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

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

notice that Anna got a pep talk quip after the rainy retreat.

Shit, I can't believe I didn't notice that.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Ottservia said:

Yeah but you still want Chrom in the scene reacting to what’s happening. His sister is pretty much committing suicide after all. Excluding him from the scene would arguably make it worse especially because it’s also a big character moment for him. It’s really dependent on what aspect you value more. They clearly valued Chrom’s character development and arc more than showing the plegian soldiers and decided it would just be better to retroactively exposit that information in the next chapter. I guess maybe what they could’ve done is have a throw away line by Lissa or Basilio or someone say that there are more plegians on their way so they best make a decision fast but that’s the only way I can really see it working.

I think the animators weren't even fully informed of the grander context of this scene. The absence of the risen archers definitely indicates that, and they could have had them, they have risen models, having them hold bows is not impossible. They were simply told Emmeryn takes a dive off a cliff. The plegian soldiers are an absolutely critical aspect of this arc that is ignored here. You're treating Awakening as if it's some holy text that can't be altered without it's divine revelation being interfered with when it is absolutely not. It's a decent games with a lot of flaws. These people aren't Shakespeare or Pope. They're the ones that for some unfantomable reason stuck the Anna paralogue in the middle of this and either somehow never noticed how much it breaks up the flow and sense of the story, or they simply didn't care. If a character makes a reference to another group's reaction and every single last member of that group I left unseen then that is just indefensible bad story telling. If showing the plegian soldiers was absolutely impossible than they shouldn't have had that line. Hell even if they did show them it's still a questionable line given as Alastair points out her preceding line indicated she was about to do something anyway so a lack of a reaction other than anticipation is very much warranted. She hasn't done anything to react to yet.

EDIT: Re DLC, guess I'm not particularly e interested in seeing you do all of it, because theres a lot, but future past and maybe the DLC classes would be nice. And Apotheosis secret path of your end game team is up for it. I also wouldn't be adverse to exponential growth to get another usuable unit in the army. It and golden gaffe have some amusing twin antics too if I recall. Basically everything except plotless get Einherjar stuff and hot spring holiday stuff I'd be into (though festival chapter has that great Now Tiki convo that absolutely should have been  support). Deaths Embrace is genuinely great atmosphere from what I recall and not solely because of the music)

Edited December 24, 2020 by Jotari

[Ottservia]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I think the animators weren't even fully informed of the grander context of this scene. The absence of the risen archers definitely indicates that, and they could have had them, they have risen models, having them hold bows is not impossible. They were simply told Emmeryn takes a dive off a cliff. The plegian soldiers are an absolutely critical aspect of this arc that is ignored here. You're treating Awakening as if it's some holy text that can't be altered without it's divine revelation being interfered with when it is absolutely not. It's a decent games with a lot of flaws. These people aren't Shakespeare or Pope. They're the ones that for some unfantomable reason stuck the Anna paralogue in the middle of this and either somehow never noticed how much it breaks up the flow and sense of the story, or they simply didn't care. If a character makes a reference to another group's reaction and every single last member of that group I left unseen then that is just indefensible bad story telling. If showing the plegian soldiers was absolutely impossible than they shouldn't have had that line. Hell even if they did show them it's still a questionable line given as Alastair points out her preceding line indicated she was about to do something anyway so a lack of a reaction other than anticipation is very much warranted. She hasn't done anything to react to yet.

okay first of all you're being extremely rude and I don't appreciate that. Secondly, it doesn't matter what game or story we're talking about. I would be making almost the exact same arguments even if we were talking about SoV. The Anna paralogue placement is a mistake. I do not appreciate you making baseless assumptions like that and being rude on top of that. This game's story isn't fucking perfect like no shit that's true of any story. I'm just making the argument that maybe some of the criticism you're levying towards it are unfair. Like I can criticize awakening. Trust this game ain't perfect. I have my own issues with it. Like really think through your argument here. Let's break this shit down alright. What's the core of the argument? Emmeryn's line before she jumps is too vague, right? Okay fair enough but then how do you fix it given the exact same limitations and restrictions of the developers and not changing anything about the context or the message of the scene? Because here's the thing if you change any of the ideas in the scene then you're essentially writing an entirely different story at that point. The goal here is not to write a different story. The goal is to improve where it fails and changing shit in a story is a lot easier said then done. because as I said earlier, it's like a butterfly effect. Changing one thing will change others because everything is connected in way or another. If you change the actions of one character, then that changes the reactions of other characters which then changes their actions which then changes other characters' actions. Eventually, it just kind of snowballs until you're left with a completely different story so changing things in a story need to take that stuff into account. Taking this scene as an example, the core issue is that the story does not really do a good job of having the player understand Emmeryn's words in the cutscene. Given everything we have to work with, how do we fix it? Well one suggestion is changing the cutscene to include it but as argued earlier that doesn't really work because it might disrupt the flow of the scene. Okay well if that doesn't work then what do you do? The best way I can think of is maybe changing emmeryn's dialogue slightly to make the point more clear. Removing the line entirely doesn't work as the purpose of the line is her coming to realize what she needs to do to get people's attention. The point of this scene is basically Emmeryn overcoming her flaw of not doing anything to back up her words. The fact that she doesn't do anything even though she says she would arguably adds to that. But if changing it is necessary at all, all you really have to really do is change the speech to something that the player would expect to garner a reaction. Even then you can argue that maybe she thinks she's wrong because the fact that her words garnered no reaction means that her death might not be able to change them. Based on the dialogue, she's already got it in her mind that she's gonna jump even before the cutscene. so, with that in mind what does that phrase "no reaction" mean to her? She says to watch as one selfless act changes the world. It could mean that "No reaction" means that her words are meaningless without action or(As I've just come to realize as I reread the script for this chapter) that no reaction to her speech means that she thinks that what she's about to do might ultimately be pointless as her words had no effect. The fact that the lack of reaction on the plegian's part is the entire point. Like they aren't going to react to it because she hasn't done anything. That's the point. She hasn't done anything. You're right the plegain's lack of a reaction is warranted. I'm not disagreeing with you there. I am disagreeing with the fact that it's bad writing because that's kind of the fucking point.

This leads us to the second problem. We don't see the "no reaction" which is somewhat fair and they maybe should've taken measures to fix that. Even so, I find that to be a relatively small issue all things considered. cause how do you know there were no plegians present? If the answer is because you just finished killing them all well then that's just basic game-play story segregation. Like you're supposed to have a huge army with you rather than just your characterized units. You also have a bunch of faceless soldiers which isn't shown or anything simply for gameplay reasons. The fact that it is retroactively told that plegians were there in the next chapter isn't really that big a deal if you ask me. Even beyond that this was a big event advertised by Gangrel so it wouldn't be surprising that there were more plegian soldiers there that we just couldn't see for gameplay reasons. The fact that there are plegians blocking off the escape route lends credence to this as the location in which this map takes place isn't too far off from where we just were. And even beyond all this, there's a such thing as subtlety y'know. A story can be subtle. And it's not like you can't come to these conclusions of the text if they don't show you. I am proof of that. I came to this conclusion just based solely on the text itself. You just kind of have to think about it a little more. It's not like the story has to beat it's message into your head. 

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Speaking of which, there was a little mistake here. If you read... I forget if it was Aversa's or Gangrel's... name info while on the battle prep menu for this chapter, the description matches their playable version's, which differs from when they're a boss. Was it Gangrel's called him the "former King of Plegia"?

It's Gangrel, who's described as "The cruel and fatalistic former king of Plegia". This is also quite the interface spoiler.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Samz707]

38 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

This leads us to the second problem. We don't see the "no reaction" which is somewhat fair and they maybe should've taken measures to fix that. Even so, I find that to be a relatively small issue all things considered. cause how do you know there were no plegians present? If the answer is because you just finished killing them all well then that's just basic game-play story segregation. Like you're supposed to have a huge army with you rather than just your characterized units. You also have a bunch of faceless soldiers which isn't shown or anything simply for gameplay reasons. The fact that it is retroactively told that plegians were there in the next chapter isn't really that big a deal if you ask me. Even beyond that this was a big event advertised by Gangrel so it wouldn't be surprising that there were more plegian soldiers there that we just couldn't see for gameplay reasons. The fact that there are plegians blocking off the escape route lends credence to this as the location in which this map takes place isn't too far off from where we just were. And even beyond all this, there's a such thing as subtlety y'know. A story can be subtle. And it's not like you can't come to these conclusions of the text if they don't show you. I am proof of that. I came to this conclusion just based solely on the text itself. You just kind of have to think about it a little more. It's not like the story has to beat it's message into your head. 

We literally do not see a single Pelgian crowd nor even hear any of them.

There's "subtlety" and "Being clearly unfinished" and I'm honestly being charitable since you can also chalk that up to "Just not caring." (And without behind the scene stuff, it's hard to tell which.), I don't exactly think an invisible silent crowd is "Subtle" story telling, more lacking story telling, not to mention the cutscene seemingly taking place in an alternative dimension outrealm considering how what goes on in it directly contradicts the in-engine scenes before/after.

I honestly thought Gangrel was just quickly pulling an execution infront of just enough soldiers to say it happened, the fact it was ment to be some big event that tons of the army saw, well quite frankly, the devs practically pull that out of their ass since there's no crowd we see.

Admittingly I may be biased considering how I consider Awakening's story-telling to generally consist of lazily ripping tropes and shoving them in while seemingly almost actively trying to get as many things wrong from Marth's continuity.

Not to mention that as Alastar mentioned, unless they all warped, those Pelgians would have to leave ahead of the Shepards, who left basically right after Emmeryn died so that makes no sense. (Not to mention that IMO that entire bit in the next chapter was contrived emotion bait that wouldn't have worked even if I actually cared about Chrom or Emmeryn in anyway.)

Also it just occurred to me but Robin's wearing a Grimleal Robe, it has the symbol on it, why the actual hell does seemingly no one in the entire game notice this? (which also I guess means Robin wore the exact same robe for 2 years since I seriously doubt they have spares.)

 

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Samz707

[Eltosian Kadath]

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Emmeryn is dead.

Chrom and Lissa have just lost the dearest person to their hearts. Their world has been torn asunder, and they're forced to retreat without even having the chance to bring home her body for a proper burial. And now comes the chapter where, pelted by the cold, unforgiving rain of a sudden storm, as if the world itself weeps at Emmeryn's passing, we make our panicked, desperate escape from enemy territory by fighting our way through an army of completely demoralized soldiers who can barely bring themselves to fight us after Emmeryn's sacrifice, as one of the saddest and most incredible songs to ever grace the entire Fire Emblem series plays in the background.

(snip)

...Or we could go to the paralogue that just opened up on the opposite side of the continent, and recruit that cute shopkeeper lady like literally nothing just happened.

Wow, that really kills the pacing, and mood they were building up there.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...I am still amazed at how thoroughly I remember this game and my strategies for it, to the point that I'm ironmanning a difficulty I once thought suicidally insane, and nobody's died yet.

Specific game knowledge works wonders during ironman runs.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Honestly, this is tempting me to just not do DLC anymore... any thoughts? I notice that the DLC stuff I did yesterday got basically... no response compared to the veritable eruption in conversation that almost every other entry has prompted ever since I started Awakening. Are you guys just completely uninterested in me tackling the DLC?

I know I didn't comment on it because I have no real experience with any of the paid DLC, not necessarily lack of interest. Those ones sounded like they had real writing issues. Well it really sounded like they didn't care about the details, because getting them right would take more effort...

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...So, as I'm sitting here, watching enemies die and watching my levels go up while listening to the awesome music,

Man this mode sounds incredibly boring when using pairup. On the other hand chapters 1 and 2 are real torture without it...

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And of course Olivia shows up with... a wagon, or something else we can “pile in” to. Gee, these people invented wagon wheels? But how ever do you grease them!?

To be fair to this goofy FE12 plot point, FE11 Ballisticians have no animals in their battle models that could be used to move them, and must somehow be capable of moving by the power of the human operator alone. I always got the impression that there is some kinda machinery that propels it forward, that required the grease.

 

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think the animators weren't even fully informed of the grander context of this scene. The absence of the risen archers definitely indicates that, and they could have had them, they have risen models, having them hold bows is not impossible. They were simply told Emmeryn takes a dive off a cliff. The plegian soldiers are an absolutely critical aspect of this arc that is ignored here.

I think this makes the most sense here, and would explain why the "no reaction" lines is so poorly done. If the animators were just given a vague description of how the scene plays out before it was fully fleshed out, than having her comment on there being no reaction to her climactic speech would make more sense, as the issue with the line is with how it clashes with the details of her speech. Plus I wanted to add another inconsistency I noticed that I think supports this possibility. They clearly show Chrom move just past the little staircase in the cutscene, and that staircase is visible even in the map, but when they cut back to in engine stuff, he isn't where the cut-scene showed him go, instead he is in the position he was in when the cut scene started. Clearly the animators didn't know that Chrom wasn't supposed to move in the scene, as he was being pinned down by the archers, which were also omitted. The animation was done by a different studio, and animation of that quality requires a fair bit of time and money to create, so fixing the inconsistencies in the cutscene may have been out of their hands from a business perspective. I don't know why they didn't try to fix the in engine stuff to better conform to the cutscene, although the concerns @Ottservia offers about the butterfly effect changing things might explain why they just left those glaring flaws in the game.

 

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

okay first of all you're being extremely rude and I don't appreciate that. Secondly, it doesn't matter what game or story we're talking about. I would be making almost the exact same arguments even if we were talking about SoV.

That's sort of the issue. Your arguments are really, really weak and could be used to defend absolutely anything.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

The Anna paralogue placement is a mistake. I do not appreciate you making baseless assumptions like that and being rude on top of that.

I'm not sure what bas less assumptions you're referring to. The timing of the Anna was a mistake, this game was made by people who make mistakes. Having another studio make an fmv that poorly fits into the events established in the script is another mistake they are capable of making.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

This game's story isn't fucking perfect like no shit that's true of any story. I'm just making the argument that maybe some of the criticism you're levying towards it are unfair.

A character saying "No reaction" and then showing absolutely no existence of the thing she is referring is not an unfair criticism. In fact it's the absolute basic of visual story telling. If something exists, show it. The plegian soldiers are a massive part of this scene that are left completely to our imagination.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Like I can criticize awakening. Trust this game ain't perfect. I have my own issues with it. Like really think through your argument here. Let's break this shit down alright. What's the core of the argument? Emmeryn's line before she jumps is too vague, right? Okay fair enough but then how do you fix it given the exact same limitations and restrictions of the developers and not changing anything about the context or the message of the scene?

I've already said what they can do. Show the soldiers. But here's one that would require virtually zero budget to change. Remove the line completely. It is not doing it's job in conveying that it's talking about something that is non existent in the scene.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Because here's the thing if you change any of the ideas in the scene then you're essentially writing an entirely different story at that point. The goal here is not to write a different story. The goal is to improve where it fails and changing shit in a story is a lot easier said then done. because as I said earlier, it's like a butterfly effect. Changing one thing will change others because everything is connected in way or another. If you change the actions of one character, then that changes the reactions of other characters which then changes their actions which then changes other characters' actions. Eventually, it just kind of snowballs until you're left with a completely different story so changing things in a story need to take that stuff into account.

Which is true, but irrelevant to the situation here as no one is suggesting any actions or events he changed. Just that the reality of the context be demonstrated.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Taking this scene as an example, the core issue is that the story does not really do a good job of having the player understand Emmeryn's words in the cutscene. Given everything we have to work with, how do we fix it? Well one suggestion is changing the cutscene to include it but as argued earlier that doesn't really work because it might disrupt the flow of the scene.

That's simply not true. Inserting it now in post, maybe yeah, but these scenes are meant to be made to be right on the beginning. As I said before, the fact that you can't see an easy way to add in any soldiers to this scene is proof that right from the start, from the storyboarding of the thing, they never had any intention of actually demonstrating what it is about.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Okay well if that doesn't work then what do you do? The best way I can think of is maybe changing emmeryn's dialogue slightly to make the point more clear. Removing the line entirely doesn't work as the purpose of the line is her coming to realize what she needs to do to get people's attention.

No, because the line utterly and completely fails to that. Removing it would be an improvement. Especially since the previous lines already demonstrate that she's knows what she needs to do with its allusion to one selfless act.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

The point of this scene is basically Emmeryn overcoming her flaw of not doing anything to back up her words. The fact that she doesn't do anything even though she says she would arguably adds to that. But if changing it is necessary at all, all you really have to really do is change the speech to something that the player would expect to garner a reaction. Even then you can argue that maybe she thinks she's wrong because the fact that her words garnered no reaction means that her death might not be able to change them. Based on the dialogue, she's already got it in her mind that she's gonna jump even before the cutscene. so, with that in mind what does that phrase "no reaction" mean to her? She says to watch as one selfless act changes the world. It could mean that "No reaction" means that her words are meaningless without action or(As I've just come to realize as I reread the script for this chapter) that no reaction to her speech means that she thinks that what she's about to do might ultimately be pointless as her words had no effect. The fact that the lack of reaction on the plegian's part is the entire point.

I think it's clear from this that there is no point. You can't even pin down here what the intention is. The lone is vague as all hell and nothing actually backs up any of your interpretations. They could have by showing soldiers or just use facial expressions, but the line itself as it is just makes it more unclear as to what Emmeryn's intentions and feelings are at the time. You can come up with as many headcanons as you want, but that's all they are. And I don't mean this in the good way of its up to interpretation, because I firmly believe we are meant to understand her words. They just do a rubbish job of conveying what they're meant to mean.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Like they aren't going to react to it because she hasn't done anything. That's the point. She hasn't done anything. You're right the plegain's lack of a reaction is warranted. I'm not disagreeing with you there. I am disagreeing with the fact that it's bad writing because that's kind of the fucking point.

Do they even have a lack of reaction? I don't know because the scene doesn't show it. That's what makes it bad storytelling (I'll neglect to say writing as this is more the animator's fault than any script writer).

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

This leads us to the second problem. We don't see the "no reaction" which is somewhat fair and they maybe should've taken measures to fix that. Even so, I find that to be a relatively small issue all things considered. cause how do you know there were no plegians present?

The following chapter and the climax of the entire arc necessitates that there were Plegians present.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

If the answer is because you just finished killing them all well then that's just basic game-play story segregation. Like you're supposed to have a huge army with you rather than just your characterized units. You also have a bunch of faceless soldiers which isn't shown or anything simply for gameplay reasons. The fact that it is retroactively told that plegians were there in the next chapter isn't really that big a deal if you ask me.

A story depending on retcon to establish what happened in literally the previous scene (give or take a completely inappropriate paralogue) is a big deal.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

Even beyond that this was a big event advertised by Gangrel so it wouldn't be surprising that there were more plegian soldiers there that we just couldn't see for gameplay reasons. The fact that there are plegians blocking off the escape route lends credence to this as the location in which this map takes place isn't too far off from where we just were.

No one is arguing that there weren't Plegians there. The issue isn't that there's no Plegians there. It's that they don't show any Plegians there yet, apperantly, directly reference during the scene is happening that there Plegians there without showing them.

3 hours ago, Ottservia said:

And even beyond all this, there's a such thing as subtlety y'know. A story can be subtle. And it's not like you can't come to these conclusions of the text if they don't show you. I am proof of that. I came to this conclusion just based solely on the text itself. You just kind of have to think about it a little more. It's not like the story has to beat it's message into your head. 

Referencing something and not showing it (or not showing the absence of it) is not an example of subtly. It's just plain bad storytelling.

[Jotari]

Lo and behold, I've done what I should have done originally, and checked the Japanese script. What Emmeryn actually says is.

私は、無力で…愚かでした…
クロム…どうか貴方は…

Which translates to 

I was helpless ... stupid ...
Chrom ... please you ...

So there we have it. She wasn't reference the Plegians at all. It's only reumunating on how she failed. The localizers just decided to randomly add that in. Showing the Plegians would have been nice, but it's not nearly as crucial when they're not being referenced in the scene itself. So it's not subtly, it's just a mistranslation.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Jotari

[Axie]

oh, that line is better. it actually succeeds in adding some (too little too late) depth to emmeryn. so now the "no reaction" line is bad AND a weird localisation decision.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Axie

[Alastor15243]

Thanks for checking that out, @Jotari. I can't deny I was curious what the original Japanese was like.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Silver-Haired Maiden]

On the DLC topic, I enjoy reading about them and am fine with you continuing to do them. I just think people don't comment on them as much because... well if they're like me they don't consider it canon and also because it's hard to comment on anything other than the fact that Awakening just does not care about previously established lore or characters and the DLCs so far have just proven that even more.

[Ottservia]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Lo and behold, I've done what I should have done originally, and checked the Japanese script. What Emmeryn actually says is.

私は、無力で…愚かでした…
クロム…どうか貴方は…

Which translates to 

I was helpless ... stupid ...
Chrom ... please you ...

So there we have it. She wasn't reference the Plegians at all. It's only reumunating on how she failed. The localizers just decided to randomly add that in. Showing the Plegians would have been nice, but it's not nearly as crucial when they're not being referenced in the scene itself. So it's not subtly, it's just a mistranslation.

Well that certainly clears things up and it actually acts more in line with the original intent than the English version. She realizes she was helpless to do anything and then finally decides to act. Okay, well I admit I was wrong about it being subtle. Thanks for this. The Japanese line is much better and makes far more sense for the scene being shown and the original intent is still that she realizes she was wrong and decides to do something about it. I wonder what 8-4 was thinking with that one.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Ottservia

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Thanks for checking that out, @Jotari. I can't deny I was curious what the original Japanese was like.

Should be the rule of thumb whether encountering anything vague or confusing. Check the original script. PegasusKnight.com is your friend.

28 minutes ago, Silver-Haired Maiden said:

On the DLC topic, I enjoy reading about them and am fine with you continuing to do them. I just think people don't comment on them as much because... well if they're like me they don't consider it canon and also because it's hard to comment on anything other than the fact that Awakening just does not care about previously established lore or characters and the DLCs so far have just proven that even more.

For me at least I'd say it's less about it being non canon and more that there just not a tonne to say. Like nothing really happens in those DLC. It's the most bare bones "Hey go fight those guys. Member Roy? Good times." I wouldn't describe it as bad by any means, I'm glad the Einherjar are a thing, it's just... uneventful. Though on that subject I will point out that's it's kind of a travesty there's no Rudolf or Jedah Einherjar, which is a bit of a travesty. Conventional opinion is that it's because they never had official artwork at the time of Awakening's release, which is also a bit of a travesty.

[Ottservia]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

That's sort of the issue. Your arguments are really, really weak and could be used to defend absolutely anything.

 

I could say the same thing about your arguments in that they could be used to nitpick absolutely everything. I’m not gonna get into the rest of your argument as it’s pointless considering the original script which is in-line with my initial reading and interpretation of the scene. 

[Lightcosmo]

Just dropping to say I enjoy the run Alot so far!! 

I always love a good run of Awakening, so keep it up!

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, lightcosmo said:

Just dropping to say I enjoy the run Alot so far!! 

I always love a good run of Awakening, so keep it up!

Hope you continue to enjoy, and hope to hear more from you!

 

 

Awakening Day 9: Chapter 11

It's Christmas Eve, I've got no work today, and I'm playing more Fire Emblem Awakening. I'm sure nobody would begrudge me taking today and tomorrow off, but the thing is that, to my perpetual astonishment...

...I'm actually having fun with this game somehow.

I don't know why. It's completely mindless and broken, and I just beat the last level by soloing it with my avatar, because that was somehow the best strategy in this game. And yet... the thought of not playing it today sounds disappointing. I feel compelled to play some more. I'm excited to get to the part of the game where I start getting galeforce.

The game's completely and totally broken and has almost no strategic merit whatsoever... but there was still a reason I loved this game so much when it came out. It's just got this... quality to it that can make it a guilty pleasure.

Unfortunately it's not a quality that I think can really be graded, which, as I said a while back, was a major concern I had when it comes to grading this.

But what it's really taught me is that I really, really, really need to figure something out with that damned balance ranking and re-instate it, because, like, seriously. This game's balance needs to count against this fucking thing. No debate, no conceivable contest, this is the most broken game in the series. No other word can be used to describe the fact that no matter how much they crank up the enemy stats, no matter how strong the enemy skills are, soloing this with the avatar and their spawn is still the best strategy.

I'm using other characters for shits and giggles. It's a formality. There's literally no way I'm actually going to need them in the endgame, I'm just keeping them around for fun and to see if anyone dies to ambush spawns. Maybe I'll need Lucina and Morgan, but without the fancy L+ skills, I'm betting not. And all of that... is so far beyond any balance issues I might have had with any other game in the series.

...Alright, let's get going. After a few minutes of guessing likely targets, I finally found a spotpass team that actually sells nosferatu, so I summoned Raigh twice and bought two of them. Miriel has officially joined Alexandria's ranks as an unkillable god.

So, I start the map, and Gangrel just got the news that his army is laying down its arms and fleeing in droves.

Back with our group, Frederick elaborates that Emmeryn has apparently become a folk hero to the Plegian people after her death, and... well first, Now that score is 3 to 0.5, and second... I can't put my finger on it, but this feels really weird. We never really got a sense of what the actual soldiers of Plegia wanted before seeing Emmeryn die. We just got a bunch of bloodthirsty psycho commanders, and the only person who actually talked about anyone's motivations was Gangrel. We never saw any angry crowds calling for blood, or civilians who didn't welcome us with open arms for saving them from the Grimleal... this is all just “take our word for it” offscreen nonsense.

And now Chrom's talking about what a fool he was for not understanding that Emmeryn was right about the world, and that all people want peace deep down. I'm gonna add that to the tally, because these are separate people revering Emmeryn as righteous and wise in this scene. So 4 to 0.5.

...Honestly, I wish this game did the same thing Radiant Dawn did, and had a separate prep theme for hugely important or climactic moments, like the finales to the various “arcs” of this game. Given that this game has basically three fights with that “Final boss” feel to them, that would've been a good investment.

I should pretty easily be able to get some kills for Sumia, Cordelia and Miriel. The former two are close to promoting, and depending on how much exp the enemies here give, I could get them to level 20 today. Or I could always promote them early since they're level 17 and 15, but might as well check to see how much exp they're gaining here first. If they're barely gaining any over the 8 cap, I'll promote them.

Getting the chests is probably gonna be the most annoying thing, along with keeping away from all the forts until reinforcements arrive. If I kill Gangrel too early, some juicy promoted enemies won't show up with some droppable items. I may have to use a rescue staff to kill the thief without aggroing Gangrel, depending on where he moves.

Alright, so I tonic'd up my weaker units. We're ready. Let's go.

And now the game gives a really, ridiculously lazy and un-subtle declaration that Gangrel is supposed to be Chrom's dark counterpart, what Chrom could have become if he didn't learn from his failings and grow as a person, and... no. No, not remotely. We haven't seen a single fucking action from Chrom that was bloodthirsty or driven by hatred or a desire for revenge. Not one. Not even an impulse that was swiftly held back by the support of his friends. Not even after Emmeryn's death. There was the time he rushed in upon hearing Emmeryn was captured and had to be talked down, but that was purely him thinking about saving his sister, and not getting revenge on anyone. It is completely idiotic that Chrom even entertains the “maybe you're right” thing, because it just isn't true. At all.

Oh yeah, and that's another remark of Emmeryn being a saint, with Chrom saying he'll never have his sister's capacity to forgive people like Gangrel. 5 to 0.5.

Gangrel's claiming he's got Emmeryn's corpse on a mantle somewhere. The only possible explanation if that wasn't an accident is that he's lying, but yet again, how did Emmeryn get away? Near as I can tell they never had Gangrel reveal he actually discovered she was alive and let her go as some way of trying to introduce some humanity into him after his recruitment or anything, so... what's going on here?

So... we get started, and Olivia shows up. This is possibly the worst game in the series for dancers, what with it being overwhelmingly enemy-phase, what with galeforce basically allowing plenty of units to dance for themselves, and what with ambush spawns nerfing squishy units to hell... but I did manage to get a bit of use out of her extending the reach of Alexandria's first move when she piggybacked on Maribelle.

Reinforcements have started coming. I could stop them at any time by killing Gangrel, but I want to train up my other units some more if I can.

We've started getting some promoted non-boss enemies, namely a fairly nasty hero not even Sumia can double. And she's got a speed tonic and Ephraim's Lance, mind. My non-Alexandria units are all huddled by the northeast corner they started in, baiting in and fighting enemies as they come, careful not to get in range of those forts in case they spawn more. Meanwhile Alexandria's just plowing across the field to intercept that thief, who turned out, as I forgot, to only go after the western of these two... chests... just lying out in the middle of a field.

Awesome, the speedwing hero showed up from the northwestern forts.

Man, I've never let the reinforcements drag out this long. I didn't realize this many can show up. Well, more exp for me.

The reinforcements show no sign of stopping yet, and I just got Sumia to level 20. Dark flier ahoy!

...Alright, now the reinforcements have stopped. I'll feed the remaining lackeys to Cordelia and then kill Gangrel with Alexandria.

...Yeah, that doesn't look like it's gonna happen. All the enemies charged at once, so I'm just gonna have all the ones Cordelia can't handle at once suicide onto Alexandria.

SHIT! I FORGOT THE CHEST! I GOTTA GRAB IT WITH ANNA REAL QUICK!

Alright, thankfully I can just unequip Cordelia and let the wounded mercenary attack her for free until I unlock the chest.

...Oh yes. OH YES.

...SO...

...While it's not nearly as impactful with Gangrel as it is with Walhart due to Walhart being a much more badass opponent... to the point that I didn't even remember Gangrel used it the first time around...

...Mastermind is an absolutely awesome boss theme. I fucking love it. It feels like a slower-paced but still just as intense version of the stampede music from The Lion King. You really need to check it out. My only real complaint is that battles don't take nearly long enough to hear the full thing, but it's not a Murderous Puppets situation where it can't even get good. It's amazing the whole way through.

...So we get the goddess icon from the chest with Olivia's help, and Alexandria deals the final blow, though admittedly Gangrel managed to survive a single round of combat.

And now we get the big end-of-the-war scene, and I think we also get an extra scene with Chrom thanks to Alexandria marrying him.

So, Flavia and Basilio crack some jokes about how much money they're going to get as reparations from the defeated Plegia, and then...

...Do the lover talks not happen if they aren't already married by the chapter? No extra scene at all? I knew obviously there wouldn't be a confession, but...

...Okay, for those of you who don't know, Chrom obviously has to be married for the story to continue, so if you haven't shipped him with anyone yet, the game just automatically shacks him up with the woman he's closest with. And if he hasn't gotten any supports with anyone... well then either he goes with Sumia I think, who's highest priority... or if you got enough support points with Olivia on this map, he just has this crazy whirlwind romance with her. It's the most ridiculous thing, and the game's totally taking the piss out of it. Hell, it's actually impossible to get their S rank support conversation. They flash back to something that looks like one that happens if they fell in love at first sight, but if you go to the support log, you'll find it unlocks a completely different one that follows from their normal support chain and isn't a crazy spur of the moment thing. But you can't actually ever get that support in-game.

Also, if you don't have any units who have gained even 5 support points with Chrom at all, then Chrom marries a random generic maiden who's still dressed like a peasant despite being the fucking queen.

Chrom decided not to be an exalt, out of respect for Emmeryn, which...

...Um... Sorry, I know it's not anything even remotely like that, but I can't hear that and not think about how the position of president of North Korea is still occupied by Kim Il Sung some 26 years after his death. North Korea's “Eternal President”. And now we have Emmeryn, the Eternal Exalt.

But anyway, 2 year timeskip, and then we get the scene where Chrom's wife convinces him to not make her stay behind with baby Lucina and just have Lucina be wet nursed instead. The only wife who won't do this is Maiden, who just stays home because she was never any good at fighting.

Lissa always has a little moment where she cuts in here, usually to make fun of Chrom. Like at one point she even straight-up tells Chrom to just give in because they both know he's completely pussywhipped. She doesn't say that word specifically, but she does make the whip sound effect.

Chrom: My sister left a weighty legacy. I do all I can just to live up to it.

That's 6 to 0.5.

Right, so, anyway, so begins the Valm arc. Honestly, this is my favorite part of the story. I realize that it's the one you could most easily cut out of the story entirely with the fewest consequences, but of the three ridiculously small parts of this game, being a guerrilla force stuck in a massive and hostile land came the closest to being genuinely interesting. Plus, gameplaywise, it's the part I remember enjoying the most, probably because it's when the game opens up and you start getting cooler toys to play with.

Moving on... so now Virion comes in, and reveals himself to be Duke of Rosanne. Why the hell he didn't have Cherche tagging along to help us out back when he first joined, they don't really say.

So they're saying Valm was originally an “unremarkable nation once. Tiny, almost pitifully so”. So looks like that unified Valentia came into some kind of massive decline since the time of Alm. But Virion says absolutely nothing about the country's former glory, so... what am I supposed to make of this? Is Valm the country (as opposed to the continent) not where Alm's descendants wound up or something?

...Okay, so the game says that Cherche stayed behind to keep an eye on things while Virion fled to Ylisse. Which means that he's been sitting on this information... for two years. And hasn't told anyone.

But anyway, yeah, this map. Chapter 12. I'm gonna solo this map with Alexandria for the experience, and also just to show you how utterly trivial it is even on Lunatic+.

But first let's check out the supports I just got.

Cordelia and Vaike are at A rank now.

It's nothing particularly noteworthy, but I like this little chat. Especially the part where Cordelia talks about how helping Vaike get stronger will help Chrom, and also the rest of the army, grow stronger as well. Now then... Miriel and Gregor.

Man, I really like this one. She's really impressed by Gregor's ability to, as an outside observer, look at Miriel's mother's writing and actually improve the flow of one of its passages massively by just cutting down a needless phrase to a single word. This is a really cute support set, honestly. It's cool watching Miriel get to have a sort of philosophical discussion with somebody, given how lost people usually seem to get talking to her on an intellectual basis.

Gregor: Gregor is graduate of the school of life!

Miriel: I am not familiar with this institution. Are they accredited?

I don't know why, I just find that exchange so amusing.

And then Gregor tells her that there could be very important things she could be missing about how the world works just by constantly being in such a hurry to work on things, and that she could learn some new things by stopping, relaxing, and just watching things happen. She seems confused or disarmed by this, but still says she'll give it a try. And I think, if I remember correctly, this is gonna have some nice payoff in the S support.

Alright, time to solo Chapter 12.

 

Day 9 Bonus: Chapter 12

There's no dialogue at all before the prep scene. I guess the post-timeskip cutscenes were considered enough story for now. We're just gonna get a quick thing after we press start.

We're gonna get Cherche shortly after starting, but she's a flier, so we can easily get her out of the way for our... plans. Especially if we give her a pair-up partner like Sumia to boost her movement a bit.

...Alexandria seems to have capped defense. She'll get some more once she reclasses into grandmaster, but this marks the beginning of the end of her complete invincibility.

Alright, no need for much planning, let's just give Sumia some tonics just in case, since she won't have Frederick today... and just go.

So yeah, right out the gate, Walhart's demands, as conveyed through Dalton, are completely, psychotically unreasonable. He demands complete submission of basically everything that everyone owns, and he also demands “this land's greatest possession, the Fire Emblem”, as if he doesn't know that this continent (Ylisse? Is this another Archanea situation?) has more than one country, and he just landed in Ferox.

And when the villager asks the obvious question of what they're supposed to do to put food on the table after surrendering their every possession, and then says “Would you have us all die?”...

...Dalton just goes “You'll do for now”, and kills him. Granted, that's a pretty badass and scary villain line, but... like... I don't think Walhart... even remotely understands how empires work.

Right, well, let's just wipe the floor with this whole map and be done with it.

I have Alexandria break out the Book of Naga since her magic isn't that hot right now, and I position her to wipe out as many of the enemies on the east side as she can in one turn, to facilitate our flight straight to the sea, where my two flying groups can use their terrain control to completely evade all enemy units.

And since basically all of these enemies are armored or cavalry, Chrom whips out the noble rapier to have a great chance of finishing most of these enemies off.

I'll have to check how intact the Book of Naga is after this turn. If it gets too low I'll have to hold on to it until I can get Alexandria's armsthrift rate to 100%.

Silver bow bow knights can't get any hit rate on me thanks to bowbreaker, and would only do 19 damage even if they could.

Now, normally this map would be a little scarier on Lunatic+, but there's a patch of water towards the northeast side that, thanks to the boxes and “edge of ship” terrain to the north and south of it... is basically impossible to reach by any non-flier... and this map has no enemy fliers. So you can just camp there and basically pull the water trick 2.0 if you really have to, with Cherche safely tucked away from danger.

Alexandria just got an HPsauce level up, which I think is a sign that she has stats other than defense capped now.

...Yep, strength. Though I expected one more stat capped for getting an HPsauce level. Oh well, it's not like she isn't already massively ahead of the curve.

Sumia's just hanging tight by the docks with Cherche, while Alexandria and Chrom lay waste to everything.

The noble rapier broke just as the last enemy fell.

...And apparently Ferox's army suffered gargantuan casualties offscreen, and the game has Frederick spell out that since Ferox has the best soldiers, his means the Valmese soldiers must be really good.

You know, Frederick wouldn't have to spell that out for us if we actually got to see Feroxi soldiers in action.

So basically they say that if the next invasion force comes... we lose. We can't possibly defend the continent against them; it would be a slaughter.

Apparently Ferox has no warships, and neither does Ylisse. Plegia is apparently the only country with any experience in naval combat... but they didn't take advantage of that during the war. But anyway, this is just an excuse to make us parley with Plegia and see the new management it's under.

Alexandria's at level 9 with 95 experience. 505 experience to level 15. By my math, that means she needs to kill 43 enemies to get Galeforce (assuming all of them give 12 exp and not one point more), and Chapter 13 should have plenty to do that. At any rate, I'm not keen on taking on that chapter as a straight-up fight, because ambush spawn forts are literally everywhere. Far easier to defend Henry in a corner somewhere, probably with flight help from Cherche, than to try and have my other proper warriors fight this battle where warriors can pop out of any fort at any time. And if Cherche and Henry die, they die. Henry's awesome and I love him, but I'm not using him in this run. If he or Cherche is my first ironman casualty, I'm not gonna be too upset.

Alright, let's do this. I don't have much to do today until around dinnertime, so let's keep going, especially when the maps are quick and mindless.

 

Day 9 Bonus Bonus: Chapter 13

The new capital of Plegia is apparently on Carrion Isle, since I guess that's the headquarters of the Grimleal? Though that begs the question of why we meet them in the proper Plegian palace later. But this is one of the annoyances that comes with each chapter being tied to a location on an explorable world map. Every chapter battle has to be in a completely different place.

I don't like how this scene seems to imply that Chrom had literally no influence over who took over the power vacuum. He didn't make any effort to ensure that somebody competent and stable was put in charge of the country he just conquered and that the Plegians who put their fate in his hands didn't get thrown at the mercy of yet another power-hungry madman. Didn't even demand Emmeryn's body be returned for a proper burial and thus discover that there is no corpse to be found. No, he just fucked off and let the chips fall wherever they may. He just waltzed into... this... arid, desert nation... killed the... tyrannical despot running things there... and... left a power vacuum there... for... religious...

...extremists...

...to...

...take...

...over.

That... was that intentional? It can't have been intentional.

...But anyway, while the payoff of this scene in Chapter 14 is cool... it can't be more transparent in the setup that they just wanted to give Alexandria a ridiculously dumb set of assets to work with to come up with a clever strategy. Apparently Plegia has 800 warships, just... just lying around. What on earth would they have built 800 war ships for if there's been sufficiently little history of conflict with Valm that none of the other countries bothered making a navy either? And if they used them in the first war with Ylisse, why wouldn't Ylisse have built its own ships to counter them?

Validar calls Chrom “prince”, and... really? I get not calling yourself an exalt out of respect to your sister, maybe, but... but not even becoming a king? Still being a prince!?

...Ugh. He's called a prince in supports, isn't he? This is just a stupid excuse for them to be able to call him a prince in supports and not change it to king later.

Anyway, this is a generally weird scene. They help us with the Valm war with funding and ships because that suits their interests later (Walhart would've stopped the Grimleal too if he had conquered this continent), but they also just generally act creepy and weird in a way that really suggests they know Chrom knows Validar tried to assassinate Emmeryn two years ago... and then they just introduce “The Hierophant”, AKA Bad Future Alexandria, AKA Grima, to the group, freak everyone out with this identical clone of Alexandria... and then launch an assassination attempt once we've left like they forgot they want us to succeed against Walhart. I just... don't understand what the goal of any of this shit is. It feels like a really clumsy and ill-placed effort to just establish some foreshadowing for certain elements of the Grimleal arc, but... Validar attacking them here is just so weird.

Also, they didn't even bother making a new chin for the generic female hooded avatar. This is very obviously not a woman's face under that hood.

Okay, in fairness, credit where it's due... I do like the double-meaning of this chapter's title, “Of Sacred Blood”. It's a reference to Validar's verbatim line saying what Alexandria is when he rather randomly reveals himself to be Alexandria's father, but it also references Lucina, who finally reveals her true nature as Chrom's daughter after this battle.

Okay, so now they feel the need to come up with a potential mundane explanation for the impossible existence of two identical entities. The Hierophant is theorized to be Alexandria's twin sister. Just one line theorizing that Lucina's Falchion was the Valentian one would have been nice too.

Chrom: You are yourself, before you are any man's daughter.

It's funny how, out of context, that sounds like it was explicitly written to be gender-progressive, because obviously it's sheer coincidence that it's talking about a woman now.

Alright, let's go. Not much need for prep when we're only bringing Chrom, Alexandria and Cherche. I just slapped a concoction on Cherche on the off chance she sees battle that doesn't kill her. Let's move.

Anyway, Henry shows up and gives a really lame first impression, with his humor consisting entirely of bird puns... because he shows up in a storm of crows. But his supports are absolute comedy gold, mark my words. You need to see them if you have any love for this game's cast.

Okay, he does have one good joke in this opening scene. After putting Chrom at wits end, and Chrom exasperatedly asks where the Risen came from...

“Well, see, when a mommy zombie and a daddy zombie love each other very much...”

...Though that would suggest that Plegia just calls the Risen zombies.

Alright, Alexandria only has 4 more levels to go. Hopefully this map has enough reinforcements to get her where she needs to be.

Oh jeez, longbows. Those are gonna be annoying, since I can't enemy-phase them. Hopefully we don't get too many of those.

Chrom seems to be managing to keep up with his damage output for now, surprisingly. I'm gonna see how long I can make that last with just dual-strike experience.

The annoying thing about this map is just how spread out the forts are, leaving very little room where you can be safe from all of them at once. Of course I have to remind myself that normally I'd have more units to plug up forts with, but still... that doesn't leave many left to actually use to fight when you're on higher difficulties. So yeah, keeping Henry and Cherche alive is proving to be at least a little annoying.

But yeah, it always feels like this chapter might not be enough to give my avatar galeforce, but I always wind up hitting it with time to spare. I'm not too worried anymore. I've got Cherche tucked away on the cliff to the southeast, hidden against a part of the cliff that's 2 tiles thick, so nothing can attack her but a longbow ambush spawn showing up from the easternmost southern fort. Which I'm pretty sure doesn't happen. And if it does, well, that's why I brought Cherche instead of Sumia or Cordelia.

YES! I GOT GALEFORCE!

LET THE TRUE REIGN OF CHEESE BEGIN!

...For those of you who aren't aware of this skill, and haven't been able to piece together what it does from my indirect mentions...

...This skill...

...is absolutely ridiculous.

What it does is that once a turn, if you kill an enemy with your action... you get to move again. Basically like ultra-canto. And if your pair-up partner has it too... that means you can have a single two-unit pair act three times in one turn, without a dancer's help.

And since it's the last skill Alexandria's going to get before the end of this chapter... that means that when Lucina joins our army at the end of this map...

she'll inherit it from Alexandria automatically.

AS WILL MORGAN.

After I do Morgan's paralogue, I'm going to have three units with Alexandria's absurdly broken class set and galeforce.

Like, why did I even bother training Cordelia and Sumia?

Oh. Right. BECAUSE THEY CAN GET GALEFORCE TOO.

And as the icing on the cake, and also to help keep Chrom's internal level from getting too high and crippling his dual strike experience gains... I'm gonna second seal Chrom into cavalier, so that he gains a skill he can pass down to Lucina as well: Discipline.

...I think. Unless she just automatically starts with Aether too, like his other potential daughters do. ...Shit, she does, doesn't she? Well at any rate it was important for the first reason anyway, and I've got second seals to spare now, so might as well.

...Dang it, Chrom doesn't give Alexandria a luck bonus unless he's a lord. Oh well, I guess I'll put him back in that eventually.

Event tile gives us a Celica's Gale, we kill the boss, and now let's see the big story climax of this chapter.

So a risen assassin just teleports in to, well... assassinate Chrom, and Lucina cries out:

“Father, NO!”

And then she dual guards. It would've been nice if that was a lethality proc from the assassin though, to make it feel like Lucina was actually necessary there assuming you have a strong Chrom.

And then comes the big cutscene where she reveals the Brand of the Exalt in her eye. And Chrom realizes this is his daughter.

Now, in the Japanese, apparently the line he said just before his daughter breaks down in tears and hugs him was “You've been fighting all this time, haven't you?”

I much, much, much prefer the English line, which I think is pretty damned iconic for anyone who played the game and ever even once gave a shit about what was happening in it:

“You deserved better from me than one sword and a world of troubles. ...I'm sorry.”

It's just so powerful. He looks at Lucina, all grown up and yet still clearly that little girl he just left behind in Ylisse, remembers she's “seen” an unbelievably shitty future, realizes she has his sword and realizes what that must imply... and his first response is to apologize for his obvious failure to give her the life she deserved. And the choice of words itself is just... just perfect. I love this moment. Even now, when the manifold failings of this story are laid bare to me, I still find myself loving this moment.

...So, weirdly, the “romance” music is playing, and actually I just realized that the quote this song is named after comes from this scene. Emotionally it works here as well, but... well...

...Look, the game decides to go full tone whiplash and have Chrom's wife suspect he's cheating on her with Lucina. Unless it's the avatar, the only one who trusts him. These scenes are pretty dang funny, especially Sully swinging a sword at midair in rage and unknowingly calling her own daughter a hussy, but... we've barely had any time to process what's just happened, and we're going full comedy again.

Then after Lucina and Chrom explain themselves, we get an awesome cutscene showing a glimpse of the bad future, with Lucina stabbing a Risen through the back and then yanking the sword up and through its spine and skull, obliterating it back to dust in a single swing.

...The game's decided to make this a save point, so...

...I guess here's a good time to end it for today before looking at the rest of the dialogue.

Stay safe, everyone!

[Samz707]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And now the game gives a really, ridiculously lazy and un-subtle declaration that Gangrel is supposed to be Chrom's dark counterpart, what Chrom could have become if he didn't learn from his failings and grow as a person, and... no. No, not remotely. We haven't seen a single fucking action from Chrom that was bloodthirsty or driven by hatred or a desire for revenge. Not one. Not even an impulse that was swiftly held back by the support of his friends. Not even after Emmeryn's death. There was the time he rushed in upon hearing Emmeryn was captured and had to be talked down, but that was purely him thinking about saving his sister, and not getting revenge on anyone. It is completely idiotic that Chrom even entertains the “maybe you're right” thing, because it just isn't true. At all.

 

Yeah it's a load of bullshit.

I can't believe I'm actually defending the worst lord in the series here, this entire thing pretty much makes no sense, Chrom has absolutely no desire to harm innocents and even recruited Tharja instead of gutting her.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So they're saying Valm was originally an “unremarkable nation once. Tiny, almost pitifully so”. So looks like that unified Valentia came into some kind of massive decline since the time of Alm. But Virion says absolutely nothing about the country's former glory, so... what am I supposed to make of this? Is Valm the country (as opposed to the continent) not where Alm's descendants wound up or something?

.

I don't think the writers cared.

Honestly I'm more bothered they made Dread Fighter a DLC Class and just have the Valm army spam Pegasus Riders (In the first two chapters agaisnt them I've done), you know, the animals that aren't native to Valentia, since the only Pegasus riders in Gaiden were the Whitewings, except apparently Alm in the DLC mentions Dread Fighters being something Valentia takes pride in, so if so why are they just gone? (Especially considering how Dread Fighter are arguably better than Cavaliers.)

And even if we count Echoes, Faye is the only native Pegasus Rider and you could probably headcanon they took that Pegasus from some bandits. (Since at least one group kidnapped Est and her Pegasus.)

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

The new capital of Plegia is apparently on Carrion Isle, since I guess that's the headquarters of the Grimleal? Though that begs the question of why we meet them in the proper Plegian palace later. But this is one of the annoyances that comes with each chapter being tied to a location on an explorable world map. Every chapter battle has to be in a completely different place.

I don't like how this scene seems to imply that Chrom had literally no influence over who took over the power vacuum. He didn't make any effort to ensure that somebody competent and stable was put in charge of the country he just conquered and that the Plegians who put their fate in his hands didn't get thrown at the mercy of yet another power-hungry madman. Didn't even demand Emmeryn's body be returned for a proper burial and thus discover that there is no corpse to be found. No, he just fucked off and let the chips fall wherever they may. He just waltzed into... this... arid, desert nation... killed the... tyrannical despot running things there... and... left a power vacuum there... for... religious...

...extremists...

...to...

...take...

...over.

That... was that intentional? It can't have been intentional.

...But anyway, while the payoff of this scene in Chapter 14 is cool... it can't be more transparent in the setup that they just wanted to give Alexandria a ridiculously dumb set of assets to work with to come up with a clever strategy. Apparently Plegia has 800 warships, just... just lying around. What on earth would they have built 800 war ships for if there's been sufficiently little history of conflict with Valm that none of the other countries bothered making a navy either? And if they used them in the first war with Ylisse, why wouldn't Ylisse have built its own ships to counter them?

 

Not to mention that Pelgia is seemingly a barren desert mostly so where the actual hell did they get all the wood to make boats? The other countries have way, way more trees and therefore wood to make boats. 

And Chrom further proves to be utterly incompetent at anything yet for some reason the devs didn't focus on this obvious flaw of his character and would rather make up stuff about him being the "Similar to Gangrel".

Because that's totally not almost universally terrible.

Also yeah I noticed too that it's clearly not female Robin in the hooded shots.

 

Edited December 24, 2020 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

since the only Pegasus riders in Gaiden were the Whitewings

Actually no, there was Clair. It's dracoknights that Valentia apparently doesn't have, hence why none of the Whitewings can promote to them in Gaiden.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Samz707]

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Actually no, there was Clair. It's dracoknights that Valentia apparently doesn't have, hence why none of the Whitewings can promote to them in Gaiden.

Forgot about Clair.

Still they seem to be fairly rare (Possibly non-native) to Valentia, since I don't think you ever fight enemy pegasus Riders in Echoes so there's barely any of them around seemingly. (Maybe they were in Gaiden?)

Dread Fighters would have been a more fitting class for Valm to spam at you. (And in an game with actual balance, a good difficulty spike since they'd be more resistant to magic since magic is hideously OP in Awakening.)

Edited December 24, 2020 by Samz707

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But Virion says absolutely nothing about the country's former glory, so... what am I supposed to make of this? Is Valm the country (as opposed to the continent) not where Alm's descendants wound up or something?

Maybe it's a Holy Roman Empire situation, Valm is descended from Alm's One Kingdom in spirit, attempting to claim the authority of history, only. Although Rome was infamous for having short-lived dynasties at best, the Eastern Roman Empire was better at dynastic rule, but that too had its limits. The Ottomans who dealt the coup de grace to Constantinople so I read had a single dynasty lasting over 600 years, and the Zhou Dynasty of China was 790 years, which I would imagine are a very very very good runs for dynasties that serves as more than a figurehead. 

It is possible that Valm's rulers have Alm's and his wife's blood in them 2000 years is enough time for that blood to dilute throughout the nobility and somehow down into the lower classes. But lineal descent from an unbroken chain of the sons of Alm is not very likely.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, so the game says that Cherche stayed behind to keep an eye on things while Virion fled to Ylisse. Which means that he's been sitting on this information... for two years. And hasn't told anyone.

I remember Gangrel's supports mention he saw the Valmese threat and was trying to unify the Ylissean continent through his actions as a countermeasure to Walhart. Although I don't remember him casting it in heroic terms, I think he knows well the kind of person he is. 

I'm not praising Gangrel at all when I say that (although, I think he is a fair villain, better than Walhart actually), it's too late and too unbelievable in its sincerity.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yeah, right out the gate, Walhart's demands, as conveyed through Dalton, are completely, psychotically unreasonable. He demands complete submission of basically everything that everyone owns, and he also demands “this land's greatest possession, the Fire Emblem”, as if he doesn't know that this continent (Ylisse? Is this another Archanea situation?) has more than one country, and he just landed in Ferox.

A man so given to an insatiable hunger for empire, or at least for the act of conquest, isn't going to worry about such petty things as nations. Even though, they exist, simply denying the existence of nations and ethnicities now might work if you're a charismatic workaholic ruler able to exert the force of will necessary to suppress them. Sooner or later however, these repressed differences will come to the surface again, causing... bad stuff. 

I'm thinking of the former Yugoslavia here. Tito was a charismatic ruler holding things together, then the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians start drifting apart after he dies, then the Cold War ends and Yugoslavia (which really was never a good idea- its post WWI creation period wasn't harmonious either) goes to fractious hell.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

but... like... I don't think Walhart... even remotely understands how empires work.

The thing is, we know he wants an Atheist Law & Order Empire Opposed to Fell and Divine Dragons Alike.

And yet, the line you're pointing out makes me think he'd be happier conquering everyone, and then enfeoffing all the people he dethroned as "vassal kings" and then he'd return to Valm or go looking for the legendary Jugdrali continent to conquer. Meanwhile, he'd get yearly embassies of enormous tribute, and maybe conscriptions if he was still at war. He would, deep-down happily, return to the Ylissean continent for a crushing of local revolts every year or two year.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Apparently Ferox has no warships, and neither does Ylisse. Plegia is apparently the only country with any experience in naval combat... but they didn't take advantage of that during the war.

To be fair, look at the world map again, does it look like a navy could've done much again either Ferox or Ylisse? They don't have nuclear submarines loaded with ICBMs at their disposal. They could've done some raids along some coasts, perhaps launched independent campaigns, but how much would they have amounted to?

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, he just fucked off and let the chips fall wherever they may. He just waltzed into... this... arid, desert nation... killed the... tyrannical despot running things there... and... left a power vacuum there... for... religious...

...extremists...

...to...

...take...

...over.

That... was that intentional? It can't have been intentional.

 

Tellius (the Daein situation being the imperfect (because it's the occupiers who are bad, not certain native inhabitants) parallel) doesn't look so bad again.😛

There is respecting the sovereignty of other countries, and there is immoral abandonment and noninterference, leading to suffering the rise of dictators worse than what had been there before.

Not to bring in IRL politics, but you're making me think of ISIS. And that extremist theocracy arose despite years of controversial efforts in rebuilding the country whose dictator was toppled. As Skrimir pointed out in RD, to make war is easy, it's what comes after thats hard.

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I get not calling yourself an exalt out of respect to your sister, maybe, but... but not even becoming a king? Still being a prince!?

Well, the Arabic term "Caliph" can mean "successor", but "steward" or "deputy" are valid meanings as well. the glorious Abbasid Caliphate which stretched from Morocco to Persia at its height of power was no second-rate country. The reason for limiting oneself to the title of deputy, is because Mohammad did exert political authority, but being the Last Prophet of Islam, he's on a bit of pedestal no one can or should trying stepping onto themselves.

And yes, I have incidentally wound up comparing Emmeryn to the founder of a major religion, which considering her martyrdom and its stated impact, might not be entirely incorrect. Who knows if an Emmeryn sect of WhateverIsWorshippedInYlisseism arose to prominence in the years that followed her death?

 

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's just so powerful. He looks at Lucina, all grown up and yet still clearly that little girl he just left behind in Ylisse, remembers she's “seen” an unbelievably shitty future, realizes she has his sword and realizes what that must imply... and his first response is to apologize for his obvious failure to give her the life she deserved. And the choice of words itself is just... just perfect. I love this moment. Even now, when the manifold failings of this story are laid bare to me, I still find myself loving this moment.

Honestly, this is for me the moment where Awakening's plot reaches its peak, and I would agree it's a sincerely good, irrespective all that surrounds it. The rest of the plot, enshrine it or grind it into hamster bedding, I don't care.

Edited December 24, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Emperor Hardin]

@Alastor15243 I should post this translated scene from the Japanese website taking place right before Gangrel's fall. 

 

https://youtu.be/_k_BZYVHvZ8?t=27m24s

Edited December 24, 2020 by Emperor Hardin

[Axie]

merry christmas dude!!!!

the valm arc is so preciously pointless. and it's still the third of awakening that least turns our brains into powder trying to understand it. looking forward to it.

i had an idea of how ridiculous this game's level progression is because of how easily i could grind basically every character in normal, but i am still shocked at how, in lunatic, your avatar went tactician > mercenary > bow knight > dark flier and got bowbreaker AND galeforce in 13 chapters. you do need to bring the balance category back. maybe named "cheeseability" so awakening is solidly down at the mariana trench, and then like dark/shadow dragon right above it because warpskip, and then...
something?

[Alastor15243]

18 hours ago, Axie said:

merry christmas dude!!!!

the valm arc is so preciously pointless. and it's still the third of awakening that least turns our brains into powder trying to understand it. looking forward to it.

i had an idea of how ridiculous this game's level progression is because of how easily i could grind basically every character in normal, but i am still shocked at how, in lunatic, your avatar went tactician > mercenary > bow knight > dark flier and got bowbreaker AND galeforce in 13 chapters.

Yeah, it's mostly due to this game having an absurdly high minimum exp gain. No matter what, 10 kills will always give anyone with veteran at least 120 exp. Whether you reach that minimum exp gain by 1 level or by 10 billion levels. Meanwhile Fates lets you get, like, I think 5 levels ahead of your enemies before you only get 1 on lunatic. Something along those lines. And due to how ridiculously enemy-phase this game is... it completely undermines any concept of needing more than one unit unless you're playing midgame Lunatic+.

 

18 hours ago, Axie said:

you do need to bring the balance category back. maybe named "cheeseability" so awakening is solidly down at the mariana trench, and then like dark/shadow dragon right above it because warpskip, and then...
something?

I have some time to work something out, but yes, this game has shown me that however painful it is, balance is something I have to take into account.

 

Merry Christmas to you too!

Edited December 25, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So a risen assassin just teleports in to, well... assassinate Chrom, and Lucina cries out:

“Father, NO!”

Given how pathetic the assassin's stats are, they really should have done something to make him feel even remotely threatening. The assist just falls flat if Chrom is trained - is it really necessary when the assassin can barely damage him?

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Shadow Mir said:

Given how pathetic the assassin's stats are, they really should have done something to make him feel even remotely threatening. The assist just falls flat if Chrom is trained - is it really necessary when the assassin can barely damage him?

Yeah, like I said, he really should've procced lethality.