Francesca

Forewarning, I'm very very gay for cute girls. So you might see a pattern here. Also it's rare for me to do efficiency or rank runs so I tend to go wild with the characters I use. Binding Blade Cath: Cute, and I really liked her attitude! Also she was an interesting challenge to use in the later maps, what with her having only 5 str and thieves not promoting in that game. Still, she did her best and evade tanked like a boss. Fir: See above. She might not be bad per sé but who needs another sword user, a squishy and volatile one at that with the cavalier trio and Dieck? Well to hell with that, she ended up becoming one of my main attackers. Blazing Sword Legault: Again, not exactly bad but he's unnecessary and actually worse than Matthew in HM. Still, purple is my favorite color and I like him so he was my primary thief once he arrived. Dart: You hold your head with your hands and scream as you see me use the Ocean Seal, plummeting my funds rank into the depths of Hades. I shrug and send Dart and Erk alone to fend several packs of enemies and watch them come out unscathed. Erk: I like snarky characters and up until Claude became a thing Serra was my favorite FE character, and their relationship is one of my favorite things in the franchise. He's usually been very consistent for me, and together with Priscilla, Serra and maybe even Canas they make sure everyone is good to go while blasting armored units to smithereens. Easy Stones L'Arachel: That's it, really. L'Arachel and her squad. Path of Radiance Mia: The person who got me into FE did quite a good job selling me on her and by the time I got to play this game I was already extremely biased. Admittedly, I got lucky because mine got very solid growths and as such she ended up in my 5 top units by the end of the game. Elincia: Imagine saving up 20k of bonus exp just so you can use a princess who can't deal damage to save her life in a final map. Radiant Dawn Ohoho baby. Micaiah: Yes indeed, I used Micaiah, in hard mode no less. Oh make no mistake, I suffered a great deal for my election. But the Dawn Brigade maps were already suffering anyway so it was just some extra challenge! Unfortunately she didn't go and become a beast like Elincia did so even with all the babysitting I ended up with something pre-promotion Rhys would have bested. But still, she's cute and I like her so that's the way things went. Tauroneo: Actually, what do people even think of RD Tauroneo? Armors are bad in this game too, yes, but I dunno. Either way he was instrumental for me, especially in Blood Contract. Mia: Read above. Also the Trueblade coat is so cool I just couldn't! Jill: I've seen a lot of people call Jill mediocre (and admittedly early on she's pretty meh) but I didn't care much for that, she was still one of my main characters and lord did she raise havoc when flying together with Haar. Lethe: Yes, RD Lethe is fucking terrible. Yes, I used her because cat girl cute. Moving on. (Also I breathe JillxLeathe) Heather: She's interesting because she's not bad but there's just many better characters in the game. Still, I used her in conjunction with Nephenee (sporting Provoke) and with Heather with Daunt and Imbue, the pair were a walking fountain of hate. It was one of my favorite combinations in my time playing the games of the saga. You can bet I had them reach support level A too. Sanaki: She's got her issues definitely but I enjoyed using her a lot. Naesala: Far and away the shittiest of the laguz royals, but I love this bastard to bits. And from Awakening onwards no unit could even be truly shitty so not much point in making this post longer.

I played EHM again this week, I can assure you, I'm not mixing anything up. From the very beginning you get slapped in the face with one of the oldest tropes in the book, the noble who didn't know it was of noble birth. From there on out the story continues and is not very...engaging. At all. The supports salvage the dialogue but the main story was blegh. Also Nergal was downright cartoonish.

I expected the boulders to be annoying but after a few tries I just cheesed it with Full Guard Haar + Aether Ike and no one else and just laughed my ass off as everyone crashed themselves into them and died. Good fucking map even if only because it makes you play differently or suffer. On topic, Night of Farewells made me cry tears of blood the first time I played the game, which was incidentally my first experience with the series. I was not prepared for the Berserk staff. I recently played EHM and it was much more manageable, though the floor tiles are still a pain in the ass. Arcadia. Just...Arcadia. I nearly dropped the game because of it. 11A for making it you recruit a Sniper with a damn Troubadour is downright mean too.

The Blazing Blade's story isn't superior to the things written on a cereal box. It's about as bland as a fantasy story can get. Generic dragon btw