DoctorSpectrum

Illyana: I liked her, but she ended up being just a bit under what I'd consider good. If she had a bit better speed and skill then I would have used her a lot more, but as it is she was one of my better units in the Dawn Brigade. I'm also a bit biased since I used her a bit and liked her in Path of Radiance, so I voted 7.5. Definitely not endgame material, but alright for a bit. Aran I somehow missed the opportunity to recruit him because I'm an idiot, so in the interest of fairness I gave him a 5.

Honestly, I'd be happy with a remake of Genealogy of the Holy War. It's one of the older ones which I really want to play and it's often said to have one of the best stories, so why the hell not?

1. Devil May Cry 3 - I agonise between this and DMC4 since both are fantastic but the fact the the story is actually good for this one gets it the top place; DMC4 has slightly better combat though 2. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance - I've beaten this way too many times, and I've recently bought the Steam rerelease and I'm eagerly looking forwards to playing it, so, yeah, kinda a no-brainer 3. Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc - Probably a bit of nostalgia here but it's still my favourite platformer. Still holds up well in my opinion. 4. Metal Gear Solid - The first one is the one with the best story, and whilst the mechanics are clunky at times, it's still bloody amazing 5. Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword - I've loved pretty much every Fire Emblem game, but the characters and story of this one get me each time 6. Silent Hill 2 - Still the best horror game I've played; nothing even comes close to terrifying me as much as this did 7. Thief: Deadly Shadows - Fantastic stealth game with a surprisingly good story I'm not really good at ranking things so feel free to jumble these up as much as you want to fit your idealised list Honourable mentions: Dungeons of Dredmor Sam and Max Seasons 1 - 3 Monkey Island 1 and 2

Sothe: I gave him a flat 5. He was a nice Jeigan but I felt he fell behind fairly quickly after Part 1 (and even there he struggled a bit); the fact that his only weapons were daggers and that he had to be taken in the final levels really hurt my opinion of him Laura: 4. I wanted to like her because I like healers but she starts at level one and in a game where there are three tiers and healers gain the same amount of XP as usual? Ehhhhh. Seems like a nice character, I just didn't like her much for practicality outside of Part 1.

Leonardo: His crowning moment for me came when I intended to use him to take down a pegasus knight and not only did he only have something like a 60% chance to hit it but he also would have only done five or six damage to it. I eventually trained him up to be a bit better for the levels I used him (and thanks to that sweet bow of his he ended up being a bit better) but I'll still never forgive him for that fail. 3/10 Nolan: I see a lot of people seem to like him, he seems kinda alright to me? I probably should have given him more BEXP but as it is he kinda fell by the wayside soon enough. I can see his use but he wasn't really for me. 4/10

Because playing a game and having to restart a level only once or twice versus having to restart it ten-plus times makes for quite a different experience and therefore opinion towards the game. Saying, "Oh, you can try again, it's not that big a deal if you die," means that every single video game should only have one difficulty that's the hardest it can get, right? Because if you're not willing to learn a game through trial and error, you're not a regular gamer, right? Who the hell would want a game in which they can try and succeed at something on their first try?

I'm currently doing Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn for the first time. I'm loving the story and how the fallout from Path of Radiance is done, but some of the gameplay is stupid hard. I found out yesterday that Normal difficulty on the US version is Hard in the Japanese version, which would have been nice to know beforehand... Overall, I wouldn't put it as my favourite Fire Emblem, but it's still very good, and I think it's got of the best stories of Fire Emblem games.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a recommendation from me, as is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

I can kinda see what you're getting at here, but the nature of any series can change. I don't use reclass much myself (I didn't touch it at all in Awakening and I've probably barely used it five times in Fates), but by providing the option to people I think it's a cool idea. And what you identify as the nature of the series might not be what someone else identifies it as; are you saying you don't want there to be any new mechanics or changes in gameplay? Because there's plenty of ROMhacks you can go with if that's all you want out of Fire Emblem. I don't touch Casual/Phoenix mode myself, but in that case, what would you do to help ease new players into the game? Just change enemies stats to be lowered? Like eggclipse said above, you don't have to touch those mechanics if you don't want to, so if you don't like them, don't. Well, context helps; rail shooters often have unlimited ammo but they're still a challenge because you have to avoid getting shot and you need to time your reloads correctly. And I don't really think your comparisons work; the Fire Emblem equivalent of what you're describing would be the ability to control the enemy during their turn, or something else just as trivial.

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The Happy Demon Song

Anyone here played Thief: Deadly Shadows? The Cradle...brrr! Years after I first bought and played the game, I did another run, and when I got up to the Cradle I thought, "Sure, I'll be fine, I know what to expect." Still absolutely terrifying; that level could give Silent Hill a run for its money. The Keeper Compound and those fucking living statues that appear later in the game are also pretty terrifying, come to think of it.

Take the day off, then if you feel better later in the day look up the materials or whatever you would have studied today.

Got a payrise at work, donated blood (platelets specifically, but whatever) for the first time in about a year, and I got leave approved so I can go visit a friend I haven't seen for months. Everything's coming up Spectrum

Not sure how unpopular this one is, but I'm doing my first Radiant Dawn playthrough at the moment, and whilst I'm really liking the story, I'm feeling that the levels are really damn long and a smidge on the difficult side.