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General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing 2025: Leaving a digital footprint in the ether

« Last post by Dark Holy Elf on March 31, 2025, 12:48:03 AM »

Adventures in doubleposting:

Ace Attorney Investigations 2 - Finished my replay of the game.

Case 3: I think this is the most overall solid case of the game. While the game suffers from the usual AAI2 problem of taking things a convolution too far (mostly way too many things would have had to happen immediately following the murder and somehow nobody noticed that TWO people were doing crazy plots then) that's about my only complaint. This is a case where every character's role is interesting, including the victim, with a particular shout-out to Judy being Dorothea's magnificent bastard turn. Also an extremely emotionally effective case between knowing how important this is to Gregory Edgeworth and everything that follows from that, knowing that someone was imprisoned for 18 years for a wrongful conviction and seeing the effects that has (perhaps a bigger indictment of Manfred and the AA justice system than anything previous the games had managed). Also has bonus Larry.

Case 4: And here's where the game starts unravelling. The core sequence of this case is ridiculous and unbelievable (convenient Kay amnesia, convenient Lotta fainting, Niedler somehow not knowing who is blackmailing her) and as such isn't very fun to unravel. Also the doctor/nurse combo is supposed to be a comic relief witness but isn't funny (particularly not funny: the doctor being SO OLD when she's nearly a decade younger than Excelsius, I guess because old women are very funny to Japan) Excelsius logic chess is kinda nonsensical, why on earth is this guy spilling his plans to Edgeworth knowing he's gonna face him the next day, I get that the answer is "arrogance" but I don't buy it. And in general Kay's amnesia making her super-defeatist gives the whole case more of a Phoenix vibe than an Edgeworth vibe, except that it reminds me of a bad Phoenix case, like 1-5. On the plus side, I think the last hour of the case is pretty good , and Gavelle's face turn is a great moment even if I wish the game had telegraphed or explained it a bit better.

Case 5: A case with some great highs that is also very stupid. Let's start with the bad:
-holy shit the convolutions. At one point Kay even hangs a lampshade at it. Multiple overlapping kidnapping plots, really? Or the mastermind being wrong about who his dad is.
-the physics of the murder are complete nonsense
-The storytelling feels amateur, the prime example being Kanis breaking out of prison to monologue to you at the perfect time
-twelve years ago murder mystery feels very superfluous to the case and makes it drag.
-body double is a terrible character and utterly unbelievable that nobody noticed he was a fake for twelve years
-assassin showdown which the game thinks is very cool. The very forced drama with Sean there is also silly. (It's funny, I remember disliking the character and had no idea why until that scene, which I'd blanked out.)

But despite that I still enjoy the case for more than most "bad" AA cases because...
-Eustace logic chess is a great moment, a very unexpected but effective way to end that particular mechanic
-While the actual plot involving kidnapping is a bit silly, the resulting lesson that the people working with the law are themselves human is important and poignant
-The mastermind is just a brilliant character. The confrontation with them is one of my absolute favourites - their animations, their arguments, their fakery (particular shoutout to when they fake "panic" when you reveal your recording of their conversation only to be the biggest smugsnake in the world when Edgeworth figures out they'd switched off the recording before saying anything incriminating), their role in the story as someone motivated by spite, rather than greed or lust for power like the standard AA major villain.
-Edgeworth affirming why he still wants to be a prosecutor, in light of that character, makes for a very effective sequence and ties up the themes of the game nicely.

Ultimately I think I rank the cases as 3 > 2 > 1 > 5 > 4.

Overall I think I appreciate this game a bit more than the first time around. Part of it is the better translation, part of it is that knowing to have low expectations for the actual plotting of later cases made me appreciate the things the game as a whole was doing well. I'm happy with all the major characters of the game (unless Lang counts; his role in this game was needless) and Edgeworth in particular remains such a joy as a protagonist.


Brigandine 2 - Beat a run of Mirelva on Hard Mode, since it was the only route I hadn't beaten on Hard Mode.

To spice things up I decided to look at the custom difficulty settings, and made the following tweaks:
-2x enemy exp gain
-2x enemy mana gain
-100% enemy quest rate
-defensive enemy AI

I'm not sure if the latter strictly makes the game harder or not. The enemy will actually make good use of the castle square on defence, which they don't really by default, but they can also be a bit too passive sometimes.

The other three though are good fun. In particular I really like double enemy exp and mana; the enemies have a tendency to fall behind in levels as the game goes on because they don't attack as much as you do; this addresses that. Double mana seems to mostly just mean the enemy doesn't implode if they're reduced to one castle, from what I can tell; it's not a huge impact. 100% quest I'm mixed on, it means the enemy will basically pilfer all the good quest knights, but it does mean they can get really good equipment (which you can then steal).

Regardless it was fun! Best knights were Stella, Tommy (you were right about this one, Super), Ratka, Sophie, Adieu, Pluto, and Umimaru. Not sure on the exact order, my kneejerk is that Ratka is the second best (she gets lots of magic pool and sniper is a cool class) though you could argue me on that one easily.

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General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing 2025: Leaving a digital footprint in the ether

« Last post by Dark Holy Elf on March 27, 2025, 09:31:26 PM »

Brigandine 2 - Mirelva playthrough on Hard, the last nation I haven't cleared on hard mode. Notes when I'm done.

Ace Attorney Investigations 2 - Nearly done this as well

Fire Emblem Fates - Did an all-women run of Birthright Lunatic. I had to break the rules in the pre-split maps, but nothing in Birthright proper. I used Jakob in Chapter 2-3, Kaze in Chapter 5, and Ryoma in Chapter 6 (though the way that little map is set up, it's almost impossible to not use Ryoma). When I did a similar playthrough of Conquest Hard I was able to do Chapter 5 without Kaze, but he felt essential this time, that map really is tuned quite tightly.

As usual these stories are probably best told in unit notes, so here we go.

Corrin (284/182): Cavalier with +Strength, got the first heart seal to do Cavalier->Paladin. Cavalier is really good (Shelter) and no Birthright women have access to it. Definitely a solid contributor with great overall stats and mobility, only downside is the lack of good 1-2 range (although Kodachi+1 occasionally snagged some clutch one-hit-kills).

Rinkah (145/61): Gets off to a shaky start with her E rank in clubs (which are already a remarkably weak weapon type) but by Chapter 9-13 or so really gets rolling quite well with her durability making her a valuable contributor. That said the def-over-HP-and-offence sure declines in value thereafter, and also Scarlet is the same thing but better, mostly. Still, the great pairup stats and the fact that she supported three of my best combat units made her nice to have.

Azura (10/2): Dances. Great as always.

Sakura (31/23): Onmyoji. Competent magical damage but not exceptional, used staves and provided her usual defensive aura. Was my only healer for a long time so was actually one of my first promotions, but the exp gain certainly fell off after that and she did not reach Tomefaire.

Hana (148/105): Swordmaster. Unfortunately got a bit screwed on strength which takes away most of her niche, obviously she still had incredible attack and situationally good evasion so could still player-phase-nuke some things.

Orochi (172/115): Honestly pretty great. Yes, her only super-high stat is magic, but that goes a long way, it turns out. With the option of Horse Spirit and various pairup partners (Sakura for offence, Rinkah for durability, Oboro for a balance) she provided essential enemy-phase sweeping at 1-2 range in the difficult lategame maps, probably the second best unit at this. Earlier she's less impressive relatively but eh, having magic damage is still very helpful for certain enemies.

Mozu (107/71): Stayed as villager for a while but eventually went over to Kinshi Knight. Considering how good her stats are supposed to be I did wish her atk and bulk were better, but she was still decent enough; Kinshi Knight is a really neat class that can troubleshoot a lot of problems.

Setsuna (101/80): Vanilla Sniper build. Pretty good offence thanks to yumi might and Quick Draw, but the lower str did catch up with her as time went on and enemy bulk got higher and higher. Plus she's squishy. Still, decent enough. Spent a lot of time as Hana's support buddy, both are competent but problematic so they could often handle different things with each other's help.

Hinoka (148/83): Kinshi Knight->Spearmaster. A bit of a late-bloomer on this run. Early stat gains weren't great so she was still useful but not as good as she sometimes is. By promotion I got her an A+ support with Setsuna which let her pick up Quick Draw so she blossomed into having rather excellent player phase offence, if lacking at 1-2. Then lategame she goes to Spearmaster and her stats just overall rule at everything (except 1-2, again, though hey Bolt Naginata works for gauge build of needed).

Oboro (91/48): She sure does exist. When my unit count briefly exceeded the deplyoment count midgame she was often the one benched. There are some cool lances but I had too many other lance users for her to really stand out. Mostly a support partner for others later.

Kagero (164/135): Really good, likely the MVP of the run. In a world with no Ryoma, someone has to try to be Ryoma, and Kagero was certainly the best bet on this run. Once she got rolling she could basically one-round everything except wyverns at 1-2 range (armours eat sting shuriken, dual shuriken allows full control) while having good evasion. Compared to Ryoma she doesn't have the perfect answer to bow knights he does (nobody on my team did) and the lower HP means I had to be more careful, but she could still thin out entire dangerous groups of enemies using pairup, and had silly damage for bosses thanks to getting overlevelled and having Shurikenfaire. Unfortunately she was also my only unit with Locktouch, which was at times distracting but certainly cements her MVP status. Ninjas good.

Reina (65/50): Take my Mozu notes above, give her better atk (though no Quick Draw makes it close enough on player phase), better bow rank, and requiring zero effort instead of a bunch. Very solid contributor, didn't do anything fancy with her and she didn't dominate, but one of the best in her early maps in particular.

Scarlet (42/31): Flying Rinkah with a strength stat and lance access. Plenty to like, though often she got tied up in pairup duty (particular to Corrin) since the stats she gives are so valuable. Again, nothing fancy done with her, but she was good.

Felicia (35/25): Strategist for early Inspiration as always. Too bad Demoiselle is useless. Her combat wasn't great but it didn't need to be.

Daniella (?/?): The boss of Chapter 14, captured and made to do my bidding. She's just another strategist, but didn't get anywhere near Level 15 needed for inspriation. Still, her stats are fine (nice HP, iffy otherwise) and she joins with an A in staves on 8 move so she's perfectly competent filler.

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Unranked Games / Re: Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten

« Last post by DragonKnight Zero on March 26, 2025, 11:29:39 PM »

Felt weird making a post just because I figured out Deprave does but I've got a few other status notes to add so there's a bit more substance.

In addition to preventing EXP gain (and probably Mana gain as well but I haven't tested that), Deprave also lowers ATK + DEF + INT + RES + HIT + SPD by 20%.  Everything besides HP and MP basically.  This is with gear, not base stats.

Forget and Amnesia are different names for the same status.  Sleep is missing.  Target cannot act; damaging the target removes sleep.

Paralyze, in addition to preventing the victim from moving, also drops SPD to 1.  Thus the afflicted functionally cannot evade and weapons/skills that use SPD are weakened accordingly.

Poison deals 20% max HP per turn.  Rounded down I'm nearly certain but don't quote me on that.

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General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing 2025: Leaving a digital footprint in the ether

« Last post by Cmdr_King on March 26, 2025, 04:22:05 AM »

Xenoblade Chronicles 3- Well that sure took a month and a half.

Okay nah this is the best Xenoblade game. Like setting aside that it's the best by sheer polish and also what it gives up in intuitive comboing it makes up for with the combine mechanic and then some and like the video game parts, it's also the only one that feels both like it got to be a complete game and that it had a clear idea of how to say more than just recycled leftovers from earlier projects.  Nothing can actually be Xenogears of course, not in the 2020s, but like XB2 it picks a few parts to really drill down on and build out into the core of the setting.

The core storyline is sadly deeply het, but on the other hand Mio has 3 girlfriends in addition to her husband, surpassing her mother.  It's an acceptable substitute.

I might make an added post with a little more in-depth stuff, gotta kinda put out bits and piece to collect later first I think.  Also I'm gonna do the Melia and Nia quests just to see if there's anything neat there.

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Discussion / Re: RPG Ratings

« Last post by Luther Lansfeld on March 16, 2025, 08:00:48 PM »

Added:
Unicorn Overlord at 9/10
Baldur’s Gate 3 at 9/10

Triangle Strategy at 8/10
Bravely Default 2 at 8/10
Tactical Breach Wizards at 8/10
Fire Emblem: Engage at 8/10
This Way Madness Lies at 8/10
Crystal Project at 8/10

Chained Echoes at 7/10
Paper Mario 2: The Thousand Year Door at 7/10
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope at 7/10
Pokémon Scarlet at 7/10

Dark Deity at 6/10

Advance Wars: ReBoot (1+2) at 5/10

Valkyria Chronicles at 4/10

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RPGDL Discussion / Re: Division Ranking Algorithm: The Final Frontier

« Last post by Dhyerwolf on March 16, 2025, 07:03:38 PM »

I'm glad people enjoyed reading this!

To NEB

I don't think there is any categorical place that the results were "wrong" and I definitely don't trust my intuition (too many anchor points of bias still plus I got to review a whole horde of ways my intuition was wrong in many ways; granted, there were already enough inconsistencies my rankings that I wasn't super surprised especially when I ranked a game with a lot of duellers and I wasn't even consistent within a game). I checked basically every match result except for the last couple of games and the boss rush to be sure that everything was working as I would expect (although there are some matches where I just didn't bother to make corrections; generally, when it really just effected 1 match and there was too much to do). I did make sure that bosses were working the way I wanted them to and did check a good chunk of their matches to be sure. Since we scale bosses differently, I could definitely imagine that if Ghaleon and Dehaui were under your views, that Ghaleon would do better. I think that would make Vinsfield worse as well under your views. I agree that thinking about Vinsfield as a Middle champion is weird, but at the same time, my rankings aren't quite the same as DL ranking since mine factor in facing literally everyone and the DL rankings aren't necessarily linear in the same way (although if I look at my rankings around division borderlines, they do seem generally reasonable). It's possible that someone like Vinsfield would sweep Light and low Middle basically and grab some unexpected wins against against people who rank a lot higher than him, and is a little worse against high Middle duellers than the number suggests (or not! I'd really have to run some type of analysis to be sure). Granted, we've also seen some DL champions that just got a very favorable run, so you never know. To some degree, it's basically a question of whether he runs into a healer or not. Having looked over the match results, I do conceptually understand why Vinsfield placed so high; he's someone where it's easy to focus on the screaming weakness without always seeing some the strengths might overcome that.

Ghaleon and Royce actually aren't identical in wins/losses, they just happened to get the same numerical rank. Royce a good chunk of better damage for me, which is what makes up the difference of the HP.

Yes, we do have different scaling for Brig as I do factor in monsters to some degree (my rule for inclusion of generics is when they make up more than half your party).

I do definitely agree that it should matter what else the boss is using. I just wanted to stick to some "clean" formulation (for all that if you don't know exact percentages and how/why bosses use moves, it's not necessarily very clean and I just had to hope that whatever use rates I witnessed were accurate enough. Then there are question marks like what is Ghaleon's AI doing?). I find the HP scaling to be a separate issue personally. HP scaling is to balance out facing only 1 enemy, whereas the the AI control is to try and limit them to something resembling the in game patterns/performance. So the two parts together hopefully model their total in game performance a bit better for all that Tal's boss view would be better than HP scaling (but also a total non-starter for this system). At least, I did have some way that boss MT moves now have some importance if obviously not as important as under Tal's views.

To Djinn's note on limits, yes, they often would be a bit headachey (not always). So MP generally works one way. You have all of it to start, you use some portion of it, maybe eventually you use so much and you don't really have any left. I craft general strategies to try and make a dueller use less if they lose and are basically out of MP, but only in very rare cases does it go up (Umimaru, Vivi, Leonard for included duellers who have actual move choices that raise it; Amarant too, but that's more a secondary effect) and in would general, I only needed to have it go up when they were basically all out or unable to use a move because of it. Limits add on a whole new layer of strategy. An HP-based limit is doable, but if it's building up a bar (which extend to things like Grandia SP), then there can be an additional layer of strategy about building the limit itself. Even worse if it means that there's an additional layer of strategy on both sides of the match (so limits where doing and taking damage might build the bar). Also, there are so many places where resources are checked that adding more code to all those places wouldn't be fun. Definitely some limit games are doable with a minimal pain level. FF8 would actually be straightforward, FF7 and VP (limit bar is basically an automatic function) I can fudge, although it's possible I would need to write new strategies for HP limit avoiding (maybe...it's possible that the work I did when checking Slash's results and making sure duellers didn't mindlessly attack him into his more dangerous HP phase when they could chip and avoid would extend perfectly). I just wanted to deal with simpler stuff first (or what I thought would be simpler as limits clearly would have been simpler than charge times) and then I just needed to move on before I fell into this hole forever. Also, whenever you start writing new strategies, it can sometimes push-out/override other strategies, so it can mean a lot of tailoring even it seems like it will initially be straightforward.

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RPGDL Discussion / Re: Division Ranking Algorithm: The Final Frontier

« Last post by DjinnAndTonic on March 14, 2025, 03:35:26 AM »

This is really fascinating! My programming knowledge isn’t quite high enough to follow all of the details, but it’s pretty interesting how you managed to like… create an entire list of every viable DL strategy in the process of writing this.

I noticed that you left off Limits as something you wanted to factor in. This strikes me as the most common DL effect that isn’t being covered so I’m wondering why you deemed it too troublesome to work with. Does it really add that many more layers of complexity?

Are there non-DamageTaken Limit styles that might be easier to work with?

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General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing 2025: Leaving a digital footprint in the ether

« Last post by Dark Holy Elf on March 09, 2025, 05:41:44 AM »

Unicorn Overlord - Beaten on True Zenoiran.

Enemy stats are a bit higher and this does matter at points. Permadeath is also a looming threat. You get loads of Hallowed Corne Ash (I got somewhere like 40 over the course of the game, and you can buy more) so the end result is you CAN afford to lose units, but you try very very hard not to. Interestingly Alain is immune to permadeath, he recovers automatically after the battle, so he's Peter rather than Bowie.

Overall though the item limit is the biggest change. At only five per map you have to ration them well. This also makes the more powerful, expensive items more important relatively; I'm not gonna waste an item on ST healing in any fight outside the real short ones. Wind Fairie Charms (to restore projected outcomes), the stronger hourglasses, and tents are probably the most valuable, though the strong revival and MT healing items are certainly solid too.

My star characters/classes were, in no particular order: Josef, Alain, Virginia, Rosalinde, Berengaria, Cavalry, Griffon Riders, Saint Knights, Witches, Shamans. I doubt anything on this list comes as a surprise.

Snowfire mentioned that Bastorias was a step up on challenge, and on my first run I didn't really think so, but now I see it? I suspect on my first playthrough Bastorias just coincided with the point of the game I got good enough at unit-building to start steamrolling, but it put up more of a fight this time (at least the first half or so). More generally, a few of the short fights gained a bit more teeth in this mode, especially later in the game. The final boss is also kinda tricky because the combined power of the six bosses is relatively nasty with their TZ-level stats, even knowing the secret tools this time. Nothing too bad though, I don't believe I ever actually reset a fight. Challenge runs sometime? Maybe!

I do wish the game where a bit shorter, even skipping most scenes I got to 56 hours. That'd come down some if I started skipping all combat animations (I generally skip ones which are stomps, or repetitive, but watch ones where I'm struggling to figure out what's going wrong, and bosses because I enjoy the feel of drama even if I know how it's gonna end).


Fire Emblem Fates - At the end of an all-women run of Birthright Lunatic. Has been a blast. Details when I finish.


Ace Attorney Investigations 2 - Replay, playing the official version. Having a good time, have cleared the first two cases so far.

Case 1: I always enjoyed this first case and did this time, too. The killer is both fun and remarkably canny. My biggest complaint is that this case feels like it rarely actually lets you come up with the clever deductions yourself. Like figuring out that you defeat the killer's gambit by checking a certain unintuitive something(s) for fingerprints is very clever, I wish they'd let me think about it myself before the plot reveals it for me.

Case 2: This is a solid case that I think gets even better with a better understanding of the whole game. The new major recurring rivals and pseudo-rivals (Gavelle, Eustace, and Fender) are all fun, and every case-specific character feels nicely relevant. I like that Edgeworth is allowed to form some very wrong theories! My biggest complaint is that this case is too long, although I understand that this is partly just a result of the thing I just praised. It's complicated.

The official translation is definitely an improvement. Gavelle and Fender both work better with a bit more bite, I think, and the script is funnier, which is a big deal for me. No shade on the fan translation; they absolutely did a good job, and I fully understand how some of the differences might just be a result of the fan translators (rightly) wanting to be more conservative. But I think the new script is helping me enjoy the game more.

Or maybe it's just that I haven't yet reached the cases I wasn't a big fan of the first time out. We'll see!

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RPGDL Discussion / Re: Division Ranking Algorithm: The Final Frontier

« Last post by Dark Holy Elf on March 09, 2025, 04:48:22 AM »

Ooh, this is a very cool read! I kinda toyed around with the idea of something vaguely like this... probably around two decades ago, during the RPGmon days, so kudos to you for actually doing it. Sounds like a lot of work.

All sorts of random thoughts:

-Are there any places where you think the results you got are essentially "wrong", or do you generally trust the results more than your intuition? I'm very skeptical about Vinsfeld being that high, because I just can't hardly ever see him champing a Middle field, though I do agree he's probably a touch underrated historically. Dehuai's another one that jumped off your list to me as "wait, what?". There's no world where he should be above Ghaleon, and that's speaking as someone who views Ghaelon as a slug in a CTB sense. Speaking of which, Ghaleon and Royce also obviously shouldn't be in the exact same place; it's interesting that they never faced anyone who differentiated them (even if you view their offence as effectively identical, surely Ghaleon's significantly higher HP should tilt some fights).

-The lesson about "complete packages" is also an important one. The most memorable example for me is still Rika, who a lot of us (including me) at first thought was borderline H/G material (at best?). And it makes sense, because she's a got a H/G-borderline-level buffing/healing game and a also very fast ID, which is also is often enough to get someone to H/G. It wasn't until later that we figured out that the two strategies are effective against very different types of opponents and it's the combination that pushes her to straight G. Another good example of being a more complete package is status immunities being far more valuable to folks who are hard to defeat with damage (e.g. good healers/buffers or just people who are already very durable). Giving status immunities to someone

-I'm still a bit surprised that Tim is that good though. To some extent almost all the Brig 2 fighters are a bit higher than I'd have guessed, and I'm not sure if I'm underrating them or if you scale them in a nicer way than I would (monsters in the averages?), but yeah I would have assumed Tim's lack of status resistance or overwhelming durability combined with lack of answer for durable bosses starts losing him a bunch of fights in the upper half of Heavy. Maybe not!

-The idea of holding move rarity against bosses is interesting. One thing I've toyed around with is punishing bosses with rare moves more if there's a valid in-game reason for them to use others. Like... if a boss has a move that does 80% ST which is relatively rare, it would matter to me what the boss is doing otherwise. If most of their other turns are taken up with 40% MT, or status moves, that's fine! There are valid reasons for the boss to fight that way. But if most of their other turns are 40% ST, then I start to wonder if there is a reason they don't use the move more (e.g. it's secretly a random activation on an otherwise weaker attack, similar to a crit). But I think your way sounds pretty elegant.
One place I might disagree with you though is that in general, the harsher I get on boss AI, the more I'd want to dial down how much I scale their HP. I've long been of the view that "being nice to their AI, for simplicity reasons" (i.e. not knowing the probability of the moves) is one of boons bosses get in exchange for losing a lot of their HP.

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General Chat / Re: What Games Are You Playing 2025: Leaving a digital footprint in the ether

« Last post by Twilkitri on March 09, 2025, 03:22:57 AM »

Mosaic Chronicles - Nothing Personal (Steam)

Mosaic Chronicles (Steam) [...]
[...] (I don't know if the devs plan on adding more content, but it feels like it would be easy to integrate more at least.)

So it turns out that they did add more content in late 2023, but they don't appear to have actually advertised this information. (There's no news article in the game feed about it for example.) I was only made aware of it last month because they added cards to the game and it got me to check whether this was being done in tandem with new content being announced.

Anyway I thought the new storyline was decent, and it's nice to have a bit more balance in the lengths of the storylines available.


The Roottrees Are Dead (Steam)

Pretty great mystery game which I was thoroughly entertained by.

The first storyline I completed comparatively legitimately, although there were a few photos where I still have no idea how you're supposed to be able to tell a couple of characters apart in and fell back on guessing until the guesses locked in. (The main ones I remember are the brothers in paris, and the musician relatives - not in the CD cover photo, in the group photo. There may have been others.) I've been led to understand that at least one of the photos has since been altered so maybe that'd be less of a concern now.

The second storyline I was having trouble finding some information and felt fairly confident that I'd missed a periodical somewhere and ultimately ended up looking that up. It was available via what was ultimately content that was only indirectly related to the topics I was looking into, which I guess is part of a problem that I don't know how you'd resolve personally - when you personally follow up on tangential leads and discover information for other facets of the situation it feels great, but if you miss any it's going to be a hassle trying to find them.

Also I marked down one of the final choices as a definite yes and was told that wasn't the case in the denouement, only for the game to go on to act as if I'd gotten everything correct. So there may have been a bug there.


Fabula Nova Aevis look this started as me trying to shoehorn Chrono into Fabula Nova Crystallis and I ended up going down a garden path that has defeated the purpose
Final Fantasy XIII-2 (Steam)

It's generally entertaining to play, but it often feels unstructured storywise, and not like it was done intentionally/thematically even though this would be the perfect target for it. (That said I am of course the bad-at-themes-etc-guy.)

Mixed feelings on how they appear to have made it much more difficult to have Haste applied, at least I never found any monster synergists which cast it, just accessories. On the one hand it's not being as centralising as it was in XIII, on the other hand it means you're doing practically all battles at normal speed.

Ended with 159 of 160 fragments, only missing the bestiary one. I was already unenthusiastic about the prospect of completing the bestiary then I looked into what I was missing and found out about the one creature in Academia 500. Not bothering with that. (For clarity: Tezcatlipoca.)

Unlike XIII I got the minimum rank against the final boss. It was very rude towards me.

Postgame area thoughts:

Coliseum: Putting Omega at the top of the list and Tutorial at the bottom is a good way to trick people into thinking that the list is ordered from hardest to easiest rather than easiest to hardest, XIII-2!
After a disastrous fight against Snow and searching 'what', I beat Omega & the Lightning/Amodar pair. Then failed to beat (Jihl) Nabaat. Then I gave up on the entire section.

Serendipity: It's both very time consuming and very short.
I played one match of Poker until I cleared everyone out, which took hours. That got me around 20 medals.
I helped Chocolina for another five.
I played one match of Chronobind until one person was cleared out, which took a while but not hours at least, which got me enough medals to complete the story.
I don't understand??? Why this would all be set up and then you can be done with (comparatively) minimal involvement? (Meanwhile the maingame insists on having a fragment tied to the slots, which I was on the verge of also not bothering with.)

Valhalla: They don't really explain that you're expected to lose to begin with. Another 'what' search scenario. I don't really care much for the design here.
Instead, A) Start Lightning off at max level, B) explain things better, C) trust players to manually lower their level for the impossible fight experience if that's what they're into, D) probably add more rewards at lower levels so they have a reason to try it rather than just having the one low-level reward. Not that there's much use for them in the postgame but the same can be said for the one that's already available. (I guess there's the Coliseum, but that also implies you doing a bunch of grinding for the items required to level things up.)