Slumber

Kaga came up with the very first marriage system in the franchise, though. It's difficult to see where the FE franchise would be with Kaga still heading it. I imagine it likely wouldn't have headed to the GBA, which would have been a blow to the franchise, since the only alternative was the GameCube at the time, which... well, GameCube wasn't a great system for anything but the biggest heavy hitters.

Thunder tomes get the innate crit bonus, so their extra weight is a bit easier to swallow. Fire tomes get nothing.

Derp, Zealot. I got him and his lackey mixed up. I thought it looked wrong when I was typing it, and I pictured the map where you recruit Zealot, Noah and Treck and thought "Hm, you definitely get Noah that chapter." It's late.

Uhhh, no. Not even close. Just because it "doesn't have broken units"(It does. Most prepromotes and characters like Dieck could definitely be classified as "broken") doesn't mean the cast is somehow balanced. Just on a very basic level, mounted units are damn near as broken as they were in 4, due to FE6's hard-on for windy maps and maps that would otherwise be fine for unmounted unit having tons of obstacles and other things that slow your units down. Add on top the ridiculous rate at which you have to reach some villages before bandits destroy them, and where a few maps reward saving all villages. Like three months ago I thought Zealot was a trash unit, just a second Marcus(Who I also thought was trash) because he had garbage stats and Lance or Alan could have likely caught up to Zealot in stats. Then I replayed RE6 in these last few months, and the extra move he has more or less completely negates his awful stats. Once you get to Percival and Miledy, it's pretty much lights out until the end of the game. On more specific units, look at Dieck and Ogier and tell me there's any balance there. I enjoy using Ogier just for variety, but there's absolutely no reason to use him instead of Dieck. And these are your two Mercs for the whole game. Echidna gets some use once she shows up, but Dieck will completely outclassed her even before he promotes. Swordmasters run wild with their insane crit rates, and even in an extreme case of giving them a Killing Edge and tossing them in an horde of enemies ensures that they'll likely kill every single thing that comes at them. Their squishiness can be a problem, but the hit rates in the game give them added security. Axe units are damn near worthless, and any one that isn't a Berserker with a Killer Axe is a wasted unit. An ENTIRE category of weapons is borderline worthless. The game has horrible balance issues. The former group eclipses 90% of your other units. The latter two are borderline worthless. There's no balance.

And our parents used to tell us playing video games wouldn't get us anywhere.

It's weird, because the things that have made the games more replayable are things I'm liking less and less about the series(In particular, children and gamebreaking in Awakening and Fates). Outside of those 2, overall army composition makes the games replayable for me. Trying out new units and seeing how they work out is generally where I get most of my fun. Even bad units I like to see if I can make them work. And of course, various self-imposed challenges when I find what I like.

Maribel works as a Sage and Luminary, and can work pretty well as an Armamentalist. I'd say most people in 7 work well at at least two things, which is why the road to the Hero class(Or Druid/Summoner for someone like Maribel, or Champion/Godhand for Ruff/Gabo and Aishe/Aira) is so much less daunting for pretty much every character.

You can always tell who subscribes for more than a month or two around expansion releases. My highest level crafter is 30, and only two classes in total that are 60 or above. I'm getting a lot more into FFXIV this time around, though, so I might continue subbing for more than I have in the past.

No, God no. I don't even bother recruiting them anymore. And if I do, it's usually to get the items in their recruitment chapters as opposed to doing those chapters to recruit the kids. I don't even think I need to mention how horribly hamfisted their place in the story is.

I'll let you know when we actually know what the main character of FE: Switch is going to be like. Since I doubt Smash 5 is coming out any time before FE: Switch.

LG's fine, but they have fucked their phone processors for so long and didn't attempt to fix it until well into the G4's lifespan(Well after I first got mine, AND my first replacement). Plus, the only reason I stuck with LG phones when my G2 had the same problem was because I think they had, ergonomically, the best phones. The volume rocker and hold button being on the back has always made way more sense than on the sides of the phone for me. But they stopped doing that, so I have no reason to continue buying LG phones.

True, I think I overplayed how many fewer classes there are in 6 compared to 7(7 has 20 human classes instead of 16), but in 6, the scale of things you get to work towards and work with are much more limited, and weird for the characters. Like for Carver, while Gladiator makes perfect sense, it doesn't make much sense for him to really ever be a Sage or a Luminary to become a Hero, which is far and away the best class in the game. Similarly, Milly makes a terrible Gladiator. So for the most part, Carver's progression will end at Gladiator, unless you want to go through the game with a mediocre Magic/Support unit to get him to progress to Hero. Same deal with Milly being the inverse. Additionally, this de-incentivizes you to put work towards any hybrid classes that aren't Gladiator/Sage/Luminary, since classes that AREN'T those 3 don't end up leading to you becoming a Hero. And given 6 is about 1/3 the length of 7, you really can't put the work into classes that aren't those 3 if you want Heroes. 7 alleviates this by making two extra advanced classes that are roughly as good as the Hero class, while also making the requirements for the Hero class much less stringent. Gabo/Ruff makes a perfect Champion, since Paladin and Gladiator both work towards that(Barring the time he'll spend as a less than ideal Priest), and if he masters Champion, he can automatically switch to Hero, which he can then put even more work towards. He'll likely ALWAYS be working towards something that makes sense and works for him. The more I think about it, the less it's "7 feels like you're always progressing compared 6"(Which I still think is true to some degree), and more "7's class progression makes a lot more sense than 6's".

Android 4 lyfe. Got a Galaxy S8 back in May when my LG G4 died for the second time. Swearing off LG for a while.

This I wholly disagree with. I do agree that the PS1 version made a lot of classes redundant, but 3DS 7 fixed that(I do miss class combo skills). My problem with 6's system is that it never felt like I was working towards something with the classes, and once they were mastered, that was pretty much the end of it. If I'm remembering correctly, 6 had a smaller number of base classes, and only 3 higher tier classes. 7 gave you a LOT more to actually use and work towards with the class system. If I put work into playing a Fighter, I know that once I'm done with that, I can put time towards Cleric or Warrior and actually get something out of my work. And once I'm done with THAT, I can work towards another hybrid class and hopefully unlock an even higher tier than that. There's almost always a thread to keep you going with 7 that really isn't quite as present as 6, and pretty much all of the human classes are unique. Yeah, there's overlap with some monster classes, but monster classes are supposed to be their own separate system, and putting work towards those can be just as interesting as the human classes. And while the human classes are all intended to be fully usable, the highest tier monster classes end up fitting crazy extreme niches that make the whole thing feel way different than the human classes. The class system in 7 is pretty much the only reason to keep playing the game for the 100-120 hours the game lasts. Like, yeah. The story is unique, and probably the most out-there and often times the most depressing thing to ever come out of Dragon Quest by like, a country mile. But 100+ hours would be a big ask if the gameplay wasn't constantly varying, and the class system in 7 allows that. In fact, I mentally dock points when I see a game do a class system kind of similar, but never reach the crazy depth and breadth of DQ7's class system. Dragon's Dogma is the big one, since that game even uses the same terminology for its class system. It has hybrids and advanced classes. And I love Dragon's Dogma. Its classes are a lot of fun. But I was completely upset that the hybrid and advanced classes were just given to you, and that the fact that there were only 3 base classes didn't give a crazy amount of hybrid and advanced classes. There's no reason that this should have upset me as much as it did, but it did, because I saw a bit of Dragon Quest 7 in DD, and that bit I saw didn't come close to living up to DQ7's.

Dragon Quest is one of my favorite franchises, with 7 being my favorite game of all time. They're fairly simple, straight forward JRPGs, but they typically have a ton of charm, and they tend to be pretty challenging. While 7 is my favorite for the things it does right, I'd say 8 really probably is the best place for new players to start. It's no easier than the other games in the franchise, but all around I think it does the best at the most. It has far and away the best presentation in the franchise, it's got a decent story, major scenes are voice acted, it's colorful, and very, very memorable. It's generally seen as one of the shining JRPGs on the PS2. And while that title isn't as contentious as it was for the SNES or PS1-era, that's still a great accomplishment. The DQ games tend to be pretty grindy though. Not that the grind isn't fun, but I know that's not a lot of peoples' cup of tea. But if you have the time and commitment, you'll probably find a LOT to love about DQ8.

Not a huge fan, but I don't really mind them.

You say "Awakening at least had Walhart" as if that's some sort of positive thing. Walhart was a neat(But not unique) concept, but the execution is just some of the worst Awakening has to offer. He had a story arc that felt like filler in the grand scheme of things, on top of his arc being completely underdeveloped, his motivations couldn't even be really explained until SoV revealed that Alm had found out about Grima 2000 years earlier, and he has absolutely no personality beyond being a flat Genghis Khan archetype. Even when he becomes recruitable, he gains no significant character traits. Gangrel and Aversa get dialogue that actually flesh out their characters and explain them quite a bit, but Walhart's support dialogue is basically "I'M A CONQUEROR" and "PHEH, CONQUERORS SHOULDN'T BE DOING THIS!" for 3 to 7 whole conversations. That said, still better than Garon and Anankos.

Chrom's the one exception for story reasons, and Sumia is the only female with any limit on who she can marry in first gen for... reasons. And then the late-game side characters who got no support chains outside of the Avatar. But all of the Shepherds can pretty much bone every other Shepherd. Some people just shouldn't end up together. People don't always fall in love after talking to each other enough times. If it was purely a gameplay thing, then whatever, go wild. But these supports are how we see 95% of the characters' dialogues, so having weird, awkward turns where one character thinks the other hates them, but the other stops and goes "but i lu u", which is how most of the pairings that make no sense go, doesn't help these characters at all.

Use Clive.

I don't think anybody would hold it against you if you use an emulator. The Tellius games are very difficult/expensive to get a hold of, and Nintendo's done nothing to offer an alternative. Maybe they will someday, but there's also a possibility that they won't, so holding out for that might just lead to you never playing them.

Point: The crucifixion scene is far and away the most on the nose and hamfisted XG gets with its Christian mythology allegories. Counterpoint: A giant hamster is nailed to a cross alongside giant robots, and that's radical.

You can call mechanics like Fatigue/Capture/Warps/whatever bad if you want, but things like chapter 10 of Conquest(And a number of chapters that people would probably say are major difficulty spikes) look like something you'd see out of Thracia. Thracia did bad things, but I really don't think map design, objective design, or overall scenario design are those things, and those are the things that I see that make Conquest difficult.

Yeah, #1 is Thracia. Conquest took a lot out of Thracia's playbook when it came to difficult scenarios and objectives. Though Conquest does unique things of its own that make it difficult, too.

Probably my obvious bias speaking here, but I like Leif. I like a flawed lord, and Leif is so riddled with insecurities, anger, and hatred, that it's completely unique. Plus, he's the only lord who consistently makes mistakes, and not one who makes one GIANT mistake that causes the ending of their story to happen(IE Sigurd, Eirika, Micaiah, Celica, arguably Eliwood) or multiple giant mistakes that cause the ending of their story to happen(Corrin). Instead, Leif makes a bunch of mistakes as a reason for his character to grow and become a better leader gradually throughout the story, and don't ultimately change how his story would end.

I'd argue that Conquest is probably the overall second hardest game in the franchise.