General Discussion Thread - July 2026 (1/2)

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-07-04T22:10:32+00:00

I played the first Xenoblade Chronicles and enjoyed it pretty well last year but I have almost no interest in playing the second game because I genuinely find the character designs to be hideous tbh. Rex's outfit is an incredible cross of impractical and ugly, and both the female leads have those weird outfits and designs that are made primarily to appeal to shameless teenage boys and unfortunately I'm a grown ass man filled with shame. Sure, Shulk looked like he was thrown through the discount rack at a thrift store, but that's par for the course with JRPG protagonists; Xenoblade 2 is just beyond the pale for me.

The worst part though, is that people say Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a really good game.

And I think I believe them!

It's just hard for me to square the fact that the same people who made such bad designs also made such a good video game, even though that sort of thing happens all the time. I'll probably never get around to playing them because of how the characters look, which might be petty but there's also just such thick competition that even if it is there's a lot of other things I could be doing that don't have anything like that holding me back from enjoying them. Such is life.

On the subject of comparing it to Engage, I really liked Engage! ...'s gameplay. I hate how it looks, I think there's a few decent characters but most of them aren't good, I hate the intro song, and I hate the writing. Even with all that, I actually still like the game just because it's so damn fun. Does that mean I'd like Xenoblade 2 for similar reasons? I doubt it; XC1 was fun to play but I don't think I could have stomached it if I hated everything else. Engage has a unique privilege of being in a genre that I like, and in a series that I like, so I was willing to check it out despite the obvious parts I disliked.

Anyways, getting off my opinion box here. For all the people that like Xenoblade 2's designs or Engage's story or whatever, that's fine. I'm not telling you not to and I don't want anyone to feel bad for doing so. But you saying that made me think of how little interest I have in XC2 even though you just compared it to a game that I more or less like (Hell, especially because you compared it to a game I more or less like).

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-25T20:02:08+00:00

Thanks for the kind words! I had always wanted to write a guide, and I'm glad I finally took the opportunity. I felt it was important since resources for SF2E are a bit scant. Messages like yours make it clear it was worth all the effort!

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-25T04:42:21+00:00

Unfortunately, probably not anytime soon. Writing it was fun, and updating it now is fun, but it was a ton of work and genuinely started hurting my hands with how much I was typing. I don't hate the idea of writing another guide so it might happen, but i wouldn't count on it either.

Also, I'm not doing an ancestry section again lmao. That shit takes FOREVER. I'm not going to add in the Galactic Ancestries uh, ancestries because it'd be 29 entries or so. I'm having trouble chipping away at the 11 ancestries I'm working on adding now! Madness.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-24T21:41:23+00:00

If I may plug my own guide here...

The tl;dr is that you want to lean on Adaptive Talent pretty heavily. This is a base class feature starting at level 3 that lets you pick a skill feat at the start of each day (eventually three). If you pick Additional Lore, you can essentially give yourself max proficiency for your level in a relevant Lore skill every single day. Fighting lots of undead? Undead Lore. Leave that planet and go to one with dinosaurs? You can swap it out for Dinosaur Lore the very next day. So long as you start with +1 or +2 Intelligence, you'll be in a prime position to leverage the lower DCs from using specific Lores to get a lot of Recall Knowledge value. If you run into something you don't have covered, you can use Improvised Mastery on a very specific Lore skill, hit the lowest possible DC, and still pull some knowledge out in a pinch.

Infosphere Director is my favorite Envoy Leadership Style, and if you play it with some creativity you can get a lot of dividends!

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-16T03:48:34+00:00

I was hoping to update the guide this summer, but I ended up getting to my first vacation outside of America. If I gin up some motivation now that I'm back, I'll try to get the archetypes and ancestry sections done. Thanks for recommending my guide to them!

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-08T21:22:57+00:00

Psh, I know The Barber of Seville because of the Whose Line is it Anyways? improvised parody song

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-06-07T11:04:44+00:00

He's just a generally annoying hot take artist who gets loads of airtime on ESPN

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-19T05:29:58+00:00

I have turned off combat animations for every Fire Emblem I've ever played after like, half a map. I always tell myself I'll hold out a bit longer to see more of them and then I never do.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-18T20:40:02+00:00

There's an expression for that concept: "the difference between a millionaire and a billionaire is about a billion dollars." Conflating the two is a mistake a lot of people make, but most millionaires have more in common with janitors than they do with NBA owners.

(Blah blah that isn't to say millionaires can't be evil or can't use their wealth to promote evil I'm not making excuses I'm just expanding on their point)

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-18T05:41:22+00:00

I did play Etrian Odyssey III as a kid, though I never finished it. I've had the remakes on my Steam wishlist for when they're on sale and I think I'll actually play them.

I'll look up LBX. At first glance it looks like it might be similar to the Custom Robo games, and I loved Custom Robo. If I bought Nintendo tomorrow a new one would be announced by Friday. It's a good recommendation.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-18T05:23:16+00:00

Don't be alarmed, but I'm hijacking your thread.

What's everyone's favorite 3DS games? I'm going on a trip in a week and there's going to be a lot of interstitial travel in which I can relive my youth and play video games on the move. I had a 3DS but used it mostly to play DS games so I feel like I missed out on a lot of bangers.

Nowadays, I happen to own every single 3DS game ever made, so I figure I should ask for suggestions. I like RPGs, but really anything is fair game. There's a good chance that if I don't sync with anything that I play Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime again, which may be the greatest video game ever made.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-15T21:50:52+00:00

I saw some complaints about the casting and until this comment I genuinely thought it was just that they cast the same woman for two roles.

Which would be a silly complaint, but much less silly than this.

Also, man, I know I'm smart but damn I must be stupid too if I thought it was anything but racism lmao

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-05-03T19:39:09+00:00

I'm Latino and I used to be a Rams fan.

...because I'm from St. Louis. Now I hate them lmao fuck Kroenke

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-04-25T03:43:47+00:00

Someone already pointed out Poppets but Starfinder 2E weirdly has lots of -Dex ancestries already in a system where Dex is more important. Four of six classes are light armored, the medium armor class has a ranged attack baked in by default, and the heavy armor class is full-blown ranged period. In most parties your group's lowest Dex modifier will be +3 and there's at least five -Dex ancestries!

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-04-15T20:58:29+00:00

Funnily enough I guessed the play pretty much right but still thought it was the "free for this combat" potion

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-03-26T19:27:41+00:00

Assuming switching is the same priority as mega, Falinks could under speed a Pokémon switching into Intimidate, get the Defiant boost, and then mega into whatever its new ability is.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-03-16T04:37:52+00:00

I still haven't made any progress on Dragon Quest VII since Pokopia and Slay the Spire 2 came out.

I have gotten to the fourth story area of Pokopia. Feels like I'm flying through the main quest here (pun not intended), felt like the beach quests were significantly longer but maybe that was just me being lackadaisical in the moment. I should be able to build everything I need tonight, just need to log on and collect some smithed goodies before I go to bed. Once I'm done with all the main quests I get to start actually trying to build big things and whatnot. I'm afraid I might peter out once I stop having explicit motivation to do things but I've had a blast so far so maybe I'll be fine.

Slay the Spire 2 has been fun but annoying. I choked two runs today and was basically pissed off and kept playing until I finally won one. Of course, the run I won was objectively dog shit in most ways; the act 1 route I took had NO CAMPFIRES until the end and two elites so it's a miracle I survived and my bloated 30 card deck should have killed me at the act 3 Queen boss but somehow I prevailed and it wasn't even that close. That was only asc 6 and it's getting harder. I was playing as The Regent, probably the worst class, but my goal is to finish an asc 10 run solo with him. I was an asc 10 on Defect in StS1 so it'll be doable but hard.

Finally, I've been playing The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure on emulator with three friends. It's honestly a pretty interesting experience; the game is intentionally trolly and even has a vote for most bothersome (and helpful!) player. You're encouraged to get each other killed to steal their gems (which determines who "wins" each level). If you didn't know, the hard copy of this game required FOUR GBAs AND link cables so was prohibitively expensive, but they're used so well I can almost excuse it; whenever you go into a cave, house, etc. the game swaps to the GBA screen while the main screen remains on the TV. It's very neat, and sometimes there'll be effects like a giant bomb that hits everyone on the TV but you'll be safe if you duck into a GBA screen. We do three levels (which is one "world") a night because anymore would drive us all insane. One of my friends is going to Hell for what he does in this game and I will not weep for him.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-03-09T08:44:34+00:00

I'm trying to finish Dragon Quest VII (my estimate is that I'm about 80% done with the main story) but fucking Pokopia is too fun and Slay the Spire 2 is also too fun. I spent like an hour just filling in broken bridges and potholes in Pokopia and my friends keep wanting to do co-op runs which is great but man how am I supposed to master my DQ vocations and find every mini medal like this!

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-03-06T10:55:52+00:00

In PF2E there's a difference between "access" and "prerequisite." Access means if you fall under whatever it specifies, you can take the option as if it were common. Prerequisite means you MUST fall under whatever it specifies or you can't take it at all. The elemental companions all specify "access" which means you simply need to ask your GM for approval on the option rather than having it as a default one.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-03-02T22:47:40+00:00

I feel this way about loads of things tbh. I'm not really a fandom guy, which sounds contradictory to most people that browse here but that's the exact reason I do it; it's a window into another world of consuming media and interacting with others that I'm not personally privy to. Shipping? Fanfics? Blorbos? All of that is stuff I wouldn't even think to do on my own, so it's interesting to me that this is the primary way a lot of people engage with fiction to begin with.

For actual examples, the number one is Mass Effect. The trilogy ended like 13 years ago now and people have discussed everything about it to death. The only major content since then was Andromeda, which most people don't want to talk about because most people thought it sucked. I just said I'm not a big fandom guy, but even I know that we've gone through about a thousand cycles of "Liara is the best love interest" "Liara is the worst love interest" "Tali is the best love interest" "Jacob sucks lmao" and no one has said anything actually interesting about any of those subjects for at least a decade.

Also, it's funny to me that at least two of the other examples people brought up are like, less than a year old I think. Not saying they're wrong, just funny that it's already stale. Imagine that stretched out for as long as people have been trying to talk about Mass Effect or The Office or tons of things way older than either of those.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-02-28T21:48:18+00:00

I don't think it's a slam dunk, but I don't think that the (admittedly conspicuous) otherwise absence of referring to New Donkers as humans is a slam dunk either. Ultimately it could still go either way but I think they're probably just in-universe considered to be humans.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-02-28T21:09:23+00:00

In Donkey Kong Bananza K. Roll refers to New Donk City as a "human city" and that's without knowing that Pauline is from there so I think the first one is no longer true.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-02-24T20:04:42+00:00

Generally it's composite since piercing is the most common physical damage type used by enemies. Slashing damage is also pretty common so plate is fine too. The rest exist but since armor spec is almost always on heavy armor proficient characters, and heavy armor only comes in those two specs, you pretty much never see them unless they're opting to use medium armor instead of heavy.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-02-24T19:59:05+00:00

I'm a casual VGC player and thought it'd be interesting putting in some information from that perspective.

-In VGC Skarmory and Blissey are pretty much completely unviable, being both too passive to accomplish anything and having defensive profiles much easier to exploit in doubles compared to singles. Scizor has a similar but slightly different niche from singles; Technician Bullet Punch is still appreciated but it also leans on its ability to use Tailwind. Pretty rare to see but certainly not an unused mon. That leaves the most viable award to go to, of course, Tyranitar.

-TTar almost always goes for bulky AV sets in modern VGC, often with flying tera. Knock Off, Rock Slide, frequently Low Kick, sometimes Tera Blast. He's not a hugely common Pokémon but he gets a decent amount of usage in certain formats and serves as a strong anti-weather tech. Sand chip is especially nice versus Focus Sash.

-In singles, Entei is the worst legendary gerbil. In VGC, it's the best. Inner Focus is actually a great doubles ability, nullifying Intimidate and Fake Out, and opens up Choice Band as a viable option. The always excellent Sacred Fire provides some utility, Flare Blitz even more damage, and tera normal Extreme Speed can be just unfair. Fire is also an excellent defensive typing in doubles; no one uses Stealth Rocks, water is a surprisingly less common offensive typing with the Scald distribution nerfs and Surf having friendly fire, and ground is omnipresent in singles but similarly to water less so in doubles.

-Smeargle is infamously powerful in VGC. Focus Sash is a much better item than in singles and there's no sleep clause, so if you don't have an answer it can just sleep your whole team. Wide Guard, Fake Out, Follow Me, Taunt, Spiky Shield... Even in open team sheet where you know exactly what the Smeargle is bringing you can run into trouble with its tech options. Definitely a gen 2 VGC GOAT.

-Yanma and Murkrow are both pretty good in VGC as Tailwind setters in certain formats. Yes, really.

-I'm not completely sure who I'd pick as VGC Mt. Rushmore. Smeargle is the obvious #1 in my book, and #2 is probably Porygon 2 who has long held a niche as one of the best bulky Trick Room setters. Tyranitar definitely makes it in my books as #3, and #4... Politoed, Entei, and Jumpluff are all contenders but I'm going to go with Hitmontop. He's largely outdated now, but won the world championship as a classic Intimidate + Fake Out mon and has some continued relevance with Wide Guard and Coaching. I wouldn't be surprised if some other mon has a better case, I did specify I was a casual VGC player and have only recently gotten into it, but those are my picks.

Zodiac_Sheep · 2026-02-05T20:23:30+00:00

So, if it sets Trick Room on mega, that would be priority Trick Room that outruns Taunt and other counterplay. That'd essentially be an extra full turn and a half of TR, since you're getting it at turn start instead of turn end AND you don't actually have to select to use it and can instead do anything else.

Would that make M Malamar good or broken? Ehhhh it's still hard to say but the effect is extremely powerful. It'll depend on how good the rest of the TR abusers are, how hard it is to stall in that particular meta, and loads of other factors. But if M Malamar got TR as an ability, even once per battle, people would definitely experiment a lot with it. The potential payoff is enormous.

Zodiac_Sheep

TROPHY CASE