vanguard333

I think it's because Hollywood has always seen live-action as prestigious and animation has long been seen as solely the realm of kids' media (despite that perception having repeatedly been proven untrue). Nintendo wants these to be big movies, so they're working with big studios that carry these perceptions. Mario is seen as cartoony, commercial, and mainly aimed at kids, so it got an animated movie. The Legend of Zelda, by contrast, is seen as the more prestigious and epic franchise, so it's live-action. It's a really dumb reason, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's the reason that this is live-action. I don't think a Studio Ghibli Zelda movie was ever going to happen, but I would've really liked to see a Zelda anime or animated movie. And yeah; fantasy does usually look better animated.

True. That said, any actor would need makeup to look like Ganondorf does in the games, since, in the games, his skin tone is always either green or dark grey. In Ocarina of Time, he's green. In Wind Waker, he's green. In Twilight Princess, he's dark grey. And, in Tears of the Kingdom, he's both: he's green in his base form and he's dark grey in his Demon King form.

Fair point; an attempt to create an original story & Hyrule that's more of a grab-bag of various Zelda game ideas would likely lean towards A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time because they were foundational. I could see the Zora be done through practical effects, as that wouldn't require much other than blue makeup and fins. The Gorons, however, would require more work; I'm picturing Fat B******d's bodysuit from Austin Powers combined with the makeup used for The Thing in the Fantastic Four movies in terms of how much work would need to be done for the Gorons. It just wouldn't be feasible.

And also Gorons, Rito, Zora (though they maybe could be done with elaborate makeup and such), etc. Not to mention all the castles and dungeons will have to be CGI unless they build sets as elaborate as the ones made for The Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones. Yeah; it would be far easier to make a Zelda movie in animation; a live-action film is going to need enough CG that it may as well be fully animated. If the hardest thing to realize on-screen in a story is that story's world, then it probably should be animated.

I think an Elincia Emblem would have related well to Ivy. Both are shy, socially-awkward princesses of fallen kingdoms, but Ivy had to grow up surrounded by courtly intrigue as the heir to the throne while Elincia was sheltered away from it because she was born after her uncle was named heir to the throne.

I think, much like the Mario movie, they're not going to go the route of adapting any particular game, and instead they'll create an original story for the film. That would probably be the best way for them to retain things like the dungeon exploring while maintaining a movie's pacing. It really should've been a TV show; that way it would've given the worldbuilding, dungeon exploring, etc., the time that they need. I can only think of one reason why this is a live-action film: prestige. In Hollywood and in North America, live-action media, especially live-action movies, are seen as prestigious, while animated media is generally seen as the realm of kids' media (even though shows like Arcane demonstrate that that perception is just not true). With Mario, Mario is the commercial franchise already seen as mainly aimed at kids, so of course its adaptation is an animated film, but The Legend of Zelda is generally seen as the less commercial, more prestigious franchise, so naturally it's adaptation is live-action even though animation would be better for it.

As a very longtime Zelda fan, I have to say that the announcement of a Zelda adaptation is cool. That said, I would've preferred a Zelda animated series over a live-action film; the fantastical worlds of the Zelda series lend themselves far better to animation and are much harder to recreate in live-action without either very impressive Lord of the Rings-like sets or huge amounts of CGI to the point where the film may as well be animated. I'm also a little concerned that the director of the film has only directed the Maze Runner films before this announcement and that, apparently, the writer for this film co-wrote the the Jurassic World films. Neither of those are a good sign, though at least the latter was also one of the co-writers for Pokémon: Detective Pikachu. I mainly just hope that the film will be good. But I do have some small hopes on top of that: 1. Link is silent. This would be hard to do, I admit, but they could get around it by making Link mute within the story. 2. Link is left-handed. Link is the left-handed hero; he was left-handed in the original Zelda game and he's been left-handed in every game except Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom (and there is no real reason that Link was right-handed for the latter two games; every time Aonuma was asked about it before BotW's release, he gave a different, nonsensical answer), and it would be a real disservice if he were right-handed in his first movie. Also, I'm a little curious as to what they are going to do regarding Ganondorf, who will inevitably in the film. In-game files place Ganondorf's height in the games he appears in at somewhere around seven-foot-six; for the movie, will they use clever photography to make him seem bigger? Will they hire a really tall actor such as one of the actors that played The Mountain? Or will they make him CGI?

The main one I can think of being Enlightened One Byleth being a sword & fist user that can also heal. Their healing isn't particularly good, but it doesn't interfere with their effectiveness as a sword/fist unit, and they make good use of 1-3 range Levin Sword+.

I see. I have not played Castlevania Bloodlines (or any Castlevania game really, to be honest), so I know nothing about her. I just did a quick Wikipedia search of the historical figure; I couldn't find anything about whether or not she was related to Vlad the Impaler, but I did find out that she was Hungarian royalty, which means Vlad the Impaler probably would've seen her as an enemy: Vlad the Impaler was a big believer in Wallachian Independence at a time when both the Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire were each claiming it already belonged to them and fighting over it. Incidentally, despite a lot of modern media connecting Bram Stoker's character Dracula to the historic Vlad the Impaler, Bram Stoker probably knew nothing about Vlad the Impaler and merely found the name "Dracula" in amongst the things he read when researching Romania for his book. I have read the novel Dracula, and I can confirm that the titular character does not read like a character based on Vlad the Impaler in any way, shape or form.

I have yet to watch the show, and I don't really plan on watching it. Season 4 of Castlevania ended things in a way that made it that they couldn't have Dracula be the villain again and they exhausted all the series' other major villains (Death, Carmilla, etc.). When Nocturne was announced, one of my thoughts was, "Who's going to be the villain?"

I have yet to play the DLC aside from obtaining the Tiki Emblem so I could have Alear actually be a dragon, so I can't rate any of the DLC units. My plan was to do two playthroughs: one without the DLC aside from Tiki, and one with all the DLC, but now I'm not sure if I really want to do a second playthrough of Engage. One thing I can say is that it does sting that the only dragon units that actually can be dragons are DLC-exclusive. I imagine it's the latter mixed with Engage having a lot less to make individual characters stand out as units. Reclassing, emblems, and reduced emphasis on unit growth rates (and growth rates in general) means there aren't really any ways that most characters can stand out other than availability and base stats. A lot of the characters with an average rating above 7 are characters who do stand out either through a useful unique class (Ivy, Hortensia, Seadall) or great stats (Kagetsu).

1st playthrough, normal difficulty. Anna... she's a tricky one to rate. I had no idea about her magic growth until after I promoted her, so I kept her as a fighter and promoted her into a warrior. In this role, she was fragile despite having good HP, and her strength, while not terrible, was not enough for her to really deal the necessary amount of damage to be a viable axe-wielding infantry unit. One of her biggest problems in this setup is her low build, as axes are very heavy, but she can be recruited early enough to be given the Leif Emblem and build+ skills, which helps her a lot in this area. Eventually, I gave her the Hurricane Axe, hoping to utilize her magic stat. This didn't really work, as the Hurricane Axe, being a weapon that cannot follow up or strike first, was almost never useful. Finally, however, I got the radiant bow and immediately gave it to her, and she was finally a lot more useful. By this point, my team was set, so I pretty much had to keep her regardless, so I was really grateful that the radiant bow helped her a ton. I can't rate how she is if reclassed into a magic class; I can only say how she is as a warrior. And in that regard, she needs a lot to be effective, and she won't be very effective for quite some time. Is it worth it once she has a radiant bow? ...I honestly can't decide. It's difficult to decide, but I think I will give her a 5/10.

Season 2 of Spy x Family has begun, and it is really good so far. Moreover, I've heard a lot of good things about the cruise ship arc that it seems like season 2 will be adapting, so I'm looking forward to season 2 getting to that story arc.

I was thinking something similar, but the other way around: make an FE continent specifically for the crossover and build a Paper Mario-style game around it. I was thinking this because I thought it would be a good way to get an FE spinoff that's a party-based RPG like that one that was intended for the Wii, and also because the Thousand-Year Door remake hadn't been announced when I thought of it.

The short answer would be for the same reason Wolverine doesn't get cancer from his accelerated healing factor: narrative convenience. That's the Doylist reason out of the way; as for a possible Watsonian answer: I imagine that the healing spell probably works like a salamander's rapid regeneration (contrary to popular belief, it's not lizards that have amazing healing; it's salamanders. Lizards can only restore their tail, and even then, the lost bones have to be replaced with cartilage).

@Etrurian emperor The Isekai craze is absurd; there are so many of them now. My favourite statement about the huge amount of Isekai would have to be a comment I saw under a video of the opening of Record of Lodoss War (the 1990 anime that was one of the earliest sword-&-sorcery anime): "Not as clumsy or random as your 108th Isekai rehash; an elegant anime for a more civilized age." That said, there is some good anime releasing right now; the second cour of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War is airing now, and... I actually can't think of much else. There's season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen, which is getting to a part of the story that a lot of people like but isn't really my cup of tea.

I completely agree. To add to your point about Edelgard, Ultimate did have a bit of a heroes & villains motif when introducing characters like Ridley, King K Rool and Sephiroth, and Edelgard is both; being a hero in her own route and the main antagonist in every other route, so she would've been a great addition in that regard as well.

...That actually makes a lot of sense; I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case. Incidentally, I was planning on making my own video game using the Unity engine a bit less than a year ago, and then the announcement of the merger ended that idea, as I was very suspicious about the merger and what it would mean for the engine, and I didn't want to in any way support a malware company. The good news is that I found a far more suitable engine for the game a few months later, though progress hasn't been good as I'm still learning that engine and I've been focusing on things like finishing my novel.

Is this about non-protagonists that we'd prefer over protagonists that are in Smash Bros. or protagonists that aren't in Smash Bros.? If the former: House Leaders (Three Houses): I would greatly prefer Edelgard, Dimitri & Claude over Byleth. Ideally, I would want them as a bundle like Pokémon Trainer, but if it had to be just one, I would say Edelgard since she's also either the leading character or the main antagonist depending on which route the player chooses. If the latter: Nel or Lumera (Fire Emblem Engage): Unless another new Fire Emblem game releases between now and the next Smash Bros., Alear appearing as a fighter is almost inevitable. But Alear really doesn't have much going for them as a fighter: the game calls them a dragon, but they spend the whole game in human form and wielding swords, and the only thing that they have that makes them stand out amongst other FE protagonists is the Emblem Rings, i.e. the ability to summon other FE protagonists, a lot of whom are already fighters in Smash Bros. Nel and Lumera, being dragons, also have the ability to use emblem rings. However, unlike Alear, they also have their dragon forms. Lumera's would probably only see use in a final smash since it only appeared once in a cutscene in Engage, but Nel's dragon form could be a core part of her moveset.

The combat tends to be one of the things that decides whether or not someone ends up enjoying the Xenoblade games. I played Xenoblade 1, really liked the story, worldbuilding and characters, but the exploration was boring and the MMO-like combat was uninvolving (and the less said about spike damage the better), and I ended up giving up at the fallen arm. I haven't played 2 or 3, but I did play Xenoblade X; in fact, it was the first Xenoblade game that I played and the only one that I was able to finish, as, while the combat was just as uninvolving as 1, Xenoblade X has fantastic exploration and flying mechs.

It's not what I would've expected either. I would've thought a Spy x Family game would be one-half family life sim and the other have spy action. If you haven't watched the show, I would highly recommend it; it's a fantastic comedy with a great set of characters, and the core three main characters have a great dynamic.

I see. Thanks for the info. I have never played a Trails game. One thing I can't believe I forgot to mention: I was really surprised by the announcement of a Spy x Family game; I really like that anime and, while it has been a huge success, I didn't expect to see it get a game any time soon. I'm a little sad that it's a game about building a photo album; it really looks like it isn't my cup of tea.

I suppose; you do have a point. I would just argue that a very late tagline is still a bad tagline in this case, as the rebirth of the genre has already happened. I see. What's Suikoden?

Good question; I honestly don't know. Yeah; Unicorn Overlord does look neat. That said, it's a bit weird that they advertised it as "The rebirth of tactical fantasy RPGs"; tactical fantasy RPGs never died; they're arguably more popular than ever before. The closest they came to dying occurred when Fire Emblem was at risk of being cancelled, back in the early 2010s. I didn't know about Elyuden Chronicle; the direct was the first time I heard of it. What is it? Is it brand new or part of an established franchise?

Well, I correctly predicted more info on the Super Mario RPG remake, and nothing else. I was hoping to see a Fire Emblem remake; instead, I saw multiple JRPGs that looked kind-of like Fire Emblem, with kingdoms and wars and the heroes wearing blue while antagonists wear red. Does that count? A Splatoon 3 expansion seems really obvious in hindsight; I'm surprised I didn't predict that. I'm sure people who play Splatoon will probably enjoy the expansion. Neat that we saw more about the Princess Peach game. I probably won't be playing it, but it does look neat. Also, I do like that she seems to be left-handed in this game; it's a small thing, but it's always nice to see Nintendo remember that left-handed people exist. I am not an F-Zero fan, but, when it showed the original F-Zero game, part of me did wonder if it meant that they were making a new game. I don't know if actual F-Zero fans are angry that the 'new' game is just the original game remade for battle royale, delighted that Nintendo at least remembered F-Zero, or both. I'm genuinely curious as to which it is. ...I could not believe my eyes when I saw that final announcement; Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, remastered for the Nintendo Switch. I have never played a Paper Mario game, but I know the series' history and how Thousand-Year Door is considered to be the best one, and how the most recent games in the series aren't JRPGs, unlike the first two games. Between this and the Super Mario RPG remake, this is a real chance for fans who miss the Mario JRPGs to show Nintendo that these are the games they want. As for me, I have played Bug Fables and I enjoyed it a lot, and I will probably get the Mario RPG remake, but I'm not sure about Thousand-Year Door; mainly because there's already a lot on my plate. I imagine the decision is mostly to gauge audience interest in the old Mario JRPG titles by seeing how well the two games sell. Plus, as you said, Thousand-Year Door was a GameCube title, and, like most acclaimed GameCube titles, it undersold, and used copies are worth a lot today to the point where the Switch remaster will be a bargain by comparison. Seriously; I just did a quick search and immediately saw four TTYD copies, each priced at over $100. Yeah; something like the Oracle games, with one central magical gimmick and then some other useful spells, would be a neat idea for a Princess Zelda game, especially if were like Oracle of Ages, as that game was most focused on puzzle-solving where Oracle of Seasons was most focused on action.