Zapp Branniglenn

Yeah I really like how good and unique these dragons can be without overshadowing the rest. I always find myself gravitating to units with extremely potent strengths and weaknesses. Units with a rewarding learning curve and intended niche. One of your bullet points I want to echo is Book 2's Star Shards. That's a very key mechanic to that game that Bantu just doesn't get to take advantage of anywhere near as much as other units. The only stats he takes with him into battle are Skill and HP (up to 26, any additional point wouldn't matter). Book 2 units have huge rifts in stats that might make FE6 blush, but Star Shards are the great equalizer that let you make any awful creature into a star, provided that they don't join after the point of the game where you give them up. And then in the remake Star Shards are flat stat boosts that only widen those rifts between units. It's like you say. Dragons can't ORKO enemies, and I think that keeps them from making the game boring, rather than just being a shrewd balancing decision. But here we are, Bantering about Bantu, and most Fire Emblem fans are like "...I have...no recollection of using Bantu...". He doesn't feel like he belongs anymore in FE11. And it doesn't help that FE11 (and maybe FE12? Don't remember) is the only Archanea game that fails to tell you a manakete's actual stats. In-game or through the help of the player's manual. I dusted off my DS game case to investigate that. That uncertainty behind everything he can and cannot do makes the player too wary to use him.

Dragons n' other animals. I decided to combine the two into one thread for the purposes of casting a wider net and having more games to talk about for more people. I do acknowledge this creates a funky situation for Awakening and Fates that have both in the same game. Although in Fates' case, some of you might abstain on Corrin by virtue of him already being talked about in the Lord discussion. But you can talk about whoever you feel is appropriate. Here are our previous topics: Myrmidons / Swordmasters Mercenaries / Heroes Thieves / Assassins Fighter / Warrior Brigand / Pirate / Berserkers Archers / Snipers Nomads / Bow Knights Armor Knights / Generals Cavaliers / Paladins Dancers / Refresh Units Pegasus / Falcoknights Wyverns Lords Troubadours / Valkyries Dark Mages / Druids Clerics / Bishops / infantry healers Mages / Sages Here are my thoughts, looking at the games I've played / replayed since 2017 Apologies for being late this week. Although if I had been on time, I'm not sure too many people would find the time to turn in their post on holiday. Next week is our last topic, throwing a bone to the always a bridesmaid never a bride units. Yes you guessed it. Soldiers / Halberdiers / lance infantry.

All correct, but let's not forget the context. Three Houses is four years old now, and hearing It's Optional again tells me we've learned a whole lot of Nothing from critiquing that game. The Monastery wasn't just a bunch of Extra mechanics and fluff. It was a core part of the experience that you are expected to engage with on a regular basis to clear the game. Yes I've seen No Monastery runs and they should inform us of just how much a playthrough depends on them, not vindicate the 2019-2020 counter argument: It's Optional. Put another way, the existence of 0% growths runs does not tell us level ups don't matter. You don't have to be good at Fire Emblem to understand it's a game that runs on Numbers, therefore the Numbers matter. Somniel isn't in Engage by accident. It found its way there at the direct expense (development time, resources, voice acting, animation, and writing budgets) of the Fire Emblem parts. Three Houses was delayed so much because of the unexpected strain that the Monastery had on finishing the game's three four routes. We can't really speculate how it impacted Engage because that was developed so incognito that the game was content complete before our first trailer. I do not posses a copy of Engage, no. I made an easy bet my sixty dollars would be better spent on Pikmin 4. Hey, quick clarification. No one said "Cringe", or at least I haven't. Incidentally yeah I don't like the game's aesthetics. I believe my first verbal utterance to my friend sitting next to me was "oh, maybe it's another mobile game". When I had more time to digest the trailer and jump on these forums, I pointed out the downgrade in battle scenes. That jerky camera work that cuts, instead of Echoes/Three houses' smooth use of panning. Also I'm sure I would miss character portraits, but I understand removing them in dialogue scenes due to the redundancy of seeing a person's face twice in-frame like we did in Three Houses. These are surface level issues. If I was confronted with Bad Gameplay and Bad Art, the Bad Art is almost assuredly something I'd get over across a game's 40 hour run time.

Mfers still saying "ItS oPtIoNaL" in 2023. I wasn't expecting otherwise. You gotta troll pretty hard to do it worse than Three Houses. I was Out when I saw it in the trailer. And the Post-Release discourse that I've overheard here wasn't enticing either. Everybody that likes the game prefaces it with either "I like it ironically" or "Well it didn't bother me" handwaving of issues. Fates all over again. I'm okay with a divisive game like Engage existing, but I won't be burned on another 40+ hour game that plays exactly as dull as it looked. At least Three Houses took a risk on a new story with all new mechanics. Engage is selling us "Marth From Smash Bros" as if there aren't already half a dozen low effort crossover titles in this series already. Safe. Boring. Interesting points all, but rule #1 of Fire Emblem is Build an Army. Rule #2 is Trust Nobody. Fire Emblem for the Game Boy Advance.

I'm no casual, but it's the surface level similarities to Three Houses that repelled me from picking up Engage. The big Monastery full of homework between maps? No thanks, I've had my fill of "optional" gameplay systems that play several crucial roles in terms of balance and resource economy. And also your Emblems get taken away at some point? So there's a time limit on getting the most out of those things - like Three Houses calendar system forcing you to engage with Monastery on a regular basis or else lose out on that opportunity altogether. You could try to convince me Engage does the Monastery "better" for this or that reason. But it wouldn't make a difference to me because I feel like I shouldn't have to spend half my play time on the between-mission grind in the first place. That was a key part of the appeal of Fire Emblem among SRPGs, no expectations for the player to grind.

Yeah if you have ready access to the original, then I think the best argument for this version is it's playable on a handheld system. And it's more pick up and play than ever with it autosaving on every screen transition. But I'm pleased with the idea of people experiencing SMRPG first on this version. Couldn't say that about modern Nintendo or Square remakes. I skimmed the changes with the pixel remasters and it was a lot of unnecessary gutting and homogenizing of the original games' systems. Leave the bugs alone, they add character. Or at least keep them in as a separate "Original" mode.

Okay so the Remake is pretty straightforward in its recreation of the original game. The game was retranslated yet includes all the Woolseyisms we know and love. It's mostly the enemy names that were updated. Koopas are now called koopas. Shyster was changed to not sound like a 1930s slur. The main area in which the remake improves upon is Conveyance. I think many veteran players are going to "discover" a lot of things that were always the case in the original. For instance, the perfect block. If your guard timing is perfect, as opposed to "good enough", all damage is reduced down to 0 no matter how strong it was. This is on every attack, unless it's designated to not be guardable. Which brings us to conveyance update #2, moves that can't be guarded will tell you by saying (Can't Block) underneath their name. Hitting an elemental weakness also tells you in big bolded letters. Mallow's Thought Peek (called "Psycopath in the original) will newly reveal the enemy's elemental and status weaknesses. In the original game, these details were all something you needed to "feel out" for yourself like most RPGs of its era. I would know Mario's Jump does a lot of damage to an enemy, but not whether they were simply Weak to the "Jump" Element, or if they just have no magic defense. Now I do know. It's also apparent whether a status ailment (like Bowser's Terrorize) worked on an enemy.

Mages. What's swords without a little sorcery? Do they dominate by way of 1-2 range weaponry? Is targeting Res really all that important? What's the tactical reason for going into battle in a bath robe? Mages have been a relatively static class across all of fire emblem but occasionally one of them adopts a horse on promotion. How you want to count this or that class from whichever game is entirely up to you. Here are our previous discussions: Myrmidons / Swordmasters Mercenaries / Heroes Thieves / Assassins Fighter / Warrior Brigand / Pirate / Berserkers Archers / Snipers Nomads / Bow Knights Armor Knights / Generals Cavaliers / Paladins Dancers / Refresh Units Pegasus / Falcoknights Wyverns Lords Troubadours / Valkyries Dark Mages / Druids Clerics / Bishops / infantry healers And here's my thoughts on mages, sticking to games I've played / replayed since 2017. Hope I don't ruffle too many feathers. I've always seen Mage as a sort of Myrmidon-esque class, historically. Where people insist their pros outweight their cons and don't acknowledge they're the cause of so many resets. Next week we're tackling Manaketes and Beast units

As per the Game Awards FAQ: Games are nominated by a selected Voting Jury of over 100 organizations representing different facets of the industry (reviewers, influencers, esports, and accessibility experts). These same people are 90% of the voting weight for each category, leaving the remaining 10% to the fan vote

My GOTY is Hi Fi Rush, followed by Resident Evil 4 Remake. I've got some serious hangups about a Remake winning one of these things so I'm hoping it doesn't even if I literally can't think of any way it could be improved, conceptually or on a technical level. It's hard not to notice that Mario is the only one on the list that is neither a sequel nor a remake. Then again that's pedantic. It's not like it's the first or even tenth 2D Mario. It's just the first 2D Mario where Miyamoto was shooed out of the office. Overall I'm rooting for either Baldurs Gate 3 or Mario. I haven't played either, but they are the two games whose artistic and technical quality was in the greatest doubt. Whose surprise factor is closest but not especially within striking distance of Hi Fi Rush My Expectation has not changed over the years: Zelda will take it. And the rest will run away with a bunch of no brainer, smaller categories. Heck, Disco Elysium didn't even take a GOTY nomination and still ran away with four awards total. Baldurs Gate 3 is a game that people actually played, by comparison. It stands no chance of being forgotten.

No control issues? Yeah that's what everyone thinks until they get to Pipe Vault's platforming sequences. Even SMRPG speedrunners occasionally flub the tight enemy dodges outside of battle, and these are the same guys that do 100 frame perfect Super Jumps while looking away from the screen, talking to twitch chat. Anyway I will be playing the remake, but I'm not focused on whether it surpasses the original. I just want to play a comfy, nostalgic game artfully reimagined. If it captures 100% of what made the original game great, then it's a success. If there's any area I'm worried about, it's the re-translation. Ted Woolsey is the grand storyteller of SMRPG. He gave voice to every one of those characters. Wrote those goofy item descriptions. There's going to be an opportunity to fix his mistakes. Should we call Koopas Koopas instead of noko nokos? That's a deep philosophical question that would force me to quit if I were hired onto this remake.

you should be getting it back broken

Ah. I can definitely envision them making that restriction during play testing. It's because if the opponent were holding it as they got launched offstage, Link could detonate and kill them extremely early. Like Snake's C4, except Link didn't find an opening to stick the opponent. So you might say "don't pick up Link's bomb then". The problem is that Ultimate changed items so that you pick them up involuntarily whenever you do an A move near them. So here's the common scenario that was probably bothering them during testing: Link pulls a bomb and throws it at his opponent. The opponent is running toward Link and does a dash attack. They have caught the bomb. Link blocks the attack, shield grabs, and tosses them offstage. Detonation, death at 50%. Very frustrating. Even if it didn't kill outright, the bomb could detonate in the middle of someone's double jump and there's no reasonable way to guess when to air dodge the explosion (Ultimate also changed it so you get One Air Dodge per air time). A good player would know to get rid of a bomb immediately, but Smash is built with players in mind that would fail to notice the bomb in their character's hands. And even a good player has no way of making their character Not pick up a nearby item. It's out of their control.

I don't have a first hand experience of Thracia's mechanics, but isn't the need for more staff users heavily influenced by the fatigue costs of using a staff? It certainly feels like Fatigue was intended to deliberately limit how much you get to play with these toys. It's certainly worth comparing how powerful staves are game to game, and their availability. But I do think the understated reason for Echoes at the top spot is the exclusive access to those spells on this one class. If you dropped Mae and Boey into a different FE game, they would eventually be able to Physic and Warp if you made them Heal a bunch after promotion. The only competition for support are the funky hidden spells Echoes added to some characters. Most notably Sage Tobin learning Physic. But I don't see any other case conveniently on such an optimal class change

It always bugged me that PSI Magnet healed the user, when it's the MP Drain spell in canon. Of course, every one of Ness and Lucas' special moves are breaking canon because they don't learn any of them. Anyway, I don't like healing in fighting games. So if it were up to me, PSI Magnet would power up the next special move. Like Cloud's Limit Break mechanic, each one is the same attack but stronger with extra properties. Implying that the boys are spending more PP than they normally would on a higher tiered version of their spells. PK Fire Beta instead of Alpha could be a wider explosion. Thunder sends them further. You've got the classic cloud conundrum of him needing to burn his limit break to recover even when he didn't need the better version to make it - that rewards the opponent for knocking Cloud offstage and not having to worry about that Limit Break. You could push the concept further to have Tier 3 Omega versions if you collect more charges, or alternatively turn Magnet into a new move when a charge is already absorbed - like Cloud's finishing Touch. I'd love to see a representation of PSI Rocking and PSI Love, since those are Ness and Lucas' signature moves from their games. We can also make it so that you gain a charge every time you boop the enemy with the magnet hitbox. That way this mechanic is still relevant in a matchup that has nothing to absorb, like against Captain Falcon

Clerics are known for doing one thing, but that doesn't mean that one thing doesn't have nuances game to game. Today we're looking at infantry healers, whatever their class' name is. Take them with you, and you'll be very glad you did. How you want to factor in healer classes also capable of fighting before promotion, or combat classes that promote into Bishop is entirely up to you. Here are our previous discussions Myrmidons / Swordmasters Mercenaries / Heroes Thieves / Assassins Fighter / Warrior Brigand / Pirate / Berserkers Archers / Snipers Nomads / Bow Knights Armor Knights / Generals Cavaliers / Paladins Dancers / Refresh Units Pegasus / Falcoknights Wyverns Lords Troubadours / Valkyries Dark Mages / Druids Here are my rankings based on the games I've played / replayed since 2017 Next week we will be talking about Mages / Sages

The poll has closed. Based on these results, Tomorrow our next subject will be clerics / bishops (infantry healer) classes. Following that, Mages / Sages, Manaketes / Beast units, and finally infantry lancers

The Minority Party fears enfranchising voters, this is true. It's also why they'd get behind raising the voting age to 21. Then to 24 in three more years. Then to 27 three years after that... Federal holiday Election day would be great, as would expanding it into Election Week or Weekend, so people can show up on whichever day works best for them. Of course holding the Polls open for more days costs more money. The US has more elections than any other country and we sink a lot already on having them. Last month I voted on yet another Recall election because these are notoriously easy to make happen in California. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor costs just cause a thousand people said "sure, I'll sign. What's it for?". And it was hundreds of millions$ for that unsuccessful governor recall a couple years back. My state has mail in voting, so I feel like we've already solved this Election Day issue via that alone. But recall rules are definitely something I'd want to see reformed.

Pete Davidson is my fancast for Tingle.

I'm not the sort of person to interrogate plot contrivances like that. But is it ever expressed within the film that she thinks she needs his help? I recall her already planning to set out on her journey before bumping into Mario. And as they leave, one Toad asks who's the new guy and she answers "he's....not important". Her expressed interest in him was that he looks like her - whatever she is. She "needs" him to solve the mystery of who she is, but not to save the day.

Mel Gibson Solid Snake holds a place in my heart. Right next to Kyle Reese Solid Snake on the NES boxart.

The only portrait I wanna talk about is Lorenz reimagined as Sean Connery's character from The Rock Edit: Wait a minute, FE3 came out two years before that film...

Just the usual Movie Too Woke youtube chuds. The most inane clip I've seen posted around is one of them saying it "emasculates Mario that he has to rely on powerups to win". Buddy, that's Mario. He uses power ups. Just like in the games.

I'm happy to hear that it's live action. If it were just another Mario Movie, then the best we could hope for is a 90 minute collection of cutscenes depicting a story I'd rather play than watch. I want to see something that's not safe. A swing for the fences. Not looking forward to the Discourse (TM) when it comes out though. Seeing how the internet reacted to Peach in the Mario movie, they are NOT equipped to handle Zelda's titular character. I'm expecting a dynamic similar to the DIC saturday morning cartoon series. Link and Zelda are just hanging out in the post game, thwarting Ganon like the heroes they are, but they are so over each other's bullshit when they're in a room together. Do that, but obviously not have them be at the top of their power level so we have a proper action adventure arc, classic zelda item collection, etc

I'm in the middle of a pretty intensive rom hack right now. Every turn is a fresh hell of needing to knock out threats on player phase while also softening the next wave on enemy phase. And oh look, there's the reinforcements from the starting position here to see if I did it all fast enough to cover my flank. The steps are usually: High priority target selection. Can't have my paladin on the front while that halberd is in play. The bolting mage or ballistae is close enough to take out - can I move my frontline up to support that kill or are we leaving them alive? Answer is usually to move up. Look at my backline of units / the units with the least Mov. They have the shallowest pool of targets that they can reach. Figure who they'll be taking on first, because we don't want them having an empty turn unless they have staff utility or mounted rescue that could prove useful in case of failing a dodge/hit. Bet on that crit? Support boosted killer weapons can get up to 40% crit chance. If they can knock out the toughest guy in one hit, that's ideal compared to two of my guys spending their turn to take out the same enemy. If the crit failed, then I ended up spending two units anyway. By now half my units have moved or I'm about to move once that space is clear of that enemy. The rest are mopping up injured targets and setting up to make the enemy phase safe. More bodies is its own way of managing risk. If it's a high deployment map I've typically got one or two units I'm okay with losing. Because they don't have supports with my crew or their stats are only just barely working out for this point of the game. They're usually taking up the most bold positions. If they survive, great. But their reward is probably sticking their nose into the next meat grinder lol Someone died and I'm not okay with that: Game is bullshit