Reality

Is it just me or is Fjorm kind of frail? Whenever I look at her stats in the status screen or the wiki she seems pretty well rounded, but whenever I use my own Fjorm or kill other people's Fjorm(s) in the arena, she just ends up dying to things that I instictively think a Lance unit should be able to handle. I think I even got half of my lvl 40 kills for the Alphonse quests killing Fjorm with him in the arena.

I noticed that I have like 6 Nowi's lying around, and I'm thinking of merging them to start my way toward 4+10. I'm not sure what to do about skills. I have the following serious skills available right now. Special : Bonfire / Iceberg / Moonbow A: Fury / Fortress Defense / Close Def (the 4 star Joshua isn't doing anything) B: Bow Breaker / Quick Riposte Personally Leaning toward Bonfire+Close Def+ Quick Riposte Is it better not to merge to take advantage of the forgeable breath weapons? Is it better to wait for traingle adept? I mean I see a lot of people in the arena discussion thread with stories of their nowi kiling units that they theoretically shouldn't be able too, so i don't want to miss out on anything by going TA just to beat the reds Nowi already beats harder.

Is the Bladetome+Vantage trap Spring Camilla a real thing? Because I do have a Takumi and a Gordin lying around to burn and it does put up very nice numbers in the simulator.....

I'm going to support Priscilla and then Faye- I've read that backing the losing character gets you more feathers. I do have a Tharja and a few Catrias, but I'm mad at them for being spd minus.

I got a 5 star Faye off of my free pull of Banner A and 5 star Athena off of my free pull of Banner B. .... I'm off to buy lottery tickets.

The list seems to have been made by someone who enjoys the RPG aspects of the game- hence the trainee units- They also don't seem immune to the "punchiness" of characters with high offense/defense, which is what naturally attracts a lot of people toward Gerik/cormag/epriham, who are often described as strong characters, and meant to be fun to use. The only outliers seem to be Joshua/Marisa, which seem to have been included due to different criteria, likely A: The author enjoyed their animations or B: He considers them an OTP. Obviously the "punchiness" critea could logically be extended to include Saleh/Seth, but there might be a bias against them due to being mentor-type characters. I don't like that he uses "strongest" in the description- judging from his profile- this is a user that makes nothing but "top" lists, and while most of them are somewhat informed, all remain personal. His "top 10 moves in gen 1 pokemon" list being a good example - The lack of Explosion / Thunder Wave / Body Slam among others instantly disqualify it as a depiction of competitive RBY , and the focus on gimmicks such as Spore, wrap , fire spin, Clamp (the first being redundant due to eggxecutor's splashability and use of sleep powder, nevermind the hypnosis lead game - or sleep clause in general - and the later limited to pokemon that would fall to BL in a metagame still subject to tiering updates) . He seems to be weighing "strength" in a vacuum where availability and practically do not matter that much. All 1 range locked charathers to D tier. Also I think it's important to point out that he advertises the training tower as a feature of the game (lopto ruins? I don't remember) so his experience with the game is obviously going to be closer to a 2006ish 20/20 stat obsessed fire emblem community than the modern efficiency preferring one.

I'm glad to see that Japanese are apparently getting way more creative freedom than they did with 2008's Batman : Gotham Knight. That said this concept doesn't really appeal to me in the way something like Gotham like Gaslight does.... It seems like it's going to be too action oriented to feel right.

I decided to pull from the Heroes with strong summons bannerr and managed to get Sonya and Karel in the same pull. And they are both Atk+ HP- The Legendary Banner was the bait banner all along

So instead of letting other units use the combo they just made it so that Lyn could have it without even needing her B slot? Lmao.

Can someone check if any of the forged weapons gain Desperation or Brash Assault? Traditionally, the 2 skills can't be used together because of both being on the B slot, but as we know from that one wonky Sol Katti Sword! Lyn Build, they do interact with each other. Just want to know because I've got Bartres and Shannas lying around.

8 complete pulls! 155 orbs 5 stars in Pull 1, 4, 5, 8 6 total 5 star Pulls

Which of the following is your overall favorite, in terms of character, design, and/or unit?: MC: Ike ( I really like Elincica in RD, but in PoR she doesn't really develop that much. Ike has a lot of good western-hero qualities) Cavalier: Oscar (has the most abusive support boost, benefiting himself and Ike the most, has the Triangle Adept easter egg, although technically it's better to have him take the hand axe master race for his second weapon) Mage: Calill ( People always say that it was RD that nerfed mages, but tbh I really don't like them in PoR- probbably because forging and 1-2 range javelin/ handaxes on Bulky units are so readily availble. Both Soren and Illyana have an early period where tome weight or low MT prevents them from killing enemies that they might een double. Calill can't use staves, which is a shame, but tbh your units don't need healing that much in this game anyway, and She has immediately usable weapon ranks and combat stats) Myrmidon: Lucia (for not being a complete muppet- Mia has barely anything to do with the setting, Zihark "wanting to know laguz" is practically forced and better explored elsewhere, and the Stefan just pops up out of nowhere, doesn't comment on the present conflict whatsoever, and then lease because of *sequel building* ) Fighter: Largo (His map sprite and combat model just satisfy me more than too-skinny Boyd) Soldier: Nephenee (She starts out with the absurd wrath skill for free. It's a lot of fun) Knight: Tauroneo (I actually did a joke run where I used all three of them to Lvl 20/20 - Gatrie got doubled by a siege tome in the laguz tower level. Brom is thanfully fast enough to double fellow armors, axe units, and weighed down tome users. Taureno is kinda crudd, but he does have Resolve as a skill by default, and EVEN on him, it is a super skill. Not many other places in the FE franchise where you'll see enemies that are in combat range that will refuse to attack _) Archer/Bow Knight: Rolf (Rolf comes pretty close to capping every non-magic stat, just like Shinon, and you can use him during part of the game when you are actually fighting Fliers) Thief: Volke ( Can open chests, I like the implication of Ike planning to have himself killed for the other's safety if it becomes neccesary) Medic: Mist (Rhys is almost a joke charather statwise) Pegasus: Tanith (Marcia is an awesome unit, but Tanith is fun with her unique reinforcement ability). Wyvern: Jill ( I don't really like her early game without a BEXP dump, but same reasons as everyone else) Cat: Ranulf (Lethe is fun for like 8-10 chapters, and then she never levels up strength- Ranulf doesn't fall off so hard) Tiger: Mordecai ( I like him because he fits the "General" build a lot more competently than the actual Generals in this game, it's fun to beat things down with him, although his transformation timer starts in a pretty annoying place. Also Shove to win! ) Hawk: Tibarn (The other hawk's don't stand out compared to the pegauss and wyverns at all.) Dragon: Ena ( She works pretty well as a chapter boss, if not for her you wouldn't notice Ashnard's mount at all, her hiding her laguz status isn't as cheesy as Nasir hiding his) Other: Reyson (Punches Oliver in the face, can dance multiple units, basically immune to enemy mages not that hand axe master race requires lure units) and even has fairly decent healing)

When did you play this game the first time? 2014 How did you get introduced into this game? Was playing through all the Fire games at the time. Do you play it on a rom, or do you even have a physical copy? ROM Have you played it before or after FE4? Before. Started and Finished FE4 the week after beating Thracia. Was FE5 your first FE game? No How often have you finished the game yet? Three times How many hours do you usually need to complete this game? 15-18 Have you unlocked all gaiden chapters yet? Yes Have you recruited all characters yet? Yes Do you prefer the A or B routes in terms of maps and recruitable characters? B route Which three things do you really like in FE5? Capture. Capture. Capture. Which three things do you really dislike? FE4 references dragging down the plot of chapters after C20. Convoy access being tied to buildings. Skills are a little too powerful on certain player units. Would you like to see some unique mechanics like capturing and fatiuge (in main game) returning? Yes Would you agree with that statement that FE5 had amazing potential, but didn't exhaust it completly? It could be better than the final product, but its potential was always higher than the 4 games preceding it. Would you agree with that statement that FE5 has the best gameplay ideas? No Would you agree with the statement that FE5 is the most balanced FE game? If you mean convincing the player to high-man, then yes- Conquest is close, but does have setups like early heart sealing Jakob to draco or nos tanking with Odin. How would you rank the difficulty in this game? Below Radiant Dawn/SD /New Mystery / Conquest, in certain aspects also below FE6 and Birthright Lunatic as well. Short answer- The actual arena's in this game are deathtraps, but you still level grind multiple charathers even early on, because Thracia did not care about non-boss non-magic user enemy stats, and the sheer volume of cannon fodder in this game (even without crusader scroll abuse) can let you beef out your units. Also Player use of status staves was less well thought out than in Conquest. Also I abused enemy AI with capture bait to force certain enemies to cripple their own stats. It has it's moments of honest difficulty mixed in with the well known fake difficulty (random moving sub-bosses/ early promoted enemies / resistance but doesn't take more than a week to finish tbh even with the combined efforts of the two. Still kind of dissapointng to me considering how hyped its reputation for difficulty is. Would you recommend someone to play FE5 blind? If they play it at all, they should play it blind. Which three advice would you give someone who will play this game the first time? Have Fire sword in Leaf or Lifis's inventory when ending of chapter 3. Use sleep staves on enemy sleep stave mages. Guaranteed and near guaranteed critical hit setups are possible on BOTH enemy phase and player phase. Who's your favorite character personalitywise? August Who's your favorite character gameplaywise? Dagda Who's usually your MVP in your playthrough(s)? Asbel What's your favorite chapter? C8 What's your favorite map theme? C20 and C23 What's your favorite battle theme (main battles, boss battles)? The generic boss theme > special boss themes. What's your opinion of the art in this game? Map sprites and graphics are adequate, but the shroud/fog is ugly due to being too severe (compare to early 2000 RTS game shroud or something like Age of Empires) . Character portraits are underwhelming. Generic Enemy portraits seem out of place, with a more Ogre battle esque artsyle than FE imo. Combat art is a mixed bag. The unmounted attack animations are actually some of my favorite in the series. Axe users are fun and over the top. Magic effects are god-awful. Foot sword and lance units are pretty nice, but armors and horses are lackluster due to having too much weight and too little weight respectively. What's your opinion of the story in this game? One of the best in the FE series- however people usually rate "story" as a combination of "plot" and "charathers". This game ONLY cares about its plot, and a most of the recruitable charathers get shafted and are barely improvements on the one-sentence recruited mutes in FE2. Villians, Leaf himself, and his tacticians get a lot of characterization though. Chapters after C22 are kind of anticlimatic because Leaf's big rival is emasculated by a "bigger threat". On paper it shouldn't be that bad since you have a personal connection to Berdo due to the Stoning early, but in practice, it undermines the personal and political hatred that drove Leaf on in certain chapters, in particualr his overeager charge that got Dorias killed. How would you rank the story from 1 to 10? 7 relative to other RPGs, 9 relative to FE stories. How would you rank the gameplay from 1 to 10? 6 How would you rank the game overall from 1 to 10? 7/10 Does FE5 need a remake? No Does FE5 need a better translation patch? Yes Could you imagine to replay FE5 sometime in the future? Yes

Lord: Eirika ( I like a couple of her early chapter conversations with Seth a lot. Mostly picked because I use her in FEH than any SS related reason tbh) Cavalier: Seth (all the others are imitations of him - he is the most handsome, most powerful, and has the best dialogue) Myrmidon: Joshua ( This is my least favorite class in FE, so eh. Going Joshua because of his weirdly high HP and to an extent Defense for a myrmidon) Thief: Rennac ( His exasperated reactions make him good foil for the crazy people he's stuck with) Archer: Innes (Eiraka Route - to its credit has a lot of levels with hallways / walls set up so that archers have more use than in the other GBA games. He's okay charatherwise too- manages to challenge decision making and compete with epriham without being as grating as Shinon from PoR.) Mage: Saleh (The God. Only lacking in the beard department). Holy: Artur, (pretty much the only one of them I used in a non-grind context.) Macho Man: (These four are collectively my favorite characters gameplaywis so it's hard to pick- Dozla is who I killed the Demon King with the first time I played though) Flyer: Cormag, (too slow to recruit in LTC Cormag takes the setting as seriously as the other charathers has his own rival boss to face down, and is pretty enjoyable as a unit because his defense is almost guranteed to make him archer proof even before the Iote's shield in C15. Can carry around javelin's with the best of FE8's cavaliers. ) Trainee: Ross (Best charatherwisee due to Garcia mainly, and also gets to abuse handaxes, and doesn't really worry as much about the "early on shit durability" that the other two do) Other: Myrrh ( Honestly I find Tethys coming on to people in certain supports to be unsettling. Myrrh doesn' have too much to elevate her above FE6/FE7 manaketes, but still carries around some emotional baggage and has a kind of understated and quite sad story. Also I'm not as afraid of her weapon durability as most people seem to be, so I enjoy her almost limitlessly powerful combat in the last few chapters. )

Lord: Lucina (just because her high combat makes her more satisfying than the average quality of Chrom) Tactician: Male Morgan Cavalier: Frederick, Mercenary: Gregor, Myrmidon: Owain Thief: Anna Fighter: Basilio Wyvern: Cherche Knight: Kellam Pegasus: Cordelia, Mage: Ricken Dark Mage: Henry Staves: Libra Archer: Virion Taguel: Panne Manakete: Nowi Unique: Olivia

If I ever shelled out for Legos again, I would go for the 450 piece bucket of just basic 2x2 and 2x4 colored blocks. That would be a serious way to re-live my childhood. I don't really get the point of mini-figure ans theme-sets, I mean doing it blocky lets you do anything- houses, people , animals. Granted that if you wanted "detail" you would have to increase the scale of how many blocks you used, but for me, just making something into the shape of what you wanted was always enough.

I beat infernal with Brave Ike, Takumi, Oboro, and Mae. B!Ike could probably solo the map with the correct sacred seal and his default kit. He can definitely force through the Cavalier and silver sword Pegasus. I think the other pegasus with the slaying edge, could give him trouble, but eh. I think Mae was just there to use draw back on oboro once.

Does Caeda work better with Moonbow or Glacies? Also when I look at the wiki I'm not sure if Brave sword or Wo Dao is prefered. I'm kind of leaning towards Wo dao though. Right now I feel like Caeda is not doing enough to weakened red units and tankier Greens. Currently just running Fury/Desperation/Def Ploy as the skills.

EH maybe some of them are just more extreme than others. When I look at Hector or Lord Pompadour, they don't annoy me quite so much as Narcian. Like I like a lot of artsyles, but I can't stand clash within the same context- it would be jarring to see a studio ghibli charather in a Bones animation or vice versa. even though both companies's charathers look good in their own settings.

I'm having a confidence issue with trying to tank (top tier) units with color advantage UNLESS I have triangle adept. However, I am not getting enough Selena's for skill inheritance. I need desperately need some advice on how to tank properly in the game (besides when you have good matchups w/ top tier 5 stars) especially when I am trying to bring up my new teams. Obviously some units don't tank- I'm not talking about them. I'm not talking about losing a tank to some same element scrub either- I'm mostly worried about those SPECIAL units that kill tanks through the -20%. Especially the green ones.

Is it just me, or do the heroes with a more cartoonish artsyle (Narcian) seem really out of place?

Reading short stories. Right now I'm revisiting H. H. Munro for my book length commentary on his life and also Mary Poppins- so different from the disney musical! I plan to re-read the color fairy books (despite the abridgments to the originals) by January or February. Reading Classic Literature. Went through Lolita, the Scholars, and the Idiot (again) in the last two months. Oh how slow I've gotten since the good days. I play two video games competitively- Puyo Puyo and Pokemon. I've been trying to get out of the latter, but even when I manage to stay off of smogon for multiple weeks, I'll still be consumed with the urge to like spend an entire afternoon filling notebooks with teambuilding ideas. The Ruins of Alph (past generations) tours are especially tempting to me. I also obsess over speedrunning- almost Any game that I consider a classic, I like to watch other people play fast, (I prefer input heavy speedruns to more exploit heavy speedruns although I'm not against glitches except as a viewer). I speedrun myself but require the motivation of having my time beaten or active competion, cannot be bothered to beat my own times in cases where I know they have room for improvement at present.. (Limited to very few games haven't done in months). I adore well- made documentaries and biographies- No connection to subject matter is required- last year I went through Smartest Guys in the Room (about Enron and the oil/energy business) Who killed CBS (about the history of news reporting on television) Men of Steel (About the comics book industry's history) Charles Schultz and his Peanuts (about Charlie Brown) and sometimes I'll stretch and watch hour long pseudo documentaries/ retrospectives on youtube (eg Kim Justice) Sometimes I like to read peer reviewed journals for the heck of it. Mostly on Literature. I'm trying to get into television and movie history- I am finding it hard to trust many critical lists of films, so I think I'm going to have to be unimaginatve and resort to Sight and Sound polls. For the time being I'm enjoying my complete series box sets of Alfred Hitchock Presents, Rod Serling's Night Gallery, and The Muppets Show. I am supporting a couple of random kickstarters related to some of the above categories. All hail Julian Darius I am following the completely unexpected developer support of two games Majesty: the fantasy Kingdom Sim (not many games made 15+ years ago have modding added to them after they are dead), and Contraption Maker (for indie games 3 years might as well be 15 years). I like to get seasons passes of my local theatre, and in summer I frequent my local town's free shakespheare in the park. Except when arguing for weeks straight with the director over the proper way to do Richard II. On special occasions I will check out improv shows as well, but not enough to be called an obsession.

I'd consider VII instead, but that game is monstrously long and slow to start I hear. Still, is it better than VI? Yes it is better. Slow to start is putting it nicely. Between the cutscenes and the puzzle dungeon, you can go like 35-45 minutes before you even fight a basic slime enemy. DQ7 is in a whole other league of slow compared to the six~12 minute long cutscenes you might put up with on a PSX RPG. For the other game's I'm going to be against RPGs at all times, and Pro action games and puzzle games. Donkey Kong Country Returns can be skipped- I think the level design in the first 5 worlds is kinda generic, it only gets good for the last 3 worlds+the temple levels. Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze is a must have- don't worry too much about your ability. If you "let yourself" you can use the in-game shop items or go back to a previous level so that you can start a hard level that gives you trouple with Dixie/Cranky so that you can use their glide/cane jump to get you through the section that stumped you. I don't think they will be discounted, but before looking into "indie" 2D zelda-clones, I would use the Wii U's ability to access the original Wii shop channel to by the classic Genesis and Turbografx zelda clones- "Crusader of Centy" and "Neutopia" . Virtual Console sadly doesn't have PSX's Alundra or Dreamcast's Elemental Gimmick Gear. The Wii virtual console (not Wii U) DOES also have the similiar, but less ambitious Zombies ate My Neighbors and Beyond Oasis. Although beyond sharing the top down perspective and samey controls/combat, I wouldn't readily compare them to LttP era Zelda. Also I could list like whole pages of action, platformer, and puzzle games from 8 and 16 bit consoles to get before the 2019 closure of the virtual console service, but I'll let the "reflex" requirement stand and not bring them up. Wii U games to care about - Puyo Puyo Tetris / zelda Botw / Tropical Freeze / Yoshi's Wooly World / Bayonneta 2 / Pikmin 3 / Captain Toad / The Oddworld and the Another World ports /Mario Kart 8 /and a couple more that only apply for people with really MP intensive households now that the console's life cycle is too far to justify it's niche games. Also FE Tokyo Mirage Sessions is more interesting imo than the RPGs you mentioned although the only RPGs I would ever ever recommend for Black Friday or ANY other time would be Wizardy 8 and Divinity Original Sin 1&2 for all PC. I'm not going to bring up my PS3 picks because I'm pro- first person shooter, and I can tell from your post you would ignore that.