Interdimensional Observer

Remember how Nintendo was charging people dozens of 💸 for cardboard? They should revisit that and up their VR for more mature audiences, a Xenoblade first-person headset experience could be immersive and relaxing. However, they must include a disclaimer that reads "WARNING! Fall Damage is real and you will NOT return to the nearest Landmark. Please use Nintendo Virtual Man responsibly in a hazard-free location." The fan translation left that attack's name untranslated, as they did all of them (so did EF1 official translation). They transliterated it out of Japanese characters into the Roman alphabet, but didn't go any further. But according to posters on that video, her second Overdrive- Senko Kou Sappo Ougi Koshu Fuu Rei- translates along the lines of "hermit fox assault kill principle inner mystery . fox master confining spirit" and the bold part in particular could be translated as "Sealed Spirit of the Fox-Lord". Yet, the real meaning behind the attack is not so esoteric they say. Drop the first four phrases, focus on the bolded three, and then do the following: Ko > Co Shu > Su Fuu > puu Rei > lei Co + su + puu + lei = cosupuulei She has a Special called Ougi Yomeiri no Kata (meaning "ultimate attack- marriage form") they left out of that video BTW. She transforms into the wedding dress, bouquet in hand, rises into the air, and out from under her dress gives the gift of bombs to the enemy and baguettes/cookies (I can't tell what they are) to her fellow heroes. A hurt and a heal before FE came up with its totally unoriginal Bride class in Awakening. Correct. Xiaomu is lively and usually funny. As her profile states, she is a 765-years-old Sage Fox (Chinese, in contrast to the villainous Saya as a Japanese fox humanoid) who hobbies include anime, manga, surfing the Web, and pro wrestling. The last explains the pile driver into a boxing ring ending her first Overdrive. Xiaomu's almost always at ease personality is in contrast to her co-worker Reiji's. Reiji Arisu is serious, focused, stoic, a straight-man, though he can crack a jovial smile and doesn't cut the air around him simply by breathing. Technically Xiaomu is his superior b/c he's a human of 23, but Xiaomu sets seniority aside lets Reiji take the lead. Reiji is willing to resort to spankings if Xiaomu misbehaves, which she once let slip to everyone she might actually enjoy.🙄 The two make a good duo, but I think Xiaomu is better half among gamers who know them, because she's the one bursting at the seams with character. As for the other playable characters in Exceed, if you're interested.:

I politely disagree on Julius -but I don't know much about Eyeball Eater. Though I'm not big on any FE4 villain, other than Travant. Travant got nuance, except for his treatment of Altena, that is the one black mark against him. Kingdom of Thracia's theme is an intoxicating favorite FE track of mine. Well thats fine. I'm not entirely sure of my own priorities of world vs. plot vs. characters. And don't listen to me, I'm a Hector sympathizer and a Florina critic. Can we agree that they shouldn't be wed?😉 FE4's cast isn't bad to me, though being pre-Supports (which aren't the be-all-end-all of characterization I shall add) is a major detriment. Yet Lewyn and Azelle are still good let's not speak of Gen 2 Lewyn. I don't think I love Tailtiu as much as others do, but I do sincerely like her character for the reasons you say. (Yes, I know thats Tine, but close enough.) Jin is good, though I've only played DW7 and WO3. I guess I could replay one of those for some fun battles with the meritocratic usurpers of the Sima clan in the absence of a good new DW. And because I don't overly enjoy engaging in- hopefully I keep it polite- criticism in a topic where I come to relax, mind if I use that bodysurfing mention to shill more Xiaomu? She's great, no shortage of charm.😁

I do not dislike Sigurd. However, I went into FE4 wanting to uphold him as some direction I had wanted a lord to take- one who saw war as a duty and did not dislike it, but was not bellicose akin to a barbarian. Sigurd did not emerge as this notion of a lord I had no real reason to tie himself to in the first place. My stance on Sigurd is that he himself is not very interesting. However, I consider the circumstances around him to be interesting and unusual by FE's standards. Compared to Roy, who nothing interesting around him, Sigurd is superior, but not on his own merit. Roy and struggle? Not found. Sigurd is thrown into guano and doesn't rise from it pristinely. Seliph is FE4's poor lord to me. As the story of FE4 collapses in the 2nd Gen, so does it lead character. Seliph expresses little emotion and is played as straight Marth clone, Sigurd at least was an imperfect Marth knockoff whose archetypal (not for FE) naive, loyal soldier behavior got him dead. Seliph is perfect, his life hiding in exile means nothing, he lacks Book 2 Marth's angry face. When Arvis is slain for Sigurd, I didn't do for Seliph's sake, but Sigurd's if anyone's at all. I can't feel for Seliph. However, I can feel for Leif, Leif is what Seliph should've been- a runaway royal whose life is appropriately shaped by his harrowing experiences. Kvetch as you will about Thracia's gameplay- I ain't talkin' about that- but Leif as a character isn't bad, held back by a few presentation shortages and no supports, his personal story is fundamentally good with a few moments that I'd say hold in script at least even now.

Anyone in here thirsty? How about... Or

It's hair dye! She bought it at the same late 100s-early 200s store as Guo Huai bought this: Mr. *cough coughhh* looks badass for once, what a shame someone is about to murder him. Speaking of characters made into blondes, I don't understand why Civ VI, a game that likes being historical-ish, turned Harald Hardrada of Norway from historically accurate blonde to brown, did the same with Pedro II of 1800s Brazil, and yet made Eleanor of Aquitaine blonde when paintings portray her as an amber.

One of the finest conversation sprites ever created. So expressive.

FordexEirika is still Eirika's best for herself I think. Forde does hog the show, and the almost-flashing is out there, but it's something that helps her. She should've stepped out of courtesy more later in the support- a greater insistence at Forde painting her portrait and helping rebuild Renais perhaps. Although it benefits the Green Goddess more than Sky Blue Solemnity, EirikaxL'Arachel is I'd say her second best support. Innes shows her angry for one line. Eir's worst is Saleh I'd say, the A talk can be seen as a prelude to their ending marriage, and I like the script on the face of it, but the entire support reads "Teacher & Student", not love. On Eirika's ending epithet of "Restoration Queen"- is it a translation error of the Japanese? "Queen" and "princess", according to Google Translate, use the same two Kanji in Japanese, their arrangement is all thats different. Or is Restoration Queen b/c Eirika is co-lord with Restoration King Ephraim, and they felt calling her "Restoration Princess" would be downplaying her importance? IRL, she'd still be a princess. Next chapter is Last Hope, the last challenging map of SS. Where the enemies can hurt like lightsabers. Not to say Chapters 20 and Final are bad. 20 looks cool, but it runs into Gaiden meets Genealogy meets Blazing issues. And Final is fine, just not spectacular or hard Lyon could use more AS.

I discovered on my second playthrough that you can have your fliers mount in the Mermel Caves fight. ...But they can only fly over the swamp and have to mount on a swamp tile. Like what? Does the cave have a giant dome 30-stories tall over the center and the rest of the cavern ceiling barely clears the characters heads? And what about the forest surrounding the Arch Mogall? How does a forest grow in a cave? Where does it get the rain and sunlight? Does the cave have no ceiling over that portion- but why can't I fly there then or maybe you can, I never dragged a flier over there? Mermel Caves is weird. The ~15 Necrodragons in the southwest corner would be Runan and the Water Shrine/Temple (I forget what term the translation picked). Holmes's visit to the Fire Temple is easy filler. Considering the Necros negate your Def, have AoE Breath, and move all at once when aggro'ed, I can see the problem for most players. That they can kill each other with their halitosis meant I had Leonie shoot and dodgetank them all gone except the one you need Runan's holy sword for. I will forever stand by 3-3 as one of FE's best chapters. It's fun okay okay it isn't hard and the narrative-gameplay integration is perfect.

The double swampass, the penultimate battles that aren't Fog of War yet are still mostly in the dark except for units, Chapter 18's summon spam + uber boss that self-destructs on turn 30- so don't bother doing anything but farming EXP here, Chapter 26 either version, and the lategame is a teensy bit of a witch. Kaga did drop status staffs and same-turn reinforcements, so I'd say TRS was actually better than Thracia when it came to evils, and the interlocking ballistae spam was reduced too. I might be as or more annoyed by the maps where Kaga designed... nothing really? The bad and tedious had an idea behind them, some maps had no idea or a weak idea behind them and felt meaningless: Plum's sent away to a dance academy chapter, Plum's re-recruitment chapter, Holmes's first fight after the second route split, and the battle inside the Fire Temple. And some fights, like Julius and Chapter 21, were "set pieces", which I don't mind by themselves b/c I do like RD, but were bothersome because it can sometimes be a struggle to find "good or trying to be good" battles in this game to offset the bad. On the positive side, theres Chapter 17 except for that, and the final fight on Welt, and Chapter 34 and it's "Wood Shooter Army That Rishel Turns Into A Mountain of Charcoal".😛 I still had fun with TRS.

Another Renaissance art tidbit- Florence commissioned a set of bronze doors for a baptistry, costing 22000 Florins, equal to one year's defense budget for the city.

St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, as it presently stands, took 20 architects, more than 30 Popes, and over 200 years before it was finished.

What currently comes to mind when I see the name "Gilgamesh": I never did a War Cart spam Domination with Sumeria. After another update or a few months passing, I should see if donkeys chariots of conquest is fun. Turns out a historical Gilgamesh did exist: It is generally accepted now – unlike in an earlier, less “sophisticated” time – that Gilgamesh actually did live and rule in ancient Mesopotamia. There are passing references to him (or at least to names very similar) in a number of non-cuneiform texts that have survived more-or-less intact. In a scroll found at Qumran known as the Book of Giants (c. 100 BC), Gilgamesh appears in the form of one of the antediluvian kings. In a Greek work by the Roman Aelian penned around 200 AD, he is mentioned as the successor to an ancient king of Babylon. Theodore Bar Konai, writing around 800 AD, lists Gilgamesh as last of the twelve kings contemporary with the Jewish patriarch Abraham. And fragments of a text found in the Tell Haddad digs relate that the dead Gilgamesh was buried in the riverbed of the diverted Euphrates by his worshipful Uruk subjects. And that’s about it for historical evidence of Gilgamesh’s life. So, back to legend, which is much more entertaining... *snip* Back to fact... well, maybe. In 2003 AD, a German team of archaeologists claimed to have found the tomb of Gilgamesh, in what was once the riverbed of the Euphrates, buried under the sand of the Iraqi desert. Magnetic imaging equipment, supposedly refined enough to tell the difference between dried sediment and ancient mudbricks, showed garden enclosures, buildings and walls of a palace that includes the demigod’s burial chamber. Military actions since have prevented any attempt at excavation, but it is a fervent hope for all that someday archeologists will dig up mighty Gilgamesh’s bones.

Yes, it's a more subtle manipulation I'd say. The Demon King is still in control, but Lyon is allowed to think he is. He can't see the gaping holes in his plans' logic- how does resurrecting the Demon King aid in his ultimate goal? He can't see that nor realize its very bad that it doesn't help, because the Demon King won't allow it. This remains better to me than Eirika!Lyon, the "Oh I was weak, the Demon King has seized control I can't do anything" is a more common possession trope, and makes Lyon something of a pity magnet. "Poor fool" describes Ephraim!Lyon better, whatever his noble intent, he is lost now, but unapologetic about what he has become. Forcefully possessed, but proud, which is stupidly hypocritical to be. I don't see an ingame reason why Eph!Lyon turned out one way and Eir!Lyon another, it's all because the writers wanted the divide I'd say. Soft Eirika gets a tortured boyfriend, hard Ephraim gets a resolved and talented friend turned foe.

XC1DE is an enhanced port at the end of the day. It has Future Connected, a graphical overhaul, a second version of the OST, and some gameplay tweaks, thats true. But I guess this game didn't have a big budget/spent it all on FC and the visual revamp. No real loss though. Dunban in Zeke-esque attire coulda been nice, Tora for Riki, and Sharla with Morag's hat, but it isn't needed. Save the fanservice battles for a brand new game I suppose, because a new game in general would be hype and adding intraseries crossover battles would therefore be hype on top of hype. A few of them shouldn't be bad- Shulk's, Sharla's, and Dunban's I think. Shulk's is no-battle IIRC and gives you a skill that refills his Talent Art whenever he get a Vision, which makes it by far the best. But the one with the giant spider UM with a Daze spike in staring contest with another UM and both are about 90 when the final boss is 82? Yes, that one is bad, the worst of them. The skill tree you get from it is... obsessively bad too.

*Starts throwing my all belongings in a volcano, and a kidney too* "Vulcan, mightiest of gods, may you forever keep Brigand Boss and Jeorge at bay!" Sorry, but one-off bosses, regardless of generating a few tears, opens a memey door that I'd rather keep closed. I'd throw babies in the volcano, but Schaeffer would be summonable if I did. Say'ri, Stabby Outrealm Merchant Anna, and Gangrel are approved by me as good choices. An OC is a bad addition to me, Emmeryn would've been fitting with Gangrel and Mustafa. Now if you excuse me, I have to engage in ritual cannibalism to appease another god I've invoked, I hope Septimus carpaccio tastes good. The only cloney thing is the moniker "Mad King". Ashnard is an ideologue who wants chaos for the world and personally loves struggling. Gangrel is a narcissist and a cynic, who would like to witness the sight of goody-goods suffering in Ashnard's chaotic world. But Gangrel himself I'd think has no interest in promoting chaos wherein he himself would be subject to struggle, he wants to live a secure life in entertaining pleasure.

I guess this is the way of the future, because DQXI did the same thing. I'm not sure if XCX2 would need to follow suit, it could and it'd be easy to transfer the code that presently exists, but your inventory is practically infinite storage in X, unlike XC1. If everything was organized so I could navigate the armor easily- sorted by manufacturer/casual, weight, and then color, I'd really like it though. This is it? It doesn't significantly stand out from the character's usual attire. I can see the difference from the norm I mean, but it's too boring. Stylistically, it does align with Future Connected Melia's new clothes. --- I'll disagree. Despite knowing a bunch of the games mechanics and secrets, and whatnot in advance, I still got tripped up on the Cross Knights (no promoted Lachesis here, and it's unreasonable the average player would- I wasn't willing to spend Valkyria on her), C8 Ishtar is a thing I got past only by a Chulainn!Febail OHKO. C8 Ishtar, those C10 status staffs, and C7 Istore, are all "old game rough patches". I'd say FE3 is easier actually. Book 1 is cake and Book 2 might start a bit difficult at times and has a couple late chapters of strong humans. But dragons are a very formulaic threat and some lategame fights spam useless thief reinforcements for no good reason. Dragons + dark magic in the final fights are old-school hurdles, not true difficulty. And Star Shards give you extreme stats for no effort. On Easy? Maybe. On Hard? No. Chapter 19 no-Warp says no to that by itself, add the Phantom Ship and Father and Son. The thing that most likely would turn a person off is combat from what I've seen. To some, it's brainless spamming of Arts- not enough interaction or strategy. Story and characters would be the secondary reasons cited for not liking it. If you enjoy or at least can tolerate the gameplay, and in the case of XC2 don't mind "anime" characters, you should be able to find enjoyment in the series. It generally gets nothing but praise for beautiful worlds and good music too.

That was a phrasing for "in my opinion". Leif has a good core story and he shows some emotion and development, thats a positive. Adding more dramatic weight to certain moments in his story would be very helpful- the abandoning of Tahra comes to mind. Because supports are... optional, you can't get them all in a single playthrough in a pre-Awakening game, and there are too many to pay attention to them all in Awakening and beyond minus SoV, ...a lord should get the majority of their development in the main story. You can't miss story development, you can miss supports.

It doesn't stop them from being good, if they are. They can't be criticized for bad supports if real supports do not exist in their game. No supports removes a counterweight to some extent in case their story development is bad. But if their story characterization is good, then it doesn't matter that supports don't exist. Leif in my mind is already a moderately "good" lord, he therefore doesn't need supports to be what he already is. But if Leif had supports, that -wishfully- could make him a great lord. If you wanted me to compare a lord with supports to one without. Then I would say if two lords are 8/10 in story, and one has supports and is an 8/10 there, and the other lord had no supports, then I'd pick the one with supports- because they have more of the same quality. A 10/10 story & 3/10 support lord vs. a 8/10 story no supports lord would be trickier to determine. Awakening's Series 1 DLC- the Einherjar old games stuff- is poor on the story side of things. As for its gameplay, leaving out the pay to win two/three maps: Champions of Yore is very easily doable ingame. Lost Bloodlines can be done easily too, but a few phantasms have appreciably higher stats that make the exact timing of when to do (on Hard, not Lunatic) this harder. Sometime into the Valm arc is feasible- but at the very start, or later? Smash Brethren ought to be achievable during the Grima arc that ends things. Rogues and Redeemers depends on how big your Pair Up katamaris are by the final battle. If they can roll up the Himalayas, you can do this without a grind. Series 2 DLC is mixed.: Scramble DLC is as doable as the Einherjar stuff. But, you come to these for conversations, not fighting, and it isn't worth it if you aren't using a cast of characters who can make a lot of chatter. Future Past- You don't need to use any of the parents/breed children to get the good ending here. I was able to achieve it on Hard on a females-only run where Chrom married Robin and I made zero other pairings. I say this b/c it means you don't need to waste time grinding up parents you didn't use in the main story. I forget the strength of enemies here relative to the maingame however. FP2 will be cake because Yarne and Brady are safe from the start, and Owain and Inigo in my experience will be faced with only enemies tailored to their base stats. For FP3, you need to 1-turn this map via Rescue, Dance, Pair Up, and Galeforce to win it with the unparented kids alive. FP1 is the one hard fight, because you can't Rescue Nah and Noire- IIRC the two girls who could be ORKO'ed over a wall by a bow or tome. You have to rush in units to block the spots where said over-the-wall murder could happen. Kjelle and Cynthia can wait for your salvation, the Risen attacking them are weak. Path of the Grandmaster is the challenge DLC, so I'd say do it, except for the fact that Apotheosis at a minimum will force you to grind, a lot. Spotpass Paralogues... Aversa's is cheesable, and Gangrel's and Emmeryn's should be doable. Maybe Yen'fay's and Walhart's too. Priam's is the big if. Leave out fighting the summonable Einherjar forces, or using them as units or buying their stuff- because Celica's Gale is too good among other things. For Fates, the majority of it is fixed maps, a benefit because it means you don't have to grind or anything. Heirs of Fate and Hidden Truths are feasible, but I'd say skip the royal tanlines. It'd be mean to force you to buy SoV's DLC, though the Cipher quartet are neat to play with. The Rise of the Deliverance is a maybe too b/c story and it too is fixed maps, yet it ain't worth dropping money for this thread. Ashen Wolves for 3H would give you more characters and classes to mess with in the maingame, and its maps are fixed. If you opted to do HoF and HT, then no reason not to do this. If you didn't do those, don't do this.

Contrast with her headstrong "lets take a castle we can't hold in a siege and then invade Grado Keep" brother?😐 I wasn't saying it was a good choice, only a choice they might have made. Think positive, maybe her Awakening DLC version will make you like Eirika. An Alm in the opposite direction. Agreeing with this. Hence me bringing up Hector. If your lord is good only in story or supports, you need to fix whichever isn't good for them. Theres no reason a compelling character in one place can't be compelling in the other Haar sadly failed this test, his two PoR supports are bad, yet literally everything else about him is awesome.

Rewatching some of them, I see what you mean, too short to put oomph into the windup or a satisfying "thud" into the impact. Slower can be more epic, the Black Knight's Eclipse and some the GBA crits come to mind- like Swordmaster and Paladin. Though, RD is spectacular with the high-rank magic animations I'd say. 3D games after RD have disappointed me in this regard, but it's hard to deny what they lack in flashiness, they gained in valuable utilitarian brevity. A zombie durian? -That was my first impression. But now I see it's a Dinobeast coloration and maybe a Telethia face on his chest, mouth open wide. The face could be more pronounced, make its color not the same as the green around it.

Maaaaaybe Lyon starts with the opposite tome of the two he has compared to Ephraim route? Thats a good thing for legendary weapon use, because Audhumla (the correct spelling of the Norse cow's name) has 18 Mt to Vidofnir's 15. The sword is stronger than the lance, unusual, if preceded by Durandal vs. Maltet. -But the +5 Hit & Crit bonus on all weapon use means S Lances is better 98% of the time. Forde! Forde! If you want something where Eirika tries to dance as an equal partner and with vibrancy, thats your best option. And by that, I mean that an ideal Support should try to be a real dialogue. Although you can get good Supports where one person does all the substantial talking (see IkexSoren) and the other responds with no more than "why", "yes", "I see", "I understand", the very best Supports should have its two members making roughly equal and meaningful contributions. Other criterion for ideal Supports exist too: good wording, a rich flavor be it humorous or serious, and character development be it backstory or present growth. To turn back to Ike for a second, I felt a lot of his supports weren't strong dialogues when I critically reviewed them. I thought I could excuse this on the grounds Ike gets the main story to develop- Ike being passive lets the less fortunate get their time in the spotlight. But perhaps this excuse is poppycock in retrospect; didn't abide by it. There might be one thing you're missing about Eirika though. Lyn was raised unaware of her minor nobility, on the freer if still supposedly misogynist plains. Eirika has been born and raised a princess, a princess who one might say prefers to stay courteous, well-mannered, and restrained. L'Arachel in response to this would say "Restrain? Blasphemous! I'm regal and refined and I loooooooove outward emotion!". And Tana, with a little less self-esteem, would shout "Seconded!" to that L'Arachel exclamation. Eirika doesn't have to be a quiet damsel to be princessy, but the reality is that she is, you could argue.

Had thunderstorms really late last night. My dog got freaked out, to the point of jumping into the bathtub for safety.

If you want them now, then here they are. The 2nd video uses a thumbnail of the final boss, who appears in both it and the 3rd video- if that matters at all to you. They ended the first video in the final battle's final strike too for a finishing flourish.:

Speaking of wallpapers, if you weren't aware, Nintendo has placed a bunch of XenoblaDE ones on that really needs an update service called MyNintendo. But you've probably a wallpaper folder comprised of enough Xenoblade screenshots that if each were turned into square foot rectangular tiles, you could cover the plazas of Alcamoth and have few a spares. I'll take some high-altitude Secret Location screenshots if you don't mind. You can turn off map animations altogether, but only on a second playthrough or beyond IIRC. It does help a tad- no motions on the part of either unit engaged in combat. You're shown words for the procs of skills and crits, and hits/misses and HP bars and thats it. If you grab a save file online, you can use that to skip the first playthrough for no animations right away. And it'd give you the full RD experience in one run- because two characters are NG+ only- so thats more convenience. The one thing not to do then is look in the ingame Library if you care at all about spoilers you already know- because that remains filled in on subsequent runs. There are three videos I could gladly post for you if you wanted to see all of RD's skill and crit animations afterwards. The game did a good job in the combat presentation department I'd say, not that it excuses the speed issue.

She does not appear anywhere else or nor is mentioned outside of supports beforehand. Syrene only leads... *rereads her profile description* the 3rd battalion of Frelia's Pegasus Knights. No idea if thats significant or not. According to everyone's favorite open to public editing online reference source, a battalion is defined as a unit of 300-800 troops (but I question if IS actually knew this). A quick glance of the internet suggests usually a country could muster no more 10k troops to a single battle in most normal situations in Medieval Europe, could be more in rare circumstances or the medieval Eurasian world outside Europe. So I guess a battalion could be significant, especially if it's (flying) cavalry. And I find Syrene to be undercooked not only in introduction. For she's the last playable character to join outside of Creature Campaign, and this is it? Her bases are comparable or worse than Seth's! I like my prepromotes, so she disappoints by not being a good one. She grows rather well, not Tana good but her stats mostly except Lck can compare to Vanessa's, but growth isn't very relevant this late. And where is my Gotoh?! Why I am stuck with a notable but not famed Pegasus Knight as the last unit? Gimme someone with some grandeur or magnificence.