Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[null]

30 minutes ago, Benice said:

Wanna know a turn-based RPG that won't make you cheat just to beat it?

Trails in the Sky?

Rune Factory?

Edited March 24, 2021 by twilitfalchion

[Acacia Sgt]

SRW

[Saint Rubenio]

4 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

Trails in the Sky?

Rune Factory?

Mario Golf on the GameBoy Color!

No seriously, that was a RPG. I cannot speak for how well it plays, but the idea alone is amazing.

[Punished Dayni]

2 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Mario Golf on the GameBoy Color!

No seriously, that was a RPG. I cannot speak for how well it plays, but the idea alone is amazing.

I mean, it's Camelot.

If you consider Golden Sun's playable without cheats, I bet that'll be too.

(Wasn't Tennis also an RPG?)

[null]

❤️

One of the best boss themes. Perfection.

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I will say tho, I think the game becomes 10000x more enjoyable if you get the undub patch. Because looking back, I can see the exact reason why I decided to put the game off for like two years: the English voice acting.

I do not blame you. Back then, I hardly knew better, now, it's grating.😖

The only time the English VAs work is with Mizuti, because they intentionally electronically altered her voice with the mask on in both English and Japanese.

 

And since you're done with the game, here is the art book interview. No major revelations in it, but it does provide you with some perspective on what the developers were thinking.:

http://www.sceneryrecalled.com/trans/bkint.htm

Also, I have no clue what language "Xelha" is. I tried Google Translate I don't think it's Japanese though, but it was of no help.

[Sooks]

2 people in class answered that water isn’t a natural resource. Yay school.

[Benice]

-_-

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Sooks said:

2 people in class answered that water isn’t a natural resource. Yay school.

Nestle shills?

Okay probably not, but I have to wonder what made them come to that conclusion.

[Interdimensional Observer]

10 minutes ago, Dayni said:

USA! shills?

Correction! 

From what I've heard of a few times, privatized water rights, particularly in the US Southwest, is capitalism run amok and should be purged from this planet in the name of humanity.

Coke is I think another corporate perpetrator of this vile behavior.

[Sooks]

3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Correction! 

From what I've heard of a few times, privatized water rights, particularly in the US Southwest, is capitalism run amok and should be purged from this planet in the name of humanity.

Coke is I think another corporate perpetrator of this vile behavior.

What do you mean privatized water rights?

[Punished Dayni]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Correction! 

From what I've heard of a few times, privatized water rights, particularly in the US Southwest, is capitalism run amok and should be purged from this planet in the name of humanity.

Coke is I think another corporate perpetrator of this vile behavior.

  Nestle just happens to be one I know for a fact does it on a global scale, there's more of them indeed.

2 minutes ago, Sooks said:

What do you mean privatized water rights?

An explanation is that water could be treated as a private item in a similar manner to privately owned land. Or letting the private sector be largely involved in the provision of water utilities/owning large resevoirs of water.

In effect giving free reign to exploit as they please as large enough private companies aren't exactly given great oversight.

[Interdimensional Observer]

11 minutes ago, Sooks said:

What do you mean privatized water rights?

It's been a while since I was last informed of it, so don't rely on me for perfect answers. 

If you own the land over an aquifer, or a section of river, or a lake, you can legally do whatever you want with the water therein.

The core issue of water rights, is that wealthy businesses buy up access to all the water in a given location, which they then use for their economic schemes. Meanwhile, the community at large suffers.

If you're Coca-Cola, you use all the water for your ripoff Dasani bottled water which you then sell to people, or you turn it into soda. If you want to be "public" utility company that manages the water for the locality, you charge exorbitant prices for water.

The result, is that the people who live there can't get clean and affordable water. You need water to clean stuff, you need water to drink so you can live. Good luck going without that. This is particularly true in poorer communities, and regions of a country where water is scarce -like a desert.

Water is a human right, water should belong to the community it resides in. It is not for making profit off of. 

Businesses will say "tragedy of the commons", that left to the local communities, that water will be wasted because everyone has access to it, therefore nobody properly cares for it. That is pure BS in this particular instance and they're the real water-wasters. It is entirely possible for a community to wisely manage water resources on its own, you don't need to turn water into a market commodity.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Interdimensional Observer

[Lightcosmo]

37 minutes ago, Dayni said:

I mean, it's Camelot.

If you consider Golden Sun's playable without cheats, I bet that'll be too.

(Wasn't Tennis also an RPG?)

Yes, and both are very difficult, especially Tennis. Spike and his infamous drop shot will ruin your day faster than you can imagine if not prepared for it.

[Punished Dayni]

11 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Yes, and both are very difficult, especially Tennis. Spike and his infamous drop shot will ruin your day faster than you can imagine if not prepared for it.

 He says Get Spiked! when he does it or we riot.

[Armagon]

(Copied from my Backloggd)

Baten Kaitos is a fun, if somewhat flawed, Monolith Soft JRPG

I've been a fan of Monolith Soft for a long time but despite all that time, the only games i've ever played from them was the Xeno series. Or rather, the only original games i've played from them were the Xeno games, because i have played other games that had Monolith Soft involvement. But i wanted to see what else Monolith Soft had on their resume so i decided to check out Baten Kaitos, one of the company's few non-Xeno titles. And while the game can be rough, it was overall a fun enough experience to where i can say i liked it.

To start things off, the game is a card-based RPG. I had never actually played a card-based RPG before, mainly because i felt i wouldn't vibe with it. But this was a Monolith Soft game after all so through the power of bias, i decided to give it an honest shot. And as i played the game, i felt that the battle system is overall pretty fun when it wants to be but also pretty frustrating at other times. Playing your cards right to deal maximum damage or guard perfectly is pretty addicting and i liked seeing big numbers when attacking and small numbers when defending. However, the battle system becomes frustrating when you're current hand is all attack cards when you need to defend or all defend cards when you need to attack. There's no way to shuffle unless your cards run out so i definitely had turns where i literally could not do anything. Not being able to attack is worse because using a non-attack card ends your turn whereas with defending, you can at least burn through some cards until you find a defense one. Still though, the game is fun when you actually get to play it and i can say instances of not being able to do anything happened less often than instances where i do get to do things.

On the narrative side of the game, it's decent but i'd say the faults here are bigger than what you'd find in Xeno. Now it seems that the game was mainly written by Tri-Crescendo and not Monolith Soft, which does explain some things. Still though, the writing does work for the most part. Kalas is one of the better Monolith Soft protags (but since i only have Xeno protags to compare him to, i'm gonna avoid ranking him for now). The guy starts off with a first impression that would make Luke from Tales of the Abyss look nice and i know a friend of mine said "his name is Kalas because he's callous". And i don't mean to say he makes a bad first impression.....well i mean, he can, but at least for me, i thought it was hilarious how one of the first things this guy does is loot the corpses of a girl's dead companions because "they're dead, they don't need this stuff anymore". Kalas is also technically a cyborg because he has a robotic wing since he was only born with one natural wing and i just think that's raw.

The other characters are fine, if kinda weak. They kinda suffer from the plot of the game not really having any breaks. I can compare it to Xenoblade 1 in this instance, just like in that game, the plot just keeps going and doesn't really leave time for character moments. But Xenoblade 1 still had it's Fallen Arm moments and (grindy) Heart-to-Hearts, something i can't say about Baten Kaitos. Each of the other characters do get their own little sidequest towards the end of the game and some of the characters do get cute little moments but i wanted more, you know? Still, i can't say i thought the cast was bad. Their charming in their own ways.

As for the story itself, the first half is your standard McGuffin quest. It works but i can understand if some people wouldn't be as interested in it. I mean, i kinda wasn't either, not out of distaste but throughout the first half of the game, i can say that the story was not a main reason why i was playing this game. The story also does this weird thing where the characters directly address the player as "the Guardian Spirit". It's similar to Mark in Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, but i can at least say that the Guardian Spirit felt more involved with the plot than Mark ever did.

The second half of the story becomes a lot more interesting but i actually can't talk about it without going into spoilers. This review can be read spoiler-free but i will include a spoiler section (with a warning) at the end, for those who want more elaboration.

Anyways, one of the best things about this game is the world. I can definitely say that i think this game is when Monolith Soft started getting more creative with their worlds. I love Xenogears and Xenosaga but as far as setting goes, they are your standard sci-fi fare for the most part. In Baten Kaitos, you have: a floating island made up entirely of clouds, a floating island that exists in it's own dimension (and this island is called Mira, and it's island that is 100% weird and Monolith Soft totally revisited this concept for Xenoblade X), a floating island with a tree nearly as tall as the island itself, a literal river in the sky. Actually navigating these locations could be better, it's very linear for the most part. But just as far as concepts go, it's a very nice world.

The music is also very good which is surprising considering Motoi Sakuraba is the composer. The guy is the main composer for the Tales series and i speak from experience when i say that Tales soundtracks are not very memorable. I've heard that Sakuraba is actually better when he isn't doing Tales and you know what, i can agree with that. The True Mirror is an absolute banger of a battle theme and even though it's the only regular battle theme in the game, it never got old. The other battle themes in this game are bangers as well, although i will say that the area themes, for the most part, did sorta draw the short stick here.

As for stuff i just didn't like, i need to acknowledge that i started this game like two years and i only decided to pick it up and finish it a few weeks ago. Why? Because the English voice acting is atrociously awful. The English voice acting in the opening cinematic is alright but in the game itself? No thank you. These English voice actors did their lines with the kind of energy you'd hear in a high-school popcorn reading session. It was that bad and the game becomes 100000x more enjoyable if you get an undub patch.

The boss fights in the second half of the game are honestly kinda annoying. It was around this point that i'll admit, i did turn on cheats. Bosses at this point just had a lot of HP, some had annoying HP restore moves. Combine this with the flaws of the combat system that i mentioned earlier, it definitely just made me want to get the fights over with.

The villains, apart from one, are also pretty weak. We don't really get any insight into their motivation so they just feel like Saturday morning cartoon goons.

Overall though, the game is pretty fun. I don't know yet if i'd fully recommend it, it's definitely not aged well in some parts, but it's a fun game overall. But if you're a Monolith Soft fan, i'd definitely recommend the game. At least give it an honest shot.

7/10

And now for the MAJOR SPOILERS
 

Spoiler

The second half of the game's story becomes more interesting when Kalas temporarily becomes evil. It's also at this point that we're shown the game's twist villain, Melodia. As far as twists go, i was definitely caught off guard. In hindsight, the foreshadowing was there, i just didn't put two-and-two together until after it happened. However, while Melodia works as the twist, she doesn't really work as the villain. It's later revealed that she was unknowingly manipulated the entire time but idk, that felt kinda lame to me. I like villains that do things simply because they can but it didn't feel like that in this case.

Evil Kalas is more interesting. It could've been done better, sure, but not many games have the main protagonist betray the group and you have to fight him later. Once Kalas returns to the light, he is forgiven a bit too easily but eh, not a dealbreaker.

At any rate, as i've said, the second half of the game is a lot more interesting than the first.

 

57 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I do not blame you. Back then, I hardly knew better, now, it's grating.😖

I hope Origins has better voice acting.

57 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And since you're done with the game, here is the art book interview. No major revelations in it, but it does provide you with some perspective on what the developers were thinking.:

http://www.sceneryrecalled.com/trans/bkint.htm

Thanks. I'll look into it later.

24 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Water is a human right, water should belong to the community it resides in. It is not for making profit off of.

The fact that some people would unironically debate this makes me lose faith in humanity.

Did you know that in UK, it's actually illegal for water companies to turn off your water? If you can't pay the monthly bill, they'll take you to court to find an alternative but they can never turn off your water because it's recognized as a basic human right.

Meanwhile guess what America can do if you can't pay your water bill.

Edited March 24, 2021 by Armagon

[Acacia Sgt]

Is it, "Ugh, Capitalism" O'Clock already?

[Punished Dayni]

Meanwhile we had massive protests about water charges in this last decade.

The accusation of not wanting to pay them out of it being an additional cost didn't really work out in favour of the government.

Just now, Acacia Sgt said:

Is it, "Ugh, Capitalism" O'Clock already?

I mean, I'm always on clock for that.

[Armagon]

 

[null]

 

[Sooks]

4 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Is it, "Ugh, Capitalism" O'Clock already?

When is it not?

[Benice]

[Sooks]

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Mario Golf on the GameBoy Color!

No seriously, that was a RPG. I cannot speak for how well it plays, but the idea alone is amazing.

I will gladly recommend the GBA Mario Golf Game (which is also a Golf RPG), and I remember those Mario Golf RPGs inspiring a spiritual successor on the switch called Golf Story.

[Saint Rubenio]

Here's a random-ass video, for no reason at all.