#thank you dragalia lost fr

[marth-dragalialost]

happy five year anniversary to the game ever!! let's stand on some cake to celebrate

[notajinn]

Top 10 Games I Played in 2019

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am finishing this at nearly 2 AM in the morning, so I did not proofread. Excuse any typos.

With 2019 closing out the decade, I want to make a "Top 10 Games of the Decade" list, but first I have to point out my favourites of the year. I actually played over 10 games this year (which is very unusual), so I chose my top 10. As usual, these are not all games that came out in 2019, but I played them for the first time this year. I'm not ranking carried over mobile games this time, although at this point the only mobile I play is Dragalia Lost.

Let's go.

10. Untitled Goose Game (Switch)

There's a lot to love about this game concept alone even though I ignored it for the longest time pre-release.

Pros

The entire goal of the game is just that you are a goose and also an asshole. I've talked many times about how I think being unique is overblown in place of being high-quality, but this is a unique take that really works.

With a vaguely open-world that you're thrown into with no real purpose, you really capture the feeling of just setting out that day to be a jerk. I appreciate that there is a progression system with a list of mischievous tasks you have to do to reach the next area, but it's still presented in a very free way. You'll do some of them accidentally just trying to be a jerk, and others you'll really have to think about. Eventually there will come a clear end goal, which I was pleasantly surprised by.

Controlling the goose is also perfect in how unwieldy and overconfident you feel. You don't exactly move quickly, and there's no attacking, but you still feel better than the humans around you.

The minimalist art design helps sell the really low-stakes nature of the goose's quest. Sound effects are also pronounced thanks to this, and sound is very important for the goose. I also like the slight stealth gameplay that's not at all punishing, as someone who enjoys but is bad at stealth.

Cons

Even for a budget game, it's quite short to reach the "end goal". It's very much a game you can continue to mess around in, and there's a "New Game+" set of tasks you receive, but as far my "have to reach the end" mindset...I was expecting it to take a little longer. I'd say it was maybe 3 hours max, including lots of goofing around.

I also found that I VERY much don't enjoy being a jerk to children (see screenshot), and very begrudgingly did the minimum mean things to get past the kid. Luckily there is only one kid.

Final Thoughts

Honestly the lower ranking is not so much because of negatives, but because I played so many good things this year combined with this being mostly a fun little novelty. I feel like people who are interested would have already played it (if they have the console). Really you can go with your gut instinct of whether or not being an asshole goose sounds fun for you.

 9. Kingdom Hearts III (PS4)

If you told me Kingdom Hearts III wouldn't even make my top 5 in the year it was released, I'd think you were crazy. But here we are with the long-awaited game.

Pros

So much of this game is fanservice for the series, and I had fortunately caught up on the spinoffs enough to enjoy it. Seeing the 358 crew and the BBS crew, all the Organization members...there's a lot of love here.

KH3 also has some of my favourite worlds in the series in Toy Story and Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates in particular managed to scratch that Wind Waker sailing itch just enough. Meanwhile Toy Story going for a unique plot really helped pull me in, and there's that now infamous Woody scene that I love. Even other worlds like Monsters Inc get some great scenes (like Vanitas and the doors). Tangled is also one of my favourite Disney movies, so while the world itself was pretty average, I was happy to be in it.

Combat-wise, I appreciate getting so many options like dodge roll and blocking right off the bat regardless of your initial choices; previously I always forced myself to take the Shield so I could start with the super-useful dodge roll.

The music is as stellar as ever, although they loop far too quickly given how much time you'll spend in a single area sometimes (looking at you, Toy Story).  I especially love Don't Think Twice, which had the bonus of being a complete surprise.

 Cons

KH1 was the first Aladdin. KH2 was Return of Jafar. So logically KH3 should have been King of Thieves. Instead we get no Aladdin at all!  Just the Genie as a summon I think?

For all the character fanservice, it still feels like only the main trio, Riku, and Mickey are really useful. I can't believe how poorly Aqua does as a Keyblade Master. I can't believe Kairi and Axel's training basically amounts to nothing. I know it's Sora's game, but it's still so frustrating.

And the final fight with everyone is very much so "good idea, bad execution". It just feels so messy. The entire climax is just not paced very well.

The Frozen world is one of my least favourites in the series. Nearly nothing interesting happens (outside of one good Larxene scene), you don't get Elsa as a boss or a party member, and the progression is just "got to get to Elsa's castle, oh no we fell" repeated three times. Also did they really need to put the full Let It Go song in there? I say this as someone who likes the song. This whole world is just a mess, and I think we'd be better off it was cut. And replaced with ALADDIN 3!

Where is the Wreck-It Ralph world? You know, the Disney movie about video games?

The combat somehow feels less smooth than KH2, possibly because of so many things constantly going off. The Park Attraction skills are fun at first, but later they take so long and often aren't worth bothering with. But I think HP of the enemies assumes you'll use it, because some enemies get really spongy later on.

There was also literally no reason not to end Sora's plot with this game; they had a very easy chance. But they also had an easy chance to end at KH2 and they didn't. I don't know why they're so afraid to use a different protagonist. Even if they don't want to make one, there's so many other potential-protagonists in the game already. Some of whom are also technically Sora!

Also the stupid Toy Story music loop is like 10 seconds long. Stop it.

I was actually originally going to put this at 8, but after typing out these Cons I moved the ranking back.

Final Thoughts

For as many pros and cons as I wrote out, the biggest thing about this game is that it's somehow incredibly forgettable. Kingdom Hearts 3, the game we waited over a decade for, is forgettable. And that really hurts.

The ReMind DLC has some real potential to help with this, but it also costs $40 CAD. If you're on the fence for KH3 as a whole, maybe wait and see what people say about the DLC fixing stuff.

  8. Cadence of Hyrule (Switch)

 It really hurts to put Cadence of Hyrule this low, because there's so much I love about it. And I want to see more third-parties work on Nintendo IPs.

Pros

You can finally play as Zelda in a proper Legend of Zelda game! Yes there's the rhythm mechanic and roguelike nature, but you're ultimately still going around a 2D LoZ overhead map in the same way you would a mainline game. But now you can have Zelda go around and play a little differently. For example, you have no regular shield but you have the Nayru's Love barrier which can work defensively in a different way. I appreciate that the characters all play differently when the developers could easily have easily given you three different sprites with one moveset.

The rhythm mechanic of moving on the beat works very well with the LoZ map style. Being able to see the bar speed at the bottom also helps a lot to learn in the first place. Most importantly, you have the option to completely turn it off to play this like a classic LoZ. Obviously the soundtrack itself is full of great LoZ remixes.

The difficulty is just right without being too rough or too easy with only occasional exceptions, and the game is fairly forgiving about respawing when you do die; it usually doesn't feel like a BIG deal. There's tons of LoZ equipment to use, which I really appreciate after how barebones Breath of the Wild was in that regard.

As with any roguelike, you also have a lot of replayability with the map changes and different characters and equipment to try out.

Incorporating classic bosses with musical instruments is also really fun.

Cons

It's as short as you would expect a budget game to be, but it's more expensive than your average budget game. I'm going to chalk that up to using a first-party Nintendo IP, but the price fools you into thinking the game will be longer.

I also personally don't really care for roguelikes, so the selling point of replayability isn't for me. It's a bit unfair to judge the game for something the genre is supposed to do, but I don't think it's a bad game for being like this. I just think it's a game I like less because of that emphasis.

There's also one boss in particular that was super frustrating, and I think it's because I didn't understand the "trick" to beating it.

Final Thoughts

I do honestly recommend this if you like classic LoZ, but just know what you're getting into; something that emphasizes multiple playthroughs and won't take too long on a single run, but which executes the LoZ formula itself really well.

 7. XCOM: Enemy Unknown (PC)

 I can't believe how long it took me to play XCOM: Enemy Unknown given that Fire Emblem is my favourite series. I also owned it for years on Steam, but it was just this year I finally booted up this strategy RPG.

Pros

You want a challenging SRPG? Here you goddam go. This game is punishing as hell, but as long as you don't play Iron Man mode it's still reasonable to deal with. I don't usually care for games that sell on difficulty, but I've played enough SRPGs that I don't mind more difficulty in the genre that's not cheap. XCOM very closely skirts the line of difficult and cheap, again if you are not playing Iron Man (which prevents you from restarting missions).

There's so much dumb RPG numbers to gloss over and spec, and I love it. Things to research, order to research, facilities to build, equipment to craft, skills per each character to learn. If you like pouring over resources like me but don't like the real time nature of an RTS, this is perfect.

I also like the idea that you start off so overwhelmed against an absurdly powerful alien force, and everything you're doing is basically just trying to survive while looking for a way to hold your ground. There's a real desperation in the gameplay that captures the feeling of war in a way that Fire Emblem struggles with.

 Cons

I haven't seen RNG that hates me this much since Fire Emblem: Sealed Sword. And it seems to be a universal experience that the RNG is more stacked against you than it leads you to believe.

I've also seen many people online suggest Iron Man for a person's first run, but that is AWFUL advice. It's why I almost quit the game twice, but ultimately just made a new file without Iron Man. It sounds fun for a second or later playthrough, but there's so many unknowns happening constantly in your first run that it just feels unfair to go Iron Man.

The aesthetic is sci-fi apocalypse; two designs I generally hate. Everything is so gloomy and blue and tech. It's all very forgettable to look at.

Healing options are so limited, at least in the relatively early sections I'm in (I did not beat this). Actually this is one of the very few games I started but did NOT beat before playing something else, which in itself means there's something that I really disliked. At this point I can't remember what that is.

Final Thoughts

If you like Fire Emblem gameplay but want it to be even more resource management based, and can deal with a drab aesthetic, absolutely grab this. Especially since it gets really cheap on Steam. Just do NOT start on Iron Man mode.

 6. Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within (PC)

There was a Joker live-action movie this year; an entire movie dedicated to him. And yet Telltale managed a better Joker.

Pros

I am one of those weirdo people who considers Joker one of his favourite comic characters. I'm a sucker for a good villain, and it was probably Joker in Batman: The Animated Series that is responsible for that. So I love seeing a good fresh take on the character, and Telltale delivers. This is season two of Telltale Batman, and we briefly got to see "John Doe" in the first season as a proto-Joker who's definitely a violent jerk, but not necessarily a villain just yet. While there are many plot threads in Enemy Within, the main one is about how John grows among the mess that is Gotham. Depending on how you play, you can actually push him to become a vigilante and ally of Batman instead of the villain. This is itself not only a fun take on the character, but also the most uniquely any Telltale game has branched.

I remember explaining once that Telltale is not so much "choose how the story ends", but more "choose how your character's relationships with others changes". But there, you get a wildly different final chapter depending on whether John is a vigilante or villain. I really appreciate the effort it took, but it's also bittersweet since this was one of the last games the studio worked on before being closed.

Telltale gives us other character portrayals that range from standard to occasionally good. They have Harley play the big mob boss who has John wrapped around her finger this time, and they do a good job selling it.

You'll get some great dialogue options, and it seems almost impossible to please everyone. Being forced to make hard choices that will inevitably make someone mad at you is what this genre is about, and it's often not exactly clear cut what the consequences will be.

 Cons

Like other Telltale games, action sequences are done with QTEs. These are relics in this day and age, so I really didn't care for them. It's a good way to get around a probably costly combat engine, but it's ultimately filler to me to get back to the plot. Since this is a Batman game, it has more action sequences than the average Telltatle game.

Other sequences like searching for clues are less annoying, but still not really fun. I did not grow up on point-and-clicks, but it seems the developers did.

You also can't easily restart sequences if you selected an option by mistake; you have to restart that entire chapter. And a chapter is multiple hours. I get the implication of "you have to live with your choices", but when it's an actual mistake because I'm using a PS3 controller on my PC mapped to Xbox buttons...I get a little annoyed.

Final Thoughts

It's a little weird to start at Enemy Within if you didn't play the first season, and it will retroactively spoil things, but you honestly could. It is more fun than the original (which is also good). Easily the big selling point is being able to shape John the proto-Joker; if that doesn't appeal to you, this may not be for you.

 5. Super Metroid (SNES Classic)

Not only is 2019 the first time I played (and completed) Super Metroid; it's also the first time I completed a Metroid game at all! I had played a decent amount of Fusion and the first Prime before, but fell off both of them. This time, I absolutely saw Samus reach her goal.

Pros

How do you talk about such a beloved game? First of all, the SNES era is still visually my favourite in video games. This has a lot to do with nostalgia since I grew with the SNES, but also because it was the height of sprites before the industry turned to 3D models. And as amazing as N64 and PS1 graphics looked back then, they did not age well. The SNES, however, still holds up so well visually.

For a game with a sci-fi aesthetic that heavily takes place underground, I loved the variety and colours Super Metroid offered outside my expectations. This is definitely up there as one of the most beautiful games of the console.

Where I think the game excels the most is Samus' controls. The level of precision they built into her abilities is nuts. Obviously there are games where characters have larger movesets (such as fighters), but for a platformer I love how well you can maneuver Samus. For example, when you do a moving jump. If you hit the D-Pad and then jump, you do the Spin Jump. If you jump and then hit the D-Pad, you do a more standard jump. It may not seem like much now, but I feel like for the time it's very impressive.

There's so many fun abilities you get, and the majority of them can be used simultaneously for some really fun platforming.

You also learn very quickly even without text based on the way power-ups and obstacles are laid out. Even storytelling is done well simply through gameplay; no cinema scenes or text explanations needed.

The bosses feel stressful but almost never too cheap; you always feel like they're possible to deal with. Occasionally you may need more missiles or energy, but it's usually learning and countering patterns.

Music can effectively be atmospheric or lively depending on where you are, and I retroactively wish we had a few more Metroid tracks in Super Smash Brothers.

Also even though I'm not a 100% completion-ist type of person, I appreciate when I do find some secret missile tank by really examining the area.  

Cons

When you're not used to the controls early on, it can be tricky to handle Samus. Mostly those spin jumps. The wall jump also never really got easier.

Weapon switching is a weird situation. I appreciate you can do it on the fly with the Select button, but the fact it always goes in a certain order means it can often take a while to get to what you want.

Personally I also thought Ridley was a hell of a difficulty spike, and the game actually calmed back down in difficulty afterwards? Maybe I'm just bad at fighting such an aggressive and fast boss.

Phantoon was also a tough boss made tougher by the fact the closest working Save Point was a good 5+ minutes of platforming away for me. I like that the nearest Save Point doesn't work because the electricity is off, and it builds on the haunted ship atmosphere, but boy was that frustrating to jump all the way back nearly four times to fight that boss.

Final Thoughts

If like me you've somehow not played Super Metroid, you really should. It still holds up, and it's relatively short (my time was about 6 hours). It may be a little weird at the start with the limited abilities and getting used to the precise controls, but if you stick with it you're in for a good time.

The reason it's number 5 and not higher is not due to any particular negatives, but simply because the next few games left me with more positives.

 4. Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight (PS4)

The fact that this game exists is incredibly stupid, and I love it.

Pros

Persona 3 is not a happy game in a traditional sense. There are happy moments, but most are bittersweet. It's a game about dealing with and overcoming tragedy, and has a dark visual atmosphere to match.

So the fact we get to see that cast dancing around with bright colours is nuts. But not at all in a bad way. These characters go through so many difficulties; they absolutely deserve to have a fun dance party where they don't have to think about anything else. This isn't the happy kids deciding to dance; this is a bunch of stressed out people who need a break. And as someone who loves Persona 3, it makes me so happy to...well, see them happy.

The majority of the original voice actors were brought back (the main exception being Elizabeth), and they do just as good a job as in the old days.

We get mostly great remixes of the P3 songs, and the original versions of others. Each song has a particular character assigned to it so they can more effectively match their dancing style. The models look amazing.

There's also minor Social Link elements which are used in place of a story, and their personalities are mostly intact. There's certainly some Flanderization, but it's not as bad as Persona Q.

You also get a decent progression system of unlocking songs in batches, and needing to beat them to get the next songs. The Social Link requirements help make repeating the songs fun while giving you something to work towards.

The rhythm game itself is hard to judge since I play very few rhythm games. I found it fun once I got the hang of it on normal difficulty. There's tons of modification options to make it easier or harder depending on your preferences.

 Cons

As with every modern Persona game, the DLC is awful. Tons of Day One DLC, and they even locked Shinji to DLC! Does he not also deserve to have fun without paying extra? There's also a few songs I would have liked, but not at those prices. Otherwise DLC is mostly costumes and accessories which I both don't care about, and which are overpriced.

I also hate that we had an EASY chance to get the FeMC Minako in this fun low-stakes plot game, but didn't. It's not like Atlus forgot about her either; she was in Persona Q2 which came out a little later. If anything, SHE should have been DLC and Shinji should have been in the base game.

The jump in difficulty between Hard and All-Night is absurd. I can beat most songs on Hard with good ratings, but I can't beat the first song on All-Night at all.

Koromaru is not in the game, which inherently prevents it from being perfect. He could have jumped in during Fever Time at least!

Final Thoughts

This game is only for Persona 3 fans, but boy is it some great fanservice for us. If you're a Persona 3 fan that at least slightly enjoys rhythm games, this is for you.

 3. Indivisible (PS4)

 As of writing this, I have not actually beaten Indivisible. If I had to guess, I'm at the 2/3 mark? A big plot thing just happened, but it's clearly not the final plot thing.

Since this game is less known, it's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Pros

It's a platformer/fighter/RPG hybrid with a heavy South Asian influence.

Look at that sentence! These are all things I love!

I grew up on platformers and RPGs, and I have a lot of fun when I get into a fighter. And as someone who always desperately tries to find even one brown character in most video games, I'm all about a cast that is mostly South Asian!

The combat system is really fun. It utilizes something similar the classic Final Fantasy ATB style system, but at a very quick refresh rate and tons of fighting game elements thrown in. For example, a key is doing combos with your various party members. Each character has 3 standard moves, and knowing when to use what depending on the enemy's position is where the strategy comes in. There's also one party-wide meter that everyone dips into to use Supers. It's a very aggressive and offense-oriented battle system, but they manager to incorporate healers and support units comfortably. But yes, everyone is basically a fighting game character in an RPG battle system.

The platforming starts off very basic, but you get access to so many moves and can use them all fluidly together. There's some really fun platforming segments that really force you to use everything Ajna can do.

The character designs are top-notch, even removed from how ecstatic I am about the diversity. Again, they are designed as fighting game characters who have to be distinct and high-quality. Everyone also feels extremely unique in combat.

I wouldn't say the overall story and writing is amazing, but there's some good moments here and there.  It also follows a somewhat less traditional path for Ajna so far, even though I'm expecting a fairly traditional climax.

 Cons

Okay, so this is in some ways a fighting game. Which means you should have a move list you can look up. While you get a brief explanation of each character's gimmick when you recruit them, there's NO MOVE LIST!

That sucks, but you can go into Training and figure out the moves for yourself, right? Yes, except you don't unlock Training until almost 10 hours into the game! Which means for the early part of the game when you're still learning the mechanics of the system as a whole, you also have more trouble learning what each character can do. Combined with a very high rate of recruiting new characters early on, this can be overwhelming. If they didn't want to make a move list, they should at least have made Training available from the beginning.

Backtracking can be a bit of a pain; there's minimal fast travel points. Ajna doesn't cover as much space as Samus relatively to the game world, so it really takes some time to go around. Enough that it sometimes discourages exploration, which is not good in a platformer.

The sense of progression is also pretty slow once you get past the 1/3 mark. You don't get new characters quite as quickly, and it's not as though your characters learn new moves (they shouldn't, based on how the battle system works). You also only have levels for Ajna, which in my experience don't make a huge difference. And there's no equipment or items give you that sense of growth. What you have are the Ringels; collect enough of them and you can get a major defense upgrade, or add an additional attack slot per turn to every character. They're great upgrades, and fun to explore and find, but it's a long time between upgrades.

I also feel like healers and support are tough to use well in such an aggressive battle system, which is unfortunate because I traditionally love support-type characters.

Final Thoughts

Despite liking it more than most of the games on this list, it's a tough recommend. It's very specific to what it is, and there's nothing to really compare it to. However I really like it, and I especially love the South Asian influence.

 2. Celeste (Switch)

If you showed me a 10-second clip of Celeste gameplay, I'd dismiss it as some easier Super Meat Boy clone.

I'm so glad I didn't.

Pros:

In many ways, Celeste can be called a long series of platforming challenge rooms. Basically once you clear a distinct "screen" and die, you move forward. You die, you restart on the same screen in seconds. There's infinite lives and no timer. You take as long as you need, and you keep pushing forward. It's a compromise of making a classically difficult platformer that removes all elements that make the classics feel cheap. And it's also a great representation of the story Madeline is going through.

Having a young-life crisis, non-mountain-climber Madeline sets out to climb the famously difficult mountain Celeste. There's a few other characters to deal with, but the majority of the game is spent with Madeline and the reflection that represents another side of her. A side of her that's always bringing her down and trying to force her to turn backIt's a short and well-written story, and absolutely worth experiencing. I love the weaving of the "keep trying" gameplay and story, and the fact an Assist Mode to make the gameplay easier is available from the start is important.

The music also nails that Super Metroid feeling of atmospheric or lively depending on what's happening.

Controls are similarly precise but reasonable, and the incredibly low stakes of failure make even the cheaper platforming segments doable. Some of the platforming is legitimately annoying, but being able to try again in literal seconds makes it less frustrating than easier platformers.

Cons

I don't care for the character sprites. They are small and faceless. You understand what they're going for, and I know they have to be small in relation to the area of the game. But it's just not visually appealing.

...I can't really think of any other cons.

Final Thoughts

I feel like Celeste is an important game that will stay with me, far beyond just a good game I played in 2019. It's short, it doesn't cost much, and it's absolutely worth your time if you have any sort of anxiety or self-esteem issues.

 1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

 My favourite series finally returns to a home console after nearly a decade. And boy does it deliver.

Pros

There's two critical things I look for when judging a Fire Emblem game; the cast, and the core gameplay.

The cast in Three Houses is nearly fully presented to you from the start of the game. You have your three separate houses with their individual students, and you choose one to lead. Fortunately you can recruit most students from other houses with some work, so you don't have to worry too much about mutually exclusive units. You will see a few new faces over the course of the game join your team as well, so there's still some surprises. At first glance, many of the characters can be relegated to anime tropes. Claude is the charismatic schemer, Marianne is the quiet girl who likes animals, Hilda is the lazy high-confidence girl, etc. But as you progress through the story and the Support conversations, you'll find that nearly every character has a lot of writing effort put into them. I do not want to give any examples because it's better to get to them yourself throughout the game, but don't take the characters at face-value. Don't expect a full 180 personality shift, but do expect lots of depth to explain both currently personalities, and being able to see the growth of these characters. There's some very relatable issues some of the characters face.

Honestly, it's not a stretch to say Three Houses has some of my favourite characters in the series. It's a big plus that one of the main Lords is dark-skinned for the first time in series history.

Then we have the gameplay. Off the bat we're into some very non-traditional Fire Emblem stuff with the academy system; you use things like lectures to build the weapon levels of your students. Also Cavalry, Heavy Armor, and Flying have their own weapon levels now? Also you don't buy spells, you learn them with weapon levels? There is a LOT that's different.

But what remains the same is the core formula of the strategy-RPG battles. Your process to build your units may be different in many ways, but you're still using the tactics you would expect in an FE game. There's just a few other things to consider now.

Basically I feel that Three Houses' new systems are a good compliment to the classic system as opposed to being a full replacement. Which is why even as an old FE elitist, I absolutely loves playing out the fights. Also they brought back Fog of War!

I really love the incorporation of visible agro lines. Basically when you move your character within enemy range, you actually see direct lines from the enemies so you see who will attack you. Combined with ability to go back to a previous turn, this helps make bad RNG feel less frustrating.

The story is also hands-down the best of the modern Fire Emblem era (everything from Awakening and beyond). It may start off as anime high-school, but having a cast of characters from entirely different countries attend school together as teenagers and then skipping forward to when they are leading their respective countries to war against each other...it's a lot to take in. And you have four different ways to experience the game, all of which are fairly distinct.

New gameplay elements like the lectures and academy activities are actually pretty fun, and dip into a bit of that Persona itch. You also get a better feel for the cast as you see them going about more normal activities. And it's all done in voice acting. Even every generic NPC dialogue in all four routes. Honestly the level of voice acting is incredible for a first-party Nintendo game. Voices also help the game feel so much more alive.

As always, the music is wonderful. The main theme Edge of Dawn is up there with Kingdom Hearts songs among my favourite video game vocal tracks.

Seriously, listen to it:

The option to freely change class so long as you can pass certification is weird, but feels far less busted than Awakening and Fates due to skills taking longer to learn, and mostly being less overpowered. It's also great aesthetically. Being able to use any weapon with any class was also an interesting change.

Also we have gauntlets as a weapon in Fire Emblem now. Which means you can run up to a goddam Wyvern Rider and punch them in the face. This is amazing.

Another plus is that despite incorporating a time skip, there is no child system. Which means Support is not longer a means to getting a perfect gene child unit, but instead to see how characters grow together while also getting a slight stat boost.

 Cons

I kind of miss the Weapon Triangle. I know it's not even the most important thing in the old game, but I have nostalgia for it? You can sort of get the Weapon Triangle abilities once you raise your respective weapon levels enough.

As for more of a real problem...gender locked classes. It's very frustrating that there is only one class that focuses on Gauntlets, and it's locked to males. Like, have you seen Leonie? She's made to be a puncher! And I made her one, but I had to make her a Warrior.

Similarly, the only Master class that focuses on magic is locked to females. It didn't present a problem for me in the Golden Deer route, but I'm sure at one point during the other 3 routes I'll want to make a male magic user. Oh, the Dark Mage line is also locked to males, but doesn't have a Master class.

Master classes in general are a problem. Nearly all of them are Cavalry or Flying, and it's visually annoying. Also because most of my Advanced classes were infantry, so my characters didn't really learn Cavalry or Flying with certain exceptions.

I wish there were no gender-locked classes, and more infantry Master classes.

Also I know it doesn't make sense story-wise, but I wish I could recruit Claude to Blue Lions or Black Eagles because I really don't want to hurt him when I play those routes.

Final Thoughts

I mean, it's number one on my list. Obviously I love it. But it's important to note this is my favourite Fire Emblem game in a long time. I feel like I need more distance from it (and to play the other routes) to really compare it to my favourites, but for now it's at least my favourite game of 2019, and my favourite Switch game.