Nauriam

Yeah there are some parts of the book that I could see people calling pornographic, but it's really not that bad. It's been a while, but if I remember right it's mostly related to the main character's mother, and possibly his girlfriend? I'm too lazy to look at sparknotes and remind myself of all the characters. There is definitely a lot of sexual brokenness in the book though, as that is one of the major things that the themes are exploring. I wasn't aware of its reputation though, and I thought it was fine for a highschool literature class. To be fair, if you're reading a book called Song of Solomon, you should expect that though. The Songs of Solomon in the Bible are quite explicit love poems. The Bible itself is probably less suited for young adult readers than Toni Morrison's book. Both books are portraying reality as it is, and not sugar coating what life is like. In the Bible it is either called Song of Songs or Song of Solomon. Depends on the translation. The name of Toni Morrison's book is directly referencing the book of the Bible intentionally. Yeah, you've got some good points here, and to be fair, the value of author intention in literature is still a highly debated topic. I think when you have something like an MMO, or Final Fantasy game, or things like that, you should definitely add a lot of things that just don't matter to the main character. If you're trying to tell a concise narrative with themes (aka making literature, no matter the medium), everything that happens should matter to the main character or align with the themes. For instance, the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities starts with a completely unrelated happening where a barrel of nice wine is spilled onto the streets and people are lapping it up from the ground. This is totally random, but it encapsulates all of the themes of the book into one descriptive image. It wasn't "random" per-say because the author was really careful to craft the scene exactly how he intended, but it does have nothing to do with the direct plot. To address people talking about how scenes or parts of media aren't necessary like you mentioned; If the author is to be trusted you should initially assume that any and every scene has a purpose. If the scene doesn't contribute anything to the plot it is probably contributing something to the themes. And if it doesn't contribute to either, it is probably just fanservice, or in some cases I guess the writer could just be filling up space. And in the end, fanservice is fine too. Lots of people don't want to consume literature all the time, and would rather just engage in interesting world building, or action, or whatever. The issue is most authors of things want to make literature of some sort, so we end up with a bunch of half-baked narratives that have poor storytelling and poor world building.

I think this point has some merit, but it depends on what kind of media you're consuming. There's a lot of media out there that desperately needs some world building, time for minor characters, etc. However, if someone is creating a piece of media, and their goal is to create something that could be considered literature, I truly believe that every single thing in that piece of media should contribute to the story and messages at hand. The first piece of literature that I experiences this with was a book called Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison which I was forced to read for AP Literature in highschool (many years ago). That book had a ton of random stuff, but for the first time in my life every metaphor was explained to me in a way that actually stuck, and it made me realize that the story was this beautiful constructed and meticulously crafted message where every word in that book serves towards the greater narrative. Not every story is like this, but many notable stories, say Neon Genesis Evangelion, are constructed in a way that *almost* every single piece of dialogue and camera framing and voice acting is serving the purpose of the themes of the show (lots of times comedy is added to shows to lighten the mood, which doesn't really progress the narrative). I'm not saying that stories like this are objectively the best for everyone, but for stories that are too focused on singular people or singular threads, there are plenty of ways to explore new people and ideas while still tying everything back to the narrative at hand. Think something like Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood which has tons of variety in its characters and settings, but no time is ever wasted just doing something random. No hate if you truly just want random things to happen in stories. You're allowed to enjoy whatever media you want. I think the frustration might just stem from stories really unimaginatively trying to push their theme, rather than using any form of subtlety or literary techniques. TLDR: The trope in media that is tiring is bad writing

A trend I have seen a lot recently that really bothers me is making female protagonists seem strong by making them more masculine. In America there has been a lot of whining from people usually leaning right politically about a ton of media making a bunch of Mary Sues, and really pushing a female power theme. I don't have any issue with female protagonists, and in fact wish that there were more. On a Fire Emblem note, I think that the newer games should have had forced female protagonists rather than a choice for story reasons. I do have an issue with how every time we get a strong female character, they just make the character traditionally masculine to make them seem powerful. The two examples that come to mind are that one strong girl from season 1 of the Mandalorian (I only watched season 1 but I assume she comes back), and Rey from the new Star Wars movies. There isn't an issue with women being portrayed as powerful by having masculine qualities, but it is an issue when that's the predominant way used to make females seem strong or powerful. It just further pushes the cultural narrative that masculine qualities are the only way to be strong or successful or protect people etc. And the converse is true too. Male protagonists that are strong/powerful through what is usually considered female qualities is a great thing and I wish I saw it more often. Things like a single father who's goal is to be the best caretaker or something like that. All I want is more diversity and storytelling, and traditional protagonist roles looking less masculine, whether women are playing the protagonist or not. And if you're going to make a physically strong and brash character you need to put women in those roles sparingly (not necessarily never), because in real life there are much more men that fit that description than women. As an example of a strong female protagonist who doesn't display traditionally masculine qualities, I would point towards Yuna from FFX. Spoilers for FFX below (I know it's an old game but if you haven't played it you should).

You know what's incredible about this? I have seen this video before, and it was before I joined this forum. It feels weird seeing your name as the person who posted it after reading so much of your stuff on the forum. Great video btw Castor is really cool. From just what is in his games, Caeda's recruitment conversation paints a little bit of a backstory but also leaves a lot to the imagination in a good way. I wish archers were more fun to use in the Archanea games. I feel very similarly about Warren as I do Castor in that I wish I had used them in their games, but when I played them I always ended up benching them eventually.

There's a lot of love for Brom here, and he deserves all of the love he gets in my opinion. For that trope though, I think Hicks does it even better. It's basically the same archetype, where you get a father fighting for a good cause for the sake of his family. Although I like Brom's design marginally better for what they're going for, Hicks also definitely looks like just a normal person. And his mullet is top tier. Hicks also does not fill a unique roll in the game at all. Brighton has every reason to be better than Hicks for story and gameplay reasons alike (aside from Hicks' superior fcm of 2). But it's Thracia, so whoever you want can become god-like. It doesn't make Hicks more appealing to use over Brighton, but it does make him very viable if you do choose to use him. I also want to mention Ronan who has a total main character look, but is just hilarious across the board stat-wise. If only Kaga had invented magic bows yet. I think Ronan's 3 movement stars, 3% movement growth, and general silliness is very charming.

This is kinda what I was expecting for people outside the US to say. To me it's kinda wack that US news gets everywhere, but news from the rest of the world doesn't get propagated as much. As an American, I wish I hears more about the events, struggles, politics, cultures, etc of other countries in my day to day life without having to seek it out. For everyone who got to enjoy the eclipse, I'm glad it was such a cool experience for you too! The universe is pretty rad, and I consider us lucky to be able to experience it. I think there's plenty of very reasonable excuses for missing an eclipse (especially if you've seen one before), but this is the funniest reason I've heard so far. Glad you're not upset over missing it.

So yesterday (4/8/24) there was a solar eclipse that went through North America, and I am lucky enough to live in the path of totality. I'm curious if anyone here was able to see it, as I know a lot of you are all around the world, and if you had any thoughts on it. If you are outside of the Americas, did you hear about it all over the place like I did? It was understandably a huge deal over here, so I am very curious about how other parts of the country/world experienced this event. As for me, I had seen an eclipse before but wasn't in the path of totality. It was a very cool experience. Almost chilling and surreal while it was happening. However, I wouldn't say it was a cooler experience than what some amusement parks can offer with their experiences (I'm thinking of things like Disney's Soarin' ride or something like that). I wouldn't travel across the country or world for something like that, but I would take a day or two off work to drive somewhere if it was close enough.

Not sure if this is intended or not, but my headcannon has always been that the battle at Belhalla was a lot messier than the FE4 representation shows it to be. Yes, it was intended to be a systematic massacre of Sigurd's army, but its name in legend becomes battle at Belhalla, which indicates that Sigurd and his army put up quite the resistance. Of course, Sigurd does not survive, and Lewyn dies in battle and his body is revived, but as for everyone else, it was chaos. There was fire and smoke and screaming everywhere, so for people like Lachesis, Ayra, Bridget, and whoever else is rumored or confirmed to be alive, I can absolutely see these women fighting their way to nearby forests in the commotion and slipping out of sight. I can especially see it if they're married and their husbands die protecting them in their escape. The idea that Sigurd actually has an army with thousands of people, it makes it even more believable that the femme fatales were able to slip away in the commotion. All that being said, FE4 on its own gives the player no reason to believe anyone in Sigurds army might have survived, mostly due to the limitations of animating the battle in engine.

Honestly, VS and VS II might be my favorite implementation of supports from a gameplay standpoint of all the games. Those two you mentioned are particularly fun, and I think they had a lot more fun in VS II with its supports and talk conversations. However, I've always appreciated how Cyltan and Hoelun's support comes about. They're blocked off and fighting on their own against enemies that are not trivial for them to defeat. Every few turns they get another talk conversation where the direness of the situation Cyltan got them into makes them both realize how much they appreciate each other. And as they're learning to work together and not bicker for the sake of their lives, their support slowly gets stronger and stronger making them more capable to fight the bandits attacking them. For anyone reading who's not familiar with the game's system, they're called "bonds" and are baked in to certain characters, and sometimes characters can increase their bonds or create new bonds based off of conversations you can do on certain chapters (so no support grinding or support levels in the traditional sense). Most of the time though, two characters who already know each other come with a bond, and it stays the same for the whole game. The bonds can also be unidirectional, where one unit give another unit a bonus but not the other way around. The bond bonus applies if you're within 3 tiles of the unit you have a bond with, and the effects of the bond are clearly displayed. I much prefer that system over most FE's systems, and I think it's an awesome way to tie character affiliations to gameplay when you don't have support conversations between characters like FE has.

I used to go by the username Fiddla (not here on SF but elsewhere on the internet) which is a reference to a tv show called Roots which I watched in middle school. I decided it was time to change my username. Nauriam is mostly just a made up name, but there was a progression that got me there. I started with Marluxia from Kingdom Hearts because I am really into the kinda edgy rose aesthetic that he has. Rather than doing something based off that name, I did some searching around and in the lore of the games he has a sister who he cares deeply about and her name is Lauriam. My first name starts with an N so I just exchanged the L or and N. In the end, I just wanted something that was unique (as far as I can tell, no one else on the internet uses this name), and something that wasn't too long to write or say. For most of my online presence I use an image of the drifter from Hyper Light Drifter as my pfp, but here I choose an image of Lewyn from one of the FE4 manga adaptations because I really like his design.

I really like the idea of time passing based on turns when it comes to seasons. I think if it was implemented well, changing seasons having gameplay impacts would be really cool from a replayability aspect. What the seasons would effect I'm not totally sure but it could be things such as: occupying armies or soldiers from different climates would perform worse in a harsh northern winter or hot southern summer. In actuality it would probably lead to 3 situations: The game is balanced around the average player taking X turns per chapter, and the seasonal effects help promote new characters for the season they're introduced in, which provides variety in the gameplay An LTC or particularly efficient player will finish maps faster than the "intended" time, which will cause them to go to other maps in a different season. This would ideally make the map more challenging for the experienced player without making it less fun to play Someone who grinds excessively or passes turns would also be able to enter the next map in another season, which can (most likely) punish them for grinding. It would probably be a trade-off of training soldiers you currently have in exchange for soldiers you get later joining during a season that they're less useful in. I also just think that having seasons pass will really add to the world building of the game. It'd be a risky mechanic to implement because it would be very hard to get right, but in theory it'd be really fun.

I think this could just as easily be interpreted as going alone with only his squadron or corp of soldiers. Fire emblem seems to sway between the idea that the units we have on the map are just a small part in the battle actually going on, versus the idea that each unit is a representation of a large amount of soldiers (say 1 unit represents 100 soldiers), and they are being led by that unit. Three houses definitely tries to convey the latter with the battalions, and a game like Thracia definitely communicates the former. There is also the issue of who the heck would give Ross/Donnel/Finn soldiers to lead? The more I think about it, the less any of it makes sense. I feel like Kaga's Vestaria Saga actually did a good job with this problem compared to most Fire Emblem games. It's not perfect of course, but it was effective for me. Especially in the first one, the amount of soldiers as well as the logistical problems of managing and marching soldiers is referenced all the time. The cognitive dissonance really only comes in when we are being lead to assume that these are large scale battles going on, but all the characters interact like they are the only people out there. Vestaria Saga's approach also fixes a problem that annoys me which is talking about how an enemy army simply has too many soldiers to attack head on, when in-game if your units are strong enough theoretically infinite soldiers could be defeated, and your units would only get stronger because of it. The idea there is that the thousands of soldiers in your army that aren't playable characters would die, even if your playable characters wouldn't, and that would still lose the war. All that being said, Genealogy does not communicate any of that effectively at all.

Given the time of your last save, it may have been the realization that you had to move your whole army through the spirit forest that urged you to quit. I may be a Genealogy apologist, but that spirit forest does absolutely suck. In my opinion, I find that this game presents its scenarios and politics better than any other game in the series. Not only are the cutscenes really comprehensive compared to the previous games, but each in-game map modeling the world map so closely really ties together a sense of place that I don't get in any of the other games. This, and the emphasis that Sigurd's army is so tiny, but they're noble and well trained compared to those Verdane savages does give a really weird vibe. I think the setup of a country invading while a full scale war is happening on the other side of the continent is a great intro for a Fire Emblem game. However, they didn't need to make it so pretentious. "Please sir, let me experience the horrors of war and murder. I may be too young to commit them myself, but I am honored to commit murder vicariously by your side". I'm being a little facetious, but Oifey's enthusiasm only really works in the scope of these game-ified battles. Maybe someone who knows history can correct me on whether or not this kind of enthusiasm is realistic. I actually am very fond of FE4's portraits. The 90s era anime influence and big hair are very endearing (although I can understand why some people aren't a fan of them).

Maybe this is just confirmation bias because I just played them, but I feel like Vestaria Saga I and II have really good examples of most some of these ideas. One thing I'd like to see more of are false gods. There have been so many religions throughout history, and no matter what your personal theology is, there is not room for all of them to be correct about the nature of gods. In a fantasy setting like Fire Emblem, if people are worshiping something, then it is always an actual tangible god, but I think more blatant worshiping of nothing would be really interesting. I'm specifically thinking of the story in Exodus where the Israelites decide to make a calf out of whatever gold they had around because Moses was assumed to be dead, and they wanted a new god to follow. Especially if the main lord is from a nation that spends its resources waging war against Poseidon, or something akin to that, and the playable character has to navigate the consequences.

Wow, these are so well done! Not only did they manage to make all the faces look great, but the detail on the clothes just looks immaculate. It really brings these portraits to life. Thanks for sharing their incredible work And yeah, all of them moving at once is a bit haunting.

You know, after looking at them again maybe I was a bit too harsh. The first 2 games are in a weird spot with some of the characters have actually interesting and really well done designs, and other are seemingly made to look dopey on purpose. It almost makes me think of the first season of Inital D, where Itsuki is clearly designed to look absolutely ridiculous for humor. The first game has quite a few characters that look absolutely ridiculous, a lot more than Gaiden at least. And some of Gaiden's characters genuinely look amazing. But a lot of Gaiden's cast has that weird in-between state of trying to look cool, but end up looking dopey instead. All of that said, I was definitely too harsh of Gaiden's cast, and they're not that bad.

My favorite is probably Radiant Dawn specifically. It's less the art style itself, but how intricate and memorable the designs are. I RD original characters like Nailah and Volug to be very well done and really memorable. Even looking at the character list, you can easily tell which characters got a touch-up in-between games and which didn't. Every royal laguz is so distinct and immediately recognizable (except for kurthnaga), and even Yune and Ashera have very distinct and memorable designs. I also want to mention that Micaiah's final promotion is probably one of my favorite character designs in the series. It just looks good. I don't even like Radiant Dawn that much, but I can't deny its good character designs. For worst, everyone had been avoiding the NES games, which is understandable. For FE1, I'll forgive it, but for Gaiden? They very clearly had an artist involved, and they even had a decent pallet of colors and characters (for the most part) all had unique portraits, and they all still looked ugly. I know their tools were limited, but that doesn't hinder them from making good looking portraits. The official artwork is fine at best, but the in game art is just not that good.

This is probably is an unpopular opinion, but a trope I really like is ending a series with an artistic rendition of the events actually taking place. The best example I have of this are Neon Genesis Evangelion's original final 2 episodes. I find the idea of focusing only on what the characters are feeling, and abstractly representing that through an audio/visual medium as the closure to a narrative so fascinating. I just recently rewatched Your Lie in April, and it has a similar thing (spoiler for the show) Shows like Wanda Vision had really great potential to do this type of visual/audio medium, but they squandered it by transitioning the show into a standard super hero show half way through. This way of making a show (or any form of art) is super inaccessible, and does not appeal to most people, so it's pretty rare. It is really nice when it happens though, and when done well it does get recognized.

Rivals of Aether (a platform fighter similar to Smash Bros) has mostly an original cast, with Shovel Knight and Ori as guest characters. I really wanted to see the knight from Hollow knight, or the drifter from Hyper Light Drifter in a game like that. Style-wise I think they would fit well. And for anyone who knows about that game, yes I know about the steam workshop, and the characters on there. I would also really like to see Lethal League characters in a more traditional fighting game (Latch is my favorite), and there could be some really awesome gimmicks with a ball to hit around during combat. It's a bit of a stretch to add them to a more mainline fighting game, but maybe Blazblue would be crazy enough to have a character pack for Lethal League.

Indeed. From what he told me, RuneScape taught him English, but not how to speak it. Early in school they would learn english, and that's where he began learning to speak, but it was playing CS:GO that made him fluent in speaking English. It must have been weird to know how to read/write a language but not know how to speak it. On the other hand, I believe that's where a lot of Japanese people are, as they learn English in school, but very often people never learn how to speak it fluently. People only ever learn approximations of what each word is supposed to sound like, and if you don't spend time talking with native speakers you'll never become familiar with how it's supposed to sound.

I am a native English speaker, but I was recently at an international digital signal processing conference, and I got to meet a lot of PHD students from European countries that don't have English as their primary language. One friend I met there was so fluent he had barely any accent (no accent meaning he speaks like how you would hear most English speakers talk in the majority of TV/movies). He initially learned English by playing Runescape as a child, and he refined his speaking by playing CS:GO on European servers. I was pretty blown away by his ability to pick up English through Runescape as a child, and I'm even a little jealous that I wasn't ever exposed to anything that would help me learn a different language at a young age. As for him though, computer games made him a better communicator and presenter than most of the attendees at that conference because of his fluency.

I totally resonate with this. I think it's the reason I liked Genealogy so much, and I think Thracia actually did a really good job at it too.The other games do have world maps, and locations that reflect where you are, but for some reason when I'm playing most of the games it feels like we're warping from set piece to set piece, and the idea of a world outside of each map is just a bit of flavor. I have played Vestaria Saga I, and am currently playing Vestaria Saga II, and I am REALLY enjoying them, and I think it's partly due to this reason exactly. The world seems so real and lived in. The lives and plight of every social class is seen, and the army slowly moves through different areas that have distinct and recognizable geographic features and climates, and for some reason it all just clicks for me when it doesn't in other games.

I was going to mention Vestaria Saga here. Although it's not exactly how you described it in your OP, there's a handful of maps where you can have one or many units leave for a set amount of turns and re-appear somewhere else for a flank or surprise attack. Most of these maps have these events right at/near the beginning so functionally it's very similar to not having them deployed until later. I'm only a few chapters through Vestaria Saga II, but this mechanic has already been used there too.

I think this is a really good point. The perspective of my OP was more or less from how you would feel about a game after playing through it once, and what reasons you might say it was good or bad. However, there are some FE games that make you want to go back and play it again to try different armies, train different units, go a different route, etc. And other games have too much fluff and ruin the desire to replay it. I think replayability might actually be the most important thing on that list now that you've pointed it out. You have a lot of really good points about where Fates succeeds in its ludonarrative. I was referring to how Corrin is trying to be a pacifist, and even in conquest talks about how no one is being killed in some of the battles, where in the gameplay you're slaughtering hundreds of people. Although there's a disconnect in the overarching story with what you are doing in the gameplay, I think you have a great point about how the inter-character narratives match great with how the characters function in the game. This is a really good point I didn't touch on. I don't blame the Youtubers I watch for having the opinion that they do, because I agree with you on this point. I don't think I would even watch Youtube videos talking about lore, or exploring the characters as much as I watch the people doing weird challenges. For the people that decide to make Youtube videos, you almost necessarily have to enjoy the more replayable games more, since you're going to be replaying games a lot. There are some exceptions of course, such as the folks that make rom hacks and talk about game design and theory. I think this whole topic is the main reason a game like Genealogy can be so loved by a portion of the fanbase, and so hated by others. Whenever I listen to people talk about what games they like or not, I have to compare what they enjoy out of the games versus what I enjoy to get an idea of whether or not the game would be fun to me.

None of the FE games do this well for their overarching story, but there are constantly snippets of this happening in a lot of the games. I feel like Genealogy generation 1 had a lot. Eldigan is just following the Camus trope, but no one is evil in that battle. Arvis is a huge jerk, but he's not possessed by Loptus or anything and his rule until Julian takes over is actually very good for the people; He was just making a power play. Sacred Stones had a lot of generals that you had to fight that were morally gray. The bandits in Thracia are portrayed to be in a situation of "pillage or starve" which I think deserves at least a little empathy. I found Radiant dawn's conflict between Crimea and Daein pretty compelling. However, at the end of all these games it does come down to fighting a big bad evil which is pretty black and white. It would be sweet to have a game that has a more compelling conflict on both sides all the way though. Alluding back to the OP, for some people this is true. For others, the story incorporation is a major part their enjoyment of the game. For instance, Fates was an absolute slog for me to get through because I could not connect with the story or characters. I get that a lot of people enjoy the story in a point-and-laugh sort of way, but no matter what way I spun it, I just didn't enjoy the game very much. However, for the people that like fates, I understand that they just like other aspects that the game has to offer.