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lifeofkaze · 3 years

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An Art of Balance #29

Orion Amari x MC

A/N: Julian Bennett belongs to the wonderful @slytherindisaster

Word Count: ~ 3.300

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Chapter 29: Unbalanced

With the school year drawing to an end, the amount of attention spent in Professor Binns’s classes had dwindled even further. Half of the students enduring the dull droning of the ghost alongside Orion were asleep, the other was using the time to catch up on neglected assignments, so they could spend their afternoon outside. For all that Binns cared, they could have chucked their inkwells through the classroom.

Like the rest of the students, Orion’s mind was anywhere but on the Witch Trials of 1692. He was bent over a piece of parchment, drawing and crossing out lines and circles as he tried to come up with a decent match plan. The last game of the season was only a few days away and he still didn’t have the slightest idea how to let his team play against Gryffindor. He had been trying to think of something for the last two weeks, but nothing good would come to him.

The Gryffindor team was known for their speed and dexterity, both qualities combined in their seeker and captain, Charlie Weasley. Orion had either watched or participated in every game Charlie had played since he had joined his House team and he knew raw talent when he saw it. When Charlie set eyes on the Snitch, he was always the one to catch it, no exceptions so far. They would have to make sure to keep him out of the game as well as possible.

Having an idea about what strategy Charlie was going for would have helped Orion design an appropriate counterpart, but the Gryffindors had taken care. As of late, they had started training at odd hours, often at the break of dawn or just before sunset, so no one would watch their manoeuvres.

Being friends not only with their captain but some other players as well, Lizzie usually could provide at least some insight into the Gryffindor team’s plans; but since she and Charlie had stopped speaking to each other, she was as clueless as the rest of them.

Maybe Orion’s own strategy would have come easier to him had he known how to incorporate the newly changed dynamic in their own team into his thoughts. But the way Lizzie, Skye and himself were working together these days still felt foreign to him.

He knew Skye and Lizzie were practising on their own a lot; as a result, their playstyle had become attuned to each other and they had developed some new moves that only worked between the two of them. They did include Orion in their manoeuvres of course, but the perfect balance between them had shifted.

Tearing his eyes away from the playbook he was writing in, Murphy looked over at Orion's notes sceptically. “I hate to break this to you, but with that strategy your chances of winning against Gryffindor sink to a discouraging 22.4 % at best.” He tilted his head and squeezed his eyes as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. “If I interpret it correctly, that is… is that even a strategy chart?”

“Our thoughts need room to unfold before they can evolve into ideas,” Orion explained airily, although he knew full well his work certainly wasn’t what he would call productive. “It is no good judging a diamond before it is cut and polished. However, true wisdom only comes to those who know how to listen, so if you have any idea how to improve our odds, I’m all ears.“

Murphy chuckled at Orion’s long-winded admittance of being stuck. “Let me finish the design of my new move and I’ll think of something.” He snorted as he glanced at the confusing array of lines and arrows once again. “Anything’s better than that.”

With a sigh of relief Orion dropped his quill and let his gaze wander out of the window towards the Quidditch pitch. It was good to know Murphy was too involved with their team’s success to let them down; not that he would have anyway. Even though their philosophies couldn’t have been more different, both of them knew the other would always have their backs, no matter if it was about Quidditch or anything else.

But even with Murphy’s brilliant mind on the matter, he knew the best strategy was no use without a well-balanced team to carry it out. And balance was something not only his team, but he himself was seriously lacking these days.

Orion was still pondering on this when the class was dismissed what felt like hours later. When they emerged from the dingy classroom, he was surprised to find Skye waiting for them in the corridor. When she spotted Orion and Murphy, she pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning against and made her way over to them.

“According to my notes, you are supposed to have Divination right now,” Murphy greeted her with a surprised voice. “Was class cancelled? I did see Professor Trewlaney at breakfast and lunch though, if she didn’t fall ill in between lunch and now - which, by the way, only is 12.5 % likely - I’d say you’re skipping class. Which is not good, Skye,” he added reproachfully. “You might get removed from the team if you’re caught.”

Skye didn’t seem fazed by his concerns and merely shrugged them off. “Don’t worry, I told Trelawney I feel burdened by the stars and some other nonsense I came up with. She felt very sorry for me and let me go to ‘find respite from the grim fate that’s awaiting me’,” she snorted and rolled her eyes. “Getting out of this class is way too easy if you ask me.”

Orion wasn’t happy with her heedless attitude either. Skye being careless about attending her classes was the last thing he needed right now. “You shouldn’t risk the privileges we hold so readily,” he scolded her mildly. “Unfortunately, our team is not prepared to meet Gryffindor eye to eye on the pitch as of yet. You getting banned from Quidditch for unnecessarily missing classes would be a harsh blow to our team.”

Skye’s expression had turned serious. “I wouldn’t call it unnecessary; the team is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about.” She fell in step beside them as they made their way to the dungeons; they had Potions scheduled next. “We have to do something to get everyone back on track, and fast; the match’s almost here and we’re in a damn sorry state right now.”

Orion sighed. “I understand and appreciate your concerns about the balance of our team; I share them as well. But the fragile unison between all of us is a delicate matter; one wrong step could make everything worse and easily lead us from the way to our goal onto the one headed for failure.”

Skye huffed incredulously. “Worse? Wake up, Orion; it’s never been worse since the early days before Lizzie joined the team.”

“I actually have to agree with Skye here,” Murphy chimed in. “Looking at the numbers alone, the Hufflepuff team is stronger than ever.

As always when he was delving into his statistics, his grey eyes lit up with excitement. “The precision of your Seeker improved by 44.2 % compared to when she started out on the team six years ago. Everett and Judith only miss 5.6 % of their shots and our Keeper deflects 68.9 % of all attempts on his goalposts, 72.6 % on a good day. But you Chasers… ,” he trailed off for a moment and then shrugged. “Well, I hate to say it, but it’s only you guys that are lacking in performance at the moment.”

“Cheers for stating the obvious, McNully,” Skye muttered glumly.

“My pleasure; the physical abilities to win the match are there, but the sideshows going on are distracting the whole team. Like this, the chances of a Cup dressed in yellow and gold diminish to 23.6 %; and as impartial as I am, I really don’t like that,” he couldn’t help but add.

“You’re right,” Orion conceded. “The Chasers are the weak link in the chain holding us together. You and Lizzie balance each other well, but between the three of us, we lack the harmony we used to share before… well, you know,” he trailed off; he generally tried to avoid speaking openly about what had happened between him and Lizzie a few weeks ago. He could push the thought into the back of his mind when he focused on something else, but it would resurface every now and again. Orion had tried to let it go many times, but so far his attempts had been unsuccessful; thinking about it still hurt.

“Agreed, it’s because of you and Lizzie,” Skye mercilessly brought the subject up again. “Stop talking around it. She always knew best how to showcase our playstyles at the same time.”

“She has a point,” Murphy surprisingly agreed. “Lizzie’s style of playing Chaser is the most balanced out of the three of you, for lack of a better word.” He laughed lightly at the thought of anyone being more balanced than the Hufflepuff captain. “She is a perfect mixture of Skye’s overly rash and aggressive offensive and your more cautious, tactical approach.”

Skye looked at Murphy for a moment, trying to decide whether he had insulted her or not. She let it pass, however. “Whatever McNully said, this is exactly why I’m here. We have to do something about this whole situation with you guys or we might as well hand the lions the cup without much bother.”

Orion didn’t answer her; the prospect of Skye meddling in his business was not a thought he found reassuring. He brushed his hair out of his face before fiddling with the tie of his uniform; it suddenly felt even more suffocating than usual.

“Sometimes the ventures that are seemingly the easiest to undertake turn out to be the most complicated ones,” Orion conceded; he knew Skye easily lost her patience and let a topic drop if he wasn’t getting straight to the point, but not this time.

“That’s nonsense,” she snorted. “The way I see it, you need to man up and Jameson needs a kick in her pretty behind to get her to stop moping.”

Both Murphy and Orion were silent; even for Skye, her words were unusually straightforward.

She waved her hand impatiently. “Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right.”

Lowering her voice a bit, she looked down at her feet. “Seriously, I can’t stand her being so sad all the time; none of you deserves this. And besides,” she quickly added in an attempt to play over her genuine concern for her friends, “if we don’t get that bloody trophy this year I’m going to lose it, let me tell you!”

They had reached Snape’s classroom where most of the Hufflepuffs and Slytherins were already waiting for the class to begin. Skye turned to leave for their Common Room until her next class would start, but not without looking back over her shoulder one last time.

“I’m serious, captain. Fix things with her or I will do it for you, one way or another.”

Skye’s words never really left Orion for the next couple of days. They would pop up in his mind in regular intervals, making it almost impossible for him to focus on one thing for a longer period of time.

For one, he really didn’t want Skye to interfere and he knew she absolutely would; although she would never admit it, it was clear to see that he wasn’t the only one concerned about Lizzie. And while he knew Skye was invested, her approach was seldomly a gentle one. He shuddered at the thought of what she might come up with.

But what was even more than that, he knew that she was right.

He and Lizzie hadn’t spoken alone since their meeting on the stands, when she had told him about her decision. As much as it had pained him and still did, he had respected her choice, and left her alone; there was no need to hurt both of them any more than necessary.

Orion was reluctant to break the fragile peace between them but Skye had a point; if they didn’t manage to find some form of common ground, their prospects of winning against Gryffindor were anything but promising. He knew confronting her would reopen both their wounds they had worked so hard to patch up these last few weeks, but what he felt personally didn’t matter in that instance. He was the captain of his team and had to put their shared goals first.

Just as he had feared, fixing things with Lizzie was a thing easier said than done. She was hard to catch these days, especially for him. Ever since the Slytherin match Lizzie had made sure to keep a low profile. Always being involved with some friend group or another, more often than not right in the middle of the action, she kept to herself and spent most of her time somewhere on the Grounds, her dorm or the library; neither place was particularly suited to have a serious conversation.

It wasn’t until their last official practise before the final game of the season that Orion finally managed to get hold of her. Everyone but Lizzie, Skye, Murphy and himself had already left the changing room as they packed their things to return to the castle.

Skye gave Orion a pointed glance and nodded in Lizzie’s direction; she had her back to them as she was stowing away her Comet for the evening. Murphy was still pondering the final details of their strategy he had just presented to them; he looked up in surprise as Skye grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out of the tent.

Lizzie raised her head at the commotion to find herself alone with Orion. She immediately tensed and quickly secured the holdings of her broom before starting off towards the exit herself.

Orion reached to stop her instinctively. “Wait up, I need to talk to you for a moment.”

When he touched her arm, however, she flinched from his touch and he immediately pulled back; that certainly hadn’t been the best start.

Lizzie took a step back from him so she was out of his reach. He noticed how her shoulders tensed further as she looked at him, meeting his eyes only briefly.

“What can I help you with?”

Her tone was very formal; Orion knew it was her way of keeping more than just physical distance from him. He hated having to make her talk to him this way when she clearly didn’t want to; but the wellbeing of their team was his responsibility, so he ignored the sting he felt at her reaction and gave her a small smile.

“Our final match is nearly here and it is my duty as captain to make sure every member of our team is feeling balanced,” he explained. He knew she didn’t buy it by the way she was raising her eyebrows doubtfully. Even now, she could read him like a book.

“We haven’t talked for weeks now,” he admitted softly, “I wanted to know if you’re alright.”

For a short moment, he saw a trace of uncertainty flicker across her face before she regained control over her expression again. Her eyes dropped and she shuffled her feet uncomfortably.

“Is this about my performance today?” she asked contritely. “I know I’m not in the best state right now, I’ll do my best and be ready in time for the match, don’t worry.”

Orion shook his head. “No, you were doing a good job. While your way of playing seems to have changed, I welcome the newfound harmony between you and Skye. It is plain to see that your hearts are beating to the same rhythm when you are flying next to each other.” He tilted his head sideways, trying to catch her eyes that were still fixed on the ground. “But no chord is complete without all of its notes; if one is missing, the sound rings hollow. Like in a musical chord, there are three of us Chasers; and where you are one with Skye, the bond we shared is all but gone.”

Lizzie’s shoulders slumped and she sighed deeply. “I know,” she muttered and bit her lip. “I’m working on it, okay?”

They both knew that finding a common place, where they weren’t fazed by neither what was in their past nor what might have been in their future was an almost impossible feat. But for the sake of their team, they had to try.

“If I may offer my advice, I’d tell you to focus on what’s imminent instead of tearing yourself apart over something you cannot change anymore. Concentrate on the match; when we’re on the pitch, nothing else counts.” He smiled softly and a little bit sadder than he had meant to. “Leave what’s past in the past.”

She chuckled wryly. “You make that sound a lot easier than it actually is, Captain.”

Orion’s smile widened the slightest bit upon hearing her using her nickname for him. “I know that, Chaser,” he couldn’t help but play along, ”just remember, I told you time and time again, that whatever happens, I’m still your friend and I always will be. If it helps you overcome your difficulties, forget everything that happened this year; push it to the back of your mind where it won’t dampen your spirit anymore. Imagine we are the same we were when the year began.”

“Are we though?” she asked silently. “But what if I don’t want that?”

Raising her eyes, Lizzie finally met his gaze without shying away. She searched his face for any sign, any giveaway whether pretending like nothing had changed was what he himself wanted or not. She hadn’t looked at him that intensely since they had parted on the stands back in March; he felt the butterflies dancing in his stomach as his heart rate was speeding up.

Orion hesitated for a second when he raised his hand to touch her. This time, she didn’t flinch when he put his hand on her shoulder. He tried to not let the contact between them exceed the encouraging gesture of a team captain to another player, but he couldn’t ignore the tingles spreading from his palm into the rest of his body.

He tried to shake the feeling off by concentrating on what he had to say. “Listen up, Chaser; my advice as your captain is, take your struggle with you into the air. Use it, let it fuel your fire, because no one I know burns as brightly as you do. Ignite your fire again, so everyone else can see that it is unmatched.”

The corners of Lizzie’s mouth quirked up as her smile, that had been sad before, widened. Her eyes were sparkling again as her fighting spirit was returning to her. “Thank you, Captain, I’ll do everything I can not to let you down. There’s still a lot on my mind, but you’re right; on the pitch, nothing matters but the game and we’ll show Gryffindor how it's played.”

Orion was glad to see a bit of the Lizzie he knew shining through again. “Exactly,” he grinned as his lips curved into a lopsided smile. “Go now, find your focus and clean your slate; because it is only with an unburdened mind that we can win.”

#hphm #hogwarts mystery #quidditch #orion amari #skye parkin #murphy mcnully #lizzie jameson #aob #art of balance #the quidditch squad

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aetm-malereaderimagines · 4 years

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Hi hi!! May I request one for haikyuu where reader is Yaku’s younger brother and he’s on the team. It’s during the training camp and he meets and has a crush on Akaashi but doesn’t know how to talk to him cuz he socially awkward and stuff? Thxx!!! Luv your works by the way uwu *^*

No thank you!!! I’m so happy to hear that! I’m so sorry it took me so long to write this but the Christmas-New Year period has been quite busy for me m(_ _)m I took the liberty of making you a first-year setter since I needed something to start from. I really do hope you like it tho!

Also sorry to the other person who sent me another request but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten you! I’ll get to writing your request as soon as I can!

Pairing: Akaashi Keiji x Male Reader

Word count: 1970

密かな眼差し — Silent Admiration

“Listen up, boys!”

You turned around to look at Kurōwho was calling for your attention. You were sitting on the floor ofyour locker room alongside your teammates, all of whom had gatheredthere early in the morning, and now everyone’s eyes were on Kurō.Kurō was standing in frontof the lone window and as you turned around to look up to him, yousquinted, as the summer sun blazing through the glass pane, stillhanging relatively low above the horizon, hurt your eyes a littlebit.

“Starting today, we’ll be training with Fukurōdani, Ubugawa,Shinzen, and Karasuno so don’t you dare do anything toostupid. I’m talking to you, Yamamoto!” saidKuroo, causinggiggle to rise across the room, except from Taketora himself. “I’mgonna go and show our guests around so you go to the gym and waitthere, okay?”

As soon as you rose to your feet, you felt a hand on your shoulder.

“Stressed?” asked Morisuke.

You gulped.

“A little. You know the guys we’llbe training with, right, nii-san?”

“Well, I do knot the guys fromFukurōdani, Ubugawa,and Shinzen” yourbrother answered. “We’ve trained together a few times. They’reall pretty cool guys even if some of them can be a little…eccentric. But I don’t knowmuch about Karasuno,” he added. “We’ve had a practice matchonce in Miyagi but that’s pretty much it.”

“That doesn’t help much but…Thanks, nii-san.”You gave your brother a faint smile.

“Oh come on, you’ll be okay! You can always hide behind me ifyou’re scared,” Morisuke teased.

“Don’t be surprised if Iactually do end upclinging to your back,” you teased back.

Youkept talking and teasing each other back and forth as you covered the short distance separating your locker room and the gym. Once you gotthere, you started getting everything ready for the practice, settingup the net, bringing out the balls, mopping the floor… Halfwaythrough, the members of Ubugawa and Shinzen arrived at the gym andcountless unfamiliar voices filled the air, adding to the usualhubbub of your teammates setting up the court and reverberating against the gym walls, making you slightly uneasy. Youtried to stick to Morisuke as much as you could, at least when he wasnot greeting other teams or running off to kick Yamamoto or Lev tostop them from causing trouble.

A fewminutes later, Fukurōdaniarrived, adding a whole newlevel to the general ruckus with their rather loud owl-hairedcaptain. You remembered seeing him fromthe stands once when you went to cheer on your brother but somehow heseemed even louder now than then. You ran off to the side where Levwas sulking after being scolded particularly harshly, this time byKurō.

“Wanna train with me? I can tossthe ball for you,” you spoke to Lev, causing him to jump upimmediately.

“For real?! Of course I want to!”Lev exclaimed, making you letout a sigh of relief. Now,you had an excuse not to talk to anyone else, even if only for thetime before the official practice began. Youwere about to head for the ball basket when you heard an unfamiliarvoice from behind your back.

“Yaku-kun.”

You turned around to find a tall, slim figure standing right in frontof you. A pair of gunmetal blue eyes bore into you from underneaththick, black eyebrows and a mop of messy hair of the same color.

“I’m looking forward to training with you,” the dark-haired boysaid, both to you and to Lev, giving the latter a small nod ofacknowledgment.

“Umh, likewise?” you said questioningly, trying to remember ifyou knew him. He knew your name so you probably should also know hisbut you just couldn’t remember it.

“Umh, excuse me, but do we know each other?”

“I know you. I saw you in one of your matches when you went in tosub Kenma. You weren’t half-bad for a first year. I’m AkaashiKeiji, a setter like yourself. I hope we can learn from each other.”Akaashi spoke in short but pronounced sentences. You kind of juststood there, listening, and nodded when he finished, acknowledginghis words. He nodded as well and simply walked away.

You remembered now. You had seen Fukurōdani’s matches a few timesin videos. Akaashi’s tall figure, his dark hair and calm demeanormatched those of Fukurōdani’s first setter.

“Yaku? Should we go and get the ball? …Yaku?” Lev tried to snapyou out of your trance but to no avail.

You were still standing where Akaashi left you, dumbfounded. A settermuch superior to you, the setter of one of the strongest highschool teams in the country, praised your skills as a volleyballplayer and admitted he could even learn something from you.Although you’d had your doubts about having four other teams hangaround your school, most of those doubts vanished after yourconversation with Akaashi.

And you had to admit he was kind of your type.

It was a crush. It was definitely a crush.

You spent the last few days training intensely and getting to playagainst so many different, strong players was cool and all but youwould find your eyes wandering towards the pretty Fukurōdani setterevery now and then, probably even more often than you’d like toadmit. But you had yet to make a move, any move actually.You’d only played a few games against Fukurōdani and… that waspretty much it. That was all the contact you’d made with Akaashi.Before you even knew it, it was already the last day of the jointpractice and the BBQ you were going to have in the evening was yourlast chance to do something. You had to at least get hisnumber. Texting was the less embarrassing alternative to campingoutside his school whenever you wanted to talk to him.

But even as the sun sank over the horizon and the BBQ started, youstill couldn’t force yourself to talk to Akaashi properly. How didother people even do it? Talk to strangers? Holding casualconversations with people they barely knew anything about?

Akaashi was right there, standing by the grill and talking toKarasuno’s setter, yet he seemed so far to you.

“What are you staring at?”

You didn’t even notice when your brother approached you. You didn’tanswer and just kept chewing your veggies.

“You like Akaashi?”

You choked on your veggies.

“Wow, wow, are you okay?” said Morisuke with a genuinely worriedexpression on his face. You coughed a few more times, trying to getthe food out of your respiratory tract.

“I-I’m okay,” you managed to mumble.

“Here, have some water.”

You took the cup and drank all the water in one go. It took you amoment to realize that the voice that had spoken to you just now andthe hand that had brought you the cup of water hadn’t been yourbrother’s. The said brother, by the way, simply disappeared fromyour side. You looked around only to find him looking at you from allover by the grills, and when he noticed you looking at him, he winkedat you and mouthed “good luck.”

Best worst wingman ever.

“Better now?” asked Akaashi.

“Y-yeah, thanks,” you said.

And the dreaded awkward silence fell between you.

Akaashi was right beside you and you didn’t know what to say.

“So… How did you like the practice?” asked Akaashi.

“It… It was fun.”

“Having to do the laps was?” It was the first time you sawAkaashi smile.

“No, not that part,” you giggled, “but I need to work on mystamina anyways so…”

“Me too, man, if I want to keep up with Bokuto-san.” Akaashi letout a small sigh although you could tell he wasn’t being completelyserious.

“It’s already amazing you’re keeping up with him as you arenow. You’re amazing. Yeah,” you added sheepishly.

“So are you. Just what did Kozume teach you? You fit right in yourteam’s playstyle, and that’s no easy feat, given it’s thatNekoma.”

“Not much, really.” It really felt good to be praised by Akaashi.“I learn mostly by observation. I’m still a first year so I don’tget to play in official matches. Kenma-san isn’t really the kind toteach anything to people so… I mostly just watch and copy what Ican.”

“That’s even more impressive if you ask me.” There you gotanother smile. “But I’ll gladly train with you the next time wehave practiced together. That is, if you need any guidance.”

“Yeah, sure. Actually…” You gulped loudly. “If we—” Youfought really hard not to let the words get stuck in your throat. “Ifwe could, like, exchange numbers or something, I could ask you somequestions that way. If you were so kind as to answer them. Aboutvolleyball. And setting.” “And other stuff,” youadded in your mind.

Akaashi blinked a few times and you held your breath.

“Sure, why not,” he finally said, pulling his phone out of hissweatshirt as you pulled out yours.

“Aaand done,” said Akaashi. “I’ll text you later to checkif—”

“AAKHAAAHSHI!!!”

“Bokuto-san.” Akaashi let out a deep sigh.

“Who is that pretty boy you’re talking to?” asked thehorn-owl-like guy who you knew to be Fukurōdani’s captain. Youwere so surprised by his sudden appearance your face seemed to haveforgotten how to blush.

“Bokuto-san…” It looked as though Akaashi was holding himselffrom facepalming, as he raised his hand towards his face. “MeetYaku-kun, Yaku-san’s younger brother and Nekoma’s reservesetter.”

“Oh is that so! But why are you standing so far from everyone else?Come on, let’s have fun together!” Bokuto said as he grabbed bothyour and Akaashi’s hands and dragged you towards the tables. Youturned your gaze toward Akaashi in hope of getting some kind of helpor at least explanation but he just looked back at youapologetically.

“This is my life. And also yours now, it seems,” he sent you asheepish smile.

Your heart skipped a bit at the thought that Akaashi alreadyconsidered you a part of his life. Soon, you were being greeted byother members of Fukurōdani, then even joined by a few members ofShinzen, Ubugawa, and Karasuno as everyone was just talking toeveryone else. You felt a little dizzy, being confronted with so manynew names and faces but every time you felt too out of place, youjust looked at Akaashi who gave you a reassuring smile.

“Yaku-san.”

Your name had been called by so many unfamiliar voices so many timesduring this practice that you weren’t even surprised this time. Itseemed to just be a thing that everyone knew your name. You turnedyour face in the direction of the voice and was confronted withKarasuno’s setter frowning face.

“Name’s Kageyama. I wanted to talk to you about the feint youused during our last match, the one where you mislead the opponentteam with your eyes? I tried talking to Kenma-san but he just ranaway,” Kageyama said. “Why is everyone running away from me,”he added in a much quieter voice.

“What’s that about?” Akaashi suddenly spoke up, turning hisgaze to you. “I wanna hear about that, too.”

You found yourself under the pressure two pairs of blue eyes boringinto you with expectation in their gaze. Both your crush and one ofthe most talented setters you’ve ever met were looking up to youfor guidance.

You smiled to yourself. It still wouldn’t be something you do everyday but maybe getting out of your comfort zone wasn’t so bad afterall?

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lazella · 4 years

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Infinity Stones AU: In Which They Met Spiderman...And Venom

I finally finished this one, just in time to relieve your Coronavirus blues. I really hope you enjoy. :)

Yuya and Yuma were having duel, no holograms as they were still working on making the Duel Disks compatible, trying to iron out the difference in rules and card types so that they could do a battle royal later. Yusaku was rather helpful in figuring out how the make the game fair between all the different playstyles. Though no one defeated Yugi, he won every time. But for now he was just watching enjoying the show. Yuma was pretty good but sometimes he would try to ask Astral for help who rather sarcastically reminded Yuma he needed to play on his own. Who knew spirits could be sassy? Yusei was in the lab with Tony working on something, they had been rather secretive about it. Judai was also spectating the match.

“Wait…how do Pendulum Monsters work again?” Yuma asked for the fifth time.

Yuya sighed and prepared to explain again only to be interrupted by a loud thump on the window followed by a voice.

“Oh hey there…loving the hair dye.”

Judai blinked few times, then yelled out back towards the labs, “Tony! There’s a guy in red spandex on the window! Not sure how he got there!”

There was some loud crash noise before Tony and Yusei entered the main room, Tony gave a look at the spandex person, and sighed, “How many times have I told you to call ahead and use the door?”

“But it’s a lot more fun to go swinging around the New York skyline!” The red figure argued back.

“Just go use the door!” Tony sighed, “Boys…meet Spiderman. And yes…he does what a spider does.”

“I’m am also very friendly!” Spiderman insisted as he enter the ‘proper’ way, “And also Mr. Stark why do they have their hair dyed! You wouldn’t let me dye my hair!”

“Believe it or not that is their natural color and no this is not permission to dye your hair.” Tony responded

“But I wear a full face mask! No one would know it was me!”

“You wanted to dye your hair RAINBOW!!!”

“It was going to be for a good cause!”

Yusei whispered to Yugi, “Do they sound like father and son?”

“They do but I don’t think Tony-san has any children.” Yugi said.

“His father tendencies are strong…” Judai added.

“He does a poor job of hiding it…” Yusaku said.

“You think he has other kids he may have ‘adopted’?” Yuya asked.

“I think it’s likely….” Astral said, “I believe he has adopted all of you.”

“Wha?” Yuma was perplexed, “But I still have parents!”

“WHY IS THERE A GHOST?!?!?!”

“Oh…he has noticed me.” The sass was back with Astral.

“Kid calm down….” Tony sighed, “That’s not a ghost…the short one can tell you the full details later.”

“I’m not short!” Yuma protested.

“But why are they here? They don’t look like heroes…” Spiderman asked.

“They have the Infinity Stones.”

“Ooooooooohhhhh…..that makes sense.” Spiderman said, “Think they can help me out?”

Tony arched an eyebrow, “What sort of problem do you have that might need the power of the Infinity Stones for?”

“I think I spotted Venom running amok earlier.”

“What?” Tony froze, “What you mean that you think you saw Venom today?! He’s in lock up!”

“That why I came here! To be sure!”

“Okay fine….” Tony sighed, “JARVIS…can you contact…”

Actually sir….I just received a message stating that Venom has escaped confinement.

“WHEN!?”

Four hours ago.

“AND THEY DIDN’T THINK IT WAS IMPORTANT TO CALL ME?!” Tony stormed over to a wall, pushed a button, and a compartment containing six gauntlets popped out. He tossed on to each of the boys, “Put these on, they are designed to help channel the power of the Infinity Stones, they are prototypes so be careful, now let’s hunt an alien symbiote.” He then stormed off to get suited up.

Judai turned to Spiderman, “So…what’s going on?”

“I’ll explain as we head out…” Spiderman let out a sigh.

………………………

“So we’re are dealing with an alien…”

“Yep…”

“That’s also a parasite.”

“Yep…”

“And it has favorite people it likes to attach to…including yourself.”

“Pretty much.”

“Cool!”

“It’s not cool!” Spiderman rubbed his temples, “It can corrupt and or kill the host!”

“So we still get to fight it right?” Nothing seemed to be fazing Judai at the moment. Spiderman wondered why he was left alone with this kid while Mr. Stark had the others spread out around town with scanners trying to find Venom.

“I rather just bottle it up and not touch it…” Spiderman sighed, “Just thinking about it touching me gives me shivers.”

Judai’s face turned serious, “How so?”

“It gets in your head…tells you things that sound appealing…” Spiderman explained, “But it makes you do stuff you normally don’t do…not to mention it kills most people it tries to attach too.”

“Oooohhhhh…I see…” Judai’s face turned to what Spiderman thought was understanding, “I can see why you didn’t want to deal with it by yourself.”

“It usually doesn’t end well facing Venom alone.” Spiderman said, “Mr. Stark always insists that I now call him up anytime I need to deal with him.”

Judai, can you hear me? Yugi’s voice came over the commlink.

“What is it Yugi-san?”

We spotted Venom. Three blocks east of your location and he’s heading your way fast.

“Got it!” Spiderman was on alert.

We’ll rendezvous as soon as we can. Please don’t do anything stupid please…Tony’s pleading voice came over the commlink.

“No promises…” Judai replied looking over to the direction that Venom was reported to be coming from. In the distance he could see a black figure coming towards them fast. He could see that the silhouette looked like a bulkier version of Spiderman but seemed to be having trouble keeping form.

That thing looks disgusting…. Yubel muttered.

“Looks like a sentient blob trying to copy you Spiderman.” Judai said.

“I guess he doesn’t have a host yet…which is why he’s gunning for me…” Spiderman gulped as Venom leaped for them.

“I’ve got your back!” Judai activated his duel disk and summoned Neos who punched the symbiote disrupting its form making it rain alien goop.

“It’s not going to be that easy…” Spiderman looked around wearingly as the blobs worked back towards each other.

“Neos! Keep the parts separated!” Judai ordered while he ran with Spiderman trying to keep distance between them and Venom jumping down the fire escape two steps at a time.

“Judai!” The brown-haired duelist looked up to see Yusei being dropped off by Tony carrying some equipment. “Mr. Stark has a plan to recapture Venom! Lure him to the nearby park so we can trap him!”

Spiderman seemed to recognize the equipment that Yusei is carrying, “Are those the high frequency disruptors?”

“Part of the plan,” Yusei explained, “Mr. Stark explain Venom’s weakness to me…” He handed Judai and Spiderman what looked like hand held cannons, “I can see you have Neos fighting Venom right now Judai but this is in case he tries attaching to anyone. Now get Neos to bring it to the park.”

“You heard him Neos!” Judai yelled out to his warrior. Neos gave a nod and began taunting the pieces of Venom into following him. The blobs let out a garbled shriek but took the bait. Spiderman grabbed Judai under the shoulders and began web slinging towards the park.

Yuma, Yuya, don’t take this wrong way but I need you two to stay back. Tony’s voice crackled over the commlink.

WHAT?! WHY?! Yuma screech nearly made everyone deaf.

Because dad said so!

“He admitted it finally!” Judai laughed.

W-What I meant was……that I don’t want Venom to be eating you two as a snack….Tony unconvincingly corrected himself.

You know they are going to get involved anyway. Yusei chimed in.

I think this is a proven point by now. Yugi chimed in next.

“Is this normal for you guys?” Spiderman asked Judai.

“Pretty much…” Judai shrugged, “I don’t think Tony is used to the fact that us kids saved our worlds a few times over, so we have little fear of anything.”

“I want to hear that story later.” Spiderman said as they touched down in the park with the Venom blobs hot on their tails.

“Can’t wait to test this out…” Judai grinned as he placed the Power Stone in the prototype gauntlet, the metal gaining a purple hue as it charged up with power. He ran towards the nearest blob and gave it a good punch turning the blob into something that had the consistency of black tar, but it did stop moving.

“Just do that again!” Spiderman cried out as tried to web down the incoming blobs. He spied Yusei setting up a perimeter with the equipment Mr. Stark had given him so he knew that he had to keep Venom’s attention away from him. Ironman himself had made an appearance himself blasting chunks of Venom with hypersonic frequencies. Overall, it was looking like they were having a handle on the situation. That is until Spiderman felt something shove him hard sending him flying across the park. When the world stopped spinning, he sat up and saw Judai trying to pull something black off his arm.

Black…on his arm….

Oh crap….

“MR. STARK! VENOM’S ON JUDAI!!!!!!” Spiderman yelled as loud as he could.

Within an instant, Ironman was on the scene trying to blast Venom off Judai. A task that was proving to be difficult as the other Venom blobs were darting for Judai and the glob that was on him was spreading fast.

“Get away Tony! I’M STARTING TO LOSE CONTROL!!!” Judai’s voice had already started distorting.

“Venom or Haou?” Ironman asked.

“BOTH!!!”

Spiderman had no idea what was going on but judging by the fact Mr. Stark immediately jumped back from Judai was a sign that it was not good. Wind started kicking up around Judai as he let out an inhumane growl and Spiderman could of sworn his eyes changed to a gold color.

“What’s going on!!!!” Yugi had arrived with the rest of the boys all looking shocked.

“Venom’s got Judai and it seems to be in an argument with that dark side of him you guys told me about.” Ironman explained, “Yusei’s almost done setting up the destabilizers and containment but we need to keep Vemon here and not hijack Judai’s body.”

“The Mind Stone trick is not going to work this time is it…” Yusaku glumly stated.

“Probably not…” Yugi frowned, “Yuma, can you do that fusion thing? You may need the extra protection.”

“Astral says if Yuya get set up the field we’ll be all set.” Yuma explained.

“I’ll add a barrier as well just in case…” Yuya focused on his gauntlet with the Reality Stone as a golden field surrounded the park.

Now Spiderman really had no idea what was going on. Even more so when it seemed that Yuma started glowing all sorts of colors and transformed into a really cool looking warrior with plated wings wielding two swords. He was so totally asking for details about that later.

“Yuma, you and I are on close combat!” Ironman started barking orders, “Yugi, Yuya, and Spiderman are on ranged attacks. Yusaku, you fall back with Yusei to make sure the equipment is ready to go on my signal!”

The team immediately acted on the orders. Spiderman watched as Yugi and Yuya used those cards they had to summon more things, a magician in purple armor and a red dragon attacking Judai/Venom when they could. Yuma and Ironman were keeping close slicing any stray bits of Venom that tried to attack or try to attach to a tree in hopes of escape. Spiderman himself was focusing on trapping any limbs that look close to striking anyone.

“Judai! Fight it off!” Yugi cried out.

“I’M TrYINg!!!! IT FeELS LIkE NaiLS IN MY heAD!!” Judai was switching between his own voice, an eerie echo of his own, and Venom’s voice.

“Hang on for one more minute!” Yusei yelled out, “We’re just about ready!”

Judai let out a growl that sounded like an okay and managed to get his uncover side of his body closer to the ground holding the Venom covered arm up.

“Everyone fall back!” Ironman yelled out as everyone got to a safe distance.

When everyone was clear, Yusei activated the sonic disruptors. The effect was instantaneous Venom shrieking, trying in vain to stay attached to Judai. The brown hair boy has having none of it. Judai’s golden eyes met Venom’s.

“If you do not wish to be disintegrated into sand…release me at once!”

With that, Venom finally released Judai. Yusaku immediately activated the containment field trapping the black blob.

Spiderman collapsed in relief; it was finally over.

Ironman helped Judai up and steadied him on his feet, “How did Venom even latch on to you?”

“It was gunning for Spiderman and I just shoved him out of the way.”

Spiderman was shocked, “You…you didn’t have to do that…I could have handled Venom.”

“You told me about your experience and trust me…I have personal experience and I’m sure you didn’t want to go through that again.” Judai just gave him a grin.

“B-But why?”

“It’s what we do for friends.” Was the reply.

“But we just met!”

“Get used to it,” Yugi said, “If Judai has named you a friend then you are a friend.”

“No point in fighting it.” Yusei added.

Spiderman decided to just roll with it. These guys seemed fun to hang out with anyway. It was tough being the youngest member of the Avengers. Finally, he had someone he can nerd with.

“Alright…I’m going to get Venom all bagged up and back into containment. You all head back to the tower and make Judai get looked over by medical. I am not in the mood for surprise side effects.” Tony said between a sigh and a groan.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine….” Judai said in a joking manner.

Tony just gave him a look, “You’ve got a superpowered, dark, alter ego in your head. I am not taking a chance that he picked up a thing or two from Venom”

Judai sighed in defeat, no point in arguing with Tony now.

“Don’t worry Mr. Stark, I’ll get him back to the tower and to medical,” Spiderman offered, “I’ll even web him to the bed if I need to!”

Tony grinned, “I knew I can count on you kid, we’ll catch up as soon as we’re done here.”

Spiderman gave a salute, scooped up Judai before he could make any sort of protest, and immediately began web slinging back to the tower.

“Do we really have to travel this way!?” Judai yelled over the wind.

“But it’s the route with the best views!”

“If you’re right side up! You’ve got me over your shoulders like a sack of potatoes!”

“It will just be a few minutes and I’ll keep you company while you get checked out by the doctor. Maybe you can show me that card game you were playing.”

That immediately brightened Judai’s mood, “You bet!”

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dlamp-dictator · 3 years

Text

Quick Thoughts of Strive Beta

Messed around on the beta for about 3 hours between last night and this morning and just wanted to give my thoughts on it so far.

General Things

For those wanting to download the Beta I believe you have to go onto the PSN website itself and search it up. It took all of yesterday to realize this and I’m still mad no instructions actually said this... I pre-order this game dammit.

From what I’ve played the netcode is very good. I think there were only 2 moments the game wouldn’t let me connect with someone. All of my games have been smooth so far with little if any lag.

The look, aesthetics, and animations all look very nice and are done very well. The action feels very fast-paced and bombastic. The explosion and fire effects are stellar and give some very nice feedback to your stronger attacks. Heavier counters have a nice zoom and slow down effect for maximum impact. This game wants to really sell you on that hype dear Lord am I buying it.

I know I was negative on the music of Strive in my last essay, but hearing it within the game itself has me warming up to it. On its own the songs feel a little out of place, but now that I’ve got the game’s beta in my hand and started playing it the music works. It kind of like moving and fighting along to a rock album. I’ve got a particular fondness for Giovanna’s theme now. The chill vibes I get from her theme combined with her personality sell me on her character a bit more now.

General Gameplay Things

I know the devs were saying that they wanted to make this game simpler, or at least more approached, but boy is this game a little more bare compared to Rev2. Just to give a quick rundown, you can only cancel Slash into Heavy Slash, Punch and Kick are more poking tools that can’t cancel into much aside from Specials, but you can also mash out 3 Punches in a row. Punch cannot be canceled into Kick, Slash, or Heavy Slash, nor can Kick cancel into Punch, Slash, or Heavy Slash unless in a Dust combo, not with the characters I was using at least (Ram, Zato, Chip, and Gio).

However, this is offset by the HUGE damage Slash and Heavy Slash can do, especially if you combo it properly with specials. Ram in particular has some evil stuff she can do with her Dauro loops. It’s a bit more like a more combo-based SamSho where you can be dead in just three or four short combos... just... without the teeth-grinding slowness of Samsho.

I’m a bit torn on this. While I think this kind of gameplay actually works pretty well for what it is, it’s such a different approach to Rev2 and even Accent Core Plus that I wouldn’t blame folks for being dismissive of it. There could be an honest argument for this being flash over substance given the lack of complexity on the surface. Not one I would make given my mixed opinion of Guilty Gear as a whole, but I could see that argument being made.

I think having Throw be 4/6D was probably the smartest move in this game. Now we don’t have to worry about having our 4/6HS command normals accidentally turn into throws and ruin a potential combo.

“Allen, why would you use 4/6HS up close raw? It’s typically very unsafe and can make you eat tons of damage.”

Hey... shut up.

Speaking of Dust, if it wasn’t a universal overhead before, making it one now gives it a lot more utility.

Ramlethal Things

I played mostly with Ram in my three hours with the game, so I’ve got the best grasp on how she plays out of the other three characters I messed with.

Ram’s very different from her Rev2 days. She no long has her Tekken-esque combos and a lot of her gameplay is now even more focused around her swords. She’d best at midrange, but can do a few things from close up and far away.

I don’t really like how you can’t call your swords back, but given the damage output when she has them equipped I think it’s a fair enough trade off.

Her Dauro loops are still a thing and boy can you do some mean things with them.

I don’t really like how a lot of her combos feels like they need a sweep or 2HS to do real damage, this is apparently the case for a lot of characters, but with Ram... I dunno’, I haven’t play around with her enough to be sure but it just feels kinda’ weird.

Mortobato is actually a pretty nice super in terms of utility, but I really miss having Explode. It was the coolest looking super in Ram’s kit back in Xrd.

Her new rekka special is pretty sweet, makes for a nice combo ender after a sweep.

Giovanna Things

I think this is the character I’m going to main in earnest. Ram is fun, but I can actually win matches with Giovanna with some competency since her damage is constant unlike Ram who needs her swords.

Like Chipp, she’s a rushdown character, but with less tools for mobility and is more about nailing people hard and fast with her kicks and staying close with her surprisingly far-reaching specials that can close the gap, at least that’s what I got from her after a few runs in training mode.

Her 6HS rekka looks really cool and I wish I could combo into better.

Apparently she turns all green and gets possessed by her ghost dog when she’s a max Tension, but the game doesn’t explain anything about this.I’m curious, but also annoyed that what looks like a gameplay function is hidden for the beta players. I understand wanting to keep things a surprise, but I’d rather that part of her be removed if it isn’t going to be discussed.

I heard a lot of talk about Giovanna being un-Guilty Gear and boring as a character. I’ve got a lot of negative opinions about these people, but I’ll at least say that after playing her I don’t believe this to be the case. She admitted has few tools, but her playstyle, animations, and character do feel like a Guilty Gear character. Her simplicity is what makes her stand out among all the nuttiness of Guilty Gear.

Think of it this way, a snarky, deadpanned, straightforward government worker being forced to deal with half-dragon bounty hunters and kings, assassins, sky pirates, ninja presidents, and Faust with only basic martial arts and a ghost dog to keep her on equal footing with the monsters of the cast stands out a lot more if she was quirky. She seems to be the straight man to all the craziness and I think she’ll have a lot of comedic moments with the cast if down well.

Zato Things

THE TRAILERS FUCKING LIED TO ME THIS IS STILL ZATO -FUCKING- 1

To keep this simple and to keep me from raging, Zato and Eddie still attack in tandem outside of the player’s influence. 5K with Zato will still make Eddie do ”That’s A Lot!”. Doing 5S will still have Eddie do Leap. This is gonna’ need an actual essay to explain in detail, but basically, Eddie is unwieldy in his movement speed and positioning, so properly doing combos with him is very difficult due to how hard it is to position him in your favor.

To be fair, Eddie can only do about two attacks when he’s summoned, and his animations are much clearer to read and react off of for both you and your opponent, but... it feels like all the playing Relius Clover if Ignis moved without your full input. Again, more detail in a proper essay.

Outside of that, you can actually do some really dirty stuff with Zato with you time things right. They did try to simplify Eddie but... it’s stil Zato-1 man.

Lobby Things

Yeah... this lobby kind of sucks. The aesthetic just looks very cheap compared to how nice the game looks. The blocky avatars don’t have the charming cuteness of Xrd’s avatar designs, and while I do think the method of getting matches is pretty simple, the overall way you do it feels sluggish and unneeded. I really wish Japanese fighting game developers didn’t try to make the lobbies as... immersive as they try to. This stuff peaked with Continuum Shift lobbies and have honestly gone downhill since then.

Overall, I’ve been liking what I’ve played of the beta, but I’m gonna’ need another day or two with it before having a full opinion. But so far so good, I’ve been either liking or appreciating most of the changes and things made, barring a few nitpicks and actual problems.

#guilty gear #your dictator is speaking

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raven-wraith · 4 years

Text

A Completely Subjective (Objective) List of Titles to Examine (Purchase), Play Through (Waste Your Life), and Enjoy (Enjoy) During Quarantine (part 2)

We know what’s happening. It’s April 1st, but the joke has been going on for far too long. Trapped in our homes with Covid-19 actively shooting people in the streets outside, we have to find a way to pass the time. As an avid gamer and professional uncooked cookie dough eater, I have compiled a list of games, both multiplayer and singleplayer that anyone and everyone should play for an enthralling experience. These games range from the newest releases to golden classics, so be warned if, I don’t know, Halo Reach appears. By the way, Halo Reach is appearing.

Multiplayer Games:

I would like to point out that the following games are more directed to be in the vein of multiplayer, however, the single player experience should not be disregarded at all with these titles. I just find that the replayability comes from the multiplayer modes in these titles, but go ahead and check out the single player. After all, these games have strong versions of those modes either way.

A Way Out

Okay so I already lied. A Way Out is exclusively multiplayer. But before we hop into the gameplay itself, I do want to emphasize that only one (that’s right, one) copy of the game must be owned for 2 people to play, even online. A cooperative 2-player interactive drama game, the game paints a story that involves a prison break, found family, betrayal, and interesting and original levels, each with unique controls involved in every set.

The game plays in split screen, even when playing online, allowing for one player to be in a cutscene talking to a guard while their partner is to be off somewhere else, in full control. A Way Out also has very interesting mechanics, where branching discussions can be given depending on either player’s interests or playstyles.

A Way Out is a once in a lifetime experience and it won’t be the same after replaying it, but the time spent with a partner is special and unique for first time players. I had an amazing time, I’m sure you will as well.

Monster Hunter: World

What is better than hunting parking garage sized Pokemon on crack? Hunting parking garage sized Pokemon on crack with three other friends. Monster Hunter: World threw things like story and development out the window to focus on gameplay, and for that, I appreciate their direction with this game.

In this game, the idea of the hunt is everything. Figure out your prey, find and craft potions and weapons that are best against it, track that fool, beat that thing’s head in 500 times. Rinse. Repeat. While it sounds simple, MHW’s massive size would prove you wrong. This game is so gigantic, you and your friends have to camp out in the game, you may have to in real life, just so you don’t lose too much sleep.

The game runs closer to an RPG as well, with weapons and armor that can only be wielded by players seeking a specific role for their hunting party. It’s like every good part of hunting things in The Witcher, only you do it with teammates that never brought enough health potions. For people with a lot of time on their hands, this game is a must have.

Did I mention that you kick the shit out of monsters?

Borderlands 2

The most self aware game I’ve played since the Stanley Parable, Borderlands 2 is a phenomenal game that only gets better the more friends you throw in it. A first person shooter built around a campaign of limitless side quests, an expansive class and character system, and of course, guns. Borderlands 2 brings humor to an already mixed genre of looter shooter that there is so much to unpack, I feel it’s unfair to do so here.

Borderlands 2 is the ultimate hunt for treasure and glory. You journey through the planet of Pandora, a mixture of Mad Max and a 2012 mlg compilation video. The game has a strikingly intriguing story with multi-dimensional characters and a fascinating intro to anyone who is opposed to shooters, RPGs, or both. The game offers hundreds of hours of content with the numerous DLC’s, all offering new areas, quests, and characters. The unserious Destiny, COD Diablo, whatever you want to call it, it’s all there in Borderlands 2.

The game, however, goes above and beyond what it already has when you incorporate two or three friends. After picking classes/characters and starting a new journey or just dropping in and out of co-op, the game is always fresh and welcoming with endless things to kill and loot. All in all-

Look. Just play it. Seriously. It's good. It’s like Spider-Man

Halo Reach

Ha, what’d I tell you? Boom, Halo Reach! Let’s get into it.

You don’t even have to play any of the other Halos to even start to understand what is happening. The game has so much to do, not in comparison to world size or gameplay, but in just sheer amount of modes to participate in. There's a campaign (with 4-player support), firefight, forge, custom games, and all the different playlists in multiplayer like infection, SWAT, Invasion, Big Team Battle, and more.

While I did say that these games were centered on the multiplayer experience, I do have to highlight the campaign of Halo Reach. It is filled with beautifully destroyed battlefields, detailed corridors of enemies, and a cast of dynamic characters, all with impressively delivered voice lines and performances. I can give just the campaign alone a 9/10, honestly.

Back to the real shit, there is an incredible amount of things to unlock in Halo Reach’s armory, a list of cosmetic items that you can slap onto your super soldier to make your flex just that much harder when you kill and t-bag a person online. And also, everything that can be done between the multiplayer and single player ALL accumulate experience to your level, meaning no matter what you play in this monster, you can still access the armory and look fly as hell. Even for those who haven’t even heard of Halo, I guarantee that this entry into the series is the strongest.

Titanfall 2

It is fucking criminal how underrated this game is. This is the only game, the ONLY game I know where Hollywood level shit happens on my screen every match. Every. Single. Match. Things that aren’t in cutscenes or in the background, we’re talking player to player encounters in the game. This is the only game where you can run along a wall at mach speeds, drop kick a guy, hop onto the back of his thirty foot tall mech suit, throw a grenade into it’s engine, blow it up, double jump onto a different building, hack a robot, kill a guy while invisible, teleport to a different fucking dimension, and board an evacuation ship all at once.

Titanfall 2 offers a shooter experience that anyone who has ever played online has to hop in and see. While the skill gap is high (like Snoop Dogg high), it is beyond exhilarating in every match. The game allows for customization for your skills, suits, guns, and of course, your big ass Titan.

The game’s online modes feature a pick and choose system in loadouts where players of Call of Duty games will feel at home. However, players of Mirror’s Edge will feel at home with the fast paced mobility of Titanfall, where the player actually shines. The game sports wall running, double jumping, slides, movement assisting skills like grapple hooks, and momentum physics to all feed into an impressive movement experience to an otherwise simple online shooter.

Multiplayer revolves around less diverse playlists than Halo Reach, but between a surprisingly short and sweet campaign and an online experience that I think is unmatched, Titanfall sports such clean animations, well done lighting and curated maps, that I think that it holds an unparalleled online experience (3).

And that’s the list, really. I didn’t include games I thought were 10/10’s, perfect, or otherwise critically acclaimed just because everyone else had played them. I went off to analyze these titles and try to comprise them into just a few short paragraphs using the experience in writing and gaming I knew. Stay safe during quarantine. And please…

Check out Titanfall. Those dudes need more players. Seriously.

(3) Also, see the campaign. Seriously. It’s a little too good for a shooter.

#part 2 of my boyfriends list #i hope you all enjoy!#oro lion #orova #multiplayer #videogames #a way out #monster hunter: world #monster hunter #borderlands #borderlands 2 #halo #halo reach #titanfall 2 #titanfall

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sevi007 · 5 years

Note

So since Capcom have announced that they have interest to continue DMC saga what do you think it will be in future games / plots? or what would you like to see?

Oh, can I wish for something?! Then – Prequel with Sparda and Eva, please!

Just kidding, I know they are probably never gonna dothat (and I might be one of few who even wants that).

But I don’t know for sure which content we are talkingabout here. I think Isaw discussions on twitter making it clear that there’s not gonna be any sortof DLCs for DMC5, so I’m going to rule that out. Assuming we are talking abouta sequel / new game taking place in the future, then I would say-

Plot: I’m pretty fine with everything there. MoreDMC-content (without my faves dying or some sort of horrible ending) is good content,I’m flexible story-wise. Maybe get the twins out of Hell, yeah. But keep Nero asthe main protagonist, probably, since he’s the hero now.

What wouldbe nice, well, maybe some sort of own nemesisor disaster to take care of for Nero. Because up until now, to be quite honest,our protagonists, aka Dante and Nero, always had to take care of “old familybusiness” or people trying to take Sparda’s power. A bit of a twist on thatwould be nice, with Nero being a new generation and everything. A villain canstill try take over the world or something, but this time, without being anemesis of Sparda / trying to steal his power. (Although Mundus getting kickedaround by Nero would also be very nice).

Aside from plot…. Well, a few things on that point:

* Let theladies have more screentime, cutscenes or gameplay, both would be okay if theyget to showoff that they are awesome. I’m talking Trish, Lady, Lucia, Patty,Nico, Kyrie… the whole group.

* If Nerois not gonna be the only one playable, let Dante and Vergil both be playable. Iadore Dante, but Vergil is fun in his own right.

* Maybe a “new”character, with new playstyle. V was a lot of fun to balance out the stylesDante and Nero have – something like that, a sorcerer or summoner again, thatwould be awesome.

* Let thecharacters interact with each other a bit more. I know DMC is mostly anaction-oriented game, but they have such interesting, unique characters. Manyof them would be very interesting to see how they interact with each other, orvery heartwarming (aka here is someone who hoped to see Nero and Kyrie or Dante and Patty together in DMC5, among otherexamples). Make a bit room – in cutscenes, or some dialogue while buying stufffrom Nico or something, maybe – to show howmuch these characters care for each other, what they think of each other,instead of having the fans mostly interpret and headcanon it.

* On that part - also, let the characters address some stuff. Now that Nero is in the know, let him know the drive behind the others’ actions. To address the twins’ past especially, that would help both them and Nero, it would explain a lot and clear the air for sure. Lady’s past would explain why she know so well what killing a father feels like. Trish’s whole existence hinges very likely on Vergil’s memories of Eva, so let that be addressed. Let Dante explain to Nero what happened with Credo - let someone assure Nero that there was nothing he could have done to save Credo.

On one hand, yes, that is all in the past. But all of that is still weighing on the characters, influences their actions, influences how they treat others (a lot of things would have gone differently, for example, if they hadn’t kept Nero’s heritage from him, just for one), so let. Them. Talk. About. Things.

DMC5 did a bit more on that front, because they had to, because of Nero’s and Vergil’s connection, but I still think more is possible there.

* Don’trush the end quite like DMC5 did. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the game, lovedthe ending, but it felt as if… well. Mission 20 was reached – we always haveonly 20 Missions – so now we need to finish quickly. Really, felt a bit likethat. There’s no need for that, in my opinion. Same ending, but with more time,maybe a few heartwarming reunions (even in the credits is possible)… bam.Rounds off the whole thing quite nicely.

Hm, that’sall I can think of on top of my head. Very likely forgot some things! XD

#dmc5 spoilers #dmc #devil may cry #Anonymous

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zeldauniverse · 6 years

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Last week, in a tiny hidden bar typical of Melbourne’s inner east, Nintendo gave us hands-on time with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Nintendo Australia had hoped to get us in front of a newer build of the game (we would have loved to try King K. Rool and Simon Belmont!); however, the build was identical to the one we played at E3 some two and a bit months ago. However, where our time with the game at E3 was rushed and hectic, this time we had a solid two hours in a laid back environment which allowed us to get comfortable and explore more of what it had to offer.

And what a difference that makes to perspective.

To sum things up, we had a smashing good time, and we’re now more excited than ever to add Smash Ultimate into our gaming libraries. Our Publications Director David Johnson and Special Projects Director Shona Johnson were at the event. Here are a few of our thoughts on the game:

Shona Johnson, Special Projects Director

As a long-time Smash player — I’ve been with the series since the Nintendo 64 — playing Ultimate with a big group over food and drink was instantly familiar, taking me back to happy times when I played Melee for hours on end with friends or, more recently, Smash Wii U parties. Although it’s been a while since I last fired up a game of Smash, and I haven’t played since the demo at E3, my Smash instincts and muscle memory kicked in, throwing me into that wonderfully chaotic place where some of my favorite characters are beating each other up.

At E3 there were a limited number of play slots available (strictly one per person), and I signed up to play it competitively, which meant that part of my attention was given to attempting to win, meaning I played it safe with characters I knew well, in addition to checking out what was new and different. Fortunately, towards the end of the second day of E3, the lines died down to the point where the wait wasn’t hideous, so I was able to get in a few rounds of fun play where I could at least try out some of the new characters. I had fun and walked away from E3 feeling incredibly impressed by the game’s polish, but spending two hours with the demo gave me a chance to try out a lot more and really get a feel for the gameplay.

The demo for Smash Ultimate had 23 out of the game’s 103 stages to select from.

Also 30 characters of the roster were present, but a few classic fighters were held back.

Matches were limited to two-minute free-for-alls with up to four players playing solo or in teams. Items were on, and we couldn’t change any of the settings. A roster of 30 characters was available, and we could choose from 23 stages. I was able to play most of the characters and stages available. The event had multiple stations, most of which had Pro controllers, but a couple had GameCube controllers. It’s nice to see the GameCube controllers being carried through, as many Smash veterans are familiar with these, and, at the end of the day, each player will be able to set up their preferred controller configuration.

Existing characters feel familiar, and most of the changes to their moves are subtle if any have been made at all. Most of them appeared to be fairly well balanced, although it’s hard to say given that I was swapping characters a lot and playing against people of varying skill levels. Ridley and the Inkling were the new characters in the demo, and both had their own unique movesets that took some time to get used to (and honestly, I didn’t play them enough to get used to them). Ridley is slow and heavy, and I struggled with him a bit because I struggle with that sort of character more in general, and I found that the pace of the gameplay made it hard to spend time effectively splattering paint over everyone as the Inkling. That said, in one match while playing a different character I kept getting trapped in paint by another Inkling which was somewhat annoying for me but great for them I imagine!

The list of stages we had to choose from included both new and returning ones. A big difference in Ultimate is that players choose the stage before choosing characters, with the idea that players can choose a character to suit a stage, although that never really crossed my mind because it’s something I’ve never considered before; for me, it’s more the stages in general that I love or hate rather than playing on them with specific characters. And at this event, I was much more in the mindset of wanting to see everything and try it all out, so I never even thought about the stage while I was selecting my character.

All of the stages look amazing. Of the new ones, the Great Plateau Tower from Breath of the Wild is a fairly small one where the roof collapses in occasionally, and surprisingly this isn’t a hazard; it just looks cool. Moray Towers is the new Splatoon stage, and it’s a series of sloping levels stacked vertically above each other. I found this one hard to fight on because players were more spread out and on different levels which made it hard to land hits. I imagine this will be better suited to people who like slightly slower gameplay and having more chances to recover, or it might be more fun with eight players. Conversely, I cannot imagine how chaotic eight-player Smash is going to be on the Great Plateau Tower!

In Ultimate, having items turned on didn’t feel quite as chaotic as they have in past games, and I think they’ve been nerfed a fair bit. The once-almighty hammer — I got one and the guy next to me said “uh oh” as soon as he heard the music — didn’t produce the KOs or near-KOs I would have expected in the past. Likewise, Smash Balls didn’t always guarantee KOs like that did in Smash Wii U/3DS. They’re also harder to grab, although they also sometimes just land on the ground and stay still; the first time this happened we were all wary of the Fake Smash Balls and ran away from it until someone hesitantly kicked it and realized it was a real one!

I felt that I had to be very accurate when landing blows and dodging. It should lend to a technical playstyle that will suit competitive players and those who play for fun.

Overall, the gameplay feels faster and more precise. Thankfully there’s no Brawl-style random slipping and tripping, and I felt that I had to be very accurate when landing blows and dodging. Fast characters like Fox and Sonic covered ground incredibly quickly, and some of the heavier characters like Donkey Kong felt more agile. If you’re not paying attention, you can be sent flying off screen and not realize where you are at first! It should lend to a technical playstyle that will suit both competitive players as well as those who play for fun (because the core concept of Super Smash Bros. is fun).

Two hours of the one style of match flew by, so I can only imagine how many hours I’m going to get out of the game playing with different modes and rules. And that’s before I even consider any possible single-player modes, which I hope there will be for the times when I take my Switch with me on the go by myself. I didn’t want my time with Ultimate to end, and now more than ever I eagerly await December when I can get the full version into my hands.

David Johnson, Publications Director

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has all the potential to be the best Smash Bros. game to date. Thus far, everything Nintendo has shown oozes with that careful attention to detail that Nintendo is simply known for. While we don’t know all of its secrets yet — there’s this maybe “Spirits” mode on the main menu that we know nothing about that may be a major single-player component to the game(?) — I can’t help but be extremely excited for the series to make its way to the Switch.

How can I describe Ultimate? Well, the short answer is that it feels very much like Smash Bros. More specifically, it feels a lot like Melee, though admittedly I haven’t pulled out my GameCube to play it in quite some time. While there is a good dose of beautiful chaos in the game caused by items, assist trophies, and Poké Balls, it’s all a manageable sort of chaos. It just feels good to dart into piles of characters, take some pot shots (or get hit trying!), and then escape to go at it again.

At the event, they had a couple of stations with GameCube controllers set up, but I figured I would give the Switch Pro Controllers one more fair go, even though the default control scheme of every controller since the GameCube has made me want to cry. And while I still wasn’t 100% in love with the Pro Controller’s default setup, I did find myself hating it a lot less. But I still will either be using a GameCube controller or resorting to making a custom controller configuration for me when the game comes out.

Because we had two solid hours with the game, I went and truly experimented with characters both familiar and unfamiliar as well as played practically every stage that was on display. For the characters I was familiar with, I found the differences between the Ultimate fighters and their earlier incarnations rather subtle, though Marth especially seemed incredibly floaty, much more so than he was in Melee. (That said, I chalk this up as a good thing!) For characters I was unfamiliar with — Ridley, Inkling, and the host of DLC characters from Smash 4, they all felt incredibly unique from the cast of old, and that’s hugely refreshing. That said, the fact that many of the characters are becoming Echo Fighters (thus with the official salute that they’re “the same character” as some other), makes me happy; finally, we can hope to see so many characters truly become unique entities rather than carbon copies of one another.

And the stages were mostly fantastic. They look utterly fantastic, and they set the stage for a visually impressive game. And none of them felt like they detracted too much from the overall premise of the game: dominating over all your friends. That said, I still utterly despise the Mega Man stage brought forward from Smash 4, though I’m extremely relieved that not only can we trigger each stage’s Ω (omega) form but also simply play with the stages as is sans their various stage hazards. Finally, we can play the Dr. Wily stage without the Yellow Devil ruining an otherwise fun game.

The Smash Balls’ effectiveness has been nerfed quite a bit. In order to counterbalance that, the Assist Trophies seem much more powerful.

As far as the items go, there were only two major differences I’ve noticed in playing the game. First and foremost, the Smash Balls’ effectiveness has been nerfed quite a bit. Since Brawl, while it’s always been possible to survive a Final Smash, it was exceedingly unlikely. However, now the survivability has been greatly upped as the Final Smashes aren’t really so “final�� any longer. Perhaps this is done in order to keep it in line with how short many of the moves have been made or just to allow them to not disrupt gameplay as much, but it really makes it feel much more balanced as a whole. (That said, the Smash Balls seemed extremely difficult to even get to as they moved far quicker than before!)

In order to counterbalance that, the Assist Trophies seem much more powerful. In previous games, Assist Trophies generally remained on-screen for no more than a few seconds at most. Now, many Assist Trophies have been modified to become temporary allies on the stage, giving you a not insignificant advantage. While the Assist Trophies are able to be defeated and don’t dish out overwhelming damage in one go, they possibly will be one of the more contentious design decisions for Smash Ultimate.

The gravity well item popped up quite a bit in the game, and its effects can be felt everywhere.

Thematically, Ultimate is full of so many little subtle details that show just how much Sakurai and his team love Nintendo and its entire legacy. The subtle changes to Link to bring about his Breath of the Wild form are carefully balanced by pushing Princess Zelda and Ganondorf to other parts of the timeline to showcase the breadth of the Zelda series. The fact that the Echo Fighters now exist allow for a greater depth of exploration into the various franchises without providing an overwhelming feeling of sameness permeating everything, such as when Dark Pit was announced as a separate character in Smash 4.

Outside of my hands-on experience, what I think impresses me the most about Ultimate is just how much variety there can be inside the ordinary Smash experience. Sure, there are tournaments and oodles of other features and modes, but having well over 60 characters to choose from and over 100 stages to fight on will give so many permutations of fighting that it’ll be impossible to play them all. Whenever I’m smashing it up with friends, there always comes to that point in the evening when I stray away from the characters I’m familiar with and start playing the characters I’m either terrible with or simply don’t play as much, and Ultimate will ensure that I’m always wanting to experiment and try another character again and again beyond that.

December 7 cannot come fast enough. Smash Ultimate, I’m desperately waiting for you.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will be released on December 7 for Nintendo Switch. Thank you to Nintendo Australia for inviting us to come and Smash!

Two hours with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this might just be the best Smash so far Last week, in a tiny hidden bar typical of Melbourne’s inner east, Nintendo gave us hands-on time with

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doktorpeace · 5 years

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Top 5 Games Of The Year #4

Yakuza 0 is a pretty special game both individually and as a part of its franchise. It’s the first time Yakuza has taken a step backwards chronologically, in order to better explore already established characters and what led them to the events of the first game. It gets a lot of praise already and I’m just here to heap a little more onto the pile because it well deserves it. Although the series at this point is no stranger to having multiple protagonists and Majima has technically been playable before the special feeling Yakuza 0 elicits by having two protagonists wasn’t really lost for it. Compared to the four in Yakuza 4, or the frankly over padded five protagonists in Yakuza 5, taking a step down to just two and placing an almost equal emphasis on each really does the game’s narrative and pacing wonders. Yakuza 0′s story is really good it is an excellent crime drama and among the best main plots the series has to offer. While some might argue other entries, usually 2 or 4, can stand up alongside it I feel 0′s has an edge in some areas. Largely in terms of pace, ambition, and intrigue. For instance, 2 doesn’t really mess around with plot twists, the entire game basically waves a giant flag over Ryuji saying he’s the final boss and the whole plot exists basically just to get to his and Kiryu’s legendary fight. And that’s fine, it doesn’t try to be more than it needs to be and that’s okay. 4 meanwhile has more intrigue and some good twists in there but its pace is much poorer in my opinion. Your mileage may vary on the bullets plot twist, too. 0 has some legitimate plot twists and it does a great job getting players engaged and interested in what’s going to happen next. To get back to 0 though, it doesn’t sacrifice characterization to achieve the quality of its plot either, far from it. It’s the first time we’ve seen a young, hot blooded, and frankly really stupid Kiryu. Kiryu’s never a smart guy but getting to see how he handles situations and behaves before 10 years in prison and subsequent stories smooth his edges and temper his personality is really a treat for fans of the character and newcomers alike. He’s fun, relatable, serious when he needs to be, and most importantly he’s still perfectly recognizable as Kiryu. He is still absolutely that amazing protagonist that you know and love, he’s just young, dumb, and full of.....well you know. On the other hand Majima is almost unrecognizable in this game, being calm, well dressed, a charismatic and professional showman, dissuading others from fighting, all while being openly depressed to boot. This take on Majima still feels fitting because the way he phrases himself is familiar, his gut reactions feel right for the characters, and ultimately this game contextualizes not just his transformation into the Mad Dog of Shimano fans know him as later but many of his actions through the rest of the series. Just ignore how his story here and how he’s written in Yakuza 5 violently contradict one another. We can all just pretend Y5′s Majima writing isn’t canon. The strength of characterization extends to the game’s side characters too, including ones who alongside Majima and Kiryu return from the main series. Nishiki, Kashiwagi, the Lieutenants, Tachibana, Lee, and more are all memorable and great characters. Just, uhh, don’t expect many women in the main plot is all. I don’t want to talk too in depth about the game’s story so as to avoid spoiling anything but it really is a treat. The script takes advantage of player’s expectations in a meta sense, that ultimately this will be Kiryu’s game because, well, Yakuza 4 and 5 were Kiryu’s games in spite of the other protagonists. Those guys all got good, moving stories too and they are all well worth experiencing and having around but ultimately Kiryu is still the most important guy on the block. Not so, here, as by the halfway point of the game players might notice that Majima’s ‘half’ of the game, his half of the game’s chapters, are quite a bit longer than Kiryu’s. Majima has a lot more legwork to do in the story because it is his story, and while Kiryu gets the true final boss fight and is very important to the events at hand as well it’s really Majima who’s the star here. This game is an excuse to explore his character and it does not beat around the bush on that intention. If you are a fan of this franchise you really do have to experience this story. All too often prequel games just end up softening or weakening the existing narratives they’re trying to pay homage to or trying to strengthen but Yakuza 0 expertly dodges that bullet by never missing a beat in terms of quality relative to standard Yakuza entires. My only real issue with the story, honestly, is that Makoto is about as much of a McGuffin as she is a person. The game does take time to develop her both directly and indirectly but ultimately she spends about as much time just being a plot device to be ferried around by one man or another as she does getting to talk and do things. The gameplay is very refined compared to other games in the seires, I would argue it’s tighter and more fun than Yakuza 6′s, even, if only due to the sheer variety of Heat Actions (effectively super moves; ranging from the silly to the bombastic to the brutal to a handful that made me shout ‘HOLY SHIT HE DIDN’T DESERVE THAT!!!’ at my TV) present in 0. If you like beat ‘em ups you’ll like Yakuza’s playstyle; each character gets 4 fighting styles earning three through the story and a fourth through side content. The fourth fighting style for each one is essentially a bonus, letting them fight in their ‘iconic’ styles, Dragon and Mad Dog respectively. To be honest they’re both underwhelming, Mad Dog is maybe Majima’s weakest fighting style and Dragon, while strong, requires a lot more heat than what it naturally builds to stay competent. The fighting styles are still fun though, they add plenty of new and unique options to each character to justify getting them, they’re just not going to win you the game for free or anything. Of the character’s main fighting styles the only real issue I have is the disparity in strength between them, both internally and between each other. No mincing words here, Majima is obscenely overpowered compared to Kiryu. Breaker Style annihilates every challenge in the game with next to no effort besides Mr. Shakedown fights, which aren’t really fun anyway. That said Slugger easily bashes in Mr. Shakedown and even Jo Amon. Majima will breeze through all of his content even on higher difficulties. Comparatively Kiryu can have a pretty rough time in some fights. This is due in part by his fighting styles being really well balanced internally, they’re all useful and thus the player may actually feel like swapping between them mid battle or between encounters. Kiryu not really having an overwhelming option generally means he can be very expressive, my fiancé and I played him very differently for instance on our runs. Whether you most enjoy his fast, invulnerability frame heavy, dash cancelling Rush style which takes a very high amount of investment to become good but I would argue is maybe his best style once you get it there, his brutish item swinging, semi-grappler Beast style which absolutely decimates indoors fights, or the more well rounded, heat action heavy Brawler Kiryu’s got something for everyone. Each of his styles also get a great variety of unique heat actions, all three to environmental cues, and Beast and Brawler to equip-able and overworld items. While Majima’s fighting style are also expressive and a ton of fun to use they just feel too safe and too easy compared to Kiryu. He gets absolutely stellar results and gets them quickly for extremely little effort in the ridiculously fast, low profile attacks of Breaker. Not to say Breaker isn’t fun, because it is, breakdancing to beat people up is hilarious and fun and its heat actions are flavorful to boot, it’s just really overpowered is all. After some investment his Ballerina With A Baseball Bat fighting style, Slugger, also becomes nigh impossible to challenge for the AI thanks to it losing its primary weakness of the bat bouncing off of walls it hits after you put only moderate investment into it. While the least varied of Majima’s styles in terms of heat actions, Slugger is great fun if you ever wanted a proper weapon based fighting style in Yakuza. It feels like what Shinada should have played like. Majima’s starting style, Thug, is a fun grappling and street brawling style that requires a lot of precision to use well and is very well suited to one on one fights should the player be so inclined to not opt for his better options. It makes use of baroque kicks, eye pokes, strangles, and back turns. It’s also Majima’s only style that can make use of non-baseball bat items for heat actions as well as most of his environmental heat actions, and Majima has some GREAT heat actions under these conditions, helping Thug keep a niche compared to the other styles. Honestly, if you like Tekken you’ll probably like Thug. These great fighting styles would be pointless if the game didn’t have fun enemies and situations to pit you against and thankfully it does. Its ‘dungeons’ are a lot of fun and some of the boss fights really stand out. Thanks to the sheer myriad of context based Heat Actions even just fighting the random mooks in the street stays fun for dozens of hours as you experiment to see how you can fuck up some chumps today. It’s deeply gratifying and a lot of fun. While the optional Mr. Shakedown fights are a chore, they are all optional besides the first one so there’s no real reason to bother with them unless you’re doing a 100% substory completion run or REALLY need to grind money in a game where money is already free. Some of the boss fights are a bit mediocre, too, but overall they’re good fun. I do think Yakuza 0 is at its strongest though when it’s making the player fight room after room of enemies, dozens at a time, and just letting them feel like an absolute champion while doing so, really letting them revel in just how strong and cool Majima and Kiryu are. Yakuza 0′s side content is both one of its greatest strengths and in my opinion an area where it shows the most weakness. While Pocket Circuit, Karaoke, Cabaret Club, and the Sub-Stories are absolutely excellent and I truly cannot stress enough how fun they are the game also has a myriad of seemingly half baked minigames based off of real life activities for you to do, a lot of which have unnecessary RNG. Even Bowling has RNG...BOWLING, come on! The Pool, Darts, Bowling, Catfight Club, and other such minigames feel very rushed in execution and for all but the last of those feel like poor simulations compared to other games I have played. Catfight Club is just a really, really, shameless and sexist ‘Watch almost naked women ‘’’’wrestle’’’’’. Also, opposite Majima’s deeply flavorful, engaging, well written, and fun club management minigame Club Sunshine, the aforementioned cabaret club, Kiryu gets Real Estate Royale. Which is about as fun as you think. It’s literally standing around waiting for money to grind for you and then going out and investing it into properties. While the storyline attached to it is decent enough and has some good moments for Kiryu the minigame itself is just dreadful and grossly slow paced. Which is funny to say, because I think it takes less time to complete than Cabaret Club, but it feels like A Lot Longer because it just isn’t fun. There’s the Telephone Club, which uhhh, you can have Kiryu do to get laid. It’s funny in a tongue in cheek way but it’s also not my cup of tea besides laughing at Kiryu’s great dialogue and body language during the interactions. Basically, play Karaoke to hear Kiryu’s beautiful singing voice and also THE ONLY GAME IN THE SERIES WHERE MAJIMA’S SINGING ISN’T JUST AWFUL SCREECHING! 24 Hour Cinderella is a gift to the world and you need to play it. Cabaret Club is also where the vast majority of this game’s female characters exist, as hostesses. While the game could take this opportunity to be sexist (and one could argue it is, for sure) the writing present in Cabaret Club for the platinum hostesses and their story lines is just as good as anything else from the game. They’re worth talking to, learning about, and seeing their development. In all honesty they can almost fittingly serve as a nice break from the game’s intense story, giving the player a breather with some whole and comedic interactions. The Sub-Stories which make up this game’s version of side quests (because yes, this is a Beat ‘Em Up Japanese Crime Drama RPG) are also basically all amazing. The writing is heartfelt, funny, and just really good. They all have strong opening hooks without forcing the player to immediately get involved and despite being 100 of them they’re basically all really memorable. This is also where the game pays Kiryu back a bit for his lost story content relative to Majima, giving him 60 of the 100 sub stories. They’re all great ways to get to see more aspects of these characters and the citizens of Kamurocho, please give a bunch of them a try if you play this game. I also briefly want to talk about the settings of the game, Kamurocho and Sotenbori. They’re literally just the real life Japanese districts, Kabukicho and Dotenbori by SLIGHLY different names. If you play this game enough you’ll know some real life actual locations in actual real life Japan like you’ve been there. You’ll be able to navigate at least a few square blocks of Japan without a map, it’s amazing, and it’s really something special compared to other games. Also, I’m not exaggerating, the overworld(s) of this game are only a few square blocks large but the game plays that to its advantage. Navigating from one side to another of either one takes a minute or two at most and the streets are always PACKED with content. It’s impossible to wander around playing naturally without falling ass backwards into a dozen or more of the game’s sidestories and inevitably getting sucked into playing a few of them and seeing how good they are. I love this game’s map, it’s so brilliant in its design by simply being true to a real life location. Yakuza 0 also sports stellar sound design. The sound effects are BEEFY, hitting things feels amazing and nothing sounds out of place or off beat. The bombastic, over the top hit sounds really sell Majima and Kiryu’s overwhelming power and it just makes every fight satisfying. The soundtrack similarly is good, and while much of the soundtrack isn’t what I would call listening music, the Karaoke selections, specifically Bake Mitai, sure are. I’m not really the kind of guy who can tell you why the sound design is good, it just is, trust me.

All in all, Yakuza 0 is a stellar game and is exemplary of both what a modern beat ‘em up AND a modern RPG should strive to be like. It is a masterpiece in its own right and I’m glad that its success in the western market has secured this unique, beautiful series a future. Please play Yakuza 0, it’s regularly on sale on both PS4 and Steam and it deserves your attention. If you’re ever alone on a Friday night, just remember these Yakuza, and you’ll have a great time.

#Dok's GotY 2018 #Yakuza 0

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bluerosesburnblue · 6 years

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Liz Liveblogs Bravely Second: Chapter 3

Bravely Second Chapter 3: Up, Up, and Away is now on, and being posted in a decent amount of time. I think we’re gonna go steady straight to the end of the game at this rate!

Agnès seems to be okay in the wake of the Skyhold getting hit and going down. She didn’t even notice. Her knitting got messed up and she’s mad. God, if Agnès ain’t me

Oh, and Tiz spotted her lost yarn through video call. Cuuuute

SP reading from Luxendarc? VP Appleberry, explain!

There was nothing to explain. The laser energy was the same as the stuff we use in the Bravely Second hourglass. I sense a meta chapter coming on

Something is sealed in Skyhold. The Kaiser and Anne are worried it may break free. And they’re refusing to let Nikolai look into the laser. They’re sending Geist, who I remember from the demo. His asterisk job was kinda useless, at least for my playstyle. So they’re sending a torturer because... why not

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but they pronounce “Anne” as “Ann-eh” and that kinda messes me up?

Game is crazy if it thinks I’m not going to immediately turn around and grind out all of the ocean’s bestiary entries

Monoceros are terrifying oh gosh I think that was my first game over so far? I got unlucky with a group of four lurking out of sight

Also, Striped Rabbies are fish? Weird

Hey Liz what did you do today? Oh, you know, spent three hours completing bestiary entries

Man, I’ve gotta be about halfway through the game at this point. The team’s level 45, bestiary entries are about 50% complete in all categories that aren’t Dragons and Bosses... There’s supposed to be six chapters, right? Maybe some of the later ones are shorter

It’s the prettiest city in all of Luxendarc: Florem!

Staging, huh? Tell me it’s not another beauty pageant

Oh are those Ancheim NPCs there because I took deRosa’s side in the sidequest? Sorry guys... if it’s any consolation I intend to undo evicting you from your homes?

Ah. Flower Festival time. Of course. At least the festival workers seem to have realized their errors from last game and they’ve replaced the beauty pageant with another contest, and they pick both a male and female winner now. Exciting... I guess

Nobody in Florem knows anything about the Skyhold or the attack on it, but the Matriarch is gonna send their baby vestaling, Sylvie, with us to put up a shield. I... do not have high hopes for this child’s continued existence

Just put the barrier up and Sylvie is not dead yet, but I’m still worried for this mute child

Oh??? My God??? Is the “Revealing Outfit” that Magnolia found just a cloth diaper? Isn’t that the DLC outfit for Tiz?

Great, the Empire’s here for an inquisition. Because Florem totally has a giant laser cannon, guys! This random passerby definitely knows where that came from!

The Florem battle background is gorgeous, though

What is Geist’s accent? It’s as unplaceable as Tommy Wiseau’s

Also he just killed two guys on stage. I guess the Kaiser doesn’t care about subtlety if this is the guy he’s sending

And he’s using his gameplay gimmick of undoing turns to revive them. While I appreciate the nod to his job class, does this really count as a “turn,” Geist?

Also it’s kind of messed up that he can kill someone, revive them, and they retain their memories of dying. Though is it really any worse than normal JRPG resurrection?

How did this man, completely covered in blood, manage to make his way to the stage completely unseen in the first place?

Alternis, baby, back for the save yet again!

...aaaaand he’s down yet again. But now he’s taking advantage of his Dark Knight abilities to hit Geist back

“What a power couple!” They all ship Edea/Alternis

The crowd is naming Edea and Alternis the winners of the pageant because Edea would sacrifice herself for the city, and Alternis would sacrifice himself for Edea

“It seems that even with my helmet donned, I cannot hide my manly charms.” This isn’t Alternis, is it? Thought his line delivery was a little different. That’s gotta be Ringabel, at least in this scene

The mood whiplash in this scene is incredible! We’re going from Geist threatening to brutally maim everyone, revive them, and do it over and over until someone confesses, to “OH AREN’T ALTERNIS AND EDEA A CUTE COUPLE haha what a situation” gags

So no one seemed to understand Magnolia’s burst of French, which is understandable since contact with the people of the moon has been limited, but this guy in the crowd speaks French, too???

“Our” tongue? Do we have a moon immigrant on our hands or something?

“The language of the Sagitta”. So the Sagitta are an ancient tribe that defeats Ba’al. Speaking of Ba’al, I feel like we’re probably about due for another fight with one

So I guess we’re gonna go chat up the Sagitta elder. Give them info on the moon for their info on the giant laser of death

Lotus of the Sagitta. I see the symbolism. He’s gonna die, isn’t he?

Helllooooooo sidequest. Guide says Barras vs. Einheria

Well, Edea’s the new superintendent of Florem schools because the old one got tired of it and Edea was standing close by. Seems legit

So survey teachers on Co-ed schools vs. Non-Co-ed. So is that the big fight this go around?

“Ms. Rhea Veeling”? Ohhh boy

Swetti Tracsute... in Eternian sky night garb? Was he from the first game or has it taken me so long to play this one that it feels like he was from a whole other game

Eugh. It’s a battle of gender stereotypes. Can we noooooooot

For the record, my stance is that the owner of the school or whatever should be free to choose whether it’s co-ed or not. That’s it. If there’s sufficient demand for both, then neither of you are in the right. HOWEVER, since this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be about the school itself, per se, but about the equality of the sexes. In which case, uhhhh there shouldn’t be any discrimination by sex on a legal level?

Aaaaand Swetti’s lost me with his “school is about falling in love, not learning!” spiel

You’re both wrong. Sidequest closed. Give me both jobs already. I’ll fight both of you if I have to

So while Bravely Second’s sidquests are an interesting idea, I do wish they’d mixed it up a bit. Every single one of them feels like I’m resolving some petty childish squabbling on the side. None of them are relevant to the story and they’re just getting predictable at this point. Remember in Bravely Default when we had a sidequest where the party’s alternate-universe selves all died in one of the other universes they went to and got to see what the people they loved were like without them? Tiz’s brother Til, Olivia Oblige, Alternis and Braev... yeah, I remember when they were deep and poignant. Now look at us. We’re deciding what the Florem school district should do with its time, and it will inevitably end with two people from the last game fighting and us having to defeat one of them. They’re just so... irrelevant and not even well-written to compensate?

In general I’m on Swetti’s side. Cooperation between the sexes is the only way to get rid of discrimination between them, and Florem doesn’t have ANY co-ed schools yet, so opening one up is probably a good idea. So naturally I gotta kick his ass, for Worst Timeline purposes

Or kick Barras’s ass, since he’s here now. Hey, dick. How’s your bitch girlfriend doing now that she’s doomed the continent of Eisen to a slow economic death?

So Rhea was one of Einheria’s soldiers in the Bloodrose Legion in the last game, just like Swetti was one of Barras’s. There’s the tie-in, I guess

And Rhea is just being obstinate... for the aesthetic? To keep Florem beautiful? She isn’t even making a point! She just doesn’t like the idea of guys being around! “I’m all for equal rights for men and women but they’re just so grosssss...” that’s not an argument. Stop.

And now I’ve gotta battle through the Twilight Ruins to make my report. This is so aaaaaaarbitrary

The bestiary entry for the Twilight Ruins enemy, Dark Stomper, has Voice call the moon civilization “our civilization”. So Voice is a Moon man?

“Your decision is probably going to drag us into a battle against the losing faction” even Tiz is pointing out how same-y these all are

Guess the sidequest is over already. Just time to kick Barras’s ass for being right

I may have charmed Swetti and let him do most of the damage to Barras. Whoops?

Seems like the anti-co-ed argument is BUT TRADITION. CHANGE TAKES TIME. Yes but opening up a school with optional enrollment is exactly the small change that would... oh forget it

Innovation>tradition for me. Sorry, it just is

And Rhea has a crush on Swetti. Because that’ll be a healthy relationship where all they do is scream at each other

Whatever, let’s get back to it with the Sagitta

THAT GIANT OROCHI SKULL IS METAL AS HELL

And the Sagitta forest is gorgeous. I’m so glad this is what we get after that abysmal sidequest

I worry that a boss is coming up every time the Adventurer gives me the option to rest in the cottage

I never thought I’d hear “open sesame” spoken in French but there it is. The password for Sagitta Village

OH MAN IT’S ONE OF THOSE FLOATING VILLAGE DEALIES that’s rad

“You fear this is the end? True despair lies in the lack of a future. The unchanging world... We call it the end layer” The first NPC I talk to in a village shouldn’t be allowed to be so ominous OR title drop!

So the Sagitta were told that they descended from the moon people, but few believed it was true

And Elder Sirius is determined to blow the Skyhold to pieces, Agnès’s safety be damned. Okay, dude, chill for five minutes while we grab her, then you can do it. No? Christ, what a dick

Nooo Agnès is being self-sacrificing again through pendant call. I love how Edea turned Agnès’s “Unacceptable” catphrase back on her for that suggestion

“We’re Agnès’s Avengers, remember?” Hey, I thought we agreed that we were Yew Googlymoogly and his Three Yutzes now

At least Lotus wants to help us get transport to the Skyhold

Aww, Lotus has a son named Procyon. And his deceased wife was the Elder’s daughter, so Procyon is the big heir to the position

Procyon thinks Tiz’s hair is funny... but I have Tiz as a Catmancer so the zoom in on the ears was comedy gold

Confirmation that the Sagitta fired the laser, and they have no clue where their SP cannon comes from

Edea’s plan was to fire us out of the cannon... Edea, it’s not a normal cannon. It’s a laser. It’ll disintegrate you

They don’t know what SP is, just that it’s produced from “the flow of time” just like how wind turbines collect energy from “the flow of wind” which... they just convert kinetic energy into electric energy so that’s not quite how it works but okay

It’s also harnessed from people sleeping. I can see where this is going to get meta. The Bravely Second hourglass charges when the 3DS is in sleep mode, in other words, when the “player” is asleep. So to them it looks like it’s charging automatically, but it’s actually harnessing the player’s sleeping energy. Given that last game implied that the player was a Celestial watching the party, it has to be intentional

Now to have Lotus and Procyon guide us to Old Sagitta so we can see if we can use SP energy to fly!

Oh no another sidequest’s opened up

What on earth did Edea just throw at that man

And he sings every other line. Wow. That won’t get old

Rocca Pellar, grandson of bard Arca Pellar, owner of the baton that we used against Praline last game. She’s gonna be in this quest, isn’t she?

At least the party’s as done with his singing as I am

...why are we in deRosa’s molestation basement?

Buddy no. Do not use this as a studio. Some dark stuff went on in here

So Praline and Barbarossa are both harassing Rocca for an old song his grandfather wrote. And Rocca describes both of them as having voices so bad he couldn’t understand them. Rude

And Edea’s gonna help because they’re both Kamiizumi’s people and she feels responsible

This Jpop song is so loud I can’t hear what they’re saying. I see they haven’t fixed the mixing from the last game

Praline wants to remix the song and pass it off as her own. I’m gonna imagine Barbarossa wants it released in its original form. On the one hand: potential art theft on Praline’s part. On the other, since the original artist is dead, the song may be public domain. Though if she’s asking for rights the answer is probably “not yet”. In which case, she can wait and I want to side with Barbarossa

I forgot Yew was scared of ghosts. This ship must suck for him

Yeah. Barbarossa doesn’t want her to be able to mess up the song. I know I said tradition<innovation in the last quest, and I stand by that... but the song was never released, so it can’t be tradition. So release it in its original form, then, years later, we allow Praline to remix it. Problem solved, people just have to be patient

I like Barbarossa more. So I’m gonna kick his ass in this, the worst timeline. Which is great, because I prefer the Pirate class to the Performer class

Cutscene, cutscene, OLD DUNGEON FROM THE LAST GAME, pick a side, boss fight... I don’t even hate this quest but it’s formulaic as anything

Tent event reveals that Yew is Pellar’s #1 fan and he’s geeking out that Tiz and Edea not only spoke to his disciples, but also have his baton. And now he’s distressed that Edea used it as a backscratcher

Edea ATE the baton by accident?! Good lord, girl, how???

Another thing that bothers me about these quests is that there doesn’t seem to be much correlation between the jobs offered? Like, it’s never a choice of “defensive swormaster vs. defensive knight” where both are attacking classes that just fill different roles or something, it’s always, like, “defensive vs. summon” or “buff vs. attack.” I just think it would be cool if the jobs offered were similar in some way, just filled different roles so your choice was more necessary. Ninja vs. thief for speed-based knife users, Buffing Performer vs. Buffing Time Mage... etc.

So Pellar’s song even came with a dedication to all sailors, so Barbarossa was right that it would be disrespectful to Arca to change the song’s meaning. Though, Rocca has no problem with the remix. I stand by my previous judgement. If Arca wanted the song as-is, then give it some time as-is. Praline can wait to remix it. Especially since I’m sure she won’t be respectful to the intent of the song

To connect this to the last one in terms of innovation vs. tradition, that one involved whether to open up a co-ed school or yet another all-girl’s school. Florem had none of the former, and people willing to run it. The issue was more large-scale and governmental in nature. The old law didn’t have feelings, it’s not a person, so innovation was the go-to. This quest has the direct notion that Arca would not want his song changed. Arca may be dead, but his wishes for his work should still be respected. It was a personal project, not a governmental one, and one that never got released so he wasn’t able to control what happened to it. The school benefits all of the guys in Florem who are now allowed rights there, and would change the way the country works forever. The remix would just make people happy for a bit and then be dropped once it’s no longer popular. It’s fleeting and shallow. So I guess artist’s rights>governmental innovation>disrespectful innovation>gender segregation?

Also, Arca can’t be that long gone. At least give him 100 years in the grave before screwing with his work

WOW Edea, that logic SUCKS. “The world doesn’t care about your grandpa’s wishes, they just want Praline, so screw your grandpa. You don’t owe him”

“Let Praline make a mockery of your grandfather’s legacy because pleasing the masses is the only thing that matters!” What... the fuck, Edea?

God, I love Barbarossa. “If you want to be taken seriously, face their legacies head on! Put some blood, sweat and tears into accomplishin’ somethin’ of your own!” He’s having none of this. And I do agree. If Praline has to piggyback off of someone else’s work to be popular, is she really that good?

deRosa, DeRosso, Barbarossa... the last game really loved using similar sounding words that mean “red” for its villains, huh

Benediction Wall is so good holy shit

Praline’s song is kind of annoying. Also sounds like it would fit in Splatoon more than a fantasy game like this

Old Sagitta is AWESOME. Blue/green glowing mushrooms and ancient runes in a dark temple? That’s my aestheeeeeetiiiiiiic

The music is chill, too

I really like Lotus. He doesn’t like that his son’s the heir of the elder because he wants his son to be able to go out into the world and form his own opinions. Heck, he wants his son’s beliefs to be challenged so that he grows. Procyon shouldn’t be performing the duties of the Sagitta halfheartedly, but because he’s seen everything there is to and come to the conclusion that he agrees with their ways regardless. And if he decides he doesn’t like the way the Sagitta do things? Then Lotus will accept that. I’ve got a lot of respect for that. It’s open-minded, but the fair kind. The kind that implies thought, not believing everything you hear

It’s just a shame that that kind of stuff is a death flag. Especially with Geist running around

Neat gimmick. There’s invisible floors and illusionary walls, so the path forward isn’t always clear, though you can see them if you look hard enough due to their sheen

This Ancient Sagitta document is playing the same music box tune that shows up for the ending narration. It’s a gorgeous piece, but now I’m sure this document is really important to the story. Moreso than I suspected before

A Professor Altair of the Dimensional Bureau made a device that allows you to jump to any point in spacetime. The “spaciotemporal compass,” which I believe the Kaiser’s army stole in the chapter with Minette. So his aim is to travel across time, huh?

Seems Yew’s an amazing chef, while Magnolia is... not. I see who’s gonna be doing the cooking in that relationship

The spaciotemporal compass was stolen. The Sagitta people came about because Director Sagitta felt responsible, and dedicated his life to fixing his mistake. They boosted security, but it didn’t fix the problem

Altair was around when Eternia was founded. He died of colonic disease, and his dying words were a wish to see “Vega” again. Vega is probably a woman, and given the music box theme, I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns out to be that lady doing the monologues at the end of each chapter

Shit, Altair was 34? Damn, poor guy

Yew is not pulled in by this lore. We gotta hit up the Skyhold, guys!

It mentioned a Buster Ship, which Magnolia seems to think is significant. Was that the ship she came to Luxendarc on? I can’t remember

It’s pronounced “all-tire”???? “ALL-TIRE”??? Guys that’s... that’s a real name! And it’s pronounced “Ahlt-air”! You can’t just keep pronouncing things in the most asinine way possible!!! (It’s like KH’s “ay-vuh” vs “ah-vah” thing all over again)!!!

So Tire man’s got a tablet listing all of his inventions. He’s invented everything. Including the airborne battleship Sagittarius. Sagittarius. Sagitta. Duh

Lotus knew about the battleship. Because it’s gone. The SP cannon is all that’s left of it

“The Ba’al and the empire are quiet” OH GOD LOTUS WHY DID YOU JINX IT LIKE THAT. I CAN JUST FEEL THE DRAMATIC IRONY

Yew... where are you sneaking off to at night?

Ah, he’s going to sneak into the Sagitta underground and figure out how the village floats to see if they can use that. And Magnolia’s coming, because.

I’ve got such a bad feeling about this whole endeavor. No music... just wind sounds... ominous

Aw, Yew wanted to be a scholar. But after his big bro disappeared, he abandoned his own dreams to fulfill his brother’s. That’s some familial dedication

Giving someone a flower on the moon means “I will protect you for as long as we both live.” Yew’s flower meant everything to Magnolia because she was terrified and alone, and then Yew showed up with nothing but the promise of unconditional support. I’m actually tearing up right now, that’s really sweet and it’s paired with the most amazing music

And the thing is, Yew was alone, too. He’d just been betrayed by Janne and all he really had was Edea. He needed Magnolia. Someone to commiserate with. Who understood how afraid he was and who wanted to help, too

Ugh, Voice, you’re ruining the scene

“So, too, will your passion bear sweet, sweet fruit” VOICE YOU’RE MAKING IT WEIRD

Oh shit Yew fell off Sagitta and Magnolia jumped after him. They survived because it turns out the rock Yew broke off floats. Magnolia’s “I knew I’d be fine because I trust you” was... cute, but amazingly stupid

And Voice is a shadow against the sky? Or was that supposed to be someone else?

“I woke up and everyone was gone!” ...so where did Tiz go, then.

The shadow is both Tiz and Voice. I’m just gonna guess that the soulstone we shoved in Tiz to wake him up at the beginning was Voice’s soul

AND VOICE IS ALTAIR. Tire man you’d better have a good explanation for your bizarre vegetable rants last chapter

I guess this also explains how voice was writing in our journal. Tiz had plenty of access to it

An intruder? Probably Geist.

...definitely Geist

And he followed us here. Of course he did

Lotus stop telling him exactly what everything is and what it does! It’s just gonna make him want to break it more! This is not a man with empathy, he’ll use that information to cause more damage!

So Tiz is possessed by Altair for this battle, which seems to effect nothing but is certainly happening

Oh come ON. The fight ends when you get one volley of attacks off on Geist? I could’ve torn him a new one I’m so overlevelled!

Altair says that Geist’s pulling a Life is Strange and rewinding small bits of time every time he “undoes” something, but that makes him susceptible to being attacked by large bursts of SP. Lucky for us he decided to fight us next to a giant SP fuel tank, I guess?

Also lucky that Altair invented the tank and knows the secret override code (seriously, no one ever changed that in the hundreds, maybe thousands of years since it was made?)

...the fight seems to be taking place in the Ba’al dimension with the music box theme playing, and Altair says it’s his memories they’re seeing, because emotions and time are inseparable.

Just gonna guess now that the Ba’al are the physical manifestations of Altair’s memories, given form by corruptions in time or just time energy. Paradoxes. It’s Final Fantasy XIII-2 now. Everything is paradoxes

Also, Geist can still undo, just not as much. Can’t completely nerf him for the fight, I guess

Undo as much as you want, that Benediction wall I put on you heals us every time we hit you, doofus

Ah yes. Now we, too, can be blood-drenched time-warpers that look like we shambled out of Silent Hill

Lotus is gonna die protecting this tank isn’t he

OH SHIT PROCYON JUMPED IN FRONT OF HIM MAYBE I WAS WRONG ABOUT WHO RAISED THE DEATH FLAG

Oh thank God Edea jumped in and killed Geist with a katana I know she absolutely does not have equipped

His dying words were hoping that his son “Rev” is now finally free. Dude you literally almost just murdered a father and his son without mercy, now you want sympathy because you’re also a dad? Is this how you people think equivalent exchange works?

“The kaiser intends to unleash the power of the spacetime compass!” Nooooooo really, Altair? I thought he stole it because it looked nice on his wall!

So unlike the last game, where the “time loop” was actually traveling to an alternate reality, in this game it is an actual time loop. I actually knew that before starting the game, which is why I’m so flippant about getting the worst endings on sidequests. Unlike the last game, where bad consequences never got undone because we weren’t going back in time, just to a different world, in this game whatever we do here gets undone in the next loop

So Altair can only possess Tiz at night? That’s some serious gameplay and story segregation because I know you’ve been writing in our journal during the day, you hack!

God we’re gonna have to tell Tiz about this. “Hey buddy we found out your body gets possessed by an ancient scientist at night” “Oh. Is that why it feels like I haven’t slept in months? ...is that why I’m currently covered in wounds?”

Wait, Tiz has been active at night before, so it can’t be “Altair takes over Tiz every night.” So it’s just only an option to possess him at night, but he can still choose not to take control if he doesn’t feel like it?

“But before I go, I would leave you with some cherished words of advice” DO NOT RAMBLE ABOUT VEGETABLES AGAIN

He’s rambling about GRAPES well, I mean, I said vegetables specifically, so you win this time Tire-man

“Which means what, exactly?” I love Yew. He’s my son. I’m adopting him

Tiz says he kinda knew about Altair. Not specifically Altair himself, but that he could feel another presence within him. Poor guy must’ve thought he was going crazy all this time

Altair, when did you have time to write Tiz a letter explaining everything last night?

So, confirmation that Altair was the soulstone we used to bring Tiz back, and that he stayed quiet because he was worried Tiz would try to get him out of his body. But he got attached to these kids and started getting more and more involved, by writing in the journal and giving us advice while out of sight, because he basically emotionally adopted us and wanted to help protect his old world

He also gave Tiz permission to exorcise him. Altair, I may hate the way you pronounce your name and ramble about produce, but I kinda like you now. Welcome to the team, Team Dad Who is Also a Ghost

That’s such a Tiz thing. “I mean he may be possessing my body but I’m not gonna exorcise him! That’s mean!”

Time to corner the Empire at the Water Temple and put a stop to their plans!

Agnès is overloading the Crystal. And her voice is all echo-y. Don’t tell me she’s possessed, too, because I totally called that in the last liveblog

I knew the barrier wouldn’t work. After all, what’s a vestaling’s power to a full-blown Vestal?

Tiz, stop asking her to stop and grab her!!!

Now we know for sure why she was kidnapped. And why the empire’s plans didn’t seem to start until the beginning of the game

Aw, damn. Anne’s here. We’ve gotta be heading back in time pretty soon to undo this

Vucub Caquix? What... THAT’S a name

I thought this was going to be the end of the chapter, but there’s a whole sidequest and two summons on my list I never did. Did I miss them???

Actually, screw it. I saved just before this scene, I’m gonna go check

I did not. Guess this isn’t the end of the chapter, then?

Ugh. Sapp and Piddler are back on a mechanical bird that they don’t know how to fly. How dramatic

At least Anne’s amused?

It absorbs lightning damage, which would’ve been nice to know when I scanned it

And it transforms into a wrestler. I... hrm.

Nevermind, it absorbs all magic. Magnolia’s Summon in a Pinch is gonna sabotage us, I know it

Just glanced at a guide. It actually absorbs ELEMENTAL damage, so the Wizard’s Spirit spell works

So tedious. Rad death animation though

Bestiary entry stated the operation manual inside says the designer gave it “the name of one of the gods from my homeland.” I wasn’t aware that the Mayans existed in the Default universe

Oh, fuck off Nikolai. Are you actually gonna do anything or are you just gonna monologue at us?

Blah blah he was part of the original Crystalguard, they were corrupt and lost to the Eternian Anticrystalists and the disbanded Crystalguard did some shady stuff that he did nothing to stop, so now he feels guilty and joined the kaiser to go back in time and undo it. Okay. Sure. I get it. You’ve never read a time-travel story in your life so you’re unaware that “fixing the past” goes wrong 90% of the time. We get it

Yew, my precious child! Sticking up for his beliefs and telling Nikolai off by professing his love for his new family!

“He’s like a big brother to me!” I LOVE ME A TIZ/YEW BROTHERHOOD

And everything he’s said about Edea sounds like a younger sibling talking about their annoying older sibling I LOVE THIS FAMILY

MY BABYYYYYY! “The people who matter most to me are right here, in this world! And you are not gonna take them away from me!” THAT’S RIGHT KIDDO. This world may be broken, but there’s good in it and the bad can still be fixed! The sacrifice of your family is UNACCEPTABLE

“I’m gonna make it right. Here, in this world.” I. LOVE. YEW

FUCK OFF, NIKOLAI. THE ULTIMATE SIBLING TEAM IS HERE

You know, Nikolai, I can’t have Yew resurrect himself as a Bishop, so why can you?

Just stay down, Nikolai. “Show the world your coup de gravy” is some... awful dying words

Janne’s alive. Falling off a cliff has never killed anyone in fiction

Okay Kaiser’s voice sounded familiar to me so I looked it up. It’s Cam Clarke, who voiced what appears to be, no joke, a large portion of the cast of Back at the Barnyard, Toph’s Dad from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Simba in all of his non-first movie appearances, including Kingdom Hearts II, and, most pressingly the original Leonardo from the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In my liveblog of the Prologue, I noted that Yew was voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas, the voice of 2003 Leonardo. Is this the most bizarre casting gag ever???

Nikolai’s bestiary entry is complete, so this really is the last we’ll ever fight him

Oops, Empire’s already about to shatter the worlds

The Rubadub can fly? Lotus taught Sakura the controls? Yew asked him to do it with the levistone? What???

Lotus join this family forever please

We use the hot springs to heat the levistone to fly. I can’t believe we have a flying hot springs boat

There’s the sidequest. It’s Grandship, moored in the Ba’al crater in Eternia

Oh the ship lets you fast travel anywhere. Sick

Heyyyy, Zatz, Datz, and the Proprietress! ...and they’re complaining about taxes

So Grandship ran out of power, and now they’re a refugee micronation

Oh hey, Alternis. Somebody ask him about the Florem competition. I want to see his face when he realizes his alternate self is ruining everything again

No, game, it’s not suspicious at all that you’re giving Alternis an introduction card right now when he’s supposedly been part of the main plot since last chapter. Not suspicious at all

“By what strange trick of fate do your paths cross anew?” NOT SUSPICIOUS AT ALL

This scene where we hang out with our airship buddies from the last game is really cute, I’ll admit

Alternis sounds so happy the second these orphan kids come up to him. Also really adorable. There’s a lot of reasons I love Alternis

HE GAVE THEM FOOD AND GIFTS. My heart! And it makes perfect sense that he cares for the orphans given the fact that he was an abandoned kid

He’s hanging out at Grandship because it takes care of the lost. I think he’s found the perfect home

Holy shit that meal was 1,825,890pg WITH discount?! Edea what the hell did you eat?!

Or it’s just absurd taxes. But I’ve got my eye on your share of the meal, Edea!

Oh god crazy Chompcraft guy is here abort abort let’s book it

“Everyone is responsible” jackass, that ain’t how taxation works, even with a council. Stop trying to cover your ass

...Alternis’s views on taxation are not something to love him for. Sure, some taxation is always going to be necessary, especially for general welfare programs. But a nation only has so much money to spend! Eventually there’s not gonna be any left, and now everyone needs the welfare, instead of just some people, but we already spent the money funding the welfare, so there isn’t enough to go around

“We must look after the orphans and the aged” Alternis, bud, your heart’s in the right place, but that doesn’t make the system any less broken

He’s acting like by abolishing taxes we suddenly stop all welfare programs. That’s... not how it works. It just needs another source of income. One that doesn’t completely use up the rest of the nation’s cash, so that nobody can pay for the kids. We need people to be able to make money, because that keeps it flowing, both within the nation and around it. And when you open up money to outsiders, they will return with more. That’s where the money for the kids should come from. Collaboration with the rest of the world, not a drain on an already impoverished people

Please don’t let this be a repeat of the Profiteur/Holly quest where the entire conflict was “sentimental dumbass flunked out of high school economics”

I just noticed that Agnès is missing from the pendant in the menu. Sometimes the gameplay and story integration in this series is fantastically on-point

Oh neato! Since the Charybdis summon is a debuff we don’t have to survive an attack, but instead fight the Anchorite while debuffed. Cool!

And don’t think I missed the fact that they put a summon named after the Greek monster, Charybdis, on a boat

I’m glad that Yew clarified that “end layer” is just another term for the apocalypse. So the title of the game is basically “Go Back in Time: The Destruction of All”

Oh good, ex-King Khamer is here. I’m sure he knows how to run a nation (it’s so unfortunate that he’s the most experienced here in that regard)

Makes sense, though. He and Profiteur are the only people in the world who worked with finances before, thanks to the Merchantry

There were THIRTY taxes? Grandship, what are you doing?

7000pg for a SLICE of bread? Are you guys trying to destroy any potential tourist income you have AND drive away your current residents?

And hey, Khamer isn’t saying it’s wrong to help the orphans. But unless there’s reform, the poor laws aren’t going to collect any money regardless!

“Your ideals have blinded you, and you refuse to see the truth.” He’s got a point. Alternis is too caught up in helping the orphans to see that no matter which option they pick, those orphans are gonna run out of state funding real fast

This is just Profiteur vs Holly, except it’s shorter and I like Alternis and the Grandship crew, so it’s instantly better if still really dumb

I’m so on Khamer’s side here. There is no “good” option for the orphans. Either they lose going to school, or they lose THEIR ENTIRE HOME NATION. So Khamer’s solution actually hurts the kids less. Alternis is just so emotional right now he can’t see it

Worst Timeline Prerogative states side with Alternis and doom Grandship, so that’s what we’re gonna do

“It might seems crazy to risk financial ruin just to take care of the poor” Seem? Edea, dear, the poor won’t be taken care of at all without cutting the taxes

“But, if you think of the country as a family, then it’s not crazy at all” Edea, it’s a NATION. They’re not equivalent! Governments have to do cruel things sometimes because it’s their job to benefit as many people as they can, not just the ones they want!

The worst part of all of these sidequests isn’t that someone’s usually wrong. It’s that Edea attempts to morally justify whatever she does to make it sound like the “superior” option, and never for convincing reasons. It just makes her come across as shallow, and I know that’s not who Edea is. She doesn’t moralize to everyone she meets, at least, she shouldn’t in this game. The Edea from last game might, but having her be team mouthpiece here forces her to ignore her character growth from last game in realizing that situations can be morally ambiguous and need COMPROMISE, not just picking one side and calling it a day. It doesn’t always have to be either-or, and this game’s Edea knows that! She just sounds really immature in these sidequests. Like she can’t conceive of ever doing something morally ambiguous because it seemed the better morally ambiguous option at the time, she has to be 100% morally correct all the time

You’re all just gonna make people move out of Grandship, and now who’s going to pay the poor laws? The poor?! If people can’t choose whether to support the poor or not with their the way their money is spent, they’ll chose with their bodies by just leaving

Alternis, darling, noooooo. You don’t have the money to buy them nice things. The poor laws should only provide necessities and the groundwork for them to work themselves out of poverty. Give them assistance, not freebies that they’ll never repay

I agree with everything Edea’s saying, but we literally picked the option that DOES NOT ALLOW FOR THAT PLAN

We just created a socialist hellstate. Great.

No one’s concerned that I switched Tiz to Exorcist and he’s just sitting there, covered in blood

They’re trying to claim that everyone’s making enough to support the taxes and that the kids are gonna grow up and help the nation, but... that’s blatantly false? We saw they couldn’t literally last night? And the nation’s gonna run out of cash in two weeks, so... this ending’s bullshit?

And Khamer wasn’t a citizen so he shouldn’t have been in the council in the first place and went broke, but he can take advantage of the poor laws despite that? Has anyone considered that he went broke BECAUSE THE TAXES WERE SO HIGH?!

Also, this whole thing comes off as just... desperately trying to justify bad decisions based on emotion, which it REALLY should not. The government needs to be held to different standards than a person. Just own up to the fact that you fucked up, guys. Stop trying to sugarcoat the fact that Grandship is gonna go broke in two weeks. It all sounds like a lie to make sentimental fools feel better

By invalidating Khamer like this, the sidequest loses ALL impact. Everything would be so much more poignant if he was a citizen, was really going to be effected by everything, and the choice had actual consequences. Heck, outside of this scene, people are still complaining about the taxes! You talk to anyone but the orphans on this ship and they talk about how they’re lucky to get by! Writers, it is OKAY to admit that your protags made a bad choice. No one learned anything here, and Grandship is still going to go bankrupt!

I really wished that quest had spawned before the battle at the Water Temple, because it killed the pacing

They’re gonna sell merch featuring the Warriors of Light. Yeah, sure, that’ll fix it. You solved the economy. Congrats. Just... someone buy Tiz that mug with his face on it and we’ll call it a quest, yeah?

I’m gonna go grind out Everlast Tower and snag the Girtablulu summon, then see if I can call it a chapter

Half of it’s locked down, but I snagged the summon and did as much as I could. Onwards!

Everyone’s saying it’s the point of no return. By name. Think it might be the Point of No Return™?

Wait, it’s the female voice. The chapter’s already over? Wow.

“I waited - how long I waited - for the day when the two of you would meet again.” I want to know who she means. She says “you,” not “us”

Well, I guess that was the end of the chapter! My guide says there’s only one Asterisk next chapter, so I feel it’s gonna be a short one! Definitely a Disk One Final Dungeon at the Skyhold

“Great Distance” is, as always, a pleasure to hear

I cannot believe how many characters raised death flags this chapter, and yet no one died. I also can’t believe there wasn’t a Ba’al fight! This game is screwing with my expectations and I’m happy Lotus and Procyon are alive but also???

I really enjoyed this chapter. Not the sidequests, which is to be expected at this point. It feels like they’re written by a completely different team than the main storyline, and I wonder if that’s the case, because they’re so tonally off and the main story is doing GREAT at moral ambiguity, which makes the complete lack of it in the sidequests despite the fact they act like there is, completely baffling.

But! We got some wonderful interactions between the main cast, especially the part where Yew tells Nikolai that he’s got a family now and he won’t just let them be erased, and then goes one step further and vows to fix the Crystalguard’s past mistakes without taking the easy way out and just undoing them! Some amazing lore reveals and worldbuilding with the Sagitta, my new Favorite Dad, Lotus, the airship (finally!), and the SP plot involving Altair finally makes its appearance. So I genuinely like this chapter, and I can’t wait to finish up the first “arc” of Bravely Second before things start getting real. Since Chapter 4 looks to be short, I’ll be checking back in real soon! ‘Till next time!

#bravely default #bravely second #liz liveblogs bravely second #as usual the sidequests bombed #but this was the best chapter yet #especially right at the final boss for the chapter #i can't wait to hit up the disk one final dungeon next round and hit this game's 'airy was evil' grand reveal next chapter

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yekulan-dothkah · 7 years

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Stormblood Live Letter: May 22 discussion

I reblogged a post earlier regarding the live letter summary in quick notes form. I just wanted to express some thoughts and state some clarifications verbally expressed during the stream; because I sat and watched the whole thing and some people are freaking out or assuming the wrong information. There will be some of my own opinion thrown in so keep that in mind.

Job Changes:

Base Abilities: Do not assume all your abilities will transfer over, the original versions of many abilities will show as grey with a red line through them. Many abilities have been reworded, combined with other abilities, or slightly modified. This has been done to help level the playing field while maintaining play style. They appear to have taken a lot of care with new and modified abilities to make the classes represent themselves more clearly, and offer logical abilities that benefit both self and allies. Please be patient and willing to work with the new abilities, and capabilities that come with them, rather than complain you no longer have X ability.

Role Skills: Some cross class "mandatory" abilities may not all be able to be selected because of the role skills replacing cross skills. Role skills are arranged by tank/healer/melee/ranged/caster, and all the role skills have been carefully selected, modified, and tweaked. For example, Goad is now a melee role skill, along with Rampart as a tank role skill; while Quelling Strikes and Raging Strikes have been taken off the list of shared abilities for ranged role skills. The interesting factor this will bring is to playstyle, you can only select 5, and there are about 10 to choose from; many of these abilities are useful and it will be hard to pick the last 3, this will hopefully give playing the variety and choice we've been lacking, while still offering our very job specific playstyle.

Healer DPS/Cleric Stance: Cleric stance is a huge change, to clarify if you've missed the memo, it is no longer a stance and is now a cooldown that gives us a temporary boost to damage, our Mind stat is now also being used for our attacks instead of Intelligence. This is a huge quality of life improvement to all healers, if you've been nervous about dps'ing and healing as a healer, please reconsider after this update because now there's little to no risk of dps'ing and not being able to heal in time; you may even find you enjoy it. 90% of healer attacks have cast times, simply twitch your character in a direction to interrupt casting and begin healing instead. People I don't expect to dps and most of the community doesn't either: People with horrible ping, people who are unfamiliar with the job, people who are "rusty" and are playing after a long break from class/game, people who are new or still relatively unfamiliar with the dungeon and it's mechanics. Simply state something like the aforementioned when you enter the dungeon and everyone will understand; you may also be offered hints, tips, even tricks. Please openly take the advice offered and use it if you didn't know the information before, if you already knew the information, say thank you either way. People who stand there for 99% of the dungeon and don't really heal that much, you're probably going to get some flak from people; if you want not only do the content more slowly, but are not affected by the words your party spews at you, ultimately willing to be kicked and queue again, then by all means don't do anything. Understand however that people will react negatively if you make absolutely no effort to speed/make a mechanic passable in the dungeon/raid/trial up by participating when you literally have nothing better to do; so don't cry me or anyone a river when you get kicked for the 20th time today because you weren't dps'ing when your search information and gear clearly states you are a skilled and competent healer.

Resources & Their Graphics: Resources have been added to classes that lacked a resource, like dark knight and paladin. Some resources have been added to classes that already had them, like scholar and dragoon. All these new and existing resources have User Interfaces (UI) to accompany them, an extra bit you put on your screen to clearly state where you are in your usage or build up of said resource. These are an expansion on the first point that is giving each of our classes a more distinct feel by pushing us to use our combat techniques and a skillful manner to open up opportunities for high utility and damaging moves. To people complaining they've turned PVE into easy mode with the reduced actions and simplicity, this is where the skill level of you end game raiders will separate you from the casual players. People able to fill and maintain these bars efficiently will be the kings and queens of their classes, while still allowing the casual individual to use and play effectively.

Attribute Changes:

Blocking: Blocking is still a shield stat and not increasing from the sounds of things, blocking will now be possible from the sides and backs, deteriorating at a rate based on how far the angle is from your front. Block is also being applied to magic attacks to give Paladins and shield & scepter casters & healers a bit more utility.

Parry: Yes parry has been removed as a stat, but it has not been removed as a mechanic. You will still parry, they stated there will be calculations similar to blocking that allow you to parry based of a set percentage instead of a stat affected number. Parry materia will, as a result, no longer be present; all Parry materia affixed and obtained, will turn into "Tenacity" which I will address next.

Tenacity: Tenacity replaces parry, and the best way to describe it is your ability to wield the weapon both offensively and defensively. This stat will both passively increase your attack, and decrease the damage you take. This is a stat I am very excited to test on all the tanks as the passive damage reduction and increased output will be a boon if the calculations are significant enough.

Accuracy: Much like parry, this stat has been removed, but not the mechanic. Increases to evasion and blinding the respective combatants will still decrease the chance to hit. Attacking something of a higher level will have a reduced chance to hit. However, attacking a creature from the side, and back, will have increased chances to hit. For example hitting someone head on from the front and they are the same level as you with no debuffs or buffs will mean you have a 100% chance to hit, but being a fighter at the flank or rear will increase your chances significantly so even when blinded you can land blows. Likewise your position when casting will be crucial if you are under leveled or debuffed. As a result, Accuracy materia have been replaced with "Direct Hit" just like Parry was replaced with Tenacity.

Direct Hit: This stat will give you more consistent, smaller, critical hits. Say a critical for you right now is 4k, two times your normal damage of 2k, a Direct Hit critical will likely be in the ballpark of 2.5k-3k. What is interesting is this damage WILL stack with the damage of criticals, so if you get a direct hit critical of 3k, if your critical hit triggers at the same time you'll do 6k damage instead of 4k as it will go off the new base damage. Now this is speculation; the is also the possibility your crit could also just be 4k + the extra 1k your direct hit did so it could only reach 5k. Still this is a huge boon to fast attackers like Monks, Ninjas, Bards, and Machinists, I look forward to the science side of our community experimenting, testing, and posting their new numbers thanks to this stat. I am also curious and excited to see how this affects criticals for Scholars, and Astrologian nocturnal sect healing.

Strength: A change to tanks and no one else, you will have this stat added into your damage calculations once more. It is unclear at this time if you will do more damage for having VIT over more STR, or if STR will be a drastic enough increase that tanks will be willing to skip out on some VIT. Whatever the result is, people, please take a deep breath and calm down. The decision to go VIT instead of STR is the tank's choice, not yours; if they're willing to compensate for the loss of HP by using game mechanics like having more defensive role cooldowns instead of offensive ones and they do just fine, then you have no place to call them stupid for that choice. People will play how they want, and as long as you get to the end of the content I don't see a problem with people spec'ing their stats the way they want, or choosing uncommon skills for role abilities. Please note, you will not be able to equip STR DPS accessories like you could pre-Stormblood, this applies to any classes trying to equip different accessories from their defined sets, so stacking a high Strength stat will be much harder for tanks, hopefully this will prevent extremely low HP tanks while still offering an alternative to materia melding from VIT.

PVP:

Gear: Gear has become 100% aesthetic, this is nor more PVP gear item levels or stats, this leads me to assume that current PVP gear will be reduced to lvl 1 glamours, or lvl 50/60, but not actual equipment for combat. Alternatively they could leave the stats on, and people who use the seals to buy the gear for use in PVE could keep doing so (even if that isn’t optimal it’s probably a lot less coding work.). So go in strutting your best glam and love it.

Stats & Attributes: Everyone will have “comparable” stats and attributes now. What this means is tanks that are going to have more hp that most, then next highest is likely melee dps, followed ranged dps, and casters/healers at roughly the same amount. It appears everyone has the same MP amounts as well, but that is likely subject to change. For examples on this, tank will probably have 15k HP, we know dragoons have 12.5k HP, red mages have 10k HP, and both dragoon and red mage have 10k MP.

Skills & Abilities: Everyone will have “comparable” abilities as well, how this factors in is that everyone has combo’s, and the abilities, even if they go by the same name have much different potency and effects from outside of PVP, this also means we get PVP separate hot bars. Everyone gets between 9-10 abilities and these are your heals, attacks, ect. Next everyone gets 2 PVP abilities that are like the “remove all detriments” or “Greatly enhance evasion” for current examples. Lastly you get 3 passive abilities that are available to all roles, there’s roughly 10 of them and they have things like increased damage types, increased stats, and passive effects judging from what we could see in the live letter.

What this all means for players is a level playing field where actual skill and teamwork are rewarded, instead of playtime and gear. All three of these changes are a huge improvement to a previously very unfair and relatively broken system we have put up with for so long.

Also: PVP can be entered at lvl 30, instead of lvl 50 or 60, minor yet important note.

Shortcuts:

Story: I completely understand this, the story is long and tiring, it's pretty painful all said and done. While it is a good story in my opinion, not everyone has the time to play through it all, and catching up to your friends is fine and dandy. My beef with this is removing the newbie bonus from dungeons affected by story. Should the story dungeon and side dungeons be accessible? Yes. Should the MSQ dungeons be marked as cleared? No. These people join into a dungeon, have no clue what's going on in say, Aurum Vale, and then die because they stood in a puddle. If I see the newbie bonus, I typically ask "Does anyone want an explanation as we go?". Most new people say "Yes please" or "Sure" or "Yeah, it's my first time.". This establishes that not everyone knows the drill, that not everyone is on the ball with what is going on. I could care less about the actual bonus but just knowing "This is someone's first time" makes me and a lot of people I know very understanding of any mistakes. To queue up and get The Vault and have someone who has no clue what the hell is going on with the final, second, or even first boss is NOT doing anyone favors. People who are not forced to run every dungeon along the way have no idea what all the different mechanics look like, they have no clue what's going on or why they're dead. It's not fair to us as players paired up with them, and its definitely not fair to the people who are put in the uncomfortable situation of having no clue. Ideally they do research on the dungeon, but that’s IDEAL, many things that are IDEALLY a good idea fail in practical application as history has taught us. So what is the list of dungeons and trials that are required to be completed for MSQ that will be auto completed? Every MSQ dungeon obviously, but also every primal trial besides: Odin in normal mode and most hard modes, especially extreme modes are excluded. The Hard Mode (HM) of the first 3 primals, and a number of things like the steps of faith, and the final steps of faith; all are trials that are very hard if you have no clue what's going on and can be mechanic heavy that people will have ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKING CLUE ABOUT, but are MSQ required. "What cannons?" / "What does this do? *queue activating mechanic too early*" / "So I stand in the blue AOE's right? They're friendly?" / "Why did we all just die?" / "Healers screwed up?" / "I'm supposed to do what with the adds?". All legitimate questions I've seen or been asked already, and marking these dungeons as "completed" is going to cause a ton of wipes, frustrated players, kicks, and "House rules" that are unfair to new players. Please, mark these as "First time" SE, it will avoid a lot of pain with that simple tiny little message pop up.

On a side note that is related, there is a cheaper shortcut to just do 2.0-2.55 msq of A Realm Reborn (ARR); the other package does ARR plus Heavens Ward (HW) msq content of 3.0-3.56, but is more expensive as a result. This also does NOT grant any levels, you will still be level 1.

Levels: This I am on the fence about, right now you are only allowed 1 per service account, that's fine, and most people who shortcut the story will also buy this to make the catch up process complete. Now we will have people with no clue about mechanics attempting to complete content without even going through the process of learning how to play the class they currently are. Thankfully, on Balmung, these people are likely "smurfs" or "alts" and this will be less common as most people have a main trained in everything but they want their OC to be trained as X class. Other servers that are still open to new characters and population are going to be the ones suffering most from this inexperience. Yes we have cross world duty finder but you are more likely to get someone from your own world I find rather than other worlds. Yes they prompt you to "Go to the tutorial level and learn how to not be completely horrible at your job" but it's a poor and painful alternative to the learning you go through doing the dungeons. I would rather SE increase the novice hall's lessons to include more complex tactics as "Bonus courses" but knowing them they will sit there and leave it as it because it's still better than nothing. My biggest issue is the novice hall is OPTIONAL. You don't have to do it at all, and you could choose say, dark knight to 60, and proceed to not use grit when you're the only tank, and not use any aggro grabs because you don't even know what those are; now the dps and the healer are dying, it's a party wipe, and you have no idea why everyone is mad and you, or why you got kicked if it was bad enough. This is bad for the new characters because new people will feel they wasted 50$ buying the packs only to get kicked out of every dungeon and told to learn how to play the game and even insulted. Please blacklist and report people who get foul at others or you like this, but by all means this new player can still be kicked for "griefing" well before the ones who kicked are called on being rude and disrespectful.

Final Note:

Please, as a community it is our job to be patient and willing to teach these new players the basics, or those inexperienced in X job, even those relearning their jobs, especially those performing the experiments that help us understand the game better. If the person is rude to you or others for trying to help them, or rude to you and others for stating you are learning, yes kick and report them as applicable, but at least try to be the mature teachers and mentors we should be to each other?P.S: Don’t be that WHM that uses the leash ability the wrong way, jokes are fine and dandy especially with friends, but with great power comes greater responsibilities.

#stormblood #ffxiv #please ffxiv be a community for 5 seconds and not a shit storm of hate #we have a huge opportunity with this expansion to do great things and some shitty people could ruin it for all of us #live letter ffxiv #ffxiv live letter

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spicynbachili1 · 5 years

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Premature Evaluation: World War 3

Untimely Analysis is the weekly column during which we discover the wilds of early entry. This week, Fraser’s been conscripted into World Warfare three, a web based FPS that after once more pits east versus west. If nothing else it’s handy for map makers.

Developer: The Farm 51 Writer: The Farm 51

Launch: Out now! On: Home windows From: Steam and Humble For: £24, $28, €25

My first hour combating within the gray European battlefields of World Warfare three was not probably the most nice introduction I’ve ever needed to a web based shooter. The primary impediment was the loading display screen, which was fairly adamant about not letting me play. It took nearly 20 minutes to connect with the sport on the second try. Lastly over the primary hurdle, I used to be instantly directed to an in-progress match that my workforce was shedding spectacularly. Sadly for them, I wasn’t going to show the tide.

The display screen was violently shaking, there was shouting coming from each path and I’m fairly positive I noticed a tank. I used to be shot within the abdomen immediately. The remainder of the match went about in addition to may very well be anticipated given my utter confusion. I wandered round, following individuals I hoped knew what they have been doing. Then I died. 28 occasions. I killed one particular person, unintentionally. My solely comfort was that I may at the least blame the persistent and infrequently deadly stuttering that I used to be unable to get rid off. We misplaced, by the way.

World Warfare three is aggressively opaque, which makes me surprise if that is as a lot a consequence of its hardcore aspirations as it’s its early entry standing. It sometimes throws out some ideas, however that’s the extent of its steering. A tutorial, and even an introduction that isn’t only a common match absent any context, wouldn’t go amiss, however I’m actually holding out for some type of coaching mode. At the moment, there’s no place to become familiar with any facet of the sport, from its bewilderingly enormous listing of weapons to its ginormous city maps, with out delving into its single mode (one other is on the best way quickly). It’s a horrible place to study.

The fundamentals are a lot the identical as they’re in Battlefield, notably Battlefield four. Two groups, break up into smaller squads, duke it out over a big map and a collection of targets. The construction is simple, however the nuances of the gunplay and the extraordinarily difficult maps are a lot tougher to become familiar with, and it simply isn’t a whole lot of enjoyable making an attempt to study the sport’s ins and outs when the teachings preserve being minimize brief by bullets. And there are a whole lot of ins and outs. Making an attempt to determine how armour works or what bullets you have to use while you’ve spawned proper beneath an artillery strike is, not surprisingly, fairly difficult.

I’m now not fairly as misplaced, however World Warfare three and I are nonetheless strangers. It doesn’t actually talk what it is rather nicely, both explicitly or via the painfully generic navy shooter setting. There are the broad similarities to Battlefield four, however there are some sim parts that evoke Arma three and close-quarters firefights that recall to mind the likes of Insurgency. It looks like its making an attempt to be a large, explosive shooter the place the battles are unfold out all throughout the map, but in addition this tight, tactical recreation of infiltrations and teamwork.

There are occasions the place it briefly coalesces, and it’s nice. I discovered myself making a very lengthy journey with one squad. We began by making daring sprints throughout a pockmarked wasteland, diving into waterlogged craters each time we heard gunfire, everybody transferring in unison. At one level we acquired trapped in an enormous crater by a sniper. We needed to bait them, risking one of many squad, which might have been significantly simpler if this team-based recreation had voice chat. We acquired out of that mess with just one particular person injured. An artillery strike additionally slowed us down, however fortunately we averted the worst of it. Ultimately, we left the terrifying openness of the outside for the claustrophobic stress of a small shopping center that we cleared inch by inch. Our goal, a store, turned a brief base.

Somebody dropped a primary assist bag, I dumped some ammo behind a counter. I’d solely simply realised I may do this. We had view of the mall and many cowl. The assault kicked off a second later. Smoke grenades got here via the entrance of the shop, shortly adopted by a hail of gunfire and cursing. Certainly one of them tried to rise up the steps behind us, however we had somebody hidden behind some packing containers, ready for them. A number of extra minutes of that and we pulled out of the shopping center – one other goal wanted reinforcements. We slunk via the corridors like seasoned infiltrators, not turning a single nook until we knew precisely what was ready for us, proper till we acquired to the exit. We hadn’t counted on the tank. The squad scattered or died.

That type of structured, cohesive expertise is uncommon. The dearth of voice chat signifies that no person communicates, past swearing at one another in textual content, whereas the absence of path and the massive dimension of the maps signifies that most individuals type of simply run round between targets, principally simply making an attempt to play Battlefield. The fleeting nature of lives definitely helps that playstyle – demise comes simply however is type of meaningless. Matches are wars of attrition, with each side flinging troops at targets, however as a substitute of manpower getting worn down, it’s my will to maintain taking part in.

Fights drag on and are undoubtedly much less attention-grabbing for his or her lack of Battlefield’s illusory dynamism. There aren’t any occasions or map evolutions past the targets altering fingers. These maps don’t inform a narrative, and the battles that play out in them aren’t very coherent. Even in a style not precisely famed for is charismatic video games, World Warfare three could be very gray, in tone in addition to aesthetic.

The place it excels are the weapons. Gosh, they’re corkers. First off, all of them can be found immediately. No levelling up, no buying – simply bounce in and begin making a loadout. That is simpler stated than finished, in fact, and the gun particulars don’t paint a transparent image, so count on to play various rounds earlier than you discover one thing that fits you. They’re all extraordinarily customisable, too. I’ve been working round with a G38 that I’ve upgraded with two totally different optics: a scope on the highest and iron sights at an angle, letting me shortly swap between close-quarters and ranged modes. You may slap lasers, torches, scopes and many aesthetic bells and whistles, too, so you’ve gotten a chunk of equipment that’s distinctly yours. You may even pull it aside and gawk at every particular person part.

They’ve acquired some kick. I nonetheless preserve having to remind myself concerning the recoil. There are methods to compensate, however it’s fairly dramatic, regardless. Every gun feels distinct, although, and much more totally different when you’ve slapped on extras and weighed it down. They really feel like difficult, delicate machines relatively than simply an extension of your character. With that in thoughts, I additionally like to hold round an RPG-7, guaranteeing at the least some kills and wee explosions even when I’m a horrible marksman.

With the RPG and the customized G38, I used to be a bit slowed down. There aren’t standard lessons in World Warfare three, however there are weight lessons. I used to be heavy, and it meant I wasn’t going to be fairly as spry. This was an issue in a recreation that prizes pace. I needed to make a sacrifice, however I couldn’t surrender my beloved RPG. The armour needed to go. I used to be capable of swap it out for one thing lighter and fewer sturdy, however truthfully, I haven’t observed. I get shot within the abdomen so much, regardless, which at all times appears to kill me. I die whether or not I’m encased in metal or not, whereas working away shortly has saved my life loads of occasions.

It’s undoubtedly gun porn, which I’m by no means actually positive about, however it’s additionally the one a part of the sport that made it price powering via the stuttering and numerous spawn deaths. World Warfare three does this one crucial factor extraordinarily nicely, for probably the most half, however every little thing else wants an excessive amount of work. It’s exhausting to even predict its potential as a result of it doesn’t have a transparent id but. The starvation for gray navy shooters can by no means be sated, so it’s already standard sufficient so that you simply received’t wrestle to discover a match should you can join, however I like to recommend holding off for now.

from SpicyNBAChili.com http://spicymoviechili.spicynbachili.com/premature-evaluation-world-war-3/

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thegeminisage · 7 years

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TODAY’S ZELDABLOGGING, which has ENDGAME SPOILERS (yes i beat it):

all right i got about ~3 hours to get my shield and beat zelda lets fucking do this

the temple of time music is breaking my heart

this is one place where i'm mostly ok with them not using a classic tune for it tbh

like this music has so much grief and tranquility

i used to think the plateau was SO huge and really it's almost miniscule

i know it's a bit of a waste of time but i'm making the final trek on foot, no fast travel, temple of time to the castle

So Many Guardians

i can fight them now but only if theyre in the right place too close or far away and i cant do it

on a side note: yesterday (?) i found a beautiful pink spring i took many pictures of

today i saw that glowing spot on the map and realized i'd never figured out what it was!

dropped a pin bc i was curious, and it's the pink spring

temptation to warp over, check it out, and warp back: astronomical

but i'm on both a mission and a time limit, so it'll have to wait

ok. ok. im Here. its Time. lets go. shield first. that is My Shield, and the stalnox Cannot have it

there's a door i can't figure out how to open :/

ah, i see the stalnox

but i want that door!

google isn't helping me so i guess i have to leave it??

ok, all abilities fully charged, 3 fairies, plenty of food. i can do this. i almost killed one by accident once. that is MY SHIELD.

oh my god its got SWORDS stuck all in it jesus FUCK

my first shot did a lot of damage! but im wearing the atk+ armor which i can't keep on, it's a glass cannon

oh my god that was so EASY?

i kicked its ASS LMAO

YESSSS THERES MY SHIELD OH YES

holy shit when my swoprd strikes something in here it sounds like cannon fire! steady glowing too

i don't think there's one right way to go here so i'm gonna try to explore as much as i can

i've been spoiled by the fact that zelda has a diary laying out somehwere so i wanna find it for myself

ohhh the remains of the red carpet in here

i'm actually next to the tower i climed before, apparently i was just shy of exploring all there was to see up there...i'll see if i can have another look

lol i decide that and it IMMEDIATELY begins with the lightning storm

i found it!!! oh god was this her bedroom ;_;

AAAH SHE TALKS ABOUT LINK

he's quiet and persostent and can't resist a good meal

and it talks about why he never speaks ;_;

I LOVE THIS HE HAS A PERSONALITY!!!!

omg she even talks about her mother ;_;

A WOMAN NOT OF THIS EARTH

the goddess hylia or was it fi?? oh my god.......

WORTH IT!!!

found the guard chambers ;_; this all hurts my heart, so much was just Lost

oh my god no THE BLOOD MOON...

huh. no cutscene here

honestly fighting my way thru moblins in hyrule castle...haha man

ohhhh the library ): i bet zelda loved it here

oh my god they even had docks under the castle!!!

oh NO i found the king's journal

he hated being cruel to her and was gonna be kind when she got back but instead the last time they really saw each other they were fighting!!!

still doesn't give him an excuse tbh but i can find a SLIVER of sympathy now

okay so........now i've explored all the insides. i go out?? i.......fight ?????

oooohh god im scared again ))):

oh shit oh Shit i found it oh god

im looking up a walkthru to read after the fight starts i dont need any more surprises

ZELDA?

OH MY GOD HE'S DISGUSTING HE'S SPIDER LIKE I AM SHRIEKING WHY IS IT ALWAYS SPIDERS

YEAAHH BOY HALF HEALTH FUCK YOU GANON

I HAVE COURAGE!!!!

ooh he has guardian weapons

ok yes walkthru

GOD LMAO if you dont free the divine beasts you have to fight the minibosses here

oh god this is gonna be tough

haha "guardian weapons will break your shield" NOT MY SHIELD

i mean yes it can break but its Highly durable and replacements can be made if it does

OH GOD HE'S GROSS HE'S BUGLIKE WHY WHY

GANON THE MAN WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER

i mean i know. they had us fight a manlike thing in ss AND tp but. i miss him

oooh down to 25%

YES FUCK THERE HE GOES

eeeew

im ready for phase 2 baby

there's gotta be one right there ALWAYS is

YES here we go

AAAH I GOT THE BOW OF LIGHT

oh no i dont have epona though just a different horse im sad i should have left her out

BUT HE LOOKS JUST LIKE GANON THAT I KNOW

OH MY GOD THE FINAL BOSS MUSIC IS THE TRAILER MUSIC

THE MAIN THEME AT LEAST

WE'RE ON HYRULE FIELD NEVER DID I SUSPECT THIS WOULD BE OUR BATTLEGROUND

I DID IT!!!!

ZELDA

BEAUTIFUL SWEET YOUNG BRAVE ZELDA WITH HER MUDSTAINED DRESS

oh my g o d

"may i ask, do you really remember me"

oh my god...oh my god

ANSWER HER?

AND NOW CREDITS? IM DYING

ohhh the credits showed a bit of everybody and despite myself when they played the trailer song and showed the old man/the plateau i welled up we've come so far

HEY THERE'S SHIGERU MIYAMOTO'S NAME HEYYYYYYYY

awww that was the last song of the trailer

A STINGER

THANK GOD

ohh my god

IF THE SPIRITS OF THE CHAMPIONS AND THE OLD MAN WATCHING LINK AND ZELDA WEREN'T AN OOT NOD....

OH MY GOD ONE MORE SECOND AND ZELDA COULD HAVE MET EYES WITH HER FATHER

jesus christ, old man disappeared last too, my HEART

theyre gonna restore hyrule!! they're gonna travel together again!!

okay i GOTTA load my file and see what's what

awww it's the one i saved right before the battle i thought there was post-game content...?

it does have a little star next to it tho

ah well

that was.......incredible

and i cried

so there's that

man!!!!! im so, so glad

what a good game

honest crit: no, it wasn't PERFECT

i could have stood more classic tunes to punch me in the feels more often and give us more of that old #aesthetic since they changed SO much about everything else - at times it didn't even quite feel like a zelda game, though the reminders that it WAS were always heartbreaking and wonderful

also maybe this was just my playstyle but i feel like there could have been more than just the four dungeons since they were so short...i know the dungeon-y puzzle stuff was spread all around with koroks and shrines, but is One big dungeon too much to ask? even hyrule castle had 1000 ways you could have gotten through

could have stood a little more acknowledgement of who you were and what you were doing as the divine beasts started waking up? like from npcs and shit, not even for Glory or whatever but just because the story felt reeeeeeally spread out, even with the memories scattered everywhere

and again a little bias here but some of the battles once you began getting Up There were a little TOO fake-difficult...i saw white bokoblins in old old places so i know it has to do with You, not your location, and i could have lived w/o it tbh

would have loved some form of new game + or postgame content, but maybe i'm just sad bc i misunderstood a spoiler or w/e it was that happened

things i loved:

the music

the cinematics, holy shit

the voice acting

when they DID use classic tunes it was to INCREDIBLE effect, same with the castle style, the ruins, even the nostalgic armor

obviously the open world gameplay was delightful and addicting, i literally couldn't get enough

the final boss battle wasn't too hard but VERY climactic and wonderful, just difficult Enough - could have maybe been a BIT harder but then i did start with him at half health!!

the dungeons, while there weren't enough of them, were EXTREMELY cool, i felt DWARFED by those beasts, after i saw the first one i never called them jaegers again

actually kind of liked the weapon durability thing bc then i could just pick them up during combat when i was running low and steal them or fight with them, throw them, etc

did not like the BOW durability, all my bows broke VERY quickly, that and running out of arrows always was totally urgh...even with my weapons inventory upgraded i STILL couldn't hold all the cool ones the game threw at me, it needed to be like that for players that favored the bow - more of them that were OP, more arrows, etc

anyway i could go on and on but

i gotta sleep, and

i'm so happy zelda is free

it would have been so cool to have her as a companion in post-game, Somehow

or at least see her reunion with all those who missed her

or see link get his memories back

it ended a bit too soon but it was beautiful and i loved it

goodnight

#personal #loz blogging #botw spoilers

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abelaire-cygnnoire-blog · 7 years

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Why did my a9 normal group just get voted abandon? We had the dps to push Faust. But the dps kept dying because Faust kept hitting the group. The OT was told to face him away. But they were adamant about doing it the way they do it in a9s. Now, here’s something folks might not realize...

A9 normal and A9 savage are two different fights. In savage, you have a fully (or at least mostly) coordinated group that is GEARED somewhat fully in order to push the phases. While true, I haven’t done any savage clears in XIV, I was a Mythic-tier raider in WoW during Warlords of Draenor. I cleared Heroic content in Mists, Cata, and Wrath. The whole “this is how we do it in [higher tier]” thing did exist, yes, but was only practiced by people with that level of gear. When we cleared lower-tier content, it was for alts or friends and we knew we had to adjust our strategies because the majority of the group wasn’t geared out the ass in end-game loot. Sure, if we had a Mythic tank they would solo-tank all the fights that mechanics allowed for it, and sometimes that was a requirement just to make the dps pushes for our not-quite-up-to-snuff alts.

And WoW raiding wasn’t very forgiving of people with disabilities. I had a friend that suffered brain damage from a mugging -- he went from a top-end raider to only able to raid while being carried by the guild, because his mental faculties didn’t allow him the proper reaction time needed for certain mechanics. He would constantly get ridiculed in randoms or kicked out because he wasn’t bringing enough dps to the fight. It was cruel. And even my reaction times have suffered from my own mental problems, but here’s the thing: the way XIV is built, we can still manage to do just fine. My playstyle, while it held me back in WoW, fits comfortably in XIV.

I got off on a tangent. My point is: just because you and your geared buddies who know the ins-and-outs of the fights and have proper channels of communication can do things one way, does not mean that’s how you need to do normal content. ESPECIALLY when it’s clear that not everyone in that group is fully geared, or knows the fight.

#out of character #bit of a rant

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dailydoseofcolor · 4 years

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Taking Stock of Units in Fire Emblem Heroes, Part 3

I’ve already written a small novella at this point, but I have the motivation, so it’s time to keep going. Next is character archetypes in this game that I don’t yet have merged, and would be beneficial to my enjoyment of the game. At this point, I’m in T21 for Aether Raids, and consistently make T24/T25. I do not need to be T27, that’s just too much. On the other side, I’m usually T19.5 in Arena. I just don’t have the resources to keep up with Arena scoring. I actively dislike that mode, All I need are units that will get me through every aspect of the game and keep me from falling to T17 in Arena.

Now for the hard part. I think what I would really love is to, one day, have a +10 character on hand for every combat role in the game across a large variety of weapon/color types. Obviously there’s Player Phase, Enemy Phase, Mixed Phase, and Support. But within those, I feel like there’s more niche roles: Player Phase: 1) Nuke / One Shot (Lilina, Lysithea) 2) Galeforce (OG Eliwood, Tibarn, Raven) 3) Double / Quad Builds (Maybe a subset of Galeforce, but serves a different purpose on maps with inflated stats; Est, Cordelia, etc)

Enemy Phase: 1) Retaliatory Nuke (Rinkah with Bonfire) 2) Sustain Tank (Aether Builds like Legendary Ike) 3) Stall Tank (Brave Ike and other more niche builds) Mixed Phase: 1) DPS (Special Spiral Builds like NY!Alfonse) 2) Duelist (Ross, Donnel, Itsuki, etc) 3) Omnitanks (More of an AR choice, but the characters that can dish it out either in PP or EP; Again, Brave Ike, Ross, Echidna)

Support: 1) Full Support (Dancers/Healers with zero combat prowess) 2) Tank Support (Tanky Healers that can be on the front lines with Close Counter; doesn’t always require actually high defense) 3) Closers (Those random characters that accompany you on maps that only see combat every now and again due to one very specific niche they handle, or are good at moving characters around the field, and can block an entrance for a hit or two if need be / or support characters with combat prowess, like Dance!Reinhardt and Dance!Ishtar). _____

So if we take those roles into account, the characters I already have fully merged or are Merge Projects are: Nowi (+10): Enemy Phase Sustain Tank Sothe (+10): Player Phase Double Build Ross (+10): Mixed Phase Duelist Lyon (+7): Enemy Phase Stall Tank Micaiah (+5): Enemy Phase Retaliatory Nuke OR Player Phase Nuke (Depending on the enemy type) Mia (+3): Her most obvious build is a Desperation build for a Player Phase Double, but I submit that her Res stat is actually pretty good, and she’d be a decent Mixed Phase Duelist OG Eliwood (+3): Player Phase Galeforce, honestly one of the best ones Joshua (+2): Mixed Phase Duelist (that high Res stat tho) Donnel (+2): His stats allow for so much flexibility: Player Phase Quad with his new Refine, Enemy Phase Sustain Tank, Mixed Phase Duelist....he fits a lot of niches now that I think about it. Rath (+2): Player Phase Double Build Saber (+1): Honestly more of an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, but he can move into a Mixed Phase DPS given the right build. Black Knight (+1): Again, super flexible because of the Fighter skills; but likely a Player Phase Double build with Bold Fighter. I have plenty of Bold Fighter fodder, and would love to watch him delete things off the map. Nephenee (+1): Best niche is as an Enemy Phase Retaliatory Tank with Bonfire/Ignis Altena (+1): Pure Enemy Phase as a Stall Tank, especially against Bows. Even some Green units just can’t touch her Young Minerva (+1): Again, super flexible because of her speed. I like her as an Enemy Phase Stall Tank, though Matthew (+1): Enemy Phase Stall Tank, although magic really kicks him in the ass

____

Okay. Zero support units and very few Player Phase units. I def have a preferred playstyle. Although, I’ll submit that the units I get a lot of use from that aren’t merged helps cover that. Let’s go through and see if I have any options for Merge Projects that are sitting unmerged right now:

Sword: Roy: Roy’s our boy! Roy’s our boy! I have his merges available, but I’ve been waiting to bite the bullet. His Res is just on the underside to make him a full Omnitank, so he’s definitely more of a Enemy Phase Sustain Tank. But he is getting a Resplendent soon... Soleil: Major Player Phase action. Honestly, along with Mia, could be an actually good contender for any future Close Call/Repel fodder I get. Ares: Unlimited Bonfire makes for a strong DPS candidate. I worry that merging him and Eliwood would be too much, even though they serve completely different purposed. I hesitate only because I don’t know anything about him, really. Fallen Ashnard: Fuck. His design is just *chef’s kiss.* I need to build him, and I have time, since he won’t hit the Grail market for another two months at least. But I feel like Ashnard, Altena, Young Minerva, and Myrrh would be a hilariously physically bulky team.

Lance: Valter: Disgusting villain, one you just love to hate. Smaller grail cost than others, since he’s been around a while. And he has to be up for a refine within the next 6 months. He’s high on the list. He could serve as a strong Player Phase Nuke Cormag: Much higher grail cost than Valter, but with a more balanced stat-line. More of a dream than anything. Effie: Is it past time to build Effie’s? She was all the rage a year and a half ago. Although she can still put in work with her attack stat, and her speed is more than covered by Fighter skills. I just really have a hard time with Armor units. Est: I see Est builds floating around and people rave about her. I wonder if it’s time to bite the bullet and build one myself. Ferdinand: Shitty stat line, character I detested from 3H...why did I even put him on this list. Oscar: Before this: WHERE IS BOYD. For fuck’s sake, it’s been years. Boyd deserves to be in 3H if Oscar is. Again, not a character I love, but has a refine that gives a niche(?). I honestly never see Oscar builds around, which tells me all I need to know. Axe: Raven: Easy to merge, great refine, easy to use Player Phase potential. One of the stronger Galeforce infantry units. Worth consideration. Cherche: Similar to above, but as a nuke. I’ve seen her just delete characters off the map. Titania: Super strong support capabilities. Tactics skills are pretty fucking dope most of the time. Bow: Norne: Incredible stat line, and I have a Midori that I could sink into her if I feel so inclined....now I just need merges. Clarisse: Honestly, her new refine is pretty sick, although she’s a very high level Grail cost. Might need to wait and see on this one, at least until her refine is fixed. Claude: I legitimately think that, if I decided this is what I wanted, I could get a +10 Claude. But that would me a LOT of Lull fodder that I don’t use. I’d love this, but I don’t think so. Halloween Rolf: Fucking adorable character and design, Grail cost is too high.

Dagger: Kronya: Stupid character, amazing options. Hard to justify with Sothe and Matthew above her in priority of characters I love. Tethys: I dismissed Tethys way back when she launched, but I actually feel like she’s found a niche with her high Res stat? Again, hard to justify, though. Winter Jaffar: Great character art, honestly. Top Tier. Decent combat potential, but his green coloring hurts him pretty hard. Also he’s armor, I just have a hard time with armors.

Red Mage: OG Tharja: She’s on a similar level as Nino, for me. But has a refine that gives her a really interesting niche. I go back and forth, I need to test her out in combat more. Aversa: Incredible support, especially in large maps like Grand Conquests. Her merges would be mostly about getting that HP stat up. I don’t really need her to be combative. Arvis: I love his character design and he can have some really fun builds with his special B skill. I’m waiting for a refine before I make any decisions, though. Iago: New character that I don’t love in terms of base game, but interesting support potential. Male Morgan: He’s shown up so many times I could build two +10 versions of him (which crosses my mind sometimes). I wish his defensive stats were higher, it would make for a slightly more interesting unit. Blue Mage: Fallen Delthea: I realize that I really do love a lot of the Fallen character’s designs...except for Celica. Delthea has a strong presence and she could be worth the Grails. Brunnya: I’m seeing Brunnya everywhere on Reddit. I should pay more attention to her builds, I think. Why are there so many decent Grail units?? Reinhardt: Not a hot take: don’t love Reinhardt. But fuck if he isn’t super useful sometimes. It’s really remarkable how well he’s stayed either inside or right outside the meta. Still not gonna build him. L’Arachel: I love her character and personality, and I just have this sinking feeling that her refine is gonna suck. So idk, hard to tell at the moment.

Green Mage: Soren: Also capable of the Triple Chill strategy, but with more Combat Prowess. I don’t have enough for a +10 though right now. Definitely on the backburner. Halloween L’Arachel: A person can dream, right? I have one and would love more. Maybe in the future. Staff: Silque: One of my favorite characters from SoV. And I just love defensive healers. I could get her to +2 right now, and I think it might be worth it to have her be a long term goal. Forrest: I don’t have enough to +10 Forrest, but I do love his design. It leans into the aesthetic very well. His stats are pretty lackluster, unfortunately. Mercedes: Pretty sure I could just copy and paste from above. Mercedes is one of the best characters from 3H, but her stat line and a lack of copies at the moment...hard to justify. Brady: Another great defensive healer. Easier to merge than Silque, but his personality is kinda meh for me. Pass.

Dragon: Myrrh: Myrrh was on my “most wanted list” with OG Ephraim for forever. I only pulled an pitybreaker Myrrh a month ago. Her refine is INCREDIBLE, and I would love to try to get more merges for her. She has an upcoming banner coming up, and if I can score a couple of merges, I’ll be a happy camper.

Beast: Reyson: I’m close to being able to +10 Reyson soon. He gets a decent amount of work just as a dancer, if I fully kit him, he’d be able to hold highly with L!Azura in terms of usage, if only because of his weapon effect. Good solid passive healing is always hard to come by unless you use the healing specials. He’s worth a further look.

I’ll analyze the rest of this tomorrow...Part 3, Section 2 will have to wait.

#ddc talks FEH #ddc talks #fire emblem heroes #fire emblem #part 3

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