BrightBow

I am really opposed to giving Archer's proper melee. That's like balancing movement by putting everyone on a horse. They would be no different from any other class. Rather then destroying what made Archer's unique, they should be given strengths that makes it worth keeping them around despite their drawbacks. For example, since Archer's are offensive orientated they could get something like the Dread Fighter's Aggressor skill to increase their attack power on the player phase. Or they could get a selection of weapons that deal effective damage or even inflict status abilities. Or maybe they could get that fancy 3 range from RD Marksmen. There has to be tons of options to balance then as long as someone focuses on the class's strengths.

Big Rigs doesn't even have a storyline. It only has a setting. Which is apparently smuggling and stuff, yet you are driving a race for whatever reason. Well, sort of. There may be no competition but nevertheless you are always winner of something. So I guess you can at least compare the game's sliminess to that of Awakening. I wonder how James' AVGN review could even take 15 minutes. There shouldn't be enough stuff to make the review last much longer then that of Alex Navarro. And that one already had lots of filler.

For the first time, I actually regret passing up on the third generation. I don't find it all that interesting to follow the stream when I can't really fully comprehend the weight of the events that occur during the run. If there will be another run, then I guess it's time to play a fourth generation game once I find out which one will be played.

But if the enemy gets off two critical hits, it would usually be always fatal regardless of the system that is used. Armor Knights should have more Defense and maybe HP then any other class, so if my 2 (decent speed) would be executed as well, they would still be less vulnerable to those criticals then anyone else.

I guess I give it a shot 1. Changing the way EXP is gained Definitely the biggest point. The way it is now, you need to kill in order to gain EXP. This sucked for clerics in the first game since that was the only way to gain exp and they couldn't attack. Now this particular problem was fixed by making them able to gain EXP through casting with staffs. But they are not the only class who isn't actually designed to kill enemies. I am particularly talking about Armored Knights and to an extend Archers. Knights are defensive units. They are supposed to tank hits. Making them finish off weakened foes so they can keep up with the rest of the team goes completely against their concept. It's similar with Archers. Their strength is that they don't take counters, so they should be used to weaken enemies and then have somebody else finish them off. Not the other way around just because the Archer won't get any EXP that way. So my proposal would be to change it so that EXP is gained similar like in Pokemon: The EXP is shared between anyone who had a hand in defeating an enemy. And while we are on it, I guess Archers should need less EXP to progress in level to make up for their lack of enemy phase. 2. Armored Knights getting decent Speed. It's absurd that those guys have less durability then the likes of Myrmidones. Sure, that's mostly when dealing with supercharged Hard mode foes. But that's part of the fundamental problem. When dealing with powerful foes, they should be the ones you send forward because their purpose is to take hits. Quite frankly, Radiant Dawn got that one right. The nerved mages just resulted in a lack of countermeasures. But the Knights themselves were fine. Not sure how we ended up back with crappy GBA Knights. 3. The return of ledges Radiant Dawn was a game where mounts didn't dominate the battlefield like in most other games despite the presence of Canto. These thing were a big reason for that, giving foot units a few more options that their mounted comrades lacked. They are a pretty useful tool for maps in general. Btw, speaking of Canto. 4. The return of Canto The ability to attack while retreating back into formation is something that makes mounted units more then just foot units who get to their target faster. I am not saying that necessarily everyone on a horse should have it. There are lots of options on how to handle it. For example in TRS it was a skill possessed by individual units and not tied to class as long as you were on a mount. But it definitely should be present in some fashion. 5. The return of movement penalties of indoor chapters Or alternatively the return of dismount. It's a nice change of flow and gives foot combat specialists a slight edge. 6. Getting rid of Pair Up The execution of this mechanic is most certainly lacking in a lot of ways but that is not the reason that I want to get rid of it. Such flaws can be fixed. But this mechanic is fundamental stupid. It's not two units fighting together. It's one unit fighting while the other unit acts as a glorified piece of equipment. Consequently... 7. Brining back rescuing I think that doesn't need much explanation. As long as we assume that Pair Up is gone, it's always a neat mechanic. 8. Raising the Level Cap (and no resetting to level 1) Isn't it nice that Awakening allows infinite leveling. Except if we have infinite levels, why do we still need that cap? Getting rid of that and the level reversal would have made the Awakening post game a lot less tedious. Sully as a reclassed level 1 Paladin is identical to how she was as a level 20 Paladin but suddenly I loose the ability to reclass her? Bullcrap. And if units simply keep their level, there is no danger to hit the cap before obtaining a Master Seal. That would be especially useful for Lord. since their stories will sometimes benefit from having a relevant promotion. I hate hitting their level cap mid campaign as much as everyone else but this really isn't a situation where you can't have your cake and eat it too. And it's not even a new thing. FE4 already allowed units to keep their level. 9. Addition of a different skill system All those % based skills are awful. They have no strategic value since they can't be relied on. And we even got rid of some skills who could be properly used, like Charge and Canto. So I'd say that it's time to introduce a Mana point system (except they are not called mana since everyone gets to use it but the logic is the same) so that units can trigger their skills at will until they run out points. 10. Simplifying Weapon Levels Weapons are not different enough to justify grinding another type of weapon in a linear campaign just for a slightly little more utility. Maybe it would work if there were several weapon types available from the beginning but only after promotion? "Yeah, sure I am stop using my Silver Sword in exchange for a Bronze Axe until the day where I can use a Silver Axe for +2 attack or whatever. Totally worth it to cripple myself for the next ten chapters." So I'd either simplify it so that there is one weapon level for all martial weapons and one for all magic. That doesn't mean that everyone could use lances, axes and swords. Just that once the ability to use that new type of weapon becomes available, you'd immediately have a decent selection of new weapons that make it a worthy option. Otherwise just bring back the old weapon level system with growth rates. It lacked execution but it is fundamentally a good system, allowing units to differentiate themselves through their weapon selection rather then pure stats. Or maybe even the FE4 system with set weapon levels. That one would add more variety to classes. Speaking of systems that were fundamentally good but always received horrible executions... 11. Critical hits double attack power (hey, the triple damage system is even more antiquated) The beautiful thing about the double attack power system in Jugdral and Tear Ring Saga was that it made Critical hits vertisile. All normal criticals do is to speed up. The double attack power system makes it so that criticals do things that normal attacks couldn't do before. Namely, they can act as an option to overcome high defenses. 12. The return of weapon weight (But not Con) Properly thought out weight values would add a nice new dimensions on how to use individual weapons. Having a stat that counteracts the penalties defeats the point for the most part. 13. Getting rid of the Weapon Triangle That we even have such a system says a lot about how similar all the weapons are. 14. The return of Fatigue (sort of) I rather imagine a mechanic that gives a unit penalties if it gets involved in too many fights in a single chapter. That would make it harder for a single powerful entity has a harder time to maintain it's performance through a whole chapter and make actual teamwork more tempting. Not necessarily that the unit needs to take a break like in Thracia.

Few redeeming qualities? Like them siding with Chrom against their King despite said King threatening their lives and families? Yeah, those Plegians are douches to defy the villain, alright.

Well, besides the general poor writing in part 1, i would say his biggest problem is that his later presentation as a cruel but proud soldier is kinda underscored by the fact that he kills his own men the first time we see him. You kinda loose the right to make inspirational speeches to your men when you treat them like that. And for somebody who is supposedly tempted by the challenge as he claims to be, he sure is a sore looser. He is a pretty cool guy later on, though. I like how he deals with Micaiah and her patriotic speeches. And then there is his cocky attitude against the Black Knight. The fact that he maintains it even after witnessing his power firsthand shows how badass Jarod is.

Well, Plegia's fate isn't mentioned in anyone's ending. Not even in Gangrel's who is the only person who showed some concern for it. And his ending says that whatever he did, he didn't life for long. So even he tried to handle things, he couldn't really have done a lot. With all that in mind, I guess that the country is left to fend for itself after Ferox takes what's left of it's resources. This will result in the usual stuff that happens in Fire Emblem games in these situations. Bandits and Risen will burn and plunder without much resistance except for individual towns who manage to organize a proper militia like Fiana pulled it off. But generally life will suck for them. Those who survive will maybe eventually start another war or try to revive another Earth Dragon.

I would like you to consider two things in regards to weight: 1. You only have to make those calculations because IS for whatever reason stopped displaying the AS value on the status screen after FE4. 2. IS never explains how weight actually works. It's not in the tutorials, nor is it in the actual manuals. At best, we get stuff like this: Matthew: An armorslayer! Just as the name suggests. armorslayers are useful against knights in armor. You want to know something? You need to give weapons to those who can wield them. Otherwise, it's just a waste of a perfectly good weapon. Take this blade. I mean, I can use it, but... I'm not too strong, and...I just hate being counterattacked. Anyway, think strategically about who you give weapons to. It's such an useless explanation. How can I tell by the above who is actually good with that weapon? Or what weapons are difficult to handle? It baffles me how there is so much text, yet no useful info. If it wasn't for SF, I wouldn't have learned how it worked. IS seemed to go out of their way to handle the mechanic as badly as possible. It's easy to say that a mechanic makes things unnecessary complicated. Technically, removing any mechanic makes the game less complicated. For my part, I always had the feeling that when IS put some actual thought into the system and what weight to give the weapons, it would work wonderfully. And after playing TRS, I am sure about it. It added a lot of depth towards who uses which weapon against which target. But it also helps that the game has a variety of enemies that the actual Fire Emblem games never matched, even when counting in the Laguz. The mechanic had a lot of potential. It's a shame that it was removed.

They could also give them the option to attack at range, like Radiant Dawn did for almost every single 4-F boss. At least they shouldn't stay completely passive during their last stand unless the narrative bothers to prevent them from doing so.

Radiant Dawn Part 2 proves that the series doesn't need a lot of chapters to tell a proper story. That one had only 5 chapters and worked great by itself. Heck, it probably is the only Fire Emblem story that doesn't feel like it's mostly filler because you can only have so many large scale battles in a single war before it gets silly. It's short length is a strength, This game doesn't need even more chapters. It simply needs to properly use the time that it already has.

Two of them apparently. On is hidden in the desert, the other one is all the way into chapter 16. Edit: Damn those ninjas. Anyway, that is still pretty limiting.

FE 1-3, FE 11-12 and Tear Ring Saga have Dragon Knights as promotions for Pegasus Knights, so it's a moot point. Technically Falcon Knights are in the remakes but they have very special availability issues. They require online, can only be bought three times a month and can only be bought three in total despite despite there being a lot more female characters around. Oh, and the online shop will no longer be available in the near future. Joy. FE2 No Dragon Knights, so the Pegasus win by default. FE4 The game is lacking Dragon Knights for the most part. And by the time one comes around she is actually somewhat of a downer. Athenea is statistically impressive but she just so happens to join when the Loptu church and Velthomer throw all their mages at you, who cut through her HP like butter. While almost nobody in Gen 1 had any Res, this is no longer the case in Gen 2. And not only has Fee been around for longer then she has, but she usually does have a lot of Res. So this is the point where she will start to really shine. She even gains the ability to use staffs, adding another mounted healer. Even the Gae Bolg is a letdown because of the weapon's enormous weight (only beaten by the Knight Killer) and the fact that the Skill bonus and the Def bonus aren't quite as valuable because of the dominance of magic and because her skill bonus is not enough to turn her into a critical machine like Aless. She is good and all but she is far from enough to get that point for Team Dragon. I'd argue that she even outdoes Fee. FE5 Eda and Misha are pretty much non-issues, so the point depends on Dean and Karin. It goes to Karin because she is doing the flier stuff for so much longer then he does. Dean crushes her when he is around, though. He is even pretty good on foot. FE6 Miledy. That's it. FE7 There is not a whole lot of competition for the Pegasus goddess Florina. FE8 It probably depends. I don't think that Eirika's route cripples Cormag that much. But by the time he joins, it wont be too long until some really nasty Res targeting enemies show up. Eprahim Cormag is a beast, though. FE9 Marcia and Tanith got tons of availability over Jill and Haar respectively. Haar in particular isn't all that great while Tanith even got another her in her pocket. FE10 Dragon Knights is such an awesome class in this game that Jill still rocks despite being quite frail and with a rather overspecialized growth speed. They have no vulnerability to arrows (in a game with crossbows no less) . Only the Rare Wyvern Slayer and Thunder magic can slow them down. And Thunder is the weakest kind of magic in this game. They take any other hit like a tank and hit back just as hard. And that isn't even taking into account that Haar is a freaking god in this game. FE13 Dragon Knights offer to little and are too late to challenge Sumia.

The enemy at the time was the Disciples of Order. Ashera's blessing made them way more powerful then the average soldiers that were fought until then. While their blessings are noted to be not on the same level as the ones of Ragnel and BK's armor, ordinary people probably aren't a match for them even if they could fight.

Now I do of course know that Yellow, Orange and blue complement each other, so seeing them together shouldn't be too much of a surprise. And of course the fact that Tear Ring Saga's character design is just as similar to Fire Emblem as the actual game doesn't help. But then again, I've always wondered if that color palette came from somewhere in particular since it doesn't fit together with the usual team colors and doesn't keep the color of the cape in line with the armor like the others do. So I can't help but wonder if it might actually be the case. Tia: http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tia.jpg http://fireemblem.wikia.com/wiki/File:Tia_(Credits_Still).png Roy (yellow): http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/File:RoyTrophyAllStar.png Roy's cape is shown as red in his character select screen but it is clearly orange during the actual gameplay. I can't find an image of Roy's model with palette in action, so I figured the trophy works just as well. Also, Tear Ring Saga's release date: 05/24/01 Smash Brother's Japanse release date: 11/21/01

Anyway, I don't have a good story in regards to instantly moving reinforcements right now but I think I do have a little one in regards to non-moving ones, if that is good enough. It happened in FE8 Eirika mode chapter 15. Eprahim's group was moving up to Caellach to help out but since team Eirika did well enough on it's own, I figured Team Eprahim might as well start engaging Valter's group in the meantime, so I had them turn around half-way. Unfortunately the reinforcements in this chapter consisted out of a literal small army showing up in the south west and Eprahim ended up exactly in the middle of the group. With no notable help in range and failing to dodge a single attack, he didn't survive the enemy phase.

Yes, you don't know where they are. They don't always spawn at all forts from the same time, nor do they necessary have to spawn there. They could spawn from any edge of the screen or even teleport right into it. And it doesn't matter how often that happens. That only matters if you know that all in advance. But the mere fact that the player knows that those kind of cheapshots are deployed means that he can't be certain that it won't be pulled on other maps too. And since you don't know when they spawn, effectively the only way to stay save would be to always stay away 13 tiles from every fort, possible waiting for a dozen turns just in case the computer might decide to spawn something after all. Seizing them can't be safely done since something with more move, higher stats and effective weaponry might always show up. And the advantages of these kind of reinforcements could be used by simply giving the player all the information in advance. The stats and weaponry from the enemies kept in reserve and the exact turn they show up.

No, almost all instantly moving spawns are troublesome.There are exceptions, sure. Like Astram's squad. Since it is made clear that you have to hurry up and push forward as fast as possible. If they do catch up and start killing allies, the mission can be rightfully considered a failure. Whether they do that right that at the spawn point or further in is indeed trivial. But they don't stop being troublesome just because they are where you are probably not going to be. It still means that the outcome of the scenario is based on luck because there is no guarantee that you are progressing in that fashion. A gamble with good odds is still a gamble. You will still get occasionally unlucky and have someone die despite making no wrong move based on the available information. Not to mention that since you don't know where and when the reinforcements show up, you might either progress to slowly or rush right into them specifically because you try to avoid them in the first place. And even if there is a warning, you don't know what you are dealing with and never when exactly they are going to show up. Units go up to 12 move in this game and might be unrestricted by terrain. Unless you are already in range, seizing a spawn point or staying safely away from them requires both of these informations down to a single turn. Everything else results in a gamble. Plus, what excuse is there for the mechanic on a fundamental level? Even if they do spawn far away, there would be no difference between a reinforcement that instantly moves but probably can't reach the player and a reinforcement that spawns one turn earlier but probably can't be taken out by the player before it moves. Except one of these things could still potentially end in a cheap death on the side of the player which is a lot worse then the reverse. So why have it outside of a few special occasions?

Phospora from Kid Icarus: Uprising. Right hand woman from the goddess Viridi. So she is effectively Viridi's Pit.

What about the DK rap?

I can't exaggerate how much this one mechanic dragged down the whole game for me. Of course it's unfair. You don't know what spawns, where it spawns, when it spawns. when it stops spawning and what it has equipped. So there is no way to be prepared. It's all Trial and Error. I can't comprehend what IS was thinking with bringing that mechanic back. I would have assumed that it was dropped for a reason in the first place.

My statement was based on the professional critics that are available online. They are also based on some old magazine reviews but I obviously couldn't link to those even if they weren't based on memory by now and that they actually were in English. Anyway, if critics don't count and an appropriate reputation does not exist, then saying that Fire Emblem is "not known for its intricate plot, fascinating narrative, interesting writing and character building and development" is only correct in the sense that the series isn't known at all outside of critics. So it's absolute nonsense to say that and pretend that it is an argument.

Yeah, that line was indeed stupid. But what is the basis for your more enlightened view on the perception of the franchise in the public eye?

Wait, Ike is the only one? Really? I mean, that game has Jill. I would make a case for at least those Tellius characters that I listed over at Anacybele's Top 15 characters topic but Jill's exclusion of all people does surprise me. Anyway, some of the PoR characters most certainly are like that. Ilyana is effectively your average Awakening character. Everything she ever says is about food, right to her death quote. Otherwise, there is nothing to her. I mean, Oscar fights for his family, Zihark fights for a better future for Beorc and Laguz, Jill fights for her convictions, Mia fights to get stronger and she stays with Ike because she respects him, Mist fights so that no one will die when she isn't around, Soren fights for Ike, Tormod fights for an end of the Laguz slavery, Shinon fights to get ahead in the world, Lethe fights for her king. Even Kieran fights for glory and the restoration of his homeland. However, Ilyana fights for... Yeah, she is generic cute and that's it. Similar with a bunch of other characters, sure. But I don't mind them. Having a few comic relief character or two is fine. The difference is that Awakening has a comic relief cast, to the point that there isn't even a straight man left that you can pair them up with. Everyone is just as insane. They also barely have any ties to the world that they live in or a presence during the main game. And among the main cast, there is a good dynamic. Soren is pragmatic, cold and intelligent while Titania is his opposite, being noble, knightly and experienced. Ike as the leader has to get them to work together and make decisions based on their respective viewpoints. Awakening has a Golden Sun dynamic, where almost every line could come from everyone. Now Frederick could play a distinctive role as the serious and careful. But after the first few chapters, he does very little but fill the role that would normally be taken by a faceless soldier giving a report. And then there is the issue that the main plot is so much more lively over in Tellius. There are tons of different characters, factions and motivations involved in the main plot. But quite frankly, I already prefer someone like Oscar to almost anyone in Awakening, as long as they can do as much as going through a life or death battle without making a dozen puns about cooking or whatever. Yes, it is. The series is in fact knows for it's intriguing story telling. Saying it has always been perceived as bad is just plain wrong and has always been wrong ever since people first made a habit out of that as a lazy way to dismiss criticism. Just look at any review whose author doesn't complain about a lack of Mii support in Radiant Dawn. Of course, those same sites usually say that Awakening has an intriguing cast. But hey, if you set the bar so high that something like PoR counts as badly written, then that makes Awakening.just all the worse by comparison.

Good idea. Morgan is the same Mark as the one in FE7. Assuming that isn't already canon or stated by a few hundred people already.