Report TemplarXIII's Profile

These Stellar Blade tracks are freaking amazing. Yeah I'll try to refrain from digging in further, can't wait to experience it myself... someday. Everything you're saying about this game is a slam dunk for me haha. Nice to hear it has a little less fluff than Nier/FF7R too, whereas the platforming here is kind of the small setback. So did you have to do all the side quests for all trophies?

Neutral#5, so I'm no Shemnue expert but it sounds a little like those? In that even with the third game, the creator didn't bother wrapping stuff up even though it's such a slim chance that he gets another chance to make more lol. I'm excited to hear about the chance of a sequel to Stellar Blade but yeah, your qualms here seem pretty validated. Surprised it's not a more isolated self contained experience overall. Now, based off this Square news I was ranting about... let's hope Shift Up escapes Sony sooner than later. Thankfully I think NIKKE is huge or something, so they have other things going on. For a first big AAA game though it makes sense a hardware publisher could help them out here. Demon's Souls was locked to PS3 after all heh.

Two deserts, lol. Yeah now it makes me think, wouldn't be surprised if I saw some streamers play in both of them but wouldn't have guessed it myself.

"phase change invincibility" *GOES SSJ* This should be illegal in ARPG's lol. You'll have to tell me if it was fixed a bit in Rebirth... not sure I heard much talk about that aspect.

Great review. An excellent new beginning for Shift Up and makes me think a direct sequel could be a slam dunk.

Time for Rebirth?

Yeah I think KPop is blowing up. The "4th gen" kicked off a few years ago with aespa and some others around that time frame, 2019-ish or so. Since then it seems like a bigger effort to go global. Just have to hope they keep their values and push it on us instead of the other way around this time haha. aespa sold out the Tokyo Dome four times I believe, they're huge in Japan. And when they did the tour here in the US last year, every show was sold out. Was probably hundreds at my show in TX. Felt like a mile long line outside before we got inside, wrapping around blocks and stuff.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/square-enix-will-make-aaa-games-multiplatform-as-part-of-its-aggressive-new-business-plan/
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/square-enix-confirms-us-eu-layoffs-as-part-of-restructuring/

Literally everything we've been saying the last few years lol. Well, I see this is a good news finally to some extent. Sucks for more layoffs to pile up (Thanks Forespoken), but now we have proof that Sony's checks aren't cutting it. Square should have looked to Capcom (having a 7 year financial high in a row right now), FromSoftware, Namco, Sega, etc in Japanese devs killing it going fully multiplatform for the last decade or so. Was completely ridiculous that Square has been holding out on that, or doing stupid BS like the Kingdom Hearts games still being locked down to Epic Games. I just worry the third FF7 game is probably still on some contract... but they are clearly done with this idea.

I love so many Square games and IP's, I speak for us both in that we obviously want them to succeed! So I hope this is the mark of a huge turning point and they steer this ship back into the light.

This only hurts Sony now. For ages I always argued for exclusives and giving hardware some kind of unique identity, mascots, its own personality. But the 9th gen looks about a soulless as it gets to me. I never want to sound too elitist haha, it's cool you have a PS5 and don't want to bother with PC stuff. Nothing wrong with that. But you'd probably agree with some of what I'm saying. Outside of Stellar Blade what else has the PS5 featured that's a console seller or so standout? FF16, FF7 Rebirth, now Stellar Blade, hopefully Rise of the Ronin... I want all those on PC and then the PS5 has nothing I care about haha. But hey they're doing better than Xbox. The Xbox, errr, "Microsoft Gaming" news pissed me off so much last week. I took it personal since I loved Tango, Arkane Lyon, etc. Phil Spencer is probably the biggest liar in the industry, sick of his "good guy" shtick at this point. This dude destroyed Xbox and hasn't done shit. Only hurt the entire industry more too, these 1900 layoffs, the blood is on his hands and the other MS execs who thought spending 70B on Activision was a good idea. Now we have proof that Games Pass and this stuff isn't feasible either. Who would have thought, you don't "buy" games anymore... so those devs suffer in the long run. Xbox were the cocksuckers that made online services a separate mandatory fee too. If we reversed time 20 years ago and they never got into gaming, things might be in a better state now. lol, they need to stop hardware and go third party. That's the only way I see out for them. But they're on a two generational streak of no games and crappy ideas, so they'll probably just keep burning money like most big American corps.

I'll get back to your Stellar Blade thoughts in a bit.

Haha, sorry that's not what I meant. I meant I can't pick out the Chinese vs Korean language. But yes, appearance wise, it can be hard to tell too sometimes. Majority of SE Asian girls are attractive though, so it's not like I'm complaining heh.

"But I have to imagine it's a very small minority of dumbos who are legit racist like that."

You can sometimes see that with Pinay (Filipina) women in Korea, Japan, and China. Mainland Chinese are the worst offenders though.

"She totally heard me in a sea of hundreds and we made eye contact, she smiled, waved..."

Heh, I can get why you become a loyal follower. And yes, I know you're obsessed. But, they are beautiful like contemporary princesses lol. With Hollywood in its decline, I have to wonder if SE Asian pop culture will fill in that vacuum out here in the West.

Well, it sounds like Bastard is worth watching even if it's a tone change from S1. Yeah, it was weird that it's a "heavy metal dark fantasy" but God forbid you show a nipple lol. Woke Netflix logic at its finest. We're fighting the same clowns for Stellar Blade too. Heaven forbid you show some cleavage or cheeks.

Stellar Blade (Spoiler Free)

That sounds pretty annoying. Having to wait for timers like that to reset so you can do another attempt is the worst. lol, guess I'll be prepared for that stuff.

Well I guess the Chinese history (that we know of heh) is pretty rich and goes farther back than most others. But yeah always seems like others are doing stories around those historical points or themes do it better haha. Like Suikoden!

Ningning is Chinese born but has spent about a third of her life in Korea, so maybe she does have dual citizenship unless it's like a 10 year deal over there like it is here. Something like that? If you glanced at the one video with her eating food and the other chick, that was Giselle who is part of aespa too. She speaks fully fluent English which is great for a group when they do international stuff, then she grew up in Japan and has family there so she's fluent in that too haha. I can pick out some features at this point and sometimes tell where they're from. One could call that yellow fever LOL. But still, humans are human and about as varied as it gets. There's some groups like XG who are all Japanese, doing the KPop model internationally and stuff. They all look about as different as it gets member to member. But yeah KPop groups can have some rare Chinese members, Japanese is a little more common, there's some Thai, etc. Sadly you can maybe imagine, fans can be kind of toxic about that and one girl might not get supported much in some territory. But I have to imagine it's a very small minority of dumbos who are legit racist like that.

Forget if I mentioned it when I went to Texas last year to see them, but I was like in row 7-ish and shouted out Ningning's name during a slower moment. She totally heard me in a sea of hundreds and we made eye contact, she smiled, waved... way more than just a quick acknowledgement haha. It was then my fate was sealed and I'll follow her to the end of the world. One of my phone pics, I didn't bother taking too much since I'm old school and was living in the moment. I let the fans do the cams and all that haha. They somehow look even better in person, it was unreal. And Ningning in that pink getup is one of my favorite looks ever. They switched up the outfits about 4 times, so that was cool. Good look of some outfits from the Chicago show. I'm obsessed bro... lol

Did I ever link you this XG vid? They got the Akira drifting bike shot in there and maybe some other anime references haha. Gives me GITS vibes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xiai4BRzZpU

I definitely enjoyed where Bastard S2 was going more than S1, but admittedly S1 had a lot of good focus on the characters themselves. This part was a bit bigger in scope and more story. Huge cliffhanger, so hopefully another part gets made. Feels like it could maybe wrap up a big arc if things are going where I think they will.

I can see the novelty of this wearing off though. In JRPG terms, Dark Schneider would be like starting a game off with a level 75 MC, lol. You quickly lose track of how many times his limbs get blown off and he's basically dead. He's gotta be one of the most OP characters ever. The perv factor is so weird too. It's like a horny shounen dream, they show so much suggestive stuff, or Game of Thrones level gore. But still can't do full nudity. Then it hit me this season that it was the Naruto/Fairy Tail composer. I'm starting to think this guy is really mid, lol. Even though the music is fine and there's some good stuff in there, but yeah. I wonder if they could have done better in the department, or leaned into the heavy metal even more.

Nitpicks aside, I still really enjoyed it and even having seen so much shounen stuff and anime by this point, there were still some surprising emotional moments, or just seriously really cool directed scenes and art direction probably pulled from the manga. A very bizarre series tonally but yeah, it's fun stuff and carrying over some of that edgier 80's energy gives it a fun flavor. Like it's comparable to HnK/JoJo in ways. Some killer character designs too. Yoko looked especially cool in S2, even without showing much skin or whatever haha. Just gotta love those vibrant early 90's designs.

Yeah, it's easy to latch onto a dozen or so characters you want to use in the Suikodens. Sometimes they seem obvious, as really powerful characters in battle or they're a standout story wise haha. I bet you'll name drop some of my favorites when you get to them.

True, Kingdom has a dose of shounen energy in there sometimes. I eat it up though haha. Just happy to have something where characters die for once.

Yeah that sounds like a non-issue in Stellar Blade. The hand cranes in FF7R were pure pain on my replay a few months ago lmao. Need a PC mod to skip that crap...I get they probably just wanted to extend the bonding time with Aerith, but yeah. Total FLUFF lol.

Hah, good point about questioning what China even has as art.

Here's another one that looks lame to me from a glance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZr1HXkEahs

Notice in some spots the MC is moving around like Kenshiro/DBZ blocking 100 attacks. This doesn't impress me at all because this is... a videogame. How does that even work or play? Is the player going Ninjitsu mashing 50 inputs in a millisecond? I doubt it. If that's all automatic that's even worse. China's style over substance isn't going to fly in the world of videogames, when you need things to be practical and mechanically function. lol

I haven't seen any Chinese cartoons. Doesn't sound good haha.

Mandarin was an adjustment for me but I like it now if I'm watching CDrama or whatever. Korean is way better though and very pleasant on my ears like Japanese. Funny that my favorite idol, as I can say that now, Ningning of Aespa is Chinese. I've noticed Chinese members speak Korean very nicely. Japanese members on the other hand it's not quite as smooth for them. I guess it makes sense with Chinese/Korean history and how they overlap over there. One could argue Ningning sounds better speaking Korean haha. But I love hearing her native language, it's rare to spot though. Then she's speaks decent English too. It's a job though so some of these girls are language wizards. lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIyZGlaoHgY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLC9MwFkD-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHg7edA-bzM
- You don't have to watch it all haha. Just showing off my favorite person and voice. lol, though I think her fellow member Winter is the best singer in the business.

The Suikoden games are loosely based around the Chinese novel(s) Water Margin. What that really entails I have no idea. There's dozens of main characters, war/politics, heros journey, etc. So yeah it's very Kingdom, LOGH, etc heh. "108 Stars of Destiny" is the name of the game. While it sounds weird on paper perhaps, the 108 characters you recruit aren't all fully playable or anything. It'll make more sense when you play them. The combat is unique in that you get to use 6 characters in battle. Then while they're not very special in the first two games, there's some "war" strategy minigames, but they're real easy. You'd probably like to hear that both games are definitely on the easier side. Some difficulty spikes with a few bosses and one major one in 2, but yeah nothing crazy. I love how for benched characters you don't use much, if you bring them into your combat party they get exp like mad and catch up instantly. The devs knew with such a huge array of characters, letting the player use a lot of them was ideal so they balanced that well.

I'd say they're comparable to Xenogears as well in that the scope and storytelling is among the best in the business. Even all these years later, there's not a ton of JRPG's/anime I've seen on the same level.

You remember Seirei no Moribito? The settings are in that vein I'd say. It's the ancient East but with a little magic, humanoid wolf/dog people, dragons. It's a blend of fantasy I prefer to feudal Japan and stuff haha. But grounded realistic stuff like Kingdom can be amazing when done really well too.

The first Suikoden is one of the most impeccably paced JRPG's ever. It pulls you in instantly and is about 20 hours long. 2 is over twice as long, but the amazing thing is how the two games overlap in ways. So it's almost like one huge epic story altogether. 1 is still conclusive enough though, so you'd know if you would want to continue after that one or not. I do love how 1 is no frills and just nonstop fun. 2 has some slow parts, but it's got more adventure in between and the peaks are easily a step up from 1. 2 has a villain that would make good company with Albedo in Xenosaga. lol

10/10 games for me I've played twice now each. I'm definitely excited for the remasters and for another run with them. Looks like some care is going into it thankfully. Eiyuden Chronicle that came out is from the same creator. Real gut punch that he just passed away weeks ago, didn't get to see Eiyuden launch. :( You might see it has average review scores in ways, but for Suikoden fans they're eating it up and it's exactly what we wanted. I'm confident I'll like it when I get to it.

So yeah huge recommendation on Suikoden 1-2 haha.

Yeah, I've seen some nitpicks about the platforming in Stellar Blade. Also the crane puzzle games look awful haha... maybe some dev over there liked the hand crane thing in FF7 Remake? lol, that was torture to redo again in my last replay.

Me and Chinese games right now... *skeptical squinting* lmao. I am 110% stoked to see Korea getting more into it. But I've lost track of all the wack looking Souls clones from China. I think some people even dug up some of their games ripping assets from FromSoftware games and other stuff. Animations, graphics, etc. So typical. Black Myth Wukong is the one that looks like an actual game. There's actually a lot of gameplay out there for it that I saw a few weeks ago. The combat, exploration, etc all looks solid. But yeah, I wouldn't say I'm "excited". I need receipts, reviews, podcasts, etc to convince me on that one. But maybe it'll be the one that's cool. China has a lot to prove me wrong though. lol

I've seen a few historical CDrama's that I love, 10/10's. But it does seem like on average, KDrama's are better too haha. So yeah I'm a little pessimistic about Chinese gaming.

In my eyes anyways.

Same. Even if this is more faithful to the source and the updated design is really something. Oh, and a lot of merch came out. About 200K yen worth if you buy one from everything - and some became rare and utterly expensive earlier (just like sitting plushies, which were criminal in quality back then). So... maybe they will.

I can't tell: maybe and not really are both viable options. Currently the first 6 episodes are the first 6 chapters from the novel with a little extra at the beginning where Holo speaks with Myuri, her daughter. Then it would cover the first 4 volumes, which won't reach beyond the 2008-2009 versions, since those skipped the 3rd volume entirely. The better question: will the project announce a new season at it's end?

Do you have the double jump? It looks so graceful and cool. Reminds me of the sensual handstand Lara does in the old Tomb Raider games. I think it's a cool for a game of this genre to have some big open maps to break things up a little.

Only because I love sci-fi... it's passion! haha.

Even Jill that I've been watching has still been playing Stellar Blade way more than expected. Whenever I see her in the open world dessert area I feel fine watching more. Talk about torture though haha. I still have Code Vein to check out, get my Anime Souls fix someday if needed... but I finally finished another long JRPG and am saving some energy for the Elden Ring DLC. As in, going to pick my shots carefully with longer games for a bit. I still bet it's going to be the size of a full Dark Souls game haha. Even From is saying they have no plans for further DLC, so it's probably beefy.

I'll grab Vivy for now.

Nice gif haha that is hilarious. Wonder if other devs will follow suit now. Would have been interesting to see various shapes of 2B.

That's good to hear with Frieran. I take it I should still prioritize Vivy for you though? I still have Mushoku Tensei on deck as well, but I'll probably break up the genre a bit after Bastard, then maybe get to that one soonish.

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

For a really random broad number, that sounds like maybe 30-50% into the old series. I want to say it was somewhere around the midpoint when Julian started growing into his own and doing more for Yang. But yeah it's been awhile haha. I think I shall give this stuff another shot at some point.

(little NSFW) Yeah you might be onto something about some outfits thickening her out haha. Is this a first? I can't think of another time this has happened with costumes. Pretty amusing.

Very light Bastard S2 spoilers since I'm just starting it, but wow this feels like quite a tonal/style change. Definitely a much different arc here, which is cool when that happens. Wouldn't compare any of this to Slayers, rather now it's feeling even more Berserk and might be building up to a bigger scope/war arc with more characters. Love that idea if that's where it's going. Now I'm extra curious who did this first between it and Berserk haha.

One thing hasn't changed, this authors interpretation of "samurai" continues to be weird. LOL

Kind of hit me, if I want more sci-fi... I still have LOGH 2.0 haha. A lot has mounted up. You're caught up on that right? I probably asked before but do you know where the new stuff aligns with the old anime timeline wise? I think it was sounding like this new stuff might go further, but they probably have a bit to go. I wonder if I should rewatch S1 for a recap or just jump into the next stuff. I'm up for giving it another fair chance and maybe appreciating it on its own.

I'm happy how well an OLED has worked for my gaming desktop. I was naturally worried about all the privacy spy crap modern Smart TV's have. I avoided all that on my Samsung HDTV's up to this point. But all I did was hook it up online wired once for a firmware update, then unplug it... and that's a wrap haha. You can even setup these LG's to turn on with the "last input" so it functions like a monitor. I don't have to ever see the normal TV screen and stuff. Good times, I thought I was going to get left in the dark on OLED's or new TV's. I guess some weirder brands out there are making "dumb" TV's, but they're pretty pricey I think.

lmao, well that sounds unique and pretty cool for a fantasy story.



Damn, 30 hours! Guess I'm not super surprised, because yeah I've heard it's not a short game yet not super long like some stuff lately, and also I have noticed you do go a little slower than the norm. Heh no shame in that at all. Time flies when you're having fun. Guess you're well adjusted to the combat by this point? I mainly watched some desert action from Jill's playthrough but stopped after that. I think I'll be real curious how you rank FF16, Rebirth, and Stellar Blade for your year.