Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Codename Shrimp]

4 minutes ago, lightcosmo said:

Yeah, they now have 1 instead! Xd

nah xD

[Codename Shrimp]

 

[Lightcosmo]

7 minutes ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

nah xD

Disappointing, but oh well. Xd

[Eltosian Kadath]

12 hours ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

• Not being able to switch out Itsuki is super super duper ultra omega Stupid with capital S. With only 3 active members at a time, having one not being switchable and just eating effective attacks whenever enemies strong against him appear is a bruh momento.

Yeah, not a fan of this game decision either.

 

12 hours ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

• Also feels like Tsubasa should've been MC as it seems the story revovles around her journey as an Idol.

I have said it before myself, Tsuabasa should have been the Main Character.

 

11 hours ago, Edelguardiansing said:

 

Oh hey it's Vanessa's sister! Given how late in the game we are I imagine her stats will be pretty good!

Not really...I mean Seth has better stats at his start of the game join time.

 

11 hours ago, Edelguardiansing said:

She was attacked by three people, all of which had a less than 50 chance to hit her and they all hit anyway.

Wahoo.

Oof, lost ~1/8 huh.

 

[Acacia Sgt]

6 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I mean, if you google Usenti some of the first image results are of GBAFE portraits. It was one of the quintessential tools recommended back when I first started my own portrait shenanigans.

Probably still is, the thing is ancient but still does its job. FEBuilder does fix the "too many colors" issue by itself when you import a portrait, but if you're in the middle of editing it that's more awkward.

Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me the program has really been used for more than ten years now. Color replacing ain't that complex of an action, I'd think.

[Lightcosmo]

7 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Tsuabasa should have been the Main Character.

Agreed! Missed Shrimpy posting it but again, I agree. 

[Acacia Sgt]

29 minutes ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

nah xD

Just in case, it's worth to point it was using an Iron Lance.

Since, imagine if it was actually a 1-2 weapon, and thus 3 Mov, pft.

[Acacia Sgt]

Still, regardless of the number, it seems Infantry just has the same movement all throughout. Since the archer and the... myrmidon (?) on-screen also had four move, but I guess it was a given by now.

[Codename Shrimp]

8 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Just in case, it's worth to point it was using an Iron Lance.

Since, imagine if it was actually a 1-2 weapon, and thus 3 Mov, pft.

Plot twist: Iron Lances have 1-2 range but can't counter attack

Thus 3 MoV armor knights

Edited September 22, 2022 by Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων

[Acacia Sgt]

Pft, they had already been inflicted with penalties before. Like the no-doubling from Fates. Now imagine no-countering.

[Codename Shrimp]

tbf, if lances wen't general 1-2, like in quite a few non FE srph, i think not countering would be a fair penalty xD

[Saint Rubenio]

4 minutes ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

tbf, if lances wen't general 1-2, like in quite a few non FE srph, i think not countering would be a fair penalty xD

I have an idea: make lances uncounterable, but also unable to counter, and make them deal extra damage for each tile the unit moves through before attacking.

[Codename Shrimp]

4 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I have an idea: make lances uncounterable, but also unable to counter, and make them deal extra damage for each tile the unit moves through before attacking.

[BrightBow]

How about instead of trying to make weapon types more distinct, we just make them even more similar and instead buff the weapon triangle some more?

[Dayni]

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Gringe patch was already around in my noob days. I still say Jerrot is the best name for that guy.

It was first released in 2013. I'd get Awakening before I knew about it.

2013 also had Heroes of Light and Shadow's 3.0 patch as well, good year for patch releases.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Honestly, this just feels like a superior approach to the concept of cut-ins. Same effect of hyping up the crit, so to speak, but without outright stopping the action for it.

  I'd agree, more dynamism in animations is a good call.

1 hour ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

nah xD

Armours with infantry move. Wonder how they'll be differentiated.

(What if he had a Javelin in his inventory and he's 3 mov?)

1 hour ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

tbf, if lances wen't general 1-2, like in quite a few non FE srph, i think not countering would be a fair penalty xD

I could live with that or even formation stuff personally.

[Codename Shrimp]

11 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Wonder how they'll be differentiated.

maybe they won't gain MoV upon promotion?

[Dayni]

1 minute ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

maybe they won't gain MoV upon promotion?

Sounds like a waste.

[Eltosian Kadath]

40 minutes ago, Punished Dayni said:

Armours with infantry move. Wonder how they'll be differentiated.

(What if he had a Javelin in his inventory and he's 3 mov?)

Just give them worse terrain movement penalties.

[Saint Rubenio]

Oh right, I had forgotten. In their C support, Forde presents concerns to Eirika that her skirt might be too short, and then she flashes him.

Anyway, fighting Tethys is fun.

[Sidereal Wraith]

19 hours ago, Punished Dayni said:

Don't drink it if it's a salve, that's not what you do with it.

If it’s got alcohol in it, well, down the hatch it goes!

Edited September 22, 2022 by Sidereal Wraith

[Sidereal Wraith]

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have said it before myself, Tsuabasa should have been the Main Character.

I don’t know about you gentlemen but I think Itsuki was the perfect protagonist for the game. I mean while I was watching a live stream of it back in 2015 when the game first came out and while I was wondering if it would be more profitable for me to put my balls in a salad shooter or play Russian Roulette with all six chambers loaded instead of damning of soul due to morbid curiosity, it hit me like a ton of brinks. Itsuki is dull as dishwater, easily the worst protagonist in anything FE related, Corum included. And then I thought to myself actually he fit into the game just fine.

Edited September 22, 2022 by Sidereal Wraith

[Interdimensional Observer]

Collected all the Iris Gems in Tales of Zestiria and saw the subsequent "big revelation" scene. (I didn't feel much from it. And it seems I was confused as to when the Age of Chaos started.)

By the time the expose was over and the subsequent boss battle won (enemy Mystic Artes at last, yaaaay!😑), the heroes were talking about the final battle approaching. Now, that could be fake-out talk, but my characters are in their mid-late 50s level-wise, I'm over 50 hours in, and the world map looks pretty much explored. I can believe that the end is near.

Then, it dawned on me, Zestiria is slow-burn subpar.

Allow me to establish some definition of what I mean when I call a video game (which you could also apply to television, cinema, or literature) "slow-burn bad".:

1. The mediocrity, averageness, or badness of the product is not attributable to one or several remarkable events, aspects, or anything else.
   1. If we used a three-season anime series as example, a "slow-burn" mediocre anime wouldn't be 5-4-1 on the quality of each season. It would be more like 3-3-3, or 4-3.5.-3, a slow-burn product is fairly consistent, with only gradual rise and or decline.
2. The product is not visibly severely deficient in one or all aspects from the get-go.
3. In the absence of anything jarringly flawed or painfully run-of-the-mill, the product never explodes or implodes on the consumer.  
   1. Neither does the product rise to the glorious heights of greatness, it is incapable of doing so.
   2. Thus a slow-burn deficient product fizzles. It goes out not with a bang, but a whimper.

I'm still going to finish Zestiria, don't get me wrong. The combat despite its flaws remains strong enough for that, the characters are generally pleasant, and I'm in deep enough that I want to conclude it. My slow-burn critique applies mostly* to the narrative. Zesty started with enough promise, if fairly traditional, but somewhere along the way, it failed to properly keep developing the those early ideas, without fumbling them off a cliff into pointy rocks below either. Only at this late point can I look back and see that.

*Mostly, because I do think the game has made mistakes in world design.

Tales of Graces was the first game in the franchise to abandon the traditional zoomed-out world map on which towns and dungeons were little dots you entered of the JRPG genre. Abandoning this old approach meant inventing "field" areas connecting everything, and this method been used going back as far Secret of Mana or Earthbound Zero/Mother 1 to speak of what I'm familiar with.

Graces had its field areas feeling like roads, which is what they were. They were fairly narrow IIRC, and not too long. Xillia might've expanded them a bit (again, going off of years-old memory), but they still felt fairly roady. Zestiria however blew them up, without justifying it.

• There isn't enough good, rare stuff to find in the field. It feels empty.
• The points of discovery might resemble Xenoblade's Secret Areas/Scenic Viewpoints just a little but they're wholly devoid of brilliance and the only nice thing about them is the accompanying Skit. Overall, Zestiria's world looks very cel-shaded anime generic, there is nothing inspired about any location.
• The money-teleport cost I mentioned is another needless problem. Even if walking from one end of a large field area to another only takes like 3 minutes and can be done while avoiding enemies with ease or the use of a long-lasting Holy Bottle.
• Fighting a ton to unlock Lord of the Land boons I see no point to doing, as boons require far too much Grade to unlock.
• The Lord of the Land boons can improve Equipment Fusion quality, except on Normal difficulty one can entirely ignore this elaborate customization system without running into a single problem. Other boons simply aren't worth it. +20% HP from eating snacks?
• Having little optional Ruins dungeons wasn't a bad idea to add a hint of an open world-ish feel. However, all these ruins use the same mostly recycled assets and lacking dungeon design.
• Chests that require special keys that you obtain later in the game? Dragon Quest has always done it, Bravely Default and Second did it. Yet Zestiria's implementation of this isn't right. The gold chests are too commonplace, too scattered, you'll easily forget where they all are and the game fails to mark them on the map either which would've been really useful. Since traveling is a bit of a chore and the contents of these chests are merely alright, I'm not going to bother going back and opening them all.

I'm not quite sure, but it might be the combination of a slow-burn story and the subpar world design that leaves me feeling "this is the end?". It's a nagging lack of satisfaction, that it doesn't feel like I've been on a grand adventure, that things haven't been, to use an overused four-letter word epic. If the game bills itself as the story of a legend -and it did early on- then I don't think I've experienced it.

Still wouldn't give Zesty worse than a 6, though I'll most likely give it a 7/10 instead.

 

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have said it before myself, Tsuabasa should have been the Main Character.

I just can't see that happening. If she was, Atlus would've had to silence her.

I don't oppose the Silent MC approach, Dragon Quest can keep it until the end of time and I'd be perfectly fine with it. And I'm often fine with it in SMT. However, there have been a few instances where I question if Atlus should have been so stubbornly traditional.

[Codename Shrimp]

29 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh right, I had forgotten. In their C support, Forde presents concerns to Eirika that her skirt might be too short, and then she flashes him.

Anyway, fighting Tethys is fun.

Ruben the anime man

6 minutes ago, Sidereal Wraith said:

, easily the worst protagonist in anything FE related

Roy exists

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If she was, Atlus would've had to silence her.

That sounds more ominous than what you probably meant xD

[Sidereal Wraith]

1 minute ago, Αυτοκράτορας των Γαρίδων said:

Roy exists

 

[Saint Rubenio]

I don't know... They're both really good portraits.

Maybe I should give him a twin brother or something