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

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Dayni said:

Doesn't he act like it's not true though? You said he accused Sumeragi of being a fake.

I meant more that he has it confirmed to him afterwards.

I felt that was more of a weird boss fight line. Immediately afterwards they act like he knew he was real all along.

[Samz707]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

That's nothing. Anyone who marries Selena is written to have mysteriously vanished to go with Selena back to Ylisse... even if it's Xander, King of Nohr.

10/10 writing.

Would it have really killed them to at least re-write the endings for when they'd make no sense?

[Eltosian Kadath]

5 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

They're not the only offenders, however - Selkie starts much closer to the enemies than you, and Sophie starts on the other end of the fucking map.

Sophie is not hard to save, as she starts far away from everything, and the enemies closest to her are closer to you, and thus will go after your army instead of her.

I don't think I have ever tried the Selkie one late into the game, so I wont comment on it, although if someone does have some experience with it, I would be interested in hearing about it.

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 minute ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I don't think I have ever tried the Selkie one late into the game, so I wont comment on it, although if someone does have some experience with it, I would be interested in hearing about it.

From what I remember, the enemies near her all carries bows, are stationary, and whose ranges don't cover each other's adjacent spaces. Her AI moves her enemy by enemy, closer to the boss, but until she gets to the boss who can attack up close. Selkie will not be attacked by any enemy, barring those to the left, whom you can readily intercept.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sophie is not hard to save, as she starts far away from everything, and the enemies closest to her are closer to you, and thus will go after your army instead of her.

I don't think I have ever tried the Selkie one late into the game, so I wont comment on it, although if someone does have some experience with it, I would be interested in hearing about it.

Given this IS the same game where people thought it was a good idea to have an NPC unit spawn in the middle of promoted enemies, where they'll assuredly kill themselves, I have every reason to expect the NPC AI to be a fucking moron with those two (in Selkie's case, possibly putting her in range of the enemies that charge towards your units, and in  Sophie's, having her go LEEROY JENKINS to the northwest)...

Edited February 10, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

Given this IS the same game where people thought it was a good idea to have an NPC unit spawn in the middle of promoted enemies, where they'll assuredly kill themselves, I have every reason to expect the NPC AI to be a fucking moron with those two (in Selkie's case, possibly putting her in range of the enemies that charge towards your units, and in  Sophie's, having her go LEEROY JENKINS to the northwest)...

Going to have to come up with some instance of that actually happening to someone in order for it to hold weight as argument.

[Alastor15243]

Revelation Day 23: Chapter 26

First off, castle shit! Today everyone's getting round glasses, for the benefit of the Persona 5 Joker cosplayer among us!

And again, I want to thank everyone who's been visiting! It means a lot! I just got another battle reward: a physic staff! That'll be handy! But right now, we've gotta get to work on Chapter 26: The Vallite King.

Starting with the ridiculous “climax” to the traitor arc.

Dakota convinces everyone to let him go first because without opening with a blow from the Seal of Flames, nobody else will even be able to injure Anankos. But like... the Rainbow Sage explicitly said that the Yato isn't the Seal of Flames yet. Why isn't he concerned about that?

...But anyway, everyone behind Dakota and Azura is suddenly blasted with fire... and Gunter tries to convince everyone that Azura and Dakota are the traitors and that that was why Dakota talked them into going behind him. An absolutely ridiculous idea, because if Dakota and Azura wanted to kill everyone here... I mean... fucking why would literally any of this story have happened the way it did?

HOLY SHIT NO!

GUNTER DOESN'T EVEN SAY ANYTHING BEFORE SUSPICIONS FLY!

LEO AND RYOMA BOTH SUSPECT THEM SIMPLY DUE TO THE FACT THAT THEY WEREN'T ATTACKED! HOLY SHIT!

THIS IS SO TITANICALLY STUPID!

Yeah, Gunter's saying the only reason Dakota brought everyone together to Valla was to lure them here to be killed. Yeah, uh, okay, so, if you'll forgive me for channeling Dakota Waterstone Vendelgate of Nohr for a moment:

Dakota: Oh! Splendid theory, Gunter! So I crafted a plan to kill all of the royals, a plan that required the charisma to convince them to jump off a cliff, and it never once occurred to me to just convince them all to jump off an actual fucking cliff?

But no, of course, Dakota remembers Gunter's comment last map and only now puts two and two together. Pity nobody else witnessed him saying that. I wonder how he's going to use this as proof?

...By tricking Gunter into admitting it again. Right when Dakota has made it clear he's thought of proof it was Gunter.

Gunter then claims he was a traitor “the whole time, one way or another”. I can't quite remember the details as to what he would be referring to.

And Gunter makes the ridiculous lie that the only reason he did it was because his naive oblivious optimism pissed him off.

I mean, point taken, but it's still blatantly not the reason.

But of course, Dakota can clearly see the purple flames around him and realizes he's just being possessed by Anankos, so it's done nothing to crush his belief in everyone like he hoped.

Anyway, time for the battle.

I'm reclassing Dakota to dread fighter. I just don't feel comfortable making Dakota a class that can't use swords in the endgame, given that awesome sword upgrade he always gets. I usually do Hoshido or Nohr noble (I prefer Nohr), but this way he can actually still use his axe rank he's been building up. I forged him a +3 shuriken named Ziggo in honor of my favorite Battlebot from when I was a kid. Man that show was the shit.

Anyway, it seems like the game's through with throwing speedy Hoshidan enemies at us for a while, and it's nothing but Nohrian enemies as far as the eye can see, which my army no longer needs rallies to double. Which means that thanks to a certain gimmick on this map... I'm gonna be able to go nuts with enemy-phasing with Dakota and the two big bros, isolated from the rest of the army.

The main gimmick of this map is that enemies will constantly spawn from the puddles of water on the map, and you have to use dragon veins to freeze them if you don't want to deal with them. But this is still a boss kill map, so you can rush it if you want... if you're willing to miss the buttloads of treasure. I am not. I'll have Kagero get the treasure up north with Dakota, Ryoma and Xander, and I'll bring Kaze with Shiro backing him up as everyone else works their way through the rest of them.

Let's do this.

Anyway, the secondary gimmick of this battle is that Dakota and Azura are being protected by their mothers from beyond the grave a la Harry Potter, and the 3x3 set of tiles around them glow with an aura that makes them give 20% healing and 40 avoid. Yeah. Yeah, the big boys are gonna be untouchable.

Oh yeah, and one of my favorite songs in the game plays: Far Away. It's the semifinal map theme in Birthright, and it plays again here and I am not complaining.

...Holy shit thank goodness for that dodgetanking, because these enemies can take sooooooooo many hits. Even fucking Xander is only doing 2 damage a hit to these generals.

And basically half the map charges. Holy shit. Yeah, this... this is mildly scary, but mostly I'm just annoyed at how long this is gonna take. This feels like an Awakening map... except I don't have any overpowered units capable of at least making it mercifully short.

Savage blow is coming in ridiculously handy here, allowing me to heavily wound this these generals and at least be able to take them out in a single turn with a good Ryoma crit or astra proc. Xander's the weak link here, due to his lower evasion and the fact that the bonus terrain hampers his offense due to elbow room. But really, only Ryoma stands a serious chance of one-rounding anyone, and nobody's attacking him because the enemies know that. Xander should actually probably retreat. He'd be doing more good helping out the lower group.

...And I fucked up by accidentally sending Felicia to take out an enemy around Dakota's group and forgetting I have to keep her away from my allies or galeforce won't proc. She would've surely died in the face of that madness, so I wasted no time resetting.

And upon freezing the first puddle, Azura implies this is only temporary, and the reinforcements will eventually come back when the ice melts.

Yeah, seriously, I can't stress enough how bad the stat balance on these enemies is. One-rounding without crits is completely out of the question, and some of my most powerful units can barely even hit double digit damage against the generals. But thanks to the defensive terrain here, there's basically no threat of death either! At least not for the guys around Dakota.

...Oh, and also, the weakened enemies I couldn't one round... refuse to do anything on enemy phase. Fucking what!? They don't even retreat! They just sit there!

...Wait a second... is this a healing instinct?

...Are they trying to use the healing evasion tiles in order to heal themselves? Can the AI not tell that those tiles are coded to not work for them!?

I finally found an occasion to use the shove skill Hinata got a while back. Right after Shiro switched to Kaze to open the chest, I pushed him so he'd be in range of Azura so he could be danced again to switch to Shiro again and use the dragon vein just to the north of the chest.

...Yep, the wounded enemies are chasing after the glowing tiles around Dakota's feet not because they're trying to attack Dakota and then they give up (one landed on one of the diagonals despite not having a ranged weapon), but because they don't understand that the Harry Potter tiles won't heal them. Holy shit, did nobody playtest this map at all!?

...Christ has this been exhausting. No fun at all. But I can at least dignify it with the title of map, compared to basically everything in Awakening, the game it reminds me of so much.

The chests have been notably awarding us with brave weapons. Nice, though this game's way too enemy-phase focused for that to really be handy. We also get a calamity gate, which would be nice for Felicia to forge.

Gunter's got dragonskin, but it's nothing a bunch of units at once can't take down. I had four heavy-hitters on hand. I only needed two.

...And then in the cutscene, Azura starts singing, because of course she does. We never get any clear definition of what exactly her singing can and can't do, but “fuck with Anankos”, particularly “Fuck with Anankos's brainwashing”, is the most consistent ability it has.

Yeah, and Dakota tries to get Gunter to remember memories of events we didn't know about before now, which, of course, makes the emotional impact completely fall flat...

...and Gunter's response to this saccharine friendship speech is, naturally, to stab himself in the gut.

...But it's fine, because they can heal him.

...And yeah, then Gunter reveals that he only befriended Dakota in the hopes of eventually taking advantage of that friendship to satisfy his intense grudge against the very concept of royalty after Garon killed his family and village, and Dakota's all like “I totally understand”, and Gunter's naturally like

“...What?”

And Dakota's like “You befriended me for fucked up reasons, but you were still my friend”... and... Gunter didn't even say anything about eventually coming to genuinely care for Dakota! Nothing at all! What's going on here...!?

...But anyway, let's view supports and finish up.

…Hahahaha, okay, so I had Xander visit the treehouse, and he gives the simultaneously comically and darkly ironic line:

“I hope you know that I'm always on your side. Nothing could ever change that.”

Anyway, time for supports.

And looks like that actually unlocked one with Xander!

...Yeah, uh... reading this support... this only makes it harder for me to believe that Corrin could have been visualized as a male character first. He just exhibits... so many qualities that Fire Emblem basically never gives to male characters. It's hard to explain.

Also, it's hilarious how vague Xander has to be here about the “path” he is on and the decisions he's made.

Ooh! We get the second support between Xander and Sakura!

...That was pretty cute, if a bit predictable. Sakura apparently decided a good way to get over her shyness would be to try to talk to “the most intimidating person in Nohr”, and she's suddenly super embarrassed about saying that to his face even though he isn't bothered at all due to how used to it he is. He even smiles!

Ah yes, now Azura and Kaze get a support.

…

Christ, this is just another tiny buildup support. We get some mildly interesting stuff about Azura and Kaze's interactions with each other, but then she asks him for a favor and it cuts out before she can say what it is.

Ah yes, and now Velouria and Hisame.

Okay now this is kind of adorable and wholesome. It turns out the reason Hisame was looking for an amber like that was because it was the perfect size to replace his father's lucky token, and Velouria, being a massive daddy's girl, almost instantly kicks into full gear being sympathetic about his plight.

...It's kinda dumb that Velouria then reveals her sense of smell gets stronger when she's sufficiently “emotional”, and sniffed out some more amber right away... but what the heck. For Fates this is fine.

...And that's it for today.

Tomorrow we finish this.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Samz707]

I've returned to playing Fates myself. (kinda got side-tracked with Fallout, I'm sorta bad at sitting down and playing through an entire game at once and even then it's more I'm squeezing some Fates in-between sessions of Fallout:Tactics.)

So I'm kinda curious, I know some sort of promo thing called Conquest "Embrace the Darkness" or something (which isn't what happens, at all.) but does anyone here think Fates would have been improved if Conquest was actually an evil Corrin route? like they know they're working for the bad guys but don't care as opposed to what actually happens in the game.

Edited February 10, 2021 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Samz707 said:

I've returned to playing Fates myself. (kinda got side-tracked with Fallout, I'm sorta bad at sitting down and playing through an entire game at once.)

So I'm kinda curious, I know some sort of promo thing called Conquest "Embrace the Darkness" or something (which isn't what happens, at all.) but does anyone here think Fates would have been improved if Conquest was actually an evil Corrin route? like they know they're working for the bad guys but don't care.

I don't think so. It'd be exceedingly difficult to believably write a character who in the span of a single moment could decide to turn either heroic or completely unapologetically evil.

[Punished Dayni]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

And Dakota's like “You befriended me for fucked up reasons, but you were still my friend”... and... Gunter didn't even say anything about eventually coming to genuinely care for Dakota! Nothing at all! What's going on here...!?

That really makes it sound like Rev Vs. Con Gunter are really from two different universes.

Just because of Gunter's Conquest supports with Corrin. (Just.... don't mention the S support)

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Savage blow is coming in ridiculously handy here, allowing me to heavily wound this these generals and at least be able to take them out in a single turn with a good Ryoma crit or astra proc. Xander's the weak link here, due to his lower evasion and the fact that the bonus terrain hampers his offense due to elbow room. But really, only Ryoma stands a serious chance of one-rounding anyone, and nobody's attacking him because the enemies know that. Xander should actually probably retreat. He'd be doing more good helping out the lower group.

One weird thing I noticed in this map is that while the terrain surrounding Corrin and Azura don't aid the enemies, it still lets the enemy generals get the natural cover boost...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And upon freezing the first puddle, Azura implies this is only temporary, and the reinforcements will eventually come back when the ice melts.

That almost sounds like you have never waited long enough to see the ice melt (with dragon vein returning), and have reinforcements spawn from it, which they will do. Admittedly it does take a while...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

I finally found an occasion to use the shove skill Hinata got a while back. Right after Shiro switched to Kaze to open the chest, I pushed him so he'd be in range of Azura so he could be danced again to switch to Shiro again and use the dragon vein just to the north of the chest.

Much as I like shove in the Tellius games, I always found it underwhelming in Fates. I am not entirely sure if this is simply a Birthright thing, as I find both Shove and Swap underwhelming while the Conquest movement skills of Shelter and Lunge I find incredibly useful...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Yep, the wounded enemies are chasing after the glowing tiles around Dakota's feet not because they're trying to attack Dakota and then they give up (one landed on one of the diagonals despite not having a ranged weapon), but because they don't understand that the Harry Potter tiles won't heal them. Holy shit, did nobody playtest this map at all!?

...Christ has this been exhausting. No fun at all. But I can at least dignify it with the title of map, compared to basically everything in Awakening, the game it reminds me of so much.

Fascinating...thanks for sharing this little discovery.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...And then in the cutscene, Azura starts singing, because of course she does. We never get any clear definition of what exactly her singing can and can't do, but “fuck with Anankos”, particularly “Fuck with Anankos's brainwashing”, is the most consistent ability it has.

If you think back to how it was used in Revelation chapter 13, it sounded more her song simply is some kind of mind influencing power...

 

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I forged him a +3 shuriken named Ziggo in honor of my favorite Battlebot from when I was a kid. Man that show was the shit.

BattleBots still plays nowadays, if you're curious (it's on Discovery and Science Channel). While we're talking about it, the fact that in the current season, Tombstone - one of the most feared bots - ended up with two losses and only one win during the qualifying portion *really* makes me think no one is safe.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm reclassing Dakota to dread fighter. I just don't feel comfortable making Dakota a class that can't use swords in the endgame, given that awesome sword upgrade he always gets. I usually do Hoshido or Nohr noble (I prefer Nohr), but this way he can actually still use his axe rank he's been building up.

On the flipside, I pretty much never leave Corrin's base class line (and if I do, it ain't for very long).

[Eltosian Kadath]

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Going to have to come up with some instance of that actually happening to someone in order for it to hold weight as argument.

I actually have seen Sophie head towards the North West once, by killing the nearer group of enemies too quickly, but due to the position of the mountain she has to move closer to your army well before she is in any danger, and with the enemies between you out of the way, its fairly easy to recruit her in time

[Axie]

i can't wait until you are done with this half-baked afterthought so at least the playlog will be exciting for you again. for the gameplay if nothing else, though i still think birthright's storyline is surprising in its awfulness and will be fun to read about.

[Samz707]

2 hours ago, Axie said:

i can't wait until you are done with this half-baked afterthought so at least the playlog will be exciting for you again. for the gameplay if nothing else, though i still think birthright's storyline is surprising in its awfulness and will be fun to read about.

Wait? Birthright has the surprising Awful story? I thought that was the "woe is me" stuff of Conquest?

or are you just meaning that all 3 are awful and Birthright is just surprising in how it still manages to be awful?

 

[Jotari]

As poorly as this whole Gunther subplot is handled, I am glad of its existence as it gives us the potential (that will probably only ever manifest in my dreams) of having a mounted breath unit in Heroes that isn't horribly contrived. Namely Gunther summoning the stone head from the next chapter.

10 hours ago, Samz707 said:

I've returned to playing Fates myself. (kinda got side-tracked with Fallout, I'm sorta bad at sitting down and playing through an entire game at once and even then it's more I'm squeezing some Fates in-between sessions of Fallout:Tactics.)

So I'm kinda curious, I know some sort of promo thing called Conquest "Embrace the Darkness" or something (which isn't what happens, at all.) but does anyone here think Fates would have been improved if Conquest was actually an evil Corrin route? like they know they're working for the bad guys but don't care as opposed to what actually happens in the game.

Yes. Let's go full Command and Conquer Soviet Missions on them.

10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't think so. It'd be exceedingly difficult to believably write a character who in the span of a single moment could decide to turn either heroic or completely unapologetically evil.

Is that really worse than the taser sword devastate and entire country for a slime monster  plot we did end up getting? I can think of multiple ways in which evil Corrin could work.

A) Don't take it seriously at all. Play it up and make it outright silly how evil Corrin can potentially become.

B) Don't make it sudden, have Corrin be reluctant at first but eventually "Embrace the Dark" as the tag line says and end up as evil as the Nohr royals end up being in Birthright (well before they decide to leave out of the war).

C) Make Nohr the less ridiculously evil choice by making Hoshido less obviously good. Hoshido can still be the more moral choice, but give them some dirt to stain their name so Nohr is a rationale choice too.

D) Just ignore the evil aspects of fighting for Nohr. And by that I don't quite mean don't feature them in the plot at all, but more like how Crimson Flower ignores Edelgard's actions. By just firmly taking the stance of "We don't need to justify ourselves at all" while still doing immoral things that stop just short of unnecessary sadism.

All of those could have produced something better than what we got ultimately with Conquest. Course they have the potential to fall flat on their face too, but I think just in concept they work better than the real Conquest, which even at basic premise I struggle to think of ways to make it work.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Jotari

[Axie]

1 hour ago, Samz707 said:

or are you just meaning that all 3 are awful and Birthright is just surprising in how it still manages to be awful?

yes exactly! everyone knows conquest's storyline is bonkers dumb and revelation was written in five minutes on a napkin, but birthright is somehow just as bad when it has no right to be.

[Venger_06]

9 hours ago, Samz707 said:

So I'm kinda curious, I know some sort of promo thing called Conquest "Embrace the Darkness" or something (which isn't what happens, at all.) but does anyone here think Fates would have been improved if Conquest was actually an evil Corrin route? like they know they're working for the bad guys but don't care as opposed to what actually happens in the game.

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't think so. It'd be exceedingly difficult to believably write a character who in the span of a single moment could decide to turn either heroic or completely unapologetically evil.

It couldn't be any worse than what we got. Personally, I wish they could have let us go full Crusader Kings 2. This is what they took from us.

I remember I wrote about a new perspective on Conquest's final boss if Corrin was, unapologetic, the evil guy.

On 10/11/2020 at 8:55 PM, Maof06 said:

Takumi could've been the best final boss of the franchise. Imagine the situation: here you are, at long last, in the halls of Shirasagi Castle. All of your battles up to this moment have paid off, and you've conquered Hoshido. Or so you thought. You are surprised when you enter the throne room. There you find Takumi, battered and broken, waiting for you. You've stolen his honor, his family, and now his home. His brother lays dead on the floor behind you, his sister is your prisoner, and the other one is missing and could as well be dead. He draws his bow, ready to makes his final stand, hoping this last effort can at least avenge them. He may no longer be able to stop Nohr's invasion, but he can certainly kill you.

If only IS writers had balls...

Damn, I need to write a story about this...

[Jotari]

41 minutes ago, Maof06 said:

It couldn't be any worse than what we got. Personally, I wish they could have let us go full Crusader Kings 2. This is what they took from us.

I remember I wrote about a new perspective on Conquest's final boss if Corrin was, unapologetic, the evil guy.

Damn, I need to write a story about this...

So is everything else exactly the same minis the Anankos possession? So still Slime Garon. Essentially, Corrin accomplished what s/he set out to do and explains to Takumi that they can stop the fighting now that Garon is dead, and Takumi responds with "I don't care. You've killed far too many people to justify what you've done." With a bittersweet ending of Corrin being, for first time in the story, completely unable to avoid killing a (relatively) innocent person s/he's forced to fight. Yeah, I could see that being pretty good. Though I'd still want Takumi to get his hands on Skadi somehow so he can have his AOE and clone for the gameplay. And so the final boss isn't just a rehash of a boss you've fought four times in the story already this far (yes, you fight Takumi five bloody times in Conquest, because I guess IS really lost interest in the idea of enemies having permadeath too, granted the Takumi chapters in Conquest are always the best in terms of gameplay).

45 minutes ago, Axie said:

yes exactly! everyone knows conquest's storyline is bonkers dumb and revelation was written in five minutes on a napkin, but birthright is somehow just as bad when it has no right to be.

I guess it's because no one really cared about Birthright. I certainly don't see anyone praising it. It's just inoffensively bad enough compared to the other two to not draw out any strong emotions at all.

Edited February 11, 2021 by Jotari

[Axie]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I guess it's because no one really cared about Birthright. I certainly don't see anyone praising it. It's just inoffensively bad enough compared to the other two to not draw out any strong emotions at all.

i have very strong emotions about birthright (gameplay is very good, almost as good as conquest, and gets very little recognition; storyline is shockingly bad and needs to be discussed more in how bad it is)! when the playlog gets there i will be all over that action because the game deserves more attention one way or the other.

[Venger_06]

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

So is everything else exactly the same minis the Anankos possession? So still Slime Garon. Essentially, Corrin accomplished what s/he set out to do and explains to Takumi that they can stop the fighting now that Garon is dead, and Takumi responds with "I don't care. You've killed far too many people to justify what you've done." With a bittersweet ending of Corrin being, for first time in the story, completely unable to avoid killing a (relatively) innocent person s/he's forced to fight. Yeah, I could see that being pretty good. Though I'd still want Takumi to get his hands on Skadi somehow so he can have his AOE and clone for the gameplay. And so the final boss isn't just a rehash of a boss you've fought four times in the story already this far (yes, you fight Takumi five bloody times in Conquest, because I guess IS really lost interest in the idea of enemies having permadeath too, granted the Takumi chapters in Conquest are always the best in terms of gameplay).

I didn't think too much about Gooron, but it probably should be cut because it's dumb. I was just imagining a situation where Corrin is, clearly, framed as the villain and Takumi as the hero of another story. He can still keep Skadi bonuses in the actual game.

13 hours ago, Jotari said:

granted the Takumi chapters in Conquest are always the best in terms of gameplay

That's because he's the best character.

[Espurrhoodie]

On 2/4/2021 at 12:40 AM, Shadow Mir said:

Am I really the only one here who commonly uses headphones..?

Bit late on this one, but I couldn't use headphones on my old 2DS after awhile presumably due to an accident (my headphones were still plugged in when they fell off a table and onto the wood floor, causing the plug to bend inside the 2DS) since the headphone jack(? the thing you plug your headphones into) somehow broke and it kept pushing my headphones out. Obviously I replaced my 2DS, and I use my headphones on everything due to A). better audio quality, and B). so my grandmother doesn't overhear me watching youtube videos where the guy says shit like (and this is from an actual youtube video btw) "Nobody listens to Berio's Sequenza III and goes 'oh yeah daddy that's a real toetapper'"

[Alastor15243]

Revelation Day 24: Chapter 27

Alright, here it is.

Last day.

This is where we get the Omega Yato.

First I'm going to check the deployment allowance for Chapter 27 to determine how many tonics I should buy to supply everyone for both battles, because obviously you aren't allowed to go back to the shop during the can't-save endgame.

Might as well check out the “story” while we're at it.

So the creepy giant stone mask at the back of the hall spontaneously comes to life with a freaky dragon neck behind it, which is an interesting effect, especially when the cracks in the stone mask “open” to reveal the mouth.

...But Anankos himself as a villain is just... beyond uninteresting. At the point he is now, he's just completely deranged and views humans as ants who have forgotten their place as his slaves.

Though demanding to know why humans flourish while he's left to rot reminds me of a pretty awesome Dalek line from Doctor Who:

“There are millions of humans and only four of us! If we are supreme, why are we not victorious!?”

But while Dalek Sec asks this question rhetorically to his fellow Daleks to convince them that their obsessions with blood purity and Dalek supremacy have led them to ruin and that they have to be willing to learn from the humans' ways and tactics if they are to survive, Anankos non-rhetorically demands to know why the “inferior” humans flourish while he's buried and forgotten because he genuinely does not understand, because the obvious answer, “Because humans aren't as inferior as you think”, is completely unthinkable to him.

Anyway, same thing that happens every route: the stage 2 Yato does nothing and the final boss beats the shit out of everyone for a minute or so, until suddenly only in this exact darkest moment does the Yato fully upgrade by resonating with the legendary weapons it didn't resonate with before when they'd been around for half the game.

Yeah, so, Anankos offhandedly mentions that Dakota is “one of my bloodline”, though nothing is made of this in response, possibly because they're assuming he's just talking about the dragon blood.

I don't get why they had the voice line be “Contemptible vermin” while the script says “Impudent fools”.

And Azura takes a point blank shot from Anankos's water-energy-breath-thing and doesn't die. Yet another ridiculous instance of the game playing up her durability in story scenes to impossible degrees.

HAHAHAHAHA!

Okay, so, thanks to me putting Dakota in the dread fighter class, the stage directions for what Dakota was supposed to do (I assume do a flourish-y fighting stance) resulted in him turning around to face Anankos by doing a fucking nine hundred degree spin. It's like a ninja version of how Michael Jackson would turn around in the Smooth Criminal music video.

...Yep, and now all four weapons glow, and the Yato is given its ultimate form, with the stat bonuses of both routes. The speed and strength of the Blazing Yato, and the defense and resistance of the Shadow Yato. +4 to each. It is... the infamous and legendary magical flaming chainsword... the Omega Yato.

And yes, at this exact moment Dakota remembers the rest of what the Rainbow Sage said. Apparently he never even tried doing this before now.

...Alright, we've got six units we'll definitely be putting on the front lines in combat, so that's 12 of each tonic I need to get. Only 2 for magic though.

...Since I can also deploy Keaton and he's not hopelessly behind in levels, I might as well give him some tonics too in case he might be useful.

Alright, let's get ready.

Okay, so, just like last battle, this chapter is gonna be a clusterfuck of high-def enemies. I could easily use the pillars and rubble to create a defensive wall five units wide, but that would require me to throw in Velouria, who can't counter at range. That might be an issue. But first, better tonic up and see what the statistics of this battle look like then.

...Christ, doing all of these tonics in rapid succession just reminds me of how painful the interface is for Three Houses when it comes to just using simple stat boosters. The idea of using tonics in Three Houses would be a literal fucking nightmare with their “you can't use items straight from the convoy” system.

Anyway, I'll try walling off first and if it doesn't work out well, I'll try to low-man it with my stronger 1-2 range units while the others retreat.

Alright. And as the absolutely orgasmically chaotic Glory/Ruin plays, I hatch my plan. I take my five best fighters and place them in a triangular formation similar to the one the deployment screen naturally places your front units in, moving Dakota to the top spot. Then, in the center of them, Elise rallies all five, Azura dances her so she moves out of that space, and Sakura moves into it to simultaneously apply her own rallies and her personal skill quiet strength, giving everyone 2 or fewer spaces away from her (which is all five of them) -2 to all damage taken.

...This gets about as ugly as I suspected. Almost nobody can one-round without procs, and even with all of that defensive buffing, some units like Mozu are taking a frankly uncomfortable amount of damage that this setup really doesn't give me much opportunity to heal.

...Thankfully, however, doing a bit of player-phase puzzle-solving I can't remember doing since Dakota's War Journal, I managed to just barely kill every single one of the surviving enemies while maintaining the wall and keeping all of my fragile units safe from the healthy enemies on the way. This didn't leave room to heal up the partially-wounded Mozu or use my defensive rallies, but it did give me space to have Elise supply her aura to Mozu at least, and get Mozu a dual guard set up. Turns out bringing Keaton was a good call.

I'm actually pretty proud of what I did here. I really wish miiverse were still up so I could give you screenshots of the play-by-play.

...And with that, the initial scare is over, and I'm free to go fully on the offensive and take things to Anankos.

...And Anankos suddenly completely changes his spiel from “I am the forgotten dragon. The betrayed king. The entombed god”... to “I am the forgotten god. The betrayed king. The buried dragon”. Which... isn't nearly as cool-sounding. Especially since we're so used to the first one already, it just feels off.

Anankos goes down with ease at any rate, between Dakota, Ryoma and Mozu. Would've just needed Dakota and Ryoma if Ryoma hadn't missed.

...But of course...

...this isn't over yet.

Because out of nowhere, Anankos just... spontaneously teleports Garon to his side... and then Garon says shit that implies he apparently has enough free will to arrogantly assume that joining his being with Anankos would be something they would do as equals.

...Okay, so, uh... while that makes absolutely no fucking sense since this is supposed to not be Garon anymore... what follows is absolutely hysterical, even if it's for all the wrong reasons.

Because Anankos just... unceremoniously fucking eats him right in front of the Nohr royal family.

And then we get this cutscene where Anankos reveals his true, freaky purple dragon form, and shoots a black hole into the sky that starts swallowing all of Valla in a void for some reason... fuck it, I won't argue at this point, it makes a cool setting for the final battle, and the story already gave up ages ago.

[Alastor15243]

Day 24 Bonus: Endgame

HERE IT IS MOTHERFUCKERS.

THE FINAL BATTLE.

Now, I remember this being a colossal anticlimax on my ironman hard run, but maybe with stronger enemies, this might be more like the Ashera battle it could've been like, whaling on his weak points while fending off reinforcements.

OH YEAH, BABY!

“DESTINY, HELP US!” IS PLAYING!

I FUCKING LOVE THIS PREP THEME.

DAKOTA'S GIVING ANOTHER DUMB FRIENDSHIP SPEECH AND I DON'T CARE.

BRING ON THE FINAL BATTLE PREP!

Alright, so, this one inexplicably has three fewer deployment slots, so I can't bring Keaton or Velouria. So instead I'll bring Shura as a staff bot, because I could use some more healers.

So we've gotta take out multiple of Anankos's body parts in quick succession, starting with his hands. I think that's the only one we'll have to split up for, so we'll do it quickly so we can recon in the center again before the enemies get overwhelming. But just in case we don't have enough time before that happens, I split up into two groups, each accompanied by the little sister with the rally most useful to them. I sent Xander and Felicia to the west with Sakura, and Ryoma and Mozu to the east with Elise. Dakota's going west and Azura's going east as well, in the hopes of evening things out, even though really they could work with either group.

Alright, we're all tonic'd up, and I could even afford to give the imoutos a full tonic loadout due to Keaton and Velouria not joining us.

Let's do this.

...And of course the game throws reinforcements at us immediately after starting.

Kind of a dick move, but at least we still get a turn to react like conventional reinforcements.

…

...So yeah, Azura never once said anything about singing. She's just doing it. Or rather they didn't change the final boss music to accommodate for the fact that she isn't singing in-story. Makes no sense why her song wouldn't be necessary now. I guess they're just hoping we'll forget about it so that Azura can have a happy ending and not die horribly due to the toll this song is supposed to take on her body?

...The enemies they throw at us aren't that nasty. We can't beat all eight of them in a single turn obviously, but we can handle enough that we can keep moving forward. Also, Dakota just got aggressor, which is... fantastic. That's gonna be so useful for damaging Anankos.

Alright, I took down the hands on turn 3. The game instantly makes Anankos's head able to attack and be attacked without a turn of delay, so... it's a tripwire. Not one you're likely to be near, but there's a second one after this that's... pretty fucking nasty.

Reinforcements are still coming, but... not remotely in sufficient numbers to make this tricky. I've got this in the bag, and I'm pretty disappointed about that. I heard a ton of people praise the final battle of Revelation as awesome, and... I just don't see it. Gameplaywise, it's completely mindless.

Alright, so, we destroyed Anankos's head, and now there's just his “core”, that weird freaky eyeball in his mouth.

...Which is much weaker than the original offensively, which is a serious letdown. Also, thankfully, killing the head on enemy phase doesn't give the core a free turn when it spawns. That would've been shitty. Of course, kill it on player-phase, and the game will surprise you by having the core just take its place, so if you were banking on killing it in one turn and did anything reckless... too bad for you.

Speaking of being reckless... one last-ditch player-phase gambit (since I know this is the last one), and we're done.

...So when everyone's celebrating and Azura's talking to her dead parents, I suddenly realized... I think Azura might be the first Fire Emblem main character whose father is the unseen, dead, barely-relevant non-entity rather than the mother.

...And apparently we stuck around in Valla long enough to crown Dakota king of it, with no explanation why Dakota is decided to be the successor rather than Azura, the direct descendant of the dead king and queen.

...and he thanks King Ryoma and King Xander for their “generous gifts of land”. What? So is this much later, then? Are they out of Valla now? Did they just decide that Dakota should be made king of his own country even though Valla is destroyed, and they gave him parts of Nohr and Hoshido that are somehow simultaneously habitable and possible to give to a new sovereign country without complaint!?

Are you telling me that citizens of Nohr and Hoshido were one moment being told about the traitor prince who betrayed both countries and was committing acts of terrorism against each, then the next moment both kings vanish, and then suddenly a few days later the new kings of the countries both show up again hailing Dakota as a hero and donating land and presumably citizens to this guy who was mere days ago branded a traitor, and the people of these countries were fucking okay with letting this random 18 year old alleged terrorist be their king!?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

WHAT IS HAPPENING!?

...And Gunter watches from the sidelines before walking away. And then Dakota talks to Azura.

Please don't tell me this is the same lake.

Please don't tell me that Shirasagi, Fort Jinya, and the fucking newly-built castle of Valla are all in casual walking distance of this fucking lake.

…Oh, and now Azura and Dakota talk about why she declined ruling Valla, even though it's just named after the dead nation we have to assume is destroyed.

But Azura just says she's never been much of a leader, and Dakota's earned it more than she has.

And then Azura theorizes maybe Anankos wrote Lost in Thoughts All Alone, and...

...I'm sorry, at this point I'm just like that fucking It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia clip with the guy screaming “OH MY GOD I DON'T CARE!”

...And then we get this weird zooming out 2D pic of Azura by the lake that's clearly taken from Azura's 3D model and it looks so weird.

Ah yes, and apparently this was just them skipping out for a sec while the coronation party's about to start, so I have to assume that since I'm 90% sure this is the same lake model, the new Vallite castle is just right next to fucking Castle Shirasagi.

HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE DUMBEST THING.

Yeah, and then we have a cutscene that's clearly taking place in Hoshido because the sun is shining and the grass is green and beautiful, and it shows all of the royals getting along and Sakura and Elise being beyond adorable...

… and we see this scene from so many camera angles with no sign of where the fuck Dakota could be in it, but apparently he's been there the whole time.

Alright, time for the end credits and results and HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD I FORGOT HOW AMAZING THIS MUSIC IS THIS IS FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.

Prologue: 2 turns.

Chapter 1: 5 turns.

Chapter 2: 5 turns.

Chapter 3: 40 turns.

Chapter 4: 19 turns.

Chapter 5: 15 turns.

Chapter 6: 4 turns.

Chapter 7: 51 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Felicia.

Chapter 8: 22 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Felicia.

Paralogue 1: 25 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Mozu.

Chapter 9: 17 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Felicia.

Invasion 1: 6 turns. Heroes: Felicia and Hayato.

Chapter 10: 69 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Mozu.

Chapter 11: 11 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 12: 17 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 13: 16 turns. Heroes: Selena and Keaton.

Chapter 14: 14 turns. Heroes, Dakota and Kagero.

Chapter 15: 22 turns. Heroes: Effie and Keaton.

Chapter 16: 16 turns. Heroes: Effie and Keaton.

Chapter 17: 11 turns. Heroes: Effie and Keaton.

Paralogue 11: 8 turns. Heroes: Hinoka and Leo.

Chapter 18: 27 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 19: 16 turns. Heroes: Ryoma and Camilla.

Invasion 2: 10 turns. Heroes: Ryoma and Camilla.

Chapter 20: 21 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 21: 24 turns. Heroes: Selena and Xander.

Paralogue 18: 19 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 22: 15 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 23: 20 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Kagero.

Chapter 24: 27 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Chapter 25: 23 turns. Heroes: Ryoma and Camilla.

Paralogue 7: 12 turns. Heroes: Ryoma and Camilla.

Chapter 26: 17 turns. Heroes: Dakota and Kagero.

Chapter 27: 4 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

Endgame: 5 turns. Heroes: Hinata and Mozu.

There, I even added in the heroes this time since it was scrolling so slowly. Hope that information was worthwhile!

 

Right, now for battle stats.

Jakob: 0B 0W. Still an amazing contributor due to his fantastic cooking, and a worthy investment of the chef's hat.

CHRIST I HAVE TO LISTEN TO THE ENTIRETY OF LOST IN THOUGHTS!?

I'm skipping over the countless, countless units I never used, for obvious reasons unless their epilogues say something notable.

...Azama apparently founded a new religion. I'm... not seeing him having the right type of charisma for that.

Hahahaha, they treat Scarlet just like a unit you lost due to permadeath. That's... I can't tell if I like or dislike that. I'll go with dislike because I don't like how she was handled anyway.

Shura: 0B 0W. I mean he did some important healing in the final battle, so no complaints about having him.

Curious. So while Laslow leaves Nohr and goes back home, Odin does not. I wonder why. I wonder if any supports talk about this.

Oh god, Xander put Peri in charge of the entire armed forces before she “grew out of her cruelty”. Well, impossible though it is to believe, it's not the worst decision Xander makes as a ruler. As we will be discussing in a moment.

Apparently Charlotte never married despite constantly going to royal balls and impressing eligible bachelors. Apparently she “never stopped” going to these balls and impressing eligible bachelors either, which... I mean obviously she did eventually stop turning heads at some point when she got on in years, so the way they phrase this is basically impossible.

Azura: 1B 0W. Amazing singer/10. Weirdly I didn't use her much in the midgame due to limited deployment options, but the second a spot opened up for her, I took advantage of it again and it was like she never left.

Shiro: 4B 3W. Decently useful in a handful of endgame pinches, but obviously not much.

Takumi: 5B 3W. I don't even remember what he did, but apparently he did something.

Fuga: 6B 5W. Ah yes, I used him a bit in the red and blue dungeon.

Gunter: 8B 3W. Yeah, Chapter 2, I remember. Also, apparently yeah, that shot of him looking on from the distance and walking away was him leaving forever. He was apparently never seen again.

Sakura: 19B 12W. Apparently that was all she needed to get those rallies. Nice. Yeah, she was super useful, as you might have been able to tell. She was able to make the difference between Felicia killing and not killing a lot of the time, and that's to say nothing about what she did to help units like Xander against the speedier enemies.

Leo: 26B 18W. If I had been given more space for him, I would've brought him, but deployment options on Revelation are frankly ridiculous. I think you actually have fewer slots by endgame in Revelation than in Conquest or Birthright!

Elise: 27B 25W. Okay, I don't think I need to comment on how useful she was with her rallies and healing. I just wanna say that giving her the title “Budding Flower” when she's a marriage candidate is ungodly fucking creepy.

Kaze: 37B 17W. I'm willing to bet all of that was from before the route split. I don't think I touched him after that ever again except for unlocking chests.

Velouria: 55B 39W. That few? Wow. I remember doing more with her than that. Or maybe I'm just underestimating how much of a contribution that number is.

Ryoma: 126B 113W. Camilla: 12B 8W. ...I don't think the wife's half of the marriage dialogue ever changes in this game. Here it says that Camilla “gave up her royal title” despite marrying into other royalty, and with Selena, well... oh shit, just you wait. Anyway, Ryoma was insanely useful. His overkill offense actually wound up being useful more often than Xander's overkill defense in this game. I guess that's what happens when enemies are that damned strong. Camilla... I just didn't have space to use her as anything but a pair-up bot. Her 1-2 range damage simply cannot compare to the other big guns I had in the army, so I had to drop her unfortunately.

Keaton: 151B 97W. Oh yeah, he turned out insanely useful. Especially with the built-in cavalry slaying ability. I did eventually drop him for his daughter, but he was totally worth the investment even ignoring that. ...And yeah, the second half talking about Effie... it's totally generic. They didn't go to the effort that Awakening did to make their endings personalized to who they marry to add more interesting interactions. I liked the thing where Miriel became Gregor's tactician, why couldn't this game do stuff like that!?

Oh god, here it is.

Xander: 159B 102W. Useful, but not nearly as useful as I remember him being in Conquest. Ryoma managed to rack up a bigger body count than him despite not seeing as many chapters of use. I'll have to see how it goes during Conquest. ...Oh yeah. So. Here's their ending. I'm going to quote it verbatim, because otherwise you won't believe this shit.

“As King of Nohr, Xander laid the foundation for a new era of peace and prosperity for the kingdom. After marrying, he and his wife, Selena, disappeared from records. They likely lived happily ever after.”

...That's right.

You read that correctly.

Thanks to the generic mix-and-match nature of these paired endings... when you pair Xander with Selena...

...Selena goes back to Ylisse... and Xander, the king of a goddamned country, fucking follows her.

DO I NEED TO FUCKING SAY ANYTHING ABOUT WHY THIS IS HORRIBLE!?

NO!

I DO NOT!

MOVING ON!

Felicia: 247B 200W. Holy shit was she fun. She couldn't one-round everything, but just being capable of one-rounding a couple enemies per turn allowed her to contribute crazy amounts, as you can probably tell from her record.

Dakota: 326B 169W. I think that's the worst ratio I've ever gotten on a Fates avatar. Yeah, he really wasn't that dominant overall. Probably because I wasn't that proactive with skill-hopping him because the viable unit list was so boring. Though making him a dread fighter at the end was a huge impact.

Apparently Kagero insisted on remaining a ninja, and they “got along”, but “didn't have much time together”. Man, that's kind of anticlimactic. Can't imagine many people who shipped themselves with Kagero were happy with that ending.

Mozu: 357B 223W. Oh yeah. Yeah, Mozu was insanely dominant. Best investment of a dread scroll and a paralogue ever. I have never ever regretted training up Mozu. Even in, like, the one run where she turned out shit, her son Percy more than picked up the slack. ...I've yet to try to train her up on Birthright though. I'm gonna try that.

...It seems like the game orders them in ascending order of how many battles they fought, not how many battles they won. Interesting.

Alright, well...

...with that...

...Revelation is finally over.

Tune in tomorrow when I do the ranking, and then tune in on Monday when I start Birthright.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Interdimensional Observer]

Well thats one-third of Fates done! I hope Birthright is a little more exciting for you. It might be, at least part of it.

Couldn't comment much, what with the gameplay being so unremarkable.

Although as a semi-random aside, I just discovered a third Shin Megami Tensei game that mentions Dragon Veins, the second of which names them just that. All three of these predate Fates by years, the oldest being Persona 2: Eternal Punishment released back in 2000. I'm not knowledgeable enough to know whether this is traditional East Asian geomancy being referenced, or some adaption of ley lines, a European pseudo-scientific/New Age idea formulated in the 1800s and early 1900s.