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


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3 hours ago, Jotari said:

I like this theory, but neither of Lewyn's uncles have Forseti blood. Although granted Hilda randomly changes to Dain holy blood in the final chapter, maybe that's an oversight. Although them oversighting it on two separate characters simultaneously seems unlikely. And I think they're on the official family chart sans holy blood.

I believe it's an oversight.

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Genealogy Day 30: Enter Julius

Seeing the day number hit the big three-o makes me realize I've spent longer on this game than any other in the series. Including both books of FE3 combined. Jesus. If I had to guess why, I think it's a few factors.

1: The number of characters you can deploy at once means that every turn takes a while.

2: The size of each map means it takes a lot of turns.

3: These two things combined, at least for me personally, also caused me a bit of choice paralysis at times with what I should do, and also I've found myself reluctant to end turns sometimes due to wondering if I'm forgetting something important I need someone to do.

4: I had to go all of Gen 1 without the return staff because I lost Ethlyn and Quan.

5: I gave special treatment to fucking Azel. Rookie mistake. Will not happen again.

But let's keep moving forward.

I cleared Rados castle, and it was so uneventful that it's barely worth describing. Just four enemies: Morrigan and the Hel mages.

...Which sounds like a metal band now that I type it out.

But yeah, basically, I just charged in with my cavalry and wiped it out with time to spare to save the village. That doesn't count as our castle for the day, obviously. Not when I've barely typed 10 sentences yet.

Anyway, Lewyn talks about the horrific acts of Morrigan, and says “This is the way of the Loptyr Empire”.

Yeah, the “poor oppressed Loptyrians” plot at the Yied shrine is... feeling really dumb now. Like I said before, Loptyrians are bastards. All of them. Fuck them. Don't give me any of that “not all Loptyrians” nonsense or any of that “only the Loptyrian extremists” crap. The Loptyrian empire is not some fringe group of psychos mistakenly convinced their god is awful. Their god is real, their god had SPOKEN to them, their god DEMANDS THE FLESH OF CHILDREN, and they WORSHIPPED THE FUCKER ANYWAY.

And for that matter, the people at the Yied Shrine could not POSSIBLY have convinced themselves mere years after their god ruled the entire damned continent that he was actually some all-loving god of peace and love (and even if they did, that basically makes them holocaust deniers, which is hardly helping their sympathy case). Yeah, there's just no getting around it, the Loptyrians are complete and utter sacks of shit, and I can't believe there was a time this game managed to convince me to feel sorry for them.

Hooooooold up. So, in the talk with Julius and Manfroy... so, apparently the ultimate objective was to kill Julia? That's why they kidnapped her!? Then why go to the trouble of kidnapping her at all and restoring her memories!? I mean, gameplaywise, their ultimate decision makes perfect sense. Brainwash her into an enemy unit, THEN have her die. That way Valkyria can't revive her. But unless that's actually how Valkyria works in-universe, and they didn't kill her right away so they could sever her from Valkyria's grasp and keep her dead forever and thus completely purge the Naga bloodline... I just don't remotely get why she isn't already dead.

Also, Manfroy promises “she will be dead by sundown.” More proof that these chapters each take place over the course of a single day each. Hell, that statement implies that this AND the next chapter collectively take place over the course of a single day.

Also... Julius doesn't think Seliph is really the true heir to the kingdom? He doesn't even think he's legitimately a descendant of BALDUR, let alone Naga? Has... has Julius not been filled in on the conspiracy that brought him to power? Truly? Or does the Loptyr empire not know about Seliph somehow?

But anyway, Julius and Ishtar have appeared on the map, guarding Miletos. I have to take out one of them, or lose one of my fighters to one of them, before they'll disappear. Obviously I have to take out Ishtar, and thankfully I now have the means to do that reliably even without a forest tile now that Arthur has a speed ring and also a wife to add to his dodging bonuses.

...No, wait, bad idea. She's got a Barrier Ring now, meaning that her res is too high for that unless he crits or procs Adept. And I don't want to have to rely on that. So if I can, I'm going to have Faval try to hit her to one-shot her with his SEVENTY TWO ATTACK.

...Or Altenna could do it now, she has more than 60 atk too.

...Or, yes, Seliph could brave sword her as well.

...Okay, so I have options coming out my ears! Fine!, so by this point and arguably even before, I MAY have been hyping up Ishtar's danger factor a little!

But no, fuck it, Arthur's doing it anyway. We've got Valkyria, we can afford to risk someone's death for this. I wanna make the curse of Mjölnir! MJÖLNIR MUST FALL TO FORSETI EVERY TIME.

Besides, Forseti has 75 kills on it, so the odds of this not killing her are... incredibly small. In fact, more than likely she won't even get a chance to try and fail to hit him.

...Which is good, because however we choose to attack her, we're gonna have to deal with Julius.

Because he has a leg ring. We can't bait Ishtar in without also baiting him in.

And he has 5 authority stars.

...It may actually be wise to fight him instead, funny enough, at least initially: he doesn't have Nihil, so it's possible for Arthur to hurt him with critical hits. If we bait him in, we can have a full turn of being able to hurt him, and should be able to keep Accost from activating by injuring him enough. Dodgetanking is out of the question. Dark magic weapon triangle advantage and five authority stars mean that I'm going to have to risk tanking a hit. But I've checked the Accost formula, and Arthur's insane AS should protect me as long as he does at least some damage to the bastard. Which he more than likely will. And if he doesn't... well then he disappears because he wins the game he's playing with Ishtar.

According to a village girl, Julius has mind control eyes. Jesus. That's terrifying. Or does it only work on “weak minds”, or people without that indescribable, vague strength of soul that always seems to make named characters immune to shit that affects civilians with ease? I imagine that would have to be the case or he'd use it on us.

Anyway, Julius gets baited in, and Arthur manages a whopping 38 damage to him from two crits. Impressive. He could have gotten him down to 4 health if he had also gotten two Adepts and two more crits, but he's not the target.

Oh no. I just needed to survive.

For you see...

ISHTAR HAS BEEN BAITED.

LEADERSHIP STARS NEGATED.

AND AS HAS BEEN DICTATED:

FORSETI ACTIVATED!

Alright, she's down, and Julius has left. Anyway, I really don't get Ishtar. At times she seems kind of creeped out by Julius, or like she's not wholly on board with how insane he is and is trying to reconcile it with how attracted she is to him, and in general her portrait expression helps with this impression. But then... suddenly Julius says “Hey, let's play a game to see who can kill the first meatbag!” and she's all “YOU ARE SO FUCKING ON, MY LOVE!”

I'm just completely at a loss for who the fuck she's even supposed to be.

And Leif gets the second-to-last village (I missed one) and an old man tells me I don't have a chance of fighting Julius and recommends I just let someone die. Completely obvious to the fact that I got rid of him and could very easily have done it with Arthur.

Pity it's impossible to hurt him with non-Naga magic once he inexplicably gets his mother's Nihil back next chapter. It sucks that Arthur's gonna be useless for the final battle. But then, basically everyone is, especially if you have Julia fight him like you're supposed to.

I seized Miletos by rushing the boss with Seliph and a brave sword, so let's see what this triggers before we stop for the day.

Alright, so, we see a bit more of Arvis as a broken man, completely powerless and merely a puppet ruler, only able to do tiny things behind the scenes like help Palmarch escape with Tyrfing and some children. We also see Arvis give Julia her mother's circlet... like, I don't know why, but the idea of her having an entirely different, nearly identical circlet, taking the one Arvis gives her in a moment of extreme crisis, and just switching which one she's wearing as she's being dragged away screaming by Manfroy seems silly to me.

But now comes the big challenge. Gotta get to those children and Palmarch, fighting through the enemy forces, before the dark priests kill them. If they do, Seliph won't get the Tyrfing.

...Which, really, now that I think about it... wouldn't be too much of a loss. Yeah, the Tyrfing is, all things considered, even though it seems crazy to say this, the worst main character legendary weapon in the entire history of Fire Emblem. Bar none.

Let's list off the others to compare:

You get Archanean Falchion close to the end of the game and can only use it on like two maps on average, but it's insanely powerful against most remaining enemies and damn near essential to beat the final boss.

The Valentian Falchion also isn't usable for long, but it's a super powerful weapon that's necessary to beat the final boss with.

Leif doesn't get a legendary weapon, but hell, for this we can use his personal weapon, the Light Brand, and my argument remains intact. It's an absurdly useful 1-2 range 60 use weapon you get from turn one that also can fully heal you if you use it.

The Binding Blade singlehandedly temporarily makes the worst lord in the entire franchise above average, boosts defense by 5, has 1-2 range, and is super effective against the final boss.

Durandal and Armads are pretty great, though more Armads going by my personal experience. In fairness I don't think I've ever made an honest effort to train Eliwood (which will change once I get to FE7 on this marathon, I assure you).

Siegmund and Sieglinde are super effective against basically every enemy in the last two maps, great against every enemy in general, and you get them shockingly early for legendary weapons: the end of chapter 16!

Ragnell is Ragnell. ...I shouldn't need to go on, but I shall: It's got 18 might, defense + 5, 1-2 range, and infinite durability. Also, while its availability is way better in FE10, in FE9 it's one of only a handful of ways to hurt the final boss, and the only way to hurt the Black Knight.

The Ylissean Falchion is an infinite use wyrmslayer at the beginning of the game and becomes the infinite use dragonslaying menace we all know and love by the end.

The Yato is an infinite use sword that gradually gains either 8 or 16 points of stat bonuses that stay active even when Corrin doesn't, or CAN'T equip it.

The Sword of the Creator, while somewhat impractical to make regular use of, is a repairable 20 use 1-2 range dragonslaying extendoblade with some pretty damned menacing stats and a special combat art, and you get it at full power for MORE THAN HALF OF THE GAME.

In light of all this... what is Tyrfing?

I realize that in terms of raw statistics, Tyrfing's bonuses are ludicrous, putting all the rest on this list to shame. But think about it relative to what else you get in this game: it has the worst availability of any holy weapon in the whole game that isn't Naga, it's not 1-2 range, the majority of its stat bonuses are almost completely worthless due to the fact that it can't make use of that resistance bonus to counter-attack mages, its only really stand-out feature (its 30 might) is something you've had access to in droves for much longer from so many other weapons and the number of enemies you aren't better off using a Brave Sword on can be counted on one hand, and to top it all off, IT'S NOT EVEN THE BEST WEAPON TO USE AGAINST THE FINAL BOSS. It's barely even capable of KILLING the final boss! His fucking sister comes in next chapter to steal his thunder before it's even had a chance to make his own hairs stand on end!

You have no time to give it a kill count, no time to use it to defeat enemies way stronger than you who might merit the overkill, and there isn't even a single boss in the game the damned thing makes it uniquely useful against, except MAYBE Arvis. What sets it apart from all the cool shit your other characters have? The extremely situational +20 resistance. That's basically it.

Really mediocre in my honest opinion.

But anyway, that's it for now. Take care guys, see you tomorrow.

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23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Durandal and Armads are pretty great, though more Armads going by my personal experience.

16 Wt 🤨

 

23 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

You have no time to give it a kill count, no time to use it to defeat enemies way stronger than you who might merit the overkill, and there isn't even a single boss in the game the damned thing makes it uniquely useful against, except MAYBE Arvis. What sets it apart from all the cool shit your other characters have? The extremely situational +20 resistance. That's basically it.

Considering Arvis has 70 Atk that targets pitifully low Res, I think that is the point of it. Other units usually have a pretty hard time scrapping together that much magic durability. You making Claude!Ced lets you use an alternative, since he can muster 9x2 damage to Arvis, but that pairing is not at all certain.

Okay, Ares is another option, a fixed one, but who else can you think of that can penetrate 40 Def/Res and survive a Valflame?

I'm not calling it impossible, Altena or Febail might be able to muster enough HP to endure a hit, and the Barrier Ring exists to shore up durability, but you're still looking at threadbare survivals requiring lots of levels to proc the needed HP. The Barrier Sword won't work, since you can't break through the 40 Def at all, or only barely.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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28 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Durandal and Armads are pretty great, though more Armads going by my personal experience. In fairness I don't think I've ever made an honest effort to train Eliwood (which will change once I get to FE7 on this marathon, I assure you).

I agree with you on Armads, but not so much on Durandal. Two words: 16 weight (Armads is heavier at 18, but the difference is that Hector can wield Armads with little issue, whereas Eliwood loses a shitton of AS to Durandal). That alone is enough to make it the worst main character legendary weapon.

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14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Considering Arvis has 70 Atk that targets pitifully low Res, I think that is the point of it. Other units usually have a pretty hard time scrapping together that much magic durability. You making Claude!Ced lets you use an alternative, since he can muster 9x2 damage to Arvis, but that pairing is not at all certain.

Okay, Ares is another option, a fixed one, but who else can you think of that can penetrate 40 Def/Res and survive a Valflame?

Ask and you shall receive... an answer which is almost always Arthur. 66 HP,  14 res even without the Barrier Ring I gave him, and a crit rate of 64 with Forseti.

In fact, let's play a game and list everyone in my army capable of surviving against and killing Arvis other than Tyrfing Seliph:

Arthur can do it, as said, as can Ares, as said, Patty can kill him too if she crits and she can survive because her HP is insane, Leif can kill him eventually with crits, and Ced can do 18 damage per round of combat assuming no continues proc.

Edited by Alastor15243
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9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Ask and you shall receive... an answer which is almost always Arthur. 66 HP,  14 res even without the Barrier Ring I gave him, and a crit rate of 64 with Forseti.

In fact, let's play a game and list everyone in my army capable of surviving against and killing Arvis other than Tyrfing Seliph:

Arthur can do it, as said, as can Ares, as said, Patty can kill him too if she crits and she can survive because her HP is insane, Leif can kill him eventually with crits, and Ced can do 18 damage per round of combat assuming no continues proc.

Fair point. But I think I still have point of my own, in that the "average" player not expecting Arvis, might find themselves either lacking a candidate to slay him, or has someone who does, but doesn't realize it. Tyrfing offers a readily available option for all... assuming you trained Seliph enough and manage to have Palmark, otherwise, you're screwed. So it's not perfect.

Also, Crits don't work, remember, Arvis has Nihil.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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11 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Fair point. But I think I still have point of my own, in that the "average" player not expecting Arvis, might find themselves either lacking a candidate to slay him, or has someone who does, but doesn't realize it. Tyrfing offers a readily available option for all... assuming you trained Seliph enough and manage to have Palmark, otherwise, you're screwed. So it's not perfect.

Also, Crits don't work, remember, Arvis has Nihil.

Alright, so just Arthur, Ced and Ares. Fair enough. But while yes, it does serve a purpose for this one fight and probably makes Seliph the hardest character to accidentally make incapable of killing him, I still think the thing is the worst holy weapon in the game overall and ranks deceptively low on the "main character's ultimate weapon" tier list of the series. Though upon being reminded of Durandal's 16 weight, I will concede it's probably at least better than that (at least Tyrfing has a slight net gain in attack speed).

Edited by Alastor15243
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47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, so just Arthur, Ced and Ares. Fair enough. But while yes, it does serve a purpose for this one fight and probably makes Seliph the hardest character to accidentally make incapable of killing him, I still think the thing is the worst holy weapon in the game overall and ranks deceptively low on the "main character's ultimate weapon" tier list of the series. Though upon being reminded of Durandal's 16 weight, I will concede it's probably at least better than that (at least Tyrfing has a slight net gain in attack speed).

I can accept these points.

Tyrfing is a boss-buster, albeit not a final boss-buster, that is the root of FE's lord ultimates. Falchion, Falchion, Falchion, Tyrfing, Binding Blade, Armads/Durandal/Sol Katti. I'd call it almost something of an accident that the Siegs are more than boss-busters, and Ragnell in RD is what begins moving the lord ultimates away from boss-busters. Skip over the remakes, and yeah Chromion ends up being a more than a final boss-buster, and then Yato is only to a small degree a boss-buster. And does the SotC do anything notable against any final boss?

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2 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I can accept these points.

Tyrfing is a boss-buster, albeit not a final boss-buster, that is the root of FE's lord ultimates. Falchion, Falchion, Falchion, Tyrfing, Binding Blade, Armads/Durandal/Sol Katti. I'd call it almost something of an accident that the Siegs are more than boss-busters, and Ragnell in RD is what begins moving the lord ultimates away from boss-busters. Skip over the remakes, and yeah Chromion ends up being a more than a final boss-buster, and then Yato is only to a small degree a boss-buster. And does the SotC do anything notable against any final boss?

I THINK it's effective against the Crimson Flower and Silver Snow final boss? Not entirely sure, maybe its an exception or something.

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3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

But then... suddenly Julius says “Hey, let's play a game to see who can kill the first meatbag!” and she's all “YOU ARE SO FUCKING ON, MY LOVE!”

I'm just completely at a loss for who the fuck she's even supposed to be.

I mean your army did kill her brother and father, so she has a solid reason to want revenge against the liberators.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

the majority of its stat bonuses are almost completely worthless due to the fact that it can't make use of that resistance bonus to counter-attack mages,

You are dismissing the usefulness of that resistance a fair bit, as that instant immunity to status staves and enormous protection against siege tomes is a godsend against castle Edda, and the area around Freege.

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

isn't even a single boss in the game the damned thing makes it uniquely useful against, except MAYBE Arvis.

If you ever try to take on Julius without Julia you may change your tune, as it is useful against him, just not comically so like Naga. Plus if you need someone able to take a vantage adept proc from Ishtar, the Tyrfing can let Celice accomplish that.

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I don't think we can take Manfroy's "she'll be dead by sundown" comment in good faith considering Manfroy doesn't plan to kill her at all (I mean, if Seliph didn't kill Manfroy first she'd probably die to the liberation army, but I think Manfroy's plan there was more use her as a weapon and not manipulate the liberation army into killing her).

I also think you're being a bit too harsh on Tyrfing. It basically makes Seliph and Sigurd immune to magic damage. Least we forget it also grants them miracle. They basically become invincible when they have it. Like they can solo Chapter 5 and Endgame by themselves with little issue. Saying there are other holy weapons that are better also doesn't really apply when comparing it to other lords weapons. 

And now let's analyze Marth's Falchion in Shadow Dragon. where it's basically just an unbreakable Wrymslayer, and durability barely even matters for all of the two chapters you have it for, and there aren't even that many dragons in Endgame. All of the Regelia are better than it in availability and power, especially Gradivus. Hell it's even worse than a regular old Silver Sword, having all the same stats except weight where it's two heavier. It isn't even the best Dragon Slaying Weapon as Tiki's divine stone hits much harder. Ditching Starlight in favor of the Starsphere for infinite Divine Stone/Gradivus use is way better than Falchion. At least in Shadow Dragon (and Mystery of the Emblem_, in the original NES game it made Marth immune to all melee weapons which, while not practically all that useful given the point in the game it' s obtained and how great Marth is anyway, is pretty damn cool. 

Simply put, Marth's Falchion in Shadow Drgaon sucks. It's not the best weapon in the game, not even better than generic wepaons, and isn't even the best option for taking down Medeus. And to cap it all off, it doesn't even give Marth any unique animations!

Edited by Jotari
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11 hours ago, Jotari said:

I don't think we can take Manfroy's "she'll be dead by sundown" comment in good faith considering Manfroy doesn't plan to kill her at all (I mean, if Seliph didn't kill Manfroy first she'd probably die to the liberation army, but I think Manfroy's plan there was more use her as a weapon and not manipulate the liberation army into killing her).

I also think you're being a bit too harsh on Tyrfing. It basically makes Seliph and Sigurd immune to magic damage. Least we forget it also grants them miracle. They basically become invincible when they have it. Like they can solo Chapter 5 and Endgame by themselves with little issue. Saying there are other holy weapons that are better also doesn't really apply when comparing it to other lords weapons. 

And now let's analyze Marth's Falchion in Shadow Dragon. where it's basically just an unbreakable Wrymslayer, and durability barely even matters for all of the two chapters you have it for, and there aren't even that many dragons in Endgame. All of the Regelia are better than it in availability and power, especially Gradivus. Hell it's even worse than a regular old Silver Sword, having all the same stats except weight where it's two heavier. It isn't even the best Dragon Slaying Weapon as Tiki's divine stone hits much harder. Ditching Starlight in favor of the Starsphere for infinite Divine Stone/Gradivus use is way better than Falchion. At least in Shadow Dragon (and Mystery of the Emblem_, in the original NES game it made Marth immune to all melee weapons which, while not practically all that useful given the point in the game it' s obtained and how great Marth is anyway, is pretty damn cool. 

Simply put, Marth's Falchion in Shadow Drgaon sucks. It's not the best weapon in the game, not even better than generic wepaons, and isn't even the best option for taking down Medeus. And to cap it all off, it doesn't even give Marth any unique animations!

Fair points, but even though Tiki can do more damage to Medeus, at least the damage Marth does to him isn't a maximum of 5 per hit.

 

Genealogy Day 31: Arvis

Alright. Let's do this. First thing I do is have Leif, on his way back from the villages east of Miletos, rescue Fee to give her a boost on her flight across the sea, on the off chance there's a hold up. Highly doubtful, as I've just sent Arthur in to take out a bunch of them while backed up with Seliph's aura. He'll probably have to rush back to repair Forseti after this turn though. It's getting pretty low. But hey, he's got the gold for it.

Yeah, that went about as spectacularly as you would expect. He was too dodgetanky for some of them though, so I used my cavalry to cut a path through the forces that clumped in front of him beyond the bridge and had him kill the sleep staff bishop and ride off towards the dark mages. This, combined with Altena and Fee (slightly delayed by needing to warp Leif in order for him to reach Arthur with the rescue staff in order for Arthur to repair his tome and get back in one turn), seems to have convinced the dark mages to back off from Palmarch and the children.

...Nope, that was just them regrouping for some reason. No matter, they didn't make it in attacking range of the children or even Palmarch by the time Arthur rode in to slaughter them all. His magical bulk is good enough at this point that it didn't even matter if all four of the remaining dark mages hit him.

Seliph, Dermott and Nanna ride over to pick up the Tyrfing, using their auras to perfectly dodgetank the meteor tome users.

Also, the Forseti has 100 kills now. Arthur has a crit rate of 82. He is level 30. He has achieved absolute, sublime perfection. Killing anything with him can't possibly make him any stronger anymore, and yet I predict I'm still going to be doing it a ton in the next map.

And now Seliph has Tyrfing. This gives him a whopping 36 resistance thanks to his Naga blood giving him an actual resistance stat to begin with, meaning the fight with Arvis is gonna be a breeze. I mean, I don't NEED to use him, as I said. Arthur can still obliterate him in pretty short order, but come on. It's Arvis. Seliph's gotta be the one to kill the bastard. And also I have to remember to wait next to a water tile after killing him so I can see the talk with his parents, and that incredibly bittersweet reprise of Seliph's Theme.

Next, I have Oifey talk to Seliph, after taking out the meteor mages, but before finishing of Arvis, just in case that becomes unavailable after he dies. Apparently everyone knows the dark god has been resurrected, but they don't know who it is, and a lot of people think it's either Arvis or Manfroy. Curious. I guess I was just baselessly assuming, but I thought that everyone in-story knew it was Julius.

Oh my god. When Sigurd appeared, the Seliph's theme remix played, and Seliph suddenly realized who he was seeing, I just about cried.

...That said, the conversation that preceded and followed that moment was pretty weak. Sigurd and Dierdre finally get to see their beloved son all grown up, having finally defeated the Emperor of Grannvale, and they basically just nag him and then leave after only a minute. They... Sigurd never even says anything aside from what almost sounds scolding. And I hate it.

...Everything here is perfect for an extremely emotional moment, but they basically ruined it in the execution.

Moving on, Seliph (or actually Lewyn) gets a talk with Tinni that mentions her fighting Hilda. Does this only happen if she fights her, or does it just assume she took part?

But anyway, this was a pretty great conversation, where Lewyn's informed of just what happened to his children after he abandoned them. I like the implication that... okay, so, this is kind of vague and unclear from what I've heard, but as I remember it, Lewyn is dead. He's been re-animated by the wind dragon, which is why he abandoned his children in the first place, he's not entirely in control of his behavior. So the implication here is that Tinni's story either pushed what remains of Lewyn out to the surface to bring him to tears, or that it actually made the normally stoic wind dragon cry... I like the former interpretation better, but either way, it's pretty powerful.

Also, Tinni got like +5 magic from the conversation. I've given her all the villagers for the hell of it, since all of my big hitters are already maxed, so I've got a feeling she'll be able to kill Hilda again too, as long as she's still silenceable. But of course I want to have Arthur fight her too. Incidentally, all of the villager kids you rescue around Palmarch had the same rescue dialogue as the first batch.

After that, since she gained a ton of levels this map, I figured, why not? Let's send Tinni back home to the castle and have her try the arena.

She swept it. Not on her first try, but there wasn't a single fight were it wasn't trivial to re-try for an eventual win without any healing. Wrath and Adept is a nasty combination in the arena.

Oooh! It's a bit late, but Sharlow (and also Corple) can talk to Altena to give her a whopping +5 to resistance, bringing it to 7. Not fantastic, not really even enough to protect her from sleep staves unless she has both a Barrier Ring AND the Barrier Blade, but still, +5 to a stat is a big improvement.

But with that, there's nothing left to do this chapter, so...

...It's time. It's time to move on to the endgame. The last twelfth of the game.

Oh for fuck's sake game, you gave André and Scorpius the same fucking portrait!?

The intro narration says that “over a year has passed” since the first battle in isaac. Given that in many cases it's made blatantly clear that these battles are taking place over the course of a single day, I would LOVE to know when that year had a chance to pass in between chapters.

Wow. Complete silence when the final chapter title screen plays. That was... surprisingly cool.

Anyway, The final chapter of the game seems... really, really late to be giving exposition about what Loptyr is, but at least it didn't take too long.

Oh yes. This looks like it's gonna be interesting. There are a ton of dark mages on the cliffs, who have Fenrir tomes and Sleep staves. I'm gonna have to take them out asap, which means I'm gonna have to use both of my fliers and make them capable of surviving these guys. Thank GOODNESS Altena got that res boost from Sharlow, otherwise that would be basically impossible! Now it's just gonna be a little annoying.

Yeah, this is gonna be pretty interesting. But one issue I have at the moment, before I really start... is that I don't much care for the final map theme. It's not really badass or dramatic enough for the situation. It doesn't feel like a final map theme, it feels like the thing that plays in a Fire Emblem game when it gives every one of your units you deployed a chance to say a one liner before the final battle begins. Given how great this game's soundtrack is, that's really disappointing, but oh well, there's other great music yet to come.

...It's kind of funny to think this is almost over. I'm actually... kind of sad about it, despite being super excited for the next game. I think this is the first time in this marathon where I wasn't in any sense relieved to be done with a game by the end of it. This game's gameplay isn't without its major problems, and its enemy encounters aren't exactly super imaginative all of the time, true... but I think the I feel this way, feeling the end of the game as such a bittersweet thing, because I really, really love this team I put together. I didn't just raise these characters, I raised their PARENTS. I spent nearly a month before I even got to use these guys, just setting the stage for their grand appearance, and then I got to make them all badasses in their own right, with almost everyone having an awesome role I set them up for. All of these guys turned out to be really fun to use in their own way, to the point that I struggle to think of even half a dozen that I haven't found super useful. And... I want to use them more. I want to see these guys tested more. I want to lead these guys on way more epic battles than I know are left in this game, and... that makes me sad. For all the buildup to getting these guys, I just wish there were more payoff. There are a few of them I've barely had for very long, and I wanted to have more time with them. Gen 1 took me so long and was kind of a slog at times, but Gen 2's been so much fun, and I've been so willing to spend insane amounts of time playing it, that it's felt so much shorter, like I've barely had time with it.

But no matter. Time to focus on the matter at hand, and then hope I enjoy Thracia 776 as much as I think I'm going to.

Until tomorrow, guys.

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55 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

okay, so, this is kind of vague and unclear from what I've heard, but as I remember it, Lewyn is dead. He's been re-animated by the wind dragon, which is why he abandoned his children in the first place, he's not entirely in control of his behavior.

Its more that a vast majority of the places they talk about that plot point were untranslated before. For instance one of the big ones is in an opening demo scene that gets added to the rotation after 12 clears, and another you will be seeing for the first time soon...

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Not fantastic, not really even enough to protect her from sleep staves unless she has both a Barrier Ring AND the Barrier Blade, but still, +5 to a stat is a big improvement.

Even with those its not enough for most of the sleep staff users (I think the only one that would block is the named leader of Edda)

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

There are a ton of dark mages on the cliffs, who have Fenrir tomes and Sleep staves.

It's not quite that bad, as its silence staff instead of sleep staff on those specific dark mages, but there are a fair number of sleep staff yet to come...

 

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14 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The intro narration says that “over a year has passed” since the first battle in isaac. Given that in many cases it's made blatantly clear that these battles are taking place over the course of a single day, I would LOVE to know when that year had a chance to pass in between chapters.

WRONG! SO VERY WRONG! I WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH IN LOPTOUS'S ARENA OF CHILD-FIGHTING OVER THIS!

Do you seriously think it's possible to traverse vast swathes of an entire continent in a single day? How severely unrealistic that is.

Most FE narratives take roughly a year to finish, I can't actually think of any that doesn't barring a timeskip.

So, why do you have this erroneous that it's a single day? Well, blame Genealogy's unique formatting for that.

 

How about we go back to Chapter 3 for a moment, and pretend it was a normal FE:

  1. Opening narration.
  2. Show perspective of Chagall and Eldigan.
  3. Flip to perspective of Orgahill pirates.
  4. Flip to perspective of Sigurd.
  5. Go into a base camp to do preparations for the next fight.
  6. Go to the prep screen, with maybe a little new dialogue before it.
  7. Start the battle to conquer Madino, with maybe a little dialogue placed right before the battle begins.
  8. Sigurd seizes Madino, battle ends.
  9. Sigurd hears that Chagall isn't at Madino, speaks with Claud.
  10. Chapter "3-1" ends. Player is given a choice to save their date. Now it reads "Chapter 3-2".
  11. Player choses to start Chapter 3-2 when they feel like it.
  12. Chapter 3-2's opening narration unfolds.
  13. Perspective of Deidre, gets kidnapped.
  14. Perspective of Chagall and Eldigan
  15. Perspective of Sigurd, who realizes he must mobilize and intercept Eldigan before he can reach the less-defended Agusty.
  16. Base camp at Madino Castle.
  17. Leave the castle to a prep screen, possibly with some additional dialogue before you get to it.
  18. Leave the prep screen, possibly a little more dialogue.
  19. Chapter 3-2's battle starts.

 

Now then, would you tell me that 3-1 and 3-2 took place on the same day?

I would hope you wouldn't tell me that if they made no indisputable statement saying it was the same day. I severely doubt there would be a such a statement.

Why would you tell me 3-1 and 3-2 took place on separate days? Because of structuring, the pause between the events of 3-1 and 3-2. You don't see the sun set and the moon rise, so it could very well be a single day. But you're not so foolish to think that, because the break in gameplay leads you to think there was a break in fighting more substantial than that. And that would be right.

 

So, what is Genealogy's problem then? Simple, two things: 

  1. Its battlefields cover entire countries, it's a scale unmatched in other FEs.
  2. There is no save-and-quit return to narration and preparations break.

When you don't see the passage of day and night, it's easier to think that an entire FE4 chapter is taking place in a single day. Which is simply not possible realistically given the sheer amount of land being crossed. Jugdral would have to be the size of Fiji to somehow fit both 10 and F in a single day, which is preposterous.

Without the break in narration, it seems as though the enemy is reacting spontaneously to developments else. It seems as though Chagall could see alllllllllllll the way to Madino from Silvail with the naked eye. No, he can't. In another other game, if they placed his ordering of the Cross Knights to move out the start of the subsequent chapter, you'd think he was doing this at least one day later, and that it'd need maybe at least another day to get the Cross Knights to travel far enough to seize Agusty.

They couldn't include such a narrative pause in FE4 as is, how would they? Do you want them to drag out these drawn out maps even more with time spent on enemy turns waiting for an unassailable enemy scout to gather intel, and then get to get back to the their castle and then take another turn for the baddie to digest the information? Would you want FE4's turns rebranded as "days" with a brief passing of the sun, moonrise, and cracking of dawn again? -Actually, that isn't a terrible idea.

Break FE4 down to bite-size, and you have wouldn't have this sorely mistaken notion. The size of the maps, besides being unwieldy in the gameplay, created a fault in perception it seems. 

 

15 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Gen 1 took me so long and was kind of a slog at times, but Gen 2's been so much fun, and I've been so willing to spend insane amounts of time playing it, that it's felt so much shorter, like I've barely had time with it.

Same, replaying FE4 for changing up the children sounds great, but having to sit through Gen 1 again is tedious. If only there could be a "Branch of Fate" like Fates, where you can recustomize Corrin but skip Chapters 5 and beforehand. Except now it'd be for retooling pairing and item inheritance.

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3 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

WRONG! SO VERY WRONG! I WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH IN LOPTOUS'S ARENA OF CHILD-FIGHTING OVER THIS!

Do you seriously think it's possible to traverse vast swathes of an entire continent in a single day? How severely unrealistic that is.

Most FE narratives take roughly a year to finish, I can't actually think of any that doesn't barring a timeskip.

So, why do you have this erroneous that it's a single day?

Because whatever timespan it is, there are multiple instances of people spending it bleeding out on the floor, left for dead, and living long enough to talk to you, or even making a full recovery.

I am well aware that it makes no sense for these battles to take place across a single day. But it doesn't make any sense for them to take multiple days or weeks or months either. I'm saying that the game's sense of time and space is completely stonk bonkers. The writers don't actually have any established sense of how long these battles take, because there isn't a single timescale you can write for these damned things that isn't hilariously contradicted by some absurdity the game puts in there without thinking.

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13 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

WRONG! SO VERY WRONG! I WILL FIGHT YOU TO THE DEATH IN LOPTOUS'S ARENA OF CHILD-FIGHTING OVER THIS!

Do you seriously think it's possible to traverse vast swathes of an entire continent in a single day? How severely unrealistic that is.

Most FE narratives take roughly a year to finish, I can't actually think of any that doesn't barring a timeskip.

So, why do you have this erroneous that it's a single day? Well, blame Genealogy's unique formatting for that.

 

How about we go back to Chapter 3 for a moment, and pretend it was a normal FE:

  1. Opening narration.
  2. Show perspective of Chagall and Eldigan.
  3. Flip to perspective of Orgahill pirates.
  4. Flip to perspective of Sigurd.
  5. Go into a base camp to do preparations for the next fight.
  6. Go to the prep screen, with maybe a little new dialogue before it.
  7. Start the battle to conquer Madino, with maybe a little dialogue placed right before the battle begins.
  8. Sigurd seizes Madino, battle ends.
  9. Sigurd hears that Chagall isn't at Madino, speaks with Claud.
  10. Chapter "3-1" ends. Player is given a choice to save their date. Now it reads "Chapter 3-2".
  11. Player choses to start Chapter 3-2 when they feel like it.
  12. Chapter 3-2's opening narration unfolds.
  13. Perspective of Deidre, gets kidnapped.
  14. Perspective of Chagall and Eldigan
  15. Perspective of Sigurd, who realizes he must mobilize and intercept Eldigan before he can reach the less-defended Agusty.
  16. Base camp at Madino Castle.
  17. Leave the castle to a prep screen, possibly with some additional dialogue before you get to it.
  18. Leave the prep screen, possibly a little more dialogue.
  19. Chapter 3-2's battle starts.

 

Now then, would you tell me that 3-1 and 3-2 took place on the same day?

I would hope you wouldn't tell me that if they made no indisputable statement saying it was the same day. I severely doubt there would be a such a statement.

Why would you tell me 3-1 and 3-2 took place on separate days? Because of structuring, the pause between the events of 3-1 and 3-2. You don't see the sun set and the moon rise, so it could very well be a single day. But you're not so foolish to think that, because the break in gameplay leads you to think there was a break in fighting more substantial than that. And that would be right.

 

So, what is Genealogy's problem then? Simple, two things: 

  1. Its battlefields cover entire countries, it's a scale unmatched in other FEs.
  2. There is no save-and-quit return to narration and preparations break.

When you don't see the passage of day and night, it's easier to think that an entire FE4 chapter is taking place in a single day. Which is simply not possible realistically given the sheer amount of land being crossed. Jugdral would have to be the size of Fiji to somehow fit both 10 and F in a single day, which is preposterous.

Without the break in narration, it seems as though the enemy is reacting spontaneously to developments else. It seems as though Chagall could see alllllllllllll the way to Madino from Silvail with the naked eye. No, he can't. In another other game, if they placed his ordering of the Cross Knights to move out the start of the subsequent chapter, you'd think he was doing this at least one day later, and that it'd need maybe at least another day to get the Cross Knights to travel far enough to seize Agusty.

They couldn't include such a narrative pause in FE4 as is, how would they? Do you want them to drag out these drawn out maps even more with time spent on enemy turns waiting for an unassailable enemy scout to gather intel, and then get to get back to the their castle and then take another turn for the baddie to digest the information? Would you want FE4's turns rebranded as "days" with a brief passing of the sun, moonrise, and cracking of dawn again? -Actually, that isn't a terrible idea.

Break FE4 down to bite-size, and you have wouldn't have this sorely mistaken notion. The size of the maps, besides being unwieldy in the gameplay, created a fault in perception it seems. 

 

Same, replaying FE4 for changing up the children sounds great, but having to sit through Gen 1 again is tedious. If only there could be a "Branch of Fate" like Fates, where you can recustomize Corrin but skip Chapters 5 and beforehand. Except now it'd be for retooling pairing and item inheritance.

To add to this, I'd point out that Thracia, with it's more standard Fire Emblem chapter division, takes place within a single year and actually has one of the more existent acknowledgement of the passage of time (the title 776 refers to the year it takes place, though about half the game actually takes place in 777 due to the year changing). It also takes place simultaneously with Chapters 6, 7 and 8 of Genealogy of the Holy War so it can be applied there. It takes Seliph six months to liberate Iassac and travel to Leinster.

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Because whatever timespan it is, there are multiple instances of people spending it bleeding out on the floor, left for dead, and living long enough to talk to you, or even making a full recovery.

I am well aware that it makes no sense for these battles to take place across a single day. But it doesn't make any sense for them to take multiple days or weeks or months either. I'm saying that the game's sense of time and space is completely stonk bonkers. The writers don't actually have any established sense of how long these battles take, because there isn't a single timescale you can write for these damned things that isn't hilariously contradicted by some absurdity the game puts in there without thinking.

Or we could just take it to mean that the events we view don't happen exactly when we view them due to its nature and set up as a game. Like InterdimensonalOberver suggested, if it was formatted more like an ordinary game, such things like Batu bleeding out would happen at the start of the chapter and the chapter would take place within the castle itself, but the way Genealogy paces itself due to the castle seize set up means it's most convenient to display that scene upon capturing the previous castle even if in canon the event happened much later.

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1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Because whatever timespan it is, there are multiple instances of people spending it bleeding out on the floor, left for dead, and living long enough to talk to you, or even making a full recovery.

I am well aware that it makes no sense for these battles to take place across a single day. But it doesn't make any sense for them to take multiple days or weeks or months either. I'm saying that the game's sense of time and space is completely stonk bonkers. The writers don't actually have any established sense of how long these battles take, because there isn't a single timescale you can write for these damned things that isn't hilariously contradicted by some absurdity the game puts in there without thinking.

Fair counterpoint, I concede on the dyings I had forgotten.😅

At the end of the day, King Batu Khan's slow death is what must be considered the irregularity, a bigger picture detail like Gen 2 taking a year takes priority. Be it only a cage trying to hold back the contradictions created by going so darned big with the maps and not making everything narratively harmonious at such a scale.

This reminds me, how many Loptian Emperors were there again the ~140 year history of the Loptous Empire? I know thats a tiny detail they seriously fudged and didn't think through.

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Just for the record, Genealogy of the Holy War starts in the year 757, and the Barhara Massacre takes place in 761. The unused Thracia 776 timeline gives it almost exactly one chapter per year (with the exception being the prologue lumped into the same year as chapter 1). There are of course time skips between chapters, but none of them are a year long, in fact we get a pretty precise number as to how long some of them are. That Gen 2 managed to take place in just a single year (or at least a year from the start to Chapter 6 until the end of Chapter 10) is actually rather questionable. We know it took Seliph six months to liberate Isaach and reach Leinster castle, which means the entirety of Chapters 8, 9 and 10 take place in just six months. That is to say finally defeating Blume, the entire conflict in Thracia and the conquest of Miletos/Chalphy all take an average of two months each. Seliph conquers three countries in the average time it takes Sigurd to conquer one. Granted the narration in the final chapter says "over" a year has passed, so you could extend it a bit, but I doubt that would mean much more than fifteen or sixteen months.

25 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

This reminds me, how many Loptian Emperors were there again the ~140 year history of the Loptous Empire? I know thats a tiny detail they seriously fudged and didn't think through.

I covered that point in the past too. That was some real nice two pages of discussion. Shame it didn't last longer though.

 

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Genealogy Day 32: The Beginning of the End of the End

For the vast majority of my army, the arena is mostly just for gold, and sometimes it's mostly just a formality. Most of my heavy hitters are capped at 30, and many don't even have that much more of a need for gold. Which is good, because the enemies in this arena are no joke, and even some of my best units find themselves struggling with it. Especially the last enemy, a baron with an Earth Sword, Pursuit, and a ludicrously high attack speed that lets him double a lot of units I've never seen struggle to double anyone.

Tinni, however, managed to sweep the whole damned thing. I got her to buy the Paragon Ring after Dermott reached level 30 in the arena with it, and she managed to promote after a few battles and become a war mage. I managed to get her Tornado and Thoron too. Not like anyone else is making use of them. Without Pursuit she's hardly going to be great, but she has staff utility, and more importantly, I have little doubt she can fight Hilda now without Ced's help. But this time she and her brother are going to take her out together.

As has been pointed out, I mistook those silence staves for sleep staves, so these guys aren't as big a threat as I thought. They don't really have the power to silence any of my committed pure mages/healers, just Leif and Nanna and the like. But I still want the fuckers gone immediately, so I don't have to worry about where I place my more vulnerable units around my own fucking castle. I still gave Altena the Barrier Ring and Barrier Blade because the previous owners, Leif and Ulster respectively, weren't getting that much use out of the things. Altena's 1 extra movement range, by the way, means she can actually reach one of the Fenrir users on the northwestern cliff on turn one with a javelin before switching back to the Barrier Blade to defend herself. And she has just enough power to one-round them with a javelin too, just using Pursuit!

The first cavalry battalion sent my way is pretty easily dispatched with Patty and Ulster, with some aura support. I had to put Seliph in enemy range, but there was only one enemy who attacked him that he couldn't counter-attack, and that one was pretty resoundingly dispatched on player phase, along with the others who had an attack range shorter than the boss's. Now for the bigger concern: the massive army guarding Edda. Arthur should be able to take these fuckers out with ease, but the issue is that there are Sleep staff users with some pretty hefty magic: 21. Arthur with a Barrier Ring isn't good enough anymore, so if I want to enemy-phase these fuckers, I have to have Arthur not end his turn in range of one of the Sleep users. Which means I have to take both of the Sleep users in one turn, without leaving behind anyone who can't handle the enemy phase when I end my turn.

...Exept no, there aren't just four 21 magic Sleep users, two to the north and two to the south... there are two in the middle too, by the leader who inexplicably has weaker magic with his Sleep staff than his own minions do. Damn it. Looks like Rescue-assisted hit and runs are gonna have to be necessary here, because I don't have anyone who can both tank the sleep staves and enemy-phase the surrounding physical troops.

So I put Arthur at the edge of the range of one, send him in, position Leif to rescue him and canto at just the right position that Leylia can safely dance them without putting herself in range of the bolting users, then have Arthur dive in for the remaining southern Sleep staff user and have Leif rescue him again.

I love how I just have these well-defined and frequently-relevant jobs for so many members of my army. Like that compliment I gave Gaiden's endgame, but with more plentiful roles and with a less weird system.

Do I need to make sure somebody in my army can hit something, or get attacked and not die? Seliph, Dermott and Nanna. Do I need that, but want to trade survivability for dance utility? Leylia. Do I need someone to tank and simultaneously bait in a massive army while backed up by auras without scaring anyone away with excessive evade, or do I need someone to even reliably survive massive physical enemy encounters WITHOUT aura backup? Patty and Ulster. Do I need a big time bosskiller, or somebody to ride out to places I can't safely take my aura users, someone who in a pinch I can even send out without aura backup and still almost certainly not lose him, all with a good enough resistance to head into Sleep staff territory? Arthur. Do I need big time heal utility on the go, or somebody who's basically immune to seige tomes, or just someone with flying? Fee. Do I need backup for Fee, or just need someone who can fly but isn't Fee so Fee can heal them, or just need to get there as fast as I can, even if it's just a little faster, or someone who can fly but take bigger physical hits? Altena. Do I need massive status staff firepower and healing combined with good evasion and psychotically high resistance stat? Ced. Do I need someone who can use a rescue staff while having 9 move and canto, and who can take and give a serious beating if necessary? Leif. Do I need a heavy-hitter? Faval. Do I need a heavy hitter but have a bit less of a need for oomph and a bit more need for enemy-phase potential? Shanan. Do I need heavy hitting on a horse? Ares and now Seliph.

In a lot of FE games I find that my characters are just filling minor variations on one of a few general roles, repeated throughout my army. Here? Well, like I said as a complaint back in Gen 1, I rarely need my whole army at the same time, I've still been finding that basically everyone in my army sees crucial use at least once in every chapter. That makes this easily, by a country fucking mile, my favorite team I've gotten to play around with in this marathon so far.

Anyway, I have managed to find a pretty fun use for Tyrfing here. Now that all the physical fighters are gone, particularly the bow fighters he can't kill on enemy phase, Seliph's insane res stat basically means I don't have to kill any of the other stationary mages at all, so his inability to counterattack is utterly fucking irrelevant. I can just have him waltz on up to the castle boss and kill-seize to beat them all. It's not like I need the exp anymore.

...So, I guess what I'm saying is that okay, fine, I will concede Tyrfing has its uses like a few of you have said.

Alright, that's funny. So according to the victory conversation, Claude IS dead. His children only THINK that he's alive and abandoned them. Which is... kind of bizarre, don't you think? Fee and Ced have been searching for info about their father, and Seliph and Lewyn are talking like his death is common knowledge. What's funny is that this conversation is to some degree customized around them, because it lists them by name at bare minimum, saying that once the empire falls, they'll be the leaders of Edda, Claude's former territory. I'm assuming that stuff like this is gonna happen a good deal in this chapter and in the epilogue.

...I made good time with this, surprisingly. So let's keep going.

Upon seizing, Dozel opens up and the Grauenritter, an entire massive army of great knights led by Brian, which is a hilariously mundane and lame-sounding name for A MASTER KNIGHT WIELDING THE FUCKING HELSWATH, starts bum-rushing the castle. Also, for some reason, despite their attack speed being atrocious (not even Hannibal gets doubled by them), every single one of these enemies, other than the troubadours, has Pursuit as a personal skill. If, by the end of the turn after this one, I don't have someone good guarding the castle, there are going to be some problems. Really, only Brian is going to be a major problem, as the rest have hit so low they probably won't even dare attack whoever I send to guard it. But I will obviously have to clear them out with cavalry hit and runs. So I start having Fee warp some people back to take out the Grauenritter, starting with Ulster, the guy who's gonna guard the castle, and Finn, who's going to help clear the enemies out. I'm gonna send any cavalry who hasn't reached level 30 to do this, because hey, might as well, it's a bunch of promoted mooks and a safe place to attack them from. And thankfully, Altena, doubling back to see if she can get those villages across the cliff, just BARELY manages to squeze onto the cliffs in time to not have to fight any of the incoming great knights. Not that it's likely she wouldn't be able to take them, but it was still amusing to just barely slip past them.

The guys sent to take out my advancing army, in comparison, are absolutely pathetic. A bunch of unpromoted axe knights and a single great knight with a silver axe. I'm having Areas take care of a good deal of these guys.

Props to the boss though, he managed to survive two whole hits of Mystletainn, only going down on a third one.

One of the villagers starts ranting about my big responsibility to win this holy war, then starts mentioning wisdom, power and courage. The fuck is this, Legend of Zelda?

But in all seriousness, I'm having a lot of fun with this map. I'm having a lot of fun figuring out how to plow through these enemies as quickly as I can without any advance planning. It's a surprisingly smooth and uninterrupted forward march.

Leif's helping Rescue the stragglers on said march. Man, I really wish I could have had that staff earlier. Even if just a little. Hell, next time I play the game, I think I'm gonna have Azel marry Aideen, because having the rescue staff more than a whole map sooner than normal by passing it down to Ced sounds way more useful than Lester's gonna be.

Brian and Ulster face off in an epic clash, Helswath versus the Wind Blade of a Hundred Stars. It takes two rounds, but Brian goes down, causing him to express shock at how easily he was beaten even with Helswath (giving him a whopping FORTY SEVEN DEFENSE that Ulster needed those crits he got to pierce). And then, curiously, his ease of defeat causes him to wonder if he was “wrong all along”. Wrong about being a badass? Or, as I think is more likely, is he talking about him realizing in death that he was in the wrong and that he lost because the gods aren't on his side?

The second villager recites his dumb poem while goofy music plays, even though it's clear the poem isn't trying to be dumb. It just kind of is. It doesn't even rhyme.

Alright, I just took Dozel. It's kind of hilarious how Seliph is totally ignoring these siege tome users guarding these castles. I actually like how useful this last map makes Tyrfing. I think I was judging it before based on how useful it would have been BEFORE it showed up, since I didn't exactly have vivid memories of the final map. Not nearly as vivid as my memories of the rest of the game, anyway. A lot of my memories of playing this as a teenager revolved around constantly restarting to perfect my starting team, making absurdly broken units to compensate for my general lack of skill (I was a very, very patient young man). Truth be told... while I've played this game tons upon tons of times in my life... I think I've only ever fully beaten it once. Well, live and learn. Tyrfing is more useful than I thought.

Okay, so... is it supposed to be a twist that the gods are actually dragons, or dramatic irony? Because they're using the same fucking names as characters we already know are dragons from previous games. If it's supposed to be dramatic irony... they didn't really do anything, like even slightly interesting with it. And now the secret's revealed, and... who the fuck cares? What's really changed in the long run by having it turn out that the gods that gave divine power to the crusaders were actually dragon-shaped gods?

At any rate, Dozel has been seized, which made me realize that that thing I mentioned with there being no “units disappearing” sound and animation happens when players seize too, as long as there aren't any enemies on screen when it happens.

Anyway, that's where I'll finish this up for today.

Tomorrow, I think we'll be killing Hilda.

Oh this is gonna be FUUUUUN.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Upon seizing, Dozel opens up and the Grauenritter, an entire massive army of great knights led by Brian, which is a hilariously mundane and lame-sounding name for A MASTER KNIGHT WIELDING THE FUCKING HELSWATH

AH YES! THE FEARSOME, ALMIGHTY BRIAN!

On the Oosawa manga, supposedly the manga ends after Seliph retakes Chalphy. I have no way of knowing this for certain since the manga isn't fully translated, but it ends there. Supposedly it's also implied that Seliph ends up with Julia even after he learns she's his half-sister, but the only confirmation I have of that is some guy on TV Tropes that edited their entry on Genealogy.

I should probably see if I can get that manga imported.

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10 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Because whatever timespan it is, there are multiple instances of people spending it bleeding out on the floor, left for dead, and living long enough to talk to you, or even making a full recovery.

To give the game the benefit of the doubt there are more ways to die of your wounds than simply bleeding out. Infections, leading to sepsis or necrosis could have them suffering for days to week(s?) before dying horribly.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Upon seizing, Dozel opens up and the Grauenritter, an entire massive army of great knights led by Brian, which is a hilariously mundane and lame-sounding name for A MASTER KNIGHT WIELDING THE FUCKING HELSWATH, starts bum-rushing the castle.

I rather like how they use Brian to make you worry about the defense of your castles,

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14 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I rather like how they use Brian to make you worry about the defense of your castles,

As do I. It wasn't too difficult, but I did enjoy the extremely short timeframe to get the best guard you can think of. That might have been way more intense if Fee had been somewhere else. It is, however, ALMOST approaching ambush spawn territory with how close it is to the castle. But the game's made a habit of telegraphing when enemy forces appear, and that the area nearby a roadblock is an extremely dangerous place to be when you trigger a new castle flag. And I really don't mind that at all. These things don't cause that extremely un-fun sense of paranoia when you at least know WHEN and to a reasonable extent WHERE something's going to appear, if not what. That's more than enough warning to be fair.

Edited by Alastor15243
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Unpopular opinion. Genealogy would have benefited from ambush spawn 5 tiles from your castle. You are supposed to leave a garrison, but doing so is relevant like 2 times in the whole game. Arden would still be crap but at least not a complete waste of time.

Edited by Flere210
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27 minutes ago, Flere210 said:

Unpopular opinion. Genealogy would have benefited from ambush spawn 5 tiles from your castle. You are supposed to leave a garrison, but doing so is relevant like 2 times in the whole game. Arden would still be crap but at least not a complete waste of time.

One issue with castle defense is that even if the game implemented it further, it essentially boils down to placing a single unit on the castle and then just tanking the entire enemy army. Like it's cool to have a unit act like as typical Fire Emblem boss, but it's not exactly riveting gameplay. If we had ambush spawns attacking the castle the whole time then it would basically become "oh well here's how Arden gets his exp". It wouldn't really add much a bunch of enemy attack animations.

I think what the game needs is for player castles to be more central. They're always at the edge of a map and most chapters have a rather clear linear path to the final castle. This means you're always pushing forward and the only thing that really could threaten your home castle is ambush spawns. And ambush spawns can't be that strong because otherwise it'd be way too much bullshit if a super powerful enemy takes your castle when you actually did have someone defending it.

These aren't standard Fire Emblem maps yet the game is still kind of treating them like they are. Imagine instead of a single path, you useually spawned in the center of the map and you had several key goals branching out from the center. All these goals can be accomplished in any order you want, kind of like Megaman it it were a strategy game. Cautious bolsters would send their entire army to conquer each castle one at a time, but more confident and impatient players would split their army up and try to capture to separate castles at once.

Where does the caste defense aspect come into play? By having the enemy send powerful units at your castle. If your contributing less units to capturing a castle, then you might get into trouble and have to retreat back to your home castle and make a last ditch defense. If your focusing on one objective, enemies from the other castles can assault you while your home castle is lightly defended meaning there's more of a scramble to get back and defend.

Basically I think castle defense would work better if Holy War was more open world.

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