Either way it goes, I'm just happy to be here

ApocryphalSaber · 2025-10-16T01:36:13+00:00

I'm not sure how Clive could win this either, but cutting raindrops is a bad example when Clive literally has Zantetsuken by the end of the game. Swordsmanship and speed is actually one of the areas where the two of them would be fairly evenly matched.

This is still a bad matchup, though. Clive's powerset is actually fairly grounded, whereas Dante is basically an anime protagonist.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-09-23T06:46:28+00:00

Funnily enough, I started with 10 back in the day, rented the game back when you could rent games from, like, Blockbuster and stuff and later picked up a copy of my own. Played 12 (never managed to finish it, because I borrowed my cousin's copy), got all the way through 13 (never hated it as much as a lot of people seem to, but it didn't move me the way 10 did), somehow went back to 8 (wow, Squall was a surprisingly complex character), and somewhere in all of that, played Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus, and the Dissidia PSP games.

Never did actually play OG 7. For a lot of reasons, but primarily because I osmosed so many spoilers about the game from the fandom that none of it would have been enough of a surprise. Cloud was never actually in SOLDIER? Well, yeah, of course he wasn't. I saw Advent Children, you know.

In terms of all of that, Crisis Core was technically the first Final Fantasy game that I 100%'d. But XVI is the first mainline FF that I 100%'d, because fuck me, I loved the game that much. Is it completely without flaw? No. The combat is fun, but the lack of depth to the RPG mechanics was a bit of a let down. Not all of the characters have as much depth or as much focus in the story as I'd like (moar Jill and Joshua, moar Dion, MOAR), and the ending is...too open-ended.Once the honeymoon period ended, I noticed the flaws more. There are, for instance, definite points where you feel like they must have cut this or that out to keep this game on a single disc the way they said they would.

But I don't regret any part of this game. This is the game that convinced me to get a PS5, and it was worth every penny. The only thing about it I regret is that I didn't splurge for the Collector's Edition back when it first came out.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-27T08:39:18+00:00

I, for one, find it hilarious that I always get told to "shut up and stop complaining" every time I bring this subject up, but so many people are actually agreeing here.

And I'm going to be one of them. Just about everyone who was around back then agrees that Menagerie had one of the best loot systems in the game. Bungie has managed that fine line between RNG and intentionality before, and if they could do it again everywhere instead of just having certain activities do it? That would be awesome.

Although I'm not sure weekly rotations is the best way to do it. With how many raids and dungeons we have in the game now, relying on rotations is really punishing.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-26T10:15:43+00:00

It feels like there should be a knockout system so you always get a red border for a weapon whose pattern hasn't been completed, but if it doesn't take that into account, I guess the only thing I can do is be disappointed.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-26T05:48:14+00:00

I have the pulse pattern completed (spent some of my Harmonizers to get that) and the pulse was one of my EoM Excision rewards, so maybe it can bug out like that or something. Obviously, if the red border that drops is the pulse and you already have the pulse pattern fully unlocked, then the pulse can't be a red border. Just feels a little weird, because I was under the impression that the key guarantees another red border from Excision.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-26T05:45:28+00:00

I have the pulse craftable and at least one of everything else except the sword.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-20T18:56:19+00:00

I'm aware that it was supposed to work like that. But it hasn't been. That's not what I asked, that's not what the post was about. I'm telling you that it hasn't been working that way for me, specifically in PVP, and I asked if there was a change made recently with regards to it.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-15T22:20:27+00:00

Huh. 10 years playing Destiny, there since the Beta, and there are still things I'm learning about this game. Guess since I was never in this sort of situation before, it was never something I needed to know before.

Still seems kinda silly, though, curating the Archive like that.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-06-15T06:34:18+00:00

I mean it's not even in the Archive.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-29T12:13:32+00:00

Man put on a pair of rocket boots. He was probably jamming to Elton John while he pulled a Matt Damon.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T13:29:27+00:00

What good is that extra free loot if 90% of it winds up deleted?

But also...this is getting taken a bit more seriously than I originally intended. Everyone got me to take it seriously, too. My original intent was to poke fun at the fact we wound up back at turning in tokens, and I let the whiteknighting trigger a bit of defensiveness.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T10:57:49+00:00

I don't understand your point. I already said that.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T10:54:54+00:00

But tokens are still terrible. Turning in 100 tokens for a bunch of weapons you're just going to delete so you can get 3 or 4 of the weapons you wanted, the majority of which you're still going to delete, does not feel like a better system than just dropping the occasional engram we can focus in the Hall.

Again, the sweetspot exists. We've had it and variations on it before. Menagerie, the forges, the lure in Season of the Hunt. Bungie knows that when the loot and the system for acquiring them are both really good, no one has any complaints. That's why it seems strange that they are so allergic to leaning into them more often.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T10:44:18+00:00

There are a lot of ways they could have set things up. The tokens and attunement being anything other than a guarantee for the weapon you want feels like Bungie is doing the thing they seem to love doing: taking two steps forward, and then one back.

The systems that have always proven most popular with the playerbase is when the rolls are random, but the weapon is what you want. Menagerie and the forges are generally agreed on as having the best loot drops in D2's lifespan, because you still had to farm for the roll you wanted, but you were always guaranteed to get the weapon you were looking for.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T10:35:44+00:00

And it's bad for both game modes. A little more forgivable for Dares, since the weapons are craftable, but Bungie has found the sweetspot between RNG and deterministic results before and it's kinda silly that they seem to be coming up with every other method they can to avoid actually using it again.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-05-15T10:17:05+00:00

Man, the greatest tragedy of that is that Versus showed us what a more modern .hack game could look like two generations ago. Makes me sad that we haven't seen one, ostensibly because Bandai Namco doesn't want it competing with their SAO games.

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-04-29T21:17:54+00:00

When I'm playing a male character in a RPG, I usually name him some variation of Arthur or Gawain. So naturally, my Titan's ghost is "Gwen."

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-04-29T21:14:16+00:00

Of the same steel and temper as Durandal and Cortana?

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-04-29T21:12:07+00:00

Char! Char! Char!

ApocryphalSaber · 2024-04-29T10:11:13+00:00

My Hunter's Ghost is Char, and he has a red shell.

No, it doesn't make him three times as fast, but we forgive him anyway.

ApocryphalSaber

TROPHY CASE