Interdimensional Observer

I know this isn't the place to mention it because armies move at a wholly different pace from participants in the normal economy and life of the world, but I have the urge to state some ~1650s-1800 numbers on the pace of travel in Europe. They shouldn't be entirely off from Medieval numbers, which I assume would be same or worse. To summarize some points from the one book I always turn back to: Roads- just foot tracks, no foundations, no pavement, no drainage, plenty of potholes. The better (but not good) roads are mostly deteriorated Roman roads made over 1000 years ago. Roads not always made to most efficiently get you from point A to point B- they could meander. Because carriages overwhelmingly don't have shock-absorber springs and because roads are so muddy and holed-up, you're in for a bumpy, sluggish ride that is going to be very uncomfortable, but you still have to pay for it. A coach required 4-6 draught animals, need to be replaced every 6-12 miles. On estimate put it at 1 horse per 1 mile along a well-maintained turnpike road in England in this period, and English roads were basically the Internet in terms of speed, practically everything else at the time was greatly inferior. London to Manchester was 185 miles, so 185 horses were needed for one stagecoach. A coach could only carry up to ten people. Price- A coach from Augsburg to Innsbruck in the Holy Roman Empire was 60 miles. It would take an unskilled laborer a month to afford just the basic fares. Get a horse? Look at the above numbers, if you want to go fast, you'll need a lot of horses, and that'll be a lot of $$$. Walking speed therefore, is the usual pace of travel for the average person. It's affordable (free) and won't be ruined by the dirt shit roads. Paris to Rouen was 60 miles, took at least 3 days to get there in the 1600s. By the time of the French Revolution in 1789, one scholar says all French cities could be reached in a fortnight (two weeks). Back in 1660, Bordeaux to Paris took 15 days to travel the 364 miles, dropped to 5 1/2 days by 1789. Paris to Bordeaux at that later time would cost a clerk's monthly wages. Paved roads require constant maintenance, thats a lot of money. You need a strong and centralized state to afford this, something which every kingdom to arise after the fall of the Western Roman Empire definitely wasn't. And the state needs to be willing to spend for this, France under Louis XIV "the Sun King" never spent more than 0.8% of the budget on roads despite Jean-Baptiste Colbert's best efforts. Or, you could be the great exception like England and realize government-issued private construction of and profiting from roads builds them good and fast. Not all roads are created equal. The French tried to build a road network in the 1600s-1789, but they succeeded only in the "royal roads" (or "arterial"), the roads connecting Paris to the other major cities. Spain built very few roads, and even then mostly radial roads connecting royal estates to each other, not the country to itself. Those aren't very helpful for most people. Building good roads isn't enough, the arterial roads of France were noted by the English as being positively empty of traffic compared to their bustling turnpikes. You need demand- a populace that can afford to use those roads. "Lateral" roads connecting non-Paris cities to each other, or those non-Paris cities to farming hamlets, or those hamlets to each other, were all neglected. They started 1800 as they were in 1600, tracks of toil. 380 miles from Amiens to Lyon would take you 25-30 days. Freight is in its own category apart from passenger traffic. The French road boom in the period (I'm just using it as a typical "non-England/Netherlands trying to move forward in history" example, Spain, the Italian peninsula, and Russia would all be waaaay worse) did nothing to bring freight travel out of its rut of 2 1/2 miles per day at best. The 126 mile distance from Mayenne to the port of Le Havre would take about four weeks for freight. In 1715, the 289 mile distance from Lyon to Paris along a royal road would take three weeks for freight, and only 5 days less by 1789. The effects of poor freight conditions? In Spain, Almeria is only 50 miles from Guadix, yet the price of wheat was double in Almeria what it was in Guadix. That shouldn't be the case if grain could flow remotely easy from city to city, but poor roads, combined with internal tariffs and other junk, meant it was cheaper for the coastal city of Almeria to import wheat from France, Italy or Africa via ships than to get from its own country via land. As the Almeria example indicates, you don't have a national economy without a national transportation network (not that it made what at the time were strong economies impossible- the prosperity was just concentrated in select locations, feast adjacent to famine). You wind up with islands of production, unable to effectively service each other. Most people traveled in their lives no more than 4-5 miles from where they lived. They went from home, to the local market (we're talking 90%+ agrarian populations here), the local notary's place, and the seigneurial court, all on foot. As terrible as this all sounds, the above point means most people didn't know they were living in bad conditions. They never realized better than what they had existed, so how could they know it was bad? They never went to England and experienced its roads of glorious capitalism-meets-mercantilism-meets-country gentlemen, or traveled by barge up those countless Netherlands canals. ...I felt like I've written enough and don't want to talk waterways, not that FE has shown a whole lot of sophistication here. Canals aren't very relevant besides that one in Valentia. However, the waves and storms could make things as uncomfortable at sea as a coach on land, or worse. Also, the winds are a fickle beast for sea travel with sails. A one-way trip from Nantes on the west coast of France to Gdansk in eastern modern day Poland, with perfect winds, would take 18 days. On average, you'd need a month, and if Mother Nature was being a witch, it could take 100 days or even 150 in the winter. The flow of mail on land is another distinct aspect of travel apart from people and freight, but the urge is out of my system and hence I will not discuss it.

Just give us a Genealogy Musou alongside the remake. Want the feeling of a grand war with ginormous scope? There, there you go. And because Musou is about feeling the catharsis of power, the brokenly strong take on the Holy Weapons won't be out of place the way they smash strategy in an SRPG.

They did overhaul FE2 dialogue, though you could've fit Gaiden's entire script on a napkin. FE11 was very conservative about script additions, but thats 12 years ago; and FE12 went much further, if still conservative in the main plot outside of Kris-sama. FE4 should definitely be overhauled to include more main story dialogue. Though it runs into the issue of who to talk to. This is especially true mid-chapter, because when Sigurd/Seliph seizes and stuff happens right after, it'll look weird to have them converse with Quan/Leif if they're twenty tiles away working towards taking the next castle. Abolishing the giant maps would fix this. It takes a minimum of 4 battles to establish an A support between two units in Awakening, 6 battles for S rank. The quickest way to build the maximum amount of support gain per fight is spending 5 rounds of combat in Pair Up. If a character has bonded with other characters in the fight, those pairing with lower priority will have a lower support point max gain per battle, hitting 0 with the fourth and all subsequent persons they bonded with. Fates tweaks these numbers slightly, but otherwise the gain mechanics are the same. As for support bonuses, they apply only if adjacent or paired up, aligns with how they're earned. In Awakening, the stat boosts and increased Dual Strike and Dual Guard rates make having supports very good, because Pair Up is busted and hence you should make the most of it. It's toned down in Fates and each character's bonuses are slightly more individualized, but the boosts can still be useful. If you're willing to emulate, try Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation for GBA. It's and Original Generation 2 are the only ones with official North American translations, because they're free of licensing issues because all the characters are original creations by Banpresto, no actual anime involved. SRW isn't exactly hard, and the plots are mecha anime melodrama with basically anime characters. But they can't be faulted for flashy attacks (although I'm questioning if the modern attacks are too flashy *gets stoned by an angry mecha mob*), the music can be nice, if a little repetitive. I found the GBA titles fun back in the day.

You shouldn't need supports, especially if they're GBA-PoR limited and thus you may wish for form (two characters you like) over function of what gives the best bonuses to your characters. I'm open to anything on how to handle character interactions, provided they're wholesome. Can't really think of much from any game I've played that isn't similar to what already has been stated. Although there might be something escaping me. Playing Masoukishin told me that FE having barebones scripts in the 16-bit era was totally unnecessary. It's almost inconceivable Marth/Seliph's/Leif's advisor exposition dumps coexisted with so much anime blabber. -Not to say FE didn't have some good writing in the era, and permadeath deserves some blame. --- With Armagon mentioning Gold Points earlier, that crap My Nintendo service is finally adding physical rewards in North America. And what is it?: Xenoblade Chronicles stickers, postcards. And a ring holder thingy you attach to your phone, I don't understand how it works b/c I don't have a smartphone. Costs only Platinum Points, but you have to pay for shipping too.

It's been fine so far, the usual ennui of a life I feel is wasted and meaningless, my depressive existential fear. But fun from Trails of Mana too, barring those Evil Ninja and Swordster enemies in the lava gorge, those were unbelievably strong, and those little cockatrice chicks gave me my first Game Over outta nowhere, they can petrify everyone before you know what hit you if you aren't paying attention. Is this a good costume?:

Sagi: "Isn't that reason enough?" It's pure coincidence, but Guillo sounds like the perfect Blade here. Though I did snip out (b/c spoilers) all of Guillo's slow, not-angry, factual talk to Sagi about what they're currently up against, Guillo's opinion that Sagi should stay out of it, and Sagi's stated motivations as to why he wants to stay involved. That Guillo opts to remain loyal and protect Sagi against the dangers that await, and Guillo unlike a Blade isn't bound to Sagi at all, is all the more endearing for me. How late is 20? From the one playthrough I watched, it seemed EXP gain was fairly slow. Paramythis coming at 16 four fights from the end, makes Esteban's Pursuit sound a little like a lategame overrated boost.

Think there's any opening in 3H for a Musou prequel/sequel? Interquel set between chapters 12 and 13? Genealogy, if thats in the remake works, sounds like it'd be infinitely more fun as a Musou than as FE4 itself great done in Musou form some way. Playing as the 12 Crusaders? If next FE out of IS isn't a remake, I'd think they'd wait to see how it sells before sending Koei the order to Musou it.

Zelda doesn't need one big timeline. Connecting a small set of 2-3 games, thats fine. But the entire franchise? Nope, doesn't need it at all. It's a ridiculous proposition anyhow because Nintendo won't let chronology get in the way of whatever it is they want to do with Zelda. I ignored BotW's story, so I don't have any interest ATM in this game. It's unexpected, but if does certain things right that HW didn't have or got wrong, then I'd welcome those things and this game and hope those aspects carry over into the second grand intraseries crossover HW which currently isn't happening.

This sounds weird to me too. I assumed (as many other probably assumed) that another HW would add the Champions, but that the game itself would be another massive intraseries crossover for the franchise. This "Persona 5 Scramble"-esque tie-in is unexpected. It sounds daring, but as I've no ties to BotW's plot, I'm think I'll skip it for now. If this is bold and experimental, may it succeed nonetheless. And Shakespeare tells you upfront that his plays will be a tragedy, history or comedy. Hasn't kept the stuff between the bookends from being worthless. Not to mention, Torna. Which brings up the point of original-prequel (or sequel) inconsistencies. Let's face it, Minoth smiling at thoughts of Amalthus in XC2 is entirely antithetical to what we see of his thoughts of Amalthus in Torna. Whilst I'm not saying Nintendo should go and make major differences because it's inevitable that smaller ones at least will exist, but at the same time, room for revisionist artistic license. Why not a good Shiekah? Ninjas are always welcome. A good ninja, as a proverb as I once heard went "makes you question whether they ever actually existed". Lost to records or intentionally left out even in Kakariko. A Korok because forest powers doesn't sound bad either, if a little too comical for this.

Demon door boss was my first real challenge. It wasn't the door itself, I could run up to it and dodge and attack it no problems. It was the shape-shifter minions it could summon that sent me reeling and burning through a few Cups of Wishes and Candies. Why can those things form change at any time and get fully healed with every shapeshifting? Once one started attacking me, I had to turn around to kill it, but that was hard to do for the aforementioned reason, that shook me out of evading the boss's attacks, and new ones showed too fast after I destroyed them. The boss that immediately followed was much less chaotic. The boss after that took some time, and the AI wasn't great at dodging certain attacks, but even if they had died I could've won by myself. There was one feint of a good character exchange, just a few lines as I was walking down a path where Duran and Kevin discussed sword-fighting or some other fighting at a later time, with Charlotte lightly disapproving of it and not wanting to get involved. It was such a tease, because by this point, I know I'm not going to get what I want in interactions. I still like everyone, sure I want to imagine if all six were together and all the fun that'd be, but I can bear with what I get. I liked the momentary inclusions of Riesz and Hawkeye in the story so far. ToM is in this weird place between old school and new school. Visually I'm quite pleased with the game, the bright fantasy is typical Mana from what I'm aware, and it's somehow distinctive despite fantasy being the norm for RPGs. The soundtrack, I've had it set to the modern version over the 16-bit original also included, is satisfactory, maybe not great, but a few tracks are at least enjoyably good, and I haven't heard any clunkers yet.

So the Alrest Linkring(?) remains unlocked in New Game+ or does the challenge that you need to finish the story to get the Linkring stay unlocked on NG+? I'm guess from what you say it's the latter? I'm a little surprised it'd still be doable even on the weakest Custom settings.

Isn't this somewhat likely to happen as a game with many many things adds more over time? All or most of the simple effects that the developers could conceive of get used up and then they have to create more complicated ones later to stay inventive. To use the 4X turn-based simulation game Civilization VI for a similar case, compare Germany's Leader and Civilization Unique Abilities with Canada's. Germany came in the base game, Canada got added two expansion packs later, and with that expansion the game had 42 unique Civilizations, each with two unique abilities and a unique piece of infrastructure and one or two unique combat units. Germany: Leader Unique Ability- Iron Crown: "Gain an additional Military policy slot in all Governments. +7 Combat Strength for all units when fighting city-states and their units." Civilization Unique Ability- Free Imperial Cities: "Each city can build one more district than the population limit would normally allow." Canada: Leader Unique Ability- Last Best West: "Can build Farms on Tundra tiles, and on Tundra Hills tiles with Civil Engineering. Snow, Snow Hills, Tundra Hills, and Tundra tiles cost 50% less Gold to purchase. On those tiles, resources accumulate twice as fast, Mines and Lumber Mills receive +1 Production, and Camps receive +1 Food." Civilization Unique Ability- Four Faces of Peace: "Cannot declare Surprise Wars or war on City-States. Surprise Wars cannot be declared on Canada. For every 100 Tourism earned, gain 1 Diplomatic Favor. +100% Diplomatic Favor gained from succesfully completing Emergencies and Competitions." And yet, Canada is deemed meme-tier bad while Germany is well-rounded if not great outside of very high Production via their Hansa district. Can I bring up Smash too? Doesn't like every new character have to have some kind of gimmick big or small to define them? Probably because Smash has such a gargantuan roster now.

Made it to the Wind Manastone, which with barely any mention of it unlocks the ability to change my characters classes. The process of doing so is slow due to loading for some reason. And while they let me see some of the changes I'll get from going one or the other, the game doesn't show me all of them, including any spells I may learn, and it tells me I can only swap classes if I don't like my choice via items I currently do not have. This is confusing.🤯 Took me longer than I expected to find a good guide to the class system with all the details of each class listed. Doesn't sound so bad. Considering these new tier 4 classes I hear of are basically postgame, and tier 3 requires I be level 38 which is 20 above my current level, I should make it easier on myself and focus on which 2nd tier I want right now. And from the looks of it, I should probably have all three of my characters pick their Dark class. One user of Healing Light+ should hopefully be enough unless I'm that terrible or the AI is, and I'll have elemental Sabers access via Duran.

Curiously, Tatsuya's ultimate Persona had its exclusive skill Nova Kaiser (called Nova Cyther in Eternal Punishment because inferior translation) changed from Light+Almighty in Innocent Sin to Nuclear damage in EP. Considering the Arcana of Tatsuya's signature Personas is Sun, Nuclear alongside Fire make perfect sense for his elemental preferences. No. And the +5 Hit S-rank bonus doesn't apply to status Staffs, making that rank completely useless.

Yeah, only in Persona 2 though. Zan in Persona 1 deals "Blast" damage, because Garu handles Wind and Almighty doesn't exist, Gry exists in P1 but there it's Gravity. SMT can be a little messy on the elements back in the older days. Considering weakness-targeting wasn't a huge deal (helpful, but not predominating) until SMTIII: Nocturne, it wasn't bad. Consider there are five physical elements in P2: Sword, Ranged, Strike Thrown, and Havoc. What the heck is "Havoc" supposed to be and why is Thrown separate from Ranged? And was It really necessary on the magic side to have Water in addition to Ice when SMT usually does fine with just Ice? Nuclear, which I'm informed appears in Persona 5, originated in Persona 1 and shows up in Persona 2 as well, using Frei as its spell name. And Persona 5 had Psy too? Psy existed only in one game before that, the old and still untranslated 1995 Sega Saturn game Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner. And I stand corrected, upon rechecking Megido does exist in P2, which makes for three different names for Almighty spells in that game, difference being how many enemies they target- one (Zan), all of one kind (Gry), and all (Megido). That sounds needlessly excessive.

I've settled into Kevin's voice now, at first I didn't exactly like it, but I'm able to define how it fits into his character. I don't care about VAs, I'd rather often keep myself in the dark about who voices who, I don't want my impression of character B to influence character C if they do share a VA. Naturally I may be able to identify a voice however; American VAs being a limited lot doesn't help. And I'm getting a strong feeling that Kevin has the voice of... a Nopon. Strangely, I've a sharp image of which Nopon in the sea of falsetto furballs Kevin sounds exactly like. And that member of the Monolith mascot mob is...

I getcha. I felt the same way with OT, but I'm hoping the Trials of Mana gameplay holds up enough to compensate. Octopath Traveler... having to try everything to figure out what to pummel a boss with in the boring pattern of amass Boost, Break 'em, Boost got old at a point. I wouldn't call them the best chapters either. I think I remember Chapter 1 of Super starts fun, but for some reason I think it ends only okay. TTYD's first chapter is nearly identical to the first PM's. Shell-kick Koopa partner? Check. Fuzzies? Check. Big abandoned castle/fortress? Check. Although I'd say the first PM has the better first of these two alike chapters, Hooktail is visually impressive, but I like the Koopa Bros. more. And you get your third partner inside said fort too, as opposed to having to wait another chapter.

Be warned, although I know nothing of the Atelier franchise, I did glimpse someone, in a memey way, say Mana Khemia had an insufferable cast. Not sure whether they meant the first or the second though, and maybe your opinions would vary. I'll take Paper FE! Or I'll settle for less and just ask for Bonetail in an FE. Congrats on playing through Ye Olde Nostalgia Glasses God Among Games. I do seriously like it though b/c childhood memories. Never did the full Pit of 100 Trials, I made it to the 50th I know, but any deeper I'm not sure. I only beat the game once in the many files I played though. And nice Dooliss avi.

Would it really given the low and fixed uses of magic in 3H? Memories of Robin surge to my mind at this assertion, they were the avatar who obsoleted Miriel, Ricken, Henry, and maybe Tharja the moment they showed up. Corrin possibly could with an early reclass render his non-Ophelia pure magical competition worthless, but that wasn't as mindlessly easy as Robin over theirs. Kris I'm not so sure of.

I was gifted Trials of Mana yesterday, wasn't in the mood to play it until today. I picked Kevin as my main character, I liked his half-beastman physique, and his bio was interesting to me, although first impressions from the artwork left me wary of what his personality would be. I was surprised to discover he is quite the sweet and awkward softie, I thought he'd be a brash brute. I think I chose well. For my first companion, I remember reading something to the effect "you'll get a little more dialogue if you pick the character with the matching storyline as your main", and I guessed this was Charlotte so I picked her, selecting the dedicated healer was done out of survival caution too. She's charming. And for the second companion, I wasn't so sure of who to take. I decided on Duran, largely because I didn't feel like the mage girl and this way Hawkeye and his female story-sharer could be together if I ever did a second playthrough of the game. Duran and the mage girl had the least-interesting bios to me. But Duran isn't bad actually now that I've seen some of his character. I've saved at the Golden Road now, heading to Valena for some reason. I wish there were more character interactions, I understand this is a 3D modern update on an SNES game, but how hard would it have been to think up more dialogue? Charlotte is half-elf and Kevin is half-beastman, there's an underlying connection there and it'd help Kevin with his caveman-esque sentences when speaking to humans. Duran's liking for strength seems in line with beastman ethos and hence familiar to Kevin, and Duran may well be more beastman than Kevin in behavior. Nonetheless, although I'm not very far in, this bright and simple action RPG is fun. I hope it stays that way as I travel along further.

I use Imgbb. I've had no issues with it despite hundreds of images being uploaded and it's free. Not entirely sure myself. But Zan is the original force/wind element spell name, originating like the rest of the traditional spell names in Megami Tensei II, and Garu seems to be almost exclusively a Persona thing. I say almost, because Strange Journey swapped to Garu too. Typing both words into a translator doesn't tell me anything about why they were chosen. Zan (and Gry) in Persona 2 serve as the Almighty element spells instead, as Megido for some reason doesn't exist (good for it, because Almighty can be resisted, nulled, and reflected in P2- so much for being "almighty"). Thats weird. Persona 2's final battle theme is a remix of its opening theme. The opening theme of the game, like others, being part of the "soul" of the game makes another game borrowing it for its own climatic moment unusual.

They Seasonal-introduced Brigid. That in itself was a body blow to the next FE4 Gen 1 banner. Not that a snazzy Yewfelle couldn't compensate, and we've still Edain (so, auto-demote b/c Infantry Staff?) and Erinys. Them plus Lex and Azelle make for the best quartet of what's left, and maybe Young Finn. After them, all that'd remain would be Who?lainn, Dewdew, Benowolf, Aleh, Midtier, Naoisebad, and Not A Gilded Stag. As my increasingly forced joke names (no offense meant to any of them) indicate, they'd be a bit of a hard sell I think.

The agreement of a comfortable distance between two people, nothing more than that. Anything else is an illusion thats causes me pain and hence I do not believe it anymore. Or, it's the feeling that comes from someone giving you oatmeal every day and you don't understand why. Why were people suddenly in revolt at SonicxElise when ShadowxMaria had predated it by three major console games?

Pulled pork with a tangy Carolina sauce and pulled chicken with a smokey sauce, both served on brioche buns. Accompanied by sweet cornbread, hushpuppies, mac & cheese bites, and onion rings with a dipping sauce. I feel full, and old. My anxieties swallowed for a moment by life's little joys. Cake came sometime later, two layers of chocolate, one of yellow, vanilla buttercream throughout with a chocolate glaze dripping down the sides.

Nothing wrong with that. I've never played it and are willing to turn a blind eye to purely pixels bestiality. And speaking of dumplings, I'm reminded of something different but round and encasing a filling too- ice cream mochi. American supermarkets have started serving up this Japanese frozen delight, I've seen vanilla, chocolate, peanut butter, strawberry, and green tea flavors. I've bought them like twice, because of slight Japanphilism on my part. They're... not bad, just strange, the gummy texture of the mochi is unlike anything in American cuisine. It's not something I yearn for, but I'd eat them again.