Samias

I recommend the New 3DS XL over the old 3DS XL. For one, Xenoblade is an exclusive. Two, amiibo support is built-in and many recent and upcoming games have some kind of amiibo compatibility. The difference in speed is incredibly noticeable when playing Smash Bros and Monster Hunter 4 U, as the original has to shut down everything running in the background whereas the new one does not. The 3D on the N3DS is also usable, since it has facial tracking. For people who had trouble seeing the 3D before on the XL, the N3DS pretty much assures you'll be able to enjoy it unless you literally cannot see 3D effects. The battery life is better, the nub is... actually pretty bad and absolutely not a 2nd control stick like people thought it might be. The power button on the N3DS is kind of in an awkward spot and the mini SD requires you to unscrew the back to remove, but it actually has a way to become a networked machine for your PC to connect to without having to open up the system.

It's a simple party game. In fact, it's barely a game at all. Sure it's cute, but it literally exists solely to market amiibos. I played it for about a day or two (I'd say roughly 10 hours put into it), there's a sparkle of promise under there but it's SHALLOW. And between Amiibo Festival and Ultra Smash, it's a bad holiday black eye for Nintendo as far as reviews go, worse on the critical side but not so hot for the consumers either. Amiibo Festival's not even compatible with Villager either! It encourages pay to win mechanics by awarding Amiibo characters with happy points for every roll of the dice. Once someone gets rolling on the turnip train and gets ahead, the possibility of the losers catching up is nearly an impossibility and the game is virtually decided in week 2. The minigames aside from the Island Escape are all pretty bad, designed in such a way that you'll probably scuff up your precious amiibo cards. Also, there's an actual distinction between full-on Amiibos and the cards, despite Nintendo's claim that they would receive equal treatment. All you can do with them is play minigames and use the cards as weighted dice rolls in the board game. You cannot use the cards as full blown characters. If you want to use your amiibos between Amiibo Festival and Happy Home Designer? Good luck if you want to save! You can't do it without overwriting your progress! Well, good thing the cards are read-only in the board game anyway and other than the Island minigame, nearly meaningless as far as individual characters is concerned... Here's a question: Would as many people have bought Amiibo Festival if Isabelle and Digby were obtainable without the game? Do you believe Amiibo Festival and Happy Home Designer are worthy spinoffs to one of Nintendo's biggest franchises? My own answer? I only own Amiibo Festival for Isabelle and Digby. I gave the game a chance. I played long enough to complete all alternate paths all along the board. I noticed the amiibo I use has an effect on the game, and that's cool. Is the game fun? Not really. I played it with my friends and it was definitely not the reaction we'd get like if we had played Mario Kart, Smash Bros or Monster Hunter, or even Nintendo Land, which has a far superior Animal Crossing themed minigame included. There's nothing to be excited about except speculating on turnips. We would groan at every appearance of Katie, Shrunk, Redd or Katarina because they just talk SO MUCH, and SO SLOW, and SO REPETITIVELY. The quiz's gimmick with cards would have been far better had we been assigned our own controllers instead of flailing our cards around the Gamepad huddled up on the floor. The balloon drop is one note, like something you would see in Mario Party bundled up with 50+ other games, not 7. The rest of the minigames are single player despite this title being billed as a party game. Maybe my opinion will change if Nintendo continues to support the title and add more content, but it looks pretty unlikely. Happy Home Designer feels even worse, if only because it has a lot of good ideas for a main line Animal Crossing game but has zero interaction or engagement for the player outside of decorating rooms. The contests are dominated by Japanese savants with existing followings. Interaction with the villagers you help feels hollow as all they can do is spout off the same fluff message every day. They don't reward you. They don't chastise you. They absolutely don't care about what you do, leaving an empty sandbox to play in, where only the hardcore will really dwell. With the price of games in Canada right now ($50 for HHA and $80 for AF), I feel absolutely unfulfilled.

[spoiler=disorganized rant on why I disliked FFXIII complete with many endgame spoilers] FFXIII is not the worst game in existence but I did not enjoy it. The overuse of in-universe terms? Absolutely not an issue for jRPG or even FF fanatics but it was brought up by multiple critics when the game launched. Tales and Disgaea games are regularly more obtuse than this. HOWEVER, FFXIII loves to throw around these grand concepts while continually forgetting where exactly they're taking the plot. Despite the hallway design of every area (not an issue, we've played hallway simulator regularly in previous FF games even if they were slightly more labyrinthine and no one complained), the plot meanders, the party gets continually split up, and progression constantly goes from crazy to non existent with one of the least engaging level up mechanics ever conceived in the series. Gear upgrades are poorly explained. You just kind of dump parts into it and fill up big numbers and sometimes certain things combine together for bonus modifiers and there was really no need for the system to be so complicated. It's not a crafting system and yet it has so many fiddly bits to it that don't amount to much in the end. Shopping terminals in general are weird. We're fugitives. The shop owners know we're fugitives. The juggling of in-game reasons for soldiers to not immediately converge on our position is just silly in a game that takes itself way too seriously. The shop mechanics are poorly thought out in general. Combat relies more heavily on switching roles of the team rather than managing skills, because time wasted is more chance for you to go from green HP to dead before your ATB bar fills. I could see some people enjoying this and having the reflexes to manage everything but the enemy keeps nomming on your face during paradigm shifts so I found battles to be simultaneously anti-fun but horrendously boring. Your mileage may vary here as someone with more mastery of the system probably can derive a lot of enjoyment out of managing their staggers and launches effectively while keeping themselves alive. This is the strongest part of the game, at least, but also a bit of a buzzkill for people who liked the slower pace of older FF games. On the heels of FF11 and FF12, both also radical departures from classic RPG structure, I can see a lot of the classic fandom struggling to stay engaged with the series in general. I find the battle music is kind of eh. Speaking of music... I like Hamauzu's music, especially his field tunes, but Blinded By Light is kind of a boring battle song for being the main theme. In my eyes, allowing Naoshi Mizuta and Mitsuto Suzuki's work to be more prominent in FFXIII-2 was an improvement, leaving Hamauzu for pivotal story moments. For such J-pop inspired visuals of the main characters, I just enjoyed the more electro-pop songs the games offered up compared to the grandiose orchestra. Also Crazy Chocobo With the systems out of the way, here's the heart of why I really did not enjoy FFXIII: THE SCRIPT. Inappropriately corny catchphrases and puns("Moms are tough!" "We have hope!"), mixed in with over-the-top melodramatic moments, and plotpoints that seem like mistakes. The funny bits of Woolsey's scripts in the early days of FF were matched up to the silliness of the sprites and the lighthearted visuals. Without voice acting, they could get away with cheesy exclamations and catchphrases and at least we wouldn't be able to immediately tell if that sounded stupid for anyone to say out loud. Now we have a bunch of dour teens on a meandering adventure to kill the world's god-like entities because they want to die except they need to fight you off and hinder you but no, really, they want to die? And they'll have a big long cutscene after cutscene that shows characters who you thought died with literally no reaction of "WTF how'd he live through that". How many times does Yaag Rosch need to blow up before it gets him killed? Cid dramatically turns to crystal feeling free of his burdens after you defeat him when he defies his focus... only to return one scene later to be shot by his former friend in an insanely convoluted plot to incite the masses with terror? What? Every beautiful cutscene in this game feels like it was all animated and rendered before they finalized the script for the game, leading to far too many moments where the story has to backtrack and erase what it just did because they didn't mean for someone to die at that moment, but they reaaaally wanted it to look cool and didn't want to throw out any work. You end up having a logical scenario for Snow and Lightning to awaken their eidolons in times of extreme pressure. Then the leadup to Sazh's eidolon battle was cringeworthy at how forced the atmosphere was. Fang's Bahamut was a moment of "I guess so??" On Gran Pulse they'd just drop an eidolon battle with the elegance of a panicked elephant. Hope slingshots between resolute and hopeless (fuck those Hope puns by the way, I want to strangle Lightning with every utterance of "We have hope" to Hope's face) at seemingly random intervals to finally just summon Alexander because the game is nearly over and they resolved everything important with Hope ages ago. Vanille and Fang's hot potato with Ragnarok guilt is poorly communicated to the point where I thought the plot summary was just pulling shit out its ass and so we could fight Hecatoncheir. ...I am super glad we didn't get Lightning or I think the internet REALLY would have exploded, to be honest. Personally I really wanted Rydia or Terra, with Rydia being a whip fighter and having all those summons at her disposal and Terra being a more graceful swordfighter than even Marth and with a magic bent as well, but oh well. Cloud is one of my favourite FF protagonists if I blot out the existence of AC.

Yikes, it sold out of preorders at the $100 mark? Let me say I personally feel $100 for an HD remaster of an 8 year old game + a toy worth $15 at best is really pushing the limits of what I'm willing to put up with. Amiibo Festival was bad enough but I splurged on Isabelle and Digby. $80 shovelware. The average salary in the US is roughly the same as in Canada, maybe sliiiightly lower on the minimum wage end. However everything in Canada costs rougly 30% more than its US equivalent these days, it's insane. Nintendo in particular has been incredibly conservative with stock and preorder availability in Canada. FE Fates and Xenoblade Chronicles X got several preorder waves and ample supply for demand for US preorders. Canada? A day for minimal copies of XCX. Their website is a sick joke if you try to look up preorder available up in the cold North. Seriously heartless. Fire Emblem? Who the hell knows. We won't know a damn thing for the next month, at least. Robin and Lucina amiibos? What are those? I actually thing EB Games never actually gave me a refund on my preorder they unceremoniously cancelled for a nebulous spot on their wait list, only a 20% discount on a bunch of Mario amiibos I already had, only valid at the specific store I ordered at. Sorry for this impromptu rant. I'm just angry. I guess I know how Australia must feel right now.

The other 5 are on Nintendo systems but Cloud is not in Tactics Advance or A2, and Tactics has never been on a Nintendo system. Only PS1 and PSP. So he's only been in 5. I don't know if his role in KH is significant or not considering he is a bonus boss in the first game. Theatrhythm is just an insane Who's Who of Final Fantasy characters with the bare minimum story and a whole lot of fan favourites in music selection. Cloud is only slightly more relevant than Lightning in his relation to Nintendo. Even Vaan has more going for him through major appearances in Revenant Wings and FFTA2. But FF as a series does have its place in Smash Bros and they picked the most iconic protagonist even if he isn't the most relevant one to a cast of Nintendo characters.

When I saw the stars and heard those first strains of the song, I knew. But I honestly thought we were getting FF7 on the Wii U somehow... until I saw the Smash logo. Holy crap. Needless to say I was at work and was clutching my Cintiq screen to stop myself from screaming out and hollering and being disruptive. I literally could not type during the entirety of that reveal trailer. I mean, Cloud isn't my FAVOURITE Final Fantasy character and he was the one I suspected would join the fight the least (I honestly thought it would be Cecil or Terra for being the main reps of FF4 and FF6, the most notable SNES titles), but holy hell this is still exciting to me. Midgar looks like a beautiful stage to be ruined by awesome looking but disruptive stage hazards *sob* knowing the limitations on the music to be around 2-3mins, I don't want to hear a butchered rendition One Winged Angel though as that song is around 5 mins long. I suspect we'll get Those Who Fight and Those Who Fight Further, being the perfect length and being in the trailer, and Opening ~ Bombing Mission for being THE iconic theme of FF7's opening and our introduction to Midgar.

I finally finished another one....

Yeah, I have been for awhile but it's especially tough to deal with in Canada as we seem to get less stock than any other official region Nintendo caters to.

There are lots of retro packs and Splatoon packs at my local store these days. Seems like Nintendo may have gone overboard on those ones. I also saw a lot of retro Mario and restocked Toads. Now the real question is, WHEN WILL WE SEE A RESTOCK OF ROBIN AND LUCINA??? ARGHHHHHHH *ahem* They also had quite a few Ganondorfs, ZS Samus and to my luck, they had one blue and red yarn Yoshi left. I picked up the blue one considering I've wanted it ever since they announced it. I only went into the store on a whim so I felt pretty good getting my hands on one. ZS Samus and Ganondorf I picked up anyway despite not having super strong feelings about them, but actually they're very well painted. I'm shocked that ZS Samus has a completely normal face, not a single derp eye to be seen. She looks amazing compared to the Zelda, Marth and Ike I acquired in the early days. It doesn't show from this angle but I noticed he had a little bit to hang a keychain from. It'd make for an adorable Christmas ornament too. I'm sure someone else has noticed and I'm just too lazy to read back and see if anyone has mentioned it don't shoot me

Ike: Sigurd or Black Knight colours Roy: Eliwood colour Jigglypuff: Default Villager: Rugby shirt female Zelda: OoT Pink Not really dead set on any colours for the rest though in general I will pick a recolour.

I think the forced Sorey on the field is a consequence of your seraphim party members being invisible to the world.Humans are also locked to the battlefield so your party size is almost always 2 or 4... It's pretty limiting compared to other games in the series because this system demands you swap characters and tactics frequently. I don't think I like it much even compared to Graces or Xillia because the AI is garbage that dies repeatedly and destroys my grade on every boss. The camera is also terrible near walls and especially around corners. Playing with my fiancé, the camera managed to get even worse, even in the best case scenario of an open field. As for the OP, enemy HP bars being visible has been a part of the series for some time now... There hasn't been a magic lens item since at least Graces. To be honest the difficulty of the games has ramped up and seeing enemy types and weaknesses is more important than ever before so the game devs decided to strip out a step that's more or less pointless busywork. I am enjoying the game now that I have all 4 types of seraphim and a lot of gald to work with for fusing items. There's a lot to take in. But every boss is basically a bundle of one hit kill moves and the AI does a terrible job keeping anyone alive. So far this is definitely one of the less enjoyable Tales games though... So much work and the characters are all maniacs I find impossible to like as they prioritizes puns over sensibility.

*crickets* I'm alive and lurking! But work has me by the neck so often ;_; But since I've been gone I finally had my very first commercial series air on TV and another is coming to Netflix soon. Whoo! NEW STUFF THO And a trailer for Nico Can Dance, which I worked on as a storyboard artist.

Before Mewtwo was added to the game we got a Mewtwo trophy that used an older 3D model. Having an existing trophy doesn't seem to mean anything for who Sakurai chooses as a fighter. Some fighters also have extra trophies that use assets from other games, like Fox. Likely that's why they were able to throw in an Inkling trophy so easily for the new costumes. Although I think Chrom is definitely out and I doubt we'll get any of the non-Nintendo Mii costume characters like Heihachi as full characters, I don't think Inklings are entirely out of Sakurai's mind as Splatoon ended up being very popular worldwide as a new IP. There's also a lot of moveset potential there based on the various weapons. I don't expect the Inklings to be chosen but I also wouldn't be surprised if they were.

Pokemon rivals ranking from best to worst: Silver, N, Blue, Barry, Cheren, everyone else barring gen 6, everyone in gen 6. There's just so many characters now that it's hard to parse them all. Blue stood out as being your cocky neighbour right away, who was ALWAYS one step ahead and somewhat infuriating. Silver was a straight-up criminal and the "he stole a Pokemon!" thing was very novel at the time. Plus you see him develop through his defeats until he decides to settle down and hone himself at the Dragon's Shrine and learn to love Pokemon in a way that feels natural. Then there's Brendan/May and Wally... Brendan/May is pretty strong as a trainer but you never develop the feelings of a rivalry. Most of Wally's existence is to be stomped and then you barely hear from him again until you're all the way down Victory Road... and I still stomped him. Just weak, but I guess he's growing up. 4 has Barry who drags you into his antics and is a giant spaz but really, he's nervous to live up to the legacy of his father who is the Frontier Brain so no wonder he wants to just go everywhere and do everything. N... I just love him, but I think Silver edges him out just a bit as far as rivalry goes, as N just wants to change the world and is one messed up kid. He's a variant of Silver but is more about Team Plasma than he is about filling the rival role. Cheren is a bit more driven than Bianca and so I find him a little more interesting but this is where the games just go soooo overboard with pushing the whole "friendship" bit. In gen 6 everyone is disgustingly bland and there's so many of them. It's hard to muster up a care for any of them when Professor Sycamore and Lysandre are more interesting to follow.

Hm... couple of favs here and there... A lot of characters from FFXIV x_x Brithael stands out as one of my favourite minor characters but during the Heavensward storyline I had mega feels for Haurchefant. In the Fire Emblem series I really like Soren, Jill, and Titania. Katsuya from Persona 2: Eternal Punishment and Gale from Digital Devil Survivor N and Silver from Pokemon Guillo from Baten Kaitos Origins

Yep! It's sometimes stressful but I don't think I'd want to do anything else. Maybe do some stuff for gaming but TV is pretty much the same thing... Updated old Cordelia art that I pressed into buttons... Stuff I doodle when I need a break from working... And some fantasy ladies from the story I occasionally work on writing.

The Gamecube was up against the PS2, and since the PS2 was significantly easier to develop for (DVDs vs proprietary discs and a better 3rd party working environment), the GCN missed out on a lot of great games. Also, the design of the GCN was seen as a bit goofy, with the system and its controllers being so small, and it was ONLY for gaming whereas its competitors were multimedia systems capable of playing CDs and DVDs.The XBox was an excellent multimedia centre in its time (actually still is with an external hard drive attached) and the PS2 was one of the more affordable DVD players when DVDs were new. The XBox also embraced internet play far earlier than the GCN, which only had a handful of subscription MMOs. The PS2 meanwhile was just a megahit from its year headstart + huge library of games, so far ahead that the Xbox and GCN looked like failures by comparison. And while the GCN did have a few "darker" games like Resident Evil and Eternal Darkness, it was mostly seen as a children's console, and Nintendo was the children's brand. This was basically the start of "I'm a mature gamer who demands mature games" era. But as Nintendo fans would tell you, the GCN was a quality system with the best load times, it was the easiest to take traveling with its Nintendium durability, tiny size and convenient handle, and came out with strong launch titles and proceeded to keep up the momentum with the release of some of Nintendo's most revered games. Even divisive ones like Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker are now looked back upon for their ambition and scope, while there were some obvious classics like Metroid Prime that changed a series completely but still held true to the franchise's roots. It was also the last Nintendo console to get a significant number of cross platform games from 3rd parties that were more or less equals to its competitors rather than the washed up, downscaled versions we get now.

I love the Wii and the Wii U but the GCN had SSBM, Star Wars Rogue Squadron II, Paper Mario, Fire Emblem POR, Tales of Symphonia, Skies of Arcadia, Baten Kaitos, Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime and Wind Waker. The controller was also my favourite. Load times were minimal and I never had to worry about system updates. The great games and the easy portability of the GCN cement it as my favourite system of all. On the other hand the 3DS is the best handheld, no question. It plays DS games and has a great library of its own. I liked the GBA but handhelds have continued to evolve like crazy.

Part of the issue with the damsel in distress trope is 1. said female might be the only female in the game, or one of a precious few 2. you could replace the damsel with a trinket, broom or a cupcake and the end result would be the same. It's lazy, and is considered sexist if you consider most people find males to be the default hero of any given game. It gets worse if said damsel has vast magical powers that she never uses to benefit herself and that's her only important quality other than vaguely defined "protagonist loves her" BS. Princess Peach in non-spinoff Mario games could literally be anything else and Mario would be equally motivated because the games have the thinnest of plot. She embodies both of these two problems. Then the Zelda series has a serious problem with the princess being depowered/rendered useless for paper thin reasons. In LTTP, Zelda is just kidnapped right off the bat and we know very little about her except she and the other maidens have magic powers together, but they might as well be crystals and not girls. In OoT, Zelda's a badass as Sheik but immediately gets captured upon the revelation at endgame, despite Link having plenty of reason already to end Ganondorf's reign of terror. It's a last minute kidnapping that just did not have to happen except to fill the "princess gets kidnapped" trope. Thankfully, Saria, Ruto, Impa, and to a lesser extent Nabooru are a little less stereotypical in their presentation as key characters but we don't get to see much of most of them. In Wind Waker, Tetra becomes feeble and vulnerable as soon as she dons the dress and makeup, and also gets herself kidnapped after being so strong and self-assured as a pirate captain. She only regains her composure at the very end but it leads to a very awkward moment when this headstrong character suddenly decides "wow now that I'm a princess I'm gonna stay in this empty chamber and wait for you to get back". Generally speaking I dislike princesses getting kidnapped no matter who the protagonist is, male or female, unless it's played with some kind of caveat or has fully fleshed out scenarios so we can ACTUALLY connect with the person held captive. Princess Peach in Paper Mario can't escape the floating castle and invincible Bowser due to geological reasons but she devises a ton of clever ways to deliver hints to Mario. She is cheeky and level headed and it brings something to her character. But a barely fleshed out character with token screentime so we can feel emotions for our main character is just so overplayed.

Iwata's genius touched so many of the games i loved growing up. As a freelance programmer working for HAL, he coded Balloon Fight (by himself!) and NES Open Tournament Golf. He saved HAL from bankruptcy. He helped Sakurai pitch Kirby and overhauled the text box code in Earthbound so it could handle the kind of cinematic text the rest of the staff had struggled with, with code so clean ROM hackers have been able to assemble other emulators and program languages inside! He also rewrote significant amounts of code that was lost during a power outage. He assisted Gamefreak on multiple occasions, first he was responsible for porting over the battle engine code to the N64 for Pokemon Stadium. Later he would compress an incomplete Gold & Silver so the staff could finish the Johto segment of the game AND fit in Kanto. When Sakurai was working on his fighting game series, Iwata was the one who encouraged him when no one else thought the game could succeed, thus the birth of Smash Bros as we know it. The final game Satoru Iwata actually programmed on was Super Smash Bros Melee. It looked like the game was going to be significantly delayed, but Iwata stepped in to do code review and debug for the team. Thanks to his tireless efforts, the game was complete three weeks later and met its release date goals. Though he stepped back from the programming trenches after, Iwata oversaw the development of some of the GCN's finest games to ensure Nintendo continued to put out quality product. When the notoriously strict Yamauchi (also gone from our world along with the amazing Gunpei Yokoi, two of the other great minds Nintendo has ever had) handed over the reigns to Iwata, he knew the company would be in safe hands. And Iwata spearheaded the company through ups and downs with dignity and humility, all following a great man's vision while striving to be our friend. Iwata was the first man outside the founder's family to be named President and he dared to be different from the rest of the industry, dared to make sure Nintendo remained relevant and memorable through 12 solid years of one goal: To make sure we, the customer, had fun with their games. No other president has given so much of his time to the public while keeping to his values. Nintendo Direct and Iwata Asks were exceptional productions that brought insight directly to fans, even fans outside of Nintendo's home country. No other brand has been kept to such high standards. And when things did not go so well, Iwata apologized earnestly. He took pay cuts to keep people beneath him employed. He reevaluated the value of the company's products to get them into more homes. He opened many doors at Nintendo for other devs when Yamauchi had strangled them out. And maybe Nintendo will never be a powerhouse system with tons of western 3rd party support, but the quality of the 1st and 2nd party games is astounding and makes me proud to be a Nintendo fan. Iwata's leadership is a huge part of why I respect the company so much. Some people speculate Miyamoto will be Iwata's successor, but I doubt it. Miyamoto has expressed his want to retire and is very much in the twilight of his career. Whoever fills Iwata's shoes has a huge legacy to live up to and I can only hope Nintendo continues to have the leadership of someone driven to satisfy people, not the bottom line.

FF14 is great by every metric. Solid MMO with lots of content and phenomenal writing to pull together its story. I just thought I'd throw that out there. People will dismiss it because it's an MMO and has a sub fee but the team did not hold back after saving the game from the brink of death when 1.0 was awful.

FF7 is only good because of the setting and many quirks and side content. Yes, the minigames control like hot garbage but FF7 would be boring without them. FFXIII purged all the fun out of the series, the only worthwhile part being Hope rampaging through enemy hoards in a dreadnaught. If you didn't play the FF MMOs, you are missing some of the best jRPGs period. The original Zelda is crud. Even Zelda 2 is better despite being ridiculously hard. Gen 4 of Pokémon is the most significant of them all. Despite weaknesses in its dex and engine speed, the games struck up a great balance of features and difficulty. After gen 5 switched to use even more 3D the games have gotten ridiculously easy and gimmicky.

Few things going on in my life: MiniComi - I'll be making buttons with some friends + selling some prints. A single day convention at the community center in Olympic Village. Free admission! http://www.minicomivancouver.org/ Work! A few weeks ago one show I worked on wrapped up production at the studio and is on its way to TV sets this fall. It's a little musical bumper on the Knowledge Network called Nico Can Dance. Now I'm back working on some Avengers animated stuff~ I have kinda been gradually working my way up with responsibilities so here's hoping my very first scene of my own doesn't get completely ripped apart... whee... And this:

So between work and FFXIV and being social I don't sit down to draw personal stuff as much but today I had a bit of a lull in the morning at work before anything was assigned to me so here's a bunch of sketches~

Sort of, but not quite. It gives the "tsu" a bit of a harder sound at the beginning. What bothers me the most about it is that it loses meaning by removing that one letter. Tsubaki is a kind of flower, which keeps the theme naming with Sakura and Kazahana (now just Hana, which is ok, the theme is intact). Subaki is a meaningless array of letters by comparison. Even Rinkah, while slightly more understandable, is using the romanization for a long a sound and isn't quite right either. But I don't mind it nearly as much as Subaki. Why. WHY? Do they really think Fire Emblem players can't pronounce a name that's too "complex"?