#which is especially jarring bc DDD seemed to be their best looks yet

[xehanortsreport]

im fine (malding over kh3 stealing the melanin from every nort)

[nerd-bastard]

ok so over the... /checks calendar, past five days i have managed to tear through act one of DQXI and hoo boy. hooooo boy. 

i fucking love this game *_*

@flutiebear​ thank you so much for your notes, they were super helpful!! my thing with JRPGs is mostly the turn based combat-- i can get SO BORED with it, i definitely prefer ARPGs where i can button mash things to death. DQXI seems to have found some kind of sweet spot for me tho, where battles are just long enough for me to like. pick a strategy and implement it, and get satisfactory results. sometimes those satisfactory results are just Talc helichoptering an entire group of enemies to death in one swing, which scratches my ‘button mash them to death’ itch :D I definitely like the easier monsters and relaxing while i play too, i’ve literally failed exactly ONE boss battle and that was bc my initial strategy sucked, not bc i didn’t have the muscle to pull it off. and omg, THE NO’S. BEST TIP EVER, THANK YOU.

and, as per your request, thoughts! :DDD full disclosure, i watched a playthrough up through the MMA tournament before I got the game, so these aren’t exactly first impressions. tons of screenshots and rambling below the cut, RIP mobile users :(

OH and because I got it on PC, i literally modded it before I even fired up the game lol. found some nice retextures on the mod nexus and installed the orchestral music overhaul too, it’s nice. The retextures are Wild Side Erik and Chainmail Luminary, i love them and I recommend the hell out of ‘em. Just a heads up so folks know why my Erik and Hero look different :D

ALRIGHT I WAS TOO DISTRACTED TO TAKE SCREENSHOTS FOR THE FIRST PART UP THE TOR but: i love gemma and i would die for her and sandy, and so would Talc. also christ, slimes are the most adorable enemy ever, DQ did a good thing with slimes. 

/NERVOUS LAUGHTER

horsey!! her name is Whisper and Talc loves her :D

so, initial Hero headcanons: Talc does not want to be a Luminary. He wants to stay in Cobblestone, and continue spending days at a time alone in the wilderness hunting for his family and culling monsters and riding horses and whittling wood and carving soapstone to pass the time. He knows he’s not Hero material-- he has to work too hard to hold his temper, and he’s too stubborn, and and and (he’s fine-- he just really wants to be like Chalky, but he’s a 16 year old kid who thinks good people ((like Chalky)) don’t have to try so hard to be good people, not a man with 60+ years of experience and time to mellow out. he’ll get there.) So Talc’s plan is 100% ‘Go to Heliodor, explain the situation to the king’s Knights and give them the pendant so one of them can go defeat the evil instead, then go home to Cobblestone.’ and well. We know how that turns out.

the most hardened, you say ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 

THIS FUCKER. WHAT IS THIS FUCKER. 47 HOURS INTO THIS GAME AND I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS FUCKER IS. ARE YOU GOOD? ARE YOU EVIL?? ARE THERE A BUNCH OF YOU, OR IS IT JUST FUCKING YOU FOLLOWING ME EVERYWHERE? TELL ME

THERE HE IS!!! THERE’S MY BOY!! <3_<3 

In Talc’s defense, he was trying to open the jars, not smash them. yes i absolutely have to reconcile breaking into people’s homes and smashing their stuff with his character, he’s a country bumpkin who struggles to remember the concept of ‘private property’ and is so stupidly strong from rock climbing and swinging a greatsword around that is is a genuine struggle for him to lay hands on ceramic without shattering it. he’s a bit of a bull in a china shop, and it’s only growing up with Gemma that let him develop a reflex-bordering-on-instinct to be as gentle as possible with other human beings that, unfortunately, does not translate well to inanimate objects.

also... ngl, it took... a minute for that accent to grow on me. that accent, man. more like ‘those accents’ JUST PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT DUDE

talc: you know those days when you’re like ‘this might as well happen, adult life is already so goddamn weird’

also, those SHOUJO SPARKLES. i will NEVER BE OVER THE SPARKLES.

holy shit i love Erik’s expressions and poses so much, he’s so fucking expressive (all the characters are, the voice acting and animation in this game has been a delight every step of the way, but i just. adore Erik’s in particular, everything he does is so endearing to me.)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS QUEST NAME, IT COULD NOT BE ANY LESS SUBTLE

little did he know what monster he had created

seriously tho i LOVE the crafting system in this game, it’s a good challenge and a little frustrating when one of the random events screws you up, but SO SO SATISFYING when you finally get your +3. also it works really well with my headcanon that Talc is very much a “show your love by providing the ones you care about with anything they could possibly need or want” type of person. he’s actually very good at anticipating said needs/wants and has a knack for giving his friends things before they even properly knew they needed/wanted the thing. he also has a tendency to...kind of forget that he can get things in return, and gets really flustered and happy when he does get something which also leads to a tendency to treasure and consequentially hoard small dumb things BECAUSE they were gifts.

this is where Talc’s heart starts to go doki-doki-- he's very much a people pleaser, if he can make folks happy it makes him happy. the little bit of trouble is it was pretty much the status quo in cobblestone, and a little bit taken for granted by the time he strikes out-- not by everyone, or all the time, for sure, but getting out into the world and getting a sudden influx of gratitude is like crack for him. Also Erik is Nice and Handsome and was happy to do all the talking in downtown Heliodor so Talc didn’t have to worry about it, so Talc now definitely wants to keep Erik. It’s also hilarious to Talc that Erik is clearly skilled with knives, and yet has zero clue how to dress or cook a rabbit-- he’s very determined to keep the city boy alive (watch me walk this headcanon back in a few days when i finally get his back story and it turns out he lived off the land for years)

oh man, my HEART, MY HEART. even knowing it was coming, playing through this part was rough, especially since now it’s my Talc running around the ruins of the one place he wanted to live out his days protecting. ;_; that was his job, that’s what he was good at and contributed to his home, except for the one time it really, really needed him. he’s more than a little fucked up about it, but it’s a big part of him really leaning into the Luminary role- he can’t stand the thought of it happening to anyone else.

this. this is kinda a big deal for him, after cobblestone. after learning people blame him for Dundrasil, and then feeling responsible for Cobblestone, he’s already starting to have tiny, niggling doubts about ‘oh shit what if i AM some kind of darkspawn??’ Fighting alongside Erik through the Kingsbarrow and getting to feel like he’s helping and protecting Erik helps, and then so does this. 

it also plays right into his thing for doing justice-- which, he tries to hold Chalky’s words close to his heart, he does, and his vision isn’t the first time Chalky has had to encourage him to let grudges go. it was the main motivation for the vast majority of his pranks as a kid: make Gemma cry by telling her proper ladies don’t play at catching frogs and getting dirty? enjoy the frog hidden in a jar leaping out at your face, old lady. accuse him of being a darkspawn and throw him and his family in jail? hell yes he is going to help this thief steal your greatest treasure, and love every minute of it.

and now, to wrap things up bc this post is already way too long and i’ve got. the rest of act one to yammer about later:

YES

YESSSSS

YAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSS

in conclusion: this is a good game and a good ship and i already have 300 words of fic sitting in my gdrive <_<;;;