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Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I usually just buy the structure decks. They aren't too expensive and I prefer saving gems for the packs and other accessories. I think that the dub kept in Jack's love confession, but I know that they didn't do that when Carly died again, so that was probably one reason why that didn't happen here. We'll have another Carly event, so they could change the outcome. At least this will give some much needed attention to the pairing, so that's pretty neat.

I think that there were six or seven recap episodes, so taking those episodes out would leave Vrains with 113 or 114 episodes, which is pretty pathetic. It just shows how rushed the series has been even further. They could possibly still go that route for Ai, but I get the impression from the preview that he basically wants Yusaku to kill him due to how strong his grief over the other Ignis' deaths. I don't think that would work too well, but it might at least explain a bit as to why they suddenly made Ai a villain. To give Vrains some credit, Ai being the final villain isn't a terrible idea. I think it needed better setup and the writing is still pretty sloppy, but he may not end up being the worst final villain of a Yu-Gi-Oh! series. He's no Zarc by any means, but he does have personality and a personal connection to Yusaku, so he'll still be a step up from Don Thousand in that regard.

Not only do their storylines ultimately go nowhere, the characters just have so little impact on the plot. Aoi is just the token female lead. She got some token victories, but she is primarily used for angst and hyping up new characters for Yusaku to defeat. Her desire to become stronger in order to protect people is meaningless when she never gets a meaningful victory. Onizuka's character derailment subplot was especially pointless. He just reverted to his season one personality for his last duel of the series and we aren't going to see much, if any, of the result of his so called redemption. Spectre feels really pointless as a Lost Incident victim. They wanted to give more context for his relationship with Revolver, as well as possibly avoid having to create a new character as Earth's origin, but it just really didn't go anywhere. Making the cast full of AIs would have worked nicely with whole conflict between humans and AIs, but they probably still would have felt so pointless. They could have just made the series primarily about Yusaku, Revolver and introduce Takeru earlier, even though that would have probably changed too much of his backstory and season one in general. I have never seen a Yu-Gi-Oh! series care so little about most of its cast or be so against introducing new characters.

I'm still so happy about Vrains ending though. It is both amazing and pathetic to see that this series end in such a rushed manner. I've been meaning to start another Arc V rewatch. I love the series to pieces, but it can take awhile for me to rewatch anything. I may start it either before or after Vrains wraps up.
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I'd probably do that if I felt like spending money on the game, but given how my interest for it comes and goes I never feel like it. I never did see the dub of it far enough so I'm not sure if they did, but either way hopefully when she does return they add more to it instead of just rehashing all the same lines and things again, and they push the ship further.

I mean you had to figure from early on there was a good chance Ai might be the final villain with how often they'd reference AI and humans being enemies. It seemed like they never really had any signs of showing a peaceful ending despite all the time of Yusaku and Ai working together. It just seemed like a too straightforward plotline from the beginning which is why I'm not too surprised they're running with it. I guess Ai will just die for the reason you said but it kinda won't leave any closure with Yusaku so I think the ending is going to be pretty sloppy. At least like you said though Ai is a better final enemy than Don Thousand and maybe even more so than Darkness. Darkness just felt kind of unnecessary.

The thing is with Vrains is I think they're trying to make it not seem like a Yu-Gi-Oh! When you watch any duel outside of Yusaku's for the most part they almost always start the same. Characters always summon the same monsters to start a duel here as opposed to other series where they'd use a variety of cards, and decks are more like a real life deck using multiple of the same cards just to fit an archetype. So while the characters are meaningless I think a lot of the problems also stem from how bad they made the duels be. They'd usually only mess in one different card at times to make things seem different otherwise the deck always was setup and used 100% the same from anyone in any duel. From the characters to the subplots, to the duels, everything just seemed off and didn't say Yu-Gi-Oh! to me aside from the fact that they used trading cards.

Yeah I hear what you mean about the rewatches. I can be the same way. I also sometimes start to watch something and then put off continuing to watch it. Also the being busy factor at times can play a part.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I can understand that. I've tried to avoid spending money on any of the other mobile games I have since I've already spent a decent amount for Pokemon Go and Duel Links. I'm still annoyed at Pokemon Masters having free and paid gems as being separate from each other. Duel Links makes it easier to farm for in-game currency than I've seen for any Pokemon mobile game.

I didn't really think of Ai becoming a villain before, but I think that was mainly because people thought that the chess pieces from SOL Technology would be the big bad villains for awhile. It does make sense given the whole conflict between AIs and humans, but it does seem a bit too rushed. I'd be pretty surprised if they actually have Ai or any of the Ignis stay dead. I'm still expecting them to all be revived somehow because Vrains doesn't really like having long lasting consequences. They are making a big deal about how the other Ignis are gone, but since almost the whole cast has died twice, I don't really buy into that notion. I might give Vrains some credit if they actually do keep them all dead, although it would still come down to the execution too. The ending is almost guaranteed to be sloppy given how sudden it is. I've never seen the rest of GX, so I don't know how Darkness really fares as a villain. I should get around to watching it one of these days, especially with the season being on Crunchyroll.

That's actually a big impression I've gotten about Vrains since it started practically. It feels like a Yu-Gi-Oh! series that desperately doesn't want to be a Yu-Gi-Oh! series. Instead of being about friendship or having characters work together to defeat a villain, it's all about Yusaku saving the day while everyone else is canon fodder. There are some friendships within the main cast, but they're largely isolated from each other. Yusaku doesn't really have any believable connections outside of Ai, Takeru and maybe Shoichi, but even then, it feels pretty surface level at best. Aoi still doesn't really have any believable connections outside of her brother. Outside of fighting the same villains, the group doesn't really feel connected. The theme of the franchise is basically friendship is magic, but Vrains actively goes against that since it is Yusaku who saves the day, not friendship or the bonds between different characters. Even when they tried to say that his bonds with the cast makes him stronger in season two, it fell completely flat. He has been overpowered from the start and he doesn't have a lot of strong bonds within the cast anyway. That is a good point about the duels themselves though. I hadn't really factored that in considering how rare it is we see someone besides Yusaku duel, but that does make their decks a bit more stale by comparison too.

That's basically what happens with me. I get too busy doing something else or it's just harder for me to fit a rewatch into my usual routine.
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I mean there's nothing really wrong with it, afterall it is your money to spend, but either way you're right about the latter. That whole paid only gems is rather annoying and actually a reason why I haven't gotten into the game much. I figure why spend my time there when I can play my Dokkan Battle or Duel Links which make it perfectly easy enough to farm the ingame currency. The GO coins are especially bad. If you live in a busy area full if Gyms you're in luck, but living out in a quiet area? Guess you're outta luck short of spending money.

It did seem early on that the chess pieces could have been a major enemy but then they just seemed like something generic to me after a while. The only other reason I saw it maybe being Ai is the tendency in some of the series now to make a main hero be an enemy. Maybe not so much like Yuya, but more so like Judai and the Supreme King. As farfetched as it is I can see the other Ignis staying dead and when Yusaku wins, Ai somehow fuses with him similar to how Onizuka had that chip put into himself. Darkness was only about two episodes I think? Trueman, and Fujiwara were the bulk of the actual enemy, Darkness was basically just an added character to really get Fujiwara redeemed.

To me I feel outside of Ai, Yusaku's only other type of friend would he Roboppi, at least to me. Any other bond or "friendship" seems either forced, or only made because of everyone's revenge plots and not an actual bond. The only real close one after that could be Aoi maybe if they actually interacted more and didn't just form a friendship because he constantly saved her. Really though like you said no one really feels connected. Not outside of family anyway. It's funny because after how much Arc-V was about bonds, friendship, and working together it feels like due to not wanting to copy that or something Vrains did a full 180 and tried to get as far away from that as they possibly could. I especially noticed it in Season 2. Bohman always dueled the same, then so did Lightning, as did Takeru, then Aoi always set up her moves the same. Almost everyone aside from Yusaku, and Revolver to an extend was like this. Just makes all the duels feel the same just with different faces.

I hear you there. Tuesdays I'm off from work so if I can find time I watch stuff then, and Sunday's are sometimes my day to watch something too as I usually so a shorter day but now for the next 16 weeks I spend all Sunday just watching football so that eliminates that day for me.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
Paid gems is such a terrible idea, especially when they honestly wouldn't need to force people to spend money on the game. Pokemon Go is much worse in that department though. Even if you do live in an area with a lot of Gyms, you can only collect fifty coins per day, so it's still going to take forever to actually save up enough money to buy almost anything. A friend of mine suggested that we could sell our items for extra coins, similar to how you can sell items at the Poke Marts in the main series games. It still might be difficult to get enough coins for the boxes, but that could possibly make it easier to get the clothing options for our avatars.

The chess pieces were pretty generic, but I figured that they wouldn't be the main villain after SOL Technologies became much less of a threat. Plus, they were barely mentioned after the first arc and they got rid of Queen pretty quickly too. Ai being the final villain wasn't a huge stretch in itself. It might work when they expand more on his motivation since I'm sure that there's more to it than just creating copies of himself, but it just lacks a good enough setup for it to work. I could still see them bring the other Ignis back to life somehow, but the idea of Yusaku and Ai merging together does sound plausible. I'm still kind of expecting Yusaku to turn out to be a living AI himself for some reason. Darkness always sounded more like the typical overpowered being of pure evil kind of villain.

I couldn't really buy the friendship between Yusaku and Roboppi. They had barely interacted throughout the series and his sad expression right before he had those flashbacks felt so emotionally manipulative. I definitely don't think he had any close connection with Aoi. I think I could count the times they met outside of Link Vrains on one hand. They easily have the worst chemistry out of all of the male and female leads, or at least tied with Yuma and Kotori in that regard. I thought that his friendship with Takeru was believable. It wasn't anything to write home about, but they actually spent time together outside of Link Vrains and knew who they were, so I think that helped in making their friendship more believable. I'd be able to find his friendship with Shoichi more believable if he wasn't just the tech support guy for most of the series and then they tried way too hard to make their duel emotional. That's exactly why Vrains feels like a Yu-Gi-Oh! series that desperately doesn't want to be a Yu-Gi-Oh! series. It would be jarring coming after any other series, but it's especially so after Arc V. It actively goes against the main themes of the franchise and actively seems uninterested in bringing the cast together in a meaningful way.
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Right? Like I know I keep going back and mentioning about Dokkan Battle but it's a good example for that. When they drop certain summon banners people love after a few days there's always an in game message about it being a top grossing game around the world and they give you a bunch of free stuff. I'm sure Masters would have no issues getting money spent on it like you said, because there's bound to be banners/summons/syncs that people really want and would spend money on trying to get without hurting free to play people. Well you're right about that, especially given it takes just 200 to increase the amount of Pokemon you can carry and item count. That's where most of my coins go. That's only 4 days but gotta make sure it's the full 50 every day. I'm not sure about the item selling idea though. I mean it is a great idea but I wouldn't see them allowing us to do that. Not with how many Pokestops are out there in some locations, and how easy it is to get items from them, albeit randomly. I could see them doing something though like being able to trade extra unneeded items for points or something towards other items you need like evolutionary ones.

They could have gone down the lines of the Chess Pieces trying to use the AI they were creating to take over the world or something like that. But then again with it only seeming like they were interested in the money they make as major shareholders that didn't seem plausible. Yeah hopefully in these last episodes we get a little more explanation as to why exactly Ai is doing this. It probably will just be him being lonely or something though. Yusaku being an AI himself was something I also thought of, and it would make sense looking back at his Link Sense and whatnot from when he faced Bohman. He was definitely overpowered but ultimately he just seemed like an extra addition just to increase the plot.

It's a shame really because this series really had the potential to showcase friendship so well. Every prior series everyone had at least one friend at the start of the series, or in the case of GX, would instantly make a friend. Vrains was all about all these people who had no comrades or no true companionship outside of any family. It could have been so easy for everyone to be brought together over time, but instead of that they just kind of tried to make us think there were bonds there when there weren't. I look back to when Ai went to "sacrifice" himself in the duel with Bohman, and stated about all the bonds Yusaku formed with others. As you said though he really didn't have any of those bonds. I guess we're just meant to believe all these bonds are true and strong with nothing to really back them up. What a mess the series has been.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I have bought a few gems already, but only some cheap ones and even then I haven't gotten any noteworthy results thus far. I was tempted to buy one of the monthly discounts, but then they gave a warning that I've already bought 300 gems this month and to not buy too much. While I understand that they don't want kids to spend a lot of money, it was pretty upsetting when the game is designed to where you have to buy gems in order to get anyone. You can farm the items relatively well, but the gems are pretty hard to come by. I have to increase the amount of Pokemon I carry fairly often too, although I do need to work on transferring some Pokemon to my Let Go games too. Yeah, I suspect that they wouldn't want to make it too easy to get coins, but they really need to make it easier to farm them. I still struggle trying to get Sinnoh Stones.

That plan for the chess pieces sounds plausible and I definitely got the impression that they were going to do something with Queen in the third season, but that obviously didn't happen. Ai did say that he was lonely and basically wanted Yusaku to choose how he dies, but given the preview had Lightning in it, I suspect that there's still more to it. The Link Sense was definitely a reason why I thought he could be a living AI. It might also explain his missing memories, although I'm not sure if they'll even bother to address that plot point. I wouldn't put it past Vrains to just throw that twist at the last minute. I still remember being confused as to how Yuma could be a part of Astral and that wasn't mentioned until the Zexal finale.

Vrains definitely had potential. The setup definitely could have led to Yusaku making more friends and opening up more as a result. Instead, everyone is still pretty much within their own groups. They'll fight against common enemies, but they still fight largely on their own. Not having the cast interact with each other too often, especially when few of them knew who Yusaku was for the bulk of the series, definitely didn't help matters either. That's why the whole scene you mentioned where Ai talks about their bonds fell so flat. Yusaku had barely interacted with Aoi, Emma and Akira, but apparently now they have such strong bonds. Much like the series itself, it just felt so hallow and empty. It has definitely been a soulless mess of a series.
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Wait seriously? They already tried to warn you to stop after only spending, what is it $3, in the game already? While that does make sense about wanting to prevent kids from buying too many, it doesn't entirely add up. If they were that concerned about people buying a lot of gems then they wouldn't have made paid gem summons a thing. Seems like they're just trying to cover up for themselves. Yeah I know what you mean there. I haven't bothered to transfer any Pokemon myself to my Let's Go game since December so that's been a problem. Same here, I think I've only ever gotten 2 Sinnoh Stones myself. Not exactly easy to work with when several Pokemon need them. I'd probably feel less annoyed if I came across other evolutionary items easier rather than having 6 King's Rock and almost none of the others.

Yeah the Queen, what another throwaway character she turned out to be. It's like why even bothered introducing her? Just so you had a second person who had a key to the system? Yeah I can definitely see them throwing in some kind of weird last minute twist like you said. Something that they use to try to cover up all the glaring plotholes they're going to leave, and unexplained things. I actually forgot that was a part of the Zexal ending. To be honest I had stopped watching it when they started to reveal all the Barian backgrounds were altered and such. It just had me feeling eh so I never bothered to see the ending exactly, just how Yuma won the duel and then the bit after it.

I mean that point is even further proven when Akira and Aoi meet Yusaku in the real world, where Akira tried to thank him and he just shrugged it off saying he was just fighting for himself and she was there. Really completely deteriorates Ai saying about how Yusaku formed many bonds. Like you said it was all just about common enemies. Nothing was a bond it was just them coming together to work together to stop someone then going back off on their own. A lot of wasted potential when, if they tried, people like Yusaku and Aoi could have had fantastic character growth.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I might have been about five dollars and I was going to buy one of the monthly deal packs, but it was still pretty annoying. At least they gave out a ton of free gems to make up for an error. I still wish that it was easier to farm gems in the game. I still have no idea why they made Sinnoh Stones so hard to get. I get evolution items from the seventh day Pokestop all the time, so making them so hard to get when so many Pokemon need them is just annoying. I could only evolve one of my male Ralts into a Gallade on a Community Day.

They also did announce a Dark Side of Dimensions World for Duel Links. I can't say that I'm too surprised given the leaks, but it is pretty disappointing. I could totally understand having a Dark Side of Dimensions event, but making a separate world for the movie just sounds like they're really desperate for more DM nostalgia. Not to mention it means that there will be a longer wait for an Arc V world, which is still pretty disappointing for me. Admittedly, maybe they wanted to use this to save on more time since like you mentioned before, they haven't done enough with the 5D's world or Synchro monsters to jump into Xyz monsters, but it leaves me pretty mixed. The trailer looked pretty neat and the idea of Skill chips sounds potentially interesting. I'd love a way to unlock Skills without hoping to randomly get one in a PvP match.

I think that they wanted to give Akira a different boss other than talking chess pieces. All she did before being defeated was look evil and pretty. She was involved with Onizuka's pointless subplot, so that didn't help matters. I don't think she would have been an interesting villain for the season, but a lot of people assumed that would be the case. I think that the second half of Zexal was better, or at least more interesting, than the first half. It doesn't make it worthwhile to sit through the whole thing, but it was more engaging at least. I still don't like Zexal, but I'd say it was overall okay at best.

The whole reveal for Yusaku's identity was a lot more low key than I expected it to be. That might have been the point, but it made me wonder why they had Aoi in the dark for so long. Being able to interact with Yusaku earlier knowing full well that he is Playmaker could have helped in developing their relationship. I've seen some people happy that Aoi's whole world doesn't revolve around Yusaku specifically, but being primarily connected to her brother isn't really much better.
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Yeah I can see how that could definitely be highly annoying. As for the free gems, well after I used the 6000 for two 10 count summons and didn't get a 5 star unit (and only one 4 star) I pretty much just gave up on the game already. I have heard you can get a Sinnoh Stone via battling but I haven't tried it myself yet. And as for the 7 day Pokestops, well I usually don't hit day 7 too often so I miss out a bunch of the time there. That's unfortunate though that you could only evolve one Ralts that day.

Yeah I'd seen about a week ago it was essentially confirmed when a datamine showed a Seto Kaiba from the movie with like 5 exclusive skills. Didn't wanna be the one to let you know though as I didn't want to disappoint. I could have seen this world being introduced as an attached world though, sort of like the D.D. Towers events. But yeah ultimately I feel like they're doing this now because, unlike the GX world since it introduced nothing new, they probably don't want to jump into Xyz yet since there is a bunch of Synchro and 5Ds they can still do. Maybe this is only like a 6 month hold over, and come March they'll introduce a Zexal world instead of making us wait a full year for a new world. You never farm Legendary Duelists to try to unlock skills?

I could have seen her being a villain this season only if she used a chip like Onizuka had, and then because of it tried using those AI the company was making to try to take over the world or something, because it's not Yu-Gi-Oh! without someone trying for world conquest or to erase all of humanity. I was trying to watch the second half back in the day but it just sort of became way too all over the place for me to enjoy it. Who knew only a few short years later we'd get another series all over the place like this.

I would be perfectly fine with Aoi's world not being revolved around Yusaku too if Aoi was also a more credible duelist. Since she isn't and he always has to come to save her then her whole world may as well just revolve around him anyway. At least if she did know his identity sooner it could have at least done a better job of solidifying them having a good friendship form, if nothing else.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I don't blame you. It can be annoying difficult to get any good pulls from Masters. My luck was pretty good at first, but now I keep getting the same characters and I couldn't even get more than one Rock type trainer for the recent event. I'm going to have to be more careful with my free gems, at least until I go through more of the storyline, but it just so annoying. You can get a Sinnoh Stone via battling, but even that's pretty rare. I live near a few Pokestops, so I don't normally have a problem with getting to the seven day mark.

I just saw the leak via a YouTube thumbnail, so I figured that it was going to be more than just an event. I'm sure that it will be cool and fun, but it really feels like an excuse to have more DM nostalgia, even though the movie is pretty recent itself. I wouldn't mind getting a Zexal world in the spring. That would be better than waiting a whole year and they'd have more time to do more with Synchro monsters and 5D's world. It would still mean that an Arc V world would be two years away at most, which is really the most disappointing part about this for me. I farm Legendary Duelists for their cards, but trying to get Skills from them is pretty inconsistent. I tend to have better luck unlocking Skills through PvP duels. Although, I got three of Jack's Skills unlocked by having him duel Dark Signer Carly before, so that was pretty neat.

Queen might have worked as minor villain, but I think she just didn't have enough presence to be a major villain of the season. It really did seem like they were setting something for her up given that SOL Technology captured Earth, but that entire subplot was pretty pointless. I don't blame you about Zexal. While I think that the second half is an improvement, it still has plenty of its own problems. I'd say it is okay at best. Vrains makes me frequently wants to apologize for hating Zexal so much. I still don't like the series, but Zexal at least had a semblance of effort put behind it. Yuma has more personality than Yusaku ever did, even if he was still annoying, and at least Yuma wasn't the only character that mattered. Vrains has all the flaws of Zexal plus its own problems and cracked it up to eleven.

Yeah, that's a big reason why I don't understand people being thankful that at least she doesn't revolve herself around Yusaku. She has to be rescued all the time, so it really isn't that noteworthy. Plus, she doesn't have any noteworthy connections aside from Akira and maybe Emma, although the latter always felt so forced to me. Honestly, knowing who Yusaku was much earlier in the series could have given them some kind of relationship. That is one reason why I feel like Yusaku and Takeru's friendship is believable. Having the chance to interact outside of Link Vrains, despite being so rare, and being more honest with each other does help to establish a believable connection. I don't think that Yusaku and Aoi would have been able to have a noteworthy connection, but there could have been at least something as opposed to the nothing we did get for them.
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Yeah, while I know I shouldn't care about not pulling a 5 star unit, well when I didn't care much about the game right away in general it was just enough to turn me completely away. Yeah you definitely need to be careful about your gems. I mean this certainly seems like the type of game when you never know when a new banner with a character you really want will show up. I've never even had a battle yet so never had that chance for one. See that's where my problem is. I always miss day seven, which is my day off cause right around me there are no stops, as opposed to work since it's a beach town which would of course have a bunch of foot traffic and thus many Pokestops.

Yeah I know how you feel. While I don't mind the DM nostalgia that much, since the game was originally made and seemingly intended to just be DM only, it certainly is upsetting to know Arc-V is pushed back as much as it would be. I'm sure it is far more upsetting for you. Well that's fair enough. From PvP I tend to only unlock rather generic skills like Draw Pass. I try to farm the Legendary Duelists for them more so only because I always know their deck so it's easy enough to figure out a counter before the duel, as a opposed to a random PvP opponent.

Well I mean this is Vrains we're talking about so she could have easily been a major villain just because the series was all over the place. I will give Zexal enough credit to say it did have some high moments. While it did irk me a bit that they never had Yuma beat Kaito for one thing, you could see they at least tried with it as you said and did seem like they really wanted the plot to go somewhere. Vrains is just...well it kind of makes me think of Seinfeld's slogan "a show about nothing" since essentially all the subplots, and even bulk of the main plot really amount to nothing.

Exactly. It's like okay if you're happy they aren't shipped in the show heavily whatever, but they could have still had a valid connection and been platonically connected. Just so each had one more deep bond, or in the case of Yusaku one deep bond in the first place. I'll give you the friendship with Takeru though now that I think about it. Even if the bulk of it was just because they were working together to take down enemies, becoming friends and interacting mostly outside of Link Vrains did help to make it seem like they actually do have a bond and formed a friendship. But yeah, Yusaku and Aoi could have at least had a solid friendship going for them, at the least.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I'm still waiting for an N event since that seems like a perfect character for them to add into the game. I have been able to get a good portion of the trainers already, but it is extremely annoying when my paid gems only get me a trainer that I've already gotten before.

While Duel Links was marketed on DM nostalgia from the start, I just feel like it has gone overboard with just how many DM characters are playable. They've made nearly every minor/one-shot DM character playable, yet O'Brien and Jim are still unplayable in GX and most likely aren't going to be added given the recent Duelist Chronicles event doesn't give them sprites. It's just kind of annoying in that regards, but the longer wait for an Arc V world is such a disappointment. It might be helpful in the long run since they'll have more time to see how they can make Pendulum cards work for the Speed Duel format, but it's still a shame. I've had pretty good luck with unlocking skills through the PvP, although I still rarely got any Skills for Peagsus with that format. I do have a ton of keys, so maybe I'll try unlocking some Skills for Pegasus through farming the Legendary Duelists at the Gate.

Vrains was definitely all over the place, so the idea of Queen being a main villain wouldn't have been a stretch. I just don't think that they would have given that much screentime to a female character now that I think about it. I didn't really have a problem with Yuma never defeating Kaito. While I think Kaito fits the rival mold more so than Shark does, Yuma and Kaito's rivalry didn't really exist after season one and even then, Yuma just wanted to duel Kaito, not defeat him. For all of Zexal's flaws, it still at least went somewhere,. It still felt like there was a point to what had happened. I can't really say the same thing about Vrains. The recent twist about Ai just ruins his more personal motivation in favor of wanting to prevent himself from somehow destroying the world.

Honestly, Aoi also just really needed someone else to bond with other than her brother. They tried with Emma and Aqua, but both relationships just felt so forced and hallow. Yusaku and Takeru were mostly fighting against the same enemy, but I think that knowing their history and having at least the chance to interact outside of Link Vrains helped to establish a connection. It isn't particularly deep or noteworthy compared to other friendships in the franchise, but it's at least something.

I should have mentioned this sooner, but congratulations on becoming a mod. I've also liked your recent avatars.
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I'm sure soon enough an N event would show up. Afterall he seems plenty popular enough to be added via an event. I can easily see how that would be frustrating. Nothing quite as disappointing as spending money just to get a duplicate you don't even want.

It's funny too because anytime they had a Yami Marik event they clearly seemed like they planned on adding regular Marik, which I've seen people saying how upset they were that he hasn't been added in while being teased for years. Yeah it certainly is a letdown that we seemingly won't get any kind of GX character like that. It also sets my expectations low that we'll even get all 7 of the Dark Signers for example there. That's a good point, they might just be unsure of how well Pendulums will run in this type of a format. That's funny because Pegasus is one of the few characters I had 0 issues unlocking Skills for. But yeah if you use keys, duel Rex. He's super easy for farming to try to unlock any skills.

Hmm, yeah that's a pretty valid point I didn't think of. They probably wouldn't feature a female character so heavily like that. At least not as something main. I think it was more of just something that irked me is all with the Yuma thing. I don't really know how I felt I could take Yuma as the main protagonist losing constantly to the same duelist and almost never winning a duel on his own, at least early. That was my main issue back in the day when watching Zexal. Now of course looking back as we've had Vrains running now those issues don't seem that bad at all. Also I haven't even watched the previous two episodes. I'll probably just wait until Wednesday and watch all 3 final episodes in one shot.

That's why I missed an Aoi and Yusaku bond or ship forming. It would have helped her more because then she would have at least had another bond, and it would have helped to show Yusaku was really growing as a character and moving on with his life by forming yet another bond. Even Aoi's friendship from the past was just a little too forced and iffy. You're right though, at least Yusaku had something going for him with that Takeru friendship.

Thank you, Mew. I really appreciate that from you. And thanks about the avatar comment too. Too bad I'm just too indecisive to stick with one.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
They have been giving a lot of love to the fifth generation in Masters, which is definitely awesome since that is one of my favorite generations. An N event down the road does seem pretty likely. They just may want to focus on trainers with other Pokemon considering the amount of type themed events lately. I still wish that they made it easier to collect gems, but pretty much every Pokemon mobile game I've played makes it difficult to just rely on in-game money.

People also seem to be upset over no regular Bakura in the game. I like getting new cards and the chance for more free gems, but giving DSOD its own world is still more of a disappointment. Scud, the bully character who showed up in a few scenes in the movie, is playable, but characters like Jim and O'Brien aren't. That is just so ridiculous. I've seen other people upset over Zexal and Arc V worlds being delayed as a result of this as well. I've heard about Rex being easy to farm, so I'll give that a shot. At least they do make it possible to get Skills through those Skill coins, even if it is just a lottery.

I didn't think of that point about Queen for awhile myself. I think that they wanted Yuma to be more relatable for the audience by having him lose, but it seemed pretty minor in the long run when he still won whenever Astral was on the line and his losses hardly ever affected him. Yuya at the start of Arc V felt like a better way to tackle a lead who wasn't perfect at the game from the start. He still won most of the time even early on in the series, but his win record was barely over fifty percent prior to the Junior Youth tournament and his skills during those early duels reflected that. He wasn't an instant master at the game, but he wasn't a complete joke either.

So the Vrains finale happened. I thought it was pretty bad, but it was practically guaranteed to be like that given how rushed and sudden it was. I'll cover more specific points later, but for now, it felt like a meaningless, empty non-ending for the series. So it was pretty fitting for Vrains in that regard. Although, I still think that the endings for each series generally fit with the directions of the overall storyline and characters. Some work better than others obviously, but each ending does still kind of match with the series. Either Aoi became self aware or the writers finally admitted that the female lead had done nothing during the entire series. What did you think of the last few episodes?

You're welcome. It's fine to go between different avatars. I just stick with one for a long period of time since I just get too comfortable with whatever one I'm using.
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I mean I'm sure they need to keep some characters stored in the back for down the road as you don't want to rush out too many too quick. Gotta keep some stashed away so when you do drop that sudden banner for a certain character people will go crazy and throw a ton of gems at it. N might be a character for that given the general overall popularity I've seen for him over the years. So I'm sure soon enough he'll be featured in a big way. Yeah as opposed to other ones, Pokemon mobile games really seem like they're out to make a bunch of money, and very ungenerous with an in-game currency.

I'm cool with DSOD getting it's own world, but I'd be more so fine with it if it released alongside the Zexal world or something. Or like if it released 3 months ago, and the Zexal world released on the yearly timeframe this past week like GX, and 5Ds did the prior years. In it's own way, even if there's the bare minimum of duelists who could be in it, as you pointed out with Scud being in the world, I feel DSOD needed its own world over just being a simple event. The different looks of characters, being based towards the manga instead of the anime, stuff like that made it feel like, at least to me, it needed its own branched off world. Although admittedly I still feel like they just didn't want to say "we don't think we're ready to implement Xyz summoning just yet" and that's why they made this world appear now instead. Still doesn't excuse characters from the prior worlds not being included, like Jim, or normal Bakura. I mean even Strings honestly. If they inserted Umbra and Lumis, and we've been facing Strings for almost two years now he may as well just be an unlockable duelist. I'll probably save my coins until I need just one last ability or something since I saw them say the less abilities left to unlock the less resources it takes.

Yeah that's the thing there. Every major duel seemed like it featured Astral at sake so it felt like none of that even mattered. Yeah it's like in the case of Yuya he clearly understood how the game worked, short of the various summoning types which he always learned firsthand in duels. His dueling ability left something to be desired, showing room to grow, but he was skilled enough with his own cards, or at least when combined with Action Magic, to pull out a win when needed early on. It was a good way for them to give him a nice character development, and to me, Yuya felt more relatable as a character.

I haven't actually gotten around to watching the episodes yet because I just haven't felt like bothering. Either way I'm not surprised to see you say that the ending was rushed, and well, probably botched just like the series overall. I guess at this point they just wanted it done with since it wasn't bound to get any better. Not without some serious effort put in anyway. Well at least they bothered to admit that they really did nothing with her over the span of the entire series besides having her win a few token duels. I'll get around to watching them at some point this week.

Besides I don't think it would even look right if you were using something that wasn't a Lucario.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
I'd be okay with a DSOD world if it didn't feel like an attempt at more DM nostalgia pandering. Or at the very least they hadn't put nearly every one shot/minor character from DM in the game while leaving the GX and 5D's cast so barren by comparison. I can see why they wouldn't want to make it an event since the characters do have different looks and cards that couldn't be properly shown through an event. It just seems like a combination of wanting to milk the DM nostalgia and not wanting to incorporate Xyz monsters in the game yet. Plus, only having three characters to unlock at launch is really bad. Yugi and Diva will probably have their own events, but I don't know why they only had three characters DSOD playable. They could have at least made Jonouchi and Anzu available too. They might also make Atem playable, especially when they didn't have him reveal his name during the brief recap of the Ceremonial Duel, but he'll definitely get his own event if that is the case.

Every duel did have Astral on the line, so Yuma being bad at the game was rather moot when the plot was basically designed to where he had to win or else the show would effectively be over. Yuya definitely came off as much more relatable to me as well. I could sympathize with his emotional problems too, but I thought that making him an average duelist in terms of skills at first was a better way to make him relatable to the audience than Yuma being unbelievably bad.

I don't blame you for not feeling up for watching the ending. I just assumed that you had already seen it, but I also didn't want to be too specific in case that you hadn't. You might enjoy the ending more than I do, or at least not dislike it as much, but I just didn't think much of it for a lot of reasons. There was admittedly no way to for them to make a good ending with this setup. Ending the series six months earlier than most fans expected definitely didn't help matters either. This is the first ending to a Yu-Gi-Oh! series that I've actively disliked, but that was to be expected given my feelings on Vrains. I still haven't seen the GX ending, but I can't imagine that it's worse than this one.

Yeah, not having a Lucario themed avatar here would be kind of strange for me as well.
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Well now I just felt more dumb opting not to reply so here I am. For the record as a throw to our other chat I'm typing this whole post on my phone so.

Yeah, okay I need to agree with you now. I didn't realize DSOD world launched with only 3 playable characters, and with no unlocks this current month. Now that really seems like a waste when at the minimum a world came out with 5 duelists. Guess they really just wanted this Zexal world delayed by any means. Yugi should have at least been at launch. I mean the new pack had all his Magician Girl cards and we were gifted the new Dark Magician artwork. They would have just been better off with no new world this time around and focus on the prior ones more.

Agreed. I could definitely relate with some of Yuya's feelings much more than any other character. Yeah I mean his first duel alone showed he had some skills as he could deal with a pro duelist. Yeah he only won via plot armor with the new summon type but it was much better than him being a flat out bad duelist who could only win his duels via the new summoning type. That's especially why I liked him mastering all the summon types and using different ones to win different duels. It showed great growth as a character and a duelist. Unlike Zexal where Yuma was always bad and then at the end was just suddenly good enough to win alone.

It didn't matter to me if you talked about the ending. I mean I'm sure you had your issues with it, and I still haven't found time to watch it because work has been such a drain this past week. The biggest issue I had with the GX ending was the inconclusive ending of Yugi vs Judai. Even without seeing it though I'm not shocked to hear you disliked the ending of Vrains. I mean you've been very vocal about your dislike of the series since day one.
Hidden Mew
Hidden Mew
It's okay. I wasn't sure when to send you a message anyway. My guess is that they didn't want to include that many characters in DSOD because they have a much more limited pool compared to DM. There aren't a lot of minor or one shot characters they can make playable based off the movie. Making most of the cast event exclusives give them the excuse to have more events in the DSOD world. It still mostly feels like an excuse to delay any major updates to the game though. I can understand why they'd probably want to make a big deal about Yugi being playable in DSOD, but it would have made much more sense to include him. Not only because of the Magician cards, but because that would help to make DSOD more distinct from DM where it took ages for Yugi to even get an event. Having three characters wouldn't be so bad if one of them wasn't a nothing character like Scud. I'll still unlock him for the gems, but that is easily the worst decision they've made in terms of which character to bring into Duel Links.

It definitely helped that Yuya always wore his heart on his sleeves, so I think that made it easier for him to be relatable. I never had much of a problem with winning the first duel via plot armor. I can see why that was an issue at the time, especially for a first impression of the series, but since Yuya didn't even remember how he won or what Pendulum cards were exactly, I figured that there was a good in-universe explanation for that victory and there definitely was one. Yeah, I never really got the impression that Yuma slowly got better at the game over the course of the series like Yuya did. Learning all of the summoning method was especially cool and showcased his growth quite nicely.

I'm sorry that your work has been rough on you lately. Hopefully things will get better soon. I remember a lot of people had problems with Yugi vs. Judai having no conclusion. I don't know if that will bother me that much whenever I see it, but I can understand that problem. Yeah, there was very little, if any chance of me liking the Vrains ending. Like I mentioned before, I still think that every Yu-Gi-Oh! finale fits with its respective series, but the Vrains ending is really the only one that feels lik a non-ending to me.
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Yeah, I figured that was going to be a possibility given how you've said more than once that you aren't the best with starting a conversation, but it's all good. Yeah I know we didn't see many characters, at least not dueling in the movie itself. I'm not surprised most aren't available right away like Diva, but the lack of Yugi really was still a shock. When the movie was based around him vs Kaiba it made sense for Yugi to be in the world instantly, especially so it wasn't like the DM world where he won't be around for who knows how long. I can see them trying to expand the amount of duelists by having two forms of Diva, the normal, and then the Zorc/Millennium Ring possessed version. After the GX world added Judai/Yubel it wouldn't shock me at this point. I hear you there, Scud is a waste of an added character but I am working on unlocking his unlock missions now anyway for Gems and stuff.

Yeah, definitely. Of course, I mean it wouldn't be the start of a new series if the protagonist didn't win anyway. I never mind as long as the plot armor works fine. I still think that's why I like DM's first duel so much since it didn't make Kaiba weak, and later on Yugi never had to rely on Exodia again. As you said though it worked well for Arc-V as Pendulum cards had just come into existence during that duel, which was a real nice explanation later on at the end of the series why they came to be. They were worked in well, transforming his cards instead of the cards being magically added to his deck. That was something that sorta always irked me with the Extra Deck was how cards just kind of appeared. I think that's about the one thing I liked about Vrains is that they gave an explanation where at least Yusaku's cards come from as his skill did it. As for Yuma though he certainly never did get better. At least to me. I feel like they just winged it too much with him.

Thanks, I'll need that support. Gonna still be another long 3 weeks til I take a vacation week from it. I am off tomorrow so I might try to see if I can fit in some time to watch those last episodes. Yugi vs Judai bothered me at the time because inconclusive duels hadn't been a major thing yet. I think as far as the franchise went the only one had really been Manjoume vs Judai which Judai explained he would have just won on his next turn anyway. Nowadays it wouldn't probably bother me as much. The only reason I thought you would maybe like the ending would be simply because you were glad the series was over with now.
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