Azure Sen

I'll believe it when we get an official announcement. Until then, I'm taking this with a grain of salt. Awakening is probably the best for an anime adaptation, since it relies more on modern anime tropes than the older games which tended to be more of their times, but I still doubt it'll be anything to write home about in the end. Rarely, if ever. Of the ones I've seen (admittedly quite a few of which are bad otome game adaptations), most of them have been awful, with a few mediocre and nothing I'd call good. Even the ones that weren't terrible felt pretty pointless, since 9 times out of ten they didn't add anything to the story or characters that wasn't already in the game, and in some cases removed vital pieces of information in adaptation. In one particularly infamous case (Devil Survivor 2), they completely tossed all of the themes and characterization in the game out the window in favor of making a shallow Evangelion rip-off. I mean, it could fix all those things...but speaking from experience, it probably won't.

It's great. I've gotten through maybe six or seven stages at this point, and aside from one or two "was that really necessary?" moments, it's been incredibly fun so far. The bosses in particular have been a joy to fight, although one or two overstayed their welcome just a smidge. Of the Sonic games I've played (1-3, Knuckles, 3D Blast, and Adventure 2) it's definitely my new favorite, at least.

Lukas taking over doesn't solve the underlying problems regarding the class divisions in the Deliverance; he may not be as high-ranking as Clive or Fernand, but Lukas is still a noble at the end of the day. And while I like Lukas a lot as a character, I feel that him taking over the Deliverance would be akin to Virion taking over as tactician of the Shepherds. Yes, theoretically he could get better results than Alm, but the cost in lives would outweigh the benefits. Actually, and this is only tangentially related, but I wanted to ask about this because what I've seen you write elsewhere: outside of his parentage, what makes Ike worthy of being leader of the Greil Mercenaries and later the Crimean Liberation Force that Alm lacks? I should have been more clear on this, my apologies. The issue here is not pragmatism. You generally cannot have a character express the idea that one person's life is more valuable than another's because of their social status, even if it's just from a vaguely pragmatic viewpoint, and still have them be sympathetic in the eyes of the audience. Fernand is an excellent example of this, and to use an example of it outside of FE, Algus/Argath from Final Fantasy Tactics is still one of the most hated characters from that game if not from FF as a whole for expressing such a viewpoint. If Clive had expressed that sort of mindset at any point while the game was still trying to portray him as sympathetic, he'd be just as hated as those two if not more so, regardless of whether he grew out of it or not. The issues with how likable it makes Clive aside, Clive can't and shouldn't bring it up because it's not in-character for him to do so. I've already discussed how Clive isn't a pragmatist prior in the thread, so having him suddenly bring this up apropos of nothing would be completely out of place. Since you mentioned it, I feel like this whole thing is also an extension of the misconception that one of Echoes' themes is "two opposing sides coming together to meet in the middle," but that's another can of worms for another time. I'm going to split this into two parts, so I apologize preemptively for the incoming double post.

I don't see how that disproves my point. Half the maps aren't even about the Deliverance fighting Desaix's forces, and the only reason that the Southern Outpost was lost was because of the bad luck of a desertion just as Lucas and co. were poised to retake it; the point here is undercut by the fact that Lucas is still able to launch a successful raid on the place and save several members of the Deliverance. But I will also admit that the game can be inconsistent on how badly the Deliverance is doing at any give time. The problem inherent in substantially challenging a worldview like Alm's is that, pragmatism or no, trying to assign higher value to human life based on an arbitrary measure like social class is almost impossible to portray in a way that doesn't make the person espousing such a belief look like a huge ass at best. (Granted, you could have a villain challenge him on it, but it'd still ring hollow because we're generally not supposed to agree with villains.) It can't even be justified with "b-b-b-but medieval times!" because FE has been and probably always will be Medieval Period Lite, and promoting modern values with a medieval coat of paint has always been the series bread and butter. I'll admit that, while I can see why it would be a good idea from the pragmatic side of things, I would lose all sympathy for Clive if he actually suggested it. Actually, that reminds me of a point I should have made earlier... The nobles of Zofia have already thoroughly proven that they have no interest in backing the Deliverance, if most of them are even alive by the end of the story, given that the death of their king, usurpation of their throne by a pretender, widespread killing of their countrymen both noble and commoner and the encroaching invasion of Rigel doesn't spur them into action. I really doubt saving a single noble girl would change any of their minds. Almost none of those are actual failings on the lords' part or treated as failings, though. Marth's issues never cause him to make a major misstep. Roy was never going to save Hector unless he and the rest of the Lycian army sprouted wings and flew to where Hector was...and that probably would have gotten them killed. Eliwood killing Ninian was the fault of Durandal. Ephraim's flaws are brought up for five seconds after Renais is re-taken and then completely ignored for the rest of the game, even on his route. Shinon and Gatrie leaving the Greil Mercenaries is portrayed as a fault on their part, not on Ike's, and doesn't really mean much when 8/10 of the remaining Greil Mercenaries stick with him for the rest of the game. The only lords who genuinely have a major failure as a leader that is 100% unambiguously their fault and it's portrayed as an actual failure by the game are Sigurd, Chrom and Eirika. Which is something I would have liked to see as well. I just don't think the game is necessarily worse for not having that. This too. As Clive points out, by the time Alm's become leader, the Deliverance is made up almost entirely of commoners. Showing the bulk of your forces that you consider them expendable is a good way to end up with a widespread desertion.

This I don't agree with, but I can understand why people see it that way. Clive didn't bring it up because it would be completely out of character for him to do so, which I think is the fundamental issue here. Clive is not motivated by pragmatism, nor is he a particularly competent strategic thinker. If strategic value meant anything to him, then he would have made a lot more progress in the war against Desaix than he did. Given that Clive was an interim leader only appointed because the real leader of the Deliverance, Mathilda, got captured, and then promptly spent most of his time as leader losing miserably, trying and failing to keep the Deliverance together because of his own prejudices, and later refusing to make a move because of hostages, I don't think it would take a lot for someone to be more worthy than Clive. And that second thing is pretty much what happened in-story, so... The game makes it clear that the only thing that the Deliverance is being held back by at that point is Clive's indecisiveness; Clive himself even admits as such. As blah said, Clive himself could have done what Alm did, if not for his own hangups.

Clive's not pragmatic, he's a coward. A pragmatist wouldn't have been deterred by hostages like Clive was when Desaix had Mathilda and Clair; instead, Clive sat on his hands while the Deliverance was losing ground because he was too afraid Desaix would execute them. Alm's 100% right, the only reason Clive considers Delthea expendable is because of her social status, considering that looking beyond social status supposed to be part of Clive's character arc. Aside from tearing through an army of bandits, retaking the Southern Outpost, and driving Desaix's forces out of Southern Zofia, anyway. I'm confused what he'd have to do beyond that to be considered a good leader.

OCs: 1. Rowan 2. Lianna Akaneia: 3. Marth 4. Cain 5. Abel 6. Gordin 7. Draug 8. Minerva or Caeda 9. Camus Awakening: 10. Chrom 11. Lucina 12. Lissa 13. Frederick 14. Robin 15. Cordelia 16. Tharja 17. Tiki 18. Nowi 19. Lon'qu 20. Virion 21. Sully 22. Walhart Fates 23. Cornbread 24. Xander 25. Ryoma 26. Takumi 27. Hinoka 28. Camilla 29. Leo 30. Azura 31. Oboro 32. Niles NPCs/Unplayable Villains: Elise, Sakura, Garon, Validar, Grima, Anna, Gharnef, Medeus

Yeah, admittedly I could have worded that better. I just wish they hadn't gone for the most obvious route when dealing with the twins' characterization, especially since they seem to ape a lot from Eirika and Ephraim (and Alfonse and Sharena). I mean, I will probably end up at least sympathizing with Rowan when the game inevitably craps on him for komedy, because that is the fate he and his character type must suffer, but yes, he would be way more interesting as a level-headed character and also because I like hot-blooded girls and there aren't enough of those.

Them being OCs has nothing to do with it. They're boring, predictable characters with uninteresting designs and movesets (from what we've seen, anyway). Koei could have just flipped their personalities so that Rowan was the even-headed one with the more graceful fighting style and Lianna was the hot-blooded one with the more forceful fighting style and I would have been 100x more interested in them, because while it wouldn't have been terribly original it at least wouldn't have been straight-up cliche.

Neither. They're both too stock character for me from what we've seen so far to really care about, with the standard twin dynamics you'd expect. Maybe that'll change once the game is released, but I'm guessing I'll be ditching whoever I choose as the lead if I can ASAP.

There's a pretty distinct difference between Marth relying on his comrades' aid to stop Medeus, and the power of friendship slapping reality in the face and bringing Robin back from literal non-existence in Awakening. This definitely seems like the latter. I mean, as I've said, I non-ironically love shounen anime, including Yu-Gi-Oh!. But Yu-Gi-Oh! was built around the power of friendship, to the point where it is the central theme of the franchise according to the series creator. Fire Emblem wasn't, which is why it's so noticeable and annoying here, at least for me.

Even as someone who unironically loves a lot of shounen anime, I feel like they're overdoing it on the whole friendship thing. When you start to outdo Yu-Gi-Oh! in the power of friendship department, you know you've gone overboard.

It's nice to see some gameplay so soon after the announcement, even if I'm a little disappointed that Leo got left out of the fun and Takumi got only a few minutes of the video. I'll probably main Takumi since his moveset looks the most interesting and his Musou is the most impressive and least meme-y, Hinoka of the lot. That, and he doesn't have the huge weakness to bows Hinoka, my second choice for main, does.

I'm going be the dissenting opinion and say that an FE anime shouldn't happen. Not because it's not time for it, but because Fire Emblem really wouldn't work as an anime in my opinion (unless they go whole-hog on an original story, but that has its own issues). FE's story and characters alone are just not strong enough to carry an anime adaptation by themselves. Since @Extrasolar brought it up, let's talk about the FE OVA and it's story and pacing shortcomings to illustrate my point. Episode 1 Episode 2

Currently watching the uncut Toonami re-airing of Outlaw Star, because heck yeah I'm going to rewatch one of my favorite old Toonami shows. To my pleasant surprise, the animation's aged pretty well in the years since I've seen it, and it does a good job of establishing Gene, Jim and Hilda as characters without painful exposition. I'll be watching every week for the next however many weeks until the first run ends or Toonami crushes my hopes and dreams and ends the run early.

SMT/Persona. It's especially telling that I'll occasionally put all my other backlogged games on hold just to do a new run of Innocent Sin or Persona 4. I may not 100% agree with the direction Atlus has been taking the series, but I'll still give them my money as long as they make quality games. Fire Emblem. Fire Emblem is a series where, even if the entry in question is flawed, I can still get some enjoyment out of it. I beat Echoes' main story within three days of it unlocking, and I'll probably do the same for FE Switch once I get a Switch. Pokemon. I'll admit I'm a Pokemon mark, and I will marathon any new game that comes out until I beat it. Fallout. Like Fire Emblem, even if the entry is as flawed as 4 was, I can still get a lot of enjoyment out of it. I'm eagerly awaiting a potential Fallout 5. Metal Gear used to be this, but then Konami did a straight-up heel turn and now I wouldn't pay them to unclog my toilet. Appropriately enough, Survive looks like something James would have pulled out of that clogged toilet. Danganronpa used to also be this, but then DR3 and the New DR V3 spoilers hit and now I don't know if I want to keep with the series. 40-50% of my backlog is games I've beaten but feel the need to re-beat because the save data was lost due to system and/or memory breakdown, so I don't feel hard-pressed to beat them quickly anyway.

I agree with this. This is especially true of Normal, but even when I do Hard runs I never feel the hit rate problem too badly unless I'm up against someone at a gate. Axes I can kinda get because everyone who uses them not named Echidna (or maybe Lott if you're being generous) has mediocre to garbage Skill bases and/or growths, but it's still not as bad as people say. Lances, though, I don't get the complaints about.

The most recent thing was a hardware-related crash on Way of the Samurai 4's PC port during the ending of the secret route. Anyone who's played 4 and gotten that route probably remembers well the hell you have to go through in that route's endgame, which is why I haven't gone back to it yet.

From a purely gameplay perspective, the children of Awakening and especially Fates are a waste of resources. Children units are just units that you can customize to a minor degree via their parents, and the lack of real customization is not helped by how the reclass system works. You could achieve the same thing in gameplay via a recruitment system similar to Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics with a character editor a la the Avatar creation; the only thing you'd lose out on would be support bonuses, and in the new games even units that can't support still give pair-up bonuses. As for marriage, all it does as add additional support bonuses, so it's not particularly necessary either from a gameplay perspective.

I already thought Robin's moveset looked pretty interesting and I'm glad we get to see more of it. I'm not seeing much evidence that she's anything more than an alt. of m!Robin given that their moveset is pretty much completely identical, though. If it's anything like Samurai Warriors, which uses a similar system, then all participants will get the same, full amount of EXP accumulated post-battle. Each character will still accumulate EXP on their own in battle when they defeat enemies/officers, I'd imagine. EXP is honestly the least of my worries with this system, but that's a discussion for another time.

The problem is that Awakening Alm takes it way beyond that, advocating that you hurt an enemy tenfold for whatever pain they've caused you and being incredulous that you can show compassion to your enemies, none of which match up with the characterization he got in Gaiden. But I could go on for a while how the Awakening portrayal of Alm (and Celica, to a lesser extent) was inaccurate to Gaiden and metaphorically poisoned the well when it comes to Echoes, so I'll leave it at that. So the final boss of TMS, then?

How does delaying the release of an already finished and marketed game, especially one they had the protagonist show up in a different game just to generate hype for, for however long the development cycle for its prequel would be (which would be about seven months initially, according to a dev interview) make sense?

To actually bring things back on track, an unpopular opinion: I don't like the Awakening portrayals of Alm or Celica. Aside from my problems with how inaccurate they are to Gaiden among other things, they're also not particularly well-written or interesting. Melee was released December 2001 in the US. Binding Blade came out in March 2002. FE7's development began almost immediately after FE6, but its development time ballooned to about a year and a half due to added and modified mechanics, as well as the addition of Lyn mode.

All of these are taken from the old thread about what you cross-route supports you would want. -Alm and Celica. More relationship development for them would have been nice. -Alm and Conrad. Preferably not involving Celica and her relationship with Alm, because the overprotective brother cliche is dumb and kinda creepy. Instead, I'd like to see them bond over their similar experiences. -Celica and Silque. They have a pre-existing history, and it would have been nice to know more about Celica's life in the monastery. -Celica and Mycen. They have dire few interactions, and it would have been nice to see more of them sharing the same dynamic as Alm and Mycen do. -Silque and Jesse. I ship it. -Mycen and Nomah. Another pair with a pre-existing history. It would have been a good opportunity to learn more about Mycen's time in Zofia. -Sonya and Delthea. I'd like to see them bond as the younger siblings of a magic-inclined family, even if Sonya's story is much darker than Delthea's. -Palla and Clive. The responsible older siblings could bond over their similar experiences. Otherwise Rise of the Deliverance added quite a few supports I wanted to see.

Best: New Mystery of the Emblem. It's got good unit balance, the difficulty feels consistent across the chapters, the reclassing system is interesting and balanced by its hard caps on how many of a certain unit you can have, and the harder difficulties also feel balanced, especially compared to some later games'. Honorable mentions to Binding Blade and Shadow Dragon. Worst: Genealogy of the Holy War. Horse Emblem at its worst, terrible unit balance in general, long boring slogs of maps that are cool on paper but are just unfun to actually play, obnoxious and frustrating mechanics abound, the inheritance system is ridiculously and needlessly convoluted...it's just a huge, unfun mess of a game. Dishonorable mentions to Gaiden and Thracia, who didn't make it in over Genealogy only because they had some interesting experimental ideas. I'm not inclined to agree. Granted, my opinions on Conquest and Reveation are pretty much the opposite opposite of the more common ones--I don't find Conquest to be the best gameplay of the series and I think it suffers from a lot of the same problems people slam Revelation for, and Revelation is not the worst gameplay in the series (although I wouldn't call it good overall, either) and actually has some really fun chapters.