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Nohman posted:I am ready for more Rude Hero adventures in punching. Though, come to think of it, did Yuri EVER transform in a cutscene in the first game? Without checking any footage to double check, I believe the only instance is when he fuses with the Seraphic Radiance (and promptly loses control and levels Shanghai.) SH1 is a very "I told you that story so I could tell you this one" affair for SH2 honestly, so... 
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Mar 1, 2019 22:26
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| # ¿ May 10, 2024 18:26 |
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I mean, those rifles the rank and file were using were bouncing off Devilman, at that point drawing a service pistol is just going to get you laughed at as you ineffectually ping a bullet off an eyeball then get ganked for annoying the monster. Reacting with panic might instead get you enough sympathy for sidekick status.
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Mar 3, 2019 14:19
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Haaa, I just noticed the banner designs this time around. Perfect. Considering it's kinda on a par with the holy relics SH1's endgame was handing us, Nicolai carting around the sword of Galahad seems overkill even for a Cardinal. I mean, "demon haunting a backwoods church" isn't quite on the same tier as "interstellar god". Okay so Devilman punched that god out but why would the church know that!
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Mar 3, 2019 21:27
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Generalizing, SH2 has a Final Fantasy-like design philosophy: it gives you a lot of tools, some explained better than others, but designs the bulk of the enemies on the assumption you didn't really understand much of it and will just barrel through the game underlevelled and hacking away with basic physicals and maybe a healing spell. Using combos or some of the other as-yet-unrevealed mechanics will let you completely style on enemies, and do completely absurd bullshit like one-round (or occasionally OHKO) every boss in the game, but you will never be road blocked if you don't really grok it.
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Mar 3, 2019 21:47
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Omobono posted:
Naaaah, nah. remember that the Church in this setting planned to kill Roger Bacon as soon as he gave them immortality (he of course got his then set it all on fire to get around that) and their general "we rule the world and must keep humans beneath our bootheel" attitude started Albert on his path to "summon god, he'll kill everyone and sort this poo poo out" jRPG baddie status. They just want all the Doom Artifacts for themselves so nobody can use that stuff against them. More of a lawful evil if you will.
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Mar 9, 2019 22:55
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I imagine if they actually Lore'd it they'd come up with something along the lines of: Wagner's journey into the deep, pre-Christian myths of the German people tapped into the powers of the near-forgotten gods of old. Without knowing his pen flowed not merely with his human research and imagination, but with the barest touch of the divine spirit of Wotan, King of the Gods and Lord of the Berserker. Each word became a song to empower and revivify their namesakes, and each stage direction, each note of swordplay described in the epic scenes, infused with wisdom meant to lead one to Valhalla. Any German reading these words will commune with their ancient gods and ancestors, and swell with valor with which to make the Valkyries turn their gaze.
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Mar 16, 2019 23:18
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InfiniteDreamer posted:Personally,when it comes to these sorts of games(especially JRPGs) I don't much care what the characters are wearing as I'm not the type to get worked up about that and having them isn't a mark off a game for me. In general, i don't mind fanservice designs.That said,i will give you that this design is a bit much. But I agree with AM and think that the other things they do to Karin's character are much worse than a simple cheesecake outfit. The larger problem to me? Fanservice is kinda whatever really. I mean, let's be real, there are no shortage of people way, way more excited about that army uniform on a well-endowed red head than Karin's main outfit. But it's also just kinda an ugly outfit. I'd argue that another PC in Covenant and Shania from FtNW are higher on just overall intentional sex appeal, and that Alice's outfit is probably more fanservicy for sheer fetish factor, but all of those outfits are more aesthetically coherent and interesting than Karin's weird tiny shirt, huge belt, and high-slit shorts all in different colors. It's not just fanservice, it's badly done and doesn't look like something the character (or any person) would choose to wear. It looks like what it probably is: some artist checking off a bunch of boxes for their target demo.
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Mar 17, 2019 02:19
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Night10194 posted:I mean they literally say it's old clothes from the creepy magic puppet rather than actual clothes a person would be wearing, that makes it significantly creepier that she never changes this outfit. Well... Let's say there's a couple inaccuracies in that statement. And also there are... shenanigans with the doll's outfits too. Not that this negates "okay so those where the only feminine clothes in Geppetto's apartment, but why didn't she change the next time you have a pit stop?", but I just find examining from the creative standpoint more informative because there's ways to integrate your fanservice into story and they didn't bother. Which is weirder because other instances of this sorta crap are either used for jokes or to inform character or the like.
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Mar 17, 2019 03:18
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Iceblocks posted:
I suspect that quite a few people could say the same, less because it's terribly obscure and more as testament to how often Gepetto is a useful party member that you willingly use.
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Mar 21, 2019 22:35
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Not too surprising, in any given 2-3 year span there are usually about 15 VAs splitting all the jRPG work between them. My favorite example from Xenosaga is the dude who did Allen also doing best muscleboy Cliff in Star Ocean 3. And now the REAL Shadow Hearts 2 begins to reveal itself. The Big Butterfly cometh.
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Apr 12, 2019 22:42
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Ehhhhhhh I dunno. Gepetto can be made good with proper Crest juggling, but he doesn't really stand out enough from the rest and they take way less effort. 6th PC would be better in a harder game but as is it's just completely overkill to use their skillset. 7th PC's abilities are WAY too backloaded. Flip side, Karin and Blanca are kinda mediocre overall IF you take the effort to really max out any of those three because they're balanced PCs and Joachim is easy to slot into any party but if you went all in on mage builds for combo shenanigans he'd obviously lose out. So they're more obviously useful than Gepetto or the PCs we don't have yet, but they also aren't as easy to get more power out of. Yuri's the only one who is good no matter how you want to play the game.
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Apr 19, 2019 23:31
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There aren't words for these times. Even as a distant internet dumbass, the bits and pieces of you and your family's life that showed up here have always been enough to tell me there was a lot of love, despite no small amount of hardship. And that you've become a better person over that time, and that the world is poorer for losing her. Take care of yourself, may you and the family recover as much as you ever will from this hole being ripped out of you, and do what you need, at your pace. And obviously don't be afraid to tell internet dumbasses to gently caress off, but hopefully everyone knows that.
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May 2, 2019 21:19
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God, I'd forgotten how much the villains do NOT know what game they're in. Well, maybe Lenny does. Everyone else did not sign up for Punchman Yuri's Band of Misfits.
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Jul 24, 2019 21:28
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StandardVC10 posted:How could Veronica be wearing what she is and possibly be serious or normal I dunno. I mean, FFX is 100% serious, and is Veronica's fetish gear really that far removed from Spiran fashion?
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Jul 25, 2019 00:29
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Honestly that's one of the brilliant things about Chrono Trigger. Crono isn't anyone special, but he still says "not on my loving watch" (to a problem that won't come up until about a thousand years after he dies no less).
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Jul 26, 2019 02:47
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Anyone could have made the same decision. Most don't, yes, but anyone could. Insofar as Chrono Trigger has a point (obviously SNES writing is not exactly overflowing with theme and purpose) that is the point really. "A horrible looming disaster that has haunted all of human history may not destroy the world until long after you die. Be like Crono and fight it in spite of all that."
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Jul 26, 2019 13:18
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"Average people" choose every day to suck instead of making the world a better place, yes. But it's a choice they are making and a choice they could reverse at any time.
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Jul 26, 2019 15:09
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Solomon's Key is the one part of this game I never actually did everything with. Too much completionism for me, and not nearly as fun as all the other completionism in Shadow Hearts. For starters there's no amazingly camp vampires.
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Jul 30, 2019 22:08
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Without going into detail (since... y'know, I'm sure Id will get to it), yes, there are definite mechanical benefits to doing the Key. Truth be told I actually didn't really bother changing crests at all. I think maybe I gave Karin an upgraded healing spell at one point? But mostly I just ran with everyone's natural skillsets. This makes Gepetto even more obviously the worst PC than his stat line. Edit: Update on previous page!
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Jul 30, 2019 22:26
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I feel like it's a testament to how goddamned awesome Shadow Hearts is that it doesn't have to bring back old PCs to get me super hype for what's coming up, but tertiary NPCs that you're slightly surprised even survived the first game.
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Aug 12, 2019 22:35
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It's very complimentary really. Realizing he had such a large chin, he knew he had to make the rest of himself much bigger so it looked more natural. Bulk up, give his voice that appropriate gravitas, wear showy clothes and make his frame even larger with the cape, and the chin, while still a center pieces, is now just the biggest element of a very large man all around.
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Aug 13, 2019 16:25
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quote:Tune in next time for a heated, manly battle between student and teacher in the squared circle as Shadow Hearts: Covenant continues to just do whatever the hell it feels like. God I love this game and it's complete batshit insanity. I wonder if there's any actual blind readers in the thread, and if their wildest guesses could actually capture where this sidequest ends up.
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Aug 20, 2019 00:59
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Sure, but on the other hand, what sort of monster would ever take Joachim out of the party?
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Sep 9, 2019 00:10
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achtungnight posted:Grimlock always was the coolest Transformer. They do however have a similar grasp on the art of strategy.
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Sep 14, 2019 00:37
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To be sure, we have come a good long way from the dark days of the Bush administration in the art of RPG voice acting, but yeah, that scene is not the best voice work in the game and you're not wrong to remember better scenes from later on.
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Sep 18, 2019 01:37
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As we head into the next dungeon, I feel compelled to remind everyone that yes, this is a real video game that was actually released in multiple countries in 2004. I mean I could say that between every update, but the next one is some prime "are you sure this isn't just a meme" material.
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Sep 26, 2019 23:44
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Yoshitaka Hirota definitely improved substantially with each new project. That final boss track in FtNW is among the best of the 00’s.
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Oct 3, 2019 22:11
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God, I keep laughing at that cat growl and I don't know why.
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Oct 8, 2019 00:23
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The main trouble with Lucia is... well, Andre was killed in two rounds and only got one turn without *Yuri* throwing in his buffs. The main feature of Lucia’s Aromatherapy is it stacks with everything else... but team hobo is kicking a lot of rear end barely using the regular buffs. She’s overkill basically. And is unlikely to one-round trash mobs without using MP, unlike some other PCs, meaning for casual play she might seem like a burden (for all her regular spellcAsting is fine and MP restoratives are plentiful, spam those crest spells.)
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Oct 10, 2019 19:04
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Well she dresses the part. If she unleashes any powers related to Aromatherapy then that’d be a clear yes.
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Oct 10, 2019 22:39
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THat can be true, but there's other considerations to make there: 1) Does the character being that way make sense in the world 2) Does the character being that way make sense in the story 3) Does the character's design match their personality So in that sense, Lucia works a lot better than someone like Quiet. A magical fortune teller (who seems implied to be Roma no less) is already established as a thing that exists in Shadow Hearts, and as the series always made a point of integrating as many kinds of magic as possible into the setting, having such a character in a cliche, funhouse sorta view of history absolutely works. Lucia herself seems to lean into her role as a sexy honey trap and use that as part of how she gets by in the world, which is a pretty reasonable way to execute that sort of character if you're going to. Certainly you don't have to like her (honestly I think she just doesn't bring much to the table or gel well with the rest of the cast), but I definitely wouldn't consider her a particularly egregious example of this sorta sex pot.
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Oct 13, 2019 22:17
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Kobal2 posted:To clarify, I deliberately picked two fairly extreme examples to do a sort of reductio ad absurdum of the argument in order to demonstrate how little sense it makes. You can't possibly justify anything about a character in a story or piece of fiction by using elements or justifications from within the piece of fiction itself. The piece of fiction is 100% the brainchild of somebody/ies, and those somebodies are the ones responsible for setting up those elements & justifications in the first place. I'm not saying Lucia is as bad as Quiet - but she's on the same spectrum, and trying to justify it by using elements of her character itself is just as doomed to failure. Like, we both know the *real* reason Quiet rocks the pornstar look ; and we both know why Lucia looks and acts the way she does ; let's not pretend otherwise. Before we go any further down this rabbit hole, I would note taking this angle on a subject is only meaningful if the subject matter is inherently negative. This is technically true of all aspects of all fiction, and employing it means you’re assuming that whether it is done well or used with purpose within the work is irrelevant. I tend to strongly reject “woman dresses scantily” as inherently negative. It can be and often is, or can be done well but overused within a work rendering individual cases less impactful, but unto itself it’s value neutral.
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Oct 14, 2019 10:17
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I never really used the Party Deck feature in the game, but if I'm not mistaken swapping Joachim out of the active party puts his Joachythms on pause, so you could certainly be going through a dungeon, realize the next fight is Grand Papillon, and shuffle him out until the boss for maximum effectiveness. Mind you, SH2 is...not a hard game, so honestly the extra effort is probably not *actually* worth it if you're put off by it. But of course, Joachim is his own reward so it was never a bother.
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Oct 16, 2019 21:58
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The FtNW character is better thought of as 3 characters in one, so just figure out which suits your party build best and park her there.ultrafilter posted:In general, but there are a handful of bosses where you actually do want the extra power. Not many, but not none. On paper, Aroma Therapy is perfectly good. Eventually. If you want to do some *comedy* to your damage multipliers. As with Joachythms, SH2 is mostly not very hard so it tends to be overkill! But comedy is fun. But yes absolutely never ever bother with the Tarot, and for times her buffing package isn't what you want... she's a bit faster and almost as good at damage/MP as Gepetto (before Doll shenanigans), so she's probably the superior Crest mage because speed is good in this kinda RPG. Of course, by that metric... Blanca is substantially faster than either and can usually score KOs on trash mobs as long as he can hit a weakness. Larger point being that SH2 party balance is actually quite solid, and more measures whether you as a player want characters you can set and forget (meaning your ideal party is Yuri, Blanca, Karin, and one of the remaining 2 PCs), or if you want to fiddle with them to min-max your damage from fight to fight, in which case you can get good numbers out of Grand Papillon or a properly-dolled Gepetto, and Lucia enables a lot of Comedy Options.
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Oct 17, 2019 01:22
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Presumably any Wolf doing the bouts has to beat all the other contenders in order to win the whatever the big prize is, so presumably for Henry that would be becoming human again.
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Oct 20, 2019 02:40
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The villain team is held back until the epilogue, but Suikoden III’s main gimmick is that the three main characters are all on different sides of a budding war.
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Nov 6, 2019 15:29
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I wonder if there were any folks who actually started with Koudelka only to reach a sudden realization that torture scenes were suddenly a series staple. I wonder if it was even still surprising at this point.
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Nov 16, 2019 21:07
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Your periodic reminder this is a real game that was actually released in 2004.
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Nov 19, 2019 23:19
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The Id-added dialog for Nicolai and Lenny continued to be exemplary.
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Dec 7, 2019 15:07
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Honestly if someone DID do it Joachim would 1000% start a side quest to deliver that damned letter.
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Dec 12, 2019 15:05
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