(CR) Shangri-La Frontier

[Dengar]

But no plot essential occurrences right?

[Strahan]

Nope, just recap with some comedic narration.

[scififan]

Asura assembly, the trolling players, get slaughtered by the other angry players in the game.
The trio finally are at the secret boss fight. The birdman got beaten, but the American girl acts as the healer by throwing out the teardrop/crystal ball.

Towa meets her fans in the game. They annoys her, so she slaughters them. Maybe it is the true face of those real life actresses/supermodels. There are only few games that players can have duels in towns.

[Dengar]

Hahaha, after that awful scene in Solo Leveling, this is how you do a "Survive for X amount of time" scene.

[Twi]

Review done. Emul and Sunraku's scenes were sweet. Real connection there, and even Vash wished him well.

There's my stakes, not wanting to disappoint the rabbits.

[Strahan]

Originally Posted by scififan

There are only few games that players can have duels in towns.

Given the theater bits at the end are for humor, I doubt they're concerned about exacting game canon faithfulness

[Dengar]

Also it clearly wasn't a duel.

[scififan]

So, the tip of winning the match is survive, until the robot samurai and robot horse overheat. The second transformation wiped out Asura-kai last time. The bird survives the samurai, and the fish survives the horse, or a mechanical kirin. The pencil transfers her skills to the bird and the fish, so she cannot fight the boss directly. The pencil figures out fighting the secret boss, by using the secret potion. The potion is called holy maiden little sister's holy water. The name suggests S&M fetish. The game company may get penalized for having this naming convention. The gamers may have the weird thought or not. Maybe it is referring to some weird cloth in Elden Ring.

[Twi]

That's both half right and half satire.

Specifically, the Holy Water was created by the Saint of SLF. The kind of Saint who is needed to remove Sunraku's curse marks and was mentioned back when he got them. Pencilgon paid top dollar to get the strongest Holy Water possible to go against a Unique Boss, on top of getting a unique rare item that lets her increase their stat points by offering money, which basically allows them to circumvent the Level restrictions (or in their case since the other two are only around that level, give them a buff). She really did put everything on the line here.

Here's my review as well.

[Strahan]

Given Sunraku's "Pencilgon's behind this eh?" thought means she obviously didn't brief them on what she'll be doing, that she has the scales, or what they do. Why the hell would you go into a serious boss battle like this deciding to just surprise your teammates? It's obviously to inform us watching, but it still makes it weird heh.

[Twi]

I want to think that she had doubts. Remember how in the last episode it was only after observing Sunraku lasting as long as he did and Katzo memorizing attack patterns that she decided she could really bet everything on them and pulled out the scales?

To me, that was her reaffirming that fact and beginning the conversion process of turning all her loot into an offering. The revival items were expensive, but she could buy more. The stuff she offered the scales and used for perks isn't something she'll be able to return once she divides the points out. That was 300 million in stuff that she basically traded, on a unique item she borrowed from a trading guild after begging them, meaning it's also likely she only recently got her hands on it as a last-minute addition.

[Dengar]

Maybe she's just like that. Especially since it gives a lot of herself to complete this, she just doesn't really feel like explaining how much she is sacrificing.

[Strahan]

I don't doubt that, but it doesn't make it any less stupid lol

[scififan]

It must be a bug. The holy maiden is the game's idol, and her golden shower works on the unique boss. Now, the bird can damage the unique boss. The kirin is becoming a Transformer. The fish and the pencil has to keep the kirin distracted.

[Huh...?]

So, if we count from the time they went into the Boss Area in the last 6 minutes of Episode 15.

The Fight (including Flashbacks in-between), has been going on for 47:24 minutes.
While in-story it has just been above 20:00 minutes.

But if we consider some of the Boss Battles in current MMORPG's, nearly 47 minutes of fighting isn't really odd.

I know because, i have fought in some World Boss Battles in a Korean MMORPG, were it took multiple alliance (each consisting of roughly 24 players) with atleast Endgame or Midgame gears and items, over an hour to kill off. That too while keeping an eye on whether the Opposition Faction doesn't come in and try to Steal the prey (since who got the Boss dropped depended on which League of Alliances did the most damage in short amount of time, aka., dependent on DPS amount).

[Twi]

Yeah, but you also have to consider the mental strain of doing this while piloting their avatars and micromanaging every little detail while in a fight (stamina, re-cast times, etc.). A high-stress environment requiring every neuron to be focused on something quickly wears you down mentally, which I can attest to back when I was doing raids as a Tank Blue Mage against Bahamut back when the Morbol Mounts first came out. I had to time the autos and be ready to Diamondback before the boss was casting his Tank Buster, with only one Swiftcast in the event I screwed the timing up. Sunraku even put it himself he can't soak in the lore because he's too wired up on Red Bull and focused on keeping his reflexes and senses sharp enough to respond since he has to dodge single-frame attacks, now with no lag time between them.

Anyway, review done. The path of the jar is being walked.

[Jaden]

A 20 minute boss battle definitely qualifies as a crazy endurance contest in any real-time game I've played. Don't martial arts have 5 minute rounds at the most? And that's more like what Sunraku is doing.

Even when the boss mechanics are simple, just having to repeat an earlier phase of the boss regularly causes players to screw up.

Much of the challenge in real games like this comes from the fact that you have to bring in a large group of players, and most of them aren't going to be god gamers.

[Huh...?]

She is thirsty

YouTube

https://youtu.be/e8k8F11kg-w

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Twi]

Oh they put money into this fight. And those anime-exclusives scenes! I'm crying!


Seriously, watch the credits this episode! They changed it just for this one!

Edit: Review done.

[Dengar]

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm starting to get this feeling that the author, instead of just capitalizing on a trend, actually thinks like a gamer?

Like they seem to have a decent handle on what makes a game fun.

Not sure if I'm just projecting though.