Interdimensional Observer

Reminds me I need to get back to that. I stopped before Chapter 10, because I wish the boss didn't smudge up Sylvalum, and maybe a little fatigue too. --- Instead, I went back to more Civ VI addiction, but I think it's time I take another break from the compelling monotony, barring maybe some domination plays. Managed on Emperor to get my fastest Science Victories yet at 287 and 288 with Germany and Scotland respectively. Theres no way I'd be able to get it to the sub-200 records that I've heard people accomplish. Because I built a Coal Power Plant in every city for maximum production, my Germany game saw Global Warming reach phase 7 for the first time, flooding all the coastal lowlands and melting all the sea ice. Because this was a Lakes map, mostly land with minimal seas, it wasn't very dramatic, but I did see the Golden Gate Bridge Gitarja built suddenly found itself connected on one side to terra firma and the other end terminated in open air over a deep blue sea. Also did my first two Emperor difficulty Culture Victories, with Persia and Greece respectively. I think it was about 270 turns with Persia, whereas Greece was about 230, Acropolis > Pairidaeza apparently, but they're both great if set up properly. I had like 1200 Culture per turn between Pericles's Surrounded by Glory applied to all 13 City-States on the map (I upped it to 14), which included Antananarivo Suzerainity, the Kilwa Kisiwani Wonder, and the proper policy cards. For fun and to liberate the two City-States that were only the seconds of their kind on the map- Rapa Nui and Mitla- I tried to attack their conqueror my neighbor Germany in the Medieval period. When that failed, I settled for peace and focused my science progression into getting Bombers, because the AI is too stupid to understand the premise of anti-air defense (which they might not have unlocked yet). A pair of bombers and a few outdated units quickly freed my new spheres of influence, and to speed up my inevitable victory slightly, I added the good half of the German empire to my possessions, leaving Barbarossa with mostly tundra cities. Thanks to a "To Arms!" Heroic and then Golden Age, I barely got any grievances from this, I was surprised that nobody except the laughable two-cities Maori hated me after that.

I skipped the best girls and probably will the best bois too. A combination of my usual indecisiveness and choosing to be low key about less-known characters I like. I largely skip other topics in Forum "Games" because I don't feel I'm spontaneous and relaxed enough for them.

No, you don't need a major role. An avatar can be your window into a world without being its axis mundi. Why have a window into the world if you aren't the star? Because the world itself is worth immersing yourself in, merely spectating is gratifying enough. FE doesn't seem well suited to this, being a linear SRPG. But in a different genre, like the nebulous worlds of both Japanese and Western RPGs and open-world games, it can make alot more sense. For my example- Xenoblade Chronicles X.: After Chapter 5 of 12, your avatar stops being anything more than a silent assistant. You're barely acknowledged in the story and Elma is the real protagonist, to the point Monolith doesn't advertise the avatar at all and uses Elma as the main representative of the game. However, the physical world of XCX is very beautiful and worth exploring, being an avatar gives you the freedom to do that on your own schedule. And it isn't like the avatar doesn't exist entirely. You're the one everyone addresses and interacts with in the many sidequests (that establish some good world-building) and Affinity Missions and Heart-to-Hearts. It's more here in the optional content that you can make some choices with weight. Nothing that at all affects the main story or overall outcome of the world, but thats fine considering how short the main story actually is.

I always felt that those Peach-TEC things were weird. Sooooooooooo out of place in a kids' game. They just don't belong, I'd be fine if Nintendo toned them down in a modern port.

Thats not what they did.

The Diet Building is the penultimate dungeon, though you have to make a short revisit to Amala Temple to trigger the final dungeon's appearance. The Lady in Black shows up after the Diet Building or at Amala Temple (I forget which) to basically remind you "last chance to go TDE is now!". If you acquired the Trumpeter's Candelabrum and can enter the 5th Kalpa, then you should be able to lock into TDE at this very moment. It isn't that bad in practice. Not as clear-cut as Apocalypse's "pick your friends or me my Godslayer" moment, but not all that bad. If you want True Demon Ending, just focus on finishing the optional dungeon before the final one- nothing else matters. If you want a Reason, side with the Reason you like, deject the other two. +Don't finish the optional dungeon (explore it all you want though). If you want Normal Demon/Neutral, deject all Reasons and pick your choices at Yoyogi Park appropriately. +Don't finish the optional dungeon (explore it all you want though). Devil Survivor and Devil Survivor 2 do it a different way. There are five 7th day routes in Devil Survivor. One is unlocked by the default, the other four you must earn, but if you do unlock them, you'll be able to freely choose between them at the end of the 6th day. One route has two "doors" to enter it so to speak, but it's only a difference of the first scene. And the 3DS Overclocked edition adds 8th days to three of the above routes, and one of those 8th days has a split in itself. Devil Survivor 2 has 3 routes automatically unlocked at the end of Friday (I think thats the 6th day). A fourth route can be selected at that time too if you unlocked it. One route has two outcomes, the second of which must be unlocked via one no-requirements needed event on Saturday. The second outcome, if everyone is recruited, becomes a "golden ending". Not sure the Record Breaker scenario and its routes, because only played the DS version which doesn't have it. Just giving you a general explanation if you ever choose to try the DSes.

If you were thinking this was like the Devil Survivors where you're given a moment to choose from all your options (which was great), that would be incorrect. Traditionally, SMT doesn't do that, the latest IV: Apocalypse is the only one that does I think. If you want the True Demon Ending you must -before stepping into the final dungeon- take the elevator at the very bottom of the 5th Kalpa. You can defeat the boss in front of the elevator and then turn back if you don't want the TDE. If you opt for TDE, whichever ending you were going to get is overridden. As for the other endings, if you wanted one of the Reasons, you must've sided with them during their big moments. Since the Trumpeter is before the Diet Building, it means that you've already passed the Yosuga and Musubi decisions. If you didn't decide "death to Manikins!" or "death to them!", then you're locked out of those endings. The Diet Building is where Shijima's big moment is, and the Diet Building is the second-to-last dungeon. If you agree to help during one Reason's climatic creation and not the others, you're locked into that Reason. If you helped more than one of Chiaki, Isamu, and Hikawa, then the game once you enter the final dungeon will assign you the Reason you agreed with the most often in earlier dialogue choices. If you rejected all the Reasons, then the game looks at how you responded to Aradia at Yoyogi Park. If you answered her questions with fear, you get the "Normal Demon Ending" which is kinda pathetic. If you answered Aradia's questions with courage, you get the "neutral" ending. So if you wanted a file where you could readily jump into the other alignments, it'd have to be before talking to Aradia, sorry. No big loss though, as the final dungeon and the bosses are the same across all paths, barring Musubi and Shijima leaving out their respective boss battles and the "Normal Demon" excluding the final battle. TDE adds a final battle that immediately follows the final boss of every other ending. It's much tougher than the rather weak (except for 1 attack) "final" boss that precedes it.

Incorrect on Grado. Every Ephraim battle is Grado, the peninsula where Fort Rigwald and Bethroen lay belong to Grado, and the Phantom Ship was Riev's lackies so it was being deployed in service of Grado (which in turn was in service of Formortiis) and in thoroughly Gradoan waters. The actual number of fights in Grado is therefore 6. Thats pretty impressive for an enemy nation. I'm able to excuse PoR because of Ashnard's abandonment, if it was questionable writing move. Bern... well Chapter 21 is one helluva battle, and technically you have been dwindling down the Bernese army in about every fight during the Lycia, Nabata-Etruria, and Ilia/Sacae arcs. Therefore, I think I'm able to excuse Bern, and although it is far smaller in size, Grust has the same "you've been killing it with a thousand cuts" logic to justify conquest in a single battle in the homeland. The gradual erosion logic might be able to work with Genealogy too, since every castle except Meath, Darna, and the entirety of Chapter 9 barring a contingent of reinforcements, consists of Loptian and or Grannvalian forces. If you use endgame Thracia for comparison, it takes Leif, factoring out the two gaidens, five battles to liberate Munster, and you could likely consolidate the last two- they're both indoors and the latter only exists because you need an epic-ish (the map, not Veld himself) final battle. If you applied this to Genealogy via imagination of the microcosmic war details the game excluded because of its macrocosmic scope, which is a hazardous proposition, then that would mean a ton of battles with Grannvale- albeit not all of equal size.

When it comes to SS, I love the Skyloft remix in HW (the original rendition is fine), Ghirahim is nice, and Lanayru Province had an interesting environmental gimmick while the other regions were pleasantly designed too. SS on the whole however isn't among my preferred Zeldas. I was a curmudgeon who didn't enjoy the lore additions of SS, honestly thats been a bigger issue for me than the motion controls, which I admit to never fully getting the hang of. I never finished SS, because I greatly struggled with The Imprisoned round 2 and as soon as I saw round 3 existed, I kinda gave up, even if I've long said I'd get back to the game. I hate stealth and feared the Silent Realm challenges for a long while too. I didn't mind the choice of SS to dungeonize the overworld, which is the opposite of Breath of the Wild, which made a sacrifice in dungeons for bigger overworld, albeit with Hyrule Castle being very cool and the Sheikan Shrines offering some dungeon-ish puzzling. Considering BotW could feel hollow, the direction SS went in wasn't all so bad, even if I don't remember loving it either. For the motion controls, I hope they make any fine adjustments that would be required for the Joy-Cons' motion capabilities compared to the Wii Remote's, otherwise they'd be even worse. Alternatively, I guess you could assign sword control to the right control stick and do away with the motion controls?

If you're talking about a story-wise silent protagonist who never really emotes anything, then I am willing to sometimes helmet them. It isn't like I'd helmet anyone with a personality. For everyone else however the people who talk in story and have personalities, I wouldn't helmet them, because the face is the gateway to the soul. It's therefore no wonder you never see characters in helmets at least for their artwork, without it, the differences between Lugh and Bartre are trivial. Not to mention that sometimes, the headgear really completes the set, like these:

The teachers, who were very nice and fun people, didn't seem to bat an eye at assigning it when I finally met them in the fall. Not all of us kids turn 13 and suddenly want edginess, sex and blood in the puerile sense embodied by things like Duke Nukem, God of War, and Shadow the Hedgehog. I wouldn't say I was immaculate, I was already exposed to SoulCalibur's Ivy and there were two gratuitous bath scenes I discovered in a GBA game. But I was still almost an angel, Tales of Symphonia's take on fantasy racism was as far as my mind had progressed towards complex understanding. As if that was not enough, I had to read in the same summer Snow Falling on Cedars. The book is supposed to be about Japanese internment camps during World War II and subsequent racism towards Japanese-Americans. But after the trauma of BNW, my mind got stuck on the love-making scenes where the guy's underwear becomes pointed and his wife says "now I know true beauty" in the middle of the copulation.

It was the second dystopian work I had to read for school at about the age of 14 IIRC, I hated it. My mind was of innocence only starting towards nuanced thought beforehand, the book's core premise of dystopia through orgies and drug use was extremely terrifying. If I taught, I would never assign it to students without an individualized understanding of their psychological progression into adulthood and awareness of sexuality.

That reminds me: Communist George Washington. I don't care for dystopian literature, makes me too depressed. --- Still having fun with old HW, although I did get burned on a few fights- too much stuff going on at once and I can't run and kill fast enough to get to it all. I noticed I had missed three costumes on the Termina Adventure Mode map. I got Cia's, but I'm concerned about getting Wizzro's. Link's I can't get to because I need an A rank on an adjacent battle, and I failed when I tried the Lana one- I surprisingly made it under the damage limit, but was four minutes over on the time. I blame the Book of Sorcery's lack of great crowd-clearing, if I try the Summoning Gate instead, I'll lose my great dueling abilities though. Also: Might be for the better that BotW2 doesn't, give it more time in the oven and wait for a happier world eager to receive it. Although for SS they're going to have be really precise with the re-tuning of sword combat for the Joy-Cons instead of Wii Remotes. I would probably skip it though, I never finished SS, and I don't feel too driven to. I dislike the lore addition of Hylia, barring a cosmogony and divine hierarchy where the Golden Goddesses having nothing to do with Hylia and they become impartial creator deities divorced from the concepts of good and evil. That said, I do like Ghirahim.

I skipped FEW myself, even if it has better gameplay due to bits of FE strategy being integrated and the absence of Giant Bosses and the over-reliance on Weak Point Smashes for damaging enemy officers. What HW has is the Zelda fanservice I want, FEW doesn't have the FE characters and fanservice I wanted but the broken armor models were unexpected fanservice I liked. No offense to FEW, I'd get the sequel if it added the right characters. I like Young Link partly because of my early childhood of OoT and MM, he in a sense reminds me of my ~4 year old self. And in HW of course there is the fun of his frequent Focus Spirit gimmick, he's the only character who can tap into more than maybe twice a fight, and the shift into Fierce Deity makes it play differently for him. And combining these two reasons there is something "Christ Child" like in Young Link I find, a symbol of purest youth and innocence, yet possessing almighty power. The inevitable imbalances aside (Fi would really like it if her C1 added Skyward Strike beams to her every attack), I agree. I can't say to have mastered every character- Horse!Link's endless momentum I can't keep under control, and Dominion Rod!Zelda is tricky, but at the end of the day, everyone from the simpler to the more complex is fun to use. From the sheer ease of Volga to the juggling of Agitha, I love them all. Hopefully when the sequel comes whenever it does that they iron out the kinks of the first game and expand the roster even more. While there is not as much room to grow as FEW, Zelda does have enough for one more game at least.

I felt like a Musou mood for a change, so I popped Hyrule Warriors back in for a little flashy brainless fun (I've still a few of battles in Adventure Mode uncompleted/not A ranked, but the ranking system is bad because of the damage taken grading is harsh). One of my absolute favorite characters is Young Link, for a sampling: Not my footage of course. I have a fifth of a desire to upgrade to the Switch's Definitive Edition for the 3DS character additions, but I'd much rather wait for an HW2. I'd hope it would include reps from the two Oracles and Four Sword trio of games.

I'd say just retcon Orun into a cousin of Hector, royals and nobles usually had a bunch of those that they weren't necessarily close to IRL. It doesn't surprise me that FE7 forgot he existed, because he doesn't have any dialogue or a portrait, because you never see him, because he dies before you ever meet him, because all his existence is for is an "it's a trap!" chapter for Roy. He is not a character. Could FE7 have made him a character? Yes. Did it? No. Is it a major loss? Absolutely not.

Uh, spoilers! Fix that for someone else.

The pinnacle of puzzling in Oracle of Ages, which is to say in Zelda in general, for the formerly titled "Mystical Seed of Wisdom" starring the Oracle named after the Golden Goddess of Wisdom, is appropriately one of the most puzzle-heavy LoZs. Back in the day, I had the Nintendo Power game guide that covered both Oracle games, I just used that for this. However, I believe I forgot the whole thing for these "color the floor" rooms when I replayed them years later, barring maybe the Cane of Somaria part on this one. Remind me, which dungeon is this in? If it's the last, I have an unfinished OoA file I could open to try and see how many attempts I need to solve this again. --- A fire and s'mores makes summer all the better, even in the era we're in. Mosquitoes making your legs tingle fifteen minutes in, not so much.

I wouldn't quite say so. Though a brute, he does show a good understanding of the ways of Lycian politics, not ignorance as one would expect. It's that and how he handles Uther's death- realistic-ish I suppose, if a bit rushed- that I find of value in him. That, and his existence improves Eliwood by adding color to the milquetoast lord and making reducing the need for him to be perfect. Hector can be the strength, Eliwood the regality, Mark the brains and Lyn the tutorial woman. This is different from say Marth, Seliph, and Roy, in whom the brains, the princeliness, the strength (yes, Roy has strength if that Zephiel duel CG is meant to be more than a parody) are all found in one, creating a lord of general perfection.

The mention of "Chickenheart" reminds me of this: The old GC Custom Robo memories come back. I never was very good, I couldn't evolve past gun spam, but it was still fun and I still managed to complete almost all of the Grand Battle Tournament Thingy. Real shame that Synaptic Drive imitation has no story mode or anything for single-player content. *Flashbacks to eeking out a victory there with Corvin hit-and-run special spam on Custom super easy* That was evil, but I loved the reward. Is that really the hardest Land of Challenge has to offer? What about the Tora-solo or the Dagamara redux?

When it comes to FE lords, I'm passionate about none of them, I find some nice aspects in a few, but the whole characters don't specularly appeal to me. This applies equally to male and females. I'm not the kind of person who usually cares about superposes with little or no reward- see my total absence of XC1 superboss fighting, and that I never took down Pharsis in XCX (I tried twice, but somehow it was harder than Endbringer and the HP regen below like ~33% was a trap). Still, congrats! From what I've read online, doesn't this thing just spam evasion invincibility arts All. The. Time? Sounds too cheaty and bothersome for a superboss for me to ever deal with.

Same artist I'm told -but I don't watch any anime. It didn't stop Corvin from unexpectedly showing up in my blatant hedonistic self-insert fantasies though. As the whole Rare Blade aspect of XC2 is non-monetized gatcha, it sort of befittingly leased out the character designs to multiple artists. Uhh... how can someone use this in a game not Abyss? Does this game actually have fonons?

Reminds me what I've read of Mega Man Battle Network sales. Sales there peaked with MMBN4, and then fell for MMBNs 5 and 6. This is odd, because quality-wise, 4 is generally considered by far the worst Battle Network. It could've been franchise fatigue, five-six more-of-the-same titles on the GBA is repetitive. However, you could see things as a matter of delayed reactions. Fewer people wanted to play BN5, because some of those who bought BN4 thought it was bad and assumed the same of BN5. That Episode III sales were terrible one could similarly hypothesize were reflective of having had a bad time with Episode II. It's also possible some games benefit from these delayed reactions if they exist, since MMBN3 I've seen praised as the best in the franchise, and that could explain BN4's sales. Doesn't always play out that way of course.

No, nothing besides the extra Press Turn on NG+, so you don't need to mess with them. Would've been nice if there were more rewards though, would a few gems and rare consumables, Macca, and a couple incense have been too much to ask for? They did state in a different interview that they had wanted to create an RPG franchise for the GameCube to fill in the genre void that system had. Namco did indeed fill that void ...with Tales of Symphonia. According to sources cited by Wikipedia, Namco wanted 500k copies of EWatLO sold worldwide, in reality Japan in two weeks bought only 80k and North America in a month-and-a-half 161k, so slightly less than half of expectations. Symphonia by contrast reached 575k between Japan and NA. Origins looks to have sold even worse, only 14k in Japan in the first week and it wasn't deemed significant enough for a European release. Comparing to Xenosaga, Episode I sold 240k in three days of release in Japan alone. Episode II sold 260k in total in Japan and an undefined amount of additional copies in the US, apparently this was just over half of what Namco wanted though. Episode III sold 181k in Japan alone and 343k factoring in NA and East Asian sales. So Baten Kaitos floundered even worse than the better-known Monolith fiasco. Either Namco had unrealistic expectations for what JRPGs could sell, or Monolith was making games that lacked widespread appeal -if the problem wasn't that were bad games😉. In whichever case, Monolith in this era was making beached white whales on two different consoles.

There is a key in the second Kalpa which unlocks the door to the Burial Chamber on the west side of the 1st Kalpa. In that room is the Black Visor. Using it, you can refight any boss via their gravestone.