vanguard333

Funny; I said it was because he turns around from the right. But you're right; he's also unique in that regard.

1st Place: Legend of Zelda/Fire Emblem (they tie): I have played Zelda games almost as long as I can remember, and they have always been some of my favourites (except Majora's Mask, which I found a bit eerie... I was 6). But then my family found Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, and it quickly became quite possibly my favourite video game of all time. Ever since, it has been almost impossible for me to say which one I like more. The other three: Super Smash Bros.: My favourite fighting game franchise (although For Honor is quite fun; but right now it's just the one game and not really a franchise). Pokémon: I would not necessarily say a favourite when compared to Fire Emblem and Legend of Zelda, but I have played quite a few of them and really enjoy them. Dragon Age: I actually have only played Inquisition, but it was really fun; I especially liked the worldbuilding and that the combat was somewhat similar to that of Xenoblade, but gave me more control over the team and made it more strategic in my opinion, and, as can be evidenced by my other favourites, I do like games with strategy. Though one thing I would say for any potential dragon age 4: it should have fewer branching options (ex: save Templars or save Mages), and more main quests where you can choose the order in which you complete them. ...To be completely honest, another reason Dragon Age is on the list is because I play a lot of Nintendo games and I wanted one franchise on this list to not be Nintendo. EDIT: Ah! I forgot about Megaman... This is awkward... Well, perhaps I would remember it if they made a new one already! How long has it been since Megaman Starforce ended? 5-6 years? Anyway, in all seriousness, Megaman should be on my five favourites list. But who should I remove...? You know what, Megaman should be on the list; Dragon Age is an honourable mention.

Yes, the difference is quite clear: the last one is turning around from the right, not the left.

Thank you. I would have said this had I seen this thread sooner (only high-functioning autism in my case, not Aspergers). Back to what ideally is the point of this thread, I do not think much, if anything, will be censored, since (as far as I know; I have not played Gaiden) there probably isn't much to censor.

I think a little over-the-top is good, within reason. I think, aside from special moves, like Aether, and critical hits, attacks should be reasonable. In my opinion they should at least make some sense; i.e, "This might be something someone could do." For example, I liked a lot of Ike's fighting animations and those of the myrmidon/swordmaster/trueblade classes in PoR and RD because they, while flashy, were not unreasonably so in my opinion. Whereas a lot of Corrin's attack animations in Fates were flare for flare's sake and made me think, "This person has been living in an isolated castle, and the time his 'siblings' come to visit occurs when his eldest brother: the best swordsman in Nohr, comes to train him. Why does his 'technique' look so ridiculous". I believe in rule of cool: if you are going to do something flashy and unauthentic where something authentic could be done, at least make sure it is awesome. The problem is a lot of the flashy animations recently have been very not-awesome.

Echoes was first announced back in January. I know Nintendo has been busy promoting the Nintendo Switch, but it is now March and the game comes out late-April in Japan and early-to-mid-May everywhere else, so we are now around halfway between the day of first announcement and the day of release, and little new information. When do you think they'll announce any more information about the game? How do you think they'll announce the new info (i.e: a new trailer, an interview, etc.)?

I hope this will be a great remake that enhances the plot and balances old and new so that the gameplay mechanics unique to Gaiden are brought to their best potential. I fear that, given how quickly this game is coming, it may be that not a lot of effort has been put into updating the game beyond visuals. I liked Shadow Dragon; I especially liked how it really felt like a remake of a game from the NES era. The problem for me was that the plot could have been improved. The plot was paper-thin, which is actually quite sad, because a lot of the moments of character development could have been fantastic if they had just been given a little more... well more, and quite a few character backstories that I later discovered by research online were really interesting. For example, Medeus seems like a generic dragon bad guy in Shadow Dragon trying to conquer/destroy the continent, but he isn't. He lost his entire people to madness and pride; he was a prince of the Earth Dragons, and the only one who chose to become a manakete. After Naga sealed the mad Earth Dragons away, he was assigned to watch the seal keeping his maddened kin from destroying Archenea. But then he saw humanity; the very people Naga was trying to protect from the bestial Earth Dragons, mistreat his fellow manaketes, he succumbed to bitterness and anger, creating a manakete sanctuary that he quickly turned into an empire. ...That's interesting. But, unfortunately, we saw almost none of his personality, true motivations, backstory, etc., in Shadow Dragon. I hope they don't make this same mistake with the Gaiden plot and characters.

Yes he did make all the divine weapons. The Yato is simply the one that he specifies when he says, "I who forged the sacred blade; I who committed the great sin."

The rainbow sage didn't kill himself to prevent further damage; he was constantly living in regret because he forged the Yato and brought humanity into the war of the First Dragons. Thus when he died (at least in Revelations), he did so because a) he put the last of his power into the Yato, and b) he could finally die in peace knowing that their would finally be a chance for humanity to be at peace. Honestly, I wish they went into more detail about the First Dragons and that, as it would have aided in worldbuilding and helped explain a fair amount. Especially since the Rainbow Sage never succumbed to madness even though he was one of the First Dragons and had deep emotional scars as a result of his regrets.

To be honest, the most practical attack possible by someone on a flying mount is probably what we saw in RD: a sweeping attack where the mount moves. Cavalry historically were not static when they fought; they used the momentum of the mount and, typically using a short weapon (unless they're using a lance) and thus striking with a lot of momentum behind them. Being on a flying mount theoretically would offer even more freedom to move, so why in most games is the mount just flapping its wings and standing in one place? In the case of- let's call it a flying charge, if, as someone mentioned before, we think of flying mounts like birds of prey in that their wings don't flap often when they fly at high speed, then the flying unit, if he/she is aiming at the target, will not hit their own mount, unless their own mount is their target, in which case, is that person an idiot? Also, this flying charge would mean that any melee weapon would work; sword, lance, or axe.

To be fair, there are a number of relationships actual history with large age differences but were happy nonetheless. Plus, it had been implied beforehand. For these reasons I don't really mind Sothe x Michaiah either (Shakespeare was 18 when he married his then 26-year old wife, and, despite what the movie Shakespeare in Love might suggest, there's no evidence that Shakespeare's marriage was in any way an unhappy one; just the opposite in fact). It certainly is a bit odd, but not so odd that it makes no sense. As far as romantic supports, I feel that s-supports should exist, but only some. It should not be like Awakening/Fates. Also, I agree that the s-support shouldn't always be the guy proposing (I could maybe see it for Alm and Celica); most should just be them starting a relationship, and that support conversations in general should imply that the two people are more interactions between the two people, that happened between the three-to-four conversations, one great example from Path of Radiance being Largo and Muarim's friendly weightlifting competition that included lifting large hams and even members of the audience. I definitely agree that there should be more platonic pairings, though wouldn't those simply be a-rank supports?

I want to vote swords, but I don't like Narcian... In all seriousness, I think they should make a third flying unit that is its own class rather than a promotion branch, and while I would be happy with that third flying unit getting swords, I would prefer that wyvern knights use swords. Though I do understand why wyvern riders are given axes, namely the idea of wyvern knights being sturdy, I would like to point out that axes typically imply offense over defence (warriors, berserkers, etc.). Also, an interesting note, there is a reason that cavalry historically tended to use short weapons (aside from lances); they need one hand in order to hold reins, and I can only imagine needing to hold onto the reins being all the more important for flying units. So a long halberd-like axe would actually be harder to use.

So... Fire Emblem Maker? That could be interesting.

In every FE game, the protagonists, specifically the lord characters, are always young; specifically between early teens and... however old Micaiah actually is. And so FE games usually have a element of coming of age in the story: Marth having to deal with becoming ruler of Altea, Roy leading his people while Eliwood's health fails, Ike inheriting the mercenary company much earlier than anyone in the story expected, etc. Quite recently I was thinking about notable older protagonists (by this I mean at least middle-aged), such as Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: The Next Generation, Agent Gibbs from NCIS, Eddard Stark from season 1 of GoT, etc. That got me thinking; could an older protagonist work in an FE storyline? This is something I mentioned in a reply to a forum topic but then decided it was worth making a topic on. Do you think such a character could work in an FE game, and Why or why not?

I was really just agreeing with what others have said (and I never said they were new ideas; just that they break from the typical swordsman lord character). I'm not trying to disagree, just clarify what I was originally trying to say. My first FE game was Path of Radiance, where the only two archers were Rolf and Shinon, who, despite their problems, were pretty good characters. Plus they enabled me to use ballistae which helped on some of the maps. Ultimately, yes, archers can fall behind. In my first playthrough of Awakening I never used Virion. So there definitely is risk to having an archer lord character, but, done right, I honestly think it could work.

Oh. I did not know that. I haven't played Gaiden and I am trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible for FE Echoes (thanks for not mentioning which kingdom). Anyway, I'm sure there's a way to make it different from ... while still being similar to what I described. EDIT: By the way, what did you think of the other idea?

I actually have a few ideas that I think could work: For almost every FE lord, their parent dies at some point in the story and they have to inherit the responsibility. But what about something more like the legends of King Arthur; where the parent dies and the orphaned crown prince is raised by a knight and that knight's family, and the crown prince has no idea (until later in the story) about his royal lineage or the fact that his foster family is not blood-related; maybe make it that not even his foster siblings know; only the knight who took him in knows. That actually would make it even more like Arthurian legend. Another idea I had, which I think would probably best work in a game with multiple lord characters, is an older lord character. One thing that I am finding increasingly fascinating is stories which have older protagonists (Agent Gibbs in NCIS, Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Eddard Stark in season 1 of GoT, etc.), and I do think an older lord character could work quite well in an FE game. For one, it would break from the typical parent dies/coming-of-age story usually used in an FE game and would allow for more creativity. Those are my ideas plot-wise/character-wise. Gameplay-wise, it would be interesting to see a departure from the typical swordsman hero. An archer, a mage, a dragon, etc., could be interesting.

Something I realized: as far as I know, Fire Emblem, apart from Genealogy, never really had a story where the hero and villain are blood-related (and Seliph and Julius are blood-related due to very unusual circumstances. Plus, Julius is possessed by the true antagonist). I know it is a cliché that has been written so many times, but evil uncle or brother could be interesting. One idea I had would be that the hero's father is king, but the hero is forced to flee after the uncle makes a deal with an evil empire and usurps the throne. When the hero returns, he/she finds out about a rebellion that seems like something they could form an alliance with, but then they discover that the uncle, while pretending to support the empire, is actually the leader of the kingdom's rebellion.

This game takes place around 2,000 years before the Awakening kids came from the future, so it would be really strange to see them.

I would not use the term waifu, but, in all my runs of Awakening, I have only ever picked Cordelia or Lucina (I did consider one or two others such as Cherche, but never actually picked them) for my unit to S-Support. Both of them have interesting support conversations with Robin. Though I will say each has a particular problem: Cordelia keeps talking about Chrom even after being S-supported (all it would have taken programming-wise would have been: if Cordelia is still single, she says this. Else: she says this. A simple if/else statement!) The problem with Lucina is: how old is she? She looks similar-aged to most of the first gen units, yet it is quite ambiguous (I don't mind that she's Chrom's daughter from the future; though I admit it can get weird quickly if one overthinks it).

To be honest, Conquest mainly because of the maps and the gameplay. I really wish I could say the plot was good, but, honestly, the plot was not very good for all three. I think they were in a rush to write the plot for all three games. Revelations in particular could have been really interesting as a "What would have happened if you couldn't side with one kingdom over the other?" But it was really a "good" story branch to Birthright and Conquest being the "bad" story branches, and I wish it hadn't been that you basically are left in the dark about who the true bad guy is in the two main routes.

I haven't played it in a while, mainly for three reasons: 1. University. 2. For Honor. 3. FE Heroes. So it isn't really the game's fault (though I do admit that, instead of 2nd gen units, they should have spent the time and effort refining the story instead, and that I might still be playing it if the story had been as good as I thought it would be). I really thought the plot would be great. The trailers put such an emphasis on the ambitious plot that I thought it was going to be really good.

One small idea I had: a feature in the base that allows one to read more about the history of each kingdom in the continent, each being unlocked after the first time the kingdom is mentioned in dialogue. These would be short paragraphs written in English so that they would only take a small amount of time to read, and it wouldn't be necessary to read them to understand the story of the game, but they would add to the worldbuilding for those who are interested in learning more about the history of the continent.

I'm not sure if this is considered a game mechanic or not, but Base Conversations like those in the Tellius Games. They worked, very well. I also agree that multi-dimensional side characters should return. It was sad in Awakening to read the really interesting Robin/Cordelia and Cherche/Lon'qu support conversations, and then remember that good support conversations like those were in the minority, and this was especially true in Fates. Honestly, they can keep S-support (though please no kids), but I hope people only have as many supports in the next FE as they did in Path of Radiance (maybe a bit more or less depending on the number of characters).

Honestly, it is hard to say, as how well written they are is more important to me than what type of enemy nation they are; and there are examples of each of them done very well and examples of each of them done less well. However, if I had to choose, I would probably pick Conquerers because of the number of good examples. Daein was the main villain of PoR, and the closest it came to involving ancient evil was Ashnard touching Lehran's Medallion in hard mode of the final boss fight. Despite the limited plot of Shadow Dragon, I found Macedon quite fascinating. Plus, in my opinion there is something... simple yet simply brilliant (for lack of a better word) about a villain who is simply, "We are the military superpower for a reason; and we will defeat you." By the way, another enemy kingdom you could include: Isolationists: enemy kingdoms that are distrusting of outsiders and try to stay out of the fight but end up siding against the protagonist(s) anyway. Examples include Pyrathi and Goldoa.