BrightBow

Thank you for the advice. I will definitely give it another shot once I get a few points. And sorry that I was so aggressive. I am really the last person to call out others for sarcasm.

One thing to consider is that the birth of a branded causes the Laguz parent to loose it's power. Tibarn even states legends that describe the parents of Branded as turning into something that is neither Beorc or Laguz. Now, in the case of Lehran this happened after the birth of the baby. But in Almedha's case, she said she "became useless to him" after becoming pregnant and loosing her powers. Which sounds like she lost her Laguz powers during the pregnancy, maybe as a side effect of being the mother of the child rather then the father. So the duration of her pregnancy isn't bound to the usual standards of dragons. It might well be a normal Beorc pregnancy.

This is your second post in this thread and both times you were resorting to demeaning sarcasm just because you disagreed with someone over the subject of a mere game. What is the point of that? Do you want people in this thread to start shouting at each other? Over something so banal no less? Anyway, on topic. if nothing else I would advice against CoY1. I only bought it because it was initially free and consequently didn't buy anything else because I figured that this DLC would be representative of the quality of the rest. Maybe it helps when I elaborate on my issues: Eirika behaved awfully out of character, Nanna forgot that she is better with the sword then with a staff ("I can't fight but my staff can protect my friends"), the scenario was effectively to team up with the other Lords in order to kill their girlfriends on the first FE1 map and the map design was immensely dull. It's just all the girls charging at your position from their starting position with 3 or so staying behind until you get in range. Of course others might disagree with my issues but either way I am curious if the rest of the DLC is better then this one.

Streets of Rage and Super Mario Galaxy. ...I so want that game now. If Link gets his own Warriors spin-off, Mario should too.

"The Last Story" for the Wii is something I definitely recommend. I'd say that the best thing about it is the real time combat system, which is a bit of an odd specieman. You only directly control the main character while giving orders to the rest of the party. The combat system may appear bland initially but this is because Zael's moveset gets expended as you move through the game. The combat gets really fun once he has most of his moves and you figure out how to use magic circles properly. And unlike usual JRPGs, combat isn't done by teleporting you into battle arenas or something. Enemies are fought right were you meet them. So thinks feel a lot more real and intense then usual in the genre. Also, enemy encounters aren't random but designed by hand. Kinda like in Chrono Trigger. As a result, they are always very exiting. Something I also like, is that battles often allow to spy out the enemy positions and allow you to perform a strategic first strike before your party moves in. Quickly taking out healers or mages or similar has quite an impact on how the battle goes. Also, the game has an extremely good localization. I also loved that the game had entirely different voice actors as a result of the game being localized by NoE. I mean, I like Johnny Yong Bosh and all but it was still nice to hear some new voices. The game also has a pretty cool online mulitplayer mode. It allows either death match (I still can't believe that this works with the engine but it's really fun) or co-op (only allows you to fight like 5-6 boss fights, though. At least those bosses have quite a few variations from how they are fought during the main game). Co-op mode also scales your level but it carries over the stats of your weapons and armor. In Death Match, your abilities are entirely dependent on the character you are using and equipment affects nothing but the looks of your character. These days it might not be possible to find other players, though. I just find it notable in that it is the only way to play as the rest of your party and the only way to play as a mage.

I don't remember if it was b + up or a + up but it works as long as you get the timing just right. Ever since I discovered this trick, no Pidgey has ever escaped my Pokeballs. Come to think of it, I believe you first had to catch the Mew hidden below the truck near the M.S. Aqua in order for this trick to work.

Well, I say second generation. It may technically not be the best generation but it probably made the greatest steps about improving the series. In the first generation, It was already a nightmare to find a particular Pokemon in your boxes. "You can't look into this box because you have a full team and you can't put a Pokemon into this box because it is already full. You wanna switch the box, you need to save first." The changes in the second generation made the game just so much more fun to play. It's also just feels well, as far as being a sequel goes. The world is bigger, the rival is a criminal instead of being a mere jerk, Team Rocket aims higher and the Elite Four are just the beginning. The game really knew how to up the ante. I haven't played most of the spin-offs, so I say Pokemon Stadium. As expensive as the game was, I am almost tempted to say that the game is already worth it for the chance of managing your Pokemon properly. It gave you all kinds of tools and information that the actual games didn't give you. It helped a lot in making the first generation more enjoyable. But beyond that, it was simply great to have the opportunity to fight against intelligent enemies in an environment that due to level restrictions made victory dependent on strategy instead of mere levels. Pika Cup was bullshit, though. That damn lv20 Tentacruel. "Tournament for beginners" my ass.

Not to mention that this was a matter that couldn't wait since Plegia could attack any time. And yet Emmeryn still waited for Chrom to return from the countryside just so she could choose his supposedly non-existant diplomacy skills over people who actually know what they are doing and have established relationships with the leaders in Ferox.

Chrom was still the guy send as a diplomat up to Ferox. If Emmeryn knew what she was doing, she should have send someone else. Whether it's Chrom or Emmeryn, someone's incompetence should be acknowledged by the story.

Honestly, the RNG in FE5 is probably my favorite in the series. I got the impression that the rigged true RNG in later installments makes you over reliant at probabilities which aren't all that reliable. So even though the true RNG makes things easier, you end up loosing anyway because you get careless. Anyway, you only get a great amount of these tools later in the game. For half the game, I think you only have one staff from an optional event. And even Saphy's staff rank may not be up for the task that early. It's unfortunate that the game gets easier after the halfway point but I can sorta get why a linear game would have balancing issues towards the end because all the optional stuff adds up over the course of the game and it gets harder and harder to determine how strong the player's party is. Especially in a game with perma death. If nothing else, the game expected at least a few allies to die. However, abusing Warp is not that simple because your party might end up too weak for the final chapter when missing all that optional stuff. It's something you can only reliable plan ahead when you already know the whole game.

That sounds like the amount of sells Awakening needed for Nintendo to make for further installments in the series. Edit: Just checked it. That's exactly what this interview in Hobby Consola was.

I can sorta see chapter 4 but what is so hard about 5? And I don't even think chapter 4 can really be compared. It's less difficulty as it is diverse map design except for that awful luck based encounter with Dalsin's mages at the end. But that is more a lack of polishing. By contrast, Lunatic+ feels like someone just threw in a script with all kinds of unfair stuff and took zero consideration on how this affects the game. Hence during chapter 3, the game still treats you like you are in a tutorial and barely allows you to do anything despite this being the hardest map. FE7/8/9/10/11 all had no problem to at least remove the tutorial dialogue on their hardest difficulties and yet Lunatic even keeps that around.

The power of marketing can not be underestimated. It's the whole reason the Wii outdid the PS3 and the 360 despite all the experts predicting that the console would crash and burn. Nintendo aimed there marketing towards the big unknown quantity who might enjoy their products while the other companies merely marketed to the people already playing games. The existence of people willing to buy your products is useless of those people don't know about your products. Besides, with good marketing you can sell literal crap to people because by the time they know what they bought, they already handed over the money. Also, I had the impression that the 3DS had quite an uprising early last year. Awakening might have simply been released during the right time. Be it as it may be, if money for IS is really all that matters, then they should just make Ego Shooters.

There is also the fact that the game doesn't allow you to use the usual tools at this point. You can't make sure everyone has the proper equipment, let alone setting up formations. (But at least supports are already unlocked...) Plus, you need a lot of luck for your level-ups too. Also, putting the hardest level at the very beginning of the game is awful design, period. Even more so if the game doesn't even allow you to control it properly.

While I have little interest in dressing as fancy as men did back in the day, men's clothes these days are still awfully bland. Everything is either black, gray or dark shades of red or blue. A bit more variation definitely wouldn't hurt.

Considering that the khans get along just fine, the competition if effectively meaningless for the khans. Making a war dependent on that is irresponsible. in this particular situation, Plegia is their enemy because the country is constantly attacking their population. It is their duty to put a stop on that, which means fighting Plegia. While we don't know about Basillo, at least in Flavia's case, what she does is at odds with what the script wants to make us think of her. May it be because she made the question of an alliance dependent on the tournament or because she was casually wiling to risk the life of the prince of another country. Either way, she was putting herself ahead of the wellbeing of her people. It wouldn't be bad writing if she was intended to be corrupt. That she would be an ally who is held in contempt but is nevertheless tolerated because she is needed. But nothing ever acknowledges her actions. The script simply expects the players to ignore it just like it expects them to ignore that Lucina attacked Chrom for literally no reason.

The thing is that the story never acknowledges Chrom's actions as a mistake. And we are clearly not intended to think that Chrom screwed up either, because when we learn that the Grimleal feed the countries population he never stops to think that he could have paid a bit more attention to the people that helped him to defeat Gangrel. Which makes either the story crap or Chrom an irresponsible, selfcentered jerkass because even when confronted with past mistakes, he never considers to feel responsible or learn from them. ...which still makes the story crap for me because I do not enjoy following the adventures of this kind of person. Plus, this is a fictional story. It's not the real world. People did what they thought was best to the limits of their abilities. They could not benefit from the hindsight we have and now and now it's pointless to cry over spoiled milk anyway. Awakening is an entirely fictional story with entirely fictional characters. No need to pull any punches on people that don't really exist. If fictional people are praised as heroes and husbandos, they better live up to the title. Which doesn't mean to never make mistakes but it means making mistakes for a reason. Otherwise, why even have these things in the story? They are still a country with a crushed military and infrastructure and therefore no defense against the kind of bandits that always take advantage of such situations in Fire Emblem games. Not to mention hungry dark dragons, but that is not an everyday occurrence. And seeing their leader die right in front of them would be good for their morale? Not to mention that she changed the mind of the Plegian people merely by saying that war is bad and throwing herself of a cliff. That nonsense only worked because the writers said it did. And didn't that lesson work out well for the Plegian people? They help out Chrom by overthrowing their king and Chrom thanks them by allowing them to be eaten by a dragon.

I only meant in the sense that killing Grima would also mean that Robin drops over death. That's like saying that if I die, all my blood relatives die too. Not to mention even if it was true, if Robin was willing to die, Grima could be stopped just by killing Robin on the spot. So in my version, Robin would still be needed for the ritual to work. Edit: Speaking of Ferox, I would let Ferox stay but entirely change it's role at the beginning. Because everything up there was dumb. There is a tournament where their leaders prove their might by having others fight for them and Lucina attacks Chrom for no reason after Flavia tricks Chrom into thinking that the only way to get Ferox support would be to risk his life for her despite Basillo being an OK guy, who is never called out for that. Ferox would become the antagonist at the beginning, due to Plegia's shenanigans actually working. Not an unreasonable conclusion due to Emmeryn's bad reputation and her crusader father's lack of hesitation in causing bloodbaths in foreign counties. It isn't until they are defeated and at the mercy of Chrom, who has no intention of killing them, that they realize that Ylisse wasn't there foe. Which is good, because Plegia used the absence of the main army to attack the capital. (Why did Gangrel even bother with his bandit distractions when he could have just steamrolled the Ylisse army anytime?) While the castle is under siege, Lucina messes with history by catching a man red handed who would have allowed enemy troops into the castle and consequently brought it down. She expects this to buy enough time for Chrom to return to the capital. However, this leads to Gangrel threatening to burn down the entire capital if Emmeryn doesn't capitulate. So instead of giving up her life to provide moral support by dying in front of them, Emmeryn dies because she very literally protected the life of her people.

I give it a shot then. I would change the ending (and a lot of the game, really.) to be about Lucina and not about Avatar. I consider the entire focus ion the Avatar at the end extremely awful. It makes no logical sense for Robin's life to be connected to Grima's. Now logic often gets in the way of a good story. But the problem is that this stupid set up doesn't have a payoff. It doesn't cause drama because we all know they are not going to kill her off. Heck, they literally gave the resolution for that dilemma away right when we first learn about it. It's fake drama at it's dumbest. And there is nothing else coming from it. There aren't any interesting discussions about "the needs of the many" either. Literally every PC's just kisses the butt of the Avatar, no matter what she does. Plus, how absurd is it that literally everyone in the party will happily burden a future generation with a worldeating dragongod... ....in a game that is about freaking generations? The scenario I propose instead is this: After Grima's defeat, Lucina is about to disappear because of a time paradox. Lucina knew all of this (it wouldn't be much of a sacrifice if she was caught by surprise. And she must have contact with Naga in order to travel in time in the first place) but kept it from the party because being treated like someone whose days are numbered isn't pretty. However, even this time paradox able to break the bonds she forged during her stay. So after the forces of causality decided to give up and go home, she ultimately keeps existing. At this point in the story, it's actually possible that Lucina might die since it's the very end of the story. Especially with another Lucina around, it's fairly believable that the story might go this route. It could be easily justified due to he changes in the timeline. Since Lucina is a product of the timeline devastated by Grima, killing Grima will also wipe her out of existence along with her future. However, smaller changes (like Lucina's own role in his defeat) is something a timeline can adapt too. After all, technically Chrom could have slain Grima himself. And since there is a certain flavor of logic to it, it doesn't need to be given away ahead of time. It can be somewhat accepted when it happens.

I think that it is quite likely that this is exactly what happened. Because this is the very reason why the script in FE10 was dumped down in the first place. I quote from the Nintendo Dream Interview (http://www.serenesforest.net/fe10/interview10_2.html) : Maeda: ...Perhaps Fire Emblem enthusiasts would enjoy a long and deep scenario, but for more casual gamers this can make it harder to get into the game. On the other hand, fans of the series may feel unsatisfied with a lighter and shorter story. Therefore, we’ve modified the dialogue scenes to be a bit longer for the Hard Mode and a bit shorter on Normal. And given how bad that game bombed, I wouldn't be surprised if they concluded that telling a good story just doesn't pay off. After all, even back then they already felt it wasn't worth the cost to localize the full script.

From my experience, a good story gets better every time it's experienced because you get a fuller picture on each run.

If nothing else, it would be convenient to know what pronouns to use.

I don't think Frederick had much presence in the story. After a few chapters, he does very little but explaining the situation followed by Chrom declaring the new course of action. "We've sighted the enemy!" "The enemy is retreating!" That kind of thing. Most of his lines could probably have been done by a generic soldier. Especially during Valm, he barely gets a line at all due to having to share exposition with Say'ri, Basillo and Flavia.

This year, I finally got around to play Tear Ring Saga and the game turned out to be everything I hoped it would be and then some. Map design like Thracia except better. Worldbuilding on the scale of PoR with characters who are all well integrated into the world with most of them even having their own sub plots. And the best of the mechanics of the previous Fire Emblem games after polishing out their flaws. The second should probably be Samurai Warriors 3. You know, It was so odd reading reviews of the Dynasty Warrior style games. So many reviews insisted they were awful and yet everything they actually said about the game sounded totally awesome. Well, Samurai Warriors did not disappoint. I especially like how on the higher difficulties even the cannon fodder can be dangerous when you get careless. I don't get much satisfaction in mowing down hordes of enemies who do little but preventing me from running in a straight line. But I think the leveling system drags the game unnecessary down. It's bad enough to judge what levels your level x character can tackle without it being to easy or mathematically impossible. But especially when you try to play co-op, it really limits what characters you can use. The third is Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Hooray for a game without a leveling system... for the player character at least. Well, there is still grinding for upgrades but the game benefits from the fact that even the same monsters don't get boring very fast. The monsters get easier but that's because you get more effective at taking them down by analyzing their movements and coming up with new strategies. Also, for 2014 I'm looking forward for Hyrule Warriors, the new actual Zelda, Smash Brothers and the opportunity to get a Wii U in the first place.

Well, you rarely get more then 60% Hit. A lot of misses are to be expected.