BrightBow

Actually his dialog in chapter E23 is always going to play whether he is dead or not. I know that because I simply killed him on my first playthrough since there were no hints on how to recruit him. So I ended up being confused who that guy in C23 was. Of course, logic dictates that this memory should be unreliable after 10 years.

My apologies but are we even talking about the same thing? Because I merely wanted to point out that the game panders directly to the player and that this would naturally affect the popularity of Lyn if she is the one doing the gushing. Sure, Eliwood and Hector do that too but by that point they don't even acknowledge Mark's presence all that often. Even ignoring that, the tone is quite a bit different in Lyn's story. As early as the first chapter, Lyn is taking care of the player, going as far as showing herself concerned about Mark being drained by the battle despite Mark doing no fighting. She shares her most intimate feelings with Mark, has to suppress her tears and begs Mark to train her and let her accomany him. So she shows herself a lot more devoted to the player, as well as more vulnerable, dependent and even subservant. In Eliwood and Hector's story, he gets a lot of praise when he is even mentioned but it's not as intimate in any way. Their relationship is a lot more professional. Edit: Of course, none of that might even matter because the list that AL posted seems to correlate with the sales statistics of the games. From what I remember, Telius and Thracia sold really bad, Monshu did the best and Seisen and Blazing Sword sold really good too. So it might simply be a matter of exposure.

Additionally to the usual swordfighter, her story features a player self insert that Lyn keeps gushing about despite him never doing anything. There are even several CG images with her looking at the player with her huge eyes and a big smile. Superficial moe as heck. But as I said, I would love to hear an arguments in her favor.

Ah, that brings back memories. Those were indeed quite a few hours. Good job.

Those methods are not unavailable. There is no logical reason that they couldn't have tracked them without Lyn. It is a good idea that the story has her track them when she is already around anyway but it is no good justification to introduce her as a main character just to have her get rid of this plot irrelevant and artificial obstacle. And it's missing the point: The group tracking down the Black Fang is only a problem because the story wants it to be a problem. What does this problem contribute to the story other then excuse Lyn' presence. Legault didn't actually say that, though. Legault: "Yes. Black Fang's headquarters are here in Bern. The location was never disclosed to me, though. The Black Fang is so much different than it once was. Any information we could gain would be beneficial." He flat out says that nobody ever told him where the headquarters are. But that's besides the point. The point is that the story bends desperately backwards for no other reason then to find justifications for Lyn's presence in the story. Yes, that is a sign of having no story significance. That is a sign that a characters is tagged on to the plot rather then being an actual, integral part of it. That has absolutely nothing to do with what I said. Which is just as well, though since I made that mistake too since you weren't talking about Caelin's role in main plot. My apologies for that. However my last line still answers the actual issue about Lundgren: "If it wasn't for Lyn, Caelin wouldn't have been involved in the story at all." Because he has no purpose in the story but serving as a villain in the prologue. Stuff doesn't just happen automatically in a story. It happens because it's written that way. So if Lyn wasn't there, the twins wouldn't have been captured at all. They would only have been captured when the story needed them to be captured. Which is always going to be just in time for them to escape and meeting up with Eliwood. Plus, you can't use her actions during the prologue to show that Lyn has story significance after the prologue. And what are those reasons? This thread doesn't give much to work with in that regard,

Fred: Sword/Lance Conomore: Sword/Lance But Kain and Alva are actually regular Lance Knights and not Cavaliers.

The tracking part shows nicely why Lyn feels so tagged on. They didn't need to track the Black Fang back to their base because the story doesn't care how they get there. It only cares that they do get there. Case in point: Finding Athos just a few chapters before. The group was searching for him in the the massive dessert that makes up a fifth of the entire continent for him with no direction whatsoever. An effectively impossible task and yet they still managed to trip over Pent. Of course it makes for a better story if stuff like this does get explained but there are tons of alternate explanations available. For one thing, they could have tracked them themselves. Tracking isn't some sort of mystic art only possessed by selected tribes of Sacae. It's downright absurd that Eliwood wouldn't have scouts for just this purpose. Alternatively, they could have followed directions by the locals. Or questioned a prisoner. Or the same Ositian spies who tracked the Black Fang down on the island. In fact, the entire situation is so embarrassingly forced, that Legault, one of the founding members of the Black Fang and best buds with Brendan and his sons, somehow doesn't know where their own base is. The chapters in Caelin were forced between Darin escaping Laus and Darin seeking shelter by his allies from the Black Fang. I mean, look at it: Darin was outmatched by Eliwood, so he escapes ...into another country which he then invades.. That... doesn't make a lot of sense. It is another contrived situation that had nothing to do with the plot beyond serving as an excuse to bring Lyn back into the story because there was simply no reason (or even a way) for Darin to casually take over Calin with Eliwood on is tail. Remove it and Darin simply goes directly to the Black Isles. As for Lundgren... he is just there for Lyn to have a villain in the prologue. If it wasn't for Lyn, Caelin wouldn't have been involved in the story at all. If the twins didn't appear in the prologue, the consequence wouldn't be that they would have been captured. It simply means that Eliwood would have had his first meeting Ninian and later Nils on the Black Isles. The scenario on the Black Isle does in no way require Eliwood and Ninian to have meet each other previously or add anything to their relationship because Eliwood saves and protects her either way. More like Chewbacka important. But that's not quite true. While Chewbacka is never required for the plot, he adds a lot of color and humor to the story. Lyn has no unique perspective on events she provides barely any color because she is almost always on line with Eliwood anyway. All she gets are lines that are so generic that they could have been spoken by anyone in the group. Her unique contributions are effectively limited to butting heads with Hector, bringing up her murdered tribe or her dead parents and reminding us that bandits are evil.

My favorite is SF Debris. http://www.sfdebris.com/ SF Debris is a reviewer of Science Fiction shows. He used to review one Star Trek episode a week but eventually took requests and is now reviewing other SF and Fantasy movies and shows in addition to the weekly Star Trek ones. I enjoy his show a lot because his opinions are well thought out and he willing to look at the good and the bad sides of a work and usually does a lot of research on it unless it is part of the request that he goes in blindly. His relatively recent "Gojira" review is probably a good example of that.

Tharja is an selfish person who wants to be left alone with her hexes, which she doesn't mind to use on other members of the shepherds.And as we see in her supports with Avatar, even when trying to get someone's attention. she doesn't use her body for it. So I fail to see how that figure is in any way expressing her character and is doing anything but reducing the character to her boring body. And it's not done with "Don't like it, don't buy it." At least for my part, I really don't want Fire Emblem to become the "Dead or Alive" of Nintendo by underselling it's characters like that.

Well, it could be handled like TearRing Saga. After all, Characters start with supports but they were still able to gain new ones or raise existing supports through events. One might as well use support conversations for that purpose.

I would also prefer the SNES/Telius/TRS approach of having events and/or base conversations. With supports, you can't really write dialog that is actually relevant because it can be triggered anywhere in the story. With a war going on, the storyline should be the most important time in the life of anyone who participates. But while during the story armies and kingdoms fall and countless people die, the characters seem visibly unaffected by all of that. That's a huge waste. Anyway, I would appreciate anything that sheds some light on Levin's relationship with Forseti, Julius' with Lopotuso and gives some depth to Manfroy. I would also like to hear more about Cyas' life. The relationship of Aida and Alvis must have been very interesting. And how the Loptu church extended their influence in the empire over time and how this affected the lives of everyone. Come to think of it, I want an Alvis spin-off now.

Almost 40 episodes. The group came a long way. And most importantly, we are getting closer and closer to Cell. I'm quite exited at this point. Just how will TFS characterize the villain who has to carry this arc? I'm also wondering how the following episodes will handle things. 17 and 18 seem to lack the exaggerated personalities of the likes of the Ginyu Force and won't be put against the Z-Fighters for a while. So I wonder where the comedy will come from.

Honestly, I can't stand her in Awakening. There is nothing to her but trading related puns. It's literally every single line. Seriously: Her level up quotes as an example: I think someone forgot to give me my change. I wonder just how much I can branch out. This sure beats gold! ... Wait, no it doesn't. If only my profits grew this fast! Minds are like wallets. They only hold so much. I didn't leave a single one out there. She never did that in the other games. All she ever did, was heading the secret shop and would occasionally go on about wanting to be a pirate. (She has so many classes and not a single one of them is Pirate or Bandit.) It's bad enough that she is a massive pain but this agony can't even be justified with the history of the character that she is supposed to be. It's completely unrelated.

What does this have to do with anything? Are still talking about how Leaf has supposedly never developed in FE5 because of a scene that was seen in FE4 but happened chronologically during the events in FE5, that involved Leaf stating something rush and foolishly but admits as such after being called out on it by Fin? Btw, the scene about Fin is the very one you quoted on the previous page, which like I said was still in chapter 8. Long before Trabant was dead. They still talk in chapter 9 but not only is it still before Trabant's dead but the conversation is exclusively about Altenna.

I used to play Sim City 3000 a lot. I played 4 too but not for very long. All those years and I still didn't know how to handle the traffic of a decent sized city. Then there would be Anno 1602. I played Anno 1503 too but I never figured out how to make a profit there. If I remember, rather then getting taxes from them, you had to sell the products to the villagers. Anyway, Anoo 1602 is probably my favorite game in the genre. Since nobody on this board has ever heard of it, an introduction: the game is about building up colonies in the new world. There are always tons of islands on one map and you will have to colonize more then one of them if you want to build a huge colony because of the resources needed for that. I really like the setting of it. Having all those islands on a map, seeing your own colony grow along with those of competitors. It's quite a sight. And the game still looks as beautiful and colorful as back then. Plus, it's interesting to have this competition without actual warfare. Trying to get the good islands before they do and stuff. There can still be war, though. Initially the map is extremely big and there seems to be enough islands for everyone. But if you want to move up, you might have to declare war on a competitor if they sit on an island with vital resources so you are not dependent on trade. However, despite the option for warfare, it's still firmly a simulation game. Outside of scenario's, competitors will never declare war anyway unless you start to colonize their islands or something. An army is way too expensive to build and maintain anyway. They also need tons of different resources. It's not easy to get ore and then turn that ore into something suitable for the military.

The two scenes you are comparing aren't too far away chronologically. Both happened during Leaf's time in Lenster before moving against Manster. Plus, character development doesn't turn you into an entirely different person. Especially if it's about emotions. You can't just decide not to get angry. When Leaf became easily angry and irresponsible before Doria's death, he would still act like this afterwards. Especially now that he feels the guilt about all the people that died because of him and the stress of being under siege for many months. What could change is that Leaf would easily recognize this behavior and catch himself. Back in the day, he insisted that his knights would aid Alster against the opinion of his advisors. The result was Dorias' death. When this scene in FE4 happens, Leaf is quick to realize that Finn is right. So he seems to have developed. At least there is no contradiction. And that is all that is needed. Because FE4 and FE5 are two entirely different stories and Leaf is only the hero of the latter. Leaf, being just one of many characters in FE4, doesn't have the opportunity to receive this degree of development he got in FE5. Should Leaf suddenly completely change between chapter 7 and 8 because of events the player didn't see and the writers didn't knew about yet? I don't get the accusations against Eliwood either, though. His accusations the queen of Bern were completely unreasonable and silly. Not just because he wasted their opportunity to find the shrine but more importantly doesn't know her. He doesn't know a damn thing about the queen's motivations or her feelings for her son. So his accusations came completely out of nowhere. But that was more awfully written scene then anything. Usually he is fairly mature.

I think FE5 deserves a honorable mention here. While it's lacking in particular outstanding emotional moments, (not that there aren't any.) it does go out of it's way to humanize just about any side in the conflict. There is tons of dialog between enemy officers. And does scenes don't resolve around mustache twirling evil behavior as seen in most Fire Emblem titles but involve actual casual conversation. Chapter 11 is a good example. Largo, Olwen and Fred are just minding their own business until Leaf's rebels arrive to wreck havoc. Paulus and Baldack in Tahra are an even better example since neither of them is recruitable. Paulus, a general who griefs about the men who died under his command at the hands of Leaf. The game makes no big deal about his death or his subordinate. Just another two grunts of the empire. This game simply doesn't have the "token good guy". The average antagonist in this game is a good person who just so happens to be on the opposite side. So instead of good guys, it is jackasses like Kempf who actually end up standing out. And you really get the impression that those people have no friends among their organization. Later games still tried to handle things this way but never quite pulled it off. Like, Fe7's insistence that the Black Fang were well intentioned rings very hollow when said organization has a habit of executing their own men for failures. Even Sacred Stones and PoR (the games who were my main picks for this topic) admittedly failed to do so and instead ended up with the "token good guy" while everyone else is a dick, just like all the other games. PoR told us that Ike's invasion caused harm to the common people of Daein but what we actually saw, namely the mess in Talrega, was the responsibility of the Daein army. And of course you can always tell in this game if someones is evil by the way they are drawn because evil people are always ugly. Compare the boss designs in FE5, like Paulus again. Don't even get me started with Awakening and Mustafa. The only way for an antagonist in this game to come across as sympathetic is if he believes Emmeryn's suicide was the greatest thing ever and by being blackmailed into keeping up the fight by having his entire family taken hostage. Everyone else is "One for the bards!", to say it with the words of my beloved husbando Virion. No, Thracia isn't like that. Thracia can have antagonists who never see the player's side as anything but villains and have them be sympathetic without the game beating you over the head of how noble but misguided they are. And it does so, simply by showing them as human beings and making their position understandable. ...and not making them butt ugly, I guess. What all of this comes down to, is that you end up looking differently on the average solder and boss in this game. So whether you end up killing or capturing an enemy soldier, you always get an emotional feedback. Thracia always makes you feel the weight of all the lives you take or spare. And not just because the game actually keeps track of those numbers. But yeah, looking at those numbers feels funny too.

I guess the reason I like them is because JRPG's are a lot more "RPG" then most games on consoles. Most of the time, the will have an actual party and put a lot of emphasis on a story. The battle system tends to be a bit dull to be sure. But a party system like in Baldur's Gate is probably hard to pull of when you don't have access to a mouse. But nevertheless, it's not like they never go beyond an turnbased "Attack, Attack, Heal, Attack, Attack, Heal" scheme Games like Chrono Trigger, Tales games, or The Last Story found their own way to develop past the outdated Final Fantasy I standard.

If it comes to giving Bishops their own niche compared to Sages, I would rather see them act in the spirit of it's unpromoted classes, rather then turning them into yet another offensive powerhouse by giving them their own blasting magic. After all, Clerics are all about healing. So just like Sorceress are vastly different from Sages by having access to better offensive magic spells in exchange for their ability to use staffs, I would simply have bishops specialize in staffs. For example by giving them access to class exclusive skills, like doubling the effect of their magic stat when calculating the effect of healing staffs or by making it the the only class who can use staffs like the Physic or the Fortify.

Actually I was specifically talking about Libra. Maybe Lissa and Maribelle are more durable and more accurate in that class then he is. I haven't tried it yet. But Libra, with fourteen speed and only 19 levels to gain, ended up being double attacked by just about everything.

You could also give Ike Mist's Miracle skill to increase his odds of survival.

It most certainly is one of the games I meant. Along with Sacred Stones and Tear Ring Saga. I can't play that game for very long partly for the above reasons mentioned, so I have no idea how people manage to get hundreds of hours on a single save file here since every random encounter is effectively the same or even entirely pointless because enemies are too weak to even do any damage at all. I originally had a comparison between Castlevania and Metroid in my above post but I ended up cutting it because I wasn't sure if those rants were even in the spirit of the topic. My issue with Castlevania is that it focuses grinding and farming above actual exploration. It makes one enter and reenter the same room again and again, to kill the same enemies that you've already proven you can kill dozens of times until they drop some ice cream (Castlevania has stupid drops) or the ability to sit on a chair entirely on random. Yes, there are still actual hidden items. But those are usually the same items you already own, just with an unique icon and different numbers attached. They will most of the time be replaced by another item with even higher numbers after around the same time it took to find it in the first place. Metroid on the other hand doesn't have grinding. Neither for items or levels. All upgrades come from actual exploration and they always remain useful because Energie tanks and Missle Packs all add up to each other. It's pretty much the same for games like Zelda or Mega Man X. SotN is probably the best of the bunch but every game afterwards seems to introduce an ability system that exists specifically as an excuse to have the player kill every enemy in the game over and over. Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow both got the Soul system. As you know, this system applies to literally every single enemy in this one. Dawn even went as far as requiring one to farm the same soul several times for weapon and ability upgrades. Circle of the Moon has the cards, which are exclusively gained by random drops. Portrait of Ruin is the worst. It has "sidequests", which are mostly around random drops and never give any direction of where to find an item. So effectively you have no choice but to farm every single random drop from every single enemy and to hit any wall in the castle for a secret area because you don't even know if you are even looking for a random drop. And then there is the Sub Weapon EXP system. Use a Subweapon to kill a few hundred enemies so that it can be used to actually progress in the game. All that stuff got a lot better in Order of Ecclesia. For the most part, Quests have actual direction and most abilities are found by exploration or absorbing them from enemy attacks. But even with that direction, there is still lots of tedious farming which doesn't challenge anything but one's patience.

Speaking of Divine Decree, I guess it's good and all but ever since I heard it the first time, it sounds the same to me as the Spiderman 2 trailer theme. Just a bit faster.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpgrOgypc9g#t=108s. It's at 1:48, in case the video doesn't load at the right spot... Anyway, the point is that this resemblance is quite off-putting. I can't help but think of Spiderman 2 whenever I hear it.

Well, some of my favorite games are non-linear. Baldur's Gate, Gothic, TES Morrowind, anything Zelda. But for games like Castlevania SotN and it's successors, TES Oblivion and any worldmap Fire Emblem except Gaiden, I don't see the appeal at all. It's just a matter of execution. I like some of either category. I don't like others. Like, I love the huge word of Morrowind with it's infinite possibilities. I love the hostile world of the early Gothic games, where I have to work myself carefully up the food chain of Khorinis' wildlife, the tense feeling when I march through a forest, trying not to be noticed by the dangerous creatures that I can't tackle yet and the satisfaction when I can take them head-on later on. And it's gonna be later on because monsters in Gothic 1/2 don't respawn. So levels really need to be earned in those games. But in my book, non-linearity is pointless if there is no actual world and nothing to explore. Hence, why I don't see it working in Fire Emblem. It's a strategy game. There is no world and no exploration. All you do is to shove units around on a grit and then it's back to the world map and to the next random encounter. And a "random encounter" in this game is nothing but a bunch of random monsters placed all over the map without any actual concept behind it. And it's the same monsters in every single encounter. Just with different numbers. And numbers alone are boring. It is effectively like a turnbased beat'em up. I really don't get it. But there is even more stuff that makes it not only tedious but downright unpleasant compared to the average JRPG. Like the weapon durability. In a linear Fire Emblem, I do find it satisfying to handle the inventory of 10+ units and replace used up weaons and stuff because I feel like I archive an actual progress from chapter to chapter. But when all I do is to go from a random battle to another random battle, it feels like a chore and I wish I didn't have to do that. I'm confused why Gaiden is still the only non-linear FE that removed it. And I don't get games like Oblivion either. In theory, that game has a world. But there is nothing in it. Enemies, treasure, whatever. Everything is randomly generated, depending on the character level. Enemies are no fun to fight because they are always just strong enough to be a challenge. And loot is always going to be the same stuff as in the last container until you reach a certain level. There is no reason to actual go anywhere because the stuff you find doesn't actually depend on where you are. There is no point in finding treasure because it's the same you find everywhere. And there is no point in gaining levels because enemies will just level along with you. So I just can't find a reason to do anything in this game. Oblivion has to be the most artificial world I every experienced. It doesn't feel like exploring a world. It feels like being the center of a bubble. Nothing outside of it really exists and everything in it exists just for your sake. In my opinion, it's kinda missing the point of an RPG. It should feel like you are part of the world and not like the world just exists for your own sake like it is some sort of toy.

Personally I would describe the FE13 tracks above all else as dull. Sure, the instruments are better then anything used in Fire Emblem so far but that doesn't help when the compositions themselves aren't good. And they don't leave much of an impression to me. And I'd say the usage of the tracks is really bad. Like, the game doesn't even do something as easy as having different world map themes depending on the act of the story, like in FE8. Instead, it simply plays the same boring song throughout the entire game. Like, FE11 story might be boring and straightforward but songs like it's energetic battle preparation theme or the very heavy but nevertheless triumphant sounding "A Hero's Destiny" went a long to make even the simplest maps come across as meaningful and epic. I do like FE13's battle theme style but... a) I don't think the compositions change enough in tone to really give it the dramatic battle vibe they were going for. b) The music is trying to be atmospheric, yet that atmosphere is destroyed by the characters behaving more like they are playing a video game rather then being in a battle for life and death.