Azure Sen

I started typing up that post the other day, but only got around to posting it until later, so I didn't notice the edit, sorry. It wouldn't be an ASW game without an amazing soundtrack. Vatista is 100% wholesome, no psychotic murderous obsessions with the red hero here a very interesting fighter, in that she's all about charging and chaining together charged moves to inflict massive damage to the point where pretty much all of her specials are charges, which I feel helps differentiate her from the Murakamos. As for Orie, the comparisons to Mitsuru aren't that far off, since Orie's also a puppet fighter a la the rest of the P4 Arena cast, though her summon doesn't get two buttons to himself like the Personas do.

The designs continue to look fantastic. Cao Cao in particular I love, but I am 100% biased towards Cao Cao and Wei in general. The only one I'm not completely sold on is Diaochan's, not because it isn't a pretty great design, but because I don't think it fits her; I think a slightly more modest, elegant design would fit her better. I'd suggest the four-volume Moss Roberts translation aka the one I own, since there are annotations explaining a lot of cultural and historical things like ranks and backstories for historical figures that might not be obvious to a first-time reader. Ling Tong already took those back in 8 Empires because Guan Suo's EX weapon there was the sabatons.

I think around 30 is a pretty reasonable expectation. Arc System Works is already going to have to make a combat system that somehow melds the three games' different combat systems into one, adding in more characters than that would just ensure that we don't see the game until 2025. I'd say Hyde, Linne, Vatista, Hilda and Seth are the only shoe-ins among the cast. Hyde and Linne are the protagonists, Vatista is absurdly popular and rightfully so because she's cute as heck, they've been pushing Seth as the blue rival to Hyde's red as of Exe: Late[st], and Hilda's the primary antagonist (and the only one with an actual motivation other than being evil just cause or being driven to consume). Otherwise I think there aren't many absurdly popular candidates, so the chances for everyone else are pretty even.

I doubt they're going to exclude everyone with similar play styles/movesets because of how that would limit the roster (plus it'd be really silly considering, you know, Hyde and Yu's situation), but until we get confirmation of the roster size we can't really say either way. I wouldn't mind some overlap, but honestly there's only two characters out of a potential roster of 70+ (because I've never seen RBWY, that's just the number of characters from BB, P4 Arena and UNIB combined) that I'd be legitimately disappointed in seeing get in, so I am probably not the best person to talk to for realistic roster expectations.

I am looking forward to the potential Yu vs. Hyde match-up, considering how similar they are gameplay-wise. I'm pretty neutral on BlazBlue these days and I've never watched RWBY, but I am excited for the Under Night In-Birth and P4 Arena casts. If we get playable Kokonoe and Tsubaki (since my third favorite from BB, Jin, is already confirmed) I'll be satisfied on the BB front. From UN I hope to see Yuzuriha and Seth, since Hyde and Vatista are pretty much guaranteed, and Orie I feel has a good chance as well. As for P4 Arena, even though I personally favor Ken + Koromaru and Mitsuru, aside from them adding Sho and Minazuki I wouldn't complain no matter who they choose. I think it was a good idea to not include Guilty Gear honestly, because if it had been the current roster plus GG I feel like GG would have ended up overshadowing Under Night In-Birth and P4 Arena. That being said, I'm all for BlazBlue X Guilty Gear, just as its own game.

A Total War game in the vein of Hyrule: Total War. I'd like it to be either a game with different scenarios for each game's world (i.e. an Akaneia scenario where Altea, Akaniea, Gra Grust, Macedon, etc. are playable, with each game getting a similar scenario) or a dream game where you can play as any of the nations from across the series. I wholeheartedly support this as well. If Takumi's starter/perfect link is the Rowlet line then that's even better.

Re-posting verbatim from the old thred (because I'm lazy): Favorites: Alm: He's kinda adorable, between saying stuff like "Hello, Mr. Sun" with a straight face and some of his dorky comments in general when you examine the environment. Really, he's just very likable in a lot of ways, and I'd say he's my second-favorite lord after Roy. Mathilda: The best. A great unit, gets to be awesome both in story and out, and generally lives up to her reputation as a war goddess. Plus her relationship with Clive is surprisingly sweet. Clair: All Hail the Goddess of Killing Cavalry! A great unit who also has some good interactions with others, especially Alm. Plus, her Support chain with Grey is fantastic. The Masked Knight: Great for spoiler reasons, and also because he's a great unit. Mae: I wasn't initially sold on Mae, but she has some great lines and a fun personality in general. I wish she was a little better in general as a unit, though. Palla: Still best Whitewing, 10/10 would recruit again. Honorable mentions go to: pretty much every playable character who isn't mentioned below, because Echoes has one of the best casts in the series. Neutral On: Nomah: I don't actively dislike Nomah, but he doesn't really do much for me either. I wish his Support with Celica had been something more serious instead of him being a creep. Coldsteel the Hedgehog the Human Deen: An edgelord supreme. Didn't recruit him because he's 2edgy4me, but read his supports/base convos and listened to his post-battle quote if someone dies and goodness is he boring and tryhard. Rinea: Didn't get enough screentime for me to go in either direction with her. Least Favorites: Faye: Faye is just a waste of a character. Leon, Mathilda, Clair, Delthea and Gray all show romantic attraction to other characters and all have more aspects to their personalities, but there's nothing else to Faye. Plus she isn't even as good as her most obvious predecessor Marisha, who had the benefits of a( being responsible for some of the funniest conversations in the game, b( the game not treating her crush as anything more than a crush, and c( being a great unit as a Mage or Cleric, whereas Faye is just kinda mediocre except for getting Anew. Fernand: I'm sure I'm supposed to dislike him to some extent, but this is definitely a case where the writers overestimated how much sympathy his tragic backstory would allow for. Maybe if his split from the Deliverance had been more built up to I wouldn't dislike him as much as I do, but abandoning his friends and country instantly with zero hesitation or remorse just makes him thoroughly unsympathetic to me. Plus, I find villains whose sole motivation is "a select number of a certain larger group wronged me in the past so now I hate all of them!" to just be badly written in general; it just comes off to me like those characters were already prejudiced and whatever wrongdoing they suffered reinforced that pre-existing hate. Berkut: See Fernand above, but replace "tragic backstory" with "love for Rinea." Given a certain event late in the game, I have absolutely zero sympathy for him.

I've heard that DW9 is supposed to be toning down the costumes to make them more era-appropriate and less flashy (ironic since that's probably Lu Bu's most showy design yet), and if so they've succeeded with flying colors so far. I especially like the more military-like aesthetic of Lu Xun's new design, but these designs are all pretty great. They've been progressively aging him up since DW2, making him taller, making his cheeks less round and his eyes sharper, etc., or at least it seems that way to me, anyway.

I'm firmly on the side of keeping it. As long as they keep it limited uses and balance it well, I can't see any real reason for it not to come back. I do think the level of max resets should be trimmed a little, though.

New Mystery did have a personality test sort of thing, but all it did was determine your stats and change a handful of bits of dialogue. A mix of both, but mostly dealing with Social Links yes. "Punishment" is a harsh way to word it outside of S. Links, but there is a lot of railroading in the games, to make sure you reach certain plot points and do certain events that the game wants you to. You're right that there's a lot of not meaningful choices, but I don't mind those as fluff to characterize the protagonists; it's when you get into the parts where there is the illusion of choice but the game blatantly denies you when you pick the "wrong" choice that I have a problem with. (The primary one I always think of because it nearly messed up an all S. Links MAX'd run I did, even though it's not particularly plot relevant, is a choice in P4 as to whether or not to help Yosuke out for a week at Junes; even if you refuse the game forces you to waste a week for a pittance of yen and S. Link points with three characters, two of whom you've probably already MAX'd and one of whom doesn't rank up via points anyway.) Doesn't the current unlimited support system work against having paired endings at A Supports? I don't agree. I actually feel like KotOR II had the opposite problem; the game goes out of its way to set things up so the player's actions constantly backfire or they get chewed out no matter what you choose, courtesy of a certain terrible author insert villain/walking exposition dump.

No to Avatars, yes to S Supports with some restrictions. For the latter, I wouldn't mind if S Supports if they were implemented as Book Bro suggested, just an indication of a romantic relationship with no immediate marriage and no children involved. For that matter, I'd like to see S Supports that don't end well be a thing if they do come back as I mentioned. Plenty of A Support paired endings ended in melancholy or outright tragedy, and I'd like to see that come back if just for variety. And also an A+ Support for platonic paired endings would be fantastic too. Avatars are a hard no from me. Aside from the fact that none of the Avatars are actually self-inserts in a meaningful sort of way, they've only been an active detriment to the storytelling of the games they're in. At that point, doesn't the Avatar cease to be...well, an Avatar? The whole point of Kris, Robin and Corrin is that, much like your average terrible harem anime protagonist, their personalities are bland enough for the audience to insert themselves into and amicable and inoffensive enough that it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that anyone could fall in love with them (of course, your mileage may vary on how well that works). Giving them a more complex or relatively deep characterization takes away the thing that makes them an Avatar. Honestly, I'm of the opposite opinion; they need to have zero expressed personality on their own, a la Bethesda's customizable protagonists or the mainline MegaTen protagonists, and allow players to chose their personality, even if it's just for fluff/flavor. I see the sentiment that Persona is a good example of self-inserts done right quite a bit, but I don't agree. Granted, Persona does on the surface give you more agency as a player than the Avatars do, but there's almost always a clear right answer in almost any situation in the Persona games, and you're often punished, if lightly, for not going down that path. Not to mention that Persona at times has the same problems with player worship that Awakening and Fates had, and the Persona protagonists do have an intended personality, if muted and understated, expressed primarily through body language and actions taken in story scenes.

There probably won't be any of the second-gen units outside of Lucina added, but that's more for practicality's sake than anything. Bringing in more kids would mean either addressing the big glaring question of who their fathers are or awkwardly side-stepping the question entirely. It was easy to get away with because of magic in Fates, but IntSys has been careful to make their parentage as ambiguous as possible, and that's effort that could better be spent elsewhere.

Sorry I've been a bit of a whiner. I think it's partially bad luck of the draw, since it's still early in the info reveals and I ended up being mostly satisfied with the additions Koei made in 8/XL/Empires once all of them were announced. My own potential adds are usually based on who has the most potential to add something interesting the game, whether it because they had an interesting historical personality, have potentially interesting dynamics with the rest of the characters, had impressive military accomplishments that could add new stages or make existing stages more interesting, or any combination of those three. Since I'm pretty familiar with the history behind the series my choices also tend to skew towards that somewhat. For Wei, I'd like Empress Bian, first and foremost. Koei's been doing a good job of humanizing Cao Cao as of late, and adding Empress Bian would further help with that. Not to mention that she has potential relationships to be explored with Cao Pi and Lady Zhen, and she would fit right into Cao Cao's early buildup of power, given that historically she prevented his early followers from abandoning him when he was presumed dead after his failed attempt on Dong Zhuo's life. Cao Zhen has a potentially interesting dynamic with Cao Cao, Cao Pi (being the former's adoptive son and the latter's adoptive brother, basically), Zhang He and Sima Yi and a lot of potential stages to participate in, including Hanzhong, campaigns against Sun Quan and Zhuge Liang's early Northern Campaigns. Otherwise 7, 8 and their expansions added most of my longstanding desired adds from Wei, and I haven't really given much thought to who else from Wei I'd like. For Wu, I probably have the most adds aside from the Others section, and that's only because the Others encompasses so many separate factions. I don't have a primary pick from them, but that's just because I have so many. The brilliant but mad Zhu Huan, the flamboyant and showy He Qi, and the greedy team-killer Pan Zhang would all be good picks because they're all pretty interesting with a lot of material to draw from. Lu Dai would be a good late Wu general, having served Wu for somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years confirmed (I say "confirmed" because Lu Dai doesn't show up in historical records until he's almost 60 for some reason), and having the potential to bring in more later era battles like fighting the Shi clan in Jiaozhou or dealing with the political intrigues of the later Wu court into the games. Speaking of later Wu political intrigue, Zhuge Ke would be a great add too, both because Wu needs more late period officers and because he could be an interesting case study in a genuinely brilliant person being corrupted by power, perhaps as a foil for Zhuge Liang. And of course Lady Wu, to complete the immediate Sun family ignoring Sun Yi, Sun Kuang and Sun Lang. For Shu, my primary pick is Wang Ping, who started off in Wei under Xu Huang before defecting to Shu. He was involved in most of Shu's post-Hanzhong campaigns, and has the potential for his own unique stage in defending Hanzhong against Cao Shuang's forces. Zhang Yi (Bogong) and Liao Hua are both long-serving generals of Shu who were active during the post-Zhuge Liang era and could have an interesting dynamic with Jiang Wei, with Zhang Yi as the contrarian and Liao Hua as more of a mentor figure. Plus, Liao Hua's escape from Wu with his mother would make an interesting stage. I'd also semi-seriously like Chen Shou as a playable character, but that would probably end up veering into meta territory. For Jin, I think I have the fewest new picks at one, if only because they have the misfortune of coming in so late and having less of a pool to draw from. Yang Hu I feel is the best choice, not only because of his potential relationships with fellow possible add Lu Kang (who I'd like to see added, just not as a priority like the rest) and Cai Wenji (who was his aunt) but because he's a potential rival for Zhong Hui (if one-sided, because Hu doesn't seem to have been historically aware of Hui's distrust of him) and in general had a really long and interesting career both on and off the battlefield. Plus Bu Chan's rebellion would be a possible late Wu and Jin battle, as there are few late era battles as is. For the Others, I probably have the most wants, but that's just because it's such a wide-reaching category. For Lu Bu's group, Gao Shun would be my ideal add, both because could make a good foil for Zhang Liao and because he was a very talented general. For Dong Zhuo's group, Li Jue and Guo Si, who could then split off into their own faction, which could also include Xu Huang under a generic Yang Feng. For Yuan Shao's group, Shen Pei and Ju Shou, both for equal representation of the "attack Cao Cao" and "don't attack Cao Cao" camps at Guandu while also being notable generals. The Nanman and the Yellow Scarves are the only Other group who I don't feel need expanded on, since the former are pretty irrelevant outside of Shu and the latter show up early on and then generally never again. In terms of new Other factions, I'd like to see Gongsun Zan added, since he was historically close with Liu Bei and had an interesting if prolonged conflict with Yuan Shao. And finally, and this is 100% personal bias, but I'd like to see Yuan Shu added. He was a fascinating man, both cunning and incredibly stupid, and his involvement in the early years of each of the Three Kingdoms and Lu Bu would give Koei a ton of material to work with. Also I went scouring The Scholars for some of my old DW posts and I found a post of yours from 2007 and I immediately felt ancient. An interesting thing to note about Man Chong is that his design for 9 is pretty similar to the design Koei gave him for the digital card game Dynasty Warriors Blast. What this means for future adds is unseen, but most of the DW Blast designs aren't bad and I wouldn't mind seeing more like them in the games.

I'm meh on Man Chong. He's another one of those people whose notable contributions were mostly non-military in nature, and even his advice at Fancheng boiled down to "don't abandon Fancheng." Still, he's pretty low on the list of adds I'd consider wasteful or inappropriate unlike a certain Shu add. Guo Jia is saddened that you've forgotten him. The Hefei Castle he had built was not the same one Zhang Liao defeated Sun Quan at, and in fact wasn't built until the reign of Cao Rui, a full decade after Liao died.

Favoritism mostly. I'll use pretty much any unit I like as long as they aren't completely useless, and I've benched good units because I didn't like them. I'll always use Wolt and Gordin despite them being pretty mediocre statistically, and I usually end up benching Xander in favor of Siegbert, for example (although in that case it doesn't really help that Xander has always gotten pretty terrible Speed for me). That being said, if a unit is good enough (like Camilla, as Glaceon Sage mentioned), I'll use them anyway.

Two lords with actually differing paths through the majority of the game would be my preferred way to go. In a reversal of the usual FE formula, they'd be two children of a prodigious Emperor each given an army and told to basically conquer two enemies on opposite ends of the Empire; however, on their return home from their respectively successful campaigns, they learn their father the Emperor has died, and so a Roman Civil War-esque situation happens where the two internally warring factions fight for supremacy. The victor becomes Emperor/Empress and the loser is either exiled or dies. Any more than two and you either clutter the narrative or one of them ends up redundant. One of them should be the first real magic-using lord who isn't upended from the protagonist spot by a certain individual and the other should be an actual axe-using lord.

I'd like to see an actual Tactics menu added, which lets you alter the stage in some way before you fight in it. It'd be like the Dragon Veins, but instead of being done in-battle it'd be done from the battle prep screen so the battlefield is already changed when you get there. For example, in an area with a river the player could build pontoon bridges to cross, or temporarily clog the river to use a flood attack that would damage enemy and ally units alike if they're in its range. I'd also like there to be options with a chance of failing or backfiring, depending on some factors; for example, your strategist could learn of impending reinforcements and send a false report to stop them from coming, which could fail and they come as normal or could backfire in that the reinforcements call in even more reinforcements.

I've only gotten Furi and Total War: Rome II Emperor Edition so far. I may pick up another game or two before the Sale ends, but I've been trying to work through my games backlog rather than just add more to it.

>Is there any indication that this is true? The whole "giving up your soul for power" thing is only mentioned in the context of Witches because of how it relates to Celica's storyline, but given that the men of the Duma Faithful are similarly blue-skinned and white-eyed as the witches are, and have similarly impressive magical power, it's not a stretch to say that men have to give up their souls as well. >This is a goof caused by Nuibaba becoming a woman in Echoes, since she's still referred to by Lucas as an Arcanist in the script, and yet she's a witch in class because Arcanist is guy-exclusive. Nuibaba sold his soul to Medusa in the original in exchange for Medusa's power, for the record. >I don't remember the game ever saying that's what happened? Sonya's sisters all seem to remember who they are, who Sonia was, their relationship to Jedah, etc. Celica and Rinea are the only witches we see who are incapable of some sort of autonomy and lack a sense of self, and neither of them were willing sacrifices, so maybe Tamanoir has it right and only those who sacrifice their souls willingly get that benefit. >This one I have no explanation for, nor do I have an explanation for why Greith employs Cantors. >Presumably by selling their souls to whatever Medusa is supposed to be (probably a demon). She was a Witch as an enemy in the original Gaiden. Aside from Lukas mentioning that Hestia can't be saved at Fear Mountain, I couldn't find in the script where either talks about Witches in-depth. Mae mentions in Chapter 4 that giving up your soul to Duma = Witch, but that was the only overt explanation I found. Japanese media has a really bad track record with monstrously vile but "tragic" backstory having angsty/wrathful pretty boys getting to ascend to the afterlife with their loves, even after they were the ones who were responsible for their death. I have a good dozen problems with Berkut and Rinea both as characters and as a couple but this is probably the biggest.

In terms of the most morally reprehensible, probably Hilda. Manfloy's got evil literally in his blood and he and his fellow Loptyr blooded brethren were persecuted for who knows how long, as little as that excuses his behavior, Bloom at least seemed to care for Tailtiu, Tine and his kids and was motivated by selfish but understandable reasons, and a lot of other villains simply aren't as monstrously evil for no real reason as Hilda is. In terms of worst written...that's a hard one. I consider a lot of FE villains poorly written. Both versions of the Black Knight are awful (the PoR one is completely irrelevant to that game despite his badassery, the RD version is an unsympathetic jerk that the game desperately wants you to like), Gooron and his goon squad are just mediocre villains who would be more at home in a Saturday morning cartoon, Fernand is a classist jerk with no redeeming traits in base Echoes, Validar is so superfluous you could replace him with a fetching lamp and Awakening's plot would pretty much still be the same, Anankos is just a great big ball of bad writing, and Grima's just boring. I'll go with Anankos, just because he's so poorly written and he basically renders Birthright and Conquest redundant just by existing.

The game looks pretty so far, at least. I'm interest to see where they take the open-world concept, but I wouldn't be horribly surprised if it ended up being Ambition mode all over again or its own Empires expansion in effect. Re: Cheng Pu's inclusion, I have never understood why people want him in the games so badly, especially after they made Han Dang a walking punch line. Then again, Wu is also running out of people who did stuff that the audience would know about (which is probably why Zhu Huan, He Qi, Pan Zhang and Lu Dai, all people way more interesting and important than Cheng Pu, haven't been added yet). I'm a little late with this, I know. Just from a practical standpoint this'll never happen. The Three Kingdoms is one of the most well-known and culturally significant periods of Chinese history, comparable to Arthurian legends in how much media in popular culture is produced surrounding them is produced (and I'd argue that the Three Kingdoms has greater overall cultural influence and cross-cultural reach, but that is most certainly another discussion for another time). Not to mention that, for a number of very sensitive real life reasons, adaptations involving conflict like the ones you're putting forward would run the risk of invoking backlash against Koei from some of their most stanch consumers. It's the same reason why Samurai Warriors will never bring up Christianity or Hideyoshi's Korea campaign and why Kiyomasa Kato isn't portrayed as the baby-murdering zealot he was in real life, I am and forever will be inordinately salty about that. That being said, if we were going for a game based on other periods in Chinese history, I feel a game about the Chu-Han contention would be a good bet.

Iteration, I guess, but only because innovation related to gaming has become one of those concepts that's so mis- and overused that it doesn't even seem like a real thing anymore, just a vaguely word-shaped pile of nonsense. Kinda like iconic, actually. I'm only half joking. "Innovation" as a concept has become basically meaningless thanks to the industry turning it into a buzzword that frequently doesn't actually apply to the game in question. When a company touts a game as innovative these days, one of two things goes through my mind: they're full of crap, or it'll be an unmitigated disaster because it was innovative, but not in a good way.

The latter. I actually like not having a cap on how many support ranks a character can get, since in the GBA games especially there are a lot of really good supports no one got to see because they were between characters who had statistically better support options. Meanwhile, in Awakening and Fates, we got absolutely terrible supports like Donnel/Panne and Hinoka/Saizo because everyone has to support everyone. Oh, and here's another unpopular opinion about Awakening: I don't like Nah, and I find her to be the worst of the kids personality-wise. Her supports with Laurent and Inigo are the worst, but even then she spends plenty of supports being a brat and then getting mad when the other kids treat her like a child.

I'm surprised you managed to catch that considering how quickly I edited it out. I realized as soon as I accidentally posted that post that "whelp, this is a mistake" and deleted it, because it was me being indigent and snippy to you due to my own past associations. None of which is your fault, and I should have responded in the more measured way that I usually try to, so I apologize. I didn't lose interest so much as I got distracted working on responses to things that were post after your analysis. I should actually get back to the thing I was working on while the thread's still active, thanks for the reminder.

Repeating a lot of the points I made over in the other thread? It's more likely -Ike is my least favorite lord after Corrin. Even in PoR I have issues with how he was written, and how him being the first lord not of royal blood was basically irrelevant to him and the story. RD Ike is worse, because at least Ike was allowed to make mistakes in PoR, but in RD he's pretty much perfect. The worst thing about Ike is that he is able to, just by being oh so badass and tolerant, bridge racial divides that have existed for centuries if not millenia which is just incredibly stupid (but then again Tellius's anti-racism moral is clumsy and stupid at the best of times). -Related, but Ike never should have been made protagonist again in RD. Elincia and Micaiah had far more interesting plotlines and needed the screentime more. -The Black Knight is a terrible villain with unsympathetic motives. That we're supposed to find his ultimate death tragic even though he was a pretty thoroughly awful person is baffling. -Camuses need to go away or be better written already. While Xander was arguably the nadir, most of them are selfish, short-sighted hypocrites regardless. -Ephraim is overrated but otherwise not awful. If there had been more focus on him being taken down a peg and growing into a better ruler I think Sacred Stones would have been better for it. -It was a mistake to remove weapon durability. If it does come back, Genealogy had the best method for dealing with it and should be how it's handled going forward. -Constitution and con growth should also come back. -Limited supports should return in some capacity. It won't get rid of bad supports entirely but it will limit them a good deal, since a lot of the bad supports are due to characters with no common ground and no chemistry being forced to interact. -The bow/hidden/magic triangle was garbage and should never be used in future games. -I don't think Conquest's map/level design is anything better than competent at best. While it doesn't reach the levels of Revelation a lot of its maps are gimmicky as heck, and its difficulty in general is inconsistent across the board. -I don't find the Nohr siblings all that interesting or sympathetic. -Shadow Dragon was a perfectly fine remake aside from the stupid method of unlocking gaiden chapters. -Of the cavaliers/paladins in FE7, I prefer Isadora. Sain, Kent and Lowen always turn out garbage for me as of late, and having someone with decent speed and Silver Lance access helps a lot. -Availability is, with a few exceptions, the least important factor in whether or not a unit is good. The biggest exception is RD, where there are characters who spend long stretches of the game out of the player's hands. While I don't necessarily fully agree with this (mostly because Itsuki and Tsubasa are boring characters with a metric ton of wasted potential, as I was reminded of while replaying TMS recently), I do agree that TMS is way better than people give it credit for, and that a lot of the lingering resentment for it is based on something that was never promised.