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Yeah, despite the obvious pitfalls (Die For Me! is naturally going to gently caress any and all plans up now and then) it seems like that boss would be critically weak to the "bash face in with Evil Flow + Matchless abuse" strategy. Or Omega + Matchless abuse. Or anything involving Multi-Strike.
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Mar 23, 2012 20:34
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This might come off as a lame rant but I have to say I preferred the explanation behind summoning from DS1. "Your phone can quickly perform complex magical rituals" was a lot easier to believe than "Your phone has the physical ability to re-order dark matter somehow," and the explanation from DS1 accounted for the fact that your ordinary humans turned into spell-flinging killing machines who can take machine-gun fire like champs. Sure, that account was little more than "magic!" but at least there's something, right? Also, some spoiler-y talk, but did anyone think that Anguished One's ending felt really vague and undefined? Okay, so we're creating a new world. Wait, did civilization disappear? Did everyone else disappear? Are we back to the stone ages, creating a 10-man hunter-gatherer society? Why did we ever think this was a good idea? I'm replaying through the game to see the other endings (I'm particularly interested in the communist utopia), and I hope the whole "changing the entire goddamned world" plan is a bit better fleshed out in those. I think I'm getting too old to suspend my disbelief.
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Mar 23, 2012 22:06
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The biggest suspension of disbelief is that all these characters use flip phones.
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Mar 23, 2012 22:24
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TurnipFritter posted:The biggest suspension of disbelief is that all these characters use flip phones. I still have no idea how the MC's phone actually flips. It's gotta have some sort of weird flip-swivel mechanic with how it's set up and I can't in the slightest envision it.
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Mar 23, 2012 22:36
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Smartphones didn't really take off over there until the iPhone came out. Their gravity-defying boob technology is LIGHTYEARS ahead of ours, though!
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Mar 23, 2012 22:45
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Justice posted:Their gravity-defying boob technology is LIGHTYEARS ahead of ours, though! A week or so back, while looking for a character portrait to show a friend how ridiculous DS2 characters are, I came across this image which really says it all: 
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Mar 23, 2012 22:52
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KataraniSword posted:I still have no idea how the MC's phone actually flips. It's gotta have some sort of weird flip-swivel mechanic with how it's set up and I can't in the slightest envision it.  ?King of Solomon posted:A week or so back, while looking for a character portrait to show a friend how ridiculous DS2 characters are, I came across this image which really says it all:  I really like boob size/logic chart.
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Mar 23, 2012 22:59
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King of Solomon posted:A week or so back, while looking for a character portrait to show a friend how ridiculous DS2 characters are, I came across this image which really says it all: Brilliant. 
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Mar 23, 2012 23:10
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I'm still sad about the fact that flip screen phones are dying out. They just look way cooler than smartphones and their ilk. You can do a dramatic flip opening with a drat smartphone, man.
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Mar 23, 2012 23:26
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Infinity Gaia posted:I'm still sad about the fact that flip screen phones are dying out. They just look way cooler than smartphones and their ilk. You can do a dramatic flip opening with a drat smartphone, man. I still kinda regret switching from flip phone to smartphone. I miss my flip phone. 
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Mar 23, 2012 23:33
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Technique posted:I still kinda regret switching from flip phone to smartphone. I miss my flip phone. I still got my flip phone  I can't do anything on it but call people or send text messages, though 
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Mar 24, 2012 01:32
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I had given up on beating Alice on this run, so I was going to come back with a STR/AGI MC on the next. But I thought I may as well see how much Macca I could get out of the battle before retreating. And somehow I loving won! Complete bullshit victories,  . Hinako is the best. I might still make that Shiva eventually, I've got all the bits already.I'm going to get all the awards even if it kills me. Now it's looking a bit more positive. Just got to complete the game again, get the bonus boss I missed, complete the game another two times, fill up the compendium, and crack all the skills.
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Mar 24, 2012 01:50
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I started playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin. When does the story really start to pick up? It's interesting so far, but not really engaging. I feel like they keep introducing new elements so often that its getting hard to keep track of. I'm entering Mu for the video shoot now. Should I be getting into the meat of the story soon or do I still have a bit to go?
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Mar 24, 2012 02:32
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Holy CRAP, the seventh day SUCKS. Multiple turns in a row and something like 6-7 range attacks? Screw you Atlus.
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Mar 24, 2012 02:33
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Krad posted:Holy CRAP, the seventh day SUCKS. Multiple turns in a row and something like 6-7 range attacks? Screw you Atlus. Get demons with Evil Flow in at least two of your parties. It'll let you trivialize the almost comical levels of bullshit you have to deal with otherwise (especially on AO's pain train). e: vvvvv Reflect Phys is your friend. Neither the final boss nor his annoying little Multi-Strike sidekick have Pierce, so if you want to ignore everything in the fight other than Supernova you can just make it so that every living thing on your side has some form of Null/Drain/Repel Phys. Repel is nicer because the main body will be helping kill itself every single time you attack it or it attacks you. UselessLurker fucked around with this message at 02:50 on Mar 24, 2012 |
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Mar 24, 2012 02:46
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Yeah, I don't know how to beat the final boss Kill Polaris (Daichi route). I keep getting completely boned by the third phase pretty much immediately mowing my entire teams down (except for the MC, who then gets completely hosed over by being the only dude left on the map.)
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Mar 24, 2012 02:46
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UselessLurker posted:Get demons with Evil Flow in at least two of your parties. It'll let you trivialize the almost comical levels of bullshit you have to deal with otherwise (especially on AO's pain train). I already did that against Yamato after dying 5 times in a row and it completely felt like I was cheating. The "difficulty" on this last part of the game makes no freakin' sense.
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Mar 24, 2012 03:10
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DeathBySpoon posted:I started playing Persona 2: Innocent Sin. When does the story really start to pick up? It's interesting so far, but not really engaging. I feel like they keep introducing new elements so often that its getting hard to keep track of. I'm entering Mu for the video shoot now. Should I be getting into the meat of the story soon or do I still have a bit to go? Stuff picks up a bit after the next dungeon in that you have a purpose and some solid leads. After that there's one long-ish dungeon and a couple of short ones before stuff really gets wacky. What are you having trouble keeping track of? IS never really stops introducing crazy poo poo, so it's probably good to get a solid foundation before the story goes off the rails.
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Mar 24, 2012 03:43
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Krad posted:I already did that against Yamato after dying 5 times in a row and it completely felt like I was cheating. The "difficulty" on this last part of the game makes no freakin' sense. I dunno man, I kind of feel that SMT games go by the motto: "gently caress, or be hosed."
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Mar 24, 2012 04:38
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Krad posted:I already did that against Yamato after dying 5 times in a row and it completely felt like I was cheating. The "difficulty" on this last part of the game makes no freakin' sense. Yeah, it just felt to me like the ability to deal damage spirals wholly out of control and it becomes a game of who wipes the other team with a single attack first. Evil Flow is just a particularly good way to ensure that it's you who does.
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Mar 24, 2012 10:58
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I finally got through the Kill Polaris ending, and I must say, it's a lot more depressing than the Nayoa ending from DS:Overclocked. I still prefer it over the True "Reset Button" Ending. Ronaldo and Yamato's endings were horrible both in their own way with Polaris changing mankind to be super helpful or super competitive.
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Mar 24, 2012 17:13
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Dehry posted:I finally got through the Kill Polaris ending, and I must say, it's a lot more depressing than the Nayoa ending from DS:Overclocked. I still prefer it over the True "Reset Button" Ending. Ronaldo and Yamato's endings were horrible both in their own way with Polaris changing mankind to be super helpful or super competitive. Well, Naoya is more on par with Yamato, in that they're both the Chaos side of their respective games (and they both look loving identical, goddamn, it's called SUBTLETY, character designers) But yeah, that ending is the "you hosed everything up, good job!  " ending. I don't know if it's quite as bad as Yuzu's ending in the original DS, though.
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Mar 24, 2012 19:39
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Dehry posted:I finally got through the Kill Polaris ending, and I must say, it's a lot more depressing than the Nayoa ending from DS:Overclocked. I still prefer it over the True "Reset Button" Ending. Ronaldo and Yamato's endings were horrible both in their own way with Polaris changing mankind to be super helpful or super competitive. Ronaldo's ending was horrible? Did I miss something? I finished it last night and the gist of it was "Everyone loves and helps each other and puppies are happy and there's rainbows too." Even Polaris says at the start of the last fight "yeah that was my plan too, good going guys."
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Mar 24, 2012 20:05
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Heavy neutrino posted:Ronaldo's ending was horrible? Did I miss something? I finished it last night and the gist of it was "Everyone loves and helps each other and puppies are happy and there's rainbows too." Even Polaris says at the start of the last fight "yeah that was my plan too, good going guys." It is the end to free will. Everyone is happy and helpful and so-on, but at the cost of being controlled and altered to never be anything but. It is a Law ending, which tends to be "things are good" with the drawnback of "as long as you understand that you've given up all right to self-determination."
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Mar 24, 2012 20:07
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Heavy neutrino posted:Even Polaris says at the start of the last fight "yeah that was my plan too, good going guys." He says that on Yamato's path, too. Basically, Polaris is okay with anything as long as it involves destroying the current world order and him not getting killed.
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Mar 24, 2012 20:08
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^^^ Oh, I didn't know that. Yamato's ending is next on my schedule, so I'll see how awful it is, I guess. How different is the "True" Daichi ending compared the the normal one? Is it worth a fifth playthrough?ImpAtom posted:It is the end to free will. Everyone is happy and helpful and so-on, but at the cost of being controlled and altered to never be anything but. It is a Law ending, which tends to be "things are good" with an unspoken air of "as long as you understand that you've given up all right to self-determination." I didn't catch any text relating to that. Instead of being self-centered jerks people finally break free of the prisoner's dilemma and realize that the better outcome for everyone is co-operation and altruism. There's some weird text at the end about "the end of competition" but no insinuation at all that people are no longer free; people are just as free as ever, just more inclined to help people instead of focusing on themselves..
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Mar 24, 2012 20:11
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I was a bit dissapointed that each route didn't seem to have distinct paths in themselves. I really liked that about Naoya's route in Overclocked. The ability to rule with an iron fist and basically be everything Naoya wanted you to become, or retaining most of your humanity and becoming King of Bel to help people was pretty cool.
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Mar 24, 2012 20:15
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Heavy neutrino posted:
Except they aren't. If people were free, then there would be competition, there would be selfishness, there would be ambition and desire to control, and so-on. The entire point of the ending is that all of those fundamentally human things are gone. Everyone has been altered. That's the entire point of what Yamato and Ronaldo want to do. It is complete alteration of humanity. It may be for a positive/negative goal but in the new world you no longer are able to do these things. It's perfect egalitarianism regardless of people's wills. That is why The Anguished One's plotline is about replacing Polaris entirely. It is about complete freedom, but at the cost of losing the guiding hand. As long as Polaris exists, it controls humanity's destiny. Yamato and Ronaldo both just want to guide how it is being controlled. Now, you might think Perfect Egalitarianism is a good thing. I'm certain there are people who think Yamato's Merit-Based society is also completely idea. To someone who doesn't agree with either, both are terrifying dictatorships of mind, body and soul. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Mar 24, 2012 |
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Mar 24, 2012 20:17
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ImpAtom posted:
I think this part is true (although the word "complete" should be left out), but your explanation of how this is a loss of freedom, and of how this is terrible, is quite stretched. I for one never chose to be born into humanity's current set of behaviors and motives, and yet I don't feel unfree, or under any sort of tyranny. Is nature exerting total tyranny over our mind and soul for elevating the set of behaviors and motives that we are under through evolution, regardless of how we feel about them? I don't think so. In any case, if the end result is great for everyone (Ronaldo), can it really be called terrible?
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Mar 24, 2012 20:44
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The way I read Ronaldo's ending was "Everybody started helping one another, oh yeah we're too busy helping one another to do anything else" I suppose it's more the loss of freedom for happiness thing that makes me not like it. Most of the endings are up on Youtube (some emulated, some shaky cam) now if you don't want to go through all the stories.
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Mar 24, 2012 21:11
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Heavy neutrino posted:In any case, if the end result is great for everyone (Ronaldo), can it really be called terrible? Yes, actually. It very easily can. There is a reason that a benevolent dictatorship is still considered a problem. If you brainwashed everyone in the world into following your orders and only ordered them to do good, kind, helpful things that made the world a better place? You're still brainwashing everyone in the world and taking away their freedom and right to self-determinism. If you consider the idea of a peaceful world more appealing than one where people have freedom than... well, the Law path is probably for you. And it's not really possible to mesh egalitarianism and freedom, because beyond a certain point you have to quash someone's freedom to maintain it. Now you can make the argument about a world where nobody feels ambition or the need to advance or anything like that but... well, the only way that can be maintained is by limiting things so that people can never think or act that way. That is what makes it different from a 'regular' society. It is peace achieved by limitations. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 06:49
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ImpAtom posted:
The problem is that you're misinterpreting what actually happens in the ending. Nobody gets brainwashed, and nobody is "ordered" to do anything. Remember how the theme of the 7th day is that the loser factions will back up the ideology of the winner faction -- thus unifying the will of species? Again, you're not making a convincing argument for why it's taking away people's freedom. There is no dictatorship, and there is no power exerted on anyone against their will. You're simply taking the word "freedom" and defining it as the current state of affairs, as if this piss poor money-based society can somehow be considered free. I'd argue that in an equal society, people would be more free as opportunity would not be limited by wealth. quote:And it's not really possible to mesh egalitarianism and freedom, because beyond a certain point you have to quash someone's freedom to maintain it. Now you can make the argument about a world where nobody feels ambition or the need to advance or anything like that but... well, the only way that can be maintained is by limiting things so that people can never think or act that way. That is what makes it different from a 'regular' society. It is peace achieved by limitations. No, that's ridiculous! You don't need to quash anyone's freedom to trample over others for their own gain because this drive no longer exists!
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Mar 25, 2012 10:34
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You're wasting your time, neutrino. The argument you're making is essentially the argument for Strange Journey's Law ending, which is also the best path in that game for the exact same reasons. Few people seem to be able to grasp that the ending you are supporting wouldn't be terrible for anyone living in it on an objective level, because all emotion-based objection to it would never happen once it is in place and it is impossible for anyone to get a raw deal.
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Mar 25, 2012 12:44
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Heavy neutrino posted:No, that's ridiculous! You don't need to quash anyone's freedom to trample over others for their own gain because this drive no longer exists! And that is exactly why it's terrifying. The only way it can't be is if you view any sort of selfish ambition or drive to succeed as a bad thing and feel it should be extracted from the human race. In which case, yep, Law is exactly the path for you. As long as it is utterly impossible for any human ever to have selfish ambition and drive, you have created a society where nobody is free because they are literally incapable of acting in a certain way. Just because someone has lived their entire life with shackles on their legs has adjusted it doesn't mean they are not shackled. It'll probably be a great place to live. You'll never be unhappy, or need, or want. You just won't ever not be shackled to a certain mindset either. You'll have a society where selfish assholes can't exist, but at the cost of a society where those selfish assholes can't exist. I mean, Ronaldo is (to my mind) a better state of affairs than Yamato, but the only ending I can view as truly "happy" is The Anguished One, where you break the cycle of Polaris entirely and give humanity complete freedom to create a world with no shackles at all. That's my personal mindset, and certainly probably has flaws as well. A good SMT ending usually is a mixed bag that is happy depending on your viewpoint, not an Objectively Good End. Even Daichi True End ends with Polaris intact. It's a happy ending for the characters in that it is a return to Status Quo, probably for the rest of their lives, but like Gin's ending in Devil Survivor 1 it is with the unspoken hint "for now" because Polaris is still around. ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 13:23 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 13:10
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The alignment endings in Megaten games tend to be pretty extreme, it seems like they somewhat want you to go for the "gently caress everyone I'll do it my way" neutral paths a lot of the time. Of course, that is often the best choice when law is "everyone is eternally frozen into place, able only to worship the main law-being of the game so he will be all powerful (and see everyone is forever safe, because they can't even move)" and chaos is "Absolutely everyone will kill until killed forever because Mad Max but with demons too is true freedom".
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Mar 25, 2012 13:18
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ImpAtom posted:And that is exactly why it's terrifying. The only way it can't be is if you view any sort of ambition or drive to succeed as a bad thing and feel it should be extracted from the human race. In which case, yep, Law is exactly the path for you. Do you know what the single biggest determinants of a person's life views and socioeconomic opportunities are? They are: 1) Where they were born. 2) What social class they were born into. 3) Who their parents are. At which point it loops to 1 and 2. Basically, the biggest factors that shape who you are as a person are completely out of your control. In other words, the actual world is more or less already without real meaningful freedom for the vast majority of people. As a result, this notion that Ronaldo's ending creates a society where no one is free is a criticism without any real bite to it. People are already moved by societal forces in a certain way; the SMT endings simply change what those societal forces push you to do. In the case of the Anguished One, there is absolutely no reason to believe that society simply wouldn't repeat as it already was... since, erm, it was the Anguished One who nurtured that to begin with! It is "his" definition of freedom. You basically have to believe that humanity is great ergo it will turn out great, and... I see no reason to believe that. There is no reason to assume that ambition and drive would disappear in Ronaldo's society. There is an equal if not greater likelihood that it will simply be redirected to the highly socialistic pursuit of, say, agricultural improvements, housing improvements, ad nauseum.
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Mar 25, 2012 13:41
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Tallgeese posted:You basically have to believe that humanity is great ergo it will turn out great, and... I see no reason to believe that. In short, you have absolutely no faith in humanity and believe that the only way for anything meaningful to happen in the setting is for humanity to give up its free will to a higher power. Again, that's the definition of a Law end. It's fine for you if you agree. Inevitably both extremes are going to have people who are comfortable with it. Anyone who isn't is going to find either Law or Chaos pretty damned uncomfortable. (Which is the entire reason you have a third faction in the first place.) It'd be kind of pointless if Law or Chaos' arguments were entirely meritless because... why include them at all then? Regardless, Law creates a universe where certain kinds of people can't exist. Even if 90% of the kinds of people who can't exist as crazy assholes, the lack of the other 10% isn't something I consider an acceptable loss. It is the loss of freedom, even if it's just the loss of freedom to be selfish. You can make arguments about lacking freedom now, but at least people can be both altruistic and assholes, which is at least a wider range of "freedom." ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 14:25 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 14:03
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Answer the actual argument please; don't simply make a post attempting to attack one relatively insignificant comment, especially when it borders on simply attacking me personally (where does subordination to a higher power even come in here? I never mentioned that at all). The comment's purpose was to point out that there is no real safeguard against history simply repeating itself, especially considering that the Anguished One caused the problem in the first place, which he completely admits to. Past Neutral endings usually had the (temporary) safeguard of most of the dissenters being dead, which is actually a pretty effective safeguard if it is relatively complete. Law and Chaos are not meant to have merit as a philosophical stance. The decision is rigged by the developers so that the "real answer" is their preferred Neutral ending. If they were truly meant to have merit, there would be no such thing as a "true ending", and all endings would be fundamentally seen as valid. Finally, your rebuttal does not address what I already pointed out, that it is not really a meaningful loss of freedom. People are not "free" to be altruists or assholes, as you say: as previously pointed out, one's overall temperament is chiefly determined by birth factors. Tallgeese fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Mar 25, 2012 |
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Mar 25, 2012 14:26
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I thought the SJ law ending was worse because it did literally show everyone on giant pillars worshipping Zelenin and God. Yeah it also probably be equal but that just didn't sit right with me vs. the ending in DS2.
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Mar 25, 2012 15:27
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| # ? May 18, 2024 14:36 |
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I actually envisioned the Law ending of SJ as being basically like the last bit of the game, where the world is largely functional but fundamentally changed.
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Mar 25, 2012 16:07
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