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Welp Ironman done. It wasn't pretty in the end, but beaten it was. Should have thought through endgame more, but I wanted to finish it tonight, so lots of death at the last possible moment...

As for this chapter I silenced all the warpers over the first two turns, and got all 6 perfect condition warp staff. Due to unit placement I couldn't warp any of my capturers/thief, so the troops had to walk, and the reinforcement showed up just in time to threaten my last few units leaving, they were threatening enough that I used rescue on Pan to not risk even the chance of death.

 

On 1/18/2020 at 10:36 AM, Espurrhoodie said:

Maybe she's one of Victor's many illegitimate children?

There is some additional information from the translation of some of the Treasure Special Column Designer Notes that makes that seem unlikely, but if this is the case it might explain this Of Chronos conundrum that @Jotari brought up. Arvis had Victor's mistresses thrown out into the cold, and their children either exiled, or demoted to servants, with the exception of Azel .

source: https://forums.serenesforest.net/index.php?/topic/14127-fe4-game-scripts-and-treasure-articles-translations/

If she was one of those that was exiled she may have made and home and built enough connections in Chronos to be known as of Chronos, and reminded everyone of her ties to Velthomer, when the Fire Emblem was flying high.

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20 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Welp Ironman done. It wasn't pretty in the end, but beaten it was. Should have thought through endgame more, but I wanted to finish it tonight, so lots of death at the last possible moment...

As for this chapter I silenced all the warpers over the first two turns, and got all 6 perfect condition warp staff. Due to unit placement I couldn't warp any of my capturers/thief, so the troops had to walk, and the reinforcement showed up just in time to threaten my last few units leaving, they were threatening enough that I used rescue on Pan to not risk even the chance of death.

Congrats! I hope it was fun!

 

 

 

Thracia Day 32: Chapter 22

Alright! So begins the final week of Thracia!

So I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to tackle this, now that I know about the “tripwire” events. However, let's check out the story to see if there's anything about this I'm missing...

...Oh for fuck's sake, this conversation with Saias is the most as-you-know-y thing I've heard in a while. It is an interesting backstory though. I just wish it were actually... a backstory.

Alright, so I did the blatantly obvious warp-skip strategy, and... I became very, very, very confused at the result. But before I can explain further, I need to restart so I can get some more stuff to prepare for the fact that the enemy has silence and berserk staves I completely forgot about. Of course, it doesn't help that yet again the boss who has the berserk staff isn't visible on the map until after you deploy, but I was using external resources, so I really should have noticed that. That's on me, but in normal situations it's still totally on the game.

Anyway...

So, the main strategy is to warp Olwen over to that one free space above Reinhardt, the one that's obviously open specifically so you can warp-rescue Olwen there and back to talk to him. This simultaneously gets you the special item Reinhardt has for her a pretty badass sword, and also instantly gets rid of Saias before he, his staves, or his ten leadership stars can do any grievous harm to your army. Knowing what I now know about Thracia's design philosophy, I refuse to believe this wasn't something that was intended to be done to solve this.

...The thing is, this prompts three conversations, and they're all terrible.

But let's start with the first dialogue scene: the one Olwen has with Reinhardt. We only see Reinhardt talk in this chapter, and he's only had one conversation prior to this at the beginning of it, where he expresses a naive and patronizing view that Olwen going to come right back to his side if he talks to her. Aside from what people tell us about how badass he is, this is the only insight we have into his character. And it's... kind of pathetic. I've transcribed their conversation below, because it's important to show you exactly what it says:

Olwen: Brother...! As soon as I saw the Gelbenritter were here, I knew you couldn't be far, my lord brother...

Reinhardt: It feels like a lifetime since we last saw each other... Thank the gods we were able to meet again.

Olwen: Brother... I...

Reinhardt: Come now, there will be time to tell about all that's happened once you're safe. Everyone will be so glad to see you again-- Every Friege worth a damn has been worried sick about you. Heh, I'm sure you have plenty of good stories to regale them with. Olwen... let's go back home together.

Olwen: Home... No, I cannot go back to Castle Friege. I can't show my face there until I help right the wrongs I helped commit, and rescue the children taken by the Loptians. Don't try to argue-- I've already made up my mind.

Reinhardt: Olwen, listen to what you're saying! We're family! You're my darling little sister! I couldn't bear to lose you!

Olwen: I'm more than just your little sister! I'm my own woman! This is the decision I came to after thinking it over on my own. I know what it means for me. I've prepared myself for the anguish it will bring. Not even the words of my own brother could sway my mind now.

Reinhardt: Then... then that makes us enemies. Do you have it in you to raise your blade against me, Olwen?

Olwen: If you stand in my way, brother, then... I have no choice.

Reinhardt: I see... so you really are serious about this... It's exactly as Bishop Saias said. You have indeed grown up. That's clear to me now. You've become a formidable woman, Olwen. I'm proud of you. This is the last time I'll be able to treat you as my little sister, and not as my enemy. But as your older brother, I have one last gift for you.

Olwen: This is...?! I recognize this sword! It's your most prize possession, Brother!

Reinhardt: A token of better days... Princess Ishtar gave me that sacred blade, but I've no need for it now. You can put it to better use.

Olwen: But why? I know how important it is to you.

Reinhardt: That's... That's none of your concern! Now ride back to your army, Olwen! The next time we meet on the battlefield, I'll show you no mercy, sister of mine or no! Am I clear?!

...

...Fuck this conversation.

This conversation is such a surreal and bizarre failure in so many ways. Not for what it does. What it does is fine. The problem is what it doesn't do.

It doesn't explain why the fuck Reinhardt is siding with the empire.

There isn't even any discussion on this point. No attempt to persuade him to join the rebels. Not even the benefit of the doubt that he could possibly not know about the horrific things the empire does that caused her to defect in the first place. Pay attention to these lines here:

Olwen: Home... No, I cannot go back to Castle Friege. I can't show my face there until I help right the wrongs I helped commit, and rescue the children taken by the Loptians. Don't try to argue-- I've already made up my mind.

Reinhardt: Olwen, listen to what you're saying! We're family! You're my darling little sister! I couldn't bear to lose you!

Look at that. No reaction from Reinhardt when she mentions the empire and the Loptians kidnapping innocent children. Not the slightest shock at that. And it wasn't even phrased in a way that would suggest she suspected it to. She seems to go into this conversation fully aware that he knew about the truth of the child hunts when she didn't, and that he's siding with the empire anyway. I guess that logically makes sense. It initially seemed a bit weird to me that she would not know about something but assume that somebody else does know, but given their difference in rank in the Friegian army, I quickly realized it's a reasonable assumption to make.

But the thing is... why did this not result in an argument? Why has she so thoroughly given up on her brother, without even having talked to him, that she doesn't even try to convince him that what he's doing is wrong? I'm not talking about this from a “this is a stupid decision on the character's part” perspective. I'm talking about the narrative here. The simple act of having this conversation would have given us so much more insight into his character!

We are seeing a character for the first time, and we are indirectly informed, by reading between the lines, that Reinhardt knows that the people he's working for are kidnapping and murdering children, and he doesn't care. In fact, he cares so little about this that he genuinely believes that his little sister is being a silly, irrational, rebellious child for turning traitor, and thinks merely talking to her and just saying “we're family” is going to convince her to fight for his side again. And Olwen knows her brother so well that she is completely resigned to the fact that convincing her brother to fight for what's right is utterly out of the question.

WHY!?

I'm not saying this as an insult, I genuinely, desperately want to know the answer to this fucking question! Why the fuck is Reinhardt like this!? I am intrigued! I am fascinated! Normal people, people capable of having genuine loving family bonds, don't become this utterly apathetic to the kidnapping and murder of innocent children without a massive amount of personal, cultural and societal context, and I want to learn what the fuck that context is! What made Reinhardt like this? Is he so engrained in Friegian pride that he refuses to betray his country no matter what it does or what it lets happen? Does the fact that he's giving Olwen his favorite sword and says he “no longer needs it” after being fired by Ishtar mean he's disillusioned and suicidal like Birthright Xander, and he's trying to kill himself on the battlefield to salvage his honor? I want to know! I want a tenth of the first clue!

...But unless there's some big conversation later... I won't learn that.

...Jesus Christ. The remake is gonna have a lot of work to do here. Especially given how crazy popular Reinhardt has become.

Reinhardt is just such an underdeveloped character. In fairness, given how little screentime he has, and how Olwen isn't even a major character in the story, maybe he was never meant to be well-developed. Maybe he's just a boss who happens to be related to a minor character, and maybe I'm judging him to too high a standard because he's such a big FE name now. But if he wasn't meant to be a big character, then he should have had simpler, clearer motivations. I just can't make heads or tails of Reinhardt at all here, and this isn't the kind of thing that's remotely fun to not know.

But enough about him. Let's move on to the rest of why I don't like the writing of this chapter, right after I talk about the stuff I do before it gets triggered.

There's a lot of staff use going on in this first turn. First and foremost, I silence the silencer with Sarah, for a net gain of 2 silence uses, and since she has a bunch of scrolls (Specifically Hezul and every single one that boosts defense, for a total of a 50% growth boost), she gets a fantastic level up with HP, magic, speed, skill, luck, and defense.

I also have Tina use a magic ring and then get danced and ensorceled so that she can steal the berserk staff from the boss. I notice that the thief staff, in contrast to other such staves, doesn't say it can't be used on people on gates or thrones.

Now, what weirds me out is that for a game that goes out of its way to make me think that warp-skipping is entirely intended and accounted for... the writing here surprisingly doesn't. Warp and rescue a single unit onto that one space above Reinhardt, and not only does the enemy then spring its trap while talking as if the enemy is now trapped on the other side of the river when literally nobody's there yet, but then the boss, Saias's grandfather, then completely panics and warps Saias away as if the enemy were right on top of them. Granted, seeing that the enemy can send people anywhere at will would probably justify this panic anyway, but that's not remotely what the dialogue suggests. The second I warp someone to talk to Reinhardt and back, he's all “The battle is lost! Now get out of here, you must live on!”

...I mean, he's right, in a sense. I think this opening gambit really has taken care of any chance they had of winning, but... it's still pretty hilariously dumb in-story behavior.

Anyway, beginning of turn two, I ensorcel Nanna, and confirm that ensorcel stacks with the flame sword, giving her a whopping 22 magic, enough to put Reinhardt to sleep. Which I do.

And like that, with Saias gone and Reinhardt asleep, that's 15 of their 20 leadership stars gone in two turns.

...Or... not. Apparently leadership stars still work even if you're asleep. That... puts a serious damper on my plans. I was hoping to use this opportunity to level up Sarah, due to how crucial she's going to be in 24x. I don't want her to still be a fragile stack of twigs by the time I get there. I was going to warp her across the bridge onto a fort, and have her just slaughter and dodgetank the enemies. I might still be able to do that, but it's probably going to require me to change up my equipment a tad. Lemme try it out at least.

...Nnnnnnope! That's a negative. If I'm still deadset on training Sarah, I'll have to come up with a new idea.

Alright, I think I came up with a better idea, but quick aside: apparently, if you proc your movement stars and are then danced for, you can proc your movement stars again. Funny, I didn't think it worked like that. I assumed it was like galeforce. That technically means it's possible to act six times in a single turn if you're really lucky with both the unit's and Lara's movement stars.

Anyway, I brought all of my leadership star units, outfitted Leif with the Kingmaker, and then had him rescue Sarah, get danced and warped onto the two fortresses, and then drop her off beside him. Same scenario as last time, but now she has 32 more hit and evade, as well as an ally to back her up and store her excess tomes. With any luck she should steamroll like crazy, level up enough to promote, and then be unstoppable. Meanwhile I'll have the rest of my team take care of the enemies on this side of the river, and steal that second Paragon Sword and the staves from the three magic users I had Sarah silence for exp before warping.

Also, I stole blizzard from the boss too. I figure I might as well, I've barely been using the thief staff, and those are exactly the sorts of things I'd want to use the thief staff for, and not an actual thief. Things too heavy to steal.

For reasons I find utterly unfathomable, some of the enemies find Leif a better target than the squishy mage right next to him. Not all of them though. I guess he really does have some kind of weird non-absolute higher priority.

Anyway, it works like a charm, and she makes it through the whole round unscathed. She leveled up once for every attack, gaining some great levels, including a move level, and now she's super close to promoting. After that... I don't think anything's gonna be able to hurt her.

Leif got another movement level too. Oh holy shit do I hope I don't have to restart this.

And now Nanna can use rewarp staves! I am going to have some fun with her later.

...And of course I have to make a foolish mistake halfway through the map by advancing while the ballistae are still fully loaded, without even having Leif and his 20 evasion boost in range. Cue me scrambling to do shit like rewarping Nanna over to aura boost her and placing other tempting targets in the way of the ballista, all to maximize my chances of this not fucking over my entire attempt of this map. She's not in that much danger thanks to her 15-ish luck and miracle, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna try and coast on that when things have gone this insanely well.

And she survived! Not only that, but her defense has absolutely snowballed to the point it's looking like she's gonna cap it. She's currently a better combat unit than Asbel, and I've only seriously trained her for one map! And I haven't even been taking it slowly or abusing reinforcements!

...Said abuse and taking it slow will be inevitable though, as it's about time for the reinforcements to show up, and I'm not quite ready to assault the castle safely. Also, I haven't gotten to looting the west side of the river yet. I've been having Callion bait out the ballistae because it's just way too dangerous for anyone else to approach that until they're gone, and I want someone who can do all of it at once. He'll probably be fatigued, but that won't be a problem. I've got plenty of badass units by this point, and if all else fails, Leif can do most of the things he can do.

...Hold the phone... since Sarah promoted, she can rewarp now.

...So it looks like now I have three, soon to be four next chapter, badass rewarp users.

Oh holy shit is this gonna be fun.

I feel like I did when I started warp-skipping and Marth-and-Xane soloing everything in Dark Dragon, though not quite to the same degree. But I am indeed experiencing that feeling of suddenly being able to at least have a bunch of mindless, stupid, childish fun with a game that had previously made me pull my hair out. Thracia is nowhere near as bad as Dark Dragon, to be clear, for all its numerous faults, but it's a similar kind of feeling.

And I had an insanely big scare when I thought for a second that Nanna was going to die. She was suddenly targeted by two of the remaining iron ballista users, including one that had never once targeted her over all the turns it had the opportunity to. She nearly died, but she thankfully dodged a 50%, and was one space shy of the movement range of the incoming ambush spawns.

Infuriatingly, Sarah has been stubbornly refusing to level that one last point of defense for the past 5 levels or so, at a more than 50% growth.

Finally the reinforcements subside, so I can at long last get rid of that additional global +30% to hit rate from Reinhardt and the boss, and capture those guys holding out to the southwest with all the cool loot that I've been afraid to try and capture.

It suddenly occurs to me right after I sent Sarah to fight the boss that I just killed Saias's grandpa when I probably could have spared him.

...Well.

...Now I feel like shit.

But apparently Saias will join me anyway, and even if he doesn't I wasn't planning on keeping him, so... doesn't make me feel enough like shit to restart.

I unfortunately couldn't get the Paragon Sword because Olwen accidentally critted him when I was trying to soften him up. I was aware that was a possibility and I accepted it, because I considered it a more likely chance of success than trying to take him out with nothing but capturing while one of the ballistae was still active from being out of reach of baiting before. But now the way is clear to take out all of the remaining enemies and claim the rewards.

Yet another house where villagers are using insanely rare and valuable staves for utterly trivial peasant work, in this case warping chickens back when they get loose.

Two things: 1, that use of the warp staff is definitely more valuable than those chickens are, and 2, that implies it can be used on unwilling targets, which obviously it can't. Only the Fates entrap staff can do that. There's really no point in complaining about this, since it has no bearing on the game's writing score due to being the translators' work, but I just felt the need to point it out.

Alright, finishing up, I buy a shitton of door keys (roughly 9, just to be on the safe side), and also I buy four tomes of Lightning so that Sarah can train up to be able to use Nosferatu, just to really cement her badassery. It cuts into my funds a good deal, but I looked up what's in the secret shop. It's... not worth saving too much for.

And... we're clear.

Honestly, yet again, this map didn't have anything to offer beyond the initial Thracia shenanigans, shenanigans it once again guaranteed could be so thoroughly trivialized with the warp staff that they're practically pointless. Nearly all the challenge after that came from trying to level up an initially vulnerable unit of mine. But one life ring and a good second turn later, even that challenge was gone. I could have cleared this insanely fast if I were just focusing on my already- strong units.

This game really does have the pinnacle of fake difficulty. Almost none of Thracia's late-game challenges have any staying power whatsoever once the player puts two and two together that they're supposed to warp abuse to clear them. It's kind of sad, actually. I almost miss when the game was/felt outrageously unfair. Now I think I get why Mekkah feels it's so important to go in at least mostly blind: outside of speedruns, none of the game's challenge actually survives contact with even the most rudimentary hindsight.

Well, anyway, at least we can make the most of it by cheesing the game with a bunch of outrageously broken units.

Tune in tomorrow, and we'll apparently get Ced!

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Agreed that Reinhardt is shortchanged, thats what happens when you only get one speaking part in the entire game. More talking won't inherently make you better as a character, but for certain FEs and individuals, increasing their dearth of dialogue- and thus screentime in general- would greatly help. Bryce, Gale, Reinhardt, Murdock, to name a few that I think could simply use more words (ideally well-written words).

 

I tried conventionally fighting through the enemies in this chapter, but the reinforcements were too strong for me. They ganged up on my pretty strong Osian and managed via lots of chips to kill him. Instead, I had to resort to warpskip. But not before I Thief Staff'ed Berserk and used it on Reinhardt, here is video of what can happen:

 

 

Also, don't leave anything in Saias's or Ced's inventories next chapter when you end it. I think I left some captured staffs in Ced's inventory, only for them to be gone the next. It was odd I thought.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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Actually Reinhardt does have one small appearance outside of this chapter. He shows up briefly at the start of Chapter 20 to talk to the boss about storming Leinster. We also get a nice reference to Ishtore having died and how it must be weighing on Bloom in that scene. I like Bloom 😞

Edited by Jotari
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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

We only see Reinhardt talk in this chapter, and he's only had one conversation prior to this at the beginning of it, where he expresses a naive and patronizing view that Olwen going to come right back to his side if he talks to her.

Reinhardt also talks in 17a when Saias leaves. Him and Ishtar talk the bishop into returning with them to Conote to look after a mysteriously ill Julius.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I'm not saying this as an insult, I genuinely, desperately want to know the answer to this fucking question! Why the fuck is Reinhardt like this!? I am intrigued! I am fascinated! Normal people, people capable of having genuine loving family bonds, don't become this utterly apathetic to the kidnapping and murder of innocent children without a massive amount of personal, cultural and societal context, and I want to learn what the fuck that context is! What made Reinhardt like this? Is he so engrained in Friegian pride that he refuses to betray his country no matter what it does or what it lets happen? Does the fact that he's giving Olwen his favorite sword and says he “no longer needs it” after being fired by Ishtar mean he's disillusioned and suicidal like Birthright Xander, and he's trying to kill himself on the battlefield to salvage his honor? I want to know! I want a tenth of the first clue!

Reinhardt remains an interesting enigma as there are two explanations that hold some water, but are never fully explored. The first being that hinted at Friegan pride, I seem to remember in game it mention once that many of the common folk call him the second coming of Thrud, the crusader that founded Freiga, and Augustus and Dorius even have an argument over whether he is admirable and honorable for his knightly loyalty, or the scum of the earth for doing so while supporting the empire and its monstrous actions (I think these are B route events, but I don't precisely remember). The other being his loyalty and trust of Ishtar. There are quite a few hints throughout that he cares about Ishtar, from that very conversation, the talk between Julius and Ishtar where Julius has to banish him from her presence, and she begs Julius not to kill Reinhardt, I seem to remember 16a and 17a mention him being with Ishtar during the battles. Plus there is the scene they share with Saias in 17a where they bring the bishop to look after a mysterious illness Julius came down with, because she doesn't trust the Loptians, but does trust Saias (and presumably her conspirator Reinhardt).

As for my ironman I warp-rescued Olwen to talk and then berserked Reinhardt. He had some bad luck against the ballista, so I ended up having to thief staff both the berserk and siege tome from the boss to deal with him surviving. Also spent the last of my money on keys just in case...

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19 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Reinhardt also talks in 17a when Saias leaves. Him and Ishtar talk the bishop into returning with them to Conote to look after a mysteriously ill Julius.

 

Reinhardt remains an interesting enigma as there are two explanations that hold some water, but are never fully explored. The first being that hinted at Friegan pride, I seem to remember in game it mention once that many of the common folk call him the second coming of Thrud, the crusader that founded Freiga, and Augustus and Dorius even have an argument over whether he is admirable and honorable for his knightly loyalty, or the scum of the earth for doing so while supporting the empire and its monstrous actions (I think these are B route events, but I don't precisely remember). The other being his loyalty and trust of Ishtar. There are quite a few hints throughout that he cares about Ishtar, from that very conversation, the talk between Julius and Ishtar where Julius has to banish him from her presence, and she begs Julius not to kill Reinhardt, I seem to remember 16a and 17a mention him being with Ishtar during the battles. Plus there is the scene they share with Saias in 17a where they bring the bishop to look after a mysterious illness Julius came down with, because she doesn't trust the Loptians, but does trust Saias (and presumably her conspirator Reinhardt).

As for my ironman I warp-rescued Olwen to talk and then berserked Reinhardt. He had some bad luck against the ballista, so I ended up having to thief staff both the berserk and siege tome from the boss to deal with him surviving. Also spent the last of my money on keys just in case...

I think that Dorias August convo you're referring to is about Xavier, not Reinhardt. As for Ishtar, he has already been effectively banished from her presence at this point so that wouldn't really be much justification. My personal interpretation of his relationship with her is that it's exactly as it seems and he is nothing but her trusted bodyguard, which is still enough to fuel Julius's paranoia.

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24 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think that Dorias August convo you're referring to is about Xavier, not Reinhardt. As for Ishtar, he has already been effectively banished from her presence at this point so that wouldn't really be much justification. My personal interpretation of his relationship with her is that it's exactly as it seems and he is nothing but her trusted bodyguard, which is still enough to fuel Julius's paranoia.

I think I was mixing up when it happened, as the conversation I was thinking of took place in 11x, not in the B route, but Dorias and August also have a similar style argument over Xavier, only in reverse (with Dorias despising Xavier the traitor for his treachery, and August defending him for his more practical concerns). As for Ishtar, they never make it particularly clear, I never personally thought there was anything romantic between them, although I have seen enough theories to hint at the possibilty. Personally I always thought the scene when the reinforcements arrive in 17a (where the one Reinhardt left in charge has to defend Reinhardt's decision not to lead his troops personally), and when him and Ishtar convince Saias to join them at Conote always made it seem like Reinhardt was conspiring with Ishtar to try and change the empire from within, and he is willing to suffer any consequences, even death or disgrace, to see Ishtar's ambitions come to pass.

Edited by Eltosian Kadath
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10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It doesn't explain why the fuck Reinhardt is siding with the empire.

Because he loves Ishtar. And the Knight honor and stuff that old FE loves so much to fetishize

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This game really does have the pinnacle of fake difficulty.

Yup. Outside the surprise stuff, the game is really pretty damn easy.

Edited by Shrimperor
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And this is why Camus is the consistently worst written Archetype. They are cool as long as you shut your brain off and enjoy the tragedy, but as soon as you ask yourself "why this heroic knight in shining armor is supporting genocide and tyranny?" Things start to fall apart.

They are basically D&D paladins played by a very bad player that interpret Lawful Good as Lawful Stupid. 

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7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Agreed that Reinhardt is shortchanged, thats what happens when you only get one speaking part in the entire game. More talking won't inherently make you better as a character, but for certain FEs and individuals, increasing their dearth of dialogue- and thus screentime in general- would greatly help. Bryce, Gale, Reinhardt, Murdock, to name a few that I think could simply use more words (ideally well-written words).

 

I tried conventionally fighting through the enemies in this chapter, but the reinforcements were too strong for me. They ganged up on my pretty strong Osian and managed via lots of chips to kill him. Instead, I had to resort to warpskip. But not before I Thief Staff'ed Berserk and used it on Reinhardt, here is video of what can happen:

 

 

Also, don't leave anything in Saias's or Ced's inventories next chapter when you end it. I think I left some captured staffs in Ced's inventory, only for them to be gone the next. It was odd I thought.

Fascinating! Enemies attack berserked enemies in this game?

Edited by Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Flere210 said:

And this is why Camus is the consistently worst written Archetype. They are cool as long as you shut your brain off and enjoy the tragedy, but as soon as you ask yourself "why this heroic knight in shining armor is supporting genocide and tyranny?" Things start to fall apart.

They are basically D&D paladins played by a very bad player that interpret Lawful Good as Lawful Stupid. 

It's far more realistic than people give it credit for. Not everyone fighting for an evil nation is an evil person. And betraying your nation and giving up everything you have ever known plus killing your comrades is no easy task.

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36 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's far more realistic than people give it credit for. Not everyone fighting for an evil nation is an evil person. And betraying your nation and giving up everything you have ever known plus killing your comrades is no easy task.

Most truly good people would get themselves killed, hide or eventually join a rebellion. I suppose commiting suicide by enemies is realistic for people in that situation tho.

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16 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Most truly good people would get themselves killed, hide or eventually join a rebellion. I suppose commiting suicide by enemies is realistic for people in that situation tho.

It's a very naive way of seeing the world. I hope it's not a choice you ever have to face.

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15 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Most truly good people would get themselves killed, hide or eventually join a rebellion. I suppose commiting suicide by enemies is realistic for people in that situation tho.

This is kinda adorable. Keep living in whatever staggeringly sheltered way that lets you believe your government hasn't/isn't doing something monstrously evil, as no one here wants you to commit suicide, or die in a rebellion.

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37 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's a very naive way of seeing the world. I hope it's not a choice you ever have to face.

No, it's that imo you already stop being good if you do certain things. Full stop. Mind you that i consider myself evil for nothing more than evil toughts, so it's just that i have very high standards of what a "good person" is. 

I am not saying that you should not comply whit an evil givernment, i am saying that doing so makes you "not good" wich can coexist whit "not evil" in the same person.

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2 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

No, it's that imo you already stop being good if you do certain things. Full stop. Mind you that i consider myself evil for nothing more than evil toughts, so it's just that i have very high standards of what a "good person" is. 

I am not saying that you should not comply whit an evil givernment, i am saying that doing so makes you "not good" wich can coexist whit "not evil" in the same person.

Fine. Then Camus are 'not good'. They are realistic though.

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2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Fine. Then Camus are 'not good'. They are realistic though.

They would if the game is a little bit nuanced. But it is not.

The camus are not simply decent people, they are outright virtous, and the empire they serve usually is not just corrupt, or even just tyrannical it's cartoonishly and mustache twirling evil. Often it has the end/enslavement of humanity as the stated end goal. "Good" people serving "evil" government is realistic to an extent, but not if both the good and the evil part are extremized to the point of unrealism themselves.

I can justify someone that serve something like that because they don't know what it is(Selena not knowing of Fomortiis), because the alternatives are even worse or because they can't chose otherwise(for what i remember, Camus himself already exposed himself before the game, so be was too controlled to try anything else), but this is often not the case whit the Camuses. They know exactly what they are serving, and usually they have an out at some point and refuse to take it.

 

The argument i can concede some of them is that losing the war mean the end of the country they swore to serve, wich is the absolute worst case scenario for them(Eldigan and arguably Xander may fit this), but even that must be weighted againist the fact that the entity they serve is going to end their country anyway. Reinhardt is imo in this boat, because while it's likely that Seliph and Leif won't be kind whit Fregia, this don't compare to what an awakened Loptyr would do to the same country. 

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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

It's far more realistic than people give it credit for. Not everyone fighting for an evil nation is an evil person. And betraying your nation and giving up everything you have ever known plus killing your comrades is no easy task.

Laughs in Roger

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Thracia Day 33: Chapter 23

...I just noticed that the background pattern for the character stat screen doesn't repeat itself properly and leaves this ugly, obvious seam line like 7 times on the page.

Alright, so, I've mostly gotten things sorted out, but let's just false-start deploy as usual to see the story and check if I'm missing any details...

...What, Ced can read people's souls with the power of wind? That's... an extremely bizarre power to introduce for the first time by bringing it up in passing.

So, this is yet another chapter that becomes ridiculous if you don't have warp handy. The road to the castle is way, way too long to get to the children, or Saias, in time without warping.

On the bright side, Leif's theme is playing! Sweet! It isn't exclusive to a chapter where it doesn't remotely fit!

So, yet again, the main issue is taking out all the status staff users. The only issue with that is that I can't take the silence staff on the boss without Lithis, but I also want him to steal the flame sword.

...I suppose I could always reset-scum for his 10% movement star proc and get him to do both at once on turn one before being rescued away...

...Yeah, that would be way better than having to use warp and rescue twice just to do some petty thievery.

Honestly, this is the main problem with giving the player the power to do so damned much on the first turn and then front-loading all of the difficulty into what can be accomplished there. They can just keep re-rolling that first turn until they get the best outcome, and then the rest is a cakewalk.

And then when you throw in the turnwheel, even if it isn't a cakewalk, giving the player the chance for an insanely impactful lucky first move is almost guaranteed to trivialize difficulty for the patient player.

And I finally got it to work after multiple resets. I feel kinda cheap doing it, but hey, you gotta put some pressure on the cracks to really feel how big of a weak point they are. I can imagine the existence of these things must be an absolute pain in the ass for LTCers, knowing there's some hypothetical perfect clear much, much faster than what they can realistically manage that happens if you get a ton of movement star procs. That would drive me nuts, personally.

Alright, since there really isn't much to do in this level besides visit those villages in ambush spawn range of a thief, talk to Saias and recruit Ced, I think I'm gonna warp-skip this one.

I would send in Leif right away, but I'm not sure if Ced's Forseti is gonna have infinite durability like it had last chapter. I'd hate for him to be considered a higher priority target than Leif and for me to have to watch him wasting a lot of its uses. So I'm sending a rewarping Asbel in first, then I'll warp in Leif to talk to Saias and rush for the gate while we grab the last houses. I'll also probably need to have Ced hold off the dracoknights while we disarm the ballistae with brute force to send Dean in to steal the staves from the two mages in the pit.

...Apparently I was mistaken, and anyone warping in to the main area will trigger Ced taking over the castle. Thankfully he doesn't seem to be too tempting a target for the guards.

And Asbel reached A rank in wind, just in time for the final gauntlet of indoor chapters where having blizzard will probably be very, very handy!

The dragon knight reinforcements surprisingly (and thankfully) didn't arrive, maybe because Ced already captured the building before they're supposed to lie in wait.

Alright, I'm mostly done. The reinforcements are annoying, but I should be able to get out of here with little fuss. I started visiting the villages, and one of the villagers implies by the wording of his line that five uses isn't supposed to be the maximum a physic staff can have, and that it's supposed to have more. Apparently, Hammerne be damned, all of the physic staves I've been stealing have been used. Honestly, I wish the villager dialogue of this translation didn't play so fast and loose with the lore and tone of this game.

I got Bragi's Blade, and it suddenly occurs to me that it's Bragi, and not Heim, who this sword is tied to. Weird. I kind of got them mixed up and assumed it was simply a sword also infused with Naga's power. But no, apparently this is a wholly unrelated sword that explicitly belonged to Bragi.

...Which makes me wonder what class Bragi was. Was he a male troubadour? Are there even any male classes in the Jugdral games capable of wielding both swords and staves? I can't think of any at the moment, except...?

...No, I'm pretty sure the only option is Master Knight. I guess Bragi was a Master Knight! That's one awesome priest!

But anyway, if it's not Naga's power coursing through this sword, then what the hell is it, and why is it able to pierce the Loptian Fang's defenses? Is the Loptian Fang not even connected to Loptous at all? If so, then why the hell can't Forseti even scratch the wielder!? How can it be that powerful if it's just fancy black magic!?

Anyway... apparently these children don't give you anything for saving them. Which is nice, because they're damned near impossible to save. I'm not gonna just let them all die though.

...Just some of them. I'm not springing for a warp staff use when they'll probably just run straight towards another dark magic ambush spawn and make It a waste of time on a map I really, really don't want to have to reset.

Thankfully the dark mages just capture them, and don't kill them. So I don't even have to watch them die.

I just finished up. The Bragi sword is safely in the convoy, the villages have been visited, Saias's inventory has been unloaded into a rewarping Safiya, Dean stole both of the sleep staves, Ced's been recruited and his (mostly) intact Forseti tome is in Asbel's hands just in case what I heard about Ced's inventory is true as well, and now Leif's gonna seize. And just for good measure, right before I do, I have Dean use that dragon lance he's never gonna be able to use again to kill the guy who took one of the kids. So now they're all free!

That's weird. Saias flashed on the screen in the final conversation, then faded out super briefly and showed up again. I have to assume that's some graphical bug relating to the situational optional conversations here.

I feel like a broken record, but yet again this offered absolutely no challenge after dealing with the initial staff nonsense. It's like it's literally the only way this game knows how to be hard anymore, and I'm insanely disappointed about that. This game had real difficulty early on, but like I said, it peaked in Chapter 6 and I haven't felt like an outmanned and outgunned resistance fighter since like chapter 7. And now in the late game it's gotten frankly ridiculous with this massive warp-skip fetish. I was considering begrudgingly giving this game the top current spot on the difficulty ranking up until around a week or two ago, despite all my complaints about fake difficulty, because those complaints belonged in usability and ironmannability, and I believed at the time that this game still had the most real difficulty mixed in with the bullshit. But I'm starting to feel my ironman run of FE4 was more genuinely engaging than this. It's turned into another Mystery of the Emblem, where the further I go in the less genuinely difficult it gets.

...Of course, that changed somewhat towards the very end of Mystery.

...Will history repeat itself?

...Let's see.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So, this is yet another chapter that becomes ridiculous if you don't have warp handy. The road to the castle is way, way too long to get to the children, or Saias, in time without warping.

Eh its not as bad as it seems. As long as Saias avoids the edge of the cliff he will be fine as he can outrun the kids, and the enemies will simply capture them, so your flyers and siege tomes can deal with all of the half stat capturers.
 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...No, I'm pretty sure the only option is Master Knight. I guess Bragi was a Master Knight! That's one awesome priest!

Baron is another possibility. There are a lot more female classes from Genealogy that can pull this off.

 

On my iron man I extra cheesed it by having Saias activate Ced's arrival, and rescued him home. Even had a little luck with a move star on Asvel, so he could blizzard sleep the flame sword boss before he kills himself on Ced like the rest of the enemies (could have done the same with a dance, but I lowmanned this one a bit to make sure I had my most useful troops fresh for the last bit of the game). The sleep staff and some bad luck with the reinforcements made things a little scary looking, but I warped Lief in to recruit Ced, and had just enough time for Eda to grab the flame sword, and Ced to get one of the sleep staff before Lief seized.

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What I find particularly cool about this chapter is that it adheres to canon and reuses the same boss as in Genealogy of the Holy War for the Thracians. It legitmately feels like you're playing out the same conflict in a different game. Real shame chapter 21 didn't pull this. Although for some reason Coruta went from looking like this generic guy

Portrait coulter fe04.png

to this generic guy. Who is as equally as uninspired but in no way visually similar.

Portrait coulter fe05.png

Makes me wonder what he'll look like in a remake. Either they'll choose him to be the one unit that keeps the most common generic designs in either game, or he'll manage to be a really minor boss who ends up getting three different designs.

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Genealogy the most difficulty? Last time i played it i basically  ironmanned it whitout even doing an ironman. I guess it only become that easy once you know where the curveballs are and optimize the children.

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39 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Genealogy the most difficulty? Last time i played it i basically  ironmanned it whitout even doing an ironman. I guess it only become that easy once you know where the curveballs are and optimize the children.

The difficulty rating has a lot more to do with the game having the right kinds of challenges. Simply being extremely hard isn't going to get you anywhere on that ranking, the game has to be hard for the right reasons, demanding skill and planning and on-your-toes thinking. None of the games so far have really been truly difficult for the right reasons, which has been making the difficulty rating... really hard to quantify. In fact, all of the contestants are so close together that I might be re-ordering them at some point, but the reason why Genealogy is on top is that despite it not being particularly hard, it's the cleanest experience so far, and generally free of bullshit and nonsense masquerading as difficulty, like ambush spawns or gotcha traps, or playing the entire game under the perpetual looming Sword of Damocles that is the un-resistable crit rate in the NES games.

Edit: My mistake, I mis-remembered my list. I actually put Book 2 on top of difficulty for various reasons. Man, the more games I pile on here, the harder it is to make a clear and distinct list of which is better in which category. I think difficulty might, fittingly, be the hardest  category to determine.

Edited by Alastor15243
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