Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Armagon]

Ayo did Haken and Kaguya just fuck?

Anyways that's Endless Frontier done.

[Acacia Sgt]

23 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Odd. That wasn't my experience at all.

What? It played like a JRPG for me. None of the original mechanics had any impact, thus battles became as mindless and repetitive as in any generic JRPG.

I don't understand anything. We're both talking about Trials here, aren't we?

I'd really want to know just what orbment setups you did if you unlocked entire-field spells that early.

You didn't happen to overlevel?

It's part of the Teehee lore: Acacia is always satisfied.  Yeah, let's leave it that I'm having fun with the game, and you didn't. The music helps.

[Armagon]

Endless Frontier is a game with fun characters but you're better off watching an LP (review)

Endless Frontier is a crossover game much in the same vein as Namco x Capcom and the Project X Zone games. And much like the former and the first game of the latter, this game excels in character interaction and honestly not much else. As far as the characters go, there's never a dull time with this cast. It's a crossover game but only three of the seven characters are from other games, the rest being OCs but you would never really assume that based on how they interact. Part of this cast's greatness is the horniness. This game is very horny and it's very proud of it. Like at first i thought it was Haken who was horny and that was it but nah, it's pretty much every character in this game barring Reiji and KOS-MOS. As for the narrative itself, it's honestly pretty flat, which is fine. This isn't a game i came with expecting a gripping story.

Where the game falls flat is the gameplay. Foundationally, i like it, it's pretty much Project X Zone. However, much like Project X Zone 1 and Namco x Capcom that came before it, there's a lot of problems here, problems that i admittedly just used cheat codes to get through. If an enemy so much as touches the ground, even a pixel, during a combo, they have a chance of activating Forced Evasion, which nullifies whoever's turn it was that was active. This is abused by the enemy very often. This game has surprise boss fights, sometimes very close together. You could walk into a room in a dungeon, there's a boss fight. Get past it, go to the next room, another boss fight. This is very annoying considering you can only save at save points but i emulated so lol. Nah but even with that, it was annoying how this game just had no breaks when it comes to boss fights. Monolith Soft has a strong tendency to improve a lot when it comes to sequels so hopefully Endless Frontier Exceed follows that trend.

5/10

Edited January 12, 2022 by Armagon

[Saint Rubenio]

19 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'd really want to know just what orbment setups you did if you unlocked entire-field spells that early.

I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure they weren't entire field spells. Enemies were always close enough to all be hit, though, no exceptions as far as I recall. Maybe tomorrow I can check, I didn't uninstall the game.

Quote

You didn't happen to overlevel?

I was hating the combat too much to overlevel lol

Quote

It's part of the Teehee lore: Acacia is always satisfied.

True forgot

Quote

  Yeah, let's leave it that I'm having fun with the game, and you didn't. The music helps.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue here or anything. I was just curious, it felt like you were describing an entirely different game, haha.

Meh. Maybe at some point I'll give it another shot. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? I like it and then I have to sink hundreds of euros and hours into the rest of the franchise?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Saint Rubenio

[Codename Shrimp]

So much suffering

So much destruction

Everything going wrong

Characters getting broken

War

I.LOVE.THIS

Tfw i am talking about a pseudo-incest spin-off

[Acacia Sgt]

3 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure they weren't entire field spells. Enemies were always close enough to all be hit, though, no exceptions as far as I recall. Maybe tomorrow I can check, I didn't uninstall the game.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue here or anything. I was just curious, it felt like you were describing an entirely different game, haha.

Meh. Maybe at some point I'll give it another shot. I mean, what's the worst that could happen? I like it and then I have to sink hundreds of euros and hours into the rest of the franchise?

Haven't seen that happening often. I have seen some battle formations with three monsters close enough to hit with one spell, but for the most part it's just two but the rest aren't, or the entire formation isn't close enough for any to be under the same spell AoE without them moving.

I mean, everyone is expecting you to love the Cold Steel games. XD

Just now, Shrimpresident said:

So much suffering

So much destruction

Everything going wrong

Characters getting broken

War

I.LOVE.THIS

Tfw i am talking about a pseudo-incest spin-off

Of what exactly?

[Acacia Sgt]

Seriously, Estelle says Teehee very often...

[Venger_06]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

06 was cappin' when he said this Part was mid.

Definition of MEH, the last chapters ruined all the potential it had.The ending feels very inconclusive, the climax is rushed and the guy who turns out to be the villain sucks. It could have been great if it stuck the landing. It's also FULL of plot holes and retcons, too much even for Araki's usual work, which make a mystery based story feel like shit.

This review reflects my thoughts

Quote

At some point the story feels like it lost its way, we could probably argue for hours about what that point even is, and if you think such a point exists but i am here to share my point of view. If you ask me, everything went downhill with the wonder of you arc.
The wonder of you (miracle of your love) is jojolions equivalent to part 3's DIO's world or part 5's Gold experience requiem, the final arc of the series, starting in chapter 83 and ending in chapter 108 with the death of jojolions main antagonist.

Now, that might sound weird to you, i've written THIS MUCH about the story of part 8, and yet, not even once until now was this main antagonist ever mentioned, why is that?
Well im glad you asked.
That my friend, is because this supposedly omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent character...
Is introduced in this last arc. The same way your average jojo villain of the week would be introduced.

The intimidating presence other better written villains in the series have had? Gone.
The screen time necessary to make us understand a main antagonist fully or to make them even slightly interesting? Gone.
My smile and optimism? Gone.

So already were off to a bad start to this arc, but it gets worse. Because with the power of his incredibly overpowered and confusing stand, Wonder of u, the main antagonist doesnt just go down as a underwhelming antagonist, he goes down as an underwhelming antagonist whos biggest achievement ends up being the murders of characters who are approximately 10000000 times more interesting than him (and in Keis case, a character who had the potential to be that interesting someday).

One of those characters being Jobin, who still had a character arc to complete, and the one a lot of people thought could end up being the main antagonist with all the conflict he causes in the story, specially for Josuke himself, but he was instead basically replaced by a entirely inferior character in every single way.
Jobin, Rai, Kei and Kaato all bite the dust. Supposedly because Araki probably didnt know what to do with them anymore, and the story needed to be wrapped up.

Speaking of wrapping up the story... Go beyond.
That is the name of Josukes endgame power up that is used to defeat Wonder of u. But unlike the previous endgame power ups, go beyond had very little set up, the closest we get to that is rai noticing that josukes stands ability seems to probably work in a certain way, only to then never actually give that information to Josuke.
So this power that our protagonist was completely unaware of comes basically out of nowhere at the most convenient time possible to almost immediately defeat the villain.
Which is like... The textbook definition of a deus ex machina.

...

So that was a total disaster.

It is extremely baffling that the guy who wrote Steel Ball Run wrote this shit.

[Armagon]

Ah so we got proper chapters now. Also much like PxZ2, the presentation is already leagues better.

3 minutes ago, Shrimpresident said:

So much suffering

So much destruction

Everything going wrong

Characters getting broken

War

I.LOVE.THIS

Tfw i am talking about a pseudo-incest spin-off

What?

[Codename Shrimp]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Of what exactly?

Otome game worlds are tough for mobs. I read it as a comfort food manga like many i read and wouldn't really recommend it...

Until the spin-off came to my notice today. In the spin-off, MC and Heroine are isekai'd brother-sister, but they have no relation at all in isekai and they don't think they were siblings before isekai.

I thought it would be something i read fast to pass time and laugh at absurdity,  especislly since 'sister' was pretty antagonistic in original series, but boi..

4 minutes ago, Armagon said:

What?

Ya know, me and suffering go hand in hand

[Dayni]

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Ah so we got proper chapters now. Also much like PxZ2, the presentation is already leagues better.

That's a lot earlier than in Fates 😛

[Interdimensional Observer]

46 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Ayo did Haken and Kaguya just fuck?

I assumed it was just a kiss back in the day, but... yeah it's difficult to not want to think it's more than that. Kaguya being the most innocent one in the cast makes me think so.

26 minutes ago, Armagon said:

5/10

Understandable perspective. I don't think I ever had issues with the boss fight frequency, but I did warn you Forced Evasion was bad, and paired with HP regeneration on bosses, yeah the end of it was a slog for me.

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Ah so we got proper chapters now. Also much like PxZ2, the presentation is already leagues better.

Already jumping into Endless Frontier Season 2 I see. May your fortunes fair better with this one.

I tried looking for my old final review remarks on Exceed, but that appears to have been lost when the other thread became warped.

[Acacia Sgt]

Okay, did the mushroom and medicine requests. Now to head to the mayor's house... but that's for next time.

[Benice]

54 minutes ago, Armagon said:

As for the narrative itself, it's honestly pretty flat

Really? That shocks me, given the character designs.

 

Man, school was depressing today. At least I'm home now, though.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Benice

[Armagon]

@Shrimpresident the witch is back and her tongue is as sharp as ever.

This was a boss fight because of course but unlike last time

She joins the team. Dunno if she's permamnent tho.

Monolith Soft dirty for putting this fight in front of a save point. Thankfully, there is one in the previous room.

38 minutes ago, Awakened_06_ said:

The ending feels very inconclusive, the climax is rushed and the guy who turns out to be the villain sucks.

Oh yeah the ending is definitely the weakest part about it but honestly? I'd still take it over the incredibly unnecessary prequel arc that gets shoved in at the end of Part 5's ending and Part 6's generally bad ending.

The villain also sucks i agree.

38 minutes ago, Awakened_06_ said:

So this power that our protagonist was completely unaware of comes basically out of nowhere at the most convenient time possible to almost immediately defeat the villain.

Tbf Joseph literally defeats Kars through the power of luck so this isn't....new for Araki.

Like i would actually argue that Go Beyond is less of a deus ex than what happened in Part 2's climax (and honestly less of a deus ex than Joseph himself). But Part 2 is peak fiction and Joseph is still the best JoJo so......

I still haven't decided where i'd put Part 8 but i can say for sure it's going above Parts 6 and 3.

26 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I assumed it was just a kiss back in the day, but... yeah it's difficult to not want to think it's more than that. Kaguya being the most innocent one in the cast makes me think so.

She literally tells Haken to turn off the lights.

26 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Already jumping into Endless Frontier Season 2 I see. May your fortunes fair better with this one.

The improved UI is already a Godsend. I also love how even when the Forced Evasion gauge fills, it actually tells you a % of it activating. It did not activate a single time against Kyon.

You also kinda seem to take less damage in this game?

Edited January 12, 2022 by Armagon

[Venger_06]

16 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Oh yeah the ending is definitely the weakest part about it but honestly? I'd still take it over the incredibly unnecessary prequel arc that gets shoved in at the end of Part 5's ending and Part 6's generally bad ending.

>recontextualizes the entire story into its overarching theme

>incredibly unnecessary prequel arc

Unnecessary is the Radio Gaga Incident, which although it's nice to see Lucy Steel again and SBR Joseph, doesn't serve to wrap up anything of the part. The only thing we got out of it was how Josefumi got his name, lmao

20 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Tbf Joseph literally defeats Kars through the power of luck so this isn't....new for Araki.

Araki wrote Battle Tendency in 1989 when he was still practically a beginner in the field. He wrote JoJolion as a seasoned veteran, and after writing Steel Ball Run aka Peak Fiction.

Like, I know sometimes you don't live up to previous standards, but I thought he would at least try harder.

[Armagon]

Oh you're here early.

Also i just noticed that this game is doing the NxC and PxZ thing with different prolouges featuring different characters and then they all meet up. Though i expect the whole gang to get together way earlier compared to NxC and PxZ.

1 minute ago, Awakened_06_ said:

>recontextualizes the entire story into its overarching theme

>incredibly unnecessary prequel arc

Ah yes, i definitely wanted to learn that some of these characters were fated to die......after they had already died.

[Acacia Sgt]

You're close to meet best character.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Venger_06]

Like he said at the start, a bad ending to a piece of media can color the view that media from that point on, and make people disregard the work altogether. That's just how I feel.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Awakened_06_

[Interdimensional Observer]

58 minutes ago, Armagon said:

The improved UI is already a Godsend. I also love how even when the Forced Evasion gauge fills, it actually tells you a % of it activating. It did not activate a single time against Kyon.

Forced Evasion can't activate I believe unless the E Gauge is at/over 100%. The E Gauge depletes a little each time an enemy attacks, and once they've used Forced Evasion, the gauge empties completely, assuring you'll not see another Forced right away.

I felt it was a serious improvement, but let's see how far you will go.😛

53 minutes ago, Armagon said:

You also kinda seem to take less damage in this game?

Well, you've only begun. But there does seem to have been a bit of stat inflation in this game.

Two gameplay tips.;

• Haken gets a new Special Skill called Canfield, this applies Alert -all attacks miss, dealing 10% of their normal damage for one round of combat- to all four front row characters. If a boss is all by their lonesome/you're down to one enemy, this is quite useful. Since it costs only 30% of the F Gauge, and bosses can only attack once per turn. I usually reapplied it after it wore off on two allies, or if the enemy used a party wide attack.
  • Against two strong boss enemies, this isn't quite as good, since it's easier for them to bust through the Alerts, and I didn't use it when there were three or four enemies alive in a boss battle.
• Xiaomu gets the Spirit called Barrier. This renders all four front row characters immune to status ailments for three turns. It's expensive on the SP, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If boss fights start getting annoying with the ailments, break out the Sage Fox of Shinra.

As another piece of advice, once each character learns five Normal Skills, you may wish to mess around with them some more. Exceed changed it so that if you have five different Normal Skills in a character's active set, a total of 10% COM is taken off of the cost of the entire routine. So if the base cost is 85% COM, it'll be reduced to 75%. This doesn't force you to have no repeating skills in a character's lineup, do so if you find it works best, but it's an incentive to diversify. Since you can now change skill sets mid-fight and each character can have three different setups saved at once, toy with Normal Skills as you please.

[Sooks]

Ruben on his way to get S and M content to Thors Military Academy.

[Armagon]

I like 'em

Interesting move to have them forget their memories tho.

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Since you can now change skill sets mid-fight and each character can have three different setups saved at once, toy with Normal Skills as you please.

You could do this in EF as well but saving the set-ups is new to me.

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I like 'em

Interesting move to have them forget their memories tho.

OGverse finally delivering Ahoseru after... doing what they did in GBA OG2. Having Alfimi join in is like icing on the cake. XD

Also... that happens for a reason. Very important story-related reason (not in-game, I mean, developer's decision). Don't try to look up their previous history... not yet at least.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Armagon]

Little conflicted on this change. EF showed you all the characters and if their stats would go up based on the equipment but it wasn't really specific until you applied it yourself. Here, it shows more detail but now i have to flip the pages to see the buffs.

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Also... that happens for a reason. Very important story-related reason. Don't try to look up their previous history... not yet at least.

I figured. Probably to keep newcomers for learning too much.

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Armagon said:

I figured. Probably to keep newcomers for learning too much.

Yeah, pretty much. Unlike the first EF, now you have actual OGverse characters crossing over.

But on the plus side... Silly Axel. Just. Silly Axel.