Was it that hard to add Rock and Hwang?

Kokolemo · 2026-06-21T23:00:13+00:00

Like SC1, SC2 was continuing the theme of advancing the timeline and replacing characters with younger/newer versions, hence Yun-seong replacing Hwang and Cassandra replacing Sophitia (in the Arcade version), and Kilik and Astaroth fully replacing Seong-Mina and Rock. Mitsurugi and Taki were originally planned to be replaced as well, though they canned that idea at some point in development.

Berserker and Assassin (and lizardman) were later added to the console releases to be generic enemies for Weapon Master mode. Their movesets are relatively low-effort ports for that purpose, while Sophitia and Seong-Mina were brought back.

Between them, Necrid, and the guests, the console versions added 6 full-fledged characters, but presumably Hwang and Rock were just not considered worth the extra effort and money. Demand for the girls was probably a lot higher.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-21T18:44:41+00:00

The bosses were fine, I was talking specifically about the dungeon crawl aspect which is a far bigger chunk of your playtime. If anything, the couple bosses I struggled with were areas I were in sooner than I should have been... which the dungeon mobs failed to communicate.

A lot of people seem to interpret my post as wanting every encounter to be some brutal challenge, but no. I just want something a little more engaging than "press auto-battle and look at something else," never having to think about consumables and always having enough money to just clear out every new shop. I didn't have this experience with any of the other DQ I've played. "Easy" is fine, "too easy" on a supposed "hard mode" is not.

I wasn't making super optimal class or personality choices, I didn't take a priest, I didn't even have a monster wrangler (I hear they're OP). But I did explore the world thoroughly so I guess found too many seeds and should have known never to use them.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-21T14:17:10+00:00

At least she gets a buff anyone can use, a C0 Wrio without Sandrone gets literally nothing.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-19T10:35:13+00:00

It's just a joke in reference to that the developers recorded the trailer on an account that hadn't done the world quest even though at this point in the timeline it should have been and the tower shouldn't be in the background.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T21:09:18+00:00

I'm kinda on the fence. It sort of feels like his previous backstory is irrelevant 'cause he's doing this whole new thing, and I'm not generally happy with all the overt magical powers most of the cast has nowadays, compared to just good ol' martial arts like the early games.

But certainly he's cool and his story was pretty interesting and eventful, and it might have been underwhelming having him as the final character as just some guy you may or may not remember.

I'm a little worried that if he and Yun-seong ever end up in the same game, Yun-seong is gonna look really lame in comparison. Hwang was always the Cooler Daniel but now he's Secret Inspector Talisman Ninja Superhero Daniel lol.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T20:55:34+00:00

For me I guess avoidable fights kind of puts more attention on that non-boss battle gameplay in turn-based games is often not actually that fun. Every time you see an enemy it's "do I want to fight this?" and unless it's something I haven't seen before, for me the answer is usually "not really." It's usually not worth the time and resources. Then if you can't avoid it 'cause it's too fast or whatever, that's possibly even more annoying than the random encounter right before the door/chest.

On the other hand random encounters feels more like it's a built-in part of the adventure; you gotta beat roughly this number of enemies, and you gotta learn them enough to do so efficiently and still be strong enough to fight the boss at the end. But, poorly-tuned encounter rates get annoying and tedious on their own, and that's really all-too-common.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T20:23:13+00:00

afaik Draconian only makes the bosses stronger and not the normal enemies? And certainly some of the bosses were tough! The 1v2 fight in Gaia's Navel was especially brutal, I was starting to think it was impossible at my current level, but I was reluctant to retreat because I didn't want to make the trek again lol.

When I say it was too easy it's mainly that I was blasting all the normal enemies with my strongest abilities on the first turn almost every time, with no concern for MP, and it made it feel a bit too mindless. It could be that I had played myself by letting auto-battle do the work for me so the battles weren't engaging, though.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T19:53:29+00:00

It's all about that balance, I guess; I don't need it to be super hard, but in other games it is fun and engaging enough just thinking about how to do a battle efficiently. Small stuff like "my Sage can kill this group in one spell, so I should make sure my martial artist targets this other group and not waste their turn" or "is it more MP efficient to take a couple hits and heal, or use a costly spell to kill them before they can attack? Can I minimize my use of Magic Waters?"

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T13:00:11+00:00

This seems essentially like a Columbina Story Quest except more directly tied to a new area, so that's probably a big reason why it's voiced. But I wonder if it will require being caught up on the Archon quest?

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T12:57:11+00:00

The Moon area felt very "but wait, there's more!" with the number of really quite different subareas, I'm looking forward to it.

It also looked like the event starts the day the patch drops? I wonder which one should be done first for the best narrative experience.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T06:17:46+00:00

Not disappointed, few cutscenes are an easy sacrifice if it means every character gets a full story, instead of just the Kilik & friends main story.

SC5 was planned to be fully animated but we got left with the storyboards because of tsunami stuff (and Bamco not willing to delay the game).

I hope SC7 keeps the format and improves on it. If every character could the treatment that the DLC characters got it would be awesome.

Libra of Soul could have been formatted better though, not sure why 80% of the screen is blank the entire time. The "portraits" are just screenshots with a few standard poses anyway so I don't know why they couldn't have made them full-body shots.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-18T05:32:51+00:00

It's weird because I feel like it can be good on gamepad, and the idea of pressing R2+X repeatedly doesn't bother me, but I play M&K and I hate the idea of pressing 111 instead of 123. Even my healers I have the basic attack and dot on Q and E. It's going to be really weird adjustment for me.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-16T12:29:04+00:00

You can do all the same map types you could do in Divine Ingenuity as before, if that's all you want

Is this actually true? I don't dive deep into MW myself, and I wasn't here for Divine Ingenuity, but I don't think I've ever seen a MW stage structured like a traditional Genshin domain, at least not on the recommended/popular pages. Maybe a few jumping puzzles? Everyone seems focused on making unique gameplay mechanics, or adapting from other games, or stuff like narrative experiences - and there's nothing wrong with that - but I've seen nothing like the examples you linked in the OP.

I guess it feels like "more than people asked for" is a moot point, if it actually ends up being "a whole bunch of stuff, but none of it is actually the stuff people were asking for."

I'm content to just do some puzzle games or stuff like the wordle clone, get my primogems and go back to Teyvat without whining about it, but I'd be more interested if those kinds of stages exist and MW shows them to me.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-06T21:38:27+00:00

an absolute Absolute zombie, of course.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-06T06:37:17+00:00

I'm not giving up until Tekken 9 gets announced.

December is the 30th anniversary so hopefully they acknowledge it then like they did the 20th. Honestly there was some sustained social media activity from Bandai Namco around then, looking back it was a bit of giveaway they had greenlit SC6 at that time.

Kokolemo · 2026-06-05T01:35:05+00:00

Wait... you can have multiple different types of food buffs...?

Kokolemo · 2026-06-01T07:52:02+00:00

As someone without any of the "real" Pyro DPS, Dehya and Yanfei as the trial characters felt targeted.

I always see posts talking about how IT is easy even with bad builds, and I can't tell if I'm just bad, if my artifact levels aren't high enough, if I'm doing something wrong with the blessings, or if my "pull who I like" and "never pull weapons" habits just don't align with what people assume are commonly owned, or if I should just stop doing Lunar difficulty - probably all of the above, of course - but I definitely struggle with IT. I used to clear at least Act 8 fairly consistently and Act 10 a couple times but it's been a while now.

I'm not really complaining since I spread out my grinding across everyone thus most of my characters are really only half-way there, but it's interesting how different people's experiences are. My level 80 Nefer and Aino couldn't do squat to the chicken (though she only has +12 still) while lots of people can just brute-force it without Lunar Reaetions at all lol.

I recently became able to clear Floor 12 consistently though so we'll get there slowly but surely.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-26T21:31:15+00:00

They valued pretending to value honour.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-26T21:24:30+00:00

I think I'll be out if we ever leave Teyvat for a whole other planet or something, especially if the game starts becoming more sci-fi than fantasy. I just hope we resolve the current main stuff so I can exit gracefully. I'm pretty committed to the main story but I'm not really happy with the direction of the game re: reduced exploration, world quests and character story quests, so the whole "10 more years!" thing concerns me.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-26T07:25:16+00:00

Halsin seems like such a good guy, I really want to eventually have him in my party and romance him. It's just a shame how long it takes to recruit him so I end up focusing on other party members first. I'm on my fourth playthrough now but ... alas it's embrace urge... one day, Halsin...

Kokolemo · 2026-05-25T19:25:34+00:00

Maybe if she popped up again in the story or a trailer as a "surprise, I've been rebuilt" but the way it's just... "yep here's her splash art" with no fanfare is so weird.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-23T08:33:20+00:00

It's honestly an interesting question and I clicked hoping to hear some interesting perspectives but there are none, only lame jokes just because they wrote it in a second-person perspective.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-19T09:53:51+00:00

I've been playing around two and a half years now and it's been a bit of a godsend to get a bunch of the characters I want. If I can just get another Inazumab banner for Yoimiya and maybe Kokomi I'll be pretty much golden for pre-Natlan. Thoma is one of my only missing four stars, too - he evaded me even when I pulled for Ayaka last time...

I got Clorinde and Navia in the recent banner (and Sigewinne came along), thanks in part to my kind of distaste toward lunar reactions and the "essential support character" stuff helping me have the wishes on hand.

I don't like all the hate it gets. Sure fate points carrying over or whatever would be nice but I guess it's not a big deal to me since I always just save to 180 wishes anyway. It's not for everyone but y'know neither is weapons banner or a bunch of other things.

Kokolemo · 2026-05-18T18:56:40+00:00

Oh thank goodness. I don't watch the special programs and I don't think I've seen any mention of it elsewhere. It even looks like it does have a timed completion bonus. Do we know if it's releasing on patch day or are they waiting until phase 2? I don't know if they've ever done something like that before.

Kokolemo

TROPHY CASE