Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Saint Rubenio]

20 minutes ago, Awoken Dayni said:

By that logic every time he changes forms he loses power/makes Anankos weaker.

That's how they beat him in Conquest. They made him less Garon. In Birthright, he made himself less Garon because he's Garon and Garon does everything wrong all the time because he's horribly written, leading to his defeat. And in Revelation, Anankos thought he could absorb Garon's power by eating Garon... But that only made Garon cease to be, which means Anankos became vincible. The lesson here is, you don't interfere with Garon. You just let him be Garon.

20 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

I don't think you will like it, honestly, and i don't thing it's the best game of all time either, but i feel like you are judging it purely from character design perspective and nothing else

Well, not really. Believe it or not, I can be forgiving when it comes to these things. I mean, if you recall, I readily jumped on that DS strategy game called Rondo of Swords, despite the fact that the chibi artstyle and the designs were for the most part quite ugly to me. I still played it, because the gameplay enticed me and the story premise intrigued me. And I've bought and will play Symphony of War at some point, even though like half of the female characters I've seen are BLATANT fetish bait of multiple varieties, because again, gameplay looked interesting. Not to mention, I've played no less than eight Ace Attorney games and enjoyed all of them, despite the fact that the series gets up to stuff like this all the time. Fanservice and less-than-ideal character designs is not the end-all-be-all for me, as much as I whine about it.

As for XC2, I've seen bits and pieces here and there. While the character designs are certainly obnoxious and very distracting, to be sure, it's not the only thing. I mean, Armagon once described XC2 as a "boy meets girl" story, and every scene I've seen of it certainly fits the bill. That's just... No, not my thing in the slightest. The bits of humor I saw didn't make me budge, either, and the characters looked like big tropes of the kind I dislike with "hidden depth", not unlike Three Houses... And I find I don't like Three Houses's cast all that much. And the gameplay... Ehhhh what I saw of it didn't catch my eye. Not bad, but it didn't get me excited, it didn't get me researching further, it didn't get me thinking "I look forward to do this or that" - these are things I tend to feel when I'm on my way to make the decision to get a game.

It's just too many things together. And I've said it before, Xenoblade 2 did have things that looked good. The exploration, for one, and I probably would find a few characters I liked if I were to dig below the fanservicey, tropey surface. But there are simply too many factors going against it for me to take the gamble. And with how highly everyone speaks of it and having seen KOS-MOS, well... It's led me to believe Monolith in general just isn't for me. I could certainly be wrong, of course.

Quote

Hiding magic 

You know that's how IntSys would do it.

You know what'd be cool? A cult-kun that is trying to replace mankind with cyborgs because man bad or something. So they're all poorly stitched up half-cyborgs themselves, and they capture people and rip their bodies apart so they can put steel in them, and all of their units have weapons built into their bodies. A cliché, to be sure, but it'd be more interesting than garbage bags again, hmm?

Edited July 29, 2022 by Saint Rubenio

[Codename Shrimp]

1 minute ago, Saint Rubenio said:

"boy meets girl" stor

That's one of their stories and not all of them, so i still can't see how you arrived to "they'd make everything i hate"

2 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You know what'd be cool? A cult-kun that is trying to replace mankind with cyborgs because man bad or something

Cyber gnosis time

[Saint Rubenio]

6 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

That's one of their stories and not all of them, so i still can't see how you arrived to "they'd make everything i hate"

Ehhh frankly, I guessed. From what you guys talked about their games, the three or four clips I'd seen of Xenosaga and what little I know of those games. I did say I could be wrong, but I've safer places to look for enjoyable games than a studio of which practically everything I currently know works against it.

6 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Cyber gnosis time

Yeah, sure!

What's that?

[Interdimensional Observer]

26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

But let's have it, then. What else has Monolith done? Anything that could be more up my alley, perhaps?

NOPE!

Them's the breaks, unfortunately. 😅

26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I will say this: When you're told all the time that this is the greatest videogame ever made

Armagon says that, not me, I never have (I tend to be more cautious overall in my judgements and recommendations). And overall, XC2 has attracted a lot of Internet controversy over its designs, so you're not alone on the wider world wide web. The designs are practically the only smutty thing that XC2 even has, Endless Frontier is where the splendidly wonderful smutty writing is in a Monolith game.

26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Is that... what the hell is that? Does it have its brains on its chest...?

Just an alien who wants the last vestige of humanity annihilated. A plain mediocre big bad whose design is about the only thing going for him.

26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yes, this I must admit. Guillo looked fun. He also looked like he was in a very traditional JRPG, which spells almost certain doom for me

Armagon resorted to infinite HP cheats with Baten Kaitos Origins, that bodes ill for you.😆 You'd be better off with me assembling a list of timestamps from the commentary-free longplay of BKO set to Guillo-notable moments.

26 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Gahahahah... Hey, I do genuinely think it'd be interesting to have a massive change of setting. See what they do with such a thing. How would they go about throwing a cult-kun in a futuristic space setting? It could be fun.

First, space is vast. How vast depends on what scope you go for. Stick to a single planet, a couple planets/one solar system, decent chunk of a galaxy, or go intergalactic with wormholes for faster-than-light speed?

If you're doing anything beyond a single planet, you can hide the cult HQ on the dark side of an asteroid or uninhabited planetoid or moon or something.

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You know that's how IntSys would do it.

Monolith for the record has done cloaking technology before. Solaris the floating evil country back in Xenogears, ordinary people knew it existed, but had no idea where it was. Although you can't criticize Monolith for this b/c they were loosely copying that from Childhood's End, an old sci-fi novel by an acclaimed author of the genre.😛

Xenogears has had an evil church, thought not a cult. No Xeno game has a major cult, there was a cutesy apocalyptic one in XC2 in one side quest, and XCX had a more serious side quest cult, but they're not important.

11 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

You know what'd be cool? A cult-kun that is trying to replace mankind with cyborgs because man bad or something. So they're all poorly stitched up half-cyborgs themselves, and they capture people and rip their bodies apart so they can put steel in them, and all of their units have weapons built into their bodies. A cliché, to be sure

Transhumanism -going the limitations of the natural human form- is indeed a basic sci-fi trope. Although you can go for an organic "graft alien tissue into humans" approach instead of machinery.

Either way, I would take it myself. Because indeed, it could be aesthetically pleasing for a one-off experience in FE.

Although we suddenly run into the danger of a three-way narrative-gameplay split between the Pure Humans, the Xenophiles (who probably end up being Manaketes🥱), and the Cyborgs. We can't allow this to happen.😠

[Codename Shrimp]

18 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Yeah, sure!

What's that?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis

Just with a cyber/futuristic twist

[Codename Shrimp]

@Armagon

Say, anything akin to vouch items soom or something?

I miss my fast canceling into each other arts with faster attacks making attacks recharge faster lol

20+ seconds for an art is too much xD

[Armagon]

2 hours ago, Shrimpy said:

Most devs: Animated cutscenes

Monolith: kino in engine cutscenes

Can we have Monlith for FE? No?

Monolith: "we also seamlessly transition between our mo-capped and not mo-capped scenes".

The presentation of the game is absolutely the best in the series, the only thing I do miss tho is that the chapter names aren't present at the start and end of each chapter like in Xenoblade 2.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Why am I seeing the faint shadow of a 13th here?😛

Whatever do you mean haha?

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

XC1 is where the narrative spectacle started taking off

Xenosaga Episode III walked so Xenoblade 1 could run.

Seriously that KOS-MOS vs T-elos fight goes hard.

1 hour ago, Shrimpy said:

Is it me or did they nerf healing hmm

I think it's moreso your HP pools are smaller so they had to account for that.

Like I'm at Lv.53 right and the highest HP I have is Mio at like 6000 and everyone else is like 3000 lol.

58 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I am far less familiar with Xenosaga

So unfamiliar that it's not even the same game, Guillo is from Baten Kaitos.

2 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Say, anything akin to vouch items soom or something?

As far as actually affecting the flow of battle no but there are Gems and certain Arts that do.

3 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

miss my fast canceling into each other arts with faster attacks making attacks recharge faster lol

Art -> Art canceling is something you will get later but you generally won't be worrying about waiting too much once you start to unlock Master Arts fairly soon. Course you only get to equip one Master Art at the start but even then...

In conclusion Ch.1 is, for obvious reasons, the slowest part of the game gameplay wise.

But I agree! No stutterstepping and whatnot made me wish for it back haha. It's for that reason I still ultimately prefer Xenoblade 2's combat flow, as much as I'm enjoying 3's.

[Codename Shrimp]

22 minutes ago, Armagon said:

think it's moreso your HP pools are smaller so they had to account for that.

Even %wise i feel like it's weaker...

Or maybe it's the early game curse or smth lol

[Saint Rubenio]

Well, I failed in my quest to find a desert or a jungle, but I did dive into a cave and found a couple stacks of various metals, plus 12 diamonds. That's always nice. Hope I can make it home without losing it all... Or overextending due to greed. I've only two porkchops left, I can't be getting silly combat-wise. Not in this actually kinda difficult version of Minecraft.

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

NOPE!

Them's the breaks, unfortunately. 😅

Well.

Oof.

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The designs are practically the only smutty thing that XC2 even has, Endless Frontier is where the splendidly wonderful smutty writing is in a Monolith game.

Oh, God...

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Just an alien who wants the last vestige of humanity annihilated. A plain mediocre big bad whose design is about the only thing going for him.

Bah. He has nothing on Garon and his three motivations.

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Armagon resorted to infinite HP cheats with Baten Kaitos Origins, that bodes ill for you.😆 You'd be better off with me assembling a list of timestamps from the commentary-free longplay of BKO set to Guillo-notable moments.

Stop, it's already dead...! No need for more!

Well, to be fair, Monolith can exist, I don't mind that. This all started with a hypothetical, which is Monolith FE. I'm skeptical about the future of FE as it is. If Monolith took over I'd be even more skeptical. But I'd still give it the time of day, of course.

And if all else fails, well, there's always fangames. Lonely Mirror is going to get a considerable update at some point, I hear. It's going to be time for a third playthrough, most definitely. I love that game, it's so good - better than even Sun God's Wrath in a number of ways. It has the best pegasus knight ever made, for one!

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

First, space is vast. How vast depends on what scope you go for. Stick to a single planet, a couple planets/one solar system, decent chunk of a galaxy, or go intergalactic with wormholes for faster-than-light speed?

If you're doing anything beyond a single planet, you can hide the cult HQ on the dark side of an asteroid or uninhabited planetoid or moon or something.

Dark side of an asteroid sounds fun. Upon facing certain defeat they could do like, a desperate maneuver and crash the asteroid on your mothership. Maybe the protagonist's dad would sacrifice himself to save the ship or something. That'd be a cool moment and it's within the acceptable IntSys plotpoints!

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Monolith for the record has done cloaking technology before. Solaris the floating evil country back in Xenogears, ordinary people knew it existed, but had no idea where it was. Although you can't criticize Monolith for this b/c they were loosely copying that from Childhood's End, an old sci-fi novel by an acclaimed author of the genre.😛

Xenogears has had an evil church, thought not a cult. No Xeno game has a major cult, there was a cutesy apocalyptic one in XC2 in one side quest, and XCX had a more serious side quest cult, but they're not important.

No garbage bag cult means no Karajan so 0/10

I mean Karajan isn't even part of a cult at all but details

38 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Transhumanism -going the limitations of the natural human form- is indeed a basic sci-fi trope. Although you can go for an organic "graft alien tissue into humans" approach instead of machinery.

Either way, I would take it myself. Because indeed, it could be aesthetically pleasing for a one-off experience in FE.

Although we suddenly run into the danger of a three-way narrative-gameplay split between the Pure Humans, the Xenophiles (who probably end up being Manaketes🥱), and the Cyborgs. We can't allow this to happen.😠

I'd side with the cyborgs. Kill the humans. They are seedy.

32 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosis

Just with a cyber/futuristic twist

Sounds like something, indeed. Make it happen, IntSys. Toothpaste-chan In Space.

23 minutes ago, Armagon said:

So unfamiliar that it's not even the same game, Guillo is from Baten Kaitos.

Nice.

Well, he's cool there, then.

[Armagon]

3 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Or maybe it's the early game curse or smth lol

Healing options in the early game are very limited, especially when the only two healer classes you have access to are Medic Gunner and Tactician.

Crazy thing about healing Arts tho is that they can stack via Fusion Arts. You can group together two different Arts that both heal on hit and you'll get the heals from both. Like I think Fusion Arts are my favorite aspect of the combat. So much crazy shit you can do.

[Codename Shrimp]

Also i love how for a jrpg it ain't

Spoiler

Shying away in it's war presentation

 

[Codename Shrimp]

I feel like i will stick to the Agnes peeps/classes the whole game Ü

Unless i can somehow can get XB2 style arts on the keeves peeps as well lol

Edited July 29, 2022 by Shrimpy

[Sooks]

6 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

After all this time, I can finally talk about the JRPG of the century...

Trails from Rixia or its sequel, Trails to Rixia?

Quote

Trails of Cold Steel II, as I am on the intermission.

Oh. Well it’s a Trails game made after Crossbell, so who knows, maybe it has a shot at Rixia making another cameo appearance like she did in that one random photo at the end of Cold Steel 1. This still giving it a shot at being one of the greatest games of all time.

Quote

 

  Hide contents

I liked Elise’s pep talk to Rean at the beginning (it gives her something to do aside from being hot for Rean) and it’s nice that she’s playable… and she gets kidnapped. In hindsight it makes sense that Rufus (who is clearly the brains of the Noble Alliance) would want leverage over Rean in particular, since they want him to join them. It would be nice if I had someone other than Rean and Toval at the beginning, I still have nightmares...

Act 1’s structure of “return to a previous area, find your allies, fight some members of the Legion of Doom, repeat” reminded me of SC’s first half, except there are mechas this time. Rean and Alisa are still cute.

I didn't realize it until the end of Act 1, but all of Class VII has some personal investment in the conflict: Rean has Elise, Alisa has her mom, Laura and Machias have their dads, Elliot has his sister, Emma has Vita, Jusis has his brother and dad, Fie has Xeno and Leonidas, Gaius doesn’t have anyone in particular but doesn’t want his home to be drawn into war again, and Millium has Altina (and she wants to smash stuff).

It’s nice getting to use characters outside Class VII, I’m interested in properly learning the backstories of Millium, Sara, Claire, and Sharon (and Toval but he already got his backstory in book form). Sharon also gives some more insight into Ouroboros, like how the numbers are chosen by the Grandmaster and, unless you're McBurn and probably Loewe, they don't correlate with strength.

Duke Cayenne is very punchable and Vita is smug but fun. She’s clearly cut from the same cloth as the Third Anguis, which is funny because priests and witches are natural enemies. Besides them, there’s an entire Legion of Doom of secondary villains. Only three of them are members of Ouroboros and one is the returning Bleublanc, but that’s fine since the society isn’t the primary villain in this game. I am curious about who Altina and the Black Workshop are, especially since Bleublanc said she isn’t "entirely unrelated" to Ouroboros despite not being a member.

I’d prefer if the game did "do so-and-so to the bosses for +3 AP" less because it encourages you to get 200 CP on everyone beforehand and spam your S-crafts rather than fighting the bosses the normal way. The only one of those instances I had to retry was against Bleublanc and Altina. I’ll admit that I wasn’t expecting Rufus to sweep the party.

At the end of Act 1 our hero is brought to an enemy airship, is given an offer to join the villains, and is told the backstory of a tragic antagonist. This seems very familiar…

Crow is less antagonistic than I was expecting him to be. He even made Rean a Filet-O-Fish! He also fully explains his backstory, which had some surprises like how the ILF was working for Cayenne the whole time, rather than them teaming up at some point, and Vita has been grooming Crow as Ordine’s pilot for some time. It’s through him that we discover the true villain of the game is capitalism. He'll probably rejoin the party at some point, but not anytime soon if he's somehow vital to Vita's plan (pun unintended).

Rean gets to have a pleasant chat with the other villains too, which makes some sense since none of them are actually loyal to the Noble Alliance. Scarlet and Vulcan are probably sticking around for Crow, Xeno and Leonidas are in it for the paycheck, and Ouroboros will probably bail once they get the Sept-Terrion, which probably won't happen until after the final boss.

Duvalie is a funny knight girl and McBurn is a funny lazy fire man, but they’re both interesting in their own ways. She’s a devoted fangirl of the Seventh Anguis (i.e. the lady who saved us in Lohengrin Castle) and the leader of her personal squad, and there’s also the implication that the Grandmaster thinks Duvalie is too nice to be an Enforcer. She’s probably peeved that a six year old got in over her. She’d probably be frenemies with Estelle. McBurn is pretty cool and actually is a shonen villain. His power is apparently similar to Rean's, I wonder why that is... If you want to be Enforcer No. I, you have to catch an A-rank bracer on the run.

Also Alfin is playable now, which is good, though going in I thought the guest of honor would be Towa since I couldn't think of why Alfin would be kept away from her family. Speaking of which, I wonder if Olivert is goofing off in Liberl again...

Nice write up, I agree with all of it.

Well, I literally do not remember an Elise pep talk at the beginning of the game and I found Duvalie super annoying, but other than that.

As an aside, you’re going through these games quite quickly. Maybe you’ll catch up with me. I have been in a Trails mood lately, but I’m really unsure when Cold Steel 3 is gonna happen, so I’ve been replaying FC and SC on nightmare. Which has been going well, because FC and SC. I mean, some of the bosses really suck, especially in SC, but other than that.

Oh and if you’re interested in Sara and Millium’s characters…

DO THEIR BONDING EVENTS

5 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

How can you do this? It's outrageous. It's unfair. How can you do a writeup of Cold Steel and not have Garon in it?

Hey, in Lightchao’s defense, this write up is only of the first third of the game. Garon doesn’t show up until act 2, because the writers had to save some interesting characters and plot points for the later sections.

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

The lesson here is, you don't interfere with Garon. You just let him be Garon.

Now that I think about it, this is what Trails is doing with him being a portraitless, voice actor-less NPC. They’re setting him up to become the villain…! Factory Worker Garon is the grandmaster confirmed!

Edited July 30, 2022 by Sooks

[Armagon]

26 minutes ago, Shrimpy said:

Unless i can somehow can get XB2 style arts on the keeves peeps as well lol

That's what Master Arts are for.

Literally regardless of class, you will have access to Agnus-style Arts.

Tbf some Keves classes are really fun too.

[null]

 

[Codename Shrimp]

So, since i finished chapter 1...first impressions!

I am really really on board with this. There's really only one thing that worries me

Spoiler

• Moebius and his gang. I am less worried of them being cult kun since the game set it up from the beginning as our main antagonists, and more what it means for returning characters...if there's any. I don't think i would be a fan of Melia and Nia getting brainwashed...if they are Melia and Nia that is. It's all about the execution here

• It really does feel like i am playing XBC1 and XBC2 at the same time
  Spoiler

  Not only the party composition and their gameplay styles, but a destructive/war start coupled with a "promised land" adventure? And they somehow coupled both in a way that makes sense? 

• I vibe with the party...and with both Noah and Mio. Those who know me will know how much i love Dual MCs, and if this delivers...oh boy!
  Spoiler

  • Why don't Riku and Nana recognize each other tho? Why is Nana even with Agnes?
  • I love how the party is not totally vibing with each other. Them coming to terms fast considering they from enemy countries would've been weird. I hope they can pull this of well!
  • Vandham rip again lol.
• I have alot of Theories in my head atm....i wonder what it will be and how the game will surprise me

Well, game, you have alot of potential. Don't disappoint me now!

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Literally regardless of class, you will have access to Agnus-style Arts.

 

niceeeeee

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Tbf some Keves classes are really fun too.

i don't doubt that...just the long CDs really rub me wrong way lol.

When i got control of the Agnes party it was like the game became 5x as fast and 5x as fun lol

I think it will be hard for me too to ever play XBC1 again lmao

Also Ai sucks with Birdie...which is weird because Ai Origami seems fine lol. Birdie Ai never used buffs or heals right, while Origami kept using the evasion buff right kek

51 minutes ago, twilitfalchion said:

 

The Knight ring dudes can die? 

Also Tyrfing makes Selip tank all the staves in the final map Ü

Lol at scrolling tho. 2real

Edited July 30, 2022 by Shrimpy

[Venger_06]

God I'm so exhausted...

16 hours ago, Awoken Dayni said:

I'll admit some disappointment too, though at the time I wasn't too certain of my thoughts. Honestly still not and that was something I shared with the person I watched it with.

With every new Marvel movie I watch I appreciate The Batman more.

12 hours ago, Armagon said:

Godzilla vs Kong real

I forgot to post this when we talked about the 2014 remake and I will miss a chance again

7 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

After all this time, I can finally talk about the JRPG of the century... Trails of Cold Steel II, as I am on the intermission. No Garon in this writeup, I'm afraid.

When did you beat CS1!? Anyway, enjoy kino

7 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

 It would be nice if I had someone other than Rean and Toval at the beginning, I still have nightmares...

Toval bros... I don't feel so good...

7 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

Duvalie is a funny knight girl and McBurn is a funny lazy fire man, but they’re both interesting in their own ways. She’s a devoted fangirl of the Seventh Anguis (i.e. the lady who saved us in Lohengrin Castle) and the leader of her personal squad, and there’s also the implication that the Grandmaster thinks Duvalie is too nice to be an Enforcer.

Duvalie a cute! A cute!

[Acacia Sgt]

7 hours ago, Awoken Dayni said:

Rune FEactory?

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Monolith Soft + farming sim + Fire Emblem is a cooky combination that I would be all for trying.😃 Not sure how it would taste, might be like the time I bought a pint of ube (purple yam) ice cream and found it... peculiar, but not bad... and had to force someone else to eat 90% of it. But I wouldn't know until I've tried it.

How many farming sims with sci-fi influences even exist? Or Fire Emblem-styled SRPGs with sci-fi? (Let's ignore SRW, and say said hypothetical Monolith FE-styled SRPG would be 70% foot combat.) (Story of Seasons during the PS2-PSP era did get a one-off spinoff called Innocent Life: A Futuristic Harvest Moon where the main character is a human-looking android (no romance this meant) to shove this bit of relevant trivia in here.)

I can see it working if the dungeons worked SoV style, and time instead of passing continually, it worked on a "time period" system where dungeon delving advances the clock X number of hours no matter how many you spend in there in game-time.

Zone of the Enders - Fist of Mars is another Sci-Fi SRPG. It plays practically like SRW, though... because it was developed by Winkysoft.

[Acacia Sgt]

26 minutes ago, Newtype06 said:

 

I forgot to post this when we talked about the 2014 remake and I will miss a chance again

Shooting blue beam, eh...

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Shrimpy said:

I think it will be hard for me too to ever play XBC1 again lmao

Good luck with ever emulating XCX then! Pray the eventual sequel changes things!😛 (And it should, a lot will have happened since XCX.)

Although, if you learned to master Overdrive in XCX, the timer on the Arts cooldowns would be decreased to one-fifth of their normal durations. By which point even with the incentive called Secondary & Tertiary Cooldown to let Arts stay unused for longer, you would possibly find yourself with Arts maxing out sooner than you can spam them.

 

27 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I can see it working if the dungeons worked SoV style, and time instead of passing continually, it worked on a "time period" system where dungeon delving advances the clock X number of hours no matter how many you spend in there in game-time.

That could be feasible. Although dungeon battles tended to be the weakest aspect of SoV and fighting, FE is really made to be played with a limited set of fixed maps. That I think would need some set of fixes to make them a tad more strategic and varied or something. A farming sim + FE-SRPG hybrid would want to work on this.

I'm also trying to think of story scenarios that would work well for such a game. And we're going to need a plot with the typical FE battles and a story that doesn't mind lots of time -usually as much as the player wants- passing between its events marked by battles. Monsters as the primary enemy would be more feasible than humans then. 

Definitely thinking we need the climate and environment to get hit with magic that makes the seasons pass much more rapidly than normal, with crop growth likewise accelerated. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, makes all ingame seasons last just three days each, so a year is over pretty quickly. (Sakuna doesn't change out the crops every season though, it's rice that grows from spring through fall, with winter being where the fields lay empty. Seeding the fields, maintaining them through the season, and the harvest and clearing the ground for the next, are all more interactive than SoS/RF, however.) I don't think it needs to be that short, but fifteen days, half-the-usual for SoS/RF, might be good. Holidays are going out the window in such a case though, unless they were biennial or triennial.

I'm not sure Farm Emblem would work with an entire continent and countries. Either relegate things to an island the size of... maybe Honshu or even Borneo. Or, have a nice moderately-sized border city with: surrounding farmlands, a knights' headquarters, and perhaps some royal visitors, get sucked up into a parallel monster-filled world, and nobody escapes this realm until the ending.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Lightchao42]

I just realized, Noah, Lanz, and Eunie are basically Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Joran can be Neville. But who is that catgirl on the Expansion Pass screen?

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Anyway, I will take solace on the fact that Xenoblade will never invade Garon. Garon would look upon those pesky anime teens as mere seeds. And you know what he does with seeds.

Ah, but there is something you haven't considered: Pyra and Mythra can use Garon as a spirit, granting them his power and by your definition, making them perfect beings.

On the other hand, Mario can use Garon too, giving Garon his iconicness. After all, there's probably not a single person who doesn't know Mario. He's that famous.

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

Trails from Rixia or its sequel, Trails to Rixia?

No, it is Trails of Rixia.

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

Well, I literally do not remember an Elise pep talk at the beginning of the game and I found Duvalie super annoying, but other than that.

Rean is feeling depressed because the end of the previous game was pretty rough, and his self-esteem isn't great even on a good day, so Elise basically tells him that he's deserving of love and happiness even if he thinks otherwise. It was quite nice.

As for Duvalie, I think she's funny partially because I wasn't expecting her to be like that, and because she's the only person among a group of weirdos who tries to take her job seriously. Thinking about it, I can relate... She also gives more insight into how the society works, which is good.

As for what happens in the rest of the intermission:

Spoiler

With Alfin's moral support, Rean finally masters his power and holds off Bleublanc and Duvalie...then he just runs past Xeno and Leonidas and almost literally swats Altina aside. Why work hard when you can work smart, right? Then after he beats Crow and all the heroes show up to save him, Vita shows up just to tell everyone to go home. Olivert and Viscount Arseid are back, so it works out.

It also resolved a mystery I was wondering about but forgot to mention (who told Toval where Rean was), the answer being that it was Crow. Towa and George seem to be back as well, which is good.

Also, I forgot to mention that Rean's dad is basically Jeralt. Rean becomes more like Byleth every day...

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

As an aside, you’re going through these games quite quickly. Maybe you’ll catch up with me.

I don't remember how I handled my playtime for the Sky games, but for CS I only play an hour a day, more on weekends, which I've done for the past three months or so. I went through the second half of FC relatively quickly because I got sick for a week, so I had more free time than usual (and because I was invested in the plot by then).

Looking back I started FC on November 27th, but didn't finish the prologue until December 9th. I wonder why that is...

Since I'm waiting for the official releases, I'll have to take a break between Zero and Azure (it's good that Zero doesn't end on a cliffhanger, apparently). I'm guessing Trails to Azure will release in February or March and it'll probably take me two months or so to finish it, so you have until then to get ahead. The Switch doesn't have achievements, so I probably won't spend hours trying to get a high score on a shooting game with Rixia.

2 hours ago, Sooks said:

I have been in a Trails mood lately, but I’m really unsure when Cold Steel 3 is gonna happen, so I’ve been replaying FC and SC on nightmare. Which has been going well, because FC and SC. I mean, some of the bosses really suck, especially in SC, but other than that.

BY MY ARTS

Trails may be the only series where cookies are some of the most formidable weapons. Maybe when I have more free time, I can go back to FC and try to beat Lorence...

Obviously, you should play The Legend of Nayuta next. Knowing Falcom it will be important eventually.

24 minutes ago, Newtype06 said:

I forgot to post this when we talked about the 2014 remake and I will miss a chance again

This is inaccurate; sometimes he shoots a red fire beam.

24 minutes ago, Newtype06 said:

When did you beat CS1!? Anyway, enjoy kino

A few weeks ago, you can read my thoughts here if you want. I haven't played the Crossbell games yet, if you were wondering about that.

24 minutes ago, Newtype06 said:

Toval bros... I don't feel so good...

Toval is cool, I just don't like when you only have two characters and neither has dedicated healing abilities.

[Acacia Sgt]

8 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

That could be feasible. Although dungeon battles tended to be the weakest aspect of SoV and fighting, FE is really made to be played with a limited set of fixed maps. That I think would need some set of fixes to make them a tad more strategic and varied or something. A farming sim + FE-SRPG hybrid would want to work on this.

I'm also trying to think of story scenarios that would work well for such a game. And we're going to need a plot with the typical FE battles and a story that doesn't mind lots of time -usually as much as the player wants- passing between its events marked by battles. Monsters as the primary enemy would be more feasible than humans then. 

Definitely thinking we need the climate and environment to get hit with magic that makes the seasons pass much more rapidly than normal, with crop growth likewise accelerated. Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin, makes all ingame seasons last just three days each, so a year is over pretty quickly. I don't think it needs to be that short, but fifteen days, half-the-usual for SoS/RF, might be good. Holidays are going out the window in such a case though, unless they were biennial or triennial.

I'm not sure Farm Emblem would work with an entire continent and countries. Either relegate things to an island the size of... maybe Honshu or even Borneo. Or, have a nice moderately-sized border city with: surrounding farmlands, a knights' headquarters, and perhaps some royal visitors, get sucked up into a parallel monster-filled world, and nobody escapes this realm until the ending.

True. Ironically Three Houses was the one game with a system best suited for this. It even had a greenhouse for a little farming, even. Just change the mission-structure with a traversable world map, and a continent could work. Just make more use of warping magic to explain everything being traversable so quickly. Alternatively, a smaller scope can work. Thracia did, after all, keeping everything in just one "country" (Munster District was technically four kingdoms as a loose confederation type thing, but yeah). And before Awakening retcon it, Valentia was meant to be a big island, not a continent.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Acacia Sgt

[Acacia Sgt]

2 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

I just realized, Noah, Lanz, and Eunie are basically Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Joran can be Neville. But who is that catgirl on the Expansion Pass screen?

If you plan to continue the analogy, then Luna or Ginny? Or was that already an aside.

[GuardianSing]

@Saint Rubenio I finally witnessed the Garon T-posing cutscene, are ya happy now?

I think I've said this before, but the more I play Fates the more convinced that the plot only works because Xander is too dumb to breathe.

He sees the King laughing maniacally and yelling about how he's going to destroy the entire world and still Xander's like "He's just stressed, give him a weak and he'll be fine"

7 hours ago, ping said:

 

Again, Xander is stupid.

[Sooks]

So, while replaying SC, I decided to actually read the Doll Knight. And damn. I have no idea what that line near the end means, exactly, but damn. But the in-universe justification for the book is very questionable,

Spoiler

how did a book mentioning the 13 factories get out into publication like that? Did they not have a problem with it?

1 hour ago, Newtype06 said:

God I'm so exhausted...

You doing okay?

1 hour ago, Newtype06 said:

When did you beat CS1!? Anyway, enjoy kino

Lightchao didn’t really regularly update the thread on his CS1 playthrough and instead posted his thoughts all at once at the end.

20 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

Elise basically tells him that he's deserving of love and happiness even if he thinks otherwise

Oh yeah.

20 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

The Switch doesn't have achievements, so I probably won't spend hours trying to get a high score on a shooting game with Rixia.

Huh, good memory. I’m pretty sure it was only like 1 hour though, 2 tops!

But the Geofront versions have achievements built into the games themselves, so presumably every version is like that.

20 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

BY MY ARTS

Trails may be the only series where cookies are some of the most formidable weapons.

Actually this fight is fine, because you can pull out all the stops without worrying about soft locking yourself (because if you use those OP accessories earlier you can’t win without insane luck). Gun jaegar and sword jaegar are garbage though, the first one is a complete luck fest if you had the foresight to agonizingly grind to level 41 beforehand (I didn’t), and is still a luck fest without doing that but needing an extra miss/smokescreen is… rough. Sure it’s optional, but that’s not an excuse for a fight to suck. Then sword jaegar is also a complete luck fest unless you grind to level 43, which isn’t nearly as bad because you have shining poms now, but once you do that it’s actually pretty fun, so eh.

The divine penguin at the start of chapter 3 is luck based too, so bleh. Everything else has been fun though.

When I say luck based, I mean the boss has the power to completely obliterate you and you can’t completely mitigate this without some luck on either misses (both jaegars (assuming you didn’t grind for sword jaegar)) or the AI being dumb (gun jaegar and divine penguin).

20 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

Maybe when I have more free time, I can go back to FC and try to beat Lorence...

Use Kaempfer and Clock Up. I was able to do it on nightmare in like two tries.