vanguard333

Ike (Path of Radiance): He's my favourite video game protagonist, so it's hard to pick one thing I like about him. Micaiah (Radiant Dawn): Having an FE lord that was a light mage was pretty cool, and I like how she becomes something of a Joan of Arc for Daein. Marth (Shadow Dragon): Access to the convoy during battle. Chrom (Awakwning): …Chrom was rather placid for me, so this is difficult... He isn't badly written. Robin (Awakening): I like that they're a tactician. Lucina (Awakening): She's a cool character. Corrin (Fates; all three versions): They're a half-dragon manakete lord with cool partial-transformation powers; there is a ton of potential there. Alm: He's left-handed. After Link from The Legend of Zelda turned traitor in Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, it was kind-of nice to have a left-handed protagonist. Celica: Swords and magic is kind-of neat. Byleth: It's kind-of fun playing as a teacher at what is essentially a military academy. Edelgard: She's an axe-wielding red-armoured emperor who somehow manages to also an endearing character in her route. Claude: An archer lord is a neat idea.

Very true. In a way, Sephiran probably considered using Lekain to be a form of vengeance for the Serenes Forest (as there's no way he didn't either already know or figure out that Lekain was responsible). I don't recall it ever being said that Ashnard got his blood pact from Sephiran. And how did the game turn Daein into a caricature of itself?

I'd honestly say that Anankos is a very interesting villain to read about in a wiki article, but the execution of those interesting concepts leave something to be desired. It doesn't help that some important details for understanding him as a character aren't actually in the base game but instead are in DLC. Jedah as a character comes across as if the writing team were in disagreement on what they wanted to do with him (granted, I say that about a lot of different aspects of Shadows of Valentia). There is definitely times where he is as you described: a man who foils Celica by believing wholeheartedly that Valentia needs Duma in order to survive and that will do anything to ensure that, but then you have the rest of the time, where he's a self-centered moustache-twirling villain rather than a fanatic foil to the main heroine. What do you mean by "the Argathans would be good if Three Houses was a finished story"? The blood pacts were entirely Lekain's doing; Sephiran merely used Lekain's selfish ambition as part of his plan for a continent-wide war. I think you said it better than I ever could; that with Gharnef and Sephiran, there's a clear dividing line between what was their doing and what wasn't, and that what was their doing didn't undermine the agency of other characters. With more recent examples of the trope such as TWSITD, it's more muddy, and the agency of other characters is negatively impacted by them. I can agree that Jedah wasn't boring, though a lot of that was probably thanks to voice acting.

One unpopular Fire Emblem opinion that I have is that I don't consider the evil scheming-&-manipulating hidden wizard villain (the Gharnef) or evil cult that they often have to be inherently bad writing; like with a lot of FE archetypes, there are good examples and bad examples. Gharnef and especially Sephiran are good examples, while Validar is a placid example and Jedah &TWSITD are bad examples. Here's where I would probably be saying that the problem with more recent examples would be that they undermine the war by making it that the war's actually just a product of an ancient conspiracy (Garon/Anankos, Jedah, TWSITD), but that's clearly not the problem either, as Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn have the wars in those games be revealed to actually be all part of a plan involving Lehran's Medallion, and it's overall well-written and you don't see any complaints that Sephiran's plot detracts from the war plot or anything like that, unlike what is often seen when people complain about Garon of TWSITD. So, clearly, the problem is something more specific. What was different about the good examples like Gharnef and Sephiran (besides just saying that they were better-written)?

I haven't played TMSFE, but I'm going to guess that one reason (not necessarily the only reason, but one of them) was simply because the Clueless Chick Magnet (as TV Tropes calls it) is a tired old trope that appears all the time in fiction but particularly in anime. And honestly, it is one trope that I seriously dislike.

I just tried to do a bit more research into which parts of the game were handled by Koei Tecmo and which were handled by IS, and I have actually been having a lot of trouble figuring out which parts were handled by which company. The shortest answer that I read a lot is that Koei Tecmo mainly helped with the technical and programming side of things while IS remained in charge of design and the other aspects of development. However, whenever I look for more details, it seems that it was actually a lot more complicated than that, and it quickly gets a bit confusing. What I have found was that the scenario writing team was led by one of the two directors; namely Toshiyuki Kusakihara, and both directors work for IS. However, that scenario writing team consisted of Yuki Ikeno, Ryohei Hayashi and Mari Okamoto; all three of whom were brought in from Koei Tecmo. However (again), apparently, they were originally brought in just to assist IS in writing the social segments of the game. See what I mean by it getting complicated and confusing? And this was just stuff that I found in the first 20 minutes of researching. As far as inspiration goes, apparently, the school sections and the timeskip (particularly the former students being at war with each other after the timeskip) were taken directly from Genealogy of the Holy War, but Kusakihara later admitted to also taking some inspiration from Three Kingdoms; apparently when Koei Tecmo recommended the Kou Shibusawa team to IS for helping with Three Houses, IS naturally looked over the games that team had made, which included Koei Tecmo's adaptation of Three Kingdoms, and that's how they ended up looking at Three Kingdoms and taking some inspiration from it. I cannot find whether or not they already had the Genealogy-inspired elements of the game in mind before then or not.

If I recall correctly, the story and characters were handled by IS; Koei Tecmo's job was the programming. Anyway, I also enjoyed the Monastery stuff. It was neat being able to essentially freely explore and interact with the characters, and it helps a lot with immersion by reinforcing that the player character is a teacher. I liked a lot of the different features, though I'm not sure if it really needed a fishing minigame.

That could've been neat. Yeah; it is funny. I just can't figure out if it's intentionally funny or not. Sure. I think, right now, I'm probably just going to wait for a sale before purchasing any more games and try finishing some games that I have yet to finish (namely Three Houses).

I suppose. I guess I just didn't notice any Ancient Greek imagery in the stage. Yeah; he is a good boss fight, and his weapon is pretty good. I can't help but wonder how it would've worked if the weapon had included a shield like the one knight man has, though that probably would've been overpowered. That is a neat detail. I already knew about the music influence: Rock, Roll, Bass, Treble; it is a bit on-the-nose... but me using a music analogy was a complete coincidence. I'm glad you liked the analogy. Anyway, I completed Mega Man 6. I have to say, of all the obvious fake-out main villains in 4, 5, and 6, Wily posing as a mastermind called "Mr. X" that was supposedly using Wily, by wearing a dark cloak and goggles, has to be the silliest of them, and I can't tell if that was deliberate. One reason I think it might've been deliberate would be that it comes after 4 had "this brand new scientist is causing trouble" and 5 had "Proto Man is seemingly behind this" after 4 confirmed that Proto Man was good the whole time, so they are in decreasing order of plausibility. The Wily Machine was a lot better in this game than in the previous one, though the Wily Capsule fight wasn't. The energy balancer was convenient in that it meant I didn't have to swap weapons to decide which one to restore.

It's not just the invincibility; using the slide is far more intuitive than trying to jump just near enough to an enemy and attack, and since it uses the slide, it has much better range. Funny; I started Mega Man 6 earlier today, and I ended up starting with Flame Man. Centaur Man ended up being my second-to-last opponent, with Wind Man as the last. I have used the adapters. The power adapter is good for getting rid of cracked blocks and mobile spike enemies, but otherwise not worth it. The Jet Adapter is great; it kind-of reminds me of using Treble in Mega Man & Bass, and in a good way. I learned about the BEAT tiles online, and I made sure to get all the BEAT tiles. I also made sure to get the Energy Balancer. Yeah; MM6 is definitely a lot better. When it came to stages in 5, the only two I really liked were 5 were Charge Man's because I liked how a lot of it took place on a train and there was a lot of attention to detail, and the fake Proto Man's castle; also for more novelty reasons. With 6, the stages have almost all been rather neat, with all of them using their themes rather well. The only one I'm not so sure about is the Centaur Man stage, simply because it seems a bit ill-fitting: why does Centaur Man have what is essentially a water stage? The only connection I can think of between centaurs and water is that the centaur Chiron in Greek Mythology trained Jason, whose main story is him journeying on a ship called the Argo, and that connection is extremely tenuous. Anyway, the bosses so far have been fairly fun (Knight Man in particular stood out as a good boss fight), and their weapons have been fairly useful.

Well, I just completed Mega Man 5 before I read this. I found all the weapons at least somewhat useful, though the napalm mine and the rock attack were very tricky to use accurately. My favourite, though I didn't use it often, would have to be the charge kick, simply because it's an upgrade of the slide that damages opponents and makes Mega Man invincible for the duration of the dive. Yeah; I could definitely feel that it was phoned in. It wasn't bad, but if it were a song, it would be the kind of song that just goes in one ear and out the other. Next is the last game in the collection: Mega Man 6. After that, I'll decide whether or not I want to play the second part of the collection. These are some good games overall; I'm just not sure if I'm enjoying them enough to want 7, 8, 9 and 10. I'm really enjoying them, but I don't think I've become a classic Mega Man fan. Does that make sense?

@Lord_Brand Thanks for the information and for the heads up about the Rush Coil. No apologies necessary; I had my laptop next to me and didn't bother looking up how the wire item works. No, I didn't try the Flash Stopper on those enemies. I have an unfortunate habit of not using the items except when necessary or when I know there's an item refill. It's the old video game item paradox: useful, therefore never use. Huh; 5 is considered even weaker than 1? That's good to know in advance. I knew about those comics. Eh; I don't really read comics. Thanks again. Yeah; I was wondering whether to get the treasure trove collection or just the main game, so thanks.

I see. Thanks for the info.

@Lord_Brand Well, I just completed Mega Man 4. In a number of ways, the game is a refinement over 2 and 3: the plot is easy to understand without an instruction manual thanks to the simple intro, the doctor that Wily forces to help with his evil plans is a more understandable secondary antagonist than Proto Man (and Proto Man is an outright good guy in this one, which clears up some things about his actions in 3), that doctor's castle is a much better between-the-robot-masters-and-Wily's-Castle content than the stage remixes from 3, and Bright Man's version of Flash Man's ability has an off switch (albeit a somewhat clunky one) and doesn't leave Mega Man unable to attack. Moreover, none of the weapons felt situational-at-best; they all were at least decent projectiles. That said, I do have a few problems with it; most of which are areas where I felt the game broke something in an attempt to fix it. Part 1 of the Wily Machine fight is overall an improvement: it sticks to the right side of the screen and gives the player just enough room to reasonably be able to move around and dodge, and its weak spot takes effort to hit without being annoying, though I did find the first phase very easy to beat without taking any damage by simply standing near the machine and jumping & shooting only after it stops firing. The second phase, however, was a frantic mess. Remember how I liked the second half of the Wily Machine 3 because the player could use rush Jet to maneuver around it? Well, you can't in this game, so the Wily Machine goes back to being as terrible as it was in 1 and 2. Speaking of which, the Rush Jet was seriously nerfed, and not in a good way. I suspect that there were places where Rush Jet in 3 was considered game-breaking, but their attempt to nerf it just made it clunky, unrefined, and something I almost tried to avoid using. Support items in general are worse this time around: Rush Submarine went from something I rarely used to something I never used, the balloon is basically the elevator platform from 2 but somehow even worse (and redundant because there's nothing it can do that Rush Coil can't), and I didn't get any use out of the wire item, though that one may be because I didn't figure out how it worked until I got to Wily's Castle. Finally, though this is a very small issue, we went from ladder-crawling enemies that could be destroyed in 3 to ladder-crawling enemies that can not be destroyed in 4. Finally, for neither good or bad but still worth mentioning, I did like the addition of the charged shot, but I didn't find it as useful as I thought I would. It was somewhat useful, and it made me realize just how much I default to the rapid-fire button whenever I'm using the standard mega buster, but I get the feeling that I will like the charged shot more in 5 and 6. Anyway, I was recently looking at the game Shovel Knight, as I remembered that being a very well-received tribute to NES-era side-scrollers like Mega Man and The Adventure of Link, and I was wondering if you would recommend it to someone like me who really is rather new to old-school 2D side-scrollers.

I see. I was just curious.

@Lord_Brand I see. Thanks for the info. I'll keep an eye out for those secret side paths in those two stages. …Then what does he do if the player jumps? I see. I think I still prefer Battle Network overall, but that's mainly because I really like the combination of tactics and action, and I'm not really used to side-scrollers. Battle Network and Star Force resonated more with me. But I can easily see what made classic Mega Man special to a lot of people.

I'm not so sure about that considering its extremely short range and it only being able to be used while in midair, but I'm not exactly skilled at these games, so I'll take your word for it. I see. Hm... maybe. As I said earlier; it was the Battle Network games (and the Star Force games as well) that I played a lot, as the first two series were before my time, and I only got the classic Mega Man Legacy Collection because I've long wanted to try the classic games (mainly because I used to play Mega Man & Bass, but also to see how the franchise began) and because I heard a lot of good stuff about the Legacy Collection as a collection. I might consider playing Mega Man X after doing a bit of research about it and seeing if it would be my cup of tea or not. I see; that makes a lot of sense. Yeah; I did not see it for Mega Man 2, partly thanks to the save states, but also thanks to playing 2 immediately after playing the much jankier and more difficult 1. Well, I'm going to be playing 4 next. Since 3 introduced the slide technique, I have to ask: was 4 the one that introduced the charge shot? I found myself missing it a lot, as there are a lot of places where it would've been useful.

I'm going to reply to everything you said; I'm just cutting the quote to keep this from being too long. Yeah; 3 is a bit restrictive compared to 2. But I think all three games so far have had their share of good weapons and terrible weapons. Let's not forget that 2's time-stop weapon had no off switch and left the player unable to attack in any way. In terms of support items, I think 3 is the best overall with the 3 different Rush abilities, though they are far from balanced in terms of usefulness (the sub is situational at best). Rush Coil is far better than the temporary platform/elevator items in 2 and Rush Jet is really good in general. Yeah; Gamma Phase 2 is basically the only situation in which Top Spin is unambiguously useful. Outside of that, it can spin into some spikes for all I care. Yeah; Proto Man's weakness to Hard Knuckle really doesn't matter since he's an extremely easy fight every time except the Hard Man stage. I see; that would explain why thought the game needed padding. As far as padding goes, it isn't the worst. At least it's interesting to use the new weapons on the old bosses, and at least the stages are remixed when you go through them the second time. …It took me a while to get that pun. Thanks. I don't mind weapon swapping during battle too much, mainly because I often end up needing to go into the menu anyway to use an energy tank. I see. So... Proto Man's actions are just as incomprehensible if the player does have context; I honestly wasn't expecting that. I went through the whole game thinking, "This has to make sense in context". My guess, going from something in the Proto Man documents in the Legacy Collection about Proto Man mysteriously disappearing and having a faulty energy core or something like that, was something along the lines of that he was helping Wily to get his core fixed but was always loyal to Light and a good guy; hence him saving Mega Man at the end. But I honestly had no clue. Well, aside from the fact that Mega Man 4-through-11 exist, I knew it wasn't the end of Wily due to his flying saucer appearing in the end credits (Proto Man could've been piloting it, but he doesn't need to since he can seemingly teleport great distances). By the way, speaking of credits, I don't know if I encountered a bug or if this is just how the game ends, but 3's credits never ended. 1 and 2 had very quick credits, and once they ended, it went back to the game's menu (if I recall correctly, since I distinctly remember being able to save after beating those games). But for 3, the credits reached the point where it had "Made by Capcom" on the screen, and then it just stayed there with the text blinking and the music continuing to play. I waited several minutes to see if the credits would end on their own before ultimately saving and quitting the game. Also, what was that grid that appeared after every stage? The one where seemingly random parts of it would be filled by a blue or a pink dot after every stage?

I've never been against the "Power of Friendship" trope in-of-itself; as with most tropes, it's far more about how well the trope is used. Personally, I prefer examples of "power of friendship" where the power is not... nebulous (for lack of a better word); I prefer examples of it where the power comes in the form of teamwork, vital emotional support, and stuff like that. My favourite examples of this trope in recent years would have to be from Black Clover. There are a number of really good examples I could point to, so I'm just going to list a few to illustrate what they have in common (spoilers ahead): 1. The Black Bulls working together to defeat Third-Eye Vetto. 2. Vanessa, determined to protect her friends, creating the Red Thread of Fate spell that literally bends fate to protect her family, with her family being the Black Bulls and not the Witch Queen. 3. Well, this: But really any moment with these two.

True. As I said, the most likely reason they adapted the arcs out-of-order was to coincide with the third movie: World Heroes Mission. I was okay with them being out-of-order as I had a good idea of what happened in the manga, but them cutting out stuff is a real shame, especially since each season has 25 episodes and, even if there wasn't room for every part of the arc, they've ended seasons midway through arcs before.

You would be correct in that Black Clover fans have a different take on things. Honestly, I never once saw Black Clover as derivative or iterative; anyone who said it was one of those two things wasn't paying attention as, like My Hero Academia, it did expand on the conventions of the shonen formula and adjust ones that don't work. I can agree that Asta at first glance can seem like the typical shonen protagonist. I will just say that one area where it should've been obvious to viewers that Black Clover was not just an iteration was with the main rival: Yuno. Even My Hero Academia still went with the typical abrasive & antagonist shonen rival in Bakugo; the main differences being that Bakugo picked up all the shonen-protagonist traits that Midoriya shed and that he outright defied the rival-turned-evil trope. With Yuno, however, while he initially is presented as resembling the typical shonen rival: aloof, talented, etc., he turns out to be a complete subversion of the trope as early as episode 1: he isn't antagonistic towards Asta at all; just the opposite: he deeply respects and looks up to Asta, and their rivalry is mutually-supportive and brotherly. It even turns out that he isn't even aloof: he's just an introverted and socially-awkward individual who can seem stoic because he vowed at a young age to stop being a crybaby, and he's just not very good at communicating with people other than Asta. I see. Yeah; even I noticed that some of that stuff was missing. At first I figured that some of it was because of the arc being framed as a flashback, but as it shifts perspective between different members of the league, it's clear that they could've still kept all that stuff. I will just say, as someone who watches it with subtitles instead of watching the dub: don't worry; Twice is done justice. Yeah; probably a bit of that as well. It still just baffles me why one got lauded as a successor while the other, which had less in common, got reviled as a ripoff.

To this day, I still find it weird how, when My Hero Academia released, it got lauded as a "successor" of Naruto, and yet, when Black Clover released, despite it having more in common with stuff like Bleach, it got mocked and reviled as a "ripoff" of Naruto. I think the main reason for the shuffling was because of the new movie, but I'm not sure. Are they really rushing the My Villain Academia arc? I know what happens in that arc, but I haven't actually read it; are there things that they skipped or something like that?

I can think of Ike & Mist, Ephraim and Erika, Chrom and his sisters, maybe Marth and Elice (I say "maybe" because her only role in both games is to be captured and in need of being rescued before being playable for only the last ten minutes of the game), and that's about it (I wouldn't count the Fates siblings because they can be allies or antagonistic depending on the route). Oh, I suppose there was also that brother of Celica that was added in Shadows of Valentia, but he doesn't really add anything to the plot. But you are correct in that at least Fire Emblem has more examples than most media.

I don't know if this counts, but I'm going to list it as an example: I really dislike the evil sibling trope. But, the thing is, I can not actually think of a single example of this trope that I dislike; every example of an evil sibling that comes to mind: Azula to Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender, Langris to Finral from Black Clover, [Spoilers] to Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia, etc., are all well-written characters with interesting story arcs and compelling dynamics with their good sibling. So, why do I dislike the trope? The simple answer is that it's just so overused. It appears in so many places that, if any of the main cast has a sibling, you can be almost certain that it's an evil sibling. And the overuse of it is made all the more apparent by just how few stories there are where one of the main characters has a good sibling that's actually a character. The only two examples I can think of good siblings in fiction are Asta & Yuno from Black Clover and Edward & Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. That's it. So, yeah; it's a trope that I generally dislike, with specific exceptions being... almost every example of the trope.

Thanks for the info. The Yellow Devil in Mega Man 1 was a real pain until I learned about the damage-multiple-times-by-repeated-pausing trick. Hm... I'm not sure; maybe. I'm not sure how much I can really say, as a confessed outsider to both classic Mega Man and 2D side-scrollers in general, that hasn't already been said about these games or the collection for that matter. EDIT: I have now beaten four of the bosses in Mega Man 3. I have to say that, with both this and 2, I tend to gravitate towards the items that let me attack at multiple angles. That might be from me having played Mega Man & Bass, where Bass could fire in seven different directions, but I suspect that's it's more because of the simple convenience. No matter what I do, I cannot find a button configuration that enables me to jump & fire while still being comfortable for my hand. I can still jump & fire (which I end up having to do a lot), but it is not comfortable. Going back to items, I criticized the bubble item in 2 for only being an effective attack on the ground and having pathetic range if firing while jumping (which you have to do to hit the final boss in 2), but the Top Spin is far worse, and I honestly think it is by far the worst item I have encountered so far. It only works if you jump first; something the game doesn't tell you because it doesn't tell you anything (I find myself missing how Mega Man & Bass did little animations that showed you how the item worked), and I already stated how uncomfortable attacking while jumping is for me in this series. It's a melee attack with pathetic range in a game where even the slightest physical contact with an enemy will result in you taking damage, and if you take damage while using Top Spin, the item meter for it gets completely depleted. I had to rewind my fight against Shadow Man multiple times just because it kept ending up empty while he was at more than 2/3 of his HP, and even then I couldn't beat him with the top spin and had to take out the last quarter of his HP using the mega buster, and it was a very narrow victory. It's even worse than the worst items in 1; as situational as the bomb and the guts throw were, when the time came for them to be used, they were useful and intuitive. Top Spin is pathetic. Outside of items, one thing I can say is that it is very clear with these games that they expected the player to know the story context from the instruction booklet and/or the back of the box that the game came in. I know about Proto Man from Mega Man & Bass, and seeing him as a recurring mini-boss in 3 without any context was very confusing. I can very quickly guess as to what his story is supposed to be, but there is still that bit of dissonance. In gameplay though, Proto Man is a very easy fight. He always jumps before firing, so I just use the mega buster without moving, then dive when he gets too close. The one time where I encountered some difficulty against him was Hard Man's stage (which I didn't finish simply because I stopped playing and moved on to do something else), simply because the terrain was uneven and I couldn't avoid him through sliding. But then I had a new problem: how are you supposed to avoid him then? You can't jump over him, and you can't slide under his jump. EDIT: So, I've beaten all eight robot masters in Mega Man 3. Normally, this would mean that I've gained access to Wily's Castle. Instead, four identical boss faces have appeared in previous boss stages. At first I thought, "Okay; maybe the game's making the rematches happen in a staggered way instead of all at once in a particular section of Wily's Castle; that way, Wily's Castle isn't nearly as long". But then I checked online: Wily's Castle has six stages; that's more than in the previous games. Are these revisits of previous areas just blatant padding or something? At least the stages are somewhat remixed and the boss fights are recreations of the boss fights from Mega Man 2. EDIT: So, I've beaten Mega Man 3. I liked the bosses for Wily's Castle in this game a bit more than I did for the previous two games. Proto Man (I mean "Break Man") was as easy as ever but still an okay fight, the second version of the yellow devil was better than the original, and I thought I wouldn't like the hologram Mega Mans, but there's a trick to them: while the magnet item will do no damage to them, it will go for the real one, so I used it to find the real one, then swapped to the snake item and quickly destroyed it before it swapped places with one of the fakes. The Wily Machines have never really been fun boss fights for me because they always take up most of the space, and this one's first phase was no exception, but the second phase where it's recommended to use the rush jet was great. I also liked the fake-out with the fake-Wily robot that grovels before the reveal. Gamma was a semi-interesting final boss, and I think a much better way to have a giant boss fight conceptually as most of the boss is in the background and doesn't impair your mobility. I dislike that the final blow is best achieved through top spin, but that's just a minor issue. I like how Proto Man saves Mega Man at the end, though I don't really understand the story in this game because I'm missing vital context. Could someone please tell me the parts of the story that evidently must've only been in the instruction booklet?