Time for this week’s installment of Watching People Narrate Videogames, Triple Threat Raid Edition. This episode was actually pretty great! It couldn’t possibly compare to William Massachusett’s speech (I will never get tired of that speech or that name), but I don’t even really consider that thing a Log Horizon episode. This was a Log Horizon episode, and a very good one at that. Log Horizon is finally getting to describe the actual meat of raid combat, and seems almost giddy to tell us everything it finds fun about these crazy battles.

You can check out my full ANN post here. Notes and such below the cut!

“Naotsugu, you’re within twenty meters.” All the small details of this show make it feel like an actual raid. This show knows gaming, if last episode’s speech didn’t make that blindingly clear

Luseat’s the name of the boss

“Shiroe’s changed. He’s talking with us more than he used to. That defeat brought us all closer.” Nice – Shiroe’s character turn yielding immediate, understandable “battle benefits” in a very Log Horizon way. Getting stronger might have been great for Akatsuki, but Shiroe’s level-up comes from better communication

“We’re not friends… we’re comrades in arms. You can’t be friends with someone you dislike, but you can’t keep hating a comrade in arms.” This is an incredibly, almost dangerously true statement. You will forgive your allies, and come to appreciate them even if you shouldn’t

“Sure, Shiroe is introverted, moody, and puts up walls… but that’s a minor flaw. We’re all game freaks. We’re all the same.” Jeez

“Companions I’m not ashamed of… is this what having a place to belong means?” Man, this is really tragic

“It’s embarrassing to say this at my age, but I guess you could call them friends.”

This episode’s really, really heavily leaning on the “all characters speak with one voice” thing Log Horizon tends to do. We’re not with a group of characters, we’re with the main characters and The Chorus

Not much animation in these fights, just still pans as usual, but I’m used to it

Their plan is once again an extremely solid videogame plan. Attack the side boss before it gets summoned in an impossible finale encounter, use the layout of the dungeon against the enemies

“There is no perfectly safe, secure future. But after I came to this world, I forgot that. I thought I could do anything, and I was crushed. Sometimes things don’t go your way… this world is undeniably real!” A nice bit of philosophy from Demikas – the fact that you can fail in this world is what moves it from a game to being real

“If you’re going to do nothing but talk, then hurry up and kill me.” Oh wow, Demikas and this girl are already adorable

“He lost so badly, but no one left him!” WILLIAM INSPIRES US ALL

“Hit it with all of your ice, water, and wind attacks!”

Demikas “shows off” in a way that actually helps the team

I like that they’re not just strictly resolving his issues in a linear fashion, but instead he’s just an element with his own goals that weave nicely into everything else going on

More silly shenanigans with whatsherface

“If we don’t let the raid bosses attack radii intersect, we’ll win?” Again, classic strategy. I very clearly remember having to be careful in pulling enemies to specific points in a room, with small errors or switches in aggro causing instant wipes

Explaining how critical CD reduction in

and now explaining HoTs. One of this arc’s “rewards” is the little tidbits of raid knowledge it sprinkles in

Plotting out how they’ll use the long cooldown heals and damage absorbers over the next 700 seconds

Now they have to kite the Shadow Vanguard too

And Demikas just yanks Shiroe out of the raid. Great

He throws him to the end. He had to one-up him somehow