vanguard333

Caspar... On the one hand, he is indeed less popular than the rest of the Black Eagles, and he has extremely limited story relevance. On the other hand, someone has to be the brawler unit and we all agreed that Raphael was unlikely. So, I'd give him a 5/10.

Unfortunately, having characters already be in committed canon relationships will not kill ships; nothing will. I've seen people ship characters that are siblings; nothing will stop people from shipping.

Indeed. I still maintain that, for going from 3DS to Switch, they probably should've gone back to four years given just how rushed Sword & Shield comes across as being. I don't know why it was four years in the DS era only for it to go down to 3 years in the 3DS era and stay at 3 years even when transferring to a home console for the first time for the mainline games in the series.

It's a lot lighter and less unwieldy than you'd think; generally weighing between 4 and 8 pounds (with 8 pounds being really heavy for a sword of this size). That said, they still have enough heft to them that you can't just start-&-stop them; you really need to keep the momentum going, as shown in the video. These types of swords existed in the 16th Century; they were mainly used by bodyguards, though they also had battlefield applications in the form of guarding chokepoints and disrupting pike blocks. Yeah; it is cool. However, I must point out that I believe you got ninja'd, as someone else posted before you did. Anyway, now I'll review your video: I must admit; the closest thing to a Jackie Chan film I've seen is the Kung Fu Panda films. Is it just me, or did the fast-forwarding in that clip seem really obvious?

Three years after gen 8; sounds about right, as that's the usual amount of years between Pokémon generations. The reason it seems early is because we just got Legends: Arceus.

I have yet to actually watch Dune, so I have zero context for this video.

Yuri... I have no idea. I have to remove a lot of points for him being Three Houses DLC. The Persona 5 Golden characters weren't in Strikers, and I doubt that the Three Houses DLC characters will be in Three Hopes. Characters that were added later have far less chance of appearing in Three Hopes simply because of development time. If he does appear, it will be as DLC, fittingly enough. Other than that, I never actually played the DLC, so I have no idea what he could add. I understand that it's essentially a non-important side-story that takes place in the sewers though, so that makes him even less likely: zero plot importance. Overall, 1/10 for being playable in the main game, and probably 7/10 for being playable later as DLC.

One thing I would like to see from the next Legends game would be Pokémon that do more than just waddle around a small part of the area or hide in a tree. I'd like to see Pokémon that hide in ceilings, migratory swarms that roam the area map quickly in a large group (like a school of fish or a swarm of bugs or flock of birds), maybe legendaries that challenge the player to trials that utilize the gameplay. Stuff like that. For instance, the Sword & Shield DLC had the player chase the legendary birds in the Wild Area; why not do something like that with the bird legendaries again if the next Legends game were to take place in Kanto?

Shadows of Valentia is definitely another example. I remembered liking Shadow Dragon overall, and I was looking forward to a remake of the second game, especially since it looked like it was going to be more of a full-overhaul remake where Shadow Dragon was a 1:1 remake. However, when I played it, while I enjoyed aspects of it, I really did not like it overall. It really felt like a remake where a team sat down to make a remake, but couldn't agree on what type of remake they wanted to make. Parts of it are given a full overhaul while other parts are kept 1:1, and the whole thing feels disjointed and less than the sum of its parts as a result. The worst thing is that I've never played the original Gaiden, and it was painfully clear what was changed and what wasn't when playing the remake.

Gen 9 looks interesting; one can clearly see how they're using what they had developed for Legends: Arceus in this new game. I was surprised that they plan to release it near the end of this year; one the one hand, that would be exactly three years since Sword & Shield, and that does seem to be the schedule for their games. But, on the other hand, Legends Arceus just released this year. Even remakes weren't released the same year as main series games. Anyway, kind-of disappointed by the update for Legends Arceus. I'm all for making it easier to find certain Pokémon (I still have yet to find a munchlax and I know where to find them), but doing so by just randomly plopping extra groups of them just seems a bit haphazard. I would've preferred something like migratory swarms that can be seen roaming across the area map in real-time, or maybe some legendaries that challenged the player to interesting trials that utilized the new gameplay. But, given that they're making the gen 9 game, I guess this is probably the most that they could do.

I wouldn't know; I know nothing about the star ocean series. Honestly, the other 99% of Ys VIII is still really good. Can a bad ending ruin a game? Sure, but I don't think that's necessarily the case with this game. Ys VIII is still really good overall and I don't regret playing it. But, I also bought it when it was on sale. Anyway, I recently tried the demos for the upcoming Kirby game and for Terrible Name (Triangle Strategy). My thoughts can be summed up like this: "Kirby? Ah... Terrible Name? Gr..." The Kirby demo was great; my only problem with it was Kirby can take forever to land sometimes (I know he's a puffball, but how floaty he is can be a bit excessive considering he already has multiple jumps and a hover), while my time with Terrible Name was a mess of annoyance and confusion.

As a HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) practitioner, I find myself wincing just a little at the sword practice in that scene. But I'm used to it.

It's been a long time since I played it, so I can't remember all my criticisms of it, but I do remember that a lot of the maps relied on poorly-thought-out gimmicks; not as much as Revelation, but the kitsune map in particular stood out as just annoying and frustrating instead of being challenging.

I didn't like Conquest's story or its gameplay. When I saw people saying that Conquest's gameplay was the best part of Fates, my response was a confused, "...No, it isn't; what are you talking about?"

I see. For me, as I said; I just don't find it involving. I need combat in a video game to make me think about what I'm doing in each moment. Oh; just to be clear, I finished all three versions of Fates. It was still ultimately a Fire Emblem game. I honestly have yet to really play through a Final Fantasy game; the only one I've played would be Final Fantasy 7 Remake, I'm only halfway through it, and I'm not sure how much I want to finish it since I bought it thinking a remake of the most famous FF game would be a good way to try the series, only to find out about how the game isn't actually a remake, but some weird alternate-timeline sequel thing. Why couldn't they just make it a remake? The game's director: Tetsuya Nomura, wanted it to be a remake, but the producer: aka the director of the original FF7, pushed for this weird alternate-timeline nonsense that just makes the game only make sense to someone familiar with the plot of the original FF7. …I kind-of got off-topic there; didn't I?

Thanks. I just realized another one: Fire Emblem Fates. Up until then, the only time I learned about new Fire Emblem games was after they realized; Fates was the first time I actually got to be hyped for a new FE game. Unfortunately, I didn't like Fates; I didn't like its story or its gameplay.

Xenoblade Chronicles. I really wanted to like it: the story was really interesting, the characters are compelling, and the world is really unique and interesting, and I remembered really liking Xenoblade Chronicles X, so I wanted to see how the series began. However, I ended up growing bored of it and stopped playing at the Fallen Arm. A game being story-driven is fine, but it really shouldn't come at the expense of gameplay, and I really didn't like the gameplay. One thing that really brought it down for me was the combat; it's MMO-like combat that revolves around auto-attack and abilities that have cooldowns, and I'm really not a fan of that kind of combat as it's very boring and uninvolving; once you figure out the best order in which to use the abilities, it basically plays itself. But perhaps the biggest thing was that, while the world was unique and interesting, it was not fun to explore, and I realized that the reason I was able to finish Xenoblade Chronicles X, despite it having similar combat, was that the world in that game was very fun to explore, especially after the player acquires Skells. Xenoblade Chronicles' world is not at all fun to explore, and with how uniquely designed it is, it easily could've been fun to explore.

There's zero reason for Flayn to not be playable. She has lots of plot importance, she's a fairly major character, and she has a fair amount of gameplay potential. Sorry; now that I think about it, she has one reason to not be playable: Seteth forbidding her from being a playable character. But that probably wouldn't stop her anyways. Overall, 10/10.

I understand that. My main problem with the twist is that it comes completely out of nowhere right at the very end, far too abruptly for it to actually work as an "exploration", and that it honestly runs at least somewhat contrary to a lot of what had been the game's focus up to that point.

I don't know about better, but I don't think it was worse than what Rock Lee x Sakura could've been. When it comes to Sasuka and Sakura as characters, their problems are mainly in execution; at the concept level, I can see the potential, and the same thing goes with their pairing. In the case of Sakura, it's mainly because Sasuke is often away on missions, and in the case of Ino, it's probably because Sai is just so stoic that she's caught off-guard whenever he goes out of his way to be affectionate. It is a bit weird, but I think it makes sense given their characters.

I see. Wait; you've found a Munchlax?! Where?! Anyway, I just got to the postgame, and I realized something: while there is definitely some variety when it comes to trying to catch Pokémon in the wild: Zubat has no eyes and relies on hearing so trying to hide in tall grass is actually detrimental rather than beneficial, Chancy and Blissey will approach you to heal you if you're damaged, etc., finding and catching Pokémon can get a bit same-y. I thought hunting the Legendaries would add more variety, but so far, it hasn't. I thought this game would do a 3D version of the hunt for Mespirit from Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, which was annoying in 2D but could've been a lot better as a proper hunt in 3D, but nope; you just fight Mespirit in the cave, just like Uxie and Azelf. I mean, the Sword & Shield DLC had the player chase the legendary birds in the Wild Area; it would've been cool to have stuff like that in this game. Something that would be cool to see in an update or DLC (though DLC is unlikely since they're already making the gen 9 game) would be Pokemon that don't just sit there; legendaries that dare you to chase them, migratory swarms that the player has to keep up with, etc., would be really cool to see implemented.

1. I'm honestly fine with the lack of a mini-map; I find when, when I game has a mini-map, I tend to be drawn to look at it instead of the world. Plus, each area is small enough that I never found myself feeling the need for a mini-map. I agree about marking collected wisps on the map; that would definitely be a help. 2. A sorting feature for the pasture would definitely be a help as well. 3. Yes; being able to manually sort my inventory would be a big help. And f--k Bagin's price-gouging. 4. I wouldn't know; I mainly stuck to the default galaxy team outfit since I thought it looked cooler than the outfits available at the clothing shop. 5. Draw distance is definitely a big issue. 6. I'm fine with the lack of full voice acting, but it would be good to hear NPCs at least grunt. 7. I agree that the game can feel small at times. I think part of it might be the lack of any elaborate indoor areas. I found myself missing the elaborate caverns of the old games. 8. I was fine with the number of Pokemon in this game; I think it needed to be better at distributing Pokémon to reflect each area section. For example, I thought for certain that the Hisuian Zoruas/Zoruarks would haunt certain parts of the ice area at night; instead, you find one Zorua in a small icy cave, while above ground is filled with electabuzzes. What? Speaking of which, it would be cool to see the return of swarms: in this case, having certain Pokémon appear in migratory swarms that actually do move across the map. Basically, I want to see the Pokemon better integrated into the areas rather than just being dropped into them. 9. I agree that the button mapping is rather weird. 10. What would be the point to that?

I can't believe I forgot to list those as well. I haven't played the Mass Effect games, but I have seen all of Star Trek: Enterprise, and I agree about it being underrated. It's nowhere near the best Star Trek, but it was decent Star Trek; when it wasn't focused on the studio-mandated Temporal Cold War or the Xindi arc, it was capable of some pretty good stories. Plus, it actually was about the stuff that people watch Star Trek for: exploration, complex philosophical issues, etc. It's certainly miles better than any more recent stuff labelled "Star Trek"; I tried the first season of Discovery and my thought on it at the end was, "This is not Star Trek; it's wearing the skin of Star Trek, but it has none of what Star Trek was about.

My first instinct was to want to make a funny reference to the Arthurian Legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but I can't think of anything fitting. The most notable moment in that story is that Gawain cuts off the Green Knight's head and the Green Knight simply picks his head back up, and I can't really make a song pun out of that. I'll just say that the song's pretty decent.

Uh... anime/10 I guess...