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


Alastor15243
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1 hour ago, Rose482 said:

What an unfortunate name XD 

 

28 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

She can inflict people with the Corona Virus?

It's a fun bit of trivia, that "Corona" is the latin word for "crown". Apparently it's also the Spanish word, but regardless the Coronaviruses (COVID-19, and the ironically named "Human Coronavirus", which causes bronchitis and was at the time of naming the only coronavirus known to infect humans) is named because under a microscope the virus has spiky growths that bear a resemblance to crowns. I know I've said this elsewhere, but it's always timely when the damn virus is everywhere.

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As someone who wasn't super fond of Micaiah back when I first played RD, but have mostly mellowed out on her although she still isn't one of my favorite lords, I could explain my personal thoughts on why I had issues with Micaiah that I didn't have with any other main characters before Robin if you're interested in hearing why.

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8 minutes ago, The Roger The Paladin said:

 

It's a fun bit of trivia, that "Corona" is the latin word for "crown". Apparently it's also the Spanish word, but regardless the Coronaviruses (COVID-19, and the ironically named "Human Coronavirus", which causes bronchitis and was at the time of naming the only coronavirus known to infect humans) is named because under a microscope the virus has spiky growths that bear a resemblance to crowns. I know I've said this elsewhere, but it's always timely when the damn virus is everywhere.

Although in the case of Radiant Dawn I reckon the word origin comes more from the part of a total eclipse that is called the Corona, the light around the moon that resembles a glowing crown.

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1 minute ago, Jotari said:

Although in the case of Radiant Dawn I reckon the word origin comes more from the part of a total eclipse that is called the Corona, the light around the moon that resembles a glowing crown.

Most likely. Though it still kind of ties back to the old Latin word, it is an important distinction. I just get way too caught up on mentioning the virus. Because... you know. When the first thing you do on waking most days is check the new cases... it kind of worms it's way into the fertile soil of one's mind, ready to consume the thought processes.

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2 hours ago, Sunwoo said:

As someone who wasn't super fond of Micaiah back when I first played RD, but have mostly mellowed out on her although she still isn't one of my favorite lords, I could explain my personal thoughts on why I had issues with Micaiah that I didn't have with any other main characters before Robin if you're interested in hearing why.

Very much so, that would be useful info!

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11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

But back to my point, when people accuse canon characters of being “Mary Sues”, in my experience the thing they are generally describing is the concept of a character who one-ups, usurps and/or humiliates beloved and established characters way more experienced than them using talents they gain far more rapidly than the series has previously shown to be remotely realistic even for the most exceptional people in the universe. I'm sure most people reading this can think of at least one character who meets, or at least has been accused of meeting, that definition.

And if we're going by that definition, then Micaiah, to my memory... does not do that. Ever. I don't think there's a single previously-established character she gets the upper hand against, like, even once, except like Sothe and Izuka, and I doubt those two have fanbases big enough to piss people off. And she doesn't even do the whole “Nuh-uh, I'm better than the pre-established prodigies, because I'm a super mega ultra prodigy!” thing that is so unfortunately common when writers try to artificially up the spectacle in sequels with new protagonists. She's not abnormally talented with magic, or even described to be special in any way whatsoever other than her supernatural genetic powers and her strategic mind, and when she gets into a battle of wits against the previous reigning champion in that field, Soren, she loses. So if I'm being completely honest here, I'm not sure where the “Micky Sue” thing came from. But hey, maybe I'll find out.

Yeah most of the arguments I see about Micaiah being a "Mary Sue" center around her sharing traits common to "Mary Sue" like characters, things like having extraordinary unearned powers, being overwhelming liked by in universe characters, having a secret special heritage, and having flaws that are not actually flaws (like her sense of mercy). All those common traits associated with a "Mary Sue", and there is evidence to create an argument for Micaiah sharing those traits, but she never crosses over into the core of what a makes a character a "Mary Sue", being too perfect to be interesting. Plenty of thing go wrong that are entirely her fault, and like you point out her gifts aren't enough to surpass established experts. Its a lot like calling a coconut a mammal because it has hair and produces milk.

 

11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Also, most of these “personal” skills are more impactful than the actual personal skills introduced in Fates, which always seemed pretty trivial.

Really? There are far more useless "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn, and those that have impactful "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn usually aren't the ones you want to keep those skills on, which makes them no longer "personal". Which characters in Radiant Dawn have personal skills that you are finding impactful, that remain personal skills ?

 

11 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Then we get a CG as Micaiah and Sothe escape from Nevassa with the others and oh my god is that Nevassa we're seeing right here? Jesus Christ! Why couldn't we have a battle here that actually took advantage of ledges!? Seeing the fucking place in full, it looks like ledge heaven. It's this massive fucking towering city of increasing and climbing levels, with a castle proper on top of it, and I'm like... why couldn't we have any maps that actually make me feel like I'm in a place like that!?

I think they try to capture that feel with 1-F, with the tiered castle of Nevassa...

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4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Yeah most of the arguments I see about Micaiah being a "Mary Sue" center around her sharing traits common to "Mary Sue" like characters, things like having extraordinary unearned powers, being overwhelming liked by in universe characters, having a secret special heritage, and having flaws that are not actually flaws (like her sense of mercy). All those common traits associated with a "Mary Sue", and there is evidence to create an argument for Micaiah sharing those traits, but she never crosses over into the core of what a makes a character a "Mary Sue", being too perfect to be interesting. Plenty of thing go wrong that are entirely her fault, and like you point out her gifts aren't enough to surpass established experts. Its a lot like calling a coconut a mammal because it has hair and produces milk.

Ah yes. Thanks, I kinda forgot what proper fan fiction Mary Sues were like over the years, and I can see the vague resemblance now. As you say though, and at least from what I can remember, it never goes far enough to be genuinely obnoxious.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Really? There are far more useless "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn, and those that have impactful "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn usually aren't the ones you want to keep those skills on, which makes them no longer "personal". Which characters in Radiant Dawn have personal skills that you are finding impactful, that remain personal skills ?

That point about there being limited overlap between good units and good skills isn't really a fault of the skill system. My point was more that a hell of a lot of units in Fates have shitty knockoffs of existing skills for their personals, as opposed to actual proper useful skills like adept or nihil or celerity or resolve that people can have in this game.

4 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I think they try to capture that feel with 1-F, with the tiered castle of Nevassa...

It just doesn't feel the same indoors, since that's kind of more normal.

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Radiant Dawn Day 2: Chapter 1-2

This exchange about how they have to stay out of town and sleep in the wilderness kind of reminds me of Chapter 4 of Lyn Mode. Especially with how Micaiah's fine roughing it. Actually, come to think of it, Ike said words to that effect too.

But then the plot comes barreling in from stage southeast: Laura, our healer, who asks for help getting medicine for her abbot, medicine Begnion is hoarding. Man did she luck out with who she asked, finding someone who could actually help. Of course, they are openly carrying weapons if their map models are to be believed, so yeah, I suppose it wasn't that big of a stretch. But that also begs the question of what the Dawn Brigade expected to do if they ran into anyone less sympathetic while they were clearly carrying weapons they aren't allowed to.

But then we're suddenly plopped onto the map, and then without a single line of dialogue after our arrival on said map, we're given that hardcore violin “player phase” fanfare.

Yeah, honestly... okay, so, what I'm getting right now is that this multi-perspective story structure is to the massive detriment of this game's pacing. They're just cramming these stories down our throats way faster than they need to or should, simply because there are too many of them to give the proper full-game treatment to even one of them. Nearly all of these parts could have had twice as many chapters devoted to them, and in the Dawn Brigade's case that would have been really, really fun. Getting more than a handful of chapters where we're a ragtag group of freedom fighters before upgrading to a “rebel army” would have been really nice, because as I said, I like the tone and feel of these chapters, both in story and gameplay. And I have a feeling that a lot of this game's story issues are going to owe to the fact that it just cannot slow the fuck down.

But anyway, this is the chapter that introduces ledges, and not one of the chapters where we were fighting in ledgetopia. Pity, but at this point I've said more than my piece about that. As for how ledges work, basically, it takes several movement points to climb up or down, mounted units can't do it at all, and they give you a massive hit and avoid bonus if you're the one with the height advantage and you attack below you at range. Stuff like this would go a long way to making foot units not outrageously outclassed by mounted units (at least the landlocked mounted units; fliers are another story entirely), and I've heard that this is one of the better games to be a foot unit in. Though wyvern riders are still ridiculous, and in this game even more so because they're no longer weak to arrows or wind magic, just thunder magic, which apparently sucks.

We get a line from the boss, and while I like the line “Intruders, you say? What with a full battalion stationed here? The gall! And the intrigue!”... something tells me he's not gonna be as interesting as most of the Path of Radiance one-shot bosses were.

Oh yes, and Sothe pops in briefly to unlock a door, and next turn he's gonna show up in all of his thief-Jagen glory.

Yep! Here he is!

Sothe is the only character I'm aware of who has over the course of his time in the series been both an Est and a Jagen. It's pretty interesting to see. In the last game he was a comically underpowered unit who didn't even have that much payoff for his insane growth rates due to his inability to promote. Here, however, he's by far the most competent and experienced member of the Dawn Brigade (which makes sense, since he's the only one who's had any training as an actual soldier fighting in an actual war). He vastly outstrips Nolan in literally every stat, including defense and HP. He also has an A support with Micaiah that grants them both 2 attack, 8 hit, and 15 avoid (because this game actually rounds up the half points of support bonuses instead of rounding down, something I've felt the system should have done for a while because rounding down nerfs supports where only one member boosts attack or defense), and an insanely useful ability that lets him take any attacks aimed at his supported ally if they're adjacent. Hold on lemme check...

...Shit, apparently it has an activation rate, one that's unknown and also garbage. Oh well.

At any rate, he's also our thief, meaning that we don't need to bring a liability into battle in order to loot shit. All in all, this guy is awesome.

For now.

He's not gonna stay that way, due to his terrible weapon type (Though not as terrible as it was last game) and some questionable stat caps. But by the looks of things, depending on how much bonus exp I have (I plan on hoarding it to use exclusively for the exploit I'll explain later), I might be able to make him salvageable with it due to how quickly he can cap certain stats.

Wait... Jarod is here? That... seems like an obnoxious coincidence. Isn't he supposed to be in Nevassa? What's he doing in this manor in a random, much-distant village? Did we accidentally break into Jarod's manor or something? Is he sufficiently high up in the Begnion social hierarchy to have a manor? Or are manors just easier to get now because they've been stolen from all the Daein nobles who once had them, so they're handing them out to every Begnion occupation member of even slight significance?

...Shit, I should probably start racking up bonus experience if I want to take advantage of the exploit, and that means clearing chapters as quickly as possible. Which I very decidedly am not doing right now.

...Thankfully there doesn't seem to be any need just yet. The bonus exp you get for these first few chapters is trivial for the purposes I'd actually use them for, so it's worth it for me to take my time and train up Micaiah as much as I can.

And then we get a wind edge, a weapon type that is tragically exclusive to this game, because I fucking love it.

So, you know that thing where for the past nine fucking games, conventional physical 1-2 range has been arbitrarily denied to sword units, and they instead had this weird thing where they got an axe-like stronger, heavier and less accurate variation of their weapons called “blades” instead?

This game said “hey, what if we just gave both of those things to every weapon type?”

So now swords get wind edges, which are basically physical shockwave blades like bargain bin Ragnells that are as commonly available as hand axes, and lances and axes get greatlances and poleaxes! And it's awesome! This is why Zihark is so much better in this game, on top of him being able to double-earth support and being a prepromote who scales awesomely well: he can actually enemy phase!

That said, I can see where someone would be coming from when they say this change makes all the weapons too same-y or something. Personally, one thing I'd try would be making the stats of 1-2 range weapons drastically different depending on the type, emphasizing the weapon type's usual strengths and weaknesses. Though that doesn't really work as well when lances don't have any strengths and weaknesses, and are just the midway point between two extremes. One thing I've been thinking about is having swords be light but weak, lances accurate but heavy, and axes strong but inaccurate. Then the 1-2 range weapons would have good values for the thing the weapon type is normally good at, and shit values for the other two, which should help make the weapon types feel significantly different. Until I actually find the time to work on that SRPG Studio game I mentioned, though, that's all pure speculation on my part.

Oh, before I forget: Part 1 doesn't actually have a new unit shortage at all. I've been consistently getting at least one new unit every map, and looking at the recruitment list as a refresher... there literally isn't a single chapter in part 1 where you don't get at least one new unit, except for Endgame, which still lets you keep access to two absolutely broken endgame units.

...It's part three where the Dawn Brigade royally suffers, because as far as I can tell... they don't get a single new recruitment over the course of the three chapters they have in that part.

But yeah, if it weren't for the fact that this game forces you to keep everyone alive or else get an instant game over until Chapter 4, this early part wouldn't be so bad for an ironman.

Micaiah is level six, and she still hasn't had a single level where she's failed to get magic, luck and resistance. It's kind of amazing how high those growths are, and lucky me, she's been getting other shit too.

Oh shit. We got Thani, Micaiah's personal tome. It's the same deal as most early-game lord-personal weapons: effective against cavalry and knights. And it can make Micaiah ridiculously powerful against these enemies, even though she basically can't double anything. She also gets a second one, in part one, making it basically impossible to run out of the 45 use bastards.

Laura got her first level up, speed and luck, which is tragically underwhelming considering her ridiculously high growth rates (which are unfortunately undermined by her terrible caps unless you take advantage of that to abuse bonus exp, as I will explain when the time comes because now somehow still doesn't feel like the right time despite all the mentions I've made to it).

Anyway, a lot of these enemies are refusing to move even when baited in, which always makes me extremely nervous when they're powerful and I don't know the rules for when, if ever, they'll aggro.

Micaiah finally failed to proc one of her big three, but fortunately it was luck, and she inexplicably got strength, HP and speed instead.

This is an “arrive” chapter, so we don't need to beat the boss, but it's such a trivial thing that we might as well, especially considering the treasure chest in the room.

...Micaiah gained strength again. Man, I was getting excited for a second until I realized that both light and Thani weigh exactly 1.

Like I've said before, you have to be extremely careful with Micaiah, because her physical bulk is possibly the worst in the entire series. I just checked, and this steel bow archer can one-shot her. And god help you when the enemies start doubling her.

Alright, we got an energy drop for our troubles, as well as a steel bow that an archer dropped, and now we're getting out of here.

Now, I'm slightly tempted to do another double feature, but... the issue is that 1: I remember what happened the last time I tried doing too many double-features at the beginning of such a story-heavy game, and 2: I remember the next chapter being a bit scary, and I'd like the whole day to manage it just in case. So I'll be checking out the story here and then calling it a day.

...Okay, so... this end-of-chapter dialogue... feels like it's skipping some shit. Like, we ended the chapter with Laura grabbing the medicine and saying “Wait for me here. I'll return soon”.

...But now we're out in the woods again, and suddenly Laura's just ominously disappeared. That... feels rushed. Like there should be scenes here, like maybe one of actually seeing the abbot get his medicine.

Also, Micaiah knows that there's an ambush waiting for her, and that Laura's been kidnapped, but rather than tell Sothe, she tricks him into leaving her alone so that she can get kidnapped too, and... I don't quite remember why.

Okay, this is the second time the game has mentioned a “mark”, and at first it sounded like a unit of distance, but now the game is telling me it's a unit of time. I tried to look up how long it was, and all I got was a tiny Wikipedia entry saying that a mark is a unit of weight.

Apparently they were a half-mark away from Kisca at the beginning of the chapter, and now Micaiah says they (which appears to be just her and Sothe, because the others inexplicably aren't mentioned despite the victory conditions demanding they all be alive) should search for Laura and rendezvous at Kunu Swamp in “three marks time”, and... I don't have fucking clue one how long or short that's supposed to be.

...Yeah, uh...

...I just saw the scene where she gets captured, and I still don't know what the fuck her plan was. I have to assume she didn't tell Sothe because he'd disapprove of the plan, so... what? She just had faith he'd be able to track her down and rescue her despite not having any idea of what was going on? She didn't seem to plan on getting captured, so... the fuck was she planning? What's going on? Where was Laura when Jarod first captured her?

...I feel like this game's plot is at such a breakneck pace that it is actually breaking my neck.

And we still don't have any idea of why Jarod's here.

Game, please don't tell me I have to shit on your plot as much as I did for Sacred Stones.

...But at any rate, that's it for today.

Stay safe, everyone.

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20 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I just saw the scene where she gets captured, and I still don't know what the fuck her plan was. I have to assume she didn't tell Sothe because he'd disapprove of the plan, so... what? She just had faith he'd be able to track her down and rescue her despite not having any idea of what was going on? She didn't seem to plan on getting captured, so... the fuck was she planning? What's going on? Where was Laura when Jarod first captured her?

 

She wanted the rest of the Dawn Brigade to escape. Her plan was to turn herself in so that Laura can be freed. 

Spoiler

Jarod:
“And you saw through my ruse. You’re as clever as they say, my dear. You even came alone. How brave of you. Was that to give your friends a chance to escape? What a thoughtful little thing you are.”

Laura:
“Mi-Micaiah! Don’t come any closer!”

Micaiah:
“Laura! Let her go! She isn’t one of us…”

Jarod:
“Now, you know I can’t do that. She’s a valuable hostage, just like you!”

Micaiah lets Yune escape and Yune has guided Leonardo to Micaiah before so it makes sense that is her contingency plan to warn others what happened to her.

Spoiler

Micaiah:
“No! Yune, fly away!”

(Yune cries)

 

Spoiler

Micaiah:
“Leonardo! How did you find us?”

Leonardo:
“A little bird told me. Yours, in fact.”

(Yune chirps)

 

I do think the story should explain things more clearly as things are moving too fast and the story isn't showing you everything that happens. 

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1 minute ago, Icelerate said:

She wanted the rest of the Dawn Brigade to escape. Her plan was to turn herself in so that Laura can be freed. 

  Hide contents

Jarod:
“And you saw through my ruse. You’re as clever as they say, my dear. You even came alone. How brave of you. Was that to give your friends a chance to escape? What a thoughtful little thing you are.”

Laura:
“Mi-Micaiah! Don’t come any closer!”

Micaiah:
“Laura! Let her go! She isn’t one of us…”

Jarod:
“Now, you know I can’t do that. She’s a valuable hostage, just like you!”

Micaiah lets Yune escape and Yune has guided Leonardo to Micaiah before so it makes sense that is her contingency plan to warn others what happened to her.

  Hide contents

Micaiah:
“No! Yune, fly away!”

(Yune cries)

 

  Hide contents

Micaiah:
“Leonardo! How did you find us?”

Leonardo:
“A little bird told me. Yours, in fact.”

(Yune chirps)

 

I do think the story should explain things more clearly as things are moving too fast and the story isn't showing you everything that happens. 

Shit, I totally forgot that the Dawn Brigade is at least partially fluent in bird. They should have shown one of these scenes to us so that we can see what's going on, because as far as I can tell, every time Yune pulls a "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's fallen in the well?" trick, we never actually see it, we just see the person saying that's what happened after they meet up.

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5 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Shit, I totally forgot that the Dawn Brigade is at least partially fluent in bird. They should have shown one of these scenes to us so that we can see what's going on, because as far as I can tell, every time Yune pulls a "What's that, Lassie? Timmy's fallen in the well?" trick, we never actually see it, we just see the person saying that's what happened after they meet up.

I agree. I am disappointed that we don't see the DB break into the prison and plan it. It could add to Sothe and Nolan's character if they were to make a plan to get into the prison independently of Micaiah. 

 

40 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Game, please don't tell me I have to shit on your plot as much as I did for Sacred Stones.

 

Do you think you'll end up ranking it on the same level as SS? I think you'll end up ranking it below FE4 and FE9 but above FE7. So I think RD will most likely get a solid third place for its story. 

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6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

 

Yeah most of the arguments I see about Micaiah being a "Mary Sue" center around her sharing traits common to "Mary Sue" like characters, things like having extraordinary unearned powers, being overwhelming liked by in universe characters, having a secret special heritage, and having flaws that are not actually flaws (like her sense of mercy). All those common traits associated with a "Mary Sue", and there is evidence to create an argument for Micaiah sharing those traits, but she never crosses over into the core of what a makes a character a "Mary Sue", being too perfect to be interesting. Plenty of thing go wrong that are entirely her fault, and like you point out her gifts aren't enough to surpass established experts. Its a lot like calling a coconut a mammal because it has hair and produces milk.

 

Really? There are far more useless "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn, and those that have impactful "personal" skills in Radiant Dawn usually aren't the ones you want to keep those skills on, which makes them no longer "personal". Which characters in Radiant Dawn have personal skills that you are finding impactful, that remain personal skills ?

 

I think they try to capture that feel with 1-F, with the tiered castle of Nevassa...

I honestly can't think of any useless personal skills in Radiant Dawn except Leonardo's, Cancel which you definitely dont want on an archer, but even that one I can chalk up to being a pretty decent stealth tutorial to introduce what personal skills do. Sure you might want to move some of them around, but just because you want to take Paragon off Astrid and give it to Devdan, Paragon is still useful on Astrid. Radiant Dawn has far less useless personal skills because it has far less useless skills overall, what with them being the actual skills in the game, where's in the newest games their insistence on making them unique means they have to come up with 40 or so extra skills in an already bloated skill pool.

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11 minutes ago, Icelerate said:

Do you think you'll end up ranking it on the same level as SS? I think you'll end up ranking it below FE4 and FE9 but above FE7. So I think RD will most likely get a solid third place for its story. 

That's probably what's going to happen. Definitely below Path of Radiance (by virtue of probably having to blame Radiant Dawn for every fumbled payoff Path of Radiance set up), but probably going somewhere between fourth and second place depending on how well I like the writing and characters. Because all of these top contenders have had roastable material for weeks. The thing that made me hate Sacred Stones so much wasn't that it had all of that but worse, but that it had all of that but worse and I found the writing to be far more lifeless and dull. So far Radiant Dawn isn't even remotely close to meeting that second requirement, so the story will have to get pretty psychotic before I start marking it down to that level.

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2 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

That's probably what's going to happen. Definitely below Path of Radiance (by virtue of probably having to blame Radiant Dawn for every fumbled payoff Path of Radiance set up), but probably going somewhere between fourth and second place depending on how well I like the writing and characters. Because all of these top contenders have had roastable material for weeks. The thing that made me hate Sacred Stones so much wasn't that it had all of that but worse, but that it had all of that but worse and I found the writing to be far more lifeless and dull. So far Radiant Dawn isn't even remotely close to meeting that second requirement, so the story will have to get pretty psychotic before I start marking it down to that level.

What do you think of this guy's rewrite of the first few chapters of Radiant Dawn? 

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

...I just saw the scene where she gets captured, and I still don't know what the fuck her plan was. I have to assume she didn't tell Sothe because he'd disapprove of the plan, so... what? She just had faith he'd be able to track her down and rescue her despite not having any idea of what was going on? She didn't seem to plan on getting captured, so... the fuck was she planning? What's going on? Where was Laura when Jarod first captured her?

Typical martyr complex. She's worried for her friends and thus she becomes a dummy. I guess the other Dawn Brigade members might really have been unable to take down Jarod on their own but he's a starter villain so even that's questionable. 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

And we still don't have any idea of why Jarod's here.

Isn't it because he's just really bored? 

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13 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Very much so, that would be useful info!

All right. Spoiler'd for wall of text.

 

So basically, I think my main issue with Micaiah was partly her, but partly how the other characters in the game treated her. Micaiah's feats aren't particularly unique when you compare her to other FE lords. Pretty much everyone has liberated a country or led a country through war (with FE7 being sort of an exception). But for some reason Micaiah seems to be hailed above and beyond other lords who did the same thing she did, with Daein all but worshipping her as a "Priestess of Dawn" and being quite fanatical about her. The only character I can think of who comes close to this might be Seliph, but due to the narrative structure of Genealogy it's not really in your face as much as Micaiah's thing is.

I understand that Daein's been oppressed for about three years and that the writers need to find a way to make the people of Daein sympathetic after PoR, but I think their method was way too heavy-handed. It's hard to take this arc seriously when Begnion is portrayed as being cartoonishly evil with Sanaki conveniently not able to intervene, and ... it just feels like the narrative couldn't come up with a better way to make us feel bad for the people of Daein, so they just went all out with the melodrama. It also doesn't help that RD part 1 just feels like a very condensed version of PoR, right down to the "supposed" secret heir of the former king and a charismatic young hero leading the army. But because it's condensed it also didn't feel as emotionally satisfying as PoR and I had a harder time connecting to the characters. Also, in PoR, the people definitely loved Elincia. Ike was kind of a side note to their king having a secret heir who was fighting for their freedom. But in RD, Pelleas is the side note. The supposed heir is less beloved than Micaiah, and maybe this would've been okay if they wanted to explore how perhaps some people blamed Ashnard for their situation sometime after the war and were wary of his heir, but no. Micaiah's just special and Pelleas cannot do anything but stand off to the side in her awesomeness.

It really doesn't help that the other members of the Dawn Brigade feel less important to it than the members of the Greil Mercenaries did, with all the emphasis being on Micaiah and Sothe. Like how Micaiah already knew enough about Talgria to make Jill impressed, when it could've had Jill in an advisor role for that chapter. Nolan could've played a role similar to Titania in the Dawn Brigade, but kind of gets pushed out later. It's also annoying how Sothe is permanently glued to Micaiah all the time. He seems like a cross of Soren and Mist, but with a side of "protector" and "bodyguard". He only really exists for Micaiah's sake and isn't his own character anymore.

What also initially bothered me was how Micaiah interacted with some of the other preexisting cast. I don't mind Micaiah disliking Ike at first, it's pretty realistic. But once again, it was kind of the other characters around her and Ike that did it. Micaiah's less bitter than Soren and Stefan. The laguz like Micaiah more than the other two Branded upon first sight, the one who has any sort of issues around her (Vika) gets over it in one talk conversation. Micaiah stumbles across a tribe of laguz lost to Tellius -- and what do you know, they're wolves of all things. At the end of part 3, Kurthnaga and Nailah and Rafiel all join Micaiah's army (like, actively join her army) just because of Micaiah. Even though her actual side is fighting against the laguz alliance and Kurthnaga's own daddy keeps on telling them not to fan the flames of war. And all the members of Ike's army ever get are "you wouldn't understand". It's hard to understand when no one's TELLING YOU ANYTHING. And yeah, I get the worries about potential spies and stuff, but with the sending stones and Ena also being there surely someone could tell Ike in private making sure no one is around to hear it. Just ... this whole non-communication is a cheap device to add more drama, but it just portrays Daein (and Micaiah) as rather unsympathetic because the laguz alliance is trying REALLY hard to figure out what's going on even with Daein's actions towards them. And it portrays the characters built around her as being suckered into her "innate specialness" more than anything else. Which never feels great.

Her being the Apostle doesn't bother me in itself, but more how it wasn't necessary. I like the idea of Sanaki being a badass 13-year-old empress on her own, without needing to hear the voice of the goddess. But Micaiah being revealed as the Apostle is just a thing that makes her more "special" for really no particular reason. The ending of part 4 would not have been changed significantly if Sanaki were the one who could sing the galdr and if Yune could've made a corporeal appearance, instead of stealing Micaiah's body. On the contrary, it would've been better since Micaiah could've reacted to things going on around her instead of being Yune's soul jar and had more of a character. Micaiah doesn't even become the empress/apostle of Begnion at the end, she goes to Daein and becomes its queen (despite having no connection to the royal family) just because the people like her that much. She really didn't need to be Apostle.

And as a quick note, Micaiah's special powers apparently fail during part 3, when she probably needed them most. So, she didn't even need to have the power of foresight to begin with. Her healing people is fine, but her foresight feels like it's just there to make her "special" once again without actually letting it kick in consistently. Kind of like how you said the Laguz's competence is portrayed in PoR!

I do want to add that Micaiah is better than the lords or avatar that came after her, imo. I like her more than the Awakening lords and Robin, Corrin and the Nohr siblings, and Byleth. And I think RD fucked up Ike, too. RD began the trend of glorifying Ike to such a degree that it became annoying, and the only reason he gets a pass is because PoR Ike is amazing. Micaiah doesn't really have a PoR to fall back on, though. At the time RD came out, Micaiah felt like she was written to be "special" in a way no other lords were, kind of like how a novice fanfic writer makes their OC super special with all these powers and admirers who don't actually add anything to her character. At the time, I felt that way. Nowadays, I don't, but that doesn't mean I'm completely okay with her. (Also I get that my writing's a bit all over the place, but it's hard to focus right now.)

Edited by Sunwoo
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15 minutes ago, Sunwoo said:

I understand that Daein's been oppressed for about three years and that the writers need to find a way to make the people of Daein sympathetic after PoR, but I think their method was way too heavy-handed. It's hard to take this arc seriously when Begnion is portrayed as being cartoonishly evil with Sanaki conveniently not able to intervene, and ... it just feels like the narrative couldn't come up with a better way to make us feel bad for the people of Daein, so they just went all out with the melodrama. It also doesn't help that RD part 1 just feels like a very condensed version of PoR, right down to the "supposed" secret heir of the former king and a charismatic young hero leading the army. But because it's condensed it also didn't feel as emotionally satisfying as PoR and I had a harder time connecting to the characters. Also, in PoR, the people definitely loved Elincia. Ike was kind of a side note to their king having a secret heir who was fighting for their freedom. But in RD, Pelleas is the side note. The supposed heir is less beloved than Micaiah, and maybe this would've been okay if they wanted to explore how perhaps some people blamed Ashnard for their situation sometime after the war and were wary of his heir, but no. Micaiah's just special and Pelleas cannot do anything but stand off to the side in her awesomeness.

I actually had noticed this contrast between how Elincia and Pelleas were treated by the narratives of PoR and RD part 1 respectively, and I was planning on talking about that when it came up, but my impression was an entirely different angle, specifically gender. I got the impression that possibly, in contrast to a princess, the writers didn't feel like a prince could get away with not doing the hard work of winning back his country without looking really pathetic. He had to have a more active role in winning back his country than Elincia did simply because the writers didn't think we'd respect Pelleas the same way we respect Elincia due to gender-based expectations we'd hold, and that the writers had the attitudes of the people reflect that. Not to say that Pelleas is simply Elincia in a man's body suffering the resulting consequences to public perception. They certainly have their similarities in demeanor, and I doubt the citizens notice a difference, but we as the players get to see enough of them to notice some significant differences, and that Pelleas definitely has issues with backbone and self-esteem that Elincia does not appear to suffer from to the same degree, and ultimately overcomes to the degree she has them by the end of her RD arc.

This is an interesting alternate take on that comparison though, and I'm gonna have to think about it.

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Your take on it is interesting as well. I hadn't considered that the writers (and the townspeople by extension) considered Pelleas "unmanly" for needing help taking back his land. And that would've been a super interesting angle to look at, that the people of Daein think Pelleas laughable because he's the son of Ashnard but can't take back his country on his own. Alas, that was not what I took away from the story because it just felt like the game shoving Micaiah's inherent specialness in my face.

Pelleas is an interesting character in his own right, though. I wish we got more of him. I do feel like there is a difference in how Elincia always knew she was the daughter of a king, while Pelleas was just plucked out from obscurity and told he was the prince (and we know he's not really), so maybe that is part of the self-confidence issue.

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4 hours ago, Icelerate said:

What do you think of this guy's rewrite of the first few chapters of Radiant Dawn? 

I haven't had the chance to look over the whole thing yet, but I agree with what I've seen so far, particularly adding the other Dawn Brigade members to the opening cutscene and adding some much-needed context to it.

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4 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

I haven't had the chance to look over the whole thing yet, but I agree with what I've seen so far, particularly adding the other Dawn Brigade members to the opening cutscene and adding some much-needed context to it.

Do you think it would be nice to go on a mission where we liberate the labour camps? We get to liberate a prison and a swamp but a labour camp would be interesting because it would show us the nature of the work and whether it was truly pointless work or not. Because they are only mentioned in one narration line and I think they can do away without that line. 

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5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

and an insanely useful ability that lets him take any attacks aimed at his supported ally if they're adjacent. Hold on lemme check...

...Shit, apparently it has an activation rate, one that's unknown and also garbage. Oh well.

Also testing has shown the target (Micaiah) needs to be "low" on health as well.

 

5 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

 

Okay, this is the second time the game has mentioned a “mark”, and at first it sounded like a unit of distance, but now the game is telling me it's a unit of time. I tried to look up how long it was, and all I got was a tiny Wikipedia entry saying that a mark is a unit of weight.

Apparently they were a half-mark away from Kisca at the beginning of the chapter, and now Micaiah says they (which appears to be just her and Sothe, because the others inexplicably aren't mentioned despite the victory conditions demanding they all be alive) should search for Laura and rendezvous at Kunu Swamp in “three marks time”, and... I don't have fucking clue one how long or short that's supposed to be.

They might be referring to marks on a clock, so this universe's hour equivalent.

 

5 hours ago, Jotari said:

I honestly can't think of any useless personal skills in Radiant Dawn except Leonardo's, Cancel which you definitely dont want on an archer, but even that one I can chalk up to being a pretty decent stealth tutorial to introduce what personal skills do. Sure you might want to move some of them around, but just because you want to take Paragon off Astrid and give it to Devdan, Paragon is still useful on Astrid. Radiant Dawn has far less useless personal skills because it has far less useless skills overall, what with them being the actual skills in the game, where's in the newest games their insistence on making them unique means they have to come up with 40 or so extra skills in an already bloated skill pool.

All right let me make a list (which will be long...)

Spoiler

Miciah's Sacrifice - becomes entirely useless the instant she gets a staff rank, even before that only really useful for gaining xp.

Edward's Wrath - Nerfed to working at only below 30% health, and no longer combos safely with vantage, which makes it very hard to setup, and also has a proc rate on top of that in the Japanese version. Not entirely useless in the English version, but not good either.

to explain whyy reaching 30% threashold is so much harder than 50%, see below

Spoiler

% of characters health that enemy deals in a single attack           Number of attacks it takes to reach 50% threashold          Number of attacks it takes to reach a 30 % threashold

100%+                                                                                                                 N/A character dies before reaching                                        N/A character dies before reaching      

99%-70%                                                                                                                                           1                                                                                                   1

69%-50%                                                                                                                                           1                                                              N/A character dies before reaching unless healed

49-35%                                                                                                                                              2                                                                                                     2

34%-33%                                                                                                                                           2                                                               N/A character dies before reaching unless healed

32%-25%                                                                                                                                           2                                                                                                     3

24%                                                                                                                                                    3                                                                                                     3

23-18%                                                                                                                                              3                                                                                                     4

17%                                                                                                                                                    3                                                                                                    5

16%-14%                                                                                                                                           4                                                                                                     5   

etc.

of particular note is the roughly 22% range that can't reach the 30% threashold at all (its a little higher than that if I move away from whole numbers but you get the idea), and points out the main issue, it sometimes simply isn't possible to reach that threashold.

Leonardo's Cancel - Useless on him unless you are intentionally playing poorly.

Nohlan's Nihil - Only functions against 1 enemy in part 1 (1-6part2 boss) ; optional fights against player units in part 3 (depending on what skills you have on them), only being really useful in the endgame, with it affecting 1 enemy in 4-5, 2 enemies in 4-E1, 1 enemy in 4-E2, 1 enemy in 4-E3, 1 enemy in 4-E4, and 8 enemy in 4-E5. Unless you are bringing him to literal endgame, this is mostly useless.

Laura has no "personal" skills

Sothe's Guard - Only functions if the target is adjacent, has a support with user, and is at low hitpoint (exactly what threshold is considered low enough is unknown as this was determined experimentally, and makes it particularly situational as Miciah often dies from hits when well above any "low" hitpoint threashold), states it has a proc rate related to support level, and activates so rarely that no one has gotten enough data to guess at what its proc rate actually is. So staggeringly situational and unreliable as to be useless.

Ilyana's Shade - Shade was nerfed to the point that it doesn't convince enemies to target units that wont die if there is the possibility the wielder can die in a turn, which makes it useless.

Aran has no "personal" skills

Meg's Fortune - Realistically Meg isn't seeing enough combat for this skill to see any use, but even if you did use her, her insanely high Luck growth makes this skill useless soon enough as crit scales to half skill, and crit avoid scales to full Luck (she will on average cap Luck midway into her first promoted class..)

Volugs' Howl - Situational activation conditions, with a proc rate on top of that, and an effect that isn't useful. Useless.

Volug's Wildheart - Incredibly useful in part 1, but Laguz don't scale well enough for it to stay useful latter in the game.

Taureneo's Resolve - Nowhere near as good as it once was, but still kinda Useful, but his availability is poor enough that you probably want to move it elsewhere.

Jill has no "personal" skills

Zihark's Adept - Kinda Useful, but proc rate makes it unreliable (proc rates between 13-50%, so usually get 1 extra attack for rouguely every 7-2 attacks)

Fiona's Imbue - Useless without some serious luck/RN abuse, as physical units (other than peg knights who get the kinda magic stats to make this skill useful) rarely get the kinda magic needed to make this skill in any way useful

Fiona's Savior - On paper is useful, but Fiona comes so underleveled that she doesn't get the stats she needs to be functional, let alone make this skill useful, and even if you do find a way of grinding her up, her stat caps keep her from being very useful into the latter parts of the game

Tormod - Useful, but his availability is so bad that you are taking this off him.

Muarim has no "personal" skills

Vika's Shriek - Utterly useless.

Nailah's Guard - I've cover how useless that skill is already

Nailah's Glare - Only useful if you are trying to cheese the game with staggeringly tedious over-grinding of an equipped staffbot.

Rafiel's skill are all so thoroughly tied to his class that none of them really feel like personal skills

Elincia's Renewal - Sounds good on paper, but it heals even less than Imbue, which makes it more useless than that one.

Marcia has no "personal" skills

Neuluchi's Wrath - See Wrath on Edward, not entirely useless, but so hard to setup safely that it is mostly useless.

Leanne's skill are all so thoroughly tied to his class that none of them really feel like personal skills

Haar's Cancel - kinda useful, but only for PP and when he is being doubled (unless you combo it with Vantage, and proc it...), but it being a proc skill as well makes it even more questionably useful (rates between 15-37%)

Brom's disarm - Disarm is only useful for attempting thief cheese, and doesn't even resemble reliable as its one of the lowest proc rate skills (between 0%-27.5%).

Nephenee' Wrath - See Wrath on Edward, not entirely useless, but so hard to setup safely that it is mostly useless

Heather's Pass - Sorta useful, it makes it easier to get her in position to use her thief utility, but if you need to use the skill, she is probably getting herself into a dangerous positions that she might not survive....

Lucia's Parity - Gives her the ability to give up her support bonuses to cancel enemy's terrain bonuses, and act like Nihil...which is usually a losing proposition, and makes it generally Useless. It can be used as a worse version of Nihil in endgame, but Lucia's availability makes it unlikely to be used by her.

Lethe has no "personal" skills

Mordecai's Smite - Useful

Geoffery's Paragon -

Kieran's Gamble - he doesn't get the kinda hit or crit rate to make a trade of 1/2 hit rate for 2x crit rate to be anything other than useless.

Astrid's Paragon - At least she has better availability than Geoffrey, so its not as useless on her.

Makalov has no "personal" skills

Danved has no "personal" skills

Calil's Nihil - Same sorta idea as Nohlan's Nihil, but with worse availability.

Ike has no "personal" skills

Titania's Counter - a proc rate chance (12-45% chance) of dealing half damage taken from an attack, isn't useful in the players hands.

Soren's Adept - Kinda Useful, but proc rate makes it unreliable especially on Soren (rates between 8-42%, so one extra attack for every 12-3 depending on how fast he has gotten, and Biorythem).

Mist's Miracle - The proc rate on it makes it incredibly unreliable (6-45%), but at least it is better than Guard, and is on a unit that would appreciate this skill...

Rolf has no "personal" skills

Boyd has no "personal" skills

Oscar has no "personal" skills

Shinon's Provoke - would be useful on a unit able to 1-2 range, on Shinon its only kinda useful.

Gatrie has no "personal" skills

Rhys has no "personal" skills

Mia's Vantage - It now being proc rate based (18-50%) killed most of its combo potential, but its not entirely useless.

Ranulf has no "personal" skills

Kyza's Quickclaw - More useful than the other Laguz indirect proc skills, but still so unreliable and situational to barely resemble useful.

Lyre has no "personal" skills

Reyson's skill are all so thoroughly tied to his class that none of them really feel like personal skills

Janaff's Insight - This isn't the kinda game where that accuracy boost is useful, and the Fog of War Effect only effects chapter 4-1, so mostly useless

Ulki's Vigilance- Useful

Sigrun has no "personal" skills

Tanith has no "personal" skills

Sanaki has no "personal" skills

Skrimir's Provoke - Again, it would be much more useful on a 1-2 range unit, but its better than it was on Shinon...

Skrimir's Resolve - kinda Useful

Tibarn's Savior - Useful

Tibarn's Pavise - Useful, but proc based...

Naesala's Maelstrom - see Kyza's Quickclaw, but on a far better unit.

Naesala's Vantage - see Mia's Vantage entry. but on a far better unit.

Pelleas's Miracle - see Mist's Miracle

Stefan has no "personal" skills

Oliver has no "personal" skills

Bastian's Corrosion - Its useful at his level (but very unreliable due to particularly low proc rate between 8-22%) and only works if you are facing Beorc units, which means it functions on two chapters and 1 boss.

Volke's Stillness - A great skill on a unit you don't want to see enemy phase...which makes it much, much better on other units.

Ena's Boon - Ends up being useful due to endgame enemy status, but takes positioning to really use

Ena's Miracle - The proc rate on it makes it incredibly unreliable, and she isn't the kinda unit that appreciates it, so not very useful.

Ena's Renewal - At max 7 HP a turn isn't very useful...

Kurthnaga's skills are all so thoroughly tied to his class that none of them really feel like personal skills

Caineghis's Fortune - He has base 30 luck, and up to 15 bond support boost available if you are somehow still worried about crits. In hard mode three enemies exist after he joins that are capable of critting him, and if you bring Griffca (whose bond support increase crit avoid by 5), that number drops to 1. This barely has any impact on anything.

Giffca's Nullify - Ignoring weapons effectiveness sounds useful, but seeing as only 3 exist after he joins and all of them are in one chapter, its a lot less useful than it sounds, and would work better on a flyer/bird, that gets you at least 2 chapters of use, and more than 3 enemies exist that have effective weapons against flier/birds

Renning has no "personal" skills

Gareth's skills are all so thoroughly tied to his class that none of them really feel like personal skills

Nasir's Boon - Is almost too late to be useful, but if you are taking over 10 turns on 4-E-5 it might be useful, but going that slow seems kinda unlikely.

Nasir's Nihil - comes just in time to be Useful.

Lehran's Mantal - Useful

Of particular note multiple characters don't have "personal" skills, a lot of them have proc rates, and with 50% being the global cap for such rates (with a 40 in the critical stat and best biorythm, so even the proc rate is unreliable...but most can't get that high), which limits the value of a lot of skills, and many of them aren't useful for large swaths of the game.

 

8 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

I actually had noticed this contrast between how Elincia and Pelleas were treated by the narratives of PoR and RD part 1 respectively, and I was planning on talking about that when it came up, but my impression was an entirely different angle, specifically gender. I got the impression that possibly, in contrast to a princess, the writers didn't feel like a prince could get away with not doing the hard work of winning back his country without looking really pathetic. He had to have a more active role in winning back his country than Elincia did simply because the writers didn't think we'd respect Pelleas the same way we respect Elincia due to gender-based expectations we'd hold, and that the writers had the attitudes of the people reflect that. Not to say that Pelleas is simply Elincia in a man's body suffering the resulting consequences to public perception.

Also Elincia actually takes the field and leads her army from the front, while Pelleas doesn't take to the field, and leads from the rear. A leader that is willing to risk her life with the troops will be more popular than one that stays safely behind and lets others die for him instead.

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1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

Naesala's Maelstrom - see Kyza's Quickclaw, but on a far better unit.

Except it needs him to get hit, and as fast as he is, about the only thing that can even get respectable hit rates on him are crossbows, which he shouldn't be anywhere near (EDIT: and the final bosses, which null it anyway)... I'd say "useless" fits.

Edited by Shadow Mir
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Radiant Dawn Day 3: Chapter 1-3

So, we find Micaiah in a cell, saying “I hope the others escaped...”

Don't see how what you did particularly helped them escape, given you didn't even warn them.

Laura: I'm sure they are safe and secure, just as I'm sure the abbot got his medicine. I believe in them.

...But that implies you never actually gave it to the abbot in person.

...How is he supposed to get it? Who did you entrust to this task? Did this really not even warrant a single fucking sentence of the writer's time!?

But anyway, we've got some cellmates! Aimee, Kurth(naga), and Ilyana.

Apparently Aimee and Ilyana weren't even told what they were “arrested” for, and now they await “the general's pleasure”.

...That can't not mean what it sounds like, can it?

So now Begnion is just randomly arresting women off the street to be raped by the general of this... prison, I think?

If so, then Laura's reaction is... actually pretty hilarious in how inappropriately understated it is.

Laura: I see. Well, that doesn't sound good. How unfortunate.

So Aimee assumed that “Kurth”, didn't speak “our language” due to how quiet he was being.

...Christ, that just reminds me of how fucking confusing this game's language system is.

...As well as this line I just remembered being quoted in the thread:

Nailah: Long ago, beorc created the Old Tongue. The ancient speech is what we laguz call it. The language was too difficult for the laguz to master, so the language of Tellius was created in its place.

...

Too difficult for the laguz to master”.

What the fuck does that even mean?

First off, it's objectively untrue, since with the exception of people quoting magical tomes, we literally never see anyone who isn't a laguz speaking it.

Second of all, even if it were true, did the writers even have the slightest concept of what they would be implying? How the fuck can a language be “too difficult for the laguz to master”? It's fucking language! We learn enough of it to passably communicate with other people before we're five! It's one of the most basic fundamental skills any human being will ever learn! It's barely a step above walking! Humans learn new languages all the time, at almost every stage in life! How could a language possibly be “too difficult for the laguz to master” without being cripplingly impractical for beorc use as well? If this is supposed to be an indication of the laguz being less intelligent than the beorc... just how much less intelligent would something like this have to be implying here?

I feel like I'm going crazy here! I have to be misunderstanding something! Is this some hitherto-unknown third language, and not the one we've seen Leanne and Reyson use? I can't fathom the writers being this incompetent as to make a language we only ever hear laguz use, say it's the official language of a land where beorc and laguz live in harmony, and then say it's too complicated for laguz to learn!

...But moving on... apparently Kurthnaga was allowed to keep some medicine he had on him when he entered, and also, either he was allowed to keep his hood on the whole time, or this confirms that nobody seems to be able to tell that pointy ears are a sign that you're a laguz.

Aimee: Olivi grass? Hm, I've never heard of it. Are you sure it's safe?

...Aimee's never heard of olivi grass.

How the fuck can Aimee have never heard of olivi grass!?

You're a merchant! You've traded with the laguz! You sell it in the fucking game! Unless this Olivi grass is an extremely new invention and you started stocking it only after this, you should know what the fuck olivi grass is.

...Also, apparently olivi grass can heal wounds as well as buff the transformation gauge, but only in this one specific cutscene. Rather versatile herb, that.

But anyway, Sothe rescues everyone from their cells, and simultaneously rescues me from the nightmare that is laguz worldbuilding, but doesn't explain how he found Micaiah. Yet.

...Or, I guess... at all. No, there's no word of any explanation of how Sothe and the others found them. Just that the others managed to get in because a Begnion soldier let them in since they were here to rescue Laura.

Yep, that's a clue of how to get Aran.

Apparently the justification the game uses for how Micaiah and Laura get their weapons back isn't that Sothe specifically found where their gear was being kept, but rather just grabbed confiscated tomes at random and miraculously managed to get both of Micaiah's light tomes, Laura's specific partially-worn staff, and also, by pure accident, thinking it was a light tome, a thunder tome that Ilyana could use. They could've made this a joke of mixing up the thunder and lightning spells, but apparently the issue is that the books don't even have cover illustrations showing what the fuck kind of magic they are, despite what the item icons may suggest.

Yeah, and now we get Ilyana's (in)famous line:

Ilyana: I can fight... I'm...very angry... The food here... It was terrible, and...they gave us hardly any... I...will have vengeance.

...Weirdly, the game seems to have this thing where there are only spaces between ellipses and the next word if it's a drawn-out sentence-ender rather than just a mid-sentence pause.

Also:

Micaiah: This girl takes her food pretty seriously. Interesting.

Soren: I see Ilyana is as hungry as ever.

Ugh. And so begins Ilyana's obsession with food. From what I saw, she definitely wasn't like this in Path of Radiance. Not to this degree at least. It's like I've witnessed firsthand the moment of a character's flanderization. It's frustrating to see in action, like I'm watching Blazing Blade characters being written by the writers of he Fateswakening era.

Anyway, we get to the actual battle proper, and I immediately have Sothe deal with some of the enemies nearby since I can't safely player-phase them from my current position and I'm pretty sure they're gonna start charging. The only member of this group with any serious long-term future is Nolan at any rate, so it's hardly a waste of exp. Once I get my other main units I'll try a little harder to get them involved, but for now, Nolan's just baiting in the guy on the other side and that'll be it for him this turn.

Anyway, Aran showed up, and I was able to use Sothe to bait him in while killing everyone around him thanks to Aran having a javelin. So then Laura was able to talk to him and recruit him. He's a soldier who, like Micaiah, has some ridiculously lopsided growths. His strength, defense and skill growths are all in the seventies, but the others... aren't that awesome. Yet again though, I can make this work in his favor.

Anyway, yeah, this... Holy shit does the writing for this recruitment conversation sound super awkward, rushed and cliché. In a proper, non-rushed story, this guy would have gotten at least a cutscene before this. We would have actually seen Aran let the others in to help Laura. We would have learned about his conflicted situation where he's an orphan of the war taken in by a family of Begnion merchants, resulting in him working as a soldier oppressing his homeland. But nope, we get him basically summarizing all of that to somebody who already has to know it before being swiftly convinced to join the Dawn Brigade.

...Alright, now we get to a pretty frustrating part of the map where there's a ton of extremely dangerous units who don't seem to be moving even when you're in their range, and I have to work out how to approach them. I could go around the other end through the locked door, but the issue there is that I have this uncomfortable memory of reinforcements showing up through the door I started the map by, and I don't want to be caught right next to them with my pants down. So I'm rushing in with Sothe and hoping for the best out of the enemy phase, knowing full well that if these two armor knights suddenly decide to move, Micaiah's going to die.

I unfortunately critted the boss to death and failed to get the discipline scroll he had, but at least that's one fewer enemy to deal with.

I think I've gotten relatively lucky with Micaiah's speed growth. She's at 11 at level 9, let's check the average...

...Okay, I'm slightly ahead of the curve with her. That's nice, but only by a little over one point, so not as nice as I was hoping.

...Okay, with units as fragile as Micaiah, it is incredibly frustrating that this game almost forces you to assume that certain enemies just won't move to attack in order to proceed here. Like, there's just this longbowman with enough attack power to one-shot Micaiah, and you cannot fight your way to the knight guarding him without putting Micaiah in danger unless you just keep Micaiah out of that entire back half of the map until he's dead. While reinforcements keep pouring into the upper area. I cannot believe that it took until Fates for them to just mark these units as immobile.

Aran gets his first level up, getting strength, skill, luck, defense and resistance. Awesome.

Nolan's level is pathetically underwhelming, but Micaiah gets more speed!

Sothe gets strength, skill and luck, which is pretty okay. The strength for certain is appreciated.

Anyway, Nolan and Sothe wear down this knight-archer combo while everyone else fights off the reinforcements that are still coming, albeit in small numbers.

...Micaiah is doubling these steel lance soldiers.

I don't know if I've seen Micaiah double anything before. Holy shit. And then when I abuse bonus exp... maybe she'll actually be good!

Alright, the map is clear. Time to get everyone to escape, including the yellow units, and then wrap up for today. And in the meantime, I'm having Micaiah and Laura heal as many as they can.

...Okay, so I set the yellow units to roam while they were near the exit, just like last time, and they... inexplicably just started running away from the exit. Did they change what you had to do? Do they have to be targeted onto the exit now? Why would they make it so that “roam” wouldn't have them escape? What the fuck is compelling them to run back towards the start of the level!?

...Yep, target works now. Targeting the escape space makes them automatically escape. That's great and all, and it was super dumb that didn't work in PoR, but I don't understand why they had to make it so that “roam” doesn't work anymore.

I also notice that it doesn't have Micaiah say the orders after changing their instructions like Ike did in Path of Radiance. Yet another way in which the non-core dialogue of the game has been cut the fuck back, for reasons I can only guess at, mostly uncharitably.

Aaaand we're done. Now we finally get reunited with the merchant caravan, which means we have bases starting next chapter.

And now we get the merchants all talking about how Begnion's occupation is worse than Ashnard's rule of Crimea, and... yeah. It pretty much is. And that is not a good thing, writers. This is not how you make a sequel better than the original.

But they also talk about a rumor of an orphan prince of Daein hiding in the desert, trying to raise an army. And they just overtly mention the parallels between this story and Path of Radiance's, and... like...

...Okay, was this really the best idea you had to open up your grand sequel? By telling virtually the same story in a drastically more rushed and less elegant fashion?

...Yeah, I'm... I'll be honest, I'm liking the plot here about as much as I liked Sacred Stones'. Which is to say not much at all. I'm kind of amazed with myself that I didn't notice any of this shit until I started this game for the marathon, because holy cow. I can only hope I have fewer complaints about the rest of the game, because right now... this game is kinda hanging by a thread. A thread made out of “Its character writing is better than the pre-7 standard”.

And of course, Micaiah conveniently gets a vision just as they hear about Pelleas in the desert... telling them that “an important encounter” awaits them in the desert.

...This is why I said that Innes's “spy network” so frequently reminded me of magical clairvoyance powers. Sacred Stones used them for exactly this sort of obnoxious plot convenience. Remember? When Ewan told them about Saleh, Innes tapped into the magical spy network ether to confirm that this random bit of information from a stranger was worthwhile?

But anyway, that's where we're going. Which means tomorrow, we'll be checking out the desert chapter.

Stay safe, everyone.

Edited by Alastor15243
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16 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

...Okay, with units as fragile as Micaiah, it is incredibly frustrating that this game almost forces you to assume that certain enemies just won't move to attack in order to proceed here. Like, there's just this longbowman with enough attack power to one-shot Micaiah, and you cannot fight your way to the knight guarding him without putting Micaiah in danger unless you just keep Micaiah out of that entire back half of the map until he's dead. While reinforcements keep pouring into the upper area. I cannot believe that it took until Fates for them to just mark these units as immobile.

Actually, it was Shadow Dragon that first marked immobile units. But still...

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