Alastor15243

You're correct, I mixed that up with Chapter 11, sorry.

I'm pretty sure neither Notre Sagesse nor Nestra are considered Nohrian territory. Nestra certainly isn't, judging by what happened today and what characters said about the idea of it being attacked being so unthinkable because it was neutral.

Yeah, the game's... oddly casual about the fact that a base deep in Nohrian territory was completely taken over by Hoshidan forces when an entire chapter that occurs later is about stopping Hoshidan troops from invading Nohrian soil.

Thanks, you guys.

I am beyond flattered.

Hey, I can think of at least two categories Echoes will beat Conquest in. So it won't be a total slaughter.

Fates... the thing is I have a feeling Fates' story might be worse than Awakening, but the issue is that its story is bad in a way that I find tremendously entertaining for a variety of reasons. So I'm worried this is causing me to say less than I normally would, but I'm not sure. And to answer your question, it's Rev, Birthright, and then Conquest. I'm doing Rev first so I can see if not having to follow up Conquest improves my perception of it.

Replicate, for one thing. And having Master Ninja as an option. I always misname someone. It feels like it happens once a game at least.

In "Before Awakening", yeah, they mention that "Hoshido and Nohr" are ancient legends by the time of Awakening. But they don't say much more on the subject.

Revelation Day 8: Chapter 13 Sudden unexpected obligations meant I started later today than usual, which means I don't have as much time as usual, but also thankfully means I get to visit everyone at the same time today. I'll be handing out princess crowns again, just because I didn't come up with the idea to do that until halfway through and I'd hate to have completely skipped over someone who actually wanted it right after telling everyone I was handing them out. ...Ah yes, and of course... thanks to giving Ishtar enough accessories... suddenly Ishtar and I asexually reproduce through the power of friendship and produce “Lavender”, this weird... unexplained... clone thing with these particular weird marks on her cheeks that I'm pretty sure you can't get through the character creation process. They're called bond units, and they're all level 1 and have four skills, one selected at random, one from the bond unit's starting class, and two based on the skills you and the avatar you “bonded” with have equipped in the front slot, just like children. This entire mechanic is utterly bizarre and I had a field day making fun of the bastards in Dakota's War Journal. They're weirdly useful for procstacking builds with Nohrian trust, but... not much else. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck the point of these things is supposed to be. I've got some resource upgrades, which is nice, and I have more than enough DVP to get them, but really I'm getting more than enough from visits. Well, at least other people will get more from visiting me! …Aaaaand done! Thanks again for everyone visiting and fighting me! Alright, let's go straight onto the chapter! Ah yes, this chapter, the one where the story says you have to stop Hoshido and Nohr from fighting each other, and the gameplay says Hoshido and Nohr have teamed up to kick your ass. Also, apparently Cyrkensia has been completely obliterated by Vallites, and... what's the death toll here? It's kinda funny how shit happens in some places that's actually worse than what happens in Birthright or Rev. But we get Keaton and Kaden! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay! Keaton is one of my favorite characters in the game. Kaden's okay, but he's no Keaton. Keaton's a fucking werewolf, and while some say he looks super goofy, I think it's really badass, and a major improvement over the taguel of last game. Gameplaywise, in Conquest wolfskins are really handy for being physically well-rounded units with the power to heavily resist crit rates and change their defense stat on the fly to control how much damage you take (useful for baiting in enemies who otherwise wouldn't attack you) ...Right, so, in addition to Hoshidan and Nohrian enemies... we have to fight “invisible” Vallite forces that the others apparently just can't see. ...Ah yes, and this map includes a gimmick from Soleil's paralogue. A gimmick that was way more fun in that one due to the way more interesting enemies and the numerous passages through the area you had to block off to defend the town. Alright, so, Selena's another level 10 unit you can insta-promote, and I'll be doing that, since she's my go-to wife for Xander. Making her a bow knight now will give me a bit more muscle in emergencies without crippling my army long-term. But we also have Camilla who will be... far more effective prepromote muscle, shall we say. Holy shit. She's even better in Conquest due to that game actually being hard, but she's amazing here too. ...Man, I've really gotta start looking for a wife for Dakota. I usually play as a female avatar so all of my usual options are off the table. Let's see... ...Yeah, I'll go with Kagero. There's some dumb shit I can do with Kagero that would be pretty fun. Yeah, so, due to all of these narrow walkways, you can literally use these obstacle tiles to block off half the enemies from ever reaching you. It's kind of absurd. But I could use the exp for some of my newcomers, so... yeah, I'll do this normally. This is the first map that's even mildly interesting, and that's mostly because of the initial pressure from a handful of moving enemies coming from two directions in a pincer formation, which I consciously decided not to cheese. With the exception of the promoted enemies, the enemies are still too weak to give anyone much experience, even the units I literally just got. Though that may be because Keaton and Kaden show up at level 15, which is actually around the level everyone else is at. Still though, it's kind of ridiculous how I've got half a dozen combat pairs at this point, and none of them are gaining much experience from these guys. But at least now we're finally at the point where I actually have to pay serious attention to what I do... sort of. Laslow: Um... My name is Laslow. I'm sorry we had to meet this way. He says. WHILE FIGHTING SELENA. Holy shit is that garbage. How can these two not have anything to say to each other when fighting on this map!? In case I forgot to mention, these two are transparently obviously Inigo and Severa from Awakening. Felicia very nearly died because I haven't been checking damage against single attacks from anything but slayer weapons, and I didn't realize this knight had the power to one-hit kill Felicia. Thankfully, she dodged. But man, I've gotta be more careful. But yeah, Keaton's been ripping through the cavalry on the western side. Ryoma's a piece of work though, and I needed Camilla's aura personal to get enough defense to avoid risking Mozu getting killed with a crit. After that though, everyone unites in the center to take out the boss. ...Who is yet another berserker. I'm not sure what it is with Rev and its love of early-game berserkers. Thankfully I had the means to take him out without danger, but it's still annoying. And now we're done. And Azura sings her song to calm Ryoma and Xander down, and... I'm very curious to see if any mention is made of the shit that happens to her on-screen in BR (and offscreen in CQ) when she uses her song for stuff like this. All she says is it's “really exhausting”. I don't think they ever explain why singing the final boss song kills her in BR and CQ but not in Rev. What, is it because she's in Valla? Is that what does it? Did that explanation get totally cut out of an old draft or something? Seriously. Oh wow, and the game has the audacity to ship Ryoma and Scarlet together in this scene when they don't even have a support set and... ...Uggggh. Anyway, Ryoma tells us our best bet to decipher the ridiculously cryptic advice that the gods fucking wasted Izana's life for is to go to the Rainbow Sage. So that's where we're going next time. ...No wait, next map is when we get Elise, isn't it? Alright then. Well, I'm looking forward to that at least! Stay safe, everyone!

Positive. Not as good as Conquest but a fun Fire Emblem experience with all of Fates' bells and whistles. Great for when I wanna play a game that's fun but not as demanding as Conquest. But it's been more than a year since I've played Fates, so who knows?

In fairness Ryoma begins each negotiation session with "YOU HAVE BREATHED YOUR LAST!"

Mostly because Three Houses makes you "choose" your route split... approximately 20 to 45 hours before it has much of any narrative or gameplay consequence whatsoever.

Revelation Day 7: Chapter 11 Ooh! It's too soon to visit the people I visited yesterday yet (I wish it was a 23 hour cycle thing so that doing it a bit late doesn't force you to keep doing it a bit late forever), but I've got two new visitors! Autumn and Cori 2! Ooh, Cori has quartz! And somebody gave me a chef's hat! Three somebodies! Or one somebody three times! I'll have to check back at the castle! Here, have an Einherjar mask! Major thinks to Ryuuji, Corrin, and a newcomer also named Corrin for sending me chef's hats! I never feel comfortable using the mess hall until I can put a really good chef in charge! That's funny... I could've sworn I clicked on “Autumn”, but the avatar is named Alicia. Did you switch files since visiting? Anyway, thanks for the visit! Right then, with my visiting for the morning out of the way, time to do the rest of town maintenance! Even though it looks frankly ridiculous on her as a dread fighter, Mozu's the best chef we have, so we'll be giving her the chef's hat. Starting next battle (unless it takes effect immediately) I'll be able to use her amazing bonuses. I'll be swapping her out with Jakob as soon as I can though. ...Nope, the chef's hat isn't instant. Rinkah's on duty today. Pass. I've heard horror stories about her cooking. Alright, so Dakota's got supports with Subaki (room visits), Sakura and Mozu. Let's check them out. Oh man I love this song that plays when talking to Subaki. The support music in this game is really good, just like in Awakening. ...It's pretty funny how this game just feels like it can get away with having people make preposterous claims about their abilities that gameplay does not bear out. Like Subaki claiming he's “mastered every class of weapon”, when just like everyone else, including people who canonically used to use other weapons, if it's not in your starting class's kit, you're rank E. Man, the support with Sakura and Dakota is ridiculously short. I don't remember the supports in this game being so short this often. The Mozu one's okay, but nothing special. I've got a ton of new shit to build, but it's just a bunch of golems and puppets, nothing I have much use for at the moment. So let's just move on. Ah yes, the Mokushu map. Mediocre intro about Dakota being all brave and dumb and noble, and then we get to the map with Saizo, Reina and Orochi as green units on the field. Still begs the question of how Saizo can afford the time to set up an elaborate smoke signal while facing apparently insurmountable odds he wants people to run away from. Oooh, looks like our deployment options are finally opening up! Awesome, and we have some new units who are just barely usable. First off, since I've never ever gotten Hisame before and inheriting Aptitude just gets worse and worse the higher level you recruit the child at (it doesn't affect auto-leveling, annoyingly), I'll just get Mozu paired up with Hinata. Should've done it with Subaki, but fuck it. I'll reclass him to Oni savage and promote him into oni chieftain for better pair-up boosts. Ah, the benefits of joining at level 10 in Fates. Yeah, that's the thing: stats don't matter anymore for pair-up partners in guard stance. It's just class and support rank. Meaning that promoting early is actually a pretty great option for any unit you plan on either eventually or immediately putting on guard stance duty. This first turn is really the only tricky part. But eventually, after a few minutes, I worked out an opening strategy that allows me to kill all the enemies in attacking range of me or in attacking range of these new green units. After that... this map becomes mindless, because yet again, Revelation AI. Oh right, Kagero's been kidnapped in every timeline. I forgot. Alright, let's do this. ...It looks like Saizo hasn't even engaged in battle yet. So why the fuck would he set up a smoke signal in enemy territory, telling people it was too dangerous and to stay away... while he had the element of surprise!? Yeah, so, we have Takumi now, and I have to say, Takumi is such a wasted opportunity. Do you have any idea how much I'd love having Takumi around in Conquest? In a game where player-phase combat is so frequently necessary and enemy ninjas he can do huge WTA single-shot damage to are everywhere? But while Fates in general does a lot to help player-phase combat... I still can't deny that he's not nearly as useful in the game's he's in than he would be in the game he isn't. And Revelation is probably his worst performance of all, given how mindless enemy AI is. ...Oh shit. OH SHIT. Gunter just critted. And he said “This ends now!”. Gunter shares a crit quote with the avatar. Just like the other retainers do with their masters. I totally didn't process that they didn't do that with any of the avatar's retainers until I ran into a case where they did. I'm pairing Felicia up with Hayato because I might as well. This is an ironman with terrible unit balance, might as well get all the kids I can as a backup plan, even though I have no plans to use them if everything goes well. ...Oh man, these stupid spike traps. They're just barely inconvenient enough to annoy me. Right, so, turn 2, we recruit all three of the green units at once by talking to Saizo with Dakota. Good, because Reina just ran off on her own to attack some random samurai, too far for Saizo to reach. … The spike traps re-activate if you step in the area again after using the dragon vein to de-activate them. Holy shit is this annoying. ...I heard the enemy stats were supposed to get ridiculous on Lunatic, but this is still an absolute cakewalk. Maybe it only happens later? ...Or maybe I only got that impression because the only LP of Lunatic Rev I ever watched was played by somebody who had no idea what he was doing and lost units left and right? Not sure what prompted this, but it seems something I did made some of the enemies start moving, because I randomly checked in on Felicia and there were enemies in her range. Glad I checked. Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, I just have almost nothing to say about this chapter. It's not a pain like the last one it's just... barely there. Yeah, and Kotaro went down to a joint attack from Mozu, Dakota and Felicia. And thus, Felicia finally gets galeforce! It's been nerfed here, and you can only activate it if you kill without being in either attack or guard stance, but thanks to Lightning, Felicia can still use it, if not all the time. Curiously, looks like in Fates, the game checks for whether or not you won the map before activating after-battle skills like galeforce. Awakening did the opposite. I wonder if there's any reason that was changed. Funny how Kagero still called Dakota “Lord Dakota” even when she thought he was a traitor. Hm... I seem to remember that Kagero didn't know where Ryoma was in Birthright. Am I mistaken? Anyway, Time to get back home and visit everyone else! Also, I have some more supports. ...Yeah, I can't help but feel that corners were cut in the support conversation department compared to Awakening. So many of these are completely insubstantial. Hayato and Felicia's support is cute... but... not in a “I want to ship these two” kind of way, more of a literally cute way, like an interaction between a woman and a child. ...This might not really be worth it after all, especially since she can't use galeforce while supporting with Hayato. Which I just realized is why it didn't activate at the end of the battle. Oh, but Mozu and Hinata have a support too! You'll notice that I've been reluctant to say more than a sentence or two about any given support. I don't know if I've just completely lost the energy to delve too deeply into story commentary since Tellius, or if the supports here are just that much less substantial, but I just dread the idea of coming up with stuff to say about this shit. I will say though, while I've been finding plenty of supports mediocre, they're only really annoying to go through because I have to talk about them. If I were just reading them, it'd be no issue at all... as opposed to Three Houses, where even without playlogging, just looking at a full list of newly-unlocked supports makes me want to whine like a toddler. Okay, this support with Mozu and Hinata is... amusing for reasons I can't really explain. Didn't make me laugh, but it did make me smile. I gave all the remaining visitors a princess crown accessory. I've decided that I'm gonna give everyone the same thing each day, shifting to a new one the day after, just so I can actually make sure I'm not accidentally giving people the same thing repeatedly. If you have any requests for what you want me to send tomorrow, lemme know! First one to ask for something I actually have wins! ...Mozu's not doing that fantastic a job as a chef. She failed to get what's supposed to be her usual result 3 times in a row. I got standard, crisp, and... something bad, can't remember. But finally she got it right on the fourth try. Thankfully I have a lot of ingredients. ...Alright, it's still early in the day. I'll try to do another chapter. Day 7 Bonus: Chapter 12 Ah yes, this one. This is where you get Camilla. And your ships are besieged by a bunch of Ice Tribe warriors attacking you from a frozen sea. This map is hardly difficult, but fliers make it a lot less annoying if I remember correctly. ...Dakota says “The entire sea has been frozen solid”. ...And Flora takes sole credit for it. I still can't get over the fact that Ice Tribespeople can do shit like this when chilling a fever is apparently such a strenuous task for their heatbending powers that it risks being lethal. Ah yes, and the same thing happens here that happens in Birthright, where Flora has to betray you or the entire Ice Tribe dies. Funny how this has a completely, ludicrously different outcome this time when very little around it changes. Ah yes. Alright, so, you're stuck on these tiny boats while the enemy comes to you, which means that the more fliers you have, the fewer of your units have to be completely isolated from healers or defenders. I'm just bringing Mozu, Dakota, Felicia, their partners, and then Sakura and Azura. Mozu/Hinata, Sakura and Azura will go on the northwest ship, while Dakota and Felicia will go on the one immediately south of it. On the plus side, this means, unless I am very much mistaken, that we actually get a map where the enemy comes to us now. Awesome. Let's do this. Felicia's resistance is frankly absurd, though her magic isn't quite as high and she's struggling to kill some mages. Still, she's got enough attack power to take out almost any physical enemy with little assistance, so I'm glad I have her. “You smell like a goat!” is still one of my favorite “funny” quit quotes. It's got similar energy to “I! DO NOT! LIKE YOU!” from Genny in Echoes. I forgot how terrible the wyvern rider luck cap is. Dakota's already reached it, at 18, thanks to the luck stat boosters I gave him. Pity I needed to use that second one for the reliable crit defense against that Chapter 7 boss. OH SHIT. So I just casually decided to attack “Selena” when all of a sudden I'm blasted with some of the best fucking music in the game. I forgot how much Condemnation SLAPS. It just explodes right out the gate, and I adore it. ...The berserker got a crit, which makes me so grateful that I chose the guy with a full shield gauge to bait him in. Honestly, the fact that I have fliers that can fight on the sea makes this way less tedious than it should be. Lets me actually take the fight to these guys rather than waiting for them to slowly approach. Alright, the dragon veins showed up, so now I can finish this. I trust it goes without saying that Camilla's refusal to break “ara ara” character while lamenting being forced to kill her own brother is just another demonstration of how messed up she is as a character. Granted, the adds to the unintentional cheese factor for sure. ...The elevation in this map is completely fucked. The northeasternmost of your ships transitions terribly from the path, to the point that if you walk onto it from the lowest part of the upper ice walkway... it looks like you're just ghosting straight through the bow when you walk from the path onto the ship. All because they had to put some of the path in spaces that the ship itself almost completely conceals from view. It's some kind of freakish lovecraftian perspective screw. Apparently the bow of the ship, which you can't walk on, is considered a tile to the south and only appears to be the same tile as the ice path due to elevation and camera angle... but the second you get to the actual walkable main deck... suddenly that's on the exact same y axis as the ice path that's supposed to be to the north and down from it. Felicia's taking on the southern ship singlehandedly thanks to careful positioning and dual guards. Not nearly as impressive as that sounds. We've started running into promoted enemies. This seems a bit early for it... but given that it's the only way we can gain experience now, sure, why not? Alright. Just finished up. That got a bit stressful towards the end, and this is the first map where I feel making Mozu a dread fighter was a huge game-changer. There were many times where I'm not sure what I'd have done if I trained up someone else. Not that I think I would've lost, just that I literally don't know what plan I would have come up with if I had trained someone else. ...You know, looking at Beruka... I can't help but wonder if I'd have liked her more if she had been voiced by Connor Kelly-Eiding. I've seen her ability to do deadpan professionalism, both seriously and for comedy, in Heroes, with Catria and Marisa. She's really good at it. Looking at Beruka's face, I don't think a high-pitched voice necessarily has to come out of it. Food for thought. ...Yeah, uh... regarding the whole “can't speak about Valla” thing... while in fairness Dakota doesn't know people are allowed to say the word “Anankos” without dissolving in this timeline... this isn't the sort of plotline where ignorance mixed with dramatic irony really works out as a reason something bad happens. Especially not in what's supposed to be the golden ending. ...No explanation is given for why Flora... doesn't react the way she does in Birthright... except maybe seeing Dakota's sword glow maybe arguably giving her more confidence or something? Yeah, speaking of, this version of events only turns out to be the “right path” by sheer fucking luck, doesn't it? Like, Leo and Xander only join you due to events that happen entirely outside of your control. But I'll get to that when we get Leo and Xander. ...Yeah, and after a dumb scene with Camilla talking to the others... I think that's a good place to leave it for today. Stay safe, everyone.

Unfortunately Dual Guardsman doesn't actually do all that much. If you're doubling and counter-attacking everything that attacks you, even without dual guard + only every other attack will get through. Dual Guardsman doesn't actually change that, it just allows you to not double on one of those attacks and still get the dual guard for every other enemy. Plus, no support bonuses means he's not gonna be all that useful for Dakota in the long run.