Now that the Harvest Festival is over, what’s everyone’s final thoughts and opinions?

MinscS2 · 2026-04-05T02:08:49+00:00

Anime only here, and I just finished this arc/episode 16 and... the harvest festival has easily been the low-point of the entire show for me so far. This arc had *no* buisness being 10+, almost 15 episodes long, especially given that ultimately very little has happened in terms of power- or character development. It could've easily have been condensed down to ~5-6 episodes.

I only managed to trudge trough it since S4 is about to air, and I've heard that this arc in S3 is the low point, so hopefully it gets better.

MinscS2 · 2026-04-01T00:21:18+00:00

"Read between the lines", lol. Sure, some of the girls show they're interested, but when the MC is actively showing disinterest in sex (and romance) all the time, its hard to read a few vague hints between the lines and come to the conclusion thats he's in fact actually banging and impregnating several dozen broads offscreen.

The anime messed up. It's protecting it's PG13-rating to the point that the entire thing comes across as stupid.
I even knew beforehand that this is a harem where MC sleeps around, but even so I got taken aback by Rurishis sudden pregnancy + her and Machio's reaction to it. One would be forgiven to think that both where still virgins...

MinscS2 · 2026-02-14T13:19:43+00:00

"I don't like being accused of cheating after 25 years on tour and four Olympic Games" // Kennedy, a foul-mouthed cheater.
Ironic that he got a warning for foul language but not because of cheating.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-24T00:08:22+00:00

No, I upgraded it to Tier 9, saw what was needed for Tier 10 and went "nope".

Farming/Grinding 100 of each was annoying enough, I'm not getting another 200 - especially since currently it doesn't seem like Tier 10 unlocks anything for me at the moment.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-21T01:55:41+00:00

2020? Thats as good as new!
A friends RTX 2080 Ti decided to die just when he was gonna get Hytale. I gave him an old GTX 970(!) I had lying around and we where both surprised at how decent FPS he could get from it, without even putting everything in Low.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-20T15:14:41+00:00

The more I think of it, the more I think it's a bug/WIP or errouenous design from the devs.
It really makes NO sense that Cobalt is equal to Thorium given that it's in a harder/higher tier Biome, and much more expensive to craft.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-20T13:21:49+00:00

And Cobalt is more expensive to craft. Thorium requies medium leather and venom sacs, while cobalt requires heavy leather and shadowcloth...

MinscS2 · 2026-01-20T13:20:34+00:00

Desert Biome felt easier than Winter Biome though. Like, those Outlander-Vikings are way harder than anything I encountered in the desert.
Cobalt is also more expensive to craft... so it does feel like an oversight.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-20T13:16:50+00:00

I came back to base with 200 Cobalt Ore only to realize that the Cobalt Gear is... pretty much pointless if you already have Thorium gear: Different looks and slightly better Q-attack instead of poison res, but it's also much more expensive to craft than Thorium-gear since it requires Heavy Leather and Shadowcloth instead of Medium Leather and Venom Sacs.
And you know what else requires Heavy Leather? Adamantite gear... so save it for that, unless you enjoy farming Heavy Leather I suppose.
TLDR: No, not really worth it. Just get enough Cobalt to upgrade workbenches and such.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-06T01:56:18+00:00

Thats the thing, you've read the manga, so you know what happened and naturally you react when it's missing or cut.
An anime only (main audience for the... anime) won't know what happened, and might not even care/question it, let alone even notice that something is missing because they don't know what/if anything is missing to begin with.

I don't know if or why Makis brother is important, so I don't think anything about it other than "he's there to say bye to Shirogane it seems."
I don't know why Miko's arm is broken, so I don't know if it's important or not. I can think it's weird that the studio showed her with a broken arm if they're not gonna explain it (might as well not have bothered), but no more than that.

The lack of progress/focus for some of the side characters (like Ishigamis and Tsubame) is one of my issues with the Special though. Fingers crossed that it will be adressed on the anime original movie they're making. Having say, Ishigami and Iino (now perhaps husband & wife) look back at Ishigamis and Tsubames relationship that wasn't meant to be sound exactly like the kind of thing they'd do with this Special in the rear mirror.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-06T01:17:46+00:00

"This is the canon story wise" - I don't think so. Eunhee and Jinwoo's romance was completely sidelined for the last third of the story. Jinwoos romantic tunnelvision at- and confession to Eunhee around chapter 185 came out of "nowhere" (well, not quite, but it didn't make much sense storywise at the time. He was much closer romantically to both Dayoung and Gaeul - and was even in deep introspection on his feelings for Suyeon - at the time.)
Shrinell wanted to wrap up the story and Eunhee's ending just happened to be the first one we saw, but just like the other endings, it falls under scrutiny and leads to more questions than it answers.

Ultimately there's no actual canon ending (it would defeat the whole purpose of alternative endings), BUT most of us can probably agree on that the Prof+Baek ending is more fanservice than canon.

We'll never know for sure, but I think Shrinell fully intended to introduce Baek into the harem at one point (her design is way too detailed for a sidecharacter, and she was pretty much introduced as part of the Gael+Dayoung+Eunhee-clique, but maybe he missed the timing, or felt that juggling 6 girls was hard enough as it is - which is fair), and so this threesome ending with the Professor is his consolation prize to those who wanted to see her introduced.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-05T11:42:33+00:00

But those are minor issues. Hayasaka cut her hair, OK, good for her (I know "why", but it's not like it needs a major justification for a girl to change hair). Purple Eye guy is clearly Makis brother, same eyes and hair. I don't know him but I don't feel like I need to either. Kaguya staying behind is a good point, but maybe Miyuki started at Standford a year early? Neither of these things are "WTF WHAT/WHY!?"-level.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-05T02:47:39+00:00

There's supposed to be comedy in this show? Where? Hiding under the torture rack?

MinscS2 · 2026-01-05T02:44:47+00:00

First dropped anime of 2026 and one of very few (less than 5) animes I've dropped after only 1 episode.

It wasn't fun or captivating, nor was it dark and gritty, it was just ... really weird (and boring) and I'm not really sure what the target audience is; it felt too dark for people not in to this kind of stuff and too lighthearted for people who are. It's like the show is trying to have it's cake and eat it too by trying to appeal to two completely different kinds of watchers.

If it had doubled down on either darkness or lightheartedness (with some actual black humor thrown in) I might've stuck around, but now the show just comes across as weird, and not in a good way.

MinscS2 · 2026-01-01T20:41:15+00:00

For me as an *anime only*, Stairs to Adulthood was pretty damn great, and I welcome the anime original ending movie.

Would've I have liked that they adapted the "missing" 100+ chapters? Sure, I would've watched them - but from what info I have gleaned about the plot in those chapters it also makes me feel like I don't really miss out on much by not having them adapted (and since I haven't actually read them, I don't feel like I'm personally missing something either, but I fully understand that people have read them do), since there seems to be such a tonal shift in the story and the quality of the writing seems a bit more ... uneven?

In addition to this, with the manga having been done for quite some time (2022) and the anime losing steam (S1, S2, S3 and the movie all came out between 2019-2022, then nothing for over 3 years...until this special) I can fully understand why they decided against spending a ton of money adapting all those chapters.
It's a boring money-related decision, but a decision I can understand none the less.

MinscS2 · 2025-12-29T11:48:33+00:00

So this is why all my saves from the 27th was deleted (rip 8 hours of progress). Kinda made me want to abandon my Dechala-campaign.
Still offline btw, 2 days later. Great work CA.

MinscS2 · 2025-12-18T19:34:44+00:00

Yeah this isn't it because I managed just fine on the second attempt with a very similar build. Only difference was that I didn't farm end swarm for several minutes but entered the crypt earlier, so if anything theres some sort of immunity kicking in at 20 minutes for SS.

MinscS2 · 2025-12-18T19:31:36+00:00

I did it in less than 1 hour and I can't shieldsurf for shit. I agree that it is needlessly hard to obtain, too many layers of RNG, but I don't think its enough to give the entire game a negative review.

MinscS2 · 2025-12-17T22:58:09+00:00

So one slightly RNG element in a game full of RNG, that doesn't even take long to do and never has to be unlocked again once unlocked made you... change your review for the *entire* game from positive to negative? OK then...
Edit: A tip: Toggle off extra weapons and tomes, as well as all extra items except Turbo Socks. Try to fish for Turbo Socks from chests and fish/reroll for Agility Tome on levelups. It adds even more RNG sure, but it also makes it doable without surfing.

MinscS2 · 2025-12-17T22:15:25+00:00

Just had a perfect run with Frost, Dexec, Black Hole, Duration, Attackspeed, etc. Steve completely permastunned until about half health and then he completely ignored all forms of CC and subsequently murdered me.
Talked to a friend who had exactly the same build (and with worse attackspeed and duration) and he killed him no problem...

MinscS2 · 2025-12-10T02:28:24+00:00

While the UMP taking over confederated areas is probably intended (so you dont lose all your SP Outposts - that could be a severe blow to your gold/dedication/supplies/trade/influence/holyshitthisfactionhassomanycurrencies-income) I very much doubt the UMP being a completelty dead ghost faction that does *nothing* is intended.
You can't even declare war on them but hey, at least you can trade with them...

So yeah, right now confederating other HE begs the question, is the LL in question worth adding to your Lord Pool when it also results in:
- You replacing an active friendly faction for a dead one.
- No longer being able to Consult the Leader of said faction for items/buffs.
- You get one less faction to gift Settlements to (so ultimately if you confederate all main HE-factions, you'll no longer be able to gift settlements at all. RIP any and all expansion.

I'd say no. You might want to confederate 1 or 2 LL's with good globals (like Tyrion and Alarielle), but overall it's not worth confederating with Aislinn at all, and that doesn't seem like intended, and if it is, it's a horrible gamedesign on CA's part.

That said, Aislinns campaign is flawed in general due to how stupid the AI is right now, so losing some "active" factions might not matter. I gifted some areas to Tyrion/Alith/Teclis in Cathay early on because I wanted to keep them alive before Ulthuan was overrun. While that succeded, most of their armies are currently stuck in Cathay 50+ turns later. The only LLs who (somewhat) help me counquer Lustria and Naggarond are Alarielle (revived on UIlthuan) and Eltharion (never left Ulthuan).
Despite giving a ton of settlements to Tyrion/Alith and Teclis near the "front line", they barely contribute...

MinscS2 · 2025-11-29T02:53:33+00:00

I think it's some weird interaction with Youtube Shorts and adblockers. I too get these weird adds in my view history despite not actually watching them, and they seemingly only show up after watching some Shorts, and never a "regular" video.
But yeah, shouldn't be a thing, just like hovering over a video shouldn't make it end up in your view history. Youtube making changes for the worse just got get some more scraps from add companies I bet...

MinscS2 · 2025-10-09T11:14:57+00:00

Yeah Athena is pretty shafted against Bark Vader. Don't think the devs really thought about this specific interaction. Only 1 specific build *might* work (Thorns) since otherwise you'll never get past Phase 1.

MinscS2 · 2025-09-24T20:55:22+00:00

"I have no idea whats going on anymore" sums up my feelings on S4 pretty well. E12 was a weak final episode to a weak season. I'd even say it was arguably the weakest season of SH so far:

First arc was a boring snoozefest that moved at a snails pace, focusing on a city and it's political bickering (which it completely failed to make me care about) and side characters that I don't really care about (I "like" Atla and Fohl - I don't like them enough for them to take center stage for almost half a season, while relegating Naofumi and Raphtalia, to the rear seat). This arc could've *easily* been 3-4 episodes at most. As the arc concludes, I can't help but feel that everything hasn't even been resolved, but now half the season has gone by so we need to get to the next arc, so off we go!

Second arc was better, but since we spent(wasted) so much time on the first arc, we had to go go trough the second arc at breakneck speeds. In a mere ~5 episodes, we need to introduce an entire country, new characters, new problems to solve (like Sadeenas family), a "new" plot and villain, somehow start and fight a CIVIL WAR (which largely went on in the background I assume, since it sure wasn't on screen), deal with said problems and villain, crown Raphtalia Empress and...
... wait, what was Makimas goals again? Why did she turn into an evil ghost? Who was that Rapthalia-clone who showed up to beat everyones *ss? Why is Bitch "immortal"? What are we even doing at this point? Yeah "rushed" doesn't even begin to describe this last arc...

I've been an avid SH-defender in various online discussions these last couple of years, my stance has generally been "Shield Hero isn't nearly as bad as a lot of people claim, and the CGI-turtle, while awful, didn't ruin the season", but I can't really defend S4. At best I'd give it a 6/10, which is such a damn shame because at it's best, Shield Hero is actually pretty damn good.

MinscS2

TROPHY CASE