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Junpei posted:I saw an idea once for a game where you played an old man strategist member of, like, a ninja clan, taking a team of Determined Youngsters to Save The World, but just before you leave your boss gives you a second-only-to-world-saving objective of "look, our clans' bloodline is going to become stagnant if we don't do something about it, and you're definitely going to get more allies on your quest, so use your tactical genius to get some of these idiots to hook up with outsiders without them knowing you set it up", with bonus points for pairs that a. bring techniques or magic into the clan and b. pairs that are genuinely good matches between people.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 07:42 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 13:24 |
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Actually that’s not true, I enjoyed Rean’s dynamic with Sara a lot (not that she’s a classmate). In unrelated news, I beat Troubleshooter tonight! I liked it overall, but I’ll say more after I digest my thoughts (and sleep).
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 07:45 |
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nrook posted:I actually think the problem is the other way around— I never really got invested in any of Rean’s relationships with his classmates in CS1, and I think that because the relationship system meant Falcom had to give Rean’s friendships with each classmate roughly the same weight. Among other things, this means they can’t really give the guy a romance! This isn’t as big of a problem as I expected (since unlike Sky FC, CS1 is very interested in relationships between characters who aren’t the protagonist) but I do think it hurts the game. It's a pretty common issue in games with relationship systems imo. Like you run into the same thing with Persona. Cold Steel still basically pushes some of Rean's school chums as more significant to him than others but they still give you the option of not hanging out with those guys, so it's not a fullproof solution. Funnily though it does mean that some of Rean's minor friendships that exist outside of the relationship system like Patrick or the cat feel like a bigger deal just because they're not optional.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 07:48 |
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FractalSandwich posted:That would work well with a Crusader Kings kind of flavour where the player is encouraged to be completely amoral and treat the characters as just pawns in their schemes, but I don't think it could be a fluffy romance where you actually like and care about them. It would be near impossible to square that circle. I figured the whole idea was setting up a conflict between those two desires on the part of the player. Do you try to focus on min/maxing the power of the characters you're pairing up, or do you pair people together because you think they're cute? To some extent this already exists in games like Fire Emblem Awakening where the stats of the second generation characters depend on who their parents are.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 07:50 |
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Actually quite enjoying LOTR: The Third Age. Making a FFX clone was certainly an idea and its fun so far.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 08:34 |
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Zore posted:Cold Steel 1's worst bits are when the main character's sister decides to tell her best friend she's attracted to him and the best friend decides it is a good idea to egg her on and encourages her to hit on her brother repeatedly. And also feigns interest in the brother to try to spur the sister on. And this is a long running subplot we cut away to multiple times. Gross
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 08:45 |
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I still haven't finished Cold Steel 4. I enjoyed Cold Steel 1/3 a lot but I didn't like 2 that much. I bought Zero a while back but I dropped, not sure what distracted me from it and at this point, I'm waiting for a Steam release to buy it again and see about finishing it.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 08:46 |
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2 is the worst Trails game frankly
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 08:51 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:CS2's choice is pretty explicitly intimate. He hooks up with his girl of choice in the student dorm after retaking Trista I think I missed or blanked that out, there was a dance that was pretty tame and then it moves on from that. I think Cold Steel 2 was the best CS game, as well. I dropped CS4 (temporarily) because (Few hours into CS4 spoiler) I don't care about team 7 and I just want Rean to do Cool Things. Instead, Rean has been captured and team 7 is just faffing about while the enemies monologue for an hour while every fan-service character reference takes their turn speaking some two word utterance. Like, shut the gently caress up and just get in the mecha and punch the baddies in the face, I don't care about some masterstroke. CS2 introduced controlling mecha, some interesting politics, a world that was slightly less on-rails, and stopped being locked into being at school because you had an airship and the illusion of freedom. GreenBuckanneer fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Jan 8, 2023 |
# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:09 |
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I have made a series of strategic mistakes tonight, first in installing Disgaea 5 to play as a chill turn-based game, but forgetting that those always have a slow tutorial curve to get through as it introduces the systems for the game. So then I remembered I didn't finish Langrisser 1+2 and resumed my save... Right on the mission where you have to kill the commander who begins fleeing on the second turn. I proceeded to fail this about 5 times and eventually, after backing up one mission on the campaign tree, I could grind Ledin a level or so and get him a skill that gave me +2 MOV. This was enough and now, at midnight, with this prick's head in a basket and the Scenario Clear screen up, I realize I probably should have just pushed on through the Disgaea tutorial for less bullshit.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:13 |
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Cold Steel would just be better if any of the other characters were interested in anyone other than Rean. Like why don't any of the girls want to bang Jusis or Gaius or something. They are also cool anime heroes
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:16 |
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as a lesbian, i try to avoid imagining more theoretical het relationships when i can instead i think of things like "when are they going to make a style savvy again" "will they let you kiss the ladies in the new style savvy" and "i think style savvy would be interesting with stat raising sim elements"
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:23 |
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I think I missed or blanked that out, there was a dance that was pretty tame and then it moves on from that. Cold Steel 4's big problem is it wants to bring about like eight games worth of story together, and still be coy about what happened in them. So the majority of the main and secondary characters all comes out of nowhere if you haven't touched any Sky or Crossbell games, and spends 90% of the plot coyly dancing around prior game events.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:25 |
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Tarezax posted:I figured the whole idea was setting up a conflict between those two desires on the part of the player. Do you try to focus on min/maxing the power of the characters you're pairing up, or do you pair people together because you think they're cute? To some extent this already exists in games like Fire Emblem Awakening where the stats of the second generation characters depend on who their parents are. I like the concept, and I'm not saying it's impossible. But you'd have to really want to tell that specific story. If you want to put matchmaking first you can always tell some other story and let the player pair the characters up however they want. The conflict stays on the meta level and everything's copacetic.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 09:35 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Cold Steel 4's big problem is it wants to bring about like eight games worth of story together, and still be coy about what happened in them. So the majority of the main and secondary characters all comes out of nowhere if you haven't touched any Sky or Crossbell games, and spends 90% of the plot coyly dancing around prior game events. I watched a let's play of sky because I'm never going to play it. Playing any non 3d game for me right now, that ship has sailed, and should have happened when the game was new. Tbh I only liked Kevin from 3.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 10:24 |
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Evil Fluffy posted:The series of evens after the prison mission is the best part of XBC3 and probably any Xeno game tbh. i was going to do this but I liberated Fiona's colony instead. now everyone is perma-buffed
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 15:56 |
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GreenBuckanneer posted:I watched a let's play of sky because I'm never going to play it. Playing any non 3d game for me right now, that ship has sailed, and should have happened when the game was new. Tbh I only liked Kevin from 3. okay i dont even love the 2d falcom aesthetic as much as some people do but this is the insane statement i've ever read about it
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:08 |
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also why would you want the girls to fawn over jusis and gaius. jusis is there to be another dude you can pair rean with and who in the world cares about gaius. give fie and laura more explicit romantic text or something, don't attach more of the girls to characters they have no reason to care about in that way. yeah i don't like how much of a harem this story is... so i'm going to dramatically subvert it by making all of the girls straight for different guys instead
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:13 |
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What if I self insert into all those different girls like some kind of hivemind
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:17 |
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i've put 7 hours into sky so far and it is insanely boring and generic for anyone who has every played another jrpg or watched anime before here's to another 40 hours of this
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:17 |
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Mad Wack posted:i've put 7 hours into sky so far and it is insanely boring and generic for anyone who has every played another jrpg or watched anime before i've put 7 seconds into reading this post so far and it is insanely boring and generic for anyone who has ever read another forum post before here's to another 40 hours of this Tired Moritz posted:What if I self insert into all those different girls like some kind of hivemind then go play hakuoki or something you'd probably enjoy otome games. the localization producer for the earlier trails games actually worked on translating one called london detective mysteria that seemed pretty good. there's also a political strategy one called palais de reine that's funny cause it's about marrying hot princes but it also lets you just hook up with your maid, think the steam release of that one got hosed up or something though cause all the reviews say it gives a virus warning when you try to play it now. it's weird The Colonel fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Jan 8, 2023 |
# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:19 |
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tbh I havent played an otome game that I could say is actually good since Tokimeki 3rd
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:20 |
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there's a whole new really low budget girls' side 4 on switch now that doesn't look very good but i've seen a few jp artists get really into it so maybe it is
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:23 |
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The Colonel posted:also why would you want the girls to fawn over jusis and gaius. jusis is there to be another dude you can pair rean with and who in the world cares about gaius. give fie and laura more explicit romantic text or something, don't attach more of the girls to characters they have no reason to care about in that way. yeah i don't like how much of a harem this story is... so i'm going to dramatically subvert it by making all of the girls straight for different guys instead That would own actually
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:24 |
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I figured I might like otome because I love boy's but I can't get into them. Very sad
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:24 |
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fridge corn posted:That would own actually i'd like the video game to be more homosexual and less straight Feels Villeneuve posted:I figured I might like otome because I love boy's but I can't get into them. Very sad there's a lot of them and some of them are pretty cheaply made and really do not have good english translations
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:27 |
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shout out to that norn9 translation that was just. just complete garbage. just absolutely unreadable and often translated dialog in completely nonsensical ways. was that game that directly translated a line of dialog as a guy going "alright. we're both named alice, so lets differentiate our names. i'll be hiragana alice and you'll be katakana alice." an otome game
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:29 |
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The Colonel posted:yeah i don't like how much of a harem this story is... so i'm going to dramatically subvert it by making all of the girls straight for different guys instead I mean... yeah. That is in fact a solution to the harem problem. It literally is. Obligatory pairing off every character straightly is obviously bad writing, but just having characters in relationships isn't inherently so, and if your problem is harem dynamics then getting all the characters in their own independent relationships, even straight, is an actual improvement over the boys and girls all just vaguely floating around the main character.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:30 |
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The Harem Problem
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:32 |
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Caphi posted:all the characters in their own independent relationships, even straight, is an actual improvement over the boys and girls all just vaguely floating around the main character.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:32 |
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The Colonel posted:shout out to that norn9 translation that was just. just complete garbage. just absolutely unreadable and often translated dialog in completely nonsensical ways. yes it is and it actually got retranslated and it's pretty good
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:32 |
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harem my car, i feel safest of all - gary numan
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:32 |
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it solves awkwardly leaving a lot of romantic relationships as a vague open book but it doesn't solve the part where i don't want trails as a series to pair all of the female cast up with the dudes while introducing the funny lesbians who never actually get a girlfriend because i haven't liked most of the straight romantic writing in the past games either
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:33 |
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The real problem is that it's coming up as a choice between theoretical gayness and actual characterization.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:34 |
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like my complaint here isn't the "the women should have other characters they're interested in" part. it's the jusis and gaius part. my idea of fixing the situation isn't to just divide the girls' romantic interest among the boys, specifically. i think that is a very dull idea. give me a party member who actively flirts with angelica
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:34 |
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it owns how weird everyone's arguments become when an anime dude has girls into him. rean is provably insanely popular with women in real life. like actual women who breathe and walk among you and have dreams love rean. this is fact. rean is provably the kind of guy women would be into. obviously being an anime character instead of a real person changes perception but like. still. so what is the problem with women being into him, in the game. it makes sense! even absent popularity polls hes 100% the kind of guy that women would like. but suddenly people are going 'we need to Solve This Problem...' like some of the execution is messy and stupid but if you made everyone have their government assigned heterosexual life partners that writing would also be messy and stupid because its written by the same people.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:35 |
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Caphi posted:The real problem is that it's coming up as a choice between theoretical gayness and actual characterization.
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:35 |
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a harem is when everyone in a video game isn't loving each other
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:36 |
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my idea of the trails power couple is angelica post-time skip meeting ilya platiere and them immediately having intense gay sex for a week
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:37 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 13:24 |
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Feels Villeneuve posted:a harem is when everyone in a video game isn't loving each other a harem is when that godless heathen self-insert anime protag has girls into him even though he cant recite simpsons trivia
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# ? Jan 8, 2023 16:37 |