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Mix. posted:counterpoint, from the same game: literal Princess Anastasia who uses an egg to fight people and can photograph monsters and steal their magic to use herself so she's like a weird blue mage who also just fights using an egg Hey now, be fair. It's not just a regular egg. It's a Faberge egg.
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Nov 8, 2021 01:43
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Undernauts - I don't like concentration characters. It feels like stealth characters but without a less wasteful way to get back into concentration and even less stuff that interacts with the concentration mechanic. Which relatedly means I finally gave up on Fighter as a job and made them a fencer who seems to be able to barf out damage with dual wield, dual wield damage bonus, katana bonus, and a single enemy attack. The quiz you have to pass to fight the blue sage was good fun since its basically a "do you know how to look up the bestiary documents we spent a lot of time on?" and not so long as to be frustrating.
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Nov 8, 2021 01:46
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loquacius posted:Also the scholar dude from Octopath was cool and I wish he'd been given a full game instead of an eighth of one I will turn Lysithea and Tharja into walking nukes every single time, I can't stop Tharja in Fire Emblem Warriors of all things comes off as particularly monstrous since the difference in scale between that game and Awakening means a nosferatu or something that used to rip through one guy per turn is suddenly vaporizing entire battalions every couple minutes
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Nov 8, 2021 01:55
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Barudak posted:Undernauts - I don't like concentration characters. It feels like stealth characters but without a less wasteful way to get back into concentration and even less stuff that interacts with the concentration mechanic. Which relatedly means I finally gave up on Fighter as a job and made them a fencer who seems to be able to barf out damage with dual wield, dual wield damage bonus, katana bonus, and a single enemy attack. I felt the same way; spamming maxed-out versions of non-concentration skills seemed more convenient and just as effective most of the time. I wish there were something like Concentration EX from previous Experience games that lasts until you take damage.
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Nov 8, 2021 02:07
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Junpei posted:Who is your favorite offensive mage in any RPG, for any reason (gameplay, writing, design, acting, etc.) Vivi in FFIX. It's not even a contest.
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Nov 8, 2021 02:15
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Libluini posted:Vivi in FFIX. It's not even a contest.
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Nov 8, 2021 02:20
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Thuryl posted:I felt the same way; spamming maxed-out versions of non-concentration skills seemed more convenient and just as effective most of the time. I wish there were something like Concentration EX from previous Experience games that lasts until you take damage. I think its especially silly when I've got a sorcerer who is popping off for 3,000 damage against all enemies if he hits their weakness and my fighters concentration takes two turns and hits a single enemy for 5x an attack damage so... ~700 if it doesn't miss. Sorcerer is bonkers broken.
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Nov 8, 2021 02:25
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super belated, but - good
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Nov 8, 2021 02:31
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Vivi was a good choice I think Magilou made a bad first impression on me or something -- did she start the game off as some sort of minor nuisance, or am I remembering wrong? At any rate I don't have anything non-subjective
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Nov 8, 2021 03:03
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She started as a troll that nobody liked, but she was always extremely good.
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Nov 8, 2021 03:09
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Her gag at the start was she followed you around without helping because she couldn't fight without her familiar around. But as soon as she got him back she did start helping,s o.
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Nov 8, 2021 03:34
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Barudak posted:I think its especially silly when I've got a sorcerer who is popping off for 3,000 damage against all enemies if he hits their weakness and my fighters concentration takes two turns and hits a single enemy for 5x an attack damage so... ~700 if it doesn't miss. I can get a lot of damage out of the fighter's concentration Miners strike, but I'm only busting that out for bosses, everything else gets cyclone strike. And yeah, it's real nice how easy it is for Sorcerers to do a lot of damage. I remember in Strangers Revisited doing anything comparable with a Sorcerer required taking them all the way through the Clocker Class so they can Double use their Cast a Spell 3 times skill and that is way too much extra effort.
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Nov 8, 2021 03:46
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Ibram Gaunt posted:I hated the weird art style they used for Covenant, personally. Yuri especially looked like a doll. the tone balances out as it goes on, the back half of sh2 has a much greater quantity of like, horrifying tragedy and gloom with characters confronting their personal demons. the ending of sh2 is basically the best note the story could go out on i do agree the first chunk of sh2 is weaker though, it doesn't really start on as good of a foot as sh1 does
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Nov 8, 2021 04:09
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The actual intro i think worked well. The invasion of Domrémy and Yuri getting mistletoed. It's the rest of Europe that's the problem.
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Nov 8, 2021 04:36
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Yeah I tapped out not too far in because the zanyness just really was not what I wanted given how much I enjoyed the first. I can believe it gets better, maybe I can convince myself to give it a try again someday. Still think Yuri looks awful though.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:05
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Man if you think Shadow Hearts 2 is too zany you're not gonna like From The New World
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Nov 8, 2021 05:16
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The open zip jumpsuit works for some, but not that boy.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:16
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Junpei posted:Man if you think Shadow Hearts 2 is too zany you're not gonna like From The New World Yeah I played a bit of it out of curiosity's sake years back and was not impressed lol.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:22
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i like sh2 and from the new world did not hook me
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Nov 8, 2021 05:24
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i think sh2 is funny even and i do not like from the new world. the comedy in sh2 works because there is grounding. from the new world has maybe two scenes total where its actually not trying to be the wackiest thing ever.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:25
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From The New World suffers terribly from basically everything in it being a joke or mechanic lifted directly from SH2 except done worse. It ends up feeling like a weird romhack/expansion pack instead of its own game.
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Nov 8, 2021 05:43
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the combat is improved, at least
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Nov 8, 2021 07:48
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Shadow Hearts and Grandia kinda have the same sliding scale of "better combat worse story"
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Nov 8, 2021 07:52
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Stuck in a dungeon from another dimension while a mad usurper to a false god tries to force me to kill and die for his personal enjoyment? Better find 15 cup noodles (found em all!) Sadly my favorite flavor of cup noodle was not included. Big Red Seafood 4 Life. There is a solo portion of the game and if you are a Bulwark I am both unkillable but unable to kill things quickly so the solo boss-fight I just slammed fast speed about 20+ times in a row until the thing finally died from exhaustion I think.
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Nov 8, 2021 08:13
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Lezard Valeth is the best rpg mage. RIP Valkyrie Profile.
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Nov 8, 2021 09:24
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For Undernauts I had a Bulwark but swapped him over for Tactician because I was more reliably tanking with a Ninja's Illusion. I'm not super sure Tactician is the right name for this class, they just seem to be a different flavour of fighter. I really like how the game lets you fully respec both class and skill points.
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Nov 8, 2021 09:35
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Golden Goat posted:For Undernauts I had a Bulwark but swapped him over for Tactician because I was more reliably tanking with a Ninja's Illusion. I'm not super sure Tactician is the right name for this class, they just seem to be a different flavour of fighter. Its fantastic. Its especially good because it also lets you respec level up stat points too (stat boost items don't get to be redone, obviously) and there is only 1 class that uses wisdom and 1 class that uses int so you're never really screwed when you mess around respeccing the other 6 classes. My Bulwark does basically nothing but protect the entire party and then facetank all the damage and be immune to instant kills. It sounds cool, but like, if they were a ninja they could do that and hurt people...
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Nov 8, 2021 09:50
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I should play around with classes, I'm not really using the ninja for anything other than Illusion. I've got Tactician, Fighter, Fencer, Ninja, Cleric & Sorcerer and due to range options I dont feel like i've made a great party comp. Do you get anything that helps detect Yomi-noo or are they usually in fairly noticible dead ends? I also dont know when to really use monflowers, I havn't felt the need to grind at like any point so far. I'm only at the third sinner though.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:00
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Golden Goat posted:I should play around with classes, I'm not really using the ninja for anything other than Illusion. I've got Tactician, Fighter, Fencer, Ninja, Cleric & Sorcerer and due to range options I dont feel like i've made a great party comp. The noodles are either in suspicious dead ends or on suspicious squares that have a different floor type from the rest of the room they're in. I like to put Monflowers near where I've set down a Large Door Flower, once you get access to those, since that means that if I want to grind for better equipment I can just pop in and out of the dungeon and the fights are right there.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:19
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Golden Goat posted:I should play around with classes, I'm not really using the ninja for anything other than Illusion. I've got Tactician, Fighter, Fencer, Ninja, Cleric & Sorcerer and due to range options I dont feel like i've made a great party comp. With basically 1 exception they're always at pretty obvious dead ends. Note, the dead ends means a terminating path or room that lacks treasure of any kind (and in some cases has an irregular looking floor), and can be a single tile, it doesn't need to be an entire hallway but usually is at the end of a path with seemingly nothing there. The 1 exception is in the very next area you are going to get into you'll have a section where standalone puddles contain treasure . Don't stop investigating those water tiles when you reach the end of that section, the last one has it. As far as character classes go, Fighter is kind of a bust. All of the classes become wreckers in various ways if you dump all your skill points into them, but they are absolutely not created equal. Especially when the second tier upgrades 100% are not equally good as the others so prioritizing who gets those precious mid game promotion items is key. If you're trying to break the games difficulty curve absolutely every single skill point needs to get funneled into your sorceror and your first promotion item goes to them. The increase in damage with spells and their AoE nature is just unmatchable for how easy it is to get up and running and how few items you need to make it happen. Hunter is a class that is a good source of single target damage but its generalist promotion upgrade gives it a spell that grants your party a permanent %damage reduction buff which is obviously real, real good. Bulwark I feel like needs a ton of skill points to come fully into its own, but with its promotion eventually they can block for the entire party, be immune to all one hit kills, take 30% reduced damage with a chance at 30% additional reduction to damage.
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Nov 8, 2021 10:27
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Junpei posted:Who is your favorite offensive mage in any RPG, for any reason (gameplay, writing, design, acting, etc.) I'm late to the party but I'm really fond of Constance von Nuvelle from the FE: 3 houses DLC. There is one element of her writing that I'm not too fond of: she's got some sort of fantasy PTSD that manifests itself as a vaguely explained bipolar disorder. If she's standing in sunlight, she acts all depressed and dejected, and she constantly berates herself. If she's standing in the shade or indoors, she's cocky and confident. Her disorder was caused due to her entire extended family being wiped out during an aristocratic power struggle. There's some poor explanation about how this happened on a sunny day so she got traumatized by the sun. It's also a gameplay conceit (she gets +4 ATK in the sun and +4 DEF in the shade, or the other way around. I forget.) I don't actually personally know people with mental illnesses, especially not bipolar disorder, but I'm fairly certain that whatever Constance has is a poor representation of mental illness. In addition, it is almost always played for laughs. There's a fair deal of scenes where she stands in the sunlight just so others can remark upon it, or so she can say things which are out of character to her and on which she regrets / retracts when she's in the shade again. However, the positive parts outweigh this in my opinion: - What I think is a really powerful piece of writing, is the fact that she accepts her disorder for what it is. There's no cure, no magical solution to her mental illness. She learns to deal with it and navigate life with it. And she doesn't let it get in her way of her other ambitions. I think that, while playing her mental illness for laughs is in kind of poor taste as i remarked upon above, I do think it's a valuable piece of writing that there's not necessarily any permanent cure for your mental illness, but you can learn to live with it and achieve great things despite it. There's also no romanticisation of her mental illness: it's explicitly treated by Constance and by her supporting characters as an obstacle, but one she's determined to overcome. - It's strongly implied that her confident persona is her "real" personality: Mercedes (an old friend) seems to think Constance is acting her usual self when she meets her indoors, and is surprised at her change in personality when they move outdoors. I'm also a sucker for confident women, and most of the time the game at least has the decency to give Constance an indoor scene and/or overcast outdoor scenes to make her real personality shine through most often. However, she also seems to genuinely have self-doubt that she hides behind her brash and confident façade, and she's really needy / demanding of praise (like every time she invents a spell with... limited use) and I think the writers intended for that part of her personality to be exaggerated when she's standing in sunlight. - Her main drive in life is to restore her house to its former glory, and get her titles back. I'm a sucker for ambitious women, especially if it's political ambitions. - Strong ojou-sama vibes. I'm a sucker for elegant / refined women. - Acts like she's hot poo poo but can actually kind of back it up. She's got real good stats and stat growths as a mage, and gets access to powerful spells like bolting so she can nuke enemies from long range. I think she's a stronger mage than the fan-favourite Lysithea for this reason. You can also train her into a fist-focused brawler who pretty much incarnates the "I cast fist!" meme, or a magical samurai with her strength in swords. - There's one scene where Ferdinand (another childhood friend and fellow aristocrat) offers his sympathies to Constance, and she blows him off. She makes it clear that everybody gives her sympathies, but nobody actually bothers to help her, and he can keep his sympathies for himself is he's going to join the conga line of people tripping over themselves to be polite to her while also reminding her of everything she has lost in life. It's a good scene. There's also one scene where he catches her outside and her mood is flipped to her dejected/self-criticising alter ego, and for once, it's not played as a laugh or quick joke at her expense but as a device to let Constance express her felings that she normally hides behind her brave face: Constance tells Ferdinand she has sincere doubts she can ever achieve her dream alone and she wished somebody were there to help her and "pull her up". When they meet again afterwards, she apologises for her indiscretion but does not actually walk back on those feelings she expressed. Ferdinand tells her he would like to help her so they can both achieve their dreams together, as equals instead of him "pulling her up", and Constance accepts, but jokes that he will have to do his best to keep up with her. It's really good character development over the course of three scenes. - She's actually kind of a weirdo, in a good way, and always experimenting with magic. She magically alters tea to be rainbow-coloured and is so proud to show it off to everybody who wants to see (and many who don't). When another character suggests she should lick more boots if she wants to get anywhere in life, she magically alters boots to be made of licorice and is surprised to discover he didn't mean it literally. - She takes ownership of her mistakes. When the main character assists her in a magical experiment, and it fails, you can say "sorry" and she says "what are you apologising for? You did everything as instructed, the failure is on me!" and then a few seconds later, if you refer back to it, she says "are you still thinking about that? I've already moved on, try to keep up with me" and she moves on to her next experiment. - Despite her extremely confident attitude, she's a genuinely good person who cares for others. She has a disagreement with one character who believes that allies are basically dead weight and you shouldn't get attached, versus Constance who tells them they're wrong and nobody is a self-made (wo)man and we all need to rely on each other. That's a lot of words, but basically I think all of her elements come together to paint a picture of a confident, refined, ambitious woman who has the skills and drive to back up her bravado, but who also has genuine moments of self doubt, and who also has a tender side and appreciates her allies. She has a mental illness, and the game never gives you the false hope that it can permanently be "fixed". But she refuses to let it dominate her life. I think it's really strong writing for what is essentially a secondary character that was introduced in DLC: Constance is really multifaceted and I'm impressed with how much the writers managed to do with the little screentime she gets. Compare this to characters like Maribelle from Fe: Awakening, who is pretty much also the ojou-sama mage archetype but has way less layers and pretty much beats the "I'm prissy and noble, don't even talk to me you commoner" drum over the course of the whole game. EDIT: also her voice acting is top notch by both the English and Japanese VAs. They really sell her personality and her laugh is both amazing and painful at once. Deltasquid fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Nov 8, 2021 |
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Nov 8, 2021 11:45
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I'll have a lot to say about Caligula Effect 2 in the near future, and most of it will be positive, but there's one thing I want to complain about right now: it's such a ridiculous flavour failure that the genius tactician guy is a completely unreliable dodge tank. He literally has a skill called "God Does Not Play Dice", which only procs when an attack randomly misses him. Come on. And don't try to tell me it's a subtle, learnèd joke about how wrong Einstein was about quantum mechanics. I'm not buying that.
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Nov 8, 2021 13:05
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Are the dungeons better than the first game and does it still have the insanely convoluted yet utterly impossible to engage with relationship chart featuring 500 people?
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Nov 8, 2021 13:19
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Respectively: a bit better, and yes, but it behaves much more like a conventional sidequest system. Though it's still a little quirky.
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Nov 8, 2021 13:33
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Though I think the maximum tolerable dungeon length in 'gula is mainly determined by how long any given player can listen to the song on loop before it starts to annoy them, and for me that's a very long time. So maybe I'm not the best judge.
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Nov 8, 2021 13:35
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Barudak posted:
I have my Bulwark on their Comprehensive promotion and if they take a hit guarding someone they can smack the enemy back for a surprising amount of damage.
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Nov 8, 2021 13:45
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CubeTheory posted:Lezard Valeth is the best rpg mage. Evil Harry Potter who is so absurdly thirsty he ruins space and time itself and still got shut down so hard he was erased from existence
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Nov 8, 2021 19:00
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Sakurazuka posted:Are the dungeons better than the first game and does it still have the insanely convoluted yet utterly impossible to engage with relationship chart featuring 500 people? There's like a fifth as many people which makes it somewhat less of a headache if nothing else.
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Nov 8, 2021 19:36
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You also get Level 1 on one talk with them, not like 3
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Nov 8, 2021 22:04
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Blue Reflection 2 is 100% certified gay if anyone was wondering, no 'friends forever' trophies here.
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Nov 8, 2021 23:50
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