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

[Acacia Sgt]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It is possible Duma and Mila know about the degeneration but don't know how to stop it. We actually don't know they're not manaketes. Nothing is said on the topic one way or another, but Mila does curiously hold something that could possibly be a dragon stone, even though it doesn't look like previously seen divine stones. It's also possible Duma started his soul eating ways as a method to maintain sanity (if soul eating even has any effect on degeneration, the game is quite wishwashy on that point). It's more than possible that Mila and Duma were informed of the degeneration and did become manaketes, but that it still wasn't enough to stop their degeneration. Fire and Mage manaketes seem to be safe from degeneration, but of all the divine dragons we know of, only Tiki ever actually kept their dragon stone. And even then two thousand years later she had to seal a portion of her power away until needed. Xane and Gotoh willingly throw away their dragon stones, I don't think we ever get an explanation why, but presumably they have good reason to do so, and that reason being that they're so powerful degeneration will hit them even if they're manaketes is a pretty decent one.

If degeneration was still a thing even after turning into Manaketes... then why even transform into one to begin with? Naga wouldn't have suggested it, and done it herself, if it was ineffective. It can't be just discarding their dragonstones otherwise they would've made Tiki do the same, instead of sending her to sleep. As Naga's daughter whom we barely know how she came to being (do we even know if she even had a father or Naga simply had her via parthenogenesis? Are they even blood related at all?), she'll always be a special case.

Again, Duma and Mila left Archanea before degeneration was even known, and there's no indication they still maintained contact overseas once they settled in Valentia. They wouldn't think to turn into Manaketes, or that doing so would spare them from the degeneration once the pre-effects like loss of fertility would kick in.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It is possible Duma and Mila know about the degeneration but don't know how to stop it. We actually don't know they're not manaketes. Nothing is said on the topic one way or another, but Mila does curiously hold something that could possibly be a dragon stone, even though it doesn't look like previously seen divine stones. It's also possible Duma started his soul eating ways as a method to maintain sanity (if soul eating even has any effect on degeneration, the game is quite wishwashy on that point). It's more than possible that Mila and Duma were informed of the degeneration and did become manaketes, but that it still wasn't enough to stop their degeneration. Fire and Mage manaketes seem to be safe from degeneration, but of all the divine dragons we know of, only Tiki ever actually kept their dragon stone. And even then two thousand years later she had to seal a portion of her power away until needed. Xane and Gotoh willingly throw away their dragon stones, I don't think we ever get an explanation why, but presumably they have good reason to do so, and that reason being that they're so powerful degeneration will hit them even if they're manaketes is a pretty decent one.

No, they already explained that the deal with Tiki was that she was too young to resist madness even with a dragonstone.

[Shadow Mir]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So, I gave the sluice worker some bonewalker oil and he gave me... 10 silver marks. Um... isn't that the trade-in price of bonewalker oil normally?

...YES! YES IT IS! I JUST CHECKED AGAIN! The fuck is the point of this quest!?

There are other rewards.

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, they already explained that the deal with Tiki was that she was too young to resist madness even with a dragonstone.

Oof. That's... pretty heartbreaking.

17 hours ago, Maof06 said:

And if you're grinding, the Dread Fighter loop is the obvious choice, and then any class is viable.

I dunno - I'd say it's impractical, and that the Dread Fighter's perks outweigh a few more stat points.

[Alastor15243]

24 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

I dunno - I'd say it's impractical, and that the Dread Fighter's perks outweigh a few more stat points.

"A few more stat points" nothing. It gets crazy. The second you get those two levels in villager, you combine the stats of a dread fighter with superior attack range no matter what reclass option you pick, meaning you just throw them at the enemy and it snowballs into so many level ups it boggles the mind. You don't even need to get past the first post-villager class change in order to be an outright demigod basically no matter what reclass option you pick, though bow knight is obviously the best.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

If degeneration was still a thing even after turning into Manaketes... then why even transform into one to begin with? Naga wouldn't have suggested it, and done it herself, if it was ineffective. It can't be just discarding their dragonstones otherwise they would've made Tiki do the same, instead of sending her to sleep. As Naga's daughter whom we barely know how she came to being (do we even know if she even had a father or Naga simply had her via parthenogenesis? Are they even blood related at all?), she'll always be a special case.

Again, Duma and Mila left Archanea before degeneration was even known, and there's no indication they still maintained contact overseas once they settled in Valentia. They wouldn't think to turn into Manaketes, or that doing so would spare them from the degeneration once the pre-effects like loss of fertility would kick in.

  

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

No, they already explained that the deal with Tiki was that she was too young to resist madness even with a dragonstone.

Effective for non divine manaketes, but only partially effective for divine dragons perhaps. Why else would Xane and Gotoh throw away their dragon stones? Bear in mind degeneration has been a problem for some thousand years by this point but is only hitting Mila and Duma now.

[Acacia Sgt]

18 minutes ago, Jotari said:

  Effective for non divine manaketes, but only partially effective for divine dragons perhaps. Why else would Xane and Gotoh throw away their dragon stones? Bear in mind degeneration has been a problem for some thousand years by this point but is only hitting Mila and Duma now.

It would've been brought up, if that was the case. And again, if it was a matter of simply throwing away their power (which is what their Dragonstones are, their power in physical form), Tiki wouldn't need to be put to sleep. They'd just pour all her power into the dragonstone, then throw away that. In fact, since the catalyst is that it's their own power that's corroding their minds (the whole reason Naga proposed they should sever from it, creating the dragonstones), then Gotoh wouldn't be a master sage nor Xane keep his shapeshifting, as that's also part of their own power that could corrode their minds. Xane maybe, but it doesn't look like Gotoh discarded much of his power to begin with, considering his magical prowess and that he could still perform a blood bind to Anri over the Falchion.

Because degeneration wasn't something that came into being at the flip of a switch. It's basically like a neurodegenerative disease, except the more time passes, the closer the chances of getting it becomes 100%. Maybe Mila and Duma simply lucked out and it only got to them recently. Maybe whatever caused degeneration is linked to Archanea itself and thus by being in Valentia they were safe... until recently, since the Furia Harbor trade route has stuff coming from Archanea that could've brought the thing in. Maybe it's any other reason. Point is, the dragon siblings left Archanea before knowing they might need to sever from their own power and assume human form. They'd have no reason to do the former. They can still assume human form without severing themselves from their power. Which is what they did. Again, because they have no known reason to do otherwise. They left before things hit the fan for dragonkind in Archanea.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Acacia Sgt said:

It would've been brought up, if that was the case. And again, if it was a matter of simply throwing away their power (which is what their Dragonstones are, their power in physical form), Tiki wouldn't need to be put to sleep. They'd just pour all her power into the dragonstone, then throw away that. In fact, since the catalyst is that it's their own power that's corroding their minds (the whole reason Naga proposed they should sever from it, creating the dragonstones), then Gotoh wouldn't be a master sage nor Xane keep his shapeshifting, as that's also part of their own power that could corrode their minds. Xane maybe, but it doesn't look like Gotoh discarded much of his power to begin with, considering his magical prowess and that he could still perform a blood bind to Anri over the Falchion.

Because degeneration wasn't something that came into being at the flip of a switch. It's basically like a neurodegenerative disease, except the more time passes, the closer the chances of getting it becomes 100%. Maybe Mila and Duma simply lucked out and it only got to them recently. Maybe whatever caused degeneration is linked to Archanea itself and thus by being in Valentia they were safe... until recently, since the Furia Harbor trade route has stuff coming from Archanea that could've brought the thing in. Maybe it's any other reason. Point is, the dragon siblings left Archanea before knowing they might need to sever from their own power and assume human form. They'd have no reason to do the former. They can still assume human form without severing themselves from their power. Which is what they did. Again, because they have no known reason to do otherwise. They left before things hit the fan for dragonkind in Archanea.

Maybe, though then again, maybe not. Like I said, we have no iinformation either conforming or denying that Mila and Duma are manaketes. And I'd argue that the Furia Harbour connection is all the more reason they would know degeneration is a thing. An entire population going crazy and inverting the social order of the entire land is news that would travel, especially given the number of centuries after it occurred by the time Shadows of Valentia begins.

[Acacia Sgt]

15 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Maybe, though then again, maybe not. Like I said, we have no iinformation either conforming or denying that Mila and Duma are manaketes. And I'd argue that the Furia Harbour connection is all the more reason they would know degeneration is a thing. An entire population going crazy and inverting the social order of the entire land is news that would travel, especially given the number of centuries after it occurred by the time Shadows of Valentia begins.

Assuming they know at Furia, since the place seems to be isolated from the rest of Archanea, if their only connections to anywhere is either traversing the Mamorthod Desert... or use the Archanean Seaway to Zofia Harbor. And we don't know when that trade route got stablished to begin with.

We do have confirmation. The fact they're degenerating means they didn't. So far in this series, there have been only two cases of Manaketes degenerating: Anankos, who lives in a separate world so rules might be different anyway; and Tiki, which has been stated it's due to her age... and that even among Divine Dragons she's special, daughter of Naga and all. Naga also spent centuries with her power in a dragonstone, keeping it, and never fearing going feral either. Gotoh and Xane also spent centuries with theirs before throwing them away, and nothing happened to them either. The only thing that separates Tiki from all the Divine Dragons we see is... her age. That's pretty much it. It's an age issue. Even Adult!Tiki in Awakening there's nothing brought up when she recovers her full power at Naga's Craddle. If she was at risk of going feral, it'd have been brought up, but it's not.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

30 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Even Adult!Tiki in Awakening there's nothing brought up when she recovers her full power at Naga's Craddle. If she was at risk of going feral, it'd have been brought up, but it's not.

In fairness, Awakening can be safely ignored with regards to degeneration because the writers clearly forgot it exists, what with the total retcon of the Fire Emblem's purpose to "it's the Dragon Balls I guess" and Tiki's reason for sleeping to "just because".

[Acacia Sgt]

6 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

In fairness, Awakening can be safely ignored with regards to degeneration because the writers clearly forgot it exists, what with the total retcon of the Fire Emblem's purpose to "it's the Dragon Balls I guess" and Tiki's reason for sleeping to "just because".

Maybe, but SoV here is trying to take Awakening into account... and they at least remembered to make their Divine Dragons go through degeneration.

Also... it has been 2000 years. We know that Falchion at least was fiddled with during that interim, so why not the shield too? It's not a good excuse, but the 2000 year gap is one that works nonetheless. As for Tiki... well, they likely wanted to make both a throwback and give her her character quirk as the rest of the cast does.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Acacia Sgt

[Alastor15243]

15 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

As for Tiki... well, they likely wanted to make both a throwback and give her her character quirk as the rest of the cast does.

Amusingly, this is a simple re-wording of exactly what I would say to explain why I hate what they did to Tiki.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

So far in this series, there have been only two cases of Manaketes degenerating: Anankos, who lives in a separate world so rules might be different anyway; and Tiki, which has been stated it's due to her age... and that even among Divine Dragons she's special, daughter of Naga and all.

It's more than that:

Spoiler

Medeus' brethren also degenerated offscreen, leaving him as the sole survivor of the Earth Dragons.

On-screen, this appears to be what happens to Rhea to trigger the Endgame, in Silver Snow (she's a Nabatean, but it's all dragons).

 

[Acacia Sgt]

Just now, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

It's more than that:

  Hide contents

Medeus' brethren also degenerated offscreen, leaving him as the sole survivor of the Earth Dragons.

On-screen, this appears to be what happens to Rhea to trigger the Endgame, in Silver Snow (she's a Nabatean, but it's all dragons).

 

They refused to become Manaketes, though. Medeus was the only Earth Dragon who did... and no issues with him either, despite Earth Dragons being the second strongest dragon tribe.

Maybe, but they are a different sort of dragon so they might be subjected to different rules... not to mention, that one had more to do with what happened to her personally, instead of something inherent to their kind.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

2 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

They refused to become Manaketes, though. Medeus was the only Earth Dragon who did... and no issues with him either, despite Earth Dragons being the second strongest dragon tribe.

Maybe, but they are a different sort of dragon so they might be subjected to different rules... not to mention, that one had more to do with what happened to her personally, instead of something inherent to their kind.

The only consistent standard I'm seeing is, they like making dragons go crazy. There are ways to prevent it, except when the thing you do to prevent it actually makes it happen instead. Oh, and it might not happen in the first place, just because.

[Shadow Mir]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

"A few more stat points" nothing. It gets crazy. The second you get those two levels in villager, you combine the stats of a dread fighter with superior attack range no matter what reclass option you pick, meaning you just throw them at the enemy and it snowballs into so many level ups it boggles the mind. You don't even need to get past the first post-villager class change in order to be an outright demigod basically no matter what reclass option you pick, though bow knight is obviously the best.

Fair point, but by the time it's doable, in my book, it's too late to go out of my way to grind back up to whatever class I wanted.

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

The only consistent standard I'm seeing is, they like making dragons go crazy. There are ways to prevent it, except when the thing you do to prevent it actually makes it happen instead. Oh, and it might not happen in the first place, just because.

Man, this dragon degeneration thing is a headache. Seems there really are no rules that it follows...

[Acacia Sgt]

I don't think it's that complicated.

Each setting has their own rules about their dragons. As long you don't try to apply the rules of one setting into another without there being evidence they apply, then it's all fine.

 

[Eltosian Kadath]

17 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

But of course, Rudolf does not reply. And this is where I think this gets pretty dumb. Just because Rigel refuses to treat for peace... they're going to invade? Like they barely even give this much discussion, they say it like it's the natural conclusion to Rigel refusing to end hostilities. You've retaken both sides of the massive fortress that is the sluice gate. Why not just stay here and defend yourselves from the home field advantage rather than attempt to rout an entire fucking country's army when that country is notoriously better at war than you are? Would invading instead of defending yourself until they give up really have less of a loss of life?

In fairness, maybe there are good reasons for this.

But they don't discuss a single one of them.

They don't even acknowledge holding this position as an option.

Its things like this that keep jumping out to me as Alm's weakness.

 

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...So, Jedah knows about dragon degeneration and “the madness shared by all dragonkind”. So did Mila and Duma leave the mainland once degeneration became obvious, but before the dragonstone solution was found? And they never went back to check if they figured anything out? And they had no plans in place for what would happen to their people after they went insane?

The fuck is wrong with these two?

I always figured that they were the kind of dragons that refused to restrict their powers, even in the face of madness, and that was why Naga left them a Falchion, so that the humans of Valentia would have the means to put them out of their misery  when the time was right.

 

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

And Celica... is amazingly quick to accept the idea of giving up her soul, if not the idea of trusting Jedah. Like, no angst or conflict whatsoever, she's like “Yeah, your offer to do all this in exchange for making me a soulless husk is really generous, and that makes it really suspicious”.

Celica has never been shown to value her life before, why would she start now.

[Alastor15243]

41 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Its things like this that keep jumping out to me as Alm's weakness.

Even then, it's not even Alm's idea, it's Clive's, amusingly enough.

[Alastor15243]

Shadows of Valentia Day 28: Siblings and Swamps

Great, another map where they put a shitton of obnoxious terrain between you and your goal and then slap archers everywhere to discourage you from using the only units you have who can avoid it.

Thankfully, there aren't nearly as many archers here as at Wolff's keep, and my fliers are way, way stronger now than they were before.

Anyway, before Celica can be further tempted to make the dumbest mistake of her life, Mae shuts Dolth up the way any sane friend would and tells the asshole that whatever nonsense he's talking about, he's not getting anywhere near Celica.

Yeah, it's here where the terrible mobility of mages really starts to rear its ugly head though. I've got three 7-mov dread fighters and three 8-mov falcon knights and one 8-mov bow knight, and seriously, most mages just do not learn anything late-game that lets them contribute at this stage compared to that. As loathe as I am to suggest this given my objections with over-inflated ranges, maybe adding bolting, meteor and blizzard to Echoes as late-game spells would have helped here? Or hell, making mages a three-tier class set like most others and making the third one mageknights?

...Anyway, the only one I have who can take out necrodragons in one round is Atlas, so he's doing a lot of fighting. He's guaranteed to hit level 10 by the end of this fight...

...Which means it's just about time to demonstrate just how crazy the dread fighter loop is.

...Okay, I feel like an idiot. The thing with Beloved Zofia I mentioned? That wasn't a grayed out “???” skill. It was a normal “???” skill that was grayed out because of the scrolling-wheel-style skill list on the touch screen making the one at the bottom fade out until it's fully in view. Meaning it's entirely possible that Celica had the +5 HP per turn skill before unlocking something just now and I just... never noticed? Which makes me feel crazy. At any rate, I can't tell if that's the case, because I can't remember if I had subdue before.

So, the “skip battle” feature is nice, but one thing that annoys me is that if there are a bunch of enemies near you who don't have to move to attack you, there's almost no window of opportunity between them to “skip whole turn” instead of “skip battle”. This has been a problem in every game since pressing start to skip became a thing, and it can be pretty annoying.

Aaaaand the last support for the pegasisters! Catria and Est's A rank.

...Really short, but cute I guess.

Leon took out the boss with hunter's volley and got a dragon scale, which I can apparently use to make a dracoshield. Cool. But with that, we're done here. I'm hoping there's a shrine here...

...Okay, Celica is... ugghhhhh...

Yeah, all her friends are freaking out at how tempted she is by the people trying to kidnap her, and, if I remember correctly... this is where Conrad shows up and finally reveals himself in an act that in the long term accomplishes absolutely nothing, because Celica learns nothing from this.

Yeah, apparently this guy we killed is still not-dead enough to start attacking us and causing Celica to instantly surrender just to protect her friends, which feels about as cheap as any given cutscene in Three Houses in terms of using cutscenes as an excuse to make the player characters suck.

...But yeah, Conrad shows up now.

...And slaps her, apparently.

Can't say I don't sympathize.

“Nothing is going on, Mae. Please, just leave me alone.”

It's hilarious how she possibly thinks anyone will be convinced by that when she just nearly got talked into getting kidnapped by the enemy.

But yeah, she gets really whiny and angsty about how nobody understands her and thus they have no right to question what she chooses to do with her life, and Mae rightly calls that unfair bullshit, while Conrad... counters that he knows. “...As only a brother can”.

And then he takes off the bird beak visor mask and reveals that he's Conrad. And his personality instantly changes, a bit jarringly. And by that I mean that the second he decided to reveal who he was, continuing to talk like someone else became weird and pointless. He should've started acting differently right before the unmasking, to show how desperate he was to convince her to stop being a self-involved martyr.

...Something that none of this actually stops, hilariously enough, making this whole scene just kinda piss me off.

Conrad's mom is apparently from Rigel?

...And the circlet was taken from the temple... and then given to Conrad? With the same instructions as that priestess? Like, what? Why did they decide somebody else was to be entrusted with it? And who did the deciding?

Mind you, it was a good decision in at least one sense.

Liprica: I never want my daughter to get anywhere near Mila.

Also Liprica: I have something I want given to her when she's ready, and I want it stored at the temple where Mila lives.

Giving it to someone else outside of the temple at least avoids that problem. But this reads like someone just decided to change the pre-established plans for how to pass on the Circlet without the person originally entrusted to give it to her ever being informed, since she thought it had been stolen by the empire. What the fuck is going on here!?

...Okay, so either his “Sorry, but I swore an oath never to reveal that information” means we're gonna be told later... or, worst case scenario that seems awful even for bad Fire Emblem writing, that's a dumb excuse for how they'll get away with never explaining it. Either way, this weird twist on the original circlet plot point feels bizarre, especially since...

...Okay, logically, now that we get the Circlet from Conrad instead of Irma, what did freeing Irma do to let Celica open Mila's Temple? She didn't have the circlet, she didn't tell us anything about what happened to Mila that she didn't learn from the people at the temple just like Celica could have on her own... what exactly did we need to go to Grieth's Citadel for?

Conrad: I never wanted to lie to you, but... Well, you weren't the only one in hiding.

Uh... what?

If Celica can walk around maskless, Conrad, so the fuck can you. And you can certainly tell Celica your identity in private instead of intermittently showing up in her life all mysterious and shit like some platonic Tuxedo Mask!

...But as stupid as this scene is, I love this part:

Mae: But man, he sure is a lot less moody once that mask comes off, huh? He's like a completely different guy!

Boey: Almost as if he pretends to be someone else while in disguise... Imagine that.

...Okay so Halcyon made Conrad not reveal who he was?

For reasons they refuse to justify. This game just expects us to accept that Conrad needed to be more careful about his identity than Celica was.

And Conrad comes with us, on the condition that Celica promises never to throw her life away like that again. A promise she breaks, and possibly didn't even plan to keep when she made it.

Alright, we're in the Dolth Keep interior, so let's see what else we can do today. I haven't had much time this week, as you've probably noticed, so...

...Shit, we've got a dungeon coming up. Right, better save this for a full day. Maybe I can...

...Nah, going back to promote Atlas would just amount to grinding, and I want to demonstrate how crazy this shit is even in normal play, so we'll wait 'til we're at a dungeon that has a shrine in it.

...Okay, fine, I'll get as far as I can.

Okay, so, I'm looking at Conrad's stats, and they're pretty okay. He's got a blessed lance, which is nice, and his speed's pretty good too, though not at Saber or Atlas's level. Still, if I want to bring him, I'll have to make room.

...Fuck it, I'll get rid of Leon for now. He doesn't really need that much training at the moment, hunter's volley is all he needs to stay amazing.

...Moot point, because I totally forgot that this dungeon has no enemies at all. It's just empty, intended to transition you into the forest, the “Lost Treescape”.

...That is a really, really lame name that they clearly only used because they didn't want to call it the “Lost Woods”.

...And they give a really dumb excuse for why Conrad has absolutely no advice of value for how to get through the “Lost Treescape” despite spending a bunch of his life in the Sage's Hamlet. Leaving on this mission was apparently his first time ever leaving alone, and nobody, least of all he, ever thought he might need to know how to get back!?

Anyway, the only advice we get here is “Follow the people to reach the hamlet”. But I remember there being treasure and a shrine here, and I intend to find both. So... time to blunder around blindly!

Alright, so I blundered around blindly and found a silver sword, which I don't really have a good candidate for yet.

...I blundered around blindly some more and found the shrine. Excellent. Time to “promote” Atlas... and let the fun begin.

One more HP, 3 less mov... and a whoooooooooooooole lot more exp gain.

This is gonna get nuts.

...I just need to decide what to turn him into next.

...And since this'll take some time to think about, and since I have a feeling getting everything this place has to offer will take a while...

...I'm gonna cut it here so I can do it more seriously on Monday.

Stay safe, everyone!

Hm... what to do, what to do...

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, it's here where the terrible mobility of mages really starts to rear its ugly head though. I've got three 7-mov dread fighters and three 8-mov falcon knights and one 8-mov bow knight, and seriously, most mages just do not learn anything late-game that lets them contribute at this stage compared to that. As loathe as I am to suggest this given my objections with over-inflated ranges, maybe adding bolting, meteor and blizzard to Echoes as late-game spells would have helped here? Or hell, making mages a three-tier class set like most others and making the third one mageknights?

Personally, I would have preferred all non-Lord class lines to get 3 stages. That said, there's a much simpler solution for Mages - give them "floating" mobility. As in, they only have 4 move, but they can now cross deserts and swamps at the same cost as ordinary plains. It wouldn't be as free as flying mobility, but then again, I don't want them to be arrow-weak - nor to lose terrain boosts.

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

..And the circlet was taken from the temple... and then given to Conrad? With the same instructions as that priestess? Like, what? Why did they decide somebody else was to be entrusted with it? And who did the deciding?

A good question - for another time. Really, it would make more sense for Nomah to get it than anyone else. Given his recognized power, and trust for Mila, in conjunction with living far away from Mila herself (and ultimately, close to Celica).

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, logically, now that we get the Circlet from Conrad instead of Irma, what did freeing Irma do to let Celica open Mila's Temple? She didn't have the circlet, she didn't tell us anything about what happened to Mila that she didn't learn from the people at the temple just like Celica could have on her own... what exactly did we need to go to Grieth's Citadel for?

Again, it really feels like this should have been a sidequest, a la Fear Mountain.

48 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay so Halcyon made Conrad not reveal who he was?

For reasons they refuse to justify. This game just expects us to accept that Conrad needed to be more careful about his identity than Celica was.

Halcyon is a perfect black box of motivations.

[Alastor15243]

2 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Really, it would make more sense for Nomah to get it than anyone else.

And I totally forgot to recruit him.

[Shadow Mir]

15 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And I totally forgot to recruit him.

Ruh roh. Whatcha gonna do?

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

30 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And I totally forgot to recruit him.

It's definitely worth going back for him. And for the Attack fountain. And the Mage Ring. In fact, Nomah might be the least important of the three. Still, you don't want to leave the old man to rot, do you?

[Samz707]

Yeah that Celica cutscene is awful, Celica even has a sword in one hand, magic in the other so I seriousky doubt she cant instantly kill the 23663th Cantor they fought, who is already wounded.

 

I honestly just took it as Conrad being more careful than Celica in regards to the Mask like he was more paranoid about it than she was.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Samz707

[Jotari]

21 hours ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Assuming they know at Furia, since the place seems to be isolated from the rest of Archanea, if their only connections to anywhere is either traversing the Mamorthod Desert... or use the Archanean Seaway to Zofia Harbor. And we don't know when that trade route got stablished to begin with.

We do have confirmation. The fact they're degenerating means they didn't. So far in this series, there have been only two cases of Manaketes degenerating: Anankos, who lives in a separate world so rules might be different anyway; and Tiki, which has been stated it's due to her age... and that even among Divine Dragons she's special, daughter of Naga and all. Naga also spent centuries with her power in a dragonstone, keeping it, and never fearing going feral either. Gotoh and Xane also spent centuries with theirs before throwing them away, and nothing happened to them either. The only thing that separates Tiki from all the Divine Dragons we see is... her age. That's pretty much it. It's an age issue. Even Adult!Tiki in Awakening there's nothing brought up when she recovers her full power at Naga's Craddle. If she was at risk of going feral, it'd have been brought up, but it's not.

Even discounting the possibility that Naga had the foresight to inform them, were talking about several thousand years between the beginning of degeneration and the time frame of the game. That is plenty of time for such knowledge to travel. Especially when one considers how Furia Harbour is at the site of one of the most populated regions for degenerated dragons in Archanea. You literally fight degenerated dragons in Thabes. Or not even in Thabes, you literally fight degenerated dragons in the sea way between the two continents. Hell dagons literally appear in Valentia. It just seems unreasonable that this knowledge would not have spread to Thabes given the massive amount of time between the two events. The continents aren't that isolated from each other. Now it's still more than possible Mila and Duma simply knew and chose not to become manaketes, but for the knowledge to be beyond them, especially when we have a quote in game from Jeddah confirming that he knows about degeneration as a common thing, seems highly unlikely to me.

Now it goes into head canon territory, because the games literally don't tell us and the writers themselves probably have no idea, but degeneration still affecting Divine Dragon manaketes over time just makes a tonne of sense and fills up plenty of otherwise unexplained events. Namely why Xane and Gotoh threw away their dragon stones. Why Mila has a red orb that appears to be a dragon stone. Why Tiki even needs to seal her powers in Awakening even though she's much older. And why Naga even died or chose to die to begin with. It's not something that the games ever say beyond Tiki, but it just makes sense of a tonne of things that otherwise are left completely unexplained.

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...Okay so Halcyon made Conrad not reveal who he was?

For reasons they refuse to justify. This game just expects us to accept that Conrad needed to be more careful about his identity than Celica was.

 

Yeah, and they don't go into detail about that relationship at all. Halcyon and Conrad never even talk. Hell Conrad himself barely even talks from this point on. The only meaningful thing he has to contribute to the plot from this point onwards is a call back to that don't throw your life away line in Duma Tower. Other than that he only has fluff lines, which in themselves are also in really short supply (only one single support with Celica, surely this guy could have talked to at least one other person). I just find him to be a pretty disappointing addition over all. Also you ever notice how Conrad is the rightful heir to Zofia and this gets absolutely zero acknowledgement from the story? He's Celica's older brother.

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so, I'm looking at Conrad's stats, and they're pretty okay. He's got a blessed lance, which is nice, and his speed's pretty good too, though not at Saber or Atlas's level. Still, if I want to bring him, I'll have to make room.

I think it would have been nice if he'd come as a Gold Knight instead of a paladin. As that would mean none of the characters recruited in Rigel would ever have to pray in front of a Mila statue. Plus just in general you don't have all that many levels to use him, so having him be a gold knight from base would be pretty sweet.

Edited July 2, 2021 by Jotari