Czar_Yoshi

Well, I got them quite a while ago and don't know if the packs are still around or not.

Ricken makes a pretty good Severa, Brady and Laurent too. Having the highest Mag mod of any father in the game makes you pretty eligible.

Hey, so here's a thing. The dudes in the castle during the battle are pretty clearly the westerners, right? But then they get attacked by the giant golem. But right before that, the easterners are fighting a bunch of skull mask dudes that really look like the kind of typical FE cultists that would have a giant monster on their side. I'm pretty sure there's no way that adds up without there being at least three sides (the third probably either being omnicidal/neutral or a cultist offshoot of the westerners trying to use the war to take over everything). Edit- the golem is definitely attacking both sides. There's both a western soldier and an eastern banner amid the debris.

Looks more like a younger Yen'fay to me, but the helm is really the only similarity between them. Armor color doesn't count, enemies in FE have been red since the dawn of time and it's enough of a stock color that it doesn't mean anything by now.

Defending the old games as perfection? Looking for any possible way to complain about Awakening? Did you even read what we were saying? See right there under my avatar where it says, "Favorite FE: Awakening"? That's there for a reason. Awakening has a lot to offer. I like it as a whole. It also has flaws- just like any game- in places where past games stomp it into the ground. I care about those flaws and want them to be fixed. That's not to say that past games don't have places where Awakening stomps them (they do, and a lot more than Awakening does), or that I want those bad ideas of old back (I don't), but that I want the next game to take into account where this one was subpar and fix it. Judging by the looks of things, that's going to happen for some issues and not for others.

The pattern on her headband is the same one on Ninian's neck thing. But I'm 99% sure they won't be related. Red eyes seem to be the Elibe Manaketes' thing, and the only person with red eyes in the trailer is the prince (who, incidentally, looks a lot like the Manakete in the underwater scene- same coloration, clothes and the hair is obscured- makes sense if he's customizable). Incidentally, if that were true it would be a link to Elibe, but I'm also pretty sure that as they've got a new story guy he's going to at least want to give his own continuity a spin.

He's certainly good at getting there, and his Lck is high enough that he can reach it with either a tonic or All+2 alone- no LB or Pairup required. He's not the best- Avatar and certain children can do much more with AT- but it is a strength of his and if you raise him during the maingame it's definitely useful early to mid postgame, or postgame in general if you only have partial DLC. Technically in such a world my Avatar has an S support as soon as the Barracks are unlocked and is promoted+capping all stats before the end of Cht.4 with nothing but a healthy dose of RNG manipulation and a lot of patience. No Wireless features required, either. Basically nobody else matters. Ricken definitely is less useful once gotten past his hump, though. His growths and classes just don't match up at all. And even his Elwind isn't quite as big of a boon (to others who can take it from him) as it could be thanks to the potential recent addition of a Forged Rexcalibur to your ranks.

$80? Alone, maybe. Mine cost around $57 with everything in packs. If that really is $38.50 for all the DLC, that's a fabulous deal and you should definitely go for it. If instead you meant $38.50 + the DLC's cost, it's about the same (the game should cost around that). The eShop version does have slightly faster saving times than the retail version, but this is really only noticable if you want to play with the voice acting in Japanese because you have to turn it back on every time you power off. Also, with the eShop you can use save backups which are nice in general.

I heartily approve of this endeavor and will contribute as best I can. Remember, Renown and Wireless features open after Cht.3. Cht.4 is rarely problematic thanks to them. I've been doing a ton of runthroughs of earlygame using your Cht.2/3 strats and they're almost something resembling consistent (haven't gotten all of them in one shot yet, but I'm close) even with +Spd/-Def. Obviously a Def flaw isn't wise after Cht.4, but the early chapters aren't actually as big of a deal anymore. You may want to look into clearing Cht.5 before Par.1. Saving Maribelle without the Rescue staff will be a huge pain (as will having fewer levels on Avatar in general), but Par.1 is one of the most lucrative staff training chapters in the game for me and having it for Maribelle would make a big difference in her ability to catch up to Lissa. Wrt Galeforce, it's a kind of all-or-nothing strategy: if you can get enough of it it lets you play like Apo and pretty much avoid taking EPs. In moderation, though, it's just another somewhat useful skill on a fairly frail class- nothing to shake a stick at but not something you can build a core around. If you do want to use it, you need to use Chrom x Sumia and Avatar x Cordelia, and have both Pegs pass it down- the exp requirements mean you might have to drop Gregor and Miriel though. When I do this I usually find it helpful to pick up Libra!Owain (since his parents are really easy to S-rank thanks to Staves) and use him as a hard support with DSp+.

The (presumably) lead unit did only 4 more damage than the support. Going by Awakening's pairup system, that boost would be achieved by having a C support with a unit who has at least 10 Mag and is in a +Mag class, which is very reasonable at the time in the game where you'd be seeing those numbers. It does look like a Staff, though. But also consider that that Ice attack didn't seem to come from a Tome, either (she used a Fan).

SS was in development early enough that it had a trailer at e3 2010, and has several delays due to Miyamoto asking them to change a pile of stuff. Did Awakening really take that long? Anyway I finally got a good screenshot of that king fellow at the start. Definitely looks evil to me.

Being based on a film alone didn't make the game sell. Being hyped up for being based on a film did. See? Advertising. Awakening does have its merits, and they certainly contributed to its sales. They do not negate its flaws, even if the flaws aren't great enough to noticeably impact sales. Most people who are used to Nintendo fare and haven't played a FE before might not even notice them. They're still there. No, the support conversations are character development. While that may be a good thing, it's a different thing from plot. And it's pretty clear that Validar took the Emblem by force, that's not a mark against Avatar's goodness. Nobody's denying that Awakening has "political intrigue", its is just the worst of the series. It also happens to have poor execution: there's nothing inherently wrong about a story in which a previously aggressive nation is facing attacks from the nation it was oppressing, and it has a lot of potential. Awakening tried to tell that tale using black and white morality, with no development for the nations themselves and liberal glossing over of both Ylisse's flaws and even moreso Plegia's virtues. There's a line in a support about how there might be some nice Plegians? No, that stuff should be front and center and it's not. OK, let's look at Arvis again. Ignoring all the stuff he did to help you in G1 (and it's implied that he legitimately wanted to let you live, but it would be too destructive to his plans), G2 spends many chapters angsting about what a jerk he is. Bad guy? Definitely. But when you actually encounter him, he's a miserable husk of a man who's been crushed by his own dream. At this point the game makes no judgement on him and simply presents him for the player to decide. Awakening? Everyone's evil through and through, cause or not. FE5, there are plenty of jerks and plenty of nice guys in the mix- but they're not segregated along military lines. Leif has a good number of scumbags on his team, and there are several noble folks- or at least ones who are doing what they think is right- on the enemy side. The entire premise of the story is about Leif losing his naivety about this and coming to terms with this. And of course, you, the player, even get to spare enemies, should you so choose. FE8, Lyon's personality changes dramatically depending on which route you play. Fomortiis is obviously involved, but the game makes it deliberately unclear how much is his doing and how much is actually Lyon, when they're lying, etc. Together with their personal attachment to the protagonists (Validar is Avatar's father? Never matters) they're the most dynamic villain in the series and are still excellent fuel for discussion. Awakening's villains have a single motive/excuse at best, but it's clear that they have no plans or intentions for the protagonists beyond defeating them. Having a complex villain is not the same as having a hidden villain. While initially keeping a villain's vileness hidden is a tactic, it does not necessarily equate complexity and having it visible from the start does not equate simplicity. Never meet the citizens? Have you ever played FE5 or 8? 5 is all about putting nobility and commoners together and asking them to understand one another. 8 primarily expresses the history of Grado through its inhabitants, showing why they remain loyal to their country (as opposed to just having a guy who says, "sorry folks, can't join you 'cause I've got me country" or something). FE has done this before. If you want to keep arguing that Awakening has good world building, please answer my questions from the post at the top of this page.

Are you implying that E.T. wasn't a turd? Viral marketing, 1.5 million copies sold (in 1982, when the market was a lot smaller than it is now) and widely recognized as the worst game of all time.

Hipsters are losing. Hehe.

Dude, have you ever heard of skipping cutscenes with Start? You're not supposed to read that stuff 10,000 times.

It has, but not nearly enough. Marketing sells games. Having a good series reputation does too, but marketing is the biggest factor- how else do you explain sales figures for abominations like E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial? Quality of a game certainly helps thanks to word of mouth, but the presence of rabid fanboys does dilute the meaningfulness of that a little and Awakening certainly has a lot to fanboy about. Its flaws are also only apparent if you think about them (which the game encourages you not to do), so they weren't obvious to a lot of people who now complain about them at first. I could write multiple essays on any one of the problems with Awakening's story alone, but I still loved it on my first playthrough. Anyway, other than the fact that world building is completely different than having a varied environment (Awakening isn't even the best here- Volcano, Desert, Swamp, Ruins and Castle levels are hardly exclusive to it), a world fleshed out (minimally) through inference alone is not a very fleshed out world. Spoilers for pretyt much every FE, by the way. Again, sales reflect marketing. Not game quality.

This is a rather fascinating discussion. Please keep it up. But speaking of Hammers... There are so Hammers in Awakening. Anyone who's ever tried to play Lunatic(+) without a guide has a certain Hammer using Fighter in Cht.1 permenantly ingrained in their memory. He's so prolific we even have a nickname for him (Hammertime). Hammertime is going to get you on your next playthrough for disrespecting him. Also speaking of Hammers, trying to beat Apo using nothing but Hammers is both a hilarious and very difficult challenge.

I don't know, but I'm going to wait to find out. Doing a data transfer to a system that already has games installed on it keeps those games, you just need to redownload them from the eShop if you changed the SD card. By the way, folks, the trailer footage was clearly on a regular 3ds XL (note the different camera design), so there shouldn't be any doubt on what it runs on.

If you're trying to play the Spirit Talisman maps for the plot after GG and EXP openly told you that those maps had excuse plots, you're wasting your time. They're not about story, they're about massive battles. Scrambles (the convos) and FP are for story. Not ST. Anyway, I feel that Awakening's DLC was about as well done as it could have been. As long as they stick to to formula of buy it once, keep it forever and all of it made after the game's release, pretty much anything they do will work out well, but if they just feel like repeating what's already there (in style, obviously there's be different maps and text) I'll buy it all and probably still love it. Even a direct copy/paste of Apo would go over well with me.

Well, that BK has Bowbreaker as well, so you're going to tie at best.

I look at it as "can level up without killing enemies", which is a pretty awesome ability to have if exp is tight. And no, Troubadours increase Mag, Res and Spd. Not Lck.

Then who made Sticker Star?

Changing sprites and stuff will be easily possible as soon as we get a way to quickly repack everything, I think. Feet would take a lot longer unless you did a full model swap (which still might be tricky).

Pretty much. Using a character "the right way" in Awakening, though... Are you talking about trying to make every character as good as they can be at one specific thing, or finding each character's best use?

Pairup is very definitely fair play on Lunatic(+). All of the difficulty modes are actually balanced around you using it, but due to other things (namely the exp formula for ingame and the fact that we have enemy data for postgame), the difficulty becomes wildly off balance and removing pairup to try to fix that seems like a good idea. It works best in Hard, of course- what Hard is actually balanced around is playing with a full team and keeping them all the same level- do that and pairup, Sol/Nos, and even Braves (due to attaining A rank much later, and having lower Atk) will stay in check and not break the game. Lowmanning is the true breaker of FE13. Incidentally, Hard with no pairup and a full team isn't that much more difficult than Hard with pairup and a full team. There is a difficulty increase, but it's not major.