Saint Rubenio

Vals is a special case because he just washes his hands of all responsibility and heaves everything onto his son's shoulders. Holmes then manipulates Attrom to return to Granada and get roped into leading it himself instead. Our hero. True, I did forget the Silessian queen. Silesse in general seems to be an unusually matriarchal country, with its many female military commanders and its queen. It's neat, I just kinda wish it was more common and didn't rather stink of "I wanted to give this country a special flavor so I did the unthinkable of letting women be relevant here." I saw that post. The tone of the responses and its introduction made me steer clear, it all feels rather confrontational and I didn't feel like it at that moment. From what I could tell, though, the post mostly defends that SoV Celica is better because she's more developed, which like... Yeah, sure, but that extra development comes shackled with nonsense like Conrad. Kind of a bad look. Admittedly, it varies from case to case. Sure, there's stuff like Skasaha probably being intended to be Scathach and just being transliterated in older fanslations. But then you have idiocy like changing Harold's name to Arthur even though there was already one, arguably two Arthurs in the series before - heck, recently I also realized, he has a fucking H on his belt buckle that has no meaning when his name is Arthur. I'd have to respect someone calling him Harold out of spite lol. And like Observer said, force of habit. Took me a long time to stop using Jerrot for Zelot. Also I like Jerrot better but that's entirely subjective That, and I'll admit it kind of annoys me when people see a name in the CyL ballot and just instantly jump to calling it the only valid name and every fanslation rushes to change it as well. Like, hello? Have we forgotten that CyL fucking forgot Niime and Murdock were both officially localized in 7 and called them Nimue and Mardok and had to change it later? Or that it translated Dorias as Dryas even though his original katakana is one character off of Darius, which was probably the intended reference? Some intern translating a list of hundreds of names in a hurry to make a publicity website for a gacha of all things isn't more trustworthy than a fan making a translation out of love for a game.

I did say "at least in the long term." Or, perhaps it would've been more apt to describe it as "at the end of the story." When the conclusion arrives, none of them are still sitting on their thrones. They either abdicate to a man or die, in Hilda's case. Any time women get to rule in Kaga's games it's a strictly temporary thing that either ends poorly or is swiftly passed on to men. Again, the only true exception is Syvil of Sphire, from Vestaria Saga, who is still queen at the end of both Vestaria 1 and 2. But again, she's a mind-controlled villain and I am all but certain she'll be replaced if/when Vestaria 3 comes out and concludes the story. Then there's stuff like Kay of the Highlands and Aegina not seemingly marrying Sherpa or anyone else any time soon. Because Berwick is the best game Kaga ever made (it's all thanks to the fabled editor). I'll admit I didn't know it was possible for queens to happen in FE4, but the fact that it's only possible by killing off all the men only adds to the point. Kaga does not seem to believe queens should happen unless it's the absolute last resort. Athol's... eh. I suppose she kinda sorta counts, even though she might marry Zade and he'll be the defacto ruler of Meleda. Still, she does have more "power" than the average Kaga female ruler, what with her special position and powers and all, and being the direct descendant to the royal line while Zade is just some nobody duke's son, which means Kaga's love for divine right could override his love for male preference. So she might get to be the one true exception, once all's said and done. ...That being said, if I dared to argue that Athol is Kaga's best ruling lady I'd be, if anything, doing the man a disservice lol. Girls like Sienna, Sheema, Tia, Ayra, Linoan... for a few examples, might be doomed to play second fiddle to men, but they handle their roles with a decent amount of grace and badassery. Athol, meanwhile, is a complete mess of a character that just happens to have been written too "powerful" to play second fiddle to the guy (but not to be an active liability nearly all the time of course)... and even then, VS2 happens and she's just a rock for most of it lol I suppose what I'm saying is that Kaga never allowing women to rule doesn't necessarily mean all of his female characters are terrible. He definitely has problems writing women, but he's not incapable of writing cool girls from time to time. It's just frustrating that, when he does, he still feels the need to hover a dude above them. Let Sienna be girlboss solo queen dammit.

He's good He's so good, he choked that point so well I'm so proud of him My boy It's lamp oil, rope, bombs time. You want it? It's yours, my friend, as long as you have enough rubees. I mean, I'm still Berwicking and then I oughta get back to that one game I was playing before Berwick. You know, the game I genuinely was enjoying quite a bit? ...I'll admit Radiata did start to drag a bit. It has that open world game effect where, while I'm exploring a new world, finding all sorts of new characters and quests and shit, it's super fun, but when all that's done and what remains is to do the main plot, it naturally becomes less interesting. I don't want to quit on it, I genuinely was enjoying it, so I'll definitely go back once I finish this run. But it's the kind of game that's best in its first half, and then I got distracted by Berwick of all games lol Anyway, might see about this one after. What's the price tag? 20 huh. Mite higher than I would've expected, I had it pegged for a 15 buck game myself, but oh well.

Spearman grunt promoting into landsknecht for crossbows and swords? Sounds like a thing to me. I'll definitely suggest it on the kickstarter for Berwick Saga HD that's totally starting in 150 months. We've discussed it before, but you don't need a hundred lockpicks to open everything in FE6 - heck, with Chad's, Astolfo's, the one in the chest in 12x and the one stolen from Cath in chapter 6, you already have 120 uses. So there's, well, already over a hundred lockpicks without even needing to let Cath live past chapter 6. I haven't counted them but if I had to estimate I'd say there's roughly 60-70 things to open in the game? And that's counting stuff like 21x's useless chests, 6's lower doors nobody opens, a number of rooms with chipped walls, etc. Usually in past runs I tended to just burn through one. You have more than plenty with just those four picks. I can only imagine the people waiting until chapter 12 to kill Cath are just getting the lockpicks to sell. And at that point I'd say just kill her at the end of the game to get the maximum amount of money.

Oh, shit @Shrimpy -Limited Edition- The scenario writer and head of the development company of Eiyuden Chronicle has passed away. I don't think this'll have much impact on the release of the game, at this stage, but I figured I'd say. From what is being said at the discord, it appears the game was in great part "his baby." And then he dies more or less immediately before its release. Poor guy... Fair points. It's still rather funny though. Everyone loves to talk about the Zyne septuplets, and for good reason, but I do find it funny how there's three variants of Generic Bosswoman and they're used like ten times throughout the game. Except for Lamia, who's just generally an enigma. Yeah, Kay is pretty cool. I wish we could see more of her. Heck, would've made for a wicked playable. Would've been neat to have another crossbow specialist, and being infantry with swords instead of cavalry with bows would've set her apart from Christine. Also, green. Oh well, what could've been. The presence of characters like her is nevertheless important. Helps it feel like there's a living, breathing world outside of Reese's little bubble. ...You know another NPC that I've been thinking would've been neat as a playable? Erec, Maria's sweetheart from 5-main. Sharing dibs on Counter with Sherpa and having generally high stats to compensate for being an unmounted spearman - the only one of his kind, at that, which would be neat for flavor if not utility - would've been an interesting trade-off (perhaps promotes into mounted?), and the pike would've had an actual semi-decent user this way. I actually almost brought Sienna up in the previous post as one of the most frustrating cases of this in Kaga's work. She's one of the most competent higher-ups in the game, specifically stated to long for leading the armies of Berwick herself and the game even ends in the perfect spot to let her be queen. But no, instead Cool Boy Bernard swoops in and becomes Cool Boy King, because we just can't let Sienna lead. That'd be craaazy. ...Still, she has quite a few great moments and even with Bernard in the picture she feels like she has agency and relevance. Within the constrains of Kaga's strict rule not to let women be queens, Sienna definitely is one of his better showings. The difference is Xavier is a good unit with solid stats, skills and even growths, the second best bowman in the game for what little that's worth and contributes even without doing anything by carrying a leadership star around. Cath is utterly useless unless you've lost both Chad and Astolfo. Also, Xavier is not that difficult to recruit if you nab a sleep sword, which is available on both routes. All you need then is a sword user that won't kill the knights, nor get killed by them. Heck I think Ralph works pretty at base for this. Not something a blind player is going to know, but well, a blind first-timer is also not going to be killing Cath for efficiency, so the comparison is rather moot. And you're wrong, killing Cath is not more steps than just recruiting her. If she's dead, no thieves appear in any of her chapters, since the generic thieves in those maps appear alongside her. Ever noticed how in chapter 16, chapter 20, chapter 22... You know, those big castle chapters with lots of chests, no thieves ever appear to race you to them? It's because they're set to appear with Cath, and if you kill her in chapter 6 you get no thieves in 8 or 12 either. Also, you need to have Roy walk in the wrong direction in chapter 12 to recruit her. So you're actually making chapters 8 and 12 easier by killing her early. And again, what do you lose from this? She does absolutely nothing as a unit. All that aside though, I do not deny that it is really funny. She basically saves Roy's sorry behind and he thanks her by shanking her lol

And why not? Unless you've lost both other thieves all she does is be a nuisance. The only reason to get her is for 100% recruitment, which doesn't have a real effect on gameplay. I like how there's just a random recolor sister in the middle of this. As I believe has been pointed out before, it's consistent with all of Kaga's work. He never, ever, ever lets a woman be the regnant monarch. Ever. Not a single one, in the long term at least. Well, there's one in Vestaria, and only one, but she is a mind-controlled villain who's 99.99% getting replaced when/if Vestaria sees its conclusion. So I'm not exactly too inclined to give him too much credit there. It's always fun when those kinds of people are like "it's very realistic, it was that way in real life!" to justify misogyny, but then you throw a butch woman at them and they're like "why are they putting ugly woke in my fictional videogame, it's not supposed to be realistic." Only tangentially related to this, but I figured I'd get it out of my system. Bye dad.

There it is. The last, and final, battle of the game. It's only hitting me now, but why does this map look so weird in this version? Knorda Market is propped up on a perfectly square hill, the levels of which are completely fucked (so apparently it's ground level up top, but at the bottom and the sides it's higher up, and then there's just a pair of trees on the left breaking the hill entirely), the ground on the hill looks corrupted, the castle area is partially surrounded by a jarring, broken up fence that doesn't look like it fits with the rest of the tileset - heck, the tile breaking up the fence doesn't even look like it was intentionally put there, it breaks the path - and the lack of forests in the canyon makes the map feel much emptier. I don't understand why they'd do any of these things. What happened here? There he is. The last, and final, boss of the game. He's worse than Abel all those chapters ago. Well, it's nice to see that the Wolfguard being pathetic wasn't strictly an adaptation goof. In this particular case, they were being quite faithful indeed! All of this could've been avoided if Nyna and Hardin just communicated. ...And, of course, if Boah hadn't been an asshole and forced the marriage. It's all your fault, cool mustache hatman. I'm willing to forgive based on the mustache and hat.

We'll get there eventually, I'm sure. There's far too much pointing to it. Ninty just keeps leading folks on. ...Maybe the real plot twist is that it'll be on Switch 2 lolololol I'd subscribe if I believed for a second it'd have Dancing Arden. But no, it'd be just generic anime teens with "magical" incarnations of the characters like the original TMS. Alas.

I like how the guy is now afraid for his physical integrity.

Hala, ya está liada. A tomar por saco todo.

Yeah, sorry. Probably would be best not to dwell on it too much. I just needed to get it out of my system. We're lucky we can just disengage from all this. Fucking hell.

The other side of all this is that, while Biden was having an intern make mocking twits and relatable memes in his name, Israel was using the Super Bowl's distraction to escalate their still ongoing, virtually unopposed genocide in Gaza even further without causing too much noise among America's population. You know, so that they don't come asking Joe what the heck he's doing for the 17th time. The answer is absolutely nothing. So uh. Yeah. Sorry if I bring the mood down, but that's kind of put a damper on the funny bit for me.

It's done. The Entirely Ordinary Fort has fallen. I even got a nice convenient save to run a few tests on the crotalus event. From what I can tell, the secret girl event just triggers if you have Czene investigate the house. Anyone else (it doesn't have to be a thief) and you just get the guy being sad. ...Elbert still needs 3 sword points and 1 spear point to promote, but surely I'll be able to get it in three chapters. If nothing else, 11-main is kind of a breeze. Could get it there, if all else fails. He wants all the furniture. All of it. I'm almost surprised his happiness rank point is gotten by getting to the end with the entire army alive instead of just getting all the furniture.

It is obvious, Observer. Magical orbs are made of bronze, and the excess is made into cheap blades! Not everyone can afford fine mithril gear. That's only for furniture boys like Reese. I know the chance of Biden hself actually having written this twit instead of a PR intern in the White House doing it in his name is microscopic. But the mental image of 80 year old Biden being up on the memes is actually amazing. And of course, the utterly incomprehensible message. The sheer "how do you do fellow kids" energy. Majestic.

Brightbow discovering the true origins of the funny meme he liked:

Noooooooo Why does everyone have bronze swords Noooooooooooo Might be because I always manage to capture a ballistician along the way or two but he never felt attack-limited to me. Real problem is that you can't have him carry around multiple ballistae for some reason. Should check my first run's endgame inventory. See how much fuck-up there is to be seen there. I didn't even realize spears gained damage by moving at the time... Yeesh...

Congratulations. One of these days I oughta do that route myself. Sounds positively fascinating. Wraith that's just regular you.

Yeah I think the ranked run is over now. Seven promotions in one map. Plus Dean's joining event. It is legit over, the only unit that remains to promote (aside from Christine who's just unable to promote until chapter 10) is Elbert. Then I just need to recruit Owen and Missival in chapter 12-1, as well as Thaddy who just needs a couple more chapters worth of money thrown at him. Three pieces of furniture remain, two bounties and Erzie items, and I should've gathered every material available up until now for the atelier. ...Now I just need to keep getting the tactics points. Keeping Vester's knights alive... Usually I like having them serve as distractions for the ballista and other threats. Might not be able to afford it now. Thank goodness the promoting is mostly over, means I can just bring in the big guns... No arguments there. True enough. No matter how bleak things may seem, voting is very easy and very harmless. To be honest, I really don't expect either of them to croak that easily. They're rich, influential people in a country with extremely good healthcare (for the rich). They'll be kept alive. Eyyyy, impressive! My man D. John Trump out there breaking all the records! They're making a lot of noise about Puigdemont's amnesty, but they're making it work so far. The independentists know that they won't be able to work with a government that has Vox in it, so it's in their best interests to avoid a re-election that could potentially go their way.

Ahh, a true American hero. Steve Seagull. They were so angry at "the reds," they never took the time to take a good look at Putin and realize he's a more effective right-winger than all of them. Now it seems they have. I'm not as up on Biden's lore as I would be, because that brain space is already occupied by our dear ol' Rajoy. Think I've heard of that one though, yeah. Honestly, if I didn't believe there was a good chance his brain just shortcircuited I'd be praising his cojones. Dude didn't deflect, didn't answer with another question, didn't politician at all- he just went for it lol Oh don't get me wrong, I make them disappear as quickly as they pop up. It's just rather annoying to click on two videos of Biden being goofy and that's all it takes for Benjamin Sharpie to sneak into my feed. How fucking dare you. I must defend my honor. We duel at midnight. As if Biden remembers the meaning of the word "radical" lol Can only hope you're correct. Oh yeah, heard that on the radio in the car earlier. There's the hero who started no wars, right there.

Let me start off with two words, Shrimpy. M A D E I N A M E R I C A You know, our previous president was pretty much literally just Younger Spanish Biden, down to the constant speech goofs. He was a corrupt right-winger. Sheesh...

Shaky, always lost in your grudges! What have I said about watching your rants?

Perhaps I should. There's a lot of stuff, but at least the convos would be nice to have compiled. It's easy enough to open up the ROM on FEBuilder and check them, but I understand not everyone's familiar with the tool.

Bors is close enough that with the original GBA's coloring and lighting, it might do the trick. Wendy's completely different though. Honestly, really would've been better lol, her role in book 2 is so forgettable as it is.

Hitrates against fences are 100. That's the trick to the meme pulverizer axe - Its hitrate is dreadful, but fences don't care about that. ...Of course, Dean didn't get to swing it around, because he's the last unit that needs skill training lol I could not help myself. I've made enough progress fast enough that I just had to reward myself and indulge in a bit of memery. Just offscreen was Marcel, writhing in agony from his crippling wound as he patiently waited for Aegina, Adel and Elbert to finish demolishing the camp. Genuinely though, this is a kinda good map for them. Once you get them past the fence, the camp is small enough that they can move around easily enough, and nothing in the map can really hurt them. Marcel spent half the map locking down Gorzevalus with little trouble. Of course, you could also just use Clifford instead and it'd be better, but that's not as fun. With all the rigging I've done, it's basically already over. Perceval will get his thunder point the next time I deploy him, Aegina might get there as well if I focused on her a bit, and then it'll just be a matter of giving Kramer, Dean and Esteban a couple kills to hit level 15. Then the only one that'll be left to focus on is Elbert, so I'm more or less free to do what I want. I can't imagine most ranked runs go quite this fast, but I was so afraid to lose this like I lost Minimum Ranks that I rigged every chance I got lol "America is a nation that can be described in a single word. Assafootinman, footn..." - Yo Bidin' You know something I hate? Every time one of Biden's funny moments comes to mind and I look it up and have a laugh, my feed instantly becomes flooded with right-wing shit. No, dammit, laughing at Biden should be an apolitical endeavor.

Bwahahahahahahaha Here we fucking go.