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#didnt include the emblems because. well. we all know them
sharenalovemail · 2 years
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List of known FE: Engage characters + their names if available. List under cut
Alear, Lumera, Veyle, Vander, Framme, Clanne
Alfred, Céline, Diamant, Alcryst, Timerra, Fogato
Ivy, Hortensia, Zephia, Marni, Griss, Mauvier
Chloé, Louis, Etie, Boucheron, Citrinne, Sombron
Rosado, Amber, Goldmary, Lapis, Yunaka, Seadoll
Hyacinth, [Queen of Firene, no Image yet] Eve, Merrin (+ Lyn), Morion (in Japanese version), and 5 unnamed characters
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zaptap · 3 years
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ive made a few of these bingo sheets and theyre fun so i decided to make one not just for e3 but also JUST for splatoon 3 (not just for e3 but for like the whole lifetime of the game). also heres my updated list of characters id like to see in smash, ordered generally by which id like more and/or think are the most realistic
since min min got in i took out helix, and since i couldnt decide whether to add in waluigi or madeline i added another row (realistically i dont think any indies are getting in but i threw some in anyway). also i was like “oh yeah maybe theyd put in a gen viii pokemon” so i threw in hatterene since thats one of my favorites.
also as for waluigi (and shovel knight for that matter) i think it would be nice to see an assist trophy get in just to break that rule. also i remember being super surprised he wasnt in brawl (back then i thought he and wario were equally important) and even though that was based on a wrong impression ive still felt like he should be in there ever since
notes about the bingos under the cut
really is about time for those n64 games, especially now that mario is dead so theyre free to release sm64 on it. game boy games would be nice sometime too
would also make sense to include banjo-kazooie in that, nintendos had a good relationship with microsoft lately and the total absence of anything banjo-kazooie on the switch is odd since it’s a dlc character (every other one has a game on switch they can use for cross-marketing, even if joker’s took a while) and i think the best explanation for that would be that theyre holding off for the nso n64 app (this is easiest from a technical standpoint because all they have to do is make a deal to use the roms)
when are they putting octolings in mk8d
xenoblade chronicles x is one of the only wii u games left that they could port (aside from ones that wouldnt make much sense like splatoon and ssb4) so i guess that might as well happen sometime. also monolith soft might be doing something else besides helping with splatoon 3
im not ready for metroid prime 4 (im over halfway through mp2 and therefore the trilogy as a whole) but it’s been a while, they might show it and it could even come out this year
hal apparently recently hinted at a new kirby game or something
the upgraded switch is obviously going to be called the Nintendo Switch ͥ  since they already did the ds lite so theyre clearly naming everything in the family after the ds family, theres absolutely no flaw in this logic. idk if theyre showing it, but unlike 2019 they didnt say they werent showing new hardware (just that they were showing software, which could be taken as denying rumors, but they sometimes specify when certain things arent being shown)
metroid prime trilogy also might come this year. would make sense to release it before mp4 since not everyone is going to buy a wii u to get it (and at this point that doesnt get nintendo any money since they stopped making them)
where is detective pikachu 2. i hope it has the blue pikachu from that first tease they gave us in like 2014 (2013? that was a loooong time ago idk)
they said this was MOSTLY 2021 so i am absolutely getting my hopes up for splatoon 2
the two sinnoh games could likely be there
would be super cool if oddity came to switch. and almost as ironic as megalovania getting into smash
we havent seen the botw sequel for a couple years so we’re kind of due for an update on that
it’s ace attorney’s 20th anniversary this year so maybe theyre doing something. theyre already porting those games though so idk. maybe he’s getting in smash
whats with that watermelon mario render
i held off on watching a playthrough for ndrv3 on the off chance it came to switch and i could play a dangan ronpa game for real for once but it’s now been 4 years and we just passed the 10th anniversary of the series (albeit during a pandemic when i wouldnt expect them to have done anything) so it would be cool to see the series come to switch. i think if it still doesnt after this though i’ll just watch the playthrough, 4 years is long enough. amazed ive avoided spoilers this long, i still know next to nothing about the game
im about done with acnh but im still waiting on those splatoon items. and i ran out of storage in february so i need more of that too
nintendo did stuff for zelda’s 30th anniversary so i doubt theyre forgetting the 35th. maybe wwhd/tphd ports, idk
been a couple years since fire emblem, intelligent systems is probably up to something besides planning yet another paper mario spinoff
miyamoto forgot pikmin 4 in the oven 6 years ago and it got burnt to a crisp and thats why it hasnt come out yet because he had to start over
and splatoon
the inklings scared daft punk into quitting so now that theres no competition in the robot musician scene they should have a daft punk style group
i waited and waited and neither of my top two splatoon stages (flounder and d’alfonsino) came back in splatoon 2 so i hope just because splatoon 3 isnt in inkopolis doesnt mean they still wont return
would be sick as hell if there was a real hide and seek mode instead of just sticking to your own rules in private battles. havent played that since 2015 but it was super fun
show us the effects of the chaos world
i wanted mc craig to have a song in octo expansion and they didnt deliver. heres another chance
splatnet 3 baby
cant wait for nogami to do a funny 3 pose
abxy came back for splatoon 2.... am i gonna be that lucky again...?
salmon run doesnt make sense if youre friends with a smallfry but they could either change the story context (you just fight “evil” salmonids?) or replace it with an equally fun co-op mode
amiibo!!! i think i said this before but they should label them by weapons if these cephalopods dont have genders, would make more sense (the gendered ones had different weapons anyway)
returning characters!!!! would like to see everyone have a role of some kind
maybe #GearForAll wasnt successful in getting the emperor/spy/mecha gear, but perhaps theyll at least consider not making that stuff exclusive this time around
squid girl gear should be back. and they should call it a dress instead of a tunic because its a dress. and theres no gender now anyway
as ive said before... TRIPLIES!! you hold one in each hand and another in your mouth. and you can spin around like the tasmanian devil
remove splatfest tee annoyances: you should have a prompt at the end of a splatfest to pay to scrub your tee (to make sure you get the chunks) also it should be on a neutral brand so you dont end up with an overabundance of ink resistance up (or whatever else)
better online and cloud saves would certainly justify having a second splatoon game on the same console, as much as im loving that it exists
hopefully theres a global testfire again
sooner or later the workers will rise up and kill mr grizz
remember in splatoon 1 where if you had squid beatz (via the amiibo) you could “play” it in the lobby and change the music? then you were stuck listening to only bubble bath in splatoon 2? why did they take that option away they should bring it back
looking at those apartment buildings in the trailer i think it would be cool if you had your own room and could decorate it
an octavio redemption arc would be fun to see. in the manga he stole the zapfish because the octarians had an energy crisis, and in the end they worked out a deal to share the electricity
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summoner-kentauris · 3 years
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What does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir? (You can either just answer or write a lil story if you feel like it)
OOOO now i have thought in my free time a fair amount about what líf thinks of zasha but, and i cannot believe this, i have not thought about what zacharias thinks about líf and thrasir. full disclosure, book III happened to be going on when i formally stopped playing feh. i kept up with the story after that but, theres my obligatory knowledge base disclaimer.
also minor cws through this whole thing because i talk here and there about zacharias and his... mm, canonical relationship to death/selfharm
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so, i spent a lot of time thinking about this one, and i keep coming back to my gut reaction, which is that i don't think zacharias would like them very much. i dont know why i think that, though.
PART ONE
i think a lot of it would depend on how they approach him, which is maybe why i've spent more time thinking about the reverse of this ask, come to think of it. see, i think zacharias could go any which way in terms of what he thinks of them. i think he could hate them, as two people who killed versions of everyone he ever loved, including metaphorically killing off the two people closest to him.
i think he could love him, having seen the hell (ha ha literally) that they went through. understanding what that feels like. given the way he talks about his suicide attempts, and honestly that he spent most of book I trying to get people to kill him, really his whole relationship to death. i mean the man talks a lot about death and killing. he might not be the feh OC who best understands how manipulative and... whats a good word. alluring? what im trying to say is that besides eir, he might be the one most likely to understand why Hel and hel's offer appealed to líf and thrasir. i feel like this bit has a place here: "With his dying breath...he begged for his life. He called out your names! "I'll do anything you ask! Just let me live!" excepting of course that i still am not sure if i think he said/thought that or not. ive never been sure who really is in control of speaking right then and there. Anyway. Probably he could come to understand Líf and Thrasir's stance, enough that he could care about them the same ways he cares about his versions of Alfonse ann Veronica
on the other hand, i can see him being fully horrified by the choices those two made in response. this bit: Not anyone... This dark god...seeks death. And it cries for the destruction of Askr. Like. Líf and Thrasir are intentionally enacting the same thing as the dark god's desires, in order to correct a mistake they made that, uh, also enacted the same thing as dark god's desires. talk about awkward. and i think Zasha, who has lived with this nightmare in his head for so long, might recoil from people who are so directly aligned with it. who wants to be around someone who has become, who has chosen to become, everything you ever feared you'd be? especially when you're nearly drowning from the effort of fighting to stop yourself.
i could also see him meeting them and it being incredibly, incredibly bad for him. i feel like, he puts a whole lot of... mm. what am i trying to say.here:
Yet it is you that says this, dear friend, and so I must consider it. I see the faith reflected in your eyes. Perhaps it is possible...
SPEAKING OF BUNNY ZACHARIAS I ALSO THINK YOU COULD TAKE THE FOLLOWING:
You never change. All you see is a lofty goal, even if you lack the means to achieve it... The idea that gods would fall by the hand of man is a fantasy... and a preposterous one. This is a goal that even our ancestors Líf and Thrasir could not achieve.
setting aside the obligatory wtf zash i know you know your lore (fuck, maybe there is no killing the gods, maybe all Fire Emblem victories are temporary at best and Zenith is the only one who knows it. but i think, probably not), i think you could spin a very believable scenario where zacharias takes one look at these two ambitious, arrogant posers and absolutely refuses to speak to them any further.
so, part one, i think that zacharias could think any number of things about líf and thrasir. which i suppose means that i think he's fairly neutral on the subject of líf and thrasir. makes sense to me, i suppose. i feel like zacharias | bruno has practice (regardless of whether he's any good at it or not, or whether its any good for him) at holding and maintaining separate personas, so I don't think the fact that líf and thrasir were alfonse and veronica would necessarily be all that important to him.
which brings me to part ii
what happened to dead zenith zacharias
if zacharias is neutral on the subject, I think a lot of their relationship is going to pushed in one direction or another by líf and thrasir themselves.
and, complicating matters (when do I make things simple?), i think their approach to zacharias would of course depend on what happened to their zacharias. correct me if im wrong, but i dont think we have even a hint what happened to him.
there are three ish options I'm seeing. one: as dead world zenith is further along in its timeline and as zacharias claims he's almost out of time with his curse, other zacharias died due to that before the war with hel. i feel like scenario one is the most likely to lead to a good relationship between main zacharias and líf and thrasir.
two: mr. professional "knows plot relevant things out of knowhere" was the one who found out about angrboða's heart in the first place. especially given "As destruction took hold, we joined with Embla to seek the forbidden heart...", which to me sounds a lot like, "hel was kicking our ass then zacharias showed up and said we should go get this mystical plot object from embla". thrasir even says she and líf weren't allies before the world went to shit. anyway. hear me out here:
Yes. The heart is sealed within an Emblian blood temple. If that seal is broken, someone will die each time the heart beats... Those who perform the rite are the first to die.
Now. Líf claims he was the one who broke it open, but he also was present for the war that followed and only after was he killed and inducted into hel's army. so. both of those things can't be true. i propose that the magic mcguffin located in a sealed emblian blood temple was unlocked by our dear zacharias and thats what killed him in other zenith. i think its possible that other veronica was the one who did it, but you know. its all imagination at this point. also, and i forgot this, but thrasir does go off about how she can't lose until she saves her brother, so. something especially tragic happened at least. and oh boy is scenario two a nice fresh tasty tragedy. so that's scenario two. other zacharias directly died as a result of attempts to fight hel
number three thing that could have happened to zach is boring. he's always off doing things, he could have just died off screen. i mean. everyone did, eventually.
frankly he could still be alive for all i know. the heart appears to take the lives of people in the world, not of the world, or else the summoner would have been fine. so, if zacharias was on one of his off world jaunts, he could conceivably be a-okay. well. as okay as someone who's whole world died. i don't think that's what happened, because thrasir is pretty clear about feeling that she failed him, but yknow.
líf and thrasir's reactions to the above
thrasir is i think the most straightforward. i can't really see her approaching main zacharias with anything but positive intent. even if she's only a little bit open, i think thrasir and zacharias will probably have a decently tolerable relationship. if zacharias can come back to a country that exiled him as a kid and let his mother die in a dungeon and then go on to not just befriend but protect and care for a half sister he didnt know before then, then i think he'll find a way to care about thrasir. you know, intsys could have had fun making another perpetual older brother character. as i understand it, xander gets brother'd a lot, he and zach could have talked. could have been fun. a whole, zacharias, a historically traumatized child: *arrives in a world* every currently traumatized kid in a five mile radius: oh shit this one's ours now. you know what im saying? found family except zacharias would very much like it to stop finding him. he's got important brooding to do. but anway, they didn't go that route and its a tragedy.
líf is... more complicated. i think scenario one creates the most positive outlook. i can see him still having guilt over zacharias' loss, but i think any of it would be overshadowed by everything else that happened. in this scenario, líf finally gets back a piece of the world he'd lost. yeah, it's not his zacharias, but still. it is a zacharias, who is living and breathing and frowning and asking why you are staring at me, knight. i think the two of them could get along rather well, although i see them having significant issues with pessimism. inch-restingly enough... the dark curse bades its hosts to kill askrans. and líf is, well. dead. so... perhaps... perhaps líf wouldn't trigger the curse like alfonse does. in that case, not only does líf get someone back he thought he'd never see again, but so does zacharias.
scenario two is just a nightmare. frankly, i initially thought this scenario would lead to líf just ignoring zacharias (out of guilt, pain, etc), but i was rereading the scripts looking for the spelling of angrboða and this came up:
Tell Hel. She'll erase those memories. She'll erase them all...
so, honestly? i think that in scenario two líf just straight up gets hel to remove his memories of zacharias (as an aside maybe this is also why he never ever ever talks about other anna >:{ )
in that case, líf wouldn't really have any reason to talk to this man, who causes this empty deeply sad feeling to well up in him for now discernible reason. and zacharias has no reason (or time) to talk to this standoffish general of the dead. so. that's a real ships in the night moment.
number three i think líf would still hold the same guilt as in number two, but i don't think it would be as horrifically tragic, so i think it's more likely he'd be willing to approach zacharias. he does appear to have even worse of a thing than alfonse about not opening oneself up to people, but i think that even if he's líf, he once was an alfonse, and being that this is me answering this, i don't think any alfonse can really keep away from a zacharias for very long. its a version of the person who once knew him as well as any other person in the world. like líf can't really seem to stop himself from associating with main sharena, i don't think he could stop himself from reaching out in his own way to main zacharias. and god does that man need some more friends. i think zacharias would probably be a little frightened of líf, and of what an alfonse could become. but i think probably... i feel like a lot of book i issues stem from the fact that, justified or not, zacharias thinks alfonse would risk anything, any harm to save him. i don't know that confronting an alfonse who literally risked everything and did all harm to save his world would be a comfort, but i do think zacharias would get a lot out of having someone who's already done the worst they can do. been there, done that, got the tshirt. i think zacharias would be a little afraid of what an alfonse could become, but i think he would no longer have to be afraid of... no, anxious about it. i think there's a kind of calm in having something confirmed that zacharias could appreciate. healthy? unhealthy? fuck if i know. i also think that in líf, zacharias has a friend who he can't physically hurt anymore. lífs already dead. been there done there got the.... glowing gel torso. i think, curse nonewithstanding, zacharias will always have some degree of tension and fear about hurting people he's in a relationship with, be that because of his issues with abandonment, of abandoning, of harm, etc. but you know. líf's kind of a rock. and he's already hit his rock bottom, now that i'm thinking about rocks. i think that kind of steady, placid deathness could really help zacharias. and i think he would find it soothing, whether or not he knew why.
plus he will be able to know that if the curse gets him, if he dies... he'll still have a friend in the realm of the dead. he doesnt have to be so afraid of leaving and getting left
so there we go! lots of musings. i have been thinkin about why my headcanons are less that and more elaborate branching theories, and i think it is because i would change my opinion depending on which story i wanted to tell or hear or see.so yeah. dunno which one of these answers belongs to the question, what does your interpretation of Zacharias think about Líf and Thrasir?, but hopefully at least one of them is interesting to read about!
OH also. i think he would be petty-ly annoyed about them cribing líf and thrasir's name. like full on scholar petty. probably showed up to the order in a nerdy huff excited to meet the actual factual líf and thrasir and turns out its just those two, sitting around glowing and reciting death metal lyrics like they're spoken word ballads. dont think he'd get over that ever.
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kingdomsaurushearts · 5 years
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What’s your story behind all the things that you like? What I mean is how were you introduced to all the things you find enjoyment out of (video games, anime fanfics etc). How’d you find quote on quote “geek culture” or how did it find you?
The majority of what I enjoy was via introduction by my older sister, or a friend. (This includes music. Nova is always exposing me to new stuff and giving me culture) Or. The old fashioned way, TV. Lol I survived off morning cartoons and cereal. In short, sister, friends, cartoons, fanfics, and CONVENTIONS.
My older sister had played KH1 up to the Deep jungle and then she quit. It was maybe 2004 at the time. But I remembered it well enough, that when my friend showed me KH2 lent his copy that I’m like. Ah hell yeah, I kinda remember this? (KH2 was the first I played, never even saw anything after Deep Jungle until I played KH1 later. But honestly KH2 pretty much gives you a recap, CoM exempt so it was fine. Sora didnt remember, so.. we were on the same page. Lol)
Same thing with Zelda. My first exposure was Majora’s mask, watching my sister play. (She wouldn’t let me play.Older sibling complex.) My first game was Twilight Princess, love that game, it’s beautiful and amazing. Dont @ me lol
Miraculous Ladybug was on Netflix, and I had seen @philsterman01 ’s comic dubs so I was like, yeah, I can finally watch it. (It wasnt what i expected AT ALL, but I still frickin love that cornball of a show. It’s ridiculous and cute.)
Sailor Moon was a huge part of my life, and I still adore it, my First OC was based off that and Tokyo Mew Mew.
Toonami was a huge thing way back when. Yu Yu Hakusho, Cyborg 009, Dragonball/DBZ, a liiiiittle Naruto. There was Fox Kids with Digimon, Shaman King, Winx Club, KidsWB had Yugioh, Pokemon, Cardcaptors, etc. (Adult swim had Inuyasha, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Scry-ed)
A lot of what I enjoyed actually starts at the library. I would ride my bike to the library and check out the limit of Manga and DvDs, I’d read them all and return them the next week and do it all over again… the internet was still foreign to me. Lol
My library didn’t really carry the “POPULAR” manga series, I got stuff like Iron Wok Jan, Skip Beat!, CLAMP stuff (to this day I still don’t understand Clover), Maison Ikkoku, Angelic Layer, but they still had like Fruits Basket, Bleach, Death Note, Chrono Crusade, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, etc. Anime was Rurouni Kenshin, X (1999), Tenchi Universe, Ranma ½, Vampire Hunter D, a lot of arbitrary anime I can’t remember but they were weeeeird.
When I was 13 I got a GaiaOnline account, and a FFNet, where I actually met my best friend and current roommate. (We bonded over our love for Hiei.) Lots of new stuff was introduced there.
A coworker of my Mom’s from a past job lended me Trigun, Raxephon, Fullmetal Panic, Generator Gawl, Arc the Lad, Kiddy Grade, Noir.
My mental library is pretty small all things considered. And I’m definitely more of a Casual Geek. I enjoy things in passing.
I think Kingdom Hearts is the thing I’ve held onto the longest, besides Yu Yu Hakusho and Cardcaptor Sakura. But I definitely love it the most.
And Miraculous Ladybug is sticking with me pretty strongly atm too. (But we’ll see. It’s still young)
I missed out on an lot of stuff in high school because I decided to ignore anime and instead get obsessed with Japanese and Korean Pop stars, of which I still need to get rid of my posters 💦💦💦 (they’re just… sitting in the closet lmao) and I was like… a YouTube nut. (I was absorbed into stuff like NigaHiga, Smosh, Mystery Guitar Man, Tobuscus, SMPfilms, Chonny, Bubsbeauty, Shimmycocopuffs, Equals3, stuff like that. Also the time I drew the LEAST and my art stagnated BAD)
I’m still playing catch up, but I’m more interested in creating, working on my OCs, animation/storyboards. Etc. It’s hard to get myself into new stuff cause I know I’ll be sucked in. *stares at Fire Emblem from a safe distance*
It’s also only in the last year or so, (2?) That I’ve actively been a part of a fan community, so it’s still a territory I’m treading lightly. And I’ve kept it to just the KH and ML fandoms. (And maaaaybe the MLP fandom but you didn’t hear that from me. *sweats*)
Long answer is long.
But it’s interesting to think back. Because everything is so VASTLY different now.
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megashadowdragon · 5 years
Text
jaune will have a confrontation with yang when he finds out the truth
that yang was keeping raven branwen being the spring maiden a secret while before she told ozpin no secrets or half truths ( while then keeping a secret herself and that ozpin kept secrets to protect them and the world in contrast to yangs secrets
itsclydebitches . tumblr . com/post/181776207310/a-response-to-the-claim-that-yangs-secret
the-kiwi-is-not-a-pewee . tumblr . com/post/180434178440/yangs-secret-and-its-potential-risks
(edit:  and this might  be driven in part due to the deaths of  people jaune cares about like nora or ren dies (and/or his family members  if the jaune is from atlas theory is true) protecting the relic of knowledge so it will be put in the vault  for the relic of creation  that would give jaune even more incentive to be pissed at yang for yang didnt even try to get raven to relock the vault  and the entire reason they went to atlas was to find a safe place for the relic because they didnt have the spring maiden
(
imagine how nora would react if ren died protecting the relic and then found out yangs secret ( noras based on thor who fought against the giant sea serpent Jörmungandr (the midgard serpent )  and yangs named after a chinese dragon ( which  are associated with the sea/water   
they have snake like bodies and in some stories like light novels eastern style  dragons are mistaken for  snakes/sea serpents (heck there was a story wherein eastern there is a myth about how dragons first start of as snake like creature but then they will grow and shed the skin of a snake and become a dragon   In the sixteenth century of our era a Japanese author1 spoke of an old (certainly Chinese) tradition, according to which a dragon’s fetus lives during a thousand years in the sea, for a thousand years in the mountains and, after having been among men (“in a village”, says the text) for the same long period, it finally is born, becomes a dragon and ascends to the sky2. During these three thousand years the fetus lives as a very small snake within astone, the dragon’s egg, which is first lying at the bottom of the sea, then comes to the mountains (how it got there is not explained), where after a thousand years it is picked up by somebody who carries it home and preserves it on account of its beautiful colours, or uses it as an ink-stone (suzuri, 硯 ). As it invariably has the remarkable peculiarity of constantly producing water (the dragon’s element), it is a very convenient ink-stone indeed3. But woe him who possess such a stone at the end of the millennial period which the fetus must pass among mankind, for then the stone splits, and a small snake creeps out of it, which in a few moments becomes larger and larger, and with a terrible noise forces its way to the sky, smashing the roof amid thunder and lightning, and ascending in a dark cloud. The little reptile has become an enormous four-legged dragon, which leaves the narrow abodes of men and frees himself in this terrific way.”  japanesemythology . wordpress . com/stories-of-dragon-eggs-a-ka-dragon-inkstones-in-japan/
. Jaune’s episode in V5 chapter 11 shows that he’ll take the deaths personally. 
)
as many people know I believe that jaune’s evil counterpart is salem given the many parallels and that I believe that jaune will come around to understanding ozpin and realizing the truth of the mission and that oz was right  ( with oz  joining team jnpr as jaunes partner the new p) 
megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/157918109672/oscar-pine-will-join-team-jnpr-and-be-the-new-p/embed
and that jaune will realize its not ozpins fault pyrrha died remember that oz told them to leave but pyrrha chose to  fight cinder despite not needing to  and jaune and ozpin will become partners ( jaune realizing that oz had nothing but bad options and had no choice but to seek a replacement for the fall maiden to get the powers to keep the fall maiden powers from going into salems hands) and pyrrha was just the best option. and that ozpin gave pyrrha a choice and gave her time to think it over ( for jaune would realize that pyrrha would normally say yes immediately ) and explained all the gritty details. ozpin did his best to make pyrrha feel safe ( and that ozpin doesnt know pyrrha as well as he does  so acting like it was all his fault pyrrha died just because oz’s group went to  pyrrha to become the fall maiden is ridiculous just like its ridiculous to to blame the guy who gave a mission out to a team for a death on that team) oz never manipulated pyrrha megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/152357996242/salem-is-jaunes-evil-counterpart/embed
alexkablob .  tumblr . com/post/179967541409/i-just-cannot-believe-for-years-now-ive-been
I just cannot believe
for years now I’ve been saying Arkos was classic heroic romance tropes with Pyrrha in the classical male role and Jaune in the classical female role
and this is actually true in-universe, because Pyrrha parallels Oz and Jaune parallels Salem.
Arkos is paralleling Ozpin and Salem but better and not screwing up the way they did, with Pyrrha as Ozpin and Jaune as Salem
(the multiple scenes where ozma disintegrating in the exact same fashion that pyrrha nikos had disintegrated in at the end of v3
(the multiple scenes where ozma disintegrating in the exact same fashion that pyrrha nikos had disintegrated in at the end of v3
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There’s also the part where Jaune was unable to save Pyrrha  and had to struggle with a death wish (seriously jaune was borderline suicidal and some may say that was until his fight with cinder  but I think its still there )
alexkablob . tumblr . com/post/179997954479/ozmas-pyrrha-parallels-are-making-jaunes-current?is_liked_post=1
Ozma’s Pyrrha parallels are making Jaune’s current suicidal tendencies even more painful tbh
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT OZ AND SALEM WERE ACTUALLY GENDER-FLIPPED ARKOS “
I mean seriously Ozma is destroyed by the God of Light  and darkness in the same manner that Cinder destroyed Pyrrhas body
and I forgot to add about how salem was suicidal
another post on ozpin and pyrrhas parallels 
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Righteousness  n. the quality of being morally right or justifiable.
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So.
Ozpin interrupting the Light God to say “I’ll do it” before he fully understood what was being asked of him.
And the Light god just taking it as assent without explaining further.
Wow I guess we know now why he looked so stricken when Pyrrha did the exact same thing before he’d finished explaining.”
note and as sunder-the-gold  sid
sunder-the-gold
And then Ozpin said, “No, please, let me explain what this could do to you.”
and then he proceeded to give her time to think about it
.”  basically he saw the parallels between himself and pyrrha how  they said yes before they fully understood what was being asked of them and told her to think it over and explained what it could do to her and the way he described it sounded just  the way he described what was happening to oscar and him .
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“ wanted to delve deeper into the idea that jaune and pyrrha are also mirrors of ozpin and salem. but here, jaune is the reflection of salem, while pyrrha is the reflection of ozpin. pyrrha was the righteous, moral, talented soldier while jaune is the grieving person that was saved, and sought vengeance for their lost love. pyrrha also stuck to a moral code, like ozpin did, while jaune and salem both used alternative, immoral methods to reach their goals. there’s also the fact that salem’s emblem looked like jaune’s AND jaune’s semblance has the same visual look of the magic that made salem immortal “
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and yang xiao long  is chinese for  little sun dragon and the god of lights can turn into an  golden/yellow eastern dragon 
not only did salem in her first meeting gets mad at the god and yell at him but later on managed to turn people against the gods and head to the god of lights domain
 which makes me wonder if jaune and yang will have a confrontation and if something jaune does causes people to turn against yang   like ren and nora for example ( plus the fact that jaune has a knight theme while yang is named after a dragon and how knights slay dragons / are enemies typically  in fairy tales makes me wonder  not to mention jaunes sword being named crocea mors which means yellow death not saying jaune will kill yang  though  I once made a theory for fun about yang turning evil and the thing that killed her being jaunes sword    just jaune and yang will have a confrontation)  
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Monty Oum was a huge BlazBlue fan and based Penny’s fighting style (and possibly her origin as a robot girl) on Nu and her Murakumo Unit “sisters who were made with souls like how penny is a robot girl with a soul) with those floating swords her weapon is divine radiance murakumo which starts off as a big sword it turns into 8 floating blades surrounding the user, and their armor. . and I think qrow with his giant sword that can turn into a scythe may have been inspired by ragna whose giant sword can turn into a scythe
and yang xiao long took inspiration from bullet (their weapons
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who appeared before her Bullet was included in the JPN 1.0 arcade version, which came out in November 2012, while the Yellow trailer was June 2013.
So yeah, it’s impossible for Bullet to have been inspired by Yang, and there’s a greater-than-zero chance Yang was inspired by Bullet, especially considering that Namine from Dead Fantasy 6 (8?) copies moves from Nu 13 (the most obvious is Nu’s 5C).
both of them had someone disappear from their lives  tager ( who lost his memories ) and raven ) and they chased after them  going around trying to find info but while tager cared about bullet raven straight up abandoned yang.
the seemingly minute differences between Aura/dust and Magic is a leftover from how Ars Magus and Magic work in Blazblue.
, Qrow is basically just a color inverted, older version of Ragna the Bloodedge, down to their  weapons.
the finale of Volume 6 has a LOT of similarities to the ending of Chronophantasma, what with the heroes fighting a giant artificial enemy bring about a change in the protagonist.
and yang losing  arm  to adam with his katana reminds me of ragna losing his  arm due to  terumi a psychopath with a katana and they both replaced their left arms with  a artificial limb (azure grimoire in the form of an arm) and when terumi took ragnas arm he was possessing jin  ( and both jin and ragna were kids when this happened ) jin would later on become an iaijutsu practicioner like adam taurus  and would have some yandere tendencies // mental unstability/ax crazyness.
)
and in blazblue continuum shift  ragna ended up losing his other arm ( the one that had been a real limb )  and being forced to get another artificial arm
so either when yang lose her other arm it will be a reference to how ragna lost his arm in continum shift or it will also be another reference to how ragna lost his arm to jin influenced by terumi . when jin influenced by terumi  ( terumi )  meddled with his mind ) cut of ragnas arm he blamed ragna for what happeend going its your fault  after  he cut off ragnas arm so maybe yang will lose her other arm to someone blaming her for something (possibly someones death given that the nun who took care of ragna, jin and their sister saya died)
hakumen who started off as jin who was often called the hero of ikagura  from an alternate timeline lost his love interest a red head named tsubaki who died and was sent back to the past injured where rachel  offers to help him become a true hero. From here, his soul is bound to the Susano-o armor, and he becomes Hakumen  the leader of the 6 heroes  who is one of the strongest in the game
so  jaune who has a desire to be a hero like his ancestors to the point he cheated his way into beacon  and had a red haired love interest who died could be compared to hakumen/jin in that sense though their personality’s are completely different  like how bullets personality is different from yangs
(also the fact that jin was adopted into the kisaragi family a noble family thats part of the 12 originator families  in blazblue (and didnt care about bloodline and gathered talented people around the world) could be referenced with jaune being adopted into the arc family and is just so close to them  that  he doesnt  care about them not being biologically related to him theyre family. and jaunes insecurities (and a possible previous event in his life given that jaune said in volume 1 that he wanted to stop  being the guy stuck in a tree as his friends fought for their lives so its possible someone close to him died 
so either if this is true  with the jin and jaune connections and they do another blazblue reference with yang losing her other arm  jaune could be the one to do it due to blaming yang  for what happened .  as a reference to jin going its your fault brother plus jin  and hakumen had the desire to kill ragna in alot of the game series so what if jaune wants to kill yang )
another reason why I connect jin with jaune is due to how qrow rubys uncle she learnt everything from is  alot like ragna and jaune and ruby are foils to each other so it fits
hawkeyedflame . tumblr . com/post/152581160728/on-rubys-elusive-character-development-or-why
“ jaune is a foil To Ruby. She’s a prodigy who quickly became a deadly warrior at a young age and is welcomed into Beacon two years early as a result while Jaune is a hard worker who progresses slowly and had to lie his way into Beacon because of his nonexistent combat background. Ruby is a strategist specialized on pre-defined team attacks and wields a self-made weapon capable of long range combat. Jaune is a tactician specialized in creating new team attacks according to his analysis on the battlefield and wields a family heirloom only capable of close range combat. Ruby has a rather broken family but they fully support her decision to become a huntress while Jaune’s family is large and united but they don’t support his choices nor have any faith on him. Ruby is a tomboy who dominates the battlefield but doesn’t enjoy dancing whereas Jaune tends to act girly and is initially terrible at fighting but also a great dancer. The more you look into them as a pair, the more contrasts that can be spotted in the details.”
jaune has a more “feminine way of dealing with emotions” while ruby has the more masculine way of dealing with emotions
aminoapps . com/c/rwby/page/blog/why-its-good-for-jaunes-semblance-to-be-a-support-type/xpp7_XQ4s2u6RGX2zboa6JwM2XMekWGZd68
“Joan of Arc is known for breaking gender stereotypes about what it meant to be a woman. And if you think about it in a lot of ways Jaune doesn’t fit into the stereotypical “man box.” We are don’t “men don’t cry.” He wears his emotions on his sleeve. While in the real world men (and in the world of RWBY BOTH men and women ARGUABLY) are told to be strong. And that many people superficially equate physical strength with heroism (Raven?) it is fitting that Jaune’s semblance doesn’t so much doesn’t so much empower himself, as it empowers others. (as well as himself but its more effective on others in the team since they are more skilled than him) The so called “Feminine” strength.” P.S. Hmm as a follow-up to my The Importance Of Foils Part 2 post. I think that Ruby, despite being a girl, fits into the “man box” better than anyone else including it’s UNHEALTHY WAYS OF DEALING WITH EMOTIONS. The only difference is on remnant, it’s not because a man doesn’t cry. But because “a hero doesn’t cry.”
ruby first activated her silver eyes leading to her to learn about them when she saw pyrrha jaunes partner impaled by cinder and burnt to ash failing to save pyrrha  her awakening being in reaction to her death while jaune activated his semblance and realized what it was when he saw rubys partner weiss  impaled by cinder and  was able to save her  life awakening his semblance to do so allowing him to learn what his semblance was ( which is a good example this is an example of them being foils  and how its been shown and effected their storys )
@kali-tmblr
@darksaiyangoku
@gorillageek27
@thehtg-therealone 
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obeetlebeetle · 5 years
Note
Uh you know I'm asking you to do all those asks bro
aight bro u kno there’s gonna b equal exchange tho1. if you were to have Hanahaki disease, what flowers would you cough up?
hm. full disclosure i’ve never read any hanahaki fics. is this supposed to reveal something abt me or the person i love? i guess if it means a flower that symbolizes the type of love, red or pink tea roses
2. if someone were to catch Hanahaki disease for you, what flowers would they cough up?
maybe daffodils?
3. if you were any historic trope, what would you be? (i.e., the knight, the town baker, the witch of the forest, etd.)
either the knight pursuing courtly love or the lazy good-for-nothing scribe jkdshds
4. tell us about your ideal battle outfit.
ok well ideally i could use magic so like. a short, hooded cloak over a comfortable tunic and practical trouser. with sturdy boots. you know, just google erk from fire emblem.
5. what would you be a god/goddess of and what would people sacrifice to you?
i would be the god of just counsel, and people would sacrifice things they made to represent the person they wished to reconcile with to me.
6. name five iconic quotes that make you feel things.
idk how iconic these are but here goes --
"You do this, you do. You take the things you love and tear them apart or you pin them down with your body and pretend they’re yours." 
— Richard Siken
“Because, you see, it is only when one is at the end (of tenderness or of any other force) that one recognizes its inexhaustibleness. The more we give, the more we have left; as soon as we give prodigiously — it flows forth! Let us bleed ourselves—and here we are, a source of life!" 
— Marina Tsvetaeva
“ANTIGONE: And also because - Oh, my darling, my darling, forgive me; I’m going to cause you quite a lot of pain.” 
— Jean Anouilh
But Sophie and Howl were holding one another’s hands and smiling and smiling, quite unable to stop.”
— Diana Wynne Jones
"He has a longing in him: for death by  drowning.And he has a longing in him: not to go down."
— Bertolt Brecht
7. scythe, battle axe, broad sword, spear or trident?
axe babey!!
8. what combination of natural scents would you use as perfume?
hm. the smell of a forest: moss and pine, the ground wet from rain, the smoke from a campfire, the wild roses crawling in vines up the tree-trunks.
9. ancient scrolls or leather-bound books?
books babey!!
10. describe yourself as if you were a storm.
florida summer storms tower on the horizon, tall and purple and moving in fast. the thunder is so loud you can feel in your chest. the rain falls so thick you can’t see down the street, but the lightning is clear in its twisting lines. and it’s over before you know if, just an afternoon of heavy weather leaving sunshine behind.
11. what type of flower (other than a rose) would you offer someone you were trying to court?
this question is oppressing me specifically. probably sunflowers tho
12. honey in milk or cinnamon in tea?
honey in milk babey!!
13. cabin in the woods, apartment in the city or mansion in the suburbs?
cabin in the woods ofc
14. curtains of beads or lace?
lace probably?
15. vocal or instrumental music?
vocal, im a sucker for good lyrics
16. describe your ideal fantasy outfit
...see question #4 jksdfh
17. of all the fantasy races to ever exist, which one would you be?
dwarf!
18. hard candy, fruit preserves or spice cake?
spice cake dude the others Sucks
19. show us an a picture of your ideal crown.
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20. tying your hair up using ribbon, yay or nay?
love the idea, never quite got the hang of it. 
21. an evening in the forest with elves, a night in the caves with vampires or a morning in the garden with fae?
bring on the vamps!
22. tell us, in detail, about a curse a witch would put on you.
hm. hmm. she use daffodils and narcissus flowers, falling stars and ashes, and she would harden my heart. i would be cursed to forever seek out love, but the moment it was returned, i would be repulsed.
23. talking with sylphs or singing with nymphs?
im tone deaf, let’s have a chat
24. mint, rosemary, basil or sage?
mint babey!!
25. favorite childhood story? (doesn’t have to be a fairy tale)
o *highkey* stellaluna
26. tell us about an experience you’ve had that seemed unreal or supernatural. (doesn’t have to be scary)
my college campus has a cryptid, ive seen it twice and i swear by it. the first time was april of my second year. i was down by the bay with friends, and i saw it running across the grass between us and college hall. it was about the size of a cat, with an elongated face and no tail, tall on its legs, and it ran weird. that’s what caught my attention. have you ever seen a person try to walk or run on all fours? it ran just like that, shuddering unnatural movements, but it was so fast. the second time i saw it was april of the following year, walking back up the promenade from the bay to the dorms. it darted across the promenade about ten feet in front of me, and it turned its head to look at me but i didnt see eyes or a face.
27. would you rather have poison or healing ointment in your traveling pack?
healing ointment babey!!
28. tell us three sayings that you live by.
done!
29. vials or mason jars?
mason jars are just more useful.
30. describe your ideal masquerade ball outfit (mask included).
a three-piece victorian suit, with coat-tails ofc, all in shades of silver and white. i start the night in a full moon mask that rises above my eyes; throughout the night i subtly mark the passing of hours by changing into a half-moon mask, a crescent that curves across my face, and finally a band of darkness speckled with stars to show a moonless night.
31. splashing around in a river with mermaids or flying through the sky with harpies?
o send me to the waves
32. what would you end up in the dungeon for?
being rude to someone w a lot of power and little patience
33. if you were a fairy, what color would your wings be?
blue or green!
34. if you could have any magical item, what would it be?
a crystal ball that imbued me with powers of true divination
35. what song would the bards sing about you when you passed by?
asdkhkjsdf idiot by sure sure, bardic cover i guess
36. would you rather be a pirate or a king/queen?
a king but like. really a prince who doesn’t have to do anything.
37. would you spend more time in the field of flowers, the tavern, the docks or the marketplace?
um. the tavern. i know me.
38. would you have a painting of yourself?
absolutely not.
39. what skill are you famous for?
diplomacy?
40. if you could live any fairy tale, which one would you?
beauty and the beast but im the beast and beauty just shows up w some scooby snax n it’s very chill
41. stained glass windows or fairy lights?
both are *so* good tho :(
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superchartisland · 5 years
Text
Trivial Pursuit (Domark, Spectrum, 1986)
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Gallup all formats chart, Your Computer Vol. 7 No. 1, January 1987
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Trivial Pursuit the board game divides the world of knowledge into six categories; six wedges of cheese for six spaces in a wheel with six spokes. In pursuit of rounded knowledge from Trivial Pursuit the computer game of the board game, there seems no better framework to adopt than its own.
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By the time 1986 turned into 1987, electronic games had become well established as a leisure pursuit in their own right. For the teenagers of the time, they had been popular in some form for their entire lives. The ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 had been out for five years, and increasing numbers of parents were being persuaded of their educational and fun value. That would carry on -- I got my own Commodore 64 several Christmases later. As discussed a few entries back, computer games were sold in the biggest high street shops. Meanwhile, sports are a familiar subject for AAA. Making games about subjects people already know well is an easy route in for an audience. Taking an already popular activity like football with its own set of defined rules and turning it into computerised form is an even more obvious thing to go for, on both the developers’ side and the players’. With that background, it is no surprise at all to find other existing leisure activities being successfully translated into computer games. The board game Trivial Pursuit was of a similar age to the Spectrum and C64, still in an initial swing of popularity which meant that an electronic version of it wasn’t trying to replace a well-established favourite like Monopoly, but offering an alternative or addition to the fun thing you’d recently come across. The computer game’s manual explicitly calls it a game that “the whole family (Mum and Dad included!) enjoy enormously.” On Christmas Day 1986, many British families must have gathered round the Spectrum after dinner for a game of Trivial Pursuit.
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Computer science, particularly at the kind of price that was able to reach large numbers of game-playing households, had only advanced so far. This presented some technological barriers to recreating the Trivial Pursuit experience. Representing the colour brown, for instance, was apparently an unachievable task, and so the art & literature wedge becomes black. Still, Trivial Pursuit is a very viable candidate for transfer to computer form, comprising as it does of a series of trivia questions with a limited appendage of choosing movement and collecting tokens. So the dice also go, replaced by a random dart-throwing animation which captures a miniscule fraction of the tactile sense of ceremony, but mostly the game is intact. Expanded on, even, since the board game couldn’t offer musical rounds where listening to “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” is an essential part of the experience, or easily offer picture rounds. The one remaining issue is that of the mechanics of answering questions. I assumed going in that there would be some kind of multiple choice arrangement, but the actual solution is much more simple and elegant. The game just poses each question and then asks whether you got it right, Y/N? Players of the board game similarly get an answer written down and have to determine among themselves whether the player asked it answered satisfactorily, so why should a computer recreation of the experience be any different? The psychology of presenting an irreversible button-press and relying on players’ honesty in this way is nonetheless a fascinating sideshow all of its own.
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I’ve talked previously about the strength of games as ways of presenting spaces. Trivial Pursuit has several spaces to present. One is the board, a recreation of a physical object with functionality retained and resemblance to the original object at the forefront. Another of its spaces is the more completely imagined room in which the question master paces backwards and forwards, surrounded by items to represent the different question categories. Sometimes it goes dark, giving the idea of an image being cast by a projector, the game turning into both test and lecture at the same time. Among the items in the room is a world map up on the wall. And what is a chart but a map of territory, of tangible or intangible space? The Gallup charts by which we are finding our way through the AAA journey are maps of their own territory, suspended between imaginary and real. SalesSpace, we could call it. In SalesSpace, the things that count are time and format and sales, and that’s what’s reflected in the picture of relationships between games that charts of SalesSpace show. In SalesSpace, board game recreation Trivial Pursuit and World War II shoot-em-up 1942 sit together in the same top ten. In SalesSpace, Trivial Pursuit goes between well-remembered arcade games Paperboy and Gauntlet along the route through the UK’s #1 games. Look along the right axes and what you might have thought of as very separate places turn out to be right next to each other.
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One of the first things that’s obvious on playing Trivial Pursuit the computer game is its commitment to being as accessible as it can. It’s notable that it uses the keyboard’s arrow keys for directional controls, rather than QAOP or one of the other arcane combinations other Spectrum games tended to go for. Anyone was clearly meant to be able to turn up and figure out what was happening as quickly as possible, and that holds up. Admittedly if I didn’t already know the rules of Trivial Pursuit I would need the manual at hand, but that goes for the board game too. Past that, the basic action of answering trivia questions is fun, its questions are pretty well-pitched as easy but not too much so, and the attention to detail seems reasonable (I haven’t encountered any Hugh Jackilometresans so far). The choice of questions goes for timelessness, even more than the board version since the music question choices are backwards looking, presumably to keep the sound samples copyright-free. Where it doesn’t achieve that timelessness, the perspective on what has changed in three decades makes for intriguing wrinkles -- you could probably still ask “What was Mrs. Fawlty’s Christian name?” but not in those words. Trivial Pursuit is one of the most straightforwardly entertaining games I’ve played for AAA so far.
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But is it art? It’s not a question that I’ve engaged with on this blog elsewhere, because it’s not very interesting, but it’s one that somehow doesn’t go away. An inferiority-complex-driven need to justify video games to outsiders as being art seems to have infinite lives. Worse, within some very loud pockets of game culture, that need sits alongside a vicious refusal to tolerate the kind of cultural criticism that art tends to get. Sometimes the same people are the ones saying both, and more. There’s no place for politics in games, apparently. Narrative events only ever happen inside the context of the narrative and not a wider context of authorial choice. Games should just be fun, OK? But, of course, the right kind of fun. The wrong kind of fun means a non-game, a phrase I became familiar with as I re-engaged with video games in the Wii and DS era and read NeoGAF, a gaming forum which was relatively open and welcoming (i.e. it was merely toxic rather than a seething hellscape). Wii Sports was a non-game. Non-games are successful games which are too popular and do too many things which games don’t do to count as games. In a weird inversion of the ‘how is this art?’ Turner Prize winner phenomenon, the mainstream audience sees non-games as a perfectly fine type of game and the enthusiasts proclaiming themselves at the centre of the culture completely deny non-games a place in the category. Not in the sense of them being too lowbrow, but of trying to define them out completely. Trivial Pursuit would surely have counted as a non-game. Which is nonsense, obviously. It provides an experience of a virtual space that’s dependent on the player’s actions, producing an emerging narrative within its bounds. I can’t work out a plausible game definition which wouldn’t include it without going absurdly narrow. Its selection of questions is a meaningful creative decision, illustrating and reinforcing what knowledge is seen as worth knowing. As for the wider art question, let’s just say that I have an equally tough time with any argument that identifies Frank Bruno’s Boxing as art and doesn’t do the same for Trivial Pursuit.
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One of the more successful tactics of the kind of gatekeepers who talk about non-games is an appeal to history. They were here first. People who want something different than monolithic hardcore games are trying to change the rightful way of things proven by time. The whole idea of non-games has that idea of definition-by-precedent built in. Yet find the right maps and this appeal to history is revealed as not only bogus, but bogus even within the boundaries of its own arguments. Casual games and casual players have been here thriving all along. As 1986 turned in 1987, more people were going to their local high street WHSmith and buying Trivial Pursuit the computer game than were buying anything that has outlasted it as an emblem of retro gaming. The world mapped out by the games charts has always been a big one with room for many perspectives and interests. It’s not surprising, because it’s the same story for other media. And yes, other media have their own purer-in-the-old-days crews, too. Music discussions are crowded with talk of how things were better in the past when real music ruled. But significantly, it’s almost as common to see the response that there has always been music of different types in every era, even if it’s likely to be phrased as ‘there has always been disposable pop’ or something more derogatory. The narrative of aberration can’t stand when enthusiasts are engaged with the reality that refutes it. It’s much tougher for ahistorical nonsense to gain any credence when reality is a matter of public record, the charts that map history still accessible. But what if your medium has failed to keep its history up so well? What if the only history most get to see is filtered through the nostalgia and commercial goals of a specific set of winning viewpoints? What if Gauntlet is commemorated but Trivial Pursuit isn’t? Then the gatekeepers can just keep on pretending that the current version of what they don’t approve of is a new aberration, restarting their game to fight the same fights over and over again from a position of illusory strength. The selective retention of knowledge is anything but trivial.
Q: What was the UK’s best-selling computer game at the turn of 1987?
A: Trivial Pursuit.
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burgermiester · 7 years
Text
Fire Emblem Echoes: Another Hero King (Shadows of Valentia) Impressions
***No Story or Character Spoilers***
I dont speak or read a word of Japanese so I couldnt give my thoughts on the characters or story even if I wanted to.  In addition to missing out on the story and character development I also only scratched the surface of the skill(tech) system as well as the sidequest system.  All of that is enough to make me not want to call this a review; I need to play it in English and do the postgame content to have a complete opinion on the game, but as it stands I still have a lot of thoughts about the game after one complete playthrough. So...here are those thoughts:
Presentation:  I dont think I can praise the presentation highly enough.  Its always been the case with Fire Emblems on the same console that they look slightly better than the one before it, and thats no exception here.  The music, color palate, animations, menus, character and weapon designs are all among the best in the entire franchise.  Even though I couldnt understand the words, it was incredible to play a Fire Emblem game with full voice acting.  It really elevates the experience and I’m very pleased we have finally gotten to that point.  No idea if the localization will have good voice acting to make it work, but what we have heard so far has been great and generally speaking I think the 3DS games have done a good job in the area of localizations so I am not too concerned.  If I have one gripe about the presentation its in the fully animated CG cutscenes.  They still look very nice but the animation is a step down from what we saw in Awakening and Fates.
Gameplay other than combat: Fire Emblem Echoes, like Gaiden, is as different from any other Fire Emblem game as it could possibly be while still having that Fire Emblem feel.  There are a lot of things that work together to make the game feel so unique.  In addition to the world map that was in the original Gaiden and brought back in Sacred Stones and Awakening we also have towns and dungeons.  Now, towns and dungeons were a thing in Gaiden but they were the definition of minimal.  Towns consisted of one or two buildings where you talked to everyone and they either joined the party or warned you of a tough enemy coming up, and once in a while there was a chest as well.  Now towns are 4 or 5 screens with many more npcs to talk to and more items to find, as well as a blacksmith (who in Echoes is a cool buff lady instead of the normal gruff guy in most FE games!) in most of the towns.  It must be said that in the original game you could walk freely around the towns and now they are split up into screens and function more like a visual novel.  Some people are upset by this change, but I personally dont really care either way.  Being able to walk around would be slightly more immersive and the visual novel style is slightly more efficient and makes it easier to not miss any items, and I think both those things are valuable. 
Dungeons, on the other hand, are just a straight upgrade.  In Gaiden you walked down a hall and did a fight, sometimes thats repeated x2 or 3 times.  It got a little more complicated near the end in Celicas route and then again at the end of the game, but not much more complicated.  Now they are actually dungeons with secret passages and breakable objects and treasure and enemies that you can ambush or can ambush you.  All the dungeons have a really great atmosphere and feel unique from one another.  I admittedly dont play a lot of dungeon crawler type games, so I dont have a huge frame of reference here, but to me it felt like it was on the simpler side of dungeon crawlers, but not too simple that it wasnt enjoyable.  Aside from the lost woods which is a maze with a lot of signs that I couldnt read, I liked all of the dungeons in the game, and I expect that I wont have any problems with the lost woods once I can understand them better.  The fights themselves are simple and much easier than what you face in the main battles, so its overall just a fun atmospheric break from the main game where you win some easy fights, collect items, and maybe grab a promotion if anyone is ready. 
Oh, I almost forgot, fatigue is a mechanic in dungeons.  But just barely.  At no point was fatigue ever more than the most extremely minor inconvenience.  I really cant understand why they put it in the game.  It usually only even sets in if you stick around in a dungeon longer than normal to grind, so I assume its meant to penalize grinding, but that doesnt make a ton of sense because 1) dungeons are there for you to grind and 2) its not even a big punishment because its so easy to get around via just leaving the dungeon or using one of the ample foodstuffs to cure it.  So basically, its a bad mechanic that was poorly thought out and executed, but it barely matters so its easy to ignore and forget about.
I dont know what it is about finding weapons in a dungeon or picking it up from a castle you gained access to after a hard battle on the map, but it really makes them feel incredibly precious to me.  That feeling is made even stronger by multiple design elements: first, like Gaiden and Fates before it, weapons are unbreakable, so you can keep using them as long as you want and get more attached. Second, as your characters use the weapons they unlock techniques that they can use if they have those weapons equipped.  Last, forging has been added to the game and it uses a tiered system where you keep upgrading until you reach max level and then can upgrade it to an even better weapon entirely, letting you stay with your weapons throughout the game.  And unlike Fates which added a bunch of drawbacks to the S rank weapons to offset their power and infinite durability, the legendary weapons in Echoes are just great. I think its an amazing system.  I didnt fully understand the rings or shields, though I did use them as well, I got more out of having weapons equipped in general, but rings all have big descriptions as to their effects so I will have more to say when the game releases in English. 
I also didnt get a ton out of the skill system.  Since most skills dont double, I dont think youll be using them much on your mercenaries, pegs, or fast cavaliers, meaning typically worse off units like knights and archers might benefit from it.  I mainly used two skills in my playthrough: A very strong double attack from Alm’s personal weapon and a super accurate attack with Atlas using an iron bow which in conjunction with his massive attack stat meant big chip damage.  Ill have more to say about this later, but I am tentatively pretty excited about this system.
Battles in Echoes: The actual combat in Echoes is significantly different than any other FE game.  Three major things really work together to make that true: Theres no Weapon Triangle, Growths are pretty low across the board, and when you promote you are brought up to the class baseline in stats.  These things in conjunction with each other make it so that classes have a far stronger identity than ever before.  Every class is well suited to fighting certain other classes, and you really dont want to send one of your units up against an enemy type that is good against them.  This means that juggernauting is mostly out of the game as you really need to fight with your whole army to be able to deal with all enemy types.  And thats right, I said the whole army.  There are no deployment limits other than in dungeon battles.  This is a pretty big deal and really makes the gameplay different than other Fire Emblems.  The only other main game with no deployment limits is Genealogy of the Holy War, however in that game I almost always found myself either not fielding a few of the units or fielding them and then they never made it to the fighting because of low movement.  In Echoes, I always wanted to use everyone and they almost all were useful in some small way.  This hugely changes the feel of the game for me.  I know a lot of people were concerned about there being no pair-up and how that would diminish the feeling of bonds between units, but this game gave me a stronger feeling of togetherness between my army than any other FE game prior has done and it wasnt even in a language I understood! It was just the game mechanics working to tell that story.  I always had to keep my army in a tight bunch, both to try and keep them all within their three tile support range and to be close by to attack the enemies who attacked their friends. It feels really great to fight with my whole team, even my armor knights, for the first time. 
Compared to Gaiden: I am already a big fan of Gaiden so inevitably I couldnt help but to compare it with the original while I played.  Some of these things might not even be noticeable for anyone who didnt play Gaiden but they mattered to me and I want to point them out in any case.  First the biggest thing to Gaiden fans: all the buffing and nerfing.  Generally, I didnt really notice a lot of the buffs.  Clair and Mae were both a lot better units than previously but otherwise I couldnt tell you off the top of my head who else was improved and how.  Nerfs were a lot more noticeable: Falcoknights and Dread Fighters, while still amazing, are much less impressive than they used to be.  I suppose it makes sense but I cant help but feel disappointed.  Gaiden/Echoes pushes rpg elements and is generally a game that seems to encourage grinding, letting the player have overpowered things at endgame seems like it compliments those design decisions.  Similarly, they nerfed mummies in a major way.  Before they appeared in big groups near the end of both routes for the player to easily grind up the entire party in a very short amount of time if they wanted to do so.  Now they appear randomly, run away from you, and when/if you do get to kill them they barely give any exp unless you are extremely underleveled.  Its a game where grinding could actually be fun but they dont include any way to level up past level 12 or so without it taking a miserably long time.  On the opposite end of things, I really approve of the nerf to warp.  Before you could warp any unit to anywhere on the map and it really lent itself to letting Alm’s half become an Alm solo.  With it now having a much shorter range, its more encouraging to use your entire army and not just Alm, and I think thats a good thing. 
My One Big Fear:  This goes hand in hand with my big complaint from last section, but I think this game might just have the scummiest dlc practice of any Nintendo game.  The original Gaiden gave players easy access to endgame grinding to level up all their units to max very quickly and easily if they so desired.  Echoes changed it so that those enemies now give an insignificant amount of exp and they are selling a new way to grind easily as DLC.  That really sucks.  Theres nothing else to say than cutting something out of a remake and selling it separately is a really really shitty thing to do.  I hope enough people become aware of what they did and protest.  DLC practices have gotten progressively worse since Awakening but this is the worst of the bunch, and I really hope this trend doesnt keep going into the Switch FE era.  I also am very worried about the money in this game.  I did not have nearly enough money to do all the forging that I wanted to do and I am aware that a gold farming dlc is planned.  This would be just as shitty of a practice as with exp if the money situation is as bad as it immediately seems because giving everyone forged weapons would make the game more fun, and that fun is blocked by a paywall.  That being said, I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now because I didnt do many sidequests, and its possible that theres a lot of money to be earned there or elsewhere and I didnt know it.  If in-game gold is actually as rare as it seems and buying a dlc to getit more easily is heavily encouraged then I will be very disappointed.
In conclusion: Theres some seriously troubling aspects of monetization that actually hamper enjoyment of the game, and fatigue and food seem to largely be a waste of time, but that aside Echoes is a fantastic game and a real treat to Gaiden fans and Fire Emblem fans and video game fans in general.  Its all around an enormously fun experience that I know will get even better once I get to play it in English. 
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burgermiester · 7 years
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Why Brom is the best Armored Unit in Radiant Dawn
First off, “best armored unit” is not the most auspicious title.  Its pretty rare for a Fire Emblem game to have worthwhile armor knights.  As a general rule, mounted units and fliers reach the enemies first and get the bulk of the kills/exp/functionality, unarmored foot units come next and get the scraps, and armor knights are left with the crumbs.  Radiant Dawn is not an exception in this regard, for the most part.  At least in Radiant Dawn there do exist chapters where your armor knights are useful because of “scenario” style chapters and occasional limited units to choose from. So instead of comparing the armors to each other in terms of stats and raw number of chapters they are available in, I think its more important to look at how many chapters they are in where they can contribute meaningfully and how much they do contribute, starting with the man of the hour:
Brom:
Brom has part 2.  I could probably stop typing right here but I dont know when to quit so I will continue.  2-1 has only Brom, Nephenee, and Heather.  Heather cant do much to most of the enemies on any difficulty, Nephenee cant really touch the enemy armors, including the boss, and on hard I dont even think she can do enough damage to feasibly take him on so that makes Brom your only option for the boss, and the best option to take on most enemies. That right there would be enough for me to call Brom the best armor in the game, because being the best unit in one chapter (and on hard being the only unit capable of beating the chapter)>being available but not worth using in a dozen others.  But it doesnt end there, in 2-2 hes one of the most capable and certainly tankiest fighters and you will probably have him leading the march through the dark cave, and you especially will on the turns where Mordecai is untransformed.  Lucia can get more kills but you have to be a bit cautious since a few lances or lucky other hits will put her down.  Brom gets to actually be a tank and do it well in the situation where it makes the most sense to have a tank (in cramped fog of war.)  Last, hes got 2-E.  Now, theres lots of ways to cheese this map as well as take it head-on, but even the cheesy strats involve blocking one of the two sides with Brom.  So hes not as crucial as in the other two chapters, but he still is absolutely contributing.  
Meg:
Poor Meg.  Shes got horrible bases, growths that clash with her class caps, and is stuck in the dawn brigade where shes competing with too many other growth units with too few exp to spread between them.  The chapters where youd want an armor, 3-6, 3-12 and 3-13, dont really beg for you to train her since Nolan, Jill and even Aran if you are dying for a tank all get you through those chapters more easily (and shell probably not have the defense to really tank 3-6).  I probably didnt even need to write this part, we all know ultimately unimpressive Meg’s combat capabilities are, even if it can be a lot of fun to use her for novelty’s sake.  
Tauroneo:
Brom has 3 chapters he can really contribute in, while Tauroneo has only 2*, yet one of those chapters is 3-13, which for many is the hardest chapter in the game.   That being said, like most defense chapters its very easy to beat it cheaply, so its hard for me to rate Tauroneo all that highly just for this chapter.  But even if you are cheesing it you will probably want to use Tauroneo, so I would consider him contributing as much in 3-13 as Brom in 2-E, even if thats perhaps a bit too generous considering other units can be trained up to plug important gaps whereas Brom is in a more preset role so hes always going to be necessary for a gap or 2.  In his only other chapter, 3-12, he unfortunately starts far on the left when youd want him on the right, and it takes a few turns for him to join the fight, although when hes there he kicks ass. But in any case, 3-12 can be beaten pretty much entirely by the ally units so any contributions are not that impressive.
*he can also contribute in the first map of 1-6, but you really want to be training Nolan and Jill and any other DB baby in part 1 so its a bit of a waste to let him get these easy kills, especially when its not that hard to beat the chapter without him.
Gatrie:
Finally, we have Gatrie.  Hes the guy that I have little doubt gamefaqs guides and tierers in general will call the best armor knight in the game.  And before I get to the real meat of Gatrie’s usefulness by my standards, I feel I must make a brief aside to address the general idea of usefulness and why Gatrie is cited as better than Brom, which is to say raw availability, bases and growths and starting level, and usable weapons/rank.  Brom actually has one chapter of availability more than Gatrie, but for the most part they are nearly the same.  Brom joins at level 2 and Gatrie 10, but in my experience using both sensibly and not giving either of them favoritism or anti-favoritism by the time they are in a party together Brom is close to level 10 and Gatrie to 13-15, so its not a big difference there, and if you look at their average stats on SF youll see its really not a big difference in stats at those levels, or indeed at any level. The only important stats Gatrie excels over Brom in is speed and strength, and its only by a point or two, so they are both doubling or not doubling or getting doubled by pretty much the exact same enemies.   And in actual damage Brom will be outperforming Gatrie because hes using axes, which more than make up for the couple points of str to outperform Gatrie with his weaker lances.  When taking all that into account I dont see either of them being significantly better than the other in a statoff, and since I still am saying that “how useful are they in the chapters where its worth using them?” is much more important than “how useful would they be if I forced myself to use them?” lets put this aside and go back to where Gatrie is uniquely useful.
So what does Gatrie do that only Gatrie can do? Well, hes got 2 chapters, 3-P and 3-1.  In 3-1 Gatrie is fantastic.  Its a small fog of war map with chokepoints and a time limit.  Gatrie excels at heading up the left path through the grass towards the boss, especially with Shinon at his back shooting from behind and through the fence, giving the enemies the old thunder and lightning maneuver while the more mobile members of the GM sweep around to clear out the rest of the map.  Its a bit like Brom’s contributions in 2-2 but I would say slightly better.  In 2-2 Brom is great, but you could potentially take the dark very slowly with just Lucia or any other character of your choosing if you desired, but in 3-1 theres a time limit so its all hands on deck, everyone has to help and Gatrie has a convenient spot he excels at.  Sadly, 3-P is not nearly as good for Gatrie.  Its textbook armor knight curse map design.  The enemies are all on one path, your more mobile units, in this case everyone else, will reach and kill enemies before Gatrie arrives.  He might as well not even exist.  
And speaking of might as well not even existing; the rest of the game.  From 3-3 onward Brom and Gatrie have identical availability, and its really not worth using either of them.  Just like 3-P, time and time again the poor armors just cant reach fighting before its over.  3-5 is a defense chapter where either of them might contribute but in the entire series 3-5 is perhaps the easiest defense chapter to play offensively, so thats not really an opportunity for them to be useful.  Plenty of chapters have reinforcements from behind that they could potentially fight, but to the question “why not instead of using armors just keep training all high movement units who can either finish chapters before reinforcements become an issue or run back and kill reinforcements and return to the main fight quickly” there is no objective answer in favor of armor knights.  If you were to ask yourself “I am determined to use one of the armor knights in every single chapter despite the fact that using no armor knight would be a better choice, so which one should I choose?” The answer might be Gatrie or it might be too close to call.  If you were to ask yourself the much more practical question “which units should I use?” the answer in regards to this subject at least, is, “however many deployment slots you have, Brom and Gatrie are equally unworthy of filling them.”  There are always better units to choose from than either of them.  They are comrades in obsolescence.
The Very Short Version:
When it comes to a class thats overall not worth using like Armors in a game with as strange of a structure as Radiant Dawn, comparing their usefulness is about looking at where each of them is actually worth using and how well they perform.  Meg has nothing, Tauroneo has two chapters where hes good, Gatrie has one chapter where hes great, and Brom has one chapter where hes good, one where hes great, and one where hes indispensable.  
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