Stopwatch

Mm. Morrowind is the C Programming Language of RPGs. Scratch that, D&D is the C of RPGs. Morrowind is like the C++ of RPGs.

sounds fair. I'll make bait there next time. Thanks!

I liked them enough to do them again with an Xbox controller. And it was easier and more fun.

I beat all the Steam games with the exceptions of Seven and Ark of Napishtim with keyboard before I played any with a controller. It's doable, as with many titles. As you said, it's not recommended.

I think there are unabashed harpies in Oath of Felghana? so for early games, it might take you a while. 1, 2, and Origin are all fairly original.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm a complete moron, for more reasons than just this.

I will argue with any and everyone. Morrowind, while its graphics are somewhat dated and its combat system can turn new players away, is the best in the series (at least in comparison to Oblivion and Skyrim, the two games that it shares most with) in my opinion.

can't really agree more with this- I played the ones I've played in chronological order and was extremely confused by the Bump system. "Which button attacks!? I keep dying to the first guy, what the hell..." Not only did I not understand the bump system, I also forgot to equip the sword. I laugh about it now.

I'm watching the trailer for Ys Seven again, never having played it. LoD's style seems reminiscent of this but just... better? Seven reminds me of those decent Final Fantasy DS releases, art style wise. Is the party system as fun as the bump/hack n slash from the games I'm used to?

I've played Origin, 1&2, and Oath in Felghana and liked them all. LoD doesn't seem much like them, which is why I haven't played it yet. Does it appeal to fans of the earlier games (and of course Origin and Oath)?

Something odd happened to me on my first run - I missed Palla and Catria at first. Didn't pick them up until later when I was having a little trouble with Mila's Temple. So I picked up Atlas, went north, and he left my party. Tried Mila's Temple, didn't succeed at first, left and discovered Palla and Catria, then came back and completed Mila's Temple with their assistance. What I'm saying is, I did not realize that there was such a case for Palla and Catria, and I accidentally bypassed the flag that tells them to leave. Very interesting.

I think that Berkut is a fairly well-written narcissist who spends the entire story being shown that there's someone better than him in every way that he considers important. Berkut's writing is not bad; but he dies before it has a chance to really resolve. I'd like to refer to the five stages of grief in the context of Berkut: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Before the climax of Berkut's character arc in Act 5, he lost to Alm twice in Acts 3 and 4. This showed him that Alm was a better fighter/general than him, something he thought he was best at. I posit that he could justify "Oh well, I'm still royalty and he's just a commoner- i'm still better than him." He denies. Even though he lost to a commoner, he's still royalty. But then - surprise! - Alm is the prince of Rigel. Now HE'S below him in both station and competence, his two most treasured attributes. He throws a complete tantrum, lashing out in anger towards Rinea. Finally, in act 5 he bargains with Duma for the power to destroy Alm (and possibly the country that scorned him for Alm). Then he dies upon defeat at Alm's hands, with a shoehorned acceptance as Rinea guides him to the afterlife. Even though i think that's pretty cute. I think Berkut could have been resolved better by being playable, which I've heard was once a thing. Then he could made his bargain earlier, had a bout of depression afterwards (not about losing this time, but about sacrificing Rinea), and accepted his shortcomings later and joining the cause to avenge his lover. Plus, we may have seen Rudolf react to his demonic powers, which I think would have given his true motives some much needed foreshadowing (even if it's not so obvious as to give away the twist). Fernand isn't terrible, but he's still pretty lame.

I already made this topic and had some suggestions, you can find it here:

One thing i'm thinking that I don't know if anyone here has said yet is that I hope that remaking games doesn't keep them from making cool new material. Even if you think Awakening and Fates are complete garbage, which I don't, I pity you if you aren't excited to see where IntSys takes the series next.

If they do that, it might be seen as an attempt to remind people of Breath of the Wild and how you could beat Ganon any time you wanted. Not that that's a bad thing. That game was tight, and it would add a lot of replayability to the game with the concept of doing 'low mission runs' and the like. I think that if you want to mix up the series, one good way to do it is to add more and varied objectives, both optional and required. I liked the idea of having to burn the supplies for 'that one radiant dawn mission tm' or trying to keep the allied soldiers alive in FE7 for a side quest, but I think you'd need more than that. Maybe a chapter with a very small number of allowed units (3 to 5 or so) with an emphasis on stealth? Maybe it could even be optional, just to get those units to an advantageous position behind some enemy lines and ready to eliminate some ranged units that will give you trouble otherwise. The point is, change it up and only have the objective be 'rout the enemy' when that is the objective that makes sense. Killing every single combatant seems like an unrealistic goal, and if there have to be more enemies in order to make that clear then so be it, but routing a gang of bandits doesn't seem too far fetched. To relate to storytelling, the objectives the game FORCES you to do should be logical or necessary, the OPTIONAL ones should be daring or risky. Or maybe there should be sliding scales related to your gameplay that will affect your rank, ending, or gameplay factors. For example, you could be seen as a calculating general who is very reliable, but with the downside of being unrelatable. You could be a bad-ass, guns blazing kind of leader who inspires his/her troops with daring plans, but risks their lives in his suicidal gambits. But I think the story downsides of these playstyles ought to be overlooked as long as you're a good leader- that is to say, if you don't let your soldiers die, you'll get a good ending. That way, you'll get different endings but if you are good at the game you'll always be 'right' in the end. It's a big time investment to play a strategy RPG like these ones. It's best if no one gets bad endings for making what are, in the end, arbitrary decisions that will bring you to the end of the game one way or another.

thanks fam

Unironic downer incoming I have no friends who share my interests, and in the last ten days I haven't been able to Streetpass even one person. What I'm asking is, what does Streetpass do?

I forgot to put this in my original post, but I wanted to say how I was glad there was able to be good music and well established motifs WITHOUT complete overuse of a specific song that you can tell IntSys put a lot of time + money into making. Like another game I like a bit less than this one.

Basically, what do you guys think about the music in this game? Favorite pieces, how it stacks up against the other games, etc. To start, all of Celica's map themes are total bangers. I like it a lot. The map theme for Act 3 is tight, I like that it's reminiscent of the series main theme. Also, I like the songs for fighting Berkut. I also like the music in this game in general. It's not a departure from the rest of the series in any way, but it works hard to establish clear leitmotifs for Alm and Celica. Not a big fan of how it doesn't pay off for either of them. (For an example, listen to Alm's Map 1 and 2, and then listen to Alm's map 3. Same for Celica.)

living up to your name i see

Well, if we do our best to minimize random encounters, we should clear both 500 turns and 500 days at the same time.

My mistake- I was thinking evacuation after winning. EDIT: specifically for the floor boss red dragon on B5. Not sure about the dragons on B9.

there's a day limit as well? i thought it was 500 turns, no other caveats.

I think it's probably a bad plan to divide the series further than it already has been divided. I have a strong feeling that Nintendo has had a very keen eye on the sales numbers for this series ever since it came back from the brink. To theorize at a conspiracy where there may or may not be one, imagine that Nintendo kept track (which they almost certainly did) which versions of Fates sold more copies and (especially) which version had higher rates of later purchasing the other versions. Doesn't that seem to be a very clean, clear cut way of gauging which 'half' of the fanbase is easier to cater to and deserves more attention? That idea would be compounded with a split franchise. If someone makes the decision to split the series, it'll be primarily in order to cut corners on one series and focus on making money where there's more money to be made. And hey, I'd rather not spend as much money as I did when Fates came out. I was fed up enough not to buy the Season Pass for this game as well.