skylights
44 reviews liked by skylights
they really put the “Fire” in Fire Emblem with this one
FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.
no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.
storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.
spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.
Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.
in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.
let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.
besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.
besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.
units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.
speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out
alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.
oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem
the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.
there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol
if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis
FE4 is easily the most ambitious Fire Emblem so far. at this point Kaga is done messing around, as of this point he now begins to showcase his full potential where it comes to this franchise. I don’t got much else to say right now so let’s just get into it.
no more Akaneia, no more Falchion, no more Marth, we’re heading to uncharted territory now; welcome to Jugdral. the story begins with the Kingdom of Grannvale, one of the many nations founded after the Holy War that took place a century earlier. although many years of peace take place, reports of the Isaach nation besieging Darna reach Grannvale and as Darna was an important landmark during the Holy War, Grannvale declares war on Issach with most of its military charging forward to deal with the situation. while this happens, the army of Verdane from another a neighboring nation invades House Jungby and kidnaps Lady Aideen (or Edin or Edain whatever translation you prefer). however Sigurd of House Chalphy (the son of Lord Byron who’s partaking in the war against Issac) has been left to defend Grannvale in his father’s absence and once he hears about this he sets forward to rescue Aideen with what little soldiers were left behind. unfortunately these events are what begin the next war of Jugdral and many tragedies will occur during this time. since it’s 2024, most people at this point are aware of the Second Generation that occurs during the second half of the game so I’ll provide a very brief summary of what happens there while trying not to delve too much into spoiler territory. seventeen years after the events of the First Generation, Sigurd’s son Seliph is now in refuge at Tirnanog, a village located in Issach (ironic huh) where after word of this hiding place is discovered by the new empire of this generation, Seliph emerges and begins a revolution to free the nations who are now under rule of this empire.
storywise FE4 feels like a more mature version of what Kaga was trying to achieve with FE3. no more long and/or crazy lore dumps outside of like two of them near the end of the game, the storytelling is very natural and delves into much darker topics than FE3, and FE3 was already darker than the first two games so you can imagine how serious it can get. of course there are some comedic moments though a majority of them come from optional conversations you can have with members of your army (a first for the series and something I expect to be in every game from this point onward) and a lot of those also come from Sylvia/Silvia: one of the only characters in the game that doesn’t take anything seriously to the point where she can have a potential conversation with another character named Alec where during the climax of the First Generation, she blames him for unintentionally getting her pregnant, and that’s not even close to being the craziest relationship in this game. besides those couple of moments this is very much the “seinen Fire Emblem”; protagonists and antagonists are betrayed left and right, children are abducted to work for the empire, other children are hunted down to appease a dark god, one of the female characters gets sexually assaulted (thankfully off-screen), another female is tortured to the point that she loses the will to live (also thankfully off-screen), and an important character is unknowingly manipulated to marry his half-sister who gives birth to the vessel of the Antichrist, no I will not elaborate on that. FE4 gets kinda wild, and for me the perfect example of the different direction that FE4 takes is none other than Sigurd, the Lord of the First Generation.
spoilers somewhat for the first half of the game, I’ll try to refrain from mentioning the big stuff since you really got to experience it for yourself but if you haven’t played the game yet you can skip this next paragraph.
Sigurd is a brilliant character since at first you’re expecting him to be like Marth or Alm and Celica from FE2, and well he is for the most part. he’s a noble, he’s friendly, he wants to do the right thing all that usual stuff. in fact he even accomplishes stuff better than the others since right away he starts off OP gameplay wise and he even gets married very early compared to the other Lords where that only happens at the end of their story, but the thing that separates him from the ones that came before is that everything he does has consequences. for Marth and the others while some bad stuff does happen to them, the things they accomplish benefit their world and they eventually get their happy ending once things are done, Celica admittedly screws up at least once during her journey though things do work out for her too, Sigurd on the other hand is what would happen if instead of having one major screw up, he’s constantly making screw ups during his entire journey. his early accomplishments are genuinely good as he rescues Aideen which in turn lets her convince another character to side with them, and then he saves Deirdre who he quickly falls in love with leading to their marriage and the birth of their son, however his rescue mission to save Aideen takes him to Verdane itself where he would get involved with the affairs there which ends with him seizing Verdane Castle. some of the heads of the neighboring nation Agustria views this as a threat so they chose to wage war against Grannvale and go after Sigurd’s army, which only leads to Sigurd getting involved over there and he ends up seizing the southern half of Agustria and uses it as headquarters as per orders. it gets to the point where Lewyn, a new recruit, calls him out for his actions and even Sigurd’s best friend Eldigan begins to think that he and Grannvale are attempting a conquest. although Sigurd has good intentions and didn’t intend for things to get so out of control, nonetheless he still plays a big part in contributing to just that. by the time you get to the end of the First Generation you realize that Sigurd has become an unwitting pawn for the antagonists and is responsible for a domino effect of war and bloodshed. it all cumulates to the point where after everything possible has gone wrong, he throws away his nobility and curses the enemy who broke the last straw.
in summary: Sigurd is a deconstruction of the typical Fire Emblem Lord that the franchise has established at this point. it’s all the more funny that the game that introduces the most complex Lord so far also introduces a basic traditional one for its second half. nothing against Celice—err Seliph by the way, I have no hatred towards him he’s a good character, unfortunately he doesn’t really bring anything new to the table like Sigurd does, Seliph’s not really that much different from someone like Marth in my opinion though I guess that’s not too much of a negative since Marth’s cool af. according to Kaga, there was supposed to be a Third Generation where characters of both the First and Second Generation would join together but it didn’t end up happening, probably because they were already pushing the limits of the SFC as is but I don’t think there’s an actual confirmed reason, anyway I think that would have been a good opportunity to flesh out Seliph a bit more but it is what it is. another character I really like is Alvis Presley, or Arvis for short. unfortunately any discussion involving this guy is major spoiler territory so as much as I’d like to I won’t be discussing him here, just know that out of them so far, Arvis is the best one at what he is from a character standpoint. okay story time is over, now it’s time to discuss the gameplay and there’s a lot to unpack there.
let’s get the obvious out of the way. this is the first map of the game. it’s also the smallest. FE4 is a big departure (pun intended) in that all the maps of the game are jumbo sized and have multiple castles to siege, essentially making each Chapter in FE4 at least triple the size of the ones in the previous games. due to this, high movement units excel here while the lower movement units will usually be at a disadvantage since it’ll take them a while to get into the action and earn themselves EXP. it’s no surprise that the best units in the game are the mounted units AKA the ones with the horses who get a very nice 8 movement speed while others like Priests and Sword Armors (they’re just Knights with a different name) only get a measly 5 movement and while that’s only 3 less than the horses those extra three movements make such a difference. to help movement go a bit faster, there’s a new terrain called “Road” that only use ups 0.7 of your movement which will help alleviate the unmounted units while the horse units become even better. flying units don’t get this movement bonus because….well they’re flying but they’re still really good since being able to fly over forests and mountains is very valuable, also roads have -10% avoid so you have to be careful during the enemy phase if you end a unit’s turn on one. now you may be wondering why the maps are so huge, and it’s that in this game you’re actually traveling through the entire country the Chapter takes place in. a detail I really like is by the time you get to the next Chapter you actually start off in the same area where you ended your previous Chapter. FE3 did this a few times but here in FE4 this occurs after almost every Chapter making the world in this game feel really connected, and it is. as cool as this is however, this makes going through the maps in this game quite annoying as a good amount of them either have slow pacing or force you to hurry to get some useful items in time, a lot of these are actually during the First Generation so it creates a very rough first impression. Chapter 1 forces you to go through a giant forest (the section over at the bottom left) where all your units are forced to have all their movement speed sapped away while you also have to send another unit to recruit an enemy unit in the forest while making sure they don’t die because they’re also surrounded by a bunch of Archers, fun. Chapter 2’s another mess where you need to quickly get your horse units (your unmounted units are not getting there) to the castle nearby to rescue a new unit as well as three green units who are protecting said unit from a bunch of enemies and if one of those green units die at any point of the Chapter then you lose out on a very important and useful item and you don’t want that to happen. also if you’re not fast enough to get to the next castle after that (Turn 11 or earlier) then you risk the chance of a Brigand destroying a village with another important item before the two playable units that appear after the castle is seized to show up in that area, that village is also the first one that ends up getting attacked, granted villages take multiple turns to get destroyed in this game but still. Chapter 4’s not too bad but after you seize the castle at the top right you need to backtrack your way down to the two castles at the bottom as the pathway is blocked before then, you can Return or Warp your units back down but it’ll cost you a lot to repair those staves (yeah you can repair weapons in this game too) and at least one unit with one of those staves will have to make their way back on their own. the Second Generation’s maps are less of a hassle though they do suffer from some annoying enemy placement like in Chapter 7 where a bunch of Dark Mages are placed nearby your starting point and later on where you have to try to recruit another character surrounded by enemy units while making sure you don’t accidentally kill said character during the enemy phase. yeah can’t say I’m a fan of the map direction in this game even if I think it’s cool how they match up perfectly with Jugral’s layout, a shame since I’d like to stream this one to my friends but those huge maps are certainly going to make it a pain to everyone watching. every other game after this goes back to the smaller maps and personally I think that’s for the better.
besides the maps there’s still a lot of gameplay changes this game does to differentiate it even further from the earlier games. each Chapter you get a sort of base of operations in the castle you start off in. here you can do a good amount of preparation before you send you characters out, most of the actions you perform here doesn’t take up any turns (besides giving gold to another unit but I’ll talk about that later) so you can take your time in these castles which you should since using their services are pretty helpful. Blacksmith allows you to visit a blacksmith that’ll repair all your equipment at a cost, a first for a franchise and probably something that won’t reappear that often because this is just way too good. Pawnbroker replaces traditional trading in this game as now you’ll have to sell your items here and have another unit buy them if you want that unit to use them, in a way this is a downgrade since you now need to cough up some cash to give items to other units (the Ring items are especially pricey) but when you think about it it’s really only a necessary evil because most of the items you get in FE4 are surprisingly overpowered and freely being able to trade them off to characters back and forth could have destroyed the difficulty balance (Sigurd gets a Silver Sword in the Prologue there’s no way trading was going to happen lol). Supply lets you store items in case you have too many items (the max you can hold has been buffed from 4 to 7) and you want to keep them on the same unit to save them for another time, it’s not something I bothered with in the First Generation but it did have its niche uses during the Second Generation where the items can start to pile up. the Arena is an area that’s actually been in FE1 and FE3 but I never brought it up since I felt it’s not too important in those games, for a summary: the arenas are an area in various Chapters that allow you to fight opponents that are surprisingly more difficult than the ones you fight in the actual maps, defeating them rewards your unit with EXP and some good old cash. however the catch is not only can you not control your unit for this (a CPU will have your unit attack for you) but your opponent can actually kill your unit off so it’s very risky. (if you’re not abusing save states), in FE1 you actually can’t back out once you start but in FE3 you at least have the option to do that by pressing the B button during battle at the cost of not getting your money back and your unit being at low health. the FE4 arena is a little different as in this game each unit has a finite seven opponents they can face rather than the unlimited amount in FE1 and FE3, failing also doesn’t end in the death of your unit but rather they’ll only be reduced to 1 HP. after every Chapter the Arena resets with seven new fighters so it makes a great place to get units EXP and gold, provided that they’re able to equip a weapon. Augury is where you can find out the lover of your unit or the one they’re falling in love with while the Second Generation also lets you check who the parents of your unit are (another mechanic that I will explain later). lastly the Armory is where you buy weapons, though this time they’re in a limited capacity so you can’t just keep buying them over and over. new weapons will get added per Chapter plus they’ll stick around so if you can’t afford it or want to save a weapon for a later Chapter you can do just that.
besides the town stuff, you can also have a character guard the castle which is a new mechanic as enemies can now invade your castle to destroy it resulting in an automatic game over, though while this sounds crazy you really don’t have to worry about it since there’s only one or two Chapters where your castle’s in genuine danger since enemy units are rarely ordered to go after them and during those moments you can easily send one to guard with a Warp and Return staff that you should have at that point. guarding a castle provides the usual evade boost as well as a small HP regen after every turn like the forts from previous games, enemy castle guards also get these boosts too so you’ll have to be careful around them compared to regular enemies. class changes have been reworked in this time to only take place in your starting castle and well as needing to be Level 20 to class change rather than Level 10, though this time you won’t need an item nor will your level be reset (the max is now Level 30). staff use and dancing can be done in the castle at the cost of your unit’s turn, though I don’t know why you’d want to do that in the castle I didn’t even you can before I did this research for this review. lastly, units can give gold to each other as in this game each unit has their own amounts of gold they can hold (up to 50,000), a neat little detail that showcases this is how a character named Beowolf is recruited if you talk to him with a unit that can pay him 10,000 gold and once he’s on your team he has the 10,000 gold in his own inventory. the gold sharing is limited though as outside of the Thief class who can share with everyone, normally units can only give gold to their relatives or lovers which is a nice Segway into possibly FE4’s biggest new feature.
units can fall in LOVE. yeah that’s right you thought Awakening did it first? nah FE4 beat it to the punch almost 16 years earlier. brag all you want about Awakening saving the franchise (for better or for worse (probably for the worse considering the FE fans that I’ve associated with)), but there’s no denying it couldn’t have done that if it didn’t take one of its most well known features from Genealogy of the Holy War. kneel to your ancestors baby, you wouldn’t be here without them. anyway let’s go back to pretending it’s 1996. many of this game’s playable characters can fall in love with the opposite gender through methods such as ending a turn next to each other or having conversations with each other at points of the game which will boost both their love points and a slight stat boost, though there are a good amount of non-lover conversations that also boost stats so you’ll definitely want to have these conversations to make things a little easier. of course you could always have them fall in love naturally but if you want to do the cheese strat then you can clear all the enemies currently on the map then have the two soon-to-be lovers next to each other while you keep ending your turns until they fall in love, though just know that this method stops working after the 50th turn of each map so it may take another Chapter for them to reach the maximum love points. the only units you can’t make fall in love are Quan and Ethlyn who are already married by the time they appear in the game, Sigurd and Deirdre who automatically fall in love with each other because the plot demands it, and a few of the Second Generation units. the reason why you want units to fall in love is because not only do lovers get small stat boosts where they’re nearby as well as a small chance to get a critical hit if they’re next to each other (something you can’t do in normal circumstances in this game), but during the Second Generation you can get access to units who are not only the children of the characters from the First Generation but these units will also inherit items, stats, and skills from their parents which will make the tides much more in your favor. if you don’t pair up the First Generation units then the ones that didn’t score will have their children replaced with substitute units who don’t inherit anything and have inferior stats, though in turn the conversations they can have will provide bigger stat boosts so they don’t die to a small gust of wind, that said I wouldn’t know what they’re like myself since I made all the females in my playthrough have children (don’t take this out of context). I heard the dancer substitute is technically better but idk I really wanted Sylvia’s daughter to inherit the Knight and Leg Ring since extra movement along with movement after an action is OP, also it helps that dancing now refreshes all adjacent allies rather than just one.
speaking of Sylvia, Kaga decided to pull a funny prank regarding her and her potential lovers. there’s a conversation in Chapter 2 that Sylvia can have with another unit named Alec where the two will get 100 love points with each other. ideally you don’t want them to fall in love because Alec is a JOBBER you do not want him to pass his JOBBER genes to Sylvia’s children because you wouldn’t want your own children to be JOBBERS would you? you can always just not have them talk or be next to each other but then in Chapter 4 you can have another conversation with her and Erin/Fury/Ferry/whatever the hell your translation patch calls her where they discuss about Lewyn. Erin and Lewyn are probably both the best pairings for each other (and apparently canon according to FE5) so this is good because it gives those two 25 love points, but then it also gives him and Sylvia 50 love points and Sylvia starts off having 200 love points with Lewyn when she first joins your team uh oh! at the end of the day though, Sylvia’s children aren’t really combat units so if you get her a bad pairing then it’s not a big deal, and later on in Chapter 4 Erin and Lewyn get their own conversation that gives so many love points that Lewyn straight up tells her “I love you” wow Kaga really wanted these two to make out
alright some of the other changes and additions I haven’t mentioned yet. this is the first game with the “weapon triangle” system where certain weapons are given a boosted hit rate when facing a foe that’s equipped with a weapon less effective than yours. the easy way of putting it is: swords beat axes, lances beat swords, and axes beat lances, though in this game it’s more like: swords beat almost everything, lances beat swords sometimes, and axes are the “I want to die” weapon. there’s also a trinity of magic which is like the weapon triangle but more balanced: fire magic beats wind magic, wind magic beats thunder magic, and thunder magic bests fire magic, unless you’re the Forseti and Mjölnir tomes in which case you beat everything because you’re OP. the weapon level system has also revised to include weapon ranks where instead of leveling up until your unit’s skilled enough to use a weapon, the weapons they can use are instead based on their class and what weapon rank the class is capable of using, for example: Cavaliers can use up to B rank swords and C rank lances (stuff like steel swords and iron lances), Priests can only use up to B rank staffs (pretty much any staff that isn’t Fortify or Rescue), Axe Knights can only use up to B rank axes (not a good thing), Sword Fighters can only use up to A rank swords (good thing), and the rare Master Knight can use A rank everything and C rank light magic (you’ll never need them to use light magic) though only two characters get this class you’ll need to get them to Level 20 for them to access it. for me this is a lot easier to understand then in FE1 and FE3 where you won’t know when a unit will be able to use a powerful weapon until their skill is high enough to where the game says “okay you can use this now”, this is a welcome feature. this game also introduces the skill system which kinda has the same function as the Ability system in Pokémon where each unit has their own unique skill to differ from one another, though in the case of Fire Emblem a unit can have more than one skill at a time. lets take a look at Alec and Noish (or Naoise some of these official names are weird), the Christmas Cavaliers of the game. these two seem identical at a first glance but the skills they have make them a bit different from each other. Alec has Follow-Up which lets him do a follow-up attack if his speed is greater than his opponent’s and Nihil which protects him from critical hits and other combat skills. The Noish gets Critical which lets him perform critical hits and Accost which lets him repeat a round of combat if his speed is fast enough. these skills give them each different niches in the game so it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use in combat more often, but really both of them are pretty mediocre and you’re better off using almost every other unit (horses won’t be saving them much). lastly (I think) there’s the Holy Blood system where characters can have minor or major holy blood depending on their ancestors or in the case of the Second Generation depending on their parents. major holy blood allows them to use the holy weapon of the ancestor or parent they came from which are basically the OP game breaking weapons though you’ll have to go out of your way to earn a lot of these holy weapons through conversations or events. minor holy blood doesn’t do this but it does provide weapon level boosts and specific growth rates, which major holy blood already does to greater effect. since most of the characters in the First Generation have various kinds of major and minor holy blood, the pairings you create here can give their children in the Second Generation their own major and/or minor holy blood depending on their parents which can help them get the growth rates and weapon ranks that they’re in need of.
oh yeah there’s this funny thing that I haven’t mentioned yet. on very rare occasions, you can access secret events by having certain units end their turns on specific places of the map. how are you supposed to know about these secret events? I don’t know! the three secret events I did was having Lex (the axe user of Generation 1) end his turn at a cliff (he also needs an Iron Axe for the event but he should have that in his inventory) so he can get a Brave Axe (Silver Axe but better), having Arden (Sword Armor) end his turn at a beach in Chapter 2 for a Pursuit Ring that he’ll pawn off to Rick Harrison because he will not benefit much from its effects, and Seliph heading south to the beach right before he seizes the final castle in Chapter 10, once again I don’t know how you’re supposed to know about these which is why I’m telling you how to access these events myself. some of the substitute characters have their own secret events but since I didn’t have any in my playthrough I can’t help you on those ones, I love Guide Emblem
the graphics got a glow up from the previous game as now the maps don’t look like the NES ones with more colors (not that that’s a bad thing). unlike the previous two games though there’s not as many cool set pieces like pirate ships or swamps or volcanos or all that other stuff as all the maps of this game take place mostly on grassy terrain with the occasional desert and one-time snow area, if there’s something visually FE4 really drops the ball on it’s that. FE4’s battle animations are also the best they’ve looked so far in the franchise and although they’re not as flashy as the GBA games with their fast anime movement and spinning weapon flex, I still appreciate the more grounded animations in FE4 while still having some cool movement on rare occasions (the pre-class change Seliph crit where he does the Final Cutter from Kirby is awesome). unfortunately it’s hard to find FE battle GIFs that aren’t from the GBA games so you’ll just have to play the game yourself to see what they look like :^))). the music also might be the best in the franchise so far and I think a contributor to that is every Chapter has its own map theme, we’ve come a long way from FE1 having a singular map theme for most of the game. here’s the Prologue theme and yeah this is fine it’s what I expect to hear from Fire Emblem nothing too amazing but it’s a nice theme to start off with. then Chapter 1 drops this banger out of nowhere and then I go “WHOA okay then”, it’s a very lovely and upbeat track which is kinda funny because this is one of the most frustrating Chapters gameplay wise and the beginning of when things start going out of hand story wise. Chapter 2 isn’t as catchy but it does have those Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and that’s always welcome, and once again there’s that mood dissonance with the calm tone because this Chapter is pretty annoying. Chapter 3 is another Mystery Dungeon-like track or perhaps Final Fantasy-like track since Kaga did take some inspiration from FF, anyway pretty chill, bad stuff happens. Chapter 4’s got those chiming bells which is a welcome instrument in my book and you can really sense the loneliness and uncertainty in this one even if you got a whole army to keep you company in this dire portion of the game. Chapter 5 is the turning point, no more positive or relaxing melodies (at least for the time being), things will go down, things will get worse before they get better, there will be bloodshed. that’s all the Chapter themes I will share here, but did you know there’s also unique enemy themes for every different army in the game? Verdane Army is the main army for the Prologue and Chapter 1 and they got a somewhat threatening theme but they aren’t so bad considering the majority of them are axe users. Agustria Army has a more militaristic vibe to it which makes sense so they’re more refined compared to the more savage Verdane Army, also these guys have horses so that helps. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. doot doot. Silesia Army is the army theme for Chapter 4 and it’s every bit as cold and chilling as the Chapter it comes from, you know because there’s snow in this map? Thracia Army is the theme of the army that’s named after the fifth Fire Emblem game and while their theme has a slight goofiness to it, these guys are entirely composed of Wyvern Riders and they’re really dangerous, unless you got some good bow units. what a leisurely track. Neutral Army is a neutral sounding theme that plays when a neutral army begins their phase, but don’t let the name and music fool you, whenever this track plays, something bad always happens and there’s nothing you can do about it. all the castle town themes have their own unique tracks as well but I’m not going to post them all because there’s a lot of them so here’s the one that sounds like a Kirby’s Dream Land 3 map theme. here’s this game’s battle theme or otherwise known as the Silver Sword theme. personally I liked the one in FE3 more but this one gets the job done. the enemy battle theme is probably one of the weakest tracks in the game but idk I felt like including it, I don’t have much to say here other than there’s been better enemy themes. Mid-boss theme, second verse, same as the first. this theme is what plays when all the axe guys are dead and now you have to deal with the big boys (and girls), very intense track I like it it’s very much the “get serious or someone’s dying” theme. this is the first ever enemy recruit theme of Fire Emblem and I’m not sure if there’s more of them later down the line but either way it’s cool and has that “hey maybe there’s more to this enemy then you think" vibes, also this is me when I listen to this theme. ending things off here’s the Fire Emblem theme of this game that does a neat subversion with the mysterious intro before switching to the usual motif, I really like this version it’s definitely my favorite so far and I hope to see how far they can top it in later entries.
there’s still some other stuff I forgot to mention like how getting 50 kills on a weapon gives them a crit chance or how there’s a ranking of your performance at the very end of the game but god I have to stop somewhere, you could probably write a whole book talking about the stuff in this game. I’m simultaneously disappointed and impressed with FE4. there were some questionable gameplay decisions while there were some welcome ones. some of the plot twists I saw coming from a mile away but there were others that genuinely caught me by surprise. after finishing this game, I finally understand why all the other FE fans wanted a FE4 remake after news of it supposedly leak; it’s not because this game is the pinnacle of everything Fire Emblem and peak fiction, it’s because the game sucks. of course that’s an exaggeration, I really did enjoy this game, it actually reminds me of Super Mario Sunshine in that I love everything about it except for the actual gameplay (sometimes the gameplay is great though so it’s better than Mario Sunshine), maybe I’ll give it a higher rating if enough FEs disappoint me down the line. I do think it’d be cool if that remake ever happens so we can see all the gameplay improvements that the later games have probably done, also it’ll mean they can get rid of all those enemy portrait recolors of the same two sprites, all you FE4 players know what I’m talking about. I’ll be looking forward to Thracia 776 going back to the small maps because these big ass maps made this game took longer than I expected it to take, I thought I’d be at FE7 right now but here I am still lingering around back over here. I need to get a move on so instead of typing down my closing remarks, I’m just going to end the review right here, lol
if you ever think you’ve had a complicated love life, at least you’re not Lachesis
This review contains spoilers
Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot Why is Saito Sejima so hot
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body.[2][7] These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread.[7] Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal bleeding, prolonged cough, unexplained weight loss, and a change in bowel movements.[1] While these symptoms may indicate cancer, they can also have other causes.[1] Over 100 types of cancers affect humans.[7]
Tobacco use is the cause of about 22% of cancer deaths.[2] Another 10% are due to obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity or excessive alcohol consumption.[2][8][9] Other factors include certain infections, exposure to ionizing radiation, and environmental pollutants.[3] Infection with specific viruses, bacteria and parasites is an environmental factor causing approximately 16-18% of cancers worldwide.[10] These infectious agents include Helicobacter pylori, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, human papillomavirus infection, Epstein–Barr virus, Human T-lymphotropic virus 1, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Merkel cell polyomavirus. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not directly cause cancer but it causes immune deficiency that can magnify the risk due to other infections, sometimes up to several thousand fold (in the case of Kaposi's sarcoma). Importantly, vaccination against hepatitis B and human papillomavirus have been shown to nearly eliminate risk of cancers caused by these viruses in persons successfully vaccinated prior to infection.
These environmental factors act, at least partly, by changing the genes of a cell.[11] Typically, many genetic changes are required before cancer develops.[11] Approximately 5–10% of cancers are due to inherited genetic defects.[12] Cancer can be detected by certain signs and symptoms or screening tests.[2] It is then typically further investigated by medical imaging and confirmed by biopsy.[13]
The risk of developing certain cancers can be reduced by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol intake, eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, vaccination against certain infectious diseases, limiting consumption of processed meat and red meat, and limiting exposure to direct sunlight.[14][15] Early detection through screening is useful for cervical and colorectal cancer.[16] The benefits of screening for breast cancer are controversial.[16][17] Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy and targeted therapy.[2][4] Pain and symptom management are an important part of care.[2] Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease.[2] The chance of survival depends on the type of cancer and extent of disease at the start of treatment.[11] In children under 15 at diagnosis, the five-year survival rate in the developed world is on average 80%.[18] For cancer in the United States, the average five-year survival rate is 66% for all ages.[5]
In 2015, about 90.5 million people worldwide had cancer.[19] In 2019, annual cancer cases grew by 23.6 million people, and there were 10 million deaths worldwide, representing over the previous decade increases of 26% and 21%, respectively.[6][20]
The most common types of cancer in males are lung cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and stomach cancer.[21][22] In females, the most common types are breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and cervical cancer.[11][22] If skin cancer other than melanoma were included in total new cancer cases each year, it would account for around 40% of cases.[23][24] In children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and brain tumors are most common, except in Africa, where non-Hodgkin lymphoma occurs more often.[18] In 2012, about 165,000 children under 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer.[21] The risk of cancer increases significantly with age, and many cancers occur more commonly in developed countries.[11] Rates are increasing as more people live to an old age and as lifestyle changes occur in the developing world.[25] The global total economic costs of cancer were estimated at US$1.16 trillion (equivalent to $1.62 trillion in 2023) per year as of 2010.
Tobacco use is the cause of about 22% of cancer deaths.[2] Another 10% are due to obesity, poor diet, lack of physical activity or excessive alcohol consumption.[2][8][9] Other factors include certain infections, exposure to ionizing radiation, and environmental pollutants.[3] Infection with specific viruses, bacteria and parasites is an environmental factor causing approximately 16-18% of cancers worldwide.[10] These infectious agents include Helicobacter pylori, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, human papillomavirus infection, Epstein–Barr virus, Human T-lymphotropic virus 1, Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus and Merkel cell polyomavirus. Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not directly cause cancer but it causes immune deficiency that can magnify the risk due to other infections, sometimes up to several thousand fold (in the case of Kaposi's sarcoma). Importantly, vaccination against hepatitis B and human papillomavirus have been shown to nearly eliminate risk of cancers caused by these viruses in persons successfully vaccinated prior to infection.
These environmental factors act, at least partly, by changing the genes of a cell.[11] Typically, many genetic changes are required before cancer develops.[11] Approximately 5–10% of cancers are due to inherited genetic defects.[12] Cancer can be detected by certain signs and symptoms or screening tests.[2] It is then typically further investigated by medical imaging and confirmed by biopsy.[13]
The risk of developing certain cancers can be reduced by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, limiting alcohol intake, eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and whole grains, vaccination against certain infectious diseases, limiting consumption of processed meat and red meat, and limiting exposure to direct sunlight.[14][15] Early detection through screening is useful for cervical and colorectal cancer.[16] The benefits of screening for breast cancer are controversial.[16][17] Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy and targeted therapy.[2][4] Pain and symptom management are an important part of care.[2] Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease.[2] The chance of survival depends on the type of cancer and extent of disease at the start of treatment.[11] In children under 15 at diagnosis, the five-year survival rate in the developed world is on average 80%.[18] For cancer in the United States, the average five-year survival rate is 66% for all ages.[5]
In 2015, about 90.5 million people worldwide had cancer.[19] In 2019, annual cancer cases grew by 23.6 million people, and there were 10 million deaths worldwide, representing over the previous decade increases of 26% and 21%, respectively.[6][20]
The most common types of cancer in males are lung cancer, prostate cancer, colorectal cancer, and stomach cancer.[21][22] In females, the most common types are breast cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, and cervical cancer.[11][22] If skin cancer other than melanoma were included in total new cancer cases each year, it would account for around 40% of cases.[23][24] In children, acute lymphoblastic leukemia and brain tumors are most common, except in Africa, where non-Hodgkin lymphoma occurs more often.[18] In 2012, about 165,000 children under 15 years of age were diagnosed with cancer.[21] The risk of cancer increases significantly with age, and many cancers occur more commonly in developed countries.[11] Rates are increasing as more people live to an old age and as lifestyle changes occur in the developing world.[25] The global total economic costs of cancer were estimated at US$1.16 trillion (equivalent to $1.62 trillion in 2023) per year as of 2010.
LITERALLY PEAK. MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY HASNT JUST BEEN CHANGED ITS BEEN REWRITTEN
seventeen years later apollo justice is a capital CG Cursed Game. harbinger of a new age which never really came- the apollo justice trilogy as a complete package is plainly awkward in how it languidly, disinterestedly follows its namesake. of course you can’t blame apollo justice for the decisions the IP made after it came out but apollo’s role in the franchise absolutely colors how this game is played now. now the game is a thracia 776-like experience, a darker, more punishing, more inconsequential story in the face of a broader conflict, except the two generations of warriors that flanked thracia 776 are both replaced by the one and only Phoenix Wright™.
it’s honestly doubtful that AJ receives the sheer abuse that investigations 1 or dual destinies does online, but it feels like the only game in the series that has yet to find a strong niche. the old guard has always held it apart from their beloved trinity, but yamazaki’s growing base of defenders doesn’t want to claim it either. its fans are often colored as the most vapid, rabid fans in the fanbase, relishing an imagined dynamic between klavier and apollo.
and certainly it’s not a difficult game to poke holes in. the game’s infamously fraught middle cases, regardless of how you view them, just don’t click together. yeah yeah, there are a lot of cinemasins “ding!” issues, but the cases also fall limp dramatically. in court there are scenes and even whole witness interrogations that don’t materially contribute to the core narrative of the mystery, as takumi envelops the player in minutiae to fill space. while both cases are about noble thieves and rotten cops, the game seems to shy away from its own subject matter at key moments. klavier, the series’ most passive rival, completely disengages from the injustice at hand when the corruption of law enforcement is exposed, even when he has a personal connection with the people at stake. apollo’s unique “gimmick” mechanic is also very weak, a task of observation that doesn’t engage with puzzle-solving in relation to the case at all.
but the game’s most glaring sign of incompleteness is the complete epic fail of an ending. the game goes out on a long limb to ground the player lucidly in this entry’s grand, time-spanning mystery. and the gamble pays off! there’s a lot of momentum that gets built up, all for the most bafflingly anticlimactic final day in trial of the entire series. i do not actually have much objection to how phoenix intrudes on the case, it’s not really revolutionary to have the mentor set the stage and deliver a couple pieces of evidence that help you clench the case. but the game completely fizzles after this. it’s so bizarre. for a franchise with so many infamously persistent final bosses, it’s insane how trivial the proceedings of the final court segment of this game are. right after managing a perfect passing-of-the-torch moment in AA3, they completely bungle it here. somehow.
but it’s inaccurate to label apollo justice a failed experiment, the tone and ideas the game is going for are still deployed and in place, if not exactly intact. right out of the gate apollo justice asks the player to consider possibilities that would be considered downright heretical in the rest of the main series. in the original trilogy, the shounen-like, operatic approach to good and evil is striking, but it often drains the game of moral dimension. sure, the games often flirt with the idea that maybe the protagonist would have to make a moral sacrifice, or that an antagonist was a profound victim before lashing out, but you’re always able to manage a perfect victory, in the end. every antagonist unilaterally goes too far in their plotting, even if they were hurt by the world or the people around them.
apollo justice dares to challenge this. the perfect victories that define the original trilogy are nowhere to be found. your catharsis is impeded as each subsequent not guilty verdict represents a new threshold to which you’re forced to subvert the justice system in order to free your unjustly accused clients. for the first time, it seems that the rot in the justice system might not just be a few corrupt Bad Men led by Wrong Ideologies, but instead a set of systemic failings, that the mechanics of justice itself might be at fault. for all of the games that have been centered on the expansion of the wright anything agency as a found family, apollo justice is the only game to lucidly cope with legacy, and how values, practices, and patterns of behavior are passed down (or often, more interestingly, withheld from being passed down).
the game’s final decision feels almost insulting given the current state of the game’s ending but i applaud that the final action the player takes is rendering an explicit moral judgment on a character. it’s an empty choice, but it demonstrates the strength of even the most trivial and obvious decision a person can make. more importantly, it invites every player, even the lowly klavier-apollo shipper, to consider the ethics of what actually happened here, that they are a creator of justice and not just a subject to it.
this attitude pulsates through the entire game. miraculously, ace attorney’s signature attention to detail when it comes to staging and presentation adapts perfectly to a more grounded, desperate story. the soundtrack is much more subdued overall but constantly poised to summon that classic pursuit cornered momentum. the animation maintains its expressive power while respecting and communicating the humanity of its subjects. all in all, apollo justice acquires a unique electricity no other game in the series has. this electricity carries you through even as you’re arguing about the location of a trash can a witness threw a pair of panties into or whatever
i’d consider myself something of an ace attorney superfan. this series’ creative calculus has a way of wringing out pathos that draws my focus to the screen unlike any other franchise. but i can’t deny that after having loved the series for so many years, it can feel weary in how it tells its stories with the same cadence, with the same structure underlying every case. even on the fiftieth replay, apollo justice still feels untamed. never definitive but always suggestive, my heart pours out for ace attorney four.
it’s honestly doubtful that AJ receives the sheer abuse that investigations 1 or dual destinies does online, but it feels like the only game in the series that has yet to find a strong niche. the old guard has always held it apart from their beloved trinity, but yamazaki’s growing base of defenders doesn’t want to claim it either. its fans are often colored as the most vapid, rabid fans in the fanbase, relishing an imagined dynamic between klavier and apollo.
and certainly it’s not a difficult game to poke holes in. the game’s infamously fraught middle cases, regardless of how you view them, just don’t click together. yeah yeah, there are a lot of cinemasins “ding!” issues, but the cases also fall limp dramatically. in court there are scenes and even whole witness interrogations that don’t materially contribute to the core narrative of the mystery, as takumi envelops the player in minutiae to fill space. while both cases are about noble thieves and rotten cops, the game seems to shy away from its own subject matter at key moments. klavier, the series’ most passive rival, completely disengages from the injustice at hand when the corruption of law enforcement is exposed, even when he has a personal connection with the people at stake. apollo’s unique “gimmick” mechanic is also very weak, a task of observation that doesn’t engage with puzzle-solving in relation to the case at all.
but the game’s most glaring sign of incompleteness is the complete epic fail of an ending. the game goes out on a long limb to ground the player lucidly in this entry’s grand, time-spanning mystery. and the gamble pays off! there’s a lot of momentum that gets built up, all for the most bafflingly anticlimactic final day in trial of the entire series. i do not actually have much objection to how phoenix intrudes on the case, it’s not really revolutionary to have the mentor set the stage and deliver a couple pieces of evidence that help you clench the case. but the game completely fizzles after this. it’s so bizarre. for a franchise with so many infamously persistent final bosses, it’s insane how trivial the proceedings of the final court segment of this game are. right after managing a perfect passing-of-the-torch moment in AA3, they completely bungle it here. somehow.
but it’s inaccurate to label apollo justice a failed experiment, the tone and ideas the game is going for are still deployed and in place, if not exactly intact. right out of the gate apollo justice asks the player to consider possibilities that would be considered downright heretical in the rest of the main series. in the original trilogy, the shounen-like, operatic approach to good and evil is striking, but it often drains the game of moral dimension. sure, the games often flirt with the idea that maybe the protagonist would have to make a moral sacrifice, or that an antagonist was a profound victim before lashing out, but you’re always able to manage a perfect victory, in the end. every antagonist unilaterally goes too far in their plotting, even if they were hurt by the world or the people around them.
apollo justice dares to challenge this. the perfect victories that define the original trilogy are nowhere to be found. your catharsis is impeded as each subsequent not guilty verdict represents a new threshold to which you’re forced to subvert the justice system in order to free your unjustly accused clients. for the first time, it seems that the rot in the justice system might not just be a few corrupt Bad Men led by Wrong Ideologies, but instead a set of systemic failings, that the mechanics of justice itself might be at fault. for all of the games that have been centered on the expansion of the wright anything agency as a found family, apollo justice is the only game to lucidly cope with legacy, and how values, practices, and patterns of behavior are passed down (or often, more interestingly, withheld from being passed down).
the game’s final decision feels almost insulting given the current state of the game’s ending but i applaud that the final action the player takes is rendering an explicit moral judgment on a character. it’s an empty choice, but it demonstrates the strength of even the most trivial and obvious decision a person can make. more importantly, it invites every player, even the lowly klavier-apollo shipper, to consider the ethics of what actually happened here, that they are a creator of justice and not just a subject to it.
this attitude pulsates through the entire game. miraculously, ace attorney’s signature attention to detail when it comes to staging and presentation adapts perfectly to a more grounded, desperate story. the soundtrack is much more subdued overall but constantly poised to summon that classic pursuit cornered momentum. the animation maintains its expressive power while respecting and communicating the humanity of its subjects. all in all, apollo justice acquires a unique electricity no other game in the series has. this electricity carries you through even as you’re arguing about the location of a trash can a witness threw a pair of panties into or whatever
i’d consider myself something of an ace attorney superfan. this series’ creative calculus has a way of wringing out pathos that draws my focus to the screen unlike any other franchise. but i can’t deny that after having loved the series for so many years, it can feel weary in how it tells its stories with the same cadence, with the same structure underlying every case. even on the fiftieth replay, apollo justice still feels untamed. never definitive but always suggestive, my heart pours out for ace attorney four.
Path of Radiance is fantastic. It’s one of the best stories Fire Emblem has told, a great gameplay experience with lots of fun tactical management elements, and well designed maps. This is absolutely one of the prime “first Fire Emblem games” for anyone looking to dive into the series.
The story is very masterfully told through the lens of Ike, a somewhat sheltered mercenary, curious about the world and lacking the prejudices many have. He has a perspective very similar to what a player would and the writing soars for it. Everything feels natural.
The map objectives and types are varied so the player’s always on their toes. I also love this game’s iteration of the Base system. Learning more about characters and the battle scenario ahead through the Info tab, dishing out Bonus EXP, managing weapons, it’s all so satisfying. I also like that this is the first entry where you can reasonably attain and read supports without spamming “End Turn” for hundreds of turns for no reason.
I don’t even want to tip off too much about the story. Its depiction of heavy topics like genocide, corrupt governing bodies, and prejudice are deftly written for the most part and beg being read through.
There are also some fantastic “story through gameplay” moments like Chapters 11 and 27! Plus, I’m one of those people that actually likes when FE used to do post-game trial maps. (I just don’t like the “do 15 playthroughs” requirements to get every character, but it’s an inoffensive side mode unlock)
A true classic that is sadly really inaccessible to a lot of people. This game deserves every bit of hype and praise.
The story is very masterfully told through the lens of Ike, a somewhat sheltered mercenary, curious about the world and lacking the prejudices many have. He has a perspective very similar to what a player would and the writing soars for it. Everything feels natural.
The map objectives and types are varied so the player’s always on their toes. I also love this game’s iteration of the Base system. Learning more about characters and the battle scenario ahead through the Info tab, dishing out Bonus EXP, managing weapons, it’s all so satisfying. I also like that this is the first entry where you can reasonably attain and read supports without spamming “End Turn” for hundreds of turns for no reason.
I don’t even want to tip off too much about the story. Its depiction of heavy topics like genocide, corrupt governing bodies, and prejudice are deftly written for the most part and beg being read through.
There are also some fantastic “story through gameplay” moments like Chapters 11 and 27! Plus, I’m one of those people that actually likes when FE used to do post-game trial maps. (I just don’t like the “do 15 playthroughs” requirements to get every character, but it’s an inoffensive side mode unlock)
A true classic that is sadly really inaccessible to a lot of people. This game deserves every bit of hype and praise.
Whenever this game's remake is coming out, I felt like making a wishlist of things I'd like to see fixed and/or changed. I understand FE4 fans may not agree with everything here but hopefully this wishlist ultimately gets across a lot of how I felt about the original overall:
(also keep in mind I have only beaten this game once years ago, a lot of what I remember stems from me just being in the fanbase and hearing discussions about the game)
(also I'll probably edit this list now and then as I might think of more stuff or need to edit current points)
Writing changes I'd like to see
- while the character writing of the original is overall pretty solid, half the characters don't really have much characterization and Supports feel like an inevitable thing for the remake. hopefully they are consistently solid and well written, and there's no bad eggs; but I have no expectations, just hopes.
- Shadows of Valentia quality localization overall
- the main plot should be unchanged for the most part but it may be worth fixing some of the less tactful parts such as a certain two scenarios that have to do with Manfroy
- develop Miletos as a country somehow. like seriously it's just some place where important main story stuff happens but it itself is hardly compelling as the other nations.
- some of the love pairing choices in the original were questionable or problematic. get rid of them.
- no avatar pls
Gameplay changes I'd like to see
- (by far my biggest wish) add rescue-drop as the most elegant solution to making footed units more viable and just generally fix this game's issue of there being way too many turns spent tediously moving your army around. please if nothing else I hope they fix these two crippling issues however they do it.
- fix how bad axes and lances are. they were way too heavy and insanely outclassed by swords.
- make flyers stronger somehow. they're usually one of the best unit types in the series but they don't really stand out in this game much.
- add a battalion mechanic of sorts since it fits the narrative. just don't make it super busted or anything.
- keep all the secret events, but do hint at some better.
- tone down some of the maps where there are a stupid amount of filler enemies and reinforcements. less enemies in more interesting scenarios/formations = better. I'm sure they can pull that off while retaining the macro war-epic feel of the original game.
- tone down sleep staves in the late game. or at least provide more status effect healers or something. I think the sleep status spam felt tedious for many players.
- get rid of Pavise on bosses. it's stupid in every Fire Emblem.
- get rid of same turn reinforcements. it's stupid in every FIre Emblem.
- get rid of being able to save every turn. only should be able to save at Castles. that + Sigurd's OP-ness were the two things that made this game one of the easiest games in the series. (keep Sigurd's OP-ness though)
- make Dew/thieves at least somewhat stronger and easier to use. that alone feels like an elegant solution to solve some of the issues a lot of people have with the money system. but do please keep the money system at least because it was unique.
- 2rn or Fates/SoV/Engage quirky rn. 1rn sucks.
- explorable castles feel inevitable. hopefully they don't have the Monastery/Somniel issue of 30-50mins of preparation bloat and optional-but-helpful activities everyone feels obligated to do. I have no expectations though.
- also lighten the arena experience. I think FE4 arena in concept is cool, needing everyone to train a little before going out, but sometimes I think it leaned towards tedious in practice.
- unique map changes (could probably say a lot more about this but again I haven't played this game in years):
- Ch.1 and Ch.2: condense these. they feel way too long and tedious honestly. I know many fans consider these to be some of the worst maps at least.
- Ch.4: maybe re-design the whole thing (same scenarios, different execution). I know I didn't enjoy this one and I know FE4 fans generally don't either.
- Ch.5: make the desert less tedious to go through.
- rest of the layouts I don't mind being mostly the same. at least don't change Prologue and Ch.3 because they're arguably the most well designed maps in the game.
Presentation changes I'd like to see
- artist: Rika Suzuki or Mitsuki Oosawa (the FE4 manga artist). please.
- ost: Yuka Tsujiyoko's original compositions + modern IntSys sound team arrangements + bring back Rei Kondoh for some arrangements too pls = goat raw fire peak
- more detailed and varied map aesthetics. please don't bore the player with the same looking grass and mountains which comprised most of the original game. add more detailed things a country with good worldbuilding would have, within reason. add more colours too. make it look as visually great as SoV and Fates.
- Shadows of Valentia or Tellius tier character designs.
If the remake has at least a majority of the above, I'd be happy, and it could potentially be one of my favourites in the series.
(also keep in mind I have only beaten this game once years ago, a lot of what I remember stems from me just being in the fanbase and hearing discussions about the game)
(also I'll probably edit this list now and then as I might think of more stuff or need to edit current points)
Writing changes I'd like to see
- while the character writing of the original is overall pretty solid, half the characters don't really have much characterization and Supports feel like an inevitable thing for the remake. hopefully they are consistently solid and well written, and there's no bad eggs; but I have no expectations, just hopes.
- Shadows of Valentia quality localization overall
- the main plot should be unchanged for the most part but it may be worth fixing some of the less tactful parts such as a certain two scenarios that have to do with Manfroy
- develop Miletos as a country somehow. like seriously it's just some place where important main story stuff happens but it itself is hardly compelling as the other nations.
- some of the love pairing choices in the original were questionable or problematic. get rid of them.
- no avatar pls
Gameplay changes I'd like to see
- (by far my biggest wish) add rescue-drop as the most elegant solution to making footed units more viable and just generally fix this game's issue of there being way too many turns spent tediously moving your army around. please if nothing else I hope they fix these two crippling issues however they do it.
- fix how bad axes and lances are. they were way too heavy and insanely outclassed by swords.
- make flyers stronger somehow. they're usually one of the best unit types in the series but they don't really stand out in this game much.
- add a battalion mechanic of sorts since it fits the narrative. just don't make it super busted or anything.
- keep all the secret events, but do hint at some better.
- tone down some of the maps where there are a stupid amount of filler enemies and reinforcements. less enemies in more interesting scenarios/formations = better. I'm sure they can pull that off while retaining the macro war-epic feel of the original game.
- tone down sleep staves in the late game. or at least provide more status effect healers or something. I think the sleep status spam felt tedious for many players.
- get rid of Pavise on bosses. it's stupid in every Fire Emblem.
- get rid of same turn reinforcements. it's stupid in every FIre Emblem.
- get rid of being able to save every turn. only should be able to save at Castles. that + Sigurd's OP-ness were the two things that made this game one of the easiest games in the series. (keep Sigurd's OP-ness though)
- make Dew/thieves at least somewhat stronger and easier to use. that alone feels like an elegant solution to solve some of the issues a lot of people have with the money system. but do please keep the money system at least because it was unique.
- 2rn or Fates/SoV/Engage quirky rn. 1rn sucks.
- explorable castles feel inevitable. hopefully they don't have the Monastery/Somniel issue of 30-50mins of preparation bloat and optional-but-helpful activities everyone feels obligated to do. I have no expectations though.
- also lighten the arena experience. I think FE4 arena in concept is cool, needing everyone to train a little before going out, but sometimes I think it leaned towards tedious in practice.
- unique map changes (could probably say a lot more about this but again I haven't played this game in years):
- Ch.1 and Ch.2: condense these. they feel way too long and tedious honestly. I know many fans consider these to be some of the worst maps at least.
- Ch.4: maybe re-design the whole thing (same scenarios, different execution). I know I didn't enjoy this one and I know FE4 fans generally don't either.
- Ch.5: make the desert less tedious to go through.
- rest of the layouts I don't mind being mostly the same. at least don't change Prologue and Ch.3 because they're arguably the most well designed maps in the game.
Presentation changes I'd like to see
- artist: Rika Suzuki or Mitsuki Oosawa (the FE4 manga artist). please.
- ost: Yuka Tsujiyoko's original compositions + modern IntSys sound team arrangements + bring back Rei Kondoh for some arrangements too pls = goat raw fire peak
- more detailed and varied map aesthetics. please don't bore the player with the same looking grass and mountains which comprised most of the original game. add more detailed things a country with good worldbuilding would have, within reason. add more colours too. make it look as visually great as SoV and Fates.
- Shadows of Valentia or Tellius tier character designs.
If the remake has at least a majority of the above, I'd be happy, and it could potentially be one of my favourites in the series.
Pokémon Sun
2016
This replay has re-confirmed I still love this linear adventure through Not Hawaii quite a lot. This game's characters, art/colour direction, location design, and music owns. I don't have any major complaints with the gameplay too. Good encounter variety, no need to grind, boss fights are challenging enough on Set mode.
This is still comfortably one of my favourite mainlines behind BW/2 and RSE. I love Alola.
This is still comfortably one of my favourite mainlines behind BW/2 and RSE. I love Alola.
Not everyone has the same trauma or reacts to it similarly but that doesn't make their emotions any less valid. In some ways it even ends up resonating with people and becomes mirrors for their past or current self.
This is one of those games that need to be more experienced than verbally discussed in order to get a feel for it but this was definitely something I need in my life right now and it's hard not the detach myself with the vulnerability Taylor was willing to put out with this work. Trauma looping is an endless cycle and no matter how long it takes, sometimes the losses you face are what you need to accept yourself and move forward.
"I wanted to be clean again."
This is one of those games that need to be more experienced than verbally discussed in order to get a feel for it but this was definitely something I need in my life right now and it's hard not the detach myself with the vulnerability Taylor was willing to put out with this work. Trauma looping is an endless cycle and no matter how long it takes, sometimes the losses you face are what you need to accept yourself and move forward.
"I wanted to be clean again."
Dandy Dungeon is a mobile game released a few years later on Switch, and it's made by Onion Games, the fine folks who hold a lot of the most important alums from Love De Lic (who made games like moon RPG). Now, these are technically one game and then the massive free expansion billed as an in-game sequel. However, not only because we so often count here both originals and expansions/DLCs as separate entries on our beaten lists, but also because the expansion here is both SO massive and also has a lot of important differences compared to the original, I felt it was right to review them simultaneously but also differentiate between them. It took me some 15~20 hours to beat the original Dandy Dungeon in English, and another 25~30 hours to finish the sequel and the rest of the side content (most of it anyhow).
Dandy Dungeon is, as the title explains out, the story of Yamada, who is a hopelessly single and incredibly quirky games programmer in his mid-30's. He lives alone and slaves away for Empire Games every day at work, but he has dreams of making his own game. One day, the day the game you're playing starts, he beings designing his OWN game, the game within the game that you yourself will begin playing. However, he starts skipping work to do this, and he summarily gets fired as the chairman of the company comes down to berate him and beat him up. This all coincides with the arrival of Maria-chan in the adjacent apartment to Yamada, a beautiful girl who loves blue skies, the ocean, and eating sweet potatoes in autumn. Yamada tries to use his game to win Maria-chan's heart and save her as the princess in each of the dungeons in it, but Empire Games break into his house (he should really buy a lock for his door) and reprogram it to lock his source code and foul it up with their own machinations. It's up to Yamada (and by extension you) to beat his game within the game and win Maria-chan's heart!
Now all of that is kind of a lot, and it is on purpose. Like most of Onion Games's games, their works don't have nearly as much to say as something from their past like moon RPG, but they still have something to say nonetheless. Dandy Dungeon is a delightful pastiche of video games as well as of the people who make and play them. It continuously blurs the wall between the reality of Yamada's game-within-a-game and the world he actually lives in, and the dialogue writing is genuinely really funny. I was worried I'd fill up my Switch with all of the dialogue screenshots I was taking it was making me cackle so hard XD. Dandy Dungeon's main story is localized impeccably, and is a fantastic example of how to do localization incredibly right.
Dandy Dungeon 2 takes place immediately after the first game, once you've beaten Empire Games, rescued Maria-chan, and gotten her hand in marriage, she's whisked away (in a very obvious parody of the original Ghosts'n'Goblins intro) by a new foreign games company: Dark Solid. Yamada's friends(?) from his Empire Games days come to his aid to stop this new threat to Maria-chan and Japan itself, as Yamada must scour Tokyo's Yamanote Train Line to beat up the weirdos who have inhabited each station.
The sequel and other expansion content change things up in a few new ways. The goal is very much still to rescue Maria-chan, most certainly, but the messaging has gone from "pastiche" to "being the Ur Mobile Game", from having an in-game microtransaction store (which in the mobile version actually IS a microtransaction store, but here uses in-game currency) called mamazon.mom to goading you for how the game never has to end if you never rescue Maria-chan. Though it sadly dips its toes much more thoroughly into the weeds of casual racism and transphobia/homophobia than the original game (which never even touches it, really), the good, funny quality of the writing stays present. The other sad thing here is that the localization is notably far less polished, at times feeling more like a rough draft than a finished product. It for the most part is fine, and it's just far worse-looking in comparison to how good the original game's localization is, but it also impacts your ability to understand the game's instructions at points that actually make it kinda impossible to proceed without doing random trial and error (but I'll get into those specifics later). The sequel's story is a fine and fitting addition to the first game, but it's lower quality, particularly in the translation department, can't really be ignored.
Now, you're probably asking: What the heck is the game-within-a-game that we're Yamada-ing through these two games, anyhow? That's a great question! What Dandy Dungeon is is a rogue-lite played one floor at a time. Dandy Dungeon is a game composed of dozens of dungeons composed of (usually) a few floors each, and your goal is to get from the start to the end of each floor by drawing one continuous line over each and every tile in it. Yamada will then follow this line unchangingly, fighting whatever enemies he comes across as well as picking up treasure. You can equip a helmet, armor, a shield, and a weapon (all of which are upgradeable) before you go in (and these can give special passive bonuses). You also can take along five items which can be activated once their cooldowns wear off (and items can only be used so many times before they break, and the cooldown lengthens with every use until breaking).
It's probably not hard to tell from the description that this was originally a mobile game, but it's a damn good and addicting one. Navigating around the walls, monsters, and traps in each dungeon has a really fun puzzle-solving dopamine hit to it, and it scratched a very familiar itch to something like how Paper Mario: Origami King's puzzle-based combat did for me. The strategy of how to tackle each stage, from what weapons or armor sets it's best to bring, to if a perfect floor completion is even worth trying for (you're just not getting experience for monsters unkilled and you also take damage for every tile left uncovered) was engaging enough that it had me playing from dawn 'til dusk for a week straight over winter vacation XD. Dungeons are generally very quick and can be knocked out at your leisure, and you don't even get a countdown timer until you start drawing your line, so you can take as much time as you need (except in certain special stages) to draw them. There's even a mid-stage instant-revive mechanic for if you need it. Every stage is theoretically do-able even without those revives (although some seem pretty suspect in that regard), and grinding for them does take a while, but it's nice that at the end of the day, if you put in enough time, you can brute-force any problem with time if you're dedicated enough.
Now that's all fun (and I really mean it) and dandy (excuse the pun ;b), but not all is well in Dandy Land. The game suffers from a few unfortunate problems, and the sequel suffers from more of them. The principal problem that the main game suffers from (as well as the sequel) is that there is simply a best load out to use. Status effects such as sleep, poison, darkness, and confusion are very common in varying degrees from the mid-game forward, so using the high-level armor that nullifies this stuff is obviously the best choice. Weapons suffer a similar problem, as quite quickly you realize that your biggest priority isn't exploiting enemy racial bonuses (such as a weapon good against the undead), but simply a very high accuracy weapon to cancel out how damn much enemies dodge your moves. Actually being able to hit the target you're going for will make up for not getting that extra damage 99 times out of 100. It's not a game-breaker, and given that it's the biggest problem the original game faces, the original game walks out of this pretty damn unscathed, but it's regardless something that takes some of the fun out of getting new loot once you realize it's there.
The bigger problems are mostly present in the sequel. First of all is that the difficulty spike issue the main game uses is increased significantly. Some dungeons on the Yamanote Line are FAR harder than others, some farcically so, and its final bosses are an absolute joke in how unfair they are. This is hammered home by the whole "basically one best build" issue, so you feel like there isn't even much you can do to improve your chances. A lot of the difficulty comes from how the gimmick of the sequel is that each stop on the Yamanote Line (i.e. each dungeon) has its own ruleset you need to follow: Either a certain kind of equipment you need to enter it with, or a rule that needs to be followed mid-play or you get an instant game-over (such as being forbidden to heal outside of your free level-up heals). They're simultaneously a very clever way to get a lot more out of the game's limited design without changing things too drastically as well as a massive pain that are sometimes nearly unintelligible due to the poorer localization found in the sequel. You do get some cool new mechanics via mamazon.mom, such as the ability to take along an item that allows you to swap out your consumable items mid-dungeon, and that brings with it a whole new level of strategy. But as it is, the sequel is just a far less polished experience, and it really bums me out just how much of a slog the sequel is compared to the original.
The presentation of both games is absolutely excellent. Very charming 2D sprites which are super expressive and delightfully silly. Tons of little references to old Famicom games hidden here and there (or sometimes not even remotely hidden XD) and really fun and silly monster and NPC designs. The music is absolutely stellar, with tons of songs (particularly the special boss tracks in the sequel) being some of my favorite game music I've heard in while. The audio-visuals do a ton to boost up the already great work the writing is doing, and it's just as much of a draw as the writing is, as far as I'm concerned.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Though I certainly have my problems with the sequel (it's more in the Recommended territory, tbh), Dandy Dungeon was an incredibly fun and addicting time I don't regret one second of. I genuinely got a little sad when it was over, not only because of the diegetic farewell they give you in-game, but with the knowledge there was simply no more Dandy Dungeon left to play! Onion Games's games tend to have an issue of being a bit too light on content for the money, but even at full price, Dandy Dungeon is an absolute steal that is super duper worth picking up.
Dandy Dungeon is, as the title explains out, the story of Yamada, who is a hopelessly single and incredibly quirky games programmer in his mid-30's. He lives alone and slaves away for Empire Games every day at work, but he has dreams of making his own game. One day, the day the game you're playing starts, he beings designing his OWN game, the game within the game that you yourself will begin playing. However, he starts skipping work to do this, and he summarily gets fired as the chairman of the company comes down to berate him and beat him up. This all coincides with the arrival of Maria-chan in the adjacent apartment to Yamada, a beautiful girl who loves blue skies, the ocean, and eating sweet potatoes in autumn. Yamada tries to use his game to win Maria-chan's heart and save her as the princess in each of the dungeons in it, but Empire Games break into his house (he should really buy a lock for his door) and reprogram it to lock his source code and foul it up with their own machinations. It's up to Yamada (and by extension you) to beat his game within the game and win Maria-chan's heart!
Now all of that is kind of a lot, and it is on purpose. Like most of Onion Games's games, their works don't have nearly as much to say as something from their past like moon RPG, but they still have something to say nonetheless. Dandy Dungeon is a delightful pastiche of video games as well as of the people who make and play them. It continuously blurs the wall between the reality of Yamada's game-within-a-game and the world he actually lives in, and the dialogue writing is genuinely really funny. I was worried I'd fill up my Switch with all of the dialogue screenshots I was taking it was making me cackle so hard XD. Dandy Dungeon's main story is localized impeccably, and is a fantastic example of how to do localization incredibly right.
Dandy Dungeon 2 takes place immediately after the first game, once you've beaten Empire Games, rescued Maria-chan, and gotten her hand in marriage, she's whisked away (in a very obvious parody of the original Ghosts'n'Goblins intro) by a new foreign games company: Dark Solid. Yamada's friends(?) from his Empire Games days come to his aid to stop this new threat to Maria-chan and Japan itself, as Yamada must scour Tokyo's Yamanote Train Line to beat up the weirdos who have inhabited each station.
The sequel and other expansion content change things up in a few new ways. The goal is very much still to rescue Maria-chan, most certainly, but the messaging has gone from "pastiche" to "being the Ur Mobile Game", from having an in-game microtransaction store (which in the mobile version actually IS a microtransaction store, but here uses in-game currency) called mamazon.mom to goading you for how the game never has to end if you never rescue Maria-chan. Though it sadly dips its toes much more thoroughly into the weeds of casual racism and transphobia/homophobia than the original game (which never even touches it, really), the good, funny quality of the writing stays present. The other sad thing here is that the localization is notably far less polished, at times feeling more like a rough draft than a finished product. It for the most part is fine, and it's just far worse-looking in comparison to how good the original game's localization is, but it also impacts your ability to understand the game's instructions at points that actually make it kinda impossible to proceed without doing random trial and error (but I'll get into those specifics later). The sequel's story is a fine and fitting addition to the first game, but it's lower quality, particularly in the translation department, can't really be ignored.
Now, you're probably asking: What the heck is the game-within-a-game that we're Yamada-ing through these two games, anyhow? That's a great question! What Dandy Dungeon is is a rogue-lite played one floor at a time. Dandy Dungeon is a game composed of dozens of dungeons composed of (usually) a few floors each, and your goal is to get from the start to the end of each floor by drawing one continuous line over each and every tile in it. Yamada will then follow this line unchangingly, fighting whatever enemies he comes across as well as picking up treasure. You can equip a helmet, armor, a shield, and a weapon (all of which are upgradeable) before you go in (and these can give special passive bonuses). You also can take along five items which can be activated once their cooldowns wear off (and items can only be used so many times before they break, and the cooldown lengthens with every use until breaking).
It's probably not hard to tell from the description that this was originally a mobile game, but it's a damn good and addicting one. Navigating around the walls, monsters, and traps in each dungeon has a really fun puzzle-solving dopamine hit to it, and it scratched a very familiar itch to something like how Paper Mario: Origami King's puzzle-based combat did for me. The strategy of how to tackle each stage, from what weapons or armor sets it's best to bring, to if a perfect floor completion is even worth trying for (you're just not getting experience for monsters unkilled and you also take damage for every tile left uncovered) was engaging enough that it had me playing from dawn 'til dusk for a week straight over winter vacation XD. Dungeons are generally very quick and can be knocked out at your leisure, and you don't even get a countdown timer until you start drawing your line, so you can take as much time as you need (except in certain special stages) to draw them. There's even a mid-stage instant-revive mechanic for if you need it. Every stage is theoretically do-able even without those revives (although some seem pretty suspect in that regard), and grinding for them does take a while, but it's nice that at the end of the day, if you put in enough time, you can brute-force any problem with time if you're dedicated enough.
Now that's all fun (and I really mean it) and dandy (excuse the pun ;b), but not all is well in Dandy Land. The game suffers from a few unfortunate problems, and the sequel suffers from more of them. The principal problem that the main game suffers from (as well as the sequel) is that there is simply a best load out to use. Status effects such as sleep, poison, darkness, and confusion are very common in varying degrees from the mid-game forward, so using the high-level armor that nullifies this stuff is obviously the best choice. Weapons suffer a similar problem, as quite quickly you realize that your biggest priority isn't exploiting enemy racial bonuses (such as a weapon good against the undead), but simply a very high accuracy weapon to cancel out how damn much enemies dodge your moves. Actually being able to hit the target you're going for will make up for not getting that extra damage 99 times out of 100. It's not a game-breaker, and given that it's the biggest problem the original game faces, the original game walks out of this pretty damn unscathed, but it's regardless something that takes some of the fun out of getting new loot once you realize it's there.
The bigger problems are mostly present in the sequel. First of all is that the difficulty spike issue the main game uses is increased significantly. Some dungeons on the Yamanote Line are FAR harder than others, some farcically so, and its final bosses are an absolute joke in how unfair they are. This is hammered home by the whole "basically one best build" issue, so you feel like there isn't even much you can do to improve your chances. A lot of the difficulty comes from how the gimmick of the sequel is that each stop on the Yamanote Line (i.e. each dungeon) has its own ruleset you need to follow: Either a certain kind of equipment you need to enter it with, or a rule that needs to be followed mid-play or you get an instant game-over (such as being forbidden to heal outside of your free level-up heals). They're simultaneously a very clever way to get a lot more out of the game's limited design without changing things too drastically as well as a massive pain that are sometimes nearly unintelligible due to the poorer localization found in the sequel. You do get some cool new mechanics via mamazon.mom, such as the ability to take along an item that allows you to swap out your consumable items mid-dungeon, and that brings with it a whole new level of strategy. But as it is, the sequel is just a far less polished experience, and it really bums me out just how much of a slog the sequel is compared to the original.
The presentation of both games is absolutely excellent. Very charming 2D sprites which are super expressive and delightfully silly. Tons of little references to old Famicom games hidden here and there (or sometimes not even remotely hidden XD) and really fun and silly monster and NPC designs. The music is absolutely stellar, with tons of songs (particularly the special boss tracks in the sequel) being some of my favorite game music I've heard in while. The audio-visuals do a ton to boost up the already great work the writing is doing, and it's just as much of a draw as the writing is, as far as I'm concerned.
Verdict: Highly Recommended. Though I certainly have my problems with the sequel (it's more in the Recommended territory, tbh), Dandy Dungeon was an incredibly fun and addicting time I don't regret one second of. I genuinely got a little sad when it was over, not only because of the diegetic farewell they give you in-game, but with the knowledge there was simply no more Dandy Dungeon left to play! Onion Games's games tend to have an issue of being a bit too light on content for the money, but even at full price, Dandy Dungeon is an absolute steal that is super duper worth picking up.
