Lurker > SeabassDebeste

appreciated killia's dad clearing some chaff there.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

that final shot
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

pyresword posted...

The explanations are often long and drawn out and boring themselves, and the story doesn't actually follow the rules in any way that feels meaningful anyway. Though, in a by-the-book sense they of course do follow the rules--I guess the real issue is that the limitations of the combat system don't come across to the viewer as limitations because they're so arbitrary and are frequently twisted beyond recognition anyways.

And like, I'd rather they just don't explain anything then fail to develop a very intricate system. If they're fighting each other with the power of friendship then that might be kind of dumb, but at least it's quick to explain and doesn't leave me with the severe sense of cognitive dissonance that numerous moments in this series do. I like that the battles are strategic which probably is in part due to this, but I'm not at all convinced it's entirely dependent on the complexities of the system.

preach!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

CaptainOfCrush posted...

I think close-grip pull-ups are easier than chin-ups.

i find this too, but to be fair, i've extensively trained overhand pullups and barely done underhand chinups
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah, i'm not a fan of the molasses pacing here. i think i've been the only voice critical of the narrator here, but it definitely slows things down even further.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

foolm0r0n posted...

goat episode if not for the rest of the episodes

well put! gotta be in my top 15. it's super competitive up there!

(it's probably top 5-7 episodes to this point imo)
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

ending of salud is SO GOOD

4x11 hype
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

GANON1025 posted...

So didn't Meleoron say he could only hold his breath for like 2 minutes? Does that mean these last like 4 episodes have occurred within two minutes?

goku vs frieza baby
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Llarian posted...

Adrian Andrews did spiff up our Sacred Urn quite a bit by breaking it a second time, then putting it back together the right way, and polishing it to a rich shine, pink paint splotches and all.

love this psyche lock ending investigation!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

hnnnng hype

hank is like a bulldog here - he's sniffed out his prey and he's sinking his teeth in

the gus flashback is truly awesome stuff. HECTORRR
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

day 1 trial is such a delight!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

are there any completed arcs post-anime ending?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

MysticBrohan posted...

dreamed the manga was back from hiatus and i really let myself believe it

is it in the middle of an arc atm?
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

hmm, so i wound up not blinding him, but did beat him

i'd been trying to cast demi on him using draw (since i don't have any other demi stored). issue with this is that draw failed a LOT. also, if you cast demi as stored magic, he'll cast curaga in response... but not if you cast demi using draw. weird!

anyway, i finally got slightly luckier with draw and took him out

Leonhart4 posted...

I've never forgotten an FFVIII fan. Not even Kyle Bowen.

my condolences!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Leonhart4 posted...

I mean, Mia's plotline involves some retcons (though I don't think they actually bother anyone), but spirit channeling was a huge part of the series from the start. If you want to say a retcon was introduced, that started with 2-2 and Morgan Fey, not T&T.

2-2 was standalone even when it came out though

but making the villains of 3-5 a dead person and a villain we've already defeated wasn't very satisfying for me, with the killer being someone mostly sympathetic anyway. i've come to accept it for what it is, but it's just not as satisfying as 1-4, 2-4, or 6-5.

4-4 suffered from a similar problem as 3-5 with the "yeah i already beat this dude" feeling
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

going with 3, i guess

making the "trilogy" about the feys is a retcon in a lot of ways, and i don't like a lot of parts about the second part of the final case - i thought the final case of AA6 hit similar (but better!) beats with an inferior cast

that said, AA3 was excellent overall
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

DR2 has the best cast and is thus the best overall. i think its plot is pretty meh (and 2-6 might be the least interesting reveal of them all) but i just had the most fun hanging out with these characters in and out of trials

pouring 60 hours into an RPG seems unlikely to happen for me, but if i do ever have time for that then i feel like XB has to be up there in terms of what i want to play! your description made it sound awesome.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

GANON1025 posted...

I can't get over the fact that the mangaka for HxH took Cell, gave him a hat, and turned him into a Gamer.

made him fun sized too
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i think this is the point where the narration starts dulling it for me - that endless backstory included

b a d m o v e is great tho
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

GANON1025 posted...

lol Knov's hair turned white. What a scaredy cat!!

pouf you bastard
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

man is there any way to stop/lessen the effect of gravitas

diablos's physical attack is just so powerful - gravitas + physical attack = guaranteed death
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

So Disc 2 begins, and we're back in Lagunaville! And we're in the care of the bartender Raine and her daughter Ellone, both of whom are clearly fond of their dashing tenant.

As noted before, I theorized that we were in different timelines just before it pretty much was confirmed: With Kiros showing up, we find out that a year has passed in Laguna's timeline, and that Ward is now mute after that ambush. There are soldiers in Laguna's little town, though the people seem mostly concerned about a neighboring town ruled by the Sorceress. We know that Galbadia in Squall's timeline is already under Sorceress control, of course.

With Kiros's arrival, we head off to work: i.e. dealing with the monsters that have overrun this town. This is a bit of an usual sight. Sticking to my MO, I just run from every battle.

(Interlude: How do I initiate a card battle, and should I do it? And where do I get materials to refine into spells? I've been enjoying the game less than I want to, partly because there doesn't seem to be incentive to battle. But people also say the battle system is among the most fun, so what should I do to take advantage of it? I'm going to start learning Card Mod with the next segment.)

When we drop back in, Raine and Ellone are talking about how they want Laguna to stay, but how they sense wanderlust in his heart. Julia, meanwhile... has likely married General Carraway, making her a likely ancestor of Rinoa's (if not directly her mother). Love the little animation of Laguna and Kiros ducking to avoid being caught eavesdropping.

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That takes us back to our world, where Zell is the one who experienced that flashback this time. We're in a Galbadia prison after the failed assassination attempt. Zell's knowledge comes from Ward, who apparently worked this prison before. Rinoa is taken off alone (probably because she's the general's daughter), while Squall, kept separately, is getting zapped by Seifer. Unsurprisingly, the bizarre "hey let's just have a bunch of mercenaries" system of Garden and SeeD likely has further mysteries, which Seifer is asking about. We lie: "... Flower." Oh hey, TheCruelAngel's sig from like 2005.

Like in Chrono Trigger, being in prison means no weapons (and also no magic, for SUPPRESSION reasons), so our fist-fighter, Zell, gets his chance to shine. When we finally stop getting beaten up by Mean Guy (love this name), Zell recovers our weapons almost immediately. The moment we do, we're accosted by more guards... Biggs and Wedge, who are pretty upset about getting demoted after our last skrimish. We dispatch of them, and with the help of a random adorable animal that got tired of being abused by Mean Guy, we wander the floors of this interestingly-designed-but-bland-to-explore prison. (I feel like the environments have been consistently something of a weak point so far - beautiful but empty/tedious-feeling. Probably amplified by running from battles, but there doesn't seem to be a ton to discover here. No cool weapons/armor like in other RPGs.)

We break out Squall and hook him up with his gunblade and then immediately decide to send Zell off alone to operate a mechanical arm. (Great.) Zell almost immediately gets into trouble, so we backtrack a little and run into Irvine and Rinoa. A funny explanation happens; Irvine's attempt at walking down the stairs in a dramatica rescue is unceremoniously undercut when Rinoa boots him down the final steps and explains that Irvine isn't rescuing her; he's picking her up at her father's request (and with the empire's permission.) Love their little gesticulations as they explain the story and Rinoa talks over Irvine.

With that done, it's time to split the party yet again. Squall/Rinoa/Zell run into a few enemies as we're trying to get out the top, but we finally pull the switches at the same time and free Quistis/Selphie/Irvine. Once we're out, we discuss what we've learned: that in retaliation, Galbadia intends to annihilate two Gardens, including Balamb. We watch as two missiles are launched, and there's yet another party split. As Squall/Zell/Rinoa get on the train - followed by a very impressive runner who eventually faceplants - Selphie (who's the most ired that her home Garden is a target) leads the others in a car.

I'm appreciating the game's devotion to party-splitting - I appreciate the way it makes you rotate through characters faster, and the "Switch Junction" command makes switching almost seamless. Quistis, Selphie, and Zell aren't instantly likable the way Rinoa and Irvine are, so they would be tough for me to put into my party of 3 unless I were specifically trying to get reps on lots of characters. But letting them have their own missions all the time is really fun.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah, toph metalbending is pretty neat, but it's just a one-off it seems. she does seem to be the greatest earthbender of all time, though i'd say bumi's strength probably aged better.

re: this latest slate of episodes: not big on the guru - the training section was way too easy for aang i though. southern raiders is probably ranked about correctly, though i might have it a bit lower.

runaway is great and the drill is an awesome action episode. main dislike in the drill (and of season 2 as a whole) is how useless the earthbenders are. fav part is azula getting punked in a way she almost never does, and pretty much one-on-one too.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

SovietOmega posted...

Truck robber people are learning from their mistakes?

the parallel cold open scenes here are great

SovietOmega posted...

Methhead house with Tucker was nice...while I'm annoyed at Jesse's impatience, it is part of his character and it works to good effect here. Time after time he gets in over his head and only just barely squeaks by.

i think it's easy to get blinded by the impatience, but there's also real ingenuity here! jesse knows how a methhead thinks

looking forward to more!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

flashback mia is really impressive.

Llarian posted...

One progression that I have noticed is that Gumshoe, unless already in a bad mood, is no longer feeling inferior when I show him my attorneys badge. He smiles and says that a real man has a police badge. I keep showing it to him every case, its become something of a tradition when there isnt much else in the Court Record.

i love it! i love everything about 3-2.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

this makes me sad

it also makes me laugh, don't get me wrong

but it definitely makes me sad too
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

MGS has stellar storyline, aesthetic, and sound. the fourth-wall-breaking is really interesting too.

gameplay and the technical graphics have really not aged well. even 15 years ago, a lot of it felt like shit to play (in a way that SNES games, FF7, and ocarina of time did not)

haven't had the patience (or maybe skill?) to get anywhere in BOTW but it's beautiful - my first open-world game. witcher's continued good showing in contests definitely has me interested. i've never played a WRPG, especially a AAA one, and i'm not sure where is best to start.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

GANON1025 posted...

Morel's pretty awesome! Also really like the relationship between Killua and Octopus guy.

great friendship!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

.... and they just confirmed julia married general caraway (and might be rinoa's mom?) - this prediction came waaaay too late...
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

welp they just confirmed that there was a time jump for laguna after his fall. wonder if squall has also time-skipped with his injuries.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

knives out is
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i dunno if this is a bold prediction, but it's looking like laguna is in a flashback, and maybe no in current timeline. he's concerned about the esthar soldiers led by a sorceress...
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Waluigi1 posted...

Just caught up! I'm really enjoying your playthrough and it makes me want to replay this game. It's been so long and I consider it my favorite FF!

thank you!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

greengravy294 posted...

Motherlover

vote i'm on a boat but major shoutout here
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

FFDragon posted...

I am voting Shirley because she's going to win anyway.

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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

3. Codenames/Duet (2015, 2017)

Category: Team vs Team/Cooperative
Genres: Limited communication, clue-giving, word game, party game
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 20 minutes
Experience: 200+ plays over 100+ sessions with 2-12+ players (2015-2020) incl Pictures, Deep Undercover
Previous ranks: 2/100 (2016), 2/80 (2018)

Description - A five-by-five grid is populated with words, and a random card is shown to one or two "spymasters." That card indicates words that the spymaster wants the guesser(s) on their team to guess. The game alternates between a spymaster's giving a single-word clue and a number of words that that clue corresponds to, and the guessers' guessing which words are theirs. In a typical game, there are two spymasters on different teams, and the first team to cover all its words wins. In Duet, each player is a spymaster, and both cooperatively try to guess the words on the other side of the card.

Design - Codenames is Czech designer Vlaada Chvatil's best creation. It tickles many of my favorite mechanisms - clue-giving, team/cooperative play, word games. These all encourage outside-the-box thinking, and plus you can try to develop rapport with your teammates. There's ample opportunity for trash-talking on people's turns. Because of the team aspect and the faith you need to have in one another, you'll inevitably experience moments with high stakes of "dammit, why didn't you know what I was thinking," or "I can't believe you caught that connection," or even "man, you got lucky guessing a word I didn't intend," or "AHHHH I MISSED THAT CARD."

Of course, the usual disclaimer applies: with tabletalk a near guarantee in a game, the players you play with will inevitably matter as well. Language barriers can apply, and people with no sense of humor will drag the game down, and some spymasters are too afraid to give more than one-word clues. In such a case, it's actually nice that the game provides the means to go at your own pace, as well. Among games that lend themselves to tabletalk, Codenames tends to be more forgiving than, say, Avalon. The one thing I highly recommend about playing Codenames in a group is to use a timer - it ironically can reduce the pressure on clue-givers, since you understand that it'll be imperfect. As the rulebook says: "You don't need to say 'This clue is a stretch.' Of course it's a stretch - it's Codenames!"

Experience - Codenames is the first game I heard of before its release (Gen Con 2015), got hyped for, and then had paid off. While the game was in short supply at the time, one of my friends got a copy from Gen Con and it almost immediately became my favorite non-Avalon game in the rotation. I've played it with family, friends of friends, non-gamers, strangers - in living rooms, on the floor, picnic tables, pubs, online, on B8. There are fantastic apparatuses to play the full original game online, though it would be nice if they could also do one for Duet - we've been using Google Sheets to handle that.

I will say that Pictures and the "Deep Undercover" version (with lots of words related to sex and drug use) are noticeably worse, but they aren't a bad change of pace.

Future - Until lockdown is over, it's still not really gonna happen that I play many games in person. That said, Codenames has been a great go-to with 6+ in e-hangouts, and Duet with the Google Doc has been solid as well. It's no longer as addictive as it once was - I've easily had sessions six games long - but I don't think its genius will ever be lost.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

many of my tastes are cheap

much of my lifestyle isn't thanks to circumstances
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

yeah, some of the recurring tropes you get in anime really suck. it's not always an old guy who's the pervert either.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

gotcha. looking forward to seeing which other FF games will chart!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

when did you first play FFVI compared to the other FF games? (i'm presuming that this is the only pre-PS1 FF game to make this list)
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

love the atmosphere/presentation and theoretically like the gameplay of TWEWY, but i couldn't beat the boss at the end of week 1 and it was super-annoying
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

young girl hype
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

Mac Arrowny posted...

Would be interesting seeing how people would rank these games not including the epic case for each game. Feel like that would affect some games more than others.

3 becomes the best by far
5 benefits as well due to its consistency
4 should benefit
2 and 6 are the hardest hit
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

wheels starting to move!
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

funny timing how people are talking about aa3. i never liked the finale that much but it is still in many ways the peak of its series.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

aa6's finale definitely won't leave you cold like 5-5 did. with that boost it's overall on par with aa5.

voted for aai2 - close with aa3
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

i beat ff7 for the first time just when lockdown started. its scope is super-impressive and its structure is great, though its directness toward the end made me ignore all the sidequests :(
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

fuck yes GSH

love the kirby-style combining of weapons
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

LeonhartFour posted...

Also, learn Card Mod to refine the cards you don't use.

just realized i haven't played any cards at all (and have barely refined anything)

can you explain these?

Drakeryn posted...

late to the party, but the capital of Galbadia mission is one of my favorite parts of the game - it's just wild with so many moving parts and so many things going wrong

quistis going back to apologize to rinoa feels less awful only in hindsight. i do like split parties as a rule though; one of the absolute most memorable parts of ffvi is that river party split.
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness

LeonhartFour posted...

the fight with Edea is where Disc 1 ends in the PS1 version so the Uncle Laguna stuff is the opening of Disc 2, just for the record

yeah, i figured that was the case - it parallels the end of disc 1 of ff7 and there's an auto-savepoint

how many discs is ffviii? i really feel like i haven't gotten far in the game at all. only 12 hours or so, with not that many plot developments - this disc was comparable to midgar alone from ff7

shane15 posted...

If i remember right the GF will always be at the bottom of the draw list with ???.

it wasn't at the bottom but it did have ??? - that said, ??? doesn't always mean you're getting a GF, since i got cure 2 from the sorceress
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yet all azuarc of all sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable - they live in the varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness