Etrurian emperor

Oh so much. I'm not down on xenoblade 2 at all but its got some of the lowest hanging fruit you can imagine. Like a naked furry lady with gigantic personalities.

My worst case scenario for the new year banner is characters I like appearing on it.

Well not physically but a minute or so after appearing on state a sign with ''Please wrap it up!'' started flashing.

It was certainly a very unfair contrast to see Zelda's Aonuma get dragged from stage after producing a highly acclaimed game while Kojima got all the time in the world despite not having done anything this year. It reeks of unwarranted favoritism. Even if we were to accept that Kojima has an iconic status in the industry then its easy to argue Aonuma matches or surpasses it.

I think the loyalty IS seems to hold towards Three Houses is actually kinda peculiar since its the one game they didn't make, or at least were less involved with. And the continual favorable comparison it gets compared to the more recent Engage which they did make must sting a bit.

Kinda. Though I recall Summer Ivy's role in the story involving getting the nerves to go see Summer Alear....who's not there. That made less sense.

I think Jedah trying to cure his god daddy is a pretty interesting take on Dragon degeneration. That's why I was kinda annoyed the game forgets that at the end and makes him go ''MUAHAHAH! NOW DUMA CAN RULE A LAND OF EEEEEVIL AND DOOM! MUUUHAHAHAHAAH!'' Even if we go with the interpretation that Jedah is corrupted by his faith then it still doesn't work because being a cackling villain was never exactly a core philosophy of Duma.

Lugh, Raigh, Mae and Boey still need Resplendends to save them from their bad artwork so I'm rooting for them.

Three Hopes does seem to try hard to distance Metodey from Edelgard. In the main game he's her henchmen but here he's just a generic bandit with seemingly no affiliation with the Empire. That might imply the writers think him more as a Slitherer's man than Edelgard's. But ultimately I don't think it matters much. Edelgard doesn't seem to have much problems with working with Metodey either way.

Those super busted units aren't really fun to fight against.

Despite the current line up being intensely boring I'm actually not that down on the banner. The slots may be wasted on characters who already have tons of alts, but Christmas banners have always been among the more boring banners out there. This because they continuously refuse to use other Christmas designs aside from the standard red Santa outfits. Other potential costumes like Christmas elves or Scrooge outfits for certain characters(Felix!) have always been ignored. So if a seasonable banner is to have such a boring lineup then it might as well be the Christmas one.

The weakest link of the banner are the Byleths. Its getting out of hand. Now there are two of them. They're already not very interesting on their own but that shouldn't be much of a problem if they have someone more interesting like Shez to bounche off of. But since they're stuck together that can't happen now.

Well that's an extremely boring banner. Yunaka's about the only bit of fresh air to be found.

The KING OF GRAPPLING! He's not my favorite Wolf but aside from Constance he's probably the best suited to go attend festivals. They're not in the silhouettes but I think Clanne and Framme would work great as Christmas elves. Or at least winter envoy little helpers.

Oh yeah....Ricken and Lysithea of course since Lysithea is clearly a Ricken. Just a full support of them going ''No YOU'RE the little kid!'' at each other only for the A support to coincide with Hatato's arrival and the two agreeing the newcomer is a total kid.

As far as the twins go I always assumed that Raigh would be rather icy to Nino. Not because he's mad at her per so but because even if he won't say it he's deeply loyal to Lucius and Chad and just has no interest in a long lost family member butting in. With Lugh I don't think he'd blame Nino much. He seems to have been pretty content in the orphanage and is far more open than Raigh about Chad and the little ones being his family. And given their similar personalities I'd see them get on very well, and perhaps taking a long time to even notice they're related.

I'm gonna be shallow and say appearances matter. Armads Durandal and even the awful Sol Kati feel legendary due to having their own unique designs that show up in battle. Meanwhile most GBA S ranks weapons don't have that and thus don't feel as legendary in comparison. Is Bern really any difference than Caelin, Ostia or Gloucester though? All are European cities or regions that are still around today. I suspect that bit goes over the heads of most Americans and thus won't distract them. That's not a dig on Americans though. I doubt most Europeans would know Pherea is a region in Greece either.

Ephraim dev just! Won't! Stop! Good choice though and despite Muspel being over represented I think the art is neat too.

Kind of a weird time for DLC. First One Piece Warriors gets a new DLC wave years after the game came out and now Smash gets one long after the new content wave ended.

Lets pretend for a moment that Fire Emblem Heroes would get actual support conversations and ignore the fact that this is very unlikely to happen. Which characters would support together and what would they talk about? I already made this topic of course but we're five books and hundreds of units further so its worth another try. Lyn and Claude They're kinda the same aren't they? Grandchildren of an important foreign noble who's daughter ran away from home. They're both complete outsiders arriving one day and getting to rule their grandfathers lands before eventually returning back home. Lyn can ask Claude for advice since he seems to handle the situation so much better and since Claude's overly cheeky and Lyn's got a short fuse they can quickly start bickering too. Hector and Lorenz: Riegan is basically Ostia and Gloucester is Laus. As such the representatives of these are bound to clash. Hector might fail to see past Lorenz facade and deem there to be a lot of Erik in him, and with his less then stellar social grace he'd probably end up offending Lorenz. Later on Hector would see the kindness and duty underneath while Lorenz might deem Hector more clever then he first thought. Oliver and Ignatz Oliver might just be the positive reinforcement Ignatz needs since they're both passionate about art. Oliver might be so gentle, encouraging and sympathetic to Ignatz's plight that it might completely fly over Ignatz's head he's talking to a former monstrous slaver. A more negative interpretation could be Oliver trying to browbeat, cajole or even attempting to kidnap Ignatz into becoming his private painter. Oliver and Forrest: Same thing as with Ignatz. At his best best self Oliver might passionately cheer on and defend Forrest's interests. At his worst Forrest might be deemed part of his ''collection''. Duma and the Black Knight The Black Knight is probably everything Duma wants from a mortal. An individual completely devoted to personal strength. It might even be negative reinforcement with Duma insisting that BK murdering a man just to see if he could was a totally reasonable course of action. Chad/Lugh and Febail/Roshea: They're orphans and those that take care of orphans. In fact the boys already cameo'd in both of their forging bonds. Of the two Chad and Febail have a bit more edge so they'd make a more logical pair alongsides Lugh/Roshea who are more innocent. Marcia and Neasalla: Silly Makalov is in crippling debt to the Kilvas Maffia and with his absence their king just has to come collect from his sister. Saizo and Citrinne Citrinne is implied or fears to be weaker than your average retainer and only getting the job because of her family. Saizo might chew her out for it before begrudgingly offering to toughen her up. Citrinne sticking the training from hell out through to the end might even impress him. Lapis and Nephenee: The bumpkin bigrade could find good confidants in each other. Alternatively Lapis could find a partner in Kiragi due to their love of hunting. Celine and Celica: Kind of an obvious one since Celica is the Emblem most tied to Celine. Alm and Alfred If Celine is so strongly tied to Celica it makes sense to pair Alfred with Alm. Their personalities as cheerful dorks would make them peas in a pod too. Corrin and Nils: They seemed to get on pretty great at Halloween and the idea of female Corrin doting on Nils would be pretty cute. Alfred and Dragr/Caspar They can share their singular brain cell and discuss working out. Either combination of these three would work for that. Nott and Alcryst Nott has a gimmick of easily falling for pretty men, and among those character Alcryst seems the type who'd desperately want to stay away from her. Hapi and Boey They already had a forging bonds together and a support could work off on that. Boey trying to find a fine balance between walking on eggshells and not offending Hapi by treating her like a grenade. Hapi in turn might shamelessly try to inquire about Boey's relation with Mae. Erk and L'arachel Erk meeting L'arachel and all red flags immediately going off with the rest of the supports being him desperately trying to get away from her before she Serra's him. L'arachel in turn would chase her ''new bodyguard'' to the ends of Askr and has grown very skilled at doing so through Renaq.

I'm really curious how they'll handle GT6. Right now there's a ''woke panic'' about it but the moment the game performs well and its downright inevitable that it will they have to switch gears rapidly and pretend they were always rooting for it.

Oh yes the bosses were just terrible. Really strange how they did the most imaginative 2d Mario in years but played it super safe with the bosses. I think the most suitable idea for Wonder would be a regular enemy getting a wonder fruit. In this case...a goomba. You start the room facing one lone Goomba but before you can stomp him the wonder effect triggers and he turns huge, get wings and becomes capable of shooting lasers.

I found it very funny with the Mario movie where those people branded it as heresy for months only to instantly shift gears when they saw the user review scores.

The trailer and first info made a kidnapping of Alfonse likely but now we have more context I think other scenarios are more likely to explain his absence in that clip. The mission of Ratatosk and her sisters got revealed to be to kill Alfonse rather than abduct him and later Ratatosk's sister muses on the possibility of killing a team member to slow down the group without actually having to do battle. So now my main guess is that Alfonse either gets seriously wounded and the girls need to find a cure for him, or Alfonse ends up faking his death and warning Veronica in time so she can go do the same. Then later in the story the duo returns in a way akin to how the ''dead'' Basilio did in Awakening.

I have no faith that IS has any interest to do this but Ratatosk's mythological counterpart does lend itself for an interesting possibility. I believe that in the Myth Ratatosk is a cheeky squirrel who deliberately goes back and forth the world tree to give two giant monsters false information in order to trigger a fight between them. So based on that it would be very cool if cute little ratatosk is lying through her teeth to both team Askr's and her sisters to start a big conflict.