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lazzledazzler · 3 years

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Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

#rune factory 5 #rf5 spoilers #rune factory #rf5 #spoilers #review #rune factory 5 spoilers

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goosedawn · 3 years

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i've never listened to Friends At The Table (though it's on my list now, dnd campaigns podcast wooo!) what would the storyline of the crossover entail? with the HermitCraft characters i'm guessing it's chaotic and interesting 😊

:0!!!! :DDD!!!!!!! if u end up giving it a shot i hope u enjoy it! they dont actually play dnd, they play a bunch of other tabletop games which are all really neat also! (also if u need a suggestion for where to start if/when u get to it, feel free to drop me an ask)

the story follows the typical structure of "group is sent off to do tasks for money, and eventually realise something bigger is going on" so i am largely following the plot in that way, where groups of adventurers are sent out to investigate a series of towers that appear to have some connection to the gods of the world. ajhsjjejhfhjef most of my thoughts about the au are more character based,, so instead of a proper plot summary i can give details and thoughts on where some of the hermits fit into everything so far (while. trying to avoid the big twists revealed in the podcast ig,,?) i also ended up including some sleepybees (sbi + beeduo) in the au but im still not 100% sure on where they fit in (as in i have too many ideas djhdkndnj)

ANYWAY uhhhh some spoilers for the universe im basing this off of, under the cut cos it got long :'D

context/setting:

the specific arc/universe that this au is set in is the one from Seasons in Hieron (SiH) which is their fantasy season! (its. its long,, this arc spans i think. 3 seasons? plus a short interlude season)

the setting was previously a traditional fantasy world that had some sort of great catastrophe (the Erasure) happen, and the current world is after people have rebuilt a new society! its described as "post-fantasy, post-post-apocalyptic" its very fun and subversive and afhdjfbj the worldbuilding is just. real good :>

-----

characters:

im still figuring out where different hermits fit into the au but i am basically taking aspects of various characters from the podcast and splitting roles and traits to hermits, so its all mixed up! also,, there are just. so many hermits,, i have not found places for all of them (not even most of them i dont think) but here is what i have so far:

impulse and zedaph work in the New Archives (a series of huge warehouse-like archives run by the orcs of this world!) impulse is an orc, zed is not! impulse works to retrieve artifacts for the archive, and zed,, hes just kinda there. learning and experimenting with pattern magic (a type of magic done by arranging and rearranging things in specific configurations, often they are obscure and weird things like "27 brown birds in a tree, 5 table legs, 500 buttons, 16 steps to the east" etc.) when the story finds them they are studying a fallen tower in the center of the Mark of the Erasure (a location still showing the effect of the great cataclysm that befell the world)

tango vaguely takes the role of Ephraim, prince of something or rather,,, idk man hes cool and has fire powers, very anime. his powers were a gift from the gods, and he goes on to hv close relations w them! he meets up with impulse and zed later on and become fast friends obviously

joe is an expert in pattern magic, and is on the run from the archives after having stolen a pretty nondescript notebook. its a nice notebook! hes just a human guy. he writes and recites poetry in order to do pattern magic using the notebook!

cleo hails from the city of *Nacre*, where people get multiple chances at life. people from there can get killed but will exist on as zombies, then if they are killed again, they exist as ghosts, and then they pass away fully. she is an undead pirate captain that joe somehow manages to sway over to their side ahjbhfbjf,, she is hunting down the lost prince/king of Nacre.

wels is a pala-din (pal-ah-deen, rather than paladin), a sort of living marble statue that serves one of the gods in the pantheon.

scar is ofc, a wizard! it. it should be noted that wizards dont really exist in this world, people who perform and study magic are mages, not wizards,, "wizard" is kind of a weird term to use sjbdbjhfjjhb scar takes place of The Great Fantasmo in the podcast, and similarly has an invisible assistant! he doesnt seem to remember much of his past...

cubfan works in Velas, a fishing town where the story "begins" he does not enjoy talking to scar, and seems to be sad whenever hes around. perhaps scar reminds him of someone, or perhaps of better times...

tfc hes a priest aagsuijdjhkdgjdkihwhjvd i swear theres a reason for this later,, the role of the npc alyosha is somewhat split between tfc and cub!

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others i have thoughts on but im not settled on yet:

im debating having xisuma as part of the pantheon, but if not, he would be a druid so he can shapeshift into animals sjbakjnsnfjb he would take the general role of Fero in the story, but would also be kind of split with evil x, who captures... a certain stubbornness and deepset frustration Fero has in later times.

etho could take the place of Samol, the first god to exist. he is the embodiment of this world, and is kind of isolated and strange wbhshjhbdbhjdjbdkjn,, strange /pos. hes also. kind of dissapearing though... i wonder why :)

while theoratically i could have xisuma as samol cos. yknow. admin. i think the vibes and role just fit etho better

and... if i had etho as samol i think it could be fun to have doc and bdubs as other members of the pantheon, if u go with their dynamic from the start of s7 they even fit the divorced couple vibe two of the gods have /lh /hj (nho pantheon pog..? maybe. theres a total of 5 deities in the pantheon tho...)

im leaning toward either false + stress or maybe gem + pearl pairs for two of the goddesses in the pantheon, but thatd probably depend on if i can find a better place for them ;P

techno and phil take the role of red jack, and techno is a Huge Oni Dude >:] in canon red jack has a cool horse!!! it fits!! hes also. heavily implied to be kinda immortal?? anyway. im torn on this because techno and phil ALSO fit the roles of some of the player characters, with relation to the missing prince/king of Nacre but im still working things out,,

no matter whats up with them, ranboo takes the role of bluejay, redjacks son, meeting up with tubbo and tommy who take the place of benjamin, the son of one of the player characters. tubbo and tommy kind of. get sent to another dimension to keep them safe,,? and live in a lie for many years before they are brought back.

when i first thought about this au, i also thought about the whole. sending child off into fake dimension to live life, and of course. i thought about. grumbot ofc and originally planned to have mumbo or grian take the place of that player character abhdfvnbrvbn but it also implies one or both of them would be paladins (not pala-din! just the normal religious knight) AND have connections to tubbo and tommy which is. funny but ehhhh idk.

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and that. maybe probably somewhat incoherent train of thought is what i have for the au so far! its. still very much a work in progress so thank you if you stuck through all that!! ive still got a lot to think abt in the au,,,, lots to figure out ;P hopefully i can iron it out a bit more in the future, but its fun to think about for the time being

#goosegoes #not g/t #i lost so many words from this draft #i kept forgetting to save it #anyway its like 2am ajbanjkjrjhfjdk i should sleep #anon #again thank u for asking aabjhskjnjkrhjbrjhjk #even if u dont read all of that it means a lot that u showed interest 💛#obscure crossover au

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

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001 - Kingdom Hearts

Favorite character: On the villain side: VEXEN IS BEST ORGANIZATION XIII MEMBER. Shoulda stayed evil, though. I like it when he complains and screams about everything and hates everyone. He's one of my favorite villains, just, like...in general. So fun to write. Also attached to Demyx, but I actually liked him more in III than II because it reminded me of my rawr lolspeek weeb days when I f/o'd him without knowing what f/o'ing was and then transitioned this to shipping VexDem like heck. On the hero side: MY GIRL KAIRI! But honorable mentions go to Sora, Riku, Aqua, Ven, Terra, Xion, Roxas, Lea, Ienzo, any Disney character I loved beforehand (this is way too fuckin many to list), Merlin (OKAY I WILL SINGLE HIM OUT), Yen Sid (I'LL SINGLE HIM OUT TOO), you know what let's also single out the Mickey+Donald+Goofy power trio...just...any KH hero who isn't part of the Yozora stuff or the KHUX stuff. ...Except I also LOVE Strelitzia, and she is the only KHUX-exclusive kiddo I care about but I care about her MANY. (Oh, and there's a least fave I have who's a "hero" but that's a debatable label). I would go on about why I love all of them but...that's too many characters to elaborate on

Least Favorite character: See, I think the real answer is Yozora, but the thing is I just tend to forget about him or not care (unless I'm doing a weird AU where he's Noctis' bratty Nobody, don't ask). He kinda represents the Shark Jump and I don't like watching that scene where he literally petrifies Sora for not being strong enough. But again, I can just kinda forget about him if he's not fed to me through a social-media unit. The one I LOVE TO HATE is Master Eraqus. The man actually triggered me back in the day. He is purity culture. He is the overbearing parent who will not accept you unless you are perfect. He is by and large the reason VAT didn't communicate with each other properly. He was the one who taught Aqua to think in absolutes. He lied to Ventus for years and then insisted to kill him was the only option, and then, when Terra tried to defend his brother figure/friend without knowing WHY Eraqus was doing such a thing, Eraqus didn't offer an explanation and instead switched targets to Terra citing that the problem was Terra's lack of OBEDIENCE. Eraqus is just very "my way or the highway" and uses his moral high horse to justify doing things that utterly lack compassion in any regard, which is something that GETS to me on a deep level, and let me tell you, I hated him for so long until I realized he was actually a super fuckin fun guy to imagine as a Bigger Bad in AUs that either have the KH protags teaming up or have villain protags needing a "greater good lawful evil" figure. And I just have found too many good memes about him cheating at chess and killing children. I have to laugh. Making fun of him is fun. He's a ridiculous character. That said, this recent trend of "erase everything bad he ever did and paint him as the ultimate hero of the saga" makes me raise eyebrows for SEVERAL reasons

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): VexDem, SoRiku, Kairi x Jaune Arc (RWBY), Aqua x Rosalina (Super Mario Galaxy) x Bayonetta, IsaLea, Ventus x Papyrus (Undertale), that was six but they all needed to be mentioned

Character I find most attractive: Ienzo. HOO BABY he is adorable. I saw someone make a Valentine's Day gifset of KH and FF characters shortly after III dropped and seeing his smiling face paired with a romance quote made my heart FLUTTER

Character I would marry: Probably Ienzo, see above. He's also a very kind guy. Favorite redemption in the modern era.

Character I would be best friends with: I hope the Destiny Trio would adopt me into their friend circle the way they've tended to do with every other inter-world denizen they've come across. I would love to have them as my positivity squad. Or, y'know, two positivities and one "it's okay to screw up" guy. Just. I would love to hang out with them. I often worry that I'm unlikable to my faves, but even though I would usually prefer to hang with the villains, I can pretty much guarantee these three would be open-minded about me. (Do I kiiiiinda wanna be friends with Vexen though? Of course I do. He'd hate me but maaaayyyyybe he would see me as one of his pet idiots who makes him look smarter, and we could bond over our fragile egos?)

a random thought: You ever think about that one NPC lady in Traverse Town who refused to tell you where she was from because it was none of her business? You ever wonder where she WAS from? What her world was like? How she ended up being the survivor of the Ansem Apocalypse when it hit her? All I know is that when I read her lines out loud (I used to read KH speech balloons out loud all the time), I gave her a Southern accent for no discernible reason and I stand by it. That woman has a twang.

An unpopular opinion: I don't want KHUX to be canon because I feel it's smaller-scale and takes a lot of mystery out of the worldbuilding. I always assume that the KHverse just includes ALL worlds in fiction, and that includes their thousand-year histories, meaning the Age of Fairy Tales should've happened long long long LONG LONG LONG ago and not five generations. And whatever screwed up the world should've been more than just five people having a fight, and whatever saved it should've been more than just five people getting along, and Daybreak Town really suffers from having to stick to mobile-friendly graphics and therefore is the least aesthetically attractive KH town ever, and I don't like that Lauriam and Elrena used to be such selfless people. I do still love Strelitzia because she's shy and relatable and quirky (sitting on the roof) and she questions authority and if you go with shipping subtext she's probably bi (or pan?), but I don't like the "Lauriam's dead sister for his arc's drama" bit. I liked when Marluxia was angry because he wanted to run Organization XIII but it was in the hands of an idiot who wasn't him. And more than anything I just like imagining that the Age of Fairy Tales was something bigger, further in the past, and more mysterious than something designed for a mobile game. Scala ad Caelum, however, I like a lot better because there IS a lot of mystery there and also it's a very pretty town with an amazing design.

my canon OTP: I really only count the Disney couples as the "canon" ones, so this is a question of picking my favorite Disney couple that shows up onscreen. I hope I'm not forgetting an important one, but I think the title has to go to Aladdin/Jasmine, which is always perfect in everything. (This would be an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STORY if KH had ever adapted Treasure Planet, and if it ever gets the mind to adapt Treasure Planet then even if I don't care about that game I will immediately declare that Amelia/Doppler takes the KH canon OTP crown. *taps watch* Get on it Squenix)

Non-canon OTP: SoRiku, which I counted as "basically canon" after DDD until III decided it wasn't sure. But I'm just a sucker for how DDD is the two of them all "HE'S GOT MY BACK AND I'VE GOT HIS AND I'D DO ANYTHING FOR HIM SO LONG AS HE'S HAPPY." It's just the best kind of Friends-to-Lovers, except when you take all canon into account it's Friends-to-Rivals-to-Enemies-to-Friends-to-Lovers and that's a very juicy dynamic. BUT ALSO: VexDem, which is a nostalgia ship SO STRONG I had to accept that it eclipsed my former Vexen ships by a mile and I wanted to go back to my roots. That one, I have a much longer essay about that I'll just have you refer to so I don't repeat myself for pages. To make a long story short, their scene in III was JUST DELICIOUS.

most badass character: OOF THEY'RE ALL BADASS but in the end it's between Sora and Aqua, because Sora gets the widest RANGE of abilities across the series that he masters while Aqua gets the most POWERFUL abilities due to her Mastery (Command Styles seem like they'd be the most OP things ever in-universe and I'm here for it because flashy battle moves make brain go brr).

pairing I am not a fan of: SOKAI, Xehaqus, RikuNami, Vanitas/anyone not evil

character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): OH BOY. KAIRI THE MOST. YOU ALL KNOW WHY: lack of screen time, Fridging for drama, forced romance to invite death flags (they really wanted to milk that death to get people talking didn't they?), giving Alyson Stoner ZERO direction to actually follow up on Hayden Panettiere's performance. But then I remember that they made Vexen redeem and lose his entire personality and I just...uuugghhhh. I can't believe he died twice in this series. And then Demyx is FUN but also I know he's flipped sides as well, which means he won't be fun much longer! Xehanort seems to switch motivations to whatever makes him the biggest threat (and several of Eraqus' old flaws seem to be mysteriously glued onto him), Sora isn't a motormouth anymore, Riku just doesn't get anyone who cares about him anymore because everyone's distracted by Sora and Kairi, IS ANYBODY GOING TO ADDRESS THE ACTUAL ISSUES THAT DROVE THE WAYFINDER TRIO APART, oh God Marluxia and Larxene you're good guys now what have they done to you

favourite friendship: I really like each of the trios. But you know what's even BETTER than the trios? If you put...all of the trios together...meaning Sora, Riku, Kairi, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Aqua, Terra, Ven, Roxas, Xion, Lea, Hayner, Pence, Olette...and then you added Isa back in there...and you gave them Ienzo...and you brought back Naminé...and you say that Subject X is Strelitzia and you have her turn back up so she can have justice done...AND YOU HAVE AN ULTRA KEYBLADE GROUP OF FRIENDS. As for Vexen, any purely platonic relationship I have for him is a crossover but trust me I have many crossover pals for he

character I want to adopt or be adopted by: See everyone I listed above in the friendship question. They can either mentor me or let me be their big sis/mom. But also, I will GLADLY be Merlin or Yen Sid's daughter. (But also would I kiiiiinda wanna be a VexDem daughter? This is the worst idea. Still wanna try)

#kingdom hearts

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spirit-shroud · 4 years

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i replayed kz again tonight and managed to beat it in 4 hrs instead of 11 !!! which is rly cool imo, i think i got a max of like 50 deaths or less for the full run ??? i was just playing regularly but usin the prism blade for the cool blood effects, not in speedrun mode for the counter, and i managed 2 drag my friend into hyperfixation hell with me :} but also i have some thoughts and opinions im not rly sure how to compile in a meaningful way, so here’s the like. pure brain-down-on-blog post version under the cut. if this gets auto-tagged into the real actual tag for this game im very sorry for my hubris im just. thinking emoji

so id like to start this with the final boss makes me SO sad :( like yeah she doesnt have much dialogue but idk she just makes me so sad. she’s so desperate and she Knows shes going to lose and im just like. no!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you’re so cool!!!!!!! Please Be My Friend We Can Work Together. I Know A Guy :c like usually final bosses are like weirdly emotional for me but she was just SO COOL and realizing like WAIT THIS BOSS OPERATES UNDER THE SAME RULES I DO was just like WOW even if as i kept dying (and i think i spent like... 3 hrs on the final boss alone lmao the first time, i killed her on my third attempt this run which was very cool of me) i finally realized that she IS pretty repetitive and got all her patterns n variables down super easy, but like, fighting another null who Should for all intents and purposes be just as absurd and powerful as i am, and eventually being able to down her effortlessly, and then the withdrawal affects of the chronos kicking in as well, and its just like. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

dont even get me STARTED on that ‘to be continued’ like yeah there’s a dlc comin but the game mentions repeatedly that its just the first act which has me like OKAY. SPECULATION TIME (what am i speculating on? literally no idea im not even rly at the speculation phase im still in the WOW COOL VIDEO GAME phase)

and i rly like the dragon/fifteen but the first time i saw him i was just like. who’s this f*llmetal alchemist looking bitch ??? what’s he doin here?? go HOME and controlling him is AWFUL i hate the dragon tape so MUCH >:C but also he’s like. cool. i want to know more about him n his plot 2 take down Juncture n the government n whatever.

but also i was listen 2 Full Confession bc it’s just. what the heart wants rn. i need to be sad and caffeinated in order to get into the Writing Zone rn and then i was THINKIN like my friend mentioned while we were playing the dragon tape that the song that plays is very similar to Full Confession (which i had sent him earlier while i was losing my mind over the final boss) and then i was like. Hm. these are very similar but have such wildly different moods -- Breath of the Serpent is much more like. ‘you’re going to be afraid of me’ while Full Confession is like ‘i’m afraid of you’ and i think that the different Vibes from these two soundtrack bits about important Null characters is just like. WOW and i wonder how a version of it that was purely Zero’s might be. would it be more triumphant? more flat? what desperation or emptiness is in there that could be drawn out by this melody??? i dont KNOW and i can’t write music unfortunately but im just like AAAAAAAAAA

i also rly wanna know what snow has going on ??? like. shes clearly important. she is a vital npc. but Why. she didnt even rly do anything except Show Up???

fuck V. all my homies hate V. the motorcycle fight was a lot of fun tho i rly liked that section even if my therapist was mad at me afterwards

also i think elizabeth/the little girl is rly cute and the fact zero was just like. ‘hm. well guess i have a daughter now’ so fast w/ her (at least, with the dialogue trees me n my pal kept going down) and im just. So Hoping we can rescue her in the dlc :( i miss her so much and im so like. worried abt that like pls give me back my daughter you dumbasses i cant even read ur dialogue without my brain being like ‘yeah these r just squiggly lines, boss. gl’

i also want to believe that the masked men arent real (bc idk, it’s just easier for me to process that they’re the result of chronos withdrawal) but the problem w/ that is like. they definitely kidnapped elizabeth, and i want so desperately to believe that elizabeth IS real n that zero genuinely wants to protect her (and by extension, the part of himself that is still human)

ALSO THE PSYCHIATRIST i was just like. Okay. I Must Get A Good Grade In Therapy. n kept being nice n cooperative and helpful to this clown ass and then THAT ENDING ??? like i didnt even get the Bad Therapist Ending i was just like. fucka you! attacka you with a rock! (i do however want to try the therapist boss it sounds like a lot of fun) but i just. i hate him! he sucks! find a better therapist zero u rly need one im sorry for ur problems disorder :( like hes clearly a guy who just works for the government n wants 2 keep a leash on our man

n the contradictions, hes like. yeah ur killing everyone related to chronos so it can no longer be produced ♥ but dw ur special we totally wont just withhold chronos from you as soon as u finish ur tasks dw about it ♥ and its like. Hm. I Dont Think Thats Right !!!!

also i wanna learn more about what Juncture has going on??? what are they like. Doing besides poisoning water n making lighters ?????? it’s clearly a lot

also the art for this game is just so GOOD,,, like. i didnt rly notice a lot of the backgrounds my first playthrough bc i was just losing my mind the whole time trying to solve each puzzle but the second playthrough im just like. AAAAA. and the soundtrack? effervescent. groundbreaking. perfect. So Good

and the GAMEPLAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! oh my GOD i was SO vibing with it, the difficulty curve was kinda extreme imo but as soon as i started like. Getting It? and started looking at each room less like combat/fighting and more like a puzzle that needed to be solved it made it so much easier 2 get into the headphase of ‘okay how do i clear this’ and it was just like. YOOOOOOOO

and zero is just a lot of fun 2 play as. legitimately everything about him is just so ridiculous. his dialogue options? ridiculous. his design? absurd. the implications that hes like. 22 and just having the worst 10 days of his life? mood, buddy. this guy likes samurai movies and card games and mushroom pizza and has worn the same outfit every single day for who knows how long and hes also a war veteran, an emotionless serial killer and a drug addict. and hes 22 and 5′10. literally NOTHING about those traits make sense together but here he is, just Vibing.

i love him so much. im going to make a self insert oc that’s just giving him a friend who knows how to cook n is just like ‘oh wow, that’s rough buddy’ when hes like ‘i only feel alive when i kill people’ and conveniently knows how 2 get bloodstains out of things bc i think he needs that kind of person in his life since his like. therapist is conspiring against him n he keeps having 2 kill his friends

also, unfortunately, i want to get every achievement, which i feel like is going to become hld....2!! where i get all but 1 of them and am stuck at 96% for 2+ years >:T

#kc chirps #hello gamers i am vibrating! very vibrating. losing my marbles at this 420am on a thursday

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

Text

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 15

As loath as I am to admit it, I probably need to do some encounter leveling. Looking ahead, the Stonewood unite the clan missions are for level 37. I don't even have anyone level 30 yet!

I'm slightly agitated because up until this point the game has been decent at keeping the level progression tied to the difficulty curve. I hadn't needed to grind a lot. But there's a sudden spike in difficulty at this part of the game. Which I suppose is fair in one sense since this is endgame but on the other hand, boo.

Gobbles: Hup and Boggi leveled. Kylan learned Blinding Light. Naia learned Cleave 2.

Swamp: Rian learned Aughra's Ire, Kylan UNLOCKED SONG TELLER! Gurjin and Boggi leveled. And Hup learned Bad Broth which lets you detonate a cauldron.

Back to the tavern, oh god: Actually I executed this one flawlessly and killed all the enemies before they ever had a chance to attack. I don't love having to grind but I do love feeling how far I've come. Anyway, Naia, Rian, Brea, and Boggi all leveled but didn't learn anything. But I did find Shimmering Scale and a Sharpened Dirk.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car: Gurjin leveled, Deet leveled and learned Overthink 2, Rek'yr leveled and learned Opening Act, Hup leveled and unlocked Musician. TIME FOR A CAREER CHANGE.

I'm giving Hup a Custom Bass. He deserves it.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car, again: Rian leveled and learned Thorns. Naia leveled. Found a Heavy Cleaver, by the side of the road. Weird what people leave laying around.

Cave: I love when my entire party is beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Its the best. But Wukki leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Spot Weakness. Brea leveled and learned Firemoss Bundle 2. And Kylan leveled and learned Scathe.

Swamp: Hup died. Boggi leveled. Naia leveled and learned Smite 2. Gurjin leveled and learned Tangle Up 2. And I found a spoon. Naia and Gurjin also hit max lvl in Paladin and Stone Warden respectively so I'm switching them to Soldier and Paladin respectively so they can learn more stuff.

Desert: Hup leveled and learned Perform, which I should hope so since he's a musician. But its a self cast ability that makes adjacent allies take their turns faster. Deet and Kylan leveled. Found a Student Thesis, just abandoned in the desert. Isn't it sad?

Bar again: Rian leveled and learned Cascade AND CAN BECOME A STRATEGIST NOW! Ivo leveled and learned Fleet Shot 2. Wukki leveled.

Bar again again: Rek'yr leveled and learned Poisoned Blades. And got Arathim Shell Plating! This is going right on Rian!

Swamp again: Geeze, I hate Threaders. Anyway. Boggi, Brea, and Hup leveled. Deet leveled and learned Earthen Roots 2.

Desert: Kylan leveled and learned Thrum of Power, which is an awesome name for a move. It heals and grants haste for one turn.

Road to Ha'rar area: Oh fun another encounter where my whole party gets beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Why not, not being interactive sure saves me some time. Wow, look at it go. Hooray, I won. Naia, Gurjin, and Breg leveled. And I found a Warforged Battleaxe.

A different swamp: Alyadon leveled and learned Convalesce 2. Nobody else leveled. I think I'm getting to the point where this level of encounter is becoming less cost effective. This is leaving poor Rian the only member of the party who isn't level 30. Isn't it embarrassing, Rian? Also I found a Custom Bass just sunk into the swamp.

That road to Ha'rar place again: Ivo and Wukki leveled. Rian leveled and learned Flow of Battle. Also I found an Exquisite Poignard.

And that gets everyone at least level 30. Hopefully that'll do for now the next stretch of the game.

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Mission: Podling Rush - Spriton Village

"A Spriton village is in trouble. Something has driven the neighboring Podlings mad! Help hold off their attacks."

Finally back to this! Where hopefully the podlings aren't revolting for their right to be dirty!

Oh, looks like I have some friendly Spriton villagers on this map.

... Oh. Oh, shit! Darkened Podlings! This possible global warming allegory has gotten serious!

Party: Hup because he is a Podling, Brea and Boggi because heals, Rek'yr because he was there, and Deet because this is her subplot. The Darkening, I mean.

Rek'yr: "This village is in terrible shape. What happened here?"

Spriton Villagers: "The Podlings are back! Run!"

... THE NPCS JUST RAN AWAY! Were they on the map just to ditch me? Rude!

Rek'yr: "Why are the villagers so afraid of a few Podlings?"

You've been in a party with Hup for so long and you can still ask that?

Rek'yr: "Wait... Somethign isn't right with them. We have to defend this village!"

Only three podlings on the map. I FEEL as if that will change.

Geez, these Podlings pack a wallop. One of them walloped half of Brea's health off with one wallop.

Deet has avenged her with a good book. That shoots death.

Rek'yr and Hup team up to knock down another one of the Darkened Podlings and whoops, that was the event trigger for more spawn-ins. And they brought darkened armaligs! Hate those guys! They're way too beefy!

Theres three new podlings and two armaligs. Grumble grumble.

-peer up at the top right- Why does that mission objective box say "Defeat the Podling Raids 1/3"? Are there going to be three waves of this?

Two of the podlings that spawned in for the second wave don't have ranged attacks so whenever they get close I just have Deet use Gust 2 to blow them further away. And Rek'yr is situated on a raised area potshotting them with bolas. I almost feel bad.

Hup lays out another podling with his instrument because that podling kept hitting Hup's good pal Brea.

ARMALIG ATTACKED MY DOGGO and the other armalig attacked my Brea. RUDE.

Brea avenges herself on the armalig with FIRE

Annnnd oops, triggered the third wave. Four more podlings, two more armaligs from the left and bottom of the map.

Note to podling potion master: Just because you silence Deet doesn't mean she can't use her rad spellbook to explode you. Sincerely, me.

Alas Hup. You were my first casualty. RIP you brave Podling.

The result of the three waves of enemies around about roughly my level is that I'm running out of MP on my peeps. But I did win with only poor, brave Hup falling (unconscious) for the cause.

Rian: "What would cause Podlings to go berserk like that?"

Brea: "We need to investigate the Podling village."

We'll probably find a lot of pissed off podlings. Although, hey, they made a bunch of podling assets for Hup so might as well find a way to use them, right? Good thinking, game!

So Boggi and Deet leveled. Brea leveled and learned Soothe 2. Rek'yr leveled and learned Death's Instinct, which is just an amazing name for an ability. And Hup learned Ad-Lib.

Also, I haven't talked about pearl rewards for a while but they have been increasing as the game went on. I got 4000 thousand some for this mission. Nice.

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Mission: Interrupted Journey - The Long Road

"Your party journeys to the Podling village and meets an unexpected ally."

Ooo! Another new character for the game? I'm quite interested.

Iiiiiits.... POMBO! He's a Podling Musician. I'm filled with sudden dread that he's going to fill the last slot in my party instead of Tavra or Seladon. Which. I guess I'd be okay with. I don't know what I could do with Tavra or Seladon at this point. It'd be cool to have them but I've got a lot of Gelflings doing various things. Naia is a bombass paladin, Tavra would just have to play catch-up. And I got two fizzgigs so why not two Podlings?

Anyway, there's more Darkened Podlings to contend with.

Party: Gurjin, Naia, Breg, Kylan. Team Naia's Posse and Breg.

Pombo: "Gelflin tonpee apida. Bo nai! BAD WATER!"

Gurjin: "That Podling is asking for our help. What do you mean by, 'bad water?'"

Pombo: "Tonpo Gelfli-da, pyata Gelflin dzuchocho apyama-da!"

Gurjin: "Pombo says he will help us if we promise to save his village."

Don't have to ask me twice.

Rian: "Pombo is a Podling Musician. If we support him with Positive Status Effects, his music can change the tide of battle!"

I don't... remember if I have any positive status effect abilities equipped to my guys?

Oh cool, he's not controlled by me. He's just doing his thing. And he did

ULTIMATE SOLO! -thrashes on lute-

Which hurts every enemy and heals every ally. Nice.

Luckily, Kylan is a Song-Teller and is very motivating.

Having watched ULTIMATE SOLO a couple times. The animation for it is delightful.

Alas, Breg and Naia killed by Darkened Podlings.

I just noticed, right after a Podling hit him with an attack that took off half his health, that a win condition is that Pombo can't die. Whoops.

But good ol' Kylan Scathe'd the last Darkened Podling.

Rian: "Pombo, what is happening? Why are the Podlings attacking?"

Pombo: "Skeksisa lolemilod nai-da. Yotsa uchapapodche ada shopo-pida dze ulendzi Gelflin-da ya!"

Hmm, I'm not sure if Pombo is going to join the party if he doesn't speak... Gelflish? Its going to be hard for him to get random lines to remind us that he's still in the party.

Rian: "The Skeksis poisoned your water? This sounds like one of the Scientist's schemes!"

He rarely has schemes really. He mostly has other people yelling at him until he does stuff.

Don't know how I feel about the Scientist actively darkening podlings instead of the Skeksis just not giving a shit.

HOLY SHIT I DID JUST UNLOCK POMBO

MY LAST PARTY MEMBER IS POMBO I CANNOT BELIEVE

Anyway, everyone level up! Everyone learn a thing!

Kylan learned Enchanting Tune (stuns enemy at two paces)! Naia learned Sharpen Blade 2 (attack up and crit chance up), nice! Gurjin learned Edged Slice (high damage and recoil) and Vindicate (defense down on enemy on crit) because he leveled twice! So did Kylan, actually. Breg learned Daring Strike 2! Which I probably won't use! Its so much setup!

Oops Breg has hit the end of the thief tree. Guess I'm switching him over to Tracker!

Hm, now that I have Pombo who has just so many levels in Musician and Potion Master already, I think I'm going to switch Hup back away from Musician. Don't need two musicians but I am missing out on some high level abilities in other jobs.

WHY HECK HUP I GUESS YOU CAN BE A PALADIN AFTER ALL! Its a feel good character arc for him. He gets to live his dream after all.

AND I'M BUYING HIM A GRAND LADLE!

---

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Holy crap, do I get to beat up the Scientist? Heck ye!

... I don't see him on the map. Alas.

Party: Alyadon, Rian the smart hero guy, Ivo the guy, Brea, and Wukki!

Lets finish off the Spriton missions!

I'VE BEEN TRICKED! THE SCIENTIST SPAWNS IN AS SOON AS THE LEVEL STARTS! I GET TO BEAT UP THE SCIENTIST!

The Scientist: "Cursed Podlings! The latest formula increases aggression, but the effects are too temporary. I'll never create a new army at this rate!"

I can imagine the movie Scientist's voice saying this.

But ah ha! I understand how it fits in now! The spiders betrayed the Skeksis, probably, so this is Scientist's first attempt. An army of angry Podlings. Good try, SkekTek.

Ok so the Scientist is the weeniest of Skeksis according to letting the Ornamentalist fight in battle but not Scientist. So he only has 1500 HP compared to the General who had 2000.

He's also got a cool electricity glowy steampunk esque spear. Pretty neat.

He's got Scalpel Slice which is what his attack is called. He's got Explosive Cask, where he throws an explosive cask. He's got Salt the Earth where he poisons an area. WITH A RANGE OF 8?? GOD! And he's got Chain Lightning which chains lightning to two additional targets.

This is going to hurt.

All we have to do is defeat the Scientist. This is going to hurt.

This is hurting. I'm getting my asses kicked. But I hit Scientist twice and he ran off to the other side of the stage to unleash his latest invention.

Lightning Aura - increases his magic, magic defense and defense by 100%. Rude.

aww he shot lightning at the doggo...

Welp. Everyone dead except Brea and Alyadon...

On the plus side, I've almost killed all of the minions. On the negative side, everyone dead except Alyadon.

On the other negative side, Scientist just killed Alyadon.

On the other other negative side, Salt the Earth really does Salt the Earth. The poison lingers forever.

---

TIME FOR SOME LEVELING HA HA dangit.

That place with the car: Another one of those where everyone gets taunted so the game plays itself =\

Alyadon and Wukki didn't level because they died. Ivo leveled and learned nothing. Rian leveled and learned Unfailing Blow (100% hit chance attack, its going right on Rian).

The Gobbles: Brea, Boggi, Hup, Alyadon, and Wukki leveled and didn't learn a darn thing!

That tavern again!: Naia, Breg, and Deet leveled! Alyadon leveled and learned Thorns! I found some random Fang-Studded Armor!

That road to Ha'rar place: Rian, Brea, Wukki levelled and learned nothing! Found a random Sharpened Longsword!

Sinking Isle: It occurs to me that although the tides mechanic is interesting and anxiety inducing, it can also lead to a boring level if, for instance, the enemies are localized to one side of the map so most of the level is spent moving around the map not fighting anyone because the level has some chokepoints.

Boggi leveled. Hup leveled and learned Thwack! 2! Ivo leveled and learned Eye Shot 2!

Desert: Something else I've noticed is that encounter levels have the same level elements that they did in the story mode. Including the glowy exit square. They don't do anything. They just obviously didn't make a version of the level without it.

Deet leveled and learned Life Exchange 2 (can use Life Exchange on enemies)! And has learned all the things in Adept! Rek'yr leveled and learned Finish the Job (100% crit chance against non-boss enemy with less than 30% health)!

Citadel balcony: another one where everyone was beserked so the level played itself. Ho hum.

Naia leveled. Breg leveled and learned Aimed Shot. Gurjin leveled and learned Flurry of Steel. Kylan leveled and learned Stick and Stones (deal damage and inflict wounded may break your bones).

Hidden Grotto: Only Ivo leveled. BUT I found a Master's Opus. Its a magic book.

Drifting Dunes: Rek'yr, Pombo and Wukki level! Rian levels and learns Inspiring Presence (adjacent allies get critical chance up)! Alyadon levels and learns Cascade!

Sinking Isle again: Deet drowned =(

Boggi leveled. Gurjin leveled and learned Retribution.

Swamp: Deet leveled and learned nothing. Brea leveled and learned Awaken 2. Naia leveled and learned Bash 2.

And now that I've got a few levels under my belt, back to the mission.

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Bought a bunch of Nebrie Milk to make me immune to poison. That's just strategery that is.

No but seriously. Most of what Scientist does is lob poison. All of my party is either equipped with Nebrie Milk or Drenchen. Hopefully, I've hit this challenge in the knee.

And dang with Smite 2, Naia did six hundred damage! That's a third of his hpees!

But blah blah blah lightning aura and chain lightning time. It hurts. A lot. BUT: he can't target you from a distance if you're in the tall grass, with the velociraptors.

And boom, Scientist ass kicked. Mostly by Rek'yr who goes so often.

The Scientist: "This experiment is a complete failure! I must return to the Castle."

Rian: "The Scientist is dealt with, but what about the poor Podlings?"

Pombo: "A hup milasazabo pyata uchaahipu apyama-da!"

Deet: "A song? To put them all to sleep?"

... So. Are we just going to put the problem to sleep and hope it sorts itself out?

Gurjin leveled and learned Smite. Naia, Brea, and Boggi leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Silent Lunge (jump to an empty tile, Get Attack Up, rooted, and silence to self, does not end turn. So I guess you can jump somewhere and then attack? Worth a look)!

I also pick up the Leaf-Bladed Chopper, the Spriton Clan Axe! And the Scientist's Manual!

Oh, there's a cutscene of the zombie/darkened podlings surrounding our party on a hill and then Pombo does his music and puts them all to sleep.

Deet: "Tomorrow this will all seem a distant dream"

BUT HOW

Wait wait wait, shit. Scientist as much as said it. The formula is temporary so if we put them all to sleep they’ll wake up restored. You win this round, game writing.

The Leaf-Bladed Chopper has a higher attack bonus than the General's Hand Axe but the General's Axe has more assorted stat gains to defense, magic defense, and HP. So I'm sticking with that.

Scientist's Manual is a spellbook. It does even more damage than the Master's Opus so this is going right on Deet.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #dark crystal age of resistance #dark crystal age of resistance tactics #THE GAME #liveblog #i have to level grind twice in the same session #what is happening to the difficulty curve?

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thicceon · 5 years

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My Final Views on Pokémon Sword & Shield

There’s my Trainer! Isn’t she lovely? Anyways, this is a game I had so many strong feelings about, so I feel like jotting this down so I can give it a lil’ bit of closure.

The National Dex

This was perhaps the game’s greatest controversy leading up to release, so I want to give my thoughts on this first. I don’t mind the absence of the National Dex as long as it improves the game all around. I think it’s an okay decision moving forward. However, in these games you can tell half the existing Pokémon were cut just to save time in order to meet a holiday release, not to actually improve the game.

Presentation

The game makes a powerful first impression. The campaign’s strongest moments are probably the first couple hours. The narrative really caught my attention in the beginning and I felt SUPER hyped for my first few gym battles. The story’s climax is also pretty exciting. Game Freak did step up to the plate where it counted most, fortunately.

Gameplay

The game is bare, short, and vapid. Halfway through it’s REALLY apparent how rushed the game is. You end up zooming through tiny routes that feel more like hallways than anything, and only have a couple Trainers in them. Most “cities” are smaller than the ones in Red & Blue. There is a town that’s literally just a corridor with a Pokémon Center and outdoor gym. This is also one of the coolest cities in the game, so seeing that wasted potential is very frustrating.

The NPCs feel lifeless and have nothing interesting to say. I don’t see anyone else talking about this! The NPCs in BW, XY, and SM actually had some very entertaining dialogue once the tutorial stuff was out of the way, whether it was hilarious, straight-up weird, or genuinely thought-provoking and insightful. Everyone feels so...boring.

The Wild Area is...rough. It looks horrid. However, it’s still where I had the most fun in the game. It’s a great concept and I think Game Freak had a decent first go at creating an open world Pokémon experience. It wasn’t a particularly fun place to explore per se, but it was enthralling just to be able to control the camera and go where I please. Being able to see glimpses of other players here is also a wonderful addition, and something I’ve wanted from the series for a while. All in all, this area has a delightful MMO feel to it. Raids are also very fun! It’s great to have a co-op feature to play with friends, and the rewards and rarity of Gigantamax forms gives you a good reason to do them!

There are many wonderful QoL features in this game. Pokémon’s UI experience has never been smoother. There's one rather large caveat though, which is the online experience. It’s nonsensical not to include a friends list for easy trading and battling with your pals, and most of the time the stamp system just doesn’t work. It’s extremely frustrating, but sigh it’s workable.

I also must say that I hate the Exp. All being baked into the game. The feature itself is not the problem, it’s the fact that I have literally no way of turning it off, despite previous games allowing you to. This was borderline game ruining for me, as it killed any sense of satisfaction I felt leveling my Pokémon. It genuinely felt like the game was raising my Pokémon for me. Yeah, not for me.

The post-game is practically non-existent. There’s a lifeless husk that qualifies as a Battle Tower of sorts, but that’s all you’ll find, Champ. But of course, this has become standard for modern Pokémon games.

Graphics

The Wild Area looks very shoddy, however, the rest of the game looks genuinely beautiful! The overworld textures are poor, and this is not a high-fidelity game by any means, but the general art direction and colors are gorgeous. The new Pokémon have nice models, and the older ones have greatly improved textures. The cities all look distinct and lovely. However, the pop-in of NPCs is very apparent and feels jarring. I can tolerate a little pop-in, but this draw distance is short enough where I will just about hit NPCs that appear before my eyes while biking.

Pokémon still lack battle animations that are even comparable to the Stadium games. _That’s _the type of stuff that should be improved by cutting Pokémon.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is decent and has its own flare. There are a few standout tracks, my favorite being the Slumbering Weald at the beginning. Gym battles have a great chanting effect that really adds to the atmosphere. My biggest complaints are that a few of the city themes are weak, and theres a real lack of route themes.

Story

It feels rushed and empty, like everything else in the game. Conceptually I think it’s pretty strong, and as I said before, the climax is great. However, the story beats leading up to the climax are hilariously rushed and character’s actions begin to make zero sense. You also visit areas that were so obviously meant to be dungeons, but were condensed into single rooms. One significant scene didn’t even get a proper cutscene and was instead told via a slideshow that looked like screenshots of the models painted over.

As for the characters, I’m extremely disappointed with how underdeveloped the main villain was, despite him having an intriguing, and surprisingly contemporary motive. I was also bummed out that Marnie, a rival advertised as being significant, had practically no story relevance whatsoever. Team Yell also was very underutilized.

Hop was okay; decently developed. Bede is probably my favorite rival in the series since Cheren. I’m one of those people that’s been complaining for a decade about how we haven’t had a jerkass rival since Johto, and I’m very pleased to finally have one again. His arc is also solid, though a bit under-explored.

Leon was good. It’s rare for the series to tell us who the Champion we’re fighting is before it’s time to tango with them. It was nice to see him have a presence throughout the entire game, and it was interesting to see the types of responsibilities a Champion has, such as protecting the region and...signing endorsement deals.

Closing

Yeah, the game is okay. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not a train wreck. Just okay. It’s very apparent that it was meant to be so much more though, and that’s frustrating. It feels like even 6 more months could’ve made a world of a difference. I don’t believe Game Freak is lazy. I don’t believe they’re incompetent. However, I do think the yearly release schedule of Pokémon games really hampers the potential of not only the games, but the developers.

But perhaps that’s just what we have to accept from such a juggernaut IP. Sword & Shield is about the quality you’d expect from most MCU movies, or those live-action Disney remakes. It’s solid, and it’s the standard fun you’d expect from the property, but it lacks any depth.

But I can’t really bring myself to call it a step back for the series. It does its fair share of things better than XY and SM, even if if those two games are much fuller experiences. Right, this is a decent first real entry for the main series into the home console market. However, it’s still nothing compared to the sheer breadth of content available in the GBA or DS games.

But this game signified to me that the “golden age” of Pokémon is really gone for good. Sword & Shield was never concerned about living up to those titles though. Gaming has changed. Gamers have changed. And thus, Pokémon has changed. Most games aren’t intended to last you the better part of a year now, unless they’re a live multiplayer service with consistent updates.

As a veteran superfan that's been absolutely enamored by the franchise since before I could even read, I’ll admit that I find it a bit of a challenge to judge Pokémon games on their own individual merit, rather than against the now substantial catalogue that makes up the legacy of the series. Sword & Shield isn’t worried about living up to the past, it’s a step towards the future, clumsy as it may be. However, that future is still going to need some more substance to it before I can consider it a bright one.

#pokemon #sword and shield #minty speaks

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notisaidthefrogg-blog · 5 years

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Dear Octopath Exchange Creator...

Hello! I really appreciate you reading this letter and I eagerly anticipate your awesome creation! As a writer myself, I’ve probably made my requests/prompts very narrative-based; feel free to take inspiration from any part to turn into art if that is your strength! If you have any questions/would like to challenge any unreasonable requests, don’t hesitate to ask on anon!

(edit: this ended up being way longer than it had any right to be, I just tried to make up for any restrictions with a whole bunch of prompts, I probably rambled way too much, don’t feel pressured to read the whole thing)

First of all, I’ll just introduce myself briefly because I haven’t posted here before. I am Frogg (Nebulariffic on Ao3). You won’t have seen me around at all because I tend to lurk on sites like Tumblr, but I’ve been following the Octopath fandom since the game’s release and I’ve really loved the fan creations that have come from it! This is the first fandom exchange I’ve participated in here, and I’m hoping it will help me come out of my shell enough to post some of my other fan works!

But enough about me, time to get to my gift preferences! I do have some odd tastes by some standards, but as long as there’s no DNWs, I’m sure I’ll love whatever you come up with! Again, if anything here seems unreasonable, just message me and we can come up with something.

I’ll start with what I really like:

- Friendship/found family fluff! I’m a sucker for some high quality friendships and nothing forges friendships like trekking across the continent together! I think that our favourite eight travellers have a lot of potential for fun interactions together, or even if it’s just one or two of them with some NPCs or other characters!

- On the other side of the spectrum, hurt/comfort featuring supportive pals just warms my heart! Cheery friend/s lifting spirits of sad friend/s? Wonderful. Multiple sad friends taking comfort in each other? Exquisite. Again, there’s so much potential with this crew to make something really touching!

- Character growth! This may or may not be self explanatory, but I love characters doing tricky things and becoming better people for it. Things like working up courage to admit fault, apologise, forgive, put aside differences, or generally facing and conquering fears!

- If you have a cool AU idea, I’d love to see it!

Now as for my dislikes, these are mostly things that I’d be okay seeing in general, but I’d just rather not have in something I was requesting.

- This one’s going to seem a bit odd/prudish, but I’d like for no non-canon romantic/sexual pairings. I’m fine with super-close ambiguous friendships with hugs and comfort, but I’ve always felt weird about non-canon ships. Besides, I think we could do with more platonic friendships!

- If you would like to go for a non-canon romantic pairing anyway, I’d be okay with that just as long as it stays Lite(TM). In particular, I really don’t like pieces focussed on marriage proposals, weddings and pregnancies (especially mpreg) - that’s just something I’ve never liked in fic/art.

- Please no excessive emphasis on past abuse... It’s okay for characters to remember dark moments in their pasts, but detailed flashbacks and characters bemoaning their existences just make me feel like garbage.

- I’d prefer no prominent OCs. Background roles are cool, but self-inserts/reader-inserts/fanchildren and the like break my immersion.

And for my DNWs:

- No smut/porn/nudity

- No rape/non-con

- No underage/incest

- No kinks

- No excessive violence

- No character bashing

- No major character death (unless it’s directly portraying/referencing a canon event)

I make that last point because you can’t very well have a Primrose-Chapter-1-centric moment without Yusufa, for example.

Now we get to the fun bit - prompts! I realise that I drive a hard bargain by requesting all eight travellers, and I’d be perfectly fine if you only want to focus on a subset of them. If you have an idea for something based on what I’ve already mentioned, then go for it, but if you’re stuck, I’ve got some prompts based on who I’d particularly like to see! I’ve also provided some general/AU prompts, and if you want to go with one of those prompts, you can include any number of the travellers as you please!

Alfyn - If I had to pick a favourite traveller, it would be this wholesome boy.

I’d love to see him helping out his friends if they get sick or injured, or if they just need someone to listen. Counsellor Alf is a very good Alf!

If you want to go for super-angst, I’d suggest something related to his Chapter 3. There’s so much to unpack in that chapter alone that the game couldn’t even touch on!

Olberic - I think Olberic is really under-represented in fan works, and I’d love to see more of him!

I know he has a softer side, particularly around children, and it would be cool to see that played against his protective aggression. Maybe the group gets attacked and Olberic has to defend them?

H’aanit - Another underrated character imo. If the prospect of H’aanit-speak is too intimidating, I wouldn’t be offended if you just had her talk normally.

H’aanit always strikes me as the kind of quiet, stoic character who doesn’t say much, but every one of her words is meaningful, if a little blunt. Perhaps some wacky antics will get her to open up? (wink wink nudge nudge)

Or maybe she accidentally offends someone and (with coaching from the rest of the team) gets enough social courage to apologise?

Does Linde count as an unrequested character since she’s not on my request list? I jest, but feel free to make something with her and/or her relationship with H’aanit if that strikes your fancy! If you want a Linde prompt, maybe something that contrasts her noble-fierce-wild-beast side with her big-domestic-cat side?

Other travellers - If you want to make something focussed on any of the other travellers, that’s perfectly okay too! I just don’t have any specific prompts for them (bc its 2:30am here and I’m tired). Just hit me up if you’d like prompts for a character I haven’t touched on here!

General/AU prompts -

Rescue Fic: Nothing says “I care about you” than “you were in X predicament and I got you out of it”. Ties in very well with the fear-facing I mentioned in my likes. The only question is, is it one or two people saving the rest of the team, or is it seven looking for their missing friend? You decide!

Innocent Bystander: This is one of my bigger prompts, so you can skip this idea if it’s too longwinded/complex. Team OCTOPATH blows through town, leaving innkeeper/barkeep OC (or other NPC) to chase after them and witness/reflect on/clean up after their shenanigans. I can elaborate on this idea further if you like, just shoot me an ask!

Modern AU: How would the backstories/jobs of the cast translate into modern day? How would they meet/become friends? I love seeing theories for this topic.

Band AU: You know that new Break, Boost and Beyond artwork? The one where half the cast is practically a rock band (looking at you Olberic)? Tell me how that happened. Go nuts.

I think I’m going to wrap up this letter here, hopefully some of this was useful! Of course, feel free to disregard my prompts if you’ve already got ideas, or hit me up by anon if you want me to elaborate on any of these ideas. And of course, have fun and thanks for making me a thing!

Sincerely, Frogg (Nebula)

#octopath exchange letter

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inkyminty · 6 years

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Yo kai watch 3, welcome to america

Ahoy, long time no read I guess. Took me a while to play a few games but I was able to finish one, that one (of course) being Yokai watch 3. Developed by Level-5 and published by Nintendo with the series starting off in Japan in 7/11/13 becoming a big hit and producing 3 other games all on 3ds and a few spin-offs, manga and an anime (one of the few that I can sort of watch, I'm not a big anime fan) with the first one released here in the US in 11/6/15 and after a few years later Yokai watch 3 is released in the US 2/8/19 (just somewhat recently). So is Yokai watch 3 worth picking (chronologically no you should play the first one but you get what I mean) well let's get started.

PLOT (no spoilers) One day Nate is with his family and his yokai pals, Whisper and Jibanyan, having a meal when Nate's dad breaks the news that they are moving to BBQ (basically the USA) as Nate later makes friends with a resident names Buck and thus go on a few adventures to find aliens. Meanwhile, back in Springdale Hailey, the new girl protagonist who is an anime lover and kpop fan (more specifically Sailor Moon and some Korean pop rip off) and ends up getting the yokai watch by a new faced yokai Usapyon and both start a detective agency after helping out a sad rocket scientist with both stories clashing with each other by story links.

Gameplay Let's cut to the chase (and stick to the ones that matter), you move with the circle pad interact and with A, run by holding down the b button with the cost of stamina (whoopee -kill me), search locations when your watch turn purple on the top right corner with later compartments as you play the game, those being a drill and a vacuum which both can be changed to do specific things (like for the vacuum having a better change collecting bugs or medal and for the drill making it possible to break through ice or metal blocks) depending on which medals you use,

There is also the d-pad, pushing the top part causes the watch to tell what time it is in-game, turning it to the yokai watch or just get rid of it, the watch can also be upgraded. You start with an E rank but as the game continues you can upgrade it to an S rank which effects how tough the enemy you might encounter in dungeons and in certain locations. Then their is pressing down which activates your bike, but cannot be used in buildings, stairs, and dungeons. Finally, there is pressing left activates the portable mirapo but you need to do a side quest to get this but mark my words it is worth it.

But who cares about all that, let's get to how battles work. Well, for starters you can arrange how your yokai are positioned. If you yokai are next to each other then in battle you will perform combos, if you stick a yokai behind another one then that yokai will be immune to most attacks (I say most since there are some attack that can damage all) there are also two options before starting a battle, those being start battle (obviously) and preparation which gives you a chance to set up your yokai, heal them or fill their soulmeter which in battle can activate their super attack hitting specific areas, healing your team, or inspirit your enemies, where inspirits can cause status effects such as slowing a yokai's speed, decreasing their defense or attack, or increase their speed, attack etc,(purple being bad and yellow being good) and if you get inspirited you can clear the status effect by clicking on purify and playing a quick minigame to earn a clean yokai and some exp to level up. The final 3 are targets, which can pin on a yokai you want to attack specifically and can tell you what is their favorite food, what they are weak to or if you already befriended them. Next is the blaster which once used will cause a roulette to whether you cause damage or a better chance to befriend yokai (note it is only attacking with boss yokai) and finally items which lets you access the foods and medicine you have bought or found on the floor of a bathroom or car. These foods can be thrown at the enemy by pressing y but if you want it thrown at a specific enemy, target then throw, which can improve your chances of befriending them after a battle.

Finally, there are the yokai, obviously, in which each yokai are part of a tribe and if 3 of a yokai of the same tribe are on your team you get a boost such as charming gives you a boost in speed or brave makes you slightly stronger. You can give your yokai equipment and increase their attack, technique (such as fire, ice etc) and soultimate making them stronger. Cripes, thank goodness that's over. There is more but they are minor to the main game.

Pros The game is brimming with character and charisma in the main story and side quests, also the side game blasters T is rather fun and can be used to level up yokai and grab some items which can be used in the main game with its own mini story. There is also the dream wheel and crank-a-kai which can be used to try to nab high ranking yokai or gear and items (even if Blasters T makes it pointless) and a great way to make a mini gamble with yourself (I might need help). I also prefer how you make yokai appear when you search for them in certain places that light up from the radar where you just need to shoot them with some sort of energy ball and depletes their invisibility meter until they are revealed to fight them, wherein the previous game you had to move your watch in front of them but made it difficult because the enemy is always moving (unless they have a brain fart and get stuck) and you have to wait until the meter is full but if you lose them the meter depletes. Finally, I enjoy the references from other types of media like "The X Files", "What's your name", "ET" and a few more, oh, and the music is really good, I'm not one to talk about music that often but if feel like this one is worth mentioning.

Cons Besides Blasters T, the after game content is rather lacking, and once you finish all the side quests then there is nothing else to do, and some of the yokai designs are just reskinned which is very obvious when you see some of the rare yokais needed to unlock some legendary yokai. This last one isn't on the game but finding a copy, seriously it was difficult to look for one in a Gamestop or Bestbuy and my usual locations were no use either so if you are interested, use Amazon.

Highlights One time I was just minding my own business and returned to the neighborhood my house was in when I think a yokai was messing with my game, because everything but the street and NPCs were nothing but textureless blobs, the trees, cars, building, even the electric poles and fire hydrants were just polygons and from time to time they flickered green and red, For those who might have played the game, you must know about Sighborg Y a rather difficult yokai to find, well not in my playthrough where I somehow got him on my first try, I was surprised since my luck with this game is as good as ET for the Atari 2600

Verdict So, after finally finishing a review after finally getting my lazy ass to finish it, is the game worth looking a copy for... Absolutely This game is fun from beginning to end and is unique enough to stand on its own. It is just a shame that this series gets compared to pokemon and apparently is not doing so hotly here in the states, which is a shame since I feel like this game should get some more love, especially with the effort put in. Who knows maybe this review might do something, but it's unlikely, still, I'm glad there is a fourth game coming and it looks good, aside from the phallic slimamander, Hopes this series gets much love, thanks for reading.

#Yokaiwatch #nintendo #3ds #yokaiwatch3 #review #yokai

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singing-robot · 5 years

Text

re: Dead Cells/Undertale

And why it would be the worst crossover ever.

First off, I have not finished Dead Cells, and I’m trying to play it as blindly as possible, so please do not add anything further than what I mention right here in this post!!! This includes tips, runes, locations, and unseen dialogue. I’ve recently acquired my first stem cell, and have only gotten to the Concierge once in the many games I’ve started in hard mode, sodo please be mindful of that. And now, the promised content.

This started off as a fun mashup between the two games, but the realistic side of my brain kicked in and said, “How would this actually go?” And, quite honestly, that one seemed more interesting, both in terms of how this hypothetical game would be played (I wish I could show you guys instead of just talking about it), and in the potential angst that would be held.

The first thing I feel we need to address is how the game starts. Dead Cellsman (as I so often see him called) has a beheaded prisoner to crawl into each time you start over. Who is supplying these? I have no idea. However, I’m going to say that these bodies are either thrown down there by the same being each time you start, or Mr. Prisoner Sir finds his ride off-screen, and we only see him fall down.

“But Robot!” you cry. “That’s so unnecessary and specific!!! Why would you bring that up?” Good question!! Because the alternative is diggging his way underground and taking over the dead body of the first fallen human. Only works once, and that’s so horrifying and disgusting that I immediately hated it as soon as I considered it, and wished I never had. The concept of eventually unlocking the other previous humans would be pretty cool if they weren’t, you know, way past their expiration date.

Disgusting and terrible, but I needed to address it. Next section: actual fighting.

Mr. Cellsman does not have the time for extensive dialogue and conversations. He’s thrown into prison, given a couple of weapons, and his tutorial covers a total of maybe 20 seconds between three deaths. Everything after that is a line of destruction and occasional smart remarks about something poorly lit by a blue candle. A speedrunning, monster-hacking, hilt-happy creature does not bode well for the residents of the Underground.

He does not have much sympathy for the dead, and he criticizes those in charge of the living. I don’t blame him, honestly, but it makes me wonder how he would react to something that begged when he’s already supposed to kill it. Or if he would even give them time to do so. For the purposes of this post, he doesn’t. He sees it, he hacks it, he gains whatever coin they had on their person. All things considered, I’d say he would start off with a fairly high Level of Violence, so it would be much easier to go through the game.

The boss fights would be very interesting. Toriel wouldn’t have any sort of connection as to a child, and would not hold back during her fight. I almost want to see it. The dogs would be the equivalent of Elites, probably. Papyrus would be absolute hell to fight, with his constant ground attacks; not to mention that you’re supposed to hit him in the middle of all of it. He’ll make it a fair fight, of course, but according to even Dead Cells logic, he will be on par with you. I think Undyne would be very similar to the Time Keeper, except you couldn’t simply break out of her hold.

I did this in my sketchbook and I’m so glad I can make it again with real context.

To be fair, I’ve only gotten as far as Undyne, so I won’t go much farther on that topic, except on the specifics of the next section dealing with Sans, since I won’t ever play that run, anyway. (So, basically, I lied.)

Encountering Sans at the end would be... very frustrating, to say the least. Either his fight would be very similar to the Hand of the King, or he would simply disappear every time you tried to hit him, until you figure out that there’s actually a secret passage to bypass him entirely and you’ve wasted so much time, there goes your speedrunning record. The difference here might actually count on either the time it took you to get to the end, or how thoroughly you took out the monster population. (He would probably deal more damage than Frisk ever could; getting held up so often allowed for more people to escape.)

Wow. So. Here we are. Are you still reading this? Have you done this all in one big chunk? Please take a moment to look away from your screen, stretch, and do five real good blinks. Take in a deep breath and hold it. Hold it. A little longer. And out. Yeah, man. Breathe some of the outside stuff, too, for bonus refreshment. Maybe get some water while we’re here. This post is a little long, might as well add in a break time paragraph. I’m certainly using it as a time to stop writing, before I get into the next segment and lose 30 more minutes. Also??? Thanks for sticking through this far, it really means a lot. Especially since I haven’t edited a single bit of this so far, and probably won’t from this point on.

All right!!! Have you stretched? Have you had some water? Did you take a big whiff of your surroundings so as to not get too lost in the sauce of this crazy post? I hope so, pal, because here comes the fun part: The Aftermath.

When you fight Sans, he makes his accusation: you’re the anomaly in his research, and you need to be stopped. But here’s the thing: he doesn’t say that on nothing. He says that in almost full confidence, and suspected it in other runs. What gives you away? Not entirely sure, but I bet defeating the Captain of the Royal Guard without dying, or openly having zero interest in things that should be interesting, hints at it. And unless something is lit by a blue candle or offers the promise of cells and upgraded weapons, Dead Cellsman has very little interest in anything at all.

So you could imagine that someone speedrunning through the Underground, killing everyone in his path while hardly stopping to glance at the scenery, would be waving a big red “time anomaly” flag. And if Sans managed to evade him until the end, and even had the time to overcome any shock and actually do something, that would be one horrible, inescapable fight.

Here’s where my idea splits in two:

1. Sans dies. You receive a special item to take out Asgore in one hit, you win, you finish the game. There is... little point in restarting it, because I’m logical and boring and the remaining monsters of the Underground wouldn’t come out of hiding for... a very long time. Longer than it’d be worth Mr. Cellsman to consider coming back for.

So when Frisk falls, there is nothing and nobody. The place is a little dusty, a little bloody, there’s a few spare coins on the ground, but everything is utterly abandoned. The towns, the stores, the homes you can’t explore, anyway; they’re empty. It’d make for a boring game, honestly. There’s Flowey, but he’s so distracted by recent events that he doesn’t even show up when you first fall. There’s not point in “kill or be killed” when there’s no one around to fight you. He’ll talk to you, sure, but because you’re another entertaining attraction. Your SOUL would be great, but what’s the point if the others are almost completely inaccessible, now?

Perhaps he’ll tell you the tale of the genocidal killing spree he witnessed for fun.

2. (This ending applies to ones with and without a Sans fight, with or without total monster destruction.) Not to add another angst story featuring the Sans man, bUT... Sans does not die. You get past him, you take out Asgore, you win the game, whatever. You get to move on.

And Sans was wrong. Nothing resets. He thought he was right, he was so positive, but here he is. And there are so many people who are dead. It must be hard to deal with, when he hardly has anyone to blame it on. He can’t even curse the murderer to his face. So imagine what it must be like to watch another monster kill so many of its own kind, only to have a human fall after that. The creature that banished them all underground is now here to either finish them off or send them to the Surface, but I doubt anyone thinks it’s the latter. The angel has returned to free them all.

I accidentally made a super metal and symbolic image to go with this, I will post it separately because, holy cow, did not expect it to turn out like this.

Frisk has to face the most scared, enraged, and depressed monsters they could ever have encountered. Some of them will attack as viciously as they can. Others will beg for mercy, or run as quickly as possible. More will just wait, confused and perhaps upset if they are spared. There will be some who are simply NPCs, as per usual, but they will be very different. There will be fewer. Frisk’s mission to save monsters and encourage their character development will be vastly different and very difficult.

I... made the mistake of waiting over 24 hours to type out the second half of this and lost some of the steam I started with, but I’m also bad at simply describing how bleak and depressing it would be without getting too much into it. So!!! To conclude, a semi-realistic Dead Cells/Undertale crossover would be extremely sad and depressing, since it’s basically coming in on the aftermath of almost-genocide. I will definitely accept further questions and, possibly, requests regarding this post, especially since you actually read through the entire thing and endured through everything in this post even after my enthusiasm died down in my writing. Sorry to disappoint after hyping up The Aftermath, but I was writing that at midnight and probably lost some of my good points. Definitely had a better version in my head.

I also super ignored almost everything involving Flowey for Mr. Prisoner Sir because uhhh I didn’t want to write around that too much, so please don’t call me out on it because I definitely am aware of it and only have weak justifications for doing so. And, since we’re both here,

UnderCells - a little catchy, I like it, but it sounds like the main story itself would be focusing on Dead Cellsman going through the Underground. While it would, to an extent, ignoring Frisk’s presence would simply make it a new level and brief one shot thing for the man. I really like the sound of it, though.

DeadTale - far more appropriate for Frisk’s leg of the journey (as well as all of monsterkind), kinda funny in a sick sort of way, definitely used somewhere else.

It doesn’t matter if you use either of these terms, I thought I’d address it since it’s already a super long post :’D

You made it to the end!!! Congratulations!!!

#this is a BUTTS long post and I’m posting at a bad time again #so I expect very little attention from it #esp since dead cells doesn’t seem to be a crazy popular game #but I wrote and golly I’m going to share it with you #as per usual: my weird thing about providing a ridiculous amount of context is based on point deductions in brit lit #so Shannon if you’re reading this - you’re a nerd and you ruined my fun time essays to also be taken seriously #gosh how do I even tag this #undercells #that tag doesn’t seem taken? but call it whatever #I just want to refer to it in the future #which I hope I won’t have to but... yeah #imma stop rambling in the tags now #this is just afterthought mess from writing so much and I think I should continue lol #nervous before posting I guess #singing robopinions

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autumnsidhe · 6 years

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Answer all the things

D&D Ask Meme

ah fuck. i can’t believe you’ve done this.everything’s going under a read more b/c it’s gonna be long as all fuck

2. Your favorite character that someone else has played.ollie……….. little shit idiot i love him? he and james are both anarchist dumbass but in different ways. brothers in arms.

3. Your favorite side quest.oh christ. there’s no real particular side quests but my fave side plot in general is what i’ll summarise as “alora is a rat bastard.”

alora met a hot rich socialite guy who seemed really into her and she decided she was gonna play the long con on him b/c he might be useful

she and james both agreed to side w/ king clockwork, but when the king actually mentioned it alora gave james a Look™ and he was mad as fuck. he’s still kinda mad as fuck

she decided to be pals w/ a main antagonist (gluto) and didn’t tell us until days after it happened that he’d talked to her in his dreams

alora was told to not tell anyone abt the repugnant’s secret organisation. she immediately spilled the info to everyone

she was told to not mention the organisation’s meeting or anything that went on there. she immediately spilled the info to the motley and literally sent us a photo of the repugnant on his throne speaking to everyone

she was told to keep a specific person away from castle repugnant. she let him waltz right up to the castle w/ everyone else and seemed confused when they said he couldn’t go in

she broke into somewhere w/ gluto and then left him in a room full of very important documents b/c she somehow didn’t think taking him there to begin w/ wouldn’t backfire

the last thing james said to her was literally “i take it back, you’re a stupid shit idiot and i hate you”

4. Your current campaign.random sideplots get to go here this time! most of them are james or ollie b/c we interact the most w/ npcs

james and galant romance sideplot and the sheer amount of wild scenes that have happened as a result (the date, le fway showing up, addy’s dating advice, “ollie, you’re pretty ignorant”, “so you killed your boyfriend”)

ash coaches a baseball team

ollie tries to handle pink drugs, fails to provide any evidence that he’s not the cause

alora helps the repugnant, always immediately regrets it b/c he’s a little bastard man

the gang trying to figure out what’s going on w/ the repugnant’s amnesia

james accidentally making friends w/ a black spiral dancer and being heavily in denial abt why cylus probably got so attached to begin w/ (hint: it’s the anarchy and the horrid rebellious streak)

james nearly sides w/ the main antagonist b/c he’s got the right idea but his methods are fucked

ollie goes to fairy prison, makes friends w/ a vampire and some old sidhe, is currently in the middle of trying to break out

5. Favorite NPC.unfortunately it might be cylus? cylus is like 6 levels of batshit at any given moment and was introduced to us as a nameless dangerous prisoner that galant was holding for some sort of treaty? and james and addy were told to not listen to him for any reason and to not let him free. and of course james let him free. he shifted into a giant 9ft-ish tall war form and then james realised he was really in over his head. upside: he went back in his cell afterwards. downside: he got attached to james. also downside: james didn’t actually get warned that he was a dangerous war criminal until after all this went downthen cylus literally showed up in james’ dream to tell him a few things and warn him that he was planning to escape? and there was nothing james could do b/c “i heard it in a dream” isn’t exactly a solid claim esp when he doesn’t have any sort of future sight. and of course cylus broke outthen james ran into him in the dreaming and james was losing his mind the entire time b/c cylus is an absolute freak and james was stuck walking w/ him for like 2 hours. then like an hour after they parted ways james got flung into a ditch on the edge of town (in the real world) and cylus carried an unconscious james like a sack of potatoes into waffle house and just let him sleep on the table for a bit. then like 3 days later cylus broke into his apartment and made him breakfast.and then james got flung out into the middle of nowhere again for reasons and cylus was there and james had the choice of dealing w/ cylus or being horribly lost in the woods so he chose the first one. and he nearly got caught in the middle of a big werewolf fight that cylus orchestrated. and also nearly got caught in some extremely violent family drama.throughout all of this cylus is acting like he’s james’ best friend and last time they spoke cylus really wanted to do buddy cop stuff! they’re pals! totally! and james wants absolutely none of it but he can’t explode on him b/c he’s a skinny little twink and cylus could snap him like a twig w/ no effort

to summarise:

6. Favorite death (monster, player character, NPC, etc).we actually haven’t had many deaths! the only ones i can think of in game that aren’t random monsters were the old bastard and nor nan, which. were both interesting in their own ways, but nor nan’s was mostly tragic and i don’t wanna get feelsy so i’ll just use the old bastard here.to set the scene: we’re at a fancy party. ash and marike (an npc, he’s an unseelie lord and overall a hell of a time) are off on their own trying to catch chimerical creatures that stole their weapons. marike curbstomps one, meanwhile the other has climbed up onto a curtain rod. the place has really high ceilings. his solution? pick up ash and toss him at the creature. ollie and the old bastard (who owns the house) walk in just as this is happening, and the old bastard sees ash tear down the curtain rod for no damn reason. of course he demands answers. ash tries to bullshit a story abt an entire family of raccoons they were trying to chase outthen the old bastard gets shot in the head. ollie and marike are splattered w/ blood. he hits the ground, ash makes a joke abt “telling his wife the bad news”then he notices his wife is the one who just shot him

7. Your favorite downtime activity.the entire arc’s taken place over the course of 15 days in-game, including downtime. we haven’t had any specific downtime activities per say, but the best moment we’ve had during downtime was when ollie broke into james’ apartment and now he refuses to let ollie anywhere near his apartment complex

8. Your favorite fight/encounter.i’ll stick to generally hostile meetings for this since we’ve only a small handful of solid fights? but it’s either “james nearly dies” or “ollie is a good distraction”

to set the scene for the first one: the hospital chimerically burnt down, so the motley decided to investigate and sneaked in as janitors. james ended up alone down in the morgue after finding a body covered in chimerical burns getting wheeled down there. he checks it out, takes a couple photos on his phone. then the door opens.james starts cleaning and stuff, but it turns out the person who came in (gluto!) was also a changeling and very easily noticed the fact that he’s got really noticeable pointy ears in his fae mien. and of course he starts threatening james. and after he pulls out a massive scythe. james sends everyone an sos but they all get stuck in the elevator. so james pulls a gun in a fucking hospital. and he gets called on the bluff but before he can put it away, in bursts galantgalant starts kicking a bit of ass, and then gluto ripped the (already weak from the fire) chimerical ceiling down on top of them! galant did some shit to lift the rubble off them with little to no effort and james was kinda like “oh no he’s hot” for a second before galant kicked a bit more ass and gluto ran like hell!then he next night galant literally died for james (it’s okay, he got better) and confessed that james is his true love and just. man.

for the second one: there’s 3 assassins after galant. he fucked off to lovescreek in order to avoid them, but when ollie found him, one of the assassins had found him! so ollie joins the fray against this troll (who are like 8′ at the shortest), and after a short bit gluto joined in as well to distract ollie from the main fight! so what did ollie do? start loudly singing “i’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts” for a chicanery bunk to turn galant invisible. and of course both assassins turned on him and he ended up having to run like hell but when he lost them galant reappeared and was like “well that was fun”

9. Your favorite thing about D&D tabletop RPGs.i’ll keep it real, i’ve disliked every dnd system i’ve experimented w/ and i’m not a fan of most fantasy so it’s unlikely i’ll every actually play a proper dnd game but god… tabletop stuff is just so much fun? mostly the story and the fact that joe is absolutely godly

10. Your favorite enemy and the enemy you hate the most.cylus may be my fav npc but my fav antagonist is definitely king clockwork? ic my very first encounter with him led into him and james talking about their beliefs and ideals for like 2 hours straight and when he was getting ready to leave james was ecstatic that he’d finally met someone who fully understood his mindset. then the bomb dropped that he was the boss of the other antagonists and james was hit w/ this utter horror. and then james considered siding w/ him for a long ass time before eventually trying to kill him to put a stop to everything. yeah. yeahmy fav enemy/antagonist is absolutely gluto b/c he’s creepy as shit. during anyone’s first encounter w/ him i was completely solo and it was horribly unsettling and i simultaneously love and despise him

11. How often do you play and how often would you ideally like to play?we meet once a week! what game we run varies but recently it’s been changeling every week since we’re still waiting on player characters to start hunter the reckoning lmao

12. Your in game inside jokes/memes/catchphrases and where they came from.we have a bunch of them but uhhhhh random ones off the top of my head

“it’s always sunny in coolville” b/c i realised early on that we were going to be up to a lot of dumb shenanigans and it was easy to make it’s always sunny title cards based on each session

#saveduke b/c there was a whole thing at one point where we had to keep him from getting kidnapped. spun off from that are #SaveDukeFromHimself, #SaveGalantFromJamesStupidity and #SaveDukeAgain?

“appearance 4, captivating” b/c dom said it regularly for multiple sessions until his character dirty danced with a hot guy at a party, after which he decided that alora was a lesbian

“does [insert art] let me throw fireballs?” b/c dom wanting to throw fireballs down the street is a running joke but also he unironically asked if primal 2 would let him throw fireballs

“james got norted” b/c he nearly joined the main antagonist, which devolved into “[insert random character] got norted” at the most random times

james and galant touching tips b/c at one point while they were casually talking ollie just started going 👉👈 in the background and james got really mad and flustered abt it so everyone started doing it

“ultra instinct ash” b/c he’s our shaggy and also has done like fuck all nothing productive in game so him going fucking super saiyan to kill the final boss is hilarious

“i got two hands!” b/c people regularly ask why ollie dual wields broadwords

#OllieOllieOxenFREE b/c ollie got himself sent to fairy jail

“i did [stupid thing], can i buy [half related skill]?” like “i attempted murder, can i get chronos 2?” or “i was an assassin in a past life, can i get melee 3?”

“people, let me tell you bout my best friend!” abt james and cylus b/c boy does james have bad taste in friends

14. Introduce any other parties you have played in or DM-ed.uhhh exalted is the only one i’ve been a part of that’s been solidly active, but we’ve got characters for scion for when 2e drops, and i’ve got characters set up for chaos reigns when joe starts the next arc b/c i didn’t wanna peter parker myself into the finale. i don’t remember the rest of the scion crew well enough but i love them

15. Do you have snacks during game times?we almost always grab food on the way there and eat before we properly start

16. Do you play online or in person? Which do you prefer?in person! it’s the only way i’ve ever done it but i’m 🙏 that maricopa gets running online b/c……….. vampire good………..

17. What are some house rules that your group has?the big house rule for changeling is “ run things fast and loose.” joe knows the characters well and what’s on their sheets so we don’t do too much dice rolling except for arts. joe also takes some artistic liberties w/ some things, mainly wayfare and the inanimae, b/c his main goal is to make a good story and he’s sure as fuck succeeding

18. Does your party keep any pets?do addy and duke count? they’re a white rabbit and a beagle. beyond that, addy’s got pet rabbits, and ollie might be feeding a stray cat

19. Do you or your party have any dice superstitions?not really. dom claims that dice rollers hate him but he also keeps using his dice roller rather than pulling out physical dice

20. How did you get into D&D? How long have you been playing?i got into tabletop years ago when harley introduced me to the dystopia rising larp and i decided to check out the tabletop version for more lore. the current tabletop system sucks but onyx path is handling 2e and i’m so hyped for it. at some point a bit later i played vampire the masquerade bloodlines, and it got me into the world of darkness and well. i still love it.as for how long i’ve been playing, uh. around a year i think? i forget when we started exalted the borderlands-ing. i’d been sitting in on the group for around a year before that, mostly getting a feel for things and also we were trying to figure out a good jumping in point for me and i wish i could’ve started earlier but it let me mesh w/ everyone a bit easier and also have an outsider’s viewpoint when it came to certain issues

21. Have you ever regretted something your character has done?oh absolutely, “i fucked up” is the semi-catchphrase for james for a reason. he theoretically has common sense b/c i usually say “this is gonna be stupid/bad” either ic or ooc before i do some shit and well. yeah it doesn’t usually go well but we have fun

23. Do you use premade modules or original campaigns?i think the only thing not original we’ve run since i moved up is strange aeons and maybe a coc scenario? everything else has been original campaigns

24. How much planning/preparation do you do for a game?not too much, really. i sometimes plan out a little of what i’m going to do, but half the time i never actually have the chance b/c stuff moves in a different direction than i was expecting. however i also write the summaries of the shit we’ve gotten up to every session so there’s that

25. What have your players done that you never could have planned for?i’m not a dm but i’m answering this for joe b/c he flat-out admitted that he couldn’t predict what was going to happen in at least half of changeling b/c we’re an unpredictable mess but everything’s come together to make a really interesting finale

30. Are your players diplomatic or murder hobos?answering this one too even tho it’s still a dm question b/c the players themselves are half diplomatic (me, mal, joe depending on game) and half murder hobos (fredy, dom). dom’s been going more diplomatic w/ alora but also she’s so bad at it and it’s wonderful

31. What is your favorite class? Favorite race?classes aren’t a thing in changeling but out of the kiths ouuuuuuuugh i love sidhe a lot. like they’re honestly cool as hell and i fucking love the house lore? i’ll also do houses b/c fuck it, my fav house is beaumayn b/c they have no chill and every bit of house lore they have is brutal as hell

32. What role do you like to play the most? (Tank/healer/etc?)just looking at my trends of characters i’ve got currently (re)built, i have:- the face (james, rex, val)- support (henri, caoimhe, river kinda?)- the antisocial son of a bitch (nomi, neil)- “i’m going to wreck anything you point me at” (hound, oliver, elliot but not by his own choice)- pure chaos (nora, glitch mage)gemma is kinda hard to put into any category b/c she’s babey?

33. How do you write your backstory, or do you even write a backstory?it depends on the character? some characters don’t have backstories (caoimhe, nora), some i’ve fleshed out heavily (james). it’s usually assembled from a bunch of random snippets written over the course of however long. some of it’s heavily thought out, other parts are just kinda arbitrary. i also tend to run some more important chunks past joe or mal just to see how they feel? james being from house gwydion was originally arbitrary and wasn’t really gonna matter (joe himself said it would just be a bit of flavour) then he figured out how to fold it into plot and i’m thriving b/c le fway is wild

34. Do you tend pick weapons/spells for being useful or for flavor?flavour, though use is also a bonus? artswise james currently has naming/chronos/contract, which are all useful in their own ways but also reflect his past lives / him as a person

35. How much roleplay do you like to do?yes. if i’m not able to embrace the character i’m playing is it really that fun? is it really? no b/c when that happens to this group we get the dumbed down version of chaos reigns and i go fucking batshit b/c of the fact that combat takes way too long

#anon #ask to tag #i love changeling so much and i will absolutely infodump abt it whenever i have the chance #that sweet hyperfocus mood

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ghostmartyr · 6 years

Text

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 2]

Here we are in Part 2, where I have maybe learned a thing about how to keep these from being dreadfully boring. Part 1 saw us defeat the first Gym, as well as my dawning sadness about the HM state of my available pokemon.

Now we move into the Badge 2 phase of the game.

Breathing Pokemon:

Boeing (Latios)

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Timon (Tepig)

I think I will be ignoring the Cut problem until I absolutely can’t, which will be in about five minutes.

I don’t know why I didn’t walk left earlier, but I didn’t. Is there grass here? Can I catch something? My team is basically just Timon and Frogger. I love Boeing, but he is not made for this rough life. He likes relaxing and eating. Not fighting.

And the answer is that the Professor’s scientist friend has supplied a plot barrier. Sigh.

Welp.

....

I can’t even pretend to be surprised. Dang it, Boeing.

I don’t want to use anything outside the confines of the challenge if I can help it. The idea is not, “win all the fights” under these conditions, it’s beating the game.

Congratulations, Boeing.

You’re temporarily useful.

Grass! Beautiful grass!

Also Team Plasma.

Cut is so much more useful than Psywave and I am very sad.

Team Plasma dealt with, obligatory plot detail I wasn’t paying attention to dealt with, we are now free to pursue the grass.

Or will the grass pursue us.

I can’t remember how Tangela evolves normally, or how it evolves given the settings of the run, but I do think that Tangela probably could have learned Cut just fine, and I can’t remember if the Move Deleter costs anything, or even where it is in this version.

But that’s only a concern if I catch a thing that can learn Cut. Let’s do this, Boeing.

Sleep Powder is hypothetically useful. I don’t think it has ever hit when I try to use it.

Two Poke Balls and nothing. I think I am going to sacrifice the Great Ball some random NPC gave me.

Victory!

Good job, Boeing. See, isn’t life more fun when you’re useful?

You know, I don’t normally nickname my pokemon. They just keep the same name every edition of them in the wild has, and that’s perfectly fine with me.

Your name shall be... Grape.

Because look at all those vines writhing... writhe... wrath? Grapes!

Such thought. Much wow.

I think it’s time for healing and grinding.

Oh, but first, Grape! Let us find something out about you.

He is Brave and quick to flee. His Speed suggests that he isn’t that great at fleeing.

Other pokemon we could have gotten from the HM grass spot of doom include Sudowoodo and Beedrill. Tangela looks to be rarest of the set, so I suppose we can add lucky to Grape’s list of traits. There’s a Potion and a Parlyz Heal lying about that I go grab, and until the plot brings us back later (probably sometime after we get Strength), this area is just going to be a grind station.

Until I get bored after about three minutes and want to go back to exploring. I’m not sure I’m made for a Nuzlocke.

...Why is Constrict a move? It’s about as useful as Splash, only with the false hope of being capable of dealing damage.

Yeah, I don’t have the patience for this. I’m going to go left again and see what there is now that the plot isn’t keeping me trapped. ...Only after I talk to Fennel again. Apparently just letting her collect the whatever thing is not enough, I have to listen to her discoveries.

I do not. Button mashing away, we now have our C-Gear and Pal Pad. I think the first of those will end up having uses. I mostly remember all these different event skins being available for the gear.

Now I should be able to go.

Ha. I have conquered the plot barrier.

Since this is a separate section from the garden area, I think once I have some kind of rod or Surf I can come back and nab something from the water. ...I wonder if grass vs water even matters in a randomized run. Are they all completely random, or random within water? I should know these things.

My guess would be completely random. I cite the level 4 Salamence on Route 2. But either way, something to come back to.

Aw, how cute. I’m gonna demolish you (I hope).

It looks like battling is going to happen before finding out what pokemon belong to this route. In the interest of learning how to do this better bit by bit, I think I’ll limit capping battles unless something truly ridiculous happens. This early in the game there shouldn’t be much tension.

I will probably keep track of how many times Psywave misses if I use it, though. That obviously falls into the realm of Importance.

I will also say that Lillipups continue to be terrifying. And that I am so temporarily glad that Boeing knows Cut. Consistent damage. That hits.

I can’t believe this game encourages taking preschoolers’ pocket money. I know I’m only ten, but wow.

Ah, but the nice thing about beating up preschoolers (’ pokemon) is that they have a teacher around very used to healing pokemon up. Walking back to centers to heal is one of the not so fun aspects of

Whoops.

So it’s a good thing I only did grinding, because I clicked the load file option instead of the save file when I was trying to save. Good grief. I am become error. Will return momentarily. With one fresh water short, because I was stupid and a Beedrill almost murdered Timon. Also Timon now knows Flame Charge.

Okay.

Back to making forward progress, hopefully.

Let me go in the grass, Cheren. You’re supposed to be one of my two best friends. The fact that I had to be reminded by a professor whose name I also couldn’t be counted on to remember myself does not take away from our friendly bonds.

There really are a lot of non-NPC duels at the start of this version.

Okay, let’s go squad.

Boeing and Timon do a good job taking down his Meganium. I think I’ll let Frogger take the Purrloin. As the one on the team who did not need grinding, he hasn’t been used in a bit.

And that’s that. Cheren is sad/frustrated because we have the same number of badges, his starter is fully evolved and useful, and yet he still can’t win. Of course he can’t; the run would be over if he did.

But before we can celebrate and get into the grass, the plot arrives.

Team Plasma please. At least I have the option of going into the grass before getting the little girl’s pokemon back. Which I will take.

Let’s see what we get!

...Another thing that doesn’t need my help to evolve. Sigh.

As ever, that only gets a chance to annoy me if I catch it, so time to see how that train goes. I’m going to try throwing my only Great Ball. Psywave got it into the red, so...

Awesome! Based on videos I have seen recently most people aren’t that lucky when it comes to catching these things. Now I can sulk about having a fully evolved team (except for the treasured Timon) in peace.

What the heck do I name you, though? You’re a dinobird... Oh, I know. I’ll call you Ptera. Welcome to the team, Ptera. Let’s check you out.

He has a Mild nature, and he’s proud of his power. I feel like that Defense is going to end up making me cry, and I don’t think you’re a Special Attacker, so the Nature is pretty much all flavor. It’s nice to have something that can Fly; hopefully he’ll be around to use it.

...Oh geez, that Ability. Ptera Ptera Ptera... You are going to make me so sad.

The good news is he can kill his wild kin in one hit. So that’s convenient.

I’m sorry, what.

This is the exp grass now. Other finds include Octillery. Grape eats them for breakfast.

...

Oh.

It knows Aurora Beam.

It got a critical hit.

Grape was only a few points off of full health.

There was no way to know.

This is really sad.

I am so sorry Grape. You were a valued member of the team. You were only with us a short while, but you knew Grass moves. You balanced everything out wonderfully.

The exp grass is a dangerous place.

Maybe if I had just gone after the little girl’s pokemon...

It’s too late.

Grape is a raisin.

In the process of going after Team Plasma, it looks like Chimecho might be replacing Audino in the rustling grass. Maybe once, maybe always. Who can say. That would take paying more attention when messing with the settings.

A place to find Grape’s replacement. It would have been where we’d finally have a team of six, but...

Oh hey we found something already.

Okay, I can roll with that.

......Surprise, Ptera is stronger than expected. I knew enough to use Wing Attack, not Rock Throw, but I guess Ptera is just that good. Filed away for future reference. No new pokemon. A fitting tribute to Grape’s absence. The slot may remain empty for a little longer.

We get some Heal Balls from the little girl, and those could actually really come in handy. Assuming I ever properly catch a new teammate again.

One battle against an NPC later, and I think it’s safe to say Ptera is the new Frogger. He is overpowered for this section of the game.

You know what wouldn’t be overpowered? A Slugma.

I forgot about the darker grass. Route 3′s has Minccino, Teddiursa, Quilava, and Emolga.

Boeing could you please just learn something good. Please.

Whenever I see an Octillery now I’m just going to be filled with so much hate. I will kill every one that comes across my path. Unless I screw up and it kills me again, which is an absolute possibility.

We’ve made it to the next Gym city. Normal type. That shouldn’t cause any particular problem, but I do remember this fight packing more of a punch than I was expecting the first time I played, so cue the grinding montage I’m not going to screencap.

As well as the exploring the town montage I’m not going to screencap.

One of the NPCs asked me what I started with, so like a fool, I said Snivy, since that’s what Boeing replaced.

Now I have a Miracle Seed. And nothing that knows Grass moves.

Grape casts a long shadow already.

New area means new pokemon. Ones I have no plans to murder, but might very well anyway.

!!!!!

It’s. Grape’s replacement.

I love Shroomish and Breloom. One of the best pokemon in any gen, and I would dearly love one to follow me on this journey.

Yesssssss.

Let’s see. How about Palm, because your design reminds me of a pomegranate.

Palm has a Calm nature, and is somewhat of a clown. I’m pretty sure that is not the combination I want, since Breloom is more of a physical attacker, but hopefully it won’t matter too much. Poison Heal is a useful Ability to have.

Other things we could have caught in Pinwheel Forest: Vileplume, Froslass, Klink, Clamperl, Bellossom, Glaceon, Ducklett, and Metagross.

Wow. That’s a nice collection.

Oh hey and this happened.

Timon is now a robust Pignite, and has a move that will be of great use in the Gym!

We’re just going through the forest and annihilating everyone, but I spared a moment to commemorate Palm’s moment.

Tympole confused him, and he still used Absorb twice in a row instead of hurting himself. Then he snapped out of confusion and won. Contrary Nature aside, I am liking our new addition very much.

Especially since the fight against the next Tympole followed the exact same script. Good job, Palm.

The rest of this is basically all grinding, which is fun for me since I don’t have to come up with something clever to say when nothing much is going on. That is one benefit of doing this in this format.

My usual rule of thumb for these games is ten levels per gym until that much grinding becomes unbearable. Everyone’s currently level 18 (Ptera’s 16 and trying to fix that almost resulted in a Glaceon murdering him), and I’m thinking I might have hit that point.

...Yeah, I definitely have. I’ll just hit the Gym and let Ptera nom some things. Boeing will probably have to sit this fight out, because as we all know, what Normal type really means is Lillipups that know Bite. Those are not things for Boeing to face.

It is amazing how many different patches of grass suddenly have pokemon when I’m trying to leave a place, good grief.

Hello, am I fighting you again already? Or are you just doing your mysterious thing?

No, yeah, we’re doing a battle. And he opens with a level 13 Pidove to my level 17 Ptera. I don’t think he’s going to win this one. N, of course. Ptera has it in the bag, because I think it’s fair to say I have overleveled myself.

Palm was continuing his great streak of not letting Tympoles make him hurt himself, but sadly he did hurt himself once in this fight. Still, not bad, and much better than I usually get saddled with.

Ptera fighting the Timburr might be an incredibly stupid idea. He can one-shot them, but if they get a Rock Throw crit, it will be bad. This has been learned from the Fighting trainers in the wild that I didn’t screencap.

Those guys were at level 16, though. N’s level 13 is nowhere near the same brand of problem, and Ptera cleans up.

Alright, that settled, can I enter the gym now?

I forgot about the museum in front. Lenora’s got good taste.

Another Fresh Water for me. This one I don’t plan on using up. I don’t think I’ll need to, based on N’s levels. I really overtrained for this whole badge, probably. But that’s okay. I don’t like worrying about my pokemon dying every fight. Steamrolling is fine too. The main fun with all of this is finding out what I’ll end up with and raising them.

Then the very first trainer has a level 17 Patrat.

I feel less silly in my decisions.

Followed by a level 17 Herdier.

This is where I would consider doing more grinding, except by the time I’ve decided to stop grinding, I am generally not going to start again for a while.

The trainer with more than one pokemon starts with a level 15 Lillipup, so the Gym Leader’s are probably around 17-20. That should be okay. I’m healing before I go forward anyway, and Ptera’s going to grow another level beforehand just by beating this last trainer.

I really like Lenora’s Gym. It’s educational and has a secret staircase. I don’t think you can ask for more (though if memory serves, some of these get pretty wild this version).

Heals, then fight. This should be fine.

I want this office.

Ready... FIGHT!

She’s opening with a level 18 Herdier with Intimidate. Sigh. I forgot that was an ability. That might make this a little more awkward than I want, but Ptera is still part Rock. If things are going to go wrong, they should go wrong slowly enough for me to switch.

Take Down with a Leer boost only does 12, so yeah, this should be okay.

She uses a Super Potion, it takes three of any of Ptera’s attacks to down it, but Ptera gets a crit, and it’s Watchdog time!

I remembered she had this one.

For the sake of safety, I’m going to let Timon and his super effective attack handle this one. I think the Watchdog likes to sleep things.

A level 20 Watchdog. Do not want. But I believe in you, Timon. Go for it.

Uh.

Huh.

Fuck?

That’s. Wow, okay.

Watchdog with Retaliate. Awesome.

I don’t trust Ptera’s Defense to withstand whatever comes next, so Frogger... please do not die. Please. I need you to be alive and useful, because I just lost one of the greatest helps to this run.

Of course it has Hypnosis.

It’s so red. So close.

Retaliate does 30 damage without the fainting teammate ahead of time, and now Frogger is asleep and in the red. He needs to get out of there now, but I think Pursuit could be one of Watchdog’s moves.

I have one Soda Pop. He’s asleep anyway, so I’m willing to try it.

Geez this is scary.

tfw Watchdog also has Crunch and now Frogger’s Defense is lowered.

He isn’t faster, I don’t think. Even if he wakes up...

Switched to Palm and now Palm’s asleep.

Switching back to Frogger.

Frogger takes two Crunches, needs a Fresh Water, the next Crunch is a critical hit, and Frogger is still asleep. I have two Super Potions, now one, and Frogger is still alive and still asleep.

What in the fuck.

I know the sleep counter gets reset if you pull it out, but come on.

He finally wakes up, and because Watchdog only needed one more hit, victory is achieved.

Not worth it.

Lenora I don’t like you anymore.

And before we can end this segment, Team Plasma attacks the museum. Yay, plot. Plot to distract from the pain. The horrible, sad, awful, pain.

I can’t even remember their excuse for stealing the skull. Was there one?

I don’t know and care even less.

So we are assigned to search for the thieves with Burgh, Castelia’s Gym Leader, while Cheren and Bianca stay at the museum. Bianca is playing Fennel’s gopher, so we now have Dowsing Machine (MCHN) we will never remember to use, but if you’ll excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.

...Bye.

I know the screenshots don’t show it, but you did a great job. Nothing else would have survived the gym if you hadn’t made training in Pinwheel Forest so straightforward. You did good, Timon.

Next Gym gets grinding. No complaints.

#Pokemon #Nuzlocke Challenge

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loreweaver-universe · 7 years

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Y’know, today I feel like talking about Disgaea, specifically my problems with Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance.

Spoilers for Disgaea 1, 2, 5, and Makai Kingdom, I guess.

So, first off, let’s talk about...

The Narrative.

Disgaea 5 tells the tale of edgelord Squall Leonhart wannabe Killia, a former asshole who got redeemed by falling in love with the daughter of the only demon to ever give him a proper ass-thrashing, who spent his time teaching Killia how to find inner peace blah blah blah it’s actually pretty bland. Killia speaks in a constant monotone, half-heartedly tries to get his rapidly accumulating party of Overlord-level demon pals to leave him the hell alone, and is generally just really goddamn boring. It’s not to say this kind of character can’t be interesting--in fact, I name-dropped Squall earlier, and until Final Fantasy VIII went completely off the rails in the second disc he was a legitimately nuanced character and I was interested in seeing where he went. Here’s the problem with all that, though:

The Disgaea series is a parody.

Now, full disclaimer--I’ve only played Disgaea 1, 2, 5, and Makai Kingdom. I have Disgaea 3 and 4, but I haven’t been able to secure a PS3 to play them on yet, so I’m leaving those out of the discussion (though from what I’m aware those are parodies as well.) However, of the four games I have played, Disgaea 5 stands out as being the only one of them to really take itself seriously.

Well, 2 did as well to a certain extent, but other than the looming issue of “we’re trying to off your evil dad, Rozalin,” Disgaea 2 takes itself about as seriously as Disgaea 1 did, and Disgaea 1 is a farce.

A beautiful, glorious, hilarious, one hundred percent intentional farce.

Laharl is a ridiculous creature. He’s petty, narcissistic, and childish, and while there are serious story beats (Etna being blackmailed, that asshole Angel stealing Flonne’s protective pendant, etc) Laharl never stops mocking his foes, his friends, and the genre itself. Disgaea 1, in short, is taking the piss, parodying the most ridiculous parts of anime and JRPGs (and, hell, American raygun gothic) with delightful glee...which is why, when things turn deadly fucking serious in the final chapter, it’s so goddamn heart-wrenching and effective. That slow burn of Laharl growing to care about Flonne enough that he tears the Heavenly Host several new assholes to try to save her from their judgment (and, even in the best ending, has to talk himself down from murdering the head angel in cold blood because she wouldn’t have wanted him to take revenge for her sake) is one of the most effective tonal twists in the history of media, in my opinion: all of a sudden, it’s not funny anymore.

While Disgaea 1 lampooned the genre as a whole, Disgaea 2 takes a different tack, and lampoons common anime/JRPG character archetypes. The hot-blooded, idiotically honorable melee fighter; the spoiled rich brat of a princess; the annoyingly perverted goblin of a third wheel (and, ugh, I wish that archetype would die already), the plucky little kids who are the least innocent characters in the whole crew other than the aforementioned perv goblin, on and on and on. The goal may be serious, but the characters are almost as silly as they were in Disgaea 1, and I actually think 2 manages an even better balance of humor and compelling storytelling than 1, because not only is the romance between Adell and Rozalin natural, enjoyable, and endearing, the dramatic beats come along without undermining the sheer silliness of our protagonists until it can have the most impact. There’s a moment in one of the later chapters where Laharl from the first game appears without warning, pissed off, heavily geared, and more than a thousand levels your superior.

(Yes, I said a THOUSAND levels. For those of you in the audience who aren’t familiar with the series, the level cap is 9999, and you can reset a character to level 1, storing attained levels for bonus stats. I’ll be talking about the grind later, don’t you worry.)

The encounter with Laharl accomplishes several things over the course of the two fights with him: it delivers a joyful reunion with the protagonist of the first game, which turns to terror when you see his stats, which turns to horror as you send your team into the meat grinder to die helplessly...and then it shows us that something is frighteningly wrong with Rozalin as she is seemingly possessed and tears this impossible foe apart effortlessly. From there the story really kicks into high gear, and like Disgaea 1, transitions into a deadly serious final assault on Zenon’s stronghold, but unlike Disgaea 1 it’s not a shocking swerve in tone--the story’s been building to this over time, gradually reconstructing the genre it gleefully tore to pieces over the previous game and a half.

Makai Kingdom is a very different affair, and can actually be most closely contrasted with Disgaea 5. In the Disgaeaverse, an “Overlord” is a very powerful demon who rules a pocket dimension called a “Netherworld.” Laharl’s an Overlord, for example. Makai Kingdom deals with a set of protagonists on a whole other level of power; these are the Overlords that other Overlords view as gods, and they essentially sit around on their asses playing card games and throwing popcorn at their TV.

I think you can see where I’m going with this.

Makai Kingdom is a return to Disgaea 1′s attitude--relentless silliness, mockery of itself, with a sharp turn at the end. Whether it accomplishes this goal as well as Disgaea 1 isn’t all that relevant, but it is something we can compare to Disgaea 5.

Disgaea 5 starts off similarly--hideously powerful Overlord-level demons gather together, but the characters are...not exactly dour, but played straight, I guess. There’s no parody, no lampooning; it’s very stock JRPG comedy (and “comedy”), with dramatic tension, a serious approach to its story and antagonists, and predictable story beats obvious to anyone who’s ever seen a mediocre anime or played a mediocre JRPG. Hell, the main villain’s name is Void Dark, and not a single character makes fun of that! There are some interesting designs, and I actually think Majorita is a compelling villain for Usalia, who I likewise enjoy immensely, but the story abandons almost everything that made the previous games’ plots entertaining. Topple an empire, murder some baddies, get your homes back, save your dead love from the creepy brother with the incestuous undertones. That’s it. That’s all. As a story structure, it works just fine, and as evidenced by my love for the rest of the series I absolutely think challenging established conventions is a good thing, but it doesn’t do so successfully enough that it stands out as a worthy entry in the series. Where it does shine is in improvements to gameplay quality-of-life and beautiful animation, which brings me to...

The Gameplay.

Disgaea 5 improves the UI, adds all sorts of neat little quirks to character customization, and improves game control substantially. It adds extra ways to gain stat points (like I said before, character levels cap at 9999 and can be stored for stat bonuses--this game also allows you to train stats for stat points via minigames) and is just generally more in-depth than its predecessors...at the cost of being stupidly easy to grind out.

Yes, I think an easier grind is a bad thing. Let me explain: I have over ten thousand hours in Disgaea 2 alone over the last twelve years. I picked the first two games up when Disgaea 2 was brand new, and have beaten the game dozens of times in the intervening span. Most recently, about five years ago, I created a save file on the PSP port of the game, and I spend idle trips or the time I’m falling asleep grinding it out as kind of an idle game.

Literally everything you do in a Disgaea game gets you experience for something. Weapon mastery, skill exp, character exp, you name it. Hell, you can run randomized dungeons inside your items to level those up, too. It’s incredibly satisfying and makes for a constant sense of progression--even if you don’t level up in a fight you’ve still gotten experience points for the skills and weapons you’ve used, making it stronger, more effective, etc. My personal goal is to, eventually, have one of every character class maxed out on stored levels and every skill and weapon proficiency in the game, which is a deliberately impossible task because it’s just so much fun to chase it forever.

Here’s the other thing: the Disgaea series, due to the ludicrous level cap, is known for its absurdly deep pool of ever-stronger bonus bosses, stretching, yes, all the way up to the level cap. The hunt for those is likewise extremely satisfying, and takes quite a while, especially since the campaign usually caps out at around levels 70-90.

With all this in mind, imagine my dismay when I realized I was blowing through skill and weapon exp and hitting the caps on everything in a tiny percentage of the time I was expecting. To be fair, there is a “Cheat Shop” NPC who can adjust the EXP you gain up and down, which is neat, but I have to crank it down to literally single-digit percentages of normal to get the same amount of chase-time out of it. This is not to say that the game should be inaccessibly grindy; in fact, Disgaea 1 and 2 aren’t. The story campaigns in those games are perfectly completable with the normal skill progression and a small but admittedly grindy amount of extra leveling in unlocked areas. It’s all the extreme bonus content that’s gated behind the postgame grind, and the huge ceiling on skill levels and weapon proficiencies means you’re constantly rising in power and challenging new heights. I think that’s a fantastic reward for being dedicated to the game! And Disgaea 5 in its default state takes that away. I had a character capped out on all proficiencies, subclasses, and aptitudes within my first hundred hours of the game.

It was...disappointing, I guess. All around, mostly; for every step forward it took, it also took a step back. Ultimately, the story takes a backseat to my points about the grind, because the campaign in any Disgaeaverse game is literally about 2% of the game’s content. Disgaea 5 took my grind from me, and that’s why I’m salty enough to have just spent an hour typing up a book report on its failings, I guess.

#disgaea #disgaea 5 #disgaea spoilers #disgaea 2 #makai kingdom #bloggin #inbetween

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zachsgamejournal · 3 years

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PLAYING: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Started Jedi Fallen Order...it’s better, at the moment, than I expected. But we’ll see ;)

I’ve resisted playing or caring about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order for two major reasons:

1. It’s made by EA. 2. I saw health bars above enemies.

As far as the EA part...I feel EA is the place where good games and companies go to die. But that’s overly dramatic. EA, obviously, is very money-focused. They have figured out how to keep the cash flowing, and care less about the quality. I mean...they kinda care. Whatever. They’re good at marketing and they hope to get lucky, let’s be honest. All game designers hope to get “lucky” but I think some focus on art and some focus on profitability. EA is 90+% profitability. Every rich exec in the company and wannabe rich guy will tell you that’s the right decision. But they monopolize popular franchises and force us to “love-hate” their profit-driven, bug-filled, rushed-to-meet-a-deadline products. I know the employees are top-notch, but they don’t call the shots.

I don’t like EA.

Well...I don’t like EA’s take on the business.

But also...health bars? This isn’t dynasty warriors. The only reason to have health bars is because you have enemy levels. The only reason to have enemy levels is to make up for simplicity in gameplay or to fucking waste my time, the customer, with grinding. Probably to sell me loot boxes.

But then Stadia gave this away for free. So Imma play it.

I watched the first level on Youtube once, and barely the second level. I was unfairly offended by the similarity to Uncharted games. A friend compared it to Uncharted 2. While they were a fan of Fallen Order, Uncharted 2 was not their favorite Uncharted (it is mine). The comparison is abstractly important...

Anyway, there’s gonna be a lot of Uncharted comparisons moving forward.

The game opens up in an ok way. Great graphics, obviously, and the camera slowly provides context of time and place. A post episode 3 junkyard. Uncharted 2′s opening is more exciting, but Fallen Order isn’t bad.

I think what bugs me about Fallen Order’s opening is that it wasn’t very character driven. A cable or something needs fixing and our hero is called upon to fix it. He just sorta shrugs and agrees. No personality, no story, just an errand.

This is where the Uncharted 2 comparison feels stronger: we’re taken through a training level, showing us how to walk, climb, jump, and swing. Uncharted 2 introduced us to this with a train dangling off a cliff and an injured Drake trying to climb to safety. Fallen Order is not so exciting. Instead, it’s more similar to an early Uncharted 2 level where Drake and Flynn are breaking into a museum. The Uncharted 2 scene is great, but the Fallen Order version is not...

In Uncharted 2, Flynn and Drake have an uneasy alliance. They’re both charming and chummy toward each other, but they’re both planning to screw the other over. See, Flynn is “with” Drake’s ex-girlfriend, Chloe. Flynn is working for a rich guy. Flynn, Chloe, and Drake plan to rip-off the rich guy. Once that’s done, Chloe and Drake plan to leave together, romantically screwing over Flynn. Except that Flynn was planning to screw over Drake while not giving Chloe a heads up.

So we have a very complicated love triangle that leads to double crosses, and uncomfortable situations. This is all setup in this “training level” where Flynn and Drake have to pretend to be friends and like each other (while they don’t hate each other, at the moment). This relationship evolves into hatred, and there’s a later scene where the pair have to work together again, but their animosity is on full display.

Fallen Order has an NPC, and we could have had some mid-gameplay character development, but the NPC “falls” pretty early on and you don’t see him again till later. So now it’s just a training level. A pretty training level, but no story development. They ripped off the wrong parts of Uncharted. Well...they didn’t rip off enough of Uncharted.

Honestly, I think they could have taken a page out of The Last of Us’s “training level”. Joel is a smuggler in a post apocalyptic world. He’s partner has been ambushed and their “product” stolen. They go on an adventure to find it. This adventure shows us how the military is mercilessly oppressing the people they’re meant to protect. How smugglers sneak around and buy off favors, and how our characters handle conflict.

Likewise, Fallen Order could had “another day on the job” when Prauf volunteers them for a difficult job. Confused, Cal goes along--questioning the decision. As they climb up dangerous scaffolding, a kyber crystal (or something) falls out of his pocket. Cal fusses at Prauf, “If you’re swiping kyber crystals, they’ll kill you!” Prauf insists it’s worth it. He’s gonna buy his way off this rock, and he’s got enough to buy his best pal, Cal, a seat too. Cal expresses he doesn’t want to leave, “What would I even do out there?” “I don’t know, find your destiny” Prauf replies.

Now we’ve got some drama and character development. Plus the mission objective itself is more interesting. Of course, when we get to the place--things go wrong.

At the top of the dangerous work-assignment is small freighter being loaded. The deal stands that in exchange for kyber crystals, Prauf and Cal get to ride off world on the freighter. But something’s not right, Cal senses a disturbance in force. There’s a cinematic scuffle. The smugglers retreat to the freighter. One of them pulls out a Thermal detonator. Seeing it, but being too far away, Cal uses a force push, throwing the smugglers into the freighter with the detonator. BOOM, the ship explodes.

An imperial droid catches the action from afar and sends out a signal...

Anyway, that’s my idea.

Back to what actually happens. Prauf falls and Cal (I think) uses the force to catch Prauf. It’s not very clear, but Prauf saw it. On the train ride back, Prauf insists on Cal getting off world to find his destiny. The train is stopped imperial Jedi hunters and Prauf is murdered. Exposed, Cal makes a run for it.

TRAIN LEVEL!

I love train levels. But this is where the game’s Uncharted 2 influence gets emphasized in BOLD. Just like in Uncharted 2, you jump across cars, dangle off the side of the train, and deal with rapid fire from aircraft. I mean, Uncharted 2 isn’t the first train level to include a helicopter...but ...you know...

This is where the health bars introduced themselves. I didn’t understand it. Why healthvbars? I have a lightsaber. I fatally cut through everything, right?

The fighting is a little awkward. Most specifically because you have to lock onto enemies. I found this really weird. For most games, to get a lock you have to push the guard button. But Fallen Order has two separate buttons for guard and lock-on. And the lock-on is a stick-button (R3 I think)...like that’s the most awkward button for a lock-on. And why do I have to lock? Why not do like Uncharted or every dynasty warriors and semi-auto-lock? As a Veteran of Dynasty Warriors 2, 3, 4, 5 and several spinoffs--I couldn’t get a handle on non-lock combat. Feels like oversight.

The level ends with Cal teaming up with two folks. The animations and voice acting are great. Cal is boring as hell. But maybe he’ll get better. Some of the drama was a little contrived, but not terrible.

Ultimately, the game plays well and looks great. It’s pretty fun to play, and not absolutely ridiculous. It makes me want to jump back into my Star Wars catalog I built up over Christmas!!

#Zach's Game Journal #PLAYING #Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order #Stadia #Uncharted 2...cause I mention it a lot #Video Games

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