Hawkwing

Coolmath

Speak of the devil... It's not a trampoline, but I'll take it. It's nice to see Panne and Yarne in a better mood. And official artwork of them wearing something modest. Anyway, I'm going to be visiting relatives in another state for several days, so I won't to be near my computer for a while. Thought I should be transparent about that. On the bright side, I can feasibly see a way to cram Rook's day into 2-3 updates. It thankfully wasn't quite as wordy as last time. May as well do replies now instead of making you wait another week: Also, I got Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope as a Christmas gift. If you're a strategy fan of any caliber, I heavily recommend picking it up. The gameplay is incredibly unique and incredibly polished.

If the games were more consistent about reinforcements always appearing in forts and arriving on certain turns, I would be less critical. Instead, it can heavily depend on the map and game, and I'm not a fan of resorting to a guide to figure out exactly which side of the map an enemy that the game doesn't warn me about will appear on as well as the who and the when. It doesn't help that sitting on a fort to block reinforcements is not exciting gameplay. Like I said in my first post on the topic, as annoying as cantors can be, you can at least always tell where they're going to summon monsters as well as what creatures will appear, and eventually you can get a feel when they'll act. Like I keep saying, the game hides stats and weapons from you. In a series that revolves around making choices by comparing enemy and ally stats. The same class may appear twice on the same map, yet my approach on how to deal with each one could differ drastically depending on which weapon they have equipped and/or if one is faster or stronger than the other. Ambush Spawns and Fog of War hide a core part of the game, and can be overly punishing for something you don't have many opportunities to prepare for fairly. Which discourages you from playing foolishly. XCOM gives you the ability to recover from losses, even if it eats away at other resources. If you lose a unit in Fire Emblem, you have to hope the game has a replacement prepared and that they'll actually do their job of replacing that niche.

XCOM deals with ranged combat, and damage is effective against everyone. Accidently activating a pod can be frustrating or even mission ending in some cases, but you have enough tools and tactics to potentially get out of the predicament. Fire Emblem, meanwhile, is largely melee focused, and ambush spawns and fog of war attacks come in all forms. An ambushing myrmidon may do nothing against a knight but it can slaughter a mage, or a Pegasus knight could fly around your wall and strike at a healer. And you won't know what kind of opponent you're dealing with until they've already shown up and acted. XCOM also allows you to recruit rookies to replace fallen soldiers, and encourages not relying on a single team. Fire Emblem units are gone for good if you play with permadeath, and how well the series is at giving you replacements has been a topic of discussion and debate for decades. I love roguelikes. I enjoy being given random tools and a difficult situation and being told "make this work". I'm the madman who enjoys Shadows of Valentia because of the unreliable hit rates. I don't have a problem with Fire Emblem using randomness. What I do have an issue with is the series throwing enemies at you that you can't prepare for without trial and error or using a guide. Fire Emblem is heavily reliant on you knowing what your opponents are capable of as well as the abilities of your own team and planning accordingly. A single stat difference in speed can make all the difference in whether or not a unit gets doubled. I might not use a mage to attack a knight if said knight is using a javelin. Ambush Spawns and Fog of War says "screw that" and forces you to deal with a threat that you won't know the class, stats, or weaponry for. That's not a good thing in a series that has permadeath when the games range in how well they are at giving you ways to recover from unexpected losses. Also, if you lose against a boss in an RPG or action game, learn from your mistakes and return for a second attempt. Ironmanning is a popular with Fire Emblem, and Ambush Spawns needlessly punish continuing with your mistakes instead of resetting after every loss. They're not fun.

I had to pay extra to get a headpiece that covered my bad eye.

Banned for using an image instead of text.

Considering how many enemies some maps have, along with some games having skills to keep track of, I don't think full map awareness is truly attainable. However, it is still important to scour through the map to identify enemies that could be prove problematic, whether they're a threat from turn 1 or will be an issue later on. Personally, I tend to focus on immediate threats and enemies who will be a problem on the next turn. I keep future threats in mind, especially if they're powerful, but they aren't a priority and I don't plan that far ahead. Especially since I prefer doing ironman runs, where my entire strategy has to change on a dime if I lose a character. As other people have said, pay attention to enemy ranges and use the ability to mark enemies liberally. Dealing with overlap or how moving a unit into position can disrupt where enemies ranges can be annoying, but it should be something you get used too. Also, make sure you keep defense in mind when positioning for an attack. It can make the difference between whether you will be attacked by one enemy or three during the enemy phase. It's a nice feature that I don't mind being absent in previous games. Because it tells you who will be attacked on the enemy phase, I find myself playing more aggressively in Three Houses compared to previous games, as I know who I can safely move into enemy range without fear of them being attacked, whereas in other games I approach situations more defensively since I don't always know who the enemy will target. It's not a foolproof system, since the enemies plans can change if someone takes enough damage, but I feel like players should keep that in mind anyway. Ambush spawns and by extension Fog of War have no business being in Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem is heavily reliant on you knowing what enemies you're facing, what your troops are capable of, and how stats or weapons can completely change your approach. Mages can often wreck armor knights, for instance, but I might think twice about attacking an armor knight if they have a javelin and enough HP to survive the first strike. Ambush spawns and Fog of War say "screw that" and throw any enemy they want at you. Calvary and Wyvern riders may outpace you units, a mage could destroy your low res units, a warrior can chop through, etc. I hate that you either have to figure this out through trail and error, or just look up a guide to prevent getting screwed over, and I don't like whipping out my phone to have a website ready as the default way to play a game. As frustrating as cantors can be, I always preferred them because at least they're predictable. You know where they're going to spawn, a look at the bottom screen tells you what they're going to summon, and will practice you can predict when they'll do so. They cause several maps to overstay their welcome, but the same can be said about regular reinforcements.

Oh, hey, this released. I'm not going to be near my computer for several days due to visiting relatives in a different state, so I won't be able to check this out until later. Pretty excited to try this out as my first rom hack. It will be especially interesting as it's been years since I last played Sacred Stones and I didn't end up completing it, so going in mostly blind should be fun.

Raven

ROOK'S CAMPAIGN DAY 2: Robbing Robbers Goes Really, Really Wrong Replies: Update (This is a gameplay heavy one. Brace yourself):

HEMA

ROOK'S CAMPAIGN DAY 2: Playing Both Sides Bad News and Good News: Replies: Update:

To be fair, XCOM 2 is infamous for having bugs and graphical hiccups even on the PC version. And slowdown if you spend too much time on a Lost level. It's really action based titles that seem to struggle on Switch nowadays. My problem is more how there are a number of third party games that I think would be a good fit on the Switch but are either too powerful for the system and/or can't fit on a cartridge. The fact that some retail games still need to download data onto the Switch storage or how some companies use cloud versions to get around the hardware and/or space issues is pretty telling.

Hope I have a spear nearby

Would be really interested in playing Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus

Hell

Well this is new. Usually when I hear complaints about the Switches graphical capabilities, it's about the systems performance and how some third party games straight up can't run on the system, or require a lot of optimization wizardry to get it working. Granted, I am in the "The Switch needs a hardware upgrade" camp. Mostly because I'm tired of how even recent first and second party Nintendo action games can sometimes struggle to run properly, and if I want a good fast paced title, I usually have to look earlier in the systems life or buy an E-Shop game that's usually a port of a decade or two old game. There's a reason people were annoyed at how the last (non-movie related) Nintendo Direct largely consisted of JRPGs and farming sims. Game development is a wild beast, and it's usually a group effort. Sometimes the team in charge of graphics and art direction is focused and produces something wonderful, while the team in charge of writing may have struggles that result in a flawed story, and/or the development team may not be able to find out solutions to gameplay problems in time. Sometimes these situations are flipped, and you can have games with a wonderful story and terrible gameplay and graphics, or a game that has amazing gameplay that isn't much to write home about in terms of looks or plot. No one sets out to intentionally make a bad game, and money and time constrains and other unexpected issues always play a factor. Heck sometimes players will turn a blind eye to these issues, recommending a game for the story or gameplay alone even if other aspects are lackluster. We get it. You hate the Mario series. Just say it's not for you and move on. You don't need to keep saying it's a "polished turd" or whatever just because the games don't place emphasis on their stories when that was never the focus. And if you want Peach to do something, look at the spin-off games. Maybe you'll find one you actually like? The graphical upgrade wasn't made overnight, and the Game Boy original could have really used the extra buttons. It was an impressive game for it's time, but it was trying to be a console Zelda game when it didn't necessarily have the controls for it. It was a game that would have benefited from a remake, and it did. It shouldn't have been $60 though, but I haven't heard anyone defend the price.

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