Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[GuardianSing]

Man, it would sure be a shame if my only restore staff went with the character who left right before this mission.

Game, it's so cute that you think I'll remember any of these names.

Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game

            Never being called a queen for some reason

Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death.

This combined with Sigurd being hit by a 5 percent earlier as well as Lachesis missing a 70 four consecutive times, makes me have grounds to claim that God hates me.

Clearly, the obvious strategy is to have Erin kill everyone across this bridge singlehandedly.

18 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Just out of curiosity, did you follow enough of court gossip from chapter 2 to figure out the little secret of this?

Probably? I just don't recall much of it. I feel this game would benefit from having cutscenes taking place in the court to show what is happening rather than just info-dumping it all to Sigurd.

18 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah, big oofs on that one after going through the effort of getting her promoted.

Such a shame too, I couldn't even see her in action since all enemies were already gone with she promoted.

Edited February 1 by GuardianSing

[Acacia Sgt]

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

...Have I been ignoring the true mobile suit this entire time?🤔

Well, it ain't just for show!

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If Layzner ever returns to SRW. I want CandyCaine to have another totally random last-minute return. Like, have him wake up in an allied battleship's morgue, weeks after he "died", and somehow his Zakarl is in the hangar, perfectly intact. Don't explain it, just absurdism.

Pft, turn it into a recurring running gag? XD

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 

• What Julia intends to do with Le Caine now, I don't know. But it seems Layzner OVA-ending-ish, Caine seems rational now and Julia will be with him.

 

I don't remember this part, but yeah, per the OVA's they both soon return to Grados.

12 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

• When I remove about 30k of his now 60k HP, Shapiro heals it all off. This was his godhood? Pffffff!😝 

The power of Spirit Commands? lol

10 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Game, it's so cute that you think I'll remember any of these names.

Eh, you can check them in the status screen anyway...

Also, games back then certainly expected that of you. They held gamers to much higher standards.

10 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game

            Never being called a queen for some reason

Well, since Dierdre's grandfather is still alive, then she can't be Queen yet. King Azmur must abdicate or kick the bucket first...

10 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death.

... say, you're not gonna leave him dead, are you...?

 

[Acacia Sgt]

I'd say, something just hit me.

Looking at Mythic Lumera in FEH... she does not wield a Dragonstone. Sure, her weapon is named Monarch's Stone; but her sprite isn't holding one, her transformation animation is to simply join her hands in prayer, and even her attacking artworks has just a golden glow instead of an actual stone. The times we see her in dragon form in Engage and transforms back, no dragonstone is to be seen either. Then there's the fact that Zephia/Zelestia doesn't seem to use or even have one either. As a matter of fact, the only dragons we know who have dragonstones are... the Fell Dragons.

When you consider all Fell Dragons we see are members of a single family, and what their origin is... it makes you wonder if this discrepancy is just... that. Dragons native to Elyos simply don't use Dragonstones, keeping the power within themselves and just transform at will. While Fell Dragons (or just the Fell Dragon) come from where dragons did had to make/use Dragonstones.

Just... something to ponder about...

Edited February 1 by Acacia Sgt

[BrightBow]

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Man, it would sure be a shame if my only restore staff went with the character who left right before this mission.

It's with Ethlin? I thought it was a B rank staff. Ethlin should only be able to use C rank staffs.

It's really nice in this game too, since it has 10 range.
 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game

            Never being called a queen for some reason

She is not a queen yet. Kurth might be dead, but his dad is still alive and occupying the throne.
 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Probably? I just don't recall much of it. I feel this game would benefit from having cutscenes taking place in the court to show what is happening rather than just info-dumping it all to Sigurd.

Most definitely. Love the court scenes in Berwick Saga. Volcens, my beloved.

Anyway, obligatory reminder to have Levin visit the Silesian capital when he has the chance.
You are explicitly told that, but people still manage to skip this somehow.
 

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death.

This combined with Sigurd being hit by a 5 percent earlier as well as Lachesis missing a 70 four consecutive times, makes me have grounds to claim that God hates me.

If there is one thing I learned from Pokemon, it's not to bank on 70% Thunder attacks hitting their mark.

Just in case you haven't noticed, Sigurd's Leadership Stars boost the accuracy and avoid of allies in a 3 tile radius.
The formula goes 1 star does nothing, 2 stars give +10, 3 stars give +20, 4 starts give +30, etc...

Edited February 1 by BrightBow

[Eltosian Kadath]

14 hours ago, Armagon said:

 

>P3 AI only allies is bad game design

I am going to disagree with this point a fair bit, as the P3 AI tactics menu is a lot more robust than the one in P4 and P5. If you actually engage with the mechanic, you find that they put a fair bit of design into it. It also emphasizes something important, that you are playing as your named protagonist, not as a party of adventures, where your party members are their own characters, with their own motivation, and arcs outside the protagonist. Admittedly it took me a while to come around to the mechanic, preferring P3P's version of things which does allow the player to control their allies, although its severe nerfing of the exhaustion mechanic was a weakness of that version. The Persona 3 without the protagonist challenge run is what cemented it as a mechanic with some real teeth (and emphasized how much more robust it is in P3, as the P4 and beyond versions are so inferior to it).

Tartarus design on the other hand is certainly a product of its age.

 

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

 

Actually I did join one for FE6 but I played my first chapter and the last I heard of that was october last year, so

You mean the one @AlexArtsHere setup? Yeah I have been wondering a little about that, based on the schedule laid out before, my turn is a few weeks overdue, but perhaps the holidays delayed things a bit, and I know from experience of running one before that (which you dropped out of) that scheduling problems, and people dropping out are real common with these type of collaborative game projects, so who knows.

 

4 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

 

Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game

            Never being called a queen for some reason

To be fair, her grandfather is still on the throne, and while he was working on stepping down, even her father Kurth is simply considered a Prince while the old man was still around (heck, he is even still calling Kurth a prince in that very conversation).

 

5 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

 

Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death.

This combined with Sigurd being hit by a 5 percent earlier as well as Lachesis missing a 70 four consecutive times, makes me have grounds to claim that God hates me.

Oof, the dice have really been against you today.

 

5 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

 

Clearly, the obvious strategy is to have Erin kill everyone across this bridge singlehandedly.

There is a long pass through the mountains for people to reach there, and one of the villages reveals the secret to dropping the obvious place for the bridge, plus you can bait a fair number of them into a ranged death as well.

 

[Acacia Sgt]

So close to 2K words... but still a bit to go to finish the chapter. Ah well. It will be finished in February for sure.

[Saint Rubenio]

6 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Berwick Saga with Paramythis available right from the start would most certainly be a funny game.

Light Cavalry / Light Infantry. Pretty much the best movement type for mounted and dismounted and yet she still has bulk on the level of a heavy knight unit. Except unlike heavy cavalry, she is not lacking in magical resistance either. And she can even use accessories for even more power and flexibility.

Pursuit gives her the potential to dish out crazy amounts of damage. Even when she gets hit, she will be able to retaliate. Though chances are she won't get hit at all, because she is lightning fast and her avoid is boosted even further with Lurk. So she is able to dish out a lot of counter attacks.
It builds up her sword rank super fast. Her mediocre base rank is the closest thing she has to a weakness in the vanilla game. If she were around for longer, she would hit those caps fast and be able to take full advantage of Pursuit with just about any possible sword.

And she can heal, I suppose. Even automatically reequips her weapon, so she can go right back to kicking ass. Because Paramythis can not only do everything, she also excels at everything.

You can really tell Paramythis was designed to be a unit that's not available for much of the game. Because she's the game just pulling all stops and going "all right, do whatever the heck you want fam."

6 hours ago, BrightBow said:

https://twitter.com/mcc_msbt/status/1265321107659255809

 

She even excells in design. Top 5 Berwick Saga designs, right there.

6 hours ago, Armagon said:

Been a while but i had a go at it

Most of it was me not knowing capturables and trial map characters. Also Jugdral is a huge blindspot for me, especially Thracia cause i didn't beat that game lol.

On the flip side, i got a solid chunk of Heroes, TMS and the three Warriors 1 characters. 

The trick was to remember recruitment order but some did get me still like most of Archanea's cast. I also blanked on some 3H characters haha oops.

I did them on recruitment order and when I started freezing up I'd switch games. It worked out pretty well, and my contrarianism ensured I excelled at those obscure randos (still fucking hilarious that Gharnef is a playable character in the series lol) but my complete indifference of Heroes threw a wrench in my score.

I even scored better in TMS. I remembered Barry and Tsubasa, even if I don't even know what Tsubasa's face looks like.

6 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Now look here as Ayra misses three times in a row with the bolt sword qt 76 despite being hit twice in response by a 59, and right after that have Lewyn be hit three times in a row by a 31 Blizzard, causing his death.

This combined with Sigurd being hit by a 5 percent earlier as well as Lachesis missing a 70 four consecutive times, makes me have grounds to claim that God hates me.

1 RN, baby! Things sure do seem different when the game doesn't lie to you.

...5% and four 70%s in a row is pretty amazing though.

6 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Clearly, the obvious strategy is to have Erin kill everyone across this bridge singlehandedly.

This is such a dumb fucking moment.

6 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Probably? I just don't recall much of it. I feel this game would benefit from having cutscenes taking place in the court to show what is happening rather than just info-dumping it all to Sigurd.

Bow already pointed it out, but yeah Berwick Saga has all the court scenes you could ever hope for and then some. This game... Eh. It's primitive.

4 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Most definitely. Love the court scenes in Berwick Saga. Volcens, my beloved.

Volcyboy best boy.

3 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

You mean the one @AlexArtsHere setup? Yeah I have been wondering a little about that, based on the schedule laid out before, my turn is a few weeks overdue, but perhaps the holidays delayed things a bit, and I know from experience of running one before that (which you dropped out of) that scheduling problems, and people dropping out are real common with these type of collaborative game projects, so who knows.

Yeah, that's the one. Wonder if it's just going really slow or if enough people dropped off that it just petered out.

...Also, yeah, now I remember. Your FE6 thing I dropped out of lol. Yeah that's what I meant when I said I'm bad at staying on these things. Playing random, disconnected chapters tends to harm my interest.

[Sidereal Wraith]

16 hours ago, Capt. Fargus said:

Hot damn!! 😃

I got ahold of a set of arcade Golden Axe that actually works on my version of MAME. Set 3 did the trick. I am a happy man right now. 😎

This calls for a drink. Wanna join me @Sidereal Wraith ?

I’m always ready.

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Well, it ain't just for show!

It seems non-combination weapon power, for Supers, peaks at 6150 with maximum upgrades. The peak is a little lower for Reals (including the Ap III and BZ), so the Guntank is actually really good. Yes it has garbo durability, but then just use it as a player-phase unit, slap someone with a lot of Support in there and later toss them Hit & Away and a Large Magazine and you're set (plus the S-terrain rank weapon FUB). Besides having extremely cheap weapon upgrades that pack as much a punch or even more than Reals with higher bases, if you keep allies besides it to Support it & shrug off the occasional enemy attack, then you needn't ever upgrade its durability or even EN since Operation V is its only EN-based attack, saving you more money. Four part slots means a Booster, that Large Magazine, and maybe two Chobham Armor for durability or Learning CPUs for crit, can all be fitted onto it.

The only thing I see holding the Guntank back from being immediately busted, is that early money is scarce fighting mere Zakus, and you'd probably want to put it into upping some EN or HP+Armor/Mobility on a unit or three who'd you throw ahead to take all enemy aggression before wiping them out on your next turn.

This sounds like good NG+ fun (or even plain old NG). The Guncannon ain't bad either, another weapon for more ammo, though it does cost 90k more to max on weapons. May as well leave Amuro in the G-3 then to the very end. NG+ according to Akurasu also lets you carry over captured units, so I could unleash the Big Zam at Jaburo -on Jaburo's side.

---

Episode 44

Spoiler

• The heroes successfully emerge from the warp tunnel to the space of the Edon star system. Almost immediately, they're spotted by Ozma, the Baxingar merchant who was fence-sitting before, and the Gale was wary of him. Ozma decides to go see the Gandor and is allowed on board the White Base. (Hazuki engages in very little commander-conversation, Bright has been indisputably in command.)
• Ozma and his companion converse with Diego and Stecken of the Galactic Gale (they do 95% of the Baxinger five's story-talking), as well as Braiger's Issac.
  • Ozma is now officially allied with the New Planets Alliance, though his visit here was done without authorization.
  • Outright civil war has broken out within the Edon star system between the NPA and the Tokuga government. (Bloody God of Sasuraigar, the corrupt minister of Daiohja, and Braiger's Khamen are all involved as a reminder.) This is a change since the Gandor's first visit.
  • Ozma is here to try persuading the much-feared Gale to back down from supporting the Tokuga royal family, at least go independent. Obviously, the Gale refuses to do so.
  • Ozma's problems with the current government- outdated. Also, Edon weak and surrounded by the Interstellar Alliance, it's change now & become strong, or stay stagnant & die soon.
  • Ozma and the Gale like each other, but the conversations ends with "this conversation never happened.
• On his way out speaking to his aide, Ozma bumps into Prince Mito. Mito has an FE Lord Naivete to him as I've said before (I mean, kid-friendly Super anime), so he thinks Ozma the now-enemy is a nice guy and Ozma somehow gets a kick out of seeing the Prince. And Ozma even says that if he we alone, he'd accept the Prince's offer to help him end the fighting, but he's got his planet -Tolsa- to represent.
• The battle alarm then sounds, Ozma despite being a potential enemy, stays on the ship and at Issac's suggestion goes to observe from the bridge.
  • It's the rebellious young man from Baxinger who showed up when the Gandor was last here- Key Malone. Ozma says that since he is NPA and the heroes back the Tokuga gov't, he's an enemy to them alright.
  • Malone was only in the area to attack some unrelated facility, but at the surprise sight of the Gandor again, he changes his target.
  • Ozma tries persuading Malone to leave because he will lose here, but it the hothead doesn't back down.
• It's a few battleships and the one enemy mech type Baxinger has. No reinforcements, very easy. Not bad, given the stuff I went through finishing the warring above Earth.
  • If you deploy Baxingar (yes I randomly swap between translating the g*r letter as "a" and "e") and it scores a kill, Ozma comments. The Galactic Gale is good, and he only now realizes they aren't concerned about politics, only self-interest, sadly for him.
  • Baxinger also gets get a boss convo against Malone, nothing special. He retreats ofc.
• Battle over, Blues of Sasuraigar comments the Nubia Connection must've done something to worsen the situation while they were gone. The White Base Corps heads towards planet Edon. They also realize that the enemy wasn't aware they had returned this time, next they will be, and so they'll actually be prepared.
• Ozma leaves the White Base, his allies were defeated, but he liked the sight of the battle and doesn't want to fight, Bright lets him go. Mito gives the merchant a smiley send-off and he puts on a nice laughing expression, he then speaks to himself that Edon might be able to change without overthrowing the Tokuga gov't with Prince Mito in charge.
• As the heroes make their aforementioned voyage to planet Ozma head offs to meet with representatives of Longoo and Gowahand, other New Planet Alliance members. With Key of Longoo and Igo of Gowahand present, Ozma, plenty sympathetic to them, nonetheless tries to persuade them to negotiate with the Tokuga government.
  • Ozma is convinced that even if the NPA wins the civil war -which he now considers a last resort- it won't be without serious casualties to the NPA. Weakened, the NPA won't be able to rebuild Edon And Edon is surrounded by powerful neighbors, they benefit from any violence within Edon (could possibly sweep in after the civil war too).
  • Also, Key (very much opposed to Ozma's new treasonous peacenik stance) gives one detail that, among the unfair things the Tokuga government has done, is limit each planet's battle robot production and let itself keep "Daiohja the Strongest Robot (in Edon)". Truly unforgiveable.
  • Ozma is given some time to go and attempt negotiations by Igo, though they'll keep amassing forces should he fail.
• Ozma reaches Edon, shortly before the White Base Corps descend or something, and...

Double gasp!

Flipping to Khamen Khamen's place, he gets confirmation of his latest hit. Next up- Bloody God and Edon's evil minister Dezban, the latter Khamen insists will make a crack in the NPA, to "fuhahahaha!" results.

An easy transition back to outer space.

[Acacia Sgt]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It seems non-combination weapon power, for Supers, peaks at 6150 with maximum upgrades. The peak is a little lower for Reals (including the Ap III and BZ), so the Guntank is actually really good. Yes it has garbo durability, but then just use it as a player-phase unit, slap someone with a lot of Support in there and later toss them Hit & Away and a Large Magazine and you're set (plus the S-terrain rank weapon FUB). Besides having extremely cheap weapon upgrades that pack as much a punch or even more than Reals with higher bases, if you keep allies besides it to Support it & shrug off the occasional enemy attack, then you needn't ever upgrade its durability or even EN since Operation V is its only EN-based attack, saving you more money. Four part slots means a Booster, that Large Magazine, and maybe two Chobham Armor for durability or Learning CPUs for crit, can all be fitted onto it.

The only thing I see holding the Guntank back from being immediately busted, is that early money is scarce fighting mere Zakus, and you'd probably want to put it into upping some EN or HP+Armor/Mobility on a unit or three who'd you throw ahead to take all enemy aggression before wiping them out on your next turn.

This sounds like good NG+ fun (or even plain old NG). The Guncannon ain't bad either, another weapon for more ammo, though it does cost 90k more to max on weapons. May as well leave Amuro in the G-3 then to the very end. NG+ according to Akurasu also lets you carry over captured units, so I could unleash the Big Zam at Jaburo -on Jaburo's side.

Yeah, this is where some of the designated low-tier units get to shine over the higher-tier ones. Cheaper to upgrade, more part slots, etc. The older games upped the stakes further with stuff like the V-Up Units. So as it is, there's not a whole lot of units that aren't endgame viable. Of course, Mobile Suits being interchangeable have always been to their advantage since you can put a good pilot on them, further boosting their usability.

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Double gasp!

Flipping to Khamen Khamen's place, he gets confirmation of his latest hit. Next up- Bloody God and Edon's evil minister Dezban, the latter Khamen insists will make a crack in the NPA, to "fuhahahaha!" results.

Better get used to that laugh. XD

[Armagon]

10 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

Prince Kurth's daughter 🤝Nearly every other female royal figure in a Nintendo game

            Never being called a queen for some reason

Meanwhile Xenoblade is built different.

9 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

When you consider all Fell Dragons we see are members of a single family, and what their origin is... it makes you wonder if this discrepancy is just... that. Dragons native to Elyos simply don't use Dragonstones, keeping the power within themselves and just transform at will. While Fell Dragons (or just the Fell Dragon) come from where dragons did had to make/use Dragonstones.

Just... something to ponder about...

Interesting. I haven't thought about that but you do make a good point there.

Although then the question is why doesn't Zephia transform if she doesn't need a Dragonstone. Lost the power maybe? Alear can't transform because her Dragonstone isn't with her and in Bond Conversations, Veyle mentions she buried hers a long time ago to the point she doesn't even remember where she left it.

But then Sombron doesn't need a Dragonstone either. Hmm.

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I am going to disagree with this point a fair bit, as the P3 AI tactics menu is a lot more robust than the one in P4 and P5. If you actually engage with the mechanic, you find that they put a fair bit of design into it.

I haven't played so i can't fully comment on it but i don't think it's unreasonable to not like being unable to control your party members in a turn-based game on a fundamental level.

8 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

It also emphasizes something important, that you are playing as your named protagonist, not as a party of adventures, where your party members are their own characters, with their own motivation, and arcs outside the protagonist.

Buddy. Pal. This is exactly what i'm talking about. This is not something exclusive to Persona 3, it's not even exclusive to Persona as a whole. This is like 99% of RPGs. Imagine if in Fire Emblem you could only control Marth and everyone else acted on their own, taking Kaga's original vision of "your units have real lives" to the extreme.

And this is what i mean. As an outsider, every time i see Persona 3 discussion about the good and the bad, every single critique i've seen is often met with some "high-art excuse" about how the thing you think is bad is good actually and you thinking it's bad means it's good because of themes or something.

Stuff like this is why it seems no one can agree which version of Persona 3 is the definitive one too. Because there's the original for being the original. There's FES which contains The Answer which people either love or hate. There's Portable which has FeMC but it's the first version of the game to have controllable party members and so you have people saying it's an inferior version. FES does have a controllable party member mod but i've seen people clown on it because it "misses the point". Then there's Reload which is just the original but Persona 5-ified with The Answer getting in as DLC later but still no FeMC.

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I even scored better in TMS. I remembered Barry and Tsubasa, even if I don't even know what Tsubasa's face looks like.

I saw "TMS(E)" and i was like "wait shit, Barry and Maiko count?" because they aren't actually playable but they do have Session Attacks.

[Acacia Sgt]

15 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Interesting. I haven't thought about that but you do make a good point there.

Although then the question is why doesn't Zephia transform if she doesn't need a Dragonstone. Lost the power maybe? Alear can't transform because her Dragonstone isn't with her and in Bond Conversations, Veyle mentions she buried hers a long time ago to the point she doesn't even remember where she left it.

But then Sombron doesn't need a Dragonstone either. Hmm.

Yeah, that's the question. Mage Dragons seemingly only exist to justify the time crystals, and where all the half Fell Dragons could be coming from. Beyond that, Zephia could just be a powerful sorceress and nothing would change much.

Sombron not seemingly having a stone either is also questionable. Hard to say right now.

[Saint Rubenio]

It looks like the route split in Radiata Stories has snuck up on me.

...And by "snuck up on me" I mean "has arrived 30 hours into the game." It went by in a flash... I was having too much fun recruiting characters lol

34 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I saw "TMS(E)" and i was like "wait shit, Barry and Maiko count?" because they aren't actually playable but they do have Session Attacks

Oh so Barry isn't even properly playable. I did notice he was in a different section, but... Well, didn't pay it much mind lol

And yeah, I don't know the specifics of this "session attack" thing, but that quiz goes into some really obscure places. Like, again, Gharnef is an answer.

[GuardianSing]

JESUS FUCK

13 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

... say, you're not gonna leave him dead, are you...?

He's fine, don't worry.

12 hours ago, BrightBow said:

She is not a queen yet. Kurth might be dead, but his dad is still alive and occupying the throne.

12 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To be fair, her grandfather is still on the throne, and while he was working on stepping down, even her father Kurth is simply considered a Prince while the old man was still around (heck, he is even still calling Kurth a prince in that very conversation).

True. I was referencing that the game seems reluctant to refer to her as an heir specifically while being eager to point out that any son she may give birth to will be an heir.

13 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Just in case you haven't noticed, Sigurd's Leadership Stars boost the accuracy and avoid of allies in a 3 tile radius.

The formula goes 1 star does nothing, 2 stars give +10, 3 stars give +20, 4 starts give +30, etc...

There's gotta be like a manual that came with the original game that gives this kind of crucial information.

13 hours ago, BrightBow said:

Anyway, obligatory reminder to have Levin visit the Silesian capital when he has the chance.

You are explicitly told that, but people still manage to skip this somehow.

I don't know who Levin is but okay.

12 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

There is a long pass through the mountains for people to reach there, and one of the villages reveals the secret to dropping the obvious place for the bridge, plus you can bait a fair number of them into a ranged death as well.

 

Was it the village the closest to the castle because if so it unfortunately does not exist anymore.

 

[Armagon]

8 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

I don't know who Levin is but okay.

Lewyn. Levin is an old fan-translated name.

[Interdimensional Observer]

@Shrimpy -Limited Edition- I'm joking when I throw this at you 😜, but a visual novel with "witch" in the name.:

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/tales-from-toyotoki-arrival-of-the-witch-coming-west-for-ps5-switch-this-summer

 

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Of course, Mobile Suits being interchangeable have always been to their advantage since you can put a good pilot on them, further boosting their usability.

Or vice-versa, to an extent. Lesser pilots can get jump into some of the better Mobile Suits. Nothing says I couldn't bench Judau and throw Shiro in the ZZ, barring a force-deployed battle or three.

Also, with GC's multiple Ace Bonuses, I think it'd be a nifty idea to throw every MS pilot you're using long-term into the RX-78-2/3 for a time, the Hyper Hammer being 1-3 range makes getting the Melee Ace status much easier than with almost any non-capture Gundam unit, since they're almost exclusively range 1 on their beam sabers. +1 Move is nice.

[ping]

19 hours ago, Armagon said:

I mean these are criticisms I've seen around people who have played the game. I just don't think "no you're supposed to think it's bad" is a good counterargument, even if you disagree with the take itself.

A few weeks ago, one of the memes I uploaded to r/shitpostemblem, I had someone in the comments saying that FE4 maps being tedious slogs is good actually because "it's supposed to be like that" and "you feel what the characters feel crossing them". Basically every critique of the game's format you could think of basically amounted to "that's not a bug, that's a feature".

But if somebody says, "This is how I experienced [P3 / FE4 / ...]", they are correct (unless they're deliberately lying, of course). People play video games in different fashions. For some (including myself, most of the time), going through the motions of moving your army from A to B is a slog. For others, that's some relaxation between encounters, some opportunity to set yourself up for the next fight, or whatever else. Same with allied figures acting on their own - I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to video games, so that's stressful for me, but others may enjoy playing around the variability coming from that.

That's not to go into "there is no objective truth" territory, or that you're not allowed to criticise a game because somebody happens to like it. "The AI-controlled party members in P3 are a source of frustration because they always seem to pick the wrong spell" would be a valid point to make, if it was true. I don't know if it is, I didn't interact with the system enough to make that judgement. But you're making that statement with a lot of conviction (and, honestly, some level of condescension, looking at the tweet you showed before), without having played the game, if I understand you correctly, which would definitely annoy me if I was a P3 fan.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Buddy. Pal. This is exactly what i'm talking about. This is not something exclusive to Persona 3, it's not even exclusive to Persona as a whole. This is like 99% of RPGs. Imagine if in Fire Emblem you could only control Marth and everyone else acted on their own, taking Kaga's original vision of "your units have real lives" to the extreme.

That's not an argument. Yes, it wouldn't work in Fire Emblem (unless the associated buttons in Gaiden/Echoes are a lot more popular than I expect), but Persona is, gasp!, a rather different game than Fire Emblem. There are definitely RPGs where AI-controlled companions work (at least decently well) - Dragon Age: Origins is an example that I've played a fair bit over the last year, where you can absolutely play through the entire game without ever giving a companion any direct order. Although, to be fair, unless I severely underestimate P3 in that regard, DA:O gives you far more options to customise their behavior, and you probably still don't want to let them throw Fireballs without your explicit order.

[ping]

23 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Bad Quetzal! No! Bad!

[Armagon]

10 minutes ago, ping said:

But if somebody says, "This is how I experienced [P3 / FE4 / ...]", they are correct (unless they're deliberately lying, of course). People play video games in different fashions.

Right but i'm not talking about how they experience the game. That's fine. My point is moreso "the thing you thought was bad was supposed to be bad and that's why it's good" isn't exactly the most convincing argument. It's pretty corny.

Things can make thematic sense and still be wonky in the actual implementation. Whether or not you think that actual implementation is wonky is up to you but i don't think you need to go the high-art route as your counterargument. I think it's better to argue why you think it's good than saying "yeah it's bad but...".

Now honestly, credit where credit is due, @Eltosian Kadath is not saying that "it's bad and that's the point" which is what i've seen P3 counterarguments typically be. Like i've deadass unironically have seen people say "the AI allies are bad" and it's met with "yeah that's the point" which ties into what i said earlier. Even if the point itself being "people are people" is not super convincing either, like i can point to any RPG that does that without AI allies. So, apologies to Eltosian cause i misread he point a bit.

14 minutes ago, ping said:

There are definitely RPGs where AI-controlled companions work (at least decently well) - Dragon Age: Origins is an example that I've played a fair bit over the last year, where you can absolutely play through the entire game without ever giving a companion any direct order. Although, to be fair, unless I severely underestimate P3 in that regard, DA:O gives you far more options to customise their behavior, and you probably still don't want to let them throw Fireballs without your explicit order.

But also DAO isn't exactly turn-based so the comparison lands even less. You are right that AI allies do work but they are much more acceptable in like action RPGs and the like. 

[Saint Rubenio]

It is rather funny to see this argument about RPGs with unplayable teammates when I'm currently playing a game where you do, in fact, have a team that you cannot control.

Of course, in Radiata Stories the thing is that characters are pretty simple when you get down to brass tacks. They have a set of equipment you cannot change, a small sequence of attacks that they will perform and a rudimentary AI that gets the job done, as well as a set of orders you can give them during combat.

The interesting part is that there's a bazillion characters and each of them has different equipment and attack patterns. So you have to find combos that work for you, or train characters to stand up against threats, not to mention the ability to learn skills off characters by linking with them, which further influences your deployment choices.

And, of course...

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But also DAO isn't exactly turn-based so the comparison lands even less. You are right that AI allies do work but they are much more acceptable in like action RPGs and the like. 

RS is an ARPG, not a JRPG. Thankfully, otherwise I doubt I'd have lasted this long. It'd have been another Suikoden.

[ping]

2 minutes ago, Armagon said:

My point is moreso "the thing you thought was bad was supposed to be bad and that's why it's good" isn't exactly the most convincing argument. It's pretty corny.

Yeah, I can agree with that statement. With a bit of a caveat, in that there's ways in which it can be good if a game is frustrating the player - for example an unwinnable boss fight setting up the catharsis of kicking that bastard's butt at a later point - but I don't think this is applicable when a central game mechanic is bad, since these are bad all the time.

An example of an excellent, frustrating game would be Darkest Dungeon, in my opinion. There's a whole subreddit dedicated to a particularly infuriating scenario (r/FuckWilbur - TL;DR: Wilbur is the smol sidekick of a big beefy boss, whose main purpose is to point at a hero to tell his buddy who to cleave in half, but it's quite possible that he'll finish off a weakened team after you kill the Swine King) and enemy crits can be devestating in any random encounter - but the game is set up in a way that even a total party kill on an expedition doesn't make the game unwinnable, and knowing how badly things can go makes a smoothly executed mission all the more satisfying. 

 

[Codename Shrimp]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

@Shrimpy -Limited Edition- I'm joking when I throw this at you 😜, but a visual novel with "witch" in the name.:

https://www.gematsu.com/2024/02/tales-from-toyotoki-arrival-of-the-witch-coming-west-for-ps5-switch-this-summer

👀

Also tfw faster tl than Ys

[Saint Rubenio]

Oh, good God.

You know, I do appreciate this bit of fourth wall breakage, because otherwise this route split would kinda suck. Right when the stakes of the story are beginning to raise, the deuteragonist visits Jack late at night, explains her plan going forward that I won't get into, has a mental breakdown and solemnly says "goodbye." The game then gives you the choice to follow her... Or ignore that whole noise and go to the castle to answer a summons.

Needless to say, there's one choice that 99% of people would've picked here, so I'd say the devs were wise to just forego all pretense and flat out say "yeah this is the route split, careful what you do."

So... This is actually a complaint I'd heard about the game. People say that the nonhuman side makes more sense storywise and seems to be the more "intended" path, but at the same time, the city you've been exploring and most of the companions you've picked up are barred to you if you pick it.

Well. There's one path that has you siding with the assholes, and it's the path that lets me keep the tall lady with a whip I just recruited, so... I'll do it tomorrow though, tonight I'll see if I can't find anything more to do before the split.

[Armagon]

18 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Oh, good God.

I like how sad he looks.

18 minutes ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Well. There's one path that has you siding with the assholes, and it's the path that lets me keep the tall lady with a whip I just recruited, so... I'll do it tomorrow though, tonight I'll see if I can't find anything more to do before the split.

Probably make a save point here so you can do both routes without completely starting over.

[Saint Rubenio]

Oh God I meant it figuratively before, but now it's literal. The choice has, in fact, snuck up on me.

I was in the middle of following a girl traversing the streets at night. She asked me very firmly not to follow her, so I realized it must obviously be how I recruit her. However, Jack then said "I better prepare to go to the castle" and teleported home to see the cutscene with the deuteragonist and the choice.

That's it, then. Oh well. I got enough preps done. Managed to grab this martial artist tomboy at the very last second that I wanted.

Look at that epic party. I paid 40,000 dagols for the whip lady. She only asked for 20k, but then the game gave me the choice to refuse, pay her or double the pay. It took me exactly 0.2 seconds to surrender my life savings to the tall lady with the whip.

41 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I like how sad he looks.

He did just watch a friend have a mental breakdown.

...Then if you choose to ignore it and go to the castle he just goes "whatever, I'll never understand poor rich girls."

41 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Probably make a save point here so you can do both routes without completely starting over.

I most certainly have. If I end up wanting more of this game to the point where I want to play the other route, though, I might just do NG+ instead, which I hear exists. There's also a postgame, I think? There's a lot of stuff. We'll see.

Edited February 1 by Saint Rubenio