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 Fire Emblem: Engage is the seventeenth and (at time of writing) the most recent entry in the series. Following the massive success of Three Houses, it was easy to believe that the next game would be a more polished version of that same template - and whatever your take on Engage may be, it is very definitely not that. The series has a long-standing habit of tweaking where any individual game falls on the Strategy-RPG spectrum, and Engage slams it hard back toward the Strategy side of that scale. Gone are the monastery, teaching, the calendar, and time management - this is, at least in terms of structure, a sequel to Sacred Stones more than anything else. In their place are the "Emblems", echoes of older Fire Emblem characters that allow for a short burst of power and come with a set of unique skills that drastically change how a character plays, each of them hilariously broken in their own way. I think this purity massively improves the playable part of Engage, and as a game, this is easily the best the series has been since at least Path of Radiance. It is far and away my favorite of the "Modern" skill-based Fire Emblems, in large part because it throws a lot of the stuff that defines modern Fire Emblem directly in the trash. However, this has seemingly come with a cost: Engage's writing is, on the whole, awful. At its best, the plot is a Saturday morning cartoon in which the good dragon and his royal allies beat up the bad dragon - a standard, if unexciting Fire Emblem plot. At its worst, the writing is both nonsensical and cowardly, going out of its way to avoid paying off any of its potentially interesting plot threads while also hurriedly wrapping up character arcs and attempting pathos that is entirely unearned. Supports are okay, but have a bad habit of frontloading both the worst supports (generally) and the ones that put the character gimmick front and center. And the less said about bond conversations the better, mostly because the vast majority of them are three lines long. Engage is a lot of things - it's bright, colorful, silly, and earnest (perhaps to a fault), with art by a vtuber artist that really shows. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a repudiation of Three Houses, but it's clearly aiming for something in the complete opposite direction, and it's understandable that the fans are generally divided between "it's garbage" and "it's great" with very little in-between. Maybe the DLC does a better job of bridging the two camps? I wouldn't know, I didn't buy it and I honestly don't plan on doing so for this LP, but color me doubtful. The LP This is a screenshot LP with occasional video links for big blocks of cutscenes or otherwise important moments. When present, they will be called out  like this. I will do my best to make the LP presentable without watching the videos, but the voice acting is generally pretty good and the music is worth listening to. Updates will be whenever I feel like it, but I'm generally aiming for once a week, probably Monday. We may do twice a week at the beginning to at least get the ball rolling, we'll see.Spoilers Normally, spoilers really annoy me because I shouldn't have to ask people to not talk about the final boss while we're in Chapter 3. This story, however... Look, I'm still gonna make that ask, but frankly, Engage's story isn't really worth spoiling. It's gonna go exactly where you think it's going, and "plot twists" from Chapter 20 will be blindingly obvious by Chapter 5. I trust we understand each other on this? Table of Contents Prologue: The Emblems Chapter 1: Awake at Last Chapter 2: Queen Lumera Chapter 3: Hostilities Chapter 3 End Chapter 4: A Land in Bloom Chapter 4 End Chapter 5: Retaking the Castle Chapter 5 End Chapter 5x: Budding Talent Artix fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Apr 22, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 21:29
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Before we begin, you should really watch uh...whatever's going on in this intro cutscene. You had better believe that it plays every time you boot up the game, so look forward to getting a healthy dose of RISE FROM A THOUSAND YEARS AGO.  First things first, we need to pick our avatar. A lot's been made of Mika Pikazo's art for this game, and while I generally agree that it works better in 2D than 3D, I still think it looks fine. The only thing that really bugs me is the crossed bangs. Default name is Alear, which will do nicely.  We'll be playing on Hard Casual - the former because I think it hits the sweet spot between "punishing mistakes and having some teeth" and "lmao go gently caress yourself" that some hard modes like to flirt with, and the latter because even with the benefits of Divine Pulse, I'm still not going to deal with resetting because someone ate a 1% crit on the final hit against a boss. Besides, there's another kind of interesting fun in "Oh my god half my team is dead, can I even still win this chapter?" which I'm sure we'll run into sooner rather than later. There is also a fixed growth mode if that's your thing, but it is very much not mine. I assume it works similarly to FE9's, but you can go check Serenes Forest if you really care. Prologue Cutscenes Anytime there's a big block of cutscenes (usually at the start and end of chapters) I will link them in video form like so. You don't have to click on them, but the game is quite pretty in motion and the voice acting/music are both worth hearing.   We open on Alear making his way through a castle full of baddies.   Hey, it's that guy from Smash Bros!    We pass by a couple other folks with a few old friends in tow. For better or worse, this is an anniversary game, but we'll get to all of them in due time.   Now. It’s time to engage. The others fought hard to clear a path for us. We can’t let them down! You’re here ─ at your end. This place will be your tomb.  Gameplay! As much as you can call the tutorial "gameplay," anyway. If you've never seen or played a Fire Emblem before, this probably isn't going to be the LP for you, but we'll do our best to cover the bare minimum. First and foremost: movement. Blue is your range, red is how far you can attack. If you're coming from the other modern FE games, you may find Engage to be fairly stingy on movement - the default for infantry is only four tiles, with cavalry starting at five. Our ~mysterious foe~ isn't in range yet, so all we can do is advance for now. You have no hope of defeating me. Not even with your Emblem. Thankfully, he'll come to us. Note the faint red line going from him to us - this is not necessarily an indication of aggro, simply that based on his movement and weapon range (or Emblem skills once they're relevant) he could attack us. It's a handy way to see if a move is going to completely gently caress you before you commit to it, if nothing else.  Enough talk, have at you! To die here was ever your destiny. The rings are mine.  We trade blows twice. Things uh...aren't looking good. It’s time, Alear. Engage! Fortunately, we have a trick up our sleeve.    Emblem engage!   We'll talk more about engaging in Chapter 1 when it's actually relevant in a way that isn't "press button to win tutorial," but it does come with a neat transformation sequence, including an entirely new outfit. And this will be true for everyone! It's one of coolest little touches in the game.  Yeah, that's a little more like it. gently caress him up, Alear.     Lodestar Rush is a fun one, and we'll be leaning on it a lot in the early game. Seven attacks (nine if Alear is doing it) at 30% strength is a hefty damage boost when you need it. You have nothing to celebrate. You are weakness itself. You will never defeat me.  Know that I will always be with you. And that we will stand together again, as we did this day. If ever we cross paths again, I hope you will remember me. Indeed, that you will remember all of us who took up arms to fight by your side: the 12 Emblems.
Artix fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Mar 24, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 21:30
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Godspeed, Artix. Engage is a game I'm never sure what I really feel about. It goes very, very hard for a particular identity, and certainly carves out its own particular niche in the franchise.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:41
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Engage's writing is very swingy for me. It's really good and hilarious when it hits, and just painfully, eye rolling, terrible when it doesn't. There's just no middle ground.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:07
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I can't believe you're actually going through with it. Godspeed you mad bastard. Engage is probably the most middle of the road a Fire Emblem has been since FE8, and that leaves it in such a weird spot. The highs aren't as high as other games, but the lows also aren't as low, and I'd describe it as "Inoffensive" for most of the runtime. It'll be a treat to see other takes on it though.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:44
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Those are sure are some OC protagonists all right. Anyway, I don't think I've played Fire Emblem since PoR/RD, so I know I'm out of the loop on the modern stuff. Looking forward to catching up via osmosis.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:45
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yessss, more fire emblem!
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Mar 21, 2024 22:53
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Engage’s combat is spectacular and some of the best in the franchise. The plot is dumb as bricks while also being fairly boring. Still a pretty high up game for the franchise though as the gameplay and combat are the most important things to get right.
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Mar 21, 2024 22:56
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Alear needs to work in some Colgate or Pepsi puns somehow
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Mar 21, 2024 23:26
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I completely skipped out in Engage so I'm interested to see what I missed out on!
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Mar 22, 2024 00:16
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Honestly I loved most of Engage's writing. Some of the lategame stuff definitely needed a second draft, but it never leaves me unsure about what the game feels about the topics it covers, which I cannot say about any Fire Emblem in the last ten years. And the gameplay? Engage was my GOTY for 2023. Peak Fire Emblem, and it would take a miracle to top it knowing how quickly IS will throw out ideas. Fixed mode is... actually not like FE9's. It just forces averages, no weird EV micromanaging systems.
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Mar 22, 2024 01:25
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This is gonna be fun, Engage is a fantastic game and I love FE let's plays in general, plus you have a great history of them so I think it's gonna be a good time.Artix posted:with art by a vtuber artist that really shows. I really, really hate whoever started saying this and spread it throughout the entirety of Fire Emblem discourse, because it's broadly speaking complete bullshit. Mika Pikazo has been a popular artist for a long time, the art style she's known for predates (japanese) vtubers as a concept, she only designed three of them, and based on the timing of when Engage started development she was almost certainly contracted to do the art for it before she ever made a vtuber rig. The issues with Engage's art style (if you even wanna call them issues) are mostly due to bad art direction. There was an interview that basically revealed that they kinda just had her design a whole bunch of characters without much information about them, which leads to the main actual problem, which is that the character designs aren't really cohesive with each other and the setting. There isn't much in the way of thematic design for the royalty and retainers of a given country, etc. On their own merits I think the character designs are great, their colorfulness and the general aesthetics of the game feel very reminiscent of the GBA games - especially the combat animations. They're fun and crisp and colorful and flashy while being easily readable, in a way that 3D fire emblem has never come even close to pulling off prior to Engage. (I also really hate the crossed bangs) The music has a few really good tracks and is kinda average for the series otherwise imo, but the series has good music overall so that's a positive. The writing isn't particularly good and it definitely does have some rough patches but I think it's also not too far off the series average. The worldbuilding is virtually nonexistent, but the plot itself is pretty good albeit basic, the supports are arguably the best in the series overall, and a lot of the stilted dialogue issues can be blamed on the translation which is far from unique for the series especially recently. What it is is internally consistent. It's a dumb saturday morning cartoon but it works. You don't need to know why things are the way they are because that's not really the point, turn your brain off and smash your dudes against their dudes. It's an anniversary celebration game that's intended to be dumb and silly and over-the-top and it works at that. My scorching hot take is that I think the overall writing of Three Houses is worse. The gameplay is of course the best the series has ever been by a landslide and I'm sure you'll show that off like woah Fajita Queen fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 02:36
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i think engage's faults as a game that's an anniversary project celebrating the series would be better received if fire emblem awakening didn't do that much better, a decade earlier. engage has a lot of things it does as good or better than awakening but 'celebrate the series' is not one of them
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Mar 22, 2024 02:53
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For me, the plot is at best average and at worst just, insanely stupid with huge problems in cutscene direction undercutting a large portion of what the game attempts. I feel the most damning thing for me is the complete disinterest in Elyos as a setting when there's so much cool stuff that could have been expanded on. I'm going to be contrarian and say that the gameplay isn't the best because of how badly the lategame map design collapses in on itself and the specific power of one emblem being so utterly polarising that the game for all intents and purposes ends the moment you get it and execute a tremendously basic strategy. (It's still pretty good until chapter 18!) The DLC actively makes the entire game worse, so I wouldn't recommend it until after you've beaten the game for sure. That said the music is good, the battle themes in particular are really solid up and down and there's a lot of the visual design in combat that I enjoy. There's a lot of fun specific stuff to talk about so I look forward to reading through more of this! Natural 20 fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 03:00
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Looking forward to being here on the ground floor for this one! I think of myself as a longtime FE fan, but I've kind of fallen off the series since Radiant Dawn and given what I've seen I don't have any desire to play the later games, but I'm still kind of curious where things have gone. This one... I've only seen bits and pieces, some of which were interesting and some of which were unbearably cringe-inducing, so I'm curious where the balance will end up landing.
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Mar 22, 2024 04:00
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Excited for this! Engage is my second favorite game in the franchise behind RD. It's really great! The game has a ludicrous amount of replayability and so many fun ways that it mixes up your expectations when it comes to map design. The story may be a bit mid, but the VAs give it their all throughout!
buddychrist10 fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 04:14
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Everything I've seen of engage has made me go eh, so I'll be curious to see where this goes.
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Mar 22, 2024 05:35
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Engage is... a complicated affair. In several ways, it feels like the direct spiritual in-franchise successor to Conquest in its genuine interest in trying new things while creating good strategic maps in the story and paralogues while also having an absolute trainwreck of a story and the between map activities feeling more like the face petting minigame than ever. But also it's the mainline Fire Emblem game that is clearly trying to draw in fans of the mobile game. It's got some real positive aspects going for it, but is designed around what's essentially a modern Pokemon game's regional gimmick, only more centralizing than ever and makes all sorts of smaller questionable decisions that add up to a big pile. I can't say Engage is bad at being a unit focused turn based strategy game. But I can't say that, as someone who's played a lot of the series and was also really "engaged" by the interesting character and setting writing of Three Houses, that I don't feel insulted by Engage whenever I'm not focused in exactly on the gameplay enough that I'm forgetting about everything around it.
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Mar 22, 2024 06:06
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Engage's gameplay is great, definitely a good game. The hate that the story gets is ridiculously overblown. Like the amount of poo poo some people talk about it is crazy to me when Fates wasn't that long ago. Why are some people acting so shocked and indignant when this might as well be Charles Dickens compared to Fates? There's some endgame stuff I find stupid, but it does its job perfectly fine for its role as an anniversary game. Some of the characters have the Fates problem of only having their gimmick, but there's enough supports (all fully voice acted) that even the most gimmicky character seems like they get some depth. Step down from Three Houses, I don't really think anyone will argue that from a story perspective, but it's not like it fell off a cliff.
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Mar 22, 2024 06:27
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Better than fates is such a comically low bar to clear you can do so and still be actively terrible.
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Mar 22, 2024 08:07
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Are you going to be showing off what you can get up to with the emblems?
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Mar 22, 2024 10:00
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FoolyCharged posted:Better than fates is such a comically low bar to clear you can do so and still be actively terrible. The bar may be in hell but it's truly not that bad, just ordinary and generic.
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Mar 22, 2024 10:00
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Can a game's writing truly be called bad if it includes the words "Hiya Papaya"?
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Mar 22, 2024 11:03
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Looking forward to this, Imma big lover of exclusively Fire Emblem 7 and nawt else. Good luck.
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Mar 22, 2024 13:09
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I still can't believe the Colgate protagonist was real.
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Mar 22, 2024 13:23
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Engage is neat despite having a plot that's a bit too back-to-basics and I can say that Alear is a bit more interesting than Byleth considering the former can talk and actually contribute in a conversation. Also you can deliver actual horse poo poo as a gift to your units. Has other Fire Emblem games do that? I don't think so. Pyro Jack fucked around with this message at 13:28 on Mar 22, 2024 |
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Mar 22, 2024 13:24
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And all this time, I thought this game was a Fire Emblem-Star Trek TNG crossover.
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Mar 22, 2024 14:57
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Engage on release definitely hampered itself when it came to getting immersed with the characters. They are a fun group once you get to know them but it takes a bit too long for that to start really happening.
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Mar 22, 2024 15:26
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Fire Emblem Engage is stupid (positive).
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Mar 22, 2024 16:45
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XainZero posted:Fire Emblem Engage is stupid (positive).
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Mar 22, 2024 18:06
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I'm still not sure how I feel about this game. Maybe this can give me a nudge one way or another.
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Mar 22, 2024 18:57
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Engage is unapologetically cheesy, and there's a place for a story like that, especially coming off of the heavy themes of Three Houses. It's not my favorite game in the series, but it's got its charms.
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Mar 22, 2024 19:05
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I liked 17 fine, its a perfectly good Modern Emblem game, and I think it's silly to hate on it for being a cheesy story when thats the majority of fire emblem games. But I just want good strategic gameplay again, up till 15 there was a bit of charm to the experiments and unit buffs that completely shattered the strategic aspects of the series, but with 16 and 17 here, you basically just start clicking auto and watching the game play itself since theres really nothing for you to manage in battles past the halfway mark barring maybe a boss. And while I liked the 1 big monastery visit, the dozens of smaller Somniel and battlefield visits quickly started wearing on my patience. Also would it kill them to bring back the Bond Drop so people dont have to grind over 100 hours to see all the supports.
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Mar 22, 2024 20:23
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Pyro Jack posted:Engage is neat despite having a plot that's a bit too back-to-basics and I can say that Alear is a bit more interesting than Byleth considering the former can talk and actually contribute in a conversation. The positive effect of Alear's ability to talk is really curtailed by the fact that I want to slap the everliving poo poo out of them. So yeah, put me in the camp of thinking the writing is really garbage. Gameplay wise, it really did step up the game, and the gameplay is fast-paced, fun, and flowing. At least on the maps. And despite some really baffling decisions in weapon balance. The out-of-combat sections honestly really suck, and hamper the core gameplay. Never got the DLC myself because I'm not paying money to make the fun gameplay easier and therefore more boring.
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Mar 22, 2024 21:05
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One thing I definitely recommend you do if you haven't, OP, is to link a Fire Emblem Heroes account. It takes like five minutes to do from scratch and you get a few bond rings that give you reason to do some interesting strategic positioning especially in the earlygame, plus some weapons that are cool as gently caress.
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Mar 22, 2024 21:29
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Alear's our dear!
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Mar 23, 2024 02:21
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:
We like Ike?
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Mar 23, 2024 04:04
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NyoroEevee posted:We like Ike?
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Mar 23, 2024 11:06
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:
Oh, I always pronounced it Ah-leh-arr.
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Mar 23, 2024 11:34
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Shez for pres.
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Mar 23, 2024 11:56
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