ping

In a way, the odd phrasing ("I crave your pardon") makes it worse - if it was more generic, I would've been more likely to pass over that they're the same word for word. Turns out that Brian wasn't the messiah. Just a very naughty boy. I didn't even tamper with that one! I'm waiting for the inevitable "was Zephiel right, actually?" discourse if/when Binding Blade gets remade. Petition to rename Genealogy LTC runs into FAS (Forever Alone Seliph) runs. Seems like it's at least a bit of a challenge to achieve. It needs a lot of force of persuasion to be as obviously cackling evil as Manfroy and still convince people to go along with your plans. Earned by suffering Lewyn's presence for this entire campaign, I assume, since it's not like Seliph did anything else. Specifically to unveil the grand secrets of the Twelve Crusaders, that is. That is a neat little detail. It'd be Elffin - prince, posing as a bard, exposition bot for a while (though not as long as Lewyn), fleeing his homeland, associated with the annoyingly immature dancer girl. Elffin's just far less of a prick about all this. Not to mention chances are that Lewyn left behind two children of his own. Fuck 'em, I suppose. Hurray...? Well, at least it's also an army that is very easy to ignore almost entirely. Interesting. I haven't continued playing yet, so I was just going by what FEWoD and the wiki.org say. We'll see, maybe I'll be forced to see for myself, considering just how mobile they are. Not in Project Naga, though. Ich glaube, das hätte ich sonst gemerkt. ...Honestly, yeah. Every sword user could've done this, I think. Even Oifey still would've had the necessary stats, I think. Although Hannibal (-26 avoid, compared to Dermott if using the same weapon and stat rings) would've needed a little more support to do this safely. Ah, that would work. Hannibal was in that state for a turn or three, although in his case, it's much easier to set up because you can just plonk somebody on his castle without seizing.

FE4 Endgame: The Final Holy War Edda --> Dozel --> Freege

I think I'd give Tellius the nod. Character designs and portraits are the best in the series, in my opinion. Although GBAFE is great, too. The battle animations are as fun as they go, and I actually like the map visuals a lot, too. Later games might have more "realistic" visuals, but GBAFE maps look good while also being very easy to read. In some of the later games, i sometimes struggle to see at a glance what terrain a specific tile is.

You don't ask the stream not to flow down the mountain You don't ask the rock not to fall to the ground You don't ask Shouzou Kaga not to include a 13th creepy abduction scene in his newest videogame, available on the SNES. "Bye, Felicia" actually has a wikipedia page, which I think is funny. Welp, I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she got together with normal Julius, but... guess not. And here I was hoping that Larcei could go out and channel her inner Sheeda once more. Wales is secretly the wealthiest place in the world. Well, that or a case for Forseti go brrr. Not to congratulate myself too much over my Ch.10 relocation idea - but if that penultimate chapter took place around Evans Castle, you would be able to integrate that into gameplay, too. Manfroy/Julius give orders for the local garrisons from Agustria, Verdane, and Silesse (they're pegasi, so that still works) to move to Grannvale even though these rebellions have broken out. Or maybe it's even Arvis giving the order, seemingly to crush Seliph, but really to make sure that those rebellions don't get brutally subdued, and because he gauges that Seliph's army has a better shot at handling those troops even if they're combined. Or maybe he trusts that they don't all arrive at the same time. I've seen people say that Lex isn't all that hot even with the Brave Axe, but I have to say that he held his own even in the later stages of the game. Even in Silessia, with all its wind mages, he could still one-round those (although +hit auras do help), and against physical enemies, he's just straight up the tankiest character in Gen 1. Except for Bridget, who in my final stat overview is listed with 81 Def because of a typo

FE4 Endgame: The Final Holy War Chalphy --> Edda You are a crazy man, Ruben. Godspeed. Hannibalspeed, even. : "Evil child-murdering cults are like seeds. You must plant and nurture them until they grow into full genocidal bloom."

Fun Fact: In his initial appearance, Superman couldn't fly, only jump really high and far. ...which doesn't have that much to do with your comment, but I managed to amuse myself with the image of Seliph (or any other horse unit) imitating flight in a similar way. I remember barely anything about Saias's actual character, but in concept, I like this a lot. A nice, concrete plan instead of the vague "Arvis banished Julius, or tried to, didn't work" that we got. Honestly, I don't even like it in isolation. What Deirdre ("power of friendship, yay!") and Sigurd ("stay humble, son") have to offer aren't exactly fresh new concepts, nor are they really specific to Seliph's character or situation. For me, all it does is take a previously underlying theme ("despite being orphaned at a very young age, Seliph's life is still influenced by his parents's deeds") and turns it into a baseball bat to hit you over the head with by making Sigurd and Deirdre physically (or rather ectoplasmally) watch over Seliph's progress. "My mother's family has no pathetic members except you, Julius. But it does contain... the unstoppable Julia!" "Gah! Impossible!" (Sorry, I'm not actually familiar with actual Yugioh, outside of watching some of the early episodes disjointedly as a wee lad, and then the abridged version later. Pretty sure you're quoting Pegasus-man there, but I have no idea how that scene plays out.) Look at those Ameripoors. Can't even afford the printer ink to write every letter 😭 : "Evil child-murdering cults are like seeds." I think the second generation is an especially severe case of the usual FE problem that the powerlevel of a player's endgame team is extremely variable, so it's tough to create an endgame that is challenging for an optimised team, but still doable if the player didn't reset for the OP bosskiller, didn't focus XP on the good growth units, or, in Genealogy's case, didn't set up inheritance. Most games of the series, as far as I'm aware, tend to be somewhat frontloaded with their difficulty as a result.

FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness Miletos --> Chalphy Cremation by pyre seems... appropriate.

I can't believe Ike's sexy catboy husbando is a nerd, too You can certainly explain Julius not taking the threat seriously, what with him (as you later say) being a spoiled brat that has never faced an actual threat to his power before. But I think it might cheapen the eventual victory a bit: Seliph doesn't win because he achieved something super special awesome - Seliph wins because his enemies handed him the necessary tools on a silver platter. Making your arch villain so imba that the heroes can't touch him, so the villain has to produce his downfall himself sounds like a beginner dungeon master's blunder - although I'm sure I exaggerate (at least a little) with this description of Julius and Manfroy. I went with the opposite approach. Shove everybody into the fight, so it doesn't matter if three guys get slept. Still enough offensive power to punch through. 'Tis what happens if you skip 17 years of a story, but I agree. I think it works better with Arvis because his transformation from smug badassery to humbled and broken is something of a "oh, damn" moment, but he shares with Travant the problem that their most intriguing stories happened off-screen. And that aspect is arguably worse for Arvis, since it basically happens twice for him, with his scheming in Belhalla while Sigurd is out a-conquerin'. I first thought that he's the guy who officially made Sigurd a Paladin after the prologue and later shared juicy court gossip with him, but... ...nah. Other Oldman. Either that or Arden/Erin. (first 30 seconds) It's a hard choice from the perspective of the children. On the one hand, you get incredible speed, solid +dmg skills, and maybe even Forseti... but on the other hand, your dad's going to be Lewyn. Very nice. Their dialogue afterwards is surprisingly appropriate (if you don't know what "game" Julius is referring to) - like they just had a little sparring match. It would require some more rewriting, since it's only Manfroy in that scene with Julia, but I agree that seeing Arvis at least trying to fight for Julia's sake would've been nice. Maybe if you made the First mate's suggestion (that Manfroy is threatening to kill Julia right there if Arvis doesn't co-operate) more explicit in the writing, that would work. (although that would still sell Julia, who's likely to be pretty competent at fighting magic users in particular, very short) Ah, but you didn't consider that information travels instantaneous across Jugdral. Loptyr HQ being an early target of Seliph's campaign would explain why Manfroy is so worried about this - although it's not like he really needed additional reason with Isaach and all of the Thracian peninsula being taken from Grannvale's control. He is sometimes, in some timelines, not completely a jerk. Lewyn: Heh... Bratty little thing, aren't you... Fee: EXCUSE ME?! Ohh, that does it! So, since T776 makes Lewyn/Erin canon, he's officially always completely a jerk. Well, Arvis made himself Emperor. As you say, Azmur was King Azmur. Probably a good helping of headcanon on my part, but it wouldn't be unrealistic if Arvis would've arranged the inheritance laws of that new political entity to be more to his liking, and maybe disconnected it from Azmur's bloodline. Come to think of it, it would've been an interesting touch if Julius would already have been King Julius of Grannvale - only that he'd still formally answer to Arvis's authority as Emperor.

FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness Rados --> Miletos What a nerd. We should give him a wedgie. As is my nature, I'm already contemplating interesting ways to replay Genealogy. "No Forseti Inheritance", even though I'm not really looking to do a full substitute run, is looking like a strong option, honestly. Well, not a strong option. You know what I mean.

Warrior Sharlow. Finally, a worthy successor for Yubello. Seliph's almost a character in that specific dialogue. Can't say about Ares, but Dermott is here to tickle you to death and take your money. Although the conquests of Verdane and Agustria might not have the same positive vibe with the people that it once had. The end result is that Sigurd handed these territories on a silver plate to Arvis, who, as far as the common man knows, may or may not be the antichrist. I do like the explaination that Jotari gave (or relayed), that it's Imperial propaganda backfiring, painting Sigurd as this powerful enemy of the state - but unfortunately, that angle isn't present in the actual game at all, at least thus far. Fire Emblem has the aesthetics of Medieval Europe, but outside of feudalism being the mode of production, its settings are very much modern in terms of social norms. That's not meant as a criticism (FE never pretents to be "historical"), but it means that "this is how it worked in 1200 AD" is basically a non-argument when talking about anything FE-related.

That would've been really interesting if it had ever come up in the game. A Kaga special, tbh. Well, in medieval Europe, cousin r-- Oof. (Disclaimer that Fire Emblem isn't really a medieval setting, specifically not when it comes to social standards and values, so "it happened in medieval Europe" isn't really much of a point, anyway)

FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness Perlucos --> Chronos --> Rados That is a good point. I don't know if it was much of a point of criticism when it was released, but Book 2's reused maps (with the exception of the bridge) really weren't all that good, so I could understand if Kaga was reluctant to repeat it... even if I still think it would've been cooler than this entirely new country without any real relevance to the story outside of this one chapter. Since House Freege was supposed to get the Agustrian lands anyway, having Hilda appear in this area would make a lot of sense. Maybe not so much in the border fort of Evans, but she could appear together with reinforcements - maybe at the start of the fight, maybe when Evans is seized. Realistically, she'd reside in Agustry Castle, but rush to the scene when she hears of Seliph landing near the borders of her lands. You would have to put yet another Philip on guard duty in Evans, but it's not like Genealogy is shy about that kind of thing. Julius could appear similarly to how he does in the real Ch.10, in front of Jungby once you've seized Evans. Or maybe in front of Chalphy ("You sit back and see how Ishtar and I handle these upstart rebels, father. At your age, you shouldn't excert yourself too much.") I haven't read up the details, but I know that Arvis will send out some old man to deliver Tyrfing to Seliph. He could to the same here, just for that old man be intercepted by Scorpio and brought to Jungby. That would also address your (good) point that the path past Jungby to Chalphy is so open that ignoring Jungby would seem like a good move. And speedrunners / LTCers could figure out if it saves time or not to skip Tyrfing... although I suppose they have to do that in the original, too. Yeah, Arvis wouldn't really require any changes. ...I wrote that before reading your own thoughts, and I see mine didn't turn out too different. I remember that you alluded to this back in chapter 5 Nothing to add, she should've had a gen 2 appearance.

As comparison, my much simpler suggestion of smushing ch.1 and the prologue together: So basically, Seliph arrives at Genoa by boat; from there, he captures the strategically important Evans; after that, the Grannvale reaction is to attempt a surround with collaborateurs from all over Jugdral: Verdanian axe bois and hunters from the southwest, Agustrian paladins from the northwest, Silessian pegasi from the southeast where there is just the ocean and definitely nothing else, and probably some dark mages stationed in Jungby. Could possibly make for the equivalent of Victory or Death in BlaBla, Murdock's map in BinBla, Clash! in PoR etc.pp. If Kaga absolutely wanted Miletos to exist on Jugdral's map, there could still be half of an island in the bottom right - with the castle just out of sight, similar to Nordion and Marpha on the other side of the map, so that Seliph doesn't have to go seize it. Plonk a village or two on there that only Fee or Altena can reach, and you can have a little bit of backstory fluff about Miletos, too. I agree that it makes sense for Seliph to first operate at the fringes of the Empire's control. However, I still think that you don't actually need Miletos to create that story structure, and that the story doesn't actually do anything with the new setting it introduced. Hilda could be stabbing children in Verdane (or Agustria, but that doesn't work geographically) just as well. Narratively, I think it would me much more interesting to return to Sigurd's old stomping ground - it's a cause to reminisce about Sigurd meeting Deirdre, or a little drama that Ares, Nanna and Dermott must fight their countrymen, or even the question if Sigurd is to blame for the desolation in Verdane (and/or Agustria) because he was always thinking with his seize button.

I would say, so, yes. There's a village in Ch.7 where we're told that she and Ishtore are "fine youths", for example, and later, after Julius warps Ishtar out of Ch.8, Tinni tells Seliph, "Ishtar was like a sister to me. She was one of the few who treated me well..." With what we're given at this point, I think it's a valid interpretation that Ishtar fell in love with Julius without seeing the pedocidal side of him (or maybe they met before Loptyr took Julius over, but I'm pretty sure we don't actually know about that just yet)... and now that Julius is off his rocker, she's too terrified of him to ever do or say anything that might upset him. It wouldn't make her a good person - she's still helping along the child murding machine - but it would make her a tragic villain. "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." - Karl Marx I don't disagree with the overall point, but I don't think Lewyn is much of a Stu. He has special blood and bullshit powers, sure, but not beyond the degree of other characters with major holy blood. And while he's indeed gen 2's "smart guy", I think an important part of Sue/Stu-ness is that the narration assumes that everybody (both in-universe and the reader) loves the Stu, with the exception of the most irredeemable villain. And that's certainly not the case for Lewyn, who is a bad son, a bad husband, a bad father, a bad crown prince, and just an all-around bad person - and all quite deliberately written as such. Can confirm. I was at the market early this morning and said hi to another regular customer. The police immediately appeared and brought us to the closest registry office. Since "late 30s" is basically 70+ in anime age, I suppose I have to rescind my previous statement and say that Hilda looks really young for her age. Jokes aside, those numbers do seem more realistic, but I'd say my point about Hilda being allowed to look middle-aged still stands. Yeah, I like the @Interdimensional Observer's head canon, but I agree that Hilda would make a bigger deal about being brothers with the Emperor unless she doesn't want to direct Ishtar's attention to her and Julius being cousins. Just from her looks, I would've headcanoned Isaachian heritage for her. I'm sure there's black-haired characters explicitly stated to be from somewhere else, but that hair colour is still mostly associated with that country. All very much in line with the standards of European nobility. Gotta keep those bloodlines pure. Thing is, Miletos really is just on the Jugdral map for this one chapter. Outside of it, it appears in the Jugdral timeline (the first instance of child hunts) and as Seliph's shopping location. You could just move the "Sorrow of Miletos" to another location and have Seliph take another angle to flirt with Julia, and you could remove the island from the map without losing anything narratively. And no, we don't know any character from Miletos. Fee stocks at an all-time high. Sylvia tried to teach him how to dance.

Oh, I agree. But just saying "Oh, I agree." is boring. One thing that's remarkable about Hilda is that she looks like she's about 50 years old. I think she's the only woman in the game who is allowed to be and look middle-aged? Rahna is probably 40-50 years old, but has a generic "somewhere between 25 and 40" portrait. Other than that, there's only two of the generic village women - the one with the headscarf looks about as old as Hilda, and then there's the one portrait that's actually old. It wasn't necessary for me to make the obvious joke, but I was quite delighted when this Morrigan even talked in a way that absolutely could've been DA:O!Morrigan. Like, child mass murder is (probably) a step too far even for her, but she'd totally present an unpleasant order with a similar faux-polite schadenfreude.

FE4 Chapter 10: Light and Darkness Perlucos (turn 0) I wasn't sure in which direction to go, so I went with both. That's fair. Dangit, Lewyn's need to be ~special~ cost us an Axe Mage class!

Skatole, or 3-methylindole, is the main contributor to the smell of poop. In low concentrations, it smells of flowers.

re: Holy Blood on John Constipatius - Honestly, I stopped checking for that on semi-generic bosses. But if Lewyn's character is representive for the paternal side of his family, it isn't too surprising to see Forseti blood appear unexpectedly anywhere in Jugdral. Lex!Coirpre will most likely cap his Def at 18, but still and reach 60+ HP. He won't be hurt by such insignificant hits. I almost expected it to work like that, so yeah. Even skimmed through the endgame wiki page before fighting him to see if there's any "if he survived" conditional for Arion's appearance. In the very old Civ games (1 and 2, dunno about 3), you can be forced into a truce if your country is a republic or democracy. If an enemy asks for peace, or you want to declare a war, there' a chance (50% for republic, 100% for democracy) that your parliament overrules your warmongering ways. If you want to be a warmongering democracy, you can build the United Nations world wonder, which will provide your parliament with an excuse to be warmongering 50% of the time... but it also forces any enemy to offer you peace if you contact them, so wars will still end prematurely all the time. Look, you can't expect me to do basic maths when fire embling. Wellll, his wife is stronger (+1), faster (+10), sturdier (+6 HP), more skillful (+13 Skl), more magical (+1), and luckier (+12) than Johalvier. He does have +1 Def and +2 Res over Larcei, at least. Definitely seems like something a modern FE game would do (although I don't know about the differing physical weapons). Maybe it can still be blamed on storage capacity on the SNES cartridges. Julius ex machina. Julius could also make an appearance earlier - maybe when Travant dies, to offer Arion support (the reinforcements coming from the northwest) and tell him how friends are supposed to help each other, and how important mutual trust is for him, and how repugnant he finds the idea of let a friend hang out to dry.

FE4 Chapter 9: For Whose Sake Luthecia --> Grutia --> Thracia Welp, RIP perfect consistency. It's not the biggest deal, but I can't help but be a little disappointed that the ambitious goal to accurately display the world map in the slightly overlapping chapter maps has only almost been reached. So you consider your enjoyment of the game more important than a miniscule mechanical advantage? Fake FE player. This greatly amuses me. I love these little localisation jokes, as long as they're not as heavy handed as they are in America. The greatest twist about that is that you secretly haven't been a beardman all along. OldMan he may be, but good on him for looking no day older than he did almost 20 years ago. I'm basing this on very little actual knowledge of the endgame, of course, but I'm not sure how valuable that additional staff user really is in the endgame. Even without Julia, you still have Lana, Fee, Leaf, Nanna, Tinni (in any ranked run, I'm sure she'll promote with ch.10's arena), and then Coirpre/Sharlow. How important is it really to have six instead of five? Even though not everybody can use all the important staves, I'm not convinced that it's that big a deal.

Interesting perspective. I read Travant as having decided on this last resort at the start of chapter 8 already, with Arion's line about Travant looking more fearful than ever foreshadowing that. If Arion seemingly killing Altena was what pushed him over the edge, that would put quite a different spin on this. Personally, I think I'll still keep a hypothetical code of honour in the back of my mind. Arion must've gotten his ideas about honour from from somewhere, so I kinda expect Thracia to have one. One would expect a lot of Grannvalian meddling in the diplomatic affairs between the Manster realms, no? With Thracia playing more of a role of plundering brigands with less diplomatic finesse, I can buy that they wouldn't have much success in that game, but surely, some Grannvale kings would've tried to play the Manster factions against one another. SEQUEL IDEA: Thracia 1492, in which the seafarer Chris O'Lumbus from the Manster district conducts an naval exploration in the name of the Thracian king and queen. And lo and behold, he actually discovers what will later be known as Valentia! Unfortunately, he turns out to be a complete piece of shit, killing and enslaving the natives, and it's the mission of the player character to expose his evil deeds. An oddity that I'm willing to accept because it is convenient. And a character's parentage isn't important enough in the turn-by-turn business that it would have to be crammed into the stat screen somewhere. (A small detail that is missing and that I would've liked: Characters like Ares and Johalvier could've given an answer from the augury, too. If nothing else, it would allow Jotari to add Finn's parents to his list of named FE characters that never actually make an on-screen appearance)

I'm going to say Sylvia. It's not that she's a promiscuous character, but I really don't need a promiscuous character whose childishness and immaturity is dialed up to 11 in virtually every scene she is in. And even if those traits were removed, it also bothers me that Sylvia's behaviour needed to be given a justification in the form of daddy issues, while characters like Sain or Saul are allowed to be man-sluts just because.

Why didn't Altena just ask a random old guy who her real parents are? Is she stupid? You're right, it is a bit surprising that it's part of Leonster. I haven't really been thinking about the four realms of the Manster district, so that never occurred to me. Directly west of Meath and north of Luthecia would put it here on the map: So we probably just have to assume that Leonster controls like half of the Manster district. Make it "Rodelbahn" and you have the German word for a sled run. A beautiful name for a boy. Lex/Sylvia, let's go. (just theorycrafting - but that actually sounds like the most convenient option if you're going for ranked, no? Coirpre gets Paragon, Lex can pass him the Renewal band to give him a nice 20k to blow on staves, not like Lex would lack the funds, and you don't really care about how useful Coirple's staff botting is. And Lene can do Vantage/Sleep Sword memes to get through the arena, so she'll cap out, too.) Hey, no worries. We're both entitled to our opinions, and it's not as if I wasn't spamming mine all over this thread. We see wyverns fly above peaks (yet close enough to spot the sadness in their eyes), so this seems like a perfectly realistic explanation. It also covers why Erin would ever be attracted to Lewyn.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant_(military) As I said, Arion as a person, growing up with a father like Travant, would have my sympathy. Arion as a fictional character is frustrating because first, he's just evil daddy's yesman, and when evil daddy finally showcases a shade of grey, it just goes over his head entirely, with the conclusion that he and his kidn-- adopted sister must stab each other eventually. I was thinking that he maybe could've reached the same goal by just pulling a Siriüh and disappear without a trace and only come back wearing a bitchin' mask when Arion is kidnapped by a somehow revived Manfroy. But you're right, him dying is a clear cut that would fulfil any desires of revenge on the side of Leif specifically. You consider 25-ish XP on a character who already one-rounds bosses with plenty of overkill "no need?" Fake FE player. FE 3-STYLE AGAIN STAFF Can't comment on the T776 involvement that Jotari is talking about, but the geography works out: The cluster is west of Meath across a mountain range and north of Luthecia, so that would actually put the village cluster pretty deep into Leonster territory. Relative to Ch.8's map, it would be further west (if from the southern part of the map), not south. I'm principled not to use any sequel or prequel's badness against an original piece of media (like BlaBla making some BinBla characters look stupid, or terrible FF7 spin-offs), so I agree. Sorry, FE4!Travant, you're just a bad parent.

I fully agree that Lang is great (honestly, Book 2's story becomes weaker almost the moment he's dead), but I'd say he stretches the category "minor villain" a bit. While there's never the illusion that he's the Big Bad of the entire game, he's still the major antagonist for almost a third of the game. Heck, I'd even say that he's the Book 2 villain with the most presence, even compared to the official main villains Gharnef and Medeus.

FE4 Chapter 9: For Whose Sake Meath --> Kapathogia/Luthecia