Lurker > pyresword

I am assuming stuff like TitS FC/SC is being counted separately, but if I'm wrong then I guess I'll just nom more stuff. (I actually think those two should be counted together for the record, but I'm not expecting they will be.)

1. Final Fantasy IX
2. Final Fantasy X
3. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3
4. Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4
5. Persona 5
6. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
7. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC
8. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
9. Tales of Vesperia
10. Tales of Berseria
11. Xenoblade Chronicles
12. Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door
13. The World Ends With You

Unsure what I want for my other two noms or what I want to double, so I'll hold off on that.
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edit: Switching link in case the other image was a spoiler. (idk I never played Golden)
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Tag

Intro is kind of a weird way to start the game imo. (Edit: Or wait did you mean the first part of the game or the intro movie they do when you turn it on?)

Have you played other games in the series or no?
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Strife2 posted...

Kino's Journey (a journey into fucked up places with fucked up people)

I feel like this is technically not wrong but still very misleading as to what the show is actually like.

That being said I do agree with the assessment that there's a reasonable chance of TC liking this.
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I mean don't be afraid to point something like that out in general.

In this case though I feel like it really didn't matter since most people would realize that wasn't the final boss anyways, and even if you aren't aware I don't think gaining the knowledge changes much.
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Oh right. Yeah the thought never even entered my mind that someone might not realize that wasn't the final boss (because for me having played P3 and P4 it was obvious, as also seems to be the case for you). My bad.

Although actually I misread your last post and thought you were slightly farther than where you were, so yeah in that case I just wouldn't have said anything, even if it isn't that hard to guess anyways.
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I liked Shiki. It's a premise that sounds like a horror, but I wouldn't really call it horror itself, so make of that what you will.

It's also super slow-paced, just to mention that ahead of time.

In general though yeah I don't especially think anime is a medium where horror works very well, or at least no one's figured out how from what I have seen.
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Oh woops I completely forgot about the last battle version of Burn My Dread. Probably for the better actually, since I just listened to it and I liked it a lot less than the normal version.

Also you you may have intentionally done this, but the P5 final battle theme isn't there, which was...pretty good I guess?
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Yeah I actually knew two of those already. Wiping All Out is a top tier song in the series, but I knew it was the normal battle theme and not a boss theme. Heartful Cry...I actually didn't realize was a boss theme. I definitely like that one but wouldn't say it's super amazing or anything? Easily #4 on my list though, maybe #3. Danger Zone I didn't know until now, but I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of it.
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The Almighty might be #4? Honestly I don't think I really care about any of the others besides those three though. Unless maybe P3 The Answer or P3 Portable have good boss themes that are different? Not super familiar with those soundtracks.

Boss themes aren't really the strong suit of Persona music imo.
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Rivers in the Desert > Battle for Everyone's Souls > I'll Face Myself > everything else
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Tag.

Just to clarify, Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel do take place in the same world and have connections between them, but you don't really need to play TitS to understand Cold Steel since both games explain lore and stuff on their own. Just to avoid confusion, most times when the game vaguely mentions events which happened in a nation called "Liberl" is probably a reference to Trails in the Sky, since that is where the first game took place.

ninkendo posted...

Persona protagonists are jealous of the mad amounts of pussy that Rean acquires for himself

I still remember at the beginning of my playthrough topic when you made a comment about "Rean and his army of waifus". I actually thought you were exaggerating...
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Well the NPC's one has a spoiler so definitely not that one. I don't see anything wrong with the Confidants image though

edit: Note I cannot read Japanese, so I don't know what the text says. I don't think Leon can either, but I figure the disclaimer should go here anyways.
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Yeah I could have sworn Risa Taneda was in more stuff I cared about. Maybe I was confusing her with someone else.

Liked her in From the New World though at least.
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Oh that's neat I never thought of that. (the Fie CP bonus thing)

My party was Rean/Laura/Emma/Alisa. Rean/Laura/Emma were basically the same as you, but I had Alisa there as support for CP regen and also as a backup healer. I figured since Laura had all the damage I needed it would be more useful to have a second party member with Seraphic Ring and Earth Wall/Crescent Mirror. (Though actually I think I even gave Rean seraphic Ring also just because lmao. And I also had Elliot in a backup slot with his full heal S-Craft)
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Well if I ever replay the games I am probably at least going to somehow restrict myself from using that. (I really like S-Craft's conceptually even if they're a bit too busted in this game, so I'd probably just ban myself from using Tauros and Domination?) Once I discovered the strat on my own during my playthrough though it just didn't feel right to stop.
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Although actually I didn't use Laura's craft--I had Rean use his strength boosting craft and then Laura cast La Forte.

edit: Or wait is that implying the craft also stacks with Forte boosts? Because if so then jesus I was missing out on a whole new world of absurdity here.
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ninkendo posted...

Laura as you one hit murderer with Taurus MQ and Domination quartz and all STR boosting quartz and Equipment. Using her craft that boosts STR by 50% along with all the boosts and using a 200 CP S-Craft on a critical spot she can break 200K damage (300K in CS2) which is enough to instantly kill pretty much 99% of enemies including bosses

This is the only correct way to play imo.

Does this work in the first game though? For some reason I remember reading that Taurus didn't work with S-Crafts in Cold Steel 1. I don't know myself though since I didn't figure out how broken this strat was until Cold Steel 2.
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I can't remember have you been doing the Strength Confidant?
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Bump

Writing papers is fun.
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

With P5 and Berseria, I'm sure I've "watched" the best anime of the year anyway.

Lol this is pretty much how I feel. 2017 has been the year of JRPG's for me. These 2 along with Trails in the Sky: the 3rd have all had better stories/characters than like 90-95% of anime I've seen.

Anyway I was curious, so I went back and looked at what anime (airing or otherwise) I've watched in 2017, and here's what I found:
--March Comes in Like a Lion
--Flip Flappers
--Konosuba Season 2
--Masamune's Revenge
--Your Name
--Kizumonogatari Part 3
--A couple Gintama Episodes
--2 episodes of Tsuki ga Kirei (interrupted by P5)
--3 episodes of This Art Club Has a Problem (also interrupted by P5)

So yeah I guess that's 4 shows, 2 movies, and few miscellaneous episodes that might equate to another show if I added them together. More than I expected, but that's still barely anything. There were probably periods when I would watch that much in that much in a month.
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That's okay I've watched I think two or three anime and a couple Gintama episodes since 2017 started. Still might be more than you, but I haven't really been watching at all lately either.
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Hell for that matter Nichijou was dropped for a bit also, though for some reason I remember it becoming available again? Idk I haven't followed anime much recently.
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Crunchy removes stuff all the time when they lose licenses. I don't keep a list or anything, but one that I'm pretty sure used to be available is Nichibros.

Funi does also, it's just a thing that happens. (In fact I'm not 100% on which service had Nichibros to be honest)
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Best palace music is definitely the one that plays in the lobby of Kaneshiro's Palace imo.

Can't believe I forgot that one when we were listing good songs earlier actually.
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I thought this one was too long but otherwise I liked it.
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Crow the best and it's not even close.

Sara is like maybe top 10.
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Raka_Putra posted...

I would say Persona 3, but out of these, P4.

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Bump

Not that I have much left in the game presumably, but progress may be slow on account of my having a research paper to finish by next week.
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I don't vote because I am lazy and believe in the near statistical certainty that my vote will not matter. I suspect I am not alone in that mindset.

Admittedly I'm not sure there's any political belief associated with that mindset, so that may not mean much.
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dowolf posted...

Status effects are fine so long as they're interesting

Yeah I guess the thing is just this is essentially never the case for me. Other than the specific status effect exceptions I listed, almost every instance I can think of status effects are either a non-factor or "flip a coin to see if your party gets wiped this turn".

Also, I'd argue Pokemon is the best implementation of status effects by a country mile, but maybe that's just me.

xp1337 posted...

They'd be downright broken in Cold Steel if not for the fact that the other ways you can break the game are just that much better. >_>

Not gonna lie I don't even remember an instance of status effects other than Delay or Forte or the CP Regen status even coming up in Cold Steel. ...I may have super autopilotted the combat for the entire second game.
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Status effects just shouldn't even be a thing in RPG's honestly. They're just frustrating when used against you and are useless half the time for you.

Buffs/debuffs and slow/haste/delay type effects are okay though.
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I would just like to take a minute to point out that this is what "no WH chaos" looks like.
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I don't think I can actually say that I think Last Surprise itself was fantastic, but man was it great if you got the All-Out Attack timing right.
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I'm not going to follow along because no way am I spoiling myself*, but I'm jealous as hell.

*Well, any more than playing Cold Steel already did anyway.
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Yeah I also thought 3 and 4 had noticeably better OST's than 5.

The two I mentioned are really good though imo, and I'm also a fan of Whims of Fate, Beneath the Mask, Layer Cake (Airsoft Shop theme), and Confession Secret (plays at random social link moments and possibly other parts?).
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I don't think it's necessarily bad to post in only a few threads. For the most part I only post in threads about anime, anime-style JRPG's, or video game music.

Of course if you do want to be more noteworthy, then that won't help, and I'm probably the wrong person to help. Post more I guess?
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It's probably in the top 10 of the soundtrack regardless, but honestly Whims of Fate always falls short in my head because I'm comparing it to Life Will Change or Rivers in the Desert.

(Leon I don't think you've heard Rivers in the Desert yet, so don't search that one if you care about music spoilers)
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Persona 5 Golden with Lavenza dates pls

Not gonna lie this would be enough to get me to actually buy the game.
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Grancel always ran like shit for me in all the TitS games.

My CPU was bad which is the reason in my case, but I just think Grancel is a lot harder for a computer to run than other areas for some reason. I was running on a relatively low graphics setting, and I believe I had all options turned off besides the high-res fonts.
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Yeah I'm on one difficulty higher than the default, though I'm not sure how much that matters.

Also, am I past the point of no return now, or is the game going to open up again at some point?
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Ok so I think you guys know more or less where I am, but just to recap:

After finishing up some of the boring parts of the therion collect-a-thon, we receive word of there being a therion in Eastgand, so we head off there. We're on our way to Velvet's home village, where by some stroke of good fortune it turns out the entire village survived the catastrophe, much to Velvet's shock. It's pretty cool because it's like for a minute she pretty much drops everything and starts resuming her life in the village. Also her voice stopped sounding like Solid Snake and it was really weird. Also by the way Niko is pretty great and I wish she were an actual character. But anyways, to the surprise of no one it turns out the whole thing was an illusion trap by Melchior, and Velvet slaughters her entire village (again) so that she can make it out. She...uh...doesn't take it that well.

Next some stuff happens, and Velvet ends up killing the happy brother/sister duo of Oscar (now armatized) and Theresa (now...therionized?). She doesn't take it that well...again. As I said above this is where I wanted to break for the night, but as it turns out I made the mistake of going back to Titania first. "Just to quickly see what's up before the game hands me the reigns back."

So of course I go back to Titania and by the way it turns out Innominat is there and is actually Velvet's little brother. So uh there went any chance of my stopping at that point in time. Velvet...uh...she...yeah. She's not doing so good. There's some flashback scenes from the past with Artorius/Laphicet/Celica, and we learn Artorius might not have always been a piece of shit. (Melchior was though!) Speaking of Melchior, he's off with Magilou who I guess used to be his apprentice? Magilou is a champion of course because she manages to hold her ground even though I think they said something like Melchior "crushed her heart 110 times" or something? I'm unsure whether this meant right then or in the past, and exactly what it meant, but regardless the main takeaway is that Melchior is just not a very pleasant man.

There's a bit left here that happens but I guess the main thing is that Laphicet is also a champion. He somehow manages to pick up the shattered fragments of Velvet's mind and actually convinces her to keep moving, which is nothing short of a miracle. And then when they're escaping with Zaveid later on he manages to (sort of) 1v1 Innominat. So anyways yeah. A lot of shit happened, and now we're resting in Port Zekson, and the Abbey is sending horned-demon-sho's-obviously-Aifread after us.

--Ok I don't really have a whole lot of extra comments here but damn that segment was great. Laphicet/Velvet so good, and I also liked the flashbacks actually. Also some pretty good segments where Velvet is dreaming and talking to Seres.

--To talk about gameplay a bit...combat has gotten really weird. At the beginning of the game it was pretty much that every fight was really easy. Now it's still that every fight is really easy...unless the boss decides it's time to one-shot me. Most bosses recently have gone something like the fight is super easy until I get them to 1/3 health, then they just randomly pull out some stun or super move or something and either wipe me or I still barely manage to win after Life Bottle spam. Alternatively I've developed the counter strategy of always switching to Velvet when they get to half health and button mashing to win, since I can usually get a string going for about that much damage by using all of her souls and her mystic arte, without suffering the consequences after of having used up everything.
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LeonhartFour posted...

That was a fun scene. It's cool how the Confidants figure out that you're one of the Phantom Thieves by the end of it

For some reason I always loved being able to give the needlessly vague dialogue option whenever this happened. It's like Joker is just trying so hard to get that cool and mysterious aura going on.
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Found myself listening to this today.
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Well. Played too much and now I'm tired. Update tomorrow I guess.

By the way fuck Melchior so much. What an irredeemable piece of shit. I know I said Velvet and crew were the villains but this guy just wasn't having any of that.
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"Oh ok. Let me just go back to Titania real quick. I guess maybe something of relatively minor importance will happen, but then I'll be at a clear break point and I can stop."

--pyresword, before he knew.
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being therion is suffering

(Update probably later tonight)
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SantaRPidgey posted...

I'm reading and enjoying this btw. Don't have any comments to make so far

Yeah this is me in most topics like this.

Though I guess in total fairness I only read the writeups for the games I've played or am interested in playing.
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