Sarpig pride worldwide. Sars are better than Jars!

[Licorice]

ol, but think about how boring things would be if you had perfect information.

Not always true, IMO. Into the Breach is almost completely deterministic and you have all the information you need in front of you at all times, still enjoyable for many.

The two biggest things that increased my enjoyment of Fire Emblem were playing with the aim of low turn counts

Likewise. Also, restrictions on things like the arena.

and accepting the occasional dead character. It's really how they're meant to be played

Not sure about this. The very strict survival ranking, the significance of RNG, and the fact that you can indeed replay chapters make it a hard sell that ironman is "intended". It's certainly a valid way to play tho. See below:

Yeah i reload chapters. I’m not having anyone die on me.
At least there how i felt when i played it a decade ago. Not sure how it’d be now.

This is actually a really interesting dilemma for the classic, non-grindy FEs.

On the one hand, even the most risk averse strategies will get unlucky rolls (if you have 99% odds to not get critical'd by a boss, but you do more than 100 attacks on bosses throughout the run, you can expect to get critical'd), so getting an S or even A overall rank will be a slots game, not anything in the player's hands.

On the other hand, you'll get put into some very interesting situations and need to think on your feet, as it were.

Combined, it gives the game an almost rogue-like quality.

If only there were some kind of "bad luck compensation" added to your score when calculating rank. As it is, any satisfaction from the rank you get will be at least partly the simple satisfaction of having good luck.

[Sengoku Strider]

Has anyone played Ronde? I've heard it's complete garbage and I really want to try it eventually.

It's the only SMT release on Saturn that I don't own, so I'll toss it into an import order eventually. How bad can it really be? It goes for like 500円, so it's not like it's a big loss even if it's dreadful.

The two biggest things that increased my enjoyment of Fire Emblem were playing with the aim of low turn counts

Likewise. Also, restrictions on things like the arena.

You've got me in the tag quotes here, but it's Volteccer you're responding to.

[Blinge]

Hm.. So i might go back to Binding Blade at some point.. and maybe say "fuck you " to most of my units and just play favourites then? Just to get through the game.

Oh i didn't rotate and level the whole army btw. I'd pretty much bring the same squad to each fight, but with the maximum unit count per battle. maybe 3-4 would get swapped depending on what I thought I'd need for the map.
Did you think i was trying to level literally every unit, Jack ?

[Sengoku Strider]

Interestingly, the new FE hitting in January, Engage, has you summoning heroes from past games in the series. They haven't revealed them all, but they're summoned by rings and it's mentioned that there's 12 rings which need to be collected. There's more than 12 original titles in the series, so I'm wondering if they're having single representatives of various worlds in the franchise. I haven't played every game (Thracia is stupid expensive and I don't own a 3DS), so I don't know if I have this right:

1: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of light / Shadow Dragon

2: Gaiden / Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

3: Mystery of the Emblem / New Mystery of the Emblem
Archanea Senki

4: Genealogy of the Holy War

5: Thracia 776

6: The Binding Blade
The Blazing Blade

7: The Sacred Stones

8: Path of Radiance
Radiant Dawn

9: Awakening

10: Fates Birthright/Conquest/Revelation

11: Three Houses
Warriors: Three Hopes

With the 12th ring being original to Engage? I don't know if Warriors, Heroes or #FE are canonical, or if there even is a master canon.

EDIT: Wait, Gaiden takes place in the same world/time as Shadow Dragon but on a different continent, and Mystery is a remake of the first game with new content? (I have SFC Mystery on my shelf but haven't gotten around to playing it yet). Now I'm confuseder.

EDIT EDIT: Oh wait, and Awakening is a Marth thing, so that's in the same world too? Engage has the main character waking up after 1000 years and reuniting with Marth, so I think it's safe to assume it takes place there as well.

[Blinge]

are Binding and Blazing both considered FE6?

[Sengoku Strider]

are Binding and Blazing both considered FE6?

Everyone informally calls Blazing FE7 so I don't think so, I was just trying to number the various game worlds/scenarios that a representative character might be drawn from. The characters they've shown so far are all named for their respective games in one way or another:

Emblem of Beginnings: Marth

Emblem of Echoes: Celica

Emblem of the Holy War: Sigurd

Emblem of Blazing: Lyn

Emblem of Fates: Corrin

Emblem of the Academy: Byleth

[Blinge]

You know what was a fun thing to do.. fun in a wierdo spergy way.

I replayed Shadow Dragon and Radiance soon after my first clears.. playing as a solo Lord

solo marth or Ike? fucking hell. it utterly ruins the game hahah. wave after wave of enemy lines breaking themselves upon the GOD you've created.

[BryanM]

How bad can it really be?

These words always lead into a good time : D

I think the answer is "bad enough it took them 12 years to ever touch anything with a grid again" in Devil Survivor?

We mentioned before how the Atlus guys are a bit cautious with these kinds of games, with their interviews mentioning why they went another direction with SMT x Fire Emblem.

I like how the wiki just randomly goes "Ronde has a demo that was released that received extremely negative attention and inspired a widespread cancellation of preorders." and I was like "wut, that's random".

.... man I really wish they had all the episodes of the live action Devil Summoner TV show up on there..

[Blinge]

holy hell ronde looks like shit!!

[BryanM]

It's been generously described as "a poor man's Shining Force 3." ... very very generously.

At least we probably don't live in a web novel, where "how bad can it be" can be "this game gives you cancer. It literally gives you cancer."

It really sucks when you take a couple minutes to try a game out, and then you spend the rest of your life being haunted by a ghost or some shit.





.... ~35 seconds to use an "attack" command...

[Licorice]

You've got me in the tag quotes here, but it's Volteccer you're responding to.

Indeed. My apologies. Fixed in an edit now.

[Sima Tuna]

I want to just say for anyone who is interested that, although I don't really love most of the 3ds Fire Emblem games, the remake of Gaiden is pretty fucking dope. Its major flaw is you can technically grind forever if you're super lame and replay stages. That's kind of a shame. But you don't have to. Like many of the early FE games, most characters in Shadows of Valentia are not overpowered. Many have rather middling growth rates. So the game has a more tactical element, in that building a completely overpowered monster is less easy and you're going to tend to want a diverse party. The maps are also really cool. There are a lot of maps with interesting choke points or unique objectives that pressure you towards rushing. Which they then punish harshly. You always have to keep an eye out for archers, mages and other traps. Flying units feel very vulnerable in Shadows.

The game also punishes waiting until level 20 to promote. The longer you wait to promote, the fewer stat ups you will tend to get upon leveling. The game uses a weighted stat up system that severely scales down after you reach level 14 or so. The benefits to promoting early far outweigh the max stat loss at endgame. It's just an interesting dynamic that I prefer to Awakening's broken-ass system of busted characters, insane growth rates and max stat farming. Even without trying to grind, characters in Awakening have such OP growth rates that I still find it nearly impossible not to break the game with units like Robin, Chrom and Sumia.

Anyway, I strongly recommend Shadows of Valentia if you have a 3ds. The overpowered class DLC is now nearly impossible to purchase, which I consider only a benefit to the balance of the game. Just play normally and you'll have a blast. It reminded me of Shadow Dragon, except with fewer characters.

[Steven]

EDIT: Wait, Gaiden takes place in the same world/time as Shadow Dragon but on a different continent, and Mystery is a remake of the first game with new content? (I have SFC Mystery on my shelf but haven't gotten around to playing it yet). Now I'm confuseder.

EDIT EDIT: Oh wait, and Awakening is a Marth thing, so that's in the same world too? Engage has the main character waking up after 1000 years and reuniting with Marth, so I think it's safe to assume it takes place there as well.

This is all mostly right, except for two things: Monshou no Nazo is actually 2 games: a sequel to the original Fire Emblem, and also a separate remake of that game, which I've heard is actually missing some stuff from the original game because the ROM size wasn't big enough to fit everything since they had 2 games on there, so they apparently cut some stuff. Not sure of the details, but that is how it is. I think. Maybe. Maybe not~

Awakening also has Priam, who is Ike's descendant, so Marth, Alm, Celica, Ike, and Chrom all live(d) in the same world over the course of several thousand years, and a few people from Awakening go over to the world of if/Fates.

I want to just say for anyone who is interested that, although I don't really love most of the 3ds Fire Emblem games, the remake of Gaiden is pretty fucking dope.

It most definitely is.

[Volteccer_Jack]

When you start up Monshou no Nazo, you're asked to choose Book 1 or Book 2. Book 2 is the 'real' FE3, a full length game that takes place one year after the events of FE1 and features largely the same cast of characters. Book 1 is a remake/port of FE1. It cuts a few chapters and a few characters, and uses the updated FE3 system mechanics such as the changed double attack formula. On the DS, Shadow Dragon is a remake of Book1/FE1 only, and New Mystery is a remake of Book2/FE3 only.

IMO the SFC game is the best version of both stories and the definitive Marth experience.

As far as these 12 Emblems in Engage go: There are 8 distinct continents in the series so far, with Engage taking place on a new 9th continent. Engage will be the 14th non-remake entry in the series. There are 15 main 'lords' across the series, more if you count characters like Byleth, Robin, or Edelgard. I have absolutely no idea where they pulled this 12 number from lol. And you can't even say "only protagonists" since they already included Lyn who is an inconsequential side character even in her own game (it's because she's a waifu).

Hm.. So i might go back to Binding Blade at some point.. and maybe say "fuck you " to most of my units and just play favourites then? Just to get through the game.

Oh i didn't rotate and level the whole army btw. I'd pretty much bring the same squad to each fight, but with the maximum unit count per battle. maybe 3-4 would get swapped depending on what I thought I'd need for the map.
Did you think i was trying to level literally every unit, Jack ?

If you were bringing the same squad to most battles, then I don't know what you meant by "rotate". If you meant like, hand-feeding kills to a weaker unit to catch them up, my general mindset is that if a character falls far enough behind in XP to be unable to keep up, then they weren't carrying their weight to begin with. I will give them better weapons or let them killsteal if they are trying to catch up XP wise, but I will toss them aside rather than waste turns babysitting.

and accepting the occasional dead character. It's really how they're meant to be played

Not sure about this. The very strict survival ranking, the significance of RNG, and the fact that you can indeed replay chapters make it a hard sell that ironman is "intended". It's certainly a valid way to play tho.

I didn't say to never reload. I just meant that compulsively restarting to save a character who is easily replaced is a good way to turn the game into a chore for yourself. Most of the games in the series provide a steady supply of new recruits for this purpose. I don't think rank should really be a consideration since only 3 out of 16 games feature ranking systems, one of those just assigns a letter based on turn count, and the other two require bizarre and unintuitive behaviors to actually get good ranks. And the presence of RNG is an argument in favor of letting characters die. If you restart every time the RNG doesn't go your way then there is no point in having RNG at all.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Flying units feel very vulnerable in Shadows.

Is this at one of the higher difficulty levels? I honestly can't remember if I played it at Normal or Hard tho! Shadows of Valentia (and I guess Gaiden by association) doesn't have the straight up "fliers vulnerable to arrows" mechanic, instead it's tied to a weapon skill on bows. I didn't encounter many enemies with anything but a default bow equipped, I think only late game did any archer pack the anti-flier weapon skill and they weren't frequent/numerous enough to cause a problem. Palla/Catria/Est/Clair seriously fucked some shit up in my game

[Blinge]

If you were bringing the same squad to most battles, then I don't know what you meant by "rotate". If you meant like, hand-feeding kills to a weaker unit to catch them up, my general mindset is that if a character falls far enough behind in XP to be unable to keep up, then they weren't carrying their weight to begin with. I will give them better weapons or let them killsteal if they are trying to catch up XP wise, but I will toss them aside rather than waste turns babysitting.

Yes that's exactly it.

like pegasus knights! I can't stand babysitting them! especially the one in Binder Burade
but the idea is there's a payoff when they get promoted, right?

[Volteccer_Jack]

The movement makes flying units super useful generally, but they tend to be quite fragile early, forcing them to target isolated or weak enemies to level up. Once they level up enough to fight without fear of getting one- or two- shot, they are very powerful. You end up with basically a Paladin that can move freely over forests and mountains/walls. Marcia and Jill are arguably the best units in Path of Radiance. I don't really remember how good the fliers are in Binding Blade, but I remember it has a ridiculous amount of enemy fliers and archers, which makes fliers more of a hassle to use in that game.

[Sima Tuna]

Flying units feel very vulnerable in Shadows.

Is this at one of the higher difficulty levels? I honestly can't remember if I played it at Normal or Hard tho! Shadows of Valentia (and I guess Gaiden by association) doesn't have the straight up "fliers vulnerable to arrows" mechanic, instead it's tied to a weapon skill on bows. I didn't encounter many enemies with anything but a default bow equipped, I think only late game did any archer pack the anti-flier weapon skill and they weren't frequent/numerous enough to cause a problem. Palla/Catria/Est/Clair seriously fucked some shit up in my game

Ballista, mages, archers, knights, axes... Any of these things can murder a pegasis in Shadows.

Pegasi are usually an "investment" class. You invest x amount of time spoonfeeding them kills and then the payoff is when they promote and become a sword and spear-toting paladin with insane movement range and the ability to transport damn near every other unit you have.

I didn't find Pegs all that different in Shadows of Valentia. There's one Pegasis in Shadows that starts with pretty beastmode stats (for a Valentia unit, which is still low compared to modern FE stats and way low compared to modern FE growth rates.) That unit was Clair. She can definitely start cleaning up from the moment you get her. The others? I thought they were pretty typical of Pegs. Long movement range, but fragile starting out. Then again, your mileage my vary, considering how weak every unit starts out in Valentia.

Pegs got HELLA busted starting in Awakening, however. The fact you can promote them into crossbreed magic units which can travel that insane distance and still attack from 1-2 spacing using an attack that targets enemy resistance, and potentially can't be counter-attacked? Broken. If you've never made Sumia a mage pegasis, do it and laugh as she toasts entire battlefields by herself. The main disadvantage of the class is getting worn down while separated from the group. When you can ensure all attacks made during player phase can't be countered by the enemy units (which a 1-2 range weapon can easily manage) then you've compensated for your biggest weakness. You can also do shit like attack from tiles the enemies can't even reach. You can do that with a Javelin, of course, but a Jav has 20 uses. A fireball has 50. You could carry two and a half Javelins on your Peg Knight, or you could carry one fireball tome.

[BryanM]

Yeah, the hits-to-kill scaling in FE games is interestingly wonky. Armor Knights are these incredible fighters in the early game, and scale to traaaaaash later on all because Def caps out around pretty much the same for all units in most of these games.

The most difficult Shining Force solo runs are those using a character with low Defense. Attack - Defense = Damage formulas always mean Defense has accelerating returns!

In the arguments of "who's the best" where everyone tries to build a tierlist, a lot of characters are identical since they have identical hits-to-kill and die matrices, so it's often skub wars. In Shining Force 2, I feel that people vastly overrate the Master Monk units. Yeah, they can technically hit as hard as a real fighter, but their move of 5 and the fact you have a squad of 12 people means they rarely get to close the distance and punch anything. Inversely, archers are less esteemed since they only deal chip damage, despite it often being enough to finish off guys. If mages weren't stronger than them, people would be wrong about them~

___

This thread reminded me a Shining Force spiritual successor was released on the SNES, and had to look up its name on Gamefaqs: FEDA. Haven't really thought about it since playing a few of its stages over a decade ago. The poor thing's like Ladystalker, never got released here back when it would have made any impact... .... god help me if I ever want to actually find that Tactics Ogreish SNES game with angels, it's impossible to google these things easy.....

The Summon Night series is another one that might as well be dead here. I gave Summon Night 5 a go for a bit, and it was pretty nice, I think. Don't remember any 35 second long attack animations, haven't been haunted by a ghost..

Have some ambition to try to play the first two Majin Tensei games finally for some reason.

[Sengoku Strider]

When you start up Monshou no Nazo, you're asked to choose Book 1 or Book 2. Book 2 is the 'real' FE3, a full length game that takes place one year after the events of FE1 and features largely the same cast of characters. Book 1 is a remake/port of FE1. It cuts a few chapters and a few characters, and uses the updated FE3 system mechanics such as the changed double attack formula. On the DS, Shadow Dragon is a remake of Book1/FE1 only, and New Mystery is a remake of Book2/FE3 only.

IMO the SFC game is the best version of both stories and the definitive Marth experience.

That's good to know, since I have Shadow Dragon on Wii U but my gamepad either has a dead battery or is busted, and the console wants to update before it'll let me play anything but won't do it without the gamepad for some reason. So maybe I'll just play the SFC cart instead.

they already included Lyn who is an inconsequential side character even in her own game (it's because she's a waifu).

It's been a couple of years since I played it, but IIRC the game starts you off with different scenarios for each the three lords, so she is kind of a co-main. She was on the cover & they even put her front & centre in some of the promo art:



She was also the sole FE7 representative in Fire Emblem Warriors, I'm guessing because she's the most distinctive & memorable of the main 3; Eliwood & Hector are kinda interchangeable with a lot of other FE main characters.

This thread reminded me a Shining Force spiritual successor was released on the SNES, and had to look up its name on Gamefaqs: FEDA. Haven't really thought about it since playing a few of its stages over a decade ago. The poor thing's like Ladystalker, never got released here back when it would have made any impact...

It wasn't well received in Japan, which is probably at least partly why. It got a remake on Saturn, which I've even seen appear on some worst-of lists.

[Sima Tuna]

I like Lyn's scenario for the opportunity to spoonfeed certain characters early, before locking myself into Eliwood (virgin) or Hector (chad) routes. Other than that, she's a mediocre sword-locked unit who has the option to switch between a 1 tile weapon and a 2 tile weapon, but not to have a 1-2 weapon. Even by FE7, classes with no 1-2 options are kinda ass. I mean, I guess you can waste one of your few magic swords on her... If you want...

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

There's so much I could say (and respond to) about Fire Emblem, but I don't want to write a ridiculous essay-length post responding to all the FE discussion points so far. I'll just say I've been replaying Thracia 776 the last few weeks - absolute masterpiece, one of the best in the series despite some rough edges. Absolutely love its thoughtful level design, its emphasis on ridiculous situations that can be defused by smart resource allocation, its unique de-emphasis on combat relative to most other FE games, its increased complexity compared to any FE before it and many after it - it rules.

WRT FE1 / 3 / 11: I would disagree, actually. Mystery of the Emblem's book 1 is by far the best version of the original Fire Emblem in terms of aesthetics, but Shadow Dragon is a much more polished and refined game mechanically despite its extremely patchy beginning (some of those early-game bosses feel like they demand use of the mid-level savepoints you're given, nothing else in the game feels that way) and its drab visuals.

Shadow Dragon's new weapons, class rebalancing, smart retuning, and - most importantly - its quality higher difficulties make it the definitive version of the first FE. It hews close to the broken elements of the original in some ways (see how powerfully its warp staves dominate the game) but as a pure strategy game, it's easily in the top five of the series. The only serious caveat I would give is that it's absolutely not worth playing on normal mode unless you've never played a Fire Emblem before - stick to hard-3 or above (or hard-2 if you're really unsure). The particular adjustments made to enemies in this game on higher difficulties are what make it so interesting, and neither FE1 nor FE3's own remake can measure up due to their simplicity and low difficulty. (Though as breezier experiences, they're valuable in their own right: I still really love FE3.)

I think DS Fire Emblem is overall the peak of the series. Shadow Dragon is the closest FE got to the quality level of Thracia 776 since that game's release, and then New Mystery of the Emblem is the only game to cleanly surpass it.

[Lander]

Tactics Ogre, Chapter 4 Neutral Path, first Sir Barbas fight

Spoiler

This motherfucker pulls a gun like the game-changer it is, accidentally shoots one of his own knights in the back, then packs it away and hurriedly backpedals into a speech about the honourable nature of swords and hammers. A beautiful comedy of errors.

Should have rolled with it tbh - shooting your own subordinate is some cold-blooded shit to open a battle with.

Also jesus christ this game is huge. 60 hours in and I don't think I've even seen half of it

[Steven]

Finally finished with Relayer Advanced New Game+. Looks like NG+ is glitched and/or broken, though; every character joins at level 1 on NG+, even though about half of the cast joins over the course of the last 10 battles, including the final character, who joins with only about 3 fights left, and yes, even that final character joined at level 1. This is a problem considering that

1. You are forced to use every character at one point
2. All of the enemies are level 100 or higher at that point in the game
3. This does not happen on a fresh save file, when everyone joins at around the same level as the enemies you face when that character joins

So yeah, busted port of an otherwise good but not absolutely not genre-defining game. Will absolutely replay it if/when NG+ isn't broken, but I'm kind of done with it for now. Game is REALLY FUCKING LONG if you don't skip the story parts, though, so play it if you want a 100+ hour game (counting the post-game stuff) of this type.

[Sengoku Strider]

I got Triangle Strategy for Christmas. I thought it was an SPRG, but after 10 hours it seems more like 16-bit diorama puppet theatre with special guest appearance by Final Fantasy Tactics. It's like 80% sprites standing around talking about feudal fantasy politics so far. I'm not sure any of these characters have the depth to sustain this much narrative, but TBH I've been pretty glued to it since I started.

Turning off the voice acting helped. I started with the Japanese voices, but the translation here is super liberal, to the point that the voices and text were often saying very different things. This got pretty distracting, so I switched to English. There are a bunch of actors whose voices I recognized, and some of it was decent, but every time the main character spoke I just burst out laughing. His soft lispy voice was so ridiculous and inappropriate for our super-straight leader of a noble warrior house constantly professing his courtly love for his bride to be. After the third time him chiming in made me laugh I just turned the voices off altogether.

The battles, when they finally appear, are very much in the FFT 4-sided grid mode. And also clearly designed by people who just spent a whole bunch of time playing Three Houses. Some of the FE touches they jacked are weird though. Like, I still have no idea what the red arcs that come out of enemies indicate. In 3H they mean that unit will attack the unit of yours the line is pointing to. Here, I don't know what it means. All the lines just seem to point to whichever unit's turn it is, as long as they're in range.

The story did start to get pretty interesting by chapter V, so I'm curious to see where things go.

[TransatlanticFoe]

It's very narrative heavy in the first few chapters but settles into a sensible rhythm eventually. I didn't mind the voice acting but found it very difficult to not raise a smirk at "Hughette" - while Japanese RPGs often get silly names, this one really stands out. I think it's the "Smurfette" style "add -ette to make female" approach. She turned out as an absolute beast in my game too!

[Mischief Maker]

For God's sake, people. If you want Final Fantasy Tactics 2, get Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark!

[Sengoku Strider]

While Triangle obviously has Square dna, it actually reminds me more of Konami's under-appreciated Saturn/PS1 classic SRPG Vandal Hearts than it does Final Fantasy Tactics. Having played Vandal Hearts first, FFT was actually kind of a letdown at the time; it wasn't so much about military tactics as it was a Final Fantasy game with a map you could walk around on during battles. Whereas VH really emphasized moving in formation and covering your characters' vulnerable sides & backs. Triangle feels similar to me, it even handles bow animations in a similar way.

It's interesting that the game contains no supernatural enemies. And with every faction having pretty much the same units available to them it ends up feeling like chess, with standardized movements.

I finished the game with what felt like a somewhat unhappy ending:

Spoiler

I sided with Aesfrost to take down Hyzante, and ended up creating a poverty-stricken mercantilist hellscape and an unhappy wife.

But the game is very inviting with its new game+, and since the story is very much directed by the player's actions there are a lot of branches where you wonder what might've happened had you made a different choice. It's hard though, it often puts you in situations where every choice is bad but only one isn't dumb.

For instance one major branch point turned out like this for me:

Spoiler

1. Side with Aesfrost, who killed the royal family.
2. Hand the kingdom over to Hyzante, whose religion you now know is fake and whose economy is based on imprisoning your wife's people for slave labour for eternity. Because you can bring peace by pretending everyone is equal under their goddess.
3. Run away from your ancestral lands and seek a mystical promised land that appears to involve jumping off a massive waterfall, from which nobody has ever been seen again.

None of those are good, but #1 was the only one which didn't seem like something only an irrational idiot would do. Still, I felt like I was doing well until I missed talking to one character during a debate phase, which resulted in the vote going against me

Spoiler

...to flood the capital to wipe out the opposing force and reclaim it without losing men. Which wrecked the city and drowned civilians...immediately after my choice in the previous chapter, which involved defending a village of refugees and the characters making all sorts of speeches about how they'd give their lives to protect their subjects.

People started to get understandably weird around my faction after that. Anyway, I'm going to lend my copy to my brother who loves this stuff, but down the road I definitely see myself taking a crack at new game+. I don't think it's one of the top 10 SRPGs of all time like some (*cough* IGN) claim, but it did keep me engaged for hours at a time, and the weapon/character upgrade system was compelling if clunkily implemented. Which sums up a lot of this game, it's incredibly ambitious and clearly outstretched its budget. There are a lot of little rough edges like that. I read it's passed 1 million sold though, so assuming there's a sequel I expect Project Square Strategy to get a higher budget.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Congrats on

Spoiler

getting into bed with Putin

I like how the endings turn out. The entire game gets fairly bleak in places and a stream of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" choices fits with the narrative. Some of the party members natural alignments don't always match what the options entail but I found on the whole it was an interesting mechanic, to not necessarily being able to choose the path you want. It seems like the game was a success so perhaps it'll be refined in future.

I went with

Spoiler

running away to the promised land. I naturally did a lot of the pro-Roselle options and felt the chance to escape inevitable war, not to ally either faction, was the right choice out of those presented. However I'd rather making a last stand and going out defending your principles should have been an option. Dying for a cause and eventually spawning a resistence movement or something in a "you die but you win" ending. Running away rather than fighting, even knowing you'll lose, for what's right felt wrong against your house's background. No way was I siding with the lot that barged in and murdered half the royal family. And Hyzante were just the worst. I liked how those two options were presented though, Roland being a mix of duty and revenge while Benedict ultimately only cares about the house's standing (hinted at earlier with some of his questionable tactics)

I'm midway through new game+ (distracted by other games though) trying out some of the alternate paths (while still staying on the perfect ending path) and some are definitely better than others. When you have a choice to protect or surrender Roland

Spoiler

Falkes loses his mind if you hand over Roland and the resulting branch is a bit silly, not well written at all

I also really wish

Spoiler

Maxwell's return was written into the main story rather than being an optional character who just turns up and no-one really notices. He was a big deal early on and it makes no sense that him being alive isn't a rallying moment

[Sima Tuna]

Hearing from people in this thread that the game is rough but ambitious is a better recommendation than any 10/10 IGN shill review. I tend to love those games whose reach exceeds their grasp. Even when they fall on their ass, the result is usually more entertaining than the typical boring sludge the mainstream pumps out.

That said, I really wish we could get more sarpigs that put full control into the player's hands. Here's my laundry list of what I would want from an ideal sarpig:

1) Lots of character classes and generics I can name or build any way I want
2) Weapon disciplines but no weapon triangle
3) Forced to commit to your builds for them to be effective aka no jack of all trades
4) Difficult battles that rely on strategy rather than the AI cheating or stat-hacking
5) no overpowered boss characters-all bosses should be drawn from the same well of classes and weapons you have access to
6) terrain should be essential to combat and height/stamina should play a huge role in your tactics
7) at the same time, turtling must be punished somehow (otherwise archers/ranged units become too overpowered)
8 ) I wouldn't say no to horses, as cavalry are rarely implemented well in sarpigs
9) polearms and spears should reflect their real-world dominance in military conflict, but not be required if the player prefers not to use them
10) I wouldn't say no to some type of formation bonuses
11) the player should be in control of which missions to take and (ideally) which factions to piss off

The closest a recent game has come to my ideal sarpig is Battle Brothers, but it's not japanese.