Lurker > dotsdfe

So, fun fact, AA7 was leaked a while back as entering development. It was allegedly on track for a late 2021 release. This was in the mass Capcom leak that has proven to be very accurate overall and which came from internal data.

Well, obviously that never happened.

I believe that the director of the recent AA games has also left Capcom by now, which is kind of a rocky look for the series. I think that Shu Takumi is still around, but he hasn't really wanted to do more AAs after the original trilogy (and the GAAs, which were kind of a pet project for him).

At this point, the question is basically "Was it delayed due to COVID, or was it canceled outright?" But at the very least, there was interest in doing AA7 at some point.

Anna is the worst unit in the game, and it's not even close, IMO. Having no supports at all just really hurts her, and it's not like she has any huge pros to make up for it. There's really no reason to ever use her unless you just really like Anna.

Compsognathus posted...

Yeah, Cinder Shadows is a side-story that isn't canon to any other run but it still might spoil a bit more than you'd want if you haven't run through an initial White Clouds playthrough. And while, it plays a lot more like classical FE, it still kinda operates like your are familiar with a lot of 3H's mechanics. It'd be a lot to do without having played through at least White Clouds first.

I also think that CS adds some extra replayability. Having the extra characters available early (if you want them) along with the enhancements to the monastery helped to spice up later runs.

I'm a massive fan of the CS characters too. I basically won't do runs without Yuri/Constance/Balthus now.

Good choice on Golden Deer, even if it was from a vote. It's my favorite route in the game by far, mostly because I love Claude and most of the other GD characters.

yusiko posted...

seth always underuses the daughter character

I'll be fair and say that Hayley gets it a lot better than the others, especially in later episodes (though Seth has almost nothing to do with them at this point). As far as I've seen, she still pretty routinely gets episodes and/or at least roles in B stories, and the show treats her with a lot more respect than Meg or the Cleveland Show girl get.

Smackems posted...

That seems like way too little for I assume twenty bucks

Unless it's cheaper I guess

It's on sale right now.

Either way, CS, the new cast, the extra lore, the additional paralogues & supports tied to the new characters, and the bells and whistles are all pretty solid.

I do think that it's slightly overpriced at full price, but I ultimately didn't mind it. Yuri, Constance, and Balthus ended up being some of my favorite TH characters overall. Hapi is alright too, but she's a bit less fun by comparison.

It adds:

-Cindered Shadows as a side story.

-Four new playable characters, who IMO are some of the best in the game.

-Two new paralogue maps in the main game, focusing on the new characters.

-Abyss is added to the monastery, with bells and whistles associated with it like an item/renown exchange.

-Extra sidequests around the monastery.

-Interacting with cats around the monastery.

-A steam house in the monastery to build support points and improve a character's learning for a while.

-A handful of new items, like one that grants Distant Counter when held and one that gives Canto to anyone when held. There are a few new battalions as well.

I'm probably forgetting some things too.

I typically recommend the pass to people who plan to do another full run of TH. Cindered Shadows is quite solid, but the biggest draw of the entire pass for me was getting the new characters in the main game.

I really wish that the game used a better character designer, because the rest of the game looks really solid. Those character designs are genuinely embarrassing though.

When will Fox News stop their war on Christmas?

The nicest thing that I can say about Tim Pool is "Fuck that Nazi bitch."

There's a lot worse that I can say, but I'll keep that much to myself.

alphagamble posted...

How long did that one take to finish?

I like the odd VN but only if it isn't overly long

It's reasonably long, honestly. I believe it took me around 35 hours, and there are a few bonuses and stuff (as well as a side story made later and sold as its own game for a lot cheaper).

I'd still highly recommend it despite it being long, it's absolutely phenomenal.

The House in Fata Morgana. I bought it last year on this Steam sale, and it's easily one of my favorite games of all time.

I'm going to go with no unless you're a diehard Tales fan.

The combat is good and the game looks nice, but that's basically where the positives end.

The story falls off a cliff after the first arc and quickly becomes monotonous and honestly a pretty big waste of time, with most of the first 30~ hours of the game being varying degrees of "We need to defeat the Four Really Mean Dudes" without much else going on. Then the last 10 hours of story goes so batshit stupid that you'll either laugh at it or just groan because it feels like the writers forgot to add a real story until the last chunk and then just awkwardly jammed an incomprehensible mess into the last bit of the game.

The characters largely suck, with most of the main cast either being annoying, boring, poorly-developed, or some combination of those. Character arcs will come out of nowhere and feel comically out-of-place, with a special shoutout to (actual spoilers) when this evil chick murders a whole stadium full of people, and then one of the main party members tries to attack her but is stopped by another party member because of a hamfisted "Revenge is wrong!" theme that comes out of nowhere and feels completely inappropriate given what just happened in the game.

TLDR:
Gameplay good but not THAT good.
Writing is awful.

I'm a long-time Tales fan who kind of hated the entire experience as a whole because the writing was just that bad. Most Tales games are pretty ho-hum JRPGs in the writing department, but they have likable and interesting characters and they have a fun time with their tropiness, but Arise was just a mess. I was super disappointed in it.

Cute kitty. Hopefully she's well-fed and stays safe.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I really hope that things improve soon.

I shot at Tartaglia with 30 pulls and got Layla & C1 on Heizou.

Sadly I have to stop there. I'm under 10k gems and I'm shooting at both Haitham and Baizhu.

Haitham should be a near-lock, as I lost my last 50/50 and I'm 30 pulls into pity after that, but Baizhu is going to be really tight. I frequently miss gems, largely in Spiral Abyss, since I'm a pretty bad player overall. It really comes down to how quickly I get Haitham and then if I can win the 50/50 for Baizhu after that, I think.

The story looks absolutely awful from what they've shown thus far. It's relying way too hard on cameos and callbacks, and the bad guys look comically evil and one-note, even by FE standards.

Oh well. As long as the gameplay is good, that's what matters.

https://twitter.com/FOX13Memphis/status/1590208198857850880

It's one of those "Why was this still around in 2022" things.

Sadly, I think she's still projected to win despite being behind.

It'd be fantastic if she were booted, though. Not as good as seeing MTG go, but a close second.

I can't physically believe that we're really doing this again.

Jeez.

Musk should have stopped when his image was "the cool nerd who's going to invent a bunch of cool shit!"

I mean, it was always a lie. He's just an investor who relies on the hard work of some ridiculously talented people, but he had that strong image going for him for a good while.

But he got too greedy and wanted more social and political influence. Now he's losing tons of money and his public image is just "the clown."

Prismsblade posted...

Not sure why exactly, but regardless this is a pretty solid means of weeding out bots or alt accounts meant to give out misinformation and or troll.

It's not foolproof by any means but if someone is going to do so regardless you may as well get paid for it is how I see it.

It's quite literally the opposite of this. The existing verification system already weeds that stuff out, but by forcing people to pay for it and eliminating verification for those who don't, it opens the door wide open to a lot of bots, scams, misinformation, and trolling. It's a very short-sighted approach that solves nothing in the best-case scenario and only creates a lot of problems in the worst-case scenario.

This is going to backfire really quickly when someone like Wario64 decides not to pay and a bunch of fake scam accounts using his likeness start popping up.

The blue check thing is often really dumb, but it's also kind of necessary for the sake of preventing stuff like that.

As someone who has always vaguely wanted to live in the city...this is a bit of a bummer. The price has always held me back, but this is just flat-out ghoulish.

It would be nice to live in a place where things actually...happen...as opposed to the middle of nowhere, but I don't think I could live like that, and seeing average prices at 5k a month is just absurd.

146 dead, 150 injured as of now.

That's wild, and tragic. Eesh.

Isn't Gale the only one of the OG trio returning?

She's omega doomed. I don't see any way she realistically survives.

She probably has the best design thus far, though she still looks slightly off.

Why? It's part of Treehouse of Horror, and they've parodied random media in that basically since the beginning of it. Sure, most of them are movies, but there's nothing saying it can't be an anime.

Yes, I'm gay. They have not made it subtle at all that gay marriage is one of their top priorities to kill off.

Yeah, it's not totally out of the realm of possibility. Persona 2 had it (sort of), and it's pretty well-known that Yosuke was intended to be a gay romance option in P4, but that it was cut late into development. The possibility is there, at least.

It's lowkey one of the best Body Snatchers-esque movies out there. Super fun movie.

I have literally no idea why you'd remove her.

I mean, she's not that individually relevant to the plot, but the duo was pretty prevalent in the story, and she's pretty well-liked among fans from what I've seen. It doesn't really add anything at all to remove her...?

BloodMoon7 posted...

Funny you should ask

Silver Snow explains how Rhea transplated her blood to him, I don't believe any other route tells you this. Jeralt's actual age is never revealed though and it's something meant to be infered. I guess it could've been covered somewhere but it's been a long time since I played TH.

Hopes covers that point.

If you recruit Jeralt and bring him into battle against Rhea, he says "Really takes you back 300 years, doesn't it?"

It's out there in video form, but the thumbnail is a bit too spoilery and I don't think GFAQs obscures thumbnails even if spoilered.

The church route isn't worth doing unless you really, really, really want to play through TH again. It's a mess.

Trelve posted...

Not him but maybe it's the way the game lies to you to get it's stupid twist to work. It's not technically the ending but it annoyed me all the same. It serves no purpose other to have a twist for the sake of it. Zero Time Dilemma has a similarly stupid twist ending and I'm surprised its not been mentioned.

Ehh, I don't mind that aspect, personally.

There are a lot of plot points in the game that strictly wouldn't work if you had a linear story. I can understand feeling like the twist is a bit cheap, since yeah, the game DOES lie to you, but I understand why they did it. I think it ultimately enhanced the game, even if I can admit that it is a bit cheap.

Garioshi posted...

AI: The Somnium Files 2

Wait, which part?

I loved everything about that game's ending except for the goofy QTE stadium scene, but even that was fine because the rest of the ending was so strong.

Kind of surprised to see it being mentioned here.

That's so fucked up.

I just beat DE for the first time a few days ago, and I'd love a sequel, but hearing this sort of ruins that for me entirely.