Dunkum

as far as I'm aware, that is still RAFO. honor/cultivation mix seems the most plausible to most people, but unconfirmed, so the sibling being a spren of Odium is still a possibility. or a spren that predates the shattering for that matter, since we know those exist on Roshar.

Overdrive is a similar thing that I know my local library participates in. worth checking to see if your does as well. i'm not a huge fan of ebooks vs regular physical books, but they are a good bit better than nothing, plus I think it is easier and cheaper for the library to acquire the liscnse to an ebook through somethign like overdrive than to get the physical copy sometimes. certainly takes up less space.

one thing to bear in mind is that Hemalurgy can have other effects besides stealing/grnting attributes. the original Koloss were made from spiked humans. the physiological changes to them do not come solely from just having more strength - something about the bindpoints for those spikes physically alters a human being into a koloss. So from that perspective, if you stole an attribute from yourself, and then spiked it back in the right place, you might be able to cause changes to your body. this is almost certainly still a terrible idea though.

I remember hanging out with a friend of mine while he was doing the sky dungeon, and when he finally got to the item chest we were both excited to see what it was going to be, and it was ...a second clawshot?? and we are sitting there trying to figure out what is going on until he got to an area where you can use it, and suddenly its the coolest thing in the world. and yea BotW has references to a lot of places though. I was a little sad that the Tal Tal heights location didnt have an egg-shaped rock formation at the top.

no, never quite got back to it, and by the time i had the time for it, BotW was out

that's the one. I was close. been a while sicne I played that too. and i couldnt even do the last fight becasue the game froze on me.

I will say that I did like the idea of returning to the main cave with more skills and more sand to delve ever deeper. that mechanic appealed to me. I also think that the pared down world works better than the Wind Waker world it was based on. To me Wind Waker always felt to big and empty - there was a lot of water, and even most of the islands werent worth visiting more than once. the PH world, I felt, struck a better balance. And I think I menitoned earlier, or possibly in a different thread, but PH and Spirit Tracks have a few really interesting boss fights; though its been long enough since I played either that I dont remember which ones anymore. Twilight Princess gets points from me for doing the double clawshot, which was really fun, and the reveal when you get the second one was just sort of baffling until you came to the realization of what it meant. I also liked the dungeon designs, especially snowpeak. they felt more like real places, instead of like most zelda (and other video game) dungeons which sort of tend to be a bit contrived. on the down side - my game froze on me at the final fight with the main villain guy (gant?) and i never quite did get back to it.

as in good or bad? also surprised to see someone professing love for Phantom Hourglass. the general consensus seems to hold that at the very bottom. for myself, i liked it OK, but I think the DS touchpad control scheme is terrible. If they remade it with more standard controls, I think it could be great, but as it stands, I just can't put it anywhere near the top of the list.

Been working form home 4 days out of 5 for the last few months anyway, so the change to my schedule adding that fifth work from home day is pretty negligible. i've been out 2 or 3 times to pick stuff up from stores, and i was surprised by how little some of the roads seem to have changed. the collector road near me seems to get nearly as much traffic now as it did before. It was also interesting to see what was still in stock and what was out in teh supermarket. there was almost no meat, and very little milk. ironically, the milk that they did have, was the double pasteurized stuff that has a much longer shelf life than regular milk. the produce section too was odd. greens were low, but there were tons of tomatoes and a pretty substantial amount of potatoes and onions. we've also had nice weather around here, so i've at least been able to get out and walk some. quarantine like this in the winter would be a lot harder to handle. my main problem now is that I get bored eatign the same foods over and over again, and only a few days in i'm already sick of the stuff available at my house.

I could see transformation powering through will and/or other things like built up investiture (e.g. allowing one to transform a metalmind, which would otherwise resist it more strongly). For illumination, a single strong pulse of light or sound was something that occurred to me, but that is a very specific use, and not one we've really seen Sahllan attempt to apply, I think. It seems plausible, but i'm more interested in what would happen if someone burned duralumin while just tring to generate a normal illusion, like Shallan's Veil disguise.

OK, sorry if this is gravedigging a little bit, but I have a follow up question to this: what would be the actual effect of duralumin boosted surges? I mean some seem pretty straightforward. Windrunner surges plus duralumin would just be supercharged versions of those surges. same for something like progression - you'd just end up with extremely fast growth and/or healing. but what about Shallan's illusions? what would it mean for her to create an illusion using all of her stored stormlight? same for something like an elsecaller jumping between realms or a soulcaster transforming something?

if anything, their disdain for awakening means that they won't even have the potential boost of their world's magic system to help them. Idris probably isn't any harder to conquer than a similarly sized Earth nation.

Well, more than that though. the way it is discussed in the book, it sounds like Odium's champion would have a specific role related to teh Oathpact

I'd tend to agree with this, Surgebinding is theoretically the same, provided they aren't breking or regressing in their oaths in that timeframe. That said, I think there migth be an edge case for people on their way to becoming allomantic savants, in which case their body might begin to revert away from savantism during that time.

I mean, I guess it isn't exactly high, but like I said, it would be in my bottom 3 alongside spirit tracks and probably adventure of link to round it out. in my case it gets hurt by the fact that I played BotW before I played skyward sword, so there are a lot of things that might have seemed OK originally but that now feel like rough first tries at things BotW did better. I actually have some of the same porblem with Wind Waker, though i'd still rank that a bit higher. I kinda see what you mean on ALttP, and I agree that LA and the Oracle games deserve a higher spot than it. but i'd probably rank it higher than the NES games, skyward sword wind waker, and the DS games, and probably ALBW too. Which I guess would put it solidly in the middle for me. A Wii U and 3ds with their virtual console options will cover you for I think everything except Minish Cap. MM and OOT are definitely available on the Wii U virtual Console (or as 3DS rereleases), and WW and TP have HD rereleases for the Wii U, and BotW is native to it and it's backwards compatible with the Wii for Skyward Sword. meanwhile LA, the Oracle games, and the NES games are definitely available on the 3DS virtual console. plus link between worlds is native to 3ds, and it is backward compatible with the DS games. I'm certain ALttP is available on at least one of those as well, possibly both. Minish Cap, much to my eternal frustration, is not available on the virtual console, which is why I still havent played it

I did, but its been a little bit. had to actually go watch a video to remember how that fight went, btu yea it's pretty cool. I'm really curious about how high up you have skyward sword and how low you have both the original and Link to the Past. I understand the original being pretty low, personally i find most NES games almost unplayable these days, but the very bottom, even below zelda 2? and likewise, skyward sword is in my bottom 3 without question, so i'm curious about why you have it as high as you do?

I do, and I enjoyed it, though I have never had time to do the trials of the sword. since you cant save between rooms you need a huge block of time to dedicate to it that i just cant fit into my schedule. but the new dungeon, the new shrines, the search for the new equipment, all of that I loved.

mentioned in the what are you playing now thread that BotW is currently my #1. it's the most fun i've had playing a game in years, and I am super hyped for the sequel. after that though my top favorites are probably the Gameboy color games. Link's Awakening was the first zelda game I played, and it holds a special place in my heart, but i also love the Oracle games as well. after those its hard to say: probably Ocarina or Link to the Past, since they are both great. Maybe Majora's Mask would sneak into the top 5 some days, depending on how i'm feeling. It has a lot going on, but i'm not always in the right mood to engage with it. Minish Cap is the only one I think I haven't played, simply haven't been able to find it, though I haven't looked all that hard admittedly. I will say this: I really don't understand the love for the Links Awakening Switch graphics. I personally hate what I have seen of them. Reminds me too much of a bobblehead, or those Funko Pop things, neither of which I think makes for good game design. and overall it feels too plastic.

fair enough. I'll take my responses over that way. but short version on BOTW: stroyline is definitely one of its weaker points, but i think the gameplay is good enough to overcome that.

No, I do get that. the set of skills you get at the beginning seem limited compared to the normal arsenal and the shrines and divine beasts, while mostly fun (give or take the major test of strength shrines, which ive seen called "major test of patience" by others) are a bit small compared to traditional dungeons, and a bit....monotone? uniform? basically there isnt a whole lot of dirfferences between them, as compared to the very thematically different dungeons you get in somethign like OOT.

Can't say I agree with it, but I see where you are coming from. its definitely the least Zelda-like Zelda game I've played, and that list includes Zelda 2 (side note: if they have to remake older Zelda games, that one is near the top of my list; most of the series is great as-is, but that one could really benefit from a graphics and controls upgrade at least to SNES levels). but then Link's Awakening was my first Zelda game and it doesn't have much Zelda specific stuff going on in its storyline either. for that matter, i don't recall much mention of the triforce in Majora's Mask, though structurally those 2 bear more resemblance to most of the other games with their dungeons and equipment.

i have complex feelings about fire emblem. on the one hand its a fun enough game, but on the other hand, I hate losing people which makes me endlessly replay the same levels to the point of frustration. also, the first fire emblem i played, the one they released back on the game boy advance, had this annoyign thing where eliwood was basically required in the last level against the dragon, but for me his growth was absolutely pathetic - he was always my weakest lord. it made that fight really annoying.

I'll second all of this. I'll probably have to get a switch when BOTW2 finally drops, because BOTW was so good that I don't want to miss out on the sequel. after BOTW though, my favorites are probablyt eh Gameboy/Color games. Link's Awakening (DX is fine, but I hate the graphics on the switch version) and the Oracle games are fantastic. Least favorite is between spirit tracks and skyward sword

the Cosmere 101 thread should cover everything in sufficent detail here: though it may contain some spoiler material. the very condensed version is that thousands of years ago there was a god-like being called Adonalsium who was killed and his power shattered into 16 parts, called shards. each shard contained roughly equal amounts of power but was also associated with an attribute, known as an intent. examples include Ambition, Preservation, Honor, etc. These intents to soem extent govern and restrict how the power can be used (e.g. the person holding Honor would find it difficult, if nto outright impossible to behave dishnorably) these shards were picked up by 16 mortals who basically made themselves the gods of various planets. in some cases there were existing planets and populations like on Roshar (Stormlight Archive), in other cases they created the planet and/or the life on it like on Scadrial (Mistborn). last I checked there were 10 known shards: Honor, Odium, Cultivation, Ruin, Preservation, Endowment, Autonomy, Ambition, Devotion, and Dominion; some of which have been killed and their power splintered - broken into such small pieces as to be impractical to re-assemble.

Silmarillion is one of 2 books that I couldn't get into at first but that worked for me the second time around, the other being Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.