Slumber

Wasn't Pokemon Nuclear that fan game that came out like, a year and a half ago?

Mangs. I always read it with a hard J. I figured if it was supposed to by "Thar-ya", it'd be spelled with a Y or an I.

Thar-ya never made sense to me, and I only suspect it caught on because of a certain Norwegian. Otherwise, putting an accent on her name seems arbitrary. Who's to say it's not "Thar-ha"?

Right, just thunder magic. My bad. So she's not quite as susceptible, but she still has her kryptonite, and the Dracos aren't best utilized as the "hang back and help defend" kind of units. They're better when they have a bit more reach.

I'm not really going to bat for Edward, just pointing him out as somebody who would benefit more from BEXP than Leonardo.

The thing with the "tanky units" is that they're either not that Tanky, or they're hardly around. Tauroneo is around for a grand total of 3 Dawn Brigade chapters. Jill constantly has to watch out for arrows and thunder magic. Volug is crippled statistically by Wildheart, and succumbs to the usual Laguz problems without it. The most reliably "tanky" units you have are Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan. Once Aran hits 16 speed(Sometime around promotion), Sothe, Aran, Zihark and Nolan are the closest thing you have to reliable frontline units in the DB. Sothe and Zihark will struggle to take hits in the part 2 and 3 chapters, so even they have durability issues. So in that regard, I'd Aran is worthy of BEXP, especially since Aran cap-rams his crucial stats so soon after promotion that you can pretty much fix his speed problem for the entire game shortly after he promotes, as he's damn near guaranteed Speed with BEXP. Same deal with Edward. Once he cap-rams his main stats, BEXP will be a safe bet to get him defense(Though relatively less safe than getting Aran speed. After tier 1, it takes Edward longer to hit his caps, and he has a bit more in the way of growth competition than Aran, noticeably with Luck being another possible BEXP sink for Edward). Leonardo doesn't get this. He requires way too much investment for not nearly as much payoff. Even his best usecase(Crossbow+Beastfoe) bypasses his best weapon, and he's immediately dead if you don't have him behind enough walls. BEXP is competitive and Leo's luck growth makes him an absolute waste of BEXP. Aran needs speed, he's likely to get it. Edward needs Defense, there's a good chance he'll get it. Micaiah needs speed, defense and HP... Well, she'll probably get two/three, with Luck unfortunately eating one of her three points until tier 3. Leo needs speed, strength, and defense. He's most likely to get luck. He's got bad strength growths, his speed growth is the same as Aran's, only without the cap-ramming, his defense is as high as his speed growth, and his HP is even lower than his luck growth. A typical Leo BEXP level will look like one point of Luck, one point of HP, and one of the other 3. On a typical BEXP level, Leo will gain ONE of the three stats he needs to even be semi-usable. Compared to other candidates who will almost assuredly get the stat they need or most of the stats they need. His best usecase, again, is giving him Beastfoe and a crossbow, which will turn him into the ultimate player phase glass cannon against Laguz, a HIGHLY niche role to fill that requires little investment beyond Beastfoe. And even then, I'd probably rather put Beastfoe on a unit that can do work on enemy phase. Probably Aran, since he's the only one tanky enough to deal with multiple Tigers and Cats on enemy phase.

Giving Leonardo BEXP is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. Units like Aran, Edward, Micaiah and Jill will cap-ram 2-4 stats well before hitting level 20, or at least soon enough to make decent use of BEXP, making them all ideal for BEXP to fix their most glaring issues(Speed for Aran, Defense for Edward, Micaiah for... Like, half of her stats, and Jill for... I guess whatever she's lacking in in any particular run). Leonardo's much less likely to cap many stats(Res and Skill are most likely) assuming he gets any levels in the first place, to really cap ram anything, meaning you're wasting valuable BEXP that could go towards several other, actually potentially good units, just so Leonardo can simply catch up. To actually make him decent? He needs points speed(Lughnasdh is only going to carry him so far before this becomes a huge problem for him, and he'll struggle heavily until this point), defense, a lot of HP and moderate strength to fix his most glaring issues. Unfortunately, the stat he's most likely to get once he caps skill and res? Luck, the absolute BANE of BEXP. The only reason Micaiah is a BEXP candidate despite her luck eating good level ups is because she's forced throughout the entire game. Leonardo, meanwhile, is flatout detrimental at that point. Say what you will about Shinon or Rolf(Both of whom are actually amazing in RD, making Leonard highly redundant on top of just being bad) in PoR, at least they don't potentially take away from better units.

The Espers in Ivalice were always equivalent to demons. They're called the Scions of Darkness. The only reason you find them roaming around in FFXII is because they're at war with the "Angel/God" equivalents, and were bound to glyphs. By the time of Tactics, they're just far, far more desperate. The only one this not applying to being Zodiark, AKA Elidibus, the only Lucavi in FFT to not really care about the war raging between the Lucavi and the Gods. Anyway, Awakening takes place 2000 years after SoV. So the idea of kingdoms rising and falling makes sense. Every other kingdom from that era came and went as well.

Even as a massive T776 fanboy... yeah. Arguably I'd still say Idunn is more disappointing, gameplay-wise. Simply because you need to go through a bunch of sidequests to even fight Idunn that make her a total joke, while Veld needs you to go through sidequests to keep him from taking out a chunk of your team. But storywise, he spends most of the game behind Raydrik, who himself isn't much of a villain. He's got the backstory that pits him against Leif, but he's basically got no drive or ambition he just wants POWER!... to rule over a small portion of a country... Because? People say that a lot of the side-villains and one-offs in T776 are better than the two main villains, and those people aren't wrong.

I was more in agreement. I like the GBA/PoR supports the best. It gave you enough about most characters without forcing gimmicks on (most of)them to give some sort of consistency across 15-20 support chains. It felt like a good balance, where SoV leaves you wanting more, and the 3DS supports leave you wanting to look up noose tying on YouTube and just wanting it all to end.

Yeah, 5-7 support chains is around the sweet spot. Echoes' 2-3 I liked better than the dozen+ of the other 3DS games, but it wasn't enough.

I'm gonna argue a few of these. Arden's arguably better than Hannibal, another knight from the same game. Arden's not good, but he's more usable in parts of the prolog and chapter 1, then he gets his ass stuck on a castle. Hannibal is pretty much on castle duty immediately, and has no practical uses outside of this. I've already gone over Zeiss. Hard more Zeiss is absolutely insane, and joins with the bases of a moderately trained promoted unit, despite being a low leveled unpromoted unit, on top of having Est growths. Percy really depends on his mother. Cord's alright, Bord and Wade(Another Bord) are much less arguable, and are absolutely awful. Darros is actually pretty decent in FE1/SD, a bit less so than in NM. He might be the worst on technicality, but if you roll in Berserkers, I'd argue Largo or Dozla as worse. I'm gonna go out on a limb and actually say Aran is the best Soldier in FE10. On normal mode, at least, he's a pretty vital part of the army, being the only capable tank that you have consistently through DB chapters. Compared to Nephenee, who is built like a Myrmidon in segments that don't need more speedsters, and Danved who... Is good against magic? Hard Mode is a different story, as Aran really is just one Speed point shy of being the same tank he is in NM, but without it, he's doubled and taking damage on par with everyone else. But at least he still shines in NM. Nephenee and Danved still struggle to fit roles in their armies regardless of the mode. Luthier is far from the worst mage when units like Ilyana, FE10 Tormod, Nino, and Ewan exist. Luthier's... Middling, but usable and reliable. Compared to the 4 I just mentioned, who require substantial favoritism and babying to even be semi-usable. Archers have Leonardo. Python can't be the worst by default.

Valter was a normal guy once and magically got a hold of an evil lance and became an implied sadistic rapist. That's about it.

This more or less sums up the first episode of Yu Yu Hakusho.

Not true. Sacred Stones is a glorified side project. It's about as unambitious as FE gets. And people, myself included, knock it for standing around with its dick in its hand, giving lame one-off villains and faceless monsters time instead of doing anything at all to build its world. Rather than waste what exists like Fates, it doesn't even try to give anything interesting beyond Lyon, who really isn't the focus of the game until very late into it.

Gareth is like the Altena argument taken to the extreme. Altena is beefy and strong but sucks against magic? Too bad the game is mostly magic from here on. At least she won't get doubled. Oh what? Gareth doesn't think Altena goes far enough? Well, he's beefy and strong, but sucks against magic. Now you ONLY fight magic against magic and his speed makes Micaiah look like an Olympian, so he'll likely get doubled by the steps on the way up to Ashera and Sephiran.

Sister. Most of them don't even have siblings! *coughcough*

The story will be serious. It always has been. The characters, however, are an entirely different question. I'm gonna say no. I'm sure it'll be a cast of 60%+ comic relief like Awakening and Fates.

Marty's main use is a capture bot. And for an early game unit, he does well at that. He's a utility unit, moreso than a combat unit. He's godawful as a combat unit, but he does have a role outside of this for a while. If you want to point to a worst Axe Fighter, Bord and most of his ilk(Especially Wade) are terrible.

I think he got his own spinoff game, now that I think about it.

Yes, but not until pretty late in the game. The only person who leaves who you don't get back is

She'd probably be fine.

Yes, you can build in the winter biome, and you can take back blocks to the main hub area to build with winter blocks if you would like. I'd recommend starting with 3-8. Of them, 8 is probably the most beginner friendly. It's got charming characters, the best presentation, voice acting(Assuming you live outside of Japan), and it just got a 3DS remake that adds a bit. Also it's more or less the game structure that 11, which is probably coming to the west within the next few months, is built off of. 3 is a pure adventure. You build your character(Stats and growths are determined by personality in this game), you go and recruit generic party members of your choice in terms of class and personality, and then you just go from beginning to end. The game is paced very well, and despite it being so simple, it does a lot of charming stuff and it offers probably the best feeling of "adventure". 4 is sort of like Final Fantasy 4, in that it's the first time in the series where they try to build a greater narrative with established characters and static party members(2 kinda did this, but not really). It's a bit barebones in this regard and not as open as 3, but it starts a 3 game "trilogy" and is solid enough. 5 is probably the game most people would say is the best DQ after 8. It's well executed and charming. It comes after 4, and it tries some things I can't recall the series ever trying since. 6 gets somewhat back to the "adventure" after 4 and 5 put down a lot of structure. It still has unique characters and all that jazz, but it let you play around with character classes and it's not quite as guided of an experience of 4 and 5. Lots of charm and it's pretty fun. 7 is not only my favorite DQ game of all time, it's probably my favorite game of all time. It's definitely the most narratively focused DQ of them all, and it offers a lot of character freedom, building on DQ6's class system. It makes the battle system incredibly fun, and it has a very strong story/string of stories that rarely ever makes you upset that you're not out exploring and killing monsters and unlocking new jobs. But it's probably the most hardcore DQ. It takes a few hours to get going, and while the others can be finished in 50-70 hours, DQ7 is probably going to take at least 100. It's an investment, to say the least. So yeah. Those would be my recommendations. A lot of people recommend 9, but 9 is probably the blandest game, IMO, on the series. It's just... Boring. It doesn't have the charm or the sense of adventure that 3-8 offer.

Zeiss' growths and hard mode bonuses are so insane(As a level 7, unpromoted Wyvern Knight, Zeiss will be giving most of your regular units a run for their money when you recruit him in the late game) that I really can't say he's anywhere near as bad as Altena. Heath joins early enough and gets good enough HM bonuses that he's viable at recruitment. He's also probably the best flier in the game being Florina, and his game is incredibly kind to fliers. Eda is from FE5, the one game in the franchise where basically everyone is viable. She joins just at the cusp of the "mid game", giving her plenty of time to catch up, and most regular enemy units in that game are easy EXP, even in the late game. She gets kind of hammered by being a mounted unit, meaning any indoor map will nerfed her, but her stats are good enough that she should be able to overcome this and her assets as a flying unit outweigh her liabilities as a mounted unit. Altena, meanwhile, has really not much at all going for her. She joins as a physical, flying tank during a point where the game is mostly magic from then on, and in a game that restricts flying units to the point where they may as well just be normal cavs/pals. She will die very quickly if you try to be too offensive with her, and tossing to most bosses in the late game will be suicide.

That sounds like if Leif was the main character of Gen 2 of GotHW instead of Seliph. WHICH IS WHAT TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE CASE, IS