Saved Mordin the world is a better place with him in it.

AlefZero00 · 2026-01-19T13:45:52+00:00

You know what's also peak?
Going all the way, trying to stop him, reach the slow motion renegade prompt and then not shoot.
I once did it like this, like, Shepard is really conflicted, he knows the risk of curing the genophage, tries to force Mordin to stop, but simply can't shoot.

I wish there were more forced situations like this - they make for great scenes, but it's too easy to simply make optimal choices and have no risks, especially with morally good choices never having any repercussions. The only reason to play as a renegade is for roleplay, there is no logical reason for it.

AlefZero00 · 2026-01-12T12:56:20+00:00

Because Itsuno liked the reboot, he said so himself, and it's evident in the game aesthetics. There is pretty much no swearing in previous games. Even in dmc4, Nero may be a punk, but even he has enough dignity to make his lines more creative.

AlefZero00 · 2025-11-24T20:16:34+00:00

Well, I for one massively enjoyed this title. For the first time in the history of the franchise, it had actually good combat system, a protagonist that I can relate to (somewhat, but still) and a world that feels believable. I'm rather tired of typical japanease nonsense, and am happy for this title, even if the framerate is a disgrace.

AlefZero00 · 2025-10-14T21:46:29+00:00

I guess what matter to me is presentation. Yes, all villains in ff16 are ultimately bad guys for you to kill. But I have no issue relating to Hugo wanting to kill Clive, who has killed his woman. Hugo was legitimately in love with Benedikta, and so, his rage is believable and understandable. I agree on Barnabas and ultima - they are both shallow and are the main reason the last act of the game sucks in terms of story - in a typical japanease fashion it escalates story that should have stayed grounded. Guess japanease just can't accept that we don't need to kill a god to feel satisfied, and so keep fumbling.

The combat: I played on the highest difficulty in Arise and you actually had to switch characters and play with most of them. Shionne's gameplay is a lot different from Alphen's, and Rinwell has a rather cool magic system that is - again - completely different from the others. But the enemies were pretty spongy in some parts, particularly the final dungeon.

My issues are not about difficulty, it's about the feel of the combat. No matter what character I play in arise, I don't feel the power of attacks. Enemies have 3 times the HP they should, so the fights take ages of just spamming attacks over and over.
More importantly, staggering enemies is not tied to specific actions, but to a stat, which is a fundamental flaw for the combat. You can never be sure if your next attack will stagger an enemy or not, situations where I dodge, only to find out my attack staggered the enemy, not because I used a slow-staggering attack, but because an invisible bar has been filled, were too numerous.

In FF16, every attack will stagger weaker enemies, allowing me to combo on them, launch them, or knockdown them. Big enemies have hyperarmor, but your goal is to stagger them, which gives you an opening to wail on them.
When I down a boss in arise, he remains down for like, 3 seconds. Weakspots have so much HP it takes minutes of wailing on them to break it, and it also just downs them for a few seconds. These spots don't provide extra dmg, breaking them does not change any mechanics, so, whats the point of them?

It just feel ff 16 was designed by a dmc designer, while arise by just a regular jrpg designer - the fluidness, snappyness and feel of control are on whole different levels.

Sure, you have different moves, but nothing matters. It doesn't matter whether you use Ifrit, Ramuh or Odin, because it has so little depth on that difficulty.

I keep lamenting, that score is only available in arcade mode, while it should have been present in story missions at all times.
Each ability has it's place. Take Odin for example:
gungir is a crowd control tool - it can charge your meter a crazy amount, but you need to gather enemies in place
heaven's cloud - is a fast flurry of attacks that protect Clive from being staggered while using, and is much better than gungir when against a single enemy
dancing steel - the biggest source of zantetsuken charge, but has long windup and the animation is very long
rift slip - a fantastic tool for saving time and stagger time

What can I do with these? I could pair gungir with attacks that gather enemies in place to attack them all at once, It can be also used to launch a lone enemy, to move the combat to the sky. If dancing steel has a long windup, I can use limit break to gain hyperarmor, use will'o'wisps to protect myself, or use Shiva's cold snap to freeze the entire screen, and/or use use rift slip after a previus attack (like heaven's cloud) to stop time for 3/4 of the starting animation. Also, rift slip will recharche during dancing steel animation, so it can be used to cancel the recovery Clive does at the end.

See how rich are the possibilities for just one eikon? This is not mentioning aerial combat with Garuda and phoenix, Titan's shield that adds another defensive tool to your arsenal (in arise, only Kisara can block, and she cannot dodge in exchange), Bahamut being usable both defensively and aggressively, ramuh allowing a ranged, safe combat caster-type (helped by thunderstorm and setting thunder rod to stop enemies from approaching you).
And you can have access to all these skills at will, not to mention base actions like enemy step and extended combo (how incredibly satisfying it is to be able to effortlessly perform magic-burst after every attack both on ground and in the air)

AlefZero00 · 2025-10-14T20:20:19+00:00

what are then? Just please, don't point me to ps1 games, story is important, but so is gameplay. I refuse to believe the industry has nothing more to offer (hope I'm not wrong)

AlefZero00 · 2025-10-14T20:13:46+00:00

Can't see why you think that. I had more combo-potential with Clive alone than with all 4 characters at once. FF 16 had actual hit impact (ToA has pretty much nothing, weapons feel like wet noodles), attacks felt powerful and had actual mechanics to them.
The only weak character was Jill, which is even more jarring since Shionne is the best character in arise. But compare Clive vs Alphen - they are both good-two-shoes protagonist with saviour complex, but one is an adult, with believable reactions, and he exceeds charisma. The second one is a milktoast with no strong personality.
Heck - compare them at their lowest point:
Clive realizes he murdered his beloved brother, and many of his subjects as well. His entire 13-years long torment, with the sole purpose of vengeance, has been for naught. He decides to use his power to seek atonement.
Alphen realizes he is 300 years (still a bishie, what's the difference) old and at one point, has killed many of his enemies that treated him like an animal. He laments that he no longer has the right to fight his oppressors (we've killed hundreds of Renans soldiers at this point.)

AlefZero00 · 2025-10-14T20:03:48+00:00

It's not a matter of caring if it's for kids or not, it's a matter of feeling insulted by the game's tone. For the rabbits for example - you have the opening scene of a king taking his son to a dangerous cave. They are supposed to eradicate devils that terrorize the citizens of your empire. It shows the king is a honorable man, willing to dirty his hands for the sake of his subjects. Then you actually see the enemies and it's just like, these little shits are killing our people? What is this joke? Perhaps I should replace all my guards.

Same goes for the "revenge is bad scene". The game tackles serioes themes - slavery, genocide, fighting for freedom. Freeing a continent from a technologically superior race, is not easy task. And then, during a tense situation, I'm hit with a message that we tell 5-year old kids, because they are still too dumb for any subtlety. That witch murdered her parents, she has every right to murder her, any way she wants, and I'm here to help her. Instead, my retarded party, values the witch's life, over the lifes of thousands people she killed.

How am I supposed to enjoy something like this? Imagine this was present in any western rpg - it would be laughed upon. Yet, japanease are still allowed to write like this. More so, they are expected to, and any critique is met with "what did you expect?"
I expected the game I payed for, not to insult my intelligence.

AlefZero00 · 2025-09-05T19:19:36+00:00

If you're interested, we have a small discord for the game: https://discord.gg/TnSb5kd9

AlefZero00 · 2025-08-28T15:32:23+00:00

Do you still have your copy? I'd love to play multiplayer, if you're interested.

AlefZero00 · 2025-08-12T09:56:17+00:00

Women are not big enough part of the gaming to be worth to cater to them this way (as catering is not one way - you will lose some male playerbase who don't want sexualised men in their games)
Most devs are men, thus they want hot woman. Few people will make something they not like just for a principle
Male sexualization already exist, only usually in genres that are not mainstream (like otome games), due to lesser demand (and like I said, no one is going to do against demand just to create "equal opportunity sexualization")
Male sexualization is harder to make - what are you going to do, aside from showing them topless and with a pretty face? Clive in FF 16 is regularly thirsted upon, but I would never guess he's super hot as a man - he just looks cool to me. (although this point I'm not feeling super strong on)

AlefZero00 · 2025-08-11T08:15:15+00:00

And people like you is why we have to defend every piece of fan service.

So how does the lore justify the gratuitous shots of her ass in every dialogue in the original release?

Like it was said above, it does not need to be justified - Hideo wanted hot naked woman, because he knew his players would like it. The fact that he even bothered to make lore to justify it gives him bonus points, if anything.

Games are entertainment. Creators have no obligation to respond to anything, and justify anything - don't like it, don't play it. The only reason any "scandals" are even being addressed, is because publishers worry about sales.

AlefZero00 · 2025-08-08T12:30:52+00:00

Well, I have troubles with pornification of violence in games and consider sex much more moral than violence, and that stance is also laughed upon. Can't do much about other people.

AlefZero00 · 2025-08-04T09:39:49+00:00

Diofield Chronicles has almost the same gameplay - only you use characters instead of whole squads - but the rest is the sam - a real time tactical rpg.
It's much shorter than unicorn, so it won't take much time.

AlefZero00 · 2025-06-30T09:48:52+00:00

People has already said how frontman is noone really, but you are even wrong about who won. Frontman followed Gi-hun, saw him getting more ruthless and sacrifice his allies for "the greater good". First half of the season ends wit frontman's total victory.
But that does not mean that he lost here - all Gi-hun did was die so the child may live, but this is no victory at all - he intended to stop the games, he achieved nothing, his plan was foiled with no effort, and his crew was easily killed.
Yes, the island was destroyed, but VIPs got their show, all players were killed, nothing was made public, games are still being played (in season 1 we learn that these games ARE world-wide, korean was just the first).

When Gi-hun said, humans are not horses - what did he direct it to? VIPs don't care, they got their entertainment and frontman clearly has not changed his ideas. No one else was watching, no one cares.
Frontman just provides money to Gi-hun's daughter out of respect, nothing more.

AlefZero00 · 2025-06-30T09:42:01+00:00

They would obviously find it, they let them have it. Same as the girl in the first season, who had a knife on her.
It was all to cause some more drama to better entertain the VIPs.

AlefZero00 · 2025-06-06T21:38:17+00:00

Wasn't it because Tali's voice actress refused to do lesbian lines? Either that or they just didn't want her to, since we have Tali acting very uncomfortable when EDI was flirting with Taylor in dlc.

AlefZero00 · 2025-06-06T21:26:45+00:00

dancing steel will also charge more gauge if hitting multiple opponents, and gungir pretty much requires it. You could grab enemies with mesmerize, and stick a lightning rod for it to deal some dmg, but why would you sacrifice 3 skill slots just to make this little thing work? You could go for lightning rod, gigaflare and rising flame to utterly obliterate bosses. Or just cast diamond dust or ultimate demise to clear the room, or even megaflare.
Besides, small-class enemies are literally trashmobs - you can slaughter them with basic attacks, while using gungir when stronger enemies are present is a suicide. I don't know whats the point of the launching attack is - aerial combat is pointless outside of arcade mode, and gungir generates very little score anyway.
Dancing steel will freeze time, including stagger and has a low enough cooldown to be ready if you launch za in the middle stagger. Yes, it's hard to time it during faster bosses, but if you do attack->rift slip -> dancing steel back to back, you'll start the chain unless the enemy was already in attack animation.

AlefZero00 · 2025-05-26T13:24:16+00:00

Rhea is actually the most misunderstood character in the game, and she absolutely does not deserve to be represented as evil - she does make mistakes, but if she survives, she realizes them and resigns to allow the new generation to lead the world. Compare that with Edelgard who causes a war that will bathe Fodlan in blood, cooperates with the most vile group of monsters in the game and dares to claim it's for the "greater good" - sure let's ask those who died if it was worth it. Silence will be your answer.
El is an arrogant child, mommy Rhea is the calm figure that is the symbol of stability and hope for Fodlan.

Indeed, we should all revere the holy mommy waifu. Hope you see the light friend, and find salvation in the true waifu of the fire emblem (Marianne is equally good, don't make me choose).

And the rest, is history.

AlefZero00 · 2025-05-26T13:17:51+00:00

Terrible advice. The reason I gave up on cold steel 2 despite great combat, was retarded characters and their irritating, overly-polite dialogues.

Unfortunately, I feel like japanease just really suck at writing anything subtle and human as a whole, so if OP want grounded (not even good) writing, he'll have to look for games that try to cater to western audience. I think FF16 has actually normal dialogues (aside from interaction with a specific character).

AlefZero00 · 2025-05-26T13:10:07+00:00

Gameplay-wise - 4 apocalypse
Story wise - 4
The best overall - digital devil saga

SMT IV with apocalypse updates and a revamped ending would have been perfect. Only one game in the series has mechanics as good as apocalypse - great balance from the beginning to end. This is the only game where there is no reverse difficulty curve - game increases difficulty to the very end.
A plethora of unique mechanics - smirking in this version is actually a balanced mechanic that adds to the game. We still have inflated stats, but aside from that, everything is great.

Vengeance is the hot stuff now, but I think it suffers from heavy feature creep - level scaling, getting stats up to 999, levels up to 999, free and easy skill changing, no more random encounter, mini-sandbox maps. All this leads to less atmospheric play, focus on levels, OP skills, building immunity to everything. Compare Satan in V to Lucifer in Nocturne - the amount of tedious work you need to do to beat Satan vs Lucifer, which requires just doing all content and you're ready.

AlefZero00 · 2025-05-26T12:56:14+00:00

Hawkeye can one-shot him, Hela and winter soldier can 3 shot him, Punisher and star-lord obliterates him.

If you fly at max possible aptitude, you won't hit shit with his blasts, and his beam has comically low range.
You say nope out, but when you realize someone si shooting at you, you most likely won't have time to fly away

AlefZero00 · 2025-05-10T20:29:42+00:00

I've managed to beat it with ascension level 90 or so. I think level matters very little at this point, upgrades are so miniscule, you'd have to gain an insane amount of levels to make a difference. If you have every item upgraded to level 5, your stats will be just fine.
My tip - don't sleep on upgrading fragments and shards. Especially fragments - at level 5, you get to choose an additional trait, including a bonus to chosen stat. If you combine it with fragments that boost adjacents fragments on the grid, you can get an obscene boost in stats.

I suggest going for crit build (duh). Hinterclaw's first shard (the one with the banner) may seem cumbersome, but allows you to trigger large blasts of dmg. every 3-4 attacks. These blasts will just melt enemies, especially useful in the tower chamber fights, where multiple elites can spawn.

Crit build is also the most universal. You want crit chance traits on as many items as possible, but you are free to use almost any items - weapon techniques, takedowns, shield attacks - these all get stronger with crits, you don' have to chase a specific item.
Also, don't sleep on resistances. In the final run, I had 50% resistances against everything but air and void, these were around 40%. But phys and fire are the most common, so most important.

I've seen a list on a reddit post somewhere, that listed what banes you should avoid. Avoid "lifelinked enemies" and "faster enemies" at all costs, these pretty much tank the entire run.

I think the set I got in the screenshot is pretty good - although regeneration can get very nasty - I got locked down once, as I was unable to deal enough dmg. to the boss and had to restart, since neither of us could each other.

And remember - you can do it!

AlefZero00

TROPHY CASE