The revisionist vision downplays the Battle of Tours as a mere raid that won't effect history contrary to "popular history" where it regards it as a fateful battle which stopped further Islamic expansion to Europe.

I felt like the revision view it goes way to far into the other direction and basically underestimates how the effects of an Islamic victory may gradually change history.

For staters, the Umyaddh Caliphate migut not outright conquer Gaul but a more successive victories may encourages more and more of these raids to the point it escalates into full-blown conquest and over time local leadership and power structures may crumble to the point the locals may well give and allow the nomadic raiders to set up shop.

A direct example of this is the Battle of Guadalete, in which Tariq's raiding party destroyed the Visigothic army led by their King Roderic and killed him and many of the nobility that ultimately led to almost all of Iberia under Islamic domination as the rest of the nobility either weakened by factionalism or accepted their new overlords. It's easy to see the same happening to Gaul if Charles Martel and Odo got killed in battle and their respective territories suffer from disorder from their deaths and lost of their military forces.

Not to mention the Eastern Roman Empire had to endure constant raids alongside multiple and massive invasions from the Arabs, both before and during the Islamic conquest of the Levant and Egypt and during the high of the Caliphate and when the Turkish migrations raided the Empire, they also gradually weakened their control of Anatolia and took advantage whenever the empire suffered from civil wars to slowly conquer their territories.

Or in a non-Islamic example, how the English nearly ruled Frace during the Hundred Years war as a result of battles that started from a mere raid like Poiters, Crecy and Agincourt.

What do you guys think?

Both JRPG series got discontinued by their respective publishers but Suikoden was blessed with more games than Breath of Fire and was given more chances by Konami than Capcom did for BoF.

Breath of Fire I (SNES): Released in 1993 and while the sales numbers aren't specified, it's said to be a considerable success in Japan and a moderate success in North America.

Breath of Fire II (SNES): Released in 1994 and sold 350,000 copies in Japan.

Breath of Fire III (PS1): Released in 1997 and sold 425,000 copies in Japan and 230,000 copies in North America in their respective first year.

Breath of Fire IV (PS1): Released in 2000 and sold 334,000 copies in Japan and got qualied for Sony's "PlayStation the Best" label, allowing it to be re-released in September 2002 at a reduced price.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter (PS2): Released in 2002 and sold 140,073 copies in Japan and according to IGN, sold less than 135,000 copies in North America.

Breath of Fire VI (PC and Mobile): Released in 2015 and "Although initially popular, the game met with overwhelmingly negative player feedback and its player base quickly shrunk. As of June 2017, the game holds a 1.7 out of 5 rating on Japan's Google Play Store.

There's a large gap between Dragon Quarter and VI and I wondered why Capcom gave up the franchise too easily.

They could easily just use Dragon Quarter's gameplay and return to the aesthetics of Breath of Fire I-IV for a quick buck.

Contrast that to the Suikoden series which has 5 main games (1-2 on the PS1 and 3-5 on the PS2) and 3 mainline spinoffs (Suikogaiden visual novel duo series on the PS1 and Suikodem Tactics on the PS2) and two gaiden spinoffs on the DS and PSP. The series lasted from 1998 to 2006 for the mainline games and the last spinoff was in 2012.

Even now, Suikoden is blessed with a remaster of 1-2, an anime adaptation of 2 and a new spinoff currently in development. I'm jealous of fans of the Suikoden series as a result.

In the Liberl and Crossbell games, much time has been spent building up what a threat the Erebonian Empire is and the Crossbell games spell it out when Erebonia straight takes over Crossbell at the end of the duology and threatens the rest of the surrounding nations.

The Erebonia Empire is a militaristic nation that prefers the use of tanks and is home to the Jaeger corps, a ruthless and evil counterpart to the heroic Bracer guild.

Unfortunately, all that hype and buildup gets wasted imo...

>The protagonists and their school function exactly like a generic anime high school despite being a military academy. Estelle and Joshua and SSS could balance between being lighthearted and serious.

>The long foreshadowed war where Calvard and the surrounding nations fight against the Erebonian Empire ended with no deaths, little to no conquences for both nations and characters basically move on as if it was a trivial affair.

>As a whole, Cold Steel often softens the actual brutality of war by not showing actual extent of the damages caused or by not alllowing any actual deaths. (A terrorist attack using a WMD on a military base has it suffer no casualties because the troops were out on a convient training exercise and nobody got hurt.)

>The curse of Ishmelga is used to justify the horrible actions of the Erebonians in past and present history and make them avoid responsibility for their actions.

>Rean never actually kills anyone when he fought against Calvard or went berserk in North Ambria, making his guilt look weightless. Slicing tanks and battleships yet the whole crew lives.

Given that other Japanese games like the Yakuza , Valkryria Chronicles, Persona and Tales series have their own problems balancing the lighthearted stuff and introducing dark elements to their stories. Maybe this isn't unique to Falcom.

Obviously, i'm taking about Deis.

She's been always been a consistently powerful playable character who's joined with the previous Ryus and their respective parties of the previous games (BoF1-2).

Supposedly she's been weakened by being kepted sealed in Angel Tower for 500 years and can only given Ryu magical guidance to locate the Goddess Myria. That she can still teach Bof3 Ryu and his party powerful magic ruins counter to this though. I guess the game only have 3 active slots and her only niche being Nina but with more powerful magic might been the factor to her not being playable.

It would have been nice if she would have the joined the party during their travels to the east, have some fun interactions with the party (maybe compare them to her past party members) and provide lore exposition for the eastern lands and more interactions with her sisters Myria rather than suddenly appearing in the ending.