Jotari

I'd say a bad person who successful fools all of the heroes because he's good at acting and has a sympathetic face is quite a bit more interesting and unique than another character who does bad things because of a tragic backstory. This is true. If it helps, I figured out you were talking about Orson right away.

I personally take the perspective that Kaga didn't put it in the game, so I'm free to ignore Castor's backstory. I find it way more interesting if the dude is just full of shit and is lying 100% of the time. There's no sick mother at all and he worked for Pirates because the dude is just bastard with a soppy looking face that he uses to his advantage. More proof of this comes from BS Saga, which takes place before Shadow Dragon (and any possibility of Kaga's dead sister backstory) where he's actively taking notes from Rickard on how to manipulate people. I think he's even named after a thief from 1001 Arabian Knights (though I haven't read any of those stories so I don't know how positive or negative Kashim is).

In not having supports, sure. But it absolutely should have had Tellius style base conversations! I'd love if, for example, Jeorge had a base convo at the Wooden Cavalry where we can actually learn he's OG Lewyn and that said area is his homeland. Said area is also where Marth's father died and that's not brought up at all. Give Cain a base convo where he talks about having to flee that battle. Base convos are awesome. But the most New Mystery could do with them was have Jeigan present somewhat contrived in universe instructions for what your gameplay goals for each chapter are.

Magic bows would only be slightly useful for Ronan. His memetastic magic growth is held back quite a bit by his literal 0 base magic. He'll hit his cap eventually because he starts level 1, especially if you give him magic scrolls, but you'll have to actually funnel enough exp into him for him to be a capable magic bow user. His movement stars and movement growth along with a pretty useful Adept are going to help him a lot more than his magic. Though if Thracia had Shadow Dragon style reclassing he'd be a hilariously good mage, as class changing could give him the class base for mages and he's probably get an extra 20% growth or something.

Guinevere is the one who springs to mind. She also has the sibling who actually knows the villain dynamic and it's definitely played for a lot more drama than Azelle has the opportunity for. She's also a bastard. One thing I don't think we have seen is the parent of the villain as a hero. Closest is Alvis and his minor resistance to Julius, but he's still very much a villain in his own right (Deirdre is also technically playable but we don't really see her as a mother to Julius). Of course most villains are centuries old dragons or wizards or stuff, so a parent who needs to regretfully out their spawn down isn't really forthcoming. Now I need to petition IS to put Veld's mother into a Thracia remake. Coming to think of it, is there any Hellene in Binding Blade? Is she still living in Bern somewhere or did Desmond get rid of her at some point? Feel obligated to bring up Fates Boss Candace now. Though she's also stylized like Meg (and not made to look as cute because minor villain). Dorothy really is ironically unique in how un-unique she looks.

If I was remotely into voice acting as a celebrity subculture I would absolutely be putting that data on a spread sheet and track it. It is also entirely possible that individual voice actors are just prolific enough to pop up every six months in the game because they introduce a good sixty or seventy new units every half a year between regular, seasonal mythic and legendaries. Some of those characters like Safy and Vigarde are also getting voice actors for the first time, so really almost anyone could have voiced them.

12 year olds don't have the finance to buy thousands of orbs on gatcha games. So it's probably more middle aged men with the mental capacity of a horny 12 year old (alright maybe I'm going a bit too mean there. I'm a Fire Emblem fanmyself, don't be too cruel to the fandom Jotari).

Given the canonization of pairings, ignoring certain characters, minor to major to just plain unnecessary inconsistencies, I'm pretty convinced that Thracia 776 didn't give a flying monkey's ass about continuity with Genealogy. It did it's own thing established canon be damned. Which I can respect, if not like. I've outed myself as a Bloom-Stan and I am not ashamed of it. What? He's a major character you say? Well please tell that to any of the crossover stuff Fire Emblem did because he's ignored everytime, dude barely even got into Thracia. Why do I like him? Well, armoured mage for one, but aside from that, I find him to be a genuinely nuance character that people dismiss. When we see him he's mostly "Grr generic angry boss guy. Pesky rebels". But we get references to how he treated Tine kindly and how the death of his son has heavily effected him. And when you think of the timeline, this guy was thrust into his position when he was about the same age as Sigurd, made a king out of nowhere and then expected to govern a foreign land that hates him all the while there's infiltration of the evil cult that he himself dislikes that he can't stop. I'm not so deluded as to say he's a hero, no, the guy is a straight up villain who uses a (Thor) hammer to try and solve every problem, but Genealogy's world building is good enough that it just makes someone in his position and all that it entails interesting to me. I also love Coulter. Not because of his personality or role in the story or anything, just because they had the care to make him appear in both Thracia and Genealogy, but they didn't have to care to make sure he even looks remotely similar to the design they previously gave him. I'll talk about some more non Jugdral characters later.

I was more referencing the fact that base Briggid has been denied to us for so long for no real reason. Most the other noteworthy Gen 1 Holy Weapon users, Sigurd, Alvis, Quan, Eldigan, Lewyn got in the first year or two of the game. Claude didn't but his staff is going to be a bit more difficult to adapt (and Reptor and Langbolt are old men who nobody but me cares about). Brigid with her holy weapon is the inexplicable absence. But they did give us Eyvel...and then pirate Brigid...and then Brigid's ancestor using Brigids bow...and then Brigid's son using Brigid's bow. It's just this really weird case now where if she does show up she's going to either be rocking a story relevant prf that's on the power level of a year 1 weapon, or she's going to power creep Ullr, a freaking mythic unit whoose power she derives from. It should be the other way round. So putting in Brigid (as Eyvel) as Draco would just further the funny that is ignoring Base Brigid. I've heard people talk of voice actors who share characters being used to predict new additions many times now, but how reliable is that? I mean, I get the logic, if you're hiring someone to do voices for one character might as well get them to do two characters in the same day and probably pay them the same amount while they're at the studio anyway, but has anyone tracked how often we've seen specific voice actors versus their characters and tried to gaugue which ones might have been done at the same time? Because in this day in age, especially with long established voice actors who can afford could equipment for private use, I could just as easily believe most of this voice acting is done at home and knocked out in about 30 minutes or so. It's not like Heroes has that much voice acting. It's mostly filler lines. They might very well be hired on a per character basis with a very quick return rate for how long it takes to produce a fully voiced character.

Question, where are Fee and Oifey in those pics? As in, what country are they and those two coastal villages in? The flow of the chapter and the geography being positioned in such a way so you can only reach them from a pass near Munster Castle would suggest they're part of the Munster District. But according to the chapter intro maps South Thracia has all of the land covering those coasts. Even though it means the people living there can't go to South Thracia without hiking a mountain, taking a boat, or passing through Munster territory (so like any random Alaskan village as I understand it)....But....how much we can trust that in game map is questionable too, since when you compare it to the overlayed gameplay maps the castles can be in wildly different places (though at least relatively in the same position to each other). But this has some pretty major plot implications too, as one of those minor villages is Fianna, where Leif is hiding at the start of Thracia and features the Empire marching in and kidnapping people. If that is actually happening in South Thracia then it's a bit of a diplomatic incident for Raydrik to be crossing the border like that. Yet Thracia never actually specifies where that's taking place either and we're left assuming it's Munster District but with no actual identification (at least as far as I can remember). Well now that you're finished, its time to reveal which of these named enemies are fought in Thracia 776. The list of enemies you fight in this chapter are Muhammed, Ovo, Banba, Fotla, Eriu, Faval/Asaello, Ishtar, Bloom and Coulter. Maykov is fought after the ending of Thracia 776 and there's also Athena who you don't fight at all. Anyways, the answer is *drum roll* Sue is broken because she recruits Shin. It's specifically for the rare and elusive creature known as a female Fire Emblem fan. Because dismounted Seliph is just so kawaii, apparently.

Everyone being able to support with everyone is better for gameplay though. Especially where Radiant is structured in having different armies that come together in the end. It gives you more freedom of choice as to who to bring to the tower, as you're not going to be strong armed by who has supports available for your mixed faction choices and who doesn't. And as far as world building goes, I think Radiant Dawn is already high up there. It's base conversations are already great and while the Dawn Brigade specifically could do with more characterization, I think the solution there would be more or better early chapters than supports. Returning characters who weren't playable in Path of Radiance and this don't have supports like Sanaki and Sigrun are characterized just fine. Overall I think the value of supports series wide is overstated in how much they provide for characterization. Characters can be established and often should be in other ways. If you have me the choice of limiting everyone's support pool to just five people and having great conversations or letting them support everyone I'd say give me support everyone and put those great conversations somewhere else in the game (and ditch the conversations that are going to be mid or boring, because there are always lesser support chains, I'd even go as far as to say good support chains are diamonds in the rough).

That's more precisely Briggid as Eyvel as Draco, and yeah, it'd be pretty funny if they have us that version of her before base.

If they've played it, then they have business having an opinion on it.

I suggested Fallen Banners be Seasonals instead of the main banner of a month stealing a New Heroes spot, but I didn't consider how that would open it up to Duo units. Hmm. There could certainly be potential in the group fallen there, like Linus and Lloyd together. Ashnard and Rajaion (which is regular Ashnard, but we have Rajaion actually be a thing). Medeus and one of his maidens at the same time. Berkeut and Rinea together, which they should have been, but they predated Duo units...and even when Duo Units became a thing they refused to ever give us canonically paired units (no Lyon and Ephraim, you're not a pair like Marla and Hestia or Pain or Agony, or even Bord and Bord).

Want to get a little early a headstart on predictions for the Fallen Heroes banner next month, since I'm one of those basic bitches who really likes the Fallen Heroes banner (though I think it should probably have been a seasonal so we can get more new heroes from New Heroes). Anyway, here's the list of Fallen Unit candidates I've been keeping for the past few years that's proven surprisingly accurate in covering who they pick. Hey, look. It's April. Which means next month is May, which means we're probably getting another Fallen Heroes banner. And we've also just got a game that's given us loads of potential for new Fallen Candidates. Before we get to that though, let's take a look at what units we could potentially get from other games. Predictions Last year I predicted we'd see at least one Engage unit and everyone told me I was wrong since Engage was too new. Everyone was right and i was wrong. But Engage has so many potential Fallen Units I'd be very surprised if we don't see at least one on the banner this year. Probably E!Veyle since she's both the most prominent and probably the most saleable. Last year they gave us a Fallen Byleth Female, so if they follow the Corrin pattern we can expect to get a Fallen Byleth Male this year. There's also a good chance we get Lloyd to accompany Linus. They also gave us one of the four fallen maidens, so they could start filling out the set on that front. Finally, Fates is probably going to have to get one and we've already had Kana alts recently, so I'm going to suggest Fallen Gunther. So I guess I'm predicting a banner of E!Veyle, Possessed Byleth, A Fallen Maiden, Fallen Gunther and Morph Lloyd as the Grand Hero Battle, with a strong possibility for Fallen Gunther being replaced with a second Engage or Fodlan character. Hopes What I wish for most is that sweet, sweet Thracia love and we get one of the Dead Lords. Give me six more years of Heroes with a Deadlord each year and I'll be a very happy Thracia fan. I've also wanted Morva for quite a while, but by this point I reckon they're saving him for a regular New Heroes Banner given how low the remaining Sacred Stones cast is. After that they might give us a fallen version. I also would love to see fallen Dedue for some more of that beast action. Miklan would be another option, first giant monster in the series is sort of a big deal. And while it'd never happen, I'd be so tickled if we saw Baron Ochs, Monica's Father, who turns into a giant bird. My preference for canon has wanted Berserk Greil ever since we got Berserk Ike. Lastly, I think Morion from Engage has that sweet spot of importance to just be perfect fallen Hero GHB unit. So, yeah, wishlist would probably be something like A Deadlord, Morva, Dedue, Greil and Morion as the Grand Hero Battle. Who would you like to see as a Fallen Unit next month and who do you expect to see?

That's not true. The DS games have chapter based supports (though there are only conversations to go along with them in New Mystery in which you'll actually notice the system I think I'd like Path of Radiance masteries more if they costed 0 capacity, with the cost investment to use them being the Occult Scroll itself. But as is, they basically lock you out of using any other skills, which kind of sucks. And then you can't unassign them and reassign them later if you do want to do a different skill combo for a map. Radiant Dawn mostly gets around this by auto giving them to you on third tier and increasing your capacity to match. Which I also kind of don't like, as it essentially means you don't have a capacity increase upon promotion (yes, I say on promotion, because Radiant Dawn is a two tier system in the trench coat of a three tier system...don't think of that metaphor too much), but at least it takes the choice out of my hand and I don't have to consider whether I want to permanently give up the three skills I've given a unit throughout the game to assign a Mastery Skill that is only moderately good.

I went to Hannibal first, but his beard is actually a different style to what seems there. Looks like you fluffed it up a bit. So Javarro was the compromise. You could always have four people stand on either side of him to incapacitate him and then conquer Connaught and have him vanish into the gameplay abyss instead of dying.

I think the issue there is that the steppe is pretty famous for grazing animals. Wyverns are, presumably, carnivores and require that actual livestock to be fed. That livestock which itself could be put to feeding humans. It's like a competitive resource situation, humans aren't in competition with horses and cows to eat grass (though we are in competition for space somewhat, depending on what you can grow in a given field), but we are in competition with dragons for eating horses and cows. Unless they wyverns do subsist on grass, or exclusively eat something humans have no taste for, like idk...uh...huh...we eat freaking everything except grass and wood, don't we? Rocks. The wyverns eat rocks. Just fuelled by pure digested coal.

It's because the trains are fuelled entirely on baby organs. It's surprisingly environmentally friendly!

I get liking Fixed Mode, and yeah, it could stand to be in other games in the series. But Radiant Dawn not having it feels like unfair criticism. Like, it doesn't have Casual mode either, should it be criticized for that? Criticizing for something it never attempted to do feels like you're just complaining that it's a different game from what it is. Like, 0% growths is a great idea for games too that no official game has ever done. Should it be criticized for not having that as an option either? Path of Radiance Fixed Mode also wasn't actually fixed mode. It was a weird Final Fantasy II styled level up mode and I don't really know why. Finally, for the potential that a fixed mode has as an idea, I feel it's pretty irrelevant in Radiant Dawn's case, as the low stat caps + high number of levels pretty much guarantees you won't ever be majorly stat screwed or blessed anyway. Screw convos. Radiant Dawn has the best support system in the series. Everyone can support with everyone! Who cares how cracked the pairing is, I can A Rank Oliver and Volug! Giving unique conversations to all of these characters was never going to be realistic. It has a 70+ number of characters and most of them already supported each other in Path of Radiance or otherwise have no reason to actually talk to each other. I'm sure I could come up with a support chain for Naesala and Laura if I really tried. I could come up with Laura and Skirmr if I really tried. But how hard would I have to try to have Laura x Haar, Laura x Oscar, Laura x Vika, Luara x Callil. And then every other character with every other character. At best we'd split the supports up entirely to the character's own faction, at worst we'd be rethreading old ground ad nauseam, even for the new characters without PoR supports already done. I played Radiant Dawn before Path of Radiance, and Path of Radiance after most of the pre-Awakening Fire Emblem games, so I can only say it's story was very simplex by the time I got to it. But you do you if you like that better. It's not a bad story by any means. But for me, while it is messier, I do like what they were going for in Radiant Dawn a lot more. I think the only ones who suffer from this are the Tormod gang, and maybe Pelleas. But it's not like other Fire Emblem games don't have characters only avilable for six chapters. In terms of absolute number I'd say Radiant Dawn spreads out its number of chapters characters are available for in a pretty even way compared to other Fire Emblem games, just manifested differently. Radiant Dawn also has a fair number more chapters than most games. ^^^Dawn Brigade chapters are great^^^ And if you really dislike the Laguz Royals for what they do to balance, it's not like you have to use them. Any character in the game is Tower Viable if you really care to put in the effort (or the BEXP favouritism). Which units are giving you gameover conditions in Radiant Dawn? Only one that springs to mind is Elincia in the late mid game Part 3 chapter, but even then she's pretty well covered with her own Crimean knights acting as body shields. I admittedly haven't played Maniac Mode, something I really should do one of these days, but I have a hard time believing it's hard than Radiant Dawn's hard mode. Especially with all the money it throws at you for liberal forging. From what I have heard among other people who have played it is that the main thing it does for difficulty is crank up the enemy HP to really high levels so they're just absolute damage sponges. I legitimately don't understand what your assessment here is. What is Path of Radiance doing that Radiant Dawn is not doing? Radiant Dawn has default capacity on skills, taking them off is a weighted choice. It encourages unique cases for unconventional uses. That's why I liked Radiant Dawn Astra, as her innate Paragon lets her unique combine Paragon and Blossom. I'd also object to the statement that Radiant Dawn punishes players for not investing in units who are good from the start. Radiant Dawn's philosophy is very much "Utilize who and what you have now". You are absolutely free to make pet projects in Radiant Dawn. The game doesn't punish you at all for that. In fact, it can be very rewarding to train up someone like Leo or Edward, and people do all the time (again, ParaBlossom Astrid is my jam). Hell the entire point of the Hawk Army route is to provide massive quantities of exp to power level any unit you want to be tower viable (except Tormod, sorry bro). But making pet projects is not at all at odds with also having powerful units at your disposal. Radiant Dawn gives you the freedom to do both. You won't be punished for investing, and you won't be punished for not investing. You're completely right about the Mastery Skills though. You're essentially saying "they made it higher, but also it's not high enough to be of consequence". The Biorhythm is like the weapon triangle and avoid terrain, it's not a negative, it's a positive you can make use of that your enemy can't. Use it to your advantage. The only randomness to it is where the enemies start their biorhythm at the start of each chapter. I do think it's an undercooked feature, there should definitely me a more freely available way to control it, and low capacity skills to gain more control of it and increase or decrease its effect, but as it, the worst it will do is make you one damage point shy of killing a key enemy in your first turn. This assertion seems very at odds to what you were saying before about how the game punishes you for trying to invest in low quality units. How can a game simultaneously punish you for investing in low quality units, while simultaneously having a system where everyone can turn out great? Path of Radiance meanwhile makes growths irrelevant by making most enemies suck (unless it's in Maddening mode...probably). If it's the slant of "Well it's easier to use good units and I want to LTC/Efficiency Run play it so anyone else is not worth consideration" then I think Path of Radiance falls short there a lot more than Radiant Dawn. Radiant Dawn's deployment system at least puts you in a position where you're going to deploy your scrubs alongside your powerful prepromotes, so everyone will get a time to shine at some point in the game by contributing what they can. Meanwhile in Path of Radiance mounted units are pretty widely considered to be just plain better than anyone without canto. They're just as strong with more movement and you will be freely able to build an entire army of pure cavalry with the only drawback possibly being the singular desert chapter (and even there, you have flier dominance). Both games are fine for building up units, I'd even go as far as to say they're two of the best games for making personal projects, but Path of Radiance more traditional structure definitely lends itself more to just being able to stack your army with units who are better than others if you choose to do so. But most importantly, what in the world possessed you to start this series with Tellius in 2024 and then to play both of them half a dozen times over XD You absolute mad lad. What a radical and and just plain bizarre thing to do. Definitely getting some odd flex respect points for that choice. Go play Jugdral next.

Yeah, I wouldn't try and put the law order dichotomy into Fire Emblem. It would inevitably and up being forced. None of the bad guys are really "Repressive but Efficient" government. The only one that really falls into that is the Lopt Empire (for a given definition of efficient, dealing with rebellions every five minutes doesn't strike me as maximum efficiency), maybe Rhea if we want to count her as a villain (but really her status quo is basically the same as any given Fire Embelm lord would end up doing). Most Fire Emblem villains if they were to fall onto the dichotomy at all would be chaos since they support some sort of social darwanism (even the lopt empire has that in an ordered structure with its hunger games). Or they're just racist or want suffering for the sake of suffering. Meanwhile most of the protagonists are so milquetoast in their beliefs that they basically have no leaning either way. That's why I feel like focusing on some individual characters that do have strong philosophies and outlooks and going the whole SMT III Reason plotline would suit better.

What's really weird is that she doesn't use it in Thracia 776, she has Deen's prf instead. Which makes sense in her early mid game first appearance and would be perfect if it came with a scene where Travant goes "this is your first real battle, here take this lance" "Huh? What is this dad? It looks like Gungnir and feels really powerful" "Never you mind, just go conquer places". But instead that scene doesn't exist and she uses Deen's prf again in her second appearance, even though her having Gae Bolg in that appearance is a pretty significant plot point in Genealogy as its what let's Finn recognize her, a scene that absolutely could have been in Thracia. Instead there's absolutely no indication the two are related until you get to the character endings and it's just treated as something you're expected to know (granted I'm not sure there is anyone alive who has played Thracia without playing Genealogy first).

There. Now Genealogy is perfect. At least that's what I wanted to say, but Ruben's bearded Hawk image is now broken so I had to do this myself and I'm not good at it. Well he did meet her when she died. And she was kind of stubborn there, bringing a baby to the battlefield and then stubbornly not dying right away like dames aught to. And to just keep sharing my ideas that no one asked to be shared, my suggestion for Asaello getting a more original backstory was to just include him here as an enemy bossman here even if Faval still exists. And to pay him to join you Beowulf style if Faval doesn't exist.

Adding Gaiden Celica. A bold move!

I think it's amazing how central it's becoming to my news stream and online social life. Even my 70+ year old mother was asking me about it despite the fact that it's not remotely where we currently on. It's really demonstrative of just how dominant the American POV of the world is. Eclipses actually happen all the time. We get at least two every year. They're just not considered news worthy because they happen somewhere outside of North America (and, well, I guess because the globe is 70% water they're usually happening out at sea). Fun Eclipse fact. The earliest historical event we can set an exact date to is a battle in Turkey on the 28th of May 585BC where the two armies stopped their fighting because the Eclipse and decided to settle down and make a peace treaty. At least according to Herodotus, whose accounts can be a bit shakey. But it seems like there genuinely was a battle and an eclipse around that time which people commented on even if they dramatized it up a bit. Eclipses are also a pretty special phenomenon for Earth specifically. Surely not unique, but not common. There's no natural reason for a planet to have a satellite that's pretty much exactly the same size as their star when viewed from the surface of the planet. It's just a coincidence we get eclipses that look like that. For most planets the moon would either be too big, blotting out the sun entirely, or two small to get the effect where you have a complete shadow and a corona.