#i dont play fire emblem! i dont know shit about fire emblem!

[astral-amari]

theres a certain power in reblogging shit that you know (or suspect) is fandom content and not knowing a goddamn thing about the source material. I wonder how many things I've posted that were fandom things and I didn't know and had no interest in I just liked the pretty picture LOL

[waywardsalt]

tag rant but man i fuckin hate the new direction for loz

[todayisafridaynight]

i dont think people should play yakuza 3 because it’s a good game i think people should play yakuza 3 because it’s The Experience Of All Time in this franchise and it’d be a crime to skip it. also rikiya’s in the game.

‘you shouldnt play the kiwami games before Y3’ youre wrong but ok. we call that Skill Issue round these parts

[kraviolis]

someone liked one of my TOH headcanon posts from earlier this year and it reminded me about the specific headcanons i have for exactly what types of games the hexsquad plays and how they play them.

luz is obv an RPG fantasy fan. anything with a juicy story and a character creator and complex lore she’ll love. she definitely plays series like elder scrolls and baldur’s gate and final fantasy. she also plays final fantasy 14 and has her character as the good witch luzura and she isnt good at playing it like an mmo is supposed to be played but she loves the story. when endwalker came out luz couldnt stop sobbing to the point that camila was actually worried about her. also enjoys roguelikes such as hades or binding of isaac even if she can only play for so long before getting too frustrated. she also 100% plays genshin impact and gets into arguments online with other genshin fans.

amity is a fighting game girl. she is highly competitive and practices combos with her eyes shut. she prefers the tekken series but when luz wants to play with her they play guilty gear bcus luz likes it’s art style the most. she also likes fantasy RPGs but is way more picky about which ones she plays. she likes fire emblem. she also plays ff14 with luz and is actually good at the game (she carries luz sometimes) but isnt a huge fan of MMOs. she also is the one in the friend group with the NASA ass PC rig with a custom case and the most organized wiring you’ve ever seen with the lcd screen on the liquid cooled cpu and the azura figurine inside the case. she also does custom wraps for all her consoles.

hunter likes games that are very much like, micromanagement sims. like civ5 or cities skylines or factorio (i dont know anything about it but ive been assured by my sister that hunter plays modded factorio) but he’s also a fan of like, old school FPS games like doom and half life. i can see him doing speedruns of those games. (also he 100% once got addicted to some game like fuckin. galactic pinball or something to the point where he was staying up all night and not sleeping so he could play more pinball. in order to get him to stop playing so much and actually get some sleep, gus used illusions to make hunter think he was hallucinating about pinball and scared him into not looking at a single screen or monitor for like three weeks.)

gus is a very chill gamer but he likes games that he can sink hours and hours into. instead of playing a wide variety of games he has a select few that he dedicates his time into learning every last mechanic, but there’s also some games he just plays casually. like with pokemon games he’ll put hundreds of hours into them and carefully curate his team and does like nuzlocke runs but when he plays on his and willow’s shared-custody new horizons island he’ll just walk around and catch bugs and shit and not really worry about upgrading his house and make matching fits with his favorite villager.

willow prefers cozy games, like slime rancher or stardew valley or the aforementioned shared new horizons island, but she’s also a fucking menace about them. like she goes HARD on the min-maxing and automation and shit. while gus is wandering around their island catching fish, willow’s busy rearranging her fully upgraded mansion up in the hills and harassing any villagers she doesnt like with nets and deciding what hybrids to plant in front of her bell trees (she only has bell trees for the aesthetic. gus isnt allowed to harvest them) she would also be running the most high profit slime ranch ever but the way she treats her slimes makes hunter upset whenever he sees her just fuckin throwing them off a cliff the second they arent useful to her anymore. (meanwhile hunter names each one of his slimes and always feeds them their favorite foods and cried over casey & beatrix)

vee enjoys survival/strategic horror games, like DBD, resident evil, deadspace, or even FNAF. she’s the type of person to see the goriest most violent death in a video game ever and just go “ew yucky” then carry on. masha and her are often playing DBD together while in a call and are the most annoying pair of suvivors ever. she also likes games such as original katamari and pikmin 1 and chulip. she's also the undefeated DDR champion of the friend group.

and of COURSE they all play video games together. they all have a terraria world they play on together where they all are focused on their own little projects while still working together and are slowly building up their own village/mansion/castle/fort but luz keeps rushing ahead of everyone just bcus she's so excited and she definitely somehow ends up summoning the wall of flesh accidentally

they DID have a modded minecraft world for a few months with both tech mods and magic mods but while hunter, amity, and vee all focused on their factories and computers and technology, gus, willow, and luz fucked around with all the crazy magic and accidentally found out by blowing up a factory. this is where heightened tension between the the warlocks & the scientists began. this spark eventually turned into a full fledged war that lasted two months before it ended in mutually assured destruction to the point where no one could actually load into the server without their game crashing.

bonus: camila isnt much of a gamer with one exception-- when she was in college manny introduced her to WoW and got her hooked. it was Their Game that they played together all the time. they made cosplays of their characters together. they had several dates in game. they optimized their characters to perfect compliment one another when they ran dungeons with their guild. even since manny passed camila still plays every so often and keeps in touch with their guild members. for the longest time luz has 0 idea that camila plays WoW at all and only finds out after the whole secret nerd confession.

[sieglinde-freud]

so the way endings in awakening work is a bit off if you have the gay mod because it reads single people normally, but married people have the man’s ending read, and then his wife just. attached. and so that alters which ending you see for both of them. unfortunately, that means if i have f/f pairs, which most of them were, i dont get to see any because none of them were read. and at least with the second gen, i did almost entirely f/f pairs, which dont show up, or m/m pairs, which had nothing written, so. everyone please give it up for gerome and cynthia, the only second gen ending i got to see!

😭😭 good for them!!! anyways unorganized final thoughts under cut so i dont have to make a whole other post for it

awakening lunatic sucks! but project thabes makes it suck a little less. in all honesty i had a lot of fun, awakenings a good game to revisit, and finding a way to make it challenging while being able to use my favorite units (awakening second gen) ever was awesome. normally having all 13 (or 14 in this case, with both morgans) would break the game, but lunatic kept the enemies strong, so it didnt matter what my units had. i actually got overwhelmed a lot 😭 HUGE difficulty jump between hard and lunatic all i’m saying. and then the games like “hey now u have lunatic+ if that interests you” NOOOOO THANKS.

anyways. here are my top three guys according to the medal thingies at the end

im so proud of them :3 of all the kids really but yeah these three were huge standouts. virion actually got a change in the mod where one of his subclasses was swapped for myrmidon, so yarne got to inherit astra which was actually insane? it procced ALL THE TIME so. that was crazy. chrom!inigo and fred!cynthia are always good thats not new but they were really clutch in the last few chapters. i had them both hopping around classes for most of the game bc thabes redoes skill progression so. IT TOOK CYNTHIA SO LONG TO LEARN LUNA. ITS FROM WYVERN LORD. GOD. she went through a LOT of classes yall dont even know. also honorable mention to marc and morgan, the best rallybots ever, and dancer lucina, who was outserving everyone she was in a scene with. my girl.

like ok serving cunt on the back of the god youre about to kill? get it girl!

anyways so for second gen pairs i did: lucina/f!morgan, owain/m!morgan, inigo/laurent, yarne/brady, severa/kjelle, nah/noire, and cynthia/gerome and you know what. i think i have a great taste. a lot of these were born from being unable to do other pairings but thats ok. i liked how it turned out. though i was gonna do nah/noire anyways because they were actually like. an insane duo. honestly im surprised noire didnt get a medal thing bc i feel like her nostanking with nah backing her up got me out of so much shit. maybe its because i didnt see her ending… oh. oh wait thats probably it. well. anyways.

i think awakening is not a properly balanced game, nor are the maps made for a difficulty like this. towards the end game especially, the maps are just. flat. most of them anyways, and they just become really repetitive and bland and boring. and despite this being the game with the tactician character of all the time, they dont really allow you flexible strategies, because if youre not pair up stat stacking, you will die! and that sucks. mid game is alright, but the last arc is really weak and kinda dampered my whole experience. im glad i did it, but i wouldnt actually reccomend it to anyone unless you like to play like that (which is totally fine! its just not my thing). definitely requires some solid planning as well. all in all, not the worst fire emblem ive played but… well. im not doing it again. ok anyways heres inigo mouthing off at grima

[imustbenuts]

Sombron's Cobra Dragon Form is a call-out to Buddhist Nagas. Or: wait, are Divine and Fell Dragons really that different?

Hello! I'm back with more info dump on the Buddhism going on in Fire Emblem, whee!!

Did you know that Naga isn't just a name given to the well-known Divine Dragon goddess of FE? Did you know that cobras are the original Naga in Buddhism? There's a funny relationship here.

The word, Naga, is originally a sanskrit word for a snake deity. This class of deities are depicted to be wise serpents, and there is a specific one known as Mucalinda who sheltered Buddha from rain and storm as he meditated to attain enlightenment. Which then leads into these depictions:

Nagas can be depicted as multiheaded or single headed, rarer partial or fully humans. Notably in South and Southeast Asian depictions, they are often cobras. Note the flaps on those necks. 100% a cobra.

But as you all might be aware, the Naga we know in Fire Emblem is a western dragon. Her daughter, Tiki, also is a western dragon.

Bonus: Engage Tiki is slightly different in being feathery. This form reminds me more of a jatayu/garuda but im not going down into that rabbit hole it's a WHOLE OTHER SHIT i dont want to explain rn @_@

Lumera of course, also fits into the class of Divine Dragon with a form like this:

Not at all serpent like. Meanwhile, Sombron is a truer depiction for the Buddhist depiction of a Naga with his less eagle-y and more... cobra head. Incidentally, Grima also qualifies as a closer depiction due having no limbs (wings aside iykyk). Left: Sombron. Right: Grima.

So what does that all mean? Well, two schools of thoughts from me.

At the time of development, the original Fire Emblems were always meant for a western lens. Fell Dragons at the time did not exist conceptually, and so the idea of a divine god dragon was decided to have a western look, in order to match the setting of the games.

Currently, this might be playing with the ideas of Dragons and 'true gods'. Fell Dragons are actually a more accurate depiction of the Buddhist Nagas, and Divine Dragons aren't. Based on this, nerds like me can go 'DIVINE DRAGON CONSPIRACY! WE WORSHIP THE FALSE GODS!' while being kinda correct about it as the devs giggle at my loser ass.

For the lore nerds who might have heard of this... The First Dragons. (Link the First Dragons gallery on fireemblem.fandom.com), and the FE multi-worlds. It could be entirely possible dragons are originally some space faring beings who decided to settle down on various FE worlds, having multiple different species with wildly different looks. As time went on, certain species died out while some survived, and took up the mantle of guiding humanity or just chilling and being worshiped.

Methinks Divine Dragons and Fell Dragons are just names given to them by mortals to differentiate either by appearance or factions. Engage has basically shown us that Fell Dragons aren't inherently evil, and there has been cases of Dragons who aren't perfect either.

As a side, because Buddhism falls under the Dharmic family of religion, Nagas are also depicted in Hinduism. Again, they are cobras who can be partial or fully snake and/or human, and are here assigned the domain of the underworld. Sombron's grand upheaval of Gradlon is a major call-out to this root, as his domain can be argued to be underground for the majority of the game. (Or underwater.)

Buddhism is so widespread that it has morphed and mixed with a lot of other culture and religions, and notably it has mixed with China's. Under the Mandate of Heaven, it is said that when an emperor witnesses a Dragon, it is a sign that the heavens have given them an approval and they would turn out to be excellent rulers. Asian dragons are also serpent-like, and this idea has also appeared in Southeast Asia and more importantly spread to this one country: Japan.

At the end of the day, I don't think Engage is keen in asking 'who is the real divine dragon?' but just messing around with those who know. And now you do.

Have fun with this weird knowledge!

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

(Sorry for the length this ask will be. You really dont have to post or even read this I'm just into fe3h.) About the edelgard propaganda and anon saying its bullshit thing:

People joke about Rhea being homophobic cause she wants to kill everyone in Edelgards group(unless youre in another group and have stolen her guys) and they're the only ones with more than one non straight character in it(3 in the base game 4 in dlc i think) but Rhea isn't literally homophobic.

As for the eugenics thing, though. Edelgard is the only one who is immediately going for the root cause of the feudalism, theocracy, + supremacy of those with crests(a thing some with noble blood have that give them funky lil powers). But yes, eugenics is the wrong word in the context it was used. Those with crests are seen as automatically superior than those without, nobles with crests often(or want their kids to) have kids with people based on crest things, children born without crests are sometimes discarded etc but it's not really "the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to improve future generations" in a large scale way. Crests are like, gatekept by the nobles, they're supposed to be exclusive and there's supposed to be people without crests so it's not the classic eugenics 'all people should be like this'.

The game is very political, deals with heavy stuff and puts a lot of focus on 'Hey, don't you like this character? You'll stay by their side forever, right?' So people(esp those who picked one route and ignore the other viewpoints of the story) get very passionate about the ones they think are right or wrong and will just claim stuff that isn't supported in-game(good example would be that some extremist Dmitri and or Rhea fans keep calling Edelgard a genocidal facist?? People will really just throw those kinda words around, huh). I personally played Rhea's route(then Dmitri's) first but am now an Edelgard+Claude fan cause i agree with them and like them more while staying chill with everyone, which seems to be the exception cause people have gotten really vile regarding this game.

Also I married Edelgard in her route but as someone who's played all routes I don't actually think any of these bitches would be very dateable. I'm a they should have all lost early truther.

Again sorry for the really long ask i know you don't care about fire emblem, but three houses really has an extreme fanbase... I hope you haven't had to deal with any death threats or some shit and that you have a good day.

Oh yeah, I've seen that Fire Emblem fans can be a bit extreme or mean in my notes / asks but don't worry, I've never had any death threats! I can see that the game means a lot to you all and that you're just taking it to heart!

Have a good day too!

[butchwink]

i really liked green day and fire emblem but had to give up on those things to give my ex space. i really liked writing and playing music but had to give up on those things to give my ex space. those all became things i did with her and for her when we were still friends. and now i cant do it anymore

i cant put my music out there half my shit is about her. shes my muse. i cant help it. im just trying to be respectful here and she acts like we dont owe each other basic respect and dignity. fine im done being respectful ali youre a real fucking cunt you know

[crows-home]

Hello hellooooo I have thoughts about Tiger and Bunny :) below the cut because it's so long lmao. I tried to keep spoilers out of it, for the most part, but this is mainly me talking about things i liked

I really liked the character designs. It's what immediately drew my eye and hooked me when I was just channel surfing and came across it. I was like holy shit!!! Black people drawn super well in an anime!!!! It's something that I wasn't used to, Made my heart sing yk.

I adored the character designs for the most part!! Yeah some of them (barnaby) looked silly, but it really fit their character. It's a superhero anime- I was expecting it!

Oh man, speaking of, I'm such a goner for superhero/ mecha stuff. Some of my favorite franchises growing up were Transformers, Power Rangers, and Tenkai Knights. So when I flipped through channels, saw the heroes in action and the fighting/ animation, my brain went "!!!!!!! Yes!!!" I gushed over Tiger and Barnaby's hero suits, heck, everyone's hero suits. It just scratches an itch in my brain.

I watched the dub, and I thought it was great!! Lots of funny lines and great deliveries :) ("and what's that over there?" "Oh that's. A building." "And that?" "...also.. A building." And "I don't talk like that!" "I dOnt TaLk liKe ThAT!" And God any line where Bunny was crying was just so good. Really pulled on my heart strings even when I wasn't expecting it to) Sure, some of the scenes were corny, but I was expecting it!

The plot was solid, though I can see where some holes might be poked. But there was so much character in every episode, I love the teamwork and the way everyone interacted with each other. And the attention that was placed on their relationships with their families. Even if I wish for more, it's fun to play around with in my head. Like, I'm sure Fire Emblem was a big step forward, in universe, for gay rights and their flirty, flamboyant attitude is the biggest "fuck you" to homophobes. I'm sure Dragon Kid's debut, at 13, caused a commotion about children doing hero work, especially when she's getting hurt so much. I'm sure there's a lot of background politics at play regarding heroes and their sponsors that we don't see. I know a lot of this was left out, because they wanted a story with one plot, because they weren't sure how far this series would go, because it just wasn't as interesting. But oh man, these things have been in my head ever since I watched it. Tiger and Bunny is a fun playground.

(I'm going to be honest, I went in without high expectations for the plot. I was just here for cool fight scenes)

I appreciated the direction they took Karina's crush on Kotetsu. I was really wary at first. She's 15? 16? and he's like 36. If they were going to be pairing up the underage girl with the grown man she had a crush on, I was prepared to drop the whole show and hate it. But no!! The progression was sweet, the way Kotetsu obviously sees her as a daughter, and how Karina evolved into her feelings was just :')

Also. Holy fucking shit. Barnabys entire life just. Put out there, for the whole world to see. I can't imagine the sense of perversion that creates. The world knows his name, his backstory, everything. He no longer has his own life, his own choices. It's ridiculous, and I'm glad he had people there to support him.

UNLIKE KOTETSU JEEZ. Man was getting the short end of the stick at every turn ToT I felt so bad for him every time he tried to hard to be recognized, but also just embarrassed. Give him a break!!!

And. Even before going into this, I knew that people would ship Tiger and Bunny. I've been around the block, I know how this shit goes, especially in these types of shows. Two guys being super close, going on about their friendship and all that, is bound to attract shipping. I wasn't against it!- I was just ready for it, but was mostly planning on ignoring it.

But. Holy shit. It's really all there huh. They're like. in Love Love.

("you're only partners for each other." "You two fight like an old married couple." "we dont need to talk to know what the other is thinking." "you're always making me think about you."

Kotetsu "I wonder how Bunny's doing again" Kaburagi and Barnaby "Have I told you about Kotetsu today yet" Brooks Jr. Neither of you are subtle.)

I'll make another post with some more detailed criticisms and takes, but for now, this is all my brain wants to gush about

[nanjokei]

i know ive said it before a few months ago but even though i dont go there i feel like people are pretty meanspirited towards genshin fans. obviously one of the biggest games around is gonna attract people who are new to geek ish shit like video games and anime. which means its likely their opinions are likely to be unseasoned. i think theres an entire world that exists for teenagers and normies with smartphones that we arent seeing, maybe its a generational gap idk

like the people who are super into webtoons and genshin and god knows what else, younger people and normies, lack the etiquette that was basically beaten into our brains through years of frequenting forums and microblogging social sites (livejournal, tumblr) (this is a lie because most people lack etiquette to begin with) so they act unbecoming, get into fights, make claims about skinny twinks being daddy or whatever. mostly cuz they know nothing else. is it annoying? yeah, but it feels meanspirited to write all of them off, and all of genshin off. i dont play it, i tried it close to launch and found myself completely disinterested so after not even completing the tutorial i ended up dropping it, but i have a lot of friends who are normal and find themselves enjoying it unironically and theyre surprised that they do due to the overly exaggerated reputation it has. im just speaking in general, of course they have the same issues a lot of people have with genshin, in fact i think most people who Actually Play Games would...

in general i dont get the catastrophization of genshin. i feel like so many people attribute things to it that dont make sense, like how suddenly all anime character design, especially fantasy, has gotten worse. my own feelings on the designs is pretty neutral. but at the same time its like, a fucking anime game, idk, i dont have feelings on it to begin with because it just looks like most other anime games but hoyoverse flare is hoyoverse flare.

to begin with i don't think hoyoverse is to blame for fantasy designs sucking. i think that is completely dishonest to suggest. as a fantasy fan, i think that its an issue of decay and lack of interest in the genre. i wrote about my feelings in isekai before (hint: mostly positive) but its a fact that most people have no interest in fantasy anymore. its seeing a slight genuine revival recently, but i feel like most of people's exposure is from isekai that take a very minimalist and "modern" sensibility to the designs so as not to be cringe and over the top. here is a google search i did in november 2022 with the search term "anime elf"

i mostly use this cap to show that 1) this is an issue ive been concerned about consistently and 2) if you search "anime" anything these days you get a lot of ai art and that is just noise to me in this context. by the way, in nov 2022 if you searched "90s anime elf", the results are entirely deedlit lol. she's very pretty, and every anime aesthetic page on social media is eager to reshare her and erroneously go "80s anime is the best 😍😍😍" you know, the ova series and tv anime that came out in 1990 and 1998 respectively. its just a complete and utter lack of disinterest in the fantasy genre all around that leads to fantasy anime being swallowed up into nothingness and not being present in any zeitgeist. even tales of, a series that seemed inseperable from the conventions of the genre, has forsaken it. the super tropey anime fantasy jrpg doesn't exist anymore. even fire emblem keeps hiring artists that have no business designing characters in a medieval setting (kozaki, kurahana, pikazo). granblue FANTASY has entirely shed its final fantasy tactics inspo aesthetic and is increasingly releasing more characters distant from those sensibilities.

anyway, my point is that for over a decade now fantasy as us nerdy 20 somethings grew up with has been considered owakon and blasé. nu anime fantasy is either informed by wanting to smooth out the fantasy element as much as possible (see: rezero's character design sense. i have no comment on the story itself) or inspiration from anime MMOs that usually had more simple armor and clothing designs for most players who didn't pay up. its a whole issue from top to bottom, and frankly genshin has nothing to do with it. there are modern series clearly made by people who love the fantasy we grew up with. even those that have a different world view, like tensura, lampshades the protagonist's view of fantasy to the world he actually ended up in.

if anything genshin at least feels like its calling to SOMETHING. im not sure what, to be honest i dont really get the design thoroughline of it, and a lot of the designs are overdesigned, but i think some designs do feel reminiscent of a more familiar fantasy aesthetic (venti comes to mind).

of course its true that a lot of young artists take inspiration from genshin, you know, its one of the most popular games in the world, its like mind boggling hearing how big its install base is, but also i keep hearing that it had some kind of ripple effect on all character design in every game and anime ever. can anyone actually show me like even 3 examples of this? like, be honest with me. is that not peak catastrophizing? game has barely been out for 3 years, its not really enough for its ripple effect to suddenly change the world.

what you are complaining about is an issue that has been an issue since the 2010s. maybe you are only noticing it now that you have a new mediore hatesink to invest in. anyway yes this mediocre and halfhearted defense of genshin's fans was an excuse for me to rant about fantasy as a genre being on its death throes and how people are misattributing the tragedy to rant about some mediocre anime gacha game. i hope the recent popularity of series like dungeon meshi and frieren (i mention them bc theyre currently airing right now) makes people remember that fantasy can be good and pure soul. i hope we get a real tales of game soon also.

if you read this far please let me know what you think even on anon. its a topic that greatly interests me (anime fantasy, not genshin, i have nothing to say about genshin)

[waffliesinyoface]

Games I Done Played in 2023

Putting this under a readmore because it is Long.

-Scarlet/Violet - on the cusp of 2022/2023 but it sort of counts? Especially with the DLC only just coming out this year. Anyways. its good. Professor Sada my beloved evil milf. RIP to violet players who got Turo instead.

-Atelier Ryza 1 - went in knowing nothing about it! And then i went feral because its a really fucking good game with themes and good characters and a lively town full of people that you care about. One of my favorite moments is when Agatha, head of the town guard, looks at Ryza and goes "geez, where did that knucklehead kid who was always messing around go? you've really grown up, huh Ryza?" ITS SO GOOD. Also Ryza is the ADHD fucking icon we deserve. Cannot focus on things she doesn't care about. Perpetually messy room. Kind of an airhead. Finds one (1) thing that she actually likes (alchemy) and then hyperfocuses on it exclusively.

-Atelier Ryza 2 - this game has the mass effect 2 problem where it's coming off the heels of a really great first story but then very early on you realize the main plot is actually a bit shit. Ryza 1 is a story about the inherent destructive nature of colonialism and how that will come back to bite you in the ass. Ryza 2 is about having a sick cat. They try to do something interesting with the optional backstory for each of the areas but then they don't tie it to the main quest at all? THAT SAID: while the main plot is shit, it does the other thing that ME2 does, in that all of the character sidequests are incredible. Klaudia in Ryza 1 is just like. The kind of casual fanservice gay that pops up in slice-of-life anime, so I brushed it off. Klaudia in Ryza 2 is having sad tearful confessions in the rain. I got fucking yuri brainworms from this game. Her arc culminates in Ryza making her a ""friendship"" necklace made from extremely precious metals. It's basically solid gold and has a heart design. Its beautiful. #JustHeterosexualThingsToDoWithYourBestie

-Atelier Ryza 3 - okay i will be honest i still have not finished this. You know how it is. I like that its more open world but also I dont know that it needed to be open world. The writing seems to be better than 2 but not quite as good as 1. I DO like that the beginning lets you see Ryza in her home town, and she's gone from the local troublemaker to Someone In Authority. She's an important and respected member of the community and a schoolteacher now, and now she can argue with the council that they're being a bunch of dickheads with their heads in the ground and people actually listen to her instead of telling her to shut up. Thats such good character development, I'm so proud of her.

-Fire Emblem Engage: went in expecting it to be awakening, to the point that I explicitly bought a physical copy for the purposes of being able to return it if it was shit. Then after playing for a bit i was like "wait a minute, is this just awakening again but actually good?" and THEN i was like "oh no this game fucking rips ass actually, hell yeah". One of, if not THE best fire emblem game. It would be an excellent choice for new players but it's also an anniversary game and so most of the cool callbacks and stuff kinda fall flat if you're not ALREADY a fan.

-Mahoyo: technically a VN, not a game. Also technically I did not finish. Need to get back to it. Aoko Aozaki is my blorbo and I love her. If you like Nasuverse stuff you owe it to yourself to get it.

-SAO Hollow Realization - its an SAO game so it is bad but it is far less bad than i thought it would be. Relationship mechanic is skeevy and I dislike that you need to do it to upgrade party equipment. I killed a hard boss early on and got a sword that immediately broke the difficulty curve which honestly fits how SAO rolls lmao. The fact that you can customize your character but they're still actually kirito is. weird. Buuut it meant I could make Kirito into a girl, which she deserves, the fucking egg. Also Argo's outfit is a travesty, and I will hunt the character designer for sport.

-Tears of the Kingdom - better than BotW plot wise, but didn't fix enough of the core issues. Please can we have a Ganondorf who even approaches the heights attained by Wind Waker. The character designers put so much work into him and making him imposing yet kingly, and then the writers went "uh, he's evil because he's evil? stop overthinking it, dummies." The bossfights are all peak though. Yes even the stupid octopus who is weak to roombas. Lightning Temple was my favorite because I love ancient egyptian iconography and light puzzles. Also the boss is actually challenging if you go there early.

-Armored Core VI - i literally decided to pre-order it like 5 minutes before it came out. And then I came to the realization that actually giant robots fuck hardcore. This is responsible for me getting really into Gundam. I have like 16 gunpla built with 4 more still in boxes and 3 more preordered for 2024. Yes, it infected me that bad. Also Cinder Carla IS my mom and I love her. Burning the planet and solar system is the good ending because she says so.

-Disgaea 7 - disgaea is BACK babey. ...okay I haven't finished this one either but after the travesty that was 6 im giving this a gold star. I love that the protagonist is an idiot weeb catgirl, and i love that the antagonist is literally just Demon Commodore Perry. Nippon Ichi please bring back the kitsune class from 5 please and thankyou.

-Mice Tea - i literally just got this so i've only done one ending but its fun, and good. Drink tea, become a mouse. Get horny about it. Happens to the best of us.

-Touhou 19 - i THINK the full english translation is done now, so thats good. Ran Yakumo is playable and im so happy. It's a shame the netplay is uh. Um. Non-existent. Because coding netplay is hard.

-Lunar Silver Star Story - once again, i still need to finish this. It's a really really good JRPG!! "What if we used the PS1 disc size to have anime cutscenes for important moments and character introductions" fucking genius and i love you. Listen to Wind's Nocturne right now.

-PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo - do you like VNs? Do you like mystery novels with horror elements? Do you like creepy things like curses and ghosts? Do you like really fucking good music? If you answered yes to any of those questions, please get this game. There's like one or two puzzles that were really obtuse on release but i think the game's been updated to provide better hints, so that's nice.

-Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life - my favorite harvest moon game as a child with a fresh coat of paint, some really nice QoL updates, and its gay now. You can be gay. I can finally get lesbian married to Nami and we can have an adorable precious daughter who turns me into Maes Hughes whenever Im in the same room as her. I named her Ruby because A: red hair, B: Nami loves cool shit you find in the digsite like precious minerals, and C: Lou (the innkeeper) was named Ruby in the original version of A Wonderful Life, and she's BASICALLY Nami's mom. Wait this review turned into me gushing about my adorable daughter again...

[jackienautism]

inm genuinely so fucking upset rn. just based on a brief browse of jasons wiki, hes in such a similar boat to ingrid fire emblem but holy fucking shit you know whose character gets reduced down to racism? and you know whose doesn't? and you know wha tth ebiggest difference is between the two of them? im going to fucking kill someoobe

before i say anything more, ive already reblogged a posttalking abt ingrid and her racism (which i agree w/) and i dont blame any poc esp dark skinned poc for immediately not liking her and being uncomfortable by her despite the growth she experiences in her later supports w/ dedue. i dont blame ANYONE for hating her due to those reasons

i have to play house of ashes before saying anygthing more but holy goddamn shit. both have prejudices due to a tragedy that occurred in their primarily white society. and those same prejudices affect their relationship w/ another character (that theyre prejudiced against) whos within their group. blah blah blah thigns happen they must learn to depend on each other, growth blah blah balh. i dont even fucking know if jason goes through any growth and realizes that hes being fucking racist. i havent played house of ashes yet so i just ASSUME he goes through an arc of realizing that hes been shitty but who the fuck knows. i woudlnt even be shocjed if he DOESNT go throughg any sort of growth bc i literally have no faith in fandom anymore. will probably update thsi once i plauy the game. but anyway

its actually incredible how similar hsi mindset is to ingrids. and yet jason is super well lvoed and well received and only said to be a 'bastard' and an 'asshole' while ingrid remains one of the more controversial and debated characters of the fandom and the fact shes racist is mentioned every like 2 seconds

if oyur opinion of me has changed simply based on how i view ingrid, thats okay. i totally understand. ESPECIALLY if youre a poc. if youre white i rly couldnt fucking care less. especially if you like jason

its just........ man. ugh. if jason were a girl and ingrid were a guy, their roles and fandom perceptions would be swapped for sure. look at felix and lorenz for example? they say and do just as shitty of thigns as ingrid and yet no one fucking cares. im tired of this double fucking standard. so many people pretend to care about us and want to be seen as "pure" and "progressive" and yet they turn around and do shit like this and it just shows me that they DONT ACTUALLY CARE. and im TIRED

i feel like i have more to say but im just so pissed off rn.ill add more once it comes to me i guess

[felikatze]

bashing my head against a wall. i could fix binding blade's story. i could. and i am going to ramble about it and you can't stop me.

so long. this is so long.

Feli special usual features:

- tangents

- no apparent structure

- probably many typos

- getting emotional over the 2 moments i will actually deign to call well written

- i might as well just write fanfic at this point

- if you're me you understand

- actually dont even look at this. dont look at me.

first off one thing i actually really like about it compared to other FE games. everything, every location or name that ever gets mentioned, also shows up. every country can be visited and has more than one representative in the cast. additionally, you always know who to recruit people with if you paid attention to dialogue.

playing blazing blade rn and the augury really clutches it for that game. but in binding blade? the only characters i had to look up how to recruit were karel and gonzales. that's it. somebody's trapped or also fighting your enemy? talkto them with roy. anybody else? oh look, it's the brother clarine mentioned! that's the girl noah was hanging out with! that's sue's grandpa! character relations are clear and evident right from the introduction.

in short, the story is incredibly cohesive.

...doesn't stop it from being narratively weak though.

i've seen suggestions for changing who the main character is, and yeah, that works. the first suggestion is always lilina, which would work incredibly well. she fits more typically into the mold of FE lords, and hector's death gives her a more concise motivation for revenge against bern and zephiel. another suggestion i've seen is Fae, since she's the focus of the dragon conflict, and binding blade 100% undervalues her narrative potential (see: my complaint that she doesn't even get unique battle quotes against jahn)

(side note: for how cohesive the story is, jahn kinda spawns out of nowhere. like, he's the only guy not mentioned beforehand somewhere. wack.)

but the story could work with roy, i think.

so there's this part with roy and guinivere, when roy gets the binding blade. he asks if anyone could've pulled it, and she says yes. anyone could've pulled it with the fire emblem, but what matters now is that it's roy specifically who does so.

roy doesn't have anything to do with the conflict at large. he doesn't. the scouring? well, lilina's the descendant of one of the eight heroes. etruria and bern? elffin is actually the prince who faked his death, and he's the one percival and douglas care about. dragons? well, fae's the last divine dragon besides idunn.

but i think if you just like. made that the point. like echoes, except instead of undercutting your everyman protag by having him be a secret prince, he just stays.. some guy.

some guy who was in the wrong place at the right time, and it all just kinda spitballs until he's leading the etrurian army. ike is a protag who does this well, i think. it's just a job for him. and once he's done and paid, he leaves to do the next thing.

it's like. roy is kinda bland. but he doesn't have to be. this is ABSOLUTELY me honing in on minor character details because dissecting bland protags is a personal hobby of mine, but, dude was studying to be a bureaucrat. land management and shit. he's brains over brawn (if his stats didn't already show that). fucking string bean of a unit.

he is ardently chill about everything in the plot, but what if instead it like.. started to actually weigh on him. he struggles to live up to all the expectations suddenly on him, when all his life he just expected to be head of the second most important house of a minor nation. now there's un-dead princes and vengeful kings and dragons running about- and he has to unravel all these things as quick as he can to keep himself and his home safe.

what if he figured out that elffin is etruria's prince and had to weigh telling the three generals to gain their support, or potentially feeding an ally to the wolves? what kind of decision is dismantling the government of the nation you're supposed to be helping?

he just Does The Right Thing, Unquestionably, and that's it.

as for the dragons, introduce jahn earlier, by god. or, find some other way to exposition dump everything about idunn. hell, maybe fae has heard of idunn before, of a divine dragon who didn't make it to arcadia, and roy slowly reveils the horrifying truth of the demon dragon with what snippets he hears from bern's soldiers. maybe have an earlier fight with idunn actually staying on the field as a mysterious figure. anything. i bet you could just cut out jahn altogether if you did that.

like, make roy and everyman and commit to the bit. he wasn't born to step into hartmut's legacy. he just wanted to save his dad from a random attack. but he chose to do it anyway.

and one moment i do really like. from the atrocious exposition dumb of ch24. is when jahn says the binding blade conforms to its user's will, and that's how hartmut spared idunn, i could feel it just click for roy. in that moment, he knew how to save idunn. and he knew he would save idunn long before that.

play into the theme of legacies. hartmut's legacy is, on the surface, of the man who killed the demon dragon. a legacy of violence that roy finds himself in. but, beneath that, it was a legacy of kindness. of only as much blood as need be, and not a drop more.

put this against zephiel. he's like. i dont know how to phrase this. but the opposite of what the previous paragraph is. zephiel has a gigantic legacy as crown prince of an empire, but it's one that's denied to him out of petty jealousy by his father. i think his motivation is actually pretty compelling; he's lost faith in humanity. so he claims his birthright through murder, and uses it to end all legacies to ever exist. whereas the legacy roy obtains is kindness cloaked in violence, zephiel's is violence cloaked in kindness. by trying to end all conflict, he will only create an empty world. he doesnt really care about the dragons, either; it's idunn's soulless war dragons that are his ideal, not fellow creatures of ego like jahn.

and guinivere. god. the potential. zephiel has become to her what his father has become to him. it's again, legacy. zephiel's father broke his faith in humanity, and he has broken guinivere's. she is an ardent pacifist until the end.

....until she gives roy the tool he needs to kill her brother, that is. she first steals the fire emblem in the hope it will force a peaceful resolution. and she gives up. not in humanity. just in her brother.

GOD. THE TRAGEDY OF IT ALL?? in my head it could be so good. it's again just all cycles of violence and kindness. she's trying so so hard to break violence with kindness but it doesn't work. but she chooses to see the good in humanity despite it all. she really embodies that philosophy that roy brings up in his speech against zephiel. it may be humans who do wrong, but it's humans who stop them. we're all just going to keep making the same mistakes over and over, but we're always going to try to do better, and that's what matters. history isn't moving upward. just forwards. but we're trying. hartmut tried, and he didn't quite succeed; just prolonged it. but hartmut was just some guy who tried to save idunn, and that vain attempt was what allowed her to be saved for real.

(clears throat)

OTHER CHARACTERS!

so. since this hypothetical binding blade remake would cater to me specifically.

first of all, replace merlinus with lilina. binding blade's story with her is really hampered by the fact that lilina is killable.

only unkillable characters (i.e roy), characters who 'retreat' instead of dying (elffin, merlinus) or NPCs (Guinivere) are allowed to have narrative importance for more than their intro chapter and relevant gaidens. this blows.

make lilina the deuteragonist. there's already a clear trajectory for her; she calls herself a warrior, she says she must stay strong in the face of adversity, she cannot allow herself to cry now, but still she fiercely believes in the good of others. she's an incredibly good judge of character, and chooses to bet her life on kindness, as seen in how she can recruit both gonzales and garret.

she's, as brought up occasionally already, a much more archetypical FE lord, with a weighty legacy and a dead dad. it would be fun if she just bottles everything up and it crushes her. maybe she has her dad's temper and is trying to be a Proper Marquess in conduct. she n roy can find solidarity in fellow imposter syndrome. they'd both believe they're not good enough, think the other is so much better, only to end up as each other's biggest supporter.

and. listen. the lilina ogier support haunts me. and it gives a terrifying opportunity. like choosing your legacy and not being bound by blood but by shared conviction?

hey. what if lilina was adopted.

i dont know where exactly i'd put a reveal like this. second half of the game, surely. how would she find out? who knows. i don't. i'm just rambling about random points of potential. maybe she encounters someone in the enemy army who fought hector; murdock, maybe? and then it's pointed out how odd it is for hector to have a daughter when he died a bachelor. reverse alm.

and then she'd remember something incredibly distant, long buried as unimportant; of being young and alone and abandoned and seeing a city for the first time.

it would be crushhhingggg for her, since she relied so much on "blood of a warrior" as a crutch. BUT THEN! thematic coherence. it doesn't matter whether she's of his blood or not; there's no doubt in anyone's mind that she's hector's daughter, through and through. and she chooses to keep that legacy, to believe herself worthy of it. she didn't get so far by being roland's descendant; she did it on her own strength, her own smarts, her own merits. hector could've picked anyone off the streets, but it happened to be her, and that's what matters. the paths life offers are infinite, but we are here, and these are our choices.

and that's what i'd do for lilina! yay!

if it wasn't difficult to figure out logistically considering theme-ing and pulling an alm again i would also ABSOLUTELY make ninian!roy canon since blazing blade pushes elinini anyway. yeah i talked about the unimportance of blood but also. manakete roy is REALLY fucking funny.

"dragons still exist?" listen to me boy you are for real a dragon asking this.

also fun recontextual reading of his desire to learn all he can about dragons to learn more about himself since he would've thought his mother was the last dragon in elibe, which would've given it a more tragic slant. and additionally his very existence would be proof that dragons and humans can live in peace, which feels poignant. imo you could still push the everyman angle since ice dragons are largely irrelevant to anything happening with the demon dragon, and all the shenanigans nergal pulled had no effect on binding blade's plot outside of worsening zephiel's already bad relationship with his dad.

it's also just so so so funny to me. on god. it really is.

also allows for solidarity moments i.e sophia as part-dragon people. and also a reason for him to be invested in the dragon plot. and maybe a motivation for him to want to save idunn too. and the sheer irony of wielding a dragon-slaying weapon.

feli is this hypocrisy. maybe a little bit. But Also you can still push thematically. It Just So Happened that roy pulled the binding blade. there are dragons already living in harmony with humans. sophia may well have been the one to lead instead. she just happened not to be.

it also extends the just some guy-ness to eliwood i guess. he kind of is. to me. a gentleman, maybe. a righteous guy. but not the most important guy ever.

anyway! yeah! this was my word vomit about binding blade!

don't let me know what you think! i don't want to hear it because i am doing this to exorcise thoughts from my brain! thank you for not reading! bye!

[sieglinde-freud]

you know i gotta ask about my man gaius 🍭

hi evaaaa :)

How I feel about this character

dude i fucking killed this guy on my first awakening run 😭 but i didnt REALIZE i killed him until like. the gangrel chapter??? and i got so sad when i realized i did i reset the whole game to go back and get him. hes a fav i wouldnt have done that for just anyone! (i know this bc i also forgot kellam. didnt go back for him… i mean i got him when i reset but i didnt reset for him) so yeah i like him :) i dont have any complex thoughts on him but he makes me laugh when hes on screen so

All the people I ship romantically with this character

the first fire emblem ship i ever had that STUCK with me was asugi and caeldori in birthright (yes i had to pair their parents to get them but. i didnt like those ships very much 😭) so when i played awakening i saw the og asugi and caeldori and i was like HOOLYYY SHIT and well. so gaius/cordelia my fav forever :3 but i like gaius with like. half of the shepherds honestly. in no particular order i like him with chrom, robin, lissa, olivia, tharja, libra, lon’qu, stahl, panne, and maribelle :) hes got chemistry with everyone what can i say

Non-romantic OTP for this character

i rly like chromgai yaoi but i also love them just as besties forever. chrom needs a friend that will humble him and literally no one else seems to want to step up to the task!!!! get him gaius. also in terms of family dynamic i just… i REALLY love gaius!severa i think he works SOOO well as her dad. their future past convo is so cute and they just… GODDDD THAT IS HIS DAUGHTERRRR 😭

Unpopular opinion about this character

im not sure i have one? i guess i dont particularly like his hair on inigo, noire, or cynthia… those three seem to be popular kids for him but i just… i cant… theyre so… ugly….

One thing I wish happened

bigger story role at least in his join chapter. like i said i think chrom needs to be humbled more and who else to do it but gaius. granted its hard to make optional characters work in the main story but i think there was potential there to set up a contrast between him and frederick. they also couldve done that with robin but they gave up the fredrobin beef plotline pretty fast so… hey. what about this pretty ginger man chrom also lets in with zero hesitation… hmmm?????

[imustbenuts]

the cutscenes in fire emblem engage in later chapters can feel too much for some but it reminds me of theater plays. ive found it entertaining to see it all in that lens.

a tragedy happens and the spotlight is on the focus characters, while the characters who are heavily implied to be present stand to a side doing nothing precisely because it's a play.

for example, final fantasy revels in this so much but it doesnt have the tokusatsu mocap actors putting their expertise front and center. they can come across as a bit shakesperian or feel like the characters are about to break out into a musical, because it's rooted in theatrics. in ff14 theres is an exaggeration in the form of fandaniel chewing the scenery whenever he hops on screen, doing shit like these:

final fantasy actually has a lot of references to play. just look at 9, for example, where it starts out literally with a play. even leitmotif and theme music are rooted in plays. ff also has a spin off named theaterhythm. so, over the top theatrics!! \o/ them cheese!!

in fire emblem engage an early non-spoiler example is alcryst's mocapper+animator here performing an exaggerated dogeza. they dont have to put this in, and it makes for a less serious feeling game, but damn if it's not fun and just over the top:

and a certain spoiler scene which happens later in game (if you know you know ;) ) where a certain character just goes above and beyond and oh its so ridiculous and a bit cringe but i absolutely loved it.

imo i think engage is self aware about itself.

i think part of the reason why it's not appealing to some is bc some folks might be missing even the tonal dna of what engage is going for. if it made its audience laugh or cry, then it has succeeded in what it wants to do.

[quincymaru]

i uh. wound up writing a lot oops. just to say it from the getgo- im not trying to argue or disagree, i just wanted to add to the convo but kinda wound up rambling

i think about when i was an avid/active khux player (pain) and i remember spending so much time on it and just being so unhappy for large portions of it and yeah this.

after khux, i avoided gachas like the plague (i still picked up one here and there to try to play casually but pretty quickly found that i wasnt at the point where i could so i stopped that) for the longest time. ive been playing honkai star rail and i think its overall been a positive experience for me. i do log in for dailies but they take me usually 5-10 minutes and most of that is just me slapping on a mission to run on auto and every now and then hit run again until im out of energy. and i usually do them on my phone so i can very passively do them (which for me and my adhd is a boon- being able to multitask and all). i spend the most time on doing the actual content drops which i find genuinely fun or on trying to beat endgame content which the puzzle of trying to figure out the right team combo to clear the stage is always fun for me.

the thing i hated that took more time was a weekly thing and the past two weeks i havent done it because my life is kinda shit rn and im like nope i dont wanna do SU so im not (which pains the resource poor part of me but im proud of myself for being able to go no sir we are not doing that). and the update from this week fixed the time consumption issue of that weekly thing (which im honestly still so stoked ab, its so easy- its literally just like any other mission).

i do casually play fire emblem heroes but i can absolutely see that i sometimes spend too much time on it where im just not having a good time because im just grinding for resources to do more pulls- thankfully im usually lazy enough that i dont often do this and just stick to the free pulls

i know i really derailed from the original content of the post, i just really wanted to talk about this in a space where i can be better understood. my friends are either gacha gremlins or anti-gacha so i cant really have this type of convo with them. im just really proud of myself with how ive been with honk and idk this post made me do a think. helped me realize that my current rut with the game is because of aforementioned shitty life situation and not because im burnt out on it

One thing about gacha that I think gets overlooked by critics, (perhaps because they have the good sense not to play the games in the first place) is, rather than monetary investment, how much time investment, sometimes even moreso than monetary investment, these games drain from users.

Essentially every gacha has a steep resource cost for utilizing its characters, requiring hours of grinding in repetitive content that adds little to no value for the player. Furthermore, most have "dailies" requiring a login every day. This combines to create a system in which most players log in every day, to spend too much time on content that does not actually satisfy them

Now obviously this whole thing is part of the gacha virtual casino system, keep them coming back and invested so they're more willing to spend money eventually. It all does come down to money in the end. But it is a little weird to me that even those criticizing the game design of gacha don't often focus in on this. Because 1) as a game design element this is atrocious but also 2) Many gacha fans brag about being "f2p," and know that they personally can control their spending habits (even as the genre preys on those who can't), but they ignore how they might have protected their wallet but found several days of time disappearing. It's something worth warning about, I think.