Slumber

I'm not a huge fan of FFX, ESPECIALLY in regards to Spira, but it's not nearly as linear as FFXIII. FFXIII has maybe... Two/three areas where you can go more than one path, outside of Gran Pulse? Which, while Gran Pulse is big and open, it's basically a monster gauntlet where you don't do anything of consequence aside from fight progressively stronger monsters. And those areas that aren't GP basically amount to being circle shaped or square shaped, and taking a different path doesn't amount to much. FFX has plenty of these kinds of areas, the Mi'hen Highroad specifically has routes and areas you can only get to if you're riding a chocobo, there are optional areas, and areas that branch off into multiple different areas that you have to go back to later. Some hidden areas that you can only access with the airship. And the Calm Lands has honest to God sidequests to actually do beyond fighting progressively stronger monsters, which you can also do. It's still markedly more linear than any of the FFs prior to X, but it's less linear than XIII, where they explicitly stated that they wanted to do a linear game because of Call of Duty.

The only DQs that let you form your own parties are 3 and 9. 1 has you as the hero, solo, and every other game has static characters who join your party. Similarly, in Final Fantasy, 1 and the original 3 also let you build a party. Some of the DQ games let you toy with their skills and abilities, like 6 and 7, which are essentially class-bassed, but FF also has class based games(IE 5 and 12), and games like 7 and 8 have more character flexibility than any of the DQ games. So if it's just the idea of making your own party of nameless dudes that draws you into DQ, then you might be a bit disappointed if you ever try the series out. Again, as mentioned, what makes DQ so "different" these days is how traditional of a JRPG in structure it is. It still has charming stories and fun characters, but gameplay-wise, it's as classic and normal it gets.

Otherworld is legitimately one of the worst tracks from the FF series in my honest opinion. It's a bad, boring metal song with terrible growling and dumb lyrics that literally just retell the plot of the game. I had a friend, who for years and years, was convinced Rammstein did the song, and any time I brought up how bad the song was, he'd always just go "But it's Rammstein". One day he figured out that it wasn't, and he immediately went "Yeah that song sucks." I actually agree that OWA isn't that amazing, though, and I think Birth of a God is a way better song.

Eh. I think the decline started more with X. VII and VIII are both flawed, but I love them dearly. IX I find to be the best of the "classic FFs", and my ONLY complaint is that the ATB in the game is a bit slow. But honestly I think it's the best FF, and while this isn't an objective fact, most people who were involved in the development of FF since day 1 consider it their best work, from Sakaguchi and Ito to Uematsu. Once Square killed themselves with The Spirits Within, that's when I notice more obvious problems started creeping in. A lot of the mainstays in the company who had been with FF since the beginning, like the general director for the franchise itself, Sakaguchi, were on the way out and were only partially handling the development of X, while newer blood like Motomu Toriyama were more involved with the development. A lot of people still like X, since it's a lot more character-centric(Whether you actually like those characters is a different thing altogether) and it has a very polished combat system, but that's when the cracks in FF started to become chasms to me.

It was VIII. Also a bit of IX, but IX more stole from Chrono Cross' development. It's part of the reason a lot of the Trigger/Gears/Cross "B-team" left Square and formed Monolith Soft, because FF was Square's flagship and just about everything else suffered so that FF could get the attention Square thought it deserved. The development of Xenogears is specifically why Takahashi formed Monolith Soft, then a bunch of people left Square and went there when the same thing happened with Chrono Cross.

I'll remind everyone: Before we got Echoes, 8-4 handled Awakening. And while its woes aren't nearly as well documented as Treehouse's handling of Fates, they injected a lot of stuff into Awakening that was pretty questionable, and they also changed around some characters. They didn't flat out cut content like Treehouse, but it was far from a perfect/faithful localization. Also to Treehouse's defense, some of the stuff they were tasked with was... really, really difficult to adapt for the west(Skinship and Soliel's whole deal). So I'll wait and see if Treehouse can redeem themselves like 8-4 did. My only woes are for VAs, as I think 8-4 did that exceptionally well, and something I doubt Treehouse could replicate.

He's Tanya's father, and Marty's daddy. If he was a better father, he would have taught his daughter to use a better weapon.

Eliwood and Hector seem like cool dads. Byron from FE4 trekked across a continent, half dead, to give his son a bitchin' sword.

It's the internet. Everything is a thing.

I think part of being an Incel is somebody who identifies as it. There are plenty people who are virgins and are totally(Or mostly) fine with it. Self-identified Incels seem to be people that feel slighted over the fact that they can't get laid. They feel entitled to sex and hate women. Much like how these people feel entitled to Fire Emblem and hate new players who joined for waifus.

Much like with FETH, I'd probably go "*gasp* THEY RIPPED OFF LANGRISSER"

Priestess is less likely to me, purely because that's a class that has existed in only one game(Technically two, but they're the same game. Also not counting the Fates version since that actually has a different name in Japanese). It WAS the most recent one, but I'm hesitant to expect a one-off class that hasn't appeared in any games for 25 years to come back. The other two I don't expect because those literally don't exist. I'm going off of what has actually been in FE games. I'm sure they could come up with a bunch of unique classes for the Church of Seiros, but I wouldn't expect it.

I'm curious as to what Mercedes is. She's definitely church-ly, but her garb is NOTHING like anything any sword-wielding classes in the franchise look like. My first inclination was "Oh, Mages/Clerics use Swords when they're not using Magic", but she has the generic swordie mooks, while the character shown using Magic in the trailer, has Mage mooks. Which means Mercedes is likely a physical class, but what in the world would that be? I highly doubt she's a Mercenary or a Myrmidon. If the hints that dismounting are back are true, then she might be a dismounted Cavalier or, most likely just going off the garb, a dismounted Valkyrie(The Tellius style Valkyries/Jugdral style Paladins).

I could see that. Or Con's back. And if it is, hopefully it has a growth rate tied to it.

See, the closest thing I can compare FETH to is... Persona 5. In terms of the quality of the models and how things looked in general. Obviously very different art styles(Or not, depending on who you ask), but in terms of "anime-inspired 3D RPGs on modern consoles", I'd definitely say it's comparable when it comes to the main characters we've seen. And Persona 5 had bad looking generic models, too. The thing that does bother me a lot is the framerate, which I desperately, desperately hope is better by the full release, because... That looked chuggy as hell.

Rolf by a country mile.

A lot of people think like you. I mostly like 7 more because of the nostalgia I have for it. I played 7 when I was like 9 or 10, and I have a lot of memories playing through it with some friends. I didn't play 6 until the GBA version. I enjoyed it, but my feelings towards it aren't nearly as strong.

Julius isn't a demon possessed teenager, he's a dragon possessed teenager. And by the time you fight him, it's all but stated that Julius is gone, and all that's left is a husk being controlled by Loptyr, the dragon in question. So it might be splitting hairs, but Genealogy still technically ends with a fight against a dragon. Anyway, I expect the story to be a wicked road trip to White Castle when Byleth, Edelgard, Claude and Dimitri get the munchies.

They're like incels. Getting laid would probably do wonders, but they do everything possible to repel people. Let people enjoy what they want to enjoy, and bring up your grievances when it's actually appropriate. "The conversation around FE has deteriorated! Let's make it worse to make it better!" is a very odd way to go about things.

Uhhh, no. I wouldn't accept that at all. I'd be fine with a spin-off being something like that, but I wouldn't accept a mainline FE being that, unless somehow they do what the Pokemon devs did and explicitly state that FE18 was coming right after, and would appease core fans. As it stands, Heroes is making boatloads of money. Keep Heroes as Heroes, keep mainline FEs as something else entirely.

Awakening's is nothing. Sacred Stones has a pretty basic, repetitive post-game that gives you no real incentive to do. Echoes has the most substantive post-game, but Thabes is a whole can of worms. Echoes, I guess? For having something to actually do beyond grinding for what basically amount to generic units.

The story is a mess. I wouldn't say any of it is outright offensive like Fates' story can, but it has probably the sloppiest story out of any FE outside of Fates. Plegia arc: A passable, self-contained story in its own right. Gangrel falls under the category of being over-the-top cartoony villain that are basically a staple of the Fateswakening games, but he at least has somewhat of a connection to Chrom and Ylisse. Had the game just been this, it probably wouldn't get nearly the same amount of shit. Then things fall apart quickly. Valm arc: We're immediately introduced to a huge threat that nobody knew about that has already conquered one whole continent right next door. One of the VERY first things that happens is Chrom makes a deal with Validar, because he really needs the boats from that desert country. Without missing a beat, Validar immediately makes ominous and threatening comments without anybody really saying much else "Well we really need those boats.", and he brings out Grima!Robin to further taunt them and this plotline is left dangling until the end of the game with very little questioning. People make a big deal about Eirika trusting Fomortiis, and Celica trusting Jedeh, but everyone forgets THE WHOLE CAST OF THE GAME trusting Validar. Somebody more blatantly evil and untrustworthy than the goddamn devil, and somebody less convincing than a shady old man with blue skin. The arc as a whole feels very slapdash and filler-y, and if I am remembering correctly, the entire REASON for Walhart's campaign is something that isn't even hinted about until the Gaiden remake, which does (With arguable canonicity)confirm that a previous ruler of Valm at least encountered and knew about Grima. Prior to this, Walhart's sudden conquest is just him going "Agggghhh, something bad is going to happen to the world and I need to prepaaaaare", and everyone else just going "??? How the fuck could he possibly know that?" And the answer to that is never given, and just like literally everything else in the Valm arc, it's suddenly forgotten because... Grimleal arc: We transition into some of the worst writing in the franchise. Everything is all because of the Grimleal, and everything happens because of Robin. They were all behind everything in the game and Robin is the reason. We're basically given a shitty recap of GotHW given in a few chapters, and it's really bad. That cackling, Jafar looking madman who kept making open threats? Whoops, turns out it was dumb to trust him and leave him relatively unopposed back home. The Grimleal as a whole? The most cartoonishly evil cult in the series. There's no reason to explain why they're the way they are, and literally everyone in Plegia who isn't actually part of the Grimleal hates them. And then that goddamn "Power of friendship" ending. If there's anything that encapsulates how worthless Chrom actually is in the grand scheme of the whole game, it's that. Chrom is so unwilling to let Robin, a random dude/dudette he met on the side of the road, die that he's about to doom future generations. Thankfully Robin can actually survive metaphysically killing him/herself because of friendship, or else Chrom would have looked like a real dick. It's a dumb, dumb, messy story. About 1/3(2/5 if I'm being generous) of it could be considered passable. Not amazing, just passable. The other 2/3 is borderline nonsense, and seemingly actively tries to retroactively ruin the 1/3 that's not painfully dull or dumb. I probably rambled a bit and let personal feelings get in the way... I probably got some details wrong, since it's been a bit since I played the game, and I don't ever intend on playing it ever again. I probably took a FFTF thread way too seriously. But it's a dumb, dumb story. The Plegia stuff is borderline, the rest is below borderline. Well below at points.

Started the Therion story. I'm pretty interested in this game now.

It's worth noting that Japan's fiscal year goes into late March, so part of me wonders if that has something to do with it. But that only leaves about a 1-2 week window between March 20th and March 31st for FETH to both technically be a spring game, and a "2018" game.

Yes, it's also why I am not too terrified of Treehouse. Their Fates translation was abysmal, but I also wasn't a fan of 8-4's Awakening localization. I was scared for Echoes when I learned it was 8-4, but Echoes had by all accounts a pretty faithful and rock solid localization. So I'll give Treehouse a chance if they handle it. The only thing that I worry about right now is voice acting, since 8-4 managed to knock it out of the park in that regard for Echoes, and I'm not quite sure Treehouse would have the ability to do the same.