WillyFourEyes/Waltzoid's Journal

I read some advice from a few Fire Emblem Engage players that it's better to use Master Seals on your units as soon as they hit level 10 in their base class rather than waiting until they reach the level 20 cap, citing that the early power boost will pay dividends in the long run. I'm on my second run on Normal mode, and I tested my first Master Seal on Female Alear after completing Anna's paralogue, and...she only has slightly better stats than Vander, who comes in as a pre-promoted Paladin and one of the first characters you get in the game. Plus, the reduced experience point gain due to the vast level difference (promoted units are counted as base level + 20 for comparison purposes) would lead to them falling behind and having to rely on others until they catch up. Not only that, the units you receive in some of the middle chapters have levels in the 10-20 range. Things might be different on Hard or Maddening, but I wouldn't personally recommend that strategy if you're just starting out.

Another winter, another Nintendo Direct to give the once-over and watch Twitter and Reddit melt down over still no new information on Metroid Prime 4.

( What's new in the first half of this (fiscal) year? )

I started just a day behind the rest of the world, but I still managed to get through a 12-hour blitz of Fire Emblem Engage in just three days and work my way up to Chapter 7.

All jokes about Alear's character design aside (and I think even a few of them are made in the game itself), I don't really mind them (I started out with the male version since the female one arrived first in Heroes). Robin's still my favorite "Avatar"-type character, though. As for the others: Yunaka's in the lead so far, with no clear second-place candidate. I'm still barely out of the first part of the game, so I'm sure I'll find others to fawn over as the game progresses.

I also like that the newer Fire Emblem games are allowing for greater flexibility with combat options - first with Three Houses and Three Hopes' "any character can have almost any job and switch freely between them" system, and this game allowing any character to equip any Emblem ring - so you could stick with the expected option of having cavalry units like Alfred or Vander fuse with Sigurd for double-digit mobility, or go crazy and, say, make armored knight Louis a secondary healer with Micaiah's ring (which allows its wielder to use staves while Engaged when they normally can't).

As someone who's only been playing the series since 2003 with the release of Blazing Blade (oddly only titled "Fire Emblem" here in the U.S.), I still put Three Houses as my personal "gold standard" for the series, but so far, Engage is solidly in the "polished silver" tier alongside Awakening. I did take a bunch of screenshots, but I'll only be able to post the best ones on my recently-revived Tumblr blog (unless there's another hassle-free image host anyone else can recommend).

I've had my eye on buying a dedicated gaming computer for a while now, but hadn't seriously thought of actually buying it due to the cost involved (the mid-range all-purpose computers I've bought over the years have ranged somewhere from $500-$800, with the only real upgrades I've added to them were extra RAM sticks when I needed to multitask because they're the easiest things for me to install. On Sunday, my dad drove me out to Micro Center where he got his latest computer (that would theoretically make it easier for him to watch the weekly church service), where I bought myself a PowerSpec G711. I've only had this for a week, so I haven't really had a chance to put it through its paces yet. I'm still trying to get used to the "glowing cooling fans and GPU" aesthetic these gaming PCs have, along with there being no optical disk drive...but I rarely used the one on my old computer anyway.

Aside from the obvious "play better games on my PC", the real reason I chose to upgrade my computer after about 5 1/2 years was for the space it offered. My old rig offered 2 TB for storing games/music/etc., but only 96 GB for programs (and do you believe how weird it is to say 96 GB is too little space?) The G711 only started with 1 TB standard, but I also bought a supplementary 4 TB drive which the clerks installed on-site at no extra cost. Now I won't have to worry as much about shuffling my programs or games around to make room for new ones like I have to do for my PS4 and Xbox One.

Now then, what else have I been doing?

Video Games - While I decide to go with something of a reset for my digital library, I've been playing River City Girls 2 on Nintendo Switch and just recruited Marian (the "damsel in distress" from the original Double Dragon who was a shopkeeper in the first River City Girls game). You have to fight her as a boss first, and it took me six tries to beat her because every time you knock off one of her life bars, she jumps up to hit a switch that floods the room with toxic waste, and you have to jump onto pillars while she tosses exploding oil drums at you. I lost a lot of health because I misjudged how far I needed to jump between pillars. She's also wicked fast and will often dodge out of your combos, which no other enemies up to this point have done yet. Regardless, I can't wait to try her out in real combat. The other new-ish playable character, Provie from River City Ransom: Underground, is still out there somewhere, and I hope to find her soon. ⭐

Manga - I've been on a SPY x FAMILY kick lately, and I just finished reading Volume 5 from my library. While this one wasn't quite as cute as Volume 4 (where Anya first met her new psychic family dog Bond), I did enjoy Chapter 29 and its "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" subplot, with Anya's (failed) attempt to explain to her class what Loid and Yor do for a living. ⭐⭐

Fan Fiction - I don't have much going on in the way of fan fiction (other than slowly working on the latest chapter of The Ghost of Ochs), but one of my friends tipped me off to a silly and cute little Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes one-shot called But I Don't Want to Be a Marketable Plushie, written by the same author who wrote the epic-length Three Houses fic An Eagle Among Lions (which I also like). When I first saw gameplay trailers for Three Hopes and learned that Monica was going to be playable, I was excited, for her dire situation was what inspired me to start writing Ghost. Playing the game and learning that Monica had a thing for Edelgard surprised me at first, but I quickly warmed up to the pairing, and I just wanted to read a story where the emperor and her loyal (and lovestruck) vassal just relax and goof off without the specter of war hanging over them.⭐⭐

There are only six days left until Fire Emblem Engage drops, so I'll soon have something to keep me occupied for a while after playing Three Hopes inside and out for months. I hope this new game resonates with me as much as Three Houses did.