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


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14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

All the Relic Weapon chatter is in part making me think how Three Houses is inspired by FE4's holy lineages, and perhaps Dynasty and Samurai Warriors. People have already joked Edelgard is Female Cao Cao, Dimitri is Liu Bei, and Claude is Sun Quan, but I ponder if the borrowings from Koei Tecmo's flagship series go a little further than that. Clans were a defining feature of the warlord class in both Three Kingdoms China and Sengoku Japan.

I'm not going to claim something ridiculous like "The Aenirs are based on the Yuan family!". There is no hard evidence that 3H was influenced by the games about the Simas, Guans, Xiahous, Takedas, Moris, Shimazus et al. And it'd be difficult to dissect "proof" because of Genealogy being stated as inspiration for this game, and Europe coincidentally having their own tradition of aristocratic families like in 2nd/3rd AD China and 1500s AD Japan. But, the possibility remains.

-I'm thinking about this because I've been playing a lot of Samurai Warriors 5 recently. And in a neat touch, each character has their skill nodes arranged over an image of their clan's mon- the family emblem.

Oh there's definitely a lot of the Three Kingdoms in them. Not just in the three lords but their countries at large as well. The three countries slide very neatly into the roles of Wei, Shu and Wu
Adrestia: Ruthless but well intentioned, a modernizing force, owns the continent's heartland. Easily Wei
Faerghus: Benevolence!...um I mean chivalry! Surprisingly corruptible, its lord at various points being either a hobo or insane, the at a glance seemingly most noble one. Easily Shu
Leicester: Those guys doing their own thing in the corner while the real heroes fight it out. Wu. 

 

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, I got FE warriors as one of my first Switch games. Didn't get the hype. Though apparently judging by some fans whose content I've seen, the series has been going downhill for a while.

Not necessarily, Dynasty Warriors bombed with DW9, and the initial release of Warriors Orochi 4 was bleh. But Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity was the best-selling Warriors ever IIRC. But WO4 Ultimate got good reception, and Samurai Warrior 5 outsold SW4 at a minimum.

But again, in general, Musou isn't for everyone. It's historically been lowballed at 6 or 7s at best by a lot of critics. The franchise is perhaps the equivalent of Marvel movies, flashy, somewhat mindless, but entertaining "junk". The historical trappings of Dynasty and Samurai Warriors are appealing to me as well.

 

6 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Faerghus: Benevolence!...um I mean chivalry! Surprisingly corruptible, its lord at various points being either a hobo or insane, the at a glance seemingly most noble one. Easily Shu

Considering Liu Shan was an emperor given to decadence with no interest in actually ruling, it might not be all that different.

8 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Leicester: Those guys doing their own think in the corner while the real heroes fight it out. Wu. 

Chibi! They will always have their victory at Chibi! -Until their almost complete inability to ever win after that battle dooms them to decline. 

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12 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You mean apart from being incredibly repetitive, recycled and lazy?

That too. The generous use of stage recycling and lore important, but plot minor characters like Baron Domenic being generics is eerily similar to how the Warriors serious handle such matters.

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5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:
16 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

 

Considering Liu Shan was an emperor given to decadence with no interest in actually ruling, it might not be all that different.

As far as corrupted and insane goes I was more referring to Liu Bei and Jiang Wei who for all intend and purposes is the actual ruler of Shu. Jiang Wei in particular seems a good comparison to Dimitri. At least in the DW games. Mister Shan gets a bad rep but since he's the only ruler who's court wasn't a complete mess and who didn't bumble from rebellion to civil war he must have been doing something right. 

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Chibi! They will always have their victory at Chibi! -Until their almost complete inability to ever win after that battle dooms them to decline. 

Sure. Its just that Zhuge Liang and Shu end up stealing most of the credits for that battle. And in most stories they kinda mostly or completely disappear after Liu Bei dies, decades before the story ends

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2 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

As far as corrupted and insane goes I was more referring to Liu Bei and Jiang Wei who for all intend and purposes is the actual ruler of Shu. Jiang Wei in particular seems a good comparison to Dimitri. At least in the DW games. Mister Shan gets a bad rep but since he's the only ruler who's court wasn't a complete mess and who didn't bumble from rebellion to civil war he must have been doing something right. 

Sure. Its just that Zhuge Liang and Shu end up stealing most of the credits for that battle. And in most stories they kinda mostly or completely disappear after Liu Bei dies, decades before the story ends

Isn't Zhuge Liang's conquest of the Vietnamesse tribes to the south after Liu Bei dies (provided the characters are who I think they are, as to me they're Kong Ming and Xuande respectively)?

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49 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Isn't Zhuge Liang's conquest of the Vietnamesse tribes to the south after Liu Bei dies (provided the characters are who I think they are, as to me they're Kong Ming and Xuande respectively)?

*Checks* correct. The Chinese "courtesy names" don't exactly get used in Dynasty Warriors. Zhuge Liang also carried out his northern campaigns against Sima Yi/Zhongda after Liu Bei's short reign.

 

20 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

So is Byleth in Silver Snow the loose analogue to the Jin taking over Wei?

Hmm... If the Church is supposed to be the dominant power, then maybe? Jin doesn't fit that well into the puzzle. Unless you say "Nobody expects the Sima-Jin coup!" and think it's also possible to say "Nobody expects the Byleth coup!", and consider that sufficient to connect them.

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1 hour ago, Jotari said:

Isn't Zhuge Liang's conquest of the Vietnamesse tribes to the south after Liu Bei dies (provided the characters are who I think they are, as to me they're Kong Ming and Xuande respectively)?

I meant more that Wu dissapears after Liu Bei dies. After that its mostly Zhuge against Sima stuff. Its that timeframe where its most obvious that Wu is just ''those other guys'' 

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Three Houses Day 41: Chapter 10 Week 2

And yet again I'm greeted by Professr looking more like a kid who had a bad first day at school than a woman who just lost her father last week.

Alright, let's do “Black Market Scheme” today. Recommended level: 13. Let's see how much of a lie that is, because it's definitely a lie from what I remember.

But before we go, I made Flayn a mage, so she can work on getting fiendish blow, obviously. This is the first time I've really worked on getting these crucial “blow” skills, which is funny for such a player-phase-centric game.

...It's weird that I say that despite hating the game's strategy so much. You'd think being player-phase-focused would be a big deal in its favor, but... I dunno, I think it's the fact that your player-phase options are just so busted so much of the time. Between canto and gambits and fliers and combat arts...

Anyway, so Balthus lies about Hapi being missing so that he can follow a lead on a missing relic.

Okay, so I do like Balthus's performance here. In hindsight he really does sound like a terrible liar, but it's not so obvious you have to catch on the first time.

Also I love how he stops sounding so stop-and-start “finding the right words”-y when he starts ranting about Hapi's sleeping habits. That's when he stops lying and genuinely starts ranting about how Hapi actually is.

But again, if Balthus's story were true, this paralogue would leave absolutely no room to wait, which would make it ridiculous that he'll let you back out of it without forcing the point or admitting he's lying. Hapi, if you don't know, has this weird curse or something where a single sigh from her will instantly summon monsters from everywhere. Having her stuck all alone in some random market in Enbarr would be absurdly dangerous, both to her and everyone around her.

So, I have to ask... did they go by themselves, or did they bring the entire class except Hapi with them? If it's the former, I eagerly await their explanation for why the rest of the class is here.

So yeah, apparently we brought the entire class with us, and nobody had seen Hapi, or thought to look for her in her usual napping place, or questioned the absurdity of her falling asleep in a crate full of pillow feathers... and closing herself in from the inside.

Oh and apparently this “black market”... is being held... in the open. In broad daylight.

...Oh god, Balthus and Hapi are force-deploys. Please don't let this hurt more than it has to...

Aaaaand they're isolated with Professr, with precious few deployment slots-

...Right. Now I remember why I hate this map. It forces your entire army to be split up all over the map and surrounded by multiple enemies each. Many of whom, while indeed low level, are fucking advanced tier. This level fourteen warlock has more magic and resistance than Professr has anything but strength. Every single member of your army has to be expected to take a hit before they can regroup, and precious few classes are built to be able to do much of that against serious attackers.

No, fuck it, we aren't doing this today. I'm gonna brute force this nonsense later when I'm even stronger. This looks like it's going to be annoying as hell.

Right, let's do the Flayn and Seteth paralogue.

Either Seteth is ridiculously overprotective, or dragons mentally mature so slowly that even after being centuries old Flayn is still mentally like 14 years old. The fact that he still doesn't trust her to fight alongside him after all this time makes either his behavior, or the concept of marrying Flayn, completely indefensible.

But yeah, this is a much better-designed battle. I kinda like the idea of getting a free flier to facilitate a part of the map only fliers can realistically do. I kinda wanna see more dogfights in the series, and it's a shame this isn't one.

Between fistfaire, death blow and lone wolf, Felix's attack power is insane. He's nearly one-shotting this mage with silver gauntlets.

...Seteth just used a vulnerary and I didn't get a chance to canto him. My turn just instantly ended. Is that a glitch? Does canto not activate on the last move of the turn? Does it not activate for loan units? Do vulneraries not activate canto in this game? What the fuck just happened? This calls for further testing.

...Yeah, I used the vulnerary again, and yet again supercanto didn't activate. I need to test this with Ingrid. See if it's only loan units.

...Hang on... this is sounding familiar. I remember this happening with torches in a previous playthrough. Yeah, I'll make sure, but I think the thing is that in this game, using an item just automatically ends your turn, no canto. Which is... really fucking weird. On the surface you might argue that adding canto to using items is pointless, because you can use items no matter what space you're on, but no. Lighting torches before venturing into the dark, using items after getting them by trading with someone else... I can think of multiple reasons you'd want to canto after using an item, and making it an exception to the rule out of nowhere after item use being allowed under canto in literally every fucking game that has had canto, super or otherwise... is just infuriating.

Yep, just confirmed, it is indeed the case that canto doesn't work after using vulneraries for Ingrid either.

Also, Seteth doesn't come with any combat arts, weirdly enough.

The cruel irony of these guys doing this to fight for the right to worship Saint Cichol... who is the guy killing them... ouch. Hey Seteth, if you didn't want your wife's gravesite to be at risk of falling into enemy territory... maybe don't make it a place of supreme importance to the fake religion you helped build?

Anyway, Sylvain can finally become a sniper since he reached level 20. Good, he was seriously starting to fall behind. He was really becoming the Ashe to Shamir's Sylvain.

We get a golden flying battalion, and a golden monk battalion, and... yep, the cutscene where Seteth finally admits Flayn is his daughter. Though Professr isn't allowed any dialogue option that notices this when Seteth talks about his wife and then Flayn immediately talks about her mother. It's just “your mother is also buried here?”

And yet you can still say “I suspected as much” after he admits it, which, due to your dialogue options, appears to be a lie.

I don't get why claiming she's your little sister instead of your daughter helps much with disguising the nature of her blood from people who want to use it. That would imply that it's Seteth's wife who was well known to have a powerful bloodline, wouldn't it? That's the only way that would change things. But like... his wife's identity... would also have to be falsified, no? Who the fuck do these people think his wife even is? And if they know his wife was really a powerful dragon... why would they believe the sibling part of their elaborate false identity, but know everything else is false?

...Yeah, like it's reasonable to expect Three Houses to make sense at this point. Next!

Let's do Yuri and Constance's paralogue, since at least one of those is a unit I'm training.

So the Church seems to feel it has the authority to just take relics from other noble houses. This is sure to end well.

...Oh, this isn't their house's relic. Right. This is Yuri's Crest's relic. I wonder how it fell into their hands during the Dagda-Brigid war. Who did they take it from?

…“the Relic was found in a foreign land”?

...Wow, well, if they're gonna be vague about the abilities of Crests and Relics (of course that word is also capitalized), sure, why not! Don't explain where the fuck it was found or why.

And of course, Yuri wants to come because he bears the Crest of the Relic, though he doesn't explicitly say so.

Yuri: I sure how the church knows what they're doing, choosing her to negotiate this...

...Yeah. I also hope the negotiations take place indoors.

...The negotiations do not take place indoors. Apparently she didn't freak out when she heard the meetup point, which appears to have been compromised by Those Who Slither.

...Ugh, I've been putting off talking about those guys for a while. I have a thing to say about them that I've slightly alluded to on multiple occasions, but...

...Yeah, I'll wait until we fight them at the end of this in-game month.

Let's get to it.

...Of course the game lies to me again! Right after I start the battle, the boss announces that some of the enemies are going to turn into demonic beasts. I can't remember the details, but knowing this game? It could very well happen on enemy phase.

So, I made Sylvain adjutant for Shamir for this battle, I heard the sounds of him attacking alongside her, but it didn't change the inflicted damage. Still 28, just as the forecast said. The archer had 34 HP at the start, and has 6 now. Do offensive adjutants even do anything?

...Also, now that enemies have started getting stronger, I'm noticing the really radical differences in their stats. Particularly speed. It feels like the vast majority of enemies I fight are either slow enough to be doubled by everyone, or fast enough to double everyone. So many classes are ridiculously slow. Fighters, cavalry, dark mages, snipers, for all intents and purposes they're all as slow as armored knights. It's like they weren't even trying to stagger the impact of speed thresholds.

Ingrid just got darting blow and triangle attack. And since she already has fiendish blow... that means she's my first unit who's ready to be a dark flier.

Aaaaand the thief who attacked the duke is now a demonic beast. Great.

But the ones we fought didn't transform yet, so that's good. Let's see who we can get to the duke's aid in time.

Shamir can thankfully one-shot these thieves, including one with a male voice and a female model, with heavy draw on a silver bow.

...So what's the deal with these checkerboard forest-tile areas in this city? Why would they make a part of town this deliberately difficult to walk through?

Okay, thank goodness, I managed to get Mercedes in physic range. I've also got Shamir and Ingrid in range to fight his pursuers, and Professr, Flayn and Dedue are not far behind.

...I'm starting to get the feeling that these thieves are only programmed to turn into demonic beasts when they attack the duke. Are they reacting to the relic he's holding?

...And they have reinforcements now.

...And the duke walked towards the demonic beasts.

...Yeah, uh... it's like Three Houses doesn't have a setting between “mindless” and “clusterfuck”.

...Unfortunately I don't think I can finish this fight in the hour I have left. So I'm gonna cut it here. We'll pick this up tomorrow. Or maybe do another paralogue like a pussy.

Stay safe, everyone.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh and apparently this “black market”... is being held... in the open. In broad daylight.

It's a shame they couldn't have set this in a "nighttime" variant of Enbarr. Not sure how much programming that would take, though.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, fuck it, we aren't doing this today. I'm gonna brute force this nonsense later when I'm even stronger. This looks like it's going to be annoying as hell.

I'd go as far as calling it the hardest Paralogue in the game. It's exceedingly tough to keep all deployed units alive, especially when they're basically doomed to be in enemy range. Honestly, the "easy" way to play this map might be exclusively deploying fliers.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But yeah, this is a much better-designed battle. I kinda like the idea of getting a free flier to facilitate a part of the map only fliers can realistically do. I kinda wanna see more dogfights in the series, and it's a shame this isn't one.

On the flip side, probably the easiest Paralogue in the game. Most enemies are hindered by the terrain, and Seteth is an actually good green unit. Still would've been nice to give him Lance Prowess and Swordbreaker, though.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yep, just confirmed, it is indeed the case that canto doesn't work after using vulneraries for Ingrid either.

Given that they released several updates post-release, including bug fixes, it's frustrating to see this one remain unaddressed. 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

don't get why claiming she's your little sister instead of your daughter helps much with disguising the nature of her blood from people who want to use it. That would imply that it's Seteth's wife who was well known to have a powerful bloodline, wouldn't it? That's the only way that would change things. But like... his wife's identity... would also have to be falsified, no? Who the fuck do these people think his wife even is? And if they know his wife was really a powerful dragon... why would they believe the sibling part of their elaborate false identity, but know everything else is false?

I don't believe the game ever specifies whether Seteth's wife (and Flayn's mother) was another Nabatean, or instead a human. Just as a side note.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

..Of course the game lies to me again! Right after I start the battle, the boss announces that some of the enemies are going to turn into demonic beasts. I can't remember the details, but knowing this game? It could very well happen on enemy phase.

I thought this one was a really cool challenge (don't let any of the transforming enemies near Duke Gerth), even if it was opaque the first time. That said, with the distance to cover (and awful reinforcements incoming), this ranks among the harder Paralogues. Which I don't especially mind, since it requires DLC to access.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, I made Sylvain adjutant for Shamir for this battle, I heard the sounds of him attacking alongside her, but it didn't change the inflicted damage. Still 28, just as the forecast said. The archer had 34 HP at the start, and has 6 now. Do offensive adjutants even do anything?

Adjutants who support the "lead unit" provide a Hit/Avoid boost, much liked Linked Attack boosts. For "special pairs", such as Dimitri/Dedue or Sylvain/Ingrid, this includes an Attack boost. Also, offensive adjutants have a chance to deliver a follow-up attack (if they have the right weapon to hit the target), which increases with support rank.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shamir can thankfully one-shot these thieves, including one with a male voice and a female model, with heavy draw on a silver bow.

TRANS THIEF

TRANS THIEF

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, let's do “Black Market Scheme” today

I come into the post, see these words, and know I’m in for a treat.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so I do like Balthus's performance here. In hindsight he really does sound like a terrible liar, but it's not so obvious you have to catch on the first time.

Despite the fact that I’ve literally never heard of his VA (Aaron Hedrick), he quickly became one of my favourites due to this performance totally not biased

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Right. Now I remember why I hate this map. It forces your entire army to be split up all over the map and surrounded by multiple enemies each. Many of whom, while indeed low level, are fucking advanced tier. This level fourteen warlock has more magic and resistance than Professr has anything but strength. Every single member of your army has to be expected to take a hit before they can regroup, and precious few classes are built to be able to do much of that against serious attackers.

 

I remember cheesing it the first time by undeploying everyone who would spawn on the left side of the map and hiding everyone else behind a Fortress Knight Balthus. The mages I ended up picking off with the ballista. Watching like 20 enemies all gathered around the choke point was simultaneously the most terrifying and amusing thing I’ve seen in ages.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Either Seteth is ridiculously overprotective, or dragons mentally mature so slowly that even after being centuries old Flayn is still mentally like 14 years old. The fact that he still doesn't trust her to fight alongside him after all this time makes either his behavior, or the concept of marrying Flayn, completely indefensible.

In slight justification of his behaviour, the last time he let her fight alongside him she basically exhausted herself so much she fell into a coma for hundreds of years.

Though this now begs the question of why he’s chill with letting her fight alongside Byleth.

Uh…

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I don't get why claiming she's your little sister instead of your daughter helps much with disguising the nature of her blood from people who want to use it. That would imply that it's Seteth's wife who was well known to have a powerful bloodline, wouldn't it? That's the only way that would change things. But like... his wife's identity... would also have to be falsified, no? Who the fuck do these people think his wife even is? And if they know his wife was really a powerful dragon... why would they believe the sibling part of their elaborate false identity, but know everything else is false?

...Yeah, like it's reasonable to expect Three Houses to make sense at this point. Next!

I took it as more of a cover story, which is still dumb but idk

”Hey boss we’re looking for those missing dragons, we think we found a couple that fit the bill, a brother and sister at the Church with that green hair they always have”

”Nah nah nah they gotta be father and daughter, it ain’t them”

 

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Three Houses Day 42: Chapter 10 Week 2 Part 2 – Week 3

Alright, let's see if we can salvage this turn. Two demonic beasts, two enemies, cavalry coming in from the north...

...Alright, once I noticed one of the demonic beasts only had one bar left, that made the solution easy: send in Felix to obliterate him, then take out the remaining thieves, simultaneously set up to kill the cavalry with Felix and Professr's movements, and then deal with the demonic beast next turn when I have more elbow room.

...But the reinforcements are on me just as quickly next turn... Hm...

...But their stats are shit! Alright, awesome. That means I can use Shamir and Professr's gambits, combined with the crack I made with Ingrid last turn, to obliterate this last demonic beast's armor and get some more umbral steel before taking him out.

Honestly, the Aegis shield is pretty good on brawler Felix. The light weight of gauntlets means that the shield is really the only way he can make use of his extra strength-based carrying capacity. At this point, with training gauntlets, it barely slows him down. And really, as if he needs stronger at the moment with his +16 damage stack.

...Alright, that's almost all of them.

...The duke seems programmed to follow Professr. I guess that makes sense, keep him closest to the strongest unit and not have him run in any given direction, right into where reinforcements might be programmed to show up.

...Okay, Felix having a couple of charges of recover is actually pretty damned handy, I won't deny.

Right, only the boss left, unless the fact that he isn't moving means there's another nasty surprise. I'll give the kill to Dimitri, since he's the only one I deployed who's still below level 20, and I at least want the option to make him a wyvern rider next map, even though I plan to wait until he gets death blow before committing him to it full time.

Aaaand... boss down.

So yeah, turns out Duke Gerth is a pretty nice guy in spite of all that Constance was looking forward to giving him shit.

Alright, so they do explain how the Fetters of Dromi got to Dagda. Clans who followed the 10 Elites fled across the sea.

...Though I think I'm gonna have to look at the DLC intro again, because I'm now very confused. I could've sworn the four DLC crests were from Nabateans who weren't massacred in the big war and were involved in the attempted resurrection of Sothis. Why are there Relics for two of them? Why were their bodies butchered? And how could they be butchered in a timeframe such that clans fleeing the continent due to their role on the losing side of the war would have the Relics made from them?

...Wait, uh... Constance didn't know about Yuri's crest? How is that... no, I'm almost certain that shit came up at the climax of the DLC!

...Alright, now that we're back at the Monastery, time for some promotions and class changing.

...After lessons.

...Shit, forgot that Ingrid hasn't learned fiendish blow yet. Damn it, I could've sworn she had, but I guess that was just mag+2.

...But Constance can get dark flier now. She'll go in that because there's little point in putting her in anything else until she unlocks pegasus knight.

Alright, I've put it off long enough. Time to go exploring the Monastery.

Whenever I see people praising how the game handles Jeralt's death, this almost invariably comes up. The fact that everyone on campus has something to say about Jeralt and his death, from Leonie to Rhea to the Gatekeeper. Make no mistake, that is a nice touch. But the trouble is it's icing on a terrible cake. I'm sure it would be great at bringing something already great over the top, which I'm sure is why the people who can manage to be emotionally invested in Jeralt's death praise it so much. But it does nothing for me. Nothing at all.

Also, now that there are so many characters in actual tears, the subdued nature of the portrait sad faces is really becoming apparent. I really don't get it. Yes, I know that FE7 is the only game to avert this, but again, the “increased production values” only serve to make this more jarring. I'm talking to Leonie, who is clearly in tears judging by her vocal performance, but her portrait looks just mildly unhappy.

...Speaking of which, I just dumped a bunch of flowers and owl feathers on her, and she's ready to do her B support with me now. Which is gated behind this chapter. For some reason. Despite it involving her going off on Professr for not appreciating Jeralt enough... in a way that doesn't even get performed like Jeralt just died. Like, she's not even crying and lashing out in anger due to someone dear to her dying. Even knowing that she'd be lashing out at someone to whom he'd be more dear, that would at least be more understandable. But no, it just comes across as something that's not meant to be taken too seriously, and it's only in the next support where they bring up the fact that Jeralt's dead. It's like they got the chapter gate wrong.

Oh, also, not sure if this is me just totally misremembering here, but I could've sworn on my first playthrough, before the updates, when you talk to Hubert, with the text tag “Never been much for condolences...”

...He said “I've never been much for condolences.”

...And then the entire conversation just ended. Which I found fucking hilarious. But no, either I'm misremembering horribly, or they added in the rest of that conversation later.

...PFFFF!

IT'S STILL THERE!

IT WASN'T TAKEN OUT IN AN UPDATE!

THERE'S SOME CONDITION ON WHETHER OR NOT HE SAYS ANYTHING MORE THAT I APPARENTLY ONLY MET ONCE!

THAT IS HILARIOUS!

Alright, quest time.

...Ah, there don't seem to be many. Just a battle quest and... something in Jeralt's room.

...Ah yes. Right. The wedding ring I'm supposed to give to whoever I S-rank. First playthrough I S-ranked Leonie, and all I could think (aside from how clutch she was in the final battle) was “she's wearing Jeralt's wife's ring. Oh she's gotta be loving this.”

...Okay, so all Manuela says about the dagger that killed Jeralt was that “the wound it left wasn't normal”. Nothing about it having any supernatural properties that helped it pierce his armor and kill him in one blow.

Right, now for that Leonie support.

Professr: “How do you know my father?”

Not “did”. “Do”. Yeah, I think this is a fuck-up, and this was supposed to be unlocked before Jeralt's death. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the coding was a botched effort to make it only obtainable before Jeralt's death, but they wound up doing the opposite.

...Alright, let's see if we can get some basic flying battalions too.

...Yep, that works. Okay. Now then, lesson time, and I'll finish up for today.

Dimitri got alert stance, but not much else interesting happened. He's still level 19 unfortunately, so no wyvern rider yet.

Tomorrow I'll probably do some battles to do that quest.

Stay safe, everyone.

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8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh, also, not sure if this is me just totally misremembering here, but I could've sworn on my first playthrough, before the updates, when you talk to Hubert, with the text tag “Never been much for condolences...”

...He said “I've never been much for condolences.”

...And then the entire conversation just ended. Which I found fucking hilarious. But no, either I'm misremembering horribly, or they added in the rest of that conversation later.

Yeah I’m pretty sure the rest of the conversation is only on Black Eagles

8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Though I think I'm gonna have to look at the DLC intro again, because I'm now very confused. I could've sworn the four DLC crests were from Nabateans who weren't massacred in the big war and were involved in the attempted resurrection of Sothis. Why are there Relics for two of them? Why were their bodies butchered? And how could they be butchered in a timeframe such that clans fleeing the continent due to their role on the losing side of the war would have the Relics made from them?

I’m not sure if this applies to the Fetters, but Balthus says that his relic is actually a fake crafted in imitation of the real things, that is just attuned to his crest. Similar to how Aymr was made by the Slithers to respond to Edelgards Seiros Crest.

 

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4 hours ago, Anathaco said:

I’m not sure if this applies to the Fetters, but Balthus says that his relic is actually a fake crafted in imitation of the real things, that is just attuned to his crest. Similar to how Aymr was made by the Slithers to respond to Edelgards Seiros Crest.

This plot point is very peculiar - while Aymr demands Agarthium to repair, Vajra-Mushti demands Umbral Steel. If the gauntlets are indeed a "phony Relic", then they're the only non-Hero's Relic that requires Umbral Steel to fix.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

THERE'S SOME CONDITION ON WHETHER OR NOT HE SAYS ANYTHING MORE THAT I APPARENTLY ONLY MET ONCE!

THAT IS HILARIOUS!

As @Anathaco said, it's different between Black Eagles and other playthroughs. I love how he gets cut off, though. A lot of students have different in-house and out-of-house dialogues pre-skip.

My favorite line reading this month has to come from Ingrid, though. It's subdued and distant in a way that feels genuine.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

..Wait, uh... Constance didn't know about Yuri's crest? How is that... no, I'm almost certain that shit came up at the climax of the DLC!

The events of the Cindered Shadows campaign are non-canon to the main storyline. In the main line, they never fought Teach, found the Chalice, and got betrayed by Aelfric. Hell, the divergence has to be before the campaign even begins, because Yuri and Balthus show up with their Relics in CS.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Honestly, the Aegis shield is pretty good on brawler Felix. The light weight of gauntlets means that the shield is really the only way he can make use of his extra strength-based carrying capacity. At this point, with training gauntlets, it barely slows him down. And really, as if he needs stronger at the moment with his +16 damage stack.

Hm, good to know. Gauntlets do get heavier somewhat quickly, though - Steel have 5 Weight, while Silver are even heavier at 7. That said, if Trainers kill, then there's no need to move up.

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4 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

As @Anathaco said, it's different between Black Eagles and other playthroughs. I love how he gets cut off, though. A lot of students have different in-house and out-of-house dialogues pre-skip.

Given my first playthrough was black eagles, I have to assume what happened was I didn't notice anything about it until my Verdant Wind run, then played Silver Snow a while later and assumed it got changed. Then misremembered it as happening in my first run or something?

5 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Hm, good to know. Gauntlets do get heavier somewhat quickly, though - Steel have 5 Weight, while Silver are even heavier at 7. That said, if Trainers kill, then there's no need to move up.

Wow, I could've sworn I misread those. But yeah, training gauntlets are all Felix needs, and there's barely any might bonus to upgrading.

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1 hour ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

The events of the Cindered Shadows campaign are non-canon to the main storyline. In the main line, they never fought Teach, found the Chalice, and got betrayed by Aelfric. Hell, the divergence has to be before the campaign even begins, because Yuri and Balthus show up with their Relics in CS.

 

Which is a shame as it wouldn't take a whole lot to make them in continuity with each other, but they kind of go out of their way to make sure the canon is incompatible for no solid reason.

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Three Houses Day 43: Chapter 10 Week 4

Alright, time for some auxiliary battles. First, the quest one. I'm gonna try to get some more training in crucial classes while I'm at it.

I'm taking Ingrid, Professr (adjutanting Annette) and Dimitri to fight most of these guys to get some class exp training done. It's mostly generic swordfighters, so it should be pretty mindless.

...You know, I don't think I've ever seen Dimitri's crest activate on combat arts.

...And that's the only observation that came to me in that whole fight. Alright, time for an auxiliary battle for level 23 with doubled gold rewards.

I'm giving Professr the giant shell because at level 22 her defense is still 12, and that's... probably not good. I usually make a habit of throwing all of my stat boosters onto the avatar in 3H anyway, so I don't see any reason why not to at least give her the shell now. But again, it's annoying as hell that I can't use these straight from the convoy, especially when there are so many smaller, literally farmable stat boosters that can pile up too.

...I just checked out the battalions menu to see if Professr can equip anything better, and I just realized the Nuvelle battalions are all... mundane servants like maids. Honestly, their gambits sound pretty fucking hilarious.

But I settled on some knights of Seiros.

Anyway, there are a lot of brawlers, but they barely do any damage to Dimitri and they do nothing to Dedue, so I'm not really concerned at all.

Aaaaand Dimitri has death blow! Awesome, now to focus on other people.

...For some fucking reason, the ending blast of thoron doesn't even show up when the enemy dodges.

...Aaaand I forgot to equip a bunch of these new skills on people, fuck. Damn it, the way this game handles new skills is still so disorienting.

...Alright, now it's the day of the mission. I'll do some class changes, update skills, do supports, and then I'll be done today.

Dimitri: Professor, have you heard? They say we've finally located the enemy.

Why are the house leaders always finding information like this out before the teachers?

...Okay, no, complaint withdrawn in this specific case, though I definitely remember similar issues happening before. They're specifically keeping Professr in the dark because, surprise surprise, people with raw, emotional, personal investments in a law enforcement case are generally expected to not involve themselves in that case.

But [Insert House Leader Here] turns the church's reasoning for keeping them out of the fight right back around. The church says that this information is an obvious trap given that the knights are at their busiest right now, and that they hope to lure Professr out. But [Insert House Leader Here]... says that they can't afford to have Rhea and Seteth leave the monastery to deal with this when the castle's defenses are so thin... and also says that Professr's team is the only team that stands a chance against this foe of “unknown strength”... which makes no sense. [Insert House Leader Here] makes no argument for why Professr's group would be better at attacking than defending, or why the Knights of Seiros would be better at defending than attacking.

If I were writing this, I'd have [Insert House Leader Here] argue that when our defenses are so thin, we need to send quality, rather than quantity, after the unknown enemy, because quantity can defend a large location like the Monastery better than quality can, so the standing army should stay behind and the Relic users should lead the assault.

...And now we're back at the sad “what to do” menu. Honestly, the song Anxiety (the “Mars Bringer of War”-aping one) should be playing right now, and Professr should look angry or determined. Though honestly that might look even funnier.

But anyway, Dimitri's a wyvern rider, Sylvain's a sniper, but Ingrid can't get dark flier this week, so I'm keeping her in mage a bit longer. Now to give everyone their skills...

Constance also has pegasus knight certification, so I'm putting her in that and adjutanting her until she masters it.

So yeah, Felix was that crazy without death blow. Let's see how nuts he is with it.

And finally... time for supports.

First, Dedue and Mercedes's B.

Mercedes saying the fact that there aren't many people left to pass on the legends of Duscur is “almost like when someone dies” is... kinda... hilariously insensitive. I get what she means, that the loss of the folklore is like another death itself, but to say that the fact that a ton of people are dead is “almost like when someone dies”...

OH WOW, and then Mercedes says she doesn't hate Duscur because she doesn't know anyone they killed. Like, not that she doesn't believe in blaming all of Duscur for the actions of a few, or that she questions the official narrative, it's just “it didn't affect me personally”. Oh my god, this is actually pretty funny how out-of-touch she's being right now. It's a shame it's not on purpose.

...Though it is cute how she follows it up with something that helps bring context to why she feels that strongly about passing down knowledge, by offering to teach Dedue a pastry recipe that's been passed down through her now-extinct family line for generations, and that she's scared it'll be lost forever if anything happens to her.

...Ah yes.

Ingrid and Dedue's B.

Let's see how this goes.

...She's... completely apologetic, realizing that her impression of Duscur, fueled by propaganda and facilitated by the grief of losing someone precious to her, was completely and totally off-base given that Duscur's nothing like how she imagined the people of Duscur would have to be.

But this is still really uncomfortable due to Dedue's... extremely low self-esteem about his people, and honestly, I think Three Houses' take on racism is... drastically inferior to what Tellius did, even though I have endless complaints about that as well.

And now for Dedue's C supports with the relative newcomers, Flayn and Shamir. First, Flayn.

Curious, Flayn's drooling over a meal that doesn't appear to have any fish. There's meat, but it's red and steak-like.

...And now Flayn's making muffled eating sounds... while visibly not moving her hands at all.

Seriously, I want a free camera mode for this shit. I have a very strong suspicion that Dedue and Flayn are just positioned... both standing up, but floating different heights above the black abyss beyond the bedsheet background.

So we've got yet another person asking to be taught how to cook by Dedue. The specifics of the other ones are a total blur, but I know this has happened a bare minimum of twice before. Yeah, beyond that basically nothing happens. Hopefully Shamir has more interesting stuff to say.

So... uh... Shamir just threw a knife at a bug on Dedue's shoulder. I think. Again, it's hard to tell, but she did a waving gesture with her arm followed by an attack flourish and a whooshing sound effect. That might have been them trying to tell us she used a bow.

Amusingly, throwing knives at bugs is something that I first saw in an UnassumingVenusaur patch support between Jakob and Keaton.

...This support... is basically just taking advantage of the fact that these are both people of few words, but not in the idiotic way the Fates localization did with Saizo and Beruka, literally removing an entire support for a “...” gag. It's... yeah, it's okay. Their dynamic is kinda cute.

Now then, Dimitri and Sylvain.

...It sounds like Dimitri got in some trouble with women due to the promise he made to Sylvain to flirt with one and is now hiding in Sylvain's room.

Sylvain: You didn't give her a dagger, did you? Is that why you're hiding? Does she have a dagger, Dimitri?

Okay, I fucking love this line. It starts out as a call-back, but then with that added last sentence, it goes from “great job, you gave a woman a shitty present” to “great job, you simultaneously pissed a woman off and armed her.”

...Dimitri... is really vague about why the attempt to flirt went wrong, though Sylvain seems to think Dimitri used one of Sylvain's pickup lines, which would be taken completely differently coming from someone with an established reputation as having no sense of humor whatsoever. Now they're making it sound like it worked too well, and now this girl is chasing after him because she likes him way more than he likes her.

And that's the end of that support chain.

Honestly, I wish they went harder on the “noodle incident” angle and made it hilariously unclear just what kind of shit Dimitri got himself into, other than the fact that it's bad.

...Alright, C support with Flayn and Dimitri.

...Ah. So Flayn's a terrible cook. That should make her supports with Dedue... iiiiinteresting...?

So, Dimitri didn't care, other than noticing some... “suspiciously crunchy bits”. Either he has no taste, or we're about to find out what he just ate. Or it's going to make him sick.

...Yeah, he's fine. Huh. I wonder what'll happen next.

Now Felix and Flayn.

...She basically emotionally manipulates Felix into doing a chore by turning it into a training exercise and preying on his ego compared to the knights by saying she saw some knights doing it.

...And he tells her to throw them all at once. They'd have to be some pretty damned light logs, because she has absolutely no issues doing that. Unless she has crazy dragon strength.

...Oh yes. And now for Sylvain's support with Flayn. Where Flayn seems to believe some crazy outlandish rumors about him. Honestly, if this shit is what Dedue heard in their B support, that would be absolutely hilarious. Especially this line:

Flayn: I've heard that you panic when there aren't women around to flirt with. That you've gone as far as flirting with horses and even chickens!

It's the way she says “chickens” that brings it over the top.

...Alright, and that's all the supports for today.

Tomorrow... we finish the first of the three big final chapters of Part 1.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

If I were writing this, I'd have [Insert House Leader Here] argue that when our defenses are so thin, we need to send quality, rather than quantity, after the unknown enemy, because quantity can defend a large location like the Monastery better than quality can, so the standing army should stay behind and the Relic users should lead the assault.

 

 

Or give Byleth some initative and have them research the Agarthans themself and find their base and then run after them ala Sothis's paralogue.

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But anyway, Dimitri's a wyvern rider, Sylvain's a sniper, but Ingrid can't get dark flier this week, so I'm keeping her in mage a bit longer. Now to give everyone their skills...

I think Mir was perdicting you wouldn't manage to do that before the end of Part 1 due to Dimitri's weakness in axes. Turns out it was actually the level cap that delayed him more than the weapnon ranks.

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

OH WOW, and them Mercedes says she doesn't hate Duscur because she doesn't know anyone they killed. Like, not that she doesn't believe in blaming all of Duscur for the actions of a few, or that she questions the official narrative, it's just “it didn't affect me personally”. Oh my god, this is actually pretty funny how out-of-touch she's being right now. It's a shame it's not on purpose.

 

Mindnumbingly insenstivie...but also pretty true to general human nature I reckon.

 

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40 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Oh yes. And now for Sylvain's support with Flayn. Where Flayn seems to believe some crazy outlandish rumors about him. Honestly, if this shit is what Dedue heard in their B support, that would be absolutely hilarious. Especially this line:

Flayn: I've heard that you panic when there aren't women around to flirt with. That you've gone as far as flirting with horses and even chickens!

...where the hell do people come up with this crap...??? Because this is on the level of ridiculous that the "hitting on a tree in a skirt" dialogue was 

41 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...It sounds like Dimitri got in some trouble with women due to the promise he made to Sylvain to flirt with one and is now hiding in Sylvain's room.

Sylvain: You didn't give her a dagger, did you? Is that why you're hiding? Does she have a dagger, Dimitri?

Okay, I fucking love this line. It starts out as a call-back, but then with that added last sentence, it goes from “great job, you gave a woman a shitty present” to “great job, you simultaneously pissed a woman off and armed her.”

...Dimitri... is really vague about why the attempt to flirt went wrong, though Sylvain seems to think Dimitri used one of Sylvain's pickup lines, which would be taken completely differently coming from someone with an established reputation as having no sense of humor whatsoever. Now they're making it sound like it worked too well, and now this girl is chasing after him because she likes him way more than he likes her.

Oh my god XD

On 10/11/2021 at 12:26 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Aaaaand the thief who attacked the duke is now a demonic beast. Great.

Was it the wimp who gets fragged in retaliation?

On 10/11/2021 at 12:26 PM, Alastor15243 said:

We get a golden flying battalion, and a golden monk battalion, and... yep, the cutscene where Seteth finally admits Flayn is his daughter. Though Professr isn't allowed any dialogue option that notices this when Seteth talks about his wife and then Flayn immediately talks about her mother. It's just “your mother is also buried here?”

And yet you can still say “I suspected as much” after he admits it, which, due to your dialogue options, appears to be a lie.

I don't get why claiming she's your little sister instead of your daughter helps much with disguising the nature of her blood from people who want to use it. That would imply that it's Seteth's wife who was well known to have a powerful bloodline, wouldn't it? That's the only way that would change things. But like... his wife's identity... would also have to be falsified, no? Who the fuck do these people think his wife even is? And if they know his wife was really a powerful dragon... why would they believe the sibling part of their elaborate false identity, but know everything else is false?

Well, it does make other interactions with him make sense (like the part where he cannot do faculty training in chapter 6, or Rhea's hesitation before saying "sister" at one point).

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Three Houses Day 44: Chapter 10 Mission

Let's do this.

Yet again another one of those insufferable “everyone stands in a half circle and talks” things.

Though one interesting thing they do is have the fact that they're fighting Tomas have Sylvain bring up how hard it might be to fight people they know, and Dimitri... is clearly using this subject to talk himself up to eventually fighting Edelgard, now that he knows, but hasn't revealed, that she's the Flame Emperor.

I think it's time to start giving Felix battalions so he can gain more authority rank. Now that Professr isn't using Jeralt's Mercenaries anymore, they're a good fit for him because they give almost as much power as his personal. Also, since I haven't seen him in action with death blow yet, I don't even have to deal with witnessing a net loss to his DPS.

...I can't deploy Shamir, and both Constance and Annette are being adjutanted necessarily due to being mages in pegasus knight, so I'm a bit understaffed for this battle. No matter, this battle has never been that hard. Getting to “Monica” is very quick, and then I don't remember the second half being hard.

...So yeah, now that we're getting more acquainted with Those Who Slither In The Dark...

...I have to say that probably my single greatest gripe with the story is what they did to them.


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 


 

Long ago, this planet was home to the Agarthans. A proud civilization with highly advanced technology. But the beginning of the end of this civilization came when a fell star crashed into the earth, bearing an alien broodmother from beyond the farthest reaches of space, here to claim this planet as her new home. She immediately began presenting herself as a divine being to the people of Earth, and came into brutal conflict with Agartha. A conflict that the Agarthans lost. Brutally. Their cities were burned to ash to the point that there is no proof they ever existed. Their entire culture and history genocided into nothingness. The history of their planet completely rewritten, with the alien broodmother taking credit for the creation of both the planet she stole and the people she stole it from. All of humanity was bombed back into the middle ages and kept in perpetually stunted development by a corrupt church ruled by shapeshifting aliens from beyond the stars.

But then... hope. With the help of an underground group of survivors hiding in the last Agarthan city, a lone thief went on a dangerous mission to reclaim their planet once and for all. He infiltrated the alien broodmother's secret base and assassinated the broodmother, bringing her corpse back to the Agarthan survivors for research, and they used that alien biology to reward this thief with fantastical powers and incredible weapons born from the broodmother's blood and bones. So armed, the former thief went back to wipe out the alien menace once and for all, he and his allies arming themselves further with the corpses of their slain enemies. It seemed for a moment that the freedom of the human race was inevitable.

But tragedy struck. In a crucial moment at the height of the heroes' power, the King of Liberation was betrayed by one of his closest allies, and all the momentum they had gathered was crushed in an instant, the King and his champions slain, and the church's powerful propaganda had eventually taken even the bloodlines the Agarthan rebels had given the strength to rebel... and brought them under the control of the “church”.

Fast forward to modern day. The Agarthan rebels are trying yet again, and it's their last chance. Because the surviving aliens are making multiple attempts to resurrect their broodmother queen, undoing what little the Agarthan rebels had managed to do over their centuries of underground oppression. And it sounds like the aliens just might be able to do it. But the Agarthans' last hope to exterminate the alien menace once and for all... is in a descendant of that hated traitor who sold out the human race.


 


 

Three Houses... created that basic concept... and somehow decided the best thing to do with this amazingly fascinatingly tragic people... these people rich with potential to be anti-villains, anti-heroes, hell, even straight-out heroes...

...was to turn them into objectively, unsympathetically evil, mustache-twirling, puppy-raping demons.

I don't think I'll ever quite be able to forgive the story for doing that.

...Fuck it, let's just get this over with.

I open up with stride, which I've put on Flayn along with the march ring, and I took out the western demonic beast's shields... for one umbral steel. Yaaaay.

Dimitri's attack power is now frankly psychotic. He's doing 46 damage to this dark mage. Per attack.

Yeah, I think once I get people into advanced classes, the game is going to be a cakewalk for a whiiiiiiiile. The options you have in this game just snowball like crazy due to how powerful you can get.

And I'm baiting in Kronya on turn 3. She's fast and has a high crit rate, but one, her attack is low enough that I have units who can tank it, and two, she uses a gambit instead of attacking anyway. I weaken her with Sylvain curved-shotting her, and then a combat art from Professr finishes it.

And then we get the third cutscene of Professr being a complete and total dumbass for the sake of the plot. It starts with her chasing a fleeing Kronya through the woods, winding up back on the altar that she initially started on (they apparently assume you'll let her come to you like I did I guess), when Solon arrives and uses her as a human sacrifice to banish Professr to the shadow realm.

I'm going to take a stopwatch and time exactly how long it takes between when Solon is doing the dark magic and when Professr's finally hit by it, to see how much time she had to rewind time, even if we assume, without any canon evidence, that Agarthan dark magic can negate divine pulse.

...Eighteen seconds.

That's how long it took for her to get grabbed by the shadow tentacles once the dark magic started showing up. And not once did she think to use divine pulse. We don't even see her trying and failing, she just doesn't use it, like the game expects us to forget she can do it.

But yeah, now Professr's banished to the shadow realm, necessitating Sothis fusing with Professr... which for some reason prevents them from being able to talk anymore.

...But before then... Solon and my students get into an argument, and then Dimitri has another sequence where his bloodlust just comes out from 0 to 100 in a single line.

I won't deny Sothis yelling at Professr for her latest act of stupidity is satisfying.

But now, the Sword of the Creator is upgraded to its true form (and fully repaired, which I took advantage of by using it until it broke earlier), and we can cut our way straight out of the Shadow Realm.

Aaand the battle resumes, with my allies stuck in the forest. But I manage to get them out of there without even using the second stride gambit, and I manage to destroy the western of the remaining three demonic beasts' armor and get a crazy level up for Professr. I think that's enough for now, and I'm going to keep going ahead and rush the boss. There are too many enemies to the south since I kinda rushed Kronya.

...No wait, I have an opening to shatter another one's armor too with my stragglers who haven't had many opportunities to use gambits. I'll just have the main group of powerhouses go after Solon.

My reward for this is one umbral steel. Yaaaaay.

Alright, I'm positioned to kill the boss thanks to stride, but infuriatingly, Ingrid, after attacking, is one fight away from getting fiendish blow. Guess I'll have to do an auxiliary battle next month to get that sorted before any paralogues or the like.

So yeah, after the battle, I explain my new Nowi-colored hair to Dimitri, and then I pass out again.

...I uh... can't remember if this is ever explained.

...But we wake up to the ungodly creepy sight of Rhea singing us a lullaby like we're her fucking daughter, and I'm super uncomfortable about this and fast-forwarding through the dialogue.

And I am fucking cutting this here because the save screen just came up and I'm running short on time today.

Man, I... I just do not say much about what happens in the battles in this game. Is that bothering people? I just find myself glossing over it because it rarely registers as something interesting anymore. Maybe that's just me having done this for too long, I dunno.

Well, we'll finish up the story for this month tomorrow.

Say safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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26 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Long ago, this planet was home to the Agarthans. A proud civilization with highly advanced technology. But the beginning of the end of this civilization came when a fell star crashed into the earth, bearing an alien broodmother from beyond the farthest reaches of space, here to claim this planet as her new home. She immediately began presenting herself as a divine being to the people of Earth, and came into brutal conflict with Agartha. A conflict that the Agarthans lost. Brutally. Their cities were burned to ash to the point that there is no proof they ever existed. Their entire culture and history genocided into nothingness. The history of their planet completely rewritten, with the alien broodmother taking credit for the creation of both the planet she stole and the people she stole it from. All of humanity was bombed back into the middle ages and kept in perpetually stunted development by a corrupt church ruled by shapeshifting aliens from beyond the stars.

Okay, so:

1. It's not clear that the Agarthans were highly advanced in technology before meeting the Nabateans. Per the wiki, at least one source suggests that the Nabateans shared their knowledge with the Agarthans.

2. Did Sothis (the "alien broodmother") declare herself a goddess, or was that a construct of Seiros and her allies after she was killed?

3. Bombed back into the Middle Ages by... the Agarthans? The only characters known to use nukes in-canon?

32 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Fast forward to modern day. The Agarthan rebels are trying yet again, and it's their last chance. Because the surviving aliens are making multiple attempts to resurrect their broodmother queen, undoing what little the Agarthan rebels had managed to do over their centuries of underground oppression. And it sounds like the aliens just might be able to do it. But the Agarthans' last hope to exterminate the alien menace once and for all... is in a descendant of that hated traitor who sold out the human race.

I assume this "traitor" is Wilhem I? How exactly was he "selling out the human race"? The Agarthans weren't human themselves, and we have no reason to believe their treatment of humanity to have been any kinder than the Nabateans'.

Like, I get that you're trying to emphasize the potential for moral nuance here, which the game could've done a better job constructing. But much of this "spin" crosses the line into "misrepresentation".

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

But yeah, now Professr's banished to the shadow realm, necessitating Sothis fusing with Professr... which for some reason prevents them from being able to talk anymore.

This whole narrative point frustrates me. Sothis was living in my head, but she wasn't already fused with me? And when the fusion happens, she ceases existing as an independent will or voice? Except for the one or two times she inexplicably comes back? And it doesn't help the story-telling - losing Sothis means losing anyone to "react" to whatever the main Lord is doing in Part II. It just becomes the "Byleth nods" show.

38 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Aaand the battle resumes, with my allies stuck in the forest. But I manage to get them out of there without even using the second stride gambit, and I manage to destroy the western of the remaining three demonic beasts' armor and get a crazy level up for Professr. I think that's enough for now, and I'm going to keep going ahead and rush the boss. There are too many enemies to the south since I kinda rushed Kronya.

The design post-Kronya is basically a "flier check". Do you have a strong flier who can go up the middle and one-round Solon? Or do you have to take the long way around, up the stairs? Not really a fan of this aspect of the chapter - maybe Solon could've put up a barrier, to prevent it from being flier-skipped?

41 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

..But we wake up to the ungodly creepy sight of Rhea singing us a lullaby like we're her fucking daughter, and I'm super uncomfortable about this and fast-forwarding through the dialogue.

Fodlan Bureau of Investigation, open up!

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39 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Though one interesting thing they do is have the fact that they're fighting Tomas have Sylvain bring up how hard it might be to fight people they know, and Dimitri... is clearly using this subject to talk himself up to eventually fighting Edelgard, now that he knows, but hasn't revealed, that she's the Flame Emperor.

Well, one thing I like about this series is that they show full damn well that war is hell for everyone involved.

40 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Solon arrives and uses her as a human sacrifice to banish Professr to the shadow realm.

No mention of the fact that Solon seems to just reach into her body, grab her heart, and crush it in his hand like it was a bug? Because that's really unnerving by Fire Emblem standards. Anyway, for someone who called himself "the savior of all" only a couple chapters ago, he's not above sacrificing his own allies for his own ends.

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51 minutes ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Sothis was living in my head, but she wasn't already fused with me?

In other instances of "two souls, one body" that I've seen in gaming, IIRC.:

  • The two souls and the one body aren't negatively affected at all. (Very commonplace.)
  • The body is fine. But, gradually, the stronger soul begins crushing the weaker one. Not that the strong soul wanted to, but it seems to be the natural consequence of there wasn't enough space for the two of them.
  • The two souls are fine, but the physically body is stated as beginning to weaken due to having two souls in it. The soulution, therefore, is to transfer one soul to a new body ASAP.
  • The body is fine. The two souls begin, gradually, to merge into one.
  • The body is fine. Upon removal of the healthy second soul from the one body, the health of the first soul begins to falter into very very possibly terminal decline.
  • The dying body is healed back to normal by the linking of a second (near-death) soul, which later regenerates its own body and removes all or most of the link to the first soul's body. This may have caused genetic alterations to the body of the first soul, and or the second soul's.

And of course, it is very often the case in gaming that the second soul, regardless of its effects in the long term, greatly strengthens the one body in the short term.

Another fact to consider is whether the second soul is dormant or awake. If it's asleep, probably because it's a great entity that got sealed away, then it shouldn't cause any trouble for the body and the awake soul.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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I would have liked if Byleth automatically promoted into the Enlightened One mid chapter here. For the story gameplay integration aspect. Sure a mid chapter promotion might kind of upset players who want Byleth in a certain class, but it's so close to the end of the chapter I'm tempted to just say deal with it. Having Byleth forcibly put in a different class for a few turns isn't the worst thing in the world. What is annoying is that (as far as I can remember) they actually do forcibly reclass Byleth into Enlightened One, but it's between chapters as soon as you reach a menu where the promotion and reclass stuff is available. That just seems unhelpful. If you want to forcibly reclass into Enlightened One, then do it in the chapter so players can see it. Doing it between chapters mean interested players need to wait through monastery stuff before actually trying the class out, while players not interested in using the class then have to reclass Byleth back to something else and even run the risk of forgetting to do so and starting a chapter in an undesired class.

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