[Regarding Permadeath in FE]

On 7/25/2023 at 8:54 PM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I'm gonna disagree, insofar as I feel that certain design choices actually incentivize players to make less-than-optimal gameplay choices, for narrative payoff. Looking back at Three Houses, for instance, there's no reason not to recruit Hanneman and Manuela. They're essentially free, they have a paralogue, and while not great units, they can contribute in certain contexts. If nothing else, they can stick around for faculty training. But! On Azure Moon alone, they show up as enemies, if not recruited. This actually gives the player a motive - by not recruiting them, they make the story more interesting, and raise the stakes for that one chapter. It also gives those particular chatacters the feeling of more agency, outside of just being Teach's auxilliaries. Of course, the player can instead recruit them - and probably ought to, in raw gameplay terms. But even if few players see it, having these former allies show up as enemies - with their own statlines and dialogue - was a neat touch, and I was glad to see it in the game.

Yeah I definitely agree with you on this, and 3H definitely does some good things in this regard. I'd also point out the line Dorothea has after AM/VW Myrrdin if Ferdinand isn't recruited; this line has received a lot of praise, and it's only possible to see by recruiting one optional character but not another, so in that sense it's pretty niche (granted, the first character is much easier to recruit than the second, so it ends up more common than you might expect).

However, I definitely don't think players are as likely to kill their characters off than just not recruiting them, for something like this. It feels bad. It's obviously most easily seen in Shadow Dragon; I'm sure it's a bit more common here because we're all FE mega-fans, but I've been in a community where I was literally the only person who had seen the Shadow Dragon side chapters, despite a lot of us playing the game.

I do agree with @Jotari's point that it's not that hard to add a small number of lines acknowledging player unit deaths, as per 3H monastery dialog. It's nice, even. I just think in this particular case, it's a losing trade for "and now you have to write the story in such a way that any contributions to the story by supporting characters needs to be able to be ignored/written out if necessary". To return to 3H, a common complaint I have seen (and agree with) is that Dedue isn't adequately involved in the story of Azure Moon, despite his importance both to Dimitri personally and to Duscur. And this is basically because he can permanently die; because of this, his contributions either need to be insignificant enough that the main story is the same whether he's there or not, or you need to write two versions of the story, and the latter is too much work for something most players won't see.

[Are the low exp Dawn Brigade chapters a problem that needs to be fixed?]

10 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Building off of this, it's actually like the Dawn Brigade starts at 17th place, but picks up a few ringers and astounds the world by finishing in first! ...In Part I. By Part III, they've been "promoted" to the big leagues. Without any practice between then and now, and the loss of a few key players, they really struggle to even survive.

Yes, good point, part 1 really does add a lot to them in this regard, and gets you invested in them. And part 3 really does have a "now you've graduated to the big leagues" feel to it; their story went from one played on a local stage to one that is deeply connected to a conflict which spans all of Tellius.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but Iong thought that part 1 of Radiant Dawn alone does "Typlcal FE Plot" better than most other FE games before it, despite (or perhaps because of) taking only half the time at most to do it. Obviously it has a big advantage in that it builds off a previous game for setting (so we don't need as much time devoted to that), but otherwise it gets the job done effectively, making all the major players memorable and relatable. So by the time Micaiah and friends are thrown into the awful situation of trying to balance all they've gained with the need to fight a war they want no part of, I'm invested in this struggle precisely because I've seen how hard-earned and important those gains were.

[Maddening mode play through]

Maddening is definitely harder than Hard 0% growths.

Just looked up the stats for CF endgame... most enemies have somewhere around +10 atk, +10 spd, +13 HP, and +5 def (give or take) on Maddening. Will growths make up for that? Take speed. On 0% growths, everyone will have either 16 (most master classes) or 20 (those who train flying) base speed, before any modifiers. What about with growths? Well, take Ferdinand. He has 8 base speed, and 50% speed growth. Assuming he gains 40 levels, that's 28 base speed. His relative speed compared to enemies is thus basically the same as in Maddening as on 0% growths Hard, a little more or less depending on his class choice and class modifers to growths. Similar arguments can be made involving other stats, though they're more complicated because damage always involves more stats interacting.

Of course, that's endgame. The earlier you go in the game, the less growths matter. Taken to an extreme, at the start of the game, 0% growths does nothing. There's no question that Chapter 1 is far harder on Maddening than on Hard 0% growths. Not only that, but every time you reach a new tier (but especially Advanced) your stats automatically update to partly make up for the lack of growths.

And then there's the non-stat things. As @Shanty Pete's 1st Mate already mentioned, there are enemy skills. Archers having Poison Strike, thieves having Pass, and various enemy classes having breaker+ skills all serve to make them much more dangerous than they would be without them. Then there's the fact that you gain more passive instruction exp on Hard than Maddening, allowing you to access classes and skills more easily (Weight-3 alone means some characters will actually be faster on the 0% growths run for a while, if they're able to get it on Hard due to the extra training available). And finally, there are the battles themselves. Maddening features, in particular, reinforcements who act immediately upon appearing, and this makes things like the Chapter 5 ambush much tougher than it is on Hard. 

Having said all that, they are different experiences and you should do which one appeals to you more. Hard 0% growths is much easier than Maddening early, but will likely be almost as difficult as Maddening by the end; you might prefer that challenge curve to the one in Maddening itself. It'll also change which characters are more useful; if you're a fan of Petra, you might prefer a growths run, but if you're a fan of Alois, he shines more on 0%.

[Dark Emblems. More like Disappointing Emblems!]

Yeah, the extent of the dark emblems seems to be that you can completely annihilate them with their chosen rival (and the classes support this, like Duma being held by a General so your Celica-user, presumably a mage, demolishes him extra hard).

For that reason, I think it's fair not to expect class matching, in that these aren't actually the emblems themselves you're fighting, just generic corrupted who happen to be holding them (like the ones in Chapter 11). I do agree that engage weapons might have been fun.

I also have some issues with how the battle goes structurally. The first time I did that battle, I only saw the first two rounds of dark emblems; since then I've only ever seen the first. So yes, I've never seen the third set of emblems, and I've certainly talked to others who shared my experience. Now, on the one hand, I'm personally glad I didn't see the third, because I already felt the final battle was longer than I'd like (especially with the completely needless first stage; granted you can Entrap-skip that). On the other hand, I think it's disappointing that I haven't seen them. I'm not really sure what the solution is.

[Are the low exp Dawn Brigade chapters a problem that needs to be fixed?]

3 hours ago, lenticular said:

From a storytelling perspective, the issue with the Dawn Brigade isn't that they're a bunch of plucky underdogs; it's that they never really grow out of this status. It's like having an underdog sports story where the team ends up finishing 17th in their league. Which on the one hand, of course they did! They had no experience, equipment or facilities. It's the realistic outcome. But on the other hand, did we really want the realistic outcome? Typically, the whole point of underdog stories is the triumph against adversity. And the Dawn Brigade doesn't really have that. They just muddle along as best they can and then the other better armies come along and save the day.

I'd say the analogy is closer to a sports story in a league with relegation, in which the Dawn Brigade finishing 17th is still an accomplishment because the 18th-place team meets a much worse fate. And then, I dunno, maybe some of their star players are chosen for the all-star game or something. There's a reason this isn't as well-travelled a trope, but I still enjoyed it fairly well as a one-off. The part 3 maps are very satisfying to survive, the the Greil Mercs showing up in 3-13 is a wonderful "oh shit" moment which nevertheless requires some player interaction.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I guess I'm surprised and not surprised. I mainly just remember Tauroneo being able to single handedly tank a ledge on the left part of the following map, so I assumed he was still pretty decent by that point.

Yeah, Tauroneo is absolutely decent at that point. More than decent, I'd expect him to be one of your very best units (basically losing only to someone who was favoured considerably in previous maps). The stats posted aren't intended as a condemnation of him, just to observe how Goran would just be ridiculously good for the DB at that point (I'm pretty sure he'd one round every enemy on 3-12, many of them with a Hand Axe, all while having better bulk than the team's overlevelled General). And this is just the result of being designed as a boss for the Ike's team, which by this point features units who are in late tier 2, maybe even a few in tier 3, while the DB are probably still in early tier 2.

And of course it's not just Goran. The generic enemies you face in 3-11, who are Daein soldiers, would all be largely better units than the ones you have in the DB maps (supports aside). I think you just have to not take this too literally for the story to make sense.

[Are the low exp Dawn Brigade chapters a problem that needs to be fixed?]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Tauroneo is a lv 14 General at base, and you have like two part 1 chapters with him by that point. So Goran is almost certainly a higher level than him too. Though Tauroneo might be statistically better.

Goran's got much better stats than Tauroneo, actually

(Level HP Str Mag Skl Spd Luck Def Res)

Tauroneo*

Lance General

14

38

24

12

22

20

18

21

15

 

Goran

Warrior

17

50

28

5

24

25

11

22

13

On top of this, Goran has +1 move and isn't weak to Hammers. So, if Goran joined your army in 3-12 he'd be your best combat unit by far. It's a bit of a weird disconnect.

I will say that overall I agree with your original post and don't really mind the feeling of the Dawn Brigade as underlevelled underdogs. Their maps are some of the most fun in the game to me, though I understand why someone would dislike them if they're used to stomping things. I do think they could have probably have afforded to give you a bit more of a power boost in part 3, e.g. with a new recruit, especially since they don't even give you Tauroneo for 3-6. I think they were trying to make you feel like the Black Knight was bailing you out, but honestly the way the map works I rarely find him that relevant, either I die before he appears or I get the map under control and he isn't able to do very much because of all the water.

[Rate the Unit 11: Yunaka]

12 minutes ago, samthedigital said:

The trick is to play fast enough to get to the next energy circle before the engage meter runs out. If you aren't able to do that I can see why you'd find more use in the dragon veins.

Strongly agree with this. Additionally, the higher move lets you reach those energy circles more quickly/easily, and since the Corrin-user improves massively while engaged, that's a good thing. In the case of Ivy (or Hortensia), you're even guaranteed a useful action on the turn you grab emblem energy, because of staff access.

Mind, I do still think a Mystic (e.g. Sage) with Corrin is a decent option too - the fire dragon vein is nice now and then, you still have access to 3-range Dreadful Aura, and you still make use of the magic boost.

I definitely agree that Thief doesn't feel like it's making good use of Corrin's kit. Lower move, no 3 range, can't take advantage of the magic boost.

[Regarding Permadeath in FE]

On 7/24/2023 at 11:50 AM, Integrity said:

dark deity, while the story was embarrassingly bad, had a huge improvement on permadeath. it had permanent stat penalties knock onto units if they 'died' but a unit wouldn't ever leave the roster, just become unusably bad if you kept losing them, and this let the mc and his tobin-character have a growing, plot-centric relationship through the entire game without having to have a big asterisk on the * (if garrick is alive) on about half the chapters in the game or having a flag that garrick retreats instead of dying but, i dunno, alden's fucked and just eats it if you lose him. i think fire emblem would do far better to crib this and trim the casts a bit rather than trucking on with permadeath because that's how it's always been.

Yeah I was deifnitely struck by this when playing Dark Deity. While I'm not a fan of the overall story either, I appreciated how story scenes naturally integrated the playable characters, and in some cases they were even able to have little arcs. By contrast Fire Emblem tends to awkwardly have the stories only truly be about the few characters who can't die (the lords and certain key other players) because every other character can potentially not be present, and it's definitely a bit limiting.

Personally I think that while Classic Mode is cool (I play it almost exclusively, after all), I think there's no need for plot permadeath. Engage already allowed six characters to be injured rather than die (plus a few more on a temporary basis, e.g. Alcryst until you reach Solm), just expand that treatment to the entire cast already and be done with it.

15 hours ago, Jotari said:

Path of Radiance provides quite a bit of dialogue based around character death. Most famously in its supports, but also a lot of the early game keeps track on whether certain Greil Mercenaies died in a given chapter with Greil admonishing Ike for it.

Yep, it does, and certainly other Fire Emblems could pick this up again... but honestly, I understand why they don't. There's an issue in game writing; you only have so much time to spend on it, so why would you spend significant time on content that the overwhelming number of players don't see? I suspect the devs learned that hardly anyone sees these extra little dialog branches in PoR so decided not to bother in the future. And I agree with the decision; the time the writing team spent on those could have been better spent on more support conversations or info conversations.

To be clear, I think there's a space for a game which focuses on the branching possibilities of who is alive and who isn't, but Fire Emblem isn't the game to do it (barring a significant change in the design philosophy of the games), because the huge majority of the playerbase either plays on Casual, or (usually) resets on unit death... and even out of the small group which plays these games ironman-style, many will never lose the exact units needed to see a given dialog branch.

1 hour ago, Florete said:

However, I do wish there was some middle ground between permadeath and casual mode that still incentivized not letting units fall in battle. That, to me, is the true value of permadeath, but it's something you can achieve without permadeath.

Agreed. And also, it's worth noting that numerous strategy RPGs do things like this.

• money cost for reviving/healing a unit if they fall in battle (seen in Shining Force, Vandal Hearts)
• ranking penalty for losing units, which is translates to less money and thus is similar to the above in practice but may have a different feel (seen in Mario + Rabbids)
• random permanent stat penalty to a unit if they fall in battle (seen in Dark Deity)
• unit is injured and must sit out the next battle to recover (seen in Brigandine and Fell Seal)

Other possibilities exist; you could have some sort of stamina system (like Thracia) where falling in battle creates a big stamina penalty. Specifics on exactly how stamina recovers could vary. Anyway, I certainly wouldn't mind if Fire Emblem played around with the idea.

[Should Casual Mode have been introduced sooner?]

9 hours ago, lenticular said:

With the benefit of hindsight, it should have been there right from the original Famicom Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. It's a popular feature that a lot of people like, that increase accessibility, and -- importantly -- has no impact at all on people who prefer not to use it.

Without the benefit of hindsight, I'd say they got things about right. They started off with the design intent that people would play ironman style, then when they noticed that people weren't doing that, they tried various different workarounds or incentives before coming up with casual mode (and later time rewind) as a solution that works.

This is about how I feel. All I will add is that while it's clear the devs wanted Fire Emblem to be played ironman style, there's a reason that never happened - if you make a bunch of characters with unique names and faces, players will get attached to them and want to keep them alive.

9 hours ago, Imuabicus der Fertige said:

It never needed to exist.

It´s just a worse reset.

It's a reset that doesn't cost a large chunk of time, which is a big deal to a lot of players. Not everyone has time to retry a map which can easily take an hour. IMO, if Casual Mode wasn't going to exist, mid-map saves (which notably appeared in both of the last two Fire Emblems before we got casual mode... and in FE4) definitely should.

 

Regarding XCOM vs Fire Emblem, agreed that despite their similarities, they do some very different things and it's not hard to find someone who likes one and not the other, for a slew of reasons.

5 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said:

I'm all for more options and modes of play, even when it's an option I will never select. But I think a lot about how three of my close personal friends got their start on casual mode Awakening. None of them picked up any fire emblem game since. Yet the one friend that got his start borrowing my copy of Path of Radiance - and Radiant Dawn after he finished? He gave Three Houses a shot and stuck it out to the end. Wants to try out FE7 on the Switch once he has time. Just wants to re-experience that magic of that first playthrough. And every buddy I let try out Sacred Stones/FE7 back in middle school was obsessed and repeatedly asking to loan it for the years that I still knew them. I think Classic mode just leaves a stronger impression and understanding of Fire Emblem as a strategy game more than "Just another rpg". And since a lot of those friends that lapsed after Awakening still play and love Xcom, permadeath might actually be the difference. 

I definitely have some opposite anecdotal experience here - I have friends who started with Awakening/Fates/3H who had previously ignored the series because of being intimidated by permadeath, and are now big fans. And while I can't prove it, I suspect this experience is quite common.

[How should Marth use the Binding Shield in Smash Bros.?]

7 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I mean, there wasn't much change by the time of Melee, yet they still gave Marth and Roy a chance.

If Marth had been included, they could just not add either of Luigi or Jigglypuff.

The big difference with Melee is that the roster was now about double in size, so more slots were available to represent different Nintendo franchises.

Luigi and Jigglypuff were/are both extremely popular characters. Mario and Pokemon were (and honestly still are) waaay ahead of other Nintendo franchises in terms of impact. Sure, you could cut one of them for a Japan-only character, but we shouldn't be even the slightest bit surprised that the Smash devs opted not to do so.

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Fire Emblem had already proven itself a pretty successful title with four games and a spin off by the time Smash 64 was out. Definitely would have been a bigger name than Earthbound, which despite getting an international release, didn't actually do that well.

Yeah, Ness vs. Marth is definitely one you could argue. I dunno about it being "definitely" a bigger name than Earthbound; the most successful Fire Emblem sold 780k, while Earthbound was at 660k. (Granted, "rest of the Fire Emblem series" also outsells "rest of Mother" due to number of titles alone; I'm not looking up specifics.) That's a lead but not a huge one, certainly it's close enough that other considerations might win out.

I would generally agree that Ness is the most surprising member of the Smash 64 roster. Marth, to me, would be about equally surprising.

[No House Stands Equal - Three Houses' Difficulty from a Design Perspective]

I decided to go look at the battalions unique to each route based on the ratings thread. I didn't include non-unique paralogue battalions, because I'm strongly of the opinion that you can get those without difficulty if desired; while it is difficult to recruit people ASAP, recruiting someone in mid to late part 1 is extremely easy outside of a challenge run. The one exception worth mentioning is Goneril Valkyries, just because you can't get that one on Crimson Flower and its score of 8.28 is high enough to make this notable. But anyway, the main ones to consider:

Golden Deer:
1. Immortal Corps 9.56 (Chp 13)
2. Alliace Wyvern Co 8.18 (Chp 8 )

Blue Lions:
1. King of Lions Corps 8.88 (Chp 13)
2. Duscur Heavy Soldiers 7.54 (part 1 paralogue)

Black Eagles
1. Supreme Armored Co 8.31 (Chp 12)
2. Empire Archers 7.64 (Chp 3)

After this the next-highest is actually Empire Magic Users but in general a whole bunch follow at once at this point: the Chapter 8 magic battalions, the Impregnable Wall battalions for the Eagles/Lions (the Deer already had theirs up at 8.18), Blue Lions Dancers, Empire Pegasus, and Kingdom Archers all fall close to 7.

Anyway I do think this comparison favours the Deer a bit, because their lord battalion and Impregnable Wall battalion are significantly better than the equivalents from other houses. But I do think Empire Archers also deserves specific note, because you get it in Chapter 3.

[How should Marth use the Binding Shield in Smash Bros.?]

Given how tight roster spots were, Marth would have been an odd choice for Smash 64. Fire Emblem just was a way more niche series than the other games represented at the time (yes, even compared to F-Zero. How times have changed...) with only the possible exception of Earthbound. And the reason to choose Ness over Marth (or, for that matter, a Mother 1 character) is a simple and obvious one: he'd actually seen an international release.

On 7/19/2023 at 9:49 PM, Jotari said:

It's right there on his sprite in Old Mystery

 

Yep, fair enough; the one FE game I've not watched nor played in any form. Beyond that, I think you hit on the reason that Smash (and indeed, other crossovers, including Heroes) tend to focus on the character in their earliest form for whatever reason, which in Marth's case means no shield.

[How should Marth use the Binding Shield in Smash Bros.?]

So uh, confession here: I don't actually remember Marth ever using his shield. Just plain can't picture it. Normally you'd expect a promoted form might have it, but Marth famously doesn't promote. I just did a ten-second google image search and can't find an image of him with his shield except some bonus form from Heroes (Brave?). I'll happily concede my memory of both Shadow Dragon and New Mystery is fairly poor, but still...

I think this is related to why Smash (and others) tend to ignore the shield, though.

[Best Final Chapters vs Best Final Bosses]

53 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Can those siege tomes and status staves morphs even do anything to interfere with you? I suppose if you just don't move your units out of the starting area they might, but I'm pretty sure they otherwise can't even cover the area of the fire dragon since they're so far away.

If memory serves the range edge of the nearest ones lines up perfectly with the edge of the dragon's threat range; that is, if you're in one, you're not in the other, and vice versa. The siege tomes aren't likely to one-shot anyone, but they're still an extra complication.

8 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Just beat the Fire Dragon on ENM, and... yeah, that all tracks. I do see it as challenging for players who don't understand Rescue-carry strats yet, so they assume that being in the Dragon's range on player phase means you're stuck there through enemy phase.

One other thing the dragon has compared to other bosses in the game is that he's range 3, so unless your rescue-carry unit has canto they can be stuck in the range of the boss themselves. (And yes, this is one last cherry on top of mounted units being too strong in FE7, but I digress.)

[Radiant Dawn's Story Was Going So Well... And Then Blood Pact *Minor Spoilers*]

1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Or, he might have been a cameo reference to Daisuke Izuka, an artist for the series, that wasn't intended to go anywhere. 

I'm immensely skeptical. If he was meant to be just a cameo for a staff member, I highly doubt they'd have gone out of their way to make him come across as so repugnantly evil in such a short amount of time, to the point where there's a scene dedicated to how disgusted the player characters are when they discover his lab. IMO he was clearly there as a sequel hook. When RD was announced (which keep in mind, was just a year after PoR's release date, i.e. the game had to have been in development almost immediately after PoR), Izuka was one of the first characters shown iirc.

I rather like the theory that Izuka only truly went over to the senate after Pelleas failed to appreciate his genius; it's 100% in line with Izuka's characterization. Certainly I don't think there's any indication that Numida considered him a potential asset during Numida's part 1 scenes (certainly the success of Pelleas and Izuka during Part 1 is devastating to Numida's bottom line of exploiting the place for his own benefit), so if he had any contact with Begnion by that point it would have to be something Numida doesn't know about (granted, it's entirely possible Sephiran was already pulling strings, or that Lekain was thinking ahead in his blood pact plan).

[Best Final Chapters vs Best Final Bosses]

12 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

If I were to pick a least favorite final boss, I'd actually say Possessed Takumi. The way he works with his clone is confusing - like, it seems as though I need to plan around killing him twice, but if I kill the lead unit, the backup one goes away as well? Uh, sure.

As for a least favorite final chapter, from the ones I've played, it's gotta be Repatriation, the Endgame of Path of Radiance. Something about it just... doesn't feel final. I think it has to do, strangely enough, with its outdoor setting.

His clone is a replica, and replicas share health pools. By the time you fight Takumi you've seen this mechanic before, in Chapter 15 of Conquest (never mind the possibility that you might have used Mechanist's Replicate yourself e.g. by playing Birthright first). As soon as you attack Takumi the first time you can see both their HP pools go down in tandem.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's reasonable enough to think there might be two separate health pools, but even then being surprised that a boss dies more quickly than expected isn't the worst thing. It's not like the map as a whole is in danger of feeling too easy.

As for the second part, I kinda agree with you, but interestingly I felt this one even more strongly with a map you like, the final battle of Verdant Wind. It just... doesn't feel like a final battle at all in terms of where you fight it (which makes sense, since it apparently wasn't intended as a final battle originally). You're just in a random swamp, one with no lore behind it. And on top of that you're fighting a zombie, instead of someone the protagonist(s) share a connection with. I have some issues with Ashnard as a character but at least he feels like a proper final boss narratively.

Though speaking of bosses who don't feel like the proper choice narratively...

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

My least favourite boss would have to be the Fire Dragon. Obviously there's the "it's just a random fucking generic enemy" aspect to it, that is a bit hilarious in how ballsy it is, but even just the basic gameplay of the enemy I find kind of insulting to my tactical mind. I've heard some people describe this boss as difficult, but if you ever lose a unit to the Fire Dragon then you're just playing really badly.

It's not a super hard boss but I think you're underrating it slightly; there are some siege tomes and status staves which can reach you and mess up some plans if they don't involve just one-rounding the boss. At minimum it's more tactically demanding than the other GBA final bosses, as well as Normal Mode Ashnard. Though I agree it's still not great.

[Has IS ever acknowledged Wyvern Caeda?]

I agree that it's a bit weird to hardly ever acknowledge Wyvern Caeda, but honestly, I think the weirder thing still is the idea of the mount magically changing during promotion. You use that Master Seal (or whatever) and boom, suddenly your pegasus is a wyvern. You can even do this mid-map in some games! It's even weirder in cases where the character appears to have a bond with their specific mount (Cherche with Minerva, etc.). I accept that a character might start or stop using a mount in games where reclassing is a major feature, but I really think that for linear promotions, Archanaea and Engage are being very silly in forcefully changing the mount of the character upon a basic promotion.

*In Engage I accept that it happened because someone at Intsys is very attached to the idea that men shouldn't ride pegasi but they didn't actually want to classlock men from any meaningful classes after everyone complained about genderlocks in 3H, so Chloe's transmogrified pegasus was a compromise solution.

[What franchises do you think desperately need a reboot?]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

@Jotari I think the main reason that there hasn't been a new Castlevania game is Konami; for the longest time, they've just been sitting on their main franchises now that most of the creative leads behind those franchises have long since left the company, and their attempts at making new installments on their own have not been well-received. A new Castlevania title will come along the moment Konami can be convinced to have a different studio make the game for them.

A new Castlevania game would be nice, so long as it is made by a competent studio that has good ideas for a Castlevania game.

In my opinon, what was good about Castlevania was the design of Koji Igarashi et al. As far as I'm concerned, Bloodstained is Castlevania now; I don't really care about Belmonts or other Castlevania lore, just the excellent game design that his games (and now Bloodstained) is known for. This makes it extremely hard for me to care about future official Castlevania games going forward, when Konami hasn't shown any inclination to use that name to make a game I've found remotely interesting since 2008.

[Radiant Dawn's Story Was Going So Well... And Then Blood Pact *Minor Spoilers*]

My thoughts basically mirror Florete's.

Blood pact is just coercion, the fantasy version of Lekain saying "we have planted a nuclear bomb under your capital, cooperate with us or else". And Micaiah is correct to trust that Pelleas wants what's best for Daein. I would also say she's pretty far from blind or unquestioning about it.

[Best Final Chapters vs Best Final Bosses]

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Unfortunately in practice it means you just wind up baiting then boxing him in with Ike, Dragon, Laguz royals and Jill (or someone else tanky enough to survive him) while you whittle him down. If they do a boss like that again, then I hope they get Pass.

Pass wouldn't really help; it'd just switch the strategy to what I personally usually do, i.e. have nobody in range except the unit(s) you want fighting him.

I like moving bosses in general but I think Ashnard's implementation of it is a bit shaky. I think the main advantage a moving boss has is that it allows a boss to fight you with their friends nearby to threaten you (Engage has several maps which do this well) instead of the player being able to neutralize all such threats first, but Ashnard isn't really set up to take advantage of this. As such Ashnard's movement mostly just ends up as a bit of a middle finger to the player if they don't know it's coming, and otherwise isn't too relevant (you bait him to where you want him to go, and then after that he might as well be immobile).

[Conquest Lunatic No Pair Up]

7 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I seriously stand by that statement. On a run like this, Berserkers are pretty vital. Not only are they the ones dishing out the most damaging dual strikes, they're also pretty easily capable of being boosted into doubling range, arent affected as much by the Hexing Rod, and can obtain really accurate one shots on tricky enemies like ninja.

Endgame would've been so much more of a hassle if I didn't have a unit who could one shot the Enfeeble maids. Outside of reclass shenanigans, Berserkers are the only ones who can do so.

Oh, just to be clear, I was having a bit of fun re Berserkers. I completely agree with you; their offence is extremely useful.

[Conquest Lunatic No Pair Up]

Chapter 25 right side does seem like an absolute doozy. I didn't even think about how this run softbanned Shelter. Obviously you can beat the map just by setting up a Corrin build to bypass the rest of the map, but good for you for not needing to.

You mentioned the chapter 26 stoneborn and I'm surprised you engaged them at all; the sorcerer room is usually the place I find attack stance most useful in the lategame, so would definitely have gone that way. Did you go left for the spy weapon, or did you clear out both paths for exp and/or fun?

9 hours ago, LoneRecon400 said:

But if I had to say one thing, it'd be this: Berserkers are the strongest in the entre world.

Be careful, or you might trigger some rants about Russian Roulette...

 

[Conquest Lunatic No Pair Up]

Neat, congrats!

Do you have any memorable strategies/moments or insights from the run?

[Best Final Chapters vs Best Final Bosses]

I voted Night Breaks Through for the final map, even though I do think you should have been able to save before it and that mars it a bit in my eyes. That said it's a thrilling race to the boss against tough but varied enemies and a unique map mechanic which is fun.

Boss itself pretty much has to go to one of the 3H ones (or Ashera); most of the others are dead in a couple of combats and rarely feel like the team effort they should. I voted Hegemon Edelgard because she can actually affect the map before you approach her and because seeing the a final boss using Vantage/Wrath is a cute nod to a classic player strategy.

[Fellas, which pokemon type matchups make the least sense to you?]

On Ice/Water, the main thing I feel is that ice should be weak to water. Anyone who's lived in a place with snow knows that nothing melts snow faster than a big dump of rain. ... well except extreme sources of heat, but ice is already weak to fire!

I don't feel strongly about what ice should do on offence to water. I can see the case to go either way. I suppose it depends on which one there's more of; a small amount of ice won't do much to water for a variety of reasons, but a large full-scale temperature drop obviously threatens water by literally turning it into ice.

Steel should not resist psychic or ice. Oh, I know why it does; it's because those were two of the most dominant types in gen 1 and both steel and dark are very blatantly "let's balance the gen 1 type chart". But neither makes any sense to me! I guess steel resisting pyschic makes a little sense if we consider pokemon who are inorganic, but many steel pokemon are just "some animal-like creature wearing metal armour" so I don't really get it for them. Ice I feel even more strongly about. Metal conducts heat really well; in a situation of extreme cold, that means it conducts heat away from the person wearing it, causing them to enter a hypothermic state much faster than they otherwise would. Wearing platemail in sub-freezing weather is a terrifying prospect.