vanguard333

The expansion for Monster Hunter Rise looks interesting. The base game had a very distinct Feudal Japan & Yokai theme to it, so this expansion having what looks to be a Medieval Europe look to it, and a monster that looks like a cross between a dragon and a vampire, is a very neat contrast. The fact that it was just a cinematic with no gameplay is a bit disappointing, but I suspect that Capcom will show that stuff off themselves in a future presentation.

Well, I can easily say that this direct surprised me. 1. That card-based RPG seemed interesting. I might try the demo for it. 2. Age of Calamity expansion pass; at first I was going to roll my eyes and just wait until the next announcement, but then then it surprised me by Nintendo somehow going the whole announcement without even once falsely claiming that the game is a prequel to Breath of the Wild; they couldn't even go through the DLC presentation at E3 2021 without doing that. 3. Seeing a 3D Kirby game was definitely a huge surprise. I was not expecting that at all. 4. i figured that Nintendo would add N64 games to Switch Online via some kind of expansion pass, as that way they can incentivize people to spend more money, but I was not expecting Sega Genesis games to also be in the expansion. I would've guessed the original Gameboy before guessing Sega Genesis. 5. I was not expecting an announcement for the Mario movie. Overall though, there wasn't really anything that particularly grabbed my attention.

After playing through the classic Mega Man Legacy Collection, I remembered that I have The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition, and I thought I would use it to play another NES classic: the original The Legend of Zelda. I decided that I wanted to see how much of it has aged well and how much has not. And of course, I am playing it with a walkthrough next to me, but simply to have a map and to know which trees to burn and which walls to blow up to unlock secret areas. What I can say right now is... a lot has not aged well at all: 1. Link only being able to stab with the sword rather than having a cutting attack means that his hitbox is rather tiny in a game where even the slightest touch from an enemy will hurt Link. Only being able to save & quit is a pain even if it's easy to just start playing again. This need to stay away from enemies makes the sword beam attack extremely useful early on for defeating enemies while keeping your distance... but the sword beam attack is only available at full health. I always thought that the sword beam attack in 2D games and Breath of the Wild only working at full health was a stupid idea, and to see that it was something from the original game that they thoughtlessly kept bringing back just further proves to me that it's a bad idea. Nintendo really needs to come up with a better limitation for the sword beam attack. 2. I don't mind save systems that force you to start at a specific area like how Ocarina of Time has you start at Link's house if Young Link and the Temple of Time if Adult Link, but at least Ocarina of Time let you save and keep going. This is made even worse by the lives system the game has, which makes resetting your best option a lot of the time if you get a game over, and you're going to get a game over in this game a lot more than in other Zelda games. 3. No map. The most you get is a mini-map in the top-left part of the screen indicating where you are in the overworld, and it is the most featureless mini-map I have ever seen. It's not even a grid like one would expect from a mini-map that's just a featureless box, so you can't think, "Okay; I'm at tile [number] across and [number] down; I remember the great fairy being two tiles up from here" or anything like that. 4. Certain enemies endlessly respawning; namely River Zora and Leevers (the things that pop out of the sand and charge towards you to attack). I cannot stand either of them at this point in the game, and I cannot figure out a consistent way of avoiding the latter. These are the only enemies I've encountered so far that keep respawning after you defeat them; for others, you have to leave the tile and come back, and they are endlessly frustrating. That said, there is quite a lot about it that still works today: 1. Having the game open with the player having to make a choice about where they want to go is rather brilliant, and I like how the path that leads to a useful item (the wooden sword) stands out among the options by being a cave rather than a path. 2. Having different shops have different prices for certain items is actually rather genius, as it rewards exploration, patience and being careful about what you buy and when. 3. Having it that you can only get heart containers and not heart pieces is great as the effect of the reward is immediate, rather than it only being immediate 1/4 (or 1/5 for Twilight Princess) of the time.

Same; I really hope that Battle Network gets its own legacy collection like the older Mega Man series have. I doubt it will be announced in this direct, but I hope it happens at some point. I honestly would be more excited about a Xenoblade X port than Xenoblade 3. I still have my Wii U, so I almost-certainly wouldn't buy a port of Xenoblade X, but it really deserves more attention because of its particular strengths (mainly in exploration). I honestly am not a fan of the Xenoblade series; as much as their stories and worldbuilding are usually interesting, I really do not like the MMO-like combat. As a result, X is the only Xenoblade game I've been able to actually finish because the exploration (and the giant mechs) were able to keep me interested in the gameplay.

Just wondering out of curiosity: what if it's a parody that's using those tropes for laughs? Would you like it then?

For my opinion on video game remakes in general, I'm going to quote what I said in a thread about remakes: My opinion on the current FE remakes is that I honestly prefer Shadow Dragon over Shadows of Valentia. A lot of people dislike Shadow Dragon for being a 1:1 remake, but I like that IS at least had a clear idea of what they wanted to do with Shadow Dragon, whereas Shadows of Valentia is all over the place. For Fire Emblem 4-through-8, I've never played them, so I can't really say much about what I want to see from remakes of them. As long as they're brought up to date without losing what made them unique and interesting and have a clear direction about what kind of remake they want to be, then that's good enough for me. For Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, I honestly would want to see 1:1 remakes/remasters that mostly just fix what few things are wrong with those games. For Path of Radiance, such little things would include the following: I also want Path of Radiance to use the NA Localization script, as that is easily the best version of the game's story and dialogue, and I want all the original artwork kept and for the character models to simply be upscaled and given extra detail.

I'm predicting that they'll announce a Hyrule Warriors game that they claim is set in the time of the war against Demise in the backstory of Skyward Sword, only for the game to actually take place in an alternate timeline where a robotic cucumber goes back in time and slays Demise. …Just kidding. I predict that there won't be any Zelda-related news. I would predict more Metroid Dread announcements, but they've been releasing five trailers per week for that game so I fail to see what more they could say in a direct. Pokémon news is normally handled by the Pokémon YouTube channel, so there probably won't be new information there, but I could be wrong. I could definitely see them announcing more Smash Bros. DLC.

The problem with that is that it wasn't an isolated portion; it was a direct continuation of the point I was making in the paragraph above it. I think you may have misunderstood what I was getting at by only reading it out-of-context.

I see. In that case, I don't see how what you said really is a response to what I said. The argument you tried to make doesn't seem to connect in any way to anything that I said.

@Acacia Sgt Are you replying to me or to someone else? I ask because I was the last person to add a reply before you.

Alm having the right ideals to lead is honestly a problem with the game, but for a different reason: perhaps the heaviest focus of the game is on duality: Mila and Duma torn apart and dividing Valentia by their different ideologies, Alm and Celica promises never to let anything like that come between them, both countries beginning to crack from their ideologies reaching their logical conclusion, and with Alm pursuing to solve the crises through conflict while Celica tries to solve through investigation and finding Mila ("the way of the sword or the way of the heart"). The natural and logical resolution for such a buildup would be that neither Alm nor Celica have all the answers; that both of them risk falling astray by separately holding onto their ideals, and that they need to come together and work together. And yet, Alm has all the answers while Celica gets her soul eaten by Duma. That's inherently contradictive. Alm is just so amazing and can do no wrong; all the girls want him and all the guys want to be him, and no one can stop talking about how there was always something just so special about him and none of them could figure out what it is... and he's revealed to have been secret royalty. Can you seriously not see why that's a problem?

I see. I agree; the issue of Alm's heritage and the topic of nobility & classism is terribly handled in Shadows of Valentia. Hm... Let's see what I can help you with in this argument... Naruto's heritage isn't a bad thing; he's the son of the fourth Hokage (the title given to the leader of the ninja village Naruto is born and raised in). Of course, for most of the series, only a select few characters actually know about Naruto's heritage (somewhat similar to Alm in that regard), and the list does not include Naruto himself. But anyway; Naruto's dilemma in the series is that he's all alone: on the day he was born, the village was attacked by the Nine-Tailed Fox and his parents were killed; his father ended up saving the village by sealing the Nine-Tailed Fox inside Naruto. This led to almost everyone in the village associating him with the Nine-Tailed Fox and hating him for it, so he spent his whole life up until around age 12 completely alone. As a result, he is desperate to win the approval of the village that considers an outcast and a loser and he hopes to do so by becoming Hokage. In the Naruto vs Neji fight, he's up against Neji, who is considered among the best of the best within the ninjas-in-training. Neji's heritage is an issue for him (Neji): he's part of the branch family of a prominent ninja clan that treats its branch families as, well, expendable servants. Unlike Naruto, who is desperate to escape the cage that society placed him in, Neji believes that that's impossible and that Naruto is a fool for trying. Naruto the loser beating Neji the prodigy, and using the very power that was the cause of Naruto being an outsider in the first place, demonstrates to Neji that it is possible. Of course, there's also another personal motivation in that Naruto is avenging Hinata (a shy member of the main family of that clan and the only person at that point in the story that actually looks up to Naruto) that Neji beat to a pulp earlier in the tournament arc, but that's largely beside the point. Anyway, onto Alm, I honestly don't understand why they focused so much on classism as a topic when the apparent main themes of the game are, "the way of the sword or the way of the heart, and people with different ideologies needing to learn to work together for a better future". Partly as a result of that misplaced attention, those more present themes are also extremely mishandled.

I see. Just to be clear, are you arguing that how SoV handled Alm's true heritage and the topic of nobility and classism was bad or good?

I haven't read your argument with Anathaco so I don't know the context. I'm guessing from the sentences I removed from the quote that you're arguing about Alm's heritage?

Ah; that's what you meant. Yeah; one criticism of Three Houses would definitely be that it sets up a lot of things only to resolve some of them rather hastily. I honestly do think that they bit off more than they could chew, especially since, if I recall correctly, they said in an interview that the final game ended up being over twice as big as what they had originally envisioned.

Yeah. He's no Link from The Legend of Zelda, and I honestly don't really like Alm, but at least there's still one left-handed protagonist. When will Nintendo realize that audiences liked that their left-handed characters are left-handed? Not only was Link made right-handed in Breath of the Wild for no good reason, but Nintendo's doubled down by also making Bowser Jr. right-handed in Bowser's Fury.

I think you may have read too much into that sentence, since nowhere does it mention the blood pact; it only mentions that they told him about the medallion. Uh... the people of Daein are not eager to help out Begnion in the war; they're still recovering from both losing the Mad King's War and winning a war of independence against the Begnion occupation army; they are tired and weary, and they do not want to fight in another war, let alone fight on the same side as Begnion. They do so because their Joan of Arc (Micaiah) is telling them to do so, and she was ordered to do so by King Pelleas.

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).