Introduction
Hello, welcome, greetings, salutations, and... um... felicitations. Today, rather than talking about a specific game, I just wanted to briefly speak my mind on a few things and give some updates for this site and a couple of previous articles, since a few days ago, on September 11th marked one year since I made this site and published the initial draft of my Popful Mail review.
For some general updates, anyone who looked at my site back when it was first created, firstly, I apologize if you read some of my older drafts and witnessed the old layout… Secondly, I wanted to address the fact that I “rebranded” the site several months ago, and I wanted to discuss it formally. I found a better name than the crappy placeholder name that I had before. I’ve wanted to change the name since January, but finding a good name was not easy. And even then, it’s not like the current name is the best name ever or anything. And while the old name still appears in the URL, as I can’t change that, the site itself is now called “Mega Convoy.”
Since Fire Emblem is a favorite series of mine, I designed the new logo to resemble that of the one used in FE1. I also liked the aesthetic of the site being my own personal convoy or inventory storage of articles, reviews, and discussions. It is essentially just me screaming into an endless void, so the void in question is now presented as Fire Emblem’s convoy storage.
Speaking of designs, I also changed the background image from the generic preset that comes in the site’s gallery to an ominous cliff and clouds that come from the title screen of the Third Super Robot Wars.
Next, if you have visited this site before, you may notice that the previous art posts are gone. I wanted to remove them for two reasons. One, I wanted to host them on some other site dedicated to posting drawings, like Ko-Fi, or some other artist-friendly social media site. I may also post art on Twitter, but to be honest, I’m not as confident in my art to feel comfortable posting it on a more widespread site like that.
The second reason was that I just straight-up hated a lot of the drawings I posted. I mean, a couple of them are good, and I kept them on my other pages, but for the most part, I would rather keep the art I dislike locked away on my hard drive or my sketchbooks.
This is one of the ones I liked.
Aside from just aesthetics, when it comes to the way I write my posts, I like to treat the site as somewhat of a public journal and I like my voice to be heard as clearly as possible, so I’ve revised and re-edited a number of my articles—sometimes up to like thirty time—to get them as close to perfectly expressing my feelings as much as possible. A problem with a lot of my older drafts was that I tried way too hard to be formal, I didn’t have a proofreader yet, I cared too much about being “objective,” and my post sounded too much like Mega.AI, and I didn’t feel like I was expressing my thoughts very well at all.
In fact, the review I did for Xak - The Art of Visual Stage was the first article I wrote that I felt I was genuinely pleased with and truly expressed my proper voice. That one took a more casual tone, and that’s the tone I continued with later post. I went back to make my older posts sound more casual but avoided changing them too much. Some of the changes were in making stuff sound more fluid and less pretentious, and in more drastic changes, some articles were outright removed, specifically my Nadesico one. I will rewrite that one from the ground up in the future, but as it stood, that was the only review I straight-up hated.
The big problem with that was trying to review and give a retrospective on a series I liked without trying to spoil anything, so I had to dance around a lot of stuff, and I barely explained anything.
⭐Popful Mail⭐
Now, let’s start with some more detailed updates. The first update that I want to mention with this article is that since I posted the original review, Popful Mail has since been ported to the Nintendo Switch and is purchasable on the eShop courtesy of D4 Enterprises and Project Egg, the same people who ported Xak - The Art of Visual Stage to the Switch.
The downside though is that this is the PC-88 version rather than the Sega CD version, which on its own isn’t a big deal, but it’s also untranslated aside from some menus and stuff. I’d still recommend checking it out, but the character interactions and dialogue are one big selling point for the game for me, at least the Sega CD version.
Swords and Syntax
There isn’t too much here to specifically mention, but one thing that’s worth noting is that since I published that article, a new translation patch of FE3 was released by RPGuy96 which uses the NA names rather than the PAL names. So, FE3 fans can pack up their Shiidas and Nabarls and use the names they’re more familiar with.
A Knight’s Burden
In this article, I mentioned in an older version that Michalis forced Matthis onto the battlefield because he was pissed off at Lena for rejecting him. This was what I interpreted from the Serenes Forest page detailing the backstory, but when looking at the original page via Wayback Machine, Kaga specifically notes that this is not the reason.
Matthis perceived that it was for that reason, but it was moreso because he was a part of a noble family, so he alongside others was forced onto the battlefield as pawns to prevent these families from attempting a coup, as many of them supported Osmond, but not Michalis. Furthermore, it’s also noted that Michalis doesn’t specifically have any hard feelings towards Lena. I have since updated this particular section to address this. I also toned down a lot of the negativity in that post directed toward the community as well as in the Swords and Syntax one because I wanted those posts to remain more light-hearted, and I’d rather have a dedicated post to discuss my issues with the community as a whole, rather than inserting those in other unrelated posts.
That said, the last piece of Matthis lore is that since my post was made, it was discovered that in the Mystery of the Emblem Hideo Takayashiki novels, the surname "Claude" (Japanese クロード) was given to Matthis, which is pretty cool.
🌸Floral Fantasy (Part 1)🌸
This review was an absolute fucking nightmare. I wanted to make a review as well as a screenshot let’s play, but this isn’t really the format for something like that. Speaking of format, normally I write my post in Google Docs and copy and paste them into the Blogger editor, but for this review, I decided to do everything in the Blogger editor, I ran into constant issues regarding the text formatting; fonts would change mid-sentence, paragraphs wouldn’t indent at the start, paragraphs were randomly double spaced, images wouldn’t embed, etc.
The post was also reaching about 100 pages worth of text so I had to split it into two, I was losing passion and interest in writing it, and realistically, you can get a much better experience from watching any other retrospective of this game so it felt redundant to continue, so I’m likely never releasing Part 2.
A Reconditioned Classic
In my revisions, I’ve added some things I initially missed or got incorrect previously, but other than that, there are no real changes to mention.
From Zeroes to Heroes
Likewise, any changes I made to this were to better explain my points, and better portray my voice.
Xak - The Art of Visual Stage
I changed the name of this article, as the old one was really lame. I wanted to think of a funny but weird name that poked fun at the original game’s subtitle “Art of Visual Stage,” but the original title I went with "Exploring the Visual Stage: An Artistic Odyssey" or whatever sounded corny as hell and was a mouthful. Additionally, there were no other similar names that sounded any better, so I opted to instead go with a different name altogether. This one was more relevant to the events of the game, “The Ice Wall and the Spirit of Duel.”
Aside from that, there’s nothing new to mention here, but recently a YouTuber I followed uploaded a short review of the game on YouTube. It covered some things I initially forgot to mention in my post. Since his review was more on the negative side, if you read my previous post first, the video will probably give you a more nuanced view and multiple perspectives as to whether or not you would want to check this game out or not.
Into the Boundaries of Time
Not much to add here, in this review, I mentioned that I needed to get around to playing Cosmic Fantasy in the future, and I eventually got around to it. But I still have yet to play Exile: Wicked Phenomenon.
Der Langrisser
In this review, I neglected to mention one of my biggest criticisms of the game. That was mostly because, at the time I wrote it, I had only played the Light and Imperial Routes. But something I actively despise is how the route splits worked. In my third run, I was trying to access the Independent route, and normally, to do that you go down the Imperial route, until you reach the map where you get the Langrisser, and the game gives you a choice to either give the Langrisser to Bernhardt and continue down the Imperial Route or to take the Langrisser for yourself and go down the Independant/Chaos route.
I vividly remember this decision tree in my Imperial Route playthrough and followed the exact same methods, plus a guide, but for whatever reason, in this third playthrough, I was not prompted with a choice and I was forced to continue on the Imperial Route again. I have no idea why I was forced onto the route, nor could I find anything online that explained what I did wrong. My only guess is that I answered something in the intro quiz wrong, which forced me on the route.
It was very infuriating. I didn’t want to restart my run, and even if I did, I didn’t know what I did wrong last time so I wouldn't be able to prevent myself from being forced onto the Imperial Route. So I just used the Level Select code to go to the Independent Route instead.
For anyone who doesn’t know, the Level Select code can be accessed in the load game menu. You highlight any unoccupied save slot and press Up, Down, Up, Down, Left, Right, Select, and A. Then, the number '01' will appear in the highlighted save slot, denoting the level number. Left and Right will increase the number by 10, and Up and Down will increase the number by 1. The numbers used in the map posted below correspond to the different scenarios you can warp to.
Even after doing all that, when I was on the Independent Route, at Scenario 60, I was forced onto the Chaos Route instead of the Independent Route, and I still don’t know why, but at that point, I said “Fuck it,” and continued down the Chaos Route. Clearly, Goddes Lucilis really doesn't want me to go on the Independent Route.
It would have been really funny if they renamed him to Garret in the translation patch.
Cosmic Fantasy 2
There was a section where I mentioned that there was a crowdfunding campaign to get Edia to localize Cosmic Fantasy Collections 2, and to my shock, Limited Run Games shadow-dropped a trailer for this localization in the company games showcase in late June. The release of the game is slated to come out in late 2024, so I look forward to that.
StrikeForce Squad
The only changes I made to this were changing the cover image and the title, the original art was okay, but not my best work. This new one is more eyecatching and lively, and was influenced by Sonic Generations.
The name Stardust Memories was a not-so-subtle reference to Mobile Suit Gundam. I liked the name because “Memories” references me looking back at all these older animations from my childhood, and “Stardust” or rather “Stars” are something that’s always been associated with Kirby. Hell, in Japanese, the series is called Kirby of the Stars (星のカービィ lit. Hoshi no Kābi)
Toki wo Koete
There are no updates or changes to mention... Boop.
Quiet Bow
The only update worth mentioning is how I changed the original cover image, from a standard picture of Tomas to a picture of Tomas with text and a background. The Matthis analysis also received a similar treatment.
Slipping Away from the Pages of History
There are no updates or changes to mention, though I do eventually want to make a dedicated post talking specifically about some of the more remote and hidden aspects of FE3.
🟢 All Our Hidden Gems 🟢
This was literally published a week ago, in fact, it’s still being proofread, so no updates here. I did want to mention though, that when I was finished writing it, I was very proud of how it turned out. I kinda want that review to be seen as the golden standard of how I want to do most of my future reviews to be like.
Conclusion
In any case, that’s all the stuff I wanted to cover. As an update post, it is pretty short, and I just wanted to air out a few things and do some housekeeping. If you enjoyed it, then you have my thanks. I hope to continue writing long-winded blog posts and ramblings about trivial shit that no one cares about and generally have more people listen to what I have to say. I have a lot of ideas planned, but putting those ideas to fruition and executing them well is a different story.
Anyway, thanks for reading as always, and for the celebration, I got a delicious carrot cake for the people who’ve been invested in reading my articles. Keep in mind though, this cake is only for the people who’ve read all my posts; only they get a slice. I see all you freeloaders who only read my Fire Emblem-related stuff, you bastards can get your own cake.
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