Slumber

But that's not what I enjoyed about Fire Emblem, ever.

Agh. I still like the look of the game, but I hate that it's "Micromanage all of your units" again.

Those types of personalities really only work on people with less power than themselves(Peri's a minor noble, Xander is the prince of Nohr, doesn't check out) and people who don't know that the person in question has their negative habits and tendencies(Xander is fully aware of what Peri does). Ted Bundy only got away with it for so long because nobody knew what he was doing, and Charlie Manson was the self-made head of the "Manson Family", getting everyone else desperate enough to kill for him. Nothing about the relationship makes any goddamn sense. Xander wants to help Nohrian people and feels a deep responsibility to do so. Peri sees them as living pin cushions.

FemShep and MaleShep share like, 99% of their dialogue. It's mostly down to their line reads. As much as people like Renegade FemShep, I've always hated Jennifer Hale's "Edgy" delivery for those choices, and can never take Renegade FemShep seriously because of it.

Lyre. The worst Laguz in a game that crippled Laguz. She barely does damage when she joins, can't take a hit, she joins on a height-heavy map and there's 0 incentive to try to use her.

I need to catch up on the new season. Haven't started it yet, but I was a fan of the last one. It's weird knowing MST3K is sort of a local show for me(The original had a ton of references to the Twin Cities and jabs at Wisconsin/the Packers), and now it's on Netflix. Even when it was on Sci-Fi, it didn't feel as big.

He has non-existant skill in a game where axes are insanely inaccurate. More than anyone, he has to rely on his crits to do damage, which isn't always a good game plan. It makes him a sketchy enemy phase unit.

Spotify gave me my top 100 tracks of 2018 at the tail end of December, but I talked about 2 of the songs that ended up in my top 3 in the last thread. Here are some songs that'll probably be high on the list this year:

Dorcas, unironically.

AOC's been pretty impressive in the short time she's been in congress.

I overall agree that these themes aren't handled well. A lot of the themes of Echoes get muddied by Alm being royalty. I just wouldn't say they're outright bad, or that they're contradicted, and it's something I see a lot of people say when knocking SoV's story, but rarely see anybody explain in any real depth. Some of the saving grace is what @Interdimensional Observer says. Alm being royalty may make us immediately feel that some of these themes get downplayed, but they do make more sense in the context of the game itself.

How does Echoes' story contradict any of these? The only one that's iffy is the very first one, since everything gets handed to Alm, born with natural talent(And Royal Blood). #2 is still reinforced by the story besides Alm and Celica eventually becoming rulers. Beyond this, all of your commoner allies generally end up in the exact same spots as their noble comrades in the epilogues. Clive and Claire don't end up better off than Gray, Tobin, Forsyth, etc. Kamui's a random nomad and founds a country. #3 is the entire point of the story. The game never fails to show that the reason people respect and follow Alm and Celica is because they're both strong and kind. And they become the rulers of the entire continent, building one that exists to fulfill theme #2 that you mention. And as for Awakening never contradicting itself, it depends on what you consider the themes of Awakening. Chrom's personal arc is one giant contradiction. Him losing Emmeryn is supposed to be a big push to him maturing and becoming Exalt. He gets over the loss and begins doing things that he otherwise wouldn't(Like taking help from Validar) when out of options. And then the final choice of the game exists solely because Chrom suddenly cannot cope with losing somebody, and is willing to doom the world 1000 years down the line because of it. The last chapter of the game is just the writers going "haha Chrom actually didn't grow at all".

They sell out quickly. Scalpers are really bad when it comes to FE games. The Fates special edition was a total train-wreck.

Right, but she's strong-armed into the decision, and doesn't really fight it as much as you'd expect out of her character. And then the option to pass the deed off to Tauroneo just adds to the weirdness. It feels like the "Wait, maybe we shouldn't kill Pelleas" option should have been the default for Micaiah's character, and only comes into consideration in a second playthrough because of somewhat contrived plot reasons.

I could have probably worded it better, as that came across as "Only politicians should do politics", but Trump is definitely not an argument for "Anybody can do politics". Some orange idiot in a bad hairpiece managing to pass a few things he said he would because he had the FULL support of the government isn't something that screams "AN OUTSIDER DID THIS!". He did things anybody could do in his position. And Trump is still on the backfoot when it comes to fulfilling his biggest campaign promise. Which is where his lack of experience really shows, and is harming everyone. Nobody besides him and the uneducated among his base thinks the wall is a good idea. Yet the government was just shut down for over a month because of it, and he's alluded that he'll do it again. So yeah. I'm super fucking jaded.

In many ways, a step back from FE5, but it simplified and stripped away some of that game's controversial mechanics. A very flawed, but still enjoyable game. It's the only of the GBA FEs to have solid enemy balance, but it's undercut by a ton of factors.

I was being facetious. Plenty of people brought up the implications of electing Trump, and lo and behold, here we are, with his base upset with something everyone told them would happen. Political experience doesn't matter much when it comes to making decisions when you're the most powerful man in the world. Especially when every other branch of the government is part of the same party. Political experience matters a whole lot when it comes to making informed decisions. Trump's fulfilled campaign promises, but how many of them are working out as intended? Or without caveats?

It's a shame nobody told them that voting for a "billionaire" businessman with 0 political experience would cause this to happen 3 years ago.

It's closer to an action RPG than turn-based. Xenoblade focuses on MMO-esque cooldown combat. I'd say it's closer to something like Star Ocean with the way you can freely use your abilities and chain them together a bit more freely. As for a tip, I'd say take your time with it. The game makes it pretty easy to 100% until the post-game where it starts to become a grind. So do sidequests and explore all you can when you can.

Platinum's involvement was the one reason I was interested in that game.

Low availability and Celica's route is downright cruel to Cavs and Paladins.

The a revival of a TV show count? If so, then a number of those. Family Guy, Futurama, Arrested Development(To a lesser degree). And then there's True Blood. I didn't have any interest in it until I learned that my parents watched it, so I watched it out of curiosity, hoping that they weren't watching Twilight for young adults. It's Twilight for young adults. I'm more disappointed in my parents for watching it than anything. The most disappointed I've ever been while actively keeping up with a series is Dexter. I loved seasons 1, 2 and 4. I hated 3 for basically being a filler season with a bad villain, but figured that would be the oddball, and that the show could only go up from how season 4 resolved. Everything afterwards, except for season 7, was just as bad, or worse than season 3. I stopped watching after about 2 episodes into season 8. I didn't even care to finish this show I'd been following for 5 years.

I think for that case it's "Killing your units to recruit other units is a dumb, arbitrary gameplay mechanic and doesn't transltate to the story".

That's a tricky one, but I'd say Pelleas lives, Sephiran dies. Pelleas dying, while an interesting plot point, does feel pretty out of character for Micaiah. Sephiran, meanwhile, has no real reason to continue living past the events of RD. For the guy who orchestrated everything that happened, it feels like he gets off with a slap on the wrist. But it's not a hill I'd die on. I could accept any variation of "Pelleas lives/dies and Sephiran lives/dies".