Lurker > TheRock1525

DeSantis is very much about solely picking fights he can win, which I have absolutely no idea how he can stand up to Trump or Biden.

It's easy to do what he did to Disney when they aren't going to up and move an entire park. It's easy to bring the hammer down on a fucking Villages commissioner.

How the hell is he gonna deal with someone like Trump?

Meth Gator is being made by the Asylum so yeah it'll suck.

It's literally just another variation of "I identify as an attack helicopter."

masterplum posted...

You know what actually annoys me about this?

Unlike the insane Trump political cartoonist, this joke is actually funny.

No it isn't.

Ranking of the first chapters so far:

Thron > Hikari > Partitio > Agnea > Castti

Also I killed one of them cats and jumped to level 15 before recruiting my third person earlier.

This is one of those instances where I'm glad I didn't know about the DLC first.

That ending was great.

This episode is making me miss arcades.

oh god the tiny boats they all get in while traveling over water

i love this game

Working on my 4th character. The music in this game is amazing.

Anyone else playing this?

are we sure it wasn't a chaos emerald mine at this point

This battle theme is great.

Also it's pretty funny to ambush people for no reason. Just walking through an active casino with a bunch of unconscious people for no reason.

Oh hey there's Albert Wesker.

So I guess they got real voice actors for this one.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/switch/octopath-traveler-ii

Review scores are very similar to the first game, but at the same time almost all the reviewers seem to believe it's an improvement (whether incremental or significantly better).

Decided to start my playthrough with Thron. So far the voice acting seems better than Triangle Strategy. Or at the very least the characters I'm with first are.

bumpo

I saw it last weekend and thought it was pretty rubbish.

I was mostly bored and fell asleep at one point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPG4s1jT01U&ab_channel=Cinemassacre

Seanchan posted...

And this is the guy who has a very high chance of running the country in a few years...

No he doesn't.

This guy has the absolute worst loser energy when it comes to public engagement that Trump is gonna eat him alive.

To be fair, "shortest route to Goldmary" is the proper way to play.

Cocaine Bear gonna be what Snakes on a Plane wish it was.

I hate the paralogues from a story perspective so much.

"What is this place?"
"Somehow it's a place exactly like from my world."
"What was your world like?"
"Here's like 4 sentences about it and a name drop. Hey, let's fight so our bonds grow stronger."

Repeat 12 times.

andylt posted...

can't wait to hear Chris Pratt's Kirby voice

Poyo.

I'm bummed I never used Lapis and Rosado enough to get this support:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8F8upT37VA&ab_channel=Mortivere

I never would have expected this in a Nintendo game.

Sorry I haven't been playing lately, I'm towards the end of Fire Emblem Engage and that's been taking up much of my free time.

Plus... gotta be honest, chapter 6 kinda sucks.

Surprisingly tame.

Stupid, but tame.

Professor Hulk

Also I always feel bad for killing those guards that are flamethrowering those nests.

Imaging having one of the shittiest jobs in your company and then some terrorists show up and murder your ass.

Chapter 5 Dogged Pursuit

Differences between this and the original: the train escape becomes a fight for survival.

So moving forward these will be put out after I finish a chapter, since I had previously finished 4 chapters before deciding to record my thoughts.

I didn't realize how short this chapter was until I looked up from when I started and it barely clocked in over an hour. It's a nice sugar rush, with a very brief opening interaction between Cloud/Tifa and Cloud/Barret before things pop-off. I love how much they lean into Tifa's reluctance about this entire thing, and Cloud being professional to keep everyone on schedule. It's interesting how in the original, the plan always was to jump from the train once they got so far in due to their fake IDs no longer being any good, but instead in this one they're caught off guard and instead of running from train car to train car, you're now battling Shinra robots. It provides a nice moment for Tifa to get others to safety and, I guess, decent payoff to the annoying Shinra employee. But in the original, the better you did moving car-to-car, the closer you were to the reactor. It's something I wish this game had more off, but because it's so linear and graphically so demanding that allowing the players to essentially skip this level wasn't an option.

I know they needed it for the sake of giving you something to fight other than Shinra soldiers and bots, but the grashtrikes are a bit much. The idea that this train system could have bugs the size of humans just hanging out and laying eggs everywhere, I dunno. Then again just putting out more rats would probably have been stale.

I am also super thankful to finally have a full party, and use that to create a balanced attack where I could move from character to character depending on what I need. Especially using Barret to down flying robots. But it's also great for balancing out your elemental attacks since you get a mix of enemies that are damaged by fire, lightning, or ice during this segment. Bummer it takes 5 chapters in to get this, and we only get it for two more chapters before we're back to 2 or less for a while. It's more or less a product of expanding Midgar to a 40 hour game. That opening section of the original never lets you choose your party and it shows in this game. It's mostly fine but I assume we probably don't get access to all 4 party members until very, very late.

The Heidegger stuff is... fine. I love John DiMaggio so he does the best with the material given but "important figure in evil company is upset with subordinates" trope is as tired as can be and nothing they do here is super interesting or, let's be honest, necessary. Like, I guess it's important for us, the player, to know that AVALANCHE is being watched but really they could just reveal that in chapter 7 and it would be just as effective.

I do appreciate having a combat heavy section, and how they're starting to get trickier to compensate for the 3 person party. Too bad it takes place in a rather bland setting (repetitive train tracks). Boss was fun although it's frustrating to know when to use your best attacks when they do these stupid cutscene phase changes. Basically wasted two limit breaks from Barret and Tifa because I couldn't remember where they were in this fight. But either way a nice little pick-me-up after the kinda weak Chapter 4.

8/10

Edit: I feel dumb for not remembering the grashtrike in the original so I guess they're just staying true to it. I can't help but feel it didn't quite translate right to the remake, though, and I would have been fine without them.

Byenstein

Oh shit I never linked my Heroes account. Can I still do that?

KamikazePotato posted...

Awakening's plot takes itself pretty seriously but the supports are goofy to the point where it overshadows the tone of the main story.

The only support that ever stuck with me is Lucina having a horrible fashion sense which is pretty cute.

I think the worst part is going from stories of political conflict where all sides can be justified in some way to the main villains being just "I like to kill. Killing is fun. Kill kill kill."

I honestly don't remember Awakening being silly.

Like a bog standard plot, sure, but it didn't feel silly.

I dunno, it's kinda funny that the main character is more upset about someone stealing their jewelry than their mother dying.

Probably will start chapter 5 tonight.

Chapter 4 Mad Dash

Differences between this and the original: a completely pointless new scenario.

Ok, that's a bit harsh, but honestly with the info known ahead of time (i.e. there was nothing wrong with the blasting agent she had) this really needed to be a chapter that really expanded on the AVALANCHE characters to make their later deaths hit harder and... it didn't really work. Jessie gets some decent but frustrating character work because of how front and center the flirting is. The debate is whether she, a former actor, is simply playing Cloud and while I think it's possible, I also think she hints at stronger feelings for Cloud (she panics when Biggs and Wedge comment about her talking in her sleep, possibly revealing feelings on Cloud). I think her flirtiness is pretty genuine, but it also works in her favor to help get what she wants because Cloud has no idea how to handle women. The stuff with her father feels pretty on the nose but it's effective enough.

Wedge is fat, likes food, and cats. Biggs... is there.

On the gameplay front, it's crazy that they had 23 years to work on these biker sections and they're still not terribly fun. It's not horrible but considering the entire combat scenarios in this chapter are the bike run and a single arena fight, it was supposed to carry a lot of the gameplay here and it's just not good enough. Honestly this is my third time doing it so I just put in a mod to have abilities instantly recharge and not bother with it. I will say the first time I did it I did well enough so that Cloud got his kiss from Jessie.

Also Roche is there.

Anyway, we get to the end of the time on the upper plate and we have more AVALANCHE members and it's like all these things that I just don't care too much about. The parachuting moment is pretty cute, though it is funny when it's juxtaposed with chapter 2 when you see all the unease they had after the first bombing.

Then Cloud wakes up the next day and the ghosts have taken over the whole town. I guess everyone can see them because they all touched Cloud, but this our first instance of them getting the story back on it's original track. Although it's weird how Cloud needed to join up with the 2nd bombing mission, but Jessie being injured and not able to join them was a complete non-issue. I guess the arbiters of fate are about the important stuff only.

7/10

Chapter 3 Home Sweet Slum

Differences between this and the original: A completely original scenario that expands on life in the slums and Tifa's relationship with Cloud.

I want to get one thing out of the way: I don't like the look of the slums in this game. I feel like in the original, there was a real grimy, moldy feel to the slums. They felt like an undergrowth, something cut off from the sunlight and shrouded in the dark. I always sold the oppression of the upper plate on the people below. Lights are constantly on with an eerie green glow. By contrast, we see the slums in bright lights and more of a desert town feel. Nothing inherently wrong with it, but I think the tone shifts from the original's "life in the slums is hell" to "we're broke and we have nothing but we'll band together and do the best we can." It's not to big of a deal, it just feels like a shift in how we view the slums.

The map itself feels pretty constricting. Your "dungeons" are pretty small (with one being essentially 3 battle areas) and get used multiple times for different sidequests. But I love the interactions between Tifa and Cloud, and even the moments with the Avalanche members. Tifa really wants to get Cloud established, and you can hear her disappointment when Cloud seems to be already talking about leaving. Even the little moment that leads to her dress decision, and the unease she feels when she can't get a straight answer out of Cloud about what happened when he left Nibelheim. Just mixing him a drink leads to some fun character moments. And I know it's from chapter 4, but having her admit the complicated feelings on AVALANCHE's actions is a lot more than we got from Tifa in the Midgar section of the original. And her fear of Cloud after he "knocks out" the Shinra soldiers. It was great for something to finally break the fascade of "it's really great to have Cloud back" because this isn't the Cloud she remembers.

The sidequests are... nothing worth writing about. Mostly go here and kill this. I don't think it does much to expand on the sector 7 slums in terms of what life is like. They're mostly harmless and you need some combat scenarios. I didn't feel like I gained any sort of connection to the city or really felt their plight. They just seem to be people living relatively normal lives despite living in crappy homes. No "we're struggling for food and supplies" so much "hey there's annoying monsters, can you take care of them?"

8/10

Chapter 2 The Fateful Encounters

Differences between this and the original: A somber jog to hop on a train becomes a frantic escape from the Shinra army, also Sephiroth shows up 10 hours earlier than normal and ghooooooooooooooooooosts.

Whereas chaper 1 felt like an expansion of a scenario from the original game, this is a complete overhaul of Cloud's return to base. I mean in the original, you literally don't have to fight a single soldier and in this one there's multiple combat scenarios.

The first part really works well, a nice way to see the consequences of AVALANCHE's attack. Like I said earlier, it would probably hit a little different if they were truly responsible for this destruction. But it's interesting how they both use somber moments in vastly different ways. The original gives us "Anxious Heart" as Cloud moves a few screens, but it's a pretty great moment because you get to meet Aerith for the first time and the music sets the idea of what the world of FFVII is like (since it carries into further scenes until you get back to 7th Heaven).

But then Sephiroth shows up.

Now, it's a mixed bag for me. I think the scene is handled very well, and we start to question Cloud's sanity very early into the game because the fires surrounding him could either be very real due to the Mako Reactor damage or complete fabrications. But... I don't think we needed Sephiroth this early into the game. He just speaks some cryptic nonsense and then disappears. I also don't like Sephiroth's voice actor at all. He just sounds too young.

We then segue into Aerith's interaction. I've actually done both versions of answering her, and it's interesting how one leads to her asking for a date and the other her complaining how Cloud is just trying to get rid of her. But the interaction is still very sweet and you can sense right away that Cloud's caught off-guard by her forwardness.

Then the ghosts.

To this day, I'm still not sure how I feel about these things. These weird harbingers of fate to try and force the characters to match the original, the game didn't need these things at all. But they're not a deal breaker. The moments they show up aren't exactly highlights of the game but at the same time I feel like they're not worth getting angry over. I can imagine how some people might think they're the worst thing ever and maybe by the end of the game I'll agree, but for what I've played, they're just kind of a thing that's there for a few moments.

Didn't care for Barret's interaction with the Shinra employees. The Shinra employees were just kind of painful to listen to, and I already established I'm not a fan of Barret's VA. A fun little moment with Jessie, and some great moments with Tifa once she's introduced. I will say I love how much Tifa gets fleshed out during this game. Like that moment where Cloud says to Tifa not to believe everything they see on TV, only for Cloud to admit it was exactly as bad as Shinra made it out to be and Tifa's weak "oh" about the truth. The fact that she clearly wants to take care of Cloud throughout this chapter and the next. I was never a big fan of FFVII Tifa, but the remake feels like a more realistic character (which honestly I would hope so considering the technological and writing improvements since 1997).

9/10

So this game and I have a complicated history, but I'm going to finally buckle down and beat this game. There's probably no game I was ever more hyped for, but then twice I've played it and stopped right around a similar position. This time will be different because I'm gonna give my thoughts chapter to chapter, and I'm already 4 chapters in:

Chapter 1 The Destruction of Mako Reactor 1

Differences between this and the original: Shinra's involvement in the Reactor explosion.

This was also the demo that was released a month and a half before the game release, and I could not have imagined a better way to hype up this game. Extending the Aerith opening was great. It's funny to watch all your AVALANCHE buddies running past the guards and leaving Cloud to deal with all of them. But what I appreciate is that because the game obviously is going to spend more time in Reactor than the original, we get some nice fleshed out moments for everyone. I will say I'm not a fan of Barret's voice actor. He's not terrible but he's not great. But little moments like Cloud responding to "So, you're what, twenty something?" with "First." and Barret responding back "What are you talking about? I meant your age, not your god damn rank!" It definitely sets up that Cloud is a bit more of a dork than he's trying not to be.

At this point I'm probably not going to comment much on the gameplay other than I very much like it. I definitely think they found a good formula for the action RPG they've been trying to do for years, and I definitely enjoyed it more than FFXV's. I'm also ashamed it took me this long to realize I could parry when in punisher mode.

I will say the first change I didn't care for was how the destruction of the reactor was more or less Shinra's doing. I know they hint at a Before Crisis event (don't know much about the game) that they're a cell of an organization that tried to kill the president, but really I just dislike it because it essentially drives an event that doesn't matter and that the player knows isn't true. There's actually a lot more emotional weight to chapter 4 if Jessie really did kill all those people, and that the eco-terrorism route they chose did lead to a loss of life (and possibly innocent life).

Shinra definitely has enough bastard things done, including dropping the sector 7 plate. I feel like adding "actually WE really blew up the reactor" doesn't add much emotional impact for me. Like chapter 4 is built on a complete lie and in this game, it's kinda important because it's essentially the AVALANCHE chapter and is the most time you'll spend with the 3.

Otherwise, though, awesome introduction. Everyone gets their moments to shine.

9.5/10

I just hate that I can't get Alear with a ponytail on the classes I like.

I think it's pretty quick. When you get full functionality of the monastery, I think.

but like we could do that in three houses

and when you talk in supports none of them wear the actual outfits theyre wearing on the somniel

why can we not wear these outfits into battle

more like not so intelligent systems

Yes

One of the few "made intentionally to annoy you" characters that's actually endearing most of the time.

your excellency

...

Is Goldmary talking about her o-face?

It's always interesting to me to watch transgender people being told to take the high road while they're often being spoke to and about in the most dehumanizing way possible by incredibly important figures in society.

Like the most watched cable news host in the US will openly mock and ridicule transgender people night in and night out but gosh darn if some random account on Twitch threatens someone well damn there goes the whole trans' rights movement.

Also it's kinda crazy how humanity could survive this at all. Or that two dudes with an electric fence would be able to stop something like what happened there.

That hurt my soul.