dragonlordsd

Yes. I can confirm that I was able to recruit Ingrid with an E rank in Flying, and Marianne with an E rank in Riding. Both were at B support, but even though I got both up to B support in the same month, I could only recruit one per month. Importantly, they will ask you to join your house, rather than you asking them. The "Recruit" option still shows up for normal students even after recruiting one of them. However, the "recruit" option disappeared for knights after I recruited Shamir, so I think it's one per month for them. Also, even though I have 15 mag, and C rank Faith, I can't recruit either Annette or Lystheia, even with C support for both of them, so I think the stat requirements are higher than that.

Hey guys, I've confirmed that you don't actually need any stats to recruit students. They join you automatically if you have at least a B rank support with them. I think you only need stats if you want to recruit more than one student per month. Also, you can recruit at least one knight per month in addition to recruiting a student.

Seconded. Full voice acting is SO much better than just grunts and nods. Really helps the characters feel more fleshed out.

As one of this game's earliest naysayers (something easily proven by my forum posts), I'm happy to say that my doubts were misplaced and so far, I am LOVING this game. So, here's a quick thread for people to list all of the things that they really like about this game. For me, the way grinding is handled here is probably the best I've seen so far. If the game must have grinding, this is the best way I've seen it done. See, although you can grind infinitely, you cannot PROMOTE your units while you are grinding. You have to stop grinding in order to do this. I really like how that caps out how much grinding you can actually do in one go. As opposed to say, the tower of Valni, which you could just repeat infinitely. Also, you have to give up a time slot to grind, making it a recruiting trade off. Additionally, if you want your units to switch to something they can't do at all (like, magic for byleth), you can't just grind it. Some skills can only be built up to their minimum levels via seminars and other activities. But notably, those activities don't increase your stats, so it's a good trade off. What are some other things people like?

Generally speaking (there are exceptions of course), you have a much better chance for several reasons. First, the manager of the store will know in advance exactly how many copies they're getting. The copies have to be shipped to the store, so the store will be able to look and see "hey, we're supposed to have 13 copies, but we're only getting 12." Often times, they can report this and get an extra copy ordered. Second, if they can't get more, there's a VERY good chance that either someone who ordered a copy will not pick it up, or (more likely) someone will order a copy from a different store in the area and not pick it up. Thus, they can give you that dude's copy instead, or at least tell you which store you can go to to get a copy. Third, it's possible someone will just return a copy, possibly unopened. Again, they will usually let you know, and you can pick it up. Finally, if all else fails, they're usually much better about notifying you in advance if something goes wrong. It's also not possible to have your order canceled because of a pay pal issue or your card declined.

Well, first, it IS hard mode. But yeah, sounds like it's rng. If you've got a few chars that will level up immediately, try resetting until you stat fix a bit. I can't say yet how OCD you need to be about stat fixing. I was doing it a ton in Echoes, but it turned out to be pointless because you could literally just use fountains to immediately fix your dudes.

It's called the Zelda Effect, and it's a real phenomenon. Basically, every Zelda game gets amazing reviews (90+ on metacritic), and then everyone forgets about it in, like a year or two. Most people point to Twilight princess as the starting point for it, and I agree with them. I literally remember nothing about that game, and it scored way higher than a ton of games I do care about. That said, Breath of the Wild does seem to be more... lasting than usual contenders (skyward sword, link to the past, etc.) Especially in this day and age, when you can watch so many trailers/let's plays, it's really easy to judge a game's merit for yourself. Unless there's some huge flaw later, like, "this game makes you think it's 40 hours long, but in reality, it ends abruptly after 10," or "halfway through, the game loses all the fun elements and just becomes crappy", most games are exactly what they seem on the surface.

Going to diverge a bit here, but I always preferred the binding blade/blazing sword duology. These games for me struck the best balance between allowing me to have unit customization and still making the characters make sense (I've always been a huge critic of class changing). One of the major things that I really dislike about awakening and birthright is how small scale the maps have become. I don't think there's a single map in awakening that took me more than 6 turns to clear, and same for birthright. Compare this to past games, especially binding blade, which had both the largest roster of any game (discounting radiant dawn, since at no point in the game can you ever access the entire roster at once), and also the largest map of any game, with the battle against murdock having well over 120 enemies. It really felt like you were fighting a battle, though I understand that that scale isn't for everyone.

I'm mostly posting this because I figured it has a lot of elements that my fellow Fire Emblem fans might enjoy. So, last week, the Last Remnant remastered launched for the nintendo switch for just $20, so pretty darn cheap. I'll say right off the bat that this is the video game I have put the most hours into out of any single game. Steam tells me that I'm at over 700 hours. That's not to say this is the "best" video game, or even my favorite, just that I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of it, and so I thought other people might too. But, I can't be sure. See, the thing about the Last Remnant is it's got some flaws as well as strengths. Here's a quick summary of it, see what you think: The Last Remnant is basically like a normal turn-based rpg, with some strategy elements. It's similar to the Legend of Heroes series, in that it's turn-based combat, but also has location based elements in the battlefield (ie, you have to move guys around and you have aoe attacks and similar mechanics). Where it differs from basically all other video games is that you don't control a party of 4-5 people. Instead you control 4-5 squads, each of which is comprised of 4-5 different people. There are around 50 unique characters to recruit, and all of them have their own stats, weapons, special abilities, etc. There are four different races, including four armed cat people and giant fish. The characters are all really unique and interesting, and the battle system can be a lot of fun. Now we hit the problems. First, when the game launched, it launched for the Xbox 360, and a LOT of the mechanics were utter garbage. This led to it mostly being ignored until it launched on steam, and its pc version fixed the majority of these issues, some of which are amazingly stupid (like being only able to have 5 unique characters in your active party and being forced to fill the rest of your army with faceless generics). So most of that got resolved. Now for the things that didn't get fixed: The story is bad. Seriously, I'm not even going to try to defend the main plot. It's not just that the plot itself is bad on paper (it is), but it's also terrible in execution. Many cutscenes are rushed, badly composed, too long, and sometimes completely nonsensical. But even if the cutscenes weren't so bad, the writing is still bad. Many character motivations make no sense, things come completely out of nowhere, it's just bad. I hated the plotline of Fire Emblem Fates, but believe me when I say that in comparison those games look like the height of good writing. The good news is twofold. First, the main plot takes up only a small fraction of the actual game. Second, the world building, character writing, and side quests are all really engaging and well written. But yeah, the main plot is just terrible. Next, we have the fact that you HAVE to use a game guide to play this game. At a rough estimate, I'd say 60% of the content of this game is optional. This includes 5 whole cities (of 13), dozens of side quests, and 3/4 of recruitable characters. Not only that, but much of this is PERMANENTLY missable. So, if you want to see everything this game has to offer, you basically have to use a game guide. Fortunately, the Wikia has an excellent walkthrough, but if you're the sort of person who hates using guides, this may be a turn off. Anyway, just wanted to give this game a shout out if anyone's interested.

Yeah, that's the thing about video game development. A game looks like crap, right up until the point that it doesn't, and suddenly it looks good. People were worried about the visuals, but you really shouldn't judge until you play it yourself. Very excited for this, I can't wait.

Fortunately, it looks like the damage was not as bad as people feared. Most of the art was saved, and the cathedral is still structurally sound. Also, as many people have pointed out, Notre Dame has been damaged many times throughout its history, and this may not even be the worst it has seen. Just a quick glance over wikipedia gives the following examples: "A colossal statue of St Christopher, standing against a pillar near the western entrance and dating from 1413, was destroyed in 1786." "The spire, which had been damaged by the wind, was removed in the second part of the 18th century." "During this time, many of the treasures of the cathedral were either destroyed or plundered. The twenty-eight statues of biblical kings located at the west façade, mistaken for statues of French kings, were beheaded." "All of the other large statues on the facade, with the exception of the statue of the Virgin Mary on the portal of the cloister, were destroyed." "The cathedral was functioning in the early 19th century, but was half-ruined inside and battered throughout." "The stone masonry of the cathedral's exterior had deteriorated in the 19th and 20th century due to increased air pollution in Paris, which accelerated erosion of decorations and discolored the stone. By the late 1980s, several gargoyles and turrets had also fallen off or become too loose to remain in place." So, it'll probably be alright. That said, if the towers had collapsed, things would have been much, much worse, so it was a close call there. And obviously, most of the artwork would have been irreplaceable.

Agreed. The steel book and special edition cover look fantastic, so that's good. But good lord that main box art. So, for starters, the entire bottom half is purple. Which is fine, because it sort of matches the Byleths. And it works thematically, because you have Edelgard with red on the right, and Dmitri with blue on the left. Ok. But then Claude is randomly upside down and bright yellow. Just.... why? Why is he upside down in the main art too? Seriously?

This touches on a bizarre but harsh truth that there is a huge difference between what people SAY they want and what they ACTUALLY pay for. Heck, just look at Fire Emblem. Fire emblem awakening/fates is the best selling game in the series. Shadows of Valentia is the worst selling game since Thracia, selling even less than the Japan-only ds game. I mean... wow. People may complain, may say what they want, but at the end of the day, money talks, and companies have to listen if they don't want to go broke.

Yeah, the phrasing of that question is SUPER loaded. From an absolutely LITERAL standpoint, a child would absolutely be "disadvantaged" in the sense that they would have access to fewer raw resources that an additional support figure would provide, such as time, money, connections, etc. But that's not the only interpretation of that question. As you pointed out, there is the implication that the child would be affected mentally or psychologically which has a completely different meaning than the literal context of the question.

Yeah, that wouldn't be too bad. I'm mostly hoping they avoid most of the stereotypes that wouldn't make sense for the time period. Harry Potter made some interesting decisions I could see being extended, so here's hoping. @Zihark11 I'm completely with you on the reclassing, but like you said, it's usually optional. I mean, there are already so many jokes being made about Edelgard reclassing to brigand, and, to be fair, they are pretty funny.

So, a lot of people have been talking about the issues they feel this game will probably have, whether they don't like the style, don't like the obvious influences from other games, etc. etc. For me, though, my biggest problem is that I feel like this game is going to waste its ideas. Of course, I have to add the caveat that like almost everyone else, I know very little about this game. In fact, I'd love to be proven wrong. And possibly, in spite of my complaints, this game may still be really good without giving me what I want. But at the same time, I feel like this game is such a waste of an opportunity. A lot of people have complained about the game's school setting, and I feel like it's pretty central to the objections people are having about the series' direction. But for me, I think that a game set in a school could be absolutely fascinating. The problem I have is not that this game is set in a school, but rather that from everything we've seen so far, this game seems to be set in a HIGH SCHOOL. Specifically, it seems to be set in a Japanese high school. A very stereotypical Japanese high school. In fact, I would not be surprised if there was some form of "club activities." And possibly even (shudder) a "school festival." The thing is, this seems to me to be such a missed opportunity, just because of how fascinating a REALISTIC medieval school could be. Education in the middle ages was radically different from modern education. Indeed, it sprung out of a hybrid of monastic life and the mercantile guild system. "Scholastic guilds" had more in common with kung-fu monks than what we think of as schools. Even just browsing wikipedia reveals a ton of interesting facts, like that professors were granted actual papal bulls from Rome certifying their "right" to teach other people (from which we derive diplomas). Students were not obligated to attend classes, but rather would organize themselves based on which teacher they would become a disciple (lit. student) of. A "university" was not a physical place, but a collection of students following a single teacher or ideology or field. I think a lot could be done with these ideas, but I feel like they really won't be used. But who knows. Maybe what we get will be better than my ideas. I hope so. But I just think there are cool ways of doing things that are just not being used. What do you guys think?

I'll give you St. Elimine's, that was handled really well, and Rausten's wasn't so bad either. But Mila and Duma regular members don't get credit for just being... well, regulars, if the core of the church is still mustache-twirlingly evil. My point was that it's the conflicts between people that are the most compelling, and if there have to be religious conflicts, it's better to take them from reality. Even religious conflicts like the crusades were in response to other events, such as the advance of Seljuk empire.

Me too! And not someone who's really old either! Seriously, group of teens versus random old dude is the most common thing ever. Evil teenagers. That's what I want here.

Frustratingly, you're probably right. I mean, I hope this goes all Geneology, and all of the houses are actually more morally grey, but this feels like more fates 2.0.

This is a JRPG, of course they're evil. Also, they are of course servants of an evil god, that wants to bind our heroes to the shackles of fate, blah, blah, blah.... I HOPE I'm wrong. I hope that we're actually fighting other nations with compelling villains with complex motives, but it does really look like we're just fighting the Grimleal, I mean, Duma Faithful, I mean Ashera, I mean... you get it.

Makes complete sense. This also feels like it's running on the warriors engine, so yeah, I can see them pitching in. As people said, Tecmo is probably handling all of the crowd mechanics for the squads that follow the characters.

They seem to be having a lot of trouble with the lighting. If you look at the ground in the trailer, a lot of the shadows are coming out at weird angles, and a lot of the speculars are blowing out on the armor. There's a section where you can see one dude's face reflected in byleth's shoulder pads. It's also giving an overly flat look in some sections. Still, lighting is literally one of the last things they need to do, and they've got a few months to clean it up. I think the designs are solid, but again, just need more cleaning and polish.

I would not be surprised. I mean, hair is never super fun in the first place.

Dragon Quest XI S was made by Square Enix, which, and I don't know if you know this, so just so we're clear, is A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT COMPANY. Sarcasm aside, DQ9 was made with Unreal Engine 4, which is literally the best thing since Fox. While it hasn't been highlighted a lot, its scaling is pretty darn amazing.

There are a lot of good reasons why movies are the way they are, but here are a few things to think about: 1. Movies cost a ton more to make, so studios aren't going to take as many risks. Studios these days are more and more going "all in" on films, and as such, the amount of executive oversight is increasingly insane. It's really hard to work when all of your decisions are constantly being questioned. While Disney has cemented itself enough to allow some risks to be taken with their more outlying properties (like letting Taika Watiti direct Thor, or having their darker series like Daredevil run for a bit), most other studios are really pulling back. 2. People will buy generic films. This is kind of painful to admit, but it is a sad truth. Transformers, Fast and Furious, and so on... they make money. It sucks, but that's just how it is. Netflix reported that people watched 1 billion hours of Adam Sandler films, which is just depressing. 3. The more people who work on a film, the more likely you are to get the same people working on the different films. As special effects get pushed further and further, movies need more and more people to make all of the special effects. Ergo, the credit sequences get longer and longer. But here's the thing: there aren't that many artists in the world who can work at the level needed for Hollywood films. If you've got 1,000 cg artists working on Avengers, that's a pretty big chunk of the industry. And the more that expands, the more you're going to get the same people working on films, and doing things the exact same way. For example, take Maciej. He's an amazing artist. I love his work. He's fantastic. BUT. He's been the key concept artist for Jurassic World, Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ghost in the Shell, Captain America, Kong: Skull Island, and so on and so on. Now, there were a bunch of artists working on those with him, but the same can be said about each of them. And if all the visuals are being done by the same people over and over, you start seeing the same look everywhere. Finally: 4. You didn't see most of the original and interesting movies. Seriously, there are so many movies made every year that NOBODY watches. Most of them are crap. But a good number are amazing. Netflix is particularly terrible about this, because finding new and interesting movies is amazingly difficult. There are a massive number of hidden gems on Netflix, but they're utterly buried beneath Netflix's garbage recommendation system, which spams you with the same crap over and over. If you want to find something interesting, try looking up "movies on Netflix you've never heard of" or "hidden gems on Netflix" Then don't click on any of the first ten results. Just do some digging and see what you come up with.