The weekend leading up to Mardi Gras has been a disappointing wash-out, which is the occasional consequence of centering a holiday primarily around outdoor events. Hopefully tomorrow will be clear enough to make up for it. I might even have an invitation downtown if that’s the case.

archer3-13 said

i think it partially has to do with the sale records, fe3 was (and i think it still remains so in japan even with awakening in account though i might/am probably wrong there) the largest selling game for japanese audiences in the fire emblem series as i remember, so it might just have to do with more people having played it over fe4 in japan.

Hey, it’s something else Jugdral has in common with Tellius – devoted fanbase, crappy sales. I still have trouble believing anyone ever played FE5 in its original form, what sounds like the 90s equivalent of a digital download.

markoftheasphodel said

FE3 is good, yo. And it sold like crazy. And come the GBA era, games like FE6 especially (and FE8 IMO) were obviously making callbacks to it.

I read everywhere that FE3 was a great game and all the later references seem to back that up, but based on FE12 with its new features excluded (and with a scaled-down remake of FE1 added) I’m just not seeing it. I’ve considered playing FE3 for myself since I assume there’s a competent translation patch, but I don’t think I’d gain much from the experience.

Archanea is to fire emblem as original Mario is to the Mario franchise. Mostly nostalgia but still holds up as a game today. That and Marth is very easily one of the best lords in the whole franchise not only because he was first but also because of his character. A lot of people call him boring or generic but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

When thinking about it I’ve also drawn comparisons between Marth and Mario (the character), in that they’re franchise mascots who’ve appeared in so many games that they ironically don’t have much in the way of consistent characterization or presence when compared characters who are more clearly-defined despite fewer appearances. Between his four games, cameos in Awakening and Fates, roles in spin-offs and Super Smash Bros., and probably other appearances I’m unaware of it seems like Marth cycles through every major character trait of most of the other male lords and then some. If Archanea’s got a strength it’s not him, unless fans have a particular favorite interpretation of Marth that they then retrofit his characterizations in other games to suit.

This is something that’s been on my mind since I made that ranking of FEs, where the Archanean games had a notably poor showing. I’m aware that Jugdral is the darling of the pre-localization era only in the Western fanbase and that Archanea is significantly better-remembered in Japan as evidenced by all the love it’s gotten in Heroes, Warriors, and supplementary content in various games (to say nothing of the DS remakes, lackluster though they both might have been). To those who’ve been active in the fandom longer than I have and/or have a greater familiarity with the Japanese fandom, I’m curious to understand why that is – what elevates Archanea over the other settings (particularly Jugdral since we’re talking Kaga-era pre-localization stuff) for the Japanese fandom? The best answer I can come up with is simple nostalgia, and that by looking at the release years of the first five games – and on what consoles they were released – I can imagine FE1 and 3 having had the largest windows in which to develop a large fanbase at the time. Everyone forgot about Gaiden until it got a remake and the Jugdral games came out so late into the Super Famicon’s lifespan* that I could easily imagine people overlooking them, but that answer is pretty unsatisfying to say the least.

So, yeah – what’s the appeal of Archanea?

*One counterexample that comes to mind for FE4 at least is Super Mario RPG which was also released on the SNES in 1996 and is today widely regarded as a beloved classic. However, it’s a Mario game and a Square collaboration on a console famous for its stellar RPG library so that’s probably not a fair comparison.

Did you watch Versailles, or was it too full of British actors (understandable)? I thought season one was not very good but season two was much better. The queer characters are refreshingly different from the queer characters I usually see in period pieces. And it warms my heard to see the oh so French “not for viewers under 14” warning only on certain episodes, mostly the ones that include a coked-up bisexual orgy in which someone drowns in a fountain.

I’ve never watched it, and it seems only the first season is up on Netflix so for the time being it’s probably not worth looking into. I’m rather skeptical that a production with such a large Anglo presence could possibly do justice to arguably the most storied ruler in French history, especially considering how so much of the history of his court is concerned with sex. It sounds like they’re managing tolerably though? 

swordsoprano said

i’ve met, like, one eliwood/lyn shipper and maybe three hector/lyn shippers in my entire life

I think FE7 shipping debates in general were fairly lukewarm compared to the big ones preceding (who’s Lachesis banging?) and following (how not-straight is Ike?) them, but any emotional investment is more than I can muster there. I have trouble formulating an opinion on any of Eliwood or Hector’s canon marriages, other than that Hector/Florina makes no sense* and that Hector/Lyn is actually well-written and presented up until their ending CG which seems uncomfortably rape-y for no apparent reason:

Am I the only one seeing that?

*I have two explanations/headcanons to make sense of Florina. The depressing but more realistic one is that she’s supposed to be a kind of proto-Soleil where her fear of men and preference for the company of women are meant to read as signs of emotional immaturity that she needs to grow out. Which is already bad on principle, but…Hector is her gateway into heterosexuality? The other, less likely one is that she’d only agree to marry Hector if Lyn marries Eliwood and they all agree to swap partners when they get together, and Roy and Lilina just sort of happen at some point. 

Since I’m still sort of poking around looking to fill up my free time on a budget I checked out some playthroughs of Doki Doki Literature Club! a few days ago after I saw it featured in a number of web series I follow. Hearing that it’s apparently a parody of anime visual novels was good enough to convince to look into it despite my lack of interest in straight dating sims. Major spoilers below the cut for a game I will probably never talk about outside of this post.

Yeah…death and suicide don’t faze me at all – I’m a New Orleans Créole, death is one of my defining traits alongside alcohol, sex, and anti-Anglo ethnocentrism – but all those creepypasta visuals and “glitches” disturbed me so much that I could barely finish watching a full playthrough. I wonder what that says about me?

deetvar said

Re: Tristan – he can actually pull weight once you get the Brave Sword & promo on him. Re: Amid – Well….he’s good base speed, speed growth, and low weight tomes to proc it…more often than Cuan.

Tristan did pick up later on. He was just so unimpressive to start compared to everyone else in Chapter 6, probably because he’s stuck with an iron sword at first and doesn’t have Pursuit to compensate like Deimne. I was under the impression that brave weapons in FE4 mechanically acted as guaranteed Adept procs, hence giving them to a unit with the skill itself was partially a waste? I gave the brave sword from Gen 1 to Creidne and kept the second one on Seliph until Endgame when I passed it onto Oifey. There’s so many special swords (and mono-sword units) in this game I can’t really recall, but I think Tristan may have ended up with one of the wingslayers and one of the steel or silver blades.

Re: Amid, I think it’s that he doesn’t get a horse like Arthur or staves like Tine/Linda that made him fall behind for me. He was easier to use than Azelle as an earlygame caster, but he didn’t have much to offer later on.