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

[lenticular]

9 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, from what I remember, enemy spam is generally how Lunatic differentiates itself from Hard, and while I'm worried that might cause serious problems later, at the moment I'm actually liking the enemy density. I felt a decent amount of pressure across the whole map and felt like my skills were being tested continuously, especially at the beginning.

The beginning parts of Fire Emblem levels are often the most interesting. Once I've stabilised and created breathing room, things start to feel more samey from level to level. My own personal ideal Fire Emblem game would have a lot of very short levels with interesting and challenging starting positions, to really lean into the interest that they can provide. I doubt that's a direction IS would ever want to go, though.

[Alastor15243]

2 minutes ago, lenticular said:

The beginning parts of Fire Emblem levels are often the most interesting. Once I've stabilised and created breathing room, things start to feel more samey from level to level. My own personal ideal Fire Emblem game would have a lot of very short levels with interesting and challenging starting positions, to really lean into the interest that they can provide. I doubt that's a direction IS would ever want to go, though.

That sounds like New Mystery. Personally I think the goal should be to just apply continuous pressure via, say, no-exp reinforcements.

[lenticular]

46 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

That sounds like New Mystery. Personally I think the goal should be to just apply continuous pressure via, say, no-exp reinforcements.

I'm not really a big fan of too many reinforcements. It's too easy to get into situations along the lines of "4 reinforcement units show up every turn and I can reliably kill 5 units every turn" where you are making progress and winning is never in question, but it's excruciatingly slow.

[Benice]

Honestly, I think that the way to keep difficulty level and/or increasing over the course of the game is to severely reduce stats, lower exp gain or both; in games with stat inflation, things tend to become a slog as the player just gets OP. Plus, the devs then get more control over the game due to the reduced variance of player units.

[Jotari]

6 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The takeover couldn't have happened before Mikoto's death, because of the magic hippie shield that kept any enemy Nohrian from going far beyond the bottomless canyon without losing the will to fight! ...Which means that the takeover of Izumo must have happened ridiculously quickly in order for any of this shit to have happened.

 

Maybe Zola got around the Hippie shield as he never intended to fight, just stuff Izana in a cupboard and replace him? He never does kill him in any of the routes, even though that would be the prudent decision.

[Alastor15243]

Just now, Jotari said:

Maybe Zola got around the Hippie shield as he never intended to fight, just stuff Izana in a cupboard and replace him? He never does kill him in any of the routes, even though that would be the prudent decision.

Nope, Izana says he was was captured shortly after witnessing Ryoma and Takumi clash with Nohr forces.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, lenticular said:

The beginning parts of Fire Emblem levels are often the most interesting. Once I've stabilised and created breathing room, things start to feel more samey from level to level. My own personal ideal Fire Emblem game would have a lot of very short levels with interesting and challenging starting positions, to really lean into the interest that they can provide. I doubt that's a direction IS would ever want to go, though.

Sounds a lot like Heroes to be honest.

17 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Nope, Izana says he was was captured shortly after witnessing Ryoma and Takumi clash with Nohr forces.

Welp I got nothing then. Super fast take over it is then. On that note, was anyone else expecting to get to Izana before Zola took over it in the other routes? I was after playing Birthright (even though that's the earliest it could ever conceivably happen). It's just something you think they'd utilize with parallel plots, mixing things up a bit by  playing with the time frame, but nope, much like COrrin always finding an excuse to fight Koatro, Zola always captures Izana no matter what else happens.

[lenticular]

6 hours ago, Jotari said:

Sounds a lot like Heroes to be honest.

The one time I tried to play Heroes, I was driven off by gacha nonsense before I got to anything that even slightly resembled interesting level design. I have an extremely low tolerance for gacha nonsense.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, lenticular said:

The one time I tried to play Heroes, I was driven off by gacha nonsense before I got to anything that even slightly resembled interesting level design. I have an extremely low tolerance for gacha nonsense.

If you just have a personality that can't resist spending money for optimization, then dismissing it on that basis is completely understandanble, but as far as Gacha games go, it's actually super generous to free to play players. Like I haven't spent anything on it in the past three years and I'm still able to do pass all the levels with an appropriate level of challenge. So generous that if I were in charge of things I'd probably be making several changes to encourage players to spend money. That being said, starting to play it now would be rather an uphill battle as power creep mandates having the best units which would only show up every odd banner or so that newer players would miss out on.

[Alastor15243]

Birthright Day 5: Chapter 10

Alright, let's do this. I don't have much time today so we'll have to make this quick.

...I just got Hinoka's C support with Dakota by giving her a smithy shield as a present. And... she's... repeating the same stuff Dakota heard in Chapter 4 about Hinoka's origin story as if she hasn't heard it yet? And Dakota asked for it like she hadn't heard it yet!

And I just realized that Azura is on fishing duty.

...Yeah, she's totally using that to go to Valla at night.

Also, quick reminder that this game just gives you the fish. Imagine if there were a stupid minigame you had to do every time you wanted fish from this thing.

Okay, that's it for castle maintenance. Time to check out the map and see what we need in terms of stat thresholds.

Okay, this makes absolutely no sense. We're supposed to be headed to the bottomless canyon through here, but this is a really roundabout path. Of course, I notice it just so happens to be closer to where we're going to change our minds and go to, but... what, are we avoiding the obviously-faster main path because we'll be stepping into an active war zone?

Gee, how is that war coming along?

Yeah, this is ridiculous, I just realized... after the skirmish at Fort Jinya... we literally don't participate in the Hoshido-Nohr war at all. Not a single battle. No bases held under siege, no fights to reclaim territory, no open-field skirmishes... we're just wandering around the land doing our own thing, running into random skirmishes, and every single Nohrian battalion we fight after Chapter 7 is completely and totally detached from the forces tasked with invading Hoshido.

The war is basically completely offscreen, to the point that I almost forgot it was a thing.

But yet again Kaze talks about the path through Mokushu like it would've been a shortcut. Not a shortcut between the sea and Hoshido, but between the Bottomless Canyon and Hoshido. It's not! Even if you walk from the absolute southern edge of the bottomless canyon, you still have to move away from Hoshido in order to enter Mokushu!

And... and we just left Zola behind. We didn't take him as a prisoner. He came back to us, seeking help.

Okay, while this is beyond stupid, I do love all of Hinoka's talk about her knife. It's pretty amusing since it comes out of basically nowhere. Something about Hinoka's portrait pose makes it really amusing to think about her just having a knife at the ready.

And apparently the alliance between Nohr and Mokushu is top secret or something, because Zola knows jack shit about it. Given that he was tasked with undermining an entire fucking kingdom neighboring it, you'd think he'd be privy to that kind of information.

So what, was he playing dumb because he's evil, just like how he winds up betraying us in the end? If so, you'd think he'd help lure them into a trap in the hopes of getting his reputation back by capturing all four enemy princesses at once. Not merely deny his new “allies” crucial information that could have spared them a fight.

Also, how exactly did Nohr communicate with Mokushu? Were they not included in Mikoto's protective barrier? Was Izumo? No, Izumo must've been included, because otherwise the takeover of Izumo would've happened earlier than immediately after Mikoto's death.

So Kaze knew and respected Kotaro, the famous daimyo of Mokushu, before he found out that he's a “scheming politician” plotting for territory.

How does Kaze not know that Kotaro killed his father?

Anyway, out of the plot and into the fun we go!

I cook a strength meal that winds up thankfully also boosting speed, though not everyone I would've wanted to give the meal to gets it.

Anyway, this is ninja territory. They have shuriken, obviously, which means debuffs, obviously, which are annoying. But that makes it a hell of a lot of fun coming up with ways to avoid getting hit by them.

The enemy layering is pretty nasty though. I'll have to be slightly aggressive and take a hit or two in some non-essential stats in order to avoid potentially getting swarmed later. But yeah, I think I'll be okay without going nuts with tonics.

Let's go.

One thing I love about archers is their WTA against ninjas. Insanely useful, because dual-striking ninjas is vitally important to avoid getting hit with their debuffs. You have to kill them on the first attack, and do it on player phase.

Alright, I think I've got myself an opening for a pretty devastating player-phase gambit. Especially now that... who should arrive...

...but...

The man.

The meme.

HE WHO MUST ALWAYS BE BLAMED.

And edgyboi himself shows up in spectacular style, shooting his sister while hopped up on Valla fumes. But of course Azura can sing for him by talking to him to cure and recruit him.

This is a pretty shitty move for a map where Azura isn't force-deployed. And what the fuck happens when Azura's KO'd? Do you really have to have Azura to get Takumi? Is there any other recruitment in the game where losing a prior unit makes recruiting them impossible? I man there's Benny and Charlotte in Rev, but at least there it's a unit you literally just got.

But yeah, Takumi's awesome. His personal bow gives him acrobat, a skill that doesn't even exist in this game except in the form that ballisticians get, and its might is really high for this point in the game. 14! You have no idea how badly I'd love to use this guy in Conquest. I always remember him falling off eventually due to enemy numbers getting more ridiculous and player-phase combat getting less important, buuuuuut... we'll see.

I've taken out the enemies nearby and I've gotten ready to intercept the incoming ninja with a dual-guarded Kaze.

Mission accomplished, but a bunch of enemies came in, and the stationary enemies nearby mean that I can't possibly player-phase them all. Gotta retreat and deal with this next turn, maybe picking off one or two with Saizo and Kaze on enemy phase.

Takumi can one-shot these ninja, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm also planning on getting Takumi and Azura hitched, so I'll be having him be the target of her singing as much as possible.

...Oh god, I forgot the pain of this. Wading through the punji traps, and watching everyone get damaged... and then healed back up by Azura, one by one.

…

I'm getting the “DANGER! DANGER!” music when fighting an enemy who doesn't even do half-damage to Hinoka. Both she and the enemy are in guard stance, so what the fuck? It shouldn't be taking the archer in guard stance with this spear fighter into account at all!

I'm finding Hinoka's aura surprisingly handy. It's not as powerful as Camilla's, but its bigger range makes it handy for generally buffing player-phase assaults. Hopefully I'll get used to having it in my repertoire and won't forget it at crucial moments.

I just ordered Oboro to cuck herself by using her swap skill to swap places with Azura so that after Azura sung Takumi back into action, Takumi could do a support-and-accuracy-boosting dual strike with Azura instead of her. I almost feel bad.

But at any rate, the initial wave has been fought through, and now we just need to make our way through the rest at our own pace.

...Swap came in handy yet again when I needed Hinoka to be a single space closer to an enemy. Funny, I don't remember ever using it before, and here it's come in handy twice.

Alright, we're at the boss, and we've got a cool boss conversation between Saizo and Kotaro, one that does something I've never seen before or since in the entire damned series.

...Okay, so it turns out that at this point, Kotaro killing Saizo IV was a rumor. But anyway, the conversation reveals that little tidbit that Kotaro killed Saizo and Kaze's father, and then...

Kotaro: Please. If you're anything like your father, you won't land a single blow.

Then he kills him. And then...

Saizo: How's that? Did I land a single blow?

Kotaro: Ugh... *cough* *cough*... *gurgle*

Saizo: Fitting. Father, you are avenged.

Yes. There's a unique death quote for when you kill him with Saizo. I don't think the series has ever fucking done this other than here. Plenty of pre-battle conversations, but not a single unique post-battle conversation other than this one.

But anyway, time to nab the rescue rod in the weird fenced-in outdoor treasure room, and then finish the map by committing a war crime, because this is a rout map, and the healers've gotta die.

...Okay, it suddenly occurs to me that there's gotta be some alternate dialogue for if you don't successfully recruit Takumi. Lemme see...

...Okay, so if you didn't recruit him... the same conversation happens, they just have the singing happen before it. I wonder if this means he's still playable even if you take him out. The game doesn't seem to have a protocol saying he's too injured to fight or anything...

Kaze says they rescued her from “an underground prison”... while underground. So clearly they already know about the underground, which makes mentioning the fact that the prison was underground... kinda weird.

Yeah, and now Kagero acts like traveling through Mokushu is a shortcut or something and not a massively-

...Wait.

Waaaaaaiiiiiit.

Does the game just conspire to have Kagero always captured by Kotaro even when the circumstances aren't the same? By the time this part of the timeline happened in Conquest, Kagero was still free! Chapter 12! You fight her in the jar chapter! And then she gets kidnapped for entirely different reasons!

...Also, apparently the trip between here and Hoshido takes half a day. What did I say about this shit in Rev...? Lemme check...

...Ah yes. I roughly calculated that crossing the entire width of Hoshido takes about an hour in my Chapter 5 playlog of Rev. Meaning that either that's the difference between a trip on foot and a trip through the air... or they just had no idea how idiotic the implications of Chapter 5 were.

...Alright, back to My Castle. I'll be skipping castle visits today to save time, because I really don't have much... and...

...Wow, a lot of supports.

Looks like Kaze and Dakota finally got their A support!

...Yeah, so this is Kaze opening up about the fact that he blames himself both for Dakota's kidnapping and for Sumeragi's death, because he was in Cheve that day and saw the soldiers but didn't understand what it meant because he was still just a child. Dakota obviously forgives him and doesn't even blame him both because he was a child and because Dakota is Dakota, and...

...Now that's interesting. All of the retainers are referred to in the present tense with regards to them serving their lords, but it's possible for some of them (the women) to be dead.

So yeah, the thing is that if you don't do this, Kaze dies at the end of Chapter 15. They both wind up falling off a collapsed cliff, and the logic is that Kaze is too distracted owning up to all of this to actually notice the way to get both of them out of it alive. So he throws Dakota up for Hinoka to grab with the last of his strength, and then dies.

I think this is really dumb. If you're going to make a character you've likely heavily trained just... disappear... you really should have some method of compensating for it so that you haven't just stolen resources from anyone who used Kaze without getting him and the avatar up to an A support. Like boosting the level of someone who shows up later, perhaps.

But anyway, moving on.

Jakob and Sakura have a support too.

Oh my god that was insultingly short. Just Jakob and Sakura briefly arguing about Sakura overworking herself healing people. I'm almost genuinely mad at how short that was.

Azura and Takumi have a support now, and...

...That was also insultingly short and meaningless. Wow. I'm starting to really, really hate the support conversations in this game. Holy shit.

...I almost want to just stop talking about them.

I just got Silas and Hana's support. They got competitive over their single-minded devotion to their friend being like 50% of their character. End of discussion.

Hinoka and Setsuna do cooking stuff. They suck. End of discussion.

Alright, that's it for the week then! Tune in on Monday where we do the obligatory boat chapter, and this is one of my favorites in Fates!

Stay safe, everyone!

Edited February 20, 2021 by Alastor15243

[Shadow Mir]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yeah, the thing is that if you don't do this, Kaze dies at the end of Chapter 15. They both wind up falling off a collapsed cliff, and the logic is that Kaze is too distracted owning up to all of this to actually notice the way to get both of them out of it alive. So he throws Dakota up for Hinoka to grab with the last of his strength, and then dies.

I think this is really dumb. If you're going to make a character you've likely heavily trained just... disappear... you really should have some method of compensating for it so that you haven't just stolen resources from anyone who used Kaze without getting him and the avatar up to an A support. Like boosting the level of someone who shows up later, perhaps.

1000% agree this is a serious dick move to pull. The fact there's no warning makes it all the more egregious. Also, now you can enjoy the implications of Midori's paralogue opening up after this.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Shadow Mir

[Interdimensional Observer]

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is a pretty shitty move for a map where Azura isn't force-deployed. And what the fuck happens when Azura's KO'd? Do you really have to have Azura to get Takumi? Is there any other recruitment in the game where losing a prior unit makes recruiting them impossible? I man there's Benny and Charlotte in Rev, but at least there it's a unit you literally just got.

I had no idea Azura recruited Takumi the first time, I just killed him.

And lo he still joined afterwards. I guess dropping HP to 0 in this case is knocking the person unconscious.

Learning he is recruitable mid-battle later was useful for subsequent BR runs. Because WTA against Shuriken with high accuracy and a strong weapon, means Takcutie❤️ is very useful in this fight.

1 hour ago, Alastor15243 said:

I always remember him falling off eventually due to enemy numbers getting more ridiculous and player-phase combat getting less important, buuuuuut... we'll see.

Au contraire, he never really fell off for me. Hoshido can barely muster any good EPers, so player-phasing what I could remained useful in a few difficult lategame fights (namely Shura and Iago 2). But that was me, you're a better player. 

[Shadow Mir]

It's nice to have an archer who can actually do something without needing a shitload of investment, especially considering the alternatives are either Mozu, who needs a lot of investment including a valuable Heart Seal, or Setsuna, who ALSO needs a lot of investment and has poor stats nearly everywhere.

[lenticular]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, quick reminder that this game just gives you the fish. Imagine if there were a stupid minigame you had to do every time you wanted fish from this thing.

That does sound pretty awful. Could be worse, though. they could have put it behind a social section in an otherwise single player game, region locked it, and had no plan beyond planned obsolesence  for what happens when their servers go offline. Even a tedious, stupid minigame would be better than that.

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Anyway, this is ninja territory. They have shuriken, obviously, which means debuffs, obviously, which are annoying. But that makes it a hell of a lot of fun coming up with ways to avoid getting hit by them.

Fates debuffs are weird. Sometimes they can be fun and interesting to try to plan around, but at other times they are an exercise in tedium. I spent way too many turns while not under any pressure just hitting "end turn" and waiting for debuffs to go away. They really should have gone away quicker, so they could still be dangerous while under pressure without ever getting tedious that way. Either that, or Fates should have had Restore staves. So many games in the series where they exist despite being close to useless, and they aren't around here when I actually wanted them.

[Eltosian Kadath]

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yeah, this is ridiculous, I just realized... after the skirmish at Fort Jinya... we literally don't participate in the Hoshido-Nohr war at all. Not a single battle. No bases held under siege, no fights to reclaim territory, no open-field skirmishes... we're just wandering around the land doing our own thing, running into random skirmishes, and every single Nohrian battalion we fight after Chapter 7 is completely and totally detached from the forces tasked with invading Nohr.

The war is basically completely offscreen, to the point that I almost forgot it was a thing.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Also, how exactly did Nohr communicate with Mokushu? Were they not included in Mikoto's protective barrier? Was Izumo? No, Izumo must've been included, because otherwise the takeover of Izumo would've happened earlier than immediately after Mikoto's death.

I feel like both of these issues are the product of Fate's terrible world building. If they took a step back and gave us an idea of what the world map was actually like questions about the protective barrier would be a one image thing to resolve, and they could show us a few scenes about what is happening with the war on the world map as we progress the story (like so many of the older fire emblems did), and suddenly it would feel like this looming threat instead of a half forgotten background feature...

 

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

...Swap came in handy yet again when I needed Hinoka to be a single space closer to an enemy. Funny, I don't remember ever using it before, and here it's come in handy twice.

Interesting. I haven't found it useful before, but shifting positional buffs around sounds like a solid use for it...

 

3 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Yes. There's a unique death quote for when you kill him with Saizo. I don't think the series has ever fucking done this other than here. Plenty of pre-battle conversations, but not a single unique post-battle conversation other than this one.

I know Genealogy had them before, the one I remember off the top of my head is Julius having a unique death quote if Celice kills him, a unique (but often seen) death quote if Julia kills him, and a generic one if anyone else does.

I will also note that the Conquest version of the Kotaro's death quote when killed by Saizo is slightly better...

 

[Shadow Mir]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes. There's a unique death quote for when you kill him with Saizo. I don't think the series has ever fucking done this other than here. Plenty of pre-battle conversations, but not a single unique post-battle conversation other than this one.

The only other ones I can remember are Bryce and maybe Yen'fay.

[Punished Dayni]

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And I just realized that Azura is on fishing duty.

...Yeah, she's totally using that to go to Valla at night.

I thought she could only do it in specific places. Like the lake that's somehow everywhere or the Bottomless Canyon. /s

Certainly looks that way.

(I was going to ask a question here, but it started frying my brain trying to figure the logic around My Castle and the portalling shenanigans from and to it. Oh bother.)

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So what, was he playing dumb because he's evil, just like how he winds up betraying us in the end? If so, you'd think he'd help lure them into a trap in the hopes of getting his reputation back by capturing all four enemy princesses at once. Not merely deny his new “allies” crucial information that could have spared them a fight.

Also, how exactly did Nohr communicate with Mokushu? Were they not included in Mikoto's protective barrier? Was Izumo? No, Izumo must've been included, because otherwise the takeover of Izumo would've happened earlier than immediately after Mikoto's death.

Maybe he's actually trying to find a more opportune moment and doesn't think this is it. He's just infiltrated Corrin's forces, is in a territory he's apparently not familiar with and maybe he's of the mindset he has to take this victory and not share it to benefit from it.

Also, I feel like the barrier is immune to plot holes as well with the way things are going. So, was Kotaro reaching out to Nohr? That would probably be the easiest explanation, he is treated as an ambitious man looking for his cut.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

The man.

The meme.

HE WHO MUST ALWAYS BE BLAMED.

IT IS BETRAYAL

Pineapple's here!+

You considering using his reclasses?

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

This is a pretty shitty move for a map where Azura isn't force-deployed. And what the fuck happens when Azura's KO'd? Do you really have to have Azura to get Takumi? Is there any other recruitment in the game where losing a prior unit makes recruiting them impossible? I man there's Benny and Charlotte in Rev, but at least there it's a unit you literally just got.

Considering Azura's the dancer and a unit who clearly is expected to be kept alive, I bet they just assumed you'd deploy her.

Also apparently she'll do it after the map. Huh. Least you aren't killing Takumi in Chapter 10 and thus massively altering the plot.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Takumi can one-shot these ninja, which is absolutely fantastic. I'm also planning on getting Takumi and Azura hitched, so I'll be having him be the target of her singing as much as possible.

Good to know that that's an option in Lunatic.

It was hilarious realising this.

Then I remembered I was banning the royals.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I just ordered Oboro to cuck herself by using her swap skill to swap places with Azura so that after Azura sung Takumi back into action, Takumi could do a support-and-accuracy-boosting dual strike with Azura instead of her. I almost feel bad.

Cucking?

Sure, Oboro's being asked to help someone else go out with her crush. But that implies they're actually together instead of Oboro crushing on him. Shit, but not the right word.

4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Alright, that's it for the week then! Tune in on Monday where we do the obligatory boat chapter, and this is one of my favorites in Fates!

Honestly, I came to appreciate this one in that Hard playthrough.

Partly because I actually used the veins.

[Axie]

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yeah, this is ridiculous, I just realized... after the skirmish at Fort Jinya... we literally don't participate in the Hoshido-Nohr war at all. Not a single battle. No bases held under siege, no fights to reclaim territory, no open-field skirmishes... we're just wandering around the land doing our own thing, running into random skirmishes, and every single Nohrian battalion we fight after Chapter 7 is completely and totally detached from the forces tasked with invading Hoshido.

The war is basically completely offscreen, to the point that I almost forgot it was a thing.

chapter 10 and you are already starting to realize birthright is an absolute writing disaster ❤️ it gets worse! i cannot wait!

 

8 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I think this is really dumb. If you're going to make a character you've likely heavily trained just... disappear... you really should have some method of compensating for it so that you haven't just stolen resources from anyone who used Kaze without getting him and the avatar up to an A support. Like boosting the level of someone who shows up later, perhaps.

even that would be insufficient because kaze is a dude and dudes are the ones who gets kids in fates. the fact you can lock yourself out of getting midori in birthright... yikes

[Jotari]

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes. There's a unique death quote for when you kill him with Saizo. I don't think the series has ever fucking done this other than here. Plenty of pre-battle conversations, but not a single unique post-battle conversation other than this one.

Rare, but not quite unique. As noted already, Julius (three different death quotes, one for Julia, one for Seliph, and one for any other unit), Bryce (generic death quote and unique one for Ike) and Yen'fey (three again, I think, one for Chrom, one for Say'ri and presumably one for everyone else) all have unique death quotes depending on who defeats them. Shinon in Path of Radiance also obviously has a unique "death" quote for being defeated by Ike, namely the dialogue that shows he's just been defeated and not killed that leads to his recruitment. There's some select post combat dialgoue in Three Houses too where you can spare certain characters by defeating them with Ike, but that's like post battle, kind of? So maybe it doesn't count. There's probably a few more scattered throughout the series, but it isn't something they do all that much.

12 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

So yeah, the thing is that if you don't do this, Kaze dies at the end of Chapter 15. They both wind up falling off a collapsed cliff, and the logic is that Kaze is too distracted owning up to all of this to actually notice the way to get both of them out of it alive. So he throws Dakota up for Hinoka to grab with the last of his strength, and then dies.

I think this is really dumb. If you're going to make a character you've likely heavily trained just... disappear... you really should have some method of compensating for it so that you haven't just stolen resources from anyone who used Kaze without getting him and the avatar up to an A support. Like boosting the level of someone who show

While this is an undeniably shitty move, I don't think it's as bad as it seems. By that I mean that the chances of not having an A support with Kaze if you're using him seems highly unlikely. Just your playthrough here for example, you've reached A support with him five full chapters before the dead line (plus whatever paralogues you might do at this point in the game). Did you particularly try to get a Kaze Corrin support early? Even if you did, you've done it in half the necessary time. Unless someone is just intentionally doing a blind no support run for some reason, it just doesn't seem very likely to me that a serious player who is using Kaze would not get a Corrin A support by that point in the game. Though someone who was playing Birthright in this thread managed to get no S supports at all throughout the game, so I guess it's possible, but I just don't see it as likely. Honestly my biggest problem isn't with how shitty it is in terms of gameplay, but just how stupid it is in terms of plot. It there was a more justifiable reason for his death, like for example is Pelleas was playable throughout Radiant Dawn (and it had a more standard support system) and the option to save him depended on the existence of a Micaiah support, that wouldn't bother me nearly as much, as it'd feel like the support is earning something. For Kaze it just happens randomly out of nowhere and achieves nothing. It leaves the scene being  really, really weird if you're playing blind and you do save Kaze.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

Unless someone is just intentionally doing a blind no support run for some reason, it just doesn't seem very likely to me that a serious player who is using Kaze would not get a Corrin A support by that point in the game.

My first blind ironman had me fail to get that A support. I don't remember what I did get, but it wasn't remotely on my list of priorities.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

My first blind ironman had me fail to get that A support. I don't remember what I did get, but it wasn't remotely on my list of priorities.

Were you actively using Kaze as a major member of your army? I'm sure there are a certain number of people who did use him, but just not quite enough to get the A support, but I'm guessing the vast majority of players either used him extensively and got the A support well in time, or didn't use him much at all and had him dead without it actually being a major gameplay loss.

Edited February 20, 2021 by Jotari

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Were you actively using Kaze as a major member of your army? I'm sure there are a certain number of people who did use him, but just not quite enough to get the A support, but I'm guessing the vast majority of players either used him extensively and got the A support well in time, or didn't use him much at all and had him dead without it actually being a major gameplay loss.

Yes, I had him promoted just in the prior map, at level 20. Why would getting an A support with the avatar be such a natural result of that?

[Jotari]

1 minute ago, Alastor15243 said:

Yes, I had him promoted just in the prior map, at level 20. Why would getting an A support with the avatar be such a natural result of that?

Because you're always going to have the avatar deployed and their support builds quite quickly. Essentially it's not a hard bar to pass in the time frame to the extent that I think most players would pass it accidentally. That being said, I definitely don't think it's a good thing, as I said, it's undeniably a shitty move, I just don't expect it's screwed over all that many people.

[Alastor15243]

3 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Because you're always going to have the avatar deployed and their support builds quite quickly.

Only if they fight together. I was focused on building their supports with other units. This isn't like Three Houses where support ranks go up with everyone basically no matter what you do. You have to actively try, or at least have a certain specific playstyle. It happened here because I had them paired up continuously because I was deliberately going for it.

[Jotari]

3 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Only if they fight together. I was focused on building their supports with other units. This isn't like Three Houses where support ranks go up with everyone basically no matter what you do. You have to actively try, or at least have a certain specific playstyle. It happened here because I had them paired up continuously because I was deliberately going for it.

I don't think kaze's the kind of unit you're going to send around the map soloing things by himself. Kaze's best strengths are fighting with others and activating dual strikes.