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


Alastor15243
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4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Yeah, that's a lot of people's reaction. It's something people point to when they complain about his redemption arc in Radiant Dawn being undeserved. Though even in Path of Radiance it seems a bit out of character for the battle obsessed stoic knight. Here's the line in question, just so you're not needlessly looking out for it later.

“So there’s no way for me to get my answers, is that it? The dead keep their secrets, or so it is said. But you, however…You are not dead yet. I wonder…Will watching your son’s face grow pale, his eyes grow dim as his life bleeds away…And then your daughter… Oh, the horrors I will visit upon her. Will that loosen your tongue, perhaps? I suppose we will simply have to see.”

Nothing is specifically said about rape, but it's rare you will see anything explicit in that manner. At the very least he's suggesting very brutal torture.

Yeah, I definitely remember that line. I thought you were saying something more clearly sexual was said, so I thought I might have mis-remembered. Definitely reads more like torture than rape to me. Not that it's much better morally, if at all, but it's... more in line with what I know him as than rape would be.

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11 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway... I always find myself surprised by the end result of the overall rankings. All of the individual ones feel right to me... but when I put them together, I always tend to be surprised at where some games land. For example... well... one issue I had with Genealogy being on top for so long was that I have very, very little desire to play through it again any time soon due to its severe pacing issues. Honestly, of the ones done so far, the top two I'd like to play again for fun are Thracia (with mods) and Binding Blade. Maybe I just don't value some categories as much as others? Or maybe merely ranking them doesn't give a proper sense of the difference between them, so if, say, one does 5 points on a 10 point scale better than another game in one category, but 1 point worse in 2 categories, that would result on the first game being ranked worse despite overall quality being better?

I dunno what to think sometimes.

 

Maybe throw in another category for gut ranking and see how that weighs against the overall ranking.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Eirika in particular set a new standard for lethal combinations of incompetence and underdevelopment in a main character that was not trumped until the year 2019

If I’m being honest, I’d say Byleth, despite being a silent protagonist, is better than Eirika. Which says more about how awful Eirika is than anything else, really.

 

58 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Julius himself goes all sorts of psycho boyfriend in Thracia

Isn’t he starting to come under Loptyr’s influence then, or is that something that happens in Genealogy?

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5 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

If I’m being honest, I’d say Byleth, despite being a silent protagonist, is better than Eirika. Which says more about how awful Eirika is than anything else, really.

Ohoho... we'll get to Byleth.

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

All of the individual ones feel right to me... but when I put them together, I always tend to be surprised at where some games land. For example... well... one issue I had with Genealogy being on top for so long was that I have very, very little desire to play through it again any time soon due to its severe pacing issues. Honestly, of the ones done so far, the top two I'd like to play again for fun are Thracia (with mods) and Binding Blade.

I was thinking about that too. 

I think it's the result of about half the categories being non gameplay related, but desire to replay something being almost all gameplay related. Genealogy can score high in all the story / writing etc, but only gets penalized once in rankings in pacing for being a huge slog. Story is very important for a first playthrough, but I can't remember the last time I replayed an FE game without the start button. Thracia has some categories where it is inarguably terrible in like ironman and usability, which is almost 40% of its point total. 

Something like SS that plays it safe manages to avoid the bottom of most rankings, and then makes up points in presentation and usability. Those are really heavily skewed toward newer games, I think I question those categories a bit more as this goes since it's expected that those always get better. Like PoR I think has unquestionably better presentation than anything so far and can automatically be slotted into the #1 spot before it starts, and I fully expect it'll score high on usability as well. 

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48 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

If I’m being honest, I’d say Byleth, despite being a silent protagonist, is better than Eirika. Which says more about how awful Eirika is than anything else, really.

 

Isn’t he starting to come under Loptyr’s influence then, or is that something that happens in Genealogy?

Well both games generally cover the same time frame (approximately), but Julius's interactions with Ishtar in Thracia seem more controlling and abusive compared to Genealogy where he's on the more gentle side with her.

6 minutes ago, Boomhauer007 said:

Something like SS that plays it safe manages to avoid the bottom of most rankings, and then makes up points in presentation and usability. Those are really heavily skewed toward newer games, I think I question those categories a bit more as this goes since it's expected that those always get better. Like PoR I think has unquestionably better presentation than anything so far and can automatically be slotted into the #1 spot before it starts, and I fully expect it'll score high on usability as well. 

Perhaps ties could be more of a thing to reduce the points total. Because you're right, newer games are going to absolutely trash older games in the presentation department by virtue of the fact that they're newer. Which would also mean long term the older games are retroactively going to keep getting worse due to losing in presentation.

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4 hours ago, Jotari said:

Perhaps ties could be more of a thing to reduce the points total. Because you're right, newer games are going to absolutely trash older games in the presentation department by virtue of the fact that they're newer. Which would also mean long term the older games are retroactively going to keep getting worse due to losing in presentation.

Maybe I should give each category a multiplier for its importance to me? That's something I'd have to think about... should I do a tier list of the categories or something?

Also, would it be worth it to put a (with mods) version of Thracia on the list to show where the version with modern accessibility features goes for me? Would you guys want that or would it be over complicating things?

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46 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Maybe I should give each category a multiplier for its importance to me? That's something I'd have to think about... should I do a tier list of the categories or something?

Also, would it be worth it to put a (with mods) version of Thracia on the list to show where the version with modern accessibility features goes for me? Would you guys want that or would it be over complicating things?

Game wasn't made with mods. Shouldn't be judged with mods. Plus you'd need to play through it again to form a new opinion in light of mods.

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Path of Radiance Day 1: Prologue

Well, this is an interesting change of pace. This is the first game in the marathon that I'm doing on original hardware. Well, sort of original hardware. I'm playing it on the Wii, not the GameCube. I nearly fucked up by forgetting to charge the wiimote to start the system, but I managed to quickly give it enough seconds of power to select the game off the menu and switch to GameCube mode.

More importantly, since I'm not playing the game on my computer, I had to change my setup significantly if I want to be able to quickly take notes. I've now got a makeshift “desk” (read: chair) set up in front of the couch I'm playing on, with a hardcover book on the seat so that the cushion doesn't overheat it. Not the most elegant setup, but I've thankfully used similar setups before.

So.

This is the game.

The sacred cow.

The $300 holy grail.

The game it seems everyone loves, but no one has played.

The one with Ike.

You can call it many things... but I shall call it Path of Radiance.

...Probably because that's its name.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I can't tell you much about how I felt about this game as a kid in comparison to the others. I don't really remember any specifics when it comes to whether I liked it more or less than Blazing Blade or Sacred Stones, or which I played the most often after I got this one. All I can say is that, like every Fire Emblem game I got before it... I enjoyed it. A lot. I liked the advancements it made to the formula, I liked the characters, I loved forging, holy shit did I love forging... but most of all... beyond anything else...

I.

Liked.

Ike.

Ike was, hands down, my favorite lord in the series when I was a kid. He still is, mind you, but... I don't think the reasons why I liked him as a kid are quite the same reasons why I like him now. That's the great thing about Ike. He's awesome whether you look at him at a deep or a shallow level. On the surface, he's an absolute badass with a kickass outfit, who takes no shit, wields a sword like a boss, has the coolest special attack in the entire series, and thanks to the self-healing nature of that special attack, seems absolutely impossible to kill when you're playing on the difficulties a kid would play on. But look beneath that, and you have not just an almost unprecedented non-royal protagonist, who isn't even revealed to be royal in a twist, providing an incredibly unique and refreshing perspective for the series, but you also have one of the most human, relatable and well-written protagonists in the series, and the star of the best and most compellingly-written story of them all.

...is what I hope I'll still feel justified in saying by the time I'm done with this. Only time will tell, but I always remembered loving this game's story, and I played it again pretty damned recently. I only have one major gripe with the writing that I caught before this marathon, but... who knows? Maybe I have a better-trained eye for bullshit now, and maybe this sacred cow has been hiding a lot of it.

Only one way to find out.

Starting a new game.

And right off the bat I'm faced with a decision I completely forgot about! Random growths, or a system introduced in this game and then immediately dropped forever: fixed mode.

There was a time, right around when I first when to college at age 19, when I wished more than anything that this feature was in every game in the series. I had gotten a ridiculous string of unlucky stat rolls with my main characters that eventually caused me to get frustrated and stop playing the series entirely for a while, only to eventually get fully back into the series when I finally bought a 3DS and played Awakening a few years after it came out. The idea of never having to live in fear that one of my favorite units would be ruined by bad luck was incredibly appealing to me at the time, and while now I appreciate the purpose it serves in forcing you to come up with improvised strategies tailored to your team's specific assets... I'd be lying if I said I didn't want there to at least be an upper and lower cap on how blessed and screwed a unit can be.

...You know what? Fuck it. Let's do fixed mode. Let's try it out. Might as well! It's a thing, and we won't get another chance to experience it. Only major downsides I know about are that there's this weird, complicated, Pokémon-esque system with the enemies you kill influencing growths in certain ways, and also that it nerfs Sothe's blossom skill into the ground.

But fuck it. I don't plan on using Sothe in his game.

So, let's... actually get started now. It feels like I've taken an hour just doing setup.

Ah, yes, the opening cutscene.

Yeah, this game, but moreso the sequel, is pretty infamous for its fully-voiced cutscenes, with... less than stellar voice acting. But I actually think it's... tolerable. I like most of the voices honestly. Mist in particular sounds adorable, and I was so upset when they re-cast her for the sequel. It's easier to forgive poor voice acting when the game isn't fully voice acted, and thus the awkward dialogue doesn't consume every moment of gameplay. You can kinda forget about it and picture different voices in your head.

Y'know, one thing I find interesting, and something I'm curious I never noticed until replaying Sacred Stones... is that it's kind of odd that Ike came after Ephraim. Because Ephraim in many senses feels like... somebody trying to make another Ike but failing to understand what made him such a good character. Like, the general mood and aesthetic of the two characters is jarringly similar. Curious to think that “the shadow cast the man”, as it were.

Back to that opening cutscene for a second though... I like it. It's an interesting way to show Ike at the beginning of the game, and just how far he has to go as a warrior. He hopes he can sneak a strike at his father while he's distracted by Mist, but ol' Pops just dodges effortlessly and smacks him on the back just to add insult to injury, because Ike's already on his way to the ground by the force of his own failed lunge.

...It's gonna be annoying not being able to pause during these cutscenes. And my playtime is probably going to be drastically inflated by keeping the game running while I write instead of pausing emulation while the program's in the background. I'll have to keep that in mind.

I guess I could use the home button once the wiimote is properly charged? Maybe. Been a while since I've touched this thing. Not sure how that works with gamecube games.

Aaaanyway...

Just after a handful of sentences from these three, I already like all of these characters way more than the protagonists of Sacred Stones.

Ooooh! And then that music plays! “His Father's Son”! One of my favorite songs from this game. Probably one of my favorite songs in the franchise. This game probably isn't going to score that high in the music department from what I remember off the top of my head, but it definitely has some stand-out tracks. And this is without a doubt one of them. It's the song I think about whenever I think of the music of this game.

...Okay, so, I'm very tempted to examine Ike's story arc as it compares to that of a character I feel was very transparently, and incompetently, designed to ape his appeal: Byleth. Spoilers if you haven't played the game, I guess, but...

...It's pretty undeniable. Non-royal swordsman with stern eyes and a serious demeanor? Son of a legendary mercenary who abandoned his previous, much more prestigious position, a mercenary who now raises his son as a single dad because he lost his wife in a great tragedy heavily involved with why he left? Slowly gets entangled in a massive, continent-consuming conflict due to a chance encounter with royalty while doing mercenary work? Forced to helplessly watch his father die right in front of him? Shit, those are just the similarities I can come up with off the top of my head. I am morally certain there are more.

I would love to go over everything Ike does right that Byleth does horribly wrong, but the issue is I'm not certain now is the right time for that. Should I really be comparing this to a later game in the series, one I haven't marathoned yet? I mean, I did bring up Echoes a heck of a lot when talking about Gaiden, but...

...What I will say for now is that Ike and Greil's relationship is way better, though this is pretty trivial to do, because Ike has an actual personality. Also, Greil is probably one of my favorite characters in the game, and he gets some pretty damned great moments. It's very hard to describe at the moment, maybe I'll be able to put words to it later, but... there's just this clear father-son bond these two share that's incredibly enjoyable.

...It probably helps that they're the first father and son in the series to actually spend more than like a single chapter in the same general vicinity. Actually, let's check that:

Cornelius: Dead before the story started.

Rudolf: Only reveals himself to be Alm's father as he lies bleeding out on the floor with Alm's sword through his heart.

Byron: His death scene is the first time Sigurd and Byron have even so much as shared a conversation on-screen, and he wasn't even shown outside of narration before Chapter 5.

Sigurd: Dead before Seliph was old enough to even remember him.

Quan: Same thing for Leif.

Eliwood: Doesn't even fucking die, and yet they still only have one conversation together before he fucks off for the rest of the game.

Elbert: Has scenes without his son peppered throughout the first ten chapters of Eliwood/Hector mode, but his first scene with Eliwood is the scene he dies in.

Fado: Has one incredibly rushed scene with Eirika before dying offscreen, doesn't even talk with his son at all.

...Yeah. Jesus. The bar's pretty low for good father-son relationships so far, isn't it? And let's not even get started on the mothers. Before this game, you've got Dierdre, you've got Ethlin, and you've got Eleanora as the only examples of protag mothers even being seen onscreen. ...Shit. You know what that makes me realize? If I was Alm, and I just learned that my father was actually the emperor of Rigel... like... I think at some point I'd have asked, like, maybe a single question about who my mom was? If she was still alive? Like, I get the whole “Duma's revival is at hand” thing, but... it would have been interesting for him to ask about when he's demanding answers from Mycen and from Rudolf's right-hand man.

...Let's move on. I've written four goddamned pages and I haven't even started the map yet.

Let's just leave it at the fact that we'll be seeing some good things from Ike and Greil in the future.

HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, Mist. What a troll, not letting Ike get away with lying to save face in front of Boyd. That is just adorable.

Oh yeah, I remember this thing... for some reason, it feels like the “player phase begin” music plays like a second too late. It feels like it should be playing as the “player phase” text appears, not as it's vanishing.

However...

...Oh yes.

Hello again, old friend.

Oh how I have missed you.

Welcome back.

Welcome back forever.

We've got enemy range highlighting again.

This is a feature I have been missing for so long. It is going to cut down on careless mistakes big time now that I can actually keep track of what places are dangerous to step into. Say goodbye to thieves getting one-shot by siege tomes!

And look!

We've got raw stats and calculated stats right next to each other! On the same page!

Why hello, new highest score in usability! Fancy seeing you here!

And while we're looking at all of that good shit...

...here's a detail I always found interesting about this map: For absolutely no reason other than flavor, they decided to give Boyd and Greil a skill, called “discipline”, which I'm almost certain doesn't actually do anything mechanically, to explain their nerfed stats while fighting you during training. I always thought that was a cute touch, especially since the skill icon means that even just a little bit of the budget was spent for this.

...At least I think Boyd's stats are nerfed. Right now he has 18 HP, 6 strength, 5 speed, and 3 defense. I'll check when the time comes, but I'm almost positive he has more than that when he's playable. Especially in the HP department.

Also, it's cool they made training weapons for this one chapter, knowing they'd never be used again. Just to make it a touch more realistic.

Hahahahahaha! I just love how lively and sassy Mist is, and how she has stuff to say at both Ike and Boyd's expense.

Man, I like the touch that Greil's using the exact same fighting animations as Ike's promoted class, though a bit slower.

...Yeah, I'm really liking the dynamics of the mercenaries so far, even though I'm really only seeing four of them if you count Mist. It's similar to the likable, human interactions we see in Blazing Blade, but far more causal, which I suppose suits the lower-class cast.

Also, I could imagine all of these lines being voiced easily without sounding awkward. In some stories there are lines that sound okay in your head... but then when you try to get somebody to say them, it becomes starkly obvious how unnatural and strange they are, and this is especially the case when you try to make more casually-speaking characters say something complicated and phrase it the wrong way. There are just some ways certain people would never phrase something. Three Houses has this issue a lot. So far, Path of Radiance very decidedly does not.

One thing I find interesting is that Ike was the last member of the team to properly come out of training, if you ignore Mist and Rolf coming in later very unofficially and without going through proper conventional training at all. Is he the youngest of the group besides those two? Are Boyd, Oscar and Soren all older than him?

...Okay, yes, I know Soren is older than him, he's a bran...de...d...?

Wait... no, he's...

...No, apparently, he's one year younger than Ike.

...Yeah, honestly... I have questions about this. Why has Ike taken so long to get up to speed with all of his peers in the company when he's clearly a gifted and fast learner? Has Greil just been reluctant to make him a full member out of concern for his safety? Has he been holding Ike to a higher standard because he's his son?

...This... bugs me a little, I will admit. Is this ever explained in a support conversation somewhere? I'll have to keep an eye out.

But that's the end of the prologue. Guess that's it for todafuck no, it's only 9 in the morning, this is a brand new game in the marathon, I only did the tutorial, and I'm not stalling for time for a friend. Let's keep going!

...But I'll post this before that, just to avoid making a post too long to edit.

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Speakijg of not using Sothe, will you be using data transfers for Radiant Dawn and if so which units will you focus on for that?

Also in regards to Ephraim coming before Ike, bear in mind they were probably conceived simultaneously.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Yeah. Jesus. The bar's pretty low for good father-son relationships so far, isn't it? And let's not even get started on the mothers. Before this game, you've got Dierdre, you've got Ethlin, and you've got Eleanora as the only examples of protag mothers even being seen onscreen. ...Shit. You know what that makes me realize? If I was Alm, and I just learned that my father was actually the emperor of Rigel... like... I think at some point I'd have asked, like, maybe a single question about who my mom was? If she was still alive? Like, I get the whole “Duma's revival is at hand” thing, but... it would have been interesting for him to ask about when he's demanding answers from Mycen and from Rudolf's right-hand man.

 

They are even worse for father/mother-daughter relationships. 

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22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Balance: This was a hard decision in a few ways, but I think I'm gonna have to put this below Book 2. Both of these games provide methods for drastically stripping their gameplay of what little difficulty they have (grinding for Sacred Stones, star shard abuse for Book 2), but in Book 2's case, the endgame at least still has obstacles capable of challenging even a team that's abused the shit out of star shards, and the same cannot be said for anyone who uses uses the grinding towers. As for the underpowered side of things, this game added in tier 0 units, the latter two of which are almost literally unusable if you don't make use of said blatantly overpowered grinding systems. Also, while I found speed slightly more important in this game than in Blazing Blade, this was still a massively enemy-phase-focused game, similar to Blazing Blade but less hard, so that doesn't really mean it makes myrmidons useful or anything. Plus, Seth is absolutely bonkers, and I can't even comprehend how anyone on the development team could think anyone needed a prepromote that busted for the early game of Sacred Stones.

So yeah... what exactly do you judge balance on? Because it seems you and I have different standards for you to have Binding Blade at the top despite the legion of crappy units the game throws at you, particularly Wendy and Sophia, whom are practically unusable. While Amelia and Ewan suck, they can at least be ground up to competency with the tower, while Wendy has no such luck.

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3 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

So yeah... what exactly do you judge balance on? Because it seems you and I have different standards for you to have Binding Blade at the top despite the legion of crappy units the game throws at you, particularly Wendy and Sophia, whom are practically unusable. While Amelia and Ewan suck, they can at least be ground up to competency with the tower, while Wendy has no such luck.

Yeah, balance has been... a very tricky and unpleasant category to judge. There are some that were really easy, but working out which games are actually the best when there are blatantly imbalanced elements of all of them so far has been a pain. Binding Blade's drastically skewed cast is definitely a mark against it. My main point of praise, and why it's held up so far, isn't so much that the game's characters are balanced so much as the game's archetypes are balanced, due to the enemy stats being high enough to make all of these things matter. There's a place for being speedy, there's a place for being tough, here's a place for being strong... hell, there's arguably a place for being skilled too, thanks to low weapon hit rates.

As for the tower, well, my point there was that 1: I'm not counting the tower as part of the playstyle I'm using to rank these games, and 2: even if I did, the tower is so hilariously broken that it causes entirely different balancing problems in the opposite direction.

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Day 1 Bonus: Chapter 1

Oh yeah. Here's where the story really starts.

As much as I like the story of this whole game, I honestly think my favorite part is the beginning, the part before they get involved in a major war and are mostly just a mercenary company doing their job. I'm not sure why, but I love stories about mercenaries. There's just this strange, hard-to-explain personal affinity I have for stories about freelancers who make a living doing dangerous, useful jobs for money. Private detectives, mercenaries... hell, even a movie about bicycle messengers in Manhattan scratched that itch when I heard the premise and saw the opening scene of Premium Rush.

I wish we saw more of their clients in person though. I like those scenes, where their clients and freelancers talk face to face, with the client discussing the problem they're having. Just a point of personal taste though. Let's move on.

And now we get to see Titania. I really like her design. Especially the hair. It's got this strangely elegant, kinda maternal quality to it, like the anime dead mom haircut, except way more impressive, making it clear she's not gonna die. And the maternal aspect is fitting, considering her status as the “team mom” and how badly she wants to fuck Ike's dad.

...Wait, how did Boyd know Ike was coming on the mission when that was a last-minute change of plans? I'll have to consult Serenes Forest except no I don't, because this game adds in another QOL feature: pressing Z during a dialogue scene lets you see the entire script since you last opened the game. Possibly within limits, but what's important is that if I miss something, I can now just check it again directly!

...Yep, that was a pointless nitpick. It seems to be heavily implied that time passed offscreen so they could make proper preparations, during which Boyd could easily have been informed. There wasn't even any confirmation that he had been told about the original plans yet either, so there's pretty much no reason whatsoever to read this as “Boyd was told he'd be going on a mission with Titania and Oscar, and then inexplicably learned Ike was going too without being told”.

Thanks, Z button!

Moving on to the actual map...

...Yeah, obviously this is an issue I've taken before, but now that the graphics have shifted again, I'm kind of forced to notice yet again when a Fire Emblem map... just doesn't really make sense in a real-life context? At least now that things are in 3D, the map seems to be mostly to scale. You can kind of see these as realistic small peasant houses. The characters look like they may need to duck to go through the doorways, but the scale is at least reasonably close. It's just the number of buildings that's weird, combined with the fact that we're clearly shown that's all there is to the village. There's cliffs to the north, south and west, and to the east there's a big, empty, clear grassy path with no roads at all. This is clearly all there is to the village, which... isn't what I would have chosen to do. I'd have made this clearly just part of the village, and teased at the rest at the edges of the map.

But oh well. Let's go.

Oh, that's cool! There's room for three speech boxes on screen now if necessary! At least when it comes to being in “looking at the playable map or a CG” mode and not in “portraits against a backdrop cutscene” mode.

Pointing this out now before I forget: yes, I was right, Boyd does have better stats than he did in training, particularly HP, which is now 30.

Anyway...

So, I got got back from my work for the day, and thanks to the feedback of some friends, I've come up with a slightly better and more comfortable setup for playing and taking notes. Here's hoping it works.

I have to say, one feature I miss about the GBA Fire Emblem games, one that's kind of miscellaneous and hard to categorize, is the fact that it was impossible to lose your save data. The GBA games had a perfect auto-saving system, to the point that the suspend function was literally pointless unless you just wanted to quit to the menu. You could just turn the power off and select “resume”, and you'd be right where you left off. I loved that feature as a kid. It magnified the portability immensely, similar to how easy it is to suspend and turn off the Switch any time without losing progress. And lemme tell ya, when my Wii and GameCube started randomly dying on me around the time I was headed off to college... yeah, let's just say I would have had a lot more peace of mind playing these games if they had that kind of autosave functionality.

The controls have been a bit awkward to get used to, but I'm not playing on an authentic GameCube controller, rather a second party two-pack I bought on Amazon that came in the same colors as the default switch joycons, and they definitely feel stiffer and more cheaply-made than I remember the official controllers being. So, I'm not holding that against the game, because I don't know how much of that is the game's fault. I will say that I have never been comfortable moving the gameplay cursor in Fire Emblem with anything other than a D pad (or arrow keys) on any game system. Not GameCube, not 3DS, and not the Switch. The control stick always feels too awkward to... control, I guess. So I'm using the GameCube D pad, which is tiny, and on this one rather stiff, but it's working... acceptably well.

...Ah yes, Ike and his four swords. This is apparently a glitch, but I don't know the details of what caused it. All I know is that it happened in the North American version, but was patched out of the European version. Anyway, it's kind of hilarious, like Ike really over-prepared for his first mission.

Ah yes, and since I've beaten this game before, there's a bonus on my save file: a bunch of small accessories certain characters come with that give you a total of 10% in growth rates between two stats. And apparently, unlike with weapons, these aren't automatically equipped when you trade one to someone else, no matter what slot you put it in. Good to know.

The AI here seems to be pretty basic. There's a bandit who moves on his own towards houses, but so far, it seems that everyone else here only moves when approached. First real chapter, of course. I'll have to see how the formula grows from here.

...Also, I just realized that the enemy phase is an excellent time to make my notes, since I can't fast-forward through the enemy phase and combat animations. Speaking of animations...

On the topic of presentation, I'm torn. The overall art direction is obviously much nicer, what with it being in higher resolution with a comparable-quality art style, but with much larger character portraits showing a larger portion of the body... but the GBA games look way nicer proportionate to the time and hardware. The art direction here is fantastic when it comes to actual artwork. But when it comes to 3D stuff, to animations, interface, etc... this game feels kind of less competently put together than its GameCube peers, I feel, compared to the GBA games and their GBA peers. A lot of the combat animations in this game are awkward, mundane and stiff, and simply pale in comparison to the larger-than-life and beautifully choreographed attacks in the GBA games, and while the portraits are gorgeous... I can't help but have this gut feeling that I'm going to miss the GBA portraits' ability to move. I dunno, maybe that last one's a petty complaint, and maybe I'll realize as much. Only time will tell.

So it turns out that I was mistaken. For this game, and this game only, I'm finding it much more comfortable using the control stick to move around. In the 3DS games, the D pad always felt like it gave me more precise control, while in Three Houses, the D pad just made it slightly easier to get around the game's weird, disorienting input lag. But here... yeah, the D pad is basically uselessly stiff, while the control stick isn't so bad once you get the hang of it.

Now then...

Titania is pretty badass right now. I don't have a sense yet whether she's better or worse than Seth though. Last time I played, she definitely had issues keeping up, though that might have just been bad luck with the RNG, because I never checked how her stats then compared with her averages.

Well, we're in fixed mode now, so I guess I'll see how she's supposed to turn out.

One thing that majorly annoys me about this game's first iteration of the enemy range highlighting feature is that it resets after every enemy phase. Also, there's no “highlight all in pink in addition to those individually highlighted in red” function. See, I like to play going all out with these features. I turn on pink highlighting, and then red-highlight every unit on the map. Then, whenever it's time to do player phase tactics, I choose the ones I plan to have dead by the end of the map, to see which units are covering the spaces they can be attacked from, and then I'll have a pink area that'll hopefully be safe by the end of the turn, a blank area that'll be safe even if someone misses, and a red area where people are still open to attack even if my plan goes right. I could have sworn I remembered this game at least letting you keep your highlighting between turns. Guess I was wrong. What a shame.

Still enough to finally be a step up from Genealogy though.

Also, I dislike how it doesn't show combat stats during battle. That's a big part of the drama and tension of watching battles play out on enemy phase, seeing those stats and panicking about your chances of survival if something went wrong.

Anyway, map's almost over. Mindlessly simple, but forgivably so, given it's the first map. I'll have to keep an eye out though. Also, I can't get too cocky. This is definitely an ironmannable game, and I intend to see to it that it gets ironmanned. Same rules as usual. Just a refresher for those tuning in for this game specifically, the ironman will end, and I will reset and continue to reset upon unit death for the rest of the game, if:

1: I get a conventional game over of any kind,

2: I lose all of my healers,

3: I lose all of my thieves,

or

4: The total number of deaths over the course of the game ever exceeds half the current chapter number.

One thing that I take issue with about this game's map music is that... it's a bit too quiet. A lot of these songs are actually pretty soaring and intense, but like with Three Houses, they feel like they're coming from... far away, in a sense. They're softer and less present compared to the rest of the game's audio levels, and I really don't like that. Like I said, Three Houses has a similar problem. After hearing it on YouTube shortly after the end of my first playthrough, I was so pumped to hear God Shattering Star in-game during my Golden Deer run. And then I did, and it was quiet and distant, like I was hearing it playing in another room of the house. Such an intense and incredible song... playing quietly enough to make it almost seem calm. Completely killed the hype. Thankfully, the songs here aren't that disappointing to hear quiet. Some of them work well at the volume they were played at. But then there are some that just don't work at all. There's one particular map theme in this game that I absolutely despise, and I'll be bringing it up when it happens.

Alright, I seized.

Dialogue's still great. I just love the banter a lot of characters have with each other, and the fact that there are so many characters with important speaking roles in each of these beginning chapters.

Actually, for that matter... I'm not sure how many people are actually aware of this awesome aspect of Path of Radiance's writing, so lemme enlighten you guys.

Tell me, what is the reason given for why the number of characters who show up in cutscenes has to be so limited, and they all have to get crippled in battle rather than killed when they run out of HP? The reason for limited story involvement for everyone other than the lords, their immediate family, and maybe a retainer?

It's because obviously it would be completely unrealistic to include these characters in story sequences and then have to write dozens of different variations of scenes to account for the numerous combinations of death and survival the player could have experienced on their particular file, right?

Yeah. Tell that to this game.

I checked out the script for this game once out of random curiosity, and Hoooooly fuck, does this game go the extra fucking mile to make sure that all of the Greil Mercenaries get story involvement, particularly in the early game, despite the fact that damned near every last one of them can permanently die. The amount of alternate versions of some scenes you can get depending on which characters are dead and which are alive is simply staggering. I have never seen that in a Fire Emblem game before. Shit, I don't know if I've seen it since.

Like, shit, just take this chapter for example. This chapter has alternate versions of the ending dialogue for every goddamned individual combination of units you could have lost in this chapter, and of the three, only Titania is a “survives as a cripple” unit. It's incredible. I wish this script said what music played in each combination, so I could tell how fitting the tones of these scenes are, but the mere fact that the dialogue exists is like... bwooooooooosh. Mind blown. Grey matter all over the headrest of the couch. Why can't every game be like this?

...Well, that's enough for today. I'm getting the hang of this, and I'm looking forward to pressing on!

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited by Alastor15243
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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Yeah, honestly... I have questions about this. Why has Ike taken so long to get up to speed with all of his peers in the company when he's clearly a gifted and fast learner? Has Greil just been reluctant to make him a full member out of concern for his safety? Has he been holding Ike to a higher standard because he's his son?

...This... bugs me a little, I will admit. Is this ever explained in a support conversation somewhere? I'll have to keep an eye out.

I don't think it is, I'd say it's less about good writing, and more "introduce the player to the world through Ike". It's not the most egregious example of this protag stupidity for the sake of gameplay/narrative tutorial that'd be "Whats an airport?" but it is a case of it.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Ah yes, Ike and his four swords. This is apparently a glitch, but I don't know the details of what caused it. All I know is that it happened in the North American version, but was patched out of the European version. Anyway, it's kind of hilarious, like Ike really over-prepared for his first mission.

Skipping Anna's video tutorial on Visiting seems to be a culprit behind it, or other tutorials maybe. 

They're very slow, but are they good tutorials? -A question you may wish to investigate, but probably not because they're boring. 

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ike was, hands down, my favorite lord in the series when I was a kid. He still is, mind you, but... I don't think the reasons why I liked him as a kid are quite the same reasons why I like him now. That's the great thing about Ike. He's awesome whether you look at him at a deep or a shallow level. On the surface, he's an absolute badass with a kickass outfit, who takes no shit, wields a sword like a boss, has the coolest special attack in the entire series, and thanks to the self-healing nature of that special attack, seems absolutely impossible to kill when you're playing on the difficulties a kid would play on. But look beneath that, and you have not just an almost unprecedented non-royal protagonist, who isn't even revealed to be royal in a twist, providing an incredibly unique and refreshing perspective for the series, but you also have one of the most human, relatable and well-written protagonists in the series, and the star of the best and most compellingly-written story of them all.

...is what I hope I'll still feel justified in saying by the time I'm done with this. Only time will tell, but I always remembered loving this game's story, and I played it again pretty damned recently. I only have one major gripe with the writing that I caught before this marathon, but... who knows? Maybe I have a better-trained eye for bullshit now, and maybe this sacred cow has been hiding a lot of it.

Only one way to find out.

 

Do you think Ike is more popular because of surface level character traits or in depth character traits? I think he's more popular for surface level character traits. 

I look forward to seeing your reaction when Ike does stupid stuff, if he even does that is. 

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6 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

 

I look forward to seeing your reaction when Ike does stupid stuff, if he even does that is. 

Oh he definitely does it, at least once. I've mentioned it before, off-handedly, during the FE7 playlog, but yeah, you will hear about it again here. I guarantee it. And within a week or two, probably.

 

6 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Do you think Ike is more popular because of surface level character traits or in depth character traits? I think he's more popular for surface level character traits. 

That is a very hard question to answer. But given the fact that apparently, the female character who scored the thighest on a Japanese 3H popularity poll was Byleth, a character who has literally no non-shallow qualities at all... I think there is plenty of justification for anyone who wants to be cynical about that point.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

ike, shit, just take this chapter for example. This chapter has alternate versions of the ending dialogue for every goddamned individual combination of units you could have lost in this chapter, and of the three, only Titania is a “survives as a cripple” unit. It's incredible. I wish this script said what music played in each combination, so I could tell how fitting the tones of these scenes are, but the mere fact that the dialogue exists is like... bwooooooooosh. Mind blown. Grey matter all over the headrest of the couch. Why can't every game be like this?

 

Because barely anyone will ever see it, so why bother? For a long time now I've been of the opinion that perma death needs to be more organically worked into the game. I actually think Shadow Dragon was on to something with having Gaidens open when people die only they decided to go...immensely stupid about it, by making it a general death count number instead of being plot relevant specific units like the Nagi Gaiden. If we could see more of that only providing alternate content instead of making the player feel like they need to slaughter their army to get additional content. For example, Legault randomly appears alive to report on the existence of the Black Fang base even if you didn't recruit him. How about an alternate map there having some kind of alternate confrontation if Legault is dead? That's something that makes sense and leads to more interesting gameplay. Suddenly a unit dying doesn't mean an absolute loss for the player, it means a potentially different direction in which the game will be played, which is how I think perma death was always intended to be treated. I don't mind Casual mode existing, but I really don't want it to consume Fire Emblem's gameplay style to the point where perma death isn't factored into the game design at all. It's way past time we got an actual official iron man mode in the game to compensate too.

 

PAL Player here. Never heard of over prepared Ike before. That's hilarious.

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5 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Because barely anyone will ever see it, so why bother? For a long time now I've been of the opinion that perma death needs to be more organically worked into the game. I actually think Shadow Dragon was on to something with having Gaidens open when people die only they decided to go...immensely stupid about it, by making it a general death count number instead of being plot relevant specific units like the Nagi Gaiden. If we could see more of that only providing alternate content instead of making the player feel like they need to slaughter their army to get additional content. For example, Legault randomly appears alive to report on the existence of the Black Fang base even if you didn't recruit him. How about an alternate map there having some kind of alternate confrontation if Legault is dead? That's something that makes sense and leads to more interesting gameplay. Suddenly a unit dying doesn't mean an absolute loss for the player, it means a potentially different direction in which the game will be played, which is how I think perma death was always intended to be treated. I don't mind Casual mode existing, but I really don't want it to consume Fire Emblem's gameplay style to the point where perma death isn't factored into the game design at all. It's way past time we got an actual official iron man mode in the game to compensate too.

That is an interesting concept. Especially if said characters were in important classes like healer (early game) or thief (any time), and offered a chance to get a replacement. ...Though that could encourage or reward killing them to get their replacements like with Laylea.

Also, just wanna point out while I still can... holy shit. Page 100. How did this project get so massive?

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Path of Radiance Day 2: Chapter 2

And now we get Rhys, our first healer! This game does something... really weird when it comes to promoted healers and light magic. They have it, but... it's like... okay, there are two weapon types in this game that feel like something a modder with limited capacity to change the core game would have done rather than someone who actually coded the initial game. Knives and light magic are weapon types, but they're not listed on the weapon ranks section. They're instead class skills that certain classes can have, allowing you to use these weapon types. Light magic's weapon rank uses your staff rank, and knives don't use weapon ranks at all. I don't get the logic behind this. I mean I guess having light magic tied to staff rank keeps promoted healers from being too far behind sages and the like offensively, while rewarding them for spending longer not being able to get combat exp, by giving them comparable combat to sages but better staff ranks than them? Maybe? With thieves... I guess it lets you better arm them even if they haven't been fighting much, which thieves generally don't do? But Volke is actually pretty good from what I remember, and I might use him, so...

...Anyway... I wish I knew what all of that was about, but it'll be ages before that's relevant, so... let's keep moving.

I notice the implication in Titania and Rhys's conversation that there's some kind of medieval postal service or something in town that Titania can bring a letter to? Either that or she's assuming the letter is for someone in town, and she plans on delivering it directly.

But at any rate, it isn't a letter Rhys is planning to send to town, it's a letter Rhys is delivering to Titania... and she doesn't like it. And Rhys shortly after explains why: the letter was a ransom letter saying that Mist and Rolf have been kidnapped!

...Have we seen Rolf before this? It seems odd to not even show him once before he gets kidnapped, but... I mean, we already know enough to give a shit about Mist, so...

...Yeah, weirdly, this isn't usually the section of a Fire Emblem game's soundtrack that I like, but... I think Path of Radiance's soundtrack's strongest point is the dialogue scene music. “His Father's Son”, “The Enemy Approaches!” and “With us!” are easily some of the most memorable tracks in the game, and all of them get me excited whenever they play. Oh, and who can forget “Power Hungry Fool”? That's dialogue scene music too, and that's probably the most famous song in the whole game, possibly even more than “Against the Black Knight”!

Oooh! So this is interesting!

So! This is the first bit of adversity we see Ike put under. The first moment where something bad happens to him that would prompt a major emotional reaction. His little sister, who we've just had the pleasure of getting to know at least a little, has just been kidnapped by ruthless bandits to be taken as a hostage. What does he do?

He gets impulsive, irritable, and way too hasty. He decides he's gonna run off to save Mist on his own, and to hell with anyone who won't help him. He's an young rookie, and he's acting like a young rookie, making a rash and stupid decision fueled by entirely understandable emotions, with no previous behavior to contradict this being what he would do in this situation. He thinks he knows better than a professional, and won't trust her judgment with his sister's life when his every instinct is telling him that Mist's chances of survival are getting slimmer every moment they wait for Titania to get back.

He's about to fuck up. It's all gonna work out for the best in the end, thankfully, but he's still gonna fuck up, and now all that remains is to see how he grows from this and learns from it.

This is gonna be fun.

So, Ike rushes off like a headstrong fool to save his sister, without even stopping to wonder if he even knows where the bandit fort is. This is hilarious, but also completely understandable, and doesn't overly detract from the tone of the scene.

Hahahahahahaha! Boyd calling Oscar and Rhys “chambermaids” due to their obsession with following the rules and doing what they're told is hilarious.

I am curious why the Greil Mercenaries know about a bandit stronghold, to the point that they can give directions to it (“It's the left fork.”), and have never just gone there to wipe it out. I mean obviously it makes business sense to not do that until someone pays you to (“if you're good at something, never do it for free”), and also to not go out of your way to eliminate a source of the kind of conflict your business depends on to survive, but like... the game makes it very clear that the Greil Mercenarise are not those kinds of mercenaries. Why do they tolerate these guys setting up shop in the area?

Also, calling this a “bandit stronghold” is a bit hilarious. It's a fucking tool shed at the end of a road.

Awww, that's so cute that Mist's first assumption is that her big brother will come rescue her. I wonder why she didn't say her dad would, though? That does seem strange...

Anyway, enemy AI seems to be slightly more aggressive now, and I need to get rid of these enemies in this little pocket up north of the starting area if I want to avoid being pincer-attacked and overwhelmed. So... difficulty is slightly improving!

Interestingly, in this game and Radiant Dawn, weapon weight resistance is dependent on strength, not constitution, and I always felt that made way more sense as a kid. If you're super strong, why should that not be enough to wield heavy weapons without issue?

But it also means that since enemy damage is currently really low, we have 5 strength fighters who are weighed down by their 10 weight iron axes and can be doubled by Boyd with ease.

Also, while Rhys rather infamously has 0 defense, he's got surprisingly high HP. Actually, he has better HP than Ike.

I like how Titania doesn't bother wasting time by chewing out Ike in the middle of the battle, and just tells him to focus and that they can worry about that later. Really professional of her. Also has the crucial additional advantage of making sure she still has something to say to Ike without the stuff she says at the end of the chapter being repeated.

The enemies seem to be prioritizing Ike right now. Not sure if that's because he's the main character or because he's just the most viable target in their minds, but it's happening.

Enemy AI still doesn't seem to think about where other units might want to move before attacking.

...Boyd got an HPsauce level up. In fixed mode. So apparently I have to assume that he's got a lot of stat boosts close to triggering, and either the next level is going to be amazing, or the next couple of levels are gonna be pretty great.

I like how you can see the enemy's equipped weapon by “mousing over them”, as it were. Not sure how useful that is for casually scanning for slayer weapons though. They might have more than one weapon you still have to check. I'll have to see how many enemies have alternate weapons and actually use them.

Enemies seem to be aggroing in groups. I haven't seen any instances of individual enemies being baitable in this map.

Enemies also run away to heal in this game. I remember that now. They'll even trade vulneraries, similar to in Thracia.

I just noticed that Rhys's heal staff has 40 uses. Nice. I wonder what they cost?

...Oh god... I just went to read the script to see what Titania's quote with the boss is, and... oh no... they've got quotes for what Rolf says when one or both of his brothers are dead...

...Oh you poor precious child...

...Holy shit. This attention to detail for something that will almost never happen... like, just how above and beyond they went makes me really sad other games have barely even tried on this front.

...Interestingly, if Titania was defeated in Chapter 1, that dialogue changes slightly, even though she wasn't mentioned in it...

...No, I think that's mislabeled. I think this line is for when either Oscar or Boyd is killed, given that Rolf only mentions one brother.

The swordsman has frustratingly decided to constantly run away and heal himself with his vulnerary while Oscar tries to kill him, making the process of whittling his HP down really slow.

And now we get to the point where... y'know... they actually use the children as hostages to force the army to surrender.

I like how you can actually see Shinon hiding in the woods during this scene.

And now Ike sees, firsthand, exactly why Titania went to get backup. He saw what would have happened if they didn't have backup, specifically a sniper lying in wait prepared to take out the hostage-takers. He was forced to drop his weapon and be powerless to watch his own sister die. They don't have him saying anything like “I learned something today”, but it's not really necessary. Given that the lesson is clearly conveyed to the audience as well, it's pretty easy to infer that the lesson has been learned.

Anyway...

...Okay, I'm gonna write some stuff before moving on to the next chapter, but before I do... I just want to point out that the Greil Mercenaries have a fort that's the same size as something that we're supposed to believe is an entire village.

Yeah, this is why I would have made there be more village going off camera.

Anyway...

...I like the scene between Ike and Titania at the end of the chapter that happens if anyone died specifically in this battle. It really helps hammer home the point that Ike fucked up here, and due to his additional carelessness, there were dire consequences. And it really hammers home the point that Ike's learned his lesson and regrets his actions.

...However, there's this weird thing where, specifically in the event of Oscar and Boyd being dead, Shinon's “Don't you children owe me a little gratitude? I did just save your lives” line is changed to “Sing my praises, whelps.” ...Not quite sure why that happens, but apparently it does.

My one complaint with the writing here is that, aside from Boyd no longer being boastful with their victory if anyone's dead at this point, there isn't really much of a drop in the mood during lines that don't have to reference people who are dead. Like, Ike still cracks a joke, teasing Mist for having a runny nose after she's been rescued, even if his stupidity just resulted in someone's death. I'm just going by the script here, though, and at least some of that is incorrectly copied down, so...

Moving on...

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Day 2 Bonus: Chapter 3

Yeah, now that I'm back and actually playing Chapter 3, I'm seeing some other improperly copied-down lines in the Serenes Forest script. I realize this is a lot of work to copy all this stuff down, but this is probably the biggest number of mistakes I've seen with a Serenes Forest Transcript, and I'm only on Chapter 3.

In hindsight, I always found this line hilarious. Greil has just told Ike he's confined to his quarters for 10 days as punishment for what he did (which he graciously accepts, making it clear that he's learned his lesson even without the scene I mentioned happens when people die). He then says:

That being said, we've got more work than we can handle. Your punishment is deferred until things calm down.”

...Yeah.

As anyone who's played this game already will know, “until things calm down” never happens.

...And for those of you just joining us for the playlog of this game, who have not played this game before or experienced its story in any way, I've given this caveat before, and I'll say it again: I'm flattered that you have decided you want this to be the way you experience this game for the first time... but please keep in mind that there will be shameless spoilers all over this playlog, not only for this game but possibly others in the series when relevant for comparisons.

Yet again we get another village roughly the same size as the fort for some talented but humble mercenaries. Exactly how populous are these villages? I think there might be more pirates on this ship than there are civilians who could possibly live here.

Also, this is the second village we've been to that's by the sea. I'm gonna have to take a look at the map of Tellius that shows up next chapter or the chapter after. I know at some point they're going to tell us where the Greil Mercenaries' fort is located on the world map (at least when they start moving away from it in a couple of chapters), so I'll just have to keep this in mind, because google has failed me, and I can't find a map of Tellius with all landmarks marked.

But I'll tell you what I did find:

https://aminoapps.com/c/fire-emblem-amino/page/blog/path-of-radiance-map-models/D8mp_e8KSPumj3YdNvewNjPRDnoY640xglJ

 

....

 

 

...Five minutes of uncontrollable childish giggling later...

Honestly, I forgot for a second that it was Binding Blade that was originally being made for the N64, not this one. When I saw this, I initially assumed those map models were just re-used assets from what was originally an N64 version of this game.

Obviously this is not a criticism of the game. They're far away enough that they don't need to be detailed, and adding in needless detail to something you won't see up close is just a waste of processing power. I know plenty of games have different models for things depending on how far away from the camera they are, to conserve processing power. So this is obviously not an issue.

But holy shit are they goofy-looking. I didn't even realize those things had faces! I just assumed they were blank-faced, like mannequins, since nobody's gonna fucking see them! Woooooow! That made my day.

Okay, so, none of these non-Ike units right now, with the partial exception of Gatrie, are what I'd call a “good exp investment” at this point. Shinon just flat-out sucks in this game after he comes back from his defection, and while Titania is much, much better, she's still promoted and not gonna get too much exp from these guys.

Back when I was a kid, I'd have solo'd this with Ike, considering all three of my other units to be an unacceptable waste of exp (at least after I played once and learned that Shinon and Gatrie leave for a while).

But I'm an adult with shit to do and a slight desire to use Gatrie this time if I can, so I'll be using him too, and obviously Shinon and Titania if necessary.

I'm taking Shinon's +spd/skl archer band off him because his level ups literally do not matter at all. I'm giving that to Gatrie, and I'm giving Gatrie's knight band to Ike, to give him that little extra push he needs to cap defense without the help of stat boosters.

Capping stats is actually kinda important in this game, in that when you transfer data to Radiant Dawn (which I plan to do), any returning character who reached level 20 promoted and capped a stat in your Path of Radiance file will get a +2 bonus to that stat when they show up in Radiant Dawn. On average, Path of Radiance Ike can very easily cap strength, skill, speed and defense with very little assistance, and those bonuses make him absolutely nuts in Radiant Dawn, especially when you use bonus exp responsibly in that game.

My other main priorities are Jill, who's an amazing unit in both games (she'll be needing stat boosters to cap, but it'll be well worth it) and Zihark, who's pretty lame in this game but one of my favorite units in Radiant Dawn and a crucial asset to a team sorely lacking in good units (on average he'll be capping strength, skill and speed without any help). For everyone else, I'm just gonna use who's actually useful in this game (and I'll be summoning Giffca at the end because he's the only one who gets a transfer bonus of the three you can call). Soren will be among them, and with some growth rate tweaking he can cap magic, skill, speed and resistance, and speed will be extremely important to make him useful in RD, so he's getting a speed boosting band immediately to get those two-ish points of speed by level 20.

Oh, and by the way, if you're doing this, never, ever, ever train Sothe to level 20 unless you're giving him bonus exp at the base to rig perfect level ups. He doesn't get capping bonuses, he just transfers his stats directly from PoR to RD. Given his growth-rate-doubling skill, blossom, that sounds like it would be awesome, but there are two problems:

1: His average level 20 stats with blossom in Path of Radiance are universally lower than his Radiant Dawn bases with the exception of a single point lead in luck, and...

2: If you get him to level 20, the transfer stats override his normal stats even if they are worse.

I have Gatrie deal with the east side, since it has more enemies and he can take all of them at once, while Shinon and Ike deal with the western axe fighter. Using Shinon for chip damage is a little annoying because there's a perpetual risk he'll crit whoever he's softening up with that innate crit rate of his. Speaking of which, it's about damned time snipers got that “compensation for only being able to use one weapon type” innate crit bonus. Imagine Binding Blade snipers with +30% crit. People might actually use Wolt or Dorothy.

Titania's holding back to see if she's needed later to rush the ship to save Marcia. Until then, she's only gonna help on player-phase, if necessary.

Putting provoke on a sniper is... unfortunate. I mean it's nice in a sense because for now he's really, really hard to kill, but really, an archer would be way more useful with the shade skill instead, so that he's attacked less, not more. Imagine the increased utility of an archer if you could have him do player phase things in range of enemies and not have to worry about him dying or baiting away enemies who could have been killed by somebody else on enemy phase!

Speaking of skills... they're a nice addition, and I loved it as a kid, but in my experience, very few of these skills are things I actually find consistently useful. With a few exceptions I often completely forget units have them. But we'll have to see.

Yeah, I like Gatrie. He's a lot like Sain, except with more memorably funny flirting moments and a completely different dynamic with the red-headed “straight man” to his antics.

...I was about to type that Shinon's “hardly a straight man in any other context”, until I realized that was implying he's gay. I mean, I'm pretty sure there are scenes (particularly the one where he runs into Lyre in Radiant Dawn) that suggest he's into women at least. I suppose there's no direct evidence I've seen that he isn't bi, but...

...I am getting completely off topic here.

Oh wow! I forgot about this! There are walls you can't shoot through in this game! Cool! I wonder if that's every wall or if this game has those walls with holes in them that Radiant Dawn has.

So we run into Nasir in the first house, and he mentions this place's “world-famous fish market”.

This does not look like a town with enough buildings and foot traffic to have a world-famous anything.

And now Marcia shows up, on enemy phase. Not like it makes a difference whether she showed up at the end of this turn or the beginning of it; I'm too far away to do anything about it either way. But it is a curious decision in a game with no ambush spawns.

...Oh goodness.

Is this the first instance in the whole franchise of pirates speaking the name of their glorious patron saint?

The man with a rickety peg leg who nonetheless danced like an angel atop barrels of rum?

The dimension-hopping badass so legendarily awesome that even his parrot got a reputation for ass-kickery?

The pirate cunning and merciless enough to be admired by every cutthroat and scoundrel on the seven seas, but virtuous enough at heart to found an orphanage with more than 2,000 proud years of sheltering forsaken children from the cruelties of the world?

YES! It's the one, the only, Shanty Pete!

I don't know how this character happened. He's the product of a complete throwaway line that Treehouse put in the script, mentioning him exactly once... and then when 8-4 localized Shadow Dragon, they just... for some reason chose to keep up this completely meaningless, innocuous, barely-even-qualifies-as-a-joke joke. And it just kept happening. It's the result of independent cooperation between two different localization teams over, like, half a dozen different Fire Emblem games, completely absent from the Japanese version of each of them. And now I absolutely love him. The lore really came into its own in Fire Emblem Awakening, and ever since then, the little tidbits we hear about him just paint this fascinatingly crazy-awesome image of him, and it breaks my heart that the fact that he's a localization-exclusive invention means he's never going to show up in any game in any capacity, even in Fire Emblem Heroes.

...Incidentally, as I googled the Fire Emblem localization history to write the above paragraph... I was frankly shocked to discover that really there have only been those two companies translating the entire series: Treehouse and 8-4. It's fascinating to learn that Treehouse, the company that did such a controversial job localizing Fates... was responsible for localizing literally all four of the first English-localized games in the series. That's... kinda mind-boggling to think about, that Fates was localized by the same company that did Blazing Blade and Path of Radiance.

But the dialogue of these pirates is absolutely hilarious, by the way. Especially “Yar! ...Yar? ...Yar.” Also, Marcia calling them “Boat monkeys” just tickles me.

Anyway, I'm on the ship, and at this point this is gonna be a cakewalk. Only a handful of enemies left, and Marcia has been “rescued” (not sure how exactly she needed bailing out when she could just fly away at any time), so it's just quick cleanup time.

...No enemies with multiple weapons so far. I'll have to keep checking that.

After a level that, among other things, boosted strength and speed, Ike's finally able to double most enemies with his steel sword. Only the myrmidon and the boss can resist being doubled by him with it.

Oh wow, yeah, I forgot to mention this, but I like the minor boss theme too. I love the fast-paced, rhythmic intensity of the string instruments here.

Here's something that's bugged me for ages about hand axes though: why are they heavier than axes not intended to be thrown? Do they need that extra weight to have a strong impact after being thrown, and/or to fly straight? Whatever. The concept of axes that can fly like boomerangs better than actual real-life boomerangs is already kind of ridiculous, so fine.

But another thing I like about this game is how the pirate leader says he refuses to leave the town because he's got a good thing going. All he has to do is threaten them to get what he wants. He doesn't even have to fight to back it up. It's actually a pretty safe and cushy gig as far as piracy is concerned. “We show 'em our axes an' say “Arrrr,” and the gold and grub com rainin' down. We'll not be givin' this up!”

Looks like taking down the pirate leader ended the map, and the group “drove off the pirates”. I guess losing their leader would cause that, but... where would they even go? Do they even have enough of a crew left to sail away? Did they just run for it and leave the town on foot, abandoning their ship, completely fucked and likely completely scattered and disbanded without a leader to hold them together?

...None of this is really important for the story to move forward, but it would have made for an interesting scene.

I like this scene where the old man praises Titania and Greil's combat abilities, and says that they have more than enough prowess to be working directly for the royal family. It was clearly intended to allow Shinon (and to a lesser extent Gatrie) to make it clear that they're not cut from the same cloth as the others in terms of virtue and attitude towards the job, but it felt natural, and I like the line Ike has at the end of this scene towards Titania. It's a little thing, but I just like it: “If you're looking for pride... I have it.”

I checked the alternate versions of the scene, and I like how it shows a different angle to Shinon and Gatrie's friendship, which is usually shown to be rather... well they aren't exactly nice to each other, despite clearly being friends. But seeing Shinon say he needs some time to himself was... wow.

Well, that's my two chapters for the day. Tomorrow we'll be tackling Chapter 4 and possibly Chapter 5. And we'll be getting Soren!

Stay safe, everyone!

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Huh. So the reason Ike disappeared at the end of Radiant Dawn is because he was grounded.

Also re: localisation, I assume another team did the English translation of Shadow Dragon given all it's different (more accurate!) name changes. 

Edited by Jotari
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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Putting provoke on a sniper is... unfortunate. I mean it's nice in a sense because for now he's really, really hard to kill, but really, an archer would be way more useful with the shade skill instead, so that he's attacked less, not more. Imagine the increased utility of an archer if you could have him do player phase things in range of enemies and not have to worry about him dying or baiting away enemies who could have been killed by somebody else on enemy phase!

Yeah. About the only justification is that Shinon is an asshole.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shinon just flat-out sucks in this game after he comes back from his defection

Assuming you even get him back, as his recruitment, while not on the level of the likes of Xavier or Lehran, is still unintuitive as all get out.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This game does something... really weird when it comes to promoted healers and light magic. They have it, but... it's like... okay, there are two weapon types in this game that feel like something a modder with limited capacity to change the core game would have done rather than someone who actually coded the initial game. Knives and light magic are weapon types, but they're not listed on the weapon ranks section. They're instead class skills that certain classes can have, allowing you to use these weapon types. Light magic's weapon rank uses your staff rank, and knives don't use weapon ranks at all. I don't get the logic behind this. I mean I guess having light magic tied to staff rank keeps promoted healers from being too far behind sages and the like offensively, while rewarding them for spending longer not being able to get combat exp, by giving them comparable combat to sages but better staff ranks than them? Maybe? With thieves... I guess it lets you better arm them even if they haven't been fighting much, which thieves generally don't do?

Except none of this works in practice - light magic ends up taking the worst aspects of wind and thunder [the basic light tome is even heavier and less accurate than Thunder, while only having the might of Wind; Nosferatu also sucks really hard here, as it has 12 weight to 7 might. And did I mention the part where the one potential Bishop happens to have virtually nonexistent strength and isn't very fast either?]. Knives have their strongest weapon only have 8 might.

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2 hours ago, Icelerate said:

That's good gameplay-story integration. 

Yeah, interestingly, there's a theory that uses this reasoning to suggest that Makalov and Kieran accidentally got each other's skills. The theory goes that Kieran, the passionate hammy knight, was supposed to get tempest, while Makalov, the gambler, was supposed to get gamble.

Edited by Alastor15243
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