Lord Glenn

I see you still haven't fixed the whole Princess of Ilia well before Ilia even had a King thing... Also, I wanted to mention what I mentioned in Krad's topic here as well; having Thani in a non-Tellius canon doesn't really seem right. If you're just using the name because the spell is mirroring the "Effective against Armor/Cavalry" effect that it has in FE10, then I think you could easily change the name to something else. Like I said in Krad's topic, that would be like having Ragnell or the Wolf Beil or Holsety somewhere outside of what they're naturally used in. Unless, of course, there's some yet unknown reason why weapons from another continent are showing up here. EDIT - Actually, it's been up at Cafe for over a month, so, no, you didn't put yours out first.

I can't be completely positive, but this is what I think I've put the most time into (in no order). Grandia II - Arguably my favorite game that I own (being on the Dreamcast only adds to that, I think); I've cleared it like four or five times with each playthrough clocking in around forty hours (or more). I think my last run, when I was grinding for rare items in the Raul Hills Secret Area, clocked in above fifty hours, though I'd have to go check to be certain. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete - I originally became interested in this game when my friend played it when I was visiting his house. He had borrowed Disc 1 from another friend of his and was very close to the disc change point. My cousin had the game, so I borrowed it from him and it became a staple around Christmas time when I was in high school. I started a new playthrough every year, though I still need to go back and see some of the stuff that I've missed (notably Lucia's "hidden" spells). Sonic 3 & Knuckles - Even though I'm now skilled enough to (potentially) have all seven Super Emeralds by the end of Mushroom Hill Zone, I've still managed to clear all eight save slots on my Genesis cartridges plus a couple more clears via emulator. Chrono Cross - Five playthroughs taking the good ending each time racked up a decent amount of clock time. Diablo II: Lord of Destruction - Need I say more? Even though I've never completed Hell difficulty (always played Single Player, so that makes it a bit more difficult), still logged tons of time into this.

Maybe a hybrid between the two would work? I think that the version with the snow on the walls blends the structure(s) with the overall surroundings a bit and adds some atmosphere to the map in general. But, since you're not a fan of all of the snow, maybe just mix some in here and there to add a bit of variety to it? (So, like, 40-55% of the outer wall tops could have snow on them, with the rest being normal.)

One of the pixels on the left foot (our PoV) changes twice during the animation (goes from the medium shade to the darker one above it and then back a few frames later). The draw and notching time is better, though to be sure, you might consider checking (and possibly taking an average across) the times for several of the existing bow users; given the bow's size, Archer and Blade Lord would probably be the best starting place. The blur (?) frame when the arrow is being fired also makes it seem like the bow flashes... which animation was that frame modeled after, out of curiosity?

I suggest you go study the Pale Flower of Darkness maps then and notice the outer wall tiles of all of the buildings (on both routes, no less). Even though some of the rooms have doors, they still have the snow on the walls, matching the rooms that don't have doors.

Two things kinda irk me in these screens. For starters, if there's snow covering the ground in the second screenshot, shouldn't the tops of the walls have snow on them too (like in Pale Flower of Darkness)? Secondly, seeing Thani kinda takes away from the fact that it's a unique tome elsewhere in the series. That'd be like having the Mani Katti/Reginleif/Blaggi Sword/etc. appear in another game outside of the continuity that they're part of. Just because it might have the same abilities/effects as the spell from FE10, doesn't mean that it needs to share the same name. (Also, is the second screenshot supposed to be Chapter 20 from FE5?)

Sidestory manga, I'm guessing? Given that the Gespenst is rocking the Halloween Plan upgrades (and apparently the Alteisen Riese's wing binders...?), this has got to be at least concurrent with OGG's events (if not after them); I'd wager that it's a lead in for the start of 2ndOG's story? (And, maybe a potential secret unit to obtain?)

I don't really remember the main reason behind suggesting to change the weapon names; it probably started when I switched up the magic spells to "make" them into new ones (same animations, new names, different ranks, stats, icons, etc.) and expanded from there to most of the rest of the weapon list. If not that, it could have been one of many reasons, not limited to: 1) being sick and tired of everything using the same, tired default names, 2) knowing that stats and such were going to be tweaked/altered/balanced, or 3) to match the icons that were going to be made (which partially ties into Bladehero's response).

The shading on Cedar makes me think of the way that Arcfalchion's sprites are shaded. It's very clean and the palette seems nice. The only thing actively jumping out at me is the shading on the large crescent-shaped bang; it seems a little too light/flat for that much of a curve.

I'm assuming that you're at the limit for colors, so this may require some juggling, but the headband could really use a bit more shading to show lighting, definition, and shape. I mean, I see the murky-ish color around it in places, but it really feels like it could use a lighter shade of blue in the central forehead area to make it seem a bit less flat. If you do spare up colors to get the lighter blue, it could possibly find some use on the clothes at the bottom too, to provide some extra shading detail there. (Though, after checking, Paint Shop Pro tells me that the image is using 24 colors (counting the background). The grey in the eyes is only used there and could be replaced by the light blue (208, 224, 232) instead to save a color. Same goes for the white on the clothes; it could either go (248, 248, 248) to match the white in the eyes, or the eyes could change to match the clothes. The grey-ish color between the shoulders and sleeves could also be tweaked; make it a bit more bluish and you could probably throw it in the headband too to add the aforementioned lighting/shading.) Of course, this may be all stuff that you were planning to do as you cleaned it up...

No, I was referring to the color whose RGB value is (29, 87, 116); the darkest hair color that's very prevalent at the top of the sprite.

I think a better phrasing for option number two would be to simply state that the runner has full control over facets of the competition, not just deciding the ruleset. If competitors want to change it up for a few rounds, the runner could change the setup to be Winner's Choice for those rounds, and then, could go back to deciding the rulesets themselves (if they would ever want to change the ruleset from what they originally pick, that is) after those few rounds have finished. That being said, I find Option #2 to be the best; limiting a "good spriter" to more restrictive measures just to "level the playing fields" is absolutely silly. How do you think the "good spriters" got that way in the first place? By practicing and eventually doing the stuff that they're currently able to do and manipulate. As has been said, these competitions are not about winning, they're about improving one's skills, challenging one's abilities, and having fun. Should you happen to win, that's a bonus. So, should people wish to do special, limited competitions with the new rules, that's fine and dandy. But, as the previous two posts pointed out, there really wasn't anything wrong to begin with. Besides, even if the rules are more limited, that's not suddenly going to make the "good spriters" worse; their abilities and talent will still shine through and this whole argument will inevitably start up again down the road when people still complain that they're being outclassed. The solution here is that people need to stop feeling entitled and need to actually work, learn, and improve like everyone else has done; if they do, then they'll actually progressively gain the skills that they're apparently far too envious of.

What about FE6!Karel, though? Is FE6 just special in that it allows 210% HP growth?

Well, uhh, I got nothing then. Either the download corrupted the file (rather unlikely) or Celice is probably right. The only other suggestion I could come up with would be to get someone else's (i.e. another hacker's) copy of the program, one that they know for certain works on Win7. If a known, working copy doesn't work on your OS, then the issue's probably there, for whatever reason (and, knowing Microsoft, it'd probably be something silly, like a bug added during translation).

Could you explain what you're explicitly doing to get the debug assertion failure prompt to appear? The assertion is checking to ensure that the stream of data (from the MIDI) actually has... data in it. Since the assertion is failing, that either means that 1) the stream is being closed before the assertion, 2) the stream does not open properly from the get go, or 3) the data is, for some reason, empty (a NULL pointer). Have you tried using a different MIDI file? Perhaps the one that you're trying to convert is corrupted some how. Have you had someone else with the program try the same MIDI file? Do you have multiple programs accessing the MIDI at the same time? Have you tried renaming the folder from "mid2agb" to "mid2gba" (perhaps the program is hardcoded to have that be the name of its source folder)? There are a handful of options that you can still try.

Not only is the arm just... completely broken off of the body, but the body angling is just way off. The reason for that is because of how you replaced the cape from the Monk sprite; you kept the left edge of the cape outline (the black line directly to the right of the arm at the side of the body) and then filled in the remaining area of the body that was uncovered with a semi-pillow-shaded patch of green. I'm assuming that it's supposed to be the body since the normal frames at the top don't show any kind of thing coming down his back. If it's supposed to be something like the hoods used on academic regalia or a mini-cape/half-cape, then it would need to be shown on the top frames and be shaped and shaded differently on the lower frames.

Don't forget, this is also, by its title, a mapping competition not a "Make a custom chapter" competition. While adding units might balance out the maps, they also distract from the actual focus of the competition, that being the aforementioned, underlying maps. You could conceivably place enemy units over top of tiles that you feel you may have used improperly, etc. to cover that fact up. Adding units also adds a certain implication to the map; if you have a castle map with a throne, you have three or four main possibilities for the map's overall playing style and objective. If you place a boss-type unit on the throne, that severely influences how the map is received since the viewer is given extra information (most likely that it's a Defeat Boss or Seize-style map). Leaving that information out helps narrow the focus to the actual map's design, flow, etc. Not to mention, taking the time to add and position all of the required map sprites would be a PAIN, given that you'd have to manually go in to your preferred photo editing program or a ROM and add the units by hand. Honestly, I feel that that's a large inconvenience for contestants to have to tack on in addition to designing the map. (Plus, tilespam is tilespam regardless of whether there are units on the map or not. It might just become less noticeable when things are covering parts of it up; that doesn't mean that it still isn't there just because you can't temporarily see it.) And, you'll find that varied voting criteria will show up in any competition, not just this one. There really isn't anything that can be done about it either without causing a huge mess in the process. Even if you explicitly state something like, "You MUST vote based on technical grounds!" voters may not have a good technical foundation to correctly assess the entered works or they could simply fudge up some kind of reasoning to support whatever they end up deciding. The only "way" around it would be an unbiased, impartial panel of "experts" that scored each entry based on a rubric of criteria, which takes the contest out of the peers that participated. :/ (Granted, the above is one of the main reasons that I've stopped participating in these things (beyond having other stuff to do). It severely irritates me when something is voted for because it looks the nicest/etc. when there are prevalent, visible problems with the work. But, I know it's not going to change any time soon, hence why I'd rather focus my time elsewhere than deal with the frustration.)

The "16-color" rule is more about keeping in line with the standards and style of the "art" than anything else. Since you're using GBA mugs as a base, keeping the resulting splices to the same restrictions adds more... authenticity, I guess, to the end result. It also gives voters a better baseline to judge against, since you can add significantly more detail with a higher number of colors permitted. Plus, there's also the notion that this is a spriting competition/contest, not a "Who can make the best item that can be put in a hack?!" contest. Being able to add the works made for these competitions to a hack is secondary or even tertiary to the main goal of these events, which is to attempt to produce a piece of work for the contest, making use of your current skillset and attempting to improve your abilities. Just like how winning is secondary or tertiary; sure, it's nice that your peers are in agreement voting for you, but these contests aren't solely about winning. (Yes, I realize that the first and second points could be a bit contradictory, so let me clarify slightly: Even though sticking to official GBA dimensions and palette restrictions is suggested/enforced, that doesn't automatically mean that it becomes about hack-insertion eligibility. Yes, both of those are required for something to be used in a hack, but (and forgive the logic terminology) the former does not necessarily imply the latter like how the latter always implies the former.)

Actually, MK404 has done most of the maps for ASDDX so far. He did the Prologue, Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 4, and Ch. 5 at least. I'd assume that he did 5x's map as well, since I haven't heard him say otherwise. Granted, I did make fixes to Ch. 1's map and I did do the initial setup for Ch. 3's map. Most of what I've done is merely do theoretical concept designs: settings, general layouts for the maps, traversal path, etc. I have made a couple of maps for ASDDX, but they won't show up until later on.

Hard... to... find...? If this is going to be a general purpose panel to enlighten others about the series, you might consider starting with the basic concept of the series first, before delving into an overview of each title in the series. You also might want to throw together a video clip or two showcasing some select scenes from various entries; maybe a little bit of combat, some character interaction in dialogue, etc. to put visuals with your descriptions.

If it would fit, you could put in Edge instead. Yes, it would be a slight change in (established) nomenclature, but I think it looks better than having an abbreviation in the name. Also, that Wind Edge icon is really long...

It looks really nice from a design standpoint, the palette especially so. Two things kinda stand out to me, though. First, the darkest shade showing the parting of the hair is really contrasting against the other shades of the hair. Part of that might be attributed to the lower amounts of the middle shade that are around it. I think that, even if you add more of the middle shade around it, it still might be a bit dark, however. Secondly, there are a ton of areas where the hair looks pretty flat: notably the hair directly to our left of her face and the parts curling down towards the armor on the right. Now, I know that several regular face sprites from the games tend to love not shading the hair at all, though I've always felt that was very sloppy in terms of design. Unless the portraits were rushed, there's obviously room for detail there, so I can't understand why the artists wouldn't bother to improve the shading and give it more depth. Long-winded rant aside, you could probably give the larger sections of the lightest shade some dabs of the middle shade to give the hair some depth and to show shaping, curvature, and contour.

By the second tier, I suppose you don't need as much differentiation, but giving the classes with the highest move a skill that further enhances their range to heal seems a bit broken to me. I mean, that basically relegates any Bishop to being a secondary/emergency healer since they have less move, heal for less at cap, AND don't get the additional range. Plus, they match the weapon types of their competitors, too. It seems like the only sure-fire reason to use a Bishop is to kill monsters. Getting the proc that nullifies Resistance is nice, I guess, but based on the formula, it seems like it's barely going to be situationally useful (i.e. when you happen to run across a specific enemy that has sub-par Resistance). If you've got a Clarine-like character, you're basically set for life, especially with the Avoid bonus.

A bowyer is someone who makes bows. Yes, the two skillsets of being adept at firing a bow and making one could overlap (see: Shinon), but just because you can make a bow doesn't mean you're very skilled at hitting targets with it.

deranger basically mentioned what I was going to; I know that FE units don't exactly make a ton of sense with their animations (either with frame skips, movements that aren't physically possible, etc.), but since that's a strike with a halberd/polearm of some kind, I would think that not only would the unit be repositioning it behind them with two hands, they'd be swinging it two-handed also. If the axe was smaller, I'd buy a one-handed attack, but you'd want more control for that much mass. I would also imagine that with that much mass moving forward, the strike would be faster than it is, too. I'd probably reverse the timings on the repositioning and swinging, to be honest or at least make them around the same speed. A person would want to conserve more of their energy to make use of it in the swing, so I'd imagine that, unless the unit was in a huge rush to hit a close enemy, they'd take their time to set their form before delivering the blow (something that Hector's T1 animation displays, for example).