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

[Jotari]

41 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'd have to buy it and I'm really not in the mood to. Thabes...? I mean if people want me to, but something tells me there's more demand to move on to...

...to Three Houses.

I;m stilll waiting to see the rest of Archanea Saga XD

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Is it ever explained how Celica's priory got its hands on both of these things, or why they're needed to unlock the door to their goddess's rival god?

Jedah must not have known that Mila's Turnwheel held that kind of significance, or else he would have almost certainly tried to separate them from Alm and Celica. He could have easily taken Celica's, once he took her into captivity. It's kind of weird, with all the updates to the script they made, that they didn't account for these new game-breaking artifacts beyond an instantaneous significance.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...God damn it, it sucks that Falchion is an objectively inferior sword to the fully forged royal sword. 15 less crit, 20 less hit, and no double lion. Damn it.

Honestly, I love Double Lion. But if they wanted to make Sendscale (Scendsdale? Snendsales?) Alm's "ultimate art", then they shouldn't have put Double Lion on a weapon exclusive to Alm.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Satisfyingly, Atlas SPLITS JEDAH LIKE FIREWOOD!

I'm running Archer Atlas in my current playthrough, and I'm finding him a perfect example of how "total stat count" is less important than "distribution of stats". Like, basically all he has is HP and Strength. Which sounds bad, but when he's one-rounding everyone with Hunter's Volley, what else does he need? I tried a strategy of "have rich Alm forge the Steel Bow into a Killer Bow (+2) at the end of his Act 3, then use the Peddler to send it over to Celica, for Leon and Atlas to use through Acts 3 and 4". Best use I've ever made of a Peddler.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Speaking of which though, I realized something rather amusing I really wish I noticed all the way back when I played Radiant Dawn: that Micaiah's story in Radiant Dawn gender-inverts so many annoying plot points in Fire Emblem. If you think about it, Pelleas is basically Celica and Eirika gender-flipped. A naive, kind-hearted, overly-trusting idiot, tricked by an obvious villain into doing something that the hero has to fight tooth and nail to set right, who winds up standing aside and letting the main character take charge in the end. I can't believe I didn't fucking notice that before.

Pelleas generally struck me as the gender-flipped Nyna/Guinevere/PoR!Elincia, to Micaiah's Marth/Roy/PoR!Ike. Basically, a major noble who relies on someone of lesser birth, but more battlefield talent and leadership potential, to redeem their kingdom from the bad guys. Never made the Celica/Eirika connection, that's an interesting one. Anyway, I love the Micaiah/Pelleas dynamic.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, and according to Mycen's ending, Alm doesn't call himself “King Rudolf II”, but “King Alm I”. Or at least historians do. Bit presumptuous I'd think for Alm to call himself “the first” before there's a second. If he did though... Jesus, that's one hell of a power play in the “what are we naming our kids” argument. And also that'd be implicitly saying that it would be the first male child who would become his successor as well. Well, okay, no, not necessarily, Alm I and Alm II wouldn't have to be consecutive... still though.

For a real-world analogue, Pope John Paul I styled himself just as that (John Paul I), without knowing that he was to be immediately followed by a John Paul II. Most "the first" Popes, however, aren't known contemporarily with that suffix. Such as the incumbent Pope, Francis. In other words, Alm calling himself "the first" is weird, but doesn't necessarily assume he'll be followed by a "the second", either immediately or eventually.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nomah apparently united the Mila and Duma faithful. Which they mention passingly, like that wouldn't be the most interesting and unbelievable fucking thing you could possibly talk about in regards to his life.

Duma Faithful: "Women should be forced to surrender their souls to Duma to become Witches."

Mila Faithful: "What the fuck, no way."

Nomah: "Half clap of clap those clap soulless clap witches clap should clap be clap men."

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Delthea: 8B 3W. Yeah, again, her decision to seal away her magic comes completely out of left field, and I don't get how that would be any benefit to her as opposed to just not using it. But I find it amusing that she did actually wind up with the dreamy, dashing noble for a husband she wanted, according to what her ending implies with where she met him, “at court”.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Fuck her ending though. For all that talk about her being Clive's equal, while Clive becomes the first captain of the One Kingdom's Brotherhood of Knights (note the gendered name there, incidentally)... she instead decides to quit being a soldier and “support her husband behind the scenes instead”. I'm not saying that it's impossible that any woman would decide to do that, or that it's automatically sexist to write that a woman decides to do that, it's just... really, can you look at basically any of her dialogue and tell me that sounds like something she'd do? It comes from just as far out of left field as Delthea sealing her magic!

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

“In marrying Alm, Celica became the first queen of the One Kingdom of Valentia”...

…“In marrying Alm”.

...I just don't like how they phrase it like that, acting like it's the only reason she had any claim to the throne of the united continent at all, just chucking her entire royal birthright to half the continent in the garbage.

"Terrible handling of female characters - the greatest hits edition".

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Est: 80B 39W.

Catria: 106B 50W.

Palla: 124B 59W.

There was this point, right after their promotion, when they were really useful... but it just didn't last. They lacked the speed and raw power to truly contribute to the endgame when it at times took all three of them to take down a single foe. Though they did come in clutch in taking out Jedah on both occasions, and they were at least constantly in the top ten units worth fielding on Celica's side, I'll give them that.

Bizarre coincidence, that their win counts are consecutive like that, relative to the rest of the cast. Anyway, I have to feel for Minerva during all this. I hope she's not, say, losing grip on her kingdom while her closest allies are palling around in Naga-knows-where.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Speaking of her character... she wound up settling for some guy who apparently “claimed he did not mind her pining for the king”, which... okay, prevailing theories: dude was either bi and shared in her enthusiasm for Alm... or a cuck and got off on it.

PoV: You're S-supporting Tharja, but you aren't the tactician.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shame that the ending never says anything about him getting married. Not even that he could never get over Valbar, they just say nothing about his love life. Would've been nice for them to say he eventually found a husband. But at least he was happy.

'Nother headcanon: Faye's eventual husband is also involved with Leon. Faye is cool with it, actually. They get together to drink, play cards, yada yada yada, every Saturday.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...We've finished Shadows of Valentia.

Congrats! I enjoyed you ripping through the story more than I'd expected. Echoes is such a weird game, but it's still one I have a lot of fun with. I'll be here waiting to get irrationally angry over your rankings, ahah.

[Alastor15243]

12 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Jedah must not have known that Mila's Turnwheel held that kind of significance, or else he would have almost certainly tried to separate them from Alm and Celica. He could have easily taken Celica's, once he took her into captivity. It's kind of weird, with all the updates to the script they made, that they didn't account for these new game-breaking artifacts beyond an instantaneous significance.

Oof, damned good point. If he did know, best case scenario is just... gloating hubris. He never conceived of the idea that Falchion could reawaken and thus never thought to take the turnwheel off Celica until he was driven back by divine light and it was too late.

14 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Honestly, I love Double Lion. But if they wanted to make Sendscale (Scendsdale? Snendsales?) Alm's "ultimate art", then they shouldn't have put Double Lion on a weapon exclusive to Alm.

Big time. The way combat arts work, if scendscale is doing more damage than double lion, you've got bigger things to worry about.

15 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

I'm running Archer Atlas in my current playthrough, and I'm finding him a perfect example of how "total stat count" is less important than "distribution of stats". Like, basically all he has is HP and Strength. Which sounds bad, but when he's one-rounding everyone with Hunter's Volley, what else does he need? I tried a strategy of "have rich Alm forge the Steel Bow into a Killer Bow (+2) at the end of his Act 3, then use the Peddler to send it over to Celica, for Leon and Atlas to use through Acts 3 and 4". Best use I've ever made of a Peddler.

Yeah, really, making Atlas awesome is a matter of either compensating for his bad stats with class bases, or making his good ones the only ones that matter. And both are easily doable in Echoes.

16 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Duma Faithful: "Women should be forced to surrender their souls to Duma to become Witches."

Mila Faithful: "What the fuck, no way."

Nomah: "Half clap of clap those clap soulless clap witches clap should clap be clap men."

That killed me.

17 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Congrats! I enjoyed you ripping through the story more than I'd expected. Echoes is such a weird game, but it's still one I have a lot of fun with. I'll be here waiting to get irrationally angry over your rankings, ahah.

Hold on tight! Even I'm never sure quite where I'll put a game in every category until I sit down to do the ranking writeup!

[Jotari]

The funny thing about the whole Mila tree is that ti would have grown from Mila's head alone, since Jedah vaporized the rest of her body in a dusty cave. Still not sure why he did that, or rather it's obvious that he did it out of disrespect, but they do it then and not in Milla temple. I expect transporting a head is much easier than an entire dragon corpse.

[Alastor15243]

My Ranking

Alright, time to add another entry to the ranking list I haven't managed to make myself fully satisfied with over the course of two goddamned years.

Goodie!

 

Difficulty: Perhaps fittingly, this belongs in the same tier as the original game. I scanned the list of games to find one that most accurately compared to my experience of playing Echoes, and my eyes stopped, and locked, on Gaiden's tiermate, Genealogy of the Holy War. If I had to make a sentence that could satisfyingly describe the experience of playing either game, it would be pretty damned easy:

“Mostly trivial nonsense, occasionally punctuated by difficulty spikes that were invariably solved by swiftly reaching into my bag of broken bullshit.”

Yeah, this is one of those games where balance and difficulty really bleed into each other. I used to think I should keep the two separate as much as I could, and not let broken elements influence my opinion of the game's difficulty, but... it's really hard not to, and honestly kind of pointless. The tools they give you to solve a problem are a huge part of how hard those problems can be. Really, I shouldn't be asking myself “how hard would this game be if all the broken nonsense didn't exist”, but rather judge the game on the merits of how hard it is even while utilizing this stuff, and then judge the balance based on how many classes can deliver on that level of performance. After all, if a game were still satisfyingly challenging even with brave combat arts and warping, it's not really “broken”, is it? Then it's just an issue of “how many classes and units and abilities are viable in this meta?”.

I look at the neutral category above Gaiden and Genealogy, and asked myself “did I feel clever for solving Echoes' challenges as often as I did playing Birthright, Thracia, Radiant Dawn, Blazing Blade, or Mystery Book 2?”. And the answer was, though admittedly by a slight margin, “no”.

Also, most of the time I wasn't relying on the broken elements to win, I was relying on the broken elements to win faster. Enemies take a ridiculous amount of damage before dying, such that you need the blatantly broken tools available to certain classes in order to have a chance of one-rounding them... but their bulk was almost always their most notable stat.

Also, keep in mind, this is me giving the game the benefit of the doubt by ignoring the turnwheel. If I didn't ignore the turnwheel... hoooooo fucking boooooy.

-4: Mostly dull with excessive enemy-phase combat, and/or what difficulty it has is kinda BS.

Genealogy of the Holy War, Shadows of Valentia, Gaiden, Revelation, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance.

 

Ironmannability: Oof, this is a toughie. Now, obviously, it ain't going high. But where specifically on the lower end this is going is a bit of a tricky question. So... Gaiden used to be the worst game on the list before Thracia came along, despite not having ambush spawns. That was because I ultimately decided that having a pathetically tiny roster is worse for ironmanning than ambush spawns, especially when there was still the perpetual inescapable risk of having your lord critted to death because the game had no crit evade, and I didn't feel the revival shrines quite cut it in terms of compensating for the small roster.

Ultimately, though, I think the modern additions the game added, like the ability to determine unit placement before battles (outside of dungeons at least) and a crit formula that technically lets you deal with most sources of crits, have managed to push this game up... a tier. Up to the level of Radiant Dawn. It's got comparable replacement drought issues, and I'd say that game's fog of war and this game's dungeon formation blindness, crit formula woes, and witch shenanigans... roughly balance each other out. I think. Admittedly it's hard to tell when comparing games of differing difficulty, but I'm reasonably confident this is a fair assessment.

-3: The surprises can be harsh, or it isn't the best about giving you good replacement units.

Radiant Dawn, Shadows of Valentia, Awakening.

 

Usability: ...We've got some problems. Obviously this is a huge improvement over the original, but it's a significant downgrade over the other four 3DS games. My main gripes are the complete lack of listed hit, avoid, crit or crit avoid, when most games at least have the first three clearly listed. The other issues are how dungeons technically get rid of unit formation control half the time, that annoying thing about special monster weapons having attack boosts that aren't marked on the attack stat, and the combat window occasionally lying to you due to how magic hp costs work. Ultimately though, that's not enough to knock it down more than a tier.

+7: It has room for improvement, but not much. Convenient menus, easy information access.

New Mystery, Shadow Dragon, Shadows of Valentia.

 

Depth: While reclassing is cool, all this game really has over Gaiden in terms of setting units apart in the same class would be combat arts. That's better than a lot of games have to offer though, and more importantly an objective increase in depth compared to Gaiden, so it gains a tier, if only just. I consider the skill system of its tiermates to have more interesting options, but I can't justify putting it in the same tier as Gaiden and Sacred Stones.

+2: Has a skill system or other mechanics that are reasonably fleshed out and interesting.

Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance, Shadows of Valentia.

 

Balance: Ah yes, this infamous category. What shall we do with you today, hmm?

Well, first off: time to fix something that's come to be a clear and obvious mistake!

I'm knocking Gaiden down two categories. Gaiden's current place on this tier list is clearly nothing more than concentrated cognitive dissonance due to having nearly nonexistent competition at the time and rose-colored classes of my memories of the experience, due to the comparative massive upgrade it represented over Dark Dragon. Looking back at the words I used to describe my opinion of the game's balance... holy shit I didn't even think it was good then!

“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.”

I said it barely beat Dark Dragon! The fuck was I on, retroactively putting it two fucking tiers higher!?

But anyway, Shadows of Valentia is, if anything, worse. Its nerfs of the broken bullshit in Gaiden were as token as they were arbitrary, and undermined by adding in even more broken bullshit of its own. Not to mention the combat arts where damned near everything is useless except for double lion and hunter's volley. I can't justify putting this a tier higher than Gaiden.

So off they go, straight to the drug-trip tier!

-6: You start wondering what drugs the developers were on when they designed this shit.

Genealogy of the Holy War, Gaiden, Shadows of Valentia, Dark Dragon, Revelation.

 

Pacing: I think the modern amenities succeed in pushing this game up one solid tier, despite not fixing the map design issues at all. Honestly, as much as I remember the game's story negatively impacting the pacing, I didn't really feel that way this time, and also I don't remember feeling all that slowed down by the map design this time either. Maybe because I made less use of low-mov units? But anyway, yeah, fast-forwarding and the like definitely helps a lot.

+0: Has some moments of frustration or slow pace, but mostly inoffensive.

Path of Radiance, Thracia 776, Awakening, Shadows of Valentia.

 

Writing: OOOOF. This is hard to place. The story is bad. It's an attempt to put a shiny coat of paint over what is unquestionably the most pathetically insubstantial and idiotic story in the entire franchise: Gaiden's story. They mostly just added more stuff on, and didn't change much of the stuff that didn't make sense. And what little they did change arguably made the story make less sense.

And more importantly, I never found myself really pulled in or engaged, or praising the writing. I found myself distracted or confused at basically every turn to the point that not even the drastically increased production values could impress me. I never found myself drawn in.

And that's to say nothing of the game's pathetic excuse for support conversations. I had nicer things to say about the ones in Fates.

...But looking at this list, and remembering all the parallels between what made this story bad and what made Sacred Stones bad... I feel I have to demote Sacred Stones upon reflection, bringing it down to the same tier as Awakening, and then put Shadows of Valentia there. Looking at that tier list really reminded me just how terrible Sacred Stones' writing was, and it's hard to justify saying Shadows of Valentia is an entire tier worse.

-4: Technically a story, but distractingly difficult to take seriously due to copious writing flaws.

Shadows of Valentia, Sacred Stones, Awakening, Mystery of the Emblem Book 2, Mystery of the Emblem Book 1.

 

Music: Alas, this is another category where it just barely falls short of its 3DS peers. This would be pretty great, but that lack of flow in the map themes really hurts and prevents it from reaching the top. But yes, it does have some real bangers. Twilight of the Gods is the obvious one, but there's also the Deliverance prep theme, What Lies at the End, Celica's enemy-phase theme, The Sacrifice and the Saint... yeah, a lot of good ones.

+4: Consistently great music marred by poor instruments or poor flow.

Genealogy of the Holy War, Shadows of Valentia, Thracia 776.

 

FINAL SCORE

1: Conquest (49)

2: Birthright (25)

3: Shadow Dragon (15)

4: Path of Radiance (11)

5: Revelation (6)

6: Genealogy of the Holy War (5)

7: New Mystery (4)

8: Blazing Blade (1)

9: Binding Blade (0)

10: Shadows of Valentia (-4)

11/12: Sacred Stones / Radiant Dawn (-5)

13/14: Awakening / Thracia (-9)

15: Mystery of the Emblem Book 2 (-22)

16: Mystery of the Emblem Book 1 (-31)

17: Gaiden (-33)

18: Dark Dragon (-54)

 

...Hmmmm... Yeah, sounds about right!

...And with that...

...Hoo boy.

Monday morning is the start of Three Houses.

Honestly, I'm kind of excited about this, weirdly enough. As much as I despise this game, the chance of finally getting to put into proper words just how much I despise this game gives me a real sense of catharsis and joy.

But I'm gonna need to bring my A game for this. I'm gonna need to be fully alert, eloquent and intelligent in my criticisms, but also as fair as I can be, and also try to make myself as tolerable to follow for anyone who disagrees with me about the quality of this game. I'm gonna need to make my case against one of the most popular games in the series, and while, compared to its initial release, the years have certainly made its reputation mortal... they have not made it weak.

Stay safe, everyone.

[fates is based]

I look forward to your takes on divine pulse

[Jotari]

Wow. Only one game left now. Kind of bizarre to think about. Said game will probably take six months to finish, but still, but bizarre.

[Acacia Sgt]

And just in time for the next one to be there... probably. lol

[AnonymousSpeed]

Kinda make sense. As long as some of these games get, it takes a lot more time to make them than to beat them.

I recently started playing this game, actually. So, uh...yeah, that's neat. Doing Blue Moon, which I think you started with as well if memory serves.

NES Gaiden has a better soundtrack than the remake, fight me.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Kinda make sense. As long as some of these games get, it takes a lot more time to make them than to beat them.

I recently started playing this game, actually. So, uh...yeah, that's neat. Doing Blue Moon, which I think you started with as well if memory serves.

NES Gaiden has a better soundtrack than the remake, fight me.

Nope, Blue Moon is the only one I have left to play. I started with Crimson Flower.

Hope to see more of you!

Edited July 23, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Kinda make sense. As long as some of these games get, it takes a lot more time to make them than to beat them.

I recently started playing this game, actually. So, uh...yeah, that's neat. Doing Blue Moon, which I think you started with as well if memory serves.

NES Gaiden has a better soundtrack than the remake, fight me.

While I think the orchestral version probably does sound better overall, I have to say 8-Bit Twilight of the Gods still sounds really god damn impressive. Like listening to just the 3DS song you'd probably think they just took a basic melody and added to it, but no, it's pretty much all there in 8 bit and it sounds fantastic.

Best song aside, I'm not sure I'd say Gaiden has the better sound track, but per of what I've said several times about how Gaiden has a much more dreary and sombre tone to the whole game, I think I could say it has a more fitting sound track.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Congrats to finishing SoV! One last game and you'll have finished this very long venture (unless you want to dabble into KagaSaga later).

I'm delighted there has been a game where you didn't feel like disassembling the fundamental laws of nature and reconstructing the universe itself in order to make your rankings make sense that wasn't Conquest. Thats happened once too often hasn't it?

As for 3H, I always feel like giving it more of a chance than I have, but I keep not doing so, the reflex is so heavily ingrained in me at this point. 

 

On Rudolf -as someone is already well aware- I have compared him to a near-contemporary of his. When Emperor of Rigel Rudolf was born in March of 1992, a man named Bian Zoldark had been born a few months prior in December 1991. Both came about in the second game of an SRPG franchise that endures to this day, the difference being one rides a horse, and the other rides in a 57 meters tall machine.

To quit with the flowery prose and get to the actual comparison of these Famicom villains. (Thrown in a spoilers in case you don't want to read it and because it's kinda long.):

Spoiler

The Man Who Knows What Nobody Knows.

• Both Bian and Rudolf share in having important knowledge that the vast majority of humans lack. And, it’s the having of this knowledge that compels them to act.
• For Rudolf- Recognizes the division of the continent is bad, the gods are part of the problem, and the people of Valentia are suffering because of this.
  • In SoV decades later, he also realizes Mila and Duma are not only bad, but in decline.
• For Bian- Aliens exist and are coming to invade the Earth.

 

Men of Action:

• Rudolf-
  • As Emperor of Rigel, Rudolf already had the means to do as he wished.
  • And what Rudolf wished, was to invade Zofia and thus become a villain.
    • Having become a villain, heroes would eventually arise who could then fix his problems of a split continent and the gods. It was these who'd fix the world.
      • Famicom Rudolf might not have needed it to be his son, but acknowledged the possibility of it being him at least.
• Bian Zoldark-
  • Not being a member of the Earth’s global government, Mr. Zoldark first petitioned it take the alien threat seriously.
    • The government didn’t believe him. Aliens? He’s crazy.
  • Except, then evidence came in aliens exist, and the aliens contacted the government.
    • The corrupt government chose to almost immediately and unconditionally surrender the Earth to the aliens without informing the public.
  • Seeing the government ignored him, Bian built up an army of giant robots in secret, and literally blew up the surrender conference in Antarctica.
    • Right after doing so, he made a public announcement proclaiming the existence of aliens threatening to strip humankind of its freedom.
  • In the very same breath, Bian announced the formation of the Divine Crusaders, his organization which would protect humanity from the existential threat. If people refused to cooperate with the DC, Bian would unite humanity through force, as only with Earth united can the aliens be opposed.
  • Bian intended it that he would be the one to unite humanity and lead the fight against the aliens. However…
    • Bian was interested in knowing if there were other people out there who could do a better job than him.
    • To give other contenders a fighting chance, Bian had the Divine Crusaders pull a few punches and slowed but did not stop the progress of their world conquest. This would increase the likelihood of finding some pockets of resistance that just might be able to endure the pressure, and ultimately challenge Zoldark himself.
    • If he was defeated in battle, Bian would acknowledge the humans who overcame him as the strongest and most capable. He would hope they would embrace his now-former role as the guardians of Earth.

Bad Apples

• In both the cases of Rudolf and Bian, these supposedly heroic souls did have some human scum gather around them which they didn’t purge.
• Rudolf… does what about them?
  • Are the Duma Faithful independent of imperial authority? Was he okay with Desaix in Zofia?
• Bian-
  •  IIRC, he acknowledged there were those in the Divine Crusaders who didn’t understand its noble goals.
  • The crisis of the aliens, who do arrive not too long after his death, meant he had to accept a few devils into his ranks for the time being.
  • But, as with Rudolf and Mycen, Bian did have a few trusted confidants, and many grunts who believed in his proclaimed ideals. Did Rudolf tell any peon about his plans?

 

Aliens and Earth aren’t the same as gods and a large island/continent, true. Bian never speaks of prophecy either. And for some reason, his lone child who loved him was off on Jupiter when he started his Earth-unification campaign and he was killed before she returned.

Nonetheless, Bian is like Rudolf I think. But Bian is more proactive I’d say, and that works in his favor.

• Had Bian been Rudolf, he might’ve allied with Desaix for the convenience of bringing all of Zofia under his control, and he would’ve intentionally given Alm a real if slim chance had he won a few battles.
• But, if Alm had not arisen or lost, and nobody else was there to contest him, Bian would sooner than later have grabbed the Falchion and murdered Duma himself.
  • -Although the invasion of Zofia would've had to have been delayed to just a few months before the game begins in this case, as Bian ain't waiting 16-18 years for a potential hero to challenge him.

 

Keep in mind I’m basing my understanding of Bian Zoldark based on a parallel-dimension version of him from a GBA game. But I’ve been told Bian was basically the same in 1992.

 

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

The funny thing about the whole Mila tree is that ti would have grown from Mila's head alone, since Jedah vaporized the rest of her body in a dusty cave. Still not sure why he did that, or rather it's obvious that he did it out of disrespect, but they do it then and not in Milla temple. I expect transporting a head is much easier than an entire dragon corpse.

Well, as a fun factoid, Tokyo is protected by the deified Taira no Masakado. However, only technically Masakado's head, the rest of his body lay elsewhere and the head flew off to a small fishing village called Edo, so the tale goes. 

[AnonymousSpeed]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope, Blue Moon is the only one I have left to play. I started with Crimson Flower.

Hope to see more of you!

Oh. Huh, strange.

I make no promises, but I might poke in and crack a joke every now and then. I have been forming opinions on the game so maybe we can all have a giant argument over that.

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

While I think the orchestral version probably does sound better overall, I have to say 8-Bit Twilight of the Gods still sounds really god damn impressive. Like listening to just the 3DS song you'd probably think they just took a basic melody and added to it, but no, it's pretty much all there in 8 bit and it sounds fantastic.

Best song aside, I'm not sure I'd say Gaiden has the better sound track, but per of what I've said several times about how Gaiden has a much more dreary and sombre tone to the whole game, I think I could say it has a more fitting sound track.

Fantastic indeed.

Honestly, I don't like the orchestral version. It's so much..."softer" sounding. The NES version has such a punchy and distinct soundtrack, while in Shadows of Valencia I feel the music fades into the background most of the time. The boss battle theme actually comes through okay, but I feel most of the songs lose their intensity.

I mean, come on. You can't tell me the remade version hits nearly as hard with them beats.

[lenticular]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But I'm gonna need to bring my A game for this. I'm gonna need to be fully alert, eloquent and intelligent in my criticisms, but also as fair as I can be, and also try to make myself as tolerable to follow for anyone who disagrees with me about the quality of this game. I'm gonna need to make my case against one of the most popular games in the series, and while, compared to its initial release, the years have certainly made its reputation mortal... they have not made it weak.

I am fully expecting to disagree with over 90% of what you have to say about Three Houses, but it should be fun anyway. I promise to argue respectfully!

[Shadow Mir]

On 7/22/2021 at 5:18 PM, Alastor15243 said:

...This is the weirdest depiction of a “lich” I've ever seen. It's just a discolored skeleton with a big spiky club. Liches are traditionally the ultimate ascendance of a powerful necromancer.

I always thought liches were magically adept, myself, as opposed to using clubs or that kind of stuff.

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

I always thought liches were magically adept, myself, as opposed to using clubs or that kind of stuff.

Well they do get the Fire spell in Thabes at least.

[lenticular]

4 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I always thought liches were magically adept, myself, as opposed to using clubs or that kind of stuff.

As I understand it, the modern sense of "lich" as an undead mage or necromancer is a fairly recent one, only about 50 years old. Prior to that, it had occasionally been used for any sort of undead, and prior to that it had just been another term for a corpse (cf. "lichgate"). So while it's certainly odd to see the term used that way, I don't think it's necessarily wrong, per se.

[Shadow Mir]

12 hours ago, lenticular said:

As I understand it, the modern sense of "lich" as an undead mage or necromancer is a fairly recent one, only about 50 years old. Prior to that, it had occasionally been used for any sort of undead, and prior to that it had just been another term for a corpse (cf. "lichgate"). So while it's certainly odd to see the term used that way, I don't think it's necessarily wrong, per se.

Fair enough. It's just that when I think of liches, I often think of stuff like Final Fantasy.

Also, I would've expected Alastor to comment on the fact that the White Dragons are called "Brethren" - which is otherwise used to refer to Fire Dragons and Dagons.

Anyway, now that this is over, I still stand by my stance that the Dread Fighter loop is impractical as all get out.

[Jotari]

28 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Fair enough. It's just that when I think of liches, I often think of stuff like Final Fantasy.

Also, I would've expected Alastor to comment on the fact that the White Dragons are called "Brethren" - which is otherwise used to refer to Fire Dragons and Dagons.

Anyway, now that this is over, I still stand by my stance that the Dread Fighter loop is impractical as all get out.

Alastor managed to get Atlas looped before reaching the Sage's Hamlet. If this playthrough has displayed anything it's that the Dread Fighter look is absolutely possible to get and absurdly good once you do. Sure there's only a handful of battles left by the time you reach that point, but they're meant to be the hardest battles in the game and can easily be trivialized by throwing a unit with double the intended levels at the problem.

Edited July 24, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

Hey, uh, as I climb the gallows stairs as it were, thought I'd check in on my readers with the plan, since I've mentioned it a few times, but it's been ages.

Now, my assumption, which evolved into an understanding, is that most people... don't want me to do more than one route, because it would take forever and more than half of it would be the same content recycled four times.

I'm here to check to make sure that is still the case.

[samthedigital]

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hey, uh, as I climb the gallows stairs as it were, thought I'd check in on my readers with the plan, since I've mentioned it a few times, but it's been ages.

Now, my assumption, which evolved into an understanding, is that most people... don't want me to do more than one route, because it would take forever and more than half of it would be the same content recycled four times.

I'm here to check to make sure that is still the case.

I'm not exactly an avid reader, but... From a plot perspective It would probably make sense to do at least three routes while not going into detail on the first half of the game after the first playthrough, but one playthrough makes sense if you're just trying to rate the gameplay. I think  that two playthroughs would be the happy medium for that though given that Edelgard's route has a few map differences that might be worth exploring. Of course if you're looking to make this thing complete you kind of have to do every route as painful as it would be right? 😉

[Sunwoo]

21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hey, uh, as I climb the gallows stairs as it were, thought I'd check in on my readers with the plan, since I've mentioned it a few times, but it's been ages.

Now, my assumption, which evolved into an understanding, is that most people... don't want me to do more than one route, because it would take forever and more than half of it would be the same content recycled four times.

I'm here to check to make sure that is still the case.

Well, based on my own experiences of 3H, going 3/4 routes would be the most inclusive of 3H's full story if you didn't want to burn yourself out of it. I made the mistake of saving both Silver Snow and Verdant Wind for last, and I'm so burned out I haven't finished the latter. It didn't really help that I didn't enjoy any of the paths very much either.

[lenticular]

21 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Hey, uh, as I climb the gallows stairs as it were, thought I'd check in on my readers with the plan, since I've mentioned it a few times, but it's been ages.

Now, my assumption, which evolved into an understanding, is that most people... don't want me to do more than one route, because it would take forever and more than half of it would be the same content recycled four times.

I'm here to check to make sure that is still the case.

Yeah, I don't see a whole lot of benefit to you doing more than one route. If you were a reviewer who was heavily focused on story, then it would make sense, but you aren't. A single route is almost certainly enough to be able to fairly rank the game. Yes, you will miss out on some things, but they will be broadly similar in tone, quality and design philosophy to the parts that you do see. Obviously, you'll need to consider the fact that you're not seeing the whole game and not deduct points for, e.g. plot hooks that are left unresolved. I'm sure you're savvy enough to do that, though.

Frankly, life is too damn short to waste your time torturing yourself by playing a game you don't enjoy four times in a row. Hell, I'd advocate skipping out on a bunch of the parts of Three Houses that you don't like (monastery stuff, 80% of the supports, etc.), but I can see that maybe that would compromise the integrity of the project. I don't see that there's any detriment to the project by only doing one route, though.

Maybe just ask people if there are any specific things from other routes that they'd like for you to comment on or consider? For instance, I'd be curious to know your opinion on God-Shattering Star? It's a music track that you'll miss if you're only doing Azure Moon, a lyrical piece which retains its Japanese lyrics even in the localisation, and also my personal favourite track in Three Houses.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, lenticular said:

Yeah, I don't see a whole lot of benefit to you doing more than one route. If you were a reviewer who was heavily focused on story, then it would make sense, but you aren't. A single route is almost certainly enough to be able to fairly rank the game. Yes, you will miss out on some things, but they will be broadly similar in tone, quality and design philosophy to the parts that you do see. Obviously, you'll need to consider the fact that you're not seeing the whole game and not deduct points for, e.g. plot hooks that are left unresolved. I'm sure you're savvy enough to do that, though.

Frankly, life is too damn short to waste your time torturing yourself by playing a game you don't enjoy four times in a row. Hell, I'd advocate skipping out on a bunch of the parts of Three Houses that you don't like (monastery stuff, 80% of the supports, etc.), but I can see that maybe that would compromise the integrity of the project. I don't see that there's any detriment to the project by only doing one route, though.

Maybe just ask people if there are any specific things from other routes that they'd like for you to comment on or consider? For instance, I'd be curious to know your opinion on God-Shattering Star? It's a music track that you'll miss if you're only doing Azure Moon, a lyrical piece which retains its Japanese lyrics even in the localisation, and also my personal favourite track in Three Houses.

Luckily, I HAVE played the other three routes. I worked my way through them over the course of this marathon. I did VW first and finished SS somewhere around the end of last year. And since I did CF as my first blind playthrough, that leaves just AM left, the one I'm doing for the first time here. So I do somewhat have the whole picture, it's just... been a while for a lot of it.

[UNLEASH IT]

The best thing to do would be to pick Black Eagles then open another save file before chapter 11 so you can play CF and SS without having to repeat all of Part 1 again. Dimitri and Claude are interesting, but their routes are essentially SS with an extra chapter so they don't add much to the overall story.