𝐅𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥

out of curiosity: while we have different "era" sections on the forum with their own games sub-sections( to be more specific, from the GBA to the 3DS ), there's also generic and separate sections for the NES/SNES games and the past-3DS ones. now, the questions are: wouldn't it make more sense to have about 5 different sub-sections for the NES/SNES titles, like the other "era" sections have? same goes for the Switch titles: would it be possible to regroup the other games such as Three Houses, Warriors and Tokyo Mirage Sessions in a new category( Switch era ) with its own sub-sections for each game? i do believe i've read something about the changes made to the older sections before, but i can't really remember where's that source of infos. not sure if it was about overall space available, content organization or other reasons. in any case, i'd rather prefer to have more organized sections for each era/title, rather than having merged/separate ones, but that's just me.

let's see... Dark Souls - Artorias Totaku + poster: Left Alive Day One edition steelbook: Posters of God Eater 2 Rage Burst, FE Fates & Echoes: and of course, my FE Amiibos collection: i actually have a couple more steelbooks of FE Fates and Code Vein, but since they're pretty much "default" items that nowdays get paired up with preorder/limited/day one/whatever edition, they're not really that unique. not sure if i should have included the Saber statues from Fate/Stay night though.

i decided to make some conversation/battle backgrounds out of my latest work:

here's something i edited recently:

i don't know what softwares you're using, but you're using them really well if you can make short clips like that. you know what, you just gave me a blast of nostalgia. i just reminded about some very old video from Newgrounds, maybe you could check it as well if you're into sprites and animation: in any case, considering what i've seen so far, i would probably be way more interested into watching a fan-animation involving Fate's characters, rather than FE. that's just me though.

...holy shit. this kind of quality goes far beyond traditional sprite animations, it's almost like watching a visual FX animation from Ufotable. well, to be honest, those animations give me way more "Fate/stay night" vibes rather than anything else related to FE. anyway, if you take a look around here, you'll see there's plenty of talented artists lurking around, even though some of them may not be much active. same goes for FEU: to my knowledge, there should be many artists/spriters over there as well. as for myself, i'm not really into animation, but if it's about editing characters portraits and/or basic battle sprites, i can do some stuff.

in case of FE1/3's promotions, it's always been all about utility vs necessity. then of course, the same logic could be applied to other titles as well. basicly, it's one of those games where there's no means to safely increase each character's experience without taking risks( arenas and/or enemy reinforcements ), so promoting a unit was( and still is, in some cases ) all about if it was really needed. to make an example: a priest that could gain access to tomes upon promotion could eventually take priority over a mercenary that doesn't get much due to being locked to swords only. that's also what made the early games quite unique compared to the latest titles, since you had limited options and you had to choose between playing it safe, or taking risks for additional rewards. then, the trend started by Sacred Stones( and to some extent, even Gaiden before SS ) eventually led a portion of players to just grind exp by killing enemies/monsters around the world map in order to cap their character's stats however/whenever they wanted. for better or worse, it's a matter of points of view: it made things overall easier for everyone, but at the same time it took away a layer of difficulty from the game. in my opinion, FE3 at least has managed to mantain its own charm through the years, to the point it almost looks like a GBA game in terms of graphics. Shadow Dragon, on the other hand, hasn't really aged well and it looks more like a remaster that tried to further improve the mechanics from the original, but wasn't really needed to begin with. it is an archaic game indeed, mostly for people who really like retro games, or that are simply interested about the origins of the FE franchise. i would suggest playing it at least once out of curiosity, just to see how it all began. otherwise, FE3 would be a good alternative with even more content to offer( basicly, it's 2 games in 1 ). although some mechanics may differ from the original, it's still a decent game nonetheless.

i said "additional weapon" because as i mentioned before, in Gaiden it doesn't have that much impact story-wise. it feels like it's just a plot device that was put there to complete the game, nothing more. although i don't think there's anyone to blame for that, since in the NES era the space available on cartridges was very limited, therefore there's a chance that they just couldn't manage to expand the Falchion's backstory any further than what it already was. at least they did expand its lore in Echoes, wich was already a huge step forward. perhaps you missed the fact that i was speaking about Gaiden, not Echoes. there's no such weapons in Gaiden, the only exception being Gradivus(actually named Gradius in Gaiden) wich is also obtained from Duma's temple. ...wich actually makes me wonder: would that Gradius eventually be the same Gradivus spear that Camus was wielding before? if so, how the heck did it manage to end up down there in Duma's temple? or perhaps it was just another variation of a previous weapon? but in Echoes it was indeed renamed Gradivus, and was still found inside Duma's temple... time paradox? ...Mila's Turnwheel? .....Save state reload abuse?

the Falchion in the original Gaiden was actually the hardest weapon to get in the final chapters of the game, probably harder to obtain than the treasures hidden in Lost Woods. you had to face many traps and choose between different paths with Alm's party on the way down to the Falchion's room, while leaving Celica's party fighting off monsters in Duma's room. not much was mentioned about it in Gaiden and it was more of an additional weapon, rather than being an integral part of the story like it was in FE1/3, where there was some lore behind it and you had to obtain it by defeating Garnef. to be honest, Alm's shield was even more memorable than the Falchion in both Gaiden/Echoes. not only because it was a nice visual upgrade after promotion, but also because in both games, during the last battle, he drops it down like a badass before jumping on Duma's head to deal the final blow.

on a side note: there's also people that rather than using always the same units on every single map, they tend to switch them around depending on the terrain and the enemies weaknesses, in order to make things a bit easier. then, there's also people that temporarily bench units already capped at lv20 before getting any promotion items(usually the lords, if they get exp boosted from early game). that way they can play and level more units through the game, eventually increasing the potential of backup units in case someone else dies. as for Karel/Harken's recruitment: in terms of rewarding good players, i think it might have made more sense if they were actually swapped the other way around instead, but that's just me. in the end, it's all about points of view. there's really no wrong or right choice.

i guess the trends are what they are: trends. they come and they go. the other 3 lords probably deserved more attention though, as the game isn't all about Byleth. at this point, i guess it's obvious that Byleth has become the face of 3H. mind though: the face of 3H, not the face of the whole franchise. there's always other characters that could be way more popular and likeable. thing is, not everyone cares about spinoffs such as Heroes, or TCGs such as Cipher. Smash Bros basicly being "Videogames: the videogame", means that it's pretty much a rollercoast between trends and popular videogames characters from different franchises in&out of Nintendo's property, so they ended up compressing what they could from 3H into one character. well, i just found out that there's actually two different existing amiibos of Chrom, so i'm kinda...baffled: while they're both nice(although the 2nd one on the right looks more like a detailed bootleg copy of sorts), i honestly don't know why they decided to release two different versions, rather than making a re-run of the previous one like they did with Marth/Ike. at this point, i'll just keep my fingers crossed for a Genealogy remake, along with a Sigurd amiibo.

currently playing on PS4 and GBA: God Eater 2 Rage Burst, Fire Emblem Blazing Sword. before GE2RB, i played with GE Resurrection on PS4, and i gotta say the game surely has changed a lot since its original version released on PSP, because they added tons of new features and other cool stuff. too bad the online of GER is pretty much dead, as the game isn't exactly new and can be completed solo without issues. not sure about GE2RB's online though, as i haven't checked that out yet. GER is surely a game worth giving a try in case someone is interested in titles similar to Monster Hunter, with the difference that GER actually has different story arcs through the entire game, and the visuals are anime style. i'll probably move on to GE3 once i'm done with GE2RB. maybe i'll even make some video showcase about gear builds, who knows. as for FE, i'm still in the middle of my marathon, and it's surely going to take a while before i manage to replay and complete all of the "canon" titles from the franchise. at least i'm finally done with the games from the NES and SNES eras, so that's already 5 titles off the list. Thracia 776 has been the hardest of them all so far, while Genealogy has become my new favourite. gotta be honest though, switching from SNES to GBA titles made the gameplay look way easier than i remember. probably the overall difficulty from the older, more "hardcore" titles changed my point of view and approach to these games. i'm playing Eliwood's NM route at the moment in order to refresh my memory, but i plan to replay all 3 routes in HM as well to see how it goes this time around. as usual, Hector didn't disappoint so far. almost feels like playing with a Jeigan unit disguised as a lord. i will move to Binding Blade once i'm done with Blazing Sword.

it surely has a FFT vibe to it, wich is nice, and the artworks are well done too. looks quite interesting, i might eventually give it a try in the future.

thing is, if you're playing to fullfill some specific requirements, it's a given that the more your lords are boosted early on, the better it will be in the long run. now, Hector has always been known to be a beast from the get-go, but Lyndis and Eliwood will surely need some babysitting before they actually get good enough to survive on their own. once you reach the speed cap with Lyndis, you won't really need anything special as long as you use Slim swords. those are very useful for both dodging and critting too. you could eventually give her Guy's Killer sword for better critical chances on tough enemies. Eliwood is kind of an hybrid unit though, so he might need some more time to become decent. he's not as tanky as Hector, and definitely not as dodgy as Lyndis. using Ninian's rings also helps. actually, using bard/dancer all the time helps a lot, especially if you play by exploiting enemy weaknesses and the weapon triangle. i honestly can't remember, but if it's lords we're talking about, chances are you will eventually have to reset due to gameover(wich can become quite frustrating due to time wasted), or loose your money in case of withdraw(wich will in turn lower your funds for stuff/units you will probably need later on, making things overall even harder for you). money and items sharing between active/benched units is quite important regardless of difficulty, so unless you already have a lord with capped stats that can actually survive and get kills on his/her own, i'd rather not take the risks mentioned above. you should probably try to not overuse them, since they're rare and have limited uses. those weapons are more suited for killing bosses, rather than farming enemies whenever it's possible. it's alright if you want to use them on some tough enemy unit once in a while because the situation demands it, but it would be wise to save at least about 10 uses for each lord's weapon, in order to have enough tools available for defeating some bosses with armored/beast weaknesses. out of the three lords, Lyndis is probably the one that will benefit the most from his own signature weapon due to overall better double attack/critical chances. Hector can eventually one-shot armored units, but his accuracy isn't that great against other enemies. Eliwood pretty much gets the short end of the stick, because he doesn't have the strength of Hector, nor the double attack/critical rate of Lyndis. he's basicly there to support others and leech exp until he gets good/promotes.

well, too bad my pc sucks. playing that on PS4 with maxed out graphics would probably have been a blast... thx for the info anyway.

to be honest, i haven't checked that because i'm currently playing with other games and i'd prefer to keep my current routine as it is. besides, playing on NA servers from EU means lag spikes every once in a while, so i'd rather avoid investing my time in PSO2 for now, and keep waiting for further infos on New Genesis.

one of many solutions would be to actually give all your stats boosters only to the lords that need them. example: in Lyndis's route, all stats boosters go to her. same goes for Eliwood's route and Hector's. and if they somehow manage to hit their stats caps on their way to lv20, even better, because you'll eventually have more items to share around characters. at least that's what i did before, and i'm doing it again in my current run of the game with no issues at all. you could do arena farming too, but unless you're playing on an emulator with save files, i'd rather not recommend it due to the high risks of ending up with a bad match-up and getting blown away. it's probably wiser to let someone else lower the enemy's hp, and then let your lords do the final blow for a safe kill. less risks of resets, and better survival rate for the lords in the long run. also, try to abuse the unit's weaknesses whenever is possible. Mani Katti, Rapier and Wolf Beil are always the best tools for farming enemy units like armored or mounted knights.

being from Europe, i'm kinda stuck at the moment. but i don't think the community here cares that much anyway, otherwise this discussion would've been going for some pages already. anyway, i've been watching videos about PSO2 regarding classes, skills and gameplay mechanics in general on youtube for a while now. although the game may look old as much as a playstation 3 game, the gameplay is actually quite impressive for its time, so it seems to me that it has aged very well. if New Genesis will be released globally on multiple platforms in 2021, i'm probably going to give it a try. PSO2 is also the only mmo rpg/action to my knowledge that allows players to make not only over-customized characters with accessories and stuff, but also fully detailed Mechs, wich is sick considering all the action-based combat involving rifles, guns, grenade launchers, etc. gives me a huge Armored Core vibe, wich is nice considering that AC has pretty much died after the PS3 era. like seriously, these examples of custom Casts are hype as hell. they're pretty much like a nod to Zone of the Enders, and i'd be more than happy to craft one myself and play with it: