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Add the idea that everything happening in a story must contribute to the story, to the pile of garbage that ought to get taken out the back and the idea that everything must tie together, both of which is a sign of a weak spirit yearning for a complete, safe and sane world. Put random shit in stories! Makes it greater than woohoo, you´re gods favorite chosen specialz and the evil guy is actually your mom. You literally call someone a furry in that thread, not even with a questinmark... yeah, sus af. Not just a furry, but an inept one? Fine, just give them here.

This is on the hardest setting, right? Cuz I kind of assumed that the series was supposed to be capable of putting up an better fight than that

Young Rebecca [+Spd / +Atk] Gusty War Bow [Assist] Astra / Dragon Fang Atk/Spd Finish 4 Special Spiral 4 / Spd/Def Tempo 4 Pulse Up: Blades / Infantry Pulse 4 / Time's Pulse 4 [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] / Null Follow-Up 3 / Quickened Pulse Young Rebecca [+Spd / +Atk] Gusty War Bow [Assist] Deadeye / Luna Atk/Spd Finish 4 Spd/Def Tempo 4 / Phys. Null Follow / Desperation 4 Incite Atk/Spd / Atk/Spd Pledge / Atk/Spd Oath 4 [any Sacred Seal that boosts Atk/Spd] / Null Follow-Up 3 / Quickened Pulse Tier-3 versions of Special Spiral, Tempo, and Null Follow-Up are weaker, but still viable.

This is true. Or, at least, it is more true than it would be for other forms of media. There is definitely a stereotype when it comes to music of old people not being able to relate to youths and being shocked when young people have never heard of a given band that was popular several decades ago. Not sure I explained that well, so I'll just post a Simpsons clip that encapsulates what I'm talking about. Though, to counter my own point now, I think as time goes on "who" made a piece of music becomes quite irrelevant compared to the actual music itself. Which might play into that perception. An old person might be agahst that some youngesters don't know who the Beetles are, but if you play a few songs they will probably recognize the most iconic ones. For my own direct experience of that, I've asked some Japanese kids if they know who Queen is and virtually none of them do. But tap out "We Will Rick You" and they'll recognize it instantly. So, uh what am I trying to say with all this. I... don't really know to be honest. Your time investment point is probably correct though and my final addition would be that as young people age and start making stuff like TV shows and movies, they often carry along the music of their youth with them and put them in soundtracks. Music is also so emblematic of a specific decade, at least for the 20th century, that it's often used to set the tone for a scene set in the recent past. It's easier and impactful for visual media to play a recognizeable 60s song than it is to show off a book or movie from the era to set the mood (though they do do that in occassion too). To defend our taste in fictional universes, Fire Emblem is much less a franchise than most franchise. Since it entirely changes it setting and cast every five years. Sure we have fifty something versions of ghost cameo Marth, but by and large each new Fire Emblem entry (or every second entry) is a new story and not a sequel or a reboot. It is a franchise in the technical sense, but compared to other franchises Fire Emblem functions more of a brand name than a real franchise.

If you need help for this specifically... Andy is going to get clobbered right away, just focus on surviving with him. Maybe let Sturm take the nearby neutral airport so he'll churn out air units there, within easy reach of any Anti-Airs you build. Try to get Andy to scapegoat the first Meteor Strike (not if an Infantry cluster is as effective as it used to be at baiting it). If need be, have your two other armies scatter their units the turn you're expecting a Meteor Strike so that the 3x3 +shape is less likely to hit them, or at least cause less damage. While Andy holds out, the two side armies need to rush to his aid. As I was used to the GBA originals and cleared the old unlock requirements, I'm not sure if Grit & Olaf and Drake, Eagle, & Kanbei are already unlocked. If you do have a choice, the pick Max for the left side, and pick either Kanbei or Eagle for the right side, that'll be the strongest pair. Don't pick Sami for the right, she's the worst choice here. Send these armies up the left and right, capturing all the properties they can along the way. Churn out Tanks, AA, and aircraft to send Sturm back over the river. He has -20 Defense in AW1's Campaign, his units are squishier than normal. Unless you're Grit, don't bother with indirects, this map has too much movement for them. Given your starting positions, need to take the forward deployment facilities, and not overly abundant funds, it will take a few turns to get to Sturm. This won't be an option in the Black Hole Rising campaign. There, for the majority of maps, you'll be assigned a specific CO for a given mission. If they have certain strengths, you can usually expect their maps will emphasize them. You do know there is a Turnwheel-like feature that was added in Re-Boot Camp, right? It can only reset the current turn you are on. But if you realize you messed up during the enemy phase, you can exit the game before it's done and you should go back to the end of the player phase, I think? I'm an AW veteran (all four games) who has logged more than a few hours in Re-Boot Camp. I'm not a perfectionist by any means, though. I concede I'm not great at giving advice.😅 And I'm not sure if I can wrap my head around what you're feeling given how adapted to AW I am. Nonetheless, I'll try. A few unit tips.: Unless it's Fog of War, skip Recons, they're flimsy, weak, their move isn't great if it isn't on Roads. While Mech spam is a great tactic in some Versus maps, on the Campaigns I don't recall many instances where it's a great idea. I make just enough Infantry/Mechs and related transports for my capturing needs, and try to keep them alive. -Unless I'm using Infantry as meatshields for my indirects. Your standard Tank is affordable and powerful, the workhorse of any land army. If the enemy has aircraft, complement your Tanks with some Anti-Airs. If the enemy has Bombers, carry 2 AA per enemy Bomber. For even if one AA has to be used as bait, the other will be able to follow up cripple the enemy Bomber, if the other AA is still hanging by a thread, you might be able to finish the Bomber off with it. AA are also stronger than Tanks against Infantry and Mechs, although they will take more damage from bazooka rounds if a Mech strikes first. On air units.: Battle Copters are versatile and fairly affordable, they make for a nice unit triangle with Tanks and AAs. Bombers are powerful, but expensive. Spamming them shouldn't be done willy-nilly, unless the map necessitates it. Fighters- look at the terrain. If there's plenty of water to cross or big distances to cover or lots of mountains for enemy aircraft to hide in beyond your AAs' reach, then build some Fighters. AA are otherwise less expensive. Indirect combat units are better for slower, more defensive play. When you need to hold a chokepoint, when maps have thick terrain, then indirects get better. If a map is open or demands aggressiveness, then Artillery and Rockets find it more difficult to be useful. Artillery vs. Rockets- Rockets are a little stronger and have more range. However, you can buy 2 Artillery and 3 Infantry to serve as meat shields for the price of 1 Rocket. Really consider if you need the extra range first. Mid-Tanks- Similar to the Rocket consideration. 16k can get you a Mid-Tank, or you can break that into 2 regular Tanks with 2k funds left over. Or 1 Tank and 1 AA, or 1 Tank 1 Artillery 1 Mech. Do you need the extra durability only a Mid-Tank can provide, and perhaps additional single-hit oomph? On the AI- It struggles in two-front wars if you ever get into one. Focus on holding on a single front, then pound away at them on the other. It also doesn't have a great sense of self-preservation in these old games either. And is fairly bad at naval wars too, spamming Landers and not enough combat units to protect them. With regard to the map- always keep an eye out for any well-placed unclaimed deployment facilities. Get them, deny them to the enemy. The AI doesn't usually see these key properties for what they are. -If you move on the to the AW2 campaign and need advice on any map, just ask. I cleared the normal version almost perfectly last year.

It feels like I've played through a lot, but I only just finished the Underground Palace. Well, can't complain, really. Will continue tomorrow.

I'm entirely in agreement with everyone else saying that twists for the sake of twists are terrible and that there are no truly original stories. So I have to wonder if something was lost in translation here. Because, honestly, this kind of just makes him come across as a bit of a bozo. It just makes me assume that there is some sort of context or nuance that isn't coming across. I was thinking about this some more, and realised that there is a pretty notable exception to this general trend: music. Sure, the absolute most basic and milquetoast taste in music is just to listen to whatever happens to be in the charts at that the time, but listening to decades old music is pretty common and unremarkable. If someone is really into 60s music or 80s music then that's not likely to raise eyebrows in the same way as someone who's really into 60s movies or 80s novels. I wonder if this is just because of the relative time commitments. Watching a movie takes about 2 hours. Reading a novel takes maybe 5-10 hours. Listening to a song takes about 3 minutes. This means that most of us are going to be listening to a whole lot more songs than we are watching movies or reading novels, so maybe that's what encourages us to be a bit more diverse in our consumption? Back to the main topic, I've also thought of another trend that I am weary of: endless sequels, prequels, midquels, remakes, demakes, remasters, reimaginings, spin-offs, adaptations, extended universes, cinematic universes, alternate universes, and so on. Which isn't to say that media franchises are inherently a bad thing. I mean, we're sitting here having this discussion on a fan site for a game series that has seen somewhere between 14 and 25 games, depending on how you count. Any individual new game or movie that's part of a bigger franchise isn't really the problem. Rather, the problem is the absence -- or at least the paucity -- of original stand-alone titles.

By letting the player build friendships and romances between their characters, the games let them write "their" fanfiction and watch it play out, in a sense. Of course, the exact lines, outcomes and events are still predetermined, but there's certainly an element of player creation/choice in the whole system, which some people frown at. I personally don't have too much trouble with the idea behind it, I just wish they were implemented more organically.

I suppose the silver lining is that the game may have extra stuff (a previous trailer showed a new NPC in the Glitzville exterior area that wasn't there in the original), and that may still be kept secret. I suppose it's little hope to see them re-adding some scrapped stuff like the Sirens fights planned for Chapter 4. Or Beldam being the one who summoned/created the Smorgs to begin with. Or Prince Mush as a bonus boss as many hoped he could've been? Oh yes, Vivian was certainly top tier, and yeah, quite a novelty too. The first Paper Mario used all pre-existing species for partners, but then TTYD thought to experiment a little. Too bad they scrapped partners for the most part after this.

Unrelated to the poll (which I did answer), remaking these games would be an amazing opportunity to let you play the villains for once. Team Plasma was about the only team that had an actual, coherent, morally relevant point and they weren't bat$#!+ crazy. The whole critique at the end amounted to [1]. All Pokemon are genetically predisposed to love being slaves to mankind because it's "friendship"; and [2]. Ghetsis is a bad dude so that invalidates everything the good faith members of the group believed, said, and did. It's a cop-out, though I guess it's fine if they just wanted to keep the Pokemon franchise going. But why not let players entertain the ideas of Team Plasma if they choose?

...And yet they're showing off soooo much of the game. -Well, it's Mario, it's not like it's huge on plot. But I saw they've already shown the Smorgs? Chapter 6, really?🤨 Vivian being a Shadow Siren thingy made her sorta interesting as a partner, not a typical Mario species. I liked her fiery touch too, and Veil is essential against certain attacks. I'd call her and Bobbery gameplay-wise the two best partners -at least as "readily powerful" ones.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by the bolded part here? Because, honestly, this just seems like such a completely nonsensical statement to me that I figure we must be coming from a radically different understanding of things, and I'm really curious to know what you mean here. On the main topic: yeah, it all depends on exactly how similar to FE we're talking about. If you're willing to accept anything that's even vaguely similar if you squint enough, then there are a ton. If you're only looking for games that are basically Fire Emblem with the serial numbers filed off, then there aren't many. A more fruitful question might be to ask about games that share more specific qualities with Fire Emblem. So, "TRPGs with clearly divided player phase and enemy phase" or "TRPGs with simple enough combat mechanics that you can do all the arithmetic in your head" or so on.

I got reminded that trailer didn't showed her when they presented the partners. It skipped from Yoshi to Bobbery. It could be they are keeping her Heel-Face Turn secret (the trailer does seem aimed to newcomers over veterans), but it's funny to think they don't want to open that can of worms yet. XD

...I'm such a weirdo.😆 Vivian I take it? Perfect timing on the Spores weather. Speaking of spores, a reproductive method of fungi, a whole bunch facts I had read of fungi recently.: Fungi are evolutionarily closer to humans than plants. There are an estimated 5-million species of fungi currently extant on Earth. Of which, 90% remain undocumented. 2000 new species are identified every year. Fungi are genetically diverse. The penicillin used as an antibiotic -Aspergillus nidulans- shares 70% of it's genetic proteins with the penicillin used in Roquefort blue cheese -Aspergillus roqueforti. 70% in Animalia, would equate to the genetic similarity between humans and fish. The "Stinkhorn" genus of fungi is scientifically known as Phallus, because the shape of their mushrooms are 😝. The original shipment of cherry blossoms to Washington DC in 1909 as a diplomatic gift from Japan, had to be burned down the following year. The reason was a visible fungal disease on some of the tree, deemed a possible threat to the forests and farms of the United States. Fear of importing fungal diseases and the like led to the Plant Quarantine Act of 1912. This mandated the inspection of all suspicious plants which arrive in the United States, laws that remain enforced to this day. The United States's National Fungus Collections comprise the world's largest fully searchable fungus database, with about one-million samples. (90k of which were collected by a female mycologist- Flora Patterson, who -surprisingly given the sexism of era- in the early 1900s was the Department of Agriculture's fungus expert.) "Mycobiome" refers to the fungi good & bad that naturally reside in human beings. Researchers have discovered some fungi proliferate around cancer cells. Although researchers are unsure why this is (does the fungi empower the cancer, or does the cancer cause the fungal increase?), they are learning how the same fungi can indicate different things about different cancers and their present progression in the patient. Fungi are also being researched for potential anti-cancer treatments and other medical uses. Although the FDA has yet to approve a single fungus-based medicine. The research is still in its early stages. Textiles made of fungi have been developed. By carefully growing the fibrous mycelium filament threads, it is possible to create a leather-like material, suitable for things like handbags, shoes, and hats. Environmentally friendly this be. And, there are cases of in both Europe and among North American indigenous, of traditionally collecting and stretching fungus for such crafting purposes. Random picture.: Laccaria amethystina, aka "Amethyst Deceiver". A very purple mushroom. Is it edible? Yes. -Provided you don't mind ingesting a big dose of arsenic. And this is Amanita phalloides. Native to Europe, it has long since become a global invasive species. Its common name is "Death Cap", because it's one of the deadliest mushrooms around. The toxins survive cooking and can attack the human body within six hours after being ingested, causing ailments that can culminate in liver failure. Death Cap closely resembles some edible mushrooms, which has contributed to its record of poisonings. In 2017, 14 individuals fell severely ill in 10 separate incidents in one week.

Honestly, Gen 4 is the generation that I personally had the most fun with. Admitedly, a big part of that was the people that I played it with, but I also didn't really have any of the problems with it that people often talk about these days.

Frankly, Gen 4 is also bottom tier Pokemon, salvaged only by Platinum fixing some of its issues. So the lack of quality in BDSP wasn't even surprising.

Seeing as the Pokemon company have made a habit of ignoring the "third" versions in the remakes, I bet they will just ignore BW2. The main exception to this being Crystal with Heart Gold and Soul Silver, but Crystal is also the final version which changed the story the least out of all of them.

When you pick your units for the tower, you must pick your 10 lowest level units. The intent here being to turn it into a "use everyone" sort of run, since if your lowest level units are completely untrained, then they aren't going to help in the Tower. But at the same time, having only the single point where the rule is enforced allows you more flexibility in how you approach things, and exactly when, where and how you decide to train everyone up. (And yes, there are obvious cheese strats that you could do here, either by deliberately getting a bunch of bad units killed or by low-manning 4-E with the handful of compulsory units, but I think we all know better than to play self-imposed challenges in ways that remove both the challenge and the fun.)

My guess is "poorly". Given how underwhelming BDSP was, and given how Gamefreak seems to be overstretched trying to hit the deadlines for the main series titles, it's hard to see Black and White remakes getting a whole lot of love. My best guess is that we'll see a minimal viable product remake of Black and White at some point, and Black 2 and White 2 will just be forgotten about. I am not, by nature, an optimist.

Recently, I've been playing Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp. I thought I'd try it since its turn-based strategy is very different from Fire Emblem's and looked very interesting. I'm currently at the final mission of the first game, and I've been struggling with whether or not I've been enjoying the game. There is a lot that I like: I like that the game encourages aggressive tactics while also punishing leaving troops in the open, I like that the troops being disposable means I need a different mindset from when I'm playing games like Fire Emblem or Valkyria Chronicles, and I like the variety of different units and the ways different commanders affect those units (Incidentally, I mainly use Andy, as I like being well-rounded and his power healing his units makes them less disposable). However, I have found that, far too often, all it takes is one tiny mistake, or even doing everything in a way that should work, but the enemy AI does something bizarre, for what should've been a quick victory to instead become a slog. I can roll with making mistakes in Fire Emblem so long as a unit doesn't die, as Fire Emblem is more flexible, but it is just not fun to roll with mistakes in this game because of how much those mistakes compound. Mistakes can also compound in Valkyria Chronicles, but Valkyria Chronicles has two things this game doesn't have: the ability to save at any time, and multiple save slots. It's to the point where, quite often, I'm having to resort to a guide. However, even then, the enemy AI almost always behaves differently from how it does in the guide, ruining the strategies provided by the guides. In those cases, I usually am eventually able to find a way to modify the strategy to make it work, and it is fun when it finally works. Before then, however, are multiple restarts of the map and exercises in frustration. I have heard that the second game is better than the first, but I don't know if it will be any less frustrating. I want to keep playing it, as it can be a lot of fun. But, unless I find a way to mitigate the amount of times I have to restart an entire map because it's become a slog as a result of one small mistake, I may have to stop playing it. Anyone have any advice?

My guess is "B2W2 as DLC Expansion Pass". But I wonder how they'd handle it. Would it be its own full campaign? Or would the B2W2 exclusive areas be added as post-game DLC? Or maybe mid-game, with level scaling? In my opinion, that's more likely than having a full, start-to-finish campaign. Either way, it'd be neat to have Nate and Rosa as playable alternatives to Hilbert and Hilda, from the very start of the game. Also to see the B2W2 Easy/Challenge mode options thrown in to the game as a whole.

I hesitate to mention any Three Houses/Hopes character since most of those characters are beloved, and several have some major enough ties to the main protagnists and/or plot that I don't really know how "minor" they are. However, I will give a mention to Hanneman. Hanneman is a good character that I think is very overlooked. He has a good pool of supports, he has genuine chemistry with multiple characters (not exclusively romantic, just chemistry in general), and his background really puts into focus some of his quirks. Hanneman is good, and he didn't deserve to get the shaft in Three Hopes.

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Another character I'm not fond of is Hapi. The only thing I think I like is her support, chemistry, and ending with Dimitri. Other than that, she's a character that doesn't really work. Her "sigh to summon monsters" gimmick is incredibly stupid and does not work in any way, shape, or form, in my opinion, and most of her supports are just plain not great. I'm more annoyed by her than anything.

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