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Finished Genealogy for the first time


Garlyle
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After hearing a lot of things from this game, I decided to finally try it out. I love a lot of games from the SNES era, and I have my favourite Fire Emblem games, so it seems logical to try out one of the biggest titles in the series. I wouldn't go back to play the games from the NES era, so this is the oldest title I'm going to ever touch, but let's just see how much it was worth it for me.

First of all, the plot and characters. Whenever I watch a movie or play a game (especially one which is story based), I'm expecting good things out of it. I think characters are very important to make a memorable plot, so if I see a movie with bad characters, the plot is already a lost cause. In Fire Emblem games the story usually doesn't capture me that much, but I had some fun with the Binding Blade storyline. It was pretty simple, yet it worked well for that title. With a fun roster of characters. Now Genealogy of the Holy War has a story that is waaaay better than any other FE games have, and I'm expecting that it's going to stay the best storyline in the series - but prove me wrong. There are interesting characters, conflicts and lots of possibilities. So if you like the story, you might play the story over.

But it's a game first, so it's also very important to look on how the gameplay and the balance is. At first I really like the villages and the huge maps we can go through. Quickly learned how holy weapons are making units broken compared to everyone else. I also really like how I can work on the relationship of my units, and I am actually thinking right now how I can achieve a more satisfying ending. But as an old FE title, it doesn't have everything right. The trading through Pawnbroker is bad. If the game doesn't want us to trade on the battlefield, that's ok - but at least give a better mean to give the items I want to the character who actually needs them. The fact that enemy units have infinite usage on all items is really annoying, especially with all those ballistas, sleep staffs and bolting tomes they have. The game really loves the brave weapons in the end, which also doesn't make it easier for us. But my biggest like and dislike is the map design. It's really nice how we can see every corner of Judgral, but forest and desert tiles restricting movement to 2-3 moves on huge maps like this is really bothering, and makes me question if I want to play it again. It's especially bad on the Silesse map, where half the squad can't even go to the other side of the mountain to conquer the final castles. The Arena also fun, but when you have it at the start of every map, and you want to go through it with all 20 characters, it's just too much grinding. But it feels like you need that to stay competitive, so it's also a bad thing.

I had some issue with the brigand raids, because sometimes I would reach those brigands with a flier unit in time, unless the maps plot armor wouldn't block my path with yellow blocks. After experiencing that, I just couldn't care less about rescuing villages. I could farm enough gold from the Arena anyway.

If they would remake the game and would fix the issue, they should also split it into more maps. Some maps feels like 5 Fire Emblem map in one, and I'd feel better if we could get some breething time between some of the battles. Chapter 2 had too much turns just to backtrack to the other end of Agustria for example. These things hurt the replayability of the game, which has so many possibilities. 

(Lewyn and Erin paired up gives you one of the most broken units, also Ares is a champ)

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lmao i made a long ass thread kinda like this, but i have to say,

2 hours ago, Garlyle said:

Lewyn and Erin paired up gives you one of the most broken units

try forseti arthur next time. as in, Lewyn!arthur is just insane. he's like sety, but he comes in the first map of gen 2, WITH a forseti so his combat cant be sniffed at either, and if you passed down the magic ring, he just straight one shots things at base. hes not quite as good at combat, but who needs to be overkill anyways? its not like five less magic is gonna stop him from one rounding things with adept and possibly pursuit ring proccing.

is a bit of a pain to set up though tbh.

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Enemies had  infinite durability in this game? Huh, never even noticed. I guess that ruins my dream of some day breaking the Loptyr tome to glitch save Julius' soul. Outside of siege tomes, I don't think it makes that big difference, since unless you're boss abusing (or have Corosion in Radiant Dawn), an enemy is never going to survive long enough for it to matter.

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2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Enemies had  infinite durability in this game? Huh, never even noticed. I guess that ruins my dream of some day breaking the Loptyr tome to glitch save Julius' soul. Outside of siege tomes, I don't think it makes that big difference, since unless you're boss abusing (or have Corosion in Radiant Dawn), an enemy is never going to survive long enough for it to matter.

Well, it's hard not to notice in the case of Sleep Staffs, seeing how they are supposed to break after just one single use.

Edited by BrightBow
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Congrats for finishing FE4! :D

I actually tried to play Genealogy a second time and sadly I got fed up in the Silesse chapter... 

In my first playthrough, I remember being angry at this game's item management because the Pawnbroker system made things more expensive that should be and the fact that units need to be mounted to do something was also a bit infuriating.

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Yeah, Lewyn!Sety is good, but pairing Lewyn up with Tailtiu pretty much breaks the game, as that pairing gives you a unit with a holy weapon in the first chapter of the 2nd Generation.  And with that thing, Arthur doesn't even need Pursuit to kill everything within the first two chapters in one round.

Someone on this site (who I can't remember) said this was pretty much a game that was story first, gameplay later, and nowhere is that truer than with the holy blood mechanics.  You said that this'll remain the best story in the series, and... well, yeah, if they keep with the writing teams they have, it most certainly will.

2 minutes ago, 1% Critical Hit said:

I actually tried to play Genealogy a second time and sadly I got fed up in the Silesse chapter... 

Yeah, that sounds about right.  I remember there was a poll about the best and worst maps, and that chapter easily tanked alongside Disturbance in Augustria.  IMO, Silesse is pretty much the worst chapter, exemplifying everything wrong about the gameplay of Genealogy.

It's a shame you stopped there, because the next chapter has probably the best atmosphere and one of the best map themes in the game.  Plus, it's where all the blood, sweet, and tears you put into the game so far culminates into a climax; probably the most emotional part of the whole game, aside from a certain secret scene in Chapter 10.

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Most of the 1st gen maps certainly had issues with them; Which is a shame, this could turn away players too early (slow marches through forests and deserts on the maps in this scale is just bad). My 1st playthrough was far from perfect, Finn and Johan died in the last chapter, and I forgot to hire Muhammad and Corpre and to get the Tyrfing.

7 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Someone on this site (who I can't remember) said this was pretty much a game that was story first, gameplay later, and nowhere is that truer than with the holy blood mechanics.  You said that this'll remain the best story in the series, and... well, yeah, if they keep with the writing teams they have, it most certainly will.

I think video games these days show that they can have engaging stories in them, helps you to get invested early on and keeps your interest throughout the journey. Fire Emblem is not in the group of these games, but they have good gameplay mechanics. It's probably just me, but I'm not too excited to get into the 3DS games and play them all the way through. Those characters would make a better cast for an anime than a serious Fire Emblem story.

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16 hours ago, Ertrick36 said:

Someone on this site (who I can't remember) said this was pretty much a game that was story first, gameplay later, and nowhere is that truer than with the holy blood mechanics.  You said that this'll remain the best story in the series, and... well, yeah, if they keep with the writing teams they have, it most certainly will.

Yeah, I'd agree that it certainly shows that they sacrificed playability and gameplay in general for the sake of the story. Which bothers me since if I find that the gameplay isn't engaging, then  the game as a whole is a lost cause, and a good story cannot fix or make up for that...

On 8/9/2018 at 7:37 AM, Garlyle said:

First of all, the plot and characters. Whenever I watch a movie or play a game (especially one which is story based), I'm expecting good things out of it. I think characters are very important to make a memorable plot, so if I see a movie with bad characters, the plot is already a lost cause. In Fire Emblem games the story usually doesn't capture me that much, but I had some fun with the Binding Blade storyline. It was pretty simple, yet it worked well for that title. With a fun roster of characters. Now Genealogy of the Holy War has a story that is waaaay better than any other FE games have, and I'm expecting that it's going to stay the best storyline in the series - but prove me wrong. There are interesting characters, conflicts and lots of possibilities. So if you like the story, you might play the story over.

I kinda agree that the characters can make or break a game. Unfortunately, in this case, I find almost none of them worth caring about, so they break it, as if the gameplay failings don't already damage Genealogy's case beyond repair. But that's just me. 

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PSA: If you want access to the AI Difficulty setting, make sure to have either a completed file or a file with the AI Difficulty setting unlocked. For some reason, FE4 seems to forget your game completions if you delete all your files, which seems like a pretty big design oversight to me.

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