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

[UNLEASH IT]

I never understood why they locked you out of your cross-house recruits for Chapter 13. 

[Eltosian Kadath]

44 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Okay, back to gameplay. I'm checking the “personal history” tab of Leonie... and it says “1185: remembers the promise made five years ago and returns to Garreg Mach”.

She wasn't fucking there when that promise was made.

...sigh....I know it is not that big of a deal, but having this small detail pointed out annoys me anyway.

 

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Ah yes, and here we get the first instance of something that's going to be frankly omnipresent in these post-timeskip supports: things picking up like five fucking years didn't just fucking pass since the last one.

While my first thought is that they should have made a complete support chain for the first half, and a second complete different support chain for the second half, with a bond support like mechanic to bridge the mechanical components of supports (and possibly trigger alternate dialogue in the part 2 versions) but the number of supports you drown in for this game is already exhausting. I guess they could have been a little more restrictive with whom can support with eachother to help with the support bloat this might exacerbate.

 

10 hours ago, Jotari said:

I think just making the map  much easier would be better than a prep menu (though it is a bit of a why not both situation, at least for Byleth and the lord). It's a nice idea for a map from a story perspective, you get to see all your students show up in their new outfits one by one across the map (or rather two by two). The issue is that sense of excitement is lost with a sense of frustration instead as you burn through divine pulses trying to keep them alive. If the chapter was designed to just be a plain easy one, then it would have worked better. And really the game could do with an easy chapter as the first one in Part 2, it's basically a reset into a new prologue. I do think Maddening was untested in this regard (and normal itself even could have been made easier), I just question if it really is a soft lock, or if players are just unwilling to let their units die, even the ones they've trained, to clear the chapter.

I was more pointing out what really pushes this map into the softlock territory, rather than suggesting how to "fix" the map. If I were trying to fix the map I would have the game autolevel them to some base level (like normal mode does, although what that base level would be dependent on the difficulty), giving them free access to one class in that level tier for anyone that got autoleveled (based on who it is), and have a prep screen for Byleth and the Lord, and one for each group that appears. It would maintain the feel of the map, and let it keep that questionable Maddening difficulty, but remove the big points of softlock potential.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, back to gameplay. I'm checking the “personal history” tab of Leonie... and it says “1185: remembers the promise made five years ago and returns to Garreg Mach”.

She wasn't fucking there when that promise was made.

I always assumed it was only your in-house units, plus Flayn, who were supposed to be there "five years ago". Some out-of-house recruits, like Ashe and Lorenz, don't even show back up right away.

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But then Felix... reacts with surprise. “What happened to him?” quoth Felix. “It's like he's a completely different person”.

I don't see how he's acting substantially different from the “boar” Felix kept saying he always knew Dimitri was.

Yeah, but pre-skip Dimitri was far better at hiding it. He's lost that seal on his emotions.

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

She's also talking about how her decision to enter this war was the first thing she ever freely chose to do, and uh... well... she's talking about how she apparently discussed this with her adoptive father, and like, that's not fucking possible in this timeframe.

She's had five years to discuss it with him, though. Unless the "discussion" is cited as specifically being subsequent to her actually showing up at Garreg Mach?

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

..Uh...

...Is that... a gray streak in Annette's hair? Just behind her bangs?

I've never seen that. I'll have to look for it. I do know some characters have distinctions in their model relative to their portrait, like Catherine's "red aura".

22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I go with Leonie into the sauna, and she skyrockets ahead of Professr so I can only get her the normal boost unfortunately.

I have a love-hate relationship with the sauna. I like that they tried to incorporate a "minigame" here, and it's satisfying when it works out. But it feels obnoxiously random. Like, Teach grows a sliver from "add steam" one time, and then she increases three times as much the next time?

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

What I can't really justify is that such a central, culturally important location and, at least somewhat defensible, location for the continent would be just sitting their abandoned without some side taking control of it before now. That just doesn't make any sense to me and I suspect they only made it that way because they really liked the idea of the reunion scenes taking place in an empty monastery. Which fair enough, it's a bit of a plot hole, but if you can good theming and imagery out of it then it's not the biggest issue in the world. I'm only disappointed they didn't go any further with it and have you actually explore an empty monastery in gameplay. It would have had a really great affect to explore a night time version of the hub location that has always been full of npcs (and your pcs), not desolate and as ruined as the budget can afford to make it look; slowly checking all the areas until you find the goddess tower, the one place that had been blocked off from you in Part 1, where you then see your main lord amongst the wreckage.

This really bugs me. Why didn't Edelgard retain control over Garreg Mach during the war? It's a relatively defensible central location, and if she's not at war with the Alliance, she doesn't need to worry about attack from that front. She instead abandons it, after capturing Rhea and forcing the rest of the Church out, because ???

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

That'd be because every student needs to have their own paralogue, and Mercedes has one that's plot relevant to her, so she can't be the focus of another one. It's a system that's nice in that it lets every character get focus in the plot, but it also means some characters are just dumped into paralogues that they have nothing to do with to fill out the roster (and, surprisingly, this even happens to Claude, whose paragraph I really feel shouldn't have been Verdant Wind exclusive).

Bernadetta moment.

IMO the Claude paralogue works for him, if you consider his "history nerd" side. He was the only Lord to see the sketch of the Immaculate One, so him meeting another one of the Saints seems a reasonable follow-up.

[Alastor15243]

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

She's had five years to discuss it with him, though. Unless the "discussion" is cited as specifically being subsequent to her actually showing up at Garreg Mach?

Has she been part of the war effort before reuniting with Professr? Because otherwise, like with the letter, there's just no realistic timeframe for her to discuss this with her father.

 

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

I've never seen that. I'll have to look for it. I do know some characters have distinctions in their model relative to their portrait, like Catherine's "red aura".

Curious, I never noticed that "red aura" either, I'll have to look out for that.

 

[ZeManaphy]

On 10/22/2021 at 12:07 PM, Alastor15243 said:

So they talk about their decision to use Garreg Mach as their base of operations, and Gilbert justifies this by saying it's essentially beneath the Empire's notice at the moment. But I don't buy it. It's the game making idiotic excuses to justify why they're keeping the school system. They couldn't defend this place when the Church was at the height of its fucking power. There is no conceivable way they're going to be able to defend this thing from the current strength of the Empire the second they realize we're flies worth swatting. We need to be stealthy and on the move, but the game's too in love with its huge explorable Monastery to let us ever set our base anywhere else.

It is stated in-game that a huge reason why Edelgard was able to successfully conquer the monastery was because of two factors: 1. The surprise declaration of war completely caught off guard by the church, and by the time Edelgard was able to declare war, she already had massive army vastly outnumbering the church. 2. The reason she couldn’t successfully reclaim the monastery during the time skip is due to her focusing on the frontlines in other regions. She does actual try to take it back in Chapter 14, but the army she sends is smaller, and she fails. Do you not pay attention to the story of the game as well as the dialogue of others while you explore the monastery?

[Alastor15243]

4 minutes ago, ZeManaphy said:

It is stated in-game that a huge reason why Edelgard was able to successfully conquer the monastery was because of two factors: 1. The surprise declaration of war completely caught off guard by the church, and by the time Edelgard was able to declare war, she already had massive army vastly outnumbering the church. 2. The reason she couldn’t successfully reclaim the monastery during the time skip is due to her focusing on the frontlines in other regions. She does actual try to take it back in Chapter 14, but the army she sends is smaller, and she fails. Do you not pay attention to the story of the game as well as the dialogue of others while you explore the monastery?

Couple things:

1: The "taken by surprise" bit falls flat due to the fact that it was only facilitated by the game pretending that the two entire weeks they skipped between Edelgard attacking and Edelgard declaring war didn't exist. They had plenty of time to prepare for Edelgard to do something and they spent half of it doing literally nothing, not even having classes.

2: As I said before, it's completely ridiculous for the game to suggest that the Empire's forces could be further crippled by being spread on multiple fronts than the Church's forces were crippled by being all but disbanded. Their headquarters literally turned into a den of thieves. How could that possibly have been allowed to happen if they weren't reduced to nearly nothing?

[Acacia Sgt]

Wasn't it implied that Edelgard had to sneak most of her forces in for the surprise attack disguised as merchants and the like? That isn't bound to work a second time. Also, with the Church driven out, it was likely considered not as essential to hold the place. Looking at the map, between Adrestia and Cornelia, they hold almost all of the territory bordering the monastery. With the Alliance still officially neutral or so, the only way Garreg would be strategically important to the Empire right now would be if there's a direct pass between it and Charon territory. If there's not... then no reason to keep troops there. Hence thieves taking over... and allowing the Church remnants to go back and retake it. And with most Imperial forces occupied in Faergheus, Edelgard can't send a proper attack force to take it back, thus being enough for the Church to repel it. Specially since the monastery is naturally quite defensible already.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[ZeManaphy]

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The "taken by surprise" bit falls flat due to the fact that it was only facilitated by the game pretending that the two entire weeks they skipped between Edelgard attacking and Edelgard declaring war didn't exist. They had plenty of time to prepare for Edelgard to do something and they spent half of it doing literally nothing, not even having classes.

 

How do you know they were doing nothing ? There's no evidence to support that point. I think its very plausible to say that Rhea was trying to respond to the Empire's remarks via speeches, or that the church was preparing the best of its abillity to prepare for the assault Of course, there is no evidence for that either. Point is, there's very little reason to argue over this because its just diving into pure speculation. 

22 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

As I said before, it's completely ridiculous for the game to suggest that the Empire's forces could be further crippled by being spread on multiple fronts than the Church's forces were crippled by being all but disbanded. Their headquarters literally turned into a den of thieves. How could that possibly have been allowed to happen if they weren't reduced to nearly nothing?

Its mentioned that on non-CF routes that the Knights of Serios spent most of their time looking for Rhea after she disappeared. They most likely situation is that after the Empire took over Garreg Mach they were forced to flee, and since they had not enough forces to reclaim the monastery, and spent most of that time looking for Rhea and Byleth, who they probably deemed more important than the Monastery. Never is it stated that the church has been disbanded.  Its also mentioned that Garreg Mach in General is difficult to transport supplies to, which is probably a big factor to why Edelgard decides to abandon it on non-CF routes. 

Edited October 23, 2021 by ZeManaphy

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Has she been part of the war effort before reuniting with Professr? Because otherwise, like with the letter, there's just no realistic timeframe for her to discuss this with her father.

So, here's Mercedes relevant dialogue in the support:

Spoiler

• Mercedes: It's just... I've always allowed myself to follow the whims of those above me. I convinced myself that everything in life was at the will of the goddess. I was blind to reality. I believed it was her will to both pull me from the church and guide me to the Officers Academy. The decision to enter this war was the first time I acted of my own free will. My adoptive father opposed this decision, but I somehow managed to convince him.

She doesn't need to have been part of the war effort until now for it to make sense. Like, she could've been openly contemplating joining, but then her stepfather forbid it. She may have even decided to join a while back, but simply not acted upon it until now.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Curious, I never noticed that "red aura" either, I'll have to look out for that.

I dunno if "aura" is the right word, but it's basically that Catherine's model has some red coloration near the edges. Particularly in her hair. Maybe I'm the only one seeing it?

55 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Wasn't it implied that Edelgard had to sneak most of her forces in for the surprise attack disguised as merchants and the like? That isn't bound to work a second time.

That was implied to be for the break-in at the Holy Tomb, not the assault on Garreg Mach. Those troops march in from Enbarr. At the very least, any Imperial "sleeper agents" stuck in Garreg Mach for the two weeks between the break-in and the assault would likely be in peril. 

58 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

And with most Imperial forces occupied in Faergheus, Edelgard can't send a proper attack force to take it back, thus being enough for the Church to repel it. Specially since the monastery is naturally quite defensible already.

Are there that many Imperial troops fighting in Faerghus? My impression was, most of Cornelia's forces were native to the Kingdom and its lords. And the very fact that the monastery is hard to defend reveals rhe folly in abandoning it, as the Empire effectively allowed its principal foes to take it and become a thorn in their side. Also, the Alliance is neutral, but that doesn't mean the Empire wouldn't want a border presence there, to ensure Claude doesn't get any funny ideas about invading.

[Acacia Sgt]

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

That was implied to be for the break-in at the Holy Tomb, not the assault on Garreg Mach. Those troops march in from Enbarr. At the very least, any Imperial "sleeper agents" stuck in Garreg Mach for the two weeks between the break-in and the assault would likely be in peril. 

Are there that many Imperial troops fighting in Faerghus? My impression was, most of Cornelia's forces were native to the Kingdom and its lords. And the very fact that the monastery is hard to defend reveals rhe folly in abandoning it, as the Empire effectively allowed its principal foes to take it and become a thorn in their side. Also, the Alliance is neutral, but that doesn't mean the Empire wouldn't want a border presence there, to ensure Claude doesn't get any funny ideas about invading.

Perhaps, but not a guarantee they'd get discovered in time. So don't use all the ones snuck in for the Holy Tomb incursion, then use the rest as a prelude to the troops coming in from outside.

Except there are Imperial-aligned Alliance members... and those are the ones who border the Empire itself... and Garreg Mach. So Edelgard likely counts that if Claude declares war, he'd instead have first to deal with a civil war as some of the Alliance members flock to her side. So the need to have troops over there isn't as paramount. Or perhaps she does have troops at the Alliance border, ready to cross over and support her sympathizers. And it'd be easier to travel into Alliance territory through there than at Garreg. Since it'd take less effort to reach the frontlines of any inter-Alliance conflict. And like at Faerghus, can't divert enough troops to retake Garreg else it risks weakening her other positions.

Edited October 23, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

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

She doesn't need to have been part of the war effort until now for it to make sense. Like, she could've been openly contemplating joining, but then her stepfather forbid it. She may have even decided to join a while back, but simply not acted upon it until now.

But unless she already joined it, she had no idea that going here would translate to joining the war effort, because nobody expected Professr to be there, or Gilbert.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Perhaps, but not a guarantee they'd get discovered in time. So don't use all the ones snuck in for the Holy Tomb incursion, then use the rest as a prelude to the troops coming in from outside.

There could be some "leftovers", I grant, but I don't see how they'd especially help. We never hear of any sabotage from inside the town or monastery aiding Edelgard's invasion. Nor do the long lines of troops coming from Enbarr face any known delays en-route.

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Except there are Imperial-aligned Alliance members... and those are the ones who border the Empire itself... and Garreg Mach. So Edelgard likely counts that if Claude declares war, he'd instead have first to deal with a civil war as some of the Alliance members flock to her side. So the need to have troops over there isn't as paramount. Or perhaps she does have troops at the Alliance border, ready to cross over and support her sympathizers. And it'd be easier to travel into Alliance territory through there than at Garreg. Since it'd take less effort to reach the frontlines of any inter-Alliance conflict. And like at Faerghus, can't divert enough troops to retake Garreg else it risks weakening her other positions.

Conversely, having allies around might make Garreg Mach more desirable to retain. Having an Empire-controlled Garreg Mach at his back could embolden (or pressure, depending on your perspective) Count Gloucester to begin formally coordinating with the Empire. Likewise, where better for Cornelia and Edelgard to meet than the site roughly between their two capitals? And that's not to mention the many treasures they could yet plunder from the Monastery to aid the war effort.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

But unless she already joined it, she had no idea that going here would translate to joining the war effort, because nobody expected Professr to be there, or Gilbert.

Huh, I could swear they were all going to the monastery intent on reuniting with their classmates and former teacher. But I suppose they didn't necessarily know that a united anti-Imperial front would emerge out of it.

[Alastor15243]

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

Huh, I could swear they were all going to the monastery intent on reuniting with their classmates and former teacher. But I suppose they didn't necessarily know that a united anti-Imperial front would emerge out of it.

Yeah, they didn't even have any reason to believe Professr would be there. They were all just keeping their promise to reunite.

[Acacia Sgt]

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

Conversely, having allies around might make Garreg Mach more desirable to retain. Having an Empire-controlled Garreg Mach at his back could embolden (or pressure, depending on your perspective) Count Gloucester to begin formally coordinating with the Empire. Likewise, where better for Cornelia and Edelgard to meet than the site roughly between their two capitals? And that's not to mention the many treasures they could yet plunder from the Monastery to aid the war effort.

Because having them in the actual Imperial border with Gloucester is more effective. Again, Garreg, while a good place defensively, is not so good for the funneling and transport of troops. It's likely more efficient to around it than through it.

Perhaps, but again, it's likely easier to meet up someplace else. Maybe boat trips between the two capitals are faster. Or never found the need to meet directly.

[Sunwoo]

The time skip isn't handled super well in 3H, I think a big part of that is because the game still needed to find a way to keep the monastery as your "base" while reuniting with all of your students and the house leaders in a nigh identical fashion.

Kind of lessens the impact of split routes when the structure of how everything goes is so artificially similar to one another.

[Etrurian emperor]

10 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

The time skip isn't handled super well in 3H, I think a big part of that is because the game still needed to find a way to keep the monastery as your "base" while reuniting with all of your students and the house leaders in a nigh identical fashion.

Kind of lessens the impact of split routes when the structure of how everything goes is so artificially similar to one another.

I can understand why they didn't do it, but it would have been interesting if the timeskip gave you a new base. Enbarr for Crimson Flowers and Derdriu for Verdant Wind. The characters squatting in the monastery makes sense in the Blue Lions since Dimitri is essentially a hobo, but Edelgard and Claude have bases of their own. 

[Sunwoo]

16 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I can understand why they didn't do it, but it would have been interesting if the timeskip gave you a new base. Enbarr for Crimson Flowers and Derdriu for Verdant Wind. The characters squatting in the monastery makes sense in the Blue Lions since Dimitri is essentially a hobo, but Edelgard and Claude have bases of their own. 

Something something everyone is too sentimental about the monastery to use common sense and ends up there one way or another.

And considering I felt the opposite of sentimental about the monastery, well ...

[UNLEASH IT]

13 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

Something something everyone is too sentimental about the monastery to use common sense and ends up there one way or another.

And considering I felt the opposite of sentimental about the monastery, well ...

I don't really think it has to do with sentimentality. While I don't like the monastery, it's fairly clear that IntSys put a lot of effort and resources into designing it (more so than any other aspect of the game). To discard it halfway through the game then create something similar from scratch would've been quite difficult.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, UNLEASH IT said:

I don't really think it has to do with sentimentality. While I don't like the monastery, it's fairly clear that IntSys put a lot of effort and resources into designing it (more so than any other aspect of the game). To discard it halfway through the game then create something similar from scratch would've been quite difficult.

Well the other option would be to not put so much time and effort into just the monastery and instead put the same amount of time and effort into four smaller hub areas. They at least found the time to build a hub area for a single chapter in Crimson Flower (or, more accurately, a single chapter of White Clouds after the choice that leads to Crimson Flower, though I'm sure everyone knew that and no one would call me out on it so specifying is largely pointless, yet here I am).

Edited October 24, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Well the other option would be to not put so much time and effort into just the monastery and instead put the same amount of time and effort into four smaller hub areas. They at least found the time to build a hub area for a single chapter in Crimson Flower.

This is definitely the right call, especially considering that the Monastery is too overdesigned for its own good to begin with.

[Sunwoo]

If they didn't want to completely drop the monastery mechanics, they could've at least given every path its own base that had the same mechanics and kept Garreg Mach for Silver Snow. And not put so much time and effort into the monastery in general. There's something just really ... I don't know, off-putting I guess, about how your characters always go back there at the end of every chapter. Somehow it feels like we're never actually making progress or moving forwards, if that makes sense.

[Jotari]

17 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

If they didn't want to completely drop the monastery mechanics, they could've at least given every path its own base that had the same mechanics and kept Garreg Mach for Silver Snow. And not put so much time and effort into the monastery in general. There's something just really ... I don't know, off-putting I guess, about how your characters always go back there at the end of every chapter. Somehow it feels like we're never actually making progress or moving forwards, if that makes sense.

Or, instead of having the same mechanics in each alternate base, have it so each of them have different mechanics so further differentiate the routes. Like Crimson Flower lacking the choir practice or Verdant Wind having the gardening.

[UNLEASH IT]

I never understood what was so wrong with just having a series of menus between battles, like every single FE game before Fates.

[Hello72207]

Question: After finishing the actual FE series and Kaga Sagas, are you planning on doing any fan hacks? Some are pretty good and it would be pretty neat for you to try stuff like Vision Quest, which is very close to GBAFE, or Four kings, which I wouldn't suggest ironmanning.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Vision Quest is pretty dope.