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The Velvet Room - N4A Chat Thread, September 2018


Chrom

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I played through Radiant Dawn twice and decided that was enough.  Path of Radiance is ridiculously consistent in its pacing out of story arcs and how well it establishes its main characters.  Radiant Dawn's pacing was garbage and the game suffered from inconsistent difficulty spikes and never had enough time to really give good characterization for all the new people they introduced.  Breaking up the game into four arcs to have them converge seems like a neat idea on paper but it was executed poorly.  PoR just feels like the stronger game for it because it never had to divert attention away and kept it rooted in one story perspective.

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I honestly feel like Radiant Dawn would be a lot more interesting if Pelleas were the main lord instead of Micaiah.

 

You could parallel him to Ike in that they were both thrust into a position of responsibility after the deaths of their (not really) fathers. But where Ike rose up to the challenge, Pelleas doesn’t have the strength of character. 

 

His arc would go from him serving as an ineffectual ruler basically being bullied by Begnion, to learning he’s not actually Ashnard’s son, , to discovering his own sense of self-worth and stepping up to the task of being Daein’s ruler anyway despite his true heritage. His coming into conflict with Ike would also make much more sense than Micaiah’s scenario, and you could even have characters that Pelleas trusted as companions (Jill, Zihark, etc.) abandon him for Ike as he goes further down the rabbit hole trying to appease the senators.

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In a nutshell, I don't find PoR very engaging--which doesn't make it a bad game by any means but it's probably one of my least favorite FE games. I'd probably enjoy Path of Radiance a lot more if the characters weren't so strong. PoR has a reputation of the game 'Ike can solo' for a reason. And normally I don't like complaining about difficultly, but when an FE game reaches a point where I don't even need to think too much about where most of my units are, that's a problem. Oscar, with a measly 30% RES growth (and zero starting resistance), was able to take zero damage from mages consistently and lategame Ike was soloing maps, for example. Inventory management is a particular nuisance in this game; I don't know why (although I suspect why), I found myself replacing weapons a lot more in this game than any other. In the end, PoR is still a solid experience; however, I have more fun playing nearly any other entry in the series which is... something, I guess.

 

Briefly on the story though: PoR's story is fine. The presentation is near perfect for the story IS wanted to tell, I just happen not to find that story very interesting. The few plot threads I found engaging, like Lehran's Medallion and the Laguz/Beorc conflict, become much more central in Radiant Dawn, that I have hard time enjoying those plotlines within PoR itself. And, yeah, RD's story is a hot mess (hell, the entire game is a hot mess), but I still find it more interesting. In the end, it's not a big deal since story's don't have a lot of impact on how much I enjoy an FE game.

Edited by Arvis
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I like both games equally. Story-wise I can’t really judge them since they’re two halves of a single narrative, but gameplay-wise they each handle certain things differently that I prefer in one game over the other.

 

PoR has far better support conversations, more well-developed characters, and better customization options like being able to select which secondary weapon you want to wield when a Cavalier or Mage promotes.

 

RD has better class variety in the sense that you have more than one option available if you want to use a Soldier or a Cleric. Controlling different armies during different chapters was a neat idea in theory; the only problem was that the massive power difference between the Greil Mercenaries and the Dawn Brigade led to a schizophrenic difficulty curve. Third-tier promotions are nice because Occult skills are no longer locked behind a finite-quantity item. However, I did NOT like how the endgame had so many mandatory units.

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1 hour ago, Gold said:

Give us them deets.

Ayo so there's this hot Peruvian chick in my Moving Images and Practice class, and last week we accidentally sat next to each other during a lecture. We kinda glanced at each other now and then but neither of us spoke a word.

 

Cut to a week later and we happen to sit near each other again during a camera workshop that gave us first hand experience with some of the university's film equipment. Again, we kinda glance at each other every now and then, but we still never interact or anything. However, before the class ends, the chick mentions to the class that she knows a couple of people who have access to an independent studio so she can hook the rest of us up in case we want to network and stuff.

 

That's when I come up with a brilliant excuse to talk to her after class.

 

So now we're all walking out the door and I see my window of opportunity. But there's a split second where I hesitate and think how stupid I might look and how I shouldn't even bother. But you know what? I decided, fuck it, you're probably not gonna see her for another week; go for it god dammit.

 

So I run up to her and ask her about the studio. She didn't seem to be creeped out by me and even gives me her number. We even start talking a bit more about other stuff. I learn a couple of things about her and it turns out she's been in University for longer than I have. We share dumb stories about our previous film projects, and she even sends me a link to one of her final projects from last year to check out. Before we break off to head to our other classes I ask if we can meet up again sometime this week and she agrees.

 

At this point I'm thinking holy shit something might actually happen cuz she seemed really intrigued by me. I didn't pull any nice guy shit and I kept everything low-key. 

 

So we schedule to meet up again Friday so I can network with that guy who works at that studio, but I'm thinking holy crap this might mean a date afterword or something.

 

Cut to Friday and I haul my ass to campus just in the nick of time after working on a couple of assignments, and I meet up with the chick and some old dude. She introduces me to the guy before heading over to her lecture hall in a nearby door (cuz she had class at the time), and while I genuinely want to network with the guy my mind is on the chick and how about how the rest of the day will play out.

 

I finish talking with the guy and happen to run into one of my Journalism buddies just outside the chick's class, giving me a perfect reason to wait for her to finish class. 

 

Unfortunately, before I can ask her out in person after class ends, I lose her to a crowd of other students trying to rush out of the lecture hall and shit. I'm panicking cuz now I gotta text her, and that never worked for me at all in the past. Usually whatever girl I liked would simply not get the memo that I'm trying to ask them out, or even worse, they'd try and sidestep the conversation because they don't want to say yes or no to my advance outright. 

 

But I was a creepy nice guy bordering on Incel back then. I'm different now, at least I'd like to think I am. 

 

I decided I wasn't gonna let my past failures get to my head, so I text her asking if she wants to go out to lunch or something. She doesn't necessarily agree to lunch per say, but she says she's down to have a drink or two down at the campus pub at 4:00 PM (yes, my college campus has its own pub). Now I'm excited but also nervous cuz I have no experience with this shit. 

 

But the thing is we don't schedule the meetup time until after I get too eager and enter the pub 30 minutes beforehand. Now I'm panicking again cuz I don't want to have shit get awkward. So in a hurry I try to leave the pub and wait nearby outside, but I'm stopped by a couple of friends just chillin' at a table. I sit down to chat but then I see the chick enter the pub and sit at one of these huge, semi-circle booth sofas that can hold multiple unrelated groups of people at once. Even though I see her I don't think she sees me, and now my fear of shit getting awkward grows stronger. I tell my friends I gotta go and they pick up on my situation fast so they decide to leave me to it. 

 

I hesitate to approach the chick again, but I decide I can't back out now. So I just mozy on up and sit next to her on the sofa booth thing.

 

I say hi to her and she says hi to me; so far so good. 

 

We start chatting it up again, and I eventually offer to buy some beer from the bar. After I come back with the drinks we end up connecting even more. Like, I make sure to listen to her and ask her questions relevant to whatever she's talking about. I gotta let her know that I'm interested in what she has to say while still being low-key about it. 

 

She has a couple of tattoos, so I ask what it feels like to have yourself tattoo'd. She tells me that it only hurts if you tense up, and that she actually fell asleep while getting tattoo'd once after being relaxed for so long. I ask her which one and she, I shit you guys not, pulls down the left side of her top to show me a rose tattoo located just above her breasts.

 

LIKE, HOLY SHIT, THAT DOESN'T JUST FUCKING HAPPEN OUT OF THE BLUE LIKE THAT YA KNOW?

 

I also managed to share a couple of interesting things about myself without revealing too much, and I even made her laugh a couple of times. I felt like I was breaking through ya know?

 

I then ask if she's down to go see a movie sometime and she's totally down for it, just not this weekend cuz she has to go see family and stuff. We then leave each other since I gotta finish up some work and she's gotta meet up with a friend to get another tattoo. 

 

As I was walking back to my place I just felt like I woke up from a dream. Everything felt so surreal. Like, I didn't even know I was capable of doing something like that.

 

It hasn't even been a full year since I had that realization about my own toxic nice guy personality problems and already I was making progress.

 

Just, holy shit man. Holeeee fucking shit. 

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i have problems with some of that but i'll keep my mouth shut and realize you're also still learning but you're getting better about how you were at least

stop putting sex/relationships on a pedestal and realize people can have social outings with the opposite sex/sex you're attracted to without it meaning anything 0|

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8 hours ago, luca said:

i have problems with some of that but i'll keep my mouth shut and realize you're also still learning but you're getting better about how you were at least

stop putting sex/relationships on a pedestal and realize people can have social outings with the opposite sex/sex you're attracted to without it meaning anything 0|

Nah it ain't like that chief. I'm not rushing into this thing expecting some lovey-dovey relationship or anything.

 

I'm more or less just glad that I was able to put my troubled past to rest and actually interact with someone who may actually be interested in me that way.

 

If it doesn't work out: fine, whatever. I can still put this experience in my back pocket as a tangible sign that I've moved on. 

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On 9/24/2018 at 12:23 AM, Ephraim said:

Hollow one. Started 5-1 then went 5-3.

 

Deck is super strong! Might play it for a little while longer still.

Nice! I have been itching for modern lately, but I quit working at my store to work at my university, and so I have fallen more out of magic lately. Played in the prerelease for GRN today though, I got absolutely smacked around but it was fun overall! They gave everyone 3 packs regardless of finish so that was a nice, no pressure environment. Pulled a foil Steam Vents too, so that was a nice way to end it off! Did you play this weekend?

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