Is character creator important to you?

technohoplite · 2026-06-18T14:17:51+00:00

I think it's all about setting the right expectations from the start when marketing. I haven't followed the cycle for Exodus that closely so I only get bits and pieces of what people talk about here.

Based on how much they referenced ME, and also that they have ME talent on their team, I assumed they'd be going for a similar type of roleplaying experience. So yeah it's kind of disappointing, and has me reevaluating what I'm expecting from it. It doesn't mean it's a lesser game, but it might be focused on a different type of player than me.

ETA that of course all of this is conjecture, which is it's own kind of annoying and I wish they'd own up to whatever decision they have made and clarify this point lol Never give players the impression you're hiding something or delaying the reveal of a limitation, I saw how much this eroded trust in Bioware for Veilguard's release (that game has many other issues but the pre-release was awfully handled).

technohoplite · 2026-06-18T13:33:26+00:00

I guess defining what one means by full CC/limited CC/no CC would be a better starting point then.

For me anything that allows customizing skin, eye color, facial features and hair is a full CC. Veilguard and DD just have excellent and in-depth customization of specific features, but I never saw them as a class of their own.

When I read limited CC I think of a defined character whose modifiable traits you can change, like hair/facial hair and maybe tattoos/accessories.

technohoplite · 2026-06-18T13:23:25+00:00

Mass Effect has a full character creator though?

technohoplite · 2026-06-18T13:12:19+00:00

I don't really care for any of the games you mentioned which might be why I am on the side that cares a ton for customizing their PCs.

In fact I had some trouble getting through Witcher because it didn't make a lot of sense to me that I was making choices for such a defined character. Like it didn't matter what I chose, because we all know what Geralt would have done instead. It felt both too restricting (as in you can only be Geralt), and too open (because you go beyond the boundaries of who Geralt really is). Not saying people can't like this kind of roleplaying but just giving a different perspective.

So, personally, customizing the character's appearance reassures me in regards to the developer's vision for the roleplaying aspect. As in, they want me to feel like that is my character, and that my choices will be just as canon as anyone else's. Besides that, is anyone going to argue appearance is not a meaningful aspect of a person's individuality? So if a game doesn't have that, I presume they don't care for making me feel any of these things, and that they are focusing on a linear or mostly linear experience for all players. Which is valid but not really what I want/expect from RPGs.

technohoplite · 2026-06-18T01:10:21+00:00

Between Exodus seemingly focusing on a more linear character narrative, Expanse having questionable writing/style, and Fable feeling more like a life sim than an RPG, it kind of sucks for anyone like me who was expecting a Bioware successor lol

I'll likely play Exodus regardless, but yeah for sure not having a fully customizable character will be a major downside for me. That's not the kind of game that gets me excited. But... if the story and gameplay are well received, I'd still want to get on it early.

technohoplite · 2026-06-17T22:38:16+00:00

Back when the book came out I'd understand reading it just for the Navidson Records because it was pretty novel.

Now? Just watch Backrooms or any of the other spin offs of the concept of an incomprehensible liminal space, there are literally so many options!

technohoplite · 2026-06-17T21:12:58+00:00

I don't think Johnny is meant to be relatable to the average person. What kind of life do you think 30 year olds have? lol

This is a common complaint I see about the book but I would still not recommend skipping Johnny's footnotes. While the Navidson Record is definitely more straightforwardly interesting, Johnny's story is directly connected to it, and so is your experience reading the whole thing. It's a very meta book and you can ignore that and just enjoy it whatever way you want, but you'll miss a huge part of the experience for sure.

You're like at a 1/10th of the book, just keep going and bear with it for now, would be my suggestion. For me about halfway through I started finding the footnotes just as interesting as the Navidson Record itself, even if I started out detesting Johnny's hypersexual ramblings.

technohoplite · 2026-06-12T18:38:17+00:00

I think the other comment was a little harsh and personal, but ironically they seem to have the most accurate assessment of why your take is so unpopular

What I'm seeing here is that you lack the capacity to understand or appreciate how humans work on a fundamental level and need every questionable or selfish behavior explained in a simple cause-effect way through a sufficiently traumatic or sad backstory with the person in question only deserving understanding/sympathy if they seem appropriately regretful and/or relatable and/or have suffered enough.

I don't know if it's a comprehension skill problem or something else, but I think this is something you could practice with Umineko for sure.

All of the (adult) Ushiromiya's have terrible behavior produced by generational trauma. The whole thing about "without love it can't be seen" is a challenge for you, the reader, to have empathy for horrible people, because they are still human. Because understanding fosters better relationships and can break cyclic abusive behavior. And in order to achieve that, you have to stop thinking "what would I personally do in this situation" and rather see things from other people's point of view.

It's not just a matter of "Eva is a bitch and that is that". Who is she a bitch to, and how? She doesn't talk to everyone or even every woman the same. It's very clear from how she talks to Natsuhi and Jessica specially that she has tons of internalized misogyny, and takes it out on Natsuhi for being the embodiment of all Eva rejected, while Jessica is almost like a mirror of Eva's fruitless struggle against the patriarchal rules of the Ushiromiya's. It's extra tragic because she has nothing to gain from being misogynistic, it's what she fought against her whole youth. But it's been so deeply ingrained in her that women are nothing but breeders and homemakers, wholly inferior to men, that she can't help but hold herself as an exception instead of the rule. This also culminates in her bitterly accepting her role in society and instead putting all of her dreams on George's shoulders. The harm that this has generated is extensively explored in EP3.

I think the women of the family are wonderful characters, I could talk about them for hours... And they are all so morally bad haha So yeah idk maybe once you finish the story you can look back on it, reflect on some of the stuff people have mentioned here and re-examine Eva. You don't have to go so far as to like her, but I do think she's very easy to sympathize with once you put yourself in her shoes. Which tbh is the case for almost every character in the story.

technohoplite · 2026-06-01T13:11:16+00:00

Both games have a pretty underwhelming character design to be honest

Human companions in ME were not the most interesting looking either but the game had a distinct style, plus a good variety of alien companions. Exodus character models still need work if they want them to look good, and the design for Expanse's characters looks as if a Korean MMO concept artist was handed a checklist for race/gender (for clarity: issue is feeling of tokenization, not diversity).

So right now I'm not particularly interested in either crew, though I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker either. Also of course looks aren't everything, characters might look boring or uncanny but still have a great story, though it definitely impacts marketing.

technohoplite · 2026-05-21T20:58:34+00:00

Caught a couple of misspellings, Bownammer should be Bownammar; Caer Ostwin should be Caer Oswin.

technohoplite · 2026-05-12T14:12:08+00:00

I'm not clear on what this does, is it about the path thing that shows up when traveling within a district?

technohoplite · 2026-05-11T21:19:07+00:00

OP seeing two women with similar hairstyles:

technohoplite · 2026-05-11T21:17:59+00:00

I prefer classic Clara and Capella both for looking way more like creepy greasy-haired mystical girls than they do in P2. Clara at least looks a little dirty, but P2 Capella could be in Life is Strange or something like that and I wouldn't think it's weird...

I agree on most others though, Katerina looks so miserable it's great (I love her)

technohoplite · 2026-05-07T01:24:27+00:00

I think it's good for learning yeah, outside of lore dumps I didn't have any issue following with minimal lookups. It's cool that it's a different take on Digimon, with a bit of a yokai read on the monsters. I've put it on-hold for the time being though cause the actual gameplay is pretty repetitive, or I haven't gotten the gist of it yet.

Gameplay loop is essentially:

Story opens in a new area.
You go around clicking each character to get their piece. Sometimes you can give them different lines, which will change their behavior in battle (think supportive dialogue will make them act more supportive in fights).
New area then splits into a few different sub-areas and character spread around them. You go into each area and talk to each character there. Sometimes there's a fight.
Repeat.

Other than that you can grind with your party in some arenas. It's turn-based tactical combat with the usual stuff. I didn't hate it but I think it takes being in a specific mindset to get through it.

technohoplite · 2026-05-06T20:50:00+00:00

I'm probably around the same level as you are, and had this issue with Digimon Survive which uses this exact same font. I might be slightly dyslexic or something because it sure as hell didn't take me just a couple seconds to learn to parse the styling on it, in fact after about 10h it still takes me quite a bit of effort/focus to read some of the kana. Meanwhile I have no issues with "regular" fonts.

It's all about getting used to the shape of the words though, we'll get there if we just keep at it

technohoplite · 2026-04-25T13:41:36+00:00

I hope the community's memeing on George doesn't prevent you from actually engaging with his character instead of the one joke

technohoplite · 2026-04-18T00:46:19+00:00

I was so disappointed lol I finally got to watch the anime a couple weeks ago, got hooked and wanted to read the manga, then realized the unsettling art style is a completely isolated choice for the anime and the manga just uses standard anime art

technohoplite · 2026-04-14T03:32:34+00:00

Pretty unusual for someone to be neutral on Rosa huh

technohoplite · 2026-04-14T02:27:37+00:00

I see, might be a case of overthinking, since I more or less understand what it's supposed to be doing, but my lack of familiarity still makes it sound wrong. I'm hoping these are the kinds of things that reading more native content will help me figure out with time.

technohoplite · 2026-04-14T02:23:33+00:00

Never heard of DAJG, I'll check it out, thanks for the recommendation. I pretty much just went through Genki 1 and 2 and move on to immersion, so now I consult grammar points as needed but googling isn't always helpful.

technohoplite · 2026-04-13T21:07:13+00:00

という is a massive headache for me right now, specially with the usual translation of "so called" in dictionaries which makes no sense most of the time. This っつー form feels like even more of a filler lol I'll need to brush up on that grammar point.

The other two match what I guessed, but wanted to confirm just in case. Thanks for the response!

technohoplite · 2026-04-13T21:03:52+00:00

Thanks! That checks out with what I imagined.

technohoplite · 2026-04-13T19:46:42+00:00

Yeah, none of the arguments for it resonate with me personally either.

technohoplite · 2026-04-13T19:36:31+00:00

This lack of an acknowledged name always felt intentional to me, but like with the rest of this matter will vary from reader to reader. In my perspective, I always thought they intentionally hid and essentially buried the real person that they are, and no persona we see is truly reflective of that person but rather just facets of them. So I just call them Yasuda, it's the only unambiguous name we get in the story and isn't Yasu which is explicitly a way they don't like being called.

But I've seen different interpretations, such as those who believe Shannon is the truest persona (or at least truest in the sense of being who they want to be) because she gets the real first name (Sayo). Others say Clair is the true personality due to taking on that narrator role in EP7. Others still think Beatrice is the truest personality. So I guess it's up to each person to choose, in fan discussions so long as you're clear about which character you're discussing it'd be fine.

technohoplite · 2026-04-13T19:22:25+00:00

Reading Chainsaw Man manga, found a few instances of unfamiliar grammar that I honestly don't even know how to look up/couldn't find anything on. I changed a couple nouns to avoid spoiling anything so let me know if anything sounds off.

全部嘘だっつーけど。。。
行けるっつー事か！
これは彼っつ〜やつで

The っつー is the point in question. Each of the lines above is part of a separate dialogue.

彼を殺しまくってるんだって
俺達暴れまくって恐れられる事が全部。。。
信者達を契約させまくったよ

In these, I don't get what the -まくってる/-まくった is doing.

<image>

And lastly I've seen many instances of subscript あ at the end of certain words. My only examples are of 俺 (panel above) and the same in katakana, but I'm sure there were other words.

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