Reality

I prefer videos at an hour long. Heck most of what I watch is 3-5 hour long series chained together by multiple videos on the same game. Anyway this thread got me started thinking about IGN. It's popular consensus that it's a lousy website now, but lots of people used to love it. Honestly I think people should start looking at IGN (and similar sites) in terms of following a specific editor(s), instead of just dropping a blanket "IGN sucks". That said I don't go there for any content anymore. However, I have a deep fondness for my times with the IGN n64 and IGC DC editors, who I found to be mostly agreeable. Aaron Boulding - My favorite member of the IGN staff. I think some of his standout work would be the reviews for "MDK2, Quake 3 Arena, and Battletanx:Global Assault". Sometimes he reads as taking the persona of an angry veteran upset with modern games, but I find most of his stuff entertaining and he goes out of his way to promote action games despite acknowledging that they aren't really fun for a general audience. Jeremy Dunham- Pretty distinctive in that he usually wrote 3 page reviews in the latter half of his time at IGN. These definitely allowed him to give more of a proper review and less of a "preview" of the games he covered. I think his coverage of the n64's wrestling games and Devil may cry 3 are among his best work. Peer Schneider- Creator of nintendojo and a founding member of IGN. For some reason people usually consider him to be "tame". I would like to point to stuff like his yoshi's story review, where he says, "If you play this game with the music cranked high, your neighbors will hire someone to shoot you". I'm not claiming that he maintained his sense of humor across all his work on n64-GCN-DS, but I still find him pretty consistent, even leaving his historical importance aside. Jeff Chin, Anoop Gantayat, Brandon Justice- Personally I feel like team Dreamcast had the strongest editors at IGN. Anoop and Brandon would continue to do some in depth work in sports and action games respectively during IGN's genre-based restructuring. There are a couple others people I think did good work (Doug Perry,David Smith, Eirk Peterson, Trent Ward). I know some people may not consider these "personalities" but you have to understand that reviews during the early years were really flavorful and that a bullet point heavy "house style" did not exist yet. Most of these reviews were much more than just "the facts about the game". For that matter I consider the better book and theatre critics to be personalities.

It's going to wind up a necessity that the antagonist do something "badder" than the protagonist, and I think that enough is too much a sacrifice. The fact that the main charather was a criminal would get sidelined as background, and possibly put the bad guy in camp territory. I don't see the point of having it as part of a character's past. Either make a full on "bandit story" or a chilling "rise of" story, or don't include it at all. Too much of the setting/ supporting cast has to be sacrificed (in quality)or literally to make a "villian" likable, at least the way IS does it.

Chapter 20 from Path of Radiance I like the resolution of the Shiharam plot. It could have benefited from Petrine not treating him like dirt to his face so that his fatalistic resistance made more sense, but that's Petrine's fault for being a cardboard villian. The real star of the show is Jill and their father-daughter relationship. Gameplaywise I do think the chapter's enemy composition is pretty boring though. I think runner ups would be Chapter 14 eirika from FE8. Chapter 9 from FE 11,Chapter 12 from FE 11. Chapter 20 from FE 11. Chapter 3 from FE12. Chapter 10x from FE12, Chapter 15 from conquest. Chapter 23 from Conquest. Chapter 25 from Conquest.

I played secret of mana a lot on wii-ware with friends. Gotta fill that four swords void I've owned final fantasy adventure since forever. It might still have my favorite music on any handheld system. Played seiken densetsu 3 on emulator after seeing it at some speedrunning charity, but honestly didn't like it too much- it suffers the same problem as the early "tales of" games;enemies take so much hitstun from your attacks that you can combo them to death in near-perfect safety. Never played it in multiplayer.

I'll edit stuff in when I have more time. Youtube The Mighty Jingles- The man with the most infectious laugh in the world. I only find WoT average, but he makes it interesting, and funny. Also he introduced me to a lot of historic content, which turned out to be even better than his game play videos. Mr.Whitman - Point and click games. Point and clicks games everywhere. Icebears4ever- For the tony hawk documentary. I don't like making him sound like a one note person. It's a dang good documentary though >< Kim Justice - His documentaries on the British Home Computer market have more effort put into them than almost any other content on Youtube. And he's good enough to adress his occasional fallacies/bad sources when people bring it up with him. I've discovered scores of good obscure games through him, although I will admit that I find his politics a bit grating and think his taste in more modern games is appalling cover based shooters are never GOTY material Kim! Larry Bundy Jr. - His voice just reminds me of British comedian David Jason too much not to love. Like Kim, his best content has to do with British home computers. I think he's been getting a little click baity in the last year though. But I can't stay angry. Developers Mike Hommel- I mostly go though the backlog of journals on his website though, as his twitter and you tube are dead/for business purposes respectively. I'm not in the mood to sing his phrases, but he is easily one of my heroes, and he has dictated my pop-culture tastes forever through his movie and television recomendations, not to mention his own comedy writing. David Jaffe- His blog and youtube are entertaining, and the background material he released for twisted metal was fun. Increpare- I like puzzle games so explanation isn't neccesary. As far as I'm concerned he's taken a philosophic stance on game design. Also before I even knew how big he was I played English Country Tune, thought it was neat, and he gave me a thank you message as one of the first people to beat it (or something). Competitive People BayoenFR- watching people play puyo puyo competitively just hypnotizes me. Completly changed my relationship to puzzle games a few years ago. I was used to playing them only on normal difficulty and such but I never saw the artistic potential of what humans could do. It's just breathaking to see two stacks rise and the way that simply unleashing a giant chain is dangerous- giving the other player time to add to their ombo while it's resolving, and sometimes going back and forth multiple times. Compared to fighing games, and defintively compared to strategy games, you really understand the technical beuaty of the game- the occasional fluke win doesn't save people from what a puyo god can do. Mad KOF- Breaks my heart. I watch KOF as much for the crowd energy as for the game play. It's also really striking for me to remember that their are fighting game community's outside of CAL and JPN. Speed Runners The Monaco Crew - Mopo, Mr. U, Vella, Frank, Tik, Metapad, Brainfeeder, Winter, and like 20 others. Naturally since it's the game I run. Sometimes we get together for other stuff, like movies nights or whatever. SpkeVegeta- Made me obsess over speedrunning for like 3 years straight and got me back into videogames in general. Collectors Richie- He's been a really important part of my videogame tastes for like 6 years now. We disagree all the time (I think he likes rpgs and fighting games too much, puzzle games and space/flight sims not enough) but he is the most approachable collector I know, and I respect his opinions most of the time, both as someone, and because I like his taste. MetalJesusRocks - I first heard of him because of some article about sierra employees. I like him overall, although I think he's too positive at times, and I think a lot of his content could stand to be more in depth than just telling it's fun and his coverage of the obvious (console) classics isn't that impressive. But I think his content about early PC games is strong enough to make up for it, particularly Sierra franchises, but also stuff like Ultima. He also does a good job showcasing the other collectors in his geographical area which I appreciate, as I sorely missed the non-chain gaming stores that used to be in my neighborhood.... Pokemon Borat- Led to my involvement with the Ruins of Alph Ladder tour. Got me excited to try out past gens other than my traditonal DPP and BW. Incredibly uncompromising personality. Changed my view of stall teams in ALL meta games and formats permanently. Scpinion- He had incredible enthusiasm for the Other Metas on Pokemon Showdown, and was a huge part of the campaign for monotype and others to receive ladder status, then a chunk of the smogdex analysis, seperate forums for each of the "permanent" OMs, more comprehensive webpage/resources for OM, etc. It's hard not to like the guy. He's kind of an average, overly conservative teambuilder though and telegraphs every move he makes. Martin- hosted the pokelab.de server. This place had such a big place in my life. Shuckle4ubers- One of the last mods of pokelab.de - Also an egotistic personality who loved sandbagging with joke pokemon, and forcing BS tournaments like "mono colour" and "/dice dex number draft" upon the population. Infected me with their idea of fun.

So basically Arc the Lad Trilogy? No thanks.

Competitive pokemon did not take off until 3rd gen, and even then I think Netbattle's role in developing the meta is kind of overstated by most people- netbatle era GSC for example, had stuff like SD tentacruel and growth sweepers didn't exist- Netbattle did achieve a semi-modern version of the advance metagame though- The "RBY and GSC" metas were created retroactively in general, just like competitive smash n64 only developed after Melee attained popularity, few gave them the attention until the main competitive force of gen4 (and shoddy battle) arrived, which was when the past gens room and later ruins of alph subroom led to sinifigant development. I don't know where all these people claiming "I knew about no recharge hyper beam as a kid" are coming from. As for GSC, it requires pokemon stadium 2 or trading between 2 cartridges over multiple file restarts to get around the one time use tms for rest and sleeptalk. For this reason, I seriously doubt people's claims to have played GSC competitively pre-simulator. Of course even the casual early players could recognize the best mons, but not stuff like the importance of thunderwave(for RBY) or hazard control. 2007 mostly changed that. https://pokemonlab.com/history As for me, I treated pokemon as a casual game until 4th gen, when I entered the wifi tower on a whim. In the first, and only match Some japanese guy came at with choice scarf togekiss which flinched my team to death. In retribution I looked up everything I could find and started playing on shoddy battle. I have remained with simulator play ever since. As far as the 90s and 2000s - Where I grew up Yu Gi OH seemed to have more of a following than pokemon tbh- I do remember a kid with a gameshark who got surf onto one of my pokemon in red when I was visiting Churchill Downs of all places. I could play with family members, but most of them didn't even train their pokemon to level 100 or used any non attacking moves.... We got some kicks out of rental matches in pokemon stadium but I overwhelmingly won them, so we switched to the minigames, and then to mario party outright. I did watch tons of the season 1 anime via VHS, but not actually on the network that much. I would not meet many people in my area in the years after, and the ones I did make me wince (saying stuff like steel is immune t0 electric or bragging abbout a "pro strategy" that is easy to wall, or worst of all playing without held items. UGH.

Neversoft era Tony Hawk's Pro Skater THPS 1-4 and THUG 1-2 Tony Hawk is one of two games that made me buy a console for the first time. And I still love it. I even get to share it since it's Mike Hommel's inspiration. The game's music sticks with you. The gameplay- the best. I think that the GBA and DS ports were done well too, but Vicarious Visions and THQ just had too limited resources (especially sound) compared to the consoles. They're playable and fun, but don't become legendary in the way of the main games- Donkey Kong Debated calling the series Donkey Kong Country, but to be honest- I like DK 64 and Jungle Beat more than DKR and DK3, and I also like the mario vs donkey kong titles, so I went with something more inclusive. I've played the GB downports (land) even- But yeah, I think I've played more DKC2 than almost any game period. I never find things "too big" As long as I'm platforming, I'm happy, Rareware (and Retro) never felt like they were going out of line to me.Temple Challenges are fun I swear Banjo Kazooie I adore Banjo. I'm still in awe of Tooie to this day. Mostly regarding the stuff Kazooie says when talking to babies. But also the way the levels are interconnected in a way beyond their main entrance- it just adds so much, even though functionally it probbably only means 2 jiggys per world are only accesible through the adjacent world. But the appearance of a single interconnected island pays off. Gruntilda's Revenge on the GBA is alright- compared to the Rayman and Spryro GBA games it makes a better "approximation" of the 3D platformer. And I actually like Nuts and Bolts- This is probably because I played lego racers/ vigilante 8 / and twisted metal a lot, but I was in a position to appreciate it for what it is when it came out. I do think that a lot of the humor from Tooie carries over well though. I do feel some things are on the nose but work enough of the time (the soundtrack kind of draws you into a game where you identify sections of music track in N&B remixed from 5 separate worlds EACH on n64) Descent I played ace combat and rogue squadron before ever encountering the venerable descent- but when I finally did try it out, I fell in love instantly. 6 degrees of freedom is probably my favorite control scheme for anything ever. These games have scale in the outer space levels, claustrophia in the indoor levels, fast, arcade style gameplay, great music, my favorite explosions of all time. Proper difficulty modes. I can think of little else to ask for. The Descent games, along their spirtual succesors (Freespace), the reboot (underground) and their clones (forsaken/colony wars/G Police, etc) are like all mandatory for me to replay once a year in a crazed marathon. These series stand above the rest, but picking a 5th one is hard for me because so many series are so close. I can think of a few that are easy to disqualify because of "only really liking 1-2 games in the series and actively shunning the sequels" but their are other franchises that I love wholesale. I'd say mario/timesplitters/rampage probably stand above the rest, but I can't say for certain. This is an overkill list, don't open if you don't need to know.

Banjo Nuts&Bolts

I used to buy prima guides (mainly for n64 stuff) especially for games I didn't own yet- even when I didn't buy them, I would read them in the game store and then put them back on the shelf. A lot gave better previews than the advertisements and magaznie reviews! I liked some of the splash art for stuff like Quest 64 and DK 64 that wasn't really available in the game. I remember a lot of the guide's having amusing mistakes; star fox 64's didn't explain you could get a medal on the red line version of Venom and Banjo Kazooie listed one of the Jiggy's for Click Clock Wood twice. I think the only guide I ever actually used for game help was Pokemon stadium ironically enough. I also appreciate the writing style of the guides in general- they would play up the "hard parts of the game" but never came near depreciating the game or its makers for it, but also didn't use "shill" language to suck up and market the thing. It kind of respected the games and assumed that we too wold play along with it fairly.

I get bored with a character If I feel like the character's personality is dictated (more than the normal amount) by the marketing team. Cute characters are normal offenders. I think people exaggerate when it comes to cool characters though. It's really easy to differentiate between "cool" and "rule of cool" type characters imo. Rewriting these kind of characters can be done playfully- you could have a character who is "genuinely" cool/cute who gets confused because of people being oblivious or not showing the attention they think they deserve. You can make a normal character (or a cartoonishly dorky/ugly) get treated as if they were appealing (either surreally or with the flatterers trying to abuse their vanity). You could even have a formerly cute character get addicted to their praise, and grow monstrous in their demand for more. Of course if you are not going for comedy and want to fix a character that stands out- you can also just reconcile them the other way around- make the theme universe in general more cool (not necessarily a memetic world of badass) to prevent them looking to over the top compared to the other guys. You should also watch out for "near magic detective work" It might be fun for some batman stories/Code Geass, but can appear tacky if not done very stylistically. You could also defang an individual fight scene by explaining afterwards (or during battle if you have narration/internal thoughts) by showing that the character surprised themselves and doesn't expect to pull off what they do or just barely made it through. Maybe show them exhausted or in need of medical attention even. In general when I get worried about if my characters "show off" I set the bar at about Indiana Jones level for fighters/ingenuity, and Colombo for detective work/strategizing. I find if my characters are more resourceful than them, then some people will feel like "they win because the writer made them win" and not because "they fought/planned better" especially if they won against an established antagonist that would normally beat them easily..

I think lots of people will buy the game fresh without being invested in the series. I know lots of people who played the majora/ocarina of time 3DS games without ever playing the n64 originals. As for the problem of awakening/fates/valentia all being within the life cycle of the same system.... I don't think that'll be a problem at all. I mean I know some people who can obsess over doing things in order, but I think market wise, that's never stopped someone from attended the third part of a blockbuster movie trilogy first if that's the one that's coming out when they first encounter the advertising. Plus it's not like stuff like pokemon or Fifa have ever interfered with their own sales by having a "glut".

I see the different continent's as existing standalone. It's pretty clear that the "cosmology" linking them is just for fan service. Pretty much the same case with the hyrule historia, at best, it's still a retcon, and technically, even though they are linked, none of the individual stories change anyway. And you don't see final fantasy fans canonizing dissidia or anything- and they even have more unexplained same names/species thing between certain games despite most of the games being standalone. Pretty much I see only a few ways that embracing a shared cosmology can go A cosmology nice for a few people who check deep into the lore, but ultimately is constructed in reverse, suggesting that the framework is mechanically meaningless since it would equal allow for the inclusion of any other game. The unexplained and uncommented sharing of surface level elements- weapon names, and a type of dragon/manakete being can reaper to link games thematically, but they still clearly have separate histories and no interaction, meaning that contradicting God/creation stories don't cause problems. A bottom-up cosmology framework that suggests that the greater mythos supported the games as we've seen them to grow out of it. Marvel crossover style event on a smaller but nevertheless cannon scale.

I played it to completion one year ago. I still call BS on it's "fun enough for everyone to try once" and think it should be amended to "mapmakers only should try it once". I remember it being more annoying than hard, and the highlights never managed to outweigh the foul depths of the map design.

Does Jessica with skill points into whips still have that balancing problem where twin dragon lash will outdamage any possible magic skill, and also all the physical characters other than Hero?

This argument reminds me of what David wrote in the "Philosophy of Wesnoth" thread. But anyway, I think that having magic be controlled differently than the other weapons would be bad game design. And I think that while having magic/tome units access Final Fantasy Tactics or Disgaea style command lists or whatever, while interesting, would ultimately make them overly influential and on the whole would clash with the rest of the game- the traditional move and 1-2 stuff flows better, is easy to understand, and keeps the value of mages in line with the value of normal troops. And gaiden's resource system is totally uncalled for anyway. So yeah- the Gaiden magic system should be left in the dust.

Well I'm glad IS went with a sane option. MY BENCH IS GOING TO GET MIGHTY CROWDED THOUGH.

So in the original, these three villagers are essentially the same charather, have little no dialog outside of recruitment/death quote and are all bench fodder due to their class. I doubt this kind of uselessness will carry over to a remake. So I've been wondering how they'll be handled. I'm betting on the three being merged into a single unit, although I've heard people suggest wild or more commonly "memetic" theories about them being used for a non-story relevant avatar (or even avatars, to make up for the alm/celice party split). So, what do you think about them? Will they make the game in their original form? Will the villager class function like trainees/donnel? Will their reclass option be less... random? Or will they be cut entirely?

Well this killed my interest in FE mobile. Seeing a 8x12 tile map and units with 2-3 move is not what I'd call strategic depth. I personally feel a bit more strongly that the Warrirors game will be... a Warriors game, and not a experimental formula or an Warriors: Empires kind of deal. Echoes looks pretty fun, except for the dungeons, which look timewastey. It's not enough to break into my wishlist though. It does make me think that genealogy/thracia are now also actually remakable, which I had claimed would never happen. Probably won't within the next three years though.

Isn't New Mystery of the Emblem just as long as Path of Radiance though? The only time I really think that pattern holds true is with Radiant Dawn, and even then it isn't really by that much. I don't really think the 2018 will end up over 4 chapters longer than the annouced Gaiden game. The maps will likely be bigger, but that's a gaiden issue imo. I expect this game's maps to be smaller than awakening/fates, at least in the dungeon segments, the main story battles will probably be more generic.

Avatar is problematic because iirc alm and celica's party shouldn't be able to transfer charathers, and obviously the nature of an avatar should be always present. Also in the dungeon footage they were controlling the lord, so yeah...

I'm thinking what would happen if they went really nuts with minor charathers- but how far would that go? Side games, minor enemies? Would people like Fawful and Geno get in? Or would you mine the likes of monty mole, angry sun, noki, pianta, sidesteppers, raphael the raven, Fuzzies, Magikoopa, buzzy beetles, etc etc. At some point you would be using characters less iconic than stage hazard/item charathers like chain chomp/ bullet bill / thwomp. And I can see turtles becoming a problem, bowser, koopa troopa, bowser jr, koopa kids, kind of block out the likes of hammer bros, koopatrol, boomerang bros, paratroopa, boom boom, etc due to similarity in design, it would could get just as annoying as baby/metal characters after a while.

Not that I like to kick people while they're done but... I would like mages to stay as they are, in the GBA games I found the magic triangle and to a large extent (adepts/shamans/bishops) to essentially be equivalent to sages in nearly all situations, due to your mage units also having high resistance, and therefore not running any risk when attacking at traingle disadvantage in the same way that axe vs sword was. I think magic units could be diversified, but definitely not by going back along the old lines. I'd rather mix in high def/low res type mages, etc. I think that the staves in fates should return though. That was awesome. I'm pretty neutral on non-magic classes, I do think it would be cool if the"standard lances" were made harder hitting and as inaccurate as the current axes, and introduce a second "light lance line" akin to swords versus blades. Along the same lines I'd also like a myrmdon style axe unit with great avoid speed and lower strength, although obviously only if it existed as a backup/secondary alongside the traditional HP/STR bricks. Other than that I'd be fine with just stable classes.

It's success had more aggressive marketing, more accessible game play and stuff like casual mode, not to mention being released for a handheld at the top of its game and being really clear about when the international releases came out, instead of letting it kind of drift in after the Japanese version. Talking to vocal outliers on art/fan sites about how art/characters factored into purchasing the game is probably misleading.