Lurker > YoukaiSlayer

Flappers posted...

I prefer the classic style where you actually enter battle and it's separate from the overworld. That's what makes it feel like Pokemon.

You can prefer whatever you want but you said the new way is less immersive. That's nonsense. Seemlessly entering battle on the overworld is a lot more immersive than warping to the battle dimension in the turned based games. If pokemon were a real thing, it would look much more like PLA than the main games.

I'm also not sure why it matters if they get rid of the nostalgia. You still have like 8 generations of pokemon games to play if you want nostalgia.

I'm further in now (8/10 stars, main team in mid 60s, still haven't started the story in region 2) and the game is a lot of fun. I didn't realize just how important backstriking to initiate battle was but it lets you snipe just 1 pokemon in a distortion instead of having to fight 3-4 at a time. It also helps even the odds against alphas so you don't just automatically have your first pokemon wiped. I went back to the first area to do something real quick and 6 hours later I'm still there, just sidetracked by one thing after another cause theres always something to do and always something new you didn't find before. I also think I've caught more pokemon total than in all the previous games combined. It's a good game.

Flappers posted...

These battles look and sound like the least immersive experience ever in a Pokemon game.

Definitely far and away the most immersive it's ever been although he wasn't talking about the battles.

There's also quite a bit of skill to throwing pokeballs. When you get it right and chuck like 3 feather balls at 3 different far away pokemon and then hear the catch noise echo 3 times. It's great. It's also fun dodge rolling around enemy pokemon attacks and then whipping around and throwing your pokemon at it's back in the brief moment before it turns back around to get the advantage encounter.

Even map traversal can feel skillful when you are riding the mounted pokemon and hop off to quickly harvest something and quick swap to another pokemon and have them harvest something while the first one still is so you don't have to wait for it to finish. Quickly chuck a few feather balls at every nearby pokemon, then hop back on, all in like 2 seconds.

As a side note you can walk in front of your pokemons attacks in battle and it'll knock you down which is hilarious. Bet most people never end up doing that but it made me laugh.

CinderLock posted...

I don't understand the hate for exp share it doesn't make it easier it makes it less tedious. Grinding for 1 hour vs 4 or whatever arbitrary number isnt difficult it's time consuming.

Part of it is the game not being balanced for it, but the real issue for me is just the sense of growth. Switch training is also annoying for the same reason. It feels better to me when you are forced to use the pokemon when it's weak before it's strong. Very well embodied by something like tyranitar.

This is NOT a regular ass pokemon game, for better or worse. It's very different. It's honestly closer to pokemon snap than the mainline games. The fun of the game is exploring areas to find unique pokemon to complete more research to get more stars to be able to craft better balls and catch/control stronger pokemon. I've got 6 stars (lets you catch/control pokemon up to level 80) and just now did kleavor. It was kind of funny to see this "scary frenzied beast" at level 18 get obliterated by my level 60 alpha alakazam (this has nothing to do with xp share, I caught him at level 60) during the parts where you can actually fight it.

I despise exp share in the mainline games but it being on here doesn't matter, because it's used to evolve/level your horde of pokemon to complete more research. This isn't a game where you carefully craft a well balanced team of 6 to take on difficult trainers. The only real reason to even have stronger pokemon, is to weaken and catch other strong pokemon. You build your team to hit type weaknesses for research and have good moves for catching pokemon (false swipes, thunder wave, hypnosis, etc).

If you go in thinking of this as a possible step forward for the pokemon series, you are going in with the wrong mindset. This is not a mainline game, this is a spinoff like mystery dungeon or snap. You can catch 3 pokemon in 2 seconds without entering battle. You can drive by snipe a gyarados out of the air with a feather ball. You can dodge roll a charging rapidash and backstrike with it your pokeball to start the battle off with a free turn for you.

It IS a lot of fun IMO. They could also stand to bring some of these things into the main series. The way you walk around, the way battles aren't a separate screen but happen in the overworld (and you can even still keep walking around if you want to), the way you catch pokemon in general, the research tasks and sidequests. All of that stuff could easily work in a mainline pokemon game, although many of those elements could use some improvements.

Speaking of that, while a lot of these elements are fun, theres significant room for improvement in a lot of them. The research tasks could really use a bit more variety. There's only like 10 tasks total and each pokemon has like 5-8 of em. The number of times to max some of these out is beyond tedious. I really gotta kill 40 geodudes, 20 with grass, 20 with water, in order to max out those 2 things, and catch another 25 IIRC. That's a total of 65 geodude encounters to just max out geodude. Of course, you don't have to max all the tasks, once you've got 10 research levels on the pokemon, you get a bonus 100 points. You could get by just going for that pretty easily (it's probably what they intend). I would have loved more unique tasks with more clever ways of achieving them. Like luring one pokemon with baits into another pokemon they wouldn't normally encounter or intimidating one to flee from battle by sending out it's natural predator.

There's room for these to be really creative and fun and it's not used well enough. Instead it's basically, catch em, catch em unaware, battle em, kill em with a specific weakness, see em use X move X times, evovle em, catch multiple forms, possible side quest. There should be room for some basic puzzle solving on each pokemon. By the time I finish, I should feel like me as a player understands that pokemon and how they behave and what sets pidgey clone #7 apart from #5.

Open world movement is solid but it does have the skyrim mountain climbing physics where you can sorta waddle yourself up things you really shouldn't be climbing.

agesboy posted...

theres no evidence in the game showing hes any older than like 7 years old honestly, so it's entirely probably they're all lusting after a literal child

In the show he's gotta be at least like 15. He doesn't act like a 7 year old either though. He legit like, cannot talk. It's as though he's learning speech and human concepts for the first time and it's genuinely pretty funny. He also gets fuckin ruined like every episode. Dude is racking up trauma faster than girls.

They also so far haven't even remotely lusted after him. He is such a background thing in the show, which is why he's funny. He's like kenny in south park.

Ranking of kings plot is wild. Every time I think I know whats going to happen, something weird happens instead. Ok, not nearly every time, but often enough to keep me on my toes. It's like every plot event has a 1/5 chance to just be nonsense. Maybe the bad guy will start crying and hide in the corner, maybe the good guy will try to kill himself by face planting on the stone floor but be mostly fine cause he's too strong, maybe the bad guy's attack will just be to kick the other guy in the nuts. Maybe lightning will just come of nowhere and oneshot someone. Maybe the king will save people that he was about to kill for mysterious reasons. And yet, it doesn't feel like bullshit, it feels like theres a method to the madness that's just out of reach. Good show.

Been watching season 1 of priconne because it's basically budget konosuba. It's watchable. I like how the main male character that is probably supposed to be the harem lead is borderline not sentient. Like, they took him beyond being dumb to being unable to communicate like a functional person and he is more like a pet than a person. He also kinda looks like a blue kazuma alt. Cygames studio has way too much talent that they are completely wasting on mobile games adaptations.

I forgot about how annoying the AI is. There are some tweaks you can do to the default strategy to make it a little better. The big key thing is to replace all instances of keep distance with do nothing. Keep distance is troll and doesn't work well but when on do nothing, they are unkillable dodge tanks. Things play much better when teammates stop attacking when under 50% hp or so and wait to get healed.

The real issue is not being able to set per person strategies. Like, you want your ranged characters to keep their distance, that'd be a great thing for them to use, but then your melee people will run back and forth and waste time and get hit. Infuriating. It's a mockery of the gambit system it's ripping off.

MechaKirby posted...

2nd Realm Major Boss and Dungeon... dungeon was ok, but the Boss was chaotic af, and absolutely the hardest boss so far. The one before it wasnt easy either.

Legit the 2 hardest fights in the game if you tackle things on level.

I was playing on hard so I don't think autobattle would have handled it but yeah, boss fights end up pretty easy. On my 2nd run on the hardest difficulty the boss rush was fairly challenging since I did it right away at level 61 or so. Had quite a few game overs during that although it still mostly devolved into spamming aerial ranged auto targeting moves and kiting.

It's been some time since I finished Arise now. I look back on it and think it was ok. Not the best tales game, not the worst. I think the combat against normal enemies is the best it's ever been though. Definitely the highlight of the game. The characters are fine but not up there with the best casts. The game spent too long being serious for them to really get to shine.

The english voice acting is really good in small areas. I still think back to 6th characters overlimit where he goes "ahh....rage...." in this seething calm tone. Or in the later parts of the game when a certain character gets KOd in battle sometimes Alphen will scream like...well like one of his friends just died. The story starts off fine but ends up terrible. A shame. The world also ends up feeling kinda small by the end of it. Lot's of fields but not a lot of memorable destinations. Post game takes you to max level in like 5 hours and you can finish the whole thing super fast. A big let down there.

The boss combat is pretty terrible though. All the fun combos just don't work on them whatsoever and it becomes much slower and more reactive.

The yuri isekai is called "Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road". I'm not sure just how yuri it is. MAL didn't list yuri or shoujo ai as a tag but the comments on the PV said the source was definitely yuri. Basic plot is people occasionally come from japan into this fantasy world and always bring disaster with them. One of our main character is tasked with killing everyone who comes over to prevent the disasters but she runs into one girl she just can't kill and of course develops feelings for her over time.

The premise reminded me a lot of 12 kingdoms. it's basically the same setup. It's sadly not like a yuri ecchi harem isekai that I'd love but as a yuri fan you take what you can get cause theres slim pickings. PV looked solid.

Demon Slayer is going hard this season my god. It's like, we had season 1 demon slayer with nice animation, then jujutsu kaisen was like "nah, we got the best shonen fight animation" and now demon slayer is taking back that throne. It's been like 3-4 episodes in a row of great looking fight scenes. Characters are all still average at best and the villains are lame.

Also wtf kingdom season 4 is coming out next anime season?!?!? That's so soon. Season 3 ended so recently and I figured it'd be another year or more before we got another season, especially with how troubled it's production was and yet I only gotta wait 3 months. Next season also has a yuri isekai. I'm hyped already.

MechaKirby posted...

So is the watch order supposed to be NGE > End of Eva > Rebuild Movies?

That is the correct watch order.

World trigger finally got it's last episode to air and it was a pretty good season overall. I think season 2 was a bit better paced and produced but the fights in the last 2 episodes and some of the effects in the earlier episodes this season were pretty great. Still love the show.

Worst crest skirts the line of barely of watchable. The main character basically don't have a personality but at least theres lots of fights I guess. The fights aren't great but they could be worse.

Realist hero is still good. I kinda thought it's S2 would really overshadow genius prince for me but I'm just enjoying both. War politics are enjoyable and I'd be happy to see more series like these.

I guess I'm calling it fantasy knockout, the one with the guy and his friend that gets turned into a girl in a fantasy world. It's pretty funny IMO. The gimmick won't last forever so I hope they introduce some new elements at some point but for now it's funny.

Ugh, my grandma that I live with and my aunt that lives nearby have covid and my mom was saying yesterday that she thinks she had a cold. Good chance I've already got it and I am somewhat at risk with my health conditions. I guess I just have to hope for the best.

On the anime side of things, ranking of kings still good. Genius prince had a better second episode and looks pretty good. Leadale still chill and watchable.

The anime for Bisque Doll is pretty good so far. Main guy is kind of annoying but main girl carries the show pretty well. It's also pretty funny.

Maaaaan. Another delayed episode for me. Tsunami warning took the tv timeslot for world trigger S3 final episode. They haven't said when it will air. Stupid japan still using cable tv instead of just netflix and the like.

Leadale episode 2 was a bit more interesting. Feels like it'll be a nice chill isekai sorta like max level witch or bofuri but not as yuri as the first or as good as the second.

Watched two more shows and was somewhat pleasantly surprised.

Genius prince is simple but fairly enjoyable. It's like a less serious take on realist hero. I still prefer realist hero but this one was fun as well.

I don't know how I should shorten the other one but it's the one where the guy gets reincarnated with his handsome friend but as a girl. This one was pretty funny although the plot synopsis feels like it's attacking me by calling the main characters old men. Bruh, they are 32 years old, thats not an old man. That's like barely middle aged.

Anyway, really average dude has a handsome guy as his best friend and he is jealous. He gets drunk with said best friend and while nearly passed out on the ground says he wishes he were a hot woman cause then he might actually get attention cause theres no way he can compete with his best friend around. Fantasy goddess pops up and monkey paw's the poor guy's wish by taking him and the best friend to a fantasy world and making him a hot girl (and of course tasking them to defeat the demon lord). When they complain at the goddess and say they don't wanna she curses them to be attracted to each other. So now they have to defeat the demon lord before the attraction becomes too much and they ruin their friendship by getting romantically involved. First episode was pretty funny.

Faraway paladin started with a pretty solid rating for episode one but once fight animation was shown it went down a fair bit. The fighting was indeed pretty mediocre animation. I thought it was a pretty solid show though.

I did end up watching the episode of AoT. It is supposed to be the last season and should end conclusively. While I don't know what the ending is, I know a lot of manga readers were unhappy about it and wondering if it'll be changed for the anime.

Man, Bisco is a weird ass show. Main character fights with a bow that causes giant mushrooms (I'm talkin like 500 feet tall) to sprout wherever he shoots with it. I'll keep watching for now. Perhaps it'll be the surprise hit of the season. Or not.

Additionally I watched the cosplay girl show. The main guy is kind of lame and his obsession with dolls is really weird. Like, not that he is obsessed with them, but how he talks to and ogles them is just, bizarre. Everything else about the show is pretty good though. Main girl is fun to watch and she has good chemistry with the main guy so far. Assuming the show going forward will be more about cosplay and comedy and less about doll making, I think I'll enjoy it.

Debating whether I want to watch attack on titan as it airs or wait for it to finish or maybe watch a chunk of episodes every few weeks.

I have for sure unlocked some FCs redoing sections really well in dive1. The dialogue also changes slightly. Definitely black whirlwind and genocide shotgun that I got recently were from that. Spectral missile and gigantic field were listed on the very basic spoiler free guide I've been using to get endings as performance based during route 1 and 2 respectively by doing even better in the fight that decides which ending you get. And dang, how many weapons are there if dive2 unlocks more? I've got to have close to 50 already. Just bought that damn 8000 cost laser and theres still one behind it.

Think I'll swap between grinding out the normal and bad end for route 3 and doing reminiscence. The game is so much easier when I slot tackle. Pretty sure I could beat everything with just that ability. I think I can see most of the weapon trees at this point so I think I'll probably be able to see everything by the time I do that. Then onto mastering stuff. Wondering when/if I'll unlock more health/boosters. Boosters especially would be nice.

Dang, the latest demon slayer episode had some well animated fights. First demon slayer episode in a while that's got me craving the next episode.

In baldr sky I beat route 3 and man the lack of target swapping/locking is such a detriment to this game. So many fights are so annoying because of that. Ended up going through the final section with a pretty bad loadout and it was extreme pain. Had to retry several sections 5+ times to squeak through. All the 1v1 boss fights are incredibly easy by comparison.

Going through some of reminiscence and I hate it. If it was just replaying various flashbacks, whatever, I could just set it to auto and tab out and let it do it's thing. It's not though, you have unique scenes mixed in so I have to pay attention to shit I just watched like a week ago and theres many many hours of it. If the game let me skip read text from the main game in reminiscence then it'd be great but it all counts as new text even if it's the exact same for no reason. The main game has this problem too where a scene in one route that is 100% identical to the same scene in a different route counts as new text and it has a terrible effect because I end up not paying much attention and probably missing out on when we get sections that do play out slightly differently.

I really like baldr sky but the few issues I have it are so incredibly frustrating and drag the whole experience down a lot.

Utawarerumono original anime is pretty solid. Haven't played the games and I think I ended up not finishing the newer anime but I can't remember why I stopped watching it. I don't think I outright dropped it, so I guess I got sidetracked by something else.

Watched a few new episode 1s of the new season.

Magic crest feels very generic power fantasy but it's slightly watchable so far. Good chance I'll drop it next episode if it doesn't get better.

Realist kingdom S2 so far is solid like the first one. More of the same really but thats fine by me.

Holy christ baldr sky NEEDS a lock on button. Just did the mission where you fight gilbert as he is logging out in route 3 and I was determined to kill him before he logged out and that was so freaking frustrating. I managed to take him out in time on like my 5th attempt but then I had too little health left and lost to the rest of the enemies. Then on like attempt 25 I managed to do it but it'd be so easy if I could just target him specifically and the stupid targeting system can decide to target the random tadpole to my right instead of gilbert readying his force crash to my left so I can't see it and get oneshot. Just keeping track of where the hell he was is impossible like 90% of the runs. Also how do I unlock survival mode?

agesboy posted...

watching ep1 of leadale and they don't really capture the main character's melancholy and hopelessness of her past life very well

I haven't read the source but thats how I felt. It was told right away but sort of clumsily that she was dying in a hospital hooked up to vr and then it might as well have not happened because she didn't seem to care.

Anime season has started. I've watched 2 shows first episodes and...kinda disappointing.

Leadale is generic VRMMO trapped in the game isekai. The first episode is fine but theres nothing really drawing you in either. The premise isn't established very skillfully and the show in general hasn't really shown us what it's going to be like. I'll probably keep watching but I don't have high expectations.

Orient is trash. Dropped it already. Main characters are annoying, premise is dumb, animation is poor and the manga it's based on has a low score so I have very little hope it'll become watchable.

Might watch 24ku and police girl. Both of them seem to have the odds stacked against them being very good though.

Looking through the line up again, I'm not excited for a single new show. At least we have some sequels and ranking of kings 2nd half to stop the season from being complete garbage but so far looking to be a pretty weak season.

Ok, so maybe it eventually stops working but it seems like you can infinite with aerial stun rod. Just doing flying cross chop > scythe > stun rod > land and wait > repeat. The stun decays faster each time until like the 4th time and then it actually lasts longer again so basically the timing is different every time. You can get the timing on reaction though. It seems you must hit him just before or as they hit the ground. Managed to chain it about 30 times in a row against the wall. The game doesn't count it as a true combo but theres no point the enemy could escape if they can't booster tech and I've never seen them booster tech. Even then I think you can do it before they touch the ground in which case it's truly inescapable. Might try it against some of the bosses.

Man, the combat in baldr sky is too cool for a visual novel. The combos you can make up and pull off are insane. I do wish we had more controlled access to our moves though. Particularly long range and short range. If instead it was neutral (not dashing), surge dash, R1+ button, and normal dash it would feel so much better. Also if there was a button to lock target and cycle targets, my god I need that. So annoying when I hit someone and they are in perfect combo range but instead I do a long range move because it's not my target that ran away although that too would be solved by changing the controls how I mentioned. I also wonder if infinites are possible because I somehow reset my combo on an enemy before they could move (without initializer).

On the anime front, this is the last day before the new season starts. There's a bunch that looks it might be good but probably won't. Hopefully a few of those end up being actually good. It's possible this season is going to suck.

Did a bunch of grinding in baldr sky. Played through rain's route like 3 more times and man it really helped me realize how tough it can be without either a good gapcloser or good ranged weapon. The final boss took me like 10 tries on the last run because I didn't have either. Eventually chipped him away with wave motion cannon but he dodged it like 90% of the time so it took forever. I also got the "normal" ending of rain route and jesus that's not "normal" at all, thats a straight up bad end. Also managed to finally get spectral missile. Could have sworn I did enough to get it the all the previous runs but got it this time and it's worthless but oh well. So far gigantic field seems to be the best force crash I have although killer instinct is solid too.
Bulbasaur posted...

and i just immediately "oh hey funimation does porn now????"

Lol. If you didn't know thats a currently airing (or maybe it just ended) show called Senpai ga Uzai Kouhai no Hanashi.

So far I've only gotten good endings (just finished route 2). Even got gigantic field barely even though technically the battle took 1:48, I think I killed the last enemy at like 1:44 so I guess that was enough.

I'm sort of disappointed in the villain of this route. Given dialogue, I'm wondering if somehow that neuzen guy or whatever is gonna end up being the main villain, his faked avatar taking over various people, initially father gregory, then gilbert in rain route, then naoki in nanoha route. A pretty big shot in the dark though. However, I was really hoping there was some more ingenious master plan behind grey chrismas. The story of naoki losing his mind and setting it free to demonstrate it's value just feels too simple for such a sophisticated sci-fi world. Also man how dumb is kou to not realize the priestess is makoto? I'm interested in where she got her fairy mech from so early on and I imagine she gets a route near the end. So far we have basically merc route, fenrir route, next will be goat route, then finally ark route, then I guess a route showing us the real threat but ending suboptimally and then a true route where it all comes together (perhaps focusing on agent and something about people being a recreation based on agents observations). Oh, I also predict eiji had a good reason for being busy fighting people all this time, probably something to do with the stuff he, his wife, rain's dad, and nanoha's parents worked on beforehand, possibly with Noi.

That's my uninformed prediction after route 2. Also really wish they wouldn't put important dialogue during fights. I can't read those subtitles and fight at the same time.

I ended up dropping SRW 30. The game is just way too easy even on the hardest difficulty. It became tedious to play after a while. I also hate that there is level scaling so that leveling up feels pointless after you get your last spirits. Spirits also break the game, upgrades break the game, pilot skills break the game, power parts break the game, AOS upgrades break the game. If you remove everything, making the game somewhat bland but somewhat challenging, then it's just annoying cause it's so RNG reliant with tons of 30-70% hit rates and high damaging attacks.

With baldr sky I'm further into route 2 now and I still hate nanoha but at least now I'm getting juicy plot information.

Jesus christ Nanoha is so boring and whiny. The whole moving thing makes no sense. They are 2nd gens, they can just hang out in virtual reality no matter how far away they move but they act like all they can do is send email and make phone calls. I will be happy to be on the 3rd route but I've still got like 7 chapters to go. Also man, there is too little combat early into the game. I've been playing for like 3 hours without a single fight. Honestly I kinda feel like the gameplay and story are anti-synergistic. One gets me excited to see what comes next and then bam, halt to that progress and back to the other one. Kind of reminds me of FFT:WotL in that regard.

Beat the first (of 6) routes in baldr sky. Pretty good. The combat became infinitely better after unlocking boosters and some new stuff although ranged still OP as hell. The final boss of route 1 was so easy. Just rifle (for xp) into dual SMGs, repeat. I think I got hit twice. Really expected a phase 2. Rifle randomly misses a lot though, seems garbage. As long as I have dual SMGs I feel like I can beat anything.

Story is pretty good so far, reminds me most of ghost in the shell if the major was a horny dude with amnesia. The world especially seems very well thought out although I guess theres been many baldr games before this one to build it up. Most of the villains are pretty lame but father gregory was solid. I assume any better villains are going to be introduced in later routes. I know I've heard that the really good routes are the last 2 so I'm excited to eventually get there. Got the good ending pretty easily in route 1. I may just replay route 1 a few times skipping all the dialogue to grind some of the bad weapons out so I don't have to use them.

agesboy posted...

are you sure they weren't using abilities that sent them flying into the air? because those are pretty common and i'm relatively sure there's no jump button

The training dummy can for sure be set to jump. It's got a few options (with do nothing as default) but one option it will just jump in place over and over. In a few of the earlier flashbacks when Kou and other people get simulcrums, they run around and jump a few times. If the player never gets access to that, thats cool, it just felt like I was missing something.
agesboy posted...

lowers their attack power so they kill things slower, its not super necessary or anything. you can grind later, yeah; after one or two routes you gain the ability to jump anywhere on the scenario flowchart

Very useful to know. Thanks.

agesboy posted...

in-universe slang that was at least used back in baldr force basically calling someone an ace simulacrum pilot

back then it was only used by someone who spoke a weird hybridization of russian/english/japanese slang but it seems to have spread by the time of sky

Interesting, I kinda like it.

I did snag baldr sky and I'm having an annoying time finding any information about anything in the game. Like, how do I jump? I can the training dummy/partner to jump, people jump in cutscenes, I know vaguely that aerial combos are very good, but theres no jump button. Presumably I unlock the ability to jump later or maybe I need a move that jumps or something but googling it provides zero information.

I just unlocked the plugin for bad partner and it's very ambiguous if it reduces the damage my partners deal to 1/4th or reduces the damage they take to 1/4th. The latter would be a no brainer but the former seems like it would just make the game harder but I guess it's so they can't siphon off as much weapon xp? Can I ever grind btw cause then it would't matter? Couldn't find any info on any of that on google.

I also have the DLC weapons from the 18+ patch but have no idea how to access them. The game told me I had some of them but they aren't in my equipment menu which always shows new even though I've equipped everything I have and again theres nothing on google for any of this.

As of now the combat feels kinda lame because engaging in melee just means getting stunlocked by a horde of enemies and kiting and using ranged results in effortless flawless slow victory (playing on hard).

Also what exactly is a hotdogger?

Maaaan. Last two episodes of 86 are delayed for 3 MONTHS!.

I feel like the morpho was way to weird of a weapon. Like being able to control a bunch of light tendrils and transform them into hands and shit isn't a real mecha move and I feel like the fight was lame because of it. Also feels like the skill of the pilot is irrelevant which also makes it lame. I also wish main guy had won of his own skill and machine instead of basically being given a dues ex machina saving his ass like 3 times and then the girl basically cheated by distracting him with more perfectly timed and placed missile barrages. Idk, it felt too lucky and broke my suspension of disbelief. Story is still good though.

Zeus posted...

Is it not a great adaptation or were you not a fan of the original?

It was probably a good adaptation although I heard they really made it a lot more ecchi than the source. I just don't really like horror. It was for sure a better show than evo fruit and probably Komi as well. Before starting it I thought it would be more comedy than it was but it was genuinely pretty spooky.

For me the clear winner is mushoku tensei and then 2nd place by a mile is 86. In order I'd say this season is like this for me.

1. Mushoku Tensei
2. 86
3. Ranking of Kings
4. Blue Period
5. World Trigger S3
6. Demon Slayer Train Arc
7. Faraway Paladin
8. Assassin Isekai
9. Komi
10. Evolution Fruit
11. Mieruko-chan (dropped)
12. AMAIM (dropped)
13. Takt Op (dropped)
14. Muv Luv (dropped)
15. Platinum End (dropped)
16. Shikizakura (dropped)

I consider aquatope to be from last season but I dropped that as well. Mushoku Tensei easy anime of the year, 86 2nd place for the year as well.

Zeus posted... Considering that's almost impossible to do... it's often more people cracking up when they already expect things to go one way.

Thats not remotely impossible to do. Even with Komi, the awkward silence is a subversion of expectations the first time. You expect the beautiful ice queen Komi to have a refined or dominating response and then that is subverted when instead she says nothing, further subverted when you realize it's because she is too awkward to speak and isn't actually this cool beauty she appears to be at first glance. That's the joke and it lands well the first time. But the second time we see it, we already know all those things, it's no longer subverting any expectation, it is the expectation. The show tells the exact same joke 5 times an episode, every episode.

There's also Komi's classmates. Initially they seem a bit obsessive over Komi but otherwise like elite students at this elite school and then it's revealed in situations that actually, everyone at this school is completely insane. The expectation was setup and then subverted and it was funny. Once. The second time it happens, we already know everyone is crazy, it's not a surprise.

The show tells both of these same jokes over and over and over again.

That's not to say the show is never funny, but they run these 2 gags into the ground. When it tells other jokes, sometimes it's still funny. Like in the last episode I watched, they switched to their summer uniforms and we see one at a time each person freaking out over how cute Komi looks in her summer uniform until it gets to the "dog" girl who is chubby and she is just looking with dismay at the now visible flab on her own arms instead, subverting the expectation that she too would gawk at how cute Komi is.

Those moments are too few and far between though.

Judgmenl posted... The awkaward silence is what is funny.
It's not though, especially not the 50th time they do it. Comedy is generally about subverting expectations but the expectation is that there will be awkward silences so it's just, well, awkward, instead of funny. And it's always the same. Like even with the painful cringe of watamote, we see main girl in that end up in a bunch of fundamentally different awkward situations and embarrass herself in all new ways and if watamote had the hype behind that Komi did I'd have been confused there as well.

dioxxys posted...

So if we are to maintain the angle that we need to be disturbed by this, whats the author's angle? That they are trying to appeal to an audience of 70 year old men who want to sleep with teen girls?

I think older person reincarnating and getting young girls doesn't necessarily target the exact age of the older person.

I do think it's a somewhat interesting topic. Like, if an adult is isekai'd, is he basically just never going to get romance? That's probably how it'd actually work out. Even by the time you are 20 or so, you've got two lifetimes of wisdom and maturity so some 20 year old is probably going to be hard to form any real romantic connection with, but the hormones in your body are going to make you fairly disgusted by 70 year old women. You'd be in this shitty middleground where your physical and mental attraction are completely at odds.

I also think assassin isekai could easily have done without the romance, in fact, the romance all around was boring. It's like 3 girls going "i know you only view me as a tool and emotionally manipulated me into feeling total devotion to you, but I don't care because I'm totally devoted to you". And then he's just like "yeah". And thats it.

Finished up assassin isekai and it was fine. I'll watch a season 2 if there is one. This is one case where I wish the isekai would actually lean MORE into it's gimmick. The supporting characters are all boring IMO and even lugh isn't very interesting aside from being an assassin but the idea of trying to assassinate an overpowered hero is exciting and we basically don't see any of that at all in the first season. Also a little weird I see rudy getting flack for perving on underage girls in mushoku tensei but no one bats an eye at this like 70 year old man romancing his 14 year old cousin.

Oh right, I also read whats out of beginning after the end webtoon/manwha/whatever it is (not the book). It's pretty solid although not to the same level as mushoku tensei IMO. The characters do have some depth to them but they just aren't as interesting so far. Still, I'll probably keep reading it (by which I mean, forget about it for a year or two and then catch up). I do like that worlds magic system with augmenters and conjurers and core colors. The beast will thing is a bit much and static void is a bit TOO broken IMO. I also like how it focuses a fair bit on skill and application of power rather than just raw power. Art is typically at a lower core level than the people he is massively overpowering but it's because he has a solid understanding of physics and mana application. That's a nice touch. I do feel like the show leans a bit too far into the corrupt noble thing. Like, every two seconds Art stumbles into some asshole corrupt noble about to permanently maim or kill some innocent person and these characters have no depth or logic and exist just to be defeated by our just protagonist.

I'm a bit behind on Komi because it's just not really grabbing me. Of all the recent big name manga that would never get an anime but finally did actually get one, nagatoro is the only one I get the hype for. So while Komi is watchable, I can't help but be disappointed. I think part of the issue is that Komi isn't actually making friends with anybody except main guy and the childhood friend of uncertain gender. She isn't actually forging any kind of connection with those other people and for the most part can't even communicate with them. I also feel like a lot of the comedy is just the same punchline but again. Like oh wow, look how crazy all the students are, aren't they crazy, they are so crazy, it's just crazy how crazy and quirky everyone is. So yeah, I really don't understand why the manga for this was so hyped. It's not that funny, the romance doesn't progress, Komi is like B tier cute at best, and half of every episode is just awkward silence.

Bulbasaur posted...

smtv is $35 on walmart, amazon, and gamestop

I wish I could like smt more. Something about the demons and the worlds just don't do it for me.

I_Abibde posted...

Therefore, Arcane is cancer ... though the reviews for it have been positive.

Yo arcane is really good. Pretty much everything in the league of legends IP that isn't league itself is great. Even within league, their media department has always done very well.

Mushoku tensei finished up this season. I'm sad to see it go. Also sad it didn't end with a S2 announcement. I'm hoping we don't have to wait too long for it. I know the anime is very popular in japan so theres no reason to think there won't be another season but I'm hoping it's not like 2 years away.

wolfy42 posted...

Youkai,

Since you like mushoku tensei have you read the beggining after the end? It seems similar in some ways andyou might like it.

I hadn't heard of it before but it looks interesting. I'm checking it out now. Glad to see it's in full color.

86 actually aired an episode this week and it's still pretty great. It's wild that I have 3 episodes left this late in the season.

Faraway paladin continues to be fine.

World trigger season 3 cannot possibly conclude everything next week so I don't know wtf they are gonna do. They left on a real cliffhanger this episode.

Man...so I was heavily considering reading the LNs for mushoku tensei after this season ends but only 13/24 are translated so theres basically no point. Eh, I'll probably enjoy it more waiting for the anime anyway.