Slumber

Both the Rams and the Chiefs out already. Two pretty big upsets in their respective divisions.

That's 7 chapters(Excluding the early game Bael chapter, since that one does have a human boss) of a game that's effectively 27 chapters long. That's more than 1/4 of the main story being meaningless fights that have no memorable bosses/boss dialogue, few meaningful exchanges between the protagonists and the antagonists, and no real story context. They're chapters that exist purely to pad out the game, and they do nothing to serve the maps they take place in.

Favorite: Leif Least favorite: Corrin

I'm 26, and I can still binge like I did when I was a kid, supposing the game I'm binging is good/engaging. However, I have a much harder time working up the motivation to actually play games. I'd go to BlockBuster as a kid, pick up some random bullshit, and blow through it in no time every hour I wasn't terrorizing my best friend's block. Now, the sixty moons of Saturn need to align for me to pick up a new game.

The Saints have been running on fumes these last few games, though. They started shaky, had an incredible mid-season, and have come back down to a shaky end of the regular season. They also lost 4 of their 8 away games, 3 of which were their last 3 away games(And against some teams they really shouldn't have lost to, given how they play at home). They're not the best team on the road, which is going to be a problem when they're not one of the top 2 seeds who don't ever have to travel outside of the NFC championship game. I can see them taking the Panthers at home. And depending how the Playoff goes, I can see them even beating the Eagles away, since the Eagles are vulnerable and Philly's not a super hostile environment for away teams. I can't see them going to Minnesota and coming out with a win, however. They're still a very playoff worthy team, and all around they're very strong, but they have their weaknesses. Their biggest being something they can't avoid in the playoffs. Also, didn't expect the Chiefs to go out immediately. This is all calculated so the Patriots have as easy a playoff schedule as they can get. Watch the Bills win.

FE1/11: Just about as basic as it can get, which isn't necessarily bad, given that it's the first game in the franchise. The remake could have done a lot to spruce up the designs, but it didn't, which drags this down for me. FE2/15: Really baffling. Even as somebody who really enjoyed SoV and places it at the top of the 3DS games, the map design are the BIGGEST issue with the game. Things are either incredibly basic, or downright annoying/infuriating. SoV did a lot to make these maps more colorful and memorable, but they still have the issues that the original had. They're just nicer to look at. FE3/12: Probably the first step FE took to making slightly more interesting/involved maps. It's a step in the right direction, but still not the best. FE4: Semi-controversial opinion, I really like FE4's maps. As much as a bunch of people will bitch and moan about how it impacts the pace of the game, I place 80% of that on how IS balanced the gameplay, rather than how they designed the maps. With FE4 being the grandest, most epic Fire Emblem they've ever, the fact that you're literally playing across the entire map of Jugdral does a lot to push the atmosphere/tone of the game. You're not just playing through tiny battlefields outside of castles, you're playing across entire countries each country. Ultimately, this does mean you're playing through a lot of open plains, but the game presents these massive, open plains WAAAAAAY better than any other game that is filled with a bunch of plains maps. The gameplay balance does end up making a lot of these maps feel like chores, however, but I have to say that I like what they did with the maps themselves. FE5: Why thank you for giving me more opportunities to talk about how great FE5 is... *ahem*, sorry, I get ahead of myself sometimes. Anyway, FE5 has a lot of very good maps, and like a lot of FE5, many of them are designed to fit the tone of the story and Leif's journey. The escape maps are harrowing and designed to make you proceed with caution. The maps where you have to defend(Including chapter 14, my favorite map/chapter in the franchise) a point feel like they're structured to really put you on the defense, and overreaching during these maps WILL lead to casualties or defeat on your side. Even the rout/kill maps are generally designed so you can't just bumrush the chapters. The map designs change it up often enough for you to never get tired, and they're the biggest step up in quality from the last traditional FE(That being FE3 in this case). Even the final chapter, which feels like a prototype of Light from FE7, arguably does a better job of what these two maps try to do... however... warp tiles... FE6: And now we have probably the biggest step back in the franchise. It's another way that FE6 feels like it's just aping what the Archanea games did. In a lot of ways, it's not even as interesting as FE3/12. The most interesting designs are the Gaiden chapters, which generally aren't very well-designed maps in their own right. There are a lot of maps that feel like they were designed just to waste time, too. While FE5 had some winding maps, it was generally to make specific map objectives harder to achieve. FE6 has a lot of long, winding maps, and they exist solely to make the trek to the boss/throne slower, since that is once again the only objective type. The jump the the GBA didn't do them many favors, either, since their first foray into this style ended up making everything look like it was coated with florescent paint. Now, as much shit as I just talked, there are a few solid maps in here, and it's still far(Well, not really) from the worst out there. FE7: Refined a lot of the problems FE6 had, and as a result had a lot of well-designed, memorable maps. Not much to say here beyond the game being above average all around in this regard, and the re-inclusion of varied objectives complement the map design a lot better. FE8: Very middling, very unremarkable. Some good, some bad, most just bland and forgettable. In a unique twist, it's not the lack of objective designs that makes a lot of these so forgettable, it's the fact that you spend so much of the game fighting faceless, generic monsters in meaningless conflicts, which felt a lot more egregious than it did in FE2/15. FE8's biggest problems with map design/quality are unique to FE8, so... it's got that. FE9: FE has started to establish a patter of ups and downs with map design, FE9 is another step up. The jump to the GC was a lot kinder to FE9 than the jump to the GBA was to FE6. FE9, in a lot of ways, is a proper follow-up to the SNES games, and following that the map designs feel like a follow up to FE5's. I don't think the quality is as high, but it is overall about on par with FE7, but grander in scope, and with more going on. And even though I'm not a huge fan of the design of the final map, I will say that it's one of the most unique final maps in the franchise, and it still works as a final map. FE10: Overall a small step-up from FE9. There's more going on, the maps are a bit more intricately designed, and the addition of height adds a lot to how the maps feel, and in many ways it works. However, despite all of these things, FE10's maps often feel a bit too big. And while this is a grand, epic game like FE4, it never feels like these big maps are in favor of the tone of the game like with FE4. There are also a handful of maps that are just a chore, mostly in the Crimea chapters. FE13: The second biggest step back in the franchise. The maps of Awakening are visually interesting, but the maps are all just flat, open areas. There may be a few obstacles here and there, but they're rarely ever too much in the way, and once again, the removal of varied objective designs ends up making all of the maps feel very samey. I remember the visual styles of the maps rather than how the maps actually played, which is not a good thing. Prime example is the Mila Tree. Beautiful style, but the game does jackshit with it, it's just another flat, open map. It's almost more frustrating than if they were just visually bland maps. FE14: Oh boy. Conquest takes a lot of pages out of FE5's books with map/objective design, and it ends up being far and away one of the best designed FEs in the series in this regard. Defend chapters are relentless and designed very well in this regard. Kill/seize maps are designed to not just give you the win like a lot of FEs do, and they test you in a lot of creative ways. However, Conquest isn't all perfect, as there are quite a few annoying map gimmicks that plague every version of Fates, and Dragon Veins never feel like they complement the maps in meaningful ways. Birthright is a very middle of the pack FE. It takes the interesting visuals of Awakening, and actually does stuff with the maps and objectives. It feels like the game Awakening should have been, which isn't actually a very high bar. Once again, plagued by Fates' lame map gimmicks and Dragon Veins. Fates runs the gamut. If Conquest is near the top in map/objective design, and BR is near the middle, then it goes without saying, that Rev would be at the bottom. The maps themselves aren't necessarily a whole lot worse than Birthright, but it cranks up the map gimmicks to 11, and it's damn near insufferable. It's such a chore to play through... just... ugh. If I rate Fates as a whole: 5>10>9>7>4>14>3>8>6=13>2>1 If I separate the Fates routes: 5>CQ>10>9>7>4>BR>3>8>6=13>2>1>>>>Rev

God no, please.

My point was, though, that you're using flaws that virtually every FE has to point to how FE4 doesn't have the best FE story. I agree FE4 is far from the best writing out there, but when you compare it to other FEs(Generally gen 1), it has a lot more going for it than against it. And the things going against it also drag down other FEs. Again, every FE aside from arguably Radiant Dawn, rely HEAVILY on telling and not showing. Every FE aside from arguably FE5 has one-dimensional villains(Even then, FE5 has two of the most shallow main villains in the series), or villains who are evil just because. FE4 arguably puts more effort into humanizing the villains than FE1-3(Hardin being the major exception, as well as Berkut/Fernand/Rudolf in SoV), FE6(Idoun aside), FE7(The Reeves aside, and Nergal if you jump through the hoops you have to go through to learn anything about him), FE8(Lyon aside, who fills a similar role to Julius, just not as personal to the protagonists), FE9(Shiharam aside), FE13(Tries to make Gangrel and Walhart sympathetic, falls on its face), and Fates(Fates actually goes out of its way to dehumanize characters like Takumi and Xander when they're antagonists). Oddly enough, the only FE that really is at all similar to FE4 in how it handles villains is probably FE10... again... which, despite all of the subversions of typical FE writing, really doesn't have outstanding writing.

FE9's is the one most burnt into my memory for some reason.

Honestly, I'd be fine if they started a spin-off series that followed Shadows of Valentia's example. Make a spin-off series that was more oriented around RPG mechanics like overworlds, dungeons, and stuff like that, but keep the main series more streamlined and strategy focused. Kind of like how the SMT series always has SMT as its mainline, hardcore, no-nonsense JRPG games, but then you get spin-offs like Persona and stuff for more deviation for the main formula.

This is partly true, but this also applies to damn near every other FE. The first point, this applies to virtually every other FE. The only FE I can even think of that bucks this trend(For the most part) is Radiant Dawn, since you play both sides of the conflict at the same time, up until a certain point, where a common enemy brings the two sides together. Virtually every other game, you have to piece together what the other side is doing through short snippits of dialogue in cutscenes, or through dialogue with the villain of the chapter. This is not something unique to FE4, not by a long shot. Even Fates, which is set-up around the gimmick of "Play for either side!", doesn't fit, since the details of the events change drastically based on what version you play, and you rarely see what's going on with the other side of the conflict. Hell, you will never be able to make sense of what the hell is going on with Garron if you don't play Revelation, and Garron's the goddamn central villain of both Birthright and Conquest. To the second point, yeah, you get jerkass conquerors like Langobalt and his sons, but they're a brutish country that seemingly thrives on war. Compare the Lopto Sect to any other villain cult in the franchise. We find out WHY they're the way they are, IE, they were prosecuted and hunted for hundreds of years following the fall of Galle's Empire. The Lopto Empire was a group of bad dudes, but they were forced into seclusion until Manfroy went "Wait a minute. Maybe we should use our dark powers to control the kingdoms of the land and resurrect our Dark God!" It's basically like what Germany did to Nazis, only instead of Nazism being a political ideology, it was an ethnicity/religion so people couldn't just "Stop being Nazis" when Hitler's regime fell. Comparatively, we get NO justification for the Duma Faithful in the original FE2(Echoes gives a bit more, but they're still largely evil for the sake of it), and the Grimleal are so laughably evil for no reason that they can't even win over any favor even when the king of their country sides with them. And we get NOTHING on them. They presumably just found Thabes one day and thought "Hey, this giant evil immortal dragon is pretty cool. Let's model ourselves after Disney villains and worship it." You get Travant, who is evil purely because his country is a dying wasteland, and the only way he can support them is more or less by playing politics and making sure they can get resources(Usually by force). He's beloved by his people because he's doing everything he can to support them in the current climate of Jugdral, even though Thracians are also treated like a group of second class citizens in the continent of Jugdral. Then you get to Arvis, who is arguably the most multi-faceted villain in the franchise. Simply ever calling him "Evil for the sake of being evil" is about as far from the point of his character as you could get. Julius is arguable. He's 95% gone for what we see of him, and he's 100% gone by the end of the game. He's being possessed by an evil dragon, and while you could go "Pfft, well, Loptyr is evil for the sake of being evil", you could also lob this same complaint in Lyon's direction . "Pfft, well, Fomortiis is evil for the sake of being evil." Sure, Fomortiis is literally Satan, but dragons in the Archanea-verse are very equatable to Gods. Fomortiis being a demon king and Loptyr being an evil Earth Dragon are generally pretty comparable. You do get a bunch of one-note dukes and generals, but no Fire Emblem aside from maybe Thracia 776 seconds time developing more than 10% of those one-off bosses.

Never underestimate peanut butter. That stuff can fit snugly into a lot of keto diets, depending on the carb content and how much added sugar is in there(Depends on the brand). Peanut butter on some whole grain/whole wheat toast was one of my go-to snacks for a while.

I should probably have specified. I generally advocate HIIT, which is my preferred way to do cardio. I'm lazy and would rather get done as soon as possible, so the benefits of HIIT are perfect for me. But yes, it should be stressed that you don't go overboard with cardio while you're trying to build muscle. I like to do some light-ish HIIT runs to cool down after lifting. It's quick, you're building cardiovascular endurance, you're building speed, and you're basically tricking your body into thinking you're going to need to burn fuel, even though you're not going to continue doing intense exercise. I'd say that if you start working out to lose body fat, try not to burn more than 100 calories doing cardio per session(Any methods you have to track burnt calories are probably crap, but they're better than nothing). Maybe 200. Oh, and yeah. As others have pointed out, cut out the soda. Once it's away from you and look at how bad soda is(It's like, 200 calories and 50 grams of sugar per can that aren't even making you less hungry. Totally wasted.), it's easier to see the path to cutting down on calories. If you absolutely MUST have it, treat it like an after-dinner or after-school/work treat, and substitute whatever else you're having as a snack with it. Eventually you'll come to the ultimatum of "Do I want to keep drinking soda, or do I want to have soda, but deal with the more intense hunger-pangs I get from not having another 200 calories in my diet?"

Cardio will help you keep calories off and boost your metabolism. Lifting weights will be the more important part, and it will also boost your metabolism, but if you're not watching weight/calories, you won't really do much to your body fat. You'll just be, in the best case scenario, putting on weight through muscle. Obviously that's also a solid way to go about it(Put on weight and muscle, then lose weight again while maintaining your muscle through lifting), but it's probably the longer route than just continuing to lose weight while lifting.

Howdy. This place tends to like Nintendo, so you're probably in the right place to talk about your favorite franchises.

Sessions is probably the next one to go. Republicans are calling for it, and since Mueller has to report to the DoJ, canning Sessions gives Trump a way to interfere with the investigation that won't get him in trouble.

Well what do you expect? FPS games have been around for 25 years yet every single one, even to this day, is about shooting stuff. It's in the name. The controls, mechanics, tones, visuals and gimmicks around shooting have changed, but the games at their cores are still about the same things they've been about since Wolfenstein. Racing games have been about beating time trials or beating other racers since... Like, 1492, or whenever the first racing game came out. It's been a long time. I might be mixing up the year the first racing game came out and some other historical event, but it's close. I could applied the same kind of logic to any other genre. Genres are genres for a reason. JRPGs are going to be defined how much like the genre they are. Like shooters, they've maintained a core "feel", but change in tone, style, visuals, controls and combat gimmicks. If they stray too far, they end up bleeding into other genres. People to this day still have trouble defining the Souls games and games like Dragon's Dogma, because they're Japanese RPGs, but they model themselves far more after Western-style RPGs. Some people say it's because of the action elements, but Final Fantasy 15 is an action game, that is still firmly classified as a "JRPG", and this extends to games like the Tales games and Star Ocean franchises, which have game play that relies far more on active player-input than traditional JRPGs. If you want to REALLY have your head explode, Vagrant Story. That game has way more in common with Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma in terms of combat, presentation, style and tone than most other JRPGs, yet it's firmly in the "JRPG" genre.

Arvis or Sephiran are really the only two contenders in my mind. Everyone else is either a total blankslate/playing an archetype, or a total joke.

If the game is still on track to come out this year, they'll pretty much have to. Plus, Nintendo had all those placeholders put up on Amazon, which I imagine will be a good chunk of their 2018 line-up that they will reveal this month. Nintendo's not the type of developer or publisher that puts that kind of stuff up before anything is properly revealed.

This is something I've never understood. Brom at least has "I'm a family man." on top of his "Aw, gee, shucks, I'd be at home pickin' corn if it weren't for this gal dern war" thing. Nephenee doesn't. Her character starts and stops with "I'm a simple country girl". I'm being a bit reductionist(For both Neph and Brom), but it stands. I get she's the first unmounted, non-armored, non-lord lance unit in the franchise and that she's a good unit in her first appearance, but by Radiant Dawn, she doesn't have those two things. She's a pretty mediocre unit in RD, and she has two other Halbrediers who get nearly as much screen time. I think it has died down, but the relatively large fanbase she had back in the day always baffled me. It seems like Oboro's taken a lot of her attention. And hell, for as much shit as I'll give Fates and Awakening characters, I think Oboro's much more deserving of that attention than Nephenee ever was. Nephenee's one of those Tellius characters who is more defined by her gimmick, while Oboro has a few more layers, despite being from one of the games that's notorious for writing characters around gimmicks. Maybe it's a southern thing. I grew up in a city in the north. "Simple country gals" don't rev my engine.

Hit the gym and do cardio. I'm barrel chested and carry a lot of weight in my mid-section. So my body likes to hold fat in weird places. When I started getting more into nutrition and started losing weight, I noticed that I had really off body proportions that didn't seem to reflect my actual weight(About 150lbs). I still had a slim waist, but my chest was huge(But lacked definition) and I had love-handles, which is a nightmare for a guy. Having a proper diet can help a lot, but making sure my body stores more weight as muscle helped me a lot more than just cutting down on junk. A good diet is key to losing weight. If you're somebody like me, though, you probably need muscle to go along with it for it to actually show.

I wouldn't want a dude riding me, either, so I can relate. Pegasi and the term "Pegasus" are both from Greek mythology. There are also Norse Valkyries, who were exclusively women, who are often depicted as riding or winged or flying horses. So there are a lot of European sources for winged/flying horses. Given that Pegasus Riders typically come from the "cold north", and their status as being almost entirely female, I'd wager Valkyries were more of an inspiration than unicorns.

Welcome.

You've heard good things? Then you must not have heard it from anybody here! Kidding. This place is fine. Just don't take it too seriously and don't take opinions as personal attacks or anything like that, and you'll probably have a good time.

I'd put it on the Steelers to take them out if anything, even though they've had some shortcomings this season, too. None of the AFC teams feel "complete" right now, while the Vikings, Saints and Panthers do... but again, don't put it past any of those teams to self-destruct in the playoffs, while the Pats continue to coast to the SB.