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


Alastor15243
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So I can buy Sigurd either never seeing Deirdre's mark due to permanent tiara use (things were different for couples back in ye old days. Nobles didn't even bother dressing themselves back then), or seeing it and just not knowing what it is (since the only person we're confirmed to know what the mark of Naga looks like is the King). It requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but not enough to break it on me, given the limitations of the story telling as a game. What I think is unforgivable bad writing is the extremely inconsistent "aura" that Holy Blood users have. It's only mentioned  a handful of times and each time it's always really contrived. The first is when Azmur recognizes Deirdre by her aura. It's what prompts him to search under her circlet. Why did Sigurd not see a Naga aura around her? Well, maybe it's only two people of the same holy blood can see. Nope, because later Finn sees Altenna at a distance, on a mountain, yet correctly identifies her as Leif's previously assumed dead sister by her aura. Finn, who has no holy blood, tells Leif, who shares minor holy blood with Altenna this. Despite the fact that there's a way more convenient explanation as to how Finn could recognize her, as she's wielding Gae Bolg. He notes this, but they still make up some guff about an aura of Noba. Last is at the end of Thracia where...well I guess I'll spoiler this one.

Spoiler

Finn (again) suddenly recognises that Evyel is Briggid at the end of the game by her aura. Despite having lived with Evyel for several years, he either only notices or only brings it up at the end of the game.

This aura aspect of holy blood is only brought up to very painfully reveal information about certain characters only when it's conveient. And at all other times it's completely ignored even though it should lead to loads more reveals (Levin's kids should be able to recognise him on sight if they're all rocking the same aura).

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1 hour ago, Flere210 said:

Maybe is like dragonball z and you need to know how to do that.

When and why did Finn learn it that he didn't know it in time to notice Dierdre's? And why did nobody ever notice Arvis's and burn him?

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ah. I mean it isn't that ridiculous a concept though.

Bizarrely only Finn and King Azmur ever trained to use this ability. It might be mentioned on a few more occasions that I'm forgetting about though. Point is it should have been mentioned way more if it's a thing that actually exists.

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7 hours ago, Jotari said:

What I think is unforgivable bad writing is the extremely inconsistent "aura" that Holy Blood users have. It's only mentioned  a handful of times and each time it's always really contrived. The first is when Azmur recognizes Deirdre by her aura. It's what prompts him to search under her circlet. Why did Sigurd not see a Naga aura around her? Well, maybe it's only two people of the same holy blood can see. Nope, because later Finn sees Altenna at a distance, on a mountain, yet correctly identifies her as Leif's previously assumed dead sister by her aura. Finn, who has no holy blood, tells Leif, who shares minor holy blood with Altenna this. Despite the fact that there's a way more convenient explanation as to how Finn could recognize her, as she's wielding Gae Bolg. He notes this, but they still make up some guff about an aura of Noba. Last is at the end of Thracia where...well I guess I'll spoiler this one.

Here's my two cents on the aura thing. I have come to think of it as recognizing the way the originator of their holy blood influences who people are, and thus only something you pickup on if you regularly interact with enough people of that holy blood to recognize it. The game makes it clear that you recognize a specific holy blood aura, so it makes some sense that each holy blood's aura needs training to recognize that specific aura. Sigurd hasn't been in regular enough contact with the royal family to recognize it in Deirdre, but Azmur does as he has spent his whole life with his family. Finn devoted his whole life to those of Nova blood, and thus recognized it in Altenna.

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6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Finn (again) suddenly recognises that Evyel is Briggid at the end of the game by her aura. Despite having lived with Evyel for several years, he either only notices or only brings it up at the end of the game.

The new translation makes it clear that he only brings it up at the end of the game because that is the first he has heard of her amnesia. Before he thought her being Eyvel was an intentional disguise to protect her identity and didn't want to spill the beans on her secret. The way it describes him recognizing her makes it sound like he was regularly leering on the Ullur twins for how he recognized it.

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

(Levin's kids should be able to recognise him on sight if they're all rocking the same aura).

If his kid is Ced, then they explicitly do, and with Ced and Fee being the only kids of his from Silesse (thus the only ones likely be around other people of Forseti blood) they would be the only ones to recognize it. Seliph has a talk with Ced where he immediately recognizes Levin, and brings up that Fee has been intentionally avoiding him (which is expanded on in a chapter 10 conversation between Seliph and Fee) because she recognizes and resents him for abandoning the family, and ignoring her when she arrived.

 

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Quick question: is it against the site's rules if I link to a place where you can read the Oosawa manga? I know it's against the rules to link to ROMs, but would it apply to manga sites?

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Just now, Espurrhoodie said:

Quick question: is it against the site's rules if I link to a place where you can read the Oosawa manga? I know it's against the rules to link to ROMs, but would it apply to manga sites?

It sounds sketchy. I can't confidently say yes.

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31 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Quick question: is it against the site's rules if I link to a place where you can read the Oosawa manga? I know it's against the rules to link to ROMs, but would it apply to manga sites?

I'm just going to point out that there are threads about translating the Osawa Manga with download links included for those interested.

 

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Genealogy Day 20: Things Get Bad

I just finished taking out Slayder, and I find it kind of amusing that his combat and death dialogue basically amounts to “HOW DID YOU GET PAST THOSE ARMORS SO QUICKLY!? ...AHGH... NOW... YOU'VE GOTTEN... PAST ME TOO...”

More importantly though, Sigurd now has the Tyrfing, which is simultaneously one of the most and least impressive holy weapons. On paper, it's the best aside from Naga's. Most holy weapons either have 30 stat points in bonuses or 20 and an ability. Tyrfing has FORTY and an ability (Miracle). The thing is, it's probably my least favorite holy weapon, tying with or possibly below the Yewfelle, due to just how little use you get out of it. For one thing, spoiler warning, but you don't get to pass it down. Sigurd's kid has to get it himself... in the second to last chapter of the game. So it's usable in all of two and a half to two and a third chapters. That and it also has no real clear function. Yewfelle's strength bonus and speed bonus give it heavy DPS. Balmung (more on that later) is Forseti in sword form, so even if it's not as good for combat, it's even better at dodgetanking due to its lower weight. Mystletain is basically a legendary weapon with 70 kills on it at base, something it's extremely hard for any legendary weapon to achieve due to how expensive they are, and it also boosts res a good deal. Valkyria raises the goddamned dead. The Gae Bolg boosts strength and defense, the former of which makes it a melee Yewfelle, and the latter of which is insanely useful for more stable and reliable strategies when dodgetanking doesn't quite work. Forseti is FORSETI. And with the exception of the Gae Bolg, all of these are available for, bare minimum, 5 chapters. Some of them, like Forseti, can be available for EIGHT. Naga is only available for the absolute end of the game so it barely counts as one, but when it's there, HOLY SHIT IS IT THERE.

But in contrast, what niche does the Tyrfing have for the less than three chapters you have it, aside from making the wearer immune to status staves and allowing Miracle abuse? Having resistance is great, but it doesn't exactly help you fight hordes of mages, does it? Not when it's meleelocked. I've never gotten as much use out of it as I've gotten out of basically any other holy weapon.

Anyway, André charges with the Beigenritter, who all have brave bows, which... would be terrifying if I didn't have Raquesis. Raquesis can one-round them with the wind sword while only taking 4 damage from each of them, and I can position her such that literally everyone but André dies on the next enemy phase. Then I'll have Bridget take out Andre himself.

After that, it'll be time to start thinking about who I want to have what in gen 2. And in the process of doing this, I notice that Mend is a C rank staff and I could have done all of that Raquesis heal grinding in chapter 2 with mend instead of heal to do it like 33% faster.

But more importantly, I finished off the two bow knights who survived the enemy phase because they were directly adjacent to André and who thus had the same reach as him due to having one less move. And now it's time to have Bridget kill her bastard of a brother who killed her father before she could even get a chance to meet him.

Oh my god. André you motherfucker. Calling Bridget a traitor when you know full well that she's innocent? Who are you lying to, jackass!? Yourself!? Are you just playing dumb to be an asshole!? You killed your father as part of the conspiracy, how...

...Wait... WAIT...

...Is he NOT in on it?

Are you telling me he killed his own father, not out of a lust for power and being in on the conspiracy, but out of a ludicrously, idiotically patriotic “I love the state more than my own family and would kill anyone they told me to” fervor the second the conspirators framed his father? No questions asked!? NOT AN INSTANT OF BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT!?

THAT'S EVEN FUCKING WORSE!

No WONDER Langbalt was so disgusted with him despite being the one to frame Lord Ring in the first place. That is BEYOND creepy.

Oh...

Ohohohohoho I am going to enjoy this.

...Hey, André.

...You know what they're gonna say that you did when you faced off against your sister?

YEWFELLE, MOTHERFUCKER, THAT'S WHAT YOU DID! RIGHT OFF YOUR FUCKING HORSE AND INTO THE BLOODSTAINED GRASS.

Oh man that was fun. I am curious who that Scorpio he mentioned in his dying breath is though... I don't quite remember anything like that name.

But strangely, despite the Serenes Forest event list saying that you can have Bridget and Aideen talk at any time... killing André seems to make that conversation disappear.

Ah, that makes sense. So it's just a mistake on Serenes Forest's part. I looked it up in the script. The talk is just about Bridget vowing to kill André, which obviously doesn't make sense after André's already dead. Weird that Serenes Forest doesn't note that condition though.

Speaking of Aideen though, I'm going to have her go to all of the villages around her to rack up some staff money for her daughter. She won't be as terrible at combat as her mother (she'll have Pursuit for one thing), but she's still got a lot of expensive staves, so I'd like her daughter to have a decent nest egg until she can fight in the arena and the like. Also, I'm going to give Claude Azel's Thunder tome. It's no Wind tome, but it's nearly got 50 kills on it, and that'll make it pretty useful for Claude's son.

Right. I worked through the generals and ballistae (which are thankfully in reasonable combat range this time, unlike the ones on the cliff in chapter 2), and now it's time for Sigurd to equip Tyrfing and face off against Langbalt, one of the many, many people responsible for the utter ruination of his life.

Langbalt's a beast. Not only is he a baron, an enemy-only class that's basically “master knight, but armored instead of mounted”... okay, I know that doesn't sound great for the player, but it's powerful in the hands of the enemy at least, especially guarding castles. But not only is he a baron, meaning he can use basically every weapon type and has the pre-Aegis Pavise ability that completely negates all damage rather than halving melee damage, but he also has the Helswath (cool name, though I do have a lingering nostalgia for Swanchika, which is always fun to say), which is the game's legendary axe. It's got 30 might like all the others, but it's 1-2 range and also boosts defense by 20 and resistance by 10. Sigurd can't touch the bastard without his holy weapon. Even mages won't be doing too much to him without a holy weapon. And of course he has an attack power of 51 thanks to that weapon, so naturally I'm going to park Sigurd in front of the castle with the Tyrfing and abuse the fact that enemies guarding castles with 1-2 range weapons never, ever use them to attack at range.

Also, I had Lex fight Langbalt to see the conversation. Langbalt's a pretty big piece of shit, framing his son just for not being in on the plan, without even giving him a way out, and then being surprised and all “shame on you” when Lex decides to fight back. Not that Lex doesn't clearly feel conflicted about fighting his own father. But he does it because it's the right thing to do. And because obviously he has no choice.

It's insane how little damage Sigurd is doing. Helswath is really, really good for tanking. Even with a 30 might weapon and pretty good attack, two strikes didn't even empty the top health bar!

Not that it really matters. It's exceedingly rare that stationary bosses have ever been genuinely hard to take out on their own, and he doesn't quite have what it takes. It may take some time, but he'll go down, and nobody's getting in any danger to do it.

Actually, screw that, Lewyn just arrived, I'll just have him do it.

So, we get to the fateful scene where Sigurd has Oifey and Shanan take Seliph off to safety. While it's a cool scene, it's curious he'd decide to do this now. He acts like this war is going to take a long, long time, but they're really close to the capitol. There's not much more the fight can do to draw itself out. He'll win or he'll lose, but either way it's gonna be done fast. I think it would have made more sense if he emphasized more his desire to keep Seliph alive even if he loses, while here he just wants to keep him safely out of the way so he can better fight the war, which doesn't work quite as well. It's a minor thing though.

...Though in fairness, Sigurd's final line after Shanan and Oifey leave, “Seliph... I'm sorry... please, grow up safe and strong...” suggests that what he told Shan and Oifey was mostly a lie to get them to be more willing to leave, and that he's not really that confident he's going to win. He seems to fully expect Seliph is going to grow up without him. Which is... wow. But in that case, I do have to wonder why he was reluctant to have Shanan go initially, if he knew it would be safer than here.

I dunno, but despite all the sloppy writing surrounding it... the whole story still gets to me. I think mostly because no other game in the series has been willing to tell a story where this much shit goes horribly wrong.

SPEAKING OF WHICH...

Now Quan and Ethlyn arrive with... oh god. I forgot how stupid this was. Ethlyn pretty much dooms everyone by insisting on coming along and bringing their baby daughter. And of course just as they make it to the desert and are trapped like rats... a bunch of Thracian dracoknights with BEASTKILLERS come by.

Okay, so the script says that Trabant, the Thracian king, has been tailing them unnoticed.

HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE YOU'RE BEING FOLLOWED BY A BUNCH OF FUCKING DRAGONS FLYING IN THE SKY? HOW DO THE DRACOKNIGHTS HIDE FROM VIEW WHILE STILL KEEPING TRACK OF WHO THEY'RE CHASING? ARE THEY PEEKING OUT OF THE FUCKING TREES LIKE LIKE A FUCKING CARTOON!?

This shit makes no sense at all. It only makes sense in video game land where they can hide offscreen.

That said, I do like the game having Lex and Azel have a talk after Lex's dad dies to have him talk about his feelings about it happening some more.

Anyway, time to advance into the desert. There are a lot of meteor mages hiding on mountaintops, so the best way to deal with them is going to be to have Erin take care of them. But first...

Time to trade some shit around. I give Dew and Ayra the Wind and Thunder Swords respectively, which both have kill counts in the mid 40s. They'll start snowballing pretty soon into gen 2, which is great. I haven't unlocked any 50 kill weapons yet, but I have a lot of weapons in similar situations. Azel's thunder tome, Sigurd's silver sword, the thunder and wind swords, and Lex's brave axe... which he can't pass down to gen 2 no matter who he marries. What a pity. It's such a good weapon.

But anyway, magic swords go to Dew and Ayra, Thunder goes to Claude, and I clean out Raquesis's cluttered up inventory (since she can use so many different weapons) and go into storage to have her sell the sleep staff to give to Aideen once she gets more of the money from the villages.

...Speaking of which, I should really be having Midir do that like I did before, and then have him give the money to Aideen later. It'll be faster.

Curious. So, the inevitable slaughter begins as he Thracian dracoknights use their beastkillers on the desert-bound cavalry, but I notice that in this fight, despite Quan's forces being green and Thracia's being yellow, the map animation health bar backgrounds are yellow and red respectively. Bizarre.

Just saw Dew and Jamke's conversation. Aw. Poor Dew. Like Jamke says, Dew's got this funny feeling that something's horribly wrong with this picture. Oh my sweet child. If you only knew.

Incidentally, I prefer the old name of this chapter, “Doorway to Destiny”, over “Threshold of Fate”. I mean that sounds cool too, but “Doorway to Destiny” has alliteration!

I find it incredibly amusing that they put in a “villager tutorial” explaining some information about children and inheritance... when it's way, way too late and insufficient to put any of that information to any conceivable use for a first-time player. And I'm gonna have to remind myself I only find it amusing because I'm playing this as a veteran of the game. If I was playing this for the first time, I imagine I'd have found this information as outrageously useless and annoying as some of the info FE3 gives you.

But yeah, it only takes two turns for Travant's army to utterly slaughter Quan's forces, who wouldn't have been any help even if they had survived. And now they're on their way to fight my forces, which... is probably going to be a problem. Most of my best units are cavalry, so... I'm gonna need some time to come up with my strategy for this. So I think I'm stopping it here for tonight.

Take care, guys! I'm gonna do my best to finish up gen 1 in time for Monday!

Edited by Alastor15243
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Claude doesn't hear about Andre (or Alvis) at all from Blagi. So that is some good evidence that Andre was a complete and utter stooge in the whole affair.

Scipio is Andre's son. He attacks you in the final chapter when you're assaulting Hilda. His cousin's even have dialogue with him. I think he's Scorpio in the old translation.

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6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Claude doesn't hear about Andre (or Alvis) at all from Blagi. So that is some good evidence that Andre was a complete and utter stooge in the whole affair.

Scipio is Andre's son. He attacks you in the final chapter when you're assaulting Hilda. His cousin's even have dialogue with him. I think he's Scorpio in the old translation.

Huh. That does raise the question of why Arvis wasn't mentioned when Reptor and Langbalt are more pawn-like than even Arvis.

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7 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Huh. That does raise the question of why Arvis wasn't mentioned when Reptor and Langbalt are more pawn-like than even Arvis.

Yeah. It's a bit odd. But the plot obviously has to have Sigurd trust Alvis for the whole barbecue to go down. The best explanation is that both Alvis and Andre weren't in on the plot to kill Kurth specifically, but were both opportunists who took advantage of the situation.

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22 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Also, I had Lex fight Langbalt to see the conversation. Langbalt's a pretty big piece of shit, framing his son just for not being in on the plan, without even giving him a way out, and then being surprised and all “shame on you” when Lex decides to fight back. Not that Lex doesn't clearly feel conflicted about fighting his own father. But he does it because it's the right thing to do. And because obviously he has no choice.

Are you going to try for the Taillte and Reptor conversation too? (I kinda doubt it as it tends to be more suicidal to go for)

23 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE YOU'RE BEING FOLLOWED BY A BUNCH OF FUCKING DRAGONS FLYING IN THE SKY? HOW DO THE DRACOKNIGHTS HIDE FROM VIEW WHILE STILL KEEPING TRACK OF WHO THEY'RE CHASING? ARE THEY PEEKING OUT OF THE FUCKING TREES LIKE LIKE A FUCKING CARTOON!?

Ok, first off hiding while flying is as easy as flying up. If you get high enough you look like innocuous birds from below, and if you prepared with some sort of vision enhancing item you could still try to track the ground targets from the air. Also Thracia 776 would add its own explanation to the mix, that Travant was tipped off by the Lopytian order that saw them entering the desert, although I have never been a fan of that addition.

23 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

But yeah, it only takes two turns for Travant's army to utterly slaughter Quan's forces, who wouldn't have been any help even if they had survived. And now they're on their way to fight my forces, which... is probably going to be a problem. Most of my best units are cavalry, so... I'm gonna need some time to come up with my strategy for this. So I think I'm stopping it here for tonight.

Take care, guys! I'm gonna do my best to finish up gen 1 in time for Monday!

Just out of curiosity was your Quan strong enough to outlive Ethlyn and get the scene where Travant threatens to kill Quan's child if he doesn't drop the Gae Bolg?

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21 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Also Thracia 776 would add its own explanation to the mix, that Travant was tipped off by the Lopytian order that saw them entering the desert, although I have never been a fan of that addition.

Agreed, it robs Travant of some of his agency and makes him Loptian Pawn #6. He and his spiritual successor Naesala both get robbed of agency in their second games.

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2 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Are you going to try for the Taillte and Reptor conversation too? (I kinda doubt it as it tends to be more suicidal to go for)

Ok, first off hiding while flying is as easy as flying up. If you get high enough you look like innocuous birds from below, and if you prepared with some sort of vision enhancing item you could still try to track the ground targets from the air. Also Thracia 776 would add its own explanation to the mix, that Travant was tipped off by the Lopytian order that saw them entering the desert, although I have never been a fan of that addition.

Just out of curiosity was your Quan strong enough to outlive Ethlyn and get the scene where Travant threatens to kill Quan's child if he doesn't drop the Gae Bolg?

Yes he was, but mostly because they went for Ethlyn first. Remember, I didn't get much time to train either of them, and Quan starts off way, way stronger. Especially with the Gae Bolg.

Anyway...

 

Genealogy Day 21: The End of the End of the Beginning

Alright, let's take another crack at this. But also, note to self: I need to give the physic staff to someone whose kid can use it. Preferably Aideen. It's B rank, which troubadours can't use before promotion, so it does me no good to keep it on Raquesis. She won't get it. Funny how the troubadour makes a prince and the princess makes a troubadour.

But more importantly, these dracoknights. This is a problem, because basically every single unit in my entire army who has high defense... is also a cavalry unit. Which means that none of them will survive enemy phase if more than one is left alive. And there's a ton of them, way more than even my entire combined promoted forces could possibly take out in a single turn, even if there were any space for hit and run tactics before they'd arrive at Castle Lubeck. So I have to go on the defensive and set somebody to guard Castle Lubeck. Somebody who can survive a massive onslaught of beastkiller dragons.

The solution?

Funny enough, I think this is finally gonna be Dew's big moment of glory. His one indisputable contribution to my army aside from his children and the extra funds he brought in. With the... UGH... SHIELD SWORD, he's as tough as my best heavy cavalry, but also has great evasion, the ability to heal himself with his attacks 22% of the time, and he isn't weak to beastkillers. It's not exactly going to be a swift slaughter, but Dew will definitely outlive the enemy if I park him at Lubeck. I'll also have Lewyn hang around with Forseti. The mooks will ignore him, so I'll still need Dew to make sure they don't give up and start chasing my cavalry, but he'll be an important panic button against the commander, who has a brave lance and, more scarily, 3 authority stars, which I'll want to get rid of immediately.

Alright, the boss has been taken out, so all that remains is to wait for Dew to kill the rest, and get some kills on the... fuck it, I'm calling it the Defender from now on. And double fuck it, from now on, for as long as it matters, Raquesis is Lachesis. But yes, I'm getting some more kills on the Defender. I'd rather get them on the wind sword, but increasing the enemy's damage output from 2 to 9... might not be wise.

Strangely, when they were in range to attack Dew, they... didn't. They instead formed into a perfect neat little diamond now that their leader is gone. Not sure what's going on, but I'll have to wait until next turn to see.

...That's weird, I know they know they can hit Dew. The weapon triangle is counted in that calculation, even if auras and Miracle aren't. That's why enemy axe fighters have so often completely ignored Ayra and Dew. But they aren't doing it. Well at any rate, it's only 2 damage per enemy, so I'm gonna have Dew step out of the castle and stand at the gate instead, to see if that's more tempting.

And for some reason, despite this not remotely making the difference between being able to hit and not being able to, stepping out of the castle causes the dragons to swarm Dew.

After about a half to 2/3 of them were gone, I took a minor risk, putting my faith in Dew's abilities, and had him finish off the rest with the wind sword. This paid off, as the Wind Sword now has 51 kills on it, and can now crit!

Also, fun fact, when you get a 50+ kill weapon and take it to be repaired, the blacksmith will comment on it. In the original, he said “nice piece you have there”, and then asked confirmation as normal. Here, he says “Now this is a fine piece! I'll take good care with this one”. I think I like the new one a little bit better due to the extra dialogue.

And after a conversation where Ayra and Sigurd talk and confirm that Sigurd wanted Ayra to guard Shanan but she refused because she feels he's all grown up now, it's time to finish up settling our affairs for next generation, and then finish up the first one.

...Fuck. Looks like love bonuses still happen inside the castle, and Sylvia managed to fuck Jamke when I wasn't looking.

...I was really hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but looks like I do. Time to get Sylvia to off herself.

I'm really wishing this game had that feature I suggested earlier, where castles can warp you to other castles without the need of a warp staff. It would make shit like this way less tedious. Moving characters to where they need to be to settle their affairs is extremely tedious, and this is a map that would have already been tedious without it, what with the huge desert I'm about to cross and nothing to do while crossing it

Vaha thinks she's tough with her Meteor and her Miracle Sword and her fancy enemy-only quick change, but unfortunately for her, the game engine decides that when neither of her weapons works at 2-range, it should go with meteor instead of the Miracle Sword. So, she dies horrifically to Forseti without getting to enjoy Miracle's evasion bonus.

I warp Sylvia to Phinora after dumping a ton of money on Aideen with Midir and Dew (he's gonna participate in the final battle and gain some more money, and besides, Ulster won't be needing much with Bargain as a skill), allowing her to buy the Physic and Sleep staves and still have a decent hoard left over to make repairs easier for her daughter until she can get herself a promotion or a husband. Sylvia, once warped over, stands in the way of a meteor mage Erin hadn't yet killed off until she dies. Sorry, Sylvia. But it's for the good of the continent.

Oh my god. That is HEARTBREAKING. Either this is new to the new translation or I just somehow never noticed it before, but Sylvia cried out Jamke's name and begged him to save her during her death quote, and... Jeeeeeeesus.

Also, just to note, it appears that killing someone does in fact NOT erase their name from their lover's “lover” section, something I could have sworn I heard happens. Plus side: this means that even if someone dies here in the final battle, I can resurrect them, so I don't need to be so paranoid with Ayra and Dew; it's not the end of the world if one of them gets unlucky and dies. Downside: I was talking to my friend about potential ways to get both the brave bow and the Rescue staff. I theorized that if you married Aideen and Midir, got Midir killed in the beginning of chapter 4 after getting and selling the brave bow, and then had Aideen marry Claude and then have their conversation in chapter 5, you could get both the brave bow and the rescue staff. This appears to not be possible. The more you know!

Alright, I've settled everything. Lex has a power and defense ring now, which is going to be very important to maximize Patty's chances of survival in her joining chapter, which I remember being... EXTREMELY luck-based. And upon remembering how many mages there were, just to improve her odds a bit more, I have Azel give Lex his speed ring too. That's +10 avoid, which should help.

Anyway, I was hoping to get some kills on those turncoat meteor mages around the castle who are going to pretend to be on my side the second Reptor advances, but unfortunately the second I got in their attack range, the next turn they turned yellow. Looks like I couldn't kill even one of them without Sylvia. Oh well. Time to start feeding kills into Ayra to get her to level 30. I gave her the Paragon Band, so let's do this.

After that, while it may take some time to get back to the castle to sell it off, I'm ditching my original plan to keep the Paragon Band on the swordmaster siblings and trade it between them. Something tells me I might obsess over optimizing that like I did with the star shards, and it might be less annoying to just statically give it to someone I'd like to get promoted quickly. Like, say... Fee. I definitely want a flying staff user pronto.

Anyway, the “turncoat” meteor mages' “assistance” was amazingly ineffectual, as the ones on the way to get to me were all dead by the end of the turn, and I can't even remember if they killed a single enemy unit before they ate it. Works just fine for me, more exp for Ayra.

But first, gotta take care of Reptor. He's got probably the second-scariest legendary weapon that the enemies ever use: Mjölnir. It has stats identical to Forseti, except it's 5 points heavier and the skill and speed bonuses are reversed. So obviously Forseti is better, especially in direct competition because wind beats thunder. But this thing is still TERRIFYING. The +40 hit means Dodgetanking is damn near impossible, especially if the user has authority stars, and good luck trying to build a guy who can survive two attacks from the thing.

And that's the big part. The fact that it's nearly impossible to guarantee surviving two attacks from this thing.

Later down the line, you'll understand what makes that particular fact so terrifying.

But for now, I can cheese him with Lewyn. After being Forseti'd and aura'd up, nobody else can hit him without Reptor's aura. Which none of them are going to be able to enjoy, because I positioned Lewyn on the other side of the cliff to the right of the walkway up to Velthomer castle, in a spot where only one unit can attack him at a time. And the only unit who's going to attack him with the benefit of Reptor's aura... is Reptor himself. And either he dies (very likely) and that'll make the rest of these enemies much easier, or he survives, and nobody else has any room to take advantage of the aura, giving me a turn to debate whether I try to finish him off and gamble on his big shield not activating, or just retreat and come up with another plan. Meanwhile Ayra's still dipping her toes into the enemy squad's attack range trying to score some extra exp and some kills on the Bolt Sword.

And Lewyn takes Reptor out immediately with a magnificent critical hit, though not after taking a grievous wound from Mjölnir first that none of the enemies will be able to exploit to finish him off without Reptor's precious command aura.

...Unfortunately it looks like his death spelled the end for the whole army, so no last minute chance to get Ayra 3 more levels. Ah well. Time to finish things up then, and after that...

...Talk to Aida.

...Alright. That's done. I've got everything set for Gen 2.

...Time to see the end of Gen 1.

So, here Aida talks to us about how Arvis has been on Sigurd's side all along, and given what we've seen so far... not to mention the fact that we know that he knows he's currently fucking Sigurd's wife... we know full well that's a lie. Which is a shame, because that would have been one of the big benefits of keeping Sigurd in the dark and not showing us all of the conspiracy behind the scenes: having Arvis's upcoming betrayal actually be a surprise. It seems a shame to almost deliberately get the worst of both worlds here. As it stands, it only further serves to make Sigurd feel like more of an idiot. I know that dramatic irony is a thing, and Sigurd has no reason to believe Arvis is against him from what he's been shown, but it just feels... wrong. Like, what's about to happen is a massive gut punch, but it would be even more intense if it was totally a surprise that Arvis was planning anything bad for us.

But anyway, enough beating around the bush.

Here it is.

The infamous signature scene of Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War.

And in spite all of the shit I've been talking about this game's method of telling its story...

...The fact that I have a massive, MASSIVE pit in my stomach as all of Sigurd's army marches into place tells me that the story itself... is still really amazing.

Because what happens here was completely unthinkable for the series back then.

Hell, it's unthinkable NOW.

What's about to happen is the single most tragic and horrific thing that has ever happened, and probably WILL ever happen to any Fire Emblem protagonist in the entire series.

Arvis, massive, incredible dickbag that he is, arranges this whole big parade and celebration in Sigurd's honor as he marches towards Bellhalla, mere moments from getting to talk to the king and clear his name...

...And then Arvis announces that he still intends on executing Sigurd as a traitor, then arrogantly and KNOWINGLY flaunts the fact that he's currently married to Sigurd's amnesiac wife...

...Then brings her out for the sole purpose of telling her that Sigurd is the son of the man who killed her father, so he can get the psychotic satisfaction of watching Dierdre screaming angrily at the man she really loves (which mercifully doesn't work, and Arvis has to drag her away to keep her from remembering who Sigurd is)...

...THEN BURNS HIM AND HIS ENTIRE ARMY ALIVE.

ARVIS.

YOU FUCKING DASTARD.

This scene is... iconic. Incredible. The single best crystalized moment of storytelling the entire series has ever managed to accomplish. The entire franchise's crowning glory of narrative.

The good guys lose.

The hero dies.

The hero dies, in disgrace, shame, misery, and literal burning agony. Crushed by meteors and incinerated by the divine wrath of the book of the fire god, all while big, dramatic, cinematic music scores the entire cutscene.

Everything they've ever done has been for nothing. The bad guys win, the big empire has been assembled through the machinations of carefully baited unprovoked attacks on Grandbell, Dragon Satan is set to be born and made heir to it all, and the world descends into unimaginable darkness for more than a decade and a half.

And the heroes, the heroes we've been watching grow and fight for a month now, aren't going to be able to stop any of it.

Their kids will grow up in the dark world their parents failed to prevent, their mothers barely surviving to give birth to them before they meet all manner of horrible fates, their fathers almost entirely out of the picture for various horrible reasons. The kids live at the edge of society, struggling to eke out the tiniest shred of an existence, biding their time and hoping for the day when they can one day take back the land their parents loved so much and died trying to save.

And that is why this game has a gen 2. No time travel. No hyperbolic pan-dimensional bullshit. There is a gen 2 because ENOUGH TIME ACTUALLY PASSES IN THIS GAME FOR THE FIRST GENERATION TO HAVE KIDS THAT GROW UP TO FIGHTING AGE.

And the entire story has been built, from the ground up, to make sure that act of leading your army's children to victory is the most viscerally satisfying and emotional thing it can possibly be.

And that's what we're going to do.

Not even on Monday. Fuck no. We're doing this tomorrow, folks.

I am way, WAY too excited to end things here for the weekend.

But one more thing, before I sign off:

Apparently if you leave anyone dead, they're listed alongside Quan, Ethlyn and Sigurd as the people who died on the journey. Interesting to note, and something I hadn't noticed before. I guess that confirms everyone else, who just got the meteor blasts, managed to escape... at least at first.

Also, I wanted to hold this off until I was done gushing, but honestly, I'm disappointed that they changed Sigurd's last words to “Damn you Arvis”. “Alvis, you dastard!” may be kind of a goofy meme, but replacing it with something that's so incredibly generic feels... very, very wrong. They should have come up with something at least nearly as memorable, just more serious. I really, really hope the remake does so.

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On 11/21/2019 at 4:51 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so the script says that Trabant, the Thracian king, has been tailing them unnoticed.

HOW DO YOU NOT NOTICE YOU'RE BEING FOLLOWED BY A BUNCH OF FUCKING DRAGONS FLYING IN THE SKY? HOW DO THE DRACOKNIGHTS HIDE FROM VIEW WHILE STILL KEEPING TRACK OF WHO THEY'RE CHASING? ARE THEY PEEKING OUT OF THE FUCKING TREES LIKE LIKE A FUCKING CARTOON!?

This shit makes no sense at all. It only makes sense in video game land where they can hide offscreen.

This makes about as much sense as a wyvern rider being an assassin (i.e. none). I would imagine the wingbeats would give them away.

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56 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

By flying you have much more sight range than on horseback, it's pretty possible imo that a scout can follow them unnoticed and the main army can ambush them when they are hindered by the desert. 

You have much more sight range of the ground, to be sure. You see more of the ground from a higher vantage point than you do from a lower one. But you don't see further looking down than you do looking up unless I'm ignorant of some aspect of physics at play here. I remember something I was always told back in school theater regarding goofing around backstage around the curtain: "If you can see the audience, then the audience can see you". It's the same distance either way. If the dragon is looking down on someone 5 miles away, then someone on the ground looking back up at the sky is going to see even bigger dragon even more clearly, because it's still 5 miles away.

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Genealogy Day 22: The Beginning of the Beginning of the End

Alright. Time to get started on Gen 2. But before we do... I hate to harsh the magnificent Gen 2 mellow, but... as I looked back at the tab I used to look at Aideen and Bridget's conversation... I happened to chance upon the script for a conversation that I've never seen in-game, or even seen discussed. And I just have to bring it up here, because...

...Okay, remember when I said marrying Claude to Aideen gets you the rescue staff from a conversation in chapter 5? Well... I wasn't quite prepared for what that conversation actually entails. I'm going to post the whole script here, because... if I try to describe it, you'll have to think I'm exaggerating. It's just so... so...

...Jesus Christ.

Here it is.

Claude:
“Adean, this is to be our last battle.”

Adean:
“Yes, that’s what everyone’s saying.”

Claude:
“Here, you should have this. Help our young soldiers with it.”

Adean:
“Oh, this is a Rescue Staff. Why me?”

Claude:
“I have yet to speak a word of this, but you being my wife, well… I should probably tell you. This war will end in our defeat. All that is important to us will be lost.”

Adean:
“…What!?”

Claude:
“I, too, had a difficult time believing the Lord’s words when I was at Blagi Tower. But this is how fate will have it. I also will not likely survive. That’s why I’m entrusting this staff to you.”

Adean:
“That can’t be true! I don’t believe any of what you’re saying!! Please… tell me it’s not true!”

Claude:
“Adean, there’s really nothing to be scared of. My death is really just a new beginning. As life embraces death, that with form is lost, yet something still remains. There’s nothing to fear in death. It is merely a transition to a more perfect form.”

Adean:
“But Claude…!”

Claude:
“Just as I am to die, I shall also be reborn. Look, inside of you is a brand new life and I am a part of it. And that is why you must keep living.”

Adean:
“How could you! You tell me to keep living while you…”

Claude:
“Adean, I have been blessed to have met you. Forgive me if I have sounded insensitive.”

Adean:
“Claude…”

...So.

That's... that's canon.

That is a thing that the writers decided they wanted to put in the game. Those are words they decided they wanted to put in Claude's mouth.

Claude is canonically a total piece of shit.

He knew, from the moment he left Braggi tower, that he and a ton of his friends were going to die, when and where, and that everything would be lost, and the world would descend into an era of unfathomable darkness. And he not only completely accepted this because “the gods” told him it was his “destiny”, but he made absolutely no effort to warn anyone else, or even to do anything to make it less awful.

Why did he even bother trying to talk to the king, knowing it wouldn't work? DID he even try to talk to the king, knowing it wouldn't work? Did he lie to Sigurd about trying to clear his name at all?

...And you think you might have “sounded insensitive”, Claude?

Really?

REALLY?

YOU MARRIED A WOMAN, KNOWING FULL WELL EVERY STEP OF THE WAY THAT YOU WERE GOING TO KNOCK HER UP AND LEAVE A PREGNANT WIDOW IN A MATTER OF HOURS TO DAYS, FORCED TO RAISE YOUR CHILD IN UNIMAGINABLE MISERY AND DESPAIR WHILE YOU SIP COCKTAILS UP IN THAT HEAVEN THAT'S FUCKED UP ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU, AND YOU ONLY MILDLY SUSPECT THAT YOU MIGHT BE IN THE WRONG HERE!?

WHY DID YOU EVEN MARRY HER?

Was it to get some last-minute emotional/sexual fulfillment before you die? Or were you just trying to make sure the Braggi bloodline didn't die out and that somebody could use Valkyria?

...Jesus, no WONDER Claude!Lester never trained to use the staff despite knowing his bloodline! The second he heard what his piece of shit father did to his mother, and his horrible reasons why, I can totally see him throwing away Valkyria in disgust and wanting nothing to do with his father's line of work OR his reprehensible religious beliefs. It wasn't exactly the smartest decision, but I can sure as hell imagine him doing it!

I genuinely couldn't believe what I was seeing. This is HORRIBLE. This COMPLETELY changes my view of what kind of person Claude even is, and it's infinitely for the worse!

...Y'know... It's funny... So, as many of you probably know, I've made no secret of my hatred of the turnwheel. I hate the way it was implemented, I hate the way it's started to impact game design, and most relevantly to the subject here, I hate how it's made every story it's touched worse for having it canonically exist. The Divine Pulse added nothing to Three Houses' story that couldn't have happened without it, and it only served to turn Byleth into a massive idiot if you think about his actions in cutscenes for more than three seconds.

And I've repeatedly expressed extreme concerns that IS are going to be dumb enough to make the same mistake in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Jugdral, or whatever they wind up calling it. To canonically insert a rewind mechanic into this unimaginably tragic cavalcade of conspiracy and misery, and ruin the tragedy of this story by either not once discussing the implications of why bad things still happen, or inserting a supremely stupid excuse for why Sigurd doesn't use the rewind mechanic to stop them.

My most optimistic, best-case scenario for how it would turn out would be that they use the “divine prophecy” interpretation of what they say the turnwheel does in-story in Echoes. When you use it in game, you aren't rewinding time, you're playing god and sending a vision of a bad future into the past for Alm or Celica to see and work to prevent. They can't go back in time to stop any story deaths because they don't get to choose what they're warned about.

The issue with that, however, is that it would mean that anything bad that happens anyway is something that the gods wanted to happen as part of their divine master plan. Now, for Gaiden, which doesn't end TOO horribly, with every death that comes to mind either being the death of an asshole or the death of someone Alm couldn't realistically prevent... with Jugdral things are quite different. Things go so horribly by the end of Gen 1 that whoever's running that turnwheel would have to be a massive psychotic bastard.

And that would lead to a really awesome moment I would love to see. Where that's actually pointed out, and the philosophical implications are actively debated. Where Seliph would hold Baldo's Turnwheel in his hand, learn what it does... and learn the reason for why what happened to his father still happened... and debate to himself whether or not he even WANTS to trust the gods who killed his father. He knows it's useful. But he also knows that the instructions it was giving Sigurd led directly to his death, and he has no reason to believe the gods have anything better planned for him than they did for his father. I actually wrote a short scene of this playing out a while back, and while I'm not 100% proud of it in hindsight, I still really love the concept.

I imagined the player being given a choice.

* Take the turnwheel

* Destroy the turnwheel

I imagined selecting the option to destroy it, and watching Seliph smash the thing with the pommel of Sigurd's silver sword, hearing this absolutely magnificent music playing, one of my favorite songs from the entire game, nay, the entire franchise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRIA1JsgMow&feature=emb_title

...as he makes a big, impassioned speech about how he refuses to put his fate in the hands of gods who have done nothing to deserve that kind of trust, and that he'll rely on his own strength, and the strength of his friends, to save the world.

“We’re fighting to save the entire continent of Jugdral. To end Arvis’s reign of terror, and to avenge my family, and the family of my friends. Good people, proud and brave and noble people, who died in agony and disgrace, drowning in a pit of fire, choking on their own MELTING THROATS, because apparently that was their 'destiny'. Lewyn... what's MY destiny? Is it to succeed where my father failed? Or is it to die like a fool, at the crest of that next hill, struck through the heart by an arrow that wasn’t even aimed at me? ...Do you have any idea?”

“I certainly don’t. But I will tell you one thing: I no longer care what my destiny is. And I certainly won’t be following any divine instructions to get to it. I have a continent to save, Lewyn, and damn destiny if it has other plans. My friends and I are all orphans, raised in a living hell for more than a decade, because whatever god was whispering to my father from that amulet WANTED us to be. My father put his faith in that wretched thing, and it cost him his home, his family, his friends, his reputation, his dignity, and his life! He trusted the gods, and they repaid him and his friends with safe passage to the slaughterhouse, to be roasted like pigs! And all I have is a hope, not even the gods’ word, mind, but just a baseless HOPE... that they’ll treat me better this time.”

“Thank you, Lewyn, but I won’t be needing this. And neither will anyone else. I won’t be placing my trust in gods who’ve done less than nothing to earn it. I have plenty else to trust. My heart... my wits... my blade... and my friends. Either all of that is enough, or it isn’t. But right now those wits are telling me I need to learn from my father’s mistakes. Now if you’ll excuse me, Lewyn... I have a rebel army to lead.”

And it cuts back to the map. The music stops. The turnwheel cogs in the corner of the screen, one after another, explode magnificently with a massive shattering sound, until they're all gone.

“Baldo's Turnwheel has been destroyed,” the in-game message will say.

“Good luck.”

If done right, it could be a powerful scene, and extremely satisfying for anyone who likes playing the game without the turnwheel. Getting to throw it away completely for the sake of cementing Seliph's status as a stronger and less naive person than his father.

Well now I know they don't even need to violate anyone's canon personality! The gods are ALREADY pieces of shit! And so is Claude! Just have Claude hang around before he officially joins the party, and have HIM hold and use the turnwheel! They wouldn't even need to hide from him what was about to happen to them! He'd TOTALLY lead Sigurd and all of his friends to the barbecue even if he knew what it was, just because the gods told him it was his destiny, that psychotically god-whipped piece of shit.

...The anger is still incredibly fresh right now. I don't know, maybe I'll simmer down... but right now Claude is my least favorite playable FE character of all time, personality-wise.

Worse then Peri.

I am just THAT disgusted by his attitude and his behavior.

But enough of that. Let's get down to the fun stuff. Starting Gen 2, with my brand new, shiny army of badasses. Every pairing having gone off without a hitch even on ironman.

...Oh this is gonna be SO MUCH FUN.

We get the new map music, “When the Rush Comes”. Dark, ominous, and with this 80s synth that only adds to the tone, like a song out of The Terminator.

I'm loving this. I love how horribly things are going wrong, and how it lets me know just how high the stakes are.

Getting to the actual in-game intro dialogue... it's a shame that “Nuns and warfare do NOT mix” wasn't kept in. I get the reasoning behind it, but it's a memorable line, and like with “Alvis, you Dastard”, I wish the new translation team at least made an effort to keep the memorability of it in the new script.

But yeah, I'm liking this so far. A bit of the writing was as-you-know-y, but I can really feel the potential for an awesome scene in an officially localized work.

And now the battle starts. I have my four starting characters. The music plays.

And the battle begins.

And holy shit! This may just be a “first battle” thing like in the prologue, but there's actually enemies scattered about on the whole path towards the next castle! It's not just a single massive battalion I have to fight all at once and a whole lot of nothing in-between! SWEET! We've got axe fighters, axe armors, and bow armors, all ready to start charging us!

And now I've got two badass swordfighters, on slightly less badass swordfighter with three authority stars (20% hit and evade boost! WOO!) and a healer with an inventory full of fancy staves.

Seliph is basically Sigurd before promotion. Yes, his mother's growths were hot garbage, so adding half of them to Sigurd's to make Seliph's growths isn't exactly spectacular, but it's still an objective improvement, and it does give him some pretty great magic and resistance for a physical fighter, making him a tempting candidate for one of the magic swords later. I may give him the Light Brand when Leif's done with it. That is assuming Leif actually managed to inherit it and that it isn't just waiting for us in the shop. Oh, and he also gets Nihil from his mother, but... more on that later. He's not fantastic right now, but he'll get better, and by the end of the game he'll probably contribute way more than his father wound up doing late-game. Especially since he has THREE authority stars as opposed to Sigurd's two, meaning he gives a 20% boost to hit and evade to everyone within 3 spaces. That's going to be insanely useful. We've gone from having 20, maybe 30 points of auras to give to a character to... well... in this generation, we're going to have SIXTY. 20 from Seliph, 20 from Lachesis's kids, 10 from Sylvia's daughter's replacement, and then 10 if the person being boosted has a lover nearby.

Oh the things I can do with that.

Lana the healer is basically her mother, Aideen, but with better growths and the ability to actually fight when she promotes thanks to her inheriting Midir's skills. She's not gonna be a star player in that department though, and that Accost skill that has a chance to add on full combat rounds when her HP is above 25... could potentially backfire on her. I can see multiple scenarios where that would do more harm than good. Still though, her mom was really helpful, and she's gonna be even more so, especially early in the game when we don't have anyone else who can use B rank staves.

But here's the main event for now. By pairing Ayra with Dew, we've got Larcei and Ulster, two swordfighters who have a grand total of FIVE SKILLS. Pursuit as a class skill, followed by Astra, Sol, Bargain, and Nihil. Nihil is unfortunately not as awesome as it could be, as it only works on “sword skills” (Sol, Luna and Astra), critical hits and effective damage. Sol, Luna and Astra are pretty rare on enemies, and there's nothing that's super effective against swordfighters, so all that remains is critical hits that they're immune to, which I suppose will come up occasionally, but other than that, it's not nearly as useful as it could be due to how rarely it comes up. I wish this worked on all combat skills. If it worked on Adept or Miracle like the game's description suggests it would, it would be an unfathomable lifesaver. But as it stands... well enough about the negatives. Larcei and Ulster, but especially Ulster, have awesome growth rates, to the point where they're both likely to cap everything but magic and resistance. Larcei's gonna be a swordmaster, while Ulster will be a hero, and unfortunately hero is slightly worse than swordmaster. It gets 3 points of magic and resistance upon promotion, which he's actually going to make use of a good deal more than the 3 points of skill and speed that swordmaster has over it, but swordmaster gets Adept upon promotion, while hero gets nothing. Still, that's really just a little less icing Ulster has on the badass cake.

Oh I am going to ENJOY THIS.

First off, Seliph is two kills away from unlocking the critical skill on his father's silver sword, so might as well get that sorted out now.

All three of them are unfortunately really fragile at the moment and can't survive more than one hit from these guys. Not that more than one hit is likely with the axe users only having like 22 hit on him, but still, not pretty, and I wanna get these guys up to speed quickly.

...Maybe that's why they don't make us fight a massive horde at once here.

My memory's foggy, but I'm really hoping that enemy placements like this are more common in Gen 2, stronger, more dangerous enemies but more sparsely placed, and that this isn't just training wheels for our initially weak army. That would be laaaaame if they go right back to business as usual for Gen 1.

The enemies are getting ABSURDLY good luck, so I'm glad I didn't do anything reckless and that I assumed the worst. Because the worst actually happened. A 22, a NINE, and another 22 all resulted in hits, in a row.

Alright, now Lester, Oifey and... Dermott? Sure. Let's go with that. Delmud was always a weird name. This sounds more like a European name. A bit weird, but the harder sound at the end makes it sound more badass, so sure! I welcome the change.

But anyway, now they've arrived, on turn three.

And I'm standing there, wondering how Dermott has a silver blade, when I remember: I had Azel beat Chagall when he had it! I was wondering where that thing went! See, you can't buy weapons you can't use, but you can take them from enemies when they drop them! It must have been inherited since it went straight to storage or something, and I forgot! Awesome! I was worried he'd go without inheriting anything useful but the Renewal Band!

Anyway, Dermott's pretty good. He's not gonna be nearly as good as his mom due to not becoming a Master Knight and not getting those insane promotion bonuses, but he's got Charm, which is going to be super useful, and he's gonna be a great user of the Fire Sword once I buy that for him. For now though, he's also got that extremely powerful silver blade, which has a might of TWENTY. His skill growth isn't fantastic, which could be a problem initially given that the silver blade only has 60 hit, but he gains a whopping NINE skill upon promotion, so in the end he shouldn't have problems hitting.

Lester is... I'll be honest, I've never used him for long. The Brave Bow is great at the beginning, I mean it's a brave weapon, anyone who can use it would be good when the weapon might is such a big percentage of everyone's damage output, but I really wound up overestimating Midir's usefulness in Gen 1, as I hadn't fully processed the sheer, nigh-un-player-phaseable walls of units we'd be fighting before I looked at it in the context of the marathon, so I'm concerned Lester may face the same fate eventually too, of not being able to help much in a game that heavily emphasizes enemy phase tactics. Only time will tell though.

And then there's Oifey, who's now grown up into a magnificent mustachioed paladin. And right now he's basically the only one on my team who can take a hit. His defense is 17, and his 15 remaining levels and 30% defense growth will get him 4-5 more, which is respectable. But for now it's insane, more than double what anyone else on my team has, and given how none of them can take more than one hit... this may prove important at times to not risk them in dangerous scenarios. But he's a paladin with pursuit and critical, so I have serious doubts he'll be contributing much once I get a bunch of my new team promoted. But we'll see. I certainly won't go out of my way to not use him when he can help!

As I arrange myself to aura up against the incoming enemies, I have Oifey talk to Seliph, and I finally get to hear it in game.

Seliph's theme.

I know I posted it earlier, so I'm kind of repeating myself, but I need to make this clear:

I adore this song.

It's a gorgeously bittersweet composition that perfectly musically encapsulates Seliph's nature as a brave, orphaned freedom fighter with a long journey ahead of him. You hear it play, and you read this dialogue, and you know, almost immediately, that even though the world is a living hell, even though the path to setting things right is going to be thousands of leagues long and painted in an ocean of blood... there's a blazing beacon of hope. Because Seliph has grown up into EXACTLY the sort of young man his mother and father hoped he would. You can practically feel how proud his parents are of him from beyond the grave, coming through in every note.

It's one of my favorite songs in the entire series, and one of three that's managed to move me to tears. Lyn's Desire did it when I replayed FE7 a few years ago, just as I was starting to think the story wasn't as great as I remembered it being. Id Purpose did it when I heard it for the first time, and that time it was PURELY the music that did it. It had nothing to do with the story taking place around it.

Seliph's theme moved me to tears multiple times. Including just now. I don't know how, but during my initial high school obsession with the game, I never once heard the song play, or at least I didn't remember hearing it. Then upon replaying the game a few years later, I chanced upon that dialogue, and HOLY SHIT WAS I IN LOVE. Imagine loving a game's soundtrack, only to discover that you had somehow been oblivious to the best song it had for years, and discover it later and love it even more. That's what that was like.

And then we get back to actual gameplay.

And at long last, after feeding tons of kills into these swords... I finally get to see the sword critical animations of this game.

And they are FUCKING SPECTACULAR.

Seriously, when you give an infantry unit in this game a sword and the ability to do critical hits, the results are an absolute treat for the eyes. THEY DON'T EVEN HAVE JUST ONE. They have TONS of them. Sword users will samurai pass through enemies, leap through the air to smash their blade down like Thor himself bringing down the hammer, and flash-step glide across the ground to do an insane slashing blade combo before BACKFLIPPING TEN FEET IN THE AIR AND LANDING TO FACE THE BRAND NEW CORPSE THEY JUST MADE.

I watch those magnificent animations go off, and suddenly it's like none of the shit I've complained about this entire run ever happened. Suddenly I'm a teenager again, pumping my fists like an idiot as I watched the results of hours upon hours of grinding play out right in front of me.

NOT ONE VISUAL in this entire goddamned series gives me more visceral satisfaction than watching sword infantry units land critical hits in Genealogy. It's part of why I adore Larcei and Ulster so much. For some bizarre reason, the devs pumped all of the critical hit animation budget into sword users, and while it makes everyone else kind of disappointing (to the point that I used to despise the fact that Seliph promoted to have a horse due to the silver sword crit quality drop), HOLY SHIT AM I GLAD AT LEAST THE SWORD INFANTRY ONES EXIST.

And just to end that magnificent moment on a great note, Ulster levels up and gains HP, Speed, Skill, Luck and Defense. Almost the perfect level up for him.

Seliph also gets a great level up, gaining speed, defense and resistance among other things!

Larcei, tragically... gets HP and Skill and literally nothing else. I mean, Ulster has SLIGHTLY better growth rates, but not to the point where that shit is normal. Ah well. Just one level.

But Lana gained six points on her level up, though unfortunately I have no idea what any of them were because I was away getting a glass of water when I heard those six “ting!”s in the other room.

Oifey just checked the armory. Nothing good in it, and no Light Brand either, so looks like Leif inherited it just fine.

Anyway I decide to have Oifey stand guard at the castle in case I'm forgetting something major about this map, and then I have everyone else march forward to face the next batch of advancing enemies head-on.

Larcei got her second mediocre level up in a row, which... is starting to concern me. But the good news is we've made it to the first castle, Ganeishire, and secured the first village. Not in time to save most of the mon-... houses... but enough to keep it from completely burning down at least.

Just as I was lamenting how inconvenient Lester's base stats are (he's literally one damage point shy of killing the bow armors), he gets his first level up, and gains LITERALLY EVERYTHING BUT RESISTANCE. Wow. SOMEBODY'S looking to impress me today.

Ulster's third level up continues to be great. Strength, Speed, Skill, Luck and HP.

Now onto the two brothers, Johan and Johalvier. These are Lex's nephews, and they're a couple of axe users who REALLY want to get into Larcei's pants, and will defect if she talks to them. But only one of them. The other will fly into a murderous rage that really calls into question the whole thing the village says about them being “good kids”. I'm obviously going with the one on the mount, Johan, because Johalvier has basically nothing going for him. Johalvier could be okay with a brave axe (which I'll be able to buy back soon, possibly with the same kill count as Lex's), but his advantages over Johan are basically nonexistant.

...Well... not exactly. See, the plus side with Johalvier is that if you recruit him, it's much less annoying to get the Nosferatu tome for... well, we'll get to her in a second.

I kill the boss with Seliph and seize Ganeishire on the next turn. And then... who should pop up but... well, actually, several people pop up when I visit Ganeishire.

The first is Lewyn, who's... still alive, but... well let's say that the imperial conquest of Silesse has left him... several steps backward in his character arc. He also isn't playable. He's honestly barely a character at all in Gen 2, and mostly exists to spout exposition. But not before he takes the time to make sure we know how much of a loser he considers himself to be now. I'm... not a fan of what they do with him in Gen 2.

Anyway, he introduces new character number two: Julia. Now, she's introduced as this amnesiac girl Lewyn found, but... let's be real here. She's Seliph's half-sister. The hair. The skills. The holy blood. It's transparently obvious. So much so that it's frankly insulting nobody in-story notices it. I do like her theme though. This cute but sad and kind of ominous musicbox theme.

Also, off topic, but I love what they did with her in Heroes. How they characterized her as this cute young girl who constantly sounds like she's half-asleep and doesn't really understand what's going on. Seeing her dialogue here, I can totally see it.

She starts unarmed, but Lana can give her a mend staff in a conversation, and then... well, Johan and Johalvier are each guarding a castle. Whichever one we don't side with will stay an enemy and we'll have to seize that castle. And depending on which one we seize first, we'll get either Aura, Dierdre's terrible tome from last generation... or Nosferatu, which is so astronomically better that it's a joke that the game even thinks this is a choice. However, it's Johan's castle you have to seize to get Nosferatu, so normally you have to recruit Johalvier in order to get it.

BUT...

You can still get Johan AND Nosferatu, if you let the enemy reinforcements that are about to come from the main castle kill Johan's castle guard on the way to fight you and seize the castle for themselves. Then we'll re-conquer it and find Nosferatu inside, then take care of Johalvier's castle too.

And then as enemy phase comes along, Johan and Johalvier start mobilizing, and then at the beginning of the next player turn, new characters 3 and 4 show up!

The first is Fee, Erin and Claude's daughter, a pegasus knight. She'll be pretty awesome. She's mostly just Erin but with higher growths, namely magic and resistance, and a better staff rank, which she'll be making HEAVY use of once she gets promoted and can use them. And the Paragon Band I gave her, along with the brave sword, should make that pretty easy.

...Wow. I thought the practice of naming mounts after dead riders was something Awakening invented. Nope. Apparently Fee's mount is named Mahnya! The more you know!

But anyway, Fee's pretty damned good, but she's carrying the real star of the show on her back.

Arthur.

Arthur... is Lewyn and Taillte's son.

And he inherits FUCKING EVERYTHING.

He's a mage with Wrath, Adept and Critical. He can use Forseti immediately and will keep it for the rest of the game, and he has the Pursuit Band and the Leg Ring so he can fully make use of it. His evasion isn't quite dodgetank levels of ludicrous YET (“only” 54 with Forseti) , but trust me friends, it'll get there. Holy shit will it get there. Because this guy has an even faster speed growth than Lewyn, to the point that it's BEYOND 100%.

This is why I paired Lewyn up with Taillte instead of the canon Erin. You get to use Forseti two and a half chapters earlier, and then when he promotes, you get to use Forseti from atop a jet black horse while wearing jet black armor. Seriously, I love Arthur's color palette. The pairings I chose are both the fastest you can get Forseti AND the fastest you can get Valkyria, and both are going to be extremely important for some of the scarier challenges in this game, especially on ironman.

But that'll have to wait until another day, because for now, I'm signing off for the night. Expect an update tomorrow too, because holy shit have I suddenly started having tons of fun with this game again.

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