vanguard333

I have yet to encounter any promoted enemies, but I agree; the game seems more difficult. Enemies seem a lot more likely to come in swarms and attack in swarms, and I've been finding it more difficult to divide-and-conquer and to execute a flurry rush. Another example would be (beginning area spoilers) But, for me, the example that would stand out the most would have to be my first talus fight in this game: it was a Battle Talus that was a base for red bokoblins. I beat the bokoblins in one hit using a bomb flower arrow, but the Talus proved immensely tedious, mainly because the platforms on top of it made it impossible to climb to the crystal's location. Mercifully, the fight was near a large ruined wall, so I was able to just stand on the wall where it couldn't reach me, shoot the crystal with a fused arrow, and then paraglide down to the platforms on top of the Talus, then rinse and repeat. I imagine that there are three reasons for the increased difficulty: 1. The fairly safe assumption that most people playing Tears of the Kingdom already played Breath of the Wild (similar reasoning as that for Majora's Mask's difficulty). 2. The addition of weapon fusing means the player is more likely to have stronger weapons early on (though as far as I'm concerned, that is counterbalanced by the lack of a renewable method of attack like the bomb runes from Breath of the Wild). 3. It reinforces that Ganondorf has returned and is a bigger threat than Calamity Ganon.

Interesting; I just got Fire Emblem Engage. I have yet to start it since I'm playing Tears of the Kingdom, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, and Ocean's Heart. A classical approach might indeed be better; my main concern with the sky islands was that they might've made the sandbox world too big. I figured if the islands replaced the shrines/dungeons, then that would make a lot of sense, but the game still has shrines. I can honestly say that I did not expect to see shrines return. Interesting. I like not being able to just glide over everything without a zonai bird and a runway, but accidentally plummeting to a game over because of a corner or slope that looked like solid footing is annoying; perhaps something akin to Skyward Sword's sailcloth would be best: you can't glide with it, but it can stop fall damage if used correctly. All this talk of falling is making me miss the rolling-after-falling mechanic from Ocarina of Time. Missing the water when falling deliberately is annoying. I usually teleport or restart when I know I'm about to miss the water. Yeah, I was really surprised that korok seeds are back. I think the idea in Breath of the Wild was that there would be enough of them that any player would be able to find a reasonable number of them; I mean, the reward for finding all of them was golden …fertilizer. Yeah; something new like the Minish would've been better than Koroks again. And yeah; the escort missions are the only koroks I've found that have a new challenge rather than one recycled from Breath of the Wild.

In the case of my playthrough, it was two bits of stamina-wheel short of maximum, and a master sword that runs out of energy after 30 uses since I never bought the DLC (and, with the Wii U eshop gone, I never can get the Breath of the Wild DLC; I missed out on the Monk Maz Koshia fight). What do you think of the game so far?

Tears of the Kingdom released recently. It's far too early for full reviews, but initial impressions can still be interesting to discuss. What are your first impressions of Tears of the Kingdom? Here's my first impressions of the game; spoilers for the initial area of the game:

I suppose those could work. Immersion is a big deal for a story-driven RPG. Obviously some amount of willing suspension of disbelief can't be avoided; people don't have health bars hovering above them but we need to see characters' HP, but it good to avoid gameplay & story/immersion fighting each other as much as possible. For instance, Ys VIII did justify a lot of stuff that JRPGs typically take for granted thanks to its deserted island setting: fishing minigame? You're stranded on a deserted island. One village of 10 people? It's a village of recent castaways on a deserted island. The protagonists both having the time and being willing to do side missions when there's an urgent plot mission? You're stranded on a deserted island; the side-objectives all revolve around helping everyone survive the island, and most of the story missions aren't very urgent for similar reasons. The instant character swap annoyed me a lot in my first several hours of playing Ys VIII; albeit partly because I had been playing FF7 Remake just a few months before and had gotten used to keeping an eye on where all my allies were, so I kept thinking character swapping would take me to where the other character is located only to end up staying in place. I did get used to it after a few hours of playing.

Oh; I definitely thought horses, pegasi and wyverns would unlock more exploration; I just figured they would be more like fast-travel or in-game items that unlock more exploration when equipped. Those ideas for character-specific unlocks would be cool, but how would they work without separating that character from the group? (Ys VIII spoilers) I could see the fighter's ability working, since it's breaking boulders that block the path, the archer's ability to essentially create ziplines would make sense, and the mage can create air bubbles for the whole group and not just themselves. But the thief being able to traverse silently would be hindered by the rest of the group being unable to do so; either the enemies would be programmed to ignore everyone else, creating a very obvious break in immersion, or the enemies would detect them and the stealth would be pointless. Similar for horse and wyvern: either everyone has one, all six get on the same horse/wyvern, or everyone except the lord or wyvern rider gets left behind and jarringly teleports to the place where they stop.

So, Fire Emblem Fates' weapon triangle with bow, tome and knife shifted (Fates was Sword/Tome -> Axe/Bow -> Lance/Knife). Interesting idea. I can see the characters/classes now: Sword - the protagonist. So, lord class. Knife - A thief/assassin character. Axe - Fighter. Tome - Mage. Lance - Armour knight (giving only one character a horse or flying mount would be weird and complicate exploration, so armour knight makes the most sense). Bow - Archer.

A Fire Emblem/Final Fantasy crossover that uses FF7R's hybrid turn-based/action combat. The game would have a new FE-inspired setting with some Final Fantasy elements. That would be cool; particularly if they made a new Fire Emblem-inspired setting. If a new FE setting was made, I would want the Ys dev team to contribute to the story and worldbuilding since some of what they come up with is really interesting; Ys VIII is proof of that (I'm choosing Ys VIII as an example because it's the only Ys game I've played), but IS should be in charge of the story's conclusion. How would bows and magic be incorporated into this? Would bows and magic be part of the weapon triangle like in Fates?

Traditionally in FE games, humans can gain a small portion of a dragon's power by drinking dragon blood. In Engage, it is possible for one dragon of a particular group (let's say group A) to transform a dragon of another group (group B) into a dragon of group A through a transfer of dragon essence, at the cost of some of the first dragon's lifespan. So, here's my question: can a similar essence transfer be done to a human? If so, what would be the main differences between this and a human drinking dragon blood? How much essence would need to be transferred for the effects to become noticeable for the human?

The Case Study of a Divine Dragon Genre: Action RPG with visual novel elements. Premise: In a Victorian Steampunk Fire Emblem continent where humans and manaketes live peacefully, but not in coexistence, a disease is spreading amongst the manaketes; one that causes unnatural degeneration to occur to those who contract it. The player controls two characters: an upbeat young male wyvern manakete, and a mysterious human doctor: a spellcaster who claims to have been adopted by the divine dragons and made into their kin, with this claim being backed up by this human having divine dragon essence within him, and by his possession of a unique tome that can only be used by divine dragons and their kin. With this tome, the human has the power to cure individual manaketes who carry the disease. The two of them must work together to uncover the source of this mysterious illness and save manaketes from extinction, and on their journey, they uncover a series of conspiracies that, if left unchecked, may reignite war between humans and manaketes. 1,000,000 fake internet points to the person who can figure out which anime I am ripping off with this premise.

I see. Thanks for the information. The current Donkey Kong being Donkey Kong Jr. makes the most sense to me. Otherwise, if a crossover were to happen, Mario would have to be really old.

Just to be be clear, "So long as it isn't Robin x Tharja, we're good" means, "So long as Robin x Tharja is not canonized, then we're good", correct? I want to make sure I fully understand all the options before I vote. Anyway, I honestly don't really care if they canonize pairings that were optional. I'm far more concerned that they might do the reverse: take fixed pairings and make them optional so people can ship them with other characters instead. Mandatory pairings are usually mandatory for story reasons, so making them optional would mean IS rewriting the story to accommodate a fixed pairing being made optional, and that could harm the story. Don't get me wrong; if I can have Elincia end up with someone other than her foster-brother, that would be great.

If I remember correctly, the Donkey Kong that was the original Mario villain canonically is now Cranky Kong; the current Donkey Kong is Donkey Kong Jr.

I wanted to play the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, but I wanted to purchase it physically to save storage space and every store said it would arrive over a month from now. I have been continuing to play Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, but joy-con drift has begun to happen for my right joy-con, throwing the camera all over the place at random moments and sometimes almost ruining the hunt, so I really need a 2D game to play instead. So, I decided to play Ocean's Heart for the first time. Ocean's Heart is a 2D Zelda-like; it's an action-adventure set in an island archipelago. I haven't gotten very far into it, but the game has been very good so far. The basic sword has easily the greatest range of any sword in a 2D Zelda-like or actual 2D Zelda game without being overly generous and the game has been paced well so far. One of the reasons I started playing it is that the game was made using the Solarus engine: the same engine that I am currently using to make a 2D Zelda-like.

I strongly disagree. Even in the early chapters, the Greil Mercenaries are generally fleeing from the Daein army, and we are routinely shown them fighting entire divisions of said army. Chapter 5 has them defend their fortress from an entire division of Daein forces, chapter 7 has Petrine flood the room that she and Greil were fighting in with extra soldiers that surround the mercenaries, and chapter 8 has them try to defend against a massive force of Daein soldiers that attack in wave after wave and almost kill the mercenaries through sheer attrition. A lot of the earlier stuff was smaller scale not just because it's a band of mercenaries at the start of the game, but so that, whenever a very large number of enemy soldiers appears on screen, it visually conveys that things are hopeless. To use Game of Thrones as an example, despite the shows huge budget, the first two seasons never once actually showed any armies or divisions in full; there is no equivalent of Path of Radiance's chapters 5, 7 or 8 in terms of scale. Of course, part of that is that Game of Thrones is not a war story; it's a political-intrigue story, but another large part of it is, as you pointed out, budget. Path of Radiance, however, is about the war; the war is front-and-center, and the main protagonist: Ike, becomes the vanguard (pun not intended since the vanguard class only appears in Radiant Dawn) of the war effort. No one is saying that character isn't the most important part of any potential FE series. But the battles are important as well; any adaptation from an interactive media to a non-interactive media needs to replace the strengths provided by that interactive media with something else. For Path of Radiance the game, the gameplay helped the player accept the idea of only seeing a microcosm of the battles and not the whole thing; an adaptation would have to provide the battles.

How does Path of Radiance not have much war? It's one of the few FE games that is entirely about the war. The second half of the game consists entirely of battles and sieges during the war, and the final chapter is the battle/siege that ends the war. The war is not in the background; the Greil Mercenaries are at the center of it for most of the game. Honestly, I think Path of Radiance, or really almost any FE game, would be better off as an anime than as something live-action. Live-action does have its merits, particularly in the area of character drama and in it being easier to just hire a bunch of extras for a TV small army than it is to animate each soldier )though that each is generally outweighed by the cost, as you yourself pointed out), but, overall, I think the strengths of animation would suit a Path of Radiance adaptation better.

I think the main difference has to do with franchise and Nintendo's history with adaptations compared to Sonic or The Pokémon Company: With Detective Pikachu, it's important to remember that Pokémon is not solely a video game franchise; the Pokémon Company is a multimedia franchise spanning video games, anime, trading cards, toys, etc. The Pokémon Company already knew plenty about navigating movie production thanks to the multiple anime movies, and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu is ultimately another addition to the list of various media the Pokémon Company deals in, and the Pokémon company had less reason to fear the movie being a failure thanks to, among other things, the massive success of the very long-running Pokémon anime. By contrast, the history of adapting Nintendo video game franchises such as Mario has been... not great. The 90s saw a series of cartoons, some of whom were well-received and got a decent amount of views (the Kirby cartoon and the Donkey Kong cartoon), but those two were the exception. The Mario cartoon and the Zelda cartoon were complete garbage, and the Fire Emblem anime suffered the same problem Fire Emblem itself would suffer in the 2000s: reviewed well by the five people that watched it, and the animation studio ran out of money after only two episodes. Those three set the tone, and then came the live-action Mario movie, which was such a nightmare that it completely soured Nintendo to the idea of adaptations of their video game franchises. In the mid 2010s, Nintendo gradually warmed up to the idea of trying again at adaptations of their video game franchises, only to get burned again. They had ironed out a deal with Netflix for a live-action Netflix original Zelda TV series, and Netflix immediately broke the agreement in very stupid ways, such as intentionally leaking the deal to draw attention to it, so Nintendo promptly tore up the contract and reverted back to not wanting any adaptions. The reason the Mario Movie's success is a big deal is that it represents things finally going right for Nintendo in terms of an adaption of one of its video game franchises: Illumination agreed to everything Nintendo demanded without ever going behind Nintendo's back, made a movie respectful to the franchise, and the result has been well received by audiences and is a huge financial success.

Overall, pretty good. I watched it with my brother (yeah, I know: two brothers watching a movie about two brothers), and we both had pretty much the same opinion on it. It being 95% spectacle and 5% plot makes a lot of sense as it's a Mario movie, and I think I can respect that. It's clear that the movie had a lot of moments it wanted to get to, and it tries to get to those moments as quickly as possible, and I do think the movie could've afforded to have some slower moments, but I didn't mind it too much. One thing I did find a bit weird was the music choice. Half the time, the movie uses good music from various Mario games in places where it fits extremely well. The other half of the time, it uses songs like Take on Me, Thunderstruck and I Need a Hero, and they really don't fit. Plus, it was impossible to watch an animated movie, hear I Need a Hero, and not immediately think of Shrek 2. I'm sorry, Mario Movie, but it is impossible to replace Shrek 2 as "the movie that had I Need a Hero"; it can't be done.

If Movie: Shadow Dragon Shadow Dragon began the series and its plot is thin enough and its side characters are irrelevant enough that it could be made into a movie, albeit likely a three-part movie like The Lord of the Rings. The main villain of the first movie would be Jiol of Gra, the main villain of the second movie would be the mage dragon in charge of Altea Castle, and the final film would have Camus, Michalis, Gharnef and Medeus. If TV Series: Path of Radiance Any earlier than the Tellius games and the plot is too thin, any later and the plot is too stuffed with optional chapters & branching paths. Path of Radiance would be the easiest to adapt into a TV series. It also still has the most refined plot (and best plot overall) of any FE game. I'll admit a bit of bias since Path of Radiance is my favourite FE game, but even disregarding that, I honestly think that Path of Radiance is the best option. Even the fact that the Tellius games were an acclaimed flop is counterbalanced by the popularity of Ike. In this case, I would ideally want to see it be an anime; live-action has its merits, but the strengths of animation would be better-suited to a Fire Emblem adaptation. As for who should animate it, I think A-1 Pictures would likely do a good job, given that they have experience with fantasy war animated series in the form of Record of Grancrest War and 86 (examples of both below):

The Tellius games didn't sell well when they released, and they have yet to receive any re-release, but they have received a lot of recognition; just look at how popular Ike has become (admittedly largely due to Smash Bros., but Fire Emblem would have remained Japan-only if not for Smash Bros.), so I could see a Tellius adaptation actually happen. It's not likely, but it's possible.

Personally, I would prefer a Path of Radiance adaptation. It's a good story that would be the easiest Fire Emblem plot to adapt to a TV show format. Awakening's plot isn't bad, but a lot of its appeal as a "Fire Emblem Greatest Hits", taking place in the continents from the NES games 2,000 years in the future and constantly referencing Marth among others. It could work, but it would be best done after adapting other games first.

Cool. I myself have only played the last two games in the series (5: Team Colonel and 6: Cybeast Gregar). Indeed. Mega Man Star Force was somewhat similar, but it restricted the player to one row instead of three and was more about reaction than strategy. Yeah, joy-con drift stinks. The last time I got it was last year; in that case, it was the left joy-con causing my character to constantly veer to the left. I don't think any one particular game caused it, but it became unbearable three quarters of the way through the base game of Monster Hunter Rise, forcing me to play 2D games and non-Switch games until I bought a replacement joy-con.

That makes sense; I've been planning to do something similar by getting the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection even though I'm still playing Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, although part of that is due to my right joy-con starting to drift, causing the camera to veer down and to the right every now and then.

Yeah, I can definitely understand those criticisms. The poor accuracy at the start of the game meant that a lot of my strategies relied heavily on restarting from a recent save if I ever missed, which thankfully was easy to do since the game provides a lot of save files and lets the player save at any time. Incidentally, all those things are greatly improved in Valkyria Chronicles 4. While the rating is still based on turn count, it is more generous and main story missions can be replayed. The accuracy is generally a bit better, and the side characters now have their own unlockable side missions that do a lot to help flesh them out.

Yeah; the only way I can see a Fire Emblem movie working would be for it to actually be multiple movies like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and even then, I can only see that working for a game with a thinner script like Shadow Dragon since there's less emphasis on the supporting cast.