Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Acacia Sgt]

Nah, play SRW instead.

[Acacia Sgt]

I'm surprised the monarch-like get-up wasn't used for Fairy. For Rock instead? Or at least Diancie, then. Hmm...

Edited September 13, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[Eltosian Kadath]

17 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I feel better today. No real reason for it, I'm just burnt out of being in the bleak doldrums. Still sad about the fate of all, still weighed down with fear, but less, the heartbeat isn't quickened as it was, depressive thoughts aren't as effective in making me quiver. I hope I don't relapse again like... Sunday? Subjective time is long when like this, even when existence is finite even so.

Glad to hear it.

 

17 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I wanted to see this big guy again.

He looks adorable in that art style. He makes me think of an Astroboy character or something.

 

14 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

And naturally, on the second attempt I lose. So you can make that an hour of my life I've lost because of a single mistake at the worst possible time, and the sheer frustration of having to go to bed with this unresolved, because there's no way I can do this for the third time tonight.

I hate videogames so much.

Oof. I get the feeling being tired so close to bed is what made such mistakes so easy to make.

 

15 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'm surprised the monarch-like get-up wasn't used for Fairy. For Rock instead? Or at least Diancie, then. Hmm...

Huh, another odd choice for typing, as Aurorus is more prominently an Ice type pokemon, also one I really didn't see coming.

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

11 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Maybe "late" is relative. Like, they already thought the list, then as they were coding them in, they got further ideas. We know the Bird type was replaced with Flying, after all. So where is Flying on the order?

Hmm, Ghost coded very late... I wonder if the unintended immunity Psychic had against them despite being meant to be weak to was a result of it.

*Checks The Cutting Room Floor > Pokemon RGB > Prerelease Info > 1989-1991 (RG released in '96)*

The first and second sprite sheets included Gengar and Ghastly. Also Grimer and some Nidoes (no Haunter and 'rina/'rino, only-two stage evolution this early?). Does this explain the GHaGen's Poison typing? Was that their sole, original type?

23 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I'm surprised the monarch-like get-up wasn't used for Fairy. For Rock instead? Or at least Diancie, then. Hmm...

Flowing, elegant. Though I feel like that for Rock type, they should've taken advantage of all that real estate, and encrusted the dress in so many gems the land beneath her would be sinking.

 

1 hour ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Btw Monolith bros, Why or why not Baten Kaitos?

🔔

You rang?😃

First, because ofc you're getting it from me, historical context!🤓

• Baten Kaitos was developed during Monolith Soft's time at Namco in parallel to Xenosaga. Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean released between Xenosaga Episodes I and II, and Origins between II and III.
• Baten Kaitos was intended to be an "anti-Xenosaga", though not in a way as to criticize XS.
  • Xenosaga was PS2, BK was GameCube, a console also lacking for JRPGs which Monolith Soft wanted to help correct.
  • Xenosaga is sci-fi, pure sci-fi, noooo medieval fantasy like Xenoblade mixes in. Baten Kaitos is mostly pure medieval fantasy.
• Xenosaga was developed by Monolith Soft's A-team alone (with Tetsuya Takahashi in charge). Baten Kaitos was developed using a B-team with freelancers, and it was co-developed by Tri-Crescendo. Tri-Crescendo did the gameplay and sound effects, Monolith came up with the world, story, characters, visuals.
  • Later into Origin's development, the deal that sold Monolith Soft to Nintendo got underway.
• Just like Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos failed to meet Namco's sales expectations. Although it didn't pay the same tragic price that Xenosaga did.

 

Now... how to break these games down? 

Why Baten Kaitos?

• Music- Motoi Sakuraba's best soundtracks IMO.
• Visuals
  • The pre-rendered 2D world with 3D models on it was a popular approach on the PS1 that went away in the PS2-GC era. It was kinda awkward. Baten Kaitos is the like the last of major games to use it.
  • Even so, Baten Kaitos's world set in the sky is beautiful, and the first time Monolith Soft showed creativity with their environments. Not the open-worldish magnificence of Xenoblade, but still just lovely.
  • The artwork of each Magnus card is also a nice little drawing. With some good flavor text too.
• Baten Kaitos Origins- The Heroes.
  • Only three playable characters in Origins, but they're excellently written.

Maybe (aka things you might like, might not) Baten Kaitos?

• Combat-
  • Card-based turn-based JRPG combat, but not a trading card game!
    • Baten Kaitos's use of cards in combat is no more complicated than poker- straights and pairs, that's all. Very simple.
    • No "Magical Pocket Knife of the Sorrows- Pick 1 enemy card to remove from the playing field, if Spiritual Type, remove another and then remove one of your own and flip a coin, if heads draw a new card, if tails, remove all Spiritual Type cards from your hand." That essay junk doesn't exist.
    • Magnus cards can age, new ones can be created via specific combinations.
      • In Origins this only applies to Quest Magnus.
      • But for Eternal Wings, cards used in combat can be created and age. I'm warning you now those green bananas might turn a tasty healing yellow, but after a few IRL hours while playing the game, they shall rot and lose their healing powers. This can be annoying. 
  • Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean has more nuanced, slower combat.
  • Origins simplified the card aspect of things, and switched over to Active Time Battle, making things faster.
    • Origins also changed it so HP is fully restored after every battle, generic enemies can hit hard! As do bosses.
  • The HD Remaster is adding a bunch of QoL cheat switches in case you hate it or get stuck (both games infamously had a softlock boss).
  • Come here for assistance if you needed it, because the games lack for tutorials!😉
• Story-
  • I wouldn't call either game a masterpiece in this department. Origins is probably better than EWatLO, which is save-the-world by-the-numbers.
  • Yet, I wouldn't say either has a bad story either.
  • Origins being a prequel allows it to reference EWatLO from time to time. Some of these nods of varying sizes are pretty good and benefit from going through EWatLO first.
• Sidequests-
  • Each game has a big-three side quests that span much or all of the game, a cool idea. They're optional ofc, as are a slew of smaller ones. They almost always call for a character handing over specific Magnus cards to someone.

Why Not Baten Kaitos?

• Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean- The Heroes. 
  • The six playables can fall a little flat. None are terrible, yet you don't get any real synergistic camaraderie between them.
• If The Combat Doesn't Click For You And Using The New OHKO Mode Takes You Out Of It.
• Compared to Xenosaga, Presentation is Stiff.
  • Amazing the difference between these sisters are. Xenosaga might be confined to bleh battleships and other sci-fi interiors, but the action and expression therein is lightyears ahead of Baten Kaitos.

I think this is everything?😅 

Any questions?

[Codename Shrimp]

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/09/nintendo-direct-set-for-september-14

lessgo

[Saint Rubenio]

Looks like regular Direct time is tomorrow.

24 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Oof. I get the feeling being tired so close to bed is what made such mistakes so easy to make.

Oh no, I just got overconfident. Map was identical to the previous one, defense map where the game insists I'm losing and need to retreat, but I'm hanging out at the very front without issue. Last turn was a guaranteed victory, but I fucked around, sleeping an enemy and then picking off a couple of nearby stragglers.

The enemy was inside a damaging fog. The fog dealt its damage at the start of the enemy's turn. Damage wakes up sleeping enemies. One of my guys in range was low.

...Still haven't beaten it, either. I haven't had the time. I'm so fucking angry at this incredibly harmless and simple map for reasons that aren't its fault whatsoever lol

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Btw Monolith bros, Why or why not Baten Kaitos?

If you like card-based battles, proceed. If not, uhhhhhhhh

Anyways here's what I had to say about both:

Eternal Wings: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Armagon/review/111545/ (I put spoilers at the end, I give a warning so don't scroll all the way down. Scroll slowly until you see the warning)

Origins: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Armagon/review/114918/

29 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Huh, another odd choice for typing, as Aurorus is more prominently an Ice type pokemon, also one I really didn't see coming.

I think they are somewhat trying to avoid "obvious picks".

10 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

• Just like Xenosaga, Baten Kaitos failed to meet Namco's sales expectations. Although it didn't pay the same tragic price that Xenosaga did.

 

Worth noting that there was a canceled Baten Kaitos DS game. Unlike Xenosaga tho, the cancellation of that game didn't impact any story plans.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

I think they are somewhat trying to avoid "obvious picks".

Every other one has been a fairly obvious pick so far, with clear links to music, or her artificial nature...

[Codename Shrimp]

27 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Baten Kaitos is mostly pure medieval fantasy

huh

28 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Baten Kaitos's use of cards in combat is no more complicated than poker- straights and pairs, that's all. Very simple.

 

20 minutes ago, Armagon said:

If you like card-based battles, proceed. If not, uhhhhhhhh

This scares me

30 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

both games infamously had a softlock boss

boi

31 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I think this is everything?😅 

Thankies!

 

[Armagon]

18 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Every other one has been a fairly obvious pick so far, with clear links to music, or her artificial nature...

Well in that case, Auroros could be artificial, given the nature of fossil Pokemon.

2 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

boi

Tbf I think the softlock in Origins is no longer there. It only happened because in the original, you had to swap discs, upon switching to Disc 2, you'd be met with a boss. That shouldn't be the case here.

And, well, the remasters have cheat codes. So softlocking really shouldn't be an issue.

[GuardianSing]

Whenever I come here, either before or after work, the website loads are so damn slow and I'm so incredibly exhausted that whatever I respond to is pretty much at the whim of whatever I see first and takes the least effort.

God I'm tired.

45 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/09/nintendo-direct-set-for-september-14

lessgo

I might actually be awake to see this live.

[Armagon]

 

[Saint Rubenio]

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Whenever I come here, either before or after work, the website loads are so damn slow and I'm so incredibly exhausted that whatever I respond to is pretty much at the whim of whatever I see first and takes the least effort.

God I'm tired.

I really hope they get around to fixing Slowrenes soon. It's becoming rather puzzling.

Hang in there pal.

56 minutes ago, Armagon said:

 

Funny I should mention Elon Musk, though. Perhaps everyone's seeing how Elon Musk is making the most braindead and greedy decisions possible with Twitter and facing exactly zero real repercussions for it, so they've decided "hey we can be braindead and greedy too, we're also millionaires!"

[Armagon]

14 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Funny I should mention Elon Musk, though. Perhaps everyone's seeing how Elon Musk is making the most braindead and greedy decisions possible with Twitter and facing exactly zero real repercussions for it, so they've decided "hey we can be braindead and greedy too, we're also millionaires!"

Elon Musk may have potentially violated the Logan Act by interfering with our foreign policy regarding the Russo-Ukraine war.

[Saint Rubenio]

19 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Elon Musk may have potentially violated the Logan Act by interfering with our foreign policy regarding the Russo-Ukraine war.

When I see him in court facing a guilty veredict and serious consequences, then I'll retract my statement. Being the richest man on Earth, however, I sincerely doubt he'll get more than a slap on the wrist for... anything, really. I'm pretty sure he could commit murder and get away with it, because money.

[Armagon]

21 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

When I see him in court facing a guilty veredict and serious consequences, then I'll retract my statement. Being the richest man on Earth, however, I sincerely doubt he'll get more than a slap on the wrist for... anything, really. I'm pretty sure he could commit murder and get away with it, because money.

Not even that, the Logan Act was only ever invoked twice and it didn't work either of them. This is one of the nation's earliest laws and it's pretty shit. Kinda hard to convince someone under it.

Which is why I said he potentially violated it. 

[Armagon]

TWEWY fans shot in the head

[Sidereal Wraith]

…and yet it’s plot is still somehow more coherent then Engage’s story.

[Sidereal Wraith]

https://www.nintendo.com/nintendo-direct/09-14-2023/
 

At least I can take solace in the fact that a man’s soul can’t die twice if everything goes south tomorrow.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

huh

Mostly. Evil empire has machinery, Origins goes a little bit further with it. But still, it's the least sci-fi Monolith has ever been (or perhaps that title would go to Soma Bringer).

5 hours ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

This scares me

I do not like trading card game-styled RPGs. You know how FEH skill descriptions cause my brain to turn off? Real card games do the same.

Baten Kaitos has it simple enough that my brain doesn't go into emergency shutdown. -But then that's just me. Your results may vary.

 

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

TWEWY fans shot in the head

At least their game is out. I saw comments saying Hollow Knight uses Unity. Which means the long-awaited sequel Silksong, which has been MIA in dev hell (feature creep problem I've heard, Silksong was originally going to be DLC for HK), may need to convert it's engine right now.

Comments have been saying Unity is good b/c its great for mobile and console, and is easier to learn/better than Unreal when it comes to 2D. It's these situations that are likely going to be most heavily impacted by the sinking ship.

 

---

End of AW1 Re-Boot Camp campaign.:

Spoiler

Andy Clone looks different from Andy now. Has some electric distortion on his voice too and unique expressions. He even has own theme that sounds very Black Hole, but eventually you can pick up the notes of Andy's Anthem. A literal clone got some unexpected love.

You can now even unlock this guy who plays exactly the same as the most vanilla CO around.

Black Hole in AW1 still uses 'Star units? The personnel's skin color is the same as the clone COs of Dual Strike, retroactive continuity, yay!

This battle is short, but I dislike the fact they still chose to leave Eagle under the AI's unintelligent control, he lost two Bombers on turn 1!

Sturm uses AW2 Black Hole unit designs now. His new design is fine. His theme went hard in GBA, here, it's still befitting, but strangely less heavy than so many other themes.

...This battle didn't go as swiftly as I had hoped. Taking the midpoint base and denying it to Sturm proved pretty bloody and took a while. Still, Sturm runs out of steam fast and he CO Power isn't usable on this map. AW1 Max vs. AW1 Campaign Sturm's -20% Def penalty is pure carnage.

Sturm. Sturm? Sturm!?! Only now that I hear it pronounced, do I realize I've been pronouncing him in my head "Strum" all this time!😆

Now, onto the Final Battle!

Oh neato, they let you choose your two non-Andy COs this time around! Max-Olaf-Grit are locked, as are Sami-Eagle-Drake, pick one from one group, and the other two are unavailable. Kanbei oddly isn't locked. In GBA he showed up on the right, I take it he can now show up on the left if you don't pick one of the Blue group COs. Nice. 

I picked Olaf and Eagle, the former is balanced in ground unit composition, the latter uniquely starts with air units deployed -very useful.

Maybe because Classic difficulty, not Advanced, Andy didn't get hammered at the outset as much as I was expecting. Start of Day 2...

The overly-aggressive dum dum AI is still there. Sturm loses his initial air forces right away. Which does enough financial harm to

bring on the first Meteor Strike!

I love the animation here (he even lets out a quick puff of smoke in a nod to his fuming AW1 Robo-Octorok self).

I don't like that the CO Power animations aren't skippable, but I do like each of them having unique visual special effects when triggered now. Meteor Strike needs a BIGGER meteor, but once it make 

The Meteor Strike targeting might be different from what it used to be, it never went for an Infantry diamond intended to bait it. It much preferred Eagle's pricey handful of air units, making them not quite the advantage I expected them to be this time.

Blunting Sturm's invasion over the river is one thing, crushing him is another. He has four bases and two airports, he can churn out plenty of units that hit hard (although he tends to spam Bombers early on, that's weak play). That slows down the map,

...as does how narrow the core fighting zone is. The allied armies will run out of space to move and attack, maybe I underestimate Grit's usefulness here, three armies of all-direct units might one too many, even with air power.

Finished on turn 14, long for a campaign map, short by Versus Mode standards. Only got A rank, the second mission where I've failed to get S.

Sturm's voice gets unexpectedly funnily pathetic here. Dude couldn't cool when beaten.😄

Kaga might say "It's okay."?

A new little ending cutscene of the Star COs rescuing Sonja from "Sturm", and then walking out to meet the rest of the COs. (I should've taken one more screenshot.

Obligatory Olaf posting.

Rivals! time!😵

...Or not. Campaign record and credits happen. During the turn count and ranking assessment, I realize the music happens to be a remix of this.:

 

 

Could you have actually listed their names though?🤨

😀

Since I can replay every battle now instead of having to start a whole new campaign,

the alternative battles (and presumably Rivals!) are now revealed. Nell and Sturm still need to be unlocked too.

I'm realizing now that Nell never wore a small vest before. That was probably invented as compromise between

Japan and the West's AW1 designs for Catherine/Nell. Covers the arms, but technically leaves the Japanese ensemble intact.

Not now, maybe not ever. Advanced Campaign got renamed I see.

Fun!

Move on to AW2 now?😆

Edited September 13, 2023 by Interdimensional Observer

[Codename Shrimp]

14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Baten Kaitos has it simple enough that my brain doesn't go into emergency shutdown.

How simple are we talking here?

[Saint Rubenio]

18 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Obligatory Olaf posting.

Best character in the series, right there.

19 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Covers the arms, but technically leaves the Japanese ensemble intact.

It looks like the flag of Spain. I may have already commented on that. Except the red is purple, which means kinda that she's a Republican! Ain't that awesome. In Spain that's a good thing.

[Acacia Sgt]

27 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Move on to AW2 now?😆

Congrats on finishing!

[Codename Shrimp]

That's a good way to make me not go to work XD

[Interdimensional Observer]

57 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

How simple are we talking here?

For Eternal Wings, the more complicated of the two games...

• Everyone has a separate deck of Magnus cards, deck size starts at 20, ends up at like 50.
  • Each time you use a card, it is discarded. When your deck runs out of drawable cards, the character will waste their next turn reshuffling their deck and everything will be usable again.
• During a character's turn, you can either use Magnus to attack or heal.
  • Number of card usable per turn depends on Class Level (certain one-of-a-kind Magnus you'll find as boss drops/in treasure chests upgrade this for each character).
• When an enemy attacks someone, you can play one defensive Magnus per hit of the attack, to reduce incoming damage.
• Magnus usable in combat can be divided into three types.:
  • Attack- Each character (except two who share) get a separate weapon type. Usable only on offense.
    • Kalas and Gibari can use their attack Magnus on defense too, but only them. 
  • Armor- One half of the characters gets to use heavier stuff, the others lighter gear. Usable only on defense.
  • Item- Can be used to heal, or attack, occasionally even defend. Anyone can use any of these.
• All Magnus have one element of seven. Neutral, and three pairings of Fire & Water, Light & Dark, Wind & Chronos. The backdrop of each card tells you its color.
  • If an enemy has strength/weakness in one element, 90% of the time they've the opposite in the opposite element. So if it resists Water, then they're weak to Fire. You can identify a card's element right away from the color of its backdrop.
  • When attacking, DO NOT play cards of opposing elements in the same attack! If you play a 40 power Light card, and a 38 power Dark card, you'll end up dealing only 2 Light damage, no Dark damage (well, all cards have at least a little Neutral attack/defense, that'd still be counted too).
  • When defending, DO play cards of the element opposed to the one you're being attacked by. If the enemy is pelting you with Wind, then Wind Magnus won't do you any good, use Chronos defense instead.
•  Spirit Combos are the one slightly-complicated detail.😉
  • All Magnus have at least one Spirit Number (random which from 1-8 or sometimes 9) in a corner.
  • If you play when attacking, healing, or defending...
    • "Pairs" of Spirit Numbers- two 4s, three 5s, etc.. Cards don't need to be adjacent, like 4-5-4-5, and you can mix together different pairs.
    • Or straights- 6-7-8, 3-2-1.
    • -Without any cards that interrupt the Spirit Combo- noooo 3-2-4-5, noooo 8-8-8-7
  • ...then you get a % increase in total damage dealt when attacking, healed when healing, and total damage taken is reduced when defending.
  • When Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean begins, cards only have one Spirit Number, in the upper right.
    • Yet gradually, cards with two, three, and four Spirit Numbers start showing up as the plot progresses (the first two-numbers start showing up right before the first island is over).
    • You pick which number you want to play by flicking the C-Stick (well Generic Right-Stick now😆) in the direction of that number. 
    • This means Spirit Combos are difficult to assemble when the game begins. This is fine, as the % bonuses are small.
    • Yet, once the heroes start being able to play 4-5 cards when attacking, start considering Spirit Combos. Don't rush to attack with all possible Magnus on hand, think about whether you can create a good Spirit Combo, and if playing an additional card that ruins it would actually reduce the damage you deal. The % bonuses will have grown to the point where things get significant.
      • The super extreme that opens in the endgame is the 1-9 "Sunrise" straight, which is +305% damage, quadrupled.
  • These are entirely unrelated to Kalas's Spirit Attacks. Powerful but completely-random attacks that immediately end Kalas's attacking, representing the power of his Guardian Spirit. Pretty irrelevant but cool these are.

It's easier in practice than it might sound on paper. As many RPG systems probably are. -But I could be a rara avis.🙃

-Throw out most of the above for Origins by the way.😝 Magnus remain, yet the whole system as I said before is simplified for greater speed in an overhaul.

...Is your brain still intact, Shrimpy?🦐

Skip ahead to 6:35 here for a sample of Eternal Wings's combat. May help you visualize the above information.

-The flashy attacks that have the characters shout stuff are (minus the Demons of Darkness shown the thumbnail, one of those random superfluous Spirit Attacks) Finishers. They require a certain number of cards played before they can be used when attacking, they're just flashy, strong attacks exclusive to each character.

The camera in the thumbnail can be used to take pictures of enemies or allies (mostly worth junk when it comes to allies, 5% chance of a smiling photo that sells for a lot) sellable for money. Blame Tri-Crescendo for this. Shops aren't particularly necessary, money isn't very valuable. Photos take a few minutes to develop and the quality is dependent on ambient light level affected by monster, location, and use of Light/Dark Magnus when attacking -again, you can toooooootally ignore this.

 

44 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Congrats on finishing!

Thanks!

Only 11-12 hours to clear. Was just as fun these years later.😄

Edited September 13, 2023 by Interdimensional Observer