Emmar

Oooh, this one I might be able to hammer something out for.

I bought a N3DS for Xenoblade, and I'll probably be trading my plain old 3DS XL in. (Even though it's only worth £50, boo.)

So I read this thread because I skipped over SMTIV in the past, but now I'm wondering if I ought to get it after all... Should I? For reference, I finished Persona 4 (golden ending and all, though not first time through), got about halfway through P3P and got bored out of my skull with Tartarus, and got part of the way through Digital Devil Saga. My one clear memory of DDS is grinding really hard to beat that bat boss near the start and then getting crushed by the mobs in the very next area. And also never having the money for more demons. DDS actually got me into the series, but P4 was the first one where I cared about the characters enough and the gameplay itself wasn't so mind-numbingly difficult that I actually finished it. (Charisma's a stat in DDS, I think, but hell if I can remember what it does.)

I'm actually looking forward to this now, where I wasn't before, mostly because mainstream SMT games are depressing(ly difficult) whereas Persona is definitely more my speed. Not so much enthused by the skimpy outfits though; disappointed but not surprised on that front.

Seeing people say that $90 is expensive is weird, because I did the conversion and my reaction was "Wow, £52 for a limited edition is really good." Especially considering that's only mildly more expensive than a console game. Honestly, it's disappointing, but not earth-shatteringly so. I'll probably buy both alternate path DLCs anyway.

DID SOMEONE SAY AXE-WIELDING LESBIAN because god damn, I am about that. This all sounds really cool in general tbh.

I was planning to have chapter 2 as 'escape' but then I had an idea about the archer joining. But yeah, you're right; Prologue would work better as escape.

Yeah, it's definitely going to be story-heavy, and the split will make it a lot more work. But like I said, I won't actually be doing any of the hacking bit for a loooong time, which means by the time I do, I'll either be burnt out (...likely) or I'll already have the whole story written out (also not unlikely). I'm sticking to FE class archetypes because to do otherwise would really increase my workload and I'd have to do a lot more to balance the party than I think I will now. As it stands, I'll probably just give most of the characters growths from an actual FE7/8 character of the same class. I actually hammered out the first couple of chapters in broad strokes last night while I was trying to sleep, so here, have what I remember from half two this morning. Prologue: Betrayal Gardenia (prev Princess #1) and vassals are staying... somewhere. Another castle?? Under the villain's hospitality? I haven't worked this out exactly. In the middle of the night, oh no, assassins! Most of the contingent are killed, leaving only Gardenia, her handmaiden (the knight) and her tutor/mentor in statecraft (the cavalier). They fight their way out. (Objective: rout the enemy.) Chapter 1: Flight A direct continuation of the prologue; The party flee into the countryside, towards home. Fellow countrymen are being run out of nearby villages, one of whom is an archer, who joins the party. (Objective: Protect villagers. 3 or 4 turns?) The end of chapter three/start of four would be where the path splits, once the party reach 'home' as it were. The other princess' party probably come into play around chapter five or six. That's all I've got so far, though. I'm aiming for ten or twelve chapters, I think. I also had a thought about the fact that I'd have to do some splicing for mugs rather than plain old recolours if I want the princesses to actually look like sisters, but still also resemble their battle sprites. If there's a female myrmidon sprite, Princess #2 will get that, if not, she'll have Lyn's. Gardenia will almost certainly have Serra's.

Yeah, troubadour was really a sort of 'is one healer enough' moment. I thought about nomad but didn't want too many mounted units, but having Knight/Nomad for the start is actually a really good idea, hmm. That, or go Knight/Cavalier and have them pick up an archer within the first couple of chapters (the way you do Wil in FE7). Monk would go well; it was that or troubadour bc they both (iirc) promote into classes with Light/Staff. The parties will meet up, but I'm not sure when right now. Maybe the end of the second third, maybe the halfway point.

So I had a vague idea the other day about a Fire Emblem where the Lord character is, in fact, a cleric. From a storyline point of view, she's a princess, raised to lead a country, not an army - that's her sister's job. From a gameplay point of view, it gives you a healer right off the bat and (hopefully) means you can't just power straight through - if you grind one character to kill everything, your leader won't ever have to heal and will therefore not get any exp and will probably die. This is just a concept for the moment, as I don't have hardware capable of running .exe files (look, a chromebook was a good idea at the time, okay) but I am planning to hammer out, at least, a chapter by chapter plot. The overall plot is remarkably pedestrian for a Fire Emblem game, probably; The antagonist is motivated by jealousy and revenge and wants to efface every trace of the former Queen (our protagonist's mother) from the face of the earth. This includes her children, her kingdom, and her legacy. I'd like to have a couple of chapters with if/then events (if possible wrt programming); One that splits the story in two, probably at the end of the first third or so, based on the main character's level (which in-story means she either takes back the castle or, lacking confidence and conviction, leaves it to burn) and one based on the number of surviving party members that sets a specific level's win condition to either rout the enemy or escape (the latter of which would give you the option to bull through several high-level enemies or work a much longer, safer path to the goal). I'm also planning to keep the total number of characters fairly small, both for plot coherency and the fact that you always end up with more characters than you ever use. Ones I have vague plans for thus far: Princess #1, a cleric and your leader. Her handmaiden, probably an archer or knight Her seneschal, a cavalier, rounding out your starting trio Princess #2, a myrmidon, who is probably accompanied by a handful of ranking officers such as A pegasus knight A mage A fighter And maybe a troubadour or monk Maybe they pick up a nomad or a shaman along the way, who knows; Most of this list was me going though a list of FE7 classes and trying not to make it horrifically unbalanced.

At this point it really feels like you're arguing just to argue. Pressing your forehead against someone's collarbone is both easy and natural. How much or how little description I put in is, again, (largely) stylistic. It's nowhere near purple prose, so I'm not inclined to pare it down. (I don't actually ~ship~ anything, per se, but Chrobin was my first pairing in my first playthrough and I've a soft spot for it.)

You can't complain that it's short and then also complain that there's pointless shit. If I cut all the stuff that didn't directly convey action it would be about two lines. Most of it is scene setting and introspection. This is also largely a stylistic difference, so. Nope. Gonna keep writing the way I write. There's really no difference between what I wrote and changing it to 'shoulder'. Also, they're different body parts. A: Chrobin master race, fight me. B: This isn't even that indicative of a pairing. Platonic relationships do exist, y'know.

I didn't have a word cap, which is why it's so short. It's not meant to be a full story, it's meant to be a little missing scene type thing. (I will clean have cleaned up capitals. It's just way more tedious to do after the fact than while actually writing.) What you call 'pointless word filler' I call, idk, detail work. Little things that make it feel more real, I guess. (Not sure why you think the word 'collarbone' is pointless filler when it's an important descriptor in the sentence, though.) @Dragoncat: I did start a new paragraph for each new speaker. If it was formatted for manuscript, they'd all be indented.

Honestly, I'm really just surprised it took him this long to punch someone in the mouth. Top Gear is probably done for, but honestly accidentally letting the Indestructible Four-by-Four get washed out with the tide was probably the high point anyway. (Like Cerberus said, Hammond does his fair share of other BBC stuff, and May does on occasion too. Or was the big gay wine adventure on another channel? I forget.)

Lack of capitals is mostly because I wrote it on tumblr and I was being lazy. I'd like to know which other grammar mistakes you saw, though. Short because again, tumblr, again, lazy. I didn't make up any stories because a: I'm terrible at those sort of stories and b: I liked it as is; letting the reader fill in any way they like. (Also, it's been a while since i played the game and I don't trust my grasp on what little of Emmeryn's character we saw to make up hilarious childhood stories about her.) I admit, looking over this again almost a week on, it could do with more padding, but I do like parts of it. Brevity is something of a curse for my writing - most of the things I actually post that I consider finished are between 500 and 1500 words. Thank you for the feedback! (I'm entering the writing competition, so pushing myself to write 1k will be a thing that happens.)