Latest Posts by thegigabrain - Page 3

"Natsuki! I just discovered that there is a whole genre of manga with my name! Perhaps I will finally try some, you seem to have a few of the titles I saw online right here in the closet--"

"YURI, NO--"

Boys don't want a fairytale romance boys want whatever this is

... I've looked into the enemy craft. It's an autonomous PCA craft -- BALTEUS.

You'll have to break its pulse armour to inflict meaningful damage.

no i havent seen that critically acclaimed movie with significant relevance to culture. no yeah, still working through bad stuff from other decades

"You are the same as we once were. Think. What are you fighting for?"

White Glint copycat build I did in AC6

be exorcised, evil spirit!! 🔥❤️

comm info!

Ring Freddie's description reads:

"A warrior of the Rubicon Liberation Front.

Paramour and personal attendant to Dolmayan, Freddie maintains an aloof distance from his fellow comrades.

An admirer of the inner world of Dolmayan's mind, he entered the battlefield so that the father of the Liberation Front would never need be alone."

This is the only canonical relationship in armored core 6 and it's gay!

I’m glad AC6 has a memorable cast.

Handler “on my mother’s name, this is about a FRIEND not me” Walter, Cinder “names her custom made AC parts after food” Carla (who can get her bitcoin keys stolen in a mission if you take too long), Snail the single most hateable man in the world, Pater who yells “YAY PROMOTION FOR ME!” if you kill his caring superior in front of him, Iguazu the malding Yamcha, Rusty Your Buddy, Michigan who somehow manages to be incredibly military and yet likable by virtue of being a funny G.I. Joe ass dude (who knows EVERYONE under him by name), and the menagerie of usual Armored Core crooks and freaks that inhabit the Arena, and let’s not forget the utterly suspect ALL MIND who keeps saying very concerning shit and sort of acknowledges you’re in ng+ and wants your help in creating an ethically* sourced, community built Nineball. Even the playable character is an identity thief and the world’s okayest lobotomite, who gets attacked specifically for stealing an identity AND for being an okay lobotomite, separately and in different situations.

And here’s where I make a special mention to Ayre, the girl living in your head, who is… A normal ass person for the most part and just sort of hangs out with you and wants to spend time together. There’s also the voices of the legion, but otherwise, she’s just A Person, and even feels bad asking you to do things if she can’t pay you. In the middle of the big corpo war, Ayre is like “Raven, did you know? There’s lore :) I hope that was interesting”. When the voice possessing your hollow bloodless head is the most normal and well adjusted person in the setting, you know you have something good going on.

Some of the writing in this game is kinda weird... 🎸🏳️‍🌈

The surface of the sun is approximately 6000 degrees Celsius

An AC in Armored Core Nexus/Last Raven built to have as inefficient cooling as possible can reach these temperatures simply by boosting

Fuck your stupid rock

This is your sign to buy and play Titanfall 2.

Prepaints by Morota

ok its hyperrogue infodump time because boy do i have a story to tell

so, hyperrogue as a game is incredibly open-ended. there really isn’t a set goal for ANYTHING – it’s really an open-world, choose-your-own-adventure game with over 60 different biomes each with their own mechanics and quirks. however, it does have a few major quests that are kept track of by the game.

one of these quests is the Yendor quest, which involves collecting an Orb of Yendor, which needs to be unlocked with its Key before it can be collected. you do need to do some work to make these things even spawn in the first place, but that’s beside the point. once you touch an Orb of Yendor, a beacon will activate telling you which direction the key is and how far away from your current location it is. it looks something like this:

your goal during the Yendor quest is to go get the key and fetch it back to its orb, at which point it will be consumed, you will gain the Orb of Yendor (and a hearty helping of various orb powers, along with the orb itself worth 50 points), and formally win the game (with your turncount and real time recorded on leaderboards and the like). and the key is a mere 100 tiles away! how hard could it be?

the answer is: incredibly fucking hard.

hyperrogue’s whole thing is that the world is based on hyperbolic geometry, and in hyperbolic geometry, big things grow exponentially. the number of cells at distance 100 from you would have been around 600 in a flat, euclidean hexagonal grid, but here it’s to the tune of 700 sextillion (the same order of magnitude as avogadro’s constant)! if you don’t know EXACTLY what you’re doing and retrace your EXACT steps (such as by dropping a breadcrumb trail on the way there), the slightest deviation from your path will almost certainly lead you hopelessly astray – you have no hope whatsoever of getting back to where you came.

or do you?

see, the thing about hyperrogue is that its many lands tell the story of its geometry in many different ways. and this could not be more true for gravity lands like Ivory Tower.

the mechanic introduced by this land is artificial, magical gravity, which makes objects and non-flying monsters (and also you) unable to move upward (which, in Ivory Tower’s case, means away from the Great Wall). tiles within the land are colored in a way that reflects this - the alternating color “bands” in the screenshot above are horizontal from the viewpoint of the gravity mechanic.

and because this is hyperbolic geometry, things grow exponentially as you go higher and higher up. the numbers work out so that, for every two tiles in elevation, the number of tiles approximately triples. this means that, once you’re a few dozen tiles up the Ivory Tower, the horizontal movements you make barely have any effect on your movement left or right relative to your entry point back at the bottom. and usually, you’ll come back exactly the way you came.

another gravity land is Yendorian Forest, whose gravity works the same way as in Ivory Tower, except on the tree trunks where movement is unrestricted (except birds can’t fly through them):

just like elsewhere in the world, under the right conditions, Orbs of Yendor can spawn here. and the key will be generated further into the Yendorian Forest. and you may think, hey, since descending in a gravity land takes you back where you came, doesn’t that mean getting your Yendor here is basically trivial? and you’d be right to think that… if The DevTeam didn’t Think Of Everything.

when you travel to the key in YF, you will at first see the beacon take you up the tree trunk, perhaps taking different turns at the branching points sometimes, but still a very easy path to follow back.

and then at some point you’ll see the beacon point directly upward, out of the canopy. which, if you are unprepared, it will be very hard to continue your journey to the key from here.

and about 20 more tiles up, high in the Yendorian Forest sky…

there will be the key, sitting atop a single-block platform placed there with the sole purpose of ensuring the key won’t just fall to the canopy.

this sort of thing happens in Ivory Tower too, in which the key is placed on a platform unreachable by normal climbing, but it’s easier to pass that off as natural terrain generation there. here, however, it is a special exception made specifically to ensure the quest never becomes trivial. and i think that’s both beautiful and kind of funny. one of the many things that gives hyperrogue this je ne sais quoi that makes it so addictive.

As someone who's played AC since my childhood, I wanted to like AC6 so much. When it was announced, I was right there with the rest of the community hyping it up, all the way up until its release. I went through all 3 endings in about 4 days (i.e. before the balance patch).

The game did a lot right. The story was great, and the characters were a lot more developed than previous entries (even the one-offs had a lot of personality put into their brief appearances). I also rather like what was done with the generators—lots of different stats to consider in regards to how your energy bar handles and refills, as opposed to "pick the one with the highest output" (the strategy in previous titles).

But looking back on my playthrough, I can't think of a single moment where the gameplay felt satisfying. Basic missions against MTs were all but trivial, leading into boss fights that were depressingly frustrating. I never got enjoyment from beating a boss (maybe the Smart Cleaner? that one only took 2 attempts), only a general feeling of "fucking finally". The stagger mechanic and weapon design came together to really limit playstyle options—I landed on dual Zimmermans about halfway through my first playthrough (without having heard the community's opinion, mind), which carried me all the way until NG+, where I switched to a different build that ended up using the stun-needle cannon (also without having heard the community opinion—looking at numbers alone showed it to be the clear winner). Realizing in hindsight that I had essentially cheesed my way through the entire game (and still found myself incredibly frustrated) didn't do much to improve my feelings about the playthrough.

After the balance patch, I expressed this opinion in the Armored Core Discord—if nothing else, the tracking on Balteus' flame-sword was ridiculous and needed to be nerfed. The response I got essentially boiled down to telling me, directly, that I wasn't good enough to be allowed to enjoy the game. After that, I left the AC community, and I have very little desire to play AC6 again.

(As an aside, I am disappointed in the nerf to Balteus' missiles, but not for reasons of difficulty. As you point out, the missiles weren't what made the fight exceedingly difficult. The nerf was unnecessary, cutting perhaps one of the most dramatic and iconic boss attacks in the entire game. Nerf the tracking or damage if you must, but removing missiles from the pattern entirely?)

Firstly, this post isn't aimed at people who don't rly have an opinion about BALTEUS nerf, or is disappointed that it isn't as hard but it won't affect their opinion of the game in general. If you are these people, it's not aimed at you I promise

Possibly petty and unpopular but I'm mid annoyed by people (mostly in social media and comments so maybe I shouldn't pay attention to them anyway 😅) who claim Balteus is super easy now and how Fromsoft "ruined a good game because gaming journalists, now *casuals* wouldn't get filtered out like it was intended, I want immediate rollback, gonna uninstall" and base their claim at them defeating it easily with chapter1 gears and OS tunes off

1. Yeah, you downgraded your AC, but your game knowledge didn't. You played multiple playthrough of ac6, your gameplay knowledge is miles above than at the point where you faced it first, if you want to claim you as a player learnt nothing while playing ~NG++ of ac6 and your muscle memory didn't adapt at all, congrats, your gamer learning ability is abysmal

2. I am pretty sure fromsoft didn't do this because of a few gaming journalists who complain that it's too hard lmao, if they actually give into whatever western fringe reviewers say we'd had easy mode in ER (easy mode is another discourse in video gaming that's its own can of worms esp. in Fromsoft games, I don't want to deride the convo so I won't go into it) Hardcore gamers may be a bit too absorbed in their clique of fellow aficionados, they don't realize that there are a lot of casuals who got stuck at Balteus, or, more importantly, didn't even try to purchase the game because they saw a streamer struggling or heard the general gamer gossips that Balteus is some Great Filter, maybe the gamedevs want more people to try their games?

Because I assure you, for people who didn't play any FS games at all, or maybe just played ER, it'd not be easy. If you think only high skilled players are allowed to enjoy this game...well, I disagree.

Maybe WE want more people to play this game because this game offers a lot more experience than that mindset? This is a mecha genre game that doesn't get such outputs as actions of other fantastical settings.

3. The perceived difficulty level suddenly dropping after Balteus and not really escalating into the realm of filter-like until you reach CEL (because let's face it Sea Spider wasn't as much bemoaned as BALTEUS) suggests that maybe release patch BALTEUS was a bit harder than their intention. Fromsoft producer's tweet about the patch specifically says they intended to modulate the difficulty level in early to mid game.

4. This is a specific gripe to people who act dramatically that less missile barrage means the boss is giganerfed: if you're so ignorant of the boss mechanics to think missiles make Baltie hard how did u even got past it

It was similar when Radahn in ER was nerfed too, lol, Fromsoft in recent years gave us pretty enjoyable games, but the maturity level of some people in the fandom is disappointing even for a video game fandom

I’m very sorry, Laura Bailey, but my pal Thermidor asked me to kill you and your friend.

we have achieved... EYEBALLS!

The inherent homoeroticism of gaining someone’s trust enough for them to allow you to share not only their most painful memory but also their body and then use their body to kill the guy who killed their son

tuckered

hiiiiii :)

I've been wanting to play Nier: Automata for a long time and finally I got the opportunity. I am in awe of how beautifully this game is made. Locations, characters and music, ideas for some quests are all great. I'm in love with character 2B. Her image inspires me. I really like the way she talks and behaves. So I decided to draw her. I'm not sure that I was able to show 2B as I see her, but I tried my best!

as much as i love the music in armored core 6 i still think for answers title screen is the best piece in the series. the dancing echoey piano as the strings swirl around it, overlapping melodies that build up until they hesitate for just long enough to collect themselves, before their combined weight hits you all at once. it fills me with visions of the end of the world. rarely have i heard such a piece that is so hauntingly beautiful and also so visually striking. the climbing of the strings as they ascend to the highest notes they can reach, screaming out with the pain of a hundred million souls, before they find themselves snuffed out, only the piano remaining as it continues to dance across the sky, disappearing into the distance.

Armored Core 6 plays with names a lot.

Your main comms partner, Handler Walter, treats you as nothing more than a tool. In time he starts treating you with some slight kindness, maybe even taking pride in your performance under his directions, but he never stops calling you by your serial number: 621. You hear that there's been people before you. You're just a number to him. Distanced. Disposable.

Ayre, your other main comms partner, urges you to care about the locals of the planet you're fighting on. She calls you Raven, a moniker you stole, but later find out is a word that signifies a freedom fighter. She doubles down, hoping you'll live up to the name. Trying to impart those values on you.

The corporations both try to claim you. To the Balam Redguns, you're Gun 13. One of them. Part of their squad. Meanwhile, Rusty of Arquebus consistently calls you his "buddy." Both corporations want to endear themselves to you, convince you to fight for them. But they're exactly the same.

Then there's the Dosers of RaD. Cinder Carla, Chatty Stick and the other Dosers only ever refer to you as "tourist." You're a guest in their territory. First they spit the word at you, but later on it starts sounding almost like a term of endearment. You're not one of them, but you're not necessarily an enemy.

so for anyone who thinks that the stuff you can do in armored core 6 is fucked up, you ain't seen nothing yet, lap dog

There have been many good video game bosses. Most of them in Soulsborne games if we're being honest... But nothing will ever make me forget the first time fighting Spirit of Motherwill in Armored Core: For Answer (incidentally, also a game by From Software... go figure)

The fact that the battle begins as soon as you load into the level, how you have to dodge its long range artillery before you even get in sight of this mechanical monstrosity while you're doing mach fuck across a desert. Then once you're actually in close enough to start shooting, it's so big. IT'S SO BIG. it's only ("only") the first boss, but by now you're used to your mech needing an entire 10 lane highway to stand, towering over buildings and literally crushing huge tanks underfoot. But Motherwill... It actually takes a long time to fly around her. But of course, you won't really have time to check because there is a CONSTANT barrage of AA guns, missile salvos, tiny mechs (in comparison to you but still bigger than a Gundam) flying out of her two hangers. You need to be constantly moving in two directions and using your limited (!!!!) supply of flares to survive the onslaught, all while chipping away at her superstructure. She doesn't even have the decency to display a health bar, none of the AC:FA bosses do. But if she did, you'd realize right away (instead of 15 minutes into the fight, like me) that you literally don't have enough ammo for this. You HAVE to bring a sword because your guns, missile launchers, grenade cannons, railguns, and more will simply run out of bang bangs before Motherwill stops trying to kill you. When the victory cutscene plays, and your mech poses next to a piece of wreckage with "Motherwi" written on it, the rush comes to an end and you finally realize you were holding your breath for way too long. The mission complete screen loads up and you get paid, despairing at the repair and ammo costs, and then. Instead of returning to the hanger like usual, the chapter end cutscene plays, and you get another tidbit of lore.

And THEN, two hours later, you fight the SECOND BOSS OF THE GAME and get absolutely rinsed because oh yeah. The folks that made this game went on to create Dark Souls.

Spirit of Motherwill was the best video game boss I've ever faced, and she was only the warmup for Armored Core: For Answer. Over a decade later, I've yet to play anything that comes close to giving me such an experience.