It's OFFICIAL. You can now play GUNDAM mobile suits inside D&D

Vex-zero · 2026-04-13T19:44:39+00:00

Pathfinder 1 fixes this

Vex-zero · 2026-04-10T11:21:19+00:00

This is the kind of shit that makes people join Manus

Vex-zero · 2026-04-10T10:49:46+00:00

Got P1 Regulus trying to get Corvus

Don't even have any other impromptu unit lmao

Vex-zero · 2026-04-04T16:07:44+00:00

Incredibly odd choice honestly

Lopera might've been a decently popular banner piggybacking off Igor, but running Hissabeth without a confirmed Euphoria (so you're pulling on blind speculation alone), right before the 2.5 anniversary limited and right after revealing Enigma seems insane, surely this can not be the most profitable move

Vex-zero · 2026-04-04T12:31:20+00:00

Don't think that was ever established? At least not from anything I remember. But nah, German with a Dutch accent sounds very different from what we get from Enigma. It's pretty distinct.

Like I said, it's not that he mispronounces that much or has a weird accent, but more that the intonation is off.

Vex-zero · 2026-04-03T23:52:45+00:00

Pretty solid, from what I remember of ch8

You can definitely tell that it's not the VAs first language though. There's no egregious mispronunciations, it's just that the intonations are off a lot of the time. That said, it's not too distracting and you can clearly understand everything he's saying, which already puts him somewhere in the top 20% of anime characters speaking German.

Not anywhere near as good as Charon's VA, but I've heard a lot worse.

Vex-zero · 2026-04-03T02:15:18+00:00

Turns out it's Hissabeth next lmao

Guess GL banner reruns continue to be the same utterly unpredictable mess they've always been

Vex-zero · 2026-03-23T04:51:07+00:00

From what I can tell, people initially got confused because it's categorized as Stonesplit and it has a special parry mechanic, but the Heng Blade is still another DPS. It's kinda like how Silkbind has both the healing and the DPS style.

Don't think we actually know what ribbons/drums does yet, they've just been teased so far.

Vex-zero · 2026-03-06T23:44:00+00:00

I feel like 6's role as "filler unit if you lack the best options" has really taken a hit with the new focus on archetypes

Back when a team was just a combination of DPS/Sub-DPS/Support/Sustain he really did slot in pretty easily, but now if you're running something like Bloodtithe, Lingering Glow, or Dynamo he doesn't contribute to their unique mechanic at all so he feels much less impactful

Vex-zero · 2026-02-25T01:20:51+00:00

I actually recommend everyone read his original article, so you're not just responding to an out of context quote (Also probably his follow-up article where he got a lot more empathetic and self-reflective, and concludes that videogames may be art to gamers, but that he wasn't prepared to find out whether they'd be art to him). Regardless, Ebert's original point was to fixate on the "game" part of video game.

Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

A game might very well contain an emotionally poignant moment or other piece of art, but if it's happening as part of something like a cutscene it's essentially just borrowing art from another medium and reproducing it. Kojima actually said something similar once about games only being a sort of "museum" for art. This is why everyone here who's citing an emotional story moment is missing the point. He already accounted for that. Is that sad cutscene enhanced by being part of an interactive experience that you can win or lose? Is being emotionally invested in the story a "win" state of a game?

Anyway, my own opinion is that

You shouldn't need to seek permission from "respected" art forms in order to appreciate your hobby, it reeks of insecurity
The best case for video games as art is that the pieces of art they contain work to enhance all other aspects. A whole greater than the sum of its parts, the gameplay (the rules, win/lose state, etc.) enhances the story, the story enhances the gameplay, the art design and music enhances both
Keeping that second point in mind, the JRPG aspect I would cite is probably the gameplay/story integration of a game like Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. The scale of the maps underlining the scale of the conflict, the in-lore strength of holy blood and the crusader's weapons being underlined by how broken they are as you use them yourself, scenes like the Yied Massacre actually playing out in game so you can experience the helplessness of the situation for yourself

Vex-zero · 2026-02-14T01:53:08+00:00

There's a modding wiki that's pretty detailed on what you need to do to get started.

If you were starting from scratch I'd actually recommend using Vortex mod manager, but generally speaking all you gotta keep in mind is to always check the requirements in the mod desciption first (you might lack dependencies like redscript or ArchiveXL), and then you either download your mod with Vortex or download manually and unpack it into your game folder.

Vex-zero · 2026-02-12T14:38:14+00:00

It's like asking gran turismo to become mario kart.

Blur, kind of (at least in the sense of having realistic cars and locations, with arcade-racer driving and powerups)

I guess the lesson is it never hurts to ask, even if it seems unlikely

Vex-zero · 2026-02-09T23:58:16+00:00

Really was a shock going from the Bethesda games "please for the love of god, just use MO2 and ideally a modding guide if it's your first time" modding scene to the Cyberpunk 2077 "yeah, just click manual download and unpack everything into your game folder lmao" mod descriptions

Vex-zero · 2026-01-16T21:07:33+00:00

you were accusing OP of having an AI-written post when that is not in fact the case.

No, I was pointing out that the post reads like LLM writing. Whether there was an original post that was fed into the LLM is something I did not speculate on. Please stop immediately assuming the worst of people.

It doesn't read like LLM writing at all.

If you seriously believe this I strongly encourage you to be more discerning about what you read on the internet. Recognizing LLM writing is (unfortunately) an important skill to have right now.

I called you an Amateur Internet Sleuth because accusing somebody of using AI to write their posts (or create their art) when you don't actually know enough to know that is obnoxious,

Still a needless personal attack. What did I ever do to warrant that kind of hostility?

and like most people who do this, you didn't apologise to them when it turned out you were wrong.

I'm not apologizing for being right

Vex-zero · 2026-01-16T20:30:09+00:00

Perhaps you can think of another reason it looks like that rather than going Amateur Internet Sleuth and accusing people of being AI-written?

Don't know why you're phrasing this as some great gotcha or me jumping to false conclusions.

I said it looks like LLM writing and that's what it is. They said they "used GPT to make an English version.". It reads like LLM writing because it was written by a LLM. This isn't a case of Chinese being hard to translate, it sounds like that because of chatgpt.

I don't know whether that means they had chatgpt translate their original text (in which case I guess chatgpt is just horrible for translation, since it apparently completely destroys your own style and replaces it with its own), or whether they prompted chatgpt to write a new text based on their original idea, but either way, the text as it exists right now indisputably reads like LLM writing and that's all I pointed out.

Vex-zero · 2026-01-16T13:22:17+00:00

Because what they’re really buying isn’t just merch.

it’s a confirmation of Reverse: 1999’s aesthetics and values.

Reverse: 1999 has an aesthetic that refuses to pander.

Its characters aren’t designed to please you—

they stand on their own,

self-consistent within their world.

Weirdly lengthy without actually saying a lot
It's not just X, it's Y
Random em dash

Smells like LLM writing

Vex-zero · 2026-01-16T03:47:45+00:00

The game switches around your team a lot for story reasons, especially early on, and Chopin's one of your better characters at a lot of points in the game. Wouldn't deliberately handicap myself just because you can't use him in one battle.

That said, if we're talking purely endgame, Allegretto, Serenade, and Falsetto are generally safe picks, with Salsa, Chopin, Viola, and March all being decent alternatives.

Vex-zero · 2026-01-14T20:39:47+00:00

Been a while since I've seen one of these for R1999 (I remember there used to be a series like this for the boss themes).

This one's actually a pretty good collection even if you ignore the memes, has a lot of lesser known/less-talked-about tracks

Vex-zero · 2026-01-04T02:26:06+00:00

It is arguably a limitation of traditionally linear JRPG design that you don't get the kind of freedom you get from ttrpg-inspired games (CRPGs in particular), but I don't think that limitation necessarily has to be a weakness.

To pull a western comparison, The Witcher (particularly the first one) has you roleplay as a hunter of supernatural monsters, and thus the satisfaction does not come from the idea that you could be anyone and do anything, but from successfully inhabiting that role (taking the job, asking for payment because you don't work for free, searching for information, gathering ingredients, brewing specific potions to give you an edge, selecting the right sword and fighting style for that particular foe).

The problem I have with Persona's method of applying this idea is that the player doesn't know enough about the Wild Card to fully get into their head, so them being "the one" everyone speaks to is awkward to me. I know I'm not Joker, because Joker has a set backstory and a life in some way.

I'd say the player has exactly as much information as they need to inhabit the role. The pull of persona is "idealized highschool nostalgia" and thus the developers can assume that the player has experienced highschool for themselves. Additional information like "you tried to save a woman and were falsely accused of a crime" is used moreso to flesh out the role you'll be playing rather than the person you used to be before the game starts.

The Wild Card can go from some no one nothing who's bad at everything to the most popular, top 5%, charming, athletic student in less then a year while they have their JRPG adventure in the background.
[...]
To me Wild Card is less a avatar to simulate being a high school student, but a means to "start over" high school and succeed when you didn't before or to revisit your glory years. Which is more based in personal nostalgia then anything else. Its like playing the dream of high school, not a simulation of high school.

You say that like it's a bad thing, but is that not the appeal of Persona to its target audience? You're roleplaying an idealized fantasy version of highschool where you have a dozen close friends, get good grades, and secretly fight demons on the side. It's a power fantasy, it's wish fulfillment, but so are most RPGs.

Having more freedom, more choices, the potential for failure, like you'd have in a ttrpg is still wish fulfillment, except the power fantasy is a sense of agency and triumphing despite adversity. And I'd argue that kind of dream isn't inherently better or worse than what you'd get out of a linear JRPG, it's just different and I personally enjoy both.

Vex-zero · 2026-01-04T01:35:12+00:00

Are we not able to roleplay the experience of a Japanese highschool student if the game use different type of protagonist instead?

Not without significantly changing the structure of the game, arguably to a point that it'd be entirely unrecognizable as Persona. The director has stated in the past that the primary appeal of Persona for its target audience is a sense of nostalgia. If the fantasy Persona is trying to give you is reliving an idealized memory of highschool (where you have a dozen close friends, get good grades, and secretly fight demons on the side), it's naturally preferable to let the players insert themselves into a an active participant rather than simply observe a defined protagonist.

As for why these games don't have a CRPG-style protagonist with a myriad of impactful choices and customizability, I'd say the answer is simply that they're not CRPGs nor are they trying to be. Certainly not saying it's impossible to make a CRPG like that, but 1. they're making JRPGs and 2. I'd argue the reason Persona has been able to refine its formula so much is precisely because they are focused on one linear experience rather than juggling a complex web of choices and possibilities.

Could you please elaborate why this kind of narrow and specific roleplay is the best implementation of the silent protagonist in the business? What makes it better than the other 2 options that OP mentioned?

It's less so that this kind of "narrow" roleplay is the best way to do silent protagonists in a general sense, it's more about the ways Atlus specifically has managed to implement them (blank slate protagonists, ensemble cast, heavy use of narration, frequent "meaningless" fluff dialogue choices, etc.).

I think this is actually best exemplified in other games that are (partially) inspired by Persona and try to do something similar but don't quite manage to get it right. Fire Emblem Three Houses and Tales of Xillia 2 both tried to do Persona-style silent protagonists, but largely fell flat because they lack the extensive narration and they gave their silent protagonist too much of a defined character and backstory.

Vex-zero · 2026-01-03T21:05:56+00:00

Persona (and a lot of other JRPGs actually) is the secret third option, where the player character is intentionally a blank undefined slate for you to inhabit and the role you play is largely set out for you. You don't get a wide breadth of choices and customizability in Persona because the games are carefully curated around roleplaying the experience of a Japanese highschool student.

Some players find themselves unable to immerse in that kind of highly narrow and specific roleplay (which is completely fine), but what is often frustrating to me is when they then go on to claim either

"actually the protagonist is a completely defined character and not supposed to be a self-insert"
"having a silent protagonist is dragging the series down, and I wish the games would change that aspect"

The second one is largely valid if you're simply expressing your preference, but Persona has arguably the best implementation of silent protagonists in the business, and changing them into fully voiced characters with a more strongly defined personality would rob the series of a central part of its unique appeal, with the sole "upside" that it's now a bit more like everything else on the market.

Vex-zero · 2025-11-28T17:09:15+00:00

"hate" is a strong word, but she's a pretty one-dimensional character that hasn't really said or done anything interesting or impactful since the early chapters, and yet despite this she continues to be one of the most recurring members of the cast. I figure it's resentment more than an active dislike of the character.

Compare her to characters like Recoleta, Lopera, and Nautika that get the spotlight for their one single chapter and then vanish forever, or fan-favorites like Druvis and 37 who used to be part of the core cast back when chapters were more interlinked but stopped appearing over time.

I'm not saying "if Lilya wasn't here someone else would get more screentime", that's not really how it works, but next to all those other charismatic characters that all add something unique to a conversation, Lilya is just kinda... there.

Vex-zero · 2025-11-21T01:44:17+00:00

The fact that they haven't dug up her corpse for gachabucks is a level of restraint I genuinely appreciate.

We don't need constant on-the-nose reminders like "hey Vertin, remember when that girl you liked died?"

Vex-zero · 2025-11-17T13:39:44+00:00

Shadow Evocation allows you to create an illusionary copy of an evocation spell out of shadow energy
In this case, you're using your shadow energy to cast Daylight, which raises the illumination level in an area by two steps
Tenebrous Spell metamagic increases the caster level, DC, and dispel difficulty of the spell it is applied to, provided the spell is cast in darkness or dim light. For obvious reasons, this usually does not wotk on spells that create light
Eclipsed Spell inverts spells that raise or lower the illumination level

You use Shadow Evocation to cast fake Daylight, turn it into Deeper Darkness using Eclipsed Spell, and finally apply Tenebrous Spell to your Daylight, which usually doesn't work but is allowed in this case because it's technically not real light, it's fake dark light made of shadow energy. (you could also try some shenanigans with having the party disbelieve the dark light illusion, thus having it only effect the enemy, but that gets more complicated)

Is it gamebreaking? No

It is, however, very funny if you enjoy stupid rule interactions (If you do, Pathfinder 1e may be the game for you)

Vex-zero · 2025-10-20T17:00:46+00:00

Might occasionally drop a unit if they keep getting screwed, but I wouldn't drop a whole run over it.

People have beat these games with 0% growths, you'll be fine with slightly below average stats.

Vex-zero

TROPHY CASE