lenticular

A definitive list of this nature doesn't exist. Frankly, it doesn't exist for Awakening either. Way too much is subjective or depends on playing style and goals. Any list that does claim to be a definitive set of best characters and builds is just flat out wrong to make such a claim. The best you can reasonably hope for is the personal preferences of the list's writer. I can tell you that there's a lot on your list that I personally wouldn't do, but that doesn't necesarily mean that it's wrong for you. I would never aim for a class progression with 9 classes, but you've outright stated that you plan on grinding in a way that sounds like the opposite of fun to me, so fair play to you. I would only ever bring at most one dedicated healer, I wouldn't bother with healing focus, I wouldn't go without reposition and shove, I wouldn't have rally skills on a dancer, I wouldn't bring about half of the units you're planning to bring, I wouldn't do so many mixed weapon builds, and so on. But that's me. And there's no point in you trying to find the build that would be perfect for me, since it won't be the same as the one that's perfect for you.

So, there's basically two ways to build Bernadetta. Generally speaking, you either do a bow build or you do a Vengeance build. At a push you could also consider a magic build. Let's consider all of them. First, there's bow Bernadetta. If you put her into Sniper or Bow Knight, then she'll do decently well for you. However, this is mainly down to the strength of the classes rather than the strength of the unit. It certainly helps that she has skill proficiencies to get into both classes without any effort, but ultimately, you can put alost anyone into Sniper and they'll turn out well. Bow Knight is a bit less universal due to harder requirements, but anyone who can reasonably reach it will excel. This is similar to the situation with Caspar and Grappler/War Master. Saying "Bernadetta is good as a Bow Knight" is not an argument in favour of Bernadetta, but an argument in favour of Bow Knights. Then there's Vengeance. Put bluntly, I don't like Vengeance. At all. Is it potentially very powerful? Sure. Can I understand why other people like it? Absolutely. Do I ever want to use it myself? No.There are two factors here. First is the setup. It's not exactly difficult to setup, but personally, I find it too annoying and fiddly to bother with. Second is the risk. Vegenace Bernadetta is the definition of a glass cannon. If you miscalculate at all, she will die. If you get unlucky and miss a high probability attack, she will die. If practically anything goes wrong at all, she will die. And for me, the payoff simply isn't worth the risk. Yes, it can do ridiculously high damage, but there are plenty of other builds out there that can serve as a delete button and that don't come with the risks and the hassle. Finally, for the sake of completeness, her magic builds. To me, these just aren't good at all. Yes, her spell list is pretty great, but she doesn't have the magic stat to back it up. Being able to use Rescue doesn't mean anything if it has terrible range. In short, I don't find any of the arguments in her favour to be compelling, and her weaknesses are pretty stark. That is: her stats are bad. Really bad. On the plus side, her personal is great, and I do like Encloser. So that's something. Overall, I've been waffling between a 4.5 and a 5, but given that I don't particularly enjoy her as a character (I don't like how her trauma is played for laughs), I'm going to use the discretionary subjective part of my scoring to round down. So, I rate her as a 4.5/10. Now, if anyone needs me, I'll be setting up the pillories to make everyone else's job of sticking me in them easier.

The Elyssian Whip was the one that really irritated me. Having an entire class be inaccessible is garbage, especially since promoting from pegasus to dracoknight loses a bunch of res so ends up feeling more like a sidegrade than a direct upgrade. Which does raise the question: how will this sort of thing affect the overall rating of the game? I know that if I were rating it, this nonsense would be a serious detriment to both usability and replayability, but it isn't my rating system so it isn't my call.

Fun fact: in my very first play through Three Houses, Caspar ended up being my best unit. The one who I had to be careful not to use too much because he'd take experience from everyone else, but that I could always have in reserve to come in and absolutely wreck whenever I was in trouble. Knowing what I know now, I really don't know how that happened and dread to think how RNG-blessed he must have been. It is amusing to look back, though, and remember the time when I considered Caspar the god tier unit. As for how good he actually is? Well, not very good. Few skill proficiencies, uninspired combat arts, mediocre to bad bases and growths, no crest, and terrible recruitment. That said, there are two things that I do like about Caspar. First is his personal. Being able to give adjacent enemies -10 avoid is pretty great. It's a passie bonus that you don't even have to think about that will make him hit more often, but it can also be useful to deliberately position him to help someone else land their hit. I definitely consider it one of the better personals in the game. The second thing I like about him is that even though he isn't well suited to many classes, the classes that he is suited to are really good. The obvious classes to put him into are grappler and war master, and if you put him into either of them, he'll be a good combat unit on the basis of the class alone. He's also a reasonable fit to go into wyvern rider and wyvern lord, with his strength in axes and neutral in flying. Again, if you go down that route he'll turn into a pretty great unit just on the basis of the class. He won't be as good as other wyvern lords or other war masters or grapplers, but he will still be good. Overall, he's still not a particular impressive unit, but I still give him a passing grade of 4/10.

He doesn't have a whole lot going for him. His personal skill is a genuine contender for worst in the game. He is the only unit in the game who doesn't learn a single combat art other than the ones everyone gets. His two skill proficiencies (reason and faith) have him tied for the fewest in the game; only three other units (Caspar, Catherine, Shamir) have that few and no budding talent. Literally everything about him is made to be a dedicated spellcaster. He really struggles as an offensive spellcaster, though. He doesn't have high enough magic stat to pack much of a punch, good enough offensive spells to make up for it, or good enough speed to be doubling much of anything. He'll mostly just be dealing chip damage, and fairly mediocre chip damage at that. And so we come to his faith list. Physic is a great spell, but there are plenty of units who have it, so it's hardly a unique selling point. Early access to physic is a nice perk, but is only relevant for a level or two. Restore is the sort of spell that I end up using only once or twice in an entire game, but it's amazingly clutch on those rare occasions when it does come up. So, overall, I'd say that his white magic performance up to this point is good but not great. And then there's Warp. Ultimately, I just don't value Warp nearly as highly as a lot of other people do. It's obviously invaluable in anything that in any way resembles a speedrun or LTC, and there are definitely times where it shines in casual play too, but it's not something that I find myself using in every map. Don't get me wrong, it's a good spell and I appreciate having it, but I don't think it's good enough to turn a painfully mediocre unit into a good one. I can see why people who love Warp rate him highly, but I don't. Overall, I rate him at a 5 and honestly feel that's erring on the side of generous. As something of an aside, I would typically consider his lack of access to gremory to be a pretty big downside, since I value the +1 movement that gremory has over bishop. For Crimson Flower, though, so little of the game happens after level 30 that master classes aren't really much of a consideration

I find that it's particularly weird in Shadow Dragon. Shadow Dragon goes out of its way at every possible opportunity to really hammer home that the game was designed to be played iron-man style. From forcing you to sacrifice a unit in the prologue to all the visit conversations about how sometimes you need to lose people to the gaidens you only get by losing people to the literally endless stream of replacement units you get. Everything about it comes across as being designed to be ironmanned. I generally don't like to play ironman style, but I did so anyway when I played Shadow Dragon, because it was so heavily pushed and felt so much like it was the design intent. And then they put in the save points anyway, making it seem like a game with an identity crisis. Three Houses, on the other hand, is completely terrible to try to ironman, but nothing about it feels as if it was ever intended to be an ironmannable game. There's basically nothing in the way the game is presented that tries to push a player towards ironman, and several things pushing players away from it. To me at least, Three Houses feels like a game that is secure in its own identity and that largely achieves what it sets out to accomplish. Obviously, what it set out to accomplish isn't going to be to everyone's taste, but I never got the same sense of identity crisis in it that I got from Shadow Dragon.

It depends what you count as grinding. I find that the fastest and most efficient way to kill monster enemies is to take out a single piece of armour, and then unload on that one space with cantoers and ranged attackers. Taking out all of the armour for the stun can occasionally be helpful, but it is something I very rarely do if I don't care about getting the ore drops. As such, I'm going to consider it a (very minor) form of grinding, and assume it isn't allowed under the rules. This basically takes Aymr/Raging Storm out of the equation, since it isn't all that great if you only get to use it five times ever. If grinding for Agarthium is allowed, then her rating would definitely be higher. That said, even if it is allowed, you still only have Aymr in part 2, which is only 6 maps long. They're also the final 6 maps, and I generally consider being good in the late game to be less important than being good in the early game. Even so, she's still a very good unit. Her stats range from decent to great, with strength and charm standing out, and she will become a strong combat unit with very little effort. Her personal ability giving her an extra 20% xp is also nice, since it makes it harder for her to fall behind in level and easier to stay just a little bit ahead of the curve (the part 2 upgrade of her personal is largely meaningless). She does have some definite downsides, though. A weakness in bows is never something you want on a physical unit, and her mediocre speed growth can be an issue at times, either getting her doubled or preventing her from being doubled. Subjectively, I find the whole "crush on teacher" thing she has going on incredibly annoying, so I'm going to ding her half a point for that. Overall, I rate her a 7.5/10. Good, but overrated.

I think the biggest one for me would be Europa Universalis III, which I picked up in 2010 after I'd been in hospital for a week. I was convalescing at my parents' house and didn't have access to all my usual gaming options, but did have a Mac laptop. Gaming on Mac in 2010 was... not great. So I picked up Europa Universalis III not because I was especially excited for it, but because it was one of a very limited number of available options. But I ended up absolutely loving the game, played it for hundreds of hours, and have over a thousand hours in its sequel. Beyond that, there are an absolute ton of indie games. I'm much more willing to take a chance on a game I don't know much about when I'm paying indie prices, so I get more chances to be pleasantly surprised. Also more chance to buy absolute dross, but what you lose on the swings, you gain on the roundabouts. Some indies that have really pleasantly surprised me have been Stardew Valley, Slay the Spire, FTL, Bastion, Braid, Spacechem, Dungeons of Dredmor, Analogue: A Hate Story, Gorogoa, 80 Days... and many more that I am not immediately thinking of. Being able to take more chances and be pleasantly surprised more often is one of the things I love about indie games.

If you take up one of the generous offers to cut a character to let one of mine in, keep whichever one of mine retains the best overall gender balance.

Kiria (TMS) and Reyson (PoR/RD).

Pro: More unique named weapons than any other route. Only route that can get Areadbhar, Crusher, Tathlum Bow, and Sword of Moralta. Also the only route that can have two of the Lord relics, since it gets Failnaught. Pro: Has more pairs that give extra might to linked attacks than any other class/route. Pro: Is the only route in which the main antagonist of the game is also the final boss. It's a more emotionally satisfying ending than VW or SS, both of which go in somewhat weird directions at the end. CF is also good for having its main antagonist as the final boss, but is somewhat orthogonal to the rest of the game, so harder to compare. Con: None of your starting class learn Warp. Con: Starting with Sylvain in your house means you can't recruit him for free with female Byleth, which means you effectively start with one fewer unit. Con: My pick for worst unit in the game is one of your starting units. (Pro: other people's picks for worst unit in the game is not one of your starting units.)

Out of curiosity, what was it that disappointed you about Mass Effect 3? Was it just the ending (which I personally didn't mind but I know a lot of people hated), or were there other parts that you found disappointing too?

As far as the whole blood pact thing goes, one of the things that I remember being annoyed by was how very out-of-nowhere it was. Even assuming that they were a new invention for Radiant Dawn that hadn't been planned in Path of Radiance, that still gives them the first half of the game where they could have laid some groundwork or dropped a few hints. They could have had blood pacts mentioned in passing alongside spirit charmers as an example of a dark bargain that is ultimately not worth it. Or they could have had some conversation about the magical bonds between a country and its leader. Or some mention of blood pacts on a much smaller scale. Or any number of other possibilities that could do something to establish them in the lore before they become a major plot point. It's been years since I played Radiant Dawn, so please do correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't remember there being even the slightest hint of a mention beforehand. Personally, I'm almost entirely uninterested in the Saga games and doubt I'll bother reading them, so from a purely selfish perspective, I'd say to leave them until much later. But beyond that, from a pragmatic perspective, I think I would also say to leave them for now. You already seem to be having some burnout for this project, so in your shoes, I'd be wary of making it longer than it needs to be. If you reach the end of Three Houses and still want to carry on to the Saga games then there'd be nothing stopping you, but you could also easily call the project "done" at that point if needs be. On the other hand, if you do the Saga games now, then you're either committing to three extra games or you run the risk of stalling out before you finish the main series. Ultimately, though: do whatever you think you'll have most fun with.

As well as Sanaki, there's also the support chain between Tanith and Reyson in Path of Radiance. It's definitely not even a little bit the same as the Ingrid role, though. That would probably be someone who actually believed the herons were responsible for killing the previous Apostle, and I don't recall any major characters believing that. It's still an interesting interaction, though, with Tanith initially displaying and eventually overcoming a more subtle and insidious form of racism in which she sees only what the herons can't do rather than what they can. (On the larger topic of the thread as a whole, I've been staying quiet since I consider myself wholly unqualified to talk about this, but I have been reading with interest.)

For me, there's a big difference between a story where I'm just an observer and a story where I'm supposed to be a participant. If someone with a well-defined character does something that I consider weird/foolish/misguided/whatever then I can easily say, "oh, that's just their personality and their character" and move on. But for avatar characters -- especially blank-slate silent-protagonist player-insert avatar characters like Byleth -- the game is presenting the conceit that this character is actually "me" in some way. It's not just saying "Byleth isn't suspicious of the church" it's saying "you aren't suspcicious of the church" (or whatever else). If this conflicts with what I, the player, am thinking then that creates a disconnect. Instead of drawing me into the game's story, which is the intent of an avatar character, it pushes me out of the story.

Personally, I want to see more Birdo. And I want the proper original version transgender Birdo, not the weird retcon cisgender version they give us these days. Put her in something around the general space of a visual novel, narrative adventure or walking sim, and I am there. Of course, this would probably only sell about 8 copies globally (3 of which would be to me), so it's obviously never going to happen, but I'm not going to let that stop me from wanting it.

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who hates Catherine, for making me feel super special and unique for being damn near the only person who actually loves her. ❤️

Byleth, by a long way. I don't like blank-slate player-insert characters, and nothing about Byleth changed my mind. I also feel that interactions with Byleth are the things I like least about other characters. Edelgard's schoolgirl crush on Byleth was the worst part of Edelgard, Leonie's competing over who loved Jeralt more was the worst part of Leonie, etc. As the main player character, Byleth is also the hardest to ignore. If someone else irritates me, I can largely ignore them, but Byleth is always there. Dishonourable mentions go to TWSITD for being one-dimensional cartoon evil, Bernadetta for being portrayed in a tonally inconsistent way that jumps between comedy and tragedy, and Anna for having no supports.

The introduction and prologue could very easily be rewritten not to include Divine Pulse as a story element. As I understood it, the bottom option isn't "keep everything else the same but ignore Divine Pulse in that one scene"; it's "rewrite the rest of the game's story so that there's no reason to need to explain it away at that point".

My preference would have been to have Divine Pulse be purely a gameplay mechanic without any story integration, but given that they didn't go down that route, I'd have tried to pre-establish some limitations on its power before we get to that scene. It wouldn't have worked thematically to have a big discussion on the metaphysics of time travel in the middle of a death scene, but that doesn't mean that discussion couldn't have happened elsewhere. If we'd already had a scene where Byleth had tried to use Divine Pulse for something but failed, then we could have had a longer explanation of fate and destiny from Sothis. Then, in the death scene, we only need a slight reference to something pre-established that does not interfere with the scene. For instance, at Remire, Byleth could have been frustrated that the Flame Emperor escaped and tried to use Divine Pulse to prevent this, only to fail each time for different reasons. Then we could have had a full scene where Sothis explains that while many events are mutable, some are destined, and that the power of Divine Pulse is the power to weave the mutable threads to one's will, not the power to change destiny, etc. etc. That way, having already had the concept explained, it's much easier to accept a line about destiny in the moment.

It's even worse than that. Most of the time, Faith Prowess 5 gives 0 hit because you don't have it equipped. There just isn't a critical mass of offensive white magic spells. Reason Prowess can be a good skill to equip, because you can reasonably expect to have a black magic spell equipped on every turn of a battle. Faith Prowess is not good to equip because you don't have white magic tomes equipped nearly as often. You get 3 uses of Aura, after which you're left with either Nosferatu or dodge-tanking with Heal, both of which are marginal at best. Using an ability slot for something like this is a big opportunity cost, so not really worth it. Let's imagine that a basic Light spell existed in Three Houses, with the same stats as Fire. Then let's imagine a hypothetical unit had a spell list of Light, Nosferatu, Seraphim, Aura, Abraxus. In that case, Faith Prowess would be worth equipping, as would White Tomefaire, and every single one of the spells would be better together than they are on their own. That they are isolated is part of what makes them so bad. It also gives the ability to use magic, which is one of the defining abilities of the class. Take that away and it's basically just swordmaster with worse stats and a fancier outfit.

I agree about the reason list, which I think is largely fine. I did suggest changing it up a bit, but I don't really have a problem with it as it is, and definitely disagree with the people suggesting pushing it up to 5 spells and adding Meteor. For my money, that would be too much, and is the sort of list better left to pure casters. For faith, though, I do absolutely think Byleth's list is garbage. Is it better than the people who only have Heal/Nosferatu/Recover? Yes, absolutely, but that is the lowest of low bars to clear. It's worse than the basic Heal/Nosferatu/Physic lists, and it's worse than almost all lists that have more than three spells because Aura just isn't very good. I think the only four-spell lists that I would consider worse are Ferdinand's (Heal, Nosferatu, Ward, Restore) and Felix's (Heal, Nosferatu, Recover, Restore). The big problem with Aura is that it has bad accuracy and low uses, and can't mitigate these downsides nearly as well as comparable black magic spells can. For the high level black magic, most people will have the prowess skill equipped, but equipping faith prowess just to improve Aura is a big waste of an ability slot, since the only other attacking white magic you have is Nosferatu, which you want to be not using as much as possible. And this is on a character where faith really ought to be a big deal. It's one of four skills that Byleth has a strength in (after picking up the budding talent), the Exalted One class gets the same bonus to weapon proficiency growth in faith as in swords, and obviously, there's the big storyline reason why Byleth should be really really good at white magic. Not just because they're the avatar and the avatar should be good at everything, but because it's one of the skills that's really pushed for them.

I will be surprised if the version of SM64 has all the same glitches as the original. I'm not an expert, but as I understand it, the BLJ glitch was patched out of the Japanese Shindou version as far back as 1997, and I doubt they're going to add it back. The audio in the Bowser fight also has Mario saying "buh-bye" like he does in the Shindou version rather than "so long, Bowser" as he does in the international version, which definitely makes me think that's the version the port is based on. And I've never seen any evidence that Nintendo cares even a little bit about catering to speedrunners.

I doubt they'll make as big a deal of it as they have for Mario. Ports and remakes are already making up a big part of the Switch lineup this year, and leaning into that even more next year would probably not be popular. If they do too many anniversary events -- especially for weird numbers like 35 -- then they'll also risk people either getting sick and tired of anniversaries or demanding that their favourite series gets an event. I think there's a pretty good chance that BotW2 hits next year, and maybe a Skyward Sword port as well, but I'm not expecting much beyond that. In terms of wild fantasies that are almost certainly not going to happen: A full remake of A Link to the Past, in the style of the Awakening remake. A spiritual successor to The Adventure of Link. A new, modern Zelda game but with the side-on RPG-ish metroidvania-ish gameplay of TAoL. "Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, and Wind Waker are available to play now on Nintendo Switch Online, which now includes Nintendo 64 and Gamecube titles".

I don't like that they're making 3D All Stars a limited time thing. "Act now or lose your chance forever!" is one of the oldest grifts in the book, and is pushing me from probably getting it to probably skipping it. Of the other stuff they showed off, the Mario battle royale is the one that caught my eye the most. I'm probably going to play it, be terrible at it, but have fun with it anyway. I also kinda want the Game and Watch, for nostalgia reasons, but really don't think I can justify spending the money on it.