Slumber

It's an adventure. Both emotionally and contextually.

You choose inputs in combat. I believe triangle is the light attack, square is the medium, and X is the heavy. Eventually you start unlocking combo attacks called Deathblows, and that's when the combat starts picking up a bit more. As easy as it is to fall into only using Deathblows, the way the combat works makes it so you unlock more Deathblows if you vary up your inputs a bit more, so sometimes you might want to refrain from using Deathblows. Especially with easier encounters. You can end up at the end of the game with like, 30% of your Deathblows still locked. Hope you enjoy it. Even with the divisive second disc, Xenogears is still the only Xeno game I enjoyed all the way through.

Morrowind rides the best balance between freedom and jankiness. Other games are either too janky, or too restrictive. Morrowind is janky, but you have crazy freedom.

It's like, what? Wonderful 101, TMS, Pikmin 3, SSB4 and Super Mario 3D World that's left for major Nintendo games on the Wii U? Maybe stretch it and say Windwaker and Twilight Princess HD, which I am sure will get ported over during a Zelda lull.

That's Falcom's style when it comes to OSTs. They sound like "Modern classics", in a different sense of the phrase.

I had a feeling this wasn't all Nintendo had for January. As the month when Nintendo should be trying to sell its console for the whole year, it struck me odd that there was only ONE relatively minor original game announced(Mario Aces), with the rest being ports, DLC, or multiplatforms. It seemed by and large to be a direct dedicated to showing off that the Switch is still going to get strong third party supports, and pulling some gems people loved form older consoles and bringing them to the Switch. I also don't recall ever getting a Direct Mini that showed off multiple games like this before, so the format didn't seem quite right.

The funny thing is, Ys has been going on longer than Tales of. I played Oath of Felghana, and that was really good. Also, I wouldn't get hopes up too high about TWEWY. It was the closest thing to a button masher on the DS. People are going to fuck their Switches up in handheld mode. I also thought the tone of the game was just awful. It felt like some edgy Kingdom Hearts nonsense(Ironic, since the TWEWY characters were in KH). You might like it, plenty of people did, but I found it to be one of the most overhyped games I've played. A bunch of things about it rubbed me the wrong way.

Me and my big dumb mouth.

I might give this a try. Though it's also produced by Kinema Citrus, so hopefully I haven't developed PTSD over it.

Yoshi-P's mentality has always been "You'll have to pry my dead hands off of FFXIV", so I wouldn't be surprised if his PS5 comment was a joke.

I don't, either. As much as I just railed on it, and I assume as much for most people, there are many more intrinsic problems Fates' has that I'd rather talk about. But this started because I was responding to @Harvey's "People should stop complaining and take whatever translation they get" comment. That's why this was my first major string of posts ever about Fates' localization, and I don't have really any intentions of bringing it up again unless attention is brought to it.

The sheer disappointment I had when I saw that the "Fire Emblem JRPG made by the studio behind SMT and Persona" was effectively an idol RPG with Persona-lite aesthetics has kept me from playing it. I probably won't ever play it, unless Nintendo ports it to the Switch. And even then I'd wait 5 years for the price to go down.

You're correct on Effie, I forgot that the Japanese name was indeed Elfie, which is awkward, so I can semi-understand the change. I'm not really trying to critique Fates as a whole for dumb name changes, it was just something added onto a pile of complaints I had about the game that did impact my enjoyment of it. So for Tellius, why they changed the names of Mia, Astrid and Kieran, I can't say. Well, I can assume they changed Kieran's because "Kevin" is kind of a weird name to see in a fantastical setting. Regardless, the point with Beruka was that they had a bunch of ways to localize it(Due to Japanese using Bs in place of Vs, and Rs in place of Ls for languages that have those sounds in their language), and they more or less picked the most awkward one. I'll concede that Beruka is a real name, so there is at least a basis to pick it, but nearly any combination of posibilities would have sounded better. Veruka(Or Veruca from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) would have sounded better, Velka would have sounded better, even Belka is a bit more natural for English speakers, even if, as far as I know, it's not actually a real name. Well, Berka might not have been the best choice, since it would have been a close homophone with "Burka". Back to the main point(Again, the name thing was more to just show that there were some red flags for some people with the localization early on), it's great if you enjoy how Treehouse localized it. Things like Izana being the weird slang slinging stoner are Treehouse specials. In the Japanese script, he's a very informal, excitable guy, which still comes through in the localization. However, his "Chya brahs, let's go by to my room and smoke a fat doobie" style of surfer speak is not something from the original script. It's INCREDIBLY out of place in the entire history of Fire Emblem, and seeing some relatively major character talk like a sun-baked SoCal wastoid is so off-putting that I don't even know where to begin. It contributes to this complete lack of consistency with the Fates world that was already a huge problem in the core writing of the game. So yeah, if you liked Fate's writing, cool. But I will say that, forgive me for generalizing, it seems like most Fire Emblem fans(Including outside of Serenes, which I will say is generally a bit fairer to Fates than a lot of other places I've seen) were not super jazzed about how a lot of things about the Fates localization were handled. Myself included, and it really hurt how much I managed to care about the game. It took me out far more often than it brought me in. I don't want another Fates, because I shouldn't have to wonder "Would I have liked this game if the localizers didn't take a ton of liberties?" when I'm playing the game. Putting aside things like the waifu/husbando molesting mini-game and the Soleil situation, since those are just really extreme, I want to judge a game based off of its actual merits, especially if I don't feel like the things that WERE changed didn't positively add to the experience. My opinion of Fates is now permanently influenced(For the worse) by something that didn't actually have to do with the game. Just as I want Fire Emblem to always better itself, I want the localizers to also always be trying to do a better job.

I wasn't around for that stuff, but I'm not even talking about the censorship or the change to Soleil's support. The things that got censored were dumb and creepy, and to somebody who picks up the series for the first time, they would have painted the franchise in an incredibly negative light in a way that doesn't represent the series. Fire Emblem really struggled with its identity in Fates, and I don't think it being the "Creepy waifu petting simulator" would have done it any favors in the west. Soleil's support was bad. And while they made an effort to make it digestible in the west, it was still pretty bad. IMO, it's a weird case of where they should have changed it even more. But it was ultimately understandable why they changed it in the west, where the drugging and the resemblance of gay conversion therapy would have struck the wrongest of nerves for a sizable chunk of people. I'm more talking about shit like Beruka and Saizo's C rank conversation, or your example of Rhajat's S rank. Treehouse flatout changed characters for no reason(Effie's not a muscle-obsessed bodybuilder in the Japanese version), they emphasized dumb character gimmicks, seemingly because they saw that it did well for Awakening. Then there's just shit like this, which I have no idea how anybody wrote this and though "Yeah, this looks good." The disclaimer at the top may be true, but other translations that have come out afterward have confirmed that Sophie doesn't really talk like she does in the Treehouse localization. They just thought "Let's make her cutesy and talk in borderline baby babble instead of talking like a normal person. People will love it." The same thing happens with Izana, who was turned into some weird stoner prankster. Hell, I remember there being eyebrows raised the moment the localized names of some characters were announced. Like Beruka, which could also be tranlsated as "Velka", which is a much more western-friendly name. Instead they basically decided to just go with the Romanized translation directly from Japanese. Faye being Effie and not being Faye, which would lead to problems down the line when in the very next game, IS created a character named Effie, who had to be called Faye in the west. Same deal with calling Leon Leo, which resulted in the same goddamn problem in the next game where 8-4 had to rename a character named Leo to Leon because ???. I'm not saying Treehouse is irredeemable or that they can't get better. I didn't think highly of 8-4's Awakening translation, since they also exaggerated character gimmicks and hamfisted memes and references into the script(The MST3K reference from Owain broke me), but I think they did a great job with SoV. I am saying, though, that people shouldn't just be complacent with inadequate localizations, and that "just being happy the games are in English at all" isn't a good excuse to let bad localizations/localization get by. This isn't the 90s. It's not just the same 3 groups of people with dubious skills in Japanese AND English translating 75% of the games coming out of Japan anymore.

Ah, the good old days before Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger made super Japanese artstyles accepted. Tons of featureless, ripped fantasy dudes fighting generic monsters in nondescript locations. A big one that actually kept me from playing a game was ICO. God that NA box art was so bad. By about the time ICO came out, I was already starting to firmly believe that just about any game that used 3D rendering for its boxart wasn't worth playing. Nintendo was the only one who could get away with it, but virtually every other example I could think of at the time, 3D rendered characters on the front of the box=bad. So I missed out on ICO for a good while, pretty much until Shadow of the Colossus was announced and getting buzz.

Because people can flatout localize things wrong. Back in the day, localizers often just rewrote a ton of stuff in games if they didn't know how to translate certain stuff to English properly. You have localizers who translate too literally, which leads to incredibly awkward dialogue, you have localizers who translate too loosely to keep the original meaning in tact, and you have localizers who flatout don't care. Look at the Fates deal. Whole lines of dialogue were rewritten, or in at least one case, removed, purely as to make jokes. It was a bad localization. The people who were fanslating If before it came to the states kept working on it after Fates came out because so many people were unsatisfied with Fates' localization. It's become a classic example of localizers fucking with a game too much. So yes, who localizes a game matters. Fans have a right to complain. People have a right to complain about how DC is handling the Justice League movies. Simply "having the Justice League on the big screen" is not good enough when everyone knows they could be doing so much better. Fire Emblem fans should not be happy if whoever localizes the game doesn't do an adequate job. We live in an age where there's really no excuse for bad localizations anymore, unless the localizers or the publishers are severely under budgeted. This should not be the case for Nintendo. They should have the money to hire whoever. And whoever Nintendo can afford to hire should employ people who know what they're doing.

The "Jr. is the kind of guy I'd like to have a beer with!" attitude has downplayed just how bad W was. While it's arguable if any single one of W's years was as bad as Trump's first year, there were 8 years of Bush. There was a lot of build up to the bad policies that crippled the nation after W left. I'd rather get kicked in the balls once than get punched in the balls 8 times in succession. I guess the question in 3 years is going to turn into "Would I rather get punched in the balls 8 times or kicked in the balls 4 times?"

I think the creators have expressed the want to port FFXIV to the Switch. A fully fleshed out MMO on the go would be something quite unique for the Switch. However, they just broke the PS3 shackles that had been holding back aspects of XIV's development, so I doubt they'd immediately pick up a version that would eventually hamstring them in a similar way that the PS3 did up to Stormblood. I mean, the Switch is still way more powerful than the PS3, but it could still be a bottleneck when it comes to development decisions down the line.

It's funny you say this, since like, little more than a week after saying "Inuyashiki made me cry in ways I haven't in almost 10 years", somebody recommended I watch this. General feelings on how I feel after watching it below. No content spoilers, but the tone of how season 1 ends might be spoiled. What are these things happening to my face? I take like 5 years off of watching anime, and two of the first three new series I picked up in a long time have left me a sobbing mess. I need something dumb and light hearted to watch before my eyes dry up and my heart withers away.

That's not what I was saying.

Because the leaks last month showed that EA would be showing off Fe in this direct, so we know that there IS going to be a "Fe", but it's not going to be our "FE". That, combined with the fact that Nintendo doesn't usually ever refer to Fire Emblem as "FE"(TMS being the only example I can think of where Fire Emblem is referred to as "FE"), gives me the feeling that the "FE" hidden in the image might not mean "Fire Emblem". As to why this means Fire Emblem couldn't ALSO be shown is just a feeling I have. The tease of an "FE" and having it refer to two different things seems like an odd choice for Nintendo.

The fact that EA is releasing a game called "Fe" gives me the bad feeling that Fire Emblem won't be here, and it's a huge tease. Which is weird, because prior to this, I was certain that Fire Emblem would be there.

Yeah, as much as I don't like Corrin, there are plenty of grievances people could have with damn near any lord. Any of them hitting the wrong nerve makes it pretty understandable to have people besides Corrin at the bottom of some peoples' lists. Even Leif I could see. As much as I love his flaws and his game's focus on him overcoming them, I could see somebody not liking that he makes so many mistakes, and that he is so emotional in many situations that really require a cool head. I like that Leif is generally severely punished for his behavior, when so many other lords get off with a slap on the wrist for big mistakes, but it's not for everyone. Similarly, if you like Corrin, go ahead. I don't think anybody will get upset, so long as you don't go overboard and say something like "Corrin's the best because all other lords suck.", since that's obviously just a statement that openly wants to flame bait.

There is something to be said about story and gameplay segregation. Obviously, the holy blood descendants aren't nearly as strong in gameplay as they are in the lore(Up until they get their holy weapons, at least), but the game does go pretty far in gameplay to show that yeah, if you have even minor blood, you're ridiculous compared to the average Joe next to you. I think the extra weapon ranks are supposed to show that they're superhumanly strong, since again, weapon ranks are locked to class, which means that there's generally a human limit to how good you can be with a weapon, and people with holy blood break those limits. Even if you're a Swordmaster and dedicate your entire existence to leaning the sword, anybody with Baldo, Hezul or Odo holy blood will either easily match you or surpass you. If they were to truly represent holy blood in gameplay, there wouldn't be a game. As much shit as Fire Emblem 4 gets for balance, imagine how much it would get if one low level holy blood dude/dudette could solo any map without a boss that also has holy blood, while a sub run would be nearly impossible without CONSTANTLY relying on Seliph, Amid, Linda, Iucharba/Iuchar, Shannon and Leif. It already gets shit for non-holy blood units not being good enough, especially if they don't have a horse. I'd take that argument for Greil vs. Shepherds. The way the games present the two armies is vastly different. FE10 Greil Mercs being able to stop conflicts just by being there vs. the Shepherds, who have a guy who forgets to bring his weapon to a fight and a dude that nobody knows exists as two staple members... I shouldn't get into it. You're right, it might be something for a different topic. And dammit, you know what I mean. I still have a bad habit mixing up "Faval" and "Ichival" when Faval's proper name is Febail. I've only just gotten out of the habit of not mixing up Sety/Holsety/Ced.

Where are you getting this "It doesn't mean much"? You're severely downplaying the whole meaning of holy blood in the context in Genealogy. Holy blood exists because the dragons that were allied with humans needed to make a pact with humans to put a stop to a human who made a pact with Loptyr, an earth dragon who wanted to subjugate humanity. Normal humans could do NOTHING to Galle, which is why, short of actually coming down to the human plane and fighting Galle and his empire themselves, the dragons needed to empower humans in order for anyone to stand a chance against him. In the context of the story, holy blood wielders are superhuman, and in the context of gamplay, holy blood impacts growth rates and weapon proficiency(Which is locked in FE4). The holy weapons unlock the ultimate potential of holy blood descendants, but that's only accessible to people with major holy blood. The game makes sure to tell us that even people incapable of wielding holy weapons, people with minor holy blood, are still head and shoulder above normal people. Seliph with Tyrfing isn't even the strongest child with a holy weapon. Julia with the Book of Naga is effectively invincible in that world. While other holy weapons increase stats by +30 total, with Tyrfing giving +40, Julia's increases her stats by +80 total. Plus, of the children, Altenna has the Gae Bolg, Seliph has the Tyrfing, Julia has the Book of Naga Larcei and potentially Ulster can both use the Balmung(Not in the game, but a proper trading system would have allowed Shannon to hand it off to either of them), Ced canonically has Holsety, Sharlot has Valkyrie, Aless has the Mystletainn, and Ichival has the Yewfelle. And Saias would theoretically have access to Falaflame(His father has major Fala blood and none of his half-siblings have it, so he would likely inherit it), but his class doesn't use fire magic. That's 8 holy weapons the genealogy kids theoretically have access to, one of them being head and shoulders above Seliph. And while you could make the argument of "Oh, maybe Holy Blood got passed down after 3000 years", there's nothing to back this up, and none of the Awakening kids have visible marks of holy blood. You can argue that since the heroes of Awakening can wield the weapons that are named after the holy weapons in Awakening, that they must have holy blood, but this means that EVERY person in Awakening has every major holy blood, which I am 99% sure is impossible with the rules established in Genealogy. It's far more likely that the developers of Awakening didn't want to give the players a bunch of weapons that couldn't be used. The games also take place 150 years after the dragons bonded with the humans, and holy blood is still incredibly limited to a very small amount. Again, Lucina, Owain, Morgan, Nah and Yarne aside, the kids of Awakening are 100% normal people(Obviously you can shove pairings with Male Robin and Chrom in here, but for the sake of simplicity, I'm just going to limit it to their canon children). And while Yarne's not a "normal human", the Taguel aren't really elevated to the level Manaketes are. Noire isn't some ridiculous superhuman in the context of her game, she's just the daughter of a crazy person. They grew up in a tough environment, but so did the Genealogy kids, on top of each of them having dragon blood flowing through their veins.