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Somehow, despite everything else going on in this story, the little hints about Bennett's background in recent updates have managed to become the thing that has left me most curious. There are all these pieces to the puzzle that I'm starting to get a better sense of how they fit together, but I still need more.
Oh, but uh, take your time of course! Burnout is not an enemy to be underestimated and it's definitely better to pace yourself than break yourself. I can wait!
... probably.

"Hole in the Ground for Tier 3 Update (4 bosses possible)"
I'm a little confused about this part. Does this mean you've already added tier 3 fights to the hole? At the moment if I select Level 3 of either of the modes at the yellow crystal and then interact with the hole it'll just tell me I still need to select a level at the crystal. I'm not sure if I'm just misunderstanding this or if something isn't working right.

Wow, that is quite the endeavour! I think your game already has a surprisingly high level of polish for an alleged hobbyist. Having consistent character portraits of this level of quality on top of the work you've already done would be HUGE. Pianofairie also seems like a good choice for this, very cute and charming artstyle, so if you two have a solid enough working relationship to get this much work done then big kudos to both of you. You're both doing a very good so far job in my opinion! 

I gotta say that Adam's new portrait makes him look MUCH younger than I thought he was (not sure if intentional or not?), but everything else you showed here looks very good in my eyes.

Very importantly, for all the art I'm showing off here, we've yet to actually get to Bennett, the 200+ portrait variations goliath of a task.

Once again it seems that Bennett is entirely and solely at fault for everything that has ever gone wrong in the universe...

Oh, also, is fifth from the left... Penny? I don't feel like I remember seeing that outfit but the hair and eyes seem to match? Subtle Penny SQ2 teaser? Or maybe I'm just going senile? Either way, looking forward to seeing more!

Circe needs a hug :(

Oh cool, Pup discussion! I like Pup, there's so much interesting stuff going on with that character. I hope it's okay if I dump some of my thoughts about Pup too.

The things I noticed the most about Pup are
1) unhealthy perception of masculinity/feminity and obsession with trying to be like Ivan and
2) the pain and wasted potential that comes from trying to live up to an ideal that he* KNOWS he can never live up to.

*(I'm mostly focused on Act One for now, so I'll stick to "he" while that still applies because I feel it underlines the point I want to make very well)

For the first, an example that really stuck out to me was a scene where Pup tried to question/mock Cainan for his long hair, to which he calmy replied that he has no such insecurities, so those words do nothing. Cainan does not think of himself as being less manly in any way because of his hair, while Pup by contrast is stuck with a very rigid view of masculinity that does not allow for any such deviation from the norm. Similar deal with Pup trying to mock Jude (who even comes with a unisex name!) for being a "pretty boy".

For my second point, Pup's pain and self-denial is pretty much written all over Act One and in his interactions with other characters right from the first chapter. The way he pushes himself past his own limits when around Ivan, the way he rejects Satia's attention, pretty much the only "person" he seems to be okay with appearing "unmanly" to seems to be Jakson, whom Pup does allow to play a protector role for him.

So that's what I thought the curse was targeting, and what Kara was trying to point out to him. Not just that Pup sees feminity or women as weak, but that he sees feminity (or lack of masculinity) specifically as HIS weakness. The curse is extremely personal, after all! Pup has this ideal of manliness in his head that he believes he should live up even though he knows he doesn't fit that image at all, and its that insecurity which the curse exaggerates, pushing him even further away from the image he already knows he can't ever achieve. Because Pup continues trying to be something he isn't, the curse keeps being fueled.

Further into the story we also get various little scenes hinting that there are all kinds of skills that Pup apparently COULD be good at. Potential for using magic gets pointed out a few times, that he could have been a good dancer gets pointed out in ch.7, potential for public speaking in one of the support scenes with Charlotte... and of course the most important one by far which gets pointed out in every chapter; that Pup is FREAKING ADORABLE. So the point, I think, is that there is an entire world out there filled with paths that Pup could be walking and be very happy with, but instead Pup is hyper-focused on trying to walk the same path as Ivan, resulting in misery.

So in short, what I've taken away from Pup's story so far is more about Pup needing to stop denying their own self by clinging to one specific and strictly defined masculine ideal and to instead start defining their own self, regardless of whether that happens to be more masculine or more feminine. Pup is after all surrounded by characters of both genders that aren't restricted to just one end of that scale.

That's just how I read the story of course. All good stories leave a bit of room for the reader to make their own interpretations and my interpretation is probably more of a reflection of my own personal views than anything else, but I still wanted to share them after seeing this being discussed.

Huh. Must be too long since I played this game if I'm misremembering that badly. Maybe I should replay it soon since I've also been curious to see the 12.2 and 12.3 rebalancing of certain units in action.

"Kind of ironic that the Rowan bonding scene was what made me hate him"
I got the feeling only one of the characters involved in that scene would describe it as "bonding" xD

Did a quick test in firefox and chrome. I see the same error as 007n7 when trying to start the game in firefox. I didn't encounter any immediate issues testing it in chrome. No idea about other browsers. I didn't encounter any immediate issues with the downloadable version either.

I get you, I get you. If our dear MC, uh, I mean our protagonist realizes what he wants and is happy then it should all be good...

 It's just that he starts of as the kind of character that evokes a powerful, instinctual, need to protect him from the evil, dirty world around him and letting a certain someone have his way too much feels like failing that need.

... or maybe I just think that (s)he is cutest when you only grab upgrades up to a certain point and I'm rationalizing to justify my own preferences. Who knows, really? xD

To be fair, I do adore the phrasing of "Path to execution obstructed", it sounds pretty damn metal, but also gives off a... fairly different vibe than the earlier version I remember having played at some point. xD

Thanks for the upload btw, I'll have to try to gather my nerves for another playhrough to see the new stuff since...

SPOILERS BELOW

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Xx_Dude_xX is a pure and precious little gem and I'd feel a bit bad for allowing his dreams to get corrupted yet again after having put in the extra effort to get the "not corrupted" endings.

Wait, did you mean to include a screenshot of an error message (the one in the upgrade zone)?

You're (almost certainly) not stupid. Especially for this mechanic it can be really tricky to notice what the special condition for dealing with it is.
The walkthrough that comes with the game gives a hint (not a guide or strategy, just one hint) for each of the superbosses in the game, so I recommend using that if you're still stumped. For me at least, it helped give me a nudge in the right direction while still leaving me to figure out the fight itself, so I didn't feel any loss of achievement.
Just use the bookmarks or skip straight to the last page of the document so you don't have to see any unwanted spoilers, since it's very exhaustive regarding any topic that isn't the superbosses!

This is probably a really annoying piece of advice to be giving when you're already this far into the project, but a good rule of thumb for mapping in strategy games is to extend your maps a little beyond the intended "playable area" so that nothing much is really going on right at the very edges and corners of the map, where the UI can get in the way. 

In attached image, I've already scrolled the view to the bottom of the map, but even still it's difficult to see what's going on in the corners because of the UI elements. If you add a few more tiles of cave wall and tunnel in the south, the player would be able to just move the view even further down and the UI would stop being in the way.

General Boring: "We cannot waste time on unnecessary pleasantries."

Me, after being thoroughly conditioned to check behind every blade of grass for hidden chests: "So I took that personally."

Every single chest (that I've been able to find, at least) has a unique piece of dialog. 

I see you're a man of culture as well.

Seriously though, this is incredibly solid work. Your writing and dialog isn't just good but is often an actual pleasure to read in and of itself (I may have acquired a Liebra addiction), the setting is fascinating and constantly leaves me wanting to learn more, and you even do a great job elevating the combat above standard RPGMaker gameplay. Bonus points especially for choosing to go with a level-less system.

Thanks for sharing your passion with the world. I hope you still have more left in you, because it has been a genuine joy so far!

Mhm. I think it's a reasonable compromise to only let you save before moving, though it is a bit unintuitive that the save button is only visible if you open the menu at the beginning of your turn instead of it simply being greyed out when it's not available. Probably a quirk of SRPG studio?

Either way, realizing that I didn't have to replay the entire mission every time I lost a critical unit was huge for me and really helped me actually learn how to play properly through experimentation, so hopefully it'll help you too. 

The game gives you 3 difficulties you can choose from at the start. Story mode disables perma-death of characters, disables crits, and gives you double exp. Normal-casual only disables perma-death, and normal is normal.

Also here's some tips I learned coming into the game with no FE experience myself that weren't immediately obvious to me:

1) You CAN save mid-battle, but ONLY at the beginning of a turn BEFORE making any moves. Just left click on an empty tile at the beginning of your turn and it'll be in the menu. This was unironically the biggest gamechanger for me, so if you'll only remember one of these tips, make it this one and use it to learn the rest naturally.

2) Spreading experience around is important. Try to let your lowest leveled characters get killing blows whenever possible, or at the very least let them get a few hits in. They'll gain exp much faster due to the level difference, and a few extra levels makes a huge difference.

3) You can take your sweet time in most (but not all) battles, so try to engage as few enemies as possible with as many of your own as possible, so that you'll always have the advantage. Take your time and heal up before proceeding. If you want to be really safe, you can even bait enemies away from their friends by putting a unit in a defensible position (forests and such) that's only in reach of a few of the enemies.

4) Range indicators help a lot with the above. Right-click anywhere to enable a "universal" yellow range indicator that marks every tile that's in range of any enemy at all, and left-click a specific enemy to set a red range indicator that marks every tile in range of that one unit.

5) Even when not attacking on your turn, you should still consider setting which weapon a unit is equipped with since that's the one they'll use if an enemy attacks them on the enemy turn. You can do that when moving a unit by clicking item and then the weapon you want to be "equipped". Remember the weapon triangle!