BrightBow

I promote Knights and mages as early as possible because they need the additional movement/Staffs access. Or magic access, as the case might be for healers. Though, I would promote units like Asvel early anyway since his stats are going to be sky high no matter when he promotes. Otherwise I don't have too many rules. Also, in TRS it mostly depends on which team they are on. Because Runan's route doesn't have that much EXP, I usually promote his followers early if possible.

Tear Ring Saga has a lot of traitors, backstabber and deserters over the course of the game but these are the only particular powerful ones: Zeek. Strongest bases, absurdely high growths, a broken class and freaking Elite. Katri. Her normal class is that of a weak priest but she can turn into the invincible dragon Kradion at any time. And I guess Narcus counts too. By himself, he is also not all that strong but like Xane he can transform into any other unit. Like the mighty Zeek, for example.

It all depends on what we are dealing with. Like, when dealing with the Joker, I would never try to kill him. Since he is such a popular villain, any attempt to kill him will inevitably fail. But if you arrest him, he might at least spend a few days behind bars.

You mean just like it was done from 7 to 10 and the Normal modes in the (3)DS games? That would be fine of course but personally I would rather see them being done like for example summoned monsters in Tear Ring Saga. They could act immediately after being summoned so you could not take them down before they had a chance to move. But the position of the summoner told you were the monsters would come from and the staff in his inventory told you what was coming your way. So if they still manage to kill someone, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Ignoring that Extra Credits was not making a review about the game or anything like that but was just using this as an example for a larger point about game design in general, it's hardly a "Nitpick" when this mechanic is omnipresent in this game and used in almost every map. And this mechanic is not heavily ingrained into the series. It hasn't be seen since FE6 until the remakes suddenly felt the need to reintroduce them. Even Radiant Dawn's hard mode didn't have them. And that is the mode whose idea of fair includes to disable the display of enemy movement ranges. And FE4 and 5 shouldn't even count. In 4, they are completely predictable because they always follow set rules. I never encountered them at all during my first playthrough because I never allowed the leader to escape back to home castle. And in FE5, they are rarely a immediate treat for various reasons. Like in Chapter 2x, were they spawn on islands that none of your units can even reach. They are also not a threat for your fragile healers since they will just capture them instead of killing them. I have the tendency to forget that the mechanic even exist in Thracia because it never actually matters. But even if that was the case, a bad mechanic is a bad mechanic. And just like healers needing to get attacked in order to gain any EXP, this was a mechanic rightfully abandoned. If someone dies to instantly moving reinforcements in Awakening, it is because of bad luck. If everyone survives, it was because of dumb luck. Either way, you haven't earned the outcome yourself. Even FE5's legendary teleporter tiles are fairer because at least they never killed you instantly, so you still had a chance to turn things around. Adding warnings doesn't justify them. Or do you think those warp tiles would be fairer if you were warned that they exist even if you still didn't know were they are? It seems to less right then Cervantes randomly saying: ""Come, reinforcements," said the spider to...the...other spiders." Of course if they simply wouldn't instantly move, nobody would need to announce anything. But personally I would rather see the mechanic improved.

Is Takamaru even an Nintendo character? If so, how come Samurai Warriors 3 had a mode that was a sort-of remake of his game?

I think Robin's role as a character and as a player avatar need to be looked at seperatly. As a character, the Avatar is completely pointless for the large majority of the game, She lacks any real personality and has no particular outlook and no interesting views on life, the universe and everything. So she has nothing that she could contribute. It doesn't help that this is already how Lords are usually characterized and Chrom is no exception. But then they also add Lucina and Say'ri, so we end up with no less then four interchangeable main characters. Now during the final part of the game, it's all about Avatar. Grima is completely obsessed with him, seemingly incapable to understand why she would not join up with her. Exploring what circumstances might lead the same person on different paths might make for an interesting story but this isn't what happens here. The game fails to provide an answer for Grima's confusion. Alternate Robin teamed up with Grima while Normal Robin simply doesn't. There is no deeper reason given, so the whole thing was just a complete waste of time and seems to serve no purpose other then to provide everyone an opportunity to kiss her ass. And she is an awful, awful, awful Mary Sue at the end of the game. She sacrifices herself and everyone talks about her like she was the most important person in their life even if they never talked to each other and despite that signs of affection of certain characters isn't something to be proud of. Chrom also states his special gratitude of her in front of everyone, as if she was the only person who ever died during the war. And if she doesn't sacrifice herself, she exposes the lack of character of everyone else as they all have the same answer to the whole "the needs of the many vs the needs of the few" dilemma and are all completely fine with risking the life of their children for the sake of Robin. Including the freaking children themselves who experienced firsthand what Grima can do. As a person, I find her to be absolutely contemptible. Yeah, she is not much of a character but the problem is that a lack of reaction to certain things is also in-itself a character trait. Robin plotting the unambiguous death of hundredth thousands of people without showing the slightest hint of awareness of the weight of such an act makes her look like a psychopath. She is loyal to Chrom but she fails to provide any reason to believe that she has any sort of morals that would prevent her from being just as loyal to Gangrel, Wallhart or any other asshole if they were the ones who would have found her. Also, arrogantly claiming towards Vallidar that she changed the world for the better really doesn't make her score any points in my book. She left one country in the hands of evil cultists who went on to sacrifice the population and left an entire continent at the mercy of a bunch of greedy, self-serving and feuding nobles. So at this point this was a highly arguable claim and shows that she is so self-centric that she doesn't see anything but the country she lives in or maybe doesn't even give a shit about anyone other then herself and her friends. As a player avatar she is just as much of a failure. There is no freedom in how to express yourself or the character you had in mind and the way the game keeps kissing the player's ass is just embarrassing. Especially since it's not even for stuff the player did but for Robin solving off-screen problems. So there is no way for the players to feel like they actually deserve the credit. The sacrificing stuff at the end could have been interesting but the game has to spoil in advance how they are going to keep her alive. And naturally this decision doesn't impact your relationship with the other characters either. So there is no way to be affected by that decision as you stay the most important person in their life either way.

It is not about realism. It's about the game weakening it's own themes. Of course there would still be some resistance but we don't need to see how they deal with them because it is not important to the story. The bad guy is dead, the climax is over. Time to wrap things up and move to the next arc. In contrast too that, Radiant Dawn also highlighted this issue. But this was because the remaining rebels and Elincia's mercy biting her in the ass were actually important to the story and it's themes. (More obvious in the extended script when Lundgren calls her directly out on not pursuing the rebels, saying she might have been able to save Lucia that way.) But in Awakening, there is no reason for this. The map simply keeps going when the story should move on.

If it's her then I guess I really could have easily missed her in the hurry because I would assume he meant the FE12 version.

I am not challenging you on anything but your usage of the word "only". It can not be assumed from everyone that they are loyal because deserting is difficult when you find yourself surrounded by people who are genuine loyal. In general your assumption is of course right, so I am surprised by your strong reaction there. Maybe my writing style is more rude then I realize. But like you say, it is trivial. Way more importantly is the clash with the drama and the themes. You kill the main villain at the big climax and the game simply keeps going like he was just some 8/15 officer with nothing but a unique mug. That has not a good feel to it. And thematically it's not all that good to follow all this peace talk with a "take no prisoners" objective. And given how this guy mocks bonds, it would be appropriate if no one is willing to fight for him anymore once he is no longer able to "let the boot fall".

No. Considering that even Mustafa never deserted, it can not automatically be assumed that they had much of a choice. But more importanly, a "kill them all" mission clashes with the whole "everyone desires peace" realisation of Chrom. It's not good for the drama either. Gangrel is the main villain. Once he is defeated, the climax should be over.

He did? I just went through the entire list to find out who Mekkah thinks is awesome enough to outdo Alm and I didn't notice a single FE2 character.

I'm not done with his game yet but I can't imagine that it's anyone but Alm. He starts stronger then everyone else and his growths should ensure that he stays that way.

I'm a fan of weapon weight but I am not a fan of Con. I think the oldest system was in theory the best one. It's just that they never put much thought into the weight of weapons. Axes lowering agility by 18 points and Swords only 3 is of course completely insane. But Tear Ring Saga used the system a lot more effectively. Weight factors hugely into the advantages and disadvantages of a weapon. Like Iron Bows are about as cheap and common as Crossbows but are usually better because of the massive weight difference between them. However, the increased accuracy and powers of Crossbows usually allows them to reliably take down certain fragile yet dodgy fliers in a single shot. Especially those annoying harpies. Naturally they would also be better if archers are so fast that they double attack anyway. Another bow, the extremely heavy Gatling Bow, which allows 4 shots in a row, pretty much turns anybody into a glass cannon since they can be double attacked by just about any weapon. But hey, 4 attacks before the enemy can counter. Other times you may need heavy weapons simply to be able to penetrate the enemy's defence in the first place. Or very light weapons to maximize your avoid against devastatingly powerful but hilariously inaccurate siege weapons. You never saw stuff like that in Fire Emblem games. At least I can't think of a situation where the games would ever offer you something as simple as increased accuracy in exchange for attack speed. Accuracy always seems to be somewhat proportional to weight. Well, I guess Brave weapons averted this in Thracia but just like the Gae Bolg they were more designed as Uber weapons anyway. But I don't really see a benefit in adding Con. It just makes things unnecessary complicated. Maybe you could add a skill that reduces speed penalties or something.

In addition to what was already said, I would like to mention that metallic thong which is probably going to burn certain sensitive body parts after a while. And while I don't know exactly what's going to happen, I am convinced that hilarity would ensue if one tries to walk through sand with those high heels that the female version is using. It's like they were deliberately trying to design an outfit that feels as out of place as possible in the desert.

I would say that Dew pretty much needs to feed kills. He will be lucky to deal more then scratch damage towards enemies until he becomes a Thief Fighter. To make things a bit less painful, I would advice you to give Dew the Light Sword or any other magic sword. They have 12 might, which is as good as it gets when being limited to C swords. But more importantly, they allow him to target Res on range to deal at least some damage.

A Dynasty Warriors spin-off about Astérix. But then again, Dynasty Warriors spin-offs go with everything.

Effectively she is a lost cause, unless you munchkin the hell out of her in 1-7. She is not really worth it anyway. Her growths for Str and Skil are pretty bad, which is unfortunate for a unit who sucks at both hitting and damaging the enemies since it makes it hard to dig her out of her hole. Her Defense growth is nice but she starts so fragile that it will never make a difference. Especially since her HP growth is rather lackluster too. Even if this wasn't the case, her Def caps prevent her from getting much out of that growth. And this is before you factor in that all the maps in the game hate her.

I advice FE4 since it doesn't suffer from all these inconveniences of the early games like limited storage space and stuff.

Favorite: Tactican - Been in love with this design since the announcement of the game. Grandmaster is one hell of a downgrade. Worst: Conquerer - Ah, the great Conquerer. Tremble in fear of his might as he enters the battlefield wearing a little kid's Halloween costume. I'm surprised the outfit doesn't have a cute little devil tail to truly complete it's appearance.

The 3DS game would be a port of "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater", originally released on the PS2. Besides "Snake's Revenge", the only Nintendo exclusive Metal Gear would probably be "Metal Gear: Ghost Babel" for the GameBoy Color. But even that one takes place in an alternate continuity.

Definitely Consistency. I can't get myself to care about the difference between having lv1 dudes fight lv1 dudes and having lv20 dudes fight lv20 dudes. So as far as I am concerned, if a leveling system does not exist to support the simulation aspect of an RPG, it might as well not exist because getting rid of it would allow for way game design since the developers would have a way better grasp of what the player can do. In the case of Fire Emblem, this would mean that maps would be closer to the ones in Advance Wars or the awesome BS Fire Emblem maps.

Sayaka has the highest defense in the game bar none. She may have way less Soul Energy then the likes of Mami and Madoka but those two loose massive amounts of Soul when healing or reviving. In Sayaka's case, those losses are minimal, so she beats them rather easily in the durability department. Not that it helps much when everything oneshots you but she should at least do better then Kyouko. But staying away from everyone and attacking from range for an eternity until something dies is neither fun nor challlenging, only tedious and dull.

Maybe Dark Pit. Making him different from Pit besides the voice doesn't make much sense.

We are specifically talking about getting through the game without using Holy Weapons. So no Tyrfing.