Lord Glenn

ROMs do not end in a .rar extension. .rar files are archives. If you've got something like Pokemon.rar, then the actual game is contained within that archive and it needs to be extracted. That is, unless you changed the file extension from whatever it was to .rar, which is not what you're supposed to do. That corrupts the file (generally). This is how you do it: - Extract the ROM from the .rar/.zip archive; you'll end up with a .gba file (in this case). - Extract the patch from its archive; you'll end up with a .ups file (in this case). - Use NUPS/etc. to patch the .ups file to the .gba file (see Patching Tutorial) - Load the .gba file in your preferred emulator. It's that simple. If you can't get that, there isn't too much more we can do for you; it's a simple process and that's basically the extent of the hand-holding we can do beyond going step-by-step on the process of extracting something from an archive file, which you could easily look up on Google. We can't give you a pre-patched ROM, either.

...Did you make any modifications to the staves to begin with? Since you mentioned staves missing (something Heal normally can't do), I'm wondering if the +10 EXP is a result of the game thinking that the unit was in combat with a foe but didn't defeat them, an outcome which normally yields 10 EXP. It simply adds the 10 to the EXP granted by using the staff, giving the result that you're experiencing... Or, something along those lines, anyway.

Paint Shop Pro (at least the pre-Corel versions, anyway) can easily determine the number of unique colors in an image. You may need to merge all of your layers temporarily to check (since it will only count on the current layer), but that's easily solved by simply undoing the merge afterwards. Regardless, since Paint Shop Pro costs money, Usenti is still a better option. I'm guessing he's meaning any of the ones that you attempted; if there's a base already made, it would save whoever signs on a decent amount of work, since they won't have to edit everything from the beginning. ----------- Anyway, I had a thought that either might be why one of your attempts failed or might offer an alternative means of doing this, depending on whether this is what you were doing when you used the dumped animation. Back in the days before FEditor, the only way to change animations was basically to overwrite the existing ones; in doing so, you had to conform to the boundaries of the garbled mess that the game pieced together. As a last resort (since the method is far outdated), you could copy over Ephraim's animation from FE8 and then modify the garbled mess sheet to use Eliwood's head, provided that it stays within the boundaries. That is, unless this is what you were referring to with the "dumped animation" part. EDIT - Wayyyyyyy ninja'd.

Isaac's first Djinn is Flint (complete with its artwork). Also, in the animation, the red "area" on Isaac's clothes needs to be shaded more. In actuality, that red area is armor (a breastplate, basically), so it should show some curvature and highlighting. Apart from that, it animates relatively cleanly. The only things that jumped out were that the really elongated frame from the Mercenary sheet that they use as a transition for the jump seemed to be more noticeable or evident than in the actual Mercenary animation and the sword should go through the enemy when it strikes and not in front of them.

FE7 has several route splits, all triggered by conditional checks. (FE6 has several route splits too, for that matter.) FE8 only has one, which is triggered by the prompt following Chapter 8, so there's a slight difference. From what I remember Ray telling me, FE8 isn't as supported with conditional checks (or, at the very least, they aren't documented) as FE7, so it might be an issue; he'd need to confirm that or not. 5x is/was a problem because, like 5x in FE8, it's a sidestory focusing on a secondary group, and that group doesn't contain either Eirika or Ephraim's replacements here. I don't think that you can really compare the two.

If I recall correctly, I believe it was more related to Ray wanting to "stop" the players' "progress" in the old version's demo, as a way of saying "HEY, THIS IS AS FAR AS THE DEMO GOES." Needless to say, it didn't work at all, since everyone kept saying that they couldn't beat the maxed out monsters or asking why all of the monsters were that strong instead of realizing why or reading the explanation in the topic. -_- Ideally, the Tower and Ruins won't even be accessible in ASDDX, since the whole "traveling the world map whenever" thing was something that we wanted to get rid of (at least, I haven't heard otherwise); we wanted to go with how basically every other FE does it: advancing from the end of one chapter to the start of the next automatically.

I would imagine that it would be extremely unlikely since it's a "core" Nintendo property; I don't know the details, but The Last Story might lend some promise to the possibility. I know that Nintendo basically commissioned Mistwalker to make the title (along with them giving similar instructions to Monolith Soft for Xenoblade), but I don't know who retained the IP rights. If the property is Mistwalker's, that might explain why XSEED was able to convince Nintendo into letting them localize and publish it over here in North America. If that's the case, then I'd imagine that FE would be out of the question. If not, then who knows. EDIT - Trevor Belmont is rumor no more: Mirror of Fate trailer Young Simon makes a brief appearance too.

Possibly the same thing that happened to the Link vs. Ganondorf demo at Spaceworld 2000 for the Gamecube; it ended up just being a video made to showcase the power of the system. I wouldn't rule it out completely, but with the way the global market is, I can't imagine that it would be a wise move for Nintendo. Japan loves handheld titles; if the figures that I've seen are to be believed (which do have doubts about), even Shadow Dragon and New Mystery sold better than Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn over there. Given the assumedly high cost of development for the Wii U and the fact that the series may not be globally sold any longer (as remains to be seen with Awakening), I don't know that Nintendo would be wanting to jump onto that train that fast. Though, since Intelligent Systems is one of Nintendo's main development studios (going so far as working on the systems themselves before, IIRC), I imagine that they'll develop *something* for the Wii U; whether that's Fire Emblem or not, we'll have to see. I've heard rumors that Mirror of Fate might feature Trevor as the protagonist (it certainly didn't look like Gabriel's attire from the original Lords of Shadow, seeing as the hero was clad in green-colored clothes in the short trailer at today's presser). Beyond that, there wasn't much about it; it will likely get a large focus tomorrow since the 3DS guy that was on stage said that they wanted to devote a decent portion of time to the third-party titles that will be on the system and it was one of the ones that was shown in video form... EDIT: Atlus picked up Code of Princess, not Nintendo.

Not inherently, no. The only possibility for it playing Gamecube titles are the Wii-released ones like Mario Power Tennis or if the eShop/Virtual Console/whatever it gets called supports downloading those titles.

Okay, I think Sony might have officially vaulted past Ubisoft. Sure, Watch_Dogs was awesome, but Beyond and that footage of The Last of Us might have topped it. Maybe I'm just biased since they were in Pittsburgh in the footage... Honestly, I could care less about Battle Royale, as I have virtually no stake in any of the characters. Maybe if I had been exclusively a PlayStation gamer from its original release, I might care, but I've already got Smash Bros. to fill my non-fighter fighter niché.

Just gonna crosspost my comments from the other, now locked thread. No sense in typing the same damn thing up a second time. So far, I think Ubisoft has had the best showing. Sure, they get shit for SecuROM and a bunch of their other previous actions, but you can't deny the relative impressiveness that they've shown of late. Splinter Cell Blacklist looks like it'll be the FE13 of its series, combining the best elements of the previous games into one and adding some improvements (and one step backwards, with no Michael Ironside as Fisher's VA). Assassin's Creed III actually looks like it might finally take the next step of progression that the series needs to. And, if Watch_Dogs wasn't a surprise new IP announcement (and an awesome one at that), I don't know what is. EA had the typical stuff that you've come to expect out of them. The only remotely good segment, IMHO, was when Michael Irvin came on stage; you never know what he's going to say in any given situation and his comment about Twitter vs. the News at 11 was pretty funny. And, as usual, Microsoft showcased basically the same stuff as the past few years. Halo 4 looked pretty sweet; 343 looks to have been the right choice to pass the franchise onto. Wreckateer is basically Angry Birds + Kinect, which, along with Xbox SmartGlass, just further shows that Microsoft and Sony can't think up anything on their own and need to resort to pilfering from other companies to get their ideas. Oh, and Black Ops 2... Look, I'm not a huge Call of Duty guy (I'll jam in some social multiplayer if a friend is playing it and I'm there, but I never buy the games myself), but Black Ops 2 might change that; it impressed me that much. EDIT - As for FE13, I'm a bit torn; On one hand, if the possibility of lower than needed sales was the reason that FE12 wasn't localized (and, as far as I know, no one knows what the actual reason is), then I don't see how FE13 becomes likely in North America. With the way the market is, you're just not going to get a magical improvement in sales by shifting to a new platform. Not to mention, you can't really cite the Japanese record sales numbers for it, because one can easily speculate that many sales were from returning series vets that liked the return of mechanics and characters that have fallen by the wayside since their inception; if they were in it just because it was an original title instead of a remake FE9 and FE10 would have had better sales than they did. (Well, marginally, given Japan's preference of handheld titles.) On the other hand, the 3DS is still very young and in need of true, game-defining titles for a while, and FE13 seems to be pretty solid (I personally haven't payed much attention to it, in the event that it *is* localized) and a great fit for owners looking for a new game for the system. Given that the 3DS doesn't have the install base of the DS, I don't know if Nintendo would want to take a risk* on localizing FE13 and not seeing a return on their investment. Perhaps they'll wait and see how it does in Europe first, as with the Operation Rainfall titles. *Considering that they obviously didn't want to take a risk on Xenoblade and The Last Story (and relied on a small print run and limited distribution for the former and an external company for the latter), I think that might speak to NoA's corporate mindset.

So far, I think Ubisoft has had the best showing. Sure, they get shit for SecuROM and a bunch of their other previous actions, but you can't deny the relative impressiveness that they've shown of late. Splinter Cell Blacklist looks like it'll be the FE13 of its series, combining the best elements of the previous games into one and adding some improvements (and one step backwards, with no Michael Ironside as Fisher's VA). Assassin's Creed III actually looks like it might finally take the next step of progression that the series needs to. And, if Watch_Dogs wasn't a surprise new IP announcement (and an awesome one at that), I don't know what is. EA had the typical stuff that you've come to expect out of them. The only remotely good segment, IMHO, was when Michael Irvin came on stage; you never know what he's going to say in any given situation and his comment about Twitter vs. the News at 11 was pretty funny. And, as usual, Microsoft showcased basically the same stuff as the past few years. Halo 4 looked pretty sweet; 343 looks to have been the right choice to pass the franchise onto. Wreckateer is basically Angry Birds + Kinect, which, along with Xbox SmartGlass, just further shows that Microsoft and Sony can't think up anything on their own and need to resort to pilfering from other companies to get their ideas. Oh, and Black Ops 2... Look, I'm not a huge Call of Duty guy (I'll jam in some social multiplayer if a friend is playing it and I'm there, but I never buy the games myself), but Black Ops 2 might change that; it impressed me that much.

Let's see... Sonic 3 & Knuckles is pretty high up there. I've completely beaten all of the save files (2x for each possible character selection = 8, IIRC) on my carts and I've beaten it twice more via emulator. Not to mention having cleared the original Sonic 3 twice before getting Sonic & Knuckles. I've beaten both Grandia II and Chrono Cross around five times each; the former because it's probably my favorite Dreamcast game and the latter to play most of the routes and fill out the full roster (to which I only need to get a secondary ending beating the game with Lynx and Harle to finish the roster). Next up would probably be the Oracle series of The Legend of Zelda. I believe that I've cleared all of the saves on both carts (1 Regular, 1 Linked, 1 Hero's Mode/Game/Quest/whatever, if memory serves), so three times each for both games. I've also cleared A Link to the Past three times (2 SNES, 1 GBA). In regards to Fire Emblem, I've cleared FE6 once, FE7 like 3 or 4 times, FE8 twice, FE9 three times, and FE10 once. I've also beaten Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete like four times (I used to play it every year while I was off of school (in high school) for Christmas break). Oh, and I've finished Skies of Arcadia three times as well (2 Dreamcast, 1 Gamecube). All in all, I tend to be relatively balanced, since I have enough games that I haven't even started yet (92 (including ROMs), according to my personal database) that I really shouldn't be continually playing something that I've already beaten unless it's quick or I just really love it.

What I believe he's waiting for is the FE8 equivalent of this. But, yes, this isn't the issue holding Ch. 5x's progress up, as was mentioned above. This is "extra," if you will.

It... almost looks like it's a cross between the Exbein and the Rapiéçage... o_O Also, RISHU SMASH. This makes me happy. Shine, however, does not. :/ EDIT - ...On further inspection, not the Exbein. The Wildwurger. ...Okay, is this thing seriously just the Rapiéçage Mk-II, using Wurger and Falken as the base instead of Alt and Weiss?

As has been mentioned before, the tracks in the video showcase(s) (such as Jenna's Battle Theme from Golden Sun: The Lost Age as the standard player battle music) are generally what Ray has envisioned for music; unless the status changed while I was away, the last I heard, Ray was waiting for an instrument patch for FE8, similar to the FE7 one so that the songs didn't sound atrocious when imported.

(I'll do better than my Top 5; I'll give you my Top 10 instead. Oh, and only one character per franchise. If anyone wants to know the particulars as to why they're on the list at all or in those specific spots, I can elaborate if necessary. I just don't feel like typing out walls of text for ten characters. :/) Leona Garstein (Super Robot Taisen α, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation & Original Generation 2 / Original Generations, Super Robot Taisen: Original Generation Gaiden) Fun facts: Not only are Leona's initials the same as my online alias (L. G. - A complete coincidence, as I adopted this username years before I had even heard of the series), but she has the same birthday as I do. No, seriously, she really does (according to Super Robot Taisen α). Two reasons, beyond her amazing piloting skills (one of the best pilots, PERIOD, I'd say - thank her cousins for that though) that make her my favorite character. (Note that I expressly included the one character per franchise rule because, otherwise, half of this list might be filled with Super Robot Taisen characters. Sanger, Kai, Shu, Katina, Daitetsu, etc. are all extremely awesome too, but I wanted a diverse list.) Ratchet Altair (Sakura Wars: The Movie, Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love) Kirby (Blue) (Kirby series) Millenia (Grandia II) Gilder (Skies of Arcadia / Skies of Arcadia Legends) Mia Ausa (Lunar: The Silver Star / Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete / Lunar: Silver Star Harmony) Glenn (Chrono Cross) Luigi Mario (Super Mario Bros. series) Cassandra Alexandra (Soulcalibur series) "Kid" (Kid Chameleon)

Unless Alienware has gotten better in the past four years, I wouldn't recommend them myself. I've had to deal with them, and it was far too frustrating for what the machine gave in return. Note, the last time I had dealings with them was almost two years ago at this point, but still... Also of note, Dell owns Alienware. As far as I know, Lenovo doesn't make any gaming-specific models. They may have some higher-end models that might suffice, but for the most part they don't expressly cater to that crowd. You'd have to check their product listings and see what the specs are on the higher end models. (I'm not familiar with all of the models, myself.) To be fair, there can be a necessity for one; I didn't want to lug a desktop, moniter, keyboard, mouse, etc. back and forth between home and college (2+ hours traveling time) just so I could game at school or at home when I was on break. Having a powerful machine that could travel easily and also take up a small amount of room in a dorm room/apartment can be beneficial. If you want something that has a decent graphics card in it, you'll get the heating problem no matter what. To my own personal knowledge, there are a few models of high-end laptops that are built to channel the heat away as much as possible, though the model that I have I wouldn't recommend, simply because the company (ASUS) refuses to support it very well. EDIT - I do have to ask, what are your reasons for wanting a gaming laptop specifically? It might help us yield better suggestions.

From what I was actually paying attention to (didn't want to pay too much attention so that it's still fresh when the game actually releases), the presentation is similar, though maybe slightly improved. It's still mainly find NPC, get a brief blurb of text, accept quest, finish quest, go back to NPC for another small blurb of text. I went back and played a little bit of TL1 last night and today, and, honestly, I feel like I had more fun with TL2, if that means anything. Even adding in mods for the first time, I still feel like TL2 is a definite improvement over the original. And, as Dan mentioned, TL2 will eventually have a new version of the TorchED editor available. ------------- Depending on what changes the dev staff make in regards to skills (and anything else), I may end up changing my initial thoughts, but for right now, I'll probably end up rolling an Engineer (Tank/Off-tank build) to complement Dan's choice of a ranged character. (Even though I totally enjoyed my time running the whole way through the beta as an Outlander... )

So, with Diablo III having released just over a week ago and with Steam's pre-purchase up for Torchlight II, I figure that now is a pretty good time to make a topic about this. Arguably one of the main "contenders" (like how BF3 is a "contender" to CoD in terms of sales) against D3 in its genre, TL2 is shaping up to be significantly better than its predecessor. I pre-purchased TL2 just the other day and, luckily, managed to get an invite into their prolonged weekend stress-test beta. (I got in on Tuesday and the beta ended on Thursday at 7 PM Eastern, for reference; the beta started like last Friday and was only supposed to go until Tuesday, but they extended it.) There are four classes, increased by one from the original Torchlight: Berserker (fast melee DPS), Engineer (jack-of-all-trades (DPS/Tank/"Summoner")), Embermage (self-explanatory), and Outlander (Ranged/Trapper/Hybrid Mage). Of course, like TL1, you aren't forced to stick to the class' intended builds. Each class also has a "Charge Bar" which convey various effects. I only got to play as the Outlander and Engineer during my short time with the beta, but the Outlander's adds Attack Speed and Critical Chance as its fills up by doing damage and the Engineer's stocks up to 5 charges as you do damage and can burn one to improve the usage of a skill. The main characters from TL1 do appear in TL2 (Syl/Destroyer/Vanquisher/Alchemist), though they aren't playable. For the most part, weapon types carried over, though there were new things like claws, cannons, and more 2H greatweapons. The basic engine that powered TL1 is carried over to TL2, though the graphic style has been refined and the visuals flow very nicely. Unlike TL1 where your character is endlessly descending into the mines below the town, TL2 features a wide variety of locales throughout the portion of Act 1 that was available in the beta. There are generally field areas that take you from place to place and have dungeons in them that you'll have to venture into for quests. But, the field areas can ranged from a regular grassy path to a vast, snow-covered landscape, complete with harsh gusting wind effects and snow falling. These areas really showcase just how beautiful the engine can make stuff appear. Of course, there have been other improvements too; the skill area has undergone somewhat of a change (and is going to be changed further now that the beta is done), there are now multiple types of enchanters, most of which are found as you're exploring areas/dungeons (the enchanters no longer have a chance of wiping all enchants; this is a separate feature if you decide you want to reenchant something because the enchants were bad - also, certain enchanters will only add specific enchants (like all electric-based enchants, for instance) and there are varying degrees of enchanters (apprentice/master/etc.) that have differing limits on the number of enchants they can bestow), there's multiplayer support, there are around 10 different options for pets this time instead of 2 (or 3 if you bought TL1 at retail), etc. All-in-all, it's shaping up to be a pretty fun game, especially at the significantly cheaper price point of only $20. (So, now it's you guys' turn to talk about the game (and TL1 too if you want, I suppose); whether you're interested, what you hope to see, etc. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go goof around in TL1 a bit before going to bed. Playing the beta made me want to boot up the old game and play around with some mods and just have some fun.)

99.9% of the time I restart if a unit dies. There are two main reasons for this: 1) The unit is almost always a unit being actively used; I see no reason in bringing units just to fill the available slots to capacity when they aren't going to be used. As such, unless I'm just using a character for a short time (i.e. Matthew if planning to use Legault, Serra if going to use Priscilla, etc.), my team is most often made up just of the units that I intend on using. Therefore, when one of them dies, that tends to put a significant dent in the team's intended setup (supports, class/weapon balance, etc.). And... 2) Most of the time, deaths occur because of completely random strings of numbers that produce an unlucky result, like getting hit by three consecutive attacks at 25 Displayed Hit that end up killing a given unit that, on average, would have stood up to the onslaught. That's not even factoring in stuff like low hit, low critical attacks that do proc the critical, surprising the player to no ends. Stuff like this often isn't the result of faulty strategies, so it's not really "fair." (Though, to be honest, if I realize that a particular placement/strategy is going to screw me over, I'll often restart and come up with a better one instead of trudging on, even if it's at the cost of getting lucky with level ups.) EDIT - And, for the GBA titles, there's a layer beyond the strategy part; with the fact that the game doesn't generate a new seed of random numbers on a restart, a completely viable strategy may need to be thrown out of the window because the outcome would end up the same without RNG manipulation (which I often am too lazy to do, especially since I mainly play on the cart).

Except for the fact that Athos can't use Dark Magic anymore, as outlined in the first post of the thread.

Give Nils' character slot a different portrait slot then. Another unit will be hampered with the problem of shifting portraits, but that should solve the issue of using the slots for something like Ike's FE9 promotion.

If you happen to be using FE7 as a base and if you don't mind losing a character slot (and only need it for one character), you could make use of Nils and Ninian's slots for the same character with different mugs. Granted, you'd still need to call the routine that transfers the stats and items from one character to another like it does in vanilla FE7, but it'd be a possible solution until Cam's done with his thing. (Well, I don't know if it works for weapon levels too or not, but the premise is there...)

Another alternative for selecting something and removing the background from behind it is using the "Extract..." option. Before applying it, though, you should probably duplicate the layer that you'll be working with in case it doesn't come out quite right. After working with it a bunch, if you've got the time and patience, I've found that using a smaller brush size for the highlighter tends to make the selection that much more accurate, especially if there's a complex background that may mesh with colors in what you want to keep. You'll probably still have to go in with the Eraser tool (and maybe the Clone Brush tool as well to recover some stuff that may have had its opacity reduced) and clean some stuff up, but it's a lot better than erasing everything by hand. I found a site where someone was posting about some methods to select stuff just yesterday, so maybe it'll help you too: Making Selections in Photoshop (Note that the site *does* cover how to properly use Extract, should that be a useful means of accomplishing what you want to do.)