What Games are you playing 2016?

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest - Fin. A lot to talk about, but will do so when I don't need to go to sleep. Fantastic game.

[AndrewRogue]

If I've been out of Fire Emblem since like, 8, but I'm in the mood for a new one, would you all recommend Awakening or Fates/Conquest?

[Fenrir]

i am this game

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120108044940/megamitensei/images/4/49/358.jpg

God I love Kaneko so much.

Anyway I now have Instant Death-inflicting bullets? Yes yes yes.

[NotMiki]

praise the sunhail to the king, baby

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120108044940/megamitensei/images/4/49/358.jpg

[SnowFire]

Andy: (Probably) Awakening.  Awakening has better writing, characters, & music.  Fates has slightly more interesting gameplay.

To expand on the above a bit...   Awakening has a few niggles.  Notably, it has “ninja” reinforcements that move as soon as they’re spawned if you play on Hard or Lunatic difficulty.  This doesn’t happen on Normal, and if you play on Casual, you can save in-battle, so you can psychically reload your battle save if ninjas ruin your day.  (Or just eat the death, it’s Casual, who cares.)  Weapon durability also still exists but is Not A Big Deal (put spares in your convoy, click “optimize” after every battle and every unit will re-max their weapon charges).  Fates is better for mostly getting rid of this, but Awakening weapon charges are rarely an issue anyway.

There’s another item of note between Awakening & Fates..  Awakening introduces a mechanic where both adjacent characters & “Paired Up” characters can fight together and get extra hits off on enemies, guard against attacks, and get other bonuses.  Pair Up is really, Really good such that after Chapter 6 or so you should be constantly in a Pair Up.  This is actually mostly fine, you get access to interesting strategies like “fly the armored knight carried by a pegasus rider into the middle of the archers, switch to the knight and have them kill someone and not die during the enemy turn.”  It also makes higher deploy counts a lot more feasible to control & use.  If you can deploy 15 characters, that means 6 2-person pair-ups, 2 staff healers, & 1 lone wolf / Rally bot, so it’s really like you’re controlling 9 units, some of which have options.  This is pretty cool, because it means you can use a bunch of characters without having the more unwieldy parts of moving a huge army around while most people sit in the back.  Anyway, Fates nerfs Pair Up, so “just pair everyone up” is a less sensible strategy, so there’s a bit more micromanagement in your army, but you have a new set of choices.  It’s interesting, but I’d say to observe Pair Up in all its broken glory first.  The other, more merited change, is that Dark Magic in Awakening is really busted, as are super-defense tanks.   Fates has mechanics that nerf/punish both of these strats, and that's appreciated.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I disagree pretty strongly with Awakening having better music! From what I've seen on Serenes that's definitely a minority opinion. (Personally I thought Awakening had one really outstanding track, but was otherwise a merely a respectable OST, while Fates has several tracks which have made me stop and take notice, and I really dig the Celtic and Asian influences it has. I think the differences between the battle preparations musics of the two games kinda sum up the soundtracks to me.)

That said you can't really go wrong with either. I think Fates is just a strictly better gameplay experience (and mostly a better experience overall); there is ridiculously more love put into the crafting of its battles and the balancing of its mechanics... but not everyone's gonna care, y'know? Writing's not something you should play either for, they have their merits but are both rather anime in that way Fenrir is so disparaging about. Fates has a more interesting story setup (which unfortunately does not live up to its potential, but still manages some emotional resonance), Awakening has a better set of side characters.

I'll throw a post together about Fates in a bit which isn't as much about comparing it to one game. <.<

[Grefter]

Which FE game should I play coming down to plot, characters and Music.

Only in RPGDL.

Fates doesn't have Weapon durability and has the hilarious Phoenix mode (its even more casual than I expected, I was thinking it would work the way Casual does but lol not turning it off now)

[Tide]

Personally, I say play whatever mode you're comfortable with. I don't understand the need to have to put everything on the hardest difficulty just to get some e-fame points. So the fact that Fates has the super nub mode friendly Phoenix mode to me is great. At the end of the day, if you enjoyed your experience, that's all that matters. I have no issue with playing e.z. mode casual because I want to actually have fun and not a frustrating experience when I'm playing something that I'm taking less seriously. If I want a hard but rewarding experience, I'll go learn a speedrun >_>

[Luther Lansfeld]

Which FE game should I play coming down to plot, characters and Music.

Only in RPGDL.

Yeah, obviously it should be judged on how many beautiful boys it has. Sorry Awakening.

[Grefter]

Which FE game should I play coming down to plot, characters and Music.

Only in RPGDL.

Yeah, obviously it should be judged on how many beautiful boys it has. Sorry Awakening.

wrecked

Personally, I say play whatever mode you're comfortable with. I don't understand the need to have to put everything on the hardest difficulty just to get some e-fame points. So the fact that Fates has the super nub mode friendly Phoenix mode to me is great. At the end of the day, if you enjoyed your experience, that's all that matters. I have no issue with playing e.z. mode casual because I want to actually have fun and not a frustrating experience when I'm playing something that I'm taking less seriously. If I want a hard but rewarding experience, I'll go learn a speedrun >_>

incoming tied speed run on normal/phoenix birthright with autobattle and animation skip

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fire Emblem Fates - As mentioned, beaten! Game time is listed as around 45 hours, but that doesn't include resets and all the time I spent looking over setup and then switching off the game or resetting, so the actual time is like 80 hours. I spend too much time plotting in these games, what else is new. (My first Radiant Dawn file was certainly over 100 hours of real time...) Anyway, let's get the review out of the way first, because that's probably the most interesting part.


There are things I can say about Fates that aren't gameplay. But I kinda touched on them already. Its strengths on this front are an excellent soundtrack, and pretty good character art. The story... is interesting, there's a lot I could say about it, actually. First off, it definitely has some problems (what FE story doesn't), and is towards the weaker end of the "good" Fire Emblem stories, but still better than 6, 7, 11, or 12 for instance, and it versus 9 or 13 I'm still unsure on. The plotting is at times a bit nonsensical/contrived and there are moments where you will think "but the characters really should have done ____". Still, it does do some things well. ~The choice~ and the plot around it is good, is it worth sticking beside those you love even if they're part of a machine which is basically evil? If you make that choice, as I did, then your reward is to constantly feel the weight of that choice: you are helpless to stop the evil because you crave the praise of your evil dad and even more the praise of your siblings, who are even more loyal to him. Most of the Nohrian PCs have some telltale signs of being abuse victims, emotionally at the very least (sometimes more), and it made them an interesting bunch to leaf through the supports of, certainly the FE I've cared most about for serious supports (buuut that's a low bar). It's not a very humourous game overall, though some supports certainly have their moments, instead it's a dark tale where you spend much of the game feeling powerless, hoping to earn praise from and retain the love of your family even as you do some terrible things.


I mostly want to talk about the gameplay, though. Grefter's snarky commentary is noted, this is why you play Fire Emblem. This has always been why you play Fire Emblem. Because it's damn good at this. And Fates is the best yet.

I already touched on some of the broad strokes of what Fates improved on in my previous post. Ninja reinforcements are, unfortunately, a bit of a plague on the experience of Hard Classic FE (and FE11-13 Normal modes were jokes, so saying "but you can play Normal" isn't really gonna cut it for FE veterans), rewarding blind durability instead of tactical play. Gone also is fog of war, which was similarly dishonest, although you could work around it by spamming torch (but is doing so actually tactically rewarding? No).

In general, Fates displays its hand to you openly. There's the occasional unpleasant reinforcement which can disrupt your plans, but for the most part, you can predict everything the game is going to do. There is, however, a lot to keep track of. If you aren't paired up, you have to consider things like enemy dual strikes. If you are paired up, you have to consider your own dual guard, and how best to use it. The skill system, long just a player tool, is now a plaything for enemies too, so you have to consider what their skills will do for how you approach them. Counter? Better chip 'em from range. Armoured Blow? There's not much point in trying to deal with them through counters. Lunge? You have to consider how they might use it, so that you aren't pulled into the range of more enemies. Poison and Savage Blow? Have to consider that eating away at your tank's HP.

In the meantime, the game gives you great tools to deal with all of this. Pair Up is back and honestly still powerful, and a great defensive tool (an underrated perk is it boosts critical avoid). But you lose out on valuable offensive opportunities, as being unpaired not only gives you more units to mount an offence with, but it gives a hit boost, and the possibility of dual strikes, which can significantly improve your offence, especially when you use nearby high-power characters. These mechanics, and the enemies' own use of them in symmetric fashion (again, an improvement; both of these mechanics were purely PC playthings in Awakening), give you a lot of ways to figure out how to approach the small groups of enemies which often make up the fights in Fates; how best to survive their offence? Then, how best to wipe them out before they can finish you off the next round? Between the differing formations and skill setups the enemies have, every encounter is different, and thrilling.

The way these encounters are set up speaks to how good the game's map design is. In many FEs, enemies are often thrown kinda lazilly onto the map. This is something the series has generally been improving on. But Fates takes it to by far the next level. Far more than in previous games, enemies have clever triggers to attack as a group; baiting one or two of them out rarely works. This alone, of course, would give it some of the best map design in the series, but the game isn't content to stop there. After the previous three games all spammed Rout and Seize/Defeat boss at you (in the case of the DS games, just Seize!), there are a lot of fun ripples in Fates which make for some great map design. There is a defend map which is possibly the best one in the series. There are a couple escape maps. But more than even the differing objectives (and use of secondary objectives like houses to save, a feature I loved of the GBA/Tellius games), there are some very clever map design "gimmicks". In many maps, the characters with dragon blood (a number of the core cast) can invoke some sort of change to the battlefield at specific points on the field, and using that correctly is often key to strategy, placing a ripple in things. In one fight, you can use these to scare away some nearby peasant mercenaries tricked into fighting you. In another, you can use it to create gusts of wind which blow enemies away. In still others, you use it to counteract the dragon blood of an enemy general. The game isn't afraid to try diffeent things here to put a twist on the strategy, and most are a great success. Certainly, in Conquest, every map feels unique, and memorable as hell. I'm not sure there's another game in the series where I can so effortlessly recall every map in the game after just one playthrough.

The last thing I need to praise is the game's AI. I'll be blunt: Fire Emblem AI has historically been bad. Enemies would suicide dealing no damage, would be easily baited out to be ganged up on, and certainly wouldn't be able to pull off high-level strategies such as having a melee enemy move away from a wall he is currently touching so that his ranged buddy can come in and snipe you instead. The enemy form sound plans for dealing with you, not perfect, but way better than before. They'll set up for good dual strikes, they'll guard certain chokepoints (you can lure them away, but they'll actually retreat back to them if you don't break their formation), and they won't stupidly attack when they'll deal 0 damage and add no status. Between their better planning, and their full use of the skill, dual strike, and pair up systems, you feel like you're fighting an enemy on equal footing, and outsmarting them feels far more rewarding. It's a level of competent AI that I associate more with, say, FFT. It's not perfect, and it's certainly exploitable, but it's clever enough for what it is, so you rarely will feel like you just won due to the enemy being an idiot. It's a thing whihc distinguishes FFT from XF to me (to say nothing of e.g. Disgaea), and it's a thing which distinguishes Fates from the rest of its series.

Are there some nagging things about the gameplay? Sure. One downside to the ambitious maps is that some may push close to gimmicky territory. None really got there for me, it was always a great new challenge, but I can see it. And the sheer level of challenge of surviving certain enemy formations forced me to rely heavilly on certain characters, which is arguably a bit less fun than having a more equal team. Another way of looking at is is that these characters are designed to be great and if they die or get RNG screwed, the game will get much harder. And... there aren't enough lategame reinforcements to your army, especially if you can't be bothered to get many kids. Only two PCs join in the last 10 maps (besides potential kids) and both are missable to boot, so if you're playing Classic and lose enough people you will start to feel it. I think this last point is the biggest thing I'd change about the game from a pure mechanical perspective.


So yeah. In conclusion to that tl;dr, Fates is a meticulously designed gameplay experience. As someone who dabbles in this sort of design myself, I know very well that there's a ton of effort here. Whether it's curtailing various forms of abuse, designing sound and balanced mechanics, or designing clever, individually memorable maps, or maintaining a consistent but fair level of challenge, it's obvious the design team spent a lot of effort on this. This is not a small thing. This is what Fire Emblem is about. And Fates is fucking great at it.

I dunno if I like it more than Radiant Dawn, but it certainly makes a case for it. RD is generally an inferior gameplay experience, though it does maintain some advantages like the Part 4 pathsplit and generally managing to make literally dozens of characters in a large-cast game feel useful (and has better writing). Fates is just a lovingly crafted piece of gameplay work though, one of the best the genre has seen.

10/10

[Dark Holy Elf]

Okay, now for the FE tradition... game notes in small text, and then unit reviews. Enjoy! (or skim to the next post if you aren't on #TeamFE)

P: 2
1: 5
2: 5, CorrinJakob
3: 6, CorrinGunter
4: 9, RinkahKaze
5: 7, RinkahKaze
6: 5, CorrinJakob
7: 11, CorrinJakob
P1: 9, ArthurEffie
8: 10, CorrinSilas
9: 15, CorrinEffie
10: 11, SelenaBeruka
11: 9, ArthurEffie
P19: 10, ArthurEffie
12: 13, NilesCamilla
13: 10, CamillaSelena
14: 8, CorrinKeaton
15: 12, CorrinGunter
16: 8, PeriLeo
17: 14, PeriKeaton
18: 9, NilesCamilla
19: 12, CamillaXander
20: 13, NilesCamilla
21: 9, CharlotteXander
22: 8, CorrinPercy
P22: 10, CorrinPercy
23: 12, CharlotteXander
24: 12, CorrinElise
25: 17, CamillaNina
26: 18, CamillaBeruka
27: 7, CharlotteXander
E: 5, NilesCamilla

Corrin: 11
Camilla: 8
Xander: 4
Niles: 4
Various: 3

Benny 1
Felicia 1 (retired C18)
Laslow 2
Mozu 2
Charlotte 5
Kaze 5
Odin 5
Izana 7
Arthur 9
Flora 12
Nina 14
Gunter 16
Silas 17 (retired C9)
Shura 18 (retired C24)
Azura 19 (retired E)
Selena 19 (retired C17)
Nyx 25
Elise 31
Jakob 31 (retired C20)
Leo 35
Peri 36 (retired C22)
Effie 42
Keaton 44
Xander 46
Percy 47
Beruka 51
Niles 58
Corrin 104
Camilla 113

Unit notes:

Corrin: She is very unique. Swords, magic swords, dragonstones. Tomes after promotion if you want, but the Levin Sword outclasses tomes unless you have a dodgetank Corrin and I certainly did not. Dragonstones can't double but hit hard magically at range 1, and up your stats. Swords are the usual, the Levin Sword is 1-2 magic and the rest are ranged 1 physical. Versatile and neat, can do offence or tanking, and Draconic Hex is a great skill for bosses. Doesn't dominate, but still in contention for the position of #3 unit in the game.

Jakob: Again, a character build never really before seen in the series. He's kinda jagenish as he starts out promoted... but gains levels as if he's unpromoted and caps at 40, so all this really means is he never gets promotion bonuses, and super-early access to promoted skills. His growths aren't wonderful either. But he's a great utility man between debuffing daggers and staves, and is a staff-user who can take a couple hits and counter early on and that's pretty great.

Felicia: Played as female Corrin, so she joins much later and isn't terribly useful, filler staff user. If you play as male, you get her early instead of Jakob, and she's... generally worse from the looks of things, a little faster but much more fragile and less damaging, at least until you get the Flame Shuriken. Also, Jakob can become a Paladin/GK, while Felicia gets much the much weaker Mercenary branch. But I imagine she's still really useful for the same reasons as Jakob.

Elise: Hey, it's a 7-move healer, automatically worth using. Elise also has some really useful passives she builds up over time: +3 durability for adjacent allies, +2 durability for male allies with 2, and eventually +2 damage and durability for everyone within 2 as a Strategist. Neato. Anyway Elise also sports rockin' magic/speed/luck so after promotion she can mount a formidable offence off of good move. 2HKOed at minimum by anything physical, though.

Silas: Cavalier with a bit of a str/def focus at the expence of speed. His personal skill emphasises this further, he can be a great situational tank. And cavalier's a useful place to be... moreso in this game than any since Tellius because they get Shelter aka GBA/Tellius Rescue, which is an extremely useful tactical skill.

Arthur: Weirdo. His big issue is his awful luck, and his personal skill lowers it further in exchange for making nearby enemies easier to crit. He's got great power and some bulk but it's difficult to use at times due to this. His son makes him a lot better, in theory, but by then he was kinda underlevelled and crappy for me. But he's awesome! Arthur, defender of justice! Too bad birds keep stealing his maps...

Effie: Another unusual unit, she's a knight with a huge Str focus and a passive which boosts it further. What does this mean? You have a unit based around getting OHKOs. Works well supporting with dual strikes, since doubling doesn't matter for those, and of course is an excellent tank until magic enters the picture. I ended up dropping her as OHKOing got harder as the game went on plus knight move being annoying, but I'm not sure if I should have; she's good certainly.

Mozu: Is Donnel who starts out less far behind but also with less payoff. I dunno. I'll use her someday.

Odin: ODIN DARK has awesome battle quotes and SO... MUCH... POWER!!! unfortunately it isn't gameplay power, Odin has bad speed and mediocre everything else and is generally pretty bad. Fates doesn't want you to go one-rounding shit at range 1-2 so mages all have some sort of big weakness, or in Odin's a bunch of moderate ones.

Niles: Is Leonardo trading Skill for Speed (archer with high res). Funnily enough this is a winning trade. I've long thought bows would suit thieves well, so this game delivered, and of course Niles gets the cool thiefy things: Locktouch and Move+1, then after promotion a choice between a horse or staves and Lucky Seven (which is less uber than in Awakening because battles average somewhat longer, but still great). There are also just enough flying enemies to keep his bows relevant.

Azura: Azura is the game's dancer, and an odd one. Her offence is actually really good once she starts gaining levels! (Though, weapon ranks can be a problem.) So she can chip in with that, and is useful for dual strikes which matter quite a bit. Unfortunately she's very fragile, OHKOs are often a worry. Her dance gives Spd+3 for the rest of the turn after a certain level and this is extremely useful, automatically puts her towards the high end of FE dancers in the series.

Nyx: The game's second non-Corrin mage, Nyx has good magic and good speed... and the worst stats in the game otherwise. She's made of tissue paper, but if you can work around that she's pretty good at one-rounding things from range. (Fire's accurate enough that her bad skill isn't the end of the world.)

Camilla: When dear big sister says she's going to kill all your enemies, she means it. Holy shit is she good. Joins overlevelled, amazing str/speed/def, flies, good skill access (Trample!), gains levels quickly... in a game which tries to give most units weaknesses, someone on the design team clearly loved her, because she has none. MVP without a doubt, carried my team. She's Haar accepting an arrow weakness in exchange for better speed/luck/res and stronger joining power, in other words, she's Haar but better. Let that sink in.

Beruka: Dramatically, ridiculously worse than Camilla, sadly. But still certainly worth using. Her Str growth is shockingly bad for a wyvern, the speed is problematic as well. But she's an excellent flying wall, and the strength base is still high, at least, and she has access to Trample and Axefaire late to help her with that Str if she gets that far. Flight's great as always, and you can never have too many high-Def/Luck units.

Selena: The pouty swordgirl returns. Selena has pretty good speed and bulk but is somewhat shaky on power, and there's nothing terribly exciting about Mercenary or its promotions. You do get a range 2 sword which helps her a fair bit... it somewhat wastes her good speed, except that she can use it without being doubled, which surprisingly few swordsmen in Conquest can claim! The best of the Awakening expies, which isn't really saying much.

Kaze: He's... super-fast, and shuriken/darts are neat weapons. His durability is awful, though, it's mage-level. Still, he's a great magic counter with high res, WTA, 1-2 range, and the ability to double them, and he's another Locktouch unit, so you can do worse than him, for all that I went with Niles myself. He debuffs, but so do the servants, and they have staves as well.

Laslow: Oh look, it's Selena trading speed and defence for more power. But any attempt for Laslow to be a power character is one that will get him mocked by various Conquest PCs who actually do that job well, so Laslow's stat build lacks a real niche. He gets a really weak rally which could occasionally make a difference. I actually ended up using him as a pairup bot at the end after a bunch of other units died, but that speaks more to how few options I had...

Peri: Offence-focused cavalier, Peri has pretty good power and speed both, though a bit shaky durability. She also has a horse, and rescue! Her personal skill gives her even more offence for the rest of the turn after getting a kill, though this requires Azura to be truly useful (though it's pretty great then). Probably the best of the later-joining unpromoted PCs?

Benny: The game's premier wall... once he gets Wary Fighter, which gives him immunity to being doubled. Def/Res/HP/Luck are all good, Def being outright amazing. I can't say I found this too exciting when you have walls who also are amazing in other ways; I usually like my units to have more offence than this (Benny never doubles and his Str is merely above average, worse than either cav). But there's certainly a niche for him.

Charlotte: Charlotte and Benny are opposites in a way, later-joining underpromoted PCs who underwhelm at first but have real potential to be the very best at their role. For Benny it's defence, for Charlotte it's offence. Only Camilla compares in Str/Spd. To pay for this, Charlotte is quite mediocre at base due to low level, low hit, and low durability... and the latter sticks around forever despite the great HP. I used her as a pairup machine for Xander and she's great at that, for what it's worth.

Leo: Leo might be the worst of the Nohrian royals, which is like being the poorest billionaire. (It might also be Elise.) Leo's main problem is that his Speed/Def aren't that great (but they aren't bad... still, he can be doubled and/or 2HKOed, and the combination is awful). He starts out strong, being promoted, and has good magic attack. Has a unique weapon which is essentially a Fire +3 which can critical, not bad.

Keaton: Keaton's that PC who is vaguely there, and vaguely solid. I used him the whole game and he's good at not dying and generally being capable, but not outstanding. 6 move 1 range lock is a downer, and his speed could be better, but beaststones give him stat customisability as you need it and his power/durability, including little things like crit and crit avoid, are all good.

Gunter: The game's true jeigan, but he only gets to be that for two chapters. Then he rejoins and is... weird. His growths are awful, but he has enough base Str, and Rescue, and pairup potential, to be worth deploying, I found. Of course if I'd been better at keeping other PCs alive, this might not have been the case. Speaking of that, he's near impossible to keep alive against magic, that speed/res is a thing. Def is okay, and Armoured Blow is a neat skill. He does get L15 skills super-easily, like the servants.

Xander: Unlike Camilla, Xander does have statistical weaknesses: speed and res. Both are quite bad! Literally being one-rounded by mages is something he needs to watch out for. More than the other great units in the game, he needs a good pairup. Thaaat said, Xander is amazing anyway. Great power, amazing durability (including crit avo), a 1-2 range attack which 2HKOs most things. You put him into a pile of non-mage enemies, watch him tank and weaken/kill all of 'em. Conquest's #2 PC.

Shura: The final three PCs are all staff users. Shura's actually the last PC who isn't at least mildly FAQ-bait, and there are still 11 chapters left when he joins! Anyway, he's an Adventurer: bows, Locktouch, staves. Actually has a staff rank and kinda okay magic, so he's like Anna in Awakening, filling a lot of utility roles. Not as good at it due to less good stats and joining later, but still solid enough. Like the other locktouch types, pretty good Res too.

Flora: The worst of the filler staff users because her bad speed/HP/def means she gets doubled and dies easily. She does have debuffing shuriken, of course, but it's not really enough. That said, still totally used her because I had plenty of use for such filler. She died several times and I never reset for her, but every time somebody else died later in the fight and I reset anyway. The Flora curse?

Izana: Amusing foppish side-character. Your prepromo Sage like Pent or Saleh, but not as good. He's ORKOed more easily than Shura but less easily than Flora, and has decent magic/skill so can mount some offence if needed. It's good to be the archduke.

I only got two kids, and all I have to say about them is that Percy has a fantastic personal skill. The kids are actually much better-balanced in this game, which means I think they're a lot more useful and the min-max/grindy types think they're way worse... which is a good thing, in both ways!

[Captain K]

If I've been out of Fire Emblem since like, 8, but I'm in the mood for a new one, would you all recommend Awakening or Fates/Conquest?

Awakening.  You can't make a proper Ugly Old Man in Fates.

[Scar]

I got to baby making mode and it really slowed down my progress. I think I seed up all the dudes with inappropriate mates.

Corin slept with Reina, thought she would have funny conversations......NOPE! My gawd she is awful. Kinda glad she is out of the way.

Honestly, the kids thing is getting out of hand. Everyone should not be able to pair up. There should be limits. I dunno. Makes every conversation have this odd tunnel vision feel.

I'm somewhere in Nohr now. Just got that weapon upgrade for Corin.

Mvps so far are Oboro and Kagero.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Been playing through some of my old PS2 games on an emulator because SD looks awful on my size of TV.  FFX is kind of hilarious in how much shit people are hiding from each other.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Which FE game should I play coming down to plot, characters and Music.

Only in RPGDL.

This is the least true statement I have ever seen Grefter make.

[Grefter]

Most other places seem to talk more about epicness, save scumming level ups, incest and being wrong about which characters DA BEST.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Most other places seem to talk more about epicness, save scumming level ups, incest and being wrong about which characters DA BEST.

And how dare they change the game to take out the part where you drug someone to un-gay them

[Scar]

That reminds me.

I forgot to take my un-gay pills this week.

[Fenrir]

I never really liked the skills in FE, they add an extra layer of randomness and bloat to a game that succeeds on keeping things simple and keeping the focus on movement and positioning above everything
I mean they can be kind of fun, FE4 battles are especially ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But FE7 remains way above the 8-12 gameplaywise for me for true hardcore tactics



SMT4: The MP regen app is completely overpowered, now it extends to the whole party and MP issues do not exist anymore. We all regen all our MPs between every battle unless we just a fought boss.

Randoms all last one turn and my current MVP is this guy.



Have I mentioned how I love that instead of getting skill points every levels to purchase skills, I am getting app points to purchase apps? It is lovely.

I just went through the hall of Ethics in videogaming, the game is trying to get me to understand big questions.  I am definitely on Team Walter (Progress against tradition) but Jonathan remains a cool guy. I'm impressed by how far the law and chaos heroes have managed to go without turning evil.


I hated the world map before and I hate it even more now.

[Fenrir]

SMT4:

Lilith: "You must uncover the terrible truth about these red pills"
Flynn "Are they people?"
Lilith: "............. Maybe not?"

[Sierra]

Momodora: Reverie in the Moonlight, a.k.a. Momodora 4.

Dammit Jim I'm already working on one Jim-recommended metroidvania. I got this anyway, will get to it eventually. (I also got Environmental Station Alpha but haven't significantly messed with it yet.) Still chipping through Rabi-Ribi. I'm uncertain exactly what attributes get boosted with the bosses level in tandem with the player thing, but it doesn't seem to entirely compensate for a player prepared to explore everywhere and find everything before moving on. For the latter half of the game I was able to face tank most things and rip through something like 20% of a boss healthbar in the opening combo. So metroidvania balance issues, still definitely present to some extent. This stopped being an issue once I got to the final boss though, because final boss is a three-stage chain of how do you even dodge that? Seriously, the laser sweep, what the hell.

Anyway, I'm in the post-game content now. Suddenly normal enemies can blast off 1/4 to 1/2 of my health in a shot and I find myself having to stop and farm for health-ups every other room. And the first post-game boss obviously isn't going down anytime soon. Wow. I guess I can go back and hunt down more items I missed (I'm happy that the game both tells you your collection rate per zone and gives you a compass so you're not just bombing every wall blindly). I also never found at least one girl the game outright directed me to. Cannot see any way to get to the place marked on the map. Icy Summit? I can jump off from the top of Aurora Palace (the nearest zone on the map), but that just drops me straight down outside. Feel like maybe I missed some exploratory tool here, but the game outright directs you to most of those through plot. I also still can't access the library, or that one upper left corner of the computer area. Seriously what, even maxed out wall-jumping isn't enough to make that climb.

[Captain K]

Conquest:  Huh, I wonder why people are saying Chapter 10 is hard, this seems pretty easy...  Oh!  Well I can move this over here and compensate for that...  OH SHIT!

I don't know how you can praise the game for not having ninja reinforcements when it has ninja battlefield.

Also, my dad is totally Evil Betty:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2lWefuTDVU

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't know how you can praise the game for not having ninja reinforcements when it has ninja battlefield.

Haha, nope! That happens at the end of the enemy phase, so you have a whole turn to react to it. It's totally fair! Just... mean. Get used to that. What difficulty are you playing?

(Dragon vein use in general is where one of the player advantage asymmetries remains: you can use it at the start of your phase, but the rare times enemies make use of it, it's always at the end of theirs, at least in Conquest. Can't attest to all its uses in Birthright/Revelation yet obviously.)

[Captain K]

The entire landscape changing in a way that can't be predicted is still way worse than a few more enemies showing up.

I'm on Hard Casual, although I may restart on Normal just to get through the game faster.  Not really enjoying it so far.  The story blows.  Enemies have 500 different skills to account for.  It's more of a random chaos kind of game than a strategy game.