grandjackal

I have voted for you to be an edgelord. I have not played an ogre game, nor have I even seen one. I think I rented an Ogre game WAY back, and it was like this weird RTS with tarot cards, or something. I was pretty young, and at the time it all kinda went over my head, so I wound up not playing it. Seeing this though, it looks like a GBA Ivalice game. The sprites look strikingly similar in style. Your other playthroughs were quite entertaining, so I shall continue to watch you work. This will be interesting, since I don't know a damn thing about this game, or Ogre in generall.

I do not recall anything after returning Reis to human form. I certainly don't remember the next pope fight. Must be WotL stuff. Man, that was stupid. That was incredibly stupid. Mindnumbingly stupid. WotL didn't do shit to make this game any better, it's just a translation that isn't on drugs with a bunch of advertisement cameos for better games.

Luck increasing growths basically makes things a wash. Your characters could just skyrocket because you got lucky and got a bunch of luck early on. The amount of number tinkering you would have to do to make that work in the typical FE fashion would be too much work for something that is ultimately silly. The history of luck is a weird one. In FE1, I recall luck's use being comically narrow (I think it factored into avoid solely against magic. I don't recall it even effecting crit avoid. Sure didn't feel like it did). FE3 it definitely was crit avoid, along with hit and avoid in all scenarios. However, you couldn't really depend on avoiding attacks in that game since hit never got low enough to be dependable, so it didn't feel impactful. FE4, luck was low impact since critting involved skills or a weapon. FE5, luck almost FE1 useless because combat in FE5 might as well be a game of yahtzee. It's basically been FE3 homogenized since FE6 onward, up until Fates decided luck needed to be really high in order to feel safe. Luck tends to be more a stat that's important to the enemy rather than your characters. Most characters have the luck to never get crit, and the few it do usually have comically bad luck, and it is their primary flaw. This is fine, because the punishment for low luck is to randomly restart the chapter because the game said so. No stat punishes you harder. Fates made that flaw a lot more noticeable. I wouldn't say it's useless, just that it feels like you never have enough of it. You need like 25 to feel safe. FE5 and 1. That's when luck was useless. Also yeah, luck skills. Very neat, and I like them. Another reason luck isn't useless.

I vote to keep it normal. Going to video may make it feel wildly different and lose it's charm.

Adremmalach obliteratomizes Zalbaag with a thought, then doesn't do the same with you. I'm counting that.

Meliadoul was just a faceless nuclear bomb. Quick, shoehorn a random fight that doesn't even evolve her character! I used to be kinda ok on this game, mostly on gameplay and atmosphere. The story sucked, but I wish we could have another FFT that had this atmosphere instead of cutesiness. I then stopped liking the gameplay, and not much is left. This playthrough has been entertaining, but it's left a sour taste in my mouth. I just want an intrigue Ivalice story that doesn't involve being pulled from a trash can. Is that so wrong?

Hell yeah it is, quintessential SNES experience. Tragic it never got localized during the SNES's time. FE3 probably more than any other FE is relaxed enough that you can play it any way you choose. Some characters aren't great, but I wouldn't say anyone's straight unplayable. Book 2 of FE3 is a bit more of a challenge, but not extremely so. As for secrets, I wouldn't say there's any off the top of my head. Just be sure to collect everything that is obvious, and you should be fine.

I would think trying to steal while getting your ass obliterated would be my first issue with trying to steal Elmdor's stuff.

So now I believe Rude Knight joins you, right? This is the next bit of why I dislike this game playing it straight through like I did. Once these knights join, the effort to seriously training your generic mooks feel pointless. When you are playing that barebones where you need so much JP to learn certain skills, it really feels like it takes too much time for generics to get anything worthwhile in later classes. By the time you would, the knights start joining. Most with stupid good abilities already learned, and can learn more stupid good abilities. Also, a little pattern in lategame maps that I'm sure you're starting to notice around now. Don't maps feel smaller now? (PS: I'm a dork that read through your FFTA2 playthrough. Lots of fun, enjoyed the bits where you roleplay wrote as other members in the force. Actually makes me want to do the same, though I'm FAR worse at making a playthrough entertaining. Tried several playthroughs, and I'm too long in the tooth/unable to be concise on choosing what details to talk about. I also just dislike emulation).

Wow, really? I never played WotL version. They really just added another fight to shoehorn Argath again for no reason? Also, that really does point out how stupid the Faith/Brave design is. In order to make a boss harder, you have to actually go against things that make sense in the story. Part of me actually wonders though what it would have been like if Argath wasn't killed at the fort. Maybe he was given that power to lead there (which makes no sense as you pointed out) for reasons that could have been explained later (he could have been a scapegoat. He probably was, but it's not even mentioned). He gets used as a scapegoat, Argath becomes an even more bitter resentful hateful prick, and then works as an antithesis to Delita. Not against Delita specifically, but more like trying to attain the same goal on Larg's side of the field, but in a much worse way (and still earns him a place in history as one of the shittiest people). Hell, he could have been the guy who introduces us to Lord Killstolen, so that portion of story isn't just suddenly thrust into your face like it was. Maybe he continues playing Dycedarg's patsie, where he gets the chance to backstab Larg. The templar go to him and plant the idea to set it up to make it look like Dyce's plot due to the fungal poison. Then maybe his appearance here would make sense maybe. Instead of "the bishops made me a spooky ghost! I have no faith despite this, and I exist solely to shit in your cereal! Boss fight time!". As it stands, Argath isn't a sympathetic character. He's not a character worth revisiting after he dies. He's so forced here that it's hilarious. It's weird to think how Argath's character has potential since he is unique in this weird world. Everyone has some sort of motive or goal. Argath is aimlessly spiteful. After being given a chance to play with royals again, only to be treated as a scapegoat? At that point, he would probably just hate everybody, and that could lead to interesting story development (that I wouldn't trust these writers with, seeing as how horribly they handle anything even remotely dark). I dunno. I'm probably very wrong. Just so surprised they brought back Argath for something so pointless.

Yeah, imagine doing this doing 0 sideventure. No tavern jobs, no grinding, nothin'. This fight is literally "Not using Cid? Die.". It was exactly this fight where I stopped giving a shit. In fact, the fight often starts with Elmdor exploding most of my team as the first action of the fight. I then have to pray dice damage rolled low, and people didn't succumb to vampirism. Then I have to hope they and Cid can combine to do enough damage to kill Elmdor in response. If they don't, I'm dead. This was the fight that convinced me never to play FFT like this ever again. Or, maybe just never play FFT again. Ivalice has better games.

Oh, not using Orlandu are you? Oho. Ohohohohohohohoho.

Well, I have a thought on a sort of starting chapter. It would be based on something like

A great and massive nation fractured and in ruins after some catastrophic civil war. The main character's major motivation is to unite these fractures once again, because unity brings greater strength and safety. Not restoring the old kingdom, but forging a new one. One thing about Fates is that originally it was supposed to be If (I believe the Japanese version is still called If?). It was sold as being about choices, a constant chain of "what if". It was disappointing when ultimately were are given basically two choices (one of which has no real bearing on anything). Also, Corrin is supposedly an avatar of us, yet there is no opportunity to even minorly roleplay. For a character that supposedly represented us, he clearly wasn't us. If they want to have that sort of thing, they need to put in the actual effort. I feel like the above would leave enough room for this to happen. You could be the peaceful negotiator who unites hearts and minds, but is taken advantage of and backstabbed at every turn. You could be the ambitious manipulator who will play both sides to get what they believe is the ideal outcome, only to have your methods exposed, and the reigns of your kingdom are put in the hands of people you wanted away from it the most because you are the one that opened that opportunity to them. You could be the subjugator, who believes that peace isn't a choice, only to have your kingdom implode on itself much like the old kingdom did. Maybe you enforce neutrality between all these nations because the only way for there to be peace is when everyone leaves each other alone. Arching idea of the story is the impossibility of chasing perfection. Might be a bit sour way to end it, but I find such things more interesting. Would also bring up interesting moments. Let's say one of these tribe nations worship a war god (I'm ok with dragons or gods, as long as they aren't the big bad or the overarching cause of all the ills in the story/the world. That's gotten old). Lets say you subjugate/recruit some other nation first, and this nation hates the war god ("Your god is why the old kingdom fell in the first place! You and your god wanted this!"). So it comes time to try and recruit the war god nation, or subjugate them, or simply wipe them out. Would you go that far for peace? Slay one tribe so another can be happy? Or, do you subjugate them, and have them make peace which opens the possibility of distrust and ire having them fight eachother anyways? Maybe you leave them be, and your allied nation turns your back on you because their hate is that deep. A war god tribe is maybe a bad example, but you get my point. This also leaves open room for flavor. Though the most obvious comparison would be to the fall of Rome into the supposed dark ages, you could have this happen in any setting because as a fantasy world, we are not bound to our own history. One thing that I liked about Fates is that Hoshido was clearly a different place with different customs and culture (even if not totally fleshed out). Was a nice departure from older games being clearly European nation vs other European nation. It shows that IS is capable of at least doing that. Could have it based on dynasty era China. Russian era that lead up to Peter the Great. Feudal era Japan. The kingdoms of Africa. Ancient Egypt. Fire Emblem story-wise has room for a lot of potential if effort is put into it. It's made good on less, but there's potential for grander things. Maybe a bump to light mature rating would be worth it. While IS hasn't exactly hit the board on writing lately, from what I hear Echoes's additional writing is good? I know Echoes is based on very familiar territory, but if what I hear is true, then there's no reason to be full on pessimistic on the thought.

Adding three 0s to the team still comes out as 0 is the primary problem here. The only difference in fielding one or three is that you get a power ranger squad that does nothing instead of one do nothing unit. They can break dance all they want, we lose more than we gain in using them and the gain is 0. I say this more because I've tried this before because I get in over my head more often than not. I'm more familiar with the FE6 armors than any reasonable person should be. I use them regularly at the cost of dignity and self respect as basically everyone here knows. People know these units are unplayable, but I understand the intricate and subtle ways that Wendy and her ilk are walking trash cans. It's like the Chinese Room, except instead of a language, it's garbage. I know this isn't exactly encouraging or helpful dialogue, but I have legitimate regrets over this. There are more constructive things that could be talked about on the list. For example, the Fir credited with boss kills thing you brought up.