Topaz Light

It's genuinely really, really rare for me to actually harbor any level of active dislike for a fictional character. Ones I don't like very much I tend to just end up largely ignoring and feeling apathetic towards. I don't really dedicate much time or energy to thinking about them at all, really! That said, I think one of the only FE characters I actually kind of dislike is Nah, and it's because she has a specific sort of personality trait that I truly cannot stand in real life. Not only is she extremely trigger-happy about jumping to conclusions about people, she's also equally stubborn about the conclusions she jumps to and extreme in the courses of action she feels they justify, and a good portion of the time only seems to "correct" them to... different conclusions that are at best only somewhat less wild than her first ones. I get that it's a gag, but as somebody who has trouble expressing myself and often worries about what I say being incorrectly or incompletely understood by others, that sort of behavior just really chafes me all the same. I still wouldn't say I actively hate Nah or anything; my feelings about her aren't nearly that strong. I just don't really care for her much and tend to end up benching her or making a combat manual of her depending on the game.

My understanding of the reasoning for each character respectively is that Ike owes a lot of his popularity to Super Smash Bros. Brawl and to a lesser extent it being on a system that could run both of Ike's games, while Lyn's popularity is largely owed to her essentially being to the Western fanbase what Marth is to the Japanese fanbase. Lyn is the first Lord we ever got over here, so I'd imagine a lot of people (myself included) have a lot of nostalgia for her and for what she represents, which obviously could easily translate into fondness.

Personally, I was thinking things would be set up like Red = Fire + Dark Blue = Thunder + Light Green = Wind + Spirit Scrolls (the Hoshidan "Tomes" from Fates) so I really have no idea what colorless tomes are going to be... I also have concerns that unless they're going to be consolidating Tomes into one supertype like Knives, Bows, Dragonstones, or Beast attacks, Colorless tome units will have a really rough time of it due to being so far behind other Tome colors in terms of weapon options. Besides, I felt Staves kind of already represented colorless ranged magic damage? I guess they're not considering them to, though. To the addition's credit, the idea of Earth magic in Fire Emblem is a cool one, assuming "Rock" ends up being the final name of the basic Colorless tome. Personally, I was hoping for Gauntlets as a new weapon type in the role of colorless physical melee, since we currently only have four 5★-exclusive Beast units in that role, one of whom is seasonal. Alas... another day, perhaps.

Yeah, I remember seeing that video actually! I suppose I was wondering if any knowledge of where the "McCartney" name came from starting from even further back exists, but I understand it may just not be known. The impression I get, and this is just conjecture, is that he was made a Bard in that video because Nils' Bard class was known to exist unused in FE8 by that point, and the person felt that combining a mysterious enemy character with an unused class would be extra cool, or something along those lines. I can't be sure what was going on in their head, though, of course.

So I've been thinking lately about old jokes and urban legends surrounding FE8, the most memorable to me was the idea that you can recruit the Brigand with the inexplicable portrait and Thunder affinity in Chapter 5, and that he'd end up a Bard, for some reason. The fans always dubbed this guy "McCartney", but I have no idea where the idea to name him that came from. There are a few musicians with the surname "McCartney", which kind of ties in with him being portrayed as a Bard, but that's only conjecture on my part. Was McCartney just a name picked at random for the dude? Does anybody here remember the story behind him coming to be called that, if any such story exists?

I am aware that Affinity icons in the GBAFE games start from the "Fire" affinity icon, and each Affinity progressively uses the next icon down (or "up", I suppose, number-wise) in the internal order. The problem, of course, is that the Horse, Wyvern, and Pegasus icons immediately follow the Affinity icons internally, which would normally mean you'd need to have three needlessly-blank slots for affinities to add more that can actually use custom icons. There are two solutions to this problem, and either one will do for my purposes. Is it known how to either... Change the pointer to where affinity icons start reading from the icon list, or Change the pointers used to get movement type icons for the status screen? Basically, I just want to split up the Affinity and Aid Type icons so I can add new Affinities without the three wasteful empty slots smack in the middle of things. I'm able and willing to use a hex editor for this if necessary! EDIT: Found out that FEBuilderGBA makes it extremely easy to implement the latter solution via the "Patches" section. Assistance is no longer required.

I'm making a small personal patch for FE8 (which I would be happy to release as an ips patch at some point if people are interested!) and one thing I want to do is make the Jump Festa event items available in the main game in some fashion, along with Alacalibur, the name of which I've already corrected to the clearly-intended Aircalibur. This in mind, if Aircalibur is to be used, the glitch in its animation that cuts the music off should obviously be fixed. Based on my admittedly rather limited knowledge of ROM hacking, it is something that seems like it would likely be caused by something simple, like an incorrect byte or two in the command list for the spell animation, but I don't actually know what I'd need to change, or to what, in order to fix the issue. Is it known what the source of this issue is? Have people fixed it before? Any help is much appreciated!

Okay so since this is my perfect Fire Emblem game I am taking that as a license to just be self-indulgent as all hell with it, so I am going to do so and nobody can stop me. A variety of different chapter objectives and types of map structure, with fun and meaningful side objectives within them like recruiting allies, reaching tough-to-get-to treasures, protecting NPCs, etc. Firstly, the game would return to the game progression setup used in Fire Emblems 1, 3, 5 ~ 7, and 9 ~ 12, with good-sized but not overly-large maps one after another with no overworld or hub area in-between. As a part of this, shops, arenas, houses, villages, etc. would be moved back onto battle maps, as would character recruitment. On that note, recruitable characters who aren't always affiliated with the main characters from the get-go, and who you meet and recruit (in a variety of different ways!) as you go through the game. This is one of the biggest things I really miss in Fire Emblem that's been drastically cut back since Awakening. A return to the class and leveling system used in... most of the series, really? With two "promotion" tiers and levels capping at 20 and resetting to 1 when a unit promotes. Also, reducing stat scaling back down to where having 30 in a non-HP stat is ridiculously high, like in the GBAFE games. Adding onto this, though, I do like "trainee"-type classes like Journeymen, Recruits, Pupils, and Valentian Villagers, so I'd love to have classes like those in a sort of "Tier 0". Branching promotions are fun, but make them work Sacred Stones-style so there's no backing out; you gotta commit to your choice! A return to the skill system used in the Jugdral and Tellius games, where skills are built into specific classes and characters innately and there's no class proficiency or learning skills by leveling up. Use skills to express the uniqueness of characters, and be another way of differentiating them! An Avatar who works like Byleth in dialogue scenes, but factors into the plot more like Mark or Kris, being just an assistant or retainer to the actual main character of the plot. I'd love a return to New Mystery's way of handling the gameplay side of customizing the Avatar, letting you choose their base class and assign stats via the character's past, present, and future, perhaps with the latter in this case being contextualized as their aspirations and affecting their endings. As for appearance stuff, you'd be able to choose the Avatar's hairstyle, face type, hair color, etc. just like in Awakening and Fates, but you'd also be able to choose skin color and eye color. For hair and eye color, you'd be able to get really granular about it and even input your own color hex code for them if you wanted, although presets would also be available for convenience's sake. Build customization options would also be broadened significantly, and you'd be able to choose your character's outfit from selections perhaps somewhat limited by your choice of class. They'd be split into categories like heavy armor, light armor, robes, and... whatever you'd classify stuff like Nils' bard outfit as? Regular-ish clothes? Gender would be a completely separate selection from your character's appearance, with support for nonbinary characters as well as male and female. On that note, I would want there to be good diversity in the cast, and have the characters be written well and treated compassionately. And this is in addition to the types of diversity Fire Emblem normally has, not instead of it. If absolutely nothing else, Fire Emblem games have massive casts and stories taking place on international scales! It's unrealistic for their casts not to be diverse, frankly. I could go either way on a second generation, but if there is one, it should... well, it should let you name the kid(s) attached to the Avatar for one thing, but more importantly, it should factor into the story the way Genealogy of the Holy War's second generation does. That is, a timeskip and a full-on shift in focus to the second generation, with no more returning playable characters from the first generation than you can count on one hand. And you know what? Sure, let the Avatar be one of them. Something needs to be done to keep them from coming in as a gamebreaker, but I don't really see a problem with them being playable in the second generation as well just in itself.

This sounds like something that would very quickly have apocalyptic consequences for your hack's stability if you wanna do it as that, although you are correct in that it should be simple to just generate a random number, then check it to determine what happens next. You may be better off just trying to do it in a different engine because of the kind of wreck it would be to actually implement in a hack.

@Alistair spoiler character number three from your list would be an excellent addition or accompanying GHB for another Fallen Heroes banner

Hmmm... I think the big one I've seen a lot of hate for that I couldn't understand that much is Donnel? I mean yeah, one of his critical/skill proc quotes in the English dub is a Larry the Cable Guy reference and all that, but I really don't see anything to hate about him, personally. He's just an earnest, hardworking kid with a kind heart and a good head on his shoulders. I suppose a lot of people probably just bench him due to the grinding it takes to get him up to par, so I can see where he'd end up largely overlooked because of that. This is definitely related, although not quite exactly the topic, but I really hate how obnoxiously-tribal people get regarding the four house leaders in FE3H (counting Rhea as the "house leader" of the Church). It's kind of the point that none of them are just cleanly good or evil no matter how you slice it, yet I've seen each of them (except Claude, who mainly gets other complaints) get interpreted as up there with the series' vilest villains; the likes of Valter and FE4 Hilda and such. It's just... Come on. Come on now.

Thank you! That's good to know! Having the length in chapters gives me a much better and more consistent way to keep track of how my progress relates to how much is left to do, so it's always nice for me to know!

Since I can't find this anywhere just yet, does anybody know how long Cindered Shadows is in terms of chapters? Famitsu gave a length in playtime, but that's not really particularly helpful to me.

Coming back because I forgot a few! If we're counting online friends/acquaintances, I know three Krises and a Fin (though with only one N and short for Finley), as well as a Douglas, a Raven, a Virgil, a Percival (with an i), a Camila (one L), and one person who goes by both Heather and Morgan. For more people I know or knew in person, there's a friend of a childhood friend who was named Anthony, and a kid in my old homeschool group from back when I was high school-aged was named Samuel. I also recall a Leo in that same group, vaguely. I actually don't even know if he was part of that group, I just know there was a Leo somewhere, in my life. My dad also has friends named Alan (with a second A) and Doug, though I'm actually not sure if that Doug's name is short for Douglas or if it's just Doug.

Hmm... — Characters I think should be in the game by now — Firstly, more Jugdral and canon Bow Cavalry characters in general but that's a bit broad. For a list of specific characters... Jill Julian Lena Hardin (uncorrupted lance cavalier) Heath Elice (as her own unit; Christmas Marth Guest-Starring Elice Lowell doesn't count) Nyna Elffin Say'ri Cecil Dedue (he's the only member of the House Leader Retainer Trio not in the game yet) Luthier Arlen Edain Erinys Medeus Dart Melady Edward Leonardo — Completely self-indulgent list of characters I personally want to have in the game with no regard for their notoriety or popularity — Roger Gonzalez Roshea Rickard Meg Hardin Benny Atlas Leila Hardin Azelle Horace Etzel Xane (although I do know they'd have to either ditch what's unique about him or program a complex new ability for a single unit) Nyx Yuzu Niime Fiona Mustafa Gangrel

I think CYL is a fun event, and while I can understand not wanting it to just be Lords and the odd character of equivalent popularity winning every time, I'm not really a fan of just counting the Lords out completely. I think the current setup of "each character is only eligible for one CYL alt and is removed from future polls" is fine, frankly. I want to say that I'd rather they have ranked voting, but that seems... impractical with the size of Fire Emblem's overall cast as a series. Maybe change how voting works so instead of getting thirteen votes on thirteen days, you pick your top thirteen characters and they each get a certain amount of "points" for that based on how high you ranked them?

I think Priscilla was the first Fire Emblem character I remember really taking a liking to, because, although I did have a guide to the game, I actually found Priscilla all by myself. I found her class for myself, too, since Troubadours don't otherwise appear until Chapter 16x/17x at the earliest. I thought she was really cool, and I'll admit I did have a bit of a crush on her as a little kid, back when I was actually younger than she's supposed to be

It sort of depends what you mean, I think. Final Fantasy as a series is almost certainly more popular than Fire Emblem, for example, but only a small subset of Final Fantasy games are SRPGs, and I don't know that that subset by itself eclipses FE in popularity. The impression I get is that Fire Emblem is the most popular primarily-Strategy RPG series in the west, but that's also not accounting for the way that what's popular among the broader gaming populace can differ from what's popular among, say, people who are specifically SRPG fans. Narrowing it down like that, I think it becomes considerably less likely that Fire Emblem is the most popular with that subgroup. Sort of like how SSB is almost certainly the most popular fighting game series overall but is almost certainly not the most popular among fighting game fans.

I feel like generally the individual scenes in RoS are fairly good and there's nothing really wrong with the acting, but the "big picture" narrative is a complete mess, which actually reflects my feelings on the entire new trilogy, come to think of it. I enjoyed watching the movie but I wouldn't consider it like, good, at least not by any objective measure. My thoughts on the whole bringing back Palpatine thing are that it really reminds me of Advent Children bringing back Sephiroth. That is to say, I think it would've been better to just let him stay dead honestly. That said, at least in Palpatine's case, he was just fine if one is to take him being present in the movie as a given. He does his creepy evil manipulative space wizard thing well enough, like always. There's not really a whole lot more to ask for from him. I realize there's really no good way around this due to Carrie Fisher's untimely passing, but it was also really obvious to me that Leia's scenes were all repurposed video intended for different contexts. It was odd to watch, but I don't exactly hold it against them 'cause I'm not really confident any of the alternatives would've been that much better. Overall, I think this trilogy really would've benefited from being planned out from start to finish at least to some degree before production began. As it is, the fact that it wasn't is, um... Very evident.

Same here, actually! I also have a grandfather named Robert, and an uncle named Scott. For people I'm not related to, I have managers at work named Athena, Amy, Julian, and Kevin (Kieran's Japanese name, for any who aren't aware), although in Julian's case the J is pronounced like an H. My old judo instructor's name was Randy, and his wife's name was Maria. I also knew a Jake as a kid, and the mother of one of my brother's friends is named Sue.

Hmmm... Here's what I'd do, personally: Nyna and Maria would both become Troubadour/Valkyrie-line classes. In Nyna's case, it's sort of to combine her final class with her original planned one (Paladin), while for Maria it's just to make her stand out more as a unit after you've already recruited three infantry staff-users. Matthis would become a Wyvern Rider to create a reason to use him as a unit, and because, as a(n unwilling) member of Macedon's military, he's really the only candidate if a tier 1 Wyvern-riding character is to be included. If Cavaliers are getting split up based on weapon types Jugdral/Tellius-style, then Cain becomes a Sword Knight, Abel a Lance Knight, and Frey an Axe Knight. Wolf and Sedgar are demoted to Arch Knights/Nomads/Bow Knights/the tier 1 bow cavalry class in Shadow Dragon. Barst would start as a Pirate in New Mystery. Gonna second the idea of Arlen being a Dark Mage since that does add some additional narrative power. Yuliya and Jubelo (god I still hate that the translated names broke their naming scheme) would trade base classes, with Yuliya becoming a Mage and Jubelo becoming a Curate, to better reflect their personalities. Elice would either become or uniquely promote into a Priestess, as in, the Valentian promotion for female Mages, capable of using swords, tomes, and staves.

Favorites: RPGs, especially classic turn-based JRPGs Whatever genre the mainline Zelda games are Platformers Least Favorites: Anything first-person. I just hate first-person as a camera perspective in general Horror... I actually don't know if this counts as a genre of game or just a genre of subject matter, but in any medium I don't have the stomach for it at all Y'know what... on that note, I'm generally more deterred by subject matter than by gameplay genre when it comes to games. Like, there are some types of gameplay I like more than others but I can derive enjoyment out of most of them provided the specific game is a well-designed instance of that genre.

There's really nobody I actually actively dislike, but I find Alm and especially Deen kind of boring. In terms of gameplay, Valbar and Nomah were both really disappointing for me, although admittedly Valbar is helped a great deal by the Trainee's Lance.

So it's entirely possible I just am misremembering this as even ever being a thing, but I vaguely recall there being something along the lines of people having hacked/datamined the Hidden Truths DLC and figuring out that Anankos's 3D model uses Dwyer's head model with Azura's hair color under the hood or something like that? Did I just imagine that, or was that actually something someone discovered and posted somewhere?

I think the only Lord I really dislike would be Corrin. They're just a really, really boring and badly-written character whose only potentially-interesting qualities are either implemented into their character really poorly or just not accounted for at all. It doesn't help that M!Corrin's voice is... off. I find it kinda abrasive, personally. I only ever select the Yuri Lowenthal voice (Voice 2) for M!Corrin for this reason. Honorable(?) mention goes to Ephraim, as, while I don't dislike him, he's just really not compelling or interesting to me at all. In gameplay he's kinda cool, but character-wise, he's very hard for me to connect to or get invested in. Aside from that, I pretty much at least sorta like every Lord, for various reasons. I think they all kinda have cool traits to them.