BrightBow

His lack of loyalty is not a motivation. Neither is being a prick. They are just more traits added to make him as unlikeable as possible. All that his willingness to stab his employees in the back does, is to further establish him as someone who fights for no actual reason. And as for greed, that isn't stated anywhere. As far as we know from the script, he doesn't gain anything out of what he does besides a good laugh.

Btw, is it known if Little Mac does have the Star Punch as a normal special? Or maybe as a Final Smash or something?

Man, poor Excellus gets way too much hate. Sure he is a jackass. It would be a problem if he wasn't. He is supposed to be an evil counterpart to Robin. But his mannerism is the only thing he has going against him. If he was written as a decent guy who believed that the path of his leader was the only way to archive peace but still did the same things he did for the purpose of that goal... ...then this would put a guy who subdues opponents with threats and blackmail against a guy who subdues opponents by casually burning them to death. So he needs to be ugly and act like a prick without any actual motivation or even the slightest hint at humanity, to make people overlook the fact that when judged by his actual actions Excellus doesn't look all that bad next to Robin.

Well, getting a Wii U is also still on my "to-do list". But I don't feel like kidding myself here. Some people will buy a Wii U when Hyrule Warriors come out. Some will do so when Smash comes around. Will it be enough people so that Nintendo can sell several million new Wii U consoles? Unlikely. It's too bad hat Nintendo is at such a disadvantage towards Sony and Microsoft. To the regret of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft hasn't actually started making money with the XBox series until relatively recently. But they can get away with such long time investments because they make a lot more then just games. So they can sell their hardware at a loss and stuff. But Nintendo can't just not make money with these things nor can they live for very long relying on a unprofitable console. They only have two legs to stand on.

Even ignoring her fighting style, we already know that the Marth in Smash is going to have an entirely different physical build then Lucina. So a mere palette swap wouldn't even work for her anyway.

I would bet that most people who will buy the new Smash will have already bought the Wii U. Personally the Wii U is nevertheless the console that I am the most interested in. From my perspective the Wii U has at least the best exclusives. Of course it misses out on the stuff that everyone else gets. That is bad. Really bad. But at least it has a niche. It's the Xbox1v2 that I feel is kinda redundant. Pretty much everything it has will be ported to PC and/or PS4. But it will miss out on a lot of games from Japanese developers. Plus, I would have loved seeing Microsoft's disrespect for their customers blow up in their faces. Too bad that didn't happen. I am kinda surprised to hear that the PS4 has apparently only outsold the Wii U now. I thought it pulled that off before it even hit the shelves.

If anything she should be a palette swap of Chrom since they are using the same fighting style. Anyway, I'd definitely prefer her over the alternatives. But another swordfighter would be dull either way. It's bad enough that the series already can't provide fresh hair colors for smash. Not that I am saying that there are too many sword fighters in Smash. I'm just saying that they should take advantage of the fact that the series can provide more then just swords.

I wonder how they ever managed to evolve anything back in Kanto. One of thousands of people presses B and it's all over. Somebody is gonna do it.

I hit my head at a rock once, resulting in a hole. Thankfully things worked out fine and there is nothing but a scar left.

It is effectively guaranteed to have been mentioned already, but my would be everything related to Mew and the Truck in Red and Blue. A variation I once heard said that you could move the truck using 4 Mewtwo's using strength. Man, did I smile brightly when I found out about ways to gain Mew that actually worked. Two generations too late but whatever. Now I just wish that Gamefreak would shed some light on the subject of the truck.

FE11 is a huge disappointment. Technically simply taking the old game and giving it a visual update and a more userfriendly interface is about as it would have needed for me to say that this is a good game. What I can't get behind, is taking everything 1 to 1 from the old game, THEN adding a bunch of new mechanics with zero consideration on how this affects the existing game. Most obvious example: Adding the weapon triangle in a game where everyone is using lances. Plus, the visual upgrade isn't that good. The sprites are fine but the loss of individual pallets makes the characters all look very much the same. And the addition of class change makes it even more obvious. The rest of the game still holds up for the most part but it is just saddening that the game ended so much worse then it had to be. However, what little additions there are to the script are impressively effective. But it still stays far behind of what could have been possible. Especially knowing that a FE3 remake was effectively guaranteed to happen. FE12 features the kind of polishing I was missing in FE11. Now Dragon Knights can not only use Axes but actually do use them. Yay! Unfortunately with the addition of My Unit, the game's writing quality takes a HUGE dive, as the game focuses more on kissing Chris' ass rather then developing story and characters. And the addition of instantly moving reinforcements alone drags the game far down. It simply isn't very satisfying when units die to a cheap shot. That was in Shadow Dragon too but there is a massive difference on how they are used. And not for the better. And while the maps are generally very well designed, the early ones tend to be more tedious then challenging. It's easy to loose the motivation during that time. Thankfully the addition of BS Fire Emblem is a huge plus for this game. To actually play mas that are designed around the skills of your units is a nice change of pace. Unfortunately the downloadable maps can't keep up with that quality. I am still completely in awe of terrible FE13 is. Mechanical wise the game is amazingly primitive. The only huge improvement over Shadow Dragon is the addition of buyable Rescue Staffs. In some cases, it even developed backwards. Support points are once gain collected by gluing units together and new weapon skills will always start at E, rendering them effectively useless. And what little difference the series had left in classes is killed by the awful stat inflation and Pair Up. And because of the stat inflation, units will get very fast to the point where nothing can touch them or where they end up being completely useless. Well, at least the game has unique palettes. So that is one thing it has over Shadow Dragon. But the biggest problem with this game are the actual maps designs. There is no variety whatsoever. Every map is the same onslaught of enemies then the map before and the same as the next one. Just that everyone will have gained 1+3 levels. The game effectively doesn't have strategy as much as it has probability of victory based on munchkining and luck during level ups. Beyond those variations, it's just about going through the motions. Add in that instantly moving reinforcements are back YET AGAIN and there will be even more unfair losses forcing a restart. This is the one point that really dragged FE12 down for me. It simply isn't fair because you don't know what spawns, when it spawns and what weapons and skills it has. So it's impossible to prepare for it. But not only that, unlike every other Fire Emblem, dead units can't really be replaced by newcomers because the game will just stop handing out new units after the halfway point. Seriously, one half of the game has 24 units, the other half has 4. And one of them is in a paralouge. So there is little choice but to restart the map and go through that whole ordeal all over again, hoping that there aren't any more scripted surprises left. It's kinda redundant to say anything else. Even if the game had the best story and the best developed characters, it wouldn't matter since the actual game just isn't entertaining. It's tedious as heck and feels like a chore.

To think that somebody would ever be happy about having obtained a charge move.

I probably have penalties on every single attribute. The biggest is probably a -3 penalty on charisma rolls, -5 when using a foreign language like English.

Man, Bird Jesus is really letting himself go. I think he has barely gained a level the last few days.

Yes. And? This isn't what I am talking about and never did. I was talking about IS completely wasting Nergal's interesting backstory and the entire Scouring. I think we are kinda talking past each other ever since you replied to me. Let me try to illustrate this: It's the difference between arguing about whether IS should have written Radiant Dawn's story so that Micaiah and Ike don't fight against each other or arguing if Is should have used a better explanation to justify the fight then the Blood Pact. Micaiah being forced to fight against Ike is the actual story. The Blood Pact is merely the in-universe explanation for the story is happening that way. And I only care about the former discussion. aka, the story of FE7 being about an evil wizard who tries to obtain greater power for no real reason. The latter discussion would be to argue why that evil wizard has no motivation for his actions. aka, his memories getting lost because of an overuse of dark magic. And I don't care why that evil wizard has no real motivation. I care about the actual story. I am saying that he should have a motivation for wanting power. And that his backstory has tons of promising material to give him one. And if you really do want to talk about in-universe logic, I don't get why you try to have that discussion with me of all people. The thing is, Lyon is the main villain of FE8, Alvis and Julius are the main villains of FE4 and Awakening's story is a pile of shit. The Demon King, Manfroy and Loptyr are merely part of the in-universe explanation on why these people ended up as antagonists. They are the forces that corrupted their good intentions. Well, okay not quite. The Demon King is the villain of Eirika's version of the story. And a very uninteresting one by himself. But that story is not about defeating the Demon King. It is about Eirika. It is about her coming to terms with having to fight and kill when she desires peace and happiness for everyone. And the challenge of accepting the death of a beloved friend and keeping his spirit alive. So while the Demon King is not interesting, he is still necessary so that a more interesting and engaging story can work. Nergal's backstory is meaningless because it is disconnected from his actions in the present. The "darkness makes you forget" plotpoint is merely the explanation why we have a cardboard villain instead of a more interesting one. There are tons of ways to use his backstory for a more interesting plot that goes beyond merely stopping an evil wizard from destroying the world. And that none of them are used is exactly my complaint.

That really doesn't make it any less so. This is about Nergal and not any other villain. Again, this it isn't about in-universe logic but why the story is written the way it is. It doesn't matter how many NPC's say that dark magic users loose their sense of self. All it matters practically is that the Nergal of the present is entirely disconnect from the potentially more interesting Nergal from the past. Present Nergal only seeks power for it's own sake and is consequently a boring antagonist. And a being like Athos has no business in the story unless he is used to deal with the Scouring. They even made up this nonsense about him being 1000 years old just so that he can still be around. That is a lot that the story expects it's audience to swallow for an NPC that could have been replaced by anybody. And I don't care about what Athos is nor is not responsible. I care about the writers ignoring the opening that they used in two successive games. An opening that promised a way more interesting story then what we got.

This is the biggest reason why having online requirements for features in a single player game is bullshit. It's not like their is anything special about Falcon Knights, so there was no need for such an restriction in the first place. And the only practical reason that the shop needed online access was to prevent cheating by changing the date on the DS. Which shouldn't matter because it's a freaking single player game. And now we will be stuck with a bunch incomplete games. I wish success for the petition. But ultimately it is just a matter of time either way because no online service can go on forever. On a more fundamental level, customers should push companies to avoid putting stuff like that into their games unless it is actually needed.

This is not about in-universe logic. It is about why the story was written the way it is. Nergal is limited to being a boring 90s cartoon villain with no depth when his backstory gives so much better material to work with: The loss of his entire family and the grudge of an millennium as the humans responsible for his suffering spread about the continent and glorified their atrocities over the course of the following centuries. In terms of backstory, he is effectively Lehran.

I'm sorry but this really has always been the case. I would actually say that it has become better now and people are more accepting towards titles that don't look like they squeeze everything out of the hardware. Back in the last two decades, people seemed to focus entirely on how realistic graphics are. But now there seem to be a lot more different art directions floating around. Art styles that look still appealing despite not requiring as much processing speed. It is still a problem of course. Maybe even more so then before because archiving the best possible graphic gets more and more expensive. Games will get more boring and less diverse as a result because companies will simply copy other successful games rather then experiment because a failed game will rip a really deep hole in their pocket. At least the success of the Wii in the last generation gave developers a cheaper alternative. But that is in the past now.

FE6: I would really like to know what the idea behind FE6 was. It feels kinda like a remake of FE3 that was changed to be something new halfway through development when the entire story and character designs wera already done. The opening suggests that the idea might have been "Akaneia with a twist", seeing how it paints a very similar backstory but with the humans as the bad guys. But that would kinda require that the actual game would acknowledge it rather then praising the divine generals to he heavens while not showing anything to the player that makes them more but the driving force behind a worldwide genocide. Fittingly the mechanics have also been downgraded to FE3 level. Except even worse, now that you have to actual grind for supports in a game that is entirely linear. Still, the gameplay is pretty solid. The instantly moving reinforcements are back but thankfully they shouldn't spawn right next to the army. Also hard mode is a bliss to play. The characters and countries are also surprisingly well developed ...except for Roy. So this is sort of a case of having good worldbuilding in an otherwise crappy story. Also, the battle animations. Back when I only played the GBA games, I was thinking about how cool it would be if the game wold use the data to simulate an actual battle rather then simply performing the animations on the spot. And then I played the older games and I saw that they actually did do that before. Just why did they give that up in exchange for this primitive system? FE7: Continuing the trend of games that confuse me, FE7 has effectively the same opening as FE6. But hey, all the very important NPCs are related to the Scouring. The villain and the siblings are victims of the war and Athos is one of the Divine Generals. However, instead of exploring these events, the Scouring is actually completely unrelated to the actual story. Nergal should hate Athos for the death of his wife but he hates him for an entirely unrelated event. His actions in the present are completly unrelated to his past. That connection had been lost when his backstory said "he went gaga" and became a shallow cartoon villain. The twins could have been replaced by two different dragons too. Nothing in the story depends on those people being connected through the Scouring. It doesn't even make sense to have a character like Athos unless you would want to bring up the Scouring. So why did things turn out this way? There isn't even anything that does as much as hint on these absurdly hidden background trivia pieces either. In fact, the game actually adds brief dialog once the levels are unlocked, like lengthening Nergal's death quote to reference his wife. The actual story is utter crap too. It's effectively just a collection of random (and stupid) events until the evil wizard dies in the end. There is no point to it beyond that. The gameplay is effectively unchanged from FE6. But now you have to force yourself through Lyn's mode: A godawful and lengthy tutorial that often ends up being misleading. Also, the introduction of the Tactician. So there is lots of embarrassing ass kissing going on. Overall, a crappy successor to an already lackluster game. FE8: At last a game with an actual direction. A character driven story that is about so much more then just killing an evil wizard. You know, I can understand when a story with an actual theme sometimes has to put logic aside in order to execute it's plot points but FE7 simply has no point. So there is no excuse for stupidity. But of course, making sense is always a good thing and Sacred Stones does this good for the most part. In fact, I think this is the game with the most intelligent villains: First, Grado tries to subdue the other countries with a Blitzkrieg. But once they lost momentum, they executed alternative plans to bring down the countries or to at leas destroy the sacred stones. Frelia's stone was destroyed by a commando team and Jehanna was brought down from the inside. Unfortunately Rausten wasn't brought down. That is not Vigarde's fault, though. He did order him to come up with something very early one. Rief seems to be quite a slacker. So some stupidity is unfortunately still present. The game reintroduces lots of elements from Gaiden but they are for the most part badly executed. The road split was done well, though. Both of the siblings have their own story, even when traversing the same maps for the most part. Still, the engaging world, plot and characters make this game stand out from the rest of the GBA era. FE9: This game has to feature the best worldbuilding and storyline in a Nintendo game ever. Well, that is kinda a narrow superlative. Still, it is pretty great. There are so many factions and characters and so much backstory. And yet in the end it comes all together. It is truly a masterpiece and incredible engaging. Contrary to common perception, good stories don't get worse by experiencing them repeatedly. They get better. And man, this game has gotten better and better with every replay. Unfortunately, the mechanics aren't quite as refined as the plot. The game brings back old mechanics with mixed success and the Laguz are executed rather poorly too. Also Biorhythm. Like WTH Biorhythm. Seriously. Fortunately, the game does have some good ideas on it's own. Bonus exp is great because it adds a motivator or finishing maps quickly without making it mandatory and you no longer need to glue units together to raise supports. And Info conversations are the best Fire Emblem mechanic ever. They allow for actual story relevant character conversations. It's effect is absolutely incredible. Quite frankly, I think the base menu itself is an amazing idea. It allows you to maintain the army in an appropriate atmosphere. And something as simple as the changing backgrounds give you the feeling that you are actual traveling over this wide world. Of course, four games later we are back to gluing units together to raise supports, Info conversations are completely gone, BEXP is completely gone and the army is maintained on the world map while the so called "base" serves no purpose but to hand out random goodies... ...this game really has gotten better over time. The map design is also quite diverse. It's trivialized by the easy difficulty but I don't penalize the games for localization changes. The 3D environments look really nice too. I like how the background during battles is effectively a recreation of the map itself and will position the characters depending on their position on the map. It keeps things dynamic as you progress. Unfortunately, the animations of the units are rather clunky. It has good concepts for it's visual presentation but it's nevertheless quite apparent that this is the series' first step into 3D. And the tutorial is amazing. It doesn't force itself on you like in FE7 and forces tons of information down your throat which you will inevitable have forgotten by the time it is actually relevant because of the absurd volume and because the useful parts are buried under tons of completely useless flavor text. This one is always ready when it is needed and can be watched as often as necessary. FE10: FE10 follows in FE9's footsteps and brings back even more old mechanics and executes them poorly, like Leadership. And it introduces even more stupid mechanics, like Map Affinity. Confusing mechanics aside, the game is extremely fun. And man, the battles look gorgeous now. I originally considered the story to be a medium disappointment but as time went one and I learned about the extended script, I realized that the plot was better put together then I initially thought. Sure, the abridged script we got sucks but I don't penalize the games for localizations changes. I just wish we got more chapters translated. But abridged script or not, this game is not quite on PoR's level either way. Except for Part 2. That part is truly excellent in a vacuum.

I guess that rules out the possibility that they would have Alfonzo take over Waluigi's job of beating people with a tennis racket and stomping them. I actually like the idea of somebody being essentially the "Biff the Understudy" of Smash Bros. Or the possibility of playable characters temporarily showing up as Assist Trophies.

I'm pretty sure that the only reinforcements in chapter 14 come from the south after you have already moved away from that position. When I mean cheap reinforcements, I mean something like in chapter 19. If you get into the range of the middle General (apparently) in front of the Palace, the enemy will spawn Horses from every... single... fortress around the Palace. All at once. The fortresses are too far apart to be seized without triggering the reinforcements. And there are already tons of enemies which can easily take down anyone foolish enough to use their full movement range. Plus, you don't actually know the trigger. I spent a lot of time save scumming to figure out where I could actually move my units without instantly spawning enemies capable of instantly taking out half my units or at least the poor fool I sent right into the fray... just to have enough information to actually plan a strategy. Or three maps later in chapter 22. Opening one of the chests will spawn dragons. A thief is effectively guaranteed to be killed by the dragon who suddenly appeared two tiles away from him literally out of nowhere. And you never know if reinforcements are triggered by turns or by different triggers. Take your time and they might fall you in the back. Progress fast and you might end up being surrounded by enemies spawning from all directions.

Unfortunately I haven't played FE1 yet, so I can't comment on that (and unfortunately can't skip it on the poll). Though, given that I can't endure FE3 Book 1 for very long either, it's probably about on the same level as that one. FE2 on the other hand is probably the best one of the games with a traversable world map. At least in design. The Famicom clunkiness really doesn't hold up too well. The game actually has traversable villages and other areas, which goes a long way in making the world feel more like an actual place. It's great that the game took out money and weapon durability. It's way too stressful having to deal with that when having to go through random encounters. It's bad enough that they are boring but in later FE games, they are downright unpleasant to deal with because you can actually loose money and valuable items. You can be a lot more relaxed in FE2. # It also has the widest array of magic spells (not that this is saying much) and archers which are actually good for something. But what really baffles me, is that weapons still have the same stats as in FE1. With only one slot, the used item should be nothing but a power up. Despite being a SNES game, FE3 still feels way too much like an NES game. The colors are all muddy and the instruments have no real direction. But most of all: The controls are still awful. Just getting the cursor where you want it, can be quite a chore. Combine that with large maps and the game moves at an awful slow pace. So far, I couldn't neither finish book 1 or book 2. The second SNES game is more what I'm talking about. Beautiful colors, music and you can actually freely move the cursor where you want it too. I don't care that the maps are huge. Moving units is actually fun in this game. The graphics aren't the only thing which are beautiful and colorful. Jugdral has so much to it. All those characters, families and factions which are changed so much by the wars over the decades. The playable characters aren't except from that. They are now so much more then a unique mugshot. The game develops their families and other relationships and allows them to have their own stakes in the war. They even have their own inventories and funds. Children feel a lot more meaningful when they inherit so much from their parents. The world and the cast are just wonderfully engaging. The gameplay is quite unique. And for the most part, that is a good thing. But the army vs army clashes gets older faster then the more interesting map designs in most other games. FE5 seriously confuses me. Why does it even exist? FE4 was already released in the same year as the N64. Why even start another SNES game, yet alone release it 3 years after the N64? But I'm glad they did because FE5 is absolutely amazing. The world and characters are just as developed as in FE4 but the closer focus on events results in a way more tense atmosphere. Plus, the game leaves the out the usual boring "muhaha, I'm so evil" kind of antagonists out entirely. It actually portrays the opponents as actual people and goes as far as giving bandits a proper motivation. The world ends up a lot more interesting, believable and immersive as a result. Personally I already get a lot out of avoiding to kill enemies and simply capturing them. The game got tons of mechanics that make characters more unique from each other. Skills, PCC, supports boasts, Leadership, Personal weapons, unique classes... etc. So despite scrolls being the broken messes they are, it's still interesting to try out new characters. The same goes for the maps too. Since they are all so diverse, they all invite to try out new strategies. As a result, the game has tons of replay value. Unfortunately the controls are back to being a bit of a mess. This time, you can't change starting positions at all. And near the end, starting positions become more important then ever. So things can be undeserving unfair at times since you often can't start maps as optimal as you should be allowed. And they really should have gone back to the Akaneia avoid formula because the average grunt can end up being too much of a pushover because of it. Also, the item storage is too small. But I do kinda like that the storage caps at 128 rather then 100 like the later GBA games. Who cares that 100 is such a nice round number? Make every Bit count, dammit. On the bright side, the game added a battle preparations shop, which offers all the basic items. It's quite helpful. Ultimately, the good outweighs the bad by a large amount and Thracia offers the best and most advanced gameplay in the series.

Effectively, at Hard mode and beyond, later allies simply can't keep up with enemies. They have no use beyond the equipment they carry. Also, the game will do some cheap shots with reinforcements later on. Personally I am really not ashamed to use the save points for moments like that. This is a relict that should have stayed buried.

"I am a prince before I am a son or a brother." Remakes can be awesome sometimes.