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

[Florete]

10 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This is probably its own massive can of worms to open, but I do have a complaint about Three Houses class system. I find the massive amount of possibilities in the system leading to an exhausting amount of decision fatigue. The massive number of endgame classes, and the even more variable paths you can take to get there with multiple tiers, gets exhausting to consider, and is more difficult to ignore than a lot of other clear sources of decision fatigue in the series. In other FE games, I can fairly easily ignore the class change systems if I don't feel like dealing with that, and even if I do engage with it (barring Robin and their kids) Three Houses has more options than any other game at every tier. Sure I could follow a guide to make that decision for me, or just declare a single-class challenge run or do the challenge run where I do ignore its class system, or something, but a more manageable number of choices would make for a more enjoyable system to deal with...or at least a less draining system one to deal with.

Agreed, I absolutely despise Three Houses' class system. It's a perfect example of how more options is not always a good thing.

[Interdimensional Observer]

17 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This is probably its own massive can of worms to open, but I do have a complaint about Three Houses class system. I find the massive amount of possibilities in the system leading to an exhausting amount of decision fatigue. The massive number of endgame classes, and the even more variable paths you can take to get there with multiple tiers, gets exhausting to consider, and is more difficult to ignore than a lot of other clear sources of decision fatigue in the series. In other FE games, I can fairly easily ignore the class change systems if I don't feel like dealing with that, and even if I do engage with it (barring Robin and their kids) Three Houses has more options than any other game at every tier. Sure I could follow a guide to make that decision for me, or just declare a single-class challenge run or do the challenge run where I do ignore its class system, or something, but a more manageable number of choices would make for a more enjoyable system to deal with...or at least a less draining system one to deal with.

Huh. I'm a bit surprised I didn't fall for this problem.

If there was something that worried me in 3H, it was not being strong enough to tackle the next battle by having messed up a month's planning. Which led me to always keep two saves for a single playthrough, one made at the start of each month and left untouched, and a second which I saved over every week.

I would expect the default for a newbie player of 3H, would be to default to a mixture of classes, not overthinking who goes what. Two fliers, two horses, two proficient in each physical weapon type, two attack mages, two healers, and zero armors b/c sad joke. Given boons and banes exist, I assumed the game was made to be beatable if you generally stuck with what you saw everyone leaned towards, and that's I did with my first GD run.

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 21: Our First Paralogue

So I beat my Blazing Blade run this weekend, and I have to say, it's kind of unexpected how strong the bosses are in that game even on normal. Anyway, obviously the game overall was pretty low-effort on my part, and I could only bring myself to play one or two chapters a day, but still, it's encouraging that I've been getting myself to play Fire Emblem for fun more. Probably gonna re-visit the game in draft form later. They're certainly fun to just fuck around in. I can see why I liked them so much as a kid. For now though, I'm playing the new TWEWY game, and... I mean I'm liking it so far, but holy shit does this series love its weird control schemes.

But yeah, back to Three Houses.

And our first paralogue.

...Ooh! The Duscur paralogue!

...Wait, the Duscur paralogue? That's now? I've been spoiled on the fact that you have to do this or Dedue will be dead come Part 2, and the way people talked about it, I expected that to, y'know, be a thing that's more likely to happen. People talk about it like it's an actual thing that's at risk of happening, but if you have it this early, that means you have like forever to get it done. Like, six months apparently! But apparently a lot of people put it off?

Well whatever, let's do it.

So, Duscurian... Duscran... Duscurite... fuck, like I've said multiple times in this whole marathon, it seems weird that so often we don't hear the proper terms for stuff like this...

...whatever... So, survivors of the Tragedy of Duscur are trying to reclaim their homeland, because it was burned to ashes and then... also occupied by a Kingdom noble, rendering the survivors of the Tragedy of Duscur homeless. I have to assume that the Kingdom has started rebuilding Duscur in its own image then, given it would be pretty laughable to have a noble of the Kingdom just... continuously live in a completely decimated ruin of a country. And anyway, Viscount Kleiman, who I have to assume is said occupying noble, has asked the Church for help. And Dimitri is concerned that the rebels are going to be slaughtered like animals by the Kingdom army due to the hatred the Kingdom's people have for the survivors of the Tragedy of Duscur.

But anyway, we've received permission from the Church to go in personally, without having to wait a month to prepare, because this game does not give a single shit in regards to consistency about how missions interact with the fabric of space and time.

Speaking of which, the fact that they in-universe canonized the act of saying no and saving this for later makes this kind of ridiculous. In games like Fates or the Tellius games, exiting the battlefield to go back to base to prepare, or in Fates's case doing something else entirely, wasn't something they called attention to. It wasn't explicitly made a canon thing that happened, it was a gameplay mechanic, a part of the menu. But here, they actually make the decision to back out of this paralogue and do it later... actually something that Professr says to do, despite the fact that this action canonically taking place is beyond absurd given the blatantly time-sensitive and urgent nature of this whole affair. I understand the gameplay importance of being able to say no here, but like the concept of rewinding to previous turns, this wasn't something they needed to integrate into the story, and in fact it's far too absurd and immersion-breaking for calling attention to it like this to do anything but be laughable.

A lot of paralogues are like this, with Professr learning about something that in most cases very much can't wait, and then saying whether or not she wants to do it later.

...But anyway, getting to the battle proper... I saw something I thought was a chest... and then I realized it was actually a house... and then I remembered the fucking scale of these maps, and it occurs to me that I've never paid attention to what zoom-in games, like Fates and Three Houses, did about chests. Do they make them shrink down like units do, or are chests just the size of fucking houses when you zoom in in these games?

Anyway, this is a pretty fun concept. We need to defeat the Duscur general ourselves before the Kingdom forces get to him, essentially competing against “friendly” NPCs. Kinda like the gaiden requirements for Genesis in FE7, except it's the overt objective of the map instead of an optional unstated thing.

I only see two droppable items, both only slightly out of the way of the general path to get to the boss, so it seems we'll be gunning it for the boss today.

Alright, let's do this.

“I give my all for our goal! You will die here!”

Uh, yeah, great line reading there.

But yeah, so, while the portraits are blatantly white, the skintone of the models in battle is indeed darker.

...But not the skintone of their battalions. Who are described as being from Duscur.

Honestly, the sheer ridiculous laziness with which they tackle nations with different skin colors is kinda ridiculous here. I can't believe they decided to do something like that and half-ass it this much. It's like they didn't give it any thought at all beyond applying a very cheesy and quick re-color to the skin of existing models.

But anyway, it seems the word for someone from Duscur... is Duscur? As in that's a nationality adjective? Alright, guess that's the answer to that question. Complaint withdrawn, in this case at least.

Anyway, I immediately try to fight my way through these guys. This is a claustrophobic map (the same one used for Manuela and Hanneman's paralogue I believe) and there isn't a single square on the map that isn't covered by some enemy, thanks to an annoying archer by the starting point. But I'm gonna try to carve my way out. Felix will be a huge help in this regard.

Honestly, I'm pretty happy about this map in general concept so far. I like the timed objective and the rush to get there.

...Of course, this is still Three Houses, and shortly after typing that I'm forcibly reminded of just how fucking obnoxiously slow gauntlet animations can be when they don't do damage. I'm watching this guy punch, withdraw, pause for a whole fucking second, and then repeat the process instead of doing a fluid one-two punch. The same thing happens when you try to punch monsters too, and it's kind of ridiculous.

Anyway, the voice acting here is pretty terrible all-around, which is unfortunate, but not unexpected. This is Three Houses, after all.

One thing I don't like about this map design is how annoying it is getting everyone through these tight mountain passes when everyone has 4-5 movement.

I wound up using Ruptured Heaven twice this map to one-shot annoying archers across the cliff that I lured into 1-2 range.

Make that three times now, though this third one wasn't across a cliff, just in an inconvenient position.

...Okay, so, if I read that critical hit damage right, damage is tripled before crest activation, meaning that a critical that activated Felix's crest... still only does 5 extra damage, not 15.

Mercedes gets the best level up I've seen in this game so far, getting everything but HP and luck. But at any rate, we're closing in on the boss, just a few turns away... but the green units are getting uncomfortably close too, to the point where I'm scared this might be a luck-based mission.

...Getting that talisman shield certainly takes a lot of luck, or at least some more levels to get shit like warp, because holy shit, I just lost the chance to get it, and I've been going at a pretty brisk pace!

However, thanks to stride, I manage to make it to the boss himself in pretty good time, and I finish off the boss with Mercedes and Sylvain.

We got a large bullion. Not sure how good of a reward that is for this.

Oh, we also got Duscur heavy soldiers!

...It's kind of surreal seeing this talk with the Duscur general, seeing the juxtaposition of his dark-skinned model and light-skinned portrait.

But the conversation is mildly interesting. Dedue expresses his faith that Dimitri, as king, will give the people of Duscur a home. Of course, this Duscur general has absolutely no reason to believe this, not knowing Dimitri like Dedue does, and just sees this as the empty promises of a politician.

Duscur General: The people of Duscur never forget their grudges. …Nor... do they fail to honor favors.

I take it that they save Dedue's life in Part 2 then.

Though, thinking about it, haven't they already repaid us with that Duscur battalion and bullion? I mean, the battalion has to be from the Duscur people, no? So it feels really weird that we got that... before having this talk with their leader where he's really hostile to us. Hell, it feels weird that they're joining us at all given the context.

Speaking of... I know I've said something similar to this before, but I finally came up with a nice way to describe how bizarre the game's storytelling is.

It honestly, genuinely feels like this is some sort of Truman Show shit, the entire world doesn't really exist, the Garreg Mach Monastery is the only place in this artificial stage world that has any real substance, and everything else that happens is just an elaborate ruse trying to trick Professr into thinking that there's actually a whole world out there she simply conveniently never has the opportunity to see.

...Alright, time to do the instruction for this week and then finish up for today.

I gave Catherine some flowers to make it easier to recruit her later...

...And Ashe wants to talk.

Apparently Ashe fell for a sob story about the thief having a sick child who needed money for medicine, a story that the game implies was very likely a lie. But Ashe doesn't really care, he felt it better to err on the side of caution in case a sick child's life was really on the line. In hindsight, it feels like Ashe paying for the book was a narrative setup to make sure that he could make this decision and hurt nobody but himself. If he had just run after the thief and decided not to turn him in, that would be a very morally different question. Of course, in that case he could have just given the thief his own money in exchange for bringing the book back. Which probably would've been better for the thief anyway, since just keeping the book mans he has to find a fence and probably won't make the book's real worth off of it.

Honestly, Ashe is baring his soul a lot regarding his past as a thief. I'm curious what he's got left to talk about in the A support.

Felix got a combat art called “nimble combo”, and I'm curious what that's about. It sounds like a brave art. Unfortunately, given these are gauntlets, suddenly even brave arts have to do a lot to be good.

...Oh yes, and I'm reminded of one of the many, many little things that add up to infuriate me about this game:

When you get a new ability you don't have room for... instead of giving you the option to switch it out immediately, it just tells you you got it and leaves it in your list of unequipped abilities, leaving you to potentially forget you even have it for ages before you finally put it on.

Okay, so nimble combo is... I mean it's okay. Brave, +4 might, +10 hit, +20 avoid. There are indeed situations where that will be useful.

Anyway, while I'm here, I check everyone over for excess skills and equip the ones I want. Namely, that involves getting Sylvain close counter and replacing one of his useless weapon prowess skills with dex+4, which at bare minimum provides a bonus to the two weapon types he's actually using. I also get rally resistance on Constance and battalion renewal on Annette.

I've also got some supports unlocked, but those are gonna wait, obviously. For now I'm done.

Say safe, everyone.

[Florete]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

When you get a new ability you don't have room for... instead of giving you the option to switch it out immediately, it just tells you you got it and leaves it in your list of unequipped abilities, leaving you to potentially forget you even have it for ages before you finally put it on.

This might be the most egregious example of TH doing something worse than the previous games. It's a simple copy-paste and there's just no excuse for TH screwing this up.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Of course, this is still Three Houses, and shortly after typing that I'm forcibly reminded of just how fucking obnoxiously slow gauntlet animations can be when they don't do damage. I'm watching this guy punch, withdraw, pause for a whole fucking second, and then repeat the process instead of doing a fluid one-two punch.

What's even more ridiculous is that when they do no damage, the recoiling animation uses their other arm, as opposed to the one they just used to punch. If I'm punching with my left arm and did nothing, why would I be recoiling in such a manner that makes it look like I used my right arm instead??

[Alastor15243]

6 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

What's even more ridiculous is that when they do no damage, the recoiling animation uses their other arm, as opposed to the one they just used to punch. If I'm punching with my left arm and did nothing, why would I be recoiling in such a manner that makes it look like I used my right arm instead??

Jesus fuck if that's true I didn't even notice.

[Sunwoo]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

When you get a new ability you don't have room for... instead of giving you the option to switch it out immediately, it just tells you you got it and leaves it in your list of unequipped abilities, leaving you to potentially forget you even have it for ages before you finally put it on.

... What the fuck! Is that where all of my newly learned skills were going???

EDIT: How have I never figured this out after 4 playthroughs

Edited September 6, 2021 by Sunwoo

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I understand the gameplay importance of being able to say no here, but like the concept of rewinding to previous turns, this wasn't something they needed to integrate into the story, and in fact it's far too absurd and immersion-breaking for calling attention to it like this to do anything but be laughable.

 

I don't see the gameplay importance for saying no at all. Saying no would make far more sense to just be the return to monastery button from the prep menu. Which you can already do even after saying yes. The choice to say yes or no has absolutely no bearing on what you are actually able to do in terms of gameplay. It just ensures that you can't outright skip the cutscene which is really annoying if you're just playing the game for the gameplay.

 

[Alastor15243]

31 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I don't see the gameplay importance for saying no at all. Saying no would make far more sense to just be the return to monastery button from the prep menu. Which you can already do even after saying yes. The choice to say yes or no has absolutely no bearing on what you are actually able to do in terms of gameplay. It just ensures that you can't outright skip the cutscene which is really annoying if you're just playing the game for the gameplay.

 

That's what I meant. Not Professr saying no, the player saying no. I get that I shouldn't be locked into playing this chapter immediately or not at all the second I click on it, but there's no reason that decision has to be through a canon conversation.

But you have a point that the solution to this problem already existed.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 22: Battles

So yeah, apparently now I'm at the professor rank where I can do two battles a day thanks to the boost from a student question, so I did that merchant quest battle and a bonus one for gold. One of the DLC ones with higher-level enemies but doubled rewards. Let's see... notes, notes notes...

...Lamentably I don't have many. Not only am I short on time today, but the events of today were very thin on interesting observations compared to time played.

I had Leonie as an adjutant on Professr mostly to get support points up so I can recruit her eventually, so I tried to get Professr to soften up some enemies for others to kill, but on one turn this failed catastrophically when she got two consecutive 15% crits on enemies I deliberately made sure she wouldn't double.

“Should I have held back?” Professr asked me.

Yes.

I also got a support with Annette, where she reveals that part of her workaholic nature comes from being desperate to get into Garreg Mach, because she figured that was where her pious father ran off to when he ditched the family when she was 13. She got in due to great performance at another school. If they're saying you need previous academic qualifications to get into Garreg Mach, I'm going to have to take another look at how Leonie says she got in, because it seems like she wasn't wealthy enough to have a real formal education, it's just her town managed to pool together the admission fee. Annette didn't mention trying to qualify for a scholarship or anything, just a referral... so I'm a little confused.

And finally, Dedue, Mercedes, Annette and Constance all maxed out their beginner classes, so I promoted them all to their next tier after remembering to manually equip their new str/mag plus 2 skills. Knight for Dedue, priest for Mercedes, mage for Annette and Constance. Professr maxed out fighter too, but I ran out of intermediate seals, so... no can do. But in the process of checking what she qualified for, I realized that Annette really needs to work on her lance rank to get into pegasus knight eventually, so I went ahead and set that as one of her goals.

Aaaaaand that's it. Christ, that's literally all of note I have to say about today. We're on the last free time before we mandatorily find the way to Flayn, so I'll be using that tomorrow, and then doing supports.

If you have any questions, as always, feel free to ask.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Anathaco]

7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I also got a support with Annette, where she reveals that part of her workaholic nature comes from being desperate to get into Garreg Mach, because she figured that was where her pious father ran off to when he ditched the family when she was 13. She got in due to great performance at another school. If they're saying you need previous academic qualifications to get into Garreg Mach, I'm going to have to take another look at how Leonie says she got in, because it seems like she wasn't wealthy enough to have a real formal education, it's just her town managed to pool together the admission fee. Annette didn't mention trying to qualify for a scholarship or anything, just a referral... so I'm a little confused.

 

I assume the referral isn’t something formal you can only get from schools or whatever, because according to some of Dorothea’s supports she buttered up a random noble who referred her and presumably payed her way in. Leonie’s village must have had to get a referral from a nearby lord AND pay the tuition, which explains why she has so much debt.

Other nobles presumably got referrals from their own houses though, so I’m assuming Annette could have too, which is kind of funny.

[Shadow Mir]

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I also got a support with Annette, where she reveals that part of her workaholic nature comes from being desperate to get into Garreg Mach, because she figured that was where her pious father ran off to when he ditched the family when she was 13. She got in due to great performance at another school. If they're saying you need previous academic qualifications to get into Garreg Mach, I'm going to have to take another look at how Leonie says she got in, because it seems like she wasn't wealthy enough to have a real formal education, it's just her town managed to pool together the admission fee. Annette didn't mention trying to qualify for a scholarship or anything, just a referral... so I'm a little confused.

According to the opening scene from Legend of the Lake (her and Linhardt's paralogue), in the Alliance, commoners had to pay nobles to secure recommendations (and because of this and the tuition being expensive, she's in debt).

Edited September 8, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[lenticular]

6 hours ago, Anathaco said:

Other nobles presumably got referrals from their own houses though, so I’m assuming Annette could have too, which is kind of funny.

She’s a very minor noble compared to all the other noble students. The others are all sons and daughters of counts, dukes and margraves. She’s the niece (that is, further away from the title) of a baron (a lower/less important noble title). It seems reasonable that that wouldn’t entitle her to the same admission privileges as the higher-ranking nobles.

[Etrurian emperor]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

She’s a very minor noble compared to all the other noble students. The others are all sons and daughters of counts, dukes and margraves. She’s the niece (that is, further away from the title) of a baron (a lower/less important noble title). It seems reasonable that that wouldn’t entitle her to the same admission privileges as the higher-ranking nobles.

True. Despite having a crest and a relic the Dominics are implied to be small fries. Gilbert deems his family as ''mere feudal lords'' and the baron implies Cornelia can destroy them on a whim. 

[Anathaco]

5 hours ago, lenticular said:

She’s a very minor noble compared to all the other noble students. The others are all sons and daughters of counts, dukes and margraves. She’s the niece (that is, further away from the title) of a baron (a lower/less important noble title). It seems reasonable that that wouldn’t entitle her to the same admission privileges as the higher-ranking nobles.

Fair enough, though we see in game that even small houses can still provide referrals (ie Albrecht which is also run by a baron). Though the fact that she isn’t the heir may exempt her from that automatic referral.
 

Actually, is Annette the heir? I don’t remember the game stating one way or the other. If her uncle had no kids it would be reasonable to assume.

Anyway, I just found it funny to imagine that she could have just immediately enrolled thanks to her nobility but worked her butt off to earn it anyway.

[Jotari]

I guess I'm remembering things the wrong way entirely, because I though Anette was publicly the Baron's daughter and that Gilbert was meant to be her uncle, with the truth of the switcheroo only being discovered during the time skip.

[Alastor15243]

Three Houses Day 23: Forty Fish

Alright, so, I unlocked the merchants, so it's finally time to answer that accursed question I've been wondering about for ages: exactly how long does it take to expend all of the bait you can buy in a month?

I've got my phone's stopwatch function ready to time it from the moment I talk to the Fishkeeper.

Let's go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thirteen minutes and seventeen seconds. In fairness, I had two extra pieces of bait from finding glowing shit lying around, but still... for a stupid, repetitive minigame... that's a lot. But not as long as it felt like. Anyway, I'm gonna move on and do the rest of my monastery chores.

Alright, that was pretty straightforward, mostly just meals and then a training exercise with Alois for a better axe rank.

Alright, support time. Starting with the one with Professr and Dedue that just got prompted.

God damn it, hearing Duscur talk about this “sins of my people” bullshit really makes me uncomfortable. It's such a childishly stupid concept, and the way he talks about it makes it seem like he believes it's justified.

...Alright, now that the calendar's moved forward to mission day, time to do the rest of the supports.

First, Dedue and Dimitri B.

This is weird. In addition to this just being really awkward and clumsily-written dialogue, the two racist guards keep saying “man from Duscur” rather than “Duscur man” or “Duscur”. Given that the previous chapter established that Duscur is both the “America” and the “American” of the nation grammatically, this feels bizarre, because it's only something you'd say if you were trying to dance around the fact that you don't know the proper word for someone from the country.

But yeah, their dialogue is cringey and unconvincing, both in word choice and vocal delivery.

“I, I... I'm sorry, your highness!”

Oh my god, that guard's voice is just so goofy there.

Also, apparently these aren't Church soldiers, but Kingdom soldiers. I don't blame myself for not noticing at first, given they're at the Monastery, and the only reason we can tell at all is because of their textbox nametags, because they're wearing the same fucking uniform.

And after that extremely embarrassed, almost-shouted apology...

...they casually stroll offscreen, rather than running or looking tense in any way.

Yeah, like I said before, absolutely nothing is gained by making these cutscenes use 3D models. They didn't put in anywhere near enough effort to make the “action” elements of these scenes surpass the power of imagination we previously relied on, so it's like they put extra time and money into making these scenes worse.

...So...

...Dimitri witnessed firsthand that it wasn't Duscurs who killed his father, and it infuriates him that in spite of this he couldn't stop the massacre.

...Okay, so, who did say they were Duscurs? How did this frame-up job happen if they had an extremely important material witness who said clearly it wasn't them? I'm hearing this story all out of order and it's difficult to keep track of all the pieces, but it seems like Dimitri should be in an excellent position to know exactly what scheming members of the court framed Duscur for the crime just by observing who insisted it was Duscurs (especially if they were also among the survivors), and it also feels like we need a really good explanation for why nobody listened to him when, I assume, he spoke out.

I hope we're about to get one.

...No. We aren't. We don't get any explanation for why Dimitri was and is so “powerless” to stop the frame-up from happening and still being nigh-universally believed.

Instead we get... a rather uncomfortable motive rant from Dedue about how he takes a life debt to Dimitri... so seriously that he'd die in an instant if it became clear that death would help him.

I, uh... really don't want to touch that shit with a ten foot pole right now.

But yeah, he concludes by saying he can't consider himself Dimitri's friend because he genuinely believes doing so would inconvenience Dimitri, and Dimitri... clearly annoyed and frustrated, ends the conversation by saying if Dedue doesn't want to be anything but Dimitri's vassal, “so be it”.

...Moving on from this profoundly awkward support set...

Mercedes and Annette's B support.

…

…

…

What the fuck just happened.

So Annette and Mercedes are about to go on another shopping trip when a “rogue” shows up and starts doing an obviously-a-pretense-for-robbery-by-the-tone-of-his-voice spiel about how he suspects they're shopping with stolen money that he's going to “reclaim for the people”, Annette tells him to back the fuck off because she's a powerful mage, and then Mercedes goes “Oh! The knights are coming!” in a tone that sounded very much like she was just putting on an act to scare off the rogue...

...but then Mercedes and Annie run off too.

And then there's a scene cut where they're hiding out in a building...

...did they actually steal money?

Why are they hiding from the knights?

...Oh, wait, I think that “run” was them just running away from the bandit, who they merely temporarily distracted...? It's super unclear, because the bandit was already making a break for it before they even ran, which makes the running feel more unnecessary.

But yeah, now Annette and Mercedes are...

...Holy fuck.

Okay, I heard about this.

I didn't realize it was even dumber than they made it sound.

See, Mercedes is pissed off at Annette for... picking a fight, I think? Except she didn't. She was threatening a guy to back off... after he already threatened them.

And this is, I shit you not, the totality of their argument before Mercedes storms off in anger.

Mercedes: But what were you thinking? That sort of behavior isn't like you at all!

Annette: I just... I thought you were in danger, Mercie!

Mercedes: You're actually blaming me for this? It's like I don't even know you anymore!

And then she storms off in a huff. Christ, what a bitch. Seriously, that second line from Mercedes was so outrageously uncharitable that it's like her life depended on being mad at Annette.

And from what I understand... their A support is going to be them making up.

FIVE.

FUCKING.

YEARS.

LATER.

Yeah, we're going to get a lot of incidents like this, where the conclusion of the support chain happening after the timeskip makes no goddamned sense whatsoever. But for now, let's keep moving, I haven't got much time.

Actually, one last thing:

Apparently they went to the trouble to make all of their shared dialogue together super awkward when the last support you did between them was a B, which normally would be a detail I'd be fucking in love with, but it only serves to magnify how utterly bizarre this spontaneous, five-year-long friendshipwreck is.

Alright, Mercedes and Constance's C support.

Mercedes: You were so small when I saw you last. How you've grown.

...That reminds me, while I was out, I learned that... apparently... Mercedes is really old compared to the rest of the students? I'll check up on that after this...

Mercedes: How are you, Constance? I hear you've had hardships of your own.

She says this with a smile, incidentally.

So it seems they have a shared history together, and Constance graduated from the Royal School of Sorcery the same time that Mercedes enrolled. Mercedes must have started her education really late then, because you'd think that since Mercedes is older, it would be the other way around, and Mercedes would graduate when Constance enrolled.

And Mercedes invites Constance to have tea with her totally good friend Annette. Well, so much for being careful about the implications of that support!

And I think this is the first time we hear Constance walk into the sunlight mid-sentence.

...I really hope we get some fucking explanation for what's going on with Constance.

...Though admittedly, I do like the joke in her name, given she represents anything but “constance”.

But yeah, uh... for those of you who don't know, Constance has this condition where she gets... amazingly depressed, gloomy and submissive whenever she's exposed to direct sunlight. She actually has different lines depending on whether or not the map you're fighting on is sunny, and has a personal skill that modifies her stats slightly depending on which it is. While I love how much effort they put into making that reflect on gameplay, it's... utterly bizarre. She speaks with language that would heavily imply she's getting off on putting herself down... except she also sounds completely dead inside. Honestly, I just find her annoying when she's in the sunlight.

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

Okay, so, just confirmed, Mercedes is 23. That's six years older than Annette. Wow, that's... utterly bizarre.

Ingrid and Dimitri's C support.

The most interesting thing I learned here is that Glenn, who I think was Ingrid's fiancee, was one of the casualties of the Tragedy of Duscur.

Honestly, I think there's an interesting story here, but I don't like the weird, out-of-order way it's being told. I feel like more of this should have been part of the main story, so that I have a better idea of where to place all the stuff they keep mentioning. Of course, if there were fewer supports I had to read, maybe I'd have better memory retention for this shit, but still, I think it would be good to have this have more of an anchor in the actual main-game plot, and not be something you have to entirely piece together through half a dozen different support chains.

And finally, Dimitri and Sylvain.

...This is almost exactly what I expected, though we do get a reference to the “dagger incident” I've heard so much about.

It sounds like the B support is going to involve the aftermath of some cringe comedy where Dimitri attempts flirting with women as part of a deal with Sylvain. I am... not looking forward to it.

Aaaand that's it. Tomorrow we'll be rescuing Flayn.

...I'm starting to think that once we get more paralogues and the like, I might be reduced to one chapter a week due to all the stuff to do between them.

Heaven help me.

...Stay safe, everyone.

[Etrurian emperor]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I guess I'm remembering things the wrong way entirely, because I though Anette was publicly the Baron's daughter and that Gilbert was meant to be her uncle, with the truth of the switcheroo only being discovered during the time skip.

I think I recall Dimitri introducing Annette as the baron's niece right away. Annette's fairly open about the baron being her uncle and not her father too.

[Shadow Mir]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, Mercedes and Constance's C support.

Mercedes: You were so small when I saw you last. How you've grown.

...That reminds me, while I was out, I learned that... apparently... Mercedes is really old compared to the rest of the students? I'll check up on that after this...

Mercedes: How are you, Constance? I hear you've had hardships of your own.

iirc, she's 22 at the start. Which is older than even Byleth (21).

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

iirc, she's 22 at the start. Which is older than even Byleth (21).

23, as it turns out.

[Shadow Mir]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

23, as it turns out.

Well, I did say "at the start". Anyway, the other students are anywhere from 15 to 19 (at least, disregarding the Ashen Wolves, because the site doesn't have their info on the introductions page).

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

Well, I did say "at the start".

Oh right, she had a birthday.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh right, she had a birthday.

Huh, so the age profile thing in the game updates when you pass the character's birthday on the calender. I never considered that, but it's actually a really cool feature in that pointless subtle sort of way. I thought it'd just be static ages for before and after the timeskip (I wish Phoenix Wright had more of a hold over it's calander and did something similar with character ages instead of universally aging every character up 1 year between games).

[AnonymousSpeed]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

“American” of the nation grammatically

Ethnonym or endonym.

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Ethnonym or endonym.

Thank you!