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

[Shrimpica]

Huh. I thought for sure you would complain about the reinforcements in this chapter, considering they almost made me drop the game. They warp in (at set places, i later found out) and attack at the same turn.

Appearing in the middle of you army and one shotting your dancer is not fun.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Shrimperor

[Alastor15243]

8 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Huh. I thought for sure you would complain about the reinforcements in this chapter, considering they almost made me drop the game. They warp in (at set places, i later found out) and attack at the same turn.

Appearing in the middle of you arm and one shotting your dancer is not fun.

I've given up on complaining about them. The game has thoroughly established it's garbage about those, so I scan a guide to see when and where they spawn every chapter. I kept my weaker units out of the way of them. It is incredibly shitty, but this game won "least ironmannable Fire Emblem game forever" weeks ago.

[Flere210]

The only things remotely hard in Genealogy are canto spam, balista spam, and Ishtar. 

Personally i consider the latter two cheap as fuck. But then, i'd rather have the worst bullshit imaginable than a  "move Jeigan to the max distance and press end turn" map. 

[Interdimensional Observer]

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

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.

This is supposed to be the events that unfold in Genealogy C8 after seizing Connaught, civilians fleeing Manster happened then, so it was replicated for this. 

 

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Appearing in the middle of you army and one shotting your dancer is not fun.

Or in my case, Dagdar. He could survive a hit, but Jormungdar being very heavy meant he had enough AS to trigger Charge/Accost/Confront/NoA Give Us An Official Name Finally!. I very much appreciate that TearRing and Berwick Sagas changed this into a command skill, so it'll only trigger when you want it.

 

 

Binding Blade is going to be something of a sea change next week. No more to so much gameplay complexity stuff, but now enemies will be very strong. The sad thing is, that status staffs are staying and the Thracia strat of counterstaffing won't be viable, fixing the status with Restore is so less fun and much more bothersome. Same-turn reinforcements staying will also bite, but it takes a while before FE6 gets bad with these.

[Shrimpica]

31 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

but it takes a while before FE6 gets bad with these.

What'shisname Edgymyrmidon appears pretty early iirc. One of the worst ambush spawns in the series, if not the worst.

32 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

but Jormungdar being very heavy meant he had enough AS to trigger Charge/Accost/Confront/NoA Give Us An Official Name Finally!.

Big OOF. 

Accost + Ballista is also very annoying

[Boomhauer007]

After like 10 weeks of making my way through this topic killing time at work, I finally hit the end. It's almost surreal, and you aren't even a third of the way through the series lol. It's been a good read though, especially games 1-3 which I never played. 

I think I remember this coming up earlier, but are you going to do 6 on normal or hard? Such vastly different experiences. 

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Boomhauer007 said:

After like 10 weeks of making my way through this topic killing time at work, I finally hit the end. It's almost surreal, and you aren't even a third of the way through the series lol. It's been a good read though, especially games 1-3 which I never played. 

I think I remember this coming up earlier, but are you going to do 6 on normal or hard? Such vastly different experiences. 

Oh hey! I've been seeing you on the "recently browsing" list at the bottom every once in a while, great to hear what you think about it!

I've been thinking that I'll do the hard difficulties for 6-9, but I'm not sure about the difficulties moving past that, because they can get kind of... crazy, and many of the hardest difficulties also add in stupid stuff that in many ways makes the game worse. And I'm not sure if I should be judging the whole game by the hardest mode in those situations. Plus... there's also the question on some of them of whether or not I'll even have time to do one map a day.

[Alastor15243]

Thracia Day 34: Chapter 24

Alright, yet again we have a level where I have to outfit my party based on where they land, but at least now it's only in three groups rather than like seven.

Wow. That was... ice cold of Veld. In the process of telling Raydrik that he's outlived his usefulness for failing him, Veld is amused by his begging and decides to spare a battalion from the Welkenrosen... despite phrasing it like he's still confident Raydrik is going to die. Meaning he's basically sending his own men to their deaths for... I don't even know the fuck why.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

LEIF IS YET AGAIN QUESTIONING THE WISDOM OF SPLITTING UP OUR FORCES.

It's like either the original writers or the translation team realized how inconvenient this is gameplaywise.

...Augustus you absolute incompetent hack. “Divide and conquer” isn't when you split up your own forces! It's when you divide... the people you're conquering!

YOU KNOW! TO MAKE THEM WEAKER!

That said though, ignorance of military and political phrases aside, his actual logic is sound for why having separate groups would be useful. One group to rush the main throne room, one to rescue the children, and one to take out the extremely dangerous bishops with tons of status staves. But again, I should have some fucking say in which group is which.

So, looks like it was a mistake to take Ced's Forseti, since he still has his inventory when he officially re-joins the party. I'll have to put Forseti in Pan's inventory so he can give it back right away.

In terms of useful combat units and not leadership bots, thieves and primary healers, the main force has Leif, Ced and Orsin, the child-rescuing party has Callion, Asbel, Nanna and Mareeta, and the priest-capturing party has... Sarah, Olwen and Tanya. Sarah's great, but capturing is going to be a bit of a pain when the highest con unit we have is Finn's dismounted 10. Should be able to steal all their shit eventually though. Probably won't need to use warp staves here, just a bunch of status staves. Now, time for that obligatory shopping list:

Sarah needs more tomes, lots of them, and a rewarp staff and any other fancy staves I can spare. I'll have her use her first turn disabling one of the big four staff users I have to keep track of: the silencer, the berserker, the sleeper... and the restorer who can bring any of them back if left alone.

Tanya will need a door key and I'll probably give her the brave and master bows just because.

Amalda needs to give her rescue and warp staves to someone who can use them.

I also might want to get somebody to warp to the secret shop, but given that it only has stat boosters, not sure if it's worth it. Then again, I do have a shitton of money to spend, probably, once I clean out my storage that's nearly full.

Pan needs to get Ced's Forseti and some other stuff for Ced to use (like a rewarp staff and some other tomes, and also probably a silence/sleep staff).

I'm also gonna want to use those sleep staves I've stolen to take out the two restore staff users in the main hall and then sedate the heroes so I can steal all their cool shit, namely the bolt and flame sword. I also obviously wanna warp Mareeta in to talk to Galzus once I've done this.

Leif needs to ditch the scrolls he's been hoarding (save for Heim's and maybe another one, since I'd really like to have him get that one last point and max out his magic) to distribute evenly among my main combat troops, and I need to put the Bragi sword in his inventory so he can fight Raydrik. I'll also give him the two skill rings I have in my inventory, because that's really the only stat he isn't good at.

Asbel just needs his inventory spruced up a bit. He's mostly good to go.

Glade needs a key or two.

Callion's mostly set, he just needs to ditch his lances.

Mareeta needs a magic sword, and I think I'll give her the wind sword since of my major sword users, she relies the most on dodgetanking.

Nanna just needs her inventory filled up a bit more.

Alright, I think that's it.

Let's get this going.

Hold on a second. The Bragi sword... okay, so it has effective damage against armor, so that's... 65 damage when Leif uses it on Raydrik!?

This thing doesn't even need its Lopt-negating effects to hurt Raydrik! With them, he'll take 39 damage per hit. The fucker will be dead in two attacks!

Also, the game said last chapter that the user needs holy blood. Any holy blood, it said, which... is weird, given it's not one of the divine draconic weapons... but more importantly, either that's a mistranslation, or the game dun fucked up, because by that logic, Mareeta and Galzus should be able to use it! But only Leif, Nanna, Dermott and Fergus can.

...Yeah, apparently the wiki notes this too! Oh yeah! Eyvel should be able to use it as well! I hadn't even thought of that!

Moving on. Time to ditch and sell a lot of shit I can't use anymore. Namely all of my lances.

Looking through all this stuff, I'm kinda disappointed at how the more advanced normal weapons have pretty much never been needed for much of anything. Brave weapons, siege weapons, 1-2 range weapons, and other stuff with special qualities have pretty much been the only kinds of above-average weapons I've found worth stealing. Weapons whose only purpose is to just do a shitton of raw damage, like, say, silver weapons... I've honestly never even bothered using them, except Glade's silver lance, which I never even used up. And I never bothered with the fancier advanced elemental tomes either, largely because they were heavy and mages need their AS and avoid more than anyone else.

Alright, I think I have everything settled. Time to do this.

Not really much to say. I had Asbel rewarp in to take out most of the dark mages going after the kids, and on turn two, Glade unlocked the second door and Nanna, Mareeta and Callion came rushing in to clean up the ones who decided to grab the kids rather than fight.

Curiously, almost as if they noticed the major magic users dropping like flies, the two bishops in the main hall both started chugging pure water on their first turn, but all that meant for me was that I had to have Ced do the silencing instead of Linoan. They both went down, so now I can start sedating the heroes I want to rob blind without fear of them being awakened. Then I had to rescue Lara with Orsin after dancing Ced, because the Fenrir user's starting to get close and I realized too late. I'll have to take him out next turn.

Yeah, not much to say. Massive amount of mindless enemy-phase combat and staff use. That's late-game Thracia in a nutshell. Sorry if I can't think of much more to say, but it's getting late, and I'm trying to finish this up tonight.

My current objective is to recruit Galzus, which I'm getting started on now. I'm not gonna waste time trying to save warp staff uses; I don't want to mess with those movement stars.

Also, I'm waiting for the turn 5 event where apparently one of the kids can unlock that door to get the Kia staff.

Strangely, none of the dark mages have tried to use their Hel spell. I'm not sure why, but I can only assume they figure it isn't worth it due to how much evade Asbel has.

One of the dark mages keeps using ensorcel on silenced dark mages, which is hilarious, but a bit annoying since I'd have liked to take that thing. Oh well, I still have plenty of uses of my own ensorcel staves. And plenty of pure water for that matter.

Funny, Galzus, upon recruitment, mentions repaying his debt to Eyvel for taking care of his daughter. But I'm pretty sure his recruitment isn't conditional on rescuing Eyvel still being a possibility. If you don't have Sarah, I'm pretty sure you can still recruit him. Maybe that was just an excuse to help his daughter?

The rescued kids aren't talking, but they have started moving.

...Aaaaand Finn can't capture any of these guys because I didn't give him a fucking sword. And of course you can't capture without a weapon.

For whatever reason, a mage with an unlock staff showed up and... opened the secret shop for me. I have no idea what the hell that guy was supposed to do. I guess maybe he's there to save me from a softlock if I literally have no thieves or keys?

Wow. So Leif doesn't get a conversation, but Raydrik does get a one-sided quip at him for some reason, talking about how he killed Leif's grandfather and burned down his castle (a castle that seemed fine when I looked at it, funny enough), and how he outlived them and he'll outlive Leif... promptly before getting obliterated. He did survive one round of combat thanks to his Pavise skill, but Lara promptly fixed that by giving Leif another turn. And Raydrik was taken down, just in time to block the two ambush spawn locations right next to his throne, which would have really pissed me off if I hadn't known about them.

…

The Secret Shop doesn't have Anna.

It's not even called a Secret Shop.

The same fucking balding guy says “this here's the general store”, and shows me his ludicrously expensive goods he's peddling in the middle of fucking nowhere in a shop hidden in front of, not behind, but in front of a door on what is either a platform over an infinite abyss or a tiny room with no way in or out.

What the fuck.

Anyway, I use the opportunity to buy 4 life rings, since that's really the only stat I've been having trouble maxing out for my best fighters. Now to slowly have the warped Lithis steal the good shit from the enemy mages, and wait ever so slowly for those damned kids to arrive at the door. I'd rescue them, but I don't know which one of the four (it's randomized) can open it. This is really just obnoxiously obscure.

Also, I just confirmed that apparently you can keep fighting with a broken weapon until the end of the combat round and it won't have its broken stats. So you can do a full combat round with a 1-use weapon. Good to know!

...What... what the hell was that “unlocked the door” conversation? The kid just says “this door sure looks strange, huh?” and then it just opens and he says “guess it's busted”... what the fuck? What did he do? How could he do it? I thought the story was that he had a key! What the fuck was that!? What is the game's justification for only letting that small, very slow child open that door!?

And then the Hel-bearing reinforcements arrive through the door, and for some reason only one of them moves. Well, it lets me take absolutely no chances (Hel on enemy phase is instant death to anyone poisoned I'm pretty sure), and I blizzard him to stay stuck on the stairway, block the other, and then get the legendary Kia, or in this translation Kaia, staff. I didn't need to do that, but in case Sarah actually needs the staff in her inventory, I decided to stick around long enough to put it there after she rewarps, and, just for good measure, make sure that last little boy escapes.

Done. Alright, finally we're done with this map.

Apparently Raydrik's body just vanished. I think this is the deadlord thing I heard about.

...I can't believe the final boss of the game is someone that Leif is just now learning anything about. Apparently he either didn't even know who he was, or knew very little about him before this very moment? If I didn't get the Kaia staff, I'd be fighting him right after this. This has to be the lamest big bad of any FE game ever.

Well, he'll be dead soon. Let's see what this next chapter is gonna...

...Oh. Ohhhhh.

...Well, how much of this I can cheese really depends on what I can reveal on the first turn, and what I learn when I do that.

...Alright, see you guys tomorrow.

[Jotari]

Actually Eyvel is no longer a holy blood user. She like broke her contract with the dragons or something. It's weird and unnecessary. As I've said before and I'll say again, Eyvel is a fine character on her own and there was no need to make her Brigid.

[Interdimensional Observer]

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, the game said last chapter that the user needs holy blood. Any holy blood, it said, which... is weird, given it's not one of the divine draconic weapons... but more importantly, either that's a mistranslation, or the game dun fucked up, because by that logic, Mareeta and Galzus should be able to use it! But only Leif, Nanna, Dermott and Fergus can.

I heard the game has a 4-character limit on who can use personals.

G&M still have means of fighting Raydrik, no Nihil on him results in Luna being able to bypass his 30 Def and Atk-halving. The 2*Atk crits of Jugdral if they exceed 60 Atk can do the job, but a Hammer can only do 4 per Crit.

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I heard the game has a 4-character limit on who can use personals.

G&M still have means of fighting Raydrik, no Nihil on him results in Luna being able to bypass his 30 Def and Atk-halving. The 2*Atk crits of Jugdral if they exceed 60 Atk can do the job, but a Hammer can only do 4 per Crit.

He actually has 26 defense if I remember correctly, not 30, counting the throne, so it's 53 (or 54, depends on if it rounds down) as the threshold for doing damage, not 61(2). But yeah, otherwise that sounds about right.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Interdimensional Observer]

Just now, Alastor15243 said:

He actually has 26 defense if I remember correctly, not 30, counting the throne, so it's 53 as the threshold for doing damage, not 61. But yeah, otherwise that sounds about right.

My error. So much more reasonable to deal with, poor Raydrik. So many Hammers in Thracia that could kill you even with a lite super weapon.

I don't get why they didn't give his sword 2 range, a sword able to cast Jormungdar from afar would perfectly fit into Jugdral. We have Fire, Wind, Thunder and two Light magic swords, but no Dark.

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

My error. So much more reasonable to deal with, poor Raydrik. So many Hammers in Thracia that could kill you even with a lite super weapon.

I don't get why they didn't give his sword 2 range, a sword able to cast Jormungdar from afar would perfectly fit into Jugdral. We have Fire, Wind, Thunder and two Light magic swords, but no Dark.

I mean, it would be nice, but gameplaywise all it would really do is keep you from being able to leave fragile healers around him after healing whoever fights him with the Blagi Blade. When he's pretty much invincible to all ranged weapons, not being able to counter isn't a huge deal.

[Eltosian Kadath]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I'll have her use her first turn disabling one of the big four staff users I have to keep track of: the silencer, the berserker, the sleeper... and the restorer who can bring any of them back if left alone.

I usually prioritize the Fenrir wielder over the Silence, as even ensorceled he rarely has the magic to target anyone that cares about being silenced.

 

15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Also, the game said last chapter that the user needs holy blood. Any holy blood, it said, which... is weird, given it's not one of the divine draconic weapons... but more importantly, either that's a mistranslation, or the game dun fucked up, because by that logic, Mareeta and Galzus should be able to use it! But only Leif, Nanna, Dermott and Fergus can.

Interesting to note that its only characters with minor holy blood that can wield the Blaggi sword, none of those with Major can...

 

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Also, I just confirmed that apparently you can keep fighting with a broken weapon until the end of the combat round and it won't have its broken stats. So you can do a full combat round with a 1-use weapon. Good to know!

I am surprised it took this long to stumble on that mechanic.

 

15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Looking through all this stuff, I'm kinda disappointed at how the more advanced normal weapons have pretty much never been needed for much of anything. Brave weapons, siege weapons, 1-2 range weapons, and other stuff with special qualities have pretty much been the only kinds of above-average weapons I've found worth stealing. Weapons whose only purpose is to just do a shitton of raw damage, like, say, silver weapons... I've honestly never even bothered using them, except Glade's silver lance, which I never even used up. And I never bothered with the fancier advanced elemental tomes either, largely because they were heavy and mages need their AS and avoid more than anyone else.

I tend to find the prepromotes make good use of them when deployed (like your Glade example), or for when you need to force something that resembles combat out of your peg knights.

 

15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Aaaaand Finn can't capture any of these guys because I didn't give him a fucking sword. And of course you can't capture without a weapon.

...Well that was kinda derpy, but I am guessing you have plenty of supplies for the end of this run.

 

14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...I can't believe the final boss of the game is someone that Leif is just now learning anything about. Apparently he either didn't even know who he was, or knew very little about him before this very moment? If I didn't get the Kaia staff, I'd be fighting him right after this. This has to be the lamest big bad of any FE game ever.

Lamest big bad in the whole series by fair margin...

 

As for my ironman, for easter egg reasons I intentionally killed off some characters, Sarah included so no gaiden. Otherwise it was smooth sailing, shut down the most terrifying threats to the right with staff uses (although I had to be a little careful about staff user stamina as I used my last stamina drinks deploying everyone this chapter) crushed the center, and while it didn't matter much I protected the children as well.

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

Oh, you have been come so far yet.

Chapter 24 is the proof why "fixed" starting positions suck.

 

However I really like the enemy staff combo in this chapter.

I wished FE had more of these.

 

Chapter 24x had them too kinda, but NOT in a good way.

Anyways upcoming map is a "famous".

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, Rosalina said:

Oh, you have been come so far yet.

Chapter 24 is the proof why "fixed" starting positions suck.

 

However I really like the enemy staff combo in this chapter.

I wished FE had more of these.

 

Chapter 24x had them too kinda, but NOT in a good way.

Anyways upcoming map is a "famous".

Infamous...infamous. All those rewarp staves will come in handy.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Jotari

[MisterIceTeaPeach]

I never played this map the "fast" way, mainly because of getting all the chests. 

I always sent Olwen to the boss room to let her solo all the dark sages.

Once someone is near to the exit, dark sages prioritize to warp towards them.

This chapter is the proof why Olwen is the best user of vantage.

Edited January 23, 2020 by Rosalina

[Alastor15243]

Thracia Day 35: Chapter 24x

Well, here we are. The last gaiden chapter. A fog of war map that looks like it'd be an absolute psychotic nightmare to play blind.

...But I'm not playing blind.

There are five main staff users I have to neutralize on turn one. The two dark mages in the execution chamber, who should be easy, and the trinity of status staff users in the exit chamber, who will be a bit more complicated.

The dark mages in the execution chamber, carrying a whopping six charges of warp each, can easily be neutralized by warping Callion and Galzus inside to capture them with their master swords. Then they'll take all of the warp staves, get rescued out, and then all the sniper and hero reinforcements will have no means whatsoever to follow us once the stairs are unblocked and they start appearing.

The silence, sleep and berserk staff users, however, have 20+ magic thanks to the manastone floor they're standing on. Either Nanna with a flame sword or one of my elite mages will have to get ensorceled and danced, or else I'll have to ensorcel two mages to do the job.

Thankfully, after switching around my party to get more of my A rank staff users involved (at the expense of some of my leadership star bots I'm hoping won't be necessary), I've got the perfect setup to do that. On the left side I have Amalda, Nanna, Asbel and Sarah. The former two can ensorcel the latter two, and then Safiya can warp Galzus into the execution chamber. Meanwhile on the right side I have Lara, Schroff, Callion and Ced. Schroff can warp Callion into the execution chamber, and then Lara can dance him so he can warp Ced into the escape chamber and assassinate the boss and everyone else inside with Forseti.

I'll need to make sure to bring at least one key and some rescue staves, and to refill the staff supplies of all my staff users. But this should be simple. Unfortunately the exit isn't where I was hoping it was when I first looked at the revealed map, so I can't four-turn this fucker like I hoped. But hey, when I first heard about this map, I thought I heard that Veld was in it as an unkillable cameo with his stone spell, so hey, good to know I'm not dealing with that.

Funny enough, the poison siege tome, which has three uses, says it turns into Fenrir, which has five uses, upon being stolen. Does it spontaneously gain 2 more uses from whatever it had, or does it still only have 3 uses? Pity I'm not overly in the mood to find out, because I can't afford to silence him too and I don't want anyone going berserk after warping somewhere inconvenient.

Alright, everything went perfectly, but unfortunately Xavier got captured because I didn't arm him. I got rid of his gear so he had room to go shopping last chapter, and I have made a bad habit of not even bothering to arm the units who don't get into combat. At any rate he shouldn't have been in enemy range in the first place, so that was on me.

Some of these berserkers start equipped with torches, so I'm gonna try and get as many of those as I can.

Alright, this is an unexpected hiccup. The rewarp dark mages all rewarped over to Ced in the exit room. Initially I was concerned that if he kept baiting them all he'd break Forseti in like 5-10 turns, but then I remembered he can just rewarp away. I'll have to keep my groups reasonably close together, and they'll have to take these guys out immediately before they can do any damage, with Lithis stealing some of their rewarp staves for good measure whenever he can.

I finally, finally promoted Safiya in this late stage of the game. Not that I ever really needed to; she was never going to be a good combat unit with her terrible HP and defense growths and how slow it Is to scroll train healers. And she was already the best she could possibly be at her real job. But I have a spare master seal, so why not? It'll give her some extra move I think.

...Speaking of why not... why aren't the rewarping dark mages... rewarping? They rewarped to near Ced, but when he rewarped away, they didn't pursue him. I'm starting to get... extremely concerned that they might wait until they're too numerous for me to fight them off on player phase. Which would be psychotically awful.

I sent Ced in with rewarp to investigate, and for who knows what reason, turns out the dark mages are just standing there on the stairs, not even allowing new reinforcements to come in. Bizarre. Well, better keep moving.

...I completely forgot about the trap tiles. Holy fuck are these annoying. Thankfully I brought extra rescue charges. I'll have to be more careful and remember where they are.

I don't want to stay in here any longer than I have to, so Asbel rewarps inside the treasure room to start looting it.

This immediately causes the rewarp staff users to start ganging up on him, so I warp in Ced so that Asbel can do some ass kicking with his mentor and enjoy a buff to his dodgetanking. I'm pretty sure rewarpers don't rewarp if they have a valid target in walking distance. This should clear up the excess buildup of enemies. But the lesson is clear: stragglers will be ganged up on.

It just occurs to me as I watch Asbel fight off all of these Hel-wielding mages... this must have been torture to sit through for original, console-using Japanese fans with no fast-forward button. Holy shit are these animations long. And given how often the game expects you to restart on this map due to the trap squares and fog of war...

...Anyway, I'm kinda disappointed by the rewarp mages. I was hoping they'd be more spread out, constantly stalking my general party, which would have made it interesting trying to escape with them constantly on my tail. Here, yet again, the solution to fighting them is kinda mindless. Just dodgetank them, as usual.

Also, I'm getting serious, serious flashbacks here to FE3, with all the endgame enemies being dark mages and berserkers. I don't really like it. The lack of variety is kind of a letdown.

The rewarp users have stopped showing up for some reason. Well, I'm pretty much done with the level. I've gotten all the treasure and I think I've taken care of all the berserkers if the map I'm reading is right. I just have to de-stone and talk to Eyvel, and then carefully guide all of my units over to the escape room without triggering any more warp tiles.

I've decided to talk to Eyvel with Mareeta, since I think she needs this heartfelt reunion a little bit more.

Aaaaaand Kaia doesn't even have a non-map animation. I was hoping for some kind of special animation for such a rare and powerful staff. Maybe it was because she's green?

...Wait. Waaaaaaaaait a minute.

Eyvel... is green.

I thought you weren't allowed to use staves on green units!

How the hell did it work this time!?

...Was the only reason I couldn't heal Alfred because the game has a toggle value for whether they can be healed or not so that you can't heal enemy green units, and they forgot to turn it on for Alfred!?

Mostly now that all the enemies have been dispatched, this is just getting tedious. Like, “the beginning of Dark Dragon maps” tedious. I have fourteen guys (and two ready to rewarp in) who I'm carefully navigating around this dungeon, constantly checking the map for the warp tiles. And it's annoying as hell doing it 14 times a turn, constantly double and triple checking the map.

I've wound up using the spoils of the secret shop to drastically expand Lara's HP, in case the next map has a lot of siege tomes. She's almost certainly gonna be useful, and I want to be able to safely bring her.

Suddenly the rewarp staff users start rushing in the second I enter the escape room, which is gonna be... annoying. But thankfully it means I can nab a rewarp staff or two. Not that I really need it, but this will let me go full psycho ham on the next chapter and hopefully have a lot of fun.

I nearly gave myself a heart attack when I had to have Leif do a fleece-and-release... while standing on the escape tile. One single slip of the finger and I'd have to start all over, something I wouldn't be keen to do this late in the day.

...Mareeta's escape line still says “Mother, I know you must be watching over me...” even after rescuing Eyvel. Is that on the original game, or the fan translation? My intuition says it could go either way.

Oh god. Leif's talking to Eyvel, and it's sweet, but he says Nanna's like a sister to him when talking about his adoptive family, with Finn as his father and Eyvel as his mother. That's... super awkward, given that Nanna's his pseudo-canon wife.

So it looks like those accusations from Dagdar's former crew had some merit: Dagdar clearly has a thing for Eyvel, judging by this conversation. That makes me wonder even more about the rest of that whole conflict.

...Huh. So Finn talks to Eyvel about Bridget, which is when Eyvel reveals that... she doesn't have a brand? She lost her holy blood somehow? Curious. I wonder how the hell that happened. Was it the same thing that made her lose her memory? What the hell kind of powers are at work here that can destroy a person's holy blood? If such a thing existed... no, I can't speculate about why anyone wouldn't use it, I don't even know what the hell it is.

...Or is the implication that Eyvel really isn't Bridget?

Who knows? Not me, that's for sure. Not with the information I have right now.

But anyway, that's it for today.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is the final battle.

Let's do this.

[Eltosian Kadath]

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Speaking of why not... why aren't the rewarping dark mages... rewarping? They rewarped to near Ced, but when he rewarped away, they didn't pursue him. I'm starting to get... extremely concerned that they might wait until they're too numerous for me to fight them off on player phase. Which would be psychotically awful.

I think there odd behavior might have to do with vision oddly enough. I seem to remember them not rewarping if there are no enemies in vision range.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Aaaaaand Kaia doesn't even have a non-map animation. I was hoping for some kind of special animation for such a rare and powerful staff. Maybe it was because she's green?

...Wait. Waaaaaaaaait a minute.

Eyvel... is green.

I thought you weren't allowed to use staves on green units!

Probably something unique to the kaia staff...

[Alastor15243]

15 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think there odd behavior might have to do with vision oddly enough. I seem to remember them not rewarping if there are no enemies in vision range.

That... come to think of it, that happened with me too.

Apparently FE had better fog of war AI in the first game than Nintendo Wars did all the way up to the GBA.

[Jotari]

Re  Eyvel: I believe she brokered her contract with her dragon to remove her holy blood at the cost of her memory. Which just raises a while host of other questions like why either her or the dragons would do such a thing and why were any dragons hanging around Jugdral at the time (unless it was Forseti!Levin, if he still counts as a dragon). But it does mean the ability to remove holy blood probably can't be weaponized.

But hey, very distant foreshadowing for Hannerman's experiments. Still though, I wish Brigid wasn't Eyvel. It's all rather silly.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Re  Eyvel: I believe she brokered her contract with her dragon to remove her holy blood at the cost of her memory. Which just raises a while host of other questions like why either her or the dragons would do such a thing and why were any dragons hanging around Jugdral at the time (unless it was Forseti!Levin, if he still counts as a dragon). But it does mean the ability to remove holy blood probably can't be weaponized.

But hey, very distant foreshadowing for Hannerman's experiments. Still though, I wish Brigid wasn't Eyvel. It's all rather silly.

She... what kind of an unbelievably shitty mother would knowingly abandon her children and leave them not knowing what happened to her!? What possible benefit could she have gotten out of getting rid of her holy blood that was worth that to her!?

I need information, now, because she's starting to sound as bad as Claude!

[Interdimensional Observer]

On 1/22/2020 at 8:22 PM, Alastor15243 said:

I mean, it would be nice, but gameplaywise all it would really do is keep you from being able to leave fragile healers around him after healing whoever fights him with the Blagi Blade. When he's pretty much invincible to all ranged weapons, not being able to counter isn't a huge deal.

I know, I just thought Raydrik deserved a tad more than he got. Albeit there is only so much one can do for a stationary boss in an FE, particularly one where stats aren't so relevant.

 

12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

She... what kind of an unbelievably shitty mother would knowingly abandon her children and leave them not knowing what happened to her!? What possible benefit could she have gotten out of getting rid of her holy blood that was worth that to her!?

Well, Lewyn was badly wounded/killed when Forseti possessed him. Maybe Brigid survived a similar wound through her pact? We have zero idea as to her reason.

But b/c Kaga said he liked Brigid, I'm be inclined to call it favoritism with an afterthought explanation, for now. TearRing Saga, his next game, even has this strong Sniper lady:

That title above her name. Metaphoric daughter of the goddess of archery, Kaga deified her.

 

 

Chapter 24x is universally agreed to be a horrendous map that you're probably best to bring the unit minimum to and warpskip. Me fearing the center room was what Wrath Linoan was for, since poison + Hel can't kill her due to every counterattack fully healing her. Most of the Rewarpers targeted her being all by her lonesome too. The game never even tells you about the teleport spaces, the fan translation added a slim mention- it doesn't tell you exactly which tiles will warp you- because it realized not telling you was too unfair.

Edited January 24, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

The game never even tells you about the teleport spaces, the fan translation added a slim mention- it doesn't tell you exactly which tiles will warp you- because it realized not telling you was too unfair.

Holy shit, that wasn't there before? It wasn't nearly enough, but it was SOMETHING.

I'm... honestly quite sad that this abomination of trial and error and cheesing was Kaga's idea of a hard Fire Emblem game. There's no skill involved here, just knowledge. This is a game that nobody can be good at on the first try, and anyone can be amazing at with a guide. And... I hate that. I hate it a LOT.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm... honestly quite sad that this abomination of trial and error and cheesing was Kaga's idea of a hard Fire Emblem game. There's no skill involved here, just knowledge.

I consider all video game difficulty to be a combination of, at most, three things:

• Information
• Reflexes (not applicable to FE)
• Luck

Although, you could reasonably break information into two components: accrued information- knowledge, and the application of accrued information- wisdom. SF main site is a repository of knowledge, but it doesn't tell you how to apply it.

This said, I understand your criticism. You're looking for a game where having information alone won't mostly shatter the difficulty. You're looking for a situation where you have fair amounts of information, but determining the wisest course of action using said information is difficult. Am I right?

 

Also, Linoan's promotion was totally hidden too. The fan translation added the quip about sending someone, but no mention of who, to visit the church. I don't recall any other little tips being added by the fan translation.