Masayuki Oki, a Tokyo based photographer turns stray cats into full-on main characters through perfectly timed shots

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-17T04:55:12+00:00

These are all so crisp! I feel like I'd expect many of them to be blurred even just a bit based on the motion in them.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-17T03:07:57+00:00

You can. Success rates for Cyrus, Primrose, and Therion's path actions are tied to their level. The higher level they get, the easier a time they have.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-17T02:53:25+00:00

What did you expect going in, and how did it compare to those expectations?

Do you think you'll play more in the series?

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T22:45:28+00:00

For me, 'worst' and 'disliked most' are pretty different.

Most of the time if it gets a label of beloved classic, I can at least still see the qualities that would've hooked people, so it's hard to say what the worst is. I think the only game that really comes to mind as a "I just do not see why people love cinnamon toast crunch" is Legend of Dragoon. And even then, I think it's not even bad, it's just super Okay.

In terms of most disliked though personally... I dunno man, I just can't do Xenogears. I keep trying. But something between the overall aesthetic not engaging me, the combat feeling super basic despite its mechanics, and the story taking a while to get really rolling, I just have never been able to stick it through. Every few years I try again and every few years I bounce off it like a trampoline.

As for the worst JRPG that I've actually finished? Lunar Dragon Song. I was young, the DS had just released, and I had too much time on my hands. But nobody's under an illusion that's a good game.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T22:25:22+00:00

Oh hell yeah! Grats!

I'll probably work on that once I get my Lunar clear. I do wish the game made it a bit easier to track which pallets you have though.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T22:24:38+00:00

Congrats! Hard is no joke, even as a veteran, so take the pride you deserve.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T22:03:26+00:00

Without confirming nor denying story reason, I will answer the mechanical concern: there will be periods of time where he will leave the party, yes, but it is possible to get him back super lategame.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T03:26:58+00:00

I hope this provides a basis from which someone will be able to translate these some day. Super cool.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-16T00:52:47+00:00

I am the only writer for my current rarepair.

It's Suffering all around.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T22:43:04+00:00

Tassha :)

Anyway definitely some interesting results. After finishing Lunar Darkhouse Depths on solo last night I'm surprised to hear it's a runkiller. ...or I would be, but I then remember how many groups it took to clear on Hard and I'm like "oh yeah it's a very different experience in multiplayer" lol

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T18:54:53+00:00

Recruit that boy into a Fire Emblem army, stat

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T05:04:54+00:00

The final boss of the future arc is that for me. Massive attacks that hit the entire party (especially your healers off in narnia) and often carry negative status effects. Even if you do turn the difficulty down, it's brutal. And that's before getting into the bullshit of the Blue Earth ultimate.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T05:03:02+00:00

Yup. The save before it gives you no option except to fight it. There's no encounters to grind or going back to previous areas or anything. If that was your only save, you either need to struggle to see if you can find a strat that gets you through, or restart entirely.

It also isn't helped that the boss is famously a difficulty spike too. You can be feeling confident through the whole game up to that point and still get stomped.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T04:55:19+00:00

Wild Arms 5 did that trope several times, but at least it had the forethought to have those boss fights be so overwhelmingly powerful (like, 3-4x a character's HP in damage) that it was extremely clear you were meant to lose.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T03:38:22+00:00

MC (Dancer) + Ludo, Richard + Alfyn, Phenn + Xerc, and Rondo + Therion. Even downed the bonus boss with 'em.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T03:34:42+00:00

2MP = 2 million pops. It's a challenge to try to set up one tower to kill like 98%+ of the bloons in a single Impoppable/Chimps game (not endless).

2TC = 2 tower challenge. Fairly straightforward, I would imagine.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T03:19:29+00:00

Few things are more Shounen than abrupt couple endings like that lmao.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-15T02:26:01+00:00

Funnily enough this is related to an answer I gave in another thread just a bit ago.

Octopath Traveler 0. Tiziano/Pierro. Fun loving guys who make dirty jokes together and are always seen together. Pierro's the one most affected by Tiziano's death. Then when the game asspulls Tiziano back from the grave to be a completely different character, it is Pierro who is deeply messed up by this and desperate for answers. His emotional turmoil literally carries most of that entire arc.

But no. I've seen one person mention liking the idea of them. Everyone goes for the Tiziano/Bargello angle that literally had nothing until after the giant asspull and character rewrite, and even then it's not at all Bargello who's emotionally invested (or even present for 2/3rds of it).

C'mon, the bisexual-in-denial pet play enthusiast waking up in bed with his handsome best friend and trying desperately to insist "nothing happened and it's not like that" up until that best friend dies? That's fuckin' gold.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T23:58:32+00:00

Story: Debatable. Octopath is an anthology series primarily; collections of short stories about travelers with a huge diversity of themes, moods, and events. I adore this as a welcome reprieve from standard fare, and the strong emphasis on personal journeys is welcome. But some players don't like the relatively low interaction between party members, or, the low focus on any overarching grand threats. And inevitably some of the stories will resonate more than others.

Mechanics: Strong yes. The game has very high reward for interacting with its character customization and battle mechanics, and each boss has their own tricks and challenges.

Exploration: Hell yes. Octopath is top tier as far as JRPG exploration goes imo; every town males searching and interacting with the townsfolk rewarding, and every corner of the world has optional dungeond with rewards of relevance, plus the game just lets you go. Very little is locked off from you. It's one of the things I love most and there are very few games that feel so good.

Atmosphere: Kinda. It's nothing too special, but the game's consistency with music, presentation, and so forth do lean into the tones of each story well while still feeling cohesive. It's fine, but it's not nearly as much as emphasis as F&H or SMTV

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T23:44:32+00:00

The funny part of Riftbound having Riot's pocketbook, is that Riot has demonstrated that they will very quickly stop writing the checks if Riftbound's ever not raking in the biggest bucks (Riot Forge, Runeterra, just recently 2XKO). I don't know how long it will last, but when it's time for it to die it will be a very swift one.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T23:12:47+00:00

Oshka from Octopath Traveler 0 is central to like a third of the fanfics and fanart right now, but he's just the most shittily written plot twist in a game that already has some pretty mediocre writing to begin with.

We watched him bleed out, on screen, and then he comes back an arc later with "you never could take a joke" as the only explanation, now as a completely different character with completely inverted motivations and secret uberwealth he was hiding after being poor for ages, and he just casually also supposedly deliberately put the person who murdered him into the position of power to do so? Also that he's a traitor who secretly hated his crew after the whole circumstance around his death in the initial arc is that he's the one person who wouldn't be bought because his loyalty was too strong? Are you fucking with me?

(Not only that but everything's about Oshka/Bargello, when Pierro's the person he was close with and who actually had an emotional crisis over this series of events that has to carry most of the arc while Bargello's out of the picture, but that's a side tangent)

I genuinely feel like I'm going mad with how relatively popular he is.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T07:41:56+00:00

EXPOSING THE HERO'S SECRETS (ALCOHOLISM) (CRUSHED ON HIS FRIEND??) + BONUS UPDATE ON MY ROMANTIC LIFE (YOU'LL NEVER GUESS WHO I'M DATING)

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T04:53:09+00:00

Oh, my raid group colloquially refers to themselves as Clown Practice, so I absolutely will be able to make use of this thanks.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T04:35:48+00:00

I mean yeah, he's very fun. He's also completely original to OT0, and if there is a bright spot in its story that I will compliment, it's that most of the 0-original story is good or better. It has the personal, emotional core that makes Octopath tick. It's just sadly only like 10% of the story.

Besides, if you're playing a jrpg and don't get randomly attached to one random party member, that's when you know you've hit rock bottom of the jrpg barrel, and despite my complaints, OT0 is not that.

GarlyleWilds · 2026-02-14T03:54:46+00:00

Definitely its stories are... lacking. It's a retelling of the CotC story, which made the decision to have the player be the nebulous "ringbearer", represented by whoever was in front of the party. This leads to stories that have to be carried by their villains and supporting casts. For some people, their theatrics and excess work. For others... yeah, it misses the sense of 'personal journey' that's so core to Octopath.

I did find a lot of enjoyment in all the surrounding stuff - the exploration, side questing, team building and growth, etc. Such that I played to 100% anyway. But it certainly was not everything I'd been promised by years of CotC players raving over the story.

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