I don't really have much to say that has already been said. Really strange the sudden shift in Yamato not wanting to leave even if you can make sense of it on paper. I want to like the whole farewell with Momo, but I just can't muster any feelings towards him. He's not the unlikable brat he started out as, but like with so much other characters from the arc he just feels so underutilized. There's also the fact that he had so little interaction with Luffy the whole thing of him calling Momo a little brother just doesn't work for me. The whole "here's our flag to raise" moment.

Perhaps in the future on a reread I'll be a little more receptive to this arc, but at this time this arc was just a slog to get through. Some fun characters like Queen with some neat moments, such as Jinbei finally joining. However, those great moments were few and far between with so much mediocrity.

I've been seeing people predicting Carrot could still join. While not against it, I laugh at the idea because if true it would be such a jarring thing with how little screen time she has had since the end of Whole Cake Island.

Got the chance to watch the series since I was hanging out with friends who had a subscription. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this. Overall did a solid job presenting a lot of the big beats of the East Blue saga, while adding its own twists which gave it its own charm.

Yeah, that fact that Atlas can change shape is a huge red flag right there, Seems to recall recently that a lot of people were apprehensive on how the stakes could stay high after beating Kaido, and I feel Oda has done a great job on building the stakes here. We saw how just two Seraphim took on some really powerful pirates, but here we have 4 on the island on top of a traitor, plus with a Admiral on his way. Throw in real Vegapunk missing and trying to protect the various numbers, it's less about winning and more about surviving. If the arc keeps it current pace and quality, this arc will be a great way for me to get reinvested after the slog that was the past arc.

@FelRes said in How was your Day 2 (general chat):

@The-Franky-Tank said in How was your Day 2 (general chat):

@FelRes said in How was your Day 2 (general chat):

@The-Franky-Tank said in How was your Day 2 (general chat):

Just got back home from a 10-day trip to Iceland. If you love mountains, water, snow, and cool weather you should definitely go there. Got lucky and saw the Northern lights, kind of. It wasn't strong enough to see the colors with the naked eye, it was mainly a faded green mist in the sky with the colors appearing on pictures.

I went to Iceland over the summer, it was absolutely gorgeous. So many puffins and so much rye bread. Didn't get to see northern lights tho. It was daylight pretty much 24/7 it was weird but cool. Need to go back one day.

Awesome, glad you got to enjoy your time there. Being October puffins were long gone for me but did get a rare sighting of some reindeer in the distance. Also got a chance to see some of my favorite animal, the Humpback Whale during a whale watching tour. Where all did you go during your visit?

We circled around the entire island. Highlights for me were the myvatn baths, whale watching up north in Dalvik, puffins in Borgarfjörður eystri, and Glacier Lagoon + Diamond Beach. Loved seeing all the seals playing in the lagoon, they're my 2nd fav animal after sharks. And we miraculously saw some humpback whales engaging in some... humping at Diamond Beach. It was nuts. I missed out on elephant rock tho, which was the main thing I wanted to see r.i.p.

Really cool things you got to see there, only places I went that you mentioned was diamond beach and glacier lagoon. Loved the area, all the various shaped ice scattered around and the various colors with the volcanic ash mixed in made for some very vivid imagery. Since it was October, I was able to go into an Ice Cave at the nearby glacier there which was an amazing experience in its own right!

OMG, I love petty Lucci and him taking the bait. He was great in Water 7 because of how threatening he was, now being lower on the food chain compared to Luffy I just love their interactions. That and how matter of fact he is with what he will want to do was easily the highlight of the chapter. Which is crazy considering we had a wild Shanks appearance, as well as the return of Dorry and Broggy, with Kid coming in to fight.

I completely forgot that other Cipher Pols came to investigate the island, so seeing them there imprisoned alongside the real Vegapunk just furthers the mystery.

Been doing a reread of the series again since watching the Live Action show, and just recently finished the Saobody stuff when Kizaru first appeared, so interesting to reread that and now be here with a lot of characters who were first introduced and/or alluded to in a way. Back then, you had the OG Pacifista that the crew barely took one down on their own and Kizaru was just on a whole different level.

Now we are in a situation where you have a similar set up where the Straw hats are in a situation where they are close to being overwhelmed, where once the Seraphim and Pacifistas are turned on them it's going to go from a relatively balanced situation, to heavily skewed against them. However, unlike last time they will make it out, but this isn't going to be a situation where beating their opponents is the end game of the arc, at least how I see it. Between that awakened robot, and I assume Kuma making an entrance, there's enough to help the Straw Hats escape successfully with the real Vegapunk at the very least. If I had to make a prediction, Kuma's help will come down to helping teleport some of the enemies away, since multiple Seraphim will be too much for the crew.

There is another thought I had, which is the idea of the Seraphim at some point no longer being under anyone's control. It was mentioned that they could eventually develop their own personalities and will, which we saw somewhat with Seraphim Boa before. With all three of them being ones who have a more mutual to positive connection with the crew, I could see them refusing orders as some point, especially doing anything to harm the Straw hat crew.

Got the chance to watch the series since I was hanging out with friends who had a subscription. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked this. Overall did a solid job presenting a lot of the big beats of the East Blue saga, while adding its own twists which gave it its own charm.

Dear lord I cannot catch a break with this house. Last year had to have major work done on the foundation. Yesterday high winds came through and had a tree fall onto my house and a branch puncture straight through into my living room. At least nobody was hurt.

Ultimately, any criticisms or misgivings I have are ultimately not enough to really bring the game down itself. For an open world game it's the best I can hope for, but those kinds of games just don't resonate with me to become one of my favorites. That said, it's clear as day with both games that there was a clear vision that they executed to a great degree, and the quality of what they made is unquestionable. These are both games that over time I will replay and have fun with as each playthrough is its own experience, and having something to just sit back and enjoy is a good thing.

As for the weapon durability, I never really had a problem with it for either game. There was only a few times it was annoying in TOTK, but less the durability and more the fusing mechanic being harder to use properly when doing horde type battles. A lot of times trying to run by to fuse the exact item you want is hard when you have dozens of consumables laying around and enemies chasing you as the same time.

I'm done with the game for now, but I look forward to a replay in the future when I feel like doing one.

Beat the game with all main story stuff completed and done with the game for the foreseeable future. Need time to mull over my thoughts to post more specific opinions, but overall it can be summed up as a solid game that improves certain aspects from BOTW. There are also some downgrades but overall, I enjoyed it more than BOTW, however with my specific tastes I don't love the game and see it as the GOAT like many others do.

Ok, finished the desert stuff and some of the stuff that happens shortly after that has definitely piqued my interest. Also got back into the mood to explore some more areas I haven't been to, mainly so I can gather upgrade materials because I am getting bodied by some of these enemies.

Also, only just now realized that you can increase slots in the outpost area. Somehow I missed that and assumed once I could get to a certain place that's where I would be able to, but nope, been available to me for the past 30 something hours. Smh

I'm starting the 4th story area which is in the desert. Overall I have been enjoying the game, but it's something where after the first bunch of hours my enjoyment of the game has dipped a bit and am getting to the point that I am ready to do everything I need to do to finish the game. Up to a point it's fun to explore, but the map is so massive just counting the main map that it becomes tiring to me after a point. While there are certain improvements compared to BOTW, it's still an open world game that never got me super engaged with BOTW either.

After coming to terms with how the games are now and warming up to BOTW from multiple play throughs, I have been very excited for the release of this game. I've put in around a good 6 to 7 hours at this point, and have been mainly exploring the initial area you start in after finishing this games version of the Great Plateau. Overall, really enjoying what I'm experiencing. There's enough changes that despite being in familiar areas, it feels quite foreign to me. With the changes in abilities and how certain tasks are required to be performed, I find the puzzles to be more engaging.

That said, with the new mechanics, there's a mix of fun to aggravation. The biggest problem is the machines you can build, and how it's a toss up if it will work the way you want it to. I just finished a puzzle that took me 10 to 15 minutes to get done because I tried the correct solution the first time, but getting everything to line up wasn't working so I thought I was wrong. Que me trying other stuff until trying the correct solution again, so have everything line up just right. Perhaps with time I will get a handle on it, but these seem to be the easier puzzles, so I worry how some of the later ones will go.

Despite that, there are moment to moment encounters that are fun and pop up more often in this game, at least so far. There was small fortress encounter with a twist that I died to many times but felt great after overcoming it. There was also a enemy camp that had some tough monsters in it, but since I found a secret way into the back I was able to sneak attack and kill the problem ones before they could do anything.

Christ, I'm getting less annoyed about the current chapter contents and how many back to back two week breaks there have been. Just how everything has lined up currently.

Don't really have much to say. As much as I like the stuff happening outside of Egghead, I wish we could just focus on Egghead with how short the arc has been. Wano was so long this would have been a welcome change. Currently I am interested in the Egghead arc to all this bouncing around has been a bit annoying. I get the fact that we are edging towards the final arc and a lot of set up and wrapping up of certain plot points needs to occur, but it just feels messy. Not something that is so bad it is actively ruining my enjoyment, but changing things up could make things much more engaging IMO.

Having seen the movie myself I can see why there's the mixed critic consensus but high audience score. As far as story and making something that makes you think about anything, it is definitely lacking. You take the most barebones skeleton of a story without really expanding on anything and that's what you got character and plot wise. It's nothing terrible but when I think about the movie there's nothing that sticks out about it when it comes to basic story. As far as taking Mario and making it visually appealing and hitting those notes that make you remember playing the games, it hits that really well. Only big problem is they stick so many references and visuals that you don't get much time to enjoy it.

All in all, and enjoyable 90 minutes to just watch and not think too much about. For what I expected it to be, I take that as a victory.