Zapp Branniglenn

Fire Emblem players are only expected to know basic addition and subtraction. And the real nerds may know some stats. Like the odds of a 20% true hit, 30% crit hitting and also killing Rutger. 6% any time that berserker is alive to swing at him.

For me personally, the best looking Fire Emblems are Echoes, Radiant Dawn, and then the collective GBA era close behind the first two. Too bad it's a team based race huh? GBA era aesthetics have convinced me that they could release a modern day Fire Emblem all in 2D (Spritework battle scenes, spritework maps, 2D animated cutscenes, the return of character portraits, a Radiant Dawn menu-based base for doing between chapter business) and we'd all agree it's the best looking entry in years. Even if the character designs suck and spritework is just okay. Heck, you could argue Fire Emblem Heroes already proved me right in the most perverse way. They're just .PNGs!

This map starts you split up, but if you want maximum safety you can very easily regroup your units in that corner with the chest and take it as slow as you need. The Reinforcements are not infinite and come at specific turns. There are no enemy thieves, so you can collect the Chests whenever is convenient. The most dangerous reinforcements are the ones near the top left starting position (assuming you haven't swiveled your camera around at all). These reinforcements are all fliers, so place your archers so that they can get first dibs on the action. What the game expects you to do is head down in the Death Knight's direction so those Turn 3 reinforcements gank you from behind, don't fall for it. You'll have a smoother ride if you get all your units in the north over the river to the other squad, and then enter the city from across the bridge on the middle right (near your other units' starting position). This other squad near the bridge should definitely secure that ballistae, since you can have fun with that in the meantime. The next set of flier reinforcements on Turn 6 (or immediately upon Death Knights death) come from the very south along the river, but you'll have time to respond to them since nothing is pushing you to move so far south. Finally there's a last set of mage reinforcements that show up alongside hubert as you get close to him. Your fliers can mob him with Stride, and your non fliers can be warped in to get him as well. He's not as big a threat as the Death Knight and surrounding enemies. Just highlight his meteor range so you don't get blasted early. Finally there's some hidden goodies if you can find room in your roster for certain characters. There is an Opera House and Church sort of near the end of the map. You just have to move Flayn or Seteth and have them end their turn in the blue square. And Manuela or Dorothea in the orange square. You'll have some dialogue from that character confirming you got it. Both cases award you a batallion and stat booster after you complete the map. The Manuela/Dorothea is especially interesting because it's the only source of the Dancer Battalion in Golden Deer. It's not the end of the world if you can't get it. I find it more useful in Blue Lions' and Silver Snow finale, since its best use is whenever you get the full armor break on a monster boss. Golden Deer's final Boss is not a monster like the other routes.

I really dislike the notion of doing a post-Echoes game involving Alm's Kingdom. The game is perfect all the way up to its conclusion. As for Marth...who out here is really hungry for a Book 3? There are legit more Smash Bros players interested in Marth's story then there are Fire Emblem fans who could say the same. Do the fake math in your head right now and realize that I'm right. You want a contrived plot where Alm and Marth lead forces against each other under false pretenses? That's Fire Emblem Warriors 2 territory. A Valentia vs Archanea could be a compelling Generations Later plotline. Because I think both continents arrive at opposite values surrounding their creation myth. Alm slew the Gods and gave the land back to his People. Or at least that's how they would hear the legend. The truth is Alm unknowingly carried out a Chosen One plot that was written by Man yet quietly endorsed by Mila seeking to bring an end to her brother's pain using the last of her influence. Archanea, meanwhile, still worships Narga and the Divine Dragon clan all the way up to the era of Awakening. A war between continents would then be framed similar to our real world Crusades. And the ultimate conclusion being the division of Alm's One Kingdom into smaller kingdoms and possibly the same for the other continents. How about this. More Divine Dragons survived, quietly on secluded islands. Knowing nothing of their kin Naga, Mila, or Duma. Their descendants, one of whom is our dragon shifting Lord, set out to explore the world against their elder's orders. They make contact with Valentia, cause a huge stir to the dragon-fearing populace. And your self defense murder of troops has to be answered for. You get driven out all the way east until a sympathetic ship captain hauls you to Archanea where you learn of the clan. And just as things start looking up, Valentia's warships have followed you and wage war on the nations harboring monsters. Then the big twist, you weren't Divine Dragons after all (or at least, not pureblooded ones). You were descended also from Medeus' clan, which of course makes you a public enemy in your new home too. But I can't envision a compelling reason to make Archanea's stake in fighting Valentia a mutual interest. Not without resorting to something disingenuous like Archanean bishops pulling the strings and deceiving the populace enough to want to murder the godless heathens of the western world and turning your kin into tools of propaganda. After the response to Rhea in Three Houses, I'm not convinced we can handle any plot surrounding Religion that's going for nuance.

If this were 2019/2020, I would have said yeah maybe (and would have been proven right). But they've already moved on with Engage. And that's the game I would point to as being the most likely entry right now to get some sort of followup. In fact, and I know I'll get pushback from Hopefuls on this, I'd even go so far as to say a Musou spinoff of Engage is more likely to be announced in 2024 than a Fire Emblem Remake.

We don't know how he miraculously survived the first time. Dude just has nine lives don't question it. How will I convince him? Okay, I choose to be part of the Medeus Faithful and my plan to convince Gharnef (and the thoroughly annoyed soul of Medeus) to try a third time is pointing out that Medeus saving the world would immediately sway the people of Akanea to our side. Doing away with the heretical god Narga and pleading for our Dominion. I'm betting the Monado has a very liberal notion of what a human is. As seen with the Face Mechon which lacks any recognizably human features or even a human will. The reason the Monado can't cut the outer shell of these clearly robotic beings is that it detects some human life inside. And it would be bold to assume the rules would change just because the world changed. For all we know, the Monado in a world that lacks Ether would never turn on and simply be a plastic toy. Also I'm not convinced of the designation "sentient life". As you can cut down so many organic creatures of Bionis. Surely some if not most of them meet even the most conservative definition. Furthermore, When you're ambushed by High Entian assassins, Shulk's attacks do no damage to them. So don't go accusing them of gameplay/story segregation. What counts as 'Human' is probably just the ability to verbally communicate. Assuming the Monado Works, and works how it does in its own world, my expectation of the Black Knight interaction is that it would either glance completely off the armor like with Face Mechon, or it would cut the armor and stop short of cutting the human inside. Now it's awkwardly lodged in his armor. You'd need about a dozen clean hacks to cut the armor off and what you're left with is still one of the best swordsmen in Tellius. It's a losing fight. I'd sooner put my money on Mog.

I've heard about this Guh Nasty Guh Norc character. He's too simple and too ugly to pose a threat to Archanea. And since Archanea has no supply of magic gems, the only army he can create is whatever he brought in with him. The Black Knight is the real threat since he has impenetrable armor and a sword that was also blessed to never break. Not to mention plot convenient Warp Powder. It'd be a big gamble, but it all comes down to whether Yoshi can successfully eat him. Mog's Dance command might work since a lot of those attacks are designated Unblockable and ignore Defense. Having a Monado is no good since I can't use it. The only Fire Emblem character I'd suspect who can is Robin, since he and Shulk have extremely similar situations to the respective villains of their game. Even if any of us could use it, it specifically doesn't hurt humans! So while I'm sure it can hurt Majora, I have no idea whether Skull Kid is human (he has a beak, but otherwise has regular human features) Ultimately, I think we have no choice but to team up with Gharnef and resurrect Medeus. He and the Earth Dragons may be able to catch the moon and stop it from reaching Earth. And I know Gharnef is still around since Starlight specifically didn't kill him the first time, why would it the second? As for Kazooie...I'll load her up with Red feathers and send her to Valentia. Request King Alm to take in refugees if we fail. That idiot killed Duma so he had better do something in this crisis.

The two shows I'm watching right now are X-Men 97 and Fallout. And wow. Two incredible adaptations of a thing from 1997. I guess the only thing I'm tired of is the one difference between the two. One has a new episode every week while the other had its whole season dropped on day one. I don't understand the logic in that. Sure 'binge-watching' is its own marketing buzzword, but it's not the default state in which we consume media. When there's a new episode in a few days, it's something to look forward to. When eight hours of TV get dropped on you it becomes an immediate backlog that you have to make time for at a direct opportunity cost of whatever your current media thing is. Like you were just assigned your term paper in school. Having multiple episodes up on Day One for the binge watcher demographic is going to seriously ramp up your internal stats on that show opening, but it doesn't have to be the whole damned show. These Streaming companies surely want people to return in order to avoid those major lulls inbetween high profile releases, so I'd say the sweetspot is around 20-30% of the show's episodes up on Day 1. However much runtime it needs to introduce the world, establish characters, and hook them with a good mystery.

I was never under the impression that Young Link was the Majora's Mask version of himself instead of specifically OoT. Sure he has Fire Arrows, but that item was invented in OoT. And before you point out he can't use a Bow in that game, he can't use a hookshot either (and adult link shouldn't be throwing a boomerang by that same logic). There's a lot you could do to remaster Young for a bunch of MM references. Small stuff like giving him the golden hookshot (and I'm a bigger fan of the Razor sword than the Gilded Sword) to big things like subbing in mask transformation special moves (I mean Zora Boomerang is an obvious swap. Deku flower as an Up B, etc), but no final Smash I could come up for him would beat the Hyrule Warriors version. Plus they have Skull Kid and Moon's assist trophies ready to re-use as assets for that Final Smash. A talented hacker could mod it into Ultimate with some effort. Donkey Kong's new one bugs me. I would definitely demand Bongos somewhere in his moveset if I were in charge, and you could have reworked the old one to be good in a gameplay sense. If Bongos are out, then I would have the final Smash be initiated with a punch like it is now, except the victim is launched upward and then a cinematic shows them face planting in the underside of the moon, then pan upward to see DK also already up there and punching the moon to send them to crashing back down to the earth. I'm proposing a lot of moon violence today. Mario's probably the most in need of a new one, and also flush with the most source material to draw from. I haven't played Mario Wonder so there's probably something obvious there. But if not, Steve actually ended up with half the Final Smash I envisioned for Mario. I want Mario to initiate with a big 360 cape spin into a cinematic of Mario grabbing the victim by their leg, tail or whatever, throwing them like he does Bowser in Mario 64. They crash land into Bowser's castle, then we cut to an outside shot of Mario Gliding via cape to a TNT plunger like in Super Mario World and the castle crumbles around them. Or he kicks over the Axe in SMB1 to drop the bridge they landed on. One underrated aspect about Mario that I don't think is reflected in his moveset is that he's not a brute force kind of hero. He's more of an opportunist that uses the environment and powerups to thwart his enemies, and the final smash is probably the only place we can capture that. Samus' big beam lost a lot of charm in the move from Brawl to Smash 4 now that it doesn't change her into a totally new character (and it's STILL called Zero Laser). It's also not a reference to anything specific (big missed opportunity in Smash 4 to re-characterize it as Hyper Beam from Prime 3, or even Prime 1's Final Boss Phazon Beam). Maybe this is a boring suggestion, but the Power Bomb is begging to find its way into her moveset. Give it a massive, long lasting hitbox but also a two second timer for the other players to escape. Makes for a fun cat and mouse where Samus tries to grab them and throw them into it, after it's primed. Or she holds off until she knocks them offstage and plants it right at the ledge as they're recovering. Pikachu's is fine. I just wish Volt Tackle would serve as the basis for finally getting rid of Skull Bash which always felt like a superfluous part of his moveset. The Z Move is an obvious choice If I designed a final Smash for Pikachu, I would go with a cinematic where every 'Pikachu clone' shows up alongside him like Mega Man's final Smash and they do a team thunderbolt. Plusle & Minun, Togedamaru, Pachirisu. Call it Pika Posse. And yes include a Raichu and Pichu. Don't include Mimikyu, because that leans into the joke of Mimikyu better. Jigglypuff's sucks. Both in concept and gameplay. And the obvious idea of a Jigglypuff Final Smash ended up being Peach's! Puff's Final Smash should summon a stage where she performs and all opponents fall asleep. She gets upset, and her movement speed and attack power increase temporarily. Her facial expression also gets stuck in an outraged expression, similar to DK when he has his Giant Punch charged up in Ultimate. And also, to ensure that Puff does something interesting in this mode, disable Rest until it wears off. Since that's an obvious choice on a sleeping opponent. If you want a heavy hit, spend your time revving up a Rollout.

I was legit surprised when I saw they'd split up the X series right down the middle. I would have cut it X1-3, then 4-8. With the pricing being $15 and $25 USD respectively. X4 is such a shot in the arm that it feels unfair to have The Good Ones all in one package. Personally I don't see the rift in quality between characters to be so large, but playing as Zero is what we signed up for so most players won't miss it. I don't even recall ever needing to buy anything with the game's "wage rate" system. If you could buy spell charges, then we'd have a use for cash. Anyway I'm glad random battles aren't a primary source of income. You want a JRPG that has no grinding, here's one that you can not only beat comfortably at Base Level, but it's almost 100% optimal to do so if you want to keep the game easy. You can even Draw 100 magic spells from a monster and then Run so you don't get the experience. They knew what they were doing.

"Say what you want about the Loptyr cult but they sure got the trains running on time"

Boy this ganondorf business sure comes up a lot. You want a good reference? Behold, the origins of Flame Choke. Ganondorf HAS a sword at his disposal, and elects to murder this dude in a way that's more personal. And now Flame Choke is his most interesting move in Smash, both to use and to get hit by. My tech roll away is always getting caught by yet another Flame Choke until I'm in a corner and then he can more easily respond to my options from there. Incidentally, this is the most memory-holed cutscene in the series among Zelda fans. For years I've been hearing its "so random that ganondorf shows up at the end after Zant". No, dude, Ganondorf is revealed right here at the midpoint. The Sages speculate AT you that Zant's power probably came from him and that you'll have to deal with him too. And if this isn't your first Zelda game, you believe them because he's part of the titular Legend of Zelda.

they could put in Lucius as a man

I think Meowth would have been a great replacement for Jigglypuff. Though perhaps a bit disappointing if he wasn't represented as Meowth of Team Rocket from the cartoon. I could totally see him using a Pounce Side B that operates just like Diddy's Monkey Flip. I don't even know how they arrived at Diddy Kong scratching people's faces as an attack. I think the only thing I would change would be having Wolf in place of Falco for Melee. Wolf is IN the game's opening so Falco just seems kind of random. The least recognizable member of Star Fox.

I don't read it that way. If they wanted Squirtle and Ivysaur as separate fighters, the 3DS version would not have stopped them. You're correct that Pokemon Trainer was specifically unfeasible for the 3DS hardware, but Charizard is living proof that they were willing to rework his parts into separate entities. And Sakurai also cites the Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS situations as part of that accommodation process. Sheik surprises me in retrospect. Outdated Zelda character, gets two whole special moves as part of the rework, is definitely not as recognizeable to a casual audience as Squirtle/Ivysaur. But Nintendo owns Sheik, not Squirtle. I think it's a crucial factor.