#That one scene where you go into the prism and you have a dialog option to say you only want a dreamless sleep

[fishofthewoods]

Yknow it does irritate me a little that after the Emperor reveal in act 3 your only mean dialogue options are about him being a mind flayer. Let me bully this guy for being a piece of shit not for being illithid. I don’t distrust him because he’s not human i distrust him because he’s a lying manipulative motherfucker. LET ME BE MEAN TO HIM WITHOUT BEING FANTASY RACIST LARIAN

[jonathanraychapman]

My Thoughts on Current FGO

I’ve been playing Fate Grand Order (a mobile game) since a few months after it came out.  While I don’t want to throw out a monetary number, I’ve spent nearly as much money as Touhou or Shotgun Shogun on this game.  I’ve played every event except the first Nerofest - leveling up characters and skills along the way.  I’ve been following the anime series since it first came out and that’s first and foremost what got me into this game.  I play the game quite a bit.  It’s how I start my morning.  Sometimes it’s how I spend my lunch (jamming to music in my car and playing the game to get away from the office).  I often play the game while watching movies or videos or while hiking.  It’s something I can do with my mobile phone to pass the time.

Anyways, here’s some of my thoughts on the game.  This is partially to explain my position playing it to people that follow me and partially to give Shotgun Shogun some ideas for talking to the creators at anime conventions.

Things I like about the game:  

The Flexible Difficulty:  It’s as hard or as easy as you make it out to be.  If you’re in the farming mood you can either brute-force the game with your powerful servants or take your time and use the less-used characters in your roster (with more-casual characters that have fun interactions).  This customization of gameplay is extended - based on the class system and ability to use command seals.   If those archers are too easy, then fight them with a neutral class.  Really want a challenge?  Bring your sabers to fight the uphill battle.  This carries over to events with the different tiers and challenge quests.  I do wish the tiers had some niche or reason to play them for flavor or secondary advantage.

The Humor:  The translations are pretty good overall and some of the dialogs or in-jokes in the game are fun.  Sometimes I wish that - story-wise - FGO would dial things back to scary or dramatic or intense more.  You get a little taste of this sometimes (like Liz’s scenes during the Kara no Kyoukai event - where she realizes what she’s done in her lore).  While I enjoy my Tamamo/Kiyo memes or Blackbeard lolli humor, I want more balance.  The Camelot storyline was a pretty good example of how things should be while the London story was not great.  If you were just playing the game you might not get the dramatic story behind characters (it’s like FGO is just the meme version of the series).

The Art:  I think the game does a fantastic job on the details in the backgrounds.  And I like the different art on the characters and their noble phantasms.  The music is great too (especially some of the event music), but I mostly leave the sound turned off (since non-skippable NP animations get really repetitive).

The Lore:  The lore of the series is a huge part of the appeal of this game.  And it’s not necessarily even done by the game as much as the anime and visual novel games that precede it.  It’s fine for the game to ride on the coat-tails of the story as long hints to character lore are preserved out (and they are for the most part).  I do get the feeling that the mobile game is sort of a meme of Fate moreso than I would have expected.  That might be because half of the events are around holidays and those really are where the game breaks the fourth wall (it’s also mostly what I remember because of all the grinding).

Things I dislike about the game:

Lack of Player Interactions:  The only way we have to interact with other players in the game is through the friends list and guest system.  Unless you know people in real life, this make the game overall a pretty cold experience.  I know the can of worms that having chat would open up, but man it would be nice to let people know what you like and maybe don’t like about their servant lineup.  I’d also love to add different kinds of supports.  I want to share Tamamo for arts teams to use while having Waver for other teams.  I’d like to share my Nero Bride for her skills while letting people use my Okita for stars or for her NP damage (or my Saber Artoria for farming).  A friend can only bring one of your servants (and it’s mandatory) so why not give them more options?

Lack of Company/Community Communication:  So I have watched the convention events when I could to see what’s coming up, but those are far and few between (and there’s been a lot of problems with news being held back because of a convention).  That’s just not how to run things - especially online.  The communication just really isn’t there with the player base and it hasn’t gotten better.  Often the twitter account will post about events that started days ago so if I had relied on that for news, I would be in a bad spot (I’d be a couple of days behind on farming an event).  And the events are kind of odd (like last year’s Thanksgiving banner).  When seeing announcements through streams, It’s like watching the event in another country (maybe because there’s a lot of Japanese and a lot of translating and it’s not done very well).  I get the voice actors being Japanese and I get that the game is natively Japanese in origin, but this is the US market and a US port/translation of the game.  Please get a more-native PR spokesperson that’s also enthusiastic about the game and add more polish to these announcements.

Can’t Skip Noble Phantasm Animations:  I’ve read about this being a purposeful decision and I get that the company wants players to take time to watch the art for the experience (and likely psychological reasons), but after seeing the Arash explosion for the literal 1000th time, it’s not adding to my experience.  And that’s a quick animation.  There’s also the animations that seem to take forever (like the Lancer Artoria one).  I wish that tapping the screen would somehow shorten the NP.  Also, often when the animation finishes, I can barely see the numbers on the damage before the whole screen wipes.  Sometimes I’m trying to figure out if an enemy was demonic by testing it with a NP or skill and it’s just hard to with the NP animation obfuscating things.  It would also be great to be able to see the traits of enemies.  I’d like to know if a skeleton is a humanoid because my Florence gets a buff against that type.  Or I’d like to know if the Skeleton King is considered demonic to use my Rama against.  I know later in Japan we get to see the crit star distribution, but I’m not sure if we ever get to see attributes.

Gatcha System Too Greedy (And the Statistics Inaccurate):  FGO is a gambling game and I totally get that.  The company might not want to admit that too freely out of fear or regulation, but the players know it’s about getting players to spend money to roll for characters.  I absolutely enjoy spending money and gambling for characters and I’m fine with it being this way.  But the rates are just really bad and the side-rewards (i.e. CE/Character cards you burn) don’t justify the expenditure.  I don’t want to dwell on this too much because I’m sure others have called it out, but the game gives too little back while gambling.  When you do a 10-spin and get a minimum roll (meaning a 4-star junk CE), it really feels like you got cheated.  I also frequently have one five-star character on rate-up - meaning I have a 0.07% chance of rolling them, only to go through two or three other five-star servants before getting the one on rate-up (and the chance of that is extremely low).  I know it’s not just my bad luck.  There’s definitely something wrong with the rate-up statistics posted (I’ve just seen it happen too many times over thousands and thousands of quartz).   Also, the banners could be tweaked to let people have a good chance one one servant or the other.  When you put up a banner with two five-stars on rate-up (one of which I don’t exactly like or I already have a NP5 of), it’s not a banner I’m going to roll on.

Farming Materials Too Tedious:  I get that you need long-term goals to feel like you’re progressing as a player, but some of the materials requirements are just kind of ridiculous in regards to the amount of time needed.  When you grind a free node with a supposed 19% chance to drop crystals for 8 hours to maybe get 10 crystals (when you need 20 per skill), that’s just not fun.  It’s also ridiculous when an event drops and gives you easy access to crystals or the rate is now 60% or you can buy 10 from the shop for basically nothing.  It just doesn’t feel rewarding and it makes you have to grind the game when you don’t really want to (especially around holidays).  That’s just too much of a grind for most players and it takes a toll on me as well.  Take hearts for example.  Right now, you can spend a whole day and maybe get one heart from a caster daily node.  So you basically have to get these during events or from their shops.  And there’s a lot of servants requiring a lot of hearts.

I’ll be honest.  I’ve either burned or not rolled for characters after looking at their materials requirements (Tristran I’m looking at you).  I don’t want that character sitting in my roster with low skills and I don’t want to grind it out to increase their skills if they’re just not good.  So I just avoid the whole thing (especially if they’re not someone I exactly care for).  The same is true for characters that just have really weak kits but high-end requirements (like Stheno).

Can’t Really Customize Characters:  I know we get a few some skins/costumes later-on, but more of this would be a really welcome addition to the game.  Maybe just being able to change colors on the outfits or buy skins would do so much to make the game feel more personable.  If part of the appeal of this game is the waifu thing, then why not lean into this area more and make some money.  And if it was implemented, let it be a DLC type of purchase instead of a gatcha thing.  Or maybe it could be a secondary reward for excess servants or gold mana prisms - like something to do with the 11th copy of Fion you’ve picked up.  Every character in the game should have alternate costume/skin options.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 043

Episode: Futari wa Precure 43 - “Extremely Shaken Up! The Heartfelt Note to Fujipi” Date watched: 25 May 2018 Original air date: 12 December 2004 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/ak24W8q

This scene is a perfect metaphor for the entire episode: it goes nowhere and accomplishes nothing.

Maybe that caption was a little mean, because while it doesn’t advance the plot (which really needs to get going, we’re near the end of the series), it’s a great episode for Nagisa and fleshes out the Seeds a tiny bit as well. In this episode, Juna and Regine continue to ponder their own existence because Belzei won’t just tell them that they’ve developed as beings separate from the Dark King even though they’re made from him. Meanwhile, Nagisa tries to finally confess her feelings to Fujipi on his birthday, but sacrifices her own shot at him for the sake of a friend who also has a crush on him.

The fandom often accuses Nagisa of being selfish and a bad leader because she whines about not wanting to fight bad guys, but I present this as a counterexample. Nagisa may wish for a normal life but she never once shies away from her duty as a protector of light and she is extremely selfless for her friends. Here she is, helping a girl we’ve only met once (she’s the previously unnamed classmate seen with Seiko from ep 39) to confess to the boy she herself likes. It tears her up inside to do so but she can’t help but to help her friends.

This girl’s name is Morioka Yui, by the way. She’s eager and that’s about her only defining character trait. She doesn’t know that Nagisa likes Fujipi, and when the pair go to Honoka to discuss present options, Honoka gives Nagisa a quick glance, which Nagisa averts, before answering the question. Ouch. Anyway, while Yui plans a gift for Fujipi, settling on a handmade charm to help him recover from an injury he sustained, Nagisa sits on a hillside and mourns her situation. Fujipi himself comes by and tries to talk to her, but she brushes him off gently. He leaves his scarf with her so she doesn’t get cold and this motivates her to try to find a way to confess her feelings as well. She goes home and starts to write a letter to him that she’ll give when she returns the scarf. She stays up all night trying to get it right, and ultimately all she comes up with is: “Dear Fujimura-sempai. Congratulations on your birthday! In your final Junior High School soccer game, please do your best. I’ll be cheering you on. -Misumi Nagisa” Between me and you, that doesn’t even read like a love confession. Maybe there’s some nuance in the Japanese wording that I’m not aware of that would make it a little more clear to the recipient that she doesn’t only mean she’ll support him as a friend or a fan. Since this line is reused later in the episode, that might be the case. Nonetheless, I have to call the translated dialog out for being vague if it’s the translation, or the original script if I’m wrong about the nuanced meaning. Whoever’s at fault, it doesn’t seem to come across strongly enough. Also I could rag on Nagisa for spending all night to right that little. I know writing is hard (my backlog is evidence of that) and confessing your love for someone else is also difficult but you could surely have come up with something better than that. Ah well.

Nagisa goes to support Yui as she presents Fujipi with the charm, and also to return his scarf with her own letter in the bag. As she hands him the charm, Yui tells Fujipi "In your final Junior High soccer game, please do your best. I’ll be cheering you on!” Yes, verbatim what Nagisa wrote.

top 10 anime betrayals

Nagisa has kept her feelings and intentions close to her chest, so she’s very torn up by this because now she’s afraid she’ll just be seen as a copycat if she gives him the letter. She runs away distraught as Yui attempts to continue her confession alone. Nagisa returns to the hillside and rips up the letter. As she wallows in her sadness, Regine shows up demanding to know what Belzei means about the Seeds no longer being their former selves. Nagisa tries to dodge Regine’s attacks, begging her to go away because she really isn’t in the mood for this today. A valiant effort, but it doesn’t work. Fortunately Honoka shows up and rescues Nagisa from her own angst. After they transform, Cure Black tries to fight but her heart isn’t in it, and Regine calls her out on it. Honoka, who has spent the background of the episode trying to figure out how to support Nagisa during all of this in return for Nagisa’s support with Kiriya and everything else, steps up and declares herself as Regine’s opponent, even blocking an attack directed at her partner.

White seems seriously hurt and Regine rubs salt into both of their wounds by calling Black a useless person who needs to be protected by her partner. This motivates Black into action, angry at the assault on her friend, and she lays into Regine. Regine blocks easily because Black is using a repetitive one-two punch attack but she surprises her with a punch to the gut. From afar, Porun senses the danger and unleashes the Rainbow Braces, and the girls perform Rainbow Storm, sending Regine flying and for some reason there’s a quick shot of Juna being overwhelmed by the blast as well. It might be recycled footage from a previous episode, because he didn’t appear in this fight at all.

After the smoke clears, Nagisa sincerely thanks Honoka for her support through this endeavor and Honoka invites Nagisa back to her place for some hot stew, with an implied side dish of talking it out.

The emotion and sentiment in this episode is very strong. You can feel Nagisa’s pain as she’s torn between her romantic feelings and her strong desire to help her friend. The strength it takes to help someone confess to a person you yourself love is tremendous and I can’t fault her for buckling under the pressure when her own words were used against her. I don’t mean to suggest that Yui somehow saw Nagisa’s letter, there’s nothing to indicate as such. She knows nothing of Nagisa’s own feelings for Fujipi or she probably wouldn’t have sought her help. It’s an unfortunate coincidence, but the sting of that experience is real. Also I want to salute Honoka for trying really hard to cheer Nagisa up, even without knowing everything she was up to. Actually that feels kind of like a plot hole, her efforts towards Nagisa when the only contact they had was near the beginning when she and Yui first approached Honoka to ask about Fujipi’s interests, I would have liked a little more focus on Honoka in this episode to show her side of things. As-is it comes across as: Honoka finds out Nagisa is helping Yui confess, asks Nagisa if this is okay and learns that Nagisa wants to help her friends before herself. At night she writes in the diary about giving Nagisa strength and the next day she’s running around school looking for Nagisa until Mipple takes her to the fight, and afterward she invites Nagisa home for stew. It feels like it’s missing some communication between the two.

Alright, time for some small observations. The seeds outright lie to the Dark King about not knowing where the power of light is, as they figured it out in a previous episode. It seems to me now that their plan is to take that power for themselves so that they might become immune to the consuming power of darkness and leave the Dark King to rot, but that hasn’t been explicitly spelled out. Also there’s a sequence involving the butler zakenna in the mansion that is entirely pointless and goes nowhere, it’s just a few minutes of gag comedy to fill time. Know what might have filled that time better? More Honoka.

Also they drop a tidbit about the Sakura class going to represent the school at the Regional Junior High Choir Contest, a setup for episode 45, and I’m always appreciative of these little moments of continuity and establishing things before the episode in which they really become relevant.

Oh yes, also, this is a soft toy-plugging episode. You saw the invisible diary above, and there’s also a quick scene of Mepple and Porun using the Prism Love Checker to prove that they’re not compatible.

Hey kids, remember this thing that we only showed briefly in episode 17? Go buy it.

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 0. There hasn’t been an Arienai in a while now, what gives?

Next time, a Christmas party!