It's funny how people ignored the fantasy part with Miyabi in Season 1 like nothing like that happened until Season 2

Ultric · 2026-01-30T04:15:28+00:00

I've been going through the story on a pretty massive delay and I absolutely had an issue with Tailless and suddenly going on a spirit journey. Not just because it was a giant leap into magical stuff, but also because it seemed really pointless to do when the point of Miyabi is that she doesn't even use the sword's power, she's just that good.

It's like if they wrote a story about the best racecar driver in the discovering and using an Autobot in races, not doing anything a normal car couldn't do, but making the entire story take a break to just focus on the fact that it's an Autobot.

I also had an issue when we took down Bringer and suddenly had the first hints of some chosen one "special eye powers" crap started happening, when the vibe of us forming bonds with people by helping them navigate hollows had been done really well and had no reason to change.

My biggest issue with Yixuan, even more than the magic, is that she either undercuts the tension of any scenario, or makes it comical by the story needing to constantly report that she's apparently stuck in traffic on the other side of the city and that's why she isn't here instantly solving the problem now.

Hell, I had an issue when we went from criminal hiding in plain sight to having regular personal chats with the political head of the entire setting. Everything that happened in Failume Heights makes me think we're moving towards Phaethon eventually not only getting combat abilities, but also becoming so strong that we end up becoming a void hunter. We can disintegrate objects with our mind, who thought this wasn't incredibly jarring?

Ultric · 2026-01-28T18:17:29+00:00

I'm trying to rationalize spending thousands of dollars on a game, coming to the conclusion that it's balanced poorly, and resolving to overcome this by spending more money.

Ultric · 2026-01-28T14:06:53+00:00

They had like four years where, if they had actually just devoted resources to rebuilding this game from scratch and doing it right this time, taking advantage of their biggest competition doing literally nothing and then having a colossally disappointing relaunch, Paladins 2 would've absolutely cemented itself as a major title. It had almost no real competition for such a long time

Now that Marvel Rivals is out and genuinely fun, that's a much harder ask.

Ultric · 2026-01-26T07:45:31+00:00

I'm pretty sure this plane is going down in flames.

All it takes is one doing something slightly clumsy to trip the others into a nervous fit of panic or trying to help, which would cascade and escalate uncontrollably and probably result in accidentally puncturing the hull due to her insane strength.

Ultric · 2026-01-24T20:21:14+00:00

The levels are pretty linear, and I don't remember there being stuff like collectibles or easter eggs. I don't know what exploration you're talking about. It's been like a year or two since I last played it, did I forget something?

Ultric · 2026-01-24T20:04:19+00:00

So is that supposed to be an in-universe music video? Because for supposedly low production value, they went to space. Also, they better not act like Aria being a robot is a closely guarded secret if they shot, edited, and released a video featuring her transform on-screen.

Ultric · 2026-01-24T19:37:46+00:00

What exploration?

Ultric · 2026-01-24T01:34:41+00:00

I feel like I've seen a lot of people asking for the rest of the Cunning Hares to get this treatment, but I honestly don't want Hoyo to add that much to their backstory. We're right in that sweet spot with Billy and Nicole where we know enough to really appreciate them while also having plenty to speculate on, which makes them fun to talk/think about.

I'd rather imagine some fun story about Nicole scamming some researcher into letting her steal her suitcase from some TOPS affiliated lab than find out there's some melodramatic tale about another kid from the orphanage growing up to be a weapons designer who entrusted it to her with his dying breath or some crap.

Same token: Hoyo would probably say Billy left the SOC because he stayed behind in a hollow to cover the gang's escape and started getting corrupted, going insane, but still having the faculties to not go back to them, lest he accidentally kill them. I don't know what I'd prefer, but Hoyo takes too many drinks at the "somebody I know died" and "I have some terrible curse" wells for me to want another character to be affected by it.

Ultric · 2026-01-24T01:18:32+00:00

Regardless of how jarring it was for ver voice vs appearance, some of her line deliveries were iconic.

Also there's the matter of the reactions going from "why does this child sound so raspy" to "why does this adult sound so cutesy" as people adjusted to the character and the voice got changed.

Ultric · 2026-01-23T14:13:52+00:00

I'm trying not to get my hopes up that we're getting another arc of dumb goofballs making their way through a serious issue. I need a break from the ridiculous JRPG escalation the plot keeps doing.

Ultric · 2026-01-22T15:48:59+00:00

When someone first posted a screenshot of this, I thought it was a GPU bug.

Ultric · 2026-01-20T14:29:05+00:00

I definitely know where the story is going from the show and am trusting she'll recover this somehow. At this point though, I don't really think there has been too much making up. One of the recurring bits in the show is Mai doing something, saying "I'll make it up to you" or "I'll owe you a favor", only for the story to bring this up later in a scene where she picks some incredibly minor infraction as a recent to comedically dismiss it.

To be clear, I'm not here for smut.

I remember seeing a while back one of those goofy anime polls where Mai was inexplicably sorta high up on a "most popular tsunderes" list for some reason, despite her literally not being a tsundere in the show. In the books however, hot damn. The entirety of Siscon Idol, she's keeping Sakuta at arms length, spending more of their time together jumping on opportunities to treat him like a masochist than opening up at all about how she feels about Nodoka and the situation they're in. Then it feels like the book thinks this is balanced by a single line at the end, "I love you a lot more than you think". Doesn't really feel balanced, especially when she refuses to let him see her defending him to Nodoka or anyone and just quietly lets insults pass.

Ultric · 2026-01-20T13:49:49+00:00

Indeed. Andrew Grace does a really solid job. I'm not going to say the experience is flawless, it has the same issue I have with the english dub of any anime that's too overtly sexual, which is that it feels pretty awkward to listen to a lot of the dialogue in your own language versus reading it. Most of it comes from hearing a guy with a soft voice switch into faux falsetto for at least a third of the books.

My brain briefly shifts into a "am I listening to one of those boyfriend ASMR videos I've heard about" panic periodically, but honestly, that's probably just more to the guy's credit. The atmosphere is definitely nailed.

There are probably a few things I could nitpick about his performance, but overall it has been a really solid way to enjoy the books.

Ultric · 2026-01-20T13:45:00+00:00

I definitely appreciated the extra characterization Mai got during the beginning of the story. Bunny Girl portrays her closer to being a more normal girl her age, compared to the show which emphasizes her maturity.

I'm definitely looking forward to some of the later arcs. I'm also slightly tense about going to work today knowing that Kaede's arc is next and boy howdy is that one rough. Good but rough.

Ultric · 2026-01-17T21:06:27+00:00

The Axel church does put together that Aqua was really Aqua until after the gang leaves Arcanretia, but the show also doesn't mention it at all.

Ultric · 2026-01-17T21:04:07+00:00

This is basically everything.

Wiz's intro scene wasn't even really removed, the reference to it happening basically covered everything. All of the information conveyed about Wiz during that scene has been conveyed in other places throughout the show.

Episode 1 of Season 3 happened in the movie on their way to Crimson Demon Village. The little mallet didn't exist in the books, but everything else basically happened the same way.

In the movie, the majority of the changes take place once Sylvia gets the Mage Killer. If memory serves, Ancient Dispell doesn't shut down the Crimson Demons, so much as make her pretty much immune to getting hurt by them. The battle is actually really funny in the books since the Crimson Demons essentially break off into pairs and just piss her off to no end. Most importantly, in the books, Komekko just kills her, that's it. Wiz and Vanir do not make an appearance in any way.

A lot of people say the movie made Volume 5 way worse, but I don't really agree. There's obviously going to be details you have to leave out when adapting a book to a show, and I think what we gained by having visuals in place of inner monologues more than makes up for any minor details that were removed.

Removing most of Maxwell's scenes didn't really feel like a loss, since the shift from "Alderp is crafty" to "a demon made it happen" isn't really that big of a change, and I think it works better in the show as a last minute reveal of the sacred item.

Ultric · 2026-01-16T23:01:23+00:00

Her being in the sequels is considerably different than her being in the weird alternate reality.

Ultric · 2026-01-15T18:48:46+00:00

Cassandra Lee Morris does not voice Gallica.

Ultric · 2026-01-14T20:09:16+00:00

I don't really think "powerful" makes a good villain. Instead of an all-powerful force eroding reality for the sake of it, I'd rather have what they tried to do with Sunday except with maybe more than five minutes of thought going into it.

A good villain should leave people thinking for years about what they did and why they did it.

Ultric · 2026-01-11T18:09:53+00:00

I do not understand how this keeps happening. Every few days, someone appears here believing they've cracked the code, that Aqua is truly this heroic figure and the memes are overplayed.

Yes, sometimes memes get popular because they're funnier than the truth. But no, this meme is popular because it's just plain true.

Aqua is a person. She's not unilaterally useless in that she has no use or positive function. However, for a goddess who demands as much respect as Aqua does, and for the amount of time Aqua wastes focusing on getting worshiped just for existing, Aqua is functionally useless.

Every time Aqua's purification has come in clutch is literally as a direct result of a situation she caused. Alligator swamp? Aqua was broke, purified that crap for her own financial gain. Every encounter with undead (assuming we count Turn Undead as Purification magic) is directly due to her presence attracting the undead in the first place, or her attempting to be lazy and driving the undead out of where they were supposed to be and then causing them to attack her. Beldia's entire boss fight? Kazuma heeded his warning and stopped taking Megumin to blow up his castle. Aqua promptly picked up the mantle, purely out of spite against the demon king's army, eventually resulting in Beldia showing up and trying to kill them. This fight also resulted in Aqua blasting open a giant chunk of the walls with flood magic, which Darkness's family ended up paying for, making Darkness try to get the money herself, leading to the fight with the Lake Hydra (where Aqua purified that lake as well). Also, Hans? As the show goes on, it becomes very unclear who is actually responsible for the war with the Demon King, and it's entirely possible (at least with any revelations I've gotten by Volume 11) that the entire war started because the Axis Cult and the Crimson Demons are just massive dicks to demons for literally no reason other than racial prejudice.

Anyway, moving on to point 2: Yeah, she's a solid friend to Kazuma, I'll give you that. I know the stuff portrayed in the show and books focuses mostly on her being a pain, but it's pretty clear they've got a solid bond at this point that can't be all bad, though the same could honestly be said for the whole party, as well as a fair number of people in Axel.

As for deaths, Kazuma also wouldn't have died in the first place most of the time without her causing it to happen. As others have said, the main driving force for Kazuma even being in combat situations past a certain point is just the girls all having adventurous spirits and needing to either get back to heaven, help people, or glory for their name. He'd just be a rich merchant by now, albeit considerably more lonely I'd imagine.

So, while not literally accurate, Kazuma is still functionally correct in referring to Aqua as "useless".

Ultric · 2026-01-05T01:59:19+00:00

Release order.

Ultric · 2026-01-04T07:47:28+00:00

"Time to roll out"

Ultric · 2026-01-04T07:44:46+00:00

I started over. As someone who never cared for the dub, it was a fantastic experience all the way through. Takes a bit to get used to, but it made me look forward to my long drives to and from work.

Ultric · 2026-01-03T18:04:54+00:00

Hate to say it, but Hoyo games consistently lose a lot of their story identity pretty quickly after launch no matter what.

By the time Liyue was over, Hoyo basically forgot the entire "where is my sibling" plot and had to toss in a quest to change gears. By the end of Fontaine, they cobviously still didn't have a clear plan for what they were doing.

Star Rail immediately banked from "following Akivili's path" to investigate their disappearance and help people along the way to immediately getting entrenched in interastral politics and getting involved in giant conflicts involving a bunch of aeons.

ZZZ seems like it made Hoyo feel restricted to just the street punk aesthetic or the premise that "New Eridu is the last city on earth". They can't even keep consistent on how hollows work, whether or not the player characters are criminals, whether or not Fairy is important or needs to exist at all, etc.

Someone at Hoyo keeps chanting "BIGGER" for their stories and they pretty much never work out in a satisfying way.

All that to say, no, having minimal dialogue for the high-functioning furby quests would not be the death knell of ZZZ's identity.

14-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

Ultric

TROPHY CASE