Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Espurrhoodie]

Just saw Godzilla: King of the Monsters. That was some good shit.

[null]

Well, getting into the Fate series has been interesting so far. Decided to start by binging on one of the anime (anime us more enjoyable for me than a VN tbh), UBW, since I read it was one of the best out of the Fate anime series and it was good for newcomers. I also picked UBW because it was Rin's route of the original FSN, or so I read. Thanks to Shrimperor for sharing the VN even if I ended up watching the anime first (I may check out the Realta Nua VN later though).

UBW started out really strong. The animation, music, and presentation were absolutely spectacular. The first few episodes had me interested. The lore was not very complex to understand and the anime did a great job of making clear what the general plot of the series was going to be very early on, about the Holy Grail War, Masters, Servants, etc. Of the characters, Shirou in particular stood out as a really likable guy with good convictions and ideals. I also like Saber quite a bit. Her personality isn't very expressive or distinct, but there's something I like about her anyway.

Midway through the first season was kind of where things slowed down, for me at least. It felt like the plot was developing at a slower pace than it needed to and I started to lose interest in what was happening. But I kept watching, and I'm glad I did. In the next few episodes, the plot felt like it picked right back up with the earlier pace and had me interested again. I haven't finished the series yet, but I'll definitely keep watching. It's a really good anime with a solid story. Thanks to the Fate fans for recommending the franchise/series.

[Armagon]

Mmmm. I can now see why i was warned about Tales of Berseria's post-game dungeon. Mmmmmmm. "Take out the spiky thingies around the big malevolence flame in order to have an easier time. But don't take out the spiky thinginges around the smaller malevolence flames, this will reduce your timelimit".

At least you can quick save (which isn't really a quick save since it doesn't go away after a single use, makes me wonder what the point of save points is) right when the timer starts so you can reload if you mess up.

I don't appreciate not knowing how many waves of enemies i have to fight tho.

36 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Just saw Godzilla: King of the Monsters. That was some good shit.

Ayyyy. Great movie and one i regret not seeing in theaters because of how impressive it was from an audiovisual standpoint. Top 5 Godzilla movie imo. It has the best incarnations of four of Toho's big five (though Shin Godzilla is still the scariest Godzilla incarnation).

Hopefully Godzilla vs Kong ends up being good, because if it does, i'll be able to call the MonsterVerse consistently good with the one bad movie in it being Godzilla (2014).

Edited July 18, 2020 by Armagon

[Lightcosmo]

Ah, Pokemon why do you curse me with bad luck? 2 Ice Beam freezes in a row? And then, a critical of bad luck, to top it off.

[Caster]

36 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Well, getting into the Fate series has been interesting so far. Decided to start by binging on one of the anime (anime us more enjoyable for me than a VN tbh), UBW, since I read it was one of the best out of the Fate anime series and it was good for newcomers. I also picked UBW because it was Rin's route of the original FSN, or so I read. Thanks to Shrimperor for sharing the VN even if I ended up watching the anime first (I may check out the Realta Nua VN later though).

UBW started out really strong. The animation, music, and presentation were absolutely spectacular. The first few episodes had me interested. The lore was not very complex to understand and the anime did a great job of making clear what the general plot of the series was going to be very early on, about the Holy Grail War, Masters, Servants, etc. Of the characters, Shirou in particular stood out as a really likable guy with good convictions and ideals. I also like Saber quite a bit. Her personality isn't very expressive or distinct, but there's something I like about her anyway.

Midway through the first season was kind of where things slowed down, for me at least. It felt like the plot was developing at a slower pace than it needed to and I started to lose interest in what was happening. But I kept watching, and I'm glad I did. In the next few episodes, the plot felt like it picked right back up with the earlier pace and had me interested again. I haven't finished the series yet, but I'll definitely keep watching. It's a really good anime with a solid story. Thanks to the Fate fans for recommending the franchise/series.

Read the VN

I'll be honest, I've never actually watched F/SN animes, because I feel like condensing... uh... how many... words again...
Like...

such a long script, into a fairly short anime, will make you miss a lot of stuff, but I know the animation is great for UBW, and that it does a good enough job for what it has to adapt, so I don't think it's a bad place to start.

I hope you might try the VN and other stuff in the future.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

Doesn't help that Monado Eater is like the worst offensive Monado Art.

If the ingame displayed hit scaling is accurate, and assuming you max it out for all the AP that costs...

• The initial hit of Monado Eater is 303%, which is the weakest of an offensive Monado Art, but...
  • Monado Eater inflicts Bleed, and I don't remember any enemies resisting Bleed/Burn/Chill/Poison in XC1, Eater inflicts ten ticks of Bleed damage dealing 20% of the base damage value- 60.6%- adding up over 20 seconds to an additional 606%, for 909% total with the initial hit.
• You can increase the Bleed damage with Bleed Plus Gems, up to 100%, which I guess would mean double the Bleed damage- so 1212%- on top of the initial 303% for 1515%.
• Shulk's Ether stat is used for Monado Eater, but looking at his stats on the Wiki, at 99 his Ether stat marginally exceeds his Strength, and his Humanity Skill Tree provides a an Ether stat increase, so it Eater isn't stronger in hit scaling merely to compensate for an Ether deficiency compared to his Strength.

By contrast, a maxed Monado Buster is 700%, 1400% vs. Mechon, that makes it better vs. Mechon without the maxed Bleed Plus Gem, but worse against everything else compared to Eater. Cyclone is 408% maxed, Purge is 353%, but you're not going to use either of these for the damage. Eater has the additional benefit of the Bleed damage not generating aggro on Shulk.

 

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

This is so funny to me.

I gotta say that I do like these instant Affinity Chart updates that pop up as you see the dialogue that mentions them. I don't remember ever seeing these on my first XCX run, but I've been seeing them from the very start on my second run. Did I turn off the option of seeing these the first time? They add a little visual pop that hammers home the relationships.

I haven't gotten to that quest yet, I know it's got to be the one atop the waterfalls in Primordia said Attempted Murderer tried to shove the Ma-non off the precipice. It should be coming up after another story chapter, two at most, maybe NLA needs a little longer for the violent acts of Xenophobia to unfold.

 

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

Xenoblade X also has some timed quests but it's nowhere near as many as Xenoblade 1's.

I'm not remembering any of these existing, which are you talking about?

 

5 hours ago, Armagon said:

If you ever decide to check out the rest of the series, you'll have an easier time with sidequests since there are significantly less of them. To compare

• Xenoblade 1 has 130 timed quests, 25 pairs of mutually-exclusive quests (you have the option of doing Quest A or Quest B but you can't do both) and 12 suprise quests. There is some overlap here and if you were to include the story quests, you'd get 480 quests in total.
  • Future Connected has 40.
• Xenoblade 2 has 111 sidequests+32 Blade quests+26 DLC quests. If you include the story quests, that brings the total up to 152.
• Torna has 52 sidequests. If you include the story quests, then you have 58 in total.

Xenoblade X is different here because there's a lot of sidequests here but it can be split up into normal sidequests and character sidequests but both types essentially have their own mini-stories.

I'd tried to count Normal Missions- those that are mini-stories- ("Basic Missions" are the story-free fetch/kill ones you take up at the BLADE terminal) by looking at the Wiki. They number 149 if I counted right, and Affinity Missions number 52. Thats an almost perfectly round 201, though in practice it probably feels like a little less, and I noticed only one mutually-exclusive quest pair- Definian Love or Fortun & Glory. And some Affinity Missions and Skell License Normal Mission are mandatory for main story progression. 

And another, unrelated Nopon tidbit I found, the BLADE who tells you about every Arms Manufacturer explained that although the Nopon are presently survive as cowards, in the distant past there were some Nopon of great valor. The weapons the Nopon Commerce Guild sells are made using the techniques preserved since the old days of Nopon bravery. Hopefully the techniques have been modified for human size and use, I can't see a true Heropon lugging around a Gatling Gun bigger than they themselves.

 

 

 

----

The evolution of Zhao Yun, a progression in subtlety, I'd like if the other longtime characters got the same treatment. Of these, the Shin Sangokumusou 5/Dynasty Warriors 6 looks the best to me at glance, the more manly, slightly aged and rougher styling is distinct against so much prettyboy. Shame it comes from what I've heard was the very bad DW6, stuck between the good culmination of the classic PS2 era- DW5, and the superior attempt at a new paradigm shift DW7.

The 20th anniversary is August 3rd (counting from DW2, not the 3D fighting game that is Sangokumusou/DW1). And apparently Koei Tecmo has another Musou in the works right now, what it is has not been revealed. I'll take FEW2 with an expanded cast representing much more of the franchise, or Xenoblade Warriors; Hyrule Warriors 2 should wait until BotW2 has released to generate more hype if it has some new NPCs who would become popular.

Oh, and after the flop of DW9 and lukewarmness of WO4, I hope Koei can correct the course of the original Musou line.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Monado Eater inflicts Bleed, and I don't remember any enemies resisting Bleed/Burn/Chill/Poison in XC1, Eater inflicts ten ticks of Bleed damage dealing 20% of the base damage value- 60.6%- adding up over 20 seconds to an additional 606%, for 909% total with the initial hit.

I don't think anything really does and it's worth noting that negative status effects stack. Monado Eater combined with Riki's Freezinate, Lurgy, and Burninate, can make for excellent damage over time.

The reason why i called Monado Eater the worst offensive Monado Art is that it doesn't really have a use outside of negating enemy buffs, which isn't really a priority. Buster is worse against non-Mechon enemies but it does have a lot of range and given that you're fighting Mechon a lot, it's pretty useful. Cyclone is Shulk's only way of Toppling and it's AoE and Purge, well, you know.

9 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I'm not remembering any of these existing, which are you talking about?

Spoiler

Lao's Affinity Missions and anything else that has to do with him. iirc, all his stuff locks out once he goes rogue.

 

11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And another, unrelated Nopon tidbit I found, the BLADE who tells you about every Arms Manufacturer explained that although the Nopon are presently survive as cowards, in the distant past there were some Nopon of great valor.

Heh. So the Miraian Nopon in the distant past were great warriors while the Alrestian Nopon in the distant past were great pirates. 

Unless i missed something, only the Bionis Nopon don't seem to have any great pasts. 

13 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

They number 149 if I counted right, and Affinity Missions number 52. Thats an almost perfectly round 201, though in practice it probably feels like a little less, and I noticed only one mutually-exclusive quest pair- Definian Love or Fortun & Glory. And some Affinity Missions and Skell License Normal Mission are mandatory for main story progression. 

So even with the big focus on the side-content, Xenoblade X still cuts down a lot of the sidequest bloat that Xenoblade 1 had. I had a feeling but i wasn't sure since i didn't know if i should've counted the Basic Missions.

[Codename Shrimp]

Btw, how are the Xeno games related to each other? (Distant) Sequels? Set in the same world? Not related st all? Is the answer a spoiler? XD

1 hour ago, twilitfalchion said:

getting into the Fate series has been interesting so far.

Welcome to Fate. Enjoy your stay, enjoy your memes ;)

43 minutes ago, Caster said:

...

Wait, Fate is bigger than ubw? And more words than HF? Huh. TIL.

50 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Tales of Berseria's post-game dungeon

How far in are you?

[Caster]

6 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Wait, Fate is bigger than ubw? And more words than HF? Huh. TIL.

Fate is literally all dialogue, why are you surprised?

Edited July 18, 2020 by Caster

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

iirc, all that stuff locks out once *spoilers*.

Well, part of it... (SPOILERS)

Spoiler

Lao's Heart to Hearts are missable, hence me working on maxing his Affinity for the sake of seeing them ingame again. Fortunately, Lao's Heart to Hearts have no Achievements associated with them, nor do they count for the Mira Survey, so failing to see them doesn't impact anything else. 

However, Lao's Affinity Missions- "A Friend in Need" and "The Matchmaker"- are not missable. Both of these are requirements before you can undertake certain Story Missions- Chapters 6 and 8. They did this to make sure Cross wouldn't be locked out of learning Balance Breaker and Afterburner from Lao. It sets in stone Lao's time of betrayal too, he started reaching out to the Ganglion after Chapter 5, as Chapter 6's strongly hints.

Chapter 7 mandates the completion of Doug's first Affinity Mission- "Close Comrades"- as well. This is because it talks about Lao and features him in-person at the end.

 

42 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Btw, how are the Xeno games related to each other? (Distant) Sequels? Set in the same world? Not related st all? Is the answer a spoiler? XD

Xenogears (the original PS1 Xeno), Xenosaga (the 3-Episode PS2 Xeno), and all of Xenoblade are all unrelated to each other.

Monolith Soft was formed and Xenosaga was created as an attempt by the "Father of Xeno" Tetsuya Takahashi and his wife Soraya Saga to create a new Xenogears game at Namco after leaving Square. Because Square didn't care about anything except Final Fantasy and badly hurt Xenogears's later development. Xenoblade came when Nintendo bought up most of Monolith Soft, although originally it wasn't going to be called "Xeno", the original title was Monado: The Beginning of the World.

The relation of Xenogears, Xenosaga and Xenoblade is similar to that of Castlevania and Bloodstained, or Fire Emblem and the "Kaga Sagas", or Mega Man and Mighty No. 9. Creations by the original creator, but without access to the old license, not identical to the old thing, but in themes similar. In fact, one shape has become universal across all of 'Gears, 'Saga, and every single 'Blade.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

24 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Btw, how are the Xeno games related to each other? (Distant) Sequels? Set in the same world? Not related st all? Is the answer a spoiler? XD

That depends. In the first place, Xeno is kinda weird since the ownership of the series depends on the suffix. Xenogears is owned by Square Enix and was made before Monolith Soft was a thing, though on account of the company being founded by the XG dev team, everyone considers Xenogears to be a Xeno game and an "unofficial" Monolith Soft game, much like how Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is considered Ghibli despite existing before the studio. Also because Tetsuya Takahashi has been writing Xeno since the beginning.

The Xenosaga trilogy and the Xenoblade games were actually made by Monolith Soft but even though Nintendo bought Monolith Soft, the rights to any games Monolith Soft produced when they were with Namco stayed with Namco.

While the three suffixes of the series have nothing to do with each other because they legally can't (KOS-MOS and T-elos crossover in Xenoblade 2 aside), a lot of themes and ideas are constant throughout the series. It's what's refered to as Perfect Works, named after the Xenogears lore/art book that contained detailed info on what would've been the Xenogears series had Square Enix not told Takahashi to can it after one game (Xenogears was Part 5 of a six part epic, though you wouldn't know it until the end credits).

Xenogears is the original Episode 5.

The Xenosaga trilogy collectively makes up Episode 1 of Perfect Works.

Xenoblade X can be argued to be Episode 2 of Perfect Works.

Torna ~ The Golden Country and Xenoblade 2 are essentially Episodes 4 and 5 of Perfect Works respectively.

Xenoblade 1 can also be argued to be Episode 5 of Perfect Works but it's worth noting that it was never intended to be a Xeno game in the first place, as the original title was "Monado: Beginning of the World". As such, it is the least "Xeno" game in the series.

And then Future Connected can loosely be argued to be Episode 6 of Perfect Works, if only because nobody knows what Episode 6 was actually supposed to be, the book never specified.

To clarify, all of the "Perfect Works" outside of Xenogears are simply different takes on what Takahashi had originally planned. As you can see, it's complicated haha.

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Well, part of it... (SPOILERS)

Spoiler

 

 

Ah ok. So aside from that, Xenoblade X doesn't have any legitimate missables. Good.

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Armagon

[Armagon]

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The relation of Xenogears and Xenosaga is similar to Castlevania and Bloodstained, or Fire Emblem and the "Kaga Sagas", or Mega Man and Mighty No. 9 & Azure Striker Gunvolt.

I know the point you make gets across but I just wanted to make a quick correction here. Azure Striker Gunvolt actually doesn't fall into "made by the original creator to be similar to thing he doesn't have access anymore". I mean, yeah, it's a Mega Man Zero spiritual successor, but the only thing Inafune had to do with it was the character design for the first game. He basically has nothing on the series outside of that.

[Armagon]

29 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

How far in are you?

On Berseria's post-game dungeon, I'm still in the first room. After hitting the spiky things caused the time limit to decrease, I basically just called it day (I saved before touching anything tho).

(Why is editing quotes into posts so difficult)

[Interdimensional Observer]

15 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I know the point you make gets across but I just wanted to make a quick correction here. Azure Striker Gunvolt actually doesn't fall into "made by the original creator to be similar to thing he doesn't have access anymore". I mean, yeah, it's a Mega Man Zero spiritual successor, but the only thing Inafune had to do with it was the character design for the first game. He basically has nothing on the series outside of that.

TBF, "character design" was all the dude had to with most of Mega Man, before seniority I guess elevated to him to Producer (and maybe 90s Japanese game development didn't have a super-strict division of labor so Inafune got to do more in practice), and somehow he became the "Father of Mega Man" to the vocal fanbase when he wasn't. 😛

Takashi is lightyears above Inafune in importance to his IP, because he has actually been on board for all of his IP (except Ep. II?).

Edited July 18, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

TBF, "character design" was all the dude had to with most of Mega Man, before seniority I guess elevated to him to Producer (and maybe 90s Japanese game development didn't have a super-strict division of labor so Inafune got to do more in practice), and somehow he became the "Father of Mega Man" to the vocal fanbase when he wasn't. 😛

That is true.

Capcom hadn't made a traditional Mega Man in years at the time so when Inafune announced Might No. 9, that was when people put the "father of Mega Man" label on him for real. They had hope. Oh, if only they knew....

 

[Caster]

Yea Keiji Inafune was mainly for character design, not so much gameplay... so... I feel like it kind of makes sense why that game came out like...
Sadly I can't blame him for X6 or X7.

[Caster]

6 hours ago, Caster said:

It's just the child protection service fee, calm down.

Also, I don't normally act this petty, but I am so upset no one liked this joke of mine

[Acacia Sgt]

No need for the spoiler tag this time. Just did what I'd call the first half of my endgame grinding in DQV. Which was mostly for the gold. Didn't took as long as I'd expected. It helps I had quite the surplus of equipment. Well, next time I'll do the second half.

[Sidereal Wraith]

Well ladies and gentlemen, I’m steeling myself for this day. My girlfriend and I are moving which may easily turn into a real pain in the ass.

Edited July 18, 2020 by Wraith

[DragonFlames]

6 hours ago, twilitfalchion said:

Well, getting into the Fate series has been interesting so far. Decided to start by binging on one of the anime (anime us more enjoyable for me than a VN tbh), UBW, since I read it was one of the best out of the Fate anime series and it was good for newcomers. I also picked UBW because it was Rin's route of the original FSN, or so I read. Thanks to Shrimperor for sharing the VN even if I ended up watching the anime first (I may check out the Realta Nua VN later though).

UBW started out really strong. The animation, music, and presentation were absolutely spectacular. The first few episodes had me interested. The lore was not very complex to understand and the anime did a great job of making clear what the general plot of the series was going to be very early on, about the Holy Grail War, Masters, Servants, etc. Of the characters, Shirou in particular stood out as a really likable guy with good convictions and ideals. I also like Saber quite a bit. Her personality isn't very expressive or distinct, but there's something I like about her anyway.

Midway through the first season was kind of where things slowed down, for me at least. It felt like the plot was developing at a slower pace than it needed to and I started to lose interest in what was happening. But I kept watching, and I'm glad I did. In the next few episodes, the plot felt like it picked right back up with the earlier pace and had me interested again. I haven't finished the series yet, but I'll definitely keep watching. It's a really good anime with a solid story. Thanks to the Fate fans for recommending the franchise/series.

It's not my place to say it since I'm pretty new to that stuff, too, but welcome to Fate!

---

Teehee

[Sidereal Wraith]

Drinks for the drink god!

Edited July 18, 2020 by Wraith

[null]

8 hours ago, Caster said:

Read the VN

8 hours ago, Caster said:

I hope you might try the VN and other stuff in the future.

I'll be sure to check it out as well as some of the other Fate media. 👍

8 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

Welcome to Fate. Enjoy your stay, enjoy your memes 😉

3 hours ago, DragonFlames said:

It's not my place to say it since I'm pretty new to that stuff, too, but welcome to Fate!

Thanks!

[Lightcosmo]

8 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If the ingame displayed hit scaling is accurate, and assuming you max it out for all the AP that costs...

• The initial hit of Monado Eater is 303%, which is the weakest of an offensive Monado Art, but...
  • Monado Eater inflicts Bleed, and I don't remember any enemies resisting Bleed/Burn/Chill/Poison in XC1, Eater inflicts ten ticks of Bleed damage dealing 20% of the base damage value- 60.6%- adding up over 20 seconds to an additional 606%, for 909% total with the initial hit.
• You can increase the Bleed damage with Bleed Plus Gems, up to 100%, which I guess would mean double the Bleed damage- so 1212%- on top of the initial 303% for 1515%.
• Shulk's Ether stat is used for Monado Eater, but looking at his stats on the Wiki, at 99 his Ether stat marginally exceeds his Strength, and his Humanity Skill Tree provides a an Ether stat increase, so it Eater isn't stronger in hit scaling merely to compensate for an Ether deficiency compared to his Strength.

By contrast, a maxed Monado Buster is 700%, 1400% vs. Mechon, that makes it better vs. Mechon without the maxed Bleed Plus Gem, but worse against everything else compared to Eater. Cyclone is 408% maxed, Purge is 353%, but you're not going to use either of these for the damage. Eater has the additional benefit of the Bleed damage not generating aggro on Shulk.

 

 

 

I think Eater is considered the worst because of it's poor chain attack synergy. Bleed is pretty useless if you plan to end the battle with chain attack nukes.

That and even if you consider using it without chain attacks, it's animation is sooooo slow.

[Lightcosmo]

Also, just checked around for Xenosaga episode III copies... 220$?

Yikes.

[Caster]

How much ya want a legitimate copy? 😛