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lime-sar · 2 years ago

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hey so i'm gonna be using an Actual Reply instead of shoving everything in the tags because i have Many Thoughts about each of them and that is a threat. all that will be under the cut

also major spoilers will be openly discussed here. be warned!!

chances are that anyone voting in this poll has at least a basic grasp of each of the games' story but if you're somehow not familiar with pokémon mystery dungeon, i cannot recommend playing through it yourself enough. the gameplay isn't for everyone, but you will get emotional from the story. i recommend starting with explorers of sky (and i don't think any of us will judge you for using "other means" to play it. we get it.)

RT!Partner is probably the candidate for being most well-off. Even through the fugitive arc - the one where an entire town was tricked into believing RT!Hero was a Harbinger of Doom or whatever and chased them across the continent, including a confrontation with a powerful, gold-ranked team at the end of it all - Partner remained about as optimistic and energetic as ever. Sure, they may have just been holding it together for Hero's sake, but they went back to their usual self the moment they got back to town. Even after breaking down from Hero's (very brief) disappearance, Partner was all sunshine and smiles the moment they came back.

There's some aspects of RT!Partner that just. aren't explained. Or are only explained in obscure external media. Where are their parents? Who knows! How'd they get the house they'd eventually give to Hero? Wigglytuff gave it to them instead of a friend camp! How do we know that? A single short for RTDX that was never uploaded in any language other than Japanese. Because of course. But Partner doesn't seem to miss their parents (unlike a certain someone we'll get to in a minute) and now I'm wanting to headcanon the shopkeepers all being Partner's adoptive parents. Don't lie. It'd be hella cute.

Now! Onto Explorers!Partner!

In stark contrast to the previous Partner's bubbly and cheery demeanor, Explorers!Partner is meek, anxious, and quite the coward at first. It isn't until they get help from Explorers!Hero that they become more confident. (Pretty much the only similarity these two Partners share is the lack of any parents and how it's never brought up)

And oh boy, they really needed someone like Hero to get them through The Horrors.

Explorers!Partner:

is bullied relentlessly by another exploration team, to the point where said team causes them to fail a critical mission and nearly get fucking exploded by the guildmaster (which said team uses as yet another opportunity to be cruel to them)

just has to fucking Believe Hero when they say to run headfirst into a waterfall or intentionally sink in quicksand, and only after both of those potentially deadly events (from Partner's perspective) do they learn Hero's just Built Different

fights an illusion of a god, a minor god, and a wanted criminal and gets beaten so bad they can't even speak. chances are they would've died if Dusknoir hadn't intervened

gets betrayed by someone they thought to be a hero and sent to the Gotdamn Future where Everything Sucks and INTO FUCKING PRISON TO BE EXECUTED. and they have to rely on someone they believed was an evil criminal hellbent on stopping time to get back to the present AND EVEN THEN they have yet another near-death experience with a psychotic god and their lackeys before actually making it back

has to convince a whole guild that the brave renowned explorer is the real bad guy and the thief was the pokémon trying to save the world, and the guildmaster's right hand attempts to gaslight the members just to test their bonds with Partner and Hero. like seriously imagine if Sunflora hadn't brought up the moment Partner and Hero were kidnapped into the future the guild members were already on track to believing Chatot Partner and Hero could've been totally fucked right then and there—

watches Chatot shield them and almost die from an ambush

has to watch Grovyle sacrifice himself to stop Dusknoir from interfering with the plan again

has to fight the aforementioned psychotic god at the top of a crumbling tower and only manages to put in the time gears and save the world mere moments before total collapse

has to watch as Hero slowly fades from reality because changing the present meant they no longer fuckin exist

has to deal with Hero's absence for several months before Dialga finally goes and gives Hero another chance at life

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL! In the post-game we have:

Partner (and Hero) being told in a dream to "disappear" to "save" the world a second time. They seriously contemplate this. This is a game that's rated E for Everyone.

them being ambushed in the middle of the night by FUCKING GOD-OF-SPACE PALKIA and having to go through a rift in Gotdamn Space to fight and defeat YET ANOTHER GOD

AND IT WAS ALL OVER A MISUNDERSTANDING

and while we only know it happened to Hero, chances are that Partner also had to deal with Darkrai implanting an illusion in their mind to perceive Hero joining Darkrai's side to take over the world

Needless to say, Explorers!Partner has the perfect backstory for a villain arc, and Explorers!Hero is pretty much the only one keeping them from committing to that path.

I think we're all in need of a breather.

Gates!Partner is more like RT!Partner, thankfully... but this is Gates we're talking about. Practically every main character in Gates goes through some rough shit by the end of the post-game.

They have to deal with so. Many. Assholes. Some of them they befriend out of sheer kindness, but it very much starts to take a toll on Partner. They grew up without any parents to raise them (not quite remembering if they were abandoned or if their parents were never there to begin with), and it's pretty much explicitly stated that they became very lonely because of it. They have to watch the Voice of Life get frozen and shattered and Gates!Hero get pulverized within an inch of their life by the same god in one night. They can't even physically assist Hero in taking down the Bittercold at the end of it all.

And then Hero disappears like the previous two. And they don't come back. Partner has to get into the core of the earth to get the chance to wish for Hero's return - and in the process nearly causes the core to collapse. By the way, did you know you can say no to Partner's wish? :)

To summarize, I don't think Gates!Partner is the top candidate, but they're a far cry from how well-off RT!Partner is.

Now onto SMD!Partner. Take my words with a grain of salt, I'm least familiar with SMD!Partner's... intricacies. I'm going off what other people have mentioned in the notes for the most part.

In the first part of the game, SMD!Partner hearkens to RT!Partner's personality much like Gates!Partner. Unlike those two, though... SMD!Partner is also very quickly established to be the odd one out in the town. Their only parent is a carracosta (who all but admits he adopted them), their mischievous behavior lands them in trouble with the whole town, and they're frequently bullied in school for just being weird. Though they don't let it show immediately, they've gotten self-esteem issues from all this.

SMD!Hero is the first pokémon to make a genuine friendship with Partner, the first to not get worked up with their oddities, the first (of Partner's age) to really care for them... But even then, Partner's quick to assume Hero would be too mad to be friends with them anymore over leaving a teammate behind in a dungeon in favor of winning a competition. (Granted, that's a pretty selfish move and Hero had every right to be mad... though Hero was also part of the problem, following Partner anyway despite Goomy going missing.)

Later, the team has to go through a forbidden dungeon, filled with ghosts. Partner very quickly establishes an intense fear of ghosts, even fainting at one point before being forced to explore with the rest of the classmates. At the end of it, they then fight one of the most feared legends in pokémon: Giratina. An illusion of the real thing, yes, but every kid in the fight had a right to fear such an imposing-looking pokémon. That's sure to stick with anyone, especially someone who already fears such a situation.

But then they join the Expedition Society (which only removed the "no kids" rule because of Hero and Partner's sheer dedication) and finally begin to explore other continents... and no sooner than their first mission on one of those continents do they find pokémon turned into stone. Another legend (Entei) shows up and immediately blames them for the disaster, and were Archen not there to deescalate the situation, Partner and Hero likely would've been burnt to a crisp!

Then they confront Entei and effectively luck out with their special scarves. Once again a near-death experience that's oh-so-common with these protags and their partners, eh?

And then they get sent to literal hell by Hero's adoptive dad. This moment is most certainly rougher for Hero, but Partner (and everyone else trapped with them) surely gained at least a little bit of Trauma from the situation.

They escape. They reach a forest. They confront God-of-Death Yveltal. They win (with the help of their scarves again). They climb a decaying Tree of Life. They fight an eldritch being that shares their name with a Kirby boss.

And after all of that, Partner gets memories of a past life they didn't even know they had shoved into their head. That they were Mew, that they fought Dark Matter once before, that they had a human's help then, that they didn't do it right. And as they're still trying to comprehend it all, they're forced to disappear. It takes Hero's determination and the risk of having to fight Dark Matter over and over again to successfully bring Partner back.

All that most likely has left Partner scarred. And because bringing them back is the last main story point of the post-game, we don't get much in the way of viewing what they're like at that point. It's pretty much Partner greeting Hero in the morning for another day of work.

So! We have two major candidates for this poll: Explorers!Partner and SMD!Partner. You could make points for either of them being the most Unwell.

For Explorers!Partner, they were the target of intense bullying and mockery. They had to wrangle with trust issues, whether that's believing Explorers!Hero that the pokémon they just talked to was about to kidnap someone or being told Grovyle's the bad guy and Dusknoir's the good guy and having that flipped on its head so jarringly. Their first experience in a dark, bleak future where time no longer moves is being put in a prison cell and lined up to be executed with the same pokémon that they thought was a war criminal. Do I even need to mention what Darkrai put them through?

And with SMD!Partner, they were considered the "weird one" and few actually even bothered to genuinely think about what they wanted, giving them self-worth and self-esteem issues that they only ever opened up to one person about. They watched someone close to them betray their own adoptive kid and send them to hell. They suddenly and forcefully recovered memories of their past life and now have to deal with the fact that they reincarnated themself out of guilt for things that happened thousands of years ago.

Personally, I'm going with Explorers!Partner. The consistent amount of trauma they deal with throughout their story, like I've said, lends easily to a villain arc, and without Explorers!Hero they could've been Munna before Munna. Don't take this as me asking you to vote Explorers!Partner - anything but that! Feel free to vote SMD!Partner!! You can vote Gates!Partner, even!! You could be the less-than-1% of people to vote for RT!Partner!!!

(but like why would you vote for rt!partner tho lkfjndskzfhndskzjhfksad)

Sorry for the absurdly long post!! But I absolutely warned you when I said I have Many Thoughts about these guys, so am I really sorry? ah fuck, i don't know anymore. shit.

But I hope you at least tolerated my rambling? I rarely reblog a post and add something other than tags to it so—

#polls #pmd #hhhghgghghghh this was such a tough decision for me hhhh #i didn't really think of smd!partner as all that much more Unwell than the likes of gates!partner but. jeez.#the more i looked under the surface of smd!partner's personality the more fucked up they were #also this took over a day to write and i don't expect anyone to even bother reading all this lol

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questersrest · 4 years ago

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apologies for the just talking about junk lately but my brain’s on infodump o’clock. i really want to talk about dq9 grottoes and alchemiracles. so here’s a wall of text that’s been in the back of my brain for around 9 years.

i always thought this stuff was insane and i’m dying for a remake so i can get into this again.

so.

quest #015 collapsus’ call

at the summit of the heights of loneliness, you will find a man, christopher collapsus, who climbed all the way to the top but collapsed just short of zere rocks. you need to bring him a special medicine. as a reward he will give you your first treasure map: granite tunnel of woe lv. 1.

a treasure map will depict a red X drawn on part of a map, this will be one of several locations on the overworld but it’ll be fairly zoomed in so it might take some thinking to figure out where it is. when you stand in that location, a prompt to press A will appear and when you do, a cave entrance will appear. these caves are called grottoes. inside you’ll find several floors with monsters and chests and then a boss floor.

when you beat the boss they will drop another map. it’ll be random but influenced by 3 factors:

a) the level of the map just beaten.

b) the hero’s max level. the hero’s level is stored separate for each vocation so if you’ve hit level 99 as a minstrel but are currently a level 30 warrior, your max level is 99.

c) the hero’s max revocation. when the hero reaches level 99 as a vocation they can revocate, resetting that level to 1 and gaining a little +1 next to the level. my max revocations was a +3 on gladiator.

there are like over 32,000 maps with over 200 quality variations if i remember right, the exact total is over 8 million possibilities with these varying features:

a) it’s location on the world map.

b) it’s environment theme: ruins 40%, cave 30%, fire 10%, ice 10%, or water 10%

c) the number of floors before the boss floor: 2-16

d) the layout of each floor including the placement of any chests. if you’ve ever played a mystery dungeon game you know what to expect with randomly generated dungeons.

e) the starting monster rank of the grotto. monsters appear from a pool, there are 12 ranks and each environment has its own pool of monsters for each rank. the monster rank can only start at up to rank 9 but it increases every 4 floors so to find rank 12 monsters, you’ll need a grotto that starts on 9 and has at least 13 floors. many monsters in the higher ranks are exclusive to grottoes so if you want to complete your bestiary... well i never in 700+ hours found a water grotto with rank 12 monsters. monster rank on each floor also determines what ranks of chest can appear there. there are 10 ranks of chest. each weapon used for making the 5 star weapons has a 1% chance to be in a rank 10 chest. there’s one for each of the 12 weapon types. but even on a monster rank 12 floor it’s not guaranteed to have rank 10 chests. (chests by the way refresh when grotto is closed and reopened).

f) it’s boss, of which there are 12 possible. each boss is more difficult than the previous and so it is related to the map’s level, so dw, a level 1 map can’t have the final grotto boss, you won’t be ready for that.

there is some lore to the bosses. the goddess celestria, daughter of zenus (who was slain by corvus at the beginning of the story), said her father must still be alive in some capacity or the world would cease to be. every grotto boss has some dialogue before the battle commences. fowleye specifically explains that zenus shattered into 10 pieces which took form as the first 10 grotto bosses. the 11th is the demon that the supreme sage sealed in a book with himself long ago, the supreme sage, still in the book, is a character who gives you the quests related to the sage vocation. the 12th is greygnarl who was slain by barbarus in the story but at the end his shadow was shown hinting at his return. in his dialogue he talks about himself, barbarus, and styrmling who remains somewhat of a mystery. greygnarl actually drops an yggdrasil leaf instead of another map.

each boss has 3 items they can drop. a 100% drop: another treasure map. a (i actually can’t remember, i think it’s 5 or 10)% drop chance: a certain pretty good piece of gear. a 2% drop chance for a piece of armour used for 5 star armour. most armour categories can be split into multiple sub-categories e.g. handwear that focuses on defence or deftness so there’s one for each sub-category: 1 shield, 2 headwear, 2 handwear, 3 bodywear, 1 legwear, 2 footwear. each boss has a specific one e.g. the first grotto boss, equinox, has a 2% chance to drop the vesta gauntlets: defence handwear. greygnarl is an exception to the rules, i don’t remember all the specifics and can’t find details at this time but i do remember is his 100% drop is an yggdrasil leaf and one of his drops is a certain legacy boss map, i’ll get to that in a bit.

treasure map names are clues as to the details of the map before explored but usually don’t guarantee anything (except a few environments, if it says “waterway” it’s definitely water).

there are a few other weird factors for the probability for monsters appearing on floors resulting in the ruby path of doom map that got extremely popular to share in japan and got referenced in dq11s because of the one floor with nothing but metal king slimes. i myself found a grotto which had a floor with absolutely no monsters whatsoever, it did however have 2 chests on that floor, at least one of which was rank 10.

now say you get one of these special pieces of gear, how do you make the 5 star gear?

agates of evolution are items than can only be made through alchemy and are only used for alchemy. the ingredients are 2x ethereal stone, 2x sainted soma, 1x chronocrystal. ethereal stones and sainted somas can be obtained through a few means but the easiest is through further alchemy with the ingedients being available through monster drops and sparkles found in the world. chronocrystals can only be bought, there is an npc in a cave that can only be reached in the postgame the only thing he sells are chronocrystals for 50,000 gold each, the most expensive item in the game.

there are a few special treasure maps, legacy boss maps, that lead to a grotto that is only a boss floor, a boss from a previous game. we have: dragonlord, malroth, baramos, zoma, estark, psaro, nimzo, murdaw, mortamor, nokturnus, orgodemir, dhoulmagus, and rhapthorne. the first you’ll likely come across is baramos’ map lv. 1 as a quest reward. the one greygnarl drops is dragonlord’s. when you defeat a legacy boss, they will return and ask to gain experience too, if you agree the map will level up. as a legacy boss levels up, the drops will increase in chance or change entirely. be careful as some maps you can only get once unless shared from another player, you could lock yourself out from some items. the key things they drop are armour to dress up as heroes from the previous games and maps of other legacy bosses. some legacy bosses are only available from the dlc quests or dropped by other legacy bosses that are only available from the dlc quests and since the online service was discontinued in 2014 they are now almost unavailable (if you’re genuinely interested bc you missed out, shoot me an ask and i can explain that one).

then there’s the orbs. every legacy boss can drop one of six coulored orbs. as their rarest drop, this won’t change, the chance can just be increased with their level, the only exception is nokturnus who changes which orb he drops with his level. it’s the same 6 orbs that appeared as a plot device in dq3, alongside a 7th in dq8, and would go on to appear in dq11. all six orbs are thankfully available among the legacy bosses available without online services.

each of the special items can be alchemised with an agate of evolution and a certain orb to make an improved version that looks identical. e.g. 1x stardust sword + 1x agate of evolution + 1x silver orb makes a nebula sword. getting the ingredients is both expensive and time consuming BUT it goes further. 1x nebula sword + 3x agate of evolution + 3x silver orb will make a further improved and identical but still only 4 star supernova sword. most of the time. see when you try to make this further improved item, krak pot will alert you he feels an alchemiracle coming on. he will state a chance as i think 10%, 20%, or 30% which i think can be influenced but i’m afraid i don’t know the details. you are then forced to save the game with the result determined so you can’t reset and try again. if it should succeed, you will make a 5 star item, the best item of that kind in the game, a stronger palette swap of the other items. e.g. the hypernova sword.

should it fail and you want to try again, you can alchemise the failed alchemiracle item e.g. the supernova sword with a rest stone to return it to the first item e.g. the stardust sword. reset stones can be bought from the mini medal collector of dq9 once you can reached the final reward.

so here’s the procedure.

1. grind grottoes and their bosses for this stupid rare gear. 2% drop rate has nothing on shiny pokemon, sure, except you do have to go through the entire grotto again every time.

2. grind legacy bosses for orbs.

3. grind materials for agates including money for chronocrystals.

4. pray to the rng gods once more for an alchemiracle.

5. cry because you spent 100 hours on this and it didn’t work.

6. give in to cheating via rng abuse, the hoimi table’s out there still.

have fun

#saving adventure log

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radramblog · 4 years ago

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Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is basically OK

Recently, I’ve partaken in some kind of cultural exchange with a friend of mine- namely, I’ve lent her my copies of the Scott Pilgrim novels (god do they kick ass), and she’s lent me her copy of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, seeing as I never played it at the time.

Well I’ve now beaten this game, and I have some thoughts about it, so chop chop Keara the story isn’t getting any younger I expect a full book report on my desk next Sunday.

Jokes aside, this was my first experience with a PMD game since Sky (discounting the demo for Gates to Infinity), and having missed the series’s third entry (fourth if you count those Japan-only WiiWare games), it’d be remiss of me not to at least mention that maybe some of the things I’m going to complain about were originally that game’s fault. But apparently that one actively sucks ass so who cares, just shift the blame over, eh?

(ah, primary-school-tier bullying, exactly what I want in my Pokemon game, cool)

I think one of the foremost issues people have about PSMD is the story, and I can’t help but agree. The game spends what feels like forever fucking about in Serene Village, doing what could charitably described as tutorial followed by slice-of-life-ish plots, and while I love me a good slice-of-life anime, those tend to be a lot less slow than this. Also the characters tend to be a lot less one-note, but it’s a kids game, so whatever. Speaking of kids, this to my knowledge is the only PMD game where you and your partner character are canonically children, and spend a lot of time around others. The game seems to establish unevolved Pokemon as kids, which while it doesn’t really add up with the rest of the series (e.g. in the first ones, Caterpie is clearly a child, but Metapod is as well and Gulpin is at least adult enough to run their own store), it would ultimately be excusable if it didn’t make that huge section of the game so boring.

They aren’t consistent with that kids thing, by the way. When you finally reach the Expedition society, you’re met with a bunch of unevolved Pokemon (Archen, Buizel, Bunnelby, Swirlix) that are running around behaving very youthfully, who then turn around and go hey we don’t allow kids in our gang please leave. Like, the plot had been leading me to believe that the whole place was shut down, Ampharos as its final member, and those kids were just running around an abandoned building, but nope, here are your teammates for the rest of the game.

(brown sus)

The remainder of the plot is basically fine, its not like the plots in this series are the greatest on the planet (save maybe Explorers), though the focus on the villains turning people into stone felt pretty awkward. It’s like they wanted to pull off a more dramatic, more personal-stakesy plot but couldn’t actually kill anyone. This gets kind of egregious when you end up in actual hell for a bit, in what I guess is the series tradition of potentially traumatic experiences and blasted hellscapes being exposed to the protagonists. The endgame plot all seems to come at you at once, not helped by it being lots of chained dungeons without returning to towns beforehand- it wouldn’t be as bad if the whole game was like this, but with such a slow start, it just feels so inconsistent. The endgame twist was pretty spicy, I’ll admit, but it didn’t have enough buildup to feel earned in my honest opinion.

(pictured: the best character in the game)

But the plot doesn’t matter so much as the gameplay does it? And as someone who has also concurrently been playing through the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game on my GBA, there’s a lot of interesting comparisons to make. The dungeons on the whole are shorter in PSMD, with few of the main-game ones reaching beyond 10 floors (and not going much past it) compared to the prequels’ capping off with a 25+5 floor behemoth in Sky Tower. This is made up for by every floor of the dungeons in PSMD feeling much larger and more labyrinthine than anything in other PMD games, meaning each one takes much longer than you’d think. I dread to imagine what the 99-floor dungeons are like in this game, especially considering you now need an item to quicksave the game if you want to do anything else now. The dungeons themselves additionally really do not feel like they’ve taken advantage of the 9 years of potential design improvements and two console generations of technology improvements between games- it is frustratingly same-old same-old in the dungeon design.

These problems are capped off with the increased difficulty- that is, that every individual Pokemon is significantly more of a threat to you than in previous games, and you don’t really get the opportunity to level grind much. And I’m not opposed to difficulty in games, obviously, but what it does in PSMD is ruin the flow of the gameplay for me. What works in Mystery Dungeons previous was that blend of exploration and combat, and in Super, that gets completely broken up by protracted encounters with even the chump-tier mons you encounter along the way. Also, they made the basic attack complete shit, and I don’t like that.

That’s not to say that the gameplay is all bad. I won’t comment too heavily on the Looplet/Emera system, because I’m kinda mid on it, but it didn’t help that despite all the game’s tutorialising I still didn’t get part of it until most of the way through the story. The game does have some moments of genuine brilliance in design, though. The way you recruit more Pokemon is so much better than the luck-based mission of the previous games, wihle managing to actually make you want to go on the random missions you get thrown throughout the game- for one thing they aren’t random, but it means you have a guaranteed good reward instead of the semi-RNG system where you just end up with a bunch of Gravelerocks and berries you’ll never use. In addition, the system where on non-plot days (and in the postgame) you just get 3 random Pokemon recommended to you, that get bonus EXP if you use them that day, is a great way of encouraging the player to diversify their Pokemon usage substantially, which is nice.

There’s a few other nice gameplay things I’d like to highlight. Considering the increased difficulty, the ability to rescue yourself (read: come back with the overpowered mons the game dropped in your lap) is really nice, especially since it’s not like anyone else is playing these games who can help. The way moves get better the more you use them is nice, especially considering how much more you use one move over and over in this game compared to main series Pokemon games. The random bonus missions and travelling mons you encounter in dungeons are nice, as well as the increased variety in missions available- as well as actually being able to revive fallen escortees, it makes the mission system overall much stronger than in previous entries.

Beyond that, though, I’m not sure what else I have to say about Super Mystery Dungeon. The game is a decent entry in what can barely be called a franchise these days, considering it’s 6 years old and yet still the newest entry, excluding the remake of the first ones that came out last year. It’d be a shame if this was the note we went out on for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but to be fair, I don’t think they’re ever going to be able to recapture the magic of the first two games. They struck gold with a lot of people, but I guess at this point, the gleam wore off.

#ramble #video games #pokemon #psmd #pokemon mystery dungeon

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bandyisdandy · 4 years ago

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Persona 4 Golden - The Rainbow Connection (2/10/21)

Anyone who knows me within the space of gaming knows that my favorite game of all time is arguably Persona 5 Royal. The game just oozes personality and fun from the get-go. It is easy enough to pick up and check out, but also deep enough to keep you engaged for hours upon hours, hungering for more even after the credits roll on your 80 to 120 hour experience. Saying this, I also have to admit that, while it is the fifth entry in the franchise, I had never played another Persona before vanilla 5. Whenever hardcore players of the series I met over the years heard this, they insisted I play 3 and/or 4 before I go on saying that 5/Royal is my favorite in the franchise. This past January, I decided to finally pull the trigger and check out Persona 4 Golden on Steam. After playing the game for about 70 hours, I defeated the true final boss and finally put the controller down for a bit. All I can say is... what a god damn magical experience this was.

Persona 4 is a JRPG (Japanese Role-playing Game) that puts you in control of Yu, a high schooler living in the middle of Tokyo who is moving in to the country with his police officer uncle and young cousin while his parents go away for a year on business. While there, you meet a young man named Yosuke and a girl named Chie who tell you about a mysterious phenomenon known as the Midnight Channel that shows up when a heavy fog rolls into town and the clock strikes midnight. One night, while viewing this phenomenon, a girl appears in the screen who looks an awful lot like a senior to the students at their school. The next day, her corpse is found strung up on a telephone pole, baffling the police due to the fact that a similar death took place around the time of Yu’s arrival. While investigating the murder of their senior, Yu and Yosuke discover they can enter a special television at a department store, where they meet Teddie, a living teddy bear who can lead them through the fog-dense world within the TV. Upon finding a space where their senior once was, they fight beings known as Shadows and awaken Persona, living embodiments of their fighting spirit as well as their own belief and acceptance of themselves in order to do combat with the Shadows. After their victory, they figure out that someone pushed the upperclassman into the world within the television and the Midnight Channel prophesizes the deaths of those who appear on it. Using this knowledge, Yu and Yosuke continue to make friends, investigate the case, and do their best to uncover the culprit before a year is up and Yu must return home.

... That seems like a lot, right? Well, crazily enough, that is probably the first 5 hours or so at most, and there is another 65+ to go in your first playthrough. Now, this game, at first, is a tough sell especially if you are like me and played 5/Royal first as those games have spoiled our perceptions of what the franchise is and can be. Persona 4 Golden is definitely a step down visually as well as design and music-wise in comparison to 5. It just does not have the same substance that game does and the gameplay, in comparison, feels a bit dated here. The Shadows you encounter in 5′s dungeons are also the enemies you actually fight this time around and the Tarot Card system makes collecting and recruiting Persona much more annoying than the way 5 handles it in combat. However, while it sounds like I am being quite harsh on the game, in reality, this is by and far one of the best JRPGs I have ever played and cannot be recommended by me more. Since I got all the negatives out of the way, let’s look at the heaps of praise I have for this triumph of a game.

First and foremost, what really sets this game above and beyond a lot of others, maybe even doing this better in many respects than Persona 5/Royal, is the characters. Every character is just so damn interesting, and really adds so much charm to what is already a rather charming game. They bring the story as well as the countryside town you now find yourself in that much brighter and bigger. Each one has goals, values, idealizations, and realizations that flesh them out more than most games I have played, all of them having incredibly satisfying conclusions to their stories. Some stand outs for me are your young cousin Nanako, who is lonely due to her father always working as a police officer and her mother passing away in a car accident a few years prior to the start of the game, Kanji Tatsumi, a punk who uses violence and fear to mask his incredibly soft, caring side that enjoys arts and crafting more than he would care to admit, and Naoto Shirogane, a young detective hiding her femininity in order to find power and prestige in the world of private investigation which, in Japan especially, is a male dominated field - these are just some of the memorable characters you will meet. I am currently doing a second playthrough and have already met two characters I never encountered in my first playthrough that are honestly becoming some of my favorites in the series! Building relationships (yes, even romantic ones with your female classmates) is key to not only finding out more about them, but also key to getting stronger, unlocking abilities and weapons for you to use in your playthrough that will seriously make the game not only easier but I would go as far as to say more fun in regards to what possibilities open up to you in combat. Growing the bond between you and your friends within your party is also the only way to strengthen and evolve their Persona to bigger and better forms, making combat flow easier but also giving one a true sense of power, purpose and meaning in the memories you create with Yosuke and the gang.

The other thing that really made me fall in love with Persona 4 Golden is its story and location. While the bustling cityscape of Tokyo and Shibuya really makes Persona 5 and Royal feel big and grandiose in its vision of what a modern JRPG can be, Persona 4 Golden, while feeling smaller in comparison, feels much more unique and, weirdly enough, nostalgic - at least for me. The town of Inaba is small with little to do at first, but it still has some beautiful and honestly quite intriguing sights to see (I’m looking at you, Greedy Shrine Fox). As you become more accustomed to the town and what it offers, it surprises you and opens up even more based on your time within the game, the weather outside, and even the time of the day you are out and about exploring. I grew up in a small town outside of Boston and while it’s not exactly like Inaba, the parts I spent most of my days remind me of it - areas covered in trees near streams with small restaurants and bars nearby, nature trails to walk, seeing mostly the same people each and every day - it really sent me back to life growing up when I was the age of the characters and truly made the game something memorable and instantly connected me to what was happening. As for the plot, I am a sucker for a murder mystery - I love true crime and have always loved police or detective shows growing up. Being able to work towards a case and have your decisions, investigations, and choices up to certain points have merit and weight behind them in regards to what ending you get is absolutely amazing and really sets the tone for a game that shrouds you in mystery and keeps you at the edge of your seat at all times, all the while still finding the time to help you enjoy the ride with laughter, tears, and dialogue that just really gets to you from beginning to end, sticking with you even after you’ve beaten it. Throw in some seriously fantastic boss fights, great music, and top notch voice acting for the time and it all adds up to a package with so much content and so much to tell you along the way that you just can’t help but keep playing until you absolutely have to put it down, only to continue for hours and hours later on.

All in all, Persona 4 Golden is a seriously fun game. While I still think Persona 5 Royal is a better game than it, I cannot stop thinking about the journey it took me on. The places I saw, the people I met and became friends with along the way - it’s a surreal, dream-like game that really gets you thinking right from the beginning and keeps you on your toes until the bitter end. I found myself engrossed in the lives of these characters, worried for them anytime something happened to them within the context of the game’s narrative and only hopes to see them come out on top, and thankfully this was usually the case in my playthrough thanks to the choices I made. I can only wonder what would have happened if I chose things differently - where would my characters have ended up at the end of all this? Would things have gotten worse for them? Who knows - all I know is that once the game was over, I had nothing but smiles and happiness going through my head as I saw my friends say goodbye and I loaded up my stuff onto the train. All those precious moments, etched into my mind forever; the hardships of the dungeons, the toughness of the Shadows, the mystery of the killer - that’s how you create a great game narrative, and finish it with an even greater, satisfying ending. Check out Persona 4 Golden on Steam TODAY if you liked this review! https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/1113000/

#persona #persona 4 #persona 4 golden #persona 5 #sega #atlus #smt #pc #pc gaming #gaming #steam #review #retrospective #video games #gaming blog #blog

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characteroulette · 6 years ago

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Hey PQ was pretty good!

so I’m having trouble getting into PQ2 because of several factors, so I thought I’d write a half-think piece, half-essay on why I think the first PQ gets more flak than it deserves. So here’s that.

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I genuinely don't understand why, when talking about Persona Q, people are always saying things along the lines of, "The gameplay was good, but the characters were trite and the story wasn't that great." Like, as a fan of the Persona series, I genuinely don't understand that assessment.

Not saying PQ is flawless, oh no. There are PLENTY of things in PQ that I have an axe to grind with (the small door scene with the P4 gang, for one), but the overall story? The characters? They're both fine. Good, even, dare I say. And here's my argument as to why:

The returning Persona series characters (from 3 and 4) in PQ do a good job of representing their games and their own personalities, even if a little more light-hearted than their source material,

AND

The story is genuinely in-line with the rest of the Persona/SMT series, even if it ultimately doesn't matter due to time shenanigans (and I'm okay with that).

These are my two points. Just those two. Because these are the two most contested parts of PQ, as far as I can hear, since we all agree that the gameplay is the real breadwinner here hahaha

Anyway.

First, let's talk about the returning characters, since they seem to be the ones who matter most. The P4 cast are generally less griped about (save Chie and Teddie) and I believe this is largely due to the brighter, more hopeful tone of P4 as a whole. (Aaand, in my opinion, they're done a MUCH BIGGER disservice in the Arena games, but no one ever talks about that so let's not bother with those right now.)

P4 was a game about making friends, the hijinx that come from that, and finding the truth about a string of murders and confronting the worst parts of yourself in a harsher world in the process! And it executes this with the appropriate amount of balance between serious moments and comedic relief. The theme colour for the whole game is bright yellow/gold, a happier and more friendly colour which helps remind you that this game is all in good fun.

(Side note here: I honestly think that P5 really failed in this respect, despite my liking its tone slightly more. I just personally like darker-themed games, but P5 was a little too dark and oppressive right out the gate, with hardly a friendly face, which helps make your gradually growing group of friends much more appreciated but also a harder atmosphere for jokes to really land well. Most of the 'funny' sequences felt very undeserved and really dragged because uh guys we literally just fought a rapist, an abusive father figure, and some other fucked-up shit. Can we please acknowledge that a bit more instead of pretending it never happened by laughing at the expense of Ann's autonomy of her body? Especially when she was a target of said rapist??) But that's its own discussion for later.

Really, the fact that most of the P4 gang get out of this with little criticism shows how accepted their caricatures have become. I guess? At least, except for Teddie and Chie.

Teddie being a wannabe Casanova must've been a huge hit with the Japanese audience, because it's just the hill he's going to die on for the writers. There was more to Teddie than his hitting on the girls in P4, believe it or not! (And there's a whole thing about it being brought on by him mimicking the type of behaviour he saw Yukiko's shadow exhibiting, which has a lot of really interesting undertones, but it makes him more swappable with Junpei, so whatever, I guess.) Meanwhile, Chie's not as meat-crazy, either, but I guess it's a better trait for them to roll with than her (cut in the translation) glossed-over sexism.

Both work fine, however, and aren't really too annoying enough to be that egregious. (Though they both go right up to the line sometimes. Teddie more so, but none of the girls playing along really helps show how gross his actions are. Most of the time.)

No, the real complaints I see directed at the characters being 'too cartoonish' are usually reserved for the P3 gang.

P3 is, really, such a bizarre game to go back to now when compared to its two successors. It's dark and hopeless, like P5, but formulaic and mystery, like P4. It's actually a natural progression when looking at its two/three older siblings (both P2s are bleak. As. Hell!), but, at least to me, it's the odd duck of the bunch, being the first to implement this winning formula of being caught in a time limit of a school year and managing spending time exploring this other world. It adds Social Links and social stats with this new time limit and this idea that the Persona and Shadows you fight don't just happen out on the streets in 'normal' circumstances for everyone to see. It pretty much went from an RPG to a management game with RPG elements.

And its emotional, impactful story, like P5, had a lot of tonal whiplash due to the attempts at comedy!

I feel like a lot of people forget this about P3 (and maybe I think more about it because I haven't actually beaten the whole game yet myself), but the story is actually a goddamn mess of tonal confusion. You got kids shooting themselves in the heads and a Social Link dealing with a classmate's crush on his teacher. You got wacky foreign exchange student and kids taking experimental drugs to suppress their Persona and slowly poisoning themselves to death as a side effect. The protagonist is an orphan who lost his parents in a huge, plot-relevant accident... But he's able to date every single girl at the same time and be the most wish fulfillment charming guy if the player so desires.

P3 being messy isn't a bad thing. P4, P5, and even P2 and PQ are all a little messy in their own rights, too. But because P3 was a lot of fans' first in the series, and PQ is just a spin-off, it gets way more flak for this than I feel it deserves.

(I mean, hey. Both P3 and P4 have those classic anime scenes of the boys walking in on the girls while at a hot springs. All PQ's got is an awkward group date scene and the implication that Yosuke and Kanji kissed each other while getting knocked out.) (They all. Have. Problems.)

And I know a lot of this comes down to personal preference. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking P3 or P4 more than PQ. I'm just saying I feel like PQ is often wrongly accused of being worse and less well-written when, really, they're all pretty much on par with each other. (And someone on the team really doesn't understand how to handle large casts of characters sharing the same space...)

But, personally, from everything I've seen from P3, I don't like the way most of the characters get presented to me in the source material. Junpei is way more insufferable in P3 than in PQ and Yukari is way more uninteresting in P3 than in PQ. Really, PQ helped me appreciate these characters more than P3 itself did. And, yes, they're more funny when they're trying to be, too. Because PQ is set up better for comedy than the 'remember you are mortal' tone of P3.

(Which makes dramatic moments hit all the harder when they happen) HEY check that segue! It's time to talk about the story and the two original characters of the game!

So, second point: people say the story isn't very good. To which I wanna ask... "Did you stop playing before defeating the fourth Boss?" Because it really sounds like, to me, everyone who says that didn't actually finish the game and reach all that juicy character development that happens for both sides around the fourth dungeon, where all the issues they've been building up (like Yukari's issue with Mitsuru for the P3 side and Kanji and Ken's awkwardness in the P4 side) start getting resolved in a satisfying way. And it comes with a reveal for the two characters we've been getting to know, Zen and Rei, as well.

(And, from here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

The two new characters to this game are Zen and Rei, who were in this place before the P3 or P4 gangs were called to the scene. Zen is quiet and a bit unsettlingly dense, but devoted to Rei, who is bubbly and full of life, but terrified of the dungeons you have to traverse. The two have been in this place for (what's implied to be) a very long time and enlist the help of the P3 and P4 teams in order to find a way out through defeating the bosses of each Labyrinth/dungeon. Simple enough, as it also helps the P3 and P4 team's goal of getting out. With each new dungeon, it feels more and more like something about Zen and Rei aren't quite right, but the length of the dungeon and all the team chats help you put it out of your mind each time. Rei can even get kinda annoying with her loudness and big appetite if you don't find her cute (which: how dare you. But yeah, I get it).

And then, at the end of a fiery festival fourth dungeon, you find yourself in a dark tomb at the bottom level. The boss awaiting you is Rei's shadow (a nice callback to the way P4 works) whom she still doesn't accept after you defeat it.

All the locks are gone and the P3 and P4 teams can return to their worlds if they wanted. Except Rei gets kidnapped after Zen reveals that Rei has been dead all along and it was him who trapped them here. It was he who created this place and even he who called both teams here.

And this was a plot twist that I friggin' loved.

It definitely had more impact on me because Zen and Rei easily became my favourites out of the whole cast, to the point of having them on my team for the whole game, but to find out such a fucked up twist is wild! (Seriously! Go watch the cutscene and tell me it isn't super fucked up!) You can say the P3 and P4 twists were shocking (or P5s I guess), but for my money, this is the best reversal of expectations I'd ever seen in a Persona game. In any game, really!

Zen was, in effect, the villain the whole time. His true identity as Chronos, God of time, makes sense with displacing the teams from their own times and the time here being erased once you reach the end. His own power that he sealed away growing impatient and taking matters into its own hands by drawing the teams to this haven displaced from time also makes perfect sense! And the entire climb through the last dungeon is his redemption arc and it makes for a super emotionally investing final dungeon all the way. (Which is great, because I hate every single one of the enemies that appear in this god-forsaken place.) (Even P4 and P5 can't really boast that, I felt very little investment through Izanami's dungeon and Baldabaoth's distortion.)

Of course, if you found Zen and Rei to be annoying and pointless, I can see how this would fall flat for you. The fact that they hinged such an emotional climax on these new characters, characters that don't even matter outside of this game!, was such a risky move. Especially when you consider this is just a fanservice game made basically under the promise of seeing the P3 team interact with the P4 team. But, for me, it really paid off.

And whatever complaints you had with the P3 or P4 characters, I feel like the resolutions to those character moments I mentioned earlier get explored even further during the climb through the final dungeon. From the P3 gang coming together to finally communicate with one another to the P4 gang reconfirming their bonds with one another, it's a really investing and emotional journey. I do wish the writing had been this tight and impactful through more of the game, but I believe it's worth it in the end.

Perhaps this moment comes too late in the game, though. I can definitely see others giving up before reaching this point due to the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the tidbits of character development that are meant to build up to this moment that can be too sparsely placed. (But, really, it's the same from P3 to P5, Social Links don't really add much variety when they can be just as repetitive and boring, just saying. Especially when you get caught in waiting to rank up hell, ugh.) For me, however, this really sealed the deal on this game being an incredible experience that I adored from start to finish. 7/10. Final score.

....

(7 outta 10?? Not perfect??) Well, it's not perfect. Japan's blatant homophobia and sexism really ruins a lot of scenes for me. I'm super salty especially about how the fake marriage scenes are handled so differently from the girl choices to the boy choices. (But you just argued in its favour for 2000 words!) Listen. ALL the Persona games wouldn't receive perfect scores for me for this aspect alone. There are a lot of other factors as well, but they vary from title to title and PQ in particular is guilty of spending too much time focusing on Teddie and Junpei being girl-crazy. And Marie is in this game more than she really should be. UGH.

But I digress.

In conclusion, this game's story and characters are better than most give it credit for. Hopefully, my argument helped you see why I believe this and why I think claiming that both aspects are just 'bad' is lazy.

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pokephrases · 6 years ago

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hey! I hope you all enjoyed my brief revival with Let’s Go Pikachu, but tragically I think I’m pretty much done with it now, since I’ve beaten everybody but Red and the master trainers and, I’m gonna keep it real with you all... I am not doing that lmao

but the game was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would tbh, and it provided a nice chance to revive this blog a little. I tragically don’t have any sort of capture card for my 3ds so I was never able to cover any of the recent games, and afaik, emulation for them is still pretty messy. obviously I’d love to be able to cover X/Y, ORAS, and S/M here, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up to see them here any time soon sadly

there’s always the mystery dungeon and other spinoff games that I’ve yet to ever actually play completely, but to tell the truth, I’m really lazy lmao, plus I’ve got other games and stuff I’d like to do in addition to this, and I end up feeling overwhelmed by it all pretty easily. but still! they’re always a possibility I’m not ruling out

and in case anyone was ever curious, I’ll drop a link to my personal/main blog (fair warning: it’s a big mess) and to my gif blog if you’d like to follow me at other places. or not, you really don’t have to! they’re not pokemon only blogs like this one either, but if you ever want to find me, I’m far more likely to answer on one of those than here tbh

anyway, I’d like to say thank you for sticking by me for all these years, I can’t believe this little blog still has so many followers even after I was inactive for like... 4 years? wild tbh. but I’m so so grateful and appreciative of all your continued support. I’ve also slowly been working on like, an actual tag page for this blog in case you haven’t noticed, and I’ll try to get back to it now that I’m done with LGP. thanks again, and smell ya later!

#words

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quietbibliothecary · 7 years ago

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The Endless Book List

A book series by Matthew Colville, of various sources of fame. I came across this book on the Kindle Unlimited list and started reading it while on break at the library. Again I will try not to spoil anything, but my thoughts are below the cut.

For centuries the people of Ollghum Keep relied on the knights of the Green Order to protect them from the horrors of the haunted wood. Now, as before, a monstrous army marches on their small town. But this time, the Green Order is nowhere to be found. The Bishop sends the priest Heden into the wood, to find out why. Arriving at their secret priory, Heden discovers their commander is dead, the remaining knights paralyzed with despair. They will not act, they will not tell him what happened, and with each hour the monstrous army gets closer to Ollghum Keep. Thousands will die if the priest fails. When the knights start dying one by one, Heden must race to unravel the conspiracy of silence and save the knights from themselves so they can save the people they were sworn to guard.

I was pulled into the story violently and it did not let me go. Prior to this book I had never read anything by the author other than the Critical Role comics and I only knew about him peripherally from his dungeons and dragons commentary. Since then I’ve learned that Colville has experience writing condensed and gripping works and it really shows here. Since finishing this book I’ve read about Colville’s sources of inspiration and I watched his youtube video discussing the topic as well. I would highly recommend watching the video after reading the book as it add some context. (Link)

What struck me about the world of Priest was that it was short but its scope expansive and this was achieved through a very interesting way. While in the majority of fantasy works I’ve read the heavy lifting of world building is done through exposition either directly from the characters or from the narrator, omniscient or not. But what Colville does is he only discusses the things that the characters actually know or would even discuss. As such it gives the novel focus and doesn’t overwhelm you with information, which is a common speed dump for other works (*cough* Eldest *cough*). But it allowed for contextual world building, which in my opinion is more immersive.

I also quite liked the religious hierarchy presented in the book and the politics going on behind the scenes. I have a heavy interest in the history of Christianity and I was raised as a practicing Catholic and went to Catholic school. So believe me when I say I found the Bishop and his fellows to be entirely believable.

Another very compelling point of the novel was its protagonist, Heden. Heden is a soldier who has already gone on his crusade. The Heden we see in Priest is a very tired and emotionally beaten down man who does not want to be doing this. But as everyone keeps telling him, he is the only one who can do this. He grapples with a lot of things in this book, internal and external demons, abuse of power, coniving politics, elusive saints, and the conflict between ideals and reality. But through it all he remain unmistakably human in his doubt and conviction. I think what is remarkable about Colville’s writing of Heden is how much humanity he manages to pour into the man which is shown over and over again in his frustration and unbreakable duty “to do the right thing,” which is often murky and muddled.

Overall if you are looking for a morally compelling, fast paced fantasy mystery, I would really urge you to check out this book. I would also really recommend this book for anyone who is into table top role-playing games in any capacity, as storyteller or player character, as the style and content can certainly springboard your creative process. I’m excited to read the next book, Thief and I’m eager to pick up a copy of what ever comes next in the series.

Amazon

#endless books review #books #book reivew #matthew colville #matt colville #Dungeons and Dragons #Priest #fantasy #mystery

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atrainernamedradish · 6 years ago

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Starter Tier List

This concept was done by a Poketuber by the name of Aura Guardian. I liked the idea of it so much that I did my own version of a few weeks ago while I was “watching” the video.

While most tier lists are based off of skill this one is based off of pure opinion. It will be ranked like your typical American grading system of A-F while adding in SSS Rank like you find in a lot of Japanese games using rank.

Rank F - Sceptile

This is the weakest Gen 3 starter for me. There is nothing I like about it., well maybe except its shiny. I don’t find Treeko cute/cool, despite my fondness for The Mystery Dungeon series I don’t like Grovyle’s design, and Sceptile (nor Mega Sceptile) appeals to me. There are better grass starters.

Emboar

Tepig is cute. That’s the ONLY reason this line is higher than the previous one.

Greninja

(I am about to get SO much backlash for this!)

I am going to have to go with Ace Trainer Liam here and say that Frogadier looks so much better than Greninja. Not only is Greninja so awkward looking but I hate its level up moveset! Originally I thought it had no business being a dark type, but honestly I’m feeling this way towards its water typing. You can argue this for its dark typing, but the ONLY reason it’s a water type is because it’s a frog (and maybe it being blue...). And unless you’re running a Protean ability Greninja than the damn thing is not that good! In my playthrough of Y with Greninja (I like to play with a starter to give it a chance) it was the weakest member on my team! My Aromatisse was far more viable and it’s not even on a competitive radar!

Charizard

Charmander is cute. I have fond memories of the anime with the entire line. I can understand why Charizard is a fan favorite. But I don’t like the way Charmeleon looks, and there are better fire starters. Sorry Charizard. Nice shiny though!

Rank D - Chesnaught

Generation 6 had some of the weakest starter designs I’ve ever seen. While Chesnaught appeals to me... the rest of the line not so much. Ironically Chespin was my reluctant pick for Gen 6, and I say this because the first evolutions are underwhelming, but a certain unnamed starter from this trio took its place.

Meganium

This starter line is okay. That’s the only reason why it is where it is on the list. I have nothing bad nor good to say about it. It’s not my favorite or despised either.

Infernape

Infernape looks pretty badass. It’s pre-evolutions I honestly don’t care for. Plus it has better competition in this trio.

Rank C - Feraligatr

Totodile is cute. Feraligatr is pretty badass. Croconaw... dear God that thing is ugly lol! It’s resonates better than the Meganium line and that;s why it’s higher on the list.

Swampert

It has a solid design and typing. It’s am automatic secondary pick for the trio it’s in.

Incineroar

This starter has come a loooong way! I initially despised this entire line! But after bonding with it I have a new found perspective of it. Unfortunately Litten is still unappealing to me, but I blame the 3D model. I though Torrecat was pretty damn ugly upon its reveal, but Pokemon Refresher showed how cute it was~ I also adore its sassy personality~ Incineroar grew on me as well. I used to find its design horrendous but then I figured out what about it I loathed, and that my friends... is its hands! They look cartoony being way too big on the Pokemon and it looks like it had all fingers instead of fingers and a thumb. Other than that... it has great charisma and I’m glad I gave the line a chance~!

Blastoise

There are not enough good middle stage evolutions for starters, and by God Wartortle is sooo adorable~! The ears just slay me~ But aside from my gushing Blastoise has a well designed water starter line. It;s not my favorite but I have nothing bad to say about it.

Rank B - Samurott

Oshawott was an easy choice for me among the Gen 5 starters. It was adorable and it won my heart instantaneously~! The final evolution in the form of Samurott wasn’t my favorite at first, but it’s grown on me~ Just wish the move pool was a little better... (Also! It should have had fighting not Goddamn Emboar! D<)

Serperior

Sassy and cute things are my weakness and Snivy was no exception to that rule. While I’m not a big fan of the middle evolution in this line, it doesn’t waver its place on this list. At some point I will use a Serperior to better appreciate this Pokemon.

Torterra

While I have not officially used one in the official Pokemon games I never realized how badly I needed the dual typing of grass and ground. Grotle was a God send in Pokemon Glazed for that stupidly overpowered first gym! (The game was great but for fuck sake the beginning of it was a pain in the ass for no reason other than that dumb idea that harder = challenging!) Torterra is a beast and one day I will finally add it to an official playthrough~

Empoleon

While I love the unique typing this final evolution has... sonavabitch do I hate the fact that it’s weak to a type it should be able to take out...! To be honest I’m not a fan of the middle evolution. It looks super awkward and doesn’t fit in with the cuteness of Piplup and the regalness of Empoleon. But in generation 4 there isn’t a contest for starters when you have such an adorable little starter who becomes something that classy and badass!

Rank A - Delphox

Fennekin was my least favorite of the first evolutions for the Gen 6 trio. While it’s still not my favorite in design, in fact, all the Gen 6 starters are unappealing to me, I adore what it becomes. Just like Torterra the unique typing of fire and psychic is desirable combination I didn’t realize I wanted (I know Victini has it but I don’t use legendaries)~ While I have used one in Pokemon X my official introduction to this Pokemon was in a fanmade game called Pokemon Insurgence (it is an amazing game which I highly recommend to any Pokemon fan), which may it and the other Delphox R.I.P. since they both perished in my egglocke 3;= While Braixen is the best designed out of the line Delphox isn’t half-bad~ That model cry though... *shudders*

Primarina

Popplio was kinda cute when first revealed. When Primarina was leaked I instantly fell in love with it~ ...Brionne... well... I hate it initially. I thought it was goofy looking upon its reveal. HOWEVER, Pokemon Refresher changed my mind so fast on that! Brionne is still awkward looking but in an adorable way now. It makes my heart melt~ I simply love Primarina and he was the star of my Ultra Moon playthrough~!

Venusaur

That’s right ya’ll, I’m a Bulbasaur fan! I chose easy mode and ain’t lookin’ back! What can I say about this dinosaur plant thing...? It’s just so cute~! And grass types are in my top 5 favorite types. While Ivysaur is a bit meh for me I can tolerate it better than other middle starter evolutions. Venusaur is just a huge more mature Bulbasaur with a big of toad in him now and sometimes all you need is for the little guy to just get a bit bigger, ya know?

SSS Rank - Blaziken

There’s no competition when it comes to playing Hoenn for your’s truly. I picked Torchic in my first playthrough of Ruby and I did the same when I picked up Omega Ruby. The only reason this starter choice is on the low end of the top is because of Combusken. I don’t hate the design but I don’t love it. To be honest I prefer Mega Blaziken’s design to normal Blaziken, but Blaziken is love none the less~<3

Decidueye

It took me FOREVER to pronounce this little shits name! But despite that lol, I simply adore this entire line~! I was Team Rowlet the moment I saw the little guy~<3! It is just so insidiously adorable, and the anime has not helped (need to actually watch it, but thanks to screen shots/GIFs none the less lol)! I don’t care what anyone says I love Dartrix~! He’s so cute and sassy and oh my God his freaking out over his hair just... *bemoans*! I love it...! Decidueye was the other starter leak I fell in love with. It’s just so cool looking and it fits with the rest of the line~ The entire line is just cute and cool and Gen 7 really had some good starter designs~ But even something so cute and cool as the Rowlet line was still beaten in the end...

TYPHLOSION

Cyndaquil is my favorite starter of all times. Pokemon Silver to this day, and that includes awesome remakes, is my favorite Pokemon game! And when I initially got the game as a pre-teen up to when the games were ported to the virtual console Cyndaquil was always my choice for a starter in Johto. Sadly I had fallen out of Pokemon for a brief time so I missed out on Heart Gold & Soul Silver (ROMs don’t count dammit lol!)... Cyndaquil is just the cutest thing while Quilava is both cute and cool with Typhlosion just being such a BAMF! The entire line proves that you can be simplistic and still have a good design. All Cyndaquil did was get bigger and meaner and it works~! And that’s why it’s on the top~! ^v^

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loregoddess · 6 years ago

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All the zeldas. Just. All. Of them

I….Michi I was going to apologize for not getting to this until today, but considering how many Zelda games there are I no longer regret not doing this last night.

Under the cut, bc do you know how many games there are including spinoffs? Too many to not be under a cut.

The Legend of Zelda

I watched my brother and mom play it bc we have it on this special edition disk that had like, four LoZ games on it, and it’s certainly a game of its time which means it’s super-hard if you don’t know what you’re doing, and still hard even if you do, so I probably won’t try it anytime soon.

The Adventure of Link

This was also one of the games on the aforementioned special edition disk, which I watched my brother and mom attempt far enough to know you couldn’t pay me to try and beat the game. My understanding is this is fundamentally one of the most–if not THE most–difficult games in the entire franchise. A product of it’s time, entirely unique in it’s RPG-style mechanics which didn’t work out for the gameplay that well, I’ve only read one story of someone beating the game it’s that hard.

Despite not wanting to play either of the very first two games, I really love the implied story components of each, esp. in terms of the ever-inconsistent and changing lore. So, for story and maps, these games are neat.

A Link to the Past

The very first LoZ game I ever played, so it has a special place in my heart. Also the first game to introduce the “zelda formula” that made the series so successful, so I gotta applaud it for that too.

Link’s Awakening / Link’s Awakening DX

I roughly know the story components and this is…one hell of a weird story, but like, I love the design for the Wind Fish, and Marin came from this game so I kinda want to try playing it for myself eventually.

Ocarina of Time

The first time I played this was well after I played Wind Waker, so this game doesn’t have the nostalgia factor for me that it has for most fans. When I first played it I got tired of Navi bugging me to save Zelda, even though I was in the middle of having fun with side quests, so I stopped and never beat it. When I went back years later to try and beat it I got stuck in Ganon’s Tower and refused to look up a guide, and have thus, still never beat it. Eventually I should look up a playthough of the ending just so I know exactly what happens, bc even though this isn’t one of my fave games, it’s so important for timeline theory and lore that I kinda need to know shit about the game. Not actually sure how I got through the Water Temple twice.

Majora’s Mask

Listen. I like side quests. They’re fun. But generally speaking they’re optional and not needed to complete the main storyline. When I found out that the only way to have a relatively easy time getting into this game’s “water temple” was by completing a ton of other side quests, it kinda broke my will to complete the game. Also I don’t do well on timers, so I dunno if I’ll ever beat this game. I mean I still might try bc there’s a lot of interesting story points in the game, but like, I really, really, really hate being put on a time limit and having to restart the three-day cycle constantly. Love the dark themes though, those are fun.

Oracle of Seasons & Ages

(I lumped these two games together bc there’s a way to link the stories, but they are technically two different games.) I seem to remember a friend of my mom’s lending one of these games to me and my brother a long time ago but I couldn’t get past the first dungeon bc I was young and sucked at boss fights. I might buy and try to play these games at some point though bc the stories are really interesting and the games are cheapish on Nintendo’s eshop.

Four Swords

It, uh…it exists. Dunno much about it but I hate the map bc it fucks up all of my land- and cartography-based theory-crafting.

Wind Waker

So I can’t remember if I, personally, have ever beaten the game, but I did make it to the end before going off to do side quests, and also my brother beat it which I watched, so I know the entire story. Overall a good game, my only major complaint is Tetra turning white after she “becomes Princess Zelda” and also the fact that she goes from kickass pirate to passive damsel in distress. My favorite Ganondorf, for both design and story. Also the graphics aged surprisingly well? Oh, and I loved the Rito, and the exploration aspect was one of the best executed of any LoZ game (the best in my opinion, before BotW came along). Gameplay and mechanics were one of the strongest of any LoZ game I’ve played as well.

Four Swords Adventures

This is one of the really underrated LoZ games, but honestly the gameplay is? Really solid and fun. Also the graphics were really good, esp. considering 2D style games weren’t being made as often when it came out. This is one of like, two or three LoZ games that I’ve beaten more than once–in fact I think I’ve beaten this game more than any other LoZ game, and it’s probably my first or second most-replayed-and-beaten game of any game I’ve played. It’s kinda like, a comfort game for me. Also the manga for this game was excellent.

Minish Cap

Another really underrated game with solid gameplay and graphics. Like, this game is really good, and I also really loved the story.

Twilight Princess

This is my personal favorite LoZ game of the entire series, I really, really love this game. It’s also the only LoZ that I know I’ve beaten 100%, like all the side quests, all the heart containers, items, poe souls, everything. One of the few LoZ games that I’ve replayed and beaten multiple times. It was also the first LoZ game that I completed bc I used to have a bad habit of never beating LoZ games for some reason. Also the home of my two top fave LoZ characters, Midna and Shad. I just…I really love this game.

Phantom Hourglass

I hate putting “terrible” down for any game, but listen. The mechanics were a nightmare, everything about trying to move around and fight was so frustrating. The only reason I stuck with the game as long as I did was Linebeck–but when I learned the last dungeon was also the dungeon I’d been forced to go through again and again and again, I just…couldn’t do it and I’ve never picked up the game since. I should look up the ending for this as well, bc the story was good, it’s just…the gameplay…no.

Spirit Tracks

I hated playing Phantom Hourglass, so I never even bought this one. The aesthetics are cute, like I really like the trains and stuff, and it’s neat that Zelda travels with you. But the colonialist undertones are…yikes.

Skyward Sword

I really enjoyed playing this game, despite the fact that there was too much hand-holding and Fi’s assistance was more annoying than helpful most of the time. But the story and the visuals, and the music–I really enjoyed those aspects of the game. I’ve also replayed and beaten this game a couple of times, despite the flaws, just bc I was really endeared to the characters and story.

A Link Between Worlds

This was another really fun game, and I really liked all of the characters and the cute graphics. Not much to say on this bc it was honestly just, really fun and good. It was a really fun way to revive the Hyrule of A Link to the Past.

Tri Force Heroes

My friend bought this as a graduation present for me, but it’s more fun to play together with two other people, so I haven’t been able to play it much past the first couple of areas, but what I did play was quirky and fun.

Breath of the Wild

I really enjoyed playing the game, and generally speaking it’s one of the most solid games in terms of gameplay and mechanics. And the exploration is excellent, like it was so much fun to explore the gigantic world of Hyrule. But. There needed to be more story, more lore, and more music. Like what we got was great, but it was extremely lacking, even compared to games with glaring plot holes in the story, like there was just so little to work with. And there was too much “here’s these mysterious ruins that we will tell you nothing about and there’s no way to learn anything about them. ever.” moments while I was exploring. And just, I wanted more story really, more than anything.

Literally all the CGi games and games produced between 1993-1997

Enough said.

I’m also lumping all the Tingle spinoff games together bc this is getting really long

Tingle is a discomfort character for me, like not a major discomfort character, just a minor one, but enough that I’ve never willingly looked into these games, despite any good things I’ve heard about them.

Game & Watch Zelda

I didn’t even know this existed.

Link’s Crossbow Training

I know that this takes place in the Twilight Princess Hyrule, but that’s about it.

My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Listen, I had no idea this existed either, but? It’s based off my fave game so? If I get the chance to play it, then I sure as hell will give it a whirl.

Hyrule Warriors (including Legends and the Definitive Edition)

I never got the original game bc it was for the Wii U, but I have Legends and my brother bought the Definitive Edition, the latter of which I’m currently playing. It’s honestly just a plain fun game, with solid gameplay. I like being able to feel powerful and badass, and literally half the playable characters are women which is nearly unheard of in fighting-based games. And like? I can play as TWO different versions of Midna? AND Impa is so gorgeous and really well-written, like damn, I love her so much. Linkle is actually really fun to play and really cool, and I like the fact that she isn’t just “Link but a girl” like she really stands on her own as a unique character. It’s also pretty interesting to be able to play as several villains. My only complaint is Cia, but not bc she’s a poorly written character or fanservice central, but like…LoZ in particular has a really, really bad habit of coding the evil and corrupted final big bad guy as dark-skinned and like…having an evil dark-skinned villainess who’s also fanservicy especially with Lana being Cia’s “light and goodness” it’s just…yikes. I don’t think I need to spell that out further. My understanding is that Cia gets a redemption arc of some sort eventually, but I’m not far enough in the story mode to confirm this. I sure as hell hope it’s true bc she deserves better than to just be an evil, albeit okay-written, fanservice villain.

And that’s all of them, this literally took me all day. I now know of several games I had no idea existed, yet I have no idea what to do with this info.

#this took forever but here we are #lookerdewitt #I still don't have an ask tag #ask meme

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redthreadoflove · 7 years ago

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Modern fan plays old Fire Emblem games

I have played a lot of Fire Emblem the past few months and at this point it's obvious that I'm very obssessed with this franchise. I fell in love with the characters and the stories to the point I cannot wait any longer for Fire Emblem Switch. Over the last year I got very curious about the older titles thanks to the conflict between old and newer fans. As annoying these fights are I am quite thankful because without all the fighting I wouldn't have played any of other games! My friends who play Fire Emblem are all fans who started with the older games. I am the only who actually started with Awakening. It is painfully obvious that my knowledge is limited and I felt I needed to work on that. And playing the older games is the best method of doing so! ;-)

As for now I have played every single Fire Emblem game except for Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn. While this sounds like a lot I haven't beaten many of the other titles. I just have a habit of playing new games without beating the others. Nonetheless I did beat quite a few titles! Under the cut I will express my thoughts about the games I have played under the cut starting with Fire Emblem Gaiden.

Disclaimer: This is not a review and I am just merely writing my thoughts down and this might be a bit messy, especially since English is not my first language. Oh and also Spoilers for Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776, Binding Blade & Path of Radiance!

Fire Emblem Gaiden (1992)

I start out by saying that Gaiden and Echoes as well as Genealogy of the Holy War are my favorite Fire Emblem games so far. The setting and the story are very intriguing and I really liked the backstory and the conflict of Mila and Duma. When I saw the teaser for Fire Emblem Echoes during the Fire Emblem Direct I was under the impression that Alm and Celica were going to be enemies but thankfully I was wrong. Personally I love Alm a lot. he might be very impulsive at times but due to his upbringings he is actually a very down to earth lord. Celica is currently my favorite female lord. Her pretty design and the fact that she uses both swords and magic made me love her even more! I played Gaiden because Fire Emblem Echoes got announced and I really wanted to play the original before playing the sequel.

It's been a while since I played a game as old as Gaiden and I am really proud to say that Gaiden is, in fact, the first NES game that I played. As a lover of all things 90s Gaiden's old art style and graphics really appealled to me. However it is also painfully obvious that a few of features are very archaic (for example you cannot see your unit and enemy's movement range, so you have to count them down). I also loved that this game takes place in the same world as Shadow Dragon (which is obvious - the titles means side story after all) and thus certain characters would return. The soundtrack too! Very retro and classic! My favorite tracks are Alm and Celica’s first map theme. So far I only played to chapter 3. With this game I had my first permadeath experience and I was bitter for the rest of the week. I am sorry Silque, I failed you... My favorite characters are Alm, Celica, Lukas, Forsyth, Mathilda, Genny and Zeke.

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem (1994)

Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem is one of the last Fire Emblem games I have played. My first impression of this game was very good, especially since I can't help but compare it to Shadow Dragon. It is very colorful and because it doesn't have the prologue chapters you are able to see the story right away which is something that I really appreciate. If you prefer to see Marth's past in detail then Shadow Dragon makes a good job in doing that but to me the many prologues chapters made me tired and I would rather jump to the main story. But I will write more about it about it on the Shadow Dragon part. In my opinion this game is very interesting because it is both a remake and a sequel. Strangely enough the character sprites are more charming than in Shadow Dragon but like I said before I am a sucker for the 90s and 80s anime aesthetic.

I can't say much about this game because I have just started playing but I already feel that Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem might be the best game featuring Marth. Marth is my favorite lord, so I am very sad the he didn't get represented well in the West. I hope Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light will get the remake it deserves. By the way, this is the only game Japan only Fire Emblem game that I played in Japanese.

As I wrote in my About Me page I am currently learning Japanese and even though I somewhat reached intermediate level playing games is difficult for me because I am really bad with Kanji... I keep using an app to look up the characters and this is slowing me down but my goal is to beat this game in Japanese! Knowing this is a remake I am pretty sure my favorite characters have not changed and out of the Archanean characters I really love Jeorge, Marth, Caeda, Navarre, Palla, Catria, Merric, Linde, Lena and Julian!

Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (1996)

Oh boy, where should I start with this one? Out of all the Fire Emblem games that I have not beaten I am closest to beat Genealogy of the Holy War. This game got me hooked! I know I am not the first one to say this (and this opinion might be overrated) but I honestly think that Genealogy of the Holy War has the best story. I really liked that the story is very political (at least in the first five chapters). Not only that but the big maps help to build up the atmosphere. It really feels like there is war. Yet playing through these huge maps can be tiring, at least for me. And if you are as bad at tactical games as I am then you might get overwhelmed by armies that come your way. But playing the same map a few times really helps getting used to the unique gameplay.

The love system was great and the decision on who you want to pair up greatly impacts the gameplay in as much as the children are not optional, unlike Awakening and Fates were having children are not a must. I wished there were more conversations between them but it is understandable that there aren't more because the support system didn't exists at that time yet. If Genealogy of the Holy War ever gets a remake I hope more comversations will be included!

Sigurd, the first lord in this game, is one of my favorite lords. Especially from a gameplay perspective. I always wanted an older lord. Sigurd gave me exactly that. A mounted pre-promoted lord at that! And a lord who gets a Silver Sword in the prologue at that! Named after a Norse and Germanic hero Sigurd is a character who fits perfectly in this epic tale. The story was written very well and I was hooked from the beginning. The medieval setting were not white washed and so the games addresses controversal topics such as human traffling and incest which makes the story more believable. And while there were many memorable events the chapter that impacted me the most was chapter 5, obviously.

You carefully raised your army only to have it massacred have way through the story. Sigurd faced so much hardship and in the end it seems like there was a glimmer of hope only to have crushed seconds later. His wife married another man and she doesn't remember him at all. Not only that but becuase of the fact that Sigurd is accused of killing Prince Kurth (who turns out to be his wife's father) his wife sees Sigurd as her father's murderer before he got excecuted... Thank goodness his son is there to clear his name! My favorite characters are Sigurd, Cuan, Lex, Ethlyn, Finn, Lewyn, Shannan, Ayra, Seliph, Bridget, Ares and Ced!

Thracia 776 (1999)

I played the first chapter yesterday because I could not wait until I beat Genealogy of the Holy War. In the last few months I have developed a love for everything Jugdral, so I knew I will have to play this one eventually. What really makes me reluctant to play this is my non-existing tactical skills as I already hinted before. However this will not stop me from playing this game, especially since one of my favorite character is included! If Finn is there then have to try this out! Cuan and Ethlyn were also one of my favorites and watching them get killed made me upset... I was surprised in a good way because Thracia 776's gameplay seemingly resembles the majority of the franchise more than Genealogy of the Holy War.

The capturing mechanic is great because it ties in neatly with the story! Since Finn had to flee with Leaf and Nanna there were penniless and the only way to get their hands on weapons was to steal them from their enemies. I think this was done very well. Because I only played through chapter 1 I had no chance to deal with fatigue. My units in Fire Emblem Echoes were not always fatigued when I explored the dungeons fortunately but I heard that Thracia 776 is actually very merciless when it comes to that. And thus, I was and am still scared of playing this game... Not gonna lie I was VERY happy when I saw Eyvel because I know very well who she actually is. I hope she gets a happy ending... I am not familiar with the characters obviously but as I said before I really love Finn and I like Leaf and Nanna as well! I am looking very foward to see Leaf as a lord, I am sure he will be awesome!

Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade (2002) & Fire Emblem (2003)

Finally moving onto the infamous GBA games! My friend is a huge fan of them and they are beloved by many Fire Emblem fans whether it's due nostalgia, the lovely characters or the well-written stories! I never owned a Gameboy Advance myself, so playing any of these game were a fresh experience for me. I always thought that GBA games in general had very nice graphics (I remember playing one of the Harvest Moon games with my friend and the game was cutely done, the Gameboy Advance was made for vibrant games like these!). The three Fire Emblem games were no exception. I put Binding Blade and Blazing Sword together because while I did beat Blazing Sword I only played the first 5 chapters of Binding Blade.

To me Blazing Sword is one of the most satisfying Fire Emblem to play. It has everything great gameplay, a good story and lovely characters! I was very happy when I beat this game and I would definite play again! I loved playing through Lyn's story and I was sad that she kind of lost relevance to the plot after the first chapters of the game. Lyn is a charming character and she definitely has an impact on the player because she is the first character that you meet. The idea of a mymidon like lords is a very good idea and Lyn stands out the most amongs the other lords due to her fighting style and her ethnic background. I hope for more new ideas for the lord that are different from the classic Rapier yielding royal.

Blazing Sword and I am pretty sure Binding Blade as well are the first Fire Emblem games the address xenophobia and racism. I never really expected the Sacae to be discriminated by other people though this is a very realistic scenario. Lyn handles her hardship very well and this adds more to her character. The Sacae are very refreshing and I hope Intellgent System will include more non Western inspired cultures in their future installments.

Eliwood is my favorite lord after Marth. I do feel that I prefer the mild and moderate lords more than their passionate and combative counterparts. Hector is great too (especially as a unit!! Which makes his death even more saddening...) but I cannot help but love Eliwood more.

Binding blade is very similar to the other two Gameboy Advance games but for some reason I can not get into this game. I play it more regulary but it did not get me hooked yet. The same goes for Roy as a character. Even though he is the protagonist he didn't really stand out to me... I hope I can open myself up to this game as I play through it. My favorite characters are Eliwood, Canas, Pent, Ninian, Kent, Sain and Raven. As for Binding Blade I enjoy Lance, Alan, Dieck, Wade and Rutger!

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (2004)

Everything I said about the other 2 GBA applies to this game as well. Therefore I will not write to much in detail about this game. The Sacred Stones resembles the Binding Blade and Blazing Sword very much but I also feel that it also has its own charm. For some reason it differs to the other two games (it kind of feels a bit more "modern", maybe? Probably modern is not the right word in the context of Fire Emblem)and I wonder why. Maybe it's due to the fact that Sacred Stones is the only Fire Emblem game that has no connection to any of the other games, maybe it is because the character designs seem different to me. To be honest I don't know why.

For me the Sacred Stones has it's own charm and every single piece in this game (be it the story, the characters or the soundtrack) comes together quite nicely. In my opinion the selling point of this game is the wonderful set of characters. This game is one of the few games (together with Gaiden/Echoes and Genealogy of the Holy War) where I like most of the characters! There is probably only one character that I dislike which is great! The story is nice too but I feel it does not stick out as much as some of the other games. Luckily, I am more of a character person and if I love the characters I do not care about the story. Unfortunately, the two lords did not stand out to me as well. This is one of the rare cases in which I can honestly say that I did not know what to think of the twins. I did not dislike them but I did not love them either. Eirika did grown on me and I do love her very much now! I have to confess that I have not played through Ephraim's story and hopefully I can have a better opinion of him in his story (since he is actually in the focus). The characters that I love the most are Seth, Joshua, Innes, Natasha, L'Arachel, Eirika and Saleh!

Path of Radiance (2005)

I played this game up to chapter 8 which marks the turning point in Ike's life. Almost all of my friends recommended me this game (not once but several times in fact!) and reading so many good things about this game I finally decided to give this one a try! Path of Radiance just like Blazing Sword strikes me as one of the most balanced games. It is really easy to play and I am very happy that Intelligent Systems kept a few features of the GBA games (like the rescue command). Tellius seems to have its own special athmosphere that makes it unique.

The story also deals with racism but in a different way. In this game there beings that are called Laguz who have their own distinct features. Because they are so different from humans they are called monsters and are treated accordingly. I was shocked to see Shinon one of the units call them sub-humans as I did not expect the racism to be displayed so frankly. I am very excited to see how Ike will change the lives of the laguz for the better. Unlike others he is very ignorant about the laguz yet he is not prejudiced (he even apologizes to a laguz for calling him a sub-human - he only learned of them recently and this was only term that he knew).

Ike himself is definitely very aloof and seems detached at first glance so even though I really loved his design, his personaltiy did not strike me as interesting. But whenever I see him interact with his sister (and his father) a very private part of him gets revealed which makes him very charming. I have the two versions of Ike in Fire Emblem Heroes and he is one of my strongest units. He was the one got up to level 40 the fastest. I love using him! Among the Tellius characters I like Titania Ike & Oscar the most so far! I cannot wait to see more of this game!

Shadow Dragon (2008) & New Mystery of the Emblem (2010)

Unfortunately Shadow Dragon has quite a few problems in my opinion. Compared to the GBA games the graphics seem very dull and and washed out. As a DS game it is understandable that Intellegent Systems tried something new but the 3D graphic just feels out of place to me. FE1, FE3 and naturally FE11 and FE12 suffer from the big cast as it is very difficult to characterize so many people. The result is that a lot of the characters are easily forgettable but maybe this is just me. I can remember most of them if I mentally make connections to other characters. Support conversations should have been the standard but they did not include them which makes it harder to recognize the characters. Marth and a few others stand out but it would have been nice to get to know these characters better. Nonetheless Shadow Dragon is still a Fire Emblem game that enjoyed and I would replay it anytime. In fact I beat it a few weeks ago...

Unlike Shadow Dragon I have not beat New Mystery of the Emblem yet simply because I wanted to finish Shadow Dragon first. Just like its predecessor the prologue chapters felt like a chore but things got interesting quickly when I got to the main story line. Kris is the first avatar character and I must say I do not like him/her. When I customized Kris I had high expectations back then but now I know that I should not have high expections whn it comes to the MyUnits. Even though I only played up to chapter 4 but Kris has no personality whatsoever. Kris likes to train and this is not even a personality trait. Marth is the sole purpose in Kris life and Kris is unable to do anything unless Marth orders him/her to do so. I do enjoyed customizing Kris (I love avatars for this reasons) however. If the MyUnit becomes a standard I prefer to choose their base classes. It was also nice to choose their family background (it does not make a difference whether Kris is a noble or an orphen though). As for the story I do not have much to say and I will have to see how the story unfolds (though it is very amusing to see Camu- I meant Sirius as early as chapter 4, haha). I am going to asume that my favorites are the same (Jeorge, Marth, Caeda, Navarre, Palla, Catria, Merric, Linde, Lena, Julian and most like Sirius as well!).

Originally I wanted to write something about Awakening, Fates and possibly Echoes as well. But I wanted to write my impressions of the older pre-Awakening titles. Personally I hope that more new fans give the older game a chance. They’re really fun to play! Hopefully Fire Emblem Switch will become a game that will satisfy both older and newer fans!

And I apologize for this mess I wrote this for myself mostly but I really hope to connect with other fans!

#fire emblem #genealogy of the holy war #awakening #path of radiance #fire emblem echoes #blazing sword #Sacred Stones

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spiritgriffon · 7 years ago

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Rachael’s favorite Pokemon + Pokemon related things!

In preparation for Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon, I figured I’d post a list of my favorite Pokemon, games & characters!

Blue or Red versions: Blue, Silver, Sapphire, Leaf Green, Diamond, Soul Silver, Black, Black 2, X, Alpha Sapphire, and Moon. I didn’t realize how consistent I was until just a couple or years ago lol

Favorite Main Game: Part of me is tempted to say Silver or Soul Silver, since it was not just my first Pokemon game, but my first game period (Mom bought me Silver & a GBA for Christmas and took me out to eat at Wendys. I can still pick out the booth we were sitting in. I got stuck in the bedroom bc we both thought the stairs were a bookshelf lol). It still holds a very special place in my heart but Black is the BEST. Pokemon has yet to outdo itself.

Favorite Side Game: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon- Explorers of Sky! (SERIOUSLY GUYS THIS IS MY FAVORITE POKEMON GAME OUT OF ALL OF THEM EVERYONE SHOULD PLAY IT AAAAAAAAAA)

Favorite Generation: GEN 5 GUYS. GEN 5. Sinnoh is another one that means a lot to me bc Diamond was the first Pokemon game I ever beat (Way back in 2007!) but I LOVE GEN 5 SO MUCH.

Favorite song: Temporal Tower, Temporal Spire & the final boss theme for PMD:EoS! Though if I had to pick a top 5 from the main series, I guess;

1- Red/Lance

2- Zinnia

3- N’s Castle

4- Ghetsis (Black/White version)

5- Team Galactic Grunt (The Smash version especially)

Favorite Villainous Team: PLAZMAAAAAA!!!!! (tho. Galactic has a way better battle theme. The Brawl remix is still my jam all these years later- and part of the reason I love Lucario so much! Oh man, that intro in Subspace Emissary!)

Favorite Character: I bow before my Lord and Savior, N. I mean there’s a BUNCH I like (Silver, Green/Blue/Gary, Steven, Looker, Cheren, Guzma, Lillie, Gladion, AND ZINNIA, ESPECIALLY ZINNIA, are all great too! I love them all!) But N is like, an all-time fave for me outside of the Pokemon series too.

Favorite Anime-Only Character: Sir Aaron form Lucario & the Mystery of Mew! (I love Lucario. I love the Lucario man.)

Favorite Player Character: Hilda from Black/White! Out of all the main series games, it feels like she has the most personality, and I like her design the best. Though if we’re including side games, the avatar from any of the PMD games is a better character... by virtue of having any character at all. (I like the female avatar in Conquest a lot as well! Not a lot of personality, but she’s really cute!)

Favorite Gen 1 Pokemon: Lapras

Favorite Gen 2 Pokemon: Lugia

Favorite Gen 3 Pokemon: Absol

Favorite Gen 4 Pokemon: Lucario

Favorite Gen 5 Pokemon: Zoroark (tho Hydreigon is such a close second.)

Favorite Gen 6 Pokemon : Xerneas

Favorite Gen 7 Pokemon: Silvally

Favorite Starter: Typhlosion (I didn't really love them until I played Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but now they’re my go-to starter! Fun fact: I much prefer Quilava to either of it’s other evolutions. By like, a lot.)

And my favorite water & grass starters are Samurott and Decidueye~

Favorite Eeveelution: Umbreon! It’s a real shame it’s stats are so mediocre bc I love it lots

Favorite Legend: Lugia! (Tho Lunala and Dialga are really close. Dialga due to Diamond the Dialga being the first mascot legend I ever caught back in 2007 and Lunala bc Nebby is amazing and I love them.)

Favorite Mythical Pokemon: Jirachi (I remember watching Wish Maker back when it first came out and loving it except that Absol needed way more screen time. I never got quite as attached to Jirachi as I did Lugia from 2000 but they’re still my favorite mythical Pokemon by quite a bit)

Favorite Ultra Beast: Pheromosa (Why can’t I get one at a low enough level to use on my team during a playthrough rip)

Favorite Mega: MEGA ABSOL YO. (It made one of my old favorites actually viable to play AND IT’S SO GORGEOUS OH MY ARCEUS)

Favorite form variation: Alolan Ninetails/Vulpix!!! (I’ve loved Ninetails since Gen 1 but it just isn’t that useful of a Pokemon in game play normally. It’s still not the best BUT IT HAS THE BEST DESIGN SO I BRED ONE AND USED IT ON MY TEAM IN MOON FIGHT ME AND MY PRETTY FOX)

Favorite Pokemon Overall: Lucario!!!!! Ok, story time:

(under a cut bc it got a bit long)

It was 2010. I was a lonely, home schooled 13 year old, an only child with only one parent, and said parent owned and was the head chef in a struggling restaurant. I had exactly one friend- my best friend had moved away a short while ago and my home school group, including the teacher, absolutely hated me because I didn’t go to their church. Said singular friend is special needs and hadn’t been allowed to spend the day at a friend’s house without her parents ever.

Oh, and we had dial-up internet. The restaurant’s back room was close enough to someone with wifi down the block that I could watch Youtube during business hours, but none of my game systems could pick it up.

Life kinda sucked hard. But that’s not my point. BUT IT DID IT SUCKED SO BAD

Mom had helped me dig out my old Nintendo 64, so I had that, my Gamecube, Youtube, and my DS to entertain me for about 5 years. One day I’d decided to look up Smash videos- and there was a sequel! It had Princess Zelda from my favorite game, Ocarina of Time in it! So I bought Melee, and then I bought Twilight Princess when I found out that was a thing, and then my mom’s childhood friend took pity on me & bought me a Wii (I’m p sure I cried trying to thank him) and then I got Brawl!

So it’s 2010, and I go into brawl completely blind- the only characters I know are the Zelda ones, Pokemon Trainer/Pikachu, & the Mario characters from Mario 64. I start playing Subspace Emissary and even though I don’t know most of the characters it is awesome. So I get to the Ice type level- I know the Ice Climbers from Melee & Meta Knight from the old Kirby anime, and this awesome jackal ninja character shows up and oh my god it’s so cool!!!

And then the Pokemon music starts playing.

I think I screamed. I hadn’t evolved my Riolu that Riley gave me in Diamond, and it had been long enough since I’d beaten Cynthia that I’d forgotten Lucario existed. There has never been another Pokemon that I’ve seen in my entire life that made me go “WOW!!!” half as much as Lucario.

And that’s how Lucario got to be my favorite Pokemon~

#Pokemon #Lucario #N #pokemon usum #character hate #in tags #I don't actually hate him I just don't have nice thing to say about him #I had a hard time coming up with a fave for gen 6???? I had to go into pokemon bank to find one #I love ORAS but #idk I think it has my least favorite pokemon of any gen #personal #XY is kinda sorta really my least favorite main series games #I don't really like anything about them other than Sycamore and the Looker missions #Lysandre kinda fell a little flat for me even #I want to like him but he's just... a bit too cartoony for me to take seriouly #and considering how his plan is legit the most dangerous of ALL the villains & I should be taking him the most s... yeah they screwed him up #*serious #My computer won't let me edit tags sorry guys

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pointofthought-blog · 8 years ago

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The Baldur’s Gate series. This series, it’s something special. I first had my taste of it with Baldur’s Gate II in the very early 2000s, when I was very young. My memory is kind of fuzzy, but I remember buying the action console spin-off game ‘Dark Alliance’ because it looked like Diablo to me, then buying this as I thought it was another version of Dark Alliance. I’m glad I was wrong. This game introduced me to what CRPGs can be: engaging, thought-provoking gameplay; the freedom of choice; and the amazing combinations of characters you could make alongside actually developing your character in interesting way. Also, at the time it had one of the most unique settings I’d ever seen. As a kid, I wasn’t the brightest though. I didn’t understand the game had a underlining system and used dice rolls for everything; AD&D2. I could never understand the numbers on screen (1d8? What does that mean?!) and never though about trying to work out what they are. I just played by brute-forcing different combinations of parties, spells, and tactics. It never got me very far, but the game was large enough that I could make copious amounts of new characters and always see something different. A few years ago I finally decided to play through the game properly, it hadn’t been YEARS since I’d played it. I bought the complete box set the includes 1, 2 and all the expansions. Downloaded a mod that combined them all into one play through (I forget which mod it was now, but I know it would’ve been one that affected gameplay the least. I like things to be as close to the developers intentions as possible) and played the game as much as I could until I finished it. It was a huge dose of nostaliga and I found it quite engaging to actually read up on the AD&D rules, understand the mechanics, and make an interesting character. I also gained a new appreciation for the narrative itself (as a child I only really found the atmosphere engaging.) It had many interesting characters and I absolutely adored the love interest with the character Aerie.

As an introduction to D&D, all the characters were great actually. They showed you the diverse world of D&D whilst also being diverse themselves and having their own interesting motivations and backstories; which made for some good side quests! The most memorable side-quest for me would’ve been when *SPOILERS* Edwin finally finds an ancient tome (or something similar) he joined your party to search for, thinking it would give him great powers. But, instead, it turns him into a woman, Edwina. So through a potion of the game he was a she. This generated some hilarious banter between the party. I think I enjoyed this so much as it was a light-hearted, unexpected way to change the game, without actually getting in the way of any gameplay.

There wasn’t too many differences between BG1 and 2 on the surface. Each using the same D&D ruleset, BG2 just expanding on it as you continue on with the same character thus getting to higher levels. The characters on narrative weren’t as strong in Baldur’s Gate 1, but it gave you much more room to explore and discover the world, creating a more immersive experience. Both have small open world areas that you go between on an overworld map. Baldur’s Gate 1′s are just felt more interconnect and natural, appearing closer together on the overworld map too. The areas were more open too, allowing for more exploration and getting killed when going off the beaten path. Baldur’s Gate II on the other-hand... the narrative design was much better, many small locations to openly explore, and a choice of which location you visit via an overworld like BG1. Unlike BG1, which starts you in a small town to teach you mechanics and you only need to spend a short period in, BG2 starts you in a longer linear dungeon to teach you mechanics. This also serves as a way to introduce some important characters and start the story. Though the means of how you got to be in that dungeon are never explained, they purposely left the events between BG1 and 2 unexplained, probably allowing the player to use their imagination. This is rectified with a later HD expansion though. After the dungeon the game gives you a goal of collecting 20,000 gold via any means possible, making exploration much more open and giving your plenty of areas to explore. If you exhaust all the sidequests and then continue on with the main story line though, you find the game never really opens up to more exploration and you’ll just be railroaded through the mains story line. I found BG1 had a much more natural blur between the main story line and simple world exploration. Thus making BG2 and much more linear experience, but giving it a much more interesting story line. I wouldn’t call either an objectively better method of portraying a game narrative; though I’d probably say I’d prefer the method of BG1 as I like games taking advantage of the medium and allowing a more sandbox feel. But I am also a sucker for a good story and atmosphere like Baldur’s Gate 2 has. I had actually gained the impetus to write this as I’d just finished the HD games, including the newly released expansion Siege of Dragonspear. I’ll write about the HD collection more further down but for now talk about game balance. I think one of the things that makes these games great is that they are horribly unbalanced. Some builds just work out much better then others; some classes are objectively better than others; some items are just ridiculously powerful; some monsters are just ridiculously hard out of no where. I like this. I think this is what can make a game fun and memorable, allowing the player to find out what is ridiculously strong in the game; remembering the ridiculous fight with a Beholder that was difficult in a sea of easy monsters. When games are overbalanced it just becomes a monotonous trip with no ups and downs, nothing memorable. I think it’s one of the reasons why I have trouble remembering the Baldur’s Gate spiritual succesor, Pillars of Eternity. Josh Sawyer, lead designer of PoE, has a love of balancing games now. I think he may have overbalanced Pillars of Eternity. Also, the reason I brought up the HD edition now is because it adds new classes and adds features from 2 into 1. I can see this throwing any sense of balance out of the window and makes me kind of sad. I like to play games as they were originally intended to be mechanically played by the developers, and the HD version has no way of distinguishing newly added classes from the old classes. This brings me to talk about the HD edition. I love the ease of use improvements:

-They made it easier to run on modern hardware. -Added health bars. -Added coloured outlines to different characters. -Added a scaling HUD. -Added zoom. -Have options to turn off any of these features if you don’t like them. Unfortunately, I dislike all the new content they added. It just feels really out of place as the characters and stories were obviously created by different authors using newer technologies. I wouldn’t mind them adding new content if they gave an option for players to play game in its original state with its ease of use improvements still. Unfortunately no such option exists, though. Siege of Dragonspear, the new expansion they created for BG1, that fits between 1 and 2 and explains the events that happen to the character in-between that were previously unexplained is a fun addition. I just wish they didn’t set it inbetween the other two games and make it canon. I preferred the mystery and when different authors come in and try to explain things it can come off as lame fan fiction. The gameplay itself wasn’t as good as the other games, it was quite railroaded and had few memorable characters. It was actually reminiscent of the BG2 expansion, so if that’s what they were aiming for they did okay. Even with my complaints it was a decent game and I was glad to have an extra addition to Baldur’s Gate after so long. The story, while not amazing, was fun and explored some cool areas.

This game easily makes my top games list just as it’s so nostalgic to me. The openness of it with such a unique setting, the music is still cemented in my brain. I hope a game can come along one day again and recreate that magic. Alas, I think part of the magic was finding it as a child.

#baldur's gate

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dis-blog-ded · 8 years ago

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I kinda feel bad at times when i think of old games i used to play

I used to be able to remember every trainer and every pokemon they had in RB/FRLG/GSC/RSE/DPPlt along with most Pokemon moves...but now replaying Red, I don’t really remember much anymore. i haven’t even played them in years for one reason or another (crystal’s internal battery died so i can’t restart it, HG still has my unfinished Nuzlocke on it because all of my written data for my story is on my old crashed laptop and i have too much Pokeathelon progress on SS, plt and e i haven’t really played since their nuzlockes, re/dp are abandoned forever in favor of e/plt’s superior mechanics and storylines...and ive really only played bw twice with an unfinished third file, b2w2 once, xy twice with an unfinished third file, oras twice with OR unfinished, and sumo once bc i think my mom accidentally threw away my in-progress sun cartridge bc i haven’t seen it in months)

I want to play HW again but there’s...not really much left. i have all the costumes I wanted and all the weapons I wanted, all that’s left are the ones I don’t have (either because the missions are hard as fuck or GETTING to the mission is hard as fuck, and i don’t have a second player to help me out) and a bunch of heart pieces left in a game where HP doesn’t even matter much, and I refuse to buy HWL despite the improvements because I would be forced to start over from scratch which is...awful considering how much time you gotta put into the game. otherwise i’ll be sitting there farming weapons to have a slightly easier time doing the hard missions but ive spent days farming and not getting anything useful and it. sucks and isn’t worth it.

none of my fallout files are finished because i spend most of the game exploring and avoiding the main story then when i take a break i forget what i was doing because i tend to plan stuff in advance so all i really wanna do is start a new file but then those file will sit unfinished forever if i do and its annoying

i just got back into elsword after like 2 years but doing dailies on multiple characters takes up SO much time (henir runs take ~30min each, and i need 2 per character), especially when half of my day is spent at work, some characters dont even get their dailies because i dont have time. i just crafted my first ever 5/5 henir set and now im just left with disappointment because im not stronger and im just barely taking less damage and my stats are still nowhere near where they should be despite socketing everything right and i dont know what im doing wrong because apparently im doing everything right but im still weak as fuck

was doing my second full aidyn chronicles run but i stopped bc i dont remember why, which sucks because im finally got my stats and spells up to not worry about dying

i wish i could play perfect dark but i get bored after a few missions or multiplayer runs, a few years ago i finally unlocked every single cheat and then....immediately lost the motivation to play, even though it took me almost 10 years and a lot of frustration to do so, even when there were years when i spent no time unlocking some of the cheats i still had fun

i dont even have the drive to do Union Cross anymore besides dailies, ive missed out on a lot of jewels from the MP boards because it’s just a chore to grind coins, i mean it’s not like SENA is giving us anything else to do unlike JP where they get UX events and regular events, and the lack of mercy draws is really fucking annoying, like why should i keep saving jewels when i cant actually spend them on anything worthwhile besides getting lucky with pulls

i had fun with mario galaxy but i cant bring myself to do whats needed to replay the game as luigi..

i wanna replay twilight princes but i wanna play the HD verson, but i cant because i dont have it and i want the wolf link amiibo

i really wanna play huniecam studio again but im stumped about how getting platinum is so “easy” i had trouble just getting the gold trophy, platinum and diamond seem impossible to me but apparently everyone was getting platinum on their second run...

i meant to 100% my mystery dungeon red game and use blue to replays but man the 100-floor dungeons are hard, especially celebi’s dungeon is near impossible without hacking. but i want her

i also wanna replay mario & luigi superstar saga and play the rest of the series (partners in time, bowser’s inside story, dream team) but every time i start a new file something happens and my save data gets deleted so ive only beaten the game once

lord, i haven’t even technically finished KH2 and BBS, i never did the lingering will, data org, mirage arena, vanitas remnant, or ymx battles

i have so many games i wanna replay or finish but i cant

depression sucks

#dumb ruenis posts

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