Falchion deserved much more

[Jotari]

So this probably applies to Mystery of the Emblem too, but I haven't played that, so I'm just going to rant in this sub forum.

Falchion sucks in Shadow Dragon (and is only better in New Mystery in the fact that it's not optional). It has a measely 10 might, less than a silver sword. It can restore hp, but that's not an auto regain effect like Alm's Falchion, you actively need waste your turn to use it. And it doesn't even restore that much! 10HP is nothing by end game. Gradivus gives a full restore, why couldn't it at least work like that? This is the first legendary weapon in the series, it deserves so much better! And it's not like it was useless in the first game, in that game it protected Marth from all melee weapons, which sounds insanely good. Couldn't they have at least have it give Marth defense and res boosts to mimic that idea? The only thing noteable about Falchion is that its effective against dragons and has infinite uses, but really, it comes too late in the game for those infinite uses to be worth much, worst of all, you have to give up an item that lets you have infinite uses of any weapon to get it! I'm pretty sure you could forge a wyrm slayer to have more might, less weight and a crit chance, and then just keep the Star Sphere and boom, literally  have a weapon that's better than the one the first game was named after (and if you're worried about that 10hp heal, just carry a Vulnenary). Of course personally, I always preferred to give the Star Sphere to Tiki and let her wreck havok with infinite Divine Stone uses (and then kill and revive her with Aum to get Nagi, oh she also hands you a Falchion that's supposedly meant to be worse, but it's not like that makes a difference since Anri's Falchion sucks so much in the first place).

I know this probably isn't news to anyone, but I just felt like ranting a bit. Playing through the first game at the moment, and just excited to see that Falchion that actually does something.

Edited March 19, 2018 by Jotari

[dannyquil]

Yeah, I was hyped for Falchion in Shadow Dragon because FALCHION, but I got it and the only thing it was good for was Manakete slaying in the last 2 chapters and unbreakability. It also had annoying Legendary flashes even though it was unbreakable. Was it because it was a late-game weapon? In Awakening, Chrom has the Falchion the whole game so obviously no flashes (Awakening had no Legendary extra stuff anyway), but after about 10 battles the thing got annoying. No custom animation either :(

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, dannyquil said:

Yeah, I was hyped for Falchion in Shadow Dragon because FALCHION, but I got it and the only thing it was good for was Manakete slaying in the last 2 chapters and unbreakability. It also had annoying Legendary flashes even though it was unbreakable. Was it because it was a late-game weapon? In Awakening, Chrom has the Falchion the whole game so obviously no flashes (Awakening had no Legendary extra stuff anyway), but after about 10 battles the thing got annoying. No custom animation either :(

Oh yeah! No custom animation! That is actually probably my biggest gripe. He always got a custom animation in all the previous games. All the lords got custom animations of some sort for their legendary weapons and they useually look awesome. But here, it's the same weak stab Marth does for every other non levin sword in the game.

[Punished Dayni]

Falchion in the first game made Marth nearly invincible, allowing only dragons to damage him. It's too OP in DD, and then it's a disappointment in the SNES and DS era. Of course.

Lack of custom animation is more of a general DSFE issue though. It kind of feels like the DS period was more about getting it done and not worrying so much about bells and whistles, especially for SD.

[omegaxis1]

I'm sorely disappointed as well. I mean, in New Mystery of the Emblem, Falchion is MUCH more useful because the chapter after this is packed full of dragons, where Falchion would shine the most. 

It is upsetting that they don't even try to give Falchion stat boosting effects, when really, Falchion is supposed to in fact be like the Jugdral Holy Weapons according to Kaga. Aura as well actually. And in Genealogy and Thracia, those Holy Weapons give immense stat boosts. So why doesn't Falchion give those massive stat boosts as well? Make Falchion give like a +15 to Strength and Speed or something. Make Marth be absolutely gamebreaking. 

Even the Shield of Seals is not even showing nearly as much power as it should have, as Marth should by all means be a demi-god, having not just the stat boosting effects of the Starsphere, but also several effects of the Light, Geo, and Lifesphere, since literally all those orbs are embedded into the Fire Emblem. But nope. They nerfed the hell out of Falchion and the Shield of Seals.

[SMinairo]

Yeah, there are quite a few parts of the DS remakes that could be improved, from supports to animationS, going through "details" as important as Falchion and the Shield of Seals implementation, that's why I want another remake of FE3, even if I know it likely won't happen.

[omegaxis1]

13 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

Yeah, there are quite a few parts of the DS remakes that could be improved, from supports to animationS, going through "details" as important as Falchion and the Shield of Seals implementation, that's why I want another remake of FE3, even if I know it likely won't happen.

If they are gonna ever remake those games, I would not mind if they both done together and add many new features including support conversations. And it should be for a console rather than handheld, so they could fit even more content in it. And also make it so that the Book 1 Shadow Dragon one does NOT require you go kill your characters so that you can access gaiden chapters.

[Jotari]

54 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

Yeah, there are quite a few parts of the DS remakes that could be improved, from supports to animationS, going through "details" as important as Falchion and the Shield of Seals implementation, that's why I want another remake of FE3, even if I know it likely won't happen.

You could potentially do some interesting plot mechanics by refgrouping the games again. Like having perma death protrude throughout both books. So if you kill Jeorge in book 1, a generic Sniper will attack you with Pathria in book 2 instead. Regarding the Falchion specifically, I'd make it so it increases Marth's defense by 5 and resistance by 10 and restores his HP by 5 at the start of every turn when equipped . That would mimic the purpose of turning Marth into a tank like in the original game without making it too broken. Oh, also give it a crit rate too.

Regarding the Shield of Seals, I'd instead just make Marth promote when he gets it. It's probably give Roy a run for his money for late promotion time, but it's better than the nothing promotion he has now. If skills are implemented in the hypothetical remake, I'd probably give him something like Pavise to imply he's actually using the shield.

39 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

If they are gonna ever remake those games, I would not mind if they both done together and add many new features including support conversations. And it should be for a console rather than handheld, so they could fit even more content in it. And also make it so that the Book 1 Shadow Dragon one does NOT require you go kill your characters so that you can access gaiden chapters.

Shadow Dragon remake Gaiden requirements.

Athena's Chapter: Marth's here because someone came to him about their pirate troubles. So visit a village on the western edge of chapter 5

Horus' Chapter: Give a turn limit in Chapter 12. The idea is that if Marth liberates Archanea quickly enough, he has time to deal with this problem. Otherwise he's forced to delegate it to someone else while he presses on with his journey.

Etzel's Chapter: Marth visits this place specifically to raid it for good weapons, so I'd do something interesting for this one. Assign a worth to every item in the game and if the sum total plus Marth's money is below a certain value, then you unlock this chapter. In spirit, this is what the Shadow Dragon chapters were doing. In practise, it just means you miss out on this chapter if you're hoarding all your Silver weapons.

Ymir's Chapter: Simple enough, you unlock it if you defeated Camus. Slight modification to the story to suggest the Grust Soldiers are doing it out of revenge, more so than just random desperation.

Nagi's Chapter: I'd actually make this one harder to get by making it so you need to not have the Aum staff (either by losing it or using it before the chapter ends). It feels a bit strange that you can kill Tiki and then immediatly revive her to bipass the need to lose her. Alternatively, that problem can be circumvented by making Aum work like Bifrost and only be useable in the chapter the character died in (which just makes more sense, if someone dies in the prologue, how the hell does Marth revive them in Dolhr, hundreds of miles away and after several years).

I'd also like to add a few more Gaiden chapters that don't recruit new characters, but do expand on the existing characters. Like a Gaiden focusing on Hardin. He's such an absolute nobody in Shadow Dragon, which is just weird considering how important he is to the sequel.

As I've complained about before, I'd also change some of the chapters in Book 2. Specifically the ones that are just reused maps from Shadow Dragon. In the modified version, half the map would be the same, while the other half would be new, to reflect that Marth is attacking the place from a different direction than in Shadow Dragon, similar to The Scarlet Swordsman which has half of the Sable Order at its top. Additional changes I would make, have Pegasi promote to Falcon Knights by default and have a tier 1 Wyvern Rider class (Minerva can be a tier 1 growth unit then, as I find she's a bit underwhelming as is). Speaking of Minerva, have her move towards, but not attack you in her recruitment chapter, like in the first game. She's meant to be pretending to fight you, having her just idle at the top of the map isn't all that convincing. Have Ballisticians in Book 2 because they're just plain fun (not sure how many chapters would need to be reworked to justify this). A cameo from a Gaiden character that's not the Whitewings or Sirius.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Jotari

[MCProductions]

This is just another reason why you should just play the far superior remakes over the adaquete one, Shadow Dragon, and the actually downright offensive atrocity, New Mystery

As stated earlier, the DS games nerfed the hell outta Falchion, for good reason in 11's case considering 1's made you *literally* invincible unless you were fighting a dragon or ranged unit. I assume 12 only kept the nerfed to hell stats for consistency with 11 which if that was the case, why the hell wasn't the Starsphere allowed to be consistent reeeee. but it wouldn't be the first terrible decision FE12 made in regards to balance tweaks regardless. 

[omegaxis1]

43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Nagi's Chapter: I'd actually make this one harder to get by making it so you need to not have the Aum staff (either by losing it or using it before the chapter ends). It feels a bit strange that you can kill Tiki and then immediatly revive her to bipass the need to lose her. Alternatively, that problem can be circumvented by making Aum work like Bifrost and only be useable in the chapter the character died in (which just makes more sense, if someone dies in the prologue, how the hell does Marth revive them in Dolhr, hundreds of miles away and after several years).

While I liked some of the chapters you gave, I feel this one I have concerns with, due to how in New Mystery, it seems to confirm that Nagi is non-canon in Shadow Dragon, and for good reason. So perhaps this one particular chapter should no longer exist just for the case on how it's not canon anymore. 

Also, no, I don't like Aum Staff being restricted like the Bifrost. It was completely stupid in Fates. 

43 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I'd also like to add a few more Gaiden chapters that don't recruit new characters, but do expand on the existing characters. Like a Gaiden focusing on Hardin. He's such an absolute nobody in Shadow Dragon, which is just weird considering how important he is to the sequel.

That is true. I mean, Hardin never even seemed to indicate how he had feelings for Nyna or jealousy for Marth. In New Mystery, there was one case where Hardin appeared in the bonus chapter that Minerva was also in, which is due to how those bonus chapters are from BS Fire Emblem. 

It would be interesting if a few Gaiden chapters were not about Marth, but instead had to have a small legion of characters go there instead.

And these gaiden chapters could also have an effect in the New Mystery story. 

I'd also like cases of seeing Nyna and Camus' relationship and how the two even fell in love in the first place. And maybe also about a case of what befell Nyna after ceding the throne to Marth. Some speculate that Nyna chased after Camus. I'm writing a fic about such case.

44 minutes ago, Jotari said:

As I've complained about before, I'd also change some of the chapters in Book 2. Specifically the ones that are just reused maps from Shadow Dragon. In the modified version, half the map would be the same, while the other half would be new, to reflect that Marth is attacking the place from a different direction than in Shadow Dragon, similar to The Scarlet Swordsman which has half of the Sable Order at its top. Additional changes I would make, have Pegasi promote to Falcon Knights by default and have a tier 1 Wyvern Rider class (Minerva can be a tier 1 growth unit then, as I find she's a bit underwhelming as is). Speaking of Minerva, have her move towards, but not attack you in her recruitment chapter, like in the first game. She's meant to be pretending to fight you, having her just idle at the top of the map isn't all that convincing. Have Ballisticians in Book 2 because they're just plain fun (not sure how many chapters would need to be reworked to justify this). A cameo from a Gaiden character that's not the Whitewings or Sirius.

Maybe also adjust how some other cases like change how it feels that Kris is getting cockstroked every time and Marth is so overly reliant on him. Kris may not have been the main character, but he felt way too central of a focus. The story should be about Marth. I'd like more Marth support conversations to develop him. Also, as someone mentioned to me to reddit, it seems like the entire assassination guild that Ememiya has doesn't even make sense, because there are only 3 wars in Archanean history (not including the dragon war here), being the War of Liberation, the War of Shadows, and the War of Heroes. The War of Liberation took place over a century before the War of Shadows took place. And the War of Shadows takes place three years before the War of Heroes. So nothing about it suggests that Eremiya's orphanage that she had could be been destroyed in the war, because it doesn't make sense.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

While I liked some of the chapters you gave, I feel this one I have concerns with, due to how in New Mystery, it seems to confirm that Nagi is non-canon in Shadow Dragon, and for good reason. So perhaps this one particular chapter should no longer exist just for the case on how it's not canon anymore. 

Nagi's chapter was obviously never canon as it depends on the factors of Marth failing in his quest to get Falchion and Tiki being dead. That obviously is never going to gel with the plot of Mystery of the Emblem. Just like it's canon that Marth recruited Arran and not Samson, or that Frey was the sacrafice. Just because things are accepted to happen one way, doens't mean the option should be removed. Besides, even though Marth doesn't recognise Nagi, he still finds her familar, suggesting that his potential to have met her in some universe existed.

[SMinairo]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

You could potentially do some interesting plot mechanics by refgrouping the games again. Like having perma death protrude throughout both books. So if you kill Jeorge in book 1, a generic Sniper will attack you with Pathria in book 2 instead. Regarding the Falchion specifically, I'd make it so it increases Marth's defense by 5 and resistance by 10 and restores his HP by 5 at the start of every turn when equipped . That would mimic the purpose of turning Marth into a tank like in the original game without making it too broken. Oh, also give it a crit rate too.

Regarding the Shield of Seals, I'd instead just make Marth promote when he gets it. It's probably give Roy a run for his money for late promotion time, but it's better than the nothing promotion he has now. If skills are implemented in the hypothetical remake, I'd probably give him something like Pavise to imply he's actually using the shield.

I'd be fine with the Shield of Seals making him promote, it would make sense in game and he ought to get an official one, and Falchion giving defensive buffs is fine too, but depending on the game growths I'd also lower it's weigh a bit, I remember something about Falchion making the enemy unable of counter, but I don't remember if that was in the originals, SD or if it never happened and I'm just remembering bad.

[omegaxis1]

5 minutes ago, Sbuscoz said:

I'd be fine with the Shield of Seals making him promote, it would make sense in game and he ought to get an official one, and Falchion giving defensive buffs is fine too, but depending on the game growths I'd also lower it's weigh a bit, I remember something about Falchion making the enemy unable of counter, but I don't remember if that was in the originals, SD or if it never happened and I'm just remembering bad.

No, don't do that. Remember that Marth only gets the Shield of Seals in chapter 20, and only if you've managed to get all the Starsphere Shards by chapter 14. And you'll only be left with 4 chapters left. That just isn't enough time. Instead, I recommend that the promotion happens right there, at chapter 14, where after discovering the true purpose of the Fire Emblem, Marth promotes, or Gotoh entrusts Marth with the power and responsibility. 

[X-Naut]

I can envision Marth's Falchion getting its own Scendscale which automatically crits dragons, allowing him to player phase nuke dragons. This art would require the Binding Shield to use, so while you can't cheese Medeus in Book 1 with it you'll have a more reliable way of facing off against Book 2 Medeus, especially if it's the version with speed.

Otherwise I don't think the Falchion needs much, although the Binding Shield could do for a few watered down Sphere traits.

[Kysafen]

Welcome to 9 years ago, where the hopes of playing a version of FE1 with all the modernized mechanics and visual/audio aesthetics of the GBA games were mercilessly dashed in favor of crap mechanics and poor polish.

I'd say things like "the Falchion being underpowered in lieu of a forged wyrmslayer is a symptom of the broken forging system" or "even if Marth did get a custom animation it would still look awful because the visual design is awful" or "the hitrate calculations are bullshit why would you even use terrain if the enemy hitrate is going to be over 50% regardless" or "the map is way too damned zoomed in for how large the maps are", or "why the fuck do we care about these characters if 95% of the cast gets zero dialogue beyond their recruitment convo and death quotes", or "what the fuck were the designers smoking when they chose what the gaiden chapter requirements are", but it's pointless. Even if you were to fix all of those things, you wouldn't even have Shadow Dragon anymore. It'd be a different engine, and mechanically, a different game.

Thracia 776 may have its bullshit reinforcements and guide-dang-it moments, but Shadow Dragon is just shameful.

The biggest problem to have with Shadow Dragon is to play it.

Edited April 5, 2018 by Kysafen

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Kysafen said:

Welcome to 9 years ago, where the hopes of playing a version of FE1 with all the modernized mechanics and visual/audio aesthetics of the GBA games were mercilessly dashed in favor of crap mechanics and poor polish.

I'd say things like "the Falchion being underpowered in lieu of a forged wyrmslayer is a symptom of the broken forging system" or "even if Marth did get a custom animation it would still look awful because the visual design is awful" or "the hitrate calculations are bullshit why would you even use terrain if the enemy hitrate is going to be over 50% regardless" or "the map is way too damned zoomed in for how large the maps are", or "why the fuck do we care about these characters if 95% of the cast gets zero dialogue beyond their recruitment convo and death quotes", or "what the fuck were the designers smoking when they chose what the gaiden chapter requirements are", but it's pointless. Even if you were to fix all of those things, you wouldn't even have Shadow Dragon anymore. It'd be a different engine, and mechanically, a different game.

Thracia 776 may have its bullshit reinforcements and guide-dang-it moments, but Shadow Dragon is just shameful.

The biggest problem to have with Shadow Dragon is to play it.

I like Shadow Dragon :( I probably would have even been satisfied with give the Falchion decent might instead of being on par with a generic silver sword (oh and the custom animation, even if it looks shit, I still want the custom animation).

[omegaxis1]

You know, it sucks when we have it being said that in the lore, Falchion is said to be an incarnation of Naga herself. Meaning that the wielder of Falchion and draw its might has the power of Naga in their fingertips. And yet the gameplay never supports the lore. 

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

You know, it sucks when we have it being said that in the lore, Falchion is said to be an incarnation of Naga herself. Meaning that the wielder of Falchion and draw its might has the power of Naga in their fingertips. And yet the gameplay never supports the lore. 

It's almost funny that it's at its most broken  in the first game when the lore was almost completely unestablished. The Fire Emblem is barely even a thing in the first game despite the entire series being named after it. It was basically just a skelleton key that was given to Marth with no plot relevance beyond a "Good job, you got my kingdom back."

[omegaxis1]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's almost funny that it's at its most broken  in the first game when the lore was almost completely unestablished. The Fire Emblem is barely even a thing in the first game despite the entire series being named after it. It was basically just a skelleton key that was given to Marth with no plot relevance beyond a "Good job, you got my kingdom back."

Yeah. But for some reason, Book of Naga was allowed to go all out and give +20 stat boosts to 4 different stats.

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, omegaxis1 said:

Yeah. But for some reason, Book of Naga was allowed to go all out and give +20 stat boosts to 4 different stats.

Well having Naga's will in it is significant and it apparently altered Heim's personality. Plus this is the game where all Holy Weapons give at least +20 in total stat boosts, it has to compete with them.

You could conceive of gameplay reasons why Naga is so strong and Falchion isn't, but they don't pan out since the alternatives to Falchion are capped Str units with Regalia- which aren't by any means guaranteed. You could say lore- except Falchion is hammered as much as Naga as being the only way to defeat Medeus/Loptyr.

Perhaps there is a narrative reason. In FE3, the dragons are present and fought, and in fighting them you feel their sheer power. In FE4 however, the dragons are on a distant continent, so to feel their power at comparable levels, it must be done indirectly and the chosen indirect method is was the Holy Weapons with their broken stats. There is no real reason unless Loptyr was truly that deadly that Tyrfing should outdo the Falchion.

 

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

It's almost funny that it's at its most broken  in the first game when the lore was almost completely unestablished. The Fire Emblem is barely even a thing in the first game despite the entire series being named after it. It was basically just a skelleton key that was given to Marth with no plot relevance beyond a "Good job, you got my kingdom back."

This might be something of an issue of the era, like the Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, and Dragon Quest isn't overly dragon-centric in every game after the first.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, omegaxis1 said:

Yeah. But for some reason, Book of Naga was allowed to go all out and give +20 stat boosts to 4 different stats.

Well that was probably done so you stand a fighting chance against Julius even if you did a phenomenally poor job of raising Julia.

[omegaxis1]

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Well having Naga's will in it is significant and it apparently altered Heim's personality. Plus this is the game where all Holy Weapons give at least +20 in total stat boosts, it has to compete with them.

You could conceive of gameplay reasons why Naga is so strong and Falchion isn't, but they don't pan out since the alternatives to Falchion are capped Str units with Regalia- which aren't by any means guaranteed. You could say lore- except Falchion is hammered as much as Naga as being the only way to defeat Medeus/Loptyr.

Perhaps there is a narrative reason. In FE3, the dragons are present and fought, and in fighting them you feel their sheer power. In FE4 however, the dragons are on a distant continent, so to feel their power at comparable levels, it must be done indirectly and the chosen indirect method is was the Holy Weapons with their broken stats. There is no real reason unless Loptyr was truly that deadly that Tyrfing should outdo the Falchion.

The funny thing is that Kaga confirms that Falchion is actually made similarly to the Jugdral Weapons, having been used with a dragonstone and all that, along with Aura. And yet neither of those two weapons gives stat boosts like the Holy Weapons do. I figure these are due to gameplay reasons. 

But as of this moment, we are confirmed that Falchion is an incarnation of Naga herself, or rather has the essence of her power within the fang. So Book of Naga is at best rivaling Falchion, and worst, is still inferior. 

My theory is that Naga could not make another Falchion for Jugdral is because the dragon war weakened her physically that rendered her fangs weakened. So she placed her magical energy and will to compensate.

[Ivysalt]

On 4/5/2018 at 7:12 PM, omegaxis1 said:

My theory is that Naga could not make another Falchion for Jugdral is because the dragon war weakened her physically that rendered her fangs weakened. So she placed her magical energy and will to compensate.

Not sure if I understand this correctly, but the Archanea saga happened after the Jugdral saga, not the other way around.

[Jotari]

17 minutes ago, dpc said:

Not sure if I understand this correctly, but the Archanea saga happened after the Jugdral saga, not the other way around.

Yeah, but she likely made the Archanean Falchion before the Jugdral game's went down.

[omegaxis1]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, but she likely made the Archanean Falchion before the Jugdral game's went down.

Hell, now its confirmed she made a Falchion before even that one.