my memory for what my actual firsthand impressions were: And here is a lot of my XC2 maingame commentary: I'm not sure I'd ever return to Torna, to try to preserve my unique first impression, and because it's sad.

Just remember to use spoilers with regards to Future Connected. But do alert me if... And tell me what intraseries crossover stuff if any exists in the Land of Challenge. If Xeno cameo recolors exist, go ahead and post pics.

Just remember: Let the buyer beware. Your results may vary. Much madness is divinest sense. Personal Experience Of Others Means Nothing actually it does. Don't mean to be a downer, but a dose of anti-hype beforehand is worth a pound of disappointment afterwards- if it should sadly arise. And never feel one is alone, there are those in the literary world who loath Shakespeare, you can find critics of everything in this world, some are respectable, and some- like Flat Earthers- are not. -- I did something I haven't done in months- I started reading a book. All I could quickly find was a short history of the Renaissance in eBook form because my county library hasn't reopened yet, but it does give me a sense of intellectual satisfaction. The delightful warm weather makes me want to sit outside and read in the shade now, if I don't fall asleep in a lounge chair.

I rather like Scorched Sands. It's probably the best of what is usually a terrible map type- desert. The story scenario, if not great, isn't bland; the amount of desert itself isn't too bad; theres no diabolical FoW or side chapter requires. And the battle itself isn't bad, I prefer Ephraim's take for the little rescue. It could be better though Caellach and Valter after X turns have passed should move out and attack you. Caellach should move several turns earlier than Valter, and on Ephraim's route should beeline towards Eirika's location- to strengthen the need to get to her soon. On animations, it depends on the era. GBA has the simplest, crude actually, and the worst map animations. By contrast, I genuinely appreciate Jugdral's map animations. They're "dynamic" and I can feel the thud of every landed swing of an axe and the wispiness of every dodge. Because the animations are alive, I feel no true loss swapping to them to speed things up. FE9's map animations are hideously slow, and RD's aren't a whole lot better (but on 2nd runs you can turn off animations altogether in RD), but after GBA FE, I do like the return of Jugdrali dynamism but in 3D. TearRing Saga has the same wonderful 2D Jugdrali dynamism too. Same reason Eirika's route never mentions that teensy problem Grado is going to have sometime soon. -Well, not exactly the same, since Eirika's route post-reunion is all about that Lyon bond in the end, and Ephraim's route post-reunion is somewhat more concerned about the world.

BTW, I found a collection of all the XCX title screen panoramas -minus the two from the opening when Earth gets destroyed, but including Chapter 12's location at the end. Just one problem- the YouTuber changed the music. It's always MONOX that plays. So mute this vid and at the same time run a MONOX video on a loop/extended to fully replicate experience of sitting back and watching it all.

The first Gnosis to pop in my head, is the Gnosis that isn't a Gnosis, but if you think about it, is a Gnosis because it has one Gnosis trait, done in a different way from actual Gnosis. Gnosis! Gnosticism! Mystical insight! -- *Sigh* Tencent bought a large stake in Marvelous. It's inevitable that the rise of China will lead to Chinese companies investing across the world, and people have with no/minor thought about it have supported China economically. I'd think the physical manufacturing of games already has been one gamers have been stuck with for a while. Be the reality new or not, I'm feeling a pang of guilt now about Story of Season: Friends of Mineral Town and Rune Factory 5. Whats one ordinary and insignificant person in a world of 7 billion to do? 😓

No, not that I've seen. I didn't know it consciously applied to ingame XS character perspectives either. When I read the "weak mind, strong body" remark, I sound like it was something a dev team member or developer notes said of KOS-MOS. I did not catch this reference if thats what it is. Despite hearing that Xiaomu in the English version of Project X Zone 2 sends the fourth wall to the ER, I've counted maybe two random IRL references so far- "Power Glove" and "Rainbow Road". Actually the final area of the first EF game was atop the corpse of the Einst leader Stern Regisseur, which had assimilated into itself the White Star- an artificial "mobile planet" smaller than the Earth's Moon, but still very big. But I don't think they'd do the same with the Gnosis here, too much Xenosaga. A bit, the picture you showed me once of Gnosis in space got the point across more. Maybe what we need is more Ghost.

Do they make body pillows of male video game characters? A friend of mine wants Bravely Second Tiz to keep them from loneliness at night. --------------------------------------------------------- These are Gnosis? I wouldn't be able to tell if the game hadn't told me. I'd be able to identify what isn't a Gnosis enemy-wise, but not what is. I went through EF1 not knowing those "Goblins" earlier in the game were Gnosis, I didn't realize the game had any of them. Design-wise, the Goblins are sufficiently sci-fi, and the Asura are pleasant to the eye, but this triple-recolors-in-one-battle thing is bland. I understand every game is going to have boring common enemy designs, but I'd have liked a very cool Gnosis design or two tossed into this crossover, something that shouted the threat I hear them to be. Interestingly, on the first two floors at least, the only enemies found in this ruined castle besides Gnosis, are Einst. Xenosaga transdimensional aliens and SRW otherworldly aliens, drawn to the same place. Not sure what this means, but even if nothing comes of it b/c the Gnosis are naught but a few trappings of Xenosaga, it's a clever touch. ...Actually, I still don't get why the Einst are here, their leader and other leader were destroyed in OG2 and EF1, so the hive mind and mission to "restore tranquility to the cosmos" should be dead. But the Gnosis? (Some trimming of extraneous banter included.):

Self-doubting isn't very unique to Roy though. I'd say Marth, Seliph, and Leif all share in the same kind of humility. Roy is in an archetype, he was intended to be another Marth, and I don't think he was as well executed as the original when narrowly contrasted against FE3 Book 2. Not going to argue Roy vs. the other incarnations of Marth. Dull lord and vibrant plot, or vibrant lord and dull plot? Except, I don't see FE6 as a vibrant plot, its steam drifts off to the clouds after Chapter 8x and never rains back down. So I'll take Book 2's exposition over FE6's fizzled out can of soda. Gameplay is an entirely different story- FE6 is significantly better because of difficulty, but thats not important here.

That one spoilered remark reminds me- did they fix a certain minor glitch? That being if a weapon's damage variance range exceeded 99 points, it would cap at 99. So a weapon with 100-250 per auto attack was a lie and the weapon was objectively inferior to a 110-210 weapon.

Roy, and Seliph, are worse than Eliwood. Eliwood has the Helene outburst, and Hector enlivens Eliwood through their boyhood bond. Roy and Seliph are stuck in the old Lord + Tactician format and never do much within it. Leif was in the same format, but he had some personal flavor, emotion and backstory the other two did not. Sigurd was in the same format too, but for whatever lack of agency and personal charisma he lacked, he had events more interesting happening around him than his son or Roy ever did. Marth FE3 Book 1 is almost self-insert bad, so worse than Roy and Seliph, but he has an angry/seriously concerned face in Book 2 that gives him far, far more felt personality than Roy or Seliph.

It should be called EXPert Mode. That'd explain it perfectly. Another advantage of this is that you can: explore the endgame-unlocked portion of Tephra Cave, fight the superbosses, and best of all get Riki's, Melia's, Reyn's, and Smash Ruined It's 5th Skill Trees, without destroying the difficulty of the final battle. I on my first run didn't step into the final dungeon (or maybe even the second-to-last area- but I don't remember) until I had gotten all the 5ths. That was a bad decision on my part, because the final fight deserved to be epic. Did XC2 have a "level down if you lose too many times" mechanic? My memory is fuzzy, but I strongly believe XCX did for certain battles, though I'm not sure which exactly, since I didn't use it very much b/c hardcore gamer pride. The one time I know I did was a battle in Boze's recruitment mission, the pack of whatever indigens I had to fight but overwhelmed dropped by 5 levels. This doesn't work against optional Tyrants obviously, probably only quest and story battles that are mandatory. But I'm not sure if it works on all of those even, because I never saw anyone say they bypassed the infamous Rexoskell by neutering its level.

Were I a player, Sirius hands down. Sorry Blackie, I like you and you're a good second, but I've these silly Sirius-Ratsel thoughts which put The Masked-But-Not-Disguised Knight over the top.

You're right on Monado Purge. And I remember the menace of Elemental Awakening hammering me a few times. But Torna's Unique Monsters I can't get back to, because my emotions wouldn't let me return to Torna. Even if the level curve hasn't been fixed, Expert Mode is the perfect remedy. Deleveling pre-postgame even. LLCs could be very extreme now. The name "Expert Mode" suggest its hard and I don't like that however, it isn't harder if you don't want it to be, it's there to keep the game from being imbalanced.

Crossette's greatest use is coming very early. A Rare Blade healer when it's Rex and Nia 1hr into the game in Gormott? Yes yes yes! When you have a full coterie of Rare Blades she is nothing special, but an earlygame boost when you have no other Rares at all is very powerful. Given to Nia, you can readily string Fire-Fire-Fire Blade Combos with Pyra. Corvin is probably in the top tier of Blades from a practical perspective. Why? He heals everyone for a percentage of the damage dealt by his level 1 Special, this is nifty. I used to cheese my way to getting my most desired of BLADEs. And if you don't care about Blade Combos too much, it's sort of spammable and can keep your characters alive fairly well. Corvin's level 2 special is one of a kind, it's the only thing that negates the Enrage 💢 buff enemies go into once they lose some HP (usually half of their max). Baddies aren't programmed to reapply Enrage, so Corvin can steal their thunder with a minimum 50% success rate and never give it back. I was reliant on that sometimes, since Enraged bosses could wipe me out very quickly, forcing me either to: prep a lengthy Chain Attack to obliterate them from half-alive to zero in a single burst, or have Corvin smack the enemy behaved with his feathery scarf. Which of these two is easier and less of a gamble do you think? Corvin's level 3 Special applies the Decoy buff to everyone, it negates the damage received from the next few hits entirely. Not as good as in XCX's Ghostwalker/Ghost Factory, Decoy is nifty nonetheless, and Corvin is the only one who can do it. And on top of all this, he's a Light Blade, although the DLC adds two Light Blades in addition to Corvin, the base game has only Mythra and the Rarest Blade of All for Light (and Poppi, but Light element cores are very rare for her). Considering one of those two other DLC Light Blades can't be used in the main story, and the other comes a little late, while Corvin's an early and effort-free pickup in Argentum (but I saved him for Morag), he is the only starlight in the sky not Mythra. Although he requires a separate WP investment for leveling his Arts despite being a Chroma Katana in all but name, Corvin does get a tiny bonus out of it. One of his Arts has Smash added to it, and thats beneficial for Driver Combos. Oh yeah, his passive boosts are awesome too. Get his in-battle Affinity to max and you get at least 90% more damage with him and 15% more Evade too. If you have a high Crit rate with him, you can fill the Party Gauge very fast with Corvin as well. And every time you evade an attack with him, his Arts recharge a little. Dodging is a cinch with Corvin, because he provides his Driver with an Agility stat boost simply for being equipped. Corvin's package is flawless and semi-unique, and he's guaranteed from the start as long as you bought the DLC. Not quite Pay to Win, he won't brainlessly kill the difficulty by simply existing, yet that doesn't detract from his greatness.

Holding off on Future Connected's OST until I get the game, which probably won't be for months. I won't double-dip so readily, and someone would appreciate having something to buy for me come the special days of the year. --- Reiji crashed the scene in very heroic fashion, as in "everyone was about to have their souls drained" heroism. And after a tough boss fight alongside a soul-harvesting harpy, Saya ditched the main villains of Aggraddheim for the heroes, not as a friend, but in a temporary alliance. Aggraddheim summoned her, and never truly trusted her nor embraced her into their forces, they only wanted to steal the technology she had intended for her own evil schemes. The main villains are making some sense now. Steal souls to be fed into the giant tree called Weltbaum at the center of their world in another dimension, and investigate and collect anything capable of interdimensional travel. The end result of this is unclear. The leader of Aggraddheim looks to be borrowing someone's body from OG2, and I ain't happy about it. With the ten-eleven warriors of the Endless Frontier gathered together alongside ten supporting allies, I hopped into Practice Mode for 20 minutes or so. Everyone gets 6 different Skills, excluding Specials & Overdrives, and you have 5 slots to fit those Skills into for your normal attacking routine. I tried my best without being overly analytical to make the most juggle-friendly attack sets I could. Because it's in going for the longest possible stream of hits without the enemy ever touching the ground for even a fraction of a second, that EF's gameplay becomes exciting. And longer air combos do help win battles better by reducing the number of hits that get blocked, the chance of a Forced Evasion trigger, and COM regeneration. I don't remember if EF1 gave you three sets for Skills you can swap between (and mess within even mid-fight), but it's appreciated either way. I hadn't messed with some characters setups for a while, and some I hadn't touched at all. My thoughts ranged from mostly satisfied with Reiji's and Suzuka's lineups, to Kaguya's, AxAl's, and KOS-MOS's- which needed work. There is nothing wrong with repeating the same Skill several times in a routine, and because you have to level up before all Skills become available, it is inevitable at the beginning of the game. But because I wanted to maximize the flashiness over boring optimization, I had no one use the same Skill twice, incentivized with a minor 10% COM cost reduction for doing so. For KOS-MOS, my primary attack set is: S-SAULT VALKYRIE II DRAGON TOOTH Storm Waltz Phoenix Strike I left G-SHOT out of this, many many hits is good, but not the lack of air and sluggishness of initial activation. At best, I'd swap S-SAULT for it as my opener. I wish I could use only DRAGON TOOTH because it's amazing, but at a 25% COM cost and a universal unbuffed COM cap of 100%, I couldn't use it more than four times in a single attack sequence normally. Got the Nacht back after a real bruising from it (and Axel got a memory headache, no surprise). Constantly casts Valor on itself and often Swift, for a combination of 1.5x damage and moving to the very top of the next turn's order. Sounds like a recipe for OHKO festas, and it is. If I kept shooting down the Einst minions Alteisen kept summoning, I could mitigate its crazy damage output with Haken's "Canfield" Special- Alert for everyone at the cost of 30% F Gauge, I can regenerate that via everyone else attacking in a single turn. After Nacht came Alady's perennial Shura foe again, Resplendent Note Hamelin, who as his name suggests is one of those magical brainwashing flutists. When he was about to run off after a very tough fight, MOMO politely and quietly spoke up:

I've known the game is Gilliam's and XN Geist's origin, and that he becomes the villain at the end. But I never looked up footage of the game, the battle graphics are fine, it's the out-of-battle stuff that looks "unbefitting" of Gilliam, whom I'm lionizing a whee bit. Ingram and Viletta were the male/female protag options of Super Robot Operations if I heard it right. A little weird then that he'd become the adult captain of Team SRX in OG (and Alpha?). And good riddance to Dark Brain, I've been told it's the hideously bloated sack of HP final boss of OG Gaiden.

Thats Hero Senki? Gilliam's origin game. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but visually... thats not it.

While I got T-elos in XC2, I was saving her Blade Quest for last, and the Shulk, Elma, KOS-MOS HtH, and I never got seeing it. I should fix that to compare. But for the presence of sadism, I present her appearances in the first Endless Frontier, collected from a no-commentary Let's Play, you may judge that or the absence thereof from these.:

So in condensed language, a horror Fire Emblem could work in gameplay. Just don't name it "Fire Emblem". Sounds like a job for SRPG Maker/Kickstarter then. Shadowflame Logo it is. Because nobody will assume Shadowflame Logo is about eternal bonds with your characters and reset on death is expected, because Shadowflame Logo is not modern (as in post-6 at the latest barring 11) Fire Emblem, it's its own brand. I don't consider this a cop-out. Because fans can be resistant to change on things they come to love. The alternative would be to label "horror FE" a spinoff, which isn't certain to be judged independently just because you call it that.

Encountered Ms. Whose Name Means "Purpose" again; snippets from the meeting. I didn't catch everything, including the line where Axel tried to flirt with T-elos, and another where one of the ladies called her a tsundere- except the "tsun" will kill you.: This conversation was preceded by a battle against her with her usual tricks MAGDELEN16, Heaven's Tracker, U-TENERITAS. I think there were three battles with her in the first Endless Frontier, I could see the same, or an extra for four battles this time. And assuming she's so obsessed as to always want to destroy KOS-MOS when they meet, that could mean 1-2 more conversations in total. Anyhow, the heroes considered tying her up, Koma suggested in a compromising position, and KOS-MOS gave her consent to this. But T-elos ran away. Next up should be the final reunion with Reiji, Mirabilis Castle where I currently am is perfect for it, because Reiji and Xiaomu joined up in front of the gate at the very bottom of this castle in the first game.

I don't mean to post every single Xenosaga related scene, but this one was touching! I didn't screenshot what MOMO is responding to, because I wasn't expecting them to go in this direction. But Alfimi, despite amnesia, knows she isn't human and using her inhuman powers got the Abend back, leading to her profess a sense of loneliness amongst everyone else. Great idea using the synthetic little girl to comfort the alien little girl, the writers actually put some thought into this. After this, everyone else chimed in and things transitioned to their usual lightheartedness, but not without some criticizing others for ruining this precious moment. And there was some spoken semi-consolation for Alfimi that not everyone in the group is human, for the rest, you have: 2 elves, 2 androids (KOS-MOS included), 2 Catpeople, 1 Sage-Fox, 1 mermaid, 1 Oni princess, 1 demon girl, 1 Shura, 1 test tube human, and only 2 perfectly normal humans. ...And for a music shilling from what I'm currently playing: This is Brave New World, which is the borrowed main theme from Namco x Capcom if I understand it right. First time hearing it, and I like it, it's elegant, classy, reminiscent even. Used as a character and battle theme for Xiaomu, it adds a kind of clean finesse and emotional weight to your attacks, which doesn't actually exist.

No difficulty settings, Kaga didn't do those until Vestaria and from what I'm aware the easier setting there is not that much easier. TRS itself would benefit from a hard mode, it's on the easier side. On a positive for ironman- Berwick Saga has a cemetery where you get a few items for dead characters.