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


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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Just noticed Arden's new class name. What exactly was the point of changing “Sword Armor” to “Armor Sword”? That makes even less sense!

Blame Radiant Dawn's translation:

Armor Lance

I think the full name is Armored Sword/Lance/Axe, SF just has it shortened. 

And yet rather than "General Lance" it's Sword/Lance/Axe General. Only the first tier got the weird ordering. You might have forgotten those names b/c only Meg is a playable 1st tier armor.

I do prefer Weapon Armor though.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

which causes me to suspect it may entirely be the fault of losing the return staff and Ethlyn. Hopefully having Raquesis will help pick up the slack, but that return staff is gone for the rest of part 1 no matter what.

Warp Staff is still here! And pass it to Raq for Chapter 4.

 

 

From a gameplay perspective, I thought Chapter 3 was fairly good for FE4. The fight to the first castle isn't very long, and everyone has someone to kill initially. Then Eldigan moves out in a rather aggressive assault where the average player stands a serious chance of losing. Sure the fight loses most of its bite once Chagal is gone, and Dew has to trek a while to Bragi Tower, but you'll have won the map by the time Dew has to grab his weapon, so you won't have to actually move anyone but him.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Mr Exposition guy, also known as Filat, definitely should have been the one to give Seliph the Tyrfing in the second generation. Would have made things come full circle as you encounter him in the prologue and Chapter 10 is about getting back to the prologue area. Plus it's just better to give a role to a prexisting character rather than making a new one if you can. Instead now we have two royal attendants that have nothing to do with each other and Filat just stops existing after Chapter 2.

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12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Mr Exposition guy, also known as Filat, definitely should have been the one to give Seliph the Tyrfing in the second generation. Would have made things come full circle as you encounter him in the prologue and Chapter 10 is about getting back to the prologue area. Plus it's just better to give a role to a prexisting character rather than making a new one if you can. Instead now we have two royal attendants that have nothing to do with each other and Filat just stops existing after Chapter 2.

In their defense, he's pretty dang old.

 

Genealogy Day 12: Chapter 3 ahoy!

Right, so, hopefully we'll get to... chapter 3? You know, when the chapters are so small in number but massive in size, it's kind of weird to have a prologue and epilogue. It's all well and good to have a prologue and endgame chapter when your game is like 20 chapters long... but when it's only ten? That just makes the chapter list feel... anemic, in some sense. You FEEL that missing chapter a lot more than usual. Well, I suppose they could have just wanted the big finale of part 1 to end on chapter 5.

But anyway, on to actually getting there.

I fight Clement, he still doesn't show any signs of being a bad person. More of a guy who owns some really inconvenient real estate and found himself the only thing standing between invaders and his country's sovereignty.

“Will I go down... in glory?” (Dies)

Man, this honestly makes me feel bad for the guy.

Also, I don't think I've mentioned this before... but the map music keeps playing while the “castle captured” jingle plays, it's just low volume. Which can sound kinda weird at times. I also don't get why they did that when it's not like the music was playing right before it. It's generally some other conversation music from the cutscene right before.

Yet again, I find the dialogue of Manfroy WAY better in the original translation, where he's got much more smug and slick word choices, especially for when he points out that Chagall was the one who killed the king, he merely suggested it.

Chagall: I... Damn it all! How is Sigurd's little army even this strong!? This isn't fair!
I mean, I know that should make him come across as a whiny manchild, but he's also, y'know... correct? It IS totally ridiculous how much I can do with this handful of soldiers.

I will admit though, I do prefer one of Manfroy's lines in this one: “With Kurth's death there remains but a single scion to Naga's holy lineage, and that old fool hardly needs our help to die.”

Interesting. The original translation had the unnamed dark mage say “next we betray the king, and once you become emperor...” when talking to Manfroy. But here they say it's Arvis betraying the king and Arvis “styling himself as emperor”. Was the original a mistranslation? The new one is definitely more accurate to what actually happens, but I liked how they were at least a little vague about their evil plan in the original. But there's one line that in hindsight was clearly wrong in the original: “I just wonder if someone as arrogant as him can keep quiet.” The new one saying that someone as prideful as him couldn't bear to be burned at the stake as a pariah for having dark blood sounds way more accurate, and looking back, the original line made it sound like there were concerns about the security of the plan that the dark mage just completely glossed over by moving on to the next subject.

Jeeeesus christ. Yeah, this game seems to have a recurring theme of bunching all of the enemies into big groups, which... really makes combat really on game-breaking enemy-phase power, which is in plentiful supply in this game. Honestly though, it's really disappointing looking at it in the context of this marathon. Look at that massive blob of units. What kind of challenge is that? Just that single formless blob of enemies that can easily be cheesed with hit and run strats or just raw stats, and then nothing else after that until I get to the castle? The only thing that's scary about that group is how many of them there are.

Well, that and the ridersbane that Zyne is carrying. But I'll just have to player-phase snipe him with Azel.

But seriously, of my four heavy-hitters, only one of them was gained through what I'd call “abuse”. Azel required babying, but all the exp he got was the finite non-abuse amount you get for combat, which means that there's easily enough exp in this game to get a couple strong promoted units by this point. And that utterly breaks the game, because this game really, really rewards strong enemy-phasing. I mean, most games in the series do, but most of them also don't make it this easy to accomplish it, at least not on the harder difficulties. Between a very forgiving exp curve, tons of ridiculously powerful stat-boosting rings, overpowered weapons and skills, and tremendous promotion bonuses, It's ridiculously easy to turn damn near anyone in this game into an unstoppable enemy phase menace, and so far this game isn't giving me much reason to do anything else.

Yeah, after multiple hit-and-runs with Azel (who has the best 1-2 range power of my set of four promoted fighters), the entire army was slaughtered, and I managed to get Dew two strong levels killing off the three troubadours when the rest of the army was gone. Now I'll have him kill the ballisticians because why the hell not? Might as well challenge myself at least a little and get some reward out of it.

Never mind! Not a challenge at all! Thanks to the auras, Dew can completely dodgetank the ballistae. Oh well, not like I wasted much time, Dew arrived at the end of the cavalry fight anyway.

I'm gonna give Raquesis the kill on Chagall both to get her the Physic and to get some pre-emptive revenge for what's going to happen next chapter.

And Chagall is a complete and total coward who doesn't even attack when it's his turn. He just uses the physic staff to heal. I never noticed that before! Nice touch, even if it makes this a lot easier.

Alright! He's down and Augusty is seized. Let's see the new translation of the chapter finale, and GET THE FUCK OUT OF THIS AWFUL, AWFUL FUCKING CHAPTER.

...Yeah, uh, Eldigan, with all due respect...

...Which is literally none...

...FUCK YOU.

This new translation especially makes it worse, but this even applies to the old one...

You are officially the least sympathetic Camus in the entire goddamned franchise. YOU ARE WORSE THAN XANDER. Xander at least was idiotically loyal to a beloved family member who once deserved that kind of loyalty.

First off, what do you mean you “suppose” you were arrested? And the fuck do you mean by “I'm indisposed for barely any time at all, only to find Grannvale has made itself a home in Augustria behind my back!” Your king shoves you in a cell, invades your castle, signs your own fucking sister's death and/or RAPE warrant, Sigurd bails her out and helps her rescue you, and yet here you are, talking to your best friend with an air of “I'm gone for five minutes, and you do THIS behind my back!?”.

HOW ARE YOU FUCKING SURPRISED THAT THIS IS THE END RESULT OF WHAT CHAGALL DID!?

Can you even CONCEIVE of a way Sigurd could have handled this in which you wouldn't be pissed off at him and your sister would still be in one piece?

ELDIGAN.

WHAT.

THE FUCK.

IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

This hostile, “you're on thin fucking ice, buster” attitude is patently ridiculous. The knowledge that his sister is safe, his citizenry non-pillaged, and his freedom won thanks to Sigurd's intervention would each individually be enough on their own to keep any remotely sane person from being this one-sidedly mad. He's acting as if it's a herculean task to trust Sigurd, a courtesy that's only afforded to him thanks to their history of friendship. As if he would have killed LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE ON THE SPOT IF THEY DID THIS.

Imagine how awkward a conversation THAT would've been, next time he talked to Raquesis?

This is a guy who dotes on his sister so much that THE TOWNSPEOPLE ARE SPREADING INCEST RUMORS. I REFUSE to believe that this is in character for him unless literally nobody told him anything about what happened to Raquesis, INCLUDING RAQUESIS HERSELF, in the ENTIRE SIX MONTH PERIOD that takes place between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.

Fuck this. Fuck this entirely.

...Alright, I'm done.

Anyway... let's get moving, and do at least the beginning setup of chapter 3.

Okay. So. This text crawl about how things get progressively worse for Sigurd in the six months between chapters 2 and 3... if this game gets a remake, I'm hoping that this is expanded on, that Eldigan's hostility in chapter 2 is toned down, and that THIS is used as the opportunity to strain their relationship, as Sigurd's basically forced to put up with his higher-ups making it impossible for him to do what he needs to do to get out of Augustria. If Eldigan was aware that Sigurd wasn't in the wrong in chapter 2, but the politics surrounding them basically forced them to either kill each other or betray their countries, causing a perpetual spiral of strain on their relationship... that would make for a far more compelling and tragic story. As it stands, Eldigan just... sucks ass.

Okay, just got to the Briggid conversation, and... first off, the fuck is up with their castle? It looks like acid rained on it. The top looks melted and slick. Second off, big mistake, I feel, translating Briggid's stance on their acts as just being “heroic thieves”, which sounds fucking weird, instead out outright stating that they're Robin Hood types who give to the poor, like the original translation did.

Another weird thing is that despite the opening text making it sound like a hopeless deadlock, both Sigurd and Eldigan independently say that Grannvale was on the verge of giving Augusty back to Chagall when Chagall attacked.

I do like that the translation change to Shanan being instructed to watch over Dierdre changes from “that ought to put you at ease” to “he at least should keep you in good cheer”, to make it clear he's not actually expecting combat strength from Shanan, or indirectly insulting his wife (who admittedly probably deserves it) by saying she's so weak that she'd be safer if protected by a 13 year old boy.

On to the obligatory start-of-chapter arena runs, purchases, etc.

...Okay, this just occurred to me, and I can't believe it took me this all these years to really think about this... why can a BLACKSMITH repair tomes? What the fuck are magic books made of?

...IS THAT WHY FIRE TOMES ARE SO HEAVY!?

Alright. I know I said this about last chapter, and we know how that turned out... but the beginning of this chapter is looking great. Lots of stuff that ideally needs to be done at once for one thing. Which means multiple teams need to go out, and there are a lot of pre-deployed smaller battalions around... it's feeling more like a harder version of the first map.

I also like how all of the back-and-forth non-linear castle progression is restricted to a relatively open area that's about half the map size, to prevent massive pains in the ass when it comes to going back and forth.

Yes, I think I'm going to have a lot more fun tomorrow than I had last week.

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Amusing thing about Clement, is that while he's generally not that bad a guy, he shares a portrait with probably the worst person in the entire game (which is saying something). The outright rapist child hunter Morigan.

16 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

In their defense, he's pretty dang old.

 

He didn't need to be though.

Edited by Jotari
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Genealogy Day 13: The Terror of the Ten Foot March

I just noticed, I think this game might have different sound effects for attacks that do a little damage and attacks that do a lot.

I was initially concerned Lewyn might be a bit of a load before getting Forseti. Jesus was I wrong. He hasn't seen a single round of real combat since those bandits when he first showed up, but he could easily do enough arena cheese between this chapter and the last that a little gold gift from Dew (after he bought the Paragon Ring) was enough to let Lewyn get the Pursuit Ring. And now he's a complete and total menace. Low defense, to be sure, though he's still great for player phase and against mages. And obviously once he gets Forseti, enemy phase won't be an issue for him.

Speaking of which, strategy time! There are a couple of things I need to do at once. First off, I need to neutralize all of the pirates before they go after villages I can't reach. But I also need to head off the numerous armed patrols gunning for Augusty, namely a team of lance armors to the east (sending Lex after them), a team of mages to the northwest (sending Lewyn after them and having Finn and Midir take out the pirate nearby), and an army of axe armors and bow knights (sending Sigurd, Azel and Raquesis after them). I also, obviously, just got the brave sword and I'm about to have Ayra sell it to Erin immediately so she can get some shit done.

...Christ I wish this game let you have wyvern riders before the last two and a half chapters of the whole game. I always like them way better than pegasus knights. The speed disadvantage is literally never an issue. In nearly every instance in living memory the wyvern riders have been better than the pegasus knights in all practical areas. For similar reasons I'm also really, really, really missing my insanely badass Lex!Fee right about now, but of course that was only a sane idea because it was a mounted-only run. Now that this is instead an ironman run, Ced's too good to screw over, and he's a prime candidate to inherit the Valkyrie staff. Also, having a flying staff user with an improved staff rank and a decent magic growth will be nice. But I do miss my “wyvern rider in feathers”.

Sylvia is currently staying in the castle for now, since she can't really keep up with any of these groups, and she'll make the in-and-out-of-castle shenanigans of the first few turns a bit easier. Plus, she's not getting any support points while indoors I believe. And given this is ironman... this bitch dyin' a widow. I need all the auras I can get.

Speaking of support points, the second Dew and Ayra fall in love, it'll only take 25 of the 50 optimistic minimum turns for this map to get Dew promoted by tossing money around, thanks to being level 15 and having the Paragon Ring.

However, I accidentally stick Raquesis in a place where she could die if all enemy attacks connect, because I sorely underestimated how much attack power the armor grunts had because I was getting complacent again. I managed to salvage it as much as I could by both giving the enemy more tempting (but non-killable) targets and giving her Sigurd's aura. It's highly unlikely she'll die, but I'm obviously still nervous.

Thankfully... for some reason... one of the armors doesn't make the full march to attack her. I could have SWORN he was in range though...

Unfortunately, Raquesis's magic attack power, even with an el tome, is absolutely pathetic. Her only real flaw. I'll have to give her Azel's magic ring, because jesus fucking christ. She's not one-rounding anything at 1-2 range with that attack power. Not this late in part 1.

...Unfortunately... yes... this is yet another busy day. I'm sorry. My schedule's just gotten nuts lately, and Wednesdays are especially tight even at the best of times. It's getting pretty late now, to the point where I'm concerned I might make a stupid tactical decision due to mental fatigue.

...And that would be dangerous here. Because the situation I just got myself into is a bit intense. Okay. First off, I failed a spot check somehow and missed the lance knights stationed to the southeast, and they just started going full charge after Finn and Midir. Secondly, all of those axe armors Raquesis failed to kill up north are still there, and the bow knights are charging as well. Third, Erin is caught between these two groups and the fire mages and is trying to get past them to intercept the sea-traveling pirates before they pass through the arbitrary yellow “you can't go through here because plot” anti-flier field over the sea. I've gotta figure out how to fix all of these issues simultaneously, and... that's... probably gonna be a challenge.

Hopefully that's enough of a cliffhanger to make up for the short post!

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On 11/12/2019 at 1:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

most of them also don't make it this easy to accomplish it, at least not on the harder difficulties.

Calling "clever mode" a harder difficulty is giving it a lot of credit, it simply changes AI behavior, and a lot of people prefer it due to it being more consistent and easier to predict (as the normal AI can do some fairly random things even if they tend to be kinda stupid).

On 11/12/2019 at 1:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

...Yeah, uh, Eldigan, with all due respect...

...Which is literally none...

...FUCK YOU.

This new translation especially makes it worse, but this even applies to the old one...

You are officially the least sympathetic Camus in the entire goddamned franchise. YOU ARE WORSE THAN XANDER. Xander at least was idiotically loyal to a beloved family member who once deserved that kind of loyalty.

First off, what do you mean you “suppose” you were arrested? And the fuck do you mean by “I'm indisposed for barely any time at all, only to find Grannvale has made itself a home in Augustria behind my back!” Your king shoves you in a cell, invades your castle, signs your own fucking sister's death and/or RAPE warrant, Sigurd bails her out and helps her rescue you, and yet here you are, talking to your best friend with an air of “I'm gone for five minutes, and you do THIS behind my back!?”.

HOW ARE YOU FUCKING SURPRISED THAT THIS IS THE END RESULT OF WHAT CHAGALL DID!?

Can you even CONCEIVE of a way Sigurd could have handled this in which you wouldn't be pissed off at him and your sister would still be in one piece?

ELDIGAN.

WHAT.

THE FUCK.

IS WRONG WITH YOU!?

This hostile, “you're on thin fucking ice, buster” attitude is patently ridiculous. The knowledge that his sister is safe, his citizenry non-pillaged, and his freedom won thanks to Sigurd's intervention would each individually be enough on their own to keep any remotely sane person from being this one-sidedly mad. He's acting as if it's a herculean task to trust Sigurd, a courtesy that's only afforded to him thanks to their history of friendship. As if he would have killed LITERALLY ANYONE ELSE ON THE SPOT IF THEY DID THIS.

Imagine how awkward a conversation THAT would've been, next time he talked to Raquesis?

This is a guy who dotes on his sister so much that THE TOWNSPEOPLE ARE SPREADING INCEST RUMORS. I REFUSE to believe that this is in character for him unless literally nobody told him anything about what happened to Raquesis, INCLUDING RAQUESIS HERSELF, in the ENTIRE SIX MONTH PERIOD that takes place between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3.

Fuck this. Fuck this entirely.

...Alright, I'm done.

Anyway... let's get moving, and do at least the beginning setup of chapter 3.

Okay. So. This text crawl about how things get progressively worse for Sigurd in the six months between chapters 2 and 3... if this game gets a remake, I'm hoping that this is expanded on, that Eldigan's hostility in chapter 2 is toned down, and that THIS is used as the opportunity to strain their relationship, as Sigurd's basically forced to put up with his higher-ups making it impossible for him to do what he needs to do to get out of Augustria. If Eldigan was aware that Sigurd wasn't in the wrong in chapter 2, but the politics surrounding them basically forced them to either kill each other or betray their countries, causing a perpetual spiral of strain on their relationship... that would make for a far more compelling and tragic story. As it stands, Eldigan just... sucks ass.

All right time to defend Eldigan a bit here. Lets start by pointing out the main downfall of Sigurd, that he is blind to political realities (something I will probably talk about more when you get to the end of generation 1), which is relevant, because Eldigan is aware of the political consequences of Sigurd's actions. They show this all the way back in their first on screen meeting, Sigurd has gone beyond defending his nation and is invading Verdane to rescue Edain, and Eldigan meets Sigurd to find out why he is invading, and pointing out that this leaves him open to Augustrian opportunism. If we look at Sigurd's actions in Verdane, he goes in to rescue his childhood friend Edain, and after she is safe he continues to conquer anyway, going all the way to the capital, which results in Grannvale controlling Verdane despite prince Jamke being perfectly capable of taking the throne. Sigurd's conquest of Augustria follows the same pattern, he goes in to save Raquesis, and just keeps going, almost killing the Augustrian king while he is at it. Eldigan didn't think he needed saving, and even if he appreciates Sigurd saving Raquesis, Sigurd goes too far just like the last time. Sigurd doesn't stop at saving people, he presses on to the capital to try and kill the king anyway, and is too blind to the political consequences of his actions to realize that this is the same situation as Verdane, and Grannvale isn't going to just give that land back to its rightful ruler afterwards. To put this in a silly modern day example, I may find president Trump just as petty and "likable" as Chagall, but I would still have some sharp words if a friend conquered half of America in the name of Russia to free me from unjust imprisonment, especially after they have already conquered Canada to save another friend (while the main Russian army is midway through annexing China) and would find it hard to believe his claim that Puntin will just give back all that land, promise, especially when the year long Canadian occupation is showing no signs of stopping.

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And given this is ironman... this bitch dyin' a widow. I need all the auras I can get.

The free Paragon and Berserk staff are a nice boost to Sharlow as well.

 

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3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

To put this in a silly modern day example, I may find president Trump just as petty and "likable" as Chagall, but I would still have some sharp words if a friend conquered half of America in the name of Russia to free me from unjust imprisonment, especially after they have already conquered Canada to save another friend (while the main Russian army is midway through annexing China) and would find it hard to believe his claim that Puntin will just give back all that land, promise, especially when the year long Canadian occupation is showing no signs of stopping.

 

It wasn't just unjust imprisonment that prompted the invasion. Chagall also sicced an entitled psychopath on his sister and his castle's citizenry out of pure spite, and then, and this is the big and crucially important thing, transparently and openly attempted an 90% baseless invasion of Sigurd's country while they were at their most vulnerable. It's pretty damned specious to remotely consider Sigurd the aggressor in this conflict, or not understand why he did what he did.

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2 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It wasn't just unjust imprisonment that prompted the invasion. Chagall also sicced an entitled psychopath on his sister and his castle's citizenry out of pure spite, and then, and this is the big and crucially important thing, transparently and openly attempted an 90% baseless invasion of Sigurd's country while they were at their most vulnerable. It's pretty damned specious to remotely consider Sigurd the aggressor in this conflict, or not understand why he did what he did.

There is a reason I called the modern example silly. Sigurd may have been justified in saving Raquesis/Nodian, but he doesn't just stop there, he kept going, steamrolling everyone in his way to the capital (even poor Clement who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time). As for Chagall's "invasion" he hadn't even convinced the Lords of Augustria into mobilizing before Sigurd pounced, as they were still clearly in the buildup to war rhetoric stage of things, so the whole thing comes across as preemptive as the bombing of pearl harbor.

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1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

There is a reason I called the modern example silly. Sigurd may have been justified in saving Raquesis/Nodian, but he doesn't just stop there, he kept going, steamrolling everyone in his way to the capital (even poor Clement who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time). As for Chagall's "invasion" he hadn't even convinced the Lords of Augustria into mobilizing before Sigurd pounced, as they were still clearly in the buildup to war rhetoric stage of things, so the whole thing comes across as preemptive as the bombing of pearl harbor.

He pretty explicitly said that the plan after taking over Nordion was to go straight on to Evans.

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7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

He pretty explicitly said that the plan after taking over Nordion was to go straight on to Evans.

He may talk a strong game, but a quick look at the Lords of Augustria makes it clear that he is either posturing, or delusional. Heirheim may be jumping at the bit to invade Nordion, but they make it fairly clear they don't actually care about the king's commands, and are only acting with them for their own benefit (something you remarked upon as being rather strange earlier). Macbeth thinks so highly of Chagall's commands that he literally raids the king's personal lands instead of acting on them, only bothering to obey when both Sigurd and Chagall are breathing down his neck. Clement makes it clear through his action that he wants to stay out of this whole affair, until it is far too late to stop Sigurdfrom steamrolling him. Meanwhile Nordion (and presumably fort Silvan as well) are going to need to be subdued before Chagall can even start his invasion, and its not likely that they will have many troops to add after being crushed. Chagall hasn't solidified his rule enough for an invasion to even resemble something that is reasonable, but this sort of posturing is what he would need to do to get it there. We are shown how decentralized Augustria is during the battle between Elliot and Eldigan on the border, and with that much autonomy with its lords, it would take the rigor of far more politics than are even implied before Augustria will be ready for, let alone at, war.

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1 minute ago, Espurrhoodie said:

When I said massive I meant massive.

latest?cb=20120410014501

- insert "absolute unit" joke here-

Given that I've seen swords only slightly less ridiculous in anime, that's actually quite reasonable for a psychotically oversized anime lance. Canonically, that's an anti-cavalry lance. This is what anime considers to be an "anti-cavalry sword":

2db7dedbb2bb70_full.jpg

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7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Given that I've seen swords only slightly less ridiculous in anime, that's actually quite reasonable for a psychotically oversized anime lance. Canonically, that's an anti-cavalry lance. This is what anime considers to be an "anti-cavalry sword":

2db7dedbb2bb70_full.jpg

Point taken.

Why do I keep trying to apply logic to video games?

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46 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is what anime considers to be an "anti-cavalry sword":

Zhanmadao.jpg

To be fair the historical anti-cavalry swords weren't exactly tiny. For some size context from pommel to tip this blade is almost 5 feet (although well over a foot of that is in the handle).

Edited by Eltosian Kadath
fixing terminology
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2 hours ago, Espurrhoodie said:

When I said massive I meant massive.

latest?cb=20120410014501

- insert "absolute unit" joke here-

Part of me feels like the reason for that is because the artist needed to dedicate an entire page to this moment and found they'd undersized him and left too much empty space so they just gradually made the lance bigger and bigger until this monstrosity emerged. Do we ever see him actually trying to use it in combat? It must be scaled down because even by anime standards that's ludicrous.

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10 hours ago, Jotari said:

Part of me feels like the reason for that is because the artist needed to dedicate an entire page to this moment and found they'd undersized him and left too much empty space so they just gradually made the lance bigger and bigger until this monstrosity emerged. Do we ever see him actually trying to use it in combat? It must be scaled down because even by anime standards that's ludicrous.

Yep. And no, it isn't scaled down.

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Genealogy Day 14: Getting Out of This Mess

First off, I have Raquesis's group (quick reminder: That's Raquesis, Azel and Sigurd) retreat to a distance where they can fight but survive the bow knights, attacking and killing the armor knights as they retreat to their ideal formation, selectively killing the ones who could get in range, to minimize damage taken. Thankfully the bow knights have inferior HP, so Raquesis can kill these ones no problem.

Second, I find a spot northward in the forest for Erin, one directly between the mage and bow knight attack ranges but not in either of them. Literally just a single square pocket between the combined attack ranges of the two groups. If she goes straight north from this square next turn, she'll be pretty much in the clear to get past the mages. She'll get in range of some of the mages, but not enough to risk her life or get her too badly beaten to fight the pirates. And that's assuming she even needs to go through them at all, given that most of the bow knights are going to die next turn.

Finally, I have Midir, in a ballsy move I may regret, keep going towards the pirate by the borders of Silvail, banking on Finn luring the lance knights away by being closer to them as he retreats down the road to Augusty. He can't take their combined firepower, and unfortunately while the mooks' stats line up perfectly to get him to 1 HP with miracle, the boss ruins any plans to rely on that. I'll have to give him backup in the form of Raquesis and company next turn.

I check the results, and this is utterly fascinating. The enemy AI in this game places SUCH importance on how much damage they'll take in return that even when the end result is still death, they'll suicide into a higher defense, lower attack unit rather than suicide into a lower defense, higher attack unit. That's extremely different from the AI priorities of most games in the series I've played.

Anyway, everything went surprisingly smoothly, and I also discovered back at the base that Aideen was just about to promote, so, I had her heal someone up and do that. She actually has pretty good offensive stats, making it a shame that she doesn't have any skills.

Oh shit. One of the villagers helpfully reminds me about the dracoknight swarm that I'm pretty sure will come after I seize Madino. I'll have to remember that when I decide who to send back to deal with Eldigan's charge. I hear this because I'm having Midir go around to the villages to get money to give to his wife, who is sorely short on gold due to having expensive staves and little in the way of income since neither she nor her husband is good at fighting. This unfortunately, since I resolved not to look up which village does what, means I waste a +3 strength booster on him that Dew could really have used. Damn. Oh well, he's getting decent levels.

I have Lex sneak behind the castle guards to take out the pirates at the villages by Madino, managing to just barely slip by while Raquesis and Azel bait the armors out of formation.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of them double back and chase after Lex for reasons I can't wholly process at the moment.

Yet again, it astonishes me how difficult it is to make describing the actual gameplay interesting. The encounters are massive, clumped together and brief. It's not as boring playing it as it is describing it, but way more interesting things happen way more rapidly most of the time even in the games prior on this list that had major pacing issues. I find that whenever I'm mostly just playing the game and not commenting on the story or on game mechanics, it's sometimes very hard to make what I'm doing sound remotely engaging. As such... I'll try to fast forward to something better.

So, Azel kills the boss and now has the bolt sword, and he'll be using it exclusively from now on unless he has to fight things that fight in melee. Dew will keep the wind sword, and the fire sword will go to Ayra.

And I am informed of the moment that Dew and Ayra become a couple by proccing a lover's crit the very first turn to destroy the big ballista Dew had been chipping away at! Score! He'll be a thief fighter in no time, which is just ENOUGH time to start putting the wind sword to good use!

So, just secured Madino, and we've gotten to the really juicy part of the conspiracy, where Lord Byron is framed and on the run. I have to say... while this definitely has the best plot of the entire series, the way it's told, not to mention several of the moment-to-moment story beats, leaves something to significantly be desired. I'd love it if we actually got to SEE some more of this political conspiracy behind the scenes. We see a bit of it, but, just to give an idea about how little of it is actually shown:

I don't think we've ever actually seen Reptor or Langbalt speak a word.

They're a huge part in this whole grand conspiracy, and they're major players behind the scenes, but they have literally no screentime beyond their portraits being flashed in the opening text crawl of the goddamned prologue. This really feels like the sort of thing that would be made way better with the Echoes treatment, where we can get some extra story content and scenes.

And while we're on the topic, since this episode is gonna probably be heavy on shit that I won't get much discussion mileage out of, allow me to take a moment to list some other changes that occur to me after my time playing this game, changes I'd like to see in a remake:

1: Teleportation magic is just a thing. Castles have easy access to it and can easily transport people and things from allied castle to allied castle, within a certain distance. This would be established in-universe as the means by which news travels so blindingly fast, and the gameplay impact of this would be that any unit can teleport from any allied castle to any other allied castle. This would drastically cut back on annoying backtracking. Warp would still be useful for letting you do it anywhere, or it would be modified to be more like the warp staff in other games, similar to this game's obscure and difficult-to-obtain rescue staff.

2: As I said, more cutscenes that Sigurd isn't witness to. This game does have some, but it restricts all of them to stuff that's happening on this chapter's map at the furthest. Thus we never get to see any of the shit going on in the Grannvale court until chapter 5, which is disappointingly late in my opinion. At least at the beginning and end of chapters, we should get to see stuff happening elsewhere on the continent. I'd love it if we got to see Byron and Kurth interact so we can actually see more of what they were like, and maybe have Byron's death in chapter 5 be a hugely emotional moment where we realize everything Byron's gone through to get Tyrfing to Sigurd, his last (and unfortunately star-crossed) chance of getting anything right. Really drive in that this massive intergenerational tragedy took THREE generations to avenge, not just two, which is something I only just now realized while discussing this.

3: Massively, MASSIVELY overhauled enemy encounters. More enemies, more spread out, belonging to smaller and more numerous formations. And on a related note:

4: SHIT TO DO AT THE CASTLE. Currently, foot soldiers and especially armor soldiers are left completely in the dust because they can't efficiently do anything, because there's so much moving around that has to be done. The game provided its own solution to this but basically never actually tried to make it a core concern. MAKE REINFORCEMENTS ATTACK THE CASTLE. Make it important to have a platoon of units hanging around the castle to help protect it from damage. Make every chapter have a defense chapter built-in to it. This is a job that any unit can do, not just ones that have high mobility, and it's such a waste that this game basically never gives you the opportunity to do it.

So... Taillte? That name looks weird no matter how you spell it, so I guess I'm just biased towards Tiltyu, but at least that one sounds plausibly girly and cute. Speaking of, I wonder what they're going to do with Claude now that Three Houses is a thing?

That's weird... this time the “castle seized” jingle happened before the end of the cutscenes. I don't remember that happening before now.

And yet again, I'd like to draw your attention to the fact that crucial plot points depend on instant transmission of information. Sigurd captures Madino, and the literal instant this happens, Dierdre is just overcome with an anxious and impatient desire to leave the safety of the castle and walk all the way over to Madino to see him.

Think about that. In a game that doesn't remotely discuss how news travels, the plot ABSOLUTELY, PIVOTALLY DEPENDS on the news of Sigurd conquering Madino reaching Augusty FASTER THAN SIGURD CAN.

Okay, now, Dierdre is going “here Shanan, take care of my baby while I make a quick stroll ACROSS THE FUCKING COUNTRYSIDE, ON FOOT.”

“I won't be long,” she says.

HOW WILL YOU NOT BE LONG, DIERDRE? HOW COULD THIS TRIP POSSIBLY NOT TAKE TOO MUCH TIME FOR IT TO BE SAFE TO LEAVE A BABY WITH AN INEXPERIENCED PRE-TEEN BOY?

Most of my “this is stupid” energy in the past regarding this moment was reserved for what happens next, and how stupid it can be depending on who you leave in that area just north of Augusty to witness Dierdre's kidnapping and do literally nothing. But now I realize this is just an outrageously contrived and bizarre plot point across the board.

...That said, it STILL hurts me right in the gut to see that sort of horrible shit happen to them. This game, for all of its myriad faults with its gameplay and writing, really picked a series of events to happen to our main character to really, MAJORLY punch him in the gut, and punch him so hard that the audience feels it. I think that's really what makes this plot so memorable and beloved: the sheer emotions it stirs in people who play it. Just how much it makes us miserable for Sigurd and how much it makes us want to fuck up the shit of everyone who's wronged him. Fuck the fact that we barely know Dierdre or arguably even Sigurd, we don't NEED to know them all that well to feel bad about this, because this is shit that we wouldn't wish on our worst enemy, and the game knows it. Sweet Christ does the game know it. And it's also the sort of thing that isn't really used often, so we haven't become numb to the hunger. The shit that happens at the end of part 1, that specific act of inhuman cruelty, very, very rarely happens in fiction, so it doesn't feel like a cheap ploy to get us to sympathize with underdeveloped characters, even when, cold-bloodedly, it kind of is.

Alright, and now we come up to Eldigan and the Cross Knights. Time to get a load of them and try to figure out why I don't remember having any issue dealing with these guys at all.

OH!

THAT'S RIGHT!

I REMEMBER!

BECAUSE WHEN YOU USE RAQUESIS AND PROMOTE HER TO MASTER KNIGHT, THE CROSS KNIGHTS CAN'T DO SHIT TO HER!

All you have to do is talk to Eldigan, and the cross knights just die because their attack power is garbage compared to her monstrous defense.

Keep in mind, Raquesis starts out with a base defense of 7, gains 1 defense from talking to Beowulf, gains another whopping 7 upon promotion, and on average will gain 4 more by level 20 with her growth of 20%. That's 19 defense on average. With that defense value, the Cross Knights, with their strongest weapon, the javelin, do FOUR DAMAGE TO HER. And my Raquesis is a tiny bit blessed and also level 29, so she has 23 defense. The cross knights literally can't touch her, so it's just a matter of guarding the castle and having my toughest guys pick them off. Should be a breeze.

As long as we can reach Eldigan.

Which I do, after giving the magic ring to Raquesis and then weeding out a few of them. They won't fight Raquesis, but they will fight her new husband Azel, who thankfully has awesome evade thanks to his thunder sword and his total of 20% bonuses from standing next to Raquesis.

Funny enough, I have to give a point of praise to Eldigan. Unlike most Camuses, he does actually wind up being convinced in the end that killing Sigurd for that sack of shit Chagall is a terrible idea, even if he immediately dies for it.

Anyway, his death prompts the appearance of dracoknights... who I now discover have 1 more point of movement than pegasus knights, even before being promoted.

...It may have been a mistake to have Erin stick near the not-yet-crossable shoreline.

...Guess I'll sort that out tomorrow!

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This unfortunately, since I resolved not to look up which village does what, means I waste a +3 strength booster on him that Dew could really have used. Damn. Oh well, he's getting decent levels.

I gave that to Finn myself, owing to him having the 2nd Gen to put it to use. So you'd get the most use on paper by doing so, in practice, Finn isn't that valuable in Gen 2 I discovered. But, neither do you need that much more offense for what remains of Gen 1.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Speaking of, I wonder what they're going to do with Claude now that Three Houses is a thing?

Claude of Somewhere in Britain will have his name pronounced as "Cloud-ee" or "Cloud-day".

Choose Your Legends for FE Heroes decided on "Claud", no "e" at the end for the Duke of Edda. Maybe it'll be changed later, nothing is permanent until FE4 gets a remake, but this is the best we have to go on at the moment.

And, FEH chose "Tailtiu" for Miss Thunder Mage, which is apparently the accurate old spelling of an Irish goddess's name. "Tailte" might be a modern update closer to the pronunciation?

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

BECAUSE WHEN YOU USE RAQUESIS AND PROMOTE HER TO MASTER KNIGHT, THE CROSS KNIGHTS CAN'T DO SHIT TO HER!

That was precisely my problem I think, I didn't have a promoted Lach for this. Since fighting Eldigan is very dangerous, and getting him gone doesn't make the Cross Knights disappear, an unpromoted Lachesis means a big headache of positioning her to talk to her brother, and then protecting Lach/killing enough Cross Knights so she won't die. Or she could die, Claud and Valkyrie is here now.

 

On 11/13/2019 at 6:54 PM, Alastor15243 said:

In nearly every instance in living memory the wyvern riders have been better than the pegasus knights in all practical areas.

Except for this game for sure. Since by the time Altena shows up, the next two chapters appreciate a high Res stat she can only barely reach if at all with a Barrier Sword and Ring. Claud!Fee should probably be able to pass the Res check with only one of those two things, or even neither. 

Heath is pretty equal to the F Sisters in FE7. FE12 should have instances on Maniac/Lunatic where the higher Spd cap of Falco will matter. And Awakening probably has Wyverns and Pegasi as equals- tankiness vs. flying magic/Rescue and all.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Forget Langbolt and Repair, Prince Kurth never appears in the game at all! He gets his (way too young looking) portrait in the prologue and maybe another chapter and that's it.

I'm in agreement with all your suggested changes. The games plot is great, but it can be delivered very hamfistedly sometimes. Not as bad as Mystery of the Emblem (which doesn't actually have a plot, it just has lore and backstory) but there's still quite a few characters who exposit information to other characters who already know it.

Regarding gameplay, I think the simple introduction of the rescue command would foot units quite a lot. Not entirely fix them, so more defense features would be nice, bit just convoying them to the action easier would be useful and would give a defined purpose to the likes of Alec when they fall behind in combat. Chapter 7 would have to stop you from just convoying your entire army over to Leif somehow though. Most likely by putting one of those plot barriers over the water. It's either that or just make Pegasus entirely unable to rescue, which would kind of suck.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

1: Teleportation magic is just a thing. Castles have easy access to it and can easily transport people and things from allied castle to allied castle, within a certain distance. This would be established in-universe as the means by which news travels so blindingly fast, and the gameplay impact of this would be that any unit can teleport from any allied castle to any other allied castle. This would drastically cut back on annoying backtracking. Warp would still be useful for letting you do it anywhere, or it would be modified to be more like the warp staff in other games, similar to this game's obscure and difficult-to-obtain rescue staff.

I like this idea, although I think it should cost as much to do this teleportation as it would to fix a single use of the warp staff, just to make it cost something like castle/church heals.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

2: As I said, more cutscenes that Sigurd isn't witness to. This game does have some, but it restricts all of them to stuff that's happening on this chapter's map at the furthest. Thus we never get to see any of the shit going on in the Grannvale court until chapter 5, which is disappointingly late in my opinion. At least at the beginning and end of chapters, we should get to see stuff happening elsewhere on the continent. I'd love it if we got to see Byron and Kurth interact so we can actually see more of what they were like, and maybe have Byron's death in chapter 5 be a hugely emotional moment where we realize everything Byron's gone through to get Tyrfing to Sigurd, his last (and unfortunately star-crossed) chance of getting anything right. Really drive in that this massive intergenerational tragedy took THREE generations to avenge, not just two, which is something I only just now realized while discussing this.

I am of a mixed mind about this one, as I kinda like how this perspective makes it clear that Sigurd is dangerously ineptitude at politics if you know what to look for, without making him look like an idiot (for the most part). You rightfully pointed out how Sigurd's talk with Lewyn in the last chapter made him look moronically naive, and I am afraid actually seeing the political situation that he is ignoring, despite some down right blatant warnings from Filat, will make Sigurd look just as moronic.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

4: SHIT TO DO AT THE CASTLE. Currently, foot soldiers and especially armor soldiers are left completely in the dust because they can't efficiently do anything, because there's so much moving around that has to be done. The game provided its own solution to this but basically never actually tried to make it a core concern. MAKE REINFORCEMENTS ATTACK THE CASTLE. Make it important to have a platoon of units hanging around the castle to help protect it from damage. Make every chapter have a defense chapter built-in to it. This is a job that any unit can do, not just ones that have high mobility, and it's such a waste that this game basically never gives you the opportunity to do it.

I like this idea in theory, but you kinda need flight to keep the cavalry from easily intercepting them, which would kinda defeat the purpose, and constantly having flyers pop up would get either old or cliche fairly quickly.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't think we've ever actually seen Reptor or Langbalt speak a word.

Funny you mention this now, as I think Langblat gets a line at the end of this chapter.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yet again, it astonishes me how difficult it is to make describing the actual gameplay interesting. The encounters are massive, clumped together and brief. It's not as boring playing it as it is describing it, but way more interesting things happen way more rapidly most of the time even in the games prior on this list that had major pacing issues. I find that whenever I'm mostly just playing the game and not commenting on the story or on game mechanics, it's sometimes very hard to make what I'm doing sound remotely engaging. As such... I'll try to fast forward to something better.

I think its going fine, but then again I know this game well enough to be able to visualize the gist of what is going on. Plus I seem to remember a lot of mention of how much nothing goes on in those earlier games.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Funny enough, I have to give a point of praise to Eldigan. Unlike most Camuses, he does actually wind up being convinced in the end that killing Sigurd for that sack of shit Chagall is a terrible idea, even if he immediately dies for it.

There is a scene that plays out at the start of the player phase after Eldigan is killed in battle where Sigurd is broken up about his death, and pouring his heart out to Oifey about it. A took a little bit of looking around to find a clip of it.

 

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19 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I like this idea, although I think it should cost as much to do this teleportation as it would to fix a single use of the warp staff, just to make it cost something like castle/church heals.

I am of a mixed mind about this one, as I kinda like how this perspective makes it clear that Sigurd is dangerously ineptitude at politics if you know what to look for, without making him look like an idiot (for the most part). You rightfully pointed out how Sigurd's talk with Lewyn in the last chapter made him look moronically naive, and I am afraid actually seeing the political situation that he is ignoring, despite some down right blatant warnings from Filat, will make Sigurd look just as moronic.

 

I like this idea in theory, but you kinda need flight to keep the cavalry from easily intercepting them, which would kinda defeat the purpose, and constantly having flyers pop up would get either old or cliche fairly quickly.

 

Funny you mention this now, as I think Langblat gets a line at the end of this chapter.

 

I think its going fine, but then again I know this game well enough to be able to visualize the gist of what is going on. Plus I seem to remember a lot of mention of how much nothing goes on in those earlier games.

 

There is a scene that plays out at the start of the player phase after Eldigan is killed in battle where Sigurd is broken up about his death, and pouring his heart out to Oifey about it. A took a little bit of looking around to find a clip of it.

 

It's Reptor who appears at the end of this chapter actually.

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On 11/13/2019 at 5:54 PM, Alastor15243 said:

In nearly every instance in living memory the wyvern riders have been better than the pegasus knights in all practical areas.

I beg to differ - the only games where I could say that was really the case were Binding Blade, Sacred Stones (Cormag is better on Ephraim route, but I'd hesitate to say he's better on Eirika route), Radiant Dawn and Fates (and even then, one of those has the whole two armies thing, while in the other two, only one of the two you get could claim to be better).

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