#moomoorn plays viddie games

[themoomoorn]

Vaguely Autistic RN Goes Back On Their FEW3H Bullshit despite having completed FEE: Azure Gleam Edition

This won't be a full-blown advertisement for blood pressure medication like the Scarlet Blaze(d) series, but I also got to the parts of Azure Gleam where I can now comfortably agree with some opinions of it having some really stinky parts.

Of course, the Azure Smell was slung on it in poo form by the other two routes, alongside Koei/IntSys because they're really trying to sell this plausible deniability and and and

uh

Anyway

So 3/4ths of Sreng is a winter wonderland, but designated corner where Macuil dwells is pure desert. Why not just make the place a snowy cold desert like the Katpana Desert and call it a day?

Ingrid continues to display her awareness and shame over her misplaced xenophobia, yet there's still static over House Goneril's racist history with Almyra being erased or...a lot of crap with Adrestia and how they view Brigid and Dagda...

Claude: Continues to scream about how Flayn and the church actually killed his half-brother while ranting how trade is apparently illegal despite plenty of evidence to the contrary

Dimitri: "Y'all hear sum"

Lambert's pitch of trying to play nice with at least one more neighbor, especially regarding the whole continued antagonism with another, is tyrannical madness to these limp-dick fuckheads. Please remind us why we should sympathize with both the western nobles or the western church, again???

Flayn continues to display Clark Kent-levels of disguise failure, but I suppose it can easily be passed as her being eccentric. On the other hand, this is yet another display of this universe's carelessness with its continuity, since Houses clearly established Macuil being the one blacksmith. On the other other hand, Indech is also established as being good with his hands, so them working together to craft stuff works just as well.

Still doesn't explain the logistics behind the Sacred Weapons though. Or how Labraunda wound up in some stockpile that the Empire plundered because they suck.

Miklan is a fantastic example of how these games run on the accidental theme of responsibility and how laying blame on one factor doesn't mean anything if the person laying the blame is a sack of doodoo, which is exactly what Miklan is.

Miklan was disinherited, but he was also always a dick, he was the son of Matthias' beloved first wife (her death being the catalyst for his cynicism), Matthias let him stay at House Gautier until his abuse of Sylvain went too far (which is arguably a dick move in and of itself since Sylvain had to put up with it for years), and Miklan himself here made the final move in fully severing his ties to the House. And he still blames Sylvain for his lot in life, as we see in Houses 5.

Eff Miklan.

So here we have one of the straws that broke the camel's back. Just as Dimitri is about to defeat and imprison Edelgard, Thales hijacks the scene, chucks a Crest stone of Maurice(!?) at Edelgard, turns her into the Hegemon Husk, and after that she lays waste to Arianrhod and is whisked back to Enbarr. During this scene, Edelgard accuses Dimitri of allying with Thales before it's shown that obviously isn't true. Oh, and she also throws out there that Thales killed his father, which is kind of manipulative given how she gives negative fucks about Duscur or how a later scene shows that yes, her mommy was one of the conspirators in the Tragedy after all (something that Houses waffles on).

It's also at this point that the game robs her of her agency and tries to convince the player that Agartha is behind everything, even when we get clear displays of Edelgard and the Empire clearly wanting to go Napoleon/Genghis on the continent for reasons divorced from what the Agarthans want.

Case in point.

Keep in mind that Edelgard gets a whole Support scene with Balthus that she's more than content in carrying out this war, because of Empire supremacy. Or how she tells Claude to his face in Zahras that no, she won't stop playing conqueror even once the church is stamped out. Or that she tells Monica, to her face, that her life is ultimately disposable to her and that if she had died like she did in Houses, then so be it.

You can put as much lipstick on a pig as you want - it's still a pig.

Between this statement and Edelgard's and Ionius' in Houses and this journal entry about the Dagda-Brigid war, it's plain as day that Thales' manipulations aren't as all-encompassing as people want them to be. It's ridiculous to try and pass the buck when there's so much evidence proving contrary.

Clyde may be more opportunistic than he was in Houses, but in AG his one braincell stops shitting itself for five minutes and he actually does the sensible thing by teaming up with Faerghus. We even get a decent scene of these three strategizing how to retake Garreg Mach out of it.

I've heard criticisms about how the lack of trust in Claude is unwarranted here, but after actually playing this for myself, I'm inclined to disagree, as there's a clear scene before the Arianrhod battle showing outright that Claude's going to side with whoever winner of that battle is, even if one of said options could care less about his country's welfare. But then again, Claude looks down on his people half the time anyway, so meh.

And now for some positivity...

Ayo? 🏳️‍🌈

AYO!?!?!?!?!? 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

Ay-Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

🏳️‍🌈???

Balthus, at this rate you should probably consider a career change if that's what you like doing.

[themoomoorn]

LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART DEUX: BIENVENUE A CHILI'S

It's time to balance our blossoming war with activity micromanagement on a magical, overloaded airship-fortress-sports bar. Y'know, as you do.

The Somniel may not have a Chili's, but they better have a Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie in that kitchen anyway!

...what do you mean Chili's doesn't make it anymore!?

Emblème, Engager!

This enchanted doggo poops out Bond Shards if you feed and pet it. That's nice and all, but can it also poop out Happy Hour priced custom margaritas? Didn't think so.

Yeah, not weird at all /s

Also, can we please just have a normal war camp again??? I'm siding with the Tellius fandom on that one.

After getting acquainted with the Somniel, we begin our journey proper by getting a set of rings from Firene, the perpetual springtime kingdom and also the most peaceful and religious of the lot. Their current monarch is Ève, and her heir is Prince Alfred. We meet him his sister, Princess Céline, and their respective retainer duos after finding out that a local town is being sacked by Corrupted.

Per Lumera, Lythos kept two rings and the other countries got two to three apiece. She kept the ring for Sigurd, and Alear had Marth's on during their epic millenium-spanning post-con crash. For Firene, they have the rings for Celica and Micaiah (the latter we find for ourselves later on, as it's in a shrine at the border).

Here I have Alfred Engaged with Sigurd, and Céline will always enter combat in this Chapter with Celica in tow. Both of them rock their respective outfits well and are also good fits for their respective skillsets. I do find it odd that Sigurd's Engaged hair color is a vibrant lilac though.

I wonder if this crystal is made of trix yogurt?

Here we meet Veyle, our Mysterious Fragile Female Waif-type. As you can see by the BDSM choker and the chains on her legs, she will presumably continue the Great Shouzou Kaga's legacy of women being too "pure" and "innocent" to be evil. As these interviews show, the guy presumably needed to have his teeth pulled out with pliers to even conceive a character like Jugdral's Queen Hilda of Chronos.

This game continues the trend of NPCs having banger designs, and for Firene, this includes a lot of floral prints. I love the dresses, and I'd love a button-up with a pattern like it. The item shopkeeper is also really pretty!

Framme is the only character who sorta responds positively to being gifted horse manure. Sigh.

"Alear has that sadness and longing in his eyes that you only see in eastern European gay porn."

Exercise mini-games, which offer a temporary stat boost. Here we have Alear doing push-ups in improper form. Most of the Somniel activities are more valuable for grinding up Bond Fragments more than the activity itself, although fishing is a nice extra spot for cooking ingredients.

In contrast to her daughter's absurd gown, Queen Ève's is nicer, and also has a prettier color palette.

We are introduced to our smex appeal female henchman of the game, Zephia. I will be inevitably disappointed when we are forced to see her sob backstory and be forced to sympathize with her.

She's also voiced by Elizabeth Maxwell in English, and while I know she's had many, many roles, I still mainly hear P5's Sae Niijima, which in this case is kind of hilarious.

This line is actually pretty funny. And hey, if Alfred actually didn't have the capacity of trampling over people like Sigurd himself did, lance abilities, or a workout routine that would presumably fit right in on TikTok, then Nelucce would have a leg to stand on!

Hopefully his passing was uneventful and not the stuff of nightmares, like poor Cornelius.

...Is Vander a cat???

In good old Post-2012 FE fashion, we have a Paralogue off the beaten path to do before running to the border to get Micaiah's ring. And in said same fashion, this map is where we recruit our steroid-injected child who presumably got Tommy John surgery at the age of seven under the pretense that it would allegedly enhance their performance. Yes, I do like baseball actually.

Anyway, our trainee unit for this game is Jean, and he is my new fictional son. I love him. I also love his hot dad and his drip.

Alear raids a farm at night and steals a nice, light, feathery cock. Kinda shocked we don't have more memes of Alear hoarding animals for the Somniel's farm.

Hiyah Papaya, it's time to meet Yunaka, who's actually one of the best characters AND units in this game, despite having one of my least favorite designs, but that's also the power of a good story and good voiceover work (Laura Post in this case) for you.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about Emblem Micaiah, who, like some of the other Emblems, is presented here in sanitized fashion. Yunaka enters the scene Engaged with her, which is convenient as Micaiah's Shine tome lights up this Fog of War Map.

Also, Fog of War maps are back. Sweet.

Veyle is back. Another plot trinket is bestowed upon us. The vivid red shade presumably denotes that it's eeeeeeviiiiilllll.

Another Paralogue before we wrap things up and head to Brodia, and it's Anna's. We get a refreshing change of pace with a female bandit boss and some female bandits, which is pretty cool actually. She even has a 9/10 design.

The remaining 1 point was knocked off for the micro hot pants.

I didn't bother with screenshots, but Anna is a viable playable unit after being completely shitty in 3H. She's a pretty mixed bag in terms of stats, but her Personal Skill is extremely useful providing her Luck levels up (She can plunder 500 gold from an enemy she defeats off a percentage of her base Luck stat). This also might be the most likable Anna so far...not that that's a very high hurdle to clear.

Her being 11 in this game is also still odd, but she got a far better and less rotten English VA out of it in the end.

And that wraps up the Firene Arc. Next time, we head to Brodia, the testosterone-poisoned Sparta analogue. What rings will their royals have, and will they be as inoffensive and mild as -

...wait.

I hear rattling.

Rolling along the grass, over there...

Is that...a bracelet...?

...oh no.

ALEAR NO -

[themoomoorn]

LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART QUATRE: L'AMITIÉ C'EST MAGIQUE

Last we saw our Rent Rejects, they were en route to the Evil Winter Kingdom That Worships The Yellow One, as Diamant and Alcryst's dunderhead dad charged on ahead and is en route to getting his ass kidnapped and fulfilling FE's Dead Dad quota. But wait! There's more! Order now, and we'll throw in an extra Dead Dad absolutely free! But you gotta pay for shipping and handling.

Emblème, engager!

We begin with King Moron dueling with King Whoreacynth (more on that later) in one of the game's cooler cutscenes. The fact that Hyacinth is a Martial Master instead of a traditional Gharnef-like sorcerer is a fun touch to all of this too. As the 100-decibel alarms had predicted, however, Morion falls in battle and is promptly consigned to fate as a gruesomely undead puppet. You know, as you do.

We beat Ivy in the previous two Chapters, and punishment naturally awaits her. She's pretty resigned to her fate, however, and after Alear points out the obvious about how Daddy Dearest DGAF about either one of his daughters anymore, Ivy opts to jump ship...sort of. She doesn't actually join us until Chapter 11, but being the Sympathetic Sensual Heroine(tm) that she is, she knows her role well and heeds Alear and Diamant's advice. We also learn that...

...she's a worshipper of the Divine Dragons, unlike the rest of Elusia.

Minor Spoiler Alert: She worships the Divine Dragon as a form of rebellion, as court life in Elusia, as we learn later on, is complete garbage. It's a good reason, for sure, but it's also hampered by the fact that there are plenty of people, especially her younger sister, that treat her father like a paragon of goodness when we are shown nothing but contrary.

Plus, as we see later on, the faith of the Fell Dragon is treated like an actual faith instead of the stereotypical death cult that tends to follow dark-aligned dragons in older FE games. Normally this would make for an intriguing story and lore-building, but the problem is that Sombron isn't much different than Grima or Loptyr or Medeus, or Formortiis. There's sympathetic elements to him - probably more than Grima or Formortiis, for sure - but he's nevertheless as cartoonishly evil as both of those guys. There's no real reason to worship the guy, seeing that the Divine Dragons, in their fleshy glory, usually bestow true blessings that humans would want and need. The Fell Dragon's one big claim to fame was trying to raze the world to ashes. Okay???

As the lore says, Whoreacynth is trying to raise him up in Destinea Cathedral, and he needs the blood of regnant royalty to help him, and that includes Morion, who as a result is a beastlike Corrupted.

Despite the man being as intelligent as cement, he was still a good father to his sons. We get some surprisingly poignant send-offs from Alcryst and Diamant, which I quite liked. After taking out Morion, we then grind Whoreacynth into a pulp. Unfortunately, Morion's blood was just enough that Sombron could come back to life.

Sombron is ugly and not intimidating at all and I hate him.

Whoreacynth Outlives His Usefulness(tm) and we get him dying in this bizarrely titillating scene. We also see Hortensia having a Big Sad(tm) over the fact that her asshole dad is now dead. Whoop-dee-doo.

We see Sombron's dragon form for the first time. It looks cooler in cutscenes than it does in-game, for sure, but it's still a cobra's head glued to the body of a western-styled dragon. Meh.

Omnomnom~

With the obligate sacrificial men dead as doornails, we then are treated, with great shock, to his second-in-command, the one who helped assist in Hyacinth's sacrifice...

...our waif, Veyle. How convenient. Do note how her once purple eyes are a lovely shade of red now...

Unlike before, where we had our innocent sweet waif, Veyle now speaks with a "dangerous contralto" voice, gloating evilly of her hatred of humans. She's also the one who killed Lumera and stole Lythos' Emblem Rings, if the cloak she's wearing didn't make that clear.

Here we also meet the Black Fang/Four Heavenly Kings analogue for this game: The Four Hounds. They're lead by Seductive Evil Lady Zephia, the masochistic scene kid Griss, the bratty sociopathic womanchild Marni, and finally Mauvier, the one who is going to make a Heel-Face Turn about ten-ish Chapters down the line.

The looks make it a ringer, yes, but in battle he's also the only Hound who has a Personal Skill. Goddamn, that's pretty bad.

Mauvier demonstrates his affable nature, and he secures a spot on my shit-list for the time being.

One thing I forgot to mention is that before going to the Cathedral, Marth warned Alear not to go, predicting something terrible would happen. Alear doesn't heed the warning, but it's forgivable because they were in pursuit of Morion and were seeking to rescue him.

It's still treated as some kind of hubris anyway, because the Emblem Rings get stolen. Alear promptly goes into hysterics.

Given that Roy's ring isn't great and Leif's is mainly good for giving out free weapon proficiencies, I think you'll actually be fine without them, Alear.

With the Emblem Rings now corrupted and in the hands of the Hounds, Alear and company are forced to run. Fortunately, this plot point brings us to Chapter 12, which is the game's sole map where escaping is the main objective. You are given the option of fighting the Hounds, but they all have revival crystals and they each get an emblem that's been corrupted by Veyle and Sombron. They can't draw out their full power, but are still able to access the Emblem's skills and weapons. Also, the Emblems glow red and can't talk.

While the other three Hounds have basic promotions (Marni is a General, Griss a Sage, and Mauvier a Royal Knight, which is a mage knight-type that uses lances and staves), Zephia, being a 2500-year old dragon, has a unique class called "Melusine." What is a Melusine? Courtesy of Wikipedia, we know that she is a fey who resembles a serpentine mermaid. Their most famous story involves Melusine (the eldest daughter of a humanoid fey named Pressyne) locking away her father in a mountain after learning that he broke an oath he made with Pressyne - to never see her bathing herself or her children, as her nature would be made clear to him. Pressyne punishes Melusine by giving her a serpentine tail that would manifest on Saturdays. She would then go on to marry a French nobleman named Raymondin, and like her mother she imposed a contract that he never witness her bathe on a Saturday, as fey impose harsh punishments on those who break such promises. They lived happily (with Melusine bearing him ten sons, even) until he broke the promise one night and witnessed her bathing as a serpent. He exposes his crime in the heat of the moment after watching two of his older sons kill one another, and as punishment, Melusine transformed into a dragon, dropped off two magical rings for no particular reason, and flew off, only to return in order to nurse her youngest sons, who were still infants. Phew!

Wait.

Ten children? By a self-serving man who eventually scorned her?

...Keep a pin on that.

Ivy joins us for good in this Chapter, and in order to counteract the loss of the six Rings Alear had gathered up to this point, she steals the Ring of the Lady of the Plains (Lyn) and the Ring of the Exalted Princess (Lucina) in order to give the group a chance at fighting back. Of course, anyone who's obtained some or even all of the DLC Emblem Bracelets at this point will be unaffected by the loss, at least from a gameplay perspective. Whoops.

Her and her sister are Wing Tamers, which are basically pure mages that fly; she has a wyvern while Hortensia has a Pegasus. While the latter is geared towards staff utility, Ivy is a powerful mage...on paper, anyway. Because Ivy's evasion and build are below-average, she is prone to getting wiped out easily and struggles to double. Lyn does give her some extra speed, but her poor strength here means she can't take advantage of her weapons or specials.

Also, her and Zephia riding side-saddle the way they do looks...not great. As mentioned in the last post, how the frick can they stay on like that?

In any case, Alear gets away, yadda yadda. The next stop is the last Kingdom that we haven't seem: the Summer Kingdom of Solm. They have two Emblem Rings, we need them, and as we will see in Part 5, they're little more than a Glorified Plot Device in terms of worldbuilding, which is kind of sad considering its real-life inspiration. We march on as Alear goes through three tissue boxes over the loss of his bedazzled swag...

Yeah, I'm sure you'll do that Veyle. Such dark. Very convince. Wow.

Somniel Extras:

Sigurd/Amber Bond Convo, where we learn that Amber has lived up to his chosen gimmick since youth. It's been pointed out that out of all the Cliff Notes Emblems, Sigurd is the worst of the lot, and it's easy to see why. Initially he's inoffensive, but as time goes on, we realize that this is basically a bland Sigurd who's already dead and may have a memory problem...

Now I'm not saying that Alcryst is the Bernie of this game, but that is exactly what I am saying.

Okay, this isn't 100% the case, as gameplay wise Alcryst is better all-around and unlike Bernie, Alcryst's self-deprecation isn't played up for fetishistic/fantasy purposes. But boy howdy is it grating and executed about as well as Bernie's agoraphoia.

Diamant/Alear Support. Whereas Alear is deeply spooked by Corrupted, Diamant is spooked by hairy caterpillars. 🎵 One of these things is not like the others 🎵

'Till next time.

[themoomoorn]

LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART TROIS: JE SUIS UNE PETITE FILLE TRES TRISTE

...Sigh...

...when we last left our little ingenue, he stumbled across a bizarre bracelet that was spit out of a nebulous void called the "Dee-Ell-Cee," and apparently it had three entire Emblems inside of it. These three Emblems are quite infamous in the sense that one of them doesn't really qualify as what FEE defines as an "Emblem."

The definition in this case is a "Hero of Yore."

─.─||

Emblème, engager...whoo...Dieu aide moi...

We get off the wrong foot immediately, because even when the Fodlan games and spinoffs asserted that these three would be great together, they show the exact opposite...sort of. The two guys are distant at worst and get along well enough at best, while the five-head elephant in the room looks down on both of them and ignores them. So in that sense, Edelgard is correct in her statement involving appearances.

Case in point: "Claude, you have the intelligence of a cockroach." Seriously, other than their bogus alliance in Hopes, when has she ever spoken politely to him?

And what's more, while 3H's graphics are pretty bad, the models for these Emblems, even compared to the others, are downright ugly.

Koei: "We would've done another soft reboot for Fodlan to make you like Edelgard more, but IntSys didn't want us in the developer's room this time ლಠ益ಠ)ლ"

The Engaged color palettes for all of the DLC units bar Tiki are much darker compared to the canon Emblems, and no matter which of the House Lords is up front, the Engaged unit will be wearing an Officer's Academy uniform. While this Emblem bracelet is probably better in terms of utility compared to a few of the ring Emblems, I've found the 3H bracelet to be pretty poor in the mid-to late game - for one, the swap gimmick doesn't even pan out since you need to fully upgrade the Bond ranking in order to even access Areadbhar and Failnaught (even if Dimitri or Claude are leading, you're stuck with Aymr as the Emblem's main weapon until you reach said ranks, and this version of Aymr operates like a Great weapon, which are very piddling weapons overall unless an Armored unit is using it), and you can just freely pick one of their Gambits no matter who's leading anyway. Their combined attack is okay, but it's otherwise a basic super attack that doesn't even move you elsewhere (Sigurd, Celica) and it can't be done at a distance (Lyn).

As far as their actual inheritable skills...other than Lineage (it's extremely cheap to inherit - 200 SP - and accelerated EXP growth is always welcome in a game that encourages early promotion/reclassing), they suck.

Man ;_;

In one of several instances of Fodlan's canon being wibbly, Alear-Baguette calls Claude by a title he doesn't obtain until Part II.

Everything about Fodlan is very malleable...except, ironically, with Byleth, who has a very meshed out personality not only like they do in Heroes, but it's consistent!

Le sigh...

With some Skirmishes, grinding, and smithing out of the way, we make our way across the border and into Brodia, the austere, autumnal kingdom that sure does love its strength. The economy boons in the face of strength! Not in a darwinistic kinda way, but more in a Spartan kinda way. They're ambishus and want to expand dong territory...

and yet they're somehow remarkably less shitty about it than Almyra.

...I either am going to like you enough, or not like you at all.

This is Alcryst, the second prince of Brodia. After threatening Al and Baggy with self-defense-mediated murder for broaching the border, Baggy flashes his divine creds, leading to the events of the image above this statement. I am honestly shocked that Alcryst doesn't have a crop to self-flagellate himself with at all times.

Alcryst giving off A-1 off model vibes in this image.

The two ladies are his retainers (Citrinne and Lapis). They're among the game's better characters, but also wind up as victims of its very weird balancing system.

The weird "system" in question is that in Engage, the majority of units you recruit in succession will almost always be objectively better than the ones you began with, with very few exceptions. Even factoring in the low growths across the board, multiple units that come after Chapter 10 or so not only maintain higher bases with good EXP scaling, but the Personal Skills they come with are, again, objectively better than those who came before you.

For example, Clanne and Framme's synchronicity of their personal skills works well in the early game (they get specific buffs if they're adjacent to Alear), but they ultimately pale in comparison to the likes of the free range debuffing abilities that the retainers of the Elusian princesses carry with them. Clanne and Framme also have very odd growths that require reclassing in order to tinker with (Clanne makes for a poor mage despite starting off as one, but also has a poor Strength growth).

As we cross the bridge to meet with the king, we discover that the vaguely "Satanic" winter kingdom of Elusia is mounting an invasion - excuse me, a counter-invasion, as Brodia had attempted to invade Elusia in the past due to their "barbarism" of...worshipping the Fell Dragon.

I have some issues with this little nugget besides the fact that it goes about thirty feet before stopping, but that's for another post.

This little cotton candy clown with all the model clipping is Hortensia, the second princess of Elusia, and the childish and bratty one amongst the nobles in this game. She scores some points for A.) Actually acknowledging how odd Alear's looks are, and 2.) Having a little spat with Alcryst that actually bothers to go steps beyond the tepid "ideals" spiel that 3H forces at us (Dimitri's actual logic on CF 17 notwithstanding).

Yes, the spat is "Brodia invaded us and is hurting civvies" vs. "You're barbarians who worship a giant snake that destroys everything and little more," but it goes a step beyond if we consider that the Jesus figure in this world is an actual, living person walking among them! Alear is the child of God slated to become God, you know!

After a fairly okay map of gunning down fliers galore, we see Hortensia call a retreat to...her retainers, and no one else. I will give 3H credit in that the addition of battalions and larger armies does add meat in terms of battle scaling.

Veyle-Waif is here again, seemingly unable to remember how she got here. How Very Mysterious(tm). In any case, here's her casually dropping a plot twist.

Alear is her brother, in case you haven't played an FE game ever.

And now's the moment we've all been waiting for!

DIAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANT I LOVE HIM

If Alear weren't our main character, I'd love for Diamant to have been our Lord! He fits the classic archetype with a few fun twists wedged in. He's handsome, he's an adult, he's perfectly simple and complex, both language voices fit him beautifully, and his design is fantastic (all of the Brodians have decent designs, actually, although Alcryst's random barrette is dumb). His combat utility is decent enough - it has some issues, but further into the game he doesn't drop off like a boulder the way the Firene units (bar Alfred) do. Speaking of Alfred, these two are fun to see together too.

Diamant, being Brodia's responsible Crown Prince, isn't 100% on board with razing Elusia and their not-Satanists, but Elusia's invading and since their king wants the Fell Snek back in action and the Fell Snek eats babies, they're kind of in a corner. What's more, our very own Jesus-Bagel is explicitly on a holy mission to collect all the nations' Emblem Rings because they're the key to stopping Snekky, and that unfortunately includes Elusia's. As Brodia is allied, albeit distantly, with Firene, they opt into helping Baguetty-Spaghetti on his quest.

Despite being responsible for causing a lot of trouble for Elusia, King Morion is actually a good father to his two sons, which is why Alcryst's self-esteem problems can come off as...uh...well. As we will see later on, he is unfortunately not the sharpest tool in the shed, and this lovely little interaction combined with that fact points to all signs that he's a goner.

Brodia seems to only have one Emblem Ring, and it's Roy's. He throws it to his son like a dog playing fetch.

"I bet you don't wanna watch Cocomelon with me later, huh?"

With our objective at hand, Elusia rears its head once again. While the next map's primary objective is to defeat a boss, it's also a defense map, which is a nice change of pace. It is also here that we are introduced to...

...the sensual woobie of the cast (and Crown Princess of Elusia), Ivy. She's a stone cold, magic-casting wyvern flier who's dutiful and driven to server her father, King Hyacinth. It's nothing personnell, kid, she just wants the Emblem Rings.

She also somehow hasn't stabbed herself in the neck with the kind of jewelry she wears, is somehow able to see past the giant fascinator on her head, has no thigh chafing despite her concept art clearly emphasizing that she's going commando underneath that dress, and is able to ride sidesaddle on a wyvern without falling off. The suspension of disbelief set by Claude being able to pull a Parthian shot/stand upright on the saddle/do backflips on his white wyvern has some serious competition.

(I actually do like Ivy as a character...but her design is silly even by this game's standards. Same for Hortensia. I'm also just tired of the specific trope Ivy falls under in FE as a whole).

One of Diamant's retainers, Amber, talking like a toddler for some reason (his other retainer, Jade, will be introduced in the following Chapter). One of the funny things about Amber is that his English voice sounds like...

uh

V*c Mog*ana

But in a slightly lower pitch.

ANYWAY -

-Ow, now that's the edge!

With the castle successfully protected and rings/bracelets in hand, we prepare to march on Elusia. Despite the foreshadowing striking us with the force of someone being flung out of the windshield after a car crash, this moment is surprisingly touching. It's something more FE parents ought to think about, ya know.

Unfortunately, King Morion hears none of it, and is anticipating Alear going all manakete once they succeed in wiping out the Snekkists.

...man. And I'm actually enjoying this guy's vibe. Shame it's gonna end soon ;_;

(This moment is also another underrated one, because Alear has a mini-crisis where he asks himself, "wait, can I turn into a dragon??? Help???")

Next time on ManaketeBall Grand Tour, we march on Elusia, where bad things will definitely, absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, happen. But first, some odds and ends!

Alfred is the first character I got a gold wax seal on. These share hobbies, talents and backgrounds, and comes with a very soft picture of the unit in elegant costume.

This is also the first hint about his health.

ಥ﹏ಥ

Brodia's favored edible fare include meats and starch. The princes both like haggis, which is a dish originating in Scotland whose real life equivalent closely matches the description shown above.

This is more me being salty towards my IRL coworkers in regards to cuisine.

Out of all the inexplicable traits that doesn't seem to really show through, Citrinne having Resting Bitch Face is in the Top 5 for this game.

Damn, Diamant doesn't like horse manure either.

'Till next time.

[themoomoorn]

LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART UN: LA COULEUR BLEU EST BONNE

Now that I finally have a friggin large screen TV that works, let's get into this Shakespeare in the Park for V-Tubers Edition of Fire Emblem!

As per my previous post, I picked a male Alear and named him Baguette.

Emblème, Engager!

I'm sure that Timerra is fine and all, but I'm really bothered by these whacky irises her and her brother have, like...why???

Dimiclaude baby? Dimileth baby? Honestly, at least visually I can see it.

This model is gross. Also, his tome is literally named "DARKNESS"

This looks really cool, but it also brings up a recurrent issue I have with FE: The lack of costume inertia. While this is more or less a magical girl transformation Emblem-based costume switch, how cool would it be to see Baguette (Alear) wearing something like this, seeing as it's clearly him fighting in the past?

Also, the battle is direct rip from the Premonition from Awakening. While the appreciation of the prior titles does show far more subtly and nicely later on, this one...is just lazy.

Although

At this time, it's kind of funny to think about - I played Awakening in college 1 (not nursing school) when it was first released back in 2013(!!!). The game is now part of the decade old club. I now know more people, arguably, that did not get their start with Awakening but through another title, and not even necessarily through 3H either (which is something because Awakening is the title that injected new life and interest in FE as a Nintendo property). But the fact that it kickstarted utilizing premonitions and dreams as a way to get the plot running has clearly left its mark.

As the saying goes, what's old is new again.

(For the curious, I got my start with Blazing Blade, and I also played Sacred Stones, but I only jumped on the FE Hyperfixation Train/Rabbit Hole when Awakening came out.)

The Avatar slathering has an in-universe justification this time, which...actually, it kinda works. We get to see how and why Alear gets the wankery.

This also makes that pre-release interview about Alear's conception funny because they wanted to make them "relatable," which includes not making them nobility/royalty.

The solution? Make them the child of a literal and revered god, of course!

This statement is loaded and utterly moronic, because the franchise has characters like Ike (Lord character who isn't royalty) and Corrin (Avatar character who is royalty). But then again, players likely view themselves as gods of their own world which 3H has proven time and time again with its stupid discourse...

...I never want to hear anybody kavetch about Byleth being wanked over ever again.

Is it time to load up the woodchipper yet?

It is my half-displeasure(/s) to report that beneath the Rainbow Bright vomit veneer, many of Engage's characters range from solid to very good. Alear is definitely one such example, and while I still like Byleth more from a story/intrigue perspective, Alear's execution as an avatar-character is far better by virtue of letting them talk.

Heck, I'd say that if you strip away the Avatar bits, Alear would make a decent enough Lord on their own.

Anyway, this little instance of Alear opting to run and showing some fear seeing the Corrupted? It's a great touch. The poor fellow just woke up from a thousand-year nap, after all, and can barely tell his hand from his foot.

Took me a while to notice that the glowing...blue bits...that show up behind Engaged characters differ depending on either character or class. No matter who Alear is Engaged with, he will always have inverted wings, as he's a dragon. Lumera also has this trait during the one instance where she's Engaged too.

Fliers have right-side up wings, horse riders have literal motor fans propelling them, armored units have spherical shells surrounding them, the backup units (Sword/Lance/Axe Fighters) have floating knight helmet visors, and other infantry units have a trio of weapons floating behind them. Magical units don't seem to have these blue bits.

The only exception to this is Tiki's DLC bracelet, but that's because her Engage gimmick is turning the unit into a literal goddamn dragon, which is pretty hilarious.

Oh, now you default the Avatar to a female for the tutorials??? I swear to God, IntSys...

Imma firin my lazer.mp3 (cue dated internet joke)

It's this screenshot of Alear that showed me that he kinda looks like male Byleth if he were actually charming and not perpetually high/constipated.

I've picked female Avatars for my "main"/content-inspiration runs up to this point, so this is my first time picking the male (Male Shez doesn't count). Gender envy is playing a role in this one, because not only does female Alear have that kind of weird animesque baby face that I dislike, but there's something about how she's presented that doesn't jive with me. I think it's the length of her hair and the fact that you can't change it (I've given my Robins and Corrins short hair when I played as them).

This is rich, coming from me, the web's number 3 female Byleth stan, what with her H-cups and ridiculously cut armor, but I've realized I feel attracted to her as much as I want to be her. Her personality and what happens to her in her story is painfully relatable to me as well - the extreme social awkwardness and painful parallels to neurodivergence. But when she finally starts to emote a bit more, it's more visible than with the male.

Oh wait, I forgot...we're playing Fire Emblem Engage.

*cue Kill Bill Sirens in the minds of a certain group of fans*

As we see later, while humans can hear the Emblems when they speak, a dragon's invocation and touch is the only way to actually activate them. That makes sense.

The bit about it something that can only be done every millenium or so...not so much. Feels kind of arbitrary.

"Oh sweetie, I just made artificial life from nothing. You know, mid-level manager stuff."

ZIGLUDO-CHAN-SAMA-SENPAI

Oh look Alear was bad(tm) in the past, Lumera made them good, whooo

They even used the type of fire sound effect you'd probably find on videohive during the cutscene transition.

WhyTheFuckYouLying.mp4

To be honest, I'm not sure whether or not this execution of The Ritual Sacrifice of the Emblem Mother(tm) was done well or not, because this is another "celebration (?)" of prior FE Events: Much like how the Premonition scene is lifted from Awakening, this one is a riff of Mikoto's death in Fates.

On one hand...this death was literally advertised in the trailers. We all saw it coming. The scene, as melodramatic as it is, is very well acted in English (I'm sure it's similarly well done in JP, seeing that legendary seiyuu Kotono Mitsuishi voices Lumera). And unlike Mikoto and Corrin's jump from "Corrin being kinda distrustful to Corrin wanting to raze Nohrians to hell in a heartbeat," Lumera and Alear's relationship doesn't quite make the same jump. The whole Shirasagi Throne of Truth(tm) also isn't really a thing here, Lumera's just banking on Alear eventually remembering in due time.

This death also more or less kickstarts the plot, and said plot is picture book-levels of clear: Get the rings, perform the invocations, and kill the Fell Dragon, because if you don't, the world below's gonna drown in a puddle of Corrupted Goo. Boom. Done.

On the other hand, this divine being being done in by wimpy purple lightning comes off worse compared to the humanoid Mikoto shielding Corrin from an explosion and being stabbed by shrapnel in the process. Ouch. The scene also drags on a bit long to the point that it's almost funny.

Also, check out these cape physics!

And thus ends PART UN of Fire Emblem Engage. Next time, we begin our journey in collecting the Rings of Power from the Rhinemaidens on the doughnut-shaped continent of Lythos. First Stop: NetherFrance - er, Firene.

[themoomoorn]

LA SAGA DE BAGUETTE PART CINQ: Qu'une fois Solm avait un réseau d'espionnage et le jeu n'en a rien fait

It's been 84 years since I last screamed at a brick wall about this game, huh? In the meantime, I wrapped up most of Three Hopes (All 3 Routes done, only missing some of the rewards + Need to do the Byleth path on SB) and even got my old GameCube running again.

I might have something wrong with me, because even with Engage's DLC coming out, I have no desire to play it, or even revisit Engage again for a long time. But like junk food cravings, I'm willing to suffer through Hopes to 101% it...

Might have to do with the fact that you can't save and view Supports or music outside of a game file. That includes the S-Supports - oh, sorry, 💍-Support.

Please do note that starting with The Binding Blade, a Game Boy Advance game from the Year of Our Lord 2002, extraneous elements like Supports and music could be viewed outside of your runs. They have kept this ever since, right up until this game. For some reason.

🤮

Well, let's get going then, shall we? Emblème, Engager!

I wasn't able to get pics of Fogado's introductory cutscene, but it's been seen a whole bunch and happens as you expect it to. He doesn't introduce himself as royalty, of course, but rather as the leader of the Shepherd knock-off team called the Sentinels. The only other two members are his totally-not-retainers, Bunet and Pandreo.

Pandreo immediately salvages himself by having the most cracked-out reaction to Alear's presence, enhanced by the fact that he's an actual priest. He is probably my favorite character in the game, and also unironically a fun unit. He is the priest who chugs on the blood of Christ (Read: Wine) while giving cool sermons, but is also genuinely kind and faithful. He also has an excellent hidden sadness that's gone over with his sister, Panette, a character we'll meet later.

Meanwhile, Bunet is subsequently the most unhinged character in the game and also one of the most boring ones, somehow. He is very mediocre in battle. At least Ian Sinclair brings the heat as he always does.

The quicksand slows units by about 1 panel, so Fogado's warning doesn't really stick. In fact, unlike prior games, no one unit is really hampered by desert terrain, including horses. Boo. This is a very straightforward route map, and a very boring one. Solm's maps easily have the nicest of the battle themes, I will say.

You have a side objective of keeping some Green Units safe, and since this map is very boring, this is fortunately very easy to pull off.

Now one thing Engage is great at is upping the overall skintone diversity, as we can see with the Solmic villagers and the Royal Family. No, Fogado being a prince isn't a spoiler. That being said, the two sets of retainers and the holdout unit (who's also the game's Dancer) are all the same Titanium Mayonnaise tone that's prevalent in 95% of FE characters...

I guess they couldn't extend that diversity too far. Unfortunately, a new NinDream popularity poll rolled into town, and as superstition dictated, Fogado placed 24th and Timerra scored low enough that she didn't place at all (and neither did Bunet, for that matter). Ouch.

Oh look, Fogado's the prince of Solm. Shocking. And he goes out as a Sentinel to protect the people and be practical, and stuff. In the desert. Wearing yeezys.

I like Fogado well enough and he's a good unit, but he really is K-Mart Claude in the grand scheme of things.

We smash cut back to Veyle being Evil(tm) and getting a kick out of how Alear is screaming, crying, and throwing up without Marth, and how Red Cherry Popsicle Marth in turn must be suffering. I feel like I'm six years old and playing with my Barbies again.

At least Griss realizes that he's the Megatron in all of this and is just having fun with it all. Also, put a pin on what Marni said.

We meet Solm's Queen, Seforia, and unlike Queen Eve, she plays herself up as calm and casual, even berating her son for trying to follow decorum with her? Okay? Eff you then?

Of course, this undercurrent of casual behavior is belied by the fact that the palace gets raided by Elusia and she has a body double ready to be sacrificed. Okay, fine. Except she also has her body double stand in for her if she wants to go out and explore/party and whatnot. Because freedom is good and royal etiquette is stupid, I guess. Yes, knowing your people is absolutely important, and not adhering to arbitrary rules is a decent idea, but Seforia and her daughter (as we see later, and even see in the DLC to a degree) are all too casual about their importance. Jerks.

Since we are on a fetch quest, Alear asks for Solm's Emblem Ring, which is the ring that holds Ike. Emblem Ike is hailed as the StRoNgEsT eMbLeM oF aLl! He's certainly the most defensive of the Emblems, but if you're talking strictly about the non-DLC Emblems, then Sigurd's Cheating Nikes and Eirika's almost-everything certainly peg them as stronger. These two feign ignorance/stupidity over the Ring's location, and send Alear and Company on a fetch quest within a fetch quest to find Timerra, Solm's Crown Princess and the final recruit of Team Royal Kidz.

Timerra is introduced in her cutscene as Ivy's opposite: Childishly having fun around a firepit eating meat kabobs and singing off-key. She is having a rip-roaring camping trip with her retainers, Merrin and Panette. They are waylaid by this game's rendition of the Pink and Blue Desert Bandit Twins, who are played far more somberly compared to previous installments. I'm not really complaining, seeing that previous versions of this archetype were generally creepy Camp Gay stereotypes, but Tatchie and Totchie kinda go too far in the other direction.

That being said, the map you fight them in is a fun one, as it's nighttime fog of war where the gimmick is smashing apart rubble to navigate. Emblem Ike plays for units who are bulky, which Timerra is somehow, and one of his abilities (which is suitable for this map and two others, tops) is insta-smashing rubble that takes multiple hits to break. He's also snarky and above it all, because it's Ike, and if they had to get one Emblem's home personality down pat, I guess it's his. Blegh.

The battle is done, and Timerra and Fogado then come out and tell Alear that getting Ike's Ring was basically their secret test of trust, because Solm values their independence to the point that they will almost never go to help other countries, even their allies. They also admit to using a continent-wide spy network for their own benefit, but you'd think that, being continent-wide, surely they'd have known that the one and only Divine Dragon was pulling off Divine Dragon things, right? I guess it never hurts to be sure, but Solm feels like it's run by dicks. It'd make for something interesting in a different game, but that's not what Engage is.

In fact, the hypocrisy regarding Solm having spies everywhere and being very gung-ho on doing what they want comes full circle in Fogado's Support with Celine:

Here he criticizes Firene because unlike Solm, they're not one for exporting things and prefer to tend to their needs in-house. It's also a way to have him size her up (and she sizes him up in turn). Last time I checked, Firene doesn't have a continent-wide spy network that has a phobia of IOUs, Fogado.

What's more, having seen his Support chain with Timerra - Celine may have gotten the short end of the stick in terms of story, but she holds out to the end when it comes to endgame relevance should she survive, and as we find out from her final Support with her brother, her cagey attitude has merit. Fogado and Timerra's relationship, meanwhile, doesn't really pan out despite their admittedly strange dynamic, plus the traits Timerra shows during this arc (clear-cut pragmatism and insight to what she's doing despite her freewheeling behavior) doesn't line up with later cutscenes and other Supports (overly positive and even clueless to an extent), including the end of the aforementioned Fogado-Celine one where he's trying to be the pragmatic one for her sake - if anything, he's the overly-sentimental one who needs protecting, unlike Alfred.

In his most baffling heist yet, Alear "adopts" an entire ass camel for the Somniel's farm. How the frick he got it onto the island-boat without getting his head bitten off is the true mystery of the age.

Another feature in this explorable oasis area are these two dancers...hmmm...

While we were out fussing around here, Solm Castle is invaded by Elusia and the Four Hounds, and even though all the blame is shouldered on Sombron's newfound presence, these were the ones who wanted him back, people. In fact, put a whole-ass pin here too, because Elusia and Sombron's relationship is kind of a mess in terms of meta.

Hortensia, still burned from the loss at Destinea Cathedral and her Geriatric Dad's death (she's 14 and he looks a lot older), is leading the charge alongside the Four Hounds. Queen Seforia is taken hostage, but because Hortensia is Sad(tm) and Female(tm), her façade of being a Red Unit is starting to crumble.

Because Ivy's with Team Pepsi and Hortensia's Red Unit status is waning, it's time for Foul Mother Figure Zephia to invoke some good ol' Mind Control on this poor girl. Hortensia holds fast to the belief that somehow the Emblem Rings can revive King Hyacinth somehow, so the control trick works. You can tell because Amber Connor is made to sound robotic in the most bland manner possible.

Combat ensues in one of the better castle maps in the game, and we emerge victorious with a new ally and new Emblem Ring in tow (Hortensia's two retainers, surprisingly, are not recruited with her). The half-sisters of Elusia reunite in what is supposed to be a touching scene, I think.

Questionable presentation aside, Hortensia is probably one of Engage's finest units in terms of sheer utility and presentation, as that's where she excels the most: Utility. She is meant to be the ultimate staff bot with a dash of magic, and she succeeds on multiple fronts courtesy of a high Luck score (either she or Celine have the highest natural cap in the game) and her Personal Skill (potential to save a Staff use). She's a magic flier, but on a Pegasus instead of a Wyvern. You can tinker with her just enough for customization, but at heart she's a magical staff unit, which is the kind of FE unit I like the most.

The ring that Hortensia bought with her happens to be one of the ones stolen from Lumera. It's the Ring of the Instructor - Byleth's ring, repped in this game as a very hardcore, emo music-phase styled purple and black, despite Byleth's secondary color being a very pastel pink - and that goes for the male Byleth too. But we can't have our pink Byleth dreams or a female Byleth, now can we?

Neither can we have the acknowledgement of anything happening after the Pegasus Moon of Imperial Year 1180, per this Emblem's title...

Looks like Byleth's dirt nap wasn't actually them getting shoved off a cliff and missing five years of war, but rather a stable time loop where they wake up and have to experience being forced to teach the Black Eagles again.

Please note that while Male Byleth is probably my second least favorite Avatar (Shez now holds the title), it stems heavily from fan behavior, with the whole "male as default" mentality among them. Now with the way male Robin has been treated in the past, one would think I dislike him more, but male Robin, at least, has some oomph in his presentation. Byleth, being a very flagrant Rei Ayanami expy, I've found works better as a woman.

That, and both VA's performances for when male Byleth speaks, have generally been bad. I will admit that Mr. Aguilar's Byleth in this game is leagues better than Hopes or his various Heroes incarnations, though. Plus, as an Emblem in this game, Byleth's toolkit is easily one of the most fun to use, for sure.

And even if it's as a guy, we continue to have the true Byleth shine in this game, ironically making him dissimilar from the more shallowly presented Emblems here. Most Emblems here are the cliff notes versions (or just plain wrong) of their OG selves, but Byleth here is like...the canon Byleth that wasn't allowed in the original game, because self-insert wankery and what have you.

Uuuugggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh. If Hortensia were a prince, he'd at the bare minimum get some kind of punishment. But hey, we need to continue our fetch quest, so that means never seeing this lady ever again.

As expected, Solm factors next to negative in the plot - not even in an overarching, fleeting sort of way like how Firene is cited to be the most pious regarding the Divine Dragons. It's not quite a Big Lipped Alligator Moment, but it's definitely that distracting music number that ultimately doesn't matter.

Anyway yeah our fetch quest ain't over. We have two more new rings to find on top of getting back the ones that were stolen, and oh golly gee there's some desert ruins that might have another one. No dumb test this time!

'Till next time. 👋

[themoomoorn]

3. Fire Emblem Engage (2023)

For this anniversary title in the Fire Emblem series, my thoughts are as two-toned as Alear's hair: Very fun gameplay and a couple of poignant story beats clash with failing to pull double-duty as an anniversary title and its own thing. It feels more like some weird console version of Heroes. It's an overstuffed pork bun to the point that it explodes in its own grease and meat. There's contrivances in many places. There are so many damn side conversations to be had.

The real kick in the nuts to all of this is that, in a game with not just as many Support Convos as Awakening, but also Bond Conversations and S-Supports, there's no way to view any of them outside of a game file, meaning you lose out on any progress you've made if you wipe out a file. All that progress that's tracked in an in-game album? You can't view it anywhere else. Same goes for the soundtrack. And that doesn't even get to how the DLC Xenologue is handled.

Male Alear/Alfred is a 10/10 ship though, and the usual standouts include Diamant, Ivy, Celine, Yunaka, Pandreo, and Veyle to a lesser extent.

Final Rating: 6.5/10

Master List of media I ate with the aplomb of cake this year (2023) just because

The bird of doom is dying and I get minimal engagement over there anyway, plus there's no character limits here. I want to activate my half-bungled synapses over what I watched/read this year durnit.

1.) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2023)

Compared to some recent Gundam titles, the utilization of an elite atmosphere with corporate espionage and the profiteers of a war economy as a backdrop make this title fresh. It makes for quite a contrast from IBO, whose focus were on destitute child soldiers. The Prologue in and of itself has some of the strongest hooks in recent Gundam history as well. The school life setting fluctuated between being off-kilter and being fun to follow, but it made certain story beats feel hollow with no payoff. Remember how Guel wound up on Earth and was tortured by a terrorist cell, being forced to see what Earthians are forced to endure? He winds up back in the privileges of the Jeturk family within one episode, and the whole issue of Earth's standing in this series is brushed off. Also, remember how Chuchu had relatives fighting for Earthian rights? The show doesn't either.

The ending in and of itself is great...but it feels like an ending that should've come after 50 episodes, or heck, even 39, not 26. The work that Suletta and Mio would have to put in after everything that happened on Earth and what Prospera did feels like arcs of their own.

And yes, SuleMio is a good ship. But - as iconic as Utena is - I do wish that shows and stories that show Sapphic love stop riffing off it, it's starting to get stale.

Final Rating: 6/10

[themoomoorn]

5. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

...More specifically, Azure Gleam. I played Golden Shit Piss Golden Wildfire and Scarlet Blazed back in 2022 and the whiplash of their quality snapped my neck to the point that it took until this year to get through Azure Gleam.

As I had anticipated, this was the least bad route, with its biggest mar easily being robbing Edelgard of her agency and warping her into a hybrid monstrosity consisting of Cosette, Madame Butterfly, and Arvis during the second half of Genealogy of the Holy War; Second place goes to Claude being pissy at Rhea at the very end, despite this development coming out of nowhere in Azure Gleam's context (although you can throw in him getting crushed by a Treehouse too). I'm still a bit astounded that between this game, bad headcanons from standom, and Fire Emblem Heroes, I've gone from being a Claude lover to a Claude...not quite hater, but let's just say that Shahid's shamshir probably should've at least stabbed him in the knee.

Or Dimitri should've just kicked him in the dick in Zahras, I don't know.

One thing I will say is that when musou is done well, it's quite addictive, and the Fódlan setting is like a warm, charming barrel fire that you can't look away from.

Final Rating: 5/10

Master List of media I ate with the aplomb of cake this year (2023) just because

The bird of doom is dying and I get minimal engagement over there anyway, plus there's no character limits here. I want to activate my half-bungled synapses over what I watched/read this year durnit.

1.) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2023)

Compared to some recent Gundam titles, the utilization of an elite atmosphere with corporate espionage and the profiteers of a war economy as a backdrop make this title fresh. It makes for quite a contrast from IBO, whose focus were on destitute child soldiers. The Prologue in and of itself has some of the strongest hooks in recent Gundam history as well. The school life setting fluctuated between being off-kilter and being fun to follow, but it made certain story beats feel hollow with no payoff. Remember how Guel wound up on Earth and was tortured by a terrorist cell, being forced to see what Earthians are forced to endure? He winds up back in the privileges of the Jeturk family within one episode, and the whole issue of Earth's standing in this series is brushed off. Also, remember how Chuchu had relatives fighting for Earthian rights? The show doesn't either.

The ending in and of itself is great...but it feels like an ending that should've come after 50 episodes, or heck, even 39, not 26. The work that Suletta and Mio would have to put in after everything that happened on Earth and what Prospera did feels like arcs of their own.

And yes, SuleMio is a good ship. But - as iconic as Utena is - I do wish that shows and stories that show Sapphic love stop riffing off it, it's starting to get stale.

Final Rating: 6/10

[themoomoorn]

4. Buddy Daddies (2023)

Buddy Daddies is a rare, healthy being of a show: It's a single-cour original anime that combines semi-melodramatic assassin's antics/action with the woes of family life, with the latter being heavily inferred by the real life experiences of the staff. The story is that two twentysomething assassins with rough backgrounds accidentally adopt a four-year old (sort of), who happens to be the daughter of a human trafficker that serves as their target in the very first episode.

Spy x Family this ain't - there's no supernatural elements to be had, and the four-year old, Miri, is a fairly realistic four-year old to boot. Two other great strengths this show has is how stark and deadly the action sequences can be (hardly in line with, say, Taxi Driver's climax, but they're not overly glamorous either) and the fact that Kazuki and Rei (the titular "Daddies") have the kind of relationship that you can't really tell if they're a thing or not - they might be, but I've seen the interpretation that they're queer-platonic too, a take I very much enjoy. That being said, it's contrived at times, and I do wish the assassins got to do a little more assassin work. Yes, that's not quite the draw of the show, but early promotional ads emphasized the action over the family drama part. Oh well.

The ending theme is also easily among my anime Top 10's now. If this doesn't make you feel wistful and want to at least hug a child, if not necessarily have one, I don't know what will.

Final Rating: 8/10

Master List of media I ate with the aplomb of cake this year (2023) just because

The bird of doom is dying and I get minimal engagement over there anyway, plus there's no character limits here. I want to activate my half-bungled synapses over what I watched/read this year durnit.

1.) Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2023)

Compared to some recent Gundam titles, the utilization of an elite atmosphere with corporate espionage and the profiteers of a war economy as a backdrop make this title fresh. It makes for quite a contrast from IBO, whose focus were on destitute child soldiers. The Prologue in and of itself has some of the strongest hooks in recent Gundam history as well. The school life setting fluctuated between being off-kilter and being fun to follow, but it made certain story beats feel hollow with no payoff. Remember how Guel wound up on Earth and was tortured by a terrorist cell, being forced to see what Earthians are forced to endure? He winds up back in the privileges of the Jeturk family within one episode, and the whole issue of Earth's standing in this series is brushed off. Also, remember how Chuchu had relatives fighting for Earthian rights? The show doesn't either.

The ending in and of itself is great...but it feels like an ending that should've come after 50 episodes, or heck, even 39, not 26. The work that Suletta and Mio would have to put in after everything that happened on Earth and what Prospera did feels like arcs of their own.

And yes, SuleMio is a good ship. But - as iconic as Utena is - I do wish that shows and stories that show Sapphic love stop riffing off it, it's starting to get stale.

Final Rating: 6/10