Eltosian Kadath

A bit awkward to do when twitter became a major (and almost necessary) networking tool for creatives.

More of a sad necessity of their name being in the credits...

What sort of estimate would you put it at? I am betting the number is still unreasonable Also, I do think that an important part of the equation here is that these people are being harangued with questions about their work in their off hours. How many times would you have to be questioned like that about your work in your off hours before you told people to fuck off? One of the interesting things about FE4 is that usually you are the one controlling the positioning of fights a lot more than in other games. The game tells you from the start that defending the castles is something you are going to have to do. Its like complaining about accuracy being awful when you ignore the weapon triangle, and keep having your axe unit attack a Sword Master. I disagree with this sentiment a lot. That would be moving away from the more strategic movements of Genealogy back to the more tactical movements of other FEs.

Literally the second paragraph in the image you shared opens with "You can be disappointed in the localization choices"...

How many 0 are at the end of the average number of times you have to field those many questions per day?

I am going to be honest, I don't care enough about this random BL Manga localization controversy to do a deep dive into it, although I would be willing to bet that death threats were sent to both localizer, and original author over this one. I find this double standard silly. How would you respond to innumerable strangers (who have usually merely heard of your job on the internet) insisting you explain and justify every decision you made months ago, many of whom are not doing so in good faith, and at all hours of the day online? Have these people ever tried scrutinizing the original author's decisions like this, and seen their responses? It would be like working retail, but the worst customers decide to treat you like you are at their beck and call whenever you appear online...

I guess I am getting a bit ahead of myself with the optimism for the Engage manga at this point.

I disagree, because of the Japanese text. The way its phrased in the Japanese it sounds like joking banter to a friend, something that the localization captures, and the overly direct translation fails to. The direct translation does a better job of capturing frustration, but misses a lot of the characterization to do so. The issue is that characterization is interpretive, and can even be culturally dependent in a way that doesn't translate at all. It kind of is their job. Mindlessly, and directly translating things leads to boring works at best, and Google Translate gibberish at worst. With creative works, mere translation loses too much of the meaning, as how someone says something can be as important as what is being said. Worse yet, there simply aren't ways to really convey how something is said with the same meaning between so disparate of languages and cultures (as a lot of that how is culturally specific); you are forced to work with imperfect substitute. That leads to localizers having to reinsert that lost meaning by interpreting characters in ways that the language and culture can better handle, rather than leave a dearth of meaning that otherwise can not be filled. There aren't complaints about it because that change in intent or characterization isn't there, its because the English script is better, and people don't need to dig around for reasons to complain about not liking the script... Honestly, I see a fair number of localization complaints as falling into three crowds, people who are digging for a reason to justify their dislike of the writing, whining about the localization not going along with the complainer's personal interpretation of the character, or plot point, etc., and people just parroting one of the other groups (as they really don't know enough of the language to formulate an opinion on their own, and found one of the other arguments persuasive). I see two major issue with that approach, first due to deployment location, and second due to the objective of defending the castles you seized. If we were to think about splitting Genealogy up into separate maps for each seizing castle, by far the most obvious difference would be in the starting locations of units; in the original that is entirely dependent on where your units ended up when you seize the previous castle, but that doesn't really work with the maps split into chunks like this. Losing that aspect of the maps takes away from some of the strategy, for very minimal gains, and I would see it as a diminishment of what makes the game interesting. I see it as a move away from the more strategic movement that make Genealogy unique, whereas most of the other Fire Emblem game I can get away with almost entirely tactical movement with not a thought for the other. Although by far the bigger issue is that defending the castles you have taken is a feature of a lot of chapters in the game. From a minor stated threat in the prologue, to the intentional fake-out of chapter 1 (technically it is possible to lose there if you are very, very, very unlucky, and left no defenders, so perhaps fake-out isn't entirely accurate), building towards the more credible threat near the end of chapter 2...I could keep going, but instead I will jump to the biggest point, that I don't even know how you would deal with the final section of chapter 9 in this format, as that is all about having to defend your distant and divided taken castles from a rain of wyverns. I know what you mean. I kind of hope someone ends up making a story hack to incorporate the manga's story differences, and world building into Engage someday... Oh boy...this is definitely going to lead to a new "All Your Base" moment in gaming. The key thing here is you are using it as a tool, in conjunction with human agency, not as a means of replacing humans. Replacing human localizers with AI translation is going to be very bad, and with how prone Large Language Models are to "hallucinating" it could make things much worse for the translation purists. If I am too pessimistic, and they do mean to use it as a tool, I don't see how AI would improve the localization in the ways all these people are hoping, its more likely going to impact the really generic and ancillary writing (like shop text boxes, minor NPC lines, item descriptions, etc.), which can take up a massive chunk of the text, but usually only requires minimal creativity. The only Ys game I played was a remake of 1 and 2 on the DS, and I remember not liking the bizarre bump attack mechanics, and that the extreme leveling system made it impossible to have a satisfying level of difficulty. Let's hope IS is taking notes, they can really improve the series by following the manga 😛

Quan, Eldigan, and Sigurd were always together back in the day... Also fun fact Eltosian is an old and defunct translation of Eldigan's name. Alright. Each chapter has a set gauntlet of 7 enemies to face in the Arena for all units, with alternate weapons (and in the case of Swordies) or foes for units that are using bows. If a unit win against one of those foes their HP is set to full, they get 500x(Round+1) gold added to their personal supply of money, they gain experience for the win, and they get access to the next round until the 7th is cleared. You can press B during an arena fight to go back to the menu, to change weapon mid battle, or quit out early. If they lose, they have their HP dropped to 1. Note that arena battles do expend weapon uses. You should try to get each of your units as far in the Arena as you can, as it is a vital source of money to repair, or purchase weapons, not to mention experience. Oh wow, you aggroed Ayra with her? That sounds bloody. I guess I can see it as a little surprising, but aggroing Ayra is vital to recruiting her. Its usually better to think of seizing a castle as the rough equivalent of a chapter in other Fire Emblem games. There are only 12 full chapter in this game...

I doubt Ludveck's invasion of Daein would amount to much. When Ike and crew storm through, we see how much of a quagmire the bridge would be for a force as lite on air forces, and heavy on cavalry as Crimea's is, and it was garrisoned by troops that weren't part of Micaiah's expeditionary forces. I don't think Ludveck actually cares enough about invading Daein to expend the political capital necessary for the extended, and expensive campaign of breaking through that bridge; thus I think the invasion would stall out on the bridge, and not significantly impact Daein's role in the Begnion-Laguz war, as long as the blood pact is still tying their hands with bad writing. The biggest difference would be when the Begnion forces try to cross through Crimea into Gallia, and while it would definitely go differently, I could see it go many way. I could see Ludveck offering to join Begnion for the kill against Gallia, perhaps offering Crimean help for territorial gains from Gallia Begnion would have a difficult time managing themselves. Alternatively I could see him being very defensive, and trying to repel Begnion's encroachment of Crimea by force. The more interesting outcome I could see as likely is if Ludveck ensnares Velthome in a long extended discussion over what form of compensation would be necessary to allow this incursion, requiring delays for exotic "gifts" to be brought from the Begnion capital, until the Empress's escape ends the escapade without a Crimean skirmishes at all.

Leo is more important to Fate's story than people think, as he is the one to use the orb of Anankos revelation in Birthright, kills the traitorous Zola in Conquest, wields one of the legendary weapons that awakens the Fire Emblem, and even becomes the King of Nohr in Birhtright. People don't want to hear this, but Camilla is by far the Nohrian with the least plot significance, despite having one of the strongest impacts on the gameplay. And its probably controversial to say, but I see Sakura as less plot significant than Hinoka, as she does become the Queen of Hoshido in one of the ending...but its not by a large margin admittedly.

Just play with the volume off, and listen to something else in the background. That is probably the problem right there...

I will start by saying, I have never been that into building units. In Engage, the only skill I tend to inherit on people is the best versions I can afford of Canter (on everyone I can get it on), Dual Assist (on all the backup units), Pair Up (on the units I use to tank), and Reposition (shrug). Also I tend to ignore peoples assessments of units and use the ones I am finding interesting (heck I am using Bunet now in the Linked ironman Screenshot LP of Engage I am doing on this very website, and my Bouchy Boy will probably always be a mainstay on my team unttil death). So keep that in mind with what I am saying. I want to mention Chain Guards as useful for Maddening, but I lucked into an S Deirdre ring from the gatcha when I tried Maddening (haven't gotten around to finishing it though, got distracted by other things), which made it far easier to use... I would recommend against this constraint for a few reasons. First it even further incentivizes you to immediately drop your unpromoted units for the prepromotes the game gives you, which is almost a problem the game has. Second, you can use second seals to easily reset levels (either by changing class, or at level 20), and experience is entirely based in the character's internal level, so you don't miss out on anything by promoting early (except the potential cost of late game seals). As long as you are following the "in the spirit of the game" rule, I think this constraint is a bit unnecessary. Engage has a lot of interesting options for trick staves that you can use for rather interesting tactics (especially when combined with the Micaiah Emblem), which can really save your bacon in tight situations. Don't get me wrong, if you aren't following the spirit of the game, I can see why they might come across as almost detrimental to the experience. I see Alear far more as a really good support Lord. Her personal is amazingly potent, adding 3 to the damage units deal with each attack, which is added after calculating damage (so every attack buffed by it will deals at minimum 3 damage per hit). You might have to get creative with position, so getting canter on her before you loss Sigurd helps with that a bit. Add into that the power a Dragon class gives to Emblems like Byleth (so +3 to all stats rally and Goddess Dance when engaged), and you have a fairly solid support unit. Giving her Corrin (assuming you aren't using the fog machine combo) is another great option, as dragons gets to chose which class's Dragon Vein they want to use every turn, which adds a shocking level of flexibility. Also, I like promoting her as soon as possible (with the first seal if I can), as it helps to keep her more combat capable. The fog machine combo (thief + Corrin) is less broken on Maddening, as enemies will never directly attack foes they have 0 hit (and 0 damage) against. If that was your main problem with the build, you could try doing the same with Etie. She tends to have worse speed problems (but Lyn is still good enough to fix them), and better strength, for more consistent (but similar on average) damage. I used her on my first run with a similar enough build, and had what I suspect are similar results (although I will note that I was doing an ironman on hard throughout). I will note, this is coming from an ironmanning perspective, but I rather like how her personal reduces enemy crit chances. I think she fills the fog machine role better than Zelkov does, but in a way that I suspect you would dislike. Zelkov does not need that much avoid when fogging, and that higher resistance covers one of the fog machine's few weaknesses (that the Mystic class lines ignores foes terrain bonuses), and her personal gives her a much higher crit rate when in terrain. The fog triggers that personal, so she tends to randomly crit kill a LOT of units over the course of a playthrough. Personally I am far less opposed to random sources of increased damage (from proc skills, and crits), as the way to incorporate them into strategies is to use them to chip, with that random increased damage giving you far better margins of error to cover misses, or to push in further with the additional actions those killing chip hits add in. I also find proc skills make the multi-hit emblem specials (like Leif's Quad Hit) noticeably better, as each hit has a chance to proc the skill.

Yeah, that was an accident...which oddly enough I didn't notice til this message, I thought it was just a weird internet hiccup, as it managed to restore the post in the editor, which it usually doesn't after posting something. I edited it to make the cut less jarring, but here is the exciting gameplay to come... And like that I reached the checkpoint...

I guess I am not all that active, but I have definitely played Radiant Historia as well. You had one of the time twins as your avatar image for the longest time, and I think I even commented on that in the past. There are some really bible thumper parts of the country that do have laws requiring retailers to be closed on Sunday, those just tend to be parts of the country no one actually wants to live in because that isn't the only incredibly backwards thing about them. There is that classic republican complaint Congratulations sticking to it like that. Naw, this is the small tutorial map. Lol, it really is isn't it. Yes, but there are a few means of getting crits without that skill. Being next to a sibling or lover when attacking also provides a crit bonus, and ability to crit. Some weapons also come with the crit skill on them, and any weapon that gets over 50 kills on it also acquires the crit skill. Yep, it is also where your units usually start the map off at. You kind of walked into that one. But got lucky anyway. Have you seen this guy's stats? The only issue with soloing 50 is it wouldn't be worth the cost of fixing his holy weapon. I hate to point it out, but Midir is a guy, but a lot of people make that mistake with him. Also you might want to look at the Secret Events page on Serenes Forest (here: https://serenesforest.net/genealogy-of-the-holy-war/miscellaneous/secret-events/ ) for some very useful items on the next few maps...

Yeah, this really does scroll by way faster than it should. They are completely different characters, you see Tellius had Prince Kurthnaga, and this here is Prince Kurth with the Holy Blood of Naga in his veins. Congratulations, you have now proved it with science that is game is two times better than Three Houses. Yeah his is the funny name. I think there is even a Mario (or was it Luigi) in the Arena... But the computer never breaks a non-aggression pact... Ah don't worry, baby Jeigan over here wont be fighting along side Sigurd, he will instead be the brilliant 14 year old tactical advisor.

That sounds obnoxious... It should have been I got delayed a bit by Chritmas present games, but I am back, and while I was tempted to do another paralogue to feed my costly addiction to fashion, I ended up reaching the next checkpoint instead... Time for the battle that has split the emblems down the middle, between the light, and the dark. Yeah I accidentally hit the post early hotkey while gettint the images in. Hopefully this edit doesn't break the size limit glitch, and keeps the cutoff from being too jarring, as I will continue on with the gameplay...in a while probably.

The most insightful view into Duma's blessing is in the encounter with the only Duma statue we see in a shrine. It challenges the player with a trial by battle, and gifts the winner Duma's Lance. The message is clear, strength will be rewarded, and the weak shall perish...

Yeah, this might be slightly uncharitable of me, especially if Shannan was already their go to babysitter off screen, and her just leaving Seliph in the kid's care isn't as out of the blue as it comes across. But this is not a place where I am being uncharitable. Dierdre literally has to guilt trip Sigurd into letting her join the army in chapter two, and he insists on conditions for her to join that fight. In chapter 3, he puts his foot down with a guilt trip of his own. I rather respect the fact that Eirika and Celica haven't really come up in the thread as one of the dumbest yet. Which reminds me, people haven't mentioned how silly it is that Ike is just casually keeping the Ragnell in his luggage for a majority of Path of Radiance according to the story, despite how powerful that thing is.

Ah the glitch which always tends to plague LPs. I don't think I have any definitive answers, as it can be very inconsistent, but I have heard from others that it is related to the size of the post, and in my experience images and embedded videos make it more likely for it to show up. As far as I know it has been around for a while, and it isn't just a phone issue either.

I see Seliph's situation as much better than Lief's for almost the same reason Micaiah's situation is better than Lief's. Both Micaiah and Seliph are given very powerful (in universe at least) divine blood powers to offset the situations they are in, whereas Leif is a lot closer to a normal person than those two (although still has some minor holy blood in him). I guess I can answer the main question as well, but I am not adding much by doing so. If it isn't obvious, I am in the Thracia 776 being the hardest in universe Fire Emblem camp, and think FE7 makes the most sense for the easiest in universe Fire Emblem.

An odd one to throw out there for dumbest, but Sigurd comes to mind. First off the game opens by emphasizing that the brilliant young tactician Oifey is riding by his side feeding him tactical advise. Second off, Sigurd ignores basic aspects of politics, which by all rights, as heir to the duchy, he really should be paying attention to, and this ignorance leads to disastrous results. Another small thing to mention is how he treats his wife, despite her literally recruitment being her showing her competence on the battle field by saving Sigurd's hide with her clever use of magic. After their marriage he repeatedly tries to force her off the battlefield, and into a more motherly role that she chafes against, and just like with his staggering ignorance of politics, these efforts lead to utterly disastrous results. Hector is an interesting one to mention for dumbest, as he has an in universe reputation for being a bit of an ignorant lout, but if you actually pay attention to the plot, his reputation is a bit deceptive. We see him understand the political situation he is in, make clever moves, like out maneuvering the more accurately described lout of Erik, and even piece together the lie about his brother's health before the end. His issue is more an example of the disastrous consequences of toxic masculinity, and I see that as something a little different for mere dumbest. As for smartest, Micaiah definitely earn a mention for having multiple massively unfair advantages over numerous other lords. Not only is she one of the older lords, able to learn much through those years, but she also gets fed some prophetic information, and actually uses that information to make informed strategic, and tactical decisions. While there are "advisors" around her, they are clearly more of a hindrance than a boon, and its Micaiah's intelligence that navigates the impossible situations her nation starts the game in. Sigh...I hate to mention it, but mister I don't pick fights I can't win Ephraim deserves a mention for being the Gariest Stus of Fire Emblem protagonists even on the intelligence side of things. Sadly this poorly written member of the blandula twins is unable to lose, even when by all logic he should, because of how perfect, and gifted, and handsome, and intelligent he definitely is, the writers promise.

My vague memory on the matter is that only the first generation of PS3 were backwards compatible with PS2 games, but all the PS3 were backwards compatible with PS1 games. Fun little fact, the PSP is also natively able to run PS1 games, you just have to get the game into a file format it can read, no emulator needed.

Eh, Play Station 1s are fairly cheap now a days (and I think PS2, and PS3 are both backwards compatible with PS1 games as well for more options).

My poor Bouchy Boy, I gave him one of my votes (and I was stingy with votes), but he still did so poorly... That is rather cool. Have fun playing on that classic play station hardware.