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


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@The Roger The Paladin Thank you very much for the write-up. Very interesting! I didn't know most of those examples, although I admittedly blanked on the parallels (or anti-parallels) between Lucina, Trunks, and Arnie :lol:

The comparison between the first two came to my mind when reading this:

On 12/25/2020 at 6:52 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Oh man, I love Lucina. For all of her super-serious behavior before the reveal, she's surprisingly adorable. And one of the funniest things about her is just how completely out-of-touch she is with the concept of a normal life. She's so used to living in outrageously dire conditions that she just... takes everything seriously, even when she shouldn't. And it's comedy gold. Here though, she just really really wants to have a sparring match with her father, and you get the sense that it's mostly just so she can spend time with him. It's really cute.

Super-serious? Check. Completely unfamiliar with a non-apocalyptic environment? Check. A bit awkward around people? Check, I think, although Teamfourstar might be warping my perception of the original character there.

The stories obviously do differ in the details, although you'll have to forgive me for not remembering Awakening's plot too well - in DBZ, the butterfly effect is in full effect immediately, while Lucina (iirc) is worried that she didn't manage to derail major events enough, such as Em's death-but-not-really. I don't remember if Lucina and the other kids have any plans to return to the future somehow able to defeat Grima, but please don't answer that one - Alastor will probably get to that later. ;):

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6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I haven't checked out the cell saga much, but I have heard the comparison made before repeatedly.

Best saga imo, and has the perfect ending (no pun intended).

1 hour ago, ping said:

Super-serious? Check. Completely unfamiliar with a non-apocalyptic environment? Check. A bit awkward around people? Check, I think, although Teamfourstar might be warping my perception of the original character there.

Huge DBZ fan here, and I can say that you're spot on. TFS' version stay true to the characters in the end.

Since we are comparing the characters, I would also like to add that Lucina's role is a parallel to Seliph, just as Chrom is for Sigurd. As I wrote in the unpopular opinions thread:

On 12/14/2020 at 2:15 PM, Maof06 said:

Finally, I would also like to compare his journey and his actions with Sigurd, who is also a deconstruction of the archetype and one of the best Lords that this franchise has given us. They are both prone to emotional decisions based on their conceptions of right and wrong, the two don't think much of the long-term consequences, they decide to marry a woman they've known for a short time (okay, I'm being a little biased here, but this is because I believe that Inigo makes the most sense being Chrom's son and Lucina's brother) and their failures lead them to be eventually killed (it is literally necessary to travel back in time to save Chrom). I believe Sigurd is a superior character, though, as he remains dead in his story.

Here are the comparations between Chrom and Sigurd. I can also add the fact that they were "betrayed" by whom they thought they could trust. Lucina and Seliph then have to go through hell to fix the mistakes left by them. This is clearly intentional, as Awakening is tries to take all of the best parts about Genealogy and push it into one game. YMMV on whether or not they succeeded, but I wish people would give them more credit for the attempt.

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3 hours ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

That doesn't surprise me, when from memory Super Sonic was also a reference to Super Saiyan.

There's also Zidane Tribal who just has to be a reference to Goku. An alien monkey boy who originally got send to destroy the world but becomes its protector instead. And not only does Zidane has a transformation that gives him pink fur like Goku's SS4 form, but just like in Dragonball the rival gets red fur instead of pink when using that form. 

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18 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

There's also Zidane Tribal who just has to be a reference to Goku. An alien monkey boy who originally got send to destroy the world but becomes its protector instead. And not only does Zidane has a transformation that gives him pink fur like Goku's SS4 form, but just like in Dragonball the rival gets red fur instead of pink when using that form. 

Waaaait... that can't be...

...It can.

...Holy shit.

I am absolutely shocked to discover that Super Saiyan 4 is in fact older than Final Fantasy 9. January 29, 1997 versus July 7, 2000. I could've sworn that Super Saiyan 4 was invented sometime in the 2000s.

Edit: Apparently that's because that's when it first aired in America, in 2004.

Edited by Alastor15243
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5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Waaaait... that can't be...

...It can.

...Holy shit.

I am absolutely shocked to discover that Super Saiyan 4 is in fact older than Final Fantasy 9. January 29, 1997 versus July 7, 2000. I could've sworn that Super Saiyan 4 was invented sometime in the 2000s.

I believe there's a giant gap between when Dragonball aired in Japan and when it did in the west so America and Europe might indeed have seen SS4 after FF9 came out. 

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41 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

 

Here are the comparations between Chrom and Sigurd. I can also add the fact that they were "betrayed" by whom they thought they could trust. Lucina and Seliph then have to go through hell to fix the mistakes left by them. This is clearly intentional, as Awakening is tries to take all of the best parts about Genealogy and push it into one game. YMMV on whether or not they succeeded, but I wish people would give them more credit for the attempt.

Eh, I kinda dislike that.

Awakening really feels like it's trying to piggyback off Nostalgia, hard and the random "Alm's Sword" "Ephraim's lance" and "Wolt's Bows" all feel like desperate call-backs yet they don't put the effort in to avoid continuity issues at all. (at least to me, I kinda get the cynical feeling like the devs only did it because Marth is popular rather than any actual desire to explore Archanea, and since they threw it in too, Valentia in the future.)

 

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You got it that late?

*laughs in 1999 Latin American GT dub*

I bet whatever people over here who had the chance to play FFIX were likely also thinking up on the similarities between Zidane and Goku.

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9 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Eh, I kinda dislike that.

Awakening really feels like it's trying to piggyback off Nostalgia, hard and the random "Alm's Sword" "Ephraim's lance" and "Wolt's Bows" all feel like desperate call-backs yet they don't put the effort in to avoid continuity issues at all. (at least to me, I kinda get the cynical feeling like the devs only did it because Marth is popular rather than any actual desire to explore Archanea, and since they threw it in too, Valentia in the future.)

 

Well it was supposed to be the last game in the franchise after all. The references are understandable. They wanted to make this game as a love letter to the entire franchise to give it a proper send off. It was supposed to be their swan song more or less and so they crammed in as many references as they could.

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1 minute ago, Ottservia said:

Well it was supposed to be the last game in the franchise after all. The references are understandable. They wanted to make this game as a love letter to the entire franchise to give it a proper send off. It was supposed to be their swan song more or less and so they crammed in as many references as they could.

Yeah but IMO it comes across less as a love letter and more throwing stuff in because hopefully they'll nostalgia bait fans.

I'm probably a bit cynical but the rampant retcons (among other things like grinding map DLC and atrocious balancing/ambush spawns) means I don't really get the vibe Awakening was a labor of love, since if they did care they'd probably want to avoid rampant retcons at least. 

It simply comes across as "People liked these games so we're just going to throw elements/references from those games in for maximum profit."

Kinda like how the Silent Hill series kept adding Pyramid head to everything despite that making no sense and contradicting the very game he was in, because everyone loved Pyramid Head therefore he should clearly be in everything. 

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21 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I kinda get the cynical feeling like the devs only did it because Marth is popular rather than any actual desire to explore Archanea, and since they threw it in too, Valentia in the future.)

You're not being cynical at all, that's exactly the reason why Archanea was chosen. Mystery of the Emblem was the favorite and most sucessful FE in Japan until Awakening's release, and only Three Houses beat its sales in their home country.

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5 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Kinda like how the Silent Hill series kept adding Pyramid head to everything despite that making no sense and contradicting the very game he was in, because everyone loved Pyramid Head therefore he should clearly be in everything.

Homecoming had good ideas but was badly executed. The 2012 movie was a mistake.

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1 hour ago, Maof06 said:

You're not being cynical at all, that's exactly the reason why Archanea was chosen. Mystery of the Emblem was the favorite and most sucessful FE in Japan until Awakening's release, and only Three Houses beat its sales in their home country.

Awakening and Fates didn't outsell Mystery of the Emblem in Japan?

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Awakening and Fates didn't outsell Mystery of the Emblem in Japan?

Nope. According to VGChartz, Awakening sold approximately 560K units in Japan, and Fates sold approximately 530K. I don't know where exactly I saw the news that 3H outsold Mystery in Japan, so I might be wrong. The VGChartz page for 3H is outdated, since 3H surpassed the 3 million mark recently.

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Fixed the second link.
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4 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

Nope. According to VGChartz, Awakening sold approximately 560K units in Japan, and Fates sold approximately https://www.vgchartz.com/game/85716/fire-emblem-fates/sales. I don't know where exactly I saw the news that 3H outsold Mystery in Japan, so I might be wrong. The VGChartz page for 3H is outdated, since 3H surpassed the 3 million mark recently.

You might want to fix that second link. It somehow links right back to this page.

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13 hours ago, Maof06 said:

Nope. According to VGChartz, Awakening sold approximately 560K units in Japan, and Fates sold approximately 530K. I don't know where exactly I saw the news that 3H outsold Mystery in Japan, so I might be wrong. The VGChartz page for 3H is outdated, since 3H surpassed the 3 million mark recently.

VGchartz is a notoriously unreliable source though. Wikipedia has Fates selling 500k before the end of 2015 (which is a also prior to its western release). I highly doubt it dropped in the Japanese market so sharply when it was on the market for several more years.

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12 hours ago, Jotari said:

VGchartz is a notoriously unreliable source though. Wikipedia has Fates selling 500k before the end of 2015 (which is a also prior to its western release). I highly doubt it dropped in the Japanese market so sharply when it was on the market for several more years.

Yeah, but its pretty hard to keep track of the sales otherwise. The last time Nintendo disclosed the sales was in 2016.

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9 hours ago, Maof06 said:

Yeah, but its pretty hard to keep track of the sales otherwise. The last time Nintendo disclosed the sales was in 2016.

Yeah so I would be hesitate to make claims saying Old Mystery did better than Awakening if Fates in Japan. We don't really have the reliable data on the matter. What we do know though is that both were mega hits overall.

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Awakening Day 11: Chapter 14

...Man, I just can't get enough about how great the spritework is. This game is absolutely gorgeous. Obviously the 3D in-game models are the weak link, but when they're fighting and in motion they look great even then. Really it's just the dialogue scenes where they look a bit awkward, mostly due to the faces. Man, I'll never forget how dumb it looked in Fates where they dramatically zoomed in on those stupid-ass faces.

...Right, well, let's get back into the swing of things. Now, this chapter is... probably gonna be unpleasant for anyone not related to Alexandria. It's a rather claustrophobic boat map with treasure chests and a bunch of flying reinforcements. I have a feeling that somebody's gonna die, but I've decided I'm not ditching anyone anymore, even for their safety. I need to see how nasty these maps can get, and how much this game hates glass cannons. Even if it means more characters will die.

...I stop by the barracks just for the hell of it, and don't get much of value. Except Henry just randomly implying that raven laguz are still around.

Alright, let's go.

Ah man, Lucina looks so cool standing on a ship with her naval-captain-esque tactician outfit on, one hand on her hip.

...Conversely, Chrom looks utterly idiotic as a cavalier. This may have been a mistake.

So yeah, Lucina doesn't clarify further, but she does make it clear that she didn't actually “save [Chrom's] life” when she stopped that assassin in the Chapter 6 cutscene. Just stopped him from being “gravely wounded”. And we have to assume the Chapter 13 assassin just wasn't there in the original timeline.

...Yeah, this brings another question... okay, so, Lucina says here that she only knows rumors about how her father died. Something about “some great battle, fought to sway [his] destiny”. That implies it happened when she was really young, lining up with this timeline.

But in this cutscene later in the game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCqWT6BGw8c

...she noticeably freaks out when she hears that her mother and father are dead, as if this is literally the first she's heard about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBK7jSPp_-Y

And according to this translation, the Japanese version was even more clear that Lucina's parents were just killed. Note the choice of words. Instead of “And now it is your turn to die!”... Grima says “It is also your turn to die”. Also her turn. As if this is something happening concurrently with her parents' “turn to die”.

But she doesn't talk about the event in this dialogue scene in Chapter 14 like it happened while she was an adult. Here she acts like it happened while she was still too young to remember.

Another instance of poor communication between the cutscene department and the writers? Perhaps.

But let's move on.

Lucina then says he was “murdered, betrayed by someone dear to [him]”. And of course since we know who that is thanks to the opening cutscene of the game, the game feels no shame in having Alexandria have a splitting Grima headache immediately after hearing this, though I don't get what purpose it serves.

...But Lucina's silence after Alexandria says the headache was nothing makes it plain. She knows who killed Chrom.

...Okay, now she's saying that “After [his] murder and Grima's return, [she] took the name Marth and fought back”. Okay, so that does sound like it happened when she was an adult. So why did she only hear rumors? Is this some “Cornelius in Gra” situation, and she was left behind and kept out of the loop entirely regarding what was going on, fleeing the castle and discovering her parents' deaths at the same time?

But anyway, this chapter gives us our first real concrete taste of Alexandria's skill as a tactician in a story scene. She's told that her army's ships are half-full, at best, while the enemy, despite matching their ship numbers, has way more troops on them. They do have some supplies, namely oil, but no catapults to send it onto the enemy ships.

...What she winds up doing is taking out the enemy leaders to disrupt their chain of command, consolidating all of the Ylissean-Feroxi troops onto half of their ships while leaving the remaining ones barely-manned, setting the empty ships on fire before abandoning them, and thus ramming them into the enemy fleet to torch the entire armada.

Honestly, this is some cool shit, and I wish we'd get to see her do stuff like this more often.

...Yep, and then Alexandria says the line that Morgan quoted in his support with Chrom last entry.

...Um... I just noticed something I never noticed before. Chrom says:

“Oh, and, Alexandria... If we are all bound by these invisible ties, I thank the gods it's with you.”

...And Alexandria's response, inexplicably, is to glare at him angrily.

...Well, enough of that, time to do this map. I remember restarting this dozens of times in Lunatic+ because of ambush spawn counter enemies, AKA instant death.

...Cordelia's probably going to die eventually. I'm not going to bench her, but her speed's just too bad for her to have any chance of keeping up with everyone else. Especially since she doesn't get any speed from her pair-up partner. She's actually just barely slow enough to get doubled by the pegasus knights here without a speed tonic. God help us if we get any falcoknights.

I went through a ridiculous number of tonics for this map. I'll need to restock after this. And I'll be wanting some more gold too, so I'm gonna start having Morgan try using Leif's blade during one of his galeforce attacks every turn to see if we can get some.

Really, this map is gonna be boring until the reinforcements show up. I've just gotta have Miriel, Alexandria and the kids fight one of the three ships each, and have everyone else just huddle in the middle and hope reinforcements don't attack them. With Olivia dead, I have just enough deployment slots to bring everyone I've been actively using. Like I said, that paralogue was the last time Olivia would ever really be useful. Too crazy and overly enemy-phased from here on out, and there's too much galeforce going around for her to be needed.

I have no doubt whatsoever that I'm gonna win this ironman, but it is going to be one hell of a shitshow from here on out if I don't low-man the crazy parts. Which I won't.

...I just noticed the ships are apparently still rowing despite the opposing ships being so close that their oars are practically swordfighting with each other. Weird. But back to gameplay, I had Miriel take the west boat, safely out of range of the fliers who she wouldn't be able to double or do much damage to, and I had Alexandria take the south and Lucina and Morgan the east. Morgan procced despoil with Leif's Blade and got a bullion, so that's awesome. And in the middle of writing this paragraph I got sidetracked for like an hour due to my laptop suddenly slowing to a crawl, forcing me to wait until I could save and quit my writing program and then restart. So yeah, I don't think I'll have time to do more than this today, which is a shame, because I was on such a roll before.

The enemies here aren't nearly as dangerous as the one in that last paralogue, incidentally. Really, those dang reinforcements are all I'm afraid of here.

Huh, apparently when you go back through classes you've already been in, then when it comes time to learn a new skill... you're given the opportunity to re-equip it as if you just learned it. That's kinda cool.

Morgan's reached the point where basically everything is capped, so I promoted him to grandmaster. I'll promote Lucina when she's reached level 20, just to milk the quick levels as long as I possibly can.

...Okay, first ambush reinforcements showed up. Thankfully, as I just remembered, I think they don't show up from any direction more than once, so if I have my units retreat to the southwest (where the ambush spawns came from), that should reduce their chances of getting killed pretty dramatically. And since Sumia and Alexandria were able to take out all three of them quickly... that means I should be able to keep my fragile units alive after all.

...Man, those ambush spawns weren't a problem at all! Everyone lived! Of course that's because I knew they don't show up from the same direction twice, but I still remember this being a nightmare even with that knowledge. Lunatic+ stuff probably.

For a boss who brags about the seas being his “home”, he's really not remotely equipped to handle emergencies at sea. Does he honestly think he'll be able to swim in that heavy-ass armor?

So yeah, one of my favorite songs in the game plays... is it “Rival” or “Don't You Put Any Stock In This Destiny Hogwash”? Because those two songs sound fucking identical. I can never tell them apart. But I have to assume it's the latter, because I don't think they ever play boss themes in cutscenes at any other time.

Regardless, it plays over the big climax of Alexandria's plan, and a shot of Frederick going “It worked! It worked!” over a massive sea of flames, which has been memed to hell and back given the jokes about him being a pyromaniac.

So...

...quick thing.

The game said we had about 800 warships and 200 transports. Assuming only the warships were being counted when they said we were even with Valm in sheer ship numbers... Using the extremely conservative estimate that there were about 10 soldiers per ship on average like there were in gameplay, and ignoring the people below deck operating those danged oars...

...Alexandria just condemned, like, 8,000 people... to death by burning alive. That is the most hardcore, cold-blooded, and fucking terrifying thing that I have ever seen a Fire Emblem protagonist do. And... it's kinda just glossed over.

I've heard people say that it's fucked up that she wasn't called out on this like Micaiah was when she tried to use flaming oil on Sanaki, and... I wouldn't go that far. Look, I'm not overly familiar with the intricacies of war crimes and military ethics, but I'm pretty sure that there are very few ways to die in war that would be considered “nice”, death by burning alive is apparently already considered an acceptable way to kill somebody in war given the prevalence of fire magic, and also, these guys are defending their entire country from a psychotically unreasonable despot who basically plans to commit genocide with extra steps on them.

What I will say is that it is unbelievably creepy that everyone's just objectively celebrating. I could've been happy with them not angsting about the moral implications, especially considering the rest of the tone of this game, but what I can't be happy with is having Basilio practically crack a joke about how bad it smells. A smell caused by a bare minimum of 8,000 people's faces melting off of their skulls. He's basically just like “ugh, let's get out of here, this place reeks!”, like this is some cartoon show where they saved the day by having somebody let off an atomic fart or something.

...So yeah, definitely don't have time to do another chapter today. So I'll pick this up tomorrow, where we'll do a much less painful level that is going to be followed by a much more painful level.

Stay safe, everyone!

...Jesus Christ, they put a shop in the map in the middle of the ocean...?

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1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

For a boss who brags about the seas being his “home”, he's really not remotely equipped to handle emergencies at sea. Does he honestly think he'll be able to swim in that heavy-ass armor?

The game said we had about 800 warships and 200 transports. Assuming only the warships were being counted when they said we were even with Valm in sheer ship numbers... Using the extremely conservative estimate that there were about 10 soldiers per ship on average like there were in gameplay, and ignoring the people below deck operating those danged oars...

...Alexandria just condemned, like, 8,000 people... to death by burning alive. That is the most hardcore, cold-blooded, and fucking terrifying thing that I have ever seen a Fire Emblem protagonist do. And... it's kinda just glossed over.

I've heard people say that it's fucked up that she wasn't called out on this like Micaiah was when she tried to use flaming oil on Sanaki, and... I wouldn't go that far. Look, I'm not overly familiar with the intricacies of war crimes and military ethics, but I'm pretty sure that there are very few ways to die in war that would be considered “nice”, death by burning alive is apparently already considered an acceptable way to kill somebody in war given the prevalence of fire magic, and also, these guys are defending their entire country from a psychotically unreasonable despot who basically plans to commit genocide with extra steps on them.

What I will say is that it is unbelievably creepy that everyone's just objectively celebrating. I could've been happy with them not angsting about the moral implications, especially considering the rest of the tone of this game, but what I can't be happy with is having Basilio practically crack a joke about how bad it smells. A smell caused by a bare minimum of 8,000 people's faces melting off of their skulls. He's basically just like “ugh, let's get out of here, this place reeks!”, like this is some cartoon show where they saved the day by having somebody let off an atomic fart or something.

...Jesus Christ, they put a shop in the map in the middle of the ocean...?

Apparently swimming wasn't actually mandatory for sailors for a VERY long time, I think not even til' after WW2 and I'm not sure if it's even "Truly" mandatory or if you're just required to at least try to learn to swim.

Also apparently you can (At least assisted) according to a friend of mine who's into history, get out of ye olde' armour surprisingly quickly, at least with someone helping you out, so he A: might not be able to swim in the first place (and therefore a non-issue) or B: hoping the ship sinks slowly enough to take his armour off.


Yeah Awakening kinda forgets to remember you're killing well, people.

 

Eh probably a merchant ship, or there's just a big floating store in the middle of the ocean on struts.

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11 hours ago, Espurrhoodie said:

This is a random question that just randomly popped into my head so I apologize if this has been asked before, but how would you rank the FE games when it comes to artwork?

Purely artwork? Just character portraits? Kinda hard to gauge right off the bat, but in terms of ones I like, I enjoy the GBA ones, the Tellius ones, and the 3DS ones. I think the Thracia ones are okay, the Genealogy ones look weird, the Shadow Dragon and New Mystery ones look some variety of lifeless, the NES ones are just pure cheese, and the Three Houses ones... those just look creepy to me, especially the fucking eyes.

Fire-Emblem-Three-Houses-1-5.jpg

Look closely. Three Houses characters have two-layered irises. It looks like they have eyeballs inside of their eyeballs.

Edited by Alastor15243
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You know, thinking about the boat scene in Awakening in comparison to other incidents in FE where someone dies by fire makes it so much more obvious that Awakening did not want to go around questioning the player in any way. I hear more jokes and discussions about Edelgard "setting Bernadetta on fire" than about Robin burning all those ships and the people on them. Micaiah using oil and fire in Radiant Dawn was also treated a lot more somberly, by both her allies and enemies, whereas in Awakening it's just universal cheering and celebration.

It's an instance where having an avatar affects how the other characters react ... in a bad way.

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4 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

You know, thinking about the boat scene in Awakening in comparison to other incidents in FE where someone dies by fire makes it so much more obvious that Awakening did not want to go around questioning the player in any way. I hear more jokes and discussions about Edelgard "setting Bernadetta on fire" than about Robin burning all those ships and the people on them. Micaiah using oil and fire in Radiant Dawn was also treated a lot more somberly, by both her allies and enemies, whereas in Awakening it's just universal cheering and celebration.

It's an instance where having an avatar affects how the other characters react ... in a bad way.

Awakening seems to forget we're killing people and not Risen several times. ( I consider Warrior's Realm once of those examples.)

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...What she winds up doing is taking out the enemy leaders to disrupt their chain of command, consolidating all of the Ylissean-Feroxi troops onto half of their ships while leaving the remaining ones barely-manned, setting the empty ships on fire before abandoning them, and thus ramming them into the enemy fleet to torch the entire armada.

Honestly, this is some cool shit, and I wish we'd get to see her do stuff like this more often.

Only much later did I learn this could inspired by the historical Battle of Red Cliffs. If you're not familiar with it...

Spoiler

During the short-lived Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, the Kingdom of Wei was led by the great warlord Cao Cao, was fresh off conquering northern China, where at the time the majority of the country's population lay. Wei was invincible, and now Cao Cao turned south, he had the momentum, he had the numbers, the supplies, the strategic brilliance if his good fortune continued, he'd be able to conquer southern China and reunited the country in no time. There was just one obstacle in his way- the Yangtze River. 

Some other warlords, namely the Sun family who ruled southeastern China in the Kingdom of Wu, supported by the King-of-the-yet-to-be-founded-third-kingdom-of-Shu Liu Bei, didn't like the idea of someone other than themselves restoring unity to China. As the Yangtze is a wide and important river, Wei had to muster a great fleet to cross it, and Wu assembled a great fleet of their own to stop Cao Cao. 

Wu's genius strategist Zhou Yu, had a general named Huang Gai feign a defection to Wei during the battle. As the "defectors" sailed towards their "allies", they jumped ship for smaller boats and set the big ones they were attached to on fire. The winds then pushed their flaming boats into the Wei ships, which had been intentionally chained together, possibly to minimize seasickness. The Wei navy and all the troops therein went up in smoke and underwater.

Thus, though greatly outnumbered, Wu and the future Shu stopped the almighty Wei. Change Wei & Cao Cao to Valm & Walhart and Zhou Yu to Robin, and you've got an alright comparison.

However, although it's irrelevant to this one particular battle, Wei was far from done for. Momentum broken, but it still maintained the great logistical upper hand in China's civil war. Wu's survival lay almost entirely in holding the great rivers, land attacks on Wei never resulted in sustainable territorial gains. And many decades later, Wei did at last conquer Shu and then Wu.

The Dynasty Warriors franchise, from which I learned about this, treats the fire attack as a tragedy if you're playing as Wei, and if you're Wu or Shu, it's an epic victory. No questioning of the morality of the act, a hack n' slash game really can't when hundreds of KOs per battle is what you usually end up doing.

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5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Only much later did I learn this could inspired by the historical Battle of Red Cliffs. If you're not familiar with it...

  Reveal hidden contents

During the short-lived Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, the Kingdom of Wei was led by the great warlord Cao Cao, was fresh off conquering northern China, where at the time the majority of the country's population lay. Wei was invincible, and now Cao Cao turned south, he had the momentum, he had the numbers, the supplies, the strategic brilliance if his good fortune continued, he'd be able to conquer southern China and reunited the country in no time. There was just one obstacle in his way- the Yangtze River. 

Some other warlords, namely the Sun family who ruled southeastern China in the Kingdom of Wu, supported by the King-of-the-yet-to-be-founded-third-kingdom-of-Shu Liu Bei, didn't like the idea of someone other than themselves restoring unity to China. As the Yangtze is a wide and important river, Wei had to muster a great fleet to cross it, and Wu assembled a great fleet of their own to stop Cao Cao. 

Wu's genius strategist Zhou Yu, had a general named Huang Gai feign a defection to Wei during the battle. As the "defectors" sailed towards their "allies", they jumped ship for smaller boats and set the big ones they were attached to on fire. The winds then pushed their flaming boats into the Wei ships, which had been intentionally chained together, possibly to minimize seasickness. The Wei navy and all the troops therein went up in smoke and underwater.

Thus, though greatly outnumbered, Wu and the future Shu stopped the almighty Wei. Change Wei & Cao Cao to Valm & Walhart and Zhou Yu to Robin, and you've got an alright comparison.

However, although it's irrelevant to this one particular battle, Wei was far from done for. Momentum broken, but it still maintained the great logistical upper hand in China's civil war. Wu's survival lay almost entirely in holding the great rivers, land attacks on Wei never resulted in sustainable territorial gains. And many decades later, Wei did at last conquer Shu and then Wu.

The Dynasty Warriors franchise, from which I learned about this, treats the fire attack as a tragedy if you're playing as Wei, and if you're Wu or Shu, it's an epic victory. No questioning of the morality of the act, a hack n' slash game really can't when hundreds of KOs per battle is what you usually end up doing.

Fascinating! Thanks for the info!

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