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

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, Shadow Mir said:

And your point is...? Because even a goddamn blind man can see Genealogy favors mounted units to a ludicrous extreme. Also, funds is one thing you're ranked on, so of course a ranked run is gonna use them a lot. That said, one crippling issue thieves have is that they were not balanced around being excepcted to regularly enter combat.

General word of advice: Don't adopt an angry/down-talking tone unless you're absolutely sure what you're saying is correct, otherwise it just makes you look bad.

Funds are not a category in FE4 ranked runs. The ranks are turns taken, units alive, experience gained, and save-scummed deaths. No funds.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

General word of advice: Don't adopt an angry/down-talking tone unless you're absolutely sure what you're saying is correct, otherwise it just makes you look bad.

Funds are not a category in FE4 ranked runs. The ranks are turns taken, units alive, experience gained, and save-scummed deaths. No funds.

 Goddamn, you ended this man's whole career.

[Whirlwind]

I don’t dislike any game I don’t play, also just started a new conquest run switched my character to mercenary and taking him down the bow knight path 

[Alastor15243]

New Mystery Day 27: Chapter 16

So apparently the narrator is Altean. “Yes, our homeland has been liberated”. That part wasn't the narrator quoting somebody. That was the narrator's own words. Our homeland. Not Marth's homeland. Our homeland.

The narration briefly and indirectly alludes to Caeda when it says “the girl who gently wiped away [Marth's] tears couldn't stop her own”. I wonder what happens with this narration if Caeda is dead? Does the game even let Caeda die this time?

...I just realized that the throne room was radically altered for that final prologue chapter. There was no water or anything like there's supposed to be. It was just pillars and walls.

Anyway, this map doesn't look too complicated. Certainly nothing compared to the beginning of last map... as long as I remember that damned self-opening door to the right that fucked me over last time.

Thankfully we don't have nearly as many talks today either. Though I will admit I'm looking forward to having Robert, Leiden and Belf all at rank B (They don't have a rank A, I think due to their late join time).

We have a Xane and Dakota support, and hilariously, instead of being annoyed by Xane mimicking him... he just assumes it's an illusion created by Medeus and attacks. After that though, it's pretty mediocre. Honestly, I don't think this game gets any funnier than when the avatar plays the role of “The Comically Serious”.

Speaking of which, in Dakota's support with Wendell, Dakota rather bluntly says he finds Gotoh a bit annoying with how “showy and mysterious” he acts, talking from afar and not doing anything directly to fight alongside us. And Wendell is utterly freaked out by his blunt lack of respect. But like, I mean... is it ever explained what he's been doing instead of fighting alongside us?

Alright, so, they try to explain why Astram wasn't recruitable until now in the multiple chapters where we've had Jeorge and Astram was on the map. Apparently it's something about him being a hothead and not having a chance to calm down and think about things, and that's why now's our only chance. Jeorge has to be the one to do it too, so I'm actually deploying him this time.

...I'll ditch Caeda, since she got to be part of last map while the other fliers didn't. Besides, her supports with my army are complete, while the Whitewings' aren't. Not completely.

I've gotta nab the geosphere as soon as possible, but the only way I can do that on turn 1 without using a warp or rescue staff is if I reclassed Dakota to horseman for 11 mov thanks to his boots. So, naturally... I'll just have my fliers chase after the thief and get it turn 2. There's no serious rush, since my guys can outrun him.

Speaking of thieves, the other ones don't have droppable items, but will be making a beeline for the treasure room, so I'll have to get there quickly. I'll be letting Belf borrow the Starsphere so that he can clear out the heroes in front of Astram. He'll be banking on crits to one-round them, but thankfully his crit rate is pretty dang high with a killing edge.

Once I've secured Astram and the treasures, the plan is to give the Starsphere to Robert and see if I can get him some more levels, this time as a warrior. It's got almost objectively better growths than horseman, and he's been struggling to gain exp compared to his allies due to how annoying this game makes player-phase combat. In all honesty, I'm only keeping him around and giving him this much of a chance because of his support bonuses with Leiden and Belf. He's probably the least useful member of my army that I've been continuously deploying. Hopefully some time enemy-phasing with the Starsphere will do him some good. Not that it'll boost his growths, but it'll let him see more combat and get more kills.

I'm sorry, what? Marth mentioning “What if they've stolen the Geosphere” made me suddenly realize the implications of the Geosphere being here. Is the Geosphere supposed to be a national treasure of Altea all of a sudden? Why would it be here? It was in the Fane of Raman last time!

...Fuck it, let's just get moving.

Thank goodness, this game decided to not be a colossal dick for once and actually tells me what the trigger for the ambush spawn is. So the second any of the chests are open, they're gonna open the throne room doors and attack. I'll have to make sure my entire army is well clear of there when that happens, so that I can work out what the hell to do.

Oh, and Macellan showed up, but, like... I think his stats are barely better than they were unpromoted in Shadow Dragon. He only has fifteen defense! As a general!

Anyway, thankfully, while Belf is a bit too far away to melee this nearby thief, he can one-round thieves with a levin sword, at least as long as he has the Starsphere or crits. Amusingly, both were the case today.

Belf got HP, strength, speed and defense, another awesome level! He's turning out really good!

I was unfortunately forced to retreat thanks to Jeorge not moving far enough (not enough room in the hallway by the time I moved him), and if I don't warp somebody into the treasure room now, we'll have to fight the castle reinforcements immediately. So ultimately I decide to warp Belf in after he helps with player-phase.

I just recruited Astram, and I think it was kinda lazy, whether this was the original writers or the fan translators, to use the exact same phrase, “heads will roll”, for what Astram says will happen if he finds out Marth isn't on the up and up. Honestly, I wish Marth were able to recruit him. Seeing the Fire Emblem in his hands, entrusted to him by Nyna herself, would have been an interesting way to get him recruited, especially since Jeorge references that.

It's hilarious that Dakota has a crit rate of 25 with a hand axe while these snipers fighting him have a crit rate of zero with a killer bow.

Since the thieves refused to attack Belf, I took the opportunity to feed kills to Marth. I may very well have to actually use him this time, since there's no option to trade the Falchion for something way, way better.

Isn't there supposed to be some coding that thieves will attack if you get between them and their booty?

Oh yeah, also, I used that talisman from earlier on Dakota. It just made sense to, due to all the general-purpose tanking he's doing. I'm probably going to use the two dracoshields on him too to get him to capped defense, but uh... I think I'm gonna hold off on that until it actually makes a difference to whether he lives or dies. Juuuust in case I wind up needing them for something more important.

Alright, time to open the first chest and see what the big surprise is.

Right, so it's not too bad now that I'm not right by the door, but it's still gonna take some doing to survive. One of the big things I need to keep in mind is that all of these enemies have some pretty nasty weapons with high crit rates. The other thing is that if I ever leave an enemy wounded on enemy phase, the bishops in the throne room will start wasting the physic and fortify staves that I can grab when they're dead. So honestly, part of me is tempted to just say “fuck it” and kill them with Dakota even if it wastes experience, especially since most of these enemies are unpromoted anyway.

Well, we have some room to maneuver before we have to huddle up and hide in the treasure room, so I'll try to kill as many of them with my weaker units as I can before I might have to actually kill them with Dakota.

I wound up using my one defense bond to help Belf survive a potential enemy confrontation so that he can enemy-phase some of these enemies. He's the only guy I have besides Dakota who can do it, and if I'm gonna feed these kills to anyone but Dakota, this is the only way I could find at the moment.

So, weirdly, the barrier staff seems to have a glitch in its interface. It counts the resistance bonus of the Starsphere when it tells you what your current resistance is, but not when it tells you what your resistance will be after the barrier staff is used. So it makes it look like it only boosts resistance by 5.

Anyway yeah, I wound up having to bite the bullet and have Dakota kill these things, because those killer bows are just waaaaaay too much of a hazard to my army's health even if they do cower behind Dakota. Once the numbers are down though, I'll have my army take down the rest.

Also, Belf can use silver swords now, which means he doesn't even need to rely on crits anymore to kill things! Not that that was much of a problem before, but this is awesome. Especially since nobody else has any need of the damned things, so I can just use the basic supply you find throughout the game and he'll be set for a while. By the time he runs out, he'll probably be able to use Mercurius!

...And of course yet another ridiculous raw damage trap. Three siege tome users, in a game where barely anyone has resistance. I think I actually might be able to player-phase this with minimal reliance on Dakota, but I'll have to think about it. I'll do that while I pick up these treasures.

We've got some more money, an elysian whip, speedwings... the elysian whip is basically useless. Only Est can make use of it, and she's too far gone by this point. I think. I didn't actually look at her stats, so I'll have to do that next chance I get.

Merric finally reached B staves while patching everyone up.

Oooh, a backup rescue staff! Finally! But I'm still gonna be careful with these things until we reach the endgame.

Goddess icon, not too great, but given how high crit rates can be, I'll probably want to dump them on anyone who has mediocre luck.

Another shaver. We've got more than enough wind magic, but okay, I'll take it.

And a master seal. At this point these are just free gold.

...Alright, fuck it, I'll use use an unequipped Dakota to bait the two mobile enemies in. Then I'll player-phase the lot since I can get them to move in a bit further than usual thanks to that.

...Yyyyep, that worked like a charm.

Alright, Dakota took out Willow (since again, I'm trying to avoid leaving anyone wounded on enemy phase, so he has to die in one turn and Dakota was the only one close enough to do the job), and then my cavalry and fliers rode in to finish off the other two siege tome users. Thanks to that, my long-range healing supplies are looking pretty dang nice right now.

Catria got a near-perfect level up, everything but mag, luck and res, while Leiden... got strength and luck. Oh well, he's still really good for a unit who isn't Dakota.

And since there's no secret shop here anymore... that concludes my business with this map!

Yeah, it feels... kinda weird that reclaiming Altea itself isn't given, like, any fanfare compared to Shadow Dragon, where it had this big scene comparable to the “They're not cheering for you” scene from Sacred Stones. Here it's just another place we're going on this journey that just seems to be going all over, with no real... weight to it, I guess.

...Okay, they just kinda casually staple on an extra scene with Dakota at the end after the original game's dialogue. Is that how they're going to fix that problem with the original...?

...No, not even that! This is just the prompt for the gaiden chapter, isn't it?

IT IS!

Yeah, it's weird, Katarina's shown up a lot in the gaidens, but like... Dakota hasn't thought or spoken about her much at all. So I'm not sure how much of an emotional payoff this gaiden is gonna be able to give.

But anyway, that's it for today!

Tune in tomorrow when I find out what brand new flavor of comically unfair bullshit the game's decided to throw at me for this gaiden!

Stay safe, everyone!

[Whirlwind]

I have some bullshit for ya 

 

survived chapter 8 of conquest with 1 hp after hitting a crit dragon fang on kilma. Not my most impressive moment but it’s bullshit 

[Jotari]

Going back that a comment made in yesterday's entry, I would have been all for Gotoh warping the party directly into this chapter and then playing these two chapters in reverse. Not only would that have made the reclaiming of Altea feel far more epic, but it would have been monumentally better for the gameplay over this complete rehash of the previous game. The rehashing doesn't stop here either, ignoring the Gaiden, we have Gra, Mountain pass chapter, Archanea exterior, Archanea interior. So with the two Altea maps included that makes 5/6 maps in this portion of the game identical to the previous one. Part of me is surprised they didn't reuse Lefcandith Gauntlet (Minerva's first Shadow Dragon chapter) for the mountain pass chapter. I've made it clear that I have major issue with how this game reuses maps, but going in reverse like Soulful Bridge is much more palatable for me. It makes it feel more like the geography of the world and less like they were just plain uninspired. Man I wish remakes had the balls to change things more. Shadows of Valentia kept all the maps Gaiden rehashed, and that makes absolutely no sense as they were  completely different parts of the continent. We meant to believe they just happened to have the exact same geography? Anyone ever play Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete or Eternal Blue Complete? Now those games were remakes. They should have set the bar for what people are expected to do when remaking a game.

 

 

 

 

[Interdimensional Observer]

26 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Anyone ever play Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete or Eternal Blue Complete? Now those games were remakes. They should have set the bar for what people are expected to do when remaking a game.

I would, but whilst I've had fun with some instances of questionable localizations in the past (Days of Ruin to name one), Working Designs's are a step too far. And reading The Cutting Room Floor articles, their gameplay alterations are utterly detestable too. I'm quite fine with covering bare skin on ladies as it rarely affects men, I'm not okay with jacking up enemy stats, or overhauling motivations for no good reason (says a hypocrite, because, the BK's survival kinda counts here).

This said, I might play Lunar Legend. Working Designs didn't work on that.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, it's weird, Katarina's shown up a lot in the gaidens, but like... Dakota hasn't thought or spoken about her much at all. So I'm not sure how much of an emotional payoff this gaiden is gonna be able to give.

Now that you point that out, it's true. They could've had Kris mention Katarina throughout the prior assassin gaidens, but they didn't, nor any other chapter now that I think about it.

I think the choice of assassins for the new story content (ignoring that they should've been working on refining the plot and characters from 1994) was fairly reasonable one. Because assassins are a small band of enemies, and hence could be more readily shoved into optional side content.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, so, they try to explain why Astram wasn't recruitable until now in the multiple chapters where we've had Jeorge and Astram was on the map. Apparently it's something about him being a hothead and not having a chance to calm down and think about things, and that's why now's our only chance. Jeorge has to be the one to do it too, so I'm actually deploying him this time.

You also say Astram is trapped and alone now. Theres no chance of reinforcements coming to his aid, theres no hope of fleeing either. It's live or die in Castle Altea, and I'd guess that for some people, being in such a hopeless situation makes them more reasonable, as opposed to the very theoretically possible total opposite of becoming suicidal fanatics.

 

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm sorry, what? Marth mentioning “What if they've stolen the Geosphere” made me suddenly realize the implications of the Geosphere being here. Is the Geosphere supposed to be a national treasure of Altea all of a sudden? Why would it be here? It was in the Fane of Raman last time!

Why didn't Gotoh take it? He kept the Lightsphere, why didn't he offscreen ask Marth to fork over the Geo? Gharnef doesn't seem concerned about Gotoh carrying a Sphere or two.

As for the Fane, who manages it when it isn't overrun by thieves or a Tiki under Gharnef's sway? Do humans use it as a temple? Or is it a relic of dragonkind, where the sounds of prayers no longer resonate, nor the walls be illuminated by the torches of the long gone night watch? If the Fane is magnificent but abandoned, then I'd say it'd be safer for Marth to keep the Geosphere, golden ruins don't stay gilded for long.

Edited December 1, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Shadow Mir]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I've gotta nab the geosphere as soon as possible, but the only way I can do that on turn 1 without using a warp or rescue staff is if I reclassed Dakota to horseman for 11 mov thanks to his boots. So, naturally... I'll just have my fliers chase after the thief and get it turn 2. There's no serious rush, since my guys can outrun him.

Speaking of thieves, the other ones don't have droppable items, but will be making a beeline for the treasure room, so I'll have to get there quickly. I'll be letting Belf borrow the Starsphere so that he can clear out the heroes in front of Astram. He'll be banking on crits to one-round them, but thankfully his crit rate is pretty dang high with a killing edge.

This begs the question, why exactly was the Geosphere in Altea in the first place???

[Eltosian Kadath]

I figured I would give one warning for the upcoming gaiden (in the spoiler tag if you do not want it)

Spoiler

It takes more than one talk to recruit Katarina, and she will keep attacking until fully recruited.

 

[Alastor15243]

9 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I figured I would give one warning for the upcoming gaiden (in the spoiler tag if you do not want it)

  Reveal hidden contents

It takes more than one talk to recruit Katarina, and she will keep attacking until fully recruited.

 

Thanks, but if the gaiden has a nasty surprise, I need to experience it in all of its "glory" to get a full feel of how blind-unfriendly the game is.

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I would, but whilst I've had fun with some instances of questionable localizations in the past (Days of Ruin to name one), Working Designs's are a step too far. And reading The Cutting Room Floor articles, their gameplay alterations are utterly detestable too. I'm quite fine with covering bare skin on ladies as it rarely affects men, I'm not okay with jacking up enemy stats, or overhauling motivations for no good reason (says a hypocrite, because, the BK's survival kinda counts here).

This said, I might play Lunar Legend. Working Designs didn't work on that.

 

Well to divulge everything I haven't played the original games they were based on, but from what I've seen of it all the changes they made were positives (especially making the love interest playable for a large section of the game instead of having her sit on her ass waiting to be kidnapped) and it resulted in a pretty decent game.

7 hours ago, Shadow Mir said:

This begs the question, why exactly was the Geosphere in Altea in the first place???

Well Marth did get in the first game. Doesn't seem entirely unreasonable he'd still have it here. What I wonder is why the King of Aurelia of all people has the Life Sphere. What a nothing character to have such an important item. The other four are all related to Gotoh in some way being either in the Fane or stolen by Gharef (wait where did Gharnef steal the dark sphere from? Could that have been in the Fane too? He is the one controlling it after all). Why is this one separated from the start and in the possession of the Aurelis royal family? And why wasn't it mentioned before this point? Yet another thing they could have established in Shadow Dragon.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Well to divulge everything I haven't played the original games they were based on, but from what I've seen of it all the changes they made were positives (especially making the love interest playable for a large section of the game instead of having her sit on her ass waiting to be kidnapped) and it resulted in a pretty decent game.

Not all of the port's changes were due to Working Designs. I'm more referring to this:

"Unlike Working Designs' previous stabs at "enhancing" the Lunar games, the stat changes in this game [Eternal Blue] follow a very regular pattern. With few exceptions, regular enemies have 45% higher Attack, give out 14% less EXP and 10% less Silver, and have 10% less HP. The net effect is to make it a lot harder to stay alive and to increase, in an extremely artificial way, the time required to beat the game."

Maybe as an optional Hard difficulty setting this would be fine, but it isn't, so it's not.

The translation, from what I've seen examples of, frequently adds pop culture references and jokes where there weren't any in the Japanese (if there were, and this was simple localization substitution for that which would not be understood by foreigners, I'd be fine with it, but these mostly aren't), alters character motivations, has people speak additional lines that weren't in the Japanese. Theres an audience out there that likes the more radical approach to localizations, but I try to keep my preferences somewhere closer to the center on the art of translation & localization, neither 100% literal when it would fall flat, nor so heavily punched up.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Alastor15243]

New Mystery Day 28: Chapter 16x

So I'm not sure if this is the nasty surprise, but when looking up recruitment conditions to make sure that Marth couldn't recruit Astram in this game, I saw... Katarina's recruitment conditions.

She pulls a Gangrel... or I guess Gangrel pulls a her... and you have to talk to her three times to get her to join you. Given who you have to talk to her with... that's probably not gonna be a problem for me. But... gotta check out the map I guess.

Let's see what hilariously tiny bullshit they have for us this time, and hope I don't get whiplash from the radical change in design philosophy yet again.

...Ugh, they're trying to make Eremiah as viscerally detestable as Sonia, and... it just doesn't work. First off, Katarina doesn't make for nearly as good of a lovable puppy to kick as Nino did, and also, Sonia at least put up a more convincing facade of being something resembling a human being in Nino's presence. But most importantly... the shit that's going on here is just so far outside of a normal human being's frame of reference with this... cult that Eremiah's running, that it's just really difficult for me to really sink into it without understanding what the hell is the history with this place.

I have a feeling that those three talks I'm gonna have with Katarina are going to go into the details revealing all the shit about the orphanage of assassins or whatever, and it is faaaaaaaar too late to be expositing shit like that. This would have helped ages ago, but now it's just gonna be too little, too late, if they're even doing that at all.

...Also... the wooden, motionless, expressionless portraits aren't really doing Eremiah any favors. She just... looks completely out of place in her role as a sadistic cult leader in ways that very few Fire Emblem characters ever have. I almost feel like there's a portrait mix-up here. Now, visual dissonance is a thing, obviously, and having nice-looking characters do evil things can be fascinating and creepy, but... she's just staring blankly. I'm looking at her portrait, periodically blinking into the void, and I see in that portrait not a tenth of an ounce of charisma.

...Alright, let's go.

“How's Everyone” got me not much of value besides a stat boost for Palla that included defense. Alright, let's check out the shitshow of a map.

...Really?

Twelve by nine?

Why stop there, guys? I'm sure you could've fit this map on a single, non-scrolling screen if you tried! Okay, well, this is going to be a complete joke with Dakota as long as there aren't any reinforcements. How to proceed specifically, though...?

...I've apparently hit 200 items in my inventory, so... time to sell some shit. Wow. I never thought I'd hit that number.

Alright, I freed up about 30 spaces by selling random junk. I'm still flabbergasted that I ever hit 200 items though. Good thing it didn't happen during a map!

Right, so, it seems the obvious thing to do is have Dakota plug up the mountain pass and attack one of the two tomahawk warriors with a sword so that Katarina won't get murdered on counter-attack, but I can still take out these swordmasters blocking my path to her. After the swordmasters are dead, I'll unequip just in case those snipers make Katarina think it's a good idea to attack in melee, or if the enemy AI just doesn't have characters move to more advantageous angles when they can already attack their target from where they're standing. The rest of the warriors will be taken out by Belf and Merric, and then the snipers will die as soon as Katarina is recruited.

Okay, talks. Just two thankfully. A pointless recap, and a Merric-Dakota support.

I can't remember if I ever un-deployed Merric for a map. I don't think I have... no wait, I didn't deploy him for that Legion chapter. So I guess this support was locked until he could talk about failing to save Elice? But anyway, we get an A rank support, and a magic bond, which... I mean yeah, obviously.

And apparently my recruitment roster did the picking for me, because Dakota, Marth, Yumina, Merric, Belf, Leiden and Robert sounds just about perfect.

Alright, let's get this shitshow on the shitroad.

And of course, I'll be keeping units sitting on these forts because do you think I have the memory span of a chimpanzee?

Shame Katarina has to go and waste her valuable nosferatu tome fighting us before being recruited, but oh well, it's just gonna be three uses or so. Infinitely worse things could happen in a FE12 gaiden chapter.

...Nope, no exposition about the orphanage/cult so far.

...YEP! KATARINA'S ATTACKING IN MELEE!

...Well, I mean, he is unequipped, so it technically doesn't matter what space she attacks him from. Maybe she would move to attack if he still had his sword equipped.

But you think I'm gonna gamble on this game's AI acting the way I like?

Still no exposition in conversation two... Wow, was I accidentally being optimistic when I was trying to be cynical?

Wow, the fact that they add in this big dramatic CG of Katarina crying really just drives home how wooden the portraits are. And yep, we didn't get any more information on Katarina's relationship with Eremiah or what the fuck is going on.

So... we've got Katarina. And wooooooow. Holy shit. Her stats are terrible. Fifteen speed? At this point in the game? She apparently has insanely good speed, skill and luck growth rates, but only 13 levels to gain with them.

And she doesn't even have good weapon ranks! B tomes and C staves!

Holy shit, why would they make her this bad? They were actually pretty good about giving me usable prepromotes for a while, but now they give me Dolph and Macellan and this? I mean I guess she's technically my new third best staff bot, but really now...

Okay, all of the nonsense with this plot point aside, and setting aside my complete inability to give a shit about Katarina...

“I want you to atone with your life, not with your death” is a pretty awesome line from Marth.

Also, Marth “punishing” Katarina by forcing her to work things out for herself for once rather than blindly following orders was kind of adorable. “You will think for yourself, and find your own answer [for how to atone]. That is my punishment to you.”

So... this was... I mean, I'm not even sure how well I can judge this chapter. It was made overwhelmingly easier by the fact that I had an overpowered Dakota to recruit Katarina with. But... I mean, unless I tried for a completely unnecessary and pointlessly ballsy player-phase gambit, I don't think that would have fucked me over nearly as much as, say, ambush spawns or fog of war or fucking Legion.

Still though, the “extra” chapters in this game are just... so bad. I don't understand what the developers were thinking when they made them, they're just completely at odds with the design of the entire rest of each of these games and so transparently out of place. Yeah, I stand by what I said earlier. Once you ignore the stuff they merely kept from the original, this game has the worst map design in the entire series. Bar none. Imagine playing a whole game of FE12 gaiden chapters. That sounds like Hell to me.

...So, uh... sorry for the obscenely short entry, but...

...Yeah, I ain't doin' this and the pacifist Gra chapter in one day.

We'll pick up tomorrow.

Stay safe, everyone.

[Jotari]

10 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not all of the port's changes were due to Working Designs. I'm more referring to this:

"Unlike Working Designs' previous stabs at "enhancing" the Lunar games, the stat changes in this game [Eternal Blue] follow a very regular pattern. With few exceptions, regular enemies have 45% higher Attack, give out 14% less EXP and 10% less Silver, and have 10% less HP. The net effect is to make it a lot harder to stay alive and to increase, in an extremely artificial way, the time required to beat the game."

Maybe as an optional Hard difficulty setting this would be fine, but it isn't, so it's not.

The translation, from what I've seen examples of, frequently adds pop culture references and jokes where there weren't any in the Japanese (if there were, and this was simple localization substitution for that which would not be understood by foreigners, I'd be fine with it, but these mostly aren't), alters character motivations, has people speak additional lines that weren't in the Japanese. Theres an audience out there that likes the more radical approach to localizations, but I try to keep my preferences somewhere closer to the center on the art of translation & localization, neither 100% literal when it would fall flat, nor so heavily punched up.

That probably isn't too unlikely. The game (and while I mentioned Eternal Blue, I've only really played Silver Star) has a pretty comedic tone to begin with (and like not just in the dialogue but in the animation too). But if course localisation and remake are two different topics.

Edited December 2, 2020 by Jotari

[Espurrhoodie]

11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

She pulls a Gangrel... or I guess Gangrel pulls a her...

Ugh don't get me started on Gangrel's recruitment. I haven't played that paralogue in years, but I still remember how much of a pain recruiting him was. I think I managed to recruit him using a weird mix of using rescue and abusing pair-up.

[Eltosian Kadath]

18 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, I stand by what I said earlier. Once you ignore the stuff they merely kept from the original, this game has the worst map design in the entire series. Bar none. Imagine playing a whole game of FE12 gaiden chapters.

Do you not consider unit placement a part of map design, as that most certainly has changed between FE3 and FE12. Also changes were made to many of the maps from FE3 Book 2, for example in chapter 1, it was made easier to navigate the mountain pass. These little changes keep happening, but on the whole they were trying to evoke the overall impression of FE3 Book 2 maps. Additionally the placement of the savepoints shouldn't be overlooked as a small piece of additional map design, as their location has always felt deliberate...

[Alastor15243]

9 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Do you not consider unit placement a part of map design, as that most certainly has changed between FE3 and FE12. Also changes were made to many of the maps from FE3 Book 2, for example in chapter 1, it was made easier to navigate the mountain pass. These little changes keep happening, but on the whole they were trying to evoke the overall impression of FE3 Book 2 maps. Additionally the placement of the savepoints shouldn't be overlooked as a small piece of additional map design, as their location has always felt deliberate...

...That stuff's a bit more complicated to quantify. I had a bit of a new thought about that subject today actually, which you'll see in today's entry.

[Alastor15243]

New Mystery Day 29: Chapter 17

Ah yes, the Gra chapter. Only now it has literally no buildup at all, not even a tiny mention of Sheena from a dying Jiol, because Shadow Dragon decided to not add in the sequel-prepping retcons that Book 1 added in FE3.

The objective, I assume, is still to not kill any of Gra's soldiers, the difficulty of which is going to depend entirely on how the enemy AI works this time. Last time they wouldn't attack (or at least wouldn't attack anyone they were too weak to hurt). This time...

...Well I can't exactly experiment, can I?

...I don't get the point of this mention that Gra was briefly annexed to Altea until Hardin ordered it “returned to Archanea”. That's an interesting plot point to be sure... but only if it's given more than a single sentence of acknowledgement. Why was Gra returned? Did the... “Gra-ites” suffer prejudice from Altea due to their choice of allegiance in the last war and their betrayal of their new country? Did Hardin order it returned before or after he went stark raving mad? I need answers, game!

And what does the game mean that Hardin “Found” Sheena?

...Okay, by the sounds of it, it seems that everything this narrative is describing... has happened since Hardin invaded Altea, and not in the past. And it seems Gra's pretty fanatically thirsty for “revenge” on Altea, which begs the question of what the fuck the... ugh... “Gra-i” narrative is.

...Yeah, there are some country names where I just get the feeling the devs didn't even think about the associated words to describe their people. “Gra” is one of them.

But back to what I was saying, This makes me really curious to check out any villages here and see if there's even an inkling of how the... “Gra-ians” think about all this.

But anyway, when Hardin ordered them to attack Altea the... “Gra-ish” soldiers were delighted at their chance for “revenge”...

...Until they realized how powerful Altea is, and now they've “completely lost the will to fight”, which is a cute and charitable way of saying they're a bunch of self-serving, opportunistic cowards.

Ah yes, and of course they saved the avatar's “defense” stat-dick-stroking session for last, since that's generally the slowest stat to reach “amazing” thresholds and they wanted to baby you with all the time in the world to warrant such praise. Just my guess, but, y'know, I have eyes.

Most notable part of “How's Everyone” today is that Robert got a speed boost. Pity this is a map where you're encouraged not to fight.

Okay, so I think they're going to actually explain the AI of the troops in the talks, so let's deal with those before we make any serious plans.

Got some more supports with the sable knights, awesome.

The one with Robert and Leiden was okay. It was nice that they let Robert have some points too, and that he wasn't just going to be a one-sided goofball.

As for Dakota and Leiden, it's yet another support that seems to end abruptly in the middle of itself, but that's par for the course of this game. The supports here just seem to have completely forgotten the art of making endings feel like endings.

...Out of curiosity, I checked three supports from three other games, the first part of whatever support chain I found most memorable: Lalum and Roy from Binding Blade, Ephraim and L'arachel from Sacred Stones, and Nah and Male Morgan from Awakening. In the first two cases (and as I know fully from memory, both of the remaining supports from Ephraim and L'arachel as well), the supports clearly ended with one of the characters leaving and the other having one last comment as the other walked away. Nah and Morgan's notably did not end like that (I was starting to suspect it would after the first two), but it was also about 3 minutes long and the last line didn't introduce any new information that would make the reader expect it to continue.

...It also might not help that there's no “support level increased” jingle to cushion the abrupt return to the talk menu in these FE12 “supports”.

Yeah, and Dakota's supports with Belf and Robert ended similarly abruptly. Like, it is just completely disarming how these supports end like this. They're so insanely short, but also feel like that's because they're cut in half.

...It kinda gives me the feeling that the supports were half-assed and rushed, put in without much care simply because people missed them in Shadow Dragon.

Anyway, so they say the Gra soldiers have “no will to fight”, so if the Gra soldiers proceed to immediately suicide onto me the first chance they get, well, that ain't my fault.

...But I'm concerned, because this map... doesn't seem to be very difficult. There are very few enemies.

Suspiciously few enemies.

I've got an incredibly nasty feeling that Marth and Dakota are lying to me, and the difficulty in this map comes from accomplishing everything while constantly dealing with a bunch of suicidal little gremlins perpetually baiting me into counter-attacking them into bloody chunks on the wall.

And I can't even warp skip, because the buildings are concealed until they're unlocked.

If this game tries to paint me failing to save a bunch of aggressive suicidal idiots as some kind of moral judgement against me...

...Well I'm not gonna be as mad as I was when I played Undertale, because...

Spoiler

...you can't really get more self-righteously obnoxious than trying to make me feel guilty for using self-defense against people actively trying to commit a genocide powered by the extracted and bottled souls of murdered children...

...but I'm still gonna be pretty dang mad.

...So let's see if the game does it, boys and girls!

I'm bringing Katarina mostly because she apparently has a support with Dakota. But I've also learned that apparently not all support bonuses actually have conversations, so who knows? But I'm just so starved for information from Katarina that I feel like I have no choice but to deploy her.

The problem is she has the second-lowest lowest defense in my army, only beating Merric (who has way more HP) and Yumina, so if the enemies do have regular AI, they'll go after her, so she may have to unequip her weapon.

...Fuck it, I'll just make her a staffbot. And again, it's not that big a deal if she winds up counter-killing the soldiers. If the game's gonna make recruiting Sheena ridiculous, I ain't sitting through that shit. I'm gonna counter-kill them and be done with it.

...Okay, thank goodness, the Gra soldiers aren't actually attacking, or even moving. Good. And I also now know they won't attack even if they don't have to move to do it. So... this is just an exercise in not attacking helpless weaklings. Okay. Kinda boring, honestly.

The thieves also don't seem to be interested in opening doors or stealing treasure, just the villages, so I got the nosferatu tome pretty easily by sending Leiden, Palla and Caeda to the east side.

...Well, I forgot to double-check Katarina's speed stat against a nearby sniper I had to let live in a panic, and Katarina got doubled to death unceremoniously, but it doesn't matter, because even if I hadn't made that mistake, she still probably would've died to the ambush spawn dracoknights showing up to south and in the northeast corner... on turn fucking two.

Seriously!?

This game was actually getting bearable for a little while!

...Fuck. I should've seen this coming. Of course they'd be this shitty. This is a comically easy map with nothing to make it even remotely interesting beyond the “don't kill the Gra soldiers” thing. Which means it obviously stands to reason... that the devs would feel the need to make it harder.

And as this game has pretty soundly demonstrated, while the dev team for this game did a passable job of adapting the existing maps to a higher difficulty standard... they have a pretty dang consistent track record for having terrible ideas for how to add in new challenges. Like the Fire Emblem equivalent of Benioff and Weiss. Did a fantastic job adapting A Song of Ice and Fire into Game of Thrones... until they had to come up with their own material, at which point they promptly crashed and burned so hard that the resulting fireball could be seen from Mars.

Except Benioff and Weiss crashed and burned because they couldn't make original content worthy of a book series written by an award-winning, massively celebrated grandmaster of an author with a memetic penchant for perfectionism that has caused his books to be released at comically glacial speeds.

The devs of this game couldn't make original content worthy of a game that thought it was okay to have you walk around a mountain doing nothing for 20 turns. As a matter of fact, they made that chapter even worse by making that march mandatory if you want to get all the characters!

...They're probably gonna send in the ambush spawn again, aren't they?

...Nope, not yet... but I'm not letting my guard down.

Okay, that's weird, so the villager's talking about thinking Marth came here to exact revenge, which is a weird thing for people to admit if they think they're the ones entitled to vengeance.

…

…

Of course that's the least of my concerns, because as soon as Marth reassures the woman that he's not there to destroy Gra... she starts flirting with him, with a visible heart symbol, and gives him an angelic robe. God, I remember this from the last game, and it was absurdly weird then too.

...Also, why'd this translation call it an angelic robe when FE11 called it a seraph robe?

So, since I apparently have to live in perpetual fear of dracoknights coming from any location imaginable, I've decided to make my army flee into the center, and hope that I can get Marth safely inside from his flight to the western village before HOLD THE FUCKING PHONE.

HOLD ON.

HOOOOOOOLD THE FUUUUUUCK ON.

So.

This map... has a village. A village to the east of your starting location, and indeed much closer to your starting location. Of course, it's not there in Shadow Dragon, which I've been recently playing, so I didn't notice it at first. I followed my thoroughly-drilled-in Shadow Dragon instincts and had Marth race towards the western village, the one where Camus previously gave you a thoron tome.

It just occurred to me that had that not been the case...

...had I actually seen the village during prep and decided to visit it on the first turn...

...Marth would have started his second turn in immediate attacking range of two of those dracoknights.

If my next decision had not been to immediately flee from the threat I didn't actually know was coming... if I had stalled by just one turn in visiting that village for some reason, or if I visited one of the three houses below it immediately afterward...

...Marth would be dead right now, and the ironman run would be over.

The dracoknights here are fast enough to double him. Death would have been certain and swift.

If Marth's starting position were just on the other side of that fort... then that village would have, without exaggeration, been the strategy game equivalent of something out of I Wanna Be The Guy.

A two space difference in position. Three if you count the extra movement point it takes to cross the fort. That is how closely this ambush spawn is dancing with complete and utterly unfair madness.

The devs are entirely relying on the player not making some incredibly innocuous decisions in order to keep this chapter from having something like that nonsense in romhacks where Mario's killed on the walk from the flagpole to the castle.

…

Is this real life?

Is there a timeline out there where I lost the ironman... because I decided to have Marth do some last-minute emergency convoy shenanigans on turn one?

Is that the kind of game we're playing?

Of course, we're already playing the game where there's a timeline where I lost this ironman because I didn't decide to go into 10x with three people more fragile than Marth.

...And I just realized that Merric's been lagging behind near the starting area due to a variety of circumstances from my first few turns, and I'm not even gonna try tempting fate getting his ass to safety. I'm rescuing him at the next fucking opportunity.

...And rescue isn't in my fucking convoy because it's on staffbots I didn't bring.

FUUUUUUUCK!

Please don't let Merric die please don't let Merric die please don't let Merric die...

...Okay, I'll level with you.

As I was typing the last few sentences, while I was conveying thoughts I already had before learning this...

...I did check the map to double-check how likely it was that Marth could die to those ambush-spawns just by visiting a village, and I know that, while I don't know what or when, there is an ambush spawn near where Merric is, and he's not out of the woods from it yet.

I've almost got Merric clear of it, which I was already trying to do in case of this earlier, but now I know there's a very real chance he will die, and I will concede that I metagamed a bit by putting Dakota where I think one of the reinforcement spawn points is. Not that it'll help much if Merric gets hit by two more enemies. And obviously I'm not looking at the map to check, because that defeats the purpose of playing blind, but I did have a moment of weakness when it comes to this being blind, and I just want to disclose it.

I don't want to lose Merric.

I really, really, really don't want to lose Merric.

[Alastor15243]

Day 29 Continued

Oh thank goodness, it looks like this might just be a proximity spawn, not a turn-based one, because it hasn't happened yet, and I just had time to, with Dakota's help, get Merric to a place where only fliers could hurt him. And next turn, he'll be home free.

...Oh god, I still haven't gotten that village by the start.

...I'll wait for the ambush spawns to finally trigger before going for it.

And I think... I know... what triggers it.

…

…

…

Well, opening the main throne room door didn't trigger that one...

BUT IT TRIGGERED ANOTHER ONE FROM THE WEST!

And apparently because I didn't pack my army tightly enough into that one tiny courtyard outside the door, Merric watched in terror as he was hit by two dracoknights, surviving only due to his impressive HP, and was only spared by the last dracoknight stopping an inch from his nose.

I was so scared right there. I can't even describe it. Merric is one of my favorite characters in the Archanea saga.

...Moving on...

Samson will apparently attack even when you haven't killed any Gra troops, so I hope you can recruit him with Marth or we're gonna need to do some really annoying and unreliable stuff to get past him... or warp.

...You can't recruit him with Marth, so I guess we'll warp then.

Alright, now to see if the game is enough of an asshole to make Samson attack a recruited Sheena.

…

…

…

OH MY FUCKING GOD, HE DOES.

SAMSON WILL ATTACK SHEENA IF YOU LET HIM.

THIS IS A GAME ENGINE THAT SUPPORTS SELF-RECRUITING, AND SAMSON FUCKING ATTACKS SHEENA.

WHAT AM I EVEN LOOKING AT RIGHT NOW!?

I have to assume that those red highlighted spaces I saw on the WOD map on google images were lunatic-only or something, because they never showed up. So it's time to backtrack and grab the village and the chest treasure.

And we get Tomas, and...

…

…

Seriously?

What is it with nearly every unit beyond Chapter 13 or so being nigh-unusable garbage? This guy gets doubled by the enemies on this map. What was even the point of adding a new village to put him in the remake!?

Christ, and I thought Revelation had some idiotic ideas about unit balance.

Also, that massive, massive roundabout detour into the treasure room? It only contained a secret book, because one of those chests was already empty for some reason.

...Alright, after a lot of boring hassle, I'm done. I don't remember that chapter being nearly as annoying and roundabout in Shadow Dragon. I'm guessing that's because those pegasus reinforcements kept you busy for more than enough time than it would take you to backtrack back to the central area.

…

…

...Or maybe it's because they added a fucking wall just so they could do that stupid “can't see into locked rooms” gimmick.

That really feels like something the remake should've noticed and fixed. But... they did not.

Aaaaanyway, let's see what the game's got for us storywise.

So we're going through a dangerous mountain pass to buy time, even though Hardin's probably got an ambush planned. Interesting idea, something that might show up in Tellius, but uh... Tellius this is not.

Oooh, so Frost shows up.

That name always sounded weird to me and I just realized why.

Bishop Frost.

Deacon Frost.

Ring any bells?

They practically make a joke about how this guy should've joined us back at Macedon, and make it a gag about him being too slow to catch up until now... which is weird, because we haven't significantly slowed down.

...Unless you count all the turns I spent getting Tomas and a secret book, when I really should've just left.

I'm sure his stats will suck too. And he probably won't even come with a physic staff.

Well, okay, guess that's it for today. Tomorrow I'll do Chapter 18. And... if it's what I think it is...

...Oh I am going to be very, very scared.

Stay safe, everyone.

Stay safer than Katarina.

...Pfff, I can't believe she died that quickly.

[Shadow Mir]

29 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What is it with nearly every unit beyond Chapter 13 or so being nigh-unusable garbage? This guy gets doubled by the enemies on this map. What was even the point of adding a new village to put him in the remake!?

Christ, and I thought Revelation had some idiotic ideas about unit balance.

Now you know why there's a Free Silvers tier in New Mystery tier lists.

[Interdimensional Observer]

5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Well I'm not gonna be as mad as I was when I played Undertale, because...

Some who has played the game and doesn't like it? I've never touched it, but this is interesting, considering all the encomia around it.

 

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

What is it with nearly every unit beyond Chapter 13 or so being nigh-unusable garbage? This guy gets doubled by the enemies on this map. What was even the point of adding a new village to put him in the remake!?

Christ, and I thought Revelation had some idiotic ideas about unit balance.

Over 70 playables does that. Theres a reason that the old Lunatic tier lists relegated mostly everyone after Chapter 13 to a "Free Silvers" tier, because they're worth no more than the weapons they bring. I'm amazed that even on Hard this applied as I discovered myself.

It's been noted since NM's release the absurdity of the Samson killing Sheena thing, it's up there with SD Matthis killing Lena in how bad it is. Sheena and Samson, given Samson's sheer loyalty, would work better if it followed Fates Rev Chapter 11, talking to Reina automatically brings her companions Saizo and Orochi under your command. Modifying Samson's recruitment convo into a plain old on-map Talk would be better.

 

 

Although I should probably save this remark for tomorrow, since I'm commenting at all today, you should be able to wrap up this nightmare next week. Tomorrow you settle things with Aurelis. Then, next week what you'll have left is:

• The fight around Pales.
• The fight in Pales vs. Hardin.
• The trip to the Dragon's Table (or Altar, whatever it's called). 
• The three-part final battle which has now been broken up into separate chapters.

Six fights, I suppose if Gharnef doesn't overtax your brain, you could vanquish Medeus on the same day. Fuggetabout any Archanean Chronicles you didn't complete, or getting a save file with those DLC assassins, Khadein liberation, and Ogma-Navarre scuffle  scenarios. 

After that, maybe take a week or two off to preempt the holidays. And then play whichever you've chosen of Awakening or TearRing Saga more like Archvaldral Saga.

[Alastor15243]

14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Some who has played the game and doesn't like it? I've never touched it, but this is interesting, considering all the encomia around it.

I wouldn't say I dislike it. I absolutely adore parts of it, specifically its music and its humor. But its attempts to add in a moral narrative about the ethics of killing enemies in a video game were... agonizingly unsuccessful with me, for reasons that are really spoilery.

14 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Although I should probably save this remark for tomorrow, since I'm commenting at all today, you should be able to wrap up this nightmare next week. Tomorrow you settle things with Aurelis. Then, next week what you'll have left is:

• The fight around Pales.
• The fight in Pales vs. Hardin.
• The trip to the Dragon's Table (or Altar, whatever it's called). 
• The three-part final battle which has now been broken up into separate chapters.

Six fights, I suppose if Gharnef doesn't overtax your brain, you could vanquish Medeus on the same day. Fuggetabout any Archanean Chronicles you didn't complete, or getting a save file with those DLC assassins, Khadein liberation, and Ogma-Navarre scuffle  scenarios. 

That is definitely a tempting option.

 

Edited December 3, 2020 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

20 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

It's been noted since NM's release the absurdity of the Samson killing Sheena thing, it's up there with SD Matthis killing Lena in how bad it is. Sheena and Samson, given Samson's sheer loyalty, would work better if it followed Fates Rev Chapter 11, talking to Reina automatically brings her companions Saizo and Orochi under your command. Modifying Samson's recruitment convo into a plain old on-map Talk would be better.

Or Astram attacking Midia. Or...lets just say that the series could do with hard coding certain characters to not attack others like Radiant Dawn did.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Eltosian Kadath]

56 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Well, I forgot to double-check Katarina's speed stat against a nearby sniper I had to let live in a panic, and Katarina got doubled to death unceremoniously, but it doesn't matter, because even if I hadn't made that mistake, she still probably would've died to the ambush spawn dracoknights showing up to south and in the northeast corner... on turn fucking two.

Seriously!?

This game was actually getting bearable for a little while!

57 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Marth would have started his second turn in immediate attacking range of two of those dracoknights.

If my next decision had not been to immediately flee from the threat I didn't actually know was coming... if I had stalled by just one turn in visiting that village for some reason, or if I visited one of the three houses below it immediately afterward...

...Marth would be dead right now, and the ironman run would be over.

Those reinforcements aren't turn based, they are area based, and that is the fastest you could possibly trigger them without warping directly into it. The only way that happens without being incredibly suicidal is with a Iote shield flyer going as fast as they can to kill the thief with the Nosferatu drop. The kinda player capable of getting out of the chapter 13x gaiden with the Iote shield, either plays more carefully than that, has a Marth that can take a lot of punishment, or is willing to reset. Plus you would have Tomas to take the death before Marth, who will likely die before the Lord, and might even draw enough attacks to save him. Its not impossible for this to be a reset, but its more unlikely than you are hypothesizing.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Seriously?

What is it with nearly every unit beyond Chapter 13 or so being nigh-unusable garbage? This guy gets doubled by the enemies on this map. What was even the point of adding a new village to put him in the remake!?

You would be surprised who you can get functional with a little time in the training grounds. That is usually more resources than people wan to spend on a spare unit, but if you have to use them...

[Alastor15243]

28 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Those reinforcements aren't turn based, they are area based, and that is the fastest you could possibly trigger them without warping directly into it. The only way that happens without being incredibly suicidal is with a Iote shield flyer going as fast as they can to kill the thief with the Nosferatu drop.

Yep, that's exactly what happened for me. Alright, fair enough, it's not that crazy. However...

28 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

The kinda player capable of getting out of the chapter 13x gaiden with the Iote shield, either plays more carefully than that, has a Marth that can take a lot of punishment, or is willing to reset.

I don't agree with your suggestion that I should've known better than to chase after that thief. The game's been drilling into me repeatedly for ages that you need to go after thieves as quickly as possible before they massively complicate things. Should I have known better than to rush into the forests in Chapter 7 to chase after those thieves? Should I have known better than to chase after the thief with the Geosphere? Should I have known better than to warp Belf into the treasure room to stop those thieves from stealing the chests? What makes it so obvious in this situation that rushing after the thief would be punished in some serious way? If I have a unit who can chase after a thief who looks specifically positioned to steal treasure if you don't hurry, or else run away with an expensive tome through the lower exit he's only four moves away from reaching, why should I not assume I'm supposed to hurry after them?

Also, the fact that the ambush spawn is only unfair if I made it alive out of a chapter that is also unfair... does not mean that the ambush spawn therefore isn't unfair. It's not like getting that shield is a uniquely special challenge compared to merely surviving the first few turns, and there's some easy way of surviving 13x with no deaths if you don't want to go for that treasure.

Also also, figuring out proximity spawn borders without a map through sheer trial and error... doesn't sound fun even if I were willing to reset.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Alastor15243