Interdimensional Observer

True. Blade Medals I guess were supposed to encourage multiplayer-ing things, but in practice they made it so easy, yet at the same time tedious, to cheat that. On Ether reflection, craft an XX Augment to pierce it. The Nullify Reflect/Reflect.NEG are soooooooo dirt cheap it makes me wonder why they even have Reflect on enemies in the first place. All you need is... 5 Perforated Oars, from Terebras you can find near NLA, single-digit level enemies even.

I didn't go for Melee/Ranged Attack Ups or Potential Ups, though they are the de facto best damage boosting Augments. I used the comparatively much easier to craft Ultrafauna Slayers XXs for Telethia (plus some Range Accuracy boosts, and Ether Resist XX). Lugalbanda I cheesed with Overdrive+Aura Assault+Ghostwalker+Offensive Stance+Blossom Dance. I tried Pharsis twice, my Ares got trashed even with the ample mandatory Gravity Resist XX. And I know I need more accuracy for Nardacyon. You are right about the grind. Doesn't help it's solely Plume and Zero for the Tickets and that getting them is unfun, the game needed more Global Nemeses and increased Ticket payout for those Squad Missions I tried a few times. It actually reminds me of my short-lived existence as Dragalia Lost player, which is to say taking from a different but still bad aspect of gatcha (which I think originated in real MMORPGs)- repeating the exact same fights over and over again, to the point that if you can, you auto-battle it. Everything could easily be halved in price, or 2/3rds even and it'd make the XCX postgame more fun. Games should not go on forever, if the forever happens through repetitive grind. Let them end.

My mistake.😅

East Asia had some willingness historically for adoptions. Looking over Toyotomi Hideyoshi on Wikipedia, because I thought I remembered something about adoption with him, it turns out he was "adopted" by a nobleman only a year older than him in a move to increase his social prestige (Hideyoshi was born a commoner). This helped Hideyoshi clinch the important title of Imperial Regent and obtain the new Emperor-given last name Toyotomi. The man who adopted Hideyoshi, he adopted a daughter of, one of about 20 child adoptions Hideyoshi made. A younger adoption in the Sengoku period happened with Uesugi Kenshin, Uesugi was the clan which he had been born to serve, and due to his great military merit by the age of 20, he got adopted by his lord to become his heir. Kenshin himself, a devotee of Zen Buddhism and the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings Bishamonten with a monastic liking, never had any children and died celibate, adopted two sons instead, one being his nephew, the other being a son of a fellow great warlord, Hojo Ujiyasu. You didn't need politics and power to adopt. Miyamoto Musashi the fabled samurai duelist and philosopher of the way of the sword from the late Sengoku and early Tokgawa periods, had no wealth to call his own. Nonetheless, he adopted two sons as heirs. In this way, you could justify Corrin as family to the Hoshidans too. However, did the writers of Fates really have this in mind?😛

Dryas is apparently the name of two phases of a specific natural historical ice age, which in turn are named after a genus of flowers, which in turn is named after the dryads, which are Greco-Roman tree nymphs. How about "Darius" instead? As in Darius the Great, the second great king of Achaemenid Empire of Persia (modern Iran). Although he was a man with no real claim to the throne, who had to invent an official story to hide his usurpation of the true heir. Not like he needed the lie, a monopoly over the use of military force overrides the need for a good story.

20% discount on all units + saving lots of money = deadliest CO in the entire game. If Colin were Mark, well first I sell everything and then use Gold Rush to increase my current Funds by 50%, I save my money and use Gold Rush again, and then I use the Silver Card to buy a lot of stuff for half price. And then I use Power of Money to OHKO the Fire Dragon with base Str Rebecca whilst still getting 30 Stars in Funds at the end.🤩🤑 I like Flynn, he's just always portrayed as being in the wrong. I like Judith, she mostly cool, Karol and Rita are fine. Estelle is generic, like Natalia admittedly, but Estelle has Special Girl toss on top of it and is an extra wallop of cliche unfortunately. Raven is genuinely eh to me, and Love Shot is not really good enough as healing when the game denies me Estelle. Patty, she is cute, her fishy language is fine, but it grows repetitive over time because she doesn't have a whole lot else. And Repede is good, albeit I kinda wish he did have a mysterious backstory. Funds is a rank. Funds is combination of liquid assets, your Gold total, and the total value of your solid assets, all your weapons and items. Therefore, the Funds rank cannot be cheesed by selling everything you don't use. Selling that extra Guiding Ring you don't intend for anyone to use is actually a bad thing. Because the Guiding Ring is worth 10k Gold, and you sell it for 5k, you lose 5k off the Funds rank by getting rid of it. Using an Angelic Robe on someone means kissing 7k down the drain. Every swing of weapon? You just used up money. Therefore, if you pay attention to the ranks in FE7, you will horde most of stat boosters, promote as few characters as possible, and limit use of rare and expensive weapons. The handful of Arenas in this game are great because they let you print new money and can help with the EXP rank too, just be careful not to spend too many turns there to avoid hurting Tactics.

I skip over story usually, both ingame and in your Fates analysis so far, but I caught notice of this line. And I just wanted to say, the Fates art book said they're "like sisters", not specifically genetically-related sisters. I would not be surprised if you thought this smelled so much like a retcon that the odor could be detected from a twenty thousand miles away. Although at least the fragrance is merely peculiar, and not rancid like a fondue of sweat and expired limburger cheese.

Guilds vs. Empire theme promising, working within flawed institutions (Flynn) vs. working outside them (Yuri) theme promising. Both conflicts get sidelined for weak villains and beings whose names are a mouthful and which have been done to death in Tales already. Why? Vesperia's plot is better than Graces, which also had a promising premise that floundered in a silent explosion. But Symphonia, Xillia, and Abyss all have better stories to me. Phantasia is so old so it's bad narratively, and ToS2... well... the cringe moments get in the way. I've haven't played anything else. Yuri is the savior of this shoddy story, he alone lifts it from complete mediocrity. Always Wrong Flynn can't do it, Cliched Special Princess Estelle can't do it, nor the good Judith, certainly not ehhh Raven, or Karol or Rita. Repede is a good boy and is not obliged to do anything else. And for Patty, endless nautical and fishy language stinks after three weeks of playing ToV. Now if only Yuri could command a space battleship. Mocking Rankings and the Funds rank specifically I see. I'm not sure how "didn't spend a lot of money and solid assets they had" gets a tactician acclaim, as Mark's variable ending implies. War is inherently wasteful of big gobs of money if rich pillage and conquests are not in the end results. Streamlining war finances and logistics is good true, but I'm not sure if making do without using an Angelic Robe you have already is actually being inventive, or just miserly stupid.

*Smiles at the location name* Below half-HP? If you see a 💢 next to their name/HP bar, you are aware they've been Enraged, right? Two options for you then.: Load up on Orbs and prepare for a Chain Attack to try to eradicate it in one fell swoop as soon as it Enrages. Bring Corvin, use his level 2 Special. It may take two tries, but he can dispel Enrage and it shouldn't ever be reapplied.

I had both Master Quest and the Collector's Edition, complete with the Nintendo Power game guide for that grand compilation Nintendo should bring it back. I no longer have it unfortunately, but it was very cool. I missed out on ALttP + Four Swords, it was the one title I didn't have that came out in my childhood, although I had no friends either, so I couldn't have tried FS anyhow. Although I don't recall rushing into PH touchscreen controls weren't bad for me in either game, the one major exception being sword combat. Zelda has never been Bayonetta May Souls in sophistication, but there was little that could be done in this regard with the touch screen using the top-down perspective. *Majora's Mask laughs and curses you into that fat Zora* I'm not a member, I played it as a kid, and although the time limit is mostly meaningless, because it's limitless, the game just doesn't sit well with me. I get my mind stuck too much on certain aspects of it. I skipped the 3DS remake actually. He sorta has to be when the central story is weak.😉 I have to give him many points for being refreshing, you don't find a whole lot of JRPG protagonists like him. He ranks 1st among video game Yuris. And I confess to nudging a few games here myself from time to time, although I try to rein it in.

I'd attribute it to SNK being oddly vigorous as of late and bought by Saudi Arabia for those who bring politics into their purchases. I'd think Capcom would've been dragged into this, I don't think it's the most profitable venture for them.

First Zelda owned and completed? I think thats A Link to the Past for me. My first Zelda is my first Zeldas, thank some grandparents willing to entertain their grandchildren with a variety of gaming systems, giving me access to all from the age of 4: the first LoZ and Zelda II on a revised NES model, ALttP, OoT, Link's Awakening DX. I think I even had for a time a copy of plain old Link's Awakening, no color, because I remembering playing the game with Slates in the dungeons, which were replaced with the Owl Head Statues in DX. Majora's Mask and the two Oracles quickly came into my childhood as well. Of these, ALttP was the only one I completed for some time, followed by Link's Awakening, and then Oracle of Seasons and then Ages much later. I asked my grandma or someone else to "beat the bosses" for me as a little kid in OoT and MM, so I never beat them myself, although I might have fought a few bosses at the time, I don't recall ever fighting Ganon, but possibly Twinrova. I still haven't cleared Zelda II, I have the game on 3DS, and I made it quite far once, to the hidden palace, but I never got to finishing it.

True. There thankfully isn't a moment like the one in Sword Valley in XC1, and even XCX had one moment where naivety got in the way. Can't remember one in Xenogears, but Fei has far bigger issues than being naive. Just be lucky Rex isn't experience for all the strength he can potentially tap into. Imagine naïveté wedded to serious combat capabilities, how would one contain someone like that? If the idealistic hero could run into bad guy battalions and solo them with ease, while the ones trying to keep said hero in check struggled to clean up the remnants of the hero's smashing of everything. You can't really babysit a guy who keeps running into fortified dens of evil, and never gets kicked out so you never get a chance to admonish them because they never failed. I'm not sure if there is a game/manga/anime that has actually done that. All I'm doing is fusing Rex's innocence with a certain other main character from a totally unrelated game. Sounds like a potentially interesting idea.

I never bought BotW's DLC, but regenerating enemy health sounds very questionable to me. As an anti-slow and cheaty kill measure, maybe it works, but I'm wary that it'd be a totally unfair slog that forces a level of offense that make you want to break your controller after the third weapon breaks on the enemy. So fragile. I rarely fought anything in BotW at first because of how much damage I was taking. And even later, because I was stupid and didn't realize the armor upgrade system existed for a long time, I was very murderable. On subsequent runs, the difficulty can melt away because you know where to find all the Shrines. --- I've been trying to get back into Etrian Odyssey Nexus, though the game hasn't clicked with me the same way EOV does (I think I'll finally start my 4th and final run of the game later this month). Partly, it's early enemies having too much health, partly, it's the terrible decision to bring back EOIV's level-gating on skill access. My Ninja cries itself to sleep knowing it has to wait another 15 levels before it can learn its mass-Panic infliction skill. Still, I want to finish the game at least once, if on Basic when I usually play Expert. And with every labyrinth I complete, I get closer to that much-awaited level 40, at which point the fun truly begins. EOIII never got a 3DS remake, which is sad, because Waterfall Woods is looking like the best 1st Stratum from a visual perspective to me. Please make the Wildling good next time.

Again, fair point. I'm just the kind of person who I'm sorry if I've dragged this on for too long. I'll stop here with speaking of my unsubtle puerile fantasies. If you didn't notice, there is a Land of Challenge battle that limits you to two characters, and another that forces a Tora solo. I tried the Tora solo on Normal once, lost very early into it.

Which is why I said

On one thing...

And to this I say

More spoiler talk:

I looked at it. Yes you can. Prior to Chapter 8, no. But where you are, absolutely yes.

Ah yes, was his name in Dark Dawn was Takeru wasn't it? What a shame he, like so many others is stuck in a "Golden Sun DD sequel" Limbo. Alongside: Issac, Garet, Jenna, Mia, Sheba, Ivan, the people of Kolima, Piers, Alex, the Dark Empyror, Felix, so many mentioned in the background, as if to be seen again some day, a day that shall never come. Thinking about it... I spent too long trying to properly formulate my thoughts on this.😆 Laptop is almost out of juice, and it's late night for me. I'll have to see what you think of my critique tomorrow morning.

Cool? It reminds me, lightning doesn't strike twice. Well it can, but on subsequent flashes, you might be able to admire it, but it won't necessarily induce the awe of the first. ...Do I post some chill music now? I can't decide. "Graceful storytelling?" In enjoyed Golden Sun back in the day, and would truly like to see its resurrection after Dark Dawn murdered it. But the storytelling... where to begin? The characters need some work. DD was particularly egregious in Eoleo and especially Himiko(?) feeling like filler, yet most were rather flat and underdeveloped. They'd need about five Golden Suns' worth of Psynergy funneled into their souls nowadays to be considered good, they have a little charm and minor development, but nowhere near enough. Even back in the day, there was a weird recognition of "so many little lines, so little being said" or something to that effect on my part. Maybe it was the tiny size of the text boxes that was to blame, but the conversations could go for a while, without them being good. Then there was the aimlessness, a good deal of The Lost Age is spent roaming around without much of a sense of purpose. You do have the goal of getting to the other two Lighthouses, except the first of them is reached 3/4ths of the way into the game. Dark Dawn invented some new problems for itself, but I'd say on top of that, that it failed to correct the errors of the first two games.

I am in the Mythra camp. However, if we are talking about artificially-created women in games which Monolith has had a hand in general, then Aschen is the winner. Setting aside her being written and owned by Banpresto. I say this unironically. Mostly.

Whoops, wrong beastie girl!😅 And of course it was a good crowd of enemies, thats what BR's lategame is. Was it a Berserker with that hit rate? If it was, I think she was threatened with a OHKO. Girl needs super-extreme Spd to compensate for her worse than dad's durability, and she doesn't have enough. Only three chapters? Boy it feels like more than that. In Extremis isn't entirely useless, I think I calculated once it is just about possible to reach 100 Crit with her, although though you'll need Before Awakening to make her a Great Lord for Awakening to complete the setup, and Dread Fighter for Barb Shuriken so she can run Vantage with 1-2 range. Speaking of Vantage, that'll demand a Male Corrin's thighs with Samurai Talent, which provides Life or Death to assure OHKOs on everything as well. Meaning, this a total showoff build thats too impractical for practice.

On Lunatic, I'm not entirely sure of the Kitsune's dodging, I think a Velouria with Kagero as her mother failed to ORKO enemies on the right side of Chapter 25, and still had a 20-chance of being hit. All I do remember is that it didn't feel safe enough for me. I think this was on my females-only run, which saw Guard Naginata+Spear Master!Hinoka paired with Rinkah solo the left side of that map, literally everyone else was needed to the right side to keep the reinforcements there at bay. It was the best I could do, after I had Scarlet and a pal dispatch Hans over the open air in the prior fight b/c too many strong foes, not enough terrain. Growths-wise, Scarlet is Camilla-lite: 10% less HP 5% less Str 5% less Mag 10% less Skl 5% less Spd 10% less Def 25% less Res 15% more Lck. Now, regarding bases, both come at level 1 promoted. Scarlet has: Same HP. 1 less if you changed her or Camilla to the other Wyvern promotion. 4 more Str. 3 more if you reclass Camilla to WL. 1 less Mag if you brought her into Malig Knight. Same Skl factoring in the class difference. 1 less Spd factoring in the class difference. 1 less Lck factoring in the class difference. 2 more Def factoring in the class difference. 4 less Res factoring in the class difference. So, pretty much the same in practice, Scarlet's losses are so small that you might actually prefer her 3 Str lead. Camilla has a non-Corrinsexual support list, First Blood, and a better personal skill in her favor too. The real reason why Scarlet is merely good and Camilla is divine, is likely that Camilla comes a whole lot sooner and you've a lot of pressure to use her for early-mid Conquest. Scarlet comes significantly later, undermining her comparable stats *Seth vs. Syrene flashbacks triggered*, and Birthright isn't so hard to softly demand her either. That reminds me, on paper I sorta like the premise of most of Fates's cast being royals and retainers. It could add certain thematics to the cast, that being the games are a clash between two elite of elite families. On the other hand, it could come off as limiting, does sticking to R&R mean the diversity of the characters' backstories and roles as deliverers of world-building is restricted? Maybe, maybe not. I do remember someone commented once that Nohr & Hoshido are opposites on retainers. Hoshido's retainers are people from elite families with subdued personalities, whilst Nohr is across classes with crazy personalities.