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WHAT VIDEOGAMES ARE YOU PLAYING RIGHT NOW?
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Kevincalanor
519
Kevincalanor
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Closeauthor=Craze
=Picture=
i'm really good at euro truck simulator 2
Me too! Driving on UK is the best.
Want a light up every-time I'm in a left-hand traffic zone. x.x
author=LibertyAs someone who's sorting a robot-based side-scrolling shooter for McBacon Jam, this makes me sad.
So I checked out some videos of the new Neir game and meh, it's not my kind of thing. I'm not big on shmup-type games, or sidescrolling and I'm definitely not a fan of the aesethetic. I can appreciate it but it's not my kind of thing. I got pretty bored just watching. Big robots by themselves just don't do it for me, I'm afraid. :shrug:
Ps. Speakin' of Automata's aesethetic what's the deal with those blindfolds? You know what sort of fan-art this creates
Depends how it's pulled off. Robots are okay. Sidescrolling can be okay. Shooting things can be okay. All together, they're usually not my jam, but I'll still be playing all the McBJ games.
Got to play some Berseria today. It's good. Not a fan of how little clothes main character wears but I guess after spending three years in rags, she wouldn't be shy of wearing barely anything (even though before that she wore quite sensible clothing). Most of the optional outfits are pretty meh, too. That said, I just give everyone some adornments (like elf ears for Mr Black hair and an eye patch for Velvet). They look great.
Got to play some Berseria today. It's good. Not a fan of how little clothes main character wears but I guess after spending three years in rags, she wouldn't be shy of wearing barely anything (even though before that she wore quite sensible clothing). Most of the optional outfits are pretty meh, too. That said, I just give everyone some adornments (like elf ears for Mr Black hair and an eye patch for Velvet). They look great.
author=Kevincalanor
Ps. Speakin' of Automata's aesethetic what's the deal with those blindfolds?
It's a callback to the first game, where one of the party members had white hair and a blindfold.
liberty, i had velvet in her summer dlc jorts most of the time, but before that came out i used her villager outfit. i kinda agree that her base outfit is bizarre.
i'm playing nier automata. ...emotions are prohibited. i love 9s so much
i'm playing nier automata. ...emotions are prohibited. i love 9s so much
Bugfragged
280
I'm playing Faraway Story, a Wolf RPG Editor game made by Fantasy Factory and translated by vgperson.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Final Fantasy 9 on Steam; trying to get the last 9 achievements (minus Hail to the King, because I just don't care).
What I got last night when the internet started flaking out on me.
All the rest.
89% completion, baby.
EDIT 5:55PM CST:
91% completion. Now an A grade.
What I got last night when the internet started flaking out on me.
All the rest.
89% completion, baby.
EDIT 5:55PM CST:
91% completion. Now an A grade.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Craze
i'm playing nier automata. ...emotions are prohibited. i love 9s so much
I played the crap out of the demo and wanted the full game so badly. Unfortunately, I blew my game budget preordering the Take Your Heart edition of Persona 5. It's been... a long time since I was this hyped for a game. I'll find out in a week if this was the right move or if I'll never preorder anything ever again. *gulp*
Regarding Velvet's attire: I think I understand one possible reason where the design comes from.Like many people, I initially dismissed it as a cringy edgelord outfit not worth caring about. Hidden for slight spoilers:
You'll meet other therions dressed in a similar fashion as you progress. If the intent was to visually connect Velvet, who is also a therion, with them while still maintaining a mostly human look, then... okay, that's kinda neat. I'd argue that you could do that without such hilariously revealing designs, but I'm reasonably sure Namco decided to step in and give some, uh, "direction."
Whether or not the choice of attire is off-putting is a different (but still absolutely fair) argument. Like I said in the hidden paragraph, you could convey the meaning with a more modest outfit (fucking hell, Kamoana...). If you put a gun to my head and demanded that I explain why, though, that's the angle I would push. It's not exactly a strong angle, but it's something. That's more than what can be said when I first saw Velvet's design.
if you look carefully at kamoana, that's actually not her skin. she IS covered -- with a flesh-colored exoskeleton. you can see where it's separate from her body. this requires, however, looking carefully at kamoana, which is awkward until you realize it's an exoskeleton. i really wish she was more green or something.
have you beat the game nova? I forget. the outfit is very similar to That One <hidden paragraph subject> from near the end, so yeah, i can see it. (ALSO: FUCK THAT BATTLE)
i can also see velvet just seeking liberation as a proud lesbo who doesn't wanna be ashamed of anything as she runs around killing people. ...this requires a full-on velvet/nico and velvet/eleanor ship, but c'mon, after zestiria it's really not that hard...
have you beat the game nova? I forget. the outfit is very similar to That One <hidden paragraph subject> from near the end, so yeah, i can see it. (ALSO: FUCK THAT BATTLE)
i can also see velvet just seeking liberation as a proud lesbo who doesn't wanna be ashamed of anything as she runs around killing people. ...this requires a full-on velvet/nico and velvet/eleanor ship, but c'mon, after zestiria it's really not that hard...
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Yeah, I see the part you're talking about, but think the exoskeleton angle is a bit of a tough sell for me. I would buy the argument in a heartbeat if literally any other therion followed that pattern as well. I think it's just her model's front texture that looks smooth like an exoskeleton. The beginning of the "exoskeleton" is around where the connection between the chest and head is, which is something I've seen in models that require a lot of head and neck movement and less upper torso movement.
I want to be wrong about this, but the fact that it's not obvious until you really look for it makes me think that this was a modeling issue, not a deliberate design choice.
I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm close. I'm cleaning up some side quests before going into the last dungeon, so chances are I've seen That One already.
I want to be wrong about this, but the fact that it's not obvious until you really look for it makes me think that this was a modeling issue, not a deliberate design choice.
I haven't beaten it yet, but I'm close. I'm cleaning up some side quests before going into the last dungeon, so chances are I've seen That One already.
So I just put down Horizon: Zero Dawn, this time for the foreseeable future. The plot and characters so far are pretty mediocre, just barely scraping above the cutoff line of my caring that I was willing to advance the story to see how it all turned out.
I just got to this plot quest where my character build is completely useless (the third in a row where this has happened). For those who haven't played, the narrative and opening segments put a huge emphasis on a stealth angle for the main character and gameplay, where she's supposed to be this amazing huntress who slinks around and stalks her prey and assassinates them. So, I figured that was probably the intended playstyle and invested all of my levels into one of the stealth tech trees.
The problem is that so far, every single plot quest past the prologue has been set up to make stealth useless and strongly favors a brute force playstyle. By useless, I mean being stuck in a huge open field with no cover (or enemies that can magically sense you through cover), and the enemies are immune to sneak attacks. I managed to barely scrape by a few of these encounters by cheesing it (the enemy AI is really stupid and easy to kite).
Unfortunately, the battle I'm on now really doesn't seem to be winnable without a substantially higher DPS and defense. This came right on the tail end of my spending all of the money I had been saving up for the past 10ish hours on the ultimate stealth gear, which I stupidly assumed would be useful.
I did some googling around and found a lot of other players stuck in a similar situation, and the common advice seems to be that you need to grind levels into one of the offensive tech trees. Unfortunately, I'm high enough level now that each level takes an hour or more of tedious grinding, and the sidequests are your typical MMO gather-10-bear-asses fare.
And maybe if the writing was a little better-executed, I'd be inclined to continue, but it's just... not. I do not care about these soulless, cardboard cutout "characters" or the shallow, stereotypical world they live in. The writing in the last sidequest was so cringey that I actually had to pause the game because I was covering my face in vicarious shame for whoever had written the dialogue and the poor voice actors who had to read it.
I guess an important takeaway is: if your game has permanent character advancement choices, every option better be equally useful in required content. And if not, don't strongly encourage the player to invest hard-earned levels in abilities that you constantly disable.
EDIT: On a related note, the other day, I managed to clear the last sidequest in Nier Automata. The sidequests in the game are kind of a mixed bag, where some of them are really good and some of them are boring. Unfortunately, it's kind of a spoiler which ones are worth doing (because they tend to start out unassuming but then develop unexpectedly in an interesting direction). It could really do with trimming out some of the sidequests, but it's thankfully not as grindy as the original Nier.
So returning to the Nier universe has piqued my curiosity in the Drakengard games, which I never played. Are they worth checking out for someone who enjoyed the Nier games?
I just got to this plot quest where my character build is completely useless (the third in a row where this has happened). For those who haven't played, the narrative and opening segments put a huge emphasis on a stealth angle for the main character and gameplay, where she's supposed to be this amazing huntress who slinks around and stalks her prey and assassinates them. So, I figured that was probably the intended playstyle and invested all of my levels into one of the stealth tech trees.
The problem is that so far, every single plot quest past the prologue has been set up to make stealth useless and strongly favors a brute force playstyle. By useless, I mean being stuck in a huge open field with no cover (or enemies that can magically sense you through cover), and the enemies are immune to sneak attacks. I managed to barely scrape by a few of these encounters by cheesing it (the enemy AI is really stupid and easy to kite).
Unfortunately, the battle I'm on now really doesn't seem to be winnable without a substantially higher DPS and defense. This came right on the tail end of my spending all of the money I had been saving up for the past 10ish hours on the ultimate stealth gear, which I stupidly assumed would be useful.
I did some googling around and found a lot of other players stuck in a similar situation, and the common advice seems to be that you need to grind levels into one of the offensive tech trees. Unfortunately, I'm high enough level now that each level takes an hour or more of tedious grinding, and the sidequests are your typical MMO gather-10-bear-asses fare.
And maybe if the writing was a little better-executed, I'd be inclined to continue, but it's just... not. I do not care about these soulless, cardboard cutout "characters" or the shallow, stereotypical world they live in. The writing in the last sidequest was so cringey that I actually had to pause the game because I was covering my face in vicarious shame for whoever had written the dialogue and the poor voice actors who had to read it.
I guess an important takeaway is: if your game has permanent character advancement choices, every option better be equally useful in required content. And if not, don't strongly encourage the player to invest hard-earned levels in abilities that you constantly disable.
EDIT: On a related note, the other day, I managed to clear the last sidequest in Nier Automata. The sidequests in the game are kind of a mixed bag, where some of them are really good and some of them are boring. Unfortunately, it's kind of a spoiler which ones are worth doing (because they tend to start out unassuming but then develop unexpectedly in an interesting direction). It could really do with trimming out some of the sidequests, but it's thankfully not as grindy as the original Nier.
So returning to the Nier universe has piqued my curiosity in the Drakengard games, which I never played. Are they worth checking out for someone who enjoyed the Nier games?
With regards to Velvet's clothing, I think it's more a removing of her worrying about what humans see in her - she doesn't cater to their tastes anymore and she doesn't care about showing skin after being in literal rags for 3 years. Still, she's been asked a few times if she's cold in that get-up by various people and said yes a few times (Well, to be fair, yes but she doesn't care), which begs the question of WHY NOT WEAR MORE?! Especially in the colder regions. >.<;
Frankly, it's kinda crappy that the only decent outfits for her is her village one, the pirate one (still very short skirt) and the server one. I refuse to wear normin things (goddamn if they weren't the most annoying/obnoxious things ever in Zestiria, bar the continuous battle tutorials through-out the game.)
Just got to the fishing 'minigame'. Ugh. Would it really be much to be asking for at least one decent minigame? Just one? The face one is just bad, the card minigame had some potential (I would have loved to have some card collecting thing!), the ship exploration is automatic, and others are just bleh. I think one of the things that annoys me in the Tales of series is that a lot of the more interesting shit is automated and the other stuff is over-designed.
The battles are too complex - so much so that they're still shoving tutorials down your face half-way through the goddamn game (one of the major issues I had with Zestiria - it's not as bad as Zestiria was at least, but still pretty bad). They've basically just turned into button-mashing for me. I think I know about two strikes (A1 is a fire hit, Y1 is a water hit). I don't even understand the manual set-up thing. Is is supposed to be 'this button in this number of a combo' or 'a combination started with this button causes this' or something else entirely? If only they actually gave a tutorial about that instead of 'poison is water and this is what it doeooooeooeoes'. uuuuuuugh.
At least the story and characters in Berseria are interesting.
Frankly, it's kinda crappy that the only decent outfits for her is her village one, the pirate one (still very short skirt) and the server one. I refuse to wear normin things (goddamn if they weren't the most annoying/obnoxious things ever in Zestiria, bar the continuous battle tutorials through-out the game.)
Just got to the fishing 'minigame'. Ugh. Would it really be much to be asking for at least one decent minigame? Just one? The face one is just bad, the card minigame had some potential (I would have loved to have some card collecting thing!), the ship exploration is automatic, and others are just bleh. I think one of the things that annoys me in the Tales of series is that a lot of the more interesting shit is automated and the other stuff is over-designed.
The battles are too complex - so much so that they're still shoving tutorials down your face half-way through the goddamn game (one of the major issues I had with Zestiria - it's not as bad as Zestiria was at least, but still pretty bad). They've basically just turned into button-mashing for me. I think I know about two strikes (A1 is a fire hit, Y1 is a water hit). I don't even understand the manual set-up thing. Is is supposed to be 'this button in this number of a combo' or 'a combination started with this button causes this' or something else entirely? If only they actually gave a tutorial about that instead of 'poison is water and this is what it doeooooeooeoes'. uuuuuuugh.
At least the story and characters in Berseria are interesting.
author=Sailerius
So returning to the Nier universe has piqued my curiosity in the Drakengard games, which I never played. Are they worth checking out for someone who enjoyed the Nier games?
Dear christ, for the love of god, No! Or, at least not 1 and 2!
Generally, I don't recommend skipping games, but if you want to actually have a good time, go here instead. It's TheDarkId's LP of the first game (and the equally as good second game LP) and it manages to take a boring, grim, unfair game and turn it into a very informative, thorough, and very amusing playthrough of the game.
As having personally tried to play through the first Drakengard, I have to say that it doesn't want you to enjoy it. It wants you to feel the same dreary hopelessness as the characters in the game. It's like a bad dynasty warriors clone, where you'll spend most of your time laboriously racking up kills on weapons to unlock new forms, and new weird bits of completely irrelevant stories. There's 5 endings to play through, each of them more a dick in the dick than the last (in terms of cheapness of the bosses).
I'll say this for the LPs. After reading through them, he does such a great job highlighting everything about the game that you'd almost be tempted to start them up yourself - but that's because he literally takes everything awful away on your behalf and gives you only the meat. And, half the fun is knowing just how much godawful grinding and awful combat he had to suffer through to get it.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Liberty:
Did I get something confused? I thought I remember it being mentioned that Velvet and Rokuro don't feel cold because they're daemons. Hm...
Gotta agree with you on the minigames (though I love the card one). I remember people hyping up the ship exploration as something awesome, so I was pretty disappointed that it was just a destination selector. It's hilarious when you're on the west end of a map and select a destination at the far east end, and the ship travels ALL THE WAY across the map rather than simply go west and wrap around to the east. I guess Berseria's world is flat? Haha.
Isn't the combo system the same as in Zestiria, only you get to set which artes go where? Every column in your artes list is a stage, and each hit in your combo goes through one stage starting from the left. "this button in this number of a combo" is correct. What caused me confusion initially is that you can't use artes at a higher stage than the number of diamonds you have. If you only have 3 diamonds, for example, you can't use stage 4 artes. Beyond that, though, the system isn't too terrible to figure out. Start with hitting enemy elemental weaknesses, then experiment with matching enemy categories and you'll get the hang of it in no time. Ailments aren't really something I paid much attention too, even on Intense, so they're not all that important except for stun.
The one thing I don't remember seeing a tutorial for is that you can measure your remaining combo count by looking at the white outlines around your diamonds. Once you run out of those with frontline characters like Velvet, use a Break Soul to immediately restore your combo hits. That's how you can gauge how many hits you need to do a level 2 Mystic Arte.
With Velvet, you can run at least a three hit combo, then reset your hit count with a Break Soul, stun enemies to drain their diamonds with wide reaching Hidden Artes with the next combo (made easier with the right titles equipped), and rinse and repeat to keep a string going almost indefinitely. It's super satisfying to pull off an 80 hit combo all by yourself.
Did I get something confused? I thought I remember it being mentioned that Velvet and Rokuro don't feel cold because they're daemons. Hm...
Gotta agree with you on the minigames (though I love the card one). I remember people hyping up the ship exploration as something awesome, so I was pretty disappointed that it was just a destination selector. It's hilarious when you're on the west end of a map and select a destination at the far east end, and the ship travels ALL THE WAY across the map rather than simply go west and wrap around to the east. I guess Berseria's world is flat? Haha.
Isn't the combo system the same as in Zestiria, only you get to set which artes go where? Every column in your artes list is a stage, and each hit in your combo goes through one stage starting from the left. "this button in this number of a combo" is correct. What caused me confusion initially is that you can't use artes at a higher stage than the number of diamonds you have. If you only have 3 diamonds, for example, you can't use stage 4 artes. Beyond that, though, the system isn't too terrible to figure out. Start with hitting enemy elemental weaknesses, then experiment with matching enemy categories and you'll get the hang of it in no time. Ailments aren't really something I paid much attention too, even on Intense, so they're not all that important except for stun.
The one thing I don't remember seeing a tutorial for is that you can measure your remaining combo count by looking at the white outlines around your diamonds. Once you run out of those with frontline characters like Velvet, use a Break Soul to immediately restore your combo hits. That's how you can gauge how many hits you need to do a level 2 Mystic Arte.
With Velvet, you can run at least a three hit combo, then reset your hit count with a Break Soul, stun enemies to drain their diamonds with wide reaching Hidden Artes with the next combo (made easier with the right titles equipped), and rinse and repeat to keep a string going almost indefinitely. It's super satisfying to pull off an 80 hit combo all by yourself.
So I jumped onto the Tales of Berseria bandwagon too. I'm about 25 hours in and so far, it seems like another solid Tales game to me: Not perfect, but still pretty fun to play. I wonder if knowledge of Zestiria would help me enjoy it more, and it's possible, but so far I haven't felt lost in Berseria's narrative, so I don't think it'd be a HUGE factor.
The battle system is okay once you figure out what Nova pointed out re: The number of Break Souls affecting the arte stages. Beyond that, though, I have to admit I'm pretty lazy so I'm mostly button-mashing (and guarding when necessary) my way through the game - I'm on Moderate difficulty, however, so I bet things would be different on Hard.
I think the biggest criticism I have so far is (spoilers below):
I had heard that Berseria was a more *gritty* experience than other Tales games. It certainly seemed that way in the beginning, while escaping the prison island. Since the escape, though, there's nothing in the aesthetics of the game - surroundings, music, or otherwise - to suggest that it's *gritty* in the least. And yeah, stuff like Velvet's attire kinda goes against the grittiness idea. I'm not saying that *gritty* == GOOD, but if one went into this game assuming a different experience the same way I did, they'd be slightly disappointed.
Even Velvet's revenge story seems to have taken a backseat to Eizen's, who I feel has been getting the most development so far - I'm assuming some connection with Zestiria here.
But apart from that, yeah, I'm enjoying Berseria overall. Just worried about my Persona 5 pre-order arriving before I'm able to finish it (I don't want to be the social pariah NOT playing P5 when it comes out....).
Finally, despite my complaints in the spoiler bit above, I have to admit that Magilou is the best character. Jus sayin
The battle system is okay once you figure out what Nova pointed out re: The number of Break Souls affecting the arte stages. Beyond that, though, I have to admit I'm pretty lazy so I'm mostly button-mashing (and guarding when necessary) my way through the game - I'm on Moderate difficulty, however, so I bet things would be different on Hard.
I think the biggest criticism I have so far is (spoilers below):
I had heard that Berseria was a more *gritty* experience than other Tales games. It certainly seemed that way in the beginning, while escaping the prison island. Since the escape, though, there's nothing in the aesthetics of the game - surroundings, music, or otherwise - to suggest that it's *gritty* in the least. And yeah, stuff like Velvet's attire kinda goes against the grittiness idea. I'm not saying that *gritty* == GOOD, but if one went into this game assuming a different experience the same way I did, they'd be slightly disappointed.
Even Velvet's revenge story seems to have taken a backseat to Eizen's, who I feel has been getting the most development so far - I'm assuming some connection with Zestiria here.
But apart from that, yeah, I'm enjoying Berseria overall. Just worried about my Persona 5 pre-order arriving before I'm able to finish it (I don't want to be the social pariah NOT playing P5 when it comes out....).
Finally, despite my complaints in the spoiler bit above, I have to admit that Magilou is the best character. Jus sayin
Well, it takes all types I guess. Magilou annoys the hell outta me (though I admit her VA does the job really well and has a great voice, AND that she's not as grating as some characters from certain franchises who try the same kind of character but miss the mark). She's my least liked character out of a group I quite enjoy as a whole, so it's really worst of a bunch of good. She is pretty annoying at times, though, especially at the start.
I much prefer Velvet, myself. Or Roku. Or any of the others. I deliberately try to leave her out of battles. (I play only as Velvet unless I have to switch to someone else for whatever reason. I try to avoid switching to Magilou since I can't get a handle on her play style. In fact, I try to switch only to the melee peeps since spells tend to feel weird - playing with Velvet where everything is instantaneously executed, then switching to someone who has to charge up a spell in order to attack, feels really weird.)
I'm not bad at the battle system (as in I've only had Velvet die on me once, and the others only two or three times total (all together)), I'm just annoyed about the lack of real control over what you use. I mean, you can just edit your skills in battle but having to do so for every battle is pretty annoying. I think it'd have been better if each button had an element attached to it or if it used something like the Legaia series, but I can deal with button mashing.
I'm about 40 hours in and starting to run thin on money. I was initially buying all armour/weapons, then dismantalling what I'd already mastered so I'd have components to upgrade them with, but now that things are costing so much, I'm finding it hard to do that, so I've had to cherry-pick, which is annoying me. I'm one of those 'everyone must learn everything!' people, so I've gone out of my way to have everyone master every piece of equipment that they can so far.
I like the equipment and exploration a lot. One other nit-pick is the control in the menu. It feels stupid to use different buttons to scroll through the main menu list (Items/Equipment/ect) when the R/LB buttons aren't used on that page, so they could easily have been bound to that. Instead they bound them to the Dpad? It's weird as hell considering all other areas use the R/LB buttons to scroll through horizontal lists. Really weird design choice.
I much prefer Velvet, myself. Or Roku. Or any of the others. I deliberately try to leave her out of battles. (I play only as Velvet unless I have to switch to someone else for whatever reason. I try to avoid switching to Magilou since I can't get a handle on her play style. In fact, I try to switch only to the melee peeps since spells tend to feel weird - playing with Velvet where everything is instantaneously executed, then switching to someone who has to charge up a spell in order to attack, feels really weird.)
I'm not bad at the battle system (as in I've only had Velvet die on me once, and the others only two or three times total (all together)), I'm just annoyed about the lack of real control over what you use. I mean, you can just edit your skills in battle but having to do so for every battle is pretty annoying. I think it'd have been better if each button had an element attached to it or if it used something like the Legaia series, but I can deal with button mashing.
I'm about 40 hours in and starting to run thin on money. I was initially buying all armour/weapons, then dismantalling what I'd already mastered so I'd have components to upgrade them with, but now that things are costing so much, I'm finding it hard to do that, so I've had to cherry-pick, which is annoying me. I'm one of those 'everyone must learn everything!' people, so I've gone out of my way to have everyone master every piece of equipment that they can so far.
I like the equipment and exploration a lot. One other nit-pick is the control in the menu. It feels stupid to use different buttons to scroll through the main menu list (Items/Equipment/ect) when the R/LB buttons aren't used on that page, so they could easily have been bound to that. Instead they bound them to the Dpad? It's weird as hell considering all other areas use the R/LB buttons to scroll through horizontal lists. Really weird design choice.
author=LibertyAhahaha, I can really understand that tbh - I guess I mostly appreciate how Maggie-Lou (they really should just called her Maggie-Lou, I think it suits her) is so completely in-your-face with all so many straight-faced characters around. MAGICKAZAM
Well, it takes all types I guess. Magilou annoys the hell outta me (though I admit her VA does the job really well and has a great voice, AND that she's not as grating as some characters from certain franchises who try the same kind of character but miss the mark). She's my least liked character out of a group I quite enjoy as a whole, so it's really worst of a bunch of good. She is pretty annoying at times, though, especially at the start.
Surprisingly enough, Rokurou is probs my least favourite character so far. Maybe it's because he hasn't really had the chance to show much personality yet - we shall see...
I mean, you can just edit your skills in battle but having to do so for every battle is pretty annoying. I think it'd have been better if each button had an element attached to it or if it used something like the Legaia series, but I can deal with button mashing.Yeah I agree: I can't be bothered changing my setup to account for differing elements and even types of enemies (amorphous, crustaceans etc. etc.)
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
I think it'd have been better if each button had an element attached to it or if it used something like the Legaia series, but I can deal with button mashing.
That's actually how I have my arte spread set up. For Velvet, I have non-elemental martial artes tied to triangle, hidden artes to square, and elemental martial artes to circle. For Eizen, I have martial artes to triangle, wind malak artes to square, earth malak artes to circle, and restoration artes to x. Same deal with everyone else.
Yeah, paying attention to enemy types is mostly worth the effort during boss fights. Outside of those, elemental affinities are much easier to coordinate and can set up combos easily enough.
You wanna talk about dumb menu navigation, Liberty? How many times have you accidentally changed your control type to Auto during battle? Some moron in the design team thought it would be a smart idea to bind the control type change function to the GUARD button when you're in the battle menu. I can't count how many times I changed to auto because I wanted to be guarding right out of the pause menu. Incidentally, that's also how I learned you still have some control over your character in auto mode. You can guard, quickstep, and even attack while in auto mode. Imagine thinking you're in manual mode and sometimes your character starts running around and attacking on their own.
Magilou grew on me as time went on. At first I found her annoying, but she plays off the rest of the cast really well, and her VA clearly had a LOT of fun with the role. Rokurou is my least favorite of the bunch, primarily because he feels kinda unnecessary. Sure, he's fleshed out as a character, but if you took him out of the game entirely, I seriously wonder how much of the plot would actually be affected?
magilou is the best character in the game and has the best writing and she's fun to play -- you can play her melee if you want, she has huge aoe damage with it. but seriously, magilou is fucking incredible. her subtlety been an inspiration to karsuman and i for sure. (talk. to. everybody.)
rokurou doesn't affect non-shigure story much no, but he's essential as a grounding force for velvet and eizen. i think he was very meaningfully chosen as the opening 5 hours' ally because he needed time to establish himself as velvet's shoulder to lean on (even if she wouldn't ever admit it). he's also the only character who really gets eizen, which is important for a character who can fly off the handle and murder people (i mean..... we all know about zestiria.....). i'd argue he's the nicest, and definitely most reliable, guy in the party, even moreso than laphicet or eleanor.
ym, a quick rundown on eizen from zesty if you want:
edit: also bertha falls into the "we're bad but the villains are badder" trope, but it definitely gets grittier? i think it just doesn't want to show it in a Berserk way or anything because Velvet really does not give a shit. you don't need to mope about the burning of Hellawes because everybody else in the world is. it realllly changes the dynamics of towns, i feel -- so many people hate you, but you're just playing your fun rpg as the girl who wants to kill artorius.
the tone changes when velvet's mood changes, such as when she's got eyes on eleanor or when, uh.... no spoilers, but there are parts where the tone is dramatically different and it's to accent velvet's current focus or lack thereof.
rokurou doesn't affect non-shigure story much no, but he's essential as a grounding force for velvet and eizen. i think he was very meaningfully chosen as the opening 5 hours' ally because he needed time to establish himself as velvet's shoulder to lean on (even if she wouldn't ever admit it). he's also the only character who really gets eizen, which is important for a character who can fly off the handle and murder people (i mean..... we all know about zestiria.....). i'd argue he's the nicest, and definitely most reliable, guy in the party, even moreso than laphicet or eleanor.
ym, a quick rundown on eizen from zesty if you want:
eizen is a story boss you need to run from, and then an optional endgame boss -- as a dragon. you recruit edna (his sister) from their mountain home "together". you need zaveid with you in order to actually be able to beat eizen for real. (unless i'm drawing a blank, zaveid/eizen/shigure's cat are the only direct characters from zesty, although eizen's a dragon in zesty)
edit: also bertha falls into the "we're bad but the villains are badder" trope, but it definitely gets grittier? i think it just doesn't want to show it in a Berserk way or anything because Velvet really does not give a shit. you don't need to mope about the burning of Hellawes because everybody else in the world is. it realllly changes the dynamics of towns, i feel -- so many people hate you, but you're just playing your fun rpg as the girl who wants to kill artorius.
the tone changes when velvet's mood changes, such as when she's got eyes on eleanor or when, uh.... no spoilers, but there are parts where the tone is dramatically different and it's to accent velvet's current focus or lack thereof.
Yeah, Roku is indespensible as a character because he is the legit nice guy (with fangs) who pulls Velvet back when she's going too far. He's warned her a few times about not pushing people too far, but still been supportive of her desires. He also plays off Velvet a lot as a comparison. They're both demons but he's more open and friendly (human-like, bar when it comes to his brother), he divulges more information about his condition as a demon (unlike Velvet who is a clam most of the game), and looks out for the whole group.
He and Eizen mesh well together, he helps keeps spirits up and his silliness helps keep the angst levels to a minimum. I like Roku a lot.
You're right about the tone of the game, too - it's quite well done. I... have a funny thing where my Velvet has had the Great Pirate eyepatch on from the start (and Phi has the normal eyepatch on because little bro following big sis (I also gave him the same earring as Elenor has because MATCHIES~)) and a lot of the time it just works (even though it covers up one eye.) IDK, it makes her appear more stoic, if that were even possible, since she only has the one eye to show emotion through. Sometimes it'll be a bit silly where they show a profile shot of her eyepatch, but it just works so well!
Red, I've never changed it to auto in the menu, but I've closed the menu a few times by accidentally hitting start when I meant to just back out of an option. And the amount of times I've rearranged my party by accident is beyond annoying. And don't get me started on checking the map/waypoints for sidequests. It'd be nice if you could actually have a cursor or something on the maps to jump from one map to another if you wanted to go from one area to the next quickly. But nope. That shit be awkward as fuck, yo.
I put all fire attacks on my A button and all earth on Y but it still throws in skills that aren't the ones I'm trying to do from time to time. It might be because I'm on semi-auto though.
So far it's the best Tales of game I've played so there's that. It's a pretty good game outside of that series, too.
He and Eizen mesh well together, he helps keeps spirits up and his silliness helps keep the angst levels to a minimum. I like Roku a lot.
You're right about the tone of the game, too - it's quite well done. I... have a funny thing where my Velvet has had the Great Pirate eyepatch on from the start (and Phi has the normal eyepatch on because little bro following big sis (I also gave him the same earring as Elenor has because MATCHIES~)) and a lot of the time it just works (even though it covers up one eye.) IDK, it makes her appear more stoic, if that were even possible, since she only has the one eye to show emotion through. Sometimes it'll be a bit silly where they show a profile shot of her eyepatch, but it just works so well!
Red, I've never changed it to auto in the menu, but I've closed the menu a few times by accidentally hitting start when I meant to just back out of an option. And the amount of times I've rearranged my party by accident is beyond annoying. And don't get me started on checking the map/waypoints for sidequests. It'd be nice if you could actually have a cursor or something on the maps to jump from one map to another if you wanted to go from one area to the next quickly. But nope. That shit be awkward as fuck, yo.
I put all fire attacks on my A button and all earth on Y but it still throws in skills that aren't the ones I'm trying to do from time to time. It might be because I'm on semi-auto though.
So far it's the best Tales of game I've played so there's that. It's a pretty good game outside of that series, too.
