Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: The Great Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Well he completed passes but he wasn't facing blitzes and the Giants were playing off on coverage so it'd have been extremely worrying if he wasn't.

But the O-Line was not holding up as well as I'd like to feel good when teams actually start playing defense for real. >_>

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the one thing I learned about the Titans' preseason game is that Matt Barkley is one of our backups now!

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Finally got back to re-watching MCU movies again and watched Ant-Man and the Wasp tonight. Gotta say, the MCU has had some dud villains, but Ghost might be the lamest one of all.

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GAA2 beated

Man, that last case was... a lot. The Professor case (and Stronghart's subsequent actions) almost felt like a rehash of SL-9 from 1-5 (and Gant's subsequent actions), except with the twist that the convicted person wasn't the actual serial killer. Which... man, I'm really not sure how I feel about that twist (I suppose it's not -meant- to feel good, just that the whole thing was really dark for AA). Also really not big on the direction Kazuma's character went.

There was one point about the last murder that I wasn't sure about - not sure if I missed something here. (spoilers for G2-5) It discusses how Jigoku got the body to the flat in Fresno Street, but I don't recall any mention of him leaving the flat after doing so. Did no one see him leave? Was he hiding? Just a weird point to not address.

Overall I think G1-5 was better than the big case here, but the first half was much stronger than GAA1 was before G1-5. I'd like to say GAA2 is still the better game overall, but I'm not sure. Probably need some time to reflect on them.

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Yeah, the end is a bit heavy for an AA game. I also think Kazuma's character development is probably a victim of getting cut from three games to two. They probably make that feel less rushed or abrupt if they have another game to work through it.

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I feel like I agree with you on the GAA games, Janus. G2-3 was great, but G2-5 is one of the worst cases in the series - it has the "advantage" over other bad cases in that it's super long and the culmination of two games of buildup, which makes it extra bad. Prosecutor Kazuma sucks, vindicating him by having his dad be innocent all along (though it's interesting to think of this being a dark twist instead), and I really didn't care about "the truth of ten years ago" after G2-3, which gave me exactly what I wanted. Sherlock's magic holograms were damn awful too and might've ruined the case if it wasn't already bad. At least Jigoku's a cool villain. Having the judge be the bad guy was great.
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Utawarerumono: Mask of Truth beated.

Hmm. This was certainly better than the first game. Basically every character has a much better showing here (other than the devil made flesh, Kuon). Haku especially is a huge improvement, along with Nekone. The game being more serious is a big plus, though the comedy was somewhat improved as well. I wouldn't say it's necessarily the best part of the game, but the opening few hours is when I most into it. Everything was a big change, and they were consistently delivering good content. Unfortunately, I still feel like the pacing wasn't the greatest in general. There are some real slow parts where they're hanging around in Emmakamuy not really doing anything for hours, particularly the spot of the game after Kuon comes back. There's a lot more bad comedy content there. Even the serious content can be a bit slow at times, but that's better. There's a spot maybe 2/3 of the game where they mention a certain battle being the final battle, but the game stretches out quite a lot beyond that. Not necessarily in bad ways, but it generally felt like too much.

I generally wasn't that into the villains. None of the masterminds felt particularly smart, especially Raiko. He's supposed to be a super strategist but almost none of his strategies are really good. Woshis being the one who poisoned Mikado and Anju is super obvious, but no one figures it out. The whole final battle happens because Kuon is an evil asshole who can't accept people dying (am I the only one who hates the cliche of people insulting their friend as that friend dies?). What was even the message of the end of the game? "If your friend/love interest dies, don't ever get over their death?" I despised that part too. I hated the harem aspects too, which are cranked up from Deception. It feels more natural in Uta 1, since that's a hentai game and the MC bangs all the girls, but it sucked in Deception/Truth where it's absolutely pointless.

Question: Why did Hakuowlo let Woshis have the Master Key? It feels like a lot of death and destruction would've been avoided if he'd given it to Haku instead.

On the plus side, the gameplay is way better here. The mechanics have a lot more depth to them, and there are way more interesting battles. I understood the mechanics quite a bit better, and though I still didn't grasp all of them by the end (particularly the elemental stuff), I definitely got them better than I did in Deception. And it did succeed in being emotional occasionally. My favorite scene in the game was when Oshtor's mother revealed that she knew Haku's true identity and viewed him as a second son. Gimme more of that. That's the real shit.

In conclusion, the game's definitely an improvement over Deception, but I still liked the first game best. This wasn't quite the Muv-Luv Alternative to Deception's Extra.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

This wasn't quite the Muv-Luv Alternative to Deception's Extra

Maybe I should have explicitly said this when you were playing through Mask of Deception, but I don't really think these scenarios are comparable anyways. It's true that most people would say that Mask of Truth is the highlight of the Mask games, but Muv-Luv is an entirely different beast. I think Mask of Deception/Truth fans tend to say that Deception ranges from okay to good and Truth is great. Whereas with Muv-Luv, my experience is that Muv-Luv Extra is universally hated even among people that will swear by Alternative being one of the greatest stories ever written.

Your reaction to Mask of Truth is about what I expected based on how you were talking about Mask of Deception, if not a bit more positive, especially since not liking Kuon is a kind of a death knell when it comes to getting anything out of a noticeable portion of the emotional beats the game is going for.

Generally agree with your comments on the pacing. I think parts towards the middle and end drag on a bit too long, though as a huge Kuon fan there are some parts I minded a lot less than others.

Mac Arrowny posted...

Question: Why did Hakuowlo let Woshis have the Master Key? It feels like a lot of death and destruction would've been avoided if he'd given it to Haku instead.

I never understood this part either tbh
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One thing I'll add is that I always liked the sci-fi parts. Mikado coming back was kinda BS, but I didn't mind, because his parts were generally great.
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Mac Arrowny posted...

Question

I just assumed that it was some arbitrary rule/jerk move set by the Uitsalnemetia part of Hakuowlo because otherwise you're right it makes very little sense.

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Dragon Ball Z Episode 143 complete!

Ah, so this dude is Cell. I'd heard of him, but I didn't know what he looked like. It looks like he can absorb other people's powers and energy, kinda like Dr. Gero and that other android. I wonder if he's the android that Trunks fights in his future, and he absorbed the powers of the Z-Team after he defeated them or something. The others say they can sense the presence of Goku, Piccolo, Vegeta, etc. in him, and he can do a Kamehameha, so maybe!

Also, thank you for boosting Piccolo's power levels so he can have a real battle again!

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are you watching with the falcouner music? i freaking love the cell introduction episode with the bass line. fantastic character design, too.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

are you watching with the falcouner music? i freaking love the cell introduction episode with the bass line. fantastic character design, too.

I have no idea what music Funimation uses.

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Funimation streaming uses the JP music.

Faulconer music is lost to time (and like one of the VHS releases)

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Faulconer music is pure cheese

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Fire Emblem Three Houses Azure Moon Chapter 17 beated.

Man, that was even less satisfying than I expected and I set the bar fairly low I thought! So after all that, they find a Kingdom messenger dead but can't confirm who was the cause and just go "welp guess we can't count on the Alliance" which, okay, fine. But then for the battle Claude and the Alliance show up and they're enemies just because?

I actually ran this mission twice to test something. The first time (and the one my save is following): I split some of my army up and left some in Alliance aggro range being 99% sure they'd attack, which they did, and then I just rolled over them. There was even some good "Why are we even fighting, Dimitri? This is insane!" and "Isn't the Empire our common enemy, Professor?" from Claude and Hubert basically laughing his ass off at the friendly fire before we surrounded Edelgard. But then I replayed the fight out of sheer curiosity of if *anything* changed if I left the Alliance alone and... nope. Claude sits there for like two turns then goes "welp can't tell the Empire and Kingdom apart, guess we'll just have to kill everyone who isn't us lol" and starts moving his whole army. And despite the fact I eliminated every single Empire unit, including Edelgard, before any of his units took damage or saw combat he just... keeps on coming. Hell, Claude himself was the first Alliance unit to engage in combat... against us! And then has the nerve to give that exact same "Why Dimitri?" battle convo when I had Dimitri move up there and it's like "cuz we already beat the Empire and you're literally attacking us anyway bro."

So. Yeah. That wasn't great.

Oh and I guess Dimitri is no longer Punished Dimitri. Think it should have been Rodrigue's death and final words that snapped him out of it and not Byleth like one scene later. Would have felt more earned imhotbqh, especially since they literally give you a flashback of Rodrigue promising to Lambert to put Dimitri back on the right path if he ever fell to the dark side but whatever.

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FE3H: yeah, they really don't sell that battle well. I think it works a bit better from the GD side because you can just wave it off as insanity on Dimitri's part but either way it feels like an excuse to fight every student you didn't recruit even if that makes no sense.

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Janus5k posted...

FE3H: yeah, they really don't sell that battle well. I think it works a bit better from the GD side because you can just wave it off as insanity on Dimitri's part but either way it feels like an excuse to fight every student you didn't recruit even if that makes no sense.

Since I did Blue Lions first, I really felt the gut punch of killing off a bunch of those characters because it did feel so senseless, so I guess in that sense, it was kind of effective!

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Three Houses spoilers up to where you are.
RIP Fleche ;_;

But yeah, that battle isn't sold very well. I think the idea of the battle was a super cool idea. But, the writers simply couldn't come up with a good reason for it to happen but they went with it anyways.
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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Three Houses spoilers up to where you are.
RIP Fleche ;_;

Silver lining: Assuming the Alliance collapses as a result of all this she won't have to bear witness as all her actions end up accomplishing is probably making Dimitri the ruler of all Fodlan.

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bruce faulconer music in the DBZ dub was pretty good (and occasionally great) but waaay too limited. i got so sick of hearing the same couple of themes over and over and over again.

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Now that Tim Tebow has been released by the Jaguars, Colt McCoy is the only QB from the 2010 draft class who is still in the league.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Colt McCoy

who

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Nick's favorite quarterback

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I have finally moved beyond where the anime left off in the Kaguya-sama manga, and I've gotta say, based on just the first handful of chapters, Miko is going to be the breakout star of season 3!

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Miko is indeed great.

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I learned that we share a mutual love of ASMR

although we definitely don't enjoy the same kinds of ASMR

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What chapters are you on? I believe S2 skipped 90-99 and ended with 100-101, so I'm not sure S3 will go back and do the chapters in the 90s.
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Yeah, I'm right there at that point in the manga (although they did include that rice cooking chapter from the 90s range in the OVA).

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potential good news I'm not at liberty to announce quite yet but it will be exciting if it works out

that's called a tease, folks

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wow chaos;child playthrough at last i'm hyped

(Seriously, hope it does work out!)

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Dragon Ball Z Episode 143 complete!

Ah, so Cell's goal is actually to absorb the other androids and become "perfect." Of course, there's no way this doesn't eventually happen, so I guess we can safely identify him as the "real" threat of this arc!

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man I wish Playstation controllers had the battery life of Nintendo Pro Controllers

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one of my most tense gaming moments was playing... berseria... i think (maybe zestiria?) on critically low batteries trying to make my way to a save point

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the pro controller really does seem like it lasts forever

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I don't get why the PS controllers are so bad! It's not like the PS4/PS5 controllers are even light, so that's not an excuse.
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xp1337 posted...

one of my most tense gaming moments was playing... berseria... i think (maybe zestiria?) on critically low batteries trying to make my way to a save point

yeah I've had a couple of gaming situations where I had to keep hitting the PS button and getting a few seconds of life to inch little by little to a save point lawl

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can't you just like

plug in the controller

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The Mana Sword posted...

can't you just like

plug in the controller

the cord is so short that I don't like to play with it plugged in so I'm just trying to get to a stopping point since I'm not going to keep playing anyway

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LeonhartFour posted...

the cord is so short that I don't like to play with it plugged in so I'm just trying to get to a stopping point since I'm not going to keep playing anyway

Yeah, same lol.

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right, I mean just in the case where you're crawling to a save point, just plug it in for 2 minutes to get there!

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well if I know I'm close, I'll just gut it out

I have had to plug it in a time or two just because it was going to take a little time to get through wherever I was

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I have a socket next to where I sit so I just plug it in there if I'm low.
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What If...? Episode 2 complete!

Much better than the first episode. Kind of strange to have an alternate story where everything here turned out better for everyone than the original!

well, almost everyone

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Welp, it burned four days of my vacation, but I think I've successfully dealt with finding a new roommate...!

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I'm glad I've never had to deal with finding roommates. It does seem like a pain.

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I've been lucky enough to be able to live alone for most of my post-college life. Roommate stuff does seem like a mess, but hopefully it all works out.

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Yeah living by myself would definitely be more convenient at this point, but its very hard to justify paying 1.5-2x as much in a high cost of living area on a PhD stipend!

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I'm about a quarter into Wheel of Time book 6, and it's been really good so far. Definitely intrigued by what they're setting up here.

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oh ya go my mazrim taim
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