Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Saint Rubenio]

2 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Side note, I love Dawn of Sorrow game's cover art. With Yoko and Hammer doing action poses as if the game would have them actually do anything. I guess every anime about an "ordinary high school student" needs a wacky supporting cast, even if there is nothing for them to actually do.

The middle's fine. Soma in the center, Mina and Arikado to his sides representing his "light and darkness", as it were, and the villains looming from above. I do feel that Dmitrii looks shockingly bad here, though. Somehow his haircut looks a lot less dumb in his ingame sprites, and his jaw is too square. He looks like a grandma there lmao

...Then there's Julius posing off to the side like they forgot to add him until it was already done.

Eclesia's cover hits some nice gothic depression tones but in its attempt at minimalism it ended up missing the most pivotal character. Let me see if I can fix that.

Edited Monday at 03:14 PM by Saint Rubenio

[Interdimensional Observer]

Paradiso Guardian- Review and Final Thoughts:

Spoiler

Paradiso Guardian can be summarized as two things.:

• A Metroidvania (An RPG elements-heavier Igavania specifically, Metroid having practically none of those.)
• An NSFW yaoi game.

 

I’ll begin with the Metroidvania aspect.:

• First, the Steam page for Paradiso Guardian outright states it was inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the game that popularized the Metroidvania genre.
  • “Inspired” might be putting things mildly for Paradiso Guardian.😜
  • A magic castle as the setting, breakable candles that contain MP restoration, enemies that look very similar to monsters from Castlevania, the protagonist can acquire a teleport & triple-fireball attack.
  • If you’re looking for gameplay originality within the Metroidvania genre, PG doesn’t have it.😛
• As for the execution of all these borrowings, Paradiso Guardian sticks the landing well enough, though not marvelously so.
  • The formula works, you explore the big factually-linear castle, you find stuff and level-up, you fight many minions and a few bosses along the way.
  • Typical of the Igavanias, minions are easy, though the bosses can sometimes put a challenge in PG. Bosses are practically exclusively humanoid in PG, which limits their variety, but the fights aren’t half-bad.
  • One thing that Paradiso has that Igavania didn’t, is Holy Flare, a version of the popular “dodge to temporarily slow time” (and rapidly regenerate MP in this case) mechanic. It was a nice little addition.
• My greatest issue with Paradiso Guardian as a Metroidvania, is length. You could easily reach the final boss in five hours. The castle needed to be bigger, the game could’ve been twice as long and more satisfying.🙁
• To slip in some miscellany here.:
  • Although the Metroidvania genre is often thin on plot, I still think Paradiso Guardian could’ve used more.
  • The 2D spritework is satisfactory.
  • The music is adequate for the ingame circumstances, though nothing memorable.
  • On translation, there are one too many typos, usually small, yet certainly noticeable. Both in dialogue and in menu text. It’s glaring, though you can understand what is being said just fine.
• Solely as a Metroidvania, I do not recommend Paradiso Guardian. There is a sea of these out nowadays there if you start digging. While you could do worse, for $30 USD, PG just isn’t worth it.
• As I have low standards 😅, and I like Igavanias, I showed no dislike for PG’s gameplay. It was low-key enjoyable for me, a familiar snack.

 

Turning from Ares to Adonis, the yaoi half of the equation.:

• As a disclaimer, Boys’ Love is a super-niche gaming genre which I have very little familiarity with, as I've never played a yaoi visual novel). So my abilities to judge here are somewhat-limited.

Whilst it begins inconspicuous enough, within perhaps an hour, Paradiso Guardian, one comes to realize, is a very gay video game.😄

• Traversing this fortress between Heaven and Hell, you’ll see plenty of classically-nude statues in the background. Likewise, you’ll see some humanoid monsters who happen to be naked, which again is normal for an Igavania. The thing about Paradiso Guardian, is that all these monsters and statues are male -a few sculptures even with appendages if you squint- there is not a single trace of the female form in the entire game. It extolls the male body thoroughly throughout.
• Of course, this too applies to the small cast of characters whom the game is about. Every dude -and only dudes- in Paradiso Guardian is immaculately sculpted.😋 All muscle, not a trace of fat, body hair minimal. Not a game for those who like burly bears, softer physiques, or absolutely normal guys. I was fine with the choice. I didn’t have any major qualms with how the figures were drawn.
• The titular Paradiso Guardian in this game is the protagonist Lenga. Personality-wise, an average-ish, decent-looking young man, self-confident and pretty carefree. Lenga’s most noticeable personality trait is that he has lots of hots for other men. He’s officially a “Battle Angel", but he has the libido of an incubus.
• The four beefcakes who join Lenga on the key art for this game are his four lovers. Each is distinctly different in what they are in this high fantasy world,  the same regarding their exact relation to Lenga, their personalities are solid. The grammar-problematic translation doesn’t ruin their characterizations at all. Personally, Shutendoji ended up being my favorite for sure.👹😘
• Although I haven’t played a single BL visual novel, I know they could do better than this game did at writing characters. Not to say the cast is bad, it isn’t, but that the amount of writing in this game can’t compare to how much a VN would have. While the plot is thin, the game does throw a relatively surprising amount of world-building into it (perhaps because as a fantasy world, it needs some). My main point is that, although you can visit the guys in their bedrooms and talk to them, any dating sim aspect here is quite thin. Gifting the men foods they like is unnecessary, as you can quickly max their affection via fighting.
• Where yaoi-meets-Metroidvania, is in the Bond Skills. Lenga can summon one of his buddies to perform an attack against enemies.
  • You can only equip one Bond Skill total at any time, though each companion has three (the latter two unlockable) to choose from. These skills run an MP-free cooldown of at least eight seconds and freeze time while being used.
  • Bond Skills are pretty strong, too powerful so I’d say. Alternative playable characters would’ve been ideal, but Bond Skills were a thoughtful way of marrying the BL to the Igavania.⚔️x❤️
  • Acquiring the Bond Skills requires individually fighting the lovers, and later rematches. Though one of those rematches is exactly the same as the first fight, and the second is harder but almost the same. In an ideal world with a bigger team/budget, shaking things up more for the refights would’ve happened.
• …Not to beat around the bush any more, the NSFW. This game has 18 “Bond Memories”, which are a euphemism for what euphemisms often refer to. (And there are 4 additional NSFW CGs of other BL people’s Original Characters that the dev of Paradiso Guardian got the rights to include as optional bosses.)
  • However, these Bond Memories are practically optional. If you set the Naughty Angel option to “Off” (by default, it’s “On”), the scenes that would show up as you progress the story will be skipped (they’re not integral to the plot). The optional remaining scenes you are given the option of viewing right away, or you can skip doing so and just watch it in the Gallery later. It is entirely possible to get through Paradiso Guardian without seeing a man-jam.🙈 Yet as I said before, PG is not worth buying solely on Metroidvania grounds. A consumer who wants to be satisfied, need be a consumer who likes fellas really really liking fellas.
  • I won’t go into lurid detail of what happens during the Bond Memories. They each consist of one still CG, going through multiple variations as the event progresses. These events are fully voiced in Japanese. As one would expect from smut, the dialogue is often cliched and very very cheesy. There was some effort at variation in the acts.
    • The quality of these cutscenes is in ways cheap. The forgettable backdrops don’t blend in if you happen to notice them. At times, I felt like they should’ve added an additional still frame or two to a given scene to better represent what the dialogue was describing.🤨 This is my first hentai game of any kind, but I presume one could do better here.
  • Do the h-scenes help with the characters?🤔 Well they do show off their individual personalities, yes. But these aren’t the most tender, emotional, poignant things in the world either; it’s fluffy physical fandangoes. I appreciated them not so much for whatever steaminess they had (raw titillation isn’t a surefire trick on me 😝), but as part of the greater package -a point I’ll get back to later.
  • On content, the Bond Memories were all consensual. …With 2 or maybe 3 cases where things began with one man yanked into things by the horny other.😐 Yet even in those cases, by the end, the initially-wary partner was very much enjoying themselves. Non-con is a no-go for me, consent is the true sexy. I made sure to check before buying that Paradiso Guardian had nothing objectionable, and with only slight blemish, that was true indeed.

 

Conclusion:

• The Metroidvania component is only adequate, the Boys’ Love portion isn’t the greatest either. Then, what to make of Paradiso Guardian? 
• The answer- that Paradiso Guardian is both novel and more than the sum of its parts. -To me at least.
• Boys’ Love, as I understand it, is almost always relegated to the genre of Visual Novels. I don’t read VNs, they’re a genre I’m unfamiliar with (and I don’t care for any twisted darkness they may contain). I’ve been enjoyably devouring Metroidvanias since Dawn of Sorrow back when the NDS was new.
  • If it wasn’t for Paradiso Guardian being a BL game in Metroidvania form, or a Metroidvania with BL, I would’ve been much less likely to play it. The familiar gameplay Alucard pioneered, served as a bridge into the yaoi unknown.
• The fusion of Igavania with Boy’s Love is what makes Paradiso Guardian a unique and good game, for me. The overwhelming majority of mainstream(-ish) video games are outright and or subtly heteronormative, and always have been. Paradiso Guardian takes the seven Igavanias + Bloodstained, perfectly normal games that fit the above sentence, and changes the script.
  • Nude and feminine Frozen Shades monsters are replaced by nude and masculine Frozen Shadows. Alucard’s Soul Steal is renamed “Essence Seize” yes, that essence. Save Rooms in several Igavanias had a goddess/maiden statue defining it; in PG, it’s a shower/bath where Lenga strips and takes a quick bath when saving.
  • As you run along through the corridors of this demon-infested fortress, coldly focused on fighting your way to end, you can’t ever escape the queer male eye. This is a Gay Igavania, the two halves are inseparable.😊
  • Presently, there aren’t many games like Paradiso Guardian. A gayme with an anime aesthetic, belonging firmly to an established, mainstream genre of video game. It shows me, physical proof, what a more gay version of some other genre or franchise that I like, could be like.😃 (If perhaps not so extremely gay.😆 I’m fine with settling for inclusive games that everyone cis & straight and LBGTQ+ can find their particular identity-related joy in.😀
• Getting back to it as I promised, the sex scenes are just an over-the-top way (derived from VNs) of hammering home the gayness of Paradiso Guardian. I wouldn’t say they were unnecessary, because queers should live proud & loud, but they weren’t an independent major reason for my enjoyment of the game. The NSFW smut worked as a cog in a magnificently manly machine.
  • Some Bond Skills being on the broken side might’ve been a gameplay criticism, but to say it again- they were gameplay-BL integration. Each time Lenga summoned the shirtless Floody swinging a boomerang axe, it was an attack that quietly roared with male homosexuality.😤
• (Owing to BL being super-niche, on the margins of the gaming world, it’s no surprise that this isn’t the greatest game in the world. Sometimes you get single-person developers or small teams that suddenly manifest and absolutely own the gaming landscape (e.g. Stardew Valley, Undertale). The odds of being that miraculously good are low, so I can accept a small developer’s averageness and associated limitations on quality.🙂)

There. That’s all I think I want to say?🤣

Would I rate this game? As I’ve said before, I’m not big on numerical rankings. And as I concluded, while there are many Metroidvanias and many yaoi games, Paradiso Guardian has a monopoly on yaoi Metroidvanias. It’s first-in-class …because it’s the only thing in its class.😆

T’was good, light, silly fun.😁 Entertainment that I’ll have a difficult time finding exactly more of in the future.😝

Edited Monday at 03:34 PM by Interdimensional Observer

[BrightBow]

If certain souls have to be a hard requirement to beat Dawn of Sorrow, would it have killed Iga to at least make them common drops? I suppose the Axe Armor is a common drop, but the other two souls aren't.
At least in Aria there was some kind of logic to the souls required. Here there isn't. Here it's just 3 identical looking stonewalls with monsters depicted on them blocking a random hallway.

Symphony of the Night didn't tie game progression to random drops. At least I think it didn't.
Admittedly my knowledge of Symphony is limited to the video on the unreleased GameCom port by Stop Skeletons From Fighting.
Probably not the version most people played.
 

32 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Eclesia's cover hits some nice gothic depression tones but in its attempt at minimalism it ended up missing the most pivotal character. Let me see if I can fix that.

That should do it. Perfect.

[Sidereal Wraith]

2 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

 

 

[Codename Shrimp]

🤡🤡🤡

[Codename Shrimp]

[Armagon]

Power went out in the whole shopping plaza, including my store, excluding the Publix cause they have their own backup.

Clear day btw so someone must've messed up.

36 minutes ago, Codename Shrimp said:

Same day as Sonic Central, Sony asking for attention.

[Dayni]

Skyrim's sun has truly set now.

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Barlowe shouting Wheee as he flies across the sky is canon

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Paradiso Guardian- Review and Final Thoughts:

  Reveal hidden contents

Paradiso Guardian can be summarized as two things.:

• A Metroidvania (An RPG elements-heavier Igavania specifically, Metroid having practically none of those.)
• An NSFW yaoi game.

 

I’ll begin with the Metroidvania aspect.:

• First, the Steam page for Paradiso Guardian outright states it was inspired by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, the game that popularized the Metroidvania genre.
  • “Inspired” might be putting things mildly for Paradiso Guardian.😜
  • A magic castle as the setting, breakable candles that contain MP restoration, enemies that look very similar to monsters from Castlevania, the protagonist can acquire a teleport & triple-fireball attack.
  • If you’re looking for gameplay originality within the Metroidvania genre, PG doesn’t have it.😛
• As for the execution of all these borrowings, Paradiso Guardian sticks the landing well enough, though not marvelously so.
  • The formula works, you explore the big factually-linear castle, you find stuff and level-up, you fight many minions and a few bosses along the way.
  • Typical of the Igavanias, minions are easy, though the bosses can sometimes put a challenge in PG. Bosses are practically exclusively humanoid in PG, which limits their variety, but the fights aren’t half-bad.
  • One thing that Paradiso has that Igavania didn’t, is Holy Flare, a version of the popular “dodge to temporarily slow time” (and rapidly regenerate MP in this case) mechanic. It was a nice little addition.
• My greatest issue with Paradiso Guardian as a Metroidvania, is length. You could easily reach the final boss in five hours. The castle needed to be bigger, the game could’ve been twice as long and more satisfying.🙁
• To slip in some miscellany here.:
  • Although the Metroidvania genre is often thin on plot, I still think Paradiso Guardian could’ve used more.
  • The 2D spritework is satisfactory.
  • The music is adequate for the ingame circumstances, though nothing memorable.
  • On translation, there are one too many typos, usually small, yet certainly noticeable. Both in dialogue and in menu text. It’s glaring, though you can understand what is being said just fine.
• Solely as a Metroidvania, I do not recommend Paradiso Guardian. There is a sea of these out nowadays there if you start digging. While you could do worse, for $30 USD, PG just isn’t worth it.
• As I have low standards 😅, and I like Igavanias, I showed no dislike for PG’s gameplay. It was low-key enjoyable for me, a familiar snack.

 

Turning from Ares to Adonis, the yaoi half of the equation.:

• As a disclaimer, Boys’ Love is a super-niche gaming genre which I have very little familiarity with, as I've never played a yaoi visual novel). So my abilities to judge here are somewhat-limited.

Whilst it begins inconspicuous enough, within perhaps an hour, Paradiso Guardian, one comes to realize, is a very gay video game.😄

• Traversing this fortress between Heaven and Hell, you’ll see plenty of classically-nude statues in the background. Likewise, you’ll see some humanoid monsters who happen to be naked, which again is normal for an Igavania. The thing about Paradiso Guardian, is that all these monsters and statues are male -a few sculptures even with appendages if you squint- there is not a single trace of the female form in the entire game. It extolls the male body thoroughly throughout.
• Of course, this too applies to the small cast of characters whom the game is about. Every dude -and only dudes- in Paradiso Guardian is immaculately sculpted.😋 All muscle, not a trace of fat, body hair minimal. Not a game for those who like burly bears, softer physiques, or absolutely normal guys. I was fine with the choice. I didn’t have any major qualms with how the figures were drawn.
• The titular Paradiso Guardian in this game is the protagonist Lenga. Personality-wise, an average-ish, decent-looking young man, self-confident and pretty carefree. Lenga’s most noticeable personality trait is that he has lots of hots for other men. He’s officially a “Battle Angel", but he has the libido of an incubus.
• The four beefcakes who join Lenga on the key art for this game are his four lovers. Each is distinctly different in what they are in this high fantasy world,  the same regarding their exact relation to Lenga, their personalities are solid. The grammar-problematic translation doesn’t ruin their characterizations at all. Personally, Shutendoji ended up being my favorite for sure.👹😘
• Although I haven’t played a single BL visual novel, I know they could do better than this game did at writing characters. Not to say the cast is bad, it isn’t, but that the amount of writing in this game can’t compare to how much a VN would have. While the plot is thin, the game does throw a relatively surprising amount of world-building into it (perhaps because as a fantasy world, it needs some). My main point is that, although you can visit the guys in their bedrooms and talk to them, any dating sim aspect here is quite thin. Gifting the men foods they like is unnecessary, as you can quickly max their affection via fighting.
• Where yaoi-meets-Metroidvania, is in the Bond Skills. Lenga can summon one of his buddies to perform an attack against enemies.
  • You can only equip one Bond Skill total at any time, though each companion has three (the latter two unlockable) to choose from. These skills run an MP-free cooldown of at least eight seconds and freeze time while being used.
  • Bond Skills are pretty strong, too powerful so I’d say. Alternative playable characters would’ve been ideal, but Bond Skills were a thoughtful way of marrying the BL to the Igavania.⚔️x❤️
  • Acquiring the Bond Skills requires individually fighting the lovers, and later rematches. Though one of those rematches is exactly the same as the first fight, and the second is harder but almost the same. In an ideal world with a bigger team/budget, shaking things up more for the refights would’ve happened.
• …Not to beat around the bush any more, the NSFW. This game has 18 “Bond Memories”, which are a euphemism for what euphemisms often refer to. (And there are 4 additional NSFW CGs of other BL people’s Original Characters that the dev of Paradiso Guardian got the rights to include as optional bosses.)
  • However, these Bond Memories are practically optional. If you set the Naughty Angel option to “Off” (by default, it’s “On”), the scenes that would show up as you progress the story will be skipped (they’re not integral to the plot). The optional remaining scenes you are given the option of viewing right away, or you can skip doing so and just watch it in the Gallery later. It is entirely possible to get through Paradiso Guardian without seeing a man-jam.🙈 Yet as I said before, PG is not worth buying solely on Metroidvania grounds. A consumer who wants to be satisfied, need be a consumer who likes fellas really really liking fellas.
  • I won’t go into lurid detail of what happens during the Bond Memories. They each consist of one still CG, going through multiple variations as the event progresses. These events are fully voiced in Japanese. As one would expect from smut, the dialogue is often cliched and very very cheesy. There was some effort at variation in the acts.
    • The quality of these cutscenes is in ways cheap. The forgettable backdrops don’t blend in if you happen to notice them. At times, I felt like they should’ve added an additional still frame or two to a given scene to better represent what the dialogue was describing.🤨 This is my first hentai game of any kind, but I presume one could do better here.
  • Do the h-scenes help with the characters?🤔 Well they do show off their individual personalities, yes. But these aren’t the most tender, emotional, poignant things in the world either; it’s fluffy physical fandangoes. I appreciated them not so much for whatever steaminess they had (raw titillation isn’t a surefire trick on me 😝), but as part of the greater package -a point I’ll get back to later.
  • On content, the Bond Memories were all consensual. …With 2 or maybe 3 cases where things began with one man yanked into things by the horny other.😐 Yet even in those cases, by the end, the initially-wary partner was very much enjoying themselves. Non-con is a no-go for me, consent is the true sexy. I made sure to check before buying that Paradiso Guardian had nothing objectionable, and with only slight blemish, that was true indeed.

 

Conclusion:

• The Metroidvania component is only adequate, the Boys’ Love portion isn’t the greatest either. Then, what to make of Paradiso Guardian? 
• The answer- that Paradiso Guardian is both novel and more than the sum of its parts. -To me at least.
• Boys’ Love, as I understand it, is almost always relegated to the genre of Visual Novels. I don’t read VNs, they’re a genre I’m unfamiliar with (and I don’t care for any twisted darkness they may contain). I’ve been enjoyably devouring Metroidvanias since Dawn of Sorrow back when the NDS was new.
  • If it wasn’t for Paradiso Guardian being a BL game in Metroidvania form, or a Metroidvania with BL, I would’ve been much less likely to play it. The familiar gameplay Alucard pioneered, served as a bridge into the yaoi unknown.
• The fusion of Igavania with Boy’s Love is what makes Paradiso Guardian a unique and good game, for me. The overwhelming majority of mainstream(-ish) video games are outright and or subtly heteronormative, and always have been. Paradiso Guardian takes the seven Igavanias + Bloodstained, perfectly normal games that fit the above sentence, and changes the script.
  • Nude and feminine Frozen Shades monsters are replaced by nude and masculine Frozen Shadows. Alucard’s Soul Steal is renamed “Essence Seize” yes, that essence. Save Rooms in several Igavanias had a goddess/maiden statue defining it; in PG, it’s a shower/bath where Lenga strips and takes a quick bath when saving.
  • As you run along through the corridors of this demon-infested fortress, coldly focused on fighting your way to end, you can’t ever escape the queer male eye. This is a Gay Igavania, the two halves are inseparable.😊
  • Presently, there aren’t many games like Paradiso Guardian. A gayme with an anime aesthetic, belonging firmly to an established, mainstream genre of video game. It shows me, physical proof, what a more gay version of some other genre or franchise that I like, could be like.😃 (If perhaps not so extremely gay.😆 I’m fine with settling for inclusive games that everyone cis & straight and LBGTQ+ can find their particular identity-related joy in.😀
• Getting back to it as I promised, the sex scenes are just an over-the-top way (derived from VNs) of hammering home the gayness of Paradiso Guardian. I wouldn’t say they were unnecessary, because queers should live proud & loud, but they weren’t an independent major reason for my enjoyment of the game. The NSFW smut worked as a cog in a magnificently manly machine.
  • Some Bond Skills being on the broken side might’ve been a gameplay criticism, but to say it again- they were gameplay-BL integration. Each time Lenga summoned the shirtless Floody swinging a boomerang axe, it was an attack that quietly roared with male homosexuality.😤
• (Owing to BL being super-niche, on the margins of the gaming world, it’s no surprise that this isn’t the greatest game in the world. Sometimes you get single-person developers or small teams that suddenly manifest and absolutely own the gaming landscape (e.g. Stardew Valley, Undertale). The odds of being that miraculously good are low, so I can accept a small developer’s averageness and associated limitations on quality.🙂)

There. That’s all I think I want to say?🤣

Would I rate this game? As I’ve said before, I’m not big on numerical rankings. And as I concluded, while there are many Metroidvanias and many yaoi games, Paradiso Guardian has a monopoly on yaoi Metroidvanias. It’s first-in-class …because it’s the only thing in its class.😆

T’was good, light, silly fun.😁 Entertainment that I’ll have a difficult time finding exactly more of in the future.😝

Spoiler

Least it was as advertised. A game that asked "how steamy can we make these gay relationships?" and answered "pretty steamy". So I suppose I wonder about the dynamics between these lads. Are they all actively involved together? Is this a facing past relationships deal? Is Legna in multiple open relationships?

Also, I remember the random bathhouse in the Arena in Aria of Sorrow, this ain't the first time. Though that was not a safe room.

59 minutes ago, Codename Shrimp said:

Can't be too careful I suppose.

Edited Monday at 11:34 PM by Dayni

[Armagon]

Guys please watch this movie, it's raw as fuck. The marketing didn't do it any favors so I gotta do it myself. 

This movie too good to bomb at the box office. 

[Acacia Sgt]

Sorry, never been much of a Transformers fan.

[Lightchao42]

You know (Trails through Daybreak Ch. 4)

Spoiler

if I had a nickel for every time Dawn M. Bennett voiced a robot girl in a JRPG released (outside Japan) in 2024, I'd have two nickels. Though at this point, it's kind of unclear how artificial Maid KOS-MOS is.

I also caught how Takahashi snuck into the development team one day:

I can't believe Daybreak featured the Zohar more than Xenoblade 3 did. Is Olympia the best Xeno girl?

Also funny is that Quatre has Sigurd's Engage Attack as his S-craft... or it's the other way around, since Daybreak released in Japan first.

22 hours ago, Armagon said:

Yeah Transformers One locked in.

9/10

Haven't seen it yet but I think Steve Buscemi as Starscream is an inspired casting choice.

2 hours ago, Codename Shrimp said:

ONE GAME

In a bold move, Sony will announce the Switch successor themselves to put eyes on their presentation.

1 hour ago, Dayni said:

Barlowe shouting Wheee as he flies across the sky is canon

Konami should make Super Barlowe 64, the sequel to Super Byleth 64.

[Armagon]

@Codename Shrimp @Interdimensional Observer we can't stop winning.

1 hour ago, Lightchao42 said:

Haven't seen it yet but I think Steve Buscemi as Starscream is an inspired casting choice

It's actually really cool what they do with him.

[Armagon]

it's real

[Acacia Sgt]

4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

we can't stop winning.

Unless you want a PC port.

[Armagon]

Another day, another federal law being blatantly broken by Donald Trump but because he's the Supreme Commander, King of the United States, chosen by God, all that will come of this is nothing.

[Acacia Sgt]

 

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Oh, today was Nintendo's birthday. 135 years, huh...

[Dayni]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Guys please watch this movie, it's raw as fuck. The marketing didn't do it any favors so I gotta do it myself. 

This movie too good to bomb at the box office. 

Not even here for another 2 weeks, so *shrug for now. I have no idea why.

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

@Codename Shrimp @Interdimensional Observer we can't stop winning.

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

it's real

Peacemaker would have been the lead of Team America World Police, but he was in prison

[Saint Rubenio]

6 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Unless you want a PC port.

There is a PC port, it's called Ryujinx.

I actually tried it out a while back. Didn't play much, just started it to see how it worked. Turns out, since it's a strictly 2D game it runs like a dream where 3D games struggle on my computers.

[Lightcosmo]

I guess for Cheria in Graces, Tipton will voice her new clips for skits. I really wish they wouldn’t go that route, it sounds terrible. 
Laura Bailey had both Lucina and now Cheria replaced by Tipton? Industry must think they sound similar enough lol.

Personally I don’t like when they do this with VA’s (unless the story accounts for it, of course)

Edited Tuesday at 11:30 AM by Lightcosmo

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 hours ago, Dayni said:

Least it was as advertised. A game that asked "how steamy can we make these gay relationships?" and answered "pretty steamy".

...Envision this with all four non-Lenga dudes lounging in here, plus the Raikoh the thunder god (an optional boss). B/c you can have that equipping the Towel of the Mystic (they have no bath interactions with each other, unfortunately). While you can't see anything b/c very bright steam and towels, I don't want to risk bumping into the rules of this place.😝 

Besides the great bath (shown above) in the safe zone of the castle where the item shop is and the other dudes have their bedrooms, the save rooms have some visual variety.:

Spoiler

🛀

Unusual for a Metroidvania.

12 hours ago, Dayni said:

So I suppose I wonder about the dynamics between these lads. Are they all actively involved together? Is this a facing past relationships deal? Is Legna in multiple open relationships?

Absolutely. If angels were prudes, he'd be a college-age Lucifer.😛

Although, the exact relationships vary.:

Spoiler

Floody is Lenga's "Best Friend ...With Benefits". The most normal guy, whose day job is being a firefighter. Has a mild personality, and is the least outwardly horny. Beneath the surface though, his feelings are strong and serious. "You sleep around too much Lenga, I worry about you, and I know you best. Stay with me, if only briefly." -That summarizes his deeper thoughts. Protective, slightly possessive. Fights Lenga b/c Radian told him to.

Shutendouji. Named after a well-known oni from Japanese folklore (usually hyphenated as Shuten-doji). I've seen the name used before in Warriors Orochi 3, and SRWOGS Endless Frontier (in that mecha-related dimension of horny, Shuten was a blue-haired straight shirtless muscular oni with a girlfriend who agrees he is "very easy on the eyes").

-The backstory for this gayer red-haired Japanese ogre, is that Lenga once got into a fighting tournament the oni were hosting. As Shuten is the crown prince, he was told to find the strongest possible spouse. Lenga won, and Shuten instantly fell in love with him. Unfortunately, Lenga doesn't want to settle down, and he keeps having tell Shuten that. Shuten has apparently had a history of running around after Lenga, getting beaten up in battle and occasionally making love as a result.

All Shutendoji wants is his "Wifey" to live with him. He'll be okay with Lenga making out with other guys, as long as he returns home; Shuten says he is willing to be faithful. Perhaps the most -relatively- innocent of these dirty dudes, and sweet. Also wild, and very hungry, something of a meathead, but actually not that stupid given he is continually able to run away from home evading his guards in pursuit of Lenga. And as I said, he ended up being my favorite.🥰

Vitos is the only the guy who Lenga doesn't have a pre-established relationship with. He is the demon confined in this floating castle in the human world. His confinement is consensual, the angels take a tribute of Vitos's power for reasons unknown. Vitos comes an elite family in Inferno (the demon world), but that means a lot of treachery, backstabbing, demonic infighting. Vitos didn't want the chaos, so he accepted imprisonment and angelic protection in the peaceful human world. Fights Lenga b/c Lenga doesn't realize Vitos isn't an evil demon at first, and Vitos is up for a small dose of strife.

Lenga says attracted and aloud that Vitos is his type on their first meeting. Being a lusty demon, he willingly gives a relationship with an angel a try after their first fight is over. While the dominant bad boy of the five guys, he isn't problematic at all. Paradiso Guardian is a fluffy Boys' Love game. In something on the dark side of BL (there's plenty I'm told), he would be doing toxic twisted nonconsensual acts on Lenga for sure -and then I would not have played this.

Radian. Lenga's adoptive daddy. -Not "father", daddy.😜 Although the other three guys mistake the two meanings of "daddy". Radian is a captain in the Guardians of Paradiso (the heavenly world inhabited by angels), and thus Lenga's superior aren't there workplace rules against this kind of relationship?. Radian is calm and mature. Acting both fatherly and like a seasoned veteran in their job, the archangel shows wholesome care for Lenga. -And sometimes they screw, the old man enjoying it as much as the lusty young angel. Fights Lenga b/c he thinks this mission is too dangerous for him.

...Can I call Daddy Radian, "Gayonetta"?😛 The Umbra Witch's Wicked Weaves are what sprang to mind when I saw this.

 

Within the genre of dating sims, I'm sure these kinds of characters have been done before. But in mainstream-(ish) gaming? These seemed new to me.😆 I'd be okay with the normalization of gay Daddies. Hey Fire Emblem, about that "dead "parents"" thing...

 

12 hours ago, Dayni said:

Also, I remember the random bathhouse in the Arena in Aria of Sorrow, this ain't the first time. Though that was not a safe room.

Arenas are Roman, bathhouses are Roman.😀 Although I know the Colosseum didn't have room for those. Not sure how often if ever gladiators bathed. The daily lives of gladiators consisted entirely of eating, fighting, and sleeping in their cells (b/c they're slaves). Though Galen the ancient physician mentions unctores- slaves tasked with keeping the gladiators comfortable, including daily massages. As the average gladiator had a lifespan of ~27, I'm not sure why you'd need to order slaves to rub these fit men, unshackled volunteers willing to work for free shouldn't be in short supply.

 

10 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

Also funny is that Quatre has Sigurd's Engage Attack as his S-craft... or it's the other way around, since Daybreak released in Japan first.

The word my eyes immediately fell upon.😆

 

9 hours ago, Armagon said:

we can't stop winning.

And I still haven't played it yet.😅

 

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Oh, today was Nintendo's birthday. 135 years, huh...

Oddly didn't hear anything about that. I guess not every 5-interval is worth celebrating. We're probably 15 years from the next big one.

[Codename Shrimp]

10 hours ago, Armagon said:

we can't stop winning.

now make UO 2 with good writing and difficulty

[Armagon]

5 hours ago, Dayni said:

Not even here for another 2 weeks, so *shrug for now. I have no idea why.

UK and Ireland release date on October 11th, I might just watch it over there to boost the overseas box office lol.

2 hours ago, Lightcosmo said:

Laura Bailey had both Lucina and now Cheria replaced by Tipton? Industry must think they sound similar enough lol.

Pretty sure this has to do with unions.

1 hour ago, Codename Shrimp said:

now make UO 2 with good writing and difficulty

Based on their track record, it'll be a spiritual successor called Kraken Emperor, with a bigger focus on naval battles.

....fuck I want this now.

[Codename Shrimp]

29 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Based on their track record, it'll be a spiritual successor called Kraken Emperor, with a bigger focus on naval battles.

....fuck I want this now.

sounds cool af tbh

finally Pirate emblem

[Interdimensional Observer]

They're adding the pilots!😄

Please let there be actual interactions between these three and the Megaton crew. Their robots were added with no in-game narrative fanfare, so I'm skeptical and thinking RyoDuKou will be dropped in solely as portraits with VAs and ten new pilot skills each.

Now when are you going to finish MM's story, Level-5?

I'm surprised Level-5 is still supporting this game, I've heard the online is on the deader side. But I appreciate this. (And yes, I recognize the lack of Hayato & Musashi/Benkei, and the that the Choudenji leads aren't here either.)

-Something of interest that came for me from L5's "To the World's Children" presentation today.😀 (It didn't build that much general excitement I see, since all the games are now 2025 or 2026 (this presentation itself had been scheduled for earlier in this year, Level-5 delayed the event), and they're adding a new Yokai Watch and an Inazuma Eleven remake to their workload. The production pipeline at L5 still looks very very worrisomely congested.)

 

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Based on their track record, it'll be a spiritual successor called Kraken Emperor, with a bigger focus on naval battles.

....fuck I want this now.

Could we get some international variety? -Not all Medieval/Age of Exploration (Early Modern) European ships and pirates and vikings.

How about some Arabian dhows? And while I don't actually know that much about what it looks like 😅, I want a nation to be based on the Chola Empire. India's great maritime empire, it needs more love.

...And while we're in Asia, gimme Indonesia- Srivijaya Empire, Majaphit Empire, or the Islamic sultanates, whatever. Turning northward, China and Japan at times had pirates. Zheng Chenggong (also known to the West as Koxinga) conquered Taiwan from the Dutch, while Wokou/Wako pirates in Japanese territory pillaged the three East Asian countries for several centuries. (China also has Zheng He the Ming dynasty explorer-admiral of fame. And who can forget how Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang's forces set Cao Cao's imposing river armada ablaze at Red Cliffs?) Oh, and canoes don't make for good battle ships, but Polynesia deserves some love in a thalassophilic game too.

-Getting back to the Mediterranean, sure, make sure Venice is around. And Byzantium, not for the Fourth Crusade, but because of their legendary Greek Fire. Nor would things feel right without Phoenicia and its daughter-successor state, Carthage. (Slip in the Greek city-states and West Rome too, sure.🥱)

...Not sure if there is anything to draw from for the peoples of the Western Hemisphere.😅 I don't think the Americas were as rife with maritime history as Eurasica.

-Still plenty of diversity out there, plenty of pretty and distinctive cultures to beautifully draw. Don't give me "Aargh me hearties!" Caribbean slop, Vanillaware!😝