lenticular

Oh boy. There's a lot to say about this. Time to spend way more time than I should writing way more than I should on the topic. Noble and Commoner: These are mostly fine. I'd probably throw a +5% growth to HP onto Commoner to stop Noble just being strictly better, but it's largely inconsequential. You spend 4 levels here and then get out and never look back. Beginner classes: Again, I mostly don't have a problem with these. They're not very exciting, but they all have their place. Reposition is the best of the combat arts here, which does mean that Soldier has a bit of an advantage over the other non-magic classes, but there are definitely cases where I'd prefer to pick up Str+2 or Spd+2, so Fighter and Myrmidon do still have their place. I don't think I'd like to see the Stat+2 skills as class skills, simply because it's an extra unnecessary layer of abstraction. If anything, just change the classes' stat boosts to differentiate them a little more. Intermediate Classes: This is where things really start getting messy. This is typically the "important class masteries" tier, with things like Death Blow, Fiendish Blow, Darting Blow, and Hit +20. This means that classes with bad or mediocre masteries typically don't get much of a look-in here. I will sometimes choose other classes (eg Priest, Cavalier) for what they offer in the moment, but the game doesn't really offer many challenging maps in this tier, so building for the future is normally more important. So the big thing here is upgrading or replacing the mastery skills that need it. Armored Knight: Armored Blow just isn't very good, and also doesn't really have good synergy with what armour units want to do. If you're building an armour unit, you're probably wanting them to put in work on enemy phase, not player phase. So let's get rid of it. I'm going to propose replacing it with Wary Fighter: "During battles, neither the user nor enemy can perform follow up attacks". This feels like it would probably be a pretty big buff to armour units, but they could certainly use it. Brawler: Conceptually, I really like Unarmed Combat. The problem is that it completely sucks. Other than using it for the theming/flavour or using it in challenge runs (like the "no items" run I did a while ago), I really can't think of any reason to use it. It gives terrible might and hit, and its ostensible advantage in weight doesn't really exist, given that it's easy to offset the weight of light gauntlets by having any strength to speak of. Maybe, just maybe, it could give a brawling option to a War Master whose inventory was loaded with axes, but I don't actually believe that for a second. The other big problem with Unarmed Combat as a mastery skill is that most of the other classes that might want it (Grappler and War Ascetic) get it anyway. So it's got to go. Let's replace it with Pinpoint Blow: "If unit initiates combat, grants Crit +20 during combat." Cavalier: I'm honestly not sure if I've ever seen anyone really recommend using Desparation. It seems like it shouldn't be terrible, but the circumstances for it to be useful just don't come up enough. You have to be fast enough to double in the first place, you need to be able to kill the enemy in two hits but not in one hit, and you need to be at below 50% health. And then if you do pull all of that off, the best upside is that you're able to kill one unit per player phase that you wouldn't be able to. Something that conditional really needs a bigger upside. So instead, I'm going to suggest Trample: "Unless enemy is on a mount, damage +6". Dark Mage: Dark magic is a mess. I'll cover it separately later. Lord: This really feels that it only exists for the sake of tradition. It just doesn't make much sense in the context of this game. Res +2 and Subdue are both abilities that are in the wrong game. Res +2 would be better in games with far lower res growths; Subdue would be better in games where you get more underleveled recruits. The only unit in Three Houses who requires any babying at all is Flayn, and even she is easy to level up if you do want to use her. The other big problem is that this is a sword class, only accessable to units who don't really want to use swords. It's a mess. So what to do with it? Well, if I had my druthers, I'd just get rid of it entirely. But let's assume that that isn't an option. First thing I'm going to suggest is changing the certification from C Authority and D+ Swords to C Authority and D+ in Swords, Axes, Lances, or Bows. I'd then also change the wexp bonuses to give boosts to all four of those weapons rather than just swords. Finally, I would change the mastery skill to something related to battalions. This could be something that gave extra gambit uses, but instead I think I'm going to suggest Charismatic Leader: "All stat boosts granted by battalions are multiplied by 1.5". Mercenary: This one is borderline OK as it is. I'm not really a big fan of Vantage, but it definitely has its advocates and its uses. It's very much a build-around skill, which will be either completely useless or totally indispensable for any given build. I think I would probably keep the class as is, because any buff to Vantage would risk having it be overpowered. Priest: Another borderline OK class. In this case, the mastery skill is close-to useless, but the extra healing can be nice to have, especially if you're planning for the unit to be a dedicated healer and don't care about picking up Fiendish Blow. A simple small buff could be to have Heal +5 be a mastery skill here as well as a class skill. That's a pretty underwhelming improvement, but the class doesn't need a big buff. Thief: The biggest problem here isn't the class itself, but the fact that you really don't have much need for a thief. So, I'd suggest three changes here. First, add locktouch as a second mastery skill so you can take that one forward too. Second, make chest keys more expensive so that there's actually a reason to care about having locktouch (bonus consequence: Ashe's personal ability gets better at the same time). Third, make more enemies have stealable items. Advanced Classes: These are mostly pretty good, with most classes at least having a decent niche. Being able to pick up the appropriate Weaponfaire skill certainly helps out a lot. The bad classes here are generally the ones that offer the same -faire skill as some other class, but don't do other things as well. Dark Bishop: Dark magic is a mess. I'll cover it separately later. Hero: I just don't see the benefit of having three Swordfaire classes at Advance tier. Making a different niche for all of them is difficult, and I don't think that "free Vantage!" is a particularly strong selling point. As such, I'd reimagine Hero as being something of a jack of all trades class. I would have it lose Vantage, and instead gain Axefaire and Lancefaire to go along with Swordfaire. The wexp bonuses and certification requirements would also be changed to reflect this new focus. I would give them a new mastery skill: Weapon Master: "Grants Hit/Avo +20 when using a sword against axe users, an axe against lance users, or a lance against sword users." Swordmaster: This mostly just needs for Astra to be better. Get rid of the penalty to hit, change the durability cost from -9 to -5, and change the damage per hit from 30% to 50%, and we're there. Astra is now a useful delete button, comparable to Hunter's Volley or Fierce Iron Fist. My only concern here is that this would make Swordmaster completely overshadow Assassin, but I think that Assassin would still have a niche thanks to Stealth and no movement penalties. If necessary, Assassin could be given an extra +1 point of movement to compensate. Warrior: This really needs a mastery combat art, to move it in line with other infantry weapon classes. I wouldn't want to give them a brave art, since that doesn't feel emblematic for axes. Gaining effectiveness against all enemy types has already been taken by War Master's Strike, so that's off the table here as well. Instead, I'm going to give them Stun as a combat art. It would have fairly typical combat art bonuses to hit/damage/crit, but would disallow counter attacks (as with Windsweep) and also paralyse the enemy if it hits, preventing them from acting for one turn. It's still hard to imagine really wanting to use Warrior instead of Wyvern Rider/Lord, but this would at least make it more competitive. Abyss Classes: I'm actually pretty happy with all of these. The only one I'd change at all is Trickster, which I think needs a small buff. I'd do this by improving Lucky Seven, which I would change to "Each turn, grants +7 to one of the following stats: Str, Mag, Spd, or Crit." Master Classes: What a motley bunch these are. Some of them are great. Others are some of the hardest to justify classes in the whole game. Great Knight: This is pretty much going to have problems whatever you do with it. My bandaid fix to make it less bad would be to make it more of a straight upgrade from Fortress Knight rather than a hybrid Fortress Knight/Paladin. So, give it an extra couple of points of Def so it matches Fortress Knight on that front. Then also lower the riding requirement for certification, just to make it a little more accessible. Holy Knight: Another one that has some pretty severe systemic problems that stop it from ever being good. An offensive white magic class is only ever going to be as good as the game's offensive white magic spells. That said, let's give a go at making this viable without also completely reworking the game's magic system. I'm going to ditch Terrain Resistance to make room for a new skill, Unceasing Light: Triples the number of uses for white magic spells that target enemies. One of the big problems with offensive magic is that it just doesn't have enough charges, and this seaks to remedy that. Mortal Savant: I actually quite like Mortal Savant, but only in the case of units who have Hexblade or Soulblade. So, the solution here to make the class a bit more widely applicable is to just give it built-in Soulblade. Getting a magical sword combat art is also highly thematic for the class. Unique Classes: Most of these are pretty good, with only one real stinker. Armored Lord/Emperor: Yeah, here's the stinker. These classes are little more than a noob trap, honestly. Edelgard in either of these classes is a mediocre unit; Edelgard on a Wyvern is probably the best unit in the game. It's been said many times before by many different people, and I'm going to repeat it here: these classes should have had access to magic. They still wouldn't be nearly as good for Edelgard as Wyvern Lord is, but they'd at least be unique and offer an interesting niche. I would also decrease the class xp required to master both these classes, to compensate for the shorter length of Crimson Flower compared to other routes. High Lord/Great Lord: These are mostly fine, but as a minor buff, I'd like to see them change from infantry type movement to thief type movement. Enlightened One: This should have Fistfaire. That's all. Dark Magic: As previously mentioned, dark magic is a mess. There are approximately a billion different ways it could be changed, and most of them would be an improvement on the current system. Here's one attempt. First off, every character will have two different reason magic lists: a dark magic list and a black magic list. For most classes, they would only have access to their black magic spells; dark magic spells would only be avilable in dark magic classes. The dark magic classes would be Dark Mage, Dark Bishop, Dark Knight, and Gremory. I would also change the gender restrictions here so that Dark Mage and Dark Bishop were open to all, Gremory remained female-exclusive and Dark Knight became male exclusive (if you hate gender-locked classes, as most people seem to, you could easily change it to have all classes available regardless of gender). Dark Seals would be changed such that using one on a character unlocks all the dark magic classes for that character. You would still need to certify for the classes normally through exams, but the exams would take regular exam seals. In terms of class abilities, the dark magic classes would probably look largely similar to their current incarnations. The big attraction would be that you got to use dark magic spells, which could probably even be tuned up to be slightly more powerful than they are currently. Miasma Δ could be dropped from Dark Mage and Dark Bishop, since they'd no longer be necessary. Dark Bishop would then have space to include Dark Tomefaire. Dark Bishop would also gain a new mastery ability which would allow the use of dark magic spells in regular magic classes. Hubert would also loses his existing personal ability and have it replaced with the same ability, which would mean that he and he alone could carry on using dark magic right from the start of the game. ...and there we go. I did indeed spend way too much time and write way too much on this topic.

I'm not sure I necessarily have a favourite, but if I had to pick one to replay right now, I think I'd go with Radiant Dawn. Part 1, with the Dawn Brigade, is almost as much of a self-contained story as Lyn Mode is, which I think is a neat way to start a game. I also like that the Dawn Brigade chapters are far less tutorialy than Lyn Mode is. Having a robust tutorial might be better game design overall, but for someone who has played a lot of Fire Emblem, I think it's better to just leap straight into the action. Even the prologue is a proper map, rather than just a tutorial on moving and attacking, which is all that a lot of FE games get. I also like the story of early Radiant Dawn. Getting to see what happens after the "happily ever after" of Path of Radiance is a nice deconstruction of some standard Fire Emblem tropes, and having it be from the perspective of the defeated nation makes it even better. For the most part, I like the Dawn Brigade too, both as characters and units. They have some major problems later on when they're competing with the Greil Mercs and coming up short, but just for Part 1, I think they're fine. Having a Light Mage as the Lord and a Rogue as the early pre-promote is a pretty big departure from the standard FE fare of a sword Lord and a paladin pre-promote. This not only makes them feel very different to play as, but also reinforces the story; these are a bunch of street fighters in a guerilla insurrection, not a bunch of nobles in a formal war.

Honestly, not that much. She'd be well suited to the class, but there isn't really a whole lot of difference between the best dancers and the worst dancers. Most of the time, all they do is dance, and anyone can do that. You definitely can optimise your dancer and it does sometimes make a difference, but it isn't a huge difference. And while you can look at her sword boon, she still wouldn't be the best dancer dodge tank. And you can look at her ability to learn Bolting for linked attacks, except that her reason bane and support lists make that harder to pull off than with other choices. The main advantage would be for people who want to use Manuela because they like her as a character but are having trouble making her work as a unit. Though, honestly, she's not that difficult to make work, so it wouldn't be a huge advantage. And the biggest advantage with turning bad units into dancers is when they show up for chapter 13. For someone who isn't around for that chapter, it's a less pronounced advantage.

Am I allowed to say "neither"? I'm just not really a fan of personal and legendary weapons. In terms of story, the legendary magic weapon just isn't a trope that appeals to me. For me, it detracts from the achievements of the individual if they're only successful because they happen to have some item that nobody else does. The hero who can fight and win with whatever random weapon happens to be on hand is much more impressive and inspiring to me than the one who needs their fancy-pants magic weapon to win. Obviously, this is very subjective, and obviously magic weapons have been prominent and popular in literature for centuries, but I'm just not a fan. In terms of gameplay, they too often form a dominant strategy. When legendary weapons are strong, whoever has them often ends up just being better than everyone else, which I don't think makes for a good Fire Emblem experience. I have more fun with Fire Emblem when I'm using a lot of different units than when I'm using a few buffed up demigods. This is doubly the case when it comes to personal weapons. Another thing that I like about Fire Emblem is being able to choose which units I want to use, so I'm not really a fan of mechanics that specifically push specific units as the ones that I'm supposed to be using. At the other end of the spectrum is the crappy legendary weapon that I never want to equip anyway. Which isn't as harmful as the overpowered legendary weapon, but is completely pointless. There is a middle ground where the legendary weapon is a decent choice in some cases, but not objectively better than other choices. More of a side-grade than a direct upgrade. Which I don't really have a problem with in terms of gameplay, but then it doesn't really live up to its storyline billing as legendary. And OK, I could absolutely get behind a storyline of a weapon that was hyped up in legends, but then when the heroes actually finally acquired it, they found that it was actually just another sword, and they had to win by their own strength, character and abilities. Except that's never how it's presented.

I don't think that's necessarily the case. It depends on how much control you have over the transformation. If the unit will only ever transform when you choose to, then yes, it's a pure upside. But if there is some sort of forced transformation, then that can be a downside. Even if the unit is good in both forms. Expanding on my idea of having a full untransformed class, the transformations could work something like this. The unit has a transformation gauge ranging from -10 to +10. Every turn and every action while in beast form moves the gauge towards the negative; every turn and every action while in human form moves the gauge towards the positive. You can choose to transform into beast form whenever the gauge is positive (or zero), but you have no option and automatically transform if ever the gauge ever reaches +10. Similarly, you can transform back to human form whenever the gauge is negative (or zero), but you have no option and automatically transfrom if eever the gauge reaches -10.

It depends on how you define "big cat". Some people use it exclusively to refer to members of the genus Panthera, in which case you're exclusively looking at lions, tigers, jaguars, leopards and snow leopards (and various hybrids thereof); other people use it just to refer to any cat that is big, which would include both cheetahs and pumas/cougars. So, when it comes to those last two, it mostly makes sense to include both of them or include neither of them, but not to include only one of them. (And obviously, snow leopards are the objectively coolest big cat. An Arctic- or Siberian-themed Fire Emblem is something that I've wanted for a while, and they'd fit right in there, even though that isn't their native range on Earth.)

What do you mean, "why"? We need a reason to want femboys and gender bending in our fiction now? Damn, I'm screwed. Well, in addition to Micaiah, there's also Seteth and Tibarn who are both lord-adjacent if you squint hard enough. Generally speaking, though, I do agree with this take. I'd like to see more older characters in general as part of just seeing more diverse characters in general. In a way, Fire Emblem is the perfect series for that, since its large casts give it the chance to include all types of people. From what I am given to understand of Japanese culture, that might be a big ask, though. I also have absolutely no clue what game you're talking about here. There's Sacae as well, which is more inspired by the Eurasian Steppe. But I definitely agree. There's nothing inherently wrong with a medieval European aesthetic, but I do long for a bit more variety. If they're afraid to break things up too much, then one thing that I would be interested in would be to have a game set around the transition from the late medieval to the early modern period, with the main lord being somewhat of a traditionalist trying to cling to the old ways as the world around them changed. Except that as I write that, I've just realised that Three Houses covers some of that ground already, so maybe not.

For me, the big problem with (non-royal, non-heron) laguz in the Tellius games is that the transformation mechanic feels like pure disadvantage, without any associated advantage. The idea seems to have been that they're amazing units half the time but basically useless the other half of the time. Which seems like a reasonable idea, except that I mostly find that it's relatively simple to have beorc units who are amazing units all of the time. Let's say I'm looking at a basic player-phase attacker. The most important metric is whether or not I one-round the enemy, and many beorc do so. At that point, it doesn't matter to me if my transformed laguz is stronger and faster; that's just overkill. The beorc unit is better because they can attack every turn while the laguz can't. Admitedly, this is slightly less of a problem in Radiant Dawn than in Path of Radiance, due to the weird availability issues and army swapping of the former. When you just have to work with whatever you're given for a specific map, sometimes you might not have enough well-trained beorc... but mostly you do. And a well-trained beorc is just better than a well-trained laguz. (As a little bit of an aside, I also hate the story and lore implications of this. Whenever a laguz talks about how they don't need weapons, it makes them come across as an idiot. "Sure, we're completely defenceless for half the battle and any competent beorc can just mow us down at that point, but that's just peachy! We like it that way. What would we want weapons for?") No matter how you change the exact mechanics of the transform gauge, being useful only some of the time is always going to be worse than being useful all of the time. One possible solution would have been to nerf beorc units, but that doesn't sound like fun to me. I want for all of my units to feel strong and satisfying to use, not just my transforming ones. The there's the Awakening and Fates approach, which is just to get rid of transformation as a mechanic entirely. Panne or Kaden work basically the same as any other unit. This removes the price of transformation but has a lot of problems of its own. It's boring, it means the beast units don't feel special, beaststones have no story justification, the small number of different weapon options means they're less flexible than non-transforming units. They exist and they're fine, but they're not exciting. My idea for a solution to all this would be to make it so that transformation is not so much a boost in power, but a lateral shift that changes the type of unit. That is, I want the unit to be able to fully and meaningfully contribute both while transformed and while untransformed, but to do something different in each state. Effectively, they have two different classes. For example, imagine a raven laguz who is a wind mage when untransformed. Or a bulky and tanky tiger who is a fast attacker (eg with TH style gauntlets) while untransformed. Or a cat/thief. Or a wolf/archer. And so on and so forth. The idea here is that they should still be good units in both forms, but very different. The advantage here is that you're effectively filling two combat roles for the cost of one deployment slot. The disadvantage is that they don't fill either role as reliably as a non-transforming unit and that you have to be careful to shift them between roles and not get caught out of position. This could also be good for unit diversity, since units of the same transformed class could have a different untransformed class. So, you might have both a raven/wind mage and a raven/swordsmaster. And while they'd be very similar while in raven form, they'd be very different overall.

I never had a problem with the DLC. Say what you like about its quality or its value for money, but the big thing that I appreciated about it is that they delivered pretty much exactly what they said they were going to deliver. There was no deceptive marketing, no bait and switch, no attempt to make us think that we were getting something that we weren't. They said right from the outset what was going to be in the DLC and then that was what was in the DLC. We were all able to make an informed decision about whether it was something that was worth it to us personally, and then buy it or not buy it accordingly. The only part that I found a little bit sketchy was Anna, who didn't really feel like a fully realised new character, due to her complete lack of supports. That peeved me a little bit.But even that was relatively minor and not something that I'm about to demand be fixed. At this point, not only do I think that Three Houses is done, but I would actively prefer that time and resources continued to go to whatever new FE game is currently in development.

Not going to go into the rest of this, because we're getting pretty off-topic. Given that we mostly seem to agree on the facts of what happened but disagree on the interpretations, we're probably better off just agreeing to disagree. For this one point, though, I want to just go into a little bit more detail. I think that there is a definite shift in Reyson's attitudes after finding Lilia's cell. This is typified by his death quotes (or, more accurately, his withdrawl quotes, since he's a plot-relevant unit who never truly dies). Prior to Ch.22: "Urgh... I am sorry. This wound prevents me from repaying my debt." After Ch.22: "I am no longer fighting for my family alone. I wish to help you and your sister." (Both lines are longer, but those are the illustrative parts.) That is, he changes from fighting alongside Ike out of an obligation, to doing so out of a sense of kinship. I also wouldn't swear to this, but I believe that Ike and Reyson's support together doesn't become available until after Chapter 22. This may just be a coincidence... but it also might not be.

Sorry, I can see how what I wrote could be misinterpreted. I wasn't saying that Ike himself can touch the medallion; I'm saying that he is the son of someone who could. That is: Ike is the son of Gawain and Elena; Gawain was the most renowned swordsman of his generation while Elena was one of the only non-herons with sufficient inner balance to touch Lehran's Medallion without negative consequence. Both his parents were extraordinary people. He didn't inherit any mystical chosen one powers from them, but his lineage gave him a lot of opportunities and advantages that a random average guy wouldn't have. For instance: He inherited command of the Greil Mercenaries entirely because he was his father's son. He was neither the best fighter in the group (that would be Titania) nor the best strategist (which would be Soren). He got the position entirely by nepotism. Of the mercenaries who stayed around under his command, loyalty to Greil was a major motivating factor. ("He had faith in you, and I've got faith in him." -- Boyd, Ch.8 base conversation.) He had the ear of the King of Gallia. Caineghis was willing to give him the time of day, in large part because of his relationship with Greil and because he had known Ike when he was a baby. Tauroneo -- General of Daein, formerly of the Four Riders -- is willing to surrender instantly to Ike as soon as he realises who his father was. He only had possession of Ragnel because of his father. He literally picked it up off the ground after both The Black Knight and Greil had thrown it away. Elena's history with Lilia was a major part of how he won Reyson's respect and friendship.

Ike is the son of the most renowned swordsman of his generation and one of the only non-herons with sufficient inner balance to touch Lehran's Medallion without negative consequence. It's not as extreme as "secretly the Emperor's son", "secretly a dragon" or "secretly a god", but he's still a long way from being just an average dude.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my suggestions were entirely meant to be absolutely dreadful to actually play. For me, the exercise was to completely ruin everything on purpose with only small changes. Designing actually good difficuly is way harder, as you say, and realistically it also requires repeated itterations of testing and redesign to get right. I wonder if it would be enough simply to change the enemy AI here. If the AI is coded to ignore Illusions and go after real units instead whenever it can, that alone would be a major nerf without ever actually touching player abilities.

A lot of the stories for main Lords that I'd like to see are pretty much indistinguishable from overall stories or settings that I'd like to see. However, one that I would like to see which could work fairly independently of the overall storyline is a subversion of Eirika and Celica's idiot ball moments. That is, I want to see a moment where the main lord (or one of two main lords) trusts someone who nobody else trusts and it actually turns out to be the right decision. There's various ways I can think of to make that work, but it would depend on the overall main storyline.

Oh, that's interesting. I find that I never have as much mythril as I'd like. I do tend to use both the Spear of Assal and the Axe of Ukkonvasara, though, which I know that not everyone does. If you're using them less than I do or not at all, then I can definitely see how mythril wouldn't be an issue. Fair points. I don't personally tend to run a lot of fliers, so competition for Cichol Wyverns isn't really something I run into often (my informal self-imposed rule is typically "no duplicate classes in my end-game team", so I typically have one Wyvern Lord and one Falcon Knight, who usually have Cichol Wyverns and Galatea Pegasus Corps, then possibly also a Dark Flier with Nuvelle Fliers and possibly Claude with Immortal Corps, and that's it). It's definitely a real concern when running more fliers, though. (And more fliers is definitely stronger; my personal rule is definitely not done in the name of optimisation.) Getting to Bow Crit +10 on a flier (or at least, a flier who isn't Claude) is definitely tricky, though. I know that I have run a crit-focussed bow Falcon Knight in the past, but I don't remember the exact details of the run so it may have been NG+ or I may have been showing favouritism, or whatever.

Availability of wootz steel is definitely one of the big factors for me, and clearly that's going to be dependent on a lot of different factors: how many wolves do you encounter (are you recruiting Marianne?), how meticulous are you in making sure you fully break every single monster barrier, how lucky or unlucky you are with ore drops, how many other Brave weapons (or other wootz-requiring weapons) are you trying to use, etc. If you find that you routinely have more wootz than you need then I can definitely see the Brave Bow as being preferable. One thing that I do like about the Killer Bow, though, is being able to use it completely indiscriminately. For situations of "this enemy absolutely needs to die right now and I need it to be reliable", I'd typically prefer a Brave weapon. But a lot of the time, I find myself in situations that are more along the lines of "well, it would be nice if I got the kill on this enemy, but if I don't get the kill then just doing solid chip damage will be enough". I've got a lot of kills in that sort of situation, where I might have been reluctant to use the durability of the Brave Bow. There are a few other situations where the Killer Bow is better than the Brave Bow. I agree that there aren't typically too many enemies who will survive a double from a Brave Bow but die to a crit from a Killer Bow, but they certainly do exist. Another advantage is that you can use a Killer Bow with combat arts. (Well, technically you can use a Brave Bow with combat arts as well, but you really shouldn't.) Sometimes you really need the extra range or extra accuracy of Curved Shot, and that doesn't lessen your ability to kill if you're runnign a crit build. Or you can use something like Heavy Draw or Monster Blast, which will increase the number of enemies you're killing with a crit but not killing with a double. Or you can use something like Encloser and have a good chance of getting the kill but know that you still have the enemy unit locked down even if you don't get the crit. Of course, there's also the "why not both?" argument. If you build around crits, you can still carry a Brave Bow as well and use that in the cases where it's better. Admitedly, being built for crits typically means that your accessory and battalion are serving that purpose but I'm not sure what else you'd hypothetically be running that was massively better.

The late 2000s were a bit of an odd time for video game marketing. Paper magazines were very much on the way out by that point, and for decades they'd been a mainstay of how game publishers had got news of their games out to their potential customers. But trade shows, press releases and the things that had worked in the past weren't really working any more by that point. On the other hand, this was before Nintendo Direct was a thing, which has since become one of their biggest marketing tools. It certainly wasn't a well-advertised game, but I don't entirely blame Nintendo for that. It was a time when games marketing was in transition, and there wasn't really an established best practice for how they should have been trying to promote relatively niche titles like Radiant Dawn.

I do think it's a worthwhile diversion. Dodge tanking and Vantage/Wrath style builds both try to do the same thing, namely creating a viable enemy-phase character. This means that the different builds really need to be compared. I would say that Battalion/Wrath is significantly worse because of the existence of dodge tanking. It's never auspicious to have another build that does the same thing but does it better. I agree that bow crit builds are the best crit builds because they are the safest crit builds, but they don't necessarily have to be Hunter's Volley builds. Hunter's Volley is typically the best choice for raw killing power, but if you want to trade some of that in for extra mobility, you can make respectible bow crit builds with a Bow Knight or even a Falcon Knight. Astra is pretty terrible, but crit builds are one of the few places where I'd even consider using it. The raw damage is mediocre and the durability cost is way higher than it needed to be, but the relatively large number of hits makes critting that much more reliable. For instance, if you have a 70% crit chance, then you will get at least two crits 97% of the time and at least one crit 99.8% of the time, whereas if you're attacking twice, you'll only have at least one crit 91% of the time. And of course, if you're only attacking once then you're only critting at all 70% of the time. The reliability is way higher when you use Astra. It's not enough for me to ever really recommend Astra, but it is a little bit of a niche. (All figures contingent on my having done my maths correctly; double checking is always welcome.)

I can't speak as to what's most common, but I can say what rules I used when I did my no-monastery run: Exploring the monastery was only allowed when it was forced. When it is forced, you must end exploration as quickly as possible and the only allowable actions in the monastery are the ones that are required. Paralogue battles are allowed, but other auxiliary battles are not allowed (except for the one mandatory one near the start of the game). Seminars are also banned. (From memory, I don't think there are any times when they are forced. I think there's one instance where the game blocks off most other choices, but you're still allowed to Rest or Skip past it. If I'm misremembering and there is a forced one, that would be fair game, though.) Except for doing paralogues or performing forced actions, the only choices that you are allowed to make are Rest or Skip. Manual tutoring is forbidden. All tutoring must be automated or skipped (which effectively amounts to the same thing). Setting study goals is permitted. Having people take exams is permitted. Using the merchant, battalion guild and forge through game menus is permitted (although you won't have access to the forge until part 2, since you can't complete the monastery quest that unlocks it). Answering lecture questions to gain professor level is allowed, since it's unavoidable. Hosting tea parties for characters' birthday is forbidden. I allowed myself to set group tasks once at the beginning of Part 1 and then once at the beginning of Part 2, but not to change it otherwise. A purer version of the challenge probably wouldn't allow this at all, but I didn't want to be without the money and the smithing stones. Other forms of grinding and exploits (eg, broken weapon grinding) were forbidden. That's about everything that I can think of. If there's anything specific that you're curious about that I haven't mentioned, feel free to ask. It isn't just the cost of Master Seals that's an issue; it's also how many of them are available. Without the monastery, you don't have access to Anna's shop at all, which is the only place you can get an unlimited number of them. Without that you're limited to 1 that you get when you first have a character hit level 30, 5 that are available from the regular merchant, and then potentially a few extra that are stealable at various points. Despite that, I still didn't allow myself to save scum class exams. When I failed an exam, that just meant one fewer person I could potentially put into a Master class. (I may be a bit of a masochist?)

If the translation issue was the main thing holding the game back, then we'd expect the game to have sold excellently in Japan but poorly elsewhere, but that wasn't really the case. It had pretty mediocre sales figures everywhere. Possibly it did a little better in Japan than the west (I don't know the exact sales) but not enough to think it could have been a major success. My assumption has always been that it just wasn't a good fit for the Wii. There wasn't that much overlap between the sort of person who wanted to own a Wii and the sort of person who wanted to play games like Radiant Dawn. Being a direct sequel to another game probably didn't help its case either. While you can play RD without having played PoR, the story won't be as meaningful or impactful that way, and that was probably enough to discourage some potential buyers.

There are lots of different sources of Avoid in Three Houses and it's a simple matter to stack them. You can get Avoid from: your speed stat, your weapon prowess, being in a flying class, Alert Stance+, [weapon] Avoid +20 abilities, Ferdinand and Dimitri's personal abilities, your battalion, an Evasion Ring, Defiant Avoid. Getting to the point where it is literally impossible to be hit by anything requires some work, but getting to the point where you can practically be confident that you won't die is pretty easy. A fairly low effort, non-optimised dodge tank might be something like Falcon Knight (10) Ingrid with 35 speed (+35), Lance Prowess Lvl 5 (+15), Galatea Pegasus Co (+10) and an Evasion Ring (+10) using Alert Stance+ (+30) for a total of 110 avoid. Which is good enough for a lot of purposes. And if you want to go beyond that then you absolutely can.

I'm limiting myself to one change per game and seeing how badly I can ruin everything with that. Path of Radiance: Ike never picks up Ragnell, but leaves it on the ground in the forest in Gallia. He now has no way to fight The Black Knight or Ashnard, and you have to kill Ashnard with Ena. Shadows of Valentia: world map reinforcements spawn after literally every time you move or fight. Conquest: enemy skills are not displayed in the UI. How could you possibly know that just by looking at them? Three Houses: tea parties are mandatory for every birthday. Also, if you ever have a less than perfect tea time, Rhea eats you.

For my money, I'd say that enemy-phase sweepers using Wrath and Defiant Crit are over-rated, yes. There are basically two ways that you can set them up and both of them have problems. The first option is to combine with Vantage and Retribution (or the Chalice of Beginning), with the idea being that whenever you're attacked, you hit first and kill them before they can kill you. This works well enough against most enemies, but I've found that Three Houses has too many things that counter it for it to work consistently. Gambits can still hit you, so can siege weapons, so can monsters that you can't take down in one hit (especially those with barriers that prevent crits). And if you're running a low-health build, inconsistency leads to death. It's good when it works, but you have to be careful when you deploy it. The other option is to combine it with a dodge tank build. That way, nothing will ever hit you, you don't need to worry about being at low health, you kill everything, you win. Yay. Except that you can also do exactly the same thing with a dodge tank that isn't running a high crit build. Once you have a reliable dodge tank, you've already won the game and everything else is just for show. It's probably going to be quicker and flashier if you're one-shotting everything with crits, but not particularly more effective. I do think that Dimitri's Battalion Vantage/Battalion Wrath combo is strong, though. Not being at low health means that it doesn't care about taking the occasional hit from the things that can break through the build, and not requiring a working dodge tank chassis means that it isn't just a win more combo. Player-phase crit builds are fun and can work well, but they're limited by being player-phase builds. No matter how good they are, they're only killing one enemy per turn (excepting Dance, Raging Storm, etc.) and there are no shortage of builds that can get reliable player-phase kills. Can confirm that, yes, it is possible to beat Maddening without dedicated crit builds.

Most of these aren't so much resolutions as "ideas of things that I might get to at some point if I don't get distracted by anything else". I absolutely 100% do not expect to get anywhere close to finishing all of these, but you never know. Stranger things have happened. Finish my currently ongoing XCOM 2 replaythrough. May as well start with an absolute gimme so I don't end up with a 0% success rate at the end of the year. Play Fire Emblem: Blazing Blade. May as well do some Fire Emblem resolutions, and this is a good place to start. It's the only main series FE game with an English language release that I've yet to complete. (Unless you count the Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light limited rerelease, which I don't.) Replay the Cindered Shadows DLC for FE:TH. I enjoyed this one, and am very curious to go back and revisit it now that I am better at the game than I was when I first played. Give FE: Fates another try. It's not a secret that I didn't really care for Fates, but I am thinking maybe I should give it one more try to see if I can manage to find the fun. Play more games than I buy. I already own a ton of really good games. Some of them I never got around to playing, some I bounced off quickly before really giving them a fair shake, and some I would like to replay. I want to try to maximise how many of these I play, while minimising how many I buy but then don't get around to playing properly. Replay Endless Ocean and/or Endless Ocean 2: Let's be a little more specific with one particular series that I've been meaning to replay for a while now. Play more co-op games with friends. I really enjoy co-op games, but rarely play them. I should make more of an effort to do so. Buy and play the rest of the Life is Strange series. I played the original when it first came out and loved it. Then I completely forgot about the series until I recently bought True Colors and loved that too. I want to go back and pick up the rest of the series that I skipped over, since I'll likely end up loving them too. Buy and play the following games: Crusader Kings 3, Horizon Zero Dawn. These are two games that I've been telling myself for a while that I really must play them, but never have. Maybe this year will be the year. Keep an eye on the following yet-to-be-released games: Triangle Strategy, Advance Wars Re-boot Camp, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Victoria 3, Baldur's Gate 3. That doesn't necessarily mean that I will play them, but at the very least, I want to read their reviews to decide whether they're games that I want to buy. Play at least one game that is outside my comfort zone. I like this as an idea, so I am stealing it. Speedrun at least one game. Competence and talent not required. Just giving it a go. Do something related to game creation. This could be a mod, a fangame, a text adventure in Twine, a complete game written from the ground up, whatever. And I'm also not necessarily expecting to finish it, though that would depend very much on how ambitious a project I decide to go for. But something. Write at least one piece of fan fiction for a video game. Writing is fun. I should write more. Video game fanfic is a (relatively) low effort, low stakes way to get back into it. Don't touch any game that has NFTs in it. And let's finish off with another gimme as well. 100% Stardew Valley. Except not actually finishing off because I thought of another one to add. Specifically, I want to get the Statue of True Perfection and to pick up the Fector's Challenge achievement.

While I agree that GameFreak could and should do better, I think that "just throw more people at it" can only take you so far. Adding more people introduces new problems, like maintaining a coherent style across the team, communication between departments, etc. So there's diminishing returns on what you get out of larger teams. I think it's quite telling that both of the series you cite as good examples are also often accused of being formulaic and lacking creativity. (I last played Assassin's Creed back at AC3 and have never played Call of Duty, so can't personally comment on them, but I've heard the opinion enough to know it's hardly a hot take for either.) My own personal wish would be for them to take their time on the games and give themselves more time for polish, rather than being tied to a release cycle based off the anime, toys, etc. but I can't see that happening. My point behind making this thread wasn't to defend Game Freak, Nintendo and The Pokémon company, though. Rather, my intention was to talk about how different players have different priorities. If you'd rather, consider it in these terms: out of all the things that you would like to see fixed about the Pokémon series, which would you want to see fixed first, and which are you willing to put off until later?