While I'm absolutely delighted at the prospects of owning that figure, with how unreliable my paying/shipping methods are, now I'll have another reason to stay awake at night :D I felt a little feverish when you sent me this link - sometimes being too passionate about something has its own drawbacks, especially because of things which are outside of one's control.
Since I didn't play with Kuro's NISA's TL myself I can only speculate based on hearsay, but I think "Beauty's Blade" is likely the most infamous case of mistranslation because it is self-evident, i.e. one doesn't need to know Japanese to know that Sword Maiden, which is already an English title/nickname doesn't need to be translated. "Tyrant" is similar, because Taikun/Tycoon is a thing in English too, albeit much less known. For me personally, however, it's not as bad as when the dialogue gets re-written - when I was playing Cold Steel III and IV, what I've been hearing in audio and what I've been reading in NISA's sub was quite often different and it annoyed me a lot. Someone like Juna is a completely different character in JP and NISA's TL, for example, because originally she's just a kind and energetic girl, whereas TL injected her with a lot of sarcasm which wasn't supposed to be there. I think this might actually explain why I've seen some people disliking her. That is to say, after what I experienced in CSIII and IV as well as hearing about "Beauty's Blade" in Kuro, I don't trust NISA. Fan TL, at the very least, is mostly accurate, although admittedly it's difficult to check if it's true for silent dialogue as well.
On the technical side of things, I have no complains at all. This port feels like it's the best it could possibly be. I also appreciate that they included the p3a tool in the official release, it helped me to easily explore the game's files. I even tried making a few mods:
- The first one makes the UI in English, but leaves the dialogues in Japanese. This one worked, so during my raw replay I can focus on reading what the characters are saying instead of getting distracted by other things.
- For the second one I wanted to make Shizuna playable in prologue and remove all other party members - I thought it could be a fun and challenging way to replay the game since it would be way harder to fight with just one character.
However, even though I managed to add her and then remove Agnes & Van from the party (what happens if you click talk to her on the screenshot above), there were some issues which prevent me from playing it this way and I have no idea how to fix them.
Well, compared to Bergard and some other prominent figures Van, despite all his vast experience and sharp intuition, is still a kid. I like how pretty much everyone treats Bergard with respect, really shows how great of a reputation he has, especially when it is combined with such imposing physique. I wasn't aware his seiyuu voiced Blackbeard, by the way. I stopped watching OP on 819th ep, so it's been quite a while since then.
I see, so it is as expected. I wish I could buy this stuff whenever I want without relying on time-limited offers, but I guess it would be a pain for the distributor to manufacture these things this way. Too expensive/bothersome.
True. I think there is a lot of everyday wisdom in those little quests, they remind me of fairy tales I used to read when I was a kid a bit because of this - there are always some kind of life lesson in them.
That's a really cool-looking figure and it's always nice seeing figures being owned by people who clearly love the character they have depicted on them :D. Makes me want to re-watch Re:Creators. I don't remember it that well to be honest.
I have the same playstyle as you do and yeah I can see how some of these things might be a little bit frustrating. One of the examples I can think of is the treasure chest achievement in the 3rd: when I started replaying this game I wanted to open all treasure chests because I didn't do it in my previous playthrough, but midway I realized that to get that achievement I also need to click on them after opening to read the message so it was impossible to do it at this point.
Hotline Miami is one of the most popular Indie games out there. It's the opposite of comfy jrpgs: very bloody and deals with a lot of unwholesome themes like drugs, murders, etc., its artstyle is the opposite of pretty too. Despite this, the story is decent, gameplay is very fun and OST is addictive; it's also relatively short. I think you only need ~10 minutes to understand whether you're going to like it or not.
I've added Simoun to my plan to watch list so perhaps I will see what kind of character she is at some point; my watching speed is very slow these days, though, so it won't happen soon. Hmm, I don't think I have a preference like that. The only other white haired girls I can think of are Irisviel and Hanai Mikazuki.
And while I do find them to be great characters, there is no such strong emotional attachment.
As for the male characters, most of my favorites come either come from visual novels or video-games. I'm not very knowledgeable about YuGiOh unfortunately and the only trading card game I played is Shadowverse.
I guess we're close in age so it's natural that we used to play similar games. The real surprise is Jedi Academy because you're probably the first among my friends who has played it. I remember replaying this game several times, playing it online, playing it with mods, etc. Its lightsaber duels were incredibly fun. About Heroes 4, I think it was inferior as a strategy, but its RPG maps were super fun and OST was just as good as in the third game. I haven't played the second one, but my other friend think it's the best in the series.
Hmm, I wonder what was the issue with MAL back then that it didn't load properly even though other sites worked normally?
Who would you add to your "disliked characters" if such a thing existed on MAL? As for unlimited numbers of favorites though... I wish there was something like "choose your #1 character" instead, so that it would be possible to open character's page and see the number of people who have him or her as their number one besides the total "member favorites" stat.
Man, I love that island; had so much fun exploring it, driving the car, etc. Definitely one of my favorite locations in the series - Harwood has some really high-class taste ha-ha. Can't wait to re-visit it once again some day.
I planned to reply as soon as I was done replaying Kuro I, but it took way longer than I was expecting. It's been only a little more than two years since my first playthrough, but I already forgot how long chapter five and finale were; I think they constitute around ~35% of the whole game by playtime. Overall, I'm feeling a bit frustrated because under different circumstances I could be playing Kai instead, but it was a time well spent nonetheless. As a matter of fact, I forgot some of the little details about the first Kuro game, so getting a refresher was nice; and even though I've already played it before, it was still an emotional journey - I teared up from time to time, e.g. the final part when Van accepts his fate, but his helpers don't.
Some others things of note:
- It was my first time playing on NISA's port. I didn't use their EN TL so I can't evaluate it, but performance-wise it was better than CLE's version.
- Got 44 out of 53 Steam achievements.
- Missed 2 dishes somewhere and 1 enemy for the notebook achievements; also failed to get "MVP" notebook achievements because Aaron ended up getting MVP in all chapters except first.
- Picked Ikaruga for chapter 5 again... I'll try to play other routes eventually, at least to see how Shizuna and Kurogane appear in them.
- Was reminded how awesome Bergard was. I wish I had a mentor like this when I was younger.
- Made a bunch of save files before/during Shizuna's appearances to read all her lines in Japanese later. Like I've mentioned before, I'm not fluent enough to play such a heavy-text game fully raw, but comprehending specific parts of the text is doable with my current knowledge and the help of some tools. As weird as it might sound, I want to immerse myself in her every word, which is difficult to do when the lines aren't voiced.
Going back to previous topics.
Owning a complete physical collection of Kiseki would be awesome. I'd still be worrying that they might become unusable in the future, however.
Since I'm completely in the dark about console market, can you tell me about their physical releases? Are they "time-limited" the same way other merch typically is? I.e. a certain number of discs is made and then sold, whereas new ones aren't being manufactured afterwards?
I'm curious, what figurine did you purchase? It's fine if you don't want to share for some reason.
Taking a break is perfectly fine in my book. Talking to NPCs is one of the charms of this series, so it's better to take a break than skip them altogether. Sometimes it amazes me how many different stories are being told through citizens of Liberl, Crossbell, Erebonia and Calvard. For example, the family of Curtis in the old town of Edith is something that millions of real families need to see.
I'm very particular about how I play, so I don't use guides; I also don't re-load on my first playthroughs when I select wrong choices in dialogue. Well, I'm only this strict with Kiseki, with most other games it depends on the situation. For example, even though I do like Hotline Miami, I did google a bit to find some things. Are you familiar with this game, by the way?
Yeah, your MAL favorites have a certain pattern... Do you place them in order (i.e. Morinas > Vladilena > Altair) or randomly? Also, interesting that this Reiji is the only male character there. Two of my friends like Aurelia a lot, probably have her in their top-10 Kiseki favorites. I like her too, but there are many others I like more.
Ha-ha, having less than 200 but more than 100 CP always felt like such a waste. I think the further S-craft nerf is fine.
Hm, I never played Roller Coaster Tycoon. Looking at screenshots, it reminds me a bit of SimCity, but they're probably completely different. I don't have any old games I play to this day, but I can name some I played a lot long ago (15 years ago or more): Warlords Battlecry III, Diablo II, C&C: Generals, Civilization III, Space Rangers 2, Heroes of Might and Magic (3 & 4), Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Rome: Total War, GTA (3 and vice city). Nothing else comes to mind right now.
I think MAL is great. I like how customizable profiles are and I met a lot of interesting people here with whom I enjoy talking to. Forums are a bit of a mix, however.
That friend of mine whom I mentioned before could play any role equally well and enjoyed them all; people like that have better time with this sort of game since they're never forced to spend their time on something they don't like doing. I've been thinking about this for a bit and realized I probably spent at least a thousand of hours on this game. Instead, I could've watched ~3000 anime episodes and it would be much more meaningful in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly, I've never owned a proper disc of any game. In the 00s the only discs that were being sold in my town were cracked versions and by the time they ceased to exist online stores became a thing. It doesn't help that I'm a PC only (only played Sega Mega Drive when I was like 6), and even though I'm not 100% sure about it, I think physical copies of PC games aren't being made anymore. At least your friend has something good to look forward to once he finally decides to play CSIII and onwards. As for shipping, VAT and other expenses, yeah... The last time I bought two figures which were priced for ~$250 (total, not individually) I ended up paying ~$580 because of all that extra stuff, meaning I paid ~$330 for shipping and other stuff. Actually, you might find this silly, but I experience a sense of dread whenever I check sties like Amiami because if a Shizuna figure will be announced, I'm not ready for this financially and getting things here is super difficult - I have to involve several people to make it happen.
In the past, whenever a new Kiseki game came out, I'd focus on it entirely and play it for ~12 hours a day and I never felt burned out :P It's been getting more difficult with age, however. Kuro II took me a whole month. But talking to you, it feels like there are primarily two types of Kiseki players - the ones who play mainly for the story and ignore all the rest and the ones who talk to every NPC, play on the hardest difficulty, etc. - and it looks like both of us are the latter.
Whenever she was available both in Kuro I and II, I used Shizuna as the party leader too, although not because of her strength haha. Her 3D model and moves are just so unbelievably beautiful.
Hopefully we'll get to see Nadia and Swin alongside Rufus and Lapis a lot in Kai. I have really high expectations for this game.
How do you feel about S-boost being a requirement for the usage of S-crafts? I think it was a good change because spamming S-crafts usually more efficient than normal crafts, but that makes fights a bit boring.
What are some other old games you liked to play in the past?
By the way, I noticed an interesting numerical coincidence: you joined MAL 3 years before I did and your birth year is also 3 years earlier than mine :D
Before the role selection was implemented, I remember there were a lot of fights in the lobby and sometimes matches proceeded with trolling, e.g. two people going mid and one of the other roles being empty. However, even when role select became a thing, if you don't like playing support, you could be often forced into that role. My personal preference was mid > top > adc > jungle/support. Since I didn't care about my rank (even though I played ranked), it wasn't very fun spending ~40 minutes or more in a role I didn't like, so I find your situation relatable. And yeah, Riot's philosophy of changing things for the sake of changing things isn't very compatible with old players coming back to the game. But unfortunately, that's just how it is with online games. Honestly, I don't fully trust online stores when it comes to single player games either. That's why even though I have Kiseki games on Steam, I have cracked copies of them stored on my PC and 3 external HDDs, so even if Steam closes and these games become unattainable via other means, I'll still have this sort of "insurance". It's a bit extreme, but to me this series is more important than all the other games and other forms of entertainment combined. My only worry is that hardware and software (Windows) might become incompatible with older games at some point and in that case I don't know what to do :(
By the time I'm replying to you, you've probably progressed much further in Kuro II and already added Shizuna to your party. Compared to Kuro I, she has much more screen-time and is a full-fledged team member this time, so you can imagine why I love this game so much :D And I agree on combat: what Kuro I had I think is the best combat system in the whole series and Kuro II improves it even further. Also agreed on Swin/Nadia, it's always a joy having them around. As I understand it, time-travel is a controversial topic among the players, but I was fine with it.
This one, right? It's good it has a PC client, I'm not really into phone gaming, whereas emulators like BlueStacks have performance issues. It's nice seeing that more and more mobile games end up on PC.
Thanks for explaining, it looks like it's worth getting into... Hopefully I'll have time for that.
Well, when you think about it logically, it's definitely better to play several single-player games to completion than spend the same amount of time on Summoner's Rift doing the same thing over and over. I mostly played Ranked because there were too many trolls in normal and the skill gap between the players was often too big, but I generally didn't care about my rank (the highest I ever got was Diamond 5). Whether you're in Diamond or Bronze, it's pretty much the same thing - team members are still toxic, just better at mechanical and strategical parts of the game. I think it only starts to matter if you can play/stream professionally and earn money, but I wasn't ever at such a level.
How is your Kuro II progress so far? I decided to replay the first game and as always can't get enough of how beautiful it is.
You're playing the English version, right? How time-consuming it is (dailies, etc.)? Is it a story-heavy gacha or the one that has a nominal story instead? My favorite character in the offline game was Cherie, by the way. But no amount of original Langrisser character will fill the void left by missing Kiseki collabs :(
I used to play League of legends the most in 2012-2015 time period. It was fun when I was doing it with a friend in voice chat, but playing it alone felt meaningless. Who were you favorite champions to play? Mine Ahri, Katarina, Riven, Viktor and Ashe.
I'm extremely hyped even without this kind of information, ha-ha... Can't wait to play it. I have a feeling it'll end up my favorite game.
Langrisser I & II is one of my favorite games, but I've never tried playing its mobile version... Maybe instead of all the other gacha I experienced and then dropped, I should've tried this one :( It's probably too late to start now, especially if I missed Kiseki collabs.
Do you have some experience with those games? I mean MOBAs, battle royal games, etc.
Unfortunately, no - I don't own a console and as always it seems like it'll take some time before PC release comes into existence. I'm trying to avoid any kind of spoilers, so I don't look up anything related to it on youtube and other sites.
Happy Birthday! Hopefully you're having a great time!
_________
Even though Shizuna is obviously the number one for me, the results of that popularity poll are still surprising: for some reason I didn't expect her to end up being first, even above Van. Another curious thing is lack of Aaron on the guys' side.
Can't argue against the ILF members' motivations being more interesting, although I also think that story-wise the "world was unfair to me" is a perfectly valid cause for a villain's actions. Even in real life there are plenty of people who would gladly see the world burn because they've been dealt a bad hand in life. Melchior and Dantes are definitely one of the most unhinged characters in the series, which is on the rare side of things because most of the time it's easy to be sympathetic for antagonists.
I see, looks like WoW still goes strong. The two mmorpgs I've played the most were Perfect World and Age of Wushu, but it's been more than 10 years since then. Seems like this genre has been replaced by gachas for the most part.
It's a bit of a shame Roy became the president only after Osborn has died, it would've been interesting to see how they interact with each other on a political level. In my opinion, Osborn was the most imposing figure in the series.
It's okay; I don't mind waiting for a reply and sometimes it can take me a while to reply back too. Are you a veteran WoW player? I never tried it, but I remember some of my classmates used to play it in ~2008.
I guess that's true about Agnes and Feri and Fie are definitely not clones of each other.
Nice, have fun. You mean Elaine, right? What are those polls, by the way? I wouldn't mind taking a look at them.
That's understandable, although I don't think Imperial Liberation Front was that different; definitely more likeable, however.
All ASO members are connect to one shady group or the other, but Agnes is just a normal student, even though her background is anything but ordinary. In a way, she is very similar to Alisa and Elie, both of whom come from prestigious families, are relatively normal and support the protagonist in the most direct way. Some people consider her to be boring, but her "normalcy" was very refreshing to me, again - especially in the context of other characters present in Kuro. When I did that sorter I linked to you, she ended up at 5th place among girls for me which is extremely commendable given how many amazing characters this series have. I wonder, can you guess who were ranked higher?
I don't think it's their lack of screen-time. Feri is very similar to Fie, but the latter was more charismatic from the get-go. Quatre, on the other hand, is comparable to Tio, and again she was much more likeable from the start. This comparison is kind of superficial and like I've already mentioned I don't dislike them, just can't be as thrilled about them as about many other characters. Judith, on the other hand, was great. It might surprise you, but one of my favorite male characters in the series is Bleublanc, and it was nice to see another phantom thief and how different their worldviews are (whereas Bleublanc pursues beauty, Judith pursues justice).
Yeah, you're right about Van and Aaron dynamics being different, although I think after some time has passed, the difference between Rean/Crow and Lloyd/Randy ceased to exist as they became equals.
I won't spoil you anything about Kuro II, but there is a reason I consider it my favorite.
Whenever I see NISA's name I instantly frown - I probably have a trauma because of their "localizations". And yet I still bought its Steam version (even though I've completed the game long before that) because it's the only PC release that has Japanese text. Falcom's releasing policy is super confusing.
I'm interested to hear how your opinion on Elaine will change after Kuro II. I think she's great, but definitely not among my favorites. The competition is just that fierce ha-ha.
Agreed, the family of Montmart Bistro is very wholesome! Van is lucky to have such landlords.
I wouldn't call the villains disappointing per se, but most of them were indeed relatively weak compared to many other antagonists of the past.
After that beautiful introduction in Hajimari, I wanted Shizuna to be one of the main party members in Kuro, but even her limited participation was enough to enthrall me completely. Crimson Sin is amazing, you will definitely have a great time with it.
Kai releases in less than a week and I want to play it so much, but it's only available on PS at the moment which I don't have. It's going to be even more disappointing if CLE's PC version will end up with no Japanese text again.
Agnes is one of the main highlights of the game for sure; her meeting Van and hanging out with him might be my favorite prologue across the games. I especially liked how her normal temperament and occupation contrasted with quirkiness of other ASO members. She's also incredibly cute. Aaron is a Crow/Randy tier bro. A very interesting guy with a raw personality who gives new colors to whoever he interacts with. Van is a wonderful protagonist, as expected of Falcom. And as for Feri and Quatre, I don't dislike them, but compared to the rest I wasn't interested in them as much. Surprised you haven't mentioned Elaine, she seems to be one of the most popular ones among Kuro's characters. Which reminds me, there is a site I made last summer called Kiseki Sorter, and due to an error in the code I've made Elaine and Millium didn't appear on it. It took me a year and a message from a friend to fix it, but you can bet if it was Shizuna who was missing I'd notice it on the same day ha-ha.
Yeah, I can relate. Falcom never disappointed with its characters. Impossible not to love them.
All Comments (27) Comments
Since I didn't play with Kuro's NISA's TL myself I can only speculate based on hearsay, but I think "Beauty's Blade" is likely the most infamous case of mistranslation because it is self-evident, i.e. one doesn't need to know Japanese to know that Sword Maiden, which is already an English title/nickname doesn't need to be translated. "Tyrant" is similar, because Taikun/Tycoon is a thing in English too, albeit much less known. For me personally, however, it's not as bad as when the dialogue gets re-written - when I was playing Cold Steel III and IV, what I've been hearing in audio and what I've been reading in NISA's sub was quite often different and it annoyed me a lot. Someone like Juna is a completely different character in JP and NISA's TL, for example, because originally she's just a kind and energetic girl, whereas TL injected her with a lot of sarcasm which wasn't supposed to be there. I think this might actually explain why I've seen some people disliking her. That is to say, after what I experienced in CSIII and IV as well as hearing about "Beauty's Blade" in Kuro, I don't trust NISA. Fan TL, at the very least, is mostly accurate, although admittedly it's difficult to check if it's true for silent dialogue as well.
On the technical side of things, I have no complains at all. This port feels like it's the best it could possibly be. I also appreciate that they included the p3a tool in the official release, it helped me to easily explore the game's files. I even tried making a few mods:
- The first one makes the UI in English, but leaves the dialogues in Japanese. This one worked, so during my raw replay I can focus on reading what the characters are saying instead of getting distracted by other things.
- For the second one I wanted to make Shizuna playable in prologue and remove all other party members - I thought it could be a fun and challenging way to replay the game since it would be way harder to fight with just one character.
Well, compared to Bergard and some other prominent figures Van, despite all his vast experience and sharp intuition, is still a kid. I like how pretty much everyone treats Bergard with respect, really shows how great of a reputation he has, especially when it is combined with such imposing physique. I wasn't aware his seiyuu voiced Blackbeard, by the way. I stopped watching OP on 819th ep, so it's been quite a while since then.
I see, so it is as expected. I wish I could buy this stuff whenever I want without relying on time-limited offers, but I guess it would be a pain for the distributor to manufacture these things this way. Too expensive/bothersome.
True. I think there is a lot of everyday wisdom in those little quests, they remind me of fairy tales I used to read when I was a kid a bit because of this - there are always some kind of life lesson in them.
That's a really cool-looking figure and it's always nice seeing figures being owned by people who clearly love the character they have depicted on them :D. Makes me want to re-watch Re:Creators. I don't remember it that well to be honest.
I have the same playstyle as you do and yeah I can see how some of these things might be a little bit frustrating. One of the examples I can think of is the treasure chest achievement in the 3rd: when I started replaying this game I wanted to open all treasure chests because I didn't do it in my previous playthrough, but midway I realized that to get that achievement I also need to click on them after opening to read the message so it was impossible to do it at this point.
Hotline Miami is one of the most popular Indie games out there. It's the opposite of comfy jrpgs: very bloody and deals with a lot of unwholesome themes like drugs, murders, etc., its artstyle is the opposite of pretty too. Despite this, the story is decent, gameplay is very fun and OST is addictive; it's also relatively short. I think you only need ~10 minutes to understand whether you're going to like it or not.
I've added Simoun to my plan to watch list so perhaps I will see what kind of character she is at some point; my watching speed is very slow these days, though, so it won't happen soon. Hmm, I don't think I have a preference like that. The only other white haired girls I can think of are Irisviel and Hanai Mikazuki.
As for the male characters, most of my favorites come either come from visual novels or video-games. I'm not very knowledgeable about YuGiOh unfortunately and the only trading card game I played is Shadowverse.
I guess we're close in age so it's natural that we used to play similar games. The real surprise is Jedi Academy because you're probably the first among my friends who has played it. I remember replaying this game several times, playing it online, playing it with mods, etc. Its lightsaber duels were incredibly fun. About Heroes 4, I think it was inferior as a strategy, but its RPG maps were super fun and OST was just as good as in the third game. I haven't played the second one, but my other friend think it's the best in the series.
Hmm, I wonder what was the issue with MAL back then that it didn't load properly even though other sites worked normally?
Who would you add to your "disliked characters" if such a thing existed on MAL? As for unlimited numbers of favorites though... I wish there was something like "choose your #1 character" instead, so that it would be possible to open character's page and see the number of people who have him or her as their number one besides the total "member favorites" stat.
Man, I love that island; had so much fun exploring it, driving the car, etc. Definitely one of my favorite locations in the series - Harwood has some really high-class taste ha-ha. Can't wait to re-visit it once again some day.
Some others things of note:
- It was my first time playing on NISA's port. I didn't use their EN TL so I can't evaluate it, but performance-wise it was better than CLE's version.
- Got 44 out of 53 Steam achievements.
- Missed 2 dishes somewhere and 1 enemy for the notebook achievements; also failed to get "MVP" notebook achievements because Aaron ended up getting MVP in all chapters except first.
- Picked Ikaruga for chapter 5 again... I'll try to play other routes eventually, at least to see how Shizuna and Kurogane appear in them.
- Was reminded how awesome Bergard was. I wish I had a mentor like this when I was younger.
- Made a bunch of save files before/during Shizuna's appearances to read all her lines in Japanese later. Like I've mentioned before, I'm not fluent enough to play such a heavy-text game fully raw, but comprehending specific parts of the text is doable with my current knowledge and the help of some tools. As weird as it might sound, I want to immerse myself in her every word, which is difficult to do when the lines aren't voiced.
Going back to previous topics.
Owning a complete physical collection of Kiseki would be awesome. I'd still be worrying that they might become unusable in the future, however.
Since I'm completely in the dark about console market, can you tell me about their physical releases? Are they "time-limited" the same way other merch typically is? I.e. a certain number of discs is made and then sold, whereas new ones aren't being manufactured afterwards?
I'm curious, what figurine did you purchase? It's fine if you don't want to share for some reason.
Taking a break is perfectly fine in my book. Talking to NPCs is one of the charms of this series, so it's better to take a break than skip them altogether. Sometimes it amazes me how many different stories are being told through citizens of Liberl, Crossbell, Erebonia and Calvard. For example, the family of Curtis in the old town of Edith is something that millions of real families need to see.
I'm very particular about how I play, so I don't use guides; I also don't re-load on my first playthroughs when I select wrong choices in dialogue. Well, I'm only this strict with Kiseki, with most other games it depends on the situation. For example, even though I do like Hotline Miami, I did google a bit to find some things. Are you familiar with this game, by the way?
Yeah, your MAL favorites have a certain pattern... Do you place them in order (i.e. Morinas > Vladilena > Altair) or randomly? Also, interesting that this Reiji is the only male character there. Two of my friends like Aurelia a lot, probably have her in their top-10 Kiseki favorites. I like her too, but there are many others I like more.
Ha-ha, having less than 200 but more than 100 CP always felt like such a waste. I think the further S-craft nerf is fine.
Hm, I never played Roller Coaster Tycoon. Looking at screenshots, it reminds me a bit of SimCity, but they're probably completely different. I don't have any old games I play to this day, but I can name some I played a lot long ago (15 years ago or more): Warlords Battlecry III, Diablo II, C&C: Generals, Civilization III, Space Rangers 2, Heroes of Might and Magic (3 & 4), Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Rome: Total War, GTA (3 and vice city). Nothing else comes to mind right now.
I think MAL is great. I like how customizable profiles are and I met a lot of interesting people here with whom I enjoy talking to. Forums are a bit of a mix, however.
Honestly, I've never owned a proper disc of any game. In the 00s the only discs that were being sold in my town were cracked versions and by the time they ceased to exist online stores became a thing. It doesn't help that I'm a PC only (only played Sega Mega Drive when I was like 6), and even though I'm not 100% sure about it, I think physical copies of PC games aren't being made anymore. At least your friend has something good to look forward to once he finally decides to play CSIII and onwards. As for shipping, VAT and other expenses, yeah... The last time I bought two figures which were priced for ~$250 (total, not individually) I ended up paying ~$580 because of all that extra stuff, meaning I paid ~$330 for shipping and other stuff. Actually, you might find this silly, but I experience a sense of dread whenever I check sties like Amiami because if a Shizuna figure will be announced, I'm not ready for this financially and getting things here is super difficult - I have to involve several people to make it happen.
In the past, whenever a new Kiseki game came out, I'd focus on it entirely and play it for ~12 hours a day and I never felt burned out :P It's been getting more difficult with age, however. Kuro II took me a whole month. But talking to you, it feels like there are primarily two types of Kiseki players - the ones who play mainly for the story and ignore all the rest and the ones who talk to every NPC, play on the hardest difficulty, etc. - and it looks like both of us are the latter.
Whenever she was available both in Kuro I and II, I used Shizuna as the party leader too, although not because of her strength haha. Her 3D model and moves are just so unbelievably beautiful.
Hopefully we'll get to see Nadia and Swin alongside Rufus and Lapis a lot in Kai. I have really high expectations for this game.
How do you feel about S-boost being a requirement for the usage of S-crafts? I think it was a good change because spamming S-crafts usually more efficient than normal crafts, but that makes fights a bit boring.
What are some other old games you liked to play in the past?
By the way, I noticed an interesting numerical coincidence: you joined MAL 3 years before I did and your birth year is also 3 years earlier than mine :D
By the time I'm replying to you, you've probably progressed much further in Kuro II and already added Shizuna to your party. Compared to Kuro I, she has much more screen-time and is a full-fledged team member this time, so you can imagine why I love this game so much :D And I agree on combat: what Kuro I had I think is the best combat system in the whole series and Kuro II improves it even further. Also agreed on Swin/Nadia, it's always a joy having them around. As I understand it, time-travel is a controversial topic among the players, but I was fine with it.
Thanks for explaining, it looks like it's worth getting into... Hopefully I'll have time for that.
Well, when you think about it logically, it's definitely better to play several single-player games to completion than spend the same amount of time on Summoner's Rift doing the same thing over and over. I mostly played Ranked because there were too many trolls in normal and the skill gap between the players was often too big, but I generally didn't care about my rank (the highest I ever got was Diamond 5). Whether you're in Diamond or Bronze, it's pretty much the same thing - team members are still toxic, just better at mechanical and strategical parts of the game. I think it only starts to matter if you can play/stream professionally and earn money, but I wasn't ever at such a level.
How is your Kuro II progress so far? I decided to replay the first game and as always can't get enough of how beautiful it is.
I used to play League of legends the most in 2012-2015 time period. It was fun when I was doing it with a friend in voice chat, but playing it alone felt meaningless. Who were you favorite champions to play? Mine Ahri, Katarina, Riven, Viktor and Ashe.
I'm extremely hyped even without this kind of information, ha-ha... Can't wait to play it. I have a feeling it'll end up my favorite game.
Do you have some experience with those games? I mean MOBAs, battle royal games, etc.
Unfortunately, no - I don't own a console and as always it seems like it'll take some time before PC release comes into existence. I'm trying to avoid any kind of spoilers, so I don't look up anything related to it on youtube and other sites.
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Even though Shizuna is obviously the number one for me, the results of that popularity poll are still surprising: for some reason I didn't expect her to end up being first, even above Van. Another curious thing is lack of Aaron on the guys' side.
Can't argue against the ILF members' motivations being more interesting, although I also think that story-wise the "world was unfair to me" is a perfectly valid cause for a villain's actions. Even in real life there are plenty of people who would gladly see the world burn because they've been dealt a bad hand in life. Melchior and Dantes are definitely one of the most unhinged characters in the series, which is on the rare side of things because most of the time it's easy to be sympathetic for antagonists.
I see, looks like WoW still goes strong. The two mmorpgs I've played the most were Perfect World and Age of Wushu, but it's been more than 10 years since then. Seems like this genre has been replaced by gachas for the most part.
It's a bit of a shame Roy became the president only after Osborn has died, it would've been interesting to see how they interact with each other on a political level. In my opinion, Osborn was the most imposing figure in the series.
I guess that's true about Agnes and Feri and Fie are definitely not clones of each other.
Nice, have fun. You mean Elaine, right? What are those polls, by the way? I wouldn't mind taking a look at them.
That's understandable, although I don't think Imperial Liberation Front was that different; definitely more likeable, however.
I don't think it's their lack of screen-time. Feri is very similar to Fie, but the latter was more charismatic from the get-go. Quatre, on the other hand, is comparable to Tio, and again she was much more likeable from the start. This comparison is kind of superficial and like I've already mentioned I don't dislike them, just can't be as thrilled about them as about many other characters. Judith, on the other hand, was great. It might surprise you, but one of my favorite male characters in the series is Bleublanc, and it was nice to see another phantom thief and how different their worldviews are (whereas Bleublanc pursues beauty, Judith pursues justice).
Yeah, you're right about Van and Aaron dynamics being different, although I think after some time has passed, the difference between Rean/Crow and Lloyd/Randy ceased to exist as they became equals.
I won't spoil you anything about Kuro II, but there is a reason I consider it my favorite.
Whenever I see NISA's name I instantly frown - I probably have a trauma because of their "localizations". And yet I still bought its Steam version (even though I've completed the game long before that) because it's the only PC release that has Japanese text. Falcom's releasing policy is super confusing.
I'm interested to hear how your opinion on Elaine will change after Kuro II. I think she's great, but definitely not among my favorites. The competition is just that fierce ha-ha.
Agreed, the family of Montmart Bistro is very wholesome! Van is lucky to have such landlords.
I wouldn't call the villains disappointing per se, but most of them were indeed relatively weak compared to many other antagonists of the past.
Kai releases in less than a week and I want to play it so much, but it's only available on PS at the moment which I don't have. It's going to be even more disappointing if CLE's PC version will end up with no Japanese text again.
Agnes is one of the main highlights of the game for sure; her meeting Van and hanging out with him might be my favorite prologue across the games. I especially liked how her normal temperament and occupation contrasted with quirkiness of other ASO members. She's also incredibly cute. Aaron is a Crow/Randy tier bro. A very interesting guy with a raw personality who gives new colors to whoever he interacts with. Van is a wonderful protagonist, as expected of Falcom. And as for Feri and Quatre, I don't dislike them, but compared to the rest I wasn't interested in them as much. Surprised you haven't mentioned Elaine, she seems to be one of the most popular ones among Kuro's characters. Which reminds me, there is a site I made last summer called Kiseki Sorter, and due to an error in the code I've made Elaine and Millium didn't appear on it. It took me a year and a message from a friend to fix it, but you can bet if it was Shizuna who was missing I'd notice it on the same day ha-ha.
Yeah, I can relate. Falcom never disappointed with its characters. Impossible not to love them.