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

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so, Marth's just talking about the seven kingdoms being unified and everyone expecting Marth to become king, and... I mean this kinda comes out of left field. I mean I already knew that it happens, but I expected more buildup to Marth becoming the ruler of the entire free world.

Also, uh... I don't really see this as a happy turn of events, honestly. One world government under one king isn't exactly the most wholesome of outcomes.

Three Houses developers: "That wasn't very cash money of you."

But yeah, agreed. Some of the games treat political unification as strictly good, so long as it's under the right person (the protagonist). Without considering that, hey, plenty of people aren't going to be happy about distant rule by that teenager with special blood who has little knowledge of their culture. And whose military efforts killed a bunch of their neighbors. 

[Jotari]

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

Three Houses developers: "That wasn't very cash money of you."

But yeah, agreed. Some of the games treat political unification as strictly good, so long as it's under the right person (the protagonist). Without considering that, hey, plenty of people aren't going to be happy about distant rule by that teenager with special blood who has little knowledge of their culture. And whose military efforts killed a bunch of their neighbors. 

Speaking of a country with a different culture we still have absolutely no clue where neo Doluna fits into all this. What exactly do references to Marth's unified kingdom make? Is Doluna and it's surviving manaketes part of it? Did Archanea annex it in the first game? Does Marth take control of every surrounding kingdom surrounding it but leave Doluna as something of an  independent enclave? Book 2 and New Mystery not addressing the status of Doluna in the slightest is a pretty massive hole in the story. Like imagine Radiant Dawn happened only Daein was never once referenced or mentioned in the story (well never mentioned as a place with people living in it, since they do physically go to Doluna in Mystery which just kind of makes things worse). That's what this is actually like.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

3 hours ago, Jotari said:

Speaking of a country with a different culture we still have absolutely no clue where neo Doluna fits into all this. What exactly do references to Marth's unified kingdom make? Is Doluna and it's surviving manaketes part of it? Did Archanea annex it in the first game? Does Marth take control of every surrounding kingdom surrounding it but leave Doluna as something of an  independent enclave? Book 2 and New Mystery not addressing the status of Doluna in the slightest is a pretty massive hole in the story. Like imagine Radiant Dawn happened only Daein was never once referenced or mentioned in the story (well never mentioned as a place with people living in it, since they do physically go to Doluna in Mystery which just kind of makes things worse). That's what this is actually like.

I'm assuming the seven kingdoms are Archanea, Altea, Aurelis, Grust, Gra, Macedon and Khadein. I'm just left to assume that though. I don't think they mention what happens to Dolhr at all. And we never find out because it ceases to exist in Awakening, Manaketes no longer have a country at all, and despite apparently once again being able to bear children, they've nearly been driven to extinction and sold into slavery.

...Oh my god I am going to have so much to say.

[Jotari]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm assuming the seven kingdoms are Archanea, Altea, Aurelis, Grust, Gra, Macedon and Khadein. I'm just left to assume that though. I don't think they mention what happens to Dolhr at all. And we never find out because it ceases to exist in Awakening, Manaketes no longer have a country at all, and despite apparently once again being able to bear children, they've nearly been driven to extinction and sold into slavery.

...Oh my god I am going to have so much to say.

Oh so it does mention Seven Kingdoms? So then Talys remains independent too then, despite Marth marrying into that royal family (did Shiida never have any other siblings? That could have made for a good n ew character in the sequel)? And also Marth does just leave Pyrathi in shambles with its immortal king deposed then? Sure there was a lot of chaos there in the intervening years as the very way of life for everyone was suddenly upended by the invasion.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Jotari

[Eltosian Kadath]

17 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

..Why is Castor's title “Sly Swindler”...?

Perhaps you should use him on a New Mystery run (and the third Archanea Saga map) some day and find out. He is a funky character that gets just enough in his appearance to be kinda interesting.

 

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Those games were so draining because there was just so much story to read, react to, and write responses to. It took a lot out of me, writing something like 10 page essays on a daily basis, complete with proofreading. It was good stuff, but it was a loooooooooot to deal with.

I have the sneaking suspicion that this might plague the Awakening run as well. I know the molasses slow pace of my Awakening LP is mostly due to how exhausting it is to try and respond to that game's slog of a story and supports.

 

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Eltosian Kadath said:

I have the sneaking suspicion that this might plague the Awakening run as well. I know the molasses slow pace of my Awakening LP is mostly due to how exhausting it is to try and respond to that game's slog of a story and supports.

 

Maybe. That does give me concerns about my plans to play all the DLC too, even though it also sounds fun. This could take a while.

Maybe. I'll see how it goes next week.

[Interdimensional Observer]

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

But yeah, agreed. Some of the games treat political unification as strictly good, so long as it's under the right person (the protagonist). Without considering that, hey, plenty of people aren't going to be happy about distant rule by that teenager with special blood who has little knowledge of their culture. And whose military efforts killed a bunch of their neighbors. 

Not to mention after the good charismatic first ruler, things might not be so good. Marth can probably prepare a single good heir, but at some point, I can't help but envision the various remote provinces becoming the bases from which second sons and mutinous generals decide to launch their bids for the throne.

I'm not so concerned about the people's will. These aren't democracies, they aren't citizens, thats a modern notion, they're illiterate subjects. They don't need to sign off on what the guys living the high life do, they're... subject to what the crowned heads want. Although local nobles can be witches when it comes to telling monarchs to "respect the customs and traditional privileges which they have long held and prior rulers have respected". Hungary's Magyars were nothing but an ulcer to Austria's Hapsburgs.

 

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I'm assuming the seven kingdoms are Archanea, Altea, Aurelis, Grust, Gra, Macedon and Khadein.

Khadein is not a kingdom, how could it be when it is ruled by a Pontifex? It remains independent at the end of Mystery. The seventh is Talys, founded only thirty years before Marth made it his easternmost dominion.

 

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Maybe. That does give me concerns about my plans to play all the DLC too, even though it also sounds fun. This could take a while.

Maybe. I'll see how it goes next week.

Do ya really need to? Series 1 is junk for story. It's "oh no, the magic cards went wild!" and thats about it. Not to mention you have to choose your timing for these, which isn't clear-cut for a bunch of them, and the Grandmaster set is grind-heavy. Even if it's the "best" DLC in FE, I'd say skip it all.

[Alastor15243]

32 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Do ya really need to? Series 1 is junk for story. It's "oh no, the magic cards went wild!" and thats about it. Not to mention you have to choose your timing for these, which isn't clear-cut for a bunch of them, and the Grandmaster set is grind-heavy. Even if it's the "best" DLC in FE, I'd say skip it all.

It's more for gameplay than story. I'm curious how Lunatic plays when a modest amount of grinding is assumed.

[Shadow Mir]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's more for gameplay than story. I'm curious how Lunatic plays when a modest amount of grinding is assumed.

Probably the same as New Mystery Lunatic, AKA shit. Especially since grinding is practically unviable without DLC.

Edited December 13, 2020 by Shadow Mir

[Espurrhoodie]

Ah, we're getting into Awakening! Even though it has its flaws and will probably inevitably be more roasted than Rinea, I still love it. Call it nostalgia, I guess. I'd replay it myself, but I already have alot on my plate in terms of videogames, so maybe another time.

[Alastor15243]

40 minutes ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Ah, we're getting into Awakening! Even though it has its flaws and will probably inevitably be more roasted than Rinea, I still love it. Call it nostalgia, I guess. I'd replay it myself, but I already have alot on my plate in terms of videogames, so maybe another time.

Hope you enjoy the playlog regardless!

[Venger_06]

This is the moment that I have been waiting for. Do you already have an idea of what your avatar will look like?

[Samz707]

Eh I've had alotta trouble with Awakening so maybe I'll see how I've been playing it wrong here.

 

22 hours ago, Espurrhoodie said:

Ah, we're getting into Awakening! Even though it has its flaws and will probably inevitably be more roasted than Rinea, I still love it. Call it nostalgia, I guess. I'd replay it myself, but I already have alot on my plate in terms of videogames, so maybe another time.

No, that's every enemy on the chapter Nowi joins that gets roasted.

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Samz707

[Alastor15243]

Awakening Day 1: Premonition

Ah yes.

Ahhhhhhhh yes.

This game.

The game it seems everyone has an opinion on, and none of those opinions are neutral.

Fire. Emblem. Awakening.

...Y'know, I'm really glad I played New Mystery before this. Because until I did, I was under the mistaken belief that this was the game that started the franchise's downward spiral into wacky nonsense and anime tropes.

I now know better. Several utterly ludicrous “try on this hat” scenes later, holy shit do I know better.

But this definitely went further with it. No question about that. It also, however... did better. Only the most stone-faced of individuals will be able to deny: the comedy of this game just goes above and beyond the comedy of any other game so far in this marathon.

...The actual integrity of the story may suffer...

...as does the worldbuilding...

...but we'll get to that as it comes.

Oh yes. Ohhhhhhh boy howdy yes. Getting fully acquainted with the Archanean lore has left me with... so many questions that I am eager to ask about this game.

At any rate... Awakening was the first Fire Emblem game I played as an adult. And the last one I played without really thinking much about my actual tactics. It was also the first game I got for my 3DS.

And I say this even though the 3DS I bought came with Mario and Luigi Dream Team pre-downloaded into it.

...Because when I ordered them both on Amazon... the game arrived several days before the system.

I'm morally certain at least a few of you know the feeling of spending a certain period of time having a new game but not being able to play it. Maybe you're on the car or train ride home from the store you bought it at. Or maybe there's some mandatory day-one patch you've gotta download. Or maybe your parents were religious or at least pretending to be for the sake of their in-laws when you were a kid, and they made you go to the Christmas morning church sermon immediately after opening your presents.

Whatever the reason, you're just staring at the game case, drinking in every last detail of the box, every picture, every word, every technical spec and parental advisory warning, hoping that if you just focus on it hard enough, you can more vividly imagine what playing it's gonna feel like when you finally can, like you're some kind of wolf with a wooden crate, sniffing the fresh meat that you know is inside...

...Yeah. That was me for a couple of days.

As I've mentioned before, the time between New Mystery and playing Awakening was a time where I had a bit of a falling out with Fire Emblem over getting frustrated by a continuous string of really bad luck with growth rates while emulating some of the older games, which made me basically constantly worry whenever I even thought about playing a Fire Emblem game that one of my favorite units was just gonna end up worthless again. Really, one of the most appealing things I heard about Awakening was that, while it didn't have fixed growth rates, it did have infinite level ups, meaning that none of my favorite units would be ruined forever.

But I didn't play it at launch.

No, my Amazon account says I placed the order in the middle of March in 2014, a little under a year after it came out in America. Probably because I just didn't have enough disposable income for getting new game systems before then. I actually missed out on the entire eighth console generation besides the 3DS because of this. But eventually, I bought a 3DS and started checking out the shit I'd been missing.

And lemme tell ya... I loved this game. I played it obsessively. I bought all the DLC, I beat every difficulty, and I beat Apotheosis a bare minimum of three times, each on separate files created for no other purpose.

...I can't quite remember my exact opinion of this game by the time Fates was announced, but... I do know that by that time, I had eventually become burned out or disillusioned with certain aspects of the game. Namely the story (if not the characters)... and the grinding.

Holy shit did I hate grinding by the end of this game. Right after my third Apotheosis run, I realized I had just spent days worth of hours of grinding for the single express purpose of beating a single map... that was actually trivially easy thanks to my grinding and felt like it was over in half an hour. I've basically completely sworn of grinding entirely from that moment on in all forms of turn-based RPGs, and I've only slightly warmed up to it in action RPGs because it generally means there's some repetitive but still skill-demanding sequence of actions you can practice and get good at while you listen to music or a podcast or something.

Since then it's been like...

...Wow, shit, I don't think I've even touched this game since Fates came out, except to do my second Lunatic+ run about two years ago that I don't think I ever finished despite nearly getting to the end. ...Or did I?

...Well, I guess I'll find out when I open the case and put the game in.

Ah yes. One look inside that box. One look at the little game cart more than six years ago, and I was in love. That cute little sprite recreation of Chrom's and “Marth's” poses on the box art had me instantly sold on this game's art style, especially the sprites. Those sprites are just the best. Personally I don't think the map view should have ever switched to 3D, and switching back to it after the 3DS games was definitely one of Three Houses' many, many mistakes.

Oh yeah, uh putting “Marth” in quotation marks reminded me... in case you're new here and haven't played this game yet... beware of spoilers from here on out. Though I don't know how you can possibly be on this forum at this point and not know who the masked guy on the box art is, but if that somehow is the case... please look away, and also... uh... if you have any desire to play this game...

...do yourself a favor and don't buy this little game called Super Smash Brothers just yet. And don't play Fire Emblem Heroes just yet either.

...Better yet, just don't play Fire Emblem Heroes at all.

Anyway... It's been a whole hour just writing this introduction. I've just been trying to think of how to cover my bases and write a good intro.

But fuck it.

You're here to read about me playing the game, not talking about my memories of playing the game.

So let's dive right into it.

…

...Oh my god. That intro. That music. Those visuals.

Yeah, hands down, no fucking contest, this is all-around the most gorgeous game I've marathoned so far. The cutscenes are phenomenal, and while the graphics have... some quirks when it comes to the 3D models, they clearly pulled out all the stops with this thing. They really seemed to do everything in their power to make sure this game sold, and it shows.

...In more ways than just good ones, but we'll get to that.

Speaking of which, apparently the working title for this game was “Fire Emblem Fin: The Children from the Brink”, which is an absolutely awesome title that just makes me wish even harder that we got the Thracia to Awakening's Genealogy and got a game where we played as the future children fighting their way through a post-apocalyptic world trying to gather the means to travel back through time. That would've been awesome, especially if it played like Conquest.

...Christ these first entries are always slow. Part of me feels I should get the intro out of the way as a sort of “Day 0” thing on the weekend or something, but then again... that wouldn't really stem the veritable waterfall of observations I always make on day one.

Okay, the opening theme is nice, but I find it kind of annoying that the title screen just repeats the ending snippet of the opening's music that we just heard.

...Yep, looks like I stopped at Chapter 21 on that Lunatic+ file. Huh. Wonder why?

...I'll have to try it out again the weekend after finishing this game and find out.

Anyway, here we go.

Lunatic Classic.

And for those of you who only read the actual entries and not the back-and-forth that happens between them, the plan is to both ironman and do as many of the extra chapters as I can, both paralogues and the DLC xenologues. The ideal goal is to do everything exactly once, but I'm morally certain I'm gonna miss out on some child paralogues due to deaths or just not having enough time to train the parents enough to create all the kids.

The goal for now is to get us to the end of Chapter 4, when we unlock the Outrealm Gate. It's been ages since I've played this, but the strategies for cheesing the early chapters of Lunatic+ are so thoroughly drilled into my head that surviving plain-ol' Lunatic should still be a breeze. As long as I don't royally fuck up on the first few turns.

The only time my avatar will ever be vulnerable.

Now, in what's I guess become a tradition for this marathon, I attempted to make my avatar look like Dakota, my avatar from Fates that I've developed quite a fondness for out of sheer nostalgia for how fun Dakota's War Journal was...

...but alas, it was not to be. Male or female, there's no way to make an avatar who looks anything like Dakota. As a matter of fact, the customization options are pretty dang pathetic. While you've got three body types for male and female each, each one only has five faces and five hairstyles. And of the twenty hair colors, none of them even come close to Dakota's signature dark-blueish-green.

...So fuck it! No Dakota! Instead, we'll do my first ever avatar I made for this game! Alexandria. Female, Build 1, Face 1, Hair 5, Hair color 12, Voice 1. Not sure why I decided on this when I first played this game, but I did, and I dunno... I like it. I especially like how her hair color looks on her model for reasons I can't really describe.

Also, I picked a girl for my first-ever avatar because I have literally zero desire to use the avatar as any sort of analogue to myself, or have them date the character I like the most or anything. My friend told me you could have a female avatar marry the game's lord, and as someone who once obsessively played Genealogy, that just hit all of my min-maxing character eugenics buttons. So I did it. And I'm probably gonna do it again, though now I'll be doing it with a far better understanding of why that pairing is amazing for non-postgame play.

...Fun fact, playing this again has reminded me that, of the four player avatars we've gotten to actually see up close, Robin has by far the least sexualized female form. Sure, you can make her build 3 and make her a tall, busty lady with “ara ara” eyes if you like, but even then, literally the only sexy part of her outfit is the low-cut top beneath the cape. Contrast that with Corrin's exposed panties and Byleth's borderline corset, exposed midriff, and freaky-ass leggings. Hell, even Kris shows more skin than the default Robin with those short shorts of hers.

...Which isn't to say that's objectively a good thing that Robin doesn't do that. As I've said before, I happen to think fanservice-y outfits can look really cool, and while I think the tactician class looks awesome... I don't really like the details of female Robin's general character design beyond that outfit. It really comes down to personal taste. But I just thought I'd point it out, because it is noteworthy.

Anyway, another reason we're going female is because this time women are the superior sex, because Fire Emblem is still gender-segregating classes, and one of the new female-exclusive classes just happened to get the most broken skill in the entire game, nay, arguably the entire franchise. For those of you who are reading this and yet somehow still don't know what that is...

...Oh, you're in for a treat.

Anyway, we're setting her birthday to be on Christmas so that it's guaranteed to happen during the actual playlog, and because irony is fun!

Asset is defense, flaw is luck. That's been my mainstay for high-difficulty Awakening runs. Eventually it won't matter and your avatar will be amazing at everything, because the Fire Emblem Awakening avatar is the single most broken unit in the entire goddamned series... but for now, you want to get her defense up as soon as humanly possible.

Ah yes, and now we get a chapter titled “Premonition: Invisible Ties”, and we start in the middle of a climactic battle between Alexandria, an unknown ally, and an unknown foe. Pretty damned badass fight choreography.

And then we switch to gameplay, and our ally, who's revealed to be named Chrom, speaks! As does our enemy, revealed to be named Validar.

...Yeah, so, this game is partially voice-acted. People get a full array of voiced lines and grunts for when they're fighting, and a bunch of stock voice clips that will occasionally be used during talk scenes. Sometimes voicing whole sentences verbatim from the script, but more often just using a bunch of multi-purpose generic lines that vaguely match the mood or sentiment of the line being said.

A lot of people are annoyed by this.

I am not.

It's certainly better than no voice acting. It helps paint a picture of characters that makes it easier to imagine their lines in your head, and honestly that makes me prefer it over all but the best of fully-voiced games, because when you hear their lines in your head, they can't fuck up their delivery, and it also doesn't mess with your reading speed by forcing you to wait until characters finish saying the lines you've already finished reading or else awkwardly repeatedly cut them off.

If every game were as well-directed as Echoes, I'd probably like that, but I generally prefer this over what Three Houses did.

Anyway... uh...

...Christ, three and a half pages of commentary and I haven't made a single move.

That's the first entry of a game for ya.

Anyway, this map is a breeze. Even on the highest of difficulty settings, this is deliberately designed to be a nigh-impossible-to-lose cakewalk. It's mostly just serving a narrative purpose to set up an aspect of Alexandria's character that's going to be coming up in the story a lot: their frequent tendency to have prophetic dreams, which are later revealed to be a side-effect of Grima, straight from the bad future, botching her attempt to prematurely fuse with her present-day self. An act which also stripped Alexandria of all of her memories from before Chrom and Lissa find her unconscious in a field at the beginning of next chapter.

I'm just gonna save any actual gameplay commentary for when I get to the real gameplay.

But I will say, I'm loving the music just as much as I remembered.

Anyway, Validar evaporates in purple smoke and collapses to ash, which makes me headcanon (though this is never actually stated in-game) that the fake Validar you kill at this part of the story is actually an undead risen clone, because they all die that exact same way, evaporating into smoke.

Oh yeah. This game has zombies in it.

It's technically a medieval fantasy zombie apocalypse.

Pity it's not nearly as interesting as that makes it sound. Mostly because they barely actually show the “apocalypse” part.

But anyway, Validar fires a dark energy blast at Chrom with his last breath, and Alexandria pushes him out of the way. Then Chrom picks her up off the ground and tells her that it's over, that they've won... before Alexandria starts seeing red... Chrom tells her to hang on... and then he's stabbed through the heart with a javelin of lightning, and we turn to look at our own hand to see the electricity still crackling from it.

Chrom tells us that it's not our fault, and begs us to escape... before he collapses, dead. And then we hear Validar's cackling maniacal laughter.

It's been a single two-turn-long chapter... and we just killed this game's lord.

Edited June 12, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Alastor15243]

Day 1 Bonus: Prologue

...Except not really, because as I said before, that was a nightmare of Alexandria's, and now the chapter title comes up saying “Prologue: The Verge of History”, and we get another POV cutscene as Chrom and another main character, Lissa, are both looking down on Alexandria, having apparently just found her.

...I really should avoid recapping literally everything I see. It's a mindset I keep getting into with the start of each game and then growing out of eventually. I'm just gonna talk about this assuming you've already played this game and only need mild reminding about what I'm talking about.

Anyway, so, when Alexandria says Chrom's name when thanking him for picking her up off the grass, Chrom says “Ah, then you know who I am?”

Credit where it's due, that's actually an instance of the English localization fixing a plot hole. According to various translations of the Japanese version I've seen, namely from ShadowOfChaos725, Chrom originally responded to being referred to by name by a complete stranger by saying “How do you know my name?”.

This is, of course, a completely ridiculous thing for Chrom to say, as Chrom is the fucking prince of the nation they are currently in. The weird prophetic time-travel nonsense going on with Alexandria is far from the only explanation for why a stranger would know Chrom's name, and I'm glad the English localization team picked up on that.

Anyway, we're introduced to our characters. Chrom and Lissa want to trust Alexandria with her weird case of amnesia where she remembers Chrom's name before she remembers her own, while Frederick is extremely wary of Alexandria and thinks she shouldn't be trusted.

...I mean it's not the worst set of character introductions I've seen in the series, but it's no Path of Radiance, lemme tell ya.

Oh yeah, and also, I just noticed, the bottom screen shows where we are on the hugeass world map. And looking at it... yeah, it's virtually identical to the one in FE1, FE3, and the remakes.

...In silhouette.

And from what I remember... that's gonna be about where the similarities end.

First of all, this “Southtown” that we're currently in looks to be somewhere in the Holy Kingdom of Archanea.

Looking here, it appears to be right by that fortress labeled “Deal”, between the palace and Port Warren.

Most of the former-islands seem to have been partially joined to the main landmass, suggesting the water level's fallen or something, the less-habitable locations of Khadein and Anri's Way appear to now be Feroxi territory, separated from the rest of the continent by the Great Wall of Ferox or whatever it's called, and...

...I'm gonna keep consulting these maps every time I unlock a new chapter to see what these places used to be before Awakening messed around with things.

Because anyone who's read my FE11 or especially my FE12 playlog will know that Awakening... took some extreme liberties with the lore of the game that they literally just remade.

...Oh yeah, also, this is apparently 2000 years in the future, and yet we're still using swords and bows and the like, and indeed seem to have lost some technology, like ballistae and warp staves.

And... okay, so the debate of whether or not to help Alexandria... apparently evolved into temporarily arresting her until they get to town to hear her out. Apparently having a weird story is grounds for “temporary” arrest under suspicion of being an enemy of the state.

Nice country you've got there, Emmeryn.

Anyway, they use the classic and cliché trope of having the amnesiac ask all the questions the player has about the world, and yeah, the characters reveal that we're in a place called Ylisse, which of course means that Marth's glorious empire didn't last at all.

Surprise, surprise.

Oh, and when Alexandria remembers her name, Chrom asks if it's foreign, foreshadowing her Plegian origins. Weird how when she got amnesia, she also completely forgot her Plegian accent. Or maybe she grew up in Ylisse and only her name remains as a remnant of her Plegian heritage. Really though, having Chrom always say that a name sounds foreign is just begging for people with childish senses of humor to make dumb jokes with what they name their avatar.

But no time to talk, the village is on fire, which means after something like 7 pages, the game can finally begin in earnest.

We're thrown into a map, and the enemies are strooooong.

Not so strong that I can't handle them though, especially with Frederick on my team.

Hold on... one sec...

Ah yes.

Beautiful.

We finally get “highlight all” in a different color from individual highlighting!

I could just kiss my touch screen. And speaking of the touch screen...

OH YES.

THE AGE OF PEAK USABILITY IS UPON US.

FIVE GAMES WITH THIS GLORIOUS SYSTEM OF HAVING EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT A UNIT ON ONE SINGLE SCREEN. NO BUTTONS NECESSARY FOR ANYTHING YOU CAN'T EASILY MEMORIZE.

And if you need more info?

Just tap something!

Oh shit! It even has the descriptive flavor text for each character! Oh I missed that so much! It was a tiny little feature but I'm so happy it's back!

Anyway, one thing I have to keep in mind now is that the doubling threshold is now five, not four, and it will remain so for these next four games if you're counting the different routes of fates. Given the stat inflation of these games compared to many others, I think that was a reasonable choice. Though right now it means that nobody in my army has a chance in hell of doubling anything anytime soon.

Right, time to get rid of the initial threat and commence Operation: “Feed Every Conceivable Kill Into Alexandria”. These starting enemies are scary for most of my starting troops, but without the skills that come from Lunatic+, they don't stand a chance against Frederick. He can one-shot the myrmidon up top with his silver lance, even! But alas, he can only wound the barbarians. Chrom and Alexandria will have to get ready to finish them off while Frederick takes out the remaining myrmidon next turn... depending on where this mage moves on the first enemy phase. He's not strong enough to one-round anyone, but depending on what our injuries look like next turn...

...Okay, we're good. Chrom and Alexandria take out the two wounded barbarians, Frederick takes out the myrmidon, and the mage will come in to attack. Lucky for us, he doesn't have the focus skill (+10 crit when no allies other than your pair-up partner are within 3 spaces) that would make him an absolute terror to fight in the early game.

...Weirdly, I find myself constantly underestimating how far my units can move. Not sure why. You'd think I'd be over-estimating that given that the games I just played had higher average movement scores.

Alright, Alexandria finishes off the mage. After pairing up with Chrom of course, because Alexandria has an insanely broken skill that increases her exp gain by 50% whenever she's paired up.

Absurd exp gain, great growth rates, 1-2 range at base, the ability to pair up with a massive pile of strength and defense from the get-go, and the ability to triple themselves and possibly pass down the single most powerful skill the entire franchise has ever known to both of their terrifying clones. The Awakening avatar is completely busted.

But for now, we have to get her going first. The goal today is to use something called the “water trick”. See, the only units on this entire map capable of walking on the map's numerous water tiles are both in my army, meaning that I can feed all the remaining kills into Alexandria by taking potshots at them with her thunder tome from inside the river without ever putting her in danger.

...Assuming that this mage here doesn't manage to activate his focus skill and score a lucky crit on me, setting a new record for fastest failed ironman in this playlog. I'll have to make sure to fight him from locations where his allies are nearby, but that's gonna be tough because they might wind up moving even if they can't reach anyone the moment I aggro the mage. I forget how the AI here works.

Well, I've got Alexandria and Lissa on the west side of the river, and Chrom and Frederick on the east side. They've both stepped into the river and are ready for phase 2.

I successfully neutralized the mage's focus skill by careful placement (the enemies didn't move since they couldn't get to anyone), but he still has an innate 5% crit from his thunder tome. Normally this wouldn't be a huge deal, but by the rules of the ironman, it only takes one failure, even if it's in the very first chapter, before I have to go back to resetting for the rest of the run.

Quick refresher on the rules: I will ironman this until and unless one of the following things happens:

1: I get a game over for any reason.

2: The overall body count ever exceeds the current chapter number divided by 2.

I used to have other rules in the older games about losing all of my healers or losing all of my thieves, but reclassing has kind of made that irrelevant now. The second rule is more of a safety net so that I don't cancel the ironman waaaaaay too late to even complete it normally.

...Of course I could always just use generic DLC characters...

...Fuck it, sure, let's do it. Rule 2 is suspended as well! So I only give up the ironman if I ever get a game over.

Here goes.

Alexandria gets me really hopeful for the future by getting literally everything but resistance for her first level.

Yeah.

Growth rates are pretty damned high in this game.

I also didn't get hurt thanks to Lissa doing a dual guard, so no need to use one of my precious vulneraries either.

...Oh shit. I didn't even talk about pair-up.

So yeah, one of this game's most well-known, dare I say infamous features is the pair-up system, wherein you can take two units and combine them into one unit taking up one space, one in the lead, and one supporting in back. The lead unit is the one who actually fights. They get stat bonuses from the support unit, and the support unit will occasionally add extra attacks or block incoming attacks, with the chances increasing the higher the support level of the two characters is. As, in fact, do the stat boosts. In this game, it's just a flat 1 and then a flat 2 increase to every non-mov stat that the unit's class bonus increases. In Fates it's a little different, but then a ton changes about pair-up in Fates.

Oh, also, for every 10 you have in a stat, you increase that stat for your partner by 1 if you're supporting them. Right now that doesn't mean much for anyone but Frederick though, but eventually... that'll make the stat boosts pretty nuts.

So naturally, since Alexandria is squaring off against a mage, I paired her up with Lissa, who provides magic, res and luck bonuses. No-brainer. Now I just have to hope that that 4% crit doesn't activate.

Aaaaaand the mage is down! Alexandria is in the clear to potshot all the remaining enemies! I just have to do some dancing around the edges of the water to get these guys to places Alexandria can safely attack from.

Yeah, as you can probably tell just from my description of how thoroughly I'm cheesing this, the starting part of the game is... ridiculous on the higher difficulties. Honestly, I'm not 100% confident the devs even knew that Lunatic+ could be completed when they made it. And there's a huge suspicion among the fanbase that Lunatic and Lunatic+ are so much harder than hard in an attempt to manipulate the player into buying DLC, given that you can't actually use the free, in-game methods of grinding in those modes due to skirmishes having their stats inflated to absurdity. I'm actually really curious to find out how these games play with a mild amount of extra experience from doing the DLC missions once each.

Alexandria's second level up isn't as good. HP, Magic and Res, which by this game's standards is definitely pretty underwhelming. But hey, at least she got the one stat she didn't get last time.

I'm really hoping for speed and defense first and foremost. Alexandria really needs defense to survive from the next chapter onwards, as the next few chapters are largely her soloing things with Frederick backing her up to boost her stats.

Awesome, got another defense level up. Everything but speed and luck this time, actually. Her luck's really unfortunate now, but that's going to change rapidly, despite that being her flaw. Especially since it's so easy to get bonuses to your crit avoid to make luck nearly pointless. Even though luck is her flaw, she can still hit the luck thresholds necessary to 100% the luck-based armsthrift skill by the end of the game with the right pair-ups.

We'll be training up other units... eventually. Probably once we get to the DLC. It'll be too big a gamble before then, but the DLC doesn't really change stats much by difficulty, if at all, as far as I remember.

I just pressed R to check the turn count, forgetting that non-character-sheet window is accessed via touch screen now, and remembered that this game, despite using sprites, actually lets you zoom out the map! Oh that's gonna be such a convenience, and it's gonna make my complaints in previous games about difficulty seeing an enemy's entire movement range completely obsolete.

Yet again a good level up is followed by a bad one. Alexandria only gets strength and skill. Well, two defense level ups and one speed level up... ugh, I can't even remember if that's gonna be good enough for the next chapter. Maybe if I stand on a fort. Well, I'll get a fifth level up soon.

Frederick will bring her to 14 defense and 8 speed. Equal defense to Frederick, but he'll be slightly faster than her. Thankfully I can switch between them if anything goes wrong.

Aaaaand we got our first event tiles! They basically amount to the stuff in “How's Everyone” from the previous game, for those of you who don't know. You get a random item, a weapon level or experience boost, or a support boost with the unit you're paired up with. And Chrom just got experience (wish I had given that to Alexandria) and Alexandria got Sigurd's Lance.

Yeah, this game... loves to play up the fanservice and shout-outs to previous entries in the series. This was basically designed to double as a finale love letter to the rest of the series should it have turned out to be their final game if sales didn't pick up. Sigurd's Lance is basically an objectively superior silver lance, just with less durability.

...Yeah, you can probably tell that you can get some crazy powerful stuff out of this.

But I like it! I like how it mixes up and randomizes the assets you have available to you each playthrough, kind of like a roguelike. Anyway, I'll be keeping that on Frederick just in case shit gets really real.

Now, to set up support bonuses so Alexandria has enough crit avoid to fight the boss, and move on to the next chapter.

Oh yeah. We ain't stopping there. We're gonna keep going.

...Fuck, the boss still has 1% crit. Hopefully that won't ruin everything, because he just barely has enough attack to kill with a crit, even with Frederick supporting.

...Which means I should probably switch Alexandria's support partner from Frederick to Chrom for this one, since lord gives a luck bonus. Let's try that.

...Yep, that works. Alright, then we're home free.

Basically, for those who don't know, what I just did was exploit the fact that you get bonuses to hit, avoid, crit and crit avoid depending on the support ranks you have with units around you and paired up with you. See, even if you haven't had any support conversations yet, you still get a few points to boost your bonus for each character near you or paired up with you, so by having all three other units either paired up with, or adjacent to Alexandria, I get juuuuust enough to get a +10 to crit avoid and negate this boss's nasty crit chance on Alexandria.

I accidentally missed out on a little experience for Alexandria because Chrom got a dual strike, but she'll still level up by the end of the map, and that's what matters.

Now, what do I get...?

Only four stats, but I get HP, skill, luck and defense, which is good enough for me for now.

It's a pity my Alexandria's slightly speed-screwed though. But Alexandria never stays screwed in anything for long.

The game's stroking my ego for Alexandria leading us to victory against these bandits, but... fuck it, it's warranted, that was a tough battle. Though I feel a bit weird since it wasn't really my strategy I was using.

Ah yes, so, I've apparently impressed Chrom so much that... well...

...Yeah, Alexandria's career advancement is gonna get pretty dang silly later. But for now, I'm gonna finish up here, go do some stuff I've gotta do, and then keep playing in an hour or so. But I'll be uploading all of these roughly at once, so you won't have to wait that long for the next update.

...Before I go, though...

...Yeah, so, Frederick talks about the bandits speaking with a Plegian accent, and... honestly, unless this is some extremely-subtle thing like the difference between regional accents of the same country that went completely over my head, I'm just not hearing any effort to make that actually come across in the voice acting. Which is giving me Petra vibes all over again. It just rubs me the wrong way.

So yes, Plegia is to the west. So... it's basically where Macedon and Dolhr used to be.

Well, I mean, that checks out as far as having wyverns and worshipping dragons goes, in all fairness, but...

...wow, the climate changed radically, huh? Near total desert. Also, I wonder how Dolhr transformed from being populated by dragons... to being populated by dragon-worshippers.

...Yeah, the disenfranchisement and genocide of the Manaketes is something... I don't really recall this game ever bringing up. Instead they talk about it exclusively with a race of creatures that just flat-out did not exist in the old canon and has no reason to be using stones like the Manaketes do.

Anyway, we've got a brief quirky gag where Frederick forces Lissa to turn down a thank-you feast from the locals and instead camp out eating wild bear in the forest. Because they're in a hurry.

...Okay?

Still though:

Chrom: Frederick only smiles when he's about to bring down the axe.

Pretty good line.

[Alastor15243]

Day 1 Bonus Bonus: Chapter 1

Alright, we're at 12 pages now and it's 3:00 PM. This will probably be my last chapter for the day. I wanted to do more, but... I mean, we'll see what time it is when I finally post this shit.

Anyway, we're at the world map, and it deliberately prevents us from accessing anything but the save function and the next map. No shops, no even sorting items. Weird choice, honestly.

Oh god, I just remembered something weird about this music when Lissa says that infamous garbled line when a fly goes in her mouth. So many of the tracks have ridiculously long names that are basically just straight quotes from the scenes they first play in, or even, in the case of some, like the world map theme, quotes from wholly unrelated scenes.

Oh yeah, speaking of music... something I really should have pointed out sooner:

We've finally got dynamic map themes!

Gone are the days of repetitive player phase and enemy phase battle themes, constantly repeated with every individual encounter with the enemy. Instead, now we have map themes that have a second, more intense and action-y version that it seamlessly switches to whenever you get into a battle.

Words cannot describe how much I prefer this system. In four of the five games we got it in, the result is pure musical perfection. As for the fifth one...

...Well, we won't speak of that just yet.

But yeah, also, this map is the first game to use in-battle models for certain dialogue cutscenes. It's not... a huge benefit, mostly due to the 3D models not being the best when viewed up close. Also something something “nobody has any feet” yeah yeah we know, but you know what? At least we can see that they don't have feet! Everyone in Three Houses could have had their feet surgically removed during all support conversations and dialogue scenes and we'd never know, because we're just seeing them from the waist or knees up on a transparently 2D warped background. Here they're moving around actual 3D backgrounds.

So they hunt down and roast a bear offscreen and eat it around a campfire, and so commence the bear meat memes of this game.

I do like the foreshadowing for the Avatar-Frederick support conversations where Frederick reveals he's actually completely grossed out by bear meat though. They have him not eating and making excuses about it.

Oh yeah. Here's the next cutscene.

The completely ridiculous and yet insanely awesome cutscene where everything hits the fan.

Chrom senses something's wrong and goes to investigate, taking Lissa along too (because they're the only ones they have models for in cutscenes)

And then...

EARTHQUAKES.

TREES FALLING.

LAVA ERUPTING FROM THE GROUND.

FIRE RAINING FROM ABOVE.

AND A FUCKING MAGIC EYE IN THE SKY.

And that eye in the sky starts crying zombies on us, who somehow... beat Lucina to the portal. But Lucina swiftly follows, and...

...Hey wait a minute...

...How did Grima go back in time to fuse with Alexandria before the portal opened?

...No, wait, the portal doesn't bring everyone to the same time and place, hence why all the children aren't here in the forest and why Laurent spent something like five years in the past waiting for Lucina to show up because he showed up early (and apparently none of the risen got sent to where he was, but I'll have to re-read that support to be sure).

Is it ever stated whether the risen that plague the land after this earthquake just came back in time, or if they started being summoned by the weakened Grima or Validar? It feels weird that they happened simultaneously.

...Or... do the risen actually infect people? Or do the corpses just reanimate, and what's responsible for making the conditions where that starts happening to corpses? I know that by the time of the bad future they had to burn corpses to make sure they didn't come back as risen, but I don't remember if they ever clarified the specific reason why that was the case.

Also... this cutscene really weirdly makes it look like these guys need to be stabbed through the heart in order to be killed, as one of the risen basically gets slashed straight through the stomach... and... what, nothing happens? What's going on here? And of course needless to say this is never mentioned again, in-story or out.

But anyway... Lucina shows up, masked and with her hair back to disguise herself as “Marth”, and would you look at that! She sees some guy charging at a woman with an axe... and she runs to intercept...

...and actually intercepts it! And she does it with her back turned too!

So Lucina is conclusively, canonically better than Byleth.

Granted, the risen was clearly slow on the uptake for the sake of theatrics, but Lucina also did this literally just after arriving in the past, without skipping a beat, and had to run full tilt to make it there in time anyway.

...But then Frederick and Alexandria show up now that the cutscene is over, and “Marth” mysteriously disappears while Chrom and Lissa are distracted.

It's game time.

Chrom quickly trades Alexandria his spare vulnerary, leaving her with four uses. Frederick pairs up with her, and they head to the fort. We're taking 3 damage from this fighter while on the fort, so I think we'll be good. But we'll need to kill these guys quickly, so I'm hoping for some dual strikes this time. I went on the offensive and attacked from the fort rather than merely staying still, in the hopes that it'll get enemies killed quicker and have me not need to heal for as long.

...These enemies still have crit rates. Very worrying, but that'll change once Alexandria starts getting some more levels and supports.

Fun fact, I've constantly been calling Alexandria Robin, roughly like half the time, and I've had to basically sweep this entire document for instances of the word “Robin” in order to check for slip-ups.

Another level, this time everything but magic and skill. Good, finally getting some speed, and also the extra defense is obviously appreciated. I think we're in the clear from here on out.

Ah yes, and now Sully shows up, apparently having split up from the group Chrom was leading for... whatever they were doing when they found Alexandria... to do something on her own...

...and now Virion, the Duke of Rosanne shows up, apparently having nothing better to do than to chase after some random tomboy he passed.

In a forest.

That is on fire.

...I don't think we ever figure out what the fuck either of these people were doing here. Or why Chrom just randomly lets Sully's stalker into the Shepherds just kinda... without any discussion at all?

Yeah, anyway, Sully's another one of... those characters. The Cecils. Like, the one woman in the army that sexism seems to happen to, and whose identity as a character is almost inexorably tied to that aspect of her life. I've said my piece on that when Cecil showed up at the beginning of FE12, I won't repeat it here for the sake of long-time readers. Suffice to say I find this archetype nonsensical and frustrating given the context of the worlds they live in.

Thankfully, with her, she's got a lot of personality beyond that from what I've seen. I'm not a huge fan of her, but I can see why someone else would.

Anyway, Virion's an archer, so he's not gonna be much use at all. But then, neither is anyone who isn't the avatar until we get to Chapter 5 or so. But he does come with an extremely crucial elixir that we're gonna want to pass to somebody else, preferably Alexandria or Frederick but at least Chrom, before this map is over.

Speaking of archers, the enemy archer is doing 0 damage to Alexandria, so I think we'll be good sticking with the sword to focus on fighting these fighters.

Level 8: HP, strength, magic, speed and defense. Great level up. Hopefully Alexandria will start doubling soon, but at this rate she's not gonna be in danger of dying at least.

Also, can I just say I love the avatar's classes, tactician and grandmaster? They're really cool-looking with that coat, and whenever they wield a sword I'm reminded of some kind of badass pirate captain, especially with their victory animation.

Level 9: everything but speed, defense and resistance. Not ideal, but like I said, she's gonna be set for a while now.

Something I like about the new AI is that they seem to re-adjust themselves to another space to attack you from, even if they could already attack you from the space they started in, if moving will give them a terrain advantage or bring them closer to a more tempting target.

Alright, I successfully got the elixir on Alexandria. We're all set for Chapter 2. Chapter 2 is a living nightmare on Lunatic+, but on regular ol' Lunatic, supercharging the avatar will make it a cakewalk.

Oh good, the bonus tile improved Alexandria and Frederick's relationship. Normally I'd be disappointed by anything but an item, but this might make the difference between whether or not I can get them to C support by Chapter 2 and buff Alexandria's stats even further.

Yeah, uh...

...This game isn't exactly the best when it comes to strategy. In fact at times it feels like there are barely any degrees of separation between it and a normal turn-based RPG. Especially since often this game just plays itself.

...Actually, since “strategy” is long-term and “tactics” are short-term, I guess what I mean is that this game isn't the best when it comes to tactics. Strategy is actually a huge part of Awakening gameplay... in the sense of your long-term character build plans for your army. The actual moment-to-moment gameplay is generally quite mindless on anything below Lunatic+.

...Oooh! Level 10, and Alexandria just got defense! Along with HP, strength and luck. Luck is important, I'll take that.

Ah yes, and now she gains the skill solidarity, an awesome skill that grants adjacent and paired-up allies +10 to crit and crit avoid.

...And now “Marth” is suddenly back now that we've returned to a standard dialogue scene. It's weird that the game didn't even show her sprite running off to “take care of the others” like Frederick so conveniently told the audience – I mean the other Shepherds – that she did.

...Ah yes, as many have pointed out, if you don't read the text in this scene, and just listen to the voice lines used to accompany the text, this happens:

Lucina: You may call me Marth.

Chrom: Really?

Lucina: No.

Anyway... Lucina runs off after saying some mysterious shit, rather than try to convince Chrom she's from the future and give him any more useful advice. And we're left to assume she's run off to West Ferox in order to oust Lon'qu as Basilio's champion and thus rig the tournament in Chrom's favor (even though she will still totally kick your ass if you let her).

Are we left to assume then that originally Chrom lost that tournament then, and never got that alliance with Flavia?

...Questions for later. I think that'll be it for the day.

...Yeah, I'll be honest, I'm not expecting to like this game right now. But paradoxically, I am expecting to have fun playlogging it.

Let's see how long that enthusiasm lasts!

Stay safe, everyone!

[X-Naut]

On 12/12/2020 at 12:52 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Okay, so, Marth's just talking about the seven kingdoms being unified and everyone expecting Marth to become king, and... I mean this kinda comes out of left field. I mean I already knew that it happens, but I expected more buildup to Marth becoming the ruler of the entire free world.

Also, uh... I don't really see this as a happy turn of events, honestly. One world government under one king isn't exactly the most wholesome of outcomes.

But hey!

I can look on the bright side!

It apparently doesn't last at all!

Throwing in my two cents on the geopolitical aftermath before this thread gets swamped by Awakening talk, I agree with you here. I also agree with your suggestion about it being left open to a direct sequel, because there's a couple plots you could base it on. In fact, I think this might be the most direct sequel-friendly end of any game.

However, I can brighten the outlook by saying that it doesn't seem to be staying that way. For starters, there's likely plans to repatriate Grust given that Jubelo and Yuliya are studying in Altea and Archanea respectively, and Marth assigned Draug to oversee reconstruction (without being a horrible tyrant like Lang). They're only 13-14, cut them some slack, and their support chain does talk about future rulership. And I headcanon that sooner or later Maria goes back on her sister's actions and takes the throne herself. I can't see Macedon being stable for very long under martial law and I imagine Maria falling out with Minerva over the ordeal, and possibly lying to her about Michalis's survival (in the original).

Beyond that, Marth and Caeda can repopulate empty thrones with their children, one is probably taking Altea and a third could have Talys. There's also room for consolidation: Gra was originally a part of Altea and Aurelis was effectively an Archanean colony until Hardin abolished the slave trade. Dohlr will likely be absorbed into Macedon, and if Talys doesn't join Archanea it could absorb Pyrathi, maybe. Valentia is a week's voyage across the sea too, maybe shorter from Grust's shoreline, and Palla and Catria could set up trade with their connections.

So we're looking at three or four kingdoms alongside Archanea, two at worst I wager, plus a rediscovered sister continent with two kingdoms of its own.

[Alastor15243]

11 minutes ago, X-Naut said:

Throwing in my two cents on the geopolitical aftermath before this thread gets swamped by Awakening talk, I agree with you here. I also agree with your suggestion about it being left open to a direct sequel, because there's a couple plots you could base it on. In fact, I think this might be the most direct sequel-friendly end of any game.

However, I can brighten the outlook by saying that it doesn't seem to be staying that way. For starters, there's likely plans to repatriate Grust given that Jubelo and Yuliya are studying in Altea and Archanea respectively, and Marth assigned Draug to oversee reconstruction (without being a horrible tyrant like Lang). They're only 13-14, cut them some slack, and their support chain does talk about future rulership. And I headcanon that sooner or later Maria goes back on her sister's actions and takes the throne herself. I can't see Macedon being stable for very long under martial law and I imagine Maria falling out with Minerva over the ordeal, and possibly lying to her about Michalis's survival (in the original).

Beyond that, Marth and Caeda can repopulate empty thrones with their children, one is probably taking Altea and a third could have Talys. There's also room for consolidation: Gra was originally a part of Altea and Aurelis was effectively an Archanean colony until Hardin abolished the slave trade. Dohlr will likely be absorbed into Macedon, and if Talys doesn't join Archanea it could absorb Pyrathi, maybe. Valentia is a week's voyage across the sea too, maybe shorter from Grust's shoreline, and Palla and Catria could set up trade with their connections.

So we're looking at three or four kingdoms alongside Archanea, two at worst I wager, plus a rediscovered sister continent with two kingdoms of its own.

And then of course it all comes crashing down in Awakening. I can't wait to get far enough into the story to see exactly where the new borders lie, because if I'm reading the map right, Altea is now Plegian territory.

[Samz707]

13 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

And then of course it all comes crashing down in Awakening. I can't wait to get far enough into the story to see exactly where the new borders lie, because if I'm reading the map right, Altea is now Plegian territory.

Awakening should have honestly IMO just been a new continuity, I guess there is actually some retcon stuff that's interesting (like Manaketes being able to get different forms via dragon stones, which I think also effects their stats?) It's just you know, its a retcon, if this was a new continuity I'd actually be onboard with it since it seems like an interesting gameplay idea, it's just, they set in Marth's continuity yet there's so many retcons I kinda wonder why they bothered.

 

43 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Ah yes, and now Sully shows up, apparently having split up from the group Chrom was leading for... whatever they were doing when they found Alexandria... to do something on her own...

...and now Virion, the Duke of Rosanne shows up, apparently having nothing better to do than to chase after some random tomboy he passed.

In a forest.

That is on fire.

 

Yeah I hate Virion for this, Awakening seems to love having out-of-place comedy moments. (and a friend of mine who also played Awakening hated it too.)

I am curious as to how the heck you're going to tangle those absurd bonus chapters with the extremely suicidal villagers, I'm merely on hard and I find them near impossible to clear with any of the villagers alive. 

45 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Anyway, we're at the world map, and it deliberately prevents us from accessing anything but the save function and the next map. No shops, no even sorting items. Weird choice, honestly.

I don't actually mind map shops in Awakening. (Why they made the Arena a shop though, I'll never understand, I actually ended up with really poorly distributed EXP in all my playthroughs of the early game and grinding to get out of it would have been alot better if I didn't have to wait IRL time just for a chance of them to show up.)

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I don't actually mind map shops in Awakening. (Why they made the Arena a shop though, I'll never understand, I actually ended up with really poorly distributed EXP in all my playthroughs of the early game and grinding to get out of it would have been alot better if I didn't have to wait IRL time just for a chance of them to show up.)

Oh no, I wasn't complaining about the map shops, those are fine. Especially now that you can see what they sell on the bottom screen without having to actually visit them. My issue is more that they give you the world map, but don't let you do anything on it yet, begging the question of why they even let you move.

As for grinding, one solution is to get somebody with despoil (or armsthrift and Leif's Blade) so that you can break even buying reeking boxes. Won't work on Lunatic and above though. There the skirmishes are damned near impossible.

 

5 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

I am curious as to how the heck you're going to tangle those absurd bonus chapters with the extremely suicidal villagers, I'm merely on hard and I find them near impossible to clear with any of the villagers alive. 

Hahahahahahahaha, yeah those are terrible. I imagine my strategies for dealing with them might disappoint you, as it generally just involves doing shit super quickly with overpowered fliers.

 

6 minutes ago, Samz707 said:

Awakening should have honestly IMO just been a new continuity, I guess there is actually some retcon stuff that's interesting (like Manaketes being able to get different forms via dragon stones, which I think also effects their stats?) It's just you know, its a retcon, if this was a new continuity I'd actually be onboard with it since it seems like an interesting gameplay idea, it's just, they set in Marth's continuity yet there's so many retcons I kinda wonder why they bothered.

That stuff with the dragonstones is in FE3 and FE12. In Awakening there's two variations of dragonstone, but it only affects stats, not appearance at all. Also, dragonstones and Manaketes in Awakening... just... make no sense, at all. Honestly.

[Ottservia]

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also... this cutscene really weirdly makes it look like these guys need to be stabbed through the heart in order to be killed, as one of the risen basically gets slashed straight through the stomach... and... what, nothing happens? What's going on here? And of course needless to say this is never mentioned again, in-story or out.

My take on this is that because Risen are essentially just reanimated corpses they are able to take far more punishment before they die. The valentian accordian goes more into detail on how they work and I think it’s stated that the parasite used to create them strengthens the muscle mass of the corpse. I don’t quite remember. That actually answers your other question about Risen. They’re essentially a parasitic insect that posesses a corpse through the mask. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume there’s a faction of the grimleal that deals in this sort of thing.

 

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, so, Frederick talks about the bandits speaking with a Plegian accent, and... honestly, unless this is some extremely-subtle thing like the difference between regional accents of the same country that went completely over my head, I'm just not hearing any effort to make that actually come across in the voice acting. Which is giving me Petra vibes all over again. It just rubs me the wrong way.

I’m willing to bet this was something better understood in the Japanese version that just doesn’t translate well into english because of just the sheer amount of dialects in Japanese that there’s no English equivalent for but who knows.

 

54 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway... Lucina runs off after saying some mysterious shit, rather than try to convince Chrom she's from the future and give him any more useful advice.

I mean it’s stated later it’s because she didn’t want to fuck with the past too much which is understandable. She hasn’t time traveled before so it’s not like she has any idea of how this is supposed to work.

 

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

How did Grima go back in time to fuse with Alexandria before the portal opened?

...No, wait, the portal doesn't bring everyone to the same time and place, hence why all the children aren't here in the forest and why Laurent spent something like five years in the past waiting for Lucina to show up because he showed up early (and apparently none of the risen got sent to where he was, but I'll have to re-read that support to be sure).

I think it’s implied that Grima made his own portal to travel to the past. I mean he’s strong enough to kill Naga after all. It wouldn’t surprise me if he could time travel just like she could. Also I think it’s implied that Grima’s intervention is what caused all the kids to be scattered like that. At least that’s what I get from the opening cutscene before the title screen. Bottom line time travel is weird

[Alastor15243]

5 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

I mean it’s stated later it’s because she didn’t want to fuck with the past too much which is understandable. She hasn’t time traveled before so it’s not like she has any idea of how this is supposed to work.

Yeah I didn't really mean that as a criticism, more of an observation. I don't remember enough details to call bullshit on anything right now.

6 minutes ago, Ottservia said:

My take on this is that because Risen are essentially just reanimated corpses they are able to take far more punishment before they die. The valentian accordian goes more into detail on how they work and I think it’s stated that the parasite used to create them strengthens the muscle mass of the corpse. I don’t quite remember. That actually answers your other question about Risen. They’re essentially a parasitic insect that posesses a corpse through the mask. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume there’s a faction of the grimleal that deals in this sort of thing.

Man, I really wish the game proper actually went into detail about that. Could've been interesting support conversation material.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the playlog! Good to have you on board!

[Benice]

52 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

The game it seems everyone has an opinion on, and none of those opinions are neutral.

Allow me to change that statement! I have a neutral stance on awakening!

I think it's pretty cool. Did some neat things for the franchise, and bringing it back is great. Nothing phenomenal, but a nice installment in the franchise.

54 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

In fact at times it feels like there are barely any degrees of separation between it and a normal turn-based RPG. Especially since often this game just plays itself.

Honestly, as far as FE games that play themselves, I feel like Awakening did it pretty well due to the ability to skip enemy phases, the customization of child units, etc.. Certainly better than FE9 and FE10 parts 3/4, though.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

Lucina: You may call me Marth.

Chrom: Really?

Lucina: No.

Pfft. I really do feel that if there is voice acting, I'd rather have it fully acted or done only in cutscenes rather than Fateswakening's semi-voiced dialogue.

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

..The actual integrity of the story may suffer...

...as does the worldbuilding...

...but we'll get to that as it comes.

There is a solution for this- Fire Emblem: Masonry of War, or Fire Emblem: Empires of Micromanagement. Minecraft FE or 4X FE, either way, you'll never complain this franchise has no worldbuilding ever again.😛

 

18 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I can't quite remember my exact opinion of this game by the time Fates was announced, but... I do know that by that time, I had eventually become burned out or disillusioned with certain aspects of the game.

This happens. Years after I was done with my GBA, when Sacred Stones became available for early buyers of the 3DS, I was still in state of being burnt out with that game. It'll be many, many moons before I return to a bunch of old FEs.

 

20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Holy shit did I hate grinding by the end of this game. Right after my third Apotheosis run, I realized I had just spent days worth of hours of grinding for the single express purpose of beating a single map... that was actually trivially easy thanks to my grinding and felt like it was over in half an hour. I've basically completely sworn of grinding entirely from that moment on in all forms of turn-based RPGs, and I've only slightly warmed up to it in action RPGs because it generally means there's some repetitive but still skill-demanding sequence of actions you can practice and get good at while you listen to music or a podcast or something.

I'm not as anti-grind as you, it depends on the game. But, I do see your point with Awakening for absolute sure, it's unacceptable for the postgame junk, and we can agree that the grind in FEH is horrendous and Disgaea is our mortal enemy. You've gotten me to dislike grind in Metroidvanias, tho' I still went out of my way and did a tonne for completionism's sake in Bloodstained -but never again in that game.

 

26 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Oh yeah, uh putting “Marth” in quotation marks reminded me... in case you're new here and haven't played this game yet... beware of spoilers from here on out. Though I don't know how you can possibly be on this forum at this point and not know who the masked guy on the box art is, but if that somehow is the case... please look away, and also... uh... if you have any desire to play this game...

 

Because you bring up Masquerade Boy, this game has one nice bit of misleading art. They emphasis that duel between Chrom & Mars in the official stuff a good bit, but it's such a tiny scene in the context of the entire game. -Not heavily criticizing the game for it though.

 

25 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Speaking of which, apparently the working title for this game was “Fire Emblem Fin: The Children from the Brink”, which is an absolutely awesome title that just makes me wish even harder that we got the Thracia to Awakening's Genealogy and got a game where we played as the future children fighting their way through a post-apocalyptic world trying to gather the means to travel back through time. That would've been awesome, especially if it played like Conquest.

That would be good. Though as a working title, it has nothing to do with the final product, since the children amount to nothing except for whatever Lucina does. Blame FE's Casts of 90% Irrelevance.

And I'm sure you'd play a game that featured a lord whose solemn duty was cleaning litterboxes across the world if the game played like Conquest.😜

 

35 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Yeah, so, this game is partially voice-acted. People get a full array of voiced lines and grunts for when they're fighting, and a bunch of stock voice clips that will occasionally be used during talk scenes. Sometimes voicing whole sentences verbatim from the script, but more often just using a bunch of multi-purpose generic lines that vaguely match the mood or sentiment of the line being said.

A lot of people are annoyed by this.

Because the lines can be out-of-place and repetitive, see at Basilio's hatred of pig baths.

I'll take full VAs any day. I don't mind slowing down if I've already read them if the VAs are good. If the VAs are bad, and I have been playing Devil Survivor 2 with Io's VA sounding artificial, then as soon as I'm done reading it, I press on and her VA is clipped at that point. This is better to me, because every word my Daichi speaks is music to my ears, worth more than anything shoddy Io throws out there that I still happen to listen to. Call it weird, but how it is less weird than a random generic quip that has little or nothing to do with the lines being said?

But this is just me. One of my earliest VA experiences was Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean. You can't get much more tolerant of bad and not so bad it's good VA work than that.

 

42 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

It's technically a medieval fantasy zombie apocalypse.

Pity it's not nearly as interesting as that makes it sound. Mostly because they barely actually show the “apocalypse” part.

You know that whole "Abolish the Valm arc, it's filler" thing some people say? Well you'd need something to fill in the void, and I think emphasizing on a Risen apocalypse would be the answer. You could keep it on the Ylissean continent, provided you abolished Chonsin and relocated Vert, and moved Tiki with the Azure to Mount Prism, which you can totally do, because lack of worldbuilding means the Mila Tree is weightless and free of things to bind Tiki there.

 

47 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Credit where it's due, that's actually an instance of the English localization fixing a plot hole. According to various translations of the Japanese version I've seen, namely from ShadowOfChaos725, Chrom originally responded to being referred to by name by a complete stranger by saying “How do you know my name?”.

This is, of course, a completely ridiculous thing for Chrom to say, as Chrom is the fucking prince of the nation they are currently in. The weird prophetic time-travel nonsense going on with Alexandria is far from the only explanation for why a stranger would know Chrom's name, and I'm glad the English localization team picked up on that.

Except, would a civilian know what their liege looks like? They have no TV, internet, or probably printing presses outside of Anna's sweatshops. Coinage could be a source of a ready portrait, but why would Emmeryn throw her siblings images on it when she is the ruler?

 

49 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Growth rates are pretty damned high in this game.

Characters without class should have at least 270 in growths, classes barring Villager have at least 105. Radiant Dawn peaked at 400. New Mystery... class growths are about the same, it's the characters that got more in Awakening.

 

55 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, they use the classic and cliché trope of having the amnesiac ask all the questions the player has about the world, and yeah, the characters reveal that we're in a place called Ylisse, which of course means that Marth's glorious empire didn't last at all.

Excuse me? No IRL dynasty lasts that long, give Marth a break. At least the Kingdom of Archanea "region" has held together as Ylisse.

 

59 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yes, Plegia is to the west. So... it's basically where Macedon and Dolhr used to be.

Well, I mean, that checks out as far as having wyverns and worshipping dragons goes, in all fairness, but...

...wow, the climate changed radically, huh? Near total desert. Also, I wonder how Dolhr transformed from being populated by dragons... to being populated by dragon-worshippers.

When it comes to some of the terraformation, I like to pretend Grima was on the verge of integrating the planet into its own being 1000 years ago. Attempted terraformation into the Fell Planetoid (whose depths would've bore the Fellspawn born into darkness, kill each other, and see the strongest set out to Fell the universe) did a number on things.

 

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Everyone in Three Houses could have had their feet surgically removed during all support conversations and dialogue scenes and we'd never know, because we're just seeing them from the waist

Blame us for being too sensitive for Fodlan culture. Ya see, there is nothing wrong there with choosing to relax at any time by disrobing any portion of one's body.😄

 

I might have missed something I wanted to comment on, but I already said enough. Good luck with this game!😉

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Oh, and when Alexandria remembers her name, Chrom asks if it's foreign, foreshadowing her Plegian origins. Weird how when she got amnesia, she also completely forgot her Plegian accent. Or maybe she grew up in Ylisse and only her name remains as a remnant of her Plegian heritage. Really though, having Chrom always say that a name sounds foreign is just begging for people with childish senses of humor to make dumb jokes with what they name their avatar.

 

So on this point, I don't care as much in the case of the other avatars (in fact in Corrin's case it'd be downright weird), but Robin really, really, really should have had skin tone options in the avatar creation imo. Because their mother must have had the whitest ass on the planet for them to not look a thing like their father, racially speaking (and also every other physical proportion speaking too I guess).