Vanillaware Thread

I see VW get a odd OT mention every now and then so here's a proper topic.
Like their games? Any particular favorite? Ports/re-releases that you hope will happen? Expectations for 13 Sentinels? Things you think they need to improve like adding a proper block button instead of holding attack?
Hoping that Oboro Muramasa Rebirth gets a PS4 port and Dragon's Crown is remastered with new areas and classes (particularly the Dark Elf and Cleric).


Incidentally, anyone knows if it's possible to turn off the damage numbers in Odin Sphere Leifthrasir?

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Muramasa would probably be my favorite. The combat is a lot less item Reliant than Odin sphere and Dragon's Crown. And I enjoy the hack and slash a lot plus the bosses feel a lot better in my opinion.

I tried beating Muramasa with the starting blades a while back, I managed to make it as far as the second to last boss, Raijin before I stopped playing on the save file. Trying to doge her lightning attacks is pretty difficult. take that with her having the largest health bar so far makes this fight not very fun. However, playing this way does make Yukinojo even more fun to fight.

I really hope that 13 Sentinels comes to the Vita as well.

Gwendolyn a qt.

Glad he's leaving this january.

Kill him violently, satan.

Easy Satan. I lost all my data at randomly on my PS TV, was almost done with the game too.

kys

If I tell you to kill him without making the devil on your shoulder?

I will say this though while at the thermometer I think Odin sphere as overall more interesting designs. This one feels like the game they went all out for before he made Dragon's Crown visually. Nothing muramasa is a slouch in any Department.

I also like the consistent running theme of anybody that can Resurrect The Dead having giant tits it just works for me I guess.

I guess I like Vanillaware but every one of their games has just felt super disappointing to me, I think they really need better people working on the gameplay side of shit. They cram in a bunch of RPG elements to give an illusion of depth but pretty much everything simplifies down to increasing one number and mashing everything into stunlock and dodging maybe one or two super telegraphed attacks. Muramasa was the worst for this since they even balanced around that simplistic playstyle by giving you autoblock on your mashing on normal difficulty which makes the game a fucking joke but when you go up to hard mode and they remove the autoblock you get shit on by minor attacks they didn't give real animations to because they expected you to just autoblock through them.

I hope 13 sentinels drops a bunch of the RPG elements and focuses on just having good combat that's more than one attack and one dodge button with levels that are more than just pretty looking empty rooms with a bunch of enemies standing in a line, but I expect it to have 5+ primary stats that only ever increase linearly with no decisions to be made between them, some kind of crafting system you can get through the game without ever using after they force it on you for a tutorial, and probably not even a jump button.

Fuck me I forgot the other two

Here's the thing. When I met him, he was a chill person. Now he's all over youtube faggotry and wants to make Let's plays. He didn't use to be like that. I thought he was a decent person who would respect someone's save file.


But don't worry. I dropped him as a friend, even before this incident already.

Never got a chance to play it but would really like to. The DLCs look pretty stellar too.
Didn't use many items besides the personal ones in DC and didn't want to rely on them for OS but that changed quickly once I started getting creamed on the Trial areas (also helps that using them gives rank points).

IMHO the problem with the bosses in OS is that they have the nasty habit of completely chimping out when they're on their last HP bar and/or do attacks that put them very far away, some like the Phoenix Rider do both.
At any rate, the game sure goes from comfy to pushing your shit in with no lube rather quickly.


That sucks. If that happened to me, I wouldn't feel all that motivated to pick the game back up.
Well, at least you have eternity to torment his soul.


I really like a lot of the designs from OS but gotta admit the main characters seemed a bit too "animu" for me, like Gwendolyn and Oswald pretty much having the same face. Other characters like Odin, Odette, the Beast of Darkova, Onyx etc look pretty cool though.
I gotta confess I was kinda reluctant when I got to Cornelius' part…

As for necromancers, I think Kamitani explained at some point that the big titty necromancer is a deliberate take on the trope as they're usually geezers and titties = fertility (also something pedophiles get off to according to that putz from Kotaku).


There's still a lot of room for improvement (the aforementioned block button) but I think VW is getting a lot more competent. Where they just made pretty games, now they're making pretty and fun games.
I really got a lot of mileage out of DC and still haven't maxed a single character (the new cap of 255 is fuckin' absurd). But honestly, if they re-release it with more content, I'd hop back. Reminds me a lot of Golden Axe and Streets of Rage which were two of my favorite games as a kid (though the game borrows heavily from D&D as everyone knows).

I'm not picking the game back up. I will probably just watch the cutscenes. I was in the middle of Mercedes' chapter.

I know why he does it and I like it. Contrary to what Kotaku would have people believe, Kamitama and his staff research creatures and mythology and try and get a very accurate depiction of them. Kind of like a lewder kazuma kaneko.

Velvet and Mercedes are qter

I love the excessive stylization and some little artistic liberties like female Raijin.
Curious to see how that will apply in the sci-fi setting of 13 Sentinels.

I miss Kaneko. I like Soejima's monster designs but Kaneko's clean and symmetrical style had a very unique air about it. A acquired taste though.

Bump

Gay……

That's probably why he deleted the save file in the first place lmfao

So do we know anything about 13 sentinels? It's kind of scary that what? Two years have passed and still nothing.

Best girl.

Her spine is broken and she is waiting to be finished off

I don't even like her proportions in the game because they're really kind of ugly but God damnitt japan. two nukes were not enough.

user, this is a Vanillaware thread.

Ass is fine. Hips are fine. I dont mind a chick who lifts.

It's 100% her baby head man. Too small.

Photoshop it bigger.

I like all the games but my favorite is GrimGrimoire because the game mechanics combined with the story parts was really entertaining.
Expecting the translation patch for Princess Crown.
I never was so tense in a game ever

...

I don't think we even know the game's genre. But yeah, it's been quite a while since the announcement trailer. They should at least give us a update to say the game hasn't been canceled. Dunno if anyone tried asking them on Twitter (or if they're as block-happy as Kamiya).


I like her but Rajaki comes in three sizes.


Never quite figured what GG was about. Little I saw seemed like a 2D RTS set in the halls of Hogwarts.


There's also Grand Knights History but I don't think people remember it much besides the "proto-Sorceress".

GrimGrimmoire is an RTS with verticality rather than standard movement you'd expect like Starcraft or C&C. It's pretty stellar. With emulation, you can even have a mouse emulate joystick inputs to get a reasonable control scheme too.

...

The visuals in their games are amazing. The games themselves range from bad to okay.

Odin Sphere and Dragon's Crown were better than okay.

You think they'll have to venture outside of 2d for it? Maybe that's why they're taking so long.

It does have some use of 3D but I imagine that's where the folks from Atlus might give them a hand as it's a joint project.

Maybe Atlus is putting it on hold until they get the inevitable expansions and spin-offs of Persona 5 done with. :^)

Dragon's Cown's Online mode had some of the worst people I've met in an online mode.

How come? Don't remember much besides cheapscapes waiting for everyone to kill a boss to get a free continue and the savagery that was cooking time. (And stupid Elves but I can't blame those as it's a tricky character to build.)
I mostly just played with friends (did around 500 floors of the top difficulty tower with one). I did hate the fact that playing online would pull you to other people's sessions (I think solo players were more susceptible).

The cooking savagery and people being autistic ass-holes over classes pretty much killed my love for the online mode (For some reason most of the Asian players I came across were dicks). Dragon's Crown is a game you really need to play with other people, but the online mode is so bad.

It's not nearly as beautiful but you guys do know that the Capcom DnD beat em ups were also directed by Kamitani, right? They're way less convuleted and far less of a pain to set up and play proper characters. There's even the Steam ports if you want to give Capcom money for some reason, but they should also work under Fightcade or similar online MAME platforms.

Why would I want to give Capcom money?

If you play with people you know instead of randoms it's fun.

Local co-op is how it should be played, user.

Hard to do that when you live in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere, and all the normalfags don't care for Dragon's Crown. I only knew one guy who played it, but was an unlikable, manchild faggot a temp and I made fun of on a daily basis.


Yea it is.

Because you hurt yourself today? To see if you still feel? Fuck if I know man. Point is, Tower of Doom is an alright game.

I can play that for free, and I got other ways to hurt myself or find feelings (it's called depression).

I've stumbled upon a few discussions on class building but I play the game for fun and I like having a ORA!ORA!ORA! Dwarf and weapon-tossing Amazon, optimal dps be damned.


Played those on emulator. They're pretty fun though I liked AvP more.

I played a Berserker Amazon (Berserk, Spam combos, try to block, spam combos again). The build probably sucked, but I liked it.

AvP is pretty good, too. I'm just partial to being able to build teams still with friends.


Yeah, fair enough.

Dragon's Crown was ruined by requiring the player to beat the
ENTIRE FIRST HALF OF THE GAME, PER CHARACTER
before being allowed to play online, which resulted in me never, ever having anyone to play with.

I found dwarf grappler to be really fun. I think I did shit damage, but supposedly I did it well. My friends didn't know that you could grapple some of the enemies that required you to do damage to stun them first, so they were shocked when I started grabbing those enemies and tossing them into whatever the sorceress and wizard were cooking up.

Mine was similar. Parry, berserk and power smash.
IIRC the "optimal" Amazon uses parry and the personal item that that boosts damage when she's near death.


I think they changed that in a later patch (reduced it to just 1) but yeah, one of those things that makes you wonder what the fuck they were thinking.


Grappler Dwarf a lot of fun, especially in the final build of the game where there's rocks to throw everywhere (every boss room has 1) and there's gear that gives a random chance of causing explosions with air throws, but lag fucks him over big time; if you're not the host or if the host doesn't have optimal connection, most grabs will completely whiff.
Terrorist Dwarf became pointless after the gigantic nerf to fire damage. I recall how in the vanilla version, you could kill a mid-boss Demon with just a torch.

more vanillaware comics please

By the time they patched it, it was too little too late because everyone had already moved on and stopped caring about the game. Really pissed me off dropping full price for it day one and to this day still never getting to play it with anyone

i'll play with you user

And you still let him erase your save for a Jewtube video?

I wasn't expecting Rajyaki to be as good as she was. Okoi is fine too but I don't think I want to bother with the other dlcs or the main game since I played it on the Wii.

when will dragons crown be on psn for EU?

Never got to play the game but I read a lot of good things about the peasant's DLC.


I imported my copy from the US because I didn't want to take any chances with Atlus and, at the time, I had the means to import without additional costs but I thought the game eventually became available, even if just digitally.
Just did a quick search but, lo and behold, all I find is the Vita version. Weird.

I love George Kamitani art but sometimes I wonder. Is George Kamitani no longer working with Vanillaware?

it was for some time but then they pulled it half year ago down due to some licensing stuff and it just never came back
But people noticed that Dragon's Crown wasn't on the PlayStation Store after clicking through to buy.


its just they are often really good sales and I would love to buy DK for 10 or 5 pounds

What makes you say that? The picture in the OP is his traditional New Year's illustration.

While he's not involved in every title of theirs (Grand Knights History and Kumatanchi), they'd probably close if he left. I recall reading somewhere they're a very small studio, like 12-15 people.
In any case, the wait for 13 Sentinels is a little concerning - radio silence since TGS '15. At least DC got a occasional mention that it was still in development. I get that they work with very small budgets (DC was done with 1 mirrion dorrah) but I thought they being bought by Atlus and them, in turn, getting bought by Sega would give them a bit more leeway.
Don't use social media and I don't know moonrunes or I might ask them on Twitter.

I imagine they're still working on 13 Sentinels but, again, I don't mind the wait, just get to the Muramasa port and DC remaster.


I see. I forget digital has those issues.
(Shouldn't have bought digital Leifthrasir but the sale was good and the physical copy still has that ludicrous €60+ asking price.)

Well, time to learn how to play again. I only play solo/local dwarf, because my shit is rated M for Manly. Anyone have advice for surviving the grind on Inferno difficulty? Is dwarf even viable on Inferno? Last time I remembered, endgame consisted of elf/amazon, with no room for anything else.

Get a good Wizard to accompany you. :^)
If you only play solo/local, I think it's a good idea to focus on grabs since there's no lag to mess it up; become proficient at using the rock in boss rooms (jump > throw it in a straight line > hit boss > jump again to catch it on the rebound > sign NBA contract), have two (well, four) hammers for Power Smash not just for the damage but also the invincibility frames and if you've a punching build, I suggest getting weapons with Petrify status, it won't be as good as Fighter's Tempest but there's big odds of getting the status effect and it sets the enemies to be grabbed.

Elf got heavily nerfed because arrow management went back to vanilla and her build requires having a lot of options because her bow is made of styrofoam or something.
Fighter with Sacrifice (+30% AT but takes damage for the entire party) is formidable but requires competent team mates.
Last I checked, Wizard was considered the top tier. I don't play him much but two of the best players I came across (one was my tower griding partner for 500 floors) played Wizards. Extinct (OHKO), Slow and Slow+fire fountain (forgot the spell's name) are really good abilities.


Inferno difficulty really turns everything on its head with previous laughably easy bosses like Pirates, Golem and Medusa becoming more terrifying than the Red Dragon. It was actually smart of them, how they managed to give every enemy/boss new moves by re-using assets like how the Pirates can parry and become temporarily invincible like the Amazon.

The DLCs are great besides ninja who feels shit to play. Rajyaki is best girl.

It's a shame it doesn't look like Dragons Crown will ever get DLC.

I'm not sure if I want to endure that. He at least played better than the shitty ninja from what little I tried.


Agreed, especially that spoiler and I'm glad she got good ends.

I wish Vanillaware and Tri-Ace would team up and make/remake a Valkyrie Profile game.

Hey the ninja is pretty fun to play when you level up his weapons so they do more damage. I also think it's kind of neat the each character has there uniqe quirks like Gonbe earning 10% less mon than everyone else but learning skills like Gluttony and Resurrection to counteract not being able to stock up on healing items and Okoi getting double healing benefits when eating fish dishes.

I Really hope it does some day. It would be nice to see tow new classes. I could see the female monk and vampire slayer being added.

We'll see. The Odin Sphere remaster was unexpected.
Though I'm still wondering if that hurt them more than it help. Clearly they put a lot of work into it instead of just upscaling the graphics, stamp a big shiny "HD" on the title screen and call it a day but the price tag is a big one.


My bounceball brother.
But they gotta find room for the Dark Elf too. The last patch gave Elf a Beastmaster set that buffs mounts and gives them new abilities (pretty fun though not all that viable) but we all know that's not enough.

I got mine for ~40 yuroshekel, what the fuck man.

you know i really wanted to play muramasa but I never got around to actually doing it. The vita version got all of the DLC and shit right? Also I really hope that new mech game they were teasing wasn't cancelled since I have been hoping for a sci-fi vanillaware game for a while.

The DLC is not baked into the vita release, if you mean that. Fuck Sony Jews for region locking DLC.

Well that sucks.

I've platinumed Odin Sphere Leifthrasir and now i'm maxing up every single skill for every single character, and getting them all to level 99.

Then i take each maxed character, i make them fight the boss gauntlet, and thus unlock Royal Orb for them.
After i'm done with that i'm gonna go into Xtra game and do the boss rush again on each character and upgrade their Royal Orb with Royal Orb +1.

There's really no reason to do any of this, i just love the game that much and additionally autism.

Always hated that shit. I imported DC so I was a bit apprehensive about DLC. Luckily all there is to are the narrator voice sets but that can be unlocked in game.
I know nothing of these matters but I never understood why they couldn't make the PSN cards work in all regions.


I'm on my second run (in Xtra), about halfway through Cornelius' chapter and I was planning on doing something similar (also got that touch of the 'tism); the Slime King mid-boss looked like the best place to farm phozons.
Missing about 4-5 trophies; one's for eating everything at Maury's (got 6 full pages of recipes; I might be missing some, a lot if he serves the same things as the Pooka eateries) and I think another is for the bad ending.

What i'm doing for skills is super easy:

You pick an area (in the character last chapter, any other chapter won't give you enough stuff as you're running it), then you simply fight trough that area and clean it.
One run should net you 1000 gold or so (perhaps slightly less but you can just sell some shit you pick up to reach that amount).
Do this a couple of times.
As you're doing this make sure to pick up materias, you want a lvl 9 materia.

Once you're done, go back to the pooka village.
Craft the materia + any seed, and it'll give you a lvl 9 neutralizer.
Now, talk to the rabbit and buy chiken legs, buy them again and again, just let them lie down on the floor, the last "wave" of chiken purchases will only let you buy 5 max and that's when you need to stop.
Then, once it's all on the ground, use the neutralizer potion, and just hold R1 and suck up all the phozons, don't stop until nothing else is being drawn in.

Bam, best money/time/phozon ratio in the entire game, do it over and over until all your skills and maxed.
As for leveling up, there's no specific method, just stock up on lamb chops, that green leaf thing that costs 80 phozons to grow, forgot the name of it, and onions.
Then do that one recipe that uses all of these and i think gives you 25000 exp every time, eat that over and over and you should max out.
If you run out of ingredients also eat the most expensive food at the pooka village over and over, that should help help along the process.

Maxing out skills is definitely more annoying and time consuming than maxing out your level.

I see you already got this down to a science. Thanks for the pointers; going to take note.

Incidentally, kind of a dumb question but after finishing Xtra mode, can I start another with that file since I'll have the characters maxed or close?
I confess I tried starting Xtra in Hard thinking my Lv45 and skills would suffice. Got REKT on the very first room. Those Elf Paladins are no joke.

Yeah, if i'm not mistaken you can just chain NG+ keeping your progress in terms of characters, equip and items every time you use that file.

The vita version of muramasa has the dlc. YOu have to buy it though.

He didn't know I dropped him, or would drop him eventually. It would be silly to be roomates with someone and have a poor relationship. I was always nice and we were cordial with each other. Once never gave him a reason to be upset.

You're not very bright, are you? I mean, if I have had a fight with him and dropped him before hand, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Someone must turn this into a condom or date rape drug advertisement with a "don't be a bitch, help a bro out" tagline.

Grim grimoire remake pls.

Before that it would be nice to have Muramasa (maybe even with improved systems) on PS4.
Just to have one place where you can play all of Vanillaware stuff in high quality.

Starting to notice that OS has the same stingy inventory space as DC; seems they really want players to toss potions left and right as well as stuff ourselves.
For the most part, I just tend to use them on trial stages and even then it's mostly Whirlwind as that thing can keep enemies stun locked for a week.

Side note, it likely wouldn't fit because of how the story is structured but it would be nice to have a bonus scenario with a Vulcan or Onyx, maybe even the later as there isn't a proper "strength character" in the roster.

As a general rule of thumb i keep 4 level 9 hp potions, 4 level 9 materia (frankly it's overkill, you're probably fine with 2 lvl 9 hp, and 2 level 9 materia), and then i just stuff everything else i find in the box.
I sell all the potions i find (often after combining them for maximum profit) and only keep like a single level 9 overpower or whatever it's called, that one potion that makes you significantly stronger, i save it for especially hard bosses.

And yes, the game is missing a STR oriented brawler.
Odin Sphere with a hand to hand/gauntlets focused brawler with grapples, fast and heavy strikes and so on, would probably turn the game into my #1 favorite game ever made, period.
Oswald sorta fits the role in his shadow form but it's not quite what i'm looking for.

bump

Action games in general seem to be missing this. I lack the words to say just how enjoyable it can be to go full Mike Haggar on anything, in any genre. Dragons? Mecha? Waifus? Piledriver.

We've had a thread entirely focused on it a couple of months ago, i personally suggested in it certain games i use to…get my fix, so to speak.

The only Vanillaware game so far where you can truly go that route is dragon's crown with dorf, i'd like for the next vanillaware game to have such an option too.
Since it's mecha, perhaps a "brawler" "grappler" type mecha?
I can only hope.

My negro.

To be a grappler fag is to suffer. Forever doomed to be left unsatisfied by any vidya that is not fightan, we have no choice but to desperately suplex our dakis onto our beds and tightening the submission hold on our feelings.

It's a tricky thing to get right. In that specific case of Sengoku Basara (and titles like that) they can go ham because the game is more about making the player feel like a badass as, essentially, you're playing as the boss character.
Now trying to put something like that in a game like Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls is a challenge in terms of game design - if you can only grab humanoid enemies, it's not much fun and if you can do it on larger enemies only when their staggered or have a certain amount of HP, it's basically a QTE but if you can do it all the time, it's pretty damn overpowered. I suppose something like a mana bar or number of uses would be a way to make it balanced but still fun to use.
I think the closest to that is Taiga Saejima in the Yakuza games. Now to make it less cinematic and let the player grab more than puny humans; we gotta power bomb a chimera or twist a hydra's head off.

I think grappling fuckhuge things should be more of a reward for using other game mechanics proficiently. Something like deplete stamina->attack weak point->knock off balance->wrestlemania - unless you want a RULES OF NATURE moment several times a fight.
But for that to not suck, every mechanic besides grappling has to be fun and rewarding itself.

...

This is the pinnacle of evolution.

I'm trying to get all the Armageddon book combinations for the secret epilogue. Already got the good ending and Wheel of Fate in the attic. Can I use that save file to pick up Armageddon and replay it with the different character choices?

Yep.
You can keep trying different combinations on the same file.

At least you beaten the fuck out of him, right satan?

Thanks. I got save files both at the start and end of it just in case. Gonna try to platinum this baby before I get Gravity Rush 2 (and keep neglecting Yakuza 5).

2 days my man.
My wallet is already weeping, i've got releases both this month, and then a shit ton of releases in march, no idea how i'm gonna pay for half of this shit.

Same.

Except 4 days instead of 2 because America :^(

Tell me about it.

That last 3 though, I'm going to wait for someone to take one for the team and spill the beans on possible issues. Ni-oh is looking far too promising and I find that highly suspicious, P5 and Automata might get screwed on the localization and, while I enjoyed the Automata demo a lot, the game seemed fairly simple.

sauce on pic, reverse googling did nothing

It's right in the filename. From one of Vanillaware's most well-known games.

odette gives nothing but i'm tired either way

Good news for both you and me, user. Just found the whole thing AND in bigger resolution.
imgur.com/gallery/GG2mT

If anything, I thank you for asking.

Fuck

It's from the Odin Sphere artbook.
A reprint of the artbook was released and given in softcover form to everyone that pre-purchased Odin Sphere Leifthrasir.

The hardcover version was given with the Storybook Edition.
I own a softcover version myself and it's fucking amazing and full of mesmerizing artwork, to be expected by Vanillaware.

On similarly dire straits though in my case, my contract ended. Likely going to be stripped of my deific NEEThood by the end of the month though. But yeah, been hoarding treasure like a jewish dragon.
What's odd is there's nothing else I got my sights on besides maybe GGXrd Rev 2.


Poor Oswald. Shame Hindel was too verbose and didn't just blurt it out. "Around elves, watch yourselves."
Speaking of which, replaying his chapter in Xtra at the moment. I'm doing this run with the Japanese voices and holy shit! it's a weeb's wet dream. Some of the best in the industry or, at least, most of my personal favorites.

Side note, seeing all the minute things in the artbook really underlines the fact that VW is a studio of artists and also got me thinking about the exact opposite, namely in olden days of the 8-16bit era where the manuals had all these rather crude illustrations.

Figured it wouldn't but I wanted to make sure, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir didn't suffer from any censorship did it?

As far as I know, no Vanillaware games have censorship.

NISA did the translation for the EU version. Besides all the objectification talk in Gwendolyn's story (that could very well be in the original script since there's that whole disgraced valkyrie thing), didn't notice anything odd.

They published it. Translation is the same.

No, it's exactly the same game as the original, but with more shit. (and even the original incloded).


I'm EU and just to make sure i imported the NA version.
But it didn't matter in the end as NISA exclusively published the game so they didn't touch anything in any version.

Well, my wife and I decided to start a new file from scratch, and we're both having a ball running around as dorf and amazon, flexing and smashing our way through everything we can. Is there anything we should be worried about regarding builds? With the level cap raised to 255, are skill points easy enough to come by that we can spend them on whatever without permanently crippling our characters, or should we be laying out spreadsheets and planning our builds 50 levels in advance? For that matter, are there any real proper builds to observe? The game's nearly four years old at this point, but all of the information I can find on it still seems to be dated from August 2013.

Alright, cool. And the vita version is alright?

Amazing.

Alright then. Then it was just the publishing itself that got me a bit concerned at the time. I recall the mentioning of NISA being a hype boner killer.


There certainly are optimal builds and tiers but unless you plan on conquering the Infernal difficulty tower, there's not much need for "minmax". IIRC the floor 9 Demon Lord in Infernal Tower always drops the stat respec item so you can experiment. But having an idea on what to do always helps.
I think Elf is probably the only character whose build you can really fudge since she has far too many options and you have to pick a few and balance them out.
I play a not-really-optimal Amazon and managed fairly well though, again, Infernal difficulty is leaps and bounds harder than the previous and leveling up there is extremely slow (in terms of tower progression, IIRC it's something like 10 floors = 1 level).

I hope it was an arranged marriage

It's the same.
Incredibly minor differences in color contrast and some minor slowdowns during more hectic battles with a shit ton of objects on the screen.