Alastor plays and ranks the whole series! Mission Complete! ...For now.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

What makes you so interested in replaying Gaiden out of curiosity?

Funfact on Gaiden, many of the enemy classes are actually altered versions of player characters. So the enemy can never deploy Villagers, because Brigands are their villagers, with it being the same for player army.

Personally I find FE3 one of most replayable FE games, one reason being everything is usable. So if the player wants to do a Bantu run, its very much possible without being hairpullingly difficult. Anythings in FE3 you specifically don't want to replay?

Well, it's not that I'm chomping at the bit to replay it, I just don't consider FE3 to have much replay value. Or FE1 to have much... value.

For the former, mostly because, while this mostly applies to Book 2, as you say, everyone is usable thanks to the star shards. But that also means that since everyone caps at 20 and you can probably reach those caps with ease... everyone winds up being the same, just coming down to what utility they have beyond their stats. Their mobility, their range, their weapon access, their personal weapons, etc. And since there's almost no dialogue for minor characters, once you take away statistical differences, there isn't much reason to use an army different from the one I used last time. Where would be the fun in using Luke over Rody, or instance? And at any rate, Merric and Linde are still going to be the big-time MVPs because they're still going to be the only ones capable of one-rounding at 1-2 range without using Gradivus. I can barely even imagine building a unit who would be as useful as those two, because they're literally at the objective pinnacle that it's physically possible for a combat unit to achieve in that game, and I got that without cheats or even dumb luck.

[Emperor Hardin]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

For the former, mostly because, while this mostly applies to Book 2, as you say, everyone is usable thanks to the star shards. But that also means that since everyone caps at 20 and you can probably reach those caps with ease... everyone winds up being the same, just coming down to what utility they have beyond their stats. Their mobility, their range, their weapon access, their personal weapons, etc. And since there's almost no dialogue for minor characters, once you take away statistical differences, there isn't much reason to use an army different from the one I used last time. Where would be the fun in using Luke over Rody, or instance? And at any rate, Merric and Linde are still going to be the big-time MVPs because they're still going to be the only ones capable of one-rounding at 1-2 range without using Gradivus. I can barely even imagine building a unit who would be as useful as those two, because they're literally at the objective pinnacle that it's physically possible for a combat unit to achieve in that game, and I got that without cheats or even dumb luck.

Universal stat caps is true for alot of early Fire Emblem games.

Luke is the "Jobless man" remember and the one Cecil doesn't get a support bonus from. Many story bits can be gotten from bios and information released in guides around the time, the only exceptions tend to be stuff like Midia's men. 

Yubello can be really good if you put time into, because unlike the other mages, he has an extremely high strength growth. Ellerean also has a very high defense growth.

As for Linde, Resire isn't locked to her, any female magic user can use it.

By the way, what did you think of the enemy stats of FE3? Replaying the SNES and DS versions, I've noticed the SNES version builds its enemies around defense, whilst the DS version builds its enemies all around speed. Bosses in the DS version will have lower defense, but higher speed and skill, the lower defense compared to the original applies even on lunatic mode!

I think its a little odd in the later maps where the reluctance to give any enemies or bosses(with only two exceptions), any defense higher then 20(when the cap is 30) starts hurting  the threat of General enemies. Here's a video for reference, you can notice the General boss is way slower then his generics whilst only being a little more defensive. Your thoughts after watching the video?

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Emperor Hardin said:

Universal stat caps is true for alot of early Fire Emblem games.

Luke is the "Jobless man" remember and the one Cecil doesn't get a support bonus from. Many story bits can be gotten from bios and information released in guides around the time, the only exceptions tend to be stuff like Midia's men. 

Yubello can be really good if you put time into, because unlike the other mages, he has an extremely high strength growth. Ellerean also has a very high defense growth.

As for Linde, Resire isn't locked to her, any female magic user can use it.

Yeah, but I mean, how does the game feel different when you use Luke instead of Rody? I'm saying that any story difference is stuff that goes on in the player's head because they barely have any characterization in the game, and thanks to the star shards, after a certain point they don't even play differently. When you can turn everyone into a stat-capped juggernaut, you're not going to get a different experience using one person of a class over another.

As for the video, I can't find any option for English subtitles, and at any rate I don't think I can really judge the wisdom of this change without playing the game for myself later and seeing how it fits in the context of everything else.

 

[Alastor15243]

Genealogy Day 1: Babada Babada Babada Babada BAH! DADADA DAH! DAH!

Oh. My goodness. This game. This fucking game.

I am so excited to finally get to play this. We’re finally in the realm of games I know from the outset I’m gonna have fun with. Hell, this used to be my favorite game in the series when I was a teenager. I absolutely adored it, and the shit you could do with the child system. And the story. My fucking god the story.

Make no mistake though: I’m gonna have a lot of shit to give this game.

Because it’s completely retarded.

Yes, this is what I consider to be the anti-Conquest. While Conquest is a game with amazing gameplay and an entertainingly broken story, Genealogy is a game with an amazing story and entertainingly broken gameplay.

So much of this game is just wroooooooooong. I don’t even know where to begin with this fucking thing, so let’s just start from the beginning and just play the sumbitch.

I last beat this game several years and at least one computer ago. However, thanks to a downloaded save state I got online from… fuck I wish I could find the thread again, but somewhere on Serenes Forest... I managed to get the hard mode AI setting unlocked. I really wish I could remember who it was, they were a massive lifesaver. I had to follow the instructions they gave to finish off the last turn of the final map on their save file, but it worked, and now I have this game’s hardest difficulty to play on. Apparently this just makes the AI target the most vulnerable units though, instead of apparently being arbitrary. I wonder what they define as most vulnerable though…? Could it be like FE3, where they do it individually and not working out who they can take down as a team?

Right, so I boot it up, and I really, really wish I knew what any of the dates and events on this timeline meant. Hell, I’ve beaten the whole game, and remember 95% of the story, and I STILL don’t know what most of these events are referring to. Maybe playing Thracia will let it make more sense? I doubt it, but one can hope!

Also, this is embarrassing, but since I re-labeled the rom and I prepared this thing months ago, around the time I started FE1, I don’t remember the name of the translation I’m using. I’ll provide their translation of the first few lines of the intro though, hopefully with that info someone can remind me:

“Grannvale rests in the centre of the Jugdral continent and was founded by Saint Heim, one of the 12 Crusaders. Heim’s descendants, the Royal Family, were joined by six additional duchies, each with their own Crusader lineage.”

I’m also pretty sure this is my first time playing this translation, so this’ll be a fun new experience to see what’s different!

Okay, one thing I’m gonna say right away: I love this soundtrack. Not all of it, it has some duds, but a heck of a lot of the music is catchy and gorgeous as hell.

Oh shoot. I don’t know what happened, but I think this wound up using the old translation, the one everyone already knows.

Yyyyyep. Second I heard Alec say “Damn straight”, I knew which translation I was playing. I’m not sure what the hell happened here, but it seems two-months-ago-me done fucked up.

But in fairness, it’s a really, really well done fan translation. Definitely better than the ones for the previous games. One thing I really like, and this is something that the previous fan translations and even certain localized games struggled with, is that the lines of the characters aren’t all written in the same way. The characters, especially when their demeanor is significantly different, have different word choices and the like, which really helps make them feel like different people. That becomes especially important once you throw voice acting into the mix, since otherwise you risk having a bunch of voice actors try to inject their character’s personality into lines that look like they were all written by and for one incredibly schizophrenic person, but even without voice acting it’s important, and its presence is really appreciated.

Still though, if there’s a particular translation my readers really want me to play this with, I’ll try to give it another shot and get back to where I was on my free time. But for now, I’ve gotta keep my schedule, so for now the original translation it is.

As the opening dialogue unfolds and they discuss keeping Arden at the castle to stand guard, it occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever once lost a game due to my castle being taken. Not that the enemy never tried, but… I suppose I just always reset as a kid after the castle guardian died.

Not that that’s going to be an option here. Only one person besides myself may have voted in the poll, but since that person voted for ironman too, that means nobody strongly objects to my decision. So ironman it is! Anyone who dies stays dead for good, and if I get a game over due to losing Sigurd (good luck with that) or failing some other objective (a good deal more likely), I have to start the chapter over and select one of my units at random by spamming the “next unit” button and closing my eyes. That unit can’t be used anymore for any purpose, and ideally should be killed off.

Seeing Alec’s teasing dialogue to Arden… I have a feeling the writers knew how much knights suck in this game.

Hm… you know, maybe I am playing a newer translation after all! I may not remember the dialogue being significantly different, but the class names are things like Cavalier rather than Social Knight, Awareness is called Nihil, Charge is called Duel, Midir is called Midayle…

I wonder what’s going on here.

Anyway, on to the gameplay. And HOLY SHIT YES FINALLY, WE’RE FINALLY IN THE HIGHER TIERS OF USABILITY, BABY!

Moving the cursor around and giving orders just feels way better in this game. The entire game just feels way, WAY less sluggish than the last three games, with the cursor moving around way faster and there being way less of a delay between selections. Furthermore, we finally have something resembling a modern combat forecast window, which is absolutely awesome. The unit data page is also phenomenal. Not only is it much easier to view weapon stats, but this is also the first game in the series to need more than one page to put all the info on, but it knows exactly where to put it. All of the important combat numbers are on the same page, the first page, and the second page is reserved exclusively for miscellaneous stuff you don’t need to constantly reference if you’re going to make smart calculations. I don’t need to flip between pages to know how much damage Sigurd would do to himself if he attacked himself with his steel sword. This particular point is something that the GBA games struggle with, but I’ll get into that when the time comes. This game does a good job. I can already say the pattern of each successive game becoming the new best in usability is going to hold. At least a little while longer. The only drawback going from FE3 to this is that FE3 let you know how much damage effective weapons will do to their effective targets. But then, that’s not much of an issue in this game, once you know that effective damage is identical to critical hits. Which are pretty devastating in this game. Double damage before defense is subtracted! The only other thing is that FE3 pre-calculated AS and showed it, while this game does not. In the rare instances where that's relevant, however, it's not too hard to do, since as I said, now the game makes it super easy to check weapon stats.

And I just whipped out a text document and copied out some of the previous paragraphs into it, to help me keep track of the most important things I say whenever I stop to comment on the quality of one of the categories. I think this will help me make sure I’m not forgetting anything when I rank this game at the end.

Anyway, let’s start actually playing. I’ve got my four units. The first one is Sigurd, who easily has the best combination of availability, power, utility and ease of training of any character in the game, with the possible exception of a certain child unit with a certain father in gen 2, but that depends entirely on how you prioritize those four qualities. Sigurd’s got awesome bases and growths that are sufficiently good enough for Gen 1 that he never really slows down from his amazing start aside from his mediocre 1-2 range options compared to magic users. But even that can be fixed if you get him enough kills on a magic sword. Which I’m going to do. I’m going to use all four main magic swords (the earth sword is a bit of a bitch to rack up kills on really), and try to get them all in 50 kill range to help the 1-2 range options of some of my gen 2 units. But back to Sigurd, he’s awesome. He can hit like a truck, take hits like a tank, and move like a racecar. He’s amazing.

Alec and Noish are far less exciting. I’ve never been huge fans of using either of them, despite their mounted utility in a game with psychotically huge maps. Noish is slightly tankier and much stronger, but doesn’t have any means of improving his damage output beyond one attack that can really be relied on. He has Critical and Duel, but both of those are proc activated, and aren’t going to be that reliable even when and if I get his stats up. Alec is far more useful right now, having the ability to double and only slightly less defense, but he’s no Sigurd by any stretch of the imagination. However, together, they do have juuuuust enough attack power to take out some of these bandits.

And then there’s Arden, and… yeah I don’t think he’s spending much time out of the castle. I don't even dislike armor knights. I find them a lot of fun to use in the GBA games, I can put up with their flaws in a few of the games, and I really wish some game aside from “Fire Emblem: the Gacha Hell” would make them truly good units. But holy shit does this fucker just have nothing going for him. I don't even know what to fucking say. Armor knights are at their absolute worst in this game. Seriously, it seems nearly everything about this game is designed to make Arden useless. No doubling, no good 1-2 range even if he could, no mount, 5 move, and he's completely outclassed in the breeding department by a guy who literally has everything he has to offer, does it better, and does it while being on a horse and able to attack twice. It's almost offensive how badly Arden gets shafted, and as I said before, I think the writers knew full well how badly he fared in this gameplay style. Whether that was from the outset or something they added in later when they realized how shafted he was... who can say? There's a hell of a lot of stuff in this game that makes me want a Psychonauts level of the developers' brains.

And by my clock I've managed to spend more than an hour without even finishing my first turn. Holy shit. I need to try to capture at least the first castle before the end of today. I'm not going to waste time talking about the rest of the cast unless I'll be using them in some significant capacity. I'm assuming that since you're reading this, you've already played this game, because if you haven't, and you're still reading this... well first, I'm flattered beyond words, but second, stop what you're doing immediately and play this game first. Please. For the love of God. This game has its flaws, but it strengths are things that simply have to be seen for themselves.

Turn one ends, and Gandolf rips Midayle to shreds, same old, same old.

So, I'm watching the cutscenes where Gandolf takes Adean, and something suddenly occurs to me. So, I've been playing these games in chronological order, and aside from very, very slowly finishing up my Golden Deer file of Three Houses so that by the time I play Blue Lions to finish this marathon I'll know what happens in the other two main stories, I haven't allowed myself to play any other Fire Emblem game since this started. And that's caused it to actually click with me what a fucking massive narrative leap this game must have been for old-school, Japanese Fire Emblem fans. And I don't just mean the quality of the narrative. The sheer jump in presentation is massive here. You know how I said how much of a jump it was between the NES games and Mystery of the Emblem? Well, with only a little bit of exaggeration, the jump between Mystery and Genealogy feels almost as big. Way more dialogue, way better-looking cutscenes that often have backgrounds, scripted NPC fights... having just finished playing the games that didn't have these things, it suddenly becomes clear how much this prologue is showing off of what this game can do that the previous one didn't or couldn't.

Speaking of which... I counted the enemies and I was absolutely shocked to discover that this map, for all its size, still doesn't use more than 32 units at once. At least not yet. Which is obscenely weird, because it doesn't feel nearly as empty as lots of FE1 and FE3 maps. At least not at the moment. I think that has a lot to do with placement and the fact that you'll have at least one enemy to fight every turn here, at least for a while.

While I'm on the general topic, I love the combat animations. Well, I love some of them. The animations for sword fighters are probably the absolute best animations that the series has ever had, especially their insane variety of critical animations. Others, however... suffer a bit. The axe fighters are still silly-walking dorks and it's ridiculous, and I don't think I'll ever forgive this game for having such a shitty mounted sword critical animation, given what it means to Seliph's animations after he promotes. However, a lot of the animations hold up amazingly well, even today.

Anyway, Azel and Lex are here. I definitely have plans for Azel. I'm doing a rather unconventional build that SF's guide tipped me off to the existence of: marrying him off to Lachesis. Since he's the only guy in the first generation who can give his daughter a good magic growth and pursuit, it's the only way to make Nanna a really good healer without screwing Delmud, and neither kid really cares about his terrible strength stat since they've got strength-boosting holy blood and can actually make use of his magic growth to use magic swords.

But I'm torn regarding Lex. He's amazing, obviously. Everything Arden wishes he could be, like I said before, and as a parent he's got a ton of shit that a few kids really want, namely doubled exp gain and absurdly good defense growths. But his most popular wife, Aira, is someone I have other plans for, and beyond her he isn't really a good pick for many other women's children, mostly due to them being magical or needing skills he doesn't give. I did a mounted-only game a little while ago (didn't finish it though, so some of this will still be stuff I haven't seen in a few years), and since that means I wasn't allowed to use Ced, it meant I could go whole hog, ditch the magic dads, and set about making an awesome Fee, and I went with this motherfucker. And the result was probably my favorite pegasus knight I've ever had, in any game, ever, with awesome all-around physical stats, as if she were riding a wyvern. But here... there's someone else I really want to give to Aira, and with her out of the picture... Lex doesn't have that many other options to put his genes to use.

But enough about breeding for now, let's get these fuckers to work saving the villages. I've got Sigurd heading down, straight towards the castle, while the others ride off to cover the northern villages.

And I confirm that this game does in fact let you leave the range of your unit's movement range with your cursor while making them move, so I can finally check the area slightly offscreen to make sure it doesn't have enemies in range of them. This is something I have missed for a long, long time.

Azel takes out the bandit by his starting location, while Lex rides off to chase the bandit going after the village at the northwestern cliff. It's funny, Alec and Noishe aren't the only ones whose stats seem specifically designed to take out these enemies. Azel also has stats specifically designed for them, except in his case, he has exactly enough attack power to kill these guys himself.

Sigurd gets his first level up, and it's a pretty dang good one! HP, Skill, Speed and Defense!

...Jesus Fucking Christ. How has it gotten this late? Sorry guys, I know I barely made any progress, but I'm gonna have to stop today's part here, because this is already a few pages long and I'm worried how long I'll be spending proofreading if I let this get any longer. Though maybe it's not actually longer than other parts; I've switched to using a different word processing program, one that actually lets me copy and paste bolding and italics, so I no longer have to scream in all caps whenever I want to emphasize something.

Anyway, I promise to do more actual gameplay tomorrow! Take care!

 

Edit: Apparently one downside to using this program is that not only do italics and bold actually apply, but so does my font choice. Can someone tell me what font SF uses so I can fix this and set it to that for future parts?

Edited October 28, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Emperor Hardin]

53 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, but I mean, how does the game feel different when you use Luke instead of Rody? I'm saying that any story difference is stuff that goes on in the player's head because they barely have any characterization in the game, and thanks to the star shards, after a certain point they don't even play differently. When you can turn everyone into a stat-capped juggernaut, you're not going to get a different experience using one person of a class over another.

As for the video, I can't find any option for English subtitles, and at any rate I don't think I can really judge the wisdom of this change without playing the game for myself later and seeing how it fits in the context of everything else.

I find using different classes feels different myself, like using snipers instead of horseman for a run. Using Bantu feels very different to me.

Its just stats, no talking or text. The topic of DS remake stats can be reserved for later.

21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And then there’s Arden, and… yeah I don’t think he’s spending much time out of the castle. I don't even dislike armor knights. I find them a lot of fun to use in the GBA games, I can put up with their flaws in a few of the games, and I really wish some game aside from “Fire Emblem: the Gacha Hell” would make them truly good units. But holy shit does this fucker just have nothing going for him. I don't even know what to fucking say. Armor knights are at their absolute worst in this game. Seriously, it seems nearly everything about this game is designed to make Arden useless. No doubling, no good 1-2 range even if he could, no mount, 5 move, and he's completely outclassed in the breeding department by a guy who literally has everything he has to offer, does it better, and does it while being on a horse and able to attack twice. It's almost offensive how badly Arden gets shafted, and as I said before, I think the writers knew full well how badly he fared in this gameplay style. Whether that was from the outset or something they added in later when they realized how shafted he was... who can say? There's a hell of a lot of stuff in this game that makes me want a Psychonauts level of the developers' brains.

There's an interview with Kaga where he says on Arden, as well as Alec and Noish that they were designed to be quickly replaced filler units. 

Naoise, Alec, and Arden are like ‘transparent’ characters who don’t carry any special bloodlines or outstanding stats, like Cain, Abel, and Draug from the previous games. They weren’t given any backstory either.

There have been other joke characters too, like Samuto, the Navarre imposter in Mystery of the Emblem.  I do think the lack of enemy action against the player's castle was an oversight/cut for time, even though Arden wasn't intended to be a good unit. For reference, you can never have anyone in your castle and you won't be in any trouble. 

Its funny how popular Arden became for a character who was designed as such a throwaway filler unit. He also has a unique sprite if you can get him there. As for the range, bad as Arden is as he is in the game, he'd be even worse as a Lance or Axe Armor Knight.

I'll do a longer reply later.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Emperor Hardin

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, one thing I’m gonna say right away: I love this soundtrack. Not all of it, it has some duds, but a heck of a lot of the music is catchy and gorgeous as hell.

For me, Genealogy has arguably the best rendition of the Fire Emblem Theme, grandiose but not indigestibly rich; and, a certain kingdom's theme is utterly intoxicating for me.

There is just one fault I find in Genealogy's grand soundtrack:

Spoiler

The lack of a separate Gen 2 battle theme.

The FE4 battle theme is good, but Gen 2 is a world apart from Gen 1, it musically needed a new battle theme to represent this. Something more fierce, something more dynamically shouting "justice"? -Like most of RD's battle themes. That notion enters my head, but I'm not sure if that is what it should have been.

 

 

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

While I'm on the general topic, I love the combat animations. Well, I love some of them. The animations for sword fighters are probably the absolute best animations that the series has ever had, especially their insane variety of critical animations. Others, however... suffer a bit.

Thoughts on the "dynamic" map animations? I really like them, crisp and impactful, faster than full animations, but not as crude as what is usually accepted as map animations in FE.

 

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But here... there's someone else I really want to give to Aira, and with her out of the picture... Lex doesn't have that many other options to put his genes to use.

If Azelle is going to Lachesis, then I hazard you're doing LewynxTailtiu, and ClaudxErinys/Fury? Why not consider Silvia then? Leen could care less, and this increases your chance of promoting Caipre for whatever reason. Or do you plan on leaving her a spinster? Or Dew so Leen can buy a Leg/Knight Ring after Seliph is done with them?

 

 

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

There's a hell of a lot of stuff in this game that makes me want a Psychonauts level of the developers' brains.

If you had clicked on the hyperlink in the text "Holy Sword Elm Kaiser" I had posted earlier, it would have brought you to an article placed in an artbook a few years ago about Genealogy's development. I'll place it here again:

https://serenesforest.net/2016/06/20/making-of-fire-emblem-genealogy-of-changes/

 

As for the interview Emperor Hardin is referring to, it is this one:

https://garmtranslations.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/fire-emblem-genealogy-of-the-holy-war-fan-special-roundtable-discussion/

If you wish to reformulate your personal opinions first after being refreshed by the plot as it is in the game itself, you might want to read this one later into your play, or afterwards.

Edited October 28, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Espurrhoodie]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm assuming that since you're reading this, you've already played this game, because if you haven't, and you're still reading this... well first, I'm flattered beyond words, but second, stop what you're doing immediately and play this game first. Please. For the love of God. This game has its flaws, but it strengths are things that simply have to be seen for themselves.

I'd love to play FE4, but I have the attention span of a squirrel and I don't have a computer, only a tablet.

Can I stay if I've read the manga?

[Eltosian Kadath]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

fuck I wish I could find the thread again, but somewhere on Serenes Forest... I managed to get the hard mode AI setting unlocked. I really wish I could remember who it was, they were a massive lifesaver. I had to follow the instructions they gave to finish off the last turn of the final map on their save file, but it worked, and now I have this game’s hardest difficulty to play on. Apparently this just makes the AI target the most vulnerable units though, instead of apparently being arbitrary. I wonder what they define as most vulnerable though…? Could it be like FE3, where they do it individually and not working out who they can take down as a team?

It wouldn't happen to be the save I re-posted here

Interesting note about that save, is that it is what got me to become a member of Serenes Forest Forum, as I stumbled on a bug (Triggered by having a Canto unit kill Julius while Julia and Manfloy are both alive) and wanted to report it to the translation team (as I know they have dealt with a lot of other bugs that plagued older translations). Having already uploaded it once with detailed notes about how to trigger and explicitly not trigger the bug easily findable it was easy to pass it along when people were looking for it.

Something else interesting to note about the hard AI setting is that some enemies have it even when playing on the normal AI setting, as a way to emphasis characters with high leadership (Kaga explicitly called out Eldigan's troops having the hard AI in an interview explaining that it was because of his high leadership score).

 

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

“Grannvale rests in the centre of the Jugdral continent and was founded by Saint Heim, one of the 12 Crusaders. Heim’s descendants, the Royal Family, were joined by six additional duchies, each with their own Crusader lineage.”

That sounds like the Gharnef patch opening. Why not upgrade to the more complete Project Naga patch, as it is the only one with the ending properly translated.

 

54 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Still though, if there’s a particular translation my readers really want me to play this with, I’ll try to give it another shot and get back to where I was on my free time. But for now, I’ve gotta keep my schedule, so for now the original translation it is.

You should be able to copy and rename the save to keep all of your progress, although watching the open and early cut-scenes would give you a better feel for the differences.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Armor knights are at their absolute worst in this game. Seriously, it seems nearly everything about this game is designed to make Arden useless. No doubling, no good 1-2 range even if he could

One thing I will point out is if you somehow manage to promote him to General he gets the weapon ranks to use every Sword, Lance, and Axe 1-2 range weapon (barring the enemy only holy weapon axe).

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But here... there's someone else I really want to give to Aira, and with her out of the picture... Lex doesn't have that many other options to put his genes to use.

You could use the incredibly meme-y Tailtu+Lex Vantage Wrath Combo on her kids. Its not as broken as it sounds due to mediocre stats, but it is amusing.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Espurrhoodie said:

I'd love to play FE4, but I have the attention span of a squirrel and I don't have a computer, only a tablet.

Can I stay if I've read the manga?

I suppose if you've had the major plot beats spoiled to you it won't be too bad, though I'm concerned my notes won't paint quite enough of a visual picture if you haven't seen the maps and played the game. I'll try my best though.

[Espurrhoodie]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I suppose if you've had the major plot beats spoiled to you it won't be too bad, though I'm concerned my notes won't paint quite enough of a visual picture if you haven't seen the maps and played the game. I'll try my best though.

I've seen a few maps.

I know they're fuckin' massive.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Espurrhoodie said:

I've seen a few maps.

I know they're fuckin' massive.

That they are.

@Eltosian Kadath Oh my god it was you! Thanks a ton, you were a lifesaver there! And does Project Naga have the ability to convert already-translated roms to the new translation? I asked on the discord and was told that it was "the old Twilikirti patch". Does it allow translating from that too? Or are that and Gharnef the same thing?

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Or are that and Gharnef the same thing?

The Gharnef patch basically updated the Twilikirti patch with names more consistent with Awakening, so they are extremely similar. Arvis should be showing up any moment, and if his tome is the Valflame, than I think that proves it's the Gharnef patch.

 

15 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Does it allow translating from that too?

Unfortunately I think the Naga patch needs a clean Japanese rom, as Project Naga reworked everything from the ground up.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Eltosian Kadath said:

Unfortunately I think the Naga patch needs a clean Japanese rom, as Project Naga reworked everything from the ground up.

Alright, but I guess I can still use the save.

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Can I stay if I've read the manga?

All right I am curious, which of the four Genealogy of the Holy War manga did you read (I'm guessing the Oosawa version, but you never know, it could be the utterly insane comedy version by Fujimori)

[Alastor15243]

Alright, quick update guys: I managed to transfer the save file to the newly patched rom with the Project Naga translation... but at the cost of... *gasp*... all three of my turns!

Ah well. All that really happened that I can't easily replicate is a +def level on Sigurd. But no matter. Sigurd's amazing.

At any rate, it's not like much of what I wrote today was related to my actual moves. So tomorrow it'll be like nothing was lost.

Anyway...

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Thoughts on the "dynamic" map animations? I really like them, crisp and impactful, faster than full animations, but not as crude as what is usually accepted as map animations in FE.

I like them a lot too! It would have been fun if the 3DS games used that style of map animations, but then I probably still would rarely see them since I like the "ablaze system" so much in every game that has it but Three Houses.

Speaking of music, I agree it would be nice to get a second battle theme too. In fairness though we get a shitload of map themes.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If Azelle is going to Lachesis, then I hazard you're doing LewynxTailtiu, and ClaudxErinys/Fury? Why not consider Silvia then? Leen could care less, and this increases your chance of promoting Caipre for whatever reason. Or do you plan on leaving her a spinster? Or Dew so Leen can buy a Leg/Knight Ring after Seliph is done with them?

Right on the money. Sylvia is an option, but given I'm doing ironman I think that third charm skill on Laylea might be useful for some of the really, REALLY scary bosses in this game. Partially for the avoid, but mostly to secure 100% hit rates against the real menaces. I've been told Briggid might not be a bad way to go, since it'd make Patty tougher and let her get pursuit faster, and Faval as a player phase attacker would probably benefit from getting double exp from the one round of combat he can enter per turn (without dancing of course).

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If you had clicked on the hyperlink in the text "Holy Sword Elm Kaiser" I had posted earlier, it would have brought you to an article placed in an artbook a few years ago about Genealogy's development. I'll place it here again:

https://serenesforest.net/2016/06/20/making-of-fire-emblem-genealogy-of-changes/

Sorry, I did click on that when you first posted it, but got sidetracked after reading the beginning. I'll have to check that out later.

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

As for the interview Emperor Hardin is referring to, it is this one:

https://garmtranslations.wordpress.com/2019/02/13/fire-emblem-genealogy-of-the-holy-war-fan-special-roundtable-discussion/

If you wish to reformulate your personal opinions first after being refreshed by the plot as it is in the game itself, you might want to read this one later into your play, or afterwards.

Sounds like a plan.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Right on the money. Sylvia is an option, but given I'm doing ironman I think that third charm skill on Laylea might be useful for some of the really, REALLY scary bosses in this game. Partially for the avoid, but mostly to secure 100% hit rates against the real menaces.

I assume you speak of such fiends as 

particularly her C8 appearance, but her Weissritter(?) assault with the Earth Sword sisters is devilish too. May Febail be able to OHKO her in the earlier appearance.

And Arvis is tedium, his good Avoid + Pavise cuts into his excellent battle theme, if ensuring you'll actually hear it enough, until Hardin.

Although I don't think any quantity of Charm is going to do much against Arion if you step on the dreaded sub-11 HP landmine, unless you find a way to safely surround him for a turn without anyone dying.

 

13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I've been told Briggid might not be a bad way to go, since it'd make Patty tougher and let her get pursuit faster, and Faval as an enemy phase attacker would probably benefit from getting double exp from the one round of combat he can enter per turn (without dancing of course).

My one run of FE4 used Chulainn ("Holyn") as Brigid's husband. Febail barely managed to eek in a promotion, in the final chapter I think (or maybe 10). And even with a Brave Sword, Patty took a long time to promote, like until Chapter 9 to hit 20. Given most of her kills will likely be in the Arena regardless of father, if she can nab every Arena kill she could get with Chulainn with Lex instead (or even just the majority of them), it will mean she will promote faster. So Lex might work out well, on paper.

[Alastor15243]

7 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I assume you speak of such fiends as 

particularly her C8 appearance, but her Weissritter(?) assault with the Earth Sword sisters is devilish too. May Febail be able to OHKO her in the earlier appearance.

Big time. One of many reasons why I'm going with Forseti Arthur is so I can actually use Forseti to fight her in chapter 8. But even then I got really unlucky last time I played and got bodied on my first attempt fighting that monster. Two super unlikely hits facilitated by a continue proc.

Edited October 29, 2019 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But even then I got really unlucky last time I played and got bodied on my first attempt fighting that monster. Two super unlikely hits facilitated by a continue proc.

Brock her brother was the problem sibling for me. I sent Seliph alone to take his castle b/c Bolting, and I gave Seliph the Wind Sword (and Barrier Ring) too, but no, Ishtore still managed to hit him. And by that point I was too deep in to get out of his range, and it took me many save reloads to find a setup where he didn't Bolting or Thoron Seliph dead, several scenarios running into his 8/31% Continue/Adept procs. (Lesson- don't save mid-battle so stupidly!)

Edited October 29, 2019 by Interdimensional Observer

[Emperor Hardin]

By the way, are you going to use Arden or any of the other filler characters?

[Jotari]

If you make the exact same moves you can get that exact same level up as far as I remember. I think the rng for Genealogy is set from the start.

[Espurrhoodie]

11 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

All right I am curious, which of the four Genealogy of the Holy War manga did you read (I'm guessing the Oosawa version, but you never know, it could be the utterly insane comedy version by Fujimori)

Yep, the Oosawa version.

It's actually really good.

[Alastor15243]

Anyone know what font Serenes Forest uses, so I can fix the post?

[Interdimensional Observer]

11 hours ago, Jotari said:

If you make the exact same moves you can get that exact same level up as far as I remember. I think the rng for Genealogy is set from the start.

I believe so. And if you aren't willing to waste a unit's action, my inclination is that the GBA RN-trick works. The thing where you select a unit, and drag its movement arrow into such a shape that the game "fixes" it into a smaller one, with that "fixing" having multiple solutions, and therefore the game burns an RN that would have otherwise been used for combat on deciding how to fix that movement.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyone know what font Serenes Forest uses, so I can fix the post?

Try "Times", that might be it.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyone know what font Serenes Forest uses, so I can fix the post?

Try this.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator

[Alastor15243]

22 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Try this.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator

It gave me an extremely high number of matches. How much text am I supposed to capture, do you know?