Lurker > Gaawa_chan

kind9 posted...

Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast might be the wrong kind of fantasy, but the first book(Titus Groan) is my favorite fiction book.

Mervyn Peake's writing is slow-paced, but it is just fucking phenomenal, like honey. Unfortunately, Peake passed away in the middle of writing the third book. If I recall correctly, a family member finished it (much like how one of Tolkien's sons finished The Silmarillion, which is why the late parts of that book are distinctly different), and Titus Alone suffers as a result. But the prose in these are excellent, and the books have an incredibly kooky cast of characters- think Harry Potter characterizations, but, you know... they actually stand up to scrutiny. Come to think of it, the first two books also take place in a castle. Ha.

My mother's favorite books are LotR and the first 2 Gormenghast books. Uh, here's a sample, if you want to determine if it's up your alley:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESnTPAtniqE

As for the Great Book of Amber, I actually have this but did not finish it. It's uh... it's fucking huge, lol, and it did not grip me, but it did seem good. I should pick it up again sometime.

Llamachama posted...

The Abhorsen series.

They have a great tone and I think he does a good job of characterizing his moody female leads. Poor Lirael could use some medication, I think, lol.

To name a couple more...

I remember reading the Wyrd Museum books by Robin Jarvis as a teen. Those were interesting but I'm pretty sure some of the rather shocking death scenes in the books traumatized me as a kid, so I have not read them again, lol. They make reference to Norse and Abrahamic religions particularly, and mostly follow a boy and a girl and some rather grim goings-on related to artifacts and people at a museum in London.

I guess you could try some books based off D&D stuff. None of it is particularly outstanding, but RA Salvatore's books have fun fight scenes.

I read some books by... what was her name... Kristen Britain, and the first book was Green Rider. Those were entertaining, though I lost interest after 3 books. The first book is about a girl who is forced to take up the dying mission of an assassinated messenger that serves the crown, only to find herself hunted by that assassin, who is a skilled horseback archer.

There's the obvious His Dark Materials series, and Artemis Fowl. These are hardly books targeted at adults but they're entertaining media, unlike the disaster films that were made out of them. If you aren't familiar, His Dark Materials = cool familiar+Abrahamic stuff, and Artemis Fowl is basically "fantasy characters vs malignant child genius." Both enjoyable. Real shame about the garbage films, though. Artemis Fowl got done particularly dirty.

Oh, if you want something super niche that I'd be surprised if anyone else has read here, a ways back I read a book called Villains by Necessity. You follow a group of "evil" people trying to save the world from the consequences of having too much "goodness" in it. It's deliberately highly referential to other fantasy books and tropes, including LotR. I thought it was a fun read.

Recommending books is always a YMMV thing, especially because the target age ranges vary wildly and a lot of the stuff I've found most enjoyable has been aimed at younger authors, as if those aiming for adult audiences are too fixated on edge to make their writing actually enjoyable. Maybe I've just been unlucky in my picks, lol. It didn't help that I was reading adult books at a very young age which causes my taste to whip all over the place.

I think at this point most people view Russia's State as being like a screaming child who somehow managed to get ahold of a gun. There's an acute awareness that the little shit is causing harm and has the potential to cause more harm, but no one has any real respect for it at this point.

Lokarin posted...

edit: as an aside, my russian military friend successfully abandoned and is in Estonia awaiting asylum.

Glad he got out. That couldn't have been a fun decision.

SinisterSlay posted...

9 was a pretty good game with a slow battle system. Like glacial. And the final boss comes out of nowhere.

True. Oddly, the battle speed thing didn't bother me much. My issue with battle speed in IX actually also applies to VII and VIII; the battle intros take way, way too long. I can handle slow ATB, but having to watch those slow-ass battle intros every single fight is just... god... VII's isn't HORRIBLE, but it's still not good.

MrMelodramatic posted...

I got the vampire guy to join my team. Is that what you meant, or is there something else?

That's it, you're good.

MrMelodramatic posted...

I have the plane. Im stuck. Idk what to do now.

In addition to what wpot mentioned, if you didn't already do it, there's an optional puzzle in Shinra Manor that opens a locked door in the basement.

Konami... Konamiiiiiiiiiiiii! *shakes fist*

GanonsSpirit posted...

When Nintendo took a huge dump on everyone who bought a Wii U.

... Yeah, this. I actually really liked the Wii U but they didn't give it any support at all and it was super frustrating.

wpot posted...

Except...when they say "permanent" they mean that there won't be any change in the spring and fall. We will just stick with the DST definition of time 365 days per year.

Apparently the change is being implemented November 2023? That's what I heard at least.

wpot posted...

X2 has combat with job changes and the storyline is, uh...lighthearted. Or cringey.
FF12 is becoming somewhat MMO-like with an openish world and a, uh...political storyline. Or boring.
FF15...well, you travel a nice open world in a car with friends: that kinda works. The plot (largely nonexistent) and battle are messes, though.

Fair summations, lol.

10-2, do NOT go into it for the story. You will be very disappointed, lol. Game is hella fun to play, though, imo. In a way it's sad because I think it could have had a good story with some effort, but uh... nope.

12 I quite enjoy, but it is very poorly paced and made some questionable baseline story decisions (for example, why is Larsa not a party member while Penelo is? That could have fixed a lot of other issues, too...).

15 had a solid premise that they did nothing interesting with in the story proper, the gameplay is also not that great... eh. It also makes some pretty weak gestures at previous games in the series, but when it does, they're usually not as good? Kind of odd. But a lot of people seemed to enjoy it so it's probably worth trying out at least.

Hmmm. Well, FF2 has a cute proto-plot: is that was you liked about it?

Probably, yeah. For really old RPGs, they have to do something beyond the barest minimum for me to even note them at all, so while FF1 has a class system that makes it worth replaying, I suppose, it doesn't really have anything else that sets it aside. I didn't hate 2's leveling system as much as others seem to (but it is not good) and I appreciated that it was at least trying to do something new in terms of gameplay and actually tried to do something more than the bare minimum in terms of story.

I've felt that way about a lot of really old games; I'm willing to forgive a lot gameplay-wise as long as they're doing something interesting and they aren't buggy to the point of being unplayable (and I get really mad if they're clearly incomplete). It's also why I hate FFVIII a bit less in retrospect (my GOD I hated that game as a kid), because they were definitely trying to do some unusual stuff there as well.

Also, I admit that I am fond of the Emperor as a villain. He's not especially deep in the original iteration but I think reworks of FF2 have done a good job of portraying him as a sort of... hmm embodiment of egocentric, powerhungry abusiveness, and very much a villain who didn't just wait around for the cast to reach him; he repeatedly makes a horrific mess of things, proactively, which is something you don't often see in villains from that era of video games, tbh. He's not phenomenal or anything, but yeah. Solid villain for such an old game.

ReturnOfFa posted...

I finally beat a FF game. FFI lol. I've played through all of VI except the last dungeon.

Did you like FF1? I think it's okay. I actually (now HERE is a spicy take) liked FF2 more, though 3 is almost certainly the best of the NES games. FF1 is about as generic as you can get without turning into Dragon Quest 1. FF2 was more ambitious, even though holy fuck that leveling system needs work to this day.

If you want an easy pick up and play to completion FF game, that would be either FFIV or FFV. Those two are incredibly easy to burn through.

fishy071 posted...

WARNING: VERY UNPOPULAR OPINION
I actually liked FF9 better than FF7 and FFX. I've only played FF1 to FFX-2, and out of those everyone's favorite (FF7) is my least favorite. It was too dark and sad, and the story was confusing, with too much politics. Some parts of the game grossed me out. I also couldn't handle the sneak up and stab in the back parts. After seeing those kind of scenes anywhere, I am constantly nervous and watching my back. The story of FFX was too sad, and didn't quite make sense to me. Sorry, I don't get along with sad stuff. I think the FF games I liked best were FF4, FF6, FF8, and FF9.

I do, too, actually. For VII, the politics don't bug me, but there are some very poorly executed parts of FFVII in which characters do things that are contrived/don't make any sense. It's also... really poorly balanced, like... really, really badly. IX's biggest flaw, in contrast, is that it was clearly rushed towards the end. The game was clearly supposed to have more late-game content than it had. Unfortunate, because I think if it had been properly rounded out it would have been inarguably top tier for the series. As it is, it's still one of my favorites, though I don't think I'll ever play it again because while I was playing it, one of my relatives died, and the themes hit a bit to close to home to it all.

False premise.

I agree with this. The absence of a pause ability does not make the game "harder" or "hardcore" or whatever; it makes it fucking inconvenient. It means that if you're doing well in a fight and some irl emergency happens, you have to throw the fight in order to deal with whatever is going on OUTSIDE the game. That's not difficulty. That's not proof of skill. That's bullshit.

And I'm saying this as someone who really likes these games. It's ridiculous.

I don't think there is one singular goal to point to, but multiple ones. That said, I don't care much about his motives. Natural resources, restoring Russia, etc... none of the justifications/goals I've heard seem sufficient reason.

No, but my uncle married an exotic dancer/sex worker once. They had a tempestuous relationship by all accounts, but my uncle (and both of his brothers) have some serious trauma/mental illness problems and I've heard that she had some issues as well, so I'm not surprised they broke up eventually.

It's been a long time since I last saw her, but she seemed nice to me. *shrug*

Wanded posted...

i'll try them out

Word of warning; prepare for a Nintendo Hard difficulty jump when you hit Ironsword. Ironsword is one of the games that is the reason I have mad respect for my mother's gaming skills; she played the shit out of it.

Depends on the situation, but this is a pretty straightforward defense mechanism.

I haven't actually played 1 and 3, but 2 I played since I was a little kid and I really liked it. I like the OST, too. I wonder if I can find... yup, there it is. Haven't listened to this in years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS1hQRW607I

Krazy_Kirby posted...

very humane to care for murderers for what they did.

You don't have to care about murderers to oppose the death penalty. You just have to think that we shouldn't use the death penalty when we have a system that regularly finds innocent people guilty.

Thank you all, it really does help.

So, yesterday one of our other cats stopped walking. Took her in today. Bye, Houdini.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/1/AAWoFkAADA9F.jpg

Holy shit, this week has sucked.

We need to invest more in alternative energy and public transportation. Would help a lot with energy independence.

Thanks, guys.

Once, but I couldn't attend (no car at the time).

Judgmenl posted...

Child rearing is an act of greed.

Hmm, not always, though. I've met people who did not want children (oh boy they did not want children and it really showed) but they thought they were morally obligated to have children. Oof. I don't think that can be classified as greed, as satisfying their personal desire for something... but I'm not sure what to classify it as, mostly because I haven't slept for quite a long time and my brain is shutting down, I think? Anyway, one of you can figure that out, I'm sure.

I... guess it would depend on a few more pieces of information.

Are we talking about ourselves specifically, or some other hypothetical person? I don't want children. I also hold the belief that children deserve to be wanted. Because I do not want children, if I had a child and kept it, I would, by my own standards, be behaving unethically. For similar reasons, I assume the person in this scenario is expected to keep the child instead of giving them up for adoption, because otherwise the timer on the parent's head is irrelevant.

Then there are other issues. Would the child have a large support system? Is the parent economically stable? Is whatever is going to kill the parent in this scenario inheritable? Etc, etc...

So... assuming the person in the scenario is me, no, I would not consider it to be ethical. Assuming it was someone else? It would still depend on a variety of factors, but I admit that I perhaps take the concept of bringing a human being into the world more seriously than the average person.

Lobomoon posted...

I ain't not cared when he was messing up in them Afghanistan, butt this time is different.

It's not like I can get a cheaper deal on Amazon or something...

Hahaha... that's a good o-

Jen0125 posted...

Yeah, def Biden and not Putin. You're a real bright mind.
.
Putin started a war and is being subject to global sanctions. Do you have eyes, ears and a functioning brain cell?
.
Par for the course for lobomoon. In the last 5 years or so he must have drank a ton of copium

Wait... wait, this isn't satire?
Oh god.

Nah, my best self was ground into dust before I was ten. Barely remember that kid.

Muscles posted...

I had 7 at one point and down to 1 now so I feel your pain, I'm sorry for your loss

Thanks, Muscles. That's real rough. I sympathize.

Thanks. She was a cutie. Purred pretty much constantly.

I have 4 cats. Bye, Meeny. </3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIaAK4iHEUY
She loved that stupid music box.

papercup posted...

Yes, in the Pixel Remaster version the opera scenes were redone in the Octopath HD 2D/3D style, and also all the singing is voiced.

Did they use a new version or recycle an older performance, do you know? Ah, nvm, I'll watch it..,
...
Oh god.
OH GOD.
It's bad. It's really bad. Wtf is this? This version is terrible. What have they done?! I've heard versions of that song that literally made me weep, this is absolute ass, this is a travesty what the actual f-

Lokarin posted...

Does anyone know if the pixel remaster isn't complete sin against nature?

I have heard completely mixed responses about it. Saw one person say it was amazing, saw someone else say it was trash. I would just look up some footage of it (I heard the opera scene was made into a 3D set like from Octopath Traveler???? I don't know how I feel about that, tbh).

Wanded posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/1/2/AAQ2WmAAC48I.jpg

It spreads through droplets, not air, so usually the paper mask is pretty solid baseline protection. However, you can also use eye/face shields, which I have done at work; if you are concerned about exposure I would actually recommend doing so.

Krazy_Kirby posted...

how is this deadlier than ebola?

It depends on your metric. Lethality vs ability to spread vs how well it can be treated/cured. A combination of high lethality + high ability to spread + low ability to treat makes for a truly devastating condition. If, for example, Ebola was an airborne infection, we would be absolutely fucked, as I think the droplet-borne COVID-19 pandemic has nicely illustrated, but we are fairly competent at preventing Ebola from spreading too far, so despite its extreme lethality, its inability to spread like wildfire causes the death toll to be lower.

...

As for Black Death, we can treat it now. You need to keep things in perspective- how bad a thing is in relation to what tools we have to combat it, and how effective those tools are. Public health is not a simple subject.

fettster777 posted...

Also, are these 8 dragons I've read about part of the story or are they sidequests in the world of ruin?

Optional content, as is a lot of the content in the WoR. The WoR is less linear in nature and the vast majority of its content is technically optional.

Lokarin posted...

well, i meant more like... is Gandalf a cosmic horror?

He is one of the Maiar, angelic-style beings beneath the Valar (the gods, basically, of which there is a primary creator god Illuvitar). Other examples of Maiar include all Balrogs, Sauron, Saruman, Radagast, and the mother of Luthien Tinuviel.

They, as well as elves and the ancestors of Shelob, hail from Valinor, which is the land that Frodo sails to at the end of LotR (Sam, Legolas, and Gimli also go West, though not at the same time; Legolas is the last elf to sail West with Gimli, after Aragorn dies, and they leave so late that they have to build their own boat to sail).

If you consider Gandalf to be an alien of sorts, then so are the elves, as they all originated from Valinor.

I oppose the death penalty. That said, if people insist on having it, the obvious way to do it is to kill people in their sleep. We have drugs that render people unconscious through major surgery. I don't understand why they aren't used in executions.

Nes, Snes, N64, GC, Wii, WiiU, Switch, DS, 3DS.

Fort Condor is really easy. Just use the standard unit (yes, ONLY the standard unit; it's generic so you can swarm everything with them) and play hyper-aggressively, moving the frontline to the lowest possible choke points as fast as possible and putting your units as close to enemies and as far down as you can. You can win every single battle this way and it won't even cost you that much money (and money is so easy to get in this game, so who even cares?).

The real issue is the ridiculous amount of backtracking you have to do at the weirdest times in order to catch some of the fights.

MrMelodramatic posted...

I dont think I fully understand the materia system

It's pretty simple if you break it down into parts.
There are:

1. Materia that give you abilities (green = magic, red = summon, yellow = command). Some of these change stats. As a general rule, magic materia will improve your MP/Magic and decrease your HP/Strength, but don't overthink it; it's not a big deal. Finally, as a rule the differences between these are- green = single target and consumes MP, red = multi-target and consumes MP, yellow varies wildly but most do not consume MP.
2. (Purple) Independent Materia that give you passive boosts. These materia can sometimes stack up to a point, including Counterattack, btw.
3. (Blue) Support Materia that can be paired up with other materia to cause additional effects (with some restrictions; you can check what can be linked here, but beware location spoilers https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Support_Materia_(Final_Fantasy_VII) ). You can stack support effects onto one ability; if you have 2 Shiva materia and you link one to HP Absorb and one to Magic Counter, you will counterattack with Shiva AND will drain HP at the same time... but it takes four paired slots to do this.

Finally, don't bother trying to link blue materia to the Enemy Skill materia. Enemy Skill Materia has some unique mechanics that don't perfectly synergize with the various blue materia, and so it doesn't work with any of them at all in order to avoid issues.

These are the basics and pretty much all you need to know to do well with the materia system.

Ehm... I don't know that I can narrow it down like that. I don't even think I could do it with bands, artists, or albums.
Edit: Eh, fuck it. Here are a bunch that popped into my head:

Round Here by Counting Crows
Fly From Heaven by Toad the Wet Sprocket
Schism by Tool
Burn by The Cure
Pillar of Davidson by Live (before they went to shit, Throwing Copper is a great album)
Tweeter and the Monkey Man by The Traveling Wilburys
The Chimbley Sweep by The Decemberists
Try Not to Breathe by REM
Shimmy by System of a Down
What It's Like by Everlast
Perfect by Alanis Morissette or Forgiven by Alanis Morissette. Was always confused that other songs from that album got picked over those two, tbh.
Bunch of Tom Petty songs, I suppose. Can't really narrow those down.
Eleanor Rigby or Come Together by The Beatles

Could think of more, but I'll spare you. There's no way I could narrow it down and this list is too long as is.

This guy is going to shoot more people.

One of my sisters applied for a job by making a music video once. She got the job, too.

Dude just sucks.

Theistic conservatives simping over despotic murdering authority figures, big shocker.

BlackScythe0 posted...

I tried to google LGB hold on gas and I wasn't able to come up with anything?

Yeah, I'm a bit confused because all I can think of off the top of my head is the anti-trans group.

Politics in a world with nuclear weapons incentivizes indirect means of applying pressure on the Russian State. No one is very happy about the fact that Russian people are going to suffer over this, but make no mistake; this is squarely on Putin's shoulders. And do not think Putin did not know this was coming; they've been preparing for this for quite some time. All the more humiliating that it is going so poorly, lol.

All I have to say to the article is lol.

...

As for the poll... honestly I think the thing about me that I would personally consider disqualifying might actually spike my popularity; I think it's a sign of my poor psychological health but some people would see it as some sort of, I don't know, badass moment or something. It absolutely was not, lol.

Oddly the dumb shit I post online would probably get me into more hot water than any action taken.

No. Stop. Why would you do this to me?

Krazy_Kirby posted...

cyndaquil never fit the zodiac anyway

One could argue that this new buddy is in fact the snek rep, since they already played loose with the rat rep, I suppose.

I would like a fire sheep starter, though, tbh. Sounds cute.

I'd ask my kid what they wanted.