2013
I like how I can say this isn't a video game and my friend will immediately groan and get really angry with me. It's really fucking funny lol. Can you say, Nostalgia Bias?
2023
I don't play fighting games, but this one has a lot of style.
Anyways don't let a drunk driver tell you that Luke isn't cool as fuck.
Anyways don't let a drunk driver tell you that Luke isn't cool as fuck.
That sure was... a video game I guess?
Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, and in some aspects it's not hard to see how much influence it would have in the years going forward. It planted the seeds for multiple new genres of the medium, from the Character Action Game to Open World. It's still visually impressive even today, and it has an incredible atmosphere.
But by golly, the flaws of this game are just so many that it almost overshadows the rest of the experience, and what was once impressive in 1998 is not so in 2023.
Hyrule Field. It's big, it's open, and it is almost absolutely barren aside from the few flying pineapples and Stalfos at night time. Sure, it's visually impressive but for the first half of this game it is utterly miserable to go through.
Playing as Young Link is quite the struggle just because moving through that field with him to go anywhere takes forever. You spend most of your time sidehopping which is nowhere near as cool as say, Alucard's Backdashing in Symphony, and just results in the first half of this game having a very sluggish pace.
Compared to other Zelda titles, even Zelda 1, it's just way too fucking slow. Now getting Epona and the Fast Travel Songs does mitigate the issue somewhat but you can only get those in the second half of the game, which means until that point you are stuck with the utterly snail-like Young Link.
Dungeons... god. I can count with maybe 2 fingers the amount of dungeons in this game that I sort of liked, those being Dodongo's Cavern and the Spirit Temple. Everything else ranged from either being kind of dull and uninteresting (Forest Temple, Water Temple), to actively annoying and unpleasant (Fire Temple, Jabu Jabu, Ice Cavern).
As an aside, how the hell is the Water Temple considered the worst dungeon in a game where both Jabu Jabu and the Ice Cavern exist? Jabu Jabu is a aesthetic nightmare with many places that just look the same and enemies you can't hit without the boomerang, as well as being an escort mission, and Ice Cavern... fucking christ, Ice physics with a Link who has some of the most awkward movement in the series... no thanks. Water Dungeon was at most just boring to go through, the switching of the boots was not nearly as bad as I was told. (Even then I liked the Iron Boots because they make funny noises, I guess I'm just easy to please)
Onto the unpleasant dungeons, Fire Dungeon was ass less because of the actual Fire and more because of how terrible Link controls. Link will sometimes just jump if you're even remotely near an edge, and in Fire Dungeon's case that can result in you falling several floors down and having to redo a fuck ton of things to get back to where you were. I genuinely hate having to platform with Link in this game simply because of this. There will be points where Link is landing directly on top of a box and yet he'll still careen to his death. It's fucking irritating.
Spirit Temple was cool at least, since it was one of the few times where the game actually asks the player to use everything in their toolset, and not just as Adult Link but also as Child Link. I wish we had more dungeons that actually incorporated the time travel aspect this game has, but alas we don't get that.
Combat, is mediocre. This isn't really too much of a sticking point since arguably combat isn't that important for Zelda but it was still a little disappointing, especially with the bosses.
There is not a single boss in this game that was genuinely compelling. Just like with the dungeons we have two camps, bosses that were a snoozefest and bosses that were irritating, as well as the additional third group that has both.
Twinrova, god I hate Twinrova. In concept it's a super cool fight, you reflect the magic from the one sister to the sister weak to their magic. The problem is that sometimes you just flat out can't hit the other sister because they are on the other side of the screen. Then the second phase happens and is worse because it just becomes a fucking waiting game of hoping she'll launch three of the same spell so you can absorb it with your shield and hit her with it.
On the opposite camp we have Volvagia... what a nothing fight. There was a point during it where I just stood still for 30 seconds and took no damage, and then I was able to completely body the damn thing.
Even Dark Link was a joke, with me just doing thrust attacks utterly annihilating the poor guy.
Really the only boss I even sort of liked besides King Dodongo was Bongo Bongo, simply because it asked me to use more than one tool which was cool.
The Ganon fight was cool from a visual and thematic standpoint but was also way too easy for a final boss. Maybe that was the point but it just didn't feel satisfying to me.
Minigames. I will now completely break the rational character I've been writing as up to this point to rant about this. I HATE every minigame in this game, and I HATE that Heart Pieces and Ammo Upgrades are locked behind them. Now I'm sure you'll probably say "oh but those are optional" and sure you're not wrong, but I just like having more health you dig? I like to be more capable, and having more health and ammo is a way to doing that. I would complain less if a single minigame in this game wasn't some of the worst shit imaginable.
The bow/slingshot games are easily the worst of the bunch, you have no reticle. In regular combat this isn't so bad since A. Lock-on is available, and B. You are way less limited in your ammo capacity, so you have many opportunities to adjust your aim. Not so with these. Limited ammo, no lock on, and you have to get it PERFECT, which is just the Gonorrhea Icing on this AIDS Cake.
The others aren't much better, Bombchu Bowling can be utter hell until you find a consistent strategy, the Treasure Chest minigame is just pure guess work (unless you've done a dungeon you can only unlock in the second half of the game). The Dampe Racing is a pain in the ass, and isn't optional the first time since you need the Hookshot to progress. The Horseback racing to get Epona just feels tacked on and makes the process of getting her feel slow and repetitive.
Really the only ones that I didn't outright hate were the jam sessions with the Skull Kids and the Frogs.
The least offensive was surprisingly the fishing minigame, was really easy to figure out. (And very obvious that Sonic Adventure stole from it wholesale).
In general I am just a person who hates minigames locking upgrades, as someone who grew up with Sonic and having things locked behind Special Stages I have just always hated the concept. Maybe these won't bug you, but for me they were easily the lowest point of the game, not helped at all by their genuine lack of quality.
So that brings me to my final issue, which is more an issue that encapsulates problems this franchise has more so than anything: Zelda herself.
I think it is kind of ridiculous how whenever Zelda does anything in this game, it backfires horribly. She sends Link to get the Pendants so he can get the Master Sword and stop Ganondorf from getting to the Sacred Realm... only for doing so to result in him getting there anyway, making her entire plan fall apart.
Then there's her as Shiek, who in my opinion is just... such wasted potential. Shiek only exposits to Link and teaches him the Fast Travel Songs. Outside of that, the only thing of note is that Shiek gets her ass beaten by a fucking ghost and then proceeds to do nothing about it. Would it not have been cool to at least have a dungeon where you and Shiek work together? I mean, Jabu Jabu had a similar premise with Ruto and while I think it didn't work there, the potential for a good dungeon using teamwork between you and Shiek would be cool. Unfortunately we didn't get that.
And of course, the moment she removes the Shiek disguise, she is almost immediately captured by Ganondorf. It's just really upsetting.
I won't lie, this criticism is also amplified by things that happen in Tears of the Kingdom, but I can't help but feel like that stuff really started being set in stone with Ocarina.
Zelda is never allowed to have genuine agency, and whenever she is she or the world is always summarily punished for it. Her entire thing ends in three timelines where the world gets fucked over by Ganondorf in some capacity. I can't help but feel like this series reeks of misogyny when the main female lead isn't allowed to be anything but a damsel and can't genuinely do anything without being punished for doing so. It's just a little fucking uncomfortable to me.
This applies to the entire series too, and while talking in Tokyo Millennium I basically came to the conclusion that Zelda is only allowed true agency when:
A. She's in Super Smash Bros.
B. She's not even in the game
C. The Fucking CDI Games
D. Spirit Tracks, where she spends most of the game dead
I just can't help but see these underlying signals Nintendo is trying to send to me which in big bold letters spell out the word "MISOGYNY".
To conclude, I don't hate Ocarina of Time but it sure just is ok. It's so ok, it's average, and arguably that's far worse than just being bad.
I left this game feeling filled but disappointed at the same time. Maybe it's my fault for playing this as a break game from Tears of the Kingdom, which has been an utterly phenomenal time that I genuinely could not put down, and I'm measuring OoT against it but at the same time I feel like I would always be disappointed.
Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, but to me it's just another game to checkmark off the list. A game that doesn't impress, but doesn't fill me with pure animosity.
It's just ok.
Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, and in some aspects it's not hard to see how much influence it would have in the years going forward. It planted the seeds for multiple new genres of the medium, from the Character Action Game to Open World. It's still visually impressive even today, and it has an incredible atmosphere.
But by golly, the flaws of this game are just so many that it almost overshadows the rest of the experience, and what was once impressive in 1998 is not so in 2023.
Hyrule Field. It's big, it's open, and it is almost absolutely barren aside from the few flying pineapples and Stalfos at night time. Sure, it's visually impressive but for the first half of this game it is utterly miserable to go through.
Playing as Young Link is quite the struggle just because moving through that field with him to go anywhere takes forever. You spend most of your time sidehopping which is nowhere near as cool as say, Alucard's Backdashing in Symphony, and just results in the first half of this game having a very sluggish pace.
Compared to other Zelda titles, even Zelda 1, it's just way too fucking slow. Now getting Epona and the Fast Travel Songs does mitigate the issue somewhat but you can only get those in the second half of the game, which means until that point you are stuck with the utterly snail-like Young Link.
Dungeons... god. I can count with maybe 2 fingers the amount of dungeons in this game that I sort of liked, those being Dodongo's Cavern and the Spirit Temple. Everything else ranged from either being kind of dull and uninteresting (Forest Temple, Water Temple), to actively annoying and unpleasant (Fire Temple, Jabu Jabu, Ice Cavern).
As an aside, how the hell is the Water Temple considered the worst dungeon in a game where both Jabu Jabu and the Ice Cavern exist? Jabu Jabu is a aesthetic nightmare with many places that just look the same and enemies you can't hit without the boomerang, as well as being an escort mission, and Ice Cavern... fucking christ, Ice physics with a Link who has some of the most awkward movement in the series... no thanks. Water Dungeon was at most just boring to go through, the switching of the boots was not nearly as bad as I was told. (Even then I liked the Iron Boots because they make funny noises, I guess I'm just easy to please)
Onto the unpleasant dungeons, Fire Dungeon was ass less because of the actual Fire and more because of how terrible Link controls. Link will sometimes just jump if you're even remotely near an edge, and in Fire Dungeon's case that can result in you falling several floors down and having to redo a fuck ton of things to get back to where you were. I genuinely hate having to platform with Link in this game simply because of this. There will be points where Link is landing directly on top of a box and yet he'll still careen to his death. It's fucking irritating.
Spirit Temple was cool at least, since it was one of the few times where the game actually asks the player to use everything in their toolset, and not just as Adult Link but also as Child Link. I wish we had more dungeons that actually incorporated the time travel aspect this game has, but alas we don't get that.
Combat, is mediocre. This isn't really too much of a sticking point since arguably combat isn't that important for Zelda but it was still a little disappointing, especially with the bosses.
There is not a single boss in this game that was genuinely compelling. Just like with the dungeons we have two camps, bosses that were a snoozefest and bosses that were irritating, as well as the additional third group that has both.
Twinrova, god I hate Twinrova. In concept it's a super cool fight, you reflect the magic from the one sister to the sister weak to their magic. The problem is that sometimes you just flat out can't hit the other sister because they are on the other side of the screen. Then the second phase happens and is worse because it just becomes a fucking waiting game of hoping she'll launch three of the same spell so you can absorb it with your shield and hit her with it.
On the opposite camp we have Volvagia... what a nothing fight. There was a point during it where I just stood still for 30 seconds and took no damage, and then I was able to completely body the damn thing.
Even Dark Link was a joke, with me just doing thrust attacks utterly annihilating the poor guy.
Really the only boss I even sort of liked besides King Dodongo was Bongo Bongo, simply because it asked me to use more than one tool which was cool.
The Ganon fight was cool from a visual and thematic standpoint but was also way too easy for a final boss. Maybe that was the point but it just didn't feel satisfying to me.
Minigames. I will now completely break the rational character I've been writing as up to this point to rant about this. I HATE every minigame in this game, and I HATE that Heart Pieces and Ammo Upgrades are locked behind them. Now I'm sure you'll probably say "oh but those are optional" and sure you're not wrong, but I just like having more health you dig? I like to be more capable, and having more health and ammo is a way to doing that. I would complain less if a single minigame in this game wasn't some of the worst shit imaginable.
The bow/slingshot games are easily the worst of the bunch, you have no reticle. In regular combat this isn't so bad since A. Lock-on is available, and B. You are way less limited in your ammo capacity, so you have many opportunities to adjust your aim. Not so with these. Limited ammo, no lock on, and you have to get it PERFECT, which is just the Gonorrhea Icing on this AIDS Cake.
The others aren't much better, Bombchu Bowling can be utter hell until you find a consistent strategy, the Treasure Chest minigame is just pure guess work (unless you've done a dungeon you can only unlock in the second half of the game). The Dampe Racing is a pain in the ass, and isn't optional the first time since you need the Hookshot to progress. The Horseback racing to get Epona just feels tacked on and makes the process of getting her feel slow and repetitive.
Really the only ones that I didn't outright hate were the jam sessions with the Skull Kids and the Frogs.
The least offensive was surprisingly the fishing minigame, was really easy to figure out. (And very obvious that Sonic Adventure stole from it wholesale).
In general I am just a person who hates minigames locking upgrades, as someone who grew up with Sonic and having things locked behind Special Stages I have just always hated the concept. Maybe these won't bug you, but for me they were easily the lowest point of the game, not helped at all by their genuine lack of quality.
So that brings me to my final issue, which is more an issue that encapsulates problems this franchise has more so than anything: Zelda herself.
I think it is kind of ridiculous how whenever Zelda does anything in this game, it backfires horribly. She sends Link to get the Pendants so he can get the Master Sword and stop Ganondorf from getting to the Sacred Realm... only for doing so to result in him getting there anyway, making her entire plan fall apart.
Then there's her as Shiek, who in my opinion is just... such wasted potential. Shiek only exposits to Link and teaches him the Fast Travel Songs. Outside of that, the only thing of note is that Shiek gets her ass beaten by a fucking ghost and then proceeds to do nothing about it. Would it not have been cool to at least have a dungeon where you and Shiek work together? I mean, Jabu Jabu had a similar premise with Ruto and while I think it didn't work there, the potential for a good dungeon using teamwork between you and Shiek would be cool. Unfortunately we didn't get that.
And of course, the moment she removes the Shiek disguise, she is almost immediately captured by Ganondorf. It's just really upsetting.
I won't lie, this criticism is also amplified by things that happen in Tears of the Kingdom, but I can't help but feel like that stuff really started being set in stone with Ocarina.
Zelda is never allowed to have genuine agency, and whenever she is she or the world is always summarily punished for it. Her entire thing ends in three timelines where the world gets fucked over by Ganondorf in some capacity. I can't help but feel like this series reeks of misogyny when the main female lead isn't allowed to be anything but a damsel and can't genuinely do anything without being punished for doing so. It's just a little fucking uncomfortable to me.
This applies to the entire series too, and while talking in Tokyo Millennium I basically came to the conclusion that Zelda is only allowed true agency when:
A. She's in Super Smash Bros.
B. She's not even in the game
C. The Fucking CDI Games
D. Spirit Tracks, where she spends most of the game dead
I just can't help but see these underlying signals Nintendo is trying to send to me which in big bold letters spell out the word "MISOGYNY".
To conclude, I don't hate Ocarina of Time but it sure just is ok. It's so ok, it's average, and arguably that's far worse than just being bad.
I left this game feeling filled but disappointed at the same time. Maybe it's my fault for playing this as a break game from Tears of the Kingdom, which has been an utterly phenomenal time that I genuinely could not put down, and I'm measuring OoT against it but at the same time I feel like I would always be disappointed.
Ocarina of Time has long been lauded as one of the greatest games of all time, but to me it's just another game to checkmark off the list. A game that doesn't impress, but doesn't fill me with pure animosity.
It's just ok.
2001
I didn't think I could be traumatized by a game with funny monkeys but here I am.
Farthest gotten: Floor 26 Advanced Mode
I don't think I want to play this ever again.
Farthest gotten: Floor 26 Advanced Mode
I don't think I want to play this ever again.
I put a minecart ON ANOTHER MINECART to get across a rail gap and it WORKED!
Anyways it has better rail grinding than any Sonic game ever made let's fucking gooooooooooooo.
P.S. No video game is worth 70 dollars no matter how good, the money doesn't actually go to the people who work on the game. Piracy is the answer smile.
(Unfinished review will go more indepth whenever I finish.)
Anyways it has better rail grinding than any Sonic game ever made let's fucking gooooooooooooo.
P.S. No video game is worth 70 dollars no matter how good, the money doesn't actually go to the people who work on the game. Piracy is the answer smile.
(Unfinished review will go more indepth whenever I finish.)
2018
I've only gotten the escape ending but I can kind of already say this is the dream game I wanted ever since I finished playing Silent Hill 1 back in October.
A game that really breathes new life into survival horror by just being utterly relentless. Sure there's ways of breaking the game with relative ease but Fear & Hunger always finds a way to sucker punch you in the pinecone (I'm playing the censor patch).
On that note I will say the overly gratuitous sexual themes (including having your character get sexually assaulted) really do just seem like shock value which is why I didn't bother playing it uncensored. After Tsukihime I'm not exactly interested in seeing weird cock.
Anyways roguelikes games eat your heart out. This is the peak.
A game that really breathes new life into survival horror by just being utterly relentless. Sure there's ways of breaking the game with relative ease but Fear & Hunger always finds a way to sucker punch you in the pinecone (I'm playing the censor patch).
On that note I will say the overly gratuitous sexual themes (including having your character get sexually assaulted) really do just seem like shock value which is why I didn't bother playing it uncensored. After Tsukihime I'm not exactly interested in seeing weird cock.
Anyways roguelikes games eat your heart out. This is the peak.
Four years later and with the launch of Tears of the Kingdom I finally managed to come back to BoTW and finish it.
The game is still an incredibly fun experience, there's a bunch of cool things to do, but at the same time I also just don't care as much about Zelda's world as I do about some place like the Mojave. I guess I prefer my open world games to be a bit more upfront in being lore driven experiences with interesting narratives.
Combat is fine, though I will say the Ganon bosses (strictly the Divine Beast ones and the DLC Rematches) kind of just suck. They're either just super easy and boring or have a gimmick that is incredibly annoying to deal with.
The final area/boss was definitely hype and doing all the Divine Beast stuff before that point makes it feel extremely rewarding.
What didn't feel rewarding was doing the DLC. It kind of just sucks. Champions Ballad is way too bloated even if I think the actual upgrades you get (and the motorcycle) are cool. Starting with 4 trials you have to do while having only one hit point, and then having to do 12 more trials followed by a final dungeon and a boss fight against a Shiekah Monk is just excessive and doesn't really feel like a natural way to add more content.
I didn't bother with Trials of the Sword outside the beginners one because it's A. Pointless by Endgame and B. Incredibly tedious.
Fundamentally though you can't go wrong with BoTW, this game has been a therapeutic experience for me coming back to games, a palate cleanser after my awful experience with FE Engage. I don't think it's the greatest game ever made (I am also tentatively not into Zelda), but it's a good time and not hard to see why it has become so influential.
Anyways sorry this review wasn't deep, I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.
The game is still an incredibly fun experience, there's a bunch of cool things to do, but at the same time I also just don't care as much about Zelda's world as I do about some place like the Mojave. I guess I prefer my open world games to be a bit more upfront in being lore driven experiences with interesting narratives.
Combat is fine, though I will say the Ganon bosses (strictly the Divine Beast ones and the DLC Rematches) kind of just suck. They're either just super easy and boring or have a gimmick that is incredibly annoying to deal with.
The final area/boss was definitely hype and doing all the Divine Beast stuff before that point makes it feel extremely rewarding.
What didn't feel rewarding was doing the DLC. It kind of just sucks. Champions Ballad is way too bloated even if I think the actual upgrades you get (and the motorcycle) are cool. Starting with 4 trials you have to do while having only one hit point, and then having to do 12 more trials followed by a final dungeon and a boss fight against a Shiekah Monk is just excessive and doesn't really feel like a natural way to add more content.
I didn't bother with Trials of the Sword outside the beginners one because it's A. Pointless by Endgame and B. Incredibly tedious.
Fundamentally though you can't go wrong with BoTW, this game has been a therapeutic experience for me coming back to games, a palate cleanser after my awful experience with FE Engage. I don't think it's the greatest game ever made (I am also tentatively not into Zelda), but it's a good time and not hard to see why it has become so influential.
Anyways sorry this review wasn't deep, I'm just now getting back into the swing of things.
Guh... mmmmngh ghhhhhhh... oh fuck...
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is... oh god... ohhhhhh...... such a soulful video game. Everything it... gnnnnn... includes is just pure artistry, Sakurai is simply perfect ungaaaaaaaahhhhhh... insert additional Sakurai Dickriding here
I love playing Smash Tour, such a great game mode. I love spending a half hour alone playing a game mode where I don't understand how it works and the game just kind of ends and stuff.
Oh and Classic Mode, fuck I'm ejaculating like I'm Shiki Tohno. Such an amazing breath of fresh air. I love moving my piece across a board with absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything that I'm doing, no theming or anything interesting whatsoever while I get to the Master Forms and cream at the thought of beating the little Master Core at the end that totally doesn't feel like the team who worked on this game's lack of a will to live.
I absolutely love the lack of any adventure mode after the Subspace Emissary. Not having any form of interesting singleplayer content is my fucking jam. Fuck singleplayer content, Singleplayer content should die in a ditch. Spitting noise
Most of all I'm so glad the Smash 4 community is such a safe and accepting community, especially for children, and that absolutely ZeRo people who got popular from this community turned out to be sexual predators.
All in all, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is simply the greatest game of all time, and if you don't agree well you simply hate Sakurai and want him to not survive the cold winters. You know Masahiro Sakurai really only has as much influence as a janitor, and Masahiro Sakurai cannot make any bad games.
Anyways check the date.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is... oh god... ohhhhhh...... such a soulful video game. Everything it... gnnnnn... includes is just pure artistry, Sakurai is simply perfect ungaaaaaaaahhhhhh... insert additional Sakurai Dickriding here
I love playing Smash Tour, such a great game mode. I love spending a half hour alone playing a game mode where I don't understand how it works and the game just kind of ends and stuff.
Oh and Classic Mode, fuck I'm ejaculating like I'm Shiki Tohno. Such an amazing breath of fresh air. I love moving my piece across a board with absolutely no rhyme or reason to anything that I'm doing, no theming or anything interesting whatsoever while I get to the Master Forms and cream at the thought of beating the little Master Core at the end that totally doesn't feel like the team who worked on this game's lack of a will to live.
I absolutely love the lack of any adventure mode after the Subspace Emissary. Not having any form of interesting singleplayer content is my fucking jam. Fuck singleplayer content, Singleplayer content should die in a ditch. Spitting noise
Most of all I'm so glad the Smash 4 community is such a safe and accepting community, especially for children, and that absolutely ZeRo people who got popular from this community turned out to be sexual predators.
All in all, Super Smash Bros. for Wii U is simply the greatest game of all time, and if you don't agree well you simply hate Sakurai and want him to not survive the cold winters. You know Masahiro Sakurai really only has as much influence as a janitor, and Masahiro Sakurai cannot make any bad games.
Anyways check the date.
2023
I wanted to write a review about this game for over a month at this point but always find myself not feeling fully committed.
At first I felt like I didn't want to go all in with the hate because truthfully speaking I speak rather caustically about any game I play, including those I enjoy, and I truly do want to have a more positive mindset when it comes to game criticism.
However, seeing the amount of "opinions" about this game on twitter that range from painfully ignorant to just boldface lying has put me in a position where I feel like I need to let loose and just be the asshole I am meant to be about this utterly corporate, hollow and soulless product.
Fire Emblem Engage is easily the Marvel Movie equivalent of a Fire Emblem game in the worst possible ways possible and I can only look at some of the defenses for it as by people who consume product endlessly without actually considering what it is that they're taking in.
"The story is bad but that's ok because all Fire Emblem stories are bad," is not just a bad argument but just a flat out untruth that dismisses the nuanced stories of games like Genealogy of the Holy War, a game whose first half is entirely focused on political grabs for power that bring the protagonist into conflict with those he deemed allies and results in a twist that I still find incredibly impactful even a year after playing it.
It also dismisses the game preceding Engage, Three Houses which while not perfect, has had enough intrigue about itself that people are still debating which of the paths was the "morally correct" one. If a game can still generate discussion nearly five years after its release, it must have some sort of value.
Hell, Shadow Dragon which I just played this last month has better story telling than we get in Engage. People really want to try and say that Fire Emblem plots are bad have just not played the fucking series at this point. That's not even an elitist angle, I've only played maybe 6 to 8 games in this series, but even I can tell that the idea that "all Fire Emblem stories are bad is bullshit"
So, what is wrong with Engage's story? I know I just vented about the honestly moronic argument being made for it so what exactly is the flaw? In truth the basic premise isn't so much the problem but rather the delivery.
The game has a simplistic "defeat the Evil Kingdom and the Evil Dragon in charge of the Kingdom", but the problem simply lies in the fact that the game does not get the player to give a single fuck about it. Even in other FE games where the "defeat Evil Dragon" setup is in place, the intrigue is made through the character reactions to Fire Emblem's inherent themes like the suffering of war, loss, and hope. However, Engage's characters are... not characters to put it as nice as I can. They are a bunch of traits stitched together that don't make up a nuanced individual. Even those that I liked like Alcryst barely felt like people.
So when you put these non-characters, with a simplistic plot, does that automatically make it bad? No. A good example of this I think is Final Fantasy V. That game is relatively simple in how its story is presented and the characters don't wind up having a severe level of depth, but what makes it work is how it uses its humor and light-heartedness to sort of be a self-parody, making it a whimsical entertaining ride from start to finish (Even then FFV still has actual character beats that feel genuine and well written regardless).
Engage appears to have this trait at the start but by the time you reach the second country the plot tries to take itself seriously and... it doesn't work.
The plot being flat, the characters being flat, and no real sense of self-awareness or witty self-parody results in Engage being an extremely dull experience, which is what I would say if the final third of the game didn't piss me off nearly as much as it did.
To sum up my thoughts on the narrative, I want to quote a friend of mine more versed in Fire Emblem than myself, "Engage doesn’t just have a simple plot. It’s a simple plot full of simple characters told in a simple way with simple themes conveyed through simple expression" - @fortayee, 2023
Onto the gameplay, it starts off relatively ok before falling off the deep end hard after you visit Solm.
The game has barely any objective variety with 20 Main Story Chapters being Defeat Boss maps, 5 being Rout Maps (which includes maps where you start with a different objective only for it to become a Rout Map), and 2 Escape Maps.
Adding on the paralogues brings it up to a whopping 34 Defeat Boss Maps, and 6 Rout Maps (not accounting for DLC because I'm not spending an additional thirty dollars for characters like Camilla and the Fire Emblem Heroes one).
The early to midgame maps were pretty, pardon the pun, engaging (I played on Hard Casual), though I couldn't really think of anything standout. After Chapter 16 though the quality definitely begins a sharp decline.
Chapter 16 is a funny map and begins the trend of encouraging turtling tactics. Instead of trying to make interesting plays, given the sheer amount of both bosses and bosses with the ability to use Engage attacks, you might as well just concentrate all of your forces in one area and take the map excessively slow as you tackle each obstacle one at at a time.
Compared to earlier entries like Shadow Dragon or even something like Sacred Stones, it never feels like it is ever beneficial to spread out your party to multitask obstacles because the sheer amount of enemies along with Engage attacks being particularly devastating just doesn't encourage that kind of play.
This turtling trend continues for pretty much the rest of the game, with Chapters 17 and 25 feeling like the only exceptions, with 25 finally actively punishing the player for doing so.
This isn't really helped by the fact that the back half of this game is filled with Fates like gimmicks that result in levels being less interesting or just plain annoying to progress through.
Every level involving a Fell Shard made me groan because it either meant that the mechanic would involve removing what was making the Chapter interesting like Chapter 23's Meteors which basically made the interesting setup of vast narrow pathways become a giant open map instead, or Chapter 22 where you have to gather all the Emblem Rings only for the map to become a Rout map anyway.
I think my least favorite of the Chapters easily goes to Chapter 24, not just because it involves time travel but also because of the avalanche mechanic being both annoying and trivial.
You wanna beat the map (without just warp skipping), it's simple. Instead of taking your army through the three separate lanes, just turtle them all up in one lane and move them up and down when the avalanches come. Oh, that's forgetting that the chapter also has a time limit. 2 Chapters away from Endgame and the game suddenly feels like implementing a mechanic that will never be relevant again outside of DLC (if it becomes relevant in the DLC in the first place). It's not even really a challenge it just feels... pointless.
Honestly that's the apt word to describe Engage, it's pointless.
Mechanically it doesn't really push the series forward in any real meaningful way. The Emblems are a neat concept but they're never going to return in any future game, if anything they're really just the FE equivalent to Pokemon's current usage of transformation gimmicks that are picked up for one game and then dropped for the next generation. The class change system isn't really anything new, I honestly hazard to think of anything meaningful at all that this game provides.
Nostalgia? I guess, I mean the Emblem Paralogues are easily the best parts about this game, but that's more to the credit of the original games more than anything.
It can't be the characters, because they're not characters at all.
The gameplay is just standard modern FE...
So what gives this game the excuse for being so... nothing.
That's not even going on the 30 dollar DLC, which again is absolutely horrid how they're handling it. It's the same problem I had when Pokemon Sword & Shield did it. For a game that is so unconsidered in my opinion, making additional content that you cannot buy separately from each other for 30 dollars is ridiculous.
I should not have to pay for Camilla or the Heroes one if I want to have Soren or Edelgard. Also, locking the Silver Card behind DLC is also a dick move too.
What else can I foam at the mouth about? The Somniel?
Like the rest of the game it's pointless, and while I know someone will say "well the Monastery in Three Houses is also pointless", I'd argue at least the Monastery fed into what that game was about. The Somniel feels like a complete afterthought, especially considering you can use a lot of its functions on the world map anyway.
Being real I just cannot write a concrete review on this game. It frustrates me too much for me to not just start barking like a rabid dog whenever I see it or discussion about it. I'm honestly hoping it'll get me put down like Old Yeller, bullet to the fucking brainstem.
That infuriation stems from the desire for a better product and to not just be placid and eat up this corporate schlock like it's pig slop. Three Houses, like it or not, was at least doing something interesting, compared to this fucking mess.
I think to me, the moment where my hatred for this game was ensured was after the aforementioned Chapter 22.
The plot does bla bla bla, it's not really interesting but then Alear becomes an Emblem. The Fire Emblem.
And I guess something snapped, something inside of me.
It was a realization, that if it hadn't done it by the time of Fire Emblem Fates, that Fire Emblem had truly jumped the shark.
Not only that, but to have Marth, the guy who carries his version of the Fire Emblem with him for two entire games (and two remakes), be the one who makes that statement... god it's just so awkward and stupid.
And then of course all the times the game would suddenly redeem villains for no reason only to kill them off, which includes the main antagonist... I don't know I think I just fucking died inside.
Can you tell this isn't a review? This is just me spewing out everything because I've been needing to explode about this game for so long but held back.
Fire Emblem Engage is the Modern Fire Emblem game. It is exactly the soulless trashy game that people used to claim Awakening was, it is the endpoint where there is simply no true creative juices left. My only hope is that the next Fire Emblem game is not as nearly as rife with the corporate MCU Filmesque energy as this one was.
Positives:
The music was fine, especially the remixes of classic tracks.
Visually it is very pretty (even if I hate most of the character designs)
Good night Backloggd. I need to just lie down for a while.
At first I felt like I didn't want to go all in with the hate because truthfully speaking I speak rather caustically about any game I play, including those I enjoy, and I truly do want to have a more positive mindset when it comes to game criticism.
However, seeing the amount of "opinions" about this game on twitter that range from painfully ignorant to just boldface lying has put me in a position where I feel like I need to let loose and just be the asshole I am meant to be about this utterly corporate, hollow and soulless product.
Fire Emblem Engage is easily the Marvel Movie equivalent of a Fire Emblem game in the worst possible ways possible and I can only look at some of the defenses for it as by people who consume product endlessly without actually considering what it is that they're taking in.
"The story is bad but that's ok because all Fire Emblem stories are bad," is not just a bad argument but just a flat out untruth that dismisses the nuanced stories of games like Genealogy of the Holy War, a game whose first half is entirely focused on political grabs for power that bring the protagonist into conflict with those he deemed allies and results in a twist that I still find incredibly impactful even a year after playing it.
It also dismisses the game preceding Engage, Three Houses which while not perfect, has had enough intrigue about itself that people are still debating which of the paths was the "morally correct" one. If a game can still generate discussion nearly five years after its release, it must have some sort of value.
Hell, Shadow Dragon which I just played this last month has better story telling than we get in Engage. People really want to try and say that Fire Emblem plots are bad have just not played the fucking series at this point. That's not even an elitist angle, I've only played maybe 6 to 8 games in this series, but even I can tell that the idea that "all Fire Emblem stories are bad is bullshit"
So, what is wrong with Engage's story? I know I just vented about the honestly moronic argument being made for it so what exactly is the flaw? In truth the basic premise isn't so much the problem but rather the delivery.
The game has a simplistic "defeat the Evil Kingdom and the Evil Dragon in charge of the Kingdom", but the problem simply lies in the fact that the game does not get the player to give a single fuck about it. Even in other FE games where the "defeat Evil Dragon" setup is in place, the intrigue is made through the character reactions to Fire Emblem's inherent themes like the suffering of war, loss, and hope. However, Engage's characters are... not characters to put it as nice as I can. They are a bunch of traits stitched together that don't make up a nuanced individual. Even those that I liked like Alcryst barely felt like people.
So when you put these non-characters, with a simplistic plot, does that automatically make it bad? No. A good example of this I think is Final Fantasy V. That game is relatively simple in how its story is presented and the characters don't wind up having a severe level of depth, but what makes it work is how it uses its humor and light-heartedness to sort of be a self-parody, making it a whimsical entertaining ride from start to finish (Even then FFV still has actual character beats that feel genuine and well written regardless).
Engage appears to have this trait at the start but by the time you reach the second country the plot tries to take itself seriously and... it doesn't work.
The plot being flat, the characters being flat, and no real sense of self-awareness or witty self-parody results in Engage being an extremely dull experience, which is what I would say if the final third of the game didn't piss me off nearly as much as it did.
To sum up my thoughts on the narrative, I want to quote a friend of mine more versed in Fire Emblem than myself, "Engage doesn’t just have a simple plot. It’s a simple plot full of simple characters told in a simple way with simple themes conveyed through simple expression" - @fortayee, 2023
Onto the gameplay, it starts off relatively ok before falling off the deep end hard after you visit Solm.
The game has barely any objective variety with 20 Main Story Chapters being Defeat Boss maps, 5 being Rout Maps (which includes maps where you start with a different objective only for it to become a Rout Map), and 2 Escape Maps.
Adding on the paralogues brings it up to a whopping 34 Defeat Boss Maps, and 6 Rout Maps (not accounting for DLC because I'm not spending an additional thirty dollars for characters like Camilla and the Fire Emblem Heroes one).
The early to midgame maps were pretty, pardon the pun, engaging (I played on Hard Casual), though I couldn't really think of anything standout. After Chapter 16 though the quality definitely begins a sharp decline.
Chapter 16 is a funny map and begins the trend of encouraging turtling tactics. Instead of trying to make interesting plays, given the sheer amount of both bosses and bosses with the ability to use Engage attacks, you might as well just concentrate all of your forces in one area and take the map excessively slow as you tackle each obstacle one at at a time.
Compared to earlier entries like Shadow Dragon or even something like Sacred Stones, it never feels like it is ever beneficial to spread out your party to multitask obstacles because the sheer amount of enemies along with Engage attacks being particularly devastating just doesn't encourage that kind of play.
This turtling trend continues for pretty much the rest of the game, with Chapters 17 and 25 feeling like the only exceptions, with 25 finally actively punishing the player for doing so.
This isn't really helped by the fact that the back half of this game is filled with Fates like gimmicks that result in levels being less interesting or just plain annoying to progress through.
Every level involving a Fell Shard made me groan because it either meant that the mechanic would involve removing what was making the Chapter interesting like Chapter 23's Meteors which basically made the interesting setup of vast narrow pathways become a giant open map instead, or Chapter 22 where you have to gather all the Emblem Rings only for the map to become a Rout map anyway.
I think my least favorite of the Chapters easily goes to Chapter 24, not just because it involves time travel but also because of the avalanche mechanic being both annoying and trivial.
You wanna beat the map (without just warp skipping), it's simple. Instead of taking your army through the three separate lanes, just turtle them all up in one lane and move them up and down when the avalanches come. Oh, that's forgetting that the chapter also has a time limit. 2 Chapters away from Endgame and the game suddenly feels like implementing a mechanic that will never be relevant again outside of DLC (if it becomes relevant in the DLC in the first place). It's not even really a challenge it just feels... pointless.
Honestly that's the apt word to describe Engage, it's pointless.
Mechanically it doesn't really push the series forward in any real meaningful way. The Emblems are a neat concept but they're never going to return in any future game, if anything they're really just the FE equivalent to Pokemon's current usage of transformation gimmicks that are picked up for one game and then dropped for the next generation. The class change system isn't really anything new, I honestly hazard to think of anything meaningful at all that this game provides.
Nostalgia? I guess, I mean the Emblem Paralogues are easily the best parts about this game, but that's more to the credit of the original games more than anything.
It can't be the characters, because they're not characters at all.
The gameplay is just standard modern FE...
So what gives this game the excuse for being so... nothing.
That's not even going on the 30 dollar DLC, which again is absolutely horrid how they're handling it. It's the same problem I had when Pokemon Sword & Shield did it. For a game that is so unconsidered in my opinion, making additional content that you cannot buy separately from each other for 30 dollars is ridiculous.
I should not have to pay for Camilla or the Heroes one if I want to have Soren or Edelgard. Also, locking the Silver Card behind DLC is also a dick move too.
What else can I foam at the mouth about? The Somniel?
Like the rest of the game it's pointless, and while I know someone will say "well the Monastery in Three Houses is also pointless", I'd argue at least the Monastery fed into what that game was about. The Somniel feels like a complete afterthought, especially considering you can use a lot of its functions on the world map anyway.
Being real I just cannot write a concrete review on this game. It frustrates me too much for me to not just start barking like a rabid dog whenever I see it or discussion about it. I'm honestly hoping it'll get me put down like Old Yeller, bullet to the fucking brainstem.
That infuriation stems from the desire for a better product and to not just be placid and eat up this corporate schlock like it's pig slop. Three Houses, like it or not, was at least doing something interesting, compared to this fucking mess.
I think to me, the moment where my hatred for this game was ensured was after the aforementioned Chapter 22.
The plot does bla bla bla, it's not really interesting but then Alear becomes an Emblem. The Fire Emblem.
And I guess something snapped, something inside of me.
It was a realization, that if it hadn't done it by the time of Fire Emblem Fates, that Fire Emblem had truly jumped the shark.
Not only that, but to have Marth, the guy who carries his version of the Fire Emblem with him for two entire games (and two remakes), be the one who makes that statement... god it's just so awkward and stupid.
And then of course all the times the game would suddenly redeem villains for no reason only to kill them off, which includes the main antagonist... I don't know I think I just fucking died inside.
Can you tell this isn't a review? This is just me spewing out everything because I've been needing to explode about this game for so long but held back.
Fire Emblem Engage is the Modern Fire Emblem game. It is exactly the soulless trashy game that people used to claim Awakening was, it is the endpoint where there is simply no true creative juices left. My only hope is that the next Fire Emblem game is not as nearly as rife with the corporate MCU Filmesque energy as this one was.
Positives:
The music was fine, especially the remixes of classic tracks.
Visually it is very pretty (even if I hate most of the character designs)
Good night Backloggd. I need to just lie down for a while.
This isn't so much a review as much as it is a story I want to tell.
(Mild FE4 spoilers)
When I first played Genealogy of the Holy War, I was awed by its enormous cast. The fact that you could use every unit available to you was such an interesting concept to me that I did my very best to try and get every unit either promoted (minus Dew), or married.
And while I found most of the characters to be fundamentally useful including Arden, the blatant joke character, there was a unit that just could not seem to reach any kind of expectation for me.
Have I ever mentioned what my favorite color is on here before? The color is Red, and I've loved the color ever since I was a child. Red has always been a color that for me, represented the coolest possible things: Zero from Mega Man X, Spider-Man, Knuckes, all of these characters I have loved from a relatively young age, and still hold true to me today as representations of the color Red.
And then, then there's Noishe...
Noishe, Noish, Naoise, however the fuck you pronounce it is a character I absolutely despise. They're not cool in any sense, they only have one piece of dialogue in the entire game (two if you have him get married but we'll get onto why that's a mistake), and they can't kill enemies for shit.
Noishe is a Cavalier unit, which is what has given him the claim of being a "good" unit because FE4's maps being so large accentuates the usage of horse units, but in my honest opinion he is worse than most of the infantry units.
He doesn't have the Follow-Up Skill by default, which in FE4 means he cannot double at all, and to make it worse, he has an abysmal starting speed stat of 8, and a growth rate of 20%, meaning that even if you give him the Pursuit Ring that you can find in Chapter 2, he will still not kill units half the time.
While he does start with the Critical skill, which for some would be a good reason to have him marry one of the female units, it's borderline pointless because of how weapon kills work in this game. If you have a weapon that has killed 50 or more units, that weapon comes with the Critical skill inherent to itself.
The only way to make Noishe be up to par is to give him both the Pursuit Ring and the Brave Sword which you can get in Chapter 3 (which is actually 4 Chapters into the game, and only 2 Chapters from the end of Gen 1), but at the same time that requires him to compete with multiple other units who could use those weapons. Personally why would I have Noishe keep the Pursuit Ring when I can give it to the already extremely powerful Lewyn so he can quadruple damage thanks to having the Adept skill (which itself allows Lewyn to strike twice consecutively, that and Lewyn also comes with Critical himself. He can crit and double attack by default already making him leagues better than Noishe), or giving the Brave Sword to someone like Lachesis so she can kill enemies faster and attain that all powerful Master Knight class even sooner? Why should I give power to a mediocre unit when I can have more powerful units be even more powerful?
Hell, Fire Emblem Wiki where I am sourcing the information from says, and I quote "Naoise requires adequate equipment to surpass mediocrity." To that I say, if that is the case... why bother using him at all?
In my first run of FE4 I did everything I could to make this unit work because all of the people I asked said "Noishe is a good unit", but time and time again Noishe would simply not perform, even with things like the Pursuit Ring. He simply had terrible fucking growths.
Even after promoting him to a Paladin, the only use I had for Noishe was letting him be the only unit I didn't reset for. Letting him die to the Mjolnir tome in Chapter 5 so that Sigurd could get the kill.
Ever since I finished FE4 my hatred for Noishe continued to burn. Whenever I played other FEs and saw how the Red Cavalier units in those games were performing far better than he ever did, I just remembered my sheer disappointment and disgust I had with him. He made me feel ashamed of liking the color Red.
And so I finally reached a conclusion. After joking about it for a good chunk of the year, I decided to do the one thing with Noishe that could bring me joy and happiness...
I would speedrun his death.
Yes, what I spent most of today doing was trying to find the fastest, most efficient way to get Noishe killed in the Prologue of Genealogy of the Holy War.
It was adrenaline pumping, figuring out a strategy that required me to sell Sigurd's Iron Lance so Noishe could buy it on Turn 2, allowing for him to attack an ax unit so that he would get two shot on enemy phase and die.
The process took several hours, first I did a 1:35.4 Minute Run where I paused during the cutscene and started at turn one. My buddy Simon told me that wasn't legitimate, so then I moved on to trying to do it legit the fastest way possible.
As the first person to attempt the Noishe Death% Speedrun, I learned a lot about the optimal strategy. It requires skills not tied to Fire Emblem, if anything I'd say it's more akin to Mario Party.
Step 1.
Mash as much as humanly possible.
Mashing the start button is the only way to skip dialogue, and if you do it fast enough, you won't even see portraits of speech bubbles. The scene will simply fade in and out instantaneously.
This is the ideal scenario as given the map movement cutscenes are entirely unskippable, being able to fully skip dialogue scenes is imperative to saving time on the run.
Step 2:
Put everyone except Arden into the castle on Turn 1, while also changing your options as quickly as possible.
In FE4, you cannot change options in the main menu, and are required to do so once you are in play. This requires precision so as to not slip up and accidentally waste time.
The menuing is required simply because removing animations as well as raising enemy speed reduces the amount of time enemy phase takes, allowing for a better time.
Putting all of the units into the castle on Turn 1 prevents enemies from targeting your other units, that way they won't be killed when you send Noishe out on Turn 2 in order to finish the run.
It also allows you to fulfill the requirements for successful completion of the run on Enemy Turn 2 by allowing Sigurd to sell his Iron Lance for Noishe to buy, giving him a disadvantage to the enemy Axe units whom he otherwise would have a high avoid rate against.
That's not Noishe being good but rather Axes' being shit against Swords. Giving Noishe the Iron Lance also gives the enemies as 100% hit rate against him, guaranteeing death in three attacks.
Step 3:
Mash even harder.
This is the second hardest part because after turn one, there is an entire 25-45 second scene where you have no control while characters move on the map and have multiple lines of dialogue. There is even a fight which is animated, even if you have animations off.
Simply mash as fast as you can to skip dialogue so that the movement goes faster, allowing for enemy phase to actually start, which should go smoothly if you successfully menued to make enemy movement faster on Turn 1.
Step 4.
Menu the Iron Lance as fast as humanly possible.
This is the absolute hardest part and requires exact precision. Any mispress and you will doom the run here. You need to go into the castle, sell the Iron Lance with Sigurd, exit out of that menu, and press down to select Noishe.
Then immediately after go and buy the Iron Lance for Noishe, exit that menu and send him out to attack.
Step 5.
Attack the Axe unit closest to the castle.
By attacking this unit with the Iron Lance, you are guaranteed to take 11 damage, which is more than enough for Noishe to get two shot on enemy phase. After the attack, move Noishe to the left close to the next axe unit to deliver the coup de grace.
Step 6.
Watch him die.
At this point, you just watch as Noishe dies painfully to two slashes of the axe, ending your run.
By doing this you will have successfully completed your Noishe Death% run, killing the whitest unit in the army with more effort than it takes to actually beat the prologue of this game.
And I know what you're probably thinking: "Wow, this is such an extremely petty thing to do over a video game character from one game in a franchise of 17 mainline games and multiple spinoffs," and to you I say, yes. Yes it is petty. But it was so worth it.
You can call it petty, you can call it a joke in bad taste, call me a shit eating bastard who is not worthy of the ground upon which he stands or the games of which he plays but that will never make me feel ashamed of the absolute pop-off I had when I got a Sub 3 Minute Run.
Pettiness results in some pretty special moments.
(Mild FE4 spoilers)
When I first played Genealogy of the Holy War, I was awed by its enormous cast. The fact that you could use every unit available to you was such an interesting concept to me that I did my very best to try and get every unit either promoted (minus Dew), or married.
And while I found most of the characters to be fundamentally useful including Arden, the blatant joke character, there was a unit that just could not seem to reach any kind of expectation for me.
Have I ever mentioned what my favorite color is on here before? The color is Red, and I've loved the color ever since I was a child. Red has always been a color that for me, represented the coolest possible things: Zero from Mega Man X, Spider-Man, Knuckes, all of these characters I have loved from a relatively young age, and still hold true to me today as representations of the color Red.
And then, then there's Noishe...
Noishe, Noish, Naoise, however the fuck you pronounce it is a character I absolutely despise. They're not cool in any sense, they only have one piece of dialogue in the entire game (two if you have him get married but we'll get onto why that's a mistake), and they can't kill enemies for shit.
Noishe is a Cavalier unit, which is what has given him the claim of being a "good" unit because FE4's maps being so large accentuates the usage of horse units, but in my honest opinion he is worse than most of the infantry units.
He doesn't have the Follow-Up Skill by default, which in FE4 means he cannot double at all, and to make it worse, he has an abysmal starting speed stat of 8, and a growth rate of 20%, meaning that even if you give him the Pursuit Ring that you can find in Chapter 2, he will still not kill units half the time.
While he does start with the Critical skill, which for some would be a good reason to have him marry one of the female units, it's borderline pointless because of how weapon kills work in this game. If you have a weapon that has killed 50 or more units, that weapon comes with the Critical skill inherent to itself.
The only way to make Noishe be up to par is to give him both the Pursuit Ring and the Brave Sword which you can get in Chapter 3 (which is actually 4 Chapters into the game, and only 2 Chapters from the end of Gen 1), but at the same time that requires him to compete with multiple other units who could use those weapons. Personally why would I have Noishe keep the Pursuit Ring when I can give it to the already extremely powerful Lewyn so he can quadruple damage thanks to having the Adept skill (which itself allows Lewyn to strike twice consecutively, that and Lewyn also comes with Critical himself. He can crit and double attack by default already making him leagues better than Noishe), or giving the Brave Sword to someone like Lachesis so she can kill enemies faster and attain that all powerful Master Knight class even sooner? Why should I give power to a mediocre unit when I can have more powerful units be even more powerful?
Hell, Fire Emblem Wiki where I am sourcing the information from says, and I quote "Naoise requires adequate equipment to surpass mediocrity." To that I say, if that is the case... why bother using him at all?
In my first run of FE4 I did everything I could to make this unit work because all of the people I asked said "Noishe is a good unit", but time and time again Noishe would simply not perform, even with things like the Pursuit Ring. He simply had terrible fucking growths.
Even after promoting him to a Paladin, the only use I had for Noishe was letting him be the only unit I didn't reset for. Letting him die to the Mjolnir tome in Chapter 5 so that Sigurd could get the kill.
Ever since I finished FE4 my hatred for Noishe continued to burn. Whenever I played other FEs and saw how the Red Cavalier units in those games were performing far better than he ever did, I just remembered my sheer disappointment and disgust I had with him. He made me feel ashamed of liking the color Red.
And so I finally reached a conclusion. After joking about it for a good chunk of the year, I decided to do the one thing with Noishe that could bring me joy and happiness...
I would speedrun his death.
Yes, what I spent most of today doing was trying to find the fastest, most efficient way to get Noishe killed in the Prologue of Genealogy of the Holy War.
It was adrenaline pumping, figuring out a strategy that required me to sell Sigurd's Iron Lance so Noishe could buy it on Turn 2, allowing for him to attack an ax unit so that he would get two shot on enemy phase and die.
The process took several hours, first I did a 1:35.4 Minute Run where I paused during the cutscene and started at turn one. My buddy Simon told me that wasn't legitimate, so then I moved on to trying to do it legit the fastest way possible.
As the first person to attempt the Noishe Death% Speedrun, I learned a lot about the optimal strategy. It requires skills not tied to Fire Emblem, if anything I'd say it's more akin to Mario Party.
Step 1.
Mash as much as humanly possible.
Mashing the start button is the only way to skip dialogue, and if you do it fast enough, you won't even see portraits of speech bubbles. The scene will simply fade in and out instantaneously.
This is the ideal scenario as given the map movement cutscenes are entirely unskippable, being able to fully skip dialogue scenes is imperative to saving time on the run.
Step 2:
Put everyone except Arden into the castle on Turn 1, while also changing your options as quickly as possible.
In FE4, you cannot change options in the main menu, and are required to do so once you are in play. This requires precision so as to not slip up and accidentally waste time.
The menuing is required simply because removing animations as well as raising enemy speed reduces the amount of time enemy phase takes, allowing for a better time.
Putting all of the units into the castle on Turn 1 prevents enemies from targeting your other units, that way they won't be killed when you send Noishe out on Turn 2 in order to finish the run.
It also allows you to fulfill the requirements for successful completion of the run on Enemy Turn 2 by allowing Sigurd to sell his Iron Lance for Noishe to buy, giving him a disadvantage to the enemy Axe units whom he otherwise would have a high avoid rate against.
That's not Noishe being good but rather Axes' being shit against Swords. Giving Noishe the Iron Lance also gives the enemies as 100% hit rate against him, guaranteeing death in three attacks.
Step 3:
Mash even harder.
This is the second hardest part because after turn one, there is an entire 25-45 second scene where you have no control while characters move on the map and have multiple lines of dialogue. There is even a fight which is animated, even if you have animations off.
Simply mash as fast as you can to skip dialogue so that the movement goes faster, allowing for enemy phase to actually start, which should go smoothly if you successfully menued to make enemy movement faster on Turn 1.
Step 4.
Menu the Iron Lance as fast as humanly possible.
This is the absolute hardest part and requires exact precision. Any mispress and you will doom the run here. You need to go into the castle, sell the Iron Lance with Sigurd, exit out of that menu, and press down to select Noishe.
Then immediately after go and buy the Iron Lance for Noishe, exit that menu and send him out to attack.
Step 5.
Attack the Axe unit closest to the castle.
By attacking this unit with the Iron Lance, you are guaranteed to take 11 damage, which is more than enough for Noishe to get two shot on enemy phase. After the attack, move Noishe to the left close to the next axe unit to deliver the coup de grace.
Step 6.
Watch him die.
At this point, you just watch as Noishe dies painfully to two slashes of the axe, ending your run.
By doing this you will have successfully completed your Noishe Death% run, killing the whitest unit in the army with more effort than it takes to actually beat the prologue of this game.
And I know what you're probably thinking: "Wow, this is such an extremely petty thing to do over a video game character from one game in a franchise of 17 mainline games and multiple spinoffs," and to you I say, yes. Yes it is petty. But it was so worth it.
You can call it petty, you can call it a joke in bad taste, call me a shit eating bastard who is not worthy of the ground upon which he stands or the games of which he plays but that will never make me feel ashamed of the absolute pop-off I had when I got a Sub 3 Minute Run.
Pettiness results in some pretty special moments.
2023
It's a cute little rhythm game made by Amelia Watson and her team to celebrate her new original song.
As far as rhythm games go it's really simplistic and relatively easy. It only requires you to use one button, and the timing isn't very strict. I only missed 17 notes out of the total 160 something.
Visually it's very nice, graphically taking notes from both the SNES/Genesis and PS1, really dig the 3D models in particular. The stages in the background are all very pretty, special notes being for the first and last stages. I dig prehistoric and Blade Runner like aesthetics so they were nice.
Altogether it's just a cute little game, and very short. I'd say try it if you're into Hololive, English specifically.
As far as rhythm games go it's really simplistic and relatively easy. It only requires you to use one button, and the timing isn't very strict. I only missed 17 notes out of the total 160 something.
Visually it's very nice, graphically taking notes from both the SNES/Genesis and PS1, really dig the 3D models in particular. The stages in the background are all very pretty, special notes being for the first and last stages. I dig prehistoric and Blade Runner like aesthetics so they were nice.
Altogether it's just a cute little game, and very short. I'd say try it if you're into Hololive, English specifically.
2022
I got this for two reasons. 1. It was really fun watching clips of the Hololive girls play the game and 2. Because I wanted to compare it to the upcoming AEW game that should be out within the next few months.
I will say this, if you're looking for expressive gameplay where the wrestling is determined mostly by your skill and knowing the mechanics... you're better off looking elsewhere.
This game feels incredibly stiff, combat is super limited and while there isn't a Stamina Meter like in the SmackDown vs Raw games, a lot of the combat is really determined by mini-QTEs which I just don't think is done very well.
The character creator is fine, though I will say nothing can take the cake on Here Comes The Pain's character creator. It doesn't help that 2K22's isn't super straight forward in my opinion, so you have to go through multiple menus to get to the more direct settings.
Also all of the default faces just look incredibly uncanny, half of them just have this expression of needing to take a shit and it's incredibly weird.
Honestly the best reason to play this game is solely for the Showcase mode. Rey Mysterio is a genuinely interesting wrestler to me, and seeing him talk about some of his most engaging matches while playing through them really gets you engrossed into it. It's again, too bad combat isn't really satisfying here.
I have no doubts that AEW Fight Forever will 100% overshadow this game given it's going back to the roots of these games, and it'll probably overshadow the inevitable 2K23 game as well.
Honestly I just wanna go back to play HCTP at this point. At least I didn't blow full price on this.
I will say this, if you're looking for expressive gameplay where the wrestling is determined mostly by your skill and knowing the mechanics... you're better off looking elsewhere.
This game feels incredibly stiff, combat is super limited and while there isn't a Stamina Meter like in the SmackDown vs Raw games, a lot of the combat is really determined by mini-QTEs which I just don't think is done very well.
The character creator is fine, though I will say nothing can take the cake on Here Comes The Pain's character creator. It doesn't help that 2K22's isn't super straight forward in my opinion, so you have to go through multiple menus to get to the more direct settings.
Also all of the default faces just look incredibly uncanny, half of them just have this expression of needing to take a shit and it's incredibly weird.
Honestly the best reason to play this game is solely for the Showcase mode. Rey Mysterio is a genuinely interesting wrestler to me, and seeing him talk about some of his most engaging matches while playing through them really gets you engrossed into it. It's again, too bad combat isn't really satisfying here.
I have no doubts that AEW Fight Forever will 100% overshadow this game given it's going back to the roots of these games, and it'll probably overshadow the inevitable 2K23 game as well.
Honestly I just wanna go back to play HCTP at this point. At least I didn't blow full price on this.
2022
When I saw that one of my favorite reviewers on the site, Woodaba had made a short visual novel, I knew I had to sink my teeth into it as soon as possible.
Woodaba's writing style within their reviews (both on here and on their Youtube channel) are incredibly captivating, so I was very excited to see how that would translate to something in a VN format.
It translates very well.
From the start Woodaba's prose captured me in building up the mystique of the prologue scene, painting this picture of a dark encounter with something beyond comprehension, and leaving me curious and interested to see where it would build.
As the main story unfolds, the interaction between our protagonist and the dead girl winds up feeling surprisingly natural. The way the two bounce off of each other at first does have the vibes of your traditional comedy anime meeting, but as we get to know more about both characters, it builds to what feels like real people having real conversations about their lives and specifically the impact of the educational system.
Yeah, that's the part I definitely find the most interesting, and I'm gonna say minor spoilers here because its a relatively important theme to the narrative of the game.
Beyond the super-natural horror Woodaba goes for, the very real horror of Holy Ghost Story comes down to how the educational system (in this game it's Ireland but honestly the critique could apply to any country's as far as I'm concerned) fails those trapped within it.
From the endless amounts of all consuming stress to try and satisfy the constant memorization to get the highest exam scores, and such stress burning out young people to the point of total exhaustion.
It's entirely relatable to anyone who has ever been in school ever, while I myself never studied to such an extreme degree, the oppressive nature of school was always felt. The constant clocking in and clocking out and forcing pointless information into my brain was always the worst aspect of the system, making school less about actually learning and more of just being fed as many answers as possible.
Holy Ghost Story in particular criticizes Catholic School and religion in general, as the constant lingering visage of the man on the cross fills the characters with a deep sense of sadness, as if he is guilting them throughout the education experience.
Of course, this could just be how I internalized it, but I much appreciated how this critique wove in with the supernatural elements, giving us both abstract and yet very real, down to earth horror at the same time.
The ending of the game, much like the opening, left me with many questions. However, I think it's good that way. I think a good story always leaves a few things unanswered to let you piece together in your mind.
Of course I don't want to spoil the experience more than I already have so go give it a shot yourself, I think you'll find yourself similarly enthralled as I was.
Woodaba's writing style within their reviews (both on here and on their Youtube channel) are incredibly captivating, so I was very excited to see how that would translate to something in a VN format.
It translates very well.
From the start Woodaba's prose captured me in building up the mystique of the prologue scene, painting this picture of a dark encounter with something beyond comprehension, and leaving me curious and interested to see where it would build.
As the main story unfolds, the interaction between our protagonist and the dead girl winds up feeling surprisingly natural. The way the two bounce off of each other at first does have the vibes of your traditional comedy anime meeting, but as we get to know more about both characters, it builds to what feels like real people having real conversations about their lives and specifically the impact of the educational system.
Yeah, that's the part I definitely find the most interesting, and I'm gonna say minor spoilers here because its a relatively important theme to the narrative of the game.
Beyond the super-natural horror Woodaba goes for, the very real horror of Holy Ghost Story comes down to how the educational system (in this game it's Ireland but honestly the critique could apply to any country's as far as I'm concerned) fails those trapped within it.
From the endless amounts of all consuming stress to try and satisfy the constant memorization to get the highest exam scores, and such stress burning out young people to the point of total exhaustion.
It's entirely relatable to anyone who has ever been in school ever, while I myself never studied to such an extreme degree, the oppressive nature of school was always felt. The constant clocking in and clocking out and forcing pointless information into my brain was always the worst aspect of the system, making school less about actually learning and more of just being fed as many answers as possible.
Holy Ghost Story in particular criticizes Catholic School and religion in general, as the constant lingering visage of the man on the cross fills the characters with a deep sense of sadness, as if he is guilting them throughout the education experience.
Of course, this could just be how I internalized it, but I much appreciated how this critique wove in with the supernatural elements, giving us both abstract and yet very real, down to earth horror at the same time.
The ending of the game, much like the opening, left me with many questions. However, I think it's good that way. I think a good story always leaves a few things unanswered to let you piece together in your mind.
Of course I don't want to spoil the experience more than I already have so go give it a shot yourself, I think you'll find yourself similarly enthralled as I was.
There is no concrete way I can write this review. There is the part of me that wants to incessantly go into detail about all of the high points about the narrative, what I think about the romantic writing for each of the three routes, the improvement of the artstyle by Takeuchi since Tsukihime and the absolutely spectacular soundtrack.
There is also another part of me that desperately wants to hold back to keep from spoiling the experience for others.
That is how important this game is to me.
Throughout my many years in playing video games, there has never been a story that made me break down into tears. I've played emotional games like Celeste, I've experienced heartbreaking moments like in Stranger of Paradise's final hours, hell I've gone through the Mojave Wasteland more times than I can count experiencing all of the emotions that journey brings... and yet I did not cry.
It's not that I think I'm a tough guy, I'm very much not, but no game had ever connected with me completely in such a way to get that emotional response out of me. To some extent it was upsetting because I felt like there was something wrong with my emotions, whether because I'm depressed or what I can't truly say.
So, in truth I had always been looking for the game that would eventually cause the tears to well up, and for the strings of my heart to be pulled. To know that the game had fully and completely resonated with me.
Then I got to the end of the Unlimited Blade Works route of Fate/Stay Night.
And I cried.
I don't know how to speak to the sheer volume of importance this game has to popular culture, Japanese Popular Culture in particular, but I can say that this is one of the most important games I've experienced in my life personally.
It has a lot to say about guilt, the self, the building of love between others, and so much more that I don't want to ruin for you all by spilling it here.
Maybe someday I'll be able to write something truly concrete about this game, but maybe I don't need to.
Maybe all you need to know is that this game got me to feel in a way no other game has before, and maybe it can do that for you too.
There is also another part of me that desperately wants to hold back to keep from spoiling the experience for others.
That is how important this game is to me.
Throughout my many years in playing video games, there has never been a story that made me break down into tears. I've played emotional games like Celeste, I've experienced heartbreaking moments like in Stranger of Paradise's final hours, hell I've gone through the Mojave Wasteland more times than I can count experiencing all of the emotions that journey brings... and yet I did not cry.
It's not that I think I'm a tough guy, I'm very much not, but no game had ever connected with me completely in such a way to get that emotional response out of me. To some extent it was upsetting because I felt like there was something wrong with my emotions, whether because I'm depressed or what I can't truly say.
So, in truth I had always been looking for the game that would eventually cause the tears to well up, and for the strings of my heart to be pulled. To know that the game had fully and completely resonated with me.
Then I got to the end of the Unlimited Blade Works route of Fate/Stay Night.
And I cried.
I don't know how to speak to the sheer volume of importance this game has to popular culture, Japanese Popular Culture in particular, but I can say that this is one of the most important games I've experienced in my life personally.
It has a lot to say about guilt, the self, the building of love between others, and so much more that I don't want to ruin for you all by spilling it here.
Maybe someday I'll be able to write something truly concrete about this game, but maybe I don't need to.
Maybe all you need to know is that this game got me to feel in a way no other game has before, and maybe it can do that for you too.
Before I go into the (relatively brief) review here, I want to say thanks to my buddy 12thSilverDragon for getting me this as a Christmas gift. Much appreciation from me, thanks for the fun gift.
Now I haven't played Gunvolt 1 or any of the other games so to say that the big story twists at the end didn't mean anything to me would be an understatement. Though the general plot of helping these powerless kids survive while they're being hunted by super powered robot people making contracts with stuff was perfectly fine.
For what it does it's not super special but it's passable for this kind of game.
I will say one complaint I do have is in regards to Kohaku's design. I hate it. It's an incredibly uncomfortable fetishistic design that I really don't dig, and as far as I'm aware this is kind of just a thing that IntiCreates does in the Gunvolt series so that's gross.
The gameplay is pretty fun, focusing primarily on movement resulting in fast paced levels where you bounce up and down and all around. It's inherently satisfying though I didn't find any of the levels to really stand out super well.
I like the Bullit system and how it essentially gives you a resource to manage for the sake of not taking damage as well as being able to do your dashes, and having multiple ways to refill it in order to keep your combo chains is very efficient at keeping the pace.
Really the only other issue I have is that I didn't really bother with the EX Weapons. Outside of the Anchor Nexus which ties directly into Copen's moveset giving you essentially a homing attack, I didn't really bother with the others because they felt incredibly situational. I've been told they're super powerful but... eh, I didn't feel the need to use most of them unless it was required to get a bonus medal or something along those lines.
I didn't really have an issue with the score system, it was alright, and the game wasn't scaling properly to my monitor so the score was always out of sight (which I don't mind I don't care about score related stuff anyway).
The music is great, especially the J-Pop which rewards the player for playing well. The bosses were relatively ok, not a super big fan of the Final Boss but it's whatevs.
I honestly don't have much to say on this game, it's just really solid and easy to pick up and play. Would I recommend it over something like Mega Man X, no, but it's still a good time.
Now I haven't played Gunvolt 1 or any of the other games so to say that the big story twists at the end didn't mean anything to me would be an understatement. Though the general plot of helping these powerless kids survive while they're being hunted by super powered robot people making contracts with stuff was perfectly fine.
For what it does it's not super special but it's passable for this kind of game.
I will say one complaint I do have is in regards to Kohaku's design. I hate it. It's an incredibly uncomfortable fetishistic design that I really don't dig, and as far as I'm aware this is kind of just a thing that IntiCreates does in the Gunvolt series so that's gross.
The gameplay is pretty fun, focusing primarily on movement resulting in fast paced levels where you bounce up and down and all around. It's inherently satisfying though I didn't find any of the levels to really stand out super well.
I like the Bullit system and how it essentially gives you a resource to manage for the sake of not taking damage as well as being able to do your dashes, and having multiple ways to refill it in order to keep your combo chains is very efficient at keeping the pace.
Really the only other issue I have is that I didn't really bother with the EX Weapons. Outside of the Anchor Nexus which ties directly into Copen's moveset giving you essentially a homing attack, I didn't really bother with the others because they felt incredibly situational. I've been told they're super powerful but... eh, I didn't feel the need to use most of them unless it was required to get a bonus medal or something along those lines.
I didn't really have an issue with the score system, it was alright, and the game wasn't scaling properly to my monitor so the score was always out of sight (which I don't mind I don't care about score related stuff anyway).
The music is great, especially the J-Pop which rewards the player for playing well. The bosses were relatively ok, not a super big fan of the Final Boss but it's whatevs.
I honestly don't have much to say on this game, it's just really solid and easy to pick up and play. Would I recommend it over something like Mega Man X, no, but it's still a good time.