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Hi there, Beatrix. When did you remove your eyepatch and dye your hair?

Or maybe, just maybe, Sakurai is compensating polygons so the screen can be chock-full with enemies at any given time.

Rushing things isn't good. The regular DS still has the potencial to last for a big while, and we just got a new model recently. We don't want Nintendo to turn into Apple and release new hardware constantly, so we have to keep buying new [parasitic bomb] to be updated.

On the other hand when Nintendo took their sweet time with the N64 and gamecube they stopped being the market leader.

"Western audiences" is the new cool 'demographic' to cater to now that "casuals" has lost its steam.

I'd say Sonic Colors would be the bigger contender for that.
An actually good 3d Sonic after years of princesses, guns and werewolves.

Where is my Gyakuten Saiban 5?
Caaaapcooooooooom!

10. I'm BUBBLEMAN by Hyadain

Hoo boy, I am certainly looking forward to this one.

Sure it was done by Hi Tech, but I'm surprised these hadn't been thrown in here yet...

Volt Man would've been a pretty good design if it would've got a lot of polish IMO.

As for my least favorite design:


A flower robot ... a robot flower ... an artificial being made to look like something natural ... they could've named him Oxymoron Man for all I care.

I still don't see any 'hook' that might make this game suck.
Could this really be the 3D Sonic done right that people have been waiting for so long?

I love all the little nods to the actual Mickey mouse cartoons in this intro.
Also I don't know if I should feel good or bad that I know the last two cartoons shown in the calendar.

A lot of people say the same thing about NSMBWii and orchestras.  Doesn't stop the bitching.

I'd say the bigger reason why people are bitching is because the sample quality is really low even for MIDI standards.

On topic, from what I've seen both versions of Sonic Colors actually look a lot better than Sonic 4!

I hope Mario Kart 3DS will tone down the number of racers to a reasonable amount.
Yeah, 'more players' might mean 'more fun' but it also means 'more items flying around at you'.

Though then again MKWii is my favorite next to the original Super Mario Kart exactly because it's on the other side of the spectrum: While the latter requires you to be skilled even in driving the kart the latter us just pure mindless kart-racing fun.

The better stories out there tend to challenge the absolute of good versus evil.  Heck, even PoR did to some degree, as virtually the entire storyline centers around conquering racial tension.  For that matter so does MMZ; from day one you're on the side of "Mavericks" fighting against the "hero" of human utopia.  And throughout Z2 and Z3 Harpuia challenges his own beliefs.

Ashera is evil for the same reason that Copy X is: Apathy.  She doesn't question herself and cares nothing for the people under her.  The twist isn't the switcheroo from public perception, as their roles were quite reversed in ancient times when Yune was out of control (and incidentally PoR implies that the "pop" Ashera is invalid; see Stefan's support conversations with Mordecai).  Rather, the twist is that Ashera and Yune are in fact the same person.  In trying to "fix" herself by casting off what was unwanted, she started down a dark path and very nearly sealed the fate of all that she (previously) cared for.

... wow, I certainly haven't seen it that way. Thanks for clearing that up, since it's my main gripe with Radiant Dawn.

I so see it as incomplete, knowing that FE3 on the SFC offered a remake and more

Though the difference between FE1 and FE3 Book 1 is pretty much the difference between the original Kirby's Dreamland and Spring Breeze.
But then you'll probably use it as an argument that both FE3 books should've been in one game with KSSU as the reason but I personally wanted both halves to be as fleshed out as possible, which is exactly what I'm getting.

And that, in my opinion, it's highly integral to FE. If you don't care about who lives and dies because the characters are as lifeless as units in Advance Wars and still want to play FE, then yes. SD is for you. But you'd probably have more fun with AW.

But AW doesn't have stats, level ups, swords and magic!

Yeah, that's the main thing that brought me into FE: I've never played a SRPG before so I was very amazed when playing FE7 that you can take a strategy game and put RPG elements into it and it would actually work so well. Sure, that each character is an individual with a distinct personality might be part of the reason too, but the former left a much bigger impression on me which makes FE my favorite series to this day.

1. Those 3 start out at much higher levels than the others. The only Laguz that can hope to catch up is Lethe, but then she has lower base stats than Ranulf. And yes, there are people who don't use the Royals but it still doesn't change that while previous FEs might've thrown you one super unit near the end to save the day RD gives you 4 of them.
2. Volke is only slightly better than a Whisper so there are still plenty of better units that you might want to use a unit slot for.
3. Sigrun is available in one chapter before part 4. Elincia also gets more versitality due to being able to use staves and gets Amiti in 2-F so she can hold on her own there. Oh and Tanith has better base stats than what Sigrun would have at a similiar level, is only 3 levels away and gets an awesome ability.
4. Mist starts out at level 1 when the other GMs start out at around level 8 on average and by the time she reaches third tier Elincia will fly circles around her.
5. True, but you must admit that the gap between Shinon and the other bow users was much smaller in PoR.

Yes, there are differences in base stats and growths (though the latter are usually ho high for everyone that it's negligible) especially during the first two tiers but exactly thanks to those 20 extra levels and with a little help from the BEXP system every unit will be able to cap every stat. But that brings to this point:

If you're complaining that all units are strong but under-leveled, you are effectively complaining that characters are too powerful when raised beyond what should practically be happening over the course of the game.  Such can be said of ANY game with an experience system.

Other games with an experience system don't switch your party members around with ones with better stats and/or higher levels every few instances and give you the opportunity to use those instead for the final part of the game.

You grossly misunderstood me.  I didn't mean two weapon types, I meant literally, a character who is the sole representative of his class and has only two equippable weapons in the game.  In other words: Bantu.  There are only two Firestones in the entire game to space out over the 18 chapters you have him.  That's inexcusable.

So it should be inexcusable that Fa and Myrrh get only one dragonstone. Besides FE3 fixes that too ... somewhat. There's a secret shop with all kinds of dragonstones mid-game.

PoR-to-RD is wrecking plot details?  Wow.  The MegaMan Zero series would scar you for life.

Instead IS tried to be 'original' and went with an 'epic' story with a 'huge' twist that the dark god was actually part of the good guys and that the goddess you've been all worshipping was actually the bad one. No actually that there was no good or evil in this story, just something about order vs. chaos. Excuse me, but there's a reason why all the most popular fictions all are basically the same dozen or so stories retold and that they all revolve around good vs. evil, so why did IS feel the need to stray away from that, especially since that way they also destroyed everything that PoR established?

MMZ had a good vs. evil dynamic going on throughout the entire series even with its plot twists and holes.

A great deal of PoR's plot went unexplained, most significantly the Sephiran/Black Knight connection.  And what did RD challenge of PoR's presuppositions, the Serenes Massacre?  That was an assumption of circumstantial evidence.

The two reasons why I wanted a PoR sequel in the first place are to find out the Black Knight's identity and to fight the Dark God who would be inevitably unsealed in a sequel for sure.

The former was ruined by Ranulf while the latter was ruined with that order vs. chaos bullcrap.

Then again this comes from someone who felt that PoR had a compelling ending and would be okay with the Tellius saga as a whole ending on that note.

Game length is not a problem; both titles are plenty long enough.  The problem is that Shadow Dragon doesn't actually involve the playable characters in what's going on in the storyline.  You claim that RD feels like filler and Shadow Dragon doesn't, but I find the inverse to be true.  When the storyline completely forgets that all of your characters exist after recruitment, the entire experience is left feeling shallow and meaningless.

I finished RD within 80 hours while I finished SD within 15.
Hmmmmmmm!

When RD only moves its overall plot forward every 4 chapters or so while every FE before that did it at a faster pace then I have every right to call it filler.
Then again you put characters on a higher priority than the overall plot so I suppose that's where our opinions differ.

Can't we just go back to categorizing video games into just "sports" and "adventure"?

Oh yeah right, I forgot that I actually imported it from the US.

In defense, it's not even out here.

I thought you were exclusively referring to GCCX2.

I mean the first Game Center CX game, also known as Retro Game Challenge.
The reason why the sequel isn't coming out here is because the first one didn't sell well enough.

The sequel really does look awesome.

Excuse me while I go and throw some cold stares at those who didn't buy the original, especially at those who pirated it instead.

First Megaman game that had everything a Megaman game needs was MM2.

Which is something that a MMPU2 would adress then IMO.

[in a constant state of being under-leveled]

I really don't understand the point of bitching about hitting stat caps, especially in a 3-tier class system.  I mean, why do caps EXIST if not to be realistically hit by decent units?

That's because stat caps are supposed to be more of a guidance on how the units' stats should be at the end so there can be something like the red and green cavalier where one starts and stays as more of a powerhouse and the other starts and stays as the somewhat speedier one. and I personally believe it takes more individuality away than reclass ever did, because the only difference between them is the stat difference between their classes.

"Everyone in RD is over-powered unless unavailable/under-leveled".  Ha.  Every Cat/Tiger Laguz who is not named Ranulf begs to differ.

That's because they're underleveled compared to the Laguz Royals.

So does every Whisper.

That's because knifes are inferior to swords in every way and plenty of sword-using units outclass them.

And Mist. And Sigrun.

That's because they're underleveled and in Sigrun's case less available than Elincia, who gets the healing part done and gets a nice brave sword too, and Haar, who is pretty much the best flying unit in the game.

And Astrid, who is not even a shadow of her PoR self.

That's because she's underleveled and off with a worse 3rd tier class when compared to Shinon.

There's also a meaty share of glass cannons, including Micaiah herself, and the fact that the entire Dawn Brigade is in a constant state of being under-leveled anyway.

Exactly my point.

RD is far from flawless when it comes to character balance and ESPECIALLY availability, but it's far preferable to Arena grinding

True, but Bonus EXP in its current state is so easily abusable that it isn't an adequate alternative to Arenas at all.

and characters who only have two usable weapons in the entire game;

I agree that there should've been more axe users for swords to have an advantage over but FE3 already adressed that problem and swords also get balanced out by getting the most slayer weapons.
Lances are the weapon type with balanced hit and damage like in the original game.
Axes are actually useful now unlike in the original FE1 and aren't as stupidly OP as they are in the Tellius games.
Bowmen are still rather useless, I admit that, but I don't want to be them as OP as Marksmen were.
Magic is actually effective and useful due to most units on both your and the enemy's side having little to no Res.
Staves actually give some significant EXP so healers don't fall behind like they usually did.
Not to mention that thanks to the weapon rank bonuses there is an actual balance within the weapon triangle itself.

to say nothing of the fact that there is virtually no story outside of the NPCs.

I really prefer that to the wordswordswords Radiant Dawn has that either make no sense or ruin every plot detail that PoR has established.

Actually in the case of video games I prefer "too little" a lot more over "too much". I'd rather see everything the game has to offer within minutes than figuring out how everything works for hours and still not being able to that one thing I wanted it to do.

Gimmick (NES) 

If you haven't played Gimmick then you don't know [parasitic bomb] about pushing a video game console to its very limits!
The level design, the fantastic graphics where I sometimes thought that they look like from an early 16-bit game, the upbeat music with the notorious Sunsoft bass, the amazing attention to detail and many more show that this game is a work of love and it's a [tornado fang]ing shame that more people haven't played it.

Now tell me some good things about Game Center CX.

The one thing though is that the MM8 graphic style was seen as the graphic style of the Classic series when Complete Works was made which explains the MM8 style HUD in the CW games, MM&B's graphics and all while nowadays Capcom sees the 8-bit style as the default style for it.

While I'd like to see it happen, methinks there is a bigger possibility for an official MM7 and MM8FC than MM9 and MM10CW these days.

To all those who see Shadow Dragon as a disappointment and Radiant Dawn as their favorite: Well, screw you!

Everything about New Mystery of the Emblem that has been shown so far looks like it really might be the best FE ever.

Also awesome how FE is the first series to rerelease Satellaview content.

I'll lol really hard if the 3DS is gonna get MMPU2.

Oh and PSX era Square wasn't 'going downhill', they were just very experimental, which is pretty cool in its own right.