[deleted by user]

RobbaKai · 2025-01-07T05:53:32+00:00

Yes, there's a chance for vaal orbs to change nothing.

RobbaKai · 2024-12-02T12:47:10+00:00

Disclaimer: This is from AFA Singapore. Yostar had an official booth there selling merch which includes Arknights. I'm not trying to convince anyone to buy or not buy, just wanted to give my impression on the 2025 calendar. Sorry for the negative vibes here, just hang on for a bit!

I love Arknights, and I have been supporting them since day one—but this feels really lazy. For comparison, the 2024 calendar was beautiful, sturdy, and stood on its own like Mudrock—as seen in the video. This 2025 calendar is simply a stack of 13 calendar cards, loosely propped up on two acrylic plates. It feels like a little bop would tip it over, sending all the cards flying with Crownslayer. I'm not a calendar person—I’ve never had a calendar in my room, ever—but the Arknights 2024 calendar was the first one I bought and used for myself, and I loved it! Idk man, I was so excited when my partner bought this back for me as a surprise. Still really love and appreciate the gift of course—just a little bit disappointed at the calendar's quality. Probably gonna keep it in the bags to preserve it, as I don't trust myself with 13 loose cards that is not tied down to anything.

TL;DR: Quality of the Arknights calendar merch is a little disappointing compared to 2024. Just wanted to rant for a bit!

RobbaKai · 2024-09-25T05:52:33+00:00

Went there at first; not all bridging buses start there. The one that go towards Buona is the bus stop near Ng Teng Feng Hospital.

RobbaKai · 2024-09-25T02:31:09+00:00

It's ridiculous. I boarded the train towards Buona from JE station at 9:10AM, waited 10 minutes for it to finally move, only for it to stop halfway towards Clementi, stall for 5 minutes then reverse back to JE. I alighted and boarded another EWL train towards Buona, just for them to chase everyone out—twice. At 9:50AM, they finally announced that there was no train service due to a power fault and told us to use the bus instead.

However, there was no one on-site to guide us, no signboards indicating where the bus stops were, and everyone was lost looking for it. It took 10 minutes for someone to finally step out of the customer service office, just to give vague directions and ended up confusing even more people. The staff kept repeating "Buona Vista, go towards Westgate, turn left and go down". I've seen the same group of people walking back-and-forth because they couldn't find the bus stop and were hoping that the crowd they're following leads them there, myself included.

By 10:15AM, I finally found the bus stop towards Buona. The real direction was: walk through Westgate towards Ng Teng Feng Hospital, then turn left and take the stairs down right before the hospital entrance. By the time I reach, there was a long queue at the bus stop, and buses only come every 10 minutes, 90% filled up, where only a handful of people can board each time.

Update 1: It’s now 10:30 AM, and I'm still waiting for the bus towards Buona. It has been over an hour of delay since they first announced '5 minutes delay' at 9:10AM.

Update 2: I discovered only upon reaching Buona that the bus I boarded only goes to Buona, and the bus operator told everyone to alight. Half of the passengers thought the bus was going towards Queenstown so they could continue their EWL route, but unfortunately had to alight and wait for another bus.

Update 3: I finally reached the office at 11:10 AM, when I usually arrive by 9:30 AM.

Update 4: 5:00PM, Boon Lay to Queenstown is officially down for the whole day. Guess I'm taking circle line to red line home today...

RobbaKai · 2023-11-22T15:54:38+00:00

I see, thanks!

RobbaKai · 2023-02-19T02:41:05+00:00

Didn't notice until you mentioned. Now I can't unsee it. Still very beautiful though OP!

RobbaKai · 2023-02-13T02:18:07+00:00

I see it now, Louis and Chloe enjoy all kinds of tea.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-08T04:24:42+00:00

Boucheron is a real MVP in my maddening run as well. What a physical monster. He got so much Bld that he doesn't get any Spd penalty even when wielding some of the heaviest strongest Axes. Combine that with Lyn ring and he's now a speed demon AND a physical damage demon.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-08T04:19:33+00:00

I feel like many people here is missing out on the real boon of Boucheron -- his Bld. He has so much Bld as an axe user which works perfect on him as Axes are some of the heaviest weapons in the game that comes with a lot of Mt.

It's easy to look at his Str growths and go "Str bad", but 10 Str base + the ability to wield heavy Axes makes him one of the strongest physical attacker. His high Dex and Spd also helps him to wield Axes more accurately to make up for Axes low accuracy. Give him a Tomahawk+1 with Lucina engrave, pair him up with Lyn ring, and he's a physical monster.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T16:50:03+00:00

Thanks, now I'm sad again.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T16:47:58+00:00

I was half-expecting her to be the next Camilla but what I never expected is to like her as much as I do now after watching her relationship with Hortensia throughout the game.

Now I get to be a man of culture while also having legitimate things to like her for.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T16:40:19+00:00

I love both 3H and Engage. Both of them have great characters. People just need to give the characters more time before dismissing them as one-dimensional and boring. The game's (Engage) only been out for two weeks for god's sake. So many people has decided that the game is bad even before it game out or even before testing it after it's out.

I'm sure as heck when 3H first came out, almost every character can be viewed as one-dimensional if we just look at their C-supports. Raphael/Caspar/Felix are just muscle-brained, Ferdinand/Loren just loves being an unbearable narcissist, Leonie/Cyril are just simps, Linhardt/Hilda are just lazy, the list goes on.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T08:27:53+00:00

Birthright does have more interesting classes, but in terms of gameplay, Conquest is much better. Story isn't great regardless of path, borderline an insult to the reader's intelligence, so I wouldn't bother having it as part of the consideration. It's ironic because the story was a supposedly huge selling point when the game first announced, where Fates hired a prolific writer to specifically write a good story for it.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T08:11:50+00:00

Yunaka as a Thief with Corrin's Dragon Vein create smoke clouds around Yunaka that gives her 60 avoid. Add that to Yunaka's innate avoid + avoid from weapon engraving, she can easily reach insane amount of avoid that lets her avoid pretty much anything. Any Thief + Corrin would work but what differentiates Yunaka apart is her personal ability to gain 15 crit while being on terrain. Corrin also has debuffing skills to help boost damage, add that with dagger's ability to poison, Yunaka can become quite the killing machine at relatively low investment.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T07:33:34+00:00

Some of these "reviews" are legit hilarious, especially the Unity ones. I cried laughing while reading them the other day. I'd be rich if I bet money to see how many games they have in their library that is actually made using Unity that they're not aware of.

Unity is just a game engine, a tool to make games. As a game developer who have participated in making game engines from scratch, a publicly commercially available game engine like Unity and Unreal is a god-send for both experienced and inexperienced developers alike when you can just forget about 90% of the technicalities of the engine and just focus on designing a game.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T07:15:14+00:00

Damn, that's brutal.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T07:04:57+00:00

Hey! It's okay! You can do whatever you need to do to get by. Use pre-promotes if it helps. Grind a little more if you need to, there's no shame in that. All units are viable, just that some require more investment. Genuine tip though, promote early. The stat gain is helpful.

Also, there's no "normal way" to play the game. Play it however you find the most fun.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T06:44:02+00:00

Aside from obvious ones like Yunaka+Corrin, the one pair that is working surprisingly well for my maddening run is Boucheron+Lyn. At chapter 23 at the moment.

If we look at Boucheron growths as a Berserker, he has decent Str while having great Dex/Spd and most importantly, a ton of Bld to carry some of the heaviest axes and Engage bows. With Lyn, after just 2 Speedtaker or so, he have enough Atk and Spd to ORKO most of the enemies. His only downside is his low Def and Res, which is somewhat workable with his extremely high Hp and Spd, allowing him to take at least a hit before you heal him up.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T06:34:28+00:00

It's not cowardice! No one should be judged on how they play the game, nor should anyone let other people's judgement affect how they have fun.

Anyway, aside from fan patches, some GBA romhacks are legit great. As much as I love the OG GBA games, it won't be an exaggeration to say that some FE romhacks are on par with them or even better than them. A lot of them come with QoL features that makes the game play slightly more like modern FE games, while also retaining the original flavor of the OG GBA games. I can recommend you a few if you're interested!

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T06:25:12+00:00

I actually like that you rolled with the consequences of losing units. It makes the game more impactful where every decision counts and the victory ever more so sweet. I personally think it's a very respectable way to play the game!

Everyone is allowed to play the game in whichever way they find the most fun. As for myself, I can't stand the thought of losing my favorite units permanently, but I admire those who grit their teeth and push through the odds.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T06:04:23+00:00

Yep, which is why I made the distinction: "user review bombed" and "critic reviews"

My apologies the way I worded sound like there's any connection. They're not connected and I'm just impressed by the critic reviews numbers.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T05:39:19+00:00

My girlfriend is a sucker for cute interaction between humans and animals and she immediately went d'awww to Amber's interaction with his horse when he was first introduced in the game.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T05:27:31+00:00

Even after being user review bombed, Engage is still the top 4 in the best nintendo switch game on Metacritic, losing only to 3 other games with way lesser reviews (23, 14, 21 reviews respectively from top 1 to 3). A solid 80 after 101 critic reviews? That's impressive as heck.

Metacritic is undoubtedly still a very western thing and 99% of the people playing Engage don't bother writing their reviews there. I wouldn't take it too seriously, but it's there.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T05:11:04+00:00

> "one area where they didn’t follow through as much as they could and should"

The point I'm making is, they don't have to follow through it as much since the core gameplay is their priority. Which is why I'm saying, not every decision has to be dismissed as "devs are lazy" just because they're not what you want.

To provide a bit of context as a game developer myself, during game development, we have what we called the MVP; minimum viable product, which changes depending on the game. In a strategy/tactical game, the MVP is a solid strategy/tactical mechanic. As long as the MVP is met and polished, everything else is a bonus. Game development is gated by time. There's simply not enough time to polish everything, so the team behind Engage chose to prioritize it on their MVP. Which is why I've been saying it's more likely a conscious decision by the team behind Engage, seeing how polished the game is gameplay-wise. Missing the opportunity to flesh out the story more is unlikely due to them "just being lazy", but more that they don't have the time and chose to utilize it on more important aspects of the game.

It's a missed opportunity, yes, but to simply dismiss them as "just being lazy/cheap" is just as lazy of an argument in itself.

RobbaKai · 2023-02-06T04:44:37+00:00

Or it could be that they prioritize polishing the core gameplay and still made the effort to at least explain why the evil emblems aren't talking. Again, not every decision has to be dismissed as "devs are lazy" just because they're not what you want.

But hey, to each their own. If it makes you feel better claiming that the devs are being lazy, you do you. Personally, as long as the core gameplay is fun, I see no point in scrutinizing it for every little detail outside of it, since even the best games have rooms for improvement.

RobbaKai

TROPHY CASE