Lurker > pyresword

The Sky arc actually does a bit of a disservice to Ouroboros as an organization imo. They're painted as this evil gang of villains, and while they're definitely an antagonistic organization on a character-by-character basis it's a lot less clear. Some of them seem like good guys, and some of them seem like villains, and some of them are in a similar boat as Bleublanc where they're kind of just messing around for their own enjoyment.

And yes literally everyone loathes Weissman.

Duel

Pretty sure I liked Nier Automata's sidequests more than the actual game.

Great retirees even if I wish it had been Purple Town instead. Don't think it'll keep up through the rest of the matches unless I get very lucky but oh well.

To Far Away Times
Purple Town
Moonlight Concert

First thought was Double but only because the (s) weirdly made me focus on proper nouns featuring the plural form. I think if you just put "master" I probably think of "grand" or something.

Old L.A. 2040
-{EDGE OF THE FUTURE}
GOLDEN RULE (Long Version)

Oh no I voted Will: To Far Away Times/Want: Dialga when I meant to vote the opposite

Sight of Silence
An Empty Tome
Dancing Mad

K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah
Staff Roll
Un Deux Trois

Yeah it's more covert economical and political methods of subterfuge that Osborne likes to use. Sky SC chapter 8 is probably closer to a direct invasion than is typical, but I think he likes to engineer situations like that rather than to just declare war and invade.

The implication is that he's done this to several nations in similar-ish positions to Liberl, though I think only one of these is ever named and discussed in detail, so *shrug*.

Chapter 5: "Too many freaking party members": beaten

*cries in endgame Erebonia arc*

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Cassius: "Sup guy who tried to annex my country for no reason other than you are a dick"
Osborne: "Oh hey you are that guy who single handedly prevented me from conquering your country a while ago"

I don't know if this is referring to the Hundred Days War or more recent events, but just because I was confused on this for a long time I will say that Osborne was not chancellor of Erebonia during the Hundred Days War.

Osborne is such a great villain. Probably one of the standouts in a series where the villains can be...somewhat varied in quality.

It's my favorite contest entry from the series by a mile!

Of the ones I've seen:

The Dark Knight > The Prestige > Batman Begins > Inception > The Dark Knight Rises > Dunkirk

All good movies.

Frozen Grounds
Rainbow after snow
Festival of Dionysus (Greece)

Easy matches but all songs today are good.

Ring Ring Ring!
The Last Specter's Theme
Trajectory of the Kiyarora Satellite (Long Version)

Suna Gin
Can You Feel the Sunshine?
Ragna Breakers

Beware the Umbrella Left There Forever
The Sunleth Waterscape
Epicentre

I like 3rd because I think the content of the doors is often very good (there are a few stinkers), but I don't think I'd say that the mechanic itself has much inherent strength.

That said I still think the Kevin/Ries plotline is the highlight.

My perspective on 3rd changed a lot when I started viewing it as the equivalent of a short story collection rather than a novel. Obviously that's still not going to be for everyone either way, but yeah. 3rd is surely the most divisive game in the series and that's definitely not without reason.

3rd is the darkest game in the series so far, though the newest arc (Japan-only) I'm at least led to believe is darker than the previous couple of games. (The title also translates to like "trails of darkness" or something like that so we'll see I guess)

I honestly love Kevin's new S-Craft from a story standpoint even though in gameplay Grail Sphere is just much more useful.

If you're curious about the blind guy/Nielsen, (light spoilers for Crossbell arc) he does show up in the Crossbell arc but is more of a lore figure than an actual main character

Wind Scene
We Are Burning Rangers (English Version)
Lost Forest

banshiryuu posted...

tiebreakers continuing to be bizarre results

So we have abandoned reason, then.

Almost didn't vote today but getting Purple Town through is nice even if it's on the same day as the worst result in the contest.

Northeast Frost Street
Purple Town
They Who Govern Reason

Nagi no Asukara/A Lull in the Sea was definitely a show I liked a lot. Drama was good and it's got a really cool and memorable setting.

Azure has harem elements, but I don't think it's any moreso than in Zero, and it's absolutely 100% without a doubt less so than in all the Cold Steel games.

I don't really think it's intrusive in any of the games either way, but I'm probably in the minority there.

I also got through Act 3 of Trails into Reverie today. Don't have much specific to say here really but I've also been liking it a lot. If it continues at the current pace it will be my favorite Trails game since Azure, but I don't know if that's a guarantee to happen considering CS3/CS4 also seemed quite strong to me initially before stumbling at various points in the mid to late game. There are a few reasons I'm hopeful this won't suffer the same fate but we will have to see.

I guess one thing is that I think this is easily the best Trails game to-date from a purely gameplay point-of-view.

Yeah I remember the gameplay for that Kloe door being obnoxious, but I liked the story content at least. Kloe is great and Lechter is also really cool here.

Kilika is one of the most underutilized characters for the series in general tbh. I really like her. I supect they're probably saving some stuff with her for the Calvard arc, but yeah.

In addition to giving you 2 complete arcs, playing Sky/Crossbell is very very close to the "just play the 5 best individual games" strategy. Easy choice.

Pending Reverie, which I am not done with but so far could easily place in the top 5 if it sticks the landing. Not that this would change my vote in the poll either way though.

2-0 and a tie ok that went a lot better than I was expecting even if match 1 is the match I cared about the most.

Shame I never got to vote for POP TEAM BATTLE though; very cool song.

They Who Govern Reason
-{EDGE OF THE FUTURE}
GOLDEN RULE (Long Version)

PEARLS
Old L.A. 2040
Chain of Pain

I like both though coffee is what I usually use for my daily morning routine.

Iced tea or hot tea are both fine, but iced coffee is atrocious.

Black is the only acceptable way to drink coffee, usually with the darkest roast possible.

Town, Flow of Time, People
Dancing Mad
-

Staff Roll
Unused Song 2
God Shattering Star (Rain)

Did not expect to go 3/3 and honestly thought 0/3 was more likely but I guess I'll take it.

Rampage
K'Sante, the Pride of Nazumah
nATALIE

PowerOne
You Can Have Mine
Astebreed ~ The Void

I don't understand these tiebreakers.

I fail to vote in the original match, then successfully vote in the tiebreaker and my song loses by 5.

I vote in the original match, then fail to vote in the tiebreaker and my song wins by 5.

-
Kuraki Koutetsu no Verga (Full ver.)
-

I'm having a lot of trouble remembering some NPC's but so far the game has done a reasonable job reminding you of important plot events. There's also plot summaries for several past games which I didn't look at but are there.

Of course still only 3-4 hours in so we'll see if this holds up.

I ended up getting my copy of Trails yesterday also and am slowly going through it, though can't say much concrete yet. I might have gotten a bit farther if I didn't get distracted for 2 hours running the tables at the poker minigame >.>

I definitely still love this series even today though.

Kevin was definitely my favorite party member in the Sky series gameplay-wise. Used him every chance I got in SC and loved having him in 3rd. I really like support characters that don't feel like they're just spamming magic over and over, and he really doesn't lag behind in damage either.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

its weird how this series has such expert QoL features most of the time but slips on some basic things. Where is the skip cutscene button?

This might or might not be related, but most of the QoL features that exist in the Steam releases today were basically modded in after-the-fact by XSEED in their releases of the game. It might be that in this case the original programming just doesn't make a skip button easy to implement.

Got more raves? -Full Ver.- > EXEC_CHRONICLE_KEY/.

This one particularly hurts because I missed the match due to being sick all day and in urgent care

Ended up getting the game anyways even though I won't be able to play through nearly as quickly as some of the last few games when I was just able to play for hours at a time several days in a row (CS4 releasing mid-pandemic helped I guess...)

Got the Switch version which already seems a bit subpar performance-wise, but for me personally it's worth it because being able to play handheld is a very real game changer.

Game seems solid so far and it was one of the better intro sequences for the series, though it's also not like the bar is super high in that regard.

Arlosa Mine
Festival of Dionysus (Greece)
-

Alabaster Icelands 1
Rainbow after snow
noisemaker

This might have been obvious before but I guess I should clarify that I do think the Cold Steel games are good, and good enough that I was willing to spend almost 400 hours in the games and still plan on playing Reverie and the rest of the games. It's just they end up looking bad when Sky and Crossbell I basically consider the best jrpg's ever made.

I do like the gameplay in at least Cold Steel 3 and 4 a lot better, yeah.

Personally I definitely think Cold Steel at least seems like anime trash in comparison to Sky/Crossbell, but also people are free to like what they want to like so whatever

Even as a jrpg fan Final Fantasy has felt irrelevant to me for a decade now.

DADADADADADADADADADA (Long Version)
"Left Alone" - Theme of Brimstone Elemental
Frozen Grounds

Didn't expect to vote this way in match 1 or 2 but I guess this is what I'm more in the mood for today.