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guster-animations · 4 months

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The Japanese Version of Deltarune

about a week ago i decided to translate japanese deltarune because i was curious and bored. i found a lot of stuff that i haven’t heard anyone talk about before!

i only translated chapter 2 because i got to the cliffs and remembered that watching/playing chapter 1 over and over again is really boring to me. might do it when/if i finish writing the post.

uhhh a few warnings. i’m not fluent in japanese whatsoever (i’m like n4 level? i think?), and i might not explain this very well to people who don’t know anything about the language. if you’re confused about anything i say, just ask and i’ll explain it in better detail.

i got all of the gameplay from tsuwahasu’s playthroughs of chapter 2 (pacifist and weird route), so all of the screenshots will be from his vods. i picked his vod to watch somewhat randomly so i was very surprised when he not only got all the easter eggs/secrets on a blind playthrough besides the egg room, but also beat spamton neo in one try, god damn

also i’m not the first person to look at the jp version of deltarune. please look at these posts/videos if you want to see stuff that’s already known in better detail:

skellfamily (light/dark world writing, characters’ pronouns and speech patterns) | suzyundertale (ch2 character names, some jokes) suzyundertale again (the gonermaker sequence) | duxarcana and halfbreadchaos (character in the code) | kazarinn (comments from the translators)

reblogs highly appreciated—this took a ton of time!!!

NOW.

LET US BEGIN.

first things first. the gonermaker sequence is one of the most well-known differences in the japanese language among lore fanatics like myself.

in japanese, the first character speaking to you (gaster/Geoff) speaks in kanji (normal) and katakana instead of hiragana (not normal, incredibly strange sounding). the character who hijacks the gonermaker at the end speaks differently, with kanji and hiragana (normal). as suzyundertale mentions in their post, the patterns are extremely similar to a certain fallen child from the end of the undertale genocide route.

another well-known lore Thing in the japanese version is that the hidden “scrapped” lines (AKA the person trapped in the code) use very feminine and childlike speaking mannerisms. this makes it very likely that the person is dess holiday

i’m not going to be going over much personal pronoun stuff, because other people have already covered most of that, though i haven’t seen one thing mentioned by anyone else:

seam uses the pronoun “atashi” (あたし), which is normally a very girly pronoun but in this case it’s meant to make them seem old and wise, since it was a more common pronoun in olden times. their other mannerisms are gender neutral and not feminine, but their name is localized to “nui” (ヌイ)— the word for “seam” in japanese, as well as an actual feminine given name.

does the use of “atashi” combined with having a fem name confirm that they are female? i’m 95% sure the answer is no. do those two things lead native japanese speakers to believe that they are female? i have no idea.

light and dark world

skellfamily mentioned all of this in the post i linked, but i have something small to add

undertale uses mainly hiragana in its text for the japanese version, with some small exceptions for when the fourth wall is broken. this is referencing earthbound, which also did this. this carries over to the light world of deltarune, but kanji is used liberally in the dark world. this is explained by toby fox wanting the light world to make the player think deltarune would be like undertale.

that’s all

small jokes and stuff in the localization

the “librarby” misspelling joke carries over, with it being named “toshonka” (the japanese word for library is “toshokan”).

the AGREE2ALL puzzle was changed to say “YEEES20!!”. this can be read as “yes ni maru” (with the number 2 being read as “ni” in jp and “maru” being the word for a circle), meaning “yes to all” just like in english!

the “apple” keyboard puzzle still says “apple” though ralsei mentions that apple means “ringo” (the japanese word for apple) if you talk to him for a hint.

funnily enough, this joke was kept as is! (“kris, type as i say. f…” “…un!”)

the tasque’s battle lines in english are binary codes, with “me” being 0 and “ow” being 1. this is similar in jp. “nyan” is the equivalent of “meow” in that language, so “ny”=0 and “an”=1. cute!

the “bosom” joke is about the same, if anyone was curious

“breasts / annihilation”

“b…breast?”

“it means tity”

probably my favorite joke in the entire japanese version: in english, before the berdly fight on the roller coaster, he incorrectly refers to lightners as “Light Nerds” . in japanese this is changed to make him use ateji (a combination of kanji that doesn’t mean anything but sounds like an already existing word with their combined readings), calling the lightners 雷斗奈悪 (raitonaa, phonetically similar to the transliteration raitonā which the translation uses). it has the exact same effect (of berdly trying to sound smart but actually being very incorrect), but it’s localized in an outstanding way

“you are filled with the power of not knowing what sugarplums are” is changed to “you are filled with the power of not knowing what christmas pudding is”.

when berdly incorrectly calls susie “susan”, she says “who’s susan?” instead of “my name isn’t susan”. japanese people likely don’t know that “susie” is usually short for “susan”, so it makes sense for her to be even more confused in this version.

the spelling contest in berdly’s flashback is still an english spelling contest, with berdly specifying that it’s english.

instead of saying “susie… a real dragon blazers reference?!” when susie references dragon blazers 2, berdly says, “susie… you’re… a serious dragon blazers player…?!”

on that topic, dragon blazers is instead called dragon blader in japanese. was it called that the whole time? am i misremembering? i legitimately don’t know

the ice-e keysmash puzzle is changed so that you can type it out in japanese as すふぎおろてにぺけなも. it still does not mean anything.

right after susie referenced godzilla with the susiezilla line on the ferris wheel, she references ANOTHER tokusatsu. i think. here (while about to fall on ralsei) she says “ore, sanjou!!!!” (i arrive!), which is a famous catchphrase from kamen rider den-o. i’m like 85% sure it was an intentional reference. den-o is one of my favorite rider shows so this is amazing to me

and lastly. the name of minecrap is changed to マインクシャット (mainkushatto), which seems to be a play on some word plus “minecraft” like in english. i’m not sure what the wordplay is. i’ll get back to you on this

lore-y important stuff

about dess

in japanese, the december typing puzzle still spells out “december” in english.

noelle refers to dess as “onee-chan” (older sis)— it’s common for japanese people to refer to their older siblings like this, and it would be extremely weird if noelle called her “dess”. she could have called her “dess-neechan” or some variation of that, but i highly doubt that the name “dess” is being obscured, especially because “dess” transliterated would sound extremely close, if not alike to “desu” as well as the transliteration of “death”.

the knight

(i took the screenshot and forgot to turn auto captions off, sorry)

this line from a swatchling says something like “it captures the moment where the ‘knight’ creates a ‘fountain’ themself, with their own hands”, but the word for “themself” (みずから/mizukara) is written in hiragana, and “mizukara” could also technically be read as “from water”. was this a deliberate water-darkness parallel? i have no idea.

speaking of water!

the roaring knight is referred to as “咆哮の騎士” (houkou no kishi), the knight of the roaring. the word for the roaring itself, 咆哮, means roar or scream. which eliminates the alternate meaning of roaring (also being possibly defined as the sound of rushing water), but that probably doesn’t solidify “roaring” as solely meaning that. there are a lot of terms in undertale that had multiple meanings, but had to be changed to have only one in the japanese localization. “roaring” might be similar to those instances.

angel

spamton calls noelle an angel just like in english, referring to her as “angel-chan”. if there’s somehow anyone out there that didn’t think that line was important, i am here to prove you wrong!!!

more interesting:

this is the line where noelle says that if this was a dream, she would grow wings and fly away— but in this version, she says “big angel wings” specifically. very interesting!

the two (2) other notable changes in weird route

the infamous “you whispered noelle’s name…” line is slightly different. slightly.

the “kris called for help” lines still say that kris is the one doing it, but this one does not say the subject at all. this is normal for japanese, regardless, it’s still very interesting that it doesn’t say “you”. it is still differentiated from the “kris” lines, but not specifically referring to you (the player).

the other difference is so minor that i’m not even sure what it is or if it’s different from the english version.

translation

EVEN IF YOU [Shout] AT THE [Receiver]

YOUR [Voice] WILL EVENTUALLY WITHER

YOUR [Voice]

THEIR [Voice]

AND YOU WILL realize you’re alone.

i do not know who “THEY” is that spamton’s referring to. the term he uses is gender-neutral and singular. is he talking about the player? idfk probably not

miscellaneous spamton-related stuff

spamton’s speech patterns are entirely different in the japanese translation, but they get the same message across. they include:

switching between formal and informal language

using weird mixtures of hiragana, katakana, english letters and kanji

using katakana re (レ) instead of hiragana shi (し)

cutting off words

random spacing

and occasionally using “die” and “death” as homophones for “dai” and “desu”

it’s so wacky and unnerving and strange, i love it :D

other spamton lore bits:

mike’s name is the same (マイク maiku). i somehow forgot to translate the mike-related dialogue. i will get back to you all if there’s anything of note.

the word for “garbage noise” is 雑音, with about the same meaning. unsurprisingly, the same word (the exact same phrase, in fact) is used for both the addison’s line and the gaster phone call line.

the last thing (i think)

in the roaring cutscene, the japanese word for “chaos” is said (in the “all will be plunged into chaos” line), but then says the transliterated version of the word (カオス) in parentheses. tsuwahasu noted that it’s “keyword-like” in the playthrough i watched. is this important? i have no idea

i’m sure there are things that i missed here, so (again) if you want to know about something, don’t be afraid to ask!! the jp version of deltarune should be looked at a lot more—not just for the lesser-known lore tidbits, but also for the cool stuff that was changed to fit the language. it’s a really cool localization!

#deltarune #utdr #deltarune chapter 2 #japanese #op #spamton #snowgrave #noelle holiday #kamen rider den-o #(<- i promise there’s a reason for tagging this)#translation

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legofrans · 9 months

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Fire emblem tier list based on my own personal enjoyment of the games. Don't ask what happened to the colors I'd like to know too. Tiers are ordered.

Obviously heavily biased towards my own tastes, but also to the expectations I had going into each game. This is in no way intended to indicate the actual quality of the games.

Short thoughts on my experience on all the games below. It adds up to a pretty long post.

Fates: I originally played it back in late 2016. Dumb as I was, I thought "oh hey if I just play revelation it'll kind of be like I get to experience both routes right?"

Well it turns out revelation sucks ass. I got to the final chapter but Soleil (I had an affinity for lesbians back then. Wondered why that was) got countered with a 3% crit, I ragequit, and I haven't touched any of the games since.

New years resolution is to play conquest. I've heard good things about it's gameplay so if I go in with 0 expectations for the story I think I'll be able to enjoy it.

Dark dragon and the blade of light, as well as Gaiden, have several problems that can be very neatly summarized: they're old. Not much here in terms of story to comment on.

. . . Engage. Let's start with the good: the gameplay is fantastic. One of the best in the series. Most games add some unique spin on the formula to make it their own, and for most it works out well. Engage takes that and goes above and beyond. Smashing weapons (forgot the term) is a fun addition. Engaging is also a really interesting strategic aspect. Skill management is really, really good. (although I wish weapon durability had also been a part of it.)

Problems start coming with the story. It's pretty much a stock standard Fe story. Evil dragon gets resurrected, we gotta stop him. This is considerably less interesting here than with Marth though. Marth was kind of a nobody (crown prince of a minor country but who is keeping track) while Alear is like. The Divine Dragon. Everyone knows them and loves them and is willing to bend over backwards or the nearest countertop for them. It just does not make for an interesting story for me.

There's also the Emblems! As said, fantastic gameplay addition. Story wise they first make no sense. Secondly, if you're going to put some of the most beloved characters from a franchise in a game, you should make sure they represent how they were in the game. Engage kinda falls flat here imo.

Then there's also the artstyle. I dont think Mika Pikazo is a good fit for fire emblem. It works for a few characters, but overall it leaves me wanting something else. Especially for the Emblems, I don't think I like how any of them look except like Roy and Camilla.

For most of the games in the series I can genuinely say that my critique comes from a love of the game. Im not sure I can say that in regards to Engage. It definitely comes from a love for the series as a whole, but I think engage is the only entry in the series which I actually dislike.

Shadow Dragon! Not too much to say here. It's Marth! You girls know Marth right?

The plot and gameplay are both very basic, and not much to write home about. Marth being s bit of an underdog makes him more interesting than Alear. The reclassing is interesting in concept, but I never really got into it.

New mystery of the emblem is kind of just more of the same, but with a larger cast and everything is happening again. It kind of works.

This entry and Shadow Dragon could kind of go either way, but ultimately the Gaiden chapters are enough of an interesting addition to put new mystery ahead.

Three houses was a pretty fun game! But I don't think it's a good fire emblem game. there's a lot I could say about the monastery and the class system, and the skill system and the grinding and the completely uncapped levels! I have a hard time considering it a mainline entry.

In short, around 70% of the game is either grinding or non-FE gameplay and I didn't enjoy that. What's more, I started with CF, and that route is straight up unfinished.

Three hopes isn't here because it's not a mainline entry but unironically enjoyed it more than Three houses.

Binding Blade! Good game. Good FE too. Pretty basic plot, but it's good enough. I'm not at all fond of the "true ending" stuff and also there's the hitrate issues for everything that's not swords. Roy as a protagonists is also one of the weaker ones in the series I think. Sorry man.

If I had played fe6 before 7 & 8 I'd probably have rated it higher. But all the GBA games are good, and everything that's C-tier and aboveis something I'd recommend.

Genealogy of the holy war is a very different fire emblem, but unlike 3H it is still distinctly Fire emblem. I didn't have much in terms of expectations going into this one. It has a lot of quirks, both good and bad.

The typical story formula has a very nice twist on it this time and keeps things interesting. Which is good since the story is one of the biggest draws, since the game offers a bit less in terms of challenge when compared to the other games in the series.

The gameplay quirks are very interesting, such as weapon kills, but because some units are extremely heavily favored in this game, it only ends up mattering for very few units or if you go out of your way to use other, worse units.

Shadows of Valentia is a game I really would've liked to put in high A-tier. It is probably the best remake of a game I've ever played.

But it's too faithful to the original. My problems with Gaiden were not just that the graphics actually hurt my eyes and that the menus were confusing and everything looked kind of weird. The maps. . . . also kind of suck.

There's too much weird terrain with too powerful bonuses. There's also too much open field. Enemy starting locations feel random. Many maps have one chokepoint to get through and that's all the features there is to it.

And then there's the story. One problem with having the script be about 300 times that of the original is that you can fit so much more misogyny in there. And they did.

Thats the negative stuff out of the way let's go to the positive. The class system rules. I'm a big fan of promotion bonuses going to a class base stat instead of adding flat numbers. The magic system with learned spells and HP cost is also really cool.

The weapon system is also great, with being able to promote certain weapons into other things with special features and skills. I like it! It's interesting! Items are kind of whatever though.

Radiant dawn is a mostly fantastic game with two very big problems and one major nitpick. The latter is that there's true ending bullshit again.

The problems are: the new support system. It's boring. Less opportunity for characterisation for everyone that's not a major player in the story.

The later chapters are also just a slog to get through. If you've been in the Fe fandom for a long time you've probably seen memes about RD enemy phases. It is like that.

Good things! The bonus XP system! It's fantastic. Being able to almost pick which stats you want a unit to grow in if you know what you're doing is great! Makes it so practically every unit can be good.

They did kind of screw over Laguz units though. And the Renning bullshit pisses me off so bad.

Blazing blade is a very good game and was many peoples first FE game. I don't have many thoughts on this. If Blazing blade was a dish it'd be bread dipped in olive oil. Simple. Fantastic. You don't need much more.

Awakening was also the introduction to fire emblem for a lot of people. According to some it saved the franchise, according to others it killed it.

Personally I had a lot of fun playing this. It has many well designed chapters, and a simple and fun skill and class system. Though, it has some issues in overleveling and access to grinding. The pair up mechanic is also somewhat of a double edged sword, which I really like. Do you want one stronger unit, or multiple strong ones? It's interesting! . . . . Until you get to A support or unlock dual guard+ at which point there's just one correct choice.

I really liked how silly the writing in awakening got. Very funny script, and a lot of memorable characters.

Mystery of the emblem turns 30 in a few days, and looks surprisingly good for its age. I started playing this a few months before three houses came out, and I had already played all the other games in the series ('cept fates) at that point. I had low expectations considering how bad DD/Gaiden felt to play, but mystery of the emblem feels almost good to play.

I don't miss weapon level being a stat like all the others. But I do miss the starshards (growth modifiers my beloved) and the very funny again staff.

S tier :)

Sacred stones was the first turn based strategy game I ever played and I've been hooked since. No, real chess does not count.

It has a really good tutorial, it's not that difficult of a game, and it has a very simple and easy to follow plot. It's definitely the best game to play if you want to get into fire emblem.

Chapters are well designed, the graphics are charming, and the characters are too.

Again, all the GBA games are very good. There's not too much to say here.

Path of Radiance features several of my favorite characters in the series. Titania, Ike, Soren, Lethe, Jill, "Eat rock" guy, Leanne, and Lucia.

This is probably the best the series ever got in terms of writing. It breaks of from the typical "oh no the evil dragon is being revived" formula and manages to have a plot that feels much more centered on the characters, which I love. The base conversations really help with that.

It's not just the story that's phenomenal the gameplay is also really good. The skill system is a bit limited, but the decisions feel all the more impactful because of it.

The class system has a pretty unique twist in that your units are promoted by leveling past level 20 this time around. The bonus XP system also helps a lot with that, although the Bonus XP system this time is just random stats, unlike in Radiant dawn.

While not the game I enjoyed the most, it's definitely the game I recommend the highest.

Thracia 776 is almost infamous in the fandom. Its known for being one of the hardest, if not the hardest game in the series. It has a lot of peculiarities, like capturing, leadership stars, movement stars, movement growths, magic and resistance being the same stat, stealing equipped weapons, forced dismounting, no Langes indoors, FUCC, Infinite duration statuses etc. . . Theres a lot going on.

But most of it is really good. And more importantly. Almost all of the bullshit goes both ways. Sleeping enemies sleep permanently. Enemies can capture your units, too.(which also has strategic value since it halves their stars) Your units have leadership stars. The fucking thief staff.

It also features one of my favorite mechanics, the crusader scrolls. It's essentially the same thing as the starshards but this time around they also help preventing crits. The modified growths together with thracias extremely low stat caps means effectively every unit can become very strong. Though there's still FUCC, movement stars, and skills to consider. All units are not created equal.

Thracia also has one of my favorite narratives. It is the smallest scale conflict (except Lyn mode) in the series and it makes for a very interesting change of pace. It's not a grand heroic adventure, but just about Leif trying to live to fight another day.

And that is also pretty well reflected in the gameplay. Thracia introduced both Escape and defense maps. It would've been a very different game if it had been all rout and seize maps.

All in all though, the game does at some points feature some actually unfair and unfun things too. Xavier's recruitment. 24x's warp tiles. Ch.4 if you don't know. Going into Thracia completely blind is a decision you'll have to make on your own. I tried doing that and had to hard reset upon hitting chapter 4. Then I opened a guide, and honestly, I don't regret it. But you should play the game if you haven't. It's good.

Also here's a tier list on how good of a game I think every game is, while trying to be impartial.

#fire emblem #long post #fire emblem path of radiance #fire emblem thracia 776 #fire emblem awakening #fire emblem mystery of the emblem #the rest dont need to be tagged i dont think.

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 2 years

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Really doesn't help with my motivation to play Engage either when so many people are saying it's just leagues and leagues better than... my second favorite entry in the series (right under Sacred Stones). And to be clear I've been playing FE since I was a kid, and 3H is still easily top three, even with all of its flaws. The people who try to hype up Engage as better than 3H kinda give it... a pretty high bar to try to leap over for a lot of people? And I get a lot of that is coming from exhaustion from 3H's fandom (mostly edelstans lol) but it still doesn't do the new entry any good imo.

Yeah, I get that. When people put down my favorite entries to boost another entry, it just feels like a jab more than an actual breakdown of the titles. I can see good and bad in both Engage and Houses, but I don't think it's necessary to tear one down for the other. Honestly, there was no way Engage would be similar to Houses' gameplay mechanics because the main mechanic of Engage relies on something closer to the Pair Up system but with Emblems, which is a very limited (turn wise, because you get so many turns with the Emblems at a time versus Awakening's introduced Pair Up) gameplay mechanic.

I've also been playing FE since I was a kid and I definitely agree Houses is one I prefer, and yes, also, story wise. I do understand the story has some issues and it's definitely annoying that you have to go through the hub world system for the first half of the game in every single playthrough if you want your units to perform at their best for the chapter maps, but that's only because the story is broken up between four routes (five if you count CS giving us even more information while still using the general hub world system, just much more limited). I get it, it can be irritating for lore lovers and some people don't want to play the same game four times (or at least not so quickly, and it's hard to avoid spoilers sometimes if you don't hurry through all four routes which can suck). The story itself though, as a connected whole, isn't bad.

Personally I find what Houses lacked in they did try to work on in Hopes with the characters, like how Felix and Sylvain were pretty shallow characters in Houses in some aspects (mainly in the main story. They had great supports sometimes, but their main story lines were often very shallow). Hopes gave them characterizations that felt genuine and real, and it's something I like to keep in mind for my next Houses playthroughs.

All the FE games have flaws in some areas so it's not Houses in particular. Like you said, it's probably fandom exhaustion, but that isn't the same as treating it like the worst entry in the franchise or like it's objectively inferior to Engage. To me, Engage is inferior both in story and gameplay, but I mainly focus on what I enjoyed. I do like the Emblem system, I just wished some of the older characters weren't ooc or that they got a bit more than generic lines for most of their bond conversations.

Engage doesn't really feel like a step up to me, but just another take on modern gaming. A step up would be like FE8 to FE9 (which is a little ironic, since FE9 was actually supposed to be FE8 because it was presumably in development before FE8 (it's called FE8 internally) but got released after SS and thus became the ninth entry). A different platform can do wonders for a franchise's new entries, but these two games don't have that.

And of course, I have no issue with people loving Engage. It's just getting pretty regular that I see (especially on YouTube in particular) people acting like Houses is suddenly a really bad entry, as if it wasn't what the whole fandom was obsessed with for three straight years.

In some way I think it's good that they're bringing FE7 back via the GBA emulator on Switch, because I'm hoping it reminds people that you don't need these complex new mechanics for a game to be that good. You don't need to dunk on the other entries for not having what you liked in it when you can play a game that has good story and characters but has an older way of playing/a not as new way of playing.

I enjoy Engage, but it just starts making me feel bitter when I see people comparing it to Houses and tearing Houses down to do so. It's fine to enjoy both and treat them as separate things even if they're within the same franchise. Every new game is going to "get better" in the sense of modern gaming, but it doesn't make the older ones worse.

#DCB Ask

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harusha · 2 years

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Finished Engage. The story is still awful but it had its good moments (Ex. Zephia and Griss’s final scene). However, the other problem is that they crammed everything interesting into the last 5-6 chapters, so it was a ton of character exposition and “I told you my sad backstory, so I am now off to die immediately” flags. There are 26 chapters, excluding DLC and Paralogues.

Honestly, outside of gameplay maps, Three Houses feels like the better game for me. The Engage maps are fun and there are some good mechanics. I don’t think they’re Conquest level maps but they’re still solid. Really enjoyed Griss’s teleporting map and the final battle thematically (even if I think gameplay wise, it’s bland).

However, the Paralogues are an absolute pain because they’re mostly faithful recreations of the originals, and I do enjoy the nostalgia since I’ve played them all, but if it wasn’t fun in the original, it’s not fun here. Horses and Fliers still dominate even if Backup Infantry is very good. It just becomes painful to travel like say, Camilla’s DLC map or Lyn’s Paralogue unless you have high Movement (which is, again, a problem of faithfully recreating maps) and others like Corrin’s are boring even if there’s a gimmick.

Like thematically it makes sense but gameplay? Eh…

And the skill system itself being locked behind Tempest Trials, SP, and post-game is awful. Unless you are on Normal/Hard for Skirmishes to grind/cheesing SP with Great Sacrifice, you’re getting one really good skill or two okay ones at best. They made Tempest Trials worse than FEH’s too because the maps are tedious and you can’t auto easily

Emblems are broken of course, and you can clear Maddening without inheriting skills, but it just feels horrid that key mechanics are locked behind a grindy mode (Crystals) or to post-game (SP books). Not to mention the problem of Emblems being busted.

Like do not use the DLC Emblems or weapons if you want a decently hard game. Camilla breaks the game and I made Dimitri 2 on a flying horse with Alfred (70-105 dmg per round with Pair Up and Canter + forged Spear and forged Fensalir). And Soren is basically broken because he allows for baiting bosses like Lyn does.

Even the base game Emblems are gamebreaking (Ex. Lyn!Kagetsu who can use clones to chokepoint entire areas with dodgetanking).

They give you a lot of tools, but the most fun is early to mid game imo. And Paralogues themselves are way too backloaded. It was a pain to play them.

And the story itself has a lot of cute callbacks but it’s like…the pacing is bad. Really bad. I enjoyed the cast and my favorites were Zephia and Alfred, but this is worse than Three Houses by a large bit (and you generally don’t expect games to backslide on new installments).

And this is very much personal preference but I prefer Three Houses Skill System because it feels like you can actually build units and not just slap Emblems onto them + you’re forced to use new units each route if you don’t recruit. It just feels more thoughtful at times even with Three Houses’s weaknesses.

While Engage returns to the normal formula of chapter recruits, the problem comes in of “why would I use this character if Emblems can patch up earlier ones that are weaker?” It’s a conundrum that makes it not worthwhile to use new ones unless they’re busted (Ex. Soren!Ivy or Micaiah!Hortensia) or you really like them. It’s not the same as with Nino or the other Ests of the series.

And the Somniel mechanics itself…they made the monastery but somehow worse, and I’m someone who liked the monastery. You get 10-20 glowing spots per visit, Arena is 3 sessions that you have to manually choose + can’t skip intro quotes, Sommie Pet and Feed are unskippable scenes (and I love Sommie), mini games will break your thumb even on Normal for the button mashing one, and so forth. Horrid after the novelty wears off.

Really feels like they saw that people liked certain mechanics and ideas from Three Houses and went “yeah let’s shove it in but make it worse.” Lumera just felt like a worse written and less complex Rhea too…

However, you can really feel the love in the game, and it’s a delight for series veterans like me for callbacks even if the gameplay suffers from bizarre decision making and poor story pacing. And some supports like Alfred/Céline are genuinely good imo.

Game is heavily censored though to the point of contrivance as a note. It’s to the point where they censored all of Alear’s age appropriate relationships with other 17-year-olds and left in the adults only as explicit romance. Or how Veyle’s S Support now makes 75% or so of the game’s story and motivations bizarre and even incoherent/weaker.

NOTE: I don’t care about fictional characters’ rights, but it’s funny because you know they were trying to sanitize the game but somehow made it “worse.”

I think Engage is a solid 6.5/10 or 7/10 for me which is not a bad score.

Ultimately, if you want a good story, pick up Three Houses, Tellius duology, or Genealogy. Awakening for a solid, if vanilla, story.

If you want Gameplay, pick up Engage or like Conquest. Three Houses isn’t bad map-wise, it’s just weaker and the fact you have to play the maps at least 4 times to get the full story.

#fire emblem engage spoilers #fire emblem spoilers

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cyborg-squid · 2 years

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I do like Fire Emblem Engage, but I just keep finding myself increasingly frustrated with it, especially after the successes garnered by Three Houses. TH wasn’t a perfect story, there are many aspects of it that could have used either more refinement or more time in the oven (Three Hopes also filled in some (but not all) of the worldbuilding shortcomings of Houses), but me and so many others loved it regardless, and you could very clearly see where it built upon the positives of previous Fire Emblem games, especially in the use of ‘routes’ first introduced in FE Fates (now without having to buy multiple versions), as well as continuing the support conversation focus from Awakening.

Engage, while having a dozen different minor gameplay improvements that are genuinely cool and I would love to see moving forward, really fails to build on the larger successes of the previous games, aside from maybe their popularity. I understand that not every FE game needs to or should have branching paths, and that the devs are right in saying that players may feel overwhelmed by them, but if your game is going to have only one path....... make it a good one. And Engage fails to do that. I literally groaned when I saw that the 4 kingdoms in the game were just Peaceful Flowerland, Mountainous Warland, Desert Freedomland, and Cold Evilland, with nary a drop of complexity or really anything truly interesting about them. The same goes for the plot being yet another Good Dragon vs Evil Dragon power struggle. At least other modern FEs tended to wait until the third act or so to ramp up the Morality Dragons. i played Tactics Ogre Reborn recently so maybe it’s just spoiled me as to a good story with politics and intrigue

The cast of playable characters (I specify them for reasons I’ll get to later) is where the game and it’s writing does have a chance to come out of it’s shell. I’d previously complained about the lack moral variance in the cast, I do rescind my complaints about that somewhat, because I’m certainly seeing some interesting stuff with Yunaka and Zelkov, as well as the Elusian princesses, even if it’s not as much as I’d like. I’ve still got a lot of supports to dive in to, and while a fair portion of the cast is Just Some Guy, I can say at least half of the playables are Pretty Damn Good.

The Emblems, though, that’s where the cast falls miserably short. As a gameplay mechanic, Emblems and Engages are very interesting and fun to play around with, but really flounder in the narrative department. I don’t know enough about the older Fire Emblem characters/protagonists to fully comment, but it does feel like everyone has had their edges filed down, reduced to mostly “I fight for my friends!!!”. Which I guess makes sense, that is what they did in their own games, but they all just feel so... same, and completely detached from the world they’re summoned in to. Their presence feels like... an early chapter of a gacha game? You know, where they throw out a bunch of fan favorites and recognizable faces in order to establish a connection to previous franchise entries, but they end up having little to no stake in what the plot actually is. These Emblems, these part Fire Emblem protagonists, have already had their stories told, and told well, in their own games, and their addition in Engage, despite the interesting gameplay mechanics, smacks of vapid fanservice.

Design wise, I actually don’t mind the art style or the character designs, it was surprising seeing Alears design at the first reveal, but it grew on me, and I like most of Mika Pizako’s stuff. Defintely a change of pace from previous Fire Emblem but I don’t hate it. What does give me some cause for concern is... well, it’s kind of hard to explain, and maybe I’m just noticing something where there isn’t anything. But does the game look Genshin-y to you? Like, in how the characters are presented in the 3d space? Like I said, I’m largely fine with the designs and the art style, but just something about how everything is 3d rendered now, and how there aren’t any sprites or the like now, feels very off to me, and I really hope the franchise doesn’t continue too far in that direction.

There are also only. 2 Paralogues which introduce new characters, and literally every other one just unlocks the bond cap for the Emblems.

Just... a lot of the game, in some ways, smacks of what’s been happening lately with the Pokemon franchise, Engage’s writing ultimately feels rushed and fails to build on the successes of the previous games, instead feeling like it was pushed out to keep the franchise dollars flowing in.

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #My posts

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wrxxn · 2 years

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Some quick thoughts on Obey me! Nightbringer

warnings* possible spoilers for the base game (chapter 40~ish, definitely chapter 16)

notes* honestly a bit of a ramble on what i'm hoping to see, some predictions or what i guess will be in the game and an odd ramble on chapter 16 due to time travel shenanigans

okay first and foremost HOLY SHIT THE TRAILER WAS SO HYPE. it was so well animated and I absolutely love the new song. I'm honestly really happy that they decided to make a whole new game to deliver what, what most assume, is a massive lore dump. I must say that doing it in the base game would probably be a pretty messy experience since the homescreen is cluttered enough as in and we're still getting new seasons for the main story. i have seen some people be sceptical in terms of just how well this will all play out due to some //interesting// writing decisions in the past but im of the opinion that its better to be expectant for now and critize it later down the line since i do think that solmare are putting in lots of effort in terms of the new game.

what i want to see!! please im begging please i wanna see michael it's not even funny. i do think a lot of the game will have to do with the brothers fall and the events leading up/after to the celestial war + aftermath in dealing with their grief, new lives and loyalty towards diavolo. i bring up the diavolo part especially seeing lucifers expression; i really do think most of his anguish comes from taking on the massive task of helping the brothers grieve and get used to their new lives but also trying to figure out how to deal with diavolo and possible belphie. i so want to see lucifer's gradual process into turning into the avatar of pride and putting up the stuck-up, formal personality that he has current day.

oh god i also just thought of this; finally seeing a design for lilith??? i would really like to see interactions with the whole family :(((( dont even care how it happens, flashbacks? just mentioning her pleaaaaaaase i crave it

i also wanna mention how beel looks absolutely pissed in the trailer? i was curious as to why the brothers all had such different expressions but after some further thoughts, it's probably a response to suddenly being thrusted into the powerful urges their sins carry? like, it was probably absolute hell trying to manage their desires at first. might be a bit of an hc, but i do think that beels grief plays a huge part in his gluttony. his emotions dictate a lot in terms of how 'full' he's feeling, it's often shown when he's around MC and he says he feels full just being around them. i think that a lot of his behavior early on will be absolute rage, but mainly towards himself due to his percieved failure in saving lilth.

gameplay! ive seen some talk about how the gameplay might be similar to the ruri-chan rhythm game beta that was released a little bit ago (i played it btw, it was pretty enjoyable). i do think that this might be a route they're going towards since a lot of the existing songs are getting remixes. what im most curious about is how they'll be weaving in the story parts; maybe it'll be a chapter system like the base game?

MC! is MC going to be in the game?! if the game is going to be a massive lore dump theeeeeen i'm a little iffy on if mc will actually have a role to play. it could be like chapter 16 and being sent back in time but i'll save that for a different point. if it's not, then im curious how it'll be presented to us story wise since it is, again, implied in the visuals of the trailer that barbatos is involved with the door motifs and him putting a finger over his mouth real ominous like. i kinda dont want mc to have too much of a presence personally, but i also cant help but think they get sent back in time in some capacity since the cast all look worried? concerned? something to that effect. i can only assume that the trailer doesn't take place in the past since solomon and the angels are all there. so i think something fucked up again and we'll be sent back in time to try and figure out a solution? possibly something to do with the ring of light?

time travel? again? im so hesitant when considering the possibility of more time travel stuff being introduced. i think it was handled horribly in chapter 16, enough to headcanon my own climax and resolve to the whole belphie situation; that man deserved so much more in terms of a resolve to his character arc. if they're going to send mc back in time imma need solmare to whip up the best logical reason as to why and how its going to work out. id also love it if they at least TALKED about what went down in chapter 16, i still feel like none of what was going on there was resolved. im so desperate for belphie to have a better written reason as to why he got over his trauma and hatred for humans as well. the origins of him being put in the attic would be very nice :)

honestly im almost certain there will be a gacha component to the game. idk if itll be the same card system but they have to make money some way some how; i just hope they dont put the lore behind a paywall and just keep it to gacha stuff with energy to managa how much you can do in a day. if the game itself is paid id be a little surprised honestly. idk, im mainly curious how this component will be done since i dont see them doing events in nightbringer like they do in the base game which has me a little worried how it might be monitized. i'd shill out either way lets be honesty but just something swiming around in my mind.

anyway super exicted for the game, just had to vomit this out since ive been playing the trailer on repeat for far too long and daydreaming scenarios in which we get celestial realm scenes cause i just need more celestial realm content please it takes place after the war i can at least have CRUMBS :,)

also just wanted to mention; someone, i think it was satan, was going fucking hard in the song and just wanted to appreciate the va's work and improvements in singing :,). also that final scene in the trailer? most definitely straight after the fall for sure

ao3 *** about me

#obey me #obey me nightbringer #obey me rambles #obey me one master to rule them all #I WANT TO SEE MICHAEL SO BAD U HAVE NO IDEA #DIAVOLO SCENES WOULD BE REAL POG TOO I WANNA SEE MORE SCENES WITH HIM ACTING LIKE A PROPER PRINCE #obey me! nightbringer #obey me!#obey me! one master to rule them all

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itbelillian · 3 years

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deltarune ch2 spoilers

seriously I'm about to spoil the fuck out of the game and also the Alternative Route For Assholes

ok the 24 hour spoiler ban has passed but still: FINAL SPOILER WARNING.

first: GOD this game is so. GOOD? holy sweet mother of meatball, I have been thinking about it nonstop for the past 2 days. it feels like a shitpost. I love queen dearly. the potassium gag. “what does bosom mean??” “tity.” every single interaction with her and berdly made me PISS myself laughing and especially The Statue. actually this whole game was really, really funny. the part where you and ralsei go on the swan boat, literally on acid, and battle it out with rouxls kaard. who is riding a duck. god where does toby come up with this material?? it is so weird but.... so good. his comedic chops have gotten a LOT better since undertale, and even chapter 1.

the art, music, and mechanics were SPOT ON. the recruitment thing, the implication that at some point you’re going to have to de-recruit someone for the betterment of your town, the town itself, just... good lord. toby has outdone himself. this adds so much complexity to the gameplay that was kind of lacking in undertale? I also love the way that the equipment has been done this time around, it adds an element of strategy to deciding who should get what items and when to equip different items. the team as a whole is so great, mechanics wise. fights with them are INFINITELY more entertaining than fighting alone as kris would be. and the art is WAY better than undertale. I've never been one to criticize Undertale’s graphics, and I still won’t, but it’s impossible to deny that deltarune is a step up in every way. the little animations of kris and susie entering the dark world, susie and lancer’s high-five, the attack/defend animations, just so good. the environments are super aesthetically pleasing, too. the music is great, of course. it’s Toby Fox what am I expecting?? to be honest nothing has really Hit Me the same way any tracks from undertale have, but maybe they will as I listen to them more. a big part of it is the familiarity.

also: I was never too attached to either susie or Ralsei in chapter one, but this really sold it for me. when I played Undertale I felt very invested in the characters, but not so much my friendship with them. it felt very much like we had just met each other. in deltarune I 100000 percent buy the friendship and I ADORE both of them so much? the fact that kris literally does not say anything but still has distinct dynamics with the two of them baffles me but I can’t complain because it is?? so?? amazing??? I was genuinely very upset when ralsei and susie left to do their own thing. I didn’t realize it as it was happening but I really loved having them around. I missed them. also it seems like EVERYONE except me was suspicious of ralsei, but now that it’s been pointed out... yeah. I love him to BITS so it pains me to say but something is Wrong With Him. why can he travel from dark world to dark world without turning into a statue? what are the titans, and why is he only mentioning them now? and actually, ALL of our information about the dark world is coming from him. how much is true? what else does he know that he’s not telling us?

and what. WHAT. is up with kris? I don’t even have any theories I am just baffled. it seems like they’re the knight, right? have they been creating... all of the dark worlds, including the first one in the storage closet? does this make kris the villain? or is the creation of dark worlds a good thing... meaning ralsei is manipulating us into thinking the dark fountains are evil? Why would they slash Toriel’s tires? why are we possessing them? also I LOVE the puppet theme with the hidden bosses... and it really seems like something about that is not sitting right with kris, either. kris full on shouting that they’re not okay to ralsei after he asks... good god I am SO CURIOUS. the mystery element here is really on point. it’s so easy to settle into the comedy and fun little group dynamic, but something is always Wrong and when something reminds you it is deeply unsettling. the only group member who doesn’t seem to have something freaky and suspicious going on is susie... if she turns out to be evil too i stg im ejecting myself from the stratosphere

also speaking of mysteries: not knowing how Undertale and deltarune connect is KILLING me. I fully buy into the theory that sans and papyrus are “from” the world of deltarune, originally. if the theory is true, then word search from icee’s pizzeria you find in UT is actually SO? brilliant. SANS GAVE YOU A WORD SEARCH FROM A RESTAURANT THAT ONLY EXISTS IN DELTARUNE. was toby thinking about this all the way back when Undertale was released??? but is deltarune an alternate... timeline? does undertale exist at ALL, if the sans and papyrus thing doesn’t turn out to be true? but if that were the case, why would sans’ grocery store be the same building as grillby’s, logo and all? does sans owning the grillby’s building indicate that sans went to the undertale world to take it?? what is going ON???

and just going to say it: snowgrave route in deltarune (is that what we’re calling it???) is a MILLION times freakier than the genocide route in Undertale. like ut is depressing, it was Unfun to kill my friends, but the way you just... slowly corrupt pure, innocent Noelle and make her do your incredibly screwed up bidding is just disturbing. the way you just say “Proceed” at all the puzzles and like, gaslight her into thinking she didn’t TOTALLY MURK berdly and that ring seller guy... god it’s so messed up but also SO???? amazing??? murdering video game characters makes you feel like you’re... well, playing a video game. but forcing Noelle to do it for you??? something about that feels so much more twisted. god I feel like a sadistic bastard.

deltarune is not undertale but it’s not trying to be. it definitely feels distinctly different, and maybe more sinister? expectations are through the roof for toby but he’s killing it. I remember being worried when deltarune ch1 was announced, because undertale doesn’t feel like the kind of game that can, or should, be followed up by anything. I think I was wrong though. I don’t know how its possible, but deltarune is the perfect thematic successor to undertale in every way I can think of. tl;dr PLAY DELTARUNE it was good

#deltarune chapter 2 #deltarune #deltarune spoilers #deltarune ch 2 spoilers #deltarune ch 2 #undertale

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emblemxeno · 3 years

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Honest opinion here, I like Birthright and Conquest more than Revelations because those two games are written as true Greek/Shakespearean tragedies and feel more coherent. Corrin has some great fatal flaws, their determination to see their choices through to end mixed with their optimism and naivety, that are really only true virtues on one route cause they're able to avoid the tragic pitfalls.

B & C's purpose isn't to give you a happy ending just bittersweet at most with a sense of dread that there's something missing. Like you know that B & C aren't going to have happy endings for a lot of characters going in to it and you're supposed to just be ready to see how it all goes very wrong.

Revelations is more like a Heroic tale that really does work best after experiencing the tragedies on the other two routes, which I noticed on subsequent playthroughs of just that route alone without being fresh out of B or C. Unfortunately, I do think Revelations falls flat for a few reasons which is the, imo, tacked on deaths that take away from it's Golden Heroic ending and trying to do too much and not enough at the same time (the Anankos and Lilith reveal locked in the DLC is awful for how much I love the game). If they wanted to keep tragic elements they should've leaned into Anankos' tragedy and how it affected everyone else (especially the Nohrians cause seriously they've been caused years of trauma from living under Puppet Garon's rule and it's not ever really addressed but the Hoshidan royals get two chapters dealing with Sumeragi and Mikoto's ghosts ok ig). I still really love Fates overall, but damn I personally think they fumbled on Revelations.

I agree with this, actually. Rev is probably my least favorite of the routes, not really for the story itself, but for things that I think weren't necessary. The deaths (and thus not being able to have all characters) are one of those things, and do feel sort of cheap when you get down to it. Izana's was just blegh, and poor Scarlet got reduced to a plot device when she died. The Nohr sibs not getting any resolution with Garon (or maybe even some of their mothers) really sucks as well. Thematically and character development wise I think it's great, but the nitty-gritty details of many things needed some real fine tuning. That and better gameplay balancing.

And I will always say this, but making people pay extra for critical story information is really scummy. It's fortunate that we at least get items and stuff from Hidden Truths and Heirs of Fate, since if it was just story I imagine people would be even more pissed. Kind of another reason I want a Fates remaster, since I'd like those things to not have to be DLC but extras that come with the game as it is.

I really appreciate making the Greek/Shakespearean tragedy comparisons, since I like stories of both. I need to read more Greek tragedy tbh.

#queue #fire emblem #fire emblem fates #hoshido #nohr

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dreamsmp-au-ideas · 4 years

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Fire emblem AU

The third and final house is The Red Ravens House, where those from The Badlands Kingdom reside! (Also the route with the best exclusive boss music we get freaking dubstep in our medical fantasy game. Three house’s ost is so good oh my gosh)

The Badlands was the first to break away from the SMP, albeit in a more peaceful manner. Badland’s territory connects to the foreign nation of Errata and the two nations have had many clashes at their border. However, something odd is happening in Badlands. Mysterious red vines have started covering small villages and wiping out crops. It’s being kept secret by the king so that Badlands doesn’t appear weak. The Kingdom only has so much land however and the problem can’t be ignored forever. The Raven is chosen because of its cunning and willingness to do whatever is needed to survive. This years Red Ravens consist of the following

Bad-Bad is the prince of The Badlands and set to be its next king. Bad’s father is a decent king but his main flaw is his refusal to work with Errata due to them being enemies for a very very long time. Bad hopes that when he becomes king he can end the fighting between Badlands and Errata. He knows that their Kingdom needs help because of the new vines problem. Bad is seen by his father and royal court as too much of a softie and they hope he will toughen up at the monastery. Bad is one of the nicest people at the monastery and he is considered a bit of an oddball, such as his dislike of any swearing. Despite this, Bad is not to be underestimated. While he’d rather have a peaceful outcome to problems, he’s still willing to fight to protect his kingdom. Bad has strengths in bows, riding and flying. He has a weakness in axes. Bad has one crest

Skeppy- Skeppy is Bads retainer and best friend. However, it didn’t start out that way. Skeppy was an orphan commoner who was forced to do crime to survive. He would go from village to village and steal from the richest people there. One day, Skeppy was hired to steal a rare book from the royal families castle. While he really didn’t want to, winter was coming and he needed the money to survive. Long story short he gets caught by the king who is about to kick him out. That is, until Bad happens to spot him and asks his father if Skeppy can stick around because he looks hungry and needs a friend. Skeppy works as a servant in the castle for years and he becomes the best friend of Bad. It helps that Skeppy now has a place to stay and three whole meals everyday. Eventually, Bad asks if Skeppy is willing to train to be his retainer and Skeppy says yes. Despite Skeppy messing with Bad a lot, they’re still best friends and Skeppy does feel he owes him a lot. As a result of this, Skeppy is very loyal to Bad and doesn’t like hearing what all the adults are saying about him. He hopes that when Bad becomes king he won’t change too much. Skeppy is the biggest prankster and has a love of making puzzles. Skeppy has strengths in bows and swords. He has a weakness in heavy armor. He has no crest

Sam- Sam is a minor noble whose family is famous for scientific discoveries. It was his grandfather who invented a device that determined what crests people had. Before, people had to be put in dangerous combat for the crest to activate. Sam studies magic so that he can invent new spells to make lives better. He was raised by his grandfather and feels he has big shoes to fill. Sam is considered a dad friend among his classmates and is good friends with Puffy. He’s that guy who won’t directly give you the answers to homework but will help you with it. Collects texts that the church has deemed inappropriate. Sam has strengths in reason(lighting) and riding. He has a weakness in faith. He has one crest

Ant-Ant is a minor noble who lived in a small village close to the border. A couple of months ago, his village was one of the first to be overtaken by the vines. Many of the people of his village mysteriously disappeared after they claimed that the vine were to be worshipped. Ant is at the monastery so that he can hopefully find a cure for the vines. He worries that he has been infected and doesn’t know it yet. Ant is a more distant type and appears to have dislike for Bad. This is due to bitterness at Bad’s father for not wanting to confront the problem and being more focused on fighting Errata. He also thinks Bad is just pretending to be nice at first. Ant does eventually warm up to Bad, but he’s still the most likely to challenge him if he feels he is making a bad decision. Ant has strengths in bows,riding,and faith. He has a weakness in flying. Ant has one crest

Punz- Punz is a part of a mercenary group. His goal is to be the next leader of the group. Leaders are chosen by beating the current leader in a sparring match. Punz is at the Monastery so that he can get the best training possible. Punz is well known for being the one who trains a lot. He’s also known for being willing to do almost anything for some cash. He’s the guy you go to if you want to buy a homework assignment. While some of his classmates fear he would sell them out for the right amount of money, his true friends know that...well, if you’re a friend he won’t sell you out but otherwise ehhh. Basically, Punz was raised by his mercenary family to not trust easily. Once someone proves they are trustworthy, make sure to repay that trust tenfold. That’s the mercenary way. Punz has a strength in swords and heavy armor. Weakness in bows. He has no crest

Purpled- Purpled belongs to a family of merchants. Him and Punz actually knew each other before going to the monastery because their two families work together when traveling to protect each other. Purpled’s family is also unique in another way. Their family lived in the foreign nation of Loxbor and have only recently come to Carmine. This is because Carmine is considered to have more variety in resources. Purpled is smart and very business savvy. He’s at the monastery mostly to make new connections, hopefully with nobles. While he was a bit annoying with the nobles in his class at first, he eventually learned that the best way to get allies is to just treat them like normal people. Purpled does look up to Punz and Punz in turn teaches him some of his sword techniques. Purpled also sometimes get his family’s products in the mail and will advertise it to the students. Purpled is a nice and smart guy even if he can act a bit callously. Purpled has strengths in reason and axes. He has a weakness in faith. He has no crest

If Karl teaches The Red Ravens, the main plot is les s focused on winning the war and more focused on taking care of the the whole egg situation. Probably more lighthearted than the other routes.

There are 21 chapters in this route. In the 18th chapter there’s a decoy egg that is set. What the group thinks is that a certain spell needs to be performed by two people, one of whom has to have whatever Bad’s crest is called. So, that chapters mission is getting Bad and one other Red Raven(besides Karl but other than him whoever you send over there) to the decoy egg and doing the spell. Then, it is revealed that it is a trap! The spell actually causes Bad and the other person become overtaken by the egg.

19th chapter is when the person decided by you is saved by destroying an egg that is near them. That person vaguely remembers where Bad went and so the army goes after him.

20th chapter is rescuing Bad, which basically means you have to defeat him and the egg that is with him (which would be a pain gameplay wise probably). So, Bad is knocked out and when he wakes up he knows where the main egg is located.

The 21st chapter actually starts when the Red Ravens have broken into the main egg and have to fight whatever is inside it and ready to hatch out. Honestly, I think it would be really cool gameplay wise to have the final battle set in the egg. You can do a lot with that visually.

Also in that chapter where TWSITD send javelins of light (nukes) on Fort Mercues, it’s instead this huge seed that comes down on the fort and completely covers it in red vines in like a minute or two.

After seeing this Bad gives everyone permission to say one swear word right then and there.

There’s also a point where Bad helps Errata with the egg and they in turn send soldiers and supplies. So, yay peace!

So yeah that’s all houses done! Now, what’s next I wonder?

Holy hell. Okay. That’s great. That’s honestly great.

This is the arc I would be playing the most if it were a game and that’s solely because of the characters and everything.

Love all the little things in here too!

As for what’s next, well, assuming that it isn’t a rhetorical question, then uh...I don’t know why and it’s highly impossible but now I’m just thinking of trying to find a way where I can get everyone to be happy.

Fuck. I love all of them too much and now I’m attached to them all.

#dream smp #dream smp au #smp three houses au #badboyhalo #skeppy #awesamdude #antfrost #punz #purpled #karl jacobs #ask #tack-tick #long post

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gascon-en-exil · 4 years

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I suppose you can call me "villain Dimitri anon" now, but I actively dislike Azure Moon for the narrative perks that you and other fans insist it has, but I can't see. What back and forth does Dimitri have with his retainers that aren't confined to supports? There's just Gilbert, Rodrigue, and Byleth ignoring the one-eyed elephant in the room.(1/2)

What support network does Dimitri have? A bunch of badly abused subjects at the end of their rope who don't have the guts to abandon him or give him a wake up call. Dimitri's redemption in the rain makes zero sense as the scene progresses, and outside of some lip service in a support, he's so cured of any trauma that not even getting the truth about Duscur fazes him. What's worse, this redemption is the main idea of the route. (2/3 now)

The back and forth is in reference to how the army in AM feels directionless and disagrees on whether they should liberate the Kingdom or rescue Rhea first. This gets references both in story cutscenes and in the exploration of dialogue of numerous characters, heavily reinforced by many of these same characters remarking on how off-putting Dimitri’s behavior is. This stands in contrast to CF never questioning Edelgard’s actions even as they’re far more systemically terrible with the work of Hubert and the Agarthans behind the scenes; even VW offers a number of scenes and exploration content of characters questioning and critiquing Claude’s actions. Felix’s mini-arc outside his support line with Dimitri is the clearest example, because he’s the loudest voice of opposition and because if you trigger their supports some of the dialogue changes to reflect that, while Rodrigue plays a predictable but workable role as the doomed mentor figure whose death forces Dimitri to confront how his obsession with revenge is hurting the people he loves. This is all unfortunately somewhat undermined by Byleth’s presence and the need for self-insert romance, with them supplanting Dimitri’s established support network and worst of all leading to Dedue being killed off by default and then never re-integrated properly into the story lest his intimacy with Dimitri pose an obstacle to the expected lord/Avatar romance (that can’t even be pushed in the same way that Edeleth can in all routes, incidentally, because Dimitri can’t S rank m!Byleth). This is a genuine problem in AM, but curiously it’s one that I see brought up almost exclusively by fans of Dimitri and his route rather than those who hate AM and/or rail against Dimidue as an allegedly racist pairing.

None of the other Blue Lions gets a single meaningful word in in the main story cutscenes. You can get some character development for Ingrid, Sylvain, and Felix in monastery dialogue and DImitri's supports and that's it. Not to mention, gameplay-wise, dealing with Dimitri is just no fun, and there's no choice to get fed up and leave. With all of Crimson Flower's problems, at least you had to actively choose to go on that route. (3/4 now)

I wouldn’t say that’s all that different from how the other routes handle their chorus of minor characters, especially CF which again minimizes any sort of friction the Eagles might have with Edelgard even when she’s outright lying to them. There’s a reason that SS is sometimes cited as a better characterization showcase for the Eagles other than Edelgard and Hubert, particularly for Ferdinand who actually gets to be the contrarian #3 on that route. Gameplay is more subjective, although I’d rank being unable to instruct Dimitri or have him engage in monastery activities for four calendar months is more than offset by CF being exactly that many months shorter than AM or VW. Also, in terms of building characters Gilbert is far, far less of a pain in the ass than Jeritza, and I say that as someone who’s painstakingly gotten every character in the game to all ranks at S+ and all classes mastered over many NG+ runs. Having to pick CF is also an inconvenience that screws with the flow of Chapter 11 since you need to waste a battle weekend going to Edelgard’s coronation lest you miss out on instruction weeks or later weekends doing it at the start of the month. It’s kind of a moot point to argue about this anyway as the Deer have it the best when it comes to unit development, with neither of these restrictions as well as the longest route and no Part 2 exclusive to worry over.

Crimson Flower had a "big picture" war story, Verdant Wind had good character balance and exposed the truth about the player character. Azure Moon was just all DImitri. Not to mention, my own political philosophy and real-world history interests make me biased against Dimiri and his stance. (And no, I'm no fan of dictators, just not of a fan of Fearghus-style feudalism) (4/5)

I do like redemption stories. But I've seen them done better elsewhere. Dimitri's character is interesting, but his route isn't. All routes on Three Houses have problems that I nitpick about, but as thing stand, I can support Claude and Edelgard in achieving their ideals, i cannot in good conscience support Dimitri as king. Nurse him back to sanity, maybe, but put him in charge of other people's lives? No. (end)

Eh, SS is the route you’re looking for if you want the full story of Byleth’s origins and their connection to Rhea; VW’s endgame exposition dump is more about the true origin of Crests and Relics and general worldbuilding which is why I’d call it the big picture route over CF which kicks one of its major antagonists to an offscreen postgame. I also question why you single out the quasi-feudalism of Faerghus when that’s the established standard for all of FE and for most of the fantasy genre overall. Fire Emblem is notoriously reactionary when it comes to its politics, such that Dimitri’s solo ending suggesting the beginning of a participatory government might be the single most concrete move toward democracy of any lord in the series. Even as tiny a step as that is it’s more than can be said for Edelgard not delivering on her rhetoric of abolishing the nobility and...whatever she plans for the church (since she vacillates on whether she’s fine with the Seiros faith but only takes issue with the church or whether she thinks humanity has no need for gods, and the only CF ending that re-establishes the church has it run by the state which is some prime dystopian stuff). Claude similarly suffers in that his plans remain ongoing at the end of VW and lack any concrete shape beyond opening the borders and forcing people of different nations and cultures to interact and get along - a well-intended idea, but not one that will lead to serious change without a lot of work and oversight.

Dimitri lacks such grandiose ambitions, and once he’s moved beyond his need for revenge his goals center around alleviating the suffering of the Kingdom and of his loved ones, but on a meta level that’s kind of all he needs to do. One of the reasons that AM’s story structure is more coherent and well-paced than that of the other routes is that it’s extremely well-trod ground for IS: “blue lord takes back invaded homeland from red emperor with the Power of Friendship” is the standard FE plot going back all the way to Marth, and Dimitri’s biggest deviation from that model is the somewhat realistic depiction of his struggles with mental illness. That’s probably why many longtime veterans of the series favor AM, because we know it’s the type of narrative IS excels at and we’re not expecting anything more politically revolutionary. Hell, the proto-democratic ending was as unexpected to me as Dimitri’s strong queer notes...which is why I prefer him over the other two incidentally, not because of his politics which are just fantasy boilerplate of a good king being restored to his throne, and there was much rejoicing, etc. There are gender-based readings of AM that I and others have made, not to mention people who enjoy the homoromantic push and pull of Dedue and Felix on Dimitri and how those relationships develop against one another, and I think it’s telling that those unconventional analyses of Three Houses’s most typical lord and most typical route are still more plausible than all the additional motivation and setup you’d have to throw in to make Dimitri a proper villain, or even just an antagonist for the length of more than one chapter.

#Fire Emblem #FE16 #Fire Emblem Three Houses #Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd #Azure Moon

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gamer2002 · 3 years

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Danganronpa - Review2002

Danganronpa is a mystery VN, where 15 high schoolers are trapped in a murder school, and in order to get out one has to kill another and frame somebody else for it. Observed and manipulated by the headmaster of the school, a sadistic robot-bear called Monokuma, our main character, Makoto, has to survive and not lose his hope. Because there is a lot of despair. And hope. Despair. Hope. Despair. Light. Darkness. Kingdom Hearts.

But we’ll talk about that later.

Despite all the murder thingy, the game is just an edgy shonen and is very animu. It’s not a bad thing, because it’s entertaining, and that’s what matters the most. Characters are mostly simplistic, often stereotypical, but are distinguish and memorable (aside from meh protag). What is good about the cast is how the group dynamics changes with each case. Thanks to that, the characters seem more alive, and the surrounding drama seems more impactful. And sometimes the drama is really good, though it’s dragged down by the meme writing. But about that later.

The trials, where we try to figure out the killer’s identities, are good gameplay-wise. Aside from the rhythm minigame. I get the creators wanted to demonstrate losing arguments by lack of confidence, but, until half of the game, that minigame had nothing to do with logic or deduction. Every other minigame was good or ok, though.

Comparing to Ace Attorney, the trials were more dynamic, with constant new arguments and questions. It helps that the equivalent of AA’s testimonies is briefer (as it’s on a time limit). Not to mention, the filled with moving camera direction really made non-animated and non-moving characters feel alive. The music was ok – it serves its purpose, but it isn’t memorable.

The gameplay between trials was ok. Investigations didn’t drag too long. The free time did sometimes, but that’s because I was collecting more coins than it was necessary. The coins are spent for presents, which we can give to other characters, in return for learning more about them and gaining upgrades for the trials. But, to be frank, some upgrades were “turn off the setting we put to make the gameplay purposefully shittier”.

It’s an entertaining game with some good ideas, which earns 7/10 in my book. But there are reasons why this game doesn’t earn any higher, which I’m going to elaborate on. The subject is Kingdom Hearts Meme Writing, Monokuma being a letdown villain, the big revelation being a lot of nothing, and how the writers could’ve made the Hope vs Despair nonsense actually work. The last two are impossible to write about without spoilers, but I can explain the first two without them.

Despair. Despair. Despair. Despair. Do you get it? I hope.

I know this is a shonen, regardless how edgy it is, and the writers were pretty self-aware of this. But the despair/hope meme drags down the writing. Monokuma goes on and on about how he will turn all the hope into despair, and this is just as ridiculous as a talking cartoon bear that kills a man by literally blasting him into space can be. It’s a meme writing. A ham-fisted, forced meme writing.

Other examples of meme writing is Kingdom Hearts, with its light and darkness, or Ace Attorney, with its truth. We all roll our eyes over that. Characters are bringing up some concept in a melodramatic way, repeatably, with a ridiculous zeal that doesn’t just seem alien, but straight out autistic. But it’s okay, all those titles, including Ronpa, are still shonens. Kingdom Hearts is a battle shonen where you fight against forces of evil alongside Donald Duck. You can turn your brain off and enjoy yourself, no biggie. But turning your brain off is a bit harder in, you know, a murder mystery.

Yeah, Ace Attorney is murder mystery as well, and yet I give it a pass. That’s because “truth” is just an ideal of idealistic characters. Phoenix, Edgeworth, and the rest, are melodramatically motivating themselves by simplistically expressing their ideal. And melodrama is part of a wrestling, and logic wrestling is what Ace Attorney boils down to. So, why this isn’t the same in this logic wrestling game?

The problem with hope/despair is that those are not just some concepts or ideals, but those are emotions. Emotions that the writing does attempt to make you feel, sometimes pretty successfully. Case 4 is an example of a beautifully set up tragedy, it’s the game’s emotional peak. The reveal is shocking and sad, and the dramatic confession is filled with genuine emotion. And then the confession has the word “despair” in it, and my brain is immediately going back to Monokuma and his antics. Good thing that the official translation team has realized that they would have killed the mood sooner, if they had included that word in an earlier appearing evidence. Same thing happens whenever the word “hope” appears – it just makes us recall the memes.

In my AI: Somnium Files I’ve explained to you the need of being explicit about what is supposed to make the player feel emotions. But you can’t be ham-fisted about what the player is supposed to feel. Turning hope and despair into KH’s equivalent of light and darkness is turning them into a material for jokes. It is a repeatable telling us what to feel, and that simply can’t work. If the game didn’t do that, a lot of good moments wouldn’t be dragged down by being a reference to something we joke about.

Monokuma is just the biggest kid tier villain

There are spoiler reasons why Monokuma fails at being a villain, but I’ll mention them in spoiler section about improving the whole hope vs despair conflict. But the basic problem with Monokuma is spoiler-free, because it all boils down to the game’s initial setup.

Generally, Monokuma is a recurring type of villain that mixes nihilism, cartoonish silliness and cruel sadism into one, disturbing package. Other examples of such villains is the Joker, or Killer the Butcher from Zambot 3. When you look at Monokuma alone, he is (aside from spoiler reasons) a good example of such a villain. He is over the top, entertaining, scheming, memorable, gets all the attention in every scene he is in, and is constantly disturbing. All his bases are covered, so all is good, right? But only when you look at Monokuma alone.

Character in a story isn’t just some element you can look at alone, it’s an element you see among all the others. Great villain needs a great hero. Great hero needs a great villain. If one is unimpressive, the other can’t impress us with their triumphs.

The reason why the Joker is a great villain is because he is a challenge for the goddamn Batman, creating a clash of an unstoppable force against an unmovable object. Killer the Butcher’s enemies are kids piloting alien giant robot with superior firepower. What makes the Bucher a good villain is that, regardless of his lost battles, he still succeeds at causing significant collateral damage, which constantly contributes to his stated goal of slowly killing all humans. And Butcher doesn’t just rely on his show reaching logical conclusions about consequences of battles between giant robots, the entire arc before heroes directly attacking his HQ is about him using a weapon they can’t fight with a giant robot – kidnapped people turned into living human bombs. The amount of sacrifices, losses and traumas that kids from a 70s (!) super robot show have to go through is why Killer the Butcher is an impressive villain you love to hate.

But Monokuma isn’t an unstoppable force going against an unmovable object. Neither he is battling heroes that are capable of beating him in a direct confrontation, forcing him to rely on different forms of accomplishing his goals. He targets fifteen uninformed kids, with like three giving him a reason to worry, and puts them in a situation where they can’t initially defy him at all. It’s not a spoiler to say that the kids initially can’t find any clues that would’ve allowed them to free themselves from Monokuma. Their exploration of the school is limited, and next areas are unlocked only after class trials. Meaning, Monokuma limits kids’ ability to gather information required to beat him, until the next killing occurs. If the kids don’t kill anybody, they can only hope to (hah) apathetically accept their imprisonment by Monokuma.

To sum it up, all that Monokuma accomplishes is making some confused kids kill one another, when they are in a situation where it’s their only option to free themselves. Wow, what an impressive villain, doing whatever he wants with helpless children and driving them to murder.

It doesn’t help that the actual conclusion of the conflict with Monokuma is underwhelming, and all his actions only make us respect him less as a villain. But more about that later, in the spoiler section. But not immediately, because first we need to focus on the game’s disappointing big revelation.

Who cares that the world is over?

All attempts to escape the murder school were pointless – the world has already ended! Play the laugh track.

To give the writers credit, Genocide Jill’s explanation of that was funny and played out as a dark joke. And that’s the only way this revelation could be played out.

When it comes for the twist being a twist, it’s okeyish. The twist itself isn’t hard to guess, by the end of the first trial, and it’s almost given away by the third one. On the other side, there are photos of kids that died in previous chapters, and you could wonder if they aren’t going to reveal that everybody lives and this all was a simulation, or something. It can be easily guessed, but there is room for speculation, and you may not know which route the writers will go. Even if those routes are “predictable” and “a disappointing backpedal”.

But even if you end up being surprised… it’s an emotional bunch of nothing. Makoto gets his answer to what could’ve happened to his family, and he still doesn’t even realize it. That’s how the writing poorly handled one way it could’ve made us care about end of the world – through Makoto’s reaction to it.

Makoto is such an uninteresting, purposefully average, and ultimately unimpressive main character. We know he has family, parents, and a younger sister, but one picture of them is all we got. We don’t know the dynamics of their relationship, and we don’t know why Makoto loves them. Just saying “they are his family” isn’t enough. When Superman and his family are written well, we know why Clark Kent cares deeply about them – Ma Kent is such a great mother, Pa Kent is such a great father, and each scene with them demonstrates it.

Through the game, Makoto could’ve flashbacks to his family, as an ongoing C plot. That way we would’ve been shown why Makoto cares about them, why he wants to make sure they are safe, why he could feel tempted about escaping via murder (leading to him rejecting that idea because his family wouldn’t want it that way). And then boom – yes, the world has ended, and they are probably dead.

But Makoto never ever connects the state of the world to the state of his family. And that’s a big mistake, because that was a way to spice up the ultimate clash between Hope and Despair.

How to argue that Despair can be better than Hope

Before I focus on the topic, let me first expand on the topic of Monokuma being a disappointing villain, by telling you why Junko is a disappointing villain.

Junko just pulls everything out of her ass. Ok, she happens to have a super soldier sister, who was capable of killing Academy’s entire adult staff, letting her to take over the school. This part is acceptable by shonen standards. It was the Acadamy that was responsible for sealing the building and setting its defense, ok. But then everything else is an unexplained bullshit. Endless Monokumas? She has them because the writer says so. Ability to take away memories? She has them because the writer says so. Hijacking all TV channels? Performing ridiculously complex executions? Securing supplies to the Academy in a post-apo setting? She can because the writers says so.

She simply isn’t a formidable villain. She is nothing more than a bored girl, that could’ve been successful as a normal person, but the entire universe decided to grant her everything to let her play a supervillain. She doesn’t accomplish any impressive feat by herself. Even taking over of the Academy was solely thanks to her sister. With her granted unfair total advantage over the cast, there was no other way for her to lose than keeping screwing herself. She can’t even gain respect as a formidable opponent from sticking to her rules, because she not only purposefully handicaps the most competent person in the cast, but also keeps breaking her own rules.

The second aspect of a good villain is understandability. And Junko is a stupid incomprehensible mess. She always feels despair, and that somehow makes her constantly bored. But she wants to prove that’s better than hope. For some reason, she is a sadist. She is also happy about facing ultimate despair in form of her own death, but she didn’t yearn to that enough to off herself before all her plans. Nothing adds up, and she just does whatever crazy shit the writers needs her to do at the current moment. This is the aspect where she just sucks as a Joker-type villain. Such villains, when done well, aren’t just twisted, wrong, crazy edgemasters. When done well, they are also, despite everything, still somehow understandable. That’s what makes them actually shocking. It isn’t just shocking that they do horrible things, it is shocking that they can argue that everything they do serves a purpose and is consistent with a coherent belief.

Joker (when written well) and Killer the Butcher do have nihilistic philosophy that is wrong and twisted, but does have some shocking points. Joker believes that normal life is pointless, because one bad day can drive you mad, so it’s better to embrace awfulness of the world as your entertainment. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to commit macabre crimes. Killer the Butcher believes that humans are ungrateful bastards and will even treat their saviors like crap. And this philosophy is consistent with him wanting to kill all humans. Even if you don’t agree with their believes (I hope), you understand why somebody with such believes would be doing what they are doing. This understandability is what elevates banal conflict against a bad guy that does a bad thing that has to be stopped, into a conflict against a personified idea. Batman doesn’t just fight the Joker, he fights a nihilistic view of a pointless mad world. Zambot 3 kids don’t just fight Killer the Butcher, they fight view of humans as unworthy of living and being saved. That is why those conflicts aren’t banal.

Meanwhile, Junko makes a big promise for a Hope vs Despair conflict, arguing that the latter is better than former, but...

What is “despair” anyway? Is it to give up from stuff like escaping the school, and accepting whatever you end up having, however shitty it is? But what does it have with Junko’s boredom and embracing her own death? What is the point of the over-the-top executions? Junko is gleefully sadistic, what about despair makes you sadistic? Did she want the cast and her viewers to embrace sadism as well? How’s that better than hope? It’s incomprehensible, and fails to make any point. The blame lies pretty much on the out-of-place sadism that exists just to make Junko an edgelady.

Danganronpa is a murder mystery. And despite being an over-the-top shonen, it does focus, decently, on motives for committing murders. Every single killer in this game is understandable. Their actions were wrong, but you understand why they did everything they did. There is just a sole exception to this rule – the games’ main villain.

During the final confrontation, Junko was arguing that futile hopes of previous murderers drove them to committing murder. That alone does make a good point. Then she offered everyone safe peaceful life, if they acknowledged her belief and abandoned all hope. Ok, that’s a good dilemma. Surprising that with such a good prepared dilemma Junko bothered to handicap and eliminate Kyoko, when she could just guide the cast towards Junko and this dilemma faster. Still, Junko does make a point about despair being better than hope, and does make the cast face a dilemma, in a way that is consistent with her belief. But then she adds she wants to punish someone for lulz, and that person has to be our bland player character.

And how killing Makoto proves that despair is better than hope? It was a yet another act of Junko’s pointless sadism, which only made it more difficult for other characters to agree with her. Anyway, Junko is ultimately unimpressive, because she loses to Makoto just saying “let’s have some hope, guys”. All that buildup of understandable motives of past killers lead to a rather banal final conflict with a completely banal resolution.

Things would be different, if Junko didn’t forget about Makoto’s family and did bring them up during the final argument. I still think that trying to kill Makoto was counterproductive, but I understand the need of putting MC’s life at stake. But Junko could single out Makoto for execution because he was pushing for the idea of everyone leaving the school, despite the revelation about state of the world, and she could accuse him for selfishly risking lives of others, just for a hope of reunion with his own family. Imagine that being the payoff of flashbacks to Makoto’s family and his wish to reunite with them. Sure, here, Makoto has proved he wouldn’t directly murder anybody over it, but would he willingly disregard safety of others? He can’t really refute that, without giving up on leaving the school.

And that’s how Junko could undermine Makoto and make her point. Living trapped in the school and abandoning all hope for the outside world was bad, but it could be worse. At least it was safe, peaceful, and they had food plus entertainment. Looking for anything better outside was risky. Hoping for anything better was risky. Hope was bad. The state of despair, where you no longer hope for anything better than what you have, was good. Unable to accept this Makoto was spreading ideas that were dangerous for the well-being of others. How Makoto, willing to selfishly drag everyone else into a dangerous hell-word and risk their lives, was that much different from every other killer? Sure, they killed others directly, but at least none of their victims had a slow and painful death. Makoto was willing to potentially doom others to that. And this is why he had to be put down, like all the other killers had to be, regardless of their understandable motives. In the current state of the world, any reckless hope is a dangerous thought crime.

Here, the final debate could be more complex. Makoto could’ve pointed out that, even if he could be accused for having a selfish hope, it was the same with others. Everyone else wanted their situation to improve, and giving that up for hollow safety wouldn’t do. Hope is better than despair, freedom is better than safety. The future of post-apo is libertarian, and if we can’t live with the freedom to pursue our hopes, then we won’t live at all. No more lockdowns!

You don’t have to agree with such a statement, but at least it is some statement. Here, we have a clash of hope that accepts the risk against despair that is unwilling to accept any risks. Unlike what we got, where despair is somehow tied to sadism, and hope simply rides on the power of friendship.

#danganronpa #video games #video game review #story review #review #visual novel #vn #murder mystery #story #writing tips #writing #review2002

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pangtasias-atelier · 4 years

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Random questions but who's a character that you liked design wise but once their personality or their stats/usability in-game were revealed, you just hated them? Also, who's a character you hated design wise but ended up loving their personality or stats/ usability? (Characters can be from any game, not just FE)

THIS POST DOES INCLUDE CHARACTER HATE (AND LOTS OF IT LMAO)

Ooh, I love questions like these!!! This also turned out pretty long lmao

Characters I liked design wise but personality made me hate them:

Xander. (Fates) I can't stand him outside of a kink context. When the very first Fates trailer was shown (before we even knew it was the shitshow of different routes) he looked cute. But he's just so frustrating. I get that he's supposed to be the Camus archetype but he just falls so flat and doesn't work well. And that's cause there's absolutely no world building or any development at all to help give reasoning! It's just "I'm crown prince, and that's my father you're trying to kill," which like okay that's a fair reason. But the game doesn't do much more to justify it and Garon is so stupidly obviously evil that like, it makes Xander look so stupid. Plus the games keep trying to make him this badass warrior but Fates LOVES to tell not show so it's just informed attributes. Even in Conquest, he's not much better than he is in Birthright imo. If anything, Xander is worse in Conquest cause Conquest has the worst writing in the series by far. At the very least, he along with Camilla help make Lunatic conquest bearable. (Still haven't beaten it lol, but CQ Lunatic is just so unfair, and BS. Plus the last 2 chapters being back to back with no saves is the worst idea ever)

Sylvain. (Three Houses) His design was alright and I even manages to accidentally recruit him on my first playthrough while going for Ashe and Mercedes. But GOD his personality is just bleh. Womanizer types aren't inherently bad but the crests system being pushed as this unique thing makes Sylvain much more annoying since crest's aren't even unique or well done. Like, sure, people want him for his crest, but that's literally nobility in fucking general and also, Mercedes is right there with it being worse and she's so fucking sweet! Also, FE characters are lot deep, let's face it. Their interesting moments basically come from snippets of info about their past and intys makes it sad cause they know that catches people's attention. But most FE characters are pretty static. And that's fine! I love Grima and Corrin and they're pretty fucking godamn bland! But I'm not gonna act like they're these riveting 3 dimensional characters. Which people love to do for Sylvain and it just makes me hate him even more.

Felix. (Three Houses) I really enjoyed the Navarre archetypes. But Felix exaggerates it so much. And yeah, his scathing remarks and refusal to be anyway (I can't think of the word, FUCK) like willing to talk or come to an agreement is so just awful. Like, it makes sense since he's more like that with people he knows, but he's just such a fucking jackass. And the fandom praises it when he's really just a dick imo. Glad Seteth calls him out on it lmao. Also, sylvix is such a fucking straight ship, I cannot with it.

Characters I liked design wise but play style made me dislike them:

Regal Bryant. (Tales of Symphonia) Now, he's not a bad character or anyone I really hate at all! He's just so awful to actually play as in ToS. His attacks feel like they struggle to connect oftentimes and he has a much higher skill floor than other characters such as Lloyd, Kratos/Zelos, Sheena, and Presea. Genis and Raine should just never be used in the players hands cause magic casting times and the AI targeting the player lmao. Colette isn't too bad but like, honestly, just spam her paraball. Regal also gets shafted storywise but they at least fix it in the sequel. Also, he's a SPLENDID character. Regal being this buff man, yet he's just so calm and reserved while also having a playstyle usually reserved for women makes me love him even more. I just hate playing as him lol.

Assasin of Shinjuku/Yan Qing. (Fate/Grand Order) His part in Shinjuku was great, except for that wierd ending upon him fading away and all of sudden remembering, like it felt it was gonna make fun about the whole last limited rushed sympathy yet they play it so straight lmao. He's incredibly hot and he was so great in the Halloween Event. (The Mecha Eli and Osakabehime one. I forget the name) Yan Qing just literally offers no real meaningful team support and he also doesn't have any actual buffs to help boost his own damage. He has a use, it's just so pointless diverting crit stars when you can use a better servant with star generation to just make a bunch consistently. So, Yan Qing hits like a noodle and also dies to vasically any NP since he has no defensive skills. Even with his upgrade coming next year? he still just is so bad. I love him and he's lvl 90 but he's awful gameplay wise.

Byakuren Hijiri. (Touhou) I love Byakuren so much but she's just so unwieldy in the fighting games. I still tried to use her, but like, o was just so much better with Miko that I basically stayed Miko the entire time. Miko/Byakuren's story in Antinomy of Common Flowers.

Marisa Kirisame (Touhou) Marisa always gets the straightforward shot that does great damage. The problem with that is, she really really really REALLY struggles with stages and even some boss attacks. Plus Reimu has homing while unfocused and straightforward shot while focused PLUS smaller hitbox so Marisa is always at a disadvantage. Marisa being being the best shottype (to some, I prefer Youmu but Reimu is infact the worst shottype imo) in Wily Beast and Weakest Creature doesn't make up for Marisa being worse than Reimu in all other games besides maybe Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.

In general there's not many characters that I hate due to design so these were harder

Character I hated design wise but loved due to gameplay.

Zhuge Liang (Fate/Grand Order) Granted, I basically know nothing about the Fate Series outside of FGO so I don't really know about Waver. But I just wasn't crazy about his design. And how he gets younger as you ascend him. But MY FUCKING GOODNESS! 50%NP charge is just way too good to pass up and he fits on literally any team whatsoever. Team Attack up, team efense up, targetable crit damage up, and NP drain+ stun chance on his NP makes him so versatile. And he's charging up people's NPs!! I use him for everything at this point lmao.

Character I hated due to design but liked due to character:

Scáthach=Skaði (Fate/Grand Order) The fact that Skaði looks like Scáthach really has no purpose in any meaningful way imo. Like, it's not Scáthach at all. And while I honestly would've preferred a brand new design, Skaði was just so wonderful in LB2. Especially since Ivan was kinda meh in LB1, so it really makes me look forward to the other Lostbelt Kings (Qin Shi Huang and Arjuna Alter. Both who I already love lmao) But yeah! Skaði being this kinda benevolent ruler who's doing everything she can to suppress Surtr's flames while trying to keep humans and giants from growing extinct due to her mother/goddess complex makes her so compelling to me. Also, LB2 focusing on women and the general theme of love was so touching. I didn't even care for her amazing gameplay, I was still gonna try for Skaði cause she was so great in Gotterdamerung.

#asks #this is so fucking long lmao #listen if you give me th chance i will drone on and on and on

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silyabeeodess · 5 years

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FusionFall: Thoughts on the Latest Update

So...guess who played through the whole update in one sitting?

I don’t usually give my thoughts on games themselves--if I do, it’s typically in regards to story and worldbuilding rather than gameplay--but there was so much to unpack with this that I feel like I want to cover some points. Some of this is just my personal thoughts, some of this will be a critique, and some of this--since I do post headcanons, stories, and a few theories--will be in regards to my approach on those now that we’ve been given new information. As this will contain spoilers, I’m leaving the info below the cut. That said, let’s begin:

To start out, I’d like to cover progression. I played with my lvl. 36 character, like I’m sure many of you have/will, and while I can’t speak for anyone playing this and receiving these missions on lower levels--when they’ll be getting other missions and the Nanos they need to level up at possibly the same time--as a result, I felt that the new World Nano missions we were given flowed really nicely. One thing that is both a gift and a curse with FusionFall is that, while it has vast areas to explore, rather than level up following a singular route like some games, you can do a bit of running around if you don’t stack your missions properly. Luckily, this doesn’t feel tedious simply because there is so much to explore and thanks to the quick travel system. However, for more experienced players who have already run through everything, I could see this being a little stale. The newer missions ran a pretty set path within a mostly singular route, so you could run from destination to destination rather than hopping from the different areas in the game. If they add updates with a similar scale, I hope they continue with this trend.

There were two new locations to explore in the game: Harada-Bridges Records and a digital world. Both are amazing!! I’m a sucker for this kind of worldbuilding anyway--I’ve made a huge list of products, stores, etc. in FusionFall and the Cartoon Networks shows just so I can pull them in to my stories rather than use generic stuff--but this took the cake. The team didn’t need to go this far, but they did. And I love them for it. The record studio had posters for bands and refs to some of the cartoons, it added more to the lore with the Gangreen gang and fleshed them out a bit, and they just looked awesome. I mean, look at this: The first words out of my mouth on seeing the digital world were literally, “Oh Mama!”

It’s not anything super complicated, but it has this awesome, almost Tron-like aesthetic that’s just beautiful. The glowing walls with shifting colors was a great touch and the enemies fit perfectly into this.

Speaking of enemies, let’s get to them and the new combat introduced. 99% of the time, unless it’s for an event, I play solo. (It’s just what I’ve always done.) And at this point, I’ve gotten pretty good handling the controls for the game if I do say so myself. Not that they’re overly complicated: Once you remember the buttons and what you need to look out for, you’re pretty golden.

Some of the combat introduced actually surprised me.

The enemies themselves weren’t anything too original, a lot of them we’ve seen before, but some of their abilities will catch you off guard if you’re unprepared. There’s a fusion monster that splits into two upon death that you have to beat, and then you later have to fight three Fusions at once, some of your Nanos abilities do nothing, and they’re constantly blasting away at you. I died once to the 3 Fusions, but handled myself pretty well: It did, however, force me to rethink my strategy in a way I never had before, which was refreshing. I couldn’t even attempt to take on one Fusion at a time in the group by luring one away because all of them reacted, so I ended up having to run around constantly as I was attacking in order to avoid getting bombed by fusion blasts. I like this experiment, as it breaks the old formula and gives the average player a new challenge without becoming frustrating. I hope the team continues this!

One thing that is frustrating though, and it’s been a problem since before the update, has to do with the fusion matter in Fuse’s Lair. Keep in mind, while I’m fighting three teams of three Fusions one right after the other, I only see one Revive ‘Em all the way at the start on the map, which is huge. (I got a bit frustrated back when I had to battle Fuse because the Revive ‘Em for that was pretty far too, so I constantly kept having to run back to Fuse through a course of fusion monsters and ziplines even though the game was saving my progress during the fight.) I get that it’s always been a thing when you tackle a boss and it’s a reasonable penalty for the most part, but when you have to go through such a massive location it gets a little ridiculous just to have one. Especially due to the fusion matter present in the Lair. Story-wise, it makes perfect sense: You’re in the belly of the beast, so to speak, and in most likely the location with the highest concentration of pure fusion matter on Earth. However, where this fails in terms of gameplay is that, not only can you step in it and have no idea because everything looks the same, it’s right in the middle of walkways you’re forced to go through or in small patches you accidently step on because again you can’ t see it like in the rest of the game. It’s a good thing I kept my Grim Tokens for a rainy day, because one tini-tiny patch literally killed me immediately after battling the last trio of Fusions despite the fact that there was no indicator I was standing in it during the fight. It makes it hard to even find somewhere to stand to recover as you’re going through, and it’s one thing I do hope they fix even if I never have to go back to the Lair myself.

Getting to some of the story/worldbuilding stuff, again, I do love where they’re taking the game. You can tell these guys aren’t just trying to make random missions for funsies; They’re taking plot development seriously, trying to connect various dots and add a whole new chapter for us to explore. Of course, you know I already love it, but also, not gonna lie...

I’m happy that it looks like I was right on the hivemind and symbiotic nature of Fuse with Planet Fusion theories. :)

As for the Belladonna/Buttercup one, I figured I probably wouldn't be right about it back then and, sure enough, the memory-loss idea was kept. The fact that the team actually brought more to such a minor thing in the game overall pleasantly surprised me though. While I can’t say I like the take due to the plot holes remaining, it’s not something I pin on the team as it was present in the first version of the game and even one of the devs commented on it being a little off and them needing to change some of the dialogue around it in a YouTube vid. There’s only one negative that I have to say about it and that’s an additional plot hole that was made by introducing “Belladonna” with her own separate Fusion and Nano. If she and Buttercup are one and the same, then it doesn’t really make sense that there’d be another one of her. Memory loss or no, Buttercup’s still Buttercup and from the information we’ve been given on the creation of Fusions, her Fusion wouldn’t change just because of the amnesia unless maybe they’re going for a split personality route, but even that seems a little weak--especially since we’re shown during the mission that Buttercup maintains fragments of her memories and then she remembers her true identity pretty fast. I think they’re working with it the best they can without tearing away from the original material though, which I really respect. I hope we get to see where Buttercup is going in the future now that they’re doing more with her character and giving her a chance to shine. That mission in particular felt like reading the chapter of a good comic, where you’re snapping at the bit waiting for the next issue to be published.

However, as for my personal stories, I’ll probably still be keeping to the Belladonna/Buttercup ideas that I had before and I’ll still leave the theory up for the sake of that theory, even though it was wrong. There are some things I’d like to play with for stories.

Well, Fusion Fellas, looks like we’ve got a lot to look forward too and a whole new world to explore!

#silya speaks #opinion #thoughts #fusionfall #fusionfall retro #video games #buttercup #fusions #critique

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edge-lorde · 5 years

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hp update: 1st leg of quidditch sideplot completed; jocks reviewed.

also a few other things. last i left you i had decided to take a break from the main plot to focus on sidequests only. howsoever, the game is set up in such a way that every now and then it will have you wait 3-6 hours before you can play the next level. this actually lends itself very well to how i was playing. i would first start out doing a quidditch level, then hit a paywall and so move to another of the sidequests, and should i hit another paywall id move back to the main plot for a level. in this way i actually got caught up on the chapters and the sidequests for a time. now a new chapter has been released a day ago or so, but i wanted to write an update before i started it, so here we are.

I BOUGHT THE DANG HORSE. the abraxan. i managed to scrape up enough red notebooks to buy it but now i have to gain max animal friendship with it so that quest is at a stand still again. i named it horse town.

andres sidequest ended up extremely bitter sweet... he tells me all about his sports bully and i advise him to confront the unsavory individual, since he obviously didnt want to get the school staff involved.

the intervention backfired however, and the two ended up dueling. the bully is kicked off the sports team, but andre is also banned from playing the next game. this is rather heartbreaking because he tells you that his grandmother is extremely ill, not likely to live much longer, and she had made special plans to travel to hogwarts to see his next game. she was the person who got him into quidditch and gave him his first real broom, which i now see is the very same one i borrowed from him in year 4 to sneak out of the castle on. snape snapped it in two.

while i am reeling from the realization that no one ever managed to fix that and give it back to him, he says “its ok.... well, no actually, its not.” but hes not mad anymore. he gives me a special quidditch necklace his grandmother also gave him and theres no option to refuse to take it.

i get the feeling that there was a route i could have taken to get the good andre ending, where the bully is punished but he is not and his grandma gets to see him play. story-wise, its a good tone shift. actions have consequences and the mc has responsibilities. i still want to find a way to make it up to andre somehow....

but back to the main order of quidditch business. 1st off, we have 3 new children.

1: skye parkins. this girl is the heir to the parkins quidditch throne. a big deal, apparently. probably has adhd. penny is a huge fan of hers. i think she and the other 2 new kids change house based on whichever house the mc is in. skye in particular has some great new animations that i am a huge fan of, like tearing pages out of a book ad infinitum, and swinging a broom like a baseball bat in order to knock gnomes out of a stadium and back into hagrids garden. im pretty sure her voice lines are shared with merula. played one mini game with her and it blasted me up from friendship level 1 to level 4.

2: murphy mcnully. not actually on the team, but an “unbiased” announcer. loves talking quidditch strats and just talking in general. gets his own special talking animations, used both when announcing and talking one on one-- this boy just cant turn it off! possibly autistic, definitely a wheelchair user. gets his own special wheeling animations and when you eat lunch with him his chair never disappears, it can be scene off to the side, empty, not clipping through the table. this is the kind of attention to detail i like to see. did one minigame level with him and was also blasted to level 4. however-- YOU CANNOT PLAY GOBSTONES WITH THIS BOY!!! i imagine that this is because this is a game played sitting on the ground..... i guess it would be too awkward to try to model a scenario in which gobstones is played on a table.... it makes me so sad... his voice lines are also shared with charlie.

3: orion amari: this boy is the shaggy of the troupe. captain of the team and really into forcing his players to balance on one leg on their brooms for hours on end, he is all about going with the flow, which infuriates the uber-active skye. also has his own special talking animations and body language, just imagine the hippie character archetype and you got it. hes got some pretty sick broom surfing moves and we also get some great trying to balance one-legged on a broom while being attacked by pixies animations from levels with him. i dont think ive gained his friendship rights yet. his facial hair does a good job of making him look more like a teen when hes the same height as all the other kids. i dont think he has any voice lines assigned to him at all. i guess none of the existing kids have voices that would suit him as well.

the actual gameplay itself is fun too. its like the “focus” minigame in class where instead of clicking the circle, you drag a ball to bonk into the circle and there are 4 of them. sometimes you have to hit them in a certain order, sometimes its timed, and sometimes its both. pretty easy to win. costs a lot of coins that pile on quick.

ive caught up with the quidditch plot but it was left on a cliffhanger so we shall see.....

#hphm #hp #harry potter #harry potter hogwarts mystery #skye parkin #murphy mcnully #orion amari #rambling #Thoughts #quidditch #sirius business

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bigklingy · 7 years

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In case anyone wanted to know my (brief) thoughts on Fates.

So I got a comment on a Fates video asking if I ever did a “review” of some kind. I thought I might as well copy-past my reply here. Heres my dot-point thoughts on FE Fates. Just... try to be civil. I know everything about this game tends to spark flame wars. Gameplay: -In general, MUCH better than Awakening, especially pair-up. Skills are also nice, being less luck-based and more about flat stat boosts, and personal skills should be in every future game. -Class balance is a bit better. Generals and Snipers got much-needed improvements. Only class I'd call "overpowered" is Master Ninjas. (If they didn't have Poison Strike they'd be fine, but with it they beat both frail units AND bulky ones) -Unbreakable weapons are fine, and for the most part there's still strategy in weapon choice, perhaps even more so. But there are a few problems. Higher-level weapons have drawbacks too large, and Knives are almost completely inferior to Shuriken. Map Design: -Birthright, decent. Conquest, fantastic, nearly perfect. Revelation, bad. -Dragon Veins are a nice gimmick, especially when bosses use them too. -It’s hard to describe (and not really related to map design), but the world map in Birthright and Revelation feels lifeless and boring compared to the ones in Sacred Stones, Awakening and Echoes. Difficulty: -Birthright is a bit too easy. Its Hard should have been harder. Characters range from good to game-breaking. -Conquest is a bit too extreme in its difficulty. Conquest Hard is barely different from Conquest Lunatic. If they'd toned-down Hard to be more of an in-between of Normal and Lunatic, I'd like it better. Character balance is very good overall with the possibly exception of Camilla. -Revelation is all over the place. A few isolated maps are hard, the rest are as easy as Birthright. Many characters are TERRIBLY balanced on this route though.

-I like how higher difficulties aren’t just numerical stat boosts to enemies. Adding enemies, changing equipment, changing objectives, or even changing deployment locations. Please do more of this in future games.

-Lunatic mode is way better than Awakening’s. Less cheap luck-based difficulty. Though its exclusive skills are dumb. Supports/Pairings: -Gaining classes through supports adds depth. -A+ supports are confusing and clumsy. Opposite-sex siblings should be able to A+. You should not be allowed to A+ if you get no classes out of it. (e.g. Azura and Sakura) -Children feel awkwardly shoehorned in and should have been explained better. Paralogues are nice, but none of them have any story relevance. This game either should have had a time-skip or no children at all. -While children aren't as broken as Awakening, and Offspring Seals are great, we're back to FE4 style "some pairings aren't viable at all from a gameplay standpoint". Magic-focused mothers suffer greatly from this, as there are very few magic children. This is more a personal thing, as I pair more for story than gameplay. -I feel like the "every character can marry the Avatar" system hurt some characters/plot points this time. I personally think Gunter, the Hoshidan siblings, Midori, Percy and possibly Soleil should not have been able to marry them. -Before you ask, no, I don’t think Scarlet should have been able to marry Ryoma. I actually don’t like that pairing much. I do think she shouldn’t have been able to marry the Avatar on “that route” though. -Male Avatar can't marry a Gen 1 female without erasing one child forever. -Same-sex marriage totally inferior to straight marriage from a gameplay standpoint, erasing one/two children forever. Spoilers ahead. Also, mostly negativity ahead. Story: -All three routes aren't great.

-WE DON’T EVEN HAVE A NAME FOR THE CONTINENT.

-I am in a VERY small minority that thinks Birthright is worse than Conquest. It adds a ton of random, pointless deaths just to try and give it as much tragedy as the other routes. The final stretch of chapters I found unsatisfying. Sneaking inside the enemy castle so conveniently only evil people get killed is less epic than a full-scale invasion. And it makes Birthright the objectively morally-superior route when they were supposed to be avoiding that. Corrin's characterization is the best of all three routes though. -Controversial opinion: I'm not bothered THAT much about Conquest, it might actually be my favourite of the three. (But that's not saying much) But it suffers from contrivances just to cause tragedy, and the villains often "undo" anything positive Corrin does and can't be rebelled against until it's too late. The siblings shouldn't have been kept in the dark about their father. Corrin not killing things gets hard to believe, and all the "it's not black and white" speeches fall hollow when IT ACTUALLY IS. I disagree with Nohr being 100% evil though. I think the only evil Nohrians are Hans, Iago and Garon. Chapters 21 to 24 are some of my favourite moments in any FE game, though that might only be because the map design is so good. -Revelation is weird. It's the most "complete" route with the best ending, and lets you use everyone. But the plot often hinges of characters being idiots. Corrin here is imo the worst of all three versions, coming off as really stupid at times. The main villain has no backstory if you don't buy the Hidden Truths DLC. -I think Corrin should have been blood-related to the Hoshidan siblings. They not being breaks one of the themes of the game and feels like waifu/husbando pandering. It also requires weird plot contrivances. (Both Sumeragi and Mikoto must have been cheating on/with eachother at the same time??) -Character-wise, they're... okay. I feel like less characters are exaggerated stereotypes compared to Awakening, though they're still present. (Arthur, Peri, Odin) But none of the characters truly grabbed me as amazing. -The children aren't nearly as good characters as they were in Awakening, with only one or two not boring me to death. -Hans and Iago, on all three routes, are irredeemably terrible. Generically evil for no reason. -Controversial opinion: I kind of like Garon. But sort-of ironically. I find him hilariously over-the-top and fun. And he actually has a backstory unlike Hans and Iago. -The final Rev villain is a step up from Grima, but still not that great. (And with Grima's expanded backstory in Echoes, Grima might actually be better than him now) -Mikoto is killed way too early, she barely makes an impact. I like her on Revelation though, as I consider the phantom version of her an exaggeration of her flaws, thus.... giving her some. -Corrin is the worst Avatar so far, and possibly the worst Lord in the series. A lot of their character suffers from player-pandering and the plot bending over backwards to absolve them of any direct guilt in anything. Birthright Corrin is okay though. DLC: -From what little I've played, it's not as good as Awakening's. Hidden Truths is good though. -Grinding DLC suffers heavily from the scaling. At end-game, the only people who can kill the enemies in Boo Camp... are those strong enough to not need the exp anyway. That kind of defeats the point. I like that it's not effortless, but they went a bit too far. Overall: -Conquest has some of the best gameplay in the series by far. I hope future FE games follow its example in map design. -They tried to do a better story than Awakening, but it ended up even worse. Please hire the writers of Echoes to write future FEs from now on. -I like Conquest considerably more than Awakening for its gameplay alone. Birthright is better than Awakening gameplay-wise, but I found Awakening “deeper” overall. Revelation has more characters, but it’s got some big issues.

#Fire Emblem Fates #Thoughts #Impressions #Review

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