vanguard333

Exactly. Audiences know the exact fate of all the characters in Revenge of the Sith, yet it is still a compelling story and the best movie in the prequel trilogy.

I'm only in my 20s; I'm not old! There are probably a multitude of reasons for it. I think what's going on is that these remakes are essentially the movie equivalent of gaming the algorithm: 1. Their name promises something comfortable and familiar. 2. There's still a stigma in the west with animation that animation is just for kids' media, so the idea of a "live-action remake (even though these films are often mostly CGI, making them essentially still animated)" essentially tells anyone who believes that idea, "Here's a version of that movie you loved as a kid that you can now watch as an adult". 3. Since it's an adaptation of a classic kid's movie, it also promises a distraction for the kids, and in this case, an even longer distraction since the remakes are longer than the animated originals. 4. No one dares try to compete with a big budget Disney movie in theatres anymore, so these movies essentially have free reign whenever they're in theatres. 5. These movies always staple on one new song that's out-of-place solely so the movie can be nominated for original song awards. And this isn't the full list of ways in which these movies are essentially two-hour-long clickbait (or, I guess, 'watch-bait', since it's a movie?). I will admit that it had its problems, though I think it was good overall; I brought it up mainly as a more recent example of a direct adaptation that had actual heart & effort.

I'm not the person that you were replying to, but I have seen some of the Disney live action remakes, and I do agree that the Disney Live Action remakes are soulless copies that are far worse than the original stories. However, I think the problems with them are a lot more complex than just them being too similar. Don't get me wrong; them being too similar is a problem, but the main reason it's a problem is that they are essentially just copying the story into a new medium. Animation and live-action (or 2D animation and CG animation in the case of the Lion King) have different strengths and weaknesses in presentation and storytelling, and any adaptation or remake in a new medium needs to utilize those advantages. The original animated Disney films took full advantage of every 2D animation technique that they were using and showed their advantages. The remakes show essentially zero regard for the change in medium; instead copying almost everything beat-for-beat in a very lazy way. And, when there are changes, it's usually in the form of adding needless subplots that exist solely to pad out the runtime; there is no care or craft being put into the remakes whatsoever. For a bit of contrast, Alita: Battle Angel was a somewhat-recent live-action adaption of a manga and anime series, and it's really good. There's a ton of care and craft put into it, it utilizes the strengths of live-action, and, even though the film's plot essentially compresses the first several story arcs, no one who has read the manga or watched the anime, to my knowledge, came away thinking that the movie was too repetitive or too similar. One notable example of just the opposite: the author of the manga hated the anime, but loves the movie. It was a fantastic movie, and it flopped because advertisers didn't know how to market it and it had to compete with Captain Marvel in theatres. It's a real shame; the bad adaptations get all the money and attention while the good adaptations flop.

I agree. Incidentally, what did you think of the video?

Yeah; Clone Wars was good. It was especially interesting to see General Grievous as a genuinely scary villain. Wait; "Clone Trooper discovers the Order 66 plot"? That wasn't in the micro-series. …Oh; you're talking about The Clone Wars: the 2008 cartoon, not Clone Wars: the 2003 micro-series. Never mind. Incidentally, I would say that both are good shows and good prequels, albeit in different ways.

Understandable. I don't think the idea was that there's no value in surprising the audience; just that there is also value in knowing about the event in advance. Incidentally, I learned about Hitchcock's analogy from this video that was a very interesting discussion about plot twists and "subverting expectations (i.e. trying to surprise the audience)": …Okay; my point remains that moments like Zack's last stand wouldn't have been nearly as effective if the game had been an entirely new, unpredictable, story and not a game about the events leading up to Zack's death. As far as I know, most people who play Crisis Core don't play it for the stuff about Genesis; they play it for moments like Zack's last stand.

It feels weird being indirectly referenced like this in a brand new topic. Well, since I just confirmed that I'm the commenter who disagreed with what the Fire Emblem writer said, I think my opinion has already been stated. Anyway, one additional thing I will say, as an aspiring writer, is that, if I publish one of my books, and someone figures out a plotline or upcoming reveal in advance, I will be thinking, "Good; that means at least some of the audience noticed the clues and foreshadowing that I left and they understood what's going on". In other words, I'll take someone being able to predict what I'm about to write as evidence that I'm doing something right. I think it's easy to see being able to predict what's going on as evidence of the writer doing something wrong, but I think seeing it that way is a mistake. I love that quote. It does a great job illustrating what I was saying above about how, if those that read my book when I finally publish it can figure out what's going to happen, then it means that I've done something right. I disagree; I think that a prequel that explores events we already know can work very well, as there can be value in seeing how the pieces moved into place for those events to happen. One analogy for this that I once heard is as follows: If you write that there's a bomb in a room full of characters and it blows up, the audience has ten seconds of shock. If the audience is shown that there's a bomb in that room and it will blow up in ten minutes, the audience has ten minutes of suspense. I think this analogy does a good job summing up what this kind of prequel can do really well. For all the Star Wars prequel trilogy's many, many faults, being a story about the fall of the Jedi and the rise of the Sith Empire was not one of them; the best moments in those three films were the moments that illustrated the rot within the Republic and how the Jedi had lost their way, and the moments of Palpatine's scheming and Anakin gradually becoming Darth Vader. I think prequel video games have a greater advantage than other forms of media in this regard, as the audience isn't just seeing the events unfold; they're experiencing the events as the player character. There's a reason why a lot of these prequels, such as Halo Reach and Final Fantasy Crisis Core, usually end on an unwinnable mission that's usually the player character's last stand; if any other type of game ended on an unwinnable last stand where the player character fights until they run out of health, it wouldn't really work, but in this type of prequel, not only does the player know going in that it's going to happen, but everything is leading up to it, so it works. And it isn't just prequels that can do this; a lot of Shakespeare's tragedies tell the audience upfront that the main characters are doomed. Romeo and Juliet opens by referring to the titular couple as "star-crossed (ill-fated, i.e. doomed) lovers", so you know it's all going to end tragically, and it wouldn't work as well if the audience didn't know in advance that the characters are doomed.

EDIT: When the trailers revealed some of Ganondorf's lines, I was skeptical of the voice acting, as it really was not good; it sounded like just some guy; it didn't sound menacing or dignified or anything like I figured Ganondorf would sound. Now, however, after hearing some of his actual lines in the game, I'm wondering if the trailers used bad takes that had been thrown out, as Ganondorf in the game actually sounds deep, booming and imposing, and the voice acting is a lot better than it was in the trailers. EDIT: Anyway, I just completed the four regions' questlines, with the Gerudo area being the one I finished last. Does anyone know where I can find more Gibdos? They essentially disappeared from the desert after the main questline, and I need more Gibdo wings in order to fully upgrade the Glide Armour Set.

Indeed. Plus, the name Rauru is obviously a reference to the Sage of Light from Ocarina of Time; he even has light magic. Speaking of which, TOTK Rauru is a lot smarter than the Ocarina of Time King of Hyrule:

True. In the case of the Temple of Time; I imagine that was at least in part because existing fans would have in their head an image of what the temple should look like; the same reason there's the ruins of Lon Lon Ranch (which is still there in Tears of the Kingdom).

I understand. I personally just think it makes sense; I think it was clear as early as Breath of the Wild that the Zelda team wants to wipe their hands clean of all the timeline stuff and start fresh, and how they've written this version of Ganondorf comes across to me as an example of that desire. I just hope that at least one phase of the final boss fight has him still be mummified; I think it's a lot scarier than how he looked in any of the flashbacks (and I have seen all of the dragon's tear flashbacks).

The moment she introduced herself as Sidon's fiancée, I laughed and immediately thought, "The Sidon x Link shippers are going to be furious." Anyway, she's a cool character, and I like Sidon's arc of needing to overcome his fear of losing another loved one, but I do wonder if it would've been better for her to have been the new sage of water rather than Sidon.

Ah. I don't consider saying who the focus character is to be a spoiler. Just so you're prepared for the next two areas: the Rito area, sadly, is the exception rather than the rule for focus characters. The Zora area does introduce a new character that's cool and helps out, but Sidon is the focus character again.

There's a sidequest where you help a travelling band at the stable near the crossroad to Death Mountain and Korok Forest. You have to fix their wagon, attach one of your horses to the wagon, and escort them to the nearby Great Fairy. Once you do so, that specific Great Fairy will emerge from her flower. Only after that can you unlock the other Great Fairies. For all the rest of the Great Fairies, the process is as follows: 1. Find the missing band member in the region where the Great Fairy resides. 2. Go to the stables in that region that's closest to the Great Fairy 3. Fix the band's wagon 4. Escort the band to the Great Fairy's flower. I only know this because I went to the Gorons after completing the Rito dungeon. Incidentally, the Gerudo region is the only one I haven't been to yet (I completed the Rito, Goron and Zora dungeons in that order). Without spoilers, what's that region like?

I've never actually played Golden Sun. I guessed that the video is fan-made, but I couldn't tell if there actually was supposed to be an anime or not.

Honestly, both have their different strengths and weaknesses and I don't prefer one over the other. To me, what matters is that the combat makes me think about what I'm doing; I've seen mindless examples of action combat, and I've seen mindless examples of turn-based combat.

Oh. Never mind then. Is there anything I miss if I get the Houses Emblem that early in the game? Or can I just leave it unused for a while and have nothing really change?

I think the lack of attention CF received compared to other routes by the fact that, when it was conceived, it was originally conceived as essentially a hidden bonus route, and hidden bonus campaigns in games generally don't receive as much attention because most players won't see it; it's the same reason final levels in video games often receive less attention than earlier content. Then the decision was made to make unlocking Crimson Flower a lot more obvious. I suppose; I guess we will never truly know for certain until someone on the dev team actually outright says how early on in development Crimson Flower was included in the game. Thank you. And it's not just Shakespeare plays; any prequel may as well have the tagline, "From the beginning, you know how it ends"; in fact, that was literally Halo Reach's tagline, and that game received widespread acclaim.

Interesting. Funny enough, I think that's the interview I was thinking of when I mentioned an interview where they stated that they originally wanted the Crimson Flower route to be harder to unlock, as that's exactly what Kusakihara says in that interview. I agree that it does sound like Crimson Flower wasn't originally part of the game, but it also sounds like the decision to include it was made in the very early planning stages, with most of the decision-making regarding it afterwards being how hard it would be to unlock it, and it sounds like the dev team still disagrees about how difficult it should've been to unlock. Yokota does say in that interview that he felt that Kusakihara's original vision was carried out "from the early planning stages all the way to the end", so Crimson Flower either was always intended or was added in the early planning stages. Incidentally, I have to disagree with Kusakihara about one thing: he talks about a story being "too predictable" as if it would be a bad thing; his exact words being, "I don't think there's much value to a story you can easily predict", and I strongly disagree; predictability is not inherently a bad thing. If it were, there would be zero value in prequels or in second reading/viewing/playthroughs of a story. That's definitely a fair interpretation.

Thank you. That's good to hear. I'll make sure to avoid the Three Houses Emblem then (at least until late in the first playthrough).

I actually still have yet to play Engage. I bought it the same day I bought Tears of the Kingdom since the store had a used copy of Engage on sale and I haven't played it because I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom, Ocean's Heart and Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. For those of you who have played the game, I have a question: I was hoping to get the DLC right away if only so I can give Alear the Tiki emblem asap and pretend that it's Alear's dragon form (I was very disappointed to learn that Alear doesn't actually have a dragon form in this game), but I also want my first playthrough to, for most of it at least, just be the base game content (Tiki Emblem aside obviously). Is it possible to only unlock the Tiki emblem, or does other DLC content have to be unlocked first?

I'm pretty sure that Crimson Flower was always supposed to be a route, but it was supposed to be a secret bonus route; the default route would be siding with the church, then there would be the option to side with Edelgard if the player fulfilled certain criteria. I think that because it's technically still the case: Crimson Flower is the only route that has to be unlocked by making certain decisions throughout part 1 and not just by picking a specific house, and, if I remember correctly, there was an interview where the developers revealed that the game originally did not have the criteria for unlocking the Crimson Flower route be nearly as obvious. It would also explain why the route is lacking in presentation and number of chapters compared to the other routes, as secret bonus routes/campaigns generally aren't given as much as other routes/campaigns in most games as they're, well, a bonus, and also because they're generally saved for last when developing a game. My full theory is that the game, early on in development, was far more focused on empire vs church than on the idea of three houses at war, and the Crimson Flower route being a bonus route would reflect that, but then ambitions changed and the development leaned more towards the three houses at war concept, meaning it would make more sense for Crimson Flower to be the default Black Eagles route, but they already made Silver Snow and built Azure Moon and Verdant Wind from it, so they just made it more obvious how to unlock the Crimson Flower route. I could easily be wrong, but going from "Crimson Flower is a secret bonus route" to, "We need to make Crimson Flower more obvious and less of a secret" would suggest a shift in priorities at some point during development.

Thank you. So I was close; instead of, "Are you here to liberate me?", he actually said, "are you the one who can liberate me?" In any case, it's a very strong hint that Nemesis' title "King of Liberation" was more of a twisted metaphor for his skill at mass-slaughter.

I can understand that opinion. I think it makes sense as Rhea has completely snapped and completely given up on any shred of faith in humanity she had before. As for Catherine, Catherine obeys without question because, if she doesn't, then she has to question her role in Christophe's execution. I don't remember that, but Crimson Flower was my first playthrough so I might've just forgotten it. Fair enough. I meant that, in my playthroughs, Edelgard never set the area on fire until after it was only occupied by my units, so Edelgard doesn't cause any friendly fire, except I guess in the literal sense as the fire is very friendly for her. Indeed. Given what Maurice, the Wandering Beast says if Byleth fights him, I think it's clear that Nemesis' title of "King of Liberation" refers to the killing that Nemesis did; i.e. he 'liberated' people of their lives. I would like to show the quote, but I'm having trouble finding it. But I remember Maurice saying something like, "That sword; it is the sword of the king. Are you here to liberate me?" Can someone please provide the actual quote if they can find it? That's true. True, but I never said she should ask Nemesis what he meant by "thief". The fact is that no version of events she's heard would explain why anyone would call Nemesis a thief, so it is a failing on her end that she didn't seem to even try to find out why.

Edelgard claims that her knowledge of Fodlan's history: that Rhea's fight against Nemesis was not religious and that the hero's relics were manmade and were not gifts from the goddess, was secretly passed down from emperor to emperor. These two pieces of information are correct, but, as the player learns in Verdant Wind, it's incomplete: the hero's relics were manmade weapons made from dragon bones and Nemesis' conflict with Rhea was Rhea's revenge for Nemesis killing her mother and slaughtering almost all her kin. I think these two pieces of information probably were passed down from emperor to emperor; Rhea considered the first emperor to be a friend, but she definitely never told him the full story, as Rhea was always extremely guarded, causing even close friends like Jeralt to begin to distrust her. Remember that Rhea completely snaps in the Crimson Flower route as a result of Byleth siding with Edelgard; what Edelgard sees of Rhea, unknown to Edelgard, is essentially confirmation bias for both of them. Rhea sees Byleth side with Edelgard and is convinced that her attempt at creating a vessel for her mother has only created a new Nemesis, and Edelgard is convinced that the Rhea we see after Rhea snaps was always Rhea's true mental state. I don't remember Edelgard ever thinking Nemesis and the Elites were freedom fighters; all I remember is her assuming that Rhea and Nemesis' conflict was purely political; something it probably would've seemed to be from the perspective of the first emperor. I think it's worth remembering that Azure Moon and Verdant Wind were built from Silver Snow. Also, Edelgard never set Bernie on fire in any of my playthroughs of the other routes. I don't think Edelgard ever trusted TWSITD, but she did make a mistake in never investigating them further whenever they slipped up and accidentally revealed more than they wanted to: one of the most notable examples of this would be in part 1, when Thales refers to Nemesis as a "thief" in front of Edelgard (who is wearing her Flame Emperor disguise), and Edelgard notices that odd choice of term but doesn't think to look into why TWSITD would refer to Nemesis as a thief.