Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Codename Shrimp]

got xbc3

 

[BrightBow]

Looks to me like for chapter 6 they essentially forgot about the fact that they gave Drake Double Move. Nothing is stopping him from just moving away after opening a door.
It's a really well put together map otherwise. But if you actually take advantage of that, it falls apart super hard.
Makes me wish Sjarta could pick locks, just so that I would have a reason not to use Drake for this map at all. ...but then again, Sjarta is also immortal. So I suppose she has little to fear of the Scorpions either.

Aaaand Hilda is gone now. Crap.
Only 1 map for Best Girl and Best Axe Girl to co-exist. Such a shame.

[null]

enjoy Xenofolks

goes back to keep playing XCDE

[Interdimensional Observer]

38 minutes ago, ping said:

*bonk* Go to horny jail! Where we send all horny people! All the horny people, clumped up in a tight, confined space!
...I feel like somebody didn't quite think this concept through.

So, Twitter and Reddit?

Add in communal showering and other shared living accommodations... Don't forget the handcuffs when you first bring them there.

 

3 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

got xbc3

Have fun!😃

And if you want to speak with Arma about story and characterization and whatnot, maybe pop into spoiler boxes? You don't have to because how much I'm delaying on getting the game, but if it isn't a hassle for you, maybe?

Messaging each other is an option you could also consider, but then I wouldn't be able to go back and read your comments when I finally get the game. -Not that I need to do that.

[Codename Shrimp]

16 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

enjoy Xenofolks

 

 

15 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Have fun!😃

 

tyty!

16 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

maybe pop into spoiler boxes?

ofc!

I don't wanna be an ass and spoil people

food first tho xD

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Gaming is divine for you right now, isn't it. When was the last time you were disappointed or dropped something? I can't remember. 

I'm not being critical of you. On the contrary, good for you that you can find a little personal golden age in gaming ATM.

As odd as it is for me to agree with Armagon, I'm going through something similar myself right now. So many good games this year. Even some contenders for new favorites in their genres, like Rogue Legacy 2 and Exit Fate.

1 hour ago, ping said:

I mean, I believe it's been recently established that Shrimpy = Rubenio. And Rubenio loves Fates. Well, at least the parts of Fates that include Garon.

Is this a roundabout trick to make me admit I like Elise?

Because you fail, Ping Pong. My favorite Elise is Friedlise.

30 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Looks to me like for chapter 6 they essentially forgot about the fact that they gave Drake Double Move. Nothing is stopping him from just moving away after opening a door.
It's a really well put together map otherwise. But if you actually take advantage of that, it falls apart super hard.
Makes me wish Sjarta could pick locks, just so that I would have a reason not to use Drake for this map at all. ...but then again, Sjarta is also immortal. So I suppose she has little to fear of the Scorpions either.

If Drake is gone Roleck just gets a key, so you can just break the map anyway with that and Nelke's staff. The whole door thing isn't all that.

30 minutes ago, BrightBow said:

Aaaand Hilda is gone now. Crap.
Only 1 map for Best Girl and Best Axe Girl to co-exist. Such a shame.

Hilda leaving, the worst thing about VS2.

13 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

ofc!

I don't wanna be an ass and spoil people

I will do it instead: Mio is secretly Tuyo in disguise.

[BrightBow]

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

If Drake is gone Roleck just gets a key, so you can just break the map anyway with that and Nelke's staff. The whole door thing isn't all that.

Well, I do know that in the original version of the game the staff had only 8(?) uses and 1 range. Still enough to dash train away from the door, but it would no doubt be a rather significant investment.

[Punished Dayni]

8 minutes ago, ping said:

*bonk* Go to horny jail! Where we send all horny people! All the horny people, clumped up in a tight, confined space!
...I feel like somebody didn't quite think this concept through. Or maybe they thought it through very thoroughly and it's all part of their masterful (and probably horny) plan. They say that criminal jail breeds crime, so it stands to reason that horny jail breeds horny.

Horny jail is designed with individual cells and supervised common areas.

I can tell you from former warden experience. My stick might be.... missing.

57 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Add in communal showering and other shared living accommodations... Don't forget the handcuffs when you first bring them there.

There was no communal showers!

[Armagon]

My favorite games of all time have been updated

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

When was the last time you were disappointed or dropped something? I can't remember. 

Persona 5 lol. That was earlier this year.

Feels so long ago tho.

1 hour ago, Shrimpy said:

got xbc3

 

Welcome to the wild ride.

[Codename Shrimp]

Most devs: Animated cutscenes

Monolith: kino in engine cutscenes

Can we have Monlith for FE? No?

Edited July 29, 2022 by Shrimpy

[ping]

2 hours ago, Awoken Dayni said:

Horny jail is designed with individual cells and supervised common areas.

I can tell you from former warden experience. My stick might be.... missing.

Now that just sounds like cruel and unusual punishment.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Is this a roundabout trick to make me admit I like Elise?

Because you fail, Ping Pong. My favorite Elise is Friedlise.

Hey, BR!Elise was genuinely OK, if I recall. You know, when she doesn't need to be a technical adult. It's a bit of a distant memory at this point, but I think I also appreciated her more melancholic tone as her siblings grew more reclusive and/or deranged because their sibling (who they definitely see as a sibling and nothing else) didn't love them anymore.

Plus, you can't fool me anymore, Shrimpy! Just take this as an opening to admit defeat! Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this Ignore me

 

[null]

last I was playing XC1 I had just entered the Eryth Sea

love the music and scenery for that area, especially at night

Edited July 29, 2022 by twilitfalchion

[Saint Rubenio]

My house

Oh, it's so beautiful! My wonderful, wonderful wooden shack on top of an ugly floating island infested by monsters underneath! With its shitty dirt-and-wood bridge and the water escalator! Filled with so many torches it's bound to go up in flames any day!

I can't believe I actually managed to find it. I always thought losing one's house in Minecraft and having no coordinates for it was pretty much just game over. I mean, the world is literally infinite lol. But I managed to find my way there. Gotta thank my lucky stars I made the massive goof of forgetting 27 iron in a furnace, that was the biggest clue. I lost my way a couple times after that, but I somehow sailed past my house and then ran into it on my way back to the Iron Forgetting Site.

What a magical experience that was. But never again, please. First things first, fix the house, fix the spawn point, make myself a compass and jot down the coordinates. You need a compass for coordinates in this mod, a change I wholeheartedly support. If this nonsense happens again, at least my priorities will be "find iron and redstone for a compass" instead of "P A N I K".

15 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Most devs: Animated cutscenes

Monolith: kino in engine cutscenes

Can we have Monlith for FE? No?

Oh God please no, Koei is bad enough, don't put the developers of games that are the opposite of everything I like in a game in my beloved anime chess series

14 minutes ago, ping said:

Hey, BR!Elise was genuinely OK, if I recall.

Oh yeah, I loved her role in that one. My favorite cutscene in the route stars her, after all!

14 minutes ago, ping said:

Plus, you can't fool me anymore, Shrimpy! Just take this as an opening to admit defeat! Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this Ignore me

Nu

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

My favorite games of all time have been updated

Why am I seeing the faint shadow of a 13th here?😛

 

37 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Most devs: Animated cutscenes

Monolith: kino in engine cutscenes

It wasn't always like this.

Xenogears wasn't great on either visuals nor overall presentation, as ambitious as its story was. It tried some stuff, but I think the primitive 3D PS1 era and being a Square side project held it back. Xenosaga is where Monolith began cultivating their cutscene presentation abilities, although I'm not entirely sure if they were particularly remarkable for the era. While Baten Kaitos concurrently began Monolith's record of visual world design creativity, none of the story presentation good stuff filtered into the duology (it's much stiffer than XS) or Monolith's other side projects. XC1 is where the narrative spectacle started taking off, then XCX brought it into HD, and all else has splendidly followed suit.

By saying this, I don't mean to discount Monolith. I mean to be optimistic in a way, that a company can develop out of almost nowhere the talents that result in a notoriety that it once didn't have.

 

17 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh God please no, Koei is bad enough, don't put the developers of games that are the opposite of everything I like in a game in my beloved anime chess series

You wouldn't have to give them control over everything.

As a factoid, Monolith has twice co-developed games, wherein they weren't responsible for everything. The two SRW Endless Frontier games saw them make the combat, but left the story and other things to Banpresto. While the earlier Baten Kaitos duology saw Monolith entrusted with story, world and character design, and Tri-Crescendo handled gameplay and sound. 

Both of these examples are ancient history at this point, yet it does offer a silver lining for you in such a hypothetical. That Monolith could possibly be left to paint the world, its people and their drama, and leave the SRPG gameplay to others.

Personally, I would rather let them have a sci-fi Fire Emblem spinoff, which by not being a mainline Fire Emblem, would be less problematic for critics.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Lightchao42]

After all this time, I can finally talk about the JRPG of the century... Trails of Cold Steel II, as I am on the intermission. No Garon in this writeup, I'm afraid.

Spoiler

I liked Elise’s pep talk to Rean at the beginning (it gives her something to do aside from being hot for Rean) and it’s nice that she’s playable… and she gets kidnapped. In hindsight it makes sense that Rufus (who is clearly the brains of the Noble Alliance) would want leverage over Rean in particular, since they want him to join them. It would be nice if I had someone other than Rean and Toval at the beginning, I still have nightmares...

Act 1’s structure of “return to a previous area, find your allies, fight some members of the Legion of Doom, repeat” reminded me of SC’s first half, except there are mechas this time. Rean and Alisa are still cute.

I didn't realize it until the end of Act 1, but all of Class VII has some personal investment in the conflict: Rean has Elise, Alisa has her mom, Laura and Machias have their dads, Elliot has his sister, Emma has Vita, Jusis has his brother and dad, Fie has Xeno and Leonidas, Gaius doesn’t have anyone in particular but doesn’t want his home to be drawn into war again, and Millium has Altina (and she wants to smash stuff).

It’s nice getting to use characters outside Class VII, I’m interested in properly learning the backstories of Millium, Sara, Claire, and Sharon (and Toval but he already got his backstory in book form). Sharon also gives some more insight into Ouroboros, like how the numbers are chosen by the Grandmaster and, unless you're McBurn and probably Loewe, they don't correlate with strength.

Duke Cayenne is very punchable and Vita is smug but fun. She’s clearly cut from the same cloth as the Third Anguis, which is funny because priests and witches are natural enemies. Besides them, there’s an entire Legion of Doom of secondary villains. Only three of them are members of Ouroboros and one is the returning Bleublanc, but that’s fine since the society isn’t the primary villain in this game. I am curious about who Altina and the Black Workshop are, especially since Bleublanc said she isn’t "entirely unrelated" to Ouroboros despite not being a member.

I’d prefer if the game did "do so-and-so to the bosses for +3 AP" less because it encourages you to get 200 CP on everyone beforehand and spam your S-crafts rather than fighting the bosses the normal way. The only one of those instances I had to retry was against Bleublanc and Altina. I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting Rufus to sweep the party.

At the end of Act 1 our hero is brought to an enemy airship, is given an offer to join the villains, and is told the backstory of a tragic antagonist. This seems very familiar…

Crow is less antagonistic than I was expecting him to be. He even made Rean a Filet-O-Fish! He also fully explains his backstory, which had some surprises like how the ILF was working for Cayenne the whole time, rather than them teaming up at some point, and Vita has been grooming Crow as Ordine’s pilot for some time. It’s through him that we discover the true villain of the game is capitalism. He'll probably rejoin the party at some point, but not anytime soon if he's somehow vital to Vita's plan (pun unintended).

Rean gets to have a pleasant chat with the other villains too, which makes some sense since none of them are actually loyal to the Noble Alliance. Scarlet and Vulcan are probably sticking around for Crow, Xeno and Leonidas are in it for the paycheck, and Ouroboros will probably bail once they get the Sept-Terrion, which probably won't happen until after the final boss.

Duvalie is a funny knight girl and McBurn is a funny lazy fire man, but they’re both interesting in their own ways. She’s a devoted fangirl of the Seventh Anguis (i.e. the lady who saved us in Lohengrin Castle) and the leader of her personal squad, and there’s also the implication that the Grandmaster thinks Duvalie is too nice to be an Enforcer. She’s probably peeved that a six year old got in over her. She’d probably be frenemies with Estelle. McBurn is pretty cool and actually is a shonen villain. His power is apparently similar to Rean's, I wonder why that is... If you want to be Enforcer No. I, you have to catch an A-rank bracer on the run.

Also Alfin is playable now, which is good, though going in I thought the guest of honor would be Towa since I couldn't think of why Alfin would be kept away from her family. Speaking of which, I wonder if Olivert is goofing off in Liberl again...

5 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I can't believe I actually managed to find it. I always thought losing one's house in Minecraft and having no coordinates for it was pretty much just game over. I mean, the world is literally infinite lol.

Technically the world is just eight times larger than the surface area of Earth, but let's not split hairs...

9 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh God please no, Koei is bad enough, don't put the developers of games that are the opposite of everything I like in a game in my beloved anime chess series

It is too late, Xenoblade has already invaded the things you love.

[Punished Dayni]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Why am I seeing the faint shadow of a 13th here?😛

I can't see it, but I think I see the bottom of a category above masterpiece.

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Personally, I would rather let them have a sci-fi Fire Emblem spinoff, which being not 100% a standard Fire Emblem, would be less problematic for critics.

Rune FEactory?

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 minutes ago, Awoken Dayni said:

Rune FEactory?

Monolith Soft + farming sim + Fire Emblem is a cooky combination that I would be all for trying.😃 Not sure how it would taste, might be like the time I bought a pint of ube (purple yam) ice cream and found it... peculiar, but not bad... and had to force someone else to eat 90% of it. But I wouldn't know until I've tried it.

How many farming sims with sci-fi influences even exist? Or Fire Emblem-styled SRPGs with sci-fi? (Let's ignore SRW, and say said hypothetical Monolith FE-styled SRPG would be 70% foot combat.) (Story of Seasons during the PS2-PSP era did get a one-off spinoff called Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon where the main character is a human-looking android (no romance this meant) to shove this bit of relevant trivia in here.)

Edited July 29, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Saint Rubenio]

And now, what next? I should find a desert and a jungle. Not necessarily in that order. I want cacti for green dye and jungle trees for growing cocoa. It's a foggy day, which is terrible for exploring, but I set off anyway.

Found some sponge. That was fun.

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

You wouldn't have to give them control over everything.

As a factoid, Monolith has twice co-developed games, wherein they weren't responsible for everything. The two SRW Endless Frontier games saw them make the combat, but left the story and other things to Banpresto. While the earlier Baten Kaitos duology saw Monolith entrusted with story, world and character design, and Tri-Crescendo handled gameplay and sound. 

Both of these examples are ancient history at this point, yet it does offer a silver lining for you in such a hypothetical. That Monolith could possibly be left to paint the world, its people and their drama, and leave the SRPG gameplay to others.

I mean, that still leaves plenty of room for it to be a strong contender for my new least favorite FE. Monolith does not do "characters and drama" that is my cup of tea. Not even in a Garon "so bad it's good" way.

...I would take a world painted by Monolith, though. Long as they keep the character designs far, far away from them.

Man I'm leaving them a lot to work with, huh

Quote

Personally, I would rather let them have a sci-fi Fire Emblem spinoff, which by not being a mainline Fire Emblem, would be less problematic for critics.

Hm, yes, this is an interesting idea. FE could use a change of pace, I'd say.

14 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

No Garon in this writeup, I'm afraid.

How can you do this? It's outrageous. It's unfair. How can you do a writeup of Cold Steel and not have Garon in it?

14 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

it’s nice that she’s playable… and she gets kidnapped

K

A

G

A

14 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

Technically the world is just eight times larger than the surface area of Earth, but let's not split hairs...

Hahahahah... Oh man... Thank GOD for my forgetfulness. That forgotten furnace saved my sorry behind...

Quote

It is too late, Xenoblade has already invaded the things you love.

This is such a funny image. I love it.

Anyway, I will take solace on the fact that Xenoblade will never invade Garon. Garon would look upon those pesky anime teens as mere seeds. And you know what he does with seeds.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Saint Rubenio

[ping]

31 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh yeah, I loved her role in that one. My favorite cutscene in the route stars her, after all!

Xander's finest hour, I assume.

(Useless fact of the day: I just learned that Ctrl+Shift+X swaps the forum's design from left-aligned to right-aligned)

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Anyway, I will take solace on the fact that Xenoblade will never invade Garon. Garon would look upon those pesky anime teens as mere seeds. And you know what he does with seeds.

Shulk can use Garon as a spirit. I think the pecking order's been established.

[Interdimensional Observer]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

...I would take a world painted by Monolith, though. Long as they keep the character designs far, far away from them.

Using XC2 as your sole frame of reference, tsk tsk!

Garon's two-colors pointed & curved beard < Luxaar's scrotum neck. Although Garon probably has more charisma than Luxaar, although I've zero experience of Garon and intend to keep it that way.

And even you must concede Monolith drew at least one good person with Guillo.😝

21 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Hm, yes, this is an interesting idea. FE could use a change of pace, I'd say ...like Karajan Saga.

Fixed b/c I thought I could sense your inner Kaga Saga fanboy right below the surface.

[Codename Shrimp]

Is it me or did they nerf healing hmm

Also Noah needs to get his eyes checked he misses too much

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

don't put the developers of games that are the opposite of everything I like in a game in my beloved anime chess series

 

32 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Monolith does not do "characters and drama" that is my cup of tea. Not even in a Garon "so bad it's good" way.

Last i checked you never played any of their games, so how did you know that?

51 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I mean to be optimistic in a way, that a company can develop out of almost nowhere the talents that result in a notoriety that it once didn't have.

True true

And the improvements between their games can almost be touched...

The ones i played anyway xD

[Saint Rubenio]

48 minutes ago, ping said:

Xander's finest hour, I assume.

How did you know?

Quote

That's even too dark for me

Ah who am I kidding, I'd probably laugh at that too if it happened in the game

42 minutes ago, Awoken Dayni said:

Shulk can use Garon as a spirit. I think the pecking order's been established.

Garon is Garon. You can't win against Garon.

20 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Last i checked you never played any of their games, so how did you know that?

Come now, don't be like that. I don't need to dish out 60 bucks and play a 200 hour game to know I wouldn't like it based on looking at parts of its gameplay, its world, its characters and its story from outside. My gut isn't infallible, but I find it doesn't fail me very often.

No, if I've made a mistake here, it's this:

30 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Using XC2 as your sole frame of reference, tsk tsk!

In my own defense, I will say this: When you're told all the time that this is the greatest videogame ever made, and then you look at it and go "yeah I can guarantee you I would hate it", it doesn't exactly set the best precedent. Note I've been very careful (or at least I've tried to be) to use words like "not my cup of tea" or "I wouldn't like it" - I'm not enough of an elitist to fail to see that Xenoblade 2 is an excellent videogame. But I know myself, and it isn't one I would enjoy, personally.

But let's have it, then. What else has Monolith done? Anything that could be more up my alley, perhaps?

Quote

Garon's two-colors pointed & curved beard < Luxaar's scrotum neck. Although Garon probably has more charisma than Luxaar, although I've zero experience of Garon and intend to keep it that way.

Is that... what the hell is that? Does it have its brains on its chest...?

Well, I like it more than every single Xenoblade design I've seen, that much I have to admit...

Quote

And even you must concede Monolith drew at least one good person with Guillo.😝

Yes, this I must admit. Guillo looked fun. He also looked like he was in a very traditional JRPG, which spells almost certain doom for me, but I won't state anything as fact here - I am far less familiar with Xenosaga. Certainly not enough to know to stay far away, like with Xenoblade.

Quote

Fixed b/c I thought I could sense your inner Kaga Saga fanboy right below the surface.

Gahahahah... Hey, I do genuinely think it'd be interesting to have a massive change of setting. See what they do with such a thing. How would they go about throwing a cult-kun in a futuristic space setting? It could be fun. I'd prefer it to another school.

Edited July 29, 2022 by Saint Rubenio

[Punished Dayni]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Garon is Garon. You can't win against Garon.

By that logic every time he changes forms he loses power/makes Anankos weaker.

[Codename Shrimp]

10 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I don't need to dish out 60 bucks and play a 200 hour game to know I wouldn't like it based on looking at parts of its gameplay

I qm not denying that, but you don't know the character drama pr how it's done to go "tis bad"

I don't think you will like it, honestly, and i don't think it's the best game of all time either, but i feel like you are judging it purely from character design perspective and nothing else

10 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

How would they go about throwing a cult-kun in a futuristic space setting?

Hiding magic 

Edited July 29, 2022 by Shrimpy