#but the postgame - if you DO have the dlc - has a lot to do and places to run around and things to collect and etc

[nidoquean]

i really thought "the cycle" stopped at gen 5 because it's still getting so much (mostly deserved) hype that gen 6 just hasn't? but i think- hold on this is gonna be a real haterism ill put a read more

the cycle just kinda skipped gen 6 (because there's nothing worth defending besides megas LMAOOO) and went straight to gen 7. so now everyone is lauding it for how good it is (at having a horribly unsatisfying region layout and grinding your forward momentum to a halt every 10 steps to tell you about another location or character)

the story isn't even THAT GOOD there's just more story relative to other pokemon games

popplio my baby i gotta get you outta there you are the only thing in alola that matters to me [realizes i can only move it to swsh or scvi] aw balls

[lindleland]

And just like that, I'm done with Moon.

I was worried that I'd end up disliking this on a replay but it was much better than I'd remembered. Honestly one of my favourite games in the series.

These are still some of the best characters in the series, it has one of the best batches of new Pokemon they ever introduced, and you have a great set of team options throughout the game without it ever feeling like they're giving you too many options. I feel like the last couple entries have been maybe a bit too generous with the Pokemon you can get early on plus giving you enough XP to easily raise multiple teams, making each playthrough seem kind of indistinct. This one hits the perfect balance.

The region looks goddamn gorgeous and I love the aesthetic of these 3D models, there's a good balance between detail in the models and pixellated textures that have a real low-poly charm to them.

And this is still probably the best plot in the series, barring maybe Scarlet and Violet's.

I do have one big criticism though, and that's that this game is overwhelmingly handholdy. I think a lot of the changes to the formula were a good idea, but incorproating a strict linear plot with exactly one quest marker at a time makes this really feel like you aren't on your own journey, you're being guided through a series of preset objectives. So many roadblocks in this feel aggressively guiding, like the game is saying "this is NOT the way to progress the story, go follow your quest marker NOW", and there are very few opportunities to go off the beaten path. Additionally, while I do like the cutscenes, there are way too many of them. You can hardly enter anywhere new in this game without a cutscene happening.

With that being said, I still had a fantastic time here. And in fairness, Sword and Shield had similar problems outside of the Wild Areas despite barely even having a plot.

Glad I'm putting some good distance between this and Ultra Moon, though. Probably the worst pair of games to play through back to back given how little freedom there is in the experience. I'll be playing through the Violet DLC whenever I can afford it, but the other games in my immediate replay lineup are physical copies on old hardware that I can't screenshot on. Once we get back to the 3DS era though I'll probably liveblog Alpha Sapphire and Ultra Moon as well.

...Though I'm not really done with this liveblog yet, since Moon has (holy shit) an actual substantial postgame! Stay tuned.

[taoofshigeru]

Pointers for That One Postgame Boss

I got a reply question about this, and the writeup went long. Now it's a separate post.

Here are my general tips for fighting Galdera in Octopath II.

1) For the first Eye phase, I made sure to have at least two merchants in the party. Hired Help beastlings does 4 shields of damage when fully boosted, and foreign assassin does almost 40,000 damage when coupled with a physical defense debuff. I also carried about 3 million leaves into that fight and ended up with (checks screenshot archive) 14273 at the end of the second phase.

2) For the second Galdera the Fallen phase, make sure Ochette is in your party, and you have the SP Saver passive equipped. There are a number of beast captures that hit twice for a specific weak point. My beast lineup for Galdera and (all 4 DLC fights) was: -Vagrant Frogking II (2x axe hits on all) -Wild Moleking II (2x dagger hits on all) -Ancient Lizardking II (2x sword hits on all) -Woodland Birdking II (2x spear hits on all) -Peek-a-Boo (1x staff hit on all, plus a number of defense debuffs.) -Ice Guardian Mk.II (1x axe hit+1x ice hit on all)

These can do 6 shields to multiple foes without even spending BP, up to 12 shields. If you're using Castti's concoct with Pomegranate Leaf x2+Diffusing Serum+Strengthening Serum, or Revitalizing Jams, which can be farmed, she'll do 24 shields of damage in the interval between enemy turns. This is vital for the final phase where Galdera's main body gets 20 shield points and that number goes up. In general, it's also good to partner this version of Ochette with Castti, because Peek-a-Boo's debuffs make Castti's Drastic Measures a stronger damage option.

3) Hunter's Leghold Trap (in the first phase, since it's mostly just the eye) and Agnea's Windy Refrain (in the second phase, where the limbs are around for a while and you need crowd control) were indispensable in controlling the boss' turns. After the boss uses its recover-from-break turns, you have the one turn before, and the one turn after to deliver hits. If your party survives out of break, this means you either Provoke Beasts with Ochette twice (24 shields), or get in two fully boosted regular attacks (16 shields). Ideally, the only time the enemy is attacking is when they recover from break status.

4) You can farm Revitalizing Jams by getting into a fight with a higher-level side-dungeon boss (i.e. Direwolf or Decaying Dragon), fully boosting a steal, breaking them once, then fleeing. The ability to fully restore HP and get 5 BP with a single item use is really helpful, especially when combined with Dohter's Charity.

5) Make sure your phase 2 party's minimum level is 60, and realistically 65-75 is a good range to do the fight at.

Phase 1 is a lot more flexible. I managed it with Hikari and Osvald at essentially level 50, thanks to Hired Help's damage being divorced from stats.

With those tips in mind, here was my specific configuration.

[Phase 1] Dancer Partitio (level 65) Merchant Hikari (level 49) Hunter Osvald (level 51) Thief Temenos (level 61)

Hikari and Partitio break and do damage with Hired Help. Temenos debuffs with Thief's Armor Corrosive, Osvald uses Hunter's Leghold Trap for crowd control, plus does the one hit needed to bring soul shields down from 5 to 4 with magic.

[Phase 2] Armsmaster Castti (level 73) Cleric Agnea (level 71) Merchant Throné (level 66) Conjurer Ochette (level 73)

Castti concocts and hits for massive damage. Agnea heals and buffs for extra turns with Aelfric's Blessing. Throne provides wide-area damage with Hired Help, and when she has 5 BP she can use it for (almost) full output twice in one turn. Ochette should be using Provoke Beasts every turn, no exceptions. I made her a Conjurer because, when everyone else is dead and there's nothing else left, she can raise the rest of the party from the dead and maybe inflict a little extra damage at the end.

(Feel free to tweak the setup based on which of your characters are higher level. This is just what worked for me.)

[boxkeith]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2024

In 2023 I wrote 72k words about 125 games. In 2024 I wrote 135k words about 145 games. This implies that in 2025 I will write 250k words about 160 games and by 2030 I will write 800k words about 0 games because games cut into my time spent waxing philosophic about interactivity as a concept. Much like jazz, it’s all about the games you don’t play.

My criteria for the top 10 are that it merely needs to be something I either played for the first time this year or experienced in a meaningfully novel way, and that it will inform the way I think about games going forwards. This ordering is chronological starting with games I played earliest in the year, with no ordinal ranking implied or intended.

Honorable mentions: Moonlight Pulse, Animal Well, Astor: Blade of the Monolith, Biomorph, Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, STRANGER OF PARADISE FINAL FANTASY ORIGIN, Thread

Zeno Clash II – I played Zeno Clash around release in the early 2010s, back when being on Steam was enough to garner an audience. For some reason I bounced off the sequel. I went back and replayed both of them after loving Clash in 2023, and I’m so glad I did. Games have forgotten how to be punchy, literally and metaphorically. Combat feels good, the writing is charmingly bizarre, and the worldbuilding is still bewildering. I’m in love with this series because it’s the same sort of grimy low-tech magical world as Vexx, and few things are playing in that same space. Fewer still make it feel anywhere near this good to punch a man in the head. Goddamn.

God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla – If Elden Ring DLC can be nominated for GOTY then I can put Dad of War 2 DLC in my Top 10 list. I had very low faith in this DLC. Ragnarok suffered from rushed development and having 50 pounds of shit shoved in a 30 pound bag, and so everything about the lore and gamefeel of a series I care deeply for felt discarded and underutilized. Valhalla shows the spark is still there, just buried. It had the lore callbacks I was craving for all of both Dad of War games. It had the payoffs for Kratos’ emotional arcs and an actual conversation about how it felt to be more godslayer than god, more god than father, and more father than husband. I realize God of War can’t be this all the time. Even this came dangerously close to cribbing notes from Hades directly on telling a story this way. But it’s a light in the darkness or a beautiful sendoff, and I’ll take either.

Chants of Sennarr – At some point I need to actually play a point-and-click adventure game because I keep liking games with those trappings. In either case I loved helping these little guys translate their shit. The last level falls apart a bit, the stealth sections suck, and I could do without the twee fakeout ending but when the game is throwing you to the wolves in a whole new area like your college French teacher greeting you at 7AM with a bonjour followed by several syllables you’ve never heard in your life? Positively unmatched.

Nine Sols – There’s a lot to love about Nine Sols. The eerie taopunk aesthetic of the ruined city. The soundtrack that drips with atmosphere and tension. The compelling story of hubris and redemption, backed up by intensely well written characters. The incest undertones. The variety and complexity of the boss fights. The crisp satisfaction of the parry. The incest overtones.  Positively phenomenal game, and it’s rather galling that it got snubbed so completely by every major awards ceremony for the sin of being Taiwanese. If I was ranking these ordinally it’d be far and away #1, and it wouldn’t shock me if I replay it within the year. The final boss was practically a 5 hour postgame DLC by herself, and singlehandedly altered my concept of what video games can do with their combat systems and structure.

Master Key – Almost every 2D Zelda knockoff has sucked. There’s a density and simplicity to their design that a lot of indies overshoot. This is one of the few that surprised me with its mastery of Zelda puzzle design, though the monochrome aesthetic rode the borderline between charming and visually incoherent. Chicory got away with it because the bosses were much simpler and the game was about painting. Despite its quality my favorite part of the game was the actually the picross mode, but a full 7% of players full-cleared it despite being it being 100+ puzzles so I’m not alone. It also taught me why the Link to the Past hookshot makes Link invincible because being knocked out of position while the hook is flying leads to some weird disjoints.

Metal Gear Solid – I could write a book about Metal Gear Solid. I don’t know if I can write two coherent sentences about Metal Gear Solid. I am late to the party on this but the Hideous Kojima is doing things with the concept of interactive media which no one else on the planet is even approaching. It says something about me that one of the series I’m reminded of most strongly is Prototype as that had a lot of the same tone surrounding militarization, similar use of real-world video interspersed with gameplay, and equally dogshit shooting. It also says something about me that I used claymore mines more than Fat Man.

Picross 3D: Round 2 – Allegedly I’ve played this for something like 65 hours over the course of the last few months. That feels low. Like any good puzzle game Picross 3D: Round 2 is engrossing, constantly growing in complexity without feeling unfair, and is genuinely challenging. I got through the first 255 puzzles and felt satisfied, then after the credits another 100 or so puzzles unlocked. I’m still chipping through it, and I’ll be sad when it’s gone.

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice – Despite my love of shitty soulslikes Fromsoft’s homegrown designs don’t do it for me. Bloodborne at least had interesting things to say about Dark Souls 1 and was a meaningful divergence in design. Sekiro is stranger to me because it wants to pretend it’s asking the same questions as Dark Souls but despite the emphasis on parrying you’re actually rewarded for being viciously proactive. I beat Isshin and I still don’t know what I feel about this game. I don’t know how much of my impression came from playing this after Nine Sols. I don’t know if I would’ve played this if not for Nine Sols. I definitely wouldn’t have played it if not for Steam Family Sharing, that’s for damn sure.

Final Fantasy 1: Dawn of Souls – This GBA remake is older now than the original was when the remake was made. It’s also the only video game society has ever produced. I know of Final Fantasy through playing FFXIII in high school, watching Advent Children at least eight times in high school, and playing Kingdom Hearts in high school, college, post college, and this year. I only beat this game because autoattacks and emulator speedup let me essentially blip past most fights. Despite that, I don’t know if the game would be better without random encounters. It puts in a form of attrition that we don’t really see anymore in games outside of roguelites, and while that may be for good reason it’s an interesting puzzle.

Hyper Light Drifter – This shit should be in the library of congress. The soundtrack is one of the best in the medium, the map design and puzzles are superb, and at worst the combat is functional. Elements like the keys being cumulative collectables still feel ahead of their time, and while it wasn’t the first game to have ranged weapons recharged by your melee attack it feels like the bedrock other games built on top of. What a good game. Play Solar Ash too if you haven’t already.

[ratralsis]

Sorry I still haven't written anything that I promised a couple of weeks ago. I'm still working on the ol' novel, and the thousands of words I spent writing about Tina after her death might count for something. I dunno.

If I can manage to get my sleep schedule back to something resembling its previous normal soon, and get a little further ahead of schedule on my progress on the novel, I'll try to write what I hoped to write earlier for this blog.

Tina used to be pretty demanding that I go to bed before 10 PM. I actually had a decent handle on it for a while. I'm gradually getting my bedtime slightly earlier again now, but after she died, I was definitely up pretty late for a few days because I wasn't looking forward to going to bed without her. Which I realize is absurd, but it's still the truth.

If you missed the earlier posts on the subject, Tina was my cat. She wasn't, like, a human lady I lived with who dragged me to bed every night and slept next to me. She was a small cat who demanded I go to bed every night and then came and went several times throughout the night but almost always was there when I first fell asleep. Now she's not, because she's dead, and I let the vet who came to my house to euthanize her take her away for cremation and to scatter her ashes. I do still have Max, but he has never been good at sleeping next to me at night and, at fourteen years old, I don't think he's likely to learn now. He might, though! He's also never been the only cat in the house before. He and I are both still getting used to that.

I spent the last few months playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on my Switch off and on. Much like I did with Pokemon Legends: Arceus, I finished the game and then figured out a way to grind for resources without actually needing to play the game, which inflated my playtime by over 100 hours, but I still put over 200 into the game. That includes all the DLC. I liked the gameplay, though I honestly never really connected with the characters that much. I don't have a specific reason why not. I just didn't like them or care about them nearly as much as I did even in Xenoblade Chronicles 2. But the game itself was fun, and I really did enjoy the postgame Archsage Challenges and learning how to build party compositions that could tackle the hardest challenges. It took me a lot of tries to finish the 140th stage of the Gauntlet on Hard mode, but I did it, and then I did it again, and then I bought everything I wanted from the store where you use the currency you earn in those challenges and I realized I was done playing the game.

Since I did back it all the way back in 2020, I've decided to try playing Eiyuden Chronicle. I started it yesterday. So far, I don't like it much, but I said the same about Xenoblade Chronicles 3 when I first started it, too. But Eiyuden Chronicle has two big things working against it: I hate the way it looks, and it has really bad performance issues on Switch. Neither is a surprise.

I've always, always, always hated the way it looks when 2D sprites are in a 3D environment. That was true from Xenogears back on PS1 up to Octopath Traveler. I just think it looks jarring and bad. The camera moves slightly and the background moves and the character sprites can't and it just looks dumb to me. I can't get past it. I'm not at all looking forward to the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III (and possibly the first two games, as well), but I'll probably get it, because I love Dragon Quest III enough to have played nearly every version of it already, even the untranslated Japanese Super Famicom version. My Japanese is probably at the level of a 9-year-old native speaker, but believe me when I tell you that that's good enough to play Dragon Quest III, because I did it.

It's also good enough to tell you that the localization for Eiyuden Chronicle takes some pretty serious liberties in its translation of the Japanese dialogue into English, but I honestly don't mind that part. I think it goes a good job of turning the subtext from the Japanese dialogue that would be understood from context and tone and turns it into text that an English reader can understand, which is the most important thing. Anybody who complains about the localization would be better off spending that energy studying Japanese themselves.

Anyway, I got sidetracked. Point is, I'm still around. I'm feeling better than I was a week ago. I'm still writing, just not here, and I'm holding down my job and doing everything I need to do and playing video games on the side and so on.

[kafus]

good morning the colosseum hyperfocus continues. i’m gonna grab some light breakfast and then it’s time for mt battle’s battle mode for ho-oh (this is my first time ever doing it)

this is the team! i did the entire shadow purification grind without connecting to my GBA and i want to see if it’s possible to do mt battle without it too, so these are all my story pokemon from playing colosseum normally. i’m happy i kept the starter espeon and umbreon on the team lol. i chose not to use the legendary beasts because eh i’ve used those in playthroughs before and i just didn’t want to this time. i’m going to be playing doubles because this team was built for doubles for obvious reasons

by the time i finished catching and purifying every shadow pokemon, my flygon was level 66 but the rest of my team was between 60-63, so i had some grinding to do bc all my pokemon need to be the same level for this. i got all their levels equal last night by battling in all the various colosseums for completion’s sake - i don’t think i missed any? and this is how i got shadow ball on metagross for example, bc of the TM rewards

to be honest i’ve grown attached to this team in a way i haven’t with any colosseum team before despite playing this game multiple times. i’ve never really done the postgame for colosseum fully and as a result i’ve never put this much effort into movesets and generally thinking about my team because i haven’t had to - but unless i wanted to make my grind even more miserable, i needed to to take out overleveled opponents. and that’s been a blast for me! the slow incrementation of my team has led to really rewarding battles where i feel massive brain bc everything is always stronger than you 😭

i don’t think the novelty would still be there if i did this again, at least not anytime soon, because colo’s teambuilding options are limited due to the lack of viable pokemon to choose from, and also that shadow purification grind is a nightmare straight from hell (i had fun with it bc i like video game grinding but doing it twice in a row might destroy even me lol) but this time it was really fun!!

colosseum is really like if the indigo disc DLC was an entire video game (high compliment bc i loved ID) and you also didn’t have access to easy grinding/resources in general so you really have to think about the choices you make and how you spend your time. i was thinking so far ahead while using TMs and there’s no move reminder in this game so i had to think carefully about levelup moves as well. you have no idea how long i lingered on whether or not i should delete confuse ray on umbreon, etc 😭 this game reminds me how much i love double battles and i wish there was more singleplayer double battle content in pokemon a lot

anyway i’m just rambling at this point but i’m excited to take this team to the finish line :)

[sylviegunpla]

Pokémon Scarlet (also Violet)

The first game i'll review is one i have kept returning to throughout 2023: the Generation 9 Pokemon games. There's a lot that can be said about these games that have been said better by other people: their myriad technical issues, the low-effort town design, and so forth. I had a few unfortunately timed crashes early on. However, what made these games a lot of fun was getting to play them with a friend throughout the year. For Christmas in 2022, one of my presents from my parents was the Scarlet/Violet double pack. I asked for this with the intention of sharing one version with my friend Logan. I played Scarlet, and he played Violet. We both had a lot of fun playing. He's more of a role-player than I am, but we both helped each other completing our pokedexes. The Union Circle feature is extremely convenient, since it lets you play in "each other's" worlds. Pokemon from your versions of the game will spawn around you, and those are shared between players in the Union Circle. So i could find Violet version exclusives spawned around my friend and he could find Scarlet version exclusives around me. Made the whole interaction to catch them all thing actually kinda fun to do, instead of sitting through trading cutscenes (though it still doesn't justify what is now a legacy bad-game-design in the version splitting). Being able to jump and fly around this world is a huge change from every other pokemon game bar Legends Arceus. The open world itself can be a little on the dull side though. Still, battling and catching wild pokemon is the easiest it's ever been. The endgame content was also really good. The vibes of Area Zero are absolutely immaculate. I know Toby Fox's compositions were used for the background and battle themes of this area. Loved seeing huge crystal sculptures and fighting an AI clone of a dead professor. Then there's the postgame raiding content, which basically enables the Grind to gather resources in order to turn any pokemon you could want into something competitively viable. The only breeding you might ever need to do is just getting a ditto(s) with 0 speed and 0 attack (which i wouldn't say are "trivial" to obtain, but it's certainly made a lot easier with the community around these games). Everything else can be corrected with bottle caps, nature mints, ability capsules/patches, as well as much easier "egg move" mechanics and move-relearning QOL features in general. Most interesting to me as an autistic nerd is the fact that you can move pokemon freely between the new gen 9 games and the generation 8 games on the Switch using Pokemon Home. As far as i can tell, the pokemon do not lose data unique to certain games. Tera types will remain if you move a pokemon to gen 8 and back to gen 9, and Gigantamax Factor will remain if you move a pokemon to gen 9 and back to gen 8. The latter isn't surprising but the former is. I really must know what sort of data structure wizardry they're pulling off at Game Freak to make this work. I'm sure it's something rudimentary but it bothers me i can't find documentation on it on the searchable internet. I wonder what the limits of this are. I know Legends Arceus had the ability for pokemon to have an extra bank of learnable moves it could remember from at any point. I don't remember if something similar happened in Sword/Shield, so i'm wondering what the limits of the data transfer is. Will some moves be forgotten from their move bank in some transfers? Things i haven't tested but want to. Anywho, the games also have DLC. Really, Pokemon has been my serotonin machine for years and it's really easy to just collect these guys and have a little virtual "insect" collection. Also i highly recommend buying both versions and sharing with a friend who also is into pokemon, if you can afford it. Unless you don't wanna give nintendo/TPCi any more money; which, valid.

[hamofjustice]

Well, another two months of no friends later, we've got our release date: December 14th. Maybe this last month and a half will finally address this. Y'know, now that the pre order windows are closed and they're not obligated to give us anything, of course. (More Teal Mask spoilery at the end but you probably know this stuff by now)

You'd think they would have finally said something to reassure us in the two months playing the teaser first part of the DLC, which does not add a single mention or line of dialogue to the main characters/friends/rivals, only introducing two or three new ones and creating five or six different character and friendship arcs they now have to satisfyingly wrap up in one DLC (they won't lol), rather than... letting the hype train come to a complete standstill until now.

Unless they, again, think those characters that were initially all over the base game's advertising are now a detriment to it instead of its saving grace, because gamers hate reading and love marketable plushies, or something.

It's not spoilers to new players that Nemona, Penny, and Arven are our friends, it's really not. Showing new Paradox Pokemon in Area Zero when they should know what neither of those things are yet was spoilers.

I don't get it. Was $35 for admission plus seeing people jump to buy up all the overpriced human character plushies not enough to get a promise of the postgame the base game pretended it was going to have, before Paldea turned into a monochrome world of those poor kids' ghosts repeating their lines over and over with half of the adult characters just fully gone? Could we not have gotten a blink and you'll miss it frame of Nemona getting to enjoy the place that was made for her to finally belong in after all her time feeling alone, and after all our time playing the game without our friends in it anymore outside of (admittedly fuzzy and feel-good) repeating battles, with the looming threat that we may be about to ruin their happy endings and traumatize her in particular? A single hint that we won't be forced to leave them behind and undo the game's (and even ed sheeran's) message of there always being someone out there to connect with among your peers if your support system lets you down no matter how unlovable you feel, that doesn't have to be pried from the jaws of TPC unwillingly?

And I'm going to keep asking this about the base game, because it's the reason I care so much about this in the first place: What was the purpose of giving us access to their rooms for this past year if there's nothing to do or talk about in there, not even take pictures with them? Why is there no way to adventure with them again after the first time, in the game that features four-player parties so heavily? Why does Nemona never change or get any stronger, after we promised to be her best friend, rival, and true equal forever? Why doesn't she get any special treatment over any other character you can rebattle? How long would it have taken to just put in a few more teams, or randomize them? At least? Something? In the last year? Something that would probably take like... a week? Or make the raid helper NPCs actual characters, like they were in the previous game?

Yeah, this is the transfer student DLC where we're always depicted alone, without our greatest treasures, without the people who are emotionally dependent on us right now, don't worry about it, this has no implications... especially not after the first half of it ended by ruining one of our new friendships because the dialogue boxes forced us to, in a somber-songed new region that talks about death and blood a lot. Don't worry about it! For months and months on end!

very slight teal mask and indigo disc story spoilers (the kind that'll probably help decide if you want them or not instead of ruin it for you, probably?) and very long commentary about it. mostly about how they've chosen to advertise it

gonna hit you with my longest run-on sentence yet, here we go.

the fact that we had to datamine the teal mask, a DLC whose only returning character is jacq and does not add a line to or scene of anyone else (well, mentions of heath and clavell, i guess?) due to being available to do at any badge count, the fact that we had to dig and pry in unintended ways, just to finally prove that our implied greatest treasures nemona arven and penny would at least be available to hang out with in the indigo disc...

with no new images footage or mentions of the friend trio of in any of the six months since the DLCs were announced, and ten months after these kids opened their hearts and dorm rooms to us, saying we could hang out any time from now on, and turned out to be statues with one line of dialogue after we had already gone on an adventure with them following us around, helping us in battle, and getting to know each other as we walked, and our rival promised to keep up with our strength forever, then never got any stronger...

and now, in the narrative's timeline, we run off to another country to transfer away from our rival for life's school to one she would fit into perfectly the MOMENT she opens up to us about her problems and how she's so much happier now that we're the first person she can actually connect with and be herself around, and shows clear signs of worry that you're going to leave if she doesn't make you promise not to...

and also shortly after Arven became effectively a high school orphan, who's still treated as kind of a butt monkey dumbass for some reason, when he was putting everything he had into researching how to save his dog, his only dependable family, instead of going to class (i guess he's not telling anybody what he's going through, as usual with these kids)...

because TPC did not think these characters being present in the second DLC in any form and not actually having their newfound, hard-earned sense of belonging ruined by the basic premise of said transfer-student DLC was worth advertising at any point, and only showed off gym leaders Katy and Kofu... and that was only if you even bothered to look at the website to notice the feature at all, because hanging out with, battling, and trading with all of the past characters who aren't present in Paldea anymore is now actually a feature, but wasn't in the trailer...

is fucking mind boggling to me.

why is it a secret that they're in the DLC. why would they not just. tell people that as soon as they revealed the DLC. why is it still supposed to be a secret now, half a year later. why weren't they in the first half. why did they not think we'd be worried that they aren't in the second half.

silly me, why would you want to advertise giving people more of the story and main plot-driving characters, the main thing people defend the rushed game for, or that they might get some resolution, or reassure them that the vaguely happy ending to their sad stories isn't going to be ruined like they've implied it will be? that'd be silly. the only way anyone is going to find that out is through hacking

but at least we were finally able to pry that basic fucking information out of them against their will, the only thing I wanted to know about the DLC before I'd buy it, because they left in placeholder stubs for it by accident. oops. wouldn't want to tell people who were on the fence about getting the DLC this information on purpose or anything. need to keep it a secret

we were able to confirm through our own digging that nemona (and many others) are at least allowed to hang out with us, but the thing that would make both her as a character and me as a Pokemon player happier than we've ever been is if she actually got to enroll with us. why wouldn't she go, right? what do a school and society that don't respect her and an empty home where her parents should be have to offer, compared to living her dream with her favorite person, surrounded by people just like her? who can stop a champion from going wherever she wants? but for that to be the case, one of the "club rooms" we found references to would have to be hers. only us kieran and carmine clearly have what are marked as dorm room objects.

i'm glad we're getting what we're getting, but it's still no guarantee that nemona arven and penny will continue to be important to the story that they were the driving forces of, or get the true resolutions and healthier happy endings that they deserve, or that our "true equal" will ever be any stronger or more important to our character than our home ec teacher, or that they'll ever actually get to be a friend group on screen without life or death situations or harrowing grief being involved

oops! accidentally wrote decent character arcs and relationships in a pokemon game! they're going to spend time together in the postgame! abort abort abort quick shove them off into different countries before they hug

okay that's just me being cynical, they will almost certainly be important to the story, but... TPC has the power to make me not cynical and they keep choosing not to do that. but they do keep making really sappy recap videos using previous cutscene footage, like this attachment and uncertainty is something they're milking on purpose

maybe stringing people along with how much they miss the funny, cute, loving, strong characters, or are worried about these three lonely and isolated kids dealing with parental neglect, ptsd and self loathing, autism and motor impairments, identity issues, and more, whose problems are clearly not resolved yet if they can be at all, will... help sell more plushies and gacha pulls, and get people consuming more spinoffs, or something? idk, maybe

love to stop and helplessly gaze upon penny's depression pile every day before i go do tera raids / link battles with strangers (i don't actually do this but i might if poke portal worked indoors)

that all being said! it's pretty damn cool that hanging out with NPCs in a meaningful way and staging selfies with them and stuff is actually a game feature at all. that much is reassuring. it's a step in the right direction considering 90% of pokemon gameplay for a lot of people takes place after the credits roll and everyone normally despawns or becomes a one liner / repeating boss fight statue, or maybe if you're lucky a Multi Battle partner. it was just implied this game would be different, is all. i just don't know why they've chosen to string their audience along this way. wanting to have friends shouldn't throw up a $35 tollgate right as you go to talk to them that takes a year to open, and over six months to find out if it'll kill them when it opens.

i'd like to see pokemon postgame feel more like an animal crossing life sim type game in the future, personally, and this feature is a step toward that. i'd love if it one of your rewards for completing indigo disc was being able to take anyone you like as a follower as you go about your business and have them get on miraidon/koraidon with you as needed so your movement isn't impeded by it, even if there was no dialogue for it or anything. it's 2023, i shouldn't have to imagine something happening in a video game, or have to fill in my own fanfic to make a story satisfying, it should just be happening, on the screen. dammit. having a follower that goes with you everywhere even if you drive or have a following pokemon already was a feature in teal mask, so why not utilize it permanently?

(is the obvious player arven nemona penny 4v1 battle being saved for the final boss or something, is that why tera raids with them aren't a thing you can just do normally?)

Long story short: The basic transfer-student premise of The Indigo Disc implies that we ruin Nemona's happy ending and rub the one she really wants in her face to go enjoy it with Carmine instead for being more marketable, and I don't think they're even aware of why that would be a problem. Why have we not been reassured to the contrary in the last 6 months? I think a lot of us are waiting for this DLC anxiously instead of eagerly, especially after the first half.

[slarpg]

SUPER LESBIAN ANIMAL RPG v1.1 IS HERE! This is the most substantial patch since launch. On top of the usual bug fixes, we have new area maps, the new Additional Guidance mode, and most importantly... Melody now has a pet cat!! Look at him

As always, Steam users should get the patch automatically, while itch users can redownload the game from the store page. Common technical questions are also addressed in our FAQ page.

To try and manage expectations here, while this update contains more than the usual bug fixes, I don't currently have any plans to add a huge amount of content to the game. Right now I think it's already long enough, and the game's structure (with a definitive ending and no postgame) isn't conducive to adding DLC. And also, you know, what's there already took almost eight years of my life to make, and that kinda takes a lot out of you. But these additions felt like they would meaningfully improve the experience of what's already there.

Full changelog below!

v1.1 Changelog

"New content":

Additional Guidance mode can now be toggled on or off from the start of the game or via the in-game Options menu! When enabled, this will occasionally offer more direct hints on what to do next in a few specific parts of the game for more story-focused players - particularly a few puzzle segments, as well as helping you find the side content late in the game.

Ultimately, the total number of hints added across the game is low. Exploration, dungeon puzzles, and returning to previously-visited areas with new tools are core pillars of SLARPG's design, and I don't want to hold the player's hand every step of the way. But these specific bits have been parts where some players just gave up and messaged me (usually at like 3am), or posted a cry for help in the #SLARPG tag on Twitter. Which isn't optimal! So now an extra nudge in the right direction exists in-game, should you ever need it.

New area maps have been added for the Amber Woods, Sapphire Coast, and Uncanny Valley! They can be acquired from Park Ranger Taylor, the beach souvenir shop (first accessible in Act III), and Rafael, respectively.

And finally, as was originally intended, Melody now has... a pet cat in her house!! He is truly the most important part of this patch, and the most important thing that will ever be patched into the game.

Other tweaks:

Unrevealed enemies should no longer have their health bars displayed when using multi-target attacks.

The menu (and, by extension, the options menu) can now be accessed during the Prologue.

Fixed the Bestiary entries for the Loot Scooter and Helper Jelly not properly unlocking in the Sapphire Coast.

The animation for Megalith from the Geomancer Spellbook now plays for each individual enemy that's caught in its area of effect. (A compatibility issue was found with the script that made AoE attacks only play one animation, and this was the only skill in the game that needed said script.)

Originally the columns in the last "puzzle" room of the Flurry Mountains had no collision because that room is just a joke and I didn't want people to get stuck in a maze that exists purely for a gag but they now have collision so that I stop receiving bug reports about it

Added new line when entering the Fortune Teller's shop late in Act IV (or Act V) saying that he can help locate uncompleted major side quests at that point in the story. (He will now also point you in the direction of Fawna's side quest if you haven't completed it.)

A backup method of acquiring the missable Spellbook in Act III has been added late in Act IV. (You can still only get it once.)

The Crypt boss can no longer be defeated in a way that makes a certain unique status ailment remain after the battle.

There's now an additional warning at save points past the point of no return.

Other minor fixes.

Enjoy the update, everyone!

[vilkalizer]

So a slightly less sleep deprived take:

Three Hopes was fun.

Warriors gameplay isn't super complicated, but it is satisfying to chop up mooks by the hundreds and obliterate their bosses with giant flashy special moves. There's also some more elaborate options where you can order characters you aren't controlling to attack or defend specific areas or units. The weapon triangle encourages, but does not force, you to diversify your cast and try different characters.

Not only is Shez a cool and good character, but Byleth is also a lot better now that they're allowed to have the character the last game kept informing us they did but never showing off! Yeah their role is smaller here but they still get more personality in that smaller space than we're ever shown in Houses. Huge upgrade and may we never see another fucking mute player insert in a fe game ever again.

I like that the recruitments make some sense, basically everyone had a good reason to defect besides kissing Byleth's ass, and the ones who didn't… didn't. (Look, if Sylvain isn't willing to betray his county for tits this time around, that's on him, not me.)

Support conversations not existing for a decent chunk of the supports is a shame, but the ones we do get were pretty good so i'm more than willing to accept the tradeoff if it means we don't have to see the same shit repeated over and over.

All in all very solid button-mashy action, would recommend.

There are several annoyances, however. Why is the facility that sells upgrade materials separate from the one that uses them? Why can you switch classes from the camp menu, but not upgrade them? Both of these just create obnoxious busywork that didn't need to be there.

The camp, much like the monastery, wears out its welcome after a while. It is smaller, however, and takes less time to go through.

It sucks that they doubled down on gender locked classes, and it sucks even more now that they're all weapon locked too. Punchsithea has literally one option now, the shitty starting fighter one which for some reason is the only class that can use multiple weapon types - which isn't a huge deal since the stat changes are fairly minor, but it still sucks a lot!

Some characters who should really have been playable are not, and it annoys me mightily. Would it fucking kill you to give me Hanneman, game? Manuela is in, why is he not? If he and war clergy are held back to be dlc, i'm going to fucking scream.

Meanwhile, the "secret" characters you can unlock on a second+ run can only be used on replays of maps you've already beaten, not in the story mode, which makes them entirely pointless! Would if fucking kill them to let me just play the fucking game?

Also, from this one path, there are several things i wish they'd gone into more depth with, but they… don't. (Maybe on the other routes? But you'd think bird route would be the place for moleman info…) Way more seems to be left hanging than in Houses, and not in the way that og beagles did (where the campaign against the molemen postgame wasn't going to involve Fire Emblem style gameplay anyway).

But none of that makes it not a solid button-mashy action game, so.

[foibles-fables]

If HFW got DLC, what would be your dream setting/story? And what do you think realistically we might get?

I’d love a standalone set on Sirius during the ‘escape’ (Stanley Chen what happened to you???) but realistically if the Quen’s lands arent the focus of the third game I’d be into visiting their territory like what HZD did with the Banuk.

So, rumor has it there could potentially be multiple DLCs, which would be thrilling as we begin the long wait for Horizon Zero Three. I'm still braining a lot over HFW on its own, so I haven't spent a ton of time thinking about them just yet--other than the fact that it any extra content would likely have to fit best in the postgame. Might be tough to finagle a Frozen Wilds dealie, where it can kinda fit wherever. Even so, I do have got a couple preliminary items on my wish list:

I'm incredibly preoccupied with the Quen and would love a further expansion on them--it'd be a great locale-based DLC, if Aloy were to travel with them [somewhere], if not to their homeland in general.

getting a VAST SILVER set-up DLC could be...inch resting...for reasons...

I don't think we'll get a HEPH DLC, as we'll still likely need machine hostility for Horizon Zero Three--and HEPH was already the main point of the Frozen Wilds--but the option's always on the table

I do enjoy the Sirius idea you had! I think it'd have to be divorced from Aloy's story, which I’m wondering if that's an option they'd lean into at this point.

Maybe a DLC that takes us through Miriam for more...uh, better Elisabet lore

The (IMO) lack of focus on Rost in the main storyline could open the potential for a little Death Seeker mission-focused DLC

...

...

...

LOUD CLOWN HONK!!!!! Lair of the Sunhawk DLC, during which I am both vindicated and rewarded for acting out like a child. Complete with a Sunwing chase and passive-aggressive backseat driving ("Stormbird! Oncoming Stormbird!" // "We'll be fine!" // "Skydrifter." // "I know." // "SKYDRIFTER." // "I KNOW!!")

[professor-tammi]

I did it I finished AG :D! maybe now I can have my free time back.....

(general thoughts under cut)

- you should play AG if:

you love dimilix. this is truly just the dimilix route

you want to see what the postgame lions dynamics might look like because AG is basically that

you thought Yuri should’ve interacted more with the Lions (perhaps, in particular, Ashe)

you want Dimitri and Claude to team up

you want more lore details on Faerghus and, in particular, The Dads (other than Gustave)

- you shouldn’t play AG if:

you would really hate to see Edelgard get Kaga’d. unfortunately. that’s a thing.

you want actual answers to the mysteries in 3H, like Patricia

you want a proper, conclusive ending. if you really really care about this then honestly do not play Three Hopes at all. I’m starting to think Koei just can’t write endings

- anyhow I said earlier that Edelgard getting her memory back in Slitherverse was random, but... there’s a quick throwaway line during the battle vs Arvalmenides where he mentions that they’re in a sort of prison for souls or something, and Claude goes “oh is that why Edelgard’s memory is suddenly back”, so I guess they... kind of address it? kind of.

- on Patricia, AG explicitly tells you that she helped incite the Tragedy so she could see Edelgard again, but... that’s about it? we learn nothing concrete about Shez’s mysterious possibly-Patricia mother, either! maybe they’re just leaving it for DLC, but either way I’m... disappointed

- so, the ending cutscene... I’ve seen a lot of anger about how Dimitri just leaves Edelgard there, but uh, I’m not particularly mad about that part? seeing that she’s effectively lost her soul bc of Slither magic, what... is he supposed to do? babysit her? it obviously hurts all the more knowing that his stepsister, who instigated a war that killed thousands, has now been reduced to some mentally-12-year-old Slither puppet; and this is not a Dimitri who’s learned forgiveness, either -- who’s learned to reach out his hand to her, like AM!Dimitri. considering where the characters are at in this ending, I think it makes sense that he just... leaves

funnily enough I think if he had princess carried her outside or something Edelstans would be in even more of an uproar. so no thanks!! the ending cutscene is Fine. we can assume she is either dealt with or helped somehow, it is simply ambiguous how (much like how the other Hopes endings are all also entirely ambiguous up-to-you-what-happened-next deals...)

- also Claude’s extremely unsubtle glare at Rhea is really funny

- Hopes!Dimitri initially came across as late timeskip!Dimitri to me -- he’s quite open about his hatred for the Slithers and his desire for revenge, but he’s never driven utterly mad by it. at first, I thought he was just Houses!Dimitri but magically by the threat of Felix and by the aliveness of Dedue more mentally healthy, buuut I think there’s more to it than this. Hopes has a lot of hints that Dimitri never gets over his suicidal tendencies and self-loathing; he never learns to live for “what he believes in”, as Houses put it. and he, further, never gets to reconcile in any way with Edelgard, whereas Houses!Dimitri at least gets to try, and I think the takeaway from that is that he’s learned to forgive people, which frankly is Very Powerful for his mental health (and yours! and mine! I still haven’t learned this cool life trick though. I’ll get there.)

... so Hopes!Dimitri is just, outwardly more put together, but still a mess on the inside, is what I’m saying here

- anyway I miss Dimitri completely losing it though. I miss it a lot. the Flame Emperor reveal on AM is just so iconic

- overall thoughts on AG: I love the Dimilix content I am HERE for this. AG is a dmlx feast. the actual plot of AG isn’t great imo, and a far cry from the emotional rollercoaster that was AM (AM was so much more cathartic!), but all the little character moments are fantastic and more than make up for it and honestly that’s all I’m really here for at the end of the day, so. thanks for dimilix simulator 2022 koei. I loved it

- I completely forgot to mention this earlier but it seems like a bunch of the unique dialogue in the game -- dinner dialogue, chore dialogue, the dual Musou activation dialogue, and some other random battle dialogue -- changes based on support rank, but only for certain pairs. and I’m not sure there’s a particular pattern to which ones? either way, I noticed Dimitri and Felix have this, as do Yuri and Ashe. judging by what’s in the voice lines section, Dimidue also have changed dialogue... I’ll probably make a list of this stuff at some point because I really enjoy these sorts of little details

(in og houses half of the dimilix content in the game was hidden in little reactive dialogues like these... they were a joy to slowly discover those were truly the days)

- I also kind of want to compile all the Dimilix-related dialogue but um. that’s going to be quite the undertaking

- either way, I will do the AG side-route (killing Byleth) for some more Dimilix content, and then I’ll move on to SB since I am very excited for Monica. I probably need a bit of a break first, though :D/

[waywardstation]

Yeah, USUM had some neat ideas but poorly executed and in expense of it's characters... also I think the whole Rainbow Rocket thing IS pretty cool but having them all squatting in a tiny mansion is such a wasted potential.

Rainbow Rocket has each Boss coming from a universe where they succeeded (like mentioned at the beginning of the Ghetsis wins au) so they have their legendaries at hand. I would have love to see the bosses cause chaos in Alola using their respective legendaries and with so many around it could have been total chaos! And there could have been some stakes as well. The ideas were good, very good but the execution was just so poorly handled that I couldn't even bring myself to complete my game. I really went from hyped to disappointed in a matter of days... it just stung.

And the Ultra Recon Squad was also something really nice but they were shoved into the story feeling like an afterthought even though the whole idea is so cool! For real, I wish that instead of USUM we would have gotten a DLC similar to the Ilse of Armor and Crown Tundra for SwSh, with the Ultra Recon Squad showing up post game (you do hunt UBs in Postgame so it wouldn't be too farfetch'd. And for Rainbow Rocket? let them cause Chaos in Alola! Let them all try to overthrow each other because no way in heck they would sit there and accept orders from Giovanni, especially Ghetsis!)

In regards to this ask

Oh man yes, Rainbow Rocket! Forgot about them briefly ^^;

Reading you explain all this makes me feel a bit disappointed too; because that is such a cool concept! There is nothing more sad than seeing something with so much potential, and it’s not executed the way you think it should in order to reach max potential. It’s so close!!

And as you said, it would be such an interesting storyline to see the rainbow rocket villains all doing stuff their own way. Because not only are these all villains, these are all the most successful versions of these villains, the ones that succeeded in their plans! Can you imagine how chaotic that would be? WOW!!

DLC sounded like a much better way to go than a second game! That is sad! Half-joking but maybe the second time around when/if they get to a Gen 7 remake in 20 years, they can improve these areas of the games haha

Cause man there is a lot of good stuff there ;-;

[z-cerulean]

Pokemon Violet

For the main series, the last Pokemon I played was Ultra Moon. Various aspects of gen 8's launch turned me away from it back then, and BDSP didn't help matters either. I came back for PLA, which I overall liked, and decided to return to the main series with Violet after playing Blue and Crystal earlier this year.

Here's my brief non-spoiler thoughts on the game after finishing the main story, again, just what I think

Story and Setting

The story is, yep, it's a Pokemon game. Though this one takes a slight turn compared to prior games, where you have three separate plot threads to follow: doing the usual gym crawl and the Pokemon League for Nemona, taking on Titans for herbs with Arven, or defeating Team Star with Cassiopeia.

Personally speaking, the Team Star thread was fine if predictable, I cared the least for Nemona's story but it's ok enough and Arven is one of the better characters the series has managed to put out, I'd argue he's easily the strongest character in the game for writing.

The Paldea region as a whole sort of ties into my opinion on the gameplay, speaking of:

Gameplay

The game is open world and lets you go most of anywhere you want in any order, which is theoretically cool. The problem, however, is nothing scales to your current progression and everything is fixed, so you may as well go in order anyway. Which, isn't exactly communicated, I fought the ice gym 7 levels under and the water gym 7 levels higher. Overall to me, it undermines the open world progression.

Additionally, more of a personal nitpick, the progression being open world like that really made most of the towns bleed together in my mind, I barely remember any of them besides Levincia because it's the only place to buy tofu at.

That said, running around the open world is genuinely pretty fun. If you're a fan of exploration and collectathons for the dex then it's a decent recommend for that alone.

Battle system wise, it's... Pokemon, in short it works but i can't deny as I get older I'm finding the main series underutilises its own systems a lot, and I'd not mind a return to something like Colosseum where there's a lot more experimentation and varied strategy. Though Terastalisation is an option now, which does make for some fun pokemon builds. Though I will say how Tera types are handled isn't perfect, all wild pokemon just have one of their normal types as a tera type and it's a pain in the ass to grind up shards to change it, unless you get lucky with a tera raid spawn. It's fun enough, either way.

Also, removing the shiny sparkle noise is also sort of annoying, especially if you're unfamiliar with the newer pokemon and don't have side by side comparisons with the spawns.

The Pokemon being open world instead of tall grass is also cool, but there could have been some invincibility on exiting encounters so after finishing one you aren't forced to fight the Tauros that crawled up your ass during the previous battle.

The biggest issue with the game though is its performance. It's well known by now and admittedly, I'm surprised the game managed to be as enjoyable as it is in spite of it. The game is not foreign to random lag spikes or slowdown, even crashing in some cases. It's not a huge obstacle, personally, but for a game from the second biggest media franchise globally... yeah, why is it like this.

Also 20 minutes for online battles wasn't enough in gen 8 by all accounts I've heard, why is it still 20 minutes here. I'm probably just going to use Showdown for it if I decide to stray into that realm.

Overall

For all it's problems, Violet still managed to be a fun time, I enjoy most new additions and there's a decent basis for working out the problems with the ones that didn't work as well as intended. Numerical score, it's probably like an 8/10, 7.5/10 if i feel like being particularly harsh for its flaws.

There's almost inevitably DLC for the game next year, so I'll probably get back to the game for that once I'm done with the dex and postgame.

[ljreflet]

Mercenary/Myrmidon/Dread Fighter Delthea (Guide/Analysis)

Growths

HP: 30%

ATK: 65%

SKL: 40%

SPD: 60%

LCK: 40%

DEF: 15%

RES: 4%

Analysis

Delthea has the misfortune of being Alm’s Est, the archetype of which a unit joins extremely late into the game with amazing growth rates, yet is extremely underleveled with low base stats.

Delthea boasts the highest attack growth in the whole game, and has arguably the best offensive growths out of any unit, with 70% in attack and 55% in speed, but is somewhat hindered by her low 35% skill growth. But being a mage at base means that her low skill is somewhat irrelevant due to magic having set hit rates.

However her growths are purely offensively-oriented, having among the worst defensive growths at 30% HP and 20% defense, tied with Genny (barring Nomah and Mycen).

Regardless, Delthea can be an offensive nuclear magic powerhouse if given time to grow. But by the virtue of the Est-archetype, she hardly has any time to grow.

Delthea is a very high-investment unit should you want to use her. However, she does prove to be a potent fighter if given the time and effort.

Now, if you do invest time in her, then reclassing her into a Mercenary is definitely something to be considered.

Mage isn’t a bad class for her at all, it’s actually a great class for her since magic is always useful in the game. However, the Mercenary line does offer a few things that being a Mage doesn’t.

One of biggest problems that mages have is being locked to 4-move throughout the whole game. Having 3-range spells helps, but Delthea doesn’t have that. Once promoted to Dread Fighter, she will be able to jump into the frontlines with 7-move on top of her monstrous attack and speed growth, proving to be a highly potent frontliner.

Apotrope on top of Delthea’s stellar base resistance means she’ll be near 100% immune to all magic attacks, making her the perfect counter for enemy mages--including bosses like Jedah. Her HP will be slightly more improved as a Dread Fighter, however her defense will remain as low as ever-which can be a drastic problem if fighting physical units.

Another plus to the Dread Fighter line is that she will have access to the Dread Fighter-loop, meaning she’ll be able to revert to Villager at level 10. Of course, her late join will mean that this may be unlikely, but it is something that can be of use if you would like to bring her into postgame.

A huge drawback to Dread Fighter Delthea is that she has to be a frontliner due to most--if not all--swords being locked to 1-range. Despite having amazing resistance, the Dread Fighter line does nothing to fix her survivability against physical enemies and being on the frontlines will leave her highly exposed. Despite this, the fact that Dread Fighter grants her an amazing speed stat, she will have a pretty good avoid-rate which can definitely help her survivability.

Overall, Delthea is a min-maxed offensive nuke that can deal crazy amounts of damage, but at the cost of her defenses. But her high resistance base combined with Apotrope will make her immune to almost all magic, making her one of the best mage-counter units as a Dread Fighter. However, her performance is heavily reliant on investment, and choosing to reclass her as a late-recruit does pose a high opportunity cost for the heavily contested Villager Pitchforks.

My Personal Experience

Kind of like what I said just above, I did have to think a good deal about if I wanted to use a pitchfork on Delthea. Around the middle of the game I was considering reclassing Boey since he was falling behind with his low movement and terrible speed, but ultimately I chose to hand it over to Delthea since I wanted a female Dread Fighter LOL.

True to her archetype, she did require a LOT of time and effort. I even turned to buying the DLC-exp maps just to train her up to put her on par with the rest of my party.

But man, it was pretty worth it LOL. It’s no question that she had the highest attack stat out of my whole team (she does have the highest growth), but somewhere out there, I knew Mila was watching over me cause I managed to get a Ladyblade in the Astral Temple around the time she joined LMAOOOOO.

Seriously, the Ladyblade was MADE for Delthea LOL. My gods, was her damage complete overkill. But I’m seriously glad I invested my time in her because she was a little monster with her damage and speed. I fortunately didn’t have a problem with her defenses since she usually managed to kill before she got killed, and she has good speed so her dodge rate was really high.

Arcanists, Witches, Cantors, and even Jedah stood no chance against the force that is Ladyblade-Dread Fighter-Delthea.

If you’re willing to put your time into Delthea and even gamble on her defenses, I definitely say give this build a shot ! Otherwise, the Archer line may be another build to consider to keep her away from the front.

[satoshi-mochida]

Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

*Though most people are familiar with DBZ, especially the three main Sagas in this game, given how often they’re played out in games, I’ll put a spoiler warning here just in case. Also, I didn’t try out the DLC stories, yet, so this will just be about the base PS4 game with it’s current updates. I may buy the game and try those out in the future. I also say a lot about the game.

The game spans from the Saiyan Saga to the end of the Buu Saga(not counting DLC). Pretty much every important scene is played through, though a few parts are skimmed over or skipped, like:

Goku traveling Snake Way, his brief fall into Hell, and training with King Kai(shown a bit and mentioned but not playable) 

Piccolo using Hellzone Grenade against Android 17(you can have him learn the move and do it yourself, though).

Future Trunks’ battle with Cell where he found out the speed-loss disadvantages of Super Saiyan Third Grade(that moment isn’t shown or mentioned, though he does still fight Cell in that form)

Vegito still attacking Super Buu after being turned into candy(which means we don’t get to see him beating Super Buu up as a high-speed jawbreaker). Also, Goku and Vegeta freeing everyone trapped inside Super Buu happens offscreen.

And possibly a few smaller moments. They aren’t too important in the long run, though, plus some were probably for better pacing or something.

There was some added stuff, too:

Several times, you’ll be able to meet, and occasionally do sidequests for, several older Dragon Ball characters, like Nam, Eighter and Launch.

A new fight for Goku against Kid Buu to end the main story before he launches the Super Spirit Bomb at him.

There's a fairly small amount of playable characters(who can also be put in a party as Support Members): 

Goku

Gohan

Vegeta

Piccolo

Future Trunks(Android/Cell Saga and Epilogue, only)

Gotenks(only in two battles against Super Buu)

Vegito(in one battle against Super Buu, which, considering how powerful Vegito is, is more of an epic beatdown than a fight)

And a few characters that are support only:

Krillin

Tien

Yamcha

Chiaotzu

Goten

Kid Trunks

Android 18

All characters, Main and Support Only, have a ‘Super Attack Skill Tree’ that you can use Z Orbs that you find/earn to give them new skills and attacks. What you can get increases based on the character’s level and story progress(example, you can’t get Super Saiyan 2 for Gohan until he unlocks it during the fight with Perfect Cell).

Throughout the game, you’ll collect ‘Soul Emblems’ to place onto several ‘Community Boards’ to increase various ingame bonuses, like more EXP or cooking benefits. You get Soul Emblems both from the main story and side quests. They can be leveled up with Gifts to increase the Community Level, giving more bonuses. This seems to be the best setup for all of the emblems that I found.

At campfires and at Goku’s House, you can make food from items/materials you have to give yourself a stat boost. And Chi-Chi can be asked to make the party Full Course Meals at her home, which also increase the Base Stats of whoever eats them.

A certain filler episode from the original series where Goku and Piccolo are forced to get a Driver's License also happens in this game(though unfortunately without the outfits they wore in said episode). After doing so, you unlock the ability to make cars and battle walkers from Bulma, as well as Time Attacks for both types of vehicles(which I didn’t do much of).

Like the first Budokai game, this one has story’s events shown in cutscenes, which the later ones just had them happen in dialogue to speed things along, probably. And they did a really good job of animated said scenes, matching the look and feel of the series VERY closely.

The flying also feels well done, and true to the series. Aside from flying normally, which is fairly slow, you can hit L3 to start flying faster, at the cost of your Ki slowly going down and not being able to sense Ki with R1. This is the best way to travel the the large maps. Goku and Gohan can also use the Flying Nimbus, though you can’t pick up items that you need to hit Circle while doing so. Also, ramming into weaker enemies while flying will defeat them instantly and give you EXP. It’s a bit hard to aim yourself at enemies correctly, sometimes, though. 

Going underwater functions the same as flying, except with an air meter to keep an eye on. If it runs out, you get kicked back above where you entered the water as the only penalty. Take a peek down under whatever bodies of water you find; there’s always stuff to see and collect, depending on the map, especially on maps with oceans.

You can also dash on the ground by hitting L3, and unlike when flying, you can still sense Ki while doing so. 

I feel like this game’s flying controls are about what it should feel like for a Superman game. Probably might need a few tweaks to fit more with that series, but this feels like a good base for that kind of game.

The game’s many maps are pretty large, with lots to see and explore, including towns, caves that you need to be a certain level to enter, materials to gather, fishing spots, and more. They include plenty of well known DBZ locations, insulting Kame House(and the ocean around it), West City and Capsule Corp., Korin’s Tower and Kami’s Lookout, and so on.

Floating around these maps are enemies you can fight. They grow in strength as you do/the story progresses. If you’re strong enough and are fast-flying when running into an enemy, you’ll defeat it and gain EXP right away.

Speaking of Korin’s Tower, you can eventually unlock the ability to grow Senzu Beans there, which fully heal you. Once they’re unlocked, they will gradually grow and can be collected from Korin, with a Senzu Bean icon appearing next to it on the World Map if there’s any available. He will hold up to 9 at once, so check back once in a while.

Fishing is pretty easy to do; just hit one of the face buttons(X, Triangle, Square and Circle) when the marker is in a marked area, then hot one again when the closing circle is within another marked circle(this might make more sense when you see it yourself). You’ll get items for cooking from fishing, and some sidequests need them, or just certain types of fish, to clear. An amusing detail when fishing is that Goku and Gohan, even when he’s a teenager, use a fake tail as a lure while Vegeta and Piccolo fish like normal people(I forgot to check and see what Future Trunks does, but probably the latter).

After clearing the Frieza Saga, you can collect the Dragon Balls on Earth during Intermissions. They give off a small orange slow when sensing for Ki, and you’ll hear a low humming sound when you’re close to one. You can get several different wishes from them, with three of them always being for Z Orbs, Zeni or Rare Material Items. Other wishes are reviving certain dead characters to fight them again, and can only be done once, unlike the three listed above. At first, you can only make 1 wish at a time, but as the game goes on, it gets upgraded to 2 then 3 wishes at once. After making a wish(s), you ‘ll need to wait 20 ingame minutes before the Dragon Balls can be found and used again. They seems to have a couple set locations on whatever map they end up on(two locations are west of Orange/Satan City, for example).

Speaking of Mr. Satan...I know that his actually Japanese stage name, but I always end up calling him Hercule due to hearing that for so many years(and just liking how that sounds better). Also, ‘Satan City’ just sounds really funny. XD

You probably won’t need to really grind in the base game; you should get enough experience from doing sidequests and story events to get by. Gohan especially; he ended up quite a few more levels than everyone else just from the story EXP alone, and his Unleashed Potential ‘form’ from Elder Kai makes him do quite a lot more damage. Also, gained experience is shared among all party members, even those not currently set to fight.

One of the sidequests you can do throughout the game is defeating ‘Villainous Enemies’, who are fairly strong, and are covered in a red aura. You should at least be at or around their level before fighting them, since you can’t run from fights in this game. It may be best to do them during Intermissions when you can select your party members, and bringing someone who can stun with Solar Flare(like Krillin), can be really helpful. 

In the epilogue/postgame, in addition to being able to play as Future Trunks(talk to him outside of Capsule Corp.), you can also use his time machine to redo Boss fights, and do any sidequests you may have missed.

The game’s opening has the old opening for the show, ‘Cha-La-Head-Cha-La”, and this is the first time I really listened to it. It’s really good, and kind of reminds me of the opening to Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, too, for some reason.

There’s a few parts where there’s some nice attention to the series’ details:

At several story points when Saiyan characters are healed, like with Senzu Beans or the healing pod on Namek, they gain experience, while others, like Krillin, don’t get that bonus, which does make them, admittedly accurately, start lagging behind in strength.

If you use Ki Sense on Androids, and a certain researcher in Capsule Corp., you won’t see anything emitting from them.

If you have Piccolo and/or Android 18 in your party while eating a Full Course Meal from Chi-Chi, they won’t eat any of it. Saiyan characters(again, forgot to check Future Trunks) eat it ravenously(even Vegeta), while human party members eat normally.

Only Goku and Gohan can use the Flying Numbus.

These aren’t really important observations, but some events in the game made me think:

Did Piccolo destroying the Moon to stop Gohan’s Great Ape form have any effects on Earth? Or did nothing really happen?

How in the world did Supreme Kai and Babidi survive being so close to Majin Vegeta when he used Final Explosion while Piccolo and Krillin hightailed it out of there with Goten and Kid Trunks? 

I noticed a possible(intentional) goof at the end. In the cutscene after beating Kid Buu and going back to Kami’s Lookout to reunite with everyone, Dende is a kid again for some reason. Apparently, both the original anime and manga made this goof too, so maybe it’s a nod to that? It is kind of jarring, though. XD

A couple technical issues I found were that sometimes when loading a map, and in some battles later on, the game would hang for a couple seconds, and one time it crashed while it was loading into an area after traveling to another. Thank goodness for autosave. Also, be careful using the stronger version of Goku’s Spirit Bomb attacks; it caused major lag for me a couple times.

This ended up being one of my favorite DBZ games that I’ve played, close runners up including 

Budokai 3

Budokai Tenkaichi 2(mainly for just how many characters that one has, including most of the movies from around that time, outmatched by Budokai Tenkaichi 3, which I didn’t play)

Legacy of Goku 2(I didn’t get the chance to play Buu’s Fury back then)

Next game being sent is: Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel