Lurker > Strife2

Ema, cause she's an overworked, underappreciated scientific mind and lover of snacks.

If the game didn't focus on Ardyn or Aranea, XV was kinda bleh.

Torgal in the running for best doggo already.

That first Eikon battle was...fucking amazing. These battle themes are really good too.

Making more progress (the first real boss). From what I'm seeing, I'm getting a "Valkyrie Elysium visuals and tone + Ys dodging/evasion + FF7R Stagger System" feel, though with a lot more production value and oomph behind it. They probably will add so much more to this. Story seems very Ivalice-inspired medieval fantasy political intrigue (which I'm not big on), but VERY character driven, which is balancing it out a lot.

The Valkyrie Elysium comparison has more to do with setting and color scheme. This plays so much faster and tighter than that did. Hooray for an actual fucking budget and creative energy.

An hour in so far (pretty much the intro).

The Dominant battle going on during the first scene was what started hooking me in. Later on, most of the important characters started filtering in. Clive is ok, but Elwin really had some cool charisma right off the bat. The obvious sexual undertones certainly change the dynamic for a Final Fantasy game. The chocobos and doggo were cute chocobos and doggos. The environments are pretty bog standard. Given the tone and setting, I suppose that's to be expected right now. Music had some neat flourishes, but nothing amazing just yet.

There's definitely stuff to like here. I'm certainly interested pretty quickly. I'll see how it holds up now that actual action starts.

Hell. I just replayed Persona 4 Golden, and for as long as it was, it barely reached 50-60. It STILL feels bogged down sometimes by the calendar structure, despite being 1/3-1/2 as long as either P3 or P5.

Length does not equate to quality. Obviously, a modern FF game shouldn't probably be as brief as the less story focused classics (CT and SMRPG are 15 hours at best, but only have so much story). Still, they can suffer either spectrum of too much or not enough.

The old school FF games varied from 10-15 to 20-25 hours. They didn't need extra stuff to make great games. 5 and 6 mostly let the players kinda just do their own things near the end, but it didn't ever feel bogged down. 7-9 veered into longer, more character driven stories and imagery, but I would bet a lot of the extra runtime (25-35 hours) had more to do with the visuals and battle animations starting to add up here and there. Once 10 hit onward, games were chock full of extra stuff (10 was just insanely full of extra stuff). However, the main stories still only take 35-50 at best. If a game is fully action based, it should just take an even shorter time yet, because they aren't doing "random encounter" stuff. Ys games are definitely longer these days, but can usually get done with 30-40 hours of stuff.

If you want extra stuff, sure, I understand wanting to do all the exploration and seeing what stuff is hidden in the margins. However, FF will (and always should) hinge on the story, characters, and mood driving the game forward. I was not absorbed into 12 or 13's worlds or character dramas. That led me to focus on the combat, which were even further against what I wanted from a FF game, so I'm hyperfocusing on plenty of issues. XV and 7R were definitely improvement, but still had issues of padding. At least when the stories got down to business, they had moments of brilliance here and there.

It sounds like this game is trying to knuckle down on a "less is more" approach. If that holds true, and the combat doesn't frustrate me, I think the story and characters sound heavy and deep enough to either be two things: gritty and violent and visceral fun, or belabored and boring. My hope is the story and character are the former.

https://www.crunchyroll.com/news/seasonal-lineup/2023/6/21/crunchyroll-summer-2023-new-anime-season

Undead Murder Farce and AYAKA sound interesting. I "guess" I can keep up with Devil is a Part Timer, but the first cour of Season 2 was a bag of balls. However...that fucking Vending Machine anime. The fact that is even a concept is so awkward not to at least see it in action to see how stupid it probably is.

Trying out Saving 80k in Another World. Mitsuha and Colette are interesting characters. Mitsuha's power is kinda neat by isekai standards, and the comedy interludes don't distract from the decent writing too much.

Maybe having actual funny characters will bring the comedy back to everything.

*Does 100 jumps*

I"MMA SO READY!

My Miku collection pales in comparison to that RWBY collection....damn.

I've heard of "advertise to the lowest common denominator," but did they tips from a WWE promo?

• all social link events are fully voiced (which seems like even more than what P5 did but whatevs)

Cool. Either go full text or full voice, none of the "some of the levels are voiced" bullshit. Either that or have a toggle menu for that sort of thing. The more voice acted stuff, the easier. There may be some bad eggs (Kenji/Nozomi), but this is what Social Links should be. I prefer having everything voiced anyway. Being legally blind really sucks.

Started a show called Gleipnir just now. It's that sort of dark and perverse stuff that can either be really good or really bad, but the first ep was promising

It's more that by herself, Megumin's tsundere tendencies take too much focus. Kazuma alone gives her a much higher dimension where that plays off as "Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Add in Aqua and Darkness, and you don't notice it as much and can focus on her as EXPLOSION girl.

As for Yunyun, I half expect this show to finally have her explode and actually become something. Maybe the entire point is she is nothing, means nothing, and is a doormat...but it is so frustrating to watch as a co-lead.

It gets me thinking about if they'd ever do spinoffs of Aqua or Darkness. I think Aqua could work in a weird "Ah My Goddess meets Panty and Stocking" kind of mishmash. Just episodic bullshit about Aqua sending every kind of weirdo to different worlds and bouncing back and forth from their tales of doom and depravity and her being a complete drunken mess of a goddess. Darkness would be trickier, but it might work in a Yakuza 0 kind of way. Don't have her be a complete horndog from the getgo. Make it a byproduct of weird ass political intrigue satire.

Otherwise, just stick with Konosuba proper.

I'm not going to lie: Megumin spinoff kinda doesn't work. She's a great character, but as part of an ensemble. On her own, and especially with Yunyun as a bland ass piece of bread partner, she doesn't have enough comedic flair to carry a show like this. I think the two episodes with the weird Axis priests were pretty good, but as soon as they left, it was back to boringsville.

Maybe that's kind of the point: none of these characters work as well alone as they do together in Konosuba proper.

Lol. Courtroom Battle is a genre now? Outside of PW and Danganronpa, is there anything else even in that description?

I mean, yes. It's very goofy and hammy in the trailer. I would NOT want that the entire game. Apollo is definitely bad. But if you played it straight (like the anime adaptation did), I don't see an issue. These actors are almost always good in anything taken halfway seriously, so it'd come down to directors not being idiots.

They were the actors who did voice clips, rare voice lines, and animated scenes for Dual Destinies and Spirit of Justice. Get them to voice the characters again, and I don't see the problem.

I think we're making two different arguments here.

I mean, Sam Riegal, Wendee Lee, Brina Palencia, Jameson Price, Matt Mercer, and J. Michael Tatum (which I definitely know are in the 5&6 games) are all good...so yes? If the voice acting ended up bad, it wouldn't be because of them.

I love Athena's "Are you fucking serious" ergh/bleh face

I do hope these games invest in more voice acting eventually. After a game like AI: The Somnium Files being fully voiced for 95% of dialogue, it's weird going back to fully text based VNs.

Let's be honest, 6 is all about Rayfa. Apollo, the prosecutor guy who chants things, even Phoenix to an extent, exist to be a backdrop for a girl who dances to Ghost in the Shell music. Rayfa and Phoenix banter is all I need to love that game.

The person who really got done dirty was Trucy in 5. She was a glorified housemaid who did absolutely nothing. Pearl even got my screen time (at least it seemed like it). At least she got a case in 6.

colliding posted...

They did Blackquill dirty in 6-4

I like to think that case never happened, just like 2-3.

Athena's fine. Her gimmick is kinda neat. The problem is everyone likes Blackquill too much that he's always involved. I've always found Blackquill kinda...lackluster though. He's not as weak as Klavier was, but his "menacing samurai" schtick suffers the same thing all prosecutors deal with: Beat them once, they lose their effectiveness fast. Edgeworth was the only one to ever not lose his, though that had more to do with storytelling than anything else. Edgeworth was the perfect pompous ass straight arrow yet prickish jerk that he can just steal scenery.

To be fair, Apollo was the lead for all of 4 and most of the focal point of the end of 6. Athena's game was 5. He gets precedence over her. Just because he sucks donkey dick doesn't make it not true.

But a Phoenix and Athena game would be fine. Just keep Ema Skye and I'm on board. MAYBE throw in an Apollo chapter for funsies (to keep Rayfa's dance mechanic), and it'd be ok.

I mean, she's definitely a good fit for Mitsuru if nothing else. It's unnecessary (outside of Vic) to change them, but like 7R, if the casting is good, it might not be a complete lost cause.

colliding posted...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoZA6YA7YYQ

Why aren't we talking more about Persona 6, I mean, Metaphor Re: Fantazio?

I'm on board with more SMT no wait Persona no wait Metaphorsona, er...god whatever. Just give me more from these guys. Atlus is being a piece of shit, but they make great games...for now.

Oh god, that was brutal

It would actually make sense plot wise (since Ichiban is a DQ fanboy), but it would make for an awkward playing experience.

More Ichiban, let's go

I found the difficulty spikes from normal mobs to bosses/sidequest monsters kinda high on Normal. Like super duper easy or absolute death dealers or damage sponges. I'm grateful Easy mode was an option.

Also, Tifa had the cowboy outfit in
Nibelheim. It seems like an odd issue to get hung up on.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

Never forget Yuri Lowell having 2 VA in ToV HD.

That was so weird. Certain times, it's just, "Ok. It's just Shinji's voice actor now." Was it separate bonus scenes, cause I could swear they'd switch in the same scene sometimes.

I don't know the ins and outs for situations like that. Chie and Teddie were the most notable recasts at the time. Any new dialogue they did with everyone else, it just sounded "slightly different." I know since I recently replayed P4G last month and could tell when they did the redub content with the OG actors. It's certainly up the dub company to say, "We'll just stick with new voice actors and be done with it." Sometimes, like Xenosaga, they change it, only to bring the OG actors back for 3.

It would definitely be a lot of trouble to re-do all this audio 15 years later when the path of least resistance (and public annoyance) is just use what's there. The actors themselves may want to do the work again and get another paycheck, but who knows.

I don't think they'd need to do anything except keep the original audio. If they did, I don't see it as too much an issue outside of scheduling conflicts or money issues. I know they replaced people for P4G as that game was made way back, but kept people like O'Brien and Bailey for Catherine Full Body fairly recently. I would think they'd keep anyone that's still available. Ruff and Strassman still do Persona stuff, and I know Lowenthal and Platt were around for Spider-Man. The only change to the cast they may do is Wendee Lee as Fuuka (which was a change they made for post P3P games).

If they did recast Mignogna due to the blacklisting, it makes ethical and business sense. Overall, I think the best thing to do in most any situation is just take the OG dialogue and remaster it. It's already there, and was already good. I kinda hope Metal Gear remakes do the same. If you have good dialogue and recordings, there's no reason to redo it unless you have to add stuff in.

No

Rinoa and Squall have zero chemistry (to the point even Squall admits he sees everyone and their dog forcing them together). She has some moments of personal motivation and drive, but the game seems content to make it so she's stuck in damsel in distress situations that Squall is the one and only one who can save her.

She has a good doggo. That's all she really has going for her.

Persona 5

The fact audience participation (which I'm assuming occurred with Maiden like it did Priest) has to happen for most any metal band not named Black Sabbath or Metallica to get anywhere close to ballots is never not stupid.