Interdimensional Observer

🍆🦋🥑🍑🍿🤪 I don't care to see almost anything of this game before I buy, but this topic interests me. But what of the supposed legions of yaoi-loving females in Japan who Nina is one of? Who buy yaoi by the stack off entire dedicated manga shelves?

Would no Lithis would deny you those three green bandits in Chapter 4? Buy some cheap Door Keys and steal a couple of those high use Chest Keys, and I think one could get by without Lithis and just Lara. You'd have to work a little more for tomes too, since now you'd have to risk Capture for them instead of a no-RNG Steal.

I'm not familiar with what that would be. But he does apparently use "atashi" as his pronoun (a guide for this) in Japanese, which is distinctly feminine, which points to him being gay via being effeminate. Atashi doesn't have to make a man gay however, Devdan uses atashi as well, and it might just be there to make him more gentle, whimsical, and carefree. A small handful of Kyza's "Support dialogues" hints at his gayness however, even in English.: If the game text uses Kysha, it would mean you're playing the European version of RD. PoR names Lyre and "Kysha" in the LethexRanulf support. RD US version either forgot or intentionally changed Kysha to "Kyza", and RD European changed it back to Kysha. There are a few other US to Europe name changes: Dheginsea became Deghinsea Astra became Astrum (yeah a European mistake) Hatari to Hatary and the Halberdier promotion went from being called "Sentinel" to "Lancer" The Physic is real good in the Bargains section, you don't obtain too many of these in RD. The Beast Killer is nice for Sothe, against Laguz its great (though use the Trade command with someone else to swap it for another weapon if you intend to have Sothe tank in this chapter, death by three maulings due to a Beast Killer crit or two is not good), and the Crit bonus makes it good even against Beorc. In PoR, Corrosion can deplete no more than 10 uses of a weapon, (level + 20 if promoted)/4 was the formula. In RD, it was improved to deplete uses equal to the user's level, no division involved. 2nd tier units have 20 + level, and 3rd have 40 + level. A base level Titania is stripping away 36 uses with Corrosion, enough to shatter a lot of lower durability weapons.

The 2nd Gen feels less connected overall to the main story than the first. This can be attributed to the variability of the mere existence and paternity of 14 of its units. The 1st Gen cast is fixed in full, and hence is overall more memorable and defined.

I wasn't considering the cutscenes, but you're certainly right on that point. Although XG's opening is certainly something of a "huh?" given the random naked lady at the end, and none of what is shown there being explained until well into Disc 2. Going for plain-old 2D animation was a better choice than 3D stuff. From playing FFVIII, I think I can say XG aged better than that too in this specific aspect, even though graphically in both cutscenes and character models, VIII is a gigantic improvement over VII. And I'm a little uncertain about whether he is the only descendant, that would further cut down on his specialness if he wasn't. My impression is that everyone or at least a sizable number of individuals from the Leftherian Archipelago could have been Addam's direct descendants. M&J picked Rex for the tomb mission because he was an active Salvager about whom it could be easy knowledge to determine his place of origin, but I don't know whether they could have known his exact lineage. Though I think M&J could have bribed/coerced/kidnapped a bunch of Leftherians and had each try to break the seal until one of them finally worked. One might make the case that Torna makes him more special, because Mythra's vision of him. But that'd depend on how one defines "destined hero".: Does simply foreseeing him, when she can foresee a whole lot of other things, make Rex destined? Or does being being destined in this case require being prophesied, which Rex is not? But if prophecy is required to be destined, Fei isn't prophesied either. In the sense that any prophecy about him is not divinely sent from above, but simply a prediction that he could be highly important at the given moment. Must prophecy be divinely sent? Although Fei is still more special than Rex even if you don't consider him "destined", or you label both him and Rex as "destined". Since it's impossible for anyone but Fei to have his special powers. You have to be Fei to do what Fei specifically can do in full. Others have very Fei-like powers, but nothing exactly like him in form or measure. While Addam provides at least one case of somebody not Rex who could use Mythra. Addam never mastered her, but there is nothing that technically could have kept him from using her full power, provided both overcame any psychological baggage. The only thing that might at all suggest that Rex to be the only Addam descendant could be his dead parents. If that was somehow relevant. But I think that was just more a typical anime trope without any regard for the Addam lineage. It's easier to let a kid run around the entire world with a nearly naked girl swinging a giant sword, risking life and limb for breakfast, lunch, and teatime, if you've no family alive, or only a laissez-faire secondary relative like an "aunt".

It was just me saying the narrative was what got the attention of the Xeno team, with the gameplay not being a high priority. Xenoblade on the other hand was Takahashi stepping back and doing something less ambitious, taking more of a gameplay-oriented approach. -It's based on a vague recollection of mine of an old Nintendo Power interview he once did before XC1 released. Sadly though, I don't think NP issues are archived online, it might have for a day, but was then forcibly taken down. My small comment on the visuals also speaks for itself. If they had gone the pre-rendered backgrounds route Final Fantasy or Chrono Cross or Legend of Dragoon had taken, they would've withstood the test of time better, but pre-rendered has some minor issues of its own. Hope you know what Legends of Localization is then. That's a good mine for bad transrations. I do draw a difference between FE and non-SRPGs however. In FE, you can expect not everyone to be plot-relevant, when the smallest game still has 32 playable characters. Your standard JRPG is different however, in that you typically have not more than 9 characters. If most of the roster feels irrelevant to the plot in a typical JRPG, it is worse than a typical FE, since ideally, a typical JRPG could make everyone relevant to the end. Not equally, there will usually be central characters with more relevancy than the others, but everyone needs some well-executed extent of relevancy in an ideal world. Despite having only seven characters, and Riki being intentionally (and thankfully?) irrelevant from practically the beginning, XC1 still had issues making everyone fully relevant. Sharla and Reyn needed a certain someone to show up to keep being relevant when they were fading out, and that somebody doubled as filler until Mechonis was finished. XC2's main non-gatcha-lite cast found itself able to support mostly everyone, but Dromarch is sorta just there by the end. Once everything comes to light, goals of the big players is generally apparent. Since things get a little rushed at the end, it can be possible to not understand everything completely, but the gist of what each villain wants can be grasped. Lora is quite down to earth, and defiant of the images that tend to be cynically associated with the phrase "anime girl". Fully dressed, 30 instead of "18 or 1000000 but looks like 14", no sudden from the start infatuation with the main male, no amnesiac/mysterious damselism, no special powers she doesn't understand/can't control, whilst not being a cool and sexy femme fatale either (and "cool" is Elma's gig). Lora is very ordinary, but in a good way.

Is this one the spear lord? Plot twist that he his real name is Bhairava Nataraja and he manifests the Pasupata during a climatic moment, stabbing Byleth through the heart to reap their soul, and states they plan to use it to destroy the world to pave way for its rebirth. Dramatic, no? Similarly, Claud is Rama Narasimha, and Edel is Durga Shakti. Byleth in truth, is the victim of three angry deities, taken to mortal form. With dragon loli and that sword pawns of the fourth angry deity. Or alternatively, the name change to Dmitri would be because the real one was assassinated while on the latrine by schemers seeking to benefit from his death. However, the powers that would benefit from Dimitri's continued existence create a lie that he just fell ill, and then later find somebody who they make to look exactly like the real Dimitri. This False Dimitri grudgingly agrees to feign as the real and dead one, a disguise that works for years, but as a matter of principle, False Dimitri his name modified to rub out the first i in nonofficial circumstances.

Xenogears is the epitome of a flawed masterpiece in gaming. One can see everywhere it works, and when it starts crumbling, you get a good idea of what was supposed to be there. Which makes where it crumbled all the worse, if only they had more time and resources. Besides developmental issues hindering the game, it has a few minor other faults to it.: Setting aside the era's now-dated visuals, the gameplay is secondary. Whereas Xenoblade prioritized a making functional gameplay (though it has received its share of critics, I'm Switzerland on the matter) with a simplified story, Xenogears is story first and foremost, particularly towards the end. It's a real simple Active Time Battle turn-based system. Takes a little inspiration from fighting games, but not as much as Namco vs. Capcom/SRTOGSEF/PXZ would, nor as the contemporary to XG game called Legend of Legaia did. Esoteric jargon is another issue. Particularly later on, you get a lot of fancy terms thrown around, and a lot of lore history to keep in mind. If the game had a glossary to check this over with that unlocked and updated as the game progressed, it wouldn't be so bad. But it doesn't have that. Translation constipation. I just picked a word that rhymes with translation, there aren't any symptoms of constipation with this game. But, the translation isn't up to modern non-NISA/cheap Switch visual novel standards. Not FFVII bad, but given the complicated plot the game tries to tell, this is a little bit of a detractor. It's to be expected of the era, the mentality of "video games are just for kids so who cares about the plot?" was only partly broken here. The main protagonist, Fei Fong Wong has a lot development. A little complicated, and I can't quite find a single sharp moment when he changed amazingly for good. Shulk, Elma (who is already matured and doesn't get development), Rex, and Lora (who sadly exists only for a tiny DLC prequel), are nothing compared to Fei. Elly as the heroine is certainly second fiddle to Fei, but she isn't particularly bad or anything. I like her, I think I prefer Mythra in Xeno heroines, although I haven't access to Xenosaga. I do like Elma too, and Lora. But Elma has the issue where I'm uncertain whether she'll retain the center of the stage in XCX2 and if she does, whether her development puts her under the butcher block and forcefeeds me her stuffed small intestines. Although after Lora, I'm more optimistic that might not happen. The rest of the cast has a lot less importance. A fine but distant third wheel, a fourth who grounds the plot for a long while, a character who the idea of matters more than the character themself, and four others. The cast is bloated, and have little reason to exist in the long run, but aren't grating in any way. Villain-wise, not to say too much, but the game develops an elite group of the highest evils. Each with a very different flavor to them, willing to work together for a common interest, but of radically different goals. Besides these, you get a slew of lesser baddies, and the entire matrix of these is sorta nuanced. You won't know the true aims of anyone until very far into the game, so the game leaves you wondering for most of it.

Two NHs are good, even if I'm not excited about 3H. Would the next GQ be the 3H world? The timing of it seems appropriate. Who would be on the Close Def and Savage Blow Focuses?

Infinite Space hasn't clicked with me yet. I like it, its gameplay is a bit simple, but it isn't at all offensive. The plot is starting slow and relatively aimlessly, despite this being what I'm aware of as its greatest aspect. As a result, I haven't played it that much. I should, I don't dislike it or regret it. The game feels like it has big ambition, but the choice to be on the DS forced it into a tiny prison from a presentation perspective. Execution isn't poor, its hits its head against the ceiling without a concussion, bleeding, or compression of the spine. Had it been made on the 3DS, I think it it would have much benefitted- a lot more voice acting, far superior graphics, maybe a little gameplay complexity. I decided to try a New 2P Map in Super Famicom Wars, one which was primarily naval without Airports. Naval battles were always terrible for the AW AI, it always build as if things were a usual land battle, not devoting much effort to constructing naval units. The SFW AI (as Yuan Delta) is much better actually for sea warfare, despite being a much older game. It still makes the folly of building some tanks, but it focuses primarily on a good mix of Battleships, Subs, and Cruisers. I attempted to seize the southeast island, only to lose it and then be forced into a semi-precarious position. I did emerge victorious however, for the AI cannot handle a two-front war and entirely failed to stop me from taking the northwest island it had seized before. I did not play with Fog of War either, meaning the enemy Subs were always visible to me in this game (though never targetable by Battleships). And, the AI still displays some stupidity, put a Sub in enemy Cruiser range, and they will bite, even if it means biting it to Battleships on the next turn. Subs are even stupider, they just blindly move ahead, even if it exposes them to destruction by Cruiser. I'm almost finished with Thracia 776, I delayed from a bit of burnout at Chapter 22. Getting back to it, I should have just Warpskipped, but I didn't, nor did I get the boss's Blizzard and Restore as I had wanted to, not that I actually needed them. I semi-Warpskipped the fight once the reinforcements got out of hand however, I couldn't survive their re-moving onslaught. Chapter 23 made me delay only for its random Loptian Mage reinforcements (and why no Rewarp on them like so many beforehand, did the Welkenrosen run out of cash?), and not knowing when the Thracian Dracoknights would move out. Chapter 24 was very easy due to Wrath on Linoan with Nosferatu however and plenty of Silence I had available. All I have left is 24x and 25, I could easily finish the game in an hour if I wanted to, I just have my perpetual tendency to leave games unfinished to contend with. Persona 2 Innocent Sin has likewise been affected by my incomplete gaming problem. After a dramatic high which I poured myself into making into my LP, I just haven't gotten back to it, even though I know I shouldn't have that much game left. And while the above two things have happened and I should get to finishing those games and XC2, I have nonetheless cracked open another game, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition. I mentioned to somebody GameStop had it on sale, and they insisted on getting me a new game, against my words saying that I didn't need one. I am enjoying it however. The bosses are rough though. I'm playing blind, thinking I'll just do an unblind run with Grade Shop bonuses maybe later. I can get a sense of why people like Yuri, not a donkey like Luke Part 1, and neither naive nor edgy shonen. @Armagon Just felt like mentioning if you hadn't seen it already, but Monolith has reported a 99% increase in profits compared to the prior fiscal year. This, despite Torna being the only game they released in that time.

I thought I had this problem, but then I did a simple recalibration and it was fixed, for now at least. My Wii U Gamepad however, does have the problem. I think it is dependent somewhat on what you play and how you play it. A major contributor to my Gamepad's problems was Xenoblade Chronicles X and the ability to Sprint being locked to pressing down on the left control stick. I haven't by comparison played anything that would be so rough on my Switch, though if I had Smash, I could see that being brutal on it. I haven't a need for a Switch Lite. This in a way undermines the hybrid console premise of the Switch, but it does make marketing sense. I'm this weird person who doesn't take my Switch with me places, but likes handheld mode so I can watch TV at the same time.😛 The Yellow is interesting choice, but the Turquoise is my favorite color of the trio presented.

I decided that since watching BK/T LPs was fun to watch one of this. A smaller, but still solid collectathon, not a 10/10, but an easy 7, maybe 8 if you like it. No bosses, thought Rocket's arsenal doesn't look suited for it and a tough platforming level is a fair replacement. Modern Mario has realized when combat ain't your forte, more platforming is better for the finale. Never made it to the final two worlds. The Pyramid Scheme is disappointing aesthetically, the worlds before it looked better, and it just isn't creative at all. The Food Fright was a good idea, albeit I wish for more, I do of all the worlds. Which brings me to something I've realized now. Playing SMO, I felt some worlds, even the bigger ones, seemed too small. For one, I wish New Donk City was bigger. But now seeing some old golden origin age collectathons again, I see things haven't changed that much. And given Banjo Tooie, size isn't all that matters after all. Wanting more because you love what you got, doesn't mean more would have actually been better in practice. Eyes bigger than the stomach should want to handle. -I haven't watched the Spyros though, and I expect they'll be on the bigger side if a few memory fragments serve me right. I was considering maybe getting them on Switch release though. Same sense of surprise. For a knowing player, you have to only swap over to Mumbo once, maybe twice per level. And you only need Wumba once a level. On the other hand, you've five Kongs and five Golden Bananas each per level in DK64. Underlined- You'll have to add a three hours for not getting enough Battles Crowns and the Rareware and Nintendo Coins, despite completing the Hideout. Are there hints you have to do these before you get to that door? Italicized- Doesn't that undermine the entire premise of 101%? Reminds me of a GameFAQs argument I saw once where someone said they had 100%ed A Link Between Worlds, but hadn't gotten the Giant Cucco. I mean I can understand leaving that and the Shadow Link battle challenges out of "100% speedrun", but at the same time, if you are truly in the most absolute sense a 100% master of the game, I don't think you could leave the Giant Cucco out. Bolded- I'm reminded of the Crystal Caves Golden Banana where you need Chunky to smash through an ice wall near the entrance. And then you have Chunky in the level learn his Character Pad ability. You go back to the place where you smashed the wall, activate the Character Pad with Chunky, and shazam! The Golden Banana is right there in front of you. I think I need to watch an LP of this game now.

I just watched a 10 minute clip cooly explaining it and a whole bunch of other controller designs. It had to do with options, not mutating three hands. Center and left grips could be used for certain games with a certain style, those where fewer face buttons were needed, but aiming/moving could be done simultaneously via control stick and control pad. Center and right grips would be used for games that needed all the face buttons. The problem is few games used the left-center combo, Sin and Punishment is the only one that notably did I think. It also said the original Playstation controller was going to be flat and look just like the SNES's controller. But then the grips were added by a designer, who the Sony board overruled, who got overruled by the Sony president because the grips made a statement about the system. The original Xbox controller, in its massive size, was because the controller's motherboard was really big and had to be worked around. The choice, which started for Nintendo with the GameCube, to make the two control sticks not aligned on a horizontal axis, may have been done because, it is more natural given the positioning of the thumbs on a controller. Lastly, no gaming controller is actually that ergonomic. The ideal ergonomic controller is not at all the standard controllers, but ergonomics isn't everything. But I'll shaddup now.🤭

Maybe as a sop-up to all the Pokes without Gigantamaxing? 🤷‍♀️ So you don't make chardonnay when Gigantamax Charizard is a thing, and Stanler is left to rot in obscurity again?

Fair criticism, I hadn't thought of that. Though since I had a mixed sports banner in mind, no overlap of the same event, and I imagined such a banner to be a one-off, the samey problem I thought would be avoided. A little personality could still be injected via the color schemes, but I see what you mean.

Thanks for reminding me of that. One of the better chapters of OT. Be sure to save a spare for a Maribelle alt! Or just wait for her to come in a yukata on a pegasus with a Parasol Axe.

From what my limited memories of it say, I think it was just a plain old linear 3D platformer. And I decided to watch LPs by the same very experienced player of both Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. I see what you mean about the size of BT. If you know what you're doing, BK's worlds for the LP I watched could be completed within 20 minutes apiece, except for the last one. This could be the result of the "must collect all 100 Notes in one go" aspect. Or maybe just because it was Rare's first try at a Collectathon. BT however, the only "fast" world was the first, if you know what you're doing. If you don't, I can see a lot more time being wasted and going back and forth. Albeit not as much as I'd think DK64 had, the game I've read as being the turning point against Collectathons. Maybe BK is too easy, too small, and too quick, but BT made getting Jiggies look drawn out. SMO was too generous with the Power Moons, but too generous I might prefer over too sparse. I noticed that the charm in BT might have been lessened too. For instance, Kazooie and Banjo always traded words with Bottles when learning a new move. Jamjars just dictates the moves to you, no rapport with B&K. The lack of random Gruntilda rhymes throughout the game is another charm reduction. A particular criticism of BT- those FPS segments. Ugh, I know you made the N64's great FPSes Rare, but did ya have to throw FPS in BT? Watching an LP set to double speed made the three segments (Mayahem, Glutch, Industries) look bewildering. They needed a map on the screen so you don't get lost. The shark in BK still scares me all these years later. And what is it doing in Rusty Bucket Bay?

I don't get why people are so opposed to Sports for alts. Swimsuits are just as modern. Designated swimsuits (as opposed to plain old underwear) go back no further than maybe the 1600s, and what everybody is wearing in FEH is a mid-late 20th Century phenomenon. Halloween as in FEH is no ancient Celtic festival either. Swimsuits are accepted, because we already have them as commonplace, I'm not sure if there is any other reason for it. As long as specific real world brands aren't being referenced, so no Nike swoosh, I do not see the issue. If everyone can pretend the FEniverse has nylon, a 1930s scientific invention, then they can pretend a slew of sports got invented in the FEniverse. And that swimsuits exist is why I dislike the excuse they gave years ago why the TMS crew can't be in this game, but that is besides the point.

My condolences. As someone whose dog died a little over a week ago, (he was 15, it was inevitable, but he was healthy until it just came late at night), I can sympathize to some extent. This is much worse than that though, since this was by no means of natural causes.

And I think Fates did pretty well balancing strategy and favoritism. Conquest at least. The game has so many options for allowing for favorites, and not just through playing a lower difficulty or Casual or grinding them up. If you grind BP and VP up some, that gives plenty of awesome goodies for favoritism. Skill buying is dangerous if you give into it too much, but you can restrain yourself to a lone not-so-broken skill or two, it's fine. And although these small adjustments will lower the difficulty, Conquest Lunatic can still be challenging. Some would argue "it's a sad thing you have to restrain yourself for difficulty", and I can understand that. But I don't think these restrains are ones you have to go out of your way to put in place. Nor do they make things tedious when you're operating under them. This is by no means a No Sphere Gird No Summon No Customize No Overdrive Final Fantasy X run. And then there is the children characters. In gameplay, I don't like the Awakening children for being 12 Ests, but for Fates' children, I love their flexibility! Unless your name is Shiro or Ignatius, there aren't problems recruiting any of them no matter when you play their maps. If you love Soleil, you can get her nice and early unpromoted. But if you're like me and would rather wait for an investment-free Bow Knight or Hero later on, she can be that too. Trainees or awesome prepromotes, your choice.

Catch and release works on them? I didn't know that! Darned, I coulda saved them then and met with sweet little old Anna later down the line! I'll definitely have to go for it on my next run. Xavier and the Member Card will be mine! Are you aware of the reposition add-on for the new translation? It helps, if not as easily usable as FE6 and beyond repositioning. You can still apply it if you want to.

Xavier is love. Xavier is fun to recruit. I just find something funny in a map which is easy, and its only challenge comes from recruiting a character and the Member Card, but that is so not worth it. Xavier stands just north of center of the semi-symmetrical map. He is the axis mundi of Chapter 18. Fortunately, he didn't kill any of his underlings for me. I baited them all out to the west side of the map, and then far from Xavier, had them one by one put into slumber with the Sleep Edge. There is a weird thing where allies can't talk with sleeping enemies, but NPCs can. The Leonster Armors must be selective sleeptalkers. Just space out the Leonster Armors, and as long as you don't accidentally kill them while trying to give each a slash of Sleep, you'll have a relatively safe and easy Xavier recruitment solution.

The Alcremie (I like the wordplay) Gigantamaxing reminds me of an old Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars boss battle: Can someone please make Pokemon fanart of this now? With two turtle Pokemon replacing the chefs?

It ideally should be. And Thracia 776 Remake ideally should have three options for Fatigue- Full Fatigue, Fatigue Lite (SoV or something similar), and No Fatigue. Sadly, FE doesn't always allow that, I admit to that. I cannot discount that some units with a good coefficient or Wrath (which I bring up because it is like the coefficient) are genuinely great. Namely: Orsin, Halvan, Brighton, Fergus, Asbel, Shiva?, Mareeta?, and Pan?. Weird. My units got hit too hard too often for what hits they took that I thought them fragile. And enemy hit rates took a lot to drag down to make them comfortably low for me. As in double Charm, Supports, constant fielding of Glade in outdoors battles, and use of Forests, mostly for Ballistae in this case. As for Def, it took massive Scroll stacking on Fergus, Leif, and Orsin to get them to cap Def later on in the game, which still had no use against those pesky Loptian Mages and their Jorgmund. Don't get the impression I'm a Thracia apologist or anything. It is just it being my most recently played FE that makes me willing to engage in a little debating of it.🙃

Some minor and not so minor general issues concerning Thracia 776's quality of life: That should help. If you were to consider to FE3 by any chance, I'd recommend skipping Book 1 if you're looking for challenge. Maybe do a few B1 chapters adjusting to the game, but then jump into Book 2. It's overall the better and harder of the two parts of the game. There is nothing substantial lost by skipping Book 1. For Binding Blade, Hard Mode isn't unlocked by default, but even on Normal it can be something of a challenge. If you want to increase the difficulty a little, opt for leveling Shanna and Thite more than Sue and Sin, since that sends you to Sacae instead of Ilia later on. Sacae might be easier to traverse, but its enemies are little more, if not hard, then fast at least. For Blazing, you can try playing with Ranks in mind, you get nothing for it, but . An optional feature in 4-7 and 12, its diabolical in 4&5, so I hear, and its cake in 6&12. But Ranked FE7 on Hector Hard Mode is difficult, yet I think sorta fair. Ranked in FE7 involves managing five statistics: EXP, Tactics, Combat, Funds, and Survival. EXP- The amount of EXP you earn. Encourages using weaker lower level units and taking your time. Tactics- The amount of turns you take to complete chapters. The fewer the better. Combat- Your ratio of wins (battles where the enemy was killed), to battles where that didn't happen and battles where your units died. The more wins the better. Encourages using strong units and weapons, and not boss abusing to grind. Funds- The total of your current Gold and the monetary value of all your items. Encourages not spending money (unless you have the Silver Card, then you should spend all your Gold, but not sell anything), not using powerful weapons, and not using promotion items and stat boosters. It encourages using the risky Arena too, since that generates Gold from nothing. Survival- Just don't let your units die, resetting and reloading doesn't count against you. Units not recruited don't count against you. Ranked has inherent contradictions, the biggest is Tactics vs. EXP. Lower turns encourages strong and fast, but that'll kill your EXP Rank, but if you take too long with weaklings, your Tactics Rank takes the hit. Ranked involves balancing the two opposing goals, if you play with the rank you get at the game's very end in mind, you have to have to decide which battles you'll lean towards EXP on, which for Tactics. You'll have to decide what you can leave to your strong core to clear the way to victory, and what you feed your rotating lot of weaker units to get EXP. Funds is a side goal during this, making sure you snag enough stuff to hit your target. The indoor flooring tiles in FE5 I'm certain were copied by GBA. And some of the weapon sprites certainly were as well. The Killer Axe in 5 became the GBA Brave, the 5 Iron became the GBA Silver, the 5 Hand became the GBA Iron. And the Hammer and Poleax were left as is. It confused me a little. I'd say your overestimating Fatigue, most physical combat units should be able to go 2 or 3 battles before getting Fatigued. Unless you're taking on hordes of reinforcements or tanking ballistae dry (aka Karin admittedly for me, rarely anyone else). Staff units can easily burn out after one fight if you're not careful and using those higher rank Staffs though. As for the bolded, FE units are both characters to enjoy and means to an end (beating the game). They contradict each other. If you could use everyone as you liked it painlessly without consequence, that bodes poorly for how the game's strategy must be. Strategy requires making some choices worse than others. Hate all fliers with a burning passion? That should hit you when playing FE. If it isn't at all doing so, then what is the point to fliers? What makes them any different from anyone else? Whats their unique value? But, then why doesn't FE make everyone faceless and generic unnamed nobodies, or use stock art and names for everyone in a class? Like Final Fantasy Tactics generic playables? Why not this if units are just tools to win maps with? FE ideally finds a balance between these two opposing forces. And whilst Fatigue might make some complain about using their favorites, Thracia does have Scrolls in its favor for favoritism. Not sure where I'd rank the cast in terms of being balanced, but mostly everyone is usable (Ronan, you're an exception). I myself by large divorce personal liking for characters against their usefulness. I'll try raising a few I like, but only if they're not hassles. Otherwise, utility is all I care about, I can play FE without actually knowing who characters are and it's no problem. I've never read a word of anyone from Fates, but I still enjoyed the games. Appreciating characters takes place off the battlefield as a side activity with its own separate rewards. I think you overestimate it. Lets count how many of each coefficient level: 0- 6 1- 22 2- 6 3- 7 4- 4 5- 6 Less than half the roster has a 2 or above, and I don't consider 2 to be at all consistent Crits without a Crit-giving weapon. Only one-third is 3 or above. Only six characters can have Wrath too factoring in the Wrath Manual. Three of whom, Sarah, Miranda, and Xavier, are likely not to use it very much if at all. Orsin happens to also be one of the units with coefficient of 3, so he doesn't expand that pool. Wrath and the coefficient have in common something you're also ignoring, that these can't activate unless a hit comes your way. Dodgetanking is possible in FE5, but it's not always easy to make it super consistent, and units tend to have low Def compared to Str/Skl/Spd. To rely on Wrath and the coefficient requires a reliance on dodging, hit taking, or controlling everything into player-phase combat where you can eradicate all dangerous enemies in a single turn. -But this is just me and my recently-obtained opinion from a first play. I'm not the only voice that matters or exists on Thracia.😅