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Zapp Branniglenn

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    That archer you benched

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    He/Him
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    SoCal

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  • Favorite Fire Emblem Game
    Sacred Stones

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  1. So when I played Conquest I legitimately didn't know that those were returning characters. Because I didn't bother with Awakening's Paralogue Homework to get those extra Gen 2 characters when my roster was already full. Plus their portrayal in Fates was very down to earth when compared to the rest of Fates' cast (your Arthurs, Camillas, and Peris). They had quirks, but they still didn't feel out of place in this world. To be honest, learning the truth kind of marred that perception of them. That they weren't giving me a genuine look at the sorts of people that live and fight for Nohr, but are actually dimensional hopping weirdos just acting out a role because anybody asking what they're really doing here would...embarrass them I guess? A character that happens to be acting out a character in-universe can be very interesting, but multiversal super heroes just make your new universe seem small and insignificant. Fates has enough of that going around. The best sweetspot of this idea would be the Whitewings in Gaiden/SOV. They show up in a foreign country, not a foreign universe. They have their own agenda, team up with the player, and that's it. All its missing is a reason to stick around after finding Est. Something more compelling than "We MUST repay you for helping us". They weren't sent there by God, they didn't (knowingly) take up arms for Zofia and cause an international incident for their Queen. Zeke is good too. Amnesia's its own cliche, but a Camus-like character given that second chance is always going to be compelling.
  2. If you can survive to Turn 13, I'm surprised you haven't already finished it, as it isn't a map that has reinforcements (I guess the boss is technically a reinforcement when he spawns). Step 1 is to secure the 90 degree flipped T formation of thickets immediately nearby the starting position (to the Northeast, assuming you have not rotated the camera from its default position). I don't think I've ever come into this map with a Byleth and Lord that could avoid doubles from Thieves, so I would strongly consider a shield. Especially if the Aegis Shield is sitting in your Convoy (that's mitigating up to 12 damage right there). Enlightened One Byleth may have good performance with a Levin Sword as well, since it will ignore terrain and have higher accuracy on forested opponents. A forged one can even counterattack Snipers. And don't be afraid to lift an elixir/concoction from Byleth's convoy - this map is precisely a situation where that is a viable option compared to just killing another of your attackers. Seeing as you've got a crew of fliers, you should have little difficulty taking out the Snipers after they've fired at your thicket base - use Ashes and Dust on the same turn to lock down the Thieves so that they don't rush to kill whoever got them.
  3. It opens up more angles to attack a single target from. So you can gang up your melee range units on one target while the enemy can do the same to you. It's pretty dangerous for a game with permadeath. Even if you line up your units in a solid wall, every member of that wall is vulnerable from two adjacent tiles instead of the usual One in Fire Emblem. I suppose it lessens the need for 1-2 range weapon options, since you'll less often be in a situation where you can only reach a target from two spaces away. It may also place more value on our units that possess greater defense/hp Someone's probably going to mention Berwick Saga, but a much larger change than Hexes is how that game handles its turns. Instead of separating each turn into Player and Enemy Phase, you and the enemy take turns moving 1-2 units at a time until all units have moved in that turn. So while it's true that every unit is more vulnerable to attacks, it takes a lot more coordination to dogpile hits on a single target. And if you move your guy within range of a bunch of enemies that have already taken their move, then they're safe in a scenario where they wouldn't be in Fire Emblem.
  4. Earthbound's pretty good. It was one of the first games I ever emulated because it wasn't available on any nintendo system. Fifteen years ago I was a real dweeb about playing games that way and made a promise to myself that if a future nintendo system did have Earthbound, I'd buy it, and the system itself if necessary. And that's the story of how I came into possession of the Wii U. I get nostalgic seeing people play the game, but don't think I'd ever go back to it. It's long and very grindy when compared to other SNES rpgs. I love reading the NPC dialogue and outrageous enemy attacks, but I can get that from watching other people play. I'd say it's B tier among 16 bit rpgs mainly for having such a stellar sense of humor pushing you forward. Mother 3 on the other hand is excellent. I think it's the best game on the system and a contender for best jrpg of the twenty first century. My only problem with it is just how broken the rhythmic combat timing can get. Of all the Undertale-era indie games being developed out there, why is no one trying to rip off that part of Mother 3? It's the one area they could boast dramatic improvements in.
  5. I have to admit I laughed out loud when discovering the purpose of this suggestion was to facilitate gift giving that's not normally possible in FE4. It's creative if nothing else. Perhaps they should also be able to Give Gold, like how in real life you get someone a gift card whenever you give up on choosing an actual gift they may like. I have to object immediately to the idea of a new player experiencing a Chapter 4 where it's not snowing in Silesse, however. Speaking as a casual FE4 enjoyer, introducing birthdays on specific turns is really going to inflame the choice anxiety I get in a lot of FE4's already-complicated long term decision making. Especially pairings, since if a certain pairing was selected to pass down much needed weapons and items, then that changes the calculus entirely. And it trickles all the way down to how I split up my party in different directions - I can't give you a number on how many turns it takes to conquer Heirhein castle in Chapter 1, because Pavise cares not for my quest for the bargain band. Could you imagine poor Arden having too few movement to collect Ayra's 30 kills Slim Sword? I guess Jugdral doesn't believe in belated or early birthday presents Ultimately I would want a calendar system unlike the 3DS era in which the player is unable to influence. Because FE4 does have an unusually rigid timeline for its events both in terms of the narrative and because of the baby making weirdness. Forget birthdays, how about menstruation cycles where women have to be ovulating for their Lovers before the end of Chapter 5? It can also be the return of Biorhythm, but only for the girls. Kaga would back me up on this. Here's how I'd introduce this concept in a way that's more lenient: Birthday months. Real life armies do this; Everybody whose birthday falls in that month gets to be part of a shared celebration. And when you start a chapter of FE4, (or perhaps a new "Act" of the same chapter) you get a notification that it's X month, here are the birthdays being celebrated. Now you can give gifts to those units on any turn of that chapter. And it wouldn't be every FE4 unit across a playthrough. Make it specific units that need the help. Like Arden! I say it should be his birthday month several times throughout Gen 1. That way it's easier to pair him up without holding his girlie back too much from the action. Late joining units should also have it be their birthday more frequently for the same reason.
  6. Oops guess I should have done some more googling on modes added after I stopped playing. This is definitely an angle I was thinking of. Back on the 3DS, I was migrating pokemon into the Pokemon Bank service. Trying to have a complete collection that dates all the way to the GBA/Gamecube era of games. They're still sitting there in Pokemon Bank, a service I haven't paid for in many years. I can't do anything with them without paying, but the option to migrate them into a new playthrough or forward into a new Switch game and continue that collection is kind of neat even if my interest in new pokemon games has totally lapsed. If this Fire Emblem Heroes Remaster had this migration feature, you technically wouldn't need to buy it. They've already preserved your data This is a good question, as I honestly don't know how Nintendo, specifically, would handle it. Mega Man X Dive Offline as my chief example did it this way: There are no more banners. Everything obtainable from banners in the original gacha game is just purchaseable straight from a shop menu using one of a half dozen currencies. And all of those currencies are obtained through standard play. First-time-clear rewards from story progression and infinitely grindable from repeatable maps if you need more immediately for your latest project. There's definitely no longer a "journey" in getting new stuff like that. But for me going in blind, I was able to goof off with a different character on every map, and still had a ton leftover to discover after clearing the 20 hour-ish campaign. FEH has an even longer campaign with certainly more characters to try out along the way. So the solution of how they'd rework Fire Emblem Heroes would be psychologically and philosophically interesting. Gacha games convince you that new characters have value BECAUSE there's no guarantee you'll get them. Not even if you open up your wallet. And not even if you wait to grind more orbs because those Banners eventually end. They could keep Banners/Gacha Acquisition if they wanted, I just doubt that they would since the model doesn't work without real world money involved. No one actually likes rare drops in RPGs, in other words. If I was in charge of the project I suppose I'd have each legacy fire emblem unit be handed to you at Level 1, 1 star rank after clearing the story/paralogue chapter set they first appear in. Or Perhaps to avoid overwhelming you with a steady stream of units, they'll be spread more evenly amongst PvE Event modes like Tempest Trials, Forging Bonds, etc. Then it's up to the player to decide how much of their resources they want to spend on raising their star rank, skills, etc. I would probably ditch Merging and Skill Inheritance, so that you'd only ever have one copy of a unit, maximum. And instead have the player get those extra stats and skills from some other means. Dragonflowers are basically merge levels, so It makes sense to consolidate the concept into that one resource.
  7. Last year Capcom released something I'd never seen before. They had this mobile gacha game called Mega Man X Dive that was ending its support completely. No more updates, no more servers to continue playing and advancing in the game. A tale as old as time for for this genre. But then they released a thirty dollar offline version on the same mobile platforms and PC, complete with (almost) all of its content. Concessions had to be made (they removed all the online versus and cooperative modes), but all the characters, skins, levels, music, and poorly localized plot crammed with Original Characters are now permanently preserved on this offline port. There's no more monetization or gacha elements, no more daily/weekly quests demanding regular play, the acquisition of resources was reworked and rebalanced completely. You can play any of the seasonal events on any day of the year. Unlock the characters in any order you want, and in reportedly a fraction of the time investment. No stamina meter or play limits saying you've got to wait for the next 24 hour refresh. This isn't to say Mega Man X Dive Offline is a great game in its own right or that it's the best version of this idea, but it did get me wondering if there's a market for that sort of thing for Fire Emblem Heroes. I don't want to upset anybody in saying this but Heroes will not last forever. At some point they're going to determine it's not worth it to continue adding to the game. And some point following that, they'll shut off the servers entirely leaving no game to play. No remaining record of those hours and dollars you spent. I think a complete, server-unreliant version of Heroes has value to fans. And a gacha-less version of this gacha game is it's own tantalizing possibility for players that stay away for their own safety. How do you think they should approach it? I have some thoughts It probably wouldn't have to be offline: Mega Man X Dive's multiplayer was simultaneous 1v1 play in a fast paced action platformer. Heroes is definitely not that. I don't recall any simultaneous multiplayer mode, and all of its "multiplayer" constituted checking static player data (updated from the last time they played the game) and lifting that directly into your match. That's as server intensive as having a Score Leaderboard in an Xbox Live Arcade game. Nintendo may still consider nixing multiplayer modes as a cost-cutting measure, but seeing as how Nintendo owns its own worldwide server network for its proprietary hardware and is the most successful Japanese company, a full 87 places ahead of Capcom, they probably don't have an excuse that theoretically saves them money proportional to the perceived value that online modes add to the game. How would they handle events like Grand Conquests, Voting Gauntlets etc? I suppose they could run one of each at all times in a perpetuating loop of every one they've ever done. While the Events that don't hinge on mass player participation (Tempest Trials, Forging Bonds, etc) would just be freely selectable PvE content like Chain Challenges. You'll get to them when you get to them. Transfer data would be preferable: A lot of people have sunk outrageous amounts of hours and money into Heroes and would consider buying in just for the opportunity of preserving that progress. I also remember our Heroes play data is linked to a modern Nintendo Network ID so there's our migration client already up and running. They could even have separated save files, allowing veteran players the chance to start from zero and see things from a new player's perspective. Reworked resource acquisition: So it's been a few years since I played but I remember the Resources tab being more than a full page of junk that was all useful for one specific task and usually acquired from one specific event or mode. I don't have a design document ready to go on what specifically would need to be changed but this is an opportunity to consolidate resources together into Rewards that have multiple functions and can be earned from multiple sources. From my googling of Mega Man X Dive, this was a common theme with their rebalancing that makes it much easier to grasp as a new player jumping in. And certainly a lot faster to get stuff since there was no need to balance around limited event-play windows or FOMO psychology.
  8. Someone already said FE2? Goddamnit Fine my runner up is Alm and Faye in the remake. SOV's already interesting because its support bonuses give unique boosts to different stats on a case by case basis for both participants. But they take it a step farther in designing a support that nerfs and buffs one of the two characters. Faye's Avoid drops because she's too distracted by Alm and maybe prone to showboating when he's around which is why her crit rate skyrockets. That's brilliant. And if she's a cleric it can be beneficial overall, since that extra hit rate puts her further in 2RN's good graces to nail those vital Nosferatu blasts after she inevitably takes damage. This support bonus isn't a major bullet point on why Faye is good, but it is a key element of her unit identity that sets her apart from Silque while also sprinkling in a bit of story to the game mechanics.
  9. I don't know what EiH is. Feels like a wound's been re-opened thinking about how we were, frankly, inundated with Zelda releases before and surrounding Smash 4's release and all we got was a skyward sword stage. Compared to those days, Zelda has felt like a non-entity as a franchise. So I wouldn't name it more likely now than it was during Ultimate's development. There was a Skyward Sword port. And the two new games take place entirely within Breath of the Wild's seven year old universe. Not a lot of exciting ground to cover. The Switch era in general wasn't bursting with new original stuff. My #1 answer would have to be (Spoiler) from Metroid Dread. We shouldn't waste there being another reasonably-sized Metroid villain. I want to hear him mutter coldly in alien speak during his final smash. Subtitles revealing the words "accept your helplessness". I think Bayonetta and No More Heroes deserve some representation as honorary Nintendo franchises. Pikmin 4 presents a moment to reflect on what a Pikmin character ought to play like in Smash. And Kirby hasn't stopped being incredible.
  10. I'd say the goddess icon on Rutger is more valuable for just the raw +2 avoid. Can't crit him if they never hit in the first place, and a Berserker's 28% chance to crit isn't any less scary to me than a 30%. Having said that I don't think I've ever used a goddess icon lol. They're good to sell and money can be tight in any FE6 playthrough.
  11. This has been a common sentiment in the wake of social media and convenient chat platforms like Discord. Forums are only as dead as you want them to be though. If you want to talk about something Fire Emblem, there's nothing stopping you from starting that conversation. Be the discourse you want to see.
  12. Disney Classic Games Collection (1993-1994, 2019) Super Mario 64 Star Revenge 1.5 (2015), Star Revenge 2 Act 1 (2017), and Star Revenge 0 (2020) Bravely Second: End Layer (2015) Valkyria Chronicles 2 (2010) Next month will probably be more backlogging, as most of the stuff I'm looking forward to comes out in April. I don't want to fall behind on 2024 games though, so I'll have Penny's Big Breakaway to talk about, and probably the new Contra.
  13. Hey for the record I'm a late 20s, Not-Japanese person and I think FE1 is the best version of that game. I played the Famicom version, in its native Japanese, and can tell you it's the strongest, most consistently functioning map design of Kaga-era FE. I think it's visuals and sound compared to other Famicom games rates higher than comparing FE3 to other SNES games and FE11 to other DS games. And yes I've played Book 1 and replayed FE11 since to confirm it's my favorite. It didn't just build a series, it built a goddamn genre. But I'm sure whatever the ultimate answer is will have "I never played it/I dropped it after an hour" as its most commonly cited reason. Where Archanea ranks depends on what the polled question would have been. If it's asking what's your least favorite FE, none of the Archanea games should be in the top spot, since there would be vote splitting between the three versions. If the question is what's your favorite, then I could see all three having the least amount of votes because, again, vote splitting. You'd have to give me five votes before I throw FE1 a bone. And in that ecosystem I'd be voting alongside folks that have played just a couple FEs that realize "Oh yeah, I forgot I did play FE11. Well I have two votes left over so it gets one"
  14. On the Ganondorf "problem" I think it's significant that Ganondorf is consistently above average among most played characters in each game. Both casually and competitively despite his notoriously low tier list placements. Beating Captain Falcon in 2022, and being the highest played Zelda character in 2021. 22nd and 24th place is pretty good among 86 characters. I think removing Ganondorf in favor of a wholly original version is seriously alienating to his die hard fans. Calls for his removal clearly come from a vocal minority. And if you're just approaching this from an objective "all previous clones should be made more diverse", then isn't an equally good solution to give Captain Falcon some new moves? I encourage them to keep doing small tweaks, as giving him a massive sword better reflected the Ocarina of Time/Late 90s Trade Show version of the character they were going for, and kept him in the same slow, menacing archetypal gameplay feel. And besides, there's nothing stopping them from doing a different version of Ganondorf that stands separate from the one we know. We have three Links, after all. I want a pig beast ganon from link to the past. I think that's the version of the character that would be the most unique in terms of visuals, moveset, and playstyle. A fat wizard with a telekinetic trident who will surprise you with sudden warps.
  15. Update on the Contra demo and Penny's Big Breakaway: Delightful!
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