Behold, the body of Adonis and the brain of a squirrel.

[micah211]

That actually sounds like fun, I can only imagine tearing computers apart and scavenging. It must be like looting stuff, but with those low yet amazing chances of getting something worth your while.

Cloak and Dagger TV show?

[Deepfreeze32]

I beat Persona 5 last night. It was incredible. The final boss was kind of insane, though.

I'll walk you through what happens, but in spoilers if you wish to skip it.

Spoiler:

The boss, taking themes from the game, is a sort of incarnation of the seven deadly sins. He starts just as himself (A gigantic dude with weird arms). Then he starts inflicting you with status ailments based on the deadly sins. Each ailment has a chance to cause you to attack teammates, and cannot be dispelled with normal ailment dispel items/spells (with the exception of Gluttony, which inflicts a common status ailment called Hunger). In addition, he summons a weapon in one of his arms (a gun, a bell, a sword, and a book in that order) each time he inflicts a deadly sin on you. The weapon is treated as a separate target (and each have different resistances), and each weapon gives him another action on his turn, so you need to destroy the weapons quickly. Some of the deadly sins have no status effect, or a common status effect (See Gluttony), but do something else. Sloth, for example, doubles the cost of all Persona powers (Which drain magic for magic abilities, health for physical attacks) for one round, while Pride automatically counters any attacks for one round (By draining magic points, which really hurts). As you destroy weapons, he will sometimes re-summon them with a quarter of their initial health.

Once you've gone through all seven deadly sins, the final phase of the battle begins. He re-summons all four weapons at full health, and begins charging an ultra attack. The charging takes two rounds, and if you aren't guarding when it hits, you will die. As it stands, it will almost kill you, so you will need to heal up quickly. Because then he takes five actions per turn, and will quickly kill you if you can't knock those weapons down. I actually died on my first attempt here, and was super annoyed. But thankfully, when you die the game lets you immediately restart the fight, so no need to watch all the dialogue again. I managed to push through on my second attempt and ended it.

And then the best part of Persona final bosses came: You get an ultimate Persona, and endure every attack the enemy throws at you while it screams in rage. Then, on your turn, you can only do one thing: Use your ultimate Persona's super move which kills the boss. I know it's not really "gameplay" but it feels so epic at the same time. In this case, the super move is a bullet made from the seven deadly sins, which finally kills the boss, the manifestation of mankind's distorted desires (The seven deadly sins).

So yeah, awesome game. If you want the final boss music, here is the music that plays during the "proper battle":



And here is the music that plays at the ultimate climax of the fight:



In my opinion, it's not as "epic final confrontation" as some other final boss themes, but I think it conveys the desperation and anger going into the fight.

Thoughts?

[Chozon1]

That actually sounds like fun, I can only imagine tearing computers apart and scavenging. It must be like looting stuff, but with those low yet amazing chances of getting something worth your while.

Cloak and Dagger TV show?

Great fun. My dad has since switches jobs, and I kind of miss it. XD The last compy he brought home was amazing not for its specs--which were easily half a decade out of pace--but for the fact it was a scratch build. Custom case and everything. Came from the IT department of a newspaper, and someone had put as much love into it as budget allowed. Specs weren't great, even for 2007...somewhere along the lines of 2Ghz single core pentium, two 40GB HDDs, and by the time I finished scrounging two other computers for the same type, 1.5GB of RAM (FEAR ITS POWER), and a finicky DVD drive.

Computer served me well for 2-3 years. Even with those specs, Linux made it fly. I've still got the metal frame under my desk, serving as a foot rest.

Cloak and Dagger are really cool heroes; remind me of Lux and Etzal'el, from the Failstate series.

But...seeing the network, I don't have much hope that the series will be all that great. XD Some hope, just not much. I'll watch it when it hits Netflix or Hulu.

I beat Persona 5 last night. It was incredible. The final boss was kind of insane, though.

I'll walk you through what happens, but in spoilers if you wish to skip it.

Spoiler:

The boss, taking themes from the game, is a sort of incarnation of the seven deadly sins. He starts just as himself (A gigantic dude with weird arms). Then he starts inflicting you with status ailments based on the deadly sins. Each ailment has a chance to cause you to attack teammates, and cannot be dispelled with normal ailment dispel items/spells (with the exception of Gluttony, which inflicts a common status ailment called Hunger). In addition, he summons a weapon in one of his arms (a gun, a bell, a sword, and a book in that order) each time he inflicts a deadly sin on you. The weapon is treated as a separate target (and each have different resistances), and each weapon gives him another action on his turn, so you need to destroy the weapons quickly. Some of the deadly sins have no status effect, or a common status effect (See Gluttony), but do something else. Sloth, for example, doubles the cost of all Persona powers (Which drain magic for magic abilities, health for physical attacks) for one round, while Pride automatically counters any attacks for one round (By draining magic points, which really hurts). As you destroy weapons, he will sometimes re-summon them with a quarter of their initial health.

Once you've gone through all seven deadly sins, the final phase of the battle begins. He re-summons all four weapons at full health, and begins charging an ultra attack. The charging takes two rounds, and if you aren't guarding when it hits, you will die. As it stands, it will almost kill you, so you will need to heal up quickly. Because then he takes five actions per turn, and will quickly kill you if you can't knock those weapons down. I actually died on my first attempt here, and was super annoyed. But thankfully, when you die the game lets you immediately restart the fight, so no need to watch all the dialogue again. I managed to push through on my second attempt and ended it.

And then the best part of Persona final bosses came: You get an ultimate Persona, and endure every attack the enemy throws at you while it screams in rage. Then, on your turn, you can only do one thing: Use your ultimate Persona's super move which kills the boss. I know it's not really "gameplay" but it feels so epic at the same time. In this case, the super move is a bullet made from the seven deadly sins, which finally kills the boss, the manifestation of mankind's distorted desires (The seven deadly sins).

So yeah, awesome game. If you want the final boss music, here is the music that plays during the "proper battle":



And here is the music that plays at the ultimate climax of the fight:



In my opinion, it's not as "epic final confrontation" as some other final boss themes, but I think it conveys the desperation and anger going into the fight.

Thoughts?

Holy crinkle fries, that just sounds bad. :O Not the music (which was very good; especially the second one. I really liked that), but the boss battle. That's pure, RAGE QUIT inducing, JRPG goodness right there. XD Is grinding a thing in the Persona series? Because I would've walked away until I sank about five hours in.

[Deepfreeze32]

Indeed, grinding is a thing in Persona. Loathe as I am to compare the two (Due to Megami Tensei, the parent series of Persona, preceding Pokemon) it is very much like Pokemon. You collect Personas as you go, when you knock them down with weaknesses (Or reduce them to a low enough health), you can negotiate with them and convince them to join you. You can combine them in a place called the Velvet Room to create new Personas, all of which are stored in a Compendium from which you can summon any registered Persona for a price. Generally when you are getting your butt handed to you, you need to get better Personas or just increase your levels. Thankfully, Persona 5 makes grinding pretty easy, and is pretty generous with areas where you can save. Leveling is handled both on a character and Persona basis, and the stats of the persona you are using influence battle performance (Persona agility determines your dodge chance, for instance)

So basically, if you are getting smacked by a boss, you can reload an earlier save and grind more to ensure you can beat it. Persona 5 is probably the most JRPG of JRPGs I've played this side of the 90's. And I loved it. It was very challenging, but in the way a JRPG should be. It never feels too cheap (Although it certainly can be at times), and is epic.

The ending credits song of Persona 5 is pretty cool too.



Thoughts?

[Chozon1]

I liked that too. That's actually been one of my favorites, I think. I'm going to be humming that at some point and not know where it came from. XD

[Deepfreeze32]

Since completing the game, I've felt this giant hole in my heart because of how attached I got to the cast. This also happened with Persona 4, lol. I can't listen to the ending credits songs to Persona 4 or 5 without immediately feeling sad because I don't have any more adventures to go through with them.

Ever played a game like that? Where, by the end of it, you felt a real connection with the characters and world, and going to other games/real life feels like leaving friends behind?

[Chozon1]

Sure. They one that comes to mind first is Morrowind, oddly enough. The NPC's aren't that memorable in that game, but the world is fantastic. Best I've ever come across in the wide arena of gaming. The immersion level of that game was such that--when I finally departed for good--I felt like I left a very small part of myself there. Like the nameless protagonist was less an avatar of me, and more a sorrowful hero that I was guiding through the world.

It was, in fact, near the top of the impetus list as to why I quit.

Crono Trigger was like that too; most RPG's are, to an extent, but I truly cared enough about Crono and the gang to want to see how their stories ended. Especially Frog and Lucca. Even Crono, who stepped up from generic silent protagonist to true hero during the course of the game; I wanted them to have happy endings, and I wasn't really content to leave until they did so.

[micah211]

Cloak is one of my favorites from the Marvel universe, but most tv shows butcher the character.

All the email you're never going to open?

[Deepfreeze32]

Yeah, especially long RPGs, you get a greater sense of attachment to the characters. I think it's why Persona works so well: You have really good characters, and you get locked into a 70-80 hour adventure with them, by the end, you start caring about them. And I think it's why I've always liked JRPGs, in particular.

When caffeine just makes you feel like a drained specter?

[JesusIsLord713]

If you could only buy 1 of the "newest" video game consoles (Xbox One Scorpio, PS4 Pro, Switch), which one would you get and why?

[Chozon1]

Cloak is one of my favorites from the Marvel universe, but most tv shows butcher the character.

All the email you're never going to open?

They did him pretty good in Ultimate Spiderman.

I can't even begin to fathom it. I haven't checked my trash folder in months. I rarely open Facebook alerts, since all the information is in the title. Same with forum alerts. Most adverts and spam are filtered out by Gmail.

I know my inbox was, at one point, around 300. And I didn't open any of it. >_> Because I'm hardcore.

Yeah, especially long RPGs, you get a greater sense of attachment to the characters. I think it's why Persona works so well: You have really good characters, and you get locked into a 70-80 hour adventure with them, by the end, you start caring about them. And I think it's why I've always liked JRPGs, in particular.

When caffeine just makes you feel like a drained specter?

The deuce. When I want a game I can sit down and really enjoy, I browse for an RPG. It's one of the few genre's you can almost play at your own pace and just experience. I mean yeah, there's the occasional timed thing...but it's not like an FPS, where every mission is rushrushrush shoot or die.

Most of the time, I need caffeine just to clear the cobwebs. When I want it to wake me up, I reach for Voltage.

Not kidding. I drink a coke or some tea, I'm like "*_*...o_o". I drink Voltage, I'm like " *_*...0_0...O_O...@_@"

If you could only buy 1 of the "newest" video game consoles (Xbox One Scorpio, PS4 Pro, Switch), which one would you get and why?

Switch, definitely. I was blessed with a PS4 over Christmas, and upgrading to a Pro is basically worthless since I don't have a 4K TV, and don't plan on getting one. Plus, I don't really want to support true mid-generation upgrades. That idea needs to die in a fire. Form factor changes are one thing, but truly upgrading the power is just not nice to consumers.

Scorpio is basically the same, with the addendum that there's only a few M$ exclusives I want to play. I would like one, but I'm willing to wait a decade and get it when its super cheap.

Switch though, in addition to being portable, is going to have the Ninty exclusives you can't get anywhere else: Mario, Zelda, Kirby, and hopefully Metroid. The good stuff. <3

[micah211]

Dragon Quest?

[JesusIsLord713]

Cool! I would pick the Switch over the other 2 for the same reasons. Plus there aren't any games on PS4 or Xbox 1 that I want anyway.

Finding a barely visible black spot on a banana?

[Deepfreeze32]

How do you feel about Dark/Demon's Souls/Bloodborne?

[Chozon1]

Dragon Quest?

I've only played the offshoots. Never been comfortable with the save functionality (which usually requires you praying to a goddess/god statue), but I've always wanted to give them a shot. Especially now that they're re-releasing them on the 3DS.

The few I've played have been really great; I actually prefer the world to Final Fantasy, for the most part.

Cool! I would pick the Switch over the other 2 for the same reasons. Plus there aren't any games on PS4 or Xbox 1 that I want anyway.

Finding a barely visible black spot on a banana?

What, no love for Ratchet and Clank? Actually, the problem with most PS4/Xbox 1 games is that they're M-rated, ultra-violent shooters. -_- Which I don't like to play, really. Sony is a bit better about having a larger variety of games though.

What is the black spot, and why is it something I would look for? :O The normal sort of age spots don't bother me usually, so a few I don't mind.

If it's too many, or the banana is squishy, I can't eat it. XD

How do you feel about Dark/Demon's Souls/Bloodborne?

Complicated. I avoid overly violent games, usually. And I'm not really OK with the nudity in the T-rated versions either.

There's also the incredibly dark world/narrative, of which I am not usually fond of. Rainbows and unicorns man. I want a happy ending.

Yet...yet I will not deny, I very, very much want to try the series out. XD I'm a gamer; you tell me a game is impossible to beat, I put on a troll face and say 'challenge accepted'. I might not be able to beat it...but I poop's sure want to try. There is GLORY (insert super villain upward clutching palm) here, for the taking.

So far, I have not given in to the temptation though. Perhaps one day.