Acacia Sgt Posted March 16, 2023 Share Posted March 16, 2023 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: Honestly this is kind of lame and profoundly embarrassing. I was hoping to get all twelve on the field at once so I had all the pieces to put together at once, thinking about all of them. And here I am, failed at the first hurdle, and now the rest will be dead giveaways because I know the pattern now. You brought dishonor to your cow. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: He can cancel your engages, apparently map-wide! Damn it, well, guess I better save them for when I actually need them. But thankfully the first two Dark Emblems are immediately within reach and the slayer effect I get on them is insane. Lindon unfortunately can’t one-shot Loptyr, but he does enough with Goldmary’s help and Seadall. *laughs in Nodus!Hortensia* Although, I never let him do it, since I finished this part in like three turns. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: …I sincerely hope the game isn’t going to make us kill this guy three consecutive times with each set of four Dark Emblems. That would be so fucking repetitive. Nah, you can even damage him with the shield up. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: …Roy seems confused why Idunn is fighting here. “We have no quarrel.” Is that just him wondering why any of these Emblems are fighting here, or does he specifically mean Idunn, like this is from a timeline where he cured her? I'd say it is the latter. As in, he, or at least the Roy he was molded from, did saved Idunn, while the Dark Emblem Idunn is from a world where he did not. The game can also end with Zephiel's defeat, after all. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: “Burn us, Emblem of Foundations”? Zero Emblem is Kaga! He's the foundation of FE is Marth is the beginning, after all! Prepare to look into all the wild theories... 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: Am I forced to just assume that just doesn’t fucking matter? Proximity to the portal clearly mattered before with regards to its effects on the Emblems, so why aren’t they putting the Emblems somewhere safe before closing it!? Why wouldn’t they at least try!? It was more the world on the other side, rather than the portal itself. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: …Also, holy fuck his ending is surprisingly morbid. He accomplishes a lot in his rule, but they say he died young. If they say the same thing about Diamant but not Ivy and Timerra, I think I’ll be sensing a pattern here… Fun fact, if you S support him, he lives apparently. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: Also, her people wanted her to become their first queen? Gradlon has a population? Fucking what!? This was a volcanic wasteland that spent a thousand fucking years under the sea! What am I reading here!? Am I even reading this!? Am I having a stroke!? I'd guess people just moved there. It's empty land. Stubborn Fell Dragon worshippers, would be my guess. 1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said: …There’s a picture of Mauvier and Veyle walking together and coming across a little girl who looks suspiciously like Marnie. I wonder what the implication of that is supposed to be. Did her biological parents change their mind about not wanting a daughter and had another one…? Maybe some time before her death she met and left an impression on the girl she started copying her clothing style? Yeah, it's curious... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted March 16, 2023 Author Share Posted March 16, 2023 My Ranking Difficulty: I think I’ve played enough of Maddening to know where I stand on this. It’s good. It’s pretty damned good. It’s got a healthy difficulty curve that doesn’t make the start of the game absurd yet still provides a satisfying challenge. But I don’t think it’s tying with Conquest. Hard mode is far too easily cheesed, and Maddening suffers the downside of radically altering the game’s balance with its stat inflation. That’s not something it should feel too bad about. It’s in pretty good company in that regard. But Conquest is just on another level with its tight game design, and Engage doesn’t quite make the cut there. Still, it’s not just that I can count the number of games that do better than it on one hand… I can count them on one finger. So congrats, Engage, on a pretty damned good start. +8: Very tough in ways that are fun and engaging, even if not every difficulty mode is perfect. Engage, Shadow Dragon. Ironmannability: Yet another category where this game does well, but alas not perfect. I was pretty happy with this game’s ironmannability for a while, even in spite of fog of war, but in addition to having a few shockingly shitty moments of moving the goalposts, this game’s cast is obscenely frontloaded, especially when you take into account all the paralogues that don’t give you new recruits, just new tools. New units slow down to a trickle after Chapter 15, and stop entirely after Chapter 19 if you don’t count Mauvier and Veyle. Which I don’t, because as I said, they can’t replace losses, they’re just there to fill the new slots they come with. So I have to take off a few more points than I’d like here, and I have to relabel an entire category as well. +3: It has some problems with FOW, ambush spawns, or replacement drought, but it’s mostly fair. Engage, Sacred Stones, Path of Radiance. Alright, so far that’s a score of 11. Pretty good! Let’s move forward! Usability: All in all I’d consider this something of a side-step compared to the golden 3DS standard, which is in itself something to be lauded as I once bemoaned that we’d likely never see a game with an interface as good as the 3DS games again. While the inability to check raw weapon stats is highly unfortunate in principle, in practice it’s not something I’ve had much occasion to be concerned about. There’s also a lot of more complicated math calculations for certain abilities that make prep a bit more annoying in some respects, but where it really counts the game’s good about showing them to you. The attack lines are of course a nice touch as well, as is the fact that you don’t have to completely commit to an Engage once you do it and can cancel out without consequence. And this is the first console game in the entire series to have unit info be a single page. That is a huge plus, given as I’ve said before, not being able to do that is a pretty good sign you’re overcomplicating things. And then there’s that nifty ZR menu that lets you display additional information, though in fairness I mostly used that to display crit and dodge rates since those don’t show up on the mouse-over preview. Drastically simplifying the effects of the weapon triangle and having a more involved combat prediction window are also pluses. Honestly, the game takes so many steps forward and back that I struggle to make any definitive argument for why it should be placed lower. So I won’t. +9: The best we’ve got. Always room for improvement, but there has never been less clunk in the way of your strategies than there is here. Conquest, Birthright, Revelation, Engage, Awakening. Bringing our score to 20! Alright! Next up… Depth: Ohhhhhhh goodness this is a toughie. The Emblem system of course is a pretty major win for this game. There’s just so much you can do with the Emblems to make characters distinct from each other, and a lot of different paths you can go with each character. But still, Conquest has that advantage that it’s the only game in the entire series to do interesting things with enemy skills on anything but maybe bosses. And Conquest is no slouch when it comes to character builds either, it not anywhere near as flashy. That… and, well, Engage’s skill list is actually kinda lame, all told, and a lot of them are just about impossible to inherit on a normal playthrough. Also, I noticed they started giving random units the odd skill here or there in Engage Maddening, and a lot of them are skills that have been in our hands in previous games, but which seem to have no apparent means to obtain. Which only further makes me question why they couldn’t find room to put skills like that in our hands. Plus… okay, so, while the Emblems are cool as hell… there’s really not all that much character building in this game. I really felt like the Fates games and Awakening did a way better job at making me feel like I was building my characters. Taking them down various paths, investing time and effort into giving them various skills. Here, I mostly slap Emblems on whoever I want to use them in the moment, and skill unlocks just amounted to paying up in bond fragments. And the game only gives you two skill slots for inheriting skills, and precious little SP to buy them with, so building your characters beyond what Emblem they’re using is clearly de-emphasized. …But the Emblems are so fucking much, though… and it’s such an interesting system… …Okay, sure, I think this ties. +7: Tons of interesting mechanics and unit customization for allies and enemies alike. Conquest, Engage. That brings us to 27. Next up: Balance: …Okay. Let’s be honest here. A game with Engage’s design philosophy was never going to have a stellar balance score. There is just so much going on, and so much crazy shit you can do. This game was way more focused on giving you lots of cool toys to play with, rather than delivering a tight, well-rounded challenge. …Which makes me astonishingly impressed at how much it still managed to do right. The class category system was a great step in the right direction, particularly toning down movement ranges and minimizing the advantages of being on a mount. Engage, I think, is pretty high up there in terms of games that managed to make certain routinely-underpowered classes worth using. Armored units definitely get their time to shine, to be sure, even if it doesn’t last that long. But also, y’know, it’s just a clusterfuck of obscenely powerful abilities and also some ones where I question why they even exist, arts are just so comically difficult to make good, and Maddening mode in particular has made it plainly obvious that its unit balance is just all sorts of wrong. …Honestly, I feel like this is in a similar situation as Binding Blade. It does a hell of a lot wrong, but it also does enough stuff right that rarely gets done right that I think it’s worthy of acknowledgement. +3: There’s at least a wide variety of good units and roles, and nothing breaks the game too hard. Engage, Binding Blade. That brings us to 30. Next up: Pacing: …The Somniel… is better than the Monastery… but like I said, it pales in comparison to My Castle. It’s just too over-designed, and has a lot of stuff that really didn’t need to be done manually, like running around the map to gather all the resources the Somniel gives you between maps. My Castle was just way more compact and streamlined. Also, the game should just give you the items scattered around maps in exploration automatically as well, not just the bond fragments. There’s really no reason to make people run around for them if they aren’t interested in exploring and talking to people, especially on repeat playthroughs. But at least the map design pacing is top notch. I can’t remember a single point where I found myself going “wow, I don’t have anything to do right now but move mindlessly forward to the next objective”. So with that in mind… +0: Has some moments of frustration or slow pace, but mostly inoffensive. Engage, Shadow Dragon, New Mystery, Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance, Thracia 776, Shadows of Valentia. Still at 30. Alright, what’s next? Writing: …I have been thinking about this category… a lot. I’m very, very, very torn on it. Part of me wants to flip the fucking table and rebuild this list from scratch. I have taken a fucking scalpel to objectively better stories than this. I have watched them like a hawk for the slightest weird detail and taken pleasure in roasting them for hours until the manuscript papers curled and blackened amidst the flames. But here? I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if it was coming back into things after a long, long hiatus, or just general disillusionment with the concept of picking apart these stories… but I just haven’t done nearly as much of that. And in fact multiple times people had to remind me of the story implications of the time crystal when major tragedies happen in the plot. Anyone who read my Three Houses playlog will know that I leapt at every opportunity to point those out there. I don’t know why, but I just haven’t been nearly as critical of this game’s story as I probably should have been. I feel morally certain that this game is littered with plotholes that I should have noticed but didn’t. I feel, confidently, without any real concrete evidence to back it up, that I have underperformed in my job critiquing this game’s story. …I suspect this mostly stems from two things: the game is new, and I like it. The game is new, and therefore I have been experiencing every part of this story devoid of the power of hindsight, only able to catch that which is obviously wrong at first blush, or wrong if you remember enough of what came before. The game is new and I like it, and therefore I had better things to do with my time than roast the story, because every moment I spent doing that is a moment in which I am not playing this fun new game full of surprises around every corner. …I think I’m going to simplify things and just put it right next to Awakening. A bit above, because it doesn’t grotesquely violate any mother canon, but really, this is a successor to Awakening in a lot of ways. Story’s dumb fanservice, but nothing as grandly, comically idiotic as Fates, and I like the characters a lot and enjoy seeing them interact. -4: Technically a story, but distractingly difficult to take seriously due to copious writing flaws. Shadows of Valentia, Sacred Stones, Engage, Awakening, Mystery of the Emblem Book 2, Mystery of the Emblem Book 1, Three Houses. So now we’re knocked down to 26. Next? Music: …Okay, slam dunk, this game’s soundtrack is an absolute banger. While I have my complaints about quite a few of the paralogue themes, outside of that the soundtrack is just wonderful, and with better instruments than any of the existing reigning champions. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to keep this out of the top spot, especially given this is the only game that has that awesome upgrade Three Houses introduced regarding boss themes continuing to play after you challenge the boss… without actually being Three Houses. +6: Consistently gorgeous music that flows throughout. Engage, Conquest, Revelation, Awakening, Birthright. Which puts us at 32, and brings us to… Presentation: There’s no fucking competition here, Engage is the new winner. Its combat animations are absolutely gorgeous, and it manages to fix enough flaws with its predecessor’s presentation everywhere else that the remaining hiccups it inherited simply do not matter in the slightest. I don’t want to retroactively take away points from previous games simply to keep every category in 7 point tiers… so I’m just gonna staple an extra category up top for Engage and mess around with the names of some of the ones immediately below: +8: The best we’ve got. Manages to use the latest technology enough to sweep the competition. Engage. +6: Does a great job with pretty good graphics. Shadows of Valentia. +4: Does an amazing job with primitive graphics, or a mediocre job with pretty good graphics. Awakening, Conquest, Birthright, Revelation, Blazing Blade, Sacred Stones, Binding Blade. +2: The visuals never feel like they’re holding the experience back. Radiant Dawn, Path of Radiance. +0: Mediocre, but inoffensive. Does the job. New Mystery, Shadow Dragon. -2: Showing its age a bit too much. Thracia 776, Genealogy of the Holy War, Mystery of the Emblem Book 2, Mystery of the Emblem Book 1. -4: Vastly overstretched its boundaries to the point that it managed to do less with more. Three Houses. -6: Really, really showing its age. Gaiden, Dark Dragon. Bringing us to 40! Already in second place, which only leaves… X-Factor: Okay, full stop, the Emblems feel like they were specifically designed to justify the existence of the X-Factor category. Do they make the difficulty better? No. Do they make the game more interesting to ironman? Not really. Do they make the interface better? Definitely not. They’re actually to blame for its worst aspects. Do they improve gameplay depth? Not nearly as much as you’d think. Do they make the game more balanced? Holy shit no. Do they improve the pacing? I mean maybe you can argue the movement tech does, if you stretch the definition…? But no, not really. Do they improve the writing? Not likely! Do they improve the music? They contribute the worst songs in the game! Do they improve the visuals? Well, let’s just say the game would still be exactly where it is on the rankings without them. …But are they awesome and fun and worthy of all of the hells to the fucks to the yeses in the totality of the cosmos? HELL TO THE FUCK TO THE YES. Not since Thracia have I felt as much like a kid in toyland while playing a Fire Emblem game, and I cannot justify giving it any fewer bonus points than Thracia got. And so to Engage, I award… TWELVE POINTS! +12: A truly splendid point of merit. Engage, Thracia. Putting Engage’s final score… at 52! A single! Goddamned! Point! Shy! Of tying! With Conquest! Ohhhh man. Ohohohohohohohoho man. I have my complaints with this game. I have areas where I wish it would be better. But it cannot be denied: This is a great Fire Emblem game. And it has single-handedly snuffed the life out of every last one of the fears for the franchise’s future that Three Houses put in my head. I am so happy that we got this game, and I expect to be playing it for ages. And words cannot express how satisfying it is to be able to say that. The future’s looking bright, ladies and gentlemen. The future. Is looking. Bright. And for that… I bid you adieu. For a while, anyway. I’m going to take a month and a half off. Re-assess if I want to go back to this in May after a bit of a break from doing this every day. Because if I do… there are still places I haven’t gone. There are the Kaga Saga games, of course, but there are also games that need revisiting. Games I didn’t do on the highest difficulty. Radiant Dawn. New Mystery. Awakening. Yes, maybe even Three Houses. And who can forget, I also would probably need to do a playlogging revisit of Maddening Engage. There’s more to do with this, to be sure. But for now… I rest. I rest, and get some goddamned food inside me, because I haven’t eaten in just under 12 hours. Alastor… …signing off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 So, truly an engaging ride, huh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunwoo Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Apparently Alfred and Celine's A support mentions that Alfred had a childhood illness that nearly killed him, but that it didn't go away/came back at some point. It is also brought up slightly in Celica and Alcryst's support. Still, a pretty shitty ending. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 If I recall, in Alfred's bond supports with Sigurd, he brings up his father died from the same illness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 On 9/13/2022 at 10:06 PM, Alastor15243 said: Apparently the marathon will resume in January. First impressions in two sentences: "I have never felt so dead inside. I don't know what to think except that I don't want to think at all." On 1/21/2023 at 5:20 AM, Alastor15243 said: “Hype is a scam and hope is a lie” Ah how times have changed, we go from this 40 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Putting Engage’s final score… at 52! A single! Goddamned! Point! Shy! Of tying! With Conquest! To this. #ENGAGESWEEP I think it does end up inheriting a few issues from Three Houses, like the slight clunkiness of the UI, the weird backgrounds in supports I have never been able to unsee after it had been pointed out, but man does the gameplay improves in leaps and bounds over almost every other entry. My main complaints with it mostly boils down to how Emblems have partially replaced proper class skills and skill learning, making the whole reclass system an afterthought after the first seal, and how there is no way to raise underleveled units if they fall behind in level or SP, but I guess the Emblems slightly mitigate those issues? Since anybody can utilize Lucina, Micaiah, Corrin's dragon veins, Byleth's Dance and Instruct. Still, having a tow a character with single digit stats ( Ok, exaggeration, but let's assume worst case scenario ) to fight Sombron is... something. And Alear isn't enough to carry you, probably the single weakest combat unit Lord in recent memory, that Strength and Build growth is not doing any favors. I still utterly love the insanity of this game. It's just so FUN to play. I loved Three House in spite of the actual gameplay, yet I never want to ever play it again, but I want to play another few runs of this game just to see what I can make do with weird character and skill combinations, like Wrath-Vantage Thunder Lindon, or Sage Merrin. Still, this game amounts to an Awakening, with an insane ( In the literal sense ) cast of characters, mostly comedic tones mixed with some serious moments, with copious amounts of toys added in combined with the bells and whistles of better presentation, and actually balanced gameplay. I do wish to see a game eventually with 3 Houses or Tellius style worldbuilding and characters, but without the gameplay flaws (Re : Monastery and Wyvern-Homogenizing, or Wrath-Resolve Ike solo being the solution), hopefully one day we'll get it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Also, very off topic, but when it comes to the non-combat layer of the game, like My Castle, Monastery and Somniel, for Fates-3H-Engage, I can't help but always make connections to XCOM, where there is a whole other part of the game being balancing resources, making your base, choosing what would be most important to research and watching the progress bar tick up and hoping it completes before the next mission, and then actually having it impact your gameplay in meaningful ways. Like, finally getting that research done to get that Plasma Sniper you've been waiting for in time to be able to one-tap that one annoying Enemy type with a Headshot, or getting an improved grenade launcher and blasting a whole pod of and all their cover away, then sweeping up the defenseless enemies is just pure dopamine. Though, I guess you can't really quantify "Time" or a sense of urgency in a Fire Emblem game, unless it's 3 Houses. Still, that base building element tying in well with the strategy gameplay is really why I love those games, and play them more than Fire Emblem. Also no minigames or busywork for more resources, that helps too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …Nope! Shit! I was dead wrong! Duma’s the war father! Okay, that actually makes way more sense and I can’t believe I fucked that up! In that case, Loptyr must be the Dark God then! Yeah, that's actually what they call him in Shadows of Valentia. And by now I'm sure you've noticed which Dark Emblems appear comes in game order. We start with the first...five games (since Medeus pulls double duty) then cover the next four and the final most recent four...ish excluding remakes and spin offs. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: He can cancel your engages, apparently map-wide! Damn it, well, guess I better save them for when I actually need them. Yeah, that was what we were talking about when discussing the S ranked stave in spoilers a few days ago. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: As in you have less than a full player phase to take advantage of the opening. That was still enough time for me to kill him on Maddening without getting to see the last wave of Dark Emblems 😞 And it's not like I was in full control of the battle. The reinforcements were overwhelming me. If I didn't kill him then I might have lost some characters. Fortunately we live in an era where you can just look that stuff up on youtube. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Okay, looks like they picked Nemesis as the Dark Emblem. Okay, honestly, I was thinking they’d do that. While I maintain that #NemesisDidNothingWrong, he is the only final boss of any of the conventional routes who isn’t also an Emblem. Rhea's not an Emblem. And she's final boss of two routes. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …But fuck Micaiah’s to deepest hell for calling Yune “Yoon” again. Fuck this retcon with every fiber of my being, it feels so deeply wrong to me to retcon the pronunciation of a name you already fucking canonically pronounced. It’s like when they started calling Edea “Ih-dee-a”, like the same rhythm as idiot, in Bravely Second. Yoon also just sounds silly. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: These are going worryingly fast and I’m not sure how long they’ll stay up, but thankfully I have my screenshot button just in case, so let’s look at the full thing here: Couldn't you just press the Home button to pause in between each one? 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: I guess that means I’m going to see who I never put an Emblem on. But yeah that seems about right. Honestly I think it’s a shame that Vander falls off so much. He’s a cool character, I wish I had more excuses to use him. He’s great in the early game, with his good defense and sky-high HP, but he’s very swiftly replaced. I like him as he is, we need Jagens to actually be Jagens in this series. It's a good niche. Maybe if he had a personel skill that made keeping him around regardless of his stats, like Gunther, he could be a bit better. Of course, he does have a skill alot like Gunther's, if I recall correctly, but without pair up you're not going to be fielding him for that alone. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …Also, holy fuck his ending is surprisingly morbid. He accomplishes a lot in his rule, but they say he died young. Yeah, that one threw me too. It's a real Canas died in a snow storm ending, only without any obligation to canon. So it's just sort of "Huh? Why?" I reckon people will be talking and fanficcing about it for a while. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: She was an early game archer. She did her job, which was to one-shot fliers. Beyond that, I didn’t really have much of a use for her. Would she have been good if I trained her? I’m not so sure. This isn’t really a game where archers are good so much as an archer is good. As in “it’s good to have an archer on your team to do crazy things with Lyn”. And why use Etie for that role when Alcryst does it better? Since Lyn brings her own bows and it's covert giving the range boost more so than the archer class, thieves feel like they could pull that niche better than archers, while also just being better all around. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Of all the characters in the game that I haven’t given a chance, I think Céline might be my biggest regret. I like Clanne better, but I have a feeling that she might have been really handy if I had just given her a bit more focus on my Hard or Maddening run. I think next time I play, I’m gonna try making her good. Not instead of Clanne, though. Alongside. I used her until endgame. She didn't end up that great for me, to be honest. She and her brother both were gameplay dissapointments. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Panette is a character I’d be interested to be forced to use, if that makes sense. Like if I did a draft. She seems fun, but I just never had a place in my roster, or, apparently, in my heart, for a proper dedicated axe specialist. Panette was my mvp a long shot. Basically the only character that could reliably and consistency kill all enemy types on Maddening. Only some late game armourers gave her trouble. I gave her Lyn for maximum Astra Storm effectiveness which also sured up her speed, and thus accuracy. Forged Killing Axe with a crit inscription, wrath and vantage made her an enemy phase menace too, which is quite difficult to achieve. 10/10 would marry again (okay, I didn't marry her because her personality did nothing for me, but I should have!). 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Anyway, I have a feeling I could probably make Anna good with quick and decisive reclassing, but if you’ll pardon the pun, she’s a big investment, and the earlygame is just so tight. She only has a base strength growth of 15%, while she has a base magic growth of 50%, which is huge, better than Citrenne. So reclassing her into a magic class asap seems to be the way to go with her. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Also, her people wanted her to become their first queen? Gradlon has a population? Fucking what!? This was a volcanic wasteland that spent a thousand fucking years under the sea! What am I reading here!? Am I even reading this!? Am I having a stroke!? Hey, it's free realestate. Why not. If the corrupted destroyed your village and you got nowhere else to go, might as well claim a bunch of land in the new world and declare yourself a lord. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, Jotari said: Couldn't you just press the Home button to pause in between each one? Sure, but that doesn't change how much time I get to look at it and absorb what's on it, so thank goodness for screenshots! 4 minutes ago, Jotari said: Rhea's not an Emblem. And she's final boss of two routes. I wish I could remember my exact reasoning at the time for not counting her under "conventional". But I assure you I had one. 5 minutes ago, Jotari said: Yoon also just sounds silly. Big agree there. 5 minutes ago, Jotari said: Of course, he does have a skill alot like Gunther's, if I recall correctly, but without pair up you're not going to be fielding him for that alone He has the worst of the three steward skills by far. +5 crit is like nothing. +10 hit or avoid is way better. But of course they all pale compared to what Corrin's servants did for them. 7 minutes ago, Jotari said: Since Lyn brings her own bows and it's covert giving the range boost more so than the archer class, thieves feel like they could pull that niche better than archers, while also just being better all around. Ahh, but archers can BYOB (bring your own bows), and that's a big difference for maximizing the power of Astra Storm. Forged and engraved silver bows outstrip Mulagir by a lot. And then there's the fact that Alcryst has a chance to proc Luna on every individual hit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 Anti-Personnel Sub-Machine Bow... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Icelerate Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 With Brave Bow and Eirika emblem, Alcryst was strong enough to destroy end game armours. This was in hard mode though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: Presentation: There’s no fucking competition here, Engage is the new winner. Its combat animations are absolutely gorgeous, and it manages to fix enough flaws with its predecessor’s presentation everywhere else that the remaining hiccups it inherited simply do not matter in the slightest. I don’t want to retroactively take away points from previous games simply to keep every category in 7 point tiers… so I’m just gonna staple an extra category up top for Engage and mess around with the names of some of the ones immediately below: Characters still don't sit at tables though >.> 1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said: And for that… I bid you adieu. For a while, anyway. I’m going to take a month and a half off. Re-assess if I want to go back to this in May after a bit of a break from doing this every day. Because if I do… there are still places I haven’t gone. There are the Kaga Saga games, of course, but there are also games that need revisiting. Games I didn’t do on the highest difficulty. Still waiting for that TMA Playthrough! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 58 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: He has the worst of the three steward skills by far. +5 crit is like nothing. +10 hit or avoid is way better. But of course they all pale compared to what Corrin's servants did for them. Funnily enough, I find his personal actively detrimental to my early-game plans. From chapter 2-5, he's near mandatory as a brick wall, but his 5-10% crit has been very annoying in my efforts when I want to feed XP to some characters, like trying to feed Alear, Boucheron and Etie XP in my "Only characters I benched before" run and he just kills them instead of weakening them. He went and crit 3 times somehow in my recent chapter 3 playthrough, killing 2 soldiers and the boss when I only wanted to weaken her enough to feed Boucheron the kill. Vandar please. You get 2 XP from kills, stop stealing them. The Jagen is the one person you don't want killing by a 'lucky' crit, why is his personal +5 Crit when adjacent to Alear. I really wonder why they look at the personals of people like Pandreo ( +3 stacking Hit/Avoid per unit nearby? That's a lot when you are usually in squads of 3-4, and then there's enemies nearby too ), and then have Fogado and Bunet literally next to him. Ditto Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted March 17, 2023 Author Share Posted March 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, joeygreedy said: I really wonder why they look at the personals of people like Pandreo ( +3 stacking Hit/Avoid per unit nearby? That's a lot when you are usually in squads of 3-4, and then there's enemies nearby too ), and then have Fogado and Bunet literally next to him. Ditto Honestly I wish they'd lean more into stronger personal skills rather than weaker. What's the point of having them if they aren't going to make a meaningful, fun difference in how characters play? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Honestly I wish they'd lean more into stronger personal skills rather than weaker. What's the point of having them if they aren't going to make a meaningful, fun difference in how characters play? I like personals like Diamant. +15 to hit to both sounds bad, but his class comes with 2 weapon types, letting him exploit the break system, while also patching up his hit rates since his class caps dex at 22 or so. Alcryst, Etie and Alfred have similar effects in boosting their strength, but the triggers for all 3 are so vastly different in effectiveness ( And Alcryst happens on EP ) that is makes the other two pale in comparison. It's so odd. Ones like Lindon are also neat, letting him turn every lower tier weapon into a killer weapon is very cool, which enables off-builds like Critfishing Dire Lightning, or letting him be a physical unit when reclassed to a physical class wielding a Killer Axe ( C rank ). Hortensia's is the best personal in the game TBH, possibly behind Alear, but debatable. Meanwhile, stuff like Merrin, Timerra, Boucheron, Ivy is so hard to take advantage of in any meaningful way, they aren't bad, but a small boost like that is so hard to actively take advantage of, or notice in practice. Also, special mention to Goldmary and Rosado, just because it's hard to tell if a Corrupted is even a female enemy, they all look the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: As in you have less than a full player phase to take advantage of the opening. Okay, game. Honestly, you don't need a full player phase to take his ass down. 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Still, I managed to pull through with some pretty mediocre units fighting Idunn. The fact that Framme literally cannot ever die to a single round of combat is a great relief, to be sure. The power of Roy's emblem shinning through to make using Framme less scary. 5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Framme: 19B 14W. Most Used Emblem: Roy. While the fact that she got into more fights and got more kills than Vander must count for something, yeah, of all the units I used, she was by far the most mediocre. I think the only reason I didn’t bench her was because of Merrin and Louis’s deaths. I’m certain that if Merrin in particular hadn’t died, I’d have never kept Framme around this long. Still though, staff utility is staff utility, and she saved my ass in Chapter 11 when suddenly she was the only healer I had. And I’ll never take that away from her. Getting kills with Framme I find to be the way to show you are styling on the game 5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Etie: 15B 9W. Most Used Emblem: None. She was an early game archer. She did her job, which was to one-shot fliers. Beyond that, I didn’t really have much of a use for her. Would she have been good if I trained her? I’m not so sure. This isn’t really a game where archers are good so much as an archer is good. As in “it’s good to have an archer on your team to do crazy things with Lyn”. And why use Etie for that role when Alcryst does it better? Does Alcryst do a better job of doing crazy things with Lyn than Etie? She has higher strength growth, and a base strength only one below his, but with 4 chapters to overcome that, heck even her base promotion gives a higher strength bonus than Alcryst does. She does have noticeably worse Speed, but fixing speed issues is literally one of Lyn's big things. 5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: Panette: 3B 2W. Most Used Emblem: None. Panette is a character I’d be interested to be forced to use, if that makes sense. Like if I did a draft. She seems fun, but I just never had a place in my roster, or, apparently, in my heart, for a proper dedicated axe specialist. Panette is fun, as she is such a strength monster. How she play reminds me a lot of Conquest's Charlotte... 4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: …That’s the end of the game. I’m, uh… possessed of a madness, shall we say, to get this finished tonight. So I’m going to attempt it. I’ll post this first. Stay tuned. Congrats on completing Engage, although I am a bit surprise you decided to finish it now, instead of on Friday. 2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: There are the Kaga Saga games, of course, but there are also games that need revisiting. Games I didn’t do on the highest difficulty. I hope you do end up playing the Kaga Sagas at some point, but for now, take your deserved rest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 17 minutes ago, joeygreedy said: Also, special mention to Goldmary and Rosado, just because it's hard to tell if a Corrupted is even a female enemy, they all look the same. Given that the chapter you get them is the first chapter where you're really expected to fight a dragon, my immediate question was wether that dragon is male or female and wether there's any icon to indicate it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acacia Sgt Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 3 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Does Alcryst do a better job of doing crazy things with Lyn than Etie? She has higher strength growth, and a base strength only one below his, but with 4 chapters to overcome that, heck even her base promotion gives a higher strength bonus than Alcryst does. She does have noticeably worse Speed, but fixing speed issues is literally one of Lyn's big things. It was mentioned already, but he has Luna. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeygreedy Posted March 17, 2023 Share Posted March 17, 2023 3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said: But also, y’know, it’s just a clusterfuck of obscenely powerful abilities and also some ones where I question why they even exist, arts are just so comically difficult to make good, and Maddening mode in particular has made it plainly obvious that its unit balance is just all sorts of wrong. I've seen Arts being useful in exactly 2 circumstances. One is with Alear to quick-farm Engage meter ( 4x0 is still 4 gauge points ) or use Shielding Art to tank. The second is having somebody with decent spd, notably Chloe and Merrin, grabbing Eirika and using the combo of Blue Skies and Lunar Brace+ while engaged alongside Flashing Fist art (+5 spd ) and a Speed+ Inheritance to become a monstrously strong player phase unit capable of oneshotting any enemy regardless of enemy stats, via a combination of True Damage via Eirika's skills, speed via Flashing Fist art and an inheritable. It's only useful on player phase though, but then you can still do some amount of dodging via that speed, especially if you get an avoid engraving or an avoid skill or 2. ( Do you really want to dodgetank with a unit that takes full damage even while engaged with Eirika? ) It it a meme? Feels like it, but the payoff is cool enough. And uh, I guess Shielding Art might as well be stapled to your staffbots. They can break Tomes and Knifes, I guess? Setup for a warrior to kill the wolf knight or thief. Yeah most arts are pretty bad. The only 2 combat viable ones are Byleth's and Alears, because pure magic brave weapon are hilariously powerful. Even the Martial Master-Eirika combo is because of Eirika's power more than the class Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 On 2/8/2023 at 10:18 AM, Alastor15243 said: …Okay, so, Marni has an axe that’s magical and a smashing weapon. I uh… I question how many units are simultaneously axe-using, good with magic, and capable of withstanding one to two hits before dealing damage. At first blush this seems like the worst magical weapon in the entire series unless I’m forgetting a really, really stupid one. Like, even the shockstick was better than this. I'd say that is either PoR Bolt Axe or Aura Knuckles. On 2/8/2023 at 3:52 PM, Anathaco said: Yeah honestly using this weapon makes her such a non threat it’s not even funny Unless she gets close to a flier. On 2/10/2023 at 11:06 AM, Ether said: I definitely think that Yunaka(or Zelkov if he's your preferred thief flavour, but I think Yunaka is a better pick with investment) is the best holder of the Corrin ring. While Alear can use every terrain, I think Fog on a covert is consistently the most useful option anyway. Besides, Alear gets a bonus with every emblem, so it isn't like it's unique to Corrin. With the skills Corrin unlocks down the line, along with the stat spread favouring mitigating magic damage, which is the only thing that cuts through fog, it really just seems tailor-made for thieves. I prefer Pepsiman or mystical units, personally. LET'S BLAZE! On 2/10/2023 at 11:01 AM, Acacia Sgt said: Ephraim is just window dressing, I'm afraid. Makes you wonder why they even bothered. Also, while you can change to Ephraim, his skills are worse than Eirika's; Sol has fallen off a cliff since Awakening, so a weaker drain effect that requires initiating is gonna be lackluster. Blue Skies allows you to do more damage, but so does Lunar Brace. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted March 18, 2023 Author Share Posted March 18, 2023 11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said: Also, while you can change to Ephraim, his skills are worse than Eirika's; Sol has fallen off a cliff since Awakening, so a weaker drain effect that requires initiating is gonna be lackluster. Blue Skies allows you to do more damage, but so does Lunar Brace. Nah, I've found both consistently useful. I've started putting Eirika on Clanne and I like the results. Bravery is great when you need a bit of extra oomph for magic attacks, and the self-healing takes a good deal off of your healers' workload. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadow Mir Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 11 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said: Nah, I've found both consistently useful. I've started putting Eirika on Clanne and I like the results. Bravery is great when you need a bit of extra oomph for magic attacks, and the self-healing takes a good deal off of your healers' workload. Crud, forgot Blue Skies was the combination of Gentility and Bravery. Anyhoo... Lunar Brace also adds on damage, with it possibly surpassing Bravery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alastor15243 Posted March 18, 2023 Author Share Posted March 18, 2023 53 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said: Crud, forgot Blue Skies was the combination of Gentility and Bravery. Anyhoo... Lunar Brace also adds on damage, with it possibly surpassing Bravery. Yeah, but only on physical attacks, and given Eirika gives magic boosts, bravery still has plenty of use. Plus, now that SP is more plentiful with the well I just figured out the full utility of, getting bravery/gentility on multiple units could have some seriously interesting shenanigans behind it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samthedigital Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 On 3/16/2023 at 7:49 PM, Alastor15243 said: I have taken a fucking scalpel to objectively better stories than this. I have watched them like a hawk for the slightest weird detail and taken pleasure in roasting them for hours until the manuscript papers curled and blackened amidst the flames. How would you rate the story from a so bad it's good perspective? It definitely has moments; that's why I enjoyed it more than the 3DS entries personally, but it definitely doesn't lean on it nearly as much as I'd like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sunwoo Posted March 18, 2023 Share Posted March 18, 2023 (edited) Discussing story in a video game is always going to be a bit ... difficult, honestly. The primary goal of a video game is to entertain with gameplay, not the story, so I can understand people who don't care about story at all. Or would rate a game with bad story but good gameplay much higher than one with good story and so-so gameplay. I guess it really depends on what the individual person wants from a video game specifically. For example, I play Etrian Odyssey solely for the gameplay instead of story. For FE, I do have a harder time enjoying the game if I despise the characters I'm controlling the story. Which is part of the reason I never finished Conquest. I hated everyone and I wasn't enjoying the gameplay either. (I really don't know why everyone praises Conquest's gameplay, I really didn't find it any different from most FE games.) I guess story rating can always be placed as an asterisk, with a note that if you're the type of person who enjoys story in games this might be important for you but if you really don't care about the story it might not apply to you. Edited March 18, 2023 by Sunwoo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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