XeKr

Thinking something is bad because it's highly reproducible/reliable is some of the weirdest logic I've ever seen.

I came back into this topic for you Irysa [spoiler=reply to Irysa] I agree with most of what you said (again). I’m pretty sure fans would tear the plot apart even if it wasn’t “hyped” originally, though. My general issues with the expectations and standards of FE storytelling are twofold. First, I remain unconvinced that FE narratives were ever that good. I’m hardly a literature snob, as I like pretty “casual/arguably popcorny” mainstream fantasy like asoiaf, wot, cosmere stuff, Kingkiller, etc, as well as nerdy niche stuff like Worm, Malazan. I still basically have no reaction to FE stuff (except for future past b/c of reasons), it’s just kinda there like Pokemon’s plot. Or Final Fantasy, for a series more driven by story/characters, but often completely fails under rational analysis (and I like FF). Secondly, I think a majority of claims regarding the nature of FE13’s, and perhaps FE14’s, story/characters do not apply the same scrutiny to previous entries in the series. I don’t particularly care to argue this point (perhaps it’s just some confirmation bias of some people consistently upholding FE7/10, plus ignoring all the terrible support conversations in past games) but I brought up hpmor because I think it’s trivially easy to "rationalize" the existence of plot holes and character development issues if one seriously cares to (I don’t). I really had to resist in the various topics about player worship and so on to not just post #blameFE12. This is similar to how I’m okay when FE5 fans lament the direction of FE gameplay but I can’t take people very seriously when they talk about how strategic other past games were like the tellius ones (literally FE9. And FE10 which hands you Haar/royals and says rout millions of bumrushing enemies) and FE4 (egregious stat-inflation emblem with +20 weapons and waste-turns-moving residentsleeperemblem). A lot of communities tend to complain about how the newer games are more casual or have lost of the soul of the series (Smash, Persona, Zelda are easy examples), but I feel FE fanbase is particularly eh about being self-consistent with the criticism. Brings out my inner elitist, I suppose, but I really just <_<. That tangent aside, I don’t actually mind these kind of topics, the discussion is good for those interested, and I fully understand if others don’t share my opinion. I only entered the topic because I saw arvilino posted. >_> (I’m not sure the above rant post is to the well-informed and thoughtful standard you expect of me)

The 2nd chapter in that situation is different. I noticed when replaying chapters 4 and 5 for various exp distributions between Corrin and Kaze that Kaze would get a different level up in 5. The level up rng seems "seeded" at sometime inbetween chapters. I suppose this probably means weapons/enemies don't play a role, since we're only facing faceless/mages and only have 1 weapon. But who knows? >_>

I’d characterize those are pretty recent “consensus” opinions. People will (and did) complain about the most trivial stuff as well. Additionally, 7, 10, 12 definitely don’t get as much attention as 13, who apparently started the downfall of FE storytelling (by some reports). I agree with most of what you said, however. fwiw I don’t really care to get into arguments where I think the rational response is “well that’s like your opinion, man.” I already regret posting itt. I’ll just say that I find a lot of nitpicking people do to be analogous to HPMOR. Fair enough if one lets that ruin one's view of Harry Potter. Also I literally see Thane and Alazen post in every single one of these topics so I’m not sure how much “consensus” of FE14 story is being driven by 2 posters (not sure if they’re native speakers, apologies). and Amazon/2chan reviews. edit: can't mobile

To add to arvilino's point, just how many years was FE8/FE10 maligned for bad story (just lol if you visited gfaqs in those days)? Nowadays, if you're informed by a some opinions from here and reddit and such, apparently it's (Magvel/Tellius) an incredible and epic narrative. I've seen FE4 be attacked a lot too, over the years, but some people consider it the pinnacle of FE. (I'm in the camp of "never been impressed by FE storytelling", except maybe future past for sentimental reasons)

atm I’m thinking I would rate Nyx “don’t use” (Odin “don’t use” and Leo “use”) because of her low bases and since Elise (“maybe use”) is pretty much a better version of her later with extreme Mag/Spd/Res and low Skl/durability. Leo and the children mages Foleo, Ophelia are also much more useful overall. And maybe also Kanna/Corrin with Levin Swords and such. However, attacking with magic is useful enough that if Nyx is your trained mage, you should probably stick with her role to just nuke things with Lightning/Excalibur, which are crazy spells on playerphase. Accuracy is kinda an issue, so secret books/skill tonics might be useful. Maybe try to get hit rate in Attack Stance too (Arthur +30 at S, apparently. Or others gives +10-20 at various ranks, Corrin gives +10 bonus, etc). The best mage builds for regular maingame use are probably just Dark Falcon to 15 -> Sorc, if the seals are available. Otherwise just stay Sorc. ofc buy skills and such if you wish, though beware your money stock (unless Easy Life/Smithy grind or DLC grind).

I just want to note [spoiler=very minor FE14 gameplay spoilers]Fates literally does what you said regarding effective damage. There's an red exclamation mark above units if they have a weapon equipped that does effective damage to the unit selected. It's a yellow exclamation mark if the unit is dangerous to the unit/s selected, but indirectly (like if it's dangerous to the unit in the back of guard stance). Also the dragon's vein mechanics all have descriptions and you can click on them to see specifically what tiles are affected. I think the enemy movement range is improved slightly, since it doesn't exclude danger squares currently blocked by other units. Not sure if that's what you were already implying, but it's happened, to a decent extent. >_>

She gives +4 at base, and the Pegasus/Ninja (who you get a lot of) give Spd+flight/move as well, which is generally more important. I noted her Spd pair up in the tier listing, so I did credit her for that. I found Tomboy helps marginally in H7, but it's hard to setup (efficiently) because you probably have to dedicate a mount to get Hana to get to the front, and healers in case she's hit (multiple before we get Mend), and chippers so that she can actually kill stuff. All that for an inconsistent 20%, since enemies don't always align nicely?

It seems to be "fixed" in the sense you always get the same levels if restarting the chapter, but not fixed overall, as I'm pretty sure I'm seen character get different stats on different playthroughs (and they don't follow their averages). This doesn't preclude FE9 style weapons/enemies affecting growths, but you get very weird growth patterns sometimes, like 50% proccing multiple times in a row.

Hoshido is not Nohr. And Hana’s pp isn’t even that good until she gets a bunch of levels. I’ll reiterate, everyone is “good” with a bunch of levels if we ignore the inefficiency in getting those levels. And her overwhelming reliance on avoid, even if we do train her, kinda trashes the consistency of clears. I get a weird feeling we are seriously retreading Snowyesque arguments re: Mia right now. It’s something about female myrms. Units like Yuugiri/Crimson/Ryoma are competent at base. Hana is not. What I see is she’s the worst unit in H7 (Rinkah’s Str/Def pairup is unique and useful), H8 is a desert so she’s probably the worst unit there, then okay she can armorslayer some knights (if mage/cav Corrin isn’t rolling them). And it’s still slow because those knights hit really hard with wta and there’s outlaws in guard stance and it’s a mess for her. Setsuna is there because she felt useful in H11 and H13 (we can deploy more than 1-2 bow users, and she doesn’t need levels to blast fliers) and her Pair Up barely gave enough Str/Spd in a few instances (she’s conveniently near Hinoka to start H8). Even in H10 having perfect accuracy is nice. It’s not like Setsuna is very highly ranked anyway, it’s more just Hana never felt very useful. I have no problem putting Setsuna in bottom, as she’s certainly not very good, but I gave her some extra credit for cases where Yuugiri and Takumi may not be in play. This isn’t too hard to resolve though. Instead throwing out random points in a vacuum, let’s be more relevant and in context, what was your team and your (very approximate/estimated) expected turncounts in H7-10 to get Hana those levels and be “pretty useful” in H10. This way, we can assess the optimization of strategy and tactics (and Hana’s role) instead of random character anecdotes. I mean here it’s not even a turn shave/nitpicking case; my own optimization definitely isn’t the best yet (when I’m more satisfied and have time to writeup I’ll post mine), but I just don’t see how it’s even close to a brisk pace if feeding Hana as well. I’m going to need some more specific help here: show how Hana contributes, and what investment is needed, in the context of efficient play. Again, the deployed team can be suboptimal, I (personally) don’t care. But the tactics should not be, to be best of our ability. I should mention for more general impressions of her performance, I’m also interested and I’ll probably include that in the op, but I don’t consider that to have much bearing on her tier position. Well, at least for the particular one that I posted. Hana can still be good and useful by any arbitrary or subjective standard, but that doesn’t mean she’s any good at facilitating quick and reliable clears (and that’s fine). I guess I’m also okay for a few short discussions of why turncount/reliability are important, if that’s where you wanna go. (if you’ve changed from your no philosophy position earlier). To that end, I suppose I already alluded to some arguments earlier. The crux of the matter is “easiness” lends itself to “my opinion/playstyle is better because I felt this way and said so more eloquently”, which is more subjective. Whereas “efficiency” is more “my opinion/playstyle is better because it leads to lower turncounts and higher success rates on average”, which is (relatively) more objective. Kinda busy so replies might be slow tho. tl;dr: #efficiency

Nothing wrong with using multiple of the same class/weapon type but I would say Setsuna is the most “strictly” outclassed, since Yuugiri exists (but it’s not like Setsuna won’t consistently hit hard when she’s >level10, and she always blicks fliers). Everyone else I can see some special niche, even if the sibling variant is generally better (especially at base, but often even with training). Hana/Hinata eventually does have better Spd/Def than Ryoma, Nyx eventually have better Spd than Leo (Odin will have some bulk, or is the rare Nohr Samurai), Belka will have better bulk than Camilla, and so on. Though if you want an easier time, just don’t bother with anyone that feels hard to use at base. Just use all the high base units since they don’t really fall off too much. If marrying them off along the way, you get even more rng-proof competent units for free later. On the other hand, no one is really that hard to use in this game, because of Attack Stance and de/buffs to train them. Good points though to add a few thoughts. Tsukuyomi is the rare tanky mage once trained. Saizou can’t reclass to a mage class immediately if Dark Falcon isn’t available, and Felicia’s Hp/Def are not very high. Orochi hits pretty hard, especially as the attacking or support unit in Attack Stance. Plus honestly generals sometimes have like 25 more Def than Res so it’s not like effective weapons always do more. And she avoids counterattacks which is a huge chunk of damage. Again the other natural Hoshido mage option is Tsukuyomi who needs more to get started. Rinkah well, don’t really have other grounded Axe users. Reclassed Hinata is even slower. I said I think Mia is overrated, but her defenders like to claim all she needs is a forge and adept to be a competent fighter (iirc) at base. afaict, Hana requires a lot of turns and kills to get somewhere similar offensively. Even then, Mia doesn’t run the risk of being ohko’d. In the maximum efficiency case, sure Haar and Titania do most of the work, but other units still contribute. Besides, I’m actually one of the the only biggest advocates of assessing with nonspecific, potentially suboptimal, team compositions (because of lame conclusions optimal deployment leads to, like FE9!Jill in bottom). In cases where Haar or Titania are not in play, Mia might be significantly better, since she can (supposedly) oneround stuff kinda consistently, with decent durability, so an okay router option. And I even mentioned earlier that I’m probably “underrating good combat units in non-Corrin centric teams”. Still, if Hana was actually good, it should be easy to show how she facilitates efficient clears in a broad sense. Even theorycraft is fine, because I just don’t see how atm. Like argue her against a combat unit above her could argue against utility people but then I’d have to rant about tiering criteria. I want to raise other growth units but I'm not going to unless there's some evidence they're good in efficient play. I also don’t understand how the comparison that came to mind is RD Mia (supposedly competent at base), when it’s more like RD Edward or PoR Maniac Mia (bad bases, tank axes with face, etc). >_> Re: Mozume: Her Hp is too low so I think it’s definitely not worth to train as a frontliner. However, she has the best Str/Spd combination and arguably player phase, if trained. Probably slow for efficiency however (and her paralogue would have to be considered free by consensus). Though Nohr Lunatic has a defend map and is actually hard enough to maybe need it so….. edit: not that it matters, but since I noticed I missed her, I'd probably put Orochi in bottom for now. tbd if capture has uses (H11 does have some promoted fliers).

To clarify, I don’t earlypromote Takumi unless I’m doing resetless efficiency attempts. I felt there was a Spd issue before that, just playing through the game, promoting at 20, etc. The problem is Hana needs kills which is directly inefficient as it takes turns to set those up (relatively more turns to make her competent than others). Mia just takes prep-screen resources like items, bexp, gold, the inefficiency there is if they could be used elsewhere for better use (arguable). Oboro doesn’t have the Spd (without some investment), so unless she ohkos, the damage isn’t very helpful. She also doesn’t have good 1-2 range, which limited her usefulness in routs, and doesn’t have utility value (staves, flight, etc). Maybe the debuffs, but it's hard to say. My mid/lategame rout optimization is kinda bad though, so eh. It’d be very easy to change my opinion on some positions if someone had contextual insights. And Jakob's personal makes Lunatic significantly easier. >_> and personals for Sakura, Ryoma, etc all help out a bit. It's just another part of the character, like their bases or growths. edit: And I wouldn't worry too much. Oboro is a solid enough character if you don't care about turncount. Balanced stats, but on the high side, and her bases are on par with the enemies so not very hard to train.

Basically I found Takumi has consistently borderline spd, and I continuously had to give him special treatment to double (and he still whiffed occasionally). That feels middling. I joke about Mozume but at least you train her for a chapter or so and then let her go on pp. I dislike lowest turn count for a variety of reasons, but the whole argument for why we should be going briskly as opposed to an arbitrarily slow pace is a compelling one. I consider unnecessary (i.e. not reliability-based) slowdown as inelegant and unoptimal, so I prefer a statistical metric for efficiency over an arbitrarily fast pace. lolphilosophytiem And honestly if Ryoma didn’t have his prf, he would be kinda eh. Hana never gets his prf. ;( RD Mia is okay at base with Adept and a critforge, can be trained by bexp, her enemies are weak, and she can Storm/Tempest Sword some stuff. I think she’s overrated though. Regardless, Hana still requires a lot more. edit: Maybe PoR Mia, but enemies are jokes there compared to lunatic here. edit2: So maybe PoR Mia in Maniac. >_> (not very good imo)

Fair points on Kunai use for debuffing. The effective weapons are all D rank, so Arms scrolls have a lot of potential uses there, perhaps giving a fresh promote some situational tech weapons. It’s still a good bit of investment for small utility, imo, for Asyura himself. Yukimura is already --/10, so differences in growths don’t help him very much, just fractions of a point. It’s late in the game and enemies are actually starting to get strong (can’t lolRyoma them all) so I think even starting at D rank (Mountain Priest w/ Arms Scroll) for a primary weapon isn’t the best idea. Nah Takumi sucks. ;P (I’m interested in your thoughts on him after you beat Hoshido and IK lunatic) Here’s my thoughts, if I have to do all that (hold 2 deployment slots, level Azura to 10 and stick to him) so Takumi can kill 1-2 units a turn in range of his 6 move (that’s 3 units used, and one is the dancer), I’m not sure I’m very impressed. I know it somewhat works, as that’s pretty much what I did my first Hoshido/IK runs. A lot of stuff works; Hoshido especially is easy enough if playing casually. I rated him “use” in the op because my impression is he’ll make it easier for new players to beat lunatic. This is really subjective as “easiness” is even more impossible to characterize and something like that always depends on player knowledge, skill, and playstyle. He’s high tier because 11/1 Takumi is actually good, especially for his joining chapter as possibly the best unit there, and he still does solid enough damage later between Prescient Victory and his Personal. As in, if absent, the speed and reliability of clears are significantly impacted (this can be empirically shown from playthroughs or at least rationally intuited from experience). I don’t see how Hana is any good in efficient play. Is Amelia good because she’s Seth-lite? I think everyone is good in this game with some investment, but not everyone is good at facilitating efficient clears (which a tier list should reflect). I’m probably currently underrating good combat units in non-Corrin centric team compositions, but to that end I’d raise people like Saizou and others over Hana. While Corrin isn’t Robin, his advantages (availability, Yato buff, Jakob/Felicia) still let him do a lot of work on enemy phase, with certain builds. Most mages are very limited, but Corrin actually has the Spd/bulk and can use Horse/Reverse God much better. It’s possible to slingshot single units but not whole teams (with VD, Azura) to reach far enemies/bosses, so this is still efficient (despite less steamrolling than past FEs). Re: Effie. Yeah quite good since it’s nice to have tanks (or multiple). Corrin isn’t always tanky-built (and limited to Dragonstone) and Camilla is weak to bows. Getting doubled is also a big deal, especially if debuffed, which Effie will avoid later. Benoit’s Hp and even Res actually can matter a bit too, which gives him a niche. Re: Dark Falcon. Probably the best mage class since it’s the only really fast one with 11 base, essentially. Plus flies. So most potential mages like going there if the seals are available. Saizou is actually a really funny and interesting option.

that requires too much counting though It's possible to ltc any game with turns like it's possible to speedrun any game. Speaking from the viewpoint of highly reliable and quick clears, however, the main issue with luck based mechanics is if the variance of the “low” turncount is high, and outside the player control. It’s usually possible to play slightly slower and more reliably (which is still efficient, in a sense), but it’s just lame if sometimes randomly you have to play a lot slower (or reset) and sometimes not. There’s not really any (fun) optimization to brute-force resetting or trivially waiting for something to proc/whiff.

Crimson, Izana, Asyura, Yukimura added. That should be all of Hoshido first gen. Probably some revisions and short additions for Invisible Kingdom, and then Nohr first gen next. The children are really pretty filler and all “use if you like” status, even if it’s certainly interesting to think about all the possibilities there. Anyways, besides that fact I haven’t had as much time as I would like lately (life), slow updates have been because I’m been distracted by some resetless/noDLC efficiency attempts and Lunatic Nohr is alskfjsldkjsldkfj hard there. As for why the rest of this post in this topic, some people are interested in more seriously (<_<) assessing character viability beyond leisurely/casual use, and in brief, “efficiency” is a basis or metric to do so. I may make a new topic soon, however. High Yuugiri Crimson Hinoka Takumi Felicia/Jakob (early) Izana [spoiler=high] -Yuugiri is really good in the chapters she has over Crimson but the combat difference is also fairly big when the latter joins. Still she can reclass for Vanished Disaster (VD, it’s the rescue staff) later -Pretty amazing. -Filler fighting, then VD, ferry, Rally Speed. -Promote to Golden Kite immediately to fly over forests. prf bonus is no substitute for actual flight and 2 move. Maybe lower. -I’ve mainly done FCorrin so far because Jakob can fight at base and the extra Def+avoid really helps later, but Felicia could reclass to Strategist for 8 move 1-2 range very early, despite questionable durability. Mostly useful for Corrin after support with Kaze is built, however. And not to say Felicia’s bonus doesn’t matter, it’s 3 Magx2= 6 damage. -mage stuff + VD. Midgame some HorseGod+tonics shenanigans. Later best Mag for Misfortune and Sin which does (sometimes) hit some bosses. Mid Kaze Subaki Sakura Felicia/Jakob (late) Asyura Asama Silas [spoiler=mid] -Not sure if overinflated because forced to get A support. Still gives Spd and move which is nice. Also atm I purposely undervalue/credit him for chapters 4 and 5, ala FE10!Edward. -ferrybot. Probably can find a way to efficiently train him to 10 for other stuff. -VD and aura. Early heals are very important too. -staffbot, reclass for 8 move. -filler bows + VD. 7 move is cool -staffbot. Maybe superfluous. -I haven’t found too much use. You have desert, ninja forest, boat, opera chapters very soon, so he’s just a nonflying dude later. Rescue-take-drop is cool but without canto is eh. Perhaps I’m missing some obvious use; he does do some filler fighting early, but arguably worse than Saizou who sometimes doubles at 1-2 range and gives move to his ferry. Low Saizou Kagerou Yukimura Setsuna Nishiki Oboro Rinkah [spoiler=low] -Chip and gives +Spd/move. Tho I’m looking into 10/1 Saizou for H10 which could speed things up a lot since no one else fights Ninjas too well. Again Kaze sticks with Corrin early, but admittedly this could be relaxed with better support point optimization. -Chip and gives +Spd/move -filler fighter for H23. -kills fliers in H11, chips stuff, gives offensive stats in Pair Up -filler hits mounts pretty hard - gives offensive stats in Pair Up, maybe help in H13 rout - gives early Str/Def which is nice? Bottom Hana Hinata Tsukuyomi [spoiler=bottom] -gives Spd but so do many others who give flight and stuff -gives Spd, instapromote for other stats plus help in H13 rout (probably not worth), but so do others who give flight and stuff -chipper. A long way from 10/1 and Rescue range doesn’t scale anyway.

Not sure if this helps, but even though I don't have much time to play (relatively speaking), it was still worth it for me to spend 100ish for a regular japanese 3ds to play the game at least 6 months, perhaps more, early. Time can be more valuable than money. I suppose FE is the only series I would do this for, however, as I've really enjoyed every game in the series I've played (3-13). Probably the other use of this money would be just saving it and accruing interest. This community is also immensely helpful is providing resources for gameplay, and translated story/supports more convenient than grinding anyway so the language barrier is less big a deal. I would say don't purchase if you aren't comfortable with the possibility that it may disappoint. It may seem amazing, but lingering regret is not worth it. I was also comfortable, in the case that it turned out not to be as great as imagined, to not spend money again on the english version. As is tho, it certainly looks like I'll keep supporting IS. But yes like it's been said, it really depends on one's personal situation, especially financially. Any purchase for entertainment will invite some risk, but eh, something to live with.

Logically, Nintendo/IS (because they have proven to be fair at business in the vg industry) probably thinks they’ll get more sales then they lose, or the mechanic wouldn’t be in. This is obviously speculation though, we don’t know actually how their executives/developers are thinking. You say “many people” may not get the game because of this, but that’s also speculation. If you're judging from internet reaction or anecdote, note that generally the people who visit/post on fanboards are a very small minority of consumers (even then, see a poll here http://serenesforest.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=54958) Note, I said way earlier in this topic that I think the mechanics as is will hurt sales in the west. (speculation) It clearly has not hurt sales in Japan (fact). We can only guess what the sales would be if it were not in the game (speculation), but it's a fairly futile exercise beyond surface-level observations.

Re: ambush spawns: Right, enough can pop up to be somewhat worrying and require a reaction (actually ones on forts can be hard to kill), but they don’t cause immediately resets by moving 10 squares and killing a squishy. I guess there’s a little less tension/difficulty but a lot less rage. And like Othin said I think there’s some reinforcement triggers where they appear on your turn and if it’s when your last few units are moving they could be ambush-like. -Also even if it’s a little weird, I really like "fixed" level ups in Lunatic. -Going in hand with the weapon thing, 1-2 range nerfs are massive, mounts generally have noticeable weaknesses, so there’s no move 8-11 squares, oneround everything like in some games. (well in a sense, there's Dark Knight/FlierCorrin or Xander but they have some limitations) -Bows do a lot of damage. -Monoweapon classes get certain advantages. -Ranged triangle interacts with normal triangle and it actually matters if going against it. -Some flashy crit (and normal) animations. -Aqua’s really good at dancing. >_>

This should be obvious, but the whole point to My Room and similar mechanics is that while it makes some people uncomfortable or hate it, some people like/love it, and others don’t care. Nintendo, given Sakurai’s comments and their general design philosophy to widen accessibility, is therefore going to put it in (subject to design contraints) if they think/predict more people like it or are indifferent than not, increasing sales (they would probably say more people have “fun” too). People like to bring up more extreme examples but they probably don’t honestly think those would improve sales. Nintendo is a company. Video games are an industry. I suppose people tend to be disgusted by how economics work (lolkonami is another obvious recent example) but that’s a far bigger issue to describe, let alone begin to address.

Best gameplay. Addressing variants of the following complaints from Awakening and the series in general. “Pair up is broken” = separated Attack/Guard stance, reasons to not always be paired. Reduced RNG and stat boosts. Enemy also pairs up. “Lowmanning is too strong” = Exp formula prevents overleveling. Poison skills, half max HP staff, debuffs. Attack stance increasingly strong with more units. “too much enemy phase steamroll” = Lots of skills and effects that only trigger on user’s phase. Low Hp lowers durability all around. “boring maps” = objectives and Dragon’s Vein. Smart aggro patterns and weapon/skill combinations. Status staves. AI using Rally at the appropriate time. "wt/con unbalanced or nonexistent" = weapon differences and decision-making matters “easy infinite leveling” = gated behind very expensive item. “terrible difficulty curve” = Norma/Hard/Lunatic seem appropriately distanced, especially if considering Hoshido/Nohr/IK. Also doesn’t fall off after earlygame like many other games. Really the lategame chapters are probably the hardest, as they should be. “suicidal enemy AI” = not (always) in Nohr "ambush spawns are unfair" = doesn't happen here “lolSeth/Haar” = Certain units are good, but not quite that good. Even Mozume/Tsukuyomi have niches if you invest in them, which is rewarding for those players/playstyles. More if I think of them. Still, it’s impressive they tried for nearly everything (and did well imo). Best soundtrack. There’s maybe 2 songs from the rest of the series I like better than the best here, but overall this wins by a fair margin. Best interface/”quality of life” stuff. Simple and clean. Also small things like the expressions on the portraits.

@Irysa: I read it more as arguing against criticism that was in essence just "don't need this". Not criticism to the extent of character development and narrative consistency. And I think arvilino wanted to emphasize the (in)significance of the mechanic. Like it's Resident Evil 4 where you can look up Ashley’s skirt (she calls you out sometimes, but is pervert a key aspect of Leon’s character and is RE4 a hentai game?). That's just a random example, but it’s trivial to go on and on about "optional" features in a game, it’s subjective what’s good/bad, and what bothers who. @Thor: Yeah but the argument is kinda what if all the money that went to live2D people went to hiring better software engineers?

@Irysa: No one said you can't criticize it. Any perceived comments to that extent (silencing discussion) are the same as you trying to dismiss other people's responses (irrelevantly meta) We can offer our opinions (and our wallets). My own thoughts are that My Room and the ilk are such an insignificant part of the gameplay that it negligibly affects the FE14 experience. For the most part at least, there was some mention of things like opportunity cost and western sales (it's going to outsell FE13 in Japan, given current trends, certainly impressive) that could impact later games, that I would care about. Fluff is fluff.

Yeah I can’t keep up with these kinds of topics. >_> Re: “optional” Gaidens in FE11 bother people because some of us consider it important in FE to recruit all the characters and not let any die. Support conversations in GBA games don’t really bother me, but some people think it’s important to have the character interactions and stat boosts and find it painful to grind. My Room only matters if you think it’s an important, core part of the game (doesn’t feel that way to me after playing it) or if you’re generally interested in that sort of thing (player interaction, direct dialogue). True, however some of the arguments (yours and others) are compelling enough that they shouldn’t be dismissed from tone alone. Which is something that inevitably happens for things framed with that kind of negativity. Perhaps unfortunately, but it happens. Does their vision include gimpy looking Lancer animations? Like clearly weird and telekinetic during Attack Stance. Opportunity cost is real, even if they weren’t necessarily very rushed.

I agree with many of your points, so I don't like to see you weakening your argument with imprecise descriptions.