Board 8 > SaveEstelle/LeonhartFour in New Houses: Now Featuring More Quinton...? [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Loved it, seen it more than once

Ace Attorney
Attack on Titan
Clannad
Cowboy Bebop
Full Metal Panic!
Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Hyouka
Kaguya-sama: Love is War
Kanon
Kawai Complex Guide to Manors and Hostel Behavior
My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU
Persona 4 The Animation
ReLIFE
Sailor Moon
School Rumble
Steins;Gate
The Disappearance of Yuki Nagato
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Toradora!
Tsuredure Children
Working!!

Really liked it, will watch again

A Place Further Than the Universe
Angel Beats
Baccano!
Eureka Seven
Fate/stay night
Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo
Mob Psycho 100
Planetes
Psycho-Pass
Usagi Drop
Violet Evergarden

Liked it, but probably won't watch again

Air
Azumanga Daioh
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball Z
Fate/Zero
Great Teacher Onizuka
Love Hina
Mobile Suit Gundam 00
Ouran High School Host Club
Sailor Moon Crystal
Sweetness & Lightning
The World Ends With You: The Animation
Trigun
Tsukigakirei
Your Lie in April
Yu Yu Hakusho

Didn't like it, definitely won't watch again

Beyond the Boundary
Code Geass
Persona 4 The Golden Animation
Persona 5 The Animation

Dropped it, never finished

Fullmetal Alchemist
Gurren Lagann
Monogatari
The Slayers

Easy Final Fantasy vote here

This would've been Final Fantasy back in 2001 or so

Currently:

Wheel of Time > Star Wars > Final Fantasy > Mass Effect > Lord of the Rings > Harry Potter > Star Trek > Stranger Things > The Expanse > Narnia

I love everything from Harry Potter up, and ST/ST are both excellent. LotR is weird to compare to the others since I love the movie trilogy and don't particularly care about anything else. Likewise Star Trek: I love Next Generation and like several parts, but there are definitely some huge low points (Picard, Discovery, Enterprise, S2/S3 of TOS...). Star Wars and FF have big low points too, but their high points are too high.

I have no idea what this ranking is based on because I think there is zero consistency.

Star Wars > Lord of the Rings > The Expanse > Mass Effect > Stranger Things > Final Fantasy > Harry Potter > Narnia

Not ranked: Star Trek, Wheel of Time.

Arguably I shouldn't rank Narnia because I read the series back in like elementary or middle school so I remember very little but eh. Final Fantasy and up are good IMO.

Oh I guess I'll do a full ranking too

Final Fantasy >> Harry Potter > Star Wars > Lord of the Rings > Stranger Things > Star Trek > The Expanse

Haven't played/read/watched the other three

Star Wars and Final Fantasy at their best is very good.

so i've beaten like 4 FF games, seen the 9 mainline star wars movies, read the hobbit/LOTR and seen the 2001 trilogy, read/watched the mainline harry potter series, and watched 2 seasons of stranger things. back in the day i also read a lot of star wars EU stuff and might have had some paraphernalia in video games, toys, etc but none of them is really worth chatting here

seen a few episodes of WOT and expanse a

my rankings:

ELITE
harry potter books
LOTR films
ff6

VEEY GOOD
star wars 3, 4, 5
ff7, 8

GOOD
the hobbit
ff4
stranger things
star wars 6, 7, 8

MEH
harry potter films
LOTR books
star wars 1, 2

HILARIOUSLY AWFUL
star wars 9

We need this now

The Rings of Power Episode 3 complete!

Liking the show so far. The various plotlines are all pretty interesting. Getting to see Numenor and meet Isildur was pretty cool. Galadriel continues to be the weakest part of the show though.

That is a ridiculously difficult poll. Like, you yanked two-thirds of my favorite IPs in there. Voted Star Trek, but it wasnt easy.

Star Trek > Final Fantasy > Star Wars > The Wheel of Time > Mass Effect > The Expanse > The Lord of the Rings > Stranger Things

No comment on Harry Potter or Narnia.

I guess I should've put Game of Thrones on here, but I've also never watched the show or read the books.

Final Fantasy > Stranger Things > Mass Effect

Can't comment on anything else lol

Wazy f***ing Hemisphere

Appropriate reaction

Leonhart4 posted...

I guess I should've put Game of Thrones on here, but I've also never watched the show or read the books.

I really want to say read the books but it's hard to recommend when it has been 11 years since we got a book. They're very good though.

Xenoblade 3: Completed. I am feeling many emotions right now and should probably try to process them better before writing but since when have I ever done that. For the non-spoiler part of this post I'll just say this: Excellent game. Absolutely joins XS3 and Xenoblade X as my favorites in the Xeno series. Because I am emotional right now I'd say it could give a run for the top but probably once I settle down XS3 will remain on top but Blade 3 v X is legit. Definitely the best of the numbered Xenoblades.

Okay, spoiler time. So there was good here and there was bad/silly. On the whole I'd say the good outweighed the bad but let me start with the bad so I can spend the rest of this gushing. The final battle got pretty silly after we left the theater. Like that was actually a great fight setting but then Z turned into a giant energy head and Melia and Nia turned their castles into gundams and things got a little out of hand lol. None of that felt necessary in the slightest, think we wnt a bit *too* JRPG right there. Also there was a scary moment when Z split up the party and my Keves team was all attackers and like we were legit going to lose LOL. Reinforcement cutscene actually saved me because Noah and Lanz were 1 HP and Eunie *was* dead. And the NPCs don't revive you. I don't know if you *can* lose there but I came darn close on that side. So yeah, everything about the final battle after Z transformed wasn't very good. Like it had plenty of spectacle but no thanks.

Also, LMAO Rex. That picture just lmao. Also consider me annoyed that Pyra and Mythra were a no-show and Poppi was just there for about five seconds. They were a recurrent part of my theorizing because they damn well should have been significant/present especially if Nia was. And they should have had the ability to if not solve a lot of these problems themselves, then at least provide substantial assistance. I don't know maybe that's why they didn't show because they may have broken the story but it's a glaring hole IMO. Alvis you can explain away as respecting Shulk's wish/command for a world without gods and just letting things play out even as they went sideways hard but those two? The fuck went on there?

But as for the good. The *beginning* of the fight was great. I've always loved Z's theater so I loved having the fight there, especially as he was playing footage behind us of our journey and the banter there. That was the good part of the fight (at least in the presentation, the actual fight fight part bleh.)

And then the ending. So like, okay, I guess I totally misunderstood Nia's explanation (I maintain at the very least there are some inconsistencies/hanging threads with it the way this actually panned out.) I thought the situation was that the two worlds were drawn to one another because they were originally one (Klaus's) and were going to collide and merge back into one... at the cost of destroying everything and everyone in the two worlds while they were split. Melia and Nia's plan was to basically build an Ark that could survive the Intersection by digitizing everything important and then rebuilding it in the new world. Z/Moebius stopped time because of the collective fear of humanity that this may not work (as is suggested to the party by at least one of them) and/or the change that would come of the two societies being put together in their new shared world. ...But I guess no they're literally on intersecting paths and were going to just keep going. and not merge back into one.

On one hand, I'm unsatisfied with this - one because it proves my theory wrong but more importantly I'm too invested in these character relationships for it to end like that... but it's thematically appropriate and extremely effective in that regard. So even though it makes me want to cry it's a beautiful/great ending in that regard.

Not sure what we're supposed to make of the stinger though I may be looknig too much into it. So the intro cutscene is Noah's group right before the intersection and the time freeze happen and the stinger is cutting back to it after Origin successfully rebooted his world. But what's the significance of the off-seer tune there? I dunno i am dum and can't read the symbolism here.

Didn't start postgame yet will do that next time. may cry first.

XB3

Really hated the ending. Makes the whole game feel pointless if they're just gonna revert everything back to the way it was before. Doing the post-game stuff kinda felt like a waste because I knew none of it would matter since the people are all going to be reverted anyway. Would've much preferred them to just wake up everyone in Origin. Definitely the worst ending in a Xeno game. Hoping the DLC takes place after the ending and fixes/explains things in a better way. It's kinda remarkable how much better the side quest stories are than the main story.

Also goddamn was Z lame. It was so pathetic how they kept arguing about philosophy when the real reason the party's fighting Moebius is that Moebius has been forcing humanity to kill each other for thousands of years and their lives are shit. Why in the world would any human be tempted by the "endless now" in a situation like that?

The final battle can be lost at any time. The cutscenes are unskippable, so you have to go through all of them again if you retry it.

Only thing Ill add is Xenoblade 3 cracked my top five, so yeah. Deeply, beautifully, brilliantly emotional.

Xenoblade 3 ending spoilers + Xenoblade 1 and 2 spoilers.

On Noah's side when I only had 3 characters before the Heroes join, I lost and the game just continues. Or at least I thought I did. Maybe the cutscene saved me at the last moment and I didn't notice. I'm not sure about the other parts of the battle when the party is split up. Overall I enjoyed the spectacle but sometimes it was a bit hard to tell what exactly was going on.

That Rex picture is something else isn't it? Like with Pyra and Mythra it sort of makes sense as the natual extension of how Xenoblade 2 ended. But, Nia came as a surprise. Also, I don't recall exactly what Xenoblade 2 said about Blades being able to have children. I think they sort of can since that's where new titans come from? I was also a bit disappointed how little the old Xenoblade 1 and 2 cast played in the main story. Even Melia and Nia don't show up until the very end. I sort of like how Xenoblade 2 did it where the developers lied and said the game was unrelated to Xenoblade 1 so it was a cool surprise when it turned out it wasn't. But Xenoblade 3 sort of felt like it was suppsed to have stronger connections but Xenoblade 1 and 2 stuff didn't really show up that often.

Wait, are the worlds actually just passing by each other? The two worlds splitting apart just seemed to come out of nowhere to me. I also thought the idea was that the two worlds were going to combine permanently until the ending where they suddenly weren't and I had no idea why.

I'm not sure what the very end scene was about. Like I think it was only the playable Noah that met up with Eunie and Lanz and that should have been inside the Endless Now.

XB3:

Mac: I absolutely understand the "it was pointless" feeling but I think that's a lot of what makes it work thematically. It's part of what Z was saying and Mio refutes the idea that it was all meaningless and doesn't matter in the final battle that even if their lives are fated to disappear and be replaced that they were still real and what they did and felt still mattered. There are some games where I think this kind of resonance between what the player is likely/hoped to feel and the game's narrative is accidental but I think Takahashi knew what he was doing here and it just works *really well*. At least for me.

Z is... complicated. I'm not sure if I like the reveal that he's a concept and not a person. I think it muddies some of his character towards the end there and while it works in bringing the theme together with the ending it doesn't do any favors for him as a character. I was a lot more interested in him before that reveal, for example.

Quinton: I know. I really am going to cry later LOL. I can sympathize with Mac hating the ending precisely because I feel like if the game hadn't struck the right balance there's a good chance I'd be right there with him hating the ending. Even now, a good part of me is upset and sad at the bittersweet ending of the worlds separating after all they went through. You do not build up those relationships and have me so emotionally invested in these guys to tear them apart dammit. ...But that was exactly the message the game had been telling the whole time. That feeling *is* also wishing for the "endless now" and so there's a strong resonance between how the characters are feeling and how I was feeling and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

TRE: I don't think the question of "can Blades have children" is ever answered in 2. The Blade lifecycle, as intended, appeared to be that Blades eventually became Titans which gave birth to more Blades. But Zeke very strongly implies there's a black market for "attractive" humanoid Blades with all that implies and Nia herself is a Flesh Eater Blade which might change things even more.

And yeah, they were just passing by one another. Klaus's experiment split the world in two - the Bionis/Mechonis one and Alrest. But Nia says that that connection also means the two are attracted to one another and so they were on a literal collision course. I don't think it's so much physical as kinda metaphysical (although the imagery at times makes it appear such but I think that's less an actual impact event and more symbolic.) However she also describes the worlds as "plus" and "minus" and so when they intersect/meet one another they'll cancel out and destroy everything in their respective worlds. Now this is me theorizing but it seemed solidly rooted but that's what I'm pretty sure the Annihilation Events are. I had thought of it in my own head as a kind of matter-antimatter reaction kind of phenomena. Anyway, furthering the physics analogies, Nia also states that the only thing that will survive this destruction is a kind of "light" and so they devised Origin as a way to convert all life and data they could into that light so it could survive the destruction and be recreated. The nucleus of Origin has those giant Core Crystals which is almost certainly the storage medium they're using. But since Z hijacked things the worlds are being held together artificially/time was frozen. When the party removes him from the picture and allows time to move forward once again, the worlds continue moving on their paths which we see the results in the ending.

As for the Stinger scene, I think the timeline actually goes more like this:

The scene as shown in the Intro depicts Noah and friends well before the events of the game, minutes before the intersection occurs. But as we know, Z hijacks the process and freezes time. For some reason kid Noah here experiences a glitch in the matrix and for a short time has awareness and can move in the frozen time and "see" Alrest loom large in the sky about to intersect with Bionis.

It's at this point the "Endless Now" begins and Noah/N goes through his countless reincarnations, etc. And of course the events of the game.

When we cutback to the scene post-credits, we see time resume again indicating that what we're seeing is happening after the ending and Origin has succeeded in rebooting Bionis to the state before the Intersection. No one except Noah noticed that glitch before so from everyone else's vantage point everything was seamless. Only then Noah hears the off-seer tune and Mio's version of it which is where I start getting confused myself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWYx7A_p_dc

Hype

Big win for my Vols today

Lol Cal (which has pretty much sucked as long as I've been here) is 2-0 and is playing a 0-2 Notre Dame next week

Probably won't win, but it would be funny if they did!

I mean if Marshall can beat Notre Dame why not Cal

Dammit I'm still an emotional wreck over XB3. This is gonna stick with me for a long time. =(

Xenoblade 3 spoilers
I know it was a big deal but the picture wasn't that shocking was it?

XB3: He wasn't lying when he said "I love you... and everyone!" And it's really only Nia that's shocking, IMO. I think the Pyra/Mythra situation was a given given the ending but Nia seemed firmly friendzoned in a similarly brutal way to Melia was in XB1.

Okay, okay, I am so sorry and I truly hope this is the last time I post unprompted about this but this has genuinely hit me in a way that nothing has in nearly 20 years, if ever and I am just emotionally overwhelmed. I literally just tried to cry myself to sleep because I just couldn't deal anymore again.

So, like. Obviously I like stories, and I like video games and so I've read/experienced/played a lot of them. Not as many as some, and heck maybe even on the low end here on Board 8 but still. I like to engross myself in them in what is surely partially an exercise in escapism so I tend to connect pretty viscerally with them at times. When I finish one oftentimes there might be a slight wistful feeling or maybe nothing at all. In rare cases, like say a Trails in the Sky the 3rd or Chaos;Child I may be left with a bit of an emotional hollow feeling as if in having reached the end I feel like it gripped deep enough into me and gouged out a piece of me now that it's gone. It doesn't happen that often but is pretty much always a sign that a story really touched or resonated with me. But given some process time and actually going to sleep it gets better. It's why I joke sometimes that when I'm doing insta-reactions that things will surely come back down to Earth the next day or two.

That's not happening here. It's getting worse.

The more time I have to spend turning XB3's ending (and the game as a whole in light of that) in my mind that feeling is getting worse. It's resonating with me on deeper and more personal levels the more deeply I think about it. And fuck it's tearing me apart. I think the only other media I can think of that has impacted me like this is Evangelion back when I was a teenager and the more I try to consider why that is the more I'm concluding it's because I feel like I'm facing a reflection of myself in them and it hurts. It's beautiful to me but it also just really fucking hurts.

Takahashi, you don't know me but I need to call in a favor here, I know it undercuts the theme and message of the game but I need the Noah/Mio reunion. I just do, okay. I found out who Moebius A is, *I* am Moebius A but I just need this emotionally, please.

Like, dammit, to hell with it the more I ruminate on this, fuck it - Xenoblade 3 is my new #1. If it can do this to me, it almost has to be. Fuck.

.......Also while I said I hope this is the last time I bring this up unprompted because I must sound like a fucking crazy person and also a lot of discussion would require spoiler bars and I really do feel bad about filling the topic with them this won't be the last XB3 post because I still have to start the postgame some time. Fuck.

Yeah, FFVIII is the game that resonated with me like that. I just played it at the perfect time in my life as a 13-year-old. I doubt it'd have had the same impact if I had played it any time other than my teenage years, but because I still remember how this game made me feel and how I see myself every time I peer into Squall's depths, it'll always be my favorite game.

Here to report Dark Road was....alright. Not as substantial for the lore as X, but it was a fine way to do a Xehanort backstory I guess? At least fits in with KH3's attempt at humanizing him.

My fantasy team scored 68 points this week.

Its gonna be a rough season.

I'd be depressed about the Titans if the rest of the AFC South didn't look equally pathetic today

yikes the Cowboys looked so bad tonight

granted the Bucs might just be that much better than them and I expected both Dallas and Tennessee to regress this season, but this might be a rough season

Xenoblade 2 chapter 4 beated.

Game is still good, but progress has been a bit slow mostly because I am also trying to finish grad school this semester, and video games tend to be the first of my hobbies to get sacrificed when I need time for other things.

Mor Ardain is a fun location. Liked it a lot more than any of the mechanical themed levels from the first game.

The bit with Chairman Bana was a bit weird. He was a pretty fun character, so it's a bit of a shame they had him decide to jeopardize his years of careful scheming for no reason by challenging the party to a robot duel when he could have just did nothing and the party would have continued on their merry way. Torna and Morag continue to be fun however, though I do hope the game doesn't hold back too much longer in telling me who some of these characters are and what their motivations are.

Posted in the correct thread this time

Good luck finishing your dissertation!

Xenoblade 2 spoilers up to where pyresword is.
It's been too long and I can't remember why Bana does the things he does other than just because he's Bana. Maybe I should play the game again but my backlog is so long...

Went ahead and did the Torna DLC for Xenoblade 2

Felt extremely padded, especially with all the sidequests, but it was cool. Significantly better than Future Connected, I think.

crazy how I already knew it would be an unhappy ending from the main game and then it just went a few steps further anyway

Torna DLC is very good but it is padded due to the mandatory side quest completion checks. Even if you do every side quest, it isn't even possible to pass the second check before doing the quests that open at the same time. With that said, I did enjoy growing the Community and getting to know all the NPCs so I did all the quests anyways.

Torna DLC spoilers

The ending hit me hard even though I knew exactly what was supposed to happen. RIP Lora ;_;

Torna was great. Lora the best.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Good luck finishing your dissertation!

Thanks! I am really ready to get out of academia at this point.

TeamRocketElite posted...

Xenoblade 2 spoilers up to where pyresword is.
It's been too long and I can't remember why Bana does the things he does other than just because he's Bana. Maybe I should play the game again but my backlog is so long...

He likes money and that's pretty much it as far as I can tell. It's mostly played as a joke but tbh is more relatable than 99% of JRPG villain motivations.

I waver on whether Torna's better than vanilla XB2 or not. Its high points certainly aren't as high, but regular XB2's low points are muuuuuch lower. I didn't mind the side quest thing since I do all the side quests anyways.

She-Hulk Episode 4 complete!

I just hope Madisynn doesn't ruin the name Madison for us because that's actually our first choice if we have a girl...!

I think I finished up everything I want to in Xenoblade 3

Xenoblade 3 post-game spoilers

The Nia and Melia side quests were very good. They make me want more but there isn't anymore. ;_; Also the Xenoblade 1 and 2 music kinda drives how much more more I liked the music in those games compared to 3. Although, the Xenoblade 3 Chain Attack song is really good which is nice because it plays a lot. >_>

I went through the ending again and it still takes like 90 minutes even with maxed out characters. I'm also sad all over again at the ending. I'll start a New Game+ someday but probably not immediately.

updated Theatrhythm hype

TheManaSword posted...

updated Theatrhythm hype

You have my attention

there's that Theatrhythm game I told you about Leon

I just finished watching Sonic X. I've been slowly watching it over the last few months when I'm home alone watching my son (I'd normally watch an episode when I fed him).

I liked the show, but there's such mood whiplash between seasons. Season 1 felt like it wanted to be a silly kids show where Sonic and company interact with humans. Season 2 decided it wanted to adapt Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 (and randomly, Sonic Battle). Season 3 became an outer space adventure saving the galaxy from a group of X-Deaths.

It does have some cool moments though despite its flaws. It's not something I'd watch again, but as a filler show to kill time with my son, it got the job done...!

(Sonic Boom still the best Sonic show)

theathrhythm with buttons instead of the touch screen might get me to try it again

Curtain Call is the best FF game of the last decade

definitely top 3