Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: End of Saga Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Spike damage is fun. In the Switch version they added a big glowing indicator that shows that an enemy has a Spike active. In the original, you could challenge an enemy you think you have the upper hand on and get completely demolished for seemingly no reason because of hard to notice Spike effects.
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Yeah I thought the Alcamoth time limit was gonna be short since the Mechon were invading and that sounded bad, but you have a good bit of time.

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Xenoblade Chapter 10 beated!

Okay, that was an exposition heavy segment. It confirmed a couple things I already knew, namely, that the faced Mechon have people (or at least the shell of a person) inside. They outright showed Fiora to be one of them, and they strongly implied that Mumkhar was the other. They also seem to be endowed with knowledge that they didn't have when they were purely human, since Fiora seemed very familiar with Zanza.

Speaking of Zanza, he gave us a lot of info. He's the forger of the Monado, and he used it to defeat the Mechonis (so the Bionis itself didn't wield the Monado then?). For someone so powerful, you'd think the High Entia wouldn't have been able to seal him away, but after that cutscene with Alvis at the end, I'm partly thinking this is all just part of a grander plan and he's only pretending that he can be beaten.

And along those lines, it seems implied that the High Entia are descended from the Telethia after cross-breeding with the Homs (a rather unpleasant thought, if you ask me).

Oh right, just for reference, I'm at about 55 hours of gametime now.

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Halfway!

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Yeah, that felt like the big midpoint story shift moment.

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Game time-wise its a bit more than halfway, probably like...3/5ths maybe? But yeah, its definitely the first big inflection point in the story.

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The Office Season 4 Episode 9 complete!

This is why I don't like going over to other couples' houses for dinner.

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The Office Season 4 Episode 10 complete!

Oh hey I've seen memes of Jim with the ring before

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The Office Season 4 Episode 11 complete!

I remember getting locked out of our house once when I was like 10 or 11, and my mom and I had to ride our bikes down to the locksmith because this was pre-cell phone and we didn't know anyone well enough to just ask to use their phone since we had just moved in.

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Wakka just got his first Evade & Counter weapon

time for him to start wrecking the main game

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Oregairu S3 Ep11 beaten

Not that the result was ever in doubt but we have a winner! I sort of wonder exactly when Hachiman figured out that Yui liked him. He did say they were a love triangle back in episode 4. >_> As much as I like Yui, I really like Hachiman's interactions with Yukinon. It's a shame that there wasn't really that much of it this season since they tended to be apart for various reasons. It also meant less Hayami Saori. ;_;
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Persona 5 Royal beated.

Whew, this took a lot longer than I expected when I started it up. Kinda puts me in a no-man's land with CS4 on the horizon as well but that's not really what this post is about!

We'll see if this take fades as time passes but P5R is really good. The base game is largely similar and that's a shame - it feels like Golden worked more new scenes in pretty seamlessly. Don't get me wrong, Royal does this as well, both in story/daily life scenes and even reworking the Palaces a bit to accommodate the grappling hook being a thing, though really that's just there to make you look cool but hey that's fine. They also made some very cool changes to the Palace boss fights that I really liked (outside of maybe one example) that made them a lot more fulfilling IMO. I've talked about most of the gameplay tweaks as I went along so I won't rehash that again but suffice to say it's the standard progression of better QoL stuff.

But the real show is the Third Semester. Obviously I won't talk details because I think I might be the only one in the topic who has beaten it? I know user SaveEstelle popped in a few weeks ago indicating he was playing it but other than that I'm not sure anyone else even started it - if they even plan to? I think I can say with complete confidence that the Third Semester content is among the best Persona has put out so far. It was basically approaching/rivaling December/January Persona 3 levels/vibes for me, which, if you know me is basically the highest Persona praise I can give. Absolutely loved the new content, character development, story, Palace, music... everything about it pretty much. But especially the Palace and the endgame. The Third Semester final boss was no Nyx Avatar -> Nyx but I mean, what really can be? But hell if it wasn't gunning for it with how emotionally powerful/resonant it was IMO. Without a doubt it's second only to that confrontation/battle/sequence. Really everything about the Third Semester Palace was top-notch but man it finished incredibly strong.

I also feel like the Third Semester added in a lot of character development that left me really liking the P5 cast a lot more than I did following P5 Vanilla. Maybe even jumping the P4 cast but idk. The fact that they've actually gotten close is something I would have found pretty unthinkable before though.

Basically, as one of those cranky people who has felt P3 > P4 > P5 and therefore a decline over time, Royal's new content was absolutely among the high-points of P3 and actually has me feeling pretty positive about the Persona team's ability to deliver for a Persona 6 because it shows they absolutely still have it in them to produce that level of quality.

I don't mind commenting/answering any questions/giving thoughts if anyone wants them it's just I've tried to keep this post without going into any real details for spoiler purposes.

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Super Mario 3D All-Stars get

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The controls for Sunshine are... much worse than I remember

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it begins

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LordoftheMorons posted...

The controls for Sunshine are... much worse than I remember

Aren't they the exact same as 64? Except for the fludd thing because no pressure sensitive triggers

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Sunshine has so much more smooth controls and a working camera. The long jump is missing I suppose.

I wanted to play them in release order, but instead I'm playing Sunshine in between 64 because I'm not having as much fun with the latter.

And still saving the best for last.

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I think that last scene confirmed that Dunban is my favorite character so far.

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okay that was really strange

I was just circling the outside of Eryth Sea to try to fill in the map some and maybe find something I'd missed

when I found the secret area it automatically filled the rest of the map in for me

which is nice don't get me wrong because this area is huuuuuuuuge

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F/GO: taiga is very powerful

argh a bit stumped on this challenge quest for now. If I take a Friend Skadi and am willing to use a Command Seal or two I can take out the other two with Berserkalot (he can break them both Turn 1 but Nobu can survive another blast on her second bar), but then Taiga just methodically solos my team after that. Fujino is far and away my best ST Buster option but well... Lancer. After that it's like... Jeanne Alter Berserker and maybe NP1 Bedivere?

I'm at 1 CS right now so I'm holding off until I get back to two at least but I'm wondering if maybe I can like fit Rider Ishtar in as a poor man's Skadi with her Quick Buff use the CSs to make up for the loss in NP Batteries and take a Friend Musashi or something to try and beat Taiga but I'm not exactly thrilled with the idea because even if that works up to that point it's so reliant on the Command Seals that if something goes wrong or I make a dumb mistake it's basically over. =(

Like it'd be some twisted form of: Berserkalot/Waver/Rider!Ishtar/Friend Musashi/Mash/Bedi or Jeanne Alter. Maybe Poster Girl on Ishtar and have her tank the first two-three turns as a sacrifice idk.

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It's a tough one. My victory was by a tiny margin, and I had to give it a few tries to get good hands on turn 1 and such. Definitely more brutal than any of the other CQs this year. I don't know if you can do it without a strong Saber to take out Taiga (you can save one of the others for last too, if you want, though not if you're using Zerkerlot).
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Yeah, I might not be able to take this one on. Which would be a bit disappointing for me but ah well. We'll see, I'll probably give it another look tomorrow - including taking a look at making one of the others last like you say. My gut is I don't really have a good loadout for that but admittedly I haven't given it too critical a consideration yet.

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LeonhartFour posted...

okay that was really strange

I was just circling the outside of Eryth Sea to try to fill in the map some and maybe find something I'd missed

when I found the secret area it automatically filled the rest of the map in for me

which is nice don't get me wrong because this area is huuuuuuuuge

That's normal. When you find all the landmarks and locations in a particular area, the entire map gets filled in.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

That's normal. When you find all the landmarks and locations in a particular area, the entire map gets filled in.

oh huh, I didn't realize that since this is the first time that's happened

I guess I need to find a way to get to that one area in Makna Forest where the bridge is out, unless that's something that isn't available until later.

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There is at least one area in Makna Forest you can't access right now.
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My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU Season 3 Episode 11 complete!

That was the most awkward confession I've ever seen.

And it was everything it should have been.

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Got the first 10 stars in Galaxy

I think I only got to like 70 or something in the Wii version

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Dragon Ball Episode 131 complete!

In which Goku and Popo play some hide and seek, and drunk Krillin wins a street fight.

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When my friend first got me into Dragon Ball, it was through a different english dub because for some reason the first 13 episodes weren't done by funimation until much later or something? Or at least not released.

Anyways they used this opening which I still really like. It feels much more american tv show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mht7phPbd0Y

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I've only ever seen the first 13 episodes of the original Dragon Ball series and that was the only English OP I've ever known. I just looked up the other one an I'm not entirely sure I've ever seen or heard it before.
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The other one is the Japanese opening just dubbed.

IIRC Funimation started with DBZ and it was another company that did the original series even earlier.

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I've definitely seen the Japanese opening a few times before so I apparently just forgot.
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Yeah, that was the Ocean Group dub (the same ones that also did the initial run of Z on Toonami before Funimation took over) that aired in like 1995 (?)

Theres actually an even older dub from Harmony Gold thats a few years older thats super weird and mostly lost to time, although I think some footage resurfaced recently. Goku is named Zero in that one.

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Oh yeah I've heard of this Zero Goku before.

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Two grand stars down

I think Im liking it a little more without the motion controls

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Looking forward to seeing how they handled some of the more annoying motion control stars

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There is still some gyro stuff even in handheld mode, but being able to spin without shaking a wiimote is a game changer

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This is why it's good to have two favorite teams.

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well I'm glad we could add to Atlanta's trauma by somehow managing to win that game

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Falcons should just assume every team they play operates with rubber-band AI. If they ever get too far behind they'll rocket back and shoot past them without fail.

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Growing up in and around Georgia, I have many friends and family members who are Falcons fans, and I don't know how they keep being fans. It's not like being a Browns fan when you're just bad all the time. The Falcons just have things that happen to them that just don't happen to other teams at the worst possible moments.

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maybe it's the rollercoaster of emotions

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well I think I'm finally ready to advance the main plot in Xenoblade

so many sidequests opened up at the start of the chapter, and I got a bunch of them to trigger just by going around and talking to everyone again

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The mountain at night is pretty cool

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Yeah, it's one of my favorite areas.

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good music too

I mean the whole game has good music, but I like the Valak night tune a lot

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The Mana Sword posted...

good music too

I mean the whole game has good music, but I like the Valak night tune a lot

I think the night themes have generally been better than the day themes. Gaur Plains is probably the one exception off the top of my head.

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I think Id split them pretty evenly. I like Colony 9, Guar Plains, Frontier Village, and probably Makna day better.

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Give me some book recommendations. I've got a few Audible credits and nothing in particular that I'm just dying to read. It can be fiction, nonfiction, whatever genre. I'm not too picky when it comes to books.

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How do you read books? Audiobook only? E-Reader?
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