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also joshua would be ok if it wasn't like for the fact like he brings down other characters like kloe, jossette, and estelle every time he interacts with them. people like complain about rean's stuff in this thread but rean is likable and isn't an active detriment to the characterization of people who are interested in him. the best part of joshua is his dumb emo scarf in 2 and his cool jacket in the third.
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Nov 27, 2019 20:40
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Agean90 posted:mcburn looks and acts like a character someone thought up whole not paying attention in middle school, down to looking like an idiot and being totally cool and unbeatable guyz!!! Also, there is zero doubt in my mind that he chose the name "McBurn" for himself. It's just too dumb and edgy to be anything else.
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Nov 27, 2019 21:00
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Also, there is zero doubt in my mind that he chose the name "McBurn" for himself. It's just too dumb and edgy to be anything else. Also being creative would be too much effort.
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Nov 27, 2019 22:39
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Snooze Cruise posted:also joshua would be ok if it wasn't like for the fact like he brings down other characters like kloe, jossette, and estelle every time he interacts with them. Not going to place the burden of "now show me every example of this happening please" on you of course. I'll just have to believe it. Maybe if I ever replay Sky I'll try to pay attention to it., but the odds of that fancy striking me are pretttty low.
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Nov 27, 2019 22:42
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Snooze Cruise posted:also joshua would be ok if it wasn't like for the fact like he brings down other characters like kloe, jossette, and estelle every time he interacts with them. people like complain about rean's stuff in this thread but rean is likable and isn't an active detriment to the characterization of people who are interested in him. Look at all these wrong opinions about Joshua. Shame on you! Veryslightlymad posted:As annoyed as some people (people who hate fun) get at all the sobriquets in this setting, I'm a little discouraged that most of Old Class VII haven't yet acquired one. Sobriquets are how you know you've made it. Oh hey I learned a new word, I look forward to using it endlessly in conversation for the next two weeks until I get tired of it 
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Nov 27, 2019 22:49
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Joshua can be a big bringdown in FC but that's mainly because of all the NPCs who scold Estelle for not being flawless like he is
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Nov 27, 2019 22:51
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Hwurmp posted:Joshua can be a big bringdown in FC but that's mainly because of all the NPCs who scold Estelle for not being flawless like he is Ironically, my issue with Joshua is because of how much he drags down Estelle in SC. I thought he was fine in FC, but hoo boy did he do bad things to SC.
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Nov 27, 2019 22:52
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King of Solomon posted:Ironically, my issue with Joshua is because of how much he drags down Estelle in SC. I thought he was fine in FC, but hoo boy did he do bad things to SC. the estelle and josh beach convo was like the best part of sc though??? Hwurmp posted:Joshua can be a big bringdown in FC but that's mainly because of all the NPCs who scold Estelle for not being flawless like he is tbf that mostly only comes up in early FC, and estelle IS kind of a reckless idiot for a while until she starts growing out of it e: also yeah mcburn's name fits because of how hilariously lazy it is Yinlock fucked around with this message at 23:12 on Nov 27, 2019 |
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Nov 27, 2019 23:09
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Yinlock posted:the estelle and josh beach convo was like the best part of sc though??? Yes, it was a good scene. It in no way justified the previous 60 hours of Estelle moping
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Nov 27, 2019 23:16
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King of Solomon posted:Yes, it was a good scene. It in no way justified the previous 60 hours of Estelle moping she uh only mopes for like the intro then pulls herself out of it like part of the reason the villains' plans for her fail entirely is that she had already pulled out of her downward spiral a long time ago
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Nov 27, 2019 23:17
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Yinlock posted:she uh only mopes for like the intro then pulls herself out of it She wasn't having a complete breakdown for the entire game, obviously, but she spent a large amount of the game being bummed about Joshua.
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Nov 27, 2019 23:22
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how lame to be bummed about a loved one suddenly turning out to be a secret child assassin and running off to battle the Villains' Club all on their own
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Nov 27, 2019 23:29
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King of Solomon posted:She wasn't having a complete breakdown for the entire game, obviously, but she spent a large amount of the game being bummed about Joshua. Everyone in that game was bummed about Joshua. It's almost like Joshua leaving was a major plot development that affected every character in different ways and helped guide the direction of the story for a good portion of the game. 
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Nov 27, 2019 23:30
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Super Jay Mann posted:Everyone in that game was bummed about Joshua. I mean, yes, obviously. It still loving sucked and made me dislike the character.
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Nov 27, 2019 23:30
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people who like joshua like other bad things, like the Doors
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Nov 27, 2019 23:31
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Snooze Cruise posted:people who like joshua like other bad things, like the Doors What the hell
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Nov 27, 2019 23:34
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i thought joshua and estelle were pretty cute through FC/SC as a pair of dumb teen energies and their dynamic shows why they're into each other and how they build each other up. joshua definitely bears the larger share of the flaws but he has valid reasons to be a hosed up kid, he's self-critical, and he makes tons of visible improvements and ends up being a warm fuzzball by 3rd who (at least where i'm at) picks up on kevin's emotional distancing and reaches out his hand. the kloe -> joshua angle doesnt make sense to me and i thought it was way more profound when kloe wrote her school a play about how captain julia kisses her princess wrt jossette i can at least get how she falls for joshua but i think the continued character writing of her pining for him after he's taken is like, could we not? the way the game uses these to make jokes at estelle's expense that end up with her bewildered while joshua is unperturbed, sucks. giving joshua the power of 'comically unaware harem protag' undermines estelle where she doesn't deserve it. at least the way my brain perceives it, these are poor writing choices dealt to the characters and i see joshua as having enough good qualities that i give him leeway here. in contrast, agate pisses me off because i dont think he has anything going for him past his tragic backstory that exists to put tita in her place or whatever despite that bit in FC being entirely undeserved and her having a much better head on her shoulders as a kid than the full grown dude who just runs and screams at people and is a dick but because he cares. also, in 3rd you can see the double standard of the writing at play when kevin's big sis goes "oh im not here to tell this little boy what to do with his life, he can be a jrpg protag if he wants" 
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Nov 28, 2019 01:52
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Ok, I think I get it at least a bit now. ...tbh, i had completely forgotten that everyone fell for joshua.
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Nov 28, 2019 02:14
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Tae posted:Mcburn is a reminder that you will never get to beat a boss ever in 500 hours, you will always be losing with a lovely cliffhanger I'm playing CS3, but it applies in CS2 just the same. I have no clue what the actual stakes are in these games. Aside from all bad guys talking as cryptically as possible, the purpose and outcomes of fights are impossible to discern. It's one of the biggest disappointments in Cold Steel for me, coming from Sky anyway. I know SC had some of those moments, but not near the level. In CS, you'll fight the same enforcer for the 6th time, who is gonna really give it their all this time, for real. But then when you beat them, everyone catches their breath and departs very agreeably. It's like the fighting is just a way to determine who's gets to stay in the room. There are fights that stop when you get an enemy's HP to a certain percent; but why?? The same thing happens when you get them to zero. It's really bad. I still love Cold Steel though, and I don't think it's all inertia from Sky. Greater than the sum of its parts I guess. And the battle system feels pretty rewarding before you can break it, and fun to break when you can. The games could really use some more death and loving, imo - for how often they treat those concepts as if they are part of the story. I just want some stakes I can pin my attention to. Captain Lavender fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 04:53
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Space Flower posted:in contrast, agate pisses me off because i dont think he has anything going for him past his tragic backstory that exists to put tita in her place or whatever despite that bit in FC being entirely undeserved and her having a much better head on her shoulders as a kid than the full grown dude who just runs and screams at people and is a dick but because he cares. I think you're overselling Tita a little bit by saying she "has a much better head on her shoulders". She's smart in terms of technology, but she's still a kid and doesn't know her limits. She's introduced as needing to be rescued by Estelle and Joshua because she ran off into a monster-filled tunnel without telling anyone, such as the Bracer guild right down the street, who could have provided an escort so she didn't wind up getting over her head - which she did. Later on Estelle, as fond of Tita as she was, had to agree with Agate that it wasn't a great idea to bring Tita to chase after the trained soldiers who would be expecting pursuit. Tita followed anyway, and she screwed up, putting not only herself but also her grandfather in danger. Captain Lavender posted:I'm playing CS3, but it applies in CS2 just the same. I have no clue what the actual stakes are in these games. Aside from all bad guys talking as cryptically as possible, the purpose and outcomes of fights are impossible to discern. It's one of the biggest disappointments in Cold Steel for me, coming from Sky anyway. I know SC had some of those moments, but not near the level. I've only finished CS 2, but I wasn't terribly impressed with the part of the ending which went welp, the whole point of these last 200 hours was so there could be a big mech battle. Why? Come back in another hundred hours and maybe we'll tell you then! That kinda went splat for me. Captain Lavender posted:The games could really use some more death and loving, imo - for how often they treats those concepts as if they are part of the games. I just want some stakes I can pin my attention to. Yeah, it's kinda a little silly how there are more confirmed deaths in CS 1 than there are in CS 2 which is the game with the full-on hot civil war action. Yes, most of those are nameless Garrelia Fortress soldiers pathetically gunned down by a ridiculously successful invasion of two whole airships slowly approaching and landing on landing pads, but those still count. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 04:53
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SC had a bunch of "fight every enforcer multiple times before they actually surrender and don't just say 'oh i was just testing out our plan, seeya later'", it's a Trails thing not a Cold Steel thing.
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Nov 28, 2019 05:06
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They need to have boss fights in the game somewhere and having you fight a named villain is more interesting than some random monster, even if you can't actually defeat the villain because they need to be around to do villain stuff. look at star wars the whole thing went to pot once darth vader died
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Nov 28, 2019 05:11
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Again IMO it's just that Cold Steel is structure very weirdly, with multiple games that try to go through the same sort of plot beats of what was nominally a single game originally. Which leads to the above frustrations but also the trade off is IMO you get a lot more downtime moments and time for the characters to breath which is a big reason why I've grown to actually care and like the CS cast as much as I have. Not so coincidentally I just finished CS3 and I'm just going to go scream into an endless, uncaring void for a while, don't mind me.
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Nov 28, 2019 05:11
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I'm not saying it's wrong to have a fight with a bad guy that you "beat", but then they are fine and fight you later. In SC, that happened once for the 4 enforcers, if I recall. You weren't strong enough, but by the end of the game, you are. CS has just shot that concept into orbit, and use it so much, that you really have no clue what the fight your in even means. And yeah, they can't just have you kill all the bad guys first time, because they decided to make a 500 hour game.
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Nov 28, 2019 05:16
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Captain Lavender posted:I'm playing CS3, but it applies in CS2 just the same. I have no clue what the actual stakes are in these games. Aside from all bad guys talking as cryptically as possible, the purpose and outcomes of fights are impossible to discern. It's one of the biggest disappointments in Cold Steel for me, coming from Sky anyway. I know SC had some of those moments, but not near the level. I agree with pretty much this entire post. At the very end of C4 in CS3, I have no idea what I have accomplished or what the point of the last 60 hours of gameplay was. It legitimately feels like someone took one of the more extensive sidequests out of CS4 and was like "We can sell this as its own game, right?" Nothing seems to connect back the overall Erebonia plot, and it seems to serve the same purpose as Sky FC, but taken to an absurd extreme: "Hey here's a bunch of characters that you'll mostly learn to love, and a bunch of cool poo poo that's definitely going to happen! For real! Just not in this game." E: And to be clear, I still love the series as a whole and if anything happened to my idiot children I would be very upset. I just wish the narrative went uh...literally anywhere in this game? Artix fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 05:26
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I think you're overselling Tita a little bit by saying she "has a much better head on her shoulders". She's smart in terms of technology, but she's still a kid and doesn't know her limits. She's introduced as needing to be rescued by Estelle and Joshua because she ran off into a monster-filled tunnel without telling anyone, such as the Bracer guild right down the street, who could have provided an escort so she didn't wind up getting over her head - which she did. and i did consider these points, but have issues with them. the first one is part of this convention where the writing doen't fully take it seriously that the world outside of cities is covered in terrible monsters that can kill any civilian. characters who end up cornered by monsters and saved by the bracers are often characterized as reckless, but the potential fatality of this isn't fully committed to. a guy just goes "haha that almost cooked my goose! thanks bracers!" and so i usually find myself suspending disbelief for the sake of 'its a jrpg so we threw monsters at you'. in addition to that, the player has to contrast this scene with the fact that she's immediately placed into your party not as an NPC who runs off, but as a playable character with a giant gun. and the second bit comes off as sloppy to me because you can easily consider the scenario where they bring tita with, meaning a) she hears their rescue plan, and b) she's behind the bracers so agate doesn't need to jump out in front of her. i understand the character beats they want to sell, it just contrasts with both how tita is accepted into the party from here on out, and with how other young characters are handled. in my eyes, tita doesn't get treated like this except to set up agate's character motivation. but for some reason, the girl takes all the fault for a guy's emotional baggage. the writing doesn't criticize agate for telling a girl with a giant orbment cannon to gently caress off, it criticizes her for not knowing when to gently caress off and go home. i think most of the series does fine at showing tita is a char who can support the party very well but is still a small kid who needs the help. but it feels like this specific situation just sets her up to fail in an ugly way. (also if anyone played to the end of utawarerumono 2 and the opener of uta 3, i would put that out there as an example of this same general situation happening to a child character, but handled in a much better way.) Space Flower fucked around with this message at 13:17 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 13:05
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oh, and the point i meant to get to with segueing from joshua's girl stuff to these two is that once agate takes a bullet for tita, the writing immediately sets her up as smitten with him. so these together illustrate a trend in FC/SC of "just exist as a semi-decent, playable guy character in a jrpg, and girl party members will fall in love with you" sky has a lot of gay energy but it's usually treated as a one-off but if they're a girl and a boy then the girl instantly develops irrepressible feelings of deep love that have to be addressed seriously. Cake Attack posted:Game would have been greatly improved if anelace hadn't been asking to be estelle's rival but rather what everyone else thought she was anyways ive been enjoying sky a ton and played two of the games in a span of two weeks and these are just some vents i wanted to get out of the way so i can continue enjoying the series. thank Space Flower fucked around with this message at 14:10 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 13:58
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Space Flower posted:in my eyes, tita doesn't get treated like this except to set up agate's character motivation. but for some reason, the girl takes all the fault for a guy's emotional baggage. the writing doesn't criticize agate for telling a girl with a giant orbment cannon to gently caress off, it criticizes her for not knowing when to gently caress off and go home. What? No. The first part of the Bracer Guild's code is about the protection of civilians. Bracers - even Estelle - are professionals, and have received training (even if said training happened off-screen before the game started). Once that training is complete, the Bracer guild officially certifies them to operate in a professional capacity. Your average civilians do not have that level of training, that's what makes them civilians (take note of the word important word "average"). A Bracer's job is to do risky stuff and to not endanger civilians. Big cannon or not, Tita is a civilian, and not just that, a 12-year old civilian. At this point in the story, Agate has met these soldiers in black before, knows they're highly skilled - especially their commander with the red trim. It's likely that the soldiers, in the middle of an operation, will be on alert for pursuit and attack. It is literally in the definition of Agate's job to tell Tita not to come, and it would be even without any "personal baggage". That's why Estelle and Joshua end up agreeing with Agate about that. Tita is criticized because her attack genuinely screwed up the bracer's attempt to take advantage of the enemy moment of distraction. (The only black-clad soldier who had a ranged weapon was the distracted one, and the airship gun didn't have a good angle and couldn't risk hitting their own soldier and the objective). After her two shots from the cannon, she didn't have any plan to deal with very foreseeable consequence of "what if they start shooting back". That could have gotten her killed, and very nearly ended up getting Agate killed. If you still think that the real problem was that Agate should have brought her "because she has an orbal cannon", there's nothing more I can say.
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Nov 28, 2019 15:59
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i tried to stress it before, but i read the chapter. i get what the game wants to say. writing a play-by-play of what happened isn't doing anything to respond to my issue with it. i would've liked writing decisions that treat the characters differently—a scenario that plays out without what agate's character brings to the table. sky has no issue with you putting tita in your party for 90% of it. it doesn't stop boss fights to go, "drat tita, you're just in the loving way and joshua had to throw himself in front of you so that renne didn't tear your guts out." a jrpg series asks the player for a relative suspension of disbelief about 'reality' of the situations to say, "hey, your party of ragtag kids is cool as hell and can save the world," and having a character, after joining the party, treated with a harsh lesson in this way, sucks. the suspension of disbelief is torn down for literally this one scene to say "you brought a kid? we have guns, you morons. you absolute idiots." and my opinion is that's lame. name another scene where guns are treated with this level of mortality as opposed to estelle spinning her staff and deflecting everything sent her way. do you think the games treat gilbert seriously? he has power armor and an automatic rifle. do you see him ripping through your team? there's even a scene with gilbert surrounding estelle with a squad of jaegers. but this scene isn't written to tear away the jrpg rules and go, "well realistically, you're surrounded by super soldiers with guns so you're hosed and should just drop your weapon." no, this scene opts you into a (difficult and timed) fight which, if won, ends by going "estelle just kicked everyone's rear end and that rules." that's the kind of writing i want. Space Flower fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 17:30
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basically it would own more if the bracers were outnumbered and struggling against spec ops dudes until tita makes a heroic entrance wearing a gladiator headband and gladiator belt and hits everyone (except her allies because theres no friendly fire in trails)(by the way we see this later because agate is staring right at tita's flash grenade when they fight a dragon. weird how they expect you to suspend your disbelief of the reality of that situation) with smoke cannon and the spec ops guys all flailed around like idiots and then the one guy left holding the professor sees the helicopter coming but tita pulls out her killstreak computer and lights the s.o.b. up with an orbital laser. agate sees this and goes, "goddamn, that was sick" and starts onto a character arc that culminates with him learning not to project his past trauma onto a child i am not accepting constructive criticism at this time edit: alternatively just find and replace all instances of agate in this chapter with anelace who brings tita along to the tower climb. anelace deflects a volley of gunfire sent tita's way with her sword and gives tita a wink and goes "i've got you, sweetie" and they rescue the professor. tita later wonders why her heart beats faster when anelace winks at her but her first crush fizzles out after meeting renne you can critique this one so that i can turn it into a full fic later Space Flower fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 17:44
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Space Flower posted:i am not accepting constructive criticism at this time your face sucks, go sit under an elephant
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Nov 28, 2019 18:07
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Space Flower posted:i would've liked writing decisions that treat the characters differently—a scenario that plays out without what agate's character brings to the table. sky has no issue with you putting tita in your party for 90% of it. it doesn't stop boss fights to go, "drat tita, you're just in the loving way and joshua had to throw himself in front of you so that renne didn't tear your guts out." You're complaining about Agate objecting to Tita coming along when the game has let you use Tita in your party, but Agate's feelings on civilians going along have been made clear. Additionally, Agate hasn't seen you dragging Tita all over the place, so he wouldn't have any reason to believe that Tita is a super-skilled combatant*. You're kinda complaining "Why does Agate have a character arc instead of being just in his end state from the start"? It's also funny mentioning people needing to throw themselves in front of weaker people, because that's a notable a problem in Cold Steel, where your whole party is the one other people are throwing themselves in front of to save your butts. * Tita is actually pretty mediocre in combat until Sky the Third. Her only strengths are support and status infliction, which sucks in the Sky games because you can only inflict one status per orbment, not one per line. There's only the one optional boss you can fight with her too. Space Flower posted:a jrpg series asks the player for a relative suspension of disbelief about 'reality' of the situations to say, "hey, your party of ragtag kids is cool as hell and can save the world," and having a character, after joining the party, treated with a harsh lesson in this way, sucks. I know that a lot of JRPG's have kid and teen heroes who are stronger than any adults, but the Trails series repeatedly shows that the adults can and often are a lot more powerful and strong than the younger members of the cast. It's not even subtle about that. It's not a series where "the kids are always right and the strongest, the adults are always wrong and useless". quote:name another scene where guns are treated with this level of mortality as opposed to estelle spinning her staff and deflecting everything sent her way. One chapter earlier, where these same soldiers with guns hold people hostage to force the Bracers to back down, and they do? If Trails of Cold Steel count, CS 1 Chapter 5 in Garrellia fortress where soldiers are killed with bullets, and CS 2 Baron Schwarzer takes a burst of bullets to the back and almost dies. Your complaints about inconsistency are valid, and that's a notable weak point which has gotten worse as the series has continued. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 28, 2019 |
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Nov 28, 2019 19:32
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Nov 28, 2019 20:02
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How is Tokyo Xanadu? It's 80% off on Steam again, and the screenshots make it look like it shares a lot of DNA with Cold Steel. Is it worth my time if I'm open to a Cold Steel alternative with more mindless combat and
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Nov 28, 2019 20:37
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It's an action rpg version of Cold Steel (more like Persona given the setting but less mean and cynical.) I'm enjoying it a lot. My only complaint is that I wish it had a dub option. I ended up turning the voices off.
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Nov 28, 2019 20:41
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NRVNQSR posted:How is Tokyo Xanadu? It's 80% off on Steam again, and the screenshots make it look like it shares a lot of DNA with Cold Steel. Is it worth my time if I'm open to a Cold Steel alternative with more mindless combat and It's pretty good. Mechanically it has a ton in common with Cold Steel (aside from combat), but the story is very different. I really enjoyed it.
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Nov 28, 2019 20:45
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That's all Tita, not Agate. Agate is literally always right. Tita pisses me off because she's a small girl who fights with the same weapon it is established earlier in the game is a big deal when Don does. Like, when you first see Don, everyone is shocked he, a large man, is buff enough to use an orbal cannon on foot. Then Tita uses one and no one bats an eye. Tita should not have been a playable character before she had the orbal gear. She should have been an NPC like Dorothy
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Nov 28, 2019 21:44
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:You're complaining about Agate objecting to Tita coming along when the game has let you use Tita in your party, but Agate's feelings on civilians going along have been made clear. Additionally, Agate hasn't seen you dragging Tita all over the place, so he wouldn't have any reason to believe that Tita is a super-skilled combatant*. You're kinda complaining "Why does Agate have a character arc instead of being just in his end state from the start"? You keep summarizing the chapter and Agate’s characterization as if the issue is reading comprehension. I’m saying the decision by the writing to put Agate and Tita in this scenario is lame. I didn’t like the story beat or the messages it conveys.
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Nov 29, 2019 00:25
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don's gun is a giant fuckoff cannon, tita's is like a tiny fireball launcher thing(plus the recoil literally launches her into the air) and yeah as has been said tita is actually kinda garbage in a fight until 3rd, her stats are awful and her orbment sucks. she's a kid. e: in the trails universe once you're strong enough bullets aren't really that big a deal unless it's something ridiculous like that super sniper-rifle C has, but to the average soldier or whatever they're still hella dangerous Yinlock fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 00:37
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Yeah, if you look up artwork it's a real tiny handheld thing.
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Nov 29, 2019 00:39
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