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

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The Chapter 8  boss, Henning, is generally considered to be very annoying on Hard, probably not Hyman- FE11 Chapter 3- bad. His Spd is too darned high, early promote Rutger is considered here to ease the headache I think.

Well, Rutger can still double him unpromoted due to the boss's weapons being too heavy, but yeah, his damage output was pretty pathetic at the moment. In fairness, promoting him would only give him 2 more and boost his crit rate, so it would still probably take several turns.

6 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

My Lugh ended up being rather heavily blessed I remember. Though I don't get how, unless you were taking it slow, he promoted already, mine had to wait until C12 to hit 20 on Normal.

I haven't been farming exp from bosses for him or anything, I've generally just been having him fight the bosses until they die without prolonging it for extra exp. I have been using him a lot though, since he turned out so good. He's basically the only guy on my team who can reliably one-round basically anything, so he's seen a lot of use.

3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Well, Ostia is the name of Rome's old port city. To see it become a Pompeii would be befitting.

Fortunately, that will not happen, because Roland quelled the volcano using Durandal as a catalyst to safely vent its destructive potential. In doing so, his people could safely sow the soil long enriched with volcanic ash, and mine the igneous rock that formed. As long as Durandal is returned to its proper place in the shrine within a matter of a few years, the magma chamber of the volcano will not fill. -I joke.

You joke, and yet that would actually be a fascinating bit of worldbuilding if that were the case. I'd love for something for this to be true. It really would have fixed so much, aside from the fact that it'd still be a bit of a weird timeline unless Ostia were retconned to be literally built into the volcano.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

But, my objective time records tell me that in 1378 EC, the volcano at last erupted and consumed the entirety of Ostia. ...

Just me writing purest fanfict on the spot, because I can.

Interesting. I actually had an idea for a sort of FE6 sequel story, though it would have been quite a bit different than that and probably produce an incompatible canon.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Well, Rutger can still double him unpromoted due to the boss's weapons being too heavy, but yeah, his damage output was pretty pathetic at the moment. In fairness, promoting him would only give him 2 more and boost his crit rate, so it would still probably take several turns.

+2 might gets a lot bigger over a few turn, not to mention that it gets tripled much more regularly.

[Jotari]

16 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I looked and didn't see one. I'll try again, maybe it's translated weirdly in this patch and I didn't notice it, but I'm pretty sure it's not there.

I just went back and checked, thinking this might have been the case, but sadly, the text explicitly says that Merlinus is telling Roy that the Bern wyvern knights have "arrived at Castle Ostia". So I don't think that really works. The wyvern knights have been there long enough for a message to get to Merlinus and for Roy to race back, all while Etruria's reinforcements haven't arrived yet. If Ostia isn't a Pompeii situation in the making, this is some complete and total nonsense.

Can I cite unprofessional translation? Nah, probably  not. They most likely went for urgency over sense.

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 10: Chapter 9

Looks like there's a bit of a break in the plot with Bern, where now we're helping out Etruria with the western isles, which basically appear to be the politics of the wild west, on an island, in fantasy medieval Europe. I have to say, I like the concept of that. I do, however, find it curious why Etruria wants Roy's army to do it specifically, given that Etruria has to have the manpower, it's an Etrurian project, and Roy's army has to march across the entire country and then take a boat to get there.

But I'm looking forward to seeing this. Apparently this is one of several branching paths, and I forgot almost everything about this part of the game, so this will probably be a big, fun surprise.

...It's also, however, a fog of war map. But what's this? We actually have thieves now! Thieves who have enhanced vision! Thieves we can give torches and allow to see super far! So we actually have methods of dealing with the fog!

It's funny... a lot of the time, the world of FE6 feels wholly alien to the world of FE7. I'm not sure what it is about it, but so much feels different on a level beyond a decade and a half of time passing.

...Shit... I think from what I remember, this is around the time that Shin joins up, isn't it? ...Don't wanna have to restart this because the game's being a dick about what information it gives me before battle, so better bring Sue just in case.

...Okay, the second I hear that the high chancellor is the one responsible for sending us here, now I know I should be suspicious. I don't remember much of anything about this story, but I have a strong hunch that the chancellor is going to betray the king, and Etruria is gonna fall or betray us in some capacity that has Perceval fighting us.

And yeah, reading more, looks like the king is more of a puppet king due to grief. Poor guy, but seriously, he's got a kingdom to run.

Oh, right! Guinivere's here! I kinda forgot about her since she hasn't shown up for a few chapters and I've only been doing one chapter a day.

Well, we've got two main jobs: saving the village to the southwest, and saving the villages to the northeast while getting more staves in the process at the little shop there. I'll send Allen and Lance off to take care of the southwestern one since they've got the highest move and there's a lot of ground to cover. Meanwhile I'll have Shanna drop Lugh off on the forest by the shop so he can dodgetank the enemies there, clear it out, enter the shop and send some staves to Merlinus. I also sent him with a red gem to fill up his inventory to max, so once he's done buying staves to send to Merlinus, he can sell the red gem and buy one for himself too, now that he can do that.

Looks like torch staves work like they do in FE5, unfortunately. You can't aim them to illuminate a targeted area, they're just 10-use torches only healers can use. Which makes them kinda pointless, since torches are best used by thieves.

...Yep. The village tells me about Shin right at the start. Honestly, if you're gonna tell me that immediately after making my preparations, couldn't you have made a scene where it shows him talking to the pirate leader or something?

...And also have the cutscene happen before preparation!?

I wonder what that “he also has a girl with him” thing is about. I hope this isn't some convoluted nonsense to recruit him. I was hoping it would just involve having Sue talk to him.

Another village rather clumsily hints at the upcoming route split, which is, again, something I'm excited about. This game apparently has more branching chapters than any other in the series, unless you count Fates or Three Houses I guess.

Oh. The girl the house mentioned is Fir. Of course. Please don't tell me I have to bring Noah too...

Oh shit. I remember now. Fir is an idiot who thinks that we're the pirates. Hilarious. But it looks like, yes, I have to restart to bring Noah, because we fight Fir today. This entire conversation really should have been before the preparation screen.

Apparently this is all an elaborate plot to trick Fir into getting herself killed so they can steal her sword.

Yeah, uh... Scott? I think I see a little problem with your plan.

You said, explicitly, that you're being this roundabout because you think she's so powerful that you have no chance of stealing her Wo Dao from her directly. But you're confident that my forces will kick her ass.

If your plan depends on you thinking my forces are significantly better than yours... why are you not getting the fuck out of here?

In fairness, it's possible he just doesn't want the losses in manpower he'd incur by trying to take her out for that sword. But seriously man, just poison her food or something!

Anyway...

Restarting.

Operation Lugh airdrop is a success! I had to drop Saul for this map to make room for Noah, but we're all set for staves now, and I also got a couple of torches so that my thieves aren't caught without them again.

Actually, the fog of war here is surprisingly generous. I just realized once I moved my thief away that the sight range in this game for non-thief units is five, not three. And thieves, without torches, can see ten. Let's see how Astore does with a torch...

Fourteen. That's... a huge range, but it's kind of disappointing that torches only add four. I'm pretty sure it's more in nearly every other game, but I haven't memorized the exact amount.

I've decided to waste most of this barrier staff. I'll keep some of it in case it's actually necessary, but I'm betting that this thing is just going to sit unused in my inventory, and is much better spent helping Clarine gain exp and staff rank.

Oh, what a shame. Looks like S ranking a weapon type doesn't give you any bonuses in this game. I always liked that increased +5 crit rate, if only to give a better chance of seeing those awesome crit animations.

But I do see Fir coming out of the fog thanks to that insane vision range.

Oh shit! Speaking of crit rates... I completely forgot! Either it's an audio glitch, or maybe FE7 was the game that added this... but those three balls of light the sage summons before performing crits... they don't have any sound effects! That... really takes the bite out of that awesome critical, I've gotta say.

...Ooh. Alright, I think I just did the first route split. I'm guessing that's why the east village closed when the west village was visited. Well, I got a killer bow, which Shin is bound to appreciate. Or at least I think so. You can't see enemy weapon ranks, so I can't check if Shin can use a killer bow yet. But yes, those stats are pretty damned impressive. I get why people like him. And hey! There's a legendary bow in this game! Might as well use it! I'll give him a shot. He's got stats good enough to keep up with my current army in terms of player-phase power, but he's only level 5! Let's see what his growths are like...

...Pretty damned great! No real complaints here! Welcome to the team, Shin! Just gotta recruit you. Shouldn't be too hard since the girl who recruits you is just as fast as you.

Fir moves in an unexpected direction, but thankfully not so much that Noah can't recruit her. It's a close call though. Or it would have been if rescue shenanigans weren't a thing. Shin's attack range almost reaches the spaces where you'd have to stand to talk to Fir.

Fir's pretty okay, especially in terms of raw potential, because she's a level 1 and her bases are almost as good as Rutger's were. Hell, I think she starts with more strength! …But I already have Rutger, and he's got pretty much all of my Rutgering and general Rutgery covered.

That sword though... whew! It trades 1 mt and 5 hit for 10 crit on the killing edge, at a lower weapon rank to boot. I'm saving that thing for bosses.

Speaking of swords, I've been running low on iron swords, so I bought some more with Lugh. I've got a little bit of money left over, but we're getting to the point where we'll need to restock.

Alright, so, Scott's in Astore's line of sight, and I'm pretty sure that despite being promoted, his strength still isn't as high as that crazy bandit menace back in the first few chapters that I had to do continuous rescue-dropping to kill. But even so, there's no way in hell I'm fighting this guy in melee.

Looks like there isn't much of a rush to get to these villages after all. Well, better safe than sorry. But at any rate, those forts in the water have me nervous. I'm trying to steer clear of them in case pirates pop out. I've got a few dead weight members of my team I'd rather not have to let die now that their usefulness is over.

Huh. That's weird. The village conversation had absolutely nothing to do with the item they gave me. In fact, for a second, I thought they wouldn't give me anything at all. But no, I got a silver sword. Score!

Yep. The pirates are here. I think they're prompted by getting too close to the castle from this direction, since they had plenty of opportunities to ambush me from the other side of the river.

Yep. Shin should be pretty easy to get up to speed. He's scoring something like 50 exp per kill right now.

...And his first level is HPsauce. That... does not bode well, but moving on.

On the plus side, these pirate reinforcements are a great way to train Roy, who gained a really good level up!

Shin's second level up is strength and skill. Both nice, but still, only two stat gains isn't pretty. It feels uncomfortable having a unit who hasn't had a good level up yet.

I very, very nearly fucked up.

I forgot about that fucking 30% crit bonus and attacked Scott with Lugh, without rescue-dropping him out of range on the same turn. He dodged, but if he hadn't, and if it had procced that 23% crit rate... wow.

I think I was distracted by the fact that I'm trying to deal with the pirate reinforcements while most of my good units are now up at the castle, and forgot that he didn't need the killer axe to crit me. But that's a mistake I'm sure as hell not going to be making again.

...Okay, Shin got HP, strength, skill and speed. Now I'm not feeling quite as nervous about his future in this army.

So, looks like we're going towards the mines, to free the people being used as slaves there. Not sure what that means in terms of which refresher I'm getting, but I'm looking forward to seeing the result!

Honestly, I liked this map! The fog of war didn't really have any nasty surprises in it that you couldn't see coming with a thief, and while it wasn't that hard, it was a pretty damned nice introduction to fog of war in this game. Really, after Chapter 7's... questionable design philosophy, things have just been improving from there. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next!

[Seafarer]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Actually, the fog of war here is surprisingly generous. I just realized once I moved my thief away that the sight range in this game for non-thief units is five, not three. And thieves, without torches, can see ten. Let's see how Astore does with a torch...

Fourteen. That's... a huge range, but it's kind of disappointing that torches only add four. I'm pretty sure it's more in nearly every other game, but I haven't memorized the exact amount.

It's four in Sacred Stones. I assume it'd be the same for all of GBAFE. (It's 5 in Three Houses, the only other game with Torches that I've played.)

The Torch staff, however, lights up an 8-tile radius in TSS, which may be something you're confusing it with.

EDIT: Just looked it up; it's four in PoR, too. It increased to 5 in Radiant Dawn. You're probably just used to Thracia's ridiculous 10.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Seafarer

[Boomhauer007]

Shin already got 3 levels eh? You planning to keep track of all that or just go where you go for that last route split? 

[Alastor15243]

14 hours ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Shin already got 3 levels eh? You planning to keep track of all that or just go where you go for that last route split? 

I don't have any preference on way or the other, but judging how things are going, I'm headed to Sacae unless Thea really impresses me.

Also, seeing a random video on YouTube about the 3H DLC reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask: how much, if at all, do you guys want me to use/check out the DLC for later games on the list? I'm talking about DLC in general, extra missions and bonus items/characters/etc.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Jingle Jangle]

I think most of the dlc should be made as a side note after the game is completed. For Fates at least since it scales to player progression of the story. For Awakening you can try to make a detour for the challenge maps. Good luck with Apotheosis.

[Seafarer]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't have any preference on way or the other, but judging how things are going, I'm headed to Sacae unless Thea really impresses me.

Also, seeing a random video on YouTube about the 3H DLC reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask: how much, if at all, do you guys want me to use/check out the DLC for later games on the list? I'm talking about DLC in general, extra missions and bonus items/characters/etc.

Please do New War Chronicles when you get to New Mystery.

Awakening is already easily breakable, so I'd rather you ban Bonus Box/Renown rewards. For DLC in general, I recommend having it as a) optional and b) each map can be played only once.

As a side note, how many side quests are you going to go for in Awakening/Fates? Because one idea I had for making Awakening more of a challenge was to require all Paralogues to be cleared with no grinding (so you'd have to manage support gain for at least 13 units).

[Alastor15243]

19 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

As a side note, how many side quests are you going to go for in Awakening/Fates? Because one idea I had for making Awakening more of a challenge was to require all Paralogues to be cleared with no grinding (so you'd have to manage support gain for at least 13 units).

That reminds me of a challenge run idea I had where the idea was I had to do every single chapter, paralogue and xenologue exactly once, with no skirmishes. Which would obviously mean an absurd amount of support management for all the parents if such a thing is even possible. And then ending it with Apotheosis, without grinding. It's a fascinating concept, but I'm not sure if it's even physically doable, on any difficulty, mostly due to the parent supports. And given that even with the xenologues I have my doubts... doing just all the paralogues is probably questionable.

That said, FEA is so mindless and so outrageously easy to break into a million pieces that I'm pretty confident that if I buckled down and played on Lunatic or below, I could do that entire game in one weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday night. Which would be hilarious, but probably not conducive to the most in-depth assessment of the game's qualities.

I will try if people insist though. I still have no fucking clue what I'm gonna be doing with that game. I don't think it's a bad game, it's just... good for reasons that are almost entirely alien from what I'm ranking the games on.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Seafarer]

4 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

That reminds me of a challenge run idea I had where the idea was I had to do every single chapter, paralogue and xenologue exactly once, with no skirmishes. which would obviously mean an absurd amount of support management for all the parents if such a thing is even possible. And then ending it with Apotheosis, without grinding. It's a fascinating concept, but I'm not sure if it's even physically doable, on any difficulty, mostly due to the parent supports. And given that even with the xenologues I have my doubts... doing just all the paralogues is probably questionable.

That said, FEA is so mindless and so outrageously easy to break into a million pieces that I'm pretty confident that if I buckled down and played on Lunatic or below, I could do that entire game in one weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday night. Which would be hilarious, but probably not conducive to the most in-depth assessment of the game's qualities.

I will try if people insist though. I still have no fucking clue what I'm gonna be doing with that game. I don't think it's a bad game, it's just... good for reasons that are almost entirely alien from what I'm ranking the games on.

Technically, clearing Apotheosis only requires clearing the first wave and choosing to finish, so my first astonished "that's friggin' impossible" reaction possibly isn't quite correct. The secret route has been cleared without Limit Breaker, but it still required capped stats and a very specific Morgan build.

How about I give my suggestion a go (on Hard, I think) and let you know how it goes?

(I once cleared Awakening start to finish in just over 2 hours, heh. And I agree with that last line. I noted to my friend that Awakening just doesn't teach you to play Fire Emblem; it only teaches you to play Awakening.)

[Alastor15243]

4 hours ago, Seafarer said:

How about I give my suggestion a go (on Hard, I think) and let you know how it goes?

By all means, lemme know! I'm not likely to do challenge runs on my marathon though, full disclosure; that doesn't seem like a good way to assess the base game's actual difficulty or balance.

Also, is New War Chronicles the dlc remake of the Satellaview stuff? If so, that sounds like something I really should play.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Seafarer]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

By all means, lemme know! I'm not likely to do challenge runs on my marathon though, full disclosure; that doesn't seem like a good way to assess the base game's actual difficulty or balance.

Also, is New War Chronicles the dlc remake of the Satellaview stuff? If so, that sounds like something I really should play.

Yeah, that's it. It's way better to play than the original Satellaview version. I speak from experience. *shudder*

And that's the problem: Awakening is so broken that its difficulty is basically zero if you know what you're doing. Actually, just running it as hard and fast as possible might be for the best. I don't know.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Seafarer

[Alastor15243]

...Y'know, I've really been kicking myself since Friday once I realized I should have been spamming the torch staff with Clarine rather than the barrier one, since torches on thieves would be way more useful than a torch staff on a healer would ever be in this game, and I can't use the damned thing outside of fog of war maps. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I hope there's another fog of war map soon.

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 11: Chapter 10

Fun fact: this weekend marked half a year since this whole project started!

...And I'm only about a third of the way through. Looks like this will be taking longer than I thought.

So let's get moving!

Curious. The text box moved to the top of the screen to show something the map narration would have otherwise blocked. I didn't realize the game was programmed to sometimes put the text box on top. Has it done that before? If not, I wonder why they programmed that in instead of just moving the camera a little...

Ooh, looks like I get Lalum again this time! Makes sense. She's the one I got my first time, and when you're playing blind, naturally you're going to visit the closest village first if you don't think order will make a difference.

So... this entire western isles errand appears to be a plot by that chancellor or whatever to get us killed. Which pretty much confirms he's working for Bern.

Man, this new player phase music sounds like it could be really nice if the instrumentation itself weren't so weird.

Shit. That could've been nasty, though not lethal. I forgot to check for killing edges among the enemies. The things that slip your notice when you aren't playing ironman. But I just got another +Str +Def level for Allen, so I'd hate to have to restart at any rate.

Alright. This berserker looks nasty and tricky to kill in one turn without engaging in melee, and he's surrounded by enemies that will seriously injure my player-phase nukes, especially Lugh. But I've got a plan. First, I'll have Lugh stand at the edge of the berserker's range. Then I'll have him leap in to kill it with fire, and have Lance and Allen rush in to rescue-drop him to safety so they can handle the rest of the more physical enemies.

And we finally got Saul and Dorothy's C support! And it's just as priceless as I remember. The idea of this guy scaring off a jackass harassing an innocent woman by pretending to be the man's jilted gay lover and clinging to his arm with eyes full of fake tears is absolutely hilarious to me. I also love the detail that the girl ran off too, and the tone of the support suggests the joke isn't that she took the opportunity to escape, but that his performance freaked her out just as much as it freaked out the guy.

Ooh, look! Geese! Yeah, his portrait looks super cool, with that super-badass coat of his and that awesome hair.

...Pity his battle sprite doesn't look like that at all. If it did, he'd probably be the coolest-looking axefighter in the entire GBA series.

I'm torn. Pirates are awesome, and having a water walker would be great given how I don't have a good flier yet, but his bases and level are slightly worse than Lot's current level and stats, and Lot's already trailing behind a bit and struggling to catch up and get kills. I think I'll be sticking with Lot this time.

...Oh fuck. Gonzalez is in this chapter. This is the one he's recruited in? I remembered it looking really, really different.

...I didn't bring Lilina. Shit.

...Well even with hard mode bonuses, he's really... not that great... at all. I feel bad for having to kill him, but I'm not restarting for this guy. Not when I'm on a schedule to beat this today and I got good level ups so far.

I feel bad though, so I'm going to try and let him live. The enemies are mostly cleared out (part of why I don't want to have to do this again just for him), so I'm just gonna rush the castle with my cavalry and try to bait him around in circles once I grab the village with Geese.

Lugh nukes the berserker, just as planned, and Lance and Allen ferry him back to safety.

Oooh, nice! The village had a swordreaver! That's gonna be useful for Lot!

Unfortunately, this boss is an absolute menace. A nostank on a gate. Unless I get really lucky, I probably won't be able to keep Gonzalez alive, as he's getting uncomfortably close to the rest of my army.

...Thankfully, I got lucky. I enemy-phased the boss with Allen, who dodged the nosferatu, landed two hits, and then killed him on player phase with a third. Which means Gonzalez gets to live.

Lalum's pretty damned cute, and not as Serra-ish in personality as I remember her being. And I love the little “Lalum's mugshot pushing into Roy's mugshot” thing they do to imply she does these huge, inappropriate diving hugs.

God I love the GBA games' art style.

Honestly though, I'm a little disappointed that my initial impression of the western isles being some lawless wild west where Etruria barely has any control... didn't turn out to be true. The bandits aren't running amok because Etruria doesn't have enough people there to uphold the law, but because Etruria's working with the bandits. Honestly, I don't find that nearly as interesting. I was hoping for some defense chapters where you defend helpless villages from pirates.

At any rate though, tomorrow we'll be going to the mines! Does that mean it'll be another cave map? Hmmm... I wonder.

[Alastor15243]

Binding Blade Day 12: Chapter 11

Nope, we're not in the caves, we're outside of them. Well, that means it's a bigass village map, with tons of villages to visit, as well as some nice big shops! I count 8 villages, which is basically screaming to me that I'll be getting at least one more promotion item today.

If it's a knight crest, I'll give it to Allen, who'll use it two levels from now when he finally hits level 20.

If it's an orion's bolt, I'll have Shin hold on to it, but not use it just yet.

If it's a guiding ring, however, it's going to Saul, and he's using it the second he gets to level 10. Pretty much the only reason I'm training him is so I can have someone to use the S rank light tome, and I think this game's made it clear that monks were an invention of FE7. And not only will promoting him early give him more time to train that rank that might take ages to train, but the more I train Saul using staves, the bigger the risk he'll S rank staves on promotion and be locked out of S ranking light. Clarine's gonna be my S rank staff user (not sure if the game gives me an S rank staff user for free or if their stats will matter), so she'll try to get as close to level 20 as she can before guiding ring 3 shows up, and then I'll weigh my options from there. Saul's probably gonna be my worst magic user by far due to those 10 missing levels, but oh well, his stats won't matter when he's using Aureola on dragons, now will they?

...But come to think of it, does this game even have four guiding rings? I used one for Lugh, and in addition to Saul, I want to promote Raigh (especially for the Lugh support bonus) and Clarine. I've heard there's a promotion item selling secret shop, but I don't know where the hell it is or how late in the game it'll be. Oh well. Guess I'll have to hope I have a good eye for suspicious squares.

But those cave entrances are basically screaming “village-destroying reinforcements”. Which is a shame, because these axe fighters are slow enough to make them perfect training fodder for Lot, and I'd like to take my time feeding some of those kills to him. I'll split the difference: I'll have Allen and Lance get rescue-dropped over the wall with Shanna, and have them secure the caves while Lot deals with as many of the enemies on the way there as he can.

It's frankly hilarious how easy cavalry are to rescue, and how good they are at rescuing. I never realized how goofy and dumb it was as a kid, but now that I'm going back to this system after playing other games, and especially after playing Thracia... wow.

Well, Miledy showing up confirms it: Etruria's chancellor is working with Bern. As a matter of fact, it sounds like the entire reason for this errand was to ambush the Lycian army in order to get Guinivere back. Which is a problem, because we didn't bring her.

...Wait...

...Didn't we leave Guinivere with... Etrurian forces...?

...SHIT.

YEP. LOOKS LIKE THE BAD GUYS HAVE GUINIVERE.

OOH! Looks like I somehow didn't notice I ended last chapter with Rutger and Clarine's A support available!

That was... I man it was a little funny, but it's not exactly ship of the year as I was hoping it would be when I saw their initial interactions. The supports here are so mediocre that I honestly hope the remake team isn't afraid to overhaul the boring ones from scratch.

Oh! I was wondering when the shops were going to start selling light magic! Looks like it's pointless to early-promote priests and clerics in this game until now. At least on hard mode. Not sure when the normal mode prep shop starts selling them.

Also, a heck of a lot of the axe fighters are swarming Allen and Lance since they made themselves the closest targets by getting flown over the wall. So much for training Lot, but at least Shin can handle these archers.

Honestly... the game's kind of settled down a lot. I find this happens a lot with Fire Emblem “hard modes”. The early game is often just overkill, but the difficulty keeps dropping the further you go. Honestly I just find that frustrating. Especially since there's almost no team comp variation at the beginning, so that big initial challenge is pretty much always handled the exact same way, meanwhile the late game, where you could have any number of different tools at your disposal, barely throws any challenges your way at all.

Alright, Allen's capped. Hopefully the enemy AI's obsession with picking on Lance means Lance will get the lion's share of the exp until Allen promotes. Which I really hope is this chapter.

Wow. I think these guys' defensive stats haven't actually improved much since the beginning of the game. Just for shits and giggles, I tried to have my non-leveled Shanna attack a wounded fighter, and I was shocked to see she'd have done about 4 damage with a javelin. Which isn't much worse than she was doing last time I tried to use her. These fighters have really only defensively improved in the HP department.

Yep, this is the mission where both Tate/Thea and Klain show up. Luckily, I brought both Shanna (both to rescue ferry and because I remember this) and Clarine. But unluckily, Clarine is on the other side of the wall from where Klain's headed, so I've gotta ferry her over with Shanna quickly. Good thing Lalum's here!

I got a promotion item, as predicted, but I would've liked a knight crest.

...WOW those bandits get here quickly. What's even in that house I'm too late to save?

...Okay, I didn't find a source that said, but I did find out I get a hero crest (which I really want) if I save all of them. If Echidna doesn't show up on enemy phase to stop that lower bandit, I'm restarting and double-timing this shit.

...No such luck. I did discover that the bandits will prioritize fighting any of my guys in range over looting villages though, which is good to know.

Before I restart, I talk to Klain just to see the dialogue early, because why not? And what should I discover but that Klein's archers turn green! Excellent! That means I don't even have to have a solid player-phase strategy when I go in to recruit him! Talking ends the danger immediately! Also, the talk tickles me, a lot. I like it.

As for Klain, well, Klain's... his stats are roughly on par with Shin, mainly being slower and stronger. He basically trades Shin's mount for an early A rank in bows. Probably not much long term use, but for now it's nice to have another player-phase nuke who ignores the weapon triangle.

Right, one more thing, before I reset: gotta check what turn it is right now.

Roger. So the bandits reach their first village at the end of turn 7. Gotta keep that in mind. That is a hell of a time limit, considering the amount of warning I usually get when places are in danger of being robbed. I wish the bandits spawned sooner and further away, honestly.

Restarting.

I've decided to try delaying going over the wall, and doing it with different units. Ones who can 1-2 range without getting weapon triangle disadvantage. So, naturally, my main solution for that is sending Lugh and having him run to a forest tile.

Shit, and I got so many nice speed and defense level ups for Lot too...

Alright, I'm doing some pretty speedy tactics here, but I made a risky move with Shin in order to get a shaman killed early, and he missed. Let's hope Shin at least dodges the counterattack, the shaman already hit him once...

...Nope! Well, serves me right for trying to abuse a fresh restart.

Restarting.

Luckily, the enemy stats worked out differently this time, so he didn't need an inaccurate steel bow to kill. And even if he did, I remembered to do the support conversation with Clarine and Rutger early so she could use that barrier staff I've gotten little practical use out of.

Yeah, this is a way faster strategy. Lugh's slaughtering most of the enemies from safety on a forest, with that dang killer bow archer the only real risk to the strategy. But hey, this is LTC time. Gotta take the risks with the bigger payoffs if I want the prize.

It's kinda crazy how well this is going now that I'm rushing it. Shame it cost Lot some great level ups though.

I got a sleep staff from the village I failed to save the first time.

Ooh, nice! An axereaver! Not as important as the swordreaver, since lances don't have nearly as bad accuracy against axes as axes have against swords, plus most of my lance users can use swords too... but still, nice.

...FFFFFFFFFF-

So, I got ready to recruit Thea, when one of them javelins Klein upon ambush spawning because I brought him a little too close. And that costs me that elysian whip I accidentally read about.

...Fuck it, I apparently get plenty of the things, and I'm not promoting Shanna, so I can afford to lose one. I'm not restarting this late in the day for a single potential green unit who went and got herself killed.

...Especially when the prospect of recruiting Thea without killing any of them is starting to look damn near insane. They advance. She doesn't. Damn that's lame. I feel shitty about this, but I've gotta kill them, and Klain's gotta help do it.

And then there's an ambush spawn right out of nowhere as Echidna spawns in, which kills Merlinus and nearly kills Lalum. Now any shopping I want to do has to be shit I can carry out of here.

Fuck that noise. Again, I've said this a million times, what lesson was I supposed to learn from that? What did I do wrong that was being punished, apart from deploying fragile units in any capacity and not being psychic?

Right, got to the cutscene right after Echidna's appearance, with the bishop and the soldier. Okay, what the fuck!? This bishop guy isn't in on the conspiracy to kill the Lycians? He's just a total asshat who genuinely thinks he's doing his job properly and on the authority of Etruria, and actually buys the lies about Roy!? Then why was he talking with Miledy like they were allies!?

And now Thea moves, after all of her allies are dead. Gee, for all the game made of how Klain was ordered to use the pegasus knights as cannon fodder and he's too honorable to do that, Thea sure seems willing to use her soldiers as the human shield Etruria wanted them used as.

Man, they really gave Echidna the worst conceivable starting weapon, didn't they? A steel axe when she has a con of nine. Well, the scramble to keep her from offing herself instantly is mostly paying off.

OH FOR SHIT'S SAKE.

AND NOW CAVALRY SHOW UP, RIGHT BEHIND THEA.

...Thankfully, with a second, freshly-recruited flier among the handful of units I put nearby, I can still salvage this by ferrying Klain over the wall while Shin runs for his 7 move life until they can bring him over too. I was just about to quit and not finish this today if that didn't work, Jesus Christ.

I think Klain and Thea's talk is pretty hilarious, where Klain's all “hey, we're fighting for the exact opposite side now”:

Thea: Understood, sir. We will follow you without question.

Klain: I wouldn't mind a question here or there, to be frank.

But anyway, we have a bunch of new recruits with barely-full inventories, so buying shit without Merlinus shouldn't be an issue here.

...Okay, these reinforcements are absolutely, positively ridiculous. Right when I say the game's starting to get boringly easy, it throws this shit at me. First a bunch of cavalry from my starting point, each of them drastically stronger than the enemies I've been fighting in this chapter, including a level 19 one with a killer lance...

...and then an entirely separate bunch of cavalry from the south a few turns later?

With a fucking paladin!?

Right when I had just put my defensive formation together for the first one!?

This is basically an escape chapter at this point. I don't get the impression that I'm meant to stick around and fight these enemies. And, I mean, in a way, that's awesome. This is the kind of pressure I wanted to feel from Thracia escape chapters and almost never felt. But on the other hand, game, fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation. If this was going to be a map where I had to run for my damned life, it would have been nice to tell me that before I spent multiple hours of my life on it doing it entirely wrong!

Yeah, sorry guys, I uh... I don't think I'll be finishing this map tonight. And I really, really hope that doesn't become a pattern with this game. But I've gotta finish up for today. Between the strict and precise recruitment requirements, the ambush spawn around Echidna where I haven't even confirmed if it's timed or proximity-based, and the 14 turn time limit before everything goes completely to shit and I'm swarmed by cavalry I have no realistic hope of beating with my army... I've gotta step away from this game a bit to reflect and see if I can come up with a better strategy.

Thinking about it right now? It's probably going to involve using these walls to bait the cavalry around with my fliers to buy a little bit more time.

But I'll have to work that out tomorrow.

Take care, guys.

[Shadow Mir]

On 2/8/2020 at 10:20 PM, Seafarer said:

And that's the problem: Awakening is so broken that its difficulty is basically zero if you know what you're doing. Actually, just running it as hard and fast as possible might be for the best. I don't know.

It's still better balanced than Binding Blade and Genealogy. I mean, jeez, the cast quality in both of those games is laughably lopsided... and that's just ONE of their problems.

Edited February 11, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Nintenzero]

Units can get S rank in multiple weapons in FE6, the one S rank limit was introduced in FE7. Also Klain and Thea have a small, random chance of not moving for some dumb reason.

Edited February 12, 2020 by Nintenzero

[Seafarer]

1 hour ago, Shadow Mir said:

It's still better balanced than Binding Blade and Genealogy. I mean, jeez, the cast quality in both of those games is laughably lopsided... and that's just ONE of their problems.

Eh. Awakening's unbalanced in terms of player vs. enemy, not between player units. You can't destroy Binding Blade Hard with one unit who you get before the Prologue afaik.

Also, @Alastor15243 Yoder starts with S staves.

[Shadow Mir]

7 minutes ago, Seafarer said:

Eh. Awakening's unbalanced in terms of player vs. enemy, not between player units. You can't destroy Binding Blade Hard with one unit who you get before the Prologue afaik.

That's a good point, but in general, Lunatic aside, I don't think a lot of Awakening's cast is either unusable or obviously far more trouble than they're worth.

[Seafarer]

Just now, Shadow Mir said:

That's a good point, but in general, Lunatic aside, I don't think a lot of Awakening's cast is either unusable or obviously far more trouble than they're worth.

Which is specifically not the type of imbalance I was talking about. You can take Awakening to pieces by abusing a few broken mechanics - that's what I was getting at.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And not only will promoting him early give him more time to train that rank that might take ages to train, but the more I train Saul using staves, the bigger the risk he'll S rank staves on promotion and be locked out of S ranking light. Clarine's gonna be my S rank staff user (not sure if the game gives me an S rank staff user for free or if their stats will matter)

 

Jodel joins with S staves and A light, but FE6 lets you get multiple S ranks so Jodel can hit S Light too. He's probably the fastest option for doing so, despite his late joining time.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Especially when the prospect of recruiting Thea without killing any of them is starting to look damn near insane. They advance. She doesn't. Damn that's lame.

Yeah, that's one of the weird things about FE6 I don't like. Thea and Klein have a random chance of not moving.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But on the other hand, game, fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation.

Damn near Biblical.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

Jodel joins with S staves and A light, but FE6 lets you get multiple S ranks so Jodel can hit S Light too. He's probably the fastest option for doing so, despite his late joining time.

...Now I'm starting to wonder if I should bother trying to catch Saul up at all.

1 minute ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Damn near Biblical.

Can't take credit for that one, sadly. It's an infamously vulgar chinese insult that Shadowrun Hong Kong alerted me to the existence of. In Chinese it even sounds cool, if I'm pronouncing it right in my head: cào nǐ zǔzōng shíbā dài.

6 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

Yeah, that's one of the weird things about FE6 I don't like. Thea and Klein have a random chance of not moving

...What chance? Is this a Thracia "flip a coin every turn" thing? Does that have to not happen in order to get the elysian whip, or is there some crazy reliable strat I'm not seeing?

[AnonymousSpeed]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Now I'm starting to wonder if I should bother trying to catch Saul up at all.

Jodel has pretty decent stats, honestly, and I like him quite. I like Saul too, though.

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...What chance? Is this a Thracia "flip a coin every turn" thing? Does that have to not happen in order to get the elysian whip, or is there some crazy reliable strat I'm not seeing?

I'm not sure what the exact chance is, but I do know that there is no reliable strategy concerning it. It doesn't run off the deterministic hit RNG, it's legitimately and practically out of your control. It might technically be possible to still get the whip but I imagine would be tricky.

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 2/10/2020 at 5:17 PM, Alastor15243 said:

...Well even with hard mode bonuses, he's really... not that great... at all.

42 HP and 16 Str at level 5 are insane, but Axe = bad and not perfect Spd at base are flaws. +5 Skl on promotion and a 50% Spd growth weakens one flaw and fixes the other. Still, he has a record of being hit or miss in peoples' opinions.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope, we're not in the caves, we're outside of them. Well, that means it's a bigass village map, with tons of villages to visit, as well as some nice big shops! I count 8 villages, which is basically screaming to me that I'll be getting at least one more promotion item today.

Yeah, I forgot that villages the other thing FE6 uses in relative abundance to compensate for no droppable enemy items, I think the Western Isles are "peak villages".

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's frankly hilarious how easy cavalry are to rescue, and how good they are at rescuing. I never realized how goofy and dumb it was as a kid, but now that I'm going back to this system after playing other games, and especially after playing Thracia... wow.

Having Florina ferry Marcus over the hills in Noble Lady of Caelin is a strat I saw used to get past that chapter in LTC. But even worse is probably Eirika Chapter 9, if it weren't for the villages/Amelia, Vanessa could drop Seth near the boss for a quick win.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Between the strict and precise recruitment requirements, the ambush spawn around Echidna where I haven't even confirmed if it's timed or proximity-based

Looking at another website...

Spoiler

It's all turn-based, no tripwire.

And, it appears the Pally Brigade is Hard only. Some FE6 reinforcements are like that. Similarly, I remember Fates, at least on Birthright, changed its reinforcement count based on difficulty. Iago Battle 2 had two enemies coming in from each side on Hard, 3 on Lunatic.