The Last To Post Wins!

[Armagon]

Heh.

2 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

>playing Mario Maker
>actually having a good time
>goes online versus mode
>wins some, then unholy lag
>plays endless
>Kaizo Block

And that is when you skip the level at no cost at all.

[Acacia Sgt]

Aw, look at that:

Ain't it beautiful? It hasn't even been a hundred years since game-start yet I was able to finish the Reconquista. Although it was close, it's currently the 860's. Internal divisions are still WIP, since I have to mind things like the vassal limit and... vassals wanting to expand on their own. No matter. No matter. Hmm, what's that over in the northeast...

OH MY GOD, WHAT IS THIS!? I only turned away for five minutes! (Well, it's been like that for a few decades already, to be honest) This is... pretty much... your every-day France under the AI. Dammit Gavel-kind!

I would start to step-in and try to fix that big mess... but Umayyad claimants to the titles I snatched are starting to prepare invasions against me. I must be on guard until they die off. Should be like 2-3 descendants before their claims diminish to nothing. Though that will be for another day...

[Armagon]

Damn DK. Busting out the electric guitars for the first boss. Genuinely wasn't expecting that.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

1 AM, and I have tried desperately to sleep in for three hours.....without success.

Maybe playing Zero helps...

I have never played as such time, and I know it's absolutely unhealthy, though wallowing in the bed is no solution either right now.

 

[Armagon]

Today in "Discord servers Armagon is in out of context"

[Armagon]

Even though i think Ouroborus is the weakest part of the Trails series, some of the individual characters are pretty good and i like some of them. So i made a tier-list. Contains spoilers all the way to Cold Steel 3. One of the portraits used here is from Cold Steel 4 but if you beat (or know) Cold Steel 3, then you probably already expected it.

The two criteria for this list was as follows:

1. The character must be a part of Ouroborus for at least one game
2. The character must be fought as a member of Ouroborus one game

As long as they met those two criteria, they get counted in this tier list, even if one of those characters defects from Ouroborus.

Here it is (remember, contains spoilers all the way to Cold Steel 3)

Spoiler

Coincidentally, the top three Ouroborus characters are also among the best characters in the series.

Also for some reason, this template was missing the 6th Anguis, who did show up in Azure. But it's fine, because i barely remember a thing about him. He'd go in E.

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Armagon

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Ugh, one of "these" nights again.

Slept in at like 4 or 4:30 AM and got awake at 6.

Also playing at night didn't bring anything aside of causing headaches.

At least pill got rid of it.

Still not feeling motivated to play today at all.

[Acacia Sgt]

Ah, I had planned to go fight Estark tonight... hmm, it's already too late in the night. Oh well. Tomorrow then.

If I don't get caught up again with CK2, haha.

[Shrimpica]

Tutturu!

[DragonFlames]

Kaguya offering some words of wisdom.

16 hours ago, Shrimperor said:

More Softspoken than expected.

Yeah, Rorona's Japanese voice doesn't say 35 year-old woman/mother at all.
I suspect it is the same one she had in her own game, where she started out as a 14 year-old (was it 14 or 15? I don't remember entirely).
Doesn't change the fact that Rorona is adorable as heck, though.

[Shrimpica]

Hmmmmmmm

CS3, DMC5 or Astral Chain

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I need a game to cure my current boredom lol

Atelier is nice, but i can't play it for 10 hours straight....

[DragonFlames]

28 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Atelier is nice, but i can't play it for 10 hours straight....

Atelier games aren't games I can play for a long time either, which is why it takes longer for me to finish them than many other games, even though they tend to be shorter (Lulua's main story still took me 50-odd hours to complete, though).
On the other hand, this makes me kind of enjoy and appreciate them more.

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, DragonFlames said:

suspect it is the same one she had in her own game, where she started out as a 14 year-old (was it 14 or 15? I don't remember entirely).

It is. 

 

54 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Hmmmmmmm

CS3, DMC5 or Astral Chain

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I need a game to cure my current boredom lol

Atelier is nice, but i can't play it for 10 hours straight....

I have not played DMC5 (because I can't) but uh, get Astral Chain. Gameplay's God-tier. The story ain't that good but you ain't playing for that.

Controls are a little awkward at first but the game let's you mess around until you feel you are ready to go.

[Shrimpica]

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

(because I can't)

PC not good enough? Because if you have a good PC you can get deluxe edition for like 22€

1 minute ago, Armagon said:

get Astral Chain. Gameplay's God-tier. The story ain't that good but you ain't playing for that.

Based Platinum eh?

Only problem: I want to get Physical, and it was one of the games i was planning to get in May/June, but it's on sale on the e-shop now

 

[Armagon]

5 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

PC not good enough? Because if you have a good PC you can get deluxe edition for like 22€

Nope. Remember, I'm playing CS3 on it's lowest settings. Although I think my PC can handle normal settings, but there will probably be more slowdown in some areas.

I'm pretty sure running DMC5 on my PC will cause it to explode.

7 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Only problem: I want to get Physical, and it was one of the games i was planning to get in May/June, but it's on sale on the e-shop now

 

I'd personally say go for it since Astral Chain rarely goes on sale (I think the last time was like in October but I haven't checked). Of course, the game is 9.8 GB so storage may be a concern.

I don't know how many games you plan on getting for your next Switch haul (apart from XenoblaDE, which you mentioned before) but a sale can help lessen the price of all that.

It's your call in the end though.

[Shrimpica]

13 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I don't know how many games you plan on getting for your next Switch haul (apart from XenoblaDE, which you mentioned before) but a sale can help lessen the price of all that.

 

let's see, currently on the Plan:

Xenoblade

Astral Chain

and 2 games for my brother (if he wants.)

 

Thing is, i am getting a coupon from my mobile provider which i can buy physical games with (or other electric stuff, but i don't really need anything), and since all PC games are digital,  i can't use the coupon to buy those, so i leave switch games to the coupon (it's also how i got all my switch games except FE16 and BOTW)

17 minutes ago, Armagon said:

the game is 9.8 GB so storage may be a concern.

huh
that might be a bit of a problem actually since i don't have a SD card for my switch hm

[Armagon]

10 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Thing is, i am getting a coupon from my mobile provider which i can buy physical games with (or other electric stuff, but i don't really need anything), and since all PC games are digital,  i can't use the coupon to buy those, so i leave switch games to the coupon (it's also how i got all my switch games except FE16 and BOTW)

Oh that's pretty neat. Yeah, in that case, just wait until then.

11 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

huh
that might be a bit of a problem actually since i don't have a SD card for my switch hm

If you really want to jump on the Astral Chain sale right now, the Switch's base storage is big enough to accomodate it. There's a base storage of 32 GB so even with Astral Chain downloaded, you'll still have a decent amount of GB remaining.

[Shrimpica]

So bored, i did a Tier list of alot of the games i played lol

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

What did Cold Steel II do so wrong to be like worst game ever?

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by Reisalin Stout

[Shrimpica]

1 hour ago, Reisalin Stout said:

What did Cold Steel II do so wrong to be like worst game?

Short anwert: Everything except Act1, Final dungeon and Crossbell chapter.

Long Answer:

oh boy where do i start

(Warning: Quite a negative wall of text. Very negative.)

Spoiler

let's start with the least important thing:

• Gameplay:

Easy to the point of boredom. On Nightmare. I know not many people care about Trails' gameplay,  but i do. And being bored of one of my fav. battle systems so much is just annoying. Not to mention it heavily takes me out of the story everytime i beat a suppossedly hard boss without them doing even anything remotly threatning in battle.

I also hate the new and simplified Orbment system, with a passion. Quartztetris is one of my prime in enjoyment in Trails.

There were also Bosses that were undefeatable/can't go under 1 HP. Got old pretty fast. In older games these exsited the optional battles, with the difference that you can actually win them.

And Mecha battles are quite bad. Boring gameplay that has nothing to do with Trails gameplay. Just hit and wait until Enemy loses his HP.

The amount of battles i found fun can be counted in less than in one hand.

• Characters:

Very Very Weak. Bonding System is partly to blame, but even without, the time we spent playing Backtrack simulator could've been used to develop the Cast, but noooooo, padded Backtracking and BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONDING. FUCK Bonding. Locking plot stuff and development behind bonding is.NOT.FINE. Also, the Cast could've been cut in Half and nothing of Value would've been lost. Gaius, Elliot, Alisa, Laura and Machias should've been cut. 

Rean is also a pretty damn weak MC. Chosen one, Powers, Mecha, Harem, Emo, running away from family, caring more about a terrorist than his sister, you name it. He is by far one of the worst MCs i had to follow, and after Estelle and Kevin i just couldn't believe Falcom would write someone like him. Even Lloyd, who's quite generic as well, atleast has a will. Rean has none. And unlike the older games CS1/2 put way too much focus on the MC and less on the cast as whole, and if you can't stand the MC, it just ruins the whole game for you.

Fie & Jusis are the only characters who are Sky Tier good. Sara, Emma and Millium were good as well, but they were severly hurt by that failure of a system called the bonding system.

A continous Story as Trails shouldn't have player choice to begin with.

• Story

Act 1 was actually pretty Solid. Sure, there was the nonsense that the attack on Ymir had 0 casualities and consequences, but other than that, it actually had me hyped. Searching for friends, meeting Society, Jägers and Altina, the game was setting up some heavy stuff...

then act 2 came and 70 hours of nothing followed.

War? What war? It can be called at best an overglorified school Trip. Falcom thought backtracking in SC and Ao once each at the end was not enough, they let you backtrack 5 freaking times, really?

However, unlike SC and Ao were the message was well delivered, CS2 failed on every front on that matter, and it didn't feel like there was a war at all. One of the main reasons is the lack of consequences/death and confrontation about it. One Person being to steep Price for a war made me go ''???isn't this a war?''. Not to mention that the Death scenes were pretty meh. Especially Crow, dying by a random tentacle of all things.

Don't write a War story if you are afraid of showing some deaths and grimdark.

Also, lol at class 7 being ''neutral''. There was nothing wrong (in their prespective, since they didn't know old ozzy was alive and all) with standing alongside the Imperial Army against coupists, yet they kept insisting they are ''neutral''. The game does not know what neutral means.

Another annoying thing, especially by late game, is the whole Crow thing. ''Make him graduate with us''. Look, i can understand you wanting to stop him, i can maybe even understand ''bring him back'' so he can face his punishment like a man, but wanting a Terrorist to graduate from a Military organization? What? And why is the whole Academy on this? Why is no one disagreeing? Or must everyone agree with Rean 100%? This could've been a great Point where Character could've a conflict, but nah, everyone on must be an extension of Rean-sama and agree with him. Even the Adults. Even the ones who were hurt by Crow's actions. There was 0 Character conflict, 0 character interaction. It was all Rean. Everyone only followed Rean and interacted only with Rean.

And let's not forget Rean caring more about a Terrorist than his sister. That alone pissed me off to no end. 

Finale actually was pretty epic, even if the whole ''TIME TO STOP HOLDING BACK'' thing lessens the epicness by quite a bit. Still, i quite enjoyed that, especially the Rufus reveal. I also enjoyed the Crossbell side chapter. It's also the only moment i actually liked Rean. When he as an enemy.

If it ended here, i would've actually been fine with the game and not hated it as much, as it would've ended on a high point. Even if Act 2 was one of the worst things ever. However...

we get an Epilogue, which is full on chapter with quests and a longass boring 16 floors dungeon with rehashed Bosses for some reason, and is where i felt like the game greatly overstayed it's welcome, i was really like ''Please end already''. Something i never felt while playing a Trails game before. Usually i was very sad that when i was near the end because i wanted morrrrrrrrre. The wait for Sky 3rd and CS1 and CS2 was unbearable, here i was like ''Finally''. The only good thing about the Epilogue were the Black Records + scene really. 

The epilogue alone almost made me drop the series. It's only thanks to the Crossbell games i am even thinking of getting CS3. A Series i always used to to get Day 1. I hated CS2 that much.

Also, did you know that the whole of CS2 takes place during Ao's final chapter? They stretched one chapter worth of content to a full game.

This line here utterly summerizes the CS arc so far for me. It was like the game was even rubbing salt in the wounds.

There you have it. I am sure i could even think of more stuff if i put my mind into it.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Shrimperor

[Armagon]

There it is. The classic.

[Interdimensional Observer]

I tried out the four Shantae-in-a-costume modes in 1/2 Genie Hero, they're simple, and like everything repeat the same old stages. Ninja and Jammies are fun, but Officer changing up the music and reinventing the levels a bit with the switch blocks is definitely the best. Beach is just a much worse Jammies, slightly faster but stronger attacks with a similar projectile attack and floating ability, but now you're subject to the horrors of running out of sunscreen! 

Looking up all the game completion CGs:

I am saddened that everything except the main game and slightly Friends to the End, keeps the art the same and only changes the clothes the character(s) are wearing. I would've liked to seen people not Shantae in jammies, space police, and ninja wear.

And, on all the costume modes and Friends to the End, I can't for love of Bolo get past the sandworm chase stage! It desperately needs a checkpoint, the chase is too long to have to redo the whole thing every time. And why don't these modes let me increase my Heart capacity? The main game and Pirate Mode were too easy (hence Hardcore existing for the main game) with all the health and restoratives you could have, but only 3 Hearts from beginning to end for the arcade-y modes is too restricted for those who'd appreciate more leeway in the later stages and bosses.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

@Shrimperor

I am bad in making reviews, so I only go short on a few things.

I like Cold Steel II a lot, honestly even more than CS I.

Though I agree it has its flaws.

Spoiler

 

I enjoy new features like overdrive and also more simple orbmemt system aka masterquartz. It's the same as favoring Tales of the Abyss's skill system for being the most simple of the series to understand. It's easy to make your units really busted, and it's really fun for speedruns. Though I have to admit I really dislike any mech fight.

As for the story, CS II undoubtedly weaker than its prequel. Though this game instantly starts itense unlike CS I where I have to play like ten hours when serious action is going to start. The characters do not gain all that much character development aside of Millium and some guest characters like Towal. On the other hand this game has no real breaks. There's suspense from the beginning to the end. Also it has the saddest ending I have seen in a videogame. Though I agree that Rean's motivation is questionable by caring more for a terrorist than for his sister.

The postgame is unnecessary, not gonna lie, at least the part after Crossbell.

The final boss dungeon was super bland by being straightforward with a boss out of nowhere.

Though overall CS II gives me more replaybility than I simply because this game has no real breaks. CS II is rather focussed on battles whilst CS I has elememts of daytime simulation and investigating as Crossbell does. Since I prefer the strict battles, I prefer Cold Steel II.

That's also why Sky 3rd is my favorite Trails game for being a dungeon crawler.

 

Unrelated to that, the only completed games from the past six years I did not enjoy were mainly Fire Emblem games (Shadow Dragon, Binding Blade, Echoes) and Tales of Zestiria. Armatization has been the worst thing going to happen in Tales of.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Reisalin Stout

[Shrimpica]

@Reisalin Stout

I don't know about the ''no breaks'' part, because Act 2, which is the majority of the game, was one big break.

For replayability i prefer Sky3rd, more characters, better balance, actual challenge. And makings units that busted shouldn't be that easy imo, it should be something the players has to work for (like Anelace in Sky3rd.). From pure gameplay prespective alone i found the CS2 to be worst one in the series.

But that's me, as i really hate modern Trails gameplay and how easy it has become.

Ao has features like Overdrive and Masterquartz, without making the gameplay a breeze or sacrificing the old Orbment system.

...

...

I do really sound like a FE elitist in Fates era, don't i? xD

Edited April 11, 2020 by Shrimperor

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Sky 3rd has definitely the highest replaybility.

It has the perfect length of a RPG for me, the biggest cast and is only focussed on battles.

It's short, but still everything important about the plot and characters is told in the doors.

 

Actually I tried to replay Cold Steel I last year, but stopped in Celdic due to boredom.

The world building might be great, but it was too slow for me.