Lurker > MechaKirby

It will be you, but 50

Express your thoughts now on some notepad and come back to it a year+ from now

I think I came across PotD by actually voting in the poll.

By the time I got here the whole Chelle thing had ended and I remember some Bakery on a Cooking show being infamous, which got me to stay.

Beat and now Platinumed Tales of Arise.

Solid 8/10 game.

I beat it for the first time 2 years ago in preparation for Remake, and really enjoyed it. I was also genuinely surprised by a plot point & sequence that somehow hadn't been spoiled for me in all those years.

You can tell the game is very special to people and gaming in just the first 20 minutes.

The Materia system holds up very well too.

Bosses being unstaggerable was definitely the root of the problem and highlights a bunch of issues at once.

- Aerial Combat goes out the door unless you want to stay safe or chip them away very slowly
- Bosses are surrounded by effects but ignore them to hit you, so their attacks are hard to telegraph.
- Any long-winded attack is out of the question.
- Law is a huge liability as a AI.
- Your team will eat a huge amount of attacks, even on the Do Nothing Setting. Your best answer is to draw aggro away from them and hope the fight doesnt
- I should have put this as a Major con but I forgot. Enemy HP starts to skyrocket after the 2nd lord and it becomes very apparent when you start fighting bosses without weak points. TBH most bosses just start not having a weak point to go after, which is supposed to provide 2x damage and a way to stun them for a bit.

With all those, boss fights devolved into projectile spam + Reigning Slash + Explosive Ring depending if I wanted them stunned/ hit hard at that moment.

I liked the 2nd Lord fight, but I also hated it.

I like with Graces F combat and Pascal, but everything else brings it down. Characters, Dungeons, Story, Setting, Tutorial, Titles and Possibly the worst soundtrack I've heard in a video game, Its one of the few games I actually hate

All the Starters look solid. Much better than Gen 8's

Beat it after 101 Hours on Moderate. Enjoyable but flawed game. I didnt hate the story, but like most tales I kinda go eh near the end

Minor Pros;
- Besides Vesperia, This is the only game where I like every character. Alphen does get to be a bit much though. Shionne still has one of my favorite designs for a Tales character and characters in general.
- I was against the way skits were changed at first, but they warmed up to me. Still a lot of room for improvement.
- Dungeon Design hasnt really improved, but i did enjoy navigating areas much more than Berseria and the Xillias.
- I like how Mystic Artes and be avoided now
- Aerial Combat is back and its fun
- Decent amount of in-game content
- Truth be told, theres 2 fights that takes place in the final dungeon Elevator thats probably the most fun fight in the game for some reason.

Major Pros;
- Sound design is top notch, from running around in nature and dungeons, to all the slashes, spells and sound prompts.
- Best looking game since Vesperia. Elde Menacia, and Ganath Haros being highlights
- Equipment MATTERS in this game. Im constantly thinking of Accessory builds, and getting materials/ building isnt some huge chore like it was in Berseria.
- Combat against normal enemies and certain mini bosses are super fun and addicting, as it should be.
- Boost Strikes/Link Attacks are stylish and badass. Never gets old.
- All Characters are fun to play as. I mained Alphen and Rinwell, but really liked Shionne and Law too.

Minor Cons;
- Not a fan of the Battle UI. Too small, scattered and minimalistic. Menus are also kinda weak.
- Not a fan of how slow or laggy a lot of attacks are
- Boost Strikes/Link Attacks against boss are useless unless they have minions. BS in general has no benefits beyond OHKOs/ splash damage. If it returns, they should add buffs depending on whos in the BS, for more variety. Otherwise its almost always better to use Alphen or Laws BS.
- Yet another Average/ Below Average Sakuraba Soundtrack. Some good tunes here and there like the 1st 2 battle themes, 2nd Lords Castle and the Sewer/Cliffside Water dungeon. Otherwise a very generic soundtrack. Some areas and scenes just sound like noise. Xillia 1 tier in music

Major Cons;
- I'll be honest, these are probably the worst boss fights in the series. They are the complete opposite of the combat you do for the majority of the game. Combining all the special effects and and sometime very poor camera turns it into a clusterfuck of chaos, and not in the good way.

The 2nd & 4th lords, certain huge bosses, and the 4 Spirits are the worst fights in the game and franchise, holy shit its so bad and poorly designed.

- Bad AI, and no major or individual AI options = Babysitting. I cant believe the regressed all the way back near Symphonia 2 level options
- CP doesnt really add anything but act as a artificial limiter. Field actions feel dumb cuz its literally there to drain it for no reason (except Shionne) and it scales. For Bosses its a endurance meter, and the AI will make sure to run it out quickly. This mechanic was a afterthought and hope it doesnt return.

- Enemy and Boss Variety is very, very low, which is understandable because its a new engine, but holy shit how many times do we have to fight the same lizard, dog, mantis and ogres bosses?! If you want to get everything in the final dungeon, you legit have to fight like 2 dozen of these things
- Backloaded story and skits. Kinda normal for Tales, and I expected it, but it should have been better paced.
- Player Mystic Artes regressed back to almost Symphonia levels. being unable to activate it on your own is dumb, and sometimes has gotten me hurt because of its poor timing. Also they feel weak most of the time, so its a bit better as a soft reset button.

Overall, I give it a 8/10

Theres a lot of cons but I dont hate the game at all. Theres just a lot of weird design choices. I really enjoyed the game, but I also glad I only spent 40$. Like most/ all tales it drops the ball closer to the endings, and this is no different

What I really looking forward to is seeing if there is a Arise 2 or Another game on this engine. Whatever it may be its gonna be Xillia 2 levels of content and fun, since they can correct a lot of mistakes.

As far as Tales rankings, its now;

Vesperia > Xillia 2 > Berseria > Arise >> Symphonia > Symphonia 2 = Xillia >> Abyss (Didnt finish) >> Graces F

Just (re)watched Evangelion Rebuild 1.1, and still greatly enjoyed it. Hadn't seen in about 6+ years or whenever Toonami last showed it. Since I was abale to watch the orginal it was nice to see all the scene and shots remade and detailed. I dont normally care for post-apocalyptic settings but the way Tokyo-3 is protrayed is fucking badass.

The remastered music is (mostly) awesome and epic, and the Ramiel/ Operation Yashima is the coolest part in the whole series. Such a bizarre but cool enemy.

I'll aim for 2.2 tomorrow.

Apparently Mercer was offered to take it, and he declined. Something about being treated as 'Budget Troy' since Mercer took up a lot of Troy's roles in anime

Regardless, Vesperia is still the best Tales.

Flinchhax

Thunder Wave everything I can, then hit them with Flinch-capable moves.

I typically ran Greninja holding King's Rock spamming Water Shuriken

Either Persian or Seaking

Ok, so I got through 3 hours of cutscenes in Arise, and I feel like I'm in the final 15% of the game. I know Tales games are kinda notorious for back-loading plot in the last 1/4 of the game, but this definitely coulda been better paced.

Also the game keeps throwing in mini-boss level enemies with no target-weakpoints and its starting to get lame. At least the knights can be comboed/juggled. Im still enjoying it, tho

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As far as anime. I finished Neon Genesis Evangelion + End of Evangelion. I guess I accidently spoiled myself by watching episode 26 before EoE, but its all good. Ill say I wasnt too fond of the way it ended, but its not really bad or anything. Definitely gets sad and depressing.

Misato is absolutely the best character on the show, and I think her voice actor, Alison Keith, did a great job. I tried the Netflix version and its not a energized or interesting.

Overall, I'll give it a 9/10 with the ending being the 'ok' part. the first 20 or so episodes were 10/10 tho, and of course the OP is a 11/10 unskippable masterpiece.

Next is the Rebuild Movies!

Xeno 3 looks nice and futuristic, but these type of games are too big for me to buy day 1.

I'll have to wait until the game is figured out so there's no complete aimless wandering

Also MK8 DLC is nice, especially since I finally bought MK8 a week ago.

I finished the entirety of FLCL, and I'll say

Original > Alternative > Progressive

The original was and still is great. Very stylish and humorous with a nice story to wrap it up. Very solid.

Alternative had a nice vibe to it, and was also pretty humorous. But I feel the last episode fell off somewhere.

Progressive was ok on the initial watch, and eh on the 2nd. It tries to be pretty similar to the original, but fails to establish a base and goes all over the place. Worth a watch since it's short, but eh.

I also reached Episode 20(?) Of NGE, and so far it's been excellent

Watching: Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL

Playing: Tales of Arise.

I beat the 5th major Boss, and came across what definitely feels like the 'halfway point scene' at least

That dungeon definitely ate up resources like candy. I think I used up half my Cure Points on the 1st floor alone.