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FUSE is a tactical third person shooter developed by Insomniac Games for both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. It's rather new; it just came out last month. I'd heard a lot about it from my friends, and the demo wasn't too bad, so I figured why not? FUSE isn't amazing, but it's not piss poor either. Let's take a deeper look at the title.

Gameplay Mechanics

Movement, as most people know, in particular is a big thing in a shooter, especially a third person shooter because generally being able to move in, out of, and around cover comfortably is everything. FUSE has rather fluid movement for a TPS -- I was impressed with it. It's definitely much more fluid than the likes of Gears of War or Mass Effect.

You can run over cover or climb up walls by holding down a single button as opposed to tapping it once you hit cover like in the aforementioned titles. While in cover you can also do a takedown on an enemy on the other side of the cover or coming around the side. These takedowns are silent, and thus it's possible to clear some rooms completely with stealth. This doesn't happen very often, and even then is highly unlikely if you're not playing with friends.

You can also do a takedown by making an enemy stagger -- usually with a melee attack -- and pressing the Y (or Triangle, I assume) button when prompted.

The AI in FUSE isn't bad by any means; in fact I was actually kind of impressed with it. Your teammates use all of their abilities -- even Fusion, your God-mode ability that revives you and your teammates, makes you invulnerable, and gives you infinite Fuse energy for a limited amount of time.

The only downfall of it from what I've experienced is something that I'd expect from an AI: when you're doing an objective-type wave in Echelon, Dalton -- your tank of sorts -- won't put his stationary shield down in front of what you're protecting; he'll protect you and your allies with it instead. This could go either way -- it could be good or bad. Chances are that it's not very preferable though, as the enemies will make a beeline for the Fuse cell that you're protecting and shoot it unless you engage them directly.

This brings us to our next mechanic, the Leap feature. At any time, you can switch to another Overstrike agent that is not being controlled by a player. Generally when I'm playing Echelon, I'll switch to Dalton, put up the shield, then switch back if I want. The game constantly reminds you that if you bottom out on ammo, you can switch to another character who has ammo to stay in the fight. This isn't very necessary, and to be honest I for one am glad that they didn't build this game around the Leap feature.

Leap isn't exactly very fluid, and it's one of the only aspects of the game that strikes me as clunky. You press a button, a menu appears, you press another button that corresponds to the character you're switching to, and it jerks your PoV to that character. Chances are, when you do it, that your character is going to be out in the open firing at an enemy, meaning you'll probably go down soon and be unable to switch until someone picks you back up.

Weaponry

The weaponry in FUSE isn't exactly a broad selection, but each serves a rather clear cut purpose.

As far as Xenotech -- the weapon that serves as the differentiating feature between agents -- goes, this is no different.

Naya uses the Warp Rifle -- an assault rifle that creates a wormhole when you shoot an enemy enough with it which you can chain to take down a group of enemies at once. The sad thing is that this becomes nigh-useless in higher difficulties because it just doesn't do enough damage.

The Warp Rifle also gives her the ability to cloak and go behind enemy lines. When she's cloaked, her CQC specialist status shines, because she can do instant takedowns due to the enemy not being aware of her presence.

Isabelle -- Izzy -- has the Shattergun, an assault rifle-type weapon which turns enemies into crystal statues when you shoot them enough with it, allowing them to be shattered by further arms fire, a melee attack, or a grenade.

Her secondary ability is to throw out a Med Beacon to heal and revive teammates. This is incredibly useful, and as you can imagine sticks Izzy into the textbook Medic role. The Med Beacon can be upgraded to give a damage buff to agents that are inside the beacon as well.

Jacob Kimble has the absolutely terrifying and borderline broken Arcshot crossbow. This is hands down my favorite weapon in the game, and it excels in almost any situation. The Arcshot functions as a Sniper Rifle of sorts, with the delicious trait of sticking enemies to the wall if you kill them with it. A headshot results in an instant kill, and ends up sticking them to the wall by their head.

That's not what makes this weapon borderline broken, though. What makes this weapon so ridiculously powerful is Jacob's ability to ignite the Arcshot bolts after firing them at the cost of zero Fuse energy. This doesn't sound very impressive, so let me elaborate.

You're facing a group of Riot Troopers who are invulnerable to attacks from the front (with the exception of the Shattergun), so what do you do? You shoot a single bolt into the ground, wait for them to walk over it, then ignite it, setting one enemy on fire and chaining that fire to the other Riot Troopers, stunning them and allowing you to throw a grenade and eliminate them all in one fell swoop. I've massacred entire squads with minimal effort using this weapon.

You can also just pop a shot into an enemy that's in a group and ignite it to render the entire group helpless for a few moments. Like I said, the Arcshot is awesome.

Dalton has the most interesting Xenotech weapon, however, in the form of the Magshield. What this does is create a semi-clear shield of fluid in front of you that catches enemy projectiles, and when you get close you can pull the trigger and send a blast of energy back at the enemy. This blast can and will kill an entire group of enemies in one shot if you've absorbed enough ammo. You can also catch grenades and throw them right back, which is always amusing.

The Magshield's secondary ability is to throw down a stationary shield to protect your allies or an objective while keeping you mobile. This is really useful in objective games or when you're pinned down by enemy fire. The Magshield is pretty boss, but its biggest downside by far is that it runs out of Fuse really quickly. A single blast takes up between twenty or thirty Fuse energy out of the Magshield's max of 100, so it has to be used sparingly.

Dalton's Fusion is the most powerful I think I've encountered -- especially at close range. In addition to the infinite Fuse energy that all Fusions give, Dalton's cuts the cooldown of his Magblast to around 1/4 of what it normally is, allowing you to spam it to your heart's content. I've destroyed entire waves of grunts by using this, and it's ridiculously satisfying.

That said, two of the four of these seem too... cut and pasted, for lack of a better term, along with the skill trees. There doesn't seem to be a lot of imagination in them. Dalton's Magshield is by far the most unique of the weapons. The Shattershot and the Warp Rifle don't feel very unique at all. They both function in the same way (the guns not the secondary abilities) with the only differences being the way in which they eliminate enemies, and the fact that Naya's Warp Rifle can overheat when she's not in Fusion.

Difficulty

I was originally going to put Content and Difficulty in separate sections, but they really kind of go together. I'll just come right out and say it: the game is -- so far -- lacking in content and difficulty.

Echelon -- the game's survival mode -- is easily cleared. I've cleared all difficulty modes in both Campaign and Echelon -- which doesn't have a difficulty setting, sadly -- with two friends in one sitting per (one for Campaign, and one for Echelon).

As far as difficulty, I found FUSE to be lacking. Two of my friends and myself cleared it -- as I said, without a fourth person -- rather quickly. The difficulty in Campaign manifested itself in increased damage to players, which I don't think is such a bad thing in a shooter game.

The Bottom Line

FUSE was described by one of our own -- Harbringer -- as an "above average third person shooter," and I'm inclined to agree with him. The game isn't bad, but it's not amazing either. I think Insomniac has only begun to scratch the potential of this franchise, however, and am pleased to hear that they're "just getting started" with FUSE.

I'm hopeful that they'll add a difficulty setting to Echelon and possibly introduce a plethora of DLC, because as I said, this game has so much untapped potential.

Metacritic Rating: 6.4/10
ID Rating: 7/10
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It's time for another review, this time for a game that I've gone back to multiple times, which is odd. Usually I'll play a game for a while, maybe beat it, then move on to another one whenever time permits itself, but there's something about this one that kept pulling me back to it.

Metal Gear Rising is a spinoff of the Metal Gear Solid series -- developed as a hack and slash action game by Platinum -- a company I have much love for. It focuses on Raiden, a child soldier you play as in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I'm not going to get too much into the storyline though for obvious reasons, so let's kick this off and dive straight into the mechanics.


Battle Mechanics

I'll say first off that Metal Gear Rising is one of the best action games I've ever played. Everyone has their own definition of best, but what I'm talking about mainly is the fun factor.

This game -- like the other Platinum games (Vanquish, Bayonetta) I've played -- is fast paced. You have to be able to react on your feet to a number of threats. There are times that you will be overwhelmed; you can't just charge everything head on and swing your sword around. This doesn't happen too much in the earlier difficulties, but I'll get more into the difficulty of this game later on. I'm going to hit on a few mechanics here one by one.

Similar to other action games (God of War, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow) when you do enough damage to an enemy, you'll get a button prompt to perform a devastating combo that (usually) sets them up for Zandatsu. This happens with bosses generally when you're switching phases.

Parrying is something you'll be doing quite a bit, especially in the later difficulties. Most attacks you can parry, so it's usually a reliable form of damage mitigation. When you parry a strike at the last second, you parry and then perform a rather devastating Counter that often times stuns the enemy to set them up for a finishing combo (you'll get a button prompt for these) or Zandatsu.

Dodging is generally superior to parrying because not only do you do a light attack during it, but you get a few invincibility frames. In the later difficulties you will be using these to your advantage quite a bit.


Blade Mode

This really deserves a section of its own, as it's the unique mechanic of Metal Gear Rising. By pressing either L1 or LT -- depending on your console -- you can enter Blade Mode, the manual slicing mode of Metal Gear Rising. You can pretty much cut most anything with Raiden's sword, but Blade Mode is mainly used for three things: certain boss phases, cutting off the left arm of an officer, and Zandatsu.

Cutting off the left arm of an officer -- the left arm is where their combat data is stored -- is mainly for collectible purposes, so I'm not gonna really expand on it here.

Zandatsu, however, is an invaluable -- and rather awesome -- tool you'll use throughout the game. I've mentioned it a few times now, so you're probably wondering: "What the hell is Zandatsu?"

Zandatsu is when you cut the sweet spot -- usually the center -- of your enemy in Blade Mode, opening up a button prompt in which you take the electrolytes from their body and crush them in your hand, completely refilling your Health and Fuel Cell energy -- used for Blade Mode and Ripper Mode which we'll get into in a minute.

You're not just limited to one enemy per Zandatsu; you can chain them together. If you slice through the sweet spot -- marked by a red box when in Blade Mode -- of more than one enemy without exiting Blade Mode, you can take the electrolytes from multiple enemies at once. This really serves no purpose other than eliminating multiple enemies at once and looking pretty badass while doing so. There's actually an achievement for disemboweling four enemies in a single swing.

Ripper Mode is something you get after a certain storyline event that essentially puts you into Blade Mode when you're actively fighting. Normal strikes can and will disembowel enemies. The only drawbacks are that it constantly drains your Fuel Cell energy, you cannot activate it if your Fuel Cell energy is not full, and you cannot Zandatsu while in Ripper Mode. Ripper Mode does not -- I repeat, does not -- increase either your attack or your defense. It allows you to cut through weaker enemies much quicker. If you're a Metal Gear Solid fan and have played through the other games, you'll be able to figure out what Ripper Mode is from the name itself.

Something that's kind of a side note that I found really cool was that when you cut off certain parts of an enemy, their behavior changes. For example, if you cut off an arm of a Mastiff -- a gorrila-like UG (Unmanned Gear) -- they can't charge at you and grab you, so they swing their other arm at you. If you then cut the other arm off, they do nothing but try and drop kick you again and again. If you cut one of their legs off at that point, they explode and die.

The gameplay really does mold itself to your actions for a rather large number of experiences in that way.


Story

I won't be delving into this too much because of obvious spoilers, but what I will say is that while the story is not amazing, it's not piss poor either.

The storyline of Metal Gear Rising does not deviate from the Metal Gear Solid series at all from what I can tell. Someone more familiar with it can correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears to stick to the established story rather well.

The plot is rife with psychological concepts and warfare along with idealism. There's a lot of inner conflict in the plot, which is something right down my alley. That said, I didn't pick Metal Gear Rising up for its plot, but rather its gameplay which I've already covered.


Replay Value

This game has quite a bit of replay value, if I do say so myself. There's a plethora of things to unlock, such as different swords (these are mostly preorder bonuses, sadly), different costumes and wigs (the latter of which offer either infinite sub-weapons or infinite Fuel Cell energy), not to mention difficulty levels.

Add to that the fact that you can get a different experience (simply because of how adaptive the AI is to your actions) each time, and you've got.. well.. a sizable amount of replay value.


Difficulty

I'll just come right out and say it: I absolutely love the difficulty of this game.

There are five difficulty modes: Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard, and Revengeance.

I have not touched Easy. Normal and Hard seemed pretty similar. However, that's where it ends: Very Hard has a rather steep jump in difficulty, but it's how that difficulty presents itself that makes me love it.

Most games I've played just increase the stats on enemies for the higher difficulties. Generally I find stuff like that to be boring. Metal Gear Rising introduces new AI scripts, causing some enemies to do entirely different things, but more than anything how aggressive they are. The first thing I noticed on Hard was how much more aggressive the enemies were in comparison to Normal.

After conquering Hard mode and switching to Very Hard, I was blown away. Not only did their AI scripts change, but they changed the enemy setup as well! In the first level -- before you get your upgrades -- I saw Fenrirs -- enemies from towards the end of the game! The very first encounter kicked my ass multiple times because they threw in two Gekkos -- a miniature Metal Gear -- along with the normal enemies.

I only finished Very Hard mode a few hours ago and will probably attempt to tackle Revengeance mode before too long, but if the first encounter of the game is any indication, it shows no signs of stopping the trend of AI and enemy-changing, which is awesome.

A lot of the difficulty of the game comes from watching for attack cues as well, similar to other action games like Dark Souls and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. If you see your enemy's eye shine red when they attack, you can counter it. If they glow yellow, you'd better move because it's unblockable.

The sheer necessity for this shows itself in Hard mode and up, especially when you have several enemies with RPGs shooting at you; if you don't pay attention for that laser sight, you're going to die. Even if you do see the laser sight, if you dodge too early or too late, you're gonna get hit. Certain attacks like RPGs you have to dodge at just the right moment or you'll get hit.

I'll take this opportunity to expand on a point I made earlier: you can't just hack and slash your way through the game at higher difficulties, if you try, you're gonna have a bad time. It's not so much that there's too many enemies, but that they're too aggressive. Even three enemies against you can be a rather tall order -- depending on the enemies -- on the higher difficulties.

When I was playing on Very Hard I found myself using stealth far more than I thought I would for that very reason. Often times if you run into a room with three to five enemies on Very Hard or Revengeance, you're going to spend so much time parrying and dodging that you won't be able to do much -- if anything -- else, and even then you won't be able to avoid everything, because each one of those enemies is attacking you constantly.


The Bottom Line

To sum it all up: this is a really great game. If you enjoy action games -- especially fast paced and/or futuristic ones -- you will not be disappointed with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance.

The difficulty can accommodate all skill levels, from noob to master, and it's one of those games that's simple to learn but difficult to master.

I'm giving this game a 9/10. It's awesome. Go play it.
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Some time ago there was some talk on the forums about doing game reviews for the front page, so I figure I'll kick it off with a game I've been rather enthralled with lately: Fire Emblem: Awakening, otherwise known as Fire Emblem 13.

We're gonna be doing this feature by feature, so let's get started, shall we?

Classes

Let's get this out of the way right now. The classes in this game are awesome, and a huge improvement over the other installments.

The first thing you'll probably notice once you start your first battle, is Tactician: the class that the Avatar -- your created character -- starts out as. Being able to use both Swords and Tomes, it's already well established offensively, but once you promote into Grandmaster, your abilities really soar -- especially with the two skills you get.

The Avatar aside, once I got into promoted classes, something I realized immediately (aside from the fact that you don't need class-specific items to promote anymore; it's one item now, the Master's Seal) was the sheer amount of versatility you can have in your team.

There are three classes in particular which stand out in this regard: the Falcon Knight, the War Cleric/War Priest, and the Trickster. The Falcon Knight uses Lances and Staves, the War Cleric/War Priest, Axes and Staves, while the Trickster.. you guessed it, Swords and Staves. The ability to swap out between attacking and healing on a whim is really nice, and although it's seen in previous incarnations of the franchise, it's nice to see melee/healer hybrids become more prevalent (Valkyries in Genealogy of the Holy War, Thracia 776, Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn) in the mainstream titles.

That said, there's a couple of changes to the way classes are meant to be used as well. One of these that I found interesting was the change to the Dark Mage/Shaman trees of the previous games: in Awakening, they're essentially defensive Mages -- they have high defense. This gives them a different role, as well as more possibilities since you can actually send them into combat and have them not be squishy.

Another change in usage that I thought was brilliant was giving Dancers the ability to use Swords. The complete and utter inability for a Dancer to ever do something other than.. dance has always bugged the hell out of me and prevented me from using them, but in Awakening that problem has been solved rather nicely.

Something else that's more of a personal quality of life change, is that Manaketes are no longer the God-unit they used to be. Instead, they're treated like a normal unit. After clearing a certain battle, you're able to actually buy Dragonstones. It was something that always bugged me in the previous games, not only because of their God-like status, but because once you used up your Dragonstone, the unit was useless unless you glitched the game and gave them a monster weapon.

Reclassing

This really deserves a section of its own, as it is the defining trait of Awakening -- the mechanic that sets it apart from the others.

At any time once reaching level 10, you can use a Second Seal to change your class. The classes you can change to are limited -- each character has a static array of class trees they have at their disposal. The Avatar's bloodline have by far the largest pool, as the only classes they are forbidden from changing to are unique (Lord) and gender specific (Fighter/Barbarian, Pegasus Knight/Troubadour) class trees.

When reclassing, you retain some of your stats as well, allowing you to even make a really bad unit into something that's very usable. For instance, I turned Olivia -- the Dancer -- into an amazing Falcon Knight; she's one of my most powerful units.

Reclassing also allows you to get a number of different skills, but I'll get into that later.

The main issue I have with reclassing is that it really has a huge potential to break the game, at least on Hard mode -- I haven't played on Lunacy or Lunacy+ just yet. I could have easily cleared -- not completed, cleared, as in killed every single enemy on the field -- the final battle with just a single paired unit as a result of the stat gains from reclassing, which is ridiculous. That said, there are several optional battles that can challenge you, namely the Prologues and some of the teams you can summon via the Bonus Box, but I'll get to that later.

Skills

As someone who never got the opportunity to play Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, the skill system in Awakening was something fresh and new to me. That being said, I'm told that there are new skills in Awakening, so it's not like they were all recycled from the previous games.

You learn new skills generally by reclassing around. Prepromotes learn them at 1 and 10, and promoted units at 5 and 15. You can do some pretty wicked stuff with them; I'll list a couple of my favorite setups to give an idea.

Supreme Tank: Lifetaker, Renewal, Pavise, Aegis/Armsthrift, Sol.

This setup is really overkill, but it drives the impenetrable wall point home. At no point should this character probably ever die, because ideally you should cap out your HP with every player phase due to Lifetaker, Renewal, Sol, and Pavise/Aegis.

Some skills are pretty broken, while some aren't. The game loves to throw superior numbers at you like nobody's business, which is when skills such as Galeforce and/or Rally Spectrum enter the fray.

The skill system only adds to the versatility you're offered, which is awesome in my opinion.

Pair Up

This is a new mechanic found in Awakening that is essentially a replacement for the Rescue system seen in previous incarnations of the series. You can choose two units to Pair Up into a group, giving them statistical bonuses, and helping each other out in combat. When one attacks, the other has a chance to attack the enemy at the same time, for a -- skills excluded -- chance of four attacks each turn.

Similarly, when you are attacked, either on the player phase or the enemy phase, your partner has a chance to step in and negate any and all damage done. Yes, you can have a level 1 Mage step in and negate all damage from a level 20 Berserker if you choose to.

There's really no reason not to Pair Up your units, except for in one single battle in the entire game, in which you have to form an impenetrable wall around a certain unit you're trying to protect against waves of enemies. That being said, the game has a tendency to give you an uneven number of units you can send into battle, meaning that you can potentially have one unpaired unit if you wish. Sometimes you get a new unit in these battles though, so it all pans out.

This system can be somewhat broken, not only because of the complete damage mitigation, but rather the chance for it. The extent of these bonuses -- how much of a statistical increase, the chance for a double attack/guard -- is dependent on your support level with your partner, and their stats. If the Avatar has support level S with Chrom, he's going to get significantly better bonuses than if the Avatar had support level C with him.

This brings us to the next section.

Support

Supports are a little different than they are in previous incarnations of the series, albeit not by much. You can still only have support level S with one person, but the difference here lies in what happens when you hit that point.

Usually you'd get a certain ending with that person -- which still happens -- but what's different is that at support level S, you marry that person. This enables special dialogue in certain cutscenes involving the two -- which I thought was great, because it's always nice to see developers go that extra mile.

This also brings me to the next section.

Offspring

This is a system that was first seen in Genealogy of the Holy War for the Super Famicom, but has found its way back here in Awakening, albeit slightly altered. In Genealogy of the Holy War, if two people had enough lover points, at the end of a certain chapter they'd pass on their skills and weapons to their offspring.

The system in Awakening is similar, except they pass on some of their class set, growths, and their newest skill to their offspring. There's only one offspring that you meet during the main storyline; all the others are met during Paralogues -- side missions of sorts. This allows you to create them (mostly) at your leisure, being able to take the time to learn a skill that you might want them to inherit (if possible, Galeforce for men would probably be on this list).

Since class pools transfer over as well, that means that the Avatar's offspring will also be able to reclass into almost anything in the game as well. Second generation units cannot have children of their own, so there is obviously a limit to this system. Nonetheless, it is very versatile and allows you quite a bit of customization previously not seen in the series -- at least to me since as previously mentioned I never got the chance to play Path of Radiance or Radiant Dawn.

Wireless

Admittedly, I haven't dabbled in the Wireless function too much outside of the Bonus Box and Renown awards.

However, for those curious, I'll leave a link where you can see some information on Double Duel here.

One thing I can say is that the DLC prices are ridiculous. Through the Outrealm Gate, you can purchase and play DLC maps. Some of these award you with new possible characters, some even with new classes (Bride and Dread Fighter). Most of the single maps range between $3.00 and $3.50, with 3-map packs hovering around $6.50. I personally might shell out some cash for them at some point, but that's still rather steep for a few maps on a 3DS game, or at least that's how I see it.

However, these aren't something that you by any means need; you can complete and enjoy the game perfectly well and have fun with friends without them.

Difficulty

Last but definitely not least, difficulty. We can't very well have a game review on Insane Difficulty without taking its difficulty into account, now can we?

Overall, I think the difficulty stacks up fairly well. There's a steady increase during the main storyline; once you start getting a few Master's Seal items is around the time you start to see promoted units pop up on the enemy's side as well, which is nice.

It's worth noting that I've only played the game on Hard Classic thus far, and I found it decently difficult -- until I got grind-happy, that is. Then again I didn't use Rally Spectrum either, which I've heard (and based on the description, it really is. You're essentially getting four perfect RNG levels, minus the HP) is highly broken.

The game itself has four difficulty modes, with two game modes. You have Normal, Hard, Lunatic, and Lunatic+, and a choice of Classic or Casual.

In Lunatic, there are more enemies, they have higher stats, stronger weapons, stronger Weapon Rank bonuses, and have earlier access to skills.

Lunatic+ mode is pretty much the same as Lunatic, only the enemy has access to exclusive skills that are more powerful versions of the skills you can get. For example, you will only encounter enemies with the Hawkeye and Luna+ skills in Lunatic+ mode.

Classic and Casual are a slight change, similar to the Ironman and Normal difficulty modes of XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Classic is what you've come to expect out of a Fire Emblem game: when your unit falls in battle, that's it. Goodbye. On Casual mode, however, when your unit falls in battle, you get them back in the next battle. I can see Casual mode allowing for more strategies on higher difficulties -- baiting the enemy with a low HP unit, then destroying him with your glass cannon of sorts.

It's important to note that Lunatic+ is not unlocked initially -- you have to beat the game on Lunatic first. Similarly, if you beat the game on Lunatic Casual, only Lunatic+ Casual will be unlocked for you. You have to beat the game on Lunatic Classic and Casual to unlock both modes of Lunatic+.

When you clear the game, it saves your Renown, so once you get access to Wireless functionality in your next playthrough, it leaves a wealth of items for you which is a much-welcomed assist in most cases if you're playing on the higher difficulties.

The Bottom Line

There are a few features I didn't mention -- the Barracks, and the removal of the Magic Triangle -- though they're pretty minor.

I'll say this: I've clocked (between two saves; I restarted once to change my Avatar) roughly between 50-70 hours of game time on Awakening, and if you know my gaming habits, it's exceedingly rare that something keeps my attention for so long.

This game enthralled me from the moment I picked it up, and I still have plans to play through it again on Lunatic and maybe even Lunatic+.

The plot is pretty good -- not God-tier, but it kept me entertained, in particular a really nice plot twist near the end of the game -- and the level of customization is really nice. I loved being able to create my own character who does not suffer from Silent Protagonist Syndrome, and who actually feels like a real character in the game, not just someone who's thrown in there and is pretty much an afterthought for the entire game. Yes, I'm looking at you, Rekka no Ken.

Even on Hard mode, I died my share of times and had to reset, so unless you grind your face off it's not piss easy.

All in all, I'd give this game an 8/10, and definitely recommend it to anyone who's a fan of SRPGs, and especially any fans of the Fire Emblem franchise.
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In the spirit of March Madness I wanted to think of something fun to do that was gaming related, so here we go! This bracket is based off of the IGN top 100 RPGs of All Time, which sparked a lot of discussion a few months back. I think it would be interesting to see how we line up as a community versus what IGN came up with. This won't be a 100% representation because of multiple factors and again is all in fun but I think that it is a great thing to talk about that will always provide some intelligent discussion.

Things to consider when voting are that I included an "Undecided" option to be fair to those who haven't played either game in a selection. I want voters to try to be as accurate as they can and not try to think in terms of popularity but what you really think is better and why. In addition I want to mention that there were no preferences made in match-ups; it was all based on seeding which I put together after reviewing how a bracket of 64 is set up. Lower ranks will face off against higher ones which is an advantage but not always, there is a real threat of some upsets here.

In the end I will try to put together the final 1-100 rank, compare to the IGN rank and then discuss even further to see if we did it right. I hope that this will be a fun and interesting thing for the community! Please let me know any feedback or comments about how things are going and if I can I will try to improve.


Happy voting and have fun!
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