vanguard333

Same name, different book. Incidentally, in my Bible, the book that you're referring to is titled, "Song of Songs".

Interesting. I think this is mostly what I tried to do, but I and the guide had Kanbei on the left and Eagle on the right. My problem was that the AI behaved differently from how it did in the guide in a few key ways (for an example: early on, it positioned one of its medium tanks in a way that made it out of reach of Eagle's helicopters on the turn the guide used them to attack that tank). All those characters are unlocked in the remake if I recall correctly. That sounds good. I was just saying that, when given a choice, I usually picked Andy as the CO. There is? I don't recall the game ever mentioning it at any point. I'm definitely going to look for it now, as that can be a big help, though it only being for the current turn is a little disappointing. Thanks for the unit advice.

Recently, I've been playing Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. I thought I'd try it since its turn-based strategy is very different from Fire Emblem's and looked very interesting. I'm currently at the final mission of the first game, and I've been struggling with whether or not I've been enjoying the game. There is a lot that I like: I like that the game encourages aggressive tactics while also punishing leaving troops in the open, I like that the troops being disposable means I need a different mindset from when I'm playing games like Fire Emblem or Valkyria Chronicles, and I like the variety of different units and the ways different commanders affect those units (Incidentally, I mainly use Andy, as I like being well-rounded and his power healing his units makes them less disposable). However, I have found that, far too often, all it takes is one tiny mistake, or even doing everything in a way that should work, but the enemy AI does something bizarre, for what should've been a quick victory to instead become a slog. I can roll with making mistakes in Fire Emblem so long as a unit doesn't die, as Fire Emblem is more flexible, but it is just not fun to roll with mistakes in this game because of how much those mistakes compound. Mistakes can also compound in Valkyria Chronicles, but Valkyria Chronicles has two things this game doesn't have: the ability to save at any time, and multiple save slots. It's to the point where, quite often, I'm having to resort to a guide. However, even then, the enemy AI almost always behaves differently from how it does in the guide, ruining the strategies provided by the guides. In those cases, I usually am eventually able to find a way to modify the strategy to make it work, and it is fun when it finally works. Before then, however, are multiple restarts of the map and exercises in frustration. I have heard that the second game is better than the first, but I don't know if it will be any less frustrating. I want to keep playing it, as it can be a lot of fun. But, unless I find a way to mitigate the amount of times I have to restart an entire map because it's become a slog as a result of one small mistake, I may have to stop playing it. Anyone have any advice?

I suppose it's possible. If so, then the Paper Mario games would be a reverse of Mario Kart 64 (the N64 couldn't handle all eight karts being models, so they're actually sprites). What did you think of the other points that I made? Mages ignoring ledge disadvantage when below a ledge, at the cost of not having ledge advantage when standing on a ledge, would be a neat idea.

Path of Radiance is my favourite game in the franchise, and my favourite game of all time, but there are definitely areas where Radiant Dawn made improvements. 6. The 3D visuals were definitely an improvement. I don't think it has much to do with hardware, as the Wii was almost the same as the GameCube in terms of its power, but more a matter of Path of Radiance being the first 3D Fire Emblem game. Before it, they were all 2D games that relied on sprites. In fact, I think it might be the first game Intelligent Systems ever made that used 3D models; everything before then in their list of games used sprites as far as I can tell, with the possible exception of Cubivore; a game I never heard of until I saw it on Intelligent Systems' list of games. 7. I'm not sure that's a plus. I honestly really liked Path of Radiance's emphasis on enemy phase combat; with how much every FE game since has been entirely focused on the player-phase, Path of Radiance's emphasis on the enemy phase is something that I do miss. One big improvement that I can think of is in the area of weapons. All three melee weapons having a "strong, but heavy" version and the existence of 1-2 range non-magical swords was definitely a big improvement over the only 1-2 range swords really only being useful in the hands of Mist and/or Elincia. Another improvement would be that skills can be removed without being completely erased. One thing I didn't like in Path of Radiance was that deleting a skill meant it being completely erased; in Radiant Dawn, it instead becomes a skill scroll that can be given to another unit. I also like that skills that characters have by default don't cost skill points, meaning there's still incentive to have units keep the skills they already have.

One trend that I'm tired of seeing, and that thankfully has diminished, is writers being obsessed with trying to surprise the audience and/or get them speculating. Take plot twists for an example: for me, what defines a good twist is the impact that it leaves on the plot and the characters; some of my favourite twists were extremely predictable but left a huge impact on the characters, making them amazing. But, for quite a while, it felt like almost every writer was obsessed with trying to make their stories' twists as surprising as possible even if it came at the expense of the story, and it didn't help that there were almost always a ton of defenders saying stuff along the lines of, "Better that than something predictable, as predictable = bad". Even the director of Three Houses: Toshiyuki Kusakihara, had that mindset; saying in an interview about Three Houses' development that, "I don't think there's much value to a story you can easily predict."

Yeah, grimdark was a really annoying trend for a while; I'm really glad that it's waning. Unending doom and gloom just doesn't hold interesting, and I'm sorry, but trying to make a story seem "more mature" by making it all doom and gloom just makes it come across as immature. I've been trying to avoid the "Ike is/isn't a commoner" argument, since it's not what this topic is about, but with it continuing to come up, I will respond just once, then ask that this topic not get derailed: Ike was a commoner: he was born a commoner, raised a commoner, and, perhaps most importantly given the statement someone made about headcanons: the story frames him as a commoner and treats him as a commoner, so it doesn't matter what I say: the story says he's a commoner. There is no doubt that Greil was a noble; emphasis on "was"; before Ike was born, he had fled Daein and been made an outlaw, and an outlaw was even lower than a peasant: they had zero rights and it was not a crime to kill them. Ike was born the son of an outlaw and a priestess; not exactly high-status. Everyone inherited from their parents in the middle ages: the farmer's son inherited the farm, the smith's son, unless he got an apprenticeship elsewhere, would inherit the forge. Calling him a prince just because he inherits something is misleading. There are two major differences though: first, Alm is treated throughout the game as someone special with everyone fawning over him and saying he was born special and better than them, with the explanation for it given by the second difference: Alm is secret royalty, and him being secret royalty plays into the plot as he inherits the empire. Alm's plot is a King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone plot. Also, Alm wasn't raised by a mercenary, but by a renowned knight and he was told that he was that knight's grandson, which gave him political perks. Anyway, I have said all that I wanted to say. I will say no more so as not to derail the topic.

I see. Okay; that doesn't really change how, in execution, the multiverse aspect was extremely stapled-on and made the game alienating to me as a newcomer who had never played FF7. Rather hard to appreciate a multiverse metanarrative about defying the events of FF7 when I haven't played FF7.

This is the reason I said, "appear less often" rather than the more specific, "not appear at all anymore" and titled this "Trends in Media That You're Tired of Seeing" and not "Tropes in Media That You're Tired of Seeing". I agree that Everything, Everywhere All At Once was great, and I don't want to see multiverse stories end; I want to see the huge surge in multiverse stories end. For me, the annoying thing about FF7R is that, as a complete newcomer, I just wanted a remake of FF7, and that's what FF7Remake was marketed as being. Instead, all the multiverse stuff meant that the game may as well have thrown up a big neon sign saying, "Come back after you've played FF7!"

Tropes are tools; ultimately, it's about how they are used. However, often when one is used well, it inevitably spawns imitators who use it poorly, leading to storytelling trends that boom and then bust. I recently made a thread about storytelling tropes that you don't see often and would like to see appear more; this thread is the opposite: this is about storytelling tropes that you feel you see too often, even if they're used well, and that you think should appear less often. Here's an example: 1. Timeline/Multiverse Stories: For the past few years, there have been a ton of branching-timeline/multiverse stories: Into the Spider-verse, Across the Spider-verse, No Way Home, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, The Flash, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the Final Fantasy 7R project (Remake, Rebirth, and the untitled part 3), and even Fire Emblem Engage to some extent, for just a few of the many examples I could list. And I'm tired of them. To be clear, I am not saying that all these examples are bad or that timeline/multiverse stories are inherently bad: Into the Spider-verse and Everything Everywhere All at Once were great movies that did a good job handling their multiverse stories, and I have yet to see Across the Spider-verse, but I've heard that it's really good. What I'm trying to say is that there has been a ton of them recently, and, for a lot of them, the timeline/multiverse aspect hurts more than it helps, and the timeline/multiverse aspect is sometimes stapled on to a story that would've been better without it.

Since Ganondorf in the next game is undoubtedly going to be based on his Tears of the Kingdom version, part of me hopes that his final smash is his Demon Dragon form. Another part of me, however, hopes that the Demon Dragon and the Light Dragon will be a stage instead, and I'm not sure which of those two options I think would be more interesting. What do you think? Would the Demon Dragon be better as a final smash or as part of a stage?

I have played both games and Path of Radiance is my favourite video game of all time. I will just point out one thing: The Black Knight wanting to beat his master was established all the way back in Path of Radiance during the cutscene fight between him and Greil: Black Knight: Here. Use this blade. [Black Knight throws Ragnell near Greil] Greil: What are you doing? [Black Knight draws Alondite] Black Knight: I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I would prefer it if you used your proper weapon, so that I might see you at your full strength… [Black Knight points Alondite at Greil] Black Knight: General Gawain, Rider of Daein.

My personal favourite is Torterra. It being my favourite starter in gen 4 is probably a big reason why, but I also just like Torterra. I also like Gallade, Aegislash, Altaria, Mimikyu and Decidueye. Gallade is a cool knight-in-shining-armour A Pokémon that's a sword & shield is really cool I think Altaria is cool and adorable. That said, I would've preferred if normal Altaria was Dragon/Fairy type, not just its mega evolution. Mimikyu is adorable with its sad backstory that it just wants to not be lonely so it tries to pretend to be Pikachu, and its disguise is adorable and a really powerful ability (that apparently was sadly nerfed in gen 8; I wouldn't know as I haven't played any gen 8 or 9 games). Decidueye has a cool design and the idea of an owl archer is cool.

Yeah, he strikes the ground to create a magic shockwave, with the magic shockwave being the attack. That's him casting a spell. The point of the list was to show how little he does so to the point that claiming that he punches and kicks is a massive overstatement. Once again, overwhelmingly, Ganondorf is a spellcaster and a weapon wielder; that's what he's known for and mainly relies on. "Zelda is a swordfighter; just look at [this non-canon spinoff game made by another company that's overstuffed with different movesets]." That's like saying Link fights by sitting in a bottle and having a Great Fairy do all the work; he can do that in a Warriors game, but that's not representative of anything he does in actual Zelda games. Okay, now it sounds like you're trolling; Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf never once throws a single punch or kick; his every action revolves entirely around weapons and gloom magic. Ganondorf's smash moveset would not be representative of Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf at all. I thought of that during my reply; I do freely admit that, with each iteration, they did try to include more things from the actual Zelda games for Ganondorf's moveset, and including the attack he used to kill the Sage of Water in Twilight Princess was a nice touch. Yeah, I agree; the game did provide that hint that Ganondorf will be the true final boss. My main problem with the Zant/Ganondorf dynamic in Twilight Princess is that Ganondorf almost feels like an afterthought, mainly because he doesn't do anything except empower Zant and encase Hyrule Castle in a crystal, and he has no real presence in the game aside from two flashbacks until the final boss fight. Anyway, so as not to derail this thread, I would go back in time and have the three House Leaders be the Three Houses DLC fighter instead of Byleth, and, if it couldn't be all three House Leaders, then just Edelgard.

Agreed. It would be hard to do since the reason Ganondorf was Falcondorf was the rush that Melee went through. In any case, we might not need time travel for this; Tears of the Kingdom brought back Ganondorf, the next Smash game will absolutely want to use the new Ganondorf, and the Ganondorf in Tears of the Kingdom never uses hand-to-hand combat; he is a multi-weapon user and a wielder of gloom magic. The brand new Ganondorf will be an opportunity to completely rework Ganondorf's moveset. Not once does Ganondorf ever throw a punch in any of his fights; at most, he throws one punch in a cutscene in Wind Waker to extract the Triforce of Courage from Link. He does all of one kick in Twilight Princess in only one phase of his four-phase fight; a phase that otherwise completely revolves around sword combat. Saying he uses punches and kicks in his games because of one punch in a cutscene and one kick in one fight that otherwise revolved around swords is like saying Zelda is a swordfighter because she holds a rapier once in a cutscene in Twilight Princess. In Ocarina of Time, he completely used magic when fought as Ganondorf and dual-wielded swords when fought as Ganon. In Wind Waker, he dual-wielded two swords. In Twilight Princess, he used magic and a sword while in Zelda's body, used his tusks when fought as a quadrupedal giant boar, used magic while on horseback, and used a sword while fought on foot. In all other games where he's Ganon, he fights entirely using a trident and magic. Overwhelmingly, Ganondorf is a spellcaster and a weapon wielder, not a puncher or kicker. Ganondorf has all of one sword attack in Smash Bros. Ultimate and none by default in Melee, Brawl or 4. His moveset otherwise revolves around punches and kicks taken directly from Captain Falcon's moveset with magic particle effects stapled on. At least Zelda actually uses spells directly from Ocarina of Time and Spirit Tracks in her special moves. In any case, you have to at least admit that, if they use the Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf in the next game and his moveset remains the same, that would make no sense for that Ganondorf.

@Etrurian emperor Yeah, I never understood Bakugo's appeal either. He's not a badly-written character by any means; his protagonist-complex was amusing whenever it crashed into reality and him having to be chained to the first place podium in the sports festival arc is still one of the funniest moments in the series, but he's largely just another antagonistic talented shonen rival. Also, as a former victim of bullying, I really wasn't a fan of how long it took Bakugo to apologize for how he had treated Deku, especially when remembering that the first episode had him tell Deku to jump off the roof of the school. It felt like the story had just brushed it aside for a long time. Incidentally, I really have not been following along with the My Hero Academia manga or anime for quite some time; I really just have not liked almost anything after the paranormal liberation war arc, and the more I learn about what's been going on, the less interested I am in learning more. EDIT: Today, I decided to try The Ancient Magus' Bride. I had known about this show for a while because I enjoy researching Celtic Folklore and I had heard that this show incorporates some Celtic Folklore into its worldbuilding, but while I thought the show's premise was intriguing, I didn't really consider watching it. Then, a while ago, I saw a clip of the show that was about a Leanan Sidhe: a faerie from Celtic Folklore that, in the folklore, takes an artist as their lover and causes the artist to have a brief, but thoroughly inspired life (it was an explanation for why a lot of artists die young). One thing I always see shows and movies get wrong about the Leanan Sidhe is that they always portray it as vampiric; it is not vampiric, it is the tragic muse. This show, however, got it right: in the clip, the Leanan Sidhe is exactly that: the tragic muse. I was very impressed. So, today, I decided to watch the show... and I ended up watching the first six episodes back-to-back. I'm really enjoying it so far: I like what I've seen so far of the magic system, and I like that the story, while definitely taking a number of liberties when it comes to folklore, has clearly done a lot of research. I also like that there's a pastor that's a major character who is kind and friendly towards the main cast of magical characters; as a Christian, I found that very refreshing to see.

True. Possibly more than three games depending on how many choices the game would want to include. Personally, I think it would be cool to see something like Oracle of Ages/Seasons again: multiple parallel games that each place emphasis on something specific (Ages emphasized puzzle-solving, while Seasons emphasized action and the cancelled third game likely was supposed to emphasize exploration). However, doing this would likely be tricky: Oracle of Ages & Seasons got to benefit from being 2D 8-bit Gameboy Colour games that could reuse a lot of Link's awakening assets.

To be clear; I'm not saying that open-choice dungeon order can't be done; A Link Between Worlds did have some really good dungeons. I'm saying that dungeons can be optimized for either a fixed order or for open-choice order, but not both, and a game that asks the player "Would you like the dungeons to be open-choice order or a fixed order" would either need two versions of almost every dungeon or have the dungeons be optimized for only one of those options.

Really? I had no idea about that. By the way, what did you think about my main point?

I don't think a Choose-your-own-adventure Zelda game would be a good idea. Choose-your-own-adventure games are always fraught as they run headfirst into the limitations of video games as a medium. Different media have different strengths and weaknesses, and the structure of choose-your-own-adventure games are held back by the natural limitations of video games; Yahtzee once did a decent video about why choose-your-own-adventure games almost never take off. And this idea is far more ambitious than a typical choose-your-own-adventure game. The main advantage of a linear dungeon order is that the developer can know exactly what the player has already completed and craft each dungeon with that prior progress in mind: what items the player has found, how much they have learned, and each dungeon can be more challenging than the last because the developers know what the player has already had to overcome to get to each dungeon. Dungeons that can be completed in any order can't do this, and the strength of that approach is instead in giving the player agency to choose when they tackle each dungeon. The problem that I'm seeing is this: let's suppose the game has four dungeons, and the player can choose to either have the four dungeons be given in a fixed order or have the dungeons be completed in any order. Then, there are three options, each with their own problems: The game has two different versions of each dungeon aside from the first: one that can safely assume that the player has already completed the preceding dungeons in the fixed order and one that doesn't for the latter options, meaning the game must have essentially eight dungeons, only four of which the player can experience in one playthrough. The game's dungeons are crafted with a specific order in mind. Then, although the player can theoretically complete the dungeons in any order, they will absolutely be encouraged to complete them in a specific order, and may possibly be outright required to visit the dungeons in a specific order (think the original NES Zelda game, where certain dungeons can only be accessed after the player acquires an item from another dungeon even though the dungeons can technically be completed in any order). The game's dungeons are crafted to be completed in any order. Then anyone playing the dungeons in a fixed order is getting nothing from doing so. I will not tolerate this Malledus slander! Just kidding; yeah, Malledus was a bit lame.

I've been making progress on Advance Wars 1+2: Reboot Camp. I'm currently still on the first game, but I think I'm starting to get used to the combat. One thing I find a little funny: normally, when a game introduces a new playable character, the next mission is generally designed to be one that is tailored to show off what the new playable character can do. And yet, with this game, I just unlocked the third commander: Sami the infantry specialist, and the first mission for which the player can use Sami is one where Sami is the last commander the player would want to use to the large amount of flying vehicles, which infantry can't target, and the nerfs that vehicles get with Sami as the commander. I recently got another game that was on sale, but I haven't started it yet. The game in question is called Ys Origins; I got it while it was on sale for 70% off, and I had enough points to bring the price further down to less than 20 cents. My only experience with the Ys games is Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana. I loved everything about that game except its ending. This game is a prequel to the entire rest of the Ys series, so I'm hopeful that it will at least end strongly. Anything I should know in advance, such as how this game differs from games like Ys VIII? I saw that it uses a top-down perspective rather than over-the-shoulder 3D, and, since it's a prequel, Adol is not the protagonist but are there any other important differences I should know?

Here's mine:

I 100% completed Mario vs Donkey Kong. It was fun; I will say that it was more fun when the emphasis was on the "puzzle" part of puzzle-platformer, and less fun when the emphasis was on the "platformer" part. When I got the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake, I also got a used copy of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. I'm not very far in it because I haven't had much time, unfortunately. What I can say is this: I like the gameplay in theory. I like the grid map, I like the variety of units, and I like that long-range units can either fire or move but not both. However, so far, while it hasn't been too difficult, it has felt very easy to mess up in ways that are not fun to roll with. The Valkyria Chronicles games could sometimes feel like that, but those games had many save files and let the player save at any time. This game, by contrast, only has one save file, and it auto-saves after every move the player makes, so your options are to either resume from exactly where you left off or restart from the very beginning of the battle. I also don't like how little information is given to the player before a fight; the player is told how much damage their unit will do to a selected enemy unit, but it doesn't say how much damage the unit will receive, and that information is very important as units with less health deal less damage. Does anyone have any advice?

Yeah; I enjoyed the one on the Wii overall, but I'm not a fan. Speaking of 2D Mario, I recently 100% completed the Mario vs Donkey Kong remake, which I bought mainly because I like puzzle-platformers and I needed a game that I could play in very small amounts. I ended up liking it more when its levels placed more emphasis on the "puzzle" part of "puzzle-platformer", and I liked it less when it was placing more emphasis on the "platformer" part. Short version: overall, it was good, but I definitely prefer Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.

I'm not a Dragon Ball fan and honestly have never seen anything in the Dragon Ball franchise, but this is still saddening to hear. May he rest in peace. I think, in a time like this, it is very important to not focus on anything he may have left unfinished, but to instead focus on what he did finish. He created a story that had a positive impact on an entire generation; that is something to celebrate. I'm reminded of when I learned about the death of Stephen Hillenburg: the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, and someone I know pointed out, as words of comfort, that he had created a story that brought joy and laughter to an entire generation of kids and their parents, and that's worth celebrating.