lenticular

The original Rogue, from 1980, is the first one I can think of. Or if you venture outside of video games, I think that Dungeons & Dragons has had it since its inception (1974).

There are several units who do largely the same sort of thing as Lapis but do it better. She's not only "worse Kagetsu"; she's also "worse Chloé" and "worse Merrin". But I've just named three very strong units and being worse than them is no bad thing. I ran her as a Wolf Knight on my (unfinished) Maddening run, and she was one of my top performers. Notably, daggers are light enough that they completely eliminate any concerns about her weak build. And the Brodia characters are the lowest effort reclasses in the game, since they arrive ready to promote and before chapter 11. I think she's good enough to deserve a solid 7/10.

With the benefit of hindsight, it should have been there right from the original Famicom Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. It's a popular feature that a lot of people like, that increase accessibility, and -- importantly -- has no impact at all on people who prefer not to use it. Without the benefit of hindsight, I'd say they got things about right. They started off with the design intent that people would play ironman style, then when they noticed that people weren't doing that, they tried various different workarounds or incentives before coming up with casual mode (and later time rewind) as a solution that works.

Welp, it's unpopular opinion o'clock, I guess. I can't speak for Heroes since I don't play it, but when it comes to the Emblems in Engage, Mirages in TMS, Einherjar in Awakening, etc, simplified characters are not only inevitable but desirable. There just isn't enough dialogue for the legacy characters in these cases for them to have anything close to complex and nuanced characterisation. They get a few lines at best, which can be used to maybe convey a single character trait if you're lucky. Trying to convey the full breadth of Micaiah's Radiant Dawn characterisation just wouldn't work in Engage where she's so much less prominent. And if the writers had tried to pull together all the disparate parts of her personality, she'd just come across as a muddled mess. And the answer isn't to add in extra dialogue to give room for extra characterisation. Doing so would make the games and their stories feel bloated and unwieldy and would take focus away from the new characters who are supposed to be carrying the plot. Basically, when old characters reappear in new games, they typically aren't actually supposed to be characters in the full sense of the world. They're more like paintings or dolls. There's just enough there to be vaguely reminicent of the character and to trigger nostalgia for their fans, but nothing more than that.

She has a great magic stat, but that's about all she brings to the table. Her other stats vary from average to bad, her personal skill is largely worthless, and the early-mid-game recruitment time also does her no favours. So, what can you do with just a great magic stat? Not too much, really. She's perfectly fine from chapters 7 to 11 if you haven't much been using your earlier mages (or they turned out badly, or they died), and if you do want to use her long term then she'll be reasonable, but I can't see any way to get her beyond "fne" and "reasonable" without an undue expenditure of resources. 5/10. (And since it came up, I personally don't consider any bond ring to be sufficiently reliably obtainable as to plan around, so I will be rating under the assumption that they aren't available. That's my personal preference only, and I absolutely think it's reasonable for others to rate differently.)

Fallout: It's not going to happen, but I'd really like to see this go back to being more RNG and less action game. From what I've heard, similar comments probably could apply to Final Fantasy, but I don't know that series well enough to say for sure. Pokémon: I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned this already. It's hardly a hot take to say that Pokémon games have been growing stale and formulaic. Personally, Gen VIII killed any remaining enthusiasm I had for the series and Gen IX did nothing to get it back. I'd personally love to see a complete reboot of the series, where nothing is sacred. Kick out all the old pokémon, the old type chart, the battle mechanics, everything, and just reimagine the series from the ground up as if it were being made fresh today. Which is the unlikeliest selection on my list of unlikely selections, given just how much money the franchise still makes in its current form. F-Zero: Another choice that is far from a hot take. It comes up in pretty much every discussion about dormant Nintendo franchises for good reason. I don't even really care what they do with it. They could do basically the same as the old game but with modern graphics, or they could turn it into an RPG, a rhythm game, or a battle royale. Whatever. I don't care. I just want them to use the franchise again. Sim City: It's now about a decade since the last (disastrous) Sim City game. And yeah, Cities Skylines now occupies a whole lot ofthat particular niche in the market, but I have to believe that there's still a lot of value in the Sim City brand. If I were in charge of making it, I'd aim for something with a little more flash and more focus on graphics and presentation than Cities Skylines has, sacrificing a bit of the depth for a bit more casual appeal. But regardless of what direction they chose to go, it would be great for the health of the genre to have two big name games competing with each other.

My memories of Luftrausers can be easily summed up: I played it a bit. It was fun! But it was hard and I was bad, so I stopped playing. According to Steam, I got 6/12 achievements in 3.8 hours and last played in 2015. That tracks. I'm tempted to reinstall it and take it for a spin again. I am absolutely not even a little bit tempted to try to 100% it though. Congratulations on beating it.

I don't disagree with any of that. When I said that I thought it was done for story reasons, I was thinking on a much more basic level. Something more like "Ike is the hero, Ashnard is the villain, the story has to have the hero kill the villain". Just the absolute simplest tale-as-old-as-time fairytale stuff. And then the addendum for royals and dragons added in as a nod to gameplay in case of a bad Ike. Ultimately, though, I don't think it matters that much why they decided to add it. I don't think it works well either for story or gameplay.

I was staying out of this discussion, but since I'm being invoked, I suppose I ought to say something. I think that Ike is pretty great and that Laguz Friend is vastly better than Aegis, Pavisse and Golden Lotus since it's guaranteed and not just a percentage chance to proc. And I'd go so far as to say that if you think that what I said in any way supports the idea that Laguz Friend is weak then you were probably misunderstanding my point to begin with.

My general preference is for fairly inconsequential final bosses. Big set-pieces bosses just don't feel very "Fire Emblem" to me.I'm here for tactical combat and clashing armies, and the more elaborate boss designs like Ashera, Rhea and Sombron just don't give me that feeling. After some thought, I settled my vote onto Nemesis as my favourite (mechanically), because ultimately he's just a dude, albeit one with pretty high stats. And his special mechanic is basically just asking the player to play the map first. I probably would have chosen Ashnard instead, since he is also just a dude, but he has one of the more annoying features that FE likes to throw on its bosses: can only be damaged/killed by specific units. I get why this is done, for story reasons, but it can be really unsatisfying and limiting in terms of gameplay. Not to mention that it limits the possibilities for emergent stories. My other disliked mechanics for final levels/bosses are "you can't save beforehand" (for obvious reasons) and "big ball of hp". Once I figure out a basic pattern that can successfully damage a boss they should go down quickly without asking me to repeat the same pattern over and over. That sort of thing is vaguely tolerable in action games where it's testing your ability to reliably execute your pattern, but in turn based games, once you've figured out what to do, it's almost impossible to fail. And it takes so much longer. The final boss in Cindered Shadows is one of my least favourite levels in all of Fire Emblem, because I got so bored just doing the same thing over and over to whittle down its enormous health pool. For best final map I chose Together to the End, because I'm a weirdo who actually enjoys the map deisgn in Shadows of Valentia. That map really feels like it does what the rest of the game did but then turns it up to 11, which is pretty much what I want a final map to do.

(Rating primarily based on Hard but with some discussion of Maddening too.) So let's talk about forging. Specifically, forged daggers. Forged daggers are just too good. I'm going to consider +4 steel weapons, because that seems like something that can be attained quickly and easily without really feeling that you're over-investing in a single unit. For the 5 basic physical weapon types (sword, lance, axe, bow, dagger), the dagger has: the join second highest might (15, tied with lance, behind axe's 17); the joint second best hit (90, tied with bow, behind sword's 95), and the lowest weight (4, beating out bow's 6 into second place). This alone would be enough to make daggers the best weapon type, but then on top of that, they also get 1-2 range and the ability to debuff. Other 1-2 range options come with worse stats and/or more expensive forges. The strength of forged daggers pretty much automatically makes Thieves and Wolf Knights, and as the first dagger wielder that you get, Yunaka is definitely going to end up making a strong showing when you first grab her. And since Leif is the only Emblem who offers knife training, your options are to use those characters who have natural knife proficiency (Yunaka, Zelkov, Merrin and -- huh -- Pannette apparently), wait until chapter 17, or throw it on an early game character (maybe Chloé or Lapis). There definitely are good options here, but they're limited enough that you do at least have to give it due consideration. For long-term considerations, I do typically prefer Wolf Knight to Thief for the extra point of movement, but there's not that much between them in terms of stats. And both of them have class skills that are occasionally useful but not game changing. The biggest advantage that Thieves have over Wolf Knights is the Covert ability to double terrain bonuses. This makes it pretty easy to build Thieves into excellent dodge tanks, either using terrain that's already present or by making use of Corrin's smoke ability. As with most dodge tanks, this is considerably stronger on Hard on Maddening, due to the differences in AI behaviour. If you are wanting to use that particular thief build, though, I think that Yunaka is the best choice for it. Her excellent res means that she doesn't have to worry much about pesky mages who can ignore her terrain bonuses, and her personal skill just makes her even better at killing things that are failing to hit her. All of which makes me think she's worth somewhere between a 7 and an 8 on hard, but I'll round down since I do think she's weaker on Maddening. 7/10.

Agreed, especially after how Engage treated the two of them. Sigurd was one of the relatively more prominent Emblems there, whereas Leif... existed. I assume that, if a Thracia 776 remake was already in the works, they'd have at least tried to make Leif a little bit less of a non-entity.

Yeah, I know she isn't technically a Switch era character, which is why I opened with a disclaimer. It's not as if we're operating under rigid rules and structure here. As for move set, I can't imagine that would be a sticking point if they decided that they wanted to add her. It's not as if she'd be the first character in Smash where they had to just invent an entire move set from scratch (Captain Falcon, ROB) nor the first who had shown no hints of fighting ability beforehand (Isabel, Wii Fit Trainer). The good folks who make Smash are smart and creative and I would absolutely trust them to figure out a way to make her work.

Probably a little bit of both. The monastery stuff honestly isn't all that important in Three Houses. I've done a no-monastery run on Hard Mode and found it very playable. And I'm pretty sure that I remember @Dark Holy Elf doing a Maddening run with very restricted monastery and also reporting that it was plenty playable. But Three Houses really pushes the monastery in a way that Engage doesn't push the Somniel. Three Houses really wants you to spend time in the monastery, makes you want to think that it's more important than it actually is. Where Engage has a little bit more chill. The Somniel is there but it doesn't feel as if the game is judging you every time you decide not to do push ups. I do think that the monastery stuff is more impactful than the Somniel stuff, but I don't think the difference is as big as people might think.

Similar to Chloé, Louis benefits a lot from being an early unit who stays good into the late game. Not only does this give the inherent advantages of being useful and relevant for longer, it also means that he has little competition for resources early on (since the player will be dropping many other units), which puts him in a prime position to start getting kills and resources early and start to snowball. And like Chloé, he does start to drop off a little late on, but unlike Chloé he has a few too many weaknesses to be able to realistically patch up all of them. These are: bad res, bad speed and (if in the General class) bad move. And if you're hoping to tank, with him, he also needs a way of dealing with enemy chain attacks. And there are ways to address each of these through emblems, skills, items, and the likes. But addressing all of them would take more resources than it's reasonable to throw at a single unit so you pretty much just have to accept that there is going to be some drop-off eventually. Still a very strong unit overall, though. 8/10.

Another thing that means there's less to talk about with Engage is the skill system. With Awakening, Fates, and Three Houses, there was a lot of versatility in how you choose to build individual characters and which skills you choose to combine. With the way that Engage bundles a bunch of skills into a single package in the form of Emblems, there just aren't as many choices. And then even when you do have choices... you often don't actually have choices. SP is in short enough supply, and grinding is unrewarding enough, that a lot of skills just aren't viable choices. So character building is mostly about choosing a class and an Emblem, and then throw on a couple of skills that seem reasonable. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it shifts the focu somewhats back towards the core tactical gameplay, and away from having too much focus on builds. Whether this is a good thing or not will depend on personal taste. And, if that was their goal, it's also debatable whether they really succeeded at it given how easy it still is to build an immortal dodge tank. But it definitely cuts down on discussion points.

Not exactly a Switch era character, but since she's been more prominent on Switch than she has been in decades, I'm going to say that she counts: Pauline. As one of video gaming's original damsels in distress, I loved getting to see her as a successful and kick-ass woman in her own right in Mario Odyssey, and it would be even better if she got into Smash and finally got to beat up Donkey Kong herself (even if it's canonically not the same Donkey Kong). And for an "it's never going to happen but I still want it" pick: Madeline from Celeste. Indie games good. LGBTQIA+ characters good. Give me more (read: any) representation for both of them in Smash, please. And for meme picks, presented without further comment: Gatekeeper. Elephant Mario.

Given that we've had My Castle, then Garreg Mach, then the Somniel, I think it's reasonably safe to say that hub areas are likely to be with us for the foreseeable future. So, with that in mind, what would be your ideal implementation going forward? Personally, I enjoyed Garreg Mach from the perspective of story/world building/characterisation/immersion and would like to see something like that attempted again. But at the same time, if I'm not in the mood to wander around and talk with everyone, then it definitely can be a chore. So I'd like to see a system where everything was accessible either through the hub area or through a menu, with no mechanical difference between the two. Let wandering around and talking to everyone be either something that I do for its own sake because I enjoy it, or something that I can skip without mechanical penalty if I don't feel like it.

So, here's my personal experience of using Chloé (on Hard difficulty). I started using her when she was first recruited, and she pretty quickly became my best unit. Then she carried on being my best unit. Then she became so much my best unit that I had to start using her less often just so that she wasn't taking too much experience away from everyone else. Then she never stopped being my best unit. Then the game ended. Now, what I don't know is how much of that performance was due to her inate qualities as a unit and how much was due to luck, favouritism, or similar. I know that I gave her Lyn, which probably helped her out a ton, since everyone is better with Lyn, but beyond that I couldn't say. What I do know is that she has some definite advantages. As one of the few early-game units who are worth sticking with long term, she's in an excellent position to be shown early favouritism, which can catapult her from good to excellent. She's also well positioned to inherit skills from the first 6 emblems. If you want any of those skills (eg Canter) on your units, then you need to either use an early-game unit (many of whom are bad), or you have to wait for Chapter 17 or later. There's also the eternal "how do you weigh availability" question. Which doesn't have a satisfying answer, but her availability is great. And she's an excellent unit for all the time that she's available. I'm well aware that this might not be an objectively defensible rating, but I can't really go off anything other than my personal experience, and under that particular metric I'm going to give her 10/10.

And once again, I find myself grateful that I decided to completely avoid the weird fantasyland of Awakening DLC/Spotpass. That sounds absurd. I mean, yeah, it's Awakening, which was hardly winning any prizes for coherence of its story to begin with, but yeesh.

I am definitely one of those players when it comes to GBA FE. Playing in a way that picks up a lot of supports just isn't fun to me, and honestly this is one of the reasons why I tend not to like GBA FE as much as I like the later games. But I would say that easily accessible supports began with Path of Radiance. If anything, I'd say that individual PoR supports are easier to get than individual supports from many later games. (I am, after all, the person who nearly missed noticing that Fates has child characters since I just didn't get anyone's supports high enough until late game.) Your general point still stands, though. I do agree that there is a change to how supports are handled from Awakening onwards, but I think that it's more to do with the idea that characters aren't limited to how many different supports they can have. Which has led to other consequences like having each individual support be mechanically less significant. And there definitely is more of a focus on character relationships, I don't disagree there. I think maybe I see it as more of a gradual transition ove time than you do, though? Yeah, I think this is a good way of looking at things. Skills were prominent in Tellius, reclassing ws prominent in the DS remakes, but then Awakening took these two disparate systems and tied them together. And then we've been working on variations on that theme ever since. (Which I think is a bit of a shame, because I'd be interested in seeing a revisited version of the Tellius skill system.) I think that the tendency to lump these together is just because of the temporal overlap. Sacred Stone and Path of Radiance literally released on the same day in Europe. And I think that a lot of the differences in design can probably be chalked up to the different hardware. Both in terms of the technological differences, but also the perceived differences between what is desirable in a game for a handheld console versus a home console. You know, just the fact that the term "Fateswakening" has such traction in fandom is telling of itself. Those two games have a whole lot in common with each other that they just don't with either what went before or what came after.

Yeah, that's fair. I'm sure it would be possible, but it likely would be more work than is justified for the sort of quick and dirty approach that I'm imagining. I agree with this. If they do decide to do these remakes, this is absolutely the approach that I'd be most excited about.

As far as I'm concerned, the forums are pretty quiet recently, and having extra conversation threads is generally a good thing. If people aren't interested, then they generally just won't reply. So I wouldn't worry about it.

Personally, I hope they don't get remakes any time soon. Not because they're not worth remaking or the remakes couldn't be good, but because if they're getting remade then that means that something else isn't, and there are multiple games higher up my priority list. I would like to see old Mystery get a comparable re-release as Switch Shadow Dragon, except without the limited time nonsense this time, please. Just take the original Super Famicom game, give it a localisation and time rewind, and put it on the eshop. Maybe bundle Archanea Saga in there too. That would be great.

I agree with this. While the version of the battle that we see is pretty calm with units standing around in a nice and orderly fashion before taking their turn to move one at a time, that's pretty clearly a gameplay abstraction, and the actual "real" battle that is being represented will be much more chaotic with everyone dashing around at once, all fighting at once, and so on. It's extremely believable that the exact details of who killed whom would get lost in the fog of war. It's not quite murder, but in Path of Radiance, Naesala Which unsurprisingly makes it so nobody trust him from that point on. And then there's Radiant Dawn, where the Black Knight is briefly recruitable and lord-adjacent Sothe is absolutely not OK with that.