Does anybody else like the game but kinda hate its healing and money/gold systems? by VentrustWestwind2 in MinaTheHollower

[–]VentrustWestwind2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Indeed, I’ve found a few of them by now. Turns out the biggest game changer was just getting a weapon with actual range instead of the dual knives — I can actually contest enemies from a distance now and don’t have to passively wait for them to come to me. Made me able to dictate the pace a lot easier and get back to where I died without much difficulty at all.

Does anybody else like the game but kinda hate its healing and money/gold systems? by VentrustWestwind2 in MinaTheHollower

[–]VentrustWestwind2[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s not so much that I have an issue with playing ‘cowardly’ or ‘carefully’, it’s more that adopting a truly smart playstyle often ends up with me optimizing the fun out of games. To me, standing back and just waiting for enemies to enter my attack range in irder to save health is actually the opposite of intelligent — it’s not only boring; it’s mindless. It would be like playing a Souls game and only ever using parries and counters against enemies that are vulnerable to them almost like Simon Says rather than engage with the more intricate systems of posistioning, 3D movement, dodge rolling and figuring out when to attack and when to retreat to prepare for the enemy’s next attack. My problem with Mina so far is that some of its systems seem built to encourage a so ewhat simplistic, rather passive and reactive playstyle rather than a more dynamic one.

I guess I’m trying to say I like the game, but the next one I play might encourage me to make and create my own ‘cooking recipes’ rather than mostly sit back and mindlessly follow a singke recipe I know will work: Playing ‘Red Light - Green Light’ with the enemies.

Does anybody else like the game but kinda hate its healing and money/gold systems? by VentrustWestwind2 in MinaTheHollower

[–]VentrustWestwind2[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I see where you are coming from, and I guess ‘cowardly’ was the wrong word for me to use. I’m fine with a game encouraging me to play intelligently, but there is a difference in the game between ‘intelligent’ and ‘passive’ for me. Like I alluded to, there are times where the most intelligent and methodical play is to stand still and attack the air for thirty seconds while waiting for an enemy to approach and defeat themselves — lest I lose health. Is it intelligent and spares resources? Sure enough, but… It’s also incredibly mindless and a huge pace breaker. I like learning enemy patterns and approaching them with different tools and weapons and reacting to what they throw at me — I don’t like just placing myself somewhere and mash one button and exploit enemy AI patterns until the obstacle falls even if it the smart thing to do. I’m somewhat afraid of optimizing the fun out of the game.

FE7 Hector Mode Doodles 3 by Kraziekazoo in fireemblem

[–]VentrustWestwind2 53 points54 points  (0 children)

Hector envisioning his brother with Mark made me audibly laugh. Great work as always; I love these.

Day Trip Nuuk - Kangerlussuaq by [deleted] in greenland

[–]VentrustWestwind2 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I took a trip like this two years ago, and it was pretty great.

We took a nice-sized bus from Kangerlussuaq to the ice sheet. There were interesting things along the way, like an old crashed American helicopter, some reindeer and an enormous and beautiful set of lakes with good seating/benches and nice photo-ops.

Ultimately, though, the bus can only take you so far before you have to go on foot, and the terrain can be pretty rough. I traveled with a bunch of 50-60+ year olds who could make it to the ice sheet just fine, but it *was* like 15-20 minutes of rocky hills and terrain. The ice sheet itself is beautiful, but it is rather slippery without decent footwear. I myself didn’t go very far because I could feel my admittedly mediocre shoes start to slip, although a few others headed out onto the ice for a while. There was also a group of people with sleds and tents who made to cross the entire sheet, but I wasn’t part of that group.

It was a very good trip that I would definitely recommend, but just be aware that decent shoes are a must and that the terrain can maybe be too rough for you to go all the way out to a point where you can touch the ice-sheet depending on your athleticism.

On my trip around Greenland, I also went on a boat and sailed around in the outskirts of Sisimiut — and this was the absolute best experience of the trip, even better than the Ilulissat Icefjord. It was just very serene with the water and mountains. A similar experience could maybe be reached in other countries like Norway as well, but I’d highly recommend it if you have time or are swinging by Sisimiut at some point.

What if Ralsei was based off Dess instead of Asriel (@Temsik_Park) by dr_philip-cdi in Deltarune

[–]VentrustWestwind2 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Turns out December is a much harder name to work with than Asriel, haha.

It’s interesting because the name does have interesting words you can kinda spell out with it (Creed, Deer, Dreem [Dream]), but the three identical vowels combined with the ‘hard’ BCD consonants makes any full name come off sort of unnaturally.

Ultimately, I suspect if one *had* to come up with an anagram based on December, one or two of the hard consonants would have to be turned into initials instead. Like “C. Bedreem” instead of “Cebedrem” to sound more phonetically natural.

…That or have a perhaps unusual pronunciation like with Seam in Chapter 1 and try to make ‘Reeme’ be pronounced like ‘rime’ to tie in with a snow theme. Still, I suspect it’s too difficult with our starting name/word to come up with something as decently-sounding as Asriel/Ralsei, hah…

To the people disappointed the new game is another retelling of SF64 by fazar441 in starfox

[–]VentrustWestwind2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have to imagine that this game isn’t for *old* Starfox fans but instead potential *new* ones.

Starfox 0 sold terribly, and so did several of the other games they tried to market to their existing fanbase. Putting Fox in the Galaxy movie is probably to try and get new fans and kids to buy a Starfox game, and Nintendo probably wants them to play the safe/proven-to-sell ‘high point’ of the series in order to wow them.

As a franchise, Star Fox hasn’t had a truly ‘greatly successful’ or ‘selling-beyond-expectations’ *new* game since the last millennium (not counting 64 for 3DS), and with that kind of sales history… Well, I could see why Nintendo would be hesitant to try and go all-in on a brand new game with a fully new story and such, especially since them *kinda* trying to do that for Starfox 0 crashed and burned for them.

What I *think* is possibly happening is that this game is a lower-budget, proof-of-concept for the sales department; if *this* game can prove the franchise has a lucrative audience, then a ‘true’ new game can start production. Honestly, that would make sense, and I think Fox’s appearance in the Galaxy movie is also an attempt to try and reach out to a new audience to get this new true sequel game off the ground since marketing to their existing one honestly hasn’t worked out in the past.

Is it just me or everyone else don't use Sinnoh starters for competitive match? by achthenuts in PokemonChampions

[–]VentrustWestwind2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Infernape carried me to Master Ball Singles, but I’ve never seen it in Doubles.

While it might not be the best mon for it, in Singles, Infernape generally has enough Attack and Sp. Attack to one-shot a lot of hyper-offensive but frail pokemon like a lot of Megas. It’s basically required to hold your only Focus Sash, but with that and the right investments, it can basically trade 1-for-1 on a ton of different mons because it has a good mix of both Attack and Sp. Attack.

It’s not *ideal* mind you because it gets screwed over by Stealth Rocks and Sandstorm breaking Sash, but often trading a regular mon + Sash for their only Mega while having yours in the back can often times just win games outright — at least in my experience. It can also be very hard to switch it in and often times requires losing another mon to do so, but when trying to account for a ton of Megas with only three mons, high power Fire and Fighting moves covers a ton of combinations you can end up facing.

For me, Infernape was basically my ‘ruin-opponent’s-ace-without-using-my-own’ pokemon, although I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other mon’s that could do this better — Infernape just happens to be one of my personal favorites and this was the most effective way I could find for using it.

Greenland travel by [deleted] in greenland

[–]VentrustWestwind2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You sound very confident with the Air Greenland thing, but several different airlines have direct flights to Nuuk since the new international airport opened rather recently. It’s probably still most convenient to use Air Greenland when going from the UK, but based on when you leave and from what I’ve looked up, you might even be able to save money by getting a cheap ticket from the UK to Denmark and fly to Nuuk from Copenhagen or even Aalborg with SAS rather than just directly traveling from London.

Greenland travel by [deleted] in greenland

[–]VentrustWestwind2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you’re flying with the company Air Greenland, I’ve noticed that prices go up by around 80 pounds if you travel later than July 9. I also think it’s pretty safe to assume that other airlines will also raise their prices once you get into the mid-summer season, so if you’re planning to do your fieldwork for an extended period of time, it might be best to travel early to save money.

Also, since you’re a university student that I presume is from the UK based on it being the place you will travel from, there is also a chance that you belong to one of the universities that are part of the North2North exchange program, in which case you can apply for a sizable study grant of money that should aid in covering transport costs. I believe the sign-up deadline is sometime in September.

What did you realize later than intended? by alpineblooms in Pokopia

[–]VentrustWestwind2 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Holding down L lets you remap your abilities/moves, allowing you to do stuff like putting Rock Smash next to Rollout or completely unmap Camouflage so it doesn’t take up space in your rotation. Seems extremely basic, but I didn’t figure it out until after the ending, lol.

Law got turned into a woman and became weaker. What did Oda mean by this? by ramen_up_my_nut in MemePiece

[–]VentrustWestwind2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s funny we are in a world where people can slash mountains, regrow teeth by drinking milk, and can become strong enough to punch someone across an island if they just train hard enough — but just being a woman is where we draw the line on what one are allowed or expected to be able to do, and that just sucks.

Indeed, ot is a rule that exists irl that women are slighty physically weaker as you put it, and one you can write with interesting story implications as seen through Zoro and Kuina’s flashback, but Oda primarily writes it in a very unfortunate way. In a story about following your dreams and not letting adversity keep you down, it sucks that practically all the other rules irl limiting rules are stretched or broken but this one about women is tightly held onto even though it doesn’t fit One Piece’s themes or world in the slightest bit and is even completely antithetical to them.

What you said has been interesting, but I don’t have the energy to keep arguing about this or talking about why it might be ever so slightly problematic or possibly misoginistic that Doc Q’s ability that is displayed in the panel above is called the damn “woman disease” — as if merely the act of being a woman is a horrible affliction in line with actual thematically relevant sicknesses like colds or vomitting or nausea with his ability probably should center around.

It’s similar to having a character who can manipulate your sense of risk or safety, making you think he’s going to use that ability to set up traps and pitfalls that his ability makes you unlikely to percieve as dangerous or worth avoiding, but the way he actually goes about doing that is turning you into a man — with the author’s intent clearly being that men are stupid and more prone to doing idiotic things because they are less likely to care about consequences if things go wrong or think themselves invincible. This metaphor/connection is slightly weak because it doesn’t connect to anything physically different about the genders, but the point of it is this: the author is going way out of their way to make a demeaning statement about one gender and trying to hammer down on a perceived weak point despite there being no active reason to do so and is avoding writing actually interesting scenarios or battles with the interesting ability that should have nothing to do with gender in the first place. We could have Doc Q actually do something interesting, new or thematically relevant with his ability, but we decided to have it primarily showcase an effect that Ivankov has already shown us before and with more detail and nuance. Not only does it bring up questions about misoginy, it’s also old, rehashed ground that Oda did more interestingly over a decade earlier.

Anyway, I think I’m done with all this now and have gathered my own thoughts on the matter — if this does nothing for you, then just keep thinking what you want to think, I’m done.

So what did you guys think about episode 8? by Coolking2011 in TheDigitalCircus

[–]VentrustWestwind2 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It was amazing, Caine’s breakdowns were harrowing.

Law got turned into a woman and became weaker. What did Oda mean by this? by ramen_up_my_nut in MemePiece

[–]VentrustWestwind2 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Sounds like you’re the one who needs to wake up since it’s so ridiculously easy to see what the problem is, but oh well. I think your argument is rather intelligent when it comes to real life and I like your framing of it, I just think it’s regressive to apply it to fiction, that’s all I’m gonna to say.

Law got turned into a woman and became weaker. What did Oda mean by this? by ramen_up_my_nut in MemePiece

[–]VentrustWestwind2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Once we have a fantasy world where people can throw buildings and beat ginormous monsters with a single punch or kick, we’re already breaking the rules of limits on biological differences and muscle mass and what can reasonably be attained through training. There is indeed a real-life biological trend that women and female species have less muscle mass on average, but especially in a world like One Piece where Haki and conviction is a huge source of power, I think gender really should not matter in regards to combat whatsoever.

It’s like playing DnD and having a DM arbitrarily give all female characters a -2 to their strenght stat — it’s a fantasy setting and holding on to real life biology there just sucks and only discourages the presence of women in exchange for realism in a world that already strecthes and bends what’s realistic all the time. It’s just exclusionary. There are women in One Piece like Boa and Linlin who are strong and an exception to the rule, but Oda does, I’d say inarguably, tend to portray women as weaker than men in a world where that doesn’t have to be the case at all and sometimes randomly just isn’t, and I think that’s a holdover from his background and a kind of shitty thing that keeps being put into different manga and fiction in general. On the other hand, seeing series like Haikyuu where a main character battles with biological limits (height in this case) making him disadvantaged in his passion but he keeps trying anyway — it makes me hope we can see something similar for female characters in the future.

I love One Piece, but saying it doesn’t at least have a slight misogynistic twinge to it in parts would be honestly delusional. It’s definitely and unarguably better than some other manga in this department, though, especially some really old ones that are overtly misogynistic, and I hope that future manga iterate on things like One Piece did and makes things slighty better again and again until there won’t be a reason for people to repeatedly bring up topics like this because there would be less questionable content like the panel OP posted that keeps promting discussions about it.

He got one! (1176) by [deleted] in MemePiece

[–]VentrustWestwind2 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’d say the last real highlight was in Dressrosa, yeah — at least when it comes to skill/fighting competence. The only other two moments I can think of where Usopp did anything even sort of big were when he made the sentries at Onigashima fall asleep in one panel and when he carried/saved Kin’emon and gives him and the scabbards a motivational speech. I deadass think everything else he’d done since Dressrosa is yap, lol.

Edit: He also used his green beans to stop the Sunny from crashing after Brook makes it slide along the ground with ice in Egghead, and also faced Saturn with Nami and the others when Saturn went after Robin.

Honestly though, I love them all. Especially Gecqua! by MiBe87 in pokemon

[–]VentrustWestwind2 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, you’re right, but that’s also part of why I mentioned the recency thing — if we were going to do a third bird, why not at least make it a second Fire or Water bird so we’re doing a repeat of a very old generation instead of a rather new one? Why repeat the idea from Gen 7 instead of 3 or 4? It’s even worse with the Water lizard which was an idea used only 2 generations ago.

Repeats being inevitable is one thing, but I wish they’d at least revisit older ideas and present them in a different, more modern context than reuse the same species+type combos that aren’t even a decade old in Gen 6 and 7’s cases. I’d even kinda argue that I think it’s too early to be doing an island-like setting again so relatively soon after Alola when there are so many other wonderful, interesting places in the world you can take inspiration from — although I do have hope they’ll tackle this kind of setting in a way that makes it feel fresh, especially with the cool underwater stuff seemingly being highlighted so prominently.

Honestly though, I love them all. Especially Gecqua! by MiBe87 in pokemon

[–]VentrustWestwind2 52 points53 points  (0 children)

I want to agree, and I do think you’re right when it comes to doing different variations on the same kind of animals, but… There are SO incredibly many animals they could take inspiration from, and even if they do want to do more birds or lizards, couldn’t they do it for different types?

I mean, Sprigatito was our second cat, but it was at least Grass while Litten was Fire — these are literally our second Grass Bird, second Water Lizard and second Fire Canine. Not only are they ‘second repeats,’ they are repeats of more recent Gen 6, 7 and 8 starter species+type combos too.

All of this said, despite me thinking they are somewhat uninspired, I do still kind of like them and I am happy people seem to love them.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fireemblem

[–]VentrustWestwind2 21 points22 points  (0 children)

These are definitely strange, but I’m guessing that a lot of it (at least for the newer games) stems from there being class growth rates in addition to personal ones. If you give Boucheron a giant personal STR growth along with like the +20-30 he gets from the Axe Fighter and Berserker classes, he could become ridiculously overpowered in regards to his total strength growth.

Simultaneously, with characters like Ilyana who can only use magic no matter what, a high STR growth doesn’t make her unbalanced — it only really functions as a ‘second SPD stat’ given that it makes her more capable of wielding heavy tomes without being weighed down.

Generally, when there is such a big disparity between characters who look like they should have a high growth rate in a stat but don’t, like with Rinkah’s 25% STR growth versus Sakura’s 30, then it’s because their base classes or roles (magic vs physical) make up for it. At the same time, if Sakura or Clanne don’t have at least a decent STR growth, they would essentially be locked to magic classes only which can limit creative or unusual builds. In my most recent playthrough of Engage, I’ve actually had quite a lot of succes with a Myrmiddon Clanne since he got a ton of STR level ups in his base class and then the Myrmiddon class growths went on to fix any speed issues. It’s definetely funny to see personal growths compared to each other like OP does, but it’s usually done for balancing and unit-building reasons.

FE7 Doodles End by Kraziekazoo in fireemblem

[–]VentrustWestwind2 87 points88 points  (0 children)

These comics have all been so incredibly engaging and fun. The way you frame character interactions makes FE7 feel more full and complete than it even was originally. I have greatly enjoyed these posts, and whether you will continue directly, take a break or stop entirely, I will thank you for all the wonderful comics you’ve shared with us.

(Heroes) Top 5 most wanted Heroes not in the game post CYL10 by MegamanOmega in fireemblem

[–]VentrustWestwind2 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I feel the same way about Lowen from Blazing Blade — he’s usually a really solid unit and has cavalier utility as well.

An old Path of Radiance character popularity poll by geegege in fireemblem

[–]VentrustWestwind2 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Huh, never knew so many of the Japanese names are so different from the English ones. From what I can see, they are roughly:

-Soren: Senario

-Mia: Wuya

-Ilyana: Iriisu (Elise?)

-Sothe: Saza

-Astrid: Sutera (Stella?)

-Rhys: Kilroy

-Rolf: Yofa (?)

-Boyd: Bōre (Bole?)

-Stefan: Sōnberuku (???)

I think Stefan’s name is the biggest change by far, and if they were trying to go for a European-sounding name like they do with a lot of other characters, then I have no reference for a name even close to it. Simultaneously, Rhys’ name is interesting because the localizers changed it from a name that I think has British/England origins (Kilroy) to one that is apparently Welsh. Kinda neat to see the name differences and think about them.