I'm looking to go into lurking mode for the time being. Maybe it's because of the new rendition of the site is pretty much coming...soon but who knows when.

Maybe consider this my pseudo-break from here for the time being. I mean, as I said, I'm going into lurking mode.

Yeah, it feels way more restrictive. I know this is drumble's way of making sure people don't commit visual murder over really strong colors, but still kinda sucks. The banners in the new site are strictly zoomed in until they are 1200px wide/300px long, then cropped to that 4:1 ratio, so it really makes no sense to use any other resolution but what they recommend because you can't have shorter banners or anything. At the very least I have to be thankful that he did listen to feedback, because back when he proposed the change we were gonna get JUST a bunch of color palettes decided by drumble and that's it, no custom colors whatsover. Also, I think? there were no plans of having banners at first either, I vaguely remember thinking that every page was gonna look so sterile with the remake.

Honestly, it's cool how it's way faster to edit the lists, but there are so many weird changes and the multitap being hidden in the last tab when it's the focus for me is so... bad... Just make the home a proper timeline with everyone's updates! It really isn't that hard. Anyway, I digress. It's gonna be a shitshow when the remake happens, because I've read that playstation network is gonna disappear and every game is gonna be put in playstation 4 by default. Which is a baffling decision because most if not all my psn games are vita games, with the occasional psx/ps3/psp game there. I don't even own a PS4...

I had no plans to change my theme (in fact, I was fine leaving it with Gemini Sunrise indefinitely), but since I'm finally going to do Leon's side in Tales of Destiny Director's Cut & with what I already brought up in my previous comment, I decided to change it, at least for a month.

Being that I'm the Tales fan here, I'm just wanting to say this. Mutsumi Inomata, character designer for a good amount of the Tales games (most stand out being Tales of Destiny and Eternia), passed away.

I loved her artwork. It was very lovely. Also, well, I did start off Tales with Tales of Destiny back in 1999. Despite at one point watching Windaria, I would mostly know her for Tales. Most installments would be her doing.

Not to mention, Leon Magnus has been that one Tales character I think of, even jokingly, as that one character I could never escape from (Even with me stealing Cless Alvein's first name and Stahn Aileron's last name). I may have also dressed up as Leon Magnus during San Diego Comic Con 2008 and 2010.

I know a lot of people felt sad after Akira Toriyama passed away recently. Hearing another one, especially someone I admired, also passed so soon was a big gut punch. I think I'll do those EX Points grinding in Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut tonight at the time I post this just to play something she did.

RIP Mutsumi Inomata. I'm going to have the same angst as Leon Magnus for now.

Oh, I can see what you mean. The last few games are just a weird hybrid between hack n slash and usual tales of and it isn't working whatsoever, and the extra HP just makes it boring because you're supposed to abuse the mechanics or something. Like how Velvet was just R2 spam, and Alphen was same arts spam forever. It doesn't feel fast or snappy either, so it's just meh. A friend of mine swears that tales of graces has some of the most stupid story in a videogame but the gameplay is super good, so I really want to give it a try someday.

Why would anyone say that about tales of phantasia? lmao ToP is the exact definition of being extra solid in every department, especially the PS1 and later versions. It's not too long, all the characters have very good development and the cast is just endearing, the story gets interesting from the get go, the villain has depth and he's not really bad it's just a story of either you or us and that's how war goes, and while the setting is kinda grim the characters try to make the best out of the situation, and there's plenty of goof in the game without really straying from the overall tone. Is it a masterpiece? Hard to say because there are other games that shine more in some things, but finding another good rounded game like this is actually super hard. And I really don't think I'm talking from nostalgia here, there's really not much to complain about ToP. People can obviously not like it or think something else is better, but really I feel what you mentioned is just complaning for the sake of complaining, to undermine it because it's the first and the classic so it doesn't get the reputation that it can't be outdone. Which is weird, because that spot always was for Symphonia, as that's the game that pulled a lot of people to the saga.

On the other hand, I never really liked how everyone praised abyss. Because the story twists in abyss felt cheap to me. Why was everyone so hard on Luke when he was also a victim? sure he needed a wake up call but they really treat him as trash when, that thing in particular, was not really his fault. He was groomed to be a tool, so what could he really do by himself when he's not even aware of what's happening because NOBODY tells him? I can praise Luke's change of mind to better himself even if it was too late, but everyone else was just... meh...

also fuck people complaining about mint, there's nothing wrong with liking vanilla stuff

and I should beat destiny too orz I like stahn a lot