Zapp Branniglenn

Wrapped up a bunch of big and relatively modern games this month Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (2021) Death Stranding (2019) Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (2018) Mega Man X Dive Offline (2023)

My profile pic was drawn by an online friend when we were teenagers. He took a guess at what I looked like and I love his depiction. My name is a Futurama reference! There's a bit more history to how I arrived at the name, but the gist is I used to compete in Smash Bros Project M with a Wii Zapper as my controller, and wanted people to call me Zapp to lean in to that branding

There was no skill inheritance. He was the only 2 range unit you couldn't bait into an ambush and then kill without taking damage on retaliation. Not unless you had a 5 charge skill activation ready to go, and that's not always feasible to plan out when you can't Reposition units on Turn 1.

When it comes to Doing a Radiant Dawn with any Fire Emblem remake, wouldn't a key component of that be a proper Micaiah style campaign as part of it? I'm talking about playing as a well meaning group that ends up on the wrong side of the major conflict. And Minerva's the only side protagonist such a story could revolve around in this setting. Fighting for her country, gradually witnessing her brother's warped ambitions and failing to get through to him. Believing that these crass acts of war are for the good of the nation, only to learn that Maria is being held hostage after a mundane act of defiance. Then finally the self-exile as she mounts a daring rescue "before Archanea captures her", believing that Michalis wouldn't care if she lives or dies at the hands of the enemy. And that's when you have the classic Chapter 10, but well into the latter half of the game. Marth's chapters wouldn't be able to play with the whitewings or Maria, but those characters would be able to play a more central role in the story as the only confidants loyal to Minerva and expanding on those relationships better than if they're introduced, individually, one at a time as per usual. Having Minerva be a "Camus" adds dimensionality to both characters. Minerva has people she cares about, and that care about her. Camus doesn't until he's on the final battle for his country's future.

The Day One meta of Heroes (both PvP and PvE) was focused around the two units that had Distant/Close Counter, and that was really the tone setter of Heroes as I remember it. I can't speak to what Heroes has been like for the past few years, but I can only imagine that the most Player Phase friendly era was the day Reinhardt came out up until the point they started piling on Armor only skills that granted free followups (presumably in conjunction with Distant/Close Counter which was still the game's lowkey premium currency). Reinhardt democratized the gap between F2P and Whale because anyone could get him and he was just that good.

I believe it was John Romero that said plot in video games is like plot in a porno. It's expected, but by no means expected to be good. Of course, I am interested in having a good story to read here or there. I hear some folks say FE7 doesn't have a great story, but man has it stuck with me. The smaller scale dramas between characters with clashing motivation throughout the Bern arc, Hector's character development, Nino's sad story. And none of FE7 would be possible if they, like with FE6, stuck to the conventions of Fire Emblem Story telling. Of Plucky Prince vs Evil Empire. Armies clashing with Armies. Big dragon boss at the end...scratch that. The Dragon IS something that failed to stick with me as much as Nergal does. Ultimately what I want from Fire Emblem story telling is something more complex than what we've been getting. Less black and white morality plays, more sensible motivations from good guys and bad guys. Characters that reflect the sort of world they live in, rather than feeling like everything just sort of appeared here the moment the Player pressed Start and became the Center of the Universe.

There's a lot to unpack on such a general question. Since information is equally disseminated from credible sources as it is from internet memes - especially if you're not from the US. Obviously we have gun laws, they just don't go far enough to address the sheer volume and access to firearms. We are the country that literally has more guns than people, after all. So instead here's an angle that I don't think is talked about enough. The US is the world's leading manufacturer of guns. And they wouldn't be pumping them out so much if there wasn't a market for them. Here and abroad. Not to put too fine a point on current events, but a crucial point of understanding with the US support of Isreal is that they're the ones filling up our bank accounts and creating new jobs on those munition sales. But obviously wars aren't an every day thing. In peacetime, that Industry is doing whatever it can to stay as profitable as it can with its lobbyists, the NRA, and producing Thoughts and Prayers for every mass shooting. Asking the US to stop producing guns is like asking them to stop coal mining, or drilling for oil. Yes the better alternative exists in clean energy, but those are multi-billion companies that will drag as much of the country down with them if it came to it. What people think is a moral failing of the masses is really the greed of a select few in power.

Yeah. Makes sense Marth would get more interested in fighting when he's got this fool idea in his head that he'll take it all back. Also we get to have a Meet Cute scene with the princess. This works for me. Though on the subject of Hardin I don't like the idea of them being uncontrollable green units in chapter 5. Where the fail condition is out of the players' hands. You could conceivably script out a series of interactions where green units die on Turn X, but controllable/fighting Nyna is a big variable that would immediately throw it out of sequence (and so would the single digit chance of a miss or crit). Changing the win condition from Seize to have Nyna talk to Marth is a compelling idea though. I would make them all controllable units. Just the Wolfguard - Hardin stayed behind at the castle to stem their forces as best he can before catching up with her as he promised he would. So Nyna's section of the map is a linear escape chapter through the mountains to the south. While Marth's crew is just working their way over.

Wait, does the prologue battle occur in Altea, or after their exile to Talys island? Because I'd prefer the latter, since the DS game's prologue implies that Teenage Marth can fairly well hold out against Gra. Only feasibly losing to Jiol's elite knights (who are conspicuously absent from Normal mode chapter 14. In fact, their stats surpass Jiol himself in every area except speed and Res (they're not promoted yet)) I'm no fan of the Final map, and don't think the ability to (intentionally) reposition units "fixed" its design. But if you put a gun to my head and told me to justify the split party, I would have it so that Marth's hallway is obstructed by three walls. Walls that can only be retracted by the other three parties reaching a lever. Also, these three parties don't simple walk toward the middle of the map. Instead, they're all dead ends with a teleport tile (think chapter 6 from Three Houses) that leads them to Marth's section of the map. However, a daemonic force is preventing the use of warp, those teleport tiles, and other global spells until a powerful mage dragon beyond those walls is defeated by Marth's crew. Because a remake should be allowed to prank veteran players expecting a Turn 1 clear and I want a map where all four parties are saving each others' lives before they get overwhelmed by infinite reinforcements.

No but I'm convinced Hammers were crafted by dwarves. Tali ho!

Not an argument either or, but this exchange from FE9 lives rent free in my head Ike's incessant need to make small talk with every boss in the game, even when he has nothing to say.

I've made the same comment about long games plenty in the past, so how about some devil's advocatarianism now that it's no longer an unpopular opinion I'm wary of people who comment that a game is "wasting their time" if they work in doing reviews/impressions of games. To those people, the playing of games IS their work. They don't even Press Start until they've locked down the kind of Content they can make out of it. Thumbnail's picked out, still working on the Segue into the Ad Read. So bad pacing isn't just something that goes against their personal tastes, it's hurting their bottom line and they're much more sensitive to it. But they obviously can't say Why, and that's its own frustration when writing. Not saying that these sorts of people are making mountains of molehills on pacing issues 100% of the time. Just that...it's kind of like understanding the bias in your source for a research project.

Drums of War gets a +1 from me. Still waiting on the Princess Mononoke-inspired gaiden campaign starring Rover. This is a great undertaking. I will definitely refer to it when picking out more hacks to play. Some other pertinent links would include discords and web pages (like, say, on Romhacking.net or FEUniverse) to learn more than what the Summary tab provides. As well as any guide-like materials detailing units stats and other pertinent info. I remember when I was playing The Last Promise, the most complete and concise hard data I could find on the game was either listed or linked on Reddit, and who knows how long that kind of source will stay up.

Hey wait a minute. We all played some games in 2023, and before we start the new year I want to see some accolades given out. You can think up your own categories like Most Surprising Game. Or cut past the pretense and just talk about your most treasured experiences. It can be only games that released in that year, or all of the games you just happened to play in that year. As for myself I've played a lot of 2023's games and put together a ranked list: What games do you want to shout out before we say goodbye to 2023?

Fallout takes up a lot of my mindspace. And I'd never miss a Kirby game. I like a lot of games, but playing for decades causes a lot of heartache as franchises fall by the wayside. You start to appreciate the ones that have been quietly grinding away in search of perfection, and not doubling down on mistakes. Being a dork of Resident Evil for decades and watching it suddenly catapult back into the prestige gaming space is a wild phenomenon. Ditto for God of War. Bravo both of you.

a happy new year to all. I mostly dug up a bunch of retro/Genesis era games over December, but here's the more interesting stuff I played. Ecco The Dolphin (1992), Tides of Time(1994) & Defender of the Future (2000) Merry Gear Solid (2006) and Merry Gear Solid 2: Ghosts of Christmas Past (2009) Pokemon Puffy Pink (2023)

They're not mutually exclusive terms. I'm pointing out that what Marth and his entire company of 'Traitors' did was only done once before by a lone Anri. Getting an army of Gordins, Phinas, Bantus and horses across the same trek is hard for a litany of reasons. Not just "we have to slay a bunch of dragons along the way". We can sooner imagine what those marches are like in real life more than we can imagine how hard it is to slay a fictional dragon. That's why I think the context adds to discussions like this. I don't see a compelling reason why we should ignore what the game is telling us with its Calendar. If we leave for a mission, win, and come back to the monastery on the same day, I believe it. They always have 3-4 "empty" days before and after Mission Day where nothing gameplay or story-adjacent seems to be happening. Consider that the post-battle wind down period before class resumes. Doing three paralogues on a single Sunday sounds silly, but they're not typically billed as being on the same scale as main story missions (even if the enemy counts are comparable). Lorenz asks You and Your Class to join him on a task he was going to do alone and succeed spectacularly at. And in any case, wars are not just the big castle sieges. There's the marching, assembling and disassembling camp, night watches, scouting, communicating with allied detachments. You don't stop being a soldier when the fighting stops. Three Houses' High School RPG framework implies to us our units don't have to do any of that. It's probably the Knights of Seiros stuck with all the custodial work.

Not a military one! How do you fight on an empty stomach? How do you sufficiently prepare a blend of infantry and cavalry to cross deserts, magma valleys, steep cliffs, and snowfields in the same campaign? Only one Human has made the trek, anyone still signed on to this army knows their personal chances must be slim. You think Anri's Way is unsettled because none of those countries got around to it? There's no shelter from towns along the way, just whatever they're carrying on their backs that they can quickly build. What's good to eat, seared dragon meat? Someone's going to raise their hand and ask 'Isn't this sacreligious?'

Three Houses has you fighting a major battle exactly once a month, always at the end of the month (they just know, with their magic calendar), and only the siege of Enbarr is a consecutive map without being able to unwind at base and enjoy incredible food, a full marketplace, a Hot Spring in the DLC. Chapter 12+13 is another consecutive map until you remember there's a five year time jump inbetween where the greatest theoretical threat is our units becoming too rusty from being out of action. The war of this game is being fought at a more leisurely pace than any individual person's playthrough in real life. Then of course there's Byleth's time travel ability. I think the only game that may compete with all that is Corrin and his Pocket Dimension. The one that has infinite resources and time does not pass. I also have my doubts about the strength of Hoshido's army if Corrin sieged his whole way up there without taking a single life. Fire Emblem canon is just baiting a response from us at this point. Hard disagree on FE3, or at least on Book 2. Marth and his army is just a tiny fraction of the Altean force from the get go (Gordin is debatably the most Senior Officer) And while they do pick up powerful allies, they're on the run for nearly half the maps (promoted enemies showing up everywhere to hurry you along). And that threat doesn't end until they're in the unsettled badlands, fighting literal dragons and the barbarian tribes trying to tame them. Miles from civilization, no shops to restock on supplies (except for Anna's secret shops, if Marth has a Players Guide to locate them). It only gets easy when you reach Gotoh and he warps you home. And the gameplay reflects that. When it's back to seizing castles, Book 2 becomes very easy and straightforward until you reach Hardin FE7's a fair answer on some level, since it is the smallest scale conflict in the series. The Black Fang is an international league of assassins, but Legault shows us the smart ones are already on their way out. Nergal is threatening, but his sanity is waning, and Athos really comes through for us in the end.

Other than a Kirby game, whatever they want 🙂

There's a common phenomenon that I'm sure many of us notice. When making a dive into a new franchise, the first game we play tends to be our favorite many years later, or at least close to that number one spot. First impressions are everything, as they say. And if you're not enjoying your time, you're probably not going to take a chance on the next game. But I was thinking about contrary examples from my own experience, and thought it may make an interesting discussion topic. I'll be listing examples of games that I played first in a series, that I would not rank as high as top 3. Feel free to post your own list with your own criteria, because I'm trying to avoid a long, drawn out writeup full of examples I don't feel strongly about. Go ahead. Get whatever you need to off your chest.

oh I forgot about what I posted last year entirely. Yeah, um that's a No on all five lol. I played SEVEN Fire Emblem games this year (eight if we count FE3 as two separate games), but none of them were Round Houses. Here's a fun milestone to report: I beat my thousandth video game in 2023. What was the lucky game? Well I was hoping for a badass answer like Thracia 776, but it ended up being Robocop Rogue City which is more than okay with me I wouldn't exactly call them "Resolutions", but I track yearly backlog goals. Goals intended to keep my game selection varied and eclectic. It's a tall and random laundry list, but a reasonable task wouldn't be as exciting to pursue. This is last year's, and here's this year. I start on November 11th, not on New Years, so I'm already well on my way.

okay so then we're not talking about the Colorado decision at all but some mystery future thing you are uniquely privy to? Historically speaking, the office of presidency was a pretty insignificant one. Heck, they couldn't even choose their own gosh darned vice president until the 19th century. And the race for the presidency was also highly exclusive to participate in (only whites, landowners could vote etc). No, the bulk of decision making power lie with the Senators. Far cry from today's presidents with their executive orders, and twenty man cabinets. I am absolutely expecting the term "officer" to be a point of contention as I said. But if you're actually curious about the basis for Colorado's argument for why President is included in that language, they bring up one of the Amendment's authors. Representative McKee made public statements clarifying that the rebels shall hold no political power, which is why they rewrote with a wider net of language (ie 'Officer of the United States') rather than spelling out president, vice president, etc like they did in their first drafts. Then on page 77-78 we see debates on the new inclusive language back when it was being written, and how they determined it was clear enough. It's only us in the twenty first century second guessing their word choice. Imagine being so extremely online that someone responds to you once and you think you've nailed down their politics. As to your alleged polls, I can only offer this one as a counterargument since it's the most recent on my mind when I posted. 54% is a slim majority of Americans who support Colorado, at least as their first blush reaction. I'd like to think you know what I meant when I talked about "people on the fringe" just before I began rattling off examples of conspiracy theories. Not to bust out the grade school civics lesson but our country was built on a system of checks and balances. Can't just remove the head of one entire branch and expect things to sort themselves out. What many people don't seem to get about the presidency is that it isn't just "one guy". It's one guy and all the guys that he associates with, his picks for judges, cabinet positions, his endorsements of other politicians as the Face of an entire Party at that moment in time. We don't elect a king, we elect a delegator.

...for the tax stuff? Yeah, you will find many liberals cheerleading a doped up rich kid having to pay his fair share. But okay Let's say, for the sake of argument, that every Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy theory is correct. That there was some quid pro quo situation in Ukraine that made it into Joe Biden's pocket. It would affect our opinion of that man, but Is that insurrection? The first Trump Impeachment was about some extremely similar and more damning subject matter, and I haven't heard anybody tie that in to the 14th amendment's exclusion clause. We're focused on the second impeachment: Jan 6th. The GOP isn't chasing the Hunter Biden stuff or the impeachment inquiry because they expect to actually impeach Biden. They just need something constantly in the news to support Both Sides-isms and demoralize people from voting. Their path to victory in 2024 depends on people not showing up. They'll stonewall the fake scandals as long as they can This bleak outlook depends heavily on us whittling away at the definition of "Insurrection" (a not at all common word before 2021), until it's lost all meaning. But the average American agrees that Jan 6th was an attempted insurrection to overturn an election and unlawfully install Trump as the winner. There's only a fringe collection of people that still debate the particular details (Exactly to what degree did Trump's rhetoric that day 'cause' it, was it somehow an 'inside job', was the election being protested actually fair and free, etc). If there are more Jan 6ths in the future - If this becomes an every four years thing, then yeah Insurrection is going to be a mundane, common noun. In which case, maybe maybe a state supreme court will take seriously the notion that a democratic congressman that marched in a BLM rally (after taking office) was "engaging in insurrection" and disqualify them. But this perfect storm of events doesn't sound very likely to me. Or at least not as likely as one of those coup attempts actually succeeding and making Insurrection a not-mundane word again. They're not going to hit the D and R candidates in 2028-2040 with the 14th amendment if there's no Insurrection to speak of.

This Colorado ruling is fascinating on so many levels. Frankly I'm not a big Constitutional Textualist myself when it comes to what we can and cannot do. But I'd support an exclusion clause for Insurrectionists who vowed to defend the Constitution about three times more quickly than I'd support excluding a candidate that has exhausted their term limit (and I do support term limits, I think we should consider having some more for judges and lawmakers!). And the other stuff like needing to be a natural born citizen, 35 years of age, does anyone actually care to exclude based on that? Feels like that's the realm of personal preference. Compared to, say, Convicted Felons. You can theoretically be a lawmaker in Congress that can't legally vote in his own state, what a bizarre paradox. Anyway I fully expect the Supreme Court to appeal and strike it down for some lazy reason ("What's an 'officer'? And how can we prove that the 14th amendment framers didn't want the under-federal-investigation / not yet pardoned Jefferson Davis to run for president? And also please don't read Section 3's final sentence about the intended appeals process Trump is supposed to use to petition for eligibility - a legal recourse not offered for a 28 year old presidential hopeful). But I feel like that puts them in an awkward position for a few different reasons. They wouldn't just be ruling against the Constitution, they'd be a hyper-conservative Court ruling against States Rights to run their own elections with their own rules. That's some outrageous irony. The Court whose legacy is ruling states should have total control over Abortion, but not over their own ballots. Or heck, think of the precedence it will set when we're trying to rework/abolish the electoral college a few years down the line. One theoretical defense is the notion that Congress/Federal Govt shouldn't tell the states how electoral votes ought to be awarded, and that angle's about to dry up. If I was a GOP megadonor attempting to metagame this disaster, I'd say "Let Them Have Colorado". I don't see the potential for a Domino Effect of other states ruling the same way, because they've tried already or expect the SC will deliver the final say anyway. Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, have all ruled in Trump's favor on this issue. Colorado's the odd one out, and by letting this state that was never in play keep their ruling, it helps create a bullshit narrative about election interference at no real cost.