vanguard333

I was thinking low HP and extremely low strength. I was also thinking of a moment where, after a grueling march to a fortress, he vomits and passes out; worrying everyone in the army.

I agree. In fact, one idea I had for a while was that there should be a Fire Emblem game about two brothers: the older brother is a typical swordsman lord and is the crown prince, while the younger brother is a frail and sickly mage lord.

One story trope that I really dislike, albeit with one exception, is the trope where most of the story's conflict is against a particular antagonist, that antagonist gets enough development, buildup and focus to be interesting and compelling, only for their position as the main antagonist to be promptly hijacked by someone else who declares, "Sike! I'm the real antagonist!" when they haven't received anywhere near the focus, attention, or buildup needed to be a compelling final antagonist. One of the main reasons I really dislike it because it often feels hollow; we spent all this time focused on the conflict between the protagonist(s) and the first antagonist, only for it to be upstaged by the new villain. But, even when the old villain isn't developed enough to be even remotely interesting as an antagonist, it will still be problematic because it often leaves a ton of loose story ends untied and just causes more problems (Snoke's death in The Last Jedi and the leader of The Hand's death in Marvel's The Defenders are good examples of this). The one and only exception; the only example I can think of where this trope did manage to actually work, is this (Black Clover spoilers ahead):

That's the reason I also mentioned Lucina from Awakening. Micaiah is one of my favourite lord characters to use gameplay-wise as well. I like the idea of a light mage lord and she is a pretty good unit outside of her speed.

What about Micaiah? She's a strong main character overall. She does get overshadowed a bit, which is a shame, but she still is a strong character. There's also Lucina. I can't believe I'm about to compliment Awakening, since I'm rather placid on it overall, but the story does utilize Lucina very well, all things considered, and she is a strong main character.

Thanks for all the advice. It will probably be a while before I play the game, but thanks. Backtracking is fine when done well. I usually point to Ocarina of Time as a good example because of all the different shortcuts for getting to and from older areas. How well does FF7 handle backtracking?

Out of all the non-royal/non-dragon Laguz, I mainly use Lethe and Muarim. Lethe is neat because she's fast and she transforms right at the start of any chapter. Muarim is neat because he already comes equipped with a demi band and I didn't know until reading @Dark Holy Elf's reply above that there was a way to unequip a demi band without the laguz starting at 0 gauge, so I never put the demi band on anyone else. I usually never really use Mordecai, Ranulf or any of the birds outside of the chapter where you need the birds, and even then, the first couple times I did that chapter, I read all the dialogue where the bird laguz say that having them talk to Naesala wouldn't work and interpreted it as, well, that that tactic wouldn't work (I was a kid at the time and it was my first FE game), so I kept coming up with strategies to beat the chapter while avoiding Naesala. I usually try to make sure to beat the Black Knight, so I usually have Nasir on my team for the last two missions. He's pretty useful, though he would've been better if he had 1-2 range like in Radiant Dawn.

I can honestly say that that's coincidental; I've never read that kind of manga (or indeed any manga for that matter), and though I have watched anime, it's mostly battle shonen anime. Thanks for saying you like it. That could also work, but I think, in order for that version of the joke to work, it would have to be established at some point before the ending that the two of them never talk to each other that entire time. Characters never supporting doesn't inherently mean they never interact, after all.

I suspected that most of them were teenagers, but I didn't think that all of them were. It certainly seems like you should've just put this in the Naruto discussion thread, since this is, well, discussing Naruto.

Since it was on sale, I decided to get the Switch port of the original Final Fantasy 7. I originally bought FF7 Remake a year ago to be my introduction to the final fantasy series, as I thought that a faithful full-overhaul remake of the most famous game in the series would be a good starting point for me. Then the plot-ghost stuff started happening and the reveal that the game with Remake in its title isn't actually a remake but a stealth-sequel of sorts kind-of soured that idea. So, I figured that I may as well play the original so that I can understand Final Fantasy 7 Time Travel Plot Ghosts. I haven't played FF7 yet; I'm going to play some other stuff first. But I figured I may as well purchase it now while it was on sale.

Given all these outlines involving two people already in an arranged marriage, I thought I would write one: (C) Two characters, who were arranged to be married before the war but have never met until now, meet each other for the first time. They have no idea that the other person is their fiancée, and the conversation ends with character 1 remembering to introduce themselves before saying goodbye... and only bothering to say their first name, leaving character 2 a little suspicious but completely unsure. (B) The two of them meet again, still unaware that their talking to their betrothed. They bond over various things while remaining completely oblivious. (A) They talk about what they want to do after the conflict is over. Character 2 mentions that they hope to meet their betrothed and they admit that they're in an arranged marriage. Character 1 says something along the lines of, "What a coincidence!" and they share how they feel about their respective engagements and give each other some advice. They end the conversation by saying goodbye while wishing each other well in their respective engagements. …Oh, and their paired ending has them go to where they're supposed to meet their betrothed and recognize each other in complete shock, leaving them wondering how they didn't figure it out sooner.

There's a topic in the entertainment forum for discussing Naruto, and this feels like something that probably should've been posted there instead of being given its own topic. Also, I'm pretty sure that Kankuro and Temari are older, since they're Gaara's older siblings.

True, though I would say it's more of a topic or a recurring motif than a theme, as while it is present in the story, it isn't really explored much. The closest I would say it comes to getting explored would be when it gets deconstructed a bit by Lee losing the fight against Gaara.

Oh; to be clear, I still enjoy the later parts of Three Houses for the most part, just like I enjoyed Breath of the Wild after leaving the Great Plateau. I'm just saying that I think that the core mechanics of Three Houses are at their most rewarding when the numbers are low and diminish in reward as the game goes on.

I don't know if this is unpopular or not, but I think that, in terms of the gameplay mechanics, Three Houses is at its best in the earlier chapters, when the numbers are small and when all the teaching mechanics are arguably at their most rewarding and least tedious. Exploring the monastery, interacting with students, and instructing them all feel worthwhile early on, but by the time of the last few chapters, those things become less rewarding and become more tedious as a result. It's kind-of like how Breath of the Wild's physics and weapon durability are arguably best-utilized in the Great Plateau when the numbers are small enough that you want to conserve & scavenge weaponry without feeling too bad when a weapon breaks, as any weapon or physics exploit will do enough damage against the foes you fight in the Plateau.

Regarding the support conversations argument, recently, I decided to revisit and finish my first playthrough of Verdant Wind. Because of how characters are paired up at the end, my strategy for seeing the character endings I wanted was to have the different characters only a-support those I wanted them to have a paired ending with until the final mission, where I would then watch the remaining a-supports. One thing I will say is that going through each of these a-supports all at once is very much a slog, regardless of their quality. I guess I'm not really making any kind of point by bringing this up, but I thought it worth mentioning because I immediately thought of this argument when I noticed that I was getting sick of going through all these support conversations all at once.

I decided to go back to playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Shortly after starting my recent playthrough of Path of Radiance, I realized that I've still only completed about 1.9 of the 4 routes of Three Houses. So I decided that, before going back to Path of Radiance, I would at least finish at least one more route of Three Houses. I think my mistake the first time was trying to play the routes back-to-back; I played through all of Crimson Flower and then got burnt out (and busy) after completing most of Verdant Wind; I got all the way to the second-to-last chapter before stopping and moving on to other stuff. The thing is, if I remember correctly, that was almost a year ago. So, I had a choice: start a new Verdant Wind playthrough, or finish the current one; getting back into a mostly-done playthrough of a strategy RPG after you haven't played it in a long time is very daunting, but on the other hand, starting a new playthrough and getting to that point would undoubtedly take a long time. Ultimately, I chose to just finish the already-existing playthrough. I haven't finished it yet; I just began today and I ended up midway through the second-to-last chapter's mission. Getting back into the rhythm was surprisingly easy; my characters had already reached every skill level I wanted them to reach and been equipped with every item I wanted them to be able to use, and they were more than high-enough levelled for the mission, so my only reason for doing two skirmishes was to practice. I'm definitely a bit rusty, but not nearly as rusty as I thought I would be. After completing Verdant Wind, I will start an Azure Moon playthrough, then I will play something else before playing Silver Snow. EDIT: Well, I just completed Verdant Wind. Nemesis and the Ten Elites under the reanimation jutsu were a fun final boss fight, however little sense it makes, and they utilize the map well. But it is very obvious that the map was not originally a final map (it has treasure chests on it). EDIT: I have a conundrum: I recently started my first Azure Moon playthrough, but I also found my old Wii remotes, which means I can play the Metroid Prime Trilogy on my Wii U. So, I have a choice: keep playing Three Houses, or start the Metroid Prime Trilogy? I decided to start the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Metroid games are usually short, so I should be going back to Three Houses in not too much time. I will say, I'm not a fan of first-person games, I almost never play them, and I haven't played a Wii game in years, so the first bits of Metroid Prime were very awkward for me. I did quickly get used to the combat and aiming thankfully, but platforming in first-person is still troubling me; how can I be expected to platform well when I can't see where the character will land? Other than that, the game is really good so far. I was very impressed at how well a lot of its visuals have aged, and exploring has been very fun and rather intuitive so far.

Three Houses does lock certain support conversations behind completing particular chapters. For example, every a-support, except Byleth and Rhea, can only be seen after the timeskip. Similarly, some of Byleth's support conversations with Edelgard are locked behind completing certain chapters. Speaking as someone whose favourite FE game is Path of Radiance, I thought it was neat that Three Houses essentially brought back that system in a different way.

I'd like to see Captain Toad should appear in Mario Kart at some point as a tiny heavy character ("his backpack weighs a ton") and the minecarts from his game should appear as a kart. I'd also like to see a sequel to Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. That game was really fun, and I think they could do a lot more with the idea.

I see. I honestly disagree. In fact, a long time ago in a galaxy far away on this topic, one of my unpopular opinions that I posted was that I really did not like the gameplay in Conquest. That's certainly possible. I don't think it was lack of desire to do anything with the story, but any desire the writer(s) may have had being met with an ever-present need to get three games' worth of story content completed within a timeframe (in other words, I think a lot of those shortcuts and such are likely a result of rush), so when I said that Fates bit off more than it could chew, I meant in terms of "writing three full games' worth of story within a lot less than three years" and not having too many ideas. Of course, that's just my theory. As for gameplay, regardless of how the gameplay turned out, I do think that a lot of it was thrown in; not necessarily haphazardly, but definitely with a mindset of "throw everything in and see what they like". There really is no other reason for Fates to have stuff like the 2nd gen characters other than "it was in Awakening and we got a whole bunch of new customers from Awakening and we need to see if they want us to keep using this mechanic". Same. Path of Radiance is very conventional, but it doesn't stumble and it's a very refined narrative with a lot more depth. It's honestly one of my favourite examples to illustrate what I mean when I say that complexity is not the same thing as depth, and I would gladly prefer a simple-yet-deep narrative over one that's complex and shallow. I didn't say that those games were bad at characterization; if I had to give them a rating overall out of 10, it would probably be somewhere between 4 and 6 for both of them. If it helps, I agree about Robin sometimes being interesting despite their blandness.

I like some of the more ambitious games as well; namely Radiant Dawn and Three Houses. I'm not saying that those games are bad; I just meant that they tend to bite off more than they can chew. However, I do not like any version of Fates at all; the story reeks of biting off more than they could chew, and the gameplay felt like they were cramming in every idea they could think of without thinking them through just to see what fans would like and what they wouldn't like. I disagree; I think a return to more straightforward narrative may help provide more time to ensure strong characterization and storytelling. More support conversations on paper provides the opportunity for learning more about the characters, but I think there is a bit of a trade-off in that all this is being written within a given time frame. As for Tobin and Stahl; what I can say about them is that they're both characters who define themselves as the generic guy; Tobin due to being friends with a Gary Stu his inferiority-to-Alm complex, and Stahl because of his nature as a jack-of-all-trades... and that's about all I can say about either of them. Neither Shadows nor Awakening were the best at characterization. @Jotari I agree that most of the problem was due to the PoR characters overshadowing most of the new characters; I guess I was just trying to say that the change to the support system made an already-existing problem worse. The ambitious games are guilty of that as well. The main villain of Fates is a senile dragon, and let's not forget that Three Houses has TWSITD.

Oh; I agree with you guys that, mechanically, it was pretty good. I might disagree about saying it was the best, but I agree that it was good. I agree that Radiant Dawn did make up for the lack of proper support conversations through things like base conversations... but only to an extent; the characters in Radiant Dawn have more flesh to them than most FE games, but they still have less flesh overall than the characters that were introduced in Path of Radiance, even when only considering the amount of flesh the PoR characters had in PoR. A huge amount of that can of course be attributed to Radiant Dawn having to juggle both the new characters and the ones from Path of Radiance, but the lack of proper support conversations is part of it. Anyway, I've tried to stay out of the "long stories vs short stories" argument, largely because I lost track of what arguments everyone was making, but I thought I'd say my opinion on the subject: I think a story should be as long or short as it needs to be to have everything it needs without having bloat. That amount of length will vary with the story; a long story isn't inherently better or worse than a shorter one. However, a longer story is riskier, since a longer story needs more time. It's similar to simple story vs complex story: neither is inherently better, but the latter is riskier and needs more time. Fire Emblem has been shifting towards longer, more complex, and overall more ambitious stories, and ambition has often been the enemy of FE in this case. I still maintain that Path of Radiance has the best narrative of any FE game, and it's a very straightforward narrative.

Bringing back base conversations and expanding on them would be great. To add to your point, Radiant Dawn did allow everyone to support everyone, and it was terrible for a number of reasons; the biggest one being that the conversations were completely generic and easily missed.

It's not exactly like the competition's fierce; Fates has what is almost-certainly the most woefully-written cast of any FE game. I don't think Charlotte is the best, but, considering how bad the cast is overall, I can definitely understand that opinion. I may have already mentioned it before, but I honestly think that Echoes: Shadows of Valentia is the worst of the FE remakes. Shadow Dragon may not have been what a lot of people were hoping for, but I actually appreciate that it made no pretense about being anything other than a deliberately-retro 1-for-1 remake. With Shadows of Valentia, I wanted to like it, but it felt like the team either disagreed or had no idea what kind of remake they wanted the game to be; what they thought should be modernized and what they thought should be changed, and that clash makes for a jarring experience that's worse than the sum of its parts.

If you weren't going to help him, why tell him it's impossible; why not tell him to figure it out for himself? I think the main usefulness of the dracoshield isn't in defense against physical attacks, but in adding 13 resistance in a game where everyone that isn't a dread fighter has a resistance stat of 1 and pretty much no chance of increasing it. But even then, there's the hexlock shield that adds 7 resistance for far less added weight, so your point still stands.