Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Acacia Sgt]

I'm already over 2K words for Chapter 9, and close to where I want it to end. Ah, I'm glad it's smooth sailing for once...

[Sidereal Wraith]

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

Wraith what do you think of this image:

 

[Saint Rubenio]

11 hours ago, Armagon said:

Yeah i think UO's Rapports where the fix i was looking for with regards to FE Supports.

I won't lie, I hope this doesn't upset you much, but from all you've said of them UO rapports seem like just Berwick Saga character events listed in a FE support UI

Anyway, yeah. They haven't significantly touched the system in like 10 games but it'd be great if FE would just ditch supports already and make character events dependant on location, timing and stuff so there's more freedom in what can be written in them. You can even include NPCs in some character events with a system like this. You know, like Berwick Saga did.

I also find it's better from the perspective of the writer - in my FE6 hack I had to resort to chapter-based convos because FE6's FE6ness wouldn't let me add supports. Now I'm working with a game that can be hacked, but I'm straight up choosing to do the same thing again of my own volition because it's just better lmao.

Edited March 13 by Saint Rubenio

[ping]

Further proof that BinBla is the Fire Emblem's peak. Even its apparent faults are for our own good.

[Codename Shrimp]

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I won't lie, I hope this doesn't upset you much, but from all you've said of them UO rapports seem like just Berwick Saga character events listed in a FE support UI

nah

They are normal FE supports with some nice touches

The side quests are more like Berwick Character Paralogues

[Saint Rubenio]

46 minutes ago, ping said:

Further proof that BinBla is the Fire Emblem's peak. Even its apparent faults are for our own good.

Well, shit. Can't argue with the facts.

13 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

nah

They are normal FE supports with some nice touches

The side quests are more like Berwick Character Paralogues

Hush you, I'm trying to bully Armagon into admitting Kaga does good things occasionally

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Hush you, I'm trying to bully Armagon into admitting Kaga does good things occasionally

This game is so damn Kaga that i wouldn't be surprised if he pops up in the credits lmao

[Saint Rubenio]

20 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

This game is so damn Kaga that i wouldn't be surprised if he pops up in the credits lmao

I'm definitely going to bring this up next time Armagon decides to go angry mode on Kaga's games.

[Armagon]

46 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Shrimps, hang on, are we actually supposed to root for the incest?

23 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

This game is so damn Kaga that i wouldn't be surprised if he pops up in the credits lmao

 

2 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I'm definitely going to bring this up next time Armagon decides to go angry mode on Kaga's games.

With one notable difference: UO doesn't punish you for trying to play the game *cough* Thracia *cough VS route split *cough* TRS Ch.34.

[Armagon]

For real though, I think comparing UO to FE or even Berwick is a bit inaccurate cause it's fundamentally different from all of them. Narrative beats are comparable but gameplay wise it's pretty different.

Edited March 13 by Armagon

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Shrimps, hang on, are we actually supposed to root for the incest?

Yes

Soulmates. Something as weak as blood won't stop them after reincarnating.

(Funny enough, CN fanbase is complaining that it's fake incest because the ship is carried very hard by reincarnation)

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

For real though, I think comparing UO to FE or even Berwick is a bit inaccurate cause it's fundamentally different from all of them. Narrative beats are comparable but gameplay wise it's pretty different.

While true, the gameplay story integration is done in a way that is very "Kaga", and in a much better and fun way, too.

[Codename Shrimp]

Even tho i ship AquRuby, this might be costly for me because i promised to commission something if it sets sail lmao

Edited March 13 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Saint Rubenio]

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

With one notable difference: UO doesn't punish you for trying to play the game *cough* Thracia *cough VS route split *cough* TRS Ch.34.

No, instead it just punishes you when you look at the character designs. I know, I know, this again, but look, cut me some slack. It makes me really sad. The art is really good, but then they completely waste it on designs like this.

She looks so bad, her proportions are so wrong that she straight up looks like AI art. Why would they do this?

...And then all the men are boring. All of them. The women's a 30/70 split between "you look good actually" and "horribly deformed, hyper sexualized aberration", and the men are 5/10s across the board. Vanillaware follows Lightcosmo's "nobody cares what the men wear" philosophy to a T. What a waste.

29 minutes ago, Armagon said:

For real though, I think comparing UO to FE or even Berwick is a bit inaccurate cause it's fundamentally different from all of them. Narrative beats are comparable but gameplay wise it's pretty different.

I mean, Berwick's story beats aren't like most FE either. But yeah, the gameplay's its own beast.

Edited March 13 by Saint Rubenio

[Saint Rubenio]

In other news.

https://suyu.dev/

It would seem Ninty has only succeeded in getting Yuzu handed over to better devs lmao. Fucking fantastic.

Edited March 13 by Saint Rubenio

[Acacia Sgt]

Well, so long they don't make the same mistakes...

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

While true, the gameplay story integration is done in a way that is very "Kaga", and in a much better and fun way, too.

That is true. The battlefields being parts of the world map adds to the scale. Like FE4 did but in FE4 you couldn't explore that map so the more apt comparison here is Kingdom Battle except the terrain actually matters so the maps don't feel restricted by it.

But even the "Kaga" things are different. Like, siege hell maps. In FE/Kaga, you really have no way of defending against siege weapons. Either dodge or take the hit. But UO gives you a few ways of dealing with it. In turn, the siege weapons themselves feel much more dangerous imo. Especially the catapults.

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

She looks so bad, her proportions are so wrong that she straight up looks like AI art. Why would they do this?

In the years I've known you, this probably is your single most worst take. Calling Vanillaware designs AI. Actual insanity man, I'm sorry.

Edited March 13 by Armagon

[Saint Rubenio]

11 minutes ago, Armagon said:

In the years I've known you, this probably is your single most worst take. Calling Vanillaware designs AI. Actual insanity man, I'm sorry.

I don't know man, failing to understand human proportions and giving every character the same delicate anime face even when it doesn't fit the body type are known flaws of AI art. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is AI art, but this specific design very much gives me AI art vibes. The face is just jarring, it does not fit on that body.

For what it's worth, this one is probably the worst of them. The rest don't give me the same AI art vibe at all, they're just ugly as sin. This one stuck out to me, though, from how utterly wrong it feels.

Also you act like I'm alone in this but half the time I was on call everyone was dunking on the designs. These are people who enjoy Fates. These are people who like how Camilla looks. Vanillaware is just advanced-tier sexualization, it requires mastery level desensitization to see nothing wrong with it.

[Armagon]

6 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I don't know man, failing to understand human proportions

Is it "failing to understand human proportions" or is it a stylized take? Vanillaware.....doesn't really care for the realism.

13 Sentinels has the least out there designs and even that's intentional. UO's designs are more subdued but even those have their visual flourishes, especially the promoted classes. I mean you single out a girl for having "bad proportions" i can do that with a guy too

I do not think either are actually "bad" proportions. If anything, i'm even having trouble trying to figure out how the proportions on that girl are supposedly bad in the first place.

[Saint Rubenio]

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Is it "failing to understand human proportions" or is it a stylized take? Vanillaware.....doesn't really care for the realism.

Which is fair, and beauty is in the eye of the beholder, after all. I'm just saying, in my own personal humble and subjective opinion (perhaps I made a mistake in assuming this was understood), Vanillaware has a good artstyle, severely dragged down by some of the worst character designs I've ever seen in videogames. They bend over backwards to sexualize the shit out of most female characters (and male characters as well, I won't deny there's some equality) and it ends up producing some absolutely hideous-looking characters.

Again, in my opinion. We're all entitled to those, are we not?

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

13 Sentinels has the least out there designs and even that's intentional. UO's designs are more subdued but even those have their visual flourishes, especially the promoted classes.

And that makes them probably the least ugly designs I've seen out of Vanillaware. Still found the chance to wrap girls in tight leather or that doctor woman holding her breasts up for no reason other than to let me gawk at them, but hey. There's less of that shit here, which is nice.

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I mean you single out a girl for having "bad proportions" i can do that with a guy too

Oh, yes, there are bad male designs too. There's less of them, the bulk of them are just weirdly boring compared to the girls (Alain, Josef, Renault, the uncle dude, Adel...), but there's a couple that dip into the realm of weirdness as well, like that one or the old guy with the belly and no pants. Intentional weirdness? Sure, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. And hey I owed you a singling out after "FE and especially KagaSaga only has boring nazis for bad guys"

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

If anything, i'm even having trouble trying to figure out how the proportions on that girl are supposedly bad in the first place.

Funnily enough, everyone with me on the call had different problems with it, like the sleeves looking out of place or her boots incomprehensibly having toes, but for me it's mainly the head and face. It's a really small, really dainty anime face on a really burly, really wide muscular body. It looks off. Her neck is almost as wide as her head lol

Edited March 13 by Saint Rubenio

[Codename Shrimp]

59 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But even the "Kaga" things are different. Like, siege hell maps. In FE/Kaga, you really have no way of defending against siege weapons. Either dodge or take the hit. But UO gives you a few ways of dealing with it. In turn, the siege weapons themselves feel much more dangerous imo. Especially the catapult

The maps are really fun, too!

Especially when terrain is involved as then you can hide and sneak your way to them to pwn them

Reminded me of Berwick stealth tbh

24 minutes ago, Armagon said:

So boring compared to the rest tbh

Edited March 13 by Shrimpy -Limited Edition-

[Saint Rubenio]

6 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

So boring compared to the rest tbh

I do have to agree with you there, too. I rag on them a lot but for better or worse, their traits make the others more memorable. This is basically just "generic high school anime cast."

[Eltosian Kadath]

11 hours ago, Armagon said:

And like, The Answer was part of P3FES. So they took something out of the game to sell it back at you lmaooooooooo. 

Atlus will never be them

Removing The Answer is an improvement

I am only half joking with that. The gameplay part of The Answer cuts out most of what makes Persona interesting, and storywise, it feels like if the creator of the Sopranos were forced to make a movies explaining the ending to people that didn't get it. I guess it adds a few nice details, but most of it just feels embarrassing that they felt it was necessary, especially since the ending credits song is there to help the media illiterate... although I guess people who don't understand any Japanese have a little bit of an excuse there.

Spoiler

 

 

14 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Is it "failing to understand human proportions" or is it a stylized take? Vanillaware.....doesn't really care for the realism.

I am going to be perfectly honest, showing all those images just emphasizes how hideous their art style is. Its like what an alien would draw if they asked a classroom of horny teenagers to described what human beings looked like and tried to mash them all together. Even in Sentinel 13, the one where I would actually believe one of the aliens on the art team had actually seen what a human being looks like before, have this surreal look of similarity to, it that it must have only been one or two of them.

 

34 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

like the sleeves looking out of place or her boots incomprehensibly having toes,

At least from these two the surrealness of it comes from massing together very distinctive styles of medieval fashions from half way across the world, from the very Japanese split Tabi style shoe (designed to allows the wearer to put a sandal like shoe, a geta of what have you), and the distinctly Germanic split sleeves (which they also fail to understand is supposed to have far more extreme contrast between the two colors). Its a surreal mashes two cultures together without quite understanding what made them fashionable.

 

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Vanillaware has a good artstyle, severely dragged down by some of the worst character designs I've ever seen in videogames. They bend over backwards to sexualize the shit out of most female characters (and male characters as well, I won't deny there's some equality) and it ends up producing some absolutely hideous-looking characters.

Honestly, outside of Muramasa and Dragon's Crown, even then i wouldn't say Vanillaware has that much sexualization of either gender. I mean if we take a look at GrimGrimiore for example

who's actually sexualized here, genuinely speaking? And to be clear, there's a difference between finding a design attractive and finding a design "sexualized".

Odin Sphere

Again, nothing really here.

Grand Knights History (I couldn't find too much on this)

Where's the sex?

Like i could go on but basically not every game is Dragon's Crown. 

2 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

So boring compared to the rest tbh

I agree but it's kinda the point lol. I don't think the fantastical designs would've been really fit.

I guess the mechs fit that

but honestly i don't like the mech designs either. I'm generally not a fan of bulky mechs, there's a reason why Heisei MechaGodzilla is my least favorite incarnation while Showa and Legendary MechaGodzilla is more my vibe. In Xenoblade X, i prefer the lightweight and medium Skells over the heavy ones.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The gameplay part of The Answer cuts out most of what makes Persona interesting

Eh i mean it is like an epilogue story that was added after the fact. So like is that really it's fault? Like i don't think The Answer was trying to be Persona, if anything it was more like Persona-lite.

Idk never played but i think it's normal for these bite-sized expansions to not have the full systems of the main game. Xenoblade is one of the exceptions here because both Torna and Future Redeemed may as well have been their own full games. Hell Torna you could get on it's own physically.

Course, The Answer is being redone from the ground up so who knows how the gameplay will turn out there.

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am going to be perfectly honest, showing all those images just emphasizes how hideous their art style is. Its like what an alien would draw if they asked a classroom of horny teenagers to described what human beings looked like and tried to mash them all together.

This is literally the Jason Schier criticism minus the pedophilia accusations lol. 

You lack the whimsy Eltosian. Maybe putting the designs by themselves wasn't enough, i gotta put the whole package

All of them fit well into the world in which they were designed too. Even the Dragon's Crown ones

The reason Dragon's Crown is so exaggerated? Because Kamitani wanted it to stand out from other fantasy art. And we can really apply this to Vanillaware's entire catalogue. Would they be on the map if Vanillaware art was just "normal" art? Maybe they'd likely be far nicher than they are now.

[Saint Rubenio]

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

who's actually sexualized here, genuinely speaking?

Here in particular? Amoretta. Opalnaria, too. No exposed flesh, sure, but the boob-shaped shirt is only a couple steps removed from it. Bit less so in her case, but still.

The rest are fine, yes. And I'll say, the skull girl is wicked. More of those, Vanillaware, please.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Again, nothing really here.

"Nothing really here?"

Remember what I told you about mastery level desensitization? Yeah. You can't tell me the first and especially the last one aren't sexualized, like c'mon man. You just don't see them that way because you're used to this kind of thing, it's like this in basically all the games you play lol. The ones you share here most often, at the very least.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

And to be clear, there's a difference between finding a design attractive and finding a design "sexualized".

Oh I absolutely agree with you there. I don't find any of Vanillaware's uber-sexualized designs attractive lmao. Actually, I think the most attractive one I saw was Alcina. And that was immediately damaged somewhat when a flashback started and she was wearing two thin strips as a dress.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Like i could go on but basically not every game is Dragon's Crown. 

Or Unicorn Overlord. That one's filled to the brim too. It's not literally all of them, you could probably give me a good handful of non-sexualized designs from UO (I like Liza and Alcina a lot, actually), but there's so many. So many.

40 minutes ago, Armagon said:

And we can really apply this to Vanillaware's entire catalogue. Would they be on the map if Vanillaware art was just "normal" art? Maybe they'd likely be far nicher than they are now.

They are niche and having less weird art would probably help them have broader reach. These designs are just hard to look at if you're not thoroughly desensitized to this kind of thing. That includes a large amount of people. Having super weird art like this gives them a very striking identity, but by its nature, it makes them niche. This just won't be to most people's liking.

I see your point, though, and I'm not saying they should ditch their trademark style. I'm just saying I don't have to like it. To me it's just ugly.

Edited March 13 by Saint Rubenio

[Interdimensional Observer]

17 minutes ago, Armagon said:

who's actually sexualized here, genuinely speaking?

Lujei, when you see her from another angle ingame. -But then, a little sultriness suits her character as you'll see when you get to GG.

18 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Again, nothing really here.

Well, Velvet I would say, and her thinness is the one stylistic criticism I have for OS. -Although, tbf, it is outright said that it was the dancer costume she was forced to wear... years ago. It's a little nonsensical at the present moment in OS, though no worse than some FE dancer designs (Genealogy). And Ingway indicates that to some extent, that dress is normal Valentinian wear perhaps -but we don't see it b/c the kingdom is gone. It in no way stops me from appreciating Velvet's character story or OS as a whole.

13 minutes ago, Armagon said:

but honestly i don't like the mech designs either.

For me, as I've said before, I'm a mecha omnivore. Classically real, traditionally super, fantastically magical, funky organic, I can find something to appreciate in pretty much any approach to giant robots.

And yet, the Sentinels were prettttttttty dull. Mecha fans I'm told will say to critics "it isn't all about the giant robots, it's about the people inside them". And with 13S, this is veeeeeeeeeeeery much the case, too much so IMO. The Sentinels are all unpainted gray, of a handful of mass-produced designs, and narratively ...not exactly big on relevance either.

-And of course, in general, you know I stand beside you on Vanillaware. I'm just not one to argue on the Internet, it's better that way (for me, for everyone).