Anime, Manga, VN, JRPG, Related Things Discussion Topic CIII

dragon504 posted...

Playing Xeno X and I can't wait to get a skel. I will teach some of these buttholes who's boss. Also, not sure if it's just me or not, but the big millesaurs are so annoying. They sound like a dog drinking water out of a toilet and I can't wait until I can hunt them to extinction and save my ears.

With the right setups you can kill em pretty early. Xenoblade X is chocked full of broken overpowered cheese. Like, the strategy where you reflect every type of damage permanently isn't considered even that strong here compared to other things.

I_Abibde posted...

No Switch 2 for me until a new Fire Emblem happens. And it has to be a Fire Emblem from writers who did not work on Fates and Engage.

Have you looked into Dark Deity? I haven't played it, but my impression is that it's pretty much just Legally Distinct Fire Emblem, and at least the second one has been quite well-received.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cd1993d9.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c5ac908f.jpg

Orichalcos arc got super low budget. That's not even a zoomed shot or anything.

oh shit summer pockets episode 1 is out

top 5 key VN, something like clannad > little busters > summer pockets > kanon > the rest

I'm finally catching up on re:zero. Was at episode 5 of season 2 and now I've got about 4 episodes of season 3 left. This show is so painfully drawn out, especially in season 3. Everyone says everything 5 times and can't stop exclaiming out loud their emotions every 2 seconds. Everyone has way to much invincibility/regen to the point seeing damage has no meaning. Why did bard lady not immediately play a song 1 second into the fight instead of dragging out for like 40 fucking minutes? Why did fire sword lady slash wrath 50 feet into the air and let her land in the water, to presumably escape and come back, instead of just...not doing that, and finishing her immediately? Why is the good guys plan not to have reinhart throw every bad guy into the sun? Powerscalers must have a fucking nightmare with this show.

How did corneus's offense go from being easily able to instantly obliterate top tier super speed super strength having threats to not being able to hit subaru for like 10 minutes in close range who is a highly athletic normal human at this point in the series? What was the point of corneus putting his heart inside the wives, who are not invincible, instead of in his own chest, which is invincible? On a fundamental level, if his time is frozen, how is he able to move? Like, this feels like a "don't think too hard about it" kind of power but the entire way they beat him is by thinking hard about it so that feels very unsatisfying. This season could have fit everything that happens into half the runtime and had a much better experience.

Season 2 felt much stronger than season 3. All of the villains in this show are beyond terrible. They have the mental capacity of a 5 year old and are mostly beaten by exploiting that by our protagonist with lukewarm intelligence that comparably makes him a borderline super genius. They feel evil and disgusting solely for the sake of making their eventual comeuppance more satisfying rather than actually existing as characters with motivations. It reminds me a lot of SAO in that sense. The whole thing just feels childish. At least they gave us a yuri kiss fanservice moment in season 3.

Ninja and assassin living together seems like gold. That shit was funny and it's a cute yuri. This gotta be the first time in anime I've seen an assassin main character that actually assassinates people. It would be a really dark comedy if everyone wasn't cute girls. I guess it still is.

Revelation34 posted...

Not going to happen. Dating simulator is the way of the future for Fire Emblem.

The Supports are not what annoyed me about Engage . The main story was amateurish to the point of hilarity (... IMO). Totally not what I expected after Three Houses .

adjl posted...

Have you looked into Dark Deity? I haven't played it, but my impression is that it's pretty much just Legally Distinct Fire Emblem, and at least the second one has been quite well-received.

I have heard about it, but, as always, I am not exactly hurting for things to play.

Like the Lunar remasters, which should be arriving in about a week.

I'm slowly but surely getting through Trails in the Sky for my first time. The story is its best part, imo, and probably better by far compared to most of the last few RPGs I've played in the last year or so. The music is inoffensive, the characters are decent (with the mc very much being a brat at the start, but she grows), and the combat is... well, it feels like Grandia with a tactical rpg veneer. I hear the latter games in the series are only better by comparison, so that's a potential positive.

I've always had trouble getting into trails. The battle system of trails in the sky feels really slow when you are fighting battles that aren't hard to win. My real barrier however has just been the amount of world building info. I feel like I have to talk to every NPC after every event or else I'll miss stuff but that just completely exhausts me. That was more of an issue for me when I've tried cold steel, which I've bounced off of 3 times now.

Sky 1 was essentially unplayable for me until I used Cheat Engine to turn on turbo (this was the psp version, before it became a staple option). Cold Steel 1 was basically fine since it was mostly set in just the school.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

My real barrier however has just been the amount of world building info. I feel like I have to talk to every NPC after every event or else I'll miss stuff but that just completely exhausts me.

Yeah, that's the real barrier. It especially sucks because some of the missable conversations are absolute gems (Anton and Ricky, for one) but it involves heading towards every single border guard station in case you miss something. You have to be in the mindset to play a long, slow burn of a game, and that's just not what I'm feeling like most of the time.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

I've always had trouble getting into trails. The battle system of trails in the sky feels really slow when you are fighting battles that aren't hard to win. My real barrier however has just been the amount of world building info. I feel like I have to talk to every NPC after every event or else I'll miss stuff but that just completely exhausts me. That was more of an issue for me when I've tried cold steel, which I've bounced off of 3 times now.

My biggest problem is missing an item (usually a book) you can't go back for unless you did a back-up save, because the window for going to whatever corner of the region to acquire that item is stupid short. And yes, the combat does feel at times like the game is going out of its way to hinder your progress, moreso than random encounters. A distant third issue is how the music, as fine as it is, feels like just the same five or six tracks playing over and over everywhere you go. Beyond that, I'm more than OK with the rest.

I do like the story and lore, though the game does have a habit of waving a flag or two about an incoming trope I've seen so often that, by chapter 2, I have predicted more than 90% of the events up to this point; and I don't know how much of that is just me being trope savvy as a writer.

I finally got a skel in Xeno X. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Went from level 32 to 39 today just because of it and a scythe weapon I found for it.

Entity13 posted...

I do like the story and lore, though the game does have a habit of waving a flag or two about an incoming trope I've seen so often that, by chapter 2, I have predicted more than 90% of the events up to this point; and I don't know how much of that is just me being trope savvy as a writer.

I do think it's really, really cool how all the games are interconnected despite taking so physically far apart you might not realize they're even in the same setting. Like less than halfway through Cold Steel 1, you hear from NPCs about current events happening near the end of Zero (Zero, Azure, CS1, and CS2 take place over like 18 months), while also referencing major political events in the Sky games; not enough detail to spoil you, but you're definitely intrigued. The plot isn't necessarily unique or super deep, but there's just a lot of fun referenced stuff.

I started Trails through Daybreak recently (six years after Sky 1) and the differences get even bigger. Minor spoilers for Daybreak 1, the Calvard Republic a few years later is LITERALLY the modern era. Modern cars, pseudo-cellphones, etc . Contrast this with previous games, where Sky (Liberl) is essentially in the middle ages with the occasional ancient technology, and Cold Steel (Erebonia) is in the industrial era with a big focus on trains . It's a very interesting, varied, interconnected world.

if only there was a built-in quest tracker for 100% augh

dragon504 posted...

I finally got a skel in Xeno X. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Went from level 32 to 39 today just because of it and a scythe weapon I found for it.

If you upgrade to the level 30 version, you can grab the Phoenix weapon (R Back) from the shop to get access to an extremely strong AoE attack that's amazing for level grinding. There are a couple of really strong grinding spots where you can encounter huge numbers of insectoid enemies in the 50+ range, and if you load up all of your weapons with Insectoid Slayer XX augments (which are pretty cheap, as Skell augments go) and add in arm weapons that provide ranged attack and accuracy buffs, you can kill, a single use of Phoenix will kill most of them. There's a level 50 version as well that you can upgrade to once you upgrade to a level 50 Skell.

Also, the new party member that becomes available after chapter 6 (maybe 7) comes with their own new Skell model and unlocks the option to buy one of your own from the shop if you don't want to steal theirs. That offers improved mobility over any of the base game versions, but comes with a loadout that you can't change. I haven't personally played with it because I mostly just used my Skell for Phoenix and not being able to change the loadout interfered with that, but from what comments I've seen it's a really solid option for an early Skell.

Hmm, didn't see a phoenix item in the shop, but I do have two from drops and they're level 50 of course. Though, I'm at 44, so 50 isn't too far off.

You may need to get Grenada up to a certain level. I think level 3 is the highest one that unlocks any actual gear for any of the AMs, with subsequent levels just adding new traits. It's exclusively under R Back weapons, since it occupies both Back slots, so you might have missed it if you just looked under L.

I've got all 4 of my ams at max currently. I'm in the middle of a mission and don't want to leave the area for it to reset, so I'll have to check again in a bit.

I found it. Was buried in the list and I skipped over it. The missile launcher I'm using right now is pretty good at aoe damage. Since I'm creeping up on 50, I think I'll hold off on buying the level 30 version. I'm short on the level 50 skell I want, but hopefully I can make some credits in the meantime.

I am reminded that I need to complete my Trails in the Sky replay before the remake comes out.

And my Lunar Remastered (Switch) arrived early, so I dipped into that. A little controversial, maybe, but the games are pretty much what I remember, with mostly the same scripts and voice acting that does a decent enough job of recalling the originals.

dragon504 posted...

I found it. Was buried in the list and I skipped over it. The missile launcher I'm using right now is pretty good at aoe damage. Since I'm creeping up on 50, I think I'll hold off on buying the level 30 version. I'm short on the level 50 skell I want, but hopefully I can make some credits in the meantime.

I used the level 30 version to grind to 60/maxed classes (using a method that becomes available once you can fly), since I skipped upgrading to a level 50 Skell in favour of waiting for one of the postgame options. It was still able to kill the level 60 enemies in question in one use. Phoenix is pretty overtly broken for fighting large numbers of targets.

That said, that's pretty much all I used my Skell for pre-postgame. Even in postgame, against anything my Skell can't one-shot, my ground combat build outperforms it even though I'm woefully undergeared and rayguns aren't all that great compared to other options. Overdrive's just that good. If you're leaning more on your Skell for combat, upgrading to a level 50 one will be a big jump for you.

Don't forget to max psycho launchers if you like skells because that one move that ups treasure ranks can guarantee level 60 skell part drops IIRC.

Yep, Heroic Tale is handy for farming Skell weapons/armour because otherwise there aren't many reliable 66+ enemies that drop them. I'd argue that you should be maxing every class for postgame farming anyway, since there are helpful skills everywhere, but Psycho Launchers are a priority if you want to farm Skell gear.

I'm short like a million credits from the level 50 amdusias skel, so I'm gonna do some quests, since there's a ton of them. After I can afford that, I think I'm gonna look at my frontier nav map and try to plan it out better. Don't have many bonuses, only thing done decently is my storage slots.

If you want to go all-in on optimizing your Frontiernav, there's a tool that will automatically give you the best layout available with the sites you've unlocked and the probes you've got. It's probably overkill, but it can point you in the right direction for whatever you're looking to maximize.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PK246EVvMsK-rRMcQRSX52DUwhOUVRS2/view

Other than that, just keep in mind that you get more credits for putting research probes on sites with unexplored territories than for putting them on sites with a higher revenue rank or getting chain bonuses, so that should be your priority. Also, if you put a duplicator probe on a 4-way intersection and a booster probe on one of the adjacent sites, you get a huge boost to whatever the other three sites are giving you because you double-dip on the booster (the duplicator applies the boost to all three probes, plus all three probes are duplicated and then get boosted on the duplicator site).

Also, make a point of putting your best mining probes on the sites in Cauldros that give Bonjelium. It's used for some of the strongest augments and there's no way to speed up how quickly you get it, so it's good to get your probes collecting it as early as you can so you'll have a good stockpile by the time you start late-game grinding.

Man, ninkoro is great. Somehow the humor and vibe reminds me of demon girl next door which I also loved. This is definitely the show I most look forward to each week.

I watched the first episode of Jungle de Ikou the other day... and I feel cursed. To say nothing of the fact that the protagonist is IIRC a grade school girl, the plot is a paper thin excuse for some ecchi with a jungle visual theme. The MC is given magical powers and must do bizarre and erotic dances and chants (with gratuitous chest and panty shots) to transform into a full grown, half naked, busty jungle girl, and has to dance again to use any magic.

I'm not even against lowbrow ecchi, but it just wasn't done very well here, and the fact that it's a grade school kid leaves a sour taste. And yet that dance, and the chant, just sort of stays with you. The transformation dance goes on for damn near a full minute, and is demonstrated first by the god that grants her the power.

https://i.imgur.com/xUvLsM2.gif

So, I rushed a bit to get to chapter 9, since I learned it's where I'll get my flight capabilities. Gonna recruit the chapters' character first before doing it though. I do wish the new recruits got all of the points you got before recruiting them, kind of sucks with them starting low. Seems odd to let them gain levels, but no points. I'm definitely glad I bought this game though. Not sure if I like it more than 2, but it's pretty close. Will definitely have to give 3 another shot in the future.

I can kind of understand not giving them class experience before they join, since part of the reason party members work the way they do is to give you a taste of new classes without having to level them up yourself, and getting a fully-levelled new class all at once would be a bit overwhelming. Not sharing BP is indeed an odd choice, though. BP is like character experience (arguably even more so) in that you need to have some to be able to evaluate how useful the class is, and while being able to refund it helps with experimenting, you still need to have enough in the first place to level up whatever arts/skills you want to explore the synergies of. Sharing class experience is a new feature in the remake, so I guess they just didn't think to include BP in that.

Fortunately, party members don't really matter except to get their unique arts through affinity missions (those are pretty critical, and speeding up affinity gain in the remake has been a massive improvement because that used to be a significant grind), so if they end up being underpowered, it's not going to hurt you. The only times they're really useful are for buffs/debuffs and to provide extra targets for arts like Smooth Recovery to help sustain Overdrive.

I finished the Epilogue yesterday. It was a good time, though I think I agree with the interpretation I've seen that most of the ideas they had for a full Xenoblade X-2 ended up being used in 2 and 3 and XDE's epilogue is just a matter of patching together what was left and tying it into the bigger picture. It does feel like what's there was originally part of a much bigger story that would have unfolded more gradually over the course of a full game, but also there wasn't enough there to actually fill a game, so it ended up being packed pretty densely. I'm a little disappointed in how some things turned out and there are still some unanswered questions, but ultimately I'm interested in seeing where things go from here and it's a much more satisfying ending than the game originally had (in that it's actually an ending).

As a side note, I'd forgotten just how funny this game is. My recollection was mostly just a bunch of cringy "let's eat Tatsu lol" jokes, but more broadly than that the game is packed with some quality deadpan humour. I'm not sure if my sense of humour has evolved in the last decade, if I was just able to pay more attention this time through because it was a replay, or if I was more thorough with side content because affinity gains weren't so discouragingly slow that I didn't feel like bothering, but ether way, it's a good time. My recollection of the game having a mediocre overarching story but having a lot of side content that does a great job of conveying the vibe of carving out a niche for humanity on Mira holds up, the tweaks to the combat system are very welcome (quick recast is a massive game-changer, and bumping Overdrive's base duration from 15 to 25 seconds gives a lot more flexibility). Late-game defensive balance is still not great, in that you basically get one-shotted unless you maintain one of several nigh-invulnerability options, but I didn't really expect that to change because that's a fundamental design of the game.

Yeah, I meant bp. I find myself constantly just passing up treasures, so I don't waste too many before having everyone recruited. Got my flight quest done and now I'm only missing one nav point. I'm guessing it's story locked, since I looked all over the area and couldn't find it. Believe I'm missing 3 more characters to recruit. Have a bajillion quests still to do as well. I cleaned up my nav map some, so I ended up gaining a decent bit more miranium and revenue. Lost a bit of storage, but it's ok.

On a side note, it'd be nice if I could get that adorable little evil space goblin Ryyz to join me.

I don't believe any of the sites are story-locked, at least past the very early game. I filled in my whole map as soon as I got my flight module. If you can't find one, it's probably hiding in a cave or some other obscure place like that.

I'll have to go back and look harder then. Must be a cave, not a ton of surface area that I saw and I scouted all around. Trying to knock some affinity missions out. Think I might do a couple more story chapters too, would like to get the last 3 people I'm missing. Kind of wish it said on the empty slot what chapter you'd be able to recruit them. I have all but 2 characters at max class and 10 have maxed affinity so far. I think I'm at level 8 on my current class with two more to go, the sniper/javelin branch.

There is one thing they missed that I wish they wouldn't've. You should be gaining skel fuel while in menus, the map, and cutscenes, so long as you're not in it. It's just a minor gripe. It won't matter at all once I finish maxing my arms manufacturers again though, so in the grand scheme it's not a big deal.

dragon504 posted...

Think I might do a couple more story chapters too, would like to get the last 3 people I'm missing. Kind of wish it said on the empty slot what chapter you'd be able to recruit them.

Assuming they're the last three slots in the party menu, one becomes available after chapter 10, one becomes available after chapter 11 (with several prequisite sidequests, some of which don't show up on the map until you actually run into the quest giver), and one joins as part of the chapter 13 (epilogue) story mission.

Well damn, don't want to rush 4 chapters in a row like that, so I'll just go for chapter 11 then.

Not that anyone here watches it but in battle through the heavens, seeing yao chen finally get a body after 142 episodes was pretty great. Took so long it almost seemed like it'd never happen. The show has long since passed the power level where you can have good choreography and moved into simply having good special effects but I still love it. I wonder what the most episodes I've watched of a show are. I know hunterxhunter is 148. Soul land was according to a google search 264 episodes. That's crazy. Dragon ball z is 291 and I THINK I've seen em all so I guess that takes my #1 spot.

SD Gundam G Generation Eternal has been a pleasant surprise this week. It's a mobile game, but it's in English, it's F2P friendly, and it's Gundam , so I'm pretty happy with it. All the systems from the mainline games are present, but cleaned up and streamlined, with a better UI. My only gripe is that all of the music is generic to avoid licensing fees and the like, but ... I get it. Here's hoping it sticks around for a while.

it's only currently f2p friendly because it just released

give it a few months

also, music being generic to avoid licensing fees? licensing fees from whom? bandai owns the gundam music, bandai made the game.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

also, music being generic to avoid licensing fees? licensing fees from whom? bandai owns the gundam music, bandai made the game.

i member the one dynasty warriors gundam game i played ejected all licensed music from the NA release. probably a regional thing like that

dragon504 posted...

Well damn, don't want to rush 4 chapters in a row like that, so I'll just go for chapter 11 then.

The last one comes quite early in chapter 13, and chapter 13 is quite different from other chapters in that it's quite long and runs pretty much continuously aside from two brief breaks that only give you one additional sidequest each (the affinity missions for the last party member), so it wouldn't strictly be "rushing 4 chapters," but yeah, I didn't rush for the last one. Affinity gain has been buffed enough that even bringing that last one up to 5 hearts didn't take too long (and their affinity missions only require 0 and 1 hearts, so there's no need to grind for them), and again, party members suck at combat and I therefore don't really care that they're behind on BP.

Watched to be hero x (well the 3 episode that are out). It's pretty good. The OP is stuck in my head.

Also watched the 3 eps of gorilla girl that are out. It's not great but it's easy to watch. Although bro, they called a bolt action rifle shooting bullets a musket and that irrationally annoyed me. Also it's kinda the joke but it's also annoying how the main girl is jumping through so many hoops to not stand out despite that just making it way way worse. The timeline where she just says she is in the knights and tells the truth would be much better than the timeline she is in. Oh well, not that big of a deal.

I_Abibde posted...

I am reminded that I need to complete my Trails in the Sky replay before the remake comes out.

And my Lunar Remastered (Switch) arrived early, so I dipped into that. A little controversial, maybe, but the games are pretty much what I remember, with mostly the same scripts and voice acting that does a decent enough job of recalling the originals.

I didn't know that was a thing. Did they add anything new?

apparently there's a new super robot wars announced

designation of Y

hell yeah dynazenon and witch from mercury

hell no cybuster being preorder dlc again. cmon dawg

agesboy posted...

and witch from mercury

i'm a little annoyed that they specifically said season 1 of wfm, so none of the cooler suits like schwarzette or calibarn

The lack of hint on how to recruit this character in chapter 12 is annoying. On the bright side I've maxed all of my other characters, so I've just got the last two left to do. Wondering if I need to start the story quest to get the new character. I also hit level 60 recently and maxed my last class on my main guy too. Went and set it back to the first class for the 5 skill slots, but haven't decided which weapons I want to use.

For treasure finder, does it work if I put it on my companions' armor? Was thinking of decking out my 3 teammate picks with treasure finder armor to boost drops lol.

Ok, putting armor with treasure boosters on my crew was a good idea.

dragon504 posted...

For treasure finder, does it work if I put it on my companions' armor? Was thinking of decking out my 3 teammate picks with treasure finder armor to boost drops lol.

It does. If you give them each 5 pieces of the level 55 shop gear (requires Candid & Credible to be maxed out), that'll get you a total of 90% extra treasure sensor, which is just shy of the 100% cap. If you farm up the materials for one Treasure Sensor X augment (or two V augments), you can hit the cap without sacrificing anything on your character. That guarantees that you get a gold chest from every drop, which is generally a good thing (though holofigures can't drop in gold chests, so you'll need to ditch the Treasure Sensor if you care about collecting those, and some armour trait combinations might be harder to get from gold chests than from silver ones).

dragon504 posted...

The lack of hint on how to recruit this character in chapter 12 is annoying.

The biggest hint I can give you without spoiling it is to look at the segment map for quest segments that don't match a quest you've been able to find. Depending on which quests in the chain you've completed, that should help you figure out what your next step should be.

• The first quest in the sequence is in NLA and has a quest marker, available after chapter 3
• The second is in Noctilum and doesn't (it triggers when you talk to the person), available after chapter 5
• The third is in Oblivia and doesn't (it triggers when you get close), available after chapter 6
• The fourth is in Sylvalum and has a quest marker, available after chapter 9
• The final one (the only one that actually requires you to clear chapter 11) is in Cauldros and the segment shows up on the map, but there's no quest marker and you won't be able to actually do the quest until you complete another major side quest chain (also after chapter 11) that culminates in the same area and also explore 65% of Cauldros, after which you'll be able to trigger the final quest by going back to that area and examining a slightly suspicious-looking building.

They're by far the easiest party member to miss if you don't consult outside resources, and I actually don't even remember recruiting them when I played the original. It's kind of annoying, because they're the one that provides Beam Bomber and my Ranged Attack Raygun build was really lacking without that art (it's like three times stronger than Beam Barrage). If you want more details, I can give you a non-spoiler-free version.

dragon504 posted...

Wondering if I need to start the story quest to get the new character.

You don't unlock anyone in chapter 12. I'm not sure off-hand if having started Chapter 12 will prevent you from doing other quests until you finish it, aside from the section that's behind an explicit Point of No Return. Chapter 13 will unlock the final character almost immediately as part of the story.

Yeah, I went back and reread your post. I got 65% in cauldros last night, so now I'm knocking out quests until hers pops up.

The only immediate prerequisites are her quest in Sylvalum and Definian Downfall, though Definian Downfall has a ton of its own direct and indirect prerequisites (there are four distinct quest lines that lead to it, going back as far as chapter 5). It's also one of the harder quests in the game, with the boss at the end of it being really quite difficult if you don't have a solid build. I ended up doing it just after switching from Knife+Raygun to Photon Saber+Raygun (for Essence Exchange and reflect), and it took a few tries because I was still getting used to the new rotation.

I'm just kind of rambling, so feel free to ignore this. But something that happened the other day got me thinking. Someone was pretty upset about a manga that I posted on Imgur, because of a problem with the main character's actions. Even after being told that that particular problem was not an issue anymore beyond the first chapter, they continued to judge and write off the whole thing because the manga didn't explicitly portray the character's actions in a negative light.

That got me thinking about how people can let their personal biases on certain things affect their objective judgment of a work. Like I've seen people demonize and call for boycott of a series because a character forced a kiss on a girl when he was drunk, despite the fact that it was treated seriously and he immensely regretted and apologized for it. Or (as an example involving something not objectively bad) when in a different series a character's past was revealed as well as the fact that they're not a virgin - at which point Japanese fans lost their shit, flaming the series, the author, and destroying merchandise they had purchased.

It didn't make sense to me how people will condemn a work because of character flaws, because not having flaws means everyone is perfect and makes it hard to have any personal growth. But then that got me thinking of how I sort of have the opposite problem with Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood/manga. In many cases everything feels just a little TOO perfect. Besides some things happening at just the right time or place purely out of convenience, most of the protagonists are so pure, so badass, so dedicated to fighting the good fight that it just feels unrealistic; put real people in the same stakes and you'd see many people being too scared to fight, fleeing the country, or even selling out to try to get in on what Father was (supposedly) offering.

And the ending itself was entirely too safe and unrealistic considering everything that was at stake. In the final battle all the bad guys were killed, arrested, or otherwise taken care of with very few casualties among the good guys, and everyone left got what they were fighting for and/or found a perfect resolution to their story . As a narrative the whole thing is damn near immaculate, with many heavy themes that can be applied to real life - but that doesn't change the fact that the way it plays out is just not true to life.

That's one of the reasons that I personally prefer the 2003 series; for all its flaws and strange story decisions (and there are many), the choices people make almost always feel natural and realistic. It makes sense that even though it has to be done, the Elrics, Izumi and Scar still would have trouble fighting Sloth, Wrath and Lust, respectively . In the end amid many heavy losses, when Edward himself died, it's natural that Alphonse, having both the knowledge and the means to potentially revive him, would do so with little hesitation, and that when Ed learned that his little brother was gone, he'd attempt the same . And in the movie Ed saw firsthand the the atrocities committed as a result of the worlds being connected, so he saw it as his duty to put an end to it even if it meant being permanently separated from his world - and his brother chose to be with him in the end .

Everyone is trying to do what they think is best, although they sometimes falter for personal reasons, some storylines don't get any real resolution (which is also realistic; a lot of times you just have to learn to make peace with the past and live with what you've got), and the few people left remaining at the end have to give up on their desires for a greater good. To me it all just feels like a heavier and more heartfelt ending than " we won, we got what we want and we all lived " in Brotherhood.

Revelation34 posted...

I didn't know that was a thing. Did they add anything new?

No, the games are very much the same, just in widescreen ... with the more dated jokes and references removed from the Working Designs script. And the difficulty is rebalanced to match the Japanese version, so the game is significantly easier.