The Roger The Paladin

If I were a betting man, it'd be a character who can't support with Peri, who has a distinct tendency to bring out the worst in support conversations (Xander is already two different characters between Birthright and Conquest, but even Conquest Xander thinks with his crotch when dealing with Peri. Hell Leo thinks with his crotch when dealing with Peri and he's supposed to be the smart one). Which narrows the choices. So options left include Gunter, Rinkah, Sakura, Azura, Hana, Subaki, Saizo, Orochi, Hinoka, Azama, Setsuna, Hayato, Oboro, Takumi, Reina, Ryoma, Scarlet, Shura, Elise, Effie, Nyx, Camilla, Beruka, Izana, Fuga, Yukimura, Flora, Mozu, Anna, and any of the child characters presuming she is not their parent. Laslow also manages to have one of Peri's non-offending conversations... so kudos to him. Looking at the list... and leaning off memory I'd say Nyx probably is a likely candidate. She's got an interesting backstory built through the supports.

Doesn't really feel like it. There's a bit of screen crunch, sure. But I feel the game's pretty well built around it most of the time. But then again, the fact I've basically only played the game off the Super Game Boy does mean I've only experienced it in colour and on a TV screen... which means my experience might be... unreliable for someone playing it by more normal means.

I imagine you don't have a Super Game Boy. It makes a world of difference. Then again.. that probably has coloured my perception of the game.

Oh right. Haven't got round to a proper run through of Dread yet. Been kind of distracted lately.

I can't remember them for the life of me. The only thing I recall getting a rise out of me the whole game was when I screwed up and died on the Diggernaut the first time I fought it. Then again my memory is hardly infallible. So maybe I'm glossing over them in my mind.

Considering Mercury Steam developed both... I wouldn't consider that surprising. As for the items... well that's merely a matter of backtracking when you do. Not too sure about the skill. Because I don't remember anything being too hard to pick up in that game. But then until Dread was released it was the last Metroid I played. Mostly because I played everything else before it was even announced.

I'd be seriously weary about playing the original. Because the original aged terribly. Like it feels primitive next to Metroid II: Return of Samus... let alone compared to Super that improved on that in every way to the point Metroid II also feels outdated. Speaking of the 3DS remake of Return of Samus, while not perfect or very similar to the original in gameplay... is a pretty solid game itself... and also has a mechanic that help avoid bomb everything to find secrets incidents.. and one that's less intrusive than the X-ray visor. But I have to warn you... the Aeon power I'm talking about makes finding secrets just a little too easy. Fusion was eight years after Super Metroid and primarily put out when it was because they wanted a traditional Japanese developed 2D Metroid in case people didn't like the US developed 3D Metroid Prime. It was also the first Metroid game to try and focus on a story... which meant sacrificing some (or most) of the non-linearity of the original and Super (not II, because II is very linear) in order to keep story beats from being encountered out of order. Which resulted in things that worked in previous games not. Usually, there's multiple paths through the game depending on the player's abilities.... whereas in Metroid Fusion... should you attempt to sequence break the one time you're given the seeming opportunity... you get this instead https://metroid.fandom.com/wiki/Sector_4_conversation#:~:text=A secret conversation can be witnessed in Metroid,Sequence Breaking%2C one of few possible in Fusion. Irony is, I remember an issue of Thor from the 1970s that posited the story of Little Red Riding Hood was loosely based off an encounter between Idun and Fenrir. Whether that's based on the actual origins of the story remains up for debate. In fact I'd outright considered it a flight of fancy on the author's part because I can find no evidence of a correlation beyond said issue. I'm now forced... by seeing this, to consider whether the writer knew something I didn't, or whether someone else happened to have read the same comic.

I just remember there being rather tedious about setting up for a second try after doing it. But that could be wrong. So even a couple tries could get old fast. But I think the last time I went through Zero mission was 2018... so my memory mightn't be the best.

Hi again. Definitely been a while. All said, I do think Zero mission is a good game. Perhaps in many ways better than Super. Though it does have some tricky shine sparks if you want 100%. Besides the X-ray visor is a bit into Super.. and it's an actually annoying mechanic to the point I have a slight tendency to go off memory rather than use it if I can help it. Because I've been through the game a few times at this point. I think the irony is I like Super's lack of direction, because it means it has a lack of cutscenes/dialogue for the majority (though not the totality) of the game. Because I've found when you replay games a lot... you do start to get to a point where you know and skip dialogue/scenes to get back to the gameplay.

True... but Super in it's defense does also have the X-ray visor. Which makes it a bit less guess work. Still not great. But it does give you an idea where to bomb or missile once you get it. For my money starting with Fusion isn't that bad. It was my first Metroid and I ended up owning the whole series... except Federation Force. Because you know. Then again, I also bought the game for 5 bucks pre-owned, and ended up with Metroid Prime shortly after for the same price... and really got addicted to that one for the atmosphere... and then bothered to go back and finish Fusion which I left sitting around the first encounter with the SA-X in the meantime. So maybe my experience doesn't count.

Besides that, Metal Slug is also SNK's most successful Franchise bar KoF. Also while we're at it, let's not forget SNK bought up the rights to ADK's franchises when they went under in 2000. Including the World Heroes Franchise... whose characters have continued to appear in SNK's works as recently as SNK Heroines. Aggressors of Dark Kombat has likewise proven hard to get rid of due to a couple guests in Neogeo Battle Coliseum (Much like Marco from Metal Slug and no less than 3 World Heroes characters). Also a lot of ADK games made it onto the Neogeo Mini's various incarnations in 2018 (World Heroes Perfect, Magician Lord, Blue's Journey, Ninja Masters, Ninja Commando, Crossed Swords, Ninja Combat Aggressors of Dark Kombat, Twinkle Star Sprites). That's a good 9 games (out of 15 total for the Neo Geo, and a good 3 of the remaining are just earlier World Heroes). So my other, less obvious, choice to have an SNK rep is to have someone from World Heroes just on the grounds that also represents the defunct ADK, who have no reps whatsoever while adding a second SNK character.

8bit overlord's hidden in an 8-bit stage in a book in a secret room. Basically you open the book, then you get warped to an 8-bit area called "8-bit nightmare" or something of the like. Also don't forget you can take a certain book from the library into the icy caverns where you fought Gremory, and a certain room turns into a boss room.

Quite aware, as I played the games as they came out. I'm a bit of a Castlevania nut after all, and a pseudo-Castlevania (like Master of Darkness on the Sega Master System for another example) inevitably attracts me. Only game in the whole series I haven't played is Chronicles on the PS1. Because I can't find a copy... and PSN didn't have it here.

The mode where you play him can be interesting.. for a mode that kind of gives you a slightly more limited moveset based off what he does in his bossfights and on the train, and no items. But yeah, in the Curse of the moon, he starts off as a basic revenge oriented character, yet by the second game he's a different person. As for the church in the series... it definitely has a purpose. Given that it's goal is quite evidently the removal of the demons unleashed by the Alchemists, as evidenced by Zangetsu's working for them as a demon hunter. Considering Zangetsu's backstory being of him being from Japan, I imagine the church is otherwise just a cipher for the Catholic Church, but I could be wrong.

In a way, it's a matter of never learning my lesson. Though it has resulted in some... interesting cases of overlevelling for sure. You tend to get a ton of experience when you manage that kind of thing after all. Castlevania Circle of the Moon pretty much ended up sequence broken that way. The optional ones are a bit.. out there. Two of them might seem familiar. Mind, I was nuts enough to go for 9 of every shard (except, you know, boss shards because I wasn't doing 9 new game pluses) on that difficulty where you're stuck at level one. Didn't do no damage though. My patience has limits. One of the optional bosses actually had the shard I found most useful, barring the mandatory ones.

Bloodstained?

That takes me back to Final Fantasy XII, and my compulsive need to try fighting everything I see. Cue getting Tyrannosaurus Wrecksed by the dinosaur style enemy in the Estersand area. Because the fact it was a giant dinosaur with a red for danger label on it when targetting wasn't enough warning it'd one shot me. I'd like to say I learned something, but I kept coming back periodically and trying to come up with a way to cheese it until I got the gravity spell... and actually cheesed it despite it STILL one-shotting me at that point. The extra characters by then made a difference. It'd get one, and I'd get it. As such I learned nothing and still have a tendency to pick fights with enemies way out of my league in games with a level up system. Mixed results. Sometimes I exploit a mechanic in a turn based game or just plain skill through something in an action RPG... other times I get a reminder that I can't always win. That said, every time I do manage it, it's magical.

Guess I never caught up. Sorry about that.

Fallen Edelgard forcibly upgraded me to Amazon Prime and made my orders arrive in a day of purchase just to ruin my weeks of anxiety between order and pickup. Oh the humanity.

Fallen Edelgard defecated in my toaster.

Fallen Edelgard framed @DragonFlames as a vampire, then proceeded to rig the RNG to hit @Saint Rubenio with 1% crits constantly.

Well, looks like it was fun while it lasted. Also, there's some irony Sherlock's death initiated the softlock... given, you know, the last half of his name.

Mind, if you really want to complain about frame-rate.. the Super Nintendo PAL version of Clayfighter exists. I know it's made using stop motion, but could the game have any less frames?

My reaction was something more akin to "What's the point?". How do I plan my moves with this zoomed in?