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The Top 25 Video Game Villains of Every Subtype Imaginable
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<blockquote data-quote="CC13" data-source="post: 99930" data-attributes="member: 1151"><p>That is correct, sir! I apologize for the long turnaround on this one, but between PAPA, a terrible cold and the start of Collegiate Chorale, I haven't had much free time recently. What dark secrets does Prince Lyon hold? The answer lies below:</p><p></p><p>21. Prince Lyon of Grado (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones)</p><p>Developed By: Intelligent Systems</p><p>Published By: Nintendo</p><p>Platform: Game Boy Advance</p><p>Year of Release: 2004</p><p></p><p>Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones sits at an interesting point in the history of the Fire Emblem series. As the second of the games to receive an official release in the West, comparisons to Fire Emblem: Rekka no ken (simply called Fire Emblem in North America, Europe and Australia) were inevitable. Generally, contemporary reviews held that the game felt like a very conservative follow-up to Rekka no Ken and that some features, especially the inability to resurrect characters that have died, might frustrate some players, but praised the attention the game pays to its story & characters and the fact that The Sacred Stones did not try to fix what wasn't broken in its predecessor. However, more hardcore fans can point to at least one change that they mostly do not favor; unlike Rekka no Ken, The Sacred Stones has random encounters outside of its scripted missions. This has the effect of making level grinding a far easier task than in most other Fire Emblem games, which obviously makes the game far easier if you take advantage of the random encounters.</p><p></p><p>The Sacred Stones takes place on the continent of Magvel, which is split into five nations each founded by one of five legendary heroes, along with the young and ambitious merchant nation of Carcino. The aforementioned legendary heroes became such by aiding in the sealing of Fomortiis, the Demon King, with this sealing being enforced by five Sacred Stones, one for each of the nations founded by the legendary heroes. However, 800 years after the sealing of Fomortiis, Emperor Vigarde of Grado goes mad and begins a campaign of world conquest, with King Fado of Renais falling at the beginning of the game. You must take control of his fraternal twin children, Princess Eirika and Prince Ephraim, to rally Renais and the other nations against the Gradoese invaders. You mostly play as Eirika for the first portion of the game (with the exception of one gaiden chapter), but you can choose to either stay with Eirika as she fights off the invaders or accompany Ephraim to the heart of Grado after the end of Chapter 8.</p><p></p><p>Interestingly, Prince Lyon plays a role in both branches of the story, but his role in each is very different. In Eirika's branch, he seems every bit the good-natured young man that she remembers (having Caellach, a backstabbing sociopath who readily abandons a longtime friend of his once his usefulness has ended, and Valter, a bloodthirsty war criminal with a skin-crawling obsession with Eirika, as the arc villains helps drive this home) to the point where she ends up making a VERY bone-headed move after the two story branches merge (more on that later), but he plays a much more obviously evil role in Ephraim's branch. There, you quickly hear that it was Lyon himself who counseled Emperor Vigarde towards war and it only gets worse when Ephraim meets Lyon face-to-face. When you confront Lyon, he claims that he had only befriended Ephraim and Eirikia to learn to Renais' weaknesses so that he could lay the nation low. Earlier in that chapter, you learn that Emperor Vigarde actually died some time ago and that Prince Lyon used the magic of the Dark Stone to revive his body, but could not quite manage to do the same with his spirit; this is confirmed by the Gradoese magician Knoll at the end of the chapter. The game also takes different approaches to how Lyon's possession by the Demon King is handled depending on which royal sibling you chose, with Eirika's route showing Fomortiis as clearly being in control, while the picture in Ephraim's route is more complicated, with the implication being that Fomortiis has more subtly warped Lyon's thinking, rather than outright dominating him.</p><p></p><p>Before we wrap this up, I should address one major bone of contention many Fire Emblem fans have with Eirika. After the royal twins meet up, whichever one you chose to go with at the split will encounter Prince Lyon face-to-face. Either way, Lyon will take the Sacred Stone of Renais from you and destroy it, but the method by which he does so differes depending on whether Ephraim or Eirika goes to confront him. In Ephraim's case, he falls victim to a paralysis spell, allowing Lyon to take the Sacred Stone and destroy it at his leisure, but it happens differently with Eirika, who <em>gives</em> him the stone without a fight, believing that this will save Lyon's soul, despite L'Arachel having warned her than Fomortiis had completely consumed Lyon's soul and that he could not be saved. Obviously, many fans view this as an unjustifiably stupid thing for Eirika to do, but that isn't entirely fair. Eirika had not faced the more obvious evil that Ephraim had seen when he first confronted Lyon, so she would naturally be more likely to believe that Lyon could be saved. Also, trying to do anything aggressive could have ended poorly, since Lyon packs some NASTY tomes when you finally do get to fight him head-on.</p><p></p><p>Overall, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was exactly the game Nintendo needed for the series. Changing too much from Rekka no Ken would have run the risk of alienating the newfound Western fanbase, so a more conservative approach was probably the way to go, while the lowered difficulty was most likely an attempt to expand the fandom that seems to have not quite worked as planned, but was an understandable tactical decision. Besides, without this game, we would not have the bizarrely awesome Gheb hack (Gheb is a minor antagonist that shows up in Ephraim's ninth chapter, Fort Rigwald, and is, in the words of Blastinus' LP of The Sacred Stones (<a href="http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-The-Sacred-Stones/" target="_blank">http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-The-Sacred-Stones/</a>), "beloved by the fandom...in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that he's a misogynistic, narcissistic, cowardly, and downright ugly creature that calls itself a man"; if you're intrigued, you can find recordings of the hack here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1072B79811DCD5E9" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1072B79811DCD5E9</a> (WARNING: link not even remotely SFW)).</p><p></p><p><strong>Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains</strong>: Release the BOGUS!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CC13, post: 99930, member: 1151"] That is correct, sir! I apologize for the long turnaround on this one, but between PAPA, a terrible cold and the start of Collegiate Chorale, I haven't had much free time recently. What dark secrets does Prince Lyon hold? The answer lies below: 21. Prince Lyon of Grado (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones) Developed By: Intelligent Systems Published By: Nintendo Platform: Game Boy Advance Year of Release: 2004 Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones sits at an interesting point in the history of the Fire Emblem series. As the second of the games to receive an official release in the West, comparisons to Fire Emblem: Rekka no ken (simply called Fire Emblem in North America, Europe and Australia) were inevitable. Generally, contemporary reviews held that the game felt like a very conservative follow-up to Rekka no Ken and that some features, especially the inability to resurrect characters that have died, might frustrate some players, but praised the attention the game pays to its story & characters and the fact that The Sacred Stones did not try to fix what wasn't broken in its predecessor. However, more hardcore fans can point to at least one change that they mostly do not favor; unlike Rekka no Ken, The Sacred Stones has random encounters outside of its scripted missions. This has the effect of making level grinding a far easier task than in most other Fire Emblem games, which obviously makes the game far easier if you take advantage of the random encounters. The Sacred Stones takes place on the continent of Magvel, which is split into five nations each founded by one of five legendary heroes, along with the young and ambitious merchant nation of Carcino. The aforementioned legendary heroes became such by aiding in the sealing of Fomortiis, the Demon King, with this sealing being enforced by five Sacred Stones, one for each of the nations founded by the legendary heroes. However, 800 years after the sealing of Fomortiis, Emperor Vigarde of Grado goes mad and begins a campaign of world conquest, with King Fado of Renais falling at the beginning of the game. You must take control of his fraternal twin children, Princess Eirika and Prince Ephraim, to rally Renais and the other nations against the Gradoese invaders. You mostly play as Eirika for the first portion of the game (with the exception of one gaiden chapter), but you can choose to either stay with Eirika as she fights off the invaders or accompany Ephraim to the heart of Grado after the end of Chapter 8. Interestingly, Prince Lyon plays a role in both branches of the story, but his role in each is very different. In Eirika's branch, he seems every bit the good-natured young man that she remembers (having Caellach, a backstabbing sociopath who readily abandons a longtime friend of his once his usefulness has ended, and Valter, a bloodthirsty war criminal with a skin-crawling obsession with Eirika, as the arc villains helps drive this home) to the point where she ends up making a VERY bone-headed move after the two story branches merge (more on that later), but he plays a much more obviously evil role in Ephraim's branch. There, you quickly hear that it was Lyon himself who counseled Emperor Vigarde towards war and it only gets worse when Ephraim meets Lyon face-to-face. When you confront Lyon, he claims that he had only befriended Ephraim and Eirikia to learn to Renais' weaknesses so that he could lay the nation low. Earlier in that chapter, you learn that Emperor Vigarde actually died some time ago and that Prince Lyon used the magic of the Dark Stone to revive his body, but could not quite manage to do the same with his spirit; this is confirmed by the Gradoese magician Knoll at the end of the chapter. The game also takes different approaches to how Lyon's possession by the Demon King is handled depending on which royal sibling you chose, with Eirika's route showing Fomortiis as clearly being in control, while the picture in Ephraim's route is more complicated, with the implication being that Fomortiis has more subtly warped Lyon's thinking, rather than outright dominating him. Before we wrap this up, I should address one major bone of contention many Fire Emblem fans have with Eirika. After the royal twins meet up, whichever one you chose to go with at the split will encounter Prince Lyon face-to-face. Either way, Lyon will take the Sacred Stone of Renais from you and destroy it, but the method by which he does so differes depending on whether Ephraim or Eirika goes to confront him. In Ephraim's case, he falls victim to a paralysis spell, allowing Lyon to take the Sacred Stone and destroy it at his leisure, but it happens differently with Eirika, who [I]gives[/I] him the stone without a fight, believing that this will save Lyon's soul, despite L'Arachel having warned her than Fomortiis had completely consumed Lyon's soul and that he could not be saved. Obviously, many fans view this as an unjustifiably stupid thing for Eirika to do, but that isn't entirely fair. Eirika had not faced the more obvious evil that Ephraim had seen when he first confronted Lyon, so she would naturally be more likely to believe that Lyon could be saved. Also, trying to do anything aggressive could have ended poorly, since Lyon packs some NASTY tomes when you finally do get to fight him head-on. Overall, Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones was exactly the game Nintendo needed for the series. Changing too much from Rekka no Ken would have run the risk of alienating the newfound Western fanbase, so a more conservative approach was probably the way to go, while the lowered difficulty was most likely an attempt to expand the fandom that seems to have not quite worked as planned, but was an understandable tactical decision. Besides, without this game, we would not have the bizarrely awesome Gheb hack (Gheb is a minor antagonist that shows up in Ephraim's ninth chapter, Fort Rigwald, and is, in the words of Blastinus' LP of The Sacred Stones ([url]http://lparchive.org/Fire-Emblem-The-Sacred-Stones/[/url]), "beloved by the fandom...in spite of, or perhaps because of, the fact that he's a misogynistic, narcissistic, cowardly, and downright ugly creature that calls itself a man"; if you're intrigued, you can find recordings of the hack here: [url]http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1072B79811DCD5E9[/url] (WARNING: link not even remotely SFW)). [B]Next Time on The Top 25 Nintendo Villains[/B]: Release the BOGUS! [/QUOTE]
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