Lurker > pyresword

A collection of thoughts I have on the game; because I can't think of any other way to organize it:

--I think Outer Wilds is a pretty good game. However I don't consider it a must-play, and I also think it's made with a specific player-type in mind which won't apply to everyone.

--If you're expecting a curated experience you are likely to have a bad time with this game, I think.

--The player is expected to fail relatively frequently when playing.

--I never had any issue with the controls and would even say they're good. They're responsive and very easy to understand. I think basically every player struggles with moving around at some point because this type of 3-dimensional movement is not something human brains have evolved to do well or have much experience with, which is deliberately part of the challenge of the game. Not everyone will enjoy this, but again I think it is both deliberate and well-implemented.

--The autopilot is a specific set of steps based on your location and your target with no other considerations, which I guess is frustrating if you're playing the game trying to ignore the space flight aspects entirely.

Danger (ARM Version)
Wildfire
Evergreen

Might change my mind on match 1 later. Both retirement-worthy.

I generally think a lot of the "context required" claims are exaggerated, but Wildfire isn't one of them. It's still good regardless, but much better and more impactful in the game itself imo. Reach for the Moon I'm not super fond of either way though so...

Xenoblade 3 villain: *commits nigh unspeakable acts of destruction and malice. Including both mass-slaughter of innocents and deeply personal acts of hatred simply to relish in the pure joy he derives from inflicting misery upon others. Also by the way one time a sad thing happened to him.*

Mio: "No one can...truly judge him for what he did..."

idk Mio maybe I'm missing something but personally I'm not encountering too many difficulties with the procedure.

(The chapter was pretty great overall but this line was silly ok)

I also just watched the Haikyuu movie. For various reasons I think the series is better suited to the weekly episodic format, but it's still pretty much what you've come to expect from Haikyuu. Good stuff, albeit probably not as strong as the Shiratorizawa and Inarizaki matches.

Pay it Forward is a great movie not sure what's wrong with the critics tbh

Discussing contingency plans is definitely good, but I also think the risk of something actually happening to the board in the near-term is pretty small, assuming there haven't been very recent developments I'm unaware of.

I think the best solution is either a new forum or Discord, though I also am not the biggest fan of Discord's forum feature.

I did know the backup board KCF mentioned was a thing someone was working on, which could be viable also. Haven't actually tried it or looked into it myself though.

This is nice that I'll actually see the topic again now since it was a not-insignificant portion of where I got political news from even if I rarely posted. (I mean in theory I could have gone to CE but lol)

You mean I could have had my suave robot aristocrat flinging chalk at everyone and they took that away from me!?! I am upset.

Nazca no Oka
The Dreadful Fight
RGB

No time/energy for writeups but another good day.

Legram way too low smh

Chaeix posted...

it definitely felt a bit too drawn out

There were times when it felt like this to me also, but the final chapter was so satisfying I don't even care.

dowolf posted...

given that this is in Old Japanese (think Shakespearean)

I am pretty sure there was a comment about this from the translators in whatever collector's edition of the game I have. Sadly it looks like it got lost when I moved this year and is either in storage somewhere or at my parents house. Unfortunate. It seemed like they'd put a fair amount of thought into it though.

Ok just going to go with this because it's in the same series as the game I'm currently playing.

Malos (Xenoblade Chronicles 2)

Black tar
Morning Dew
Nuedori

Lost in the Abyss is solid. Decent instrumentals and decent vocals. Fittingly, it (Lost in the Abyss) sounds like one of the not-as-good Hiroyuki Sawano vocal songs, which still puts it within "I enjoy this" territory. Unfortunately it's up against actual Hiroyuki Sawano though, and this is definitely one of his better songs imo. Lots going on with the cool electronic backing, and the vocals are also quite good. I really like the intro to the second song of the medley.

Morning Dew is a very pretty ballade. From a compositional/melodic angle I think the vocals do a bit too much of the heavy lifting, but it's a good performance to go along with that. Pretty great overall. For Morning Light Hymnus a lot of the individual pieces are fantastic, but I feel the whole is less than the sum of its parts. I've never been overly fond of combining operatic vocals with rock instrumentals, though this is certainly one of the better examples of that. The climax at at ~4:30 is very good.

Vector to the Heavens is fine, I guess. I feel I should like this a lot more but there's something missing. The piano sounds...hollow, or something? I don't know what it is but it just sounds off, and I feel this song would be very very good with just a different piano performance or maybe even the physical instrument itself. Not sure if this is specific to this version of the song or what. Nuedori has been a favorite of mine ever since I first heard it, so I was ecstatic when someone else brought it back this year and it was able to get in. Definitely one of the most prominent examples in my head for "I listened to this opening theme every single time I turned the game on." Love the combination of tribal instrumentals and incredible (as always) vocals from Suara. The song captures both adventurous and tragic vibes very well.

Nuedori >= Black tar > Morning Dew > Morning Light Hymnus > Lost in the Abyss > Vector to the Heavens

Very good day. Feels like Morning Dew would have been first in several days so far.

Barely managed it, but got 12 stars on Pure Fiction with not a DoT character in sight. ~35k on the first half with Aventurine/Ruan Mei/Himeko/Topaz, and ~25k on the second half with triple Nihility Acheron. Was barely able to get the last few points by swapping Trend of the Universal Market from Aventurine to Fu Xuan in order to get an extra ult or 2 with Acheron. ...in retrospect I just realized Fire MC probably would have worked better but oh well this was good enough and I forgot Fire MC existed for a minute.

I generally liked the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Not all-timers or anything but definitely solid movies.

Utawarerumono is great, but honestly I look at that series more as an original game and a two-part sequel and not really as a proper trilogy. Which I guess is kind of what you're saying also. (Not saying Utawarerumono shouldn't count; I just meant it makes me less likely to pick it)

Honestly I might just vote for Return of the King here.

Anti-vote Zero Time Dilemma

Kind Lady (Funk Disco Extended Mix)
Weight of the World/Nouveau-FR Version
Battle: The Skyscraper

I'm a bit mixed on the vocals in Kind Lady, but the rest is great. This is one of those rhythm sections I feel like I could listen to forever. Never been the biggest fan of Deoxys Battle. The twinkling synth sound and the initial trumpet parts are solid, but the lower parts I don't much care for, and there's also this weird swing-like section in the latter half that doesn't feel like it fits.

Emi Evans is such a great singer imo. Is this view influenced by my having seen her perform live? Probably, but oh well. The song itself is at least pretty good, but I think it's largely carried by the performance, which is also why I like this version more than the others. Despite WotW being my nomination I actually expected to vote against it today, but I guess I can't vote against Emi Evans. Death by Glamour is of course also a classic though. Really fun boss fight and I love the second half especially. Would be happy if either of these songs went the distance tbh.

Isolated Island has a cool vibe to it. I don't really like the intro and other parts with the repetitive marimba(?), but aside from that I like it a lot. The discordant woodwind sound is neat. Miitopia music is unreasonably good tbqh. This has been a favorite of mine ever since I heard it. Very catchy backing rhythm and some cool synth work on top.

Weight of the World > Death by Glamour > Battle: The Sky Scraper > Kind Lady > Isolated Island > Battle Deoxys

Good day

Currently only Honkai Star Rail. I have at various points in the past also played Bang Dream Girls Band Party, MTG Arena, and Legends of Runeterra.

I've only ever actively played at most 3 of these at one time and that was only briefly. Typical would be 2 or less.

I was planning to to play that on release day, but apparently starting Xenoblade 3 was a mistake because I will not finish the game before the end of time.

Ok but Juna has the distinction of being the only member of the cast to get a W on Campanella that has to be worth something right? Or at least the only one I can remember anyway...)

Juna is awesome. Definitely in my top 10 characters from the series. Randy might squeak in also to be honest, and Tio doesn't miss by much. Crossbell cast so good.

Yeah I've definitely been having fun with this event.

On a separate note though god this game badly needs to make its tutorials optional.

Sewers
[ai]
I'm Your GPU

Ruan Mei is pretty much good with everyone, to be fair.

tag

Sherbet Land [CD]
Your Inception
Whisper of Relics

Prowler is definitely one of those "less than the sum of its parts" songs for me.

On the one hand MAL rankings don't mean shit, but on the other hand Frieren's reception means that Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood is now closer to 30th place than it is to 1st place.

Tag.

I don't know if I want to try for a high score or a low score.

HaRRicH posted...

Two lists with four RPGs

I thought about changing my list just to prevent this, but ultimately rpg's are just 90% of the games I play.

Not counting VN's which I've always preferred to classify as their own medium

I thought Rufus was at least ok before Reverie at least but yeah I more or less agree there.

Trails in the Sky SC
Final Fantasy IX
Final Fantasy X
Persona 3

I will mention that I am playing through Xenoblade 3 which has a shot at making the list. However I am not finished yet and it will have to nail the landing, which Xenoblade games have a history of not doing. Time will tell I guess but the question was asked today so

Leonhart4 posted...

This show has had some pretty good one-off characters

This has definitely seemed like one of the strengths of the writer here.

I only made it halfway through both Monster and Pluto though so I only have like half a leg to stand on when making that claim >.>

Birdman
We form in crystals
The Apex of the World (Rain)

Got 11 stars but no DoT characters makes this one difficult. Topaz will actually help with the fire weak side I think once she's built, but idk for the other one. Maybe I'm supposed to to build Sampo here?

Frustrating thing is you can't really even use Clara on the physical-weak side which is how I did the last DoT one, taking advantage of the action advance part of the passive.

Hard no.

Mobilezoid posted...

Oh that's good to know, thanks! Dear Brother is on Tubi too, so not difficult to watch, maybe I'll just give it a try.

Wait really? I'd been meaning to watch this show for ages but just assumed it wasn't available anywhere. Will have to look at this when my freetime is not taken up by Xenoblade and Trails

Also what the heck is Gilbert doing here yeah. Worst character in the series and it's not close.

Unfortunately Falcom will never cement the romance of [girl introduced in Cold Steel] with [character that isn't Rean].

Edit: Ok I guess in fairness it's not like they'll do any romance with [character that is Rean] either.

Song of TRIANGLE STRATEGY
Faster Than Light
Lunar Bass

I think TRIANGLE STRATEGY would probably jump up an entire point or two (out of ten) if it were sung (entirely) in a fictional language or a language I didn't speak. The actual song though I think is very good. I also usually am not affected in lyrics to a song at all, but this is just such an extreme example where I can only mostly ignore it. Norfair--while a solid song--has mostly not the type of musical ideas that interest me. Would still vote it over a decent chunk of stuff though.

Cascaraffa I'm mostly neutral towards. Pleasant song that doesn't do much that makes it stand out to me. Faster Than Light also doesn't do a whole lot to stand out but creates a very nice ambience. The later parts of the song have a great warm vibe to them.

Arcana has really good vocals but not so great instrumentals, especially when it goes into the heavier metal and electronic parts. I like Bang Dream music more than D4DJ music for the most part, from what I've heard. Not much to say about Lunar Bass but it's an all-around solid song. Starts simple and fun and gets way cooler as it goes on in a way that makes the entire song feel stronger.

Lunar Bass = TRIANGLE STRATEGY > Faster Than Light > Arcana > Norfair > Cascaraffa

Yes

Fu Xuan is very good for the Swarm fight because in addition to just being a busted sustain her ult helps you get Weakness Break on the little bugs.

pyresword posted...

Decided to throw a few 10-pulls at the Topaz rerun banner, mainly on the basis that I wanted Xueyi eidolons. I don't really want Topaz too much, but she would definitely be a help to my account if I happened to get her, and I could afford to spend a few jades without seriously impacting my likelihood of getting Firefly in 2.3.

Welp did one more 10 pull and apparently I have Topaz now. Was only at like 10 pity to. I should still be fine for at least getting Firefly, but it probably means I can't go for a light cone or whatever unless I get lucky.

Across Dimming Asterisms
Before I Rise
Portals

Genshin Impact has some fantastic world music selections, and this is no exception. Of course, featuring an erhu in any capacity is instantly going to shoot you up my rankings, but I do think the part is very good either way. Also a great sense of progression with the song as a whole. The Zoo Hospital song is pleasant and fun, but it's a bit out of its league here.

Blue Desert Hotel is an upbeat song with a pretty oboe, but the composition overall doesn't work quite as well for me as I feel it should. Frankly I've grown a bit tired of songs using piano in this Blue Reflection-esque style that you see in Before I Rise (I don't know how else to describe this). I guess I just don't think solo piano is well-suited to the sort of ethereal vibe it's going for, but it usually does not work for me. Fortunately I really like the vocal part and the vocalist herself which more than makes up for it. Very pretty overall even if the piano-centric parts are a miss for me.

Portals is...fine, which means it's an easy vote in this match. I should say I don't necessarily mind vocals that sound like Take; it's more the composition style and the rhythm game percussion that kill this one for me. (The vocals don't help either though...)

I feel like I haven't actually played enough games to give a good answer here but

+3 Radiant Historia
+2 Sea of Stars
+1 Xenoblade Chronicles

Afternoon in Crossbell
Secundum Abandoned Mine
d3molish

Match 3 is very rude.

The title of the song has too many characters.

I voted option 1

Gaius's family is pretty boring and also I agree with Mac.

Credits Song
Labyrinth IV - Petal Bridge
Sonic ~ You Can Do Anything

You Can Do Anything might be my second least favorite song in the contest so far.

There's a lot about how Osborne's story played out in the end I didn't care for, but I agree overall he's one of the more effective villains.