Lurker > CoolCly

Haha yeah. What does this mean for how grindy the main game will be?

Dels posted...

Battles will use 6 party members and you'll get various co-op attacks depending on which party members you use, I think. Been ages since I played a Suikoden game.

Hmm so is this an RPG with turn based combat where your party can combine to do special moves like in Chrono Trigger?

So, what's this about? I love games where I have a lot of different characters/monsters to use, so "Hundred Heroes" has me interested. I never played a Suikoden game. What's it like? Radiata Stories?

I took a look on the Nintendo eShop and I see there's an associated game - Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising. It's a side scrolling combat game where you restore a town as you help out the town folk and clear dungeons. Apparently it's billed as introducing some of the characters and story from the main game? It's $20 but its on sale 75% off until the main game comes out so I picked it up for like $5

Played for an hour and it was pretty charming. Just wrapped up Unicorn Overlord which I loved but was really disappointed with the trite and lifeless writing, but this felt pretty cute in comparison.

I *am* concerned about the god awful dub voice acting I hear in videos of the main game, but maybe I could just play it in Japanese with subtitles? Rising doesn't have voice acting

I finally got around to reading some Drizzt books after Baldurs Gate 3! For the very first trilogy published, the Icewind Dale trilogy, I read the first book the Crystal Shard and it was extremely basic fantasy pulp. I didn't think it was very good.

The second trilogy though, the Dark Elf Trilogy... I really enjoyed that. The first book, Homeland, is his childhood and early adult life growing up in Menzoberranzan, a major city of the Drow where the spider goddess Lolth is worshipped, males are second class citizens to the matriarchs, and there was intense politicking between the major Houses. Destroying another house is a crime - but only if there's someone left around to accuse you of doing it, so just be thorough in your backstab! It was fascinating seeing the life of someone growing up in a society where everyone literally is Evil aligned by default. Drizzt himself is set with a good alignment so we don't really have to be challenged with thoughts about if he's bad or not, he chafes against the evil society the entire time but it was still fantastic. The second book, Exile, is his time after departing Menzoberranzan and living in the Underdark, and the third book, Sojourn, is after choosing to depart the Underdark and try live on the surface - where Drow are a kill on sight race.

I loved Homeland and thought Exile and Sojourn, while not quite as good as the tightly paced structure of Homeland, were also great. It was fascinating to see Drizzt go through those different stages of figuring out what to do with his life. The Crystal Shard, on the other hand, he was just an action hero mowing through situations. I might finish the Icewind Trilogy at some point but I'm not holding my breath on them being very good.

In general, the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance can provide some good pulpy fun. I read a lot of Dragonlance as a teenager, I haven't gone back but I think I wouldn't quite love it as much, but it'll probably still be fun. If you just want to see someone go on an adventure with some magic and some fantasy races, they are an easy bet to just jump into.

Malazan is incredibly tough to penetrate. I've read 4 or 5 books I think. I'd say overall I like it but it's not a must read for everyone. It's awesome - a lot of the things that happen are just really fucking metal. But you gotta be prepared for being confused for awhile before things start to make sense, and any given starting of a new book might be just as confusing with a different cast of characters. Best way to describe it is that it feels like you are reading somebodies D&D ad hoc'd adventure translated into a full on fantasy novel/series. Which apparently is actually what it is.

Joe Abercrombie's First Law series is one of the most popular fantasy series these days. It's grimdark for sure. It's low magic though - magic definitely exists and there are magic users, but its uncommon and main characters aren't magic users. I think they are incredible books - as a huge fan of the cosmere I would say they are just as good, but I don't like them as much because I'm just not a big fan of grimdark and pessimism. I prefer Brandons hopeful optimism that flows underneath most of what he writes. But I could see somebody that leans more towards the grimdark tone and aesthetic preferring him for sure, and I still love reading his books. They are great to alternate from Brandon.

Discworld - this series has a lot more wry tone to it - if you've read Sir Chris's writings, a lot of it feels very much like discworld. Dr Doom is very inspired and feels like Death from Discworld. There is definitely magic and a sense you are in a strange fantasy world basically all the time. The first book the Colour of Magic implies that a lot - but a lot of people say its not a good entry point since even though its okay, it's not as good as the vast majority of the series, and since its so large there are other good entry points. I liked the Colour of Magic when I read it recently but I see what people mean. I'm just starting Guards! Guards! now actually which is one of the jump on points so I suppose I'll see how good that is. I already feel like this is a classic series any fan of fantasy should give a shot to though.

Wheel of Time - the GOAT and my favourite series. 14 book long running epic. the first book feels a bit derivative of LOTR but thats all good. Very complex magic system and huge cast of characters. love it. The show isn't that good.

Tigana - one off book by Guy Gavriel Kay. Sanderson always quotes it as his favourite standalone fantasy novel, so I gave it a shot. I absolutely loved it. It's about small continent that has been conquered by a wizard from two different foreign nations - each wizard controls half of the 9 or so provinces that make up the continent and have enacted pretty brutal rule on the populations as they maneuver to take out the other and rule the entire area themselves. Story follows a few of the residents of continent and how they sure don't like having those wizards around. Story is fairly low magic as there isn't many magic users aside from the two conquerors but obviously it's hugely part of the story still. I think this is worth reading, and I plan to read more GGK in the future

Random fantasy novel that I'd recommend -

Red Sister by Mark Lawrence. Part of a trilogy. Here is the first passage of the book:

It is important, when killing a nun, to ensure that you bring an army of sufficient size. For Sister Thorn of the Sweet Mercy Convent Lano Tacsis brought two hundred men.

ShadowRising7 - he was a big fan of the Wheel of Time

I don't know if I can handle another run. As the game has progressed, and the number of characters per unit increased, the number of skills everyone has, and the amount of AP/PP everyone has, the amount of time I spend staring at a full unit wipe trying to big brain the perfect tactics swap to turn this around is crazy

I wish some of this complexity was moved out of the unit formations and into the map movement - that part is so bare bones in comparison.

Yeah, I usually had my two "main squads" that were unbeatable and 3-5 support squads. The way you have to update squads from 3 to 4 characters then eventually 4-5 one squad at a time by default means that some of your squads are just better than the others for significant portion of the game.

So I pretty much had my Alain and Berengaria squads as hard carries that could solve basically any issue, but it felt cheesy to use them all the time and hog all the exp so I'd try and go out of my way to use my other squads more. Virginia's squad, Ochlys's flying squad, the cavalry squad, Yunifi's all archers squad, Bruno's failure squad, and Travis's dodge squad. I always had a couple unfilled squads. By Albion I had 2 great squads and 6 okay squads.

Now that I'm about to head into the final battles in the middle of Cornia I went ahead and built out my last two squads for funsies, but it's only because farming money and exp was super easy with the last sigil. Gave Scarlett her own squad with two wizards to do big magic damage, and I'm trying out a Gloucester unit. So I'm finally up to 10 units but its absolutely overkill on Expert

iiaattgg posted...

Different subject. i met a girl at the gym probably six months ago who was instant gym crush status. Total smokeshow, super fun, all around my type. We hit it off pretty quickly, but eventually she came in with a guy who turned out to be her husband. Regardless when we were in the gym together we were pretty inseparable, but never took it outside the gym. Our schedules started to change and we went from daily lifting with or around each other to just never seeing each other.

I saw her today at the gym for the first time in months which I thought was great, as we had formed a nice gym friendship. She was being much flirtier than usual (and she was already pretty flirty in the past), and I noticed that the ring was gone. She said she wanted to try to lift with me more moving forward and offered me her number and all that

sadly, as lovely as that would be, Im dating someone already, and Ill just be honest to yall its disappointing because as much as I like the new girl Im with, gym crush girl is one of those people who makes me feel like a 22 year old in heat again but at the bare minimum Im just glad to have a good friend around again

aww shit the window has opened at the same time another one has closed

Man

I set up a home gym late last year that I've been using pretty regularly. It includes a bench and a couple dumbbell trees, going up to 25 pound dumbbells. But when I bought them, my supplier was missing a few increments in weights so I was missing some sizes. IE one tree had 15 pounds, 17.5, 22.5 and 25 pounds, but missing the 20 pound. The other just had 5 pound and 10 pound, but didn't have the 2.5 / 7.5 / 12.5. I finally went and picked them up ( turns out at this level its actually 3 pound, 8 pound, and 12, they don't start 2.5 increments till 17.5 I guess...)

So I've basically just been stuck at 10 pounds for everything that I do. I've been contemplating if I should just make the jump to 15 pounds. Like on my dumbbell bench press, I can do 20 reps for 3 sets pretty damn easily with 10 pounds. 15 pounds shouldn't be a big jump. In all my previous exercise attempts, doing barbell stuff always felt pretty trivial to make 10 pound jumps, so a 5 pound jump should be no big deal

So I finally made the switch to the new 12 pounds. I am shook by much heavier and difficult these are. I can't believe it. The difference is so small, yet they feel way heavier. 9 rep sets are very doable but I'm definitely feeling the strain. If I had jumped to 15 pounds I guess I just would have exploded.

Melisandre wanted it too bad, I had to give it to her

Wait, by Waifu do you mean Wakfu? Are they still making Wakfu? The french anime?

I watched Spice and Wolf ep1. It was passable I suppose as an introduction, but it's done nothing to draw me in. I'll probably watch it all the way through and then watch the original when this is done. Like Roba, the original has been in my sights to watch forever, but just never got around to it for whatever reason.

If anything, I'm curious how watching a remake first vs the original will skew my opinions. I always find myself comparing these remakes like HxH or Trigun and find the new versions completely lacking in execution compared to the originals - but is that just bias? Maybe I'll feel the opposite here.

So I'm goin through Bastorias - is there any value in using these bestrals? They kinda just seem like copies of existing units with this night time buff - I don't think I care about that, and I'm more interested in refining my current units than trying to figure out what to do with these guys. They don't differentiate enough like the laguz did.

Elves were a welcome addition because I was struggling to get past guards and the elves dipping all their attacks in Mama Liz's magic potency was a welcome addition. Though they are falling off now with Snow Ranger just seeming like a better Elven Archer.

if you have a submission fetish then chained soldier is for you

There's basically three endpoints for players to feel satisfied and hop off the game at

Endpoint 1 - Beat Hades and escape the underworld. This will take a decent amount of playing but a regular player can just do this and walk away thinking they had a good time with the game

Endpoint 2 - Beat Hades 10 more times and progress the story to bring mom home. <--- You are here. this is for people who enjoy the gameplay loop to keep going for away but not endlessly.

Endpoint 3 - Facilitate a reunion of the gods by becoming friends with them all <--- this is for people are are so enamored with the game that replaying it over and over is just a fun thing to do.

I loved this game a lot but I didn't make it to endpoint 3. It's really not meant to be something you feel like you have to do, just something neat to work towards as you enjoy the gameplay. They really did weave the plot and characters into the gameplay seamlessly in every way.

I was kinda into Ragna Crimson at the very beginning, but I really hated how they started off with the pair but then literally deleted the MC and replaced him with an entirely different character thats OP af with that dumb angry personality, then have him ditch his partner because she's too weak to keep up after carrying his ass so long, THEN add this entirely new character Crimson and is like "okay NOW the series starts"

I strongly disliked Future Ragna and Crimson incomparison to how much I liked Ragna and Leonica, so just discarding the first pair for this new pair really rubbed me the wrong way. What a convoluted way to get to your series premise....

I believe that if you build cute girls no matter the genre then Robazoid will appear

The thing is that Robazoid is the guy that watches cute girl anime and Clannad is like the best cute girl anime ever made

hold up

Robazoid hasn't seen Clannad????

It's because he's waiting for Isami. His cockpit is always open for him.

lmao i just tried the first couple episodes of Bravern and this shit is off the chain

So what's the death toll looking like?

It sounds like just some workers on the bridge and a few vehicles are all it ended up being? Like maybe single digits or a couple dozen?

That's obviously really horrifying for those people, but when I saw the bridge collapsing I thought it was a packed bridge full of cars - that would be truly nightmarish.

I love this game but it's making me face my mortality as a gamer. I'm at like challenging difficulty and I dunno if I can handle all these bugs

Have I hit the wall??????

Oh man I've heard good 4 u before and I absolutely thought it was a Paramore song from the titular good 4 u part

I see Hayley Williams is listed as one of the four lyricists so I guess that's one mystery solved

Cool cool cool

Also anybody have a good solution for dealing with Cavalry units. Now that I'm pushing into Elheim I keep seeing these units with promoted cavalry in the front and they FUCK MY SHIT UP. It's like a suicide pact for whatever unit I send in to try and take out as many of the knights as they can before they die. I understand flyers can deal big damage to the cavalry but I dunno how to stop them from killing somebody.

I also don't really get how initiative works. I've tried tinkering with initiative items to get characters to go first by having a higher amount than enemies but it doesn't always seem to work. It seems to be more than just "who has the highest initiative goes".

So what's the deal with Rapport

I find the conversations to be pretty generic so I don't care for them too much. Do they actually give bonuses when viewing them or does just getting the meter filled up?

What's the deal with giving gifts? it seems to be *specifically* to gain rapport for Alain and the person. I know he can marry someone but why is that whole mechanic based around just his rapport?

Justin Hammer is fully realized as a Tony Stark wannabe. chefs kiss ~

Baku, have you watched Ted Lasso? If so, what was your reaction as you were watching the first few episodes?

Okay one thing that's bugging me a lot is sending a unit to take a stronghold and it wins with 0 stamina left.

You either have to do a full wait or use an item to restore stamina... you can't just walk in and take it. This just.... feels very unsatisfying every time

Especially since it gives you stamina just for taking it - you are intended to take it with low stamina after a battle. The idea that I'm just always supposed to perfectly be at 1-2 stamina is just not going to happen often.

It's very driven by its charm and tone. The way you describe the game is absent of any mention of that - I don't know if you it's somehow going right over your head or you see it and are completely unamused by it or what. But if the tone doesn't appeal to you then this game has nothing for you.

Is it possible to see who will die in the battle preview? It seems like it should be there but I don't see it. Sometimes I'm surprised and see someone die I thought for sure would live but somebody else got healed so the damage numbers are deceptive

Is there something that indicates a party won't be able to retaliate in the battle preview from stuff like waiting? I feel like I see that my team can do damage but then they don't do anything and I smack my forehead.

Is it possible to rearrange tactics? It seems like you can only replace existing rows which is enormously annoying, if i wanna add something to the top i have to change every single item instead of just adding one item and shifting the rest down

Head to head battles where you decide if you like 1 song vs the other. Repeat a certain number of times and you end up with a ranking overall

Like in this MCU quiz tool. You might be able to build one yourself?

https://sorta.app/q/1022

https://sorta.app/

The game keeps giving me characters I want to use BUT I DONT HAVE SPACE TO USE THEM

Your analysis of Spike's characterization is spot on, both in everything about his feelings and its level of villainy. It really isn't so much of a villain song so much as a song utilizing a villain, but still felt appropriate to throw in here. I'm sure you already know that the other song I nominated from the episode was the real villain of the hour.

Though I would note, in comparison to most of the songs from the episode, Rest In Peace does have a more villainous tinge to it. It just wouldn't stand out for that reason in a sea of villain songs!

I think those two moral decisions fairly early on where you can execute or not execute the thief and the other guy later on give you divine shards or something to spend, so there's a bonus to not sparing them to recruit later (I assume). Otherwise, I'm not sure if there's any upside to ever not taking someone

Oh god I gave Travis the venom dagger which gives him new AP skill Poison Slash. It poisons the enemy which does a lot of damage which is sick, but I didn't realize how crucial Passive Steal was - he steals PP from enemies preventing them from doing stuff with it, but more importantly gives him more PP to evade with. His ability to survive goes down a ton without this.

Hmmm

Gryphon + Thief + Lex does make sense. The problem with flyers and Lex though is who is the leader? Lex gives ranged assist cover but the flyer wants to be leader to go fast

I stuck Travis with Alain's group because from the tutorial example and have left them there. It seems kinda nice because Travis only dodges perfectly for as long as he has PP, and Alain will block one shot and then heal himself so helps stretch out Travis's dodges. Gave him the silken scarf to improve his dodge even more so he's unlikely to ever take damage

So what are some good unit formations?

The basic mindset is generally to have somebody who can soak up damage (Hoplites, Gladiators, Thieves) in the front row and have mostly everyone else in the back. Lex and Alain start in the front row but I'm not so sure they do the trick.

But beyond that, I'm not sure I've seen any combos in particular that pop off. Classes have specialties like Soldier can pierce to units in the back, Hunters own flying units and thieves, etc, so that's good for countering, but I dont know what would be good inherent team ups.

I feel like that "step back" Para describes is actually more of an indication of how big of a stepforward it really was. Sometimes to make really big process you have to take some steps backwards to be able to open up the path forward.

Yeah - we had to sacrifice polish that developed in the 4th generation over the 3rd - because it had opened up a whole new universe of possibility that had to be figured out. 5th to 6ths big leap forward graphically was impressive an was more noticeable than subsequent generations, (though honestly 6 to 7 was kinda similar) but it's primarily polishing steps that 4th to 5th had created.

Dungeon Keeper 1 & 2 were absolute gems. Less than $3 each? I'll grab those for sure

Oh snap Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. I loved this game. Civilization 2 in space. Whenever I try to play stuff like Stellaris I'm trying to recpature the feeling this game gave me. I'm doubtful even this game will be able to live up to its own hype in my mind but I'm goin for it.

Wat what is Renegades? is this the Starcraft Ghost of Command and Conquer?

Brayze_II posted...

First off no, secondly 'relegated to handhelds' as if that isn't a major part of gaming?

This is actually a pretty brilliant comparison by foolmo. Handhelds were essentially "stuck" in 4th gen for a long time by design and the difference between them and consoles/PC's is really stark. It's literally at the barrier.

Yeah, I think supporters of 2 to 3 are looking at the height of the NES's accomplishments, which were significant, but were not that widespread- many games did just feel like arcade games. But because the NES did accomplish those things, the jump to SNES is smoothed out a bit too. foolmo has the right read

5 to 6 did feel like a big upgrade to photo realism but some would say 6 to 7 was too. I don't think it compares to the 4 to 5 change to the very dimensions we live in. what a patch that was

4 to 5 is the way.

they're just like me

The idea of emulators for current gen is really strange to me - I would 100% expect that to be shut down

Emulators are for being able to play older stuff that's tough to get - should keep it that way. I don't see why anybody would be up in arms about this Yuzu thing. The 3DS thing sucks but... that's not shield to protect a Switch emulator.

I just realized you are making custom banners, thats dope

I just saw Weird yesterday and it was such a treasure. God I love Weird Al

mah mah mah my bologna

I'd love to go to this if it ever comes my way - I've been to Video Games Live and the FF songs always slap

What does this do to the plenary authority argument?

If the delegate system supposedly allows states to decide their votes for president however they individually want at the end of the day (they don't even need to hold a vote or respect the vote), then why would the federal government be able to decide what they have on their ballots like this? Is that argument in shambles or does this not interact with it somehow?

I wish there was a projection of what a hand might give, even if it's a range because of randomness.

Maybe part of the skill is piloting the hands and figuring out what the high score plays are, but quite frankly the math gets out of control to the point that I'm often surprised by what happens.

lmao double trouble goes hard, that was in a bottom 10?

Man, curse work from home. Now I wish I had my own office to put stuff like this up....