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

[Shadow Mir]

On 10/5/2021 at 1:19 AM, lenticular said:

then there's the last part which is actually good, and is why I'm reasonably upbeat about Three Houses DLC in general. Namely that the units and classes of the DLC (aka, the parts I actually care about) are decently balanced. The units are all good but not great and are fun to use without outshining everyone else. (Except for Anna, who is pretty awful.) The classes are all valid options that have their own specific niche and strengths, but without being so powerful that you have to choose them.

I would mention that War Monk/Cleric is ill-conceived to the point where I cannot consider it a worthwhile option for anyone other than Byleth. It tries to be a midpoint between maglc classes and Grappler, but unfortunately, it comes off as more of an unhappy medium, as it's generally worse than Grappler at punching, while it's worse than the pure magic classes at anything magic related.

20 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Yeah what other excuse could Dedue use to undress in front of his professor? I'm sure he'd suggest they'd cuddle next. To share body heat of course. And for no other reason.....

Dedue you naughty stud. 

I lol'd.

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 38: Support Catchup

Sorry guys, I've barely got an hour today, so I've gotta just do support catchup today, no map. The map will probably be tomorrow.

Let's start off with Dimitri and Mercedes's B.

...Curious. Dimitri wants Mercedes to teach him how to sew. I have a feeling his lines were... significantly different in the original Japanese. This must've been hard for him to ask.

...And he winds up breaking needles and scissors with his chronic crest-induced toolbreaking.

...They don't even add sound effects for when he breaks them, he just... says he broke them.

...I saw this video, can't find it again, where it made fun of Pokemon Sword and Shield's tendency to make the screen fade to black whenever any significantly complicated action happened on-screen, and showed how ridiculous it would be if anyone other than Game Freak tried to get away with this.

...The story scenes in this game play like a very elaborate version of that joke.

Mercedes has a talk with Felix that she hasn't unlocked yet, and one with Ingrid. Let's see...

And, of course, they do this obscenely awkward thing where they have Ingrid sit down in mid-air, instantly fade to black, and then cut to them from the bust up and pretend they're at a table having tea.

...What I would give for a free camera mod of this game. That sounds hysterical.

Mercedes... opens up to Ingrid about a marriage proposal and how she feels it'll be harder to help the needy if she's married to a nobleman, and then Ingrid... uh... blatantly suggests severing all ties with them and running away. Uh... that's a weird solution for Ingrid to suggest, considering she hasn't done it.

Yeah, Ingrid states flat-out that she has no interest whatsoever in marrying someone to carry on her bloodline and wants to be a knight instead. Which makes her behavior in her Dorothea paralogue... a bit odd.

And now they're wrapping up and... with the way this is going, with them talking like this is an A support...

...Yeah, I don't think I like these two-support sets. They generally feel like they're always missing a support in-between them. They haven't really figured out how to do a sort of “two act” structure for these, if you will. It just feels like a C and an A with the B between them missing.

...Alright, now for Felix and Annette's B.

So Annette's still mortified about Felix overhearing her stupid cake song in the greenhouse, while Felix doesn't seem to give a single shit... until he realizes how much it embarrassed her.

“Ah, and I've been meaning to ask you about the move that went along with “crumbs and yums”. Was that fencing footwork?”

...The fact that she's cutting him off makes me think this is entirely incorrect and that he actually isn't trying to tease her at all and genuinely liked it.

...Yep, seems to be the case.

She runs away upset that everyone's gonna call her “That girl with the funny ideas about food”.

Felix: “Funny ideas about food”? Even the bullies in her head are ridiculous.

...That is a pretty accurate summary of what people with social anxiety can get worked up about.

Alright, one more, Sylvain and Annette's B. Which is their last support. Huh.

...I literally do not remember what the first conversation was about. But I can gather from cues that it was a talent versus hard work argument they had. Yeah, I'm sorry, I just have... nothing to say about this. The topic is interesting, but it's not tackled in a remotely interesting way.

...And that's it. Sorry for the minimalist update, everyone, but this is all I have the time to manage today.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Anathaco]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

I would mention that War Monk/Cleric is ill-conceived to the point where I cannot consider it a worthwhile option for anyone other than Byleth. It tries to be a midpoint between maglc classes and Grappler, but unfortunately, it comes off as more of an unhappy medium, as it's generally worse than Grappler at punching, while it's worse than the pure magic classes at anything magic related.

At the risk of bringing this topic up again, isn’t that the whole point of a hybrid class in the first place? If it was better than either of them at any one thing it would just be better, which isn’t super great for balance, but as it stands it’s an option that gives more versatility.

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

What I would give for a free camera mod of this game. That sounds hysterical.

Now I’m imagining something like the Caspar Byleth C, where they’re watching a random dude, you use the camera and he’s not actually there because they just had him in a different scene lmao.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

Now I’m imagining something like the Caspar Byleth C, where they’re watching a random dude, you use the camera and he’s not actually there because they just had him in a different scene lmao.

The whole thing would look like the lowest-budget school play ever, like, they'd just be standing in front of flat backgrounds and we'd actually see the edges of them. It would be an amazing thing to watch with friends while drunk.

[Shadow Mir]

49 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

At the risk of bringing this topic up again, isn’t that the whole point of a hybrid class in the first place? If it was better than either of them at any one thing it would just be better, which isn’t super great for balance, but as it stands it’s an option that gives more versatility.

You do realize that's the big problem I have with hybrid classes in the first place (that being that most units are not specced to work with both strength and magic), do you not..? A generalist class needs really good reasons to be used over specialist classes, and War Monk has pretty much none, as far as 3 Houses goes, especially considering the aforementioned issue with player units' stats often being either blatantly slanted towards physical or blatantly biased in favor of magic (this being said, it was at least something to consider in Awakening because the magic aspect was more used for utility, but in 3H? I can't get excited over anything War Monk/Cleric has to offer, especially since if you're physically inclined, odds are your spell list is crap. or if you gravitate towards magic, you'd suffer from having halved spell uses). There's a very thin line between "versatile" and "Master of None".

Edited October 6, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Anathaco]

21 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

You do realize that's the big problem I have with hybrid classes in the first place (that being that most units are not specced to work with both strength and magic), do you not..? A generalist class needs really good reasons to be used over specialist classes, and War Monk has pretty much none, as far as 3 Houses goes, especially considering the aforementioned issue with player units' stats often being either blatantly slanted towards physical or blatantly biased in favor of magic (this being said, it was at least something to consider in Awakening because the magic aspect was more used for utility, but in 3H? I can't get excited over anything War Monk/Cleric has to offer, especially since if you're physically inclined, odds are your spell list is crap. or if you gravitate towards magic, you'd suffer from having halved spell uses). There's a very thin line between "versatile" and "Master of None".

I actually was thinking more on the utility side. While you definitely could make certain characters work competently with mixed damage, overall, no it isn’t really worth it unless you want to for fun. But I think the amount of decent utility spells on otherwise physical characters is a fair argument for using it sometimes. Recover, for example is a healing spell that will still put in some serious work even on low magic characters. And it’s learned by characters like Raphael, Caspar, Felix, Catherine, etc. Restore is another one I like, a lot rarer, with only a few characters learning it and most of them learning it at B or higher, but it has some situational usage that I do like (namely removing the rattled effect). 

Characters like Raphael and Caspar have at least some argument for going War Monk- they’d probably prefer Grappler for FIF, but they can maintain some decent offence in War Monk while getting some healing utility from recover. Felix has great offensive stats that don’t necessarily need to be carried by a combat art, so he can still do great in War Monk while getting recover and restore to basically combine the best of both worlds. Plus, while I haven’t touched on it yet, he can make use of Brawl Avoid pretty well. For him it becomes a trade off between the slightly higher offences of War Master (a difference of 3 strength, 2 speed and 20 crit- significant, yes, but War Master is pretty much overkill, and War Monk does a good job of killing as well) and the ability to heal in a pinch or even remove rattling if it comes up. While I personally prefer War Master because overkill is just fun, I think the trade off for utility is a decent one. Or you could just use it as a stepping stone class to War Master instead of Grappler, that works too.

And Catherine literally has no better class if she wants to brawl (and before you ask why she’d ever brawl when she has a relic brave sword, the answer is killer knuckles), so the argument basically makes itself here. Good offence and the ability to heal in a pinch, while not being super costly to pull off (well not more than any non-Swordmaster/Assassin builds for her, at least).

Unrelated note but now I wanna try Trickster Catherine lol.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

The whole thing would look like the lowest-budget school play ever, like, they'd just be standing in front of flat backgrounds and we'd actually see the edges of them. It would be an amazing thing to watch with friends while drunk.

The school play angle makes way too much sense now lmao. Byleth is the lead because he was the teacher’s pet, despite his complete lack of charisma. Every other student in the class is doing a great job though. The parents are all just filming and super proud of their children, but also wondering why the class chose to put on a play that literally lasts for months.

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 39: Chapter 9 Mission

So, apparently enough time has passed since our last patrol of the chapel that a massive fucking student-kidnapping conspiracy has started happening there, and now the kidnapped students have been turned into demonic beasts, and Alois is the first one to find out about it, not us.

Oh, and did I mention that Jeralt gets back literally just as this happens?

Yeah, they're not even trying to make the missions make sense with the month system anymore. They're just making whatever the fuck they want happen with tons of coincidences.

But yeah, this map is absurdly simplistic. Just a bunch of demonic beasts everywhere, and we've gotta keep them from killing a bunch of students. I have... conflicting memories on how hard this was. Let's see how it goes.

Student: You stupid beasts! Don't you dare come over here!

...That line reading would have been underwhelming if she were a prissy old lady yelling at a bunch of smelly, mangy dogs.

But enough about that. Can I just point out that despite all of these students having the presence of mind to carry emergency medicine with them, none of these students have weapons, and these students of this elite school for warriors and generals of the army are like completely defenseless civilians here? They've been going on missions too, haven't they? What house are they in? Is this some fourth house for losers, or are these guys part of the three houses despite the fact that the story treats my eight students like they're literally the only ones?

...Moving on...

...Magical adjutants levitate off the ground alongside the battalion when you use charging gambits. I know some of the higher-level magical classes levitate, but it looks so weird here.

With the stride gambit, I managed to fully shield-break the western demonic beast and get 3 umbral steel, which is greatly appreciated. Let's see if I can get some more...

An unfortunate crit from Shamir prevented that, unfortunately. But I did manage to get the other two before my gambits ran out. All that remains is the one in the northeast corner.

Constance got fiendish blow! Sweet! Alright, time to get her into pegasus knight then!

...It looked like I would've been able to break the last one's shields too, but alas, Jeralt critted the fucker.

...And for saving them all I get an energy drop and one, count 'em, one umbral steel.

Yeah, this game just...

...So, remember when I said I didn't know about full shield break ore rewards in my first playthrough?

...You can imagine I got the impression that the legendary weapons were supposed to only be used as a last resort.

But ah yes...

...Now it's time for...

...The scene.

The scene where Monica... just... out of fucking nowhere... stabs Jeralt in the back with a huge-ass knife she pulls out of nowhere... which quite visibly doesn't leave any marks in Jeralt's armor or clothes... and after that one single stab... he's fatally wounded.

“But it's a magic knife! Manuela later says it was special! It probably ghosts straight through armor and only interacts with flesh!”

Then explain how it pulled blood back out with it.

But yeah, so... obviously, Professr rewinds time and stops this fucker.

...Except that Thales... uses his teleportation powers... to spontaneously come in and interfere. Somehow. Was he watching the whole time? If so, what the fuck was their objective here that he only stopped to intervene now? After we've already destroyed all the demonic beasts they worked hard to make? Was this all an elaborate diversion to get Jeralt killed? If so, you'd think that having Thales warp in and stab him himself would've, y'know, been more effective.

But whatever, it doesn't matter. We've still got mastery over space and time, so obviously we're going to rewind again. Maybe this time don't directly attack Monica, just shout “look out, she's got a knife!” or something. Or rewind back a minute more and give Jeralt a full warning.

...Except no, we don't do that.

We give up.

After rewinding one fucking time.

They have this big melodramatic death scene, Professr cries for the first time right before it starts raining, and... it cuts to black, and we're at a save scene.

...Okay.

So.

I just... I can't fucking... No. This is not how you do death scenes, and this certainly isn't how you do death scenes in a story with a main character who can fucking rewind time.

The major problem here is that the cutscenes of this game appear to operate on silent, completely unexplained limitations for divine pulse that do not even vaguely approach existing in the actual game, and the writers seem to think that, despite doing everything in their power to encourage the player to make spacetime their bitch with wild abandon, said player will automatically, on an instinctual, emotional level, accept that when the avatar tries and fails once, there's nothing left they can do.

That is not how you sell this.

And believe it or not, you can sell this. As hard as it might be to believe if you haven't seen certain stories, it is in fact possible to make dramatic stakes and emotional payoffs with a character who has unfettered mastery of space and time. But you have to really work for it. You have to make the reader understand that they are trying absolutely everything in their power to stop what's going to happen, and it isn't enough.

For those of you who haven't seen Puella Magi Madoka Magica, it has an absolutely fantastic example of this. I won't name names to avoid spoilers for what is a very wild and depressing ride, but basically, there is a character whose timespace powers are orders of magnitude more powerful than the avatar's. She can rewind time, she can stop time, she can turn time on and off for damned near anything she wants, and she has been going through time loop after time loop after time loop to accomplish this one thing. They have been at this for what is implied to be ages. Working with prep time that would put Batman to shame, especially since she isn't afraid to use guns. And they use this to drive home the sheer bleakness and hopelessness of her incredibly sad situation.

She has all the time in the world. And all that means in practice for her... is that she has enough time to realize that there is no timeline, there is no reality, there is no conceivable way that she can protect the one person in the world she wants to protect.

What they should have done was have this month's mission be completely unrelated. Just have it be some stupid thing. Have the main focus of the month be on the big ball, and all the fun everyone's going to have. Have the mission come first... and the ball second.

And then have the ball go off completely without a hitch. Everything goes great, and Professr even has a great time! Way more fun than she expected to have given her idiosyncrasies.

Then, when the festivities are finally wrapping up, have her leave, in high spirits.

...Then have her see a classroom door left open.

With bloody footprints leading out of it.

She slowly approaches, sword drawn, and goes in...

...to see her father, on the teacher's desk, covered in blood, with a knife through his chest, unmistakably dead.

Have her freak out. Have her eyes go wide. Have the colors invert, and have divine pulse activate. Show the world rewinding through every single last event of what we thought was just some goofy harmless “prom episode” of this magical high school story. Multiple hours back. All the way back to some innocuous point at the beginning where she was talking to Dimitri in a cutscene. Perhaps with him inviting her to dance.

She yanks her hand out of his grasp, terrified. She runs through the ballroom, eyes wide, shoving dancers to the floor to get past them, confusing the shit out of everyone, doing everything in her power to make it to that classroom as fast as she can. Have her gasping for air when she finally arrives.

...And have the bloody footprints and the open door still be there.

...And have her go inside to see her father still there on that desk. Still covered in blood. Still with a knife through his chest.

Have her run over, a completely shattered look on her face, and break down into tears, falling over on top of him.

...And have him cough. Still just barely alive.

Have her try to carry him out, try to drag him out, as he says his last words to her, as she still fights tooth and nail to get him to a healer in time. But just like with Greil... Jeralt dies in his child's arms, just as their allies arrive to see what's going on.

Show her trying. Show her failing. Show her being forced to realize that the incredible power she's been using this whole time isn't enough for her to do anything to save her father.

But no... instead... they have her try once, fail, give up... and then scene change to Sothis explaining, ostensibly to her, but really to the audience, why trying more would have been pointless. With one of the dumbest plot contrivances ever.

Sothis: If turning back the hands of time was not enough to save his life, you must accept what came to pass was fate.

...There was a time when I had the emotional energy to rant for ages about a single line like this. But I can't. I just can't. I... no. No, that's... what?

So, we go to Jeralt's office... and pick up the book he left for Professr.

...And... Sothis is... uh... a completely unsympathetic bitch about Jeralt's death, to a mood-killing degree. She basically says “boy, his handwriting's not nearly as ugly as his face!”

But yeah, now we get to have the bathos of this event sink to an even lower low, as the game's utterly ridiculous scrambling to not have the avatar's custom name mess with voiced dialogue... causes Jeralt to refer to his own fucking newborn baby, the baby he ran away from the church to protect...

...as “the child” and “the baby”.

Yes, we are expected to believe that in the span between Professr's birth somewhere around 9/20, to the final entry on 10/8, a course of more than two and a half weeks... he hadn't given Professr a name yet.

...No... wait... it's worse than that. You get to customize your own birthday, remember? So unless that's supposed to mean our birthday is a lie Jeralt told us (which would make Sothis coincidentally sharing it even more odd)... that means that depending on what you set your birthday as, the avatar could have gone unnamed for a fucking year.

And of course, since they refuse to re-record dialogue for different genders, that means they can't even distract from how unnatural this nonsense is by throwing in some “he”s and “she”s to minimize how many times he has to refer to his own fucking baby as “the child”.

The hilarious thing is that this could have so easily been fixed by having this be, instead of leaving his diary, a written note explaining the truth of where she came from, addressed directly to Professr.

Replace “the child” with “you”. I came up with that while proofreading.

...I don't remember how this went in the other versions, but I do like how Dimitri is using the fact that he lost his family too to try and help the grieving Professr.

...Honestly, I think I'd really like this scene, if it didn't come after... fucking everything else.

...And what Sothis says right after. The instant Dimitri walks away, Sothis asks Professr if she's done what Dimitri suggested, and like... even for a thing that only involves thinking about stuff, that is still ridiculously soon.

So in the process of talking to Professr, Rhea just reveals she knows full well that Professr is the child he ran off with. And Professr just... doesn't fucking deny this. At all. Both of our options for dialogue involve admitting it to her implicitly.

Alright, on to the next month... and then a scene where we run into Dimitri... spying on a meeting between Monica, Thales and the Flame Emperor... inside Garreg Mach.

They can have their meeting literally anywhere... and they choose to have it where they could be overheard by their arch enemy. “Monica” is... uh... apparently... still around? Still in that disguise? Despite Professr witnessing her killing Jeralt and thereby ruining her disguise?

And then... they offhandedly, with no drama, reveal that TWSITD were responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur, and they've been doing it... apparently to turn Edelgard into some kind of anti-Nabatean super soldier?

And then Dimitri tries to attack them, and... someone blocks. Of course, since this is just people standing in front of backdrops with a slashy visual effect thrown over it, the person who blocks isn't clarified... but it sounds like it was supposed to be the Flame Emperor, blocking with a dagger, and thereby cluing Dimitri in early to the fact that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor.

And then, to cap off the bathos of this ridiculous month in this ridiculous game...

We get Professr looking bummed with her head hung on the “what to do” screen while sad music plays. I'm sorry, but it's just such a cartoonish, understated visual for grief that I just can't help but laugh at it. Oh my god.

Well... guess we'll be checking out the Monastery tomorrow then, and get to work doing all the paralogues we can still do.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Jotari]

I said it in the previous update but I'll say it again. This chapter is a bit of a let down from a gameplay perspective. It just doesn't do anything interesting with the all beasts enemy idea. Basically  feels like a skirmish that does the same thing. Only even some of them manage to be more interesting by way of having deserts and worms. Sothis's paralogue would have served better as a main campaign chapter than this.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Except that Thales... uses his teleportation powers... to spontaneously come in and interfere. Somehow. Was he watching the whole time? If so, what the fuck was their objective here that he only stopped to intervene now? After we've already destroyed all the demonic beasts they worked hard to make? Was this all an elaborate diversion to get Jeralt killed? If so, you'd think that having Thales warp in and stab him himself would've, y'know, been more effective.

But whatever, it doesn't matter. We've still got mastery over space and time, so obviously we're going to rewind again. Maybe this time don't directly attack Monica, just shout “look out, she's got a knife!” or something. Or rewind back a minute more and give Jeralt a full warning.

...Except no, we don't do that.

We give up.

After rewinding one fucking time.

They have this big melodramatic death scene, Professr cries for the first time right before it starts raining, and... it cuts to black, and we're at a save scene.

...Okay.

So.

I just... I can't fucking... No. This is not how you do death scenes, and this certainly isn't how you do death scenes in a story with a main character who can fucking rewind time.

The major problem here is that the cutscenes of this game appear to operate on silent, completely unexplained limitations for divine pulse that do not even vaguely approach existing in the actual game, and the writers seem to think that, despite doing everything in their power to encourage the player to make spacetime their bitch with wild abandon, said player will automatically, on an instinctual, emotional level, accept that when the avatar tries and fails once, there's nothing left they can do.

That is not how you sell this.

And believe it or not, you can sell this. As hard as it might be to believe if you haven't seen certain stories, it is in fact possible to make dramatic stakes and emotional payoffs with a character who has unfettered mastery of space and time. But you have to really work for it. You have to make the reader understand that they are trying absolutely everything in their power to stop what's going to happen, and it isn't enough.

Isn't it explained (at the beginning of the game, even) that Sothis can only rewind time for a few seconds? Also, iirc, during this same timeframe, she warns that it isn't an infinite power. I could be wrong, though.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Isn't it explained (at the beginning of the game, even) that Sothis can only rewind time for a few seconds? Also, iirc, during this same timeframe, she warns that it isn't an infinite power. I could be wrong, though.

I'm certain I'd have noticed the former, and she says the latter in context of gameplay, wherein "limited" is still a ton of uses and also you can rewind a whole battle.

[Anathaco]

27 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm certain I'd have noticed the former, and she says the latter in context of gameplay, wherein "limited" is still a ton of uses and also you can rewind a whole battle.

She does say something like “you really are quite troublesome. I cannot turn back time too far, but all is well”. It was during the scene where they’re talking after Kostas is about to pincushion Professr.

Anyway, yeah overall, the fact that a freaking What If? episode managed to pull the desperate time rewinding thing better than this game did shows how badly the writers missed the mark here. From a dialogue standpoint I actually think Jeralt’s last moments were alright, but the timey wimey bit is… yeah.

[Etrurian emperor]

Poor Jeralt. The story did him kinda dirty. 

It was always known that Jeralt was going to die. Its Fire Emblem tradition that parents die, and Jerelt was constantly waving his death flag around for all to see. The problem is more that Jeralt never got to do anything before dying. Aside from being Byleth's father Jeralt never does anything in the story.  He constantly says he's going on missions but those missions don't have anything to do with the main story, and even his conflict with Rhea never led anywhere. 

Jeralt's death being anti climactic isn't a deal breaker in and of itself. The strongest warrior alive being felled by a well timed knife in the back can be very thematically fitting. The problem is more that its so obvious that Jeralt died just because its Fire Emblem tradition. The reason Kronya killed him is....because she was feeling petty that particular day.

So you have a character who does nothing the entire story, who gets killed before he gets to do anything of note, who's killers are two joke characters and who's death ultimately serves no point in the wider story. 

Edited October 7, 2021 by Etrurian emperor

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Poor Jeralt. The story did him kinda dirty. 

It was always known that Jeralt was going to die. Its Fire Emblem tradition that parents die, and Jerelt was constantly waving his death flag around for all to see. The problem is more that Jeralt never got to do anything before dying. Aside from being Byleth's father Jeralt never does anything in the story.  He constantly says he's going on missions but those missions don't have anything to do with the main story, and even his conflict with Rhea never led anywhere. 

Jeralt's death being anti climactic isn't a deal breaker in and of itself. The strongest warrior alive being felled by a well timed knife in the back can be very thematically fitting. The problem is more that its so obvious that Jeralt died just because its Fire Emblem tradition. The reason Kronya killed him is....because she was feeling petty that particular day.

So you have a character who does nothing the entire story, who gets killed before he gets to do anything of note, who's killers are two joke characters and who's death ultimately serves no point in the wider story. 

That's largely my issue too. His death isn't actually even handled too badly by Three Houses standards, it just feels bad because he's such a nothing character. He does nothing when he's alive and save prompting Byleth into action in the next chapter (which Part 1 actually desperately needed) his demise has no long term ramifications. In fact he would just plain inherently have been more interesting if they kept him alive as no matter what he chose to do when the war broke out, it would be an interesting choice for his character.  If he sides with Rhea he needs to put aside his own grievances and fight for what he sees as right. If he joins Edelgard then he basically declares that he's sick of Rhea's shit and choosing lasting safety for himself and Byleth. Even if he just nonchalantly decides to just follow Byleth's choice it could be made very sweet with very little effort. Hekk him just saying fuck it and avoiding the war entirely to just focus on helping people would work too as it would tassidly criticize Byleth even choosing a side to begin with.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

In fact he would just plain inherently have been more interesting if they kept him alive as no matter what he chose to do when the war broke out, it would be an interesting choice for his character.  If he sides with Rhea he needs to put aside his own grievances and fight for what he sees as right. If he joins Edelgard then he basically declares that he's sick of Rhea's shit and choosing lasting safety for himself and Byleth. Even if he just nonchalantly decides to just follow Byleth's choice it could be made very sweet with very little effort.

Now that is an extremely good point.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

What they should have done was have this month's mission be completely unrelated. Just have it be some stupid thing. Have the main focus of the month be on the big ball, and all the fun everyone's going to have. Have the mission come first... and the ball second.

I like this proposal, generally. Presumably, though, they wanted Teach to witness Monikronya kill Jeralt, to sell the "twist" of her secretly being evil. It'd be hard to combine this with not trying to rewind time repeatedly, though. Unless Teach were to fall unconscious right after? Which could actually offer some "payoff" for that inexplicable fainting spell a couple months beforehand. 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Sothis: If turning back the hands of time was not enough to save his life, you must accept what came to pass was fate.

...There was a time when I had the emotional energy to rant for ages about a single line like this. But I can't. I just can't. I... no. No, that's... what?

Yeah I hate that too - the concept of "fate" really doesn't work well in a world where Divine Pulse exists. ...I say, after the game that introduced the mechanic made "fate" a major theme of its protagonists.

Anyway, I don't think it would've been impossible to save Jeralt. Just very hard, in light of Thales' apparent warping powers. Sothis probably figured it'd take too much effort to save him.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes, we are expected to believe that in the span between Professr's birth somewhere around 9/20, to the final entry on 10/8, a course of more than two and a half weeks... he hadn't given Professr a name yet.

...No... wait... it's worse than that. You get to customize your own birthday, remember? So unless that's supposed to mean our birthday is a lie Jeralt told us (which would make Sothis coincidentally sharing it even more odd)... that means that depending on what you set your birthday as, the avatar could have gone unnamed for a fucking year.

Radical take - Teach actually has a fixed birthday. When you pick their birthday, you're actually picking Sothis' birthday, but as expressed by Teach. Hence why they always have "the same" birthday. Basically, this goes with the "you're actually playing as Sothis, who's controlling the Professor" narrative.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, on to the next month... and then a scene where we run into Dimitri... spying on a meeting between Monica, Thales and the Flame Emperor... inside Garreg Mach.

They can have their meeting literally anywhere... and they choose to have it where they could be overheard by their arch enemy. “Monica” is... uh... apparently... still around? Still in that disguise? Despite Professr witnessing her killing Jeralt and thereby ruining her disguise?

Based on the background, I think it's the town next to Garreg Mach, rather than the monastery itself. Still a really bad place to have this conversation. Really speaks to Twiztid's overconfidence.

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I said it in the previous update but I'll say it again. This chapter is a bit of a let down from a gameplay perspective. It just doesn't do anything interesting with the all beasts enemy idea. Basically  feels like a skirmish that does the same thing. Only even some of them manage to be more interesting by way of having deserts and worms. Sothis's paralogue would have served better as a main campaign chapter than this.

I'd say the "interesting" part of this chapter is trying to keep the students alive. Also, there's a chest that's easy to miss. But in terms of enemy composition, yeah it's really basic.

[Sunwoo]

I feel like Thales randomly showing up to save "Monica" in itself isn't necessarily terrible writing. It could easily have an explanation outside of time travel awareness or "fate". Like how Byleth moving in to kill Monica is the trigger that makes him show up because he's somehow aware of what's going on in this scene, and if Byleth had turned back time just a little further so that Monica didn't get close enough to Jeralt to shank him Thales might not have appeared at that moment since Byleth wouldn't have had to move in to try to kill her.

What does make it terrible writing is that Byleth only tries to rewind time once, and then Sothis tries to justify Jeralt dying as "it was fate". Really, it was Byleth not trying again even though there's no justification as to why they cannot. And of course we run into this same problem when Rodrigue dies, because there's no justification as to why Byleth didn't try to rewind time to stop him from dying.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Sunwoo

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

What does make it terrible writing is that Byleth only tries to rewind time once, and then Sothis tries to justify Jeralt dying as "it was fate". Really, it was Byleth not trying again even though there's no justification as to why they cannot. And of course we run into this same problem when Rodrigue dies, because there's no justification as to why Byleth didn't try to rewind time to stop him from dying.

90% of cutscenes exist to allow something bad to happen that couldn't happen on the player's watch. Cutscene Byleth is a total loser.

[Sunwoo]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

90% of cutscenes exist to allow something bad to happen that couldn't happen on the player's watch. Cutscene Byleth is a total loser.

Honestly, 3H could've gotten away with cutscene Byleth being a total loser if the universe's internal rules on Divine Pulse were better established.

In NEO TWEWY, Rindo, the main character, has time travel powers as well. But they have certain limitations on them so that some bad events that occur simply cannot be changed no matter how much he time travels. It's beyond his ability to deal with once certain conditions are met. 3H doesn't really give Divine Pulse any in-story limitations, as far as I know, besides Sothis's bullshit that "it was fate and unchangeable", it's super disappointing to see Byleth portrayed as being so phenomenally stupid that they fail so hard even with the power they have.

Unlike NEO's protagonist, Byleth isn't even supposed to be seen as incompetent in the story. They're supposed to be a certifiable badass. But they're just ... not.

Edited October 7, 2021 by Sunwoo

[Etrurian emperor]

15 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

In NEO TWEWY, Rindo, the main character, has time travel powers as well. But they have certain limitations on them so that some bad events that occur simply cannot be changed no matter how much he time travels. It's beyond his ability to deal with once certain conditions are met. 3H doesn't really give Divine Pulse any in-story limitations, as far as I know, besides Sothis's bullshit that "it was fate and unchangeable", it's super disappointing to see Byleth portrayed as being so phenomenally stupid that they fail so hard even with the power they have.

Unlike NEO's protagonist, Byleth isn't even supposed to be seen as incompetent in the story. They're supposed to be a certifiable badass. But they're just ... not.

True. Though I'm not sure its entirely fair to compare the two.

The time traveling in Neo is mostly a narrative mechanic. The entire story resolves around it, and its used as a tool to explore Rindude's vulnerabilities. Divine Pulse on the other is, no matter how Sothis tries to spin it, primarily a gameplay mechanic. Its presence in the story resolves mostly around explaining why you can use it in gameplay, and the fact that Jeralt's death is the only time Byleth even tries to use it in the story is rather telling. I'd chalk everything to do with Divine Pulse up to gameplay and story segregation, which makes Jeralt's death extra clumsy since it needlessly breaks this segregation. 

[Sunwoo]

14 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

True. Though I'm not sure its entirely fair to compare the two.

The time traveling in Neo is mostly a narrative mechanic. The entire story resolves around it, and its used as a tool to explore Rindude's vulnerabilities. Divine Pulse on the other is, no matter how Sothis tries to spin it, primarily a gameplay mechanic. Its presence in the story resolves mostly around explaining why you can use it in gameplay, and the fact that Jeralt's death is the only time Byleth even tries to use it in the story is rather telling. I'd chalk everything to do with Divine Pulse up to gameplay and story segregation, which makes Jeralt's death extra clumsy since it needlessly breaks this segregation. 

I get that, but the crux of the issue with Divine Pulse is that certain parts of the story DO try to incorporate it outside of gameplay. I don't think it would've been an issue if DP was solely a gameplay mechanic, unlocked after a certain point -- whether it be through Byleth promoting and gaining DP as a class skill, a random item that is just dropped on you but has no story significance, or just a text box explaining how the player can rewind the battle a certain number of times, divorcing the skill from Byleth entirely. But because the game decides to give it to Byleth as an actual power, one that they gained through sheer incompetence at that, incorporates it in at least two cutscenes, I think it's still fair to call them out in how badly it's integrated into the story. It was a choice they went with.

And it's true that NEO's time travel mechanic is used differently than 3H's Divine Pulse and it's actually an important part of the story ... but I think it's still fair to criticize DP's failure to work as a story element because the writers themselves decided to make it one when they really didn't have to.

[Ether]

Seeing this discussion popped an idea into my head. What if there were a set number of different outcomes for Byleth failing to save dad, the same as the max amount of possible pulses a player has access to? The game plays as many failures as you had pulses remaining at the end of the map, counting them down on screen each time Jeralt dies, until you've spent your load and have to accept his passing. Gameplay integration rather than segregation.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

I feel like Thales randomly showing up to save "Monica" in itself isn't necessarily terrible writing. It could easily have an explanation outside of time travel awareness or "fate". Like how Byleth moving in to kill Monica is the trigger that makes him show up because he's somehow aware of what's going on in this scene, and if Byleth had turned back time just a little further so that Monica didn't get close enough to Jeralt to shank him Thales might not have appeared at that moment since Byleth wouldn't have had to move in to try to kill her.

What does make it terrible writing is that Byleth only tries to rewind time once, and then Sothis tries to justify Jeralt dying as "it was fate". Really, it was Byleth not trying again even though there's no justification as to why they cannot. And of course we run into this same problem when Rodrigue dies, because there's no justification as to why Byleth didn't try to rewind time to stop him from dying.

It could have been justified a lot more if Thales demonstrated time travelling powers too. That would have made him a much more formidable villain. It could even be pretty cool if he used it a few times in the Shambala map if one of his units miss an attack or something. 

[Eltosian Kadath]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

It could have been justified a lot more if Thales demonstrated time travelling powers too. That would have made him a much more formidable villain. It could even be pretty cool if he used it a few times in the Shambala map if one of his units miss an attack or something. 

That was kinda where I thought they were going with that scene, but when they didn't have Thales use time shenanigan powers again, I was a bit disappointed...

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 40: Chapter 10 Week 1

Alright, Felix stands to gain a shitton of stats if he hits that 42% chance of passing his war monk exam now. Giving it a go!

YES! I DID IT! Plus 1 mag, plus 3 def, and plus 5 resistance! Not switching into it though, because he still needs death blow.

Alright, I'm gonna wait on the others though. But checking through my various magical girls' class progressions, I realized I completely forgot I need to train Constance in lances to get her darting blow in pegasus knight. I'll have to keep that in mind.

Okay, since everyone's full up on motivation and I want to do as many battles as possible, I'm going to go out and drown Professr's sorrows in wild adventures and bloodshed, then come back to the Monastery later for the obligatory quests and such once everyone needs more meals.

I have six paralogues. Let's start with...

Felix's! Let's have some fun with his new stats!

...Oh shit, I remember this being said to be really frustratingly hard to get the shield in.

Seems like you really have to cheese this to keep all the villagers alive. Let's see how it goes! I'm gonna use stride and see how that works out.

Frustratingly, Felix and Professr are locked to some really bad positions, but with rescue and stride I manage to at least get Professr into the fray immediately. I'll set up a second batch to stride towards the boss for next turn.

So, Rodrigue orders all the villagers to escape... so they run right out of the soldier-guarded bottlenecks they were safely inside. Wow, great strategy there, Rodrigue. Hopefully I can take the boss out on turn 3 like it's shaping up like I could.

Yeah, seriously, I'm frankly shocked at the green army's stupidity. The villagers would've been fine if they just held still. Their guards are pretty beefy. But not only are these villagers now running into vulnerable areas, but many of them don't do anything on their turn but hold still and use a vulnerary that isn't going to save them from another round of combat since they get doubled for 11 damage each.

Thankfully, Ingrid manages to use the last of her Luin lance on a Burning Quake that actually connects at a 49% hit rate, allowing us to deal the finishing blow with ease.

Aaaaand Shamir gets the kill!

...And... the rewards are contextualized as the villagers giving us a “small gift”.

First reward: the fucking Aegis Shield.

This isn't given in a conversation with Rodrigue as him saying Felix has proven himself worthy, it's just thrown in with the shit the villagers give you.

And... Felix... really uncharitably reads a line from Rodrigue about how he'd never be able to face the late king if he let this village fall, and then runs off, saying he's still pissed off about how Rodrigue said when Glenn died that he “died like a true knight”.

...Yeah, after this conversation, I think I'm mis-remembering what Rodrigue was like on the other routes. Rodrigue seems like a pretty chill dad, honestly. I get Felix's grievances, but I think he's being way too uncharitable to his dad specifically, who clearly has nothing but good intentions here.

But yeah, uh... usually when you get a relic on a paralogue... they... explain why it's awarded to you, right? Why isn't that done here? Could they really not think of a good way to put it in?

“My son may not like me, but I'm proud of what he did here today. Here. Please give him this. From me.”

Is that so hard?

Alright, what's a good second paralogue to do...?

Oh yeah! Let's do the one with the “Almyran” pirates and find out how fucked up this impersonation really is!

...The only valid options for whether or not Professr has any experience fighting pirates in her time as a mercenary is... that she doesn't know. What? Is her memory foggy about her own adult life?

Anyway, we're here, and... first, let's repair some weapons, including Luin...

…Okay, so, the fake Almyran pirates are visibly white, both in portrait and in model. Honestly, having their models be brown would probably be worse, but still, literally the only way they can get away with this is because every generic portrait is white and they can bank on players maybe not immediately noticing. Still though... this is utterly surreal and ridiculous that a bunch of white people can pretend to be from a nation of brown-skinned people and everyone but Claude will buy it.

Oh, and when they get into town, there aren't even any fire effects to indicate they're actually doing any pillaging like in other games. He just says he's smashing things up and the offscreen merchants freak out.

But yeah, I've mostly been using this as an opportunity to train Felix with the knowledge gem. He should have death blow by the end of this mission and be ready for war monk.

Yep! Just got it! Which means I can end this now!

And we got a large bullion and seraph robe. I hope letting them in for just one turn wasn't too much for a better reward, because if so, that's a really big ask considering how close those wyverns start and how they enter from an area completely overwhelmed by their forces' attack ranges.

Ah, it seems that they... “disguised” themselves as Almyrans.

...I'm sorry, but when I hear it phrased like that, like... even though the game makes it clear they aren't doing that, it really sounds like they were doing brownface.

...I find it kind of hilarious that when Shamir talks and walks off, and the screen fades to black... Professr is still staring with her “worried” look on her face in reaction to the bad pun Alois made like 15 seconds prior.

Alright, time for the recital at the church... and Rhea's birthday...

...And... oh right. Yeah. Sad music. We're supposed to be sad. I totally forgot about all that. Ha.

Alright, let's see what we can do before heading off...

...Okay, I'll try out war monk on Felix for a bit, and I'm glad I got it for those stat boosts, but the difference between his magic and strength growths is stark as hell, so I don't think it'll be a long-term thing. Especially since it has fistfaire but not black tomefaire. I'll send him through grappler once his grappling gets high enough. Maybe war master, but I don't think he'll gain much from strong riposte.

Dimitri will have a 73% chance of passing in wyvern rider once he levels up once. I should probably finish him up in brigand first though.

I just gave Dedue a massive stat buff by putting him in fortress knight. Mag+1, Dex+4, Def+3, Res+5.

Annette's a pegasus knight now, so we'll be adjutanting her until she masters it.

And... I think that's it for now.

Next week we'll work on some more paralogues and then get our “revenge” on the killer of our “beloved father”.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Etrurian emperor]

I think Rodrique's line about the village and the king does suggest his priorities are somewhat out of whack. I'm sure Rodrique is a decent lord and that he considers personally riding to his subject's rescue to be his duty. But that his first thought about the battle being about a long dead king rather than the villagers themselves is rather telling. Just like he probably wanted to be there for Felix but that his overal mentality just wasn't very useful when dealing with a traumatized child. 

I think that's kind of the thing with Faerghus, that even morally good characters are to some degree corrupted by its ideals.