Jump to content

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


Alastor15243
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 9.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Oh hey, incidentally, I recently discovered something about my FE7 playlog run! Turns out Uhai doesn't start moving after you hit the turn limit for the Gaiden. The reason he moved, and the reason his movements were so weird, was because I had wounded him enough to knock him into "run away and heal" AI.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But thank goodness this implies we're actually getting an explanation for why she's like this. Especially since it's implied she wasn't like this back when Mercedes knew her.

Fair warning, this support provides not a ton of explanation, and I think the majority of the backstory for it comes from her exposition dump in Cindered Shadows.

 

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

What the fuck just happened.

Y’know as someone who likes most of the supports in this game I’m not even gonna try and defend this one. Even if the timeskip weren’t a thing it’s just… ugh.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Anathaco said:

Fair warning, this support provides not a ton of explanation, and I think the majority of the backstory for it comes from her exposition dump in Cindered Shadows.

...I literally do not remember CS explaining anything about how she got like this. If it happened in Cindered Shadows I either missed it or completely failed to remember it. Do you know where this happens?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I literally do not remember CS explaining anything about how she got like this. If it happened in Cindered Shadows I either missed it or completely failed to remember it. Do you know where this happens?

If my memory serves its in chapter 3 when they go outside for the first time. They like stop walking to give her backstory then move on. But I could be completely misremembering. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh hey, incidentally, I recently discovered something about my FE7 playlog run! Turns out Uhai doesn't start moving after you hit the turn limit for the Gaiden. The reason he moved, and the reason his movements were so weird, was because I had wounded him enough to knock him into "run away and heal" AI.

Given where he starts, that probably won't do him much good, though... horses are slowed down by forests, and that area has a *bleep*load of them, so... also, the only forts on that map are nowhere near where he starts. It'd make sense if he had a healing item, but he has none.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Three Houses Day 24: Reclaim the Flayn

Alright, let's do this.

Anyway, so, this whole time we had the opportunity to go to Jeritza's (off-map) room and end the month early, but while that makes sense story-wise, it's an objectively stupid move gameplay-wise. Still though, I think usually I explore for the last free day of the month and go there when I'm done with exploring just in case there's some horrible consequence for taking too long, and I just realized I didn't do that this time even though I could have. So I'm seeing a scene I don't think I've seen before, where someone from your house (in this case Ingrid) comes in to say they just heard a scream from Jeritza's quarters and that they need to go investigate. I have to wonder who the fuck that scream was from, though. Manuela's been missing for ages, and Flayn's trapped underground. That rules them right the fuck out, so who else could it be?

...They can't seriously be implying it was Manuela, can they?

Are they saying that despite going missing towards the start of the month, she only actually gets stabbed minutes before whatever time you pick to go inside that room!?

I mean, great, you've successfully addressed the Genealogy problem of “how fucking long has this character been bleeding out on the floor”, but you've merely replaced one brand of idiocy with another.

What was she doing for the rest of the fucking month that nobody saw her all this time until she got stabbed by Jeritza just now, on campus?

It feels like this was originally intended to be a one-week chapter where there's just one exploration period before finding the stabbed Manuela. That would have made much more sense, but they seemed to feel the need to make it a full month anyway for some reason, leading to... more timespace nonsense as usual. Alright, let's just get going.

So anyway, no matter the route, they have your house leader help Hanneman carry Manuela to the infirmary, so we can't use Dimitri this battle. This seems to be a plot device that exists solely to assist Edelgard's route so that Edelgard can go and be the Flame Emperor on-screen while she allegedly has an alibi. I assume they do it with the other two to... what, keep people from noticing Edelgard getting singled out for this?

...No, if that were true it would only work for people who were playing all three routes simultaneously or something. Anyone who had gotten to the end of BL or GD would obviously already know Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, so...

...I'm guessing it's just to keep gameplay balanced on each route. Y'know, deprive you of your lord in all three.

Anyway, Annette and Mercedes are yet again on weirdly good terms with each other, making that detail with the class activities seem kinda pointless.

And now we see Flayn and Monica on the ground.

And then Death Knight shows up.

Death Knight: One of us will die, the other will live. I will enjoy this dance of damnation.

Shut the fuck up Death Knight, and stop copying the Black Knight's lines.

Anyway, this is one of my least favorite maps in the game. It's a mess of warp tiles, and unlike in Fates, the game doesn't tell you which tiles lead where. It's an annoying, winding maze that is also a rout map if you don't have Lysithea, and to top it all off, it's also the first chapter to properly introduce the bane of my fucking existence.

More on that later.

I'm splitting my army in two. Sylvain, Dedue and Constance are taking the sparser east side, and everyone else is handling the west side.

Begin.

For one fleeting moment I was terrified that the warp tiles would end your turn, but thankfully they work identically to Fates's, with, again, the infuriating exception that you can't press A on them to check where they lead, and you can't go back through them if you went somewhere you didn't want to go.

Ingrid's low magic is really starting to frustrate me. I wonder if there's any way I can fix that. The minimum base stats of the various classes are pretty shitty. Even if I promoted to warlock this very instant it would only award her +8.

I may have to ditch the idea of her being a dark flier if things don't improve.

Enemy formations are really boring at this point.

Meanwhile, I'm having Sylvain take out these archers guarding these annoying warp corridors. And when I realize that I totally forgot to supply Sylvain's group with chest keys, I send Ashe, who to be honest isn't really good for anything else right now, back to their side to grab the chests as they fight their way through.

Thinking on it a bit, I think I'm starting to get an understanding of why I find Three Houses' early-game so boring when I've been perfectly happy recently to go through the normal modes of the GBA games: in addition to being stuck in the early game for way, way longer than is fun or even moral, the gameplay here hits this uncomfortable sweet spot where it's mindlessly boring... and yet also can't be played mindlessly. There's not even the visceral, dumb-fun satisfaction of watching units mow down enemy after enemy on enemy-phase, because of all this complicated shit like massive-range archers and gambits. The gameplay here just barely requires enough thought to not be mindless, but not enough to be fun.

Right, so, I make it through the annoying winding pathways of the east side, open the door...

...and enemies spawn in the previously-empty room beyond.

This game... does that a lot.

This game loves doing that.

And by that I mean causing things you can do on your turn to spawn reinforcements.

...God damn it, for a second I wanted to go on a rant here and go into detail about why I despise these things arguably even more than flat-out ambush spawns, but the will to do it just isn't coming, because I just want to be done with this map and get on with my day, and I know that writing multiple paragraphs of argument is just not going to come to me fast enough to get this out today.

Fuck it, I'll find a way to put it in later in the marathon, because this shit needs to be talked about. The schedule for what I do in each update is already beyond weird as it is, maybe I'll just fit it into a low-demand day.

But anyway, to give you a bit of a taste of my rage for these things...

...The first time I opened this door on my first run and prompted an ambush spawn of two cavaliers and an archer... it was with pegasus knight Petra.

Alright, all of the threats have been dispatched, now I just have to troll through these fucking warp gates until I find the chests that get me... wait, what the fuck am I even doing this for again? Is it even worth this nonsense?

...March ring and levin sword. Alright, fine, I'll fucking pick them up.

This is just a completely mindless chore. No enemies, just wandering through weird disconnected hallways with 4-5 move units, taking turn after turn to get where I want to go. This chapter's 25-turn limit has no business being this realistic to get close to.

There. Finally. And with the last attack on the last living non-Death-Knight enemy, Ingrid mastered monk too. Magic +2. Hopefully that and fiendish blow will help her offense.

Death Knight gives the order of “kill them” to an empty room, “Flame Emperor” arrives to tell him to stop because he's “having a bit too much fun”, and they head off, leaving us free to rescue Flayn and... “Monica”.

Mercedes says the Death Knight feels familiar, and I believe I know what this is about. Yeah, I think I'll have to recruit Caspar to see this.

Dimitri starts... borderline hitting on Professr because apparently she so fuckin' precious when she smile, and then...

...Seteth thanks us and then reveals that they were after Flayn's blood, and that they have to go into hiding again, when Flayn comes in to protest and ask to be in Professr's class instead so that Professr can protect her and she doesn't have to leave the school.

So she joins our party, and then we cut to a talk with Rhea, and... we get to the subject of that redhead we found with Flayn, Monica. She was apparently kidnapped last year just before graduation, but they assumed she just ran away.

So, naturally, Rhea sends her back home to her loving parents who are absolutely worried sick about her.

...No? She... she's no going to do that?

...She just lets Monica rejoin the Black Eagle House after she's healed up, to go right back to taking classes?

...That she's already taken?

...Because she was just about to graduate when she was first kidnapped?

Oh, well, uh... naturally we do at least contact her parents, yes? Her parents who must be besides themselves with worry, if they even think she's still alive, and would be beyond ecstatic to get any good news whatsoever about their daughter, let alone the fact that she's been found, alive and soon-to-be-healthy?

Surely, surely, Rhea, we're not going to, say, have a DLC paralogue where the boss is her father, behaving in a way that makes it transcendently obvious you never said a word to him?

Surely, Rhea, surely the bullshit that's going to ensue with Monica, where nobody finds out the massive bit of deception going on here, isn't solely capable of happening because not one of the strip club's worth of boobs in your employ ever had the presence of mind to contact this kidnapped fucking child's next of kin?

NOT EVEN TO DEMAND TUITION MONEY FOR THE CLASSES SHE DOESN'T FUCKING NEED TO TAKE!?


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

...Hey, so, fun fact...

Three Houses' Japanese name is “Fuukasetsugetsu”, which means “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon”, and it refers to poetry about the beauty of nature.

In China, from what I've heard, due to the Chinese people doing those kinds of poems for so long everyone got fucking sick of them, “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon” is a euphemism for shitty writing.

...I'm just gonna leave you guys on that note.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, well, uh... naturally we do at least contact her parents, yes? Her parents who must be besides themselves with worry, if they even think she's still alive, and would be beyond ecstatic to get any good news whatsoever about their daughter, let alone the fact that she's been found, alive and soon-to-be-healthy?

Surely, surely, Rhea, we're not going to, say, have a DLC paralogue where the boss is her father, behaving in a way that makes it transcendently obvious you never said a word to him?

Surely, Rhea, surely the bullshit that's going to ensue with Monica, where nobody finds out the massive bit of deception going on here, isn't solely capable of happening because not one of the strip club's worth of boobs in your employ ever had the presence of mind to contact this kidnapped fucking child's next of kin?

For what it's worth, Hilda does have a bad feeling about "Monica" during the next chapter if you interact with her, citing her behavior as cause for concern.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Three Houses Day 24: Reclaim the Flayn

...Hey, so, fun fact...

Three Houses' Japanese name is “Fuukasetsugetsu”, which means “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon”, and it refers to poetry about the beauty of nature.

In Chinese, from what I've heard, due to the Chinese people doing those kinds of poems for so long everyone got fucking sick of them, “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon” is a euphemism in China for shitty writing.

...I'm just gonna leave you guys on that note.

...is it wrong I burst out laughing when I read that?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

48 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, well, uh... naturally we do at least contact her parents, yes? Her parents who must be besides themselves with worry, if they even think she's still alive, and would be beyond ecstatic to get any good news whatsoever about their daughter, let alone the fact that she's been found, alive and soon-to-be-healthy?

Surely, surely, Rhea, we're not going to, say, have a DLC paralogue where the boss is her father, behaving in a way that makes it transcendently obvious you never said a word to him?

Surely, Rhea, surely the bullshit that's going to ensue with Monica, where nobody finds out the massive bit of deception going on here, isn't solely capable of happening because not one of the strip club's worth of boobs in your employ ever had the presence of mind to contact this kidnapped fucking child's next of kin?

NOT EVEN TO DEMAND TUITION MONEY FOR THE CLASSES SHE DOESN'T FUCKING NEED TO TAKE!?

While I’m not sure it was ever explicitly stated I thought that the idea of Balthus’ paralogue was that the Slithers contacted her dad and somehow convinced him that they had the real Monica and that the one currently alive was a fake. Not sure whether the plan was to trade the Relic for Real Monica or if Baron Ochs was literally planning to solo Shambhala to save his daughter that totally isn’t dead.

 

48 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...God damn it, for a second I wanted to go on a rant here and go into detail about why I despise these things arguably even more than flat-out ambush spawns, but the will to do it just isn't coming, because I just want to be done with this map and get on with my day, and I know that writing multiple paragraphs of argument is just not going to come to me fast enough to get this out today.

I’m looking forward to this one. I guess I can kinda see the argument (disrupting player phase by arbitrarily adding new threats to deal with is a greater sin in a player phase based strategy game than the simple troll of ambush spawns), but at the same time… fuck ambush spawns to the nine circles of hell and back

 

51 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, this is one of my least favorite maps in the game. It's a mess of warp tiles, and unlike in Fates, the game doesn't tell you which tiles lead where. It's an annoying, winding maze that is also a rout map if you don't have Lysithea, and to top it all off, it's also the first chapter to properly introduce the bane of my fucking existence.

Oh you actually routed it. Respect, I’ve always just killed Donkey Kong to avoid the right side of the map.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

While I’m not sure it was ever explicitly stated I thought that the idea of Balthus’ paralogue was that the Slithers contacted her dad and somehow convinced him that they had the real Monica and that the one currently alive was a fake. Not sure whether the plan was to trade the Relic for Real Monica or if Baron Ochs was literally planning to solo Shambhala to save his daughter that totally isn’t dead.

That would require him to have come to this conclusion without ever once meeting with the fake Monica, or that Monica's parents came to the Monastery offscreen and kept the obvious concerns they'd have completely to themselves and paid for this impostor's tuition to retake classes she's already taken without even the slightest smidgen of reluctance, and then later didn't say a word about Monica being a fake when they got the ransom note. No matter how you spin it, the lack of communication necessary for Monica to get away with what she did is psychotic.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Anathaco said:

Oh you actually routed it. Respect, I’ve always just killed Donkey Kong to avoid the right side of the map.

Even on other routes where Lysithea isn't part of your initial roster? Anyway, I find the March Ring reason enough to go there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

That would require him to have come to this conclusion without ever once meeting with the fake Monica, or that Monica's parents came to the Monastery offscreen and kept the obvious concerns they'd have completely to themselves and paid for this impostor's tuition to retake classes she's already taken without even the slightest smidgen of reluctance, and then later didn't say a word about Monica being a fake when they got the ransom note. No matter how you spin it, the lack of communication necessary for Monica to get away with what she did is psychotic.

I mean I can buy the first option at least. If the Slithers showed off their disguising capabilities directly and then said “yo the daughter the Church said they found is a fake, we have the real one” I can imagine that he’d fall for that.

The other thing I thought of in the meantime is that it could just be another 3H case of shitty timing for story events (ie Mercedes and Annette still being friends in story after their b support). Could be that the writers intended it to be played after Kronya was outed as a fake (so chapter 10/11, and tbf it is a pretty hard map), but as usual with the game, something got lost in translation. Not that it excuses the issue since we can very clearly play it earlier than that, but idk. Just a possible reason for the stuff up.

20 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Even on other routes where Lysithea isn't part of your initial roster? Anyway, I find the March Ring reason enough to go there.

If anything it’s easier on other routes thanks to Vengeance access.

Probably, but I’ve always just gone without.

Edited by Anathaco
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

NOT EVEN TO DEMAND TUITION MONEY FOR THE CLASSES SHE DOESN'T FUCKING NEED TO TAKE!?

Least realistic part of this game, right here.

Have I ever told you about how formalized education is a social engineering scheme invented by the elites to produce a steady stream of stupid people to work in the coal mines?

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

In China, from what I've heard, due to the Chinese people doing those kinds of poems for so long everyone got fucking sick of them, “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon” is a euphemism for shitty writing.

Well, get stuck on an island with minimal outside influence, and you're bound to stagnate creatively.

Not the literal island of Japan, more like a cultural island.

Anime was a mistake.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

In China, from what I've heard, due to the Chinese people doing those kinds of poems for so long everyone got fucking sick of them, “Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon” is a euphemism for shitty writing.

Can I get a source on this? Because that seems like a stretch 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Not literally "shitty", more "trite and devoid of substance":

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/風花雪月

It can apparently also mean "debaucherous", so it's really the perfect title for Three Houses.

Fire Emblem: Empty Platitudes would be a cool name for a game though. Sort of like an edgy Last Promise sequel or something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It feels like this was originally intended to be a one-week chapter where there's just one exploration period before finding the stabbed Manuela. That would have made much more sense, but they seemed to feel the need to make it a full month anyway for some reason, leading to... more timespace nonsense as usual. Alright, let's just get going.

Yeah, that's it. That, or they just didn't expect players to choose to play out the whole month first, despite very clearly giving them the option. There's no logical reason they couldn't just have you do the map first and then play out the rest of the month - Persona 5 did it years before - but they were determined to keep to their monthly structure, so Manuela gets to lie on the floor with a stab wound for a month and somehow come out just fine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Florete said:

Yeah, that's it. That, or they just didn't expect players to choose to play out the whole month first, despite very clearly giving them the option. There's no logical reason they couldn't just have you do the map first and then play out the rest of the month - Persona 5 did it years before - but they were determined to keep to their monthly structure, so Manuela gets to lie on the floor with a stab wound for a month and somehow come out just fine.

*Remembers Alastor's remarks on FE4's lack of time sensibility with Verdane's King Batou laying murdered for days or weeks.*

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/4/2021 at 8:26 PM, Eltosian Kadath said:

I don't usually talk about Three Houses, as I really forced my way through all of the routes of the game too quickly, playing well after the point where I was enjoying it, and its really clear to me that the Three Houses burnout I was feeling after I was done with the fourth route has highly colored my opinion in a way I do not think is entirely fair to the game (maybe I will have more to say after the mind numbing White Clouds section)...

I've noticed this being an problem that I've increasingly noticed here and elsewhere amongst a number of fans. Admittedly, the game is a lot longer per run than anything that comes before, but I also have to ask those same people: Have you thought about taking a break after each route?

I mean, I just finished played CF, and while I've thoroughly enjoyed that, it ended up taking over 120 hours just to finish that route. So what am I doing next? Well I'm playing Pokemon Shield, just to break up the perceived monotony and mental excercise, then move over to VW. After that? Probably Final Fantasy 12, then AM. Just take a break, if it's that much of a torture.

Also, I asked a number of people over at reddit, and the majority there just recommended skipping Silver Snow altogether. Admittedly you'll miss an S-support with Rhea, but Silver Snow has the same War Phase chapters as Verdant Wind, except one chapter missing and one changed somewhat. I'm a fan of Three Houses, but now I have the answers, even I think Silver Snow would just be a waste of time. I would just do Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, and just call it quits.

Edited by henrymidfields
Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I have to wonder who the fuck that scream was from, though. Manuela's been missing for ages, and Flayn's trapped underground. That rules them right the fuck out, so who else could it be?

...They can't seriously be implying it was Manuela, can they?

Are they saying that despite going missing towards the start of the month, she only actually gets stabbed minutes before whatever time you pick to go inside that room!?

I mean, great, you've successfully addressed the Genealogy problem of “how fucking long has this character been bleeding out on the floor”, but you've merely replaced one brand of idiocy with another.

What was she doing for the rest of the fucking month that nobody saw her all this time until she got stabbed by Jeritza just now, on campus?

It feels like this was originally intended to be a one-week chapter where there's just one exploration period before finding the stabbed Manuela. That would have made much more sense, but they seemed to feel the need to make it a full month anyway for some reason, leading to... more timespace nonsense as usual. Alright, let's just get going.

Not sure why I feel like script doctoring this, but I think this would work better if Manuela was trying to help with the Flayn investigation too, and the faculty knew her plan was to use her acting skills to go undercover. Then have her eek out some phrase saying they though I led you to them before collapsing from her fresh wound (in a way that points to the secret passage), that way her being attacked early is tied directly to you discovering the truth early, and explains what she was doing, and why there isn't a more official response to one of the main teachers being missing for a month...

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

So, naturally, Rhea sends her back home to her loving parents who are absolutely worried sick about her.

...No? She... she's no going to do that?

...She just lets Monica rejoin the Black Eagle House after she's healed up, to go right back to taking classes?

...That she's already taken?

...Because she was just about to graduate when she was first kidnapped?

Oh, well, uh... naturally we do at least contact her parents, yes? Her parents who must be besides themselves with worry, if they even think she's still alive, and would be beyond ecstatic to get any good news whatsoever about their daughter, let alone the fact that she's been found, alive and soon-to-be-healthy?

Surely, surely, Rhea, we're not going to, say, have a DLC paralogue where the boss is her father, behaving in a way that makes it transcendently obvious you never said a word to him?

Surely, Rhea, surely the bullshit that's going to ensue with Monica, where nobody finds out the massive bit of deception going on here, isn't solely capable of happening because not one of the strip club's worth of boobs in your employ ever had the presence of mind to contact this kidnapped fucking child's next of kin?

NOT EVEN TO DEMAND TUITION MONEY FOR THE CLASSES SHE DOESN'T FUCKING NEED TO TAKE!?

Sounds in line with the numerous other terribly parents with massive wealth from this game. Probably didn't want her back, or particularly care she was safe, and just sent the church some money to take care of her in their stead.

 

3 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

I've noticed this being an problem that I've increasingly noticed here and elsewhere amongst a number of fans. Admittedly, the game is a lot longer per run than anything that comes before, but I also have to ask those same people: Have you thought about taking a break after each route?

If they just gave you some option to skip the almost identical first half of the game it would have been so much more bearable, like FE7 letting you skip Lyn and jump strait to Eliwood, or Hector mode after your first run, or Fate's letting you skip straight to the route split after the first run. Even in FE8 (or FE5) you could always copy your save (so the same save is in two slots) before the Eirika/Ephraim (or Route A/B) route split to just have to repeat one map to jump to the new route. If they just let you jump to the new stuff (even if it was a little clunky), instead of forcing us to repeat that samey section over and over again it would have helped so much.

3 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

 

Also, I asked a number of people over at reddit, and the majority there just recommended skipping Silver Snow altogether. Admittedly you'll miss an S-support with Rhea, but Silver Snow has the same War Phase chapters as Verdant Wind, except one chapter missing and one changed somewhat. I'm a fan of Three Houses, but now I have the answers, even I think Silver Snow would just be a waste of time. I would just do Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, and just call it quits.

Not to mention these two routes being mindnumbingly similar just exacerbated the problem (fortunately I didn't play those two back to back, but still...)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

I've noticed this being an problem that I've increasingly noticed here and elsewhere amongst a number of fans. Admittedly, the game is a lot longer per run than anything that comes before, but I also have to ask those same people: Have you thought about taking a break after each route?

I mean, I just finished played CF, and while I've thoroughly enjoyed that, it ended up taking over 120 hours just to finish that route. So what am I doing next? Well I'm playing Pokemon Shield, just to break up the perceived monotony and mental excercise, then move over to VW. After that? Probably Final Fantasy 12, then AM. Just take a break, if it's that much of a torture.

Also, I asked a number of people over at reddit, and the majority there just recommended skipping Silver Snow altogether. Admittedly you'll miss an S-support with Rhea, but Silver Snow has the same War Phase chapters as Verdant Wind, except one chapter missing and one changed somewhat. I'm a fan of Three Houses, but now I have the answers, even I think Silver Snow would just be a waste of time. I would just do Azure Moon and Verdant Wind, and just call it quits.

This is just me, of course, but I actually did take a break after my first two runs (CF and VW) before jumping into my 3rd (AM), and it didn't do much. Then again, while I didn't want to accept it at the time, I was already getting bored of the game on my 1st route. I took a week off work starting the day of the game's release, and combined with a weekend I had about 9 days, yet I didn't even finish Crimson Flower in that time because I kept taking breaks because the game just wasn't holding my attention.

How do you skip Silver Snow, though? Do you just mean skipping the cutscenes? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Three Houses Day 24: Reclaim the Flayn

Alright, let's do this.

Anyway, so, this whole time we had the opportunity to go to Jeritza's (off-map) room and end the month early, but while that makes sense story-wise, it's an objectively stupid move gameplay-wise. Still though, I think usually I explore for the last free day of the month and go there when I'm done with exploring just in case there's some horrible consequence for taking too long, and I just realized I didn't do that this time even though I could have. So I'm seeing a scene I don't think I've seen before, where someone from your house (in this case Ingrid) comes in to say they just heard a scream from Jeritza's quarters and that they need to go investigate. I have to wonder who the fuck that scream was from, though. Manuela's been missing for ages, and Flayn's trapped underground. That rules them right the fuck out, so who else could it be?

...They can't seriously be implying it was Manuela, can they?

Are they saying that despite going missing towards the start of the month, she only actually gets stabbed minutes before whatever time you pick to go inside that room!?

 

I'm sure someone  else has probably  suggested this already,  but Monica seems a likely  get for that scream. Despite the death knight's  surprise to see the party, the agarthans were expecting them to find at least Manuela  and Monica.

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ingrid's low magic is really starting to frustrate me. I wonder if there's any way I can fix that. The minimum base stats of the various classes are pretty shitty. Even if I promoted to warlock this very instant it would only award her +8.

 

+8 sounds like a lot.

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Alright, all of the threats have been dispatched, now I just have to troll through these fucking warp gates until I find the chests that get me... wait, what the fuck am I even doing this for again? Is it even worth this nonsense?

...March ring and levin sword. Alright, fine, I'll fucking pick them up.

 

Ha. Yeah the March Ring is definitely  something  you want to pick up. Just don't give it to Edelgard if you're playing  Silver Snow like I did on my first playthrough T.T (I made her my dancer too).

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, naturally, Rhea sends her back home to her loving parents who are absolutely worried sick about her.

 

We actually  see her father in one of the DLC paralogues. Probably  not news to anyone, but I find it nice for them to show that and acknowledge  that someone  cared for the original Monica. 

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

urely, surely, Rhea, we're not going to, say, have a DLC paralogue where the boss is her father, behaving in a way that makes it transcendently obvious you never said a word to him?

Surely, Rhea, surely the bullshit that's going to ensue with Monica, where nobody finds out the massive bit of deception going on here, isn't solely capable of happening because not one of the strip club's worth of boobs in your employ ever had the presence of mind to contact this kidnapped fucking child's next of kin?

NOT EVEN TO DEMAND TUITION MONEY FOR THE CLASSES SHE DOESN'T FUCKING NEED TO TAKE!?

 

 

Ha XD fair points. When does that paralogue become available? The timeline  for it could maybe influence why it makes so little  sense.

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Sounds in line with the numerous other terribly parents with massive wealth from this game. Probably didn't want her back, or particularly care she was safe, and just sent the church some money to take care of her in their stead.

Nope, the Balthus paralogue has Monica's dad as a boss, being blackmailed by people who claim to have his daughter, and he clearly loves her a lot.

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Ha XD fair points. When does that paralogue become available? The timeline  for it could maybe influence why it makes so little  sense.

Chapters 7 to 11. In other words, well before Monica shows her true colors.

6 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

I've noticed this being an problem that I've increasingly noticed here and elsewhere amongst a number of fans. Admittedly, the game is a lot longer per run than anything that comes before, but I also have to ask those same people: Have you thought about taking a break after each route?

I actually wound up doing that naturally, and it doesn't feel like it made the routes any more bearable. Well, it probably did, but it wasn't "more bearable" so much as "less unbearable".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Anathaco said:

I mean I can buy the first option at least. If the Slithers showed off their disguising capabilities directly and then said “yo the daughter the Church said they found is a fake, we have the real one” I can imagine that he’d fall for that.

The other thing I thought of in the meantime is that it could just be another 3H case of shitty timing for story events (ie Mercedes and Annette still being friends in story after their b support). Could be that the writers intended it to be played after Kronya was outed as a fake (so chapter 10/11, and tbf it is a pretty hard map), but as usual with the game, something got lost in translation. Not that it excuses the issue since we can very clearly play it earlier than that, but idk. Just a possible reason for the stuff up.

If anything it’s easier on other routes thanks to Vengeance access.

Probably, but I’ve always just gone without.

One also has to take in the DLC context of the game in this one. The the baron is Monica's father is a reveal in the chapter. He spends the whole chapter talking about saving his daughter, but we only find out said daughter is Monica in his death quote. There is meant to be irony there, we're meant to know that Monica is already dead and that what he was fighting for was hopeless. And we're meant to know that because we already know who Kronya and Monica are. It's not a chapter that's set after part 1, but it's very much written as a chapter where the audience is expected to have played the game already. I don't think if it had been implemented in the base game they would have been coy about Monica's identity like that. In terms of timing I think it makes the most sense in universe before Monica is found at all (where for a blind player playing with the DLC already released, the name Monica would be absolutely meaningless), though just after Kronya's been taken care of makes some amount of sense too (though the dramatic irony is lost a bit there as the baron should know as well as the player does that Monica is {probably} dead).

12 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Least realistic part of this game, right here.

Have I ever told you about how formalized education is a social engineering scheme invented by the elites to produce a steady stream of stupid people to work in the coal mines?

 

2 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

why there isn't a more official response to one of the main teachers being missing for a month...

Black Eagles just had a month off for this chapter I guess XD

1 hour ago, Florete said:

How do you skip Silver Snow, though? Do you just mean skipping the cutscenes? 

I think they mean just not ever playing Silver Snow. As beyond the Rhea boss battle, it really doesn't offer anything at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...