TurboGhast

I've never betrayed anyone in my entire life, ever!

[turboghast]

For anybody who wants to lurk more before joining, you can get around the prompt asking to you to log in by deleting it with inspect element. The DIV I highlighted in this image is the one you want to get rid of.

For anybody who also want to make an account, while lurking this way I heard that you should select a profile picture promptly so you're not mistaken for a bot.

[turboghast]

I beat True Masakado at Level 99. Unfortunately, because I didn't remember that the Switch can't take videos of SMT V:V in the moment, the only proof of this I can offer are screenshots of my team and a description of my strategy¹.

I'll start with the team's attackers.

They're here to use Omagatoki: Dance, Fickle Personality, Pandemonic Feast, and multi-hit attacks to dole out damage as fast as possible. Vritra was on the opening lineup because he had space for Resist Phys, while Cherub waited in the stock until Vritra had used up Endure and Enduring Soul so that he wouldn't have to deal with Brave Blade. Cherub being built to attack with two different elements is half because he was built that way before I started trying to defeat Masakado, and half to get a bit more defensive leeway near the end of the fight².

Now, you may be thinking "there's no way this team could survive Masakado's crazy-ass damage output" , and you're absolutely right. That's where the support members of the team come in.

This team's defensive strategy is centered around how Masakado does not have a special reaction to Makarakarn; he treats the repels it creates the same as any other. Between how I need to spend some turns keeping buffs and debuffs up and how Masakado will replace skills that were negated with Freikugel for a few turns³, Makarakarn can't protect me forever, but it, Endure, Enduring Soul, and a Whittled Goat could buy me just enough time to put my offensive strategy into action. Dís and Norn would still need to know Makarakarn even if I wasn't refusing to use Knowledge of Tools⁴ because I needed to use the skill more than 10 times; I went through 6 out of 10 Magic Mirrors in the winning attempt.

On Omagatoki turns, the Nahobino uses Lunation Flux while Dís and Norn switch places, giving all their turns to the attackers to minimize the amount of time they need to buy. When circumstances forced me to give up an attackers' turn to do something important, I'd do my best to make Vritra or Cherub take the fall because Yurlungur was the best attacker. Evergreen Dance was theoretically meant to lower the amount of time between attacking turns, but I never had time to use it, while Revival Chant was used to revive Yurlungur, Dís, and Norn because they did not have understudies.

Finally, we have the team's odd man out.

The only skills that matter here are Magatushi Thriftiness, Fairy Banquet, Fierce Roar, Resist Force, and Enduring Soul. Boon Boost was supposed to matter, but I didn't see that it wouldn't do anything.

Nahobeeho had two roles during the fight. His first one was being in the fourth slot of the starting lineup after Yurlungur, the Nahobino, and Vritra, allowing the Nahobino to use Fairy Banquet on the first turn of the battle to get buffs up ASAP. Afterwards, I'd summon Dís in the fourth slot so she could start applying debuffs. His second role was to have Fierce Roar and drain an element I wasn't using offensively; when I was pushed to the brink of disaster, he could come in, grab Masakado's attention, and drain Ice Dracostrike to buy just a little more time.

My defensive strategy bought me exactly enough time to win with my offensive strategy and not a second more. On my final set of turns, the only thing I could do to stop him from vaporizing me with an Omagatoki: Critical-boosted Recalcitrant Execution was to kill him first. I stopped to calculate whether using Luster Candy to buff the recently-resurrected Yurlungur was worth it; after counting out the remaining turns and seeing that the opportunity cost was Cherub's turn, I decided use it. Since I haven't run the numbers⁵, I'm not sure whether Luster Candy was actually worth the turn I spent on it, or if I should have unsummoned Cherub for a proper Buckgetter Special; all I can be sure of is that Yurlungur brought me just past the finish line.

Footnotes:

1. Even this wasn't trivial to obtain. In order to show the build the Nahobino had during the fight, I had to splice a screenshot of my skillset taken after my victory together with a screenshot of my stats from the backup save I made in case I regretted using a hard-to-reacquire essence.

2. When hit with non-almighty damage, Masakado will replace attacks of that element with Diarama on his next turn, and this takes priority over replacing a negated skill with Freikugel. If I know he's going to use Freikugel in place of Wind Dracostrike or White Dracostrike, I can have Cherub use Floral Gust or Judgment Light to stop him.

3. To be specific, Masakado will replace the negated skill with Freikugel for n + 1 turns, where n is the number of times he's gathered magatsuhi.

4. When I couldn't find Knowledge of Tools in Minato, I thought it got removed from the Vengeance for being overpowered, leading me to not use it even after learning that it only had its availability nerfed.

5. For anybody who wishes to calculate what the right move was (which may include my future self), at the start of my final turn, I had 4 press turn icons, Yurlungur had no buffs or debuffs, and Cherub had +2 to everything.

[turboghast]

I'm on episode 4 of Astra: Lost in Space, and have a hypothesis about it.

Someone cut the titular ship's communicator soon after group B-5 boarded it; between that and some stuff that Funi overheard relating to the trip, they theorize that there's a traitor aboard the ship who is assisting a plot to make the nine of them go missing without a trace during planet camp. After freaking out about the possibility one of them is willing to commit murder-suicide, they table the discussion so paranoia doesn't tear the group apart.

However, despite it being over a month since their journey started, there has been nary a hint of further sabotage, even in the all-hands-on-deck life-or-death situation that followed the group becoming aware that there is a traitor in the first place.

Thus, I theorize that the traitor is not all-in on that plot. Some form of coercion got them to agree to the first step of the plot that comprised the story's inciting incident, but they're as raring to survive as the rest of the Astra's crew. The communicator was cut either because their co-conspirators would be able to tell if they skipped that part of the plan, or because the traitor simply wanted to hide that group B-5 survived from the rest of the conspiracy in order to dodge their means of coercion.

[turboghast]

One of the first things I thought upon meeting Raido and Goto was "Are their names spelled differently from my Raidou and Gotou because this parallel timeline has different romanization rules?"

This was soon followed by the thought "Going to an alternate timeline where linguistic drift took a different direction would get real annoying real fast."

[turboghast]

Now that I've finished Gundam SEED Destiny, I want to express the opinion on it which I've come to.

It's a show about how the pressure cooker of war breeds hypocrisy that doesn't realize that's it's a show about hypocrisy. Lead characters violate their stated principles left and right, yet the only hypocrisy to get serious remark is Durandal preaching peace as he sends assassins to solidify his power base by assassinating Lacus (and even that's primarily just foreshadowing his latter villainy). Nobody properly confronts Kira for killing Stella just as Shinn began to talk her down or notes that Cagali's words about sticking to ORB's principles just before the final battle are empty because they're striking preemptively enough to make them not really apply.

Because the show doesn't realize that it's about hypocrisy, the ending ends up thematically unfulfilling. The intended message about the necessity of the future fails to land because the show has cannot answer what all the hypocrisy means in the grand scheme of things, but of course there's no answer to be found, the writers didn't know they needed one.

[turboghast]

How Dawn of Sorrow answers a player coming to into the Dmitrii fight thinking "If I don't use magic attacks on him, his ability to copy magic attacks will be worthless!" is pretty clever.

In the cutscene before the fight, you see Dmitrii fight a demon who won't appear as a regular enemy for ~4 more areas specifically to copy its magic. If you don't hit him with an attack that he can copy, he'll use that demon's attack, a giant projectile that's really hard to dodge. Thus, the player is incentivized to hit him with something else so he'll stop using that attack (and therefore disincentivized from ignoring the gimmick of the fight).

[turboghast]

The biggest difference between the version of Ignited found in Gundam SEED Destiny and the version found in Super Robot Wars V isn't whether there are lyrics, it's that the former is properly audio balanced while the latter isn't.

[assaultmystic]

please stop saying that “if you xyz a fairy dies”. we’re belief dependent. you will literally make it true. last week one of you made an offhand remark about steven universe shipping and i had to go to hospital for four days. do you have any idea how humiliating that is

[dougzilla7]

What if I XYZ into Diamond Dire Wolf and target you what then?

[turboghast]

Every time you XYZ summon Fairy Cheer Girl, 2 Level 4 Fairies become XYZ material.

[turboghast]

This is my tier list for the special weapons of Mega Man V. As the previous four lists, order within the tiers is based on the order I obtained the weapons, not their quality. It took a while to release because I got distracted by other games, including but not limited to finally beating the Mega Man game I couldn't beat as a kid... Mega Man 9. As a whole, I find this set of weapons to be stronger than Mega Man IV's middling set, but weaker than Mega Man 9's powerful set (I have no plans to make a tier list for the MM9 weapons). The tiers here are A-, B, and C+ because this game's most and least useful weapons are closer in utility to eachother than the most and least useful weapons of the other GB games.

A- Tier

Grab Buster: Healing on demand is excellent, but this weapon has reliability issues. If you miss, shoot something that doesn't drop an item (e.g. the bubbles that Feeburs make or Baby Flies that haven't fully split), or run into an immunity (which is likely, because all bosses are either some level of weak to this or outright immune to it), you don't get an item drop. On top of this, it's possible for the item to miss you and fly offscreen, especially if you're trying to dodge an enemy's attack while it's flying towards you. These issues do not prevent this weapon from being extremely useful.

Bubble Bomb: There are plenty of airborne enemies worth shooting with this, and it deals with the Hueys quickly. On top of excelling in its role as Jupiter's weakness, it can hit Pluto when other weapons can't. However, how Shuhorns are immune to it is disappointing, and its ability to crawl along walls is mostly useless to the point where you want to avoid using it.

Salt Water: The attack angle of this weapon is excellent, making it easy to deal with enemies below (but not directly below) you and Monkikis. On top this, it's capable of multi-hitting. How Mars, Punk, and the Right Knuckle are weak to it is quite useful, but Mercury's secondary weakness and the Left Knuckle's primary weakness don't matter because those fights have enough downtime to make charge shots work just as well, and it can have weapon energy issues.

Spark Chaser: Everything the Bubble Bomb does for you in stages, this does better, and the same goes for hitting Pluto when he's hiding in the corner. Neptune is weak to it, and it's an excellent non-weakness option in the Venus refight because it'll home in on and pierce through his Bubble Bombs. Of the four weapons Brain Crusher phase 2 is weak to, and the wide variety of weapons you could use on Sunstar, the homing makes this the best option in both fights.

B Tier

Black Hole: How it pulls small enemies in gathers their drops, which is quite useful for a screen clear weapon to have. The outward explosion means that it doesn't only kill small enemies. I'm not gonna hold how I missed that Mercury is weak to it against the weapon, but I will note that Mercury's weakness is only applicable in the refight.

Electric Shock: If you want massive damage, this weapon delivers, dealing more damage than a charge shot; this is most apparent when you consider that it can one-shot an Ou-Ou when a charged shot can't. It's also the best way to take on Hell Metall DXes, and the way it interrupts Saturn's attacks is the strongest weakness in the game.

C+ Tier

Tango: Tango's attacks are, in practice, an alternate charge shot that's mostly useful for hitting enemies below you, striking angles that the Salt Water can't and vice-versa. He burns through weapon energy too fast for keeping him out long term to be practical, but this isn't a problem because doing so is unnecessary; you can recall him as you please. However, as you get more options, he begins to get outclassed; answering the second phase of a Hell Metall DX is great, but the Electric Shock can deal with both phases in one shot once you get it.

Photon Missile: In stages, how long this weapon takes to move forward makes it only really useful against enemies that charge straight towards you, and even then it'll become obsolete in that role once you get the Electric Shock. It makes up for this with excellent performance in boss fights. Venus, Dark Moon, and Quint are all singularly weak to it, Ballade and Brain Crusher phase 2 are both weak it along other weapons, and Neptune and Saturn have meaningfully useful secondary weaknesses.

Deep Digger: As an attack, this weapon is only useful exactly once, in the Terra fight (it can't deal damage in the Uranus refight, but it can dig a hole that you can fall into and die. I learned this the hard way). Despite this, the collectibles you can obtain by using it, including but not limited to 3 of the crystals, are quite helpful. Since you can shoot uncharged shots with it selected, you can fight back if enemies attack while you're trying to dig something out.

Break Dash: How this attack is an alternate charge shot makes a whole lot more practical than the Charge Kick. This is most apparent when you use it on Uranus; striking him with Break Dash itself is only practical when he jumps towards you, but you can keep the pressure up with uncharged shots until then. The invulnerability is nice against Metall Snipers, Biribarees, and Piriparees when they aren't standing on the edge of a platform as the latter two so often are. Hitting Punk with a weakness would be really satisfying for the same reason I didn't think to try it (he's immune to special weapons in III), and it worked well enough against Ballade that I didn't wonder if I got the weakness wrong (I tried it first because the Break Dash, as a charging weapon, seemed like the weapon in this arsenal most like the Pharaoh Shot).

My boss order was Mercury, Venus, Neptune, Mars, Uranus, Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn. I used a password to replay Mercury's level with the other three boss weapons, but instead of doing that for Uranus's stage, I just replayed it normally as part of acquiring the last crystal.

[mariakono]

[turboghast]

I got jumpscared by this song the first time it played as an opening theme because A) the show starting with an episode-long glimpse of the final battle made me think it might have only one opening theme

B) the show reinforced this thought by switching to its second ending theme before switching to its second opening theme

C) I had heard an instrumental version of the song before, while playing Super Robot Wars V

and D) it had not occurred to me that the song SRW V plays for Mazinger-series units might be an instrumental version of an opening from a Mazinger anime.

[turboghast]

The Shuffle Alliance 🤝 The Legendary Magic Knights

Having named attacks that can be performed both on-foot and inside a mecha.

[turboghast]

With how often Super Robot Wars V asks the player to defeat all of the enemies in X turns (whether that's your primary objective or how you get a SR point), it's no wonder that the most intense challenge the game presents the player is a rout map with a time limit.

[turboghast]

They don't know that Amuro needed to read the manual.

[turboghast]

I'm currently reading a Fire Emblem Fates fanfic without having played Fates. Because I'm also playing SRW V, when Setsuna the retainer of Hinoka shows up I keep accidentally picturing Setsuna F. Seiei in her place (and then going to the Setsuna page on the FE wiki to correct my mental image).

[turboghast]

One look at the Angels of Evangelion and I can tell that the Septentriones and Triangulum took some design inspiration from them.

[turboghast]

Me, looking at the Eternal's stats in SRW V for the first time: What the fuck do you mean "sub-pilot Andrew Waltfeld‽" Didn't he die?

Me, now that I've finished Gundam SEED: Bringing someone back from the dead without giving a full explanation as to how that happened is a bold writing choice.

[real-fire-emblem-takes]

Ambush spawns only reach the heights of heinousness that they do in Fire Emblem because they interact badly with permadeath and the player's absolute inability to make choices on enemy phase. In a game where the consequences of getting blindsided aren't as high or the player has some agency to adjust to the sudden new development, they stop being evil.

I realized that this is the case by playing Super Robot Wars V, a game that can't go a single chapter without dropping some sort of mid-map twist in the player's lap. None of these surprises have frustrated me the way ambush spawns in Fire Emblem Awakening have frustrated me, not even the time when the game dropped a new unit onto the map halfway through enemy phase in range of opponents who hadn't moved yet, because spirit commands and the option to dodge or defend instead of counterattacking mean that these surprises don't leave me up a creek without a paddle.

!