vanguard333

Same name, different book. Incidentally, in my Bible, the book that you're referring to is titled, "Song of Songs".

Interesting. I think this is mostly what I tried to do, but I and the guide had Kanbei on the left and Eagle on the right. My problem was that the AI behaved differently from how it did in the guide in a few key ways (for an example: early on, it positioned one of its medium tanks in a way that made it out of reach of Eagle's helicopters on the turn the guide used them to attack that tank). All those characters are unlocked in the remake if I recall correctly. That sounds good. I was just saying that, when given a choice, I usually picked Andy as the CO. There is? I don't recall the game ever mentioning it at any point. I'm definitely going to look for it now, as that can be a big help, though it only being for the current turn is a little disappointing. Thanks for the unit advice.

Recently, I've been playing Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. I thought I'd try it since its turn-based strategy is very different from Fire Emblem's and looked very interesting. I'm currently at the final mission of the first game, and I've been struggling with whether or not I've been enjoying the game. There is a lot that I like: I like that the game encourages aggressive tactics while also punishing leaving troops in the open, I like that the troops being disposable means I need a different mindset from when I'm playing games like Fire Emblem or Valkyria Chronicles, and I like the variety of different units and the ways different commanders affect those units (Incidentally, I mainly use Andy, as I like being well-rounded and his power healing his units makes them less disposable). However, I have found that, far too often, all it takes is one tiny mistake, or even doing everything in a way that should work, but the enemy AI does something bizarre, for what should've been a quick victory to instead become a slog. I can roll with making mistakes in Fire Emblem so long as a unit doesn't die, as Fire Emblem is more flexible, but it is just not fun to roll with mistakes in this game because of how much those mistakes compound. Mistakes can also compound in Valkyria Chronicles, but Valkyria Chronicles has two things this game doesn't have: the ability to save at any time, and multiple save slots. It's to the point where, quite often, I'm having to resort to a guide. However, even then, the enemy AI almost always behaves differently from how it does in the guide, ruining the strategies provided by the guides. In those cases, I usually am eventually able to find a way to modify the strategy to make it work, and it is fun when it finally works. Before then, however, are multiple restarts of the map and exercises in frustration. I have heard that the second game is better than the first, but I don't know if it will be any less frustrating. I want to keep playing it, as it can be a lot of fun. But, unless I find a way to mitigate the amount of times I have to restart an entire map because it's become a slog as a result of one small mistake, I may have to stop playing it. Anyone have any advice?

I suppose it's possible. If so, then the Paper Mario games would be a reverse of Mario Kart 64 (the N64 couldn't handle all eight karts being models, so they're actually sprites). What did you think of the other points that I made? Mages ignoring ledge disadvantage when below a ledge, at the cost of not having ledge advantage when standing on a ledge, would be a neat idea.

Path of Radiance is my favourite game in the franchise, and my favourite game of all time, but there are definitely areas where Radiant Dawn made improvements. 6. The 3D visuals were definitely an improvement. I don't think it has much to do with hardware, as the Wii was almost the same as the GameCube in terms of its power, but more a matter of Path of Radiance being the first 3D Fire Emblem game. Before it, they were all 2D games that relied on sprites. In fact, I think it might be the first game Intelligent Systems ever made that used 3D models; everything before then in their list of games used sprites as far as I can tell, with the possible exception of Cubivore; a game I never heard of until I saw it on Intelligent Systems' list of games. 7. I'm not sure that's a plus. I honestly really liked Path of Radiance's emphasis on enemy phase combat; with how much every FE game since has been entirely focused on the player-phase, Path of Radiance's emphasis on the enemy phase is something that I do miss. One big improvement that I can think of is in the area of weapons. All three melee weapons having a "strong, but heavy" version and the existence of 1-2 range non-magical swords was definitely a big improvement over the only 1-2 range swords really only being useful in the hands of Mist and/or Elincia. Another improvement would be that skills can be removed without being completely erased. One thing I didn't like in Path of Radiance was that deleting a skill meant it being completely erased; in Radiant Dawn, it instead becomes a skill scroll that can be given to another unit. I also like that skills that characters have by default don't cost skill points, meaning there's still incentive to have units keep the skills they already have.

One trend that I'm tired of seeing, and that thankfully has diminished, is writers being obsessed with trying to surprise the audience and/or get them speculating. Take plot twists for an example: for me, what defines a good twist is the impact that it leaves on the plot and the characters; some of my favourite twists were extremely predictable but left a huge impact on the characters, making them amazing. But, for quite a while, it felt like almost every writer was obsessed with trying to make their stories' twists as surprising as possible even if it came at the expense of the story, and it didn't help that there were almost always a ton of defenders saying stuff along the lines of, "Better that than something predictable, as predictable = bad". Even the director of Three Houses: Toshiyuki Kusakihara, had that mindset; saying in an interview about Three Houses' development that, "I don't think there's much value to a story you can easily predict."

Yeah, grimdark was a really annoying trend for a while; I'm really glad that it's waning. Unending doom and gloom just doesn't hold interesting, and I'm sorry, but trying to make a story seem "more mature" by making it all doom and gloom just makes it come across as immature. I've been trying to avoid the "Ike is/isn't a commoner" argument, since it's not what this topic is about, but with it continuing to come up, I will respond just once, then ask that this topic not get derailed: Ike was a commoner: he was born a commoner, raised a commoner, and, perhaps most importantly given the statement someone made about headcanons: the story frames him as a commoner and treats him as a commoner, so it doesn't matter what I say: the story says he's a commoner. There is no doubt that Greil was a noble; emphasis on "was"; before Ike was born, he had fled Daein and been made an outlaw, and an outlaw was even lower than a peasant: they had zero rights and it was not a crime to kill them. Ike was born the son of an outlaw and a priestess; not exactly high-status. Everyone inherited from their parents in the middle ages: the farmer's son inherited the farm, the smith's son, unless he got an apprenticeship elsewhere, would inherit the forge. Calling him a prince just because he inherits something is misleading. There are two major differences though: first, Alm is treated throughout the game as someone special with everyone fawning over him and saying he was born special and better than them, with the explanation for it given by the second difference: Alm is secret royalty, and him being secret royalty plays into the plot as he inherits the empire. Alm's plot is a King Arthur and the Sword in the Stone plot. Also, Alm wasn't raised by a mercenary, but by a renowned knight and he was told that he was that knight's grandson, which gave him political perks. Anyway, I have said all that I wanted to say. I will say no more so as not to derail the topic.

I see. Okay; that doesn't really change how, in execution, the multiverse aspect was extremely stapled-on and made the game alienating to me as a newcomer who had never played FF7. Rather hard to appreciate a multiverse metanarrative about defying the events of FF7 when I haven't played FF7.

This is the reason I said, "appear less often" rather than the more specific, "not appear at all anymore" and titled this "Trends in Media That You're Tired of Seeing" and not "Tropes in Media That You're Tired of Seeing". I agree that Everything, Everywhere All At Once was great, and I don't want to see multiverse stories end; I want to see the huge surge in multiverse stories end. For me, the annoying thing about FF7R is that, as a complete newcomer, I just wanted a remake of FF7, and that's what FF7Remake was marketed as being. Instead, all the multiverse stuff meant that the game may as well have thrown up a big neon sign saying, "Come back after you've played FF7!"

Tropes are tools; ultimately, it's about how they are used. However, often when one is used well, it inevitably spawns imitators who use it poorly, leading to storytelling trends that boom and then bust. I recently made a thread about storytelling tropes that you don't see often and would like to see appear more; this thread is the opposite: this is about storytelling tropes that you feel you see too often, even if they're used well, and that you think should appear less often. Here's an example: 1. Timeline/Multiverse Stories: For the past few years, there have been a ton of branching-timeline/multiverse stories: Into the Spider-verse, Across the Spider-verse, No Way Home, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Loki, Multiverse of Madness, Quantumania, The Flash, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, the Final Fantasy 7R project (Remake, Rebirth, and the untitled part 3), and even Fire Emblem Engage to some extent, for just a few of the many examples I could list. And I'm tired of them. To be clear, I am not saying that all these examples are bad or that timeline/multiverse stories are inherently bad: Into the Spider-verse and Everything Everywhere All at Once were great movies that did a good job handling their multiverse stories, and I have yet to see Across the Spider-verse, but I've heard that it's really good. What I'm trying to say is that there has been a ton of them recently, and, for a lot of them, the timeline/multiverse aspect hurts more than it helps, and the timeline/multiverse aspect is sometimes stapled on to a story that would've been better without it.

Since Ganondorf in the next game is undoubtedly going to be based on his Tears of the Kingdom version, part of me hopes that his final smash is his Demon Dragon form. Another part of me, however, hopes that the Demon Dragon and the Light Dragon will be a stage instead, and I'm not sure which of those two options I think would be more interesting. What do you think? Would the Demon Dragon be better as a final smash or as part of a stage?

I have played both games and Path of Radiance is my favourite video game of all time. I will just point out one thing: The Black Knight wanting to beat his master was established all the way back in Path of Radiance during the cutscene fight between him and Greil: Black Knight: Here. Use this blade. [Black Knight throws Ragnell near Greil] Greil: What are you doing? [Black Knight draws Alondite] Black Knight: I’ve been waiting for this for a long time. I would prefer it if you used your proper weapon, so that I might see you at your full strength… [Black Knight points Alondite at Greil] Black Knight: General Gawain, Rider of Daein.

My personal favourite is Torterra. It being my favourite starter in gen 4 is probably a big reason why, but I also just like Torterra. I also like Gallade, Aegislash, Altaria, Mimikyu and Decidueye. Gallade is a cool knight-in-shining-armour A Pokémon that's a sword & shield is really cool I think Altaria is cool and adorable. That said, I would've preferred if normal Altaria was Dragon/Fairy type, not just its mega evolution. Mimikyu is adorable with its sad backstory that it just wants to not be lonely so it tries to pretend to be Pikachu, and its disguise is adorable and a really powerful ability (that apparently was sadly nerfed in gen 8; I wouldn't know as I haven't played any gen 8 or 9 games). Decidueye has a cool design and the idea of an owl archer is cool.

Yeah, he strikes the ground to create a magic shockwave, with the magic shockwave being the attack. That's him casting a spell. The point of the list was to show how little he does so to the point that claiming that he punches and kicks is a massive overstatement. Once again, overwhelmingly, Ganondorf is a spellcaster and a weapon wielder; that's what he's known for and mainly relies on. "Zelda is a swordfighter; just look at [this non-canon spinoff game made by another company that's overstuffed with different movesets]." That's like saying Link fights by sitting in a bottle and having a Great Fairy do all the work; he can do that in a Warriors game, but that's not representative of anything he does in actual Zelda games. Okay, now it sounds like you're trolling; Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf never once throws a single punch or kick; his every action revolves entirely around weapons and gloom magic. Ganondorf's smash moveset would not be representative of Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf at all. I thought of that during my reply; I do freely admit that, with each iteration, they did try to include more things from the actual Zelda games for Ganondorf's moveset, and including the attack he used to kill the Sage of Water in Twilight Princess was a nice touch. Yeah, I agree; the game did provide that hint that Ganondorf will be the true final boss. My main problem with the Zant/Ganondorf dynamic in Twilight Princess is that Ganondorf almost feels like an afterthought, mainly because he doesn't do anything except empower Zant and encase Hyrule Castle in a crystal, and he has no real presence in the game aside from two flashbacks until the final boss fight. Anyway, so as not to derail this thread, I would go back in time and have the three House Leaders be the Three Houses DLC fighter instead of Byleth, and, if it couldn't be all three House Leaders, then just Edelgard.

Agreed. It would be hard to do since the reason Ganondorf was Falcondorf was the rush that Melee went through. In any case, we might not need time travel for this; Tears of the Kingdom brought back Ganondorf, the next Smash game will absolutely want to use the new Ganondorf, and the Ganondorf in Tears of the Kingdom never uses hand-to-hand combat; he is a multi-weapon user and a wielder of gloom magic. The brand new Ganondorf will be an opportunity to completely rework Ganondorf's moveset. Not once does Ganondorf ever throw a punch in any of his fights; at most, he throws one punch in a cutscene in Wind Waker to extract the Triforce of Courage from Link. He does all of one kick in Twilight Princess in only one phase of his four-phase fight; a phase that otherwise completely revolves around sword combat. Saying he uses punches and kicks in his games because of one punch in a cutscene and one kick in one fight that otherwise revolved around swords is like saying Zelda is a swordfighter because she holds a rapier once in a cutscene in Twilight Princess. In Ocarina of Time, he completely used magic when fought as Ganondorf and dual-wielded swords when fought as Ganon. In Wind Waker, he dual-wielded two swords. In Twilight Princess, he used magic and a sword while in Zelda's body, used his tusks when fought as a quadrupedal giant boar, used magic while on horseback, and used a sword while fought on foot. In all other games where he's Ganon, he fights entirely using a trident and magic. Overwhelmingly, Ganondorf is a spellcaster and a weapon wielder, not a puncher or kicker. Ganondorf has all of one sword attack in Smash Bros. Ultimate and none by default in Melee, Brawl or 4. His moveset otherwise revolves around punches and kicks taken directly from Captain Falcon's moveset with magic particle effects stapled on. At least Zelda actually uses spells directly from Ocarina of Time and Spirit Tracks in her special moves. In any case, you have to at least admit that, if they use the Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf in the next game and his moveset remains the same, that would make no sense for that Ganondorf.