vanguard333

That's a good point; I know I would prefer a shift in focus away from the character building and back towards the core tactical gameplay, but it can reduce discussion compared to games that focus more on the character building. It doesn't help that general consensus seems to be, "replace your earlier units once later units in the same class come along", when previous games more focused on the tactical gameplay were generally a bit more nuanced in terms of which units were recommended. Anyway, I just beat chapter 20 and saw how the game chooses to reveal the truth about Alear. At this point, Zephia and Griss know thanks to Alear's dragonstone that Veyle carries with her that a child of Sombron's still lives, and they suspect that Alear is that child. So Griss tests the theory. At the same time, they just lost two emblem rings and are down to just two rings remaining. So, how does Griss test if Alear is indeed Sombron's child? He forfeits one of the two remaining rings to Alear and looks at how Alear summons it. Why not give Alear the dragonstone? Griss and Zephia don't care about the stone; they can't use it for anything else, but the emblem rings are something they believe they can't afford to lose. They have an obvious alternative that would enable them to test their theory; why wouldn't they try that first before handing over a ring?

I admit that I haven't finished the game, but I agree; there really isn't much to talk about with Engage. I've mainly just been talking about Alear not really being a dragon, and I'm tired of talking about it. I haven't gotten to that point in the game yet, but I know about that twist. Incidentally, one of my favourite shows as a kid had a similar, "The villain is an isekai character" twist and it was actually a really good twist that the show did manage to explore effectively despite it being revealed shortly before the final battle. That show was called Spider Riders. Spoilers for it below. I wonder how this game's version of the twist will compare in execution once I get to it.

1. TOTK Ganondorf. As @Etrurian emperor said, it would be a great way to get rid of Falcondorf and TOTK provides a great variety of options for Ganondorf's moveset. 2. Raven Beak (Metroid Dread). Again, same reasons that @Etrurian emperor mentions. 3. Dame Fiorayne (Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak). I imagine most people who want a Monster Hunter fighter would probably want the main hunter to be a fighter in Smash Bros., but since that's a custom character, I think Fiorayne would probably be a better option: she's a fixed character who is fairly well-written and she regularly fights alongside the hunter in story missions. Similarly, it would be cool to see Hinoa & Minoto as an assist trophy. 4. Dana (Ys VIII). If Smash Bros. were to include a character from the Ys series, it would probably be Adol. But Dana is Switch-era and she's far more interesting both as a character and in terms of moveset options. An honourable mention that I don't really want to see in Smash Bros., but I will add here anyway as a way of accepting the inevitable: Alear (Fire Emblem Engage). Yet another sword-wielding FE lord; they don't even have being a dragon to help them stand out because, frankly, they're not a dragon no matter what the game might say. What they do have is the emblem rings, and, thankfully, there are enough emblem rings of FE characters that aren't already fighters/assist trophies in Smash (Celica, Sigurd, Leif, Erickah, and Micaiah) that those emblems could be enough for Alear to at least somewhat stand out.

My Castle was largely pointless and interfered with the plot, Gerrag Mach was fun for immersion but could get a bit tiring, and the Somneil made me miss the menu system from the Tellius games. If hub areas are here to stay, one thing I do hope for is that they don't have all these pointless minigames. Every minigame in the Somneil felt largely pointless, but I kept using them anyway because they provided benefits like extra items and temporary stat upgrades.

Why would anyone on the dev team think that a game like engage would be meant to appeal to a wider audience? It's an anniversary celebration game (or it would've been if not for the pandemic), it leans far more heavily on the gameplay than games like Three Houses and Fates, it leans heavily on nostalgia with the emblems and their paralogues, and the story is a classic, "Sword-wielding teenage human vs evil dragon" storyline with the only twist on it being that the game weirdly insists that the teenage sword-wielding human is a dragon despite all evidence being to the contrary; one glance at the game would tell anyone that it's a game intended for established fans, not a wider audience. This just demonstrates to me that the teams at IS lately can't ever seem to just have one solid understanding of what the game they're making is intended to be; there's always some sort of dissonance. I suspected as much with Shadows of Valentia, which felt like the dev team had different ideas on what type of remake it was supposed to be, and now here's a game where developer interviews outright confirm dissonance in the form of them not seeing what the audience for the type of game they were making would be. Was their takeaway from Awakening that "Fire Emblem Greatest Hits" games appeal to wide audiences? If so, their takeaway from Awakening should've been, "games that actually have any marketing behind them appeal to wide audiences".

I see. I myself wouldn't know, as I don't like shooters in general; the main reason I like the Metroid Prime trilogy is that it's more of an adventure game than a shooter; Nintendo even described the games as "first-person adventure". Oh, yeah; I was never interested in Cyberpunk 2077; partly because of the first-person perspective, but also because something about it just seemed off that I couldn't put into words; of course, looking back, that "off" feeling was probably me noticing the early warning signs that the game lacked clear direction and was going to overpromise, go through a development nightmare, and underdeliver.

Yeah; first-person is fine for a game that's purely about ranged combat, like Metroid Prime (and even then, the perspective hinders platforming); for any game with melee combat, it should be third-person. I was interested in the game Kingdom Come: Deliverance since I'm a medieval history enthusiast, but the first-person perspective made me uninterested in the game.

Incidentally, I vastly prefer Monster Hunter over the Souls games. I played all the way through Monster Hunter Rise and the Sunbreak DLC and I really enjoyed it. I know that the monsters in Monster Hunter are meant to be fought many times while Souls bosses are meant to be fought once, making comparing them an unfair comparison, but I really enjoy the amount of thought that goes into each monster fight: the moment-to-moment combat is very simple (with the exception of combos, which I am not good at), but there are lots of things a player can learn and use to gain an advantage, even if, most of the time, that method of gaining an advantage is breaking a specific monster part. I wouldn't go into a Bethesda game expecting anything to be stellar, since it just isn't going to happen. It's not just game speed; as I understand, in Dark Souls 1, armour was meaningful, while armour in Dark Souls 3 may as well be purely cosmetic. I did two playthroughs of Dark Souls 3 before giving up: one as a knight, another as a cleric, and there was no significant difference in defense whatsoever. There are also bosses like the Pontiff in Dark Souls 3 with attacks meant specifically to throw off a player's roll timing, only for rolling to still be how to defeat the boss. As I understand it, certain "gimmick bosses", like the Tower Knight, are loved by the fanbase, while others, like the Bed of Chaos, are loathed. But yeah; I have seen quite a few fans who hate all "gimmick bosses". There's a video I've seen that's critical of the direction the Souls games have been heading (bear in mind that the video released before Sekiro and Elden Ring), made by a fan of the series, and it's a video I find very interesting. I wonder what you think of it:

Oh; I don't mind combat that's simple (in the sense of not being complex); I love Zelda games after all. The difference is that Zelda games ask me to think, while Souls games ask me to roll. …So, yeah; I don't like the r1-spam-and-roll gameplay. I probably wouldn't mind it if it was just regular enemies that you beat with r1-and-roll, but it's bosses as well. I have spoken with a lot of Souls players about my grievances with the series, and one thing I often hear can be summed up as, "Yeah; the later games leaned entirely onto the r1-and-roll; maybe you'd like DS1 or Demon's Souls?"

For me, Souls games are a great example of the reason why I consider "challenge" and "difficulty" to be two different things when it comes to video games. For me, "challenge" is how much the game asks me to understand its mechanics, learn, be observant, etc., while "difficulty" is just how mechanically difficult something is; how narrow the window to press the correct button at the correct time is and stuff like that. From what I've seen, Souls games are all difficulty with few real challenges, which I really don't like, as challenge matters far more to me than difficulty. Difficulty without challenge, to me, is just annoying and boring. I will happily play an easy game that still offers interesting challenges; I will not play a difficult game that doesn't offer interesting challenges. I think, when people say, "Dark Souls isn't actually that hard", often, they're really saying that it isn't very challenging. I did have the patience to die hundreds of times, and I still gave up playing Dark Souls 3 after realizing that all those deaths weren't from failing to realize something, but from not pressing the roll button at the right time.

Normal Difficulty, First Playthrough, Unfinished Playthrough, currently at chapter 18. Chloe is one of two early-game units that remain very useful even into the late game. Early game, Chloe is the group's only flying unit, and being the only flying unit in the early game, she has something that later flying units lack: access to Emblem Sigurd before chapter 10. Throughout the early game, I often went back-and-forth between Louis having Emblem Sigurd and Chloe having Emblem Sigurd, depending on whether a high-mobility tank or a really high-mobility flying unit was the better choice for a given map. 11 movement that ignores most terrain, a brave lance and a ridersbane on a fast unit, and momentum increasing the power of her first attack by up to 10 every turn meant that Chloe was almost unstoppable when engaged with Emblem Sigurd. Just before chapter 10, I made sure to have Louis and Chloe each inherit a skill from Emblem Sigurd that I figured would help them the most: for Louis, that skill was Canter. For Chloe, that skill was momentum. Once she promoted, momentum meant an increase in the power of her first attack every turn by up to six, and it usually was six thanks to her being a really useful flying unit. This meant that, even though I promoted her to Griffon Knight and her strength didn't improve much, she was still capable of defeating most enemies in one turn. Another thing that helps Chloe greatly is that she does not have much in the way of competition: Ivy and Hortensia are magical fliers that fulfill different roles as a result, so Chloe's only real competition is Rosado. I can't say how Rosado compares to Chloe, since I didn't use Rosado outside of the chapter where he's recruited. Now, in the late game, my Chloe is struggling a little. The problem is her build: I don't think I've seen it increase once outside of when she promoted, so she is still weighed down by most lances. She has high enough speed that she will double most enemies if weighed down a little, but a number of useful lances weigh her down a lot. I suppose that could've been mitigated by Emblem Leif, but I gave Emblem Leif to Anna. However, even with this drawback, Chloe is still very useful. She is a good candidate for the Erika & Ephraim Emblem... I think; I still don't fully understand how this emblem works. But Chloe does make good use of wind sword. Overall, I would give Chloe a 9/10. She's one of only a few early game units who will always remain useful, and early access to Sigurd and Leif means early access to inheritable skills that can mitigate her few weaknesses as a unit (momentum from Sigurd for attack, or build+4 from Leif for her low build).

I used to play a lot of board games with my family: The Game of Life, Monopoly, Payday, Risk (though I can't remember a time we ever finished a game of Risk), and sometimes Chess, though we weren't very good at chess. The last board game we played was a gift from relatives called Ticket to Ride: a game about building railway networks and completing sidequests handed out on cards. I was in last place for the entire game, then at the end, it turned out that, because I focused on completing all the sidequests I had received throughout the game, I had by far the most points at the end of the game and won in a landslide.

Oh, I do think it looks good, and it looks like a more imaginative take on Nordic-inspired fantasy than most 'Viking games'. I'm just saying that it doesn't stand out to me like Ys VIII did; Ys VIII stood out as really imaginative: a fantasy RPG on a deserted island that has dinosaurs on it, while Adol has dreams of a woman who was part of a lost civilization from the age of dinosaurs. Granted, "Stranded on a deserted island" and "island of dinosaurs" are old tropes, but they were definitely not a trend when Ys VIII released. And at least 3-4 years before the initial localization is fixed. I make that joke, but I bought Ys VIII long after the redone localization and I likely wouldn't have even known about it if I hadn't seen people talk about it after it had been fixed.

@Shrimpy -Limited Edition- Thank you. It's a bit saddening to see Ys pursue the "Viking game" trend that a lot of franchises have tried to follow for the past couple of years (and, incidentally, I was already getting sick and tired of Viking and Norse Mythology-inspired media around the time that it became a trend in video games, so I'm really sick and tired of it now), but otherwise, the game looks really cool. It's reminding me a lot of Wind Waker: the island archipelago, the grappling hook, the use of a ship as a main mode of transportation, etc., and I really like Wind Waker. The two-character combat system looks like an interesting evolution of the party-based action combat the previous games had, and it's oddly reminding me a bit of Spirit Tracks. Adol looks younger in this trailer than he did in Ys VIII, so I'm guessing it takes place earlier in the series (or rather, I would be guessing that if I hadn't already found out online that the game apparently takes place shortly after Ys II).

I've seen people talking about the upcoming Ys X; have there been any trailers or anything for it? I admit that I hadn't been paying any attention to Ys news since I wasn't very interested in Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, but up until I saw people talk about Ys X in this forum, I didn't know that a Ys X had even been announced.

I need to issue a retraction for my statement about my Celine’s current stats; it turns out that I misremembered her strength and defence stats and they’re actually 19 and 18 respectively at chapter 17 (level 13 Vidame; I don’t remember what level she was at when I promoted her), which, while they aren’t great, they aren’t bad at all. Her strength stat is currently higher than my Yunaka’s by 1 and exactly the same as Alear’s strength. If it weren’t for her low build, I could easily raise her overall score to 7/10, but her low build and strong competition are still major issues. ... actually, I think I will raise the score to 7/10. But again: this is my first play through, it’s normal difficulty, and I’m not finished this play through.

I guess so; this is my first time playing Engage. I guess in the case of Celine, early game, she was good enough that I thought she would be like Louis and Chloe in being the exception and remaining a really good unit, as she remained useful for longer than others like the retainers and Alfred did, at least in my current playthrough.

I am still in the middle of my first playthrough of the game, so this isn't going to be as detailed or thorough, and please take all this with a grain of salt: Classes: Noble -> Vidame. Difficulty Mode: Normal. Celine is an interesting unit. Early game, she's a great magic unit and probably the best choice for the Celica Emblem before chapter 10. However, once units start promoting, she starts becoming overshadowed. I'm currently at chapter 17, and my Celine has high speed, resistance and luck, but her strength and magic are both stuck at around 14 (EDIT: I misremembered her stats and she actually 19 strength and 18 magic at that point) and her low build means she is weighed down by any spell heavier than Elfire. If you want a magic user, Ivy in her unique class has greater range, greater defenses, greater build, and much greater magic. If you want a mixed attacker, Jean is the better candidate thanks to his personal skill doubling class growth rates and making mixed-attacking more feasible, though my Jean's speed is currently stuck at 13, so Celine has the advantage in better speed despite having lower attack power. Her promoted class lets her use staves, but Hortensia is easily the better staff user due to her greater range from being a flying unit, her having a better magic stat, and her personal skill increasing the range of staves by 1. Pandreo also exists as possible competition, but I haven't used him at all, so I don't know how he compares to Celine. Overall, Celine is a unit that starts great, but tries to be something that is rarely feasible in FE games (a magic/physical mixed attacker) and is easily replaced by Jean and later royals. That said, there is one thing I've discovered that does make Celine stand out compared to Ivy and Hortensia, at least when they're all in their unique classes. For the last few chapters, I have found myself going back and forth between giving Emblem Byleth to Hortensia or Celine. Hortensia, thanks to being a flying unit, can reach other units for Goddess Dance more easily than infantry-unit Celine can. However, because she's a flying unit, the emblem item that Hortensia obtains from Byleth is a physical-attack lance that Hortensia can't really use well. Meanwhile, Celine, thanks to Vidame being a mystical class, Celine receives the still-overpowered Thyrsus, which increases the range of all her tomes by 2. The ability to give all non-surge tomes a range of 4 at minimum is almost too good to pass up, so I'm genuinely torn. Overall, I would say 6/10. Celine starts off as a great unit, starts to see much stronger competition as the game progresses and as the flaws of trying to be both a physical and magical attacker start to show, but she can still carve out a useful niche if you really want to use Celine.

Missions: Path of Radiance & Radiant Dawn - the defense chapters - Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn easily have the best chapters of any FE game that I've played, and the defense chapters stand out even among the other great chapters. Tears of the Kingdom - Wind Temple Approach - I never expected what is essentially a platforming section to be one of my favourite missions in a Zelda game, but here we are: gradually going from the ground to the sky through climbing, ascend, and jumping from skyship to skyship during a blizzard is a really fun experience. Fire Emblem Three Houses - chapter 12 (Crimson Flower) - In every other route of Three Houses, chapter 12 is a rather underwhelming defense mission that pales in comparison to the Tellius games. In Crimson Flower, it's one of the best seize missions of any FE game. The enemy units are constantly throwing new things at the player as the player gets closer to seizing Garreg Mac, but in a way that feels very fair and provides a nice, almost rhythmic back-and-forth as the player adapts to everything thrown at them. One thing I find very boring is an RPG where it all comes down to optimally customizing the playable characters and the fight itself is nothing, and there are a lot of chapters that are like that in Three Houses; this chapter isn't one of them. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks - The Tower of Spirits - I wasn't sure whether to list this as a mission or an explorable area, but I ultimately decided on mission since each section is a place that the player is only expected to visit once. The puzzles and challenges are fun, but there is one thing that makes this area of the game stand out: Spirit Zelda. Spirit Tracks is the only Zelda game where Nintendo made the brilliant decision to have Zelda be Link's adventuring companion, and the Tower of Spirits is the part of the game where that decision shines the most. The puzzles revolve around having Zelda possess animated suits of armour called Phantoms and having Link and Zelda work together to solve the problems, and it works. Pokémon Platinum - Climbing Mt. Coronet & The Torn World - Again, I thought at first of placing this in the explorable areas category, but the fact that it is a mostly linear gauntlet that the player that mainly serves as a main story mission means that it belongs here. Climbing Mt. Coronet was already a climatic (if a bit tedious) moment in Diamond & Pearl; the addition of the Torn World in Platinum after the player confronts Team Galactic at the summit elevates it even further to the point of easily being one of the best missions in all of Pokémon. The atmosphere is fantastic, and the gameplay makes great use of the Torn World being, well, the Torn World: a place heavily implied to be an antimatter realm. Explorable Areas: Metroid Prime Trilogy - Skyview, Elysia I will admit that I really like sky cities, but this location is fantastic even regardless of that. The atmosphere is fantastic, exploring the location is a lot of fun, and I like the missions that occur in the location. I'm sure I'll think of more later, but these are the ones I can think of right now.

I find it hard to remember the boss fights that I think are best, so I'll just list some of the battles and boss fights that I find the most memorable and "epic" in no particular order. Bear in mind that this is far from a complete list: 1. The last Colossus in Shadow of the Colossus. 2. The final boss fight in Tears of the Kingdom: 3. The first time I fought Gloom Spawn in Tears of the Kingdom:

It's in the chapter where the Rainbow Sage dies; before dying, he reveals that he is one of the First Dragons and that he was the one who brought humans into the War of the First Dragons by forging the Yato. I can't remember the exact dialogue, but I remember finding it one of the few moments of actual, interesting worldbuilding in Fates, and it made me like the Rainbow Sage character a bit more as well. Now that I've played a lot more of Engage (though not even close to done my first playthrough; I'm just at the chapter where Veyle shows the four hounds her sibling's dragonstone, making them realize that another biological child of Sombron still lives), I think I can say some stuff about the gameplay: 1. I'm really not a fan of the weapons that cannot attack twice and cannot attack first. Their potential uses are too limited to really keep around; they're very situational unless given to someone who is already very slow and has high defensive stats; in other words, a general. One case I found particularly annoying was the hurricane axe: the only magical axe is one of these weapons. I gave it to Anna since I made her a warrior and had her inherit Emblem Leif's build+4 skill before chapter 10, so I thought it would be a good way to use her high magic growth. It would've been fun if not for the fact that any enemy will attack first and do a lot of damage since Anna's defense stats are garbage. If it weren't for the radiant bow, there would be no point in making Anna a warrior despite her starting as an axe fighter. 2. Having build be the stat that negates weapon weight and having it be its own stat with its own growth rates is an interesting idea, but I feel it is hindered by the game's low growth rates. 3. I would enjoy the somniel more if there were fewer minigames in it. It doesn't help that one of the minigames is a constant reminder that Alear is supposed to be a dragon but spends all their time in human form. This game has a panzer dragoon-style minigame and a protagonist that's supposed to be a dragon, and the minigame has said protagonist ride Ivy's wyvern.

This game is clearly meant to be a celebration of Fire Emblem, not unlike Awakening in that regard; the emblems are proof enough of that. Looking at it in that light, the game is a bit odd in regards to referencing the past games: it'll often quote lines from past FE games word-for-word in places where it would make perfect sense for the emblem making the quote to do so, such as Corrin quoting the sparring advice Xander gave in Fates' prologue when fought in Corrin's paralogue. But then, at the same time, it will do odd stuff like referencing something that only existed in Smash Bros. and not in FE itself (Emblem Ike's Great Aether), giving Ike his Radiant Dawn appearance when he's supposed to be representing Path of Radiance, or in some cases get important lore details from past games completely wrong. Take Corrin's paralogue as an example: the map choice is fitting and most of the lore referenced is accurate, but then Corrin, when asked about the Yato, describes it as, "a divine blade, forged to bring peace to the world". Had Corrin said, "A sword that chose me to bring peace to the world", that might've been accurate, but anyone who has completed Revelations would know that the sword was not forged for bringing peace; just the opposite: it was forged so the Rainbow Sage could use humans as cannon fodder in the War of the First Dragons; the "great sin" that the Rainbow Sage refers to whenever he says, "I who forged the sacred blade; I who committed the great sin". It was one of only three bits of actual worldbuilding in all of Fates, so I remember it well.

I can definitely understand this headcanon; it was really annoying that the game gives zero explanation for how they were able to escape; it just has them trapped within the cathedral and surrounded by named villains, and then it cuts to the heroes already outside the building. That was really dumb.

When will SEGA make the SEGA Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy? …That joke was already old before I was born; wasn't it?