1043 Look Upon My Breasts.

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Fire Emblem has been brutalizing me. I was playing normal mode at first, then i stepped it up to hard because it said it was for seasoned players. I hate it when games have various modes but don’t give you an idea of what you may miss out on if you don’t play the most extreme ones.

Keeping players from content you create always struck me as a little odd anyway. I’m of a mind that bonus stuff in harder modes should be items and things that have no plot signifigance. Being kept from the true ending of a game because I have other priorities really irks me. Kingdom Hearts is one of those kinds of games. You get more ending if certain conditions are met. I assume that’s true for KH2 as well. I’ve never finished 2.

I’m only guessing that FE gives you something more for playing hard mode. It may well be that there are no differences, but I have no confirmation of this. In any case the soft reset is getting the workout that normal mode wasn’t giving it.

The thing about the normal mode description is that it sounds like easy mode. It should be described as the base version of the game. That’s what normal means. Instead it implies that normal is the baby mode for pantshitting todlers. Not cool Nintendo. Playing on my emotions that way. Trying to extend play time by making me struggle. I have a life outside games. It’s a very sad life, but it is a life. Why you make me work so hard for my fun? T^T

I got some present money and noticed that Mass Effect 3 has come down to greatest hits price range. So I ordered it. A game that I intended to play when it was released… It just wasn’t in the cards. So now I come late to the party again. At least I’ll have all the DLC available from the off, I assume.

I’ve been mostly unspoiled as far as the new ending goes, and without context I couldnt make much sense of the first one anyway. The journey is the thing really.

I don’t know if I’ll even start on it right away. Depends on how frustrating FE is. I havent restarted Paper Mario either. Honestly, it’s such a lackluster game by comparison it’ll probably be a long time before I go back to it… I also haven’t finished Skylanders Giants, but I’ve been waiting to get the last character. I guess they haven’t released another wave with the one I need in it. Of course, as I said, I’m busy anyway…

31 Comments

. . . Yeah, I’d stop talking too. I’d say Thomas has a strong will just to get that far.

Also, I know she’s qouting “Ozymandias”, but still I feel as if it’s inaccurate as she knows damn well that despair is the LAST thing Thomas is feeling right now!

I believe “Despair of ever being able to continue a conversation in the face of my power” is what she means.

Well he may not be able to finish his conversation, but I do believe he’s about to recieve fair compensation so I doubt he’ll mind. Good point, though.

Thomas— a girl’s dream of an intelligent/witty/fun talker who is absolutely dependent on them in bed.
Shut up and make mama happy :)

Grrrroooowwwwwlllll…. <3

Not a breast man, but that’s gotta be the best page title for any webcomic in the history of webcomics. lol

You’ll have some of the DLC available from the get-go but the stuff with actual content in it (From Ashes, Omega, Leviathan) is purchase-with-Bioware-points only and shows no sign of ever going down in price.

The multiple endings thing was done best in Cave Story, IMO. There’s no difficulty settings, instead you get different endings depending on how you play the game, you only get the good ending if you complete certain optional tasks during the game.

Be warned though, if you go for the good ending, you’ll get to fight one of the most brutal final bosses ever.

As far as the bonus ending in Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 go, if you’re playing on normal you have to complete more of the game to see them, if you’re playing on hard/proud (I think that’s what it’s called on KH2?) then you’ll see them when you finish the game no matter how much else you’ve completed. Seems pretty reasonable to me, and there’s not a *huge* amount of content in them anyway – although they do have some pretty sweet completely out of context and unexplained battles.

It’s not like FFX-2 where you have to get 100%, on a Final Fantasy game no less, to see the true ending… (Pretty sure you needed 100%)

No, you didn’t need 100% to see the true ending. You just needed to whistle thrice (that’s three times) while you were stuck in the Farplane and chasing the outline of Tidus.

You never finished KH2? Was because of the 100% thing or just general disinterest? Also, you could skip the 100% and still get the secret ending if you choose the harder difficulty.

Just to save you some time, all you get for beating the hardest default mode, Lunatic, is the hardest mode, Lunatic+. All you get for beating that is a sense of accomplishment and bragging rights. If even that much. No new items, no new skills, no new characters, no extra paralogue chapters, no secret endings, nothing. Not even extra renown points. No, all the bonus content comes from the veritable wealth of dlc chapters. Looking at the list, we’re going to be getting new content for months, though at a price.

Besides, this is probably straight up THE most abusable fire emblem yet. Between being able to reset characters to lvl 1 keeping all their stats using second seals; the ability to farm bullion, stat boosters and exp off risen; being able to forge even the past hero weapons(!); and the pair up/support system; the game is even easier than Gaiden, which had unbreakable weapons and items. At least in that one only villagers/mercenaries could cap their stats reliably because third tier mercenaries promote into villagers again. Besides, true easy mode is the one without permadeath.

Honestly, in tactics games I prefer them on the easier side because I like games that rely on my skill rather than luck, and higher difficulties on games like this tend to reduce it down to that even when you make the right tactical decisions. Sure, it may not be challenging playing on the normal difficulty, but it is fun and it lets me enjoy the story more than I would have if I were overly focused on the gameplay which would be a real shame considering the story of this game. That’s why I can’t get into Tactics Ogre no matter how much I want to know the story of that game, no matter how much I want to experience it’s subtle intricacies. It feels too much like I might as well have stayed home and rolled about a hundred dice until they all came up sixes.

But, if you’re still looking for challenge that does give you something in a Fire Emblem game, you could try Thracia 776 for the snes. There’s a pretty good translation patch for it out there. That one is the hardest in the series. Admittedly, there are no difficulty settings to make the analogy better, but yeah. It can and WILL destroy you, mercilessly.

Don’t know… I mean, look at Megaman 2’s US release. They called the normal (which is the US-only “you can’t play games, here, have a cookie” mode) and “difficult”, which is the difficulty of the original game.

I’m certainly not of the “FOR REAL MEN THERE IS ONLY ONE DIFFICULTY” school of thought, but I prefer playing on harder difficulties if available because it makes me a more skilled player (barring trial-and-error games, which I prefer to avoid anyway).

I both agree and disagree here.

On the one hand, I agree that developers should allow for some challenge adjustment for players, otherwise new players might hit a brick wall and just decide it isn’t worth their time. On the other hand, if the player would need to adjust the difficulty up or down depending on their skill level, the developer has taken a shortcut, and a somewhat damaging one at that.

For a game with an emphasis on story or with a truly masterful difficulty curve, adding difficulty settings would be almost criminal. Imagine what kind of game Super Mario Bros. would be with an easy difficulty setting. It would not only void the reasoning behind the first few levels, but also drastically increase development costs by mandating the developers redesigning all of the enemy placement, if not the levels entirely. Same goes for a Hard setting.

The current trend of just changing the math behind it a bit is also annoying to me, and stinks like an admission that their game isn’t done right.

I think that the trick is allowing the player strategies that allow them to pass some of the earlier obstacles easily with little skill, but at a cost that keeps it from being viable for constant use as well as having situations where it cannot work. A good example of this in megaman 2 is the metal blade. It is fast, efficient, and easily mastered, but it’s usually useless against bosses and constant use will chew through energy faster than you can recoup it. In the end, pattern memorization along with good reflexes are what get you through the bosses in that game, more even than choosing the right weapon. Barring using metal blade on metal man.

Another reason why that game is so well designed without multiple difficulty settings is in how you can choose who to face. If one boss or level is too difficult, you can look for one you can beat. In the end, the level is no more difficult, but along the way the player will almost invariably have learnt the skills to carry them through by the time they go back, or barring that there are items that can allow bypass of some particularly difficult obstacles.

You can see these principles at work in a number of recent critically successful games. In Dark Souls, you have the same not quite linear structure and focus on timing/pattern memorization. LoZ: Skyward Sword did it through the items; using the shield or slingshot effectively turns the game into a cakewalk, using the sword alone turns it into a whole other game. The Megaman Zero games did it through the cyber elves an the ranking system. Braid and Super Meat Boy did it by changing the price of failure.

I truly think games should not have difficulty settings in the first place. It is an inelegant solution to a worthwhile problem.

For the “difficulty item” thing, disregard it. You will understand the story as long as you don’t play “Easy” (learned that from TS2 [stupid content cuts]). In any case, the best idea is always to play Normal. Story makes sense, and you’re not overwhelmed with difficulty.

In other news, SWEET MOTHER OF CRAP, ZE BOOBIES! (I had to. Too easy.)

Fire Emblem: Awakening’s normal mode is kinda easy mode. Hard, on the other hand, is in fact hard. The game lacks what I would call an actual “normal” mode, which is something that disappointed me a fair bit. But pairing Hard mode with the Casual setting I find works really well as enjoyable without being frustrating.

I still love Mass Effect 3. In my humble opining, it is the definitive masterpiece of storytelling that most RPG’s should strive to be. A perfect game… Still excepting the last 15 minutes… Those final cut scenes are still the biggest of middle fingers a game could ever have given its fans. Yes, the new “Extended cut” fleshes out some plot holes. Yes, it ties a few loose ends together. Yes, it addressed some of the issues the community had with it. No, it is not the ending Mass Effect deserved.

I may sound like a butt-hurt 5 year old, but I was promised my choices would mean something, that all the nagging questions and all the burning desires and all the heart wrenching sacrifices would amount to something. No… The ending still contradicts EVERY MOVE YOU MAKE and EVERY PLOT POINT EVERY CHARACTER EVERY LECTURED YOU ON! I apologize for spoilers, I really do, but a few examples are necessary… Organics and and Synthetics can never co-exist peacefully; True, the first two ME’s had Geth rather violent, but I want Paragon and patched things up in 3, all to have the Star Child say “Nope, it’s impossible.” Joker and the rest of the crew, “We’ll never abandon you!”; still run away from Earth like bitches… Arrival DLC for ME2, “Any breach of the Eezo core in the Relays will wipe out an entire system; Nope, just kills Reapers, sparing the entire galaxy’s population, which the final cut scenes show would be devastated if the Relays really did explode and not just “controlled explosions.”

TL;DR? Great Game, absolutely enjoyable. Shittiest ending in recent gaming history…

I love you Bioware! Loved KoTOR 1 and 2, and even Jade Empire, and will always cherish Mass Effect.

Fuck You, EA for being the money-grubbing assholes you say you aren’t… Fuck you…

Not sure if anyone tried the hardest difficulty of FE but it was bogus for me. It took me nearly an hour just to get past the prolouge. Really depressed me because i have been playing fire emblem games for years

May I just give props for your depiction of plus size women as sexy to other characters? I think that’s awesome, along with the general diversity of colours/shapes in the cast.

I know it’s all been said before but… I still really like your comic for that.

I love the poem Ozymandias and I’ve really come to love this comic, it’s characters and cultural references… I’ve gotten here from page 1 in less than a week!!! good job and thank you.
yours sincerely,
a very impressed Kenyan fan.
(had to add Kenyan)

I hate games that lock you out of sotry because you didn’t want to destroy your sanity with and insanely hard difficulty. Probably why I don’t like Cuphead to much. I hope it stops being a feature in games soon, all it does is make me feel inadequate.

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