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


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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, I think revival shrines are a bit… okay, while I get the idea of putting them late into the game to keep permadeath relevant, things like the Aum staff and other late-game revival things are often pointless, because anyone you revive missed out on experience in the time they were dead, and the earlier in the game they died, the slimmer the odds there’ll even be any point to bringing them back. And really they can only afford to be brought back a handful of chapters later, given how rapidly units usually grow.

That’s why my favorite revival item is the Bifrost, because it’s repurposed as a thing you do to recover from death immediately, in the middle of battle. My only complaint with that one is that it doesn’t let you choose who to revive if multiple people die in a battle.

From what I heard though, it is possible to death transfer characters in NES Gaiden. Want Sonya to help out Alm? Just kill her and revive her at Alm's resurrection fountain.

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Do you not have the spell yet that banishes most of all summoned monsters? The name eludes me right now, but I'm sure you know the one.

15 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Oof. At least her promotion time made sense in SoV. Not so much here.

Do you mean in terms of gameplay or plot? Because in terms of gameplay it's only an extra 2/3 maps difference that can be done first anyway. In terms of gameplay, while a crowning is more dramatic in the remake, it is essentially still the same thing of Celica coming out so to speak.

12 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

From what I heard though, it is possible to death transfer characters in NES Gaiden. Want Sonya to help out Alm? Just kill her and revive her at Alm's resurrection fountain.

Move Clair over to Celica to increase the airforce. Speaking of which, being resurrected in general must be a really disorientating experience. Imagine being resurrected under those conditions!

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45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Do you not have the spell yet that banishes most of all summoned monsters? The name eludes me right now, but I'm sure you know the one.

That would be Expel (but I'm not sure that it's called that in that translation. Maybe it's Dear).

46 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Do you mean in terms of gameplay or plot? Because in terms of gameplay it's only an extra 2/3 maps difference that can be done first anyway. In terms of gameplay, while a crowning is more dramatic in the remake, it is essentially still the same thing of Celica coming out so to speak.

I was thinking plot wise. You do have a point, though.

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Gaiden Day 10: Getting back to Alm

Alright, so, in passing through Mila’s Temple again, I did manage to finally find the secret passageway by hugging all of the walls. Turns out you just flat out walk into the sluice water. …That really sounds like it should be gross for some reason.

But yeah, I got Nomah, who’s… not impressive. I’ll have to see his spell list though. I may wind up taking the mage ring I also found through a mess of invisible walls in blackness and giving it to Alm’s side. Kliff or, more importantly Silque, could really use it.

…Apparently becoming a sister changes your default attack from nosferatu to seraphim. I… really, really don’t know how to feel about that. Honestly I wish you could change your default attack at any rate.

Hey, the graveyard in act 3’s map doesn’t have monsters you have to fight anymore! Woo!

Anyway, with three Falcon Knights (or wait, in SoV they’re called seraph knights aren’t they?) on my team and the mage ring safely in Alm’s camp, it’s time to press onward to whatever dares oppose my mighty army. Honestly at this point I think Celica’s team might be stronger than Alm’s.

Ooh, a whole bunch of level 5 gargoyles over a huge near-seizure-inducing bog. Yawn. PEGASISTERS, ATTACK!

Honestly the gargoyles wouldn’t be tough even without them. The vast majority of my army can take them out just fine. The only issue is that all of my worst units, who I dumped at the bottom of my roster so they wouldn’t get into cave fights, are all gathered up in one place with a gargoyle nearby, and none of my good units with them. Thankfully Leon and Nomah should be enough to beat them, or at least hold off until Palla or Catria can arrive.

Yep! Alright, so, I forget, what exactly is the next OH WAIT!

I REMEMBER!

MORE SEIZURE BOG.

AND SOME OF MY UNITS ARE STARTING IN IT FOR FUCK KNOWS WHY.

Right, time to see if I can solo this with the pegasisters again. The archers can’t do shit, so why not?

And the boss summons eight necrodragons! Boy I sure might be scared if I didn’t have all of these winged goddesses who can eat them alive!

I’m honestly feeling quite similar playing Celica’s route right now as I did playing late game FE1. Except I’m having way more fun cheesing the shit out of these stupid maps.

Anyway, that… was fairly uneventful. Not much thought or strategy went into it, I just flew my pegasisters across the bog and into the fort and attacked everything until it stopped moving, making sure Genny healed the most injured every time. It was an utter cakewalk, way less of a hassle than I remember it being in SoV.

And it gave us access to the lost woods via a weird teleporting tile in the fort we just took, but that’s a good stopping point for Celica’s route for now. Let’s get back to Alm!

Now that Silque has the magic ring, or more specifically, how that Silque can heal herself, we can warp with general impunity. Later I might give the ring to Kliff, but only after he’s had his fun with the angel ring I apparently get at the end of this chapter. By then, even if we don’t get any more rings, we’ll have another healer we can use to keep our warping game up and running continuously. For now, though, time to warp Alm to intercept the troops on the western flank threatening to charge my weakest units, all bunched on the west side.

Hmm… okay, Delthea has a ring too, I totally forgot about that. …Whatever, we’ll work things out later. This might have been a mistake, but Alm’s side definitely needed more rings.

These knights are pretty nasty, even for my tankiest units. I don’t think anything in Celica’s route so far has hit this hard. Still though, nothing I can’t handle.

…Honestly, now that I know how absolutely busted Clair would be if I promoted her, I’m a little disappointed I didn’t force myself through her terrible beginning just for the sake of promoting her. Of course, with the higher enemy attack power in Alm’s route and fewer monsters, they might not be quite as outrageously dominating. But then again, while I don’t remember everything of Alm’s part 4, I do know there are a lot more fights against the Duma Faithful, so who knows… but alas, at any rate, it’s too late now, almost certainly.

Playing Alm’s route again, I've ultimately decided these maps are at their best when the enemy comes to you. When you have to go to the enemy, and especially when you needlessly put an obnoxious terrain obstacle in the way of that, it just becomes a massive pain. And while I know there will be some more instances of having to storm a fort on Alm’s side, the vast, vast majority of these types of maps have been with Celica. In fact, I think it’s not just that most of these maps have been on Celica’s side.

It’s also that by this point, it feels like most of Celica’s side has been these maps.

The magic range boosting part of the magic ring’s effect has already come in useful on Silque! She was able to use seraphim on one of two knights that otherwise only Kliff and Delthea could reach, making it possible to rout them in one turn despite their ludicrous defense.

Honestly, I am very curious how this game was designed. Because at times it feels like Celica and Alm’s routes were made by entirely different people. The design philosophies of them couldn’t be more distinct. Alm’s side is a bunch of open battlefields with the occasional fort you storm, but Celica’s is full of bottlenecks and deserts and bogs and treks from here to there. Alm’s side gives you (or at least allows you to make using the villagers) a diverse force with at least one of every unit type in the game, while Celica’s is just mages, pegasi and mercenaries as far as the eye can see, with only one knight, one archer, and a cavalier only if you make Atlas one. Alm’s side throws enemy formations at you that are tricky to take out and that basically nobody can reliably enemy-phase, forcing you to at least think a little about strategy and formation. Meanwhile, yet again in Celicaland, wave after wave of thoughtlessly summoned mooks get thrown at you, and just about everything you fight in the game is meleelocked, allowing you to steamroll it with anything with good physical stats.

I have serious difficulty believing the same person or team designed both of these routes, unless they genuinely had no clue which of these two ideas was better and decided to try them both. Who knows? Maybe that is what happened, considering how much there seemed to be to learn back then.

Anyway, Alm’s been taking on three knights singlehanded, with difficulty. I had to have him retreat back to a lonely forest to give him some evasion without boosting the enemies’.

…You know… maybe I CAN make Claire a seraph knight. The enemies are getting stronger, which means globally more exp, and there are still probably enough opportunities to get her some potshots to level up. Hell, I had her kill off a sorcerer for the hell of it after he was left with 4 HP, and she gained like half a level of exp from it. This might be doable. Not going to go too far out of my way to do it though.

Shit, I forgot forests don’t slow down mages, and went a bit deeper into enemy range than I thought. It doesn’t cause anything major to happen, the mage attacked Silque for some reason, and she…

…countered… with… nosferatu.

…Why does she counter with nosferatu and Genny counters with seraphim!?

OH SHIT WHY DOES THE GOLD KNIGHT SPRITE LOOK SO MUCH LIKE THE PALADIN SPRITE!?

I’m fighting a gold knight. Obscene power and defense, and enough speed to double everyone in my army, including Grey!

…Okay, this may call for some desperate measures. I’m going to have to retreat into the little healing fort in the center, with nobody but Kliff and Silque, so Silque can heal Kliff with impunity as he whittles this gold-knight-led troop down.

Meanwhile everyone else has to run for their goddamned lives.

…Wait… that’s… OH RIGHT. I forgot it was the FEMALE mage that promotes at level 14. I thought it was the male one. That clears that up. For a second I was very confused when Kliff's level up (which got him speed by the way) told me he could promote now.

Enemy Gold Knights look absolutely terrifying, by the way. This badass purple helmeted armor, with this vaguely Asian sense to the patterns on it.

Okay, I know from SoV that I’m supposed to go to Nuibaba’s next, but I don’t think I’ve seen anything in this game that tells me that. Lemme re-check the civilians in the sluice fort.

Oh right, There aren’t any, because it’s just a single room. Maybe trying to advance to fight Zeke would have told me? I am curious… but not curious enough to check right now. I head off to fight the next battle, led by a dread fighter.

Now, I could promote Kliff now, but with how much I use him, he’d probably eat through all of this 1-10 easy levels by the time he gets the angel ring, so I’m gonna hold off on it to see if I can boost his stats some more. With no promotion gains, he’s reeeeallllly relying on those growth rates of his to stay good.

Witches. I hate witches. I recognize they could have been much, much worse and that restraint was clearly exercised in making them, but still… I’m worried that by the late game somebody in my party isn’t going to be strong enough to survive a single round of combat with one, and then I’m just flat out going to have to let someone die for my own sanity. But right now all I can do is hog all of the stray forest tiles in the clearing I’m in and brace myself for their arrival.

The dread fighter shouldn’t be a problem. Alm and Kliff have plenty of defense, so they should be able to handle him eventually.

…MORE THAN ONE WITCH CAN TELEPORT IN A FUCKING TURN!?

THREE NOW! THREE FUCKING WITCHES TELEPORTED IN ONE TURN. WAS THAT THING I ASSUMED WAS SENSIBLE RESTRAINT JUST SHEER DUMB LUCK THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME!?

FOUR! FOUR FUCKING WITCHES TELEPORTING!

This… wow. I have no words. And to make matters worse, one of them teleported onto a forest tile, and she’s the one who attacked Forsythe and nearly killed him.

Alright, I managed to clear out all but the one on the forest, but HOLY SHIT THAT DREAD FIGHTER IS FAST. HE’S ALREADY AT MY ARMY! I CAN’T STOP HIM! HE’S GONNA KILL SOMEONE!

…Hehehe. The dread fighter boss’s name is Saizo.

Aaaand Mathilda died. Right, I’ll have to come up with a better strategy to fight the fucker, probably involving a turn-2 warp of Alm onto the heal tile the DF starts on, so he’ll run right back and fight him uselessly. Assuming enough witches warp that that strategy works again and they don’t gang on up on him.

…But that’ll have to wait until tomorrow. For now, I’ve gotta sign off.

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I wouldn't bother holding out for Rudolf's Angel Ring on Kliff. By that point the Duma fight is like the last thing in the game (okay there's actually some minor dungeon encounters, which are actually more interestingly designed than their SOV counterparts, but the point being is that it's basically endgame so growing at that point just won't be making a difference). If you really want an angel ring on Cliff, just send Celica's over now with a trader. You can send it back to her before you finish off the rest of her route.

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9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I wouldn't bother holding out for Rudolf's Angel Ring on Kliff. By that point the Duma fight is like the last thing in the game (okay there's actually some minor dungeon encounters, which are actually more interestingly designed than their SOV counterparts, but the point being is that it's basically endgame so growing at that point just won't be making a difference). If you really want an angel ring on Cliff, just send Celica's over now with a trader. You can send it back to her before you finish off the rest of her route.

Yeah, that occurred to me when I realized the final dungeon probably won't be nearly as long in this game as it is in SoV.

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Gaiden Day 11: The lostiest woods ever made

Yeah, change of plans. Kliff’s getting Celica’s angel ring now. I can always send it back when he’s mostly done with it, but I forgot how much shorter the dungeons are. By the time I get Rudolf's angel ring the game's gonna be pretty much over. And I’ve really underused the merchant system, so I’m going to go with Celica, get to the next town, send the angel ring, and then send it back once Kliff’s gotten some levels with it.

Right then, time to send Celica into the lost woods, and…

…Ugh, I really hope there’s some kind of clue in the actual forest about how to get through this, because if not, and if this is the one map in the whole game full of random battles… that’s gonna be a pain.

This… what? It doesn’t…

…Okay, so you don’t get “lost” in the sense that you go back to the start if you go the wrong way.

You get lost as in it’s literally just a gigantic maze of empty four-doored tree rooms with no distinguishing features of any kind, meaning you actually literally get hopelessly lost with no way out.

I have been wandering aimlessly with no idea what the fuck I’m doing for the last several minutes. WHAT IS GOING ON!?

Alright, I checked all the trees for hidden walls, game! NOTHING! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO!?

...Fuck.

Ultimately I restarted and gave up Jesse’s great power and defense level instead of looking up a guide, just to see if there’s anything in-game I can use to figure this out.

Nope, no clues in sight! And I talked to every NPC on the way here. The only clue is that one room when heading straight down from the entrance only has three openings. with the one on the right side closed up.

Okay, going in this direction, it seems there are actual landmarks now. That wasn’t the only room with fewer than four openings, and as long as I stay near them, I can keep my bearings. But I need to be careful and keep track of my movements.

Okay, from the entrance,I went Down, then down, then down again because the other direction just opened up into four-entrance rooms and I just got lost in those, then I turned right into a fight with some mummies because it was the only opening. This incidentally got Celica all the levels with the angel ring she’ll ever need, netting her 4 speed and 2 defense, and getting her close to a fourth level too.

…But then it opened up again into wide open expanse and I double back.

I fight the mages again, but they only give Celica luck and a spell, Ragnarok.

…Looks like all of those paths lead to rooms with wide open expanses. Meaning that I’m basically fucked in terms of figuring it out through anything but trial and error, unless…

…Nope, just double checked the room above the entrance, that’s a four-door tree room too. Damn it!

Okay, after being careful to keep track of where the nearest landmark was, I found a silver bow in a chest. So looks like I’ll have to just explore around landmarks and see what I can do.

Anyway, I also run into a group of HiKnights, which I can only assume are those armored terrors from SoV I can’t remember the official localized name of. Which means this is a job for my seraph knights!

…Nope. Apparently they don’t count as terrors here and my whitewings’ attacks just ding right off of them.

FUCK. I’m glad I saved before this in case I got lost again.

But thankfully my mages are able to handle them, eventually.

I found a Mila shrine in the woods, which… seems like an odd choice given that these things just let you promote in this game. Though maybe this lets you promote without "random" battles? I can’t remember if I fought any on this specific path.

Okay, I’ve investigated 1 deep beyond every recognizable part of the forest and haven’t found the way forward, just some silver weapons.

I thought I was on to something when I saw a suspicious change in the pattern of the trees once I wandered away on purpose, but if it means something, I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.

On the plus side, my experimentation with just walking into the wilderness in straight lines netted me the silver lance, so the silver collection is complete and all of my whitewings have lances!

…Okay, I think I’m noticing a pattern with that weird missing tree in the bottom right corner. It seems that once you start seeing it, it doesn’t matter how far you keep going in that direction, the second you turn back you’ll be at the space you were at before you saw that missing tree. Which is probably how they’re giving this feeling of an infinite forest, by filling it with movement-negating nothingness. So if that pattern holds…

YES! Just by fumbling around in the forest and turning back and trying another route whenever I saw that missing tree, I eventually found the exit!

Hahaha! So the original version of the game actually said “on turn 4, 8 and twelve” Jedah can be hurt, rather than just having the guy struggle to get out “four… eight… TWELVE…” before dying or vanishing due to Jedah’s magic.

And I found three traders! So off to Alm’s team goes the angel ring! Mission accomplished!

And there’s a defense fountain. I’ll give it to Celica because why not?

…There were six of them. This fountain lets you boost your defense SIX FUCKING TIMES.

CELICA’S DEFENSE IS TWENTY NOW.

Fuck the angel ring, she’s already stupid strong.

…I just made Alm promote by talking to Harken, didn’t I? It didn’t say so, so I’m hoping not and that it’s just a promotion OPTION now, but knowing this game…

Well, time to find out at any rate. The hidden village doesn’t exit out into the next area for some reason, so either there’s an entirely different exit hidden in the forest, or I have to do something with Alm to unlock the next thing with Celica.

…Yep, Alm’s level 1 again. Fuck it, I’m giving him the angel ring for a bit, at least until Kliff promotes at the shrine we’re heading back to.

…Huh. So Alm actually can use a bow in this game! It seemed like it would be the sort of thing the original system wasn’t built to handle.

…Actually, looking at his stats now, they’re way better promotion gains than Celica’s. Maybe it’s not so bad that he lost some levels. Still, I wanna give him some time with the angel ring with this gargoyle fight.

Alm levels up and gains a fantastic 2 power and 2 defense! And then a second level repeated that and added 2 HP!

Yeah, Alm’s basically a god now. I think it’s safe to give him the royal sword back and let Kliff have the angel ring.

Holy fuck is this thing overpowered.

Anyway, Kliff promotes and gains nothing but one power. But hopefully the angel ring will be getting him a lot more.

Now then… with my psychotically more powerful Alm…

…Let’s try yesterday’s fight again, shall we?

This time only one witch warps. Unfortunate in some respects, but convenient in others. I execute the plan I described yesterday, warping Alm to Saizo’s previously-occupied heal tile in the hopes of luring him back into a fight Saizo is doomed to lose.

That part works, but it’s only due to some lucky dodges that Clive doesn’t get creamed by the incoming witches. In fairness, they didn’t all warp in and gang up on him, I just had to take my chances because a myrmidon insisted on clinging to life at 1 HP and he was the only one left who could fight it.

Robin inexplicably gains speed YET AGAIN.

Clair gains power, which is fantastic since I need her to sneak in player phase kills if I’m going to get a fourth seraph knight.

Kliff isn’t gaining as much experience as a level 1 sage as I would have hoped. Or maybe these witches are just terrible.

Alright, with that, everyone who didn’t decide to follow Saizo to gang up on Alm is dead! And now Alm can counter witches with his bow!

Regardless, I send in Kliff to lend a hand and maybe get some levels against the remaining myrmidons.

…Yep, level 1 sages definitely gain less exp from combat than other level 1 classes for some reason. Actually come to think of it, seraph knights may act that way too. Are single-promotion classes different in some way?

…And Alm CAN’T counter at range. He defaults to sword in this game. Then what’s even the point!?

Plus side, his bow animation looks pretty okay, even if it’s the only thing that changes about his combat sprites in this game.

Oh yeah! I remember this map! It’s the witch map from Fates!

Thanks!

I hate it!

Especially the witch who can summon other witches!

Thankfully Kliff finally leveled up and gained 2 speed, sending his speed high enough to double paladins even with fire.

In contrast to Kliff, Alm is gaining experience at a ridiculous rate. Not quite as nuts as when fighting mummies, but pretty damn fast.

Also, Clair can nearly one-round witches now, which means this might be a fantastic opportunity to level her depending on how crazy and time consuming this battle gets.

Ooohhh, I see game, so Alm and sisters, and ONLY Alm and sisters, use the last attack they used on enemies. Thank you for letting me learn that just in time to watch Silque suicide by countering a sniper with seraphim.

Now I can only hope Kliff gets a good level up again. But on the plus side, now that I know that using the bow with Alm lets him counter with bows at range, I can send him against the witches!

Good news, Kliff does indeed get speed again, along with 2 luck, which does at least boost his crit rate and magic avoid. Not that he needs any more with the angel ring on, but it’ll be handy later.

One annoying factor about double-weapons, like using swords and bows (or swords and magic) is that when you equip a weapon, it’s just built into your power stat, but it’s still ignored when you do attacks without it, so you then have to find the weapon stat and subtract it from your power before calculating damage (or even adding your spell damage back in the case of Celica).

OH OKAY GAME, SORRY FOR ASSUMING THERE WAS LOGIC!

I had Silque use seraphim on a knight, and then later she got attacked and countered with nosferatu! What is it, game!? Does using white magic make you default to nosferatu? OR IS IT JUST RANDOM!?

Man, not having physic is a bitch. Kliff might not be able to solo that eastern front after all, he just takes too much damage over time. I have to restart again.

No speed level up this time, which ruins certain doubling thresholds against these paladins, but screw that, because this time Kliff gets 2 power and defense!

…Just in time for my emulator to randomly freeze up. Please don’t lose my progress please don’t lose my progress…

…Oh thank goodness.

…Alright, so… Lukas died, and I’m not restarting. He died exactly how I expected he would: to a witch. It’s not that he got one-rounded, but he took 2 turns to fully heal and Silque had other pressing business to attend to than to apply the second one, so…

Yeah, I’m sorry, I’m not restarting for him, he’s useless and was probably going to get killed by a witch eventually no matter what.

...I'll probably resurrect him though. Might as well.

Kliff’s second level unfortunately got him nothing but skill and HP, but screw it, he just got 2 power and 2 defense, I can tolerate that. I just hope he gets speed soon.

Anyway, I finally beat the boss once I realized she could be lured off of her heal tile to attack.

So moving onto the fear shrine, and…

…Huh, that’s interesting, this dungeon encounter map is much larger than usual, in fact it looks like two of them connected by a tunnel and-

…Is that a cantor surrounded by bog?

…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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Haha. I guess you decided not to read my spoilered advice.

On 9/11/2019 at 6:15 PM, Jotari said:

I don't see any issue with Jessie's explanation. Neither Dean nor Sonya like Grieth, but both are too wary of rebelling with him while he's too strong. Knock out one of the two generals however and that makes him week enough for them to risk abandoning him (even with one of the two of them dead, they don't actually rebel against Grieth, instead they just sit back and let Celica pick him off before joining up with her).

And yeah, they moved Celica's promotion for the remake to be more dramatic. Funny it tripped you up. But that's the way of it. Every blind player had it hit them that way too. By the by, Alm's promotion...
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

happens automatically in this game. In the remake Celica gives him the ability to promote at statues remotely, but in the original he outright promotes off screen. There is no fanfare about it at all (despite his promotion being better than Celica's, who basically just gets a level reset). It's really weird. So much so that I made a thread about it preEchoes release wondering if they'd keep that plot point.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 9/12/2019 at 9:59 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Playing Alm’s route again, I've ultimately decided these maps are at their best when the enemy comes to you. When you have to go to the enemy, and especially when you needlessly put an obnoxious terrain obstacle in the way of that, it just becomes a massive pain. And while I know there will be some more instances of having to storm a fort on Alm’s side, the vast, vast majority of these types of maps have been with Celica. In fact, I think it’s not just that most of these maps have been on Celica’s side.

It’s also that by this point, it feels like most of Celica’s side has been these maps.

I feel like Kaga having two different approaches across two halves is more common than you'd expect.

Genealogy (to a lesser extent and separated by generation) and TearRing come to mind.

On 9/13/2019 at 10:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Hahaha! So the original version of the game actually said “on turn 4, 8 and twelve” Jedah can be hurt, rather than just having the guy struggle to get out “four… eight… TWELVE…” before dying or vanishing due to Jedah’s magic.

Jedah's plot armour also works differently in SoV.

Doesn't mean that that's not cryptic as all hell. 

On 9/13/2019 at 10:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Ooohhh, I see game, so Alm and sisters, and ONLY Alm and sisters, use the last attack they used on enemies. Thank you for letting me learn that just in time to watch Silque suicide by countering a sniper with seraphim.

......

Why does this game still surprise me?

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On 9/15/2019 at 8:32 AM, Life said:

Ooh, I'm enjoying this.

My expertise is FE4 - FE9 (excluding 5 and 6) which are certainly the easier games in the series but very fun.

Hopefully we'll be getting to those soon then! But for now...

 

Gaiden Day 12: Comrade Nuibaba

Alright, looks like the cantor summons gargoyles. Fantastic. At any rate, Alm should eventually be able to take them out, given it’s Alm’s 15 speed to the gargoyles’ 9, but still, I could just FEEEEEL the Celica bleeding into this.

Pretty pathetic cantor though. Only managed to summon one gargoyle before we reached him, and I didn’t even use warp.

And Kliff gained skill, speed and HP, 2 of each. Oh he’s picking up steamroller steam now.

Oh, look: speed and luck fountains. Let’s see… the only real candidates are Silque, Alm, and Kliff, given that they’re the only ones who don’t stand to gain stat boosts upon promoting. Silque’s speed is so awful I don’t think giving her another fountain of it will help. Kliff stands to snowball his 13 speed into crazy town, and Alm has 15 right now. Honestly, I might as well just make it so he can double anything the game might throw at me now, just in case.

Past the shrine we get to a pretty nasty cave. But this is mostly in sense of size, though it did send some slightly stronger gargoyles after us. On the other hand, it also sent some mummies.

It is a preeeeeety unpleasant labyrinth though. I went through a long hallway, found a chest, and it was booby-trapped and sent me back to the entrance. In fairness, it wasn’t a complete bullshit cheap shot. The chest was surrounded by the same dark-blue warp tile surrounded by light blue steps that was used to get Celica into the lost woods. Someone paying more attention might very well have seen it coming. But now I have the speed ring. Oh shit, I remember that being insanely good in Echoes, what does it do here? Lemme check my notes again…

…Oh.

…Right.

…Of course.

…It gives you a speed of 40 and boosts your move by 5.

Why am I not surprised it’s that absurdly broken?

Well, that’s going on Silque. Luthier can have the magic ring. Long-distance excalibur and a 10-move Silque with no speed troubles sounds awesome.

Speaking of troubles, we’ve got a skirmish full of witches and mages, but honestly I may just be panicking a bit. I’ve got all my best units here, and two of them are basically unkillable gods.

NNNOOOOOOOPE it was pretty damned nasty. I didn’t check their spell list, assuming they were more of the same. Very big, nearly lethal mistake. Luckily Alm dodged a spell or two and I didn’t place him too far into the fray, because some of those sorcerers had SLIME.

But thankfully I lucked out. Damn it, that was sloppy… alright, while this is definitely a better game than Dark Dragon by a loooooongshot, I feel like I’m still roughly as strategically complacent with this game when it comes to checking enemies and the like. It’s this weird sort of thing where it’s not demanding enough to make me care, which winds up making me do worse than I would if it were a little bit harder. And honestly, with the much shorter battles and more frequent saving opportunities, I feel like part of the reason why I’m having more fun with this game than Dark Dragon is the same reason why other people enjoy using the rewind mechanic: it’s not that the underlying game design in this specific respect has gotten better, it’s just that the game gives you more power to ignore it. Which I would argue is a very superficial fix to the problem, but again, genuine fixes to usability exist along with the patch-overs, so I’m not gonna give the game too much crap for it.

Anyway, I found the revival shrine, so… I’ll revive Lukas. Why not?

Alright, yet more hidden passageways via invisible shallow points in water, and…

YES! FINALLY! A SECOND BOW, AND A HOLY ONE AT THAT! IT HAS 100% ACCURACY AND NO WEIGHT!

That’s totally going on my inexplicable speed demon Tobin.

Oooh, okay, now I have a choice between a silver shield and a holy shield.

Silver shield gives 7 defense, with no weight penalty, like all shields in this game. Holy shield heals 5 per turn, and gives 13 defense, but only against terrors.

Honestly, I’m gonna go for the holy shield. I’ll have more of a use for auto-healing than I would for 7 defense, given that most good units that can afford to use a shield already have good defense anyway. Plus, terrors will happen a lot more from now on.

“YOU GOT A MAGIC SHIELD!”

Hey, awesome!

“AREA RECLAIMED! MAGIC SHIELD REVERTED!”

…What?

For a second I thought that was some weird fucked up magic of the shrine, telling me all the monster battles just respawned, but no, looks like that’s just an unbelievably shitty way of translating “everyone has an item, so you put the magic shield back!”. Thankfully I had noticed everyone had an item after that last shield, so it occurred to me to check. That would’ve been weird. Strange how this game doesn't let you put stuff straight into the convoy.

Anyway, now Lukas has the magic shield, which means witches won’t be killing him again any time soon.

And with that, looks like there’s nothing left to do in the shrine.

Time to fight Nuibaba!

…Who is roughly 97% less sexy here. And also has a penis.

More importantly however, this map is just as nasty as I remember it being. A massive map with absolutely nothing on it except a big mountain fort at the top with the entrance in the back, and a bunch of mages rocking the death spell, for a total attack power of 25 each.

No, make that worse. In SoV I had two advantages I abused the hell out of to beat this. Having rescue in addition to warp, and then having Double Lion, which I used to beat Nuibaba down eventually from safety. No such luck here, all I have is warp. Anyone I send in has to be able to take the beating from where I send them.

Right, well, I’m not sending all of my 5 move units across this map. Silque, it’s warping time.

Wow, the holy bow sets gargoyles on fire. I’ve never seen that animation before!

Anyway, I’ve got all the important units in place. Mathilda is using her holy lance to bait out and slaughter the gargoyles by standing near the front of the fort, Silque is on her way up the mountain with her 10 move, and Kliff, Alm and Holy Bow Tobin are already outside the fort thanks to her warping powers. Tobin will take out the bow knight (who’s slower than him), and then start sniping out the death sorcerers. Alm will take care of the dread fighters, Kliff will heal when necessary and help out with other assorted tasks, and then they’ll all pitch in to fight Nuibaba.

Nope, looks like the holy bow just sets everyone on fire!

TOBIN. LEVELED. UP. SPEED. AGAIN. To give some perspective on this, taking away Kliff’s 3 speed from the fire spell weight, TOBIN HAS THE SAME ATTACK SPEED AS KLIFF, WHO HAS A WAY BETTER GROWTH AND USED A FOUNTAIN ONCE AND HAS A FUCKING ANGEL RING.

This is awesome, but also fucking bizarre. Anyway, Tobin may very well promote soon.

NUIBABA FUCKING MOVES. HE HAS A MAGE RING, AND HE FUCKING MOVES.

That medusa animation is the most stressful shit ever, with it ominously bobbing forward and backward, slowly inching closer, and then opening its eyes. But thankfully for some reason its hit rate against Alm is absolutely atrocious.

Ohhhh. That’s why. Because Alm has 20 speed and 16 luck. Right, well, change of plans. I’ve cleared out enough

…Actually, from this distance I think Tobin can handle him. As long as he’s not in the fort, nobody else can kill him after Medusa brings him to 1 HP.

…As long as Tobin snipes out all of the sorcerers first so they don’t constantly spam fortify, because ALL OF THEM HAVE IT.

…Or, scratch that, turns out I can abuse the fact that medusa costs 5 HP to have him take enough damage fighting Tobin that I can warp Kliff in and assassinate him with Excalibur because he doesn’t have any more resistance than the average mage.

That’s weird, the ring symbol was red when it said “Nuibaba had a magic ring”, but then blue when it says “Kliff took the magic ring”.

Now then, it’s just time to deal with the three fortify death sorcerers, the three dread fighters and the Cantor.

Holy bow is insanely awesome. 100% hit rate at base combined with Tobin’s pretty good skill means that he’s got really good, reliable hitrates even against enemies on tiles.

So I just got into Nuibaba’s abode, as SoV calls it, and it would seem that in addition to being ugly and (according to this translation but other sources have muddied the waters) male, Nuibaba is also a filthy communist. I walk in and what should I see but a jail cell just stuffed with merchants, punished merely for partaking in the act of free trade.

…Literal free trade.

As in they trade shit for me. For free.

Anyway, more importantly, Nuibaba also kidnapped Tatiana, who I just rescued. And with the bright green hair and pink dress straps/earrings on display, I’m instantly reminded of Leen. But instead of being one of the most broken dancers in the franchise, we instead get something arguably even better: a second healer, who has physic at base, and can later learn fortify! Ooooh, she is so getting the speed ring so she can get experience slaughtering everything with 40 speed seraphim attacks.

And since there’s only one more battle before a village, and I didn’t do an entire “set” today, let’s get Tatiana’s boyfriend, “Zeke”, and finish up this part.

Zeke’s pretty good, honestly, and his growth rates, for this game, are FANTASTIC. Comparable to Kliff’s roughly. But his army that just defected to our side is going to get slaughtered. It’s paladins against gold knights, and even Jerome out-stats him in power, speed and defense by 1 each. Which means we need to warp people in right away or Zeke gon’ dah.

Thankfully, warp strats let me take care of one of the more dangerous foes, one of the two slime mages.

Also, Tatiana can get warp too eventually, so… yeah, totally going to do that.

Also, that’s weird. This map limited my army to the top 10. Glad I put Tatiana in that instinctively. I wonder if it has to do with all the allied units I get this map.

So it seems that the “If you meet somebody with a cross-shaped birthmark, fight for him no matter what” plot point is exactly the same here as what it became in SoV. And with that, Zeke is on our team! He’s pretty great, even if his bases will pretty much be matched by anyone who promotes to gold knight like him.

But looks like dragon mountain is next. If there’s anything I need to do on Alm’s end to let Celica proceed, it’s probably going here.

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18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So it seems that the “If you meet somebody with a cross-shaped birthmark, fight for him no matter what” plot point is exactly the same here as what it became in SoV. And with that, Zeke is on our team! He’s pretty great, even if his bases will pretty much be matched by anyone who promotes to gold knight like him.

Yep, and it actually comes off as super random in Gaiden as, I believe, that's the only point in the entire game and even supporting materials in which it's mentioned. Basically they took a massive contrivance that was originally used just to make Camus defect and turned it into a core plot point of the entire story.

EDIT: Also, didn't Pathria also have that flame animation in FE1?

Edited by Jotari
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8 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yep, and it actually comes off as super random in Gaiden as, I believe, that's the only point in the entire game and even supporting materials in which it's mentioned. Basically they took a massive contrivance that was originally used just to make Camus defect and turned it into a core plot point of the entire story.

I'm getting so close to seeing how this was handled in the original game, and I'm chomping at the goddamned bit for it.

 

Gaiden Day 13: FUCKING NECRODRAGONS

So, suddenly I get ambushed by necrodragons the second I walk into the mountain pass, just like in SoV. This wouldn’t be so bad if all my weakest units weren’t once again bunched up at the bottom. Actually, it STILL isn’t so bad, because not only is Zeke there due to forgetting to re-arrange him, but I have warp! Right, time to get Tatiana some more seraphim speed ring experience, and get Tobin good enough to promote to bow knight.

Success on both counts. Tatiana now has the obscenely broken fortify spell, and Tobin is level 10.

Right. Well. I’m stuck. Guess I have no option but to use Celica and see if getting to the lost woods village will let her progress now.

…Okay, talking to Halcyon still doesn’t do anything new. Which means either I am completely blind and can’t see a second way out of this village that lets me progress… or there’s another way out of this forest I need to check to the south.

In the process I face that encounter full of mummies again, and seriously game, just throw experience at me why don’t ya? It was more fun when they were rare little pinatas full of exp you had to look out for or else waste it on the wrong person. Here? I just leveled like 5 members of my group multiple times from a single fight.

…Nope. I scoured the whole forest, there’s nothing else. Just to make sure, I double-check the outside, and- sure enough, right on cue, more necrodragons come out to hound Alm’s team. This… probably won’t be fun.

…Especially since the spawning pattern changed and this time nearly all of them flew to hound my weaker guys, causing Lukas to get attacked on turn one. He survived, thankfully, but I had to barricade him because fortify wasn’t enough to patch him up. I managed to keep him safe using walling strategies and enemy facing management, and the holy shield that makes Forsyth almost invincible to these dragons.

…These are level 5 necrodragons. So that’s why they’re in a totally different formation, it’s a different enemy group.

…Please tell me these don’t just progressively get tougher without end.

At any rate, their stats aren’t crazy. They just have more speed now and can double some of my slower units. Which… could be a problem.

At any rate, I try to see if there was a way through the forest from the previous graveyard and I just missed it, and it seems that literally EVERY TIME I FUCKING MOVE, Alm gets ambushed by necrodragons. While this is a great way to convey the idea of Alm being in serious danger and needing Celica’s help…

…Yeah that’s about where the praise for this ends. Especially when it isn’t clear what you need to do to move forward.

Fuck it, if I’m wrong in my guess that there’s a way through the forest by the swampy graveyard in this version, I’m consulting a guide. I’m not putting up with this horseshit any longer than I have to. Bad game, no biscuit.

THERE’S AN EVEN BIGGER FUCKING HORDE OF NECRODRAGONS THIS TIME.

Thankfully my big hitters are powerful enough, and fortify heals enough, that I can keep everyone alive if I’m careful. But these necrodragons have 7 speed. Clair gets doubled by them when she has a steel lance, which I realize says more about her growth history than it says about them, but STILL.

So, I looked it up…

…Apparently the exit to the lost woods is hidden to the left of the entrance to the sage’s hamlet, back in the lost woods itself.

That… I don’t know how… I could have sworn I checked there…

…FUCK.

Moving on.

Hey, it’s that map I first saw in Fire Emblem Awakening! The one where you get Inigo!

Shitton of witches here… and dread fighters…

…Yeah, better go promote Saber first.

So now Saber has 18 power (with the holy sword), 12 defense, 16 skill, 18 speed, 8 luck, and 21 magic defense.

…Fuck it, while I’m here, let’s see if we can level up another dread fighter out of those mummies!

Yep, Kamui is a dread fighter now, which means that that massive horde of witches and the enemies inside the castle should be a piece of cake.

…Once I remember to go out the right entrance and deal with the new Dracozombies.

JESUS CHRIST ARE THERE EVEN MORE OF THEM THIS TIME!? AND ONE OF THEM’S LEVEL TEN!?

EVEN FUCKING MORE!?

Alright, finally I’m at the fort fight. Valbar survived enemy phase 1 by dodging one of the two thunder shots a witch fired off at him. He’s no longer capable of surviving a round of combat with these witches without dodging, so… that sucks. Probably gonna let him die if I have to.

Dread Fighters are called slayers in this translation, and there’s something pretty funny about the victory message “slayer slain!”.

Saber’s gotten two consecutive power and defense levels, which is awesome, but I really wish he’s just get oooooone point of speed so he can be faster than a base dread fighter and double them.

Man, now that I have Tatiana and Alm’s army has objectively better white magic than Celica’s army, I’m really missing warp even more.

Honestly, like most Celica maps, that wasn't hard, just tedious. And with that, I think it’s a good place to…

…Wow, this is a really, really short episode, isn’t it? I’m sorry about that. The constant repeats of the dragon battle really took up a lot of my time today. I’ll try to accomplish more tomorrow.

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Gaiden Day 14: Facing down Jedah

Okay, so I walk in, and there isn’t even a pre-battle dialogue with Jedah? Surely something’s gotta happen to make sure you don’t just completely miss the fact that he’s there, right? We barely know who he is yet!

Well, so much for any hope of getting a dragon shield. Jedah is just an absolute monster, with an attack power of 36, an attack speed of 7, a defense of 28, and a magic defense of 22. That dragon shield, I’m assuming, was never meant to be held by the player, because it makes a unit absolutely ridiculous. Especially in this game when it doesn’t even reduce speed. The only thing I have in my arsenal that can do more than 1 damage to him is Celica’s ragnarok, but then she gets doubled and will get utterly fucked, and even if she survived (reasonable chance actually with her absurd 29 luck), and even if I had unlimited turns to fight him, he’d heal most of the damage via that shield of his by the time I have the opening to damage him again.

Oh well. Not like I really, really need the thing.

…Actually… if I score a critical with Celica… which is a 22% chance… I should be able to kill him. Unfortunately it’s a 4 turn wait before I can do that and if I fail Celica’s dead if a single attack hits.

Fuck it, I don’t see much point to trying to do this. I’ll just distract him with my supertank dread fighters while taking out the monsters.

It seems he leaves early if you defeat that eyeball enemy. Which I did on turn one. Thankfully they aren’t dark mages in this game like they are in Sacred Stones. But back to the point, that bullshit about “trust me and let me rip out your soul to save the gods, I totally promise I won’t abuse it” at least hasn’t reared its ugly head yet, and all he’s said is that “if you want to save Alm, come to the tower of Duma”. Actually, I don’t remember that being a factor last time, at least not much. It was mostly preying on Celica’s belief that the world can’t function without gods that made her trust Jedah. But we’ll see if that comes up later. Did Jedah even have anything to do with getting Alm out of that mountain in SoV? And since so far that seems to be her primary motivation, I wish we had gotten some dialogue from her that made it clear Celica knows he’s in danger.

Also, it seems that in this game, even when you double, both attacks are triangle attacks. This allows me to make short work of the “HiKnights”

Anyway, I enter the tower of Duma and instantly spend the speed fountain on Celica to bring her speed up to keep her doubling things with magic. It’s pretty great, but it can’t double everything.

Wow, and this tower REALLY doesn’t let you bring in that many people into the battles, does it? I better re-arrange my party to the best 6 next time.

I was wondering why those two enemies in the dungeon battle were behind an impassible wall tile, barring access to them unless you can fly. I was thinking maybe they just assumed Celica had the magic to reach them and could do enough damage? Then the wall just spontaneously crumbles on enemy phase. Oh goodie.

Honestly that was a massive pain. Hopefully swapping out some better units will help, namely replacing Atlas (who just got to level 10 but isn’t a dread fighter yet) with Est so I can use triangle attacks, and-

…WELL AIN’T I GLAD I GOT ALL OF MY FLIERS OUT!?

The next dungeon battle is a battle against a bow knight and three necrodragons, all on four separate pillars as my units are scattered around. Genny may be in big trouble if she misses with seraphim, because she’s all alone with her own necrodragon, and it’s the level 5, “I can double Genny whether she uses nosferatu or seraphim” speed necrodragon variety.

…Huh. I kinda forgot how sturdy sisters are.

Anyway, it seems the higher up the tower I get, the smaller the maps get and the smaller my roster gets.

I finally make it to the top and give Celica 3 shots of power from the fountains, since she has more than enough defense at this point, and she could stand to do more damage in melee combat.

Alright, so I just found Jedah, and… it seems that in this version… there’s literally no talk of “Duma needs your soul” at all. It’s just going to be “I’ll save Alm if you give me your soul”, which is… all you really needed to do to make this plot point happen. Adding in some idiotic stuff about the gods that she readily trusts Jedah with without ever once asking the fucking former Duma high priest who would know whether or not Jedah is full of shit… it honestly makes her a worse character. Here, she makes a deal with a bad guy because someone she loves is in mortal peril. That doesn’t make her dumb at all, it makes her sympathetically desperate. In SoV, she makes a deal with Jedah that may or may not have gotten Alm out of mortal peril, I can’t remember, but even if it did, she still holds to the deal, and trusts JEDAH to do it, EVEN AFTER ALM IS ALREADY SAFE. That makes her-

What.

WHAT.

WHAT!?

THERE IS NO DEAL AT ALL!? SHE JUST COMES TO FIGHT HIM, THE FINAL BOSS MAP BEGINS, AND THEN AFTER A SINGLE “UWEEEHEEHEE YOU FELL RIGHT INTO MY EVIL, BLUE-SKINNED TRAP!” DIALOGUE BOX, IT CUTS TO BLACK AND ALM IS SUDDENLY FREE ANYWAY DESPITE JEDAH HAVING LITERALLY NO NEED OR REASON TO DO SO!?

(INHALES)

SO, WHO WANTS TO MAKE TOBIN A BOW KNIGHT!?

AND OH HEY, TATIANA LEARNED WARP LA LALA LALA!

BOY MY BOW KNIGHT TOBIN SURE IS LOOKING AWESOME!

…Alright, for real here… these are both incredibly stupid plot developments. Both versions should be embarrassed. But at least SoV has the decency to try and use it to flesh out fundamental philosophical differences between Alm and Celica, even if they don’t do a remotely good job of… making Celica… appear to have any point at all? Like, in the story, she’s wrong about literally everything. The world doesn’t need gods, Alm did have to go to war with Rigel, and you shouldn’t sell your soul to strangers so balls-deep in dark magic that their skin’s been bleached blue. Celica is just… wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. About literally everything. Her story arc is being a naive idiot who has no idea how the world works because she was raised first in a cushy castle and then in a nunnery, nearly ruining the world and killing the man she loves because she refuses to listen to the insight of literally anyone around her, and then having Alm bail her out in the end.

Celica sucks. Ghast has made a reasonable argument that she’s... compellingly written? But even if so, she’s a compellingly-written terrible person who, like with Fates and Corrin, the story refuses to call out as such.

Anyway, Let’s get on with Alm’s story. We’re getting very close to the end, and according to my readers, it’s gonna get even dumber. We’re storming a fort built atop a waterfall, with a broken bridge which, at least in the previous game, meant we had to rely on warping and rescuing to get units across it without flight. And now we’re getting into full-blown promoted units, and now the units that have fallen behind are starting to feel the burn somewhat.

But enough about that, let’s try out having two warpers now by sending Kliff and Alm over the bridge! Everyone else can take care of the  enemies on this side.

Okay, so, it seems that either I’m mis-remembering things, or they made rivers much harder to cross in SoV than they were in the original, because a bunch of enemy units just crossed the river.

I’m not sure what I’m seeing with the allied bow knight animation (which again seems different from the enemy one). It seems like there’s some kind of pole mechanism mounted on the saddle that the bow pops out from and is fired from, rather than holding it in their actual hands. He doesn’t seem to be firing the bow at all. He seems to just be operating machinery on his saddle.

…I grossly, grossly underestimated how dangerous that army of gold knights and bow knights to the side of my starting position would be. I’m gonna have to keep my heavy hitters with the group for at least a little longer.

Also, tragically, all of that nutso speed growth Robin got, the growth that brings him to 4 whole points above the base for bow knight, is only enough to make him not get doubled by gold knights, and no more.

Okay, this time I kept everyone around long enough to do away with the bow knights, thanks to a combination of Tobin, Alm and Mathilda. Then Silque warped Kliff to the long stairway up the cliff in order to block off the mounted advance. But next turn he’s gonna have to be warped again, because all of my shitty units (and Zeke) are already across the river in a second group and cavalry’s advancing towards them.

After the initial rush, this isn’t so bad, but the main issue now is the witch who summons witches. I may need to have that one assassinated by Tobin, or work my way up to her with Alm.

Okay, I don’t know what’s going on, but for whatever reason, my mounted units can’t cross the river. Maybe that was the case in the original too, but from what I can tell… no I have no clue why the enemy could do it at the beginning of the battle. So I’ll have to warp Tobin across to fight that witch summoning witch.

…That’s weird. I think the witch-summoning witch is one of Sonya’s sisters. And if I recall correctly… they look a LOOOOOOOT more like her in this one than they did in SoV. Probably because I think she’s just a retool of Sonya’s sprite, but still, her sisters look… way less related to her in SoV.

Apparently witches aren’t like terrors, and can survive the death of their summoner. Makes sense as it’s probably an entirely different kind of summoning, but still interesting to know.

Honestly, at this rate, enemy stats are getting all kinds of wonky and bizarre, and I’m finding only a select few units are useful to fight them. Bit of a shame the balance fell apart so much in the second half of the game, honestly. All of the classes were very, very well balanced at the beginning, but now that every enemy has the exact same bases as every allied unit, the ones with the growths to rise above their bases really, painfully stand out. That said, at least each of the handful of units I still find useful feels fundamentally different from the others. Kliff, Alm, Tobin, Silque, Zeke and Tatiana are rarely useful for the same tasks.

Anyway, we’ve got two maps left before we reach the final dungeon and we’ll be getting those maps done tomorrow. And then Friday… the final battle.

…And I just realized I never got that chance to promote Atlas… Ah well…

Edited by Alastor15243
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13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Gaiden Day 14: Facing down Jedah

Okay, so I walk in, and there isn’t even a pre-battle dialogue with Jedah? Surely something’s gotta happen to make sure you don’t just completely miss the fact that he’s there, right? We barely know who he is yet!

Well, so much for any hope of getting a dragon shield. Jedah is just an absolute monster, with an attack power of 36, an attack speed of 7, a defense of 28, and a magic defense of 22. That dragon shield, I’m assuming, was never meant to be held by the player, because it makes a unit absolutely ridiculous. Especially in this game when it doesn’t even reduce speed. The only thing I have in my arsenal that can do more than 1 damage to him is Celica’s ragnarok, but then she gets doubled and will get utterly fucked, and even if she survived (reasonable chance actually with her absurd 29 luck), and even if I had unlimited turns to fight him, he’d heal most of the damage via that shield of his by the time I have the opening to damage him again.

Oh well. Not like I really, really need the thing.

…Actually… if I score a critical with Celica… which is a 22% chance… I should be able to kill him. Unfortunately it’s a 4 turn wait before I can do that and if I fail Celica’s dead if a single attack hits.

Fuck it, I don’t see much point to trying to do this. I’ll just distract him with my supertank dread fighters while taking out the monsters.

It seems he leaves early if you defeat that eyeball enemy. Which I did on turn one. Thankfully they aren’t dark mages in this game like they are in Sacred Stones. But back to the point, that bullshit about “trust me and let me rip out your soul to save the gods, I totally promise I won’t abuse it” at least hasn’t reared its ugly head yet, and all he’s said is that “if you want to save Alm, come to the tower of Duma”. Actually, I don’t remember that being a factor last time, at least not much. It was mostly preying on Celica’s belief that the world can’t function without gods that made her trust Jedah. But we’ll see if that comes up later. Did Jedah even have anything to do with getting Alm out of that mountain in SoV? And since so far that seems to be her primary motivation, I wish we had gotten some dialogue from her that made it clear Celica knows he’s in danger.

Also, it seems that in this game, even when you double, both attacks are triangle attacks. This allows me to make short work of the “HiKnights”

Anyway, I enter the tower of Duma and instantly spend the speed fountain on Celica to bring her speed up to keep her doubling things with magic. It’s pretty great, but it can’t double everything.

Wow, and this tower REALLY doesn’t let you bring in that many people into the battles, does it? I better re-arrange my party to the best 6 next time.

I was wondering why those two enemies in the dungeon battle were behind an impassible wall tile, barring access to them unless you can fly. I was thinking maybe they just assumed Celica had the magic to reach them and could do enough damage? Then the wall just spontaneously crumbles on enemy phase. Oh goodie.

Honestly that was a massive pain. Hopefully swapping out some better units will help, namely replacing Atlas (who just got to level 10 but isn’t a dread fighter yet) with Est so I can use triangle attacks, and-

…WELL AIN’T I GLAD I GOT ALL OF MY FLIERS OUT!?

The next dungeon battle is a battle against a bow knight and three necrodragons, all on four separate pillars as my units are scattered around. Genny may be in big trouble if she misses with seraphim, because she’s all alone with her own necrodragon, and it’s the level 5, “I can double Genny whether she uses nosferatu or seraphim” speed necrodragon variety.

…Huh. I kinda forgot how sturdy sisters are.

Anyway, it seems the higher up the tower I get, the smaller the maps get and the smaller my roster gets.

I finally make it to the top and give Celica 3 shots of power from the fountains, since she has more than enough defense at this point, and she could stand to do more damage in melee combat.

Alright, so I just found Jedah, and… it seems that in this version… there’s literally no talk of “Duma needs your soul” at all. It’s just going to be “I’ll save Alm if you give me your soul”, which is… all you really needed to do to make this plot point happen. Adding in some idiotic stuff about the gods that she readily trusts Jedah with without ever once asking the fucking former Duma high priest who would know whether or not Jedah is full of shit… it honestly makes her a worse character. Here, she makes a deal with a bad guy because someone she loves is in mortal peril. That doesn’t make her dumb at all, it makes her sympathetically desperate. In SoV, she makes a deal with Jedah that may or may not have gotten Alm out of mortal peril, I can’t remember, but even if it did, she still holds to the deal, and trusts JEDAH to do it, EVEN AFTER ALM IS ALREADY SAFE. That makes her-

What.

WHAT.

WHAT!?

THERE IS NO DEAL AT ALL!? SHE JUST COMES TO FIGHT HIM, THE FINAL BOSS MAP BEGINS, AND THEN AFTER A SINGLE “UWEEEHEEHEE YOU FELL RIGHT INTO MY EVIL, BLUE-SKINNED TRAP!” DIALOGUE BOX, IT CUTS TO BLACK AND ALM IS SUDDENLY FREE ANYWAY DESPITE JEDAH HAVING LITERALLY NO NEED OR REASON TO DO SO!?

(INHALES)

SO, WHO WANTS TO MAKE TOBIN A BOW KNIGHT!?

AND OH HEY, TATIANA LEARNED WARP LA LALA LALA!

BOY MY BOW KNIGHT TOBIN SURE IS LOOKING AWESOME!

…Alright, for real here… these are both incredibly stupid plot developments. Both versions should be embarrassed. But at least SoV has the decency to try and use it to flesh out fundamental philosophical differences between Alm and Celica, even if they don’t do a remotely good job of… making Celica… appear to have any point at all? Like, in the story, she’s wrong about literally everything. The world doesn’t need gods, Alm did have to go to war with Rigel, and you shouldn’t sell your soul to strangers so balls-deep in dark magic that their skin’s been bleached blue. Celica is just… wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. About literally everything. Her story arc is being a naive idiot who has no idea how the world works because she was raised first in a cushy castle and then in a nunnery, nearly ruining the world and killing the man she loves because she refuses to listen to the insight of literally anyone around her, and then having Alm bail her out in the end.

Celica sucks. Ghast has made a reasonable argument that she’s... compellingly written? But even if so, she’s a compellingly-written terrible person who, like with Fates and Corrin, the story refuses to call out as such.

Anyway, Let’s get on with Alm’s story. We’re getting very close to the end, and according to my readers, it’s gonna get even dumber. We’re storming a fort built atop a waterfall, with a broken bridge which, at least in the previous game, meant we had to rely on warping and rescuing to get units across it without flight. And now we’re getting into full-blown promoted units, and now the units that have fallen behind are starting to feel the burn somewhat.

But enough about that, let’s try out having two warpers now by sending Kliff and Alm over the bridge! Everyone else can take care of the  enemies on this side.

Okay, so, it seems that either I’m mis-remembering things, or they made rivers much harder to cross in SoV than they were in the original, because a bunch of enemy units just crossed the river.

I’m not sure what I’m seeing with the allied bow knight animation (which again seems different from the enemy one). It seems like there’s some kind of pole mechanism mounted on the saddle that the bow pops out from and is fired from, rather than holding it in their actual hands. He doesn’t seem to be firing the bow at all. He seems to just be operating machinery on his saddle.

…I grossly, grossly underestimated how dangerous that army of gold knights and bow knights to the side of my starting position would be. I’m gonna have to keep my heavy hitters with the group for at least a little longer.

Also, tragically, all of that nutso speed growth Robin got, the growth that brings him to 4 whole points above the base for bow knight, is only enough to make him not get doubled by gold knights, and no more.

Okay, this time I kept everyone around long enough to do away with the bow knights, thanks to a combination of Tobin, Alm and Mathilda. Then Silque warped Kliff to the long stairway up the cliff in order to block off the mounted advance. But next turn he’s gonna have to be warped again, because all of my shitty units (and Zeke) are already across the river in a second group and cavalry’s advancing towards them.

After the initial rush, this isn’t so bad, but the main issue now is the witch who summons witches. I may need to have that one assassinated by Tobin, or work my way up to her with Alm.

Okay, I don’t know what’s going on, but for whatever reason, my mounted units can’t cross the river. Maybe that was the case in the original too, but from what I can tell… no I have no clue why the enemy could do it at the beginning of the battle. So I’ll have to warp Tobin across to fight that witch summoning witch.

…That’s weird. I think the witch-summoning witch is one of Sonya’s sisters. And if I recall correctly… they look a LOOOOOOOT more like her in this one than they did in SoV. Probably because I think she’s just a retool of Sonya’s sprite, but still, her sisters look… way less related to her in SoV.

Apparently witches aren’t like terrors, and can survive the death of their summoner. Makes sense as it’s probably an entirely different kind of summoning, but still interesting to know.

Honestly, at this rate, enemy stats are getting all kinds of wonky and bizarre, and I’m finding only a select few units are useful to fight them. Bit of a shame the balance fell apart so much in the second half of the game, honestly. All of the classes were very, very well balanced at the beginning, but now that every enemy has the exact same bases as every allied unit, the ones with the growths to rise above their bases really, painfully stand out. That said, at least each of the handful of units I still find useful feels fundamentally different from the others. Kliff, Alm, Tobin, Silque, Zeke and Tatiana are rarely useful for the same tasks.

Anyway, we’ve got two maps left before we reach the final dungeon and we’ll be getting those maps done tomorrow. And then Friday… the final battle.

…And I just realized I never got that chance to promote Atlas… Ah well…

We get no indication of it, but maybe Jedah did release Alm from the volcano, just because he is a man of his word...but he doesn't want anyone to know that? How else can we explain Alm escaping? That he just did so naturally coincidentally around the same time Celica met Jedah? Of course to permit that, we also have to believe Celica fought off Duma and Jedah throughout the entire time Alm finished the last three or four maps and ended the war. Which if so, pretty bahdass, but completely unbelievable. The most logical explanation is that Alm did manage to fight off the dragons and leave himself, and Jedah simply had a recording of the past that he showed Celica, meaning the game's pulling a perspective trick and the war was already just about over when she entered Duma tower.

Of course neither explanation (in Gaiden or Shadows of Valentia) reveal how Alm managed to get to Duma tower from the royal palace simply by walking through an underground passage. *cough* *cough* Gaiden was a remote island *cough* *cough*

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Although you got a few fights until Act 5, Gradivus is still there. But how you find it is done very differently, according to what I saw in a Gaiden LP once. Hint-

Spoiler

Into the impenetrable darkness, walk.

 

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Of course neither explanation (in Gaiden or Shadows of Valentia) reveal how Alm managed to get to Duma tower from the royal palace simply by walking through an underground passage. *cough* *cough* Gaiden was a remote island *cough* *cough*

Duma Temple is under Duma Tower? I just assumed it was under Castle Rigel.

With a tower so massive, I hope it's all built on good bedrock. Though being built next to a swamp worries me that it might become the Leaning Tower of Rigel later, or that an earthquake would strip away at the tower's exterior. But if it does tilt, well enough of a lean and it could be converted into a magic cannon able to eradicate entire provinces on distant continents.

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1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Although you got a few fights until Act 5, Gradivus is still there. But how you find it is done very differently, according to what I saw in a Gaiden LP once. Hint-

  Hide contents

Into the impenetrable darkness, walk.

 

Duma Temple is under Duma Tower? I just assumed it was under Castle Rigel.

With a tower so massive, I hope it's all built on good bedrock. Though being built next to a swamp worries me that it might become the Leaning Tower of Rigel later, or that an earthquake would strip away at the tower's exterior. But if it does tilt, well enough of a lean and it could be converted into a magic cannon able to eradicate entire provinces on distant continents.

Jedah says he sends Celica's friends "below". Which I would assume means "below our current location" rather than "below and on the other side of the continent." Unless it's a more metaphorical below. As in hell. Still weird he'd send them directly to where he intends to take Celica anyway, if warping people half way across the continent is something he can do. Alm also walks due east along a long corridor in Gaiden before reaching any part of the area proper.

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Gaiden Day 15: Lord of a dead empire

Alright, let’s go. Once again this game has a winding fortress to throw at us, but we have infinite use, infinite range warping on our side, so this should be a piece of cake.

Yeah, really not much to say. Biggest issue was underestimating the range of the enemy bow knights and leaving a few vulnerable units in range of them on turn one.

Honestly, even with warping, that was a very tedious map. It was mostly Kliff, Alm and Tobin soloing the whole thing very, very slowly, since it’s so winding that it’s frustrating to navigate. Between fortify and every one of the three having either great range/mobility or impenetrable defense, none of them were ever in any danger. Victory was always inevitable, just… a long time coming.

And with that… we get to Emperor Rudolf. The dialogue makes it clear that this map is a “kill boss” map, the first one in the game, and as I understand it the second to last. Which… okay, the angel ring actually makes this pretty tricky, because his poor magic defense is compensated for by his SIXTY ONE MAGIC EVADE. Kliff ain’t gonna be able to do much, but then, Rudolf won’t be able to do much to him either if he’s on the fort. So I’m gonna warp in Kliff and Alm and see how long this shitshow lasts.

OH FUCK RUDOLF DOUBLES KLIFF EVEN WITH EXCALIBUR ABORT ABORT!

…Except wait… okay… so Rudolf… won’t attack Alm… but he will initiate combat with him, causing Alm to double him?

…Well… that was… psychotically easy. I’ve barely been playing for 40 minutes today and I’ve already gotten to the final building and thus the final dungeon.

Oh boy. Okay. Time for Mycen to explain how Rudolf’s logic worked in the original game. Alright, I’m literally taking notes.

“Valentia became divided because of the gods. They have involved themselves too deeply with mankind’s affairs. As a result, the people have lost balance and head for ruin. After some consideration, Rudolf posed as a destroyer to instigate the advent of the true heroes of Valentia. I was told this when he placed his newborn child into my hands: ‘This child will consign himself to hell’s fire!’ I couldn’t refuse him. And so, I left all to fate. Alm. You mustn’t let Rudolf’s sacrifice be in vain. Go underground and slay the evil god Duma!”

PFFF.


HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA… BAHA… BAHAHAHAA… BAHAHAHAHAHAHA… HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

WHAT!?

WHAT THE FUCK!?

WHAT THE FUCK DID ANY OF THAT EVEN MEAN!?

WAS RUDOLF HIGH!? IS MYCEN HIGH!? WERE THE WRITERS HIGH!? WAS THE TRANSLATOR HIGH!? I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT NONE OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED WITH THAT MONOLOGUE WERE HIGH.

This… what…

I almost feel bad criticizing it, because I’m 50% sure this is just horribly translated. But the rest of the translation seems fine, while this is “Do you know what does it mean” levels of nonsensical. This isn’t even TRYING to explain his roundabout strategy! This… THIS…

…Alright. Only one thing left to do, and that’s enter the dungeon and beat Duma.

…The game has Celica’s party fighting offscreen as you go through the dungeon. Dialogue actually shows them losing HP. It’s… kind of interesting? But hard to keep track of what everything means.

Hmmm… So Celica’s just fine right now, and they’re just fighting. So, while I think the writing for how Celica gets in trouble is just as bad here, it reflects way, way better on Celica as a character than the remake’s does. Now I get why some people say the remake made Celica worse.

This is pretty nerve-wracking, honestly, being in this long dungeon and not being able to save. It would be engaging if the game didn’t have so many ways things can just go horribly wrong even if you are paying attention. But the dungeon battles haven’t been so bad so far. Gotta re-arrange my party to get Zeke and Mycen on the frontlines though. Especially now that I found Gradivus. Honestly I probably didn’t need the hint, those black archways were so obvious.

So, there’s a switch that covers  a quarter of the map in toxic bog, and enemies will run to it when numbers get low. Interesting idea, but it doesn’t really amount to, well… anything except wasting my time.

Okay these pit puzzles are just shockingly obnoxious trial and error, especially considering how it’s a roll of the dice how much time you have apparently. There are these multiple floors of pits, and you have to remember which pit doesn’t lead to a second, third and fourth one, then go all the way up and try again.

Also, this dungeon battle is weird. I attacked a dread fighter and for some reason another dread fighter appeared on my turn near my main force.

Okay, apparently the tile in THIS dungeon battle just lets dread fighters warp wherever they want, though not attack.

…Okay.

…And then if a unit is standing on the tile at the end of the turn, they’ll warp in front of the wall during my turn… on some circumstances? After I move my first unit? What?

…OH FUCK. I REMEMBER WHY I HATED THOSE EYES. THEY MULTIPLY. THEY’RE GETTING HORRENDOUSLY OUT OF CONTROL AND ALM’S THE ONLY GUY I HAVE WHO CAN ONE ROUND OR EVEN DOUBLE THEM!

AND ONCE AGAIN WITH THE WALLS THAT RANDOMLY DROP ON ENEMY PHASE.

FUCK THAT. FUCK THAT YOU LYING WHORE OF A GAME.

AND THEY’RE IMMUNE TO THE ANTI-TERROR SPELL THE ONE TIME I THINK IT WOULD BE REMOTELY USEFUL TO USE IT!?

…Okay. Breathe.

Plus side: I finally found the Falchion, which means getting the fuck out of here and reuniting with Celica should be just around the corner.

Honestly, having to fight a bunch of enemies with Alm alone isn’t a handicap at this point, it’s a benefit.

Yet again with the enemy-phase terrain changes. Only reason I’m not complaining is because nothing can kill Alm right now and at least this way Alm is exposed on all sides and can rout these wights faster. See, I accidentally overestimated his attack power and got stuck in a bottleneck where I could only kill one enemy a turn, barring critical hits. So I was actually grateful when the walls Alm got stuck behind came crumbling down eventually. I seem to remember it happening quicker in SoV though, so for a while I was assuming it wouldn’t happen at all.

Really, the devs have to know how overpowered Alm is at this point. Because otherwise these battles would be ridiculously unfair.

…Okay. I have the Falchion.

…Now what?

…Wow. I was just guessing, game.

So I went back to the second set of multi-floored holes, and went down literally the one space in 12 that would get me to where I wanted to go. And now… it’s time to fight Duma.

For those of you who haven’t played either game, it’s basically a misshapen U cave, with Alm’s army at the left side of the lower curve, Celica’s on the right, and then with a gold knight and two dread fighters at the left tip, a bunch of eyeball monsters at the base of the U, and then the path to Duma, guarded by some witches and bow knights and a sorcerer, is on the right tip, blocked by Jedah. As he lacks his dragon shield and Celica’s army now lacks its not having Alm, Jedah is fucking going down on turn four.

And, okay, the eyeball monsters everywhere are pretty annoying, but… Duma's stats seem pretty pathetic. I’m still gonna be a little cautious, but I think warp-skipping is the way to go here, and…

…That sorcerer right by Duma…

Ganeph?

…GHARNEF!?

…No, it has to be a coincidence.

Anyway, after taking a break to do other stuff, I’ve decided I’m not going to warp skip this map. Given how much I’ll have to go through to retry it (so far, of all the games in the series that I’ve played, this is the only instance where I would actually agree that the amount of stuff you have to redo to retry the final battle is way too much), I’m going to go through it normally and not risk getting slaughtered. I could probably manage doing this in a couple of turns by abusing the celica damage boost Alm gets when she’s adjacent to him, buuuuut… not knowing much about how that works or what Duma’s attacks are… I’m just gonna do this the old fashioned way, and kill Jedah first.

That said, I will use one part of the original strategy I concocted to warp-skip it. I warp Silque over to Celica’s army so that there’s a warper on each side, just in case somebody needs to get to the other side quickly.

Man, the dread fighters and gold knight did a nasty amount of damage to Zeke. He has to retreat to make sure he doesn’t get hit by the dread fighters next turn while he lets fortify heal him.

OH! SHIT! I didn’t need to do that, I have Genny! I can heal everyone a little and then one of them a lot! Dang it, too late, but ah well.

Anyway, Celica takes Atlas’s silver sword. He won’t be needing it, but Celica could probably make some use of it.

Alright, gotta remember, this is turn three now. There’s no turn counter. But next turn, Jedah is fuuuuucked.

These enemies have odd names. And actually, weird thing is they have no listed classes. Wait…

…No, when you have no listed class, that means your class is taking up the name slot because you have no name. So these enemies are just a enemy-exclusive elite classes with weird names and weird colored sprites. Funny.

Alright, turn four. Celica’s warped at a diagonal to Jedah. Let’s do this.

No special “triangle attack” ish animation, just a normal critical hit animation, but it was definitely an absolute slaughter. One hit death.

Oh god. Imagine if you accidentally kept the magic ring Jedah drops and stored the Falchion. Oh that would suuuuuuck.

And thankfully it seems that it was only thanks to Jedah that those eyeballs were spawning. Even the ones I was assuming Duma was spawning are gone now.

…Oh. Okay. So that earthquake spell wasn’t a new addition to SoV. It’s just… there. With no warning or buildup or even a fucking place in his nonexistant spell list.

One of Sonya’s remaining sisters summoned a bunch of witches. But thankfully they’re level 1 so this should be fine. Time to fortify up and take these guys out.

…No, my mistake. Duma’s eyeballs disappearing was… apparently a glitch. He can still summon them himself, it’s just that all of his apparently vanished when Jedah died because… the game couldn’t tell the difference between Jedah’s and Duma’s?

Okay, Duma’s just summoning a ridiculous amount of eyeballs now. Time to rush in and clear out the herd with Alm.

Unfortunately I can’t bring Celica in for the attack boost, because only Alm gets the boost according to SF, not Celica. Shame. Not that he’ll need it until Duma anyway.

Speaking of which, he moves, and attacks in melee due to all the eyeballs he summoned.

Yeah, Jotari, I’m gonna have to agree with that thing you said in that thread you linked about Valentia being an island. The part where you said Duma’s definitely a dragon. Looking at him and seeing him in motion, he definitely looks like the gooey, skeletal remains of some winged beast.

Interestingly, Alm’s given a special attack animation for fighting Duma where he jumps up and attacks the head.

…Why does Duma keep rising and emerging from a pile of bones on the ground every time combat with him starts?

Yet again, despite this time DEFINITELY having better 1-2 range spots, Duma attacked in melee. This time he used a separate attack, one SF apparently said (according to my notes) has 1-8 range, and is way more accurate, but targets defense apparently so does way less damage.

Wow, Duma has a ton of HP. But it isn’t worth it to send in Celica when I don’t know how much HP he has and when the-

…Wait, her defense is fine. She can totally handle being around those eyeballs and it doesn't even matter if she can't one-round them as long as she stays next to Alm. What was I thinking?

Right, next turn I’m sending her in.

Okay, Duma is absolutely obsessed with attacking in melee, to the point I haven’t even confirmed if the notes I took down for his attacks are even real.

Anyway, I just sent Celica in, to attack with seraphim, just in case that’s effective. Then it’ll be time to attack with Alm.

And given that he didn’t attack back at all, I can only assume that the SF listings are wrong, and Duma’s tentacles do NOT have a 1-8 range.

But at any rate, she finally got him down to visible health, so time to deal the final blow!

For some reason he switched to eyeball this time. Not sure what I did that prompted it, given that he was using tentacles when fighting Celica.

And I got some rather ominous and vague text about carrying Duma’s power and Mila’s love, and never repeating these events, never disturbing the gods’ slumber…

And then a narrated epilogue, which, hilariously, asks the question

“Why did this war occur?”

and then answers i with

“No one knows.”

…And then it’s the end!

That’s odd. At first it shows portraits, but then it gives up on that and just lists everyone’s name. Was it listing the main characters and then everyone who contributed a lot to my party and kill count? Maybe…

So the game off-handedly mentions that Mila and Duma’s religions have just kind of fused into one. Naturally. Somehow. And that… strikes me as pretty weird, even after everything we’ve seen.

This game has a much dimmer view of Clair and Grey’s relationship, basically implying Grey pestered Clair until she gave in.

What? This game says that Delthea “seals” her magic and then just “lived happily as a single woman”, and I’m like WHAT? What was her magic doing to hurt her? Why not keep it!?

…Well… yeah, that was about as mediocre of an ending credits sequence as FE1’s.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF THE GAME!?

TIME FOR THE NEW UPDATED RANKINGS!

AS IN, TIME TO ACTUALLY HAVE A FUCKING LIST!

 

 

 

 

 


Difficulty: Gaiden wins this one. The period in the game where things were both hard and fun, while still not all that long, was a good deal longer than it was in Dark Dragon. While it too completely went off the goddamned rails by the end into a broken mess, that was a lot less painful to play through than Dark Dragon had been.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


Ironmannability: Sorry, Gaiden loses this one. I was torn for a while, due to the combination of things each game does better and worse, but for all of FE1’s ironman-hostile bullshit, it at least throws a healthy, continuous supply of replacements at you and doesn’t make a few losable units absolutely crucial to your survival. The idea of playing this game ironman after losing one of my healers… Jesus Christ I shudder at the fucking thought. Especially since random unavoidable crits mean that keeping everyone alive isn’t a safe and sure thing, no matter your strategy. So with that philosophy in mind, a steady supply of disposable units with none of them having game-pivotal importance is better than having a couple more late-game revival options.

1: Dark Dragon
2: Gaiden


Usability: Gaiden wins, largely because it understood the limits of the hardware way, way, WAY better than Dark Dragon did, as I said. This inventory system was an excellent compromise until they learned how to handle the soon-to-be traditional method better, and it drastically cut down on tedium of calculations. This game knew what it was doing in this regard, or did a really good job of faking it.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


Depth: This is a close one in a sense, given how primitive they are, but honestly, Gaiden definitely has way more stuff going on, and as I said one or two parts back, despite the insane balance issues by the end, at least all of the units I found useful had drastically, fundamentally different niches to fill that made them never quite right for the same circumstances. That’s actually quite rare in a Fire Emblem game, to be honest, at least to the degree I had here.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


Balance: This… is an extremely difficult decision. Both of these games are absolute messes in different ways. Yes, I had a team composition in Dark Dragon almost entirely made out of mounts and mages, but that was largely because I lacked the patience to put up with fielding anything else, not because they wouldn’t have been useful in combat if I had. Meanwhile in this game, 80% of the roster becomes fucking useless by the end because their shitty growths mean they can’t get any better than the enemies they’re fighting, and by the end get much, much worse. Plus Alm is a terrifying fucking menace who barely even needed the angel ring to become a monster. He was easily more terrifying than even Marth, warping is infinite in this game… and yet... fuck it, I got a hell of a lot more use out of my non-Alm team than I got out of my non-Marth team by the end of the game. Gaiden wins. Barely.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


Pacing: GAIDEN. FUCKING. WINS. DO I EVEN NEED TO DISCUSS THIS POINT? NO INVENTORY MANAGEMENT, MAPS THAT NEVER TOOK AS LONG AS DARK DRAGON’S, EVEN CELICA’S MAPS WILL NEVER COMPARE TO THE AGONY OF THE FUCKING SECRET SHOP. GAIDEN WINS, DISCUSSION OVER, FUCK YOU, AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


Writing: Both are terribly written, but Dark Dragon at least made sense, as badly told as it was. Gaiden’s went completely off the rails in the third act and crashed straight into the wall of the nearest asylum. Dark Dragon wins.

1: Dark Dragon
2: Gaiden


Music: Gaiden wins. In addition to just having a wider variety of catchy tunes than just… three or so, they also much better accounted for the fact that the player would spend most of the time not hearing one channel of it. I will defend Marth’s player phase music forever from all who wish to do it harm, but the game doesn’t do it justice, and it doesn’t have enough other songs backing it up.

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon


And so, winning everything but ironmannability and writing, the overall list is…

1: Gaiden
2: Dark Dragon.

And well, that’s it for this week! I’ll be taking Friday off to do other things, and starting with FE3 on Monday. Wish me luck!

Edited by Alastor15243
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Congrats on finishing NES Gaiden! The 8-bit era is over! And it wasn't FE's best. But TBF, neither was it Zelda's or Metroid's. Only Mario and Kirby made it really work.

 

Mystery of the Emblem is up next. Book 1 is an FE1 rehash, which will be a dry, easy bore for that reason. Although the easiness will be a good transition into what differences 3 has from 1, and Book 2 is relatively challenging from almost the start. Hopefully you can speed through the War of Shadows.

By modern standards, FE3 is a bit slow in gameplay speed, and still lacks some other basic features. But given you've sat through the agony of FE1's UI, you'll feel the game is logarithmically better in the playability department.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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