QUINTESSENCE? DONT UNDERSTAND

[General Banzai]

And therefore, he created Ephidel and Limstella. I'm not sure if Sonia is actually a morph because in her death quote (also talking with Limstella) she mentions she is human or felt as a human...

She's a morph. Limstella tells her that she can't harvest Sonia's quintessence because puppets have no essence to harvest.

Either way I don't see how this solves any of the problems in FE7's plot.

[CT075]

Not that I don't agree with you on ~99% of these points, the game attempts to rationalize some things.

For example, the thing about the bandits STILL going after Lyn when she's at the border- Supposedly it's some kind of "blood brother"-type scenario or such, or like one of those "knights of the shining blade" or whatever where they're all like, "AN AFFRONT TO ONE OF US IS AN AFFRONT TO ALL OF US". Lyn killing just one member (over some petty misunderstanding, no less), was enough to rile them up just enough to go after her to the border.

That being said, to say a group of BANDITS would have that sort of camaraderie is pushing it.

I think there was a line somewhere (maybe ~45% sure) that said that Ephidel and Nergal only had so much power, and the energy needed to summon the Fire Dragon in the Dragon Gate chapter with Darin was too immense for Ephidel to warp away from it.

Speaking of Darin, he begged to defend Nergal. If he hadn't, I'm sure the boss would have been like Jaffar or Sonia or something.

On the thing about "WHY DOESN'T HE JUST EXPLODE EVERYONE", he was supposed to be greatly weakened from releasing an attack with that much power. It's implied in the scene with Limstella. (I don't remember the exact line, nor do I care enough to go find it, but I read the implication in his "almost all the quintessence is gone" as "I'm getting weaker because I used up too much energy in that last attack."

In his death quote, that was more of a translation failure. In the Japanese version, Nergal's death quote is, "Why? Why must I lose? More power... I must be...stronger... I... Why? Why did I... want power? ......Aerin*? ...Don't...under...stand... but... Gaa... Not like this... I will not die...like this. With my last breath... tremble...and...despair. Hwah ha ha... Ha...ha ha ha…"

Or something along the lines of that. I asterisk'd* the "Aerin" because I'm sure it wasn't that exact word. It was the name of his wife. From what I remember, the kanji for the two were very similar. And he was supposedly referring to, "with my last breath, I'm going to release all this quintessence I've gathered, and use it to open the Dragon's Gate", with the implication that he hadn't done this before because it would kill him.

Not that this explains why he didn't just murder everyone beforehand.

[Othin]

And therefore, he created Ephidel and Limstella to steal other people's quintessence (Linus, Brendan, Ursula, Lloyd, Sonia) for Lord Nergal. I'm not sure if Sonia is actually a morph because in her death quote (also talking with Limstella) she mentions she is human or felt as a human...

Nergal: Morphs have no quintessence. I've no use for a damaged puppet.

This is right before he kills her for pretty much no reason.

She's a morph. How she somehow remains completely unaware of that fact, and furthermore shows all the emotions morphs aren't supposed to be able to have, is another unexplained, likely impossible to explain aspect of the game just tears more holes in FE7's story. Granted, compared to the bigger holes in the story, which have grown so much there's almost nothing left, it's hardly significant.

Speaking of Darin, he begged to defend Nergal. If he hadn't, I'm sure the boss would have been like Jaffar or Sonia or something.

On the thing about "WHY DOESN'T HE JUST EXPLODE EVERYONE", he was supposed to be greatly weakened from releasing an attack with that much power. It's implied in the scene with Limstella. (I don't remember the exact line, nor do I care enough to go find it, but I read the implication in his "almost all the quintessence is gone" as "I'm getting weaker because I used up too much energy in that last attack."

Why would Nergal care about the begging of someone who had screwed up more than enough to warrant death by his group's rules?

If Nergal used up any significant amount of energy in that area attack at all, why did he do it? According to Athos, the only reason they survived was because Nergal didn't want to kill him, and that's supported by what he says later (despite making no sense), so why would he expend so much energy (and when he had so much more he could also expend) on an attack he had no plan to make work?

Edited July 26, 2011 by Othin

[Book of Ereshkigal]

It's Aenir, BTW.

I wonder what the point of Sonia thinking she was human? She might've deluded herself, but then why did she have emotions? To seduce Brendan? (That kinda makes sense, I guess...) I think Nergal kills her because her purpose (Brendan) was dead. She does survive the gaiden when you defeat her.

Edited July 26, 2011 by L95

[General Banzai]

Those are good points, CT075. I guess with the Lyn's Mode bandits I was less arguing about how unreasonable it was that they would keep hounding you but how boring it was to have to fight so many waves of random bandits which have no relevance even to the plot of Lyn's Mode.

I'm not sure about Ephidel and Nergal only having so much power. Athos, if you remember, manages to warp around without any trouble whatsoever; at one point he even warps your entire team to Lycia without saying anything as much as "ooh, that made me tired."

Darin begging to defend Nergal doesn't explain why Ephidel would let him, who is clearly incompetent, defend the throne instead of someone more reliable. Vaida begs Sonia to be given a second chance in Chapter 27 but Sonia refuses her.

I do recall the quote about Nergal losing power in the last attack. However, I feel he could have used such an attack at a time when Athos was not with Eliwood and friends to wipe them out with no problem.

Even in the translated deathquote, I'm not seeing where he implies to use his own quintessence to summon the dragons.

[Othin]

It's Aenir, BTW.

I wonder what the point of Sonia thinking she was human? She might've deluded herself, but then why did she have emotions? To seduce Brendan? (That kinda makes sense, I guess...) I think Nergal kills her because her purpose (Brendan) was dead. She does survive the gaiden when you defeat her.

Sonia was still a powerful mage and an important commander in the Black Fang. It's hard to imagine that being her only purpose, so much that she couldn't possibly have any more use after Brendan was dead.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Then why did he kill her? Even if she was injured she still could've been of use. Story wise, it might've been a better Idea for her to die in the gaiden instead of running off to Nergal and then him (seemingly) randomly killing her.

[Othin]

Then why did he kill her? Even if she was injured she still could've been of use. Story wise, it might've been a better Idea for her to die in the gaiden instead of running off to Nergal and then him (seemingly) randomly killing her.

Yeah, that's the thing. Some of this stuff happens the way it does because IS had to make it fit with FE6 and because they wanted to appeal to children, but some of it just happens for no reason at all.

[Quintessence]

It's Aenir, BTW.

I wonder what the point of Sonia thinking she was human? She might've deluded herself, but then why did she have emotions? To seduce Brendan? (That kinda makes sense, I guess...) I think Nergal kills her because her purpose (Brendan) was dead. She does survive the gaiden when you defeat her.

In fact, it was Limstella that dealt the "final blow" (quintessence stealing) to Sonia, Lloyd, Linus, Ursula and Brendan, of course, because all of them "survived" the battle. Sonia killed Brendan, Sonia got hurt, Limstella stole the warrior's quintessence and then she pretended to give Sonia a hand and make her withdraw, but she insisted to go on in the fight.

I'm not sure about Ephidel and Nergal only having so much power. Athos, if you remember, manages to warp around without any trouble whatsoever; at one point he even warps your entire team to Lycia without saying anything as much as "ooh, that made me tired."

I do recall the quote about Nergal losing power in the last attack. However, I feel he could have used such an attack at a time when Athos was not with Eliwood and friends to wipe them out with no problem.

Didn't Athos warped Eliwood from Nabata to Pherae (talking with Eleanora) and then to Bern?

And that last attack wasn't Athos's Forblaze (Fire Breath I suppose)?

Then why did he kill her? Even if she was injured she still could've been of use. Story wise, it might've been a better Idea for her to die in the gaiden instead of running off to Nergal and then him (seemingly) randomly killing her.

Sonia would've required too much quintessence to regain health, quintessence that Nergal wasn't going to give her since he was gathering it for the ceremony.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Quintessence

[Othin]

Didn't Athos warped Eliwood from Nabata to Pherae (talking with Eleanora) and then to Bern?

And that last attack wasn't Athos's Forblaze (Fire Breath I suppose)?

Sonia would've required too much quintessence to regain health, quintessence that Nergal wasn't going to give her since he was gathering it for the ceremony.

There's no indication that Athos warps them to Bern; all the story says is that they traveled there.

That said, it would have made sense for Athos to warp them there... or straight to where they needed to go rather than requiring them to trudge through Bern and risk being discovered and starting a war. Not to mention wasting time and risking getting killed. Another plothole.

Sonia can regain health from sitting on a throne, using a vulnerary, or being the target of a Heal staff, and that's just in-battle stuff. There's no reason she would need quintessence to recover. The same goes for Nergal at the end, when he apparently uses up a ton of the Black Fang's quintessence reserves to heal the 5 damage he took from Athos.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Othin

[Quintessence]

There's no indication that Athos warps them to Bern; all the story says is that they traveled there.

That said, it would have made sense for Athos to warp them there... or straight to where they needed to go rather than requiring them to trudge through Bern and risk being discovered and starting a war. Not to mention wasting time and risking getting killed. Another plothole.

Sonia can regain health from sitting on a throne, using a vulnerary, or being the target of a Heal staff, and that's just in-battle stuff. There's no reason she would need quintessence to recover. The same goes for Nergal at the end, when he apparently uses up a ton of the Black Fang's quintessence reserves to heal the 5 damage he took from Athos.

I thought morphs needed quintessence to recover since they aren't humans.

[General Banzai]

I'm not sure where in the game it's stated that morphs can only heal with quintessence.

Really though I'm certain it would take less quintessence to heal Sonia than to make a new morph to replace her.

[Othin]

I thought morphs needed quintessence to recover since they aren't humans.

She heals HP sitting on her throne, yes?

[Quintessence]

I'm not sure where in the game it's stated that morphs can only heal with quintessence.

Really though I'm certain it would take less quintessence to heal Sonia than to make a new morph to replace her.

I must say Nergal states he needs to gather quintessence. Therefore, there was not enough power and no wide source of it. As so, there was no possibility to replenish Sonia's health nor to create another morph.

She heals HP sitting on her throne, yes?

Obviously yes, but I think there must be a distinction between humans and morphs

Edited July 26, 2011 by Quintessence

[Othin]

I must say Nergal states he needs to gather quintessence. Therefore, there was not enough power and no wide source of it. As so, there was no possibility to replenish Sonia's health nor to create another morph.

So how did Denning come about?

And this doesn't change the fact that quintessence, being clearly not necessary to heal her, is not an issue here.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Othin

[Quintessence]

So how did Denning come about?

And this doesn't change the fact that quintessence, being clearly not necessary to heal her, is not an issue here.

I remember Denning being created by Limstella herself to invade Ostia, as well as the other morphs she created at the entrance of Dragon's Gate.

[General Banzai]

I remember Denning being created by Limstella herself to invade Ostia, as well as the other morphs she created at the entrance of Dragon's Gate.

That doesn't happen anywhere in the actual script.

[Othin]

I remember Denning being created by Limstella herself to invade Ostia, as well as the other morphs she created at the entrance of Dragon's Gate.

"This is a message from Lord Nergal. I await you on the Dread Isle."

Perhaps I should ask when. Unless it was before Sonia died, Nergal had enough to make more morphs after she died. And... it wasn't before Sonia died.

And quintessence still isn't necessary to heal morphs, so it still wouldn't even matter if he didn't have enough. Why are you even bothering to argue half a point?

Edited July 26, 2011 by Othin

[Quintessence]

It was just a presumption. Just trying to find an answer before so much unsolved mysteries.

[Hippoman]

A lot of points you bring up are there so the game is playable. If you really did have to fight Ursula or Jaffar, or hordes of the Black Fang in early chapters, the game would be nigh impossible. If Legault came as a 20/20 Assassin, he'd be incredibly overpowered.

And characters with no twists or turns to them? Sure, i'll give you Raven being an emo whiner, but really, most of them have a metric ton of backstory and personality then we get from most other games due to the support conversations. Renault is more developed than most main characters nowadays.

[General Banzai]

A lot of points you bring up are there so the game is playable. If you really did have to fight Ursula or Jaffar, or hordes of the Black Fang in early chapters, the game would be nigh impossible. If Legault came as a 20/20 Assassin, he'd be incredibly overpowered.

And characters with no twists or turns to them? Sure, i'll give you Raven being an emo whiner, but really, most of them have a metric ton of backstory and personality then we get from most other games due to the support conversations. Renault is more developed than most main characters nowadays.

Butchering your plot just to make the game playable should send warning signs that there's either something wrong with your plot or your game.

None of the other Fire Emblem games that I've played have had issues such as this. In Sacred Stones, Vigarde sends Glen and Valter after Eirika and Ephraim as early as Chapter 3. Petrine hunts Ike and friends in the early chapters of PoR. Narshen and Brunya are dispatched to kill Hector in FE6.

I'll accept that Nergal sent Ursula to reclaim Ninian and Nils. The real problem is that she is taken away from the fight due to unexplained "other business" and does not suffer the Fang's code for her failure in reclaiming the twins.

With Legault, why not make him simply a minor Black fang member? Why build him up as second in skill to the Four Fangs, especially since he knows absolutely nothing about the Black Fang?

Also, I specifically do not want to fight hordes of Black Fang. The Black Fang should not have hordes. The Black Fang is an assassin's guild. No assassin's guild should ever have hordes.

As for supports, giving a "metric ton of backstory" is useless if the character sucks. We don't want to read more about a character we don't like. Matthis is honestly a more interesting character than most characters in FE7. He doesn't have a metric ton of backstory but what we do see of him is well-executed and precise.

Edited July 26, 2011 by General Banzai

[Othin]

A lot of points you bring up are there so the game is playable. If you really did have to fight Ursula or Jaffar, or hordes of the Black Fang in early chapters, the game would be nigh impossible. If Legault came as a 20/20 Assassin, he'd be incredibly overpowered.

And characters with no twists or turns to them? Sure, i'll give you Raven being an emo whiner, but really, most of them have a metric ton of backstory and personality then we get from most other games due to the support conversations. Renault is more developed than most main characters nowadays.

No, the points are there so the game can happen a certain way, completely unnecessarily. The game would be perfectly playable if the Black Fang hadn't already been so close to capturing Nils and Ninian as early as Ch7, if Legault had just been a member of the Black Fang rather than apparently the sixth in command.

A reasonably cohesive story is not something that can simply be thrown away for the sake of gameplay, and playable gameplay is not something that can simply be thrown away for the sake of story. For an RPG, the two must be reasonably balanced. It's not some unheard-of feat; IS manages it just fine in most if not all other games in the series, but for FE7, it seems like they just didn't care.

As for Renault, it's difficult to call Renault developed when that development can only happen if you wait around for 30 turns in front of the Fire Dragon for no reason (or wherever else you choose to do it). He has a great story, but that story would never be seen in a reasonably normal playthrough. Furthermore, he's the only developed character in FE7; he can't carry FE7 on his own for the four chapters where he appears.

Edit: Dammit Banzai.

Edited July 26, 2011 by Othin

[Anouleth]

There is no reason for Lyn to be fighting Ganelon bandits—they even have the smallest shred of dignity in that they don't want to hurt women

So should she just let them kill her companions and capture her? Or capture Florina, her friend?

—and yet they persist to annoy her (and you the player) for three chapters, while absolutely nothing happens in the main plot of Lyn's Mode.

They travel towards Caelin. By your standards, nothing happens in the first book of Lord of the Rings, since all they are really doing is travelling towards Bree and then travelling towards Rivendell.

Now, as I said before, Chapter 1 is an acceptable chapter. In it we learn that Lyn is the heir to the Caelin throne, as her mother had eloped earlier with a nomad. Okay, this is acceptable. Nothing wrong here. The writing in this chapter is pretty good too; the dynamic between Kent and Sain is interesting and laden with nice quotes. However, for the story to go dead just as it started to get clanking is a slap in the face.

In the same way that a comedy cannot make every line a punchline, a dramatic story cannot make something dramatic happen in every chapter.

Chapter 6, for instance, is an affront to logic. Lyn finally arrives in Lycia and there are no more bandits to harangue her. Instead, Lundgren sends more assassins to kill her. She's staying in Araphen at the moment, which Kent and Sain describes as the second-largest city in Lycia, after Ostia. Lundgren's assassins, in all their intelligence, decide to burn down Araphen's castle. I don't understand how this is a good plan. Marquess Araphen would logically not be happy about this and perhaps retaliate against Caelin. His territory, after all, is the second-largest in Lycia, larger than Caelin. But Lundgren says "Political repercussions be damned!" and burns down the castle anyways. However, it's not clear how burning down the castle aids his assassination attempt. When an assassin finally does show up to kill Lyn, he is stopped by Araphen's captain of the guard, who was alerted due to the fire. So actually, the fire made their assassination attempt fail. So why did they set it? Why, too, did they take Marquess Araphen hostage? Again, Lundgren is set to be a new ruler, and forging political alliances would be a top priority. Wantonly attacking other territories and burning their castles down is not likely to gain him any friends.

Maybe these assassins are incompetent? Lundgren isn't commanding them directly.

Anyways, during the fight, a thief joins your team. Later it's revealed that he is an Ostian spy. So, not sure what he's doing stealing treasure from Araphen's castle, but whatever.

Thieves never make sense, in any Fire Emblem. For example, if you take over a castle, you should be able to just take what's in the chests in your own time (rather than doing it mid-battle). Certainly, it's no more odd than having to steal treasures from your own castles in FE5.

After the chapter Marquess Araphen yells at Lyn for bringing the calamity upon his castle. This is funny because it was actually Lundgren who ordered the assassins to attack his castle—a fact he even acknowledges in the script.

Yet he was dragged into their inheritance dispute. And then the woman asks him for help! He might very well be annoyed.

Chapter 7 and 7x serve to introduce us to the Black Fang, as well as Ninian and Nils. As we learn later, Nergal needs two things to bring dragons into the world. Remember this, because it'll become important later. First, he needs either Ninian or Nils to open the Dragon's Gate for him. Then, he needs a large amount of quintessence in order to call the dragons, which he can do himself. This is all explained in New Resolve, the chapter after Elbert dies. But anyways, since before he can call dragons at all he needs the gate to be open, acquiring Ninian and Nils would logically be his top priority in the world. This is funny, because he sends the Black Fang's weakest members to catch them. Now, later, in Eliwood's mode, when Eliwood starts fighting weak assassins who are sent to kill him, it makes sense because at that point Eliwood is hardly a threat and thus mobilizing the Four Fangs against him has no point. But acquiring Ninian and Nils is absolutely necessary for Nergal's plans to continue.

But villains ALWAYS seem to do this, not just in Fire Emblem but almost every RPG out there. Why don't Veld and Leidrick just kill everyone in Chapter 5? Why don't they deploy their strongest troops to stop the escape?

Now maybe he might have trouble explaining as to why Linus and Lloyd are needed to capture two random children, but he pretty much has Ursula and Jaffar in his pocket, so why not—Oh, wait. Ursula is there, in 7x. But she delegates the task of capturing Ninian and Nils to a subordinate, as she has "other matters to attend to." What matters? What orders does she have which are more important than capturing Ninian and Nils? Furthermore, if it was her responsibility to capture them, wouldn't she be held responsible if they got away? The Fang's law is that failure is punishable by death. Yet even though she fails to acquire Ninian and Nils, she's still alive and breathing one year later.

Maybe she thought that those troops would be sufficient for the job of killing a bunch of weaklings, and she had a job that was actually difficult to attend to.

And this takes me to Chapter 10, the final chapter of Lyn's Mode. It starts off with a simple mission: Kill Lundgren. And you do. No problems there. The real problem is how remorseless Lyn is after the battle; all the Caelin soldiers who were forced to fight against their will or else tricked by Lundgren's lies are disregarded, as though there was never anything wrong with killing them.

Sigurd never seems to have trouble with mowing down legions of soldiers that are tricked or forced. I don't think that most of the soldiers are forced to fight against their will though. If they really sympathised, they could switch sides, like Wallace did in the previous chapter.

Lyn tells Hausen that he must lives in order to take walks and listen to music, and everything is happy and right with the world. This entire game will come to suffer from this upbeat and cheerful attitude.

You make an upbeat and cheerful attitude sound like some sort of debilitating illness. Maybe everyone should be assholes realists like in DoF?

Hector, even, is kind of a psychopath, and I'll show you several quotes which indicate this. This game suffers from what I like to call "middle school logic." You see, after Kaga left the Fire Emblem development staff (he did this after Thracia, moving on to create the Tear Ring Saga and Berwick Saga games), Fire Emblem saw a notable shift in target demographics. Fire Emblem 4 and Fire Emblem 5 had been designed and marketed for a more mature audience; their plots involved incest and infanticide, tangled political webs, and in general more complicated and nuanced stories.

Fire Emblem 4 does not have a good plot. The entire second generation is "go kill super duper evil child murdering cultists". I haven't seen so much of FE5, but it is set in the same universe, so I wouldn't imagine that it's that different.

And don't forget that paedophilia, while you're at it! Sylvia is 14, Lachesis is 15, and Fin is 15 too!

Afterwards, the plots become much more simpler: The evil empire of Bern fights the good kingdom of Lycia; the evil assassin's guild of Black Fang fights the good kingdom of Lycia; et cetera. The character design was also much more mature; compare Fire Emblem 5's art to that of Fire Emblem 6. Gonzales has feet larger than his head. Allen, Lance, Saul, Klein, Wolt, and others, despite officially being in their 20s, appear like young children.

There's awful art from the Shouzou Kaga days as well.

Furthermore, Fire Emblem 6 stripped Fire Emblem of the gameplay mechanics Thracia had added, and instead emphasized the weapon triangle—the most elementary and easy-to-understand "strategic" mechanic possible. Instead of capturing and fatigue, which were elements that often made the game more difficult, the weapon triangle has always been considered something to help the player. Don't believe me? Then why did they remove in completely in Radiant Dawn's hard mode? Fire Emblem 6 tripled the hit bonus of Fire Emblem 5's weapon triangle and added an attack bonus, making mastery of the weapon triangle even more beneficial.

Capturing actually made the game easier. Capturing is what makes taking Galzus' Master weapons in Chapter 6 possible.

In addition, FE6 did not triple the hit bonus and penalty: it was only +/-15 in FE8. It's debatable whether the weapon triangle makes a difference in FE10: ultimately, I think it makes the game slightly harder since it weakens Axes (otherwise you'd just use Axes for almost everything... which is exactly what happens in HM). The weapon triangle encourages the player to use a greater variety of weapons, so I think it's a good thing.

Plus, there is some ridiculously broken shit they removed, such as infinite range staves, or ridiculously broken skills, or PCC that meant that certain characters could always critical on their second attack. Or easily abusable movement stars. FE5 had many ideas, but some of them were bad.

Fire Emblem 7, I feel, was geared towards children even more than Fire Emblem 6 was, perhaps influenced by the series's move to America. Ask yourself: When was the last time you actually read Fire Emblem 7's plot? Many, I assume, haven't read it in two or three years, perhaps not since they were in middle school. Back then you identified with the childish, constantly-joking characters, and did not see the numerous major mistakes in the plot and saw nothing wrong with Hector's statement that "All the Black Fang must die" (he says this one chapter before recruiting Legault, by the way).

Hector was emotional at the time: he had just seen his best friend's lover's corpse, which had been dumped in the woods near their location to "warn" them. It seems perfectly natural that he would be overcome with anger, and make statements that he would later go back on.

And that takes us to the main story of the game. When I start I'll cover Eliwood and Hector's version of Chapter 11 separately, and afterwards go by the Hector Mode numbering system for chapters. In Eliwood's Chapter 11, we learn that Eliwood's father has gone missing and he sets out on a journey to find him. Okay, fine. Nothing wrong there. He fights some more random bandits, and if we weren't already sick of random bandits from Lyn's Mode, there would be nothing wrong there, either.

How dare they distract us from the storyline with pointless gameplay!

Chapter 11 Hector is even worse. Hector flees from Ostia to meet with Eliwood and help him out. But why, why does the Black Fang send assassins to kill him? That doesn't make sense. They never explain why they're there. Do they want him dead because they don't want him to join with Eliwood and get Ostia involved? But… wouldn't killing him be even more likely to get Ostia involved? Even if they intend to make his body disappear like Wire says, Ostia has a large network of spies. Uther would at least investigate, and probably investigate Laus. Then wouldn't the plan for rebellion be ruined? Later, Oswin and Serra meet with Hector. According to Oswin, both of them were ordered by Uther to accompany Hector. But why would Uther ever send a cleric on such a mission? You didn't see Eliwood setting off with a collection of monks, did you? Not only that, but Serra? Serra, of all people, is who he trusts his brother's life to? Okay.

Maybe he hoped Serra would get killed.

In Chapter 12 we see Ephidel's attempt to scare off Eliwood. He hires a bandit from Caelin (at least, that's what his in-game info tells us) to kill Eliwood in Santaruz. He could have just sent Black Fang, god knows they have enough members, but I guess not. Also, attempting to scare off Eliwood with a collection of soldiers that Eliwood's one knight can solo without even needing healing is fairly pathetic. Otherwise, though, I guess there's nothing wrong with this chapter—oh wait. There is that whole incident with Hector murdering the Santaruz soldier. Let's see how this plays out.

Hector: Hey! What's going on over there? Looks like some rough business. You! Soldier! Are you just going to stand there and watch?

Soldier: Who do you think you are? This is Santaruz. What occurs here is no affair of any foreign lordling!

Hector: I believe I'm going to have to disagree with you. You see, the man they're attacking happens to be a friend of mine.

Soldier: A friend? What? ...Urrrgh!!

Hector: Sorry, but I'm in a hurry.

I think this segment should speak for itself. Hopefully now you begin to see just what's wrong with Hector's character. He has many more instances like this, and I'll point them out as they come. What's even worse about this scene is that afterwards Matthew basically high fives him for doing it.

I'd say something about feudalism and how Matthew is Hector's lord and master (and pretty gay for him as well), but I think the idea of sycophancy exists in all societies.

I don't really see how that's murder, either. It's never specifically mentioned that the soldier is dead, so Hector might have just decked him.

Apparently people just talk aloud about how they got saved one time by some guy named Matthew. There's absolutely no subtlety here at all in how you're supposed to recruit him; he goes out of his way to make it obvious.

It's almost like it's a clue to the player!

Chapter 13x is yet another random bandit chapter. Wonderful. Honestly, it's not even trying to cover up how filler it is. It serves only as a way to bring Merlinus into the story.

It's almost like it's an optional chapter!

You beat Erik and he tells you that Elbert supported the rebellion. This is mentioned again in Chapter 17 but is never resolved. Eliwood believes his father would never support rebellion and some things Elbert says imply that he maybe came to Laus to argue against it, but… if Elbert were truly against rebellion wouldn't the best thing to do be to warn Ostia? But if Elbert truly supported the rebellion why did Nergal imprison him? Hell, why did Nergal imprison him either way? If Nergal wanted his quintessence why not just take it and be done with Elbert? Keeping Elbert alive certainly doesn't work well for Nergal as Elbert releases Ninian and Nils later on, so… why?

This is why Elbert was imprisoned, presumably:

Erik:

My father and yours argued vehemently that day. Marquess Pherae always distrusted Ephidel. He tried to convince my father to send Ephidel and the Black Fang assassins out of Lycia. My father would not be persuaded, and Marquess Pherae left the castle. As you know, he then disappeared. I doubt he's still alive.

Elbert doesn't seem to truly be against rebellion, the argument was about the Black Fang, who Elbert rightfully distrusts.

My theory is that it goes this way:

-Ephidel manipulates Darin into agreeing with his plans

-Darin asks Helman for help

-Helman asks Elbert if he would lend his support

-Elbert visits Darin and promises to support him, but distrusts Ephidel and the Black Fang

-Elbert then takes his troops to the Dread Isle to prepare for the rebellion (I think)

-Chapters 11-17 occur

-Elbert discovers Nergal's plots and turns against him. All of the Pherae Knights are killed, but Ninian and Nils escape. Harken somehow also survives and is assimilated into the Fang. Elbert is captured, but not executed: Nergal seems to have been expecting to get enough quintessence from Eliwood and Co.

Let me ask you one question. Why does Darin invade Caelin? I can't find a single thing in the plot that even tries to explain this. It makes sense for gameplay reasons, of course—brings Lyn back in the story. But can anyone explain to me what justification Darin—or Ephidel—have for invading Crimea? To get quintessence? That's the best thing I can come up with, and that's not even hinted towards anywhere in the story. So Chapter 16 and 17 both deal with this nonsense plot development. Oh, and in case you didn't think this game was childish by now…

Crimea is in Tellius, silly billy! Have you seen what stats are like in Tellius? Crimea would mop the floor with Laus!

I don't really think that murder, betrayal, and rebellion is childish. I guess that for you who needs a steady diet of child-killing and incest and paedophilia to maintain his interest, it might seem so.

Here's a theory that explains it: A rebellion in Lycia would produce lots of quintessence. At the beginning of Chapter 16, Hector mentions that Bern has been acting weird and that Uther is worried that Bern might attack. If Darin took over a whole territory, then Bern might hear about it and take advantage of the weakness. Essentially, Ephidel is using Laus as a pawn to start a larger war. That's one explanation. And why Caelin in particular? It's small and weak. Ephidel just needs to conquer a territory: any territory. It doesn't need to be a major one, but to be defeated would destroy everything.

Eliwood: Those archers almost hit you. You avoided the arrows, but you lost your balance and fell.

Florina: And yet... I'm not hurt. I fell from such a height. What--

Hector: You got lucky. I didn't. You landed right on top of me!

Florina: Oh!

Eliwood: Hector saved you.

Hector: I saved no one! I simply gave her someplace soft to land! A bale of hay could have done more than I did.

Florina: Eeek! Oh... Oh, I'm so sorry!

Eliwood: You were lucky, Florina. If you had fallen on me, I couldn't have caught you. Or your pegasus either!

Hector: They fell one after the other! I couldn't get out of the way!

Better than Sylvia showing off her 14 year old breasts. Or Kein and Alva's dialogue.

Afterwards Ephidel stabs Hausen but likewise fails to kill him. Ephidel really can't do anything right. You then speak with Leila, an Ostian spy, who explains about Ephidel and Nergal. The game at multiple occasions (this being one of them) describes Ephidel and other morphs specifically as "creepy" and Nergal specifically as "mysterious." Just a note: if you have to explain to the player that something is creepy or mysterious, you're not doing it right.

She describes them as eerie. And if she didn't say these things, that would be weird. She doesn't know anything about Nergal, after all. She's never even seen him. From her perspective, mysterious is the perfect word. Ephidel never shows his full face and has glowing gold eyes. That certainly qualifies as "eerie".

That brings us to 17x. For starters, the Black Fang's role in this chapter is probably the only time in the entire game where they actually act like assassins. Instead of a giant army of expendables sent to overwhelm you with numbers, they send a small group of elites to kill you. That's good. That should have been the entire game, fighting small but powerful groups of enemies, not waves of weaklings. However, the fact that Damian appears out of thin air plotwise (ninety percent of this game is being somewhere and random enemies appear to fight you)

Yeah I mean the Black Fang has no reason to want you dead and to send people to kill you. They were just going to write you a stern letter.

The worst offense of this chapter, though, is why Kishuna exists at all. He's a sub-plot, I suppose, but a sub-plot who does not add anything new to the main plot whatsoever. He was apparently the only morph Nergal created with emotion. Okay. So why is that important? Why do we care?

How dare they put something interesting in the game that doesn't directly affect the main plot! How dare they put something in the game that you don't personally care about!

Finally we make it to the Dragon's Gate. Darin's defending it. Not Ephidel, not Limstella, not Jaffar, not Nergal himself, but Darin. Legault then appears and apparently he's second in skill only to the Four Fangs, which is funny because he's a Level 12 Thief. And despite Hector declaring that "every Black Fang must die," he recruits Legault here.

Again, Hector was emotional at the time.

I see why Nergal/Jaffar/Ephidel aren't defending, though. Nergal is setting up his ritual. Ephidel is presumably helping him. Jaffar is protecting Nergal. And also gameplay.

Angry, much? Anyways whatever. You beat Darin and Nergal starts his ceremony. He opens the Dragon's Gate by mind controlling Ninian and forcing her to do it. Remember this for later, because it becomes important around Chapter 30. Eliwood and friends then confront Nergal and—finally—Jaffar appears to stop you. Then immediately Ephidel shows up and says this:

Ephidel: Even among the Black Fang, this man is feared for his skill... You are no match for him, not even as a group. ...You've done well, Jaffar. That is all. Return to Bern and begin your next assignment.

So if Eliwood is no match for him… then why does… why does Ephidel order him to leave? Don't… understand… Anyways Ephidel finally dies because even though he has the power to warp anytime he wants he just stands at the gate when it explodes. I guess that's a fitting end to his incompetence. Poetic justice, if you will. He was so stupid and unable to do anything right that he didn't even save his own life when he had the power to do so. I especially love when, just before, Nergal orders Ephidel to stop Nils. Ephidel, instead of warping over the Nils and stabbing him or something, simply tells Nils to stop. He tells him. He says, "Nils! Desist!" That's really going to work.

I would imagine that teleportation is a good deal more difficult than that.

Elbert dies and Nergal takes his quintessence, which I suppose he couldn't have done earlier for whatever reason. The chapter ends and Eliwood sails back to Lycia. In Chapter 21 Ninian and Nils try to explain a lot of what happened earlier in the story. For starters, they explain the two things that Nergal needs to call dragons back to the world. He needs Ninian or Nils to open the gate and then a huge amount of quintessence to call dragons through the gate. Remember this, as the game completely disregards it later. So the rebellion was a way for Nergal to generate quintessence. Too bad he didn't really seem to care if it came through or not. Not to mention he nearly summoned the dragons anyways without starting the rebellion at all.

A lot of people died in between Chapter 11 and 19. I can see Nergal getting quite a lot of quintessence from that. Maybe, nearly enough to summon the dragons.

Random Black Fang assassins then appear because all this exposition without any fighting is a no-go.

You sound disappointed. Maybe you should be watching movies if playing the game is really such a pain for you.

Hector: It's Bern. We've received disturbing reports over the past few months. King Desmond is behaving oddly. If he sees even the slightest crack in Lycia's defenses, we believe he'll invade with all of Bern's might behind him. My brother has only recently become marquess, as well as head of the Lycian League. He can't allow another country to see weakness or discord.

Okay, so this explains why Uther's hands are tied, and why Ostia can't aid Eliwood. But there are other problems with this statement. For starters, later in the game the Black Fang tries to get Bern to start a war in order to get the quintessence that Nergal supposedly needed from the Lycian rebellion. He tries to do this by having the Black Fang assassinate Zephiel to put the King in their debt, and then use that debt to get him to invade a country. But if what Hector says is true, then why not simply assassinate Uther? Wouldn't that be a "crack in Lycia's defenses"? Notwithstanding of course later in the story when Uther actually does die and Bern does absolutely nothing. But I'll talk more about this later, when we actually get to the "Kill Zephiel" chapters. Right now Uther tells Eliwood and friends to go to Nabata.

Perhaps Uther's spies are wrong and Desmond isn't on the verge of starting a war. Nergal's sources of information would likely be more reliable. He might want a more reliable plan.

So in Chapter 23 Eliwood and friends travel halfway across the world without a single Black Fang getting in their way, despite the fact that in Chapter 22 Sonia ordered the Four Fangs themselves to find and kill Eliwood. So maybe the Black Fang just didn't know where Eliwood was when he went to Nabata, right? Wrong. Here's a line from Chapter 24:

Lloyd: …Can it really be them? I thought they were in Nabata!

So… the Black Fang knows Eliwood is in Nabata, and the Four Fangs are given the order to kill Eliwood. Yet they do nothing. Jaffar is even off doing some other mission, as seen in Chapter 24. And Lloyd and Linus are just standing around in the same village in Chapter 24, also. The next time you see Ursula she even HELPS your team. So yeah, the Four Fangs aren't too good at following orders. Bummer.

It might be that the reach of the Black Fang doesn't quite extent to barren deserts on the other side of the planet.

Meanwhile we're introduced to Pent, who is searching for a macguffin artifact in the desert which is never explained or revealed to the player.

That word does not mean what you think it means.

Paul and Jasmine are also joke bosses, in case you didn't think this game was childish enough yet.

In Chapter 24 you happen to bumble into the same village where Lloyd, Linus, and Jaffar are all present.

You then randomly fight them.

It's almost like they were waiting for you with a big army!

You can call it random, but it's not random. Linus and Lloyd have every reason to be trying to kill the shit out of Eliwood.

A middle schooler is going to find this entertaining, but anyone with more developed logic sectors would find it stupid, perhaps even distasteful.

Murdock's also in a random house in Chapter 24. Murdock likes to hide in random houses in this game. Then there's the villager who gives you an Earth Seal because he "has the feeling you'll help the prince." And then there's the question of the Lycian spy who gives you the Silence staff. Was this spy Harken? If it was, then that brings up questions as the personalities of the two characters seem completely different. If not, then it's just another random incident that is never explained.

Valuable items just lying around in an RPG? Unheard of!

Sonia: Pascal Grentzer, once and former count of Bern's Landskron. A man whose battlefield prowess was feared far and wide… Until you invited your citizens to your castle and slaughtered them. Stripped of your title, you fled the king and joined the Black Fang. Is that an accurate summary?

Isn't that the exact kind of person that the Black Fang TARGETED for its assassinations? Nobles who abused their power? Then how did he join the Fang? And furthermore, why did the Fang put him in prison? The Fang does not incarcerate its members, it kills them. So Pascal makes absolutely no sense and contradicts everything about the Black Fang.

Er, Leila already said that under Nergal, the morals of the Black Fang were abandoned and they started taking jobs targeting anyone. It makes sense they might let psychotic killers into their ranks. I don't know exactly what you mean about imprisoning him since I don't have access to the full script, but again, under Nergal, they might very well imprison someone rather than kill them in the hopes they could prove useful.

Because we haven't had enough chapters which can be described as "Random ______ attack." You see, other Fire Emblem games aren't usually like this. Sure, all of them have one or two random bandit chapters. Maybe one or two filler chapters. But generally the reason you fight people at a certain place is for a specific reason. There are few chapters where "random soldiers attack" when you're just walking somewhere. But that is a perfect description of what happens in Fire Emblem 7. You're going somewhere and random assassins attack. Or random bandits attack. Or random mercenaries attack. Half the maps make it seem like the combat is just a random thing thrown onto the actual plot that is going on in the chapter. This is doubly unfortunate since FE7's plot makes no sense.

FE9:

Chapter 1 to 3

Bandits

Chapter 4

Soldiers attack for no reason

Chapter 8, 9, 11

Random soldier attacks

Chapter 12

Laguz bandits

Chapter 13

Random soldiers attack

Chapter 17-1 to 17-3

Fighting more random soldiers

Chapter 18, 20 to 27

Fighting more random soldiers

Or what about FE4? Most of the castles in the game don't really add anything to the plot. You might as well skip them. Prologue to Chapter 3 is just fighting Country X that is being controlled by Manfroy. Aside from finding Diadora (which has to be the laziest bullshit in the world, a girl that just so happens to be the key to the entire plotline showing up out of nowhere and falling instantly in love with the main character) and her getting kidnapped, nothing critical to the overarching plot happens in those chapters. Hell, you could even extend that to Chapter 4. 2nd Gen is no better. You just go from castle to castle.

Yes, it is true that much of what happens in the actual gameplay doesn't really have much plot importance. Sadly, something interesting cannot happen every chapter.

Hector: Defenders positioned higher up would have a clear advantage. Even the best soldiers would be taken out with ease. Hm… Look at that. They don't have any sentries posted. They must have a lot of faith in their defenses.

Yeah, Bern manse has no defenders. Apparently the natural defenses are so great they don't need people actually defending the castle. But… Eliwood and Hector just walk in. So obviously these defenses aren't good whatsoever. Also, Pent says this in Chapter 24:

Maybe they're talking about the defenses at the border? In addition, I think that's a hint... Desmond wants the castle to be lightly defended so that the assassination of his son can go off without a hitch.

Sonia: Then you must use the refuse to your advantage. Treat them as equals, and they will only drag you down. That woman Vaida is a good example. She treats the trash as though they were people. That dooms her to failure… …She truly is a fool.

Compare to:

Vaida: There's been far too much talking. Let's get started, shall we? I've long hungered for someone to test my strength against. Make this last awhile, will you? I want to enjoy this!! Listen up, everyone! It's playtime! Come on out!! The palace has promised to stay out of this! Be as wild as you will!!

Obviously, there is a disconnect between what the game is TELLING us (Vaida treats the trash as though they were people) and what the game is SHOWING us (Vaida wants to kill stuff). This is why simply telling us that the morphs are creepy or that Nergal is mysterious is useless. We're more apt to believe what we see with our eyes than what the game tells us.

When she says "trash", she means the crappy unpromoted black fang goons. Sonia is not really a Black Fang member and has no regard for the lives of her soldiers: Vaida does, and that's borne in her support conversations. Vaida wanting to kill her enemies doesn't seem to have any bearing on that.

In addition, the game does not "simply" tell you that the morphs are creepy or that Nergal is mysterious. Ephidel actually does appear odd and is constantly manipulating people to his ends. Very little is known about Nergal early on, other than that he's powerful. So these descriptions are shown as well as told.

Yes, "you live… for now" is quite the heroic thing to say.

Well excuse Hector for not being a perfect pure paragon who always does the right thing 100% of the time and never makes any mistakes.

And Lyn just acts like there's nothing wrong with thinking like this. In fact, nobody does. To everyone in this game Hector's unnatural bloodlust, murder of random soldiers walking by, and desire to see everyone in the Black Fang dead is a perfectly normal thing to feel. Matthew even gives him that high five in Chapter 12 when he kills the Santaruz soldier. Only Oswin has every reproached him, and even then not very strongly. This is that "middle school logic" coming up again. The Black Fang is bad guys, and so it's perfectly fine to kill every single one of them with remorse. Only Eliwood ever expresses any hatred of killing, once and early in the story with his speech about "envisioning families". Compare to Sacred Stones, where Eirika from the prologue is wondering why there can't be a more peaceful solution than fighting.

And how many times does Ephraim express regret over the lives he takes? Or Ike? Certainly, killing Daein soldiers seems much worse than assassins.

Anyway, I can't be bothered to continue. I'd need to split it into two posts anyway. The plotline of this game is servicable in that it serves to shunt you from battle to battle and presents villains for you to defeat. That is, after all, the purpose of a plotline in computer games.

[Quintessence]

Renault's story must have taken part of FE7's main story line since his supports would've made the story a bit more consistent. For example, he implies he was Nergal's right hand assassin, because he sought to bring back his friend who was lost in battle; he says morphs do have souls, what can be a possibility why Sonia felt human; he also kills Lucius's father as a result of becoming inhuman under Nergal's orders.

But at the end Renault introduces himself as a mysterious Elimine Bishop.

[OrangeCrush980]

A couple of important notes:

- At the end of chapter 31x (or start of chapter 32 if skipped), Nergal mentions that he got one of the kid's dragonstone. With it, he's able to open the gate. Of course, its still not explained how he found it (maybe he silently stole it from Nils in chapter 30?) but its better than nothing.

- Nergal is insane and so not all of his actions are going to make complete sense. In Chapter 19xx, its implied that he's lost many of his memories and former personality due to pursuing dark magic. However, the ending of Chapter 19xx and his death quote imply that he still hasn't completely lost his soul and maybe deep down he knows what he's doing is wrong. At the very least, that last shred of humanity could explain why he hesitated to kill Athos and co. in chapters 29 and 30.

- Similarly, most of your complaints are based around the idea that everyone should be 100% competent, intelligent, strategic, and willing to fight and win. Also, remember that hindsight is 20/20. Once again, this doesn't explain everything but you have to cut them some slack here and there. For example, maybe it was just a lone wyvern rider that saw Eliwood in Nabata and Lloyd figured that it wasn't worth the effort to go over there especially since he doesn't trust Sonia anyway. Additionally, Jaffar probably hesitated to kill Zephiel because he was having second thoughts about the Black Fang and Nergal (remember that he betrays them in the very next scene).