a bear

Mrs. Bear is from 30 minutes west of Pittsburgh, that's about as close to being a Pens fan as I get. Go Jackets Go (incoming Pens sweep) Super surprised by the Bruins tonight. Like half of the roster has never played in the postseason, McAvoy has never played in the NHL at all, no Krejci, no Krug, no Carlo, Colin Miller takes a knee (came back though), and no shots in the 2nd at all. Thank Tuukka for Tuukka. Huge confidence boost for these kids. Also props to Lundqvist for the Habs shutout. Perfect teeth, nice smell, class act all the way.

SHAME I SAY

Caps/Leafs is gonna be excellent with all the Leafs meltdowns. Shame on the Pens for losing on Saturday. oh snap I need a TV

Pretty great for anyone intending to use Mia anyway, especially since the next best thing to help her evasion is Largo. They did have Ike/Mia in Radiant Dawn's unused special support list though, and I think the two of them pair well despite Mia being a gimmick character. At least that'd be a chance to flesh her out more.

I'd say that an avatar is only truly an avatar as a mute, as one should generally lack definition outside of what the player desires. That begs the question: would people prefer an avatar who never speaks but is spoken to, like Mark and Kiran, or a customizable character like Kris, Robin, and Corrin? edit: Actually, forget Mark and Kiran. Neither are shown very often nor can be customized, so they're really name tags more than anything else. But DO consider your character in recent Pokemon games, in Monster Hunter, Xenoblade X, Elder Scrolls, and like every other game under the sun that isn't Fire Emblem as examples of actual avatars instead of customizable characters.

I love having an avatar, they're fun. Best writing solution is what everyone's saying: have them as one of the regular units whose story involvement is limited. Have players pick their starting class like Kris and your avatar's personality or backstory changes depending on what you've selected. Fighter? Rowdy street rat from the capital. Mage? Know-it-all noble from a foreign land. Wyvern Rider? Loner/defector from the evil wyvern rider empire. Something like that. No special class, no chosen ones, no sacred weapon, no spotlight stealing or heaps of unearned praise. That's what Pokemon's for. As for kids, just make Bond units a thing between all of your units instead of only other avatars and you've got the gameplay of Kidz Emblem with none of the fuss. fake edit: Ike is in charge because (almost) everyone respects Greil's decisions, even if they don't agree or understand it. Also Greil gets an awful lot of praise in the beginning of PoR for a guy with only two super unimpressive on-screen fights before Volke's infodump.

Boyd: 10. Consistently enjoyable and probably my favorite support character. I completely disagree with the Ulki support criticism, it does a good job taking Ulki in a different direction from his other supports. His A with Mist is my favorite short support ever. Rhys: 7. The Titania one is meh. Mia's is okay if just for the ending. Anyone who ever tried playing as a healer in an RPG can empathize with him in Kieran's. The Rolf and Ulki ones are all kinds of sweet. I think it's pretty refreshing to have a young adult male as the frail medic who actually needs help all the time, so I'm down with how things pan out here. Shinon: 8. Shinon's always a breath of fresh air from everyone else's idealism and camaraderie. Even the only two people who seem to like him aren't safe from his attitude, and he manages to pull off the hidden heart of gold thing without it feeling like we're just going through the motions. Only thing stopping him from a perfect score is how there should've been more supports, like something with Titania where they build that begrudging respect despite not getting along well. Also negative points for Janaff being Janaff. Fuck that guy.

Ike: 8.5. "I'm perfectly happy being boring." Ike not saying much most of the time makes anything profound all the more impactful, and you get the impression that he's always listening to whoever's talking. He still manages to get some primo dialogue out of whoever he supports with (sans Oscar), not unlike with his story dialogues. Helps that most of his supports make direct mention to the main story. This is how you write a main character's supports. Titania: 7.5. I really like the idea of Titania's supports with Ike and Mist reflecting on her pseudo-stepmom position, and Boyd's is great as usual. Rhys starts okay and goes nowhere. Poor Rhys. Oscar: 4. Ike's is boring and Janaff's just makes Janaff look like an asshole and Oscar like a chump. Tanith's is sweet, I'm a sucker for matching polite and dilligent gentlemen and ladies. Kieran's is fine, if only because Kieran. Beefin' with the most inoffensive weiner around and whatnot.

I've never liked having one of my units as a safety net/babysitter/EXP toilet. Things are more thrilling when it's locked into sink or swim mode.

Compare Ike, Boyd, Mia, Jill, and all the other Tellius young adults with actual athletes in high school and college. They done good. Especially impressive considering how often every writer under the sun seems to completely BS a character's age/height/weight. Little Mac is 17, 5'7", 107 lbs., and has the same body as a shorter RD Ike. The height's fine, at least.

"Serene's" out of habit and fewer syllables Also Planet Zebes = Zeebs 4 lyfe

I think of it like Cincinnatus with character development. She reclaims the throne from invaders, stops the internal rebellion, grows from scared girl to confident woman, and finally, after the realm is safe and the option for a suitable inheritor (the ONLY possible inheritor really) presents itself, she gives away her throne out of humility, respect, following her heart, what have you. Even with an ulterior motive of doing something else for her own sake (since I imagine this would only occur in the context of an A-ranked support that conflicts with her position), it takes a lot of character to just say no to that kind of power. That's why I don't see it as derailment, at least if she makes that decision with 100% confidence that she's doing the right thing. And I think the Crimean people would respect and admire that from her. Their faith in both her and Renning makes accepting such a decision entirely believable. As for Ike, I can only deduce that IS was thinking along the lines of cowboys or other wandering heroes who vanish after saving the day, their main task done. It still assumes Tellius would never know strife or conflict or war again and for Ike to consider that unacceptable. And takes a dump on his traveling family that we're constantly shown to be truly inseperable (and who apparently still doesn't disband in every other GM ending). And comes out of nowhere with no room for follow-up or clarification. Might as well have just said "Ike died of illness 6 months later, BUT LEGENDS NEVER TRULY DIE. The end." (yeah, I don't like the Ike ending much)

Is anyone actually suggesting she might abandon Crimea? The only scenario where she severs ties completely is if she leaves Tellius forever with Ike, which is a silly ending even without Elincia. Still, she can serve her country without being in Melior or even within Crimea's borders.

I figure it works either way. Both are talented and beloved leaders, both have valid reasons to accept or deny the throne, both are humble enough to let the other rule. It'd basically be Renning honoring Elincia's wishes to follow her heart, whatever she chooses.

What's wrong with renouncing the throne? Renning is super qualified and the original heir. Elincia wouldn't go back into hiding or leave forever like Ike or anything, she'd just have more freedom to help Crimea some other way like Ike and the GMs. It's a pretty simple way to allow the player's decisions actually affecting the outcome of the story -- not unlike saving a certain prime minister, though far simpler and without one option clearly being preferred. It's also a more interesting way to write a variable ending for a character than the 3DS style of "put sentence A next to sentence B" where nothing actually changes regardless of who's paired with who. edit: oops, hit post like 5 seconds into writing this, gotta finish now

Renning is in fact Tom Selleck. Just needs the Magnum perm. I always felt that Elincia and Renning's ending options could've easily had her renounce the throne to him so she could live a life of... well, anything. There's a lot of talk about how great of a leader Renning is and even more in both games about how Elincia doesn't seem to really want to be Queen, so it would've been nice to let that manifest in some of her endings. Also I like how both characters are hidden from the public to avoid succession crises for the other. And here I figured Bastian was just trying not to get anyone's hopes up about curing rabies.

Signed up to the forums just to give 1000 props to Kirokan for translating these and everything else under the rising sun. Seriously, thank you. Also I didn't truly appreciate The Shark until I saw that he has the biggest list of characters he refuses to attack in RD. He also makes Ilyana a better character by proxy. Is good guy.