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61 posts tagged intelligent systems
This frickin’ guy
I’m trying to chill with Marth and all the other Fire Emblem heroes of yore in Awakening’s free DLC map, but the Hubba Tester dude is drawing me into unnecessary battles thanks to him being a creeper.
If you need Fire Emblem: Awakening reading material to prepare yourself for the release in 2 days — and if you haven’t yet read our review — the translated Iwata Asks roundtable discussion with the TWRPG’s developer Intelligent Systems is now online.
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![Tiny Review - Fire Emblem: Awakening
Fire Emblem: Awakening is the best SRPG on the 3DS — that might not seem like much considering the limited competition, but the previous holder of that title, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, was fresh to death. I guess that would make Fire Emblem: Awakening fresh to permadeath.
If you demanded a more authoritative statement from me, a summary review to better communicate this title’s quality than comparisons to a 3DS launch game few played, I’d tell you that Fire Emblem: Awakening could be the finest TWRPG of all time. Yes, the combat and systems are as great as any entry from the series, but where this game soars, like the fragile, love-sick pegasus riders in your party’s employ, is in its Tactical Waifu RPG elements.
(The above GIF, by the way, comes from Cece.)
Three things that are fab:
1. Casual Mode - This is probably the most accessible Fire Emblem yet, and a big part of that is thanks to its Casual setting. Not everyone wants the tension of knowing that a wrong move could permanently kill their favorite characters. With this mode, your characters defeated in combat return to fight/ship another day.
2. 2 Become 1 - Support conversations, or chats between characters when they’re positioned next to each other on the field, have been a critical part of the series for some time now, but Fire Emblem: Awakening encourages them even more with its new “Dual” system, allowing nearby characters to actually join each other in combat. The new “Pair Up” system enables two to move and fight as one, so a slower character can get around faster by attaching him/herself to someone on horseback.
3. The return of Gunpei Yokoi’s Love Tester - Some of the most fun you’ll have in this game will come from seeing characters build up their relationships with support conversations, marry each other, and have children. While you wait for all that to happen, you can see how your characters are getting along with the built-in Hubba Tester, which often produces random results but is a nice (possibly unintentional) nod to Yokoi’s toy that performed a similar function.
Two things that are butt:
1. Getting to the main screen - Perhaps a side effect of the series discouraging players from hitting reset when a battle turns against their favor, it can be a pain to return to the main screen to reload a save, even in Casual Mode. If there’s a way to do this without resetting the game, I didn’t find it.
[Update: John Ricciardi of 8-4, which handled the game’s great localization, points out that you can quick reset by holding L+R and Start]
2. Full voice acting - The voice acting in this game is superb (dual language support with the original Japanese voices!) — the production quality here is almost at Kid Icarus: Uprising levels — but the support conversations aren’t fully voiced. I would have loved to hear the above exchange with the badass Lon’qu.
Score:
PREORDER Fire Emblem: Awakening (Feb 4), other upcoming games](http://25.media.tumblr.com/e40e6c0451e7ad572bfd688770f42833/tumblr_mhfvtwKOiD1qzp9weo1_500.gif)
Tiny Review - Fire Emblem: Awakening
Fire Emblem: Awakening is the best SRPG on the 3DS — that might not seem like much considering the limited competition, but the previous holder of that title, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, was fresh to death. I guess that would make Fire Emblem: Awakening fresh to permadeath.
If you demanded a more authoritative statement from me, a summary review to better communicate this title’s quality than comparisons to a 3DS launch game few played, I’d tell you that Fire Emblem: Awakening could be the finest TWRPG of all time. Yes, the combat and systems are as great as any entry from the series, but where this game soars, like the fragile, love-sick pegasus riders in your party’s employ, is in its Tactical Waifu RPG elements.
(The above GIF, by the way, comes from Cece.)
Fire Emblem: Awakening’s character progression
Here’s an informative video to watch if you’ve little experience with the strategy RPG series and are only buying this after seeing all our posts/tweets shipping characters. I had no idea how those Master/Second Seal items and Advanced Classes worked until I played with them a bit in the game.
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“Marth” pencils/watercolor piece by Jenninaitsu
There is a lot of Fire Emblem: Awakening fanart I’ve found and wanted to share with you lately, but most of it is filled with spoilers. :o/ You’ll have to settle with my shipping updates from the game’s support convos on our Twitter in the meantime.
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Frederick describes his Chrom fanart
Frederick, swept up in his love for Chrom, created posters of the scene he explained above, and displayed them around camp. I meant to take a shot of this support convo myself but forgot to in my rush to capture more Sully photos, so shout outs to Nadia Oxford for posting this one.
And while you never get to see the Chrom portrait (I’m sure someone will make it and share it online), you can check out some fun art on this Fire Emblem: Awakening Coundtown Tumblr.
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Attempts to woo Sully aren’t going so well…
It pleases me to no end that while other sites are posting informative videos and impressions of the gameplay/combat, I’m focused on documenting all the drama in Awakening’s matchmaking.
But I realize not everyone wants to read my latest shipping adventures here, so for future updates on who is hooking up with whom, as well as the rest of the Sully saga, follow us on Twitter!
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Keeping it PG in Fire Emblem: Awakening
I had no idea “dastard” was a word until today! This rated-T-for-Teen game isn’t completely without obscenity, as I’ve noticed some “damns” and “arses” while playing a review copy, as well as innuendos about one-night stands.
Other things I noticed when I wasn’t conducting decency checks or shipping unlikely couples:
- Digital copies will take up 8,579 blocks on your SD card
- If you buy a digital copy or the limited edition 3DS bundle, you’ll miss out on the really cute cartridge art (presuming the U.S. editions keep the same art as the Japanese carts)
- You can switch between Japanese and English voices from the opening menu, no matter your progress in the game
- Marth-y is badass
It’s also super fun! Make sure to get that free eShop demo on Thursday.
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Fire Emblem: Awakening demo next week
You won’t have to wait until February 4 to get a taste of Fire Emblem: Awakening — Nintendo will put out a demo for the strategy RPG next week through the 3DS eShop! This free trial will at least give you something to play with on your system until this drought of quality software ends next month.
And when Awakening ships to stores (with a simultaneous eShop release), the game will feature day-one downloadable content, including a free-for-a-limited-time map meant to serve as an intro to the weekly premium DLC packs that will follow.
Players acquire this content through the in-game world map after completing the story campaign’s fifth mission. Nintendo will also distribute free content like maps with new storylines, characters, and items through SpotPass.
The StreetPass feature sounds hot, too:
“Players can set up a StreetPass Team and exchange certain game data with other players. The StreetPass Team is made up of 10 units from an existing team in story mode. Players can also edit team names and create custom messages for other players to see.
StreetPass characters will randomly appear on the world map, giving players the option to recruit the team leader with gold, buy any weapons or items the team is carrying or battle and win to recruit the leader for free. Like the random battles in the main story mode, the player will have full control of battles in StreetPass mode. Players will also earn ‘renown’ based on battles won. A players’ ‘renown’ is visible to other players through StreetPass.”
Not sure how I’m going to make time to play Etrian Odyssey IV later that month, once Awakening sinks its hooks into me.
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I feel like we haven’t talked about Crashmo enough, and that its eShop release late last year went mostly ignored, so let’s try to make up for that with some fun puzzles.
Some of these are so silly, like “What compelled you to make a puzzle out of that?” (see: Adventure Time DS/3DS’s secret screen). I remember some of the Pushmo puzzles people came up with were like that, and I worry that people are missing out on that experience with Crashmo, even though it’s just as great.
If you’re looking for a fun game to put on your 3DS during the January drought, Crashmo is a good place to start. If you’re looking for more user-made Crashmo stages to play, these two sites are good places to start.
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Fire Emblem Awakening releases February 4
Yay, this is coming much sooner than I expected, and it almost makes up for the lack of concrete release dates for Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon (Spring 2013) and Animal Crossing: New Leaf (second quarter of 2013). Europe, unfortunately, will have to wait until April for the new Fire Emblem.
This afternoon’s Nintendo Direct was light on 3DS news, but we did hear that Rhythm Hunter: HarmoKnight, the latest game from Pokemon studio Game Freak, is headed to the U.S. eShop. There are also two new premium Coin Rush packs for New Super Mario Bros. 2.
Don’t forget that you can check up on upcoming game releases on this convenient page we set up.
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IMAGE VIA Kazerai
The Paper Mario art that started it all 15 years ago. Intelligent Systems director Naohiko Aoyama, then a new guy at the developer, was in one of three teams at the studio tasked with dreaming up visual concepts for a Mario game on the Nintendo 64:
“While the design remained undecided, I naturally spent a lot of time waiting. Then, during that free time, casually for my own interest and totally apart from the course the team was taking, I made a rough image. I hoped it would somehow serve as a kickoff point and submitted it. … Then they called me to a planning meeting saying, ‘Bring back that picture,’ and this is what I presented.”
There’s more fun Paper Mario stuff in the latest Iwata Asks roundtable interview for Sticker Star.
Buy: Paper Mario: Sticker Star
See also: More Paper Mario: Sticker Star news and media
The English patch for Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem ~Heroes of Light and Shadow~ is out!
While we wait for Fire Emblem: Awakenings to hit North America next year, here’s a DS game that we missed out on! Fire Emblem: NME is the sequel to Shadow Dragon (both are remakes for the series’ first games), which hit the U.S. a few years ago but wasn’t well received by many fans. From what I hear, this follow-up, though it never released in the Statues, is MUCH better.
It looks like The Heroes of Shadow team did a fantastic job with the translation here, and the group even localized the BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia Senki episodes that’s included with the game — the first time Nintendo has re-released Satellaview content since discontinuing the Japan-only Super Famicom service.
Buy: Fire Emblem games, Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem
See also: More Fire Emblem news, media
